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of state industries, AN was to the left of Forza Italia on economic issues and sometimes supported statist policies. That is why the party was strong in Rome and Lazio, where most civil servants live. The implosion of the Christian Democrats created space for a more economically interventionist party of the conservative right, and the AN sought closer ties to the former DC factions which joined the Berlusconi-led alliances of the right. As part of this it also moderated its stances on the European Union and immigration, both of which were conditionally accepted by the party's leadership. Moreover, AN presented itself as a party promoting national cohesion, national identity and patriotism. Regarding institutional reforms, the party was a long-time supporter of presidentialism and a plurality voting system, and came to support also federalism and to fully accept the alliance with the Northern League, although the relations with that party were tense at times, especially about issues regarding national unity. Gianfranco Fini, a moderniser who saw Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron as role-models, impressed an ambitious political line to the party, combining the pillars of conservative ideology like security, family values and patriotism with a progressive approach in other areas such as stem cell research and supporting voting rights for legal aliens. Some of these positions were not shared by many members of the party, most of whom staunchly opposed stem cell research and artificial insemination. Factions National Alliance was a heterogeneous political party and within it members were divided in different factions, some of them very organized: Protagonist Right (Destra Protagonista), headed by Maurizio Gasparri and Ignazio La Russa, was the bigger faction and the closest to Forza Italia, due to its liberal-conservative stances. New Alliance (Nuova Alleanza), formerly called Right and Freedom (Destra e Libertà), headed by Altero Matteoli and Adolfo Urso, was formed by the staunchest supporters of Gianfranco Fini within the party and supported a liberal political agenda. Social Right (Destra Sociale), led by Gianni Alemanno, advocated a more "social" approach to economic policy and was considered at the right of the party. It had close ties with the General Labour Union. D-Destra, led by Francesco Storace, was the most conservative component of the party, proud of the MSI's tradition and in open opposition to Fini. Formed as a split from the Social Right, in July 2007 the group finally left AN and launched The Right. Christian Reformists (Cristiano Riformisti) was a minor Christian democratic faction. In the party there was also a group named Ethic-Religious Council, whose board members included Gaetano Rebecchini (founder, ex-DC), Riccardo Pedrizzi (president), Franco Tofoni (vice president), Luigi Gagliardi (secretary-general), Alfredo Mantovano, Antonio Mazzocchi and Riccardo Migliori. This was not a faction but an official organism within the party and expressed the official position of the party on ethical and religious matters. Sometimes the group criticized Gianfranco Fini for his liberal views on abortion, artificial insemination and stem-cell research, which led some notable ex-DC members as Publio Fiori to leave the party. Some members of the council, such as Pedrizzi and Mantovano were described as members of an unofficial Catholic Right faction. Popular support The party had roughly 10–15% support across Italy, having its strongholds in Central and Southern Italy (Lazio 18.6%, Umbria 15.2%, Marche 14.3%, Abruzzo 14.3%, Apulia 13.2%, Sardinia 12.9%, Tuscany 12.6% and Campania 12.6% in the last general election), scoring badly in Lombardy (10.2%) and Sicily (10.9%), while competing in the North-East (Friuli-Venezia Giulia 15.5% and Veneto 11.3%). The party had a good showing in the first general election to which it took part (13.5% in 1994) and reached 15.7% in 1996, when Fini tried for the first time to replace Silvio Berlusconi as leader of the centre-right. From that moment the party suffered an electoral decline, but remained the third force of Italian politics. In the 2006 general election, the final election to which the party participated with its own list, AN won 12.3% of the vote, securing 71 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 41 in the Senate. In the 2008 general election the party had 90 deputies and 48 senators elected. The electoral results of National Alliance in general (Chamber of Deputies) and European Parliament elections since 1994 are shown in the chart below. The electoral results of National Alliance in the 10 most populated regions of Italy are shown in the table below. Election results Italian Parliament European Parliament Leadership President: Gianfranco Fini (1995–2008), Ignazio La Russa (acting, 2008–2009) Coordinator: Maurizio Gasparri (1995–1998), Ignazio La Russa (2003–2005) Spokesman: Francesco Storace (1995–1997), Adolfo Urso (1997–2001), Antonio Landolfi (2001–2005), Andrea Ronchi (2005–2009) Head of Political Secretariat: Donato Lamorte (1995–2002), Andrea Ronchi (2002–2004), Carmelo Briguglio (2002–2004), Donato Lamorte (2004–2009) President of National Assembly: Domenico Fisichella (1995–2005), Marcello Perina (2005–2006), Francesco Servello (2006–2009) Organizational Coordinator: Giuseppe Tatarella (1995–1998), Altero Matteoli (1998–2002), Donato Lamorte (2002–2004), Italo Bocchino (2004–2005), Marco Martinelli (2005–2009) Administrative Secretary: Francesco Pontone (1995–2009) Party Leader at the Chamber of Deputies: Raffaele Valensise (1994–1995), Giuseppe Tatarella (1995–1998), Gustavo Selva (1998–2001), Ignazio La Russa (2001–2003), Gian Franco Anedda (2003–2004), Ignazio La Russa (2004–2008), Italo Bocchino (deputy-leader of PdL's group, 2008–2009) Party Leader at the Senate: Giulio Maceratini (1994–2001), Domenico Nania (2001–2006), Altero Matteoli (2006–2008), Maurizio Gasparri (leader of PdL's group, 2008–2009) Party Leader at the European Parliament: Cristiana Muscardini (1994–2004), Roberta Angelilli (2004–2009) Symbols External links Official website Azione Giovani Factions Protagonist Right New Alliance Social Right Christian Reformists Stephen Roth Institute Continuity or change in the ideology of

launch in 1994. With most hardliners leaving the party, it sought to present itself as a respectable conservative party and to join forces with Forza Italia in the European People's Party and, eventually, in a united party of the centre-right. Historian David Broder has compared the AN to Spain's post-Franco People's Party. Although the party approved the market economy and held favourable views on liberalization and the privatization of state industries, AN was to the left of Forza Italia on economic issues and sometimes supported statist policies. That is why the party was strong in Rome and Lazio, where most civil servants live. The implosion of the Christian Democrats created space for a more economically interventionist party of the conservative right, and the AN sought closer ties to the former DC factions which joined the Berlusconi-led alliances of the right. As part of this it also moderated its stances on the European Union and immigration, both of which were conditionally accepted by the party's leadership. Moreover, AN presented itself as a party promoting national cohesion, national identity and patriotism. Regarding institutional reforms, the party was a long-time supporter of presidentialism and a plurality voting system, and came to support also federalism and to fully accept the alliance with the Northern League, although the relations with that party were tense at times, especially about issues regarding national unity. Gianfranco Fini, a moderniser who saw Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron as role-models, impressed an ambitious political line to the party, combining the pillars of conservative ideology like security, family values and patriotism with a progressive approach in other areas such as stem cell research and supporting voting rights for legal aliens. Some of these positions were not shared by many members of the party, most of whom staunchly opposed stem cell research and artificial insemination. Factions National Alliance was a heterogeneous political party and within it members were divided in different factions, some of them very organized: Protagonist Right (Destra Protagonista), headed by Maurizio Gasparri and Ignazio La Russa, was the bigger faction and the closest to Forza Italia, due to its liberal-conservative stances. New Alliance (Nuova Alleanza), formerly called Right and Freedom (Destra e Libertà), headed by Altero Matteoli and Adolfo Urso, was formed by the staunchest supporters of Gianfranco Fini within the party and supported a liberal political agenda. Social Right (Destra Sociale), led by Gianni Alemanno, advocated a more "social" approach to economic policy and was considered at the right of the party. It had close ties with the General Labour Union. D-Destra, led by Francesco Storace, was the most conservative component of the party, proud of the MSI's tradition and in open opposition to Fini. Formed as a split from the Social Right, in July 2007 the group finally left AN and launched The Right. Christian Reformists (Cristiano Riformisti) was a minor Christian democratic faction. In the party there was also a group named Ethic-Religious Council, whose board members included Gaetano Rebecchini (founder, ex-DC), Riccardo Pedrizzi (president), Franco Tofoni (vice president), Luigi Gagliardi (secretary-general), Alfredo Mantovano, Antonio Mazzocchi and Riccardo Migliori. This was not a faction but an official organism within the party and expressed the official position of the party on ethical and religious matters. Sometimes the group criticized Gianfranco Fini for his liberal views on abortion, artificial insemination and stem-cell research, which led some notable ex-DC members as Publio Fiori to leave the party. Some members of the council, such as Pedrizzi and Mantovano were described as members of an unofficial Catholic Right faction. Popular support The party had roughly 10–15% support across Italy, having its strongholds in Central and Southern Italy (Lazio 18.6%, Umbria 15.2%, Marche 14.3%, Abruzzo 14.3%, Apulia 13.2%, Sardinia 12.9%, Tuscany 12.6% and Campania 12.6% in the last general election), scoring badly in Lombardy (10.2%) and Sicily (10.9%), while competing in the North-East (Friuli-Venezia Giulia 15.5% and Veneto 11.3%). The party had a good showing in the first general election to which it took part (13.5% in 1994) and reached 15.7% in 1996, when Fini tried for the first time to replace Silvio Berlusconi as leader of the centre-right. From that moment the party suffered an electoral decline, but remained the third force of

Pesa, Elsa, and Era and in which, after Pontedera, the Arno flows into the Ligurian Sea. The river has a very variable discharge, ranging from about to more than . The mouth of the river was once near Pisa but is now several kilometres westwards. It crosses Florence, where it passes below the Ponte Vecchio and the Santa Trinita bridge (built by Bartolomeo Ammannati but inspired by Michelangelo). The river flooded this city regularly in historical times, most recently in 1966, with after rainfall of in Badia Agnano and in Florence, in only 24 hours. Before Pisa, the Arno is crossed by the Imperial Canal at La Botte. This water channel passes under the Arno through a tunnel, and serves to drain the former area of the Lago di Bientina, which was once the largest lake in Tuscany before its reclamation. The flow rate of the Arno is irregular. It is sometimes described as having a torrentlike behaviour, because it can easily go from almost dry to near flood in a few days. At the point where the Arno leaves the Apennines, flow measurements can vary between . New dams built upstream of Florence have greatly alleviated the problem in recent years. The flood on November 4, 1966 collapsed the embankment in Florence, killing at least 40 people and damaging or destroying millions of works of art and rare books. New

the valley of important tributaries such as the Pesa, Elsa, and Era and in which, after Pontedera, the Arno flows into the Ligurian Sea. The river has a very variable discharge, ranging from about to more than . The mouth of the river was once near Pisa but is now several kilometres westwards. It crosses Florence, where it passes below the Ponte Vecchio and the Santa Trinita bridge (built by Bartolomeo Ammannati but inspired by Michelangelo). The river flooded this city regularly in historical times, most recently in 1966, with after rainfall of in Badia Agnano and in Florence, in only 24 hours. Before Pisa, the Arno is crossed by the Imperial Canal at La Botte. This water channel passes under the Arno through a tunnel, and serves to drain the former area of the Lago di Bientina, which was once the largest lake in Tuscany before its reclamation. The flow rate of the Arno is irregular. It is sometimes described as having a torrentlike behaviour, because it can easily go from almost dry to near flood in a few days. At the point where the Arno leaves the Apennines, flow measurements can vary between . New dams built upstream of Florence have greatly alleviated the problem in recent years. The flood on November 4, 1966 collapsed the embankment in Florence, killing at least 40 people and damaging or destroying millions of works of art and rare books. New conservation techniques were inspired by the disaster, but even decades later hundreds of works still await restoration. Etymology From Latin Arnus (Pliny, Natural History 3.50). The philologist Hans Krahe related this toponym on a paleo-European basis *Ar-n-, derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *er-, "flow, move". Ecology The Arno river has been strongly affected by non-native species: over 90% of fish species and 70% of macroinvertebrate species in the area around Florence are alien species. These include the European catfish, channel catfish, Crucian carp, common bleak, topmouth gudgeon, New Zealand mud

kilns). Software development is important too, both at the R&D centre for a large telecom company and at the University of Aveiro (UA) which is attended by 15,000 students on undergraduate and postgraduate programs. UA works with companies in national and European R&D projects. The city of Aveiro has several shopping centers and malls (Pingo Doce Shopping Center, Fórum Aveiro, Glicínias Plaza (Jumbo – Auchan), Aveiro's Shopping Center (Continente & Mediamarkt), Aveiro's Retail Park and the Oita Shopping Center). This city has many traditional commerce stores. The most central one being Forum Aveiro with clothes stores, restaurant zone, a book shop and a cinema. The town's unemployment rate in 2015 was 12.5%; the University of Aveiro is a major employer. Tourism Tourism is also important for the economy. The old town centre, with its Art Nouveau and Romanesque architecture and "gondolas" (barcos moliceiros once used for collecting moliço seaweed) plying the Ria de Aveiro canals, is referred to as "The Venice of Portugal" in some tourist brochures. Important tourist attractions are the Arte Nova (Art Nouveau) architectural designs and tiles of some buildings that were created in the early 20th century, the Art Nouveau museum, the Aveiro Museum (Museu de Aveiro, formerly the Mosteiro de Jesus convent with exhibits of King Afonso V's daughter, Santa Joana), the 15th century Aveiro Sé or São Domingos cathedral and the Church of Jesus (Igreja de Jesus) with its beautiful architecture. The nearby beaches, Costa Nova and Barra, attract many visitors in warm weather; they can be reached by bus from Aveiro. Other sites of interest to tourists include the Carmelite Church and the Misericórdia Church built in the 16th century. Transport The local economy is fed by a series of transport networks that cross the municipal boundaries. Air Regional gateways include air service through the Aeródromo de Aveiro/São Jacinto (LPAV) and the Porto de Aveiro (Ílhavo/Aveiro). Rail Rail service includes service by Alfa Pendular (between Lisbon and Braga; Lisbon and Oporto; Faro and Oporto) and Intercity (between Lisbon and Oporto as well as Lisbon and Guimarães) trains; suburban links through the Urbanos do Porto and, also, the Linha do Vouga, a narrow gauge railway to Águeda and Sernada do Vouga. Road The primary expressways and inter-regional thoroughfares include: A1 (between Porto and Lisbon); and the A25 (which links Viseu, Guarda and Vilar Formoso). Intercity buses connect Aveiro with Porto and Lisbon several times a day. Water Moliceiros provide access along the Ria for tourist visits, in addition to traditional fishing or recreational purposes, including regattas. Architecture The architecture of Aveiro is influenced by two phases: the pre-Kingdom era, with a number of historical monuments; and the modernist movements resulting from the expansion of economy during the 19th-20th centuries. The city's primary landmark is the 15th century Monastery of Jesus (), containing the tomb of King Afonso V's daughter, St. Joana (who died in 1490). The presence of this royal personage, beatified in 1693, proved to be of great benefit when she bequeathed her valuable estate to the convent. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the convent housed a school of embroidery, but was transformed into the Museu de Santa Joana, or simply, the Museum of Aveiro, housing many of these handicrafts. The abundance of 19th-20th century architectural buildings reflects the effects of the boom during that period, including many of the Arte Nova and Art Deco buildings, inspired by modernist trends and Nationalist tendencies of the Estado Novo regime. The best of these is in the university campus, where many of the nationalist architects were involved in construction projects. The Arte Nova architecture was built by wealthy families from Brazil; their buildings included homes and shops. Traditional Portuguese decorations such as tiles were used. The concept did not last for a long time, but its presence is very distinctive in Aveiro; it is one of only 20 cities in the world that are included in the Réseau Art Nouveau Network, listing cities in Europe that are known for this architectural style. There are several attractions in the city of Aveiro, including cathedrals, canals and the beaches, including the Ílhavo ceramica de Vista Alegre and the beaches of Barra, Costa Nova do Prado, and Gafanha da Nazaré. Culture Aveiro is known in Portugal for its traditional sweets, Ovos Moles de Aveiro (PGI), trouxas de ovos, both made from eggs. Raivas are also typical biscuits of Aveiro. The municipal holiday is 12 May, the day of Joanna, Princess of Portugal (1452-1490). Education The University of Aveiro was created in 1973 and attracts thousands of students to the city. It is ranked as the 354th best university in the world in the Times World University Rankings, and the 2nd best in Portugal. The university has about 430 professors (with PhD degrees), 11,000 undergraduate students, and 1,300 post-graduate students. Sport Sport Clube Beira-Mar is an association football club. Founded in 1922, it has a sports academy with various youth levels in sports including basketball and futsal. The club used to play at Estádio Municipal de Aveiro, designed by Portuguese architect Tomás Taveira for Euro 2004, where it held two group matches. The other long-established club in the city, Os Galitos, was founded in 1904 and houses a wide variety of sports. Its rowers have represented Portugal in international tournaments including the Olympic Games. Notable citizens Fernão de Oliveira (1507 – ca.1581) a Portuguese grammarian, Dominican friar, historian, cartographer, naval pilot and theorist on naval warfare and shipbuilding Antónia Rodrigues (1580-1641) a Portuguese soldier and national heroine Jean Hyacinthe de Magellan (1722–1790) a Portuguese natural philosopher José Luciano de Castro (1834 in Oliveirinha – 1914) a politician, statesman and journalist who served three times as Prime Minister of Portugal Jaime de Magalhães Lima (1859–1936) a Portuguese philosopher, poet and writer Mário Sacramento (1920–1969), physician and essayist, famous for his anti-fascist activities against the Estado Novo regime. José Afonso (1929–1987) known as Zeca Afonso, one of the most influential folk and political musicians in Portugal Rosa Alice Branco (born 1950 in Aveiro) a Portuguese poet. Sport Arnaldo Edi Lopes da Silva (born 1982), known as Edinho, a Portuguese footballer with almost 500 club caps Diogo Valente (born 1984) a Portuguese footballer with over 360 club caps Rui Raínho (born 1989) a Portuguese footballer with over

and the Misericórdia Church built in the 16th century. Transport The local economy is fed by a series of transport networks that cross the municipal boundaries. Air Regional gateways include air service through the Aeródromo de Aveiro/São Jacinto (LPAV) and the Porto de Aveiro (Ílhavo/Aveiro). Rail Rail service includes service by Alfa Pendular (between Lisbon and Braga; Lisbon and Oporto; Faro and Oporto) and Intercity (between Lisbon and Oporto as well as Lisbon and Guimarães) trains; suburban links through the Urbanos do Porto and, also, the Linha do Vouga, a narrow gauge railway to Águeda and Sernada do Vouga. Road The primary expressways and inter-regional thoroughfares include: A1 (between Porto and Lisbon); and the A25 (which links Viseu, Guarda and Vilar Formoso). Intercity buses connect Aveiro with Porto and Lisbon several times a day. Water Moliceiros provide access along the Ria for tourist visits, in addition to traditional fishing or recreational purposes, including regattas. Architecture The architecture of Aveiro is influenced by two phases: the pre-Kingdom era, with a number of historical monuments; and the modernist movements resulting from the expansion of economy during the 19th-20th centuries. The city's primary landmark is the 15th century Monastery of Jesus (), containing the tomb of King Afonso V's daughter, St. Joana (who died in 1490). The presence of this royal personage, beatified in 1693, proved to be of great benefit when she bequeathed her valuable estate to the convent. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the convent housed a school of embroidery, but was transformed into the Museu de Santa Joana, or simply, the Museum of Aveiro, housing many of these handicrafts. The abundance of 19th-20th century architectural buildings reflects the effects of the boom during that period, including many of the Arte Nova and Art Deco buildings, inspired by modernist trends and Nationalist tendencies of the Estado Novo regime. The best of these is in the university campus, where many of the nationalist architects were involved in construction projects. The Arte Nova architecture was built by wealthy families from Brazil; their buildings included homes and shops. Traditional Portuguese decorations such as tiles were used. The concept did not last for a long time, but its presence is very distinctive in Aveiro; it is one of only 20 cities in the world that are included in the Réseau Art Nouveau Network, listing cities in Europe that are known for this architectural style. There are several attractions in the city of Aveiro, including cathedrals, canals and the beaches, including the Ílhavo ceramica de Vista Alegre and the beaches of Barra, Costa Nova do Prado, and Gafanha da Nazaré. Culture Aveiro is known in Portugal for its traditional sweets, Ovos Moles de Aveiro (PGI), trouxas de ovos, both made from eggs. Raivas are also typical biscuits of Aveiro. The municipal holiday is 12 May, the day of Joanna, Princess of Portugal (1452-1490). Education The University of Aveiro was created in 1973 and attracts thousands of students to the city. It is ranked as the 354th best university in the world in the Times World University Rankings, and the 2nd best in Portugal. The university has about 430 professors (with PhD degrees), 11,000 undergraduate students, and 1,300 post-graduate students. Sport Sport Clube Beira-Mar is an association football club. Founded in 1922, it has a sports academy with various youth levels in sports including basketball and futsal. The club used to play at Estádio Municipal de Aveiro, designed by Portuguese architect Tomás Taveira for Euro 2004, where it held two group matches. The other long-established club in the city, Os Galitos, was founded in 1904 and houses a wide variety of sports. Its rowers have represented Portugal in international tournaments including the Olympic Games. Notable citizens Fernão de Oliveira (1507 – ca.1581) a Portuguese grammarian, Dominican friar, historian, cartographer, naval pilot and theorist

best seller in its day and played an important role in the spreading of the ascetic ideal in Eastern and Western Christianity. It later served as an inspiration to Christian monastics in both the East and the West, and helped to spread the concept of Christian monasticism, particularly in Western Europe via its Latin translations. Many stories are also told about Anthony in various collections of sayings of the Desert Fathers. Anthony probably spoke only his native language, Coptic, but his sayings were spread in a Greek translation. He himself dictated letters in Coptic, seven of which are extant. Life Early years Anthony was born in Coma in Lower Egypt to wealthy landowner parents. When he was about 20 years old, his parents died and left him with the care of his unmarried sister. Shortly thereafter, he decided to follow the gospel exhortation in Matthew 19: 21, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven." Anthony gave away some of his family's lands to his neighbors, sold the remaining property, and donated the funds to the poor. He then left to live an ascetic life, placing his sister with a group of Christian virgins. Hermit For the next fifteen years, Anthony remained in the area, spending the first years as the disciple of another local hermit. There are various legends that he worked as a swineherd during this period.Temptation of Saint Anthony (1878) by Félicien Rops Anthony is sometimes considered the first monk, and the first to initiate solitary desertification, but there were others before him. There were already ascetic hermits (the Therapeutae), and loosely organized cenobitic communities were described by the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria in the 1st century AD as long established in the harsh environment of Lake Mareotis and in other less accessible regions. Philo opined that "this class of persons may be met with in many places, for both Greece and barbarian countries want to enjoy whatever is perfectly good." Christian ascetics such as Thecla had likewise retreated to isolated locations at the outskirts of cities. Anthony is notable for having decided to surpass this tradition and headed out into the desert proper. He left for the alkaline Nitrian Desert (later the location of the noted monasteries of Nitria, Kellia, and Scetis) on the edge of the Western Desert about west of Alexandria. He remained there for 13 years. Anthony maintained a very strict ascetic diet. He ate only bread, salt and water and never meat or wine. He ate at most only once a day and sometimes fasted through two or four days. According to Athanasius, the devil fought Anthony by afflicting him with boredom, laziness, and the phantoms of women, which he overcame by the power of prayer, providing a theme for Christian art. After that, he moved to one of the tombs near his native village. There it was that the Life records those strange conflicts with demons in the shape of wild beasts, who inflicted blows upon him, and sometimes left him nearly dead. After fifteen years of this life, at the age of thirty-five, Anthony determined to withdraw from the habitations of men and retire in absolute solitude. He went into the desert to a mountain by the Nile called Pispir (now Der-el-Memun), opposite Arsinoë. There he lived strictly enclosed in an old abandoned Roman fort for some 20 years. Food was thrown to him over the wall. He was at times visited by pilgrims, whom he refused to see; but gradually a number of would-be disciples established themselves in caves and in huts around the mountain. Thus a colony of ascetics was formed, who begged Anthony to come forth and be their guide in the spiritual life. Eventually, he yielded to their importunities and, about the year 305, emerged from his retreat. To the surprise of all, he appeared to be not emaciated, but healthy in mind and body.For five or six years he devoted himself to the instruction and organization of the great body of monks that had grown up around him; but then he once again withdrew into the inner desert that lay between the Nile and the Red Sea, near the shore of which he fixed his abode on a mountain where still stands the monastery that bears his name, Der Mar Antonios. Here he spent the last forty-five years of his life, in a seclusion, not so strict as Pispir, for he freely saw those who came to visit him, and he used to cross the desert to Pispir with considerable frequency. Amid the Diocletian Persecutions, around 311 Anthony went to Alexandria and was conspicuous visiting those who

Paul's death before he returned, are among the familiar legends of the Life. However, belief in the existence of Paul seems to have existed quite independently of the Life. In 338, he left the desert temporarily to visit Alexandria to help refute the teachings of Arius. Final days When Anthony sensed his death approaching, he commanded his disciples to give his staff to Macarius of Egypt, and to give one sheepskin cloak to Athanasius of Alexandria and the other sheepskin cloak to Serapion of Thmuis, his disciple. Anthony was interred, according to his instructions, in a grave next to his cell. Temptation Accounts of Anthony enduring supernatural temptation during his sojourn in the Eastern Desert of Egypt inspired the often-repeated subject of the temptation of St. Anthony in Western art and literature. Anthony is said to have faced a series of supernatural temptations during his pilgrimage to the desert. The first to report on the temptation was his contemporary Athanasius of Alexandria. It is possible these events, like the paintings, are full of rich metaphor or in the case of the animals of the desert, perhaps a vision or dream. Emphasis on these stories, however, did not really begin until the Middle Ages when the psychology of the individual became of greater interest. Some of the stories included in Anthony's biography are perpetuated now mostly in paintings, where they give an opportunity for artists to depict their more lurid or bizarre interpretations. Many artists, including Martin Schongauer, Hieronymus Bosch, Dorothea Tanning, Max Ernst, Leonora Carrington and Salvador Dalí, have depicted these incidents from the life of Anthony; in prose, the tale was retold and embellished by Gustave Flaubert in The Temptation of Saint Anthony. The satyr and the centaur Anthony was on a journey in the desert to find Paul of Thebes, who according to his dream was a better Hermit than he. Anthony had been under the impression that he was the first person to ever dwell in the desert; however, due to the dream, Anthony was called into the desert to find his "better", Paul. On his way there, he ran into two creatures in the forms of a centaur and a satyr. Although chroniclers sometimes postulated they might have been living beings, Western theology considers them to have been demons. While traveling through the desert, Anthony first found the centaur, a "creature of mingled shape, half horse half-man," whom he asked about directions. The creature tried to speak in an unintelligible language, but ultimately pointed with his hand the way desired, and then ran away and vanished from sight. It was interpreted as a demon trying to terrify him, or alternately a creature engendered by the desert. Anthony found next the satyr, a "a manikin with hooked snout, horned forehead, and extremities like goats's feet." This creature was peaceful and offered him fruits, and when Anthony asked who he was, the satyr replied, "I'm a mortal being and one of those inhabitants of the desert whom the Gentiles deluded by various forms of error worship under the names of Fauns, Satyrs, and Incubi. I am sent to represent my tribe. We pray you in our behalf to entreat the favor of your Lord and ours, who, we have learnt, came once to save the world, and 'whose sound has gone forth into all the earth.'" Upon hearing this, Anthony was overjoyed and rejoiced over the glory of Christ. He condemned the city of Alexandria for worshipping monsters instead of God while beasts like the satyr spoke about Christ. Silver and gold Another time Anthony was travelling in the desert and found a plate of silver coins in his path. Demons in the cave Once, Anthony tried to hide in a cave to escape the demons that plagued him. There were so many little demons in the cave though that Anthony's servant had to carry him out because they had beaten him to death. When the hermits were gathered to Anthony's corpse to mourn his death, Anthony was revived. He demanded that his servants take him back to that cave where the demons had beaten him. When he got there he called out to the demons, and they came back as wild beasts to rip him to shreds. All of a sudden a bright light flashed, and the demons ran away. Anthony knew that the light must have come from God, and he asked God where he was before when the demons attacked him. God replied, "I was here but I would see and abide to see thy battle, and because thou hast mainly fought and well maintained thy battle, I shall make thy name to be spread through all the world." Veneration Anthony had been secretly buried on the mountain-top where he had chosen to live. His remains were reportedly discovered in 361, and transferred to Alexandria. Some time later, they were taken from Alexandria to Constantinople, so that they might escape the destruction being perpetrated by invading Saracens. In the eleventh century, the Byzantine emperor gave them to the French Count Jocelin. Jocelin had them transferred to La-Motte-Saint-Didier, later renamed. There, Jocelin undertook to build a church to house the remains, but died before the church was even started. The building was finally erected in 1297 and became a centre of veneration and pilgrimage, known as Saint-Antoine-l'Abbaye. Anthony is credited with assisting in a number of miraculous healings, primarily from ergotism, which became known as "St. Anthony's Fire". He was credited by two local noblemen of assisting them in recovery from the disease. They then founded the Hospital Brothers of St. Anthony in honor of him, who specialized in nursing the victims of skin diseases. Veneration of Anthony in the East is more restrained. There are comparatively few icons and paintings of him. He is, however, regarded as the "first master of the desert and the pinnacle of holy monks", and there are monastic communities of the Maronite, Chaldean, and Orthodox churches which state that they follow his monastic rule. During the Middle Ages, Anthony, along with Quirinus of Neuss, Cornelius and Hubertus, was venerated as one of the Four Holy Marshals (Vier Marschälle Gottes) in the Rhineland. Anthony is remembered in the Anglican Communion with a Lesser Festival on 17 January. Legacy Though Anthony himself did not organize or create a monastery, a community grew around him based on his example of living an ascetic and isolated life. Athanasius' biography helped propagate Anthony's ideals. Athanasius writes, "For monks, the life of Anthony is a sufficient example of asceticism. His story influenced the conversation of Augustine of Hippo and John Chrysostom. Coptic literature Examples of purely Coptic literature are the works of Anthony and Pachomius, who only spoke Coptic, and the sermons and preachings of Shenouda the Archmandrite, who chose to only write in Coptic. The earliest original writings in Coptic language were the letters by Anthony. During the 3rd and 4th centuries many ecclesiastics and monks wrote in Coptic. In popular literature The main character in the Hervey Allen novel Anthony Adverse, and the 1936 film of the same name, is an abandoned child who is placed in a foundling wheel on the saint's feast day, and given the name Anthony in his honor. The novel The Einstein Prophecy by Robert Masello revolves around the recovery of Saint Anthony's ossuary during World War II. Much of the mythology surrounding Saint Anthony's time in the Sahara desert is used as the basis for the conflict the protagonists face after opening the ossuary. See also Coptic Saints Chariton the Confessor (mid-3rd century – c. 350), contemporary monk in the Judaean desert Desert Fathers and Desert Mothers, early Christian hermits, ascetics, and monks who lived mainly in the Scetes desert of Egypt beginning around the third century AD Hilarion (291–371), anchorite and saint considered by some to be the founder of Palestinian monasticism Monastery of Saint Anthony, Egypt Pachomius the Great (c. 292 – 348), Egyptian saint generally recognized as the founder of Christian cenobitic monasticism Patron saints of ailments, illness and dangers Paul of Thebes (c. 226/7 – c. 341), known as "Paul, the First Hermit", who preceded both Anthony and Chariton St. Anthony Hall, American fraternity and literary society Saint Anthony the Great, patron saint archive Notes References External links "Spiritual Considerations on the Life of Saint Antony the Great" is a manuscript, from 1864, in Arabic, that is a translation of a Latin

hind foot, the astragalus overlapped the cuboid, while the fibula, which was quite distinct from the tibia (as was the radius from the ulna in the forelimb), articulated with both astragalus and calcaneum. Types of amblypods The most generalized type was Coryphodon, representing the family Coryphodontidae, from the lower Eocene of Europe and North America, in which there were 44 teeth and no horn-like excrescences on the long skull, while the femur had a third trochanter. The canines were somewhat elongated and were followed by a short gap in each jaw, and the cheek-teeth were adapted for succulent food. The length of the body reached about six feet in some cases. In the middle Eocene formations of North America occurred the more specialized Uintatherium (or Dinoceras), typifying the family Uintatheriidae. Uintatheres were huge creatures with long narrow skulls, of which the elongated facial portion carried three pairs of bony horn-cores, probably covered with short horns in life, the hind-pair

the small ancestral ungulates that retained all the primitive characteristics of the latter, accompanied by a huge increase in body size. The Amblypoda were confined to the Paleocene and Eocene periods and occurred in North America, Asia (especially Mongolia) and Europe. The cheek teeth were short-crowned (brachyodont), with the tubercles more-or-less completely fused into transverse ridges, or cross-crests (lophodont type), and the total number of teeth was in one case the typical 44, but in another was fewer. The vertebra of the neck unite on nearly flat surfaces, the humerus had lost the foramen, or perforation, at the lower end, and the third trochanter to the femur may have also been wanting. In the forelimb, the upper and lower series of carpal (finger) bones scarcely alternated, but in the hind foot, the astragalus overlapped the cuboid, while the fibula, which was quite distinct from the tibia (as was the radius from the ulna in the forelimb), articulated with both astragalus and calcaneum. Types of amblypods The most generalized type was Coryphodon, representing the family Coryphodontidae, from the lower Eocene of Europe and North America, in which there were 44 teeth and no horn-like excrescences on the long skull, while the femur had a third trochanter. The canines were somewhat elongated and were followed by a short gap in each jaw, and the cheek-teeth were adapted for succulent food. The length of the body

tourmaline, and other lithium-bearing minerals in pegmatite veins. It contains about 10% lithium, and has been utilized as a source of lithium. The chief commercial sources have historically been the deposits of California and France. History The mineral was first discovered in Saxony by August Breithaupt in 1817, and named by him from the Greek amblus, blunt, and gonia, angle, because of the obtuse angle between the cleavages. Later it was found at Montebras, Creuse, France, and at Hebron in Maine; and because of slight differences in optical character and chemical composition the names montebrasite and hebronite have been applied to the mineral from these localities. It has been discovered in considerable quantity at Pala in

hebronite have been applied to the mineral from these localities. It has been discovered in considerable quantity at Pala in San Diego county, California; Caceres, Spain; and the Black Hills of South Dakota. The largest documented single crystal of amblygonite measured 7.62×2.44×1.83 m3 and weighed ~102 tons. Gemology Transparent amblygonite has been faceted and used as a gemstone. As a gemstone set into jewelry it is vulnerable to breakage and abrasion from general wear, as its hardness and toughness are poor. The main sources for gem material are Brazil and the United States. Australia, France, Germany, Namibia, Norway, and Spain have also produced gem quality amblygonite. References Klein, Cornelis and Hurlbut, Cornelius S., 1985, Manual of Mineralogy, 20th ed., p. 362, Mindat with location data Webmineral data Mineral Galleries See also List of minerals Sodium minerals Lithium minerals

kernal [Sk], less amygdalin is present in nonbitter (or sweet) almond than bitter almond. In one study, bitter almond amygdalin concentrations ranged from 33 to 54 g/kg depending on variety; semibitter varieties averaged 1 g/kg and sweet varieties averaged 0.063 g/kg with significant variability based on variety and growing region. For one method of isolating amygdalin, the stones are removed from the fruit and cracked to obtain the kernels, which are dried in the sun or in ovens. The kernels are boiled in ethanol; on evaporation of the solution and the addition of diethyl ether, amygdalin is precipitated as minute white crystals. Natural amygdalin has the (R)-configuration at the chiral phenyl center. Under mild basic conditions, this stereogenic center isomerizes; the (S)-epimer is called neoamygdalin. Although the synthesized version of amygdalin is the (R)-epimer, the stereogenic center attached to the nitrile and phenyl groups easily epimerizes if the manufacturer does not store the compound correctly. Amygdalin is hydrolyzed by intestinal β-glucosidase (emulsin) and amygdalin beta-glucosidase (amygdalase) to give gentiobiose and L-mandelonitrile. Gentiobiose is further hydrolyzed to give glucose, whereas mandelonitrile (the cyanohydrin of benzaldehyde) decomposes to give benzaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide. Hydrogen cyanide in sufficient quantities (allowable daily intake: ~0.6 mg) causes cyanide poisoning which has a fatal oral dose range of 0.6–1.5 mg/kg of body weight. Laetrile Laetrile (patented 1961) is a simpler semisynthetic derivative of amygdalin. Laetrile is synthesized from amygdalin by hydrolysis. The usual preferred commercial source is from apricot kernels (Prunus armeniaca). The name is derived from the separate words "laevorotatory" and "mandelonitrile". Laevorotatory describes the stereochemistry of the molecule, while mandelonitrile refers to the portion of the molecule from which cyanide is released by decomposition. A 500 mg laetrile tablet may contain between 2.5 and 25 mg of hydrogen cyanide. Like amygdalin, laetrile is hydrolyzed in the duodenum (alkaline) and in the intestine (enzymatically) to D-glucuronic acid and L-mandelonitrile; the latter hydrolyzes to benzaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide, that in sufficient quantities causes cyanide poisoning. Claims for laetrile were based on three different hypotheses: The first hypothesis proposed that cancerous cells contained copious beta-glucosidases, which release HCN from laetrile via hydrolysis. Normal cells were reportedly unaffected, because they contained low concentrations of beta-glucosidases and high concentrations of rhodanese, which converts HCN to the less toxic thiocyanate. Later, however, it was shown that both cancerous and normal cells contain only trace amounts of beta-glucosidases and similar amounts of rhodanese. The second proposed that, after ingestion, amygdalin was hydrolyzed to mandelonitrile, transported intact to the liver and converted to a beta-glucuronide complex, which was then carried to the cancerous cells, hydrolyzed by beta-glucuronidases to release mandelonitrile and then HCN. Mandelonitrile, however, dissociates to benzaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide, and cannot be stabilized by glycosylation. Finally, the third asserted that laetrile is the discovered vitamin B-17, and further suggests that cancer is a result of "B-17 deficiency". It postulated that regular dietary administration of this form of laetrile would, therefore, actually prevent all incidences of cancer. There is no evidence supporting this conjecture in the form of a physiologic process, nutritional requirement, or identification of any deficiency syndrome. The term

amygdalin and laetrile in 1977. Thereafter, 27 U.S. states legalized the use of amygdalin within those states. Subsequent results In a 1977 controlled, blinded trial, laetrile showed no more activity than placebo. Subsequently, laetrile was tested on 14 tumor systems without evidence of effectiveness. The Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) concluded that "laetrile showed no beneficial effects." Mistakes in an earlier MSKCC press release were highlighted by a group of laetrile proponents led by Ralph Moss, former public affairs official of MSKCC who had been fired following his appearance at a press conference accusing the hospital of covering up the benefits of laetrile. These mistakes were considered scientifically inconsequential, but Nicholas Wade in Science stated that "even the appearance of a departure from strict objectivity is unfortunate." The results from these studies were published all together. A 2015 systematic review from the Cochrane Collaboration found: The authors also recommended, on ethical and scientific grounds, that no further clinical research into laetrile or amygdalin be conducted. Given the lack of evidence, laetrile has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or the European Commission. The U.S. National Institutes of Health evaluated the evidence separately and concluded that clinical trials of amygdalin showed little or no effect against cancer. For example, a 1982 trial by the Mayo Clinic of 175 patients found that tumor size had increased in all but one patient. The authors reported that "the hazards of amygdalin therapy were evidenced in several patients by symptoms of cyanide toxicity or by blood cyanide levels approaching the lethal range." The study concluded "Patients exposed to this agent should be instructed about the danger of cyanide poisoning, and their blood cyanide levels should be carefully monitored. Amygdalin (Laetrile) is a toxic drug that is not effective as a cancer treatment". Additionally, "No controlled clinical trials (trials that compare groups of patients who receive the new treatment to groups who do not) of laetrile have been reported." The side effects of laetrile treatment are the symptoms of cyanide poisoning. These symptoms include: nausea and vomiting, headache, dizziness, cherry red skin color, liver damage, abnormally low blood pressure, droopy upper eyelid, trouble walking due to damaged nerves, fever, mental confusion, coma, and death. The European Food Safety Agency's Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain has studied the potential toxicity of the amygdalin in apricot kernels. The Panel reported, "If consumers follow the recommendations of websites that promote consumption of apricot kernels, their exposure to cyanide will greatly exceed" the dose expected to be toxic. The Panel also reported that acute cyanide toxicity had occurred in adults who had consumed 20 or more kernels and that in children "five or more kernels appear to be toxic". Advocacy and legality of laetrile Advocates for laetrile assert that there is a conspiracy between the US Food and Drug Administration, the pharmaceutical industry and the medical community, including the American Medical Association and the American Cancer Society, to exploit the American people, and especially cancer

obtains a weapon and begins attacking people indiscriminately, often with multiple fatalities. An episode of amok may be triggered by a period of depression or highly aggressive behavior. The slang terms going postal or going ballistic are similar in scope. Police describe such an event as a killing spree. If the individual is seeking death, an alternate method is often "suicide by cop". Amok is often described as a culture-bound (or culture-specific) syndrome, which is a psychological condition whose manifestation is strongly shaped by cultural factors. Other reported culture-bound syndromes are latah and koro. Amok is also sometimes considered one of the subcategories of dissociative disorders (cross-cultural variant). Officially classified as a psychiatric condition In 1849, amok was officially classified as a psychiatric condition based on numerous reports and case studies that showed the majority of individuals who committed amok were, in some sense, mentally ill. The modern DSM-IV method of classification of mental disorders contains two official types of amok disorder; beramok and amok. Beramok is considered to be the more common of the two and is associated with the depression and sadness resulting from a loss and the subsequent brooding process. Loss includes, but is not limited to, the death of a spouse or loved one, divorce, loss of a job, money, power, etc. Beramok is associated with mental issues of severe depression or other mood disorders. Amok, the rarer form, is believed to stem from rage, insult, or a vendetta against a person, society, or object for a wide variety of reasons. Amok has been more closely associated with psychosis, personality disorders, bipolar disorder, and delusions. Historical and cross-cultural comparisons Early travelers in Asia sometimes describe a kind of military amok, in which soldiers apparently facing inevitable defeat suddenly burst into a frenzy of violence which so startled their enemies that it either delivered victory or at least ensured what the soldier in that culture considered an honourable death. An example would be during the Battle of Bukit Chandu in Singapore during World War II, when 41 outnumbered soldiers of the Malay Regiment, led by Adnan Saidi, charged and went all out against a 13,000-strong invading Japanese army. They continued the fight, armed with just knives and bayonets, for three days before they were finally defeated. This form of amok appears to resemble the Scandinavian Berserker, mal de pelea (Puerto Rico), and iich'aa (Navaho). The Zulu battle trance is another example of the tendency of certain groups to work

DSM-IV method of classification of mental disorders contains two official types of amok disorder; beramok and amok. Beramok is considered to be the more common of the two and is associated with the depression and sadness resulting from a loss and the subsequent brooding process. Loss includes, but is not limited to, the death of a spouse or loved one, divorce, loss of a job, money, power, etc. Beramok is associated with mental issues of severe depression or other mood disorders. Amok, the rarer form, is believed to stem from rage, insult, or a vendetta against a person, society, or object for a wide variety of reasons. Amok has been more closely associated with psychosis, personality disorders, bipolar disorder, and delusions. Historical and cross-cultural comparisons Early travelers in Asia sometimes describe a kind of military amok, in which soldiers apparently facing inevitable defeat suddenly burst into a frenzy of violence which so startled their enemies that it either delivered victory or at least ensured what the soldier in that culture considered an honourable death. An example would be during the Battle of Bukit Chandu in Singapore during World War II, when 41 outnumbered soldiers of the Malay Regiment, led by Adnan Saidi, charged and went all out against a 13,000-strong invading Japanese army. They continued the fight, armed with just knives and bayonets, for three days before they were finally defeated. This form of amok appears to resemble the Scandinavian Berserker, mal de pelea (Puerto Rico), and iich'aa (Navaho). The Zulu battle trance is another example of the tendency of certain groups to work themselves up into a killing frenzy. In contemporary Indonesia, the term amok (amuk) generally refers not to individual violence, but to frenzied violence by mobs. Indonesians now commonly use the term 'gelap mata' (literally 'darkened eyes') to refer to individual amok. Laurens van der Post experienced the phenomenon in the East Indies and wrote in 1955: In the Philippines, amok also means unreasoning murderous rage by an individual.

"born of the virgin Mary". The Episcopal Church in the United States of America uses the Apostles' Creed as part of a Baptismal Covenant for those who are to receive the Rite of Baptism. The Apostles' Creed is recited by candidates, sponsors and congregation, each section of the Creed being an answer to the celebrant's question, "Do you believe in God the Father (God the Son, God the Holy Spirit)?" It is also used in an interrogative form at the Easter Vigil in The Renewal of Baptismal Vows. The Church of England likewise asks the candidates, sponsors and congregation to recite the Apostles' Creed in answer to similar interrogations, in which it avoids using the word "God" of the Son and the Holy Spirit, asking instead: "Do you believe and trust in his Son Jesus Christ?", and "Do you believe and trust in the Holy Spirit?" Moreover, "where there are strong pastoral reasons", it allows use of an alternative formula in which the interrogations, while speaking of "God the Son" and "God the Holy Spirit", are more elaborate but are not based on the Apostles' Creed, and the response in each case is: "I believe and trust in him." The Book of Common Prayer may also be used, which in its rite of baptism has the minister recite the Apostles' Creed in interrogative form. asking the godparents or, in the case "of such as are of Riper Years", the candidate: "Dost thou believe in God the Father ..." The response is: "All this I stedfastly believe." Lutherans following the Lutheran Service Book (Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod and the Lutheran Church–Canada), like Catholics and Anglicans, use the Apostles' Creed during the Sacrament of Baptism: Do you believe in God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth? Do you believe in Jesus Christ, His only son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He will come to judge the living and the dead? Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting? Following each question, the candidate answers: "Yes, I believe". If the candidates are unable to answer for themselves, the sponsors are to answer the questions. For ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) Lutherans who use the Evangelical Lutheran Worship book, the Apostles' Creed appears during the Sacrament of Holy Baptism Rite on p. 229 of the hardcover pew edition. Methodists use the Apostles' Creed as part of their baptismal rites in the form of an interrogatory addressed to the candidate(s) for baptism and the whole congregation as a way of professing the faith within the context of the Church's sacramental act. For infants, it is the professing of the faith by the parents, sponsors, and congregation on behalf of the candidate(s); for confirmands, it is the professing of the faith before and among the congregation. For the congregation, it is a reaffirmation of their professed faith. Do you believe in God? I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. Do you believe in Jesus Christ? I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father, and will come again to judge the living and the dead. Do you believe in the Holy Spirit? I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Eucharistic Rite Since the 2002 edition, the Apostles' Creed is included in the Roman Missal as an alternative, with the indication, "Instead of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, especially during Lent and Easter time, the baptismal Symbol of the Roman Church, known as the Apostles' Creed, may be used." Previously the Nicene Creed was the only profession of faith that the Missal gave for use at Mass, except in Masses for children; but in some countries use of the Apostles' Creed was already permitted. Liturgy of the Hours The Apostles' Creed is used in Anglican services of Matins and Evening Prayer (Evensong). It is invoked after the recitation or singing of the Canticles, and is the only part of the services in which the congregation traditionally turns to face the altar, if they are seated transversely in the quire. The Episcopal Church (United States) uses the Apostles' Creed in Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer. Before the 1955 simplification of the rubrics of the Roman Breviary by Pope Pius XII, the Apostles' Creed was recited at the beginning of matins and prime, at the end of compline, and in some preces (a series of versicles and responses preceded by Kyrie, eleison ("Lord, have mercy") and the Our Father) of prime and compline on certain days during Advent and Lent. Liturgical English translations Ecumenical (interdenominational) versions International Consultation on English Texts The International Consultation on English Texts (ICET), a first inter-church ecumenical group that undertook the writing of texts for use by English-speaking Christians in common, published Prayers We Have in Common (Fortress Press, 1970,1971,1975). Its version of the Apostles' Creed was adopted by several churches. English Language Liturgical Consultation The English Language Liturgical Consultation (ELLC), a successor body to the International Consultation on English Texts (ICET), published in 1988 a revised translation of the Apostles' Creed. It avoided the word "his" in relation to God and spoke of Jesus Christ as "God's only Son" instead of "his only Son". In the fourth line, it replaced the personal pronoun "he" with the relative "who", and changed the punctuation, so as no longer to present the Creed as a series of separate statements. In the same line it removed the words "the power of". It explained its rationale for making these changes and for preserving other controverted expressions in the 1988 publication Praying Together, with which it presented its new version: Roman Catholic Church The initial (1970) English official translation of the Roman Missal of the Roman Catholic Church adopted the ICET version, as did catechetical texts such as the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In 2008 the Catholic Church published a new English translation of the texts of the Mass of the Roman Rite, use of which came into force at the end of 2011. It included the following translation of the Apostles' Creed: Church of England In the Church of England there are currently two authorized forms of the creed: that of the Book of Common Prayer (1662) and that of Common Worship (2000). Book of Common Prayer, 1662 I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; The holy Catholick Church; The Communion of Saints; The Forgiveness of sins; The Resurrection of the body, And the Life everlasting. Amen. Common Worship I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. Lutheran Church Evangelical Lutheran Worship The publication Evangelical Lutheran Worship published by Augsburg Fortress, is the primary worship resource for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. It presents the official ELCA version, footnoting the phrase "he descended to the dead" to indicate an alternative reading: "or ‘he descended into hell,’ another translation of this text in widespread use". The text is as follows: Church of Denmark The Church of Denmark still uses the phrase "We renounce the devil and all his doings and all his

the Church's sacramental act. For infants, it is the professing of the faith by the parents, sponsors, and congregation on behalf of the candidate(s); for confirmands, it is the professing of the faith before and among the congregation. For the congregation, it is a reaffirmation of their professed faith. Do you believe in God? I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. Do you believe in Jesus Christ? I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father, and will come again to judge the living and the dead. Do you believe in the Holy Spirit? I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Eucharistic Rite Since the 2002 edition, the Apostles' Creed is included in the Roman Missal as an alternative, with the indication, "Instead of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, especially during Lent and Easter time, the baptismal Symbol of the Roman Church, known as the Apostles' Creed, may be used." Previously the Nicene Creed was the only profession of faith that the Missal gave for use at Mass, except in Masses for children; but in some countries use of the Apostles' Creed was already permitted. Liturgy of the Hours The Apostles' Creed is used in Anglican services of Matins and Evening Prayer (Evensong). It is invoked after the recitation or singing of the Canticles, and is the only part of the services in which the congregation traditionally turns to face the altar, if they are seated transversely in the quire. The Episcopal Church (United States) uses the Apostles' Creed in Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer. Before the 1955 simplification of the rubrics of the Roman Breviary by Pope Pius XII, the Apostles' Creed was recited at the beginning of matins and prime, at the end of compline, and in some preces (a series of versicles and responses preceded by Kyrie, eleison ("Lord, have mercy") and the Our Father) of prime and compline on certain days during Advent and Lent. Liturgical English translations Ecumenical (interdenominational) versions International Consultation on English Texts The International Consultation on English Texts (ICET), a first inter-church ecumenical group that undertook the writing of texts for use by English-speaking Christians in common, published Prayers We Have in Common (Fortress Press, 1970,1971,1975). Its version of the Apostles' Creed was adopted by several churches. English Language Liturgical Consultation The English Language Liturgical Consultation (ELLC), a successor body to the International Consultation on English Texts (ICET), published in 1988 a revised translation of the Apostles' Creed. It avoided the word "his" in relation to God and spoke of Jesus Christ as "God's only Son" instead of "his only Son". In the fourth line, it replaced the personal pronoun "he" with the relative "who", and changed the punctuation, so as no longer to present the Creed as a series of separate statements. In the same line it removed the words "the power of". It explained its rationale for making these changes and for preserving other controverted expressions in the 1988 publication Praying Together, with which it presented its new version: Roman Catholic Church The initial (1970) English official translation of the Roman Missal of the Roman Catholic Church adopted the ICET version, as did catechetical texts such as the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In 2008 the Catholic Church published a new English translation of the texts of the Mass of the Roman Rite, use of which came into force at the end of 2011. It included the following translation of the Apostles' Creed: Church of England In the Church of England there are currently two authorized forms of the creed: that of the Book of Common Prayer (1662) and that of Common Worship (2000). Book of Common Prayer, 1662 I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; The holy Catholick Church; The Communion of Saints; The Forgiveness of sins; The Resurrection of the body, And the Life everlasting. Amen. Common Worship I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. Lutheran Church Evangelical Lutheran Worship The publication Evangelical Lutheran Worship published by Augsburg Fortress, is the primary worship resource for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. It presents the official ELCA version, footnoting the phrase "he descended to the dead" to indicate an alternative reading: "or ‘he descended into hell,’ another translation of this text in widespread use". The text is as follows: Church of Denmark The Church of Denmark still uses the phrase "We renounce the devil and all his doings and all his beings" as the beginning of this creed, before the line "We believe in God etc." This is mostly due to the influence of the Danish pastor Grundtvig. See Den apostolske trosbekendelse. United Methodist Church The United Methodists in the USA commonly incorporate the Apostles' Creed into their worship services. The version which is most often used is located at No. 881 in the United Methodist Hymnal, one of their most popular hymnals and one with a heritage to brothers John Wesley and Charles Wesley, founders of Methodism. It is notable for omitting the line "he descended into hell", but is otherwise very similar to the Book of Common Prayer version. The 1989 Hymnal has both the traditional version and the 1988 ecumenical version, which includes "he descended to the dead." The Apostles' Creed as found in The Methodist Hymnal of 1939 also omits the line "he descended..." The Methodist Hymnal of 1966 has the same version of the creed, but with a note at the bottom of the page stating, "Traditional use of this creed includes these words: 'He descended into hell.'" However, when the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in the United States in 1784, John Wesley sent the new American Church a Sunday Service which included the phrase "he descended into hell" in the text of The Apostles' Creed. It is clear that Wesley intended American Methodists to use the phrase in the recitation of the Creed. The United Methodist Hymnal of 1989 also contains (at #882) what it terms the "Ecumenical Version" of this creed which is the ecumenically accepted modern translation of the International Committee on English Texts (1975) as amended by the subsequent successor body, the English Language Liturgical Consultation (1987). This form of the Apostles' Creed can be found incorporated into the Eucharistic and Baptismal Liturgies in the Hymnal and in The United Methodist Book of Worship, and hence it is growing in popularity and use. The word "catholic" is intentionally left lowercase in the sense that the word catholic applies to the universal and ecumenical Christian church. I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father, and will come again to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen. Musical settings Musical settings of the Symbolum Apostolorum as a motet are rare. The French composer Le Brung published one Latin setting in 1540, and the Spanish composer Fernando de las Infantas published two in 1578. Martin Luther wrote the hymn "Wir glauben all an einen Gott" (translated into English as "We all believe in one God") in 1524 as a paraphrase of the Apostles' Creed. In 1957, William P. Latham wrote "Credo (Metrical Version of the Apostle’s Creed)"

the by then existing pairs into 61. Regular pairs Let (, ) be a pair of amicable numbers with , and write and where is the greatest common divisor of and . If and are both coprime to and square free then the pair (, ) is said to be regular ; otherwise, it is called irregular or exotic. If (, ) is regular and and have and prime factors respectively, then is said to be of type . For example, with , the greatest common divisor is and so and . Therefore, is regular of type . Twin amicable pairs An amicable pair is twin if there are no integers between and belonging to any other amicable pair . Other results In every known case, the numbers of a pair are either both even or both odd. It is not known whether an even-odd pair of amicable numbers exists, but if it does, the even number must either be a square number or twice one, and the odd number must be a square number. However, amicable numbers where the two members have different smallest prime factors do exist: there are seven such pairs known. Also, every known pair shares at least one common prime factor. It is not known whether a pair of coprime amicable numbers exists, though if any does, the product of the two must be greater than 1067. Also, a pair of coprime amicable numbers cannot be generated by Thabit's formula (above), nor by any similar formula. In 1955, Paul Erdős showed that the density of amicable numbers, relative to the positive integers, was 0. In 1968, Martin Gardner noted that most even amicable pairs known at his time have sums divisible by 9, and a rule for characterizing the exceptions was obtained. According to the sum of amicable pairs conjecture, as the number of the amicable numbers approaches infinity, the percentage of the sums of the amicable pairs divisible by ten approaches 100% . Gaussian amicable pairs exist. References in popular culture Amicable numbers are featured in the novel The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa, and in the Japanese film based on it. Paul Auster's collection of short stories entitled True Tales of American Life contains a story ('Mathematical Aphrodisiac' by Alex Galt) in which amicable numbers play an important role. Amicable numbers are featured briefly in the novel The Stranger House by Reginald Hill. Amicable numbers are mentioned in the French novel The Parrot's Theorem by Denis Guedj. Amicable numbers are mentioned in the JRPG Persona 4 Golden. Amicable numbers are featured in the visual novel Rewrite. Amicable numbers (220, 284) are referenced in episode 13 of the 2017 Korean drama Andante. Amicable numbers are featured in the Greek movie The Other Me

odd number must be a square number. However, amicable numbers where the two members have different smallest prime factors do exist: there are seven such pairs known. Also, every known pair shares at least one common prime factor. It is not known whether a pair of coprime amicable numbers exists, though if any does, the product of the two must be greater than 1067. Also, a pair of coprime amicable numbers cannot be generated by Thabit's formula (above), nor by any similar formula. In 1955, Paul Erdős showed that the density of amicable numbers, relative to the positive integers, was 0. In 1968, Martin Gardner noted that most even amicable pairs known at his time have sums divisible by 9, and a rule for characterizing the exceptions was obtained. According to the sum of amicable pairs conjecture, as the number of the amicable numbers approaches infinity, the percentage of the sums of the amicable pairs divisible by ten approaches 100% . Gaussian amicable pairs exist. References in popular culture Amicable numbers are featured in the novel The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa, and in the Japanese film based on it. Paul Auster's collection of short stories entitled True Tales of American Life contains a story ('Mathematical Aphrodisiac' by Alex Galt) in which amicable numbers play an important role. Amicable numbers are featured briefly in the novel The Stranger House by Reginald Hill. Amicable numbers are mentioned in the French novel The Parrot's Theorem by Denis Guedj. Amicable numbers are mentioned in the JRPG Persona 4 Golden. Amicable numbers are featured in the visual novel Rewrite. Amicable numbers (220, 284) are referenced in episode 13 of the 2017 Korean drama Andante. Amicable numbers are featured in the Greek movie The Other Me (2016 film). Amicable numbers are discussed in Brian Cleggs book Are Numbers Real? Amicable numbers are mentioned in the 2020 novel Apeirogon by Colum McCann. Generalizations Amicable tuples Amicable numbers satisfy and which can be written together as . This can be generalized to larger tuples, say , where we require For example, (1980, 2016, 2556) is an amicable triple , and (3270960, 3361680, 3461040, 3834000) is an amicable quadruple . Amicable multisets are defined analogously and generalizes this a bit

production of agar has fluctuated due to unstable and sometimes over-utilized seaweed populations. Composition Agar consists of a mixture of two polysaccharides: agarose and agaropectin, with agarose making up about 70% of the mixture. Agarose is a linear polymer, made up of repeating units of agarobiose, a disaccharide made up of D-galactose and 3,6-anhydro-L-galactopyranose. Agaropectin is a heterogeneous mixture of smaller molecules that occur in lesser amounts, and is made up of alternating units of D-galactose and L-galactose heavily modified with acidic side-groups, such as sulfate and pyruvate. Agar exhibits hysteresis, solidifying at about 32–40 °C (305–313 K, 90–104 °F) but melting at 85 °C (358 K, 185 °F). This property lends a suitable balance between easy melting and good gel stability at relatively high temperatures. Since many scientific applications require incubation at temperatures close to human body temperature (37 °C), agar is more appropriate than other solidifying agents that melt at this temperature, such as gelatin. Uses Culinary Agar-agar is a natural vegetable gelatin counterpart. It is white and semi-translucent when sold in packages as washed and dried strips or in powdered form. It can be used to make jellies, puddings, and custards. When making jelly, it is boiled in water until the solids dissolve. Sweetener, flavoring, coloring, fruits and or vegetables are then added, and the liquid is poured into molds to be served as desserts and vegetable aspics or incorporated with other desserts such as a layer of jelly in a cake. Agar-agar is approximately 80% dietary fiber, so it can serve as an intestinal regulator. Its bulking quality has been behind fad diets in Asia, for example the kanten (the Japanese word for agar-agar) diet. Once ingested, kanten triples in size and absorbs water. This results in the consumers feeling fuller. This diet has recently received some press coverage in the United States as well. The diet has shown promise in obesity studies. Asian culinary One use of agar in Japanese cuisine (Wagashi) is anmitsu, a dessert made of small cubes of agar jelly and served in a bowl with various fruits or other ingredients. It is also the main ingredient in mizu yōkan, another popular Japanese food. In Philippine cuisine, it is used to make the jelly bars in the various gulaman refreshments like Sago't Gulaman, Samalamig, or desserts such as buko pandan, agar flan, halo-halo, fruit cocktail jelly, and the black and red gulaman used in various fruit salads. In Vietnamese cuisine, jellies made of flavored layers of agar agar, called thạch, are a popular dessert, and are often made in ornate molds for special occasions. In Indian cuisine, agar agar is used for making desserts. In Burmese cuisine, a sweet jelly known as kyauk kyaw is made from agar. Agar jelly is widely used in Taiwanese bubble tea. Other culinary It can be used as addition to or as a replacement for pectin in jams and marmalades, as a substitute to gelatin for its superior gelling properties, and as a strengthening ingredient in souffles and custards. Another use of agar-agar is in a Russian dish ptich'ye moloko (bird's milk), a rich jellified custard (or soft meringue) used as a cake filling or chocolate-glazed as individual sweets. Agar-agar may also be used as the gelling agent in gel clarification, a culinary technique used to clarify stocks, sauces, and other liquids. Mexico has traditional candies made out of Agar gelatin, most of them in colorful, half-circle shapes that resemble a melon or watermelon fruit slice, and commonly covered with sugar. They are known in Spanish as Dulce de Agar (Agar sweets) Agar-agar is an allowed nonorganic/nonsynthetic additive used as a thickener, gelling agent, texturizer, moisturizer, emulsifier, flavor enhancer, and absorbent in certified organic foods. Microbiology Agar plate An agar plate or Petri dish is used to provide a growth medium using a mix of agar and other nutrients in which microorganisms, including bacteria and fungi, can be cultured and observed under the microscope. Agar is indigestible for many organisms so that microbial growth does not affect the gel used and it remains stable. Agar is typically sold commercially as a powder that can be mixed with water and prepared similarly to gelatin before use as a growth medium. Other ingredients are added to the agar to meet the nutritional needs of the microbes. Many microbe-specific formulations are available because some microbes prefer certain environmental conditions over others. Agar is often dispensed using a sterile media dispenser. Motility assays As a gel, an agar or agarose medium is porous and therefore can be used to measure microorganism motility and mobility. The gel's porosity is directly related to the concentration of agarose in the medium, so various levels of effective viscosity (from the cell's "point of view") can be selected, depending on the experimental objectives. A common identification assay involves culturing a sample of the organism deep within a block of nutrient agar. Cells will attempt to grow within the gel structure. Motile species will be able to migrate, albeit slowly, throughout the gel, and infiltration rates can then be visualized, whereas non-motile species will show growth only along the now-empty path introduced by the invasive initial sample deposition. Another setup commonly used for measuring chemotaxis and chemokinesis utilizes the under-agarose cell migration assay, whereby a layer of agarose gel is placed between a cell population and a chemoattractant. As a concentration gradient develops from the diffusion of the chemoattractant into the gel, various cell populations requiring different stimulation levels to migrate can

Microbiology Agar plate An agar plate or Petri dish is used to provide a growth medium using a mix of agar and other nutrients in which microorganisms, including bacteria and fungi, can be cultured and observed under the microscope. Agar is indigestible for many organisms so that microbial growth does not affect the gel used and it remains stable. Agar is typically sold commercially as a powder that can be mixed with water and prepared similarly to gelatin before use as a growth medium. Other ingredients are added to the agar to meet the nutritional needs of the microbes. Many microbe-specific formulations are available because some microbes prefer certain environmental conditions over others. Agar is often dispensed using a sterile media dispenser. Motility assays As a gel, an agar or agarose medium is porous and therefore can be used to measure microorganism motility and mobility. The gel's porosity is directly related to the concentration of agarose in the medium, so various levels of effective viscosity (from the cell's "point of view") can be selected, depending on the experimental objectives. A common identification assay involves culturing a sample of the organism deep within a block of nutrient agar. Cells will attempt to grow within the gel structure. Motile species will be able to migrate, albeit slowly, throughout the gel, and infiltration rates can then be visualized, whereas non-motile species will show growth only along the now-empty path introduced by the invasive initial sample deposition. Another setup commonly used for measuring chemotaxis and chemokinesis utilizes the under-agarose cell migration assay, whereby a layer of agarose gel is placed between a cell population and a chemoattractant. As a concentration gradient develops from the diffusion of the chemoattractant into the gel, various cell populations requiring different stimulation levels to migrate can then be visualized over time using microphotography as they tunnel upward through the gel against gravity along the gradient. Plant biology Research grade agar is used extensively in plant biology as it is optionally supplemented with a nutrient and/or vitamin mixture that allows for seedling germination in Petri dishes under sterile conditions (given that the seeds are sterilized as well). Nutrient and/or vitamin supplementation for Arabidopsis thaliana is standard across most experimental conditions. Murashige & Skoog (MS) nutrient mix and Gamborg's B5 vitamin mix in general are used. A 1.0% agar/0.44% MS+vitamin dH2O solution is suitable for growth media between normal growth temps. When using agar, within any growth medium, it is important to know that the solidification of the agar is pH-dependent. The optimal range for solidification is between 5.4 and 5.7. Usually, the application of potassium hydroxide is needed to increase the pH to this range. A general guideline is about 600 µl 0.1M KOH per 250 ml GM. This entire mixture can be sterilized using the liquid cycle of an autoclave. This medium nicely lends itself to the application of specific concentrations of phytohormones etc. to induce specific growth patterns in that one can easily prepare a solution containing the desired amount of hormone, add it to the known volume of GM, and autoclave to both sterilize and evaporate off any solvent that may have been used to dissolve the often-polar hormones. This hormone/GM solution can be spread across the surface of Petri dishes sown with germinated and/or etiolated seedlings. Experiments with the moss Physcomitrella patens, however, have shown that choice of the gelling agent – agar or Gelrite – does influence phytohormone sensitivity of the plant cell culture. Other uses Agar is used: As an impression material in dentistry. As a medium to precisely orient the tissue specimen and secure it by agar pre-embedding (especially useful for small endoscopy biopsy specimens) for histopathology processing To make salt bridges and gel plugs for use in electrochemistry. In formicariums as a transparent substitute for sand and a source of nutrition. As a natural ingredient in forming modeling clay for young children to play with. As an allowed biofertilizer component in organic farming. As a substrate for precipitin reactions in immunology. At different times as a substitute for gelatin in photographic emulsions, arrowroot in preparing silver paper and as a substitute for fish glue in resist etching. As an MRI elastic gel phantom to mimic tissue mechanical properties in Magnetic Resonance Elastography Gelidium agar is used primarily for bacteriological plates. Gracilaria agar is used mainly in food applications. In 2016, AMAM, a Japanese company, developed a prototype for Agar-based commercial packaging system called Agar Plasticity, intended as a replacement for oil-based plastic packaging. See also Agarose gel electrophoresis Algaculture Alginic acid Asepsis Carrageenan Gellan gum Immunodiffusion Immunoelectrophoresis Lima bean agar Ouchterlony double immunodiffusion R2a agar Radial immunodiffusion SEAgel Tokoroten References External links Edible thickening agents Microbiological gelling

the Eastern Canada Acid Rain Program. The provinces agreed to limit their combined sulfur dioxide emissions to 2.3 million tonnes by 1994. The Canada-US Air Quality Agreement was signed in 1991. In 1998, all federal, provincial, and territorial Ministers of Energy and Environment signed The Canada-Wide Acid Rain Strategy for Post-2000, which was designed to protect lakes that are more sensitive than those protected by earlier policies. Emissions of chemicals leading to acidification The most important gas which leads to acidification is sulfur dioxide. Emissions of nitrogen oxides which are oxidized to form nitric acid are of increasing importance due to stricter controls on emissions of sulfur compounds. 70 Tg(S) per year in the form of SO2 comes from fossil fuel combustion and industry, 2.8 Tg(S) from wildfires, and 7–8 Tg(S) per year from volcanoes. Natural phenomena The principal natural phenomena that contribute acid-producing gases to the atmosphere are emissions from volcanoes. Thus, for example, fumaroles from the Laguna Caliente crater of Poás Volcano create extremely high amounts of acid rain and fog, with acidity as high as a pH of 2, clearing an area of any vegetation and frequently causing irritation to the eyes and lungs of inhabitants in nearby settlements. Acid-producing gasses are also created by biological processes that occur on the land, in wetlands, and in the oceans. The major biological source of sulfur compounds is dimethyl sulfide. Nitric acid in rainwater is an important source of fixed nitrogen for plant life, and is also produced by electrical activity in the atmosphere such as lightning. Acidic deposits have been detected in glacial ice thousands of years old in remote parts of the globe. Human activity The principal cause of acid rain is sulfur and nitrogen compounds from human sources, such as electricity generation, animal agriculture, factories, and motor vehicles. Industrial acid rain is a substantial problem in China and Russia and areas downwind from them. These areas all burn sulfur-containing coal to generate heat and electricity. The problem of acid rain has not only increased with population and industrial growth, but has become more widespread. The use of tall smokestacks to reduce local pollution has contributed to the spread of acid rain by releasing gases into regional atmospheric circulation; dispersal from these taller stacks causes pollutants to be carried farther, causing widespread ecological damage. Often deposition occurs a considerable distance downwind of the emissions, with mountainous regions tending to receive the greatest deposition (because of their higher rainfall). An example of this effect is the low pH of rain which falls in Scandinavia. Chemical processes Combustion of fuels produces sulfur dioxide and nitric oxides. They are converted into sulfuric acid and nitric acid. Gas phase chemistry In the gas phase sulfur dioxide is oxidized by reaction with the hydroxyl radical via an intermolecular reaction: SO2 + OH· → HOSO2· which is followed by: HOSO2· + O2 → HO2· + SO3 In the presence of water, sulfur trioxide (SO3) is converted rapidly to sulfuric acid: SO3 (g) + H2O (l) → H2SO4 (aq) Nitrogen dioxide reacts with OH to form nitric acid: NO2 + OH· → HNO3 Chemistry in cloud droplets When clouds are present, the loss rate of SO2 is faster than can be explained by gas phase chemistry alone. This is due to reactions in the liquid water droplets. Hydrolysis Sulfur dioxide dissolves in water and then, like carbon dioxide, hydrolyses in a series of equilibrium reactions: SO2 (g) + H2O SO2·H2O SO2·H2O H+ + HSO3− HSO3− H+ + SO32− Oxidation There are a large number of aqueous reactions that oxidize sulfur from S(IV) to S(VI), leading to the formation of sulfuric acid. The most important oxidation reactions are with ozone, hydrogen peroxide and oxygen (reactions with oxygen are catalyzed by iron and manganese in the cloud droplets). Acid deposition Wet deposition Wet deposition of acids occurs when any form of precipitation (rain, snow, and so on) removes acids from the atmosphere and delivers it to the Earth's surface. This can result from the deposition of acids produced in the raindrops (see aqueous phase chemistry above) or by the precipitation removing the acids either in clouds or below clouds. Wet removal of both gases and aerosols are both of importance for wet deposition. Dry deposition Acid deposition also occurs via dry deposition in the absence of precipitation. This can be responsible for as much as 20 to 60% of total acid deposition. This occurs when particles and gases stick to the ground, plants or other surfaces. Adverse effects Acid rain has been shown to have adverse impacts on forests, freshwaters and soils, killing insect and aquatic life-forms as well as causing damage to buildings and having impacts on human health. Surface waters and aquatic animals Both the lower pH and higher aluminium concentrations in surface water that occur as a result of acid rain can cause damage to fish and other aquatic animals. At pH lower than 5 most fish eggs will not hatch and lower pH can kill adult fish. As lakes and rivers become more acidic biodiversity is reduced. Acid rain has eliminated insect life and some fish species, including the brook trout in some lakes, streams, and creeks in geographically sensitive areas, such as the Adirondack Mountains of the United States. However, the extent to which acid rain contributes directly or indirectly via runoff from the catchment to lake and river acidity (i.e., depending on characteristics of the surrounding watershed) is variable. The United States Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) website states: "Of the lakes and streams surveyed, acid rain caused acidity in 75% of the acidic lakes and about 50% of the acidic streams". Lakes hosted by silicate basement rocks are more acidic than lakes within limestone or other basement rocks with a carbonate composition (i.e. marble) due to buffering effects by carbonate minerals, even with the same amount of acid rain. Soils Soil biology and chemistry can be seriously damaged by acid rain. Some microbes are unable to tolerate changes to low pH and are killed. The enzymes of these microbes are denatured (changed in shape so they no longer function) by the acid. The hydronium ions of acid rain also mobilize toxins, such as aluminium, and leach away essential nutrients and minerals such as magnesium. 2 H+ (aq) + Mg2+ (clay) 2 H+ (clay) + Mg2+ (aq) Soil chemistry can be dramatically changed when base cations, such as calcium and magnesium, are leached by acid rain, thereby affecting sensitive species, such as sugar maple (Acer saccharum). Soil acidification Impacts of acidic water and Soil acidification on plants could be minor or in most cases major. Most minor cases which do not result in fatality of plant life can be attributed to the plants being less susceptible to acidic conditions and/or the acid rain being less potent. However, even in minor cases, the plant will eventually die due to the acidic water lowering the plant's natural pH. Acidic water enters the plant and causes important plant minerals to dissolve and get carried away; which ultimately causes the plant to die of lack of minerals for nutrition. In major cases, which are more extreme, the same process of damage occurs as in minor cases, which is removal of essential minerals, but at a much quicker rate. Likewise, acid rain that falls on soil and on plant leaves causes drying of the waxy leaf cuticle, which ultimately causes rapid water loss from the plant to the outside atmosphere and eventually results in death of the plant. To see if a plant is being affected by soil acidification, one can closely observe the plant leaves. If the leaves are green and look healthy, the soil pH is normal and acceptable for plant life. But if the plant leaves have yellowing between the veins on their leaves, that means the plant is suffering from acidification and is unhealthy. Moreover, a plant suffering from soil acidification cannot photosynthesize; the acid-water-induced process of drying out of the plant can destroy chloroplast organelles. Without being able to photosynthesize, a plant cannot create nutrients for its own survival or oxygen for the survival of aerobic organisms, which affects most species on Earth and ultimately ends the purpose of the plant's existence. Forests and other vegetation Adverse effects may be indirectly related to acid rain, like the acid's effects on soil (see above) or high concentration of gaseous precursors to acid rain. High altitude forests are especially vulnerable as they are often surrounded by clouds and fog which are more acidic than rain. Other plants can also be damaged by acid rain, but the effect on food crops is minimized by the application of lime and fertilizers to replace lost nutrients. In cultivated areas, limestone may also be added to increase the ability of the soil to keep the pH stable, but this tactic is largely unusable in the case of wilderness lands. When calcium is leached from the needles of red spruce, these trees become less cold tolerant and exhibit winter injury and even death. Ocean acidification Acid rain has a much less harmful effect on oceans on a global scale, but it creates an amplified impact in the shallower waters of coastal waters. Acid rain can cause the ocean's pH to fall, known as ocean acidification, making it more difficult for different coastal species to create their exoskeletons that they need to survive. These coastal species link together as part of the ocean's food chain, and without them being a source for other marine life to feed off of, more marine life will die. Coral's limestone skeleton is particularly sensitive to pH decreases, because the calcium carbonate, a core component of the limestone skeleton, dissolves in acidic (low pH) solutions. In addition to acidification, excess nitrogen inputs from the atmosphere promote increased growth of phytoplankton and other marine plants, which, in turn, may cause more frequent harmful algal blooms and eutrophication (the creation of oxygen-depleted “dead zones”) in some parts of the ocean. Human health effects Acid rain does not directly affect human health. The acid in the rainwater is too dilute to have direct adverse effects. The particulates responsible for acid rain (sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides) do have an adverse effect. Increased amounts of fine particulate matter in the air contribute to heart and lung problems, including asthma and bronchitis. Other adverse effects Acid rain can damage buildings, historic monuments, and statues, especially those made of rocks, such as limestone and marble, that contain large amounts of calcium carbonate. Acids in the rain react with the calcium compounds in the stones to create gypsum, which then flakes off. CaCO3 (s) + H2SO4 (aq) CaSO4 (s) + CO2 (g) + H2O (l) The effects of this are commonly seen on old gravestones, where acid rain can cause the inscriptions to become completely illegible. Acid rain also increases the corrosion rate of metals, in particular iron, steel, copper and bronze. Affected areas Places significantly impacted by acid rain around the globe include most of eastern Europe from Poland northward into Scandinavia, the eastern third of the United States, and southeastern Canada. Other affected areas include the southeastern coast of China and Taiwan. Prevention methods Technical solutions Many coal-firing power stations use flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) to remove sulfur-containing gases from their stack gases. For a typical coal-fired power station, FGD will remove 95% or more of the SO2 in the flue gases. An example of FGD is the wet scrubber which is commonly used. A wet scrubber is basically a reaction tower equipped with a fan that extracts hot smoke stack gases from a power plant into the tower. Lime or limestone in slurry form is also injected into the tower to mix with the stack gases and combine with the sulfur dioxide present. The calcium carbonate of the limestone produces pH-neutral calcium sulfate that is physically removed from the scrubber. That is, the scrubber turns sulfur pollution into industrial sulfates. In some areas the sulfates are sold to chemical companies as gypsum when the purity of calcium sulfate is high. In others, they are placed in landfill. The effects of acid rain can last for generations, as the effects of pH level change can stimulate the continued leaching of undesirable chemicals into otherwise pristine water sources, killing off vulnerable insect and fish species and blocking efforts to restore native life. Fluidized bed combustion also reduces the amount of sulfur emitted by power production. Vehicle emissions control reduces emissions of nitrogen oxides from motor vehicles. International treaties International treaties on the long-range transport of atmospheric pollutants have been agreed upon by western countries for some time now. Beginning in 1979, European countries convened in order to ratify general principles discussed during the UNECE Convention. The purpose was to combat Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution. The 1985 Helsinki Protocol on the Reduction of Sulphur Emissions under the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution furthered the results of the convention. Results of the treaty have already come to fruition, as evidenced by an approximate 40 percent drop in particulate matter in North America. The effectiveness of the Convention in combatting acid rain has inspired further acts of international commitment to prevent the proliferation of particulate matter. Canada and the US signed the Air Quality Agreement in 1991. Most European countries and Canada signed the treaties. Activity of the Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution Convention remained dormant after 1999, when 27 countries convened to further reduce the effects of acid rain. In 2000, foreign cooperation to prevent acid rain was sparked in Asia for the first time. Ten diplomats from countries ranging throughout the continent convened to discuss ways to prevent acid rain. Emissions trading In this regulatory scheme, every current polluting facility is given or may purchase on an open market an emissions allowance for each unit of a designated pollutant it emits. Operators can then install pollution control equipment, and sell portions of their emissions allowances they no longer need for their own operations, thereby recovering some of the capital cost of their investment in such equipment. The intention is to give

anthropogenic, but nitrogen oxides can also be produced naturally by lightning strikes and sulphur dioxide is produced by volcanic eruptions. Acid rain has been shown to have adverse impacts on forests, freshwaters, and soils, killing microbes, insects and aquatic life-forms, causing paint to peel, corrosion of steel structures such as bridges, and weathering of stone buildings and statues as well as having impacts on human health. Definition "Acid rain" is a popular term referring to the deposition of a mixture from wet (rain, snow, sleet, fog, cloudwater, and dew) and dry (acidifying particles and gases) acidic components. Distilled water, once carbon dioxide is removed, has a neutral pH of 7. Liquids with a pH less than 7 are acidic, and those with a pH greater than 7 are alkaline. "Clean" or unpolluted rain has an acidic pH, but usually no lower than 5.7, because carbon dioxide and water in the air react together to form carbonic acid, a weak acid according to the following reaction: Carbonic acid then can ionize in water forming low concentrations of carbonate and hydronium ions: Unpolluted rain can also contain other chemicals which affect its pH (acidity level). A common example is nitric acid produced by electric discharge in the atmosphere such as lightning. Acid deposition as an environmental issue (discussed later in the article) would include additional acids other than . Occasional pH readings in rain and fog water of well below 2.4 have been reported in industrialized areas. History Acid rain was first systematically studied in Europe, in the 1960s, and in the United States and Canada, the following decade. In Europe The corrosive effect of polluted, acidic city air on limestone and marble was noted in the 17th century by John Evelyn, who remarked upon the poor condition of the Arundel marbles. Since the Industrial Revolution, emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere have increased. In 1852, Robert Angus Smith was the first to show the relationship between acid rain and atmospheric pollution in Manchester, England. Smith coined the term "acid rain" in 1872. In the late 1960s, scientists began widely observing and studying the phenomenon. At first, the main focus in this research lay on local effects of acid rain. Waldemar Christofer Brøgger was the first to acknowledge long-distance transportation of pollutants crossing borders from the United Kingdom to Norway – a problem systematically studied by Brynjulf Ottar in the 1970s. Ottar's work was strongly influenced by Swedish soil scientist Svante Odén, who had drawn widespread attention to Europe's acid rain problem in popular newspapers and wrote a landmark paper on the subject in 1968. In the United States The earliest report about acid rain in the United States came from chemical evidence gathered from Hubbard Brook Valley; public awareness of acid rain in the US increased in the 1970s after The New York Times reported on these findings. In 1972, a group of scientists including Gene Likens discovered the rain that was deposited at White Mountains of New Hampshire was acidic. The pH of the sample was measured to be 4.03 at Hubbard Brook. The Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study followed up with a series of research studies that analyzed the environmental effects of acid rain. Acid rain that mixed with stream water at Hubbard Brook was neutralized by the alumina from soils. The result of this research indicated that the chemical reaction between acid rain and aluminum leads to an increasing rate of soil weathering. Experimental research was done to examine the effects of increased acidity in streams on ecological species. In 1980, a group of scientists modified the acidity of Norris Brook, New Hampshire, and observed the change in species' behaviors. There was a decrease in species diversity, an increase in community dominants, and a decrease in the food web complexity. In 1980, the US Congress passed an Acid Deposition Act. This Act established an 18-year assessment and research program under the direction of the National Acidic Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP). NAPAP enlarged a network of monitoring sites to determine how acidic the precipitation actually was, seeking to determine long-term trends, and established a network for dry deposition. Using a statistically-based sampling design, NAPAP quantified the effects of acid rain on a regional basis by targeting research and surveys to identify and quantify the effects of acid precipitation on freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. NAPAP also assessed the effects of acid rain on historical buildings, monuments, and building materials. It also funded extensive studies on atmospheric processes and potential control programs. From the start, policy advocates from all sides attempted to influence NAPAP activities to support their particular policy advocacy efforts, or to disparage those of their opponents. For the US Government's scientific enterprise, a significant impact of NAPAP were lessons learned in the assessment process and in environmental research management to a relatively large group of scientists, program managers, and the public. In 1981, the National Academy of Sciences was looking into research about the controversial issues regarding acid rain. President Ronald Reagan dismissed the issues of acid rain until his personal visit to Canada and confirmed that the Canadian border suffered from the drifting pollution from smokestacks originating in the US Midwest. Reagan honored the agreement to Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s enforcement of anti-pollution regulation. In 1982, Reagan commissioned William Nierenberg to serve on the National Science Board. Nierenberg selected scientists including Gene Likens to serve on a panel to draft a report on acid rain. In 1983, the panel of scientists came up with a draft report, which concluded that acid rain is a real problem and solutions should be sought. White House Office of Science and Technology Policy reviewed the draft report and sent Fred Singer’s suggestions of the report, which cast doubt on the cause of acid rain. The panelists revealed rejections against Singer's positions and submitted the report to Nierenberg in April. In May 1983, the House of Representatives voted against legislation that aimed to control sulfur emissions. There was a debate about whether Nierenberg delayed to release the report. Nierenberg himself denied the saying about his suppression of the report and stated that the report was withheld after the House's vote because it was not ready to be published. In 1991, the US National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP) provided its first assessment of acid rain in the United States. It reported that 5% of New England Lakes were acidic, with sulfates being the most common problem. They noted that 2% of the lakes could no longer support Brook Trout, and 6% of the lakes were unsuitable for the survival of many species of minnow. Subsequent Reports to Congress have documented chemical changes in soil and freshwater ecosystems, nitrogen saturation, decreases in amounts of nutrients in soil, episodic acidification, regional haze, and damage to historical monuments. Meanwhile, in 1990, the US Congress passed a series of amendments to the Clean Air Act. Title IV of these amendments established a cap and trade system designed to control emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Title IV called for a total reduction of about 10 million tons of SO2 emissions from power plants, close to a 50% reduction. It was implemented in two phases. Phase I began in 1995, and limited sulfur dioxide emissions from 110 of the largest power plants to a combined total of 8.7 million tons of sulfur dioxide. One power plant in New England (Merrimack) was in Phase I. Four other plants (Newington, Mount Tom, Brayton Point, and Salem Harbor) were added under other provisions of the program. Phase II began in 2000, and affects most of the power plants in the country. During the 1990s, research continued. On March 10, 2005, the EPA issued the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR). This rule provides states with a solution to the problem of power plant pollution that drifts from one state to another. CAIR will permanently cap emissions of SO2 and NOx in the eastern United States. When fully implemented, CAIR will reduce SO2 emissions in 28 eastern states and the District of Columbia by over 70% and NOx emissions by over 60% from 2003 levels. Overall, the program's cap and trade program has been successful in achieving its goals. Since the 1990s, SO2 emissions have dropped 40%, and according to the Pacific Research Institute, acid rain levels have dropped 65% since 1976. Conventional regulation was used in the European Union, which saw a decrease of over 70% in SO2 emissions during the same time period. In 2007, total SO2 emissions were 8.9 million tons, achieving the program's long-term goal ahead of the 2010 statutory deadline. In 2007 the EPA estimated that by 2010, the overall costs of complying with the program for businesses and consumers would be $1 billion to $2 billion a year, only one fourth of what was originally predicted. Forbes says: "In 2010, by which time the cap and trade system had been augmented by the George W. Bush administration's Clean Air Interstate Rule, SO2 emissions had fallen to 5.1 million tons." The term citizen science can be traced back as far as January 1989 to a campaign by the Audubon Society to measure acid rain. Scientist Muki Haklay cites in a policy report for the Wilson Center entitled 'Citizen Science and Policy: A European Perspective' a first use of the term 'citizen science' by R. Kerson in the magazine MIT Technology Review from January 1989. Quoting from the Wilson Center report: "The new form of engagement in science received the name "citizen science". The first recorded example of the use of the term is from 1989, describing how 225 volunteers across the US collected rain samples to assist the Audubon Society in an acid-rain awareness raising campaign. The volunteers collected samples, checked for acidity, and reported back to the organization. The information was then used to demonstrate the full extent of the phenomenon." In Canada Canadian Harold Harvey was among the first to research a "dead" lake. In 1971, he and R.J. Beamish published a report, "Acidification of the La Cloche Mountain Lakes", documenting the gradual deterioration of fish stocks in 60 lakes in

deacon of Palestine, who claimed to have been consecrated to the episcopal office by the Bishop Eusebius. His opponents averred that after the bishop's death his hands had been laid upon the head of Esaias by some of his friends. were a sect of who followed Chalcedonian Patriarch Paul of Alexandria, who was deposed by a synod at Gaza, in 541, for his uncanonical consecration by the Patriarch of Constantinople, and who, after his deposition, sided with the Miaphysites. Barsanians, later called Semidalites, were a sect of at the end of the 5th century. They had no succession of priests, and professed to keep up the celebration of a valid Eucharist by placing a few crumbs of some of the bread which had been consecrated by Dioscorus into a vessel of meal, and then using as fully consecrated the bread baked from it. The Barsanuphians separated from the Acephali in the late 6th century and developed their own episcopal hierarchy. Other acephali According to Brewer, acephalites were also certain bishops exempt from the jurisdiction and discipline of their patriarch. Cooper explains that they are "priests rejecting episcopal authority or bishops that of their metropolitans." Blunt described as those clergy who were ordained with a sinecure benefice and who generally obtained their orders by paying for them, that

apparent purpose of bringing the Orthodox and heretics into unity, Patriarch Peter III of Alexandria and Patriarch Acacius of Constantinople had elaborated a new creed in which they expressly condemned both Nestorius and Eutyches, a presbyter and archimandrite, but at the same time rejected the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon. This ambiguous formula, though approved by Byzantine Emperor Zeno and imposed in his Henoticon, could only satisfy the indifferent. The term applied to a 5th-century faction among the Eutychians, who seceded from Peter, a Miaphysite, in 482, after Peter signed the Henoticon and was recognised by Zeno as the legitimate patriarch of Alexandria by which they were "deprived of their head". They remained "without king or bishop" until they were reconciled with Coptic Orthodox Pope Mark II of Alexandria (799–819). The condemnation of Eutyches irritated the rigid Monophysites; the equivocal attitude taken towards the Council of Chalcedon appeared to them insufficient, and many of them, especially the monks, deserted Peter, preferring to be without a head, rather than remain in communion with him. Later, they joined the adherents of the non-Chalcedonian Patriarch Severus of Antioch. They were, according to Oxford English Dictionary Online, a "group of extreme Monophysites" and "were absorbed by the Jacobites". Liberatus of Carthage wrote, in , that those at the Council of Ephesus who followed neither Patriarch Cyril I of Alexandria nor Patriarch John I of Antioch were called . Esaianites were one of the sects into which the Alexandrian separated at the end of the 5th century. They were the followers of Esaias, a deacon of Palestine, who claimed to have been consecrated to the episcopal office by the Bishop Eusebius. His opponents averred that after the bishop's death his hands had been laid upon the head of Esaias by some of his friends. were a sect of who followed Chalcedonian Patriarch Paul of Alexandria, who was deposed by a synod at Gaza, in 541, for his uncanonical consecration by the Patriarch of Constantinople, and who, after his deposition, sided with the Miaphysites. Barsanians, later called Semidalites, were a sect of at the end of the 5th century.

the King Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia and Maria Antonietta of Spain. Caroline died after only one year of marriage, on 28 December 1782 having succumbed to smallpox. They had no children. In Florence on 8 September 1787 (by proxy) and again in Dresden on 18 October 1787 (in person), Anthony entered his second marriage, to the Archduchess Maria Theresia of Austria (Maria Theresia Josephe Charlotte Johanna), daughter of the Grand Duke Leopold I of Tuscany, later Emperor Leopold II. Mozart's opera Don Giovanni was originally intended to be performed in honor of his bride for a visit to Prague on 14 October 1787, as she traveled between Vienna and Dresden for the in-person ceremony, and librettos were printed with mention of the names of both Anton and the archduchess. The premiere could not be arranged in time, however, so the opera The Marriage of Figaro was substituted on the express orders of the bride's uncle, the Emperor Joseph II. The choice of The Marriage of Figaro was considered improper for a new bride by many observers, and the archduchess left the opera theater early without seeing the entire work performed. Mozart complained bitterly of the intrigues surrounding this incident in a letter to his friend Gottfried von Jacquin that was written in stages between 15 October and 25 October 1787. Anthony was present in Prague in September 1791 for the first performance of Mozart's opera La clemenza di Tito, which was written as part of the coronation ceremonies of his father-in-law, the Emperor Leopold II, as King of Bohemia. The couple had four children, but none survived to the age of two: Maria Ludovika Auguste Fredericka Therese Franziska Johanna Aloysia Nepomucena Ignatia Anna Josepha Xaveria Franziska de Paula Barbara (b. Dresden, 14 March 1795 – d. Dresden, 25 April 1796) Frederick Augustus (b. and d. Dresden, 5 April 1796) Maria Johanna Ludovica Anna Amalia Nepomucena Aloysia Ignatia Xaveria Josepha Franziska de Chantal Eva Apollonia Magdalena Crescentia Vincentia (b. Dresden, 5 April 1798 – d. Dresden, 30 October 1799) Maria Theresia (b. and d. Dresden, 15 October 1799) Electress Amalie gave birth for last time in 1797 to another stillborn child. After this, it became apparent that Anthony would succeed to the Electorate of Saxony, which was raised to kingdom in 1806. King of Saxony Anthony succeeded his brother Frederick August I as King of Saxony upon the latter's death, on 5 May 1827. The 71-year-old new king was completely inexperienced in government, and hence had no intention of initiating profound changes in foreign or domestic policy. Prussian diplomats discussed granting the Prussian Rhineland (predominantly Catholic) to Anthony (a Catholic) in exchange for Lutheran Saxony in 1827, but nothing came of these talks. After the July Revolution of 1830 in France, disturbances

of the Electorate of Saxony or receive any land from his older brother Frederick Augustus III, Anton lived under the shadows. No Elector of Saxony after Johann Georg I gave appanages to his younger sons. During the first years of the reign of his older brother as Elector, Anthony was the third in line, preceded only by his older brother Charles. The death of Charles (8 September 1781) made him the next in line to the Electorate as Electoral Prince (de: Kurprinz); this was because all the pregnancies of the Electress Amalie, except for one daughter, ended in a stillbirth. His aunt, the Dauphine of France, had wanted to engage her daughter Marie Zéphyrine of France to Anthony; Marie Zéphyrine died in 1755 abandoning plans. Another French candidate was Marie Zéphyrine's sister Marie Clothilde (later Queen of Sardinia) but again nothing happened. In Turin on 29 September 1781 (by proxy) and again in Dresden on 24 October 1781 (in person), Anthony married firstly with the Princess Maria Carolina of Savoy, daughter of the King Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia and Maria Antonietta of Spain. Caroline died after only one year of marriage, on 28 December 1782 having succumbed to smallpox. They had no children. In Florence on 8 September 1787 (by proxy) and again in Dresden on 18 October 1787 (in person), Anthony entered his second marriage, to the Archduchess Maria Theresia of Austria (Maria Theresia Josephe Charlotte Johanna), daughter of the Grand Duke Leopold I of Tuscany, later Emperor Leopold II. Mozart's opera Don Giovanni was originally intended to be performed in honor of his bride for a visit to Prague on 14 October 1787, as she traveled between Vienna and Dresden for the in-person ceremony, and librettos were printed with mention of the names of both Anton and the archduchess. The premiere could not be arranged in time, however, so the opera

von Kaufungen, who had abducted him together with his brother Ernest, he spent some time at the court of the emperor Frederick III in Vienna. In Eger (Cheb) on 11 November 1464 Albert married Zdenka (Sidonie), daughter of George of Podebrady, King of Bohemia; but failed to obtain the Bohemian Crown on the death of George in 1471. After the death of his father in 1464, Albert and Ernest ruled their lands together, but in 1485 a division was made by the Treaty of Leipzig, and Albert received the Meissen, together with some adjoining districts, and founded the Albertine branch of the House of Wettin. Regarded as a capable soldier by the emperor, Albert (in 1475) took a prominent part in the campaign against Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and in 1487 led an expedition against Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, which failed owing to lack of support on the part of the emperor. In 1488 he was appointed Governor of the Netherlands (until 1493) and marched with the imperial forces to free the Roman king Maximilian from his imprisonment at Bruges, and when, in 1489, the King returned to Germany, Albert was left as his representative to prosecute the war against the rebels. He

the Order of the Golden Fleece. After escaping from the hands of Kunz von Kaufungen, who had abducted him together with his brother Ernest, he spent some time at the court of the emperor Frederick III in Vienna. In Eger (Cheb) on 11 November 1464 Albert married Zdenka (Sidonie), daughter of George of Podebrady, King of Bohemia; but failed to obtain the Bohemian Crown on the death of George in 1471. After the death of his father in 1464, Albert and Ernest ruled their lands together, but in 1485 a division was made by the Treaty of Leipzig, and Albert received the Meissen, together with some adjoining districts, and founded the Albertine branch of the House of Wettin. Regarded as a capable soldier by the emperor, Albert (in 1475) took a prominent part in the campaign against Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and in 1487 led an expedition against Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, which failed owing to lack of support on the

range of programs from The Muppet Show (1979) to Politically Incorrect (1998). A rare dramatic film part was in the 1992 movie Roadside Prophets. Guthrie's memorable appearance at the 1969 Woodstock Festival was documented in the Michael Wadleigh film Woodstock. Guthrie also made a pilot for a TV variety show called The Arlo Guthrie Show in February 1987. The hour-long program included story telling and musical performances and was filmed in Austin, Texas. It was broadcast nationally on PBS. Special guests were Pete Seeger, Bonnie Raitt, David Bromberg and Jerry Jeff Walker. Politics In his earlier years, at least from the 1960s to the 1980s, Guthrie had taken what seemed a left-leaning approach to American politics, influenced by his father. In his often lengthy comments during concerts, his expressed positions were consistently anti-war, anti-Nixon, pro-drugs and in favor of making nuclear power illegal. However, he apparently did not perceive himself as the major youth culture spokesperson he had been regarded as by the media, as evidenced by the lyrics in his 1979 song "Prologue": "I can remember all of your smiles during the demonstrations ... and together we sang our victory songs though we were worlds apart." A 1969 rewrite of "Alice's Restaurant" pokes fun at then-former President Lyndon Johnson and his staff. In 1984, he was the featured celebrity in George McGovern's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in Guthrie's home state of Massachusetts, performing at rallies and receptions. Guthrie identified as a registered Republican in 2008. He endorsed Texas Congressman Ron Paul for the 2008 Republican Party nomination, and said, "I love this guy. Dr. Paul is the only candidate I know of who would have signed the Constitution of the United States had he been there. I'm with him, because he seems to be the only candidate who actually believes it has as much relevance today as it did a couple of hundred years ago. I look forward to the day when we can work out the differences we have with the same revolutionary vision and enthusiasm that is our American legacy." He told The New York Times Magazine that he (had become) a Republican because, "We had enough good Democrats. We needed a few more good Republicans. We needed a loyal opposition." Commenting on the 2016 election, Guthrie identified himself as an independent, and said he was "equally suspicious of Democrats as I am of Republicans". He declined to endorse a candidate, noting that he personally liked Bernie Sanders despite disagreeing with parts of Sanders' platform. While he thought it "wonderful" that Donald Trump was not relying on campaign donations, he did not believe that it necessarily meant that Trump had the best interests of the country in mind. In 2018, Guthrie contacted publication Urban Milwaukee to clarify his political stance. He stated "I am not a Republican," and expressed deep disagreement with the Trump administration's views, especially the policies on immigration and treatment of detained immigrants by ICE. Guthrie further clarified, "I left the party years ago and do not identify myself with either party these days. I strongly urge my fellow Americans to stop the current trend of guilt by association, and look beyond the party names and affiliations, and work for candidates whose policies are more closely aligned with their own, whatever they may be. ... I don't pretend to be right all the time, and sometimes I've gone so far as to change my mind from time to time." Guthrie expressed support for the George Floyd protests in June 2020, stating that it would be good if politicians "embraced it rather than resist the evolving nature of what it means to be an American". Legacy Like his father, Woody Guthrie, he often sings songs of protest against social injustice. He collaborated with poet Adrian Mitchell to tell the story of Chilean folk singer and activist Víctor Jara in song. He regularly performed with folk musician Pete Seeger, one of his father's longtime partners. Ramblin' Jack Elliott, who had lived for two years in the Guthries' home before Arlo left for boarding school, had absorbed Woody's style perhaps better than anyone; Arlo has been said to have credited Elliott for passing it along to him. In 1991, Guthrie bought the church that had served as Alice and Ray Brock's former home in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and converted it to the Guthrie Center, an interfaith meeting place that serves people of all religions. The center provides weekly free lunches in the community and support for families living with HIV/AIDS, as well as other life-threatening illnesses. It also hosts a summertime concert series and Guthrie does six or seven fund raising shows there every year. There are several annual events such as the Walk-A-Thon to Cure Huntington's Disease and a "Thanksgiving Dinner That Can't Be Beat" for families, friends, doctors and scientists who live and work with Huntington's disease. One of the title characters in the comic strip Arlo and Janis is named after Guthrie. Cartoonist Jimmy Johnson noted he was inspired by a friend who resembled Guthrie to name one of his characters Arlo. Personal life Guthrie owns a home in Washington, Massachusetts, where he and Jackie Hyde, his wife of 43 years, were longtime residents. Jackie died on October 14, 2012, shortly after being diagnosed with liver cancer. He and wife Marti Ladd live in Micco, Florida. Guthrie's son Abe Guthrie and his daughters Annie, Sarah Lee Guthrie, and Cathy Guthrie are also musicians. Abe Guthrie was formerly in the folk-rock band Xavier and has toured with his father. Annie Guthrie writes songs, performs, and takes care of family touring details. Sarah Lee performs and records with her husband Johnny Irion. Cathy plays ukulele in Folk Uke, a group she formed with Amy Nelson, a daughter of Willie Nelson. On October 23, 2020, Guthrie announced he was retired from touring and stage shows, citing health issues, including a stroke on Thanksgiving Day 2019 which required brief hospitalization and physical therapy. On his official website and in social media, he posted, "A folksinger's shelf life may be a lot longer than a dancer or an athlete, but at some point, unless you're incredibly fortunate or

singer and composer Woody Guthrie and dancer Marjorie Mazia Guthrie. He is the fifth, and oldest surviving, of Woody Guthrie's eight children; two older half-sisters died of Huntington's disease (which also killed Woody in 1967), an older half-brother died in a train accident and a third sister died in childhood. His sister is the record producer Nora Guthrie. His mother was a professional dancer with the Martha Graham Company and founder of what is now the Huntington's Disease Society of America. Arlo's father was from a Protestant family and his mother was Jewish. His maternal grandmother was Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt. Guthrie received religious training for his bar mitzvah from Rabbi Meir Kahane, who formed the Jewish Defense League. "Rabbi Kahane was a really nice, patient teacher," Guthrie later recalled, "but shortly after he started giving me my lessons, he started going haywire. Maybe I was responsible." Guthrie converted to Catholicism in 1977, before embracing interfaith beliefs later in his life. "I firmly believe that different religious traditions can reside in one person, or one nation or even one world," Guthrie said in 2015. In 2020, following his retirement, Guthrie expressed a philosophical affinity for gospel music, noting: "Gospel music to me is the biggest genre of protest music. If this world ain’t doing it for you, and your hopes are in the next one you can't get more protest than that." Guthrie attended Woodward School in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, from first through eighth grades and later graduated from the Stockbridge School, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1965. He spent the summer of 1965 in London, eventually meeting Karl Dallas, who connected Guthrie with London's folk rock scene and became a lifelong friend of his. He briefly attended Rocky Mountain College, in Billings, Montana. He received an honorary doctorate from Siena College in 1981 and from Westfield State College in 2008. As a singer, songwriter and lifelong political activist, Guthrie carries on the legacy of his father. He was awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience award on September 26, 1992. "Alice's Restaurant" On November 26, 1965, while in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, during Thanksgiving break from his brief stint in college, 18-year-old Guthrie and his friend, Richard Robbins, were arrested for illegally dumping on private property what Guthrie described as "a half-ton of garbage" from the home of his friends, teachers Ray and Alice Brock, after he discovered the local landfill was closed for the holiday. Guthrie and Robbins appeared in court, pled guilty to the charges, were levied a nominal fine and picked up the garbage that weekend. This littering charge served as the basis for Guthrie's most famous work, "Alice's Restaurant Massacree", a talking blues song that runs 18 minutes and 34 seconds in its original recorded version. In 1997, Guthrie jokingly pointed out that this was also the exact length of one of the infamous gaps in Richard Nixon's Watergate tapes, and that Nixon owned a copy of the record. The Alice in the song is Alice Brock, who had been a librarian at Arlo's boarding school in the town before opening her restaurant. She later opened an art studio in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The song lampoons the Vietnam War draft. However, Guthrie has stated in multiple interviews that the song is more an "anti-stupidity" song than an anti-war song, adding that it is based on a true incident. In the song, Guthrie is called up for a draft examination and rejected as unfit for military service as a result of a criminal record consisting solely of one conviction for the aforementioned littering. Alice and her restaurant are the subjects of the refrain, but are generally mentioned only incidentally in the story (early drafts of the song explained that the restaurant was a place to hide from the police). Though her presence is implied at certain points in the story, Alice herself is described explicitly in the tale only briefly when she bails Guthrie and a friend out of jail. On the DVD commentary for the 1969 movie, Guthrie stated that the events presented in the song all actually happened (others, such as the arresting officer, William Obanhein, disputed some of the song's details, but generally verified the truth of the overall story). "Alice's Restaurant" was the song that earned Guthrie his first recording contract, after counterculture radio host Bob Fass began playing a tape recording of one of Guthrie's live performances of the song repeatedly one night in 1967. A performance at the Newport Folk Festival on July 17, 1967, was also very well received. Soon afterward, Guthrie recorded the song in front of a studio audience in New York City and released it as side one of the album, Alice's Restaurant. By the end of the decade, Guthrie had gone from playing coffee houses and small venues to playing massive and prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall and the Woodstock Festival. For a short period after its release in October 1967, "Alice's Restaurant" was heavily played on U.S. college and counterculture radio stations. It became a symbol of the late 1960s, and for many it defined an attitude and lifestyle that were lived out across the country in the ensuing years. Its leisurely finger-picking acoustic guitar and rambling lyrics were widely memorized and played by irreverent youth. Many stations in the United States have a Thanksgiving Day tradition of playing "Alice's Restaurant". A 1969 film, directed and co-written by Arthur Penn, was based on the true story told in the song, but with the addition of a large number of fictional scenes. This film, also called Alice's Restaurant, featured Guthrie and several other figures in the song portraying themselves. The part of his father Woody Guthrie, who had died in 1967, was played by actor Joseph Boley; Alice, who made a cameo appearance as an extra, was also recast, with actress Pat Quinn in the title role (Alice Brock later disowned the film's portrayal of her). Despite its popularity, the song "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" is not always featured on the setlist of any given Guthrie performance. Since putting it back into his setlist in 1984, he has performed the song every ten years, stating in a 2014 interview that the Vietnam War had ended by the 1970s and that everyone who was attending his concerts had likely already heard the song anyway. So, after a brief period in the late 1960s and early 1970s when he replaced the monologue with a fictional one involving "multicolored rainbow roaches", he decided to do it only on special occasions from that point forward. Musical career and critical reception The "Alice's Restaurant" song was one of a few very long songs to become popular just when albums began replacing hit singles as young people's main music listening. But in 1972 Guthrie had a highly successful single too, Steve Goodman's song "City of New Orleans", a wistful paean to long-distance passenger rail travel. Guthrie's first trip on that train was in December 2005 (when his family joined other musicians on a train trip across the country to raise money for musicians financially devastated by Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, in the South of the United States). He also had a minor hit with his song "Coming into Los Angeles", which was played at the 1969 Woodstock Festival, but did not get much radio airplay because of its plot (involving the smuggling of drugs from London by airplane), and success with a live version of "The Motorcycle Song" (one of the songs on the B-side of the Alice's Restaurant album). A cover of the folk song "Gypsy Davy" was a hit on the easy listening charts. In the fall of 1975 during a benefit concert in Massachusetts, Guthrie performed with his band, Shenandoah,

dominant lay ministry that existed in the Nephite culture, Nehor established a church that taught universal salvation in which priests were given separate social status and were paid for their ministry. After killing a religious leader during a theological argument, Nehor was tried and executed for his crimes. The followers of Amlici resented the dominant political and religious parties and sought to reestablish the monarchy that the reign of the judges had replaced. Alma, who was chief judge, governor, and high priest over the people of Nephi, led an army against Amlici and his followers and drove the rebellion out of the land. Ministry of Alma among the Nephites Towards the end of chapter four, Alma realizes that the affairs of the Church require his entire concentration. He resigns from his political office and appoints Nephihah as chief judge and governor of the land. Chapters 5–16 record sermons and missionary travels of Alma between 83 and 78 BC. Alma and one of his converted followers, Amulek, provide important teachings about the atonement of Christ, overcoming pride and the natural man, retaining conversion, the resurrection of all men, and judgment day. Later, their teachings about faith and worship in Alma 32-34 are important sources of instruction and insight. Ministry of the sons of Mosiah among the Lamanites Chapters 17 to 27 describe the missionary labors of the sons of King Mosiah II who was the last king over the people of Nephi before the peaceful transition of the nation from a monarchy to a republican form of government. The sons of Mosiah, named Ammon, Aaron, Omner and Himni, chose to devote themselves to missionary labors preaching to the people of the Lamanite nation, which periodically went to war against the Nephite nation. They lived and taught among the Lamanites between the years 91 and 77 BC. Ministry of Alma among the Zoramites Chapters 28 to 35 relate the account of a rebellion of a subgroup of the Nephite nation who called themselves Zoramites. The Zoramites believed in a form of predestination and taught that all others except their people would be damned. Their

peaceful transition of the nation from a monarchy to a republican form of government. The sons of Mosiah, named Ammon, Aaron, Omner and Himni, chose to devote themselves to missionary labors preaching to the people of the Lamanite nation, which periodically went to war against the Nephite nation. They lived and taught among the Lamanites between the years 91 and 77 BC. Ministry of Alma among the Zoramites Chapters 28 to 35 relate the account of a rebellion of a subgroup of the Nephite nation who called themselves Zoramites. The Zoramites believed in a form of predestination and taught that all others except their people would be damned. Their apostasy from the Church was conspiring against the plans to rebel against the Nephite government. Alma took two of his sons, the sons of Mosiah, Amulek, and Zeezrom on a mission among the Zoramites in an attempt to restore their loyalty to both the Church and the state. Alma and his companions had some success among the poor class of Zoramites who were then exiled from the Zoramite community by the governing rich class of Zoramites. The wealthier Zoramites eventually defected and united with the Lamanites. Commandments of Alma to his children Chapters 36 to 42 record the teachings of Alma to his sons, Helaman, Shiblon, and Corianton. These teachings discuss the ministry and atonement of Jesus, the laws of justice and mercy, the need for repentance, and the resurrection and judgment of all people. Period of war Chapters 43 to 62 record the struggles of the Nephite people during a war against the attacking Lamanite nation between the years of 74 and 57 BC. The Chief Captain (senior military commander) of the Nephites during this time was Captain Moroni. The Nephites were ultimately successful in their defense against the Lamanites. Conclusion Chapter 63 includes concluding historical notes covering the years 56 to 53 BC. This is largely a period of post-war reconstruction and exploration in the Nephite nation. Simple outline This outline is based on main sections and antagonist characters in the Book of Alma. There are two main features in this history, chapters 1 - 42 deal with Missionary Work, and chapters 43 - 63 contain the Wars. The history of the Zoramites provides a transition from Missionary Work to the War chapters of the Book of Alma. The two main sections also mirror the first two antagonist characters, Nehor (religious agenda) and Amlici (political agenda). Mission chapters ()) Nehor: rebels against the Church () Amlici: rebels against the Republic () Korihor: the AntiChrist () Zoramites () Zoram: the Apostate Nephites religious () Zerahemnah: the war leader of the Zoramites political () War chapters () Amalickiah: the man who wants

level. The reactive oxygen species produced in cells include hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), hypochlorous acid (HClO), and free radicals such as the hydroxyl radical (·OH) and the superoxide anion (O2−). The hydroxyl radical is particularly unstable and will react rapidly and non-specifically with most biological molecules. This species is produced from hydrogen peroxide in metal-catalyzed redox reactions such as the Fenton reaction. These oxidants can damage cells by starting chemical chain reactions such as lipid peroxidation, or by oxidizing DNA or proteins. Damage to DNA can cause mutations and possibly cancer, if not reversed by DNA repair mechanisms, while damage to proteins causes enzyme inhibition, denaturation and protein degradation. The use of oxygen as part of the process for generating metabolic energy produces reactive oxygen species. In this process, the superoxide anion is produced as a by-product of several steps in the electron transport chain. Particularly important is the reduction of coenzyme Q in complex III, since a highly reactive free radical is formed as an intermediate (Q·−). This unstable intermediate can lead to electron "leakage", when electrons jump directly to oxygen and form the superoxide anion, instead of moving through the normal series of well-controlled reactions of the electron transport chain. Peroxide is also produced from the oxidation of reduced flavoproteins, such as complex I. However, although these enzymes can produce oxidants, the relative importance of the electron transfer chain to other processes that generate peroxide is unclear. In plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, reactive oxygen species are also produced during photosynthesis, particularly under conditions of high light intensity. This effect is partly offset by the involvement of carotenoids in photoinhibition, and in algae and cyanobacteria, by large amount of iodide and selenium, which involves these antioxidants reacting with over-reduced forms of the photosynthetic reaction centres to prevent the production of reactive oxygen species. Examples of bioactive antioxidant compounds Antioxidants are classified into two broad divisions, depending on whether they are soluble in water (hydrophilic) or in lipids (lipophilic). In general, water-soluble antioxidants react with oxidants in the cell cytosol and the blood plasma, while lipid-soluble antioxidants protect cell membranes from lipid peroxidation. These compounds may be synthesized in the body or obtained from the diet. The different antioxidants are present at a wide range of concentrations in body fluids and tissues, with some such as glutathione or ubiquinone mostly present within cells, while others such as uric acid are more evenly distributed (see table below). Some antioxidants are only found in a few organisms and these compounds can be important in pathogens and can be virulence factors. The relative importance and interactions between these different antioxidants is a very complex question, with the various antioxidant compounds and antioxidant enzyme systems having synergistic and interdependent effects on one another. The action of one antioxidant may therefore depend on the proper function of other members of the antioxidant system. The amount of protection provided by any one antioxidant will also depend on its concentration, its reactivity towards the particular reactive oxygen species being considered, and the status of the antioxidants with which it interacts. Some compounds contribute to antioxidant defense by chelating transition metals and preventing them from catalyzing the production of free radicals in the cell. Particularly important is the ability to sequester iron, which is the function of iron-binding proteins such as transferrin and ferritin. Selenium and zinc are commonly referred to as antioxidant minerals, but these chemical elements have no antioxidant action themselves, and are instead required for the activity of antioxidant enzymes. Uric acid Uric acid is by far the highest concentration antioxidant in human blood. Uric acid (UA) is an antioxidant oxypurine produced from xanthine by the enzyme xanthine oxidase, and is an intermediate product of purine metabolism. In almost all land animals, urate oxidase further catalyzes the oxidation of uric acid to allantoin, but in humans and most higher primates, the urate oxidase gene is nonfunctional, so that UA is not further broken down. The evolutionary reasons for this loss of urate conversion to allantoin remain the topic of active speculation. The antioxidant effects of uric acid have led researchers to suggest this mutation was beneficial to early primates and humans. Studies of high altitude acclimatization support the hypothesis that urate acts as an antioxidant by mitigating the oxidative stress caused by high-altitude hypoxia. Uric acid has the highest concentration of any blood antioxidant and provides over half of the total antioxidant capacity of human serum. Uric acid's antioxidant activities are also complex, given that it does not react with some oxidants, such as superoxide, but does act against peroxynitrite, peroxides, and hypochlorous acid. Concerns over elevated UA's contribution to gout must be considered one of many risk factors. By itself, UA-related risk of gout at high levels (415–530 μmol/L) is only 0.5% per year with an increase to 4.5% per year at UA supersaturation levels (535+ μmol/L). Many of these aforementioned studies determined UA's antioxidant actions within normal physiological levels, and some found antioxidant activity at levels as high as 285 μmol/L. Vitamin C Ascorbic acid or vitamin C is a monosaccharide oxidation-reduction (redox) catalyst found in both animals and plants. As one of the enzymes needed to make ascorbic acid has been lost by mutation during primate evolution, humans must obtain it from their diet; it is therefore a dietary vitamin. Most other animals are able to produce this compound in their bodies and do not require it in their diets. Ascorbic acid is required for the conversion of the procollagen to collagen by oxidizing proline residues to hydroxyproline. In other cells, it is maintained in its reduced form by reaction with glutathione, which can be catalysed by protein disulfide isomerase and glutaredoxins. Ascorbic acid is a redox catalyst which can reduce, and thereby neutralize, reactive oxygen species such as hydrogen peroxide. In addition to its direct antioxidant effects, ascorbic acid is also a substrate for the redox enzyme ascorbate peroxidase, a function that is used in stress resistance in plants. Ascorbic acid is present at high levels in all parts of plants and can reach concentrations of 20 millimolar in chloroplasts. Glutathione Glutathione is a cysteine-containing peptide found in most forms of aerobic life. It is not required in the diet and is instead synthesized in cells from its constituent amino acids. Glutathione has antioxidant properties since the thiol group in its cysteine moiety is a reducing agent and can be reversibly oxidized and reduced. In cells, glutathione is maintained in the reduced form by the enzyme glutathione reductase and in turn reduces other metabolites and enzyme systems, such as ascorbate in the glutathione-ascorbate cycle, glutathione peroxidases and glutaredoxins, as well as reacting directly with oxidants. Due to its high concentration and its central role in maintaining the cell's redox state, glutathione is one of the most important cellular antioxidants. In some organisms glutathione is replaced by other thiols, such as by mycothiol in the Actinomycetes, bacillithiol in some Gram-positive bacteria, or by trypanothione in the Kinetoplastids. Vitamin E Vitamin E is the collective name for a set of eight related tocopherols and tocotrienols, which are fat-soluble vitamins with antioxidant properties. Of these, α-tocopherol has been most studied as it has the highest bioavailability, with the body preferentially absorbing and metabolising this form. It has been claimed that the α-tocopherol form is the most important lipid-soluble antioxidant, and that it protects membranes from oxidation by reacting with lipid radicals produced in the lipid peroxidation chain reaction. This removes the free radical intermediates and prevents the propagation reaction from continuing. This reaction produces oxidised α-tocopheroxyl radicals that can be recycled back to the active reduced form through reduction by other antioxidants, such as ascorbate, retinol or ubiquinol. This is in line with findings showing that α-tocopherol, but not water-soluble antioxidants, efficiently protects glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4)-deficient cells from cell death. GPx4 is the only known enzyme that efficiently reduces lipid-hydroperoxides within biological membranes. However, the roles and importance of the various forms of vitamin E are presently unclear, and it has even been suggested that the most important function of α-tocopherol is as a signaling molecule, with this molecule having no significant role in antioxidant metabolism. The functions of the other forms of vitamin E are even less well understood, although γ-tocopherol is a nucleophile that may react with electrophilic mutagens, and tocotrienols may be important in protecting neurons from damage. Pro-oxidant activities Antioxidants that are reducing agents can also act as pro-oxidants. For example, vitamin C has antioxidant activity when it reduces oxidizing substances such as hydrogen peroxide; however, it will also reduce metal ions that generate free radicals through the Fenton reaction. 2 Fe3+ + Ascorbate → 2 Fe2+ + Dehydroascorbate 2 Fe2+ + 2 H2O2 → 2 Fe3+ + 2 OH· + 2 OH− The relative importance of the antioxidant and pro-oxidant activities of antioxidants is an area of current research, but vitamin C, which exerts its effects as a vitamin by oxidizing polypeptides, appears to have a mostly antioxidant action in the human body. Enzyme systems As with the chemical antioxidants, cells are protected against oxidative stress by an interacting network of antioxidant enzymes. Here, the superoxide released by processes such as oxidative phosphorylation is first converted to hydrogen peroxide and then further reduced to give water. This detoxification pathway is the result of multiple enzymes, with superoxide dismutases catalysing the first step and then catalases and various peroxidases removing hydrogen peroxide. As with antioxidant metabolites, the contributions of these enzymes to antioxidant defenses can be hard to separate from one another, but the generation of transgenic mice lacking just one antioxidant enzyme can be informative. Superoxide dismutase, catalase, and peroxiredoxins Superoxide dismutases (SODs) are a class of closely related enzymes that catalyze the breakdown of the superoxide anion into oxygen and hydrogen peroxide. SOD enzymes are present in almost all aerobic cells and in extracellular fluids. Superoxide dismutase enzymes contain metal ion cofactors that, depending on the isozyme, can be copper, zinc, manganese or iron. In humans, the copper/zinc SOD is present in the cytosol, while manganese SOD is present in the mitochondrion. There also exists a third form of SOD in extracellular fluids, which contains copper and zinc in its active sites. The mitochondrial isozyme seems to be the most biologically important of these three, since mice lacking this enzyme die soon after birth. In contrast, the mice lacking copper/zinc SOD (Sod1) are viable but have numerous pathologies and a reduced lifespan (see article on superoxide), while mice without the extracellular SOD have minimal defects (sensitive to hyperoxia). In plants, SOD isozymes are present in the cytosol and mitochondria, with an iron SOD found in chloroplasts that is absent from vertebrates and yeast. Catalases are enzymes that catalyse the conversion of hydrogen peroxide to water and oxygen, using either an iron or manganese cofactor. This protein is localized to peroxisomes in most eukaryotic cells. Catalase is an unusual enzyme since, although hydrogen peroxide is its only substrate, it follows a ping-pong mechanism. Here, its cofactor is oxidised by one molecule of hydrogen peroxide and then regenerated by transferring the bound oxygen to a second molecule of substrate. Despite its apparent importance in hydrogen peroxide removal, humans with genetic deficiency of catalase — "acatalasemia" — or mice genetically engineered to lack catalase completely, suffer few ill effects. Peroxiredoxins are peroxidases that catalyze the reduction of hydrogen peroxide, organic hydroperoxides, as well as peroxynitrite. They are divided into three classes: typical 2-cysteine peroxiredoxins; atypical 2-cysteine peroxiredoxins; and 1-cysteine peroxiredoxins. These enzymes share the same basic catalytic mechanism, in which a redox-active cysteine (the peroxidatic cysteine) in the active site is oxidized to a sulfenic acid by the peroxide substrate. Over-oxidation of this cysteine residue in peroxiredoxins inactivates these enzymes, but this can be reversed by the action of sulfiredoxin. Peroxiredoxins seem to be important in antioxidant metabolism, as mice lacking peroxiredoxin 1 or 2 have shortened lifespan and suffer from hemolytic anaemia, while plants use peroxiredoxins to remove hydrogen peroxide generated in chloroplasts. Thioredoxin and glutathione systems The thioredoxin system contains the 12-kDa protein thioredoxin and its companion thioredoxin reductase. Proteins related to thioredoxin are present in all sequenced organisms. Plants, such as Arabidopsis thaliana, have a particularly great diversity of isoforms. The active site of thioredoxin consists of two neighboring cysteines, as part of a highly conserved CXXC motif, that can cycle between an active dithiol form (reduced) and an oxidized disulfide form. In its active state, thioredoxin acts as an efficient reducing agent, scavenging reactive oxygen species and maintaining other proteins in their reduced state. After being

however, it will also reduce metal ions that generate free radicals through the Fenton reaction. 2 Fe3+ + Ascorbate → 2 Fe2+ + Dehydroascorbate 2 Fe2+ + 2 H2O2 → 2 Fe3+ + 2 OH· + 2 OH− The relative importance of the antioxidant and pro-oxidant activities of antioxidants is an area of current research, but vitamin C, which exerts its effects as a vitamin by oxidizing polypeptides, appears to have a mostly antioxidant action in the human body. Enzyme systems As with the chemical antioxidants, cells are protected against oxidative stress by an interacting network of antioxidant enzymes. Here, the superoxide released by processes such as oxidative phosphorylation is first converted to hydrogen peroxide and then further reduced to give water. This detoxification pathway is the result of multiple enzymes, with superoxide dismutases catalysing the first step and then catalases and various peroxidases removing hydrogen peroxide. As with antioxidant metabolites, the contributions of these enzymes to antioxidant defenses can be hard to separate from one another, but the generation of transgenic mice lacking just one antioxidant enzyme can be informative. Superoxide dismutase, catalase, and peroxiredoxins Superoxide dismutases (SODs) are a class of closely related enzymes that catalyze the breakdown of the superoxide anion into oxygen and hydrogen peroxide. SOD enzymes are present in almost all aerobic cells and in extracellular fluids. Superoxide dismutase enzymes contain metal ion cofactors that, depending on the isozyme, can be copper, zinc, manganese or iron. In humans, the copper/zinc SOD is present in the cytosol, while manganese SOD is present in the mitochondrion. There also exists a third form of SOD in extracellular fluids, which contains copper and zinc in its active sites. The mitochondrial isozyme seems to be the most biologically important of these three, since mice lacking this enzyme die soon after birth. In contrast, the mice lacking copper/zinc SOD (Sod1) are viable but have numerous pathologies and a reduced lifespan (see article on superoxide), while mice without the extracellular SOD have minimal defects (sensitive to hyperoxia). In plants, SOD isozymes are present in the cytosol and mitochondria, with an iron SOD found in chloroplasts that is absent from vertebrates and yeast. Catalases are enzymes that catalyse the conversion of hydrogen peroxide to water and oxygen, using either an iron or manganese cofactor. This protein is localized to peroxisomes in most eukaryotic cells. Catalase is an unusual enzyme since, although hydrogen peroxide is its only substrate, it follows a ping-pong mechanism. Here, its cofactor is oxidised by one molecule of hydrogen peroxide and then regenerated by transferring the bound oxygen to a second molecule of substrate. Despite its apparent importance in hydrogen peroxide removal, humans with genetic deficiency of catalase — "acatalasemia" — or mice genetically engineered to lack catalase completely, suffer few ill effects. Peroxiredoxins are peroxidases that catalyze the reduction of hydrogen peroxide, organic hydroperoxides, as well as peroxynitrite. They are divided into three classes: typical 2-cysteine peroxiredoxins; atypical 2-cysteine peroxiredoxins; and 1-cysteine peroxiredoxins. These enzymes share the same basic catalytic mechanism, in which a redox-active cysteine (the peroxidatic cysteine) in the active site is oxidized to a sulfenic acid by the peroxide substrate. Over-oxidation of this cysteine residue in peroxiredoxins inactivates these enzymes, but this can be reversed by the action of sulfiredoxin. Peroxiredoxins seem to be important in antioxidant metabolism, as mice lacking peroxiredoxin 1 or 2 have shortened lifespan and suffer from hemolytic anaemia, while plants use peroxiredoxins to remove hydrogen peroxide generated in chloroplasts. Thioredoxin and glutathione systems The thioredoxin system contains the 12-kDa protein thioredoxin and its companion thioredoxin reductase. Proteins related to thioredoxin are present in all sequenced organisms. Plants, such as Arabidopsis thaliana, have a particularly great diversity of isoforms. The active site of thioredoxin consists of two neighboring cysteines, as part of a highly conserved CXXC motif, that can cycle between an active dithiol form (reduced) and an oxidized disulfide form. In its active state, thioredoxin acts as an efficient reducing agent, scavenging reactive oxygen species and maintaining other proteins in their reduced state. After being oxidized, the active thioredoxin is regenerated by the action of thioredoxin reductase, using NADPH as an electron donor. The glutathione system includes glutathione, glutathione reductase, glutathione peroxidases, and glutathione S-transferases. This system is found in animals, plants and microorganisms. Glutathione peroxidase is an enzyme containing four selenium-cofactors that catalyzes the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide and organic hydroperoxides. There are at least four different glutathione peroxidase isozymes in animals. Glutathione peroxidase 1 is the most abundant and is a very efficient scavenger of hydrogen peroxide, while glutathione peroxidase 4 is most active with lipid hydroperoxides. Surprisingly, glutathione peroxidase 1 is dispensable, as mice lacking this enzyme have normal lifespans, but they are hypersensitive to induced oxidative stress. In addition, the glutathione S-transferases show high activity with lipid peroxides. These enzymes are at particularly high levels in the liver and also serve in detoxification metabolism. Uses in technology Food preservatives Antioxidants are used as food additives to help guard against food deterioration. Exposure to oxygen and sunlight are the two main factors in the oxidation of food, so food is preserved by keeping in the dark and sealing it in containers or even coating it in wax, as with cucumbers. However, as oxygen is also important for plant respiration, storing plant materials in anaerobic conditions produces unpleasant flavors and unappealing colors. Consequently, packaging of fresh fruits and vegetables contains an ~8% oxygen atmosphere. Antioxidants are an especially important class of preservatives as, unlike bacterial or fungal spoilage, oxidation reactions still occur relatively rapidly in frozen or refrigerated food. These preservatives include natural antioxidants such as ascorbic acid (AA, E300) and tocopherols (E306), as well as synthetic antioxidants such as propyl gallate (PG, E310), tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA, E320) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT, E321). The most common molecules attacked by oxidation are unsaturated fats; oxidation causes them to turn rancid. Since oxidized lipids are often discolored and usually have unpleasant tastes such as metallic or sulfurous flavors, it is important to avoid oxidation in fat-rich foods. Thus, these foods are rarely preserved by drying; instead, they are preserved by smoking, salting or fermenting. Even less fatty foods such as fruits are sprayed with sulfurous antioxidants prior to air drying. Oxidation is often catalyzed by metals, which is why fats such as butter should never be wrapped in aluminium foil or kept in metal containers. Some fatty foods such as olive oil are partially protected from oxidation by their natural content of antioxidants, but remain sensitive to photooxidation. Antioxidant preservatives are also added to fat based cosmetics such as lipstick and moisturizers to prevent rancidity. Industrial uses Antioxidants are frequently added to industrial products. A common use is as stabilizers in fuels and lubricants to prevent oxidation, and in gasolines to prevent the polymerization that leads to the formation of engine-fouling residues. In 2014, the worldwide market for natural and synthetic antioxidants was US$2.25 billion with a forecast of growth to $3.25 billion by 2020. Antioxidant polymer stabilizers are widely used to prevent the degradation of polymers such as rubbers, plastics and adhesives that causes a loss of strength and flexibility in these materials. Polymers containing double bonds in their main chains, such as natural rubber and polybutadiene, are especially susceptible to oxidation and ozonolysis. They can be protected by antiozonants. Solid polymer products start to crack on exposed surfaces as the material degrades and the chains break. The mode of cracking varies between oxygen and ozone attack, the former causing a "crazy paving" effect, while ozone attack produces deeper cracks aligned at right angles to the tensile strain in the product. Oxidation and UV degradation are also frequently linked, mainly because UV radiation creates free radicals by bond breakage. The free radicals then react with oxygen to produce peroxy radicals which cause yet further damage, often in a chain reaction. Other polymers susceptible to oxidation include polypropylene and polyethylene. The former is more sensitive owing to the presence of secondary carbon atoms present in every repeat unit. Attack occurs at this point because the free radical formed is more stable than one formed on a primary carbon atom. Oxidation of polyethylene tends to occur at weak links in the chain, such as branch points in low-density polyethylene. Levels in food Antioxidant vitamins are found in vegetables, fruits, eggs, legumes and nuts. Vitamins A, C, and E can be destroyed by long-term storage or prolonged cooking. The effects of cooking and food processing are complex, as these processes can also increase the bioavailability of antioxidants, such as some carotenoids in vegetables. Processed food contains fewer antioxidant vitamins than fresh and uncooked foods, as preparation exposes food to heat and oxygen. Other antioxidants are not obtained from the diet, but instead are made in the body. For example, ubiquinol (coenzyme Q) is poorly absorbed from the gut and is made through the mevalonate pathway. Another example is glutathione, which is made from amino acids. As any glutathione in the gut is broken down to free cysteine, glycine and glutamic acid before being absorbed, even large oral intake has little effect on the concentration of glutathione in the body. Although large amounts of sulfur-containing amino acids such as acetylcysteine can increase glutathione, no evidence exists that eating high levels of these glutathione precursors is beneficial for healthy adults. Measurement and invalidation of ORAC Measurement of polyphenol and carotenoid content in food is not a straightforward process, as antioxidants collectively are a diverse group of compounds with different reactivities to various reactive oxygen species. In food science analyses in vitro, the oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) was once an industry standard for estimating antioxidant strength of whole foods, juices and food additives, mainly from the presence of polyphenols. Earlier measurements and ratings by the United States Department of Agriculture were withdrawn in 2012 as biologically irrelevant to human health, referring to an absence of physiological evidence for polyphenols having antioxidant properties in vivo. Consequently, the ORAC method, derived only from in vitro experiments, is no longer considered relevant to human diets or biology, as of 2010. Alternative in vitro measurements of antioxidant content in foods – also based on the presence of polyphenols – include the Folin-Ciocalteu reagent, and the Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity assay. History As part of their adaptation from marine life, terrestrial plants began producing non-marine antioxidants such as ascorbic acid (vitamin C), polyphenols and tocopherols. The evolution of angiosperm plants between 50 and 200 million years ago resulted in the development of many antioxidant pigments – particularly during the Jurassic period – as chemical defences against reactive oxygen species that are byproducts of photosynthesis. Originally, the term antioxidant specifically referred to a chemical that prevented the consumption of oxygen. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, extensive study concentrated on the use of antioxidants in important industrial processes, such as the prevention of metal corrosion, the vulcanization of rubber, and the polymerization of fuels in the fouling of internal combustion engines. Early research on the role of antioxidants in biology focused on their use in preventing the oxidation of unsaturated fats, which is the cause of rancidity. Antioxidant activity could be measured simply by placing the fat in a closed container with oxygen and measuring the rate of oxygen consumption. However, it was the identification

and finishing of brass, perhaps suggesting secondary additions. Brass made during the early Roman period seems to have varied between 20% and 28% wt zinc. The high content of zinc in coinage and brass objects declined after the first century AD and it has been suggested that this reflects zinc loss during recycling and thus an interruption in the production of new brass. However it is now thought this was probably a deliberate change in composition and overall the use of brass increases over this period making up around 40% of all copper alloys used in the Roman world by the 4th century AD. Medieval period Little is known about the production of brass during the centuries immediately after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Disruption in the trade of tin for bronze from Western Europe may have contributed to the increasing popularity of brass in the east and by the 6th–7th centuries AD over 90% of copper alloy artefacts from Egypt were made of brass. However other alloys such as low tin bronze were also used and they vary depending on local cultural attitudes, the purpose of the metal and access to zinc, especially between the Islamic and Byzantine world. Conversely the use of true brass seems to have declined in Western Europe during this period in favour of gunmetals and other mixed alloys but by about 1000 brass artefacts are found in Scandinavian graves in Scotland, brass was being used in the manufacture of coins in Northumbria and there is archaeological and historical evidence for the production of calamine brass in Germany and the Low Countries, areas rich in calamine ore. These places would remain important centres of brass making throughout the medieval period, especially Dinant. Brass objects are still collectively known as dinanderie in French. The baptismal font at St Bartholomew's Church, Liège in modern Belgium (before 1117) is an outstanding masterpiece of Romanesque brass casting, though also often described as bronze. The metal of the early 12th-century Gloucester Candlestick is unusual even by medieval standards in being a mixture of copper, zinc, tin, lead, nickel, iron, antimony and arsenic with an unusually large amount of silver, ranging from 22.5% in the base to 5.76% in the pan below the candle. The proportions of this mixture may suggest that the candlestick was made from a hoard of old coins, probably Late Roman. Latten is a term for decorative borders and similar objects cut from sheet metal, whether of brass or bronze. Aquamaniles were typically made in brass in both the European and Islamic worlds. The cementation process continued to be used but literary sources from both Europe and the Islamic world seem to describe variants of a higher temperature liquid process which took place in open-topped crucibles. Islamic cementation seems to have used zinc oxide known as tutiya or tutty rather than zinc ores for brass-making, resulting in a metal with lower iron impurities. A number of Islamic writers and the 13th century Italian Marco Polo describe how this was obtained by sublimation from zinc ores and condensed onto clay or iron bars, archaeological examples of which have been identified at Kush in Iran. It could then be used for brass making or medicinal purposes. In 10th century Yemen al-Hamdani described how spreading al-iglimiya, probably zinc oxide, onto the surface of molten copper produced tutiya vapor which then reacted with the metal. The 13th century Iranian writer al-Kashani describes a more complex process whereby tutiya was mixed with raisins and gently roasted before being added to the surface of the molten metal. A temporary lid was added at this point presumably to minimise the escape of zinc vapor. In Europe a similar liquid process in open-topped crucibles took place which was probably less efficient than the Roman process and the use of the term tutty by Albertus Magnus in the 13th century suggests influence from Islamic technology. The 12th century German monk Theophilus described how preheated crucibles were one sixth filled with powdered calamine and charcoal then topped up with copper and charcoal before being melted, stirred then filled again. The final product was cast, then again melted with calamine. It has been suggested that this second melting may have taken place at a lower temperature to allow more zinc to be absorbed. Albertus Magnus noted that the "power" of both calamine and tutty could evaporate and described how the addition of powdered glass could create a film to bind it to the metal. German brass making crucibles are known from Dortmund dating to the 10th century AD and from Soest and Schwerte in Westphalia dating to around the 13th century confirm Theophilus' account, as they are open-topped, although ceramic discs from Soest may have served as loose lids which may have been used to reduce zinc evaporation, and have slag on the interior resulting from a liquid process. Africa Some of the most famous objects in African art are the lost wax castings of West Africa, mostly from what is now Nigeria, produced first by the Kingdom of Ife and then the Benin Empire. Though normally described as "bronzes", the Benin Bronzes, now mostly in the British Museum and other Western collections, and the large portrait heads such as the Bronze Head from Ife of "heavily leaded zinc-brass" and the Bronze Head of Queen Idia, both also British Museum, are better described as brass, though of variable compositions. Work in brass or bronze continued to be important in Benin art and other West African traditions such as Akan goldweights, where the metal was regarded as a more valuable material than in Europe. Renaissance and post-medieval Europe The Renaissance saw important changes to both the theory and practice of brassmaking in Europe. By the 15th century there is evidence for the renewed use of lidded cementation crucibles at Zwickau in Germany. These large crucibles were capable of producing c.20 kg of brass. There are traces of slag and pieces of metal on the interior. Their irregular composition suggests that this was a lower temperature, not entirely liquid, process. The crucible lids had small holes which were blocked with clay plugs near the end of the process presumably to maximise zinc absorption in the final stages. Triangular crucibles were then used to melt the brass for casting. 16th-century technical writers such as Biringuccio, Ercker and Agricola described a variety of cementation brass making techniques and came closer to understanding the true nature of the process noting that copper became heavier as it changed to brass and that it became more golden as additional calamine was added. Zinc metal was also becoming more commonplace. By 1513 metallic zinc ingots from India and China were arriving in London and pellets of zinc condensed in furnace flues at the Rammelsberg in Germany were exploited for cementation brass making from around 1550. Eventually it was discovered that metallic zinc could be alloyed with copper to make brass, a process known as speltering, and by 1657 the German chemist Johann Glauber had recognised that calamine was "nothing else but unmeltable zinc" and that zinc was a "half ripe metal". However some earlier high zinc, low iron brasses such as the 1530 Wightman brass memorial plaque from England may have been made by alloying copper with zinc and include traces of cadmium similar to those found in some zinc ingots from China. However, the cementation process was not abandoned, and as late as the early 19th century there are descriptions of solid-state cementation in a domed furnace at around 900–950 °C and lasting up to 10 hours. The European brass industry continued to flourish into the post medieval period buoyed by innovations such as the 16th century introduction of water powered hammers for the production of battery wares. By 1559 the Germany city of Aachen alone was capable of producing 300,000 cwt of brass per year. After several false starts during the 16th and 17th centuries the brass industry was also established in England taking advantage of abundant supplies of cheap copper smelted in the new coal fired reverberatory furnace. In 1723 Bristol brass maker Nehemiah Champion patented the use of granulated copper, produced by pouring molten metal into cold water. This increased the surface area of the copper helping it react and zinc contents of up to 33% wt were reported using this new technique. In 1738 Nehemiah's son William Champion patented a technique for the first industrial scale distillation of metallic zinc known as distillation per descencum or "the English process". This local zinc was used in speltering and allowed greater control over the zinc content of brass and the

have similar tin contents to contemporary bronze artefacts and it is possible that some copper-zinc alloys were accidental and perhaps not even distinguished from copper. However the large number of copper-zinc alloys now known suggests that at least some were deliberately manufactured and many have zinc contents of more than 12% wt which would have resulted in a distinctive golden color. By the 8th–7th century BC Assyrian cuneiform tablets mention the exploitation of the "copper of the mountains" and this may refer to "natural" brass. "Oreikhalkon" (mountain copper), the Ancient Greek translation of this term, was later adapted to the Latin aurichalcum meaning "golden copper" which became the standard term for brass. In the 4th century BC Plato knew orichalkos as rare and nearly as valuable as gold and Pliny describes how aurichalcum had come from Cypriot ore deposits which had been exhausted by the 1st century AD. X-ray fluorescence analysis of 39 orichalcum ingots recovered from a 2,600-year-old shipwreck off Sicily found them to be an alloy made with 75–80% copper, 15–20% zinc and small percentages of nickel, lead and iron. Roman world During the later part of first millennium BC the use of brass spread across a wide geographical area from Britain and Spain in the west to Iran, and India in the east. This seems to have been encouraged by exports and influence from the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean where deliberate production of brass from metallic copper and zinc ores had been introduced. The 4th century BC writer Theopompus, quoted by Strabo, describes how heating earth from Andeira in Turkey produced "droplets of false silver", probably metallic zinc, which could be used to turn copper into oreichalkos. In the 1st century BC the Greek Dioscorides seems to have recognised a link between zinc minerals and brass describing how Cadmia (zinc oxide) was found on the walls of furnaces used to heat either zinc ore or copper and explaining that it can then be used to make brass. By the first century BC brass was available in sufficient supply to use as coinage in Phrygia and Bithynia, and after the Augustan currency reform of 23 BC it was also used to make Roman dupondii and sestertii. The uniform use of brass for coinage and military equipment across the Roman world may indicate a degree of state involvement in the industry, and brass even seems to have been deliberately boycotted by Jewish communities in Palestine because of its association with Roman authority. Brass was produced by the cementation process where copper and zinc ore are heated together until zinc vapor is produced which reacts with the copper. There is good archaeological evidence for this process and crucibles used to produce brass by cementation have been found on Roman period sites including Xanten and Nidda in Germany, Lyon in France and at a number of sites in Britain. They vary in size from tiny acorn sized to large amphorae like vessels but all have elevated levels of zinc on the interior and are lidded. They show no signs of slag or metal prills suggesting that zinc minerals were heated to produce zinc vapor which reacted with metallic copper in a solid state reaction. The fabric of these crucibles is porous, probably designed to prevent a buildup of pressure, and many have small holes in the lids which may be designed to release pressure or to add additional zinc minerals near the end of the process. Dioscorides mentioned that zinc minerals were used for both the working and finishing of brass, perhaps suggesting secondary additions. Brass made during the early Roman period seems to have varied between 20% and 28% wt zinc. The high content of zinc in coinage and brass objects declined after the first century AD and it has been suggested that this reflects zinc loss during recycling and thus an interruption in the production of new brass. However it is now thought this was probably a deliberate change in composition and overall the use of brass increases over this period making up around 40% of all copper alloys used in the Roman world by the 4th century AD. Medieval period Little is known about the production of brass during the centuries immediately after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Disruption in the trade of tin for bronze from Western Europe may have contributed to the increasing popularity of brass in the east and by the 6th–7th centuries AD over 90% of copper alloy artefacts from Egypt were made of brass. However other alloys such as low tin bronze were also used and they vary depending on local cultural attitudes, the purpose of the metal and access to zinc, especially between the Islamic and Byzantine world. Conversely the use of true brass seems to have declined in Western Europe during this period in favour of gunmetals and other mixed alloys but by about 1000 brass artefacts are found in Scandinavian graves in Scotland, brass was being used in the manufacture of coins in Northumbria and there is archaeological and historical evidence for the production of calamine brass in Germany and the Low Countries, areas rich in calamine ore. These places would remain important centres of brass making throughout the medieval period, especially Dinant. Brass objects are still collectively known as dinanderie in French. The baptismal font at St Bartholomew's Church, Liège in modern Belgium (before 1117) is an outstanding masterpiece of Romanesque brass casting, though also often described as bronze. The metal of the early 12th-century Gloucester Candlestick is unusual even by medieval standards in being a mixture of copper, zinc, tin, lead, nickel, iron, antimony and arsenic with an unusually large amount of silver, ranging from 22.5% in the base to 5.76% in the pan below the candle. The proportions of this mixture may suggest that the candlestick was made from a hoard of old coins, probably Late Roman. Latten is a term for decorative borders and similar objects cut from sheet metal, whether of brass or bronze. Aquamaniles were typically made in brass in both the European and Islamic worlds. The cementation process continued to be used but literary sources from both Europe and the Islamic world seem to describe variants of a higher temperature liquid process which took place in open-topped crucibles. Islamic cementation seems to have used zinc oxide known as tutiya or tutty rather than zinc ores for brass-making, resulting in a metal with lower iron impurities. A number of Islamic writers and the 13th century Italian Marco Polo describe how this was obtained by sublimation from zinc ores and condensed onto clay or iron bars, archaeological examples of which have been identified at Kush in Iran. It could then be used for brass making or medicinal purposes. In 10th century Yemen al-Hamdani described how spreading al-iglimiya, probably zinc oxide, onto the surface of molten copper produced tutiya vapor which then reacted with the metal. The 13th century Iranian writer al-Kashani describes a more complex process whereby tutiya was mixed with raisins and gently roasted before being added to the surface of the molten metal. A temporary lid was added at this point presumably to minimise the escape of zinc vapor. In Europe a similar liquid process in open-topped crucibles took place which was probably less efficient than the Roman process and the use of the term tutty by Albertus Magnus in the 13th century suggests influence from Islamic technology. The 12th century German monk Theophilus described how preheated crucibles were one sixth filled with powdered calamine and charcoal then topped up with copper and charcoal before being melted, stirred then filled again. The final product was cast, then again melted with calamine. It has been suggested that this second melting may have taken place at a lower temperature to allow more zinc to be absorbed. Albertus Magnus noted that the "power" of both calamine and tutty could evaporate and described how the addition of powdered glass could create a film to bind it to the metal. German brass making crucibles are known from Dortmund dating to the 10th century AD and from Soest and Schwerte in Westphalia dating to around the 13th century confirm Theophilus' account, as they are open-topped, although ceramic discs from Soest may have served as loose lids which may have been used to reduce zinc evaporation, and have slag on the interior resulting from a liquid process. Africa Some of the most famous objects in African art are the lost wax castings of West Africa, mostly from what is now Nigeria, produced first by the Kingdom of Ife and then the Benin Empire. Though normally described as "bronzes", the Benin Bronzes, now mostly in the British Museum and other Western collections, and the large portrait heads such as the Bronze Head from Ife of "heavily leaded zinc-brass" and the Bronze Head of Queen Idia, both also British Museum, are better described as brass, though of variable compositions. Work in brass or bronze continued to be important in Benin art and other West African traditions such as Akan goldweights, where the metal was regarded as a more valuable material than in Europe. Renaissance and post-medieval Europe The Renaissance saw important changes to both the theory and practice of brassmaking in Europe. By the 15th century there is evidence for the renewed use of lidded cementation crucibles at Zwickau in Germany. These large crucibles were capable of producing c.20 kg of brass. There are traces of slag and pieces of metal on the interior. Their irregular composition suggests that this was a lower temperature, not entirely liquid, process. The crucible lids had small holes which were blocked with clay plugs near the end of the process presumably to maximise zinc absorption in the final stages. Triangular crucibles were then used to melt the brass for casting. 16th-century technical writers such as Biringuccio, Ercker and Agricola described a variety of cementation brass making techniques and came closer to understanding the true nature of the process noting that copper became heavier as it changed to brass and that it became more golden as additional calamine was added. Zinc metal was also becoming more commonplace. By 1513 metallic zinc ingots from India and China were arriving in London and pellets of zinc condensed in furnace flues at the Rammelsberg in Germany were exploited for cementation brass making from around 1550. Eventually it was discovered that metallic zinc could be alloyed with copper to make brass, a process known as speltering, and by 1657 the German chemist Johann Glauber had recognised that calamine was "nothing else but unmeltable zinc" and that zinc was a "half ripe metal". However some earlier high zinc, low iron brasses such as the 1530 Wightman brass memorial plaque from England may have been made by alloying copper with zinc and include traces of cadmium similar to those found in some zinc ingots from China. However, the cementation process was not abandoned, and as late as the early 19th century there are descriptions of solid-state cementation in a domed furnace at around 900–950 °C and lasting up to 10 hours. The European brass industry continued to flourish into the post medieval period buoyed by innovations such as the 16th century introduction of water powered hammers for the production of battery wares. By 1559 the Germany city of Aachen alone was capable of producing 300,000 cwt of brass per year. After several false starts during the 16th and 17th centuries the brass industry was also established in England taking advantage of abundant supplies of cheap copper smelted in the new coal fired reverberatory furnace. In 1723 Bristol brass maker Nehemiah Champion patented the use of granulated copper, produced by pouring molten metal into cold water. This increased the surface area of the copper helping it react and zinc contents of up to 33% wt were reported using this new technique. In 1738 Nehemiah's son William Champion patented a technique for the first industrial scale distillation of metallic zinc known as distillation per descencum or "the English process". This local zinc was used in speltering and allowed greater control over the zinc content of brass and the production of high-zinc copper alloys which would have been difficult or impossible to produce using cementation, for use in expensive objects such as scientific instruments, clocks, brass buttons and costume jewellery. However Champion continued to use the cheaper calamine cementation method to produce lower-zinc brass and the archaeological remains of bee-hive shaped cementation furnaces have been identified at his works at Warmley. By the mid-to-late 18th century developments in cheaper zinc distillation such as John-Jaques Dony's horizontal furnaces in Belgium and the reduction of tariffs on zinc as well as demand for corrosion-resistant high zinc alloys increased the popularity of speltering and as a result cementation was largely abandoned by the mid-19th century. See also Auxbrebis Brass bed Brass rubbing List of copper alloys Pinchbeck (alloy) Nordic gold References Bibliography Bayley, J.

the young Ludwig van Beethoven, who was born in Bonn in 1770; the elector financed the composer's first journey to Vienna. In 1794, the city was seized by French troops, becoming a part of the First French Empire. In 1815 following the Napoleonic Wars, Bonn became part of the Kingdom of Prussia. Administered within the Prussian Rhine Province, the city became part of the German Empire in 1871 during the Prussian-led unification of Germany. Bonn was of little relevance in these years. 20th century and the "Bonn Republic" During the Second World War, Bonn acquired military significance because of its strategic location on the Rhine, which formed a natural barrier to easy penetration into the German heartland from the west. The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Bonn on 7 March 1945, and the US 1st Infantry Division captured the city during the battle of 8–9 March 1945. After the Second World War, Bonn was in the British zone of occupation. Following the advocacy of West Germany's first chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, a former Cologne Mayor and a native of that area, Bonn became the de facto capital, officially designated the "temporary seat of the Federal institutions," of the newly formed Federal Republic of Germany in 1949. However, the Bundestag, seated in Bonn's Bundeshaus, affirmed Berlin's status as the German capital. Bonn was chosen as the provisional capital and seat of government despite the fact that Frankfurt already had most of the required facilities and using Bonn was estimated to be 95 million DM more expensive than using Frankfurt. Bonn was chosen because Adenauer and other prominent politicians intended to make Berlin the capital of the reunified Germany, and felt that locating the capital in a major city like Frankfurt or Hamburg would imply a permanent capital and weaken support in West Germany for reunification. In 1949, the Parliamentary Council in Bonn drafted and adopted the current German constitution, the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany. As the political centre of West Germany, Bonn saw six Chancellors and six Presidents of the Federal Republic of Germany. Bonn's time as the capital of West Germany is commonly referred to as the Bonn Republic, in contrast to the Berlin Republic which followed reunification in 1990. Bonn in the "Berlin Republic" German reunification in 1990 made Berlin the nominal capital of Germany again. This decision, however, did not mandate that the republic's political institutions would also move. While some argued for the seat of government to move to Berlin, others advocated leaving it in Bonn – a situation roughly analogous to that of the Netherlands, where Amsterdam is the capital but The Hague is the seat of government. Berlin's previous history as united Germany's capital was strongly connected with the German Empire, the Weimar Republic and more ominously with Nazi Germany. It was felt that a new peacefully united Germany should not be governed from a city connected to such overtones of war. Additionally, Bonn was closer to Brussels, headquarters of the European Economic Community. Former West German chancellor and mayor of West Berlin Willy Brandt caused considerable offence to the Western Allies during the debate by stating that France would not have kept the seat of government at Vichy after Liberation. The heated debate that resulted was settled by the Bundestag (Germany's parliament) only on 20 June 1991. By a vote of 338–320, the Bundestag voted to move the seat of government to Berlin. The vote broke largely along regional lines, with legislators from the south and west favouring Bonn and legislators from the north and east voting for Berlin. It also broke along generational lines as well; older legislators with memories of Berlin's past glory favoured Berlin, while younger legislators favoured Bonn. Ultimately, the votes of the eastern German legislators tipped the balance in favour of Berlin. From 1990 to 1999, Bonn served as the seat of government of reunited Germany. In recognition of its former status as German capital, it holds the name of Federal City (). Bonn currently shares the status of Germany's seat of government with Berlin, with the President, the Chancellor and many government ministries (such as Food & Agriculture and Defence) maintaining large presences in Bonn. Over 8,000 of the 18,000 federal officials remain in Bonn. A total of 19 United Nations (UN) institutions operate from Bonn today. Politics Mayor The current Mayor of Bonn is Katja Dörner of Alliance 90/The Greens since 2020. She defeated incumbent mayor Ashok-Alexander Sridharan in the most recent mayoral election, which was held on 13 September 2020, with a runoff held on 27 September. The results were as follows: ! rowspan=2 colspan=2| Candidate ! rowspan=2| Party ! colspan=2| First round ! colspan=2| Second round |- ! Votes ! % ! Votes ! % |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Ashok-Alexander Sridharan | align=left| Christian Democratic Union | 48,454 | 34.5 | 52,762 | 43.7 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Katja Dörner | align=left| Alliance 90/The Greens | 38,793 | 27.6 | 67,880 | 56.3 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Lissi von Bülow | align=left| Social Democratic Party | 28,389 | 20.2 |- | | align=left| Christoph Artur Manka | align=left| Citizens' League Bonn | 8,694 | 6.2 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Michael Faber | align=left| The Left | 7,032 | 5.0 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Werner Hümmrich | align=left| Free Democratic Party | 4,853 | 3.5 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Frank Rudolf Christian Findeiß | align=left| Die PARTEI | 2,873 | 2.0 |- | | align=left| Kaisa Ilunga | align=left| Alliance for Innovation and Justice | 1,507 | 1.1 |- ! colspan=3| Valid votes ! 140,595 ! 99.1 ! 120,642 ! 99.5 |- ! colspan=3| Invalid votes ! 1,219 ! 0.9 ! 627 ! 0.5 |- ! colspan=3| Total ! 141,814 ! 100.0 ! 121,269 ! 100.0 |- ! colspan=3| Electorate/voter turnout ! 249,091 ! 56.9 ! 249,098 ! 48.7 |- | colspan=7| Source: State Returning Officer |} City council The Bonn city council governs the city alongside the Mayor. It used to be based in the Rococo-style (old city hall), built in 1737, located adjacent to Bonn's central market square. However, due to the enlargement of Bonn in 1969 through the incorporation of Beuel and Bad Godesberg, it moved into the larger Stadthaus facilities further north. This was necessary for the city council to accommodate an increased number of representatives. The mayor of Bonn still sits in the , which is also used for representative and official purposes. The most recent city council election was held on 13 September 2020, and the results were as follows: ! colspan=2| Party ! Votes ! % ! +/- ! Seats ! +/- |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Alliance 90/The Greens (Grüne) | 39,311 | 27.9 | 9.2 | 19 | 3 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Christian Democratic Union (CDU) | 36,315 | 25.7 | 4.7 | 17 | 10 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Social Democratic Party (SPD) | 21,956 | 15.6 | 7.9 | 11 | 9 |- | | align=left| Citizens' League Bonn (BBB) | 9,948 | 7.1 | 2.0 | 5 | 1 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| The Left (Die Linke) | 8,745 | 6.2 | 0.0 | 4 | 1 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Free Democratic Party (FDP) | 7,268 | 5.2 | 3.0 | 3 | 4 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Volt Germany (Volt) | 7,148 | 5.1 | New | 3 | New |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Alternative for Germany (AfD) | 4,569 | 3.2 | 0.4 | 2 | 1 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Die PARTEI (PARTEI) | 3,095 | 2.2 | New | 1 | New |- | | align=left| Alliance for Innovation and Justice (BIG) | 1,775 | 1.3 | 0.2 | 1 | ±0 |- | colspan=7 bgcolor=lightgrey| |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Pirate Party Germany (Piraten) | 869 | 0.6 | 1.6 | 0 | 2 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Independents | 101 | 0.1 | – | 0 | – |- ! colspan=2| Valid votes ! 141,100 ! 99.3 ! ! ! |- ! colspan=2| Invalid votes ! 1,052 ! 0.7 ! ! ! |- ! colspan=2| Total ! 142,152 ! 100.0 ! ! 66 ! 20 |- ! colspan=2| Electorate/voter turnout ! 249,091 ! 57.1 ! 0.3 ! ! |- | colspan=7| Source: State Returning Officer |} Landtag election Four delegates represent the Federal city of Bonn in the Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia. The last election took place in May 2017. The current delegates are Guido Déus (CDU), Christos Katzidis (CDU), Joachim Stamp (FDP) and Franziska Müller-Rech (FDP). German federal election Bonn's constituency is called (096). In the German federal election 2017, Ulrich Kelber (SPD) was elected a member of German Federal parliament, the Bundestag by direct mandate. It is his fifth term. Katja Dörner representing Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and Alexander Graf Lambsdorff for FDP were elected as well. Kelber resigned in 2019 because he was appointed Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information. As Dörner was elected Lord Mayor of Bonn in September 2020, she resigned as a member of parliament after her entry into office. Culture Beethoven's birthplace is located in Bonngasse near the market place. Next to the market place is the Old City Hall, built in 1737 in Rococo style, under the rule of Clemens August of Bavaria. It is used for receptions of guests of the city, and as an office for the mayor. Nearby is the Kurfürstliches Schloss, built as a residence for the prince-elector and now the main building of the University of Bonn. The Poppelsdorfer Allee is an avenue flanked by Chestnut trees which had the first horsecar of the city. It connects the Kurfürstliches Schloss with the Poppelsdorfer Schloss, a palace that was built as a resort for the prince-electors in the first half of the 18th century, and whose grounds are now a botanical garden (the Botanischer Garten Bonn). This axis is interrupted by a railway line and Bonn Hauptbahnhof, a building erected in 1883/84. The Beethoven Monument stands on the Münsterplatz, which is flanked by the Bonn Minster, one of Germany's oldest churches. The three highest structures in the city are the WDR radio mast in Bonn-Venusberg (), the headquarters of the Deutsche Post called Post Tower () and the former building for the German members of parliament Langer Eugen () now the location of the UN Campus. Churches Bonn Minster Doppelkirche Schwarzrheindorf built in 1151 Old Cemetery Bonn (Alter Friedhof), one of the best known cemeteries in Germany Kreuzbergkirche, built in 1627 with Johann Balthasar Neumann's Heilige Stiege, it is a stairway for Christian pilgrims St. Remigius, where Beethoven was baptized Castles and residences Godesburg fortress ruins Modern buildings Beethovenhalle Bundesviertel (federal quarter) with many government structures including Post Tower, the tallest building in the state North Rhine-Westphalia, housing the headquarters of Deutsche Post/DHL Maritim Bonn, five-star hotel and convention centre Schürmann-Bau, headquarters of Deutsche Welle Langer Eugen, since 2006 the centre of the United Nations Campus, formerly housing the offices of the members of the German parliament Deutsche Telekom headquarters T-Mobile headquarters Kameha Grand, five-star hotel Museums Just as Bonn's other four major museums, the Haus der Geschichte or Museum of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany, is located on the so-called Museumsmeile ("Museum Mile"). The Haus der Geschichte is one of the foremost German museums of contemporary German history, with branches in Berlin and Leipzig. In its permanent exhibition, the Haus der Geschichte presents German history from 1945 until the present, also shedding light on Bonn's own role as former capital of West Germany. Numerous temporary exhibitions emphasize different features, such as Nazism or important personalities in German history. The Kunstmuseum Bonn or Bonn Museum of Modern Art is an art museum founded in 1947. The Kunstmuseum exhibits both temporary exhibitions and its permanent collection. The latter is focused on Rhenish Expressionism and post-war German art. German artists on display include Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Hanne Darboven, Anselm Kiefer, Blinky Palermo and Wolf Vostell. The museum owns one of the largest collections of artwork by Expressionist painter August Macke. His work is also on display in the August-Macke-Haus, located in Macke's former home where he lived from 1911 to 1914. The Bundeskunsthalle (full name: Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland or Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany), focuses on the crossroads of culture, arts, and science. To date, it attracted more than 17 million visitors. One of its main objectives is to show the cultural heritage outside of Germany or Europe. Next to its changing exhibitions, the Bundeskunsthalle regularly hosts concerts, discussion panels, congresses, and lectures. The Museum Koenig is Bonn's natural history museum. Affiliated with the University of Bonn, it is also a zoological research institution housing the Leibniz-Institut für Biodiversität der Tiere. Politically interesting, it is on the premises of the Museum Koenig where the Parlamentarischer Rat first met. The Deutsches Museum Bonn, affiliated with one of the world's foremost science museums, the Deutsches Museum in Munich, is an interactive science museum focusing on post-war German scientists, engineers, and inventions. Other museums include the Beethoven House, birthplace of Ludwig van Beethoven, the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn (Rhinish Regional Museum Bonn), the Bonn Women's Museum, the Rheinisches Malermuseum and the Arithmeum. Nature There are several parks, leisure and protected areas in and around Bonn. The is Bonn's most important leisure park, with its role being comparable to what Central Park is for New York City. It lies on the banks of the Rhine and is the city's biggest park intra muros. The Rhine promenade and the Alter Zoll (Old Toll Station) are in direct neighbourhood of the city centre and are popular amongst both residents and visitors. The Arboretum Park Härle is an arboretum with specimens dating to back to 1870. The Botanischer Garten (Botanical Garden) is affiliated with the university and it is here where Titan arum set a world record. The natural reserve of Kottenforst is a large area of protected woods on the hills west of the city centre. It is about in area and part of the Rhineland Nature Park (). In the very south of the city, on the border with Wachtberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, there is an extinct volcano, the Rodderberg, featuring a popular area for hikes. Also south of the city, there is the Siebengebirge which is part of the lower half of the Middle Rhine region. The nearby upper half of the Middle Rhine from Bingen to Koblenz is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with more than 40 castles and fortresses from the Middle Ages and important German vineyards. Transportation Air traffic Named after Konrad Adenauer, the first post-war Chancellor of West Germany, Cologne Bonn Airport is situated north-east from the

the legions stationed in Bonn, the "1st", i.e. the Prima Legio Minervia, seems to have served here the longest. Units of the Bonn legion were deployed to theatres of war ranging from modern-day Algeria to what is now the Russian republic of Chechnya. The chief Roman road linking the provincial capitals of Cologne and Mainz cut right through the fort where it joined the fort's main road (now, Römerstraße). Once past the South Gate, the Cologne–Mainz road continued along what are now streets named Belderberg, Adenauerallee et al. On both sides of the road, the local settlement, Bonna, grew into a sizeable Roman town. Bonn is shown on the 4th century Peutinger Map. In late antiquity, much of the town seems to have been destroyed by marauding invaders. The remaining civilian population then took refuge inside the fort along with the remnants of the troops stationed here. During the final decades of Imperial rule, the troops were supplied by Franci chieftains employed by the Roman administration. When the end came, these troops simply shifted their allegiances to the new barbarian rulers, the Kingdom of the Franks. From the fort, the Bonnburg, as well as from a new medieval settlement to the South centered around what later became the minster, grew the medieval city of Bonn. Local legends arose from this period that the name of the village came from Saint Boniface via Vulgar Latin *Bonnifatia, but this proved to be a myth. Middle Ages and Early Modern times Between the 11th and 13th centuries, the Romanesque style Bonn Minster was built, and in 1597 Bonn became the seat of the Archdiocese of Cologne. The city gained more influence and grew considerably. The city was subject to a major bombardment during the Siege of Bonn in 1689. The elector Clemens August (ruled 1723–1761) ordered the construction of a series of Baroque buildings which still give the city its character. Another memorable ruler was Max Franz (ruled 1784–1794), who founded the university and the spa quarter of Bad Godesberg. In addition he was a patron of the young Ludwig van Beethoven, who was born in Bonn in 1770; the elector financed the composer's first journey to Vienna. In 1794, the city was seized by French troops, becoming a part of the First French Empire. In 1815 following the Napoleonic Wars, Bonn became part of the Kingdom of Prussia. Administered within the Prussian Rhine Province, the city became part of the German Empire in 1871 during the Prussian-led unification of Germany. Bonn was of little relevance in these years. 20th century and the "Bonn Republic" During the Second World War, Bonn acquired military significance because of its strategic location on the Rhine, which formed a natural barrier to easy penetration into the German heartland from the west. The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Bonn on 7 March 1945, and the US 1st Infantry Division captured the city during the battle of 8–9 March 1945. After the Second World War, Bonn was in the British zone of occupation. Following the advocacy of West Germany's first chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, a former Cologne Mayor and a native of that area, Bonn became the de facto capital, officially designated the "temporary seat of the Federal institutions," of the newly formed Federal Republic of Germany in 1949. However, the Bundestag, seated in Bonn's Bundeshaus, affirmed Berlin's status as the German capital. Bonn was chosen as the provisional capital and seat of government despite the fact that Frankfurt already had most of the required facilities and using Bonn was estimated to be 95 million DM more expensive than using Frankfurt. Bonn was chosen because Adenauer and other prominent politicians intended to make Berlin the capital of the reunified Germany, and felt that locating the capital in a major city like Frankfurt or Hamburg would imply a permanent capital and weaken support in West Germany for reunification. In 1949, the Parliamentary Council in Bonn drafted and adopted the current German constitution, the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany. As the political centre of West Germany, Bonn saw six Chancellors and six Presidents of the Federal Republic of Germany. Bonn's time as the capital of West Germany is commonly referred to as the Bonn Republic, in contrast to the Berlin Republic which followed reunification in 1990. Bonn in the "Berlin Republic" German reunification in 1990 made Berlin the nominal capital of Germany again. This decision, however, did not mandate that the republic's political institutions would also move. While some argued for the seat of government to move to Berlin, others advocated leaving it in Bonn – a situation roughly analogous to that of the Netherlands, where Amsterdam is the capital but The Hague is the seat of government. Berlin's previous history as united Germany's capital was strongly connected with the German Empire, the Weimar Republic and more ominously with Nazi Germany. It was felt that a new peacefully united Germany should not be governed from a city connected to such overtones of war. Additionally, Bonn was closer to Brussels, headquarters of the European Economic Community. Former West German chancellor and mayor of West Berlin Willy Brandt caused considerable offence to the Western Allies during the debate by stating that France would not have kept the seat of government at Vichy after Liberation. The heated debate that resulted was settled by the Bundestag (Germany's parliament) only on 20 June 1991. By a vote of 338–320, the Bundestag voted to move the seat of government to Berlin. The vote broke largely along regional lines, with legislators from the south and west favouring Bonn and legislators from the north and east voting for Berlin. It also broke along generational lines as well; older legislators with memories of Berlin's past glory favoured Berlin, while younger legislators favoured Bonn. Ultimately, the votes of the eastern German legislators tipped the balance in favour of Berlin. From 1990 to 1999, Bonn served as the seat of government of reunited Germany. In recognition of its former status as German capital, it holds the name of Federal City (). Bonn currently shares the status of Germany's seat of government with Berlin, with the President, the Chancellor and many government ministries (such as Food & Agriculture and Defence) maintaining large presences in Bonn. Over 8,000 of the 18,000 federal officials remain in Bonn. A total of 19 United Nations (UN) institutions operate from Bonn today. Politics Mayor The current Mayor of Bonn is Katja Dörner of Alliance 90/The Greens since 2020. She defeated incumbent mayor Ashok-Alexander Sridharan in the most recent mayoral election, which was held on 13 September 2020, with a runoff held on 27 September. The results were as follows: ! rowspan=2 colspan=2| Candidate ! rowspan=2| Party ! colspan=2| First round ! colspan=2| Second round |- ! Votes ! % ! Votes ! % |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Ashok-Alexander Sridharan | align=left| Christian Democratic Union | 48,454 | 34.5 | 52,762 | 43.7 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Katja Dörner | align=left| Alliance 90/The Greens | 38,793 | 27.6 | 67,880 | 56.3 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Lissi von Bülow | align=left| Social Democratic Party | 28,389 | 20.2 |- | | align=left| Christoph Artur Manka | align=left| Citizens' League Bonn | 8,694 | 6.2 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Michael Faber | align=left| The Left | 7,032 | 5.0 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Werner Hümmrich | align=left| Free Democratic Party | 4,853 | 3.5 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Frank Rudolf Christian Findeiß | align=left| Die PARTEI | 2,873 | 2.0 |- | | align=left| Kaisa Ilunga | align=left| Alliance for Innovation and Justice | 1,507 | 1.1 |- ! colspan=3| Valid votes ! 140,595 ! 99.1 ! 120,642 ! 99.5 |- ! colspan=3| Invalid votes ! 1,219 ! 0.9 ! 627 ! 0.5 |- ! colspan=3| Total ! 141,814 ! 100.0 ! 121,269 ! 100.0 |- ! colspan=3| Electorate/voter turnout ! 249,091 ! 56.9 ! 249,098 ! 48.7 |- | colspan=7| Source: State Returning Officer |} City council The Bonn city council governs the city alongside the Mayor. It used to be based in the Rococo-style (old city hall), built in 1737, located adjacent to Bonn's central market square. However, due to the enlargement of Bonn in 1969 through the incorporation of Beuel and Bad Godesberg, it moved into the larger Stadthaus facilities further north. This was necessary for the city council to accommodate an increased number of representatives. The mayor of Bonn still sits in the , which is also used for representative and official purposes. The most recent city council election was held on 13 September 2020, and the results were as follows: ! colspan=2| Party ! Votes ! % ! +/- ! Seats ! +/- |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Alliance 90/The Greens (Grüne) | 39,311 | 27.9 | 9.2 | 19 | 3 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Christian Democratic Union (CDU) | 36,315 | 25.7 | 4.7 | 17 | 10 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Social Democratic Party (SPD) | 21,956 | 15.6 | 7.9 | 11 | 9 |- | | align=left| Citizens' League Bonn (BBB) | 9,948 | 7.1 | 2.0 | 5 | 1 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| The Left (Die Linke) | 8,745 | 6.2 | 0.0 | 4 | 1 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Free Democratic Party (FDP) | 7,268 | 5.2 | 3.0 | 3 | 4 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Volt Germany (Volt) | 7,148 | 5.1 | New | 3 | New |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Alternative for Germany (AfD) | 4,569 | 3.2 | 0.4 | 2 | 1 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Die PARTEI (PARTEI) | 3,095 | 2.2 | New | 1 | New |- | | align=left| Alliance for Innovation and Justice (BIG) | 1,775 | 1.3 | 0.2 | 1 | ±0 |- | colspan=7 bgcolor=lightgrey| |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Pirate Party Germany (Piraten) | 869 | 0.6 | 1.6 | 0 | 2 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Independents | 101 | 0.1 | – | 0 | – |- ! colspan=2| Valid votes ! 141,100 ! 99.3 ! ! ! |- ! colspan=2| Invalid votes ! 1,052 ! 0.7 ! ! ! |- ! colspan=2| Total ! 142,152 ! 100.0 ! ! 66 ! 20 |- ! colspan=2| Electorate/voter turnout ! 249,091 ! 57.1 ! 0.3 ! ! |- | colspan=7| Source: State Returning Officer |} Landtag election Four delegates represent the Federal city of Bonn in the Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia. The last election took place in May 2017. The current delegates are Guido Déus (CDU), Christos Katzidis (CDU), Joachim Stamp (FDP) and Franziska Müller-Rech (FDP). German federal election Bonn's constituency is called (096). In the German federal election 2017, Ulrich Kelber (SPD) was elected a member of German Federal parliament, the Bundestag by direct mandate. It is his fifth term. Katja Dörner representing Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and Alexander Graf Lambsdorff for FDP were elected as well. Kelber resigned in 2019 because he was appointed Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information. As Dörner was elected Lord Mayor of Bonn in September 2020, she resigned as a member of parliament after her entry into office. Culture Beethoven's birthplace is located in Bonngasse near the market place. Next to the market place is the Old City Hall, built in 1737 in Rococo style, under the rule of Clemens August of Bavaria. It is used for receptions of guests of the city, and as an office for the mayor. Nearby is the Kurfürstliches Schloss, built as a residence for the prince-elector and now the main building of the University of Bonn. The Poppelsdorfer Allee is an avenue flanked by Chestnut trees which had the first horsecar of the city. It connects the Kurfürstliches Schloss with the Poppelsdorfer Schloss, a palace that was built as a resort for the prince-electors in the first half of the 18th century, and whose grounds are now a botanical garden (the Botanischer Garten Bonn). This axis is interrupted by a railway line and Bonn Hauptbahnhof, a building erected in 1883/84. The Beethoven Monument stands on the Münsterplatz, which is flanked by the Bonn Minster, one of Germany's oldest churches. The three highest structures in the city are the WDR radio mast in Bonn-Venusberg (), the headquarters of the Deutsche Post called Post Tower () and the former building for the German members of parliament Langer Eugen () now the location of the UN Campus. Churches Bonn Minster Doppelkirche Schwarzrheindorf built in 1151 Old Cemetery Bonn (Alter Friedhof), one of the best known cemeteries in Germany Kreuzbergkirche, built in 1627 with Johann Balthasar Neumann's Heilige Stiege, it is a stairway for Christian pilgrims St. Remigius, where Beethoven was baptized Castles and residences Godesburg fortress ruins Modern buildings Beethovenhalle Bundesviertel (federal quarter) with many government structures including Post Tower, the tallest building in the state North Rhine-Westphalia, housing the headquarters of Deutsche Post/DHL Maritim Bonn, five-star hotel and convention centre Schürmann-Bau, headquarters of Deutsche Welle Langer Eugen, since 2006 the centre of the United Nations Campus, formerly housing the offices of the members of the German parliament Deutsche Telekom headquarters T-Mobile headquarters Kameha Grand, five-star hotel Museums Just as Bonn's other four major museums, the Haus der Geschichte or Museum of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany, is located on the so-called Museumsmeile ("Museum Mile"). The Haus der Geschichte is one of the foremost German museums of contemporary German history, with branches in Berlin and Leipzig. In its permanent exhibition, the Haus der Geschichte presents German history from 1945 until the present, also shedding light on Bonn's own role as former capital of West Germany. Numerous temporary exhibitions emphasize different features, such as Nazism or important personalities in German history. The Kunstmuseum Bonn or Bonn Museum of Modern Art is an art museum founded in 1947. The Kunstmuseum exhibits both temporary exhibitions and its permanent collection. The latter is focused on Rhenish Expressionism and post-war German art. German artists on display include Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Hanne Darboven, Anselm Kiefer, Blinky Palermo and Wolf Vostell. The museum owns one of the largest collections of artwork by Expressionist painter August Macke. His work is also on display in the August-Macke-Haus, located in Macke's former home where he lived from 1911 to 1914. The Bundeskunsthalle (full name: Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland or Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany), focuses on the crossroads of culture, arts, and science. To date, it attracted more than 17 million visitors. One of its main objectives is to show the cultural heritage outside of Germany or Europe. Next to its changing exhibitions, the Bundeskunsthalle regularly hosts concerts, discussion panels, congresses, and lectures. The Museum Koenig is Bonn's natural history museum. Affiliated with the University of Bonn, it is also a zoological research institution housing the Leibniz-Institut für Biodiversität der Tiere. Politically interesting, it is on the premises of the Museum Koenig where the Parlamentarischer Rat first met. The Deutsches Museum Bonn, affiliated with one of the world's foremost science museums, the Deutsches Museum in Munich, is an interactive science museum focusing on post-war German scientists, engineers, and inventions. Other museums include the Beethoven House, birthplace of Ludwig van Beethoven, the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn (Rhinish Regional Museum Bonn), the Bonn Women's Museum, the Rheinisches Malermuseum and the Arithmeum. Nature There are several parks, leisure and protected areas in and around Bonn. The is Bonn's most important leisure park, with its role being comparable to what Central Park is for New York City. It lies on the banks of the Rhine and is the city's biggest park intra muros. The Rhine promenade and the Alter Zoll (Old Toll Station) are in direct neighbourhood of the city centre and are popular amongst both residents and visitors. The Arboretum Park Härle is an arboretum with specimens dating to back to 1870. The Botanischer Garten (Botanical Garden) is affiliated with the university and it is here where Titan arum set a world record. The natural reserve of Kottenforst is a large area of protected woods on the hills west of the city centre. It is about in area and part of the Rhineland Nature Park (). In the very south of the city, on the border with Wachtberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, there is an extinct volcano, the Rodderberg, featuring a popular area for hikes. Also south of the city, there is the Siebengebirge which is part of the lower half of the Middle Rhine region. The nearby upper half of the Middle Rhine from Bingen to Koblenz is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with more than 40 castles and fortresses from the Middle Ages and important German vineyards. Transportation Air traffic Named after Konrad Adenauer, the first post-war Chancellor of West Germany, Cologne Bonn Airport is situated north-east from the city centre of Bonn. With around 10.3 million passengers passing through it in 2015, it is the seventh-largest passenger airport in Germany and the third-largest in terms of cargo operations. By traffic units, which combines cargo and passengers, the airport is in fifth position in Germany. As of March 2015, Cologne Bonn Airport had services to 115 passenger destinations in 35 countries. The airport is one of Germany's few 24-hour airports, and is a hub for Eurowings and cargo operators FedEx Express and UPS Airlines. The federal motorway (Autobahn) A59 connects the airport with the city. Long distance and regional trains to and from the airport stop at Cologne/Bonn Airport station. Another major airport within a one-hour drive by car is Düsseldorf International Airport. Rail and bus system Bonn's central railway station, Bonn Hauptbahnhof is the city's main public transportation hub. It lies just outside the old town and near the central university buildings. It is served by regional (S-Bahn and Regionalbahn) and long-distance (IC and ICE) trains. Daily, more than 67,000 people travel via Bonn Hauptbahnhof. In late 2016, around 80 long distance and more than 165 regional trains departed to or from Bonn every day. Another long-distance

such as jazz. Since dance is to a large extent tied to music, this led to a burst of newly invented dances. There were many dance crazes in the period 1910–1930. The third event was a concerted effort to transform some of the dance crazes into dances which could be taught to a wider dance public in the U.S. and Europe. Here Vernon and Irene Castle were important, and so was a generation of English dancers in the 1920s, including Josephine Bradley and Victor Silvester. These professionals analysed, codified, published, and taught a number of standard dances. It was essential, if popular dance was to flourish, for dancers to have some basic movements they could confidently perform with any partner they might meet. Here the huge Arthur Murray organisation in America, and the dance societies in England, such as the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing, were highly influential. Finally, much of this happened during and after a period of World War, and the effect of such a conflict in dissolving older social customs was considerable. Later, in the 1930s, the on-screen dance pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers influenced all forms of dance in the U.S. and elsewhere. Although both actors had separate careers, their filmed dance sequences together, which included portrayals of the Castles, have reached iconic status. Much of Astaire and Rogers' work portrayed social dancing, although the performances were highly choreographed (often by Astaire or Hermes Pan) and meticulously staged and rehearsed. Competitive dancing Competitions, sometimes referred to as dancesport, range from world championships, regulated by the World Dance Council (WDC), to less advanced dancers at various proficiency levels. Most competitions are divided into professional and amateur, though in the USA pro-am competitions typically accompany professional competitions. The International Olympic Committee now recognizes competitive ballroom dance. It has recognized another body, the World DanceSport Federation (WDSF), as the sole representative body for dancesport in the Olympic Games. However, it seems doubtful that dance will be included in the Olympic Games, especially in light of efforts to reduce the number of participating sports. Ballroom dance competitions are regulated by each country in its own way. There are about 30 countries which compete regularly in international competitions. There are another 20 or so countries which have membership of the WDC and/or the WDSF, but whose dancers rarely appear in international competitions. In Britain there is the British Dance Council, which grants national and regional championship titles, such as the British Ballroom Championships, the British Sequence Championships and the United Kingdom Championships. In the United States, the member branches of the WDC (National Dance Council of America) and the WDSF (USA Dance) both grant national and regional championship titles. Ballroom dancing competitions in the former USSR also included the Soviet Ballroom dances, or Soviet Programme. Australian New Vogue is danced both competitively and socially. In competition, there are 15 recognized New Vogue dances, which are performed by the competitors in sequence. These dance forms are not recognized internationally, neither are the US variations such as American Smooth, and Rhythm. Such variations in dance and competition methods are attempts to meets perceived needs in the local market-place. Internationally, the Blackpool Dance Festival, hosted annually at Blackpool, England is considered the most prestigious event a dancesport competitor can attend. Formation dance is another style of competitive dance recognized by the WDSF. In this style, multiple dancers (usually in couples and typically up to 16 dancers at one time) compete on the same team, moving in and out of various formations while dancing. The Blackpool Dance Festival also holds an annual event for competitive formation dancing. Elements of competition In competitive ballroom, dancers are judged by diverse criteria such as poise, the hold or frame, posture, musicality and expression, timing, body alignment and shape, floor craft, foot and leg action, and presentation. Judging in a performance-oriented sport is inevitably subjective in nature, and controversy and complaints by competitors over judging placements are not uncommon. The scorekeepers—called scrutineers—will tally the total number recalls accumulated by each couple through each round until the finals when the Skating system is used to place each couple by ordinals, typically 1–6, though the number of couples in the final may vary. Sometimes, up to 8 couples may be present on the floor during the finals. Competitors dance at different levels based on their ability and experience. The levels are split into two categories, syllabus and open. The syllabus levels are newcomer/pre-bronze, bronze, silver, and gold—with gold the highest syllabus level and newcomer the lowest. In these levels, moves are restricted to those written in a syllabus, and illegal moves can lead to disqualification. Each level, bronze, silver, and gold, has different moves on their syllabus, increasing in difficulty. There are three levels in the open category; novice, pre-champ, and champ in increasing order of skill. At those levels, dancers no longer have restrictions on their moves, so complex routines are more common. Medal evaluations Medal evaluations for amateurs enable dancers' individual abilities to be recognized according to conventional standards. In medal evaluations, which are run by bodies such as the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD) and the United Kingdom Alliance (UKA), each dancer performs two or more dances in a certain genre in front of a judge. Genres such as Modern Ballroom or Latin are the most popular. Societies such as the ISTD and UKA also offer medal tests on other dance styles (such as Country & Western, Rock 'n Roll or Tap). In some North American examinations, levels include Newcomer, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Novice, Pre-championship, and Championship; each level may be further subdivided into either two or four separate sections. Collegiate ballroom There is a part of the ballroom world dedicated to college students. These chapters are typically clubs or teams that have an interest in ballroom dancing. Teams hold fundraisers, social events, and ballroom dance lessons. Ballroom dance teams' goals are to have fun and learn to dance well. There is a strong focus on finding a compatible dance partner and bonding with teammates. There is also a competitive side to collegiate ballroom - collegiate teams often hold competitions and invite other teams to participate. These competitions are often run with many of the same rules are regular amateur competitions as outlined above, but are usually organized entirely by collegiate teams. Examples include the MIT Open Ballroom Dance Competition, Big Apple Dancesport Challenge, Purdue Ballroom Classic, Cardinal Classic, Berkeley Classic, and Harvard Invitational. Dances "Ballroom dance" refers most often to the ten dances of Standard and Latin, though the term is also often used interchangeably with the five International Ballroom dances. Sequence dancing, which is danced predominantly in the United Kingdom, and its development New Vogue in Australia and New Zealand, are also sometimes included as a type of Ballroom dancing. In the United States and Canada, the American Style (American Smooth and American Rhythm) also exists. The dance technique used for both International and American styles is similar, but International Ballroom allows only closed dance positions, whereas American Smooth allows closed, open and separated dance movements. In addition, different sets of dance figures are usually taught for the two styles. International Latin and American Rhythm have different styling, and have different dance figures in their respective syllabi. Other dances sometimes placed under the umbrella "ballroom dance" include nightclub dances such as Lindy Hop, West Coast swing, nightclub two step, hustle, salsa, and merengue. The categorization of dances as "ballroom dances" has always been fluid, with new dances or folk dances being added to or removed from the ballroom repertoire from time to time, so no list of subcategories or dances is any more than a description of current practices. There are other dances historically accepted as ballroom dances, and are revived via the vintage dance movement. In Europe, Latin Swing dances include Argentine tango, mambo, Lindy Hop, swing boogie (sometimes also known as nostalgic boogie), and discofox. One example of this is the subcategory of cajun dances that originated in Acadiana, with branches reaching both coasts of the United States. Standard/Smooth dances are normally danced to Western music (often from the mid-twentieth century), and couples dance counter-clockwise around a rectangular floor following the line of dance. In competitions, competitors are costumed as would be appropriate for a white tie affair, with full gowns for the ladies and bow tie and tail coats for the men; though in American Smooth it is now conventional for the men to abandon the tailsuit in favor of shorter tuxedos, vests, and other creative outfits. Latin/Rhythm dances are commonly danced to contemporary Latin American music and (in case of jive) Western music. With the exception of a few traveling dances like samba and pasodoble, couples do not follow the line of dance but perform their routines more or less in one spot. In competitions, the women are often dressed in short-skirted Latin outfits while the men are outfitted in tight-fitting shirts and pants, the goal being to emphasize the dancers' leg action and body movements. Competitive dances Standard/Smooth Waltz Waltz began as a country folk dance in Austria and Bavaria in the 17th century. In the early 19th century it was introduced in England. It was the first dance where a

referred to as dancesport, range from world championships, regulated by the World Dance Council (WDC), to less advanced dancers at various proficiency levels. Most competitions are divided into professional and amateur, though in the USA pro-am competitions typically accompany professional competitions. The International Olympic Committee now recognizes competitive ballroom dance. It has recognized another body, the World DanceSport Federation (WDSF), as the sole representative body for dancesport in the Olympic Games. However, it seems doubtful that dance will be included in the Olympic Games, especially in light of efforts to reduce the number of participating sports. Ballroom dance competitions are regulated by each country in its own way. There are about 30 countries which compete regularly in international competitions. There are another 20 or so countries which have membership of the WDC and/or the WDSF, but whose dancers rarely appear in international competitions. In Britain there is the British Dance Council, which grants national and regional championship titles, such as the British Ballroom Championships, the British Sequence Championships and the United Kingdom Championships. In the United States, the member branches of the WDC (National Dance Council of America) and the WDSF (USA Dance) both grant national and regional championship titles. Ballroom dancing competitions in the former USSR also included the Soviet Ballroom dances, or Soviet Programme. Australian New Vogue is danced both competitively and socially. In competition, there are 15 recognized New Vogue dances, which are performed by the competitors in sequence. These dance forms are not recognized internationally, neither are the US variations such as American Smooth, and Rhythm. Such variations in dance and competition methods are attempts to meets perceived needs in the local market-place. Internationally, the Blackpool Dance Festival, hosted annually at Blackpool, England is considered the most prestigious event a dancesport competitor can attend. Formation dance is another style of competitive dance recognized by the WDSF. In this style, multiple dancers (usually in couples and typically up to 16 dancers at one time) compete on the same team, moving in and out of various formations while dancing. The Blackpool Dance Festival also holds an annual event for competitive formation dancing. Elements of competition In competitive ballroom, dancers are judged by diverse criteria such as poise, the hold or frame, posture, musicality and expression, timing, body alignment and shape, floor craft, foot and leg action, and presentation. Judging in a performance-oriented sport is inevitably subjective in nature, and controversy and complaints by competitors over judging placements are not uncommon. The scorekeepers—called scrutineers—will tally the total number recalls accumulated by each couple through each round until the finals when the Skating system is used to place each couple by ordinals, typically 1–6, though the number of couples in the final may vary. Sometimes, up to 8 couples may be present on the floor during the finals. Competitors dance at different levels based on their ability and experience. The levels are split into two categories, syllabus and open. The syllabus levels are newcomer/pre-bronze, bronze, silver, and gold—with gold the highest syllabus level and newcomer the lowest. In these levels, moves are restricted to those written in a syllabus, and illegal moves can lead to disqualification. Each level, bronze, silver, and gold, has different moves on their syllabus, increasing in difficulty. There are three levels in the open category; novice, pre-champ, and champ in increasing order of skill. At those levels, dancers no longer have restrictions on their moves, so complex routines are more common. Medal evaluations Medal evaluations for amateurs enable dancers' individual abilities to be recognized according to conventional standards. In medal evaluations, which are run by bodies such as the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD) and the United Kingdom Alliance (UKA), each dancer performs two or more dances in a certain genre in front of a judge. Genres such as Modern Ballroom or Latin are the most popular. Societies such as the ISTD and UKA also offer medal tests on other dance styles (such as Country & Western, Rock 'n Roll or Tap). In some North American examinations, levels include Newcomer, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Novice, Pre-championship, and Championship; each level may be further subdivided into either two or four separate sections. Collegiate ballroom There is a part of the ballroom world dedicated to college students. These chapters are typically clubs or teams that have an interest in ballroom dancing. Teams hold fundraisers, social events, and ballroom dance lessons. Ballroom dance teams' goals are to have fun and learn to dance well. There is a strong focus on finding a compatible dance partner and bonding with teammates. There is also a competitive side to collegiate ballroom - collegiate teams often hold competitions and invite other teams to participate. These competitions are often run with many of the same rules are regular amateur competitions as outlined above, but are usually organized entirely by collegiate teams. Examples include the MIT Open Ballroom Dance Competition, Big Apple Dancesport Challenge, Purdue Ballroom Classic, Cardinal Classic, Berkeley Classic, and Harvard Invitational. Dances "Ballroom dance" refers most often to the ten dances of Standard and Latin, though the term is also often used interchangeably with the five International Ballroom dances. Sequence dancing, which is danced predominantly in the United Kingdom, and its development New Vogue in Australia and New Zealand, are also sometimes included as a type of Ballroom dancing. In the United States and Canada, the American Style (American Smooth and American Rhythm) also exists. The dance technique used for both International and American styles is similar, but International Ballroom allows only closed dance positions, whereas American Smooth allows closed, open and separated dance movements. In addition, different sets of dance figures are usually taught for the two styles. International Latin and American Rhythm have different styling, and have different dance figures in their respective syllabi. Other dances sometimes placed under the umbrella "ballroom dance" include nightclub dances such as Lindy Hop, West Coast swing, nightclub two step, hustle, salsa, and merengue. The categorization of dances as "ballroom dances" has always been fluid, with new dances or folk dances being added to or removed from the ballroom repertoire from time to time, so no list of subcategories or dances is any more than a description of current practices. There are other dances historically accepted as ballroom dances, and are revived via the vintage dance movement. In Europe, Latin Swing dances include Argentine tango, mambo, Lindy Hop, swing boogie (sometimes also known as nostalgic boogie), and discofox. One example of this is the subcategory of cajun dances that originated in Acadiana, with branches reaching both coasts of the United States. Standard/Smooth dances are normally danced to Western music (often from the mid-twentieth century), and couples dance counter-clockwise around a rectangular floor following the line of dance. In competitions, competitors are costumed as would be appropriate for a white tie affair, with full gowns for the ladies and bow tie and tail coats for the men; though in American Smooth it is now conventional for the men to abandon the tailsuit in favor of shorter tuxedos, vests, and other creative outfits. Latin/Rhythm dances are commonly danced to contemporary Latin American music and (in case of jive) Western music. With the exception of a few traveling dances like samba and pasodoble, couples do not follow the line of dance but perform their routines more or less in one spot. In competitions, the women are often dressed in short-skirted Latin outfits while the men are outfitted in tight-fitting shirts and pants, the goal being to emphasize the dancers' leg action and body movements. Competitive dances Standard/Smooth Waltz Waltz began as a country folk dance in Austria and Bavaria in the 17th century. In the early

and is followed by Gus, a freedman and soldier who is now a captain. He confronts Flora and tells her that he desires to get married. Uninterested, she rejects him, but Gus refuses to accept the rejection. Frightened, she flees into the forest, pursued by Gus. Trapped on a precipice, Flora warns Gus she will jump if he comes any closer. When he does, she leaps to her death. Having run through the forest looking for her, Ben has seen her jump; he holds her as she dies, then carries her body back to the Cameron home. In response, the Klan hunts down Gus, tries him, finds him guilty, and lynches him. Lynch then orders a crackdown on the Klan after discovering Gus's murder. He also secures the passing of legislation allowing mixed-race marriages. Dr. Cameron is arrested for possessing Ben's Klan regalia, now considered a capital crime. He is rescued by Phil Stoneman and a few of his black servants. Together with Margaret Cameron, they flee. When their wagon breaks down, they make their way through the woods to a small hut that is home to two sympathetic former Union soldiers who agree to hide them. An intertitle states, "The former enemies of North and South are united again in common defense of their Aryan birthright." Congressman Stoneman leaves to avoid being connected with Lt. Gov. Lynch's crackdown. Elsie, learning of Dr. Cameron's arrest, goes to Lynch to plead for his release. Lynch, who had been lusting after Elsie, tries to force her to marry him, which causes her to faint. Stoneman returns, causing Elsie to be placed in another room. At first Stoneman is happy when Lynch tells him he wants to marry a white woman, but he is then angered when Lynch tells him that it is Stoneman's daughter. Undercover Klansman spies go to get help when they discover Elsie's plight after she breaks a window and cries out for help. Elsie falls unconscious again and revives while gagged and being bound. The Klan gathered together, with Ben leading them, ride in to gain control of the town. When news about Elsie reaches Ben, he and others go to her rescue. Elsie frees her mouth and screams for help. Lynch is captured. Victorious, the Klansmen celebrate in the streets. Meanwhile, Lynch's militia surrounds and attacks the hut where the Camerons are hiding. The Klansmen, with Ben at their head, race in to save them just in time. The next election day, blacks find a line of mounted and armed Klansmen just outside their homes and are intimidated into not voting. The film concludes with a double wedding as Margaret Cameron marries Phil Stoneman and Elsie Stoneman marries Ben Cameron. The masses are shown oppressed by a giant warlike figure who gradually fades away. The scene shifts to another group finding peace under the image of Jesus Christ. The penultimate title is: "Dare we dream of a golden day when the bestial War shall rule no more. But instead—the gentle Prince in the Hall of Brotherly Love in the City of Peace." Cast Credited Lillian Gish as Elsie Stoneman Mae Marsh as Flora Cameron, the pet sister Henry B. Walthall as Colonel Benjamin Cameron ("The Little Colonel") Miriam Cooper as Margaret Cameron, elder sister Mary Alden as Lydia Brown, Stoneman's housekeeper Ralph Lewis as Austin Stoneman, Leader of the House George Siegmann as Silas Lynch Walter Long as Gus, the renegade Wallace Reid as Jeff, the blacksmith Joseph Henabery as Abraham Lincoln Elmer Clifton as Phil Stoneman, elder son Robert Harron as Tod Stoneman Josephine Crowell as Mrs. Cameron Spottiswoode Aitken as Dr. Cameron George Beranger as Wade Cameron, second son Maxfield Stanley as Duke Cameron, youngest son Jennie Lee as Mammy, the faithful servant Donald Crisp as General Ulysses S. Grant Howard Gaye as General Robert E. Lee Uncredited Harry Braham as Cameron's faithful servant Edmund Burns as Klansman David Butler as Union soldier / Confederate soldier William Freeman as Jake, a mooning sentry at Federal hospital Sam De Grasse as Senator Charles Sumner Olga Grey as Laura Keene Russell Hicks Elmo Lincoln as ginmill owner / slave auctioneer Eugene Pallette as Union soldier Harry Braham as Jake / Nelse Charles Stevens as volunteer Madame Sul-Te-Wan as woman with gypsy shawl Raoul Walsh as John Wilkes Booth Lenore Cooper as Elsie's maid Violet Wilkey as young Flora Tom Wilson as Stoneman's servant Donna Montran as belles of 1861 Alberta Lee as Mrs. Mary Todd Lincoln Allan Sears as Klansmen Vester Pegg Alma Rubens Mary Wynn Jules White Monte Blue Gibson Gowland Fred Burns Charles King Production 1911 version There was an uncompleted, now lost, 1911 version, titled The Clansman. It used Kinemacolor and a new sound process; one reason for this version's failure is the unwillingness of theater owners to purchase the equipment to show it. The director was William F. Haddock, and the producer was George Brennan. Some scenes were filmed on the porches and lawns of Homewood Plantation, in Natchez, Mississippi. One and a half reels were completed. Kinemacolor received a settlement from the producers of Birth when they proved that they had an earlier right to film the work. The footage was shown to the trade in an attempt to arouse interest. Early movie critic Frank E. Woods attended; Griffith always credited Woods with bringing The Clansman to his attention. Development After the failure of the Kinemacolor project, in which Dixon was willing to invest his own money, he began visiting other studios to see if they were interested. In late 1913, Dixon met the film producer Harry Aitken, who was interested in making a film out of The Clansman; through Aitken, Dixon met Griffith. Like Dixon, Griffith was a Southerner, a fact that Dixon points out; Griffith's father served as a colonel in the Confederate States Army and, like Dixon, viewed Reconstruction negatively. Griffith believed that a passage from The Clansman where Klansmen ride "to the rescue of persecuted white Southerners" could be adapted into a great cinematic sequence. Griffith first announced his intent to adapt Dixon's play to Gish and Walthall after filming Home, Sweet Home in 1914. Birth of a Nation "follows The Clansman [the play] nearly scene by scene". While some sources also credit The Leopard's Spots as source material, Russell Merritt attributes this to "the original 1915 playbills and program for Birth which, eager to flaunt the film's literary pedigree, cited both The Clansman and The Leopard's Spots as sources." According to Karen Crowe, "[t]here is not a single event, word, character, or circumstance taken from The Leopard's Spots.... Any likenesses between the film and The Leopard's Spots occur because some similar scenes, circumstances, and characters appear in both books." Griffith agreed to pay Thomas Dixon $10,000 (equivalent to $ in ) for the rights to his play The Clansman. Since he ran out of money and could afford only $2,500 of the original option, Griffith offered Dixon 25 percent interest in the picture. Dixon reluctantly agreed, and the unprecedented success of the film made him rich. Dixon's proceeds were the largest sum any author had received [up to 2007] for a motion picture story and amounted to several million dollars. The American historian John Hope Franklin suggested that many aspects of the script for The Birth of a Nation appeared to reflect Dixon's concerns more than Griffith's, as Dixon had an obsession in his novels of describing in loving detail the lynchings of black men, which did not reflect Griffith's interests. Filming Griffith began filming on July 4, 1914 and was finished by October 1914. Some filming took place in Big Bear Lake, California. D. W. Griffith took over the Hollywood studio of Kinemacolor. West Point engineers provided technical advice on the American Civil War battle scenes, providing Griffith with the artillery used in the film. Much of the filming was done on the Griffith Ranch in San Fernando Valley, with the Petersburg scenes being shot at what is today Forest Lawn Memorial Park and other scenes being shot in Whittier and Ojai Valley. The film's war scenes were influenced after Robert Underwood Johnson's book Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War, The Soldier in Our Civil War, and Mathew Brady's photography. Many of the African Americans in the film were portrayed by white actors in blackface. Griffith initially claimed this was deliberate, stating "on careful weighing of every detail concerned, the decision was to have no black blood among the principals; it was only in the legislative scene that Negroes were used, and then only as 'extra people.'" However black extras who had been housed in segregated quarters, including Griffith's acquaintance and frequent collaborator Madame Sul-Te-Wan, can be seen in many other shots of the film. Griffith's budget started at US$40,000 (equivalent to $ in ) but rose to over $100,000 (equivalent to $ in ). By the time he finished filming, Griffith shot approximately 150,000 feet of footage (or about 36 hours worth of film), which he edited down to 13,000 feet (just over 3 hours). The film was edited after early screenings in reaction to audience reception, and existing prints of the film are missing footage from the standard version of the film. Evidence exists that the film originally included scenes of white slave traders seizing blacks from West Africa and detaining them aboard a slave ship, Southern congressmen in the House of Representatives, Northerners reacting to the results of the 1860 presidential election, the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, a Union League meeting, depictions of martial law in South Carolina, and a battle sequence. In addition, several scenes were cut at the insistence of New York Mayor John Purroy Mitchel due to their highly racist content before its release in New York City, including a female abolitionist activist recoiling from the body odor of a black boy, black men seizing white women on the streets of Piedmont, and deportations of blacks with the title "Lincoln's Solution." It was also long rumored, including by Griffith's biographer Seymour Stern, that the original film included a rape scene between Gus and Flora before her suicide, but in 1974 the cinematographer Karl Brown denied that such a scene had been filmed. Score Although The Birth of a Nation is commonly regarded as a landmark for its dramatic and visual innovations, its use of music was arguably no less revolutionary. Though film was still silent at the time, it was common practice to distribute musical cue sheets, or less commonly, full scores (usually for organ or piano accompaniment) along with each print of a film. For The Birth of a Nation, composer Joseph Carl Breil created a three-hour-long musical score that combined all three types of music in use at the time: adaptations of existing works by classical composers, new arrangements of well-known melodies, and original composed music. Though it had been specifically composed for the film, Breil's score was not used for the Los Angeles première of the film at Clune's Auditorium; rather, a score compiled by Carli Elinor was performed in its stead, and this score was used exclusively in West Coast showings. Breil's score was not used until the film debuted in New York at the Liberty Theatre but it was the score featured in all showings save those on the West Coast. Outside of original compositions, Breil adapted classical music for use in the film, including passages from Der Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber, Leichte Kavallerie by Franz von Suppé, Symphony No. 6 by Ludwig van Beethoven, and "Ride of the Valkyries" by Richard Wagner, the latter used as a leitmotif during the ride of the KKK. Breil also arranged several traditional and popular tunes that would have been recognizable to audiences at the time, including many Southern melodies; among these songs were "Maryland, My Maryland", "Dixie", "Old Folks at Home", "The Star-Spangled Banner", "America the Beautiful", "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", "Auld Lang Syne", and "Where Did You Get That Hat?". DJ Spooky has called Breil's score, with its mix of Dixieland songs, classical music and "vernacular heartland music" "an early, pivotal accomplishment in remix culture." He has also cited Breil's use of music by Richard Wagner as influential on subsequent Hollywood films, including Star Wars (1977) and Apocalypse Now (1979). In his original compositions for the film, Breil wrote numerous leitmotifs to accompany the appearance of specific characters. The principal love theme that was created for the romance between Elsie Stoneman and Ben Cameron was published as "The Perfect Song" and is regarded as the first marketed "theme song" from a film; it was later used as the theme song for the popular radio and television sitcom Amos 'n' Andy. Release Theatrical run The first public showing of the film, then called The Clansman, was on January 1 and 2, 1915, at the Loring Opera House in Riverside, California. The second night, it was sold out and people were turned away. It was shown on February 8, 1915, to an audience of 3,000 persons at Clune's Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles. The film's backers understood that the film needed a massive publicity campaign if they were to cover the immense cost of producing it. A major part of this campaign was the release of the film in a roadshow theatrical release. This allowed Griffith to charge premium prices for tickets, sell souvenirs, and build excitement around the film before giving it a wide release. For several months, Griffith's team traveled to various cities to show the film for one or two nights before moving on. This strategy was immensely successful. Change of title The title was changed to The Birth of a Nation before the March 2 New York opening. However, Dixon copyrighted the title The Birth of a Nation in 1905, and it was used in the press as early as January 2, 1915, while it was still referred to as The Clansman in October. Special screenings White House showing Birth of a Nation was the first movie shown in the White House, in the East Room, on February 18, 1915. (An earlier movie, the Italian Cabiria (1914), was shown on the lawn.) It was attended by President Woodrow Wilson, members of his family, and members of his Cabinet. Both Dixon and Griffith were present. As put by Dixon, not an impartial source, "it repeated the triumph of the first showing". There is dispute about Wilson's attitude toward the movie. A newspaper reported that he "received many letters protesting against his alleged action in Indorsing the pictures ", including a letter from Massachusetts Congressman Thomas Chandler Thacher. The showing of the movie had caused "several near-riots". When former Assistant Attorney General William H. Lewis and A. Walters, a bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, called at the White House "to add their protests", President Wilson's private secretary, Joseph Tumulty, showed them a letter he had written to Thacher on Wilson's behalf. According to the letter, Wilson had been "entirely unaware of the character of the play [movie] before it was presented and has at no time expressed his approbation of it. Its exhibition at the White House was a courtesy extended to an old acquaintance." Dixon, in his autobiography, quotes Wilson as saying, when Dixon proposed showing the movie at the White House, that "I am pleased to be able to do this little thing for you, because a long time ago you took a day out of your busy life to do something for me." What Dixon had done for Wilson was to suggest him for an honorary degree, which Wilson received, from Dixon's alma mater, Wake Forest College. Dixon had been a fellow graduate student in history with Wilson at Johns Hopkins University and, in 1913, dedicated his historical novel about Lincoln, The Southerner, to "our first Southern-born president since Lincoln, my friend and collegemate Woodrow Wilson". The evidence that Wilson knew "the character of the play" in advance of seeing it is circumstantial but very strong: "Given Dixon's career and the notoriety attached to the play The Clansman, it is not unreasonable to assume that Wilson must have had some idea of at least the general tenor of the film." The movie was based on a best-selling novel and was preceded by a stage version (play) which was received with protests in several cities—in some cities it was prohibited—and received a great deal of news coverage. Wilson issued no protest when the Evening Star, at that time Washington's "newspaper of record", reported in advance of the showing, in language suggesting a press release from Dixon and Griffiths, that Dixon was "a schoolmate of President Wilson and is an intimate friend", and that Wilson's interest in it "is due to the great lesson of peace it teaches". Wilson, and only Wilson, is quoted by name in the movie for his observations on American history, and the title of Wilson's book (History of the American People) is mentioned as well. The three title cards with quotations from Wilson's book read: "Adventurers swarmed out of the North, as much the enemies of one race as of the other, to cozen, beguile and use the negroes.... [Ellipsis in the original.] In the villages the negroes were the office holders, men who knew none of the uses of authority, except its insolences." "....The policy of the congressional leaders wrought…a veritable overthrow of civilization in the South.....in their determination to 'put the white South under the heel of the black South.'" [Ellipses and underscore in the original.] "The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation.....until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the southern country." [Ellipsis in the original.] In the same book, Wilson has harsh words about the abyss between the original goals of the Klan and what it evolved into. Dixon has been accused of misquoting Wilson. In 1937 a popular magazine reported that Wilson said of the film, "It is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true." Wilson over the years had several times used the metaphor of illuminating history as if by lightning and he may well have said it at the time. The accuracy of his saying it was "terribly true" is disputed by historians; there is no contemporary documentation of the remark. Vachel Lindsay, a popular poet of the time, is known to have referred to the film as "art by lightning flash." Showing in the Raleigh Hotel ballroom The next day, February 19, 1915, Griffith and Dixon held a showing of the film in the Raleigh Hotel ballroom, which they had hired for the occasion. Early that morning, Dixon called on a North Carolina friend, the white-supremacist Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy. Daniels set up a meeting that morning for Dixon with Edward Douglass White, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Initially Justice White was not interested in seeing the film, but when Dixon told him it was the "true story" of Reconstruction and the Klan's role in "saving the South", White, recalling his youth in Louisiana, jumped to attention and said: "I was a member of the Klan, sir". With White agreeing to see the film, the rest of the Supreme Court followed. In addition to the entire Supreme Court, in the audience were "many members of Congress and members of the diplomatic corps", the Secretary of the Navy, 38 members of the Senate, and about 50 members of the House of Representatives. The audience of 600 "cheered and applauded throughout." Consequences In Griffith's words, the showings to the president and the entire Supreme Court conferred an "honor" upon Birth of a Nation. Dixon and Griffith used this commercially. The following day, Griffith and Dixon transported the film to New York City for review by the National Board of Censorship. They presented the film as "endorsed" by the President and the cream of Washington society. The Board approved the film by 15 to 8. A warrant to close the theater in which the movie was to open was dismissed after a long-distance call to the White House confirmed that the film had been shown there. Justice White was very angry when advertising for the film stated that he approved it, and he threatened to denounce it publicly. Dixon, a racist and white supremacist, clearly was rattled and upset by criticism by African Americans that the movie encouraged hatred against them, and he wanted the endorsement of as many powerful men as possible to offset such criticism. Dixon always vehemently denied having anti-black prejudices—despite the way his books promoted white supremacy—and stated: "My books are hard reading for a Negro, and yet the Negroes, in denouncing them, are unwittingly denouncing one of their greatest friends". In a letter sent on May 1, 1915, to Joseph P. Tumulty, Wilson's secretary, Dixon wrote: "The real purpose of my film was to revolutionize Northern sentiments by a presentation of history that would transform every man in the audience into a good Democrat...Every man who comes out of the theater is a Southern partisan for life!" In a letter to President Wilson sent on September 5, 1915, Dixon boasted: "This play is transforming the entire population of the North and the West into sympathetic Southern voters. There will never be an issue of your segregation policy". Dixon was alluding to the fact that Wilson, upon becoming president in 1913, had allowed cabinet members to impose segregation on federal workplaces in Washington, D.C. by reducing the number of black employees through demotion or dismissal. New opening titles on re-release One famous part of the film was added by Griffith only on the second run of the film and is missing from most online versions of the film (presumably taken from first run prints). These are the second and third of three opening title cards which defend the film. The added titles read: A PLEA FOR THE ART OF THE MOTION PICTURE: We do not fear censorship, for we have no wish to offend with improprieties or obscenities, but we do demand, as a right, the liberty to show the dark side of wrong, that we may illuminate the bright side of virtue—the same liberty that is conceded to the art of the written word—that art to which we owe the Bible and the works of Shakespeare and If in this work we have conveyed to the mind the ravages of war to the end that war may be held in abhorrence, this effort will not have been in vain. Various film historians have expressed a range of views about these titles. To Nicholas Andrew Miller, this shows that "Griffith's greatest achievement in The Birth of a Nation was that he brought the cinema's capacity for spectacle... under the rein of an outdated, but comfortably literary form of historical narrative. Griffith's models... are not the pioneers of film spectacle... but the giants of literary narrative". On the other hand, S. Kittrell Rushing complains about Griffith's "didactic" title-cards, while Stanley Corkin complains that Griffith "masks his idea of fact in the rhetoric of high art and free expression" and creates film which "erodes the very ideal" of liberty which he asserts. Contemporary reception Press reaction The New York Times gave it a quite brief review, calling it "melodramatic" and "inflammatory", adding that: "A great deal might be said concerning the spirit revealed in Mr. Dixon's review of the unhappy chapter of Reconstruction and concerning the sorry service rendered by its plucking at old wounds." Variety praised Griffith's direction, claiming he "set such a pace it will take a long time before one will come along that can top it in point of production, acting, photography and direction. Every bit of the film was laid, played and made in America. One may find some flaws in the general running of the picture, but they are so small and insignificant that the bigness and greatness of the entire film production itself completely crowds out any little defects that might be singled out." Box office The box office gross of The Birth of a Nation is not known and has been the subject of exaggeration. When the film opened, the tickets were sold at premium prices. The film played at the Liberty Theater at Times Square in New York City for 44 weeks with tickets priced at $2.20 (). By the end of 1917, Epoch reported to its shareholders cumulative receipts of $4.8 million, and Griffith's own records put Epoch's worldwide earnings from the film at $5.2 million as of 1919, although the distributor's share of the revenue at this time was much lower than the exhibition gross. In the biggest cities, Epoch negotiated with individual theater

Supreme Court conferred an "honor" upon Birth of a Nation. Dixon and Griffith used this commercially. The following day, Griffith and Dixon transported the film to New York City for review by the National Board of Censorship. They presented the film as "endorsed" by the President and the cream of Washington society. The Board approved the film by 15 to 8. A warrant to close the theater in which the movie was to open was dismissed after a long-distance call to the White House confirmed that the film had been shown there. Justice White was very angry when advertising for the film stated that he approved it, and he threatened to denounce it publicly. Dixon, a racist and white supremacist, clearly was rattled and upset by criticism by African Americans that the movie encouraged hatred against them, and he wanted the endorsement of as many powerful men as possible to offset such criticism. Dixon always vehemently denied having anti-black prejudices—despite the way his books promoted white supremacy—and stated: "My books are hard reading for a Negro, and yet the Negroes, in denouncing them, are unwittingly denouncing one of their greatest friends". In a letter sent on May 1, 1915, to Joseph P. Tumulty, Wilson's secretary, Dixon wrote: "The real purpose of my film was to revolutionize Northern sentiments by a presentation of history that would transform every man in the audience into a good Democrat...Every man who comes out of the theater is a Southern partisan for life!" In a letter to President Wilson sent on September 5, 1915, Dixon boasted: "This play is transforming the entire population of the North and the West into sympathetic Southern voters. There will never be an issue of your segregation policy". Dixon was alluding to the fact that Wilson, upon becoming president in 1913, had allowed cabinet members to impose segregation on federal workplaces in Washington, D.C. by reducing the number of black employees through demotion or dismissal. New opening titles on re-release One famous part of the film was added by Griffith only on the second run of the film and is missing from most online versions of the film (presumably taken from first run prints). These are the second and third of three opening title cards which defend the film. The added titles read: A PLEA FOR THE ART OF THE MOTION PICTURE: We do not fear censorship, for we have no wish to offend with improprieties or obscenities, but we do demand, as a right, the liberty to show the dark side of wrong, that we may illuminate the bright side of virtue—the same liberty that is conceded to the art of the written word—that art to which we owe the Bible and the works of Shakespeare and If in this work we have conveyed to the mind the ravages of war to the end that war may be held in abhorrence, this effort will not have been in vain. Various film historians have expressed a range of views about these titles. To Nicholas Andrew Miller, this shows that "Griffith's greatest achievement in The Birth of a Nation was that he brought the cinema's capacity for spectacle... under the rein of an outdated, but comfortably literary form of historical narrative. Griffith's models... are not the pioneers of film spectacle... but the giants of literary narrative". On the other hand, S. Kittrell Rushing complains about Griffith's "didactic" title-cards, while Stanley Corkin complains that Griffith "masks his idea of fact in the rhetoric of high art and free expression" and creates film which "erodes the very ideal" of liberty which he asserts. Contemporary reception Press reaction The New York Times gave it a quite brief review, calling it "melodramatic" and "inflammatory", adding that: "A great deal might be said concerning the spirit revealed in Mr. Dixon's review of the unhappy chapter of Reconstruction and concerning the sorry service rendered by its plucking at old wounds." Variety praised Griffith's direction, claiming he "set such a pace it will take a long time before one will come along that can top it in point of production, acting, photography and direction. Every bit of the film was laid, played and made in America. One may find some flaws in the general running of the picture, but they are so small and insignificant that the bigness and greatness of the entire film production itself completely crowds out any little defects that might be singled out." Box office The box office gross of The Birth of a Nation is not known and has been the subject of exaggeration. When the film opened, the tickets were sold at premium prices. The film played at the Liberty Theater at Times Square in New York City for 44 weeks with tickets priced at $2.20 (). By the end of 1917, Epoch reported to its shareholders cumulative receipts of $4.8 million, and Griffith's own records put Epoch's worldwide earnings from the film at $5.2 million as of 1919, although the distributor's share of the revenue at this time was much lower than the exhibition gross. In the biggest cities, Epoch negotiated with individual theater owners for a percentage of the box office; elsewhere, the producer sold all rights in a particular state to a single distributor (an arrangement known as "state's rights" distribution). The film historian Richard Schickel says that under the state's rights contracts, Epoch typically received about 10% of the box office gross—which theater owners often underreported—and concludes that "Birth certainly generated more than $60 million in box-office business in its first run". The film held the mantle of the highest-grossing film until it was overtaken by Gone with the Wind (1939), another film about the Civil War and Reconstruction era. By 1940 Time magazine estimated the film's cumulative gross rental (the distributor's earnings) at approximately $15 million. For years Variety had the gross rental listed as $50 million, but in 1977 repudiated the claim and revised its estimate down to $5 million. It is not known for sure how much the film has earned in total, but producer Harry Aitken put its estimated earnings at $15–18 million in a letter to a prospective investor in a proposed sound version. It is likely the film earned over $20 million for its backers and generated $50–100 million in box office receipts. In a 2015 Time article, Richard Corliss estimated the film had earned the equivalent of $1.8 billion adjusted for inflation, a milestone that at the time had only been surpassed by Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009) in nominal earnings. Criticism Like Dixon's novels and play, Birth of a Nation received considerable criticism, both before and after its premiere. Dixon, who believed the film to be entirely truthful and historically accurate, attributed this to "Sectionalists", i.e. non-Southerners who in Dixon's opinion were hostile to the "truth" about the South. It was to counter these "sinister forces" and the "dangerous...menace" that Dixon and Griffiths sought "the backing" of President Wilson and the Supreme Court. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) protested at premieres of the film in numerous cities. According to the historian David Copeland, "by the time of the movie's March 3 [1915] premiere in New York City, its subject matter had embroiled the film in charges of racism, protests, and calls for censorship, which began after the Los Angeles branch of the NAACP requested the city's film board ban the movie. Since film boards were composed almost entirely of whites, few review boards initially banned Griffith's picture". The NAACP also conducted a public education campaign, publishing articles protesting the film's fabrications and inaccuracies, organizing petitions against it, and conducting education on the facts of the war and Reconstruction. Because of the lack of success in NAACP's actions to ban the film, on April 17, 1915, NAACP secretary Mary Childs Nerney wrote to NAACP Executive Committee member George Packard: "I am utterly disgusted with the situation in regard to The Birth of a Nation ... kindly remember that we have put six weeks of constant effort of this thing and have gotten nowhere." Jane Addams, an American social worker and social reformer, and the founder of Hull House, voiced her reaction to the film in an interview published by the New York Post on March 13, 1915, just ten days after the film was released. She stated that "One of the most unfortunate things about this film is that it appeals to race prejudice upon the basis of conditions of half a century ago, which have nothing to do with the facts we have to consider to-day. Even then it does not tell the whole truth. It is claimed that the play is historical: but history is easy to misuse." In New York, Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise told the press after seeing The Birth of a Nation that the film was "an indescribable foul and loathsome libel on a race of human beings". In Boston, Booker T. Washington wrote a newspaper column asking readers to boycott the film, while the civil rights activist William Monroe Trotter organized demonstrations against the film, which he predicted was going to worsen race relations. On Saturday, April 10, and again on April 17, Trotter and a group of other blacks tried to buy tickets for the show's premiere at the Tremont Theater and were refused. They stormed the box office in protest, 260 police on standby rushed in, and a general melee ensued. Trotter and ten others were arrested. The following day a huge demonstration was staged at Faneuil Hall. In Washington D.C, the Reverend Francis James Grimké published a pamphlet entitled "Fighting a Vicious Film" that challenged the historical accuracy of The Birth of a Nation on a scene-by-scene basis. When the film was released, riots also broke out in Philadelphia and other major cities in the United States. The film's inflammatory nature was a catalyst for gangs of whites to attack blacks. On April 24, 1916, the Chicago American reported that a white man murdered a black teenager in Lafayette, Indiana, after seeing the film, although there has been some controversy as to whether the murderer had actually seen The Birth of a Nation. Over a century later, a Harvard University research paper found that "[o]n average, lynchings in a county rose fivefold in the month after [the film] arrived." The mayor of Cedar Rapids, Iowa was the first of twelve mayors to ban the film in 1915 out of concern that it would promote race prejudice, after meeting with a delegation of black citizens. The NAACP set up a precedent-setting national boycott of the film, likely seen as the most successful effort. Additionally, they organized a mass demonstration when the film was screened in Boston, and it was banned in three states and several cities. Both Griffith and Dixon in letters to the press dismissed African-American protests against The Birth of a Nation. In a letter to The New York Globe, Griffith wrote that his film was "an influence against the intermarriage of blacks and whites". Dixon likewise called the NAACP "the Negro Intermarriage Society" and said it was against The Birth of a Nation "for one reason only—because it opposes the marriage of blacks to whites". Griffith—indignant at the film's negative critical reception—wrote letters to newspapers and published a pamphlet in which he accused his critics of censoring unpopular opinions. When Sherwin Lewis of The New York Globe wrote a piece that expressed criticism of the film's distorted portrayal of history and said that it was not worthy of constitutional protection because its purpose was to make a few "dirty dollars", Griffith responded that "the public should not be afraid to accept the truth, even though it might not like it". He also added that the man who wrote the editorial was "damaging my reputation as a producer" and "a liar and a coward". Audience reaction The Birth of a Nation was very popular, despite the film's controversy; it was unlike anything that American audiences had ever seen before. The Los Angeles Times called it "the greatest picture ever made and the greatest drama ever filmed". Mary Pickford said: "Birth of a Nation was the first picture that really made people take the motion picture industry seriously". Glorifying the Klan to approving white audiences, it became a national cultural phenomenon: merchandisers made Ku Klux hats and kitchen aprons, and ushers dressed in white Klan robes for openings. In New York there were Klan-themed balls and, in Chicago that Halloween, thousands of college students dressed in robes for a massive Klan-themed party. The producers had 15 "detectives" at the Liberty Theater in New York City "to prevent disorder on the part of those who resent the 'reconstruction period' episodes depicted." The Reverend Charles Henry Parkhurst argued that the film was not racist, saying that it "was exactly true to history" by depicting freedmen as they were and, therefore, it was a "compliment to the black man" by showing how far black people had "advanced" since Reconstruction. Critic Dolly Dalrymple wrote that, "when I saw it, it was far from silent ... incessant murmurs of approval, roars of laughter, gasps of anxiety, and outbursts of applause greeted every new picture on the screen". One man viewing the film was so moved by the scene where Flora Cameron flees Gus to avoid being raped that he took out his handgun and began firing at the screen in an effort to help her. Katharine DuPre Lumpkin recalled watching the film as an 18-year-old in 1915 in her 1947 autobiography The Making of a Southerner: "Here was the black figure—and the fear of the white girl—though the scene blanked out just in time. Here were the sinister men the South scorned and the noble men the South revered. And through it all the Klan rode. All around me people sighed and shivered, and now and then shouted or wept, in their intensity." Sequel and spin-offs D. W. Griffith made a film in 1916, called Intolerance, partly in response to the criticism that The Birth of a Nation received. Griffith made clear within numerous interviews that the film's title and main themes were chosen in response to those who he felt had been intolerant to The Birth of a Nation. A sequel called The Fall of a Nation was released in 1916, depicting the invasion of the United States by a German-led confederation of European monarchies and criticizing pacifism in the context of the First World War. It was the first feature-length sequel in film history. The film was directed by Thomas Dixon Jr., who adapted it from his novel of the same name. Despite its success in the foreign market, the film was not a success among American audiences, and is now a lost film. In 1918, an American silent drama film directed by John W. Noble called The Birth of a Race was released as a direct response to The Birth of a Nation. The film was an ambitious project by producer Emmett Jay Scott to challenge Griffith's film and tell another side of the story, but was ultimately unsuccessful. In 1920, African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux released Within Our Gates, a response to The Birth of a Nation. Within Our Gates depicts the hardships faced by African Americans during the era of Jim Crow laws. Griffith's film was remixed in 2004 as Rebirth of a Nation by DJ Spooky. Quentin Tarantino has said that he made his film Django Unchained (2012) to counter the falsehoods of The Birth of a Nation. Influence In November 1915, William Joseph Simmons revived the Klan in Atlanta, Georgia, holding a cross burning at Stone Mountain. The historian John Hope Franklin observed that, had it not been for The Birth of a Nation, the Klan might not have been reborn. Franklin wrote in 1979 that "The influence of Birth of a Nation on the current view of Reconstruction has been greater than any other single force", but that "It is not at all difficult to find inaccuracies and distortions" in the movie. Current reception Critical response Released in 1915, The Birth of a Nation has been credited as groundbreaking among its contemporaries for its innovative application of the medium of film. According to the film historian Kevin Brownlow, the film was "astounding in its time" and initiated "so many advances in film-making technique that it was rendered obsolete within a few years". The content of the work, however, has received widespread criticism for its blatant racism. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote: Certainly The Birth of a Nation (1915) presents a challenge for modern audiences. Unaccustomed to silent films and uninterested in film history, they find it quaint and not to their taste. Those evolved enough to understand what they are looking at find the early and wartime scenes brilliant, but cringe during the postwar and Reconstruction scenes, which are racist in the ham-handed way of an old minstrel show or a vile comic pamphlet. Despite its controversial story, the film has been praised by film critics, with Ebert mentioning its use as a historical tool: "The Birth of a Nation is not a bad film because it argues for evil. Like Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, it is a great film that argues for evil. To understand how it does so is to learn a great deal about film, and even something about evil." According to a 2002 article in the Los Angeles Times, the film facilitated the refounding of the Ku Klux Klan in 1915. History.com similarly states that "There is no doubt that Birth of a Nation played no small part in winning wide public acceptance" for the KKK, and that throughout the film "African Americans are portrayed as brutish, lazy, morally degenerate, and dangerous." David Duke used the film to recruit Klansmen in the 1970s. In 2013, the American critic Richard Brody wrote The Birth of a Nation was : ...a seminal commercial spectacle but also a decisively original work of art—in effect, the founding work of cinematic realism, albeit a work that was developed to pass lies off as reality. It's tempting to think of the film's influence as evidence of the inherent corruption of realism as a cinematic mode—but it's even more revealing to acknowledge the disjunction between its beauty, on the one hand, and, on the other, its injustice and falsehood. The movie's fabricated events shouldn't lead any viewer to deny the historical facts of slavery and Reconstruction. But they also shouldn't lead to a denial of the peculiar, disturbingly exalted beauty of Birth of a Nation, even in its depiction of immoral actions and its realization of blatant propaganda. The worst thing about The Birth of a Nation is how good it is. The merits of its grand and enduring aesthetic make it impossible to ignore and, despite its disgusting content, also make it hard not to love. And it's that very conflict that renders the film all the more despicable, the experience of the film more of a torment—together with the acknowledgment that Griffith, whose short films for Biograph were already among the treasures of world cinema, yoked his mighty talent to the cause of hatred (which, still worse, he sincerely depicted as virtuous). Brody also argued that Griffith unintentionally undercut his own thesis in the film, citing the scene before the Civil War when the Cameron family offers up lavish hospitality to the Stoneman family who travel past mile after mile of slaves working the cotton fields of South Carolina to reach the Cameron home. Brody maintained that a modern audience can see that the wealth of the Camerons comes from the slaves, forced to do back-breaking work picking the cotton. Likewise, Brody argued that the scene where people in South Carolina celebrate the Confederate victory at the Battle of Bull Run by dancing around the "eerie flare of a bonfire" implies "a dance of death", foreshadowing the destruction of Sherman's March that was to come. In the same way, Brody wrote that the scene where the Klan dumps Gus's body off at the doorstep of Lynch is meant to have the audience cheering, but modern audiences find the scene "obscene and horrifying". Finally, Brody argued that the end of the film, where the Klan prevents defenseless African Americans from exercising their right to vote by pointing guns at them, today seems "unjust and cruel". In an article for The Atlantic, film critic Ty Burr deemed The Birth of a Nation the most influential film in history while criticizing its portrayal of black men as savage. Richard Corliss of Time wrote that Griffith "established in the hundreds of one- and two-reelers he directed a cinematic textbook, a fully formed visual language, for the generations that followed. More than anyone else—more than all others combined—he invented the film art. He brought it to fruition in The Birth of a Nation." Corliss praised the film's "brilliant storytelling technique" and noted that "The Birth of a Nation is nearly as antiwar as it is antiblack. The Civil War scenes, which consume only 30 minutes of the extravaganza, emphasize not the national glory but the human cost of combat. ... Griffith may have been a racist politically, but his refusal to find uplift in the South's war against the Union—and, implicitly, in any war at all—reveals him as a cinematic humanist." Accolades In 1992, the U.S. Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. The American Film Institute recognized the film by ranking it #44 within the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list in 1998. Historical portrayal The film remains controversial due to its interpretation of American history. University of Houston historian Steven Mintz summarizes its message as follows: "Reconstruction was an unmitigated disaster, blacks could never be integrated into white society as equals, and the violent actions of the Ku Klux Klan were justified to reestablish honest government". The South is portrayed as a victim. The first overt mentioning of the war is the scene in which Abraham Lincoln signs the call for the first 75,000 volunteers. However, the first aggression in the Civil War, made when the Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter in 1861, is not mentioned in the film. The film suggested that the Ku Klux

More), Kashubian (Bôłt), Macedonian (Балтичко Море Baltičko More), Ukrainian ( Baltijs′ke More), Belarusian (Балтыйскае мора Baltyjskaje Mora), Russian ( Baltiyskoye More) and Serbo-Croatian (Baltičko more / ); in Hungarian (Balti-tenger). In Germanic languages, except English, "East Sea" is used, as in Afrikaans (Oossee), Danish (Østersøen ), Dutch (Oostzee), German (Ostsee), Low German (Oostsee), Icelandic and Faroese (Eystrasalt), Norwegian (Bokmål: Østersjøen ; Nynorsk: Austersjøen), and Swedish (Östersjön). In Old English it was known as Ostsǣ; also in Hungarian the former name was Keleti-tenger ("East-sea", due to German influence). In addition, Finnish, a Finnic language, uses the term Itämeri "East Sea", possibly a calque from a Germanic language. As the Baltic is not particularly eastward in relation to Finland, the use of this term may be a leftover from the period of Swedish rule. In another Finnic language, Estonian, it is called the "West Sea" (Läänemeri), with the correct geography (the sea is west of Estonia). In South Estonian, it has the meaning of both "West Sea" and "Evening Sea" (Õdagumeri). History Classical world At the time of the Roman Empire, the Baltic Sea was known as the Mare Suebicum or Mare Sarmaticum. Tacitus in his AD 98 Agricola and Germania described the Mare Suebicum, named for the Suebi tribe, during the spring months, as a brackish sea where the ice broke apart and chunks floated about. The Suebi eventually migrated southwest to temporarily reside in the Rhineland area of modern Germany, where their name survives in the historic region known as Swabia. Jordanes called it the Germanic Sea in his work, the Getica. Middle Ages In the early Middle Ages, Norse (Scandinavian) merchants built a trade empire all around the Baltic. Later, the Norse fought for control of the Baltic against Wendish tribes dwelling on the southern shore. The Norse also used the rivers of Russia for trade routes, finding their way eventually to the Black Sea and southern Russia. This Norse-dominated period is referred to as the Viking Age. Since the Viking Age, the Scandinavians have referred to the Baltic Sea as Austmarr ("Eastern Lake"). "Eastern Sea", appears in the Heimskringla and Eystra salt appears in Sörla þáttr. Saxo Grammaticus recorded in Gesta Danorum an older name, Gandvik, -vik being Old Norse for "bay", which implies that the Vikings correctly regarded it as an inlet of the sea. Another form of the name, "Grandvik", attested in at least one English translation of Gesta Danorum, is likely to be a misspelling. In addition to fish the sea also provides amber, especially from its southern shores within today's borders of Poland, Russia and Lithuania. First mentions of amber deposits on the South Coast of the Baltic Sea date back to the 12th century. The bordering countries have also traditionally exported lumber, wood tar, flax, hemp and furs by ship across the Baltic. Sweden had from early medieval times exported iron and silver mined there, while Poland had and still has extensive salt mines. Thus the Baltic Sea has long been crossed by much merchant shipping. The lands on the Baltic's eastern shore were among the last in Europe to be converted to Christianity. This finally happened during the Northern Crusades: Finland in the twelfth century by Swedes, and what are now Estonia and Latvia in the early thirteenth century by Danes and Germans (Livonian Brothers of the Sword). The Teutonic Order gained control over parts of the southern and eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, where they set up their monastic state. Lithuania was the last European state to convert to Christianity. An arena of conflict In the period between the 8th and 14th centuries, there was much piracy in the Baltic from the coasts of Pomerania and Prussia, and the Victual Brothers held Gotland. Starting in the 11th century, the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic were settled by migrants mainly from Germany, a movement called the Ostsiedlung ("east settling"). Other settlers were from the Netherlands, Denmark, and Scotland. The Polabian Slavs were gradually assimilated by the Germans. Denmark gradually gained control over most of the Baltic coast, until she lost much of her possessions after being defeated in the 1227 Battle of Bornhöved. In the 13th to 16th centuries, the strongest economic force in Northern Europe was the Hanseatic League, a federation of merchant cities around the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Poland, Denmark, and Sweden fought wars for Dominium maris baltici ("Lordship over the Baltic Sea"). Eventually, it was Sweden that virtually encompassed the Baltic Sea. In Sweden, the sea was then referred to as Mare Nostrum Balticum ("Our Baltic Sea"). The goal of Swedish warfare during the 17th century was to make the Baltic Sea an all-Swedish sea (Ett Svenskt innanhav), something that was accomplished except the part between Riga in Latvia and Stettin in Pomerania. However, the Dutch dominated the Baltic trade in the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century, Russia and Prussia became the leading powers over the sea. Sweden's defeat in the Great Northern War brought Russia to the eastern coast. Russia became and remained a dominating power in the Baltic. Russia's Peter the Great saw the strategic importance of the Baltic and decided to found his new capital, Saint Petersburg, at the mouth of the Neva river at the east end of the Gulf of Finland. There was much trading not just within the Baltic region but also with the North Sea region, especially eastern England and the Netherlands: their fleets needed the Baltic timber, tar, flax, and hemp. During the Crimean War, a joint British and French fleet attacked the Russian fortresses in the Baltic; the case is also known as the Åland War. They bombarded Sveaborg, which guards Helsinki; and Kronstadt, which guards Saint Petersburg; and they destroyed Bomarsund in Åland. After the unification of Germany in 1871, the whole southern coast became German. World War I was partly fought in the Baltic Sea. After 1920 Poland was granted access to the Baltic Sea at the expense of Germany by the Polish Corridor and enlarged the port of Gdynia in rivalry with the port of the Free City of Danzig. After the Nazis' rise to power, Germany reclaimed the Memelland and after the outbreak of the Eastern Front (World War II) occupied the Baltic states. In 1945, the Baltic Sea became a mass grave for retreating soldiers and refugees on torpedoed troop transports. The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff remains the worst maritime disaster in history, killing (very roughly) 9,000 people. In 2005, a Russian group of scientists found over five thousand airplane wrecks, sunken warships, and other material, mainly from World War II, on the bottom of the sea. Since World War II Since the end of World War II, various nations, including the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States have disposed of chemical weapons in the Baltic Sea, raising concerns of environmental contamination. Today, fishermen occasionally find some of these materials: the most recent available report from the Helsinki Commission notes that four small scale catches of chemical munitions representing approximately of material were reported in 2005. This is a reduction from the 25 incidents representing of material in 2003. Until now, the U.S. Government refuses to disclose the exact coordinates of the wreck sites. Deteriorating bottles leak mustard gas and other substances, thus slowly poisoning a substantial part of the Baltic Sea. After 1945, the German population was expelled from all areas east of the Oder-Neisse line, making room for new Polish and Russian settlement. Poland gained most of the southern shore. The Soviet Union gained another access to the Baltic with the Kaliningrad Oblast, that had been part of German-settled East Prussia. The Baltic states on the eastern shore were annexed by the Soviet Union. The Baltic then separated opposing military blocs: NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Neutral Sweden developed incident weapons to defend its territorial waters after the Swedish submarine incidents. This border status restricted trade and travel. It ended only after the collapse of the Communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s. Since May 2004, with the accession of the Baltic states and Poland, the Baltic Sea has been almost entirely surrounded by countries of the European Union (EU). The remaining non-EU shore areas are Russian: the Saint Petersburg area and the Kaliningrad Oblast exclave. Winter storms begin arriving in the region during October. These have caused numerous shipwrecks, and contributed to the extreme difficulties of rescuing passengers of the ferry M/S Estonia en route from Tallinn, Estonia, to Stockholm, Sweden, in September 1994, which claimed the lives of 852 people. Older, wood-based shipwrecks such as the Vasa tend to remain well-preserved, as the Baltic's cold and brackish water does not suit the shipworm. Storm floods Storm surge floods are generally taken to occur when the water level is more than one metre above normal. In Warnemünde about 110 floods occurred from 1950 to 2000, an average of just over two per year. Historic flood events were the All Saints' Flood of 1304 and other floods in the years 1320, 1449, 1625, 1694, 1784 and 1825. Little is known of their extent. From 1872, there exist regular and reliable records of water levels in the Baltic Sea. The highest was the flood of 1872 when the water was an average of above sea level at Warnemünde and a maximum of above sea level in Warnemünde. In the last very heavy floods the average water levels reached above sea level in 1904, in 1913, in January 1954, on 2–4 November 1995 and on 21 February 2002. Geography Geophysical data An arm of the North Atlantic Ocean, the Baltic Sea is enclosed by Sweden and Denmark to the west, Finland to the northeast, the Baltic countries to the southeast, and the North European Plain to the southwest. It is about long, an average of wide, and an average of deep. The maximum depth is which is on the Swedish side of the center. The surface area is about and the volume is about . The periphery amounts to about of coastline. The Baltic Sea is one of the largest brackish inland seas by area, and occupies a basin (a zungenbecken) formed by glacial erosion during the last few ice ages. Physical characteristics of the Baltic Sea, its main sub-regions, and the transition zone to the Skagerrak/North Sea area Extent The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Baltic Sea as follows: Bordered by the coasts of Germany, Denmark, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, it extends north-eastward of the following limits: In the Little Belt. A line joining Falshöft () and Vejsnæs Nakke (Ærø: ). In the Great Belt. A line joining Gulstav (South extreme of Langeland Island) and Kappel Kirke () on Island of Lolland. In the Guldborg Sound. A line joining Flinthorne-Rev and Skjelby (). In the Sound. A line joining Stevns Lighthouse () and Falsterbo Point (). Subdivisions The northern part of the Baltic Sea is known as the Gulf of Bothnia, of which the northernmost part is the Bay of Bothnia or Bothnian Bay. The more rounded southern basin of the gulf is called Bothnian Sea and immediately to the south of it lies the Sea of Åland. The Gulf of Finland connects the Baltic Sea with Saint Petersburg. The Gulf of Riga lies between the Latvian capital city of Riga and the Estonian island of Saaremaa. The Northern Baltic Sea lies between the Stockholm area, southwestern Finland, and Estonia. The Western and Eastern Gotland basins form the major parts of the Central Baltic Sea or Baltic proper. The Bornholm Basin is the area east of Bornholm, and the shallower Arkona Basin extends from Bornholm to the Danish isles of Falster and Zealand. In the south, the Bay of Gdańsk lies east of the Hel Peninsula on the Polish coast and west of the Sambia Peninsula in Kaliningrad Oblast. The Bay of Pomerania lies north of the islands of Usedom/Uznam and Wolin, east of Rügen. Between Falster and the German coast lie the Bay of Mecklenburg and Bay of Lübeck. The westernmost part of the Baltic Sea is the Bay of Kiel. The three Danish straits, the Great Belt, the Little Belt and The Sound (Öresund/Øresund), connect the Baltic Sea with the Kattegat and Skagerrak strait in the North Sea. Temperature and ice The water temperature of the Baltic Sea varies significantly depending on exact location, season and depth. At the Bornholm Basin, which is located directly east of the island of the same name, the surface temperature typically falls to during the peak of the winter and rises to during the peak of the summer, with an annual average of around . A similar pattern can be seen in the Gotland Basin, which is located between the island of Gotland and Latvia. In the deep of these basins the temperature variations are smaller. At the bottom of the Bornholm Basin, deeper than , the temperature typically is , and at the bottom of the Gotland Basin, at depths greater than , the temperature typically is . On the long-term average, the Baltic Sea is ice-covered at the annual maximum for about 45% of its surface area. The ice-covered area during such a typical winter includes the Gulf of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Riga, the archipelago west of Estonia, the Stockholm archipelago, and the Archipelago Sea southwest of Finland. The remainder of the Baltic does not freeze during a normal winter, except sheltered bays and shallow lagoons such as the Curonian Lagoon. The ice reaches its maximum extent in February or March; typical ice thickness in the northernmost areas in the Bothnian Bay, the northern basin of the Gulf of Bothnia, is about for landfast sea ice. The thickness decreases farther south. Freezing begins in the northern extremities of the Gulf of Bothnia typically in the middle of November, reaching the open waters of the Bothnian Bay in early January. The Bothnian Sea, the basin south of Kvarken, freezes on average in late February. The Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Riga freeze typically in late January. In 2011, the Gulf of Finland was completely frozen on 15 February. The ice extent depends on whether the winter is mild, moderate, or severe. In severe winters ice can form around southern Sweden and even in the Danish straits. According to the 18th-century natural historian William Derham, during the severe winters of 1703 and 1708, the ice cover reached as far as the Danish straits. Frequently, parts of the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland are frozen, in addition to coastal fringes in more southerly locations such as the Gulf of Riga. This description meant that the whole of the Baltic Sea was covered with ice. Since 1720, the Baltic Sea has frozen over entirely 20 times, most recently in early 1987, which was the most severe winter in Scandinavia since 1720. The ice then covered . During the winter of 2010–11, which was quite severe compared to those of the last decades, the maximum ice cover was , which was reached on 25 February 2011. The ice then extended from the north down to the northern tip of Gotland, with small ice-free areas on either side, and the east coast of the Baltic Sea was covered by an ice sheet about wide all the way to Gdańsk. This was brought about by a stagnant high-pressure area that lingered over central and northern Scandinavia from around 10 to 24 February. After this, strong southern winds pushed the ice further into the north, and much of the waters north of Gotland were again free of ice, which had then packed against the shores of southern Finland. The effects of the afore-mentioned high-pressure area did not reach the southern parts of the Baltic Sea, and thus the entire sea did not freeze over. However, floating ice was additionally observed near Świnoujście harbor in January 2010. In recent years before 2011, the Bothnian Bay and the Bothnian Sea were frozen with solid ice near the Baltic coast and dense floating ice far from it. In 2008, almost no ice formed except for a short period in March. During winter, fast ice, which is attached to the shoreline, develops first, rendering ports unusable without the services of icebreakers. Level ice, ice sludge, pancake ice, and rafter ice form in the more open regions. The gleaming expanse of ice is similar to the Arctic, with wind-driven pack ice and ridges up to . Offshore of the landfast ice, the ice remains very dynamic all year, and it is relatively easily moved around by winds and therefore forms pack ice, made up of large piles and ridges pushed against the landfast ice and shores. In spring, the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Bothnia normally thaw in late April, with some ice ridges persisting until May in the eastern extremities of the Gulf of Finland. In the northernmost reaches of the Bothnian Bay, ice usually stays until late May; by early June it is practically always gone. However, in the famine year of 1867 remnants of ice were observed as late as 17 July near Uddskär. Even as far south as Øresund, remnants of ice have been observed in May on several occasions; near Taarbaek on 15 May 1942 and near Copenhagen on 11 May 1771. Drift ice was also observed on 11 May 1799. The ice cover is the main habitat for two large mammals, the grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) and the Baltic ringed seal (Pusa hispida botnica), both of which feed underneath the ice and breed on its surface. Of these two seals, only the Baltic ringed seal suffers when there is not adequate ice in the Baltic Sea, as it feeds its young only while on ice. The grey seal is adapted to reproducing also with no ice in the sea. The sea ice also harbors several species of algae that live in the bottom and inside unfrozen brine pockets in the ice. Due to the often fluctuating winter temperatures between above and below freezing, the saltwater ice of the Baltic Sea can be treacherous and hazardous to walk on, in particular in comparison to the more stable fresh water-ice sheets in the interior lakes. Hydrography The Baltic Sea flows out through the Danish straits; however, the flow is complex. A surface layer of brackish water discharges per year into the North Sea. Due to the difference in salinity, by salinity permeation principle, a sub-surface layer of more saline water moving in the opposite direction brings in per year. It mixes very slowly with the upper waters, resulting in a salinity gradient from top to bottom, with most of the saltwater remaining below deep. The general circulation is anti-clockwise: northwards along its eastern boundary, and south along with the western one . The difference between the outflow and the inflow comes entirely from fresh water. More than 250 streams drain a basin of about , contributing a volume of per year to the Baltic. They include the major rivers of north Europe, such as the Oder, the Vistula, the Neman, the Daugava and the Neva. Additional fresh water comes from the difference of precipitation less evaporation, which is positive. An important source of salty water is infrequent inflows of North Sea water into the Baltic. Such inflows, important to the Baltic ecosystem because of the oxygen they transport into the Baltic deeps, used to happen regularly until the 1980s. In recent decades they have become less frequent. The latest four occurred in 1983, 1993, 2003, and 2014 suggesting a new inter-inflow period of about ten years. The water level is generally far more dependent on the regional wind situation than on tidal effects. However, tidal currents occur in narrow passages in the western parts of the Baltic Sea. Tides can reach 17 to 19 cm in the Gulf of Finland. The significant wave height is generally much lower than that of the North Sea. Quite violent, sudden storms sweep the surface ten or more times a year, due to large transient temperature differences and a long reach of the wind. Seasonal winds also cause small changes in sea level, of the order of . According to the media, during a storm in january 2017, an extreme wave above 14m has been measured and significant wave height of around 8m has been measured by the FMI. A numerical study has shown the presence of events with 8 to 10m significant wave heights. Those extreme waves events can play an important role in the coastal zone on erosion and sea dynamics. Salinity The Baltic Sea is the world's largest inland brackish sea. Only two other brackish waters are larger according to some measurements: The Black Sea is larger in both surface area and water volume, but most of it is located outside the continental shelf (only a small percentage is inland). The Caspian Sea is larger in water volume, but—despite its name—it is a lake rather than a sea. The Baltic Sea's salinity is much lower than that of ocean water (which averages 3.5%), as a result of abundant freshwater runoff from the surrounding land (rivers, streams and alike), combined with the shallowness of the sea itself; runoff contributes roughly one-fortieth its total volume per year, as the volume of the basin is about and yearly runoff is about . The open surface waters of the Baltic Sea "proper" generally have a salinity of 0.3 to 0.9%, which is border-line freshwater. The flow of freshwater into the sea from approximately two hundred rivers and the introduction of salt from the southwest builds up a gradient of salinity in the Baltic Sea. The highest surface salinities, generally 0.7–0.9%, are in the southwesternmost part of the Baltic, in the Arkona and Bornholm basins (the former located roughly between southeast Zealand and Bornholm, and the latter directly east of Bornholm). It gradually falls further east and north, reaching the lowest in the Bothnian Bay at around 0.3%. Drinking the surface water of the Baltic as a means of survival would actually hydrate the body instead of dehydrating, as is the case with ocean water. As saltwater is denser than freshwater, the bottom of the Baltic Sea is saltier than the surface. This creates a vertical stratification of the water column, a halocline, that represents a barrier to the exchange of oxygen and nutrients, and fosters completely separate maritime environments. The difference between the bottom and surface salinities varies depending on location. Overall it follows the same southwest to east and north pattern as the surface. At the bottom of the Arkona Basin (equalling depths greater than ) and Bornholm Basin (depths greater than ) it is typically 1.4–1.8%. Further east and north the salinity at the bottom is consistently lower, being the lowest in Bothnian Bay (depths greater than ) where it is slightly below 0.4%, or only marginally higher than the surface in the same region. In contrast, the salinity of the Danish straits, which connect the Baltic Sea and Kattegat, tends to be significantly higher, but with major variations from year to year. For example, the surface and bottom salinity in the Great Belt is typically around 2.0% and 2.8% respectively, which is only somewhat below that of the Kattegat. The water surplus caused by the continuous inflow of rivers and streams to the Baltic Sea means

gently sloping, leading to large areas of land being reclaimed in what are, geologically speaking, relatively short periods (decades and centuries). The "Baltic Sea anomaly" The "Baltic Sea anomaly" is a feature on an indistinct sonar image taken by Swedish salvage divers on the floor of the northern Baltic Sea in June 2011. The treasure hunters suggested the image showed an object with unusual features of seemingly extraordinary origin. Speculation published in tabloid newspapers claimed that the object was a sunken UFO. A consensus of experts and scientists say that the image most likely shows a natural geological formation. Biology Fauna and flora The fauna of the Baltic Sea is a mixture of marine and freshwater species. Among marine fishes are Atlantic cod, Atlantic herring, European hake, European plaice, European flounder, shorthorn sculpin and turbot, and examples of freshwater species include European perch, northern pike, whitefish and common roach. Freshwater species may occur at outflows of rivers or streams in all coastal sections of the Baltic Sea. Otherwise marine species dominate in most sections of the Baltic, at least as far north as Gävle, where less than one-tenth are freshwater species. Further north the pattern is inverted. In the Bothnian Bay, roughly two-thirds of the species are freshwater. In the far north of this bay, saltwater species are almost entirely absent. For example, the common starfish and shore crab, two species that are very widespread along European coasts, are both unable to cope with the significantly lower salinity. Their range limit is west of Bornholm, meaning that they are absent from the vast majority of the Baltic Sea. Some marine species, like the Atlantic cod and European flounder, can survive at relatively low salinities but need higher salinities to breed, which therefore occurs in deeper parts of the Baltic Sea. There is a decrease in species richness from the Danish belts to the Gulf of Bothnia. The decreasing salinity along this path causes restrictions in both physiology and habitats. At more than 600 species of invertebrates, fish, aquatic mammals, aquatic birds and macrophytes, the Arkona Basin (roughly between southeast Zealand and Bornholm) is far richer than other more eastern and northern basins in the Baltic Sea, which all have less than 400 species from these groups, with the exception of the Gulf of Finland with more than 750 species. However, even the most diverse sections of the Baltic Sea have far fewer species than the almost-full saltwater Kattegat, which is home to more than 1600 species from these groups. The lack of tides has affected the marine species as compared with the Atlantic. Since the Baltic Sea is so young there are only two or three known endemic species: the brown alga Fucus radicans and the flounder Platichthys solemdali. Both appear to have evolved in the Baltic basin and were only recognized as species in 2005 and 2018 respectively, having formerly been confused with more widespread relatives. The tiny Copenhagen cockle (Parvicardium hauniense), a rare mussel, is sometimes considered endemic, but has now been recorded in the Mediterranean. However, some consider non-Baltic records to be misidentifications of juvenile lagoon cockles (Cerastoderma glaucum). Several widespread marine species have distinctive subpopulations in the Baltic Sea adapted to the low salinity, such as the Baltic Sea forms of the Atlantic herring and lumpsucker, which are smaller than the widespread forms in the North Atlantic. A peculiar feature of the fauna is that it contains a number of glacial relict species, isolated populations of arctic species which have remained in the Baltic Sea since the last glaciation, such as the large isopod Saduria entomon, the Baltic subspecies of ringed seal, and the fourhorn sculpin. Some of these relicts are derived from glacial lakes, such as Monoporeia affinis, which is a main element in the benthic fauna of the low-salinity Bothnian Bay. Cetaceans in the Baltic Sea are monitored by the countries bordering the sea and data compiled by various intergovernmental bodies, such as ASCOBANS. A critically endangered population of harbor porpoise inhabit the Baltic proper, whereas the species is abundant in the outer Baltiuc (Western Baltic and Danish Straits) and occasionally oceanic and out-of-range species such as minke whales, bottlenose dolphins, beluga whales, orcas, and beaked whales visit the waters. In recent years, very small, but with increasing rates, fin whales and humpback whales migrate into Baltic sea including mother and calf pair. Now extinct Atlantic grey whales (remains found from Gräsö along Bothnian Sea/southern Bothnian Gulf and Ystad) and eastern population of North Atlantic right whales that is facing functional extinction once migrated into Baltic Sea. Other notable megafauna include the basking sharks. Environmental status Satellite images taken in July 2010 revealed a massive algal bloom covering in the Baltic Sea. The area of the bloom extended from Germany and Poland to Finland. Researchers of the phenomenon have indicated that algal blooms have occurred every summer for decades. Fertilizer runoff from surrounding agricultural land has exacerbated the problem and led to increased eutrophication. Approximately of the Baltic's seafloor (a quarter of its total area) is a variable dead zone. The more saline (and therefore denser) water remains on the bottom, isolating it from surface waters and the atmosphere. This leads to decreased oxygen concentrations within the zone. It is mainly bacteria that grow in it, digesting organic material and releasing hydrogen sulfide. Because of this large anaerobic zone, the seafloor ecology differs from that of the neighboring Atlantic. Plans to artificially oxygenate areas of the Baltic that have experienced eutrophication have been proposed by the University of Gothenburg and Inocean AB. The proposal intends to use wind-driven pumps to inject oxygen (air) into waters at, or around, 130m below sea level. After World War II, Germany had to be disarmed and large quantities of ammunition stockpiles were disposed directly into the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. Environmental experts and marine biologists warn that these ammunition dumps pose a major environmental threat with potentially life-threatening consequences to the health and safety of humans on the coastlines of these seas. Economy Construction of the Great Belt Bridge in Denmark (completed 1997) and the Øresund Bridge-Tunnel (completed 1999), linking Denmark with Sweden, provided a highway and railroad connection between Sweden and the Danish mainland (the Jutland Peninsula, precisely the Zealand). The undersea tunnel of the Øresund Bridge-Tunnel provides for navigation of large ships into and out of the Baltic Sea. The Baltic Sea is the main trade route for the export of Russian petroleum. Many of the countries neighboring the Baltic Sea have been concerned about this since a major oil leak in a seagoing tanker would be disastrous for the Baltic—given the slow exchange of water. The tourism industry surrounding the Baltic Sea is naturally concerned about oil pollution. Much shipbuilding is carried out in the shipyards around the Baltic Sea. The largest shipyards are at Gdańsk, Gdynia, and Szczecin, Poland; Kiel, Germany; Karlskrona and Malmö, Sweden; Rauma, Turku, and Helsinki, Finland; Riga, Ventspils, and Liepāja, Latvia; Klaipėda, Lithuania; and Saint Petersburg, Russia. There are several cargo and passenger ferries that operate on the Baltic Sea, such as Scandlines, Silja Line, Polferries, the Viking Line, Tallink, and Superfast Ferries. Construction of the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link between Denmark and Germany is due to finish in 2029. It will be a three-bore tunnel carrying four motorway lanes and two rail tracks. Tourism Piers Ahlbeck (Usedom), Germany Bansin, Germany Binz, Germany Heiligendamm, Germany Kühlungsborn, Germany Sellin, Germany Liepāja, Latvia Klaipėda, Lithuania Gdańsk, Poland Gdynia, Poland Kołobrzeg, Poland Misdroy, Poland Sopot, Poland Resort towns Haapsalu, Estonia Kuressaare, Estonia Narva-Jõesuu, Estonia Pärnu, Estonia Hanko, Finland Mariehamn, Finland Binz, Germany Heiligendamm, Germany Heringsdorf, Germany Travemünde, Germany Sellin, Germany Ueckermünde, Germany Jūrmala, Latvia Nida, Lithuania Palanga, Lithuania Kamień Pomorski, Poland Kołobrzeg, Poland Sopot, Poland Świnoujście, Poland Ustka, Poland Svetlogorsk, Russia The Helsinki Convention 1974 Convention For the first time ever, all the sources of pollution around an entire sea were made subject to a single convention, signed in 1974 by the then seven Baltic coastal states. The 1974 Convention entered into force on 3 May 1980. 1992 Convention In the light of political changes and developments in international environmental and maritime law, a new convention was signed in 1992 by all the states bordering on the Baltic Sea, and the European Community. After ratification, the Convention entered into force on 17 January 2000. The Convention covers the whole of the Baltic Sea area, including inland waters and the water of the sea itself, as well as the seabed. Measures are also taken in the whole catchment area of the Baltic Sea to reduce land-based pollution. The convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area, 1992, entered into force on 17 January 2000. The governing body of the convention is the Helsinki Commission, also known as HELCOM, or Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission. The present contracting parties are Denmark, Estonia, the European Community, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Sweden. The ratification instruments were deposited by the European Community, Germany, Latvia and Sweden in 1994, by Estonia and Finland in 1995, by Denmark in 1996, by Lithuania in 1997, and by Poland and Russia in November 1999. See also Baltic (disambiguation) Baltic region Baltic Sea Action Group (BSAG) Council of the Baltic Sea States List of cities and towns around the Baltic Sea List of rivers of the Baltic Sea Ms Estonia MS Wilhelm Gustloff Nord Stream Northern Europe Ports of the Baltic Sea Scandinavia SS Cap Arcona Notes References Bibliography Further reading Norbert Götz. “Spatial Politics and Fuzzy Regionalism: The Case of the Baltic Sea Area.” Baltic Worlds 9 (2016) 3: 54–67. Aarno Voipio (ed., 1981): "The Baltic Sea." Elsevier Oceanography Series, vol. 30, Elsevier Scientific Publishing, 418 p, Historical Bogucka, Maria. "The Role of Baltic Trade in European Development from the XVIth to the XVIIIth Centuries". Journal of European Economic History 9 (1980): 5–20. Davey, James. The Transformation of British Naval Strategy: Seapower and Supply in Northern Europe, 1808–1812 (Boydell, 2012). Fedorowicz, Jan K. England's Baltic Trade in the Early Seventeenth Century: A Study in Anglo-Polish Commercial Diplomacy (Cambridge UP, 2008). Frost, Robert I. The Northern Wars: War, State, and Society in Northeastern Europe, 1558–1721 (Longman, 2000). Grainger, John D. The British Navy in the Baltic (Boydell, 2014). Kent, Heinz S. K. War and Trade in Northern Seas: Anglo-Scandinavian Economic Relations in the Mid Eighteenth Century (Cambridge UP, 1973). Koningsbrugge, Hans van. "In War and Peace: The Dutch and the Baltic in Early Modern Times". Tijdschrift voor Skandinavistiek 16 (1995): 189–200. Lindblad, Jan Thomas. "Structural Change in the Dutch Trade in the Baltic in the Eighteenth Century". Scandinavian Economic History Review 33 (1985): 193–207. Lisk, Jill. The Struggle for Supremacy in the Baltic, 1600–1725 (U of London Press, 1967). Roberts, Michael. The Early Vasas: A History of Sweden, 1523–1611 (Cambridge UP, 1968). Rystad, Göran, Klaus-R. Böhme, and Wilhelm M. Carlgren, eds. In Quest of Trade and Security: The Baltic in Power Politics, 1500–1990. Vol. 1, 1500–1890. Stockholm: Probus, 1994. Salmon, Patrick, and Tony Barrow, eds. Britain and the Baltic: Studies in Commercial, Political and Cultural Relations (Sunderland University Press, 2003). Stiles, Andrina. Sweden and the Baltic 1523–1721 (1992). Thomson, Erik. "Beyond the Military State: Sweden's Great Power Period in Recent Historiography". History Compass 9 (2011): 269–283. Tielhof, Milja van. The "Mother of All Trades": The Baltic Grain Trade in Amsterdam from the Late 16th to Early 19th Century. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2002. Warner, Richard. "British Merchants and Russian Men-of-War: The Rise of the Russian Baltic Fleet". In Peter the Great and the West: New Perspectives. Edited by Lindsey Hughes, 105–117. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. External links The Baltic Sea, Kattegat and Skagerrak – sea areas and draining basins, poster with integral information by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute Baltic Sea clickable map and details. Protect the Baltic Sea while it's still not too late. The Baltic Sea Portal – a site maintained by the (FIMR) (in English, Finnish, Swedish and Estonian) www.balticnest.org Encyclopedia of Baltic History Old shipwrecks in the Baltic How the Baltic Sea was changing – Prehistory of the Baltic from the Polish Geological Institute Late Weichselian and Holocene shore displacement history of the Baltic Sea in Finland – more prehistory of the Baltic from the Department of Geography of the University of Helsinki Baltic Environmental Atlas: Interactive map of the Baltic Sea region Can a New Cleanup Plan Save the Sea? – spiegel.de List of all ferry lines in the Baltic Sea The Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) HELCOM is the governing body of the "Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area" Baltice.org – information related to winter navigation in the Baltic Sea. Baltic Sea Wind – Marine weather forecasts Ostseeflug – A short film (55'), showing the coastline and the major German cities at the Baltic sea. Baltic region Seas of the Atlantic Ocean European seas Geography of Northern Europe Geography of Scandinavia Seas of Germany Federal waterways in Germany Seas of Russia Seas of Denmark Bodies of water of Estonia Bodies of water of Finland Bodies of water of Lithuania Bodies of water of Poland Bodies of water of Sweden Bodies of water of Kaliningrad Oblast Bodies

of river estuaries. River estuaries form important staging points during the migration of anadromous and catadromous fish species, such as salmon, shad and eels, giving them time to form social groups and to adjust to the changes in salinity. Salmon are anadromous, meaning they live in the sea but ascend rivers to spawn; eels are catadromous, living in rivers and streams, but returning to the sea to breed. Besides the species that migrate through estuaries, there are many other fish that use them as "nursery grounds" for spawning or as places young fish can feed and grow before moving elsewhere. Herring and plaice are two commercially important species that use the Thames Estuary for this purpose. Estuaries are also commonly used as fishing grounds, and as places for fish farming or ranching. For example, Atlantic salmon farms are often located in estuaries, although this has caused controversy, because in doing so, fish farmers expose migrating wild fish to large numbers of external parasites such as sea lice that escape from the pens the farmed fish are kept in. Mangroves Another important brackish water habitat is the mangrove swamp or mangal. Many, though not all, mangrove swamps fringe estuaries and lagoons where the salinity changes with each tide. Among the most specialised residents of mangrove forests are mudskippers, fish that forage for food on land, and archer fish, perch-like fish that "spit" at insects and other small animals living in the trees, knocking them into the water where they can be eaten. Like estuaries, mangrove swamps are extremely important breeding grounds for many fish, with species such as snappers, halfbeaks, and tarpon spawning or maturing among them. Besides fish, numerous other animals use mangroves, including such species as the saltwater crocodile, American crocodile, proboscis monkey, diamondback terrapin, and the crab-eating frog, Fejervarya cancrivora (formerly Rana cancrivora). Mangroves represent important nesting site for numerous birds groups such as herons, storks, spoonbills, ibises, kingfishers, shorebirds and seabirds. Although often plagued with mosquitoes and other insects that make them unpleasant for humans, mangrove swamps are very important buffer zones between land and sea, and are a natural defense against hurricane and tsunami damage in particular. The Sundarbans and Bhitarkanika Mangroves are two of the large mangrove forests in the world, both on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. Brackish seas and lakes Some seas and lakes are brackish. The Baltic Sea is a brackish sea adjoining the North Sea. Originally the confluence of two major river systems (Eridanos and ?) prior to the Pleistocene, since then it has been flooded by the North Sea but still receives so much freshwater from the adjacent lands that the water is brackish. Because the salt water coming in from the sea is denser than freshwater, the water in the Baltic is stratified, with salt water at the bottom and freshwater at the top. Limited mixing occurs because of the lack of tides and storms, with the result that the fish fauna at the surface is freshwater in composition while that lower down is more marine. Cod are an example of a species only found in deep water in the Baltic, while pike are confined to the less saline surface waters. The Caspian Sea is the world's largest lake and contains brackish water with a salinity about one-third that of normal seawater. The Caspian is famous for its peculiar animal fauna, including one of the few non-marine seals (the Caspian seal) and the great sturgeons, a major source of caviar. Hudson Bay is a brackish marginal sea of the Arctic ocean, it remains brackish due its limited connections to the open ocean, very high levels freshwater surface runoff input from the large

habitats worldwide are estuaries, where a river meets the sea. The River Thames flowing through London is a classic river estuary. The town of Teddington a few miles west of London marks the boundary between the tidal and non-tidal parts of the Thames, although it is still considered a freshwater river about as far east as Battersea insofar as the average salinity is very low and the fish fauna consists predominantly of freshwater species such as roach, dace, carp, perch, and pike. The Thames Estuary becomes brackish between Battersea and Gravesend, and the diversity of freshwater fish species present is smaller, primarily roach and dace; euryhaline marine species such as flounder, European seabass, mullet, and smelt become much more common. Further east, the salinity increases and the freshwater fish species are completely replaced by euryhaline marine ones, until the river reaches Gravesend, at which point conditions become fully marine and the fish fauna resembles that of the adjacent North Sea and includes both euryhaline and stenohaline marine species. A similar pattern of replacement can be observed with the aquatic plants and invertebrates living in the river. This type of ecological succession from a freshwater to marine ecosystem is typical of river estuaries. River estuaries form important staging points during the migration of anadromous and catadromous fish species, such as salmon, shad and eels, giving them time to form social groups and to adjust to the changes in salinity. Salmon are anadromous, meaning they live in the sea but ascend rivers to spawn; eels are catadromous, living in rivers and streams, but returning to the sea to breed. Besides the species that migrate through estuaries, there are many other fish that use them as "nursery grounds" for spawning or as places young fish can feed and grow before moving elsewhere. Herring and plaice are two commercially important species that use the Thames Estuary for this purpose. Estuaries are also commonly used as fishing grounds, and as places for fish farming or ranching. For example, Atlantic salmon farms are often located in estuaries, although this has caused controversy, because in doing so, fish farmers expose migrating wild fish to large numbers of external parasites such as sea lice that escape from the pens the farmed fish are kept in. Mangroves Another important brackish water habitat is the mangrove swamp or mangal. Many, though not all, mangrove swamps fringe estuaries and lagoons where the salinity changes with each tide. Among the most specialised residents of mangrove forests are mudskippers, fish that forage for food on land, and archer fish, perch-like fish that "spit" at insects and other small animals living in the trees, knocking them into the water where they can be eaten. Like estuaries, mangrove swamps are extremely important breeding grounds for many fish, with species such as snappers, halfbeaks, and tarpon spawning or maturing among them. Besides fish, numerous other animals use mangroves, including such species as the saltwater crocodile, American crocodile, proboscis monkey, diamondback terrapin, and the crab-eating frog, Fejervarya cancrivora (formerly Rana cancrivora). Mangroves represent important nesting site for numerous birds groups such as herons, storks, spoonbills, ibises, kingfishers, shorebirds and seabirds. Although often plagued with

and their friends in all walks of life” cooperating to “evade the law, escape punishment for their crimes, or to deter the police from doing their duty.” Between 1930 and 1960, moderate and upper income Bronxites (predominantly non-Hispanic Whites) began to relocate from the borough's southwestern neighborhoods. This migration has left a mostly poor African American and Hispanic (largely Puerto Rican) population in the West Bronx. One significant factor that shifted the racial and economic demographics was the construction of Co-op City, built to house middle-class residents in family-sized apartments. The high-rise complex played a significant role in draining middle-class residents from older tenement buildings in the borough's southern and western fringes. Most predominantly non-Hispanic White communities today are in the eastern and northwestern sections of the borough. From the early 1960s to the early 1980s, the quality of life changed for some Bronx residents. Historians and social scientists have suggested many factors, including the theory that Robert Moses' Cross Bronx Expressway destroyed existing residential neighborhoods and created instant slums, as put forward in Robert Caro's biography The Power Broker. Another factor in the Bronx's decline may have been the development of high-rise housing projects, particularly in the South Bronx. Yet another factor may have been a reduction in the real estate listings and property-related financial services offered in some areas of the Bronx, such as mortgage loans or insurance policies—a process known as redlining. Others have suggested a "planned shrinkage" of municipal services, such as fire-fighting. There was also much debate as to whether rent control laws had made it less profitable (or more costly) for landlords to maintain existing buildings with their existing tenants than to abandon or destroy those buildings. In the 1970s, parts of the Bronx were plagued by a wave of arson. The burning of buildings was predominantly in the poorest communities, such as the South Bronx. One explanation of this event was that landlords decided to burn their low property-value buildings and take the insurance money, as it was easier for them to get insurance money than to try to refurbish a dilapidated building or sell a building in a severely distressed area. The Bronx became identified with a high rate of poverty and unemployment, which was mainly a persistent problem in the South Bronx. There were cases where tenants set fire to the building they lived in so they may qualify for emergency relocations by city social service agencies to better residences, sometimes being relocated to other parts of the city. Out of 289 census tracts in the Bronx borough, seven tracts lost more than 97% of their buildings to arson and abandonment between 1970 and 1980; another forty-four tracts had more than 50% of their buildings meet the same fate. By the early 1980s, the Bronx was considered the most blighted urban area in the country, particularly the South Bronx which experienced a loss of 60% of the population and 40% of housing units. However, starting in the 1990s, many of the burned-out and run-down tenements were replaced by new housing units. Revitalization Since the late 1980s, significant development has occurred in the Bronx, first stimulated by the city's "Ten-Year Housing Plan" and community members working to rebuild the social, economic and environmental infrastructure by creating affordable housing. Groups affiliated with churches in the South Bronx erected the Nehemiah Homes with about 1,000 units. The grass roots organization Nos Quedamos' endeavor known as Melrose Commons began to rebuild areas in the South Bronx. The IRT White Plains Road Line () began to show an increase in riders. Chains such as Marshalls, Staples, and Target opened stores in the Bronx. More bank branches opened in the Bronx as a whole (rising from 106 in 1997 to 149 in 2007), although not primarily in poor or minority neighborhoods, while the Bronx still has fewer branches per person than other boroughs. In 1997, the Bronx was designated an All America City by the National Civic League, acknowledging its comeback from the decline of the mid-century. In 2006, The New York Times reported that "construction cranes have become the borough's new visual metaphor, replacing the window decals of the 1980s in which pictures of potted plants and drawn curtains were placed in the windows of abandoned buildings." The borough has experienced substantial new building construction since 2002. Between 2002 and June 2007, 33,687 new units of housing were built or were under way and $4.8 billion has been invested in new housing. In the first six months of 2007 alone total investment in new residential development was $965 million and 5,187 residential units were scheduled to be completed. Much of the new development is springing up in formerly vacant lots across the South Bronx. In addition came a revitalization of the existing housing market in areas such as Hunts Point, the Lower Concourse, and the neighborhoods surrounding the Third Avenue Bridge as people buy apartments and renovate them. Several boutique and chain hotels opened in the 2010s in the South Bronx. New developments are underway. The Bronx General Post Office on the corner of the Grand Concourse and East 149th Street is being converted into a market place, boutiques, restaurants and office space with a USPS concession. The Kingsbridge Armory, often cited as the largest armory in the world, is scheduled for redevelopment as the Kingsbridge National Ice Center. Under consideration for future development is the construction of a platform over the New York City Subway's Concourse Yard adjacent to Lehman College. The construction would permit approximately of development and would cost . Despite significant investment compared to the post war period, many exacerbated social problems remain including high rates of violent crime, substance abuse, overcrowding, and substandard housing conditions. The Bronx has the highest rate of poverty in New York City, and the greater South Bronx is the poorest area. Geography Location and physical features According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Bronx County has a total area of , of which is land and (27%) is water. The Bronx is New York City's northernmost borough, New York State's southernmost mainland county and the only part of New York City that is almost entirely on the North American mainland. Its bedrock is primarily Fordham gneiss, a high-grade heavily banded metamorphic rock containing significant amounts of pink feldspar. Marble Hill – politically part of Manhattan but now physically attached to the Bronx – is so-called because of the formation of Inwood marble there as well as in Inwood, Manhattan and parts of the Bronx and Westchester County. The Hudson River separates the Bronx on the west from Alpine, Tenafly and Englewood Cliffs in Bergen County, New Jersey; the Harlem River separates it from the island of Manhattan to the southwest; the East River separates it from Queens to the southeast; and to the east, Long Island Sound separates it from Nassau County in western Long Island. Directly north of the Bronx are (from west to east) the adjoining Westchester County communities of Yonkers, Mount Vernon, Pelham Manor and, though physically separated by water, New Rochelle. There is also a short southern land boundary with Marble Hill in the Borough of Manhattan, over the filled-in former course of the Spuyten Duyvil Creek; Marble Hill's postal ZIP code, telephonic area codes and fire service, however, are shared with the Bronx and not Manhattan. The Bronx River flows south from Westchester County through the borough, emptying into the East River; it is the only entirely freshwater river in New York City. A smaller river, the Hutchinson River (named after the religious leader Anne Hutchinson, killed along its banks in 1641), passes through the East Bronx and empties into Eastchester Bay. The Bronx also includes several small islands in the East River and Long Island Sound, such as City Island and Hart Island. Rikers Island in the East River, home to the large jail complex for the entire city, is also part of the Bronx. The Bronx's highest elevation at is in the northwest corner, west of Van Cortlandt Park and in the Chapel Farm area near the Riverdale Country School. The opposite (southeastern) side of the Bronx has four large low peninsulas or "necks" of low-lying land that jut into the waters of the East River and were once salt marsh: Hunt's Point, Clason's Point, Screvin's Neck and Throggs Neck. Further up the coastline, Rodman's Neck lies between Pelham Bay Park in the northeast and City Island. The Bronx's irregular shoreline extends for . Parks and open space Although Bronx County was the third most densely populated county in the United States as of 2006 (after Manhattan and Brooklyn), of the Bronx—about one-fifth of the Bronx's area, and one-quarter of its land area—is given over to parkland. The vision of a system of major Bronx parks connected by park-like thoroughfares is usually attributed to John Mullaly. Woodlawn Cemetery, one of the largest cemeteries in New York City, sits on the western bank of the Bronx River near Yonkers. It opened in 1863, in what was then the town of Yonkers, at the time a rural area. The borough's northern side includes the largest park in New York City—Pelham Bay Park, which includes Orchard Beach—and the third-largest, Van Cortlandt Park, which is west of Woodlawn Cemetery and borders Yonkers. Also in the northern Bronx, Wave Hill, the former estate of George W. Perkins—known for a historic house, gardens, changing site-specific art installations and concerts—overlooks the New Jersey Palisades from a promontory on the Hudson in Riverdale. Nearer the borough's center, and along the Bronx River, is Bronx Park; its northern end houses the New York Botanical Gardens, which preserve the last patch of the original hemlock forest that once covered the county, and its southern end the Bronx Zoo, the largest urban zoological gardens in the United States. Just south of Van Cortlandt Park is the Jerome Park Reservoir, surrounded by of stone walls and bordering several small parks in the Bedford Park neighborhood; the reservoir was built in the 1890s on the site of the former Jerome Park Racetrack. Further south is Crotona Park, home to a lake, 28 species of trees, and a large swimming pool. The land for these parks, and many others, was bought by New York City in 1888, while land was still open and inexpensive, in anticipation of future needs and future pressures for development. Some of the acquired land was set aside for the Grand Concourse and Pelham Parkway, the first of a series of boulevards and parkways (thoroughfares lined with trees, vegetation and greenery). Later projects included the Bronx River Parkway, which developed a road while restoring the riverbank and reducing pollution, Mosholu Parkway and the Henry Hudson Parkway. In 2006, a five-year, $220-million program of capital improvements and natural restoration in 70 Bronx parks was begun (financed by water and sewer revenues) as part of an agreement that allowed a water filtration plant under Mosholu Golf Course in Van Cortlandt Park. One major focus is on opening more of the Bronx River's banks and restoring them to a natural state. Neighborhoods The number, locations, and boundaries of the Bronx's neighborhoods (many of them sitting on the sites of 19th-century villages) have become unclear with time and successive waves of newcomers. In 2006, Manny Fernandez of The New York Times wrote, According to a Department of City Planning map of the city's neighborhoods, the Bronx has 49. The map publisher Hagstrom identifies 69. The borough president, Adolfo Carrión Jr., says 61. The Mayor's Community Assistance Unit, in a listing of the borough's community boards, names 68. Notable Bronx neighborhoods include the South Bronx; Little Italy on Arthur Avenue in the Belmont section; and Riverdale. East Bronx (Bronx Community Districts 9 [south central], 10 [east], 11 [east central] and 12 [north central] ) East of the Bronx River, the borough is relatively flat and includes four large low peninsulas, or 'necks,' of low-lying land which jut into the waters of the East River and were once saltmarsh: Hunts Point, Clason's Point, Screvin's Neck (Castle Hill Point) and Throgs Neck. The East Bronx has older tenement buildings, low income public housing complexes, and multifamily homes, as well as single family homes. It includes New York City's largest park: Pelham Bay Park along the Westchester-Bronx border. Neighborhoods include: Clason's Point, Harding Park, Soundview, Castle Hill, Parkchester (Community District 9); Throggs Neck, Country Club, City Island, Pelham Bay, Edgewater Park, Co-op City (Community District 10); Westchester Square, Van Nest, Pelham Parkway, Morris Park (Community District 11); Williamsbridge, Eastchester, Baychester, Edenwald and Wakefield (Community District 12). City Island and Hart Island (Bronx Community District 10) City Island is east of Pelham Bay Park in Long Island Sound and is known for its seafood restaurants and private waterfront homes. City Island's single shopping street, City Island Avenue, is reminiscent of a small New England town. It is connected to Rodman's Neck on the mainland by the City Island Bridge. East of City Island is Hart Island, which is uninhabited and not open to the public. It once served as a prison and now houses New York City's potter's field for unclaimed bodies. West Bronx (Bronx Community Districts 1 to 8, progressing roughly from south to northwest) The western parts of the Bronx are hillier and are dominated by a series of parallel ridges, running south to north. The West Bronx has older apartment buildings, low income public housing complexes, multifamily homes in its lower income areas as well as larger single family homes in more affluent areas such as Riverdale and Fieldston. It includes New York City's third-largest park: Van Cortlandt Park along the Westchester-Bronx border. The Grand Concourse, a wide boulevard, runs through it, north to south. Northwestern Bronx (Bronx Community Districts 7 [between the Bronx and Harlem Rivers] and 8 [facing the Hudson River] – plus part of Board 12) Neighborhoods include: Fordham-Bedford, Bedford Park, Norwood, Kingsbridge Heights (Community District 7), Kingsbridge, Riverdale (Community District 8), and Woodlawn Heights (Community District 12). (Marble Hill, Manhattan is now connected by land to the Bronx rather than Manhattan and is served by Bronx Community District 8.) South Bronx (Bronx Community Districts 1 to 6 plus part of CD 7—progressing northwards, CDs 2, 3 and 6 border the Bronx River from its mouth to Bronx Park, while 1, 4, 5 and 7 face Manhattan across the Harlem River) Like other neighborhoods in New York City, the South Bronx has no official boundaries. The name has been used to represent poverty in the Bronx and is applied to progressively more northern places so that by the 2000s, Fordham Road was often used as a northern limit. The Bronx River more consistently forms an eastern boundary. The South Bronx has many high-density apartment buildings, low income public housing complexes, and multi-unit homes. The South Bronx is home to the Bronx County Courthouse, Borough Hall, and other government buildings, as well as Yankee Stadium. The Cross Bronx Expressway bisects it, east to west. The South Bronx has some of the poorest neighborhoods in the country, as well as very high crime areas. Neighborhoods include: The Hub (a retail district at Third Avenue and East 149th Street), Port Morris, Mott Haven (Community District 1), Melrose (Community District 1 & Community District 3), Morrisania, East Morrisania [also known as Crotona Park East] (Community District 3), Hunts Point, Longwood (Community District 2), Highbridge, Concourse (Community District 4), West Farms, Belmont, East Tremont (Community District 6), Tremont, Morris Heights (Community District 5), University Heights. (Community District 5 & Community District 7). Adjacent counties The Bronx adjoins: Westchester County – north Nassau County, New York – southeast (across the East River) Queens County, New York (Queens) – south (across the East River) New York County, New York (Manhattan) – southwest Bergen County, New Jersey – west (across the Hudson River) Climate Demographics Race, ethnicity, language, and immigration 2018 estimates The borough's most populous racial group, white, declined from 99.3% in 1920 to 44.9% in 2018. The Bronx has 532,487 housing units, with a median value of $371,800, and with an owner-occupancy rate of 19.7%, the lowest of the five boroughs. There are 495,356 households, with 2.85 persons per household. 59.3% of residents speak a language besides English at home, the highest rate of the five boroughs. In the Bronx, the population is 7.2% under 5, 17.6% 6-18, 62.4% 19–64, and 12.8% over 65. 52.9% of the population is female. 35.3% of residents are foreign born. The per capita income is $19,721, while the median household income is $36,593, both being the lowest of the five boroughs. 27.9% of residents live below the poverty line, the highest of the five boroughs. 2010 census According to the 2010 Census, 53.5% of Bronx's population was of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin (they may be of any race); 30.1% non-Hispanic Black or African American, 10.9% of the population was non-Hispanic White, 3.4% non-Hispanic Asian, 0.6% from some other race (non-Hispanic) and 1.2% of two or more races (non-Hispanic). As of 2010, 46.29% (584,463) of Bronx residents aged five and older spoke Spanish at home, while 44.02% (555,767) spoke English, 2.48% (31,361) African languages, 0.91% (11,455) French, 0.90% (11,355) Italian, 0.87% (10,946) various Indic languages, 0.70% (8,836) other Indo-European languages, and Chinese was spoken at home by 0.50% (6,610) of the population over the age of five. In total, 55.98% (706,783) of the Bronx's population age five and older spoke a language at home other than English. A Garifuna-speaking community from Honduras and Guatemala also makes the Bronx its home. 2009 community survey According to the 2009 American Community Survey, White Americans of both Hispanic and non-Hispanic origin represented over one-fifth (22.9%) of the Bronx's population. However, non-Hispanic whites formed under one-eighth (12.1%) of the population, down from 34.4% in 1980. Out of all five boroughs, the Bronx has the lowest number and percentage of white residents. 320,640 whites called the Bronx home, of which 168,570 were non-Hispanic whites. The majority of the non-Hispanic European American population is of Italian and Irish descent. People of Italian descent numbered over 55,000 individuals and made up 3.9% of the population. People of Irish descent numbered over 43,500 individuals and made up 3.1% of the population. German Americans and Polish Americans made up 1.4% and 0.8% of the population respectively. The Bronx is the only New York City borough with a Hispanic majority, many of whom are Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. Older estimates The Census of 1930 counted only 1.0% (12,930) of the Bronx's population as Negro (while making no distinct counts of Hispanic or Spanish-surname residents). Population and housing At the 2010 Census, there were, 1,385,108 people living in Bronx, a 3.9% increase since 2000. As of the United States Census of 2000, there were 1,332,650 people, 463,212 households, and 314,984 families residing in the borough. The population density was 31,709.3 inhabitants per square mile (12,242.2/km2). There were 490,659 housing units at an average density of 11,674.8 per square mile (4,507.4/km2). Census estimates place total population of Bronx county at 1,392,002 as of 2012. There were 463,212 households, out of which 38.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 31.4% were married couples living together, 30.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.0% were non-families. 27.4% of all households were made up of individuals, and 9.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.78 and the average family size was 3.37. The age distribution of the population in the Bronx was as follows: 29.8% under the age of 18, 10.6% from 18 to 24, 30.7% from 25 to 44, 18.8% from 45 to 64, and 10.1% 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females, there were 87.0 males. Individual and household income The 1999 median income for a household in the borough was $27,611, and the median family income was $30,682. Males had a median income of $31,178 versus $29,429 for females. The per capita income for the borough was $13,959. About 28.0% of families and 30.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 41.5% of those under age 18 and 21.3% of those age 65 or over. More than half of the neighborhoods in the Bronx are high poverty or extreme poverty areas. From 2015 Census data, the median income for a household was (in 2015 dollars) $34,299. Per capita income in past 12 months (in 2015 dollars): $18,456 with persons in poverty at 30.3%. Per the 2016 Census data, the median income for a household was $35,302. Per capita income was cited at $18,896. Culture and institutions Author Edgar Allan Poe spent the last years of his life (1846 to 1849) in the Bronx at Poe Cottage, now at Kingsbridge Road and the Grand Concourse. A small wooden farmhouse built around 1812, the cottage once commanded unobstructed vistas over the rolling Bronx hills to the shores of Long Island. Poe moved there to get away from the Manhattan city air and crowding in hope that the then rural area would be beneficial for his wife's tuberculosis. It was in the Bronx that Poe wrote one of his most famous works, Annabel Lee. More than a century later, the Bronx would evolve from a hot bed of Latin jazz to an incubator of hip hop as documented in the award-winning documentary, produced by City Lore and broadcast on PBS in 2006, "From Mambo to Hip Hop: A South Bronx Tale." Hip Hop first emerged in the South Bronx in the early 1970s. The New York Times has identified 1520 Sedgwick Avenue "an otherwise unremarkable high-rise just north of the Cross Bronx Expressway and hard along the Major Deegan Expressway" as a starting point, where DJ Kool Herc presided over parties in the community room. The 2016 Netflix series The Get Down is based on the development of hip hop in 1977 in the South Bronx. Ten years earlier, the Bronx Opera had been founded. Founding of hip-hop On August 11, 1973, DJ Kool Herc was a D.J. and M.C. at a party in the recreation room of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx adjacent to the Cross Bronx Expressway. While it was not the actual "Birthplace of Hip Hop" – the genre developed slowly in several places in the 1970s – it was verified to be the place where one of the pivotal and formative events occurred. Specifically: Beginning with the advent of beat match DJing, in which Bronx disc jockeys including Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa and DJ Kool Herc extended the breaks of funk records, a major new musical genre emerged that sought to isolate the percussion breaks of hit funk, disco and soul songs. As hip hop's popularity grew, performers began speaking ("rapping") in sync with the beats, and became known as MCs or emcees. The Herculoids, made up of Herc, Coke La Rock, and Clark Kent, were the earliest to gain major fame. The Bronx is referred to in hip-hop slang as "The Boogie Down Bronx", or just "The Boogie Down". This was hip-hop pioneer KRS-One's inspiration for his group BDP, or Boogie Down Productions, which included DJ Scott La Rock. Newer hip hop artists from the Bronx include Big Pun, Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz, Camp Lo, Swizz Beatz, Drag-On, Fat Joe, Terror Squad, Cory Gunz, A Boogie wit da Hoodie, French Montana and Cardi B, among others. , a tour company founded in 2002 by local licensed sightseeing tour guide Debra Harris, has established a sightseeing tour of the Bronx showcasing the locations that helped shape hip hop culture, and features some of the pioneers of hip hop as tour guides. The Bronx's recognition as an important center of African-American culture has led Fordham University to establish the Bronx African-American History Project (BAAHP). Sports The Bronx is the home of the New York Yankees, nicknamed "the Bronx Bombers", of Major League Baseball. The original Yankee Stadium opened in 1923 on 161st Street and River Avenue, a year that saw the Yankees bring home the first of their 27 World Series Championships. With the famous façade, the short right field porch and Monument Park, Yankee Stadium has been home to many of baseball's greatest players including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Reggie Jackson, Thurman Munson, Don Mattingly, Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera. The original stadium was the scene of Lou Gehrig's Farewell Speech in 1939, Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series, Roger Maris' record breaking 61st home run in 1961, and Reggie Jackson's 3 home runs to clinch Game 6 of the 1977 World Series. The Stadium was the former home of the New York Giants of the National Football League from 1956 to 1973. The original Yankee Stadium closed in 2008 to make way for a new Yankee Stadium in which the team started play in 2009. It is north-northeast of the 1923 Yankee Stadium, on the former site of Macombs Dam Park. The current Yankee Stadium is also the home of New York City FC of Major League Soccer, who began play in 2015. Off-Off-Broadway The Bronx is home to several Off-Off-Broadway theaters, many staging new works by immigrant playwrights from Latin America and Africa. The Pregones Theater, which produces Latin American work, opened a new 130-seat theater in 2005 on Walton Avenue in the South Bronx. Some artists from elsewhere in New York City have begun to converge on the area, and housing prices have nearly quadrupled in the area since 2002. However rising prices directly correlate to a housing shortage across the city and the entire metro area. Arts The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, founded in 1998 by Arthur Aviles and Charles Rice-Gonzalez, provides dance, theatre and art workshops, festivals and performances focusing on contemporary and modern art in relation to race, gender, and sexuality. It is home to the Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre, a contemporary dance company, and the Bronx Dance Coalition. The Academy was formerly in the American Bank Note Company Building before relocating to a venue on the grounds of St. Peter's Episcopal Church. The Bronx Museum of the Arts, founded in 1971, exhibits 20th century and contemporary art through its central museum space and of galleries. Many of its exhibitions are on themes of special interest to the Bronx. Its permanent collection features more than 800 works of art, primarily by artists from Africa, Asia and Latin America, including paintings, photographs, prints, drawings, and mixed media. The museum was temporarily closed in 2006 while it underwent an expansion designed by the architectural firm Arquitectonica that would double the museum's size to . The Bronx has also become home to a peculiar poetic tribute in the form of the "Heinrich Heine Memorial", better known as the Lorelei Fountain. After Heine's German birthplace of Düsseldorf had rejected, allegedly for anti-Semitic motives, a centennial monument to the radical German-Jewish poet (1797–1856), his incensed German-American admirers, including Carl Schurz, started a movement to place one instead in Midtown Manhattan, at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street. However, this intention was thwarted by a combination of ethnic antagonism, aesthetic controversy and political struggles over the institutional control of public art. In 1899, the memorial by Ernst Gustav Herter was placed in Joyce Kilmer Park, near the Yankee Stadium. In 1999, it was moved to 161st Street and the Concourse. Maritime heritage The peninsular borough's maritime heritage is acknowledged in several ways. The City Island Historical Society and Nautical Museum occupies a former public school designed by the New York City school system's turn-of-the-last-century master architect C. B. J. Snyder. The state's Maritime College in Fort Schuyler (on the southeastern shore) houses the Maritime Industry Museum. In addition, the Harlem River is reemerging as "Scullers' Row" due in large part to the efforts of the Bronx River Restoration Project, a joint public-private endeavor of the city's parks department. Canoeing and kayaking on the borough's namesake river have been promoted by the Bronx River Alliance. The river is also straddled by the New York Botanical Gardens, its neighbor, the Bronx Zoo, and a little further south, on the west shore, Bronx River Art Center. Community celebrations "Bronx Week", traditionally held in May, began as a one-day celebration. Begun by Bronx historian Lloyd Ultan and supported by then borough president Robert Abrams, the original one-day program was based on the "Bronx Borough Day" festival which took place in the 1920s. The following year, at the height of the decade's civil unrest, the festival was extended to a one-week event. In the 1980s the key event, the "Bronx Ball", was launched. The week includes the Bronx Week Parade as well as inductions into the "Bronx Walk of Fame." Various Bronx neighborhoods conduct their own community celebrations. The Arthur Avenue "Little Italy" neighborhood conducts an annual Autumn Ferragosto Festival that celebrates Italian culture. Hunts Point hosts an annual "Fish Parade and Summer Festival" at the start of summer. Edgewater Park hosts an annual "Ragamuffin" children's walk in November. There are several events to honor the borough's veterans. Albanian Independence Day is also observed. There are also parades to celebrate Dominican, Italian, and Irish heritage. Press and broadcasting The Bronx is home to several local newspapers and radio and television studios. Newspapers The Bronx has several local newspapers, including The Bronx News, Parkchester News, City News, The Norwood News, The Riverdale Press, Riverdale Review, The Bronx Times Reporter, Inner City Press (which now has more of a focus on national issues) and Co-op City Times. Four non-profit news outlets, Norwood News, Mount Hope Monitor, Mott Haven Herald and The Hunts Point Express serve the borough's poorer communities. The editor and co-publisher of The Riverdale Press, Bernard Stein, won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing for his editorials about Bronx and New York City issues in 1998. (Stein graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1959.) The Bronx once had its own daily newspaper, The Bronx Home News, which started publishing on January 20, 1907, and merged into the New York Post in 1948. It became a special section of the Post, sold only in the Bronx, and eventually disappeared from view. Radio and television One of New York City's major non-commercial radio broadcasters is WFUV, a National Public Radio-affiliated 50,000-watt station broadcasting from Fordham University's Rose Hill campus in the Bronx. The radio station's antenna was relocated to the top an apartment building owned by Montefiore Medical Center, which expanded the reach of the station's signal. The City of New York has an official television station run by NYC Media and broadcasting from Bronx Community College, and Cablevision operates News 12 The Bronx, both of which feature programming based in the Bronx. Co-op City was the first area in the Bronx, and the first in New York beyond Manhattan, to have its own cable television provider. The local public-access television station BronxNet originates from Herbert H. Lehman College, the borough's only four year CUNY school, and provides government-access television (GATV) public affairs programming in addition to programming produced by Bronx residents. Economy Shopping malls and markets in the Bronx include: Bay Plaza Shopping Center Bronx Terminal Market Hunts Point Cooperative Market Shopping districts Prominent shopping areas in the Bronx include Fordham Road, Bay Plaza in Co-op City, The Hub, the Riverdale/Kingsbridge shopping center, and Bruckner Boulevard. Shops are also concentrated on streets aligned underneath elevated railroad lines, including Westchester Avenue, White Plains Road, Jerome Avenue, Southern Boulevard, and Broadway. The Bronx Terminal Market contains several big-box stores, which opened in 2009 south of Yankee Stadium. The Bronx has three primary shopping centers: The Hub, Gateway Center and Southern Boulevard. The Hub–Third Avenue Business Improvement District (B.I.D.), in The Hub, is the retail heart of the South Bronx, where four roads converge: East 149th Street, Willis, Melrose and Third Avenues. It is primarily inside the neighborhood of Melrose but also lines the northern border of Mott Haven. The Hub has been called "the Broadway of the Bronx", being likened to the real Broadway in Manhattan and the northwestern Bronx. It is the site of both maximum traffic and architectural density. In configuration, it resembles a miniature Times Square, a spatial "bow-tie" created by the geometry of the street. The Hub is part of Bronx Community Board 1. The Bronx Terminal Market, in the West Bronx, formerly known as Gateway Center, is a shopping center that encompasses less than one million square feet of retail space, built on a site that formerly held a wholesale fruit and vegetable market also named Bronx Terminal Market as well as the former Bronx House of Detention, south of Yankee Stadium. The $500 million shopping center, which was completed in 2009, saw the construction of new buildings and two smaller buildings, one new and the other a renovation of an existing building that was part of the original market. The two main buildings are linked by a six-level garage for 2,600 cars. The center's design has earned it a LEED "Silver" designation. Government and politics Local government Since New York City's consolidation in 1898, the New York City Charter that provides for a "strong" mayor–council system has governed the Bronx. The centralized New York City government is responsible for public education, correctional institutions, libraries, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply, and welfare services in the Bronx. The office of Borough President was created in the consolidation of 1898 to balance centralization with local authority. Each borough president had a powerful administrative role derived from having a vote on the New York City Board of Estimate, which was responsible for creating and approving the city's budget and proposals for land use. In 1989 the Supreme Court of the United States declared the Board of Estimate unconstitutional on the grounds that Brooklyn, the most populous borough, had no greater effective representation on the Board than Staten Island, the least populous borough, a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause pursuant to the high court's 1964 "one man, one vote" decision. Since 1990 the Borough President has acted as an advocate for the borough at the mayoral agencies, the City Council, the New York state government, and corporations. Until March 1, 2009, the Borough President of the Bronx was Adolfo Carrión Jr., elected as a Democrat in 2001 and 2005 before retiring early to direct the White House Office of Urban Affairs Policy. His successor, Democratic New York State Assembly member Rubén Díaz, Jr., who won a special election on April

but it was ceded to New York County in two major parts (West Bronx, 1874 and East Bronx, 1895) before it became Bronx County. Originally, the area was part of the Lenape's Lenapehoking territory inhabited by Siwanoy of the Wappinger Confederacy. Over time, European colonists converted the borough into farmlands. Before 1914 The Bronx's development is directly connected to its strategic location between New England and New York (Manhattan). Control over the bridges across the Harlem River plagued the period of British colonial rule. The King's Bridge, built in 1693 where Broadway reached the Spuyten Duyvil Creek, was a possession of Frederick Philipse, lord of Philipse Manor. Local farmers on both sides of the creek resented the tolls, and in 1759, Jacobus Dyckman and Benjamin Palmer led them in building a free bridge across the Harlem River. After the American Revolutionary War, the King's Bridge toll was abolished. The territory now contained within Bronx County was originally part of Westchester County, one of the 12 original counties of the English Province of New York. The present Bronx County was contained in the town of Westchester and parts of the towns in Yonkers, Eastchester, and Pelham. In 1846, a new town was created by division of Westchester, called West Farms. The town of Morrisania was created, in turn, from West Farms in 1855. In 1873, the town of Kingsbridge was established within the former borders of the town of Yonkers, roughly corresponding to the modern Bronx neighborhoods of Kingsbridge, Riverdale, and Woodlawn Heights, and included Woodlawn Cemetery. Among famous settlers in the Bronx during the 19th and early 20th centuries were author Willa Cather, tobacco merchant Pierre Lorillard, and inventor Jordan L. Mott, who established Mott Haven to house the workers at his iron works. The consolidation of the Bronx into New York City proceeded in two stages. In 1873, the state legislature annexed Kingsbridge, West Farms, and Morrisania to New York, effective in 1874; the three towns were soon abolished in the process. The whole territory east of the Bronx River was annexed to the city in 1895, three years before New York's consolidation with Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. This included the Town of Westchester (which had voted against consolidation in 1894) and parts of Eastchester and Pelham. The nautical community of City Island voted to join the city in 1896. On January 1, 1898, the consolidated City of New York was born, including the Bronx as one of the five distinct boroughs (at the same time, the Bronx's territory moved from Westchester County into New York County, which already included Manhattan and the rest of pre-1874 New York City). On April 19, 1912, those parts of New York County which had been annexed from Westchester County in previous decades were newly constituted as Bronx County, the 62nd and last county to be created by the state, effective in 1914. Bronx County's courts opened for business on January 2, 1914 (the same day that John P. Mitchel started work as Mayor of New York City). Marble Hill, Manhattan was now connected to the Bronx by filling in the former waterway, but it did not become part of the borough or county. After 1914 The history of the Bronx during the 20th century may be divided into four periods: a boom period during 1900–29, with a population growth by a factor of six from 200,000 in 1900 to 1.3 million in 1930. The Great Depression and post World War II years saw a slowing of growth leading into an eventual decline. The mid to late century were hard times, as the Bronx changed during 1950–85 from a predominantly moderate-income to a predominantly lower-income area with high rates of violent crime and poverty in some areas. The Bronx has experienced an economic and developmental resurgence starting in the late 1980s that continues into today. New York City expands The Bronx was a mostly rural area for many generations, with small farms supplying the city markets. In the late 19th century, however, it grew into a railroad suburb. Faster transportation enabled rapid population growth in the late 19th century, involving the move from horse-drawn street cars to elevated railways and the subway system, which linked to Manhattan in 1904. The South Bronx was a manufacturing center for many years and was noted as a center of piano manufacturing in the early part of the 20th century. In 1919, the Bronx was the site of 63 piano factories employing more than 5,000 workers. At the end of World War I, the Bronx hosted the rather small 1918 World's Fair at 177th Street and DeVoe Avenue. The Bronx underwent rapid urban growth after World War I. Extensions of the New York City Subway contributed to the increase in population as thousands of immigrants came to the Bronx, resulting in a major boom in residential construction. Among these groups, many Irish Americans, Italian Americans, and especially Jewish Americans settled here. In addition, French, German, Polish, and other immigrants moved into the borough. As evidence of the change in population, by 1937, 592,185 Jews lived in the Bronx (43.9% of the borough's population), while only 54,000 Jews lived in the borough in 2011. Many synagogues still stand in the Bronx, but most have been converted to other uses. Change Bootleggers and gangs were active in the Bronx during Prohibition (1920–33). Irish, Italian, Jewish, and Polish gangs smuggled in most of the illegal whiskey, and the oldest sections of the borough became poverty-stricken. Enright declared that speakeasies were home to “the vicious elements, bootleggers, gamblers and their friends in all walks of life” cooperating to “evade the law, escape punishment for their crimes, or to deter the police from doing their duty.” Between 1930 and 1960, moderate and upper income Bronxites (predominantly non-Hispanic Whites) began to relocate from the borough's southwestern neighborhoods. This migration has left a mostly poor African American and Hispanic (largely Puerto Rican) population in the West Bronx. One significant factor that shifted the racial and economic demographics was the construction of Co-op City, built to house middle-class residents in family-sized apartments. The high-rise complex played a significant role in draining middle-class residents from older tenement buildings in the borough's southern and western fringes. Most predominantly non-Hispanic White communities today are in the eastern and northwestern sections of the borough. From the early 1960s to the early 1980s, the quality of life changed for some Bronx residents. Historians and social scientists have suggested many factors, including the theory that Robert Moses' Cross Bronx Expressway destroyed existing residential neighborhoods and created instant slums, as put forward in Robert Caro's biography The Power Broker. Another factor in the Bronx's decline may have been the development of high-rise housing projects, particularly in the South Bronx. Yet another factor may have been a reduction in the real estate listings and property-related financial services offered in some areas of the Bronx, such as mortgage loans or insurance policies—a process known as redlining. Others have suggested a "planned shrinkage" of municipal services, such as fire-fighting. There was also much debate as to whether rent control laws had made it less profitable (or more costly) for landlords to maintain existing buildings with their existing tenants than to abandon or destroy those buildings. In the 1970s, parts of the Bronx were plagued by a wave of arson. The burning of buildings was predominantly in the poorest communities, such as the South Bronx. One explanation of this event was that landlords decided to burn their low property-value buildings and take the insurance money, as it was easier for them to get insurance money than to try to refurbish a dilapidated building or sell a building in a severely distressed area. The Bronx became identified with a high rate of poverty and unemployment, which was mainly a persistent problem in the South Bronx. There were cases where tenants set fire to the building they lived in so they may qualify for emergency relocations by city social service agencies to better residences, sometimes being relocated to other parts of the city. Out of 289 census tracts in the Bronx borough, seven tracts lost more than 97% of their buildings to arson and abandonment between 1970 and 1980; another forty-four tracts had more than 50% of their buildings meet the same fate. By the early 1980s, the Bronx was considered the most blighted urban area in the country, particularly the South Bronx which experienced a loss of 60% of the population and 40% of housing units. However, starting in the 1990s, many of the burned-out and run-down tenements were replaced by new housing units. Revitalization Since the late 1980s, significant development has occurred in the Bronx, first stimulated by the city's "Ten-Year Housing Plan" and community members working to rebuild the social, economic and environmental infrastructure by creating affordable housing. Groups affiliated with churches in the South Bronx erected the Nehemiah Homes with about 1,000 units. The grass roots organization Nos Quedamos' endeavor known as Melrose Commons began to rebuild areas in the South Bronx. The IRT White Plains Road Line () began to show an increase in riders. Chains such as Marshalls, Staples, and Target opened stores in the Bronx. More bank branches opened in the Bronx as a whole (rising from 106 in 1997 to 149 in 2007), although not primarily in poor or minority neighborhoods, while the Bronx still has fewer branches per person than other boroughs. In 1997, the Bronx was designated an All America City by the National Civic League, acknowledging its comeback from the decline of the mid-century. In 2006, The New York Times reported that "construction cranes have become the borough's new visual metaphor, replacing the window decals of the 1980s in which pictures of potted plants and drawn curtains were placed in the windows of abandoned buildings." The borough has experienced substantial new building construction since 2002. Between 2002 and June 2007, 33,687 new units of housing were built or were under way and $4.8 billion has been invested in new housing. In the first six months of 2007 alone total investment in new residential development was $965 million and 5,187 residential units were scheduled to be completed. Much of the new development is springing up in formerly vacant lots across the South Bronx. In addition came a revitalization of the existing housing market in areas such as Hunts Point, the Lower Concourse, and the neighborhoods surrounding the Third Avenue Bridge as people buy apartments and renovate them. Several boutique and chain hotels opened in the 2010s in the South Bronx. New developments are underway. The Bronx General Post Office on the corner of the Grand Concourse and East 149th Street is being converted into a market place, boutiques, restaurants and office space with a USPS concession. The Kingsbridge Armory, often cited as the largest armory in the world, is scheduled for redevelopment as the Kingsbridge National Ice Center. Under consideration for future development is the construction of a platform over the New York City Subway's Concourse Yard adjacent to Lehman College. The construction would permit approximately of development and would cost . Despite significant investment compared to the post war period, many exacerbated social problems remain including high rates of violent crime, substance abuse, overcrowding, and substandard housing conditions. The Bronx has the highest rate of poverty in New York City, and the greater South Bronx is the poorest area. Geography Location and physical features According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Bronx County has a total area of , of which is land and (27%) is water. The Bronx is New York City's northernmost borough, New York State's southernmost mainland county and the only part of New York City that is almost entirely on the North American mainland. Its bedrock is primarily Fordham gneiss, a high-grade heavily banded metamorphic rock containing significant amounts of pink feldspar. Marble Hill – politically part of Manhattan but now physically attached to the Bronx – is so-called because of the formation of Inwood marble there as well as in Inwood, Manhattan and parts of the Bronx and Westchester County. The Hudson River separates the Bronx on the west from Alpine, Tenafly and Englewood Cliffs in Bergen County, New Jersey; the Harlem River separates it from the island of Manhattan to the southwest; the East River separates it from Queens to the southeast; and to the east, Long Island Sound separates it from Nassau County in western Long Island. Directly north of the Bronx are (from west to east) the adjoining Westchester County communities of Yonkers, Mount Vernon, Pelham Manor and, though physically separated by water, New Rochelle. There is also a short southern land boundary with Marble Hill in the Borough of Manhattan, over the filled-in former course of the Spuyten Duyvil Creek; Marble Hill's postal ZIP code, telephonic area codes and fire service, however, are shared with the Bronx and not Manhattan. The Bronx River flows south from Westchester County through the borough, emptying into the East River; it is the only entirely freshwater river in New York City. A smaller river, the Hutchinson River (named after the religious leader Anne Hutchinson, killed along its banks in 1641), passes through the East Bronx and empties into Eastchester Bay. The Bronx also includes several small islands in the East River and Long Island Sound, such as City Island and Hart Island. Rikers Island in the East River, home to the large jail complex for the entire city, is also part of the Bronx. The Bronx's highest elevation at is in the northwest corner, west of Van Cortlandt Park and in the Chapel Farm area near the Riverdale Country School. The opposite (southeastern) side of the Bronx has four large low peninsulas or "necks" of low-lying land that jut into the waters of the East River and were once salt marsh: Hunt's Point, Clason's Point, Screvin's Neck and Throggs Neck. Further up the coastline, Rodman's Neck lies between Pelham Bay Park in the northeast and City Island. The Bronx's irregular shoreline extends for . Parks and open space Although Bronx County was the third most densely populated county in the United States as of 2006 (after Manhattan and Brooklyn), of the Bronx—about one-fifth of the Bronx's area, and one-quarter of its land area—is given over to parkland. The vision of a system of major Bronx parks connected by park-like thoroughfares is usually attributed to John Mullaly. Woodlawn Cemetery, one of the largest cemeteries in New York City, sits on the western bank of the Bronx River near Yonkers. It opened in 1863, in what was then the town of Yonkers, at the time a rural area. The borough's northern side includes the largest park in New York City—Pelham Bay Park, which includes Orchard Beach—and the third-largest, Van Cortlandt Park, which is west of Woodlawn Cemetery and borders Yonkers. Also in the northern Bronx, Wave Hill, the former estate of George W. Perkins—known for a historic house, gardens, changing site-specific art installations and concerts—overlooks the New Jersey Palisades from a promontory on the Hudson in Riverdale. Nearer the borough's center, and along the Bronx River, is Bronx Park; its northern end houses the New York Botanical Gardens, which preserve the last patch of the original hemlock forest that once covered the county, and its southern end the Bronx Zoo, the largest urban zoological gardens in the United States. Just south of Van Cortlandt Park is the Jerome Park Reservoir, surrounded by of stone walls and bordering several small parks in the Bedford Park neighborhood; the reservoir was built in the 1890s on the site of the former Jerome Park Racetrack. Further south is Crotona Park, home to a lake, 28 species of trees, and a large swimming pool. The land for these parks, and many others, was bought by New York City in 1888, while land was still open and inexpensive, in anticipation of future needs and future pressures for development. Some of the acquired land was set aside for the Grand Concourse and Pelham Parkway, the first of a series of boulevards and parkways (thoroughfares lined with trees, vegetation and greenery). Later projects included the Bronx River Parkway, which developed a road while restoring the riverbank and reducing pollution, Mosholu Parkway and the Henry Hudson Parkway. In 2006, a five-year, $220-million program of capital improvements and natural restoration in 70 Bronx parks was begun (financed by water and sewer revenues) as part of an agreement that allowed a water filtration plant under Mosholu Golf Course in Van Cortlandt Park. One major focus is on opening more of the Bronx River's banks and restoring them to a natural state. Neighborhoods The number, locations, and boundaries of the Bronx's neighborhoods (many of them sitting on the sites of 19th-century villages) have become unclear with time and successive waves of newcomers. In 2006, Manny Fernandez of The New York Times wrote, According to a Department of City Planning map of the city's neighborhoods, the Bronx has 49. The map publisher Hagstrom identifies 69. The borough president, Adolfo Carrión Jr., says 61. The Mayor's Community Assistance Unit, in a listing of the borough's community boards, names 68. Notable Bronx neighborhoods include the South Bronx; Little Italy on Arthur Avenue in the Belmont section; and Riverdale. East Bronx (Bronx Community Districts 9 [south central], 10 [east], 11 [east central] and 12 [north central] ) East of the Bronx River, the borough is relatively flat and includes four large low peninsulas, or 'necks,' of low-lying land which jut into the waters of the East River and were once saltmarsh: Hunts Point, Clason's Point, Screvin's Neck (Castle Hill Point) and Throgs Neck. The East Bronx has older tenement buildings, low income public housing complexes, and multifamily homes, as well as single family homes. It includes New York City's largest park: Pelham Bay Park along the Westchester-Bronx border. Neighborhoods include: Clason's Point, Harding Park, Soundview, Castle Hill, Parkchester (Community District 9); Throggs Neck, Country Club, City Island, Pelham Bay, Edgewater Park, Co-op City (Community District 10); Westchester Square, Van Nest, Pelham Parkway, Morris Park (Community District 11); Williamsbridge, Eastchester, Baychester, Edenwald and Wakefield (Community District 12). City Island and Hart Island (Bronx Community District 10) City Island is east of Pelham Bay Park in Long Island Sound and is known for its seafood restaurants and private waterfront homes. City Island's single shopping street, City Island Avenue, is reminiscent of a small New England town. It is connected to Rodman's Neck on the mainland by the City Island Bridge. East of City Island is Hart Island, which is uninhabited and not open to the public. It once served as a prison and now houses New York City's potter's field for unclaimed bodies. West Bronx (Bronx Community Districts 1 to 8, progressing roughly from south to northwest) The western parts of the Bronx are hillier and are dominated by a series of parallel ridges, running south to north. The West Bronx has older apartment buildings, low income public housing complexes, multifamily homes in its lower income areas as well as larger single family homes in more affluent areas such as Riverdale and Fieldston. It includes New York City's third-largest park: Van Cortlandt Park along the Westchester-Bronx border. The Grand Concourse, a wide boulevard, runs through it, north to south. Northwestern Bronx (Bronx Community Districts 7 [between the Bronx and Harlem Rivers] and 8 [facing the Hudson River] – plus part of Board 12) Neighborhoods include: Fordham-Bedford, Bedford Park, Norwood, Kingsbridge Heights (Community District 7), Kingsbridge, Riverdale (Community District 8), and Woodlawn Heights (Community District 12). (Marble Hill, Manhattan is now connected by land to the Bronx rather than Manhattan and is served by Bronx Community District 8.) South Bronx (Bronx Community Districts 1 to 6 plus part of CD 7—progressing northwards, CDs 2, 3 and 6 border the Bronx River from its mouth to Bronx Park, while 1, 4, 5 and 7 face Manhattan across the Harlem River) Like other neighborhoods in New York City, the South Bronx has no official boundaries. The name has been used to represent poverty in the Bronx and is applied to progressively more northern places so that by the 2000s, Fordham Road was often used as a northern limit. The Bronx River more consistently forms an eastern boundary. The South Bronx has many high-density apartment buildings, low income public housing complexes, and multi-unit homes. The South Bronx is home to the Bronx County Courthouse, Borough Hall, and other government buildings, as well as Yankee Stadium. The Cross Bronx Expressway bisects it, east to west. The South Bronx has some of the poorest neighborhoods in the country, as well as very high crime areas. Neighborhoods include: The Hub (a retail district at Third Avenue and East 149th Street), Port Morris, Mott Haven (Community District 1), Melrose (Community District 1 & Community District 3), Morrisania, East Morrisania [also known as Crotona Park East] (Community District 3), Hunts Point, Longwood (Community District 2), Highbridge, Concourse (Community District 4), West Farms, Belmont, East Tremont (Community District 6), Tremont, Morris Heights (Community District 5), University Heights. (Community District 5 & Community District 7). Adjacent counties The Bronx adjoins: Westchester County – north Nassau County, New York – southeast (across the East River) Queens County, New York (Queens) – south (across the East River) New York County, New York (Manhattan) – southwest Bergen County, New Jersey – west (across the Hudson River) Climate Demographics Race, ethnicity, language, and immigration 2018 estimates The borough's most populous racial group, white, declined from 99.3% in 1920 to 44.9% in 2018. The Bronx has 532,487 housing units, with a median value of $371,800, and with an owner-occupancy rate of 19.7%, the lowest of the five boroughs. There are 495,356 households, with 2.85 persons per household. 59.3% of residents speak a language besides English at home, the highest rate of the five boroughs. In the Bronx, the population is 7.2% under 5, 17.6% 6-18, 62.4% 19–64, and 12.8% over 65. 52.9% of the population is female. 35.3% of residents are foreign born. The per capita income is $19,721, while the median household income is $36,593, both being the lowest of the five boroughs. 27.9% of residents live below the poverty line, the highest of the five boroughs. 2010 census According to the 2010 Census, 53.5% of Bronx's population was of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin (they may be of any race); 30.1% non-Hispanic Black or African American, 10.9% of the population was non-Hispanic White, 3.4% non-Hispanic Asian, 0.6% from some other race (non-Hispanic) and 1.2% of two or more races (non-Hispanic). As of 2010, 46.29% (584,463) of Bronx residents aged five and older spoke Spanish at home, while 44.02% (555,767) spoke English, 2.48% (31,361) African languages, 0.91% (11,455) French, 0.90% (11,355) Italian, 0.87% (10,946) various Indic languages, 0.70% (8,836) other Indo-European languages, and Chinese was spoken at home by 0.50% (6,610) of the population over the age of five. In total, 55.98% (706,783) of the Bronx's population age five and older spoke a language at home other than English. A Garifuna-speaking community from Honduras and Guatemala also makes the Bronx its home. 2009 community survey According to the 2009 American Community Survey, White Americans of both Hispanic and non-Hispanic origin represented over one-fifth (22.9%) of the Bronx's population. However, non-Hispanic whites formed under one-eighth (12.1%) of the population, down from 34.4% in 1980. Out of all five boroughs, the Bronx has the lowest number and percentage of white residents. 320,640 whites called the Bronx home, of which 168,570 were non-Hispanic whites. The majority of the non-Hispanic European American population is of Italian and Irish descent. People of Italian descent numbered over 55,000 individuals and made up 3.9% of the population. People of Irish descent numbered over 43,500 individuals and made up 3.1% of the population. German Americans and Polish Americans made up 1.4% and 0.8% of the population respectively. The Bronx is the only New York City borough with a Hispanic majority, many of whom are Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. Older estimates The Census of 1930 counted only 1.0% (12,930) of the Bronx's population as Negro (while making no distinct counts of Hispanic or Spanish-surname residents). Population and housing At the 2010 Census, there were, 1,385,108 people living in Bronx, a 3.9% increase since 2000. As of the United States Census of 2000, there were 1,332,650 people, 463,212 households, and 314,984 families residing in the borough. The population density was 31,709.3 inhabitants per square mile (12,242.2/km2). There were 490,659 housing units at an average density of 11,674.8 per square mile (4,507.4/km2). Census estimates place total population of Bronx county at 1,392,002 as of 2012. There were 463,212 households, out of which 38.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 31.4% were married couples living together, 30.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.0% were non-families. 27.4% of all households were made up of individuals, and 9.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.78 and the average family size was 3.37. The age distribution of the population in the Bronx was as follows: 29.8% under the age of 18, 10.6% from 18 to 24, 30.7% from 25 to 44, 18.8% from 45 to 64, and 10.1% 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females, there were 87.0 males. Individual and household income The 1999 median income for a household in the borough was $27,611, and the median family income was $30,682. Males had a median income of $31,178 versus $29,429 for females. The per capita income for the borough was $13,959. About 28.0% of families and 30.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 41.5% of those under age 18 and 21.3% of those age 65 or over. More than half of the neighborhoods in the Bronx are high poverty or extreme poverty areas. From 2015 Census data, the median income for a household was (in 2015 dollars) $34,299. Per capita income in past 12 months (in 2015 dollars): $18,456 with persons in poverty at 30.3%. Per the 2016 Census data, the median income for a household was $35,302. Per capita income was cited at $18,896. Culture and institutions Author Edgar Allan Poe spent the last years of his life (1846 to 1849) in the Bronx at Poe Cottage, now at Kingsbridge Road and the Grand Concourse. A small wooden farmhouse built around 1812, the cottage once commanded unobstructed vistas over the rolling Bronx hills to the shores of Long Island. Poe moved there to get away from the Manhattan city air and crowding in hope that the then rural area would be beneficial for his wife's tuberculosis. It was in the Bronx that Poe wrote one of his most famous works, Annabel Lee. More than a century later, the Bronx would evolve from a hot bed of Latin jazz to an incubator of hip hop as documented in the award-winning documentary, produced by City Lore and broadcast on PBS in 2006, "From Mambo to Hip Hop: A South Bronx Tale." Hip Hop first emerged in the South Bronx in the early 1970s. The New York Times has identified 1520 Sedgwick Avenue "an otherwise unremarkable high-rise just north of the Cross Bronx Expressway and hard along the Major Deegan Expressway" as a starting point, where DJ Kool Herc presided over parties in the community room. The 2016 Netflix series The Get Down is based on the development of hip hop in 1977 in the South Bronx. Ten years earlier, the Bronx Opera had been founded. Founding of hip-hop On August 11, 1973, DJ Kool Herc was a D.J. and M.C. at a party in the recreation room of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx adjacent to the Cross Bronx Expressway. While it was not the actual "Birthplace of Hip Hop" – the genre developed slowly in several places in the 1970s – it was verified to be the place where one of the pivotal and formative events occurred. Specifically: Beginning with the advent of beat match DJing, in which Bronx disc jockeys including Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa and DJ Kool Herc extended the breaks of funk records, a major new musical genre emerged that sought to isolate the percussion breaks of hit funk, disco and soul songs. As hip hop's popularity grew, performers began speaking ("rapping") in sync with the beats, and became known as MCs or emcees. The Herculoids, made up of Herc, Coke La Rock, and Clark Kent, were the earliest to gain major fame. The Bronx is referred to in hip-hop slang as "The Boogie Down Bronx", or just "The Boogie Down". This was hip-hop pioneer KRS-One's inspiration for his group BDP, or Boogie Down Productions, which included DJ Scott La Rock. Newer hip hop artists from the Bronx include Big Pun, Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz, Camp Lo, Swizz Beatz, Drag-On, Fat Joe, Terror Squad, Cory Gunz, A Boogie wit da Hoodie, French Montana and Cardi B, among others. , a tour company founded in 2002 by local licensed sightseeing tour guide Debra Harris, has established a sightseeing tour of the Bronx showcasing the locations that helped shape hip hop culture, and features some of the pioneers of hip hop as tour guides. The Bronx's recognition as an important center of African-American culture has led Fordham University to establish the Bronx African-American History Project (BAAHP). Sports The Bronx is the home of the New York Yankees, nicknamed "the Bronx Bombers", of Major League Baseball. The original Yankee Stadium opened in 1923 on 161st Street and River Avenue, a year that saw the Yankees bring home the first of their 27 World Series Championships. With the famous façade, the short right field porch and Monument Park, Yankee Stadium has been home to many of baseball's greatest players including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Reggie Jackson, Thurman Munson, Don Mattingly, Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera. The original stadium was the scene of Lou Gehrig's Farewell Speech in 1939, Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series, Roger Maris' record breaking 61st home run in 1961, and Reggie Jackson's 3 home runs to clinch Game 6 of the 1977 World Series. The Stadium was the former home of the New York Giants of the National Football League from 1956 to 1973. The original Yankee Stadium closed in 2008 to make way for a new Yankee Stadium in which the team started play in 2009. It is north-northeast of the 1923 Yankee Stadium, on the former site of Macombs Dam Park. The current Yankee Stadium is also the home of New York City FC of Major League Soccer, who began play in 2015. Off-Off-Broadway The Bronx is home to several Off-Off-Broadway theaters, many staging new works by immigrant playwrights from Latin America and Africa. The Pregones Theater, which produces Latin American work, opened a new 130-seat theater in 2005 on Walton Avenue in the South Bronx. Some artists from elsewhere in New York City have begun to converge on the area, and housing prices have nearly quadrupled in the area since 2002. However rising prices directly correlate to a housing shortage across the city and the entire metro area. Arts The Bronx Academy

BearShare gnutella servant, called BearFlix, which was altered to limit sharing, searches and downloads to images and videos. Shared videos were limited in length and duration, similar to limits in BearShareV6. The first release was version 1.2.1. Its version numbers appear to start from 1.1.2.1 in the user interface but it presents itself on the gnutella network as versions 6.1.2.1 to 6.2.2.530. This version has since been discontinued by MusicLab and no longer available on their websites; however it remains in wide usage. On October 27, 2008, responding to uncertainty around the future of PlaysForSure, MusicLab added iPod support in BearShareV7. As of June 12, 2016, BearShare is no longer available to download. The official page with a message announcing its discontinuation remained active until March 2017. Popular versions Three variants of the original BearShare gnutella servant were distributed by Free Peers: Free, Lite and Pro. The Free version had higher performance limits than the Lite version but contained some adware. The Pro version had higher limits than both the Free and Lite versions but cost US$24. Version numbers in this series ranged from 1.0 to 5.2.5.9. Though lacking MusicLab's support a wide spread of BearShare versions from 4.7 to 5.2.5.6 remain the second most popular servant on gnutella, alongside LimeWire. Old-School fans of the gnutella versions tend to favour the last of the beta versions, 5.1.0 beta25, because it has no adware, is hard-coded for performance levels roughly between Pro and regular (ad-supported) versions and has the unique ability to switch between leaf and ultrapeer

verified using acoustic fingerprinting as non-infringing before it can be shared. Video files more than 50 Mb in size and 15 minutes in length cannot be shared, ensuring television shows and feature-length movies cannot be distributed over the network. Only a limited set of music and video file types can be shared, thus excluding everything else like executable files, documents and compressed archives. In August 2006, MusicLab released a variant of the original BearShare gnutella servant, called BearFlix, which was altered to limit sharing, searches and downloads to images and videos. Shared videos were limited in length and duration, similar to limits in BearShareV6. The first release was version 1.2.1. Its version numbers appear to start from 1.1.2.1 in the user interface but it presents itself on the gnutella network as versions 6.1.2.1 to 6.2.2.530. This version has since been discontinued by MusicLab and no longer available on their websites; however it remains in wide usage. On October 27, 2008, responding to uncertainty around the future of PlaysForSure, MusicLab added iPod support in BearShareV7. As of June 12, 2016, BearShare is no longer available to download. The official page with a message announcing its discontinuation remained active until March 2017. Popular versions Three variants of the original BearShare gnutella servant were distributed by Free Peers: Free, Lite and Pro. The Free version had higher performance limits than the Lite version but contained some adware. The Pro version had higher limits than both the Free and Lite versions but cost US$24. Version numbers in this series ranged from 1.0 to 5.2.5.9. Though lacking MusicLab's support a wide spread of BearShare versions from 4.7 to 5.2.5.6 remain the second most popular servant on gnutella, alongside LimeWire. Old-School fans of the gnutella versions tend to favour the last of the beta versions, 5.1.0 beta25, because it has no adware, is hard-coded for performance levels roughly between Pro and regular (ad-supported) versions and has the unique ability to switch between leaf and ultrapeer mode on demand, a feature deemed necessary for effective testing. No other gnutella servant has enjoyed this capability. The most recent MusicLab version, V10, was available by free download from their support website and "Pro" features could be unlocked with a six or twelve-month subscription. Access to premium

allowing more stringent war crime and more lenient soft drug usage prosecution. Restrictions on withholding euthanasia were reduced and same-sex marriage legalized. The government promoted active diplomacy in Africa and opposed the invasion of Iraq. It is the only country that does not have age restrictions on euthanasia. Verhofstadt's coalition fared badly in the June 2007 elections. For more than a year, the country experienced a political crisis. This crisis was such that many observers speculated on a possible partition of Belgium. From 2007 until 2008 the temporary Verhofstadt III Government was in office. This coalition of the Flemish and Francophone Christian Democrats, the Flemish and Francophone Liberals together with the Francophone Social Democrats was an interim government until 2008. On that day a new government, led by Flemish Christian Democrat Yves Leterme, the actual winner of the federal elections of , was sworn in by the king. On 2008 Leterme announced the resignation of the cabinet to the king, as no progress in constitutional reforms had been made. In December 2008, he once more offered his resignation to the king after a crisis surrounding the sale of Fortis to BNP Paribas. At this juncture, his resignation was accepted and Christian Democratic and Flemish Herman Van Rompuy was sworn in as Prime Minister on 2008. After Herman Van Rompuy was designated the first permanent President of the European Council on 2009, he offered the resignation of his government to King Albert II on 2009. A few hours later, the new government under Prime Minister Yves Leterme was sworn in. On 2010, Leterme again offered the resignation of his cabinet to the king after one of the coalition partners, the OpenVLD, withdrew from the government, and on 2010 King Albert officially accepted the resignation. The Parliamentary elections in Belgium on 2010 saw the Flemish nationalist N-VA become the largest party in Flanders, and the Socialist Party PS the largest party in Wallonia. Until December 2011, Belgium was governed by Leterme's caretaker government awaiting the end of the deadlocked negotiations for formation of a new government. By 30 March 2011, this set a new world record for the elapsed time without an official government, previously held by war-torn Iraq. Finally, in December 2011 the Di Rupo Government led by Walloon socialist Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo was sworn in. The 2014 federal election (coinciding with the regional elections) resulted in a further electoral gain for the Flemish nationalist N-VA, although the incumbent coalition (composed of Flemish and French-speaking Social Democrats, Liberals, and Christian Democrats) maintains a solid majority in Parliament and in all electoral constituencies. On 22 July 2014, King Philippe nominated Charles Michel (MR) and Kris Peeters (CD&V) to lead the formation of a new federal cabinet composed of the Flemish parties N-VA, CD&V, Open Vld and the French-speaking MR, which resulted in the Michel Government. It was the first time N-VA was part of the federal cabinet, while the French-speaking side was represented only by the MR, which achieved a minority of the public votes in Wallonia. In May 2019 federal elections in the Flemish-speaking northern region of Flanders far-right Vlaams Belang party made major gains. In the French-speaking southern area of Wallonia the Socialists were strong. The moderate Flemish nationalist party the N-VA remained the largest party in parliament. In July 2019 prime minister Charles Michel was selected to hold the post of President of the European Council. His successor Sophie Wilmès was Belgium's first female prime minister. She led the caretaker government since October 2019. The Flemish Liberal party politician Alexander De Croo became new prime minister in October 2020. The parties had agreed on federal government 16 months after the elections. Communities and regions Following a usage which can be traced back to the Burgundian and Habsburg courts, in the 19th century it was necessary to speak French to belong to the governing upper class, and those who could only speak Dutch were effectively second-class citizens. Late that century, and continuing into the 20th century, Flemish movements evolved to counter this situation. While the people in Southern Belgium spoke French or dialects of French, and most Brusselers adopted French as their first language, the Flemings refused to do so and succeeded progressively in making Dutch an equal language in the education system. Following World War II, Belgian politics became increasingly dominated by the autonomy of its two main linguistic communities. Intercommunal tensions rose and the constitution was amended to minimize the potential for conflict. Based on the four language areas defined in 1962–63 (the Dutch, bilingual, French and German language areas), consecutive revisions of the country's constitution in 1970, 1980, 1988 and 1993 established a unique form of a federal state with segregated political power into three levels: The federal government, based in Brussels. The three language communities: the Flemish Community (Dutch-speaking); the French Community (French-speaking); the German-speaking Community. The three regions: the Flemish Region, subdivided into five provinces; the Walloon Region, subdivided into five provinces; the Brussels-Capital Region. The constitutional language areas determine the official languages in their municipalities, as well as the geographical limits of the empowered institutions for specific matters. Although this would allow for seven parliaments and governments when the Communities and Regions were created in 1980, Flemish politicians decided to merge both. Thus the Flemings just have one single institutional body of parliament and government is empowered for all except federal and specific municipal matters. The overlapping boundaries of the Regions and Communities have created two notable peculiarities: the territory of the Brussels-Capital Region (which came into existence nearly a decade after the other regions) is included in both the Flemish and French Communities, and the territory of the German-speaking Community lies wholly within the Walloon Region. Conflicts about jurisdiction between the bodies are resolved by the Constitutional Court of Belgium. The structure is intended as a compromise to allow different cultures to live together peacefully. Locus of policy jurisdiction The Federal State's authority includes justice, defense, federal police, social security, nuclear energy, monetary policy and public debt, and other aspects of public finances. State-owned companies include the Belgian Post Group and Belgian Railways. The Federal Government is responsible for the obligations of Belgium and its federalized institutions towards the European Union and NATO. It controls substantial parts of public health, home affairs and foreign affairs. The budget—without the debt—controlled by the federal government amounts to about 50% of the national fiscal income. The federal government employs around 12% of the civil servants. Communities exercise their authority only within linguistically determined geographical boundaries, originally oriented towards the individuals of a Community's language: culture (including audiovisual media), education and the use of the relevant language. Extensions to personal matters less directly connected with language comprise health policy (curative and preventive medicine) and assistance to individuals (protection of youth, social welfare, aid to families, immigrant assistance services, and so on.). Regions have authority in fields that can be broadly associated with their territory. These include economy, employment, agriculture, water policy, housing, public works, energy, transport, the environment, town and country planning, nature conservation, credit and foreign trade. They supervise the provinces, municipalities and intercommunal utility companies. In several fields, the different levels each have their own say on specifics. With education, for instance, the autonomy of the Communities neither includes decisions about the compulsory aspect nor allows for setting minimum requirements for awarding qualifications, which remain federal matters. Each level of government can be involved in scientific research and international relations associated with its powers. The treaty-making power of the Regions' and Communities' Governments is the broadest of all the Federating units of all the Federations all over the world. Foreign relations Because of its location at the crossroads of Western Europe, Belgium has historically been the route of invading armies from its larger neighbors. With virtually defenseless borders, Belgium has traditionally sought to avoid domination by the more powerful nations which surround it through a policy of mediation. The Belgians have been strong advocates of European integration. Both the European Union and NATO are headquartered in Belgium. Armed forces The Belgian Armed Forces have about 47,000 active troops. In 2019, Belgium's defense budget totaled €4.303 billion ($4.921 billion) representing .93% of its GDP. They are organized into one unified structure which consists of four main components: Land Component or the Army, Air Component or the Air Force, Marine Component or the Navy and the Medical Component. The operational commands of the four components are subordinate to the Staff Department for Operations and Training of the Ministry of Defense, which is headed by the Assistant Chief of Staff Operations and Training, and to the Chief of Defense. The effects of the Second World War made collective security a priority for Belgian foreign policy. In March 1948 Belgium signed the Treaty of Brussels and then joined NATO in 1948. However, the integration of the armed forces into NATO did not begin until after the Korean War. The Belgians, along with the Luxembourg government, sent a detachment of battalion strength to fight in Korea known as the Belgian United Nations Command. This mission was the first in a long line of UN missions which the Belgians supported. Currently, the Belgian Marine Component is working closely together with the Dutch Navy under the command of the Admiral Benelux. Economy Belgium's strongly globalized economy and its transport infrastructure are integrated with the rest of Europe. Its location at the heart of a highly industrialized region helped make it the world's 15th largest trading nation in 2007. The economy is characterized by a highly productive work force, high GNP and high exports per capita. Belgium's main imports are raw materials, machinery and equipment, chemicals, raw diamonds, pharmaceuticals, foodstuffs, transportation equipment, and oil products. Its main exports are machinery and equipment, chemicals, finished diamonds, metals and metal products, and foodstuffs. The Belgian economy is heavily service-oriented and shows a dual nature: a dynamic Flemish economy and a Walloon economy that lags behind. One of the founding members of the European Union, Belgium strongly supports an open economy and the extension of the powers of EU institutions to integrate member economies. Since 1922, through the Belgium-Luxembourg Economic Union, Belgium and Luxembourg have been a single trade market with customs and currency union. Belgium was the first continental European country to undergo the Industrial Revolution, in the early 19th century. Areas in Liège Province and around Charleroi rapidly developed mining and steelmaking, which flourished until the mid-20th century in the Sambre and Meuse valley and made Belgium one of the three most industrialized nations in the world from 1830 to 1910. However, by the 1840s the textile industry of Flanders was in severe crisis, and the region experienced famine from 1846 to 1850. After World War II, Ghent and Antwerp experienced a rapid expansion of the chemical and petroleum industries. The 1973 and 1979 oil crises sent the economy into a recession; it was particularly prolonged in Wallonia, where the steel industry had become less competitive and experienced a serious decline. In the 1980s and 1990s, the economic center of the country continued to shift northwards and is now concentrated in the populous Flemish Diamond area. By the end of the 1980s, Belgian macroeconomic policies had resulted in a cumulative government debt of about 120% of GDP. , the budget was balanced and public debt was equal to 90.30% of GDP. In 2005 and 2006, real GDP growth rates of 1.5% and 3.0%, respectively, were slightly above the average for the Euro area. Unemployment rates of 8.4% in 2005 and 8.2% in 2006 were close to the area average. By , this had grown to 8.5% compared to an average rate of 9.6% for the European Union as a whole (EU 27). From 1832 until 2002, Belgium's currency was the Belgian franc. Belgium switched to the euro in 2002, with the first sets of euro coins being minted in 1999. The standard Belgian euro coins designated for circulation show the portrait of the monarch (first King Albert II, since 2013 King Philippe). Despite an 18% decrease observed from 1970 to 1999, Belgium still had in 1999 the highest rail network density within the European Union with 113.8 km/1 000 km2. On the other hand, the same period, 1970–1999, has seen a huge growth (+56%) of the motorway network. In 1999, the density of km motorways per 1000 km2 and 1000 inhabitants amounted to 55.1 and 16.5 respectively and were significantly superior to the EU's means of 13.7 and 15.9. From a biological resource perspective, Belgium has a low endowment: Belgium's biocapacity adds up to only 0.8 global hectares in 2016, just about half of the 1.6 global hectares of biocapacity available per person worldwide. In contrast, in 2016, Belgians used on average 6.3 global hectares of biocapacity - their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they required about eight times as much biocapacity as Belgium contains. As a result, Belgium was running a biocapacity deficit of 5.5 global hectares per person in 2016. Belgium experiences some of the most congested traffic in Europe. In 2010, commuters to the cities of Brussels and Antwerp spent respectively 65 and 64 hours a year in traffic jams. Like in most small European countries, more than 80% of the airways traffic is handled by a single airport, the Brussels Airport. The ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge (Bruges) share more than 80% of Belgian maritime traffic, Antwerp being the second European harbor with a gross weight of goods handled of 115 988 000 t in 2000 after a growth of 10.9% over the preceding five years. In 2016, the port of Antwerp handled 214 million tons after a year-on-year growth of 2.7%. There is a large economic gap between Flanders and Wallonia. Wallonia was historically wealthy compared to Flanders, mostly due to its heavy industries, but the decline of the steel industry post-World War II led to the region's rapid decline, whereas Flanders rose swiftly. Since then, Flanders has been prosperous, among the wealthiest regions in Europe, whereas Wallonia has been languishing. As of 2007, the unemployment rate of Wallonia is over double that of Flanders. The divide has played a key part in the tensions between the Flemish and Walloons in addition to the already-existing language divide. Pro-independence movements have gained high popularity in Flanders as a consequence. The separatist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) party, for instance, is the

1830 to 1910. However, by the 1840s the textile industry of Flanders was in severe crisis, and the region experienced famine from 1846 to 1850. After World War II, Ghent and Antwerp experienced a rapid expansion of the chemical and petroleum industries. The 1973 and 1979 oil crises sent the economy into a recession; it was particularly prolonged in Wallonia, where the steel industry had become less competitive and experienced a serious decline. In the 1980s and 1990s, the economic center of the country continued to shift northwards and is now concentrated in the populous Flemish Diamond area. By the end of the 1980s, Belgian macroeconomic policies had resulted in a cumulative government debt of about 120% of GDP. , the budget was balanced and public debt was equal to 90.30% of GDP. In 2005 and 2006, real GDP growth rates of 1.5% and 3.0%, respectively, were slightly above the average for the Euro area. Unemployment rates of 8.4% in 2005 and 8.2% in 2006 were close to the area average. By , this had grown to 8.5% compared to an average rate of 9.6% for the European Union as a whole (EU 27). From 1832 until 2002, Belgium's currency was the Belgian franc. Belgium switched to the euro in 2002, with the first sets of euro coins being minted in 1999. The standard Belgian euro coins designated for circulation show the portrait of the monarch (first King Albert II, since 2013 King Philippe). Despite an 18% decrease observed from 1970 to 1999, Belgium still had in 1999 the highest rail network density within the European Union with 113.8 km/1 000 km2. On the other hand, the same period, 1970–1999, has seen a huge growth (+56%) of the motorway network. In 1999, the density of km motorways per 1000 km2 and 1000 inhabitants amounted to 55.1 and 16.5 respectively and were significantly superior to the EU's means of 13.7 and 15.9. From a biological resource perspective, Belgium has a low endowment: Belgium's biocapacity adds up to only 0.8 global hectares in 2016, just about half of the 1.6 global hectares of biocapacity available per person worldwide. In contrast, in 2016, Belgians used on average 6.3 global hectares of biocapacity - their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they required about eight times as much biocapacity as Belgium contains. As a result, Belgium was running a biocapacity deficit of 5.5 global hectares per person in 2016. Belgium experiences some of the most congested traffic in Europe. In 2010, commuters to the cities of Brussels and Antwerp spent respectively 65 and 64 hours a year in traffic jams. Like in most small European countries, more than 80% of the airways traffic is handled by a single airport, the Brussels Airport. The ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge (Bruges) share more than 80% of Belgian maritime traffic, Antwerp being the second European harbor with a gross weight of goods handled of 115 988 000 t in 2000 after a growth of 10.9% over the preceding five years. In 2016, the port of Antwerp handled 214 million tons after a year-on-year growth of 2.7%. There is a large economic gap between Flanders and Wallonia. Wallonia was historically wealthy compared to Flanders, mostly due to its heavy industries, but the decline of the steel industry post-World War II led to the region's rapid decline, whereas Flanders rose swiftly. Since then, Flanders has been prosperous, among the wealthiest regions in Europe, whereas Wallonia has been languishing. As of 2007, the unemployment rate of Wallonia is over double that of Flanders. The divide has played a key part in the tensions between the Flemish and Walloons in addition to the already-existing language divide. Pro-independence movements have gained high popularity in Flanders as a consequence. The separatist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) party, for instance, is the largest party in Belgium. Science and technology Contributions to the development of science and technology have appeared throughout the country's history. The 16th century Early Modern flourishing of Western Europe included cartographer Gerardus Mercator, anatomist Andreas Vesalius, herbalist Rembert Dodoens and mathematician Simon Stevin among the most influential scientists. Chemist Ernest Solvay and engineer Zenobe Gramme (École industrielle de Liège) gave their names to the Solvay process and the Gramme dynamo, respectively, in the 1860s. Bakelite was developed in 1907–1909 by Leo Baekeland. Ernest Solvay also acted as a major philanthropist and gave its name to the Solvay Institute of Sociology, the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management and the International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry which are now part of the Université libre de Bruxelles. In 1911, he started a series of conferences, the Solvay Conferences on Physics and Chemistry, which have had a deep impact on the evolution of quantum physics and chemistry. A major contribution to fundamental science was also due to a Belgian, Monsignor Georges Lemaître (Catholic University of Louvain), who is credited with proposing the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe in 1927. Three Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine were awarded to Belgians: Jules Bordet (Université libre de Bruxelles) in 1919, Corneille Heymans (University of Ghent) in 1938 and Albert Claude (Université libre de Bruxelles) together with Christian de Duve (Université catholique de Louvain) in 1974. François Englert (Université libre de Bruxelles) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013. Ilya Prigogine (Université libre de Bruxelles) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1977. Two Belgian mathematicians have been awarded the Fields Medal: Pierre Deligne in 1978 and Jean Bourgain in 1994. Belgium was ranked 22nd in the Global Innovation Index in 2020, up from 23rd in 2019. Demographics As of 1 January 2020, the total population of Belgium according to its population register was 11,492,641. The population density of Belgium is as of January 2019, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world, and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe. The most densely populated province is Antwerp, the least densely populated province is Luxembourg. As of January 2019, the Flemish Region had a population of 6,589,069 (57.6% of Belgium), its most populous cities being Antwerp (523,248), Ghent (260,341) and Bruges (118,284). Wallonia had a population of 3,633,795 (31.8% of Belgium) with Charleroi (201,816), Liège (197,355) and Namur (110,939), its most populous cities. The Brussels-Capital Region has 1,208,542 inhabitants (10.6% of Belgium) in the 19 municipalities, three of which have over 100,000 residents. In 2017 the average total fertility rate (TFR) across Belgium was 1.64 children per woman, below the replacement rate of 2.1; it remains considerably below the high of 4.87 children born per woman in 1873. Belgium subsequently has one of the oldest populations in the world, with an average age of 41.6 years. Migration , nearly 92% of the population had Belgian citizenship, and other European Union member citizens account for around 6%. The prevalent foreign nationals were Italian (171,918), French (125,061), Dutch (116,970), Moroccan (80,579), Portuguese (43,509), Spanish (42,765), Turkish (39,419) and German (37,621). In 2007, there were 1.38 million foreign-born residents in Belgium, corresponding to 12.9% of the total population. Of these, 685,000 (6.4%) were born outside the EU and 695,000 (6.5%) were born in another EU Member State. At the beginning of 2012, people of foreign background and their descendants were estimated to have formed around 25% of the total population i.e. 2.8 million new Belgians. Of these new Belgians, 1,200,000 are of European ancestry and 1,350,000 are from non-Western countries (most of them from Morocco, Turkey, and the DR Congo). Since the modification of the Belgian nationality law in 1984 more than 1.3 million migrants have acquired Belgian citizenship. The largest group of immigrants and their descendants in Belgium are Moroccans. 89.2% of inhabitants of Turkish origin have been naturalized, as have 88.4% of people of Moroccan background, 75.4% of Italians, 56.2% of the French and 47.8% of Dutch people. Statbel released figures of the Belgian population in relation to the origin of people in Belgium. According to the data, as of 1 January 2021, 67.3% of the Belgian population was of ethnic Belgian origin and 32.7% were of foreign origin or nationality, with 20.3% of those of a foreign nationality or ethnic group originating from neighbouring countries. The study also found that 74.5% of the Brussels Capital Region were of non-Belgian origin, of which 13.8% originated from neighbouring countries. Languages Belgium has three official languages: Dutch, French and German. A number of non-official minority languages are spoken as well. As no census exists, there are no official statistical data regarding the distribution or usage of Belgium's three official languages or their dialects. However, various criteria, including the language(s) of parents, of education, or the second-language status of foreign born, may provide suggested figures. An estimated 60% of the Belgian population are native speakers of Dutch (often referred to as Flemish), and 40% of the population speaks French natively. French-speaking Belgians are often referred to as Walloons, although the French speakers in Brussels are not Walloons. The total number of native Dutch speakers is estimated to be about 6.23 million, concentrated in the northern Flanders region, while native French speakers number 3.32 million in Wallonia and an estimated 870,000 (or 85%) in the officially bilingual Brussels-Capital Region. The German-speaking Community is made up of 73,000 people in the east of the Walloon Region; around 10,000 German and 60,000 Belgian nationals are speakers of German. Roughly 23,000 more German speakers live in municipalities near the official Community. Both Belgian Dutch and Belgian French have minor differences in vocabulary and semantic nuances from the varieties spoken respectively in the Netherlands and France. Many Flemish people still speak dialects of Dutch in their local environment. Walloon, considered either as a dialect of French or a distinct Romance language, is now only understood and spoken occasionally, mostly by elderly people. Walloon is divided into four dialects, which along with those of Picard, are rarely used in public life and have largely been replaced by French. Religion Since the country's independence, Roman Catholicism has had an important role in Belgium's politics. However Belgium is largely a secular country as the constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the government generally respects this right in practice. During the reigns of Albert I and Baudouin, the Belgian royal family had a reputation of deeply rooted Catholicism. Roman Catholicism has traditionally been Belgium's majority religion; being especially strong in Flanders. However, by 2009 Sunday church attendance was 5% for Belgium in total; 3% in Brussels, and 5.4% in Flanders. Church attendance in 2009 in Belgium was roughly half of the Sunday church attendance in 1998 (11% for the total of Belgium in 1998). Despite the drop in church attendance, Catholic identity nevertheless remains an important part of Belgium's culture. According to the Eurobarometer 2010, 37% of Belgian citizens responded that they believe there is a God. 31% answered that they believe there is some sort of spirit or life-force. 27% answered that they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life-force. 5% did not respond. According to the Eurobarometer 2015, 60.7% of the total population of Belgium adhered to Christianity, with Roman Catholicism being the largest denomination with 52.9%. Protestants comprised 2.1% and Orthodox Christians were the 1.6% of the total. Non-religious people comprised 32.0% of the population and were divided between atheists (14.9%) and agnostics (17.1%). A further 5.2% of the population was Muslim and 2.1% were believers in other religions. The same survey held in 2012 found that Christianity was the largest religion in Belgium, accounting for 65% of Belgians. Symbolically and materially, the Roman Catholic Church remains in a favorable position. Belgium officially recognizes three religions: Christianity (Catholic, Protestantism, Orthodox churches and Anglicanism), Islam and Judaism. In the early 2000s, there were approximately 42,000 Jews in Belgium. The Jewish Community of Antwerp (numbering some 18,000) is one of the largest in Europe, and one of the last places in the world where Yiddish is the primary language of a large Jewish community (mirroring certain Orthodox and Hasidic communities in New York, New Jersey, and Israel). In addition, most Jewish children in Antwerp receive a Jewish education. There are several Jewish newspapers and more than 45 active synagogues (30 of which are in Antwerp) in the country. A 2006 inquiry in Flanders, considered to be a more religious region than Wallonia, showed that 55% considered themselves religious and that 36% believed that God created the universe. On the other hand, Wallonia has become one of Europe's most secular/least religious regions. Most of the French-speaking region's population does not consider religion an important part of their lives, and as much as 45% of the population identifies as irreligious. This is particularly the case in eastern Wallonia and areas along the French border. A 2008 estimate found that approximately 6% of the Belgian population (628,751 people) is Muslim. Muslims constitute 23.6% of the population of Brussels, 4.9% of Wallonia and 5.1% of Flanders. The majority of Belgian Muslims live in the major cities, such as Antwerp, Brussels and Charleroi. The largest group of immigrants in Belgium are Moroccans, with 400,000 people. The Turks are the third largest group, and the second largest Muslim ethnic group, numbering 220,000. Health The Belgians enjoy good health. According to 2012 estimates, the average life expectancy is 79.65 years. Since 1960, life expectancy has, in line with the European average, grown by two months per year. Death in Belgium is mainly due to heart and vascular disorders, neoplasms, disorders of the respiratory system and unnatural causes of death (accidents, suicide). Non-natural causes of death and cancer are the most common causes of death for females up to age 24 and males up to age 44. Healthcare in Belgium is financed through both social security contributions and taxation. Health insurance is compulsory. Health care is delivered by a mixed public and private system of independent medical practitioners and public, university and semi-private hospitals. Health care service are payable by the patient and reimbursed later by health insurance institutions, but for ineligible categories (of patients and services) so-called 3rd party payment systems exist. The Belgian health care system is supervised and financed by the federal government, the Flemish and Walloon Regional governments; and the German Community also has (indirect) oversight and responsibilities. For the first time in Belgian history, the first child was euthanized following the 2-year mark of the removal of the euthanization age restrictions. The child had been euthanized due to an incurable disease that was inflicted upon the child. Although there may have been some support for the euthanization there is a possibility of controversy due to the issue revolving around the subject of assisted suicide. Excluding assisted suicide, Belgium has the highest suicide rate in Western Europe and one of the highest suicide rates in the developed world (exceeded only by Lithuania, South Korea, and Latvia). Education Education is compulsory from 6 to 18 years of age for Belgians. Among OECD countries in 2002, Belgium had the third highest proportion of 18- to 21-year-olds enrolled in postsecondary education, at 42%. Though an estimated 99% of the adult population is literate, concern is rising over functional illiteracy. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), coordinated by the OECD, currently ranks Belgium's education as the 19th best in the world, being significantly higher than the OECD average. Education being organized separately by each, the Flemish Community scores noticeably above the French and German-speaking Communities. Mirroring the dual structure

to: Organizations BLM (law firm), United Kingdom and Ireland Blue Lives Matter, an American pro-police movement Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation Places Administrative divisions Saint Barthélemy's ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code Buildings BLM Geothermal Plant, a near Ridgecrest, California, United

and Ireland Blue Lives Matter, an American pro-police movement Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation Places Administrative divisions Saint Barthélemy's ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code Buildings BLM Geothermal Plant, a near Ridgecrest, California, United States BLM Group Arena, Trento, Trentino, Italy Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum, a history

to describe a depressed mood. In 1827, it was in the sense of a sad state of mind that John James Audubon wrote to his wife that he "had the blues". The phrase "the blues" was written by Charlotte Forten, then aged 25, in her diary on December 14, 1862. She was a free-born black woman from Pennsylvania who was working as a schoolteacher in South Carolina, instructing both slaves and freedmen, and wrote that she "came home with the blues" because she felt lonesome and pitied herself. She overcame her depression and later noted a number of songs, such as "Poor Rosy", that were popular among the slaves. Although she admitted being unable to describe the manner of singing she heard, Forten wrote that the songs "can't be sung without a full heart and a troubled spirit", conditions that have inspired countless blues songs. Lyrics The lyrics of early traditional blues verses probably often consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the so-called "AAB" pattern, consisting of a line sung over the four first bars, its repetition over the next four, and then a longer concluding line over the last bars. Two of the first published blues songs, "Dallas Blues" (1912) and "Saint Louis Blues" (1914), were 12-bar blues with the AAB lyric structure. W.C. Handy wrote that he adopted this convention to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times. The lines are often sung following a pattern closer to rhythmic talk than to a melody. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative. African-American singers voiced his or her "personal woes in a world of harsh reality: a lost love, the cruelty of police officers, oppression at the hands of white folk, [and] hard times". This melancholy has led to the suggestion of an Igbo origin for blues because of the reputation the Igbo had throughout plantations in the Americas for their melancholic music and outlook on life when they were enslaved. The lyrics often relate troubles experienced within African American society. For instance Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Rising High Water Blues" (1927) tells of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927: Although the blues gained an association with misery and oppression, the lyrics could also be humorous and raunchy: Hokum blues celebrated both comedic lyrical content and a boisterous, farcical performance style. Tampa Red and Georgia Tom's "It's Tight Like That" (1928) is a sly wordplay with the double meaning of being "tight" with someone, coupled with a more salacious physical familiarity. Blues songs with sexually explicit lyrics were known as dirty blues. The lyrical content became slightly simpler in postwar blues, which tended to focus on relationship woes or sexual worries. Lyrical themes that frequently appeared in prewar blues, such as economic depression, farming, devils, gambling, magic, floods and drought, were less common in postwar blues. The writer Ed Morales claimed that Yoruba mythology played a part in early blues, citing Robert Johnson's "Cross Road Blues" as a "thinly veiled reference to Eleggua, the orisha in charge of the crossroads". However, the Christian influence was far more obvious. The repertoires of many seminal blues artists, such as Charley Patton and Skip James, included religious songs or spirituals. Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Willie Johnson are examples of artists often categorized as blues musicians for their music, although their lyrics clearly belong to spirituals. Form The blues form is a cyclic musical form in which a repeating progression of chords mirrors the call and response scheme commonly found in African and African-American music. During the first decades of the 20th century blues music was not clearly defined in terms of a particular chord progression. With the popularity of early performers, such as Bessie Smith, use of the twelve-bar blues spread across the music industry during the 1920s and 30s. Other chord progressions, such as 8-bar forms, are still considered blues; examples include "How Long Blues", "Trouble in Mind", and Big Bill Broonzy's "Key to the Highway". There are also 16-bar blues, such as Ray Charles's instrumental "Sweet 16 Bars" and Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man". Idiosyncratic numbers of bars are occasionally used, such as the 9-bar progression in "Sitting on Top of the World", by Walter Vinson. The basic 12-bar lyric framework of a blues composition is reflected by a standard harmonic progression of 12 bars in a 4/4 time signature. The blues chords associated to a twelve-bar blues are typically a set of three different chords played over a 12-bar scheme. They are labeled by Roman numbers referring to the degrees of the progression. For instance, for a blues in the key of C, C is the tonic chord (I) and F is the subdominant (IV). The last chord is the dominant (V) turnaround, marking the transition to the beginning of the next progression. The lyrics generally end on the last beat of the tenth bar or the first beat of the 11th bar, and the final two bars are given to the instrumentalist as a break; the harmony of this two-bar break, the turnaround, can be extremely complex, sometimes consisting of single notes that defy analysis in terms of chords. Much of the time, some or all of these chords are played in the harmonic seventh (7th) form. The use of the harmonic seventh interval is characteristic of blues and is popularly called the "blues seven". Blues seven chords add to the harmonic chord a note with a frequency in a 7:4 ratio to the fundamental note. At a 7:4 ratio, it is not close to any interval on the conventional Western diatonic scale. For convenience or by necessity it is often approximated by a minor seventh interval or a dominant seventh chord. In melody, blues is distinguished by the use of the flattened third, fifth and seventh of the associated major scale. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and call-and-response, and they form a repetitive effect called a groove. Characteristic of the blues since its Afro-American origins, the shuffles played a central role in swing music. The simplest shuffles, which were the clearest signature of the R&B wave that started in the mid-1940s, were a three-note riff on the bass strings of the guitar. When this riff was played over the bass and the drums, the groove "feel" was created. Shuffle rhythm is often vocalized as "dow, da dow, da dow, da" or "dump, da dump, da dump, da": it consists of uneven, or "swung", eighth notes. On a guitar this may be played as a simple steady bass or it may add to that stepwise quarter note motion from the fifth to the sixth of the chord and back. History Origins The first publication of blues sheet music may have been "I Got the Blues", published by New Orleans musician Antonio Maggio in 1908 and described as "the earliest published composition known to link the condition of having the blues to the musical form that would become popularly known as 'the blues.'" Hart Wand's "Dallas Blues" was published in 1912; W.C. Handy's "The Memphis Blues" followed in the same year. The first recording by an African American singer was Mamie Smith's 1920 rendition of Perry Bradford's "Crazy Blues". But the origins of the blues were some decades earlier, probably around 1890. This music is poorly documented, partly because of racial discrimination in U.S. society, including academic circles, and partly because of the low rate of literacy among rural African Americans at the time. Reports of blues music in southern Texas and the Deep South were written at the dawn of the 20th century. Charles Peabody mentioned the appearance of blues music at Clarksdale, Mississippi, and Gate Thomas reported similar songs in southern Texas around 1901–1902. These observations coincide more or less with the recollections of Jelly Roll Morton, who said he first heard blues music in New Orleans in 1902; Ma Rainey, who remembered first hearing the blues in the same year in Missouri; and W.C. Handy, who first heard the blues in Tutwiler, Mississippi, in 1903. The first extensive research in the field was performed by Howard W. Odum, who published an anthology of folk songs from Lafayette County, Mississippi, and Newton County, Georgia, between 1905 and 1908. The first noncommercial recordings of blues music, termed proto-blues by Paul Oliver, were made by Odum for research purposes at the very beginning of the 20th century. They are now lost. Other recordings that are still available were made in 1924 by Lawrence Gellert. Later, several recordings were made by Robert W. Gordon, who became head of the Archive of American Folk Songs of the Library of Congress. Gordon's successor at the library was John Lomax. In the 1930s, Lomax and his son Alan made a large number of non-commercial blues recordings that testify to the huge variety of proto-blues styles, such as field hollers and ring shouts. A record of blues music as it existed before 1920 can also be found in the recordings of artists such as Lead Belly and Henry Thomas. All these sources show the existence of many different structures distinct from twelve-, eight-, or sixteen-bar. The social and economic reasons for the appearance of the blues are not fully known. The first appearance of the blues is usually dated after the Emancipation Act of 1863, between 1860s and 1890s, a period that coincides with post-emancipation and later, the establishment of juke joints as places where blacks went to listen to music, dance, or gamble after a hard day's work. This period corresponds to the transition from slavery to sharecropping, small-scale agricultural production, and the expansion of railroads in the southern United States. Several scholars characterize the development of blues music in the early 1900s as a move from group performance to individualized performance. They argue that the development of the blues is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the enslaved people. According to Lawrence Levine, "there was a direct relationship between the national ideological emphasis upon the individual, the popularity of Booker T. Washington's teachings, and the rise of the blues." Levine stated that "psychologically, socially, and economically, African-Americans were being acculturated in a way that would have been impossible during slavery, and it is hardly surprising that their secular music reflected this as much as their religious music did." There are few characteristics common to all blues music, because the genre took its shape from the idiosyncrasies of individual performers. However, there are some characteristics that were present long before the creation of the modern blues. Call-and-response shouts were an early form of blues-like music; they were a "functional expression ... style without accompaniment or harmony and unbounded by the formality of any particular musical structure". A form of this pre-blues was heard in slave ring shouts and field hollers, expanded into "simple solo songs laden with emotional content". Blues has evolved from the unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves imported from West Africa and rural blacks into a wide variety of styles and subgenres, with regional variations across the United States. Although blues (as it is now known) can be seen as a musical style based on both European harmonic structure and the African call-and-response tradition that transformed into an interplay of voice and guitar, the blues form itself bears no resemblance to the melodic styles of the West African griots. Additionally, there are theories that the four-beats-per-measure structure of the blues might have its origins in the Native American tradition of pow wow drumming. No specific African musical form can be identified as the single direct ancestor of the blues. However the call-and-response format can be traced back to the music of Africa. That blue notes predate their use in blues and have an African origin is attested to by "A Negro Love Song", by the English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, from his African Suite for Piano, written in 1898, which contains blue third and seventh notes. The Diddley bow (a homemade one-stringed instrument found in parts of the American South in the early twentieth century) and the banjo are African-derived instruments that may have helped in the transfer of African performance techniques into the early blues instrumental vocabulary. The banjo seems to be directly imported from West African music. It is similar to the musical instrument that griots and other Africans such as the Igbo played (called halam or akonting by African peoples such as the Wolof, Fula and Mandinka). However, in the 1920s, when country blues began to be recorded, the use of the banjo in blues music was quite marginal and limited to individuals such as Papa Charlie Jackson and later Gus Cannon. Blues music also adopted elements from the "Ethiopian airs", minstrel shows and Negro spirituals, including instrumental and harmonic accompaniment. The style also was closely related to ragtime, which developed at about the same time, though the blues better preserved "the original melodic patterns of African music". The musical forms and styles that are now considered the blues as well as modern country music arose in the same regions of the southern United States during the 19th century. Recorded blues and country music can be found as far back as the 1920s, when the record industry created the marketing categories "race music" and "hillbilly music" to sell music by blacks for blacks and by whites for whites, respectively. At the time, there was no clear musical division between "blues" and "country", except for the ethnicity of the performer, and even that was sometimes documented incorrectly by record companies. Though musicologists can now attempt to define the blues narrowly in terms of certain chord structures and lyric forms thought to have originated in West Africa, audiences originally heard the music in a far more general way: it was simply the music of the rural south, notably the Mississippi Delta. Black and white musicians shared the same repertoire and thought of themselves as "songsters" rather than blues musicians. The notion of blues as a separate genre arose during the black migration from the countryside to urban areas in the 1920s and the simultaneous development of the recording industry. Blues became a code word for a record designed to sell to black listeners. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of Afro-American community, the spirituals. The origins of spirituals go back much further than the blues, usually dating back to the middle of the 18th century, when the slaves were Christianized and began to sing and play Christian hymns, in particular those of Isaac Watts, which were very popular. Before the blues gained its formal definition in terms of chord progressions, it was defined as the secular counterpart of spirituals. It was the low-down music played by rural blacks. Depending on the religious community a musician belonged to, it was more or less considered a sin to play this low-down music: blues was the devil's music. Musicians were therefore segregated into two categories: gospel singers and blues singers, guitar preachers and songsters. However, when rural black music began to be recorded in the 1920s, both categories of musicians used similar techniques: call-and-response patterns, blue notes, and slide guitars. Gospel music was nevertheless using musical forms that were compatible with Christian hymns and therefore less marked by the blues form than its secular counterpart. Pre-war blues The American sheet music publishing industry produced a great deal of ragtime music. By 1912, the sheet music industry had published three popular blues-like compositions, precipitating the Tin Pan Alley adoption of blues elements: "Baby Seals' Blues", by "Baby" Franklin Seals (arranged by Artie Matthews); "Dallas Blues", by Hart Wand; and "The Memphis Blues", by W.C. Handy. Handy was a formally trained musician, composer and arranger who helped to popularize the blues by transcribing and orchestrating blues in an almost symphonic style, with bands and singers. He became a popular and prolific composer, and billed himself as the "Father of the Blues"; however, his compositions can be described as a fusion of blues with ragtime and jazz, a merger facilitated using the Cuban habanera rhythm that had long been a part of ragtime; Handy's signature work was the "Saint Louis Blues". In the 1920s, the blues became a major element of African American and American popular music, also reaching white audiences via Handy's arrangements and the classic female blues performers. These female performers became perhaps the first African American "superstars", and their recording sales demonstrated "a huge appetite for records made by and for black people." The blues evolved from informal performances in bars to entertainment in theaters. Blues performances were organized by the Theater Owners Bookers Association in nightclubs such as the Cotton Club and juke joints such as the bars along Beale Street in Memphis. Several record companies, such as the American Record Corporation, Okeh Records, and Paramount Records, began to record African-American music. As the recording industry grew, country blues performers like Bo Carter, Jimmie Rodgers, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson, Tampa Red and Blind Blake became more popular in the African American community. Kentucky-born Sylvester Weaver was in 1923 the first to record the slide guitar style, in which a guitar is fretted with a knife blade or the sawed-off neck of a bottle. The slide guitar became an important part of the Delta blues. The first blues recordings from the 1920s are categorized as a traditional, rural country blues and a more polished city or urban blues. Country blues performers often improvised, either without accompaniment or with only a banjo or guitar. Regional styles of country blues varied widely in the early 20th century. The (Mississippi) Delta blues was a rootsy sparse style with passionate vocals accompanied by slide guitar. The little-recorded Robert Johnson combined elements of urban and rural blues. In addition to Robert Johnson, influential performers of this style included his predecessors Charley Patton and Son House. Singers such as Blind Willie McTell and Blind Boy Fuller performed in the southeastern "delicate and lyrical" Piedmont blues tradition, which used an elaborate ragtime-based fingerpicking guitar technique. Georgia also had an early slide tradition, with Curley Weaver, Tampa Red, "Barbecue Bob" Hicks and James "Kokomo" Arnold as representatives of this style. The lively Memphis blues style, which developed in the 1920s and 1930s near Memphis, Tennessee, was influenced by jug bands such as the Memphis Jug Band or the Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers. Performers such as Frank Stokes, Sleepy John Estes, Robert Wilkins, Joe McCoy, Casey Bill Weldon and Memphis Minnie used a variety of unusual instruments such as washboard, fiddle, kazoo or mandolin. Memphis Minnie was famous for her virtuoso guitar style. Pianist Memphis Slim began his career in Memphis, but his distinct style was smoother and had some swing elements. Many blues musicians based in Memphis moved to Chicago in the late 1930s or early 1940s and became part of the urban blues movement. Urban blues City or urban blues styles were more codified and elaborate, as a performer was no longer within their local, immediate community, and had to adapt to a larger, more varied audience's aesthetic. Classic female urban and vaudeville blues singers were popular in the 1920s, among them "the big three"—Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Lucille Bogan. Mamie Smith, more a vaudeville performer than a blues artist, was the first African American to record a blues song in 1920; her second record, "Crazy Blues", sold 75,000 copies in its first month. Ma Rainey, the "Mother of Blues", and Bessie Smith each "[sang] around center tones, perhaps in order to project her voice more easily to the back of a room". Smith would "sing a song in an unusual key, and her artistry in bending and stretching notes with her beautiful, powerful contralto to accommodate her own interpretation was unsurpassed". In 1920 the vaudeville singer Lucille Hegamin became the second black woman to record blues when she recorded "The Jazz Me Blues", and Victoria Spivey, sometimes called Queen Victoria or Za Zu Girl, had a recording career that began in 1926 and spanned forty years. These recordings were typically labeled "race records" to distinguish them from records sold to white audiences. Nonetheless, the recordings of some of the classic female blues singers were purchased by white buyers as well. These blueswomen's contributions to the genre included "increased improvisation on melodic lines, unusual phrasing which altered the emphasis and impact of the lyrics, and vocal dramatics using shouts, groans, moans, and wails. The blues women thus effected changes in other types of popular singing that had spin-offs in jazz, Broadway musicals, torch songs of the 1930s and 1940s, gospel, rhythm and blues, and eventually rock and roll." Urban male performers included popular black musicians of the era, such as Tampa Red, Big Bill Broonzy and Leroy Carr. An important label of this era was the Chicago-based Bluebird Records. Before World War II, Tampa Red was sometimes referred to as "the Guitar Wizard". Carr accompanied himself on the piano with Scrapper Blackwell on guitar, a format that continued well into the 1950s with artists such as Charles Brown and even Nat "King" Cole. Boogie-woogie

now considered the blues as well as modern country music arose in the same regions of the southern United States during the 19th century. Recorded blues and country music can be found as far back as the 1920s, when the record industry created the marketing categories "race music" and "hillbilly music" to sell music by blacks for blacks and by whites for whites, respectively. At the time, there was no clear musical division between "blues" and "country", except for the ethnicity of the performer, and even that was sometimes documented incorrectly by record companies. Though musicologists can now attempt to define the blues narrowly in terms of certain chord structures and lyric forms thought to have originated in West Africa, audiences originally heard the music in a far more general way: it was simply the music of the rural south, notably the Mississippi Delta. Black and white musicians shared the same repertoire and thought of themselves as "songsters" rather than blues musicians. The notion of blues as a separate genre arose during the black migration from the countryside to urban areas in the 1920s and the simultaneous development of the recording industry. Blues became a code word for a record designed to sell to black listeners. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of Afro-American community, the spirituals. The origins of spirituals go back much further than the blues, usually dating back to the middle of the 18th century, when the slaves were Christianized and began to sing and play Christian hymns, in particular those of Isaac Watts, which were very popular. Before the blues gained its formal definition in terms of chord progressions, it was defined as the secular counterpart of spirituals. It was the low-down music played by rural blacks. Depending on the religious community a musician belonged to, it was more or less considered a sin to play this low-down music: blues was the devil's music. Musicians were therefore segregated into two categories: gospel singers and blues singers, guitar preachers and songsters. However, when rural black music began to be recorded in the 1920s, both categories of musicians used similar techniques: call-and-response patterns, blue notes, and slide guitars. Gospel music was nevertheless using musical forms that were compatible with Christian hymns and therefore less marked by the blues form than its secular counterpart. Pre-war blues The American sheet music publishing industry produced a great deal of ragtime music. By 1912, the sheet music industry had published three popular blues-like compositions, precipitating the Tin Pan Alley adoption of blues elements: "Baby Seals' Blues", by "Baby" Franklin Seals (arranged by Artie Matthews); "Dallas Blues", by Hart Wand; and "The Memphis Blues", by W.C. Handy. Handy was a formally trained musician, composer and arranger who helped to popularize the blues by transcribing and orchestrating blues in an almost symphonic style, with bands and singers. He became a popular and prolific composer, and billed himself as the "Father of the Blues"; however, his compositions can be described as a fusion of blues with ragtime and jazz, a merger facilitated using the Cuban habanera rhythm that had long been a part of ragtime; Handy's signature work was the "Saint Louis Blues". In the 1920s, the blues became a major element of African American and American popular music, also reaching white audiences via Handy's arrangements and the classic female blues performers. These female performers became perhaps the first African American "superstars", and their recording sales demonstrated "a huge appetite for records made by and for black people." The blues evolved from informal performances in bars to entertainment in theaters. Blues performances were organized by the Theater Owners Bookers Association in nightclubs such as the Cotton Club and juke joints such as the bars along Beale Street in Memphis. Several record companies, such as the American Record Corporation, Okeh Records, and Paramount Records, began to record African-American music. As the recording industry grew, country blues performers like Bo Carter, Jimmie Rodgers, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson, Tampa Red and Blind Blake became more popular in the African American community. Kentucky-born Sylvester Weaver was in 1923 the first to record the slide guitar style, in which a guitar is fretted with a knife blade or the sawed-off neck of a bottle. The slide guitar became an important part of the Delta blues. The first blues recordings from the 1920s are categorized as a traditional, rural country blues and a more polished city or urban blues. Country blues performers often improvised, either without accompaniment or with only a banjo or guitar. Regional styles of country blues varied widely in the early 20th century. The (Mississippi) Delta blues was a rootsy sparse style with passionate vocals accompanied by slide guitar. The little-recorded Robert Johnson combined elements of urban and rural blues. In addition to Robert Johnson, influential performers of this style included his predecessors Charley Patton and Son House. Singers such as Blind Willie McTell and Blind Boy Fuller performed in the southeastern "delicate and lyrical" Piedmont blues tradition, which used an elaborate ragtime-based fingerpicking guitar technique. Georgia also had an early slide tradition, with Curley Weaver, Tampa Red, "Barbecue Bob" Hicks and James "Kokomo" Arnold as representatives of this style. The lively Memphis blues style, which developed in the 1920s and 1930s near Memphis, Tennessee, was influenced by jug bands such as the Memphis Jug Band or the Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers. Performers such as Frank Stokes, Sleepy John Estes, Robert Wilkins, Joe McCoy, Casey Bill Weldon and Memphis Minnie used a variety of unusual instruments such as washboard, fiddle, kazoo or mandolin. Memphis Minnie was famous for her virtuoso guitar style. Pianist Memphis Slim began his career in Memphis, but his distinct style was smoother and had some swing elements. Many blues musicians based in Memphis moved to Chicago in the late 1930s or early 1940s and became part of the urban blues movement. Urban blues City or urban blues styles were more codified and elaborate, as a performer was no longer within their local, immediate community, and had to adapt to a larger, more varied audience's aesthetic. Classic female urban and vaudeville blues singers were popular in the 1920s, among them "the big three"—Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Lucille Bogan. Mamie Smith, more a vaudeville performer than a blues artist, was the first African American to record a blues song in 1920; her second record, "Crazy Blues", sold 75,000 copies in its first month. Ma Rainey, the "Mother of Blues", and Bessie Smith each "[sang] around center tones, perhaps in order to project her voice more easily to the back of a room". Smith would "sing a song in an unusual key, and her artistry in bending and stretching notes with her beautiful, powerful contralto to accommodate her own interpretation was unsurpassed". In 1920 the vaudeville singer Lucille Hegamin became the second black woman to record blues when she recorded "The Jazz Me Blues", and Victoria Spivey, sometimes called Queen Victoria or Za Zu Girl, had a recording career that began in 1926 and spanned forty years. These recordings were typically labeled "race records" to distinguish them from records sold to white audiences. Nonetheless, the recordings of some of the classic female blues singers were purchased by white buyers as well. These blueswomen's contributions to the genre included "increased improvisation on melodic lines, unusual phrasing which altered the emphasis and impact of the lyrics, and vocal dramatics using shouts, groans, moans, and wails. The blues women thus effected changes in other types of popular singing that had spin-offs in jazz, Broadway musicals, torch songs of the 1930s and 1940s, gospel, rhythm and blues, and eventually rock and roll." Urban male performers included popular black musicians of the era, such as Tampa Red, Big Bill Broonzy and Leroy Carr. An important label of this era was the Chicago-based Bluebird Records. Before World War II, Tampa Red was sometimes referred to as "the Guitar Wizard". Carr accompanied himself on the piano with Scrapper Blackwell on guitar, a format that continued well into the 1950s with artists such as Charles Brown and even Nat "King" Cole. Boogie-woogie was another important style of 1930s and early 1940s urban blues. While the style is often associated with solo piano, boogie-woogie was also used to accompany singers and, as a solo part, in bands and small combos. Boogie-Woogie style was characterized by a regular bass figure, an ostinato or riff and shifts of level in the left hand, elaborating each chord and trills and decorations in the right hand. Boogie-woogie was pioneered by the Chicago-based Jimmy Yancey and the Boogie-Woogie Trio (Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis). Chicago boogie-woogie performers included Clarence "Pine Top" Smith and Earl Hines, who "linked the propulsive left-hand rhythms of the ragtime pianists with melodic figures similar to those of Armstrong's trumpet in the right hand". The smooth Louisiana style of Professor Longhair and, more recently, Dr. John blends classic rhythm and blues with blues styles. Another development in this period was big band blues. The "territory bands" operating out of Kansas City, the Bennie Moten orchestra, Jay McShann, and the Count Basie Orchestra were also concentrating on the blues, with 12-bar blues instrumentals such as Basie's "One O'Clock Jump" and "Jumpin' at the Woodside" and boisterous "blues shouting" by Jimmy Rushing on songs such as "Going to Chicago" and "Sent for You Yesterday". A well-known big band blues tune is Glenn Miller's "In the Mood". In the 1940s, the jump blues style developed. Jump blues grew up from the boogie woogie wave and was strongly influenced by big band music. It uses saxophone or other brass instruments and the guitar in the rhythm section to create a jazzy, up-tempo sound with declamatory vocals. Jump blues tunes by Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner, based in Kansas City, Missouri, influenced the development of later styles such as rock and roll and rhythm and blues. Dallas-born T-Bone Walker, who is often associated with the California blues style, performed a successful transition from the early urban blues à la Lonnie Johnson and Leroy Carr to the jump blues style and dominated the blues-jazz scene at Los Angeles during the 1940s. 1950s The transition from country blues to urban blues that began in the 1920s was driven by the successive waves of economic crisis and booms that led many rural blacks to move to urban areas, in a movement known as the Great Migration. The long boom following World War II induced another massive migration of the African-American population, the Second Great Migration, which was accompanied by a significant increase of the real income of the urban blacks. The new migrants constituted a new market for the music industry. The term race record, initially used by the music industry for African-American music, was replaced by the term rhythm and blues. This rapidly evolving market was mirrored by Billboard magazine's Rhythm and Blues chart. This marketing strategy reinforced trends in urban blues music such as the use of electric instruments and amplification and the generalization of the blues beat, the blues shuffle, which became ubiquitous in rhythm and blues (R&B). This commercial stream had important consequences for blues music, which, together with jazz and gospel music, became a component of R&B. After World War II, new styles of electric blues became popular in cities such as Chicago, Memphis, Detroit and St. Louis. Electric blues used electric guitars, double bass (gradually replaced by bass guitar), drums, and harmonica (or "blues harp") played through a microphone and a PA system or an overdriven guitar amplifier. Chicago became a center for electric blues from 1948 on, when Muddy Waters recorded his first success, "I Can't Be Satisfied". Chicago blues is influenced to a large extent by Delta blues, because many performers had migrated from the Mississippi region. Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Jimmy Reed were all born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago during the Great Migration. Their style is characterized by the use of electric guitar, sometimes slide guitar, harmonica, and a rhythm section of bass and drums. The saxophonist J. T. Brown played in bands led by Elmore James and by J. B. Lenoir, but the saxophone was used as a backing instrument for rhythmic support more than as a lead instrument. Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller) and Sonny Terry are well known harmonica (called "harp" by blues musicians) players of the early Chicago blues scene. Other harp players such as Big Walter Horton were also influential. Muddy Waters and Elmore James were known for their innovative use of slide electric guitar. Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters were known for their deep, "gravelly" voices. The bassist and prolific songwriter and composer Willie Dixon played a major role on the Chicago blues scene. He composed and wrote many standard blues songs of the period, such as "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (both penned for Muddy Waters) and, "Wang Dang Doodle" and "Back Door Man" for Howlin' Wolf. Most artists of the Chicago blues style recorded for the Chicago-based Chess Records and Checker Records labels. Smaller blues labels of this era included Vee-Jay Records and J.O.B. Records. During the early 1950s, the dominating Chicago labels were challenged by Sam Phillips' Sun Records company in Memphis, which recorded B. B. King and Howlin' Wolf before he moved to Chicago in 1960. After Phillips discovered Elvis Presley in 1954, the Sun label turned to the rapidly expanding white audience and started recording mostly rock 'n' roll. In the 1950s, blues had a huge influence on mainstream American popular music. While popular musicians like Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry, both recording for Chess, were influenced by the Chicago blues, their enthusiastic playing styles departed from the melancholy aspects of blues. Chicago blues also influenced Louisiana's zydeco music, with Clifton Chenier using blues accents. Zydeco musicians used electric solo guitar and cajun arrangements of blues standards. In England, electric blues took root there during a much acclaimed Muddy Waters tour in 1958. Waters, unsuspecting of his audience's tendency towards skiffle, an acoustic, softer brand of blues, turned up his amp and started to play his Chicago brand of electric blues. Although the audience was largely jolted by the performance, the performance influenced local musicians such as Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies to emulate this louder style, inspiring the British invasion of the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds. In

States Blue Grass, Virginia, an unincorporated settlement in the United States Bluegrass region, a geographic region in the US state of Kentucky Other uses Blue Grass, a 1915 film with Thomas A. Wise Blue Grass Army Depot, a munitions storage depot in Richmond, Kentucky Blue Grass, a brand name used

(Sirius), a bluegrass music satellite radio channel Bluegrass Films, an independent film studio based in Los Angeles Places Blue Grass, Iowa, a city in the United States Blue Grass, Minnesota, an unincorporated settlement in the United States Blue Grass, Virginia, an unincorporated settlement in the United States Bluegrass region, a geographic region in the US state

international migration into the city has a long history. In 1685, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in France, the city responded with the Edict of Potsdam, which guaranteed religious freedom and tax-free status to French Huguenot refugees for ten years. The Greater Berlin Act in 1920 incorporated many suburbs and surrounding cities of Berlin. It formed most of the territory that comprises modern Berlin and increased the population from 1.9 million to 4 million. Active immigration and asylum politics in West Berlin triggered waves of immigration in the 1960s and 1970s. Berlin is home to at least 180,000 Turkish and Turkish German residents, making it the largest Turkish community outside of Turkey. In the 1990s the Aussiedlergesetze enabled immigration to Germany of some residents from the former Soviet Union. Today ethnic Germans from countries of the former Soviet Union make up the largest portion of the Russian-speaking community. The last decade experienced an influx from various Western countries and some African regions. A portion of the African immigrants have settled in the Afrikanisches Viertel. Young Germans, EU-Europeans and Israelis have also settled in the city. In December 2019, there were 777,345 registered residents of foreign nationality and another 542,975 German citizens with a "migration background" (Migrationshintergrund, MH), meaning they or one of their parents immigrated to Germany after 1955. Foreign residents of Berlin originate from about 190 different countries. 48 percent of the residents under the age of 15 have migration background. Berlin in 2009 was estimated to have 100,000 to 250,000 unregistered inhabitants. Boroughs of Berlin with a significant number of migrants or foreign born population are Mitte, Neukölln and Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. There are more than 20 non-indigenous communities with a population of at least 10,000 people, including Turkish, Polish, Russian, Lebanese, Palestinian, Serbian, Italian, Bosnian, Vietnamese, American, Romanian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Chinese, Austrian, Ukrainian, French, British, Spanish, Israeli, Thai, Iranian, Egyptian and Syrian communities. Languages German is the official and predominant spoken language in Berlin. It is a West Germanic language that derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. German is one of 24 languages of the European Union, and one of the three working languages of the European Commission. Berlinerisch or Berlinisch is not a dialect linguistically. It is spoken in Berlin and the surrounding metropolitan area. It originates from a Brandenburgish variant. The dialect is now seen more like a sociolect, largely through increased immigration and trends among the educated population to speak standard German in everyday life. The most commonly spoken foreign languages in Berlin are Turkish, Polish, English, Persian, Arabic, Italian, Bulgarian, Russian, Romanian, Kurdish, Serbo-Croatian, French, Spanish and Vietnamese. Turkish, Arabic, Kurdish, and Serbo-Croatian are heard more often in the western part due to the large Middle Eastern and former-Yugoslavian communities. Polish, English, Russian, and Vietnamese have more native speakers in East Berlin. Religion According to the 2011 census, approximately 37 percent of the population reported being members of a legally-recognized church or religious organization. The rest either did not belong to such an organization, or there was no information available about them. The largest religious denomination recorded in 2010 was the Protestant regional church body—the Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia (EKBO)—a united church. EKBO is a member of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and Union Evangelischer Kirchen (UEK). According to the EKBO, their membership accounted for 18.7 percent of the local population, while the Roman Catholic Church had 9.1 percent of residents registered as its members. About 2.7% of the population identify with other Christian denominations (mostly Eastern Orthodox, but also various Protestants). According to the Berlin residents register, in 2018 14.9 percent were members of the Evangelical Church, and 8.5 percent were members of the Catholic Church. The government keeps a register of members of these churches for tax purposes, because it collects church tax on behalf of the churches. It does not keep records of members of other religious organizations which may collect their own church tax, in this way. In 2009, approximately 249,000 Muslims were reported by the Office of Statistics to be members of Mosques and Islamic religious organizations in Berlin, while in 2016, the newspaper Der Tagesspiegel estimated that about 350,000 Muslims observed Ramadan in Berlin. In 2019, about 437,000 registered residents, 11.6% of the total, reported having a migration background from one of the Member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Between 1992 and 2011 the Muslim population almost doubled. About 0.9% of Berliners belong to other religions. Of the estimated population of 30,000–45,000 Jewish residents, approximately 12,000 are registered members of religious organizations. Berlin is the seat of the Roman Catholic archbishop of Berlin and EKBO's elected chairperson is titled the bishop of EKBO. Furthermore, Berlin is the seat of many Orthodox cathedrals, such as the Cathedral of St. Boris the Baptist, one of the two seats of the Bulgarian Orthodox Diocese of Western and Central Europe, and the Resurrection of Christ Cathedral of the Diocese of Berlin (Patriarchate of Moscow). The faithful of the different religions and denominations maintain many places of worship in Berlin. The Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church has eight parishes of different sizes in Berlin. There are 36 Baptist congregations (within Union of Evangelical Free Church Congregations in Germany), 29 New Apostolic Churches, 15 United Methodist churches, eight Free Evangelical Congregations, four Churches of Christ, Scientist (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 11th), six congregations of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an Old Catholic church, and an Anglican church in Berlin. Berlin has more than 80 mosques, ten synagogues, and two Buddhist temples. Government City state Since reunification on 3 October 1990, Berlin has been one of the three city states in Germany among the present 16 states of Germany. The House of Representatives (Abgeordnetenhaus) functions as the city and state parliament, which has 141 seats. Berlin's executive body is the Senate of Berlin (Senat von Berlin). The Senate consists of the Governing Mayor (Regierender Bürgermeister), and up to ten senators holding ministerial positions, two of them holding the title of "Mayor" (Bürgermeister) as deputy to the Governing Mayor. The total annual state budget of Berlin in 2015 exceeded €24.5 ($30.0) billion including a budget surplus of €205 ($240) million. The state owns extensive assets, including administrative and government buildings, real estate companies, as well as stakes in the Olympic Stadium, swimming pools, housing companies, and numerous public enterprises and subsidiary companies. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) and The Left (Die Linke) took control of the city government after the 2001 state election and won another term in the 2006 state election. Since the 2016 state election, there has been a coalition between the Social Democratic Party, the Greens and the Left Party. The Governing Mayor is simultaneously Lord Mayor of the City of Berlin (Oberbürgermeister der Stadt) and Minister President of the State of Berlin (Ministerpräsident des Bundeslandes). The office of the Governing Mayor is in the Rotes Rathaus (Red City Hall). Since 2014 this office has been held by Michael Müller of the Social Democrats. Boroughs Berlin is subdivided into 12 boroughs or districts (Bezirke). Each borough has several subdistricts or neighborhoods (Ortsteile), which have roots in much older municipalities that predate the formation of Greater Berlin on 1 October 1920. These subdistricts became urbanized and incorporated into the city later on. Many residents strongly identify with their neighborhoods, colloquially called Kiez. At present, Berlin consists of 96 subdistricts, which are commonly made up of several smaller residential areas or quarters. Each borough is governed by a borough council (Bezirksamt) consisting of five councilors (Bezirksstadträte) including the borough's mayor (Bezirksbürgermeister). The council is elected by the borough assembly (Bezirksverordnetenversammlung). However, the individual boroughs are not independent municipalities, but subordinate to the Senate of Berlin. The borough's mayors make up the council of mayors (Rat der Bürgermeister), which is led by the city's Governing Mayor and advises the Senate. The neighborhoods have no local government bodies. Twin towns – sister cities Berlin maintains official partnerships with 17 cities. Town twinning between Berlin and other cities began with its sister city Los Angeles in 1967. East Berlin's partnerships were canceled at the time of German reunification but later partially reestablished. West Berlin's partnerships had previously been restricted to the borough level. During the Cold War era, the partnerships had reflected the different power blocs, with West Berlin partnering with capitals in the Western World and East Berlin mostly partnering with cities from the Warsaw Pact and its allies. There are several joint projects with many other cities, such as Beirut, Belgrade, São Paulo, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Amsterdam, Johannesburg, Mumbai, Oslo, Hanoi, Shanghai, Seoul, Sofia, Sydney, New York City and Vienna. Berlin participates in international city associations such as the Union of the Capitals of the European Union, Eurocities, Network of European Cities of Culture, Metropolis, Summit Conference of the World's Major Cities, and Conference of the World's Capital Cities. Berlin is twinned with: Los Angeles, United States (1967) Madrid, Spain (1988) Istanbul, Turkey (1989) Warsaw, Poland (1991) Moscow, Russia (1991) Brussels, Belgium (1992) Budapest, Hungary (1992) Tashkent, Uzbekistan (1993) Mexico City, Mexico (1993) Jakarta, Indonesia (1993) Beijing, China (1994) Tokyo, Japan (1994) Buenos Aires, Argentina (1994) Prague, Czech Republic (1995) Windhoek, Namibia (2000) London, United Kingdom (2000) Since 1987, Berlin also has an official partnership with Paris, France. Every Berlin borough also established its own twin towns. For example, the borough of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg has a partnership with the Israeli city of Kiryat Yam. Capital city Berlin is the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany. The President of Germany, whose functions are mainly ceremonial under the German constitution, has their official residence in Bellevue Palace. Berlin is the seat of the German Chancellor (Prime Minister), housed in the Chancellery building, the Bundeskanzleramt. Facing the Chancellery is the Bundestag, the German Parliament, housed in the renovated Reichstag building since the government's relocation to Berlin in 1998. The Bundesrat ("federal council", performing the function of an upper house) is the representation of the 16 constituent states (Länder) of Germany and has its seat at the former Prussian House of Lords. The total annual federal budget managed by the German government exceeded €310 ($375) billion in 2013. The relocation of the federal government and Bundestag to Berlin was mostly completed in 1999. However, some ministries, as well as some minor departments, stayed in the federal city Bonn, the former capital of West Germany. Discussions about moving the remaining ministries and departments to Berlin continue. The Federal Foreign Office and the ministries and departments of Defense, Justice and Consumer Protection, Finance, Interior, Economic Affairs and Energy, Labor and Social Affairs, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Food and Agriculture, Economic Cooperation and Development, Health, Transport and Digital Infrastructure and Education and Research are based in the capital. Berlin hosts in total 158 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of many think tanks, trade unions, nonprofit organizations, lobbying groups, and professional associations. Due to the influence and international partnerships of the Federal Republic of Germany, the capital city has become a significant center of German and European affairs. Frequent official visits and diplomatic consultations among governmental representatives and national leaders are common in contemporary Berlin. Economy In 2018, the GDP of Berlin totaled €147 billion, an increase of 3.1% over the previous year. Berlin's economy is dominated by the service sector, with around 84% of all companies doing business in services. In 2015, the total labor force in Berlin was 1.85 million. The unemployment rate reached a 24-year low in November 2015 and stood at 10.0% . From 2012 to 2015 Berlin, as a German state, had the highest annual employment growth rate. Around 130,000 jobs were added in this period. Important economic sectors in Berlin include life sciences, transportation, information and communication technologies, media and music, advertising and design, biotechnology, environmental services, construction, e-commerce, retail, hotel business, and medical engineering. Research and development have economic significance for the city. Several major corporations like Volkswagen, Pfizer, and SAP operate innovation laboratories in the city. The Science and Business Park in Adlershof is the largest technology park in Germany measured by revenue. Within the Eurozone, Berlin has become a center for business relocation and international investments. Companies Many German and international companies have business or service centers in the city. For several years Berlin has been recognized as a major center of business founders. In 2015, Berlin generated the most venture capital for young startup companies in Europe. Among the 10 largest employers in Berlin are the City-State of Berlin, Deutsche Bahn, the hospital providers Charité and Vivantes, the Federal Government of Germany, the local public transport provider BVG, Siemens and Deutsche Telekom. Siemens, a Global 500 and DAX-listed company is partly headquartered in Berlin. Other DAX-listed companies headquartered in Berlin are the property company Deutsche Wohnen and the online food delivery service Delivery Hero. The national railway operator Deutsche Bahn, Europe's largest digital publisher Axel Springer as well as the MDAX-listed firms Zalando and HelloFresh and also have their main headquarters in the city. Among the largest international corporations who have their German or European headquarters in Berlin are Bombardier Transportation, Gazprom Germania, Coca-Cola, Pfizer, Sony and Total. As of 2018, the three largest banks headquartered in the capital were Deutsche Kreditbank, Landesbank Berlin and Berlin Hyp. Daimler manufactures cars, and BMW builds motorcycles in Berlin. American electric car manufacturer Tesla is building its first European Gigafactory just outside of the city in Grünheide (Mark). The Pharmaceuticals division of Bayer and Berlin Chemie are major pharmaceutical companies in the city. Tourism and conventions Berlin had 788 hotels with 134,399 beds in 2014. The city recorded 28.7 million overnight hotel stays and 11.9 million hotel guests in 2014. Tourism figures have more than doubled within the last ten years and Berlin has become the third-most-visited city destination in Europe. Some of the most visited places in Berlin include: Potsdamer Platz, Brandenburger Tor, the Berlin wall, Alexanderplatz, Museumsinsel, Fernsehturm, the East-Side Gallery, Schloss-Charlottenburg, Zoologischer Garten, Siegessäule, Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer, Mauerpark, Botanical Garden, Französischer Dom, Deutscher Dom and Holocaust-Mahnmal. The largest visitor groups are from Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and the United States. According to figures from the International Congress and Convention Association in 2015, Berlin became the leading organizer of conferences globally, hosting 195 international meetings. Some of these congress events take place on venues such as CityCube Berlin or the Berlin Congress Center (bcc). The Messe Berlin (also known as Berlin ExpoCenter City) is the main convention organizing company in the city. Its main exhibition area covers more than . Several large-scale trade fairs like the consumer electronics trade fair IFA, the ILA Berlin Air Show, the Berlin Fashion Week (including the Premium Berlin and the Panorama Berlin), the Green Week, the Fruit Logistica, the transport fair InnoTrans, the tourism fair ITB and the adult entertainment and erotic fair Venus are held annually in the city, attracting a significant number of business visitors. Creative industries The creative arts and entertainment business is an important part of Berlin's economy. The sector comprises music, film, advertising, architecture, art, design, fashion, performing arts, publishing, R&D, software, TV, radio, and video games. In 2014, around 30,500 creative companies operated in the Berlin-Brandenburg metropolitan region, predominantly SMEs. Generating a revenue of 15.6 billion Euro and 6% of all private economic sales, the culture industry grew from 2009 to 2014 at an average rate of 5.5% per year. Berlin is an important center in the European and German film industry. It is home to more than 1,000 film and television production companies, 270 movie theaters, and around 300 national and international co-productions are filmed in the region every year. The historic Babelsberg Studios and the production company UFA are adjacent to Berlin in Potsdam. The city is also home of the German Film Academy (Deutsche Filmakademie), founded in 2003, and the European Film Academy, founded in 1988. Media Berlin is home to many magazine, newspaper, book, and scientific/academic publishers and their associated service industries. In addition, around 20 news agencies, more than 90 regional daily newspapers and their websites, as well as the Berlin offices of more than 22 national publications such as Der Spiegel, and Die Zeit reinforce the capital's position as Germany's epicenter for influential debate. Therefore, many international journalists, bloggers, and writers live and work in the city. Berlin is the central location to several international and regional television and radio stations. The public broadcaster RBB has its headquarters in Berlin as well as the commercial broadcasters MTV Europe and Welt. German international public broadcaster Deutsche Welle has its TV production unit in Berlin, and most national German broadcasters have a studio in the city including ZDF and RTL. Berlin has Germany's largest number of daily newspapers, with numerous local broadsheets (Berliner Morgenpost, Berliner Zeitung, Der Tagesspiegel), and three major tabloids, as well as national dailies of varying sizes, each with a different political affiliation, such as Die Welt, Neues Deutschland, and Die Tageszeitung. The Exberliner, a monthly magazine, is Berlin's English-language periodical and La Gazette de Berlin a French-language newspaper. Berlin is also the headquarter of major German-language publishing houses like Walter de Gruyter, Springer, the Ullstein Verlagsgruppe (publishing group), Suhrkamp and Cornelsen are all based in Berlin. Each of which publishes books, periodicals, and multimedia products. Quality of life According to Mercer, Berlin ranked number 13 in the Quality of living city ranking in 2019. According to Monocle, Berlin occupies the position of the 6th-most-livable city in the world. Economist Intelligence Unit ranks Berlin number 21 of all global cities. Berlin is number 8 at the Global Power City Index. In 2019, Berlin has the best future prospects of all cities in Germany, according to HWWI and Berenberg Bank. According to the 2019 study by Forschungsinstitut Prognos, Berlin was ranked number 92 of all 401 regions in Germany. It is also the 4th ranked region in former East Germany after Jena, Dresden and Potsdam. Infrastructure Transport Roads Berlin's transport infrastructure is highly complex, providing a diverse range of urban mobility. A total of 979 bridges cross of inner-city waterways. of roads run through Berlin, of which are motorways (). In 2013, 1.344 million motor vehicles were registered in the city. With 377 cars per 1000 residents in 2013 (570/1000 in Germany), Berlin as a Western global city has one of the lowest numbers of cars per capita. In 2012, around 7,600 mostly beige colored taxicabs were in service. Since 2011, a number of app based e-car and e-scooter sharing services have evolved. Rail Long-distance rail lines connect Berlin with all of the major cities of Germany and with many cities in neighboring European countries. Regional rail lines of the provide access to the surrounding regions of Brandenburg and to the Baltic Sea. The is the largest grade-separated railway station in Europe. runs high speed Intercity-Express trains to domestic destinations like , Munich, Cologne, , and others. It also runs an airport express rail service, as well as trains to several international destinations like Vienna, Prague, , Warsaw, Wrocław, Budapest and Amsterdam. Water transport Berlin is connected to the Elbe and Oder rivers via the Spree and the Havel rivers. There are no frequent passenger connections to and from Berlin by water, but some of the freight is transported via waterways. Berlin's largest harbour, the Westhafen, is located in the district of Moabit. It is a transhipment and storage site for inland shipping with a growing importance. Intercity buses Similarly to other German cities, there is an increasing quantity of intercity bus services. The city has more than 10 stations that run buses to destinations throughout Germany and Europe, being the biggest station. Public transport The (BVG) and the (DB) manage several extensive urban public transport systems. Travelers can access all modes of transport with a single ticket. Public transportation in Berlin has a long and complicated history because of the 20th-century division of the city, where movement between the two halves was not served. Since 1989, the transport network has been developed extensively; however, it still contains early 20th century traits, such as the U1. Airports Berlin is served by one commercial international airport: Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER), located just outside Berlin's south-eastern border, in the state of Brandenburg. It began construction in 2006, with the intention of replacing Airport (TXL) and Airport (SXF) as the single commercial airport of Berlin. Previously set to open in 2012, after extensive delays and cost overruns, it opened for commercial operations in October 2020. The planned initial capacity of around 27 million passengers per year is to be further developed to bring the terminal capacity to approximately 55 million per year by 2040. Before the opening of the BER in Brandenburg, Berlin was served by Tegel Airport and Schönefeld Airport. Tegel Airport was within the city limits, and Schönefeld Airport was located at the same site as the BER. Both airports together handled 29.5 million passengers in 2015. In 2014, 67 airlines served 163 destinations in 50 countries from Berlin. Airport was a focus city for Lufthansa and Eurowings while Schönefeld served as an important destination for airlines like , easyJet and Ryanair. Until 2008, Berlin was also served by the smaller Tempelhof Airport, which functioned as a city airport, with a convenient location near the city center, allowing for quick transit times between the central business district and the airport. The airport grounds have since been turned into a city park. Cycling Berlin is well known for its highly developed bicycle lane system. It is estimated Berlin has 710 bicycles per 1000 residents. Around 500,000 daily bike riders accounted for 13% of total traffic in 2010. Cyclists have access to of bicycle paths including approximately of mandatory bicycle paths, of off-road bicycle routes, of bicycle lanes on roads, of shared bus lanes which are also open to cyclists, of combined pedestrian/bike paths and of marked bicycle lanes on roadside pavements (or sidewalks). Riders are allowed to carry their bicycles on , S-Bahn and U-Bahn trains, on trams, and on night buses if a bike ticket is purchased. Rohrpost (pneumatic postal network) From 1865 until 1976, Berlin had an extensive pneumatic postal network, which at its peak in 1940, totaled 400 kilometers in length. After 1949 the system was split into two separated networks. The West Berlin system in operation and open for public use until 1963, and for government use until 1972. The East Berlin system which inherited the Hauptelegraphenamt, the central hub of the system, was in operation until 1976 Energy Berlin's two largest energy provider for private households are the Swedish firm Vattenfall and the Berlin-based company GASAG. Both offer electric power and natural gas supply. Some of the city's electric energy is imported from nearby power plants in southern Brandenburg. the five largest power plants measured by capacity are the Heizkraftwerk Reuter West, the Heizkraftwerk Lichterfelde, the Heizkraftwerk Mitte, the Heizkraftwerk Wilmersdorf, and the Heizkraftwerk Charlottenburg. All of these power stations generate electricity and useful heat at the same time to facilitate buffering during load peaks. In 1993 the power grid connections in the Berlin-Brandenburg capital region were renewed. In most of the inner districts of Berlin power lines are underground cables; only a 380 kV and a 110 kV line, which run from Reuter substation to the urban Autobahn, use overhead lines. The Berlin 380-kV electric line is the backbone of the city's energy grid. Health Berlin has a long history of discoveries in medicine and innovations in medical technology. The modern history of medicine has been significantly influenced by scientists from Berlin. Rudolf Virchow was the founder of cellular pathology, while Robert Koch developed vaccines for anthrax, cholera, and tuberculosis. The Charité complex (Universitätsklinik Charité) is the largest university hospital in Europe, tracing back its origins to the year 1710. More than half of all German Nobel Prize winners in Physiology or Medicine, including Emil von Behring, Robert Koch and Paul Ehrlich, have worked at the Charité. The Charité is spread over four campuses and comprises around 3,000 beds, 15,500 staff, 8,000 students, and more than 60 operating theaters, and it has a turnover of two billion euros annually. The Charité is a joint institution of the Freie Universität Berlin and the Humboldt University of Berlin, including a wide range of institutes and specialized medical centers. Among them are the German Heart Center, one of the most renowned transplantation centers, the Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine, and the Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics. The scientific research at these institutions is complemented by many research departments of companies such as Siemens and Bayer. The World Health Summit and several international health-related conventions are held annually in Berlin. Telecommunication Since 2017, the digital television standard in Berlin and Germany is DVB-T2. This system transmits compressed digital audio, digital video and other data in an MPEG transport stream. Berlin has installed several hundred free public Wireless LAN sites across the capital since 2016. The wireless networks are concentrated mostly in central districts; 650 hotspots (325 indoor and 325 outdoor access points) are installed. Deutsche Bahn is planning to introduce Wi-Fi services in long-distance and regional trains in 2017. The UMTS (3G) and LTE (4G) networks of the three major cellular operators Vodafone, T-Mobile and O2 enable the use of mobile broadband applications citywide. The Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute develops mobile and stationary broadband communication networks and multimedia systems. Focal points are photonic components and systems, fiber optic sensor systems, and image signal processing and transmission. Future applications for broadband networks are developed as well. Education , Berlin had 878 schools, teaching 340,658 children in 13,727 classes and 56,787 trainees in businesses and elsewhere. The city has a 6-year primary education program. After completing primary school, students continue to the (a comprehensive school) or (college preparatory school). Berlin has a special bilingual school program in the , in which children are taught the curriculum in German and a foreign language, starting in primary school and continuing in high school. The Französisches Gymnasium Berlin, which was founded in 1689 to teach the children of Huguenot refugees, offers (German/French) instruction. The John F. Kennedy School, a bilingual German–American public school in Zehlendorf, is particularly popular with children

construction of a main entrance to all museums, as well as reconstruction of the Stadtschloss continues. Also on the island and next to the Lustgarten and palace is Berlin Cathedral, emperor William II's ambitious attempt to create a Protestant counterpart to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. A large crypt houses the remains of some of the earlier Prussian royal family. St. Hedwig's Cathedral is Berlin's Roman Catholic cathedral. Unter den Linden is a tree-lined east–west avenue from the Brandenburg Gate to the site of the former Berliner Stadtschloss, and was once Berlin's premier promenade. Many Classical buildings line the street, and part of Humboldt University is there. Friedrichstraße was Berlin's legendary street during the Golden Twenties. It combines 20th-century traditions with the modern architecture of today's Berlin. Potsdamer Platz is an entire quarter built from scratch after the Wall came down. To the west of Potsdamer Platz is the Kulturforum, which houses the Gemäldegalerie, and is flanked by the Neue Nationalgalerie and the Berliner Philharmonie. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a Holocaust memorial, is to the north. The area around Hackescher Markt is home to fashionable culture, with countless clothing outlets, clubs, bars, and galleries. This includes the Hackesche Höfe, a conglomeration of buildings around several courtyards, reconstructed around 1996. The nearby New Synagogue is the center of Jewish culture. The Straße des 17. Juni, connecting the Brandenburg Gate and Ernst-Reuter-Platz, serves as the central east–west axis. Its name commemorates the uprisings in East Berlin of 17 June 1953. Approximately halfway from the Brandenburg Gate is the Großer Stern, a circular traffic island on which the Siegessäule (Victory Column) is situated. This monument, built to commemorate Prussia's victories, was relocated in 1938–39 from its previous position in front of the Reichstag. The Kurfürstendamm is home to some of Berlin's luxurious stores with the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church at its eastern end on Breitscheidplatz. The church was destroyed in the Second World War and left in ruins. Nearby on Tauentzienstraße is KaDeWe, claimed to be continental Europe's largest department store. The Rathaus Schöneberg, where John F. Kennedy made his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner!" speech, is in Tempelhof-Schöneberg. West of the center, Bellevue Palace is the residence of the German President. Charlottenburg Palace, which was burnt out in the Second World War, is the largest historical palace in Berlin. The Funkturm Berlin is a lattice radio tower in the fairground area, built between 1924 and 1926. It is the only observation tower which stands on insulators and has a restaurant and an observation deck above ground, which is reachable by a windowed elevator. The Oberbaumbrücke over the Spree river is Berlin's most iconic bridge, connecting the now-combined boroughs of Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg. It carries vehicles, pedestrians, and the U1 Berlin U-Bahn line. The bridge was completed in a brick gothic style in 1896, replacing the former wooden bridge with an upper deck for the U-Bahn. The center portion was demolished in 1945 to stop the Red Army from crossing. After the war, the repaired bridge served as a checkpoint and border crossing between the Soviet and American sectors, and later between East and West Berlin. In the mid-1950s, it was closed to vehicles, and after the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, pedestrian traffic was heavily restricted. Following German reunification, the center portion was reconstructed with a steel frame, and U-Bahn service resumed in 1995. Demographics At the end of 2018, the city-state of Berlin had 3.75 million registered inhabitants in an area of . The city's population density was 4,206 inhabitants per km2. Berlin is the most populous city proper in the European Union. In 2019, the urban area of Berlin had about 4.5 million inhabitants. the functional urban area was home to about 5.2 million people. The entire Berlin-Brandenburg capital region has a population of more than 6 million in an area of . In 2014, the city-state Berlin had 37,368 live births (+6.6%), a record number since 1991. The number of deaths was 32,314. Almost 2.0 million households were counted in the city. 54 percent of them were single-person households. More than 337,000 families with children under the age of 18 lived in Berlin. In 2014 the German capital registered a migration surplus of approximately 40,000 people. Nationalities National and international migration into the city has a long history. In 1685, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in France, the city responded with the Edict of Potsdam, which guaranteed religious freedom and tax-free status to French Huguenot refugees for ten years. The Greater Berlin Act in 1920 incorporated many suburbs and surrounding cities of Berlin. It formed most of the territory that comprises modern Berlin and increased the population from 1.9 million to 4 million. Active immigration and asylum politics in West Berlin triggered waves of immigration in the 1960s and 1970s. Berlin is home to at least 180,000 Turkish and Turkish German residents, making it the largest Turkish community outside of Turkey. In the 1990s the Aussiedlergesetze enabled immigration to Germany of some residents from the former Soviet Union. Today ethnic Germans from countries of the former Soviet Union make up the largest portion of the Russian-speaking community. The last decade experienced an influx from various Western countries and some African regions. A portion of the African immigrants have settled in the Afrikanisches Viertel. Young Germans, EU-Europeans and Israelis have also settled in the city. In December 2019, there were 777,345 registered residents of foreign nationality and another 542,975 German citizens with a "migration background" (Migrationshintergrund, MH), meaning they or one of their parents immigrated to Germany after 1955. Foreign residents of Berlin originate from about 190 different countries. 48 percent of the residents under the age of 15 have migration background. Berlin in 2009 was estimated to have 100,000 to 250,000 unregistered inhabitants. Boroughs of Berlin with a significant number of migrants or foreign born population are Mitte, Neukölln and Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. There are more than 20 non-indigenous communities with a population of at least 10,000 people, including Turkish, Polish, Russian, Lebanese, Palestinian, Serbian, Italian, Bosnian, Vietnamese, American, Romanian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Chinese, Austrian, Ukrainian, French, British, Spanish, Israeli, Thai, Iranian, Egyptian and Syrian communities. Languages German is the official and predominant spoken language in Berlin. It is a West Germanic language that derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. German is one of 24 languages of the European Union, and one of the three working languages of the European Commission. Berlinerisch or Berlinisch is not a dialect linguistically. It is spoken in Berlin and the surrounding metropolitan area. It originates from a Brandenburgish variant. The dialect is now seen more like a sociolect, largely through increased immigration and trends among the educated population to speak standard German in everyday life. The most commonly spoken foreign languages in Berlin are Turkish, Polish, English, Persian, Arabic, Italian, Bulgarian, Russian, Romanian, Kurdish, Serbo-Croatian, French, Spanish and Vietnamese. Turkish, Arabic, Kurdish, and Serbo-Croatian are heard more often in the western part due to the large Middle Eastern and former-Yugoslavian communities. Polish, English, Russian, and Vietnamese have more native speakers in East Berlin. Religion According to the 2011 census, approximately 37 percent of the population reported being members of a legally-recognized church or religious organization. The rest either did not belong to such an organization, or there was no information available about them. The largest religious denomination recorded in 2010 was the Protestant regional church body—the Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia (EKBO)—a united church. EKBO is a member of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and Union Evangelischer Kirchen (UEK). According to the EKBO, their membership accounted for 18.7 percent of the local population, while the Roman Catholic Church had 9.1 percent of residents registered as its members. About 2.7% of the population identify with other Christian denominations (mostly Eastern Orthodox, but also various Protestants). According to the Berlin residents register, in 2018 14.9 percent were members of the Evangelical Church, and 8.5 percent were members of the Catholic Church. The government keeps a register of members of these churches for tax purposes, because it collects church tax on behalf of the churches. It does not keep records of members of other religious organizations which may collect their own church tax, in this way. In 2009, approximately 249,000 Muslims were reported by the Office of Statistics to be members of Mosques and Islamic religious organizations in Berlin, while in 2016, the newspaper Der Tagesspiegel estimated that about 350,000 Muslims observed Ramadan in Berlin. In 2019, about 437,000 registered residents, 11.6% of the total, reported having a migration background from one of the Member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Between 1992 and 2011 the Muslim population almost doubled. About 0.9% of Berliners belong to other religions. Of the estimated population of 30,000–45,000 Jewish residents, approximately 12,000 are registered members of religious organizations. Berlin is the seat of the Roman Catholic archbishop of Berlin and EKBO's elected chairperson is titled the bishop of EKBO. Furthermore, Berlin is the seat of many Orthodox cathedrals, such as the Cathedral of St. Boris the Baptist, one of the two seats of the Bulgarian Orthodox Diocese of Western and Central Europe, and the Resurrection of Christ Cathedral of the Diocese of Berlin (Patriarchate of Moscow). The faithful of the different religions and denominations maintain many places of worship in Berlin. The Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church has eight parishes of different sizes in Berlin. There are 36 Baptist congregations (within Union of Evangelical Free Church Congregations in Germany), 29 New Apostolic Churches, 15 United Methodist churches, eight Free Evangelical Congregations, four Churches of Christ, Scientist (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 11th), six congregations of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an Old Catholic church, and an Anglican church in Berlin. Berlin has more than 80 mosques, ten synagogues, and two Buddhist temples. Government City state Since reunification on 3 October 1990, Berlin has been one of the three city states in Germany among the present 16 states of Germany. The House of Representatives (Abgeordnetenhaus) functions as the city and state parliament, which has 141 seats. Berlin's executive body is the Senate of Berlin (Senat von Berlin). The Senate consists of the Governing Mayor (Regierender Bürgermeister), and up to ten senators holding ministerial positions, two of them holding the title of "Mayor" (Bürgermeister) as deputy to the Governing Mayor. The total annual state budget of Berlin in 2015 exceeded €24.5 ($30.0) billion including a budget surplus of €205 ($240) million. The state owns extensive assets, including administrative and government buildings, real estate companies, as well as stakes in the Olympic Stadium, swimming pools, housing companies, and numerous public enterprises and subsidiary companies. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) and The Left (Die Linke) took control of the city government after the 2001 state election and won another term in the 2006 state election. Since the 2016 state election, there has been a coalition between the Social Democratic Party, the Greens and the Left Party. The Governing Mayor is simultaneously Lord Mayor of the City of Berlin (Oberbürgermeister der Stadt) and Minister President of the State of Berlin (Ministerpräsident des Bundeslandes). The office of the Governing Mayor is in the Rotes Rathaus (Red City Hall). Since 2014 this office has been held by Michael Müller of the Social Democrats. Boroughs Berlin is subdivided into 12 boroughs or districts (Bezirke). Each borough has several subdistricts or neighborhoods (Ortsteile), which have roots in much older municipalities that predate the formation of Greater Berlin on 1 October 1920. These subdistricts became urbanized and incorporated into the city later on. Many residents strongly identify with their neighborhoods, colloquially called Kiez. At present, Berlin consists of 96 subdistricts, which are commonly made up of several smaller residential areas or quarters. Each borough is governed by a borough council (Bezirksamt) consisting of five councilors (Bezirksstadträte) including the borough's mayor (Bezirksbürgermeister). The council is elected by the borough assembly (Bezirksverordnetenversammlung). However, the individual boroughs are not independent municipalities, but subordinate to the Senate of Berlin. The borough's mayors make up the council of mayors (Rat der Bürgermeister), which is led by the city's Governing Mayor and advises the Senate. The neighborhoods have no local government bodies. Twin towns – sister cities Berlin maintains official partnerships with 17 cities. Town twinning between Berlin and other cities began with its sister city Los Angeles in 1967. East Berlin's partnerships were canceled at the time of German reunification but later partially reestablished. West Berlin's partnerships had previously been restricted to the borough level. During the Cold War era, the partnerships had reflected the different power blocs, with West Berlin partnering with capitals in the Western World and East Berlin mostly partnering with cities from the Warsaw Pact and its allies. There are several joint projects with many other cities, such as Beirut, Belgrade, São Paulo, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Amsterdam, Johannesburg, Mumbai, Oslo, Hanoi, Shanghai, Seoul, Sofia, Sydney, New York City and Vienna. Berlin participates in international city associations such as the Union of the Capitals of the European Union, Eurocities, Network of European Cities of Culture, Metropolis, Summit Conference of the World's Major Cities, and Conference of the World's Capital Cities. Berlin is twinned with: Los Angeles, United States (1967) Madrid, Spain (1988) Istanbul, Turkey (1989) Warsaw, Poland (1991) Moscow, Russia (1991) Brussels, Belgium (1992) Budapest, Hungary (1992) Tashkent, Uzbekistan (1993) Mexico City, Mexico (1993) Jakarta, Indonesia (1993) Beijing, China (1994) Tokyo, Japan (1994) Buenos Aires, Argentina (1994) Prague, Czech Republic (1995) Windhoek, Namibia (2000) London, United Kingdom (2000) Since 1987, Berlin also has an official partnership with Paris, France. Every Berlin borough also established its own twin towns. For example, the borough of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg has a partnership with the Israeli city of Kiryat Yam. Capital city Berlin is the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany. The President of Germany, whose functions are mainly ceremonial under the German constitution, has their official residence in Bellevue Palace. Berlin is the seat of the German Chancellor (Prime Minister), housed in the Chancellery building, the Bundeskanzleramt. Facing the Chancellery is the Bundestag, the German Parliament, housed in the renovated Reichstag building since the government's relocation to Berlin in 1998. The Bundesrat ("federal council", performing the function of an upper house) is the representation of the 16 constituent states (Länder) of Germany and has its seat at the former Prussian House of Lords. The total annual federal budget managed by the German government exceeded €310 ($375) billion in 2013. The relocation of the federal government and Bundestag to Berlin was mostly completed in 1999. However, some ministries, as well as some minor departments, stayed in the federal city Bonn, the former capital of West Germany. Discussions about moving the remaining ministries and departments to Berlin continue. The Federal Foreign Office and the ministries and departments of Defense, Justice and Consumer Protection, Finance, Interior, Economic Affairs and Energy, Labor and Social Affairs, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Food and Agriculture, Economic Cooperation and Development, Health, Transport and Digital Infrastructure and Education and Research are based in the capital. Berlin hosts in total 158 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of many think tanks, trade unions, nonprofit organizations, lobbying groups, and professional associations. Due to the influence and international partnerships of the Federal Republic of Germany, the capital city has become a significant center of German and European affairs. Frequent official visits and diplomatic consultations among governmental representatives and national leaders are common in contemporary Berlin. Economy In 2018, the GDP of Berlin totaled €147 billion, an increase of 3.1% over the previous year. Berlin's economy is dominated by the service sector, with around 84% of all companies doing business in services. In 2015, the total labor force in Berlin was 1.85 million. The unemployment rate reached a 24-year low in November 2015 and stood at 10.0% . From 2012 to 2015 Berlin, as a German state, had the highest annual employment growth rate. Around 130,000 jobs were added in this period. Important economic sectors in Berlin include life sciences, transportation, information and communication technologies, media and music, advertising and design, biotechnology, environmental services, construction, e-commerce, retail, hotel business, and medical engineering. Research and development have economic significance for the city. Several major corporations like Volkswagen, Pfizer, and SAP operate innovation laboratories in the city. The Science and Business Park in Adlershof is the largest technology park in Germany measured by revenue. Within the Eurozone, Berlin has become a center for business relocation and international investments. Companies Many German and international companies have business or service centers in the city. For several years Berlin has been recognized as a major center of business founders. In 2015, Berlin generated the most venture capital for young startup companies in Europe. Among the 10 largest employers in Berlin are the City-State of Berlin, Deutsche Bahn, the hospital providers Charité and Vivantes, the Federal Government of Germany, the local public transport provider BVG, Siemens and Deutsche Telekom. Siemens, a Global 500 and DAX-listed company is partly headquartered in Berlin. Other DAX-listed companies headquartered in Berlin are the property company Deutsche Wohnen and the online food delivery service Delivery Hero. The national railway operator Deutsche Bahn, Europe's largest digital publisher Axel Springer as well as the MDAX-listed firms Zalando and HelloFresh and also have their main headquarters in the city. Among the largest international corporations who have their German or European headquarters in Berlin are Bombardier Transportation, Gazprom Germania, Coca-Cola, Pfizer, Sony and Total. As of 2018, the three largest banks headquartered in the capital were Deutsche Kreditbank, Landesbank Berlin and Berlin Hyp. Daimler manufactures cars, and BMW builds motorcycles in Berlin. American electric car manufacturer Tesla is building its first European Gigafactory just outside of the city in Grünheide (Mark). The Pharmaceuticals division of Bayer and Berlin Chemie are major pharmaceutical companies in the city. Tourism and conventions Berlin had 788 hotels with 134,399 beds in 2014. The city recorded 28.7 million overnight hotel stays and 11.9 million hotel guests in 2014. Tourism figures have more than doubled within the last ten years and Berlin has become the third-most-visited city destination in Europe. Some of the most visited places in Berlin include: Potsdamer Platz, Brandenburger Tor, the Berlin wall, Alexanderplatz, Museumsinsel, Fernsehturm, the East-Side Gallery, Schloss-Charlottenburg, Zoologischer Garten, Siegessäule, Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer, Mauerpark, Botanical Garden, Französischer Dom, Deutscher Dom and Holocaust-Mahnmal. The largest visitor groups are from Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and the United States. According to figures from the International Congress and Convention Association in 2015, Berlin became the leading organizer of conferences globally, hosting 195 international meetings. Some of these congress events take place on venues such as CityCube Berlin or the Berlin Congress Center (bcc). The Messe Berlin (also known as Berlin ExpoCenter City) is the main convention organizing company in the city. Its main exhibition area covers more than . Several large-scale trade fairs like the consumer electronics trade fair IFA, the ILA Berlin Air Show, the Berlin Fashion Week (including the Premium Berlin and the Panorama Berlin), the Green Week, the Fruit Logistica, the transport fair InnoTrans, the tourism fair ITB and the adult entertainment and erotic fair Venus are held annually in the city, attracting a significant number of business visitors. Creative industries The creative arts and entertainment business is an important part of Berlin's economy. The sector comprises music, film, advertising, architecture, art, design, fashion, performing arts, publishing, R&D, software, TV, radio, and video games. In 2014, around 30,500 creative companies operated in the Berlin-Brandenburg metropolitan region, predominantly SMEs. Generating a revenue of 15.6 billion Euro and 6% of all private economic sales, the culture industry grew from 2009 to 2014 at an average rate of 5.5% per year. Berlin is an important center in the European and German film industry. It is home to more than 1,000 film and television production companies, 270 movie theaters, and around 300 national and international co-productions are filmed in the region every year. The historic Babelsberg Studios and the production company UFA are adjacent to Berlin in Potsdam. The city is also home of the German Film Academy (Deutsche Filmakademie), founded in 2003, and the European Film Academy, founded in 1988. Media Berlin is home to many magazine, newspaper, book, and scientific/academic publishers and their associated service industries. In addition, around 20 news agencies, more than 90 regional daily newspapers and their websites, as well as the Berlin offices of more than 22 national publications such as Der Spiegel, and Die Zeit reinforce the capital's position as Germany's epicenter for influential debate. Therefore, many international journalists, bloggers, and writers live and work in the city. Berlin is the central location to several international and regional television and radio stations. The public broadcaster RBB has its headquarters in Berlin as well as the commercial broadcasters MTV Europe and Welt. German international public broadcaster Deutsche Welle has its TV production unit in Berlin, and most national German broadcasters have a studio in the city including ZDF and RTL. Berlin has Germany's largest number of daily newspapers, with numerous local broadsheets (Berliner Morgenpost, Berliner Zeitung, Der Tagesspiegel), and three major tabloids, as well as national dailies of varying sizes, each with a different political affiliation, such as Die Welt, Neues Deutschland, and Die Tageszeitung. The Exberliner, a monthly magazine, is Berlin's English-language periodical and La Gazette de Berlin a French-language newspaper. Berlin is also the headquarter of major German-language publishing houses like Walter de Gruyter, Springer, the Ullstein Verlagsgruppe (publishing group), Suhrkamp and Cornelsen are all based in Berlin. Each of which publishes books, periodicals, and multimedia products. Quality of life According to Mercer, Berlin ranked number 13 in the Quality of living city ranking in 2019. According to Monocle, Berlin occupies the position of the 6th-most-livable city in the world. Economist Intelligence Unit ranks Berlin number 21 of all global cities. Berlin is number 8 at the Global Power City Index. In 2019, Berlin has the best future prospects of all cities in Germany, according to HWWI and Berenberg Bank. According to the 2019 study by Forschungsinstitut Prognos, Berlin was ranked number 92 of all 401 regions in Germany. It is also the 4th ranked region in former East Germany after Jena, Dresden and Potsdam. Infrastructure Transport Roads Berlin's transport infrastructure is highly complex, providing a diverse range of urban mobility. A total of 979 bridges cross of inner-city waterways. of roads run through Berlin, of which are motorways (). In 2013, 1.344 million motor vehicles were registered in the city. With 377 cars per 1000 residents in 2013 (570/1000 in Germany), Berlin as a Western global city has one of the lowest numbers of cars per capita. In 2012, around 7,600 mostly beige colored taxicabs were in service. Since 2011, a number of app based e-car and e-scooter sharing services have evolved. Rail Long-distance rail lines connect Berlin with all of the major cities of Germany and with many cities in neighboring European countries. Regional rail lines of the provide access to the surrounding regions of Brandenburg and to the Baltic Sea. The is the largest grade-separated railway station in Europe. runs high speed Intercity-Express trains to domestic destinations like , Munich, Cologne, , and others. It also runs an airport express rail service, as well as trains to several international destinations like Vienna, Prague, , Warsaw, Wrocław, Budapest and Amsterdam. Water transport Berlin is connected to the Elbe and Oder rivers via the Spree and the Havel rivers. There are no frequent passenger connections to and from Berlin by water, but some of the freight is transported via waterways. Berlin's largest harbour, the Westhafen, is located in the district of Moabit. It is a transhipment and storage site for inland shipping with a growing importance. Intercity buses Similarly to other German cities, there is an increasing quantity of intercity bus services. The city has more than 10 stations that run buses to destinations throughout Germany and Europe, being the biggest station. Public transport The (BVG) and the (DB) manage several extensive urban public transport systems. Travelers can access all modes

manuscripts for the Watkinson library, but Tozzer suggested he spend the time in Mexico documenting modern Nahuatl dialects. In his application Whorf proposed to establish the oligosynthetic nature of the Nahuatl language. Before leaving Whorf presented the paper "Stem series in Maya" at the Linguistic Society of America conference, in which he argued that in the Mayan languages syllables carry symbolic content. The SSRC awarded Whorf the grant and in 1930 he traveled to Mexico City where Professor Robert H Barlow put him in contact with several speakers of Nahuatl to serve as his informants, among whom were Mariano Rojas of Tepoztlán and Luz Jimenez of Milpa Alta. The outcome of the trip to Mexico was Whorf's sketch of Milpa Alta Nahuatl, published only after his death, and an article on a series of Aztec pictograms found at the Tepozteco monument at Tepoztlán, Morelos in which he noted similarities in form and meaning between Aztec and Maya day signs. At Yale Until his return from Mexico in 1930 Whorf had been entirely an autodidact in linguistic theory and field methodology, yet he had already made a name for himself in Middle American linguistics. Whorf had met Sapir, the leading US linguist of the day, at professional conferences, and in 1931 Sapir came to Yale from the University of Chicago to take a position as Professor of Anthropology. Alfred Tozzer sent Sapir a copy of Whorf's paper on "Nahuatl tones and saltillo". Sapir replied stating that it "should by all means be published"; however, it was not until 1993 that it was prepared for publication by Lyle Campbell and Frances Karttunen. Whorf took Sapir's first course at Yale on "American Indian Linguistics". He enrolled in a program of graduate studies, nominally working towards a PhD in linguistics, but he never actually attempted to obtain a degree, satisfying himself with participating in the intellectual community around Sapir. At Yale, Whorf joined the circle of Sapir's students that included such luminary linguists as Morris Swadesh, Mary Haas, Harry Hoijer, G. L. Trager and Charles F. Voegelin. Whorf took on a central role among Sapir's students and was well respected. Sapir had a profound influence on Whorf's thinking. Sapir's earliest writings had espoused views of the relation between thought and language stemming from the Humboldtian tradition he acquired through Franz Boas, which regarded language as the historical embodiment of volksgeist, or ethnic world view. But Sapir had since become influenced by a current of logical positivism, such as that of Bertrand Russell and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein, particularly through Ogden and Richards' The Meaning of Meaning, from which he adopted the view that natural language potentially obscures, rather than facilitates, the mind to perceive and describe the world as it really is. In this view, proper perception could only be accomplished through formal logics. During his stay at Yale, Whorf acquired this current of thought partly from Sapir and partly through his own readings of Russell and Ogden and Richards. As Whorf became more influenced by positivist science he also distanced himself from some approaches to language and meaning that he saw as lacking in rigor and insight. One of these was Polish philosopher Alfred Korzybski's General semantics, which was espoused in the US by Stuart Chase. Chase admired Whorf's work and frequently sought out a reluctant Whorf, who considered Chase to be "utterly incompetent by training and background to handle such a subject." Ironically, Chase would later write the foreword for Carroll's collection of Whorf's writings. Work on Hopi and descriptive linguistics Sapir also encouraged Whorf to continue his work on the historical and descriptive linguistics of Uto-Aztecan. Whorf published several articles on that topic in this period, some of them with G. L. Trager, who had become his close friend. Whorf took a special interest in the Hopi language and started working with Ernest Naquayouma, a speaker of Hopi from Toreva village living in Manhattan, New York. Whorf credited Naquayouma as the source of most of his information on the Hopi language, although in 1938 he took a short field trip to the village of Mishongnovi, on the Second Mesa of the Hopi Reservation in Arizona. In 1936, Whorf was appointed Honorary Research Fellow in Anthropology at Yale, and he was invited by Franz Boas to serve on the committee of the Society of American Linguistics (later Linguistic Society of America). In 1937, Yale awarded him the Sterling Fellowship. He was a lecturer in Anthropology from 1937 through 1938, replacing Sapir, who was gravely ill. Whorf gave graduate level lectures on "Problems of American Indian Linguistics". In 1938 with Trager's assistance he elaborated a report on the progress of linguistic research at the department of anthropology at Yale. The report includes some of Whorf's influential contributions to linguistic theory, such as the concept of the allophone and of covert grammatical categories. has argued, that in this report Whorf's linguistic theories exist in a condensed form, and that it was mainly through this report that Whorf exerted influence on the discipline of descriptive linguistics. Final years In late 1938, Whorf's own health declined. After an operation for cancer he fell into an unproductive period. He was also deeply influenced by Sapir's death in early 1939. It was in the writings of his last two years that he laid out the research program of linguistic relativity. His 1939 memorial article for Sapir, "The Relation of Habitual Thought And Behavior to Language", in particular has been taken to be Whorf's definitive statement of the issue, and is his most frequently quoted piece. In his last year Whorf also published three articles in the MIT Technology Review titled "Science and Linguistics", "Linguistics as an Exact Science" and "Language and Logic". He was also invited to contribute an article to a theosophical journal, Theosophist, published in Madras, India, for which he wrote "Language, Mind and Reality". In these final pieces he offered a critique of Western science in which he suggested that non-European languages often referred to physical phenomena in ways that more directly reflected aspects of reality than many European languages, and that science ought to pay attention to the effects of linguistic categorization in its efforts to describe the physical world. He particularly criticized the Indo-European languages for promoting a mistaken essentialist world view, which had been disproved by advances in the sciences, whereas he suggested that other languages dedicated more attention to processes and dynamics rather than stable essences. Whorf argued that paying attention to how other physical phenomena are described in the study of linguistics could make valuable contributions to science by pointing out the ways in which certain assumptions about reality are implicit in the structure of language itself, and how language guides the attention of speakers towards certain phenomena in the world which risk becoming overemphasized while leaving other phenomena at risk of being overlooked. Posthumous reception and legacy At Whorf's death his friend G. L. Trager was appointed as curator of his unpublished manuscripts. Some of them were published in the years after his death by another of Whorf's friends, Harry Hoijer. In the decade following, Trager and particularly Hoijer did much to popularize Whorf's ideas about linguistic relativity, and it was Hoijer who coined the term "Sapir–Whorf hypothesis" at a 1954 conference. Trager then published an article titled "The systematization of the Whorf hypothesis", which contributed to the idea that Whorf had proposed a hypothesis that should be the basis for a program of empirical research. Hoijer also published studies of Indigenous languages and cultures of the American South West in which Whorf found correspondences between cultural patterns and linguistic ones. The term, even though technically a misnomer, went on to become the most widely known label for Whorf's ideas. According to John A. Lucy "Whorf's work in linguistics was and still is recognized as being of superb professional quality by linguists". Universalism and anti-Whorfianism Whorf's work began to fall out of favor less than a decade after his death, and he was subjected to severe criticism from scholars of language, culture and psychology. In 1953 and 1954 psychologists Roger Brown and Eric Lenneberg criticized Whorf for his reliance on anecdotal evidence, formulating a hypothesis to scientifically test his ideas, which they limited to an examination of a causal relation between grammatical or lexical structure and cognition or perception. Whorf himself did not advocate a straight causality between language and thought; instead he wrote that "Language and culture had grown up together"; that both were mutually shaped by the other. Hence, has argued that because the aim of the formulation of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis was to test simple causation, from the outset it failed to test Whorf's ideas. Focusing on color terminology, with easily discernible differences between perception and vocabulary, Brown and Lenneberg published in 1954 a study of Zuni color terms that slightly support a weak effect of semantic categorization of color terms on color perception. In doing so they began a line of empirical studies that investigated the principle of linguistic relativity. Empirical testing of the Whorfian hypothesis declined in the 1960s to 1980s as Noam Chomsky began to redefine linguistics and much of psychology in formal universalist terms. Several studies from that period refuted Whorf's hypothesis, demonstrating that linguistic diversity is a surface veneer that masks underlying universal cognitive principles. Many studies were highly critical and disparaging in their language, ridiculing Whorf's analyses and examples or his lack of an academic degree. Throughout the 1980s most mentions of Whorf or of the Sapir–Whorf hypotheses continued to be disparaging, and led to a widespread view that Whorf's ideas had been proven wrong. Because Whorf was treated so severely in the scholarship during those decades, he has been described as "one of the prime whipping boys of introductory texts to linguistics". In the late 1980s, with the advent of cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics some linguists sought to rehabilitate Whorf's reputation, as scholarship began to question whether earlier critiques of Whorf were justified. By the 1960s analytical philosophers also became aware of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, and philosophers such as Max Black and Donald Davidson published scathing critiques of Whorf's strong relativist viewpoints. Black characterized Whorf's ideas about metaphysics as demonstrating "amateurish crudity". According to Black and Davidson, Whorf's viewpoint and the concept of linguistic relativity meant that translation between languages with different conceptual schemes would be impossible. Recent assessments such as those by Leavitt and Lee, however, consider Black and Davidson's interpretation to be based on an inaccurate characterization of Whorf's viewpoint, and even rather absurd given the time he spent trying to translate between different conceptual schemes. In their view the critiques are based on a lack of familiarity with Whorf's writings; according to these recent Whorf scholars a more accurate description of his viewpoint is that he thought translation to be possible, but only through careful attention to the subtle differences between conceptual schemes. Eric Lenneberg, Noam Chomsky, and Steven Pinker have also criticized Whorf for failing to be sufficiently clear in his formulation of how language influences thought, and for failing to provide real evidence to support his assumptions. Generally Whorf's arguments took the form of examples that were anecdotal or speculative, and functioned as attempts to show how "exotic" grammatical traits were connected to what were considered equally exotic worlds of thought. Even Whorf's defenders admitted that his writing style was often convoluted and couched in neologisms – attributed to his awareness of language use, and his reluctance to use terminology that might have pre-existing connotations. argues that Whorf was mesmerized by the foreignness of indigenous languages, and exaggerated and idealized them. According to Lakoff, Whorf's tendency to exoticize data must be judged in the historical context: Whorf and the other Boasians wrote at a time in which racism and jingoism were predominant, and when it was unthinkable to many that "savages" had redeeming qualities, or that their languages were comparable in complexity to those of Europe. For this alone

concepts as the allophone and the cryptotype, and the formulation of "Whorf's law" in Uto-Aztecan historical linguistics, have met with broad acceptance. Biography Early life The son of Harry Church Whorf and Sarah Edna Lee Whorf, Benjamin Lee Whorf was born on April 24, 1897 in Winthrop, Massachusetts. Harry Church Whorf was an artist, intellectual, and designer – first working as a commercial artist and later as a dramatist. Benjamin had two younger brothers, John and Richard, who both went on to become notable artists. John became an internationally renowned painter and illustrator; Richard was an actor in films such as Yankee Doodle Dandy and later an Emmy-nominated television director of such shows as The Beverly Hillbillies. Benjamin was the intellectual of the three and at a young age he conducted chemical experiments with his father's photographic equipment. He was also an avid reader, interested in botany, astrology, and Middle American prehistory. He read William H. Prescott's Conquest of Mexico several times. At the age of 17 he began to keep a copious diary in which he recorded his thoughts and dreams. Career in fire prevention Whorf graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1918 with a degree in chemical engineering where his academic performance was of average quality. In 1920 he married Celia Inez Peckham, who became the mother of his three children, Raymond Ben, Robert Peckham and Celia Lee. Around the same time he began work as a fire prevention engineer (an inspector) for the Hartford Fire Insurance Company. He was particularly good at the job and was highly commended by his employers. His job required him to travel to production facilities throughout New England to be inspected. One anecdote describes him arriving at a chemical plant in which he was denied access by the director because he would not allow anyone to see the production procedure which was a trade secret. Having been told what the plant produced, Whorf wrote a chemical formula on a piece of paper, saying to the director: "I think this is what you're doing". The surprised director asked Whorf how he knew about the secret procedure, and he simply answered: "You couldn't do it in any other way." Whorf helped to attract new customers to the Fire Insurance Company; they favored his thorough inspections and recommendations. Another famous anecdote from his job was used by Whorf to argue that language use affects habitual behavior. Whorf described a workplace in which full gasoline drums were stored in one room and empty ones in another; he said that because of flammable vapor the "empty" drums were more dangerous than those that were full, although workers handled them less carefully to the point that they smoked in the room with "empty" drums, but not in the room with full ones. Whorf argued that by habitually speaking of the vapor-filled drums as empty and by extension as inert, the workers were oblivious to the risk posed by smoking near the "empty drums". Early interest in religion and language Whorf was a spiritual man throughout his lifetime although what religion he followed has been the subject of debate. As a young man he produced a manuscript titled "Why I have discarded evolution", causing some scholars to describe him as a devout Methodist, who was impressed with fundamentalism, and perhaps supportive of creationism. However, throughout his life Whorf's main religious interest was theosophy, a nonsectarian organization based on Buddhist and Hindu teachings that promotes the view of the world as an interconnected whole and the unity and brotherhood of humankind "without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or color". Some scholars have argued that the conflict between spiritual and scientific inclinations has been a driving force in Whorf's intellectual development, particularly in the attraction by ideas of linguistic relativity. Whorf said that "of all groups of people with whom I have come in contact, Theosophical people seem the most capable of becoming excited about ideas—new ideas." Around 1924 Whorf first became interested in linguistics. Originally he analyzed Biblical texts, seeking to uncover hidden layers of meaning. Inspired by the esoteric work La langue hebraïque restituée by Antoine Fabre d'Olivet, he began a semantic and grammatical analysis of Biblical Hebrew. Whorf's early manuscripts on Hebrew and Maya have been described as exhibiting a considerable degree of mysticism, as he sought to uncover esoteric meanings of glyphs and letters. Early studies in Mesoamerican linguistics Whorf studied Biblical linguistics mainly at the Watkinson Library (now Hartford Public Library). This library had an extensive collection of materials about Native American linguistics and folklore, originally collected by James Hammond Trumbull. It was at the Watkinson library that Whorf became friends with the young boy, John B. Carroll, who later went on to study psychology under B. F. Skinner, and who in 1956 edited and published a selection of Whorf's essays as Language, Thought and Reality . The collection rekindled Whorf's interest in Mesoamerican antiquity. He began studying the Nahuatl language in 1925, and later, beginning in 1928, he studied the collections of Maya hieroglyphic texts. Quickly becoming conversant with the materials, he began a scholarly dialog with Mesoamericanists such as Alfred Tozzer, the Maya archaeologist at Harvard University, and Herbert Spinden of the Brooklyn Museum. In 1928 he first presented a paper at the International Congress of Americanists in which he presented his translation of a Nahuatl document held at the Peabody Museum at Harvard. He also began to study the comparative linguistics of the Uto-Aztecan language family, which Edward Sapir had recently demonstrated to be a linguistic family. In addition to Nahuatl, Whorf studied the Piman and Tepecano languages, while in close correspondence with linguist J. Alden Mason. Field studies in Mexico Because of the promise shown by his work on Uto-Aztecan, Tozzer and Spinden advised Whorf to apply for a grant with the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) to support his research. Whorf considered using the money to travel to Mexico to procure Aztec manuscripts for the Watkinson library, but Tozzer suggested he spend the time in Mexico documenting modern Nahuatl dialects. In his application Whorf proposed to establish the oligosynthetic nature of the Nahuatl language. Before leaving Whorf presented the paper "Stem series in Maya" at the Linguistic Society of America conference, in which he argued that in the Mayan languages syllables carry symbolic content. The SSRC awarded Whorf the grant and in 1930 he traveled to Mexico City where Professor Robert H Barlow put him in contact with several speakers of Nahuatl to serve as his informants, among whom were Mariano Rojas of Tepoztlán and Luz Jimenez of Milpa Alta. The outcome of the trip to Mexico was Whorf's sketch of Milpa Alta Nahuatl, published only after his death, and an article on a series of Aztec pictograms found at the Tepozteco monument at Tepoztlán, Morelos in which he noted similarities in form and meaning between Aztec and Maya day signs. At Yale Until his return from Mexico in 1930 Whorf had been entirely an autodidact in linguistic theory and field methodology, yet he had already made a name for himself in Middle American linguistics. Whorf had met Sapir, the leading US linguist of the day, at professional conferences, and in 1931 Sapir came to Yale from the University of Chicago to take a position as Professor of Anthropology. Alfred Tozzer sent Sapir a copy of Whorf's paper on "Nahuatl tones and saltillo". Sapir replied stating that it "should by all means be published"; however, it was not until 1993 that it was prepared for publication by Lyle Campbell and Frances Karttunen. Whorf took Sapir's first course at Yale on "American Indian Linguistics". He enrolled in a program of graduate studies, nominally working towards a PhD in linguistics, but he never actually attempted to obtain a degree, satisfying himself with participating in the intellectual community around Sapir. At Yale, Whorf joined the circle of Sapir's students that included such luminary linguists as Morris Swadesh, Mary Haas, Harry Hoijer, G. L. Trager and Charles F. Voegelin. Whorf took on a central role among Sapir's students and was well respected. Sapir had a profound influence on Whorf's thinking. Sapir's earliest writings had espoused views of the relation between thought and language stemming from the Humboldtian tradition he acquired through Franz Boas, which regarded language as the historical embodiment of volksgeist, or ethnic world view. But Sapir had since become influenced by a current of logical positivism, such as that of Bertrand Russell and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein, particularly through Ogden and Richards' The Meaning of Meaning, from which he adopted the view that natural language potentially obscures, rather than facilitates, the mind to perceive and describe the world as it really is. In this view, proper perception could only be accomplished through formal logics. During his stay at Yale, Whorf acquired this current of thought partly from Sapir and partly through his own readings of Russell and Ogden and Richards. As Whorf became more influenced by positivist science he also distanced himself from some approaches to language and meaning that he saw as lacking in rigor and insight. One of these was Polish philosopher Alfred Korzybski's General semantics, which was espoused in the US by Stuart Chase. Chase admired Whorf's work and frequently sought out a reluctant Whorf, who considered Chase to be "utterly incompetent by training and background to handle such a subject." Ironically, Chase would later write the foreword for Carroll's collection of Whorf's writings. Work on Hopi and descriptive linguistics Sapir also encouraged Whorf to continue his work on the historical and descriptive linguistics of Uto-Aztecan. Whorf published several articles on that topic in this period, some of them with G. L. Trager, who had become his close friend. Whorf took a special interest in the Hopi language and started working with Ernest Naquayouma, a speaker of Hopi from Toreva village living in Manhattan, New York. Whorf credited Naquayouma as the source of most of his information on the Hopi language, although in 1938 he took a short field trip to the village of Mishongnovi, on the Second Mesa of the Hopi Reservation in Arizona. In 1936, Whorf was appointed Honorary Research Fellow in Anthropology at Yale, and he was invited by Franz Boas to serve on the committee of the Society of American Linguistics (later Linguistic Society of America). In 1937, Yale awarded him the Sterling Fellowship. He was a lecturer in Anthropology from 1937 through 1938, replacing Sapir, who was gravely ill. Whorf gave graduate level lectures on "Problems of American Indian Linguistics". In 1938 with Trager's assistance he elaborated a report on the progress of linguistic research at the department of anthropology at Yale. The report includes some of Whorf's influential contributions to linguistic theory, such as the concept of the allophone and of covert grammatical categories. has argued, that in this report Whorf's linguistic theories exist in a condensed form, and that it was mainly through this report that Whorf exerted influence on the discipline of descriptive linguistics. Final years In late 1938, Whorf's own health declined. After an operation for cancer he fell into an unproductive period. He was also deeply influenced by Sapir's death in early 1939. It was in the writings of his last two years that he laid out the research program of linguistic relativity. His 1939 memorial article for Sapir, "The Relation of Habitual Thought And Behavior to Language", in particular has been taken to be Whorf's definitive statement of the issue, and is his most frequently quoted piece. In his last year Whorf also published three articles in the MIT Technology Review titled "Science and Linguistics", "Linguistics as an Exact Science" and "Language and Logic". He was also invited to contribute an article to a theosophical journal, Theosophist, published in Madras, India, for which he wrote "Language, Mind and Reality". In these final pieces he offered a critique of Western science in which he suggested that non-European languages often referred to physical phenomena in ways that more directly reflected aspects of reality than many European languages, and that science ought to pay attention to the effects of linguistic categorization in its efforts to describe the physical world. He particularly criticized the Indo-European languages for promoting a mistaken essentialist world view, which had been disproved by advances in the sciences, whereas he suggested that other languages dedicated more attention to processes and dynamics rather than stable essences. Whorf argued that paying attention to how other physical phenomena are described in the study of linguistics could make valuable contributions to science by pointing out the ways in which certain assumptions about reality are implicit in the structure of language itself, and how language guides the attention of speakers towards certain phenomena in the world which risk becoming overemphasized while leaving other phenomena at risk of being overlooked. Posthumous reception and legacy At Whorf's death his friend G. L. Trager was appointed as curator of his unpublished manuscripts. Some of them were published in the years after his death by another of Whorf's friends, Harry Hoijer. In the decade following, Trager and particularly Hoijer did much to popularize Whorf's ideas about linguistic relativity, and it was Hoijer who coined the term "Sapir–Whorf hypothesis" at a 1954 conference. Trager then published an article titled "The systematization of the Whorf hypothesis", which contributed to the idea that Whorf had proposed a hypothesis that should be the basis for a program of empirical research. Hoijer also published

The second appointee also withdrew for the same reason. Clinton had repeatedly promised to encourage gays in the military service, despite what he knew to be the strong opposition of the military leadership. He tried anyway, and was publicly opposed by the top generals, and forced by Congress to a compromise position of "Don't ask, don't tell" whereby gays could serve if and only if they kept it secret. He devised a $16 billion stimulus package primarily to aid inner-city programs desired by liberals, but it was defeated by a Republican filibuster in the Senate. His popularity at the 100 day mark of his term was the lowest of any president at that point. Public opinion did support one liberal program, and Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which required large employers to allow employees to take unpaid leave for pregnancy or a serious medical condition. This action had bipartisan support, and was popular with the public. Two days after taking office, on January 22, 1993—the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade—Clinton reversed restrictions on domestic and international family planning programs that had been imposed by Reagan and Bush. Clinton said abortion should be kept "safe, legal, and rare"—a slogan that had been suggested by political scientist Samuel L. Popkin and first used by Clinton in December 1991, while campaigning. During the eight years of the Clinton administration, the abortion rate declined by 18 percent. On February 15, 1993, Clinton made his first address to the nation, announcing his plan to raise taxes to close a budget deficit. Two days later, in a nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress, Clinton unveiled his economic plan. The plan focused on reducing the deficit rather than on cutting taxes for the middle class, which had been high on his campaign agenda. Clinton's advisers pressured him to raise taxes, based on the theory that a smaller federal budget deficit would reduce bond interest rates. President Clinton's attorney general Janet Reno authorized the FBI's use of armored vehicles to deploy tear gas into the buildings of the Branch Davidian community near Waco, Texas, in hopes of ending a 51 day siege. During the operation on April 19, 1993, the buildings caught fire and 75 of the residents died, including 24 children. The raid had originally been planned by the Bush administration; Clinton had played no role. On May 19, 1993, Clinton fired seven employees of the White House Travel Office. This caused the White House travel office controversy even though the travel office staff served at the pleasure of the president and could be dismissed without cause. The White House responded to the controversy by claiming that the firings were done in response to financial improprieties that had been revealed by a brief FBI investigation. Critics contended that the firings had been done to allow friends of the Clintons to take over the travel business and the involvement of the FBI was unwarranted. In August, Clinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, which passed Congress without a Republican vote. It cut taxes for 15million low-income families, made tax cuts available to 90 percent of small businesses, and raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2 percent of taxpayers. Additionally, it mandated that the budget be balanced over many years through the implementation of spending restraints. On September 22, 1993, Clinton made a major speech to Congress regarding a health care reform plan; the program aimed at achieving universal coverage through a national health care plan. This was one of the most prominent items on Clinton's legislative agenda and resulted from a task force headed by Hillary Clinton. The plan was well received in political circles, but it was eventually doomed by well-organized lobby opposition from conservatives, the American Medical Association, and the health insurance industry. However, Clinton biographer John F. Harris said the program failed because of a lack of coordination within the White House. Despite the Democratic majority in Congress, the effort to create a national health care system ultimately died when compromise legislation by George J. Mitchell failed to gain a majority of support in August 1994. The failure of the bill was the first major legislative defeat of the Clinton administration. In November 1993, David Hale—the source of criminal allegations against Bill Clinton in the Whitewater controversy—alleged that while governor of Arkansas, Clinton pressured Hale to provide an illegal $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal, the Clintons' partner in the Whitewater land deal. A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation resulted in convictions against the McDougals for their role in the Whitewater project, but the Clintons themselves were never charged, and Clinton maintains his and his wife's innocence in the affair. On November 30, 1993, Clinton signed into law the Brady Bill, which mandated federal background checks on people who purchase firearms in the United States. The law also imposed a five-day waiting period on purchases, until the NICS system was implemented in 1998. He also expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, a subsidy for low-income workers. In December of the same year, allegations by Arkansas state troopers Larry Patterson and Roger Perry were first reported by David Brock in The American Spectator. In the affair later known as "Troopergate", the officers alleged that they had arranged sexual liaisons for Clinton back when he was governor of Arkansas. The story mentioned a woman named Paula, a reference to Paula Jones. Brock later apologized to Clinton, saying the article was politically motivated "bad journalism", and that "the troopers were greedy and had slimy motives". That month, Clinton implemented a Department of Defense directive known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", which allowed gay men and women to serve in the armed services provided they kept their sexual preferences a secret. The Act forbade the military from inquiring about an individual's sexual orientation. The policy was developed as a compromise after Clinton's proposal to allow gays to serve openly in the military met staunch opposition from prominent Congressional Republicans and Democrats, including senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Sam Nunn (D-GA). According to David Mixner, Clinton's support for the compromise led to a heated dispute with Vice President Al Gore, who felt that "the President should lift the ban ... even though [his executive order] was sure to be overridden by the Congress". Some gay-rights advocates criticized Clinton for not going far enough and accused him of making his campaign promise to get votes and contributions. Their position was that Clinton should have integrated the military by executive order, noting that President Harry S. Truman used executive order to racially desegregate the armed forces. Clinton's defenders argued that an executive order might have prompted the Senate to write the exclusion of gays into law, potentially making it harder to integrate the military in the future. Later in his presidency, in 1999, Clinton criticized the way the policy was implemented, saying he did not think any serious person could say it was not "out of whack". The policy remained controversial, and was finally repealed in 2011, removing open sexual orientation as a reason for dismissal from the armed forces. On January 1, 1994, Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement into law. Throughout his first year in office, Clinton consistently supported ratification of the treaty by the U.S. Senate. Clinton and most of his allies in the Democratic Leadership Committee strongly supported free trade measures; there remained, however, strong disagreement within the party. Opposition came chiefly from anti-trade Republicans, protectionist Democrats and supporters of Ross Perot. The bill passed the house with 234 votes against 200 opposed (132 Republicans and 102 Democrats voting in favor; 156 Democrats, 43 Republicans, and one independent against). The treaty was then ratified by the Senate and signed into law by the president. The Omnibus Crime Bill, which Clinton signed into law in September 1994, made many changes to U.S. crime and law enforcement legislation including the expansion of the death penalty to include crimes not resulting in death, such as running a large-scale drug enterprise. During Clinton's re-election campaign he said, "My 1994 crime bill expanded the death penalty for drug kingpins, murderers of federal law enforcement officers, and nearly 60 additional categories of violent felons." It also included a subsection of assault weapons ban for a ten-year period. On October 21, 1994, the Clinton administration launched the first official White House website, whitehouse.gov. The site was followed with three more versions, resulting in the final edition launched in 2000. The White House website was part of a wider movement of the Clinton administration toward web-based communication. According to Robert Longley, "Clinton and Gore were responsible for pressing almost all federal agencies, the U.S. court system and the U.S. military onto the Internet, thus opening up America's government to more of America's citizens than ever before. On July 17, 1996, Clinton issued Executive Order 13011—Federal Information Technology, ordering the heads of all federal agencies to utilize information technology fully to make the information of the agency easily accessible to the public." After two years of Democratic Party control, the Democrats lost control of Congress to the Republicans in the mid-term elections in 1994, for the first time in forty years. A speech delivered by President Bill Clinton at the December 6, 1995 White House Conference on HIV/AIDS projected that a cure for AIDS and a vaccine to prevent further infection would be developed. The President focused on his administration's accomplishments and efforts related to the epidemic, including an accelerated drug-approval process. He also condemned homophobia and discrimination against people with HIV. Clinton announced three new initiatives: creating a special working group to coordinate AIDS research throughout the Federal government; convening public health experts to develop an action plan that integrates HIV prevention with substance abuse prevention; and launching a new effort by the Department of Justice to ensure that health care facilities provide equal access to people with HIV and AIDS. The White House FBI files controversy of June 1996 arose concerning improper access by the White House to FBI security-clearance documents. Craig Livingstone, head of the White House Office of Personnel Security, improperly requested, and received from the FBI, background report files without asking permission of the subject individuals; many of these were employees of former Republican administrations. In March 2000, Independent Counsel Robert Ray determined there was no credible evidence of any crime. Ray's report further stated, "there was no substantial and credible evidence that any senior White House official was involved" in seeking the files. On September 21, 1996, Clinton signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined marriage for federal purposes as the legal union of one man and one woman; the legislation allowed individual states to refuse to recognize gay marriages that were performed in other states. Paul Yandura, speaking for the White House gay and lesbian liaison office, said Clinton's signing DOMA "was a political decision that they made at the time of a re-election". In defense of his actions, Clinton has said that DOMA was intended to "head off an attempt to send a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to the states", a possibility he described as highly likely in the context of a "very reactionary Congress". Administration spokesman Richard Socarides said, "the alternatives we knew were going to be far worse, and it was time to move on and get the president re-elected." Clinton himself said DOMA was something "which the Republicans put on the ballot to try to get the base vote for Bush up, I think it's obvious that something had to be done to try to keep the Republican Congress from presenting that". Others were more critical. The veteran gay rights and gay marriage activist Evan Wolfson has called these claims "historic revisionism". In a July 2, 2011, editorial The New York Times opined, "The Defense of Marriage Act was enacted in 1996 as an election-year wedge issue, signed by President Bill Clinton in one of his worst policy moments." Ultimately, in United States v. Windsor, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down DOMA in June 2013. Despite DOMA, Clinton was the first president to select openly gay persons for administrative positions, and he is generally credited as being the first president to publicly champion gay rights. During his presidency, Clinton issued two substantially controversial executive orders on behalf of gay rights, the first lifting the ban on security clearances for LGBT federal employees and the second outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation in the federal civilian workforce. Under Clinton's leadership, federal funding for HIV/AIDS research, prevention and treatment more than doubled. Clinton also pushed for passing hate crimes laws for gays and for the private sector Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which, buoyed by his lobbying, failed to pass the Senate by a single vote in 1996. Advocacy for these issues, paired with the politically unpopular nature of the gay rights movement at the time, led to enthusiastic support for Clinton's election and reelection by the Human Rights Campaign. Clinton came out for gay marriage in July 2009 and urged the Supreme Court to overturn DOMA in 2013. He was later honored by GLAAD for his prior pro-gay stances and his reversal on DOMA. The 1996 United States campaign finance controversy was an alleged effort by China to influence the domestic policies of the United States, before and during the Clinton administration, and involved the fundraising practices of the administration itself. Despite the evidence, the Chinese government denied all accusations. As part of a 1996 initiative to curb illegal immigration, Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) on September 30, 1996. Appointed by Clinton, the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform recommended reducing legal immigration from about 800,000 people a year to about 550,000. Ken Gormley, author of The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr, reveals in his book that Clinton narrowly escaped possible assassination in the Philippines in November 1996. During his visit to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Manila, while he was on his way to meet with a senior member of the Philippine government, Clinton was saved from danger minutes before his motorcade was scheduled to drive over a bridge charged with a timed improvised explosive device (IED). According to officials, the IED was large enough to "blow up the entire presidential motorcade". Details of the plot were revealed to Gormley by Lewis C. Merletti, former member of the presidential protection detail and Director of the Secret Service. Intelligence officers intercepted a radio transmission indicating there was a wedding cake under a bridge. This alerted Merletti and others as Clinton's motorcade was scheduled to drive over a major bridge in downtown Manila. Once more, the word "wedding" was the code name used by a terrorist group for a past assassination attempt. Merletti wanted to reroute the motorcade, but the alternate route would add forty-five minutes to the drive time. Clinton was very angry, as he was already late for the meeting, but following the advice of the secret service possibly saved his life. Two other bombs had been discovered in Manila earlier in the week so the threat level that day was high. Security personnel at the Manila International Airport uncovered several grenades and a timing device in a travel bag. Officials also discovered a bomb near a major U.S. naval base. The president was scheduled to visit both these locations later in the week. An intense investigation took place into the events in Manila and it was discovered that the group behind the bridge bomb was a Saudi terrorist group in Afghanistan known as al-Qaeda and the plot was masterminded by Osama bin Laden. Until recently, this thwarted assassination attempt was never made public and remained top secret. Only top members of the U.S. intelligence community were aware of these events. Second term (1997–2001) In the January 1997, State of the Union address, Clinton proposed a new initiative to provide health coverage to up to five million children. Senators Ted Kennedy—a Democrat—and Orrin Hatch—a Republican—teamed up with Hillary Rodham Clinton and her staff in 1997, and succeeded in passing legislation forming the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), the largest (successful) health care reform in the years of the Clinton Presidency. That year, Hillary Clinton shepherded through Congress the Adoption and Safe Families Act and two years later she succeeded in helping pass the Foster Care Independence Act. Bill Clinton negotiated the passage of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 by the Republican Congress. In October 1997, he announced he was getting hearing aids, due to hearing loss attributed to his age, and his time spent as a musician in his youth. In 1999, he signed into law the Financial Services Modernization Act also known as the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, which repealed the part of the Glass–Steagall Act that had prohibited a bank from offering a full range of investment, commercial banking, and insurance services since its enactment in 1933. Impeachment and acquittal After a House inquiry, Clinton was impeached on December 19, 1998, by the House of Representatives. The House voted 228–206 to impeach him for perjury to a grand jury and voted 221–212 to impeach him for obstruction of justice. Clinton was only the second U.S. president (after Andrew Johnson) to be impeached. Impeachment proceedings were based on allegations that Clinton had illegally lied about and covered up his relationship with 22-year-old White House (and later Department of Defense) employee Monica Lewinsky. After the Starr Report was submitted to the House providing what it termed "substantial and credible information that President Clinton Committed Acts that May Constitute Grounds for an Impeachment", the House began impeachment hearings against Clinton before the mid-term elections. To hold impeachment proceedings, the Republican leadership called a lame-duck session in December 1998. While the House Judiciary Committee hearings ended in a straight party-line vote, there was lively debate on the House floor. The two charges passed in the House (largely with Republican support, but with a handful of Democratic votes as well) were for perjury and obstruction of justice. The perjury charge arose from Clinton's testimony before a grand jury that had been convened to investigate perjury he may have committed in his sworn deposition during Jones v. Clinton, Paula Jones's sexual harassment lawsuit. The obstruction charge was based on his actions to conceal his relationship with Lewinsky before and after that deposition. The Senate later acquitted Clinton of both charges. The Senate refused to meet to hold an impeachment trial before the end of the old term, so the trial was held over until the next Congress. Clinton was represented by Washington law firm Williams & Connolly. The Senate finished a twenty-one-day trial on February 12, 1999, with the vote of 55 not guilty/45 guilty on the perjury charge and 50 not guilty/50 guilty on the obstruction of justice charge. Both votes fell short of the constitutional two-thirds majority requirement to convict and remove an officeholder. The final vote was generally along party lines, with no Democrats voting guilty, and only a handful of Republicans voting not guilty. On January 19, 2001, Clinton's law license was suspended for five years after he acknowledged to an Arkansas circuit court that he had engaged in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice in the Jones case. Pardons and commutations Clinton issued 141 pardons and 36 commutations on his last day in office on January 20, 2001. Controversy surrounded Marc Rich and allegations that Hillary Clinton's brother, Hugh Rodham, accepted payments in return for influencing the president's decision-making regarding the pardons. Federal prosecutor Mary Jo White was appointed to investigate the pardon of Rich. She was later replaced by then-Republican James Comey. The investigation found no wrongdoing on Clinton's part. Clinton also pardoned 4 defendants in the Whitewater Scandal, Chris Wade, Susan McDougal, Stephen Smith, and Robert W. Palmer, all of whom had ties to Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas. Former Clinton HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, was also among Clinton's pardons. Campaign finance controversies In February 1997 it was discovered upon documents being released by the Clinton Administration that 938 people had stayed at the White House and that 821 of them had made donations to the Democratic Party and got the opportunity to stay in the Lincoln bedroom as a result of the donations. Some donors included Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Jane Fonda, and Judy Collins. Top donors also got golf games and morning jogs with Clinton as a result of the contributions. Janet Reno was called on to investigate the matter by Trent Lott, but she refused. In 1996, it was found that several Chinese foreigners made contributions to Clinton's reelection campaign and the Democratic National Committee with the backing of the People's Republic of China. Some of them also attempted to donate to Clinton's defense fund. This violated United States law forbidding non-American citizens from making campaign contributions. Clinton and Al Gore also allegedly met with the foreign donors. A Republican investigation led by Fred Thompson found that Clinton was targeted by the Chinese government. However, Democratic senators Joe Lieberman and John Glenn said that the evidence showed that China only targeted congressional elections and not presidential elections. Military and foreign affairs Somalia The Battle of Mogadishu occurred in Somalia in 1993. During the operation, two U.S. helicopters were shot down by rocket-propelled grenade attacks to their tail rotors, trapping soldiers behind enemy lines. This resulted in an urban battle that killed 18 American soldiers, wounded 73 others, and one was taken prisoner. There were many more Somali casualties. Some of the American bodies were dragged through the streets—a spectacle broadcast on television news programs. In response, U.S. forces were withdrawn from Somalia and later conflicts were approached with fewer soldiers on the ground. Rwanda In April 1994, genocide broke out in Rwanda. Intelligence reports indicate that Clinton was aware a "final solution to eliminate all Tutsis" was underway, long before the administration publicly used the word "genocide". Fearing a reprisal of the events in Somalia the previous year, Clinton chose not to intervene. Clinton has called his failure to intervene one of his main foreign policy failings, saying "I don't think we could have ended the violence, but I think we could have cut it down. And I regret it." Bosnia and Herzegovina In 1995, U.S. and NATO aircraft bombed Bosnian Serb targets to halt attacks on U.N. safe zones and pressure them into a peace accord that would end the Bosnian war. Clinton deployed U.S. peacekeepers to Bosnia in late 1995, to uphold the subsequent Dayton Agreement. Irish peace talks In 1992, before his presidency, Clinton proposed sending a peace envoy to Northern Ireland, but this was dropped to avoid tensions with the British government. In November 1995, in a ceasefire during the Troubles, Clinton became the first president to visit Northern Ireland, examining both of the two divided communities of Belfast. Despite unionist criticism, Clinton used this as a way to negotiate an end to the violent conflict with London, Dublin, the paramilitaries and the other groups. Clinton went on to play a key role in the peace talks, which produced the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Iran In February 1996, the Clinton administration agreed to pay Iran US$131.8million (equivalent to $ million in ) in settlement to discontinue a case brought by Iran in 1989 against the U.S. in the International Court of Justice after the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser. Osama bin Laden Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the U.S. government during the presidency of Bill Clinton (and continued to be until bin Laden's death in 2011). Despite claims by Mansoor Ijaz and Sudanese officials that the Sudanese government had offered to arrest and extradite bin Laden, and that U.S. authorities rejected each offer, the 9/11 Commission Report stated that "we have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim". In response to a 1996 State Department warning about bin Laden and the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa by al-Qaeda (which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans), Clinton ordered several military missions to capture or kill bin Laden, all of which were unsuccessful. In August 1998, Clinton ordered cruise missile strikes on terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan, targeting the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, which was suspected of assisting bin Laden in making chemical weapons, and bin Laden's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. Kosovo In the midst of a brutal crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in the province of Kosovo by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Clinton authorized the use of U.S. Armed Forces in a NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, named Operation Allied Force. The stated reasoning behind the intervention was to stop the ethnic cleansing (and what the Clinton administration labeled genocide) of Albanians by Yugoslav anti-guerilla military units. General Wesley Clark was Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and oversaw the mission. With United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, the bombing campaign ended on June 10, 1999. The resolution placed Kosovo under UN administration and authorized a peacekeeping force to be deployed to the region. NATO announced its soldiers all survived combat, though two died in an Apache helicopter crash. Journalists in the popular press criticized genocide statements by the Clinton administration as false and greatly exaggerated. Prior to the bombing campaign on March 24, 1999, common estimates showed that the number of civilians killed in the over year long conflict in Kosovo had approximately been 1,800, of which were primarily Albanians but also Serbs and that there was no evidence of genocide or ethnic cleansing. In a post-war inquiry, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe noted "the patterns of the expulsions and the vast increase in lootings, killings, rape, kidnappings and pillage once the NATO air war began on March 24". In 2001, the U.N.-supervised Supreme Court of Kosovo ruled that genocide (the intent to destroy a people) did not take place, but recognized "a systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments" with the intention being the forceful departure of the Albanian population. The term "ethnic cleansing" was used as an alternative to "genocide" to denote not just ethnically motivated murder but also displacement, though critics charge there is little difference. Slobodan Milošević, the president of Yugoslavia at the time of the atrocities, was eventually brought to trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague on charges including crimes against humanity and war crimes for his role in the war. He died in 2006, before the completion of the trial. Iraq In Clinton's 1998 State of the Union Address, he warned Congress that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was building an arsenal of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 on October 31, 1998, which instituted a policy of "regime change" against Iraq, though it explicitly stated it did not provide for direct intervention on the part of American military forces. The administration then launched a four-day bombing campaign named Operation Desert Fox, lasting from December 16 to 19, 1998. At the end of this operation Clinton announced that "So long as Saddam remains in power, he will remain a threat to his people, his region, and the world. With our allies, we must pursue a strategy to contain him and to constrain his weapons of mass destruction program, while working toward the day Iraq has a government willing to live at peace with its people and with its neighbors." American and British aircraft in the Iraq no-fly zones attacked hostile Iraqi air defenses 166 times in 1999 and 78 times in 2000. China On October 10, 2000, Clinton signed into law the U.S.–China Relations Act of 2000, which granted permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) trade status to China. The president asserted that free trade would gradually open China to democratic reform. Relations were damaged briefly by the American bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May 1999. Clinton apologized for the bombing, stating it was accidental. The U.S.–China Relations Act of 2000 granted China permanent normal trade relations (NTR) status (previously called most favoured nation (MFN)) when China becomes a full member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), ending annual review and approval of NTR. The Act was signed into law on October 10, 2000, by Clinton. President Clinton in 2000 pushed Congress to approve the U.S.-China trade agreement and China's accession to the WTO, saying that more trade with China would advance America's economic interests: "Economically, this agreement is the equivalent of a one-way street. It requires China to open its markets—with a fifth of the world's population, potentially the biggest markets in the world—to both our products and services in unprecedented new ways," said Clinton. Israeli-Palestinian conflict After initial successes such as the Oslo Accords of the early 1990s, which also led to the Israel–Jordan peace treaty in 1994 and the Wye River Memorandum in October 1998, Clinton attempted an effort to end the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He brought Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat together at Camp David for the Camp David Summit in July 2000, which lasted 14 days. Following the failures of the peace talks, Clinton said Arafat had "missed the opportunity" to facilitate a "just and lasting peace". In his autobiography, Clinton blames Arafat for the collapse of the summit. Following another attempt in December 2000 at Bolling Air

end the Bosnian war. Clinton deployed U.S. peacekeepers to Bosnia in late 1995, to uphold the subsequent Dayton Agreement. Irish peace talks In 1992, before his presidency, Clinton proposed sending a peace envoy to Northern Ireland, but this was dropped to avoid tensions with the British government. In November 1995, in a ceasefire during the Troubles, Clinton became the first president to visit Northern Ireland, examining both of the two divided communities of Belfast. Despite unionist criticism, Clinton used this as a way to negotiate an end to the violent conflict with London, Dublin, the paramilitaries and the other groups. Clinton went on to play a key role in the peace talks, which produced the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Iran In February 1996, the Clinton administration agreed to pay Iran US$131.8million (equivalent to $ million in ) in settlement to discontinue a case brought by Iran in 1989 against the U.S. in the International Court of Justice after the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser. Osama bin Laden Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the U.S. government during the presidency of Bill Clinton (and continued to be until bin Laden's death in 2011). Despite claims by Mansoor Ijaz and Sudanese officials that the Sudanese government had offered to arrest and extradite bin Laden, and that U.S. authorities rejected each offer, the 9/11 Commission Report stated that "we have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim". In response to a 1996 State Department warning about bin Laden and the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa by al-Qaeda (which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans), Clinton ordered several military missions to capture or kill bin Laden, all of which were unsuccessful. In August 1998, Clinton ordered cruise missile strikes on terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan, targeting the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, which was suspected of assisting bin Laden in making chemical weapons, and bin Laden's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. Kosovo In the midst of a brutal crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in the province of Kosovo by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Clinton authorized the use of U.S. Armed Forces in a NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, named Operation Allied Force. The stated reasoning behind the intervention was to stop the ethnic cleansing (and what the Clinton administration labeled genocide) of Albanians by Yugoslav anti-guerilla military units. General Wesley Clark was Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and oversaw the mission. With United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, the bombing campaign ended on June 10, 1999. The resolution placed Kosovo under UN administration and authorized a peacekeeping force to be deployed to the region. NATO announced its soldiers all survived combat, though two died in an Apache helicopter crash. Journalists in the popular press criticized genocide statements by the Clinton administration as false and greatly exaggerated. Prior to the bombing campaign on March 24, 1999, common estimates showed that the number of civilians killed in the over year long conflict in Kosovo had approximately been 1,800, of which were primarily Albanians but also Serbs and that there was no evidence of genocide or ethnic cleansing. In a post-war inquiry, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe noted "the patterns of the expulsions and the vast increase in lootings, killings, rape, kidnappings and pillage once the NATO air war began on March 24". In 2001, the U.N.-supervised Supreme Court of Kosovo ruled that genocide (the intent to destroy a people) did not take place, but recognized "a systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments" with the intention being the forceful departure of the Albanian population. The term "ethnic cleansing" was used as an alternative to "genocide" to denote not just ethnically motivated murder but also displacement, though critics charge there is little difference. Slobodan Milošević, the president of Yugoslavia at the time of the atrocities, was eventually brought to trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague on charges including crimes against humanity and war crimes for his role in the war. He died in 2006, before the completion of the trial. Iraq In Clinton's 1998 State of the Union Address, he warned Congress that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was building an arsenal of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 on October 31, 1998, which instituted a policy of "regime change" against Iraq, though it explicitly stated it did not provide for direct intervention on the part of American military forces. The administration then launched a four-day bombing campaign named Operation Desert Fox, lasting from December 16 to 19, 1998. At the end of this operation Clinton announced that "So long as Saddam remains in power, he will remain a threat to his people, his region, and the world. With our allies, we must pursue a strategy to contain him and to constrain his weapons of mass destruction program, while working toward the day Iraq has a government willing to live at peace with its people and with its neighbors." American and British aircraft in the Iraq no-fly zones attacked hostile Iraqi air defenses 166 times in 1999 and 78 times in 2000. China On October 10, 2000, Clinton signed into law the U.S.–China Relations Act of 2000, which granted permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) trade status to China. The president asserted that free trade would gradually open China to democratic reform. Relations were damaged briefly by the American bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May 1999. Clinton apologized for the bombing, stating it was accidental. The U.S.–China Relations Act of 2000 granted China permanent normal trade relations (NTR) status (previously called most favoured nation (MFN)) when China becomes a full member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), ending annual review and approval of NTR. The Act was signed into law on October 10, 2000, by Clinton. President Clinton in 2000 pushed Congress to approve the U.S.-China trade agreement and China's accession to the WTO, saying that more trade with China would advance America's economic interests: "Economically, this agreement is the equivalent of a one-way street. It requires China to open its markets—with a fifth of the world's population, potentially the biggest markets in the world—to both our products and services in unprecedented new ways," said Clinton. Israeli-Palestinian conflict After initial successes such as the Oslo Accords of the early 1990s, which also led to the Israel–Jordan peace treaty in 1994 and the Wye River Memorandum in October 1998, Clinton attempted an effort to end the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He brought Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat together at Camp David for the Camp David Summit in July 2000, which lasted 14 days. Following the failures of the peace talks, Clinton said Arafat had "missed the opportunity" to facilitate a "just and lasting peace". In his autobiography, Clinton blames Arafat for the collapse of the summit. Following another attempt in December 2000 at Bolling Air Force Base, in which the president offered the Clinton Parameters, the situation broke down completely after the end of the Taba Summit and with the start of the Second Intifada. Judicial appointments Clinton appointed two justices to the Supreme Court: Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993 and Stephen Breyer in 1994. Both justices went on to serve until the 2020s, leaving a lasting judicial legacy for President Clinton. Clinton was the first president in history to appoint more women and minority judges than white male judges to the federal courts. In his eight years in office, 11.6% of Clinton's court of appeals nominees and 17.4% of his district court nominees were black; 32.8% of his court of appeals nominees and 28.5% of his district court nominees were women. Public opinion Throughout Clinton's first term, his job approval rating fluctuated in the 40s and 50s. In his second term, his rating consistently ranged from the high-50s to the high-60s. After his impeachment proceedings in 1998 and 1999, Clinton's rating reached its highest point. According to a CBS News/New York Times poll, Clinton left office with an approval rating of 68 percent, which matched those of Ronald Reagan and Franklin D. Roosevelt as the highest ratings for departing presidents in the modern era. Clinton's average Gallup poll approval rating for his last quarter in office was 61%, the highest final quarter rating any president has received for fifty years. Forty-seven percent of the respondents identified themselves as being Clinton supporters. As he was leaving office, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll revealed that 45 percent of Americans said they would miss him; 55 percent thought he "would have something worthwhile to contribute and should remain active in public life"; 68 percent thought he would be remembered more for his "involvement in personal scandal" than for "his accomplishments"; and 58 percent answered "No" to the question "Do you generally think Bill Clinton is honest and trustworthy?" The same percentage said he would be remembered as either "outstanding" or "above average" as a president, while 22 percent said he would be remembered as "below average" or "poor". ABC News characterized public consensus on Clinton as, "You can't trust him, he's got weak morals and ethics—and he's done a heck of a good job." In May 2006, a CNN poll comparing Clinton's job performance with that of his successor, George W. Bush, found that a strong majority of respondents said Clinton outperformed Bush in six different areas questioned. Gallup polls in 2007 and 2011 showed that Clinton was regarded by 13 percent of Americans as the greatest president in U.S. history. In 2014, 18 percent of respondents in a Quinnipiac University Polling Institute poll of American voters regarded Clinton as the best president since World War II, making him the third most popular among postwar presidents, behind John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. The same poll showed that just 3% of American voters regarded Clinton as the worst president since World War II. A 2015 poll by The Washington Post asked 162 scholars of the American Political Science Association to rank all the U.S. presidents in order of greatness. According to their findings, Clinton ranked eighth overall, with a rating of 70 percent. Public image Clinton was the first baby boomer president. Authors Martin Walker and Bob Woodward stated that Clinton's innovative use of sound bite-ready dialogue, personal charisma, and public perception-oriented campaigning were a major factor in his high public approval ratings. When Clinton played the saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show, he was described by some religious conservatives as "the MTV president". Opponents sometimes referred to him as "Slick Willie", a nickname which was first applied to him in 1980 by Pine Bluff Commercial journalist Paul Greenberg; Greenberg believed that Clinton was abandoning the progressive policies of previous Arkansas Governors such as Winthrop Rockefeller, Dale Bumpers and David Pryor. The claim "Slick Willie" would last throughout his presidency. His folksy manner led him to be nicknamed Bubba, especially in the South. Since 2000, he has frequently been referred to as "The Big Dog" or "Big Dog". His prominent role in campaigning for President Obama during the 2012 presidential election and his widely publicized speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, where he officially nominated Obama and criticized Republican nominee Mitt Romney and Republican policies in detail, earned him the nickname "Explainer-in-Chief". Clinton drew strong support from the African American community and insisted that the improvement of race relations would be a major theme of his presidency. In 1998, Nobel laureate Toni Morrison called Clinton "the first Black president", saying, "Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas". Morrison noted that Clinton's sex life was scrutinized more than his career accomplishments, and she compared this to the stereotyping and double standards that, she said, blacks typically endure. Many viewed this comparison as unfair and disparaging both to Clinton and to the African-American community at large. Clinton, a Baptist, has been open about his faith. Sexual assault and misconduct allegations Several women have publicly accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct, including rape, harassment, and sexual assault. Additionally, some commentators have characterized Clinton's sexual relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky as predatory or non-consensual, despite the fact that Lewinsky called the relationship consensual at the time. These allegations have been revisited and lent more credence in 2018, in light of the #MeToo movement, with many commentators and Democratic leaders now saying Clinton should have been compelled to resign after the Lewinsky affair. In 1994, Paula Jones initiated a sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton, claiming he had made unwanted advances towards her in 1991; Clinton denied the allegations. In April 1998, the case was initially dismissed by Judge Susan Webber Wright on the grounds that it lacked legal merit. Jones appealed Webber Wright's ruling, and her suit gained traction following Clinton's admission to having an affair with Monica Lewinsky in August 1998. In 1998, lawyers for Paula Jones released court documents that alleged a pattern of sexual harassment by Clinton when he was Governor of Arkansas. Robert S. Bennett, Clinton's main lawyer for the case, called the filing "a pack of lies" and "an organized campaign to smear the President of the United States" funded by Clinton's political enemies. Clinton later agreed to an out-of-court settlement and paid Jones $850,000. Bennett said the president made the settlement only so he could end the lawsuit for good and move on with his life. During the deposition for the Jones lawsuit, which was held at the White House, Clinton denied having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky—a denial that became the basis for an impeachment charge of perjury. In 1998, Kathleen Willey alleged that Clinton had groped her in a hallway in 1993. An independent counsel determined Willey gave "false information" to the FBI, inconsistent with sworn testimony related to the Jones allegation. On March 19, 1998, Julie Hiatt Steele, a friend of Willey, released an affidavit, accusing the former White House aide of asking her to lie to corroborate Ms. Willey's account of being sexually groped by Clinton in the Oval Office. An attempt by Kenneth Starr to prosecute Steele for making false statements and obstructing justice ended in a mistrial and Starr declined to seek a retrial after Steele sought an investigation against the former Independent Counsel for prosecutorial misconduct. Linda Tripp's grand jury testimony also differed from Willey's claims regarding inappropriate sexual advances. Also in 1998, Juanita Broaddrick alleged that Clinton had raped her in the spring of 1978, although she said she did not remember the exact date. To support her charge, Broaddrick notes that she told multiple witnesses in 1978 she had been raped by Clinton, something these witnesses also state in interviews to the press. Broaddrick had earlier filed an affidavit denying any "unwelcome sexual advances" and later repeated the denial in a sworn deposition. In a 1998 NBC interview wherein she detailed the alleged rape, Broaddrick said she had denied (under oath) being raped only to avoid testifying about the ordeal publicly. The Lewinsky scandal has had an enduring impact on Clinton's legacy, beyond his impeachment in 1998. In the wake of the #MeToo movement (which shed light on the widespread prevalence of sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace), various commentators and Democratic political leaders, as well as Lewinsky herself, have revisited their view that the Lewinsky affair was consensual, and instead characterized it as an abuse of power or harassment, in light of the power differential between a president and a 22-year old intern. In 2018, Clinton was asked in several interviews about whether he should have resigned, and he said he had made the right decision in not resigning. During the 2018 Congressional elections, The New York Times alleged that having no Democratic candidate for office asking Clinton to campaign with them was a change that attributed to the revised understanding of the Lewinsky scandal. However, former DNC interim chair Donna Brazile previously urged Clinton in November 2017 to campaign during the 2018 midterm elections, in spite of New York U.S. senator Kirsten Gillibrand's recent criticism of the Lewinsky scandal. Alleged affairs Clinton admitted to having extramarital affairs with singer Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky. Actress Elizabeth Gracen, Miss Arkansa winner Sally Perdue, and Dolly Kyle Browning all claimed that they had affairs with Clinton during his time as governor of Arkansas. Browning would later sue Clinton, Bruce Lindsey, Robert S. Bennett, and Jane Mayer alleging they engaged in a conspiracy to attempt to block her from publishing a book loosely based on her relationship with Clinton and tried to defame him. However Browning's lawsuit was dismissed. Post-presidency (2001–present) Bill Clinton has continued to be active in public life since leaving office in 2001, giving speeches, fundraising, and founding charitable organizations, and has spoken in prime time at every Democratic National Convention. Activities until 2008 campaign In 2002, Clinton warned that pre-emptive military action against Iraq would have unwelcome consequences, and later claimed to have opposed the Iraq War from the start (though some dispute this). In 2005, Clinton criticized the Bush administration for its handling of emissions control, while speaking at the United Nations Climate Change conference in Montreal. The William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, Arkansas, was dedicated in 2004. Clinton released a best-selling autobiography, My Life, in 2004. In 2007, he released Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World, which also became a New York Times Best Seller and garnered positive reviews. In the aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami, U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan appointed Clinton to head a relief effort. After Hurricane Katrina, Clinton joined with fellow former president George H. W. Bush to establish the Bush-Clinton Tsunami Fund in January 2005, and the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund in October of that year. As part of the tsunami effort, these two ex-presidents appeared in a Super Bowl XXXIX pre-game show, and traveled to the affected areas. They also spoke together at the funeral of Boris Yeltsin in April 2007. Based on his philanthropic worldview, Clinton created the William J. Clinton Foundation to address issues of global importance. This foundation includes the Clinton Foundation HIV and AIDS Initiative (CHAI), which strives to combat that disease, and has worked with the Australian government toward that end. The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), begun by the Clinton Foundation in 2005, attempts to address world problems such as global public health, poverty alleviation and religious and ethnic conflict. In 2005, Clinton announced through his foundation an agreement with manufacturers to stop selling sugary drinks in schools. Clinton's foundation joined with the Large Cities Climate Leadership Group in 2006 to improve cooperation among those cities, and he met with foreign leaders to promote this initiative. The foundation has received donations from many governments all over the world, including Asia and the Middle East. In 2008, Foundation director Inder Singh announced deals to reduce the price of anti-malaria drugs by 30 percent in developing nations. Clinton also spoke in favor of California Proposition 87 on alternative energy, which was voted down. In the early 2000s, Clinton took flights on Jeffrey Epstein's private jet in connection with Clinton Foundation work. Years later, Epstein was convicted on sex trafficking charges. Clinton's office released a statement in 2019 saying, "President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York. In 2002 and 2003, President Clinton took four trips on Jeffrey Epstein's airplane: one to Europe, one to Asia, and two to Africa, which included stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation. Staff, supporters of the Foundation, and his Secret Service detail traveled on every leg of every trip. [...] He's not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade." 2008 presidential election During the 2008 Democratic presidential primary campaign, Clinton vigorously advocated on behalf of his wife, Hillary. Through speaking engagements and fundraisers, he was able to raise $10 million toward her campaign. Some worried that as an ex-president, he was too active on the trail, too negative to Clinton rival Barack Obama, and alienating his supporters at home and abroad. Many were especially critical of him following his remarks in the South Carolina primary, which Obama won. Later in the 2008 primaries, there was some infighting between Bill and Hillary's staffs, especially in Pennsylvania. Considering Bill's remarks, many thought he could not rally Hillary supporters behind Obama after Obama won the primary. Such remarks lead to apprehension that the party would be split to the detriment of Obama's election. Fears were allayed August 27, 2008, when Clinton enthusiastically endorsed Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, saying all his experience as president assures him that Obama is "ready to lead". After Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign was over, Bill Clinton continued to raise funds to help pay off her campaign debt. After the 2008 election In 2009, Clinton travelled to North Korea on behalf of two American journalists imprisoned there. Euna Lee and Laura Ling had been imprisoned for illegally entering the country from China. Jimmy Carter had made a similar visit in 1994. After Clinton met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, Kim issued a pardon. Since then, Clinton has been assigned many other diplomatic missions. He was named United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti in 2009 following a series of hurricanes which caused $1 billion in damages. Clinton organized a conference with the Inter-American Development Bank, where a new industrial park was discussed in an effort to "build back better". In response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, U.S. president Barack Obama announced that Clinton and George W. Bush would coordinate efforts to raise funds for Haiti's recovery. Funds began pouring into Haiti, which led to funding becoming available for Caracol Industrial Park in a part of the country unaffected by the earthquake. While Hillary Clinton was in South Korea, she and Cheryl Mills worked to convince SAE-A, a large apparel subcontractor, to invest in Haiti despite the company's deep concerns about plans to raise the minimum wage. In the summer of 2010, the South Korean company signed a contract at the U.S. State Department, ensuring that the new industrial park would have a key tenant. In 2010, Clinton announced support of, and delivered the keynote address for, the inauguration of NTR, Ireland's first environmental foundation. At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, Clinton gave a widely praised speech nominating Barack Obama. 2016 presidential election and after During the 2016 presidential election, Clinton again encouraged voters to support Hillary, and made appearances speaking on the campaign trail. In a series of tweets, then-President-elect Donald Trump criticized his ability to get people out to vote. Clinton served as a member of the electoral college for the state of New York. He voted for the Democratic ticket consisting of his wife Hillary and her running-mate Tim Kaine. On September 7, 2017, Clinton partnered with former presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama to work with One America Appeal to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma in the Gulf Coast and Texas communities. In 2020, Clinton again served as a member of the United States Electoral College from New York, casting his vote for the successful Democratic ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Post-presidential health concerns In September 2004, Clinton underwent quadruple bypass surgery. In March 2005, he again underwent surgery, this time for a partially collapsed lung. On February 11, 2010, he was rushed to New York-Presbyterian/Columbia Hospital in Manhattan after complaining of chest pains, and he had two coronary stents implanted in his heart. After this procedure, Clinton adopted a plant-based whole foods (vegan) diet, which had been recommended by doctors Dean Ornish and Caldwell Esselstyn. However, he has since incorporated fish and lean proteins at the suggestion of Dr. Mark Hyman, a proponent of the pseudoscientific ethos of functional medicine. As a result, he is no longer a strict vegan. In October 2021, Clinton was treated for sepsis at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center. Wealth The Clintons incurred several million dollars in legal bills during his presidency, which were paid off four years after he left office. Bill and Hillary Clinton have each earned millions of dollars from book publishing. In 2016, Forbes reported Bill and Hillary Clinton made about $240million in the 15years from January 2001, to December 2015, (mostly from paid speeches, business consulting and book-writing). Also in 2016, CNN reported the Clintons combined to receive more than $153million in paid speeches from 2001 until spring 2015. In May 2015, The Hill reported that Bill and Hillary Clinton have made more than $25million in speaking fees since the start of 2014, and that Hillary Clinton also made $5million or more from her book, Hard Choices, during the same time period. In July 2014, The Wall Street Journal reported that at the end of 2012, the Clintons were worth between $5million and $25.5million, and that in 2012 (the last year they were required to disclose the information) the Clintons made between $16 and $17million, mostly from speaking fees earned by the former president. Clinton earned more than $104million from paid speeches between 2001 and 2012. In June 2014, ABC News and The Washington Post reported that Bill Clinton has made more than $100million giving paid speeches since leaving public office, and in 2008, The New York Times reported that the Clintons' income tax returns show they made $109million in the eight years from January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2007, including almost $92million from his speaking and book-writing. Bill Clinton has given dozens of paid speeches each year since leaving office in 2001, mostly to corporations and philanthropic groups in North America and Europe; he often earned $100,000 to $300,000 per speech. Russian investment bank with ties to the Kremlin paid Clinton $500,000 for a speech in Moscow. Hillary Clinton said she and Bill came out of the White House financially "broke" and in debt, especially due to large legal fees incurred during their years in the White House. "We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages, for houses, for Chelsea's education." She added, "Bill has worked really hard ... we had to pay off all our debts ... he had to make double the money because of, obviously, taxes; and then pay off the debts, and get us houses, and take care of family members." Personal life At the age of 10, he was baptized at Park Place Baptist Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas and remained a member of a Baptist church. In 2007, with Jimmy Carter, he founded the New Baptist Covenant Baptist organization. On October 11, 1975, in Fayetteville, Arkansas, he married Hillary Rodham, whom he met while studying at Yale University. They had Chelsea Clinton, their only child, on February 27, 1980. He is the maternal grandfather to Chelsea's three children. Honors and recognition Various colleges and universities have awarded Clinton honorary degrees, including Doctorate of Law degrees and Doctor of Humane Letters degrees. He received an honorary degree from Georgetown University, his alma mater, and was the commencement speaker in 1980. He is an honorary fellow of University College, Oxford, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar, although he did not complete his studies there. Schools have been named for Clinton, and statues have been built to pay him homage. U.S. states where he has been honored include Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, and New York. He was presented with the Medal for Distinguished Public Service by Secretary of Defense William Cohen in 2001. The Clinton Presidential Center was opened in Little Rock, Arkansas, in his honor on December 5, 2001. He has been honored in various other ways, in countries that include the Czech Republic, Papua New Guinea, Germany, and Kosovo. The Republic of Kosovo, in gratitude for his help during the Kosovo War, renamed a major street in the capital city of Pristina as Bill Clinton Boulevard and added a monumental Clinton statue. Clinton was selected as Time "Man of the Year" in 1992, and again in 1998, along with Ken Starr. From a poll conducted of the American people in December 1999, Clinton was among eighteen included in Gallup's List of Widely Admired People of the 20th century. In 2001, Clinton received the NAACP's President's Award. He has also been honored with a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children, a J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding, a TED Prize (named for the confluence of technology, entertainment and design), and was named as an Honorary GLAAD Media Award recipient for his work as an advocate for the LGBT community. In 2011, President Michel Martelly of Haiti awarded Clinton with the National Order of Honour and Merit to the rank of Grand Cross "for his various initiatives in Haiti and especially his high contribution to the reconstruction of the country after the earthquake of January 12, 2010". Clinton declared at the ceremony that "in the United States of America, I really don't believe former American presidents need awards anymore, but I am very honored by this one, I love Haiti, and I believe in its promise". U.S. president Barack Obama awarded Clinton the Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 20, 2013. Electoral history Authored books Recordings Bill Clinton is one of the narrators on Wolf Tracks and Peter and the Wolf, a 2003 recording of Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf performed by the Russian National Orchestra, on Pentatone, together with Mikhail Gorbachev and Sophia Loren. This garnered Clinton the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children. The audiobook edition of his autobiography, My Life, read by Clinton himself, won the 2005 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album as well as the Audie Award as the Audiobook of the Year. Clinton has two more Grammy nominations for his audiobooks: Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World in 2007 and Back to Work in 2012. See also Clinton family Clinton School of Public Service Efforts to impeach Bill Clinton Gun control policy of the Clinton Administration List of presidents of the United States List of presidents of the United States by previous experience References Notes Citations Further reading Primary sources Clinton, Bill. (with Al Gore). Science in the National Interest. Washington, D.C.: The White House, August 1994. --- (with Al Gore). The Climate Change Action Plan. Washington, D.C.: The White House, October 1993. Taylor Branch The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President. (2009) Simon & Schuster. Official Congressional Record Impeachment Set: ... Containing the Procedures for Implementing the Articles of Impeachment and the Proceedings of the Impeachment Trial of President William Jefferson Clinton. Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O., 1999. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, William J. Clinton. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration: For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. G.P.O., 1994–2002. S. Daniel Abraham Peace Is Possible, foreword by Bill Clinton Popular books Peter Baker The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton (2000) James Bovard Feeling Your Pain: The Explosion and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years (2000) Joe Conason and Gene Lyons The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton (2003) Elizabeth Drew On the Edge: The Clinton Presidency (1994) David Gergen Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership. (2000) Nigel Hamilton Bill Clinton: An American Journey (2003) Christopher Hitchens No One Left to Lie to: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton (1999) Michael Isikoff Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter's Story (1999) Mark Katz Clinton and Me: A Real-Life Political Comedy (2004) David Maraniss The Clinton Enigma: A Four and a Half Minute Speech Reveals This President's Entire Life (1998) Dick Morris with Eileen McGann Because He Could (2004) Richard A. Posner An Affair of State: The Investigation, Impeachment, and Trial of President Clinton (1999) Mark J. Rozell The Clinton Scandal and the Future of American Government (2000) Timperlake, Edward, and William C. Triplett II Year of the Rat: How Bill Clinton Compromised U.S. Security for Chinese Cash. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1998. Michael Waldman POTUS Speaks: Finding the Words That Defined the Clinton Presidency (2000) Ivory Tower Publishing Company. Achievements of the Clinton Administration: the Complete Legislative and Executive. (1995) Scholarly studies Campbell, Colin, and Bert A. Rockman, eds. The Clinton Legacy (Chatham House Pub, 2000) Cohen; Jeffrey E. "The Polls: Change and Stability in Public Assessments of Personal Traits, Bill Clinton, 1993–99" Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 31, 2001 Cronin, Thomas E. and Michael A. Genovese; "President Clinton and Character Questions" Presidential Studies Quarterly Vol. 28, 1998 Davis; John. "The Evolution of American Grand Strategy and the War on Terrorism: Clinton and Bush Perspectives" White House Studies, Vol. 3, 2003 Dumbrell, John. "Was there a Clinton

case for many precedents that have been set in the common law. An example of such a state within the common law jurisdiction, and using the black letter legal doctrine is Canada. Canada is a monarchical state, with its roots invested in Colonial England, and black letter law is the principles of law accepted by the majority of judges in most provinces and territories. Sometimes this is referred to as "hornbook law" meaning treatise or textbook, often relied upon as authoritative, competent, and generally accepted in the field of Canadian law. In lawyer lingo, hornbook law or black letter law is a fundamental and well-accepted legal principle that does not require any further explanation, since a hornbook is a primer of basics. Law is the rule which establish that a principle, provision, references, inference, observation, etc. may not require further explanation or clarification when the very nature of them shows that they are basic and elementary. Similar phrases The phrase is nearly synonymous with the phrase "hornbook law". There are a number of venerable legal sources that distill the

black letter; but the course of decisions in New York renders it unavoidable...". The phrase "black-letter law" was used in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court case Naglee v. Ingersoll, 7 Pa. 185 (1847). The phrase does not come from association with Black's Law Dictionary, which was first published in 1891. Instead, it presumably refers to the practice of setting law books and citing legal precedents in blackletter type, a tradition that survived long after the switch to Roman and italic text for other printed works. The phrase definitely refers to a distillation of the common law into general and accepted legal principles. This can be seen in the quote above from the Supreme Court where the court is noting that while the black letter law is clear, New York precedent deviates from the general principles. In common law, the informal black letter legal doctrine includes the basic principles of law generally accepted by the courts and/or embodied in the statutes of a particular jurisdiction. The letter of the law is its actual implementation, thereby demonstrating that black letter laws are those statutes, rules, acts, laws, provisions,

religious origins but citing secular justifications that have resulted, most notably the provision of a day of rest for the general population. Meanwhile, various state courts have struck down the laws as either unenforceable or in violation of their states' constitutions. In response, state legislators have re-enacted certain Sunday laws to satisfy the rulings while allowing some of the other statutes to remain on the books with no intention to enforce them. History The Roman Emperor Constantine promulgated the first known law regarding prohibition of Sunday labor for apparent religion-associated reasons in 321 AD: The earliest laws in North America addressing Sunday activities and public behavior were enacted in the Jamestown Colony in 1619 by the First General Assembly of Virginia. Amongst the 70 laws passed by the Assembly was a mandate requiring attendance by all colonists at both morning and afternoon worship services on Sundays. The laws adopted that year also included provisions addressing idleness, gambling, drunkenness, and excessive apparel. Similar laws aimed at keeping the Sabbath holy and regulating morals were soon adopted throughout the colonies. The first known example of the phrase 'blue laws' in print was in the March 3, 1755 edition of the New-York Mercury, in which the writer imagines a future newspaper praising the revival of "our [Connecticut's] old Blue Laws". In his 1781 book General History of Connecticut, the Reverend Samuel Peters (1735–1826) used the phrase to describe numerous laws adopted by 17th century Puritans that prohibited various activities on Sunday, recreational as well as commercial. Beyond that, Peters' book is regarded as an unreliable account of the laws and probably was written to satirize their puritanical nature. While the historical roots of Sunday trade laws in the United States are generally known, the origin of the term "blue laws" remains a mystery. According to a Time magazine editorial in 1961, the year the Supreme Court heard four cases on the issue, the color blue came to be associated with colonial laws in opposition to the red emblem of British royalty. Other explanations have been offered. One of the most widely circulated is that early blue laws adopted in Connecticut were printed on blue paper. However, this theory has been debunked on the grounds that no copies have been found to support the claim. A more plausible explanation, one that is gaining general acceptance, is that the laws adopted by Puritans were aimed at enforcing morality and thus were "blue-nosed", though the term "blue" may have been used in the vernacular of the times as a synonym for puritanism itself, in effect, overly strict. As Protestant moral reformers organized the Sabbath reform in 19th-century America, calls for the enactment and enforcement of stricter Sunday laws developed. Numerous Americans were arrested for working, keeping an open shop, drinking alcohol, traveling, and engaging in recreational activities on Sundays. Erwin Fahlbusch and Geoffrey William Bromiley write that throughout their existence, organizations advocating first-day Sabbatarianism, such as the Lord's Day Alliance in North America and the Lord's Day Observance Society in the British Isles, were supported by labor unions in lobbying "to prevent secular and commercial interests from hampering freedom of worship and from exploiting workers". In Canada, the Ligue du Dimanche, a Roman Catholic Sunday league, supported the Lord's Day Act in 1923 and promoted first-day Sabbatarian legislation. Beginning in the 1840s, workers, Jews, Seventh Day Baptists, freethinkers, and other groups began to organize opposition. Throughout the century, Sunday laws fueled church/state controversy, and as an issue that contributed to the emergence of modern American minority-rights politics. On the other hand, the more recent Dies Domini, written by Pope John Paul II in 1998, advocates Sunday legislation in that it protects civil servants and workers; the North Dakota Catholic Conference in 2011 likewise maintained that blue laws, in accordance with the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, "ensure that, for reasons of economic productivity, citizens are not denied time for rest and divine worship." Similarly, Chief Justice Earl Warren, while recognizing the partial religious origin of blue laws, acknowledged the "secular purpose they served by providing a benefit to workers at the same time that they enhanced labor productivity." Many European countries still place strong restrictions on store opening-hours on Sundays, an example being Germany's Ladenschlussgesetz. Laws by jurisdiction Australasia Cook Islands, Tonga and Niue In the Cook Islands, blue laws were the first written legislation, enacted by the London Missionary Society in 1827, with the consent of ariki (chiefs). In Tonga, the Vava'u Code (1839) was inspired by Methodist missionary teachings, and was a form of blue law. In Niue, certain activities remain forbidden on Sunday, reflecting the country's history of observing Christian Sabbath tradition. Europe Denmark In Denmark the closing laws restricting retail trade on Sundays have been abolished with effect from October 1, 2012. From then on retail trade is only restricted on public holidays (New Years Day, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Easter Monday, Day of Prayer, Ascension Day, Whit Sunday, Whit Monday, Christmas Day and Boxing Day) and on Constitution Day, Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve (on New Year's Eve from 3 pm only). On these days almost all shops will remain closed. Exempt are bakeries, DIYs, garden centres, gas stations and smaller supermarkets. England and Wales Before 1994 Prior to 1994, trading laws forbade sale of certain products on a Sunday; the distinction between those that could and could not be sold was increasingly seen as arbitrary, and

and religion defined in section 2(a) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. A Toronto referendum in 1950 allowed only team sports to be played professionally on Sunday. Theatre performances, movie screenings, and horse racing were not permitted until the 1960s. The Supreme Court later concluded, in R. v. Edwards Books and Art Ltd. [1986] (2 S.C.R. 713), that Ontario's Retail Business Holiday Act, which required some Sunday closings, did not violate the Charter because it did not have a religious purpose. Nonetheless, as of today, virtually all provincial Sunday closing laws have ceased to exist. Some were struck down by provincial courts, but most were simply abrogated, often due to competitive reasons where out-of-province or foreign merchants were open. United States In the United States, judges have defended blue laws "in terms of their secular benefit to workers", holding that "the laws were essential to social well-being". In 1896, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Johnson Field, opined with regard to Sunday blue laws: Many states prohibit selling alcohol for on and off-premises sales in one form or another on Sundays at some restricted time, under the idea that people should be in church on Sunday morning, or at least not drinking. Many blue laws in the United States restrict the purchase of particular items on Sundays. Some of these laws restrict the ability to buy cars, groceries, office supplies, and housewares among other things. Though most of these laws have been relaxed or repealed in most states, they are still enforced in some other states. In Texas, for example, blue laws prohibited selling housewares such as pots, pans, and washing machines on Sunday until 1985. In Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, New Jersey, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, car dealerships continue to operate under blue-law prohibitions in which an automobile may not be purchased or traded on a Sunday. Maryland permits Sunday automobile sales only in the counties of Charles, Prince George's, Montgomery, and Howard; similarly, Michigan restricts Sunday sales to only those counties with a population of less than 130,000. Texas and Utah prohibit car dealerships from operating over consecutive weekend days. In some cases these laws were created or retained with the support of those whom they affected, to allow them a day off each week without fear of their competitors still being open. Blue laws may also prohibit retail activity on days other than Sunday. In Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maine, for example, blue laws prohibit most retail stores, including grocery stores, from opening on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Research regarding the effect of the repeal of blue laws has been conducted, with Professor Elesha Coffman of Baylor University writing: Court cases Beginning in the mid-19th century, religious and ethno-cultural minorities arrested for violating state and local blue laws appealed their convictions to state supreme courts. In Specht v. Commonwealth (Pa. 1848), for example, German Seventh Day Baptists in Pennsylvania employed attorney Thaddeus Stevens to challenge the constitutionality of Pennsylvania's Sunday law. As in cases in other states, litigants pointed to the provisions of state constitutions protecting religious liberty and maintained that Sunday laws were a blatant violation. Though typically unsuccessful (most state supreme courts upheld the constitutionality of Sunday laws), these constitutional challenges helped set a pattern by which subsequent minorities would seek to protect religious freedom and minority rights. The Supreme Court of the United States held in its landmark case, McGowan v. Maryland (1961), that Maryland's blue laws violated neither the Free Exercise Clause nor the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. It approved the state's blue law restricting commercial activities on Sunday, noting that while such laws originated to encourage attendance at Christian churches, the contemporary Maryland laws were intended to serve "to provide a uniform day of rest for all citizens" on a secular basis and to promote the secular values of "health, safety, recreation, and general well-being" through a common day of rest. That this day coincides with Christian Sabbath is not a bar to the state's secular goals; it neither reduces its effectiveness for secular purposes nor prevents adherents of other religions from observing their own holy days. McGowan was but one of four Sunday closing cases decided together by the Court in May 1961. In Gallagher v. Crown Kosher Super Market of Mass., Inc., the Court ruled against a Kosher deli that closed on Saturday but was open on Sunday. The other two cases were Braunfeld v. Brown, and Two Guys from Harrison vs. McGinley. Chief Justice Earl Warren declared that "the State seeks to set one day apart from all others as a day of rest, repose, recreation and tranquility--a day which all members of the family and community have the opportunity to spend and enjoy together, a day on which there

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Bar, a type of graphical control element Law Bar (law), the legal profession Bar association Bar examination Media and entertainment Bar (Croatian TV series) Bar (Czech TV series) Bar (dance), Turkey Bar (music), a segment Bar (Polish TV series) Bar (Slovenian TV series) Bay Area Reporter, a newspaper Biblical Archaeology Review, a journal Places Bar (Martian crater) Bar, Rutog County, Tibet, China Bar (river), France Bar, Corrèze, France, a commune Bar-le-Duc, France, a commune formerly Bar, Meuse Bar-sur-Aube, France, a commune Bar-sur-Seine, France, a commune Bár, Hungary, a village Bar, Bushehr, Iran, a village Bar, Hormozgan, Iran, a village Bar, Razavi Khorasan, Iran, a city Bar Municipality, Montenegro Bar, Montenegro, a town Bar Region, Punjab, Pakistan Bar, Republic of Buryatia, Russia Bar, Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine, a town Duchy of Bar, part of the Holy Roman Empire Language Bar (diacritic), a line through a letter Bavarian language (ISO 639-3: bar) Vertical bar, a punctuation symbol X-bar theory, in linguistics Transportation Bangor and Aroostook Railroad,

dried with the fuel coke. Coke was first used for roasting malt in 1642, but it was not until around 1703 that the term pale ale was used. In terms of sales volume, most of today's beer is based on the pale lager brewed in 1842 in the town of Pilsen in the present-day Czech Republic. The modern pale lager is light in colour with a noticeable carbonation (fizzy bubbles) and a typical alcohol by volume content of around 5%. The Pilsner Urquell, Bitburger, and Heineken brands of beer are typical examples of pale lager, as are the American brands Budweiser, Coors, and Miller. Dark beers are usually brewed from a pale malt or lager malt base with a small proportion of darker malt added to achieve the desired shade. Other colourants—such as caramel—are also widely used to darken beers. Very dark beers, such as stout, use dark or patent malts that have been roasted longer. Some have roasted unmalted barley. Strength Beer ranges from less than 3% alcohol by volume (abv) to around 14% abv, though this strength can be increased to around 20% by re-pitching with champagne yeast, and to 55% abv by the freeze-distilling process. The alcohol content of beer varies by local practice or beer style. The pale lagers that most consumers are familiar with fall in the range of 4–6%, with a typical abv of 5%. The customary strength of British ales is quite low, with many session beers being around 4% abv. In Belgium, some beers, such as table beer are of such low alcohol content (1%–4%) that they are served instead of soft drinks in some schools. The alcohol in beer comes primarily from the metabolism of sugars that are produced during fermentation. The quantity of fermentable sugars in the wort and the variety of yeast used to ferment the wort are the primary factors that determine the amount of alcohol in the final beer. Additional fermentable sugars are sometimes added to increase alcohol content, and enzymes are often added to the wort for certain styles of beer (primarily "light" beers) to convert more complex carbohydrates (starches) to fermentable sugars. Alcohol is a by-product of yeast metabolism and is toxic to the yeast in higher concentrations; typical brewing yeast cannot survive at alcohol concentrations above 12% by volume. Low temperatures and too little fermentation time decreases the effectiveness of yeasts and consequently decreases the alcohol content. The weakest beers are dealcoholized beers, which typically have less than 0.05% alcohol (also called "near beer") and light beers, which usually have 4% alcohol. The strength of beers has climbed during the later years of the 20th century. Vetter 33, a 10.5% abv (33 degrees Plato, hence Vetter "33") doppelbock, was listed in the 1994 Guinness Book of World Records as the strongest beer at that time, though Samichlaus, by the Swiss brewer Hürlimann, had also been listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the strongest at 14% abv. Since then, some brewers have used champagne yeasts to increase the alcohol content of their beers. Samuel Adams reached 20% abv with Millennium, and then surpassed that amount to 25.6% abv with Utopias. The strongest beer brewed in Britain was Baz's Super Brew by Parish Brewery, a 23% abv beer. In September 2011, the Scottish brewery BrewDog produced Ghost Deer, which, at 28%, they claim to be the world's strongest beer produced by fermentation alone. The product claimed to be the strongest beer made is Schorschbräu's 2011 Schorschbock 57 with 57,5%. It was preceded by The End of History, a 55% Belgian ale, made by BrewDog in 2010. The same company had previously made Sink The Bismarck!, a 41% abv IPA, and Tactical Nuclear Penguin, a 32% abv Imperial stout. Each of these beers are made using the eisbock method of fractional freezing, in which a strong ale is partially frozen and the ice is repeatedly removed, until the desired strength is reached, a process that may class the product as spirits rather than beer. The German brewery Schorschbräu's Schorschbock, a 31% abv eisbock, and Hair of the Dog's Dave, a 29% abv barley wine made in 1994, used the same fractional freezing method. A 60% abv blend of beer with whiskey was jokingly claimed as the strongest beer by a Dutch brewery in July 2010. Serving Draught Draught (also spelled "draft") beer from a pressurised keg using a lever-style dispenser and a spout is the most common method of dispensing in bars around the world. A metal keg is pressurised with carbon dioxide (CO2) gas which drives the beer to the dispensing tap or faucet. Some beers may be served with a nitrogen/carbon dioxide mixture. Nitrogen produces fine bubbles, resulting in a dense head and a creamy mouthfeel. Some types of beer can also be found in smaller, disposable kegs called beer balls. In traditional pubs, the pull levers for major beer brands may include the beer's logo and trademark. In the 1980s, Guinness introduced the beer widget, a nitrogen-pressurised ball inside a can which creates a dense, tight head, similar to beer served from a nitrogen system. The words draft and draught can be used as marketing terms to describe canned or bottled beers containing a beer widget, or which are cold-filtered rather than pasteurised. Cask-conditioned ales (or cask ales) are unfiltered and unpasteurised beers. These beers are termed "real ale" by the CAMRA organisation. Typically, when a cask arrives in a pub, it is placed horizontally on a frame called a "stillage" which is designed to hold it steady and at the right angle, and then allowed to cool to cellar temperature (typically between ), before being tapped and vented—a tap is driven through a (usually rubber) bung at the bottom of one end, and a hard spile or other implement is used to open a hole in the side of the cask, which is now uppermost. The act of stillaging and then venting a beer in this manner typically disturbs all the sediment, so it must be left for a suitable period to "drop" (clear) again, as well as to fully condition—this period can take anywhere from several hours to several days. At this point the beer is ready to sell, either being pulled through a beer line with a hand pump, or simply being "gravity-fed" directly into the glass. Draught beer's environmental impact can be 68% lower than bottled beer due to packaging differences. A life cycle study of one beer brand, including grain production, brewing, bottling, distribution and waste management, shows that the CO2 emissions from a 6-pack of micro-brew beer is about 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds). The loss of natural habitat potential from the 6-pack of micro-brew beer is estimated to be 2.5 square metres (26 square feet). Downstream emissions from distribution, retail, storage and disposal of waste can be over 45% of a bottled micro-brew beer's CO2 emissions. Where legal, the use of a refillable jug, reusable bottle or other reusable containers to transport draught beer from a store or a bar, rather than buying pre-bottled beer, can reduce the environmental impact of beer consumption. Packaging Most beers are cleared of yeast by filtering when packaged in bottles and cans. However, bottle conditioned beers retain some yeast—either by being unfiltered, or by being filtered and then reseeded with fresh yeast. It is usually recommended that the beer be poured slowly, leaving any yeast sediment at the bottom of the bottle. However, some drinkers prefer to pour in the yeast; this practice is customary with wheat beers. Typically, when serving a hefeweizen wheat beer, 90% of the contents are poured, and the remainder is swirled to suspend the sediment before pouring it into the glass. Alternatively, the bottle may be inverted prior to opening. Glass bottles are always used for bottle conditioned beers. Many beers are sold in cans, though there is considerable variation in the proportion between different countries. In Sweden in 2001, 63.9% of beer was sold in cans. People either drink from the can or pour the beer into a glass. A technology developed by Crown Holdings for the 2010 FIFA World Cup is the 'full aperture' can, so named because the entire lid is removed during the opening process, turning the can into a drinking cup. Cans protect the beer from light (thereby preventing "skunked" beer) and have a seal less prone to leaking over time than bottles. Cans were initially viewed as a technological breakthrough for maintaining the quality of a beer, then became commonly associated with less expensive, mass-produced beers, even though the quality of storage in cans is much like bottles. Plastic (PET) bottles are used by some breweries. Temperature The temperature of a beer has an influence on a drinker's experience; warmer temperatures reveal the range of flavours in a beer but cooler temperatures are more refreshing. Most drinkers prefer pale lager to be served chilled, a low- or medium-strength pale ale to be served cool, while a strong barley wine or imperial stout to be served at room temperature. Beer writer Michael Jackson proposed a five-level scale for serving temperatures: well chilled () for "light" beers (pale lagers); chilled () for Berliner Weisse and other wheat beers; lightly chilled () for all dark lagers, altbier and German wheat beers; cellar temperature () for regular British ale, stout and most Belgian specialities; and room temperature () for strong dark ales (especially trappist beer) and barley wine. Drinking chilled beer began with the development of artificial refrigeration and by the 1870s, was spread in those countries that concentrated on brewing pale lager. Chilling beer makes it more refreshing, though below 15.5 °C (60 °F) the chilling starts to reduce taste awareness and reduces it significantly below . Beer served unchilled—either cool or at room temperature—reveal more of their flavours. Cask Marque, a non-profit UK beer organisation, has set a temperature standard range of 12°–14 °C (53°–57 °F) for cask ales to be served. Vessels Beer is consumed out of a variety of vessels, such as a glass, a beer stein, a mug, a pewter tankard, a beer bottle or a can; or at music festivals and some bars and nightclubs, from a plastic cup. The shape of the glass from which beer is consumed can influence the perception of the beer and can define and accent the character of the style. Breweries offer branded glassware intended only for their own beers as a marketing promotion, as this increases sales of their product. The pouring process has an influence on a beer's presentation. The rate of flow from the tap or other serving vessel, tilt of the glass, and position of the pour (in the centre or down the side) into the glass all influence the result, such as the size and longevity of the head, lacing (the pattern left by the head as it moves down the glass as the beer is drunk), and the release of carbonation. A beer tower is a beer dispensing device, usually found in bars and pubs, that consists of a cylinder attached to a beer cooling device at the bottom. Beer is dispensed from the beer tower into a drinking vessel. Health effects A 2016 systematic review and meta-analysis found that moderate ethanol consumption brought no mortality benefit compared with lifetime abstention from ethanol consumption. Some studies have concluded that drinking small quantities of alcohol (less than one drink in women and two in men, per day) is associated with a decreased risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes mellitus, and early death. Some of these studies combined former ethanol drinkers and lifelong abstainers into a single group of nondrinkers, which hides the health benefits of lifelong abstention from ethanol. The long-term health effects of continuous, moderate or heavy alcohol consumption include the risk of developing alcoholism and alcoholic liver disease. Alcoholism, also known as "alcohol use disorder", is a broad term for any drinking of alcohol that results in problems. It was previously divided into two types: alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence. In a medical context, alcoholism is said to exist when two or more of the following conditions is present: a person drinks large amounts over a long time period, has difficulty cutting down, acquiring and drinking alcohol takes up a great deal of time, alcohol is strongly desired, usage results in not fulfilling responsibilities, usage results in social problems, usage results in health problems, usage results in risky situations, withdrawal occurs when stopping, and alcohol tolerance has occurred with use. Alcoholism reduces a person's life expectancy by around ten years and alcohol use is the third leading cause of early death in the United States. No professional medical association recommends that people who are nondrinkers should start drinking alcoholic beverages. A total of 3.3 million deaths (5.9% of all deaths) are believed to be due to alcohol. It is considered that overeating and lack of muscle tone is the main cause of a beer belly, rather than beer consumption. A 2004 study, however, found a link between binge drinking and a beer belly. But with most overconsumption, it is more a problem of improper exercise and overconsumption of carbohydrates than the product itself. Several diet books quote beer as having an undesirably high glycemic index of 110, the same as maltose; however, the maltose in beer undergoes metabolism by yeast during fermentation so that beer consists mostly of water, hop oils and only trace amounts of sugars, including maltose. Nutritional information Beers vary in their nutritional content. The ingredients used to make beer, including the yeast, provide a rich source of nutrients; therefore beer may contain nutrients including magnesium, selenium, potassium, phosphorus, biotin, chromium and B vitamins. Beer is sometimes referred to as "liquid bread", though beer is not a meal in itself. Society and culture In many societies, beer is the most popular alcoholic drink. Various social traditions and activities are associated with beer drinking, such as playing cards, darts, or other pub games; attending beer festivals; engaging in zythology (the study of beer); visiting a series of pubs in one evening; visiting breweries; beer-oriented tourism; or rating beer. Drinking games, such as beer pong, are also popular. A relatively new profession is that of the beer sommelier, who informs restaurant patrons about beers and food pairings. Beer is considered to be a social lubricant in many societies and is consumed in countries all over the world. There are breweries in Middle Eastern countries such as Syria, and in some African countries. Sales of beer are four times those of wine, which is the second most popular alcoholic drink. A study published in the Neuropsychopharmacology journal in 2013 revealed the finding that the flavour of beer alone could provoke dopamine activity in the brain of the male participants, who wanted to drink more as a result. The 49 men in the study were subject to positron emission tomography scans, while a computer-controlled device sprayed minute amounts of beer, water and a sports drink onto their tongues. Compared with the taste of the sports drink, the taste of beer significantly increased the participants desire to drink. Test results indicated that the flavour of the beer triggered a dopamine release, even though alcohol content in the spray was insufficient for the purpose of becoming intoxicated. Some breweries have developed beers to pair with food. Wine writer Malcolm Gluck disputed the need to pair beer with food, while beer writers Roger Protz and Melissa Cole contested that claim. Related drinks Around the world, there are many traditional and ancient starch-based drinks classed as beer. In Africa, there are various ethnic beers made from sorghum or millet, such as Oshikundu in Namibia and Tella in Ethiopia. Kyrgyzstan also has a beer made from millet; it is a low alcohol, somewhat porridge-like drink called "Bozo". Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet and Sikkim also use millet in Chhaang, a popular semi-fermented rice/millet drink in the eastern Himalayas. Further east in China are found Huangjiu and Choujiu—traditional rice-based drinks related to beer. The Andes in South America has Chicha, made from germinated maize (corn); while the indigenous peoples in Brazil have Cauim, a traditional drink made since pre-Columbian times by chewing manioc so that an enzyme (amylase) present in human saliva can break down the starch into fermentable sugars; this is similar to Masato in Peru. Some beers which are made from bread, which is linked to the earliest forms of beer, are Sahti in Finland, Kvass in Russia and Ukraine, and Bouza in Sudan. 4000 years ago fermented bread was used in Mesopotamia. Food waste activists got inspired by this ancient recipes and use leftover bread to replace a third of the malted barley that would otherwise be used for brewing their craft ale. Chemistry Beer contains the phenolic acids 4-hydroxyphenylacetic acid, vanillic acid, caffeic acid, syringic acid, p-coumaric acid, ferulic acid, and sinapic acid. Alkaline hydrolysis experiments show that most of the phenolic acids are present as bound forms and only a small portion can be detected as free compounds. Hops, and beer made with it, contain 8-prenylnaringenin which is a potent phytoestrogen. Hop also contains myrcene, humulene, xanthohumol, isoxanthohumol, myrcenol, linalool, tannins, and resin. The alcohol 2M2B is a component of hops brewing. Barley, in the form of malt, brings the condensed tannins prodelphinidins B3, B9 and C2 into beer. Tryptophol, tyrosol, and phenylethanol are aromatic higher alcohols found in beer as secondary products of alcoholic fermentation (products also known as congeners) by Saccharomyces cerevisiae. See also Beer and breweries by region List of barley-based drinks List of beer cocktails List of drinks List of countries by beer consumption per capita List of national drinks List of food and drink awards References Bibliography Alexander, Jeffrey W. Brewed in Japan: The Evolution of the Japanese Beer Industry (University of British Columbia Press; 2013) 316 pages Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England: Women's Work in a Changing World, 1300–1600 , Judith M. Bennett. . Beer: The Story of the Pint, Martyn Cornell. The Book of Beer Knowledge: Essential Wisdom for the Discerning Drinker, a Useful Miscellany, Jeff Evans. The World Encyclopedia of Beer, Brian Glover. Beer: An Illustrated History, Brian Glover. Beer and Britannia: An Inebriated History of Britain, Peter Haydon. A History of Beer and Brewing, I. Hornsey. The World Guide to Beer, Michael Jackson. The New World Guide to Beer, Michael Jackson. Archeological Parameters For the Origins of Beer

who cannot consume gluten-containing grains like wheat, barley, and rye. Flavouring beer is the sole major commercial use of hops. The flower of the hop vine is used as a flavouring and preservative agent in nearly all beer made today. The flowers themselves are often called "hops". The first historical mention of the use of hops in beer was from 822 AD in monastery rules written by Adalhard the Elder, also known as Adalard of Corbie, though the date normally given for widespread cultivation of hops for use in beer is the thirteenth century. Before the thirteenth century, and until the sixteenth century, during which hops took over as the dominant flavouring, beer was flavoured with other plants; for instance, grains of paradise or alehoof. Combinations of various aromatic herbs, berries, and even ingredients like wormwood would be combined into a mixture known as gruit and used as hops are now used. Some beers today, such as Fraoch' by the Scottish Heather Ales company and Cervoise Lancelot by the French Brasserie-Lancelot company, use plants other than hops for flavouring. Hops contain several characteristics that brewers desire in beer. Hops contribute a bitterness that balances the sweetness of the malt; the bitterness of beers is measured on the International Bitterness Units scale. Hops contribute floral, citrus, and herbal aromas and flavours to beer. Hops have an antibiotic effect that favours the activity of brewer's yeast over less desirable microorganisms and aids in "head retention", the length of time that a foamy head created by carbonation will last. The acidity of hops is a preservative. Yeast is the microorganism that is responsible for fermentation in beer. Yeast metabolises the sugars extracted from grains, which produces alcohol and carbon dioxide, and thereby turns wort into beer. In addition to fermenting the beer, yeast influences the character and flavour. The dominant types of yeast used to make beer are the top-fermenting Saccharomyces cerevisiae and bottom-fermenting Saccharomyces pastorianus. Brettanomyces ferments lambics, and Torulaspora delbrueckii ferments Bavarian weissbier. Before the role of yeast in fermentation was understood, fermentation involved wild or airborne yeasts. A few styles such as lambics rely on this method today, but most modern fermentation adds pure yeast cultures. Some brewers add one or more clarifying agents or finings to beer, which typically precipitate (collect as a solid) out of the beer along with protein solids and are found only in trace amounts in the finished product. This process makes the beer appear bright and clean, rather than the cloudy appearance of ethnic and older styles of beer such as wheat beers. Examples of clarifying agents include isinglass, obtained from swimbladders of fish; Irish moss, a seaweed; kappa carrageenan, from the seaweed Kappaphycus cottonii; Polyclar (artificial); and gelatin. If a beer is marked "suitable for vegans", it was clarified either with seaweed or with artificial agents. Brewing industry The history of breweries in the 21st century has included larger breweries absorbing smaller breweries in order to ensure economy of scale. In 2002, South African Breweries bought the North American Miller Brewing Company to found SABMiller, becoming the second largest brewery, after North American Anheuser-Busch. In 2004, the Belgian Interbrew was the third largest brewery by volume and the Brazilian AmBev was the fifth largest. They merged into InBev, becoming the largest brewery. In 2007, SABMiller surpassed InBev and Anheuser-Bush when it acquired Royal Grolsch, brewer of Dutch premium beer brand Grolsch in 2007. In 2008, when InBev (the second-largest) bought Anheuser-Busch (the third largest), the new Anheuser-Busch InBev company became again the largest brewer in the world. , according to the market research firm Technavio, AB InBev remains the largest brewing company in the world, with Heineken second, CR Snow third, Carlsberg fourth, and Molson Coors fifth. A microbrewery, or craft brewery, produces a limited amount of beer. The maximum amount of beer a brewery can produce and still be classed as a microbrewery varies by region and by authority; in the US it is a year. A brewpub is a type of microbrewery that incorporates a pub or other drinking establishment. The highest density of breweries in the world, most of them microbreweries, exists in the German Region of Franconia, especially in the district of Upper Franconia, which has about 200 breweries. The Benedictine Weihenstephan brewery in Bavaria, Germany, can trace its roots to the year 768, as a document from that year refers to a hop garden in the area paying a tithe to the monastery. The brewery was licensed by the City of Freising in 1040, and therefore is the oldest working brewery in the world. Varieties While there are many types of beer brewed, the basics of brewing beer are shared across national and cultural boundaries. The traditional European brewing regions—Germany, Belgium, England and the Czech Republic—have local varieties of beer. English writer Michael Jackson, in his 1977 book The World Guide To Beer, categorised beers from around the world in local style groups suggested by local customs and names. Fred Eckhardt furthered Jackson's work in The Essentials of Beer Style in 1989. Top-fermented beers are most commonly produced with Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a top-fermenting yeast which clumps and rises to the surface, typically between . At these temperatures, yeast produces significant amounts of esters and other secondary flavour and aroma products, and the result is often a beer with slightly "fruity" compounds resembling apple, pear, pineapple, banana, plum, or prune, among others. After the introduction of hops into England from Flanders in the 15th century, "ale" referred to an unhopped fermented drink, "beer" being used to describe a brew with an infusion of hops. Real ale is the term coined by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) in 1973 for "beer brewed from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide". It is applied to bottle conditioned and cask conditioned beers. Pale ale is a beer which uses a top-fermenting yeast and predominantly pale malt. It is one of the world's major beer styles. Stout and porter are dark beers made using roasted malts or roast barley, and typically brewed with slow fermenting yeast. There are a number of variations including Baltic porter, dry stout, and Imperial stout. The name "porter" was first used in 1721 to describe a dark brown beer popular with the street and river porters of London. This same beer later also became known as stout, though the word stout had been used as early as 1677. The history and development of stout and porter are intertwined. Mild ale has a predominantly malty palate. It is usually dark coloured with an abv of 3% to 3.6%, although there are lighter hued milds as well as stronger examples reaching 6% abv and higher. Wheat beer is brewed with a large proportion of wheat although it often also contains a significant proportion of malted barley. Wheat beers are usually top-fermented. The flavour of wheat beers varies considerably, depending upon the specific style. Lambic, a beer of Belgium, is naturally fermented using wild yeasts, rather than cultivated. Many of these are not strains of brewer's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and may have significant differences in aroma and sourness. Yeast varieties such as Brettanomyces bruxellensis and Brettanomyces lambicus are common in lambics. In addition, other organisms such as Lactobacillus bacteria produce acids which contribute to the sourness. Lager is cool fermented beer. Pale lagers are the most commonly consumed beers in the world. Many are of the “pilsner” type. The name "lager" comes from the German "lagern" for "to store", as brewers around Bavaria stored beer in cool cellars and caves during the warm summer months. These brewers noticed that the beers continued to ferment, and to also clear of sediment, when stored in cool conditions. Lager yeast is a cool bottom-fermenting yeast (Saccharomyces pastorianus) and typically undergoes primary fermentation at (the fermentation phase), and then is given a long secondary fermentation at (the lagering phase). During the secondary stage, the lager clears and mellows. The cooler conditions also inhibit the natural production of esters and other byproducts, resulting in a "cleaner"-tasting beer. With improved modern yeast strains, most lager breweries use only short periods of cold storage, typically 1–3 weeks. Measurement Beer is measured and assessed by bitterness, by strength and by colour. The perceived bitterness is measured by the International Bitterness Units scale (IBU), defined in co-operation between the American Society of Brewing Chemists and the European Brewery Convention. The international scale was a development of the European Bitterness Units scale, often abbreviated as EBU, and the bitterness values should be identical. Colour Beer colour is determined by the malt. The most common colour is a pale amber produced from using pale malts. Pale lager and pale ale are terms used for beers made from malt dried with the fuel coke. Coke was first used for roasting malt in 1642, but it was not until around 1703 that the term pale ale was used. In terms of sales volume, most of today's beer is based on the pale lager brewed in 1842 in the town of Pilsen in the present-day Czech Republic. The modern pale lager is light in colour with a noticeable carbonation (fizzy bubbles) and a typical alcohol by volume content of around 5%. The Pilsner Urquell, Bitburger, and Heineken brands of beer are typical examples of pale lager, as are the American brands Budweiser, Coors, and Miller. Dark beers are usually brewed from a pale malt or lager malt base with a small proportion of darker malt added to achieve the desired shade. Other colourants—such as caramel—are also widely used to darken beers. Very dark beers, such as stout, use dark or patent malts that have been roasted longer. Some have roasted unmalted barley. Strength Beer ranges from less than 3% alcohol by volume (abv) to around 14% abv, though this strength can be increased to around 20% by re-pitching with champagne yeast, and to 55% abv by the freeze-distilling process. The alcohol content of beer varies by local practice or beer style. The pale lagers that most consumers are familiar with fall in the range of 4–6%, with a typical abv of 5%. The customary strength of British ales is quite low, with many session beers being around 4% abv. In Belgium, some beers, such as table beer are of such low alcohol content (1%–4%) that they are served instead of soft drinks in some schools. The alcohol in beer comes primarily from the metabolism of sugars that are produced during fermentation. The quantity of fermentable sugars in the wort and the variety of yeast used to ferment the wort are the primary factors that determine the amount of alcohol in the final beer. Additional fermentable sugars are sometimes added to increase alcohol content, and enzymes are often added to the wort for certain styles of beer (primarily "light" beers) to convert more complex carbohydrates (starches) to

are commonly used. The correspondence between these values and the physical states of the underlying storage or device is a matter of convention, and different assignments may be used even within the same device or program. It may be physically implemented with a two-state device. The symbol for the binary digit is either 'bit' per recommendation by the IEC 80000-13:2008 standard, or the lowercase character 'b', as recommended by the IEEE 1541-2002 standard. A contiguous group of binary digits is commonly called a bit string, a bit vector, or a single-dimensional (or multi-dimensional) bit array. A group of eight binary digits is called one byte, but historically the size of the byte is not strictly defined. Frequently, half, full, double and quadruple words consist of a number of bytes which is a low power of two. In information theory, one bit is the information entropy of a binary random variable that is 0 or 1 with equal probability, or the information that is gained when the value of such a variable becomes known. As a unit of information, the bit is also known as a shannon, named after Claude E. Shannon. History The encoding of data by discrete bits was used in the punched cards invented by Basile Bouchon and Jean-Baptiste Falcon (1732), developed by Joseph Marie Jacquard (1804), and later adopted by Semyon Korsakov, Charles Babbage, Hermann Hollerith, and early computer manufacturers like IBM. A variant of that idea was the perforated paper tape. In all those systems, the medium (card or tape) conceptually carried an array of hole positions; each position could be either punched through or not, thus carrying one bit of information. The encoding of text by bits was also used in Morse code (1844) and early digital communications machines such as teletypes and stock ticker machines (1870). Ralph Hartley suggested the use of a logarithmic measure of information in 1928. Claude E. Shannon first used the word "bit" in his seminal 1948 paper "A Mathematical Theory of Communication". He attributed its origin to John W. Tukey, who had written a Bell Labs memo on 9 January 1947 in which he contracted "binary information digit" to simply "bit". Vannevar Bush had written in 1936 of "bits of information" that could be stored on the punched cards used in the mechanical computers of that time. The first programmable computer, built by Konrad Zuse, used binary notation for numbers. Physical representation A bit can be stored by a digital device or other physical system that exists in either of two possible distinct states. These may be the two stable states of a flip-flop, two positions of an electrical switch, two distinct voltage or current levels allowed by a circuit, two distinct levels of light intensity, two directions of magnetization or polarization, the orientation of reversible double stranded DNA, etc. Bits can be implemented in several forms. In most modern computing devices, a bit is usually represented by an electrical voltage or current pulse, or by the electrical state of a flip-flop circuit. For devices using positive logic, a digit value of (or a logical value of true) is represented by a more positive voltage relative to the representation of . The specific voltages are different for different logic families and variations are permitted to allow for component aging and noise immunity. For example, in transistor–transistor logic (TTL) and compatible circuits, digit values and at the output of a device are represented by no higher than 0.4 volts and no lower than 2.6 volts, respectively; while TTL inputs are specified to recognize 0.8 volts or below as and 2.2 volts or above as . Transmission and processing Bits are transmitted one at a time in serial transmission, and by a multiple number of bits in parallel transmission. A bitwise operation optionally processes bits one at a time. Data transfer rates are usually measured in decimal SI multiples of the unit bit per second (bit/s), such as kbit/s. Storage In the earliest non-electronic information processing devices, such as Jacquard's loom or Babbage's Analytical Engine, a bit was often stored as the position of a mechanical lever or gear, or the presence or absence of a hole at a specific point of a paper card or tape. The

principle was later used in the magnetic bubble memory developed in the 1980s, and is still found in various magnetic strip items such as metro tickets and some credit cards. In modern semiconductor memory, such as dynamic random-access memory, the two values of a bit may be represented by two levels of electric charge stored in a capacitor. In certain types of programmable logic arrays and read-only memory, a bit may be represented by the presence or absence of a conducting path at a certain point of a circuit. In optical discs, a bit is encoded as the presence or absence of a microscopic pit on a reflective surface. In one-dimensional bar codes, bits are encoded as the thickness of alternating black and white lines. Unit and symbol The bit is not defined in the International System of Units (SI). However, the International Electrotechnical Commission issued standard IEC 60027, which specifies that the symbol for binary digit should be 'bit', and this should be used in all multiples, such as 'kbit', for kilobit. However, the lower-case letter 'b' is widely used as well and was recommended by the IEEE 1541 Standard (2002). In contrast, the upper case letter 'B' is the standard and customary symbol for byte. Multiple bits Multiple bits may be expressed and represented in several ways. For convenience of representing commonly reoccurring groups of bits in information technology, several units of information have traditionally been used. The most common is the unit byte, coined by Werner Buchholz in June 1956, which historically was used to represent the group of bits used to encode a single character of text (until UTF-8 multibyte encoding took over) in a computer and for this reason it was used as the basic addressable element in many computer architectures. The trend in hardware design converged on the most common implementation of using eight bits per byte, as it is widely used today. However, because of the ambiguity of relying on the underlying hardware design, the unit octet was defined to explicitly denote a sequence of eight bits. Computers usually manipulate bits in groups of a fixed size, conventionally named "words". Like the byte, the number of bits in a word also varies with the hardware design, and is typically between 8 and 80 bits, or even more in some specialized computers. In the 21st century, retail personal or server computers have a word size of 32 or 64 bits. The International System of Units defines a series of decimal prefixes for multiples of standardized units which are commonly also used with the bit and the byte. The prefixes kilo (103) through yotta (1024) increment by multiples of one thousand, and the corresponding units are the kilobit (kbit) through the yottabit (Ybit). Information capacity and information compression When the information capacity of a storage system or a communication channel is presented in bits or bits per second, this often refers to binary digits, which is a computer hardware capacity to store binary data ( or , up or down, current or not, etc.). Information capacity of a storage system is only an upper bound to the quantity of information stored therein. If the two possible values of one bit of storage are not equally likely, that bit of storage contains less than one bit of information. If the value is completely predictable, then the reading of that value provides no information at all (zero entropic bits, because no resolution of uncertainty occurs and therefore no information is available). If a computer file that uses n bits of storage contains only m < n bits of information, then that information can in principle be encoded in about m bits, at least on the average. This principle is the basis of data compression technology. Using an analogy, the hardware binary digits refer to the amount of storage space available (like the number of buckets available to store things), and the information content the filling, which comes in different levels of granularity (fine or coarse, that is, compressed or uncompressed information). When the granularity is finer—when information is more compressed—the same bucket can hold more. For example, it is estimated that the combined technological capacity of the world to store information provides 1,300 exabytes of hardware digits. However, when this storage space is filled and the corresponding content is optimally compressed, this only represents 295 exabytes of information. When optimally compressed, the resulting carrying capacity approaches Shannon information or information entropy. Bit-based computing Certain bitwise computer processor instructions (such as bit set) operate at the level of manipulating bits rather than manipulating data interpreted as an aggregate of bits. In the 1980s, when bitmapped computer displays became popular, some computers provided specialized bit block transfer instructions to set or copy the bits that corresponded to a given rectangular area on the screen. In most computers and programming languages, when a bit within a group of bits, such as a byte or word, is referred to, it is usually specified by a number from 0 upwards corresponding to its position within the byte or word. However, 0 can refer to either the most or least significant bit depending on the context. Other information units Similar to torque and energy in physics; information-theoretic information and data storage size have the same dimensionality of units of measurement, but there is in general no meaning to adding, subtracting or otherwise combining the units mathematically, although one may act as a bound on the other. Units of information used in information theory include the shannon (Sh), the natural unit of information (nat) and the hartley (Hart). One shannon is the maximum expected value for

0 through 255 for one byte—2 to the power of 8 is 256. The international standard IEC 80000-13 codified this common meaning. Many types of applications use information representable in eight or fewer bits and processor designers commonly optimize for this usage. The popularity of major commercial computing architectures has aided in the ubiquitous acceptance of the 8-bit byte. Modern architectures typically use 32- or 64-bit words, built of four or eight bytes, respectively. The unit symbol for the byte was designated as the upper-case letter B by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Internationally, the unit octet, symbol o, explicitly defines a sequence of eight bits, eliminating the potential ambiguity of the term "byte". Etymology and history The term byte was coined by Werner Buchholz in June 1956, during the early design phase for the IBM Stretch computer, which had addressing to the bit and variable field length (VFL) instructions with a byte size encoded in the instruction. It is a deliberate respelling of bite to avoid accidental mutation to bit. Another origin of byte for bit groups smaller than a computer's word size, and in particular groups of four bits, is on record by Louis G. Dooley, who claimed he coined the term while working with Jules Schwartz and Dick Beeler on an air defense system called SAGE at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in 1956 or 1957, which was jointly developed by Rand, MIT, and IBM. Later on, Schwartz's language JOVIAL actually used the term, but the author recalled vaguely that it was derived from AN/FSQ-31. Early computers used a variety of four-bit binary-coded decimal (BCD) representations and the six-bit codes for printable graphic patterns common in the U.S. Army (FIELDATA) and Navy. These representations included alphanumeric characters and special graphical symbols. These sets were expanded in 1963 to seven bits of coding, called the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) as the Federal Information Processing Standard, which replaced the incompatible teleprinter codes in use by different branches of the U.S. government and universities during the 1960s. ASCII included the distinction of upper- and lowercase alphabets and a set of control characters to facilitate the transmission of written language as well as printing device functions, such as page advance and line feed, and the physical or logical control of data flow over the transmission media. During the early 1960s, while also active in ASCII standardization, IBM simultaneously introduced in its product line of System/360 the eight-bit Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC), an expansion of their six-bit binary-coded decimal (BCDIC) representations used in earlier card punches. The prominence of the System/360 led to the ubiquitous adoption of the eight-bit storage size, while in detail the EBCDIC and ASCII encoding schemes are different. In the early 1960s, AT&T introduced digital telephony on long-distance trunk lines. These used the eight-bit μ-law encoding. This large investment promised to reduce transmission costs for eight-bit data. The development of eight-bit microprocessors in the 1970s popularized this storage size. Microprocessors such as the Intel 8008, the direct predecessor of the 8080 and the 8086, used in early personal computers, could also perform a small number of operations on the four-bit pairs in a byte, such as the decimal-add-adjust (DAA) instruction. A four-bit quantity is often called a nibble, also nybble, which is conveniently represented by a single hexadecimal digit. The term octet is used to unambiguously specify a size of eight bits. It is used extensively in protocol definitions. Historically, the term octad or octade was used to denote eight bits as well at least in Western Europe; however, this usage is no longer common. The exact origin of the term is unclear, but it can be found in British, Dutch, and German sources of the 1960s and 1970s, and throughout the documentation of Philips mainframe computers. Unit symbol The unit symbol for the byte is specified in IEC 80000-13, IEEE 1541 and the Metric Interchange Format as the upper-case character B. In the International System of Quantities (ISQ), B is the symbol of the bel, a unit of logarithmic power ratio named after Alexander Graham Bell, creating a conflict with the IEC specification. However, little danger of confusion exists, because the bel is a rarely

memory and CPU cache size, and in marketing and billing by telecommunication companies, such as Vodafone, AT&T, Orange and Telstra. This definition was used by Apple Inc. operating systems prior to Mac OS X Snow Leopard and iOS 10 before switching to units based on powers of 10. Parochial units Various computer vendors have coined terms for data of various sizes, sometimes with different sizes for the same term even within a single vendor. These terms include double word, half word, long word, quad word, slab, superword and syllable. There are also informal terms. e.g., half byte and nybble for 4 bits, octal K for . History of the conflicting definitions Contemporary computer memory has a binary architecture making a definition of memory units based on powers of 2 most practical. The use of the metric prefix kilo for binary multiples arose as a convenience, because 1,024 is approximately 1,000. This definition was popular in early decades of personal computing, with products like the Tandon 5-inch DD floppy format (holding 368,640 bytes) being advertised as "360 KB", following the 1,024-byte convention. It was not universal, however. The Shugart SA-400 5-inch floppy disk held 109,375 bytes unformatted, and was advertised as "110 Kbyte", using the 1000 convention. Likewise, the 8-inch DEC RX01 floppy (1975) held 256,256 bytes formatted, and was advertised as "256k". Other disks were advertised using a mixture of the two definitions: notably, -inch HD disks advertised as "1.44 MB" in fact have a capacity of 1,440 KiB, the equivalent of 1.47 MB or 1.41 MiB. In 1995, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry's (IUPAC) Interdivisional Committee on Nomenclature and Symbols attempted to resolve this ambiguity by proposing a set of binary prefixes for the powers of 1024, including kibi (kilobinary), mebi (megabinary), and gibi (gigabinary). In December 1998, the IEC addressed such multiple usages and definitions by adopting the IUPAC's proposed prefixes (kibi, mebi, gibi, etc.) to unambiguously denote powers of 1024. Thus one kibibyte (1 KiB) is 10241 bytes = 1024 bytes, one mebibyte (1 MiB) is 10242 bytes = 1048576 bytes, and so on. In 1999, Donald Knuth suggested calling the kibibyte a "large kilobyte" (KKB). Modern standard definitions The IEC adopted the IUPAC proposal and published the standard in January 1999. The IEC prefixes are now part of the International System of Quantities. The IEC further specified that the kilobyte should only be used to refer to 1,000 bytes. Lawsuits over definition Lawsuits arising from alleged consumer confusion over the binary and decimal definitions of multiples of the byte have generally ended in favor of the manufacturers, with courts holding that the legal definition of gigabyte or GB is 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 (109) bytes (the decimal definition), rather than the binary definition (230). Specifically, the United States District Court held that "the U.S. Congress has deemed the decimal definition of gigabyte to be the 'preferred' one for the purposes of 'U.S. trade and commerce' [...] The California Legislature has likewise adopted the decimal system for all 'transactions in this state.'" Earlier lawsuits had ended in settlement with no court ruling on the question, such as a lawsuit against drive manufacturer Western Digital. Western Digital settled the challenge and added explicit disclaimers to products that the usable capacity may differ from the advertised capacity. Seagate was sued on similar grounds and also settled. Practical examples Common uses Many programming languages define the data type byte. The C and C++ programming languages define byte as an "addressable unit of data storage large enough to hold any member of the basic character set of the execution environment" (clause 3.6 of the C standard). The C standard requires that the integral data type unsigned

where engine re-building is a common practice. Since carbon has appreciable solubility in certain alloys (such as steels), which may lead to degradation of properties, BN is often superior for high temperature and/or high pressure applications. Another advantage of h-BN over graphite is that its lubricity does not require water or gas molecules trapped between the layers. Therefore, h-BN lubricants can be used even in vacuum, e.g. in space applications. The lubricating properties of fine-grained h-BN are used in cosmetics, paints, dental cements, and pencil leads. Hexagonal BN was first used in cosmetics around 1940 in Japan. However, because of its high price, h-BN was soon abandoned for this application. Its use was revitalized in the late 1990s with the optimization h-BN production processes, and currently h-BN is used by nearly all leading producers of cosmetic products for foundations, make-up, eye shadows, blushers, kohl pencils, lipsticks and other skincare products. Because of its excellent thermal and chemical stability, boron nitride ceramics are traditionally used as parts of high-temperature equipment. h-BN can be included in ceramics, alloys, resins, plastics, rubbers, and other materials, giving them self-lubricating properties. Such materials are suitable for construction of e.g. bearings and in steelmaking. Plastics filled with BN have less thermal expansion as well as higher thermal conductivity and electrical resistivity. Due to its excellent dielectric and thermal properties, BN is used in electronics e.g. as a substrate for semiconductors, microwave-transparent windows, as a heat conductive yet electrically insulating filler in thermal pastes, and as a structural material for seals. Many quantum devices use multilayer h-BN as a substrate material. It can also be used as a dielectric in resistive random access memories. Hexagonal BN is used in xerographic process and laser printers as a charge leakage barrier layer of the photo drum. In the automotive industry, h-BN mixed with a binder (boron oxide) is used for sealing oxygen sensors, which provide feedback for adjusting fuel flow. The binder utilizes the unique temperature stability and insulating properties of h-BN. Parts can be made by hot pressing from four commercial grades of h-BN. Grade HBN contains a boron oxide binder; it is usable up to 550–850 °C in oxidizing atmosphere and up to 1600 °C in vacuum, but due to the boron oxide content is sensitive to water. Grade HBR uses a calcium borate binder and is usable at 1600 °C. Grades HBC and HBT contain no binder and can be used up to 3000 °C. Boron nitride nanosheets (h-BN) can be deposited by catalytic decomposition of borazine at a temperature ~1100 °C in a chemical vapor deposition setup, over areas up to about 10 cm2. Owing to their hexagonal atomic structure, small lattice mismatch with graphene (~2%), and high uniformity they are used as substrates for graphene-based devices. BN nanosheets are also excellent proton conductors. Their high proton transport rate, combined with the high electrical resistance, may lead to applications in fuel cells and water electrolysis. h-BN has been used since the mid-2000s as a bullet and bore lubricant in precision target rifle applications as an alternative to molybdenum disulfide coating, commonly referred to as "moly". It is claimed to increase effective barrel life, increase intervals between bore cleaning, and decrease the deviation in point of impact between clean bore first shots and subsequent shots. Cubic BN Cubic boron nitride (CBN or c-BN) is widely used as an abrasive. Its usefulness arises from its insolubility in iron, nickel, and related alloys at high temperatures, whereas diamond is soluble in these metals. Polycrystalline c-BN (PCBN) abrasives are therefore used for machining steel, whereas diamond abrasives are preferred for aluminum alloys, ceramics, and stone. When in contact with oxygen at high temperatures, BN forms a passivation layer of boron oxide. Boron nitride binds well with metals, due to formation of interlayers of metal borides or nitrides. Materials with cubic boron nitride crystals are often used in the tool bits of cutting tools. For grinding applications, softer binders, e.g. resin, porous ceramics, and soft metals, are used. Ceramic binders can be used as well. Commercial products are known under names "Borazon" (by Diamond Innovations), and "Elbor" or "Cubonite" (by Russian vendors). Contrary to diamond, large c-BN pellets can be produced in a simple process (called sintering) of annealing c-BN powders in nitrogen flow at temperatures slightly below the BN decomposition temperature. This ability of c-BN and h-BN powders to fuse allows cheap production of large BN parts. Similar to diamond, the combination in c-BN of highest thermal conductivity and electrical resistivity is ideal for heat spreaders. As cubic boron nitride consists of light atoms and is very robust chemically and mechanically, it is one of the popular materials for X-ray membranes: low mass results in small X-ray absorption, and good mechanical properties allow usage of thin membranes, thus further reducing the absorption. Amorphous BN Layers of amorphous boron nitride (a-BN) are used in some semiconductor devices, e.g. MOSFETs. They can be prepared by chemical decomposition of trichloroborazine with caesium, or by thermal chemical vapor deposition methods. Thermal CVD can be also used for deposition of h-BN layers, or at high temperatures, c-BN. Other forms of boron nitride Atomically thin boron nitride Hexagonal boron nitride can be exfoliated to mono or few atomic layer sheets. Due to its analogous structure to that of graphene, atomically thin boron nitride is sometimes called “white graphene”. Mechanical properties. Atomically thin boron nitride is one of the strongest electrically insulating materials. Monolayer boron nitride has an average Young's modulus of 0.865TPa and fracture strength of 70.5GPa, and in contrast to graphene, whose strength decreases dramatically with increased thickness, few-layer boron nitride sheets have a strength similar to that of monolayer boron nitride. Thermal conductivity. Atomically thin boron nitride has one of the highest thermal conductivity coefficients (751 W/mK at room temperature) among semiconductors and electrical insulators, and its thermal conductivity increases with reduced thickness due to less intra-layer coupling. Thermal stability. The air stability of graphene shows a clear thickness dependence: monolayer graphene is reactive to oxygen at 250 °C, strongly doped at 300 °C, and etched at 450 °C; in contrast, bulk graphite is not oxidized until 800 °C. Atomically thin boron nitride has much better oxidation resistance than graphene. Monolayer boron nitride is not oxidized till 700 °C and can sustain up to 850 °C in air; bilayer and trilayer boron nitride nanosheets have slightly higher oxidation starting temperatures. The excellent thermal stability, high impermeability to gas and liquid, and electrical insulation make atomically thin boron nitride potential coating materials for preventing surface oxidation and corrosion of metals and other two-dimensional (2D) materials, such as black phosphorus. Better surface adsorption. Atomically thin boron nitride has been found to have better surface adsorption capabilities than bulk hexagonal boron nitride. According to theoretical and experimental studies, atomically thin boron nitride as an adsorbent experiences conformational changes upon surface adsorption of molecules, increasing adsorption energy and efficiency. The synergic effect of the atomic thickness, high flexibility, stronger surface adsorption capability, electrical insulation, impermeability, high thermal and chemical stability of BN nanosheets can increase the Raman sensitivity by up to two orders, and in the meantime attain long-term stability and extraordinary reusability not achievable by other materials. Dielectric properties. Atomically thin hexagonal boron nitride is an excellent dielectric substrate for graphene, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), and many other 2D material-based electronic and photonic devices. As shown by electric force microscopy (EFM) studies, the electric field screening in atomically thin boron nitride shows a weak dependence on thickness, which is in line with the smooth decay of electric field inside few-layer boron nitride revealed by the first-principles calculations. Raman characteristics. Raman spectroscopy has been a useful tool to study a variety of 2D materials, and the Raman signature of high-quality atomically thin boron nitride was first reported by Gorbachev et al. in 2011. and Li et al. However, the two reported Raman results of monolayer boron nitride did not agree with each other. Cai et al., therefore, conducted systematic experimental and theoretical studies to reveal the intrinsic Raman spectrum of atomically thin boron nitride. It reveals that atomically thin boron nitride without interaction with a substrate has a G band frequency similar to that of bulk hexagonal boron nitride, but strain induced by the substrate can cause Raman shifts. Nevertheless, the Raman intensity of G band of atomically thin boron nitride can be used to estimate layer thickness and sample quality. Boron nitride nanomesh Boron nitride nanomesh is a nanostructured two-dimensional material. It consists of a single BN layer, which forms by self-assembly a highly regular mesh after high-temperature exposure of a clean rhodium or ruthenium surface to borazine under ultra-high vacuum. The nanomesh looks like an assembly of hexagonal pores. The distance between two pore centers is 3.2 nm and the pore diameter is ~2 nm. Other terms for this material are boronitrene or white graphene. The boron nitride nanomesh is not only stable to decomposition under vacuum, air and some liquids, but also up to temperatures of 800 °C. In addition, it shows the extraordinary ability to trap molecules and metallic clusters which have similar sizes to the nanomesh pores, forming a well-ordered array. These characteristics promise interesting applications of the nanomesh in areas like catalysis, surface functionalisation, spintronics, quantum computing and data storage media like hard drives. Boron nitride nanotubes Boron nitride tubules were first made in 1989 by

United States, Japan, China and Germany. In 2000, prices varied from about $75/kg to $120/kg for standard industrial-quality h-BN and were about up to $200–$400/kg for high purity BN grades. Applications Hexagonal BN Hexagonal BN (h-BN) is the most widely used polymorph. It is a good lubricant at both low and high temperatures (up to 900 °C, even in an oxidizing atmosphere). h-BN lubricant is particularly useful when the electrical conductivity or chemical reactivity of graphite (alternative lubricant) would be problematic. In internal combustion engines, where graphite could be oxidized and turn into carbon sludge, h-BN with its superior thermal stability can be added to engine lubricant, however, with all nano-particles suspension, Brownian-motion settlement is a key problem and settlement can clog engine oil filters, which limits solid lubricants application in a combustion engine to only automotive race settings, where engine re-building is a common practice. Since carbon has appreciable solubility in certain alloys (such as steels), which may lead to degradation of properties, BN is often superior for high temperature and/or high pressure applications. Another advantage of h-BN over graphite is that its lubricity does not require water or gas molecules trapped between the layers. Therefore, h-BN lubricants can be used even in vacuum, e.g. in space applications. The lubricating properties of fine-grained h-BN are used in cosmetics, paints, dental cements, and pencil leads. Hexagonal BN was first used in cosmetics around 1940 in Japan. However, because of its high price, h-BN was soon abandoned for this application. Its use was revitalized in the late 1990s with the optimization h-BN production processes, and currently h-BN is used by nearly all leading producers of cosmetic products for foundations, make-up, eye shadows, blushers, kohl pencils, lipsticks and other skincare products. Because of its excellent thermal and chemical stability, boron nitride ceramics are traditionally used as parts of high-temperature equipment. h-BN can be included in ceramics, alloys, resins, plastics, rubbers, and other materials, giving them self-lubricating properties. Such materials are suitable for construction of e.g. bearings and in steelmaking. Plastics filled with BN have less thermal expansion as well as higher thermal conductivity and electrical resistivity. Due to its excellent dielectric and thermal properties, BN is used in electronics e.g. as a substrate for semiconductors, microwave-transparent windows, as a heat conductive yet electrically insulating filler in thermal pastes, and as a structural material for seals. Many quantum devices use multilayer h-BN as a substrate material. It can also be used as a dielectric in resistive random access memories. Hexagonal BN is used in xerographic process and laser printers as a charge leakage barrier layer of the photo drum. In the automotive industry, h-BN mixed with a binder (boron oxide) is used for sealing oxygen sensors, which provide feedback for adjusting fuel flow. The binder utilizes the unique temperature stability and insulating properties of h-BN. Parts can be made by hot pressing from four commercial grades of h-BN. Grade HBN contains a boron oxide binder; it is usable up to 550–850 °C in oxidizing atmosphere and up to 1600 °C in vacuum, but due to the boron oxide content is sensitive to water. Grade HBR uses a calcium borate binder and is usable at 1600 °C. Grades HBC and HBT contain no binder and can be used up to 3000 °C. Boron nitride nanosheets (h-BN) can be deposited by catalytic decomposition of borazine at a temperature ~1100 °C in a chemical vapor deposition setup, over areas up to about 10 cm2. Owing to their hexagonal atomic structure, small lattice mismatch with graphene (~2%), and high uniformity they are used as substrates for graphene-based devices. BN nanosheets are also excellent proton conductors. Their high proton transport rate, combined with the high electrical resistance, may lead to applications in fuel cells and water electrolysis. h-BN has been used since the mid-2000s as a bullet and bore lubricant in precision target rifle applications as an alternative to molybdenum disulfide coating, commonly referred to as "moly". It is claimed to increase effective barrel life, increase intervals between bore cleaning, and decrease the deviation in point of impact between clean bore first shots and subsequent shots. Cubic BN Cubic boron nitride (CBN or c-BN) is widely used as an abrasive. Its usefulness arises from its insolubility in iron, nickel, and related alloys at high temperatures, whereas diamond is soluble in these metals. Polycrystalline c-BN (PCBN) abrasives are therefore used for machining steel, whereas diamond abrasives are preferred for aluminum alloys, ceramics, and stone. When in contact with oxygen at high temperatures, BN forms a passivation layer of boron oxide. Boron nitride binds well with metals, due to formation of interlayers of metal borides or nitrides. Materials with cubic boron nitride crystals are often used in the tool bits of cutting tools. For grinding applications, softer binders, e.g. resin, porous ceramics, and soft metals, are used. Ceramic binders can be used as well. Commercial products are known under names "Borazon" (by Diamond Innovations), and "Elbor" or "Cubonite" (by Russian vendors). Contrary to diamond, large c-BN pellets can be produced in a simple process (called sintering) of annealing c-BN powders in nitrogen flow at temperatures slightly below the BN decomposition temperature. This ability of c-BN and h-BN powders to fuse allows cheap production of large BN parts. Similar to diamond, the combination in c-BN of highest thermal conductivity and electrical resistivity is ideal for heat spreaders. As cubic boron nitride consists of light atoms and is very robust chemically and mechanically, it is one of the popular materials for X-ray membranes: low mass results in small X-ray absorption, and good mechanical properties allow usage of thin membranes, thus further reducing the absorption. Amorphous BN Layers of amorphous boron nitride (a-BN) are used in some semiconductor devices, e.g. MOSFETs. They can be prepared by chemical decomposition of trichloroborazine with caesium, or by thermal chemical vapor deposition methods. Thermal CVD can be also used for deposition of h-BN layers, or at high temperatures, c-BN. Other forms of boron nitride Atomically thin boron nitride Hexagonal boron nitride can be exfoliated to mono or few atomic layer sheets. Due to its analogous structure to that of graphene, atomically thin boron nitride is sometimes called “white graphene”. Mechanical properties. Atomically thin boron nitride is one of the strongest electrically insulating materials. Monolayer boron nitride has an average Young's modulus of 0.865TPa and fracture strength of 70.5GPa, and in contrast to graphene, whose strength decreases dramatically with increased thickness, few-layer boron nitride sheets have a strength similar to that of monolayer boron nitride. Thermal conductivity. Atomically thin boron nitride has one of the highest thermal conductivity coefficients (751 W/mK at room temperature) among semiconductors and electrical insulators, and its thermal conductivity increases with reduced thickness due to less intra-layer coupling. Thermal stability. The air stability of graphene shows a clear thickness dependence: monolayer graphene is reactive to oxygen at 250 °C, strongly doped at 300 °C, and etched at 450 °C; in contrast, bulk graphite is not oxidized until 800 °C. Atomically thin boron nitride has much better oxidation resistance than graphene. Monolayer boron nitride is not oxidized till 700 °C and can sustain up to 850 °C in air; bilayer and trilayer boron nitride nanosheets have slightly higher oxidation starting temperatures. The excellent thermal stability, high impermeability to gas and liquid, and electrical insulation make atomically thin boron nitride potential coating materials for preventing surface oxidation and corrosion of metals and other two-dimensional (2D) materials, such as black phosphorus. Better surface adsorption. Atomically thin boron nitride has been found to have better surface adsorption capabilities than bulk hexagonal boron nitride. According to theoretical and experimental studies, atomically thin boron nitride as an adsorbent experiences conformational changes upon surface adsorption of molecules, increasing adsorption energy and efficiency. The synergic effect of the atomic thickness, high flexibility, stronger surface adsorption capability, electrical insulation, impermeability, high thermal and chemical stability of BN nanosheets can increase the Raman sensitivity by up to two orders, and in the meantime attain long-term stability and extraordinary reusability not achievable by other materials. Dielectric properties. Atomically thin hexagonal boron nitride is an excellent dielectric substrate for graphene, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), and many other 2D material-based electronic and photonic devices. As shown by electric force microscopy (EFM) studies, the electric field screening in atomically thin boron nitride shows a weak dependence on thickness, which is in line with the smooth decay of electric field inside few-layer boron nitride revealed by the first-principles calculations. Raman characteristics. Raman spectroscopy has been a useful tool to study a variety of 2D materials, and the Raman signature of high-quality atomically thin boron nitride was first reported by Gorbachev et al. in 2011. and Li et al. However, the two reported Raman results of monolayer boron nitride did not agree with each other. Cai et al., therefore, conducted systematic experimental and theoretical studies to reveal the intrinsic Raman spectrum of atomically thin boron nitride. It

Donau, a town in Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany Bäch, a settlement of the Freienbach municipality in Schwyz, Switzerland Bäch railway station, in Freienbach, Switzerland Bach, Michigan, US, an unincorporated community Bach Ice Shelf, on Alexander Island, Antarctica Bach quadrangle, on the planet Mercury Bach (crater), on the planet Mercury 1814 Bach, an asteroid Radio stations WBQK, a radio station licensed to West Point, Virginia, US, known as Bach FM WLTT, a radio station licensed to Carolina Beach, North Carolina, US, known as Bach FM from 2011 to 2013 Other uses Bach Gesellschaft, an 1850 society for

composer invented by musical satirist Peter Schickele Places Bach, Austria, a municipality in Reutte Bach, Lot, a commune in France Bach an der Donau, a town in Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany Bäch, a settlement of the Freienbach municipality in Schwyz, Switzerland Bäch railway station, in Freienbach, Switzerland Bach, Michigan, US, an unincorporated community Bach Ice Shelf, on Alexander Island, Antarctica Bach quadrangle, on the planet Mercury Bach (crater), on the planet Mercury 1814 Bach, an asteroid Radio stations WBQK, a radio station licensed to West Point, Virginia, US, known as Bach FM WLTT, a radio station licensed to Carolina Beach, North Carolina, US, known as Bach FM from 2011 to 2013 Other uses Bach Gesellschaft, an 1850 society for publishing J.S. Bach's complete works Bach (journal), an academic

the album and called it "a sellout to the memory of Dylan's pre-electric period". At his brother's urging, Dylan agreed to re-record five of the album's songs in Sound 80 in Minneapolis, with backing musicians recruited by David. The new takes were accomplished in two days at the end of December 1974. Blood on the Tracks was released into stores on January 20, 1975. The version on the original test pressing was given a limited release in 2019 for Record Store Day. Autobiographical interpretation The songs that constitute Blood on the Tracks have been described by many Dylan critics as stemming from his personal turmoil at the time, particularly his estrangement from his then-wife Sara Dylan. One of Bob and Sara Dylan's children, Jakob Dylan, has said, "When I'm listening to Blood On The Tracks, that's about my parents." Dylan has denied this autobiographical interpretation, stating in a 1985 interview with Bill Flanagan, "A lot of people thought that album pertained to me. It didn't pertain to me ... I'm not going to make an album and lean on a marriage relationship." Informed of the album's popularity, Dylan told Mary Travers in a radio interview in April 1975: "A lot of people tell me they enjoy that album. It's hard for me to relate to that. I mean ... people enjoying that type of pain, you know?" Addressing whether the album described his own personal pain, Dylan replied that he didn't write "confessional songs". However, on the live At Budokan album, Dylan seems to acknowledge the autobiographical nature of the song "Simple Twist of Fate" by introducing it as "Here's a simple love story. Happened to me." According to Rolling Stone, in Dylan's lyric notebook, the working title of Simple Twist of Fate was 4th Street Affair; Dylan and Suze Rotolo lived at 161 W. 4th St. The narrator of the song memorializes an affair of ten years ago instead of singing about Dylan's marriage. In "Hot Press," writing about the three known lyric notebooks for the songs, Anne Margaret Daniel noted that "Simple Twist of Fate" was first entitled "Snowbound," and set in part, like "Tangled Up In Blue," in a New York City apartment. In his 2004 memoir, Chronicles, Vol. 1, Dylan stated that the songs have nothing to do with his personal life, and that they were inspired by the short stories of Anton Chekhov. Critical reception Released in early 1975, Blood on the Tracks initially received mixed reviews from critics. Rolling Stone published two assessments. The first, by Jonathan Cott, called it "Dylan's magnificent new album". The second reviewer, Jon Landau, wrote that "the record has been made with typical shoddiness." In NME, Nick Kent described "the accompaniments [as] often so trashy they sound like mere practice takes", while Crawdaddy magazine's Jim Cusimano found the instrumentation incompetent. An influential review of the album was written by Dylan critic Michael Gray for the magazine Let It Rock. Gray argued that it transformed the cultural perception of Dylan, and that he was no longer defined as "the major artist of the sixties. Instead, Dylan has legitimized his claim to a creative prowess as vital now as then—a power not bounded by the one decade he so affected." This view was amplified by Clinton Heylin, who wrote: "Ten years after he turned the rock & roll brand of pop into rock ... [Dylan] renewed its legitimacy as a form capable of containing the work of a mature artist." In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau wrote that although the lyrics occasionally evoke romantic naiveté and bitterness, Blood on the Tracks is altogether Dylan's "most mature and assured record". Since its initial reception, Blood on the Tracks has been viewed by critics as one of Dylan's best albums. In Salon.com, Wyman wrote: "Blood on the Tracks is his only flawless album and his best produced; the songs, each of them, are constructed in disciplined fashion. It is his kindest album and most dismayed, and seems in hindsight to have achieved a sublime balance between the logorrhea-plagued excesses of his mid-1960s output and the self-consciously simple compositions of his post-accident years." Bell, in his critical biography of Dylan, wrote that Blood on the Tracks was proof that "Dylan had won the argument over his refusal to argue about politics. In this, he began to seem prescient." Bell concluded the album "might well count as one of the best things Dylan ever did". Novelist Rick Moody called it "the truest, most honest account of a love affair from tip to stern ever put down on magnetic tape". A result of the acclaim surrounding the album has been that when critics have praised one of Dylan's subsequent albums, they have often described it as "his best since Blood on the Tracks". According to music journalist Rob Sheffield, Blood on the Tracks became a benchmark album for Dylan in the years that followed because it was "such a stunning comeback". The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Hip hop group Public Enemy reference it in their 2007 Dylan tribute song "Long and Whining Road": "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back / You bet there's blood on them Bomb Squad tracks". A film adaptation of the album is currently in

According to Rolling Stone, in Dylan's lyric notebook, the working title of Simple Twist of Fate was 4th Street Affair; Dylan and Suze Rotolo lived at 161 W. 4th St. The narrator of the song memorializes an affair of ten years ago instead of singing about Dylan's marriage. In "Hot Press," writing about the three known lyric notebooks for the songs, Anne Margaret Daniel noted that "Simple Twist of Fate" was first entitled "Snowbound," and set in part, like "Tangled Up In Blue," in a New York City apartment. In his 2004 memoir, Chronicles, Vol. 1, Dylan stated that the songs have nothing to do with his personal life, and that they were inspired by the short stories of Anton Chekhov. Critical reception Released in early 1975, Blood on the Tracks initially received mixed reviews from critics. Rolling Stone published two assessments. The first, by Jonathan Cott, called it "Dylan's magnificent new album". The second reviewer, Jon Landau, wrote that "the record has been made with typical shoddiness." In NME, Nick Kent described "the accompaniments [as] often so trashy they sound like mere practice takes", while Crawdaddy magazine's Jim Cusimano found the instrumentation incompetent. An influential review of the album was written by Dylan critic Michael Gray for the magazine Let It Rock. Gray argued that it transformed the cultural perception of Dylan, and that he was no longer defined as "the major artist of the sixties. Instead, Dylan has legitimized his claim to a creative prowess as vital now as then—a power not bounded by the one decade he so affected." This view was amplified by Clinton Heylin, who wrote: "Ten years after he turned the rock & roll brand of pop into rock ... [Dylan] renewed its legitimacy as a form capable of containing the work of a mature artist." In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau wrote that although the lyrics occasionally evoke romantic naiveté and bitterness, Blood on the Tracks is altogether Dylan's "most mature and assured record". Since its initial reception, Blood on the Tracks has been viewed by critics as one of Dylan's best albums. In Salon.com, Wyman wrote: "Blood on the Tracks is his only flawless album and his best produced; the songs, each of them, are constructed in disciplined fashion. It is his kindest album and most dismayed, and seems in hindsight to have achieved a sublime balance between the logorrhea-plagued excesses of his mid-1960s output and the self-consciously simple compositions of his post-accident years." Bell, in his critical biography of Dylan, wrote that Blood on the Tracks was proof that "Dylan had won the argument over his refusal to argue about politics. In this, he began to seem prescient." Bell concluded the album "might well count as one of the best things Dylan ever did". Novelist Rick Moody called it "the truest, most honest account of a love affair from tip to stern ever put down on magnetic tape". A result of the acclaim surrounding the album has been that when critics have praised one of Dylan's subsequent albums, they have often described it as "his best since Blood on the Tracks". According to music journalist Rob Sheffield, Blood on the Tracks became a benchmark album for Dylan in the years that followed because it was "such a stunning comeback". The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Hip hop group Public Enemy reference it in their 2007 Dylan tribute song "Long and Whining Road": "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back

and the American Working Class, which was published in 1993. "Love and Theft becomes his Fables of the Reconstruction, to borrow an R.E.M. album title", writes Greg Kot in the Chicago Tribune (published September 11, 2001), "the myths, mysteries and folklore of the South as a backdrop for one of the finest roots rock albums ever made". The opening track, "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum", includes many references to parades in Mardi Gras in New Orleans, where participants are masked, and "determined to go all the way" of the parade route, in spite of being intoxicated. "It rolls in like a storm, drums galloping over the horizon into ear shot, guitar riffs slicing with terse dexterity while a tale about a pair of vagabonds unfolds," writes Kot. "It ends in death, and sets the stage for an album populated by rogues, con men, outcasts, gamblers, gunfighters and desperados, many of them with nothing to lose, some of them out of their minds, all of them quintessentially American. Offered the song by Dylan, Sheryl Crow later recorded an up-tempo cover of "Mississippi" for her The Globe Sessions, released in 1998, before Dylan revisited it for Love and Theft. Subsequently the Dixie Chicks made it a mainstay of their Top of the World, Vote for Change, and Accidents & Accusations Tours. As music critic Tim Riley notes, "[Dylan's] singing [on Love and Theft] shifts artfully between humble and ironic...'I'm not quite as cool or forgiving as I sound,' he sings in 'Floater,' which is either hilarious or horrifying, and probably a little of both". "Love and Theft is, as the title implies, a kind of homage," writes Kot, "[and] never more so than on 'High Water (for Charley Patton),' in which Dylan draws a sweeping portrait of the South's racial history, with the unsung blues singer as a symbol of the region's cultural richness and ingrained social cruelties. Rumbling drums and moaning backing vocals suggest that things are going from bad to worse. 'It's tough out there,' Dylan rasps. 'High water everywhere.' Death and dementia shadow the album, tempered by tenderness and wicked gallows humor". "'Po' Boy', scored for guitar with lounge chord jazz patterns, 'almost sounds as if it could have been recorded around 1920", says Riley. "He leaves you dangling at the end of each bridge, lets the band punctuate the trail of words he's squeezed into his lines, which gives it a reluctant soft-shoe charm". The album closes with "Sugar Baby", a lengthy, dirge-like ballad, noted for its evocative, apocalyptic imagery and sparse production drenched in echo. Praising it as "a finale to be proud of", Riley notes that "Sugar Baby" is "built on a disarmingly simple riff that turns foreboding". In a Rolling Stone interview with Mikal Gilmore, Dylan himself summarized the album's themes as dealing with "business, politics and war, and maybe love interest on the side". Release and promotion Although no singles were released from the album, Dylan appeared in a 30-second commercial featuring the song "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum" that appeared online on August 28, 2001 and on network television beginning on September 3, 2001. The spot, directed by Kinka Usher, shows Dylan in a tense poker game with magician Ricky Jay and Dharma & Greg writer Eddie Gorodetsky. The poker setting was Dylan's idea and, according to Usher, he only made one request of the director: "He said, `You know, I just don't want it to be corporate'. And I assured him that I wasn't going to do that, I was going to shoot it like a little film. I know he's very happy with it". Dylan also consented to what, for him, was an unusual amount of interviews with press to promote the album. On July 23, 2001 he participated in a press conference at the Hotel de la Ville in Rome with reporters from Austria, Britain, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Holland, Italy, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. He was also interviewed by Edna Gundersen for USA Today, Robert Hilburn for the Los Angeles Times and Mikal Gilmore for Rolling Stone. All of these interviews appeared shortly before or shortly after the album's release on September 11, 2001. Packaging The album's cover features a black-and-white photograph of Dylan, sporting a then-new pencil-thin mustache, which was taken in the studio by Kevin Mazur. The back cover features a black-and-white portrait of Dylan taken by photographer David Gahr. Mazur also took the album's inside cover photo of Dylan and the Love and Theft band (including organist Augie Meyers). The album's art direction is credited to Geoff Gans. Reception and legacy {{Album reviews | MC = 93/100 | rev1 = AllMusic | rev1Score = | rev2 = Blender | rev2Score = | rev3 = Chicago Sun-Times | rev3Score = | rev4 = The Encyclopedia of Popular Music| rev4Score = | rev5 = Entertainment Weekly| rev5Score = A− | rev6 = The Guardian| rev6Score = | rev7 = Los Angeles Times| rev7Score = | rev8 = Q| rev8Score = | rev9 = Rolling Stone| rev9Score = | rev10 = Spin| rev10Score = 9/10 | rev11 = The Village Voice| rev11Score = A+ }} The album won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album at the 44th Annual Grammy Awards. It was nominated for Album of the Year and the track "Honest with Me" was nominated for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. In a glowing review for his "Consumer Guide" column published by The Village Voice, Robert Christgau wrote: "If Time Out of Mind was his death album—it wasn't, but you know how people talk—this is his immortality album". Later, when The Village Voice conducted its annual Pazz & Jop Critics Poll, Love and Theft topped the list, the third Dylan album to accomplish this. It also topped Rolling Stones list. Q listed Love and Theft as one of the best 50 albums of 2001. Kludge ranked it at number eight on their list of best albums of 2001. In 2003, the album was ranked number 467 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, climbing to number 385 in the 2012 update and dropping to number 411 in the 2020 update of the list. Newsweek magazine pronounced it the second best album of its decade. In 2009, Glide Magazine ranked it as the No. 1 Album of the Decade. Entertainment Weekly put

the Dixie Chicks made it a mainstay of their Top of the World, Vote for Change, and Accidents & Accusations Tours. As music critic Tim Riley notes, "[Dylan's] singing [on Love and Theft] shifts artfully between humble and ironic...'I'm not quite as cool or forgiving as I sound,' he sings in 'Floater,' which is either hilarious or horrifying, and probably a little of both". "Love and Theft is, as the title implies, a kind of homage," writes Kot, "[and] never more so than on 'High Water (for Charley Patton),' in which Dylan draws a sweeping portrait of the South's racial history, with the unsung blues singer as a symbol of the region's cultural richness and ingrained social cruelties. Rumbling drums and moaning backing vocals suggest that things are going from bad to worse. 'It's tough out there,' Dylan rasps. 'High water everywhere.' Death and dementia shadow the album, tempered by tenderness and wicked gallows humor". "'Po' Boy', scored for guitar with lounge chord jazz patterns, 'almost sounds as if it could have been recorded around 1920", says Riley. "He leaves you dangling at the end of each bridge, lets the band punctuate the trail of words he's squeezed into his lines, which gives it a reluctant soft-shoe charm". The album closes with "Sugar Baby", a lengthy, dirge-like ballad, noted for its evocative, apocalyptic imagery and sparse production drenched in echo. Praising it as "a finale to be proud of", Riley notes that "Sugar Baby" is "built on a disarmingly simple riff that turns foreboding". In a Rolling Stone interview with Mikal Gilmore, Dylan himself summarized the album's themes as dealing with "business, politics and war, and maybe love interest on the side". Release and promotion Although no singles were released from the album, Dylan appeared in a 30-second commercial featuring the song "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum" that appeared online on August 28, 2001 and on network television beginning on September 3, 2001. The spot, directed by Kinka Usher, shows Dylan in a tense poker game with magician Ricky Jay and Dharma & Greg writer Eddie Gorodetsky. The poker setting was Dylan's idea and, according to Usher, he only made one request of the director: "He said, `You know, I just don't want it to be corporate'. And I assured him that I wasn't going to do that, I was going to shoot it like a little film. I know he's very happy with it". Dylan also consented to what, for him, was an unusual amount of interviews with press to promote the album. On July 23, 2001 he participated in a press conference at the Hotel de la Ville in Rome with reporters from Austria, Britain, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Holland, Italy, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. He was also interviewed by Edna Gundersen for USA Today, Robert Hilburn for the Los Angeles Times and Mikal Gilmore for Rolling Stone. All of these interviews appeared shortly before or shortly after the album's release on September 11, 2001. Packaging The album's cover features a black-and-white photograph of Dylan, sporting a then-new pencil-thin mustache, which was taken in the studio by Kevin Mazur. The back cover features a black-and-white portrait of Dylan taken by photographer David Gahr. Mazur also took the album's inside cover photo of Dylan and the Love and Theft band (including organist Augie Meyers). The album's art direction is credited to Geoff Gans. Reception and legacy {{Album reviews | MC = 93/100 | rev1 = AllMusic | rev1Score = | rev2 = Blender | rev2Score = | rev3 = Chicago Sun-Times | rev3Score = | rev4 = The Encyclopedia of Popular Music| rev4Score = | rev5 = Entertainment Weekly| rev5Score = A− | rev6 = The Guardian| rev6Score = | rev7 = Los Angeles Times| rev7Score = | rev8 = Q| rev8Score = | rev9 = Rolling Stone| rev9Score = | rev10 = Spin| rev10Score = 9/10 | rev11 = The Village Voice| rev11Score = A+ }} The album won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album at the 44th Annual Grammy Awards. It was nominated for Album of the Year and the track "Honest with Me" was nominated for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. In a glowing review for his "Consumer Guide" column published by The Village Voice, Robert Christgau wrote: "If Time Out of Mind was his death album—it wasn't, but you know how people talk—this is his immortality album". Later, when The Village Voice conducted its annual Pazz & Jop Critics Poll, Love and Theft topped the list, the third Dylan album to accomplish this. It also topped Rolling Stones list. Q listed Love and Theft as one of the best 50 albums of 2001. Kludge ranked it at number eight on their list of best albums of 2001. In 2003, the album was ranked number 467 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, climbing to number 385 in the

a fry cook. His other ambitions included being a millwright, street car conductor, "double-naught" spy, telephone lineman, soda jerk, chauffeur, USAF general, sculptor, restaurant owner (with Granny's cooking), psychiatrist, and once as a bookkeeper for Milburn Drysdale's bank; an agent for "cousin" Bessie and "Cousin Roy" (see below); Hollywood producer (a studio flunky remarks Jethro has the "right qualifications" for being a producer: a sixth-grade education and an uncle who owns the studio; this in-joke gag as a movie producer was replayed in the 1981 movie). More often than not, his overall goal in these endeavors is to meet pretty girls. He only manages to gain (but is oblivious to) the affections of the plain Miss Jane Hathaway. Of all the Clampett clan, he is the most eager to embrace city life. A running gag is that Jethro is known as the "six-foot stomach" for his huge appetite; in one episode, he eats a jetliner's entire supply of steaks, and in another, Jethro tries to set himself up as a Hollywood agent for cousin "Bessie" the chimpanzee – with a fee of 10,000 bananas for Bessie and 1,000 for him. Jethro does not appear in the third- or second-to-last episodes, but Baer remains billed in the title credits. With the January 2015 death of Donna Douglas, Baer is the only surviving main cast member. Milburn Drysdale Mr. Drysdale (portrayed by Raymond Bailey in 247 episodes) is the Clampetts' banker, confidant, and next-door neighbor. He is obsessed with money, and to keep the Clampetts' $96,000,000 (in 1969; ) in his Commerce Bank, Mr. Drysdale will do everything he can to cater to their every wish. He often forces others, especially his long-suffering secretary, to help fulfill their outlandish requests. He is a descendant of the Bodkins from Tennessee. It is revealed in the first series that Granny's clan, the Moses, feuded with the Bodkins and drove them from Napoleon, Tennessee. Jane Hathaway Jane Hathaway (portrayed by Nancy Kulp in 246 episodes), whom the Clampetts address as "Miss Jane", is Drysdale's loyal, highly educated, and efficient secretary. Though she reluctantly carries out his wishes, she is genuinely fond of the family and tries to shield them from her boss's greed. Miss Hathaway frequently has to "rescue" Drysdale from his schemes, receiving little or no thanks for her efforts. The Clampetts consider her family; even Granny, the one deadest-set against living in California, likes her very much. Jane harbors something of a crush on Jethro for most of the series' run. In 1999, TV Guide ranked Jane Hathaway number 38 on its list titled "50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time". The Truck The Hillbillies truck, featured in almost every episode, was a cut-down 1921 Oldsmobile Model 46 Roadster. Following donation by the show's producer who grew up nearby, the truck is now on display at The Ralph Foster Museum at College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Missouri. Recurring Milburn Drysdale's wife Margaret (portrayed by Harriet E. MacGibbon; 55 episodes in 1962–69) is a blue-blooded Bostonian who traces her family back to the Mayflower and has obvious disdain for the "peasant" and "dreadful" hillbillies, especially Granny, with whom she occasionally has "scraps". Sonny Drysdale (portrayed by Louis Nye) is Milburn's stepson introduced as a 35-year-old collegian who does not believe in working up a sweat and is a spoiled mama's boy. Once on a date, Sonny keeps Elly May out until after dark without proposing, running afoul of the old mountain courting code, and almost causing a feud. Elly May later (and literally) tosses him. Sonny only appears in four episodes, three in 1962 and a final appearance in 1966. Pearl Bodine (portrayed by Bea Benaderet; 22 episodes in season one) is Jed's widowed cousin. Pearl is a generally well-meaning mother to Jethro. She was also a popular character, often used as a foil for Granny, and became a regular part-way through the first season (the end credits were even refilmed to include Pearl with the other family members). The character disappeared after the first year because Benaderet had become the star of another Paul Henning series, Petticoat Junction. She is the daughter of Amos Clampett, Jed's uncle. Like Elly May, Pearl's name came from that of a character (Pearl Lester) in the popular rural-life novel, play, and film Tobacco Road. In the episodes "The Clampetts Get Psychoanalyzed" and "The Psychiatrist Gets Clampetted", Herbert Rudley plays psychiatrist Dr. Eugene Twombley, with whom Pearl is enamored; Benaderet's real-life husband was named Eugene Twombly. In season six, she makes a cameo appearance in the episode "Greetings from the President". Jethrine Bodine (portrayed by Max Baer, voiced by Linda Kaye Henning; 11 episodes in season one): Jethrine is Pearl's king-sized daughter and Jethro's twin. Jethrine appears in the first season; she moves with her mother to the Clampett mansion later that season, but occasionally is not seen in episodes during her stay in California. Jethrine is upset to leave the hills, as it means separation from her "sweetie", traveling salesman Jasper "Jazzbo" Depew (played by Phil Gordon in many episodes in the first series). Late in the season, an episode explained that Jethrine had returned home to marry Depew. Jethro and Jethrine rarely appeared in the same scene in any of the episodes, and then they were never on-camera at the same time, except for the rare back-of-the-head shot using a double. Jethrine also appears in the 1993 movie version. Honest John Shafer (portrayed by Phil Silvers; six episodes 1969–1970) is a sleazy confidence man who targets the Clampetts with various outrageous schemes such as selling Washington, DC, to Jed. Although Honest John always succeeds in initially bilking the Clampetts out of millions, his conscience always gets the better of him once he realizes that the Clampetts actually hold him in the highest esteem and treat him almost like family. Dash Riprock (portrayed by Larry Pennell; 10 episodes in seasons three-seven) is a handsome Hollywood actor employed by Jed's movie studio. Elly May and he meet while she is working as an extra at the studio. The two have an on-and-off relationship. Riprock was a send-up of the blatantly fake screen names employed by a number of movie actors of the period. Riprock's real name (before being changed by Hollywood moguls) was "Homer Noodleman", and he was from Peoria, Illinois. Lowell Redlings Farquhar (portrayed by Charles Ruggles; three episodes in seasons four and five) is the elderly father of Mrs. Drysdale. Granny considers him a potential beau. Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs (portrayed by themselves in seven episodes, 1963–68) are longtime friends of the Clampetts "back home" (Kimberling City, Missouri), who visit the Clampetts when they are on tour in California. The duo had a number-one Billboard country single with the show's "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" (although the song is actually performed in the credits by Jerry Scoggins to Flatt and Scruggs' instrumental). (Actress Joi Lansing played Flatt's wife, Gladys, in five episodes, 1963–68.) John Brewster (portrayed by Frank Wilcox; 14 episodes, 1962–1966), is the president and CEO of the OK Oil Company, headquartered in Tulsa, who purchases the oil rights to the gusher on the Clampett home. The Clampetts are quite fond of him and his wife occasionally visits them in California. Janet Trego (portrayed by Sharon Tate; 15 episodes, 1963–65) is a beautiful secretary at the Commerce Bank. Sam Drucker (portrayed by Frank Cady; 10 episodes in 1968–70) owns the general store in Hooterville. Granny is constantly under the impression Sam wants to marry her, but Sam has no such intention. Cady also starred as Sam Drucker in Petticoat Junction and Green Acres. Cady reprised the role of Sam Drucker for the 1990 Green Acres reunion movie Return to Green Acres. Helen Thompson (portrayed by Danielle Mardi; 17 episodes in 1969–71) is a beautiful British secretary at the Commerce Bank. Helen takes over Miss Hathaway's job as Mr. Drysdale's secretary after Miss Hathaway resigns. She is one of the ringleaders of the protest group the secretaries of the Commerce Bank create: GRUN (Girls Resist Unfair Neglect). She, along with many other secretaries, as well as Elly and Granny, live with Miss Hathaway for a short time in her apartment. Shorty Kellums (portrayed by Shug Fisher; 17 episodes in seasons eight and nine) is Jed's longtime buddy from back home, with whom Jed reunites in 1969 when the Clampetts go back home for an extended period. Shorty is a wiry little man who is crazy about voluptuous girls half his age. Shorty later moves into the Clampett mansion in Beverly Hills for a while. Elverna Bradshaw (portrayed by Elvia Allman; 13 episodes, 1963–70) is Granny's longtime rival back in the hills, a gossip second to none. Referenced as early as episode three, she makes a brief appearance in a 1963 episode when the Clampetts go back home to bring Pearl to California, but is not seen again until 1969, when the Clampetts return for an extended visit. However, both Granny and Jed refer to the character in several episodes throughout the series' run. Elverna and Granny rekindle their feud in a match to see who will be the first to marry, Elverna's daughter or Elly May. For reasons not really explained, Elverna also moves into the Clampett Beverly Hills mansion during the same period Shorty does; neither of them, however, are present for the final 1970–71 season. Matthew and Mark Templeton (portrayed by actor Roger Torrey, who had auditioned for the part of Jethro; three episodes in season eight as Matthew; nine in season nine as Mark) are brothers. Matthew is the preacher Granny tags as a prospective husband for Elly. Unfortunately, Granny learns Matthew is married. Just a year later back in California, Elly meets Matthew's brother, Mark Templeton, who is a marine biologist and a frogman, whom Granny believes is actually part frog. The Mark Templeton storyline played out for nine episodes and was abruptly dropped, although advance publicity for the show indicated Elly May and Mark would marry during the season; however, the show was cancelled at the end of that season as part of the CBS Rural Purge. Cousin Roy (portrayed by Roy Clark; three episodes in seasons six and seven) is the Clampetts' cousin, who comes to Hollywood as an aspiring country singer. Jethro turns down the chance to be his agent, only to have Cousin Roy actually succeed. In a similar story line, singer Pat Boone guest-starred as himself; Jethro fails to be Boone's agent, too. Other Well Known Guest Stars Leo Durocher - in Series 1 Episode 29, the coach of the LA Dodgers appears as himself. Jim Backus - in Series 1 Episode 31, the Gilligan's Island and Mr. Magoo star appears as Mr Drysdale's boss, the chairman of the bank board. He ends up at the Clampetts for dinner and a hoe-down, something he really enjoys. Natalie Schafer - Backus's Gilligan Island co-star appears in Series 2 Episode 29 as a dress store owner. Kathleen Freeman - She appears in Series 1 Episode 32 as the wife of a conman who both try to get $100,000 off Jed in a court action claiming they were injured when Jethro ran into them outside the bank. She also appears in Series 4 Episode 9 as as a new neighbour's maid. She also appears in six episodes in Series 8 and 9 as Flo, the wife of Honest John Shafer (Phil Silvers - see above). Roy Roberts - He appears in the same episode as Kathleen Freeman as the judge. Later he appeared in a number of episodes as John Cushing, President of the Merchants Bank, a rival to Mr Drysdale's Commerce Bank. Hayden Rourke - the star of I Dream of Jeannie star plays a chauffeur in Series 1 Episode 36. Henry Gibson - plays the part of Granny's television idol, Quirt Manly. He is supposed to be a big western star but is revealed to be short and very unmanly. Robert Cummings - was an announcer in Series 2 Episode 20. Mel Blanc - the cartoon voice appears in Series 2 Episode 33 as a taxi driver. Sheila James - later a star in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis and a politician, she was in Series 2 Episode as bank employee Ginny Jennings. She also appears in in Series 5 Episode 19 as the same character, but this time she is a college student. Don Rickles - appears in Series 3 Episode 20 as Fred who gets Granny into gambling. Alan Soule - the star of Jet Jackson appeared in Series 4 Episode 15 as a drug salesman. John Carradine - appears in Series 4 Episode 23 as Marvo the Magnificent, a magician. Julie Newmar - Batwoman appears in Series 4 Episode 27 as actress Ulla Bergstrom. Wally Cox - appears in Series 4 Episode 28 as Miss Jane's date, birdwatcher Professor Biddle. Gloria Swanson - appears as herself in Series 5 Episode 12, she is selling her house and some possessions and donating proceeds to charity. Edy Williams - appears in Series 4 Episode 31 as a bank employee who flirts with Jethro John Wayne - appears as himself in Series 5 Episode 20 when Granny things Indians have attacked Bug Tussle. Two come to Beverly Hills to make peace with Jed. Mr Drysdale gets some actors to attack the house so Granny can fight them off and not go back to the hills. Ted Cassidy - later the star of The Addams Family. he stars as Mr Ted, a celebrity gardener. Granny thinks he is a hitman. Paul Lynde - appears in Series 6 Episode 1 as an immigration agent as the Clampetts leave LA for London to visit their castle. Alan Napier - Alfred from Batman, stars in Series 6 Episode 2 as a chemist in England when Granny wants to buy some ingredients. Dave Draper - Mr Universe in 1966, he appears as himself in Series 6 Episode 8. Granny thinks his muscles are some sort of disease. Richard Deacon - appears in Series 6 Episode 9 as as cemetery plot salesman and Series 9 Episode 6 as Dr Klingner. Mike Mazurki - appears in Series 6 Episode 23 as the father of a TV wrestler, The Boston Strong Girl. Granny beats her and her parents in a tag team wrestling match. Hans Conreid - appears in Series 6 Episode 25 as famed classical violonist Stromboli. John Denher - appears in in Series 6 Episode 26 as a soap opera character, Dr Rex Goodbody. Pat Boone - the singer appears in Series 6 Episode 26 looking to buy a house. The Clampetts think he is a down and out singer. Sammy Davis Jr. - appears as an Irish New York cop in Series 8 Episode 8. Charles Lane - appears in Series 9 Episode 20 as landlord. Mike Minor - as well as appearing as his Petticoat Junction character, he appeared in Series 9 Episodes 22-25 as Dick Bremerkamp, a penniless actor. Features of the Clampetts' House Cement Pond - this is what the Clampetts' call their swimming pool. Root Cellar - this is where Granny keeps her "vittles" and moonshine. Jed and Jethro dug it early in the first series. Fancy Eat'n Room - this is actually the room that the Clampetts eat meals on special occasions and with valued guests. They eat on the fancy eat'n table, actually the billiard table (pronounced billyard). They use "pot passers" (billiard cues) to pass various pots across the table. On the wall is the head of a rhinoceros which they think is a "billyard", hence the name of the room. It should be noted that for some reason, the billiard table has no pockets for the balls. The balls are thought to be huge eggs. Oven - in the first few episodes, Granny tries to light a fire in the gas oven using wood. She is not impressed by the lack of a flu. Water Taps - in the first few episodes Granny and Pearl are unimpressed that the water pump does not work. The "pump" is actually the water outlet in the sink. Refrigerator - when they first move in they cannot understand why there is frozen food in the cupboard. This turns out to be the "cooler box". Tennis Court - in Series 1 Episode 5 Jed buys some stock and puts them inside the tennis court as he thinks it is a stockyard. He is not happy with the middle fence though (the net). Chandelier - the chandelier in the main lobby is thought to be a broken object, they do not appear to be aware it is a light. Television - Mr Drysdale gives the Clampetts a TV for Christmas. Granny thinks it is a washing machine. Telephone - at first the Clampetts do not understand how a telephone works, they eventually realise you have to "spin the dial" and someone will answer. They pick up how to use it pretty quickly. Clampetts' Abilities Shooting - All the Clampetts are excellent shots, being able to light matches at 200 feet (60 metres), even shooting over their shoulder and using a mirror. They can shoot clay pigeons using rifles and sling-shots (Elly May). Throwing - Jethro and Elly May are expert throwers of rocks and other things. Jethro impresses the LA Dodger coach, Leo Durocher by throwing a baseball at a golf ball caught in a tree hundreds of feet away and then putting a baseball into a tree trunk knot at the same distance. Jethro later throws a ball at Mr Durocher who is knocked into the cement pond by the force of it. Elly May also knocks him into the cement pond by doing the same thing. Misunderstandings Civil War - Granny believes that the South did not lose the war and it is still going. He does not believe that Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant or that General Grant later became President. Confederate Money - Granny thinks this money is still valid for use in the USA. Film Stars - the Clampetts believe that film stars from the silent era of the 1920s and 1930s are still the current stars. They also do not know about talking movies till the series are well advanced. Golf - In Series 1 Episode 29, Jed and Jethro are invited to "shoot" a round of golf with Mr Drysdale and Leo Durocher the coach of the LA Dodgers. They surmise that "golfs" are some animal that lives in the holes and can fly (since Mr Durocher shot four birdies one day) and lays eggs (golf balls). Golf bags are used to carry the dead golfs and golf clubs are used to club the golfs after they are shot. Skeet Shooting - The Clampetts are roped into an interbank skeet shooting competition by Mr Drysdale. They think that the skeets are some sort of bird or animal. Once they see them, they think they are not worth shooting to

up a sweat and is a spoiled mama's boy. Once on a date, Sonny keeps Elly May out until after dark without proposing, running afoul of the old mountain courting code, and almost causing a feud. Elly May later (and literally) tosses him. Sonny only appears in four episodes, three in 1962 and a final appearance in 1966. Pearl Bodine (portrayed by Bea Benaderet; 22 episodes in season one) is Jed's widowed cousin. Pearl is a generally well-meaning mother to Jethro. She was also a popular character, often used as a foil for Granny, and became a regular part-way through the first season (the end credits were even refilmed to include Pearl with the other family members). The character disappeared after the first year because Benaderet had become the star of another Paul Henning series, Petticoat Junction. She is the daughter of Amos Clampett, Jed's uncle. Like Elly May, Pearl's name came from that of a character (Pearl Lester) in the popular rural-life novel, play, and film Tobacco Road. In the episodes "The Clampetts Get Psychoanalyzed" and "The Psychiatrist Gets Clampetted", Herbert Rudley plays psychiatrist Dr. Eugene Twombley, with whom Pearl is enamored; Benaderet's real-life husband was named Eugene Twombly. In season six, she makes a cameo appearance in the episode "Greetings from the President". Jethrine Bodine (portrayed by Max Baer, voiced by Linda Kaye Henning; 11 episodes in season one): Jethrine is Pearl's king-sized daughter and Jethro's twin. Jethrine appears in the first season; she moves with her mother to the Clampett mansion later that season, but occasionally is not seen in episodes during her stay in California. Jethrine is upset to leave the hills, as it means separation from her "sweetie", traveling salesman Jasper "Jazzbo" Depew (played by Phil Gordon in many episodes in the first series). Late in the season, an episode explained that Jethrine had returned home to marry Depew. Jethro and Jethrine rarely appeared in the same scene in any of the episodes, and then they were never on-camera at the same time, except for the rare back-of-the-head shot using a double. Jethrine also appears in the 1993 movie version. Honest John Shafer (portrayed by Phil Silvers; six episodes 1969–1970) is a sleazy confidence man who targets the Clampetts with various outrageous schemes such as selling Washington, DC, to Jed. Although Honest John always succeeds in initially bilking the Clampetts out of millions, his conscience always gets the better of him once he realizes that the Clampetts actually hold him in the highest esteem and treat him almost like family. Dash Riprock (portrayed by Larry Pennell; 10 episodes in seasons three-seven) is a handsome Hollywood actor employed by Jed's movie studio. Elly May and he meet while she is working as an extra at the studio. The two have an on-and-off relationship. Riprock was a send-up of the blatantly fake screen names employed by a number of movie actors of the period. Riprock's real name (before being changed by Hollywood moguls) was "Homer Noodleman", and he was from Peoria, Illinois. Lowell Redlings Farquhar (portrayed by Charles Ruggles; three episodes in seasons four and five) is the elderly father of Mrs. Drysdale. Granny considers him a potential beau. Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs (portrayed by themselves in seven episodes, 1963–68) are longtime friends of the Clampetts "back home" (Kimberling City, Missouri), who visit the Clampetts when they are on tour in California. The duo had a number-one Billboard country single with the show's "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" (although the song is actually performed in the credits by Jerry Scoggins to Flatt and Scruggs' instrumental). (Actress Joi Lansing played Flatt's wife, Gladys, in five episodes, 1963–68.) John Brewster (portrayed by Frank Wilcox; 14 episodes, 1962–1966), is the president and CEO of the OK Oil Company, headquartered in Tulsa, who purchases the oil rights to the gusher on the Clampett home. The Clampetts are quite fond of him and his wife occasionally visits them in California. Janet Trego (portrayed by Sharon Tate; 15 episodes, 1963–65) is a beautiful secretary at the Commerce Bank. Sam Drucker (portrayed by Frank Cady; 10 episodes in 1968–70) owns the general store in Hooterville. Granny is constantly under the impression Sam wants to marry her, but Sam has no such intention. Cady also starred as Sam Drucker in Petticoat Junction and Green Acres. Cady reprised the role of Sam Drucker for the 1990 Green Acres reunion movie Return to Green Acres. Helen Thompson (portrayed by Danielle Mardi; 17 episodes in 1969–71) is a beautiful British secretary at the Commerce Bank. Helen takes over Miss Hathaway's job as Mr. Drysdale's secretary after Miss Hathaway resigns. She is one of the ringleaders of the protest group the secretaries of the Commerce Bank create: GRUN (Girls Resist Unfair Neglect). She, along with many other secretaries, as well as Elly and Granny, live with Miss Hathaway for a short time in her apartment. Shorty Kellums (portrayed by Shug Fisher; 17 episodes in seasons eight and nine) is Jed's longtime buddy from back home, with whom Jed reunites in 1969 when the Clampetts go back home for an extended period. Shorty is a wiry little man who is crazy about voluptuous girls half his age. Shorty later moves into the Clampett mansion in Beverly Hills for a while. Elverna Bradshaw (portrayed by Elvia Allman; 13 episodes, 1963–70) is Granny's longtime rival back in the hills, a gossip second to none. Referenced as early as episode three, she makes a brief appearance in a 1963 episode when the Clampetts go back home to bring Pearl to California, but is not seen again until 1969, when the Clampetts return for an extended visit. However, both Granny and Jed refer to the character in several episodes throughout the series' run. Elverna and Granny rekindle their feud in a match to see who will be the first to marry, Elverna's daughter or Elly May. For reasons not really explained, Elverna also moves into the Clampett Beverly Hills mansion during the same period Shorty does; neither of them, however, are present for the final 1970–71 season. Matthew and Mark Templeton (portrayed by actor Roger Torrey, who had auditioned for the part of Jethro; three episodes in season eight as Matthew; nine in season nine as Mark) are brothers. Matthew is the preacher Granny tags as a prospective husband for Elly. Unfortunately, Granny learns Matthew is married. Just a year later back in California, Elly meets Matthew's brother, Mark Templeton, who is a marine biologist and a frogman, whom Granny believes is actually part frog. The Mark Templeton storyline played out for nine episodes and was abruptly dropped, although advance publicity for the show indicated Elly May and Mark would marry during the season; however, the show was cancelled at the end of that season as part of the CBS Rural Purge. Cousin Roy (portrayed by Roy Clark; three episodes in seasons six and seven) is the Clampetts' cousin, who comes to Hollywood as an aspiring country singer. Jethro turns down the chance to be his agent, only to have Cousin Roy actually succeed. In a similar story line, singer Pat Boone guest-starred as himself; Jethro fails to be Boone's agent, too. Other Well Known Guest Stars Leo Durocher - in Series 1 Episode 29, the coach of the LA Dodgers appears as himself. Jim Backus - in Series 1 Episode 31, the Gilligan's Island and Mr. Magoo star appears as Mr Drysdale's boss, the chairman of the bank board. He ends up at the Clampetts for dinner and a hoe-down, something he really enjoys. Natalie Schafer - Backus's Gilligan Island co-star appears in Series 2 Episode 29 as a dress store owner. Kathleen Freeman - She appears in Series 1 Episode 32 as the wife of a conman who both try to get $100,000 off Jed in a court action claiming they were injured when Jethro ran into them outside the bank. She also appears in Series 4 Episode 9 as as a new neighbour's maid. She also appears in six episodes in Series 8 and 9 as Flo, the wife of Honest John Shafer (Phil Silvers - see above). Roy Roberts - He appears in the same episode as Kathleen Freeman as the judge. Later he appeared in a number of episodes as John Cushing, President of the Merchants Bank, a rival to Mr Drysdale's Commerce Bank. Hayden Rourke - the star of I Dream of Jeannie star plays a chauffeur in Series 1 Episode 36. Henry Gibson - plays the part of Granny's television idol, Quirt Manly. He is supposed to be a big western star but is revealed to be short and very unmanly. Robert Cummings - was an announcer in Series 2 Episode 20. Mel Blanc - the cartoon voice appears in Series 2 Episode 33 as a taxi driver. Sheila James - later a star in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis and a politician, she was in Series 2 Episode as bank employee Ginny Jennings. She also appears in in Series 5 Episode 19 as the same character, but this time she is a college student. Don Rickles - appears in Series 3 Episode 20 as Fred who gets Granny into gambling. Alan Soule - the star of Jet Jackson appeared in Series 4 Episode 15 as a drug salesman. John Carradine - appears in Series 4 Episode 23 as Marvo the Magnificent, a magician. Julie Newmar - Batwoman appears in Series 4 Episode 27 as actress Ulla Bergstrom. Wally Cox - appears in Series 4 Episode 28 as Miss Jane's date, birdwatcher Professor Biddle. Gloria Swanson - appears as herself in Series 5 Episode 12, she is selling her house and some possessions and donating proceeds to charity. Edy Williams - appears in Series 4 Episode 31 as a bank employee who flirts with Jethro John Wayne - appears as himself in Series 5 Episode 20 when Granny things Indians have attacked Bug Tussle. Two come to Beverly Hills to make peace with Jed. Mr Drysdale gets some actors to attack the house so Granny can fight them off and not go back to the hills. Ted Cassidy - later the star of The Addams Family. he stars as Mr Ted, a celebrity gardener. Granny thinks he is a hitman. Paul Lynde - appears in Series 6 Episode 1 as an immigration agent as the Clampetts leave LA for London to visit their castle. Alan Napier - Alfred from Batman, stars in Series 6 Episode 2 as a chemist in England when Granny wants to buy some ingredients. Dave Draper - Mr Universe in 1966, he appears as himself in Series 6 Episode 8. Granny thinks his muscles are some sort of disease. Richard Deacon - appears in Series 6 Episode 9 as as cemetery plot salesman and Series 9 Episode 6 as Dr Klingner. Mike Mazurki - appears in Series 6 Episode 23 as the father of a TV wrestler, The Boston Strong Girl. Granny beats her and her parents in a tag team wrestling match. Hans Conreid - appears in Series 6 Episode 25 as famed classical violonist Stromboli. John Denher - appears in in Series 6 Episode 26 as a soap opera character, Dr Rex Goodbody. Pat Boone - the singer appears in Series 6 Episode 26 looking to buy a house. The Clampetts think he is a down and out singer. Sammy Davis Jr. - appears as an Irish New York cop in Series 8 Episode 8. Charles Lane - appears in Series 9 Episode 20 as landlord. Mike Minor - as well as appearing as his Petticoat Junction character, he appeared in Series 9 Episodes 22-25 as Dick Bremerkamp, a penniless actor. Features of the Clampetts' House Cement Pond - this is what the Clampetts' call their swimming pool. Root Cellar - this is where Granny keeps her "vittles" and moonshine. Jed and Jethro dug it early in the first series. Fancy Eat'n Room - this is actually the room that the Clampetts eat meals on special occasions and with valued guests. They eat on the fancy eat'n table, actually the billiard table (pronounced billyard). They use "pot passers" (billiard cues) to pass various pots across the table. On the wall is the head of a rhinoceros which they think is a "billyard", hence the name of the room. It should be noted that for some reason, the billiard table has no pockets for the balls. The balls are thought to be huge eggs. Oven - in the first few episodes, Granny tries to light a fire in the gas oven using wood. She is not impressed by the lack of a flu. Water Taps - in the first few episodes Granny and Pearl are unimpressed that the water pump does not work. The "pump" is actually the water outlet in the sink. Refrigerator - when they first move in they cannot understand why there is frozen food in the cupboard. This turns out to be the "cooler box". Tennis Court - in Series 1 Episode 5 Jed buys some stock and puts them inside the tennis court as he thinks it is a stockyard. He is not happy with the middle fence though (the net). Chandelier - the chandelier in the main lobby is thought to be a broken object, they do not appear to be aware it is a light. Television - Mr Drysdale gives the Clampetts a TV for Christmas. Granny thinks it is a washing machine. Telephone - at first the Clampetts do not understand how a telephone works, they eventually realise you have to "spin the dial" and someone will answer. They pick up how to use it pretty quickly. Clampetts' Abilities Shooting - All the Clampetts are excellent shots, being able to light matches at 200 feet (60 metres), even shooting over their shoulder and using a mirror. They can shoot clay pigeons using rifles and sling-shots (Elly May). Throwing - Jethro and Elly May are expert throwers of rocks and other things. Jethro impresses the LA Dodger coach, Leo Durocher by throwing a baseball at a golf ball caught in a tree hundreds of feet away and then putting a baseball into a tree trunk knot at the same distance. Jethro later throws a ball at Mr Durocher who is knocked into the cement pond by the force of it. Elly May also knocks him into the cement pond by doing the same thing. Misunderstandings Civil War - Granny believes that the South did not lose the war and it is still going. He does not believe that Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant or that General Grant later became President. Confederate Money - Granny thinks this money is still valid for use in the USA. Film Stars - the Clampetts believe that film stars from the silent era of the 1920s and 1930s are still the current stars. They also do not know about talking movies till the series are well advanced. Golf - In Series 1 Episode 29, Jed and Jethro are invited to "shoot" a round of golf with Mr Drysdale and Leo Durocher the coach of the LA Dodgers. They surmise that "golfs" are some animal that lives in the holes and can fly (since Mr Durocher shot four birdies one day) and lays eggs (golf balls). Golf bags are used to carry the dead golfs and golf clubs are used to club the golfs after they are shot. Skeet Shooting - The Clampetts are roped into an interbank skeet shooting competition by Mr Drysdale. They think that the skeets are some sort of bird or animal. Once they see them, they think they are not worth shooting to eat. Of course all four of them are experts, Jed and Jethro using a rifle, Granny a shotgun and Elly May with a sling-shot. Door Bell - In the first two series, whenever someone comes to the front door and presses the doorbell, a chime plays throughout the house. At first they do not know why it is playing, but eventually they declare that whenever the music plays, someone comes to the front door stopping them from finding the source of the music. MD - Whenever anyone talks about an MD or Doctor, Granny says she is an MD as she is a "Mountain Doctor". Mrs Drysdale - In the first series, the Clampetts think that she is a drunk but really she is a hypochondriac. Granny tries to treat her to stop her drinking. Buy Good Stock - In Series 1 Episode 5, Jed buys cows, pigs, chickens and goats when he misunderstands Mr Drysdale's advice to "buy good stock". He puts them in the tennis court which he thinks is a stockyard. Halloween - At Halloween they see some children with masks on and think they are the homeliest children they have ever seen. They are also mistaken as being in Holloween costume when they go visiting their neighbours and return with lots of "presents". Double Barrel Sling Shot - Elly May is given a bra to wear with good city clothes. She thinks it is the best "double barrel sling shot" she has ever seen. Flamingo - They mistake a flamingo in their grounds as a strange chicken. Topless Restaurant - The Clampetts think that this must refer to restaurants where the staff do not wear hats. They open one to serve mountain food. Parking Tickets - Jethro gets a $5 parking ticket from a Police officer for parking in front of the bank. He tells Jed it lets him park there now. Aircraft - when the Clampetts go back to the hills by plane, they think they are on a bus. When it goes very fast Granny says if it goes any faster, it will take off. Possum Day - the Clampetts believe that LA celebrates Possum Day but a day later than they do back in Tennessee after Mr Drysdale puts on a Possum Day Parade for them. Kangaroo - a kangaroo escapes from a zoo and Granny thinks it is an over-sized jack rabbit. The others think she has been drinking moonshine. Frogman - Granny believes that Mark Templeton who is courting Elly May is half frog, half man. He is really a Navy frogman. Jethro's Professions and Inventions Over the series Jethro Bodine decided to use his "sixth-grade education" to take up various professions. Double Naught Spy - he decides that as 007 James Bond is so successful with women, he will become a "double naught" spy. This is in Series 2 Episode 21 and Series 4 Episode 4. Brain Surgeon - another of Jethro's short term profession aims. Car Telephone - Jethro decides to add a phone to his truck. The only trouble is the wires that run from the phone pole he mounts in the truck run out just after leaving their property. Talent agent - from Series 7 Episode 17 to Episode 19 Jethro runs JB Enterprises on the 5th

except for gradual thickening of the oxide up to about 25 nm. When heated above about 500 °C, oxidation into the bulk metal progresses along grain boundaries. Once the metal is ignited in air by heating above the oxide melting point around 2500 °C, beryllium burns brilliantly, forming a mixture of beryllium oxide and beryllium nitride. Beryllium dissolves readily in non-oxidizing acids, such as HCl and diluted H2SO4, but not in nitric acid or water as this forms the oxide. This behavior is similar to that of aluminium metal. Beryllium also dissolves in alkali solutions. Binary compounds of beryllium(II) are polymeric in the solid state. BeF2 has a silica-like structure with corner-shared BeF4 tetrahedra. BeCl2 and BeBr2 have chain structures with edge-shared tetrahedra. Beryllium oxide, BeO, is a white refractory solid, which has the wurtzite crystal structure and a thermal conductivity as high as some metals. BeO is amphoteric. Beryllium sulfide, selenide and telluride are known, all having the zincblende structure. Beryllium nitride, Be3N2 is a high-melting-point compound which is readily hydrolyzed. Beryllium azide, BeN6 is known and beryllium phosphide, Be3P2 has a similar structure to Be3N2. A number of beryllium borides are known, such as Be5B, Be4B, Be2B, BeB2, BeB6 and BeB12. Beryllium carbide, Be2C, is a refractory brick-red compound that reacts with water to give methane. No beryllium silicide has been identified. The halides BeX2 (X = F, Cl, Br, I) have a linear monomeric molecular structure in the gas phase. Complexes of the halides are formed with one or more ligands donating at total of two pairs of electrons. Such compounds obey the octet rule. Other 4-coordinate complexes such as the aqua-ion [Be(H2O)4]2+ also obey the octet rule. Solutions of beryllium salts, such as beryllium sulfate and beryllium nitrate, are acidic because of hydrolysis of the [Be(H2O)4]2+ ion. The concentration of the first hydrolysis product, [Be(H2O)3(OH)]+, is less than 1% of the beryllium concentration. The most stable hydrolysis product is the trimeric ion [Be3(OH)3(H2O)6]3+. Beryllium hydroxide, Be(OH)2, is insoluble in water at pH 5 or more. Consequently, beryllium compounds are generally insoluble at biological pH. Because of this, inhalation of beryllium metal dust by people leads to the development of the fatal condition of berylliosis. Be(OH)2 dissolves in strongly alkaline solutions. In basic beryllium acetate the central oxygen atom is surrounded by a tetrahedron of beryllium atoms. Beryllium difluoride, unlike the other alkaline earth difluorides, is very soluble in water. Aqueous solutions of this salt contain ions such as [Be(H2O)3F]+. Beryllium hydroxide reacts with ammonium bifluoride to form the ammonium salt of the tetrafluoroberyllate complex, [(H4N+)2][BeF42−]. Organic chemistry Organoberyllium chemistry is limited to academic research due to the cost and toxicity of beryllium, beryllium derivatives and reagents required for the introduction of beryllium, such as beryllium chloride. Organometallic beryllium compounds are known to be highly reactive Examples of known organoberyllium compounds are dineopentylberyllium, beryllocene (Cp2Be), diallylberyllium (by exchange reaction of diethyl beryllium with triallyl boron), bis(1,3-trimethylsilylallyl)beryllium and Be(mes)2. Ligands can also be aryls and alkynyls. History The mineral beryl, which contains beryllium, has been used at least since the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt. In the first century CE, Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder mentioned in his encyclopedia Natural History that beryl and emerald ("smaragdus") were similar. The Papyrus Graecus Holmiensis, written in the third or fourth century CE, contains notes on how to prepare artificial emerald and beryl. Early analyses of emeralds and beryls by Martin Heinrich Klaproth, Torbern Olof Bergman, Franz Karl Achard, and Johann Jakob Bindheim always yielded similar elements, leading to the fallacious conclusion that both substances are aluminium silicates. Mineralogist René Just Haüy discovered that both crystals are geometrically identical, and he asked chemist Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin for a chemical analysis. In a 1798 paper read before the Institut de France, Vauquelin reported that he found a new "earth" by dissolving aluminium hydroxide from emerald and beryl in an additional alkali. The editors of the journal Annales de Chimie et de Physique named the new earth "glucine" for the sweet taste of some of its compounds. Klaproth preferred the name "beryllina" due to the fact that yttria also formed sweet salts. The name "beryllium" was first used by Wöhler in 1828. Friedrich Wöhler and Antoine Bussy independently isolated beryllium in 1828 by the chemical reaction of metallic potassium with beryllium chloride, as follows: BeCl2 + 2 K → 2 KCl + Be Using an alcohol lamp, Wöhler heated alternating layers of beryllium chloride and potassium in a wired-shut platinum crucible. The above reaction immediately took place and caused the crucible to become white hot. Upon cooling and washing the resulting gray-black powder he saw that it was made of fine particles with a dark metallic luster. The highly reactive potassium had been produced by the electrolysis of its compounds, a process discovered 21 years before. The chemical method using potassium yielded only small grains of beryllium from which no ingot of metal could be cast or hammered. The direct electrolysis of a molten mixture of beryllium fluoride and sodium fluoride by Paul Lebeau in 1898 resulted in the first pure (99.5 to 99.8%) samples of beryllium. However, industrial production started only after the First World War. The original industrial involvement included subsidiaries and scientists related to the Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation in Cleveland OH and Siemens & Halske AG in Berlin. In the US, the process was ruled by Hugh S. Cooper, director of The Kemet Laboratories Company. In Germany, the first commercially successful process for producing beryllium was developed in 1921 by Alfred Stock and Hans Goldschmidt. A sample of beryllium was bombarded with alpha rays from the decay of radium in a 1932 experiment by James Chadwick that uncovered the existence of the neutron. This same method is used in one class of radioisotope-based laboratory neutron sources that produce 30 neutrons for every million α particles. Beryllium production saw a rapid increase during World War II, due to the rising demand for hard beryllium-copper alloys and phosphors for fluorescent lights. Most early fluorescent lamps used zinc orthosilicate with varying content of beryllium to emit greenish light. Small additions of magnesium tungstate improved the blue part of the spectrum to yield an acceptable white light. Halophosphate-based phosphors replaced beryllium-based phosphors after beryllium was found to be toxic. Electrolysis of a mixture of beryllium fluoride and sodium fluoride was used to isolate beryllium during the 19th century. The metal's high melting point makes this process more energy-consuming than corresponding processes used for the alkali metals. Early in the 20th century, the production of beryllium by the thermal decomposition of beryllium iodide was investigated following the success of a similar process for the production of zirconium, but this process proved to be uneconomical for volume production. Pure beryllium metal did not become readily available until 1957, even though it had been used as an alloying metal to harden and toughen copper much earlier. Beryllium could be produced by reducing beryllium compounds such as beryllium chloride with metallic potassium or sodium. Currently, most beryllium is produced by reducing beryllium fluoride with magnesium. The price on the American market for vacuum-cast beryllium ingots was about $338 per pound ($745 per kilogram) in 2001. Between 1998 and 2008, the world's production of beryllium had decreased from 343 to about 200 tonnes. It then increased to 230 tonnes by 2018, of which 170 tonnes came from the United States. Etymology Named after beryl, a semiprecious mineral, from which it was first isolated. Applications Radiation windows Because of its low atomic number and very low absorption for X-rays, the oldest and still one of the most important applications of beryllium is in radiation windows for X-ray tubes. Extreme demands are placed on purity and cleanliness of beryllium to avoid artifacts in the X-ray images. Thin beryllium foils are used as radiation windows for X-ray detectors, and the extremely low absorption minimizes the heating effects caused by high intensity, low energy X-rays typical of synchrotron radiation. Vacuum-tight windows and beam-tubes for radiation experiments on synchrotrons are manufactured exclusively from beryllium. In scientific setups for various X-ray emission studies (e.g., energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy) the sample holder is usually made of beryllium because its emitted X-rays have much lower energies (≈100 eV) than X-rays from most studied materials. Low atomic number also makes beryllium relatively transparent to energetic particles. Therefore, it is used to build the beam pipe around the collision region in particle physics setups, such as all four main detector experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, LHCb), the Tevatron and at SLAC. The low density of beryllium allows collision products to reach the surrounding detectors without significant interaction, its stiffness allows a powerful vacuum to be produced within the pipe to minimize interaction with gases, its thermal stability allows it to function correctly at temperatures of only a few degrees above absolute zero, and its diamagnetic nature keeps it from interfering with the complex multipole magnet systems used to steer and focus the particle beams. Mechanical applications Because of its stiffness, light weight and dimensional stability over a wide temperature range, beryllium metal is used for lightweight structural components in the defense and aerospace industries in high-speed aircraft, guided missiles, spacecraft, and satellites, including the James Webb Space Telescope. Several liquid-fuel rockets have used rocket nozzles made of pure beryllium. Beryllium powder was itself studied as a rocket fuel, but this use has never materialized. A small number of extreme high-end bicycle frames have been built with beryllium. From 1998 to 2000, the McLaren Formula One team used Mercedes-Benz engines with beryllium-aluminium-alloy pistons. The use of beryllium engine components was banned following a protest by Scuderia Ferrari. Mixing about 2.0% beryllium into copper forms an alloy called beryllium copper that is six times stronger than copper alone. Beryllium alloys are used in many applications because of their combination of elasticity, high electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity, high strength and hardness, nonmagnetic properties, as well as good corrosion and fatigue resistance. These applications include non-sparking tools that are used near flammable gases (beryllium nickel), in springs and membranes (beryllium nickel and beryllium iron) used in surgical instruments and high temperature devices. As little as 50 parts per million of beryllium alloyed with liquid magnesium leads to a significant increase in oxidation resistance and decrease in flammability. The high elastic stiffness of beryllium has led to its extensive use in precision instrumentation, e.g. in inertial guidance systems and in the support mechanisms for optical systems. Beryllium-copper alloys were also applied as a hardening agent in "Jason pistols", which were used to strip the paint from the hulls of ships. Beryllium was also used for cantilevers in high performance phonograph cartridge styli, where its extreme stiffness and low density allowed for tracking weights to be reduced to 1 gram, yet still track high frequency passages with minimal distortion. An earlier major application of beryllium was in brakes for military airplanes because of its hardness, high melting point, and exceptional ability to dissipate heat. Environmental considerations have led to substitution by other materials. To reduce costs, beryllium can be alloyed with significant amounts of aluminium, resulting in the AlBeMet alloy (a trade name). This blend is cheaper than pure beryllium, while still retaining many desirable properties. Mirrors Beryllium mirrors are of particular interest. Large-area mirrors, frequently with a honeycomb support structure, are used, for example, in meteorological satellites where low weight and long-term dimensional stability are critical. Smaller beryllium mirrors are used in optical guidance systems and in fire-control systems, e.g. in the German-made Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 main battle tanks. In these systems, very rapid movement of the mirror is required which again dictates low mass and high rigidity. Usually the beryllium mirror is coated with hard electroless nickel plating which can be more easily polished to a finer optical finish than beryllium. In some applications, though, the beryllium blank is polished without any coating. This is particularly applicable to cryogenic operation where thermal expansion mismatch can cause the coating to buckle. The James Webb Space Telescope has 18 hexagonal beryllium sections for its mirrors, each plated with a thin layer of gold. Because JWST will face a temperature of 33 K, the mirror is made of gold-plated beryllium, capable of handling extreme cold better than glass. Beryllium contracts and deforms less than glass – and remains more uniform – in such temperatures. For the same reason, the optics of the Spitzer Space Telescope are entirely built of beryllium metal. Magnetic applications Beryllium is non-magnetic. Therefore, tools fabricated out of beryllium-based materials are used by naval or military explosive ordnance disposal teams for work on or near naval mines, since these mines commonly have magnetic fuzes. They are also found in maintenance and construction materials near magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines because of the high magnetic fields generated. In the fields of radio communications and powerful (usually military) radars, hand tools made of beryllium are used to tune the highly magnetic klystrons, magnetrons, traveling wave tubes, etc., that are used for generating high levels of microwave power in the transmitters. Nuclear applications Thin plates or foils of beryllium are sometimes used in nuclear weapon designs as the very outer layer of the plutonium pits in the primary stages of thermonuclear bombs, placed to surround the fissile material. These layers of beryllium are good "pushers" for the implosion of the plutonium-239, and they are good neutron reflectors, just as in beryllium-moderated nuclear reactors. Beryllium is also commonly used in some neutron sources in laboratory devices in which relatively few neutrons are needed (rather than having to use a nuclear reactor, or a particle accelerator-powered neutron generator). For this purpose, a target of beryllium-9 is bombarded with energetic alpha particles from a radioisotope such as polonium-210, radium-226, plutonium-238, or americium-241. In the nuclear reaction that occurs, a beryllium nucleus is transmuted into carbon-12, and one free neutron is emitted, traveling in about the same direction as the alpha particle was heading. Such alpha decay driven beryllium neutron sources, named "urchin" neutron initiators, were used in some early atomic bombs. Neutron sources in which beryllium is bombarded with gamma rays from a gamma decay radioisotope, are also used to produce laboratory neutrons. Beryllium is also used in fuel fabrication for CANDU reactors. The fuel elements have small appendages that are resistance brazed to the fuel cladding using an induction brazing process with Be as the braze filler material. Bearing pads are brazed in place to prevent contact between the fuel bundle and the pressure tube containing it, and inter-element spacer pads are brazed on to prevent element to element contact. Beryllium is also used at the Joint European Torus nuclear-fusion research laboratory, and it will be used in the more advanced ITER to condition the components which face the plasma. Beryllium has also been proposed as a cladding material for nuclear fuel rods, because of its good combination of mechanical, chemical, and nuclear properties. Beryllium fluoride is one of the constituent salts of the eutectic salt mixture FLiBe, which is used as a solvent, moderator and coolant in many hypothetical molten salt reactor designs, including the liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR). Acoustics The low weight and high rigidity of beryllium make it useful as a material for high-frequency speaker drivers. Because beryllium is expensive (many times more than titanium), hard to shape due to its brittleness, and toxic if mishandled, beryllium tweeters are limited to high-end home, pro audio, and public address applications. Some high-fidelity products have been fraudulently claimed to be made of the material. Some high-end phonograph cartridges used beryllium cantilevers to improve tracking by reducing mass. Electronic Beryllium is a p-type dopant in III-V compound semiconductors. It is widely used in materials such as GaAs, AlGaAs, InGaAs and InAlAs grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Cross-rolled beryllium sheet is an excellent structural support for printed circuit boards in surface-mount technology. In critical electronic applications, beryllium is both a structural support and heat sink. The application also requires a coefficient of thermal expansion that is well matched to the alumina and polyimide-glass substrates. The beryllium-beryllium oxide composite "E-Materials" have been specially designed for these electronic applications and have the additional advantage that the thermal expansion coefficient can be tailored to match diverse substrate materials. Beryllium oxide is useful for many applications that require the combined properties of an electrical insulator and an excellent heat conductor, with high strength and hardness, and a very high melting point. Beryllium oxide is frequently used as an insulator base plate in high-power transistors in radio frequency transmitters for telecommunications. Beryllium oxide is also being studied for use in increasing the thermal conductivity of uranium dioxide nuclear fuel pellets. Beryllium compounds were used in fluorescent lighting tubes, but this use was discontinued because of the disease berylliosis which developed in the workers who were making the tubes. Healthcare Beryllium is a component of several dental alloys. Occupational safety and health Beryllium is a health

in the Big Bang. This is due to the lack of sufficient time during the Big Bang's nucleosynthesis phase to produce carbon by the fusion of 4He nuclei and the very low concentrations of available beryllium-8. British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle first showed that the energy levels of 8Be and 12C allow carbon production by the so-called triple-alpha process in helium-fueled stars where more nucleosynthesis time is available. This process allows carbon to be produced in stars, but not in the Big Bang. Star-created carbon (the basis of carbon-based life) is thus a component in the elements in the gas and dust ejected by AGB stars and supernovae (see also Big Bang nucleosynthesis), as well as the creation of all other elements with atomic numbers larger than that of carbon. The 2s electrons of beryllium may contribute to chemical bonding. Therefore, when 7Be decays by L-electron capture, it does so by taking electrons from its atomic orbitals that may be participating in bonding. This makes its decay rate dependent to a measurable degree upon its chemical surroundings – a rare occurrence in nuclear decay. The shortest-lived known isotope of beryllium is 16Be, which decays through neutron emission with a half-life of . The exotic isotopes 11Be and 14Be are known to exhibit a nuclear halo. This phenomenon can be understood as the nuclei of 11Be and 14Be have, respectively, 1 and 4 neutrons orbiting substantially outside the classical Fermi 'waterdrop' model of the nucleus. Occurrence The Sun has a concentration of 0.1 parts per billion (ppb) of beryllium. Beryllium has a concentration of 2 to 6 parts per million (ppm) in the Earth's crust. It is most concentrated in the soils, 6 ppm. Trace amounts of 9Be are found in the Earth's atmosphere. The concentration of beryllium in sea water is 0.2–0.6 parts per trillion. In stream water, however, beryllium is more abundant with a concentration of 0.1 ppb. Beryllium is found in over 100 minerals, but most are uncommon to rare. The more common beryllium containing minerals include: bertrandite (Be4Si2O7(OH)2), beryl (Al2Be3Si6O18), chrysoberyl (Al2BeO4) and phenakite (Be2SiO4). Precious forms of beryl are aquamarine, red beryl and emerald. The green color in gem-quality forms of beryl comes from varying amounts of chromium (about 2% for emerald). The two main ores of beryllium, beryl and bertrandite, are found in Argentina, Brazil, India, Madagascar, Russia and the United States. Total world reserves of beryllium ore are greater than 400,000 tonnes. Production The extraction of beryllium from its compounds is a difficult process due to its high affinity for oxygen at elevated temperatures, and its ability to reduce water when its oxide film is removed. Currently the United States, China and Kazakhstan are the only three countries involved in the industrial-scale extraction of beryllium. Kazakhstan produces beryllium from a concentrate stockpiled before the breakup of the Soviet Union around 1991. This resource has become nearly depleted by mid-2010s. Production of beryllium in Russia was halted in 1997, and is planned to be resumed in the 2020s. Beryllium is most commonly extracted from the mineral beryl, which is either sintered using an extraction agent or melted into a soluble mixture. The sintering process involves mixing beryl with sodium fluorosilicate and soda at to form sodium fluoroberyllate, aluminium oxide and silicon dioxide. Beryllium hydroxide is precipitated from a solution of sodium fluoroberyllate and sodium hydroxide in water. Extraction of beryllium using the melt method involves grinding beryl into a powder and heating it to . The melt is quickly cooled with water and then reheated in concentrated sulfuric acid, mostly yielding beryllium sulfate and aluminium sulfate. Aqueous ammonia is then used to remove the aluminium and sulfur, leaving beryllium hydroxide. Beryllium hydroxide created using either the sinter or melt method is then converted into beryllium fluoride or beryllium chloride. To form the fluoride, aqueous ammonium hydrogen fluoride is added to beryllium hydroxide to yield a precipitate of ammonium tetrafluoroberyllate, which is heated to to form beryllium fluoride. Heating the fluoride to with magnesium forms finely divided beryllium, and additional heating to creates the compact metal. Heating beryllium hydroxide forms the oxide, which becomes beryllium chloride when combined with carbon and chlorine. Electrolysis of molten beryllium chloride is then used to obtain the metal. Chemical properties A beryllium atom has the electronic configuration [He] 2s2. The predominant oxidation state of beryllium is +2; the beryllium atom has lost both of its valence electrons. Lower oxidation states have been found in, for example, bis(carbene) compounds. Beryllium's chemical behavior is largely a result of its small atomic and ionic radii. It thus has very high ionization potentials and strong polarization while bonded to other atoms, which is why all of its compounds are covalent. Its chemistry has similarities with the chemistry of aluminium, an example of a diagonal relationship. At room temperature, the surface of beryllium forms a 1−10 nm-thick oxide passivation layer that prevents further reactions with air, except for gradual thickening of the oxide up to about 25 nm. When heated above about 500 °C, oxidation into the bulk metal progresses along grain boundaries. Once the metal is ignited in air by heating above the oxide melting point around 2500 °C, beryllium burns brilliantly, forming a mixture of beryllium oxide and beryllium nitride. Beryllium dissolves readily in non-oxidizing acids, such as HCl and diluted H2SO4, but not in nitric acid or water as this forms the oxide. This behavior is similar to that of aluminium metal. Beryllium also dissolves in alkali solutions. Binary compounds of beryllium(II) are polymeric in the solid state. BeF2 has a silica-like structure with corner-shared BeF4 tetrahedra. BeCl2 and BeBr2 have chain structures with edge-shared tetrahedra. Beryllium oxide, BeO, is a white refractory solid, which has the wurtzite crystal structure and a thermal conductivity as high as some metals. BeO is amphoteric. Beryllium sulfide, selenide and telluride are known, all having the zincblende structure. Beryllium nitride, Be3N2 is a high-melting-point compound which is readily hydrolyzed. Beryllium azide, BeN6 is known and beryllium phosphide, Be3P2 has a similar structure to Be3N2. A number of beryllium borides are known, such as Be5B, Be4B, Be2B, BeB2, BeB6 and BeB12. Beryllium carbide, Be2C, is a refractory brick-red compound that reacts with water to give methane. No beryllium silicide has been identified. The halides BeX2 (X = F, Cl, Br, I) have a linear monomeric molecular structure in the gas phase. Complexes of the halides are formed with one or more ligands donating at total of two pairs of electrons. Such compounds obey the octet rule. Other 4-coordinate complexes such as the aqua-ion [Be(H2O)4]2+ also obey the octet rule. Solutions of beryllium salts, such as beryllium sulfate and beryllium nitrate, are acidic because of hydrolysis of the [Be(H2O)4]2+ ion. The concentration of the first hydrolysis product, [Be(H2O)3(OH)]+, is less than 1% of the beryllium concentration. The most stable hydrolysis product is the trimeric ion [Be3(OH)3(H2O)6]3+. Beryllium hydroxide, Be(OH)2, is insoluble in water at pH 5 or more. Consequently, beryllium compounds are generally insoluble at biological pH. Because of this, inhalation of beryllium metal dust by people leads to the development of the fatal condition of berylliosis. Be(OH)2 dissolves in strongly alkaline solutions. In basic beryllium acetate the central oxygen atom is surrounded by a tetrahedron of beryllium atoms. Beryllium difluoride, unlike the other alkaline earth difluorides, is very soluble in water. Aqueous solutions of this salt contain ions such as [Be(H2O)3F]+. Beryllium hydroxide reacts with ammonium bifluoride to form the ammonium salt of the tetrafluoroberyllate complex, [(H4N+)2][BeF42−]. Organic chemistry Organoberyllium chemistry is limited to academic research due to the cost and toxicity of beryllium, beryllium derivatives and reagents required for the introduction of beryllium, such as beryllium chloride. Organometallic beryllium compounds are known to be highly reactive Examples of known organoberyllium compounds are dineopentylberyllium, beryllocene (Cp2Be), diallylberyllium (by exchange reaction of diethyl beryllium with triallyl boron), bis(1,3-trimethylsilylallyl)beryllium and Be(mes)2. Ligands can also be aryls and alkynyls. History The mineral beryl, which contains beryllium, has been used at least since the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt. In the first century CE, Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder mentioned in his encyclopedia Natural History that beryl and emerald ("smaragdus") were similar. The Papyrus Graecus Holmiensis, written in the third or fourth century CE, contains notes on how to prepare artificial emerald and beryl. Early analyses of emeralds and beryls by Martin Heinrich Klaproth, Torbern Olof Bergman, Franz Karl Achard, and Johann Jakob Bindheim always yielded similar elements, leading to the fallacious conclusion that both substances are aluminium silicates. Mineralogist René Just Haüy discovered that both crystals are geometrically identical, and he asked chemist Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin for a chemical analysis. In a 1798 paper read before the Institut de France, Vauquelin reported that he found a new "earth" by dissolving aluminium hydroxide from emerald and beryl in an additional alkali. The editors of the journal Annales de Chimie et de Physique named the new earth "glucine" for the sweet taste of some of its compounds. Klaproth preferred the name "beryllina" due to the fact that yttria also formed sweet salts. The name "beryllium" was first used by Wöhler in 1828. Friedrich Wöhler and Antoine Bussy independently isolated beryllium in 1828 by the chemical reaction of metallic potassium with beryllium chloride, as follows: BeCl2 + 2 K → 2 KCl + Be Using an alcohol lamp, Wöhler heated alternating layers of beryllium chloride and potassium in a wired-shut platinum crucible. The above reaction immediately took place and caused the crucible to become white hot. Upon cooling and washing the resulting gray-black powder he saw that it was made of fine particles with a dark metallic luster. The highly reactive potassium had been produced by the electrolysis of its compounds, a process discovered 21 years before. The chemical method using potassium yielded only small grains of beryllium from which no ingot of metal could be cast or hammered. The direct electrolysis of a molten mixture of beryllium fluoride and sodium fluoride by Paul Lebeau in 1898 resulted in the first pure (99.5 to 99.8%) samples of beryllium. However, industrial production started only after the First World War. The original industrial involvement included subsidiaries and scientists related to the Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation in Cleveland OH and Siemens & Halske AG in Berlin. In the US, the process was ruled by Hugh S. Cooper, director of The Kemet Laboratories Company. In Germany, the first commercially successful process for producing beryllium was developed in 1921 by Alfred Stock and Hans Goldschmidt. A sample of beryllium was bombarded with alpha rays from the decay of radium in a 1932 experiment by James Chadwick that uncovered the existence of the neutron. This same method is used in one class of radioisotope-based laboratory neutron sources that produce 30 neutrons for every million α particles. Beryllium production saw a rapid increase during World War II, due to the rising demand for hard beryllium-copper alloys and phosphors for fluorescent lights. Most early fluorescent lamps used zinc orthosilicate with varying content of beryllium to emit greenish light. Small additions of magnesium tungstate improved the blue part of the spectrum to yield an acceptable white light. Halophosphate-based phosphors replaced beryllium-based phosphors after beryllium was found to be toxic. Electrolysis of a mixture of beryllium fluoride and sodium fluoride was used to isolate beryllium during the 19th century. The metal's high melting point makes this process more energy-consuming than corresponding processes used for the alkali metals. Early in the 20th century, the production of beryllium by the thermal decomposition of beryllium iodide was investigated following the success of a similar process for the production of zirconium, but this process proved to be uneconomical for volume production. Pure beryllium metal did not become readily available until 1957, even though it had been used as an alloying metal to harden and toughen copper much earlier. Beryllium could be produced by reducing beryllium compounds such as beryllium chloride with metallic potassium or sodium. Currently, most beryllium is produced by reducing beryllium fluoride with magnesium. The price on the American market for vacuum-cast beryllium ingots was about $338 per pound ($745 per kilogram) in 2001. Between 1998 and 2008, the world's production of beryllium had decreased from 343 to about 200 tonnes. It then increased to 230 tonnes by 2018, of which 170 tonnes came from the United States. Etymology Named after beryl, a semiprecious mineral, from which it was first isolated. Applications Radiation windows Because of its low atomic number and very low absorption for X-rays, the oldest and still one of the most important applications of beryllium is in radiation windows for X-ray tubes. Extreme demands are placed on purity and cleanliness of beryllium to avoid artifacts in the X-ray images. Thin beryllium foils are used as radiation windows for X-ray detectors, and the extremely low absorption minimizes the heating effects caused by high intensity, low energy X-rays typical of synchrotron radiation. Vacuum-tight windows and beam-tubes for radiation experiments on synchrotrons are manufactured exclusively from beryllium. In scientific setups for various X-ray emission studies (e.g., energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy) the sample holder is usually made of beryllium because its emitted X-rays have much lower energies (≈100 eV) than X-rays from most studied materials. Low atomic number also makes beryllium relatively transparent to energetic particles. Therefore, it is used to build the beam pipe around the collision region in particle physics setups, such as all four main detector experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, LHCb), the Tevatron and at SLAC. The low density of beryllium allows collision products to reach the surrounding detectors without significant interaction, its

guess at the time it was taboo for a guy like me to be associated with a gal like her." 2003–2005: In the Zone and marriages In August 2003, Spears opened the MTV Video Music Awards with Christina Aguilera, performing "Like a Virgin". Halfway through they were joined by Madonna, with whom they both kissed. The incident was highly publicized. In 2008, MTV listed the performance as the number-one opening moment in the history of MTV Video Music Awards, while Blender magazine cited it as one of the twenty-five sexiest music moments on television history. Spears released her fourth studio album, In the Zone, in November 2003. She assumed more creative control by writing and co-producing most of the material. Vibe called it "A supremely confident dance record that also illustrates Spears's development as a songwriter." NPR listed the album as one of "The 50 Most Important Recording of the Decade", adding that "the decade's history of impeccably crafted pop is written on her body of work." In the Zone sold over 609,000 copies in the United States during its first week of availability in the United States, debuting at the top of the charts, making Spears the first female artist in the SoundScan era to have her first four studio albums to debut at number one. It also debuted at the top of the charts in France and the top ten in Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands. The album produced four singles: "Me Against the Music", a collaboration with Madonna; "Toxic"—which won Spears her first Grammy for Best Dance Recording; "Everytime", and "Outrageous". In January 2004, Spears married childhood friend Jason Allen Alexander at A Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The marriage was annulled 55 hours later, following a petition to the court that stated that Spears "lacked understanding of her actions". In March 2004, she embarked on The Onyx Hotel Tour in support of In the Zone. In June 2004, Spears fell and injured her left knee during the music video shoot for "Outrageous". Spears underwent arthroscopic surgery. She was forced to remain six weeks with a thigh brace, followed by eight to twelve weeks of rehabilitation, which caused The Onyx Hotel Tour to be canceled. During 2004, Spears became involved in the Kabbalah Centre through her friendship with Madonna. In July 2004, Spears became engaged to dancer Kevin Federline, whom she had met three months earlier. The romance was the subject of intense media attention, since Federline had recently broken up with actress Shar Jackson, who was still pregnant with their second child at the time. The stages of their relationship were chronicled in Spears's first reality show Britney and Kevin: Chaotic, which premiered on May 17, 2005, on UPN. Spears later referred to the show in a 2013 interview as "probably the worst thing I've done in my career". They held a wedding ceremony on September 18, 2004, but were not legally married until three weeks later on October 6 due to a delay finalizing the couple's prenuptial agreement. Shortly after, she released her first perfume, Curious, with Elizabeth Arden, which broke the company's first-week gross for a perfume. In October 2004, Spears took a career break to start a family. Greatest Hits: My Prerogative, her first greatest hits compilation album, was released in November 2004. Spears's cover version of Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative" was released as the lead single from the album, reaching the top of the charts in Finland, Ireland, Italy, and Norway. The second single, "Do Somethin'", was a top ten hit in Australia, the United Kingdom, and other countries of mainland Europe. In August 2005, Spears released "Someday (I Will Understand)", which was dedicated to her first child, a son named Sean Preston, who was born the following month. In November 2005, she released her first remix compilation, B in the Mix: The Remixes, which consists of 11 remixes. 2006–2007: Personal problems and Blackout In February 2006, pictures surfaced of Spears driving with her son, Sean, on her lap instead of in a car seat. Child advocates were horrified by the photos of her holding the wheel with one hand and Sean with the other. Spears claimed that the situation happened because of a frightening encounter with paparazzi, and that it was a mistake on her part. The following month, she guest-starred on the Will & Grace episode "Buy, Buy Baby" as closeted lesbian Amber-Louise. She announced she no longer studied Kabbalah in May 2006, explaining, "my baby is my religion". Spears posed nude for the August 2006 cover of Harper's Bazaar; the photograph was compared to Demi Moore's August 1991 Vanity Fair cover. In September 2006, she gave birth to her second son, Jayden James. In November 2006, Spears filed for divorce from Federline, citing irreconcilable differences. Their divorce was finalized in July 2007, when the two reached a global settlement and agreed to share joint custody of their sons. Spears's aunt Sandra Bridges Covington, with whom she had been very close, died of ovarian cancer in January 2007. In February, Spears stayed in a drug rehabilitation facility in Antigua for less than a day. The following night, she shaved her head with electric clippers at a hair salon in Tarzana, Los Angeles. She admitted herself to other treatment facilities during the following weeks. In May 2007, she produced a series of promotional concerts at House of Blues venues, titled The M+M's Tour. In October 2007, Spears lost physical custody of her sons to Federline. The reasons of the court ruling were not revealed to the public. Spears was also sued by Louis Vuitton over her 2005 music video "Do Somethin'" for upholstering her Hummer interior in counterfeit Louis Vuitton cherry blossom fabric, which resulted in the video being banned on European TV stations. In October 2007, Spears released her fifth studio album, Blackout. The album debuted atop the charts in Canada and Ireland, at number two in the U.S. Billboard 200, France, Japan, Mexico, and the United Kingdom, and the top ten in Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, and many European nations. In the United States, it was Spears's first album not to debut at number one, although, she did become the only female artist to have her first five studio albums debut at the two top slots of the chart. The album received positive reviews from critics and had sold 3.1 million copies worldwide by the end of 2008. Blackout won Album of the Year at the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards and was listed as the fifth Best Pop Album of the Decade by The Times. Spears performed the lead single "Gimme More" at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards. The performance was widely panned by critics. Despite the criticism, the single enjoyed worldwide success, peaking at number one in Canada and within the top ten in almost every country it charted. The second single "Piece of Me" reached the top of the charts in Ireland and reached the top five in Australia, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The third single "Break the Ice" was released the following year, and respectively reached numbers 7 and 9 in Ireland and Canada. In December 2007, Spears began a relationship with paparazzo Adnan Ghalib. 2008–2010: Conservatorship and Circus In January 2008, Spears refused to relinquish custody of her sons to Federline's representatives. She was hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after police that had arrived at her house noted she appeared to be under the influence of an unidentified substance. The following day, Spears's visitation rights were suspended at an emergency court hearing, and Federline was given sole physical and legal custody of their sons. She was committed to the psychiatric ward of Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and put on 5150 involuntary psychiatric hold under California state law. The court placed her under a conservatorship led by her father, Jamie Spears, and attorney Andrew Wallet, giving them complete control of her assets. She was released five days later. The following month, Spears guest-starred on the How I Met Your Mother episode "Ten Sessions" as receptionist Abby. She received positive reviews for her performance, as well as bringing the series its highest ratings ever. In July 2008, Spears regained some visitation rights after coming to an agreement with Federline and his counsel. In September 2008, Spears opened the MTV Video Music Awards with a pre-taped comedy sketch with Jonah Hill and an introduction speech. She won Best Female Video, Best Pop Video, and Video of the Year for "Piece of Me". A 60-minute introspective documentary, Britney: For the Record, was produced to chronicle Spears's return to the recording industry. Directed by Phil Griffin, For the Record was shot in Beverly Hills, Hollywood, and New York City during the third quarter of 2008. The documentary was broadcast on MTV to 5.6 million viewers for the two airings on the premiere night. It was the highest rating in its Sunday night timeslot and in the network's history. In December 2008, Spears's sixth studio album Circus was released. It received positive reviews from critics and debuted at number one in Canada, Czech Republic and the United States, and within the top ten in many European nations. In the United States, Spears became the youngest female artist to have five albums debut at number one, earning a place in Guinness World Records. She also became the only act in the Soundscan era to have four albums debut with 500,000 or more copies sold. The album was one of the fastest-selling albums of the year, and has sold 4 million copies worldwide. Its lead single, "Womanizer", became Spears's first chart-topper on the Billboard Hot 100 since "...Baby One More Time". The single also topped the charts in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Norway, and Sweden. It was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording. In January 2009, Spears and her father obtained a restraining order against her former manager Sam Lutfi, ex-boyfriend Adnan Ghalib, and attorney Jon Eardley, all of whom had been accused of conspiring to gain control of Spears's affairs. Spears embarked on The Circus Starring Britney Spears tour in March 2009. With a gross of U.S. $131.8 million, it became the fifth highest-grossing tour of the year. In November 2009, Spears released her second greatest hits album, The Singles Collection. The album's lead and only single, "3", became her third number-one single in the U.S. In May 2010, Spears's representatives confirmed she was dating her agent, Jason Trawick, and that they had decided to end their professional relationship to focus on their personal relationship. Spears designed a limited edition clothing line for Candie's, which was released in stores in July 2010. In September 2010, she made a cameo appearance on a Spears-themed tribute episode of the television series Glee, titled "Britney/Brittany"; the episode drew the highest Nielsen ratingup to that point in the series's runin the 18–49 demographic. 2011–2012: Femme Fatale and The X Factor In March 2011, Spears released her seventh studio album, Femme Fatale. The album peaked at number one in the United States, Canada, and Australia, and within the top ten on nearly every other chart. Its peak in the United States tied Spears with Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson for the third-most number ones among women. Femme Fatale has been certified platinum by the RIAA and as of February 2014, it had sold 2.4 million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Hold It Against Me" debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Spears's fourth number-one single on the chart and making her the second artist in history to have two consecutive singles debut at number one, after Mariah Carey. The second single "Till the World Ends" peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 in May, while the third single "I Wanna Go" reached number seven in August. Femme Fatale became Spears's first album in which three of its songs reached the top ten of the chart. The fourth and final single "Criminal" was released in September 2011. The music video sparked controversy when British politicians criticized Spears for using replica guns while filming the video in a London area that had been badly affected by the 2011 England riots. Spears's management briefly responded, stating, "The video is a fantasy story featuring Britney's boyfriend, Jason Trawick, which literally plays out the lyrics of a song written three years before the riots ever happened." In April 2011, Spears appeared in a remix of Rihanna's song "S&M". It reached number one in the US later that month, giving Spears her fifth number one on the chart. On Billboards 2011 Year-End list, Spears was ranked number fourteen on the Artists of the Year, thirty-two on Billboard 200 artists, and ten on Billboard Hot 100 artists. Spears co-wrote "Whiplash", a song from the album When the Sun Goes Down (2011) by Selena Gomez & the Scene. In June 2011, Spears embarked on her Femme Fatale Tour. The first ten dates of the tour grossed $6.2 million, landing the fifty-fifth spot on Pollstar's Top 100 North American Tours list for the half-way point of the year. The tour ended on December 10, 2011, in Puerto Rico after 79 performances. A DVD of the tour was released in November 2011. In August 2011, Spears received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards. The next month, she released her second remix album, B in the Mix: The Remixes Vol. 2. In December 2011, Spears became engaged to her long-time boyfriend Jason Trawick, who had formerly been her agent. Trawick was legally granted a role as co-conservator, alongside her father, in April 2012. In May 2012, Spears was hired to replace Nicole Scherzinger as a judge for the second season of the U.S. version of The X Factor, joining Simon Cowell, L.A. Reid, and fellow new judge Demi Lovato, who replaced Paula Abdul. With a reported salary of $15 million, she became the highest-paid judge on a singing competition series in television history. However, Katy Perry broke her record in 2018 after Perry was signed for a $25-million salary to serve as a judge on ABC's revival of American Idol. Spears mentored the Teens category; her final act, Carly Rose Sonenclar, was named the runner-up of the season. Spears did not return for the show's third season. Spears appeared on the song "Scream & Shout" with will.i.am, which was released as the third single from his fourth studio album, #willpower (2013). The song later became Spears's sixth number one single on the UK Singles Chart and peaked at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. "Scream & Shout" was among the best-selling songs of 2012 and 2013 with denoting sales of over 8.1 million worldwide, the accompanying music video was the third most-viewed video in 2013 on Vevo despite the video being released in 2012. In December 2012, Forbes named her music's top-earning woman of 2012, with estimated earnings of $58 million. 2013–2015: Britney Jean and Britney: Piece of Me Spears began work on her eighth studio album, Britney Jean, in December 2012, and enlisted will.i.am as its executive producer in May 2013. In January 2013, Spears and Jason Trawick ended their engagement. Trawick was also removed as Spears's co-conservator, restoring her father as the sole conservator. Following the breakup, she began dating David Lucado in March; the couple split in August 2014. During the production of Britney Jean, Spears recorded the song "Ooh La La" for the soundtrack of The Smurfs 2, which was released in June 2013. On September 17, 2013, she appeared on Good Morning America to announce her two-year concert residency at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, titled Britney: Piece of Me. It began on December 27, 2013, and included a total of 100 shows throughout 2014 and 2015. During the same appearance, Spears announced that Britney Jean would be released on December 3, 2013, in the United States. It was released through RCA Records due to the disbandment of Jive Records in 2011, which had formed the joint RCA/Jive Label Group (initially known as BMG Label Group) between 2007 and 2011. Britney Jean became Spears's final project under her original recording contract with Jive, which had guaranteed the release of eight studio albums. The record received a low amount of promotion and had little commercial impact, reportedly due to time conflicts involving preparations for Britney: Piece of Me. Upon its release, the record debuted at number four on the U.S. Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 107,000 copies, becoming her lowest-peaking and lowest-selling album in the United States. Britney Jean debuted at number 34 on the UK Albums Chart, selling 12,959 copies in its first week. In doing so, it became Spears's lowest-charting and lowest-selling album in the country. "Work Bitch" was released as the lead single from Britney Jean in September 2013. It debuted and peaked at number 12 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 marking Spears's 31st entry on the chart and the fifth highest debut of her career on the chart, and her seventh in the top 20. It also marked Spears's 19th top 20 entry and overall her 23rd top 40 single. The song marked Spears's highest sales debut since her 2011 number-one single "Hold It Against Me". "Work Bitch" debuted and peaked at number 7 on the UK Singles Chart. The song also peaked within the top ten of the charts in Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Mexico, and Spain. The second single "Perfume" premiered in November 2013. It debuted and peaked at number 76 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. In October 2013, she was featured as a guest vocalist on the song "SMS (Bangerz)" by Miley Cyrus, from the latter's fourth studio album Bangerz (2013). On January 8, 2014, Spears won Favorite Pop Artist at the 40th People's Choice Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. In August 2014, Spears confirmed she had renewed her contract with RCA and that she was writing and recording new music for her next album. Spears announced via Twitter in August 2014 that she would be releasing an intimate apparel line called "The Intimate Britney Spears". It was available to be purchased beginning on September 9, 2014, in the United States and Canada through Spears's Intimate Collection website. It was later available on September 25 for purchase in Europe. The company now ships to over 200 countries including Australia and New Zealand. On September 25, 2014, Spears confirmed on Good Morning Britain that she had extended her contract with The AXIS and Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, to continue Britney: Piece of Me for two additional years. Spears began dating television producer Charlie Ebersol in October 2014. The pair were split in June 2015. In March 2015, it was confirmed by People magazine that Spears would release a new single, "Pretty Girls", with Iggy Azalea, on May 4, 2015. The song debuted and peaked at number 29 on the Billboard Hot 100 and charted moderately in international territories. Spears and Azalea performed the track live at the 2015 Billboard Music Awards from The AXIS, the home of Spears's residency, to positive critical response. Entertainment Weekly praised the performance, noting "Spears gave one of her most energetic televised performances in years." On June 16, 2015, Giorgio Moroder released his album, Déjà Vu, that featured Spears on "Tom's Diner". The song was released as the fourth single from the album on October 9, 2015. In an interview, Moroder praised Spears's vocals and said that she did a "good job" with the song and also stated that Spears "sounds so good that you would hardly recognize her." At the 2015 Teen Choice Awards, Spears received the Candie's Style Icon Award, her ninth Teen Choice Award. In November 2015, Spears guest-starred as a fictionalized version of herself on The CW series, Jane the Virgin. On the show, she danced to "Toxic" with Gina Rodriguez's character. 2016–2018: Glory, continued residency, and the Piece of Me Tour In 2016, Spears confirmed via social media that she had begun recording her ninth studio album. On March 1, 2016, V magazine announced that Spears would appear on the cover of its 100th issue, dated March 8, 2016, in addition to revealing three different covers shot by photographer Mario Testino for the milestone publication. Editor-in-chief of the magazine, Stephen Gan, revealed that Spears was selected for the "V100" issue because of her status as an icon in the industry. On the decision, Gan stated, "who in our world did not grow up listening to her music?" In May 2016, Spears launched a casual role-play gaming application titled Britney Spears: American Dream. The app, created by Glu Mobile, was made available through both iOS and Google Play. On May 22, 2016, Spears performed a medley of her past singles at the 2016 Billboard Music Awards. In addition to opening the show, Spears was honored with the Billboard Millennium Award. On July 15, 2016, Spears released the lead single, "Make Me...", from her ninth studio album, featuring guest vocals from American rapper G-Eazy. The album, Glory, was formally released on August 26, 2016. On August 16, 2016, MTV and Spears announced that she would perform at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards. The performance marked Spears's first time returning to the VMA stage after her widely panned performance of "Gimme More" at the 2007 show nine years earlier. Along with "Make Me...", Spears and G-Eazy also performed the latter's hit song "Me, Myself & I". Spears appeared on the cover of Marie Claire UK for the October 2016 issue. In the publication, Spears revealed that she had suffered from crippling anxiety in the past, and that motherhood played a major role in helping her overcome it. "My boys don't care if everything isn't perfect. They don't judge me", Spears said in the issue. In November 2016, during an interview with Las Vegas Blog, Spears confirmed she had already begun work on her next album, stating: "I'm not sure what I want the next album to sound like. ... I just know that I'm excited to get into the studio again and actually have already been back recording." In the same month, she released a remix version of "Slumber Party" as the second single from Glory, featuring Tinashe. She began dating "Slumber Party"'s music video co-star Sam Asghari after the two met on set. In January 2017, Spears received four wins out of four nominations at the 43rd People's Choice Awards, including Favorite Pop Artist, Female Artist, Social Media celebrity as well as Comedic Collaboration for a skit with Ellen DeGeneres for The Ellen DeGeneres Show. In March 2017, Spears announced that her residency concert would be performed abroad as a world tour, Britney: Live in Concert, with dates in select Asian cities. In April 2017, the Israeli Labor Party announced that it would reschedule its July primary election to avoid conflict with Spears's sold-out Tel Aviv concert, citing traffic, and security concerns. Spears's manager Larry Rudolph also announced the residency would not be extended following her contract expiration with Caesars Entertainment at the end of 2017. On April 29, 2017, Spears became the first recipient of the Icon Award at the 2017 Radio Disney Music Awards. On November 4, 2017, Spears attended the grand opening of the Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation Britney Spears Campus in Las Vegas. Later that month, Forbes announced that Spears was the 8th highest earning female musician, earning $34 million in 2017. On December 31, 2017, Spears performed the final show of Britney: Piece of Me. The final performance reportedly brought in $1.172 million, setting a new box office record for a single show in Las Vegas, and breaking the record previously held by Jennifer Lopez. The last show was broadcast live with performances of "Toxic" and "Work Bitch" airing on ABC's Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve to a record audience of 25.6 million. In January 2018, Spears released her 24th perfume with Elizabeth Arden, Sunset Fantasy, and announced the Piece of Me Tour which took place in July 2018 in North America and Europe. Tickets were sold out within minutes for major cities, and additional dates were added to meet the demand. Pitbull was the supporting act for the European leg. The tour ranked at 86 and 30 on Pollstar's 2018 Year-End Top 100 Tours chart both in North America and worldwide, respectively. In total, the tour grossed $54.3 million with 260,531 tickets sold and was the sixth highest-grossing female tour of 2018, and was the United Kingdom's second best-selling female tour of 2018. On March 20, 2018, Spears was announced as part of a campaign for French luxury fashion house Kenzo. The company said it aimed to shake up the 'jungle' world of fashion with Spears's 'La Collection Memento No. 2' campaign. On April 12, 2018, Spears was honored with the 2018 GLAAD Vanguard Award at the GLAAD Media Awards for her role in "accelerating acceptance for the LGBTQ community". On April 27, 2018, Epic Rights announced a new partnership with Spears to debut her own fashion line in 2019, which would include clothing, fitness apparel, accessories, and electronics. In July 2018, Spears released her first unisex fragrance, Prerogative. On October 18, 2018, Spears announced her second Las Vegas residency show, Britney: Domination, which was set to launch at Park MGM's Park Theatre on February 13, 2019. Spears was slated to make $507,000 per show, which would have made her the highest paid act on the Las Vegas Strip. On October 21, 2018, Spears performed at the Formula One Grand Prix in Austin, the final performance of her Piece of Me Tour. 2019–present: Conservatorship dispute, #FreeBritney, and abuse allegations On January 4, 2019, Spears announced an indefinite hiatus and the cancellation of her Las Vegas residency after her father, Jamie, suffered a near-fatal colon rupture. In March 2019, Andrew Wallet resigned as co-conservator of her estate after 11 years. Spears entered a psychiatric facility amidst stress from her father's illness that same month. The following month, a fan podcast, Britney's Gram, released a voicemail message from a source who claimed to be a former member of Spears's legal team. They alleged that Jamie had canceled the residency due to Spears's refusal to take her medication, that he had been holding her in the facility against her will since January 2019 after she violated a no-driving rule, and that her conservatorship was supposed to have ended in 2009. The allegations gave rise to a movement to terminate the conservatorship, #FreeBritney, which received support from celebrities including singers Cher, Paris Hilton, and Miley Cyrus, and the nonprofit organization American Civil Liberties Union. On April 22, 2019, fans protested outside the West Hollywood City Hall and demanded Spears's release. Spears said "all [was] well" two days later and left the facility later that month. In a May 2019 hearing, Judge Brenda Penny ordered a professional evaluation of the conservatorship. In September, Spears's ex-husband Federline obtained a restraining order against Britney's father, Jamie, following an alleged physical altercation between Jamie and one of her sons. Spears's longtime care manager, Jodi Montgomery, temporarily replaced Jamie as her conservator that same month, which also saw a hearing where no decisions about the arrangement were reached. An interactive pop-up museum dedicated to Spears, dubbed "The Zone", opened in Los Angeles in February 2020, though it was later suspended in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. She released Glorys Japanese-exclusive bonus track, "Mood Ring" as a single, and debuted a new cover of the album to streaming and digital platforms worldwide in May 2020. In August, Jamie called the #FreeBritney movement "a joke" and its organizers "conspiracy theorists". On August 17, 2020, Spears's court-appointed lawyer, Samuel D. Ingham III, submitted a court filing that documented Spears's desire to have her conservatorship altered to reflect her wishes as well as lifestyle, to instate Montgomery as her permanent conservator, and to replace Jamie with a fiduciary as conservator of her estate. Four days later, Penny extended the established arrangement until February 2021. In November 2020, Penny approved Bessemer Trust as co-conservator of Spears's estate alongside Jamie. The following month, Spears released a new deluxe edition of Glory, which includes "Mood Ring" and new songs "Swimming in the Stars" and "Matches". A documentary about Spears's career and conservatorship, Framing Britney Spears, premiered on FX in February 2021. Spears later revealed that she had seen parts of the documentary, stating that she felt humiliated by the perception of her that was presented and that she "cried for two weeks" following the initial broadcast. The following month, Ingham filed a petition to permanently replace Jamie with Montgomery as the conservator of Spears's person, citing a 2014 order that determined that Spears did not have the capacity to consent to medical treatment of any form. On June 22, 2021, shortly before Spears was set to speak to the court, The New York Times obtained confidential court documents stating that Spears had pushed for years to end her conservatorship. Spears spoke to the court on June 23, calling the conservatorship "abusive". She said she had lied by "telling the whole world I'm OK and I'm happy", and that she was traumatized and angry. The court statement received widespread media coverage and generated over 1 million shares on Twitter, over 500,000 messages using the tag #FreeBritney, and more than 150,000 messages with a new hashtag referencing the court appearance, #BritneySpeaks. On July 1, 2021, Bessemer Trust asked the judge to allow them to withdraw from the conservatorship, saying that they had been misled and had entered into the arrangement on the understanding that the conservatorship was voluntary. The same day, senators Elizabeth Warren and Bob Casey Jr. called on federal agencies to increase oversight of the country's conservatorship systems. Spears's manager of 25 years, Larry Rudolph, resigned on July 6 citing her "intention to officially retire" and later that same day, it was reported Spears's court-appointed lawyer, Samuel Ingham, planned to file documents to the court asking to be dismissed. In a July 14, 2021 hearing, Judge Penny approved the resignations of Bessemer Trust and attorney Sam Ingham. The court also approved of Spears's request to hire attorney Mathew S. Rosengart to represent her. Rosengart informed the court that he would be working to terminate the conservatorship. Later that day, Spears publicly endorsed the #FreeBritney movement for the first time, using the hashtag in a caption on an Instagram post. Spears said that she felt "blessed" after earning "real representation", referring to Judge Penny's decision to allow her to choose her own counsel. On July 26, 2021, Rosengart filed a petition seeking to remove Jamie as conservator of Spears's estate and to replace him with Jason Rubin, a CPA at Certified Strategies Inc. in Woodland Hills, California. On August 12, Jamie agreed to step down as conservator at some future date, with his lawyers stating that he wanted "an orderly transition to a new conservator". On September 7, 2021, Jamie filed a petition to end the conservatorship. On September 12, Spears announced her engagement to her longtime boyfriend, Sam Asghari, through an Instagram post. On September 29, Judge Penny suspended Jamie as conservator of Spears's estate, with accountant John Zabel replacing him on a temporary basis. On November 12, Judge Penny terminated the conservatorship. On February 21, 2022, it was reported that Spears signed a $15 million book deal for her upcoming memoir. Artistry Influences Spears has cited Madonna, Janet Jackson, and Whitney Houston as major influences, her "three favorite artists" as a child, whom she would "sing along to ... day and night in [her] living room"; Houston's "I Have Nothing" was the song she auditioned to that landed her record deal with Jive Records. Spears also named Mariah Carey as "one of the main reasons I started singing". Throughout her career, Spears has drawn frequent comparisons to Madonna and Jackson in particular, in terms of vocals, choreography and stage presence. According to Spears: "I know when I was younger, I looked up to people ... like, you know, Janet Jackson and Madonna. And they were major inspirations for me. But I also had my own identity and I knew who I was." In the 2002 book Madonnastyle by Carol Clerk, she is quoted saying: "I have been a huge fan of Madonna since I was a little girl. She's the person that I've really looked up to. I would really, really like to be a legend like Madonna." Spears cited "That's the Way Love Goes" as the inspiration for her song "Touch of My Hand" from her album In the Zone, saying "I like to compare it to 'That's the Way Love Goes,' kind of a Janet Jackson thing." She also said her song "Just Luv Me" from her Glory album also reminded her of "That's the Way Love Goes". After meeting Spears face to face, Janet Jackson stated: "she said to me, 'I'm such a big fan; I really admire you.' That's so flattering. Everyone gets inspiration from some place. And it's awesome to see someone else coming up who's dancing and singing, and seeing how all these kids relate to her. A lot of people put it down, but what she does is a positive thing." Madonna said of Spears in the documentary Britney: For the Record: "I admire her talent as an artist ... There are aspects about her that I recognize in myself when I first started out in my career". Spears has also named Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Sheryl Crow, Otis Redding, Shania Twain, Brandy, Beyoncé, Natalie Imbruglia, Cher, and Prince as inspirations, and younger artists such as Selena Gomez and Ariana Grande. Musical style Spears is described as a pop artist and generally explores the genre in the form of Following her debut, she was credited with influencing the revival of teen pop in the late 1990s. Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone wrote: "Spears carries on the classic archetype of the rock & roll teen queen, the dungaree doll, the angel baby who just has to make a scene." In a review of ...Baby One More Time, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic described her music as a "blend of infectious, rap-inflected dance-pop and smooth balladry." Oops!... I Did It Again saw Spears working with several R&B producers to create "a combination of bubblegum, urban soul, and raga". Her third studio album, Britney derived from the teen pop niche "[r]hythmically and melodically", but was described as "sharper, tougher than what came before", incorporating genres such as R&B, disco, and funk. Spears has explored and heavily incorporated the genres of electropop and dance music in her records, as well as influences of urban and hip hop, which are most present on In the Zone and Blackout. In the Zone also experiments with Euro trance, reggae, and Middle Eastern music. Femme Fatale and Britney Jean were also heavily influenced by electronic music genres. Spears's ninth studio album Glory is more eclectic and experimental than her previous released work. She commented that it "took a lot of time ... it's really different ... there are like two or three songs that go in the direction of more urban that I've wanted to do for a long time now, and I just haven't really done that." ...Baby One More Time and Oops!... I Did It Again address themes such as love and relationships from a teenager's point of view. Following the massive commercial success of her first two studio albums, Spears's team and producers wanted to maintain the formula that took her to the top of the charts. Spears, however, was no longer satisfied with the sound and themes covered on her records. She co-wrote five songs and choose each track's producer on her third studio album, Britney, which lyrics address the subjects of reaching adulthood, sexuality, and self-discovery. Sex, dancing, freedom, and love continued to be Spears's music main subjects on her subsequent albums. Her fifth studio effort, Blackout, also addresses issues such as fame and media scrutiny, including on the song "Piece of Me". Spears's music has also been noted for some catchphrases. The opening in her debut single "...Baby One More Time", "Oh, baby baby" is considered to be one of her signature lines and has been parodied in the media by various artists such as Nicole Scherzinger and Ariana Grande. It has been used in variating forms throughout her music, such as simply, "baby" and "oh baby", as well as the Blackout track, "Ooh Ooh Baby". On the initial development of "...Baby One More Time", Barry Weiss noted Spears's inception of the catchphrase from her strange ad-libbing during the recording of the song. He commented further, "We thought it was really weird at first. It was strange. It was not the way Max wrote it. But it worked! We thought it could be a really good opening salvo for her." The opening line in "Gimme More", "It's Britney, bitch" has become another signature phrase. An early review of Blackout suggested the phrase was "simply laughable". Amy Roberts of Bustle called it "an indelible cultural turning point, transforming a frenetic, floundering moment in the superstars career to one of strength and empowerment". Voice Spears is a soprano. Other sources state that she possesses a contralto vocal range. Prior to her breakthrough success, she is described as having sung "much deeper than her highly recognizable trademark voice of today", with Eric Foster White, who worked with Spears on her debut album ...Baby One More Time, being cited as "[shaping] her voice over the course of a month" upon being signed to Jive Records "to where it is today—distinctively, unmistakably Britney". Rami Yacoub who co-produced Spears's debut album with lyricist Max Martin, commented, "I know from Denniz Pop and Max's previous productions, when we do songs, there's kind of a nasal thing. With N' Sync and the Backstreet Boys, we had to push for that mid-nasal voice. When Britney did that, she got this kind of raspy, sexy voice." Guy Blackman of The Age wrote that "[t]he thing about Spears, though, is that her biggest songs, no matter how committee-created or impossibly polished, have always been convincing because of her delivery, her commitment and her presence. ... Spears expresses perfectly the conflicting urges of adolescence, the tension between chastity and sexual experience, between hedonism and responsibility, between confidence and vulnerability." Producer William Orbit, who worked with Spears on her album Britney Jean, stated regarding her vocals: "[Britney] didn't get so big just because [she] put on great shows; [she] got to be that way because [her voice is] unique: you hear two words and you know who is singing". Spears has also been criticized for her reliance on Auto-Tune and her vocals being "over-processed" on records. Erlewine criticized Spears's singing abilities in a review of her Blackout album, stating: "Never the greatest vocalist, her thin squawk could be dismissed early in her career as an adolescent learning the ropes, but nearly a decade later her singing hasn't gotten any better, even if the studio tools to masquerade her weaknesses have." Joan Anderman of The Boston Globe remarked that "Spears sounds robotic, nearly inhuman, on her records,

for the show's third season. Spears appeared on the song "Scream & Shout" with will.i.am, which was released as the third single from his fourth studio album, #willpower (2013). The song later became Spears's sixth number one single on the UK Singles Chart and peaked at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. "Scream & Shout" was among the best-selling songs of 2012 and 2013 with denoting sales of over 8.1 million worldwide, the accompanying music video was the third most-viewed video in 2013 on Vevo despite the video being released in 2012. In December 2012, Forbes named her music's top-earning woman of 2012, with estimated earnings of $58 million. 2013–2015: Britney Jean and Britney: Piece of Me Spears began work on her eighth studio album, Britney Jean, in December 2012, and enlisted will.i.am as its executive producer in May 2013. In January 2013, Spears and Jason Trawick ended their engagement. Trawick was also removed as Spears's co-conservator, restoring her father as the sole conservator. Following the breakup, she began dating David Lucado in March; the couple split in August 2014. During the production of Britney Jean, Spears recorded the song "Ooh La La" for the soundtrack of The Smurfs 2, which was released in June 2013. On September 17, 2013, she appeared on Good Morning America to announce her two-year concert residency at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, titled Britney: Piece of Me. It began on December 27, 2013, and included a total of 100 shows throughout 2014 and 2015. During the same appearance, Spears announced that Britney Jean would be released on December 3, 2013, in the United States. It was released through RCA Records due to the disbandment of Jive Records in 2011, which had formed the joint RCA/Jive Label Group (initially known as BMG Label Group) between 2007 and 2011. Britney Jean became Spears's final project under her original recording contract with Jive, which had guaranteed the release of eight studio albums. The record received a low amount of promotion and had little commercial impact, reportedly due to time conflicts involving preparations for Britney: Piece of Me. Upon its release, the record debuted at number four on the U.S. Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 107,000 copies, becoming her lowest-peaking and lowest-selling album in the United States. Britney Jean debuted at number 34 on the UK Albums Chart, selling 12,959 copies in its first week. In doing so, it became Spears's lowest-charting and lowest-selling album in the country. "Work Bitch" was released as the lead single from Britney Jean in September 2013. It debuted and peaked at number 12 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 marking Spears's 31st entry on the chart and the fifth highest debut of her career on the chart, and her seventh in the top 20. It also marked Spears's 19th top 20 entry and overall her 23rd top 40 single. The song marked Spears's highest sales debut since her 2011 number-one single "Hold It Against Me". "Work Bitch" debuted and peaked at number 7 on the UK Singles Chart. The song also peaked within the top ten of the charts in Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Mexico, and Spain. The second single "Perfume" premiered in November 2013. It debuted and peaked at number 76 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. In October 2013, she was featured as a guest vocalist on the song "SMS (Bangerz)" by Miley Cyrus, from the latter's fourth studio album Bangerz (2013). On January 8, 2014, Spears won Favorite Pop Artist at the 40th People's Choice Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. In August 2014, Spears confirmed she had renewed her contract with RCA and that she was writing and recording new music for her next album. Spears announced via Twitter in August 2014 that she would be releasing an intimate apparel line called "The Intimate Britney Spears". It was available to be purchased beginning on September 9, 2014, in the United States and Canada through Spears's Intimate Collection website. It was later available on September 25 for purchase in Europe. The company now ships to over 200 countries including Australia and New Zealand. On September 25, 2014, Spears confirmed on Good Morning Britain that she had extended her contract with The AXIS and Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, to continue Britney: Piece of Me for two additional years. Spears began dating television producer Charlie Ebersol in October 2014. The pair were split in June 2015. In March 2015, it was confirmed by People magazine that Spears would release a new single, "Pretty Girls", with Iggy Azalea, on May 4, 2015. The song debuted and peaked at number 29 on the Billboard Hot 100 and charted moderately in international territories. Spears and Azalea performed the track live at the 2015 Billboard Music Awards from The AXIS, the home of Spears's residency, to positive critical response. Entertainment Weekly praised the performance, noting "Spears gave one of her most energetic televised performances in years." On June 16, 2015, Giorgio Moroder released his album, Déjà Vu, that featured Spears on "Tom's Diner". The song was released as the fourth single from the album on October 9, 2015. In an interview, Moroder praised Spears's vocals and said that she did a "good job" with the song and also stated that Spears "sounds so good that you would hardly recognize her." At the 2015 Teen Choice Awards, Spears received the Candie's Style Icon Award, her ninth Teen Choice Award. In November 2015, Spears guest-starred as a fictionalized version of herself on The CW series, Jane the Virgin. On the show, she danced to "Toxic" with Gina Rodriguez's character. 2016–2018: Glory, continued residency, and the Piece of Me Tour In 2016, Spears confirmed via social media that she had begun recording her ninth studio album. On March 1, 2016, V magazine announced that Spears would appear on the cover of its 100th issue, dated March 8, 2016, in addition to revealing three different covers shot by photographer Mario Testino for the milestone publication. Editor-in-chief of the magazine, Stephen Gan, revealed that Spears was selected for the "V100" issue because of her status as an icon in the industry. On the decision, Gan stated, "who in our world did not grow up listening to her music?" In May 2016, Spears launched a casual role-play gaming application titled Britney Spears: American Dream. The app, created by Glu Mobile, was made available through both iOS and Google Play. On May 22, 2016, Spears performed a medley of her past singles at the 2016 Billboard Music Awards. In addition to opening the show, Spears was honored with the Billboard Millennium Award. On July 15, 2016, Spears released the lead single, "Make Me...", from her ninth studio album, featuring guest vocals from American rapper G-Eazy. The album, Glory, was formally released on August 26, 2016. On August 16, 2016, MTV and Spears announced that she would perform at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards. The performance marked Spears's first time returning to the VMA stage after her widely panned performance of "Gimme More" at the 2007 show nine years earlier. Along with "Make Me...", Spears and G-Eazy also performed the latter's hit song "Me, Myself & I". Spears appeared on the cover of Marie Claire UK for the October 2016 issue. In the publication, Spears revealed that she had suffered from crippling anxiety in the past, and that motherhood played a major role in helping her overcome it. "My boys don't care if everything isn't perfect. They don't judge me", Spears said in the issue. In November 2016, during an interview with Las Vegas Blog, Spears confirmed she had already begun work on her next album, stating: "I'm not sure what I want the next album to sound like. ... I just know that I'm excited to get into the studio again and actually have already been back recording." In the same month, she released a remix version of "Slumber Party" as the second single from Glory, featuring Tinashe. She began dating "Slumber Party"'s music video co-star Sam Asghari after the two met on set. In January 2017, Spears received four wins out of four nominations at the 43rd People's Choice Awards, including Favorite Pop Artist, Female Artist, Social Media celebrity as well as Comedic Collaboration for a skit with Ellen DeGeneres for The Ellen DeGeneres Show. In March 2017, Spears announced that her residency concert would be performed abroad as a world tour, Britney: Live in Concert, with dates in select Asian cities. In April 2017, the Israeli Labor Party announced that it would reschedule its July primary election to avoid conflict with Spears's sold-out Tel Aviv concert, citing traffic, and security concerns. Spears's manager Larry Rudolph also announced the residency would not be extended following her contract expiration with Caesars Entertainment at the end of 2017. On April 29, 2017, Spears became the first recipient of the Icon Award at the 2017 Radio Disney Music Awards. On November 4, 2017, Spears attended the grand opening of the Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation Britney Spears Campus in Las Vegas. Later that month, Forbes announced that Spears was the 8th highest earning female musician, earning $34 million in 2017. On December 31, 2017, Spears performed the final show of Britney: Piece of Me. The final performance reportedly brought in $1.172 million, setting a new box office record for a single show in Las Vegas, and breaking the record previously held by Jennifer Lopez. The last show was broadcast live with performances of "Toxic" and "Work Bitch" airing on ABC's Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve to a record audience of 25.6 million. In January 2018, Spears released her 24th perfume with Elizabeth Arden, Sunset Fantasy, and announced the Piece of Me Tour which took place in July 2018 in North America and Europe. Tickets were sold out within minutes for major cities, and additional dates were added to meet the demand. Pitbull was the supporting act for the European leg. The tour ranked at 86 and 30 on Pollstar's 2018 Year-End Top 100 Tours chart both in North America and worldwide, respectively. In total, the tour grossed $54.3 million with 260,531 tickets sold and was the sixth highest-grossing female tour of 2018, and was the United Kingdom's second best-selling female tour of 2018. On March 20, 2018, Spears was announced as part of a campaign for French luxury fashion house Kenzo. The company said it aimed to shake up the 'jungle' world of fashion with Spears's 'La Collection Memento No. 2' campaign. On April 12, 2018, Spears was honored with the 2018 GLAAD Vanguard Award at the GLAAD Media Awards for her role in "accelerating acceptance for the LGBTQ community". On April 27, 2018, Epic Rights announced a new partnership with Spears to debut her own fashion line in 2019, which would include clothing, fitness apparel, accessories, and electronics. In July 2018, Spears released her first unisex fragrance, Prerogative. On October 18, 2018, Spears announced her second Las Vegas residency show, Britney: Domination, which was set to launch at Park MGM's Park Theatre on February 13, 2019. Spears was slated to make $507,000 per show, which would have made her the highest paid act on the Las Vegas Strip. On October 21, 2018, Spears performed at the Formula One Grand Prix in Austin, the final performance of her Piece of Me Tour. 2019–present: Conservatorship dispute, #FreeBritney, and abuse allegations On January 4, 2019, Spears announced an indefinite hiatus and the cancellation of her Las Vegas residency after her father, Jamie, suffered a near-fatal colon rupture. In March 2019, Andrew Wallet resigned as co-conservator of her estate after 11 years. Spears entered a psychiatric facility amidst stress from her father's illness that same month. The following month, a fan podcast, Britney's Gram, released a voicemail message from a source who claimed to be a former member of Spears's legal team. They alleged that Jamie had canceled the residency due to Spears's refusal to take her medication, that he had been holding her in the facility against her will since January 2019 after she violated a no-driving rule, and that her conservatorship was supposed to have ended in 2009. The allegations gave rise to a movement to terminate the conservatorship, #FreeBritney, which received support from celebrities including singers Cher, Paris Hilton, and Miley Cyrus, and the nonprofit organization American Civil Liberties Union. On April 22, 2019, fans protested outside the West Hollywood City Hall and demanded Spears's release. Spears said "all [was] well" two days later and left the facility later that month. In a May 2019 hearing, Judge Brenda Penny ordered a professional evaluation of the conservatorship. In September, Spears's ex-husband Federline obtained a restraining order against Britney's father, Jamie, following an alleged physical altercation between Jamie and one of her sons. Spears's longtime care manager, Jodi Montgomery, temporarily replaced Jamie as her conservator that same month, which also saw a hearing where no decisions about the arrangement were reached. An interactive pop-up museum dedicated to Spears, dubbed "The Zone", opened in Los Angeles in February 2020, though it was later suspended in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. She released Glorys Japanese-exclusive bonus track, "Mood Ring" as a single, and debuted a new cover of the album to streaming and digital platforms worldwide in May 2020. In August, Jamie called the #FreeBritney movement "a joke" and its organizers "conspiracy theorists". On August 17, 2020, Spears's court-appointed lawyer, Samuel D. Ingham III, submitted a court filing that documented Spears's desire to have her conservatorship altered to reflect her wishes as well as lifestyle, to instate Montgomery as her permanent conservator, and to replace Jamie with a fiduciary as conservator of her estate. Four days later, Penny extended the established arrangement until February 2021. In November 2020, Penny approved Bessemer Trust as co-conservator of Spears's estate alongside Jamie. The following month, Spears released a new deluxe edition of Glory, which includes "Mood Ring" and new songs "Swimming in the Stars" and "Matches". A documentary about Spears's career and conservatorship, Framing Britney Spears, premiered on FX in February 2021. Spears later revealed that she had seen parts of the documentary, stating that she felt humiliated by the perception of her that was presented and that she "cried for two weeks" following the initial broadcast. The following month, Ingham filed a petition to permanently replace Jamie with Montgomery as the conservator of Spears's person, citing a 2014 order that determined that Spears did not have the capacity to consent to medical treatment of any form. On June 22, 2021, shortly before Spears was set to speak to the court, The New York Times obtained confidential court documents stating that Spears had pushed for years to end her conservatorship. Spears spoke to the court on June 23, calling the conservatorship "abusive". She said she had lied by "telling the whole world I'm OK and I'm happy", and that she was traumatized and angry. The court statement received widespread media coverage and generated over 1 million shares on Twitter, over 500,000 messages using the tag #FreeBritney, and more than 150,000 messages with a new hashtag referencing the court appearance, #BritneySpeaks. On July 1, 2021, Bessemer Trust asked the judge to allow them to withdraw from the conservatorship, saying that they had been misled and had entered into the arrangement on the understanding that the conservatorship was voluntary. The same day, senators Elizabeth Warren and Bob Casey Jr. called on federal agencies to increase oversight of the country's conservatorship systems. Spears's manager of 25 years, Larry Rudolph, resigned on July 6 citing her "intention to officially retire" and later that same day, it was reported Spears's court-appointed lawyer, Samuel Ingham, planned to file documents to the court asking to be dismissed. In a July 14, 2021 hearing, Judge Penny approved the resignations of Bessemer Trust and attorney Sam Ingham. The court also approved of Spears's request to hire attorney Mathew S. Rosengart to represent her. Rosengart informed the court that he would be working to terminate the conservatorship. Later that day, Spears publicly endorsed the #FreeBritney movement for the first time, using the hashtag in a caption on an Instagram post. Spears said that she felt "blessed" after earning "real representation", referring to Judge Penny's decision to allow her to choose her own counsel. On July 26, 2021, Rosengart filed a petition seeking to remove Jamie as conservator of Spears's estate and to replace him with Jason Rubin, a CPA at Certified Strategies Inc. in Woodland Hills, California. On August 12, Jamie agreed to step down as conservator at some future date, with his lawyers stating that he wanted "an orderly transition to a new conservator". On September 7, 2021, Jamie filed a petition to end the conservatorship. On September 12, Spears announced her engagement to her longtime boyfriend, Sam Asghari, through an Instagram post. On September 29, Judge Penny suspended Jamie as conservator of Spears's estate, with accountant John Zabel replacing him on a temporary basis. On November 12, Judge Penny terminated the conservatorship. On February 21, 2022, it was reported that Spears signed a $15 million book deal for her upcoming memoir. Artistry Influences Spears has cited Madonna, Janet Jackson, and Whitney Houston as major influences, her "three favorite artists" as a child, whom she would "sing along to ... day and night in [her] living room"; Houston's "I Have Nothing" was the song she auditioned to that landed her record deal with Jive Records. Spears also named Mariah Carey as "one of the main reasons I started singing". Throughout her career, Spears has drawn frequent comparisons to Madonna and Jackson in particular, in terms of vocals, choreography and stage presence. According to Spears: "I know when I was younger, I looked up to people ... like, you know, Janet Jackson and Madonna. And they were major inspirations for me. But I also had my own identity and I knew who I was." In the 2002 book Madonnastyle by Carol Clerk, she is quoted saying: "I have been a huge fan of Madonna since I was a little girl. She's the person that I've really looked up to. I would really, really like to be a legend like Madonna." Spears cited "That's the Way Love Goes" as the inspiration for her song "Touch of My Hand" from her album In the Zone, saying "I like to compare it to 'That's the Way Love Goes,' kind of a Janet Jackson thing." She also said her song "Just Luv Me" from her Glory album also reminded her of "That's the Way Love Goes". After meeting Spears face to face, Janet Jackson stated: "she said to me, 'I'm such a big fan; I really admire you.' That's so flattering. Everyone gets inspiration from some place. And it's awesome to see someone else coming up who's dancing and singing, and seeing how all these kids relate to her. A lot of people put it down, but what she does is a positive thing." Madonna said of Spears in the documentary Britney: For the Record: "I admire her talent as an artist ... There are aspects about her that I recognize in myself when I first started out in my career". Spears has also named Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Sheryl Crow, Otis Redding, Shania Twain, Brandy, Beyoncé, Natalie Imbruglia, Cher, and Prince as inspirations, and younger artists such as Selena Gomez and Ariana Grande. Musical style Spears is described as a pop artist and generally explores the genre in the form of Following her debut, she was credited with influencing the revival of teen pop in the late 1990s. Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone wrote: "Spears carries on the classic archetype of the rock & roll teen queen, the dungaree doll, the angel baby who just has to make a scene." In a review of ...Baby One More Time, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic described her music as a "blend of infectious, rap-inflected dance-pop and smooth balladry." Oops!... I Did It Again saw Spears working with several R&B producers to create "a combination of bubblegum, urban soul, and raga". Her third studio album, Britney derived from the teen pop niche "[r]hythmically and melodically", but was described as "sharper, tougher than what came before", incorporating genres such as R&B, disco, and funk. Spears has explored and heavily incorporated the genres of electropop and dance music in her records, as well as influences of urban and hip hop, which are most present on In the Zone and Blackout. In the Zone also experiments with Euro trance, reggae, and Middle Eastern music. Femme Fatale and Britney Jean were also heavily influenced by electronic music genres. Spears's ninth studio album Glory is more eclectic and experimental than her previous released work. She commented that it "took a lot of time ... it's really different ... there are like two or three songs that go in the direction of more urban that I've wanted to do for a long time now, and I just haven't really done that." ...Baby One More Time and Oops!... I Did It Again address themes such as love and relationships from a teenager's point of view. Following the massive commercial success of her first two studio albums, Spears's team and producers wanted to maintain the formula that took her to the top of the charts. Spears, however, was no longer satisfied with the sound and themes covered on her records. She co-wrote five songs and choose each track's producer on her third studio album, Britney, which lyrics address the subjects of reaching adulthood, sexuality, and self-discovery. Sex, dancing, freedom, and love continued to be Spears's music main subjects on her subsequent albums. Her fifth studio effort, Blackout, also addresses issues such as fame and media scrutiny, including on the song "Piece of Me". Spears's music has also been noted for some catchphrases. The opening in her debut single "...Baby One More Time", "Oh, baby baby" is considered to be one of her signature lines and has been parodied in the media by various artists such as Nicole Scherzinger and Ariana Grande. It has been used in variating forms throughout her music, such as simply, "baby" and "oh baby", as well as the Blackout track, "Ooh Ooh Baby". On the initial development of "...Baby One More Time", Barry Weiss noted Spears's inception of the catchphrase from her strange ad-libbing during the recording of the song. He commented further, "We thought it was really weird at first. It was strange. It was not the way Max wrote it. But it worked! We thought it could be a really good opening salvo for her." The opening line in "Gimme More", "It's Britney, bitch" has become another signature phrase. An early review of Blackout suggested the phrase was "simply laughable". Amy Roberts of Bustle called it "an indelible cultural turning point, transforming a frenetic, floundering moment in the superstars career to one of strength and empowerment". Voice Spears is a soprano. Other sources state that she possesses a contralto vocal range. Prior to her breakthrough success, she is described as having sung "much deeper than her highly recognizable trademark voice of today", with Eric Foster White, who worked with Spears on her debut album ...Baby One More Time, being cited as "[shaping] her voice over the course of a month" upon being signed to Jive Records "to where it is today—distinctively, unmistakably Britney". Rami Yacoub who co-produced Spears's debut album with lyricist Max Martin, commented, "I know from Denniz Pop and Max's previous productions, when we do songs, there's kind of a nasal thing. With N' Sync and the Backstreet Boys, we had to push for that mid-nasal voice. When Britney did that, she got this kind of raspy, sexy voice." Guy Blackman of The Age wrote that "[t]he thing about Spears, though, is that her biggest songs, no matter how committee-created or impossibly polished, have always been convincing because of her delivery, her commitment and her presence. ... Spears expresses perfectly the conflicting urges of adolescence, the tension between chastity and sexual experience, between hedonism and responsibility, between confidence and vulnerability." Producer William Orbit, who worked with Spears on her album Britney Jean, stated regarding her vocals: "[Britney] didn't get so big just because [she] put on great shows; [she] got to be that way because [her voice is] unique: you hear two words and you know who is singing". Spears has also been criticized for her reliance on Auto-Tune and her vocals being "over-processed" on records. Erlewine criticized Spears's singing abilities in a review of her Blackout album, stating: "Never the greatest vocalist, her thin squawk could be dismissed early in her career as an adolescent learning the ropes, but nearly a decade later her singing hasn't gotten any better, even if the studio tools to masquerade her weaknesses have." Joan Anderman of The Boston Globe remarked that "Spears sounds robotic, nearly inhuman, on her records, so processed is her voice by digital pitch-shifters and synthesizers." Kayla Upadhyaya of The Michigan Daily has provided a different point of view, stating: "Auto-tuned and over-processed vocals define [Spears]'s voice as an artist, and in her music, auto-tune isn't so much a gimmick as it is an instrument used to highlight, contort and make a statement." Adam Markovitz of Entertainment Weekly opines that "Spears is no technical singer, that's for sure. But backed by Martin and Dr. Luke's wall of pound, her vocals melt into a mix of babytalk coo and coital panting that is, in its own overprocessed way, just as iconic and propulsive as Michael Jackson's yips or Eminem's snarls." Stage performances and videos Spears is known for her stage performances, particularly the elaborate dance routines which incorporate "belly-dancing and tempered erotic moves" that are credited with influencing "dance-heavy acts" such as Danity Kane and the Pussycat Dolls. Rolling Stone readers voted Spears their second-favorite dancing musician. Spears is described as being much more shy than her stage persona suggests. She said that performing is "a boost to [her] confidence. It's like an alter-ego type thing. Something clicks and I go and turn into this different person. I think it's kind of a gift to be able to do that." Her 2000, 2001, and 2003 MTV Video Music Awards performances were lauded, while her 2007 presentation was widely panned by critics, as she "teetered through her dance steps and mouthed only occasional words". Billboard called her 2016 "comeback" performance at the show "an effective, but not entirely glorious, bid to regain pop superstardom". After her knee injuries and personal problems, Spears's "showmanship" and dance abilities came under criticism. Serge F. Kovaleski of The New York Times watched her Las Vegas concert residency in 2016 and stated: "Once a fluid, natural dancer, Ms. Spears can appear stiff, even robotic, today, relying on flailing arms and flashy sets." Las Vegas Suns Robin Leach seemed more impressed over Spears's efforts on the concert by saying that she delivered a "flawless performance" on the residency's opening night. It has been widely reported that Spears lip-syncs during live performances, which often prompts criticism from music critics and concert goers. Some, however, claimed that, although she "got plenty of digital support", she "doesn't merely lip-sync" during her live shows. In 2016, Sabrina Weiss of Refinery29 referred to her lip-syncing as a "well-known fact that's not even taboo anymore." Noting on the prevalence of lip-syncing, the Los Angeles Daily News opined: "In the context of a Britney Spears concert, does it really matter? ... you [just] go for the somewhat-ridiculous spectacle of it all". Spears herself has commented on the topic, arguing: "Because I'm dancing so much, I do have a little bit of playback, but there's a mixture of my voice and the playback. ... It really pisses me off because I'm busting my ass out there and singing at the same time and nobody ever gives me credit for it". In 2012, VH1 ranked Spears as the fourth Greatest Woman of the Video Era, while Billboard ranked her as the eight Greatest Music Video Artist of All Time in 2020, explaining: "The storylines, the dancing, the outfits. Right from the start, the pop princess established the lengths of her creativity with some of the most memorable videos of the last three decades." She has been retroactively noted as the pioneer for her early career videography. She conceptualized the "iconic Catholic schoolgirl and cheerleader motif" in the "...Baby One More Time" video, rejecting the animation video idea. She also made the "Oops!... I Did It Again" video "dance-centric rather than space-centric as her producers suggested". She also used her dancer's intuition to help select the beats for each track. Public image Upon launching her music career with ...Baby One More Time, Spears was labeled a teen idol, and Rolling Stone described her as "the latest model of a classic product: the unneurotic pop star who performs her duties with vaudevillian pluck and spokesmodel charm." The April 1999 cover of Rolling Stone featured Spears lying on her bed, wearing an open top revealing her bra, and shorts, while clutching a Teletubby. The American Family Association (AFA) referred to the shoot as "a disturbing mix of childhood innocence and adult sexuality" and called on "God-loving Americans to boycott stores selling Britney's albums." Spears addressed the outcry, commenting: "What's the big deal? I have strong morals. ... I'd do it again. I thought the pictures were fine. And I was tired of being compared to Debbie Gibson and all of this bubblegum pop all the time." Shortly prior, Spears had announced publicly she would remain abstinent until marriage. An early criticism of Spears dismissed her as a "manufactured pop star, the product of a Swedish songwriting factory that had no real hand in either her music or her persona", which Vox editor Constance Grady assesses as being perpetuated from the fact that Spears debuted in the late 1990s, when music was dominated by rockism, that prizes "so-called authenticity and grittiness of rock above all else". Spears's "slick, breezy pop was an affront to rockist sensibilities, and claiming that Spears was fake was an easy way to dismiss her." Ron Levy for Rolling Stone noted that "I have to tell you, if the record company could have created more than one Britney Spears, they would have done it, and they tried!" Billboard opined that, by the time Spears released her sophomore album Oops!... I Did It Again, "There was a shift occurring in both the music and her public image: She was sharper, sexier and singing about more grown-up fare, setting the stage for 2001's Britney, which shed her innocent skin and ushered her into adulthood." Britneys lead single "I'm a Slave 4 U" and its music video were also credited for distancing her from her previous "wholesome bubblegum star" image. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic remarked, "If 2001's Britney was a transitional album, capturing Spears at the point when she wasn't a girl and not yet a woman, its 2003 follow-up, In the Zone, is where she has finally completed that journey and turned into Britney, the Adult Woman." Erlewine likened Spears to fellow singer Christina Aguilera, explaining that both equated "maturity with transparent sexuality and the pounding sounds of nightclubs". Brittany Spanos of LA Weekly stated that Spears "set the bar for the 'adulthood' transition teen pop stars often struggle with". Spears's erratic behavior and personal problems during 2006–2008 were highly publicized and affected both her career and public image. Erlewine reflected on this period of her life, stating that "each new disaster [was] stripping away any residual sexiness in her public image". In a 2008 article, Rolling Stones Vanessa Grigoriadis described her much-publicized personal issues as "the most public downfall of any star in history". Spears later received favorable media attention; Billboard opined that her appearance at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards "was a picture of professionalism and poise" after her "disastrous" performance at the previous year's show, while Business Insider ran an article on how she had "lost control of her life ... and then made an incredible career comeback". Spears later reflected on this tumultuous period, saying: "I think I had to give myself more breaks through my career and take responsibility for my mental health. ... I wrote back then, that I was lost and didn't know what to do with myself. I was trying to please everyone around me because that's who I am deep inside. There are moments where I look back and think: 'What the hell was I thinking?'" In September 2002, Spears was placed at number eight on VH1's 100 Sexiest Artists list. She was placed at number one on FHMs 100 Sexiest Women in the World list in 2004, and, in December 2012, Complex ranked her 12th on its 100 Hottest Female Singers of All Time list. Remarking upon her perceived image as a sex symbol, Spears stated: "When I'm on stage, that's my time to do my thing and go there and be that and it's fun. It's exhilarating just to be something that you're not. And people tend to believe it." In 2003, People magazine cited her as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People. Spears is recognized as a gay icon and was honored with the 2018 GLAAD Vanguard Award at the GLAAD Media Awards for her role in "accelerating acceptance for the LGBTQ community". Spears addressed the "unwavering loyalty" and "lack of judgment" of her LGBTQ fans in Billboards Love Letters to the LGBTQ Community. She said: "Your stories are what inspire me, bring me joy, and make me and my sons strive to be better people." Manuel Betancourt of Vice magazine wrote about the "queer adoration", especially of gay men, on Spears, and said that "Where other gay icons exude self-possession, Spears's fragile resilience has made her an even more fascinating role model, closer to Judy Garland than to Lady Gaga ... she's a glittering mirror ball, a fractured reflection of those men on the dance floor back onto themselves." HuffPosts Ben Appel attributed Spears's status as a gay icon to "her oh-so-innocent/"not that innocent" Monroe-like sensuality, her sweet, almost saccharine nature, her beyond basic but addictive pop songs, her dance moves, her phoenix-out-of-the-fire comeback from a series of mental health crises, and her unmistakable tenderness. Britney is camp. She is a fashion plate. A doll. Britney is a drag queen." Since her early years in the public eye, Spears has been a tabloid fixture and a paparazzi target. Steve Huey of AllMusic remarked that "among female singers of [Spears's] era ... her celebrity star power was rivaled only by Jennifer Lopez." 'Britney Spears' was Yahoo!'s most popular search term between 2005 and 2008, and has been in a total of seven different years. Spears was named as Most Searched Person in the Guinness World Records book edition 2007 and 2009. She was later named as the most searched person of the decade 2000–2009. As a public figure, Spears "has never been known to her fans as a politically active, committed—or even aware—entertainer." In a 2003 interview with Tucker Carlson, she commented on President George W. Bush and the Iraq War, saying that "we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes ... and be faithful in what happens". Michael Moore included the footage of Spears's answer in his "anti-Bush" documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, which, according to The Washington Timess James Frazier, presented her "as an example of a naive American blindly trusting a dishonest commander in chief" and fueled the "urban legend" of a "conservative" Spears. Frazier also said that "the few positions she has taken can hardly be considered conservative", such as supporting same-sex marriage. In 2016, Spears posted pictures of a meeting with Hillary Clinton on social media. She described Clinton as "an inspiration and [a] beautiful voice for women around the world". In December 2017, Spears publicly showed support for the DREAM Act in the wake of the announcement that Donald Trump would end the DACA policy, which previously granted undocumented immigrants who came to the country as minors a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation. She posted a photo of herself on social media wearing a black T-shirt that reads "We Are All Dreamers" in white letters. The caption read, "Tell Congress to pass the #DreamAct". In 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Spears posted an image on Instagram stating, "During this time of isolation ... We will feed each other, redistribute wealth, strike. We will understand our own importance from the places we must stay", along with three emoji roses, "a symbol commonly used by the Democratic Socialists of America". She later voiced support for the Black Lives Matter movement and George Floyd protests in the wake of his murder, saying: "My heart breaks for my friends in the black community ... and for everything going on in our country. Right now I think we should all do what we can to listen, learn, do better, and use our voices for good." On September 15, 2021, Spears was named one of the 100 most influential people of 2021 by Time magazine. A few days before the editors's list was released, Spears was put at the top of the readers voting list of which personalities should be included on the annual Time 100 list. Deemed an icon of 2021, editors highlighted the impact of her fight against her conservatorship as well as of the #FreeBritney movement. In October 2021, Spears thanked her fans and the #FreeBritney movement for

it one of the world's largest military forces, estimated at more than 1.6 million reservists annually. Numbering close to 236,000 active personnel, the Brazilian Army has the largest number of armored vehicles in South America, including armored transports and tanks. It is also unique in Latin America for its large, elite forces specializing in unconventional missions, the Brazilian Special Operations Command, and the versatile Strategic Rapid Action Force, made up of highly mobilized and prepared Special Operations Brigade, Infantry Brigade Parachutist, 1st Jungle Infantry Battalion (Airmobile) and 12th Brigade Light Infantry (Airmobile) able to act anywhere in the country, on short notice, to counter external aggression. The states' Military Police and the Military Firefighters Corps are described as an ancillary forces of the Army by the constitution, but are under the control of each state's governor. Brazil's navy, the second-largest in the Americas, once operated some of the most powerful warships in the world with the two dreadnoughts, which sparked a South American dreadnought race between Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. Today, it is a green water force and has a group of specialized elite in retaking ships and naval facilities, GRUMEC, unit specially trained to protect Brazilian oil platforms along its coast. It is the only navy in Latin America that operates an aircraft carrier, PHM Atlantico, and one of the ten navies of the world to operate one. The Air Force is the largest in Latin America and has about 700 crewed aircraft in service and effective about 67,000 personnel. Brazil has not been invaded since 1865 during the Paraguayan War. Additionally, Brazil has no contested territorial disputes with any of its neighbors and neither does it have rivalries, like Chile and Bolivia have with each other. The Brazilian military has also three times intervened militarily to overthrow the Brazilian government. It has built a tradition of participating in UN peacekeeping missions such as in Haiti, East Timor and Central African Republic. Brazil signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Foreign policy Brazil's international relations are based on Article 4 of the Federal Constitution, which establishes non-intervention, self-determination, international cooperation and the peaceful settlement of conflicts as the guiding principles of Brazil's relationship with other countries and multilateral organizations. According to the Constitution, the President has ultimate authority over foreign policy, while the Congress is tasked with reviewing and considering all diplomatic nominations and international treaties, as well as legislation relating to Brazilian foreign policy. Brazil's foreign policy is a by-product of the country's position as a regional power in Latin America, a leader among developing countries, and an emerging world power. Brazilian foreign policy has generally been based on the principles of multilateralism, peaceful dispute settlement, and non-intervention in the affairs of other countries. Brazil is a founding member state of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth, an international organization and political association of Lusophone nations across four continents, where Portuguese is an official language. An increasingly well-developed tool of Brazil's foreign policy is providing aid as a donor to other developing countries. Brazil does not just use its growing economic strength to provide financial aid, but it also provides high levels of expertise and most importantly of all, a quiet non-confrontational diplomacy to improve governance levels. Total aid is estimated to be around $1 billion per year, which includes. In addition, Brazil already managed a peacekeeping mission in Haiti ($350 million) and makes in-kind contributions to the World Food Programme ($300 million). This is in addition to humanitarian assistance and contributions to multilateral development agencies. The scale of this aid places it on par with China and India. The Brazilian South-South aid has been described as a "global model in waiting". Law enforcement and crime In Brazil, the Constitution establishes five different police agencies for law enforcement: Federal Police Department, Federal Highway Police, Federal Railroad Police, Military Police and Civil Police. Of these, the first three are affiliated with federal authorities and the last two are subordinate to state governments. All police forces are the responsibility of the executive branch of any of the federal or state powers. The National Public Security Force also can act in public disorder situations arising anywhere in the country. The country still has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of gun violence and homicide. In 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated the number of 32 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the highest rates of homicide of the world. The number considered tolerable by the WHO is about 10 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. In 2018, Brazil had a record 63,880 murders. However, there are differences between the crime rates in the Brazilian states. While in São Paulo the homicide rate registered in 2013 was 10.8 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, in Alagoas it was 64.7 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. Brazil also has high levels of incarceration and the third largest prison population in the world (behind only China and the United States), with an estimated total of approximately 700,000 prisoners around the country (June 2014), an increase of about 300% compared to the index registered in 1992. The high number of prisoners eventually overloaded the Brazilian prison system, leading to a shortfall of about 200,000 accommodations. Administrative divisions Brazil is a federation composed of 26 states, one federal district, and the 5570 municipalities. States have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the Federal government. They have a governor and a unicameral legislative body elected directly by their voters. They also have independent Courts of Law for common justice. Despite this, states have much less autonomy to create their own laws than in the United States. For example, criminal and civil laws can be voted by only the federal bicameral Congress and are uniform throughout the country. The states and the federal district may be grouped into regions: Northern, Northeast, Central-West, Southeast and Southern. The Brazilian regions are merely geographical, not political or administrative divisions, and they do not have any specific form of government. Although defined by law, Brazilian regions are useful mainly for statistical purposes, and also to define the distribution of federal funds in development projects. Municipalities, as the states, have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the Union and state government. Each has a mayor and an elected legislative body, but no separate Court of Law. Indeed, a Court of Law organized by the state can encompass many municipalities in a single justice administrative division called comarca (county). Economy Brazil is the largest national economy in Latin America, the world's ninth largest economy and the eighth largest in purchasing power parity (PPP) according to 2018 estimates. Brazil has a mixed economy with abundant natural resources. After rapid growth in preceding decades, the country entered an ongoing recession in 2014 amid a political corruption scandal and nationwide protests. Its Gross domestic product (PPP) per capita was $15,919 in 2017 putting Brazil in the 77th position according to IMF data. Active in agricultural, mining, manufacturing and service sectors Brazil has a labor force of over 107 million (ranking 6th worldwide) and unemployment of 6.2% (ranking 64th worldwide). The country has been expanding its presence in international financial and commodities markets, and is one of a group of four emerging economies called the BRIC countries. Brazil has been the world's largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years. The country is a major exporter of soy, iron ore, pulp (cellulose), maize, beef, chicken meat, soybean meal, sugar, coffee, tobacco, cotton, orange juice, footwear, airplanes, cars, vehicle parts, gold, ethanol, semi-finished iron, among other products. Brazil's diversified economy includes agriculture, industry, and a wide range of services. Agriculture and allied sectors like forestry, logging and fishing accounted for 5.1% of the GDP in 2007. Brazil is the largest producer of various agricultural commodities. and also has a large cooperative sector that provides 50% of the food in the country. The world's largest healthcare cooperative Unimed is also located in Brazil, and accounts for 32% of the healthcare insurance market in the country. Brazil is one of the largest producers of animal proteins in the world. In 2019, the country was the world's largest exporter of chicken meat. It was also the world's second largest producer of beef, third largest producer of milk, fourth largest producer of pork and seventh largest producer of eggs. In the mining sector, Brazil stands out in the extraction of iron ore (the second highest world exporter), copper, gold, bauxite (one of the five largest producers in the world), manganese (one of the five largest producers in the world), tin (one of the largest producers in the world), niobium (concentrates 98% of reserves known to the world) and nickel. In terms of precious stones, Brazil is the world's largest producer of amethyst, topaz, agate and one of the main producers of tourmaline, emerald, aquamarine and garnet. Industry in Brazil - from automobiles, steel and petrochemicals to computers, aircraft and consumer durables - accounted for 30.8% of the gross domestic product. Industry is highly concentrated in metropolitan São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Campinas, Porto Alegre, and Belo Horizonte. Brazil has become the fourth largest car market in the world. Major export products include aircraft, electrical equipment, automobiles, ethanol, textiles, footwear, iron ore, steel, coffee, orange juice, soybeans and corned beef. In total, Brazil ranks 23rd worldwide in value of exports. In the food industry, in 2019, Brazil was the second largest exporter of processed foods in the world. In 2016, the country was the 2nd largest producer of pulp in the world and the 8th producer of paper. In the footwear industry, in 2019, Brazil ranked 4th among world producers. In 2019, the country was the 8th producer of vehicles and the 9th producer of steel in the world. In 2018, the chemical industry of Brazil was the 8th in the world. Although it was among the five largest world producers in 2013, Brazil's textile industry is very little integrated into world trade. The tertiary sector (trade and services) represented 75.8% of the country's GDP in 2018, according to the IBGE. The service sector was responsible for 60% of GDP and trade for 13%. It covers a wide range of activities: commerce, accommodation and catering, transport, communications, financial services, real estate activities and services provided to businesses, public administration (urban cleaning, sanitation, etc.) and other services such as education, social and health services, research and development, sports activities, etc., since it consists of activities complementary to other sectors. Micro and small businesses represent 30% of the country's GDP. In the commercial sector, for example, they represent 53% of the GDP within the activities of the sector. Brazil pegged its currency, the real, to the U.S. dollar in 1994. However, after the East Asian financial crisis, the Russian default in 1998 and the series of adverse financial events that followed it, the Central Bank of Brazil temporarily changed its monetary policy to a managed float regime scheme while undergoing a currency crisis, until definitively changing the exchange regime to free-float in January 1999. Brazil received an International Monetary Fund (IMF) rescue package in mid-2002 of $30.4 billion, a record sum at the time. Brazil's central bank repaid the IMF loan in 2005, although it was not due to be repaid until 2006. One of the issues the Central Bank of Brazil recently dealt with was an excess of speculative short-term capital inflows to the country, which may have contributed to a fall in the value of the U.S. dollar against the real during that period. Nonetheless, foreign direct investment (FDI), related to long-term, less speculative investment in production, is estimated to be $193.8 billion for 2007. Inflation monitoring and control currently plays a major part in the Central bank's role in setting short-term interest rates as a monetary policy measure. Corruption costs Brazil almost $41 billion a year alone in 2010, with 69.9% of the country's firms identifying the issue as a major constraint in successfully penetrating the global market. Local government corruption is so prevalent that voters perceive it as a problem only if it surpasses certain levels, and only if a local media e.g. a radio station is present to divulge the findings of corruption charges. Initiatives, like this exposure, strengthen awareness which is indicated by the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index; ranking Brazil 69th out of 178 countries in 2012. The purchasing power in Brazil is eroded by the so-called Brazil cost. Energy Brazil is the world's tenth largest energy consumer with much of its energy coming from renewable sources, particularly hydroelectricity and ethanol; the Itaipu Dam is the world's largest hydroelectric plant by energy generation, and the country has other large plants like Belo Monte and Tucuruí. The first car with an ethanol engine was produced in 1978 and the first airplane engine running on ethanol in 2005. In total electricity generation, in 2019 Brazil reached 170,000 megawatts of installed capacity, more than 75% from renewable sources (the majority, hydroelectric plants). In 2019, Brazil had 217 hydroelectric plants in operation, with an installed capacity of 98,581 MW, 60.16% of the country's energy generation. Brazil is one of the 5 largest hydroelectric energy producers in the world (2nd place in 2017). according to ONS, total installed capacity of wind power was 20 GW, with average capacity factor of 58%. While the world average wind production capacity factors is 24.7%, there are areas in Northern Brazil, specially in Bahia State, where some wind farms record with average capacity factors over 60%; the average capacity factor in the Northeast Region is 45% in the coast and 49% in the interior. In 2019, wind energy represented 9% of the energy generated in the country. In 2019, it was estimated that the country had an estimated wind power generation potential of around 522 GW (this, only onshore), enough energy to meet three times the country's current demand. Brazil is one of the 10 largest wind energy producers in the world (8th place in 2019, with 2.4% of world production). according to ONS, total installed capacity of photovoltaic solar was 11.3 GW, with average capacity factor of 23%. Some of the most irradiated Brazilian States are Minas Gerais, Bahia and Goiás. In 2019, solar power represented 1.27% of the energy generated in the country. In 2020, Brazil was the 14th country in the world in terms of installed solar power (7.8 GW). In 2020, Brazil was the 2nd largest country in the world in the production of energy through biomass (energy production from solid biofuels and renewable waste), with 15,2 GW installed. Recent oil discoveries in the pre-salt layer have opened the door for a large increase in oil production. The governmental agencies responsible for the energy policy are the Ministry of Mines and Energy, the National Council for Energy Policy, the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels, and the National Agency of Electricity. In the beginning of 2020, in the production of oil and natural gas, the country exceeded 4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, for the first time. In January this year, 3.168 million barrels of oil per day and 138.753 million cubic meters of natural gas were extracted. Tourism Tourism in Brazil is a growing sector and key to the economy of several regions of the country. The country had 6.36 million visitors in 2015, ranking in terms of the international tourist arrivals as the main destination in South America and second in Latin America after Mexico. Revenues from international tourists reached billion in 2010, showing a recovery from the 2008–2009 economic crisis. Historical records of 5.4 million visitors and billion in receipts were reached in 2011. In the list of world tourist destinations, in 2018, Brazil was the 48th most visited country, with 6.6 million tourists (and revenues of 5.9 billion dollars). Natural areas are its most popular tourism product, a combination of ecotourism with leisure and recreation, mainly sun and beach, and adventure travel, as well as cultural tourism. Among the most popular destinations are the Amazon Rainforest, beaches and dunes in the Northeast Region, the Pantanal in the Center-West Region, beaches at Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina, cultural tourism in Minas Gerais and business trips to São Paulo. In terms of the 2015 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), which is a measurement of the factors that make it attractive to develop business in the travel and tourism industry of individual countries, Brazil ranked in the 28st place at the world's level, third in the Americas, after Canada and United States. Brazil's main competitive advantages are its natural resources, which ranked 1st on this criteria out of all countries considered, and ranked 23rd for its cultural resources, due to its many World Heritage Sites. The TTCI report notes Brazil's main weaknesses: its ground transport infrastructure remains underdeveloped (ranked 116th), with the quality of roads ranking in 105th place; and the country continues to suffer from a lack of price competitiveness (ranked 114th), due in part to high ticket taxes and airport charges, as well as high prices and high taxation. Safety and security have improved significantly: 75th in 2011, up from 128th in 2008. Creative economy The first study into the impact of the creative industries on the Brazilian economy was published by FIRJAN. The creative economy in Latin America was termed the"Orange Economy" in a publication released by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). This 2013 study valued Brazil's Orange Economy at US$66,87 billion providing 5,280,000 jobs and responsible for US$9,414 million in exports, with the value of creative exports being higher than coffee exports over the same period (US$8,016 million). A 2021 study into the Intellectual Property Intensive Sectors in the Brazilian Economy was undertaken as part of the National Strategy on Intellectual Property 2021–2030. The study found that 450 of Brazil's 673 economic classes could be classified as IP-intensive sectors which collectively employed 19,3 million people. The share of GDP between 2014 and 2016 across these economic classes amounted to R$2,1 trillion Reais or 44,2% of GDP. Infrastructure Science and technology Technological research in Brazil is largely carried out in public universities and research institutes, with the majority of funding for basic research coming from various government agencies. Brazil's most esteemed technological hubs are the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, the Butantan Institute, the Air Force's Aerospace Technical Center, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation and the National Institute for Space Research. The Brazilian Space Agency has the most advanced space program in Latin America, with significant resources to launch vehicles, and manufacture of satellites. Owner of relative technological sophistication, the country develops submarines, aircraft, as well as being involved in space research, having a Vehicle Launch Center Light and being the only country in the Southern Hemisphere the integrate team building International Space Station (ISS). The country is also a pioneer in the search for oil in deep water, from where it extracts 73% of its reserves. Uranium is enriched at the Resende Nuclear Fuel Factory, mostly for research purposes (as Brazil obtains 88% of its electricity from hydroelectricity) and the country's first nuclear submarine was delivered in 2015 (by France). Brazil is one of the three countries in Latin America with an operational Synchrotron Laboratory, a research facility on physics, chemistry, material science and life sciences, and Brazil is the only Latin American country to have a semiconductor company with its own fabrication plant, the CEITEC. According to the Global Information Technology Report 2009–2010 of the World Economic Forum, Brazil is the world's 61st largest developer of information technology. Brazil was ranked 62nd in the Global Innovation Index in 2020, up from 66th in 2019. Among the most renowned Brazilian inventors are priests Bartolomeu de Gusmão, Landell de Moura and Francisco João de Azevedo, besides Alberto Santos-Dumont, Evaristo Conrado Engelberg, Manuel Dias de Abreu, Andreas Pavel and Nélio José Nicolai. Brazilian science is represented by the likes of César Lattes (Brazilian physicist Pathfinder of Pi Meson), Mário Schenberg (considered the greatest theoretical physicist of Brazil), José Leite Lopes (only Brazilian physicist holder of the UNESCO Science Prize), Artur Ávila (the first Latin American winner of the Fields Medal) and Fritz Müller (pioneer in factual support of the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin). Transport Brazilian roads are the primary carriers of freight and passenger traffic. The road system totaled in 2019. The total of paved roads increased from in 1967 to in 2018. The country has about of divided highways, only in the State of São Paulo. Currently it's possible to travel from Rio Grande, in the extreme south of the country, to Brasília () or Casimiro de Abreu, in the state of Rio de Janeiro (), only on divided highways. The first investments in road infrastructure have given up in the 1920s, the government of Washington Luís, being pursued in the governments of Getúlio Vargas and Eurico Gaspar Dutra. President Juscelino Kubitschek (1956–61), who designed and built the capital Brasília, was another supporter of highways. Brazil's railway system has been declining since 1945, when emphasis shifted to highway construction. The total length of railway track was in 2002, as compared with in 1970. Most of the railway system belonged to the Federal Railroad Corporation RFFSA, which was privatized in 2007. The São Paulo Metro was the first underground transit system in Brazil. The other metro systems are in Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Recife, Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Salvador and Fortaleza. The country has an extensive rail network of in length, the tenth largest network in the world. Currently, the Brazilian government, unlike the past, seeks to encourage this mode of transport; an example of this incentive is the project of the Rio–São Paulo high-speed rail, that will connect the two main cities of the country to carry passengers. There are about 2,500 airports in Brazil, including landing fields: the second largest number in the world, after the United States. São Paulo–Guarulhos International Airport, near São Paulo, is the largest and busiest airport with nearly 20 million passengers annually, while handling the vast majority of commercial traffic for the country. For freight transport waterways are of importance, e.g. the industrial zones of Manaus can be reached only by means of the Solimões–Amazonas waterway ( in length, with a minimum depth of ). The country also has of waterways. Coastal shipping links widely separated parts of the country. Bolivia and Paraguay have been given free ports at Santos. Of the 36 deep-water ports, Santos, Itajaí, Rio Grande, Paranaguá, Rio de Janeiro, Sepetiba, Vitória, Suape, Manaus and São Francisco do Sul are the most important. Bulk carriers have to wait up to 18 days before being serviced, container ships 36.3 hours on average. Health The Brazilian public health system, the Unified Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde – SUS), is managed and provided by all levels of government, being the largest system of this type in the world. On the other hand, private healthcare systems play a complementary role. Public health services are universal and offered to all citizens of the country for free. However, the construction and maintenance of health centers and hospitals are financed by taxes, and the country spends about 9% of its GDP on expenditures in the area. In 2012, Brazil had 1.85 doctors and 2.3 hospital beds for every 1,000 inhabitants. Despite all the progress made since the creation of the universal health care system in 1988, there are still several public health problems in Brazil. In 2006, the main points to be solved were the high infant (2.51%) and maternal mortality rates (73.1 deaths per 1000 births). The number of deaths from noncommunicable diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases (151.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants) and cancer (72.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants), also has a considerable impact on the health of the Brazilian population. Finally, external but preventable factors such as car accidents, violence and suicide caused 14.9% of all deaths in the country. The Brazilian health system was ranked 125th among the 191 countries evaluated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2000. Education The Federal Constitution and the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education determine that the Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities must manage and organize their respective education systems. Each of these public educational systems is responsible for its own maintenance, which manages funds as well as the mechanisms and funding sources. The constitution reserves 25% of the state budget and 18% of federal taxes and municipal taxes for education. According to the IBGE, in 2019, the literacy rate of the population was 93.4%, meaning that 11.3 million (6.6% of population) people are still illiterate in the country, with some states like Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina reaching around 97% of literacy rate; functional illiteracy has reached 21.6% of the population. Illiteracy is higher in the Northeast, where 13.87% of the population is illiterate, while the South, has 3.3% of its population illiterate. Brazil's private institutions tend to be more exclusive and offer better quality education, so many high-income families send their children there. The result is a segregated educational system that reflects extreme income disparities and reinforces social inequality. However, efforts to change this are making impacts. The University of São Paulo is the second best university in Latin America, according to recent 2019 QS World University Rankings. Of the top 20 Latin American universities, eight are Brazilian. Most of them are public. Attending an institution of higher education is required by Law of Guidelines and Bases of Education. Kindergarten, elementary and medium education are required of all students. Media and communication The Brazilian press was officially born in Rio de Janeiro on 13 May 1808 with the creation of the Royal Printing National Press by the Prince Regent Dom João. The Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro, the first newspaper published in the country, began to circulate on 10 September 1808. The largest newspapers nowadays are Folha de S.Paulo, Super Notícia, O Globo and O Estado de S. Paulo. Radio broadcasting began on 7 September 1922, with a speech by then President Pessoa, and was formalized on 20 April 1923 with the creation of "Radio Society of Rio de Janeiro". Television in Brazil began officially on 18 September 1950, with the founding of TV Tupi by Assis Chateaubriand. Since then television has grown in the country, creating large commercial broadcast networks such as Globo, SBT, RecordTV, Bandeirantes and RedeTV. Today it is the most important factor in popular culture of Brazilian society, indicated by research showing that as much as 67% of the general population follow the same daily soap opera broadcast. Digital Television, using the SBTVD standard (based on the Japanese standard ISDB-T), was adopted on 29 June 2006 and launched on 2 November 2007. In May 2010, the Brazilian government launched TV Brasil Internacional, an international television station, initially broadcasting to 49 countries. Commercial television channels broadcast internationally include Globo Internacional, RecordTV Internacional and Band Internacional. Demographics The population of Brazil, as recorded by the 2008 PNAD, was approximately 190 million (), with a ratio of men to women of 0.95:1 and 83.75% of the population defined as urban. The population is heavily concentrated in the Southeastern (79.8 million inhabitants) and Northeastern (53.5 million inhabitants) regions, while the two most extensive regions, the Center-West and the North, which together make up 64.12% of the Brazilian territory, have a total of only 29.1 million inhabitants. The first census in Brazil was carried out in 1872 and recorded a population of 9,930,478. From 1880 to 1930, 4 million Europeans arrived. Brazil's population increased significantly between 1940 and 1970, because of a decline in the mortality rate, even though the birth rate underwent a slight decline. In the 1940s the annual population growth rate was 2.4%, rising to 3.0% in the 1950s and remaining at 2.9% in the 1960s, as life expectancy rose from 44 to 54 years and to 72.6 years in 2007. It has been steadily falling since the 1960s, from 3.04% per year between 1950 and 1960 to 1.05% in 2008 and is expected to fall to a negative value of –0.29% by 2050 thus completing the demographic transition. In 2008, the illiteracy rate was 11.48% and among the youth (ages 15–19) 1.74%. It was highest (20.30%) in the Northeast, which had a large proportion of rural poor. Illiteracy was high (24.18%) among the rural population and lower (9.05%) among the urban population. Race and ethnicity According to the National Research by Household Sample (PNAD) of 2008, 48.43% of the population (about 92 million) described themselves as White; 43.80% (about 83 million) as Pardo (brown), 6.84% (about 13 million) as Black; 0.58% (about 1.1 million) as East Asian (officially called yellow or amarela); and 0.28% (about 536 thousand) as Amerindian (officially called indígena, Indigenous), while 0.07% (about 130 thousand) did not declare their race. In 2007, the National Indian Foundation estimated that Brazil has 67 different uncontacted tribes, up from their estimate of 40 in 2005. Brazil is believed to have the largest number of uncontacted peoples in the world. Since the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500, considerable genetic mixing between Amerindians, Europeans, and Africans has taken place in all regions of the country (with European ancestry being dominant nationwide according to the vast majority of all autosomal studies undertaken covering the entire population, accounting for between 65% to 77%). Brazilian society is more markedly divided by social class lines, although a high income disparity is found between race groups, so racism and classism often overlap. Socially significant closeness to one racial group is taken in account more in the basis of appearance (phenotypes) rather than ancestry, to the extent that full siblings can pertain to different "racial" groups. Socioeconomic factors are also significant, because a minority of pardos are likely to start declaring themselves White or Black if socially upward. Skin color and facial features do not line quite well with ancestry (usually, Afro-Brazilians are evenly mixed and European ancestry is dominant in Whites and pardos with a significant non-European contribution, but the individual variation is great). The brown population (officially called pardo in Portuguese, also colloquially moreno) is a broad category that includes caboclos (assimilated Amerindians in general, and descendants of Whites and Natives), mulatos (descendants of primarily Whites and Afro-Brazilians) and cafuzos (descendants of Afro-Brazilians and Natives). People of considerable Amerindian ancestry form the majority of the population in the Northern, Northeastern and Center-Western regions. Higher percents of Blacks, mulattoes and tri-racials can be found in the eastern coast of the Northeastern region from Bahia to Paraíba and also in northern Maranhão, southern Minas Gerais and in eastern Rio de Janeiro. From the 19th century, Brazil opened its borders to immigration. About five million people from over 60 countries migrated to Brazil between 1808 and 1972, most of them of Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, German, Ukrainian, Polish, Jewish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Arab origin. Brazil has the second largest Jewish community in Latin America making up 0.06% of its population. Religion Roman Catholicism is the country's predominant faith. Brazil has the world's largest Catholic population. According to the 2010 Demographic Census (the PNAD survey does not inquire about religion), 64.63% of the population followed Roman Catholicism; 22.2% Protestantism; 2.0% Kardecist spiritism; 3.2% other religions, undeclared or undetermined; while 8.0% have no religion. Religion in Brazil was formed from the meeting of the Catholic Church with the religious traditions of enslaved African peoples and indigenous peoples. This confluence of faiths during the Portuguese colonization of Brazil led to the development of a diverse array of syncretistic practices within the overarching umbrella of Brazilian Catholic Church, characterized by traditional Portuguese festivities, Religious pluralism increased during the 20th century, and the Protestant community has grown to include over 22% of the population. The most common Protestant denominations are Evangelical Pentecostal ones. Other Protestant branches with a notable presence in the country include the Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, Lutherans and the Reformed tradition. However, in the last ten years Protestantism, particularly in forms of Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism, has spread in Brazil, while the proportion of Catholics has dropped significantly. After Protestantism, individuals professing no religion are also a significant group, exceeding 8% of the population as of the 2010 census. The cities of Boa Vista, Salvador, and Porto Velho have the greatest proportion of Irreligious residents in Brazil. Teresina, Fortaleza, and Florianópolis were the most Roman Catholic in the country. Greater Rio de Janeiro, not including the city proper, is the most irreligious and least Roman Catholic Brazilian periphery, while Greater Porto Alegre and Greater Fortaleza are on the opposite sides of the lists, respectively. In October 2009, the Brazilian Senate approved and enacted by the President of Brazil in February 2010, an agreement with the Vatican, in which the Legal Statute of the Catholic Church in Brazil is recognized. The agreement confirmed norms that were normally complied with regarding religious education in public elementary schools (which also ensures the teaching of other beliefs), marriage and spiritual assistance in prisons and hospitals. The project was criticized by parliamentarians who understood the end of the secular state with the approval of the agreement. Urbanization According to IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) urban areas already concentrate 84.35% of the population, while the Southeast region remains the most populated one, with over 80 million inhabitants. The largest urban agglomerations in Brazil are São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte – all in the Southeastern Region – with 21.1, 12.3, and 5.1 million inhabitants respectively. The majority of state capitals are the largest cities in their states, except for Vitória, the capital of Espírito Santo, and Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina. Language The official language of Brazil is Portuguese (Article 13 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Brazil), which almost all of the population speaks and is virtually the only language used in newspapers, radio, television, and for business and administrative purposes. Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas, making the language an important part of Brazilian national identity and giving it a national culture distinct from those of its Spanish-speaking neighbors. Brazilian Portuguese has had its own development, mostly similar to 16th-century Central and Southern dialects of European Portuguese (despite a very substantial number of Portuguese colonial settlers, and more recent immigrants, coming from Northern regions, and in minor degree Portuguese Macaronesia), with a few influences from the Amerindian and African languages, especially West African and Bantu restricted to the vocabulary only. As a result, the language is somewhat different, mostly in phonology, from the language of Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries (the dialects of the other countries, partly because of the more recent end of Portuguese colonialism in these regions, have a closer connection to contemporary European Portuguese). These differences are comparable to those between American and British English. In 1990, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), which included representatives from all countries with Portuguese as the official language, reached an agreement on the reform of the Portuguese orthography to unify the two standards then in use by Brazil on one side and the remaining lusophone countries on the other. This spelling reform went into effect in Brazil on 1 January 2009. In Portugal, the reform was signed into law by the President on 21 July 2008 allowing for a six-year adaptation period, during which both orthographies will co-exist. The remaining CPLP countries are free to establish their own transition timetables. The sign language law legally recognized in 2002, (the law was regulated in 2005) the use of the Brazilian Sign Language, more commonly known by its Portuguese acronym LIBRAS, in education and government services. The language must be taught as a part of the education and speech and language pathology curricula. LIBRAS teachers, instructors and translators are recognized professionals. Schools and health services must provide access ("inclusion") to deaf people. Minority languages are spoken throughout the nation. One hundred and eighty Amerindian languages are spoken in remote areas and a significant number of other languages are spoken by immigrants and their descendants. In the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Nheengatu (a currently endangered South American creole language – or an 'anti-creole', according to some linguists – with mostly Indigenous Brazilian languages lexicon and Portuguese-based grammar that, together with its southern relative língua geral paulista, once was a major lingua franca in Brazil, being replaced by Portuguese only after governmental prohibition led by major political changes), Baniwa and Tucano languages had been granted co-official status with Portuguese. There are significant communities of German (mostly the Brazilian Hunsrückisch, a High German language dialect) and Italian (mostly the Talian, a Venetian dialect) origins in the Southern and Southeastern regions, whose ancestors' native languages were carried along to Brazil, and which, still alive there, are influenced by the Portuguese language. Talian is officially a historic patrimony of Rio Grande do Sul, and two German dialects possess co-official status in a few municipalities. Italian is also recognized as ethnic language in the Santa Teresa microregion and Vila Velha (Espirito Santo state), and is taught as mandatory second language at school. Learning at least one second language (generally English or Spanish) is mandatory for all the 12 grades of the mandatory education system (primary and secondary education, there called ensino fundamental and ensino médio respectively). Brazil is the first country in South America to offer Esperanto to secondary students. Culture The core culture of Brazil is derived from Portuguese culture, because of its strong colonial ties with the Portuguese Empire. Among other influences, the Portuguese introduced the Portuguese language, Roman Catholicism and colonial architectural styles. The culture was, however, also strongly influenced by African, indigenous and non-Portuguese European cultures and traditions. Some aspects of Brazilian culture were influenced by the contributions of Italian, German and other European as well as Japanese, Jewish and Arab immigrants who arrived in large numbers in the South and Southeast of Brazil during the 19th and 20th centuries. The indigenous Amerindians influenced Brazil's language and cuisine; and the Africans influenced language, cuisine, music, dance and religion. Brazilian art has developed since the 16th century into different styles that range from Baroque (the dominant style in Brazil until the early 19th century) to Romanticism, Modernism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism and Abstractionism. Brazilian cinema dates back to the birth of the medium in the late 19th century and has gained a new level of international acclaim since the 1960s. Architecture The architecture of Brazil is influenced by Europe, especially Portugal. It has a history that goes back 500 years to the time when Pedro Cabral discovered Brazil in 1500. Portuguese colonial architecture was the first wave of architecture to go to Brazil. It is the basis for all Brazilian architecture of later centuries. In the 19th century during the time of the Empire of Brazil, Brazil followed European trends and adopted Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture. Then in the 20th century especially in Brasilia, Brazil experimented with Modernist architecture. The colonial architecture of Brazil dates to the early 16th century when Brazil was first explored, conquered and settled by the Portuguese. The Portuguese built architecture familiar to them in Europe in their aim to colonize Brazil. They built Portuguese colonial architecture which included churches, civic architecture including houses and forts in Brazilian cities and the countryside. During 19th century Brazilian architecture saw the introduction of more European styles to Brazil such as Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture. This was usually mixed with Brazilian influences from their own heritage which produced a unique form of Brazilian architecture. In the 1950s the modernist architecture was introduced when Brasilia was built as new federal capital in the interior of Brazil to help develop the interior. The architect Oscar Niemeyer idealized and built government buildings, churches and civic buildings in the modernist style. Music The music of Brazil was formed mainly from the fusion of European and African elements. Until the nineteenth century, Portugal was the gateway to most of the influences that built Brazilian music, although many of these elements were not of Portuguese origin, but generally European. The first was José Maurício Nunes Garcia, author of sacred pieces with influence of Viennese classicism. The major contribution of the African element was the rhythmic diversity and some dances and instruments that had a bigger role in the development of popular music and folk, flourishing especially in the twentieth century. Popular music since the late eighteenth century began to show signs of forming a characteristically Brazilian sound, with samba considered the most typical and on the UNESCO cultural heritage

extraction of iron ore (the second highest world exporter), copper, gold, bauxite (one of the five largest producers in the world), manganese (one of the five largest producers in the world), tin (one of the largest producers in the world), niobium (concentrates 98% of reserves known to the world) and nickel. In terms of precious stones, Brazil is the world's largest producer of amethyst, topaz, agate and one of the main producers of tourmaline, emerald, aquamarine and garnet. Industry in Brazil - from automobiles, steel and petrochemicals to computers, aircraft and consumer durables - accounted for 30.8% of the gross domestic product. Industry is highly concentrated in metropolitan São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Campinas, Porto Alegre, and Belo Horizonte. Brazil has become the fourth largest car market in the world. Major export products include aircraft, electrical equipment, automobiles, ethanol, textiles, footwear, iron ore, steel, coffee, orange juice, soybeans and corned beef. In total, Brazil ranks 23rd worldwide in value of exports. In the food industry, in 2019, Brazil was the second largest exporter of processed foods in the world. In 2016, the country was the 2nd largest producer of pulp in the world and the 8th producer of paper. In the footwear industry, in 2019, Brazil ranked 4th among world producers. In 2019, the country was the 8th producer of vehicles and the 9th producer of steel in the world. In 2018, the chemical industry of Brazil was the 8th in the world. Although it was among the five largest world producers in 2013, Brazil's textile industry is very little integrated into world trade. The tertiary sector (trade and services) represented 75.8% of the country's GDP in 2018, according to the IBGE. The service sector was responsible for 60% of GDP and trade for 13%. It covers a wide range of activities: commerce, accommodation and catering, transport, communications, financial services, real estate activities and services provided to businesses, public administration (urban cleaning, sanitation, etc.) and other services such as education, social and health services, research and development, sports activities, etc., since it consists of activities complementary to other sectors. Micro and small businesses represent 30% of the country's GDP. In the commercial sector, for example, they represent 53% of the GDP within the activities of the sector. Brazil pegged its currency, the real, to the U.S. dollar in 1994. However, after the East Asian financial crisis, the Russian default in 1998 and the series of adverse financial events that followed it, the Central Bank of Brazil temporarily changed its monetary policy to a managed float regime scheme while undergoing a currency crisis, until definitively changing the exchange regime to free-float in January 1999. Brazil received an International Monetary Fund (IMF) rescue package in mid-2002 of $30.4 billion, a record sum at the time. Brazil's central bank repaid the IMF loan in 2005, although it was not due to be repaid until 2006. One of the issues the Central Bank of Brazil recently dealt with was an excess of speculative short-term capital inflows to the country, which may have contributed to a fall in the value of the U.S. dollar against the real during that period. Nonetheless, foreign direct investment (FDI), related to long-term, less speculative investment in production, is estimated to be $193.8 billion for 2007. Inflation monitoring and control currently plays a major part in the Central bank's role in setting short-term interest rates as a monetary policy measure. Corruption costs Brazil almost $41 billion a year alone in 2010, with 69.9% of the country's firms identifying the issue as a major constraint in successfully penetrating the global market. Local government corruption is so prevalent that voters perceive it as a problem only if it surpasses certain levels, and only if a local media e.g. a radio station is present to divulge the findings of corruption charges. Initiatives, like this exposure, strengthen awareness which is indicated by the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index; ranking Brazil 69th out of 178 countries in 2012. The purchasing power in Brazil is eroded by the so-called Brazil cost. Energy Brazil is the world's tenth largest energy consumer with much of its energy coming from renewable sources, particularly hydroelectricity and ethanol; the Itaipu Dam is the world's largest hydroelectric plant by energy generation, and the country has other large plants like Belo Monte and Tucuruí. The first car with an ethanol engine was produced in 1978 and the first airplane engine running on ethanol in 2005. In total electricity generation, in 2019 Brazil reached 170,000 megawatts of installed capacity, more than 75% from renewable sources (the majority, hydroelectric plants). In 2019, Brazil had 217 hydroelectric plants in operation, with an installed capacity of 98,581 MW, 60.16% of the country's energy generation. Brazil is one of the 5 largest hydroelectric energy producers in the world (2nd place in 2017). according to ONS, total installed capacity of wind power was 20 GW, with average capacity factor of 58%. While the world average wind production capacity factors is 24.7%, there are areas in Northern Brazil, specially in Bahia State, where some wind farms record with average capacity factors over 60%; the average capacity factor in the Northeast Region is 45% in the coast and 49% in the interior. In 2019, wind energy represented 9% of the energy generated in the country. In 2019, it was estimated that the country had an estimated wind power generation potential of around 522 GW (this, only onshore), enough energy to meet three times the country's current demand. Brazil is one of the 10 largest wind energy producers in the world (8th place in 2019, with 2.4% of world production). according to ONS, total installed capacity of photovoltaic solar was 11.3 GW, with average capacity factor of 23%. Some of the most irradiated Brazilian States are Minas Gerais, Bahia and Goiás. In 2019, solar power represented 1.27% of the energy generated in the country. In 2020, Brazil was the 14th country in the world in terms of installed solar power (7.8 GW). In 2020, Brazil was the 2nd largest country in the world in the production of energy through biomass (energy production from solid biofuels and renewable waste), with 15,2 GW installed. Recent oil discoveries in the pre-salt layer have opened the door for a large increase in oil production. The governmental agencies responsible for the energy policy are the Ministry of Mines and Energy, the National Council for Energy Policy, the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels, and the National Agency of Electricity. In the beginning of 2020, in the production of oil and natural gas, the country exceeded 4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, for the first time. In January this year, 3.168 million barrels of oil per day and 138.753 million cubic meters of natural gas were extracted. Tourism Tourism in Brazil is a growing sector and key to the economy of several regions of the country. The country had 6.36 million visitors in 2015, ranking in terms of the international tourist arrivals as the main destination in South America and second in Latin America after Mexico. Revenues from international tourists reached billion in 2010, showing a recovery from the 2008–2009 economic crisis. Historical records of 5.4 million visitors and billion in receipts were reached in 2011. In the list of world tourist destinations, in 2018, Brazil was the 48th most visited country, with 6.6 million tourists (and revenues of 5.9 billion dollars). Natural areas are its most popular tourism product, a combination of ecotourism with leisure and recreation, mainly sun and beach, and adventure travel, as well as cultural tourism. Among the most popular destinations are the Amazon Rainforest, beaches and dunes in the Northeast Region, the Pantanal in the Center-West Region, beaches at Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina, cultural tourism in Minas Gerais and business trips to São Paulo. In terms of the 2015 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), which is a measurement of the factors that make it attractive to develop business in the travel and tourism industry of individual countries, Brazil ranked in the 28st place at the world's level, third in the Americas, after Canada and United States. Brazil's main competitive advantages are its natural resources, which ranked 1st on this criteria out of all countries considered, and ranked 23rd for its cultural resources, due to its many World Heritage Sites. The TTCI report notes Brazil's main weaknesses: its ground transport infrastructure remains underdeveloped (ranked 116th), with the quality of roads ranking in 105th place; and the country continues to suffer from a lack of price competitiveness (ranked 114th), due in part to high ticket taxes and airport charges, as well as high prices and high taxation. Safety and security have improved significantly: 75th in 2011, up from 128th in 2008. Creative economy The first study into the impact of the creative industries on the Brazilian economy was published by FIRJAN. The creative economy in Latin America was termed the"Orange Economy" in a publication released by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). This 2013 study valued Brazil's Orange Economy at US$66,87 billion providing 5,280,000 jobs and responsible for US$9,414 million in exports, with the value of creative exports being higher than coffee exports over the same period (US$8,016 million). A 2021 study into the Intellectual Property Intensive Sectors in the Brazilian Economy was undertaken as part of the National Strategy on Intellectual Property 2021–2030. The study found that 450 of Brazil's 673 economic classes could be classified as IP-intensive sectors which collectively employed 19,3 million people. The share of GDP between 2014 and 2016 across these economic classes amounted to R$2,1 trillion Reais or 44,2% of GDP. Infrastructure Science and technology Technological research in Brazil is largely carried out in public universities and research institutes, with the majority of funding for basic research coming from various government agencies. Brazil's most esteemed technological hubs are the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, the Butantan Institute, the Air Force's Aerospace Technical Center, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation and the National Institute for Space Research. The Brazilian Space Agency has the most advanced space program in Latin America, with significant resources to launch vehicles, and manufacture of satellites. Owner of relative technological sophistication, the country develops submarines, aircraft, as well as being involved in space research, having a Vehicle Launch Center Light and being the only country in the Southern Hemisphere the integrate team building International Space Station (ISS). The country is also a pioneer in the search for oil in deep water, from where it extracts 73% of its reserves. Uranium is enriched at the Resende Nuclear Fuel Factory, mostly for research purposes (as Brazil obtains 88% of its electricity from hydroelectricity) and the country's first nuclear submarine was delivered in 2015 (by France). Brazil is one of the three countries in Latin America with an operational Synchrotron Laboratory, a research facility on physics, chemistry, material science and life sciences, and Brazil is the only Latin American country to have a semiconductor company with its own fabrication plant, the CEITEC. According to the Global Information Technology Report 2009–2010 of the World Economic Forum, Brazil is the world's 61st largest developer of information technology. Brazil was ranked 62nd in the Global Innovation Index in 2020, up from 66th in 2019. Among the most renowned Brazilian inventors are priests Bartolomeu de Gusmão, Landell de Moura and Francisco João de Azevedo, besides Alberto Santos-Dumont, Evaristo Conrado Engelberg, Manuel Dias de Abreu, Andreas Pavel and Nélio José Nicolai. Brazilian science is represented by the likes of César Lattes (Brazilian physicist Pathfinder of Pi Meson), Mário Schenberg (considered the greatest theoretical physicist of Brazil), José Leite Lopes (only Brazilian physicist holder of the UNESCO Science Prize), Artur Ávila (the first Latin American winner of the Fields Medal) and Fritz Müller (pioneer in factual support of the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin). Transport Brazilian roads are the primary carriers of freight and passenger traffic. The road system totaled in 2019. The total of paved roads increased from in 1967 to in 2018. The country has about of divided highways, only in the State of São Paulo. Currently it's possible to travel from Rio Grande, in the extreme south of the country, to Brasília () or Casimiro de Abreu, in the state of Rio de Janeiro (), only on divided highways. The first investments in road infrastructure have given up in the 1920s, the government of Washington Luís, being pursued in the governments of Getúlio Vargas and Eurico Gaspar Dutra. President Juscelino Kubitschek (1956–61), who designed and built the capital Brasília, was another supporter of highways. Brazil's railway system has been declining since 1945, when emphasis shifted to highway construction. The total length of railway track was in 2002, as compared with in 1970. Most of the railway system belonged to the Federal Railroad Corporation RFFSA, which was privatized in 2007. The São Paulo Metro was the first underground transit system in Brazil. The other metro systems are in Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Recife, Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Salvador and Fortaleza. The country has an extensive rail network of in length, the tenth largest network in the world. Currently, the Brazilian government, unlike the past, seeks to encourage this mode of transport; an example of this incentive is the project of the Rio–São Paulo high-speed rail, that will connect the two main cities of the country to carry passengers. There are about 2,500 airports in Brazil, including landing fields: the second largest number in the world, after the United States. São Paulo–Guarulhos International Airport, near São Paulo, is the largest and busiest airport with nearly 20 million passengers annually, while handling the vast majority of commercial traffic for the country. For freight transport waterways are of importance, e.g. the industrial zones of Manaus can be reached only by means of the Solimões–Amazonas waterway ( in length, with a minimum depth of ). The country also has of waterways. Coastal shipping links widely separated parts of the country. Bolivia and Paraguay have been given free ports at Santos. Of the 36 deep-water ports, Santos, Itajaí, Rio Grande, Paranaguá, Rio de Janeiro, Sepetiba, Vitória, Suape, Manaus and São Francisco do Sul are the most important. Bulk carriers have to wait up to 18 days before being serviced, container ships 36.3 hours on average. Health The Brazilian public health system, the Unified Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde – SUS), is managed and provided by all levels of government, being the largest system of this type in the world. On the other hand, private healthcare systems play a complementary role. Public health services are universal and offered to all citizens of the country for free. However, the construction and maintenance of health centers and hospitals are financed by taxes, and the country spends about 9% of its GDP on expenditures in the area. In 2012, Brazil had 1.85 doctors and 2.3 hospital beds for every 1,000 inhabitants. Despite all the progress made since the creation of the universal health care system in 1988, there are still several public health problems in Brazil. In 2006, the main points to be solved were the high infant (2.51%) and maternal mortality rates (73.1 deaths per 1000 births). The number of deaths from noncommunicable diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases (151.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants) and cancer (72.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants), also has a considerable impact on the health of the Brazilian population. Finally, external but preventable factors such as car accidents, violence and suicide caused 14.9% of all deaths in the country. The Brazilian health system was ranked 125th among the 191 countries evaluated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2000. Education The Federal Constitution and the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education determine that the Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities must manage and organize their respective education systems. Each of these public educational systems is responsible for its own maintenance, which manages funds as well as the mechanisms and funding sources. The constitution reserves 25% of the state budget and 18% of federal taxes and municipal taxes for education. According to the IBGE, in 2019, the literacy rate of the population was 93.4%, meaning that 11.3 million (6.6% of population) people are still illiterate in the country, with some states like Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina reaching around 97% of literacy rate; functional illiteracy has reached 21.6% of the population. Illiteracy is higher in the Northeast, where 13.87% of the population is illiterate, while the South, has 3.3% of its population illiterate. Brazil's private institutions tend to be more exclusive and offer better quality education, so many high-income families send their children there. The result is a segregated educational system that reflects extreme income disparities and reinforces social inequality. However, efforts to change this are making impacts. The University of São Paulo is the second best university in Latin America, according to recent 2019 QS World University Rankings. Of the top 20 Latin American universities, eight are Brazilian. Most of them are public. Attending an institution of higher education is required by Law of Guidelines and Bases of Education. Kindergarten, elementary and medium education are required of all students. Media and communication The Brazilian press was officially born in Rio de Janeiro on 13 May 1808 with the creation of the Royal Printing National Press by the Prince Regent Dom João. The Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro, the first newspaper published in the country, began to circulate on 10 September 1808. The largest newspapers nowadays are Folha de S.Paulo, Super Notícia, O Globo and O Estado de S. Paulo. Radio broadcasting began on 7 September 1922, with a speech by then President Pessoa, and was formalized on 20 April 1923 with the creation of "Radio Society of Rio de Janeiro". Television in Brazil began officially on 18 September 1950, with the founding of TV Tupi by Assis Chateaubriand. Since then television has grown in the country, creating large commercial broadcast networks such as Globo, SBT, RecordTV, Bandeirantes and RedeTV. Today it is the most important factor in popular culture of Brazilian society, indicated by research showing that as much as 67% of the general population follow the same daily soap opera broadcast. Digital Television, using the SBTVD standard (based on the Japanese standard ISDB-T), was adopted on 29 June 2006 and launched on 2 November 2007. In May 2010, the Brazilian government launched TV Brasil Internacional, an international television station, initially broadcasting to 49 countries. Commercial television channels broadcast internationally include Globo Internacional, RecordTV Internacional and Band Internacional. Demographics The population of Brazil, as recorded by the 2008 PNAD, was approximately 190 million (), with a ratio of men to women of 0.95:1 and 83.75% of the population defined as urban. The population is heavily concentrated in the Southeastern (79.8 million inhabitants) and Northeastern (53.5 million inhabitants) regions, while the two most extensive regions, the Center-West and the North, which together make up 64.12% of the Brazilian territory, have a total of only 29.1 million inhabitants. The first census in Brazil was carried out in 1872 and recorded a population of 9,930,478. From 1880 to 1930, 4 million Europeans arrived. Brazil's population increased significantly between 1940 and 1970, because of a decline in the mortality rate, even though the birth rate underwent a slight decline. In the 1940s the annual population growth rate was 2.4%, rising to 3.0% in the 1950s and remaining at 2.9% in the 1960s, as life expectancy rose from 44 to 54 years and to 72.6 years in 2007. It has been steadily falling since the 1960s, from 3.04% per year between 1950 and 1960 to 1.05% in 2008 and is expected to fall to a negative value of –0.29% by 2050 thus completing the demographic transition. In 2008, the illiteracy rate was 11.48% and among the youth (ages 15–19) 1.74%. It was highest (20.30%) in the Northeast, which had a large proportion of rural poor. Illiteracy was high (24.18%) among the rural population and lower (9.05%) among the urban population. Race and ethnicity According to the National Research by Household Sample (PNAD) of 2008, 48.43% of the population (about 92 million) described themselves as White; 43.80% (about 83 million) as Pardo (brown), 6.84% (about 13 million) as Black; 0.58% (about 1.1 million) as East Asian (officially called yellow or amarela); and 0.28% (about 536 thousand) as Amerindian (officially called indígena, Indigenous), while 0.07% (about 130 thousand) did not declare their race. In 2007, the National Indian Foundation estimated that Brazil has 67 different uncontacted tribes, up from their estimate of 40 in 2005. Brazil is believed to have the largest number of uncontacted peoples in the world. Since the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500, considerable genetic mixing between Amerindians, Europeans, and Africans has taken place in all regions of the country (with European ancestry being dominant nationwide according to the vast majority of all autosomal studies undertaken covering the entire population, accounting for between 65% to 77%). Brazilian society is more markedly divided by social class lines, although a high income disparity is found between race groups, so racism and classism often overlap. Socially significant closeness to one racial group is taken in account more in the basis of appearance (phenotypes) rather than ancestry, to the extent that full siblings can pertain to different "racial" groups. Socioeconomic factors are also significant, because a minority of pardos are likely to start declaring themselves White or Black if socially upward. Skin color and facial features do not line quite well with ancestry (usually, Afro-Brazilians are evenly mixed and European ancestry is dominant in Whites and pardos with a significant non-European contribution, but the individual variation is great). The brown population (officially called pardo in Portuguese, also colloquially moreno) is a broad category that includes caboclos (assimilated Amerindians in general, and descendants of Whites and Natives), mulatos (descendants of primarily Whites and Afro-Brazilians) and cafuzos (descendants of Afro-Brazilians and Natives). People of considerable Amerindian ancestry form the majority of the population in the Northern, Northeastern and Center-Western regions. Higher percents of Blacks, mulattoes and tri-racials can be found in the eastern coast of the Northeastern region from Bahia to Paraíba and also in northern Maranhão, southern Minas Gerais and in eastern Rio de Janeiro. From the 19th century, Brazil opened its borders to immigration. About five million people from over 60 countries migrated to Brazil between 1808 and 1972, most of them of Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, German, Ukrainian, Polish, Jewish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Arab origin. Brazil has the second largest Jewish community in Latin America making up 0.06% of its population. Religion Roman Catholicism is the country's predominant faith. Brazil has the world's largest Catholic population. According to the 2010 Demographic Census (the PNAD survey does not inquire about religion), 64.63% of the population followed Roman Catholicism; 22.2% Protestantism; 2.0% Kardecist spiritism; 3.2% other religions, undeclared or undetermined; while 8.0% have no religion. Religion in Brazil was formed from the meeting of the Catholic Church with the religious traditions of enslaved African peoples and indigenous peoples. This confluence of faiths during the Portuguese colonization of Brazil led to the development of a diverse array of syncretistic practices within the overarching umbrella of Brazilian Catholic Church, characterized by traditional Portuguese festivities, Religious pluralism increased during the 20th century, and the Protestant community has grown to include over 22% of the population. The most common Protestant denominations are Evangelical Pentecostal ones. Other Protestant branches with a notable presence in the country include the Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, Lutherans and the Reformed tradition. However, in the last ten years Protestantism, particularly in forms of Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism, has spread in Brazil, while the proportion of Catholics has dropped significantly. After Protestantism, individuals professing no religion are also a significant group, exceeding 8% of the population as of the 2010 census. The cities of Boa Vista, Salvador, and Porto Velho have the greatest proportion of Irreligious residents in Brazil. Teresina, Fortaleza, and Florianópolis were the most Roman Catholic in the country. Greater Rio de Janeiro, not including the city proper, is the most irreligious and least Roman Catholic Brazilian periphery, while Greater Porto Alegre and Greater Fortaleza are on the opposite sides of the lists, respectively. In October 2009, the Brazilian Senate approved and enacted by the President of Brazil in February 2010, an agreement with the Vatican, in which the Legal Statute of the Catholic Church in Brazil is recognized. The agreement confirmed norms that were normally complied with regarding religious education in public elementary schools (which also ensures the teaching of other beliefs), marriage and spiritual assistance in prisons and hospitals. The project was criticized by parliamentarians who understood the end of the secular state with the approval of the agreement. Urbanization According to IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) urban areas already concentrate 84.35% of the population, while the Southeast region remains the most populated one, with over 80 million inhabitants. The largest urban agglomerations in Brazil are São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte – all in the Southeastern Region – with 21.1, 12.3, and 5.1 million inhabitants respectively. The majority of state capitals are the largest cities in their states, except for Vitória, the capital of Espírito Santo, and Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina. Language The official language of Brazil is Portuguese (Article 13 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Brazil), which almost all of the population speaks and is virtually the only language used in newspapers, radio, television, and for business and administrative purposes. Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas, making the language an important part of Brazilian national identity and giving it a national culture distinct from those of its Spanish-speaking neighbors. Brazilian Portuguese has had its own development, mostly similar to 16th-century Central and Southern dialects of European Portuguese (despite a very substantial number of Portuguese colonial settlers, and more recent immigrants, coming from Northern regions, and in minor degree Portuguese Macaronesia), with a few influences from the Amerindian and African languages, especially West African and Bantu restricted to the vocabulary only. As a result, the language is somewhat different, mostly in phonology, from the language of Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries (the dialects of the other countries, partly because of the more recent end of Portuguese colonialism in these regions, have a closer connection to contemporary European Portuguese). These differences are comparable to those between American and British English. In 1990, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), which included representatives from all countries with Portuguese as the official language, reached an agreement on the reform of the Portuguese orthography to unify the two standards then in use by Brazil on one side and the remaining lusophone countries on the other. This spelling reform went into effect in Brazil on 1 January 2009. In Portugal, the reform was signed into law by the President on 21 July 2008 allowing for a six-year adaptation period, during which both orthographies will co-exist. The remaining CPLP countries are free to establish their own transition timetables. The sign language law legally recognized in 2002, (the law was regulated in 2005) the use of the Brazilian Sign Language, more commonly known by its Portuguese acronym LIBRAS, in education and government services. The language must be taught as a part of the education and speech and language pathology curricula. LIBRAS teachers, instructors and translators are recognized professionals. Schools and health services must provide access ("inclusion") to deaf people. Minority languages are spoken throughout the nation. One hundred and eighty Amerindian languages are spoken in remote areas and a significant number of other languages are spoken by immigrants and their descendants. In the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Nheengatu (a currently endangered South American creole language – or an 'anti-creole', according to some linguists – with mostly Indigenous Brazilian languages lexicon and Portuguese-based grammar that, together with its southern relative língua geral paulista, once was a major lingua franca in Brazil, being replaced by Portuguese only after governmental prohibition led by major political changes), Baniwa and Tucano languages had been granted co-official status with Portuguese. There are significant communities of German (mostly the Brazilian Hunsrückisch, a High German language dialect) and Italian (mostly the Talian, a Venetian dialect) origins in the Southern and Southeastern regions, whose ancestors' native languages were carried along to Brazil, and which, still alive there, are influenced by the Portuguese language. Talian is officially a historic patrimony of Rio Grande do Sul, and two German dialects possess co-official status in a few municipalities. Italian is also recognized as ethnic language in the Santa Teresa microregion and Vila Velha (Espirito Santo state), and is taught as mandatory second language at school. Learning at least one second language (generally English or Spanish) is mandatory for all the 12 grades of the mandatory education system (primary and secondary education, there called ensino fundamental and ensino médio respectively). Brazil is the first country in South America to offer Esperanto to secondary students. Culture The core culture of Brazil is derived from Portuguese culture, because of its strong colonial ties with the Portuguese Empire. Among other influences, the Portuguese introduced the Portuguese language, Roman Catholicism and colonial architectural styles. The culture was, however, also strongly influenced by African, indigenous and non-Portuguese European cultures and traditions. Some aspects of Brazilian culture were influenced by the contributions of Italian, German and other European as well as Japanese, Jewish and Arab immigrants who arrived in large numbers in the South and Southeast of Brazil during the 19th and 20th centuries. The indigenous Amerindians influenced Brazil's language and cuisine; and the Africans influenced language, cuisine, music, dance and religion. Brazilian art has developed since the 16th century into different styles that range from Baroque (the dominant style in Brazil until the early 19th century) to Romanticism, Modernism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism and Abstractionism. Brazilian cinema dates back to the birth of the medium in the late 19th century and has gained a new level of international acclaim since the 1960s. Architecture The architecture of Brazil is influenced by Europe, especially Portugal. It has a history that goes back 500 years to the time when Pedro Cabral discovered Brazil in 1500. Portuguese colonial architecture was the first wave of architecture to go to Brazil. It is the basis for all Brazilian architecture of later centuries. In the 19th century during the time of the Empire of Brazil, Brazil followed European trends and adopted Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture. Then in the 20th century especially in Brasilia, Brazil experimented with Modernist architecture. The colonial architecture of Brazil dates to the early 16th century when Brazil was first explored, conquered and settled by the Portuguese. The Portuguese built architecture familiar to them in Europe in their aim to colonize Brazil. They built Portuguese colonial architecture which included churches, civic architecture including houses and forts in Brazilian cities and the countryside. During 19th century Brazilian architecture saw the introduction of more European styles to Brazil such as Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture. This was usually mixed with Brazilian influences from their own heritage which produced a unique form of Brazilian architecture. In the 1950s the modernist architecture was introduced when Brasilia was built as new federal capital in the interior of Brazil to help develop the interior. The architect Oscar Niemeyer idealized and built government buildings, churches and civic buildings in the modernist style. Music The music of Brazil was formed mainly from the fusion of European and African elements. Until the nineteenth century, Portugal was the gateway to most of the influences that built Brazilian music, although many of these elements were not of Portuguese origin, but generally European. The first was José Maurício Nunes Garcia, author of sacred pieces with influence of Viennese classicism. The major contribution of the African element was the rhythmic diversity and some dances and instruments that had a bigger role in the development of popular music and folk, flourishing especially in the twentieth century. Popular music since the late eighteenth century began to show signs of forming a characteristically Brazilian sound, with samba considered the most typical and on the UNESCO cultural heritage list. Maracatu and Afoxê are two Afro-Brazilian music traditions that have been popularized by their appearance in the annual Brazilian Carnivals. The sport of capoeira is usually played with its own music referred to as capoeira music, which is usually considered to be a call-and-response type of folk music. Forró is a type of folk music prominent during the Festa Junina in northeastern Brazil. Jack A. Draper III, a professor of Portuguese at the University of Missouri, argues that Forró was used as a way to subdue feelings of nostalgia for a rural lifestyle. Choro is a very popular music instrumental style. Its origins are in 19th-century Rio de Janeiro. In spite of the name, the style often has a fast and happy rhythm, characterized by virtuosity, improvisation, subtle modulations and full of syncopation and counterpoint. Bossa nova is also a well-known style of Brazilian music developed and popularized in the 1950s and 1960s. The phrase "bossa nova" means literally "new trend". A lyrical fusion of samba and jazz, bossa nova acquired a large following starting in the 1960s. Literature Brazilian literature dates back to the 16th century, to the writings of the first Portuguese explorers in Brazil, such as Pêro Vaz de Caminha, filled with descriptions of fauna, flora and commentary about the indigenous population that fascinated European readers. Brazil produced significant works in Romanticism – novelists like Joaquim Manuel de Macedo and José de Alencar wrote novels about love and pain. Alencar, in his long career, also treated indigenous people as heroes in the Indigenist novels O Guarani, Iracema and Ubirajara. Machado de Assis, one of his contemporaries, wrote in virtually all genres and continues to gain international prestige from critics worldwide. Brazilian Modernism, evidenced by the Week of Modern Art in 1922, was concerned with a nationalist avant-garde literature, while Post-Modernism brought a generation of distinct poets like João Cabral de Melo Neto, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Vinicius de Moraes, Cora Coralina, Graciliano Ramos, Cecília Meireles, and internationally known writers dealing with universal and regional subjects like Jorge Amado, João Guimarães Rosa, Clarice Lispector and Manuel Bandeira. Cuisine Brazilian cuisine varies greatly by region, reflecting the country's varying mix of indigenous and immigrant populations. This has created a national cuisine marked by the preservation of regional differences. Examples are Feijoada, considered the country's national dish; and regional foods such as beiju, feijão tropeiro, vatapá, moqueca, polenta (from Italian cuisine) and acarajé (from African cuisine). The national beverage is coffee and cachaça is Brazil's native liquor. Cachaça is distilled from sugar cane and is the main ingredient in the national cocktail, Caipirinha. A typical meal consists mostly of rice and beans with beef, salad, french fries and a fried egg. Often, it is mixed with cassava flour (farofa). Fried potatoes, fried cassava, fried banana, fried meat and fried cheese are very often eaten in lunch and served in most typical restaurants. Popular snacks are pastel (a fried pastry); coxinha (a variation of chicken croquete); pão de queijo (cheese bread and cassava flour / tapioca); pamonha (corn and milk paste); esfirra (a variation of Lebanese pastry); kibbeh (from Arabic cuisine); empanada (pastry) and empada, little salt pies filled with shrimps or heart of palm. Brazil has a variety of desserts such as brigadeiros (chocolate fudge balls), bolo de rolo (roll cake with goiabada), cocada (a coconut sweet), beijinhos (coconut truffles and clove) and romeu e julieta (cheese with goiabada). Peanuts are used to make paçoca, rapadura and pé-de-moleque. Local common fruits like açaí, cupuaçu, mango, papaya, cocoa, cashew, guava, orange, lime, passionfruit, pineapple, and hog plum are turned in juices and used to make chocolates, ice pops and ice cream. Cinema The Brazilian film industry began in the late 19th century, during the early days of the Belle Époque. While there were national film productions during the early 20th century, American films such as Rio the Magnificent were made in Rio de Janeiro to promote tourism in the city. The films Limite (1931) and Ganga Bruta (1933), the latter being produced by Adhemar Gonzaga through the prolific studio Cinédia, were poorly received at release and failed at the box office, but are acclaimed nowadays and placed among the finest Brazilian films of all time. The 1941 unfinished film It's All True was divided in four segments, two of which were filmed in Brazil and directed by Orson Welles; it was originally produced as part of the United States' Good Neighbor Policy during Getúlio Vargas' Estado Novo government. During the 1960s, the Cinema Novo movement rose to prominence with directors such as Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Paulo Cesar Saraceni and Arnaldo Jabor. Rocha's films Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (1964) and Terra em Transe (1967) are considered to be some of the greatest and most influential in Brazilian film history. During the 1990s, Brazil saw a surge of critical and commercial success with films such as O Quatrilho (Fábio Barreto, 1995), O Que É Isso, Companheiro? (Bruno Barreto, 1997) and Central do Brasil (Walter Salles, 1998), all of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the latter receiving a Best Actress nomination for Fernanda Montenegro. The 2002 crime film City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles, was critically acclaimed, scoring 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, being placed in Roger Ebert's Best Films of the Decade list and receiving four Academy Award nominations in 2004, including Best Director. Notable film festivals in Brazil include the São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro International Film Festivals and the Gramado Festival. Theatre The theatre in Brazil has its origins in the period of Jesuit expansion when theater was used for the dissemination of Catholic doctrine in the 16th century. in the 17th and 18th centuries the first dramatists who appeared on the scene of European derivation was for court or private performances. During the 19th century, dramatic theater gained importance and thickness, whose first representative was Luis Carlos Martins Pena (1813–1848),

the Hornisgrinde is considerably lower. In the central Black Forest, the tectonic syncline of the Kinzig and Murg emerged. Geomorphologist Walther Penck regarded the Black Forest as an uplifted geologic dome and modeled his theory of piedmonttreppen (piedmont benchlands) on it. Platform Above the crystalline basement of the Northern Black Forest and the adjacent parts of the Central Black Forest, the bunter sandstone platforms rise in prominent steps. The most resistant surface strata on the stepped terrain of the uplands and the heights around the upper reaches of the Enz, which have been heavily eroded by the tributaries of the Murg, is the silicified main conglomerate (Middle Bunter). To the east and north are the nappes of the Upper Bunter (platten sandstones and red clays). South of the Kinzig the Bunter Sandstone zone narrows to a fringe in the east of the mountain range. Ice age and topography It is considered proven that the Black Forest was heavily glaciated during the peak periods of at least the Riss and Würm glaciations (up to about 10,000 years ago). This glacial geomorphology characterizes almost all of the High Black Forest as well as the main ridge of the Northern Black Forest. Apart from that, it is only discernible from a large number of cirques mainly facing northeast. Especially in this direction snow accumulated on the shaded and leeward slopes of the summit plateau to form short cirque glaciers that made the sides of these funnel-shaped depressions. There are still tarns in some of these old cirques, partly a result of the anthropogenic elevation of the low-side lip of the cirque, such as the Mummelsee, Wildsee, Schurmsee, Glaswaldsee, Buhlbachsee, Nonnenmattweiher, and Feldsee. The Titisee formed as glacial lake behind a glacial moraine. Culture The Black Forest is mainly rural, with many scattered villages and a few large towns. Tradition and custom are celebrated in many places in the form of annual festivities. The main dialect spoken in the Black Forest area is Alemannic. The forest is best known for its typical farmhouses with their sweeping half-hipped roofs, its Black Forest gâteaus, Black Forest ham, Black Forest gnomes, Kirschwasser and the cuckoo clock. Traditional costume Traditional costume or Tracht is still sometimes worn today, usually at festive occasions. The appearance of such costume varies from region to region, sometimes markedly. One of the best-known Black Forest costumes is that of the villages of Kirnbach, Reichenbach and Gutach im Kinzigtal with the characteristic Bollenhut headdress. Unmarried women wear the hats with red bobbles or Bollen; married women wear black. Engaged women sometimes wear a bridal crown (Schäppel) before and on the day of their wedding, whose largest examples from the town of St. Georgen weigh up to 5 kilograms. Art Its rural beauty as well as the sense of tradition of its inhabitants attracted many artists in the 19th and early 20th centuries, whose works made the Black Forest famous the world over. Notable were Hans Thoma from Bernau and his fellow student, Rudolf Epp, who was sponsored by the Grand Duke of Baden, Frederick I. Both artists painted motifs from the Black Forest throughout their lives. Artist J. Metzler from Düsseldorf travelled through the Black Forest to paint his landscapes. The works of the Gutach artist colony around Wilhelm Hasemann were widely admired, their landscape and genre motifs capturing the character of the Black Forest. Like local author Heinrich Hansjakob, they were part of a Baden folk costume movement. Crafts In the field of handicrafts, wood carving produces folk art like the Longinus crosses along with sculptors like Matthias Faller. Wood carving is a traditional cottage industry in the region, and carved ornaments now are produced in substantial numbers as souvenirs for tourists. Cuckoo clocks are a popular example. Glassblowing is another notable craft of the Black Forest region. At the beginning of the 15th century, the art of glassmaking took hold in the Bavarian-Bohemian border mountains, especially since the necessary raw materials such as quartz and wood were abundant here. With the permission of the manor, glassblowers operated simple glass production facilities as "wandering huts" (Wanderhütten), the locations of which were relocated when the local resources were available. They needed huge amounts of firewood and wood for potash. In the second half of the 18th century, the huts had to close due to a shortage of wood and sales difficulties. Only after 1800, when the demand for luxury glass increased enormously, when a few decades of regulated forestry had ensured the regrowth of the raw material wood and when the forest-destroying potash extraction had become unnecessary due to the new glass flux soda, some glass huts (Glashütten) revived. Some glassblowing factories still testify to this today, for example in Höllental, near Todtnau and in Wolfach. Cuisine Black Forest ham originated from this region, as did the Black Forest gâteau, which is also known as "Black Forest Cherry Cake" or "Black Forest Cake" and is made with chocolate cake, cream, sour cherries and Kirsch. The Black Forest variety of Flammekueche is a Baden specialty made with ham, cheese and cream. Pfannkuchen, a crêpe or crêpe-like (Eierkuchen or Palatschinken) pastry, is also common. The Black Forest is known for its long tradition in gourmet cuisine. No fewer than 17 Michelin starred restaurants are located in the region, among them two restaurants with three stars (Restaurants Bareiss and Schwarzwaldstube in Baiersbronn) as well as the only restaurant in Germany that has been awarded a Michelin star every year since 1966. At Schwarzwald Hotel Adler in Häusern, three generations of chefs from the same family have defended the award from the first year the Michelin Guide selected restaurants in Germany until today. Fasnet The German holiday of Fastnacht, or Fasnet, as it is known in the Black Forest region, occurs in the time leading up to Lent. On Fasnetmendig, or the Monday before Ash Wednesday, crowds of people line the streets, wearing wooden, mostly hand-carved masks. One prominent style of mask is called the Black Forest Style, originating from the Black Forest Region. Cego The Black Forest is home to an unusual tarot card game, Cego, that is part of the region's cultural heritage. After the defeat of Further Austria in 1805, much of its territory was allocated to the Grand Duchy of Baden. During the ensuing Napoleonic Wars, soldiers from Baden deployed with Napoleon's troops to Spain where, among other things, they learned a new card game, Ombre. They took this back to Baden and adapted it to be played with Tarot cards which were then in common use in southern Germany. Cego soon developed into the national game of Baden and Hohenzollern, and these are the only regions of Germany where tarot cards are still used for playing games. The game has grown organically, and there are many regional variations, but in recent years the establishment of a Cego Black Forest Championship has led to official tournament rules being defined. In addition, regular courses and local tournaments are held and it is a permanent feature of Alemannic Week, held annually in the Black Forest at the end of September. Nature Conservation areas There are two nature parks and one national park named after the Black Forest that cover the region: the Southern Black Forest Nature Park, the Central/North Black Forest and the Black Forest National Park. The difference between a nature park and a national park is that a nature park's aim is to strive for environmentally sustainable land use, to preserve the countryside as a cultural landscape, to market local produce more effectively, to make the area more suitable for sustainable tourism and to practice environmental education. A national park's aims are to protect the country's natural heritage, to practice environmental education, to serve purposes of scientific environmental observation and to prevent the area from being commercially exploited. The Southern Black Forest Nature Park (Naturpark Südschwarzwald) was founded in 1999. It comprises 394,000 ha and is therefore Germany's largest nature park (as of 2020). It encloses the southern part of the Central Black Forest, the Southern Black Forest and adjacent areas. The Central/North Black Forest Nature Park (Naturpark Schwarzwald Mitte/Nord) was founded in 2000. It covers 375,000 ha and is thus the second-largest in Germany (as of 2020). It begins in the southern part of the Central Black Forest, bordering on the Southern Black Forest Nature Park and covers the rest of the Black Forest to the north. The Black Forest National Park, established in 2014, is the first national park in Baden-Württemberg. It lies completely within the Central/North Black Forest Nature Park between the cities of Freudenstadt and Baden-Baden and covers an area of 10,062 ha. Its motto is "Natur Natur sein lassen" (let nature be nature). Fauna In addition to the characteristic range of fauna found in Central European forests, the following less common animals may be observed in the Black Forest: Black Forest cattle which belong to the rare breed of Hinterwälder cattle, the giant earthworm Lumbricus badensis, which is found only in the Black Forest region, the Black Forest Horse, a draft horse once indispensable for heavy field work and nowadays an endangered breed, and the endangered Western capercaillie. Climate The mountain range has lower temperatures and higher rainfall than its surrounding countryside. The highlands of the Black Forest are characterized by regular rainfall throughout the year. However, temperatures do not fall evenly with increasing elevation, nor does the rainfall increase uniformly. Rather, the precipitation rises quickly even in the lower regions and is disproportionately heavy on the rainier western side of the mountains. The wettest areas are the highlands around the Hornisgrinde in the north and around the Belchen and Feldberg in the south, where annual rainfall reaches 1,800–2,100 mm. Moisture-laden Atlantic westerlies dump about as much rain in the Northern Black Forest, despite its lower elevation, than in the higher area of the Southern Black Forest. There, the Vosges act as a rain shield in the face of the prevailing winds. On the exposed east side of the Central Black Forest, it is much drier; the annual rainfall there is about 750 l/m2. The higher elevations of the Black Forest are characterized by relatively small annual fluctuations and steamed extreme values. This is the result of the frequent light winds and greater cloud cover in summer. During the winter months, frequent high pressure means that the summits are often bathed in sunshine, while the valleys disappear under a thick blanket of fog as a result of pockets of cold air (temperature inversion). Tourism and transport The main industry of the Black Forest is tourism. Black Forest Tourism (Schwarzwald Tourismus) assesses that there are around 140,000 direct full-time jobs in the tourist sector and around 34.8 million tourist overnight stays in 2009. In spring, summer and autumn an extensive network of hiking trails and mountain bike routes enable different groups of people to use the natural region. In winter, it is the various types of winter sport that come to the fore. There are facilities for both downhill and Nordic skiing in many places. Tourist attractions The most heavily frequented tourist destinations and resorts in the Black Forest are the Titisee and the Schluchsee. Both lakes offer opportunities for water sports like diving and windsurfing. The Mummelsee is a recreational lake and a starting point for a number of hiking trails including the Kunstpfad am Mummelsee ("sculpture trail at the Mummelsee"). The Murg valley, the Kinzig valley, the Triberg Waterfalls and the Open Air Museum at Vogtsbauernhof are also popular. Lookout mountains include the Feldberg, the Belchen, the Kandel and the Schauinsland in the Southern Black Forest; and the Hornisgrinde, the Schliffkopf, the Hohloh, the Merkur and the Teufelsmühle in the Northern Black Forest. The height differences in the mountains are used in many places for hang gliding and paragliding. One oft-visited town is Baden-Baden with its thermal baths and festival hall. Other thermal baths are found in the spa resorts of Badenweiler, Bad Herrenalb, Bad Wildbad, Bad Krozingen, Bad Liebenzell and Bad Bellingen. From the beginning of the 19th century, the desire for spa and bathing resorts arose in all of Central Europe because of the increasing economic potential, increasing mobility and the use of advertising. The Neo-renaissance style Friedrichsbad and the Palais Thermal are examples for spas built in this era. Other tourist destinations are the old imperial town of Gengenbach, the former county towns of Wolfach, Schiltach and Haslach im Kinzigtal and the flower and wine village of Sasbachwalden at

Grand Duke of Baden, Frederick I. Both artists painted motifs from the Black Forest throughout their lives. Artist J. Metzler from Düsseldorf travelled through the Black Forest to paint his landscapes. The works of the Gutach artist colony around Wilhelm Hasemann were widely admired, their landscape and genre motifs capturing the character of the Black Forest. Like local author Heinrich Hansjakob, they were part of a Baden folk costume movement. Crafts In the field of handicrafts, wood carving produces folk art like the Longinus crosses along with sculptors like Matthias Faller. Wood carving is a traditional cottage industry in the region, and carved ornaments now are produced in substantial numbers as souvenirs for tourists. Cuckoo clocks are a popular example. Glassblowing is another notable craft of the Black Forest region. At the beginning of the 15th century, the art of glassmaking took hold in the Bavarian-Bohemian border mountains, especially since the necessary raw materials such as quartz and wood were abundant here. With the permission of the manor, glassblowers operated simple glass production facilities as "wandering huts" (Wanderhütten), the locations of which were relocated when the local resources were available. They needed huge amounts of firewood and wood for potash. In the second half of the 18th century, the huts had to close due to a shortage of wood and sales difficulties. Only after 1800, when the demand for luxury glass increased enormously, when a few decades of regulated forestry had ensured the regrowth of the raw material wood and when the forest-destroying potash extraction had become unnecessary due to the new glass flux soda, some glass huts (Glashütten) revived. Some glassblowing factories still testify to this today, for example in Höllental, near Todtnau and in Wolfach. Cuisine Black Forest ham originated from this region, as did the Black Forest gâteau, which is also known as "Black Forest Cherry Cake" or "Black Forest Cake" and is made with chocolate cake, cream, sour cherries and Kirsch. The Black Forest variety of Flammekueche is a Baden specialty made with ham, cheese and cream. Pfannkuchen, a crêpe or crêpe-like (Eierkuchen or Palatschinken) pastry, is also common. The Black Forest is known for its long tradition in gourmet cuisine. No fewer than 17 Michelin starred restaurants are located in the region, among them two restaurants with three stars (Restaurants Bareiss and Schwarzwaldstube in Baiersbronn) as well as the only restaurant in Germany that has been awarded a Michelin star every year since 1966. At Schwarzwald Hotel Adler in Häusern, three generations of chefs from the same family have defended the award from the first year the Michelin Guide selected restaurants in Germany until today. Fasnet The German holiday of Fastnacht, or Fasnet, as it is known in the Black Forest region, occurs in the time leading up to Lent. On Fasnetmendig, or the Monday before Ash Wednesday, crowds of people line the streets, wearing wooden, mostly hand-carved masks. One prominent style of mask is called the Black Forest Style, originating from the Black Forest Region. Cego The Black Forest is home to an unusual tarot card game, Cego, that is part of the region's cultural heritage. After the defeat of Further Austria in 1805, much of its territory was allocated to the Grand Duchy of Baden. During the ensuing Napoleonic Wars, soldiers from Baden deployed with Napoleon's troops to Spain where, among other things, they learned a new card game, Ombre. They took this back to Baden and adapted it to be played with Tarot cards which were then in common use in southern Germany. Cego soon developed into the national game of Baden and Hohenzollern, and these are the only regions of Germany where tarot cards are still used for playing games. The game has grown organically, and there are many regional variations, but in recent years the establishment of a Cego Black Forest Championship has led to official tournament rules being defined. In addition, regular courses and local tournaments are held and it is a permanent feature of Alemannic Week, held annually in the Black Forest at the end of September. Nature Conservation areas There are two nature parks and one national park named after the Black Forest that cover the region: the Southern Black Forest Nature Park, the Central/North Black Forest and the Black Forest National Park. The difference between a nature park and a national park is that a nature park's aim is to strive for environmentally sustainable land use, to preserve the countryside as a cultural landscape, to market local produce more effectively, to make the area more suitable for sustainable tourism and to practice environmental education. A national park's aims are to protect the country's natural heritage, to practice environmental education, to serve purposes of scientific environmental observation and to prevent the area from being commercially exploited. The Southern Black Forest Nature Park (Naturpark Südschwarzwald) was founded in 1999. It comprises 394,000 ha and is therefore Germany's largest nature park (as of 2020). It encloses the southern part of the Central Black Forest, the Southern Black Forest and adjacent areas. The Central/North Black Forest Nature Park (Naturpark Schwarzwald Mitte/Nord) was founded in 2000. It covers 375,000 ha and is thus the second-largest in Germany (as of 2020). It begins in the southern part of the Central Black Forest, bordering on the Southern Black Forest Nature Park and covers the rest of the Black Forest to the north. The Black Forest National Park, established in 2014, is the first national park in Baden-Württemberg. It lies completely within the Central/North Black Forest Nature Park between the cities of Freudenstadt and Baden-Baden and covers an area of 10,062 ha. Its motto is "Natur Natur sein lassen" (let nature be nature). Fauna In addition to the characteristic range of fauna found in Central European forests, the following less common animals may be observed in the Black Forest: Black Forest cattle which belong to the rare breed of Hinterwälder cattle, the giant earthworm Lumbricus badensis, which is found only in the Black Forest region, the Black Forest Horse, a draft horse once indispensable for heavy field work and nowadays an endangered breed, and the endangered Western capercaillie. Climate The mountain range has lower temperatures and higher rainfall than its surrounding countryside. The highlands of the Black Forest are characterized by regular rainfall throughout the year. However, temperatures do not fall evenly with increasing elevation, nor does the rainfall increase uniformly. Rather, the precipitation rises quickly even in the lower regions and is disproportionately heavy on the rainier western side of the mountains. The wettest areas are the highlands around the Hornisgrinde in the north and around the Belchen and Feldberg in the south, where annual rainfall reaches 1,800–2,100 mm. Moisture-laden Atlantic westerlies dump about as much rain in the Northern Black Forest, despite its lower elevation, than in the higher area of the Southern Black Forest. There, the Vosges act as a rain shield in the face of the prevailing winds. On the exposed east side of the Central Black Forest, it is much drier; the annual rainfall there is about 750 l/m2. The higher elevations of the Black Forest are characterized by relatively small annual fluctuations and steamed extreme values. This is the result of the frequent light winds and greater cloud cover in summer. During the winter months, frequent high pressure means that the summits are often bathed in sunshine, while the valleys disappear under a thick blanket of fog as a result of pockets of cold air (temperature inversion). Tourism and transport The main industry of the Black Forest is tourism. Black Forest Tourism (Schwarzwald Tourismus) assesses that there are around 140,000 direct full-time jobs in the tourist sector and around 34.8 million tourist overnight stays in 2009. In spring, summer and autumn an extensive network of hiking trails and mountain bike routes enable different groups of people to use the natural region. In winter, it is the various types of winter sport that come to the fore. There are facilities for both downhill and Nordic skiing in many places. Tourist attractions The most heavily frequented tourist destinations and resorts in the Black Forest are the Titisee and the Schluchsee. Both lakes offer opportunities for water sports like diving and windsurfing. The Mummelsee is a recreational lake and a starting point for a number of hiking trails including the Kunstpfad am Mummelsee ("sculpture trail at the Mummelsee"). The Murg valley, the Kinzig valley, the Triberg Waterfalls and the Open Air Museum at Vogtsbauernhof are also popular. Lookout mountains include the Feldberg, the Belchen, the Kandel and the Schauinsland in the Southern Black Forest; and the Hornisgrinde, the Schliffkopf, the Hohloh, the Merkur and the Teufelsmühle in the Northern Black Forest. The height differences in the mountains are used in many places for hang gliding and paragliding. One oft-visited town is Baden-Baden with its thermal baths and festival hall. Other thermal baths are found in the spa resorts of Badenweiler, Bad Herrenalb, Bad Wildbad, Bad Krozingen, Bad Liebenzell and Bad Bellingen. From the beginning of the 19th century, the desire for spa and bathing resorts arose in all of Central Europe because of the increasing economic potential, increasing mobility and the use of advertising. The Neo-renaissance style Friedrichsbad and the Palais Thermal are examples for spas built in this era. Other tourist destinations are the old imperial town of Gengenbach, the former county towns of Wolfach, Schiltach and Haslach im Kinzigtal and the flower and wine village of Sasbachwalden at the foot of the Hornisgrinde. Picturesque old towns may be visited in Altensteig, Dornstetten, Freiburg im Breisgau, Gernsbach, Villingen and Zell am Harmersbach. Baiersbronn is a centre of gastronomic excellence, Freudenstadt is built around the largest market place in Germany. Gersbach's floral displays have won awards as the German Golden Village of 2004 and the European Golden Village of 2007. Noted for their fine interiors are the former monastery of St. Blasien as well as the abbeys of Sankt Trudpert, St. Peter and St. Märgen. Alpirsbach Abbey and the ruined Hirsau Abbey were built of red sandstone in the Hirsau style. Another idyllic rural edifice is Wittichen Abbey near Schenkenzell. There are well known winter sports areas around the Feldberg, near Todtnau with its FIS downhill ski run of Fahler Loch and in Hinterzarten, a centre and talent forge for German ski jumpers. In the Northern Black Forest, the winter-sports areas are concentrated along the Black Forest High Road and on the ridge between the Murg and Enz rivers around Kaltenbronn. Hiking trails The Black Forest has a great number of very varied trails; some of pan-regional significance. The European long-distance path E1 crosses the Black Forest following the routes of some of the local long-distance paths. Their framework is a network of long-distance paths with main routes and side branches, many of which were laid out in the early 20th century by the Black Forest Club (Schwarzwaldverein). The best known of these is the challenging West Way (Westweg) with its many steep inclines. After 1950, circular walks were constructed to meet the changing demand, initially from the relatively dense railway network and, later, mainly from locally established hiking car parks. Currently, special, more experience-oriented themed paths are being laid out, such as the Dornstetten Barefoot Park (Barfußpark Dornstetten), the Park of All Senses (Park mit allen Sinnen) in Gutach (Black Forest Railway), as well as those designed to bring the walker more directly in contact with nature (e.g. the Schluchtensteig). Roads and wide forest tracks are thus less often used than hitherto. There are numerous shorter paths suitable for day walks, as well as mountain biking and cross-country skiing trails. The total network of tracks amounts to around , and is maintained and overseen by volunteers of the Black Forest Club (figures from Bremke, 1999, p. 9), which is the second largest German hiking association. As of 2021, the club counts 65,000 members. Museums in the Black Forest Culture and crafts The Black Forest Open Air Museum at the Vogtsbauernhof farm in Gutach has original Black Forest houses offering insights into farming life of the 16th and 17th centuries. The buildings were dismantled at their original sites, the individual pieces numbered and then re-erected to exactly the same plan in the museum. The open-air museum shows the life of 16th and 17th century farmers in the region featuring the Vogtsbauernhof which dates back to 1612. The German Clock Museum in Furtwangen gives a comprehensive cross-section of the history of the watchmaking and clockmaking industries. From this early precision engineering a formerly important phonographic industry developed in the 20th century; the history of leisure electronics is presented in the German Phono Museum in St. Georgen. The Schüttesäge Museum in Schiltach has information and living history demonstrations covering the themes of lumbering and timber rafting in the Kinzig valley as well as tanning. The Black Forest Costume Museum in Haslach im Kinzigtal offers an overview of the traditional costume of the whole of the Black Forest and its peripheral regions. Also located in Haslach: the Hansjakob Museum and the Hansjakob Archive with numerous works of the writer, priest, politician, historian and chronicler, Heinrich Hansjakob. Nature and science The MiMa Mineralogy and Mathematics Museum in Oberwolfach houses minerals and mining exhibits from the whole of the Black Forest and links them to mathematical explanations. Infrastructure Road transport Several tourist routes run through the Black Forest. Well known holiday routes are the Black Forest High Road (B 500) and the German Clock Road. Thanks to its winding country roads, the Black Forest is a popular destination for motorcyclists. This arm of tourism is controversial due to the high number of accidents and the wide-ranging noise pollution and has been restricted through the introduction of speed limits and by placing certain roads out of bounds. For example, since 1984, motorcyclists have been banned from using the mountain-racing route on the Schauinsland during summer weekends. Railway transport The whole of the Black Forest was once linked by railway. In the eastern part of the Northern Black Forest by the Enz Valley Railway from Pforzheim to Bad Wildbad, by the Nagold Valley Railway from Pforzheim via Calw and Nagold to Horb am Neckar, by the Württemberg Black Forest Railway from Stuttgart to Calw and the Gäu Railway from Stuttgart to Freudenstadt or its present-day section from Eutingen to Freudenstadt. Many railway lines run from the Rhine Plain up the valleys into the Black Forest: the Alb Valley Railway runs from Karlsruhe to Bad Herrenalb, the Murg Valley Railway from Rastatt to Freudenstadt, the Acher Valley Railway from Achern to Ottenhöfen im Schwarzwald and the Rench Valley Railway from Appenweier to Bad Griesbach. The Baden Black Forest Railway has linked Offenburg with Konstanz on Lake Constance since 1873, running via Hausach, Triberg, St. Georgen, Villingen and Donaueschingen. In Hausach the Kinzig Valley Railway branches off to Freudenstadt, in Denzlingen the Elz Valley Railway peels off towards Elzach, the Höllental Railway runs from Freiburg im Breisgau through the Höllental valley to Donaueschingen, the Münstertal Railway from Bad Krozingen to Münstertal, the Kander Valley Railway from Haltingen near Basel through the Kander valley to Kandern and the Wiesen Valley Railway from Basel to Zell im Wiesental. The Three Lakes Railway branches off at the Titisee from the Höllental Railway and runs to the Windgfällweiher and the Schluchsee. The Wutach Valley Railway runs along the border between Baden-Württemberg and Switzerland, linking Waldshut-Tiengen with Immendingen on the Black Forest Railway. Most of these routes are still busy today, whilst some are popular heritage lines. Administration Since January 2006, the Black Forest Tourist organisation, Schwarzwald Tourismus, whose head office is in Freiburg, has been responsible for the administration of tourism in the 320 municipalities of the region. Hitherto there had been four separate tourist associations. Points of interest There are many historic towns in the Black Forest. Popular tourist destinations include Baden-Baden, Freiburg, Calw (the birth town of Hermann Hesse), Gengenbach, Staufen, Schiltach, Haslach and Altensteig. Other popular destinations include such mountains as the Feldberg, the Belchen, the Kandel, and the Schauinsland; the Titisee and Schluchsee lakes; the All Saints Waterfalls; the Triberg Waterfalls, not the highest, but the most famous waterfalls in Germany; and the gorge of the River Wutach. For drivers, the main route through the region is the fast A 5 (E35) motorway, but a variety of signposted scenic routes such as the Schwarzwaldhochstraße (, Baden-Baden to Freudenstadt), Schwarzwald Tälerstraße (, the Murg and Kinzig valleys) or Badische Weinstraße (Baden Wine Street, , a wine route from Baden-Baden to Weil am Rhein) offers calmer driving along high roads. The last is a picturesque trip starting in the south of the Black Forest going north and includes numerous old wineries and tiny villages. Another, more specialized route is the German Clock Route, a circular route that traces the horological history of the region. Due to the rich mining history dating from medieval times (the Black Forest was one of the most important mining regions of Europe circa 1100) there are many mines re-opened to the public. Such mines may be visited in the Kinzig valley, the Suggental,

PSU. Mean surface circulation is cyclonic; waters around the perimeter of the Black Sea circulate in a basin-wide shelfbreak gyre known as the Rim Current. The Rim Current has a maximum velocity of about . Within this feature, two smaller cyclonic gyres operate, occupying the eastern and western sectors of the basin. The Eastern and Western Gyres are well-organized systems in the winter but dissipate into a series of interconnected eddies in the summer and autumn. Mesoscale activity in the peripheral flow becomes more pronounced during these warmer seasons and is subject to interannual variability. Outside of the Rim Current, numerous quasi-permanent coastal eddies are formed as a result of upwelling around the coastal apron and "wind curl" mechanisms. The intra-annual strength of these features is controlled by seasonal atmospheric and fluvial variations. During the spring, the Batumi eddy forms in the southeastern corner of the sea. Beneath the surface waters—from about —there exists a halocline that stops at the Cold Intermediate Layer (CIL). This layer is composed of cool, salty surface waters, which are the result of localized atmospheric cooling and decreased fluvial input during the winter months. It is the remnant of the winter surface mixed layer. The base of the CIL is marked by a major pycnocline at about , and this density disparity is the major mechanism for isolation of the deep water. Below the pycnocline is the Deep Water mass, where salinity increases to 22.3 PSU and temperatures rise to around . The hydrochemical environment shifts from oxygenated to anoxic, as bacterial decomposition of sunken biomass utilizes all of the free oxygen. Weak geothermal heating and long residence time create a very thick convective bottom layer. The Black Sea undersea river is a current of particularly saline water flowing through the Bosporus Strait and along the seabed of the Black Sea. The discovery of the river, announced on August 1, 2010, was made by scientists at the University of Leeds and is the first of its kind to be identified. The undersea river stems from salty water spilling through the Bosporus Strait from the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea, where the water has a lower salt content. Hydrochemistry Because of the anoxic water at depth, organic matter, including anthropogenic artifacts such as boat hulls, are well preserved. During periods of high surface productivity, short-lived algal blooms form organic rich layers known as sapropels. Scientists have reported an annual phytoplankton bloom that can be seen in many NASA images of the region. As a result of these characteristics the Black Sea has gained interest from the field of marine archaeology, as ancient shipwrecks in excellent states of preservation have been discovered, such as the Byzantine wreck Sinop D, located in the anoxic layer off the coast of Sinop, Turkey. Modelling shows that, in the event of an asteroid impact on the Black Sea, the release of hydrogen sulfide clouds would pose a threat to health—and perhaps even life—for people living on the Black Sea coast. There have been isolated reports of flares on the Black Sea occurring during thunderstorms, possibly caused by lightning igniting combustible gas seeping up from the sea depths. Ecology Marine The Black Sea supports an active and dynamic marine ecosystem, dominated by species suited to the brackish, nutrient-rich, conditions. As with all marine food webs, the Black Sea features a range of trophic groups, with autotrophic algae, including diatoms and dinoflagellates, acting as primary producers. The fluvial systems draining Eurasia and central Europe introduce large volumes of sediment and dissolved nutrients into the Black Sea, but the distribution of these nutrients is controlled by the degree of physiochemical stratification, which is, in turn, dictated by seasonal physiographic development. During winter, strong wind promotes convective overturning and upwelling of nutrients, while high summer temperatures result in a marked vertical stratification and a warm, shallow mixed layer. Day length and insolation intensity also control the extent of the photic zone. Subsurface productivity is limited by nutrient availability, as the anoxic bottom waters act as a sink for reduced nitrate, in the form of ammonia. The benthic zone also plays an important role in Black Sea nutrient cycling, as chemosynthetic organisms and anoxic geochemical pathways recycle nutrients which can be upwelled to the photic zone, enhancing productivity. In total, the Black Sea's biodiversity contains around one-third of the Mediterranean's and is experiencing natural and artificial invasions or "Mediterranizations". Phytoplankton The main phytoplankton groups present in the Black Sea are dinoflagellates, diatoms, coccolithophores and cyanobacteria. Generally, the annual cycle of phytoplankton development comprises significant diatom and dinoflagellate-dominated spring production, followed by a weaker mixed assemblage of community development below the seasonal thermocline during summer months, and surface-intensified autumn production. This pattern of productivity is augmented by an Emiliania huxleyi bloom during the late spring and summer months. Dinoflagellates Annual dinoflagellate distribution is defined by an extended bloom period in subsurface waters during the late spring and summer. In November, subsurface plankton production is combined with surface production, due to vertical mixing of water masses and nutrients such as nitrite. The major bloom-forming dinoflagellate species in the Black Sea is Gymnodinium sp. Estimates of dinoflagellate diversity in the Black Sea range from 193 to 267 species. This level of species richness is relatively low in comparison to the Mediterranean Sea, which is attributable to the brackish conditions, low water transparency and presence of anoxic bottom waters. It is also possible that the low winter temperatures below of the Black Sea prevent thermophilous species from becoming established. The relatively high organic matter content of Black Sea surface water favor the development of heterotrophic (an organism that uses organic carbon for growth) and mixotrophic dinoflagellates species (able to exploit different trophic pathways), relative to autotrophs. Despite its unique hydrographic setting, there are no confirmed endemic dinoflagellate species in the Black Sea. Diatoms The Black Sea is populated by many species of the marine diatom, which commonly exist as colonies of unicellular, non-motile auto- and heterotrophic algae. The life-cycle of most diatoms can be described as 'boom and bust' and the Black Sea is no exception, with diatom blooms occurring in surface waters throughout the year, most reliably during March. In simple terms, the phase of rapid population growth in diatoms is caused by the in-wash of silicon-bearing terrestrial sediments, and when the supply of silicon is exhausted, the diatoms begin to sink out of the photic zone and produce resting cysts. Additional factors such as predation by zooplankton and ammonium-based regenerated production also have a role to play in the annual diatom cycle. Typically, blooms during spring and blooms during the autumn. Coccolithophores Coccolithophores are a type of motile, autotrophic phytoplankton that produce CaCO3 plates, known as coccoliths, as part of their life cycle. In the Black Sea, the main period of coccolithophore growth occurs after the bulk of the dinoflagellate growth has taken place. In May, the dinoflagellates move below the seasonal thermocline into deeper waters, where more nutrients are available. This permits coccolithophores to utilize the nutrients in the upper waters, and by the end of May, with favorable light and temperature conditions, growth rates reach their highest. The major bloom-forming species is , which is also responsible for the release of dimethyl sulfide into the atmosphere. Overall, coccolithophore diversity is low in the Black Sea, and although recent sediments are dominated by and , Holocene sediments have been shown to also contain Helicopondosphaera and Discolithina species. Cyanobacteria Cyanobacteria are a phylum of picoplanktonic (plankton ranging in size from 0.2 to 2.0 µm) bacteria that obtain their energy via photosynthesis, and are present throughout the world's oceans. They exhibit a range of morphologies, including filamentous colonies and biofilms. In the Black Sea, several species are present, and as an example, Synechococcus spp. can be found throughout the photic zone, although concentration decreases with increasing depth. Other factors which exert an influence on distribution include nutrient availability, predation, and salinity. Animal species Zebra mussel The Black Sea along with the Caspian Sea is part of the zebra mussel's native range. The mussel has been accidentally introduced around the world and become an invasive species where it has been introduced. Common carp The common carp's native range extends to the Black Sea along with the Caspian Sea and Aral Sea. Like the zebra mussel, the common carp is an invasive species when introduced to other habitats. Round goby Another native fish that is also found in the Caspian Sea. It preys upon zebra mussels. Like the mussels and common carp, it has become invasive when introduced to other environments, like the Great Lakes in North America. Marine mammals and marine megafauna Marine mammals present within the basin include two species of dolphin (common and bottlenose) and the harbour porpoise, although all of these are endangered due to pressures and impacts by human activities. All three species have been classified as distinct subspecies from those in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic and are endemic to the Black and Azov seas, and are more active during nights in the Turkish Straits. However, construction of the Crimean Bridge has caused increases in nutrients and planktons in the waters, attracting large numbers of fish and more than 1,000 bottlenose dolphins. However, others claim that construction may cause devastating damages on the ecosystem, including dolphins. Mediterranean monk seals, now critically endangered, were historically abundant in the Black Sea, and are regarded to have become extinct from the basin in 1997. Monk seals were present at Snake Island, near the Danube Delta, until 1950s, and several locations such as the and Doğankent were the last of the seals' hauling-out sites post-1990. Very few animals still thrive in the Sea of Marmara. Ongoing Mediterranizations may or may not boost cetacean diversity in the Turkish Straits and hence in the Black and Azov basins. Various species of pinnipeds, sea otter, and beluga whale were introduced into the Black Sea by mankind and later escaped either by accidental or purported causes. Of these, grey seals and beluga whales have been recorded with successful, long-term occurrences. Great white sharks are known to reach into the Sea of Marmara and Bosporus Strait and basking sharks into the Dardanelles, although it is unclear whether or not these sharks may reach into the Black and Azov basins. Ecological effects of pollution Since the 1960s, rapid industrial expansion along the Black Sea coastline and the construction of a major dam has significantly increased annual variability in the N:P:Si ratio in the basin. In coastal areas, the biological effect of these changes has been an increase in the frequency of monospecific phytoplankton blooms, with diatom bloom frequency increasing by a factor of 2.5 and non-diatom bloom frequency increasing by a factor of 6. The non-diatoms, such as the prymnesiophytes (coccolithophore), sp., and the Euglenophyte , are able to out-compete diatom species because of the limited availability of silicon, a necessary constituent of diatom frustules. As a consequence of these blooms, benthic macrophyte populations were deprived of light, while anoxia caused mass mortality in marine animals. The decline in macrophytes was further compounded by overfishing during the 1970s, while the invasive ctenophore Mnemiopsis reduced the biomass of copepods and other zooplankton in the late 1980s. Additionally, an alien species—the warty comb jelly ()—was able to establish itself in the basin, exploding from a few individuals to an estimated biomass of one billion metric tons. The change in species composition in Black Sea waters also has consequences for hydrochemistry, as calcium-producing coccolithophores influence salinity and pH, although these ramifications have yet to be fully quantified. In central Black Sea waters, silicon levels were also significantly reduced, due to a decrease in the flux of silicon associated with advection across isopycnal surfaces. This phenomenon demonstrates the potential for localized alterations in Black Sea nutrient input to have basin-wide effects. Pollution reduction and regulation efforts have led to a partial recovery of the Black Sea ecosystem during the 1990s, and an EU monitoring exercise, 'EROS21', revealed decreased nitrogen and phosphorus values, relative to the 1989 peak. Recently, scientists have noted signs of ecological recovery, in part due to the construction of new sewage treatment plants in Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria in connection with membership in the European Union. populations have been checked with the arrival of another alien species which feeds on them. History Mediterranean connection during the Holocene The Black Sea is connected to the World Ocean by a chain of two shallow straits, the Dardanelles and the Bosporus. The Dardanelles is deep, and the Bosporus is as shallow as . By comparison, at the height of the last ice age, sea levels were more than lower than they are now. There is evidence that water levels in the Black Sea were considerably lower at some point during the post-glacial period. Some researchers theorize that the Black Sea had been a landlocked freshwater lake (at least in upper layers) during the last glaciation and for

porpoise, although all of these are endangered due to pressures and impacts by human activities. All three species have been classified as distinct subspecies from those in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic and are endemic to the Black and Azov seas, and are more active during nights in the Turkish Straits. However, construction of the Crimean Bridge has caused increases in nutrients and planktons in the waters, attracting large numbers of fish and more than 1,000 bottlenose dolphins. However, others claim that construction may cause devastating damages on the ecosystem, including dolphins. Mediterranean monk seals, now critically endangered, were historically abundant in the Black Sea, and are regarded to have become extinct from the basin in 1997. Monk seals were present at Snake Island, near the Danube Delta, until 1950s, and several locations such as the and Doğankent were the last of the seals' hauling-out sites post-1990. Very few animals still thrive in the Sea of Marmara. Ongoing Mediterranizations may or may not boost cetacean diversity in the Turkish Straits and hence in the Black and Azov basins. Various species of pinnipeds, sea otter, and beluga whale were introduced into the Black Sea by mankind and later escaped either by accidental or purported causes. Of these, grey seals and beluga whales have been recorded with successful, long-term occurrences. Great white sharks are known to reach into the Sea of Marmara and Bosporus Strait and basking sharks into the Dardanelles, although it is unclear whether or not these sharks may reach into the Black and Azov basins. Ecological effects of pollution Since the 1960s, rapid industrial expansion along the Black Sea coastline and the construction of a major dam has significantly increased annual variability in the N:P:Si ratio in the basin. In coastal areas, the biological effect of these changes has been an increase in the frequency of monospecific phytoplankton blooms, with diatom bloom frequency increasing by a factor of 2.5 and non-diatom bloom frequency increasing by a factor of 6. The non-diatoms, such as the prymnesiophytes (coccolithophore), sp., and the Euglenophyte , are able to out-compete diatom species because of the limited availability of silicon, a necessary constituent of diatom frustules. As a consequence of these blooms, benthic macrophyte populations were deprived of light, while anoxia caused mass mortality in marine animals. The decline in macrophytes was further compounded by overfishing during the 1970s, while the invasive ctenophore Mnemiopsis reduced the biomass of copepods and other zooplankton in the late 1980s. Additionally, an alien species—the warty comb jelly ()—was able to establish itself in the basin, exploding from a few individuals to an estimated biomass of one billion metric tons. The change in species composition in Black Sea waters also has consequences for hydrochemistry, as calcium-producing coccolithophores influence salinity and pH, although these ramifications have yet to be fully quantified. In central Black Sea waters, silicon levels were also significantly reduced, due to a decrease in the flux of silicon associated with advection across isopycnal surfaces. This phenomenon demonstrates the potential for localized alterations in Black Sea nutrient input to have basin-wide effects. Pollution reduction and regulation efforts have led to a partial recovery of the Black Sea ecosystem during the 1990s, and an EU monitoring exercise, 'EROS21', revealed decreased nitrogen and phosphorus values, relative to the 1989 peak. Recently, scientists have noted signs of ecological recovery, in part due to the construction of new sewage treatment plants in Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria in connection with membership in the European Union. populations have been checked with the arrival of another alien species which feeds on them. History Mediterranean connection during the Holocene The Black Sea is connected to the World Ocean by a chain of two shallow straits, the Dardanelles and the Bosporus. The Dardanelles is deep, and the Bosporus is as shallow as . By comparison, at the height of the last ice age, sea levels were more than lower than they are now. There is evidence that water levels in the Black Sea were considerably lower at some point during the post-glacial period. Some researchers theorize that the Black Sea had been a landlocked freshwater lake (at least in upper layers) during the last glaciation and for some time after. In the aftermath of the last glacial period, water levels in the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea rose independently until they were high enough to exchange water. The exact timeline of this development is still subject to debate. One possibility is that the Black Sea filled first, with excess freshwater flowing over the Bosporus sill and eventually into the Mediterranean Sea. There are also catastrophic scenarios, such as the "Black Sea deluge hypothesis" put forward by William Ryan, Walter Pitman and Petko Dimitrov. Deluge hypothesis The Black Sea deluge is a hypothesized catastrophic rise in the level of the Black Sea circa 5600 BC due to waters from the Mediterranean Sea breaching a sill in the Bosporus Strait. The hypothesis was headlined when The New York Times published it in December 1996, shortly before it was published in an academic journal. While it is agreed that the sequence of events described did occur, there is debate over the suddenness, dating, and magnitude of the events. Relevant to the hypothesis is that its description has led some to connect this catastrophe with prehistoric flood myths. Recorded history The Black Sea was a busy waterway on the crossroads of the ancient world: the Balkans to the west, the Eurasian steppes to the north, the Caucasus and Central Asia to the east, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia to the south, and Greece to the southwest. The land at the eastern end of the Black Sea, Colchis (now Georgia), marked for the Greeks the edge of the known world. The steppes to the north of the Black Sea have been suggested as the original homeland () of the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) by some scholars such as Marija Gimbutas; others move the homeland further east towards the Caspian Sea, yet others to Anatolia. Greek presence in the Black Sea began at least as early as the 9th century BC with colonization of the Black Sea's southern coast, attracting colonists due to the grain grown on its shores. By 500 BC, permanent Greek communities existed all around the Black Sea, and a lucrative trade network connected the entirety of the Black Sea to the wider Mediterranean. While Greek colonies generally maintained very close cultural ties to their founding polis, Greek colonies in the Black Sea began to develop their own Black Sea Greek culture, known today as Pontic. The coastal community of Black Sea Greeks remained a prominent part of the Greek World for centuries. The Black Sea became a virtual Ottoman Navy lake within five years of the Republic of Genoa losing the Crimean Peninsula in 1479, after which the only Western merchant vessels to sail its waters were those of Venice's old rival Ragusa. This restriction was challenged by the Russian Navy from 1783 until the relaxation of export controls in 1789 because of the French Revolution. The Black Sea was a significant naval theatre of World War I and saw both naval and land battles during World War II. Archaeology The Black Sea was sailed by Hittites, Carians, Colchians, Thracians, Greeks, Persians, Cimmerians, Scythians, Romans, Byzantines, Goths, Huns, Avars, Slavs, Varangians, Crusaders, Venetians, Genoese, Georgians, Bulgarians, Tatars and Ottomans. The concentration of historical powers, combined with the preservative qualities of the deep anoxic waters of the Black Sea, has attracted increased interest from marine archaeologists who have begun to discover a large number of ancient ships and organic remains in a high state of preservation. Economy and politics The Black Sea plays an integral part in the connection between Asia and Europe. In addition to sea ports and fishing, key activities include hydrocarbons exploration for oil and natural gas, and tourism. According to NATO, the Black Sea is a strategic corridor that provides smuggling channels for moving legal and illegal goods including drugs, radioactive materials, and counterfeit goods that can be used to finance terrorism. Navigation According to an International Transport Workers' Federation 2013 study, there were at least 30 operating merchant seaports in the Black Sea (including at least 12 in Ukraine). There were also around 2,400 commercial vessels operating in the Black Sea. Fishing The Turkish commercial fishing fleet catches around 300,000 tons of anchovies per year. The fishery is carried out mainly in winter, and the highest portion of the stock is caught between November and December. Hydrocarbon exploration In the 1980s, the Soviet Union started offshore drilling for petroleum in the sea's western portion (adjoining Ukraine's coast). Independent Ukraine continued and intensified that effort within its exclusive economic zone, inviting major international oil companies for exploration. Discovery of the new, massive oilfields in the area stimulated an influx of foreign investments. It also provoked a short-term peaceful territorial dispute with Romania which was resolved in 2011 by an international court redefining the exclusive economic zones between the two countries. The Black Sea contains oil and natural gas resources but exploration in the sea is incomplete. , 20 wells are in place. Throughout much of its existence, the Black Sea has had significant oil and gas-forming potential because of significant inflows of sediment and nutrient-rich waters. However, this varies geographically. For example, prospects are poorer off the coast of Bulgaria because of the large influx of sediment from the Danube which obscured sunlight and diluted organic-rich sediments. Many of the discoveries to date have taken place offshore of Romania in the Western Black Sea and only a few discoveries have been made in the Eastern Black Sea. During the Eocene, the Paratethys Ocean was partially isolated and sea levels fell. During this time sand shed off the rising Balkanide, Pontide and Caucasus mountains trapped organic material in the Maykop Suite of rocks through the Oligocene and early Miocene. Natural gas appears in rocks deposited in the Miocene and Pliocene by the paleo-Dnieper and pale-Dniester rivers, or in deep-water Oligocene-age rocks. Serious exploration began in 1999 with two deep-water wells, Limanköy-1 and Limanköy-2, drilled in Turkish waters. Next, the HPX (Hopa)-1 deepwater well targeted late Miocene sandstone units in Achara-Trialet fold belt (also known as the Gurian fold belt) along the Georgia-Turkey maritime border. Although geologists inferred that these rocks might have hydrocarbons that migrated from the Maykop Suite, the well was unsuccessful. No more drilling happened for five years after the HPX-1 well. Then in 2010, Sinop-1 targeted carbonate reservoirs potentially charged from the nearby Maykop Suite on the Andrusov Ridge, but the well-struck only Cretaceous volcanic rocks. Yassihöyük-1 encountered similar problems. Other

Hebrew scholar Emmanuel Tov says the term is not evaluative; it is simply a recognition that the paths of development of different texts have separated. The majority of variants are accidental, such as spelling errors, but some changes were intentional. Differences in the Hebrew Bible include memory differences, lexical equivalents, semantic and grammar differences, shifts in order, and some intentional changes for updating doctrine. Intentional changes in New Testament texts were made to improve grammar, eliminate discrepancies, harmonize parallel passages, combine and simplify multiple variant readings into one, and for theological reasons. Bruce K. Waltke observes that one variant for every ten words was noted in the recent critical edition of the Hebrew Bible, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, leaving 90% of the Hebrew text without variation. The Fourth edition of the United Bible Society's Greek New Testament notes variants affecting about 500 out of 6900 words, or about 7% of the text. Nearly all modern English translations of the Old Testament are based on a single manuscript, the Leningrad Codex also called the St. Petersburg Codex, copied in 1008 or 1009. It is a complete example of the Masoretic Text, and its published edition is used by the majority of scholars. The Aleppo Codex is the basis of the Hebrew University Bible Project in Jerusalem. Copied about 925 CE, part of it was lost, so it must rely on additional manuscripts, and as a result, the Aleppo Codex contains the most comprehensive collection of variant readings. Hebrew Bible The name Tanakh (Hebrew: ) reflects the threefold division of the Hebrew scriptures, Torah ("Teaching"), Nevi'im ("Prophets") and Ketuvim ("Writings"). The Tanakh was mainly written in Biblical Hebrew, with some small portions (Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26, Jeremiah 10:11, Daniel 2:4–7:28) written in Biblical Aramaic, a language which had become the lingua franca for much of the Semitic world. Torah The Torah (תּוֹרָה) is also known as the "Five Books of Moses" or the Pentateuch, meaning "five scroll-cases". Traditionally these books were considered to have been dictated to Moses by God himself. Since the 17th century, scholars have viewed the original sources as being the product of multiple anonymous authors while also allowing the possibility of Moses being the one who first assembled the separate sources. There are a variety of hypotheses regarding when and how the Torah was composed, but there is a general consensus that it took its final form during the reign of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (probably 450–350 BCE), or perhaps in the early Hellenistic period (333–164 BCE). The Hebrew names of the books are derived from the first words in the respective texts. The Torah consists of the following five books: Genesis, Beresheeth (בראשית) Exodus, Shemot (שמות) Leviticus, Vayikra (ויקרא) Numbers, Bamidbar (במדבר) Deuteronomy, Devarim (דברים) The first eleven chapters of Genesis provide accounts of the creation (or ordering) of the world and the history of God's early relationship with humanity. The remaining thirty-nine chapters of Genesis provide an account of God's covenant with the biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (also called Israel) and Jacob's children, the "Children of Israel", especially Joseph. It tells of how God commanded Abraham to leave his family and home in the city of Ur, eventually to settle in the land of Canaan, and how the Children of Israel later moved to Egypt. The remaining four books of the Torah tell the story of Moses, who lived hundreds of years after the patriarchs. He leads the Children of Israel from slavery in ancient Egypt to the renewal of their covenant with God at Mount Sinai and their wanderings in the desert until a new generation was ready to enter the land of Canaan. The Torah ends with the death of Moses. The commandments in the Torah provide the basis for Jewish religious law. Tradition states that there are 613 commandments (taryag mitzvot). Nevi'im Nevi'im (, "Prophets") is the second main division of the Tanakh, between the Torah and Ketuvim. It contains two sub-groups, the Former Prophets ( , the narrative books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings) and the Latter Prophets ( , the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the Twelve Minor Prophets). The Nevi'im tell a story of the rise of the Hebrew monarchy and its division into two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah, focusing on conflicts between the Israelites and other nations, and conflicts among Israelites, specifically, struggles between believers in "the God" (Yahweh) and believers in foreign gods, and the criticism of unethical and unjust behaviour of Israelite elites and rulers; in which prophets played a crucial and leading role. It ends with the conquest of the Kingdom of Israel by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, followed by the conquest of the Kingdom of Judah by the neo-Babylonian Empire and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Former Prophets The Former Prophets are the books Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. They contain narratives that begin immediately after the death of Moses with the divine appointment of Joshua as his successor, who then leads the people of Israel into the Promised Land, and end with the release from imprisonment of the last king of Judah. Treating Samuel and Kings as single books, they cover: Joshua's conquest of the land of Canaan (in the Book of Joshua), the struggle of the people to possess the land (in the Book of Judges), the people's request to God to give them a king so that they can occupy the land in the face of their enemies (in the Books of Samuel) the possession of the land under the divinely appointed kings of the House of David, ending in conquest and foreign exile (Books of Kings) Latter Prophets The Latter Prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Twelve Minor Prophets, counted as a single book. Hosea, Hoshea (הושע) Joel, Yoel (יואל) Amos, Amos (עמוס) Obadiah, Ovadyah (עבדיה) Jonah, Yonah (יונה) Micah, Mikhah (מיכה) Nahum, Nahum (נחום) Habakkuk, Havakuk (חבקוק) Zephaniah, Tsefanya (צפניה) Haggai, Khagay (חגי) Zechariah, Zekharyah (זכריה) Malachi, Malakhi (מלאכי) Ketuvim Ketuvim or Kəṯûḇîm (in "writings") is the third and final section of the Tanakh. The Ketuvim are believed to have been written under the Ruach HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit) but with one level less authority than that of prophecy. In Masoretic manuscripts (and some printed editions), Psalms, Proverbs and Job are presented in a special two-column form emphasizing their internal parallelism, which was found early in the study of Hebrew poetry. "Stichs" are the lines that make up a verse "the parts of which lie parallel as to form and content". Collectively, these three books are known as Sifrei Emet (an acronym of the titles in Hebrew, איוב, משלי, תהלים yields Emet אמ"ת, which is also the Hebrew for "truth"). Hebrew cantillation is the manner of chanting ritual readings as they are written and notated in the Masoretic Text of the Bible. Psalms, Job and Proverbs form a group with a "special system" of accenting used only in these three books. The five scrolls The five relatively short books of Song of Songs, Book of Ruth, the Book of Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Book of Esther are collectively known as the Hamesh Megillot. These are the latest books collected and designated as "authoritative" in the Jewish canon even though they were not complete until the 2nd century CE. Other books The books of Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles share a distinctive style that no other Hebrew literary text, biblical or extra-biblical, shares. They were not written in the normal style of Hebrew of the post-exilic period. The authors of these books must have chosen to write in their own distinctive style for unknown reasons. Their narratives all openly describe relatively late events (i.e., the Babylonian captivity and the subsequent restoration of Zion). The Talmudic tradition ascribes late authorship to all of them. Two of them (Daniel and Ezra) are the only books in the Tanakh with significant portions in Aramaic. Book order The following list presents the books of Ketuvim in the order they appear in most printed editions. Tehillim (Psalms) תְהִלִּים Mishlei (Book of Proverbs) מִשְלֵי Iyyôbh (Book of Job) אִיּוֹב Shīr Hashshīrīm (Song of Songs) or (Song of Solomon) שִׁיר הַשִׁירִים (Passover) Rūth (Book of Ruth) רוּת (Shābhû‘ôth) Eikhah (Lamentations) איכה (Ninth of Av) [Also called Kinnot in Hebrew.] Qōheleth (Ecclesiastes) קהלת (Sukkôth) Estēr (Book of Esther) אֶסְתֵר (Pûrîm) Dānî’ēl (Book of Daniel) דָּנִיֵּאל ‘Ezrā (Book of Ezra–Book of Nehemiah) עזרא Divrei ha-Yamim (Chronicles) דברי הימים The Jewish textual tradition never finalized the order of the books in Ketuvim. The Babylonian Talmud (Bava Batra 14b–15a) gives their order as Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Daniel, Scroll of Esther, Ezra, Chronicles. In Tiberian Masoretic codices, including the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex, and often in old Spanish manuscripts as well, the order is Chronicles, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Esther, Daniel, Ezra. The Ketuvim is the last of the three portions of the Tanakh to have been accepted as canonical. While the Torah may have been considered canon by Israel as early as the 5th century BCE and the Former and Latter Prophets were canonized by the 2nd century BCE, the Ketuvim was not a fixed canon until the 2nd century of the Common Era. Evidence suggests, however, that the people of Israel were adding what would become the Ketuvim to their holy literature shortly after the canonization of the prophets. As early as 132 BCE references suggest that the Ketuvim was starting to take shape, although it lacked a formal title. Many scholars believe that the limits of the Ketuvim as canonized scripture were determined by the Council of Jamnia c. 90 CE. Against Apion, the writing of Josephus in 95 CE, treated the text of the Hebrew Bible as a closed canon to which "... no one has ventured either to add, or to remove, or to alter a syllable..." For a long time following this date the divine inspiration of Esther, the Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes was often under scrutiny. New Testament books already had considerable authority in the late first and early second centuries. Even in its formative period, most of the books of the NT that were seen as holy Scripture were already agreed upon. By the time the fourth century Fathers were approving the "canon", they were doing little more than codifying what was already universally accepted. Masoretic Text The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew text of the Hebrew Bible. It defines the books of the Jewish canon, and also the precise letter-text of these biblical books, with their vocalization and accentuation. The oldest extant manuscripts of the Masoretic Text date from approximately the 9th century CE, and the Aleppo Codex (once the oldest complete copy of the Masoretic Text, but now missing its Torah section) dates from the 10th century. The term "Keter" (crown, from the Arabic, taj) originally referred to this particular manuscript. Over the years, the term Keter came to refer to any full text of the Hebrew Bible, or significant portion of it, bound as a codex (not a scroll) and including vowel points, cantillation marks, and Masoretic notes. Medieval handwritten manuscripts were considered extremely precise, the most authoritative documents from which to copy other texts. Even so, David Carr asserts that Hebrew texts contain both accidental and intentional types of variants, which are differences in the manuscripts: "memory variants" are generally accidental differences evidenced by such things as the shift in word order found in 1 Chronicles 17:24 and 2 Samuel 10:9 and 13. Variants also include the substitution of lexical equivalents, semantic and grammar differences, and larger scale shifts in order, with some major revisions of the Masoretic texts that must have been intentional. Samaritan Pentateuch Samaritans include only the Pentateuch (Torah) in their biblical canon. They do not recognize divine authorship or inspiration in any other book in the Jewish Tanakh. A Samaritan Book of Joshua partly based upon the Tanakh's Book of Joshua exists, but Samaritans regard it as a non-canonical secular historical chronicle. Septuagint The Septuagint, or the LXX, is a translation of the Hebrew scriptures and some related texts into Koine Greek, begun in the late 3rd century BCE and completed by 132 BCE, initially in Alexandria, but in time it was completed elsewhere as well. It is not altogether clear which was translated when, or where; some may even have been translated twice, into different versions, and then revised. As the work of translation progressed, the canon of the Septuagint expanded. The Torah always maintained its pre-eminence as the basis of the canon but the collection of prophetic writings, based on the Nevi'im, had various hagiographical works incorporated into it. In addition, some newer books were included in the Septuagint, among these are the Books of the Maccabees and the Wisdom of Sirach. However, the book of Sirach is now known to have existed in a Hebrew version, since ancient Hebrew manuscripts of it were rediscovered in modern times. The Septuagint version of some biblical books, like the Book of Daniel and Book of Esther, are longer than those in the Jewish canon. Since Late antiquity, once attributed to a hypothetical late 1st-century Council of Jamnia, mainstream Rabbinic Judaism rejected the Septuagint as valid Jewish scriptural texts. Several reasons have been given for this. First, some mistranslations were claimed. Second, the Hebrew source texts used for the Septuagint differed from the Masoretic tradition of Hebrew texts, which was chosen as canonical by the Jewish rabbis. Third, the rabbis wanted to distinguish their tradition from the newly emerging tradition of Christianity. Finally, the rabbis claimed a divine authority for the Hebrew language, in contrast to Aramaic or Greek – even though these languages were the lingua franca of Jews during this period (and Aramaic would eventually be given a holy language status comparable to Hebrew). The Septuagint is the basis for the Old Latin, Slavonic, Syriac, Old Armenian, Old Georgian and Coptic versions of the Christian Old Testament. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches use most of the books of the Septuagint, while Protestant churches usually do not. After the Protestant Reformation, many Protestant Bibles began to follow the Jewish canon and exclude the additional texts, which came to be called apocryphal. The Apocrypha are included under a separate heading in the King James Version of the Bible, the basis for the Revised Standard Version. Incorporations from Theodotion The Book of Daniel is preserved in the 12-chapter Masoretic Text and in two longer Greek versions, the original Septuagint version, c. 100 BCE, and the later Theodotion version from c. 2nd century CE. Both Greek texts contain three additions to Daniel: The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children; the story of Susannah and the Elders; and the story of Bel and the Dragon. Theodotion's translation was so widely copied in the Early Christian church that its version of the Book of Daniel virtually superseded the Septuagint's. The priest Jerome, in his preface to Daniel (407 CE), records the rejection of the Septuagint version of that book in Christian usage: "I ... wish to emphasize to the reader the fact that it was not according to the Septuagint version but according to the version of Theodotion himself that the churches publicly read Daniel." Jerome's preface also mentions that the Hexapla had notations in it, indicating several major differences in content between the Theodotion Daniel and the earlier versions in Greek and Hebrew. Theodotion's Daniel is closer to the surviving Hebrew Masoretic Text version, the text which is the basis for most modern translations. Theodotion's Daniel is also the one embodied in the authorised edition of the Septuagint published by Sixtus V in 1587. Final form Some texts found in the Septuagint are not present in the Hebrew. These additional books are Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach, Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah (which later became chapter 6 of Baruch in the Vulgate), additions to Daniel (The Prayer of Azarias, the Song of the Three Children, Susanna and Bel and the Dragon), additions to Esther, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Odes, including the Prayer of Manasseh, the Psalms of Solomon, and Psalm 151. Some books that are set apart in the Masoretic Text are grouped together. For example, the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings are in the Septuagint one book in four parts called Βασιλειῶν ("Of Reigns"). In the Septuagint, the Books of Chronicles supplement Reigns and it is called Paralipomenon (Παραλειπομένων – things left out). The Septuagint organizes the minor prophets as twelve parts of one Book of Twelve. Pseudepigraphal books Pseudepigrapha are works whose authorship is wrongly attributed. A written work can be pseudepigraphical and not be a forgery, as forgeries are intentionally deceptive. With pseudepigrapha, authorship has simply been mistransmitted for any one of a number of reasons. Apocryphal and pseudepigraphic works are also not the same. Apocrypha includes all the writings claiming to be sacred that are outside the canon, while pseudepigrapha is a literary category of all writings whether they are canonical or apocryphal. The term "pseudepigrapha" is commonly used to describe numerous works of Jewish religious literature written from about 300 BCE to 300 CE. Not all of these works are actually pseudepigraphical. (It also refers to books of the New Testament canon whose authorship is questioned.) The Old Testament pseudepigraphal works include the following: 3 Maccabees 4 Maccabees Assumption of Moses Ethiopic Book of Enoch (1 Enoch) Slavonic Book of Enoch (2 Enoch) Hebrew Book of Enoch (3 Enoch) (also known as "The Revelation of Metatron" or "The Book of Rabbi Ishmael the High Priest") Book of Jubilees Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Baruch) Letter of Aristeas (Letter to Philocrates regarding the translating of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek) Life of Adam and Eve Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah Psalms of Solomon Sibylline Oracles Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch) Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs Book of Enoch Notable pseudepigraphal works include the Books of Enoch (such as 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch, surviving only in Old Slavonic, and 3 Enoch, surviving in Hebrew, c. 5th to 6th century CE). These are ancient Jewish religious works, traditionally ascribed to the prophet Enoch, the great-grandfather of the patriarch Noah. They are not part of the biblical canon used by Jews, apart from Beta Israel. Most Christian denominations and traditions may accept the Books of Enoch as having some historical or theological interest or significance. It has been observed that part of the Book of Enoch is quoted in the Epistle of Jude (part of the New Testament) but Christian denominations generally regard the Books of Enoch as non-canonical or non-inspired. However, the Enoch books are treated as canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church. The older sections (mainly in the Book of the Watchers) are estimated to date from about 300 BCE, and the latest part (Book of Parables) probably was composed at the end of the 1st century BCE. Christian Bible A Christian Bible is a set of books divided into the Old and New Testament that a Christian denomination has, at some point in their past or present, regarded as divinely inspired scripture. The Early Church primarily used the Septuagint, as it was written in Greek, the common tongue of the day, or they used the Targums among Aramaic speakers. Modern English translations of the Old Testament section of the Christian Bible are based on the Masoretic Text. The Pauline epistles and the gospels were soon added, along with other writings, as the New Testament. Some denominations have additional canonical texts beyond the Bible, including the Standard Works of the Latter Day Saints movement and Divine Principle in the Unification Church. Old Testament The Protestant Old Testament of today has a 39-book canon – the number of books (although not the content) varies from the Jewish Tanakh only because of a different method of division – while the Roman Catholic Church recognizes 46 books as the canonical Old Testament. The Eastern Orthodox Churches recognize 3 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Prayer of Manasseh and Psalm 151 in addition to the Catholic canon. Some include 2 Esdras. The term "Hebrew scriptures" is often used as being synonymous with the Protestant Old Testament, since the surviving scriptures in Hebrew include only those books, while Catholics

years, the term Keter came to refer to any full text of the Hebrew Bible, or significant portion of it, bound as a codex (not a scroll) and including vowel points, cantillation marks, and Masoretic notes. Medieval handwritten manuscripts were considered extremely precise, the most authoritative documents from which to copy other texts. Even so, David Carr asserts that Hebrew texts contain both accidental and intentional types of variants, which are differences in the manuscripts: "memory variants" are generally accidental differences evidenced by such things as the shift in word order found in 1 Chronicles 17:24 and 2 Samuel 10:9 and 13. Variants also include the substitution of lexical equivalents, semantic and grammar differences, and larger scale shifts in order, with some major revisions of the Masoretic texts that must have been intentional. Samaritan Pentateuch Samaritans include only the Pentateuch (Torah) in their biblical canon. They do not recognize divine authorship or inspiration in any other book in the Jewish Tanakh. A Samaritan Book of Joshua partly based upon the Tanakh's Book of Joshua exists, but Samaritans regard it as a non-canonical secular historical chronicle. Septuagint The Septuagint, or the LXX, is a translation of the Hebrew scriptures and some related texts into Koine Greek, begun in the late 3rd century BCE and completed by 132 BCE, initially in Alexandria, but in time it was completed elsewhere as well. It is not altogether clear which was translated when, or where; some may even have been translated twice, into different versions, and then revised. As the work of translation progressed, the canon of the Septuagint expanded. The Torah always maintained its pre-eminence as the basis of the canon but the collection of prophetic writings, based on the Nevi'im, had various hagiographical works incorporated into it. In addition, some newer books were included in the Septuagint, among these are the Books of the Maccabees and the Wisdom of Sirach. However, the book of Sirach is now known to have existed in a Hebrew version, since ancient Hebrew manuscripts of it were rediscovered in modern times. The Septuagint version of some biblical books, like the Book of Daniel and Book of Esther, are longer than those in the Jewish canon. Since Late antiquity, once attributed to a hypothetical late 1st-century Council of Jamnia, mainstream Rabbinic Judaism rejected the Septuagint as valid Jewish scriptural texts. Several reasons have been given for this. First, some mistranslations were claimed. Second, the Hebrew source texts used for the Septuagint differed from the Masoretic tradition of Hebrew texts, which was chosen as canonical by the Jewish rabbis. Third, the rabbis wanted to distinguish their tradition from the newly emerging tradition of Christianity. Finally, the rabbis claimed a divine authority for the Hebrew language, in contrast to Aramaic or Greek – even though these languages were the lingua franca of Jews during this period (and Aramaic would eventually be given a holy language status comparable to Hebrew). The Septuagint is the basis for the Old Latin, Slavonic, Syriac, Old Armenian, Old Georgian and Coptic versions of the Christian Old Testament. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches use most of the books of the Septuagint, while Protestant churches usually do not. After the Protestant Reformation, many Protestant Bibles began to follow the Jewish canon and exclude the additional texts, which came to be called apocryphal. The Apocrypha are included under a separate heading in the King James Version of the Bible, the basis for the Revised Standard Version. Incorporations from Theodotion The Book of Daniel is preserved in the 12-chapter Masoretic Text and in two longer Greek versions, the original Septuagint version, c. 100 BCE, and the later Theodotion version from c. 2nd century CE. Both Greek texts contain three additions to Daniel: The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children; the story of Susannah and the Elders; and the story of Bel and the Dragon. Theodotion's translation was so widely copied in the Early Christian church that its version of the Book of Daniel virtually superseded the Septuagint's. The priest Jerome, in his preface to Daniel (407 CE), records the rejection of the Septuagint version of that book in Christian usage: "I ... wish to emphasize to the reader the fact that it was not according to the Septuagint version but according to the version of Theodotion himself that the churches publicly read Daniel." Jerome's preface also mentions that the Hexapla had notations in it, indicating several major differences in content between the Theodotion Daniel and the earlier versions in Greek and Hebrew. Theodotion's Daniel is closer to the surviving Hebrew Masoretic Text version, the text which is the basis for most modern translations. Theodotion's Daniel is also the one embodied in the authorised edition of the Septuagint published by Sixtus V in 1587. Final form Some texts found in the Septuagint are not present in the Hebrew. These additional books are Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach, Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah (which later became chapter 6 of Baruch in the Vulgate), additions to Daniel (The Prayer of Azarias, the Song of the Three Children, Susanna and Bel and the Dragon), additions to Esther, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Odes, including the Prayer of Manasseh, the Psalms of Solomon, and Psalm 151. Some books that are set apart in the Masoretic Text are grouped together. For example, the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings are in the Septuagint one book in four parts called Βασιλειῶν ("Of Reigns"). In the Septuagint, the Books of Chronicles supplement Reigns and it is called Paralipomenon (Παραλειπομένων – things left out). The Septuagint organizes the minor prophets as twelve parts of one Book of Twelve. Pseudepigraphal books Pseudepigrapha are works whose authorship is wrongly attributed. A written work can be pseudepigraphical and not be a forgery, as forgeries are intentionally deceptive. With pseudepigrapha, authorship has simply been mistransmitted for any one of a number of reasons. Apocryphal and pseudepigraphic works are also not the same. Apocrypha includes all the writings claiming to be sacred that are outside the canon, while pseudepigrapha is a literary category of all writings whether they are canonical or apocryphal. The term "pseudepigrapha" is commonly used to describe numerous works of Jewish religious literature written from about 300 BCE to 300 CE. Not all of these works are actually pseudepigraphical. (It also refers to books of the New Testament canon whose authorship is questioned.) The Old Testament pseudepigraphal works include the following: 3 Maccabees 4 Maccabees Assumption of Moses Ethiopic Book of Enoch (1 Enoch) Slavonic Book of Enoch (2 Enoch) Hebrew Book of Enoch (3 Enoch) (also known as "The Revelation of Metatron" or "The Book of Rabbi Ishmael the High Priest") Book of Jubilees Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Baruch) Letter of Aristeas (Letter to Philocrates regarding the translating of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek) Life of Adam and Eve Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah Psalms of Solomon Sibylline Oracles Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch) Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs Book of Enoch Notable pseudepigraphal works include the Books of Enoch (such as 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch, surviving only in Old Slavonic, and 3 Enoch, surviving in Hebrew, c. 5th to 6th century CE). These are ancient Jewish religious works, traditionally ascribed to the prophet Enoch, the great-grandfather of the patriarch Noah. They are not part of the biblical canon used by Jews, apart from Beta Israel. Most Christian denominations and traditions may accept the Books of Enoch as having some historical or theological interest or significance. It has been observed that part of the Book of Enoch is quoted in the Epistle of Jude (part of the New Testament) but Christian denominations generally regard the Books of Enoch as non-canonical or non-inspired. However, the Enoch books are treated as canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church. The older sections (mainly in the Book of the Watchers) are estimated to date from about 300 BCE, and the latest part (Book of Parables) probably was composed at the end of the 1st century BCE. Christian Bible A Christian Bible is a set of books divided into the Old and New Testament that a Christian denomination has, at some point in their past or present, regarded as divinely inspired scripture. The Early Church primarily used the Septuagint, as it was written in Greek, the common tongue of the day, or they used the Targums among Aramaic speakers. Modern English translations of the Old Testament section of the Christian Bible are based on the Masoretic Text. The Pauline epistles and the gospels were soon added, along with other writings, as the New Testament. Some denominations have additional canonical texts beyond the Bible, including the Standard Works of the Latter Day Saints movement and Divine Principle in the Unification Church. Old Testament The Protestant Old Testament of today has a 39-book canon – the number of books (although not the content) varies from the Jewish Tanakh only because of a different method of division – while the Roman Catholic Church recognizes 46 books as the canonical Old Testament. The Eastern Orthodox Churches recognize 3 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Prayer of Manasseh and Psalm 151 in addition to the Catholic canon. Some include 2 Esdras. The term "Hebrew scriptures" is often used as being synonymous with the Protestant Old Testament, since the surviving scriptures in Hebrew include only those books, while Catholics and Orthodox include additional texts that have not survived in Hebrew. Eighty book Protestant Bibles include 14 books called Apocrypha in between the Old Testament and the New Testament that are deemed useful for instruction but non-canonical. Both Catholics and Protestants (as well as Greek Orthodox) have the same 27-book New Testament Canon. The Old Testament has always been central to the life of the Christian church. Bible scholar N.T. Wright says "Jesus himself was profoundly shaped by the scriptures." He adds that the earliest Christians also searched those same Hebrew scriptures in their effort to understand the earthly life of Jesus. They regarded the "holy writings" of the Israelites as necessary and instructive for the Christian, as seen from Paul's words to Timothy (2 Timothy 3:15), and as pointing to the Messiah, and as having reached a climactic fulfilment in Jesus himself, generating the "new covenant" prophesied by Jeremiah. Deuterocanon and apocrypha Christian Bibles often include books from the Septuagint that are not found in the Hebrew Bible, although the view of these books and which books are included in these Bibles differs between different denominations. In general it can be said that Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches embrace part of these books as part of the biblical canon, while newer denominations with roots in the Reformation to varying degrees reject those as part of the canon. In Eastern Christianity, translations based on the Septuagint still prevail. The Septuagint was generally abandoned in favour of the 10th-century Masoretic Text as the basis for translations of the Old Testament into Western languages. Some modern Western translations since the 14th century make use of the Septuagint to clarify passages in the Masoretic Text, where the Septuagint may preserve a variant reading of the Hebrew text. They also sometimes adopt variants that appear in other texts, such as those discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls. A number of books which are part of the Peshitta or the Septuagint but are not found in the Hebrew Bible (i.e., among the protocanonical books) are often referred to as deuterocanonical books by Roman Catholics referring to a later secondary (i.e., deutero) canon, that canon as fixed definitively by the Council of Trent 1545–1563. It includes 46 books for the Old Testament (45 if Jeremiah and Lamentations are counted as one) and 27 for the New. Eighty book Protestant Bibles have fourteen books that are found in the Septuagint and they are placed between the Old Testament and New Testament in a section called the Apocrypha. Protestant traditions traditionally teach that these books are useful for instruction, but are non-canonical. However, Eastern Orthodox Churches include these books as part of their Old Testament and the Roman Catholic Church includes most of them in their Old Testament with the exception of three books. The Roman Catholic Church recognizes: Tobit Judith 1 Maccabees 2 Maccabees Wisdom Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus) Baruch The Letter of Jeremiah (Baruch Chapter 6) Greek Additions to Esther (Book of Esther, chapters 10:4–12:6) Greek Additions to Daniel: The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children verses 1–68 (Book of Daniel, chapter 3, verses 24–90) Susanna (Book of Daniel, chapter 13) Bel and the Dragon (Book of Daniel, chapter 14) In addition to those, the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches recognize the following: 3 Maccabees 1 Esdras Prayer of Manasseh Psalm 151 Russian and Georgian Orthodox Churches include: 2 Esdras i.e., Latin Esdras in the Russian and Georgian Bibles There is also 4 Maccabees which is only accepted as canonical in the Georgian Church. It is an appendix to the Greek Orthodox Bible, and it is therefore sometimes included in collections of the Apocrypha. The Syriac Orthodox Church includes: Psalms 151–155 The Apocalypse of Baruch The Letter of Baruch The Ethiopian Orthodox biblical canon includes: Jubilees Enoch 1–3 Meqabyan and some other books. The Revised Common Lectionary of the Lutheran Church, Moravian Church, Reformed Churches, Anglican Church and Methodist Church uses the apocryphal books liturgically, with alternative Old Testament readings available. Therefore, editions of the Bible intended for use in the Lutheran Church and Anglican Church include the fourteen books of the Apocrypha, many of which are the deuterocanonical books accepted by the Catholic Church, plus 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, which were in the Vulgate appendix. New Testament The New Testament is the name given to the second portion of the Christian Bible. The mainstream consensus is that the New Testament was written in a form of Koine Greek, which was the common language of the Eastern Mediterranean from the Conquests of Alexander the Great (335–323 BCE) until the evolution of Byzantine Greek (c. 600). The term "New Testament" came into use in the second century during a controversy over whether the Hebrew Bible should be included with the Christian writings as sacred scripture. It is generally accepted that the New Testament writers were Jews who took the inspiration of the Old Testament for granted. This is probably stated earliest in , "All scripture is given by inspiration of God". Scholarship on how and why ancient Jewish–Christians came to create and accept new texts as equal to the established Hebrew texts has taken three forms. First, John Barton writes that ancient Christians probably just continued the Jewish tradition of writing and incorporating what they believed were inspired, authoritative religious books. The second approach separates those various inspired writings based on a concept of "canon" which developed in the second century. The third involves formalizing canon. According to Barton, these differences are only differences in terminology; the ideas are reconciled if they are seen as three stages in the formation of the New Testament. The first stage was completed remarkably early if one accepts 's view that "canon" and "scripture" are separate things with 'scripture' having been recognized by ancient Christians long before 'canon' was. Barton says Theodor Zahn concluded "there was already a Christian canon by the end of the First century", but this is not the canon of later centuries. Accordingly, Sundberg asserts that in the first centuries, there was no criterion for inclusion in the 'sacred writings' beyond inspiration, and that no one in the first century had the idea of a closed canon. The gospels were accepted by early believers as handed down from those Apostles who had known Jesus and been taught by him. Later biblical criticism has questioned the authorship and datings of the gospels. At the end of the second century, it is widely recognized that a Christian canon similar to its modern version was asserted in response to the plethora of writings claiming inspiration that contradicted orthodoxy: what they called heresy. The third stage of development as the final canon occurred in the fourth century with a series of synods that produced a list of texts of the canon of the Old Testament and the New Testament that are still used today. Most notably the Synod of Hippo in 393 CE and that of c. 400. Jerome produced a definitive Latin edition of the Bible (the Vulgate), the canon of which, at the insistence of the Pope, was in accord with the earlier Synods. With the benefit of hindsight, it can be said that this process effectively set the New Testament canon. The New Testament is a collection of 27 books of 4 different genres of Christian literature (Gospels, one account of the Acts of the Apostles, Epistles and an Apocalypse). These books can be grouped into: The Gospels Synoptic Gospels Gospel of Matthew Gospel of Mark Gospel of Luke Gospel of John Narrative literature, account and history of the Apostolic age Acts of the Apostles Pauline epistles Epistle to the Romans First Epistle to the Corinthians Second Epistle to the Corinthians Epistle to the Galatians Epistle to the Ephesians Epistle to the Philippians Epistle to the Colossians First Epistle to the Thessalonians Second Epistle to the Thessalonians Pastoral epistles First Epistle to Timothy Second Epistle to Timothy Epistle to Titus Epistle to Philemon Epistle to the Hebrews Catholic epistles, also called the general epistles Epistle of James First Epistle of Peter Second Epistle of Peter First Epistle of John Second Epistle of John Third Epistle of John Epistle of Jude Apocalyptic literature Book of Revelation, or the Apocalypse The New Testament books are ordered differently in the Catholic/Orthodox/Protestant tradition, the Slavonic tradition, the Syriac tradition and the Ethiopian tradition. Canon variations Peshitta The Peshitta ( or ) is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition. The consensus within biblical scholarship, although not universal, is that the Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated into Syriac from biblical Hebrew, probably in the 2nd century AD, and that the New Testament of the Peshitta was translated from the Greek. This New Testament, originally excluding certain disputed books (2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Revelation), had become a standard by the early 5th century. The five excluded books were added in the Harklean Version (616 AD) of Thomas of Harqel. Ethiopian Orthodox canon The canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is wider than the canons used by most other Christian churches. There are 81 books in the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible. In addition to the books found in the Septuagint accepted by other Orthodox Christians, the Ethiopian Old Testament Canon uses Enoch and Jubilees (ancient Jewish books that only survived in Ge'ez, but are quoted in the New Testament), Greek Ezra and the Apocalypse of Ezra, 3 books of Meqabyan, and Psalm 151 at the end of the Psalter. The three books of Meqabyan are not to be confused with the books of Maccabees. The order of the other books is somewhat different from other groups', as well. The Old Testament follows the Septuagint order for the Minor Prophets rather than the Jewish order. Biblical criticism Biblical criticism refers to the analytical investigation of the Bible as a text, and addresses questions such as history, authorship, dates of composition, and authorial intention. It is not the same as criticism of the Bible, which is an assertion against the Bible being a source of information or ethical guidance, nor is it criticism of possible translation errors. In the 17th century, Thomas Hobbes collected textual evidence that he asserted as proving Moses could not have been the author of the first five books of the Bible known as the Pentateuch. Shortly afterwards, the philosopher Baruch Spinoza published a unified critical analysis, arguing that the problematic passages were not isolated cases that could be explained away one by one, but pervasive throughout the five books, concluding that it was "clearer than the sun at noon that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses ..." Jean Astruc (1684–1766), a French physician, believed these critics were wrong. He believed that Moses had the first book of the Pentateuch, the book of Genesis, using hereditary accounts passed down through the Hebrew people. Biblical criticism began when Astruc borrowed methods of textual criticism which were already used to investigate Greek and Roman texts and applied them to the Bible in search of those original accounts. Astruc believed this approach did identify the separate sources that were edited together into the book of Genesis, and modern scholars still, generally, accept his conclusions. In Astruc's view, the existence of separate sources explained the inconsistent style and vocabulary of Genesis, discrepancies in the narrative, differing accounts and chronological difficulties, while still allowing for Mosaic authorship. Biblical criticism made study of the Bible secularized, scholarly and more democratic, while it also permanently altered the way people understood the Bible. It is no longer thought of solely as a religious artifact, and its interpretation is no longer restricted to the community of believers. Michael Fishbane writes, "There are those who regard the desacralization of the Bible as the fortunate condition for the rise of new sensibilities and modes of imagination" that went into developing the modern world. For many, biblical criticism "released a host of threats" to the Christian faith. For others biblical criticism "proved to be a failure, due principally to the assumption that diachronic, linear research could master any and all of the questions and problems attendant on interpretation". Still others believed that biblical criticism, "shorn of its unwarranted arrogance," could be a reliable source of interpretation. Michael Fishbane compares biblical criticism to Job, a prophet who destroyed "self-serving visions for the sake of a more honest crossing from the divine textus to the human one". Or as Rogerson says: biblical criticism has been liberating for those who want their faith "intelligently grounded and intellectually honest". In the twenty-first century, attitudes towards the Bible differ among Christian groups. Roman Catholics, High Church Anglicans, Methodists and Eastern Orthodox Christians stress the harmony and importance of both the Bible and sacred tradition, while many Protestant churches focus on the idea of sola scriptura, or scripture alone. This concept rose to prominence during the Reformation, and many denominations today support the use of the Bible as the only infallible source of Christian teaching. Others, though, advance the concept of prima scriptura in contrast, meaning scripture primarily or scripture mainly. Divine inspiration The Second Epistle to Timothy says that "all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness". () Various related but distinguishable views on divine inspiration include: the view of the Bible as the inspired word of God: the belief that God, through the Holy Spirit, intervened and influenced the words, message, and collation of the Bible the view that the Bible is also infallible, and incapable of error in matters of faith and practice, but not necessarily in historic or scientific matters the view that the Bible represents the inerrant word of God, without error in any aspect, spoken by God and written down in its perfect form by humans Within these broad beliefs many schools of hermeneutics operate. "Bible scholars claim that discussions about the Bible must be put into its context within church history and then into the context of contemporary culture." Fundamentalist Christians are associated with the doctrine of biblical literalism, where the Bible is not only inerrant, but the meaning of the text is clear to the average reader. Jewish antiquity attests to belief in sacred texts, and a similar belief emerges in the earliest of Christian writings. Various texts of the Bible mention divine agency in relation to its writings. In their book A General Introduction to the Bible, Norman Geisler and William Nix write: "The process of inspiration is a mystery of the providence of God, but the result of this process is a verbal, plenary, inerrant, and authoritative record." Most evangelical biblical scholars associate inspiration with only the original text; for example some American Protestants adhere to the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy which asserted that inspiration applied only to the autographic text of scripture. Among adherents of biblical literalism, a minority, such as followers of the King-James-Only Movement, extend the claim of inerrancy only to a particular version. Versions and translations The original texts of the Tanakh were almost entirely written in Hebrew with about one percent in Aramaic. The earliest translation of any Bible text is the Septuagint which translated the Hebrew into Greek. Probably commissioned by Ptolemy II Philadelphus, King of Egypt, in the second century BCE, it addressed the need of the primarily Greek-speaking Jews of the Graeco-Roman diaspora. In the second century CE, the Jewish scholars, Aquila, Theodotion and Symmachus, produced a revised version. The Targum Onkelos is the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible believed to have been written in the second century CE. These texts attracted the work of various scholars, but a standardized text was not available until the 9th century. There are different ancient versions of the Tanakh in Hebrew, mostly differing by spelling, and the standardized traditional Jewish version is based on the Aleppo Codex. Recovery of this codex, that may be a thousand years old, the oldest codex of the complete Tiberian Hebrew Bible, in the "Cave of Elijah" (the synagogue of Aleppo in the Judean desert), led to the rise of the Masoretic Bible. The standardized Masoretic Text became the source for all modern Jewish and Christian translations. Even in this version there are words which are traditionally read differently from written, because the oral tradition is considered more fundamental than the written one, and presumably mistakes had been made in copying the text over the generations. The Greek content of the New Testament was fixed by 367AD under Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria. Levidas writes that, "The Koine Greek New Testament is a non-translated work; most scholars agree on this—despite disagreement on the possibility that some passages may have appeared initially in Aramaic... It is written in the Koine Greek of the first century AD". Early Christians translated the New Testament into Old Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, and Latin, among other languages. The Latin translations were historically the most important for the Church in the West, while the Greek-speaking East continued to use the Septuagint translations of the Old Testament and had no need to translate the New Testament. The earliest Latin translation was the Old Latin text, or Vetus Latina, which, from internal evidence, seems to have been made by several authors over a period of time. It was based on the Septuagint, and thus included books not in the Hebrew Bible. According to the Latin Decretum Gelasianum (also known as the Gelasian Decree), thought to be of a 6th-century document of uncertain authorship and of pseudepigraphal papal authority (variously ascribed to Pope Gelasius I, Pope Damasus I, or Pope Hormisdas) but reflecting the views of the Roman Church by that period, the Council of Rome in 382 CE under Pope Damasus I (366–383) gives a complete list of the canonical books of both the Old Testament and the New Testament which is identical with the list given at the Council of Trent. Damasus commissioned Jerome to produce a reliable and consistent text by translating the original Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin. This translation became known as the Latin Vulgate Bible, in the 4th century CE (although Jerome expressed in his prologues to most deuterocanonical books that they were non-canonical). In 1546, at the Council of Trent, Jerome's Vulgate translation was declared by the Roman Catholic Church to be the only authentic and official Bible in the Latin Church. Translations to English start with Alfred the Great in the 9th century, include the Toledo School of Translators in the 12th and 13th century, Roger Bacon (1220–1292), an English Franciscan monk of the 13th century, and multiple writers of the Renaissance. The Wycliffite Bible, which is "one of the most significant in the development of a written standard", dates from the late Middle English period. Tyndales's translation of 1525 is seen by several scholars as having influenced the form of English Christian discourse as well as impacting the development of the English language itself. Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German in 1522, and both Testaments with Apocrypha in 1534, contributing to the multiple wars of the Age of Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Important biblical translations of this period include the Polish Jakub Wujek Bible (Biblia Jakuba Wujka) from 1535, and the English King James/ Authorized Version (1604–1611). Since the Reformation era, Bible translations have been made into the common vernacular of many languages. The Bible continues to be translated to new languages, largely by Christian organizations such as Wycliffe Bible Translators, New Tribes Mission and Bible societies. Lammin Sanneh writes that tracing the impact on the local cultures of translating the Bible into local vernacular language shows it has produced "the movements of indigenization and cultural liberation". "The translated scripture ... has become the benchmark of awakening and renewal". Archaeological and historical research Archaeology reflects that Bible texts are fully integrated with material culture at times, and fully out of sync at others. Biblical archaeology is a subsection of archaeology that relates to and sheds light upon the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament. It is used to help determine the lifestyle and practices of people living in biblical times. There are a wide range of interpretations in the field of biblical archaeology. One broad division includes biblical maximalism which generally takes the view that most of the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible is based on history although it is presented through the religious viewpoint of its time. According to historian Lester L. Grabbe, there are few, if any, maximalists in mainstream scholarship. It is considered to be the extreme opposite of biblical minimalism which considers the Bible to be a purely post-exilic (5th century BCE and later) composition. According to Mary-Joan Leith, professor of religious studies, many minimalists have ignored evidence for the antiquity of the Hebrew language in the Bible, and few take archaeological evidence into consideration. Most biblical scholars and archaeologists fall somewhere on a spectrum between these two. The historicity of the biblical account of the history of ancient Israel and Judah of the 10th to 7th centuries BCE is disputed in scholarship. The biblical account of the 8th to 7th centuries BCE is widely, but not universally,

from the throne, Social Credit instituted a programme of fiscal cutbacks dubbed "restraint", which had been a buzzword for moderation during the campaign. The programme included cuts to "motherhood" issues of the left, including the human rights branch, the offices of the Ombudsman and Rentalsman, women's programs, environmental and cultural programs, while still supplying mass capital infusions to corporate British Columbia. This sparked a backlash, with tens of thousands of people in the streets the next day after the budget speech, and through the course of a summer repeated large demonstrations of up to 100,000 people. This became known as the 1983 Solidarity Crisis, from the name of the Solidarity Coalition, a huge grassroots opposition movement mobilized, consisting of organized labour and community groups, with the British Columbia Federation of Labour forming a separate organization of unions, Operation Solidarity, under the direction of Jack Munro, then-president of the International Woodworkers of America (IWA), the most powerful of the province's resource unions. Tens of thousands participated in protests and many felt a general strike would be the inevitable result unless the government backed down from its policies they had claimed were only about restraint and not about recrimination against the NDP and the left. Just as a strike at Pacific Press ended, which had crippled the political management of the public agenda by the publishers of the province's major papers, the movement collapsed after an apparent deal was struck by union leader and IWA president, Jack Munro and Premier Bennett. A tense winter of blockades at various job sites around the province ensued, as among the new laws were those enabling non-union labour to work on large projects and other sensitive labour issues, with companies from Alberta and other provinces brought in to compete with union-scale British Columbia companies. Despite the tension, Bennett's last few years in power were relatively peaceful as economic and political momentum grew on the megaprojects associated with Expo, and Bennett was to end his career by hosting Prince Charles and Lady Diana on their visit to open Expo 86. His retirement being announced, a Social Credit convention was scheduled for the Whistler Resort, which came down to a three-way shooting match between Bud Smith, the Premier's right-hand man but an unelected official, Social Credit party grande dame Grace McCarthy, and the charismatic but eccentric Bill Vander Zalm. Bill Vander Zalm became the new Social Credit leader when Smith threw his support to him rather than see McCarthy win, and led the party to victory in the election later that year. Vander Zalm was later involved in a conflict of interest scandal following the sale of Fantasy Gardens, a Christian and Dutch culture theme park built by the Premier, to Tan Yu, a Filipino Chinese gambling kingpin. There were also concerns over Yu's application to the government for a bank licence, and lurid stories from flamboyant realtor Faye Leung of a party in the "Howard Hughes Suite" on the top two floors of the Bayshore Inn, where Tan Yu had been staying, with reports of a bag of money in a brown paper bag passed from Yu to Vander Zalm during the goings-on. These scandals forced Vander Zalm's resignation, and Rita Johnston became premier of the province. Johnston presided over the end of Social Credit power, calling an election which reduced the party's caucus to only two seats, and the revival of the long-defunct British Columbia Liberal Party as Opposition to the victorious NDP under former Vancouver mayor Mike Harcourt. In 1988, David Lam was appointed as British Columbia's twenty-fifth lieutenant governor, and was the province's first lieutenant governor of Chinese origin. 1990s to present Johnston lost the 1991 general election to the NDP, under the leadership of Mike Harcourt, a former mayor of Vancouver. The NDP's unprecedented creation of new parkland and protected areas was popular and helped boost the province's growing tourism sector, although the economy continued to struggle against the backdrop of a weak resource economy. Housing starts and an expanded service sector saw growth overall through the decade, despite political turmoil. Harcourt ended up resigning over "Bingogate"—a political scandal involving the funnelling of charity bingo receipts into party coffers in certain ridings. Harcourt was not implicated, but he resigned nonetheless in respect of constitutional conventions calling for leaders under suspicion to step aside. Glen Clark, a former president of the BC Federation of Labour, was chosen the new leader of the NDP, which won a second term in 1996. More scandals dogged the party, most notably the fast ferry scandal involving the province trying to develop the shipbuilding industry in British Columbia. An allegation (never substantiated) that the premier had received a favour in return for granting a gaming licence led to Clark's resignation as premier. He was succeeded on an interim basis by Dan Miller who was in turn followed by Ujjal Dosanjh following a leadership convention. In the 2001 provincial election, Gordon Campbell's Liberals defeated the NDP, gaining 77 out of 79 total seats in the provincial legislature. Campbell instituted various reforms and removed some of the NDP's policies including scrapping the "fast ferries" project, lowering income taxes, and the controversial sale of BC Rail to Canadian National Railway. Campbell was also the subject of criticism after he was arrested for driving under the influence during a vacation in Hawaii, but he still managed to lead his party to victory in the 2005 provincial election against a substantially strengthened NDP opposition. Campbell won a third term in the 2009 provincial election, marking the first time in 23 years a premier has been elected to a third term. The province won a bid to host the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler. As promised in his 2002 re-election campaign, Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell staged a non-binding civic referendum regarding the hosting of the Olympics. In February 2003, Vancouver's residents voted in a referendum accepting the responsibilities of the host city should it win its bid. Sixty-four percent of residents voted in favour of hosting the games. After the Olympic joy had faded, Campbell's popularity started to fall. His management style, the implementation of the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) against election promises and the cancelling of the BC Rail corruption trial led to low approval ratings and loss of caucus support. He resigned in November 2010 and called on the party to elect a new leader. In early 2011, former deputy premier Christy Clark became leader of the Liberal Party. Though she was not a sitting MLA, she went on to win the seat left vacant by Campbell. For the next two years, she attempted to distance herself from the unpopularity of Campbell and forge an image for the upcoming 2013 election. Among her early accomplishments were raising the minimum wage, creating a new statutory holiday in February called "Family Day", and pushing the development of BC's liquefied natural gas industry. In the lead-up to the 2013 election, the Liberals lagged behind the NDP by a double-digit gap in the polls, but were able to achieve a surprise victory on election night, winning a majority and making Clark the first woman to lead a party to victory in a general election in BC. While Clark lost her seat to NDP candidate David Eby, she later won a by-election in the riding of Westside-Kelowna. Her government went on to balance the budget, implement changes to liquor laws and continue with the question of the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines. In the 2017 election, the NDP formed a minority government with the support of the Green Party through a confidence and supply agreement. The NDP and Green caucuses together controlled 44 seats, compared to the Liberals' 43. On July 18, 2017, NDP leader John Horgan was sworn in as the premier of British Columbia. He was the province's first NDP premier in 16 years. Clark resigned shortly thereafter, and Andrew Wilkinson was voted to become leader of the BC Liberals. In late 2020, Horgan called an early election. In the 2020 British Columbia general election, the NDP won 57 seats and formed a majority government, making Horgan the first NDP premier to be re-elected in the province. Wilkinson resigned as the leader of the BC Liberals two days later. British Columbia was significantly affected by demographic changes within Canada and around the world. Vancouver (and to a lesser extent some other parts of British Columbia) was a major destination for many of the immigrants from Hong Kong who left the former UK colony (either temporarily or permanently) in the years immediately prior to its handover to China. British Columbia has also been a significant destination for internal Canadian migrants. This has been the case throughout recent decades, because of its natural environment, mild climate and relaxed lifestyle, but has been particularly true during periods of economic growth. British Columbia has moved from approximately 10% of Canada's population in 1971 to approximately 13% in 2006. Trends of urbanization mean the Greater Vancouver area now includes 51% of the province's population, followed by Greater Victoria with 8%. These two metropolitan regions have traditionally dominated the demographics of BC. By 2018, housing prices in Vancouver were the second-least affordable in the world, behind only Hong Kong. Many experts point to evidence of money-laundering from mainland China as a contributing factor. The high price of residential real estate has led to the implementation of an empty homes tax, a housing speculation and vacancy tax, and a foreign buyers' tax on housing. The net number of people coming to BC from other provinces in 2016 was almost four times larger than in 2012. BC was the largest net recipient of interprovincial migrants in Canada in the first quarter of 2016 with half of the 5,000 people coming from Alberta. By 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic had had a major effect on the province, with over 2,000 deaths and 250,000 confirmed cases. However, the COVID-19 vaccine reduced the spread of the virus, with 78% of people in BC over the age of five having been fully vaccinated. In 2021, the unmarked gravesites of hundreds of Indigenous children were discovered at three former Indian residential schools (Kamloops, St. Eugene's Mission, Kuper Island). Demographics Population Statistics Canada's 2021 Canadian census recorded a population of 5,000,879 — making British Columbia Canada's third-most populous province after Ontario and Quebec. Cities Half of all British Columbians live in the Metro Vancouver Regional District, which includes Vancouver, Surrey, Burnaby, Richmond, Coquitlam, Langley (district municipality), Delta, North Vancouver (district municipality), Maple Ridge, New Westminster, Port Coquitlam, North Vancouver (city), West Vancouver, Port Moody, Langley (city), White Rock, Pitt Meadows, Bowen Island, Anmore, Lions Bay, and Belcarra, with adjacent unincorporated areas (including the University Endowment Lands) represented in the regional district as the electoral area known as Greater Vancouver Electoral Area A. The metropolitan area has seventeen Indian reserves, but they are outside of the regional district's jurisdiction and are not represented in its government. The second largest concentration of British Columbia population is at the southern tip of Vancouver Island, which is made up of the 13 municipalities of Greater Victoria, Victoria, Saanich, Esquimalt, Oak Bay, View Royal, Highlands, Colwood, Langford, Central Saanich/Saanichton, North Saanich, Sidney, Metchosin, Sooke, which are part of the Capital Regional District. The metropolitan area also includes several Indian reserves (the governments of which are not part of the regional district). Almost half of the Vancouver Island population is in Greater Victoria. Cultural origins British Columbia is the most diverse province in Canada; as of 2016, the province had the highest proportion of visible minorities in the country. The five largest pan-ethnic groups in the province are Europeans (64%), East Asians (15%), South Asians (8%), Aboriginals (6%) and Southeast Asians (4%). Note: Statistics represent both single (for example, "German") and multiple (for example, "Chinese-English") responses to the 2016 Census, and thus do not add up to 100%. All items are self-identified. Religion The largest denominations by number of adherents according to the 2011 census were Christianity with 1,930,415 (44.6%); irreligion (atheist, agnostic, and so on.) with 1,908,285 (44.1%); Sikhism with 201,110 (4.7%); Buddhism with 90,620 (2.1%); Islam with 79,310 (1.8%); and Hinduism with 45,795 (1.1%). Language Of the 4,648,055 population counted by the 2016 census, 4,598,415 people completed the section about language. Of these, 4,494,995 gave singular responses to the question regarding their first language. The languages most commonly reported were the following: While these languages all reflect the last centuries of colonialism and recent immigration, British Columbia is home to 34 Indigenous languages. They are spoken by about 6000 people in total, with 4000 people fluent in their Indigenous languages. They are members of the province's First Nations. One of the main Indigenous languages in BC is Kwakʼwala, the language of the Kwakwakaʼwakw First Nations. Economy BC's economy is diverse, with service-producing industries accounting for the largest portion of the province's GDP. It is the terminus of two transcontinental railways, and the site of 27 major marine cargo and passenger terminals. Though less than 5% of its vast land is arable, the province is agriculturally rich (particularly in the Fraser and Okanagan valleys), because of milder weather near the coast and in certain sheltered southern valleys. Its climate encourages outdoor recreation and tourism, though its economic mainstay has long been resource extraction, principally logging, farming, and mining. Vancouver, the province's largest city, serves as the headquarters of many western-based natural resource companies. It also benefits from a strong housing market and a per capita income well above the national average. While the coast of British Columbia and some valleys in the south-central part of the province have mild weather, the majority of its land mass experiences a cold-winter-temperate climate similar to the rest of Canada. The Northern Interior region has a subarctic climate with very cold winters. The climate of Vancouver is by far the mildest winter climate of the major Canadian cities, with nighttime January temperatures averaging above the freezing point. British Columbia has a history of being a resource dominated economy, centred on the forestry industry but also with fluctuating importance in mining. Employment in the resource sector has fallen steadily as a percentage of employment, and new jobs are mostly in the construction and retail/service sectors. It now has the highest percentage of service industry jobs in the west, comprising 72% of industry (compared to 60% Western Canadian average). The largest section of this employment is in finance, insurance, real estate and corporate management; however, many areas outside of metropolitan areas are still heavily reliant on resource extraction. With its film industry known as Hollywood North, the Vancouver region is the third-largest feature film production location in North America, after Los Angeles and New York City. The economic history of British Columbia is replete with tales of dramatic upswings and downswings, and this boom and bust pattern has influenced the politics, culture and business climate of the province. Economic activity related to mining in particular has widely fluctuated with changes in commodity prices over time, with documented costs to community health. In 2017, British Columbia had the fourth-largest GDP in Canada, with a GDP of and a GDP per capita of $57,335. British Columbia's debt-to-GDP ratio is edging up to 15.0% in fiscal year 2019–20, and it is expected to reach 16.1% by 2021–22. British Columbia's economy experienced strong growth in 2017, with its annual performance outpacing the Canadian average for a fourth consecutive year. In 2017, British Columbia's real GDP growth of 3.9% ranked second among Canadian provinces. Government and politics The lieutenant governor, Janet Austin, is the Crown's representative in the province. During the absence of the lieutenant governor, the Governor in Council (federal Cabinet) may appoint an administrator to execute the duties of the office. This is usually the chief justice of British Columbia. British Columbia is divided into regional districts as a means to better enable municipalities and rural areas to work together at a regional level. British Columbia has an 87-member elected Legislative Assembly, elected by the plurality voting system, though from 2003 to 2009 there was significant debate about switching to a single transferable vote system called BC-STV. The government of the day appoints ministers for various portfolios, what are officially part of the Executive Council, of whom the premier is chair. The province is currently governed by the British Columbia New Democratic Party (BC NDP) under Premier John Horgan. The 2017 provincial election saw the Liberal Party take 43 seats, the NDP take 41, and the British Columbia Green Party take 3. No party met the minimum of 44 seats for a majority, therefore leading to the first minority government since 1953. Following the election, the Greens entered into negotiations with both the Liberals and NDP, eventually announcing they would support the current NDP minority. Previously, the right-of-centre British Columbia Liberal Party governed the province for 16 years between 2001 and 2017, and won the largest landslide election in British Columbia history in 2001, with 77 of 79 seats. The legislature became more evenly divided between the Liberals and NDP following the 2005 (46 Liberal seats of 79) and 2009 (49 Liberal seats of 85) provincial elections. The NDP and its predecessor the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) have been the main opposition force to right-wing parties since the 1930s and have ruled with majority governments in 1972–1975 and 1991–2001. The Green Party plays a larger role in the politics of British Columbia than Green parties do in most other jurisdictions in Canada. After a breakthrough election in 2001 (12.39%), the party's vote share declined (2005 – 9.17%, 2009 – 8.09%, 2013 – 8.13%) before increasing again to a record high of 16.84% at the 2017 election. The British Columbia Liberal Party is not related to the federal Liberal Party and does not share the same ideology. Instead, the BC Liberal party is a rather diverse coalition, made up of the remnants of the Social Credit Party, many federal Liberals, federal Conservatives, and those who would otherwise support right-of-centre or free enterprise parties. Historically, there have commonly been third parties present in the legislature (including the Liberals themselves from 1952 to 1975); the BC Green Party are the current third party in British Columbia, with three seats in the legislature. Prior to the rise of the Liberal Party, British Columbia's main political party was the British Columbia Social Credit Party which ruled British Columbia for 20 continuous years. While sharing some ideology with the current Liberal government, they were more right-wing although undertook nationalization of various important monopolies, notably BC Hydro and BC Ferries. British Columbia is known for having politically active labour unions who have traditionally supported the NDP or its predecessor, the CCF. British Columbia's political history is typified by scandal and a cast of colourful characters, beginning with various colonial-era land scandals and abuses of power by early officials (such as those that led to McGowan's War in 1858–59). Notable scandals in Social Credit years included the Robert Bonner Affair and the Fantasy Gardens scandal which forced Premier Bill Vander Zalm to resign and ended the Social Credit era. NDP scandals included Bingogate, which brought down NDP Premier Mike Harcourt, and the alleged scandal named Casinogate which drove NDP Premier Glen Clark to resign. A variety of scandals plagued the 2001–2017 Liberal government, including Premier Gordon Campbell's arrest for drunk driving in Maui and the resignation of various cabinet ministers because of conflict-of-interest allegations. A raid on the Parliament Buildings on December 28, 2003, in Victoria, including the Premier's Office, resulted in charges only for ministerial aides, although key cabinet members from the time have since resigned. The case, currently in preliminary hearings in the courts and relating to the sale of BC Rail to CN Rail, may not reach trial because of the mass of evidence and various procedural problems. Campbell eventually resigned in late 2010 due to opposition to his government's plan to introduce a Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) and was replaced by Christy Clark as premier in a 2011 BC Liberal leadership election. British Columbia is underrepresented in the Senate of Canada, leading Premier Christy Clark to refuse to cooperate with the federal government's reforms for senate appointments to be made based on the recommendations of a new advisory board that would use non-partisan criteria. Hours after that plan was unveiled in Ottawa on December 3, 2015, Clark issued a statement that it did "not address what's been wrong with the Senate since the beginning". The imbalance in representation in that House is apparent when considering population size. The six senators from BC constitute only one for every 775,000 people vs. one for every 75,000 in P.E.I. which has four senators. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have much smaller populations than BC, yet each has ten senators according to a Global News summary. Correcting this imbalance would require a constitutional amendment, but that is unlikely to be supported by the Atlantic provinces. Official symbols The government of British Columbia has designated several official symbols: Flag: Flag of British Columbia Coat of arms: Coat of arms of British Columbia Floral emblem: Pacific dogwood Mineral emblem: Jade Tree emblem: Western red cedar Bird emblem: Steller's jay Mammal emblem: "Spirit" or Kermode bear Fish emblem: Pacific salmon Tartan emblem: British Columbia Tartan Transportation Transportation played a huge role in British Columbia's history. The Rocky Mountains and the ranges west of them constituted a significant obstacle to overland travel until the completion of the transcontinental railway in 1885. The Peace River Canyon through the Rocky Mountains was the route the earliest explorers and fur traders used. Fur trade routes were only marginally used for access to British Columbia through the mountains. Travel from the rest of Canada before 1885 meant the difficulty of overland travel via the United States, around Cape Horn or overseas from Asia. Nearly all travel and freight to and from the region occurred via the Pacific Ocean, primarily through the ports of Victoria and New Westminster. Until the 1930s, rail was the only means of overland travel to and from the rest of Canada; travellers using motor vehicles needed to journey through the United States. With the construction of the Inter-Provincial Highway in 1932 (now known as the Crowsnest Pass Highway), and later the Trans-Canada Highway, road transportation evolved into the preferred mode of overland travel to and from the rest of the country. Roads and highways Because of its size and rugged, varying topography, British Columbia requires thousands of kilometres of provincial highways to connect its communities. British Columbia's roads systems were notoriously poorly maintained and dangerous until a concentrated programme of improvement was initiated in the 1950s and 1960s. There are now freeways in Greater Victoria, the Lower Mainland, and Central Interior of the province. Much of the rest of the province, where traffic volumes are generally low, is accessible by well-maintained generally high-mobility two-lane arterial highways with additional passing lanes in mountainous areas and usually only a few stop-controlled intersections outside the main urban areas. A couple of busy intercity corridors outside Greater Vancouver feature more heavily signalized limited-mobility arterial highways that are mostly four-lane and often divided by portable median traffic barriers. Highway 1 on Vancouver Island and Highway 97 through the Okanagan Valley are medium- to high-volume roadways with variable posted speeds that range from to maximums just slightly lower than the principal grade-separated highways. Numerous traffic lights operate in place of interchanges on both arterials as long-term cost-cutting measures. Signalization along both these highways is heaviest through urban areas and along inter-urban sections where traffic volumes are similar to and sometimes higher than the freeways, but where funding is not available for upgrades to interchanges or construction of high-mobility alternative routes or bypasses. The building and maintenance of provincial highways is the responsibility of the British Columbia Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure. There are only five major routes to the rest of Canada. From south to north they are: BC Highway 3 through the Crowsnest Pass, the Vermilion Pass (Highway 93 in both British Columbia and Alberta), the Kicking Horse Pass, the latter being used by the Trans-Canada Highway entering Alberta through Banff National Park, the Yellowhead Highway (16) through Jasper National Park, and Highway 2 through Dawson Creek. There are also several highway crossings to the adjoining American states of Washington, Idaho, and Montana. The longest highway is Highway 97, running from the British Columbia-Washington border at Osoyoos north to Watson Lake, Yukon and which includes the British Columbia portion of the Alaska Highway. Public transit Prior to 1979, surface public transit in the Vancouver and Victoria metropolitan areas was administered by BC Hydro, the provincially owned electricity utility. Subsequently, the province established BC Transit to oversee and operate all municipal transportation systems. In 1998, the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority, now TransLink, a separate authority for routes within the Greater Vancouver Regional District, was established. Some smaller island communities, such as Gabriola Island and, formerly, Pender Island operate routes independent of BC Transit or TransLink. BC Transit has recently expanded to provide intercity routes, particularly in the Northern region of British Columbia. Other intercity routes were introduced connecting southern communities in preparation of the cancellation of Greyhound Canada's pullout from Western Canada, though options for intercity bus travel are still extremely limited. Public transit in British Columbia consists mainly of diesel buses, although Vancouver is also serviced by a fleet of trolleybuses. Several experimental buses are being tested such as hybrid buses that have both gasoline and electric engines. Additionally, there are CNG-fuelled buses being tested and used in Nanaimo and Kamloops systems. British Columbia also tested a fleet of Hydrogen-fuelled buses for the Vancouver-Whistler Winter Olympics in 2010. TransLink operates SkyTrain, an automated metro system serving the cities of Vancouver, Burnaby, New Westminster, Surrey, Richmond, Coquitlam, and Port Moody. In 2009, the Canada Line SkyTrain was completed, linking Vancouver International Airport and the city of Richmond to downtown Vancouver bringing the total to three operating metro lines. A new extension to Coquitlam and Port Moody (the Evergreen Extension of the Millennium Line) was completed in December 2016. There is planning for an extension of the Millennium Line through Vancouver City to the University of British Columbia. Turnstiles have been added to all existing stations in the system. In the past, SkyTrain used a proof of payment honour system. In the capital city of Victoria BC Transit and the provincial government's infrastructure ministry are working together to create a bus rapid transit from the Westshore communities to downtown Victoria. In Kamloops, there is a bus rapid transit GPS trial underway to see how bus rapid transit affects smaller cities, rather than larger ones, like Victoria and Vancouver. Rail Rail development expanded greatly in the decades after the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed, in 1885, and was the chief mode of long-distance surface transportation until the expansion and improvement of the provincial highways system began in the 1950s. Two major routes through the Yellowhead Pass competed with the Canadian Pacific Railway – the Grand Trunk Pacific, terminating at Prince Rupert, and the Canadian Northern Railway, terminating at Vancouver. The British Columbia Electric Railway provided rail services in Victoria and Vancouver between the nineteenth century and mid twentieth century. The Pacific Great Eastern line supplemented this service, providing a north–south route between interior resource communities and the coast. The Pacific Great Eastern (later known as British Columbia Railway and now owned by Canadian National Railway) connects Fort St James, Fort Nelson, and Tumbler Ridge with North Vancouver. The E&N Railway, rebranded as Southern Railway of Vancouver Island, formerly served the commercial and passenger train markets of Vancouver Island. Service along the route is now minimal. Vancouver Island was also host to the last logging railway in North America until its closure in 2017. Current passenger services in British Columbia are limited. Via Rail Canada operates six long-distance trains on two lines. Local services are limited to two regions, with TransLink providing rapid transit and commuter services in the Lower Mainland and by the Seton Lake Indian Band South of Lillooet with the Kaoham Shuttle. Amtrak runs international passenger service between Vancouver, Seattle, and intermediate points. Several heritage railways operate within the province, including the White Pass & Yukon Route that runs between Alaska and the Yukon via British Columbia. Water BC Ferries was established as a provincial crown corporation in 1960 to provide passenger and vehicle ferry service between Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland as a cheaper and more reliable alternative to the service operated by the Canadian Pacific Railway and other private operators. It now operates 25 routes among the islands of British Columbia, as well as between the islands and the mainland. Ferry service to Washington is offered by the Washington State Ferries (between Sidney and Anacortes) and Black Ball Transport (between Victoria and Port Angeles, Washington). Ferry service over inland lakes and rivers is provided by the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure. Various other coastal ferries are operated privately. Commercial ocean transport is of vital importance. Major ports are at Vancouver, Roberts Bank (near Tsawwassen), Prince Rupert, and Victoria. Of these, the Port of Vancouver is the most important, being the largest in Canada and the most diversified in North America. Vancouver, Victoria, and Prince Rupert are also major ports of call for cruise ships. In 2007, a large maritime container port was opened in Prince Rupert with an inland sorting port in Prince George. Air There are over 200 airports throughout British Columbia, the major ones being the Vancouver International Airport, the Victoria International Airport, the Kelowna International Airport, and the Abbotsford International Airport, the first three of which each served over 1,000,000 passengers in 2005. , Vancouver International Airport is the 2nd busiest airport in the country and the second biggest International Gateway on the west coast (after Los Angeles) with an estimated 26.4 million travellers passing through in 2019. Outdoor life Given its varied mountainous terrain and its coasts, lakes, rivers, and forests, British Columbia has long been enjoyed for pursuits like hiking and camping, rock climbing and mountaineering, hunting and fishing. Water sports, both motorized and non-motorized, are enjoyed in many places. Sea kayaking opportunities abound on the British Columbia coast with its fjords. Whitewater rafting and kayaking are popular on many inland rivers. Sailing and sailboarding are widely enjoyed. In winter, cross-country and telemark skiing are much enjoyed, and in recent decades high-quality downhill skiing has been developed in the Coast Mountain range and the Rockies, as well as in the southern areas of the Shuswap Highlands and the Columbia Mountains. Snowboarding has mushroomed in popularity since the early 1990s. The 2010 Winter Olympics downhill events were held in Whistler Blackcomb area of the province, while the indoor events were conducted in the Vancouver area. In Vancouver and Victoria (as well as some other cities), opportunities for joggers and bicyclists have been developed. Cross-country bike touring has been popular since the ten-speed bike became available many years ago. Since the advent of the more robust mountain bike, trails in more rugged and wild places have been developed for them. A 2016 poll on global biking website Pinkbike rated BC as the top destination mountain bikers would like to ride. Some of the province's retired rail beds have been converted and maintained for hiking, biking, and cross-country skiing. Longboarding is also a popular activity because of the hilly geography of

Dean Channel near Bella Coola. His expedition theoretically established British sovereignty inland, and a succession of other fur company explorers charted the maze of rivers and mountain ranges between the Canadian Prairies and the Pacific. Mackenzie and other explorers—notably John Finlay, Simon Fraser, Samuel Black, and David Thompson—were primarily concerned with extending the fur trade, rather than political considerations. In 1794, by the third of a series of agreements known as the Nootka Conventions, Spain conceded its claims of exclusivity in the Pacific. This opened the way for formal claims and colonization by other powers, including Britain, but because of the Napoleonic Wars, there was little British action on its claims in the region until later. The establishment of trading posts under the auspices of the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), effectively established a permanent British presence in the region. The Columbia District was broadly defined as being south of 54°40 north latitude, (the southern limit of Russian America), north of Mexican-controlled California, and west of the Rocky Mountains. It was, by the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, under the "joint occupancy and use" of citizens of the United States and subjects of Britain (which is to say, the fur companies). This co-occupancy was ended with the Oregon Treaty of 1846. The major supply route was the York Factory Express between Hudson Bay and Fort Vancouver. Some of the early outposts grew into settlements, communities, and cities. Among the places in British Columbia that began as fur trading posts are Fort St. John (established 1794); Hudson's Hope (1805); Fort Nelson (1805); Fort St. James (1806); Prince George (1807); Kamloops (1812); Fort Langley (1827); Fort Victoria (1843); Yale (1848); and Nanaimo (1853). Fur company posts that became cities in what is now the United States include Vancouver, Washington (Fort Vancouver), formerly the "capital" of Hudson's Bay operations in the Columbia District, Colville, Washington and Walla Walla, Washington (old Fort Nez Percés). With the amalgamation of the two fur trading companies in 1821, modern-day British Columbia existed in three fur trading departments. The bulk of the central and northern interior was organized into the New Caledonia district, administered from Fort St. James. The interior south of the Thompson River watershed and north of the Columbia was organized into the Columbia District, administered from Fort Vancouver on the lower Columbia River. The northeast corner of the province east of the Rockies, known as the Peace River Block, was attached to the much larger Athabasca District, headquartered in Fort Chipewyan, in present-day Alberta. Until 1849, these districts were a wholly unorganized area of British North America under the de facto jurisdiction of HBC administrators; however, unlike Rupert's Land to the north and east, the territory was not a concession to the company. Rather, it was simply granted a monopoly to trade with the First Nations inhabitants. All that was changed with the westward extension of American exploration and the concomitant overlapping claims of territorial sovereignty, especially in the southern Columbia Basin (within present day Washington and Oregon). In 1846, the Oregon Treaty divided the territory along the 49th parallel to the Strait of Georgia, with the area south of this boundary (excluding Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands) transferred to sole American sovereignty. The Colony of Vancouver Island was created in 1849, with Victoria designated as the capital. New Caledonia, as the whole of the mainland rather than just its north-central Interior came to be called, continued to be an unorganized territory of British North America, "administered" by individual HBC trading post managers. Colony of British Columbia (1858–66) With the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush in 1858, an influx of Americans into New Caledonia prompted the colonial office to designate the mainland as the Colony of British Columbia. When news of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush reached London, Richard Clement Moody was hand-picked by the Colonial Office, under Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, to establish British order and to transform the newly established Colony of British Columbia into the British Empire's "bulwark in the farthest west" and "found a second England on the shores of the Pacific". Lytton desired to send to the colony "representatives of the best of British culture, not just a police force": he sought men who possessed "courtesy, high breeding and urbane knowledge of the world" and he decided to send Moody, whom the Government considered to be the "English gentleman and British Officer" at the head of the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment. Moody and his family arrived in British Columbia in December 1858, commanding the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment. He was sworn in as the first lieutenant governor of British Columbia and appointed Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works for British Columbia. On the advice of Lytton, Moody hired Robert Burnaby as his personal secretary. In British Columbia, Moody "wanted to build a city of beauty in the wilderness" and planned his city as an iconic visual metaphor for British dominance, "styled and located with the objective of reinforcing the authority of the crown and of the robe". Subsequent to the enactment of the Pre-emption Act of 1860, Moody settled the Lower Mainland. He selected the site and founded the new capital, New Westminster. He selected the site due to the strategic excellence of its position and the quality of its port. He was also struck by the majestic beauty of the site, writing in his letter to Blackwood, Lord Lytton "forgot the practicalities of paying for clearing and developing the site and the town" and the efforts of Moody's engineers were continuously hampered by insufficient funds, which, together with the continuous opposition of Governor James Douglas, "made it impossible for Moody's design to be fulfilled". Moody and the Royal Engineers also built an extensive road network, including what would become Kingsway, connecting New Westminster to False Creek, the North Road between Port Moody and New Westminster, and the Cariboo Road and Stanley Park. He named Burnaby Lake after his private secretary Robert Burnaby and named Port Coquitlam's 400-foot "Mary Hill" after his wife. As part of the surveying effort, several tracts were designated "government reserves", which included Stanley Park as a military reserve (a strategic location in case of an American invasion). The Pre-emption Act did not specify conditions for distributing the land, so large parcels were snapped up by speculators, including 3,750 acres (1,517 hectares) by Moody himself. For this he was criticized by local newspapermen for land grabbing. Moody designed the first coat of arms of British Columbia. Port Moody is named after him. It was established at the end of a trail that connected New Westminster with Burrard Inlet to defend New Westminster from potential attack from the US. By 1862, the Cariboo Gold Rush, attracting an additional 5000 miners, was underway, and Douglas hastened construction of the Great North Road (commonly known now as the Cariboo Wagon Road) up the Fraser Canyon to the prospecting region around Barkerville. By the time of this gold rush, the character of the colony was changing, as a more stable population of British colonists settled in the region, establishing businesses, opening sawmills, and engaging in fishing and agriculture. With this increased stability, objections to the colony's absentee governor and the lack of responsible government began to be vocalized, led by the influential editor of the New Westminster British Columbian and future premier, John Robson. A series of petitions requesting an assembly were ignored by Douglas and the colonial office until Douglas was eased out of office in 1864. Finally, the colony would have both an assembly and a resident governor. Later gold rushes A series of gold rushes in various parts of the province followed, the largest being the Cariboo Gold Rush in 1862, forcing the colonial administration into deeper debt as it struggled to meet the extensive infrastructure needs of far-flung boom communities like Barkerville and Lillooet, which sprang up overnight. The Vancouver Island colony was facing financial crises of its own, and pressure to merge the two eventually succeeded in 1866, when the colony of British Columbia was amalgamated with the Colony of Vancouver Island to form the Colony of British Columbia (1866–1871), which was, in turn, succeeded by the present day province of British Columbia following the Canadian Confederation of 1871. Rapid growth and development The Confederation League, including such figures as Amor De Cosmos, John Robson, and Robert Beaven, led the chorus pressing for the colony to join Canada, which had been created out of three British North American colonies in 1867 (the Province of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick). Several factors motivated this agitation, including the fear of annexation to the United States, the overwhelming debt created by rapid population growth, the need for government-funded services to support this population, and the economic depression caused by the end of the gold rush. With the agreement by the Canadian government to extend the Canadian Pacific Railway to British Columbia and to assume the colony's debt, British Columbia became the sixth province to join Confederation on July 20, 1871. The borders of the province were not completely settled. The Treaty of Washington sent the Pig War San Juan Islands Border dispute to arbitration in 1871 and in 1903, the province's territory shrank again after the Alaska boundary dispute settled the vague boundary of the Alaska Panhandle. Population in British Columbia continued to expand as the province's mining, forestry, agriculture, and fishing sectors were developed. Mining activity was particularly notable throughout the Mainland, particularly in the Boundary Country, in the Slocan, in the West Kootenay around Trail, the East Kootenay (the southeast corner of the province), the Fraser Canyon, the Cariboo, the Omineca and the Cassiar, so much so a common epithet for the Mainland, even after provincehood, was "the Gold Colony". Agriculture attracted settlers to the fertile Fraser Valley, and cattle ranchers and later fruit growers came to the drier grasslands of the Thompson River area, the Cariboo, the Chilcotin, and the Okanagan. Forestry drew workers to the lush temperate rainforests of the coast, which was also the locus of a growing fishery. The completion of the railway in 1885 was a huge boost to the province's economy, facilitating the transportation of the region's considerable resources to the east. The milltown of Granville, known as Gastown, near the mouth of the Burrard Inlet was selected as the terminus of the railway, prompting the incorporation of the city as Vancouver in 1886. The completion of the Port of Vancouver spurred rapid growth, and in less than fifty years the city surpassed Winnipeg, Manitoba, as the largest in Western Canada. The early decades of the province were ones in which issues of land use—specifically, its settlement and development—were paramount. This included expropriation from First Nations people of their land, control over its resources, as well as the ability to trade in some resources (such as fishing). Establishing a labour force to develop the province was problematic from the start, and British Columbia was the locus of immigration from Europe, China, Japan and India. The influx of a non-European population stimulated resentment from the dominant ethnic groups, resulting in agitation (much of it successful) to restrict the ability of Asian people to immigrate to British Columbia through the imposition of a head tax. This resentment culminated in mob attacks against Chinese and Japanese immigrants in Vancouver in 1887 and 1907. The subsequent Komagata Maru incident in 1914, where hundreds of Indians were denied entry into Vancouver, was also a direct result of the anti-Asian resentment at the time. By 1923, almost all Chinese immigration had been blocked except for merchants, professionals, students and investors. Meanwhile, the province continued to grow. In 1914, the last spike of a second transcontinental rail line, the Grand Trunk Pacific, linking north-central British Columbia from the Yellowhead Pass through Prince George to Prince Rupert was driven at Fort Fraser. This opened up the North Coast and the Bulkley Valley region to new economic opportunities. What had previously been an almost exclusively fur trade and subsistence economy soon became a locus for forestry, farming, and mining. In World War I, the province responded strongly to the call to assist the British Empire against its German foes in French and Belgian battlefields. About 55,570 of the 400,000 British Columbian residents, the highest per-capita rate in Canada, responded to the military needs. Horseriders from the province's Interior region and First Nations soldiers made contributions to Vimy Ridge and other battles. About 6,225 men from the province died in combat. 1920s to 1940s When the men returned from the First World War, they discovered the recently enfranchised women of the province had helped vote in the prohibition of liquor in an effort to end the social problems associated with the hard-core drinking Vancouver and the rest of the province was famous for until the war. Because of pressure from veterans, prohibition was quickly relaxed so the "soldier and the working man" could enjoy a drink, but widespread unemployment among veterans was hardened by many of the available jobs being taken by European immigrants and disgruntled veterans organized a range of "soldier parties" to represent their interests, variously named Soldier-Farmer, Soldier-Labour, and Farmer-Labour Parties. These formed the basis of the fractured labour-political spectrum that would generate a host of fringe leftist and rightist parties, including those who would eventually form the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the early Social Credit splinter groups. The advent of prohibition in the United States created new opportunities, and many found employment or at least profit in cross-border liquor smuggling. Much of Vancouver's prosperity and opulence in the 1920s results from this "pirate economy", although growth in forestry, fishing and mining continued. By the end of the 1920s, the end of prohibition in the U.S., combined with the onset of the Great Depression, plunged the province into economic destitution during the 1930s. Compounding the already dire local economic situation, tens of thousands of men from colder parts of Canada swarmed into Vancouver, creating huge hobo jungles around False Creek and the Burrard Inlet rail yards, including the old Canadian Pacific Railway mainline right-of-way through the heart of the city's downtown (at Hastings and Carrall). Increasingly desperate times led to intense political organizing efforts, an occupation of the main Post Office at Granville and Hastings which was violently put down by the police and an effective imposition of martial law on the docks for almost three years. A Vancouver contingent for the On-to-Ottawa Trek was organized and seized a train, which was loaded with thousands of men bound for the capital but was met by a Gatling gun straddling the tracks at Mission; the men were arrested and sent to work camps for the duration of the Depression. There were some signs of economic life beginning to return to normal towards the end of the 1930s, but it was the onset of World War II which transformed the national economy and ended the hard times of the Depression. Because of the war effort, women entered the workforce as never before. British Columbia has long taken advantage of its location on the Pacific Ocean to have close relations with East Asia and South Asia. This closeness has often caused friction between cultures which has sometimes escalated into racist animosity towards those of Asian descent. This was most manifest during the Second World War when many people of Japanese descent were relocated or interned in the Interior region of the province. Coalition and the post-war boom During the Second World War the mainstream BC Liberal and BC Conservative parties united in a formal coalition government under new Liberal leader John Hart, who replaced Duff Pattullo when the latter failed to win a majority in the 1941 election. While the Liberals won the most seats, they actually received fewer votes than the socialist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). Pattullo was unwilling to form a coalition with the rival Conservatives led by Royal Maitland and was replaced by Hart, who formed a coalition cabinet made up of five Liberal and three Conservative ministers. The CCF was invited to join the coalition but refused. The pretext for continuing the coalition after the end of the Second World War was to prevent the CCF, which had won a surprise victory in Saskatchewan in 1944, from ever coming to power in British Columbia. The CCF's popular vote was high enough in the 1945 election that they were likely to have won three-way contests and could have formed government; however, the coalition prevented that by uniting the anti-socialist vote. In the post-war environment the government initiated a series of infrastructure projects, notably the completion of Highway 97 north of Prince George to the Peace River Block, a section called the John Hart Highway and also public hospital insurance. In 1947 the reins of the Coalition were taken by Byron Ingemar Johnson. The Conservatives had wanted their new leader Herbert Anscomb to be premier, but the Liberals in the Coalition refused. Johnson led the coalition to the highest percentage of the popular vote in British Columbia history (61%) in the 1949 election. This victory was attributable to the popularity of his government's spending programmes, despite rising criticism of corruption and abuse of power. During his tenure, major infrastructures continued to expand, such as the agreement with Alcan Aluminum to build the town of Kitimat with an aluminum smelter and the large Kemano Hydro Project. Johnson achieved popularity for flood relief efforts during the 1948 flooding of the Fraser Valley, which was a major blow to that region and to the province's economy. On February 13, 1950, a Convair B-36B crashed in northern British Columbia after jettisoning a Mark IV atomic bomb. This was the first such nuclear weapon loss in history. Increasing tension between the Liberal and Conservative coalition partners led the Liberal Party executive to vote to instruct Johnson to terminate the arrangement. Johnson ended the coalition and dropped his Conservative cabinet ministers, including Deputy Premier and Finance minister Herbert Anscomb, precipitating the general election of 1952. A referendum on electoral reform prior to this election had instigated an elimination ballot (similar to a preferential ballot), where voters could select second and third choices. The intent of the ballot, as campaigned for by Liberals and Conservatives, was that their supporters would list the rival party in lieu of the CCF, but this plan backfired when a large group of voters from all major parties, including the CCF, voted for the fringe Social Credit Party, who wound up with the largest number of seats in the House (19), only one seat ahead of the CCF, despite the CCF having 34.3% of the vote to Social Credit's 30.18%. The Social Credit Party, led by rebel former Conservative MLA W. A. C. Bennett, formed a minority government backed by the Liberals and Conservatives (with 6 and 4 seats respectively). Bennett began a series of fiscal reforms, preaching a new variety of populism as well as waxing eloquent on progress and development, laying the ground for a second election in 1953 in which the new Bennett regime secured a majority of seats, with 38% of the vote. Secure with that majority, Bennett returned the province to the first-past-the-post system thereafter, which is still in use. 1952–1960s With the election of the Social Credit Party, British Columbia embarked on a phase of rapid economic development. Bennett and his party governed the province for the next twenty years, during which time the government initiated an ambitious programme of infrastructure development, fuelled by a sustained economic boom in the forestry, mining, and energy sectors. During these two decades, the government nationalized British Columbia Electric and the British Columbia Power Company, as well as smaller electric companies, renaming the entity BC Hydro. West Kootenay Power and Light remained independent of BC Hydro, being owned and operated by Cominco, though tied into the regional power grid. By the end of the 1960s, several major dams had been begun or completed in—among others—the Peace, Columbia, and Nechako River watersheds (the Nechako Diversion to Kemano, was to supply power to the Alcan Inc. aluminum smelter at Kitimat, and was not part of the provincial power grid but privately owned). Major transmission deals were concluded, most notably the Columbia River Treaty between Canada and the United States. The province's economy was also boosted by unprecedented growth in the forest sector, as well as oil and gas development in the province's northeast. The 1950s and 1960s were also marked by development in the province's transportation infrastructure. In 1960, the government established BC Ferries as a crown corporation, to provide a marine extension of the provincial highway system, also supported by federal grants as being part of the Trans-Canada Highway system. That system was improved and expanded through the construction of new highways and bridges, and paving of existing highways and provincial roads. Vancouver and Victoria became cultural centres as poets, authors, artists, musicians, as well as dancers, actors, and haute cuisine chefs flocked to its scenery and warmer temperatures, with the cultural and entrepreneurial community bolstered by many Draft dodgers from the United States. Tourism also played a role in the economy. The rise of Japan and other Pacific economies was a boost to British Columbia's economy, primarily because of exports of lumber products and unprocessed coal and trees. Politically and socially, the 1960s brought a period of significant social ferment. The divide between the political left and right, which had prevailed in the province since the Depression and the rise of the labour movement, sharpened as so-called free enterprise parties coalesced into the de facto coalition represented by Social Credit—in opposition to the social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP), the successor to the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. As the province's economy blossomed, so did labour-management tensions. Tensions emerged, also, from the counterculture movement of the late 1960s, of which Vancouver and Nanaimo were centres. The conflict between hippies and Vancouver mayor Tom Campbell was particularly legendary, culminating in the Gastown riots of 1971. By the end of the decade, with social tensions and dissatisfaction with the status quo rising, the Bennett government's achievements could not stave off its growing unpopularity. 1970s and 1980s On August 27, 1969, the Social Credit Party was re-elected in a general election for what would be Bennett's final term in power. At the start of the 1970s, the economy was quite strong because of rising coal prices and an increase in annual allowable cuts in the forestry sector, but BC Hydro reported its first loss, which was the beginning of the end for Bennett and the Social Credit Party. The Socreds were forced from power in the August 1972 election, paving the way for a provincial NDP government under Dave Barrett. Under Barrett, the large provincial surplus soon became a deficit, although changes to the accounting system makes it likely some of the deficit was carried over from the previous Social Credit regime and its "two sets of books", as W. A. C. Bennett had once referred to his system of fiscal management. The brief three-year ("Thousand Days") period of NDP governance brought several lasting changes to the province, most notably the creation of the Agricultural Land Reserve, intended to protect farmland from redevelopment, and the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, a crown corporation charged with a monopoly on providing single-payer basic automobile insurance. Perceptions the government had instituted reforms either too swiftly or that were too far-reaching, coupled with growing labour disruptions led to the ouster of the NDP in the 1975 general election. Social Credit, under W.A.C. Bennett's son, Bill Bennett, was returned to office. Under the younger Bennett's government, 85% of the province's land base was transferred from Government Reserve to management by the Ministry of Forests, reporting of deputy ministers was centralized to the Premier's Office, and NDP-instigated social programs were rolled back, with then-human resources minister infamously demonstrating a golden shovel to highlight his welfare policy, although the new-era Social Credit Party also reinforced and backed certain others instigated by the NDP—notably the creation of the Resort Municipality of Whistler, whose special status including Sunday drinking, then an anomaly in BC. Also during the "MiniWac" regime (a reference to his father's acronym, W. A. C.) certain money-losing Crown-owned assets were "privatized" in a mass giveaway of shares in the British Columbia Resources Investment Corporation, "BCRIC", with the "Brick shares" soon becoming near-worthless. Towards the end of his tenure in power, Bennett oversaw the completion of several megaprojects meant to stimulate the economy and win votes – unlike most right-wing parties, British Columbia's Social Credit actively practised government stimulation of the economy. Most notable of these was the winning of a world's fair for Vancouver, which came in the form of Expo 86, to which was tied the construction of the Coquihalla Highway and Vancouver's SkyTrain system. The Coquihalla Highway project became the subject of a scandal after revelations the premier's brother bought large tracts of land needed for the project before it was announced to the public, and also because of graft investigations of the huge cost overruns on the project. Both investigations were derailed in the media by a still further

Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta which contains a detailed account of the Buddha's final days. Hinüber proposes a composition date of no later than 350–320 BCE for this text, which would allow for a "true historical memory" of the events approximately 60 years prior if the Short Chronology for the Buddha's lifetime is accepted (but he also points out that such a text was originally intended more as hagiography than as an exact historical record of events). John S. Strong sees certain biographical fragments in the canonical texts preserved in Pali, as well as Chinese, Tibetan and Sanskrit as the earliest material. These include texts such as the “Discourse on the Noble Quest” (Pali: Ariyapariyesanā-sutta) and its parallels in other languages. Traditional biographies Biographical sources The sources which present a complete picture of the life of Siddhārtha Gautama are a variety of different, and sometimes conflicting, traditional biographies. These include the Buddhacarita, Lalitavistara Sūtra, Mahāvastu, and the Nidānakathā. Of these, the Buddhacarita is the earliest full biography, an epic poem written by the poet Aśvaghoṣa in the first century CE. The Lalitavistara Sūtra is the next oldest biography, a Mahāyāna/Sarvāstivāda biography dating to the 3rd century CE. The Mahāvastu from the Mahāsāṃghika Lokottaravāda tradition is another major biography, composed incrementally until perhaps the 4th century CE. The Dharmaguptaka biography of the Buddha is the most exhaustive, and is entitled the Abhiniṣkramaṇa Sūtra, and various Chinese translations of this date between the 3rd and 6th century CE. The Nidānakathā is from the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka and was composed in the 5th century by Buddhaghoṣa. The earlier canonical sources include the Ariyapariyesana Sutta (MN 26), the Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta (DN 16), the Mahāsaccaka-sutta (MN 36), the Mahapadana Sutta (DN 14), and the Achariyabhuta Sutta (MN 123), which include selective accounts that may be older, but are not full biographies. The Jātaka tales retell previous lives of Gautama as a bodhisattva, and the first collection of these can be dated among the earliest Buddhist texts. The Mahāpadāna Sutta and Achariyabhuta Sutta both recount miraculous events surrounding Gautama's birth, such as the bodhisattva's descent from the Tuṣita Heaven into his mother's womb. Nature of traditional depictions In the earliest Buddhist texts, the nikāyas and āgamas, the Buddha is not depicted as possessing omniscience (sabbaññu) nor is he depicted as being an eternal transcendent (lokottara) being. According to Bhikkhu Analayo, ideas of the Buddha's omniscience (along with an increasing tendency to deify him and his biography) are found only later, in the Mahayana sutras and later Pali commentaries or texts such as the Mahāvastu. In the Sandaka Sutta, the Buddha's disciple Ananda outlines an argument against the claims of teachers who say they are all knowing while in the Tevijjavacchagotta Sutta the Buddha himself states that he has never made a claim to being omniscient, instead he claimed to have the "higher knowledges" (abhijñā). The earliest biographical material from the Pali Nikayas focuses on the Buddha's life as a śramaṇa, his search for enlightenment under various teachers such as Alara Kalama and his forty-five-year career as a teacher. Traditional biographies of Gautama often include numerous miracles, omens, and supernatural events. The character of the Buddha in these traditional biographies is often that of a fully transcendent (Skt. lokottara) and perfected being who is unencumbered by the mundane world. In the Mahāvastu, over the course of many lives, Gautama is said to have developed supramundane abilities including: a painless birth conceived without intercourse; no need for sleep, food, medicine, or bathing, although engaging in such "in conformity with the world"; omniscience, and the ability to "suppress karma". As noted by Andrew Skilton, the Buddha was often described as being superhuman, including descriptions of him having the 32 major and 80 minor marks of a "great man," and the idea that the Buddha could live for as long as an aeon if he wished (see DN 16). The ancient Indians were generally unconcerned with chronologies, being more focused on philosophy. Buddhist texts reflect this tendency, providing a clearer picture of what Gautama may have taught than of the dates of the events in his life. These texts contain descriptions of the culture and daily life of ancient India which can be corroborated from the Jain scriptures, and make the Buddha's time the earliest period in Indian history for which significant accounts exist. British author Karen Armstrong writes that although there is very little information that can be considered historically sound, we can be reasonably confident that Siddhārtha Gautama did exist as a historical figure. Michael Carrithers goes a bit further by stating that the most general outline of "birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching, death" must be true. Previous lives Legendary biographies like the Pali Buddhavaṃsa and the Sanskrit Jātakamālā depict the Buddha's (referred to as "bodhisattva" before his awakening) career as spanning hundreds of lifetimes before his last birth as Gautama. Many stories of these previous lives are depicted in the Jatakas. The format of a Jataka typically begins by telling a story in the present which is then explained by a story of someone's previous life. Besides imbuing the pre-Buddhist past with a deep karmic history, the Jatakas also serve to explain the bodhisattva's (the Buddha-to-be) path to Buddhahood. In biographies like the Buddhavaṃsa, this path is described as long and arduous, taking "four incalculable ages" (asamkheyyas). In these legendary biographies, the bodhisattva goes through many different births (animal and human), is inspired by his meeting of past Buddhas, and then makes a series of resolves or vows (pranidhana) to become a Buddha himself. Then he begins to receive predictions by past Buddhas. One of the most popular of these stories is his meeting with Dipankara Buddha, who gives the bodhisattva a prediction of future Buddhahood. Another theme found in the Pali Jataka Commentary (Jātakaṭṭhakathā) and the Sanskrit Jātakamālā is how the Buddha-to-be had to practice several "perfections" (pāramitā) to reach Buddhahood. The Jatakas also sometimes depict negative actions done in previous lives by the bodhisattva, which explain difficulties he experienced in his final life as Gautama. Biography Birth and early life The Buddhist tradition regards Lumbini, in present-day Nepal, and Kapilavastu, as the Buddha's birthplace and childhood home, respectively. The exact site of ancient Kapilavastu is unknown. It may have been either Piprahwa, Uttar Pradesh, in present-day India, or Tilaurakot, in present-day Nepal. Both places belonged to the Sakya territory, and are located only apart. According to later biographies such as the Mahavastu and the Lalitavistara, his mother, Maya (Māyādevī), Suddhodana's wife, was a Koliyan princess. Legend has it that, on the night Siddhartha was conceived, Queen Maya dreamt that a white elephant with six white tusks entered her right side, and ten months later Siddhartha was born. As was the Shakya tradition, when his mother Queen Maya became pregnant, she left Kapilavastu for her father's kingdom to give birth. However, her son is said to have been born on the way, at Lumbini, in a garden beneath a sal tree. The earliest Buddhist sources state that the Buddha was born to an aristocratic Kshatriya (Pali: khattiya) family called Gotama (Sanskrit: Gautama), who were part of the Shakyas, a tribe of rice-farmers living near the modern border of India and Nepal. His father Śuddhodana was "an elected chief of the Shakya clan", whose capital was Kapilavastu, and who were later annexed by the growing Kingdom of Kosala during the Buddha's lifetime. Gautama was his family name. The early Buddhist texts contain very little information about the birth and youth of Gotama Buddha. Later biographies developed a dramatic narrative about the life of the young Gotama as a prince and his existential troubles. They also depict his father Śuddhodana as a hereditary monarch of the Suryavansha (Solar dynasty) of (Pāli: Okkāka). This is unlikely however, as many scholars think that Śuddhodana was merely a Shakya aristocrat (khattiya), and that the Shakya republic was not a hereditary monarchy. Indeed, the more egalitarian gana-sangha form of government, as a political alternative to Indian monarchies, may have influenced the development of the śramanic Jain and Buddhist sanghas, where monarchies tended toward Vedic Brahmanism. The day of the Buddha's birth is widely celebrated in Theravada countries as Vesak. Buddha's Birthday is called Buddha Purnima in Nepal, Bangladesh, and India as he is believed to have been born on a full moon day. According to later biographical legends, during the birth celebrations, the hermit seer Asita journeyed from his mountain abode, analyzed the child for the "32 marks of a great man" and then announced that he would either become a great king (chakravartin) or a great religious leader. Suddhodana held a naming ceremony on the fifth day and invited eight Brahmin scholars to read the future. All gave similar predictions. Kondañña, the youngest, and later to be the first arhat other than the Buddha, was reputed to be the only one who unequivocally predicted that Siddhartha would become a Buddha. Early texts suggest that Gautama was not familiar with the dominant religious teachings of his time until he left on his religious quest, which is said to have been motivated by existential concern for the human condition. According to the early Buddhist Texts of several schools, and numerous post-canonical accounts, Gotama had a wife, Yasodhara, and a son, named Rāhula. Besides this, the Buddha in the early texts reports that "'I lived a spoilt, a very spoilt life, monks (in my parents' home)." The legendary biographies like the Lalitavistara also tell stories of young Gotama's great martial skill, which was put to the test in various contests against other Shakyan youths. Renunciation While the earliest sources merely depict Gotama seeking a higher spiritual goal and becoming an ascetic or sramana after being disillusioned with lay life, the later legendary biographies tell a more elaborate dramatic story about how he became a mendicant. The earliest accounts of the Buddha's spiritual quest is found in texts such as the Pali Ariyapariyesanā-sutta ("The discourse on the noble quest," MN 26) and its Chinese parallel at MĀ 204. These texts report that what led to Gautama's renunciation was the thought that his life was subject to old age, disease and death and that there might be something better (i.e. liberation, nirvana). The early texts also depict the Buddha's explanation for becoming a sramana as follows: "The household life, this place of impurity, is narrow - the samana life is the free open air. It is not easy for a householder to lead the perfected, utterly pure and perfect holy life." MN 26, MĀ 204, the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya and the Mahāvastu all agree that his mother and father opposed his decision and "wept with tearful faces" when he decided to leave. Legendary biographies also tell the story of how Gautama left his palace to see the outside world for the first time and how he was shocked by his encounter with human suffering. These depict Gautama's father as shielding him from religious teachings and from knowledge of human suffering, so that he would become a great king instead of a great religious leader. In the Nidanakatha (5th century CE), Gautama is said to have seen an old man. When his charioteer Chandaka explained to him that all people grew old, the prince went on further trips beyond the palace. On these he encountered a diseased man, a decaying corpse, and an ascetic that inspired him. This story of the "four sights" seems to be adapted from an earlier account in the Digha Nikaya (DN 14.2) which instead depicts the young life of a previous Buddha, Vipassi. The legendary biographies depict Gautama's departure from his palace as follows. Shortly after seeing the four sights, Gautama woke up at night and saw his female servants lying in unattractive, corpse-like poses, which shocked him. Therefore, he discovered what he would later understand more deeply during his enlightenment: suffering and the end of suffering. Moved by all the things he had experienced, he decided to leave the palace in the middle of the night against the will of his father, to live the life of a wandering ascetic. Accompanied by Chandaka and riding his horse Kanthaka, Gautama leaves the palace, leaving behind his son Rahula and Yaśodhara. He traveled to the river Anomiya, and cut off his hair. Leaving his servant and horse behind, he journeyed into the woods and changed into monk's robes there, though in some other versions of the story, he received the robes from a Brahma deity at Anomiya. According to the legendary biographies, when the ascetic Gautama first went to Rajagaha (present-day Rajgir) to beg for alms in the streets, King Bimbisara of Magadha learned of his quest, and offered him a share of his kingdom. Gautama rejected the offer but promised to visit his kingdom first, upon attaining enlightenment. Ascetic life and awakening The Nikaya-texts narrate that the ascetic Gautama practised under two teachers of yogic meditation. According to MN 26 and its Chinese parallel at MĀ 204, after having mastered the teaching of Ārāḍa Kālāma (), who taught a meditation attainment called "the sphere of nothingness", he was asked by Ārāḍa to become an equal leader of their spiritual community. However, Gautama felt unsatisfied by the practice because it "does not lead to revulsion, to dispassion, to cessation, to calm, to knowledge, to awakening, to Nibbana", and moved on to become a student of Udraka Rāmaputra (). With him, he achieved high levels of meditative consciousness (called "The Sphere of Neither Perception nor Non-Perception") and was again asked to join his teacher. But, once more, he was not satisfied for the same reasons as before, and moved on. Majjhima Nikaya 4 also mentions that Gautama lived in "remote jungle thickets" during his years of spiritual striving and had to overcome the fear that he felt while living in the forests. After leaving his meditation teachers, Gotama then practiced ascetic techniques. An account of these practices can be seen in the Mahāsaccaka-sutta (MN 36) and its various parallels (which according to Anālayo include some Sanskrit fragments, an individual Chinese translation, a sutra of the Ekottarika-āgama as well as sections of the Lalitavistara and the Mahāvastu). The ascetic techniques described in the early texts include very minimal food intake, different forms of breath control, and forceful mind control. The texts report that he became so emaciated that his bones became visible through his skin. According to other early Buddhist texts, after realising that meditative dhyana was the right path to awakening, Gautama discovered "the Middle Way"—a path of moderation away from the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification, or the Noble Eightfold Path. His break with asceticism is said to have led his five companions to abandon him, since they believed that he had abandoned his search and become undisciplined. One popular story tells of how he accepted milk and rice pudding from a village girl named Sujata. Following his decision to stop extreme ascetic practices, MĀ 204 and other parallel early texts report that Gautama sat down to meditate with the determination not to get up until full awakening (sammā-sambodhi) had been reached. This event was said to have occurred under a pipal tree—known as "the Bodhi tree"—in Bodh Gaya, Bihar. Likewise, the Mahāsaccaka-sutta and most of its parallels agree that after taking asceticism to its extremes, the Buddha realized that this had not helped him reach awakening. At this point, he remembered a previous meditative experience he had as a child sitting under a tree while his father worked. This memory leads him to understand that dhyana (meditation) is the path to awakening, and the texts then depict the Buddha achieving all four dhyanas, followed by the "three higher knowledges" (tevijja) culminating in awakening. Gautama thus became known as the Buddha or "Awakened One". The title indicates that unlike most people who are "asleep", a Buddha is understood as having "woken up" to the true nature of reality and sees the world 'as it is' (yatha-bhutam). A Buddha has achieved liberation (vimutti), also called Nirvana, which is seen as the extinguishing of the "fires" of desire, hatred, and ignorance, that keep the cycle of suffering and rebirth going. According to various early texts like the Mahāsaccaka-sutta, and the Samaññaphala Sutta, a Buddha has achieved three higher knowledges: Remembering one's former abodes (i.e. past lives), the "Divine eye" (dibba-cakkhu), which allows the knowing of others' karmic destinations and the "extinction of mental intoxicants" (āsavakkhaya). According to some texts from the Pali canon, at the time of his awakening he realised complete insight into the Four Noble Truths, thereby attaining liberation from samsara, the endless cycle of rebirth. As reported by various texts from the Pali Canon, the Buddha sat for seven days under the bodhi tree "feeling the bliss of deliverance." The Pali texts also report that he continued to meditate and contemplated various aspects of the Dharma while living by the River Nairañjanā, such as Dependent Origination, the Five Spiritual Faculties and Suffering. The legendary biographies like the Mahavastu, Nidanakatha and the Lalitavistara depict an attempt by Mara, the ruler of the desire realm, to prevent the Buddha's nirvana. He does so by sending his daughters to seduce the Buddha, by asserting his superiority and by assaulting him with armies of monsters. However the Buddha is unfazed and calls on the earth (or in some versions of the legend, the earth goddess) as witness to his superiority by touching the ground before entering meditation. Other miracles and magical events are also depicted. First sermon and formation of the saṅgha According to MN 26, immediately after his awakening, the Buddha hesitated on whether or not he should teach the Dharma to others. He was concerned that humans were overpowered by ignorance, greed, and hatred that it would be difficult for them to recognise the path, which is "subtle, deep and hard to grasp." However, the god Brahmā Sahampati convinced him, arguing that at least some "with little dust in their eyes" will understand it. The Buddha relented and agreed to teach. According to Anālayo, the Chinese parallel to MN 26, MĀ 204, does not contain this story, but this event does appear in other parallel texts, such as in an Ekottarika-āgama discourse, in the Catusparisat-sūtra, and in the Lalitavistara. According to MN 26 and MĀ 204, after deciding to teach, the Buddha initially intended to visit his former teachers, Alara Kalama and Udaka Ramaputta, to teach them his insights, but they had already died, so he decided to visit his five former companions. MN 26 and MĀ 204 both report that on his way to Vārānasī (Benares), he met another wanderer, called Ājīvika Upaka in MN 26. The Buddha proclaimed that he had achieved full awakening, but Upaka was not convinced and "took a different path". MN 26 and MĀ 204 continue with the Buddha reaching the Deer Park (Sarnath) (Mrigadāva, also called Rishipatana, "site where the ashes of the ascetics fell") near Vārānasī, where he met the group of five ascetics and was able to convince them that he had indeed reached full awakening. According to MĀ 204 (but not MN 26), as well as the Theravāda Vinaya, an Ekottarika-āgama text, the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya, the Mahīśāsaka Vinaya, and the Mahāvastu, the Buddha then taught them the "first sermon", also known as the "Benares sermon", i.e. the teaching of "the noble eightfold path as the middle path aloof from the two extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification." The Pali text reports that after the first sermon, the ascetic Koṇḍañña (Kaundinya) became the first arahant (liberated being) and the first Buddhist bhikkhu or monastic. The Buddha then continued to teach the other ascetics and they formed the first : the company of Buddhist monks. Various sources such as the Mahāvastu, the Mahākhandhaka of the Theravāda Vinaya and the Catusparisat-sūtra also mention that the Buddha taught them his second discourse, about the characteristic of "not-self" (Anātmalakṣaṇa Sūtra), at this time or five days later. After hearing this second sermon the four remaining ascetics also reached the status of arahant. The Theravāda Vinaya and the Catusparisat-sūtra also speak of the conversion of Yasa, a local guild master, and his friends and family, who were some of the first laypersons to be converted and to enter the Buddhist community. The conversion of three brothers named Kassapa followed, who brought with them five hundred converts who had previously been "matted hair ascetics," and whose spiritual practice was related to fire sacrifices. According to the Theravāda Vinaya, the Buddha then stopped at the Gayasisa hill near Gaya and delivered his third discourse, the Ādittapariyāya Sutta (The Discourse on Fire), in which he taught that everything in the world is inflamed by passions and only those who follow the Eightfold path can be liberated. At the end of the rainy season, when the Buddha's community had grown to around sixty awakened monks, he instructed them to wander on their own, teach and ordain people into the community, for the "welfare and benefit" of the world. The growth of the saṅgha For the remaining 40 or 45 years of his life, the Buddha is said to have traveled in the Gangetic Plain, in what is now Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and southern Nepal, teaching a diverse range of people: from nobles to servants, ascetics and householders, murderers such as Angulimala, and cannibals such as Alavaka. According to Schumann, the Buddha's wanderings ranged from "Kosambi on the Yamuna (25 km south-west of Allahabad )", to Campa (40 km east of Bhagalpur)" and from "Kapilavatthu (95 km north-west of Gorakhpur) to Uruvela (south of Gaya)." This covers an area of 600 by 300 km. His sangha enjoyed the patronage of the kings of Kosala and Magadha and he thus spent a lot of time in their respective capitals, Savatthi and Rajagaha. Although the Buddha's language remains unknown, it is likely that he taught in one or more of a variety of closely related Middle Indo-Aryan dialects, of which Pali may be a standardisation. The sangha traveled through the subcontinent, expounding the Dharma. This continued throughout the year, except during the four months of the Vassa rainy season when ascetics of all religions rarely traveled. One reason was that it was more difficult to do so without causing harm to flora and animal life. The health of the ascetics might have been a concern as well. At this time of year, the sangha would retreat to monasteries, public parks or forests, where people would come to them. The first vassana was spent at Varanasi when the sangha was formed. According to the Pali texts, shortly after the formation of the sangha, the Buddha traveled to Rajagaha, capital of Magadha, and met with King Bimbisara, who gifted a bamboo grove park to the sangha. The Buddha's sangha continued to grow during his initial travels in north India. The early texts tell the story of how the Buddha's chief disciples, Sāriputta and Mahāmoggallāna, who were both students of the skeptic sramana Sañjaya Belaṭṭhiputta, were converted by Assaji. They also tell of how the Buddha's son, Rahula, joined his father as a bhikkhu when the Buddha visited his old home, Kapilavastu. Over time, other Shakyans joined the order as bhikkhus, such as Buddha's cousin Ananda, Anuruddha, Upali the barber, the Buddha's half-brother Nanda and Devadatta. Meanwhile, the Buddha's father Suddhodana heard his son's teaching, converted to Buddhism and became a stream-enterer. The early texts also mention an important lay disciple, the merchant Anāthapiṇḍika, who became a strong lay supporter of the Buddha early on. He is said to have gifted Jeta's grove (Jetavana) to the sangha at great expense (the Theravada Vinaya speaks of thousands of gold coins). Formation of the bhikkhunī order The formation of a parallel order of female monastics (bhikkhunī) was another important part of the growth of the Buddha's community. As noted by Anālayo's comparative study of this topic, there are various versions of this event depicted in the different early Buddhist texts. According to all the major versions surveyed by Anālayo, Mahāprajāpatī Gautamī, Buddha's step-mother, is initially turned down by the Buddha after requesting ordination for her and some other women. Mahāprajāpatī and her followers then shave their hair, don robes and begin following the Buddha on his travels. The Buddha is eventually convinced by Ānanda to grant ordination to Mahāprajāpatī on her acceptance of eight conditions called gurudharmas which focus on the relationship between the new order of nuns and the monks. According to Anālayo, the only argument common to all the versions that Ananda uses to convince the Buddha is that women have the same ability to reach all stages of awakening. Anālayo also notes that some modern scholars have questioned the authenticity of the eight gurudharmas in their present form due to various inconsistencies. He holds that the historicity of the current lists of eight is doubtful, but that they may have been based on earlier injunctions by the Buddha. Anālayo also notes that various passages indicate that the reason for the Buddha's hesitation to ordain women was the danger that the life of a wandering sramana posed for women that were not under the protection of their male family members (such as dangers of sexual assault and abduction). Due to this, the gurudharma injunctions may have been a way to place "the newly founded order of nuns in a relationship to its male counterparts that resembles as much as possible the protection a laywoman could expect from her male relatives." Later years According to J.S. Strong, after the first 20 years of his teaching career, the Buddha seems to have slowly settled in Sravasti, the capital of the Kingdom of Kosala, spending most of his later years in this city. As the sangha grew in size, the need for a standardized set of monastic rules arose and the Buddha seems to have developed a set of regulations for the sangha. These are preserved in various texts called "Pratimoksa" which were recited by the community every fortnight. The Pratimoksa includes general ethical precepts, as well as rules regarding the essentials of monastic life, such as bowls and robes. In his later years, the Buddha's fame grew and he was invited to important royal events, such as the inauguration of the new council hall of the Shakyans (as seen in MN 53) and the inauguration of a new palace by Prince Bodhi (as depicted in MN 85). The early texts also speak of how during the Buddha's old age, the kingdom of Magadha was usurped by a new king, Ajatasattu, who overthrew his father Bimbisara. According to the Samaññaphala Sutta, the new king spoke with different ascetic teachers and eventually took refuge in the Buddha. However, Jain sources also claim his allegiance, and it is likely he supported various religious groups, not just the Buddha's sangha exclusively. As the Buddha continued to travel and teach, he also came into contact with members of other śrāmana sects. There is evidence from the early texts that the Buddha encountered some of these figures and critiqued their doctrines. The Samaññaphala Sutta identifies six such sects. The early texts also depict the elderly Buddha as suffering from back pain. Several texts depict him delegating teachings to his chief disciples since his body now needed more rest. However, the Buddha continued teaching well into his old age. One of the most troubling events during the Buddha's old age was Devadatta's schism. Early sources speak of how the Buddha's cousin, Devadatta, attempted to take over leadership of the order and then left the sangha with several Buddhist monks and formed a rival sect. This sect is said to have also been supported by King Ajatasattu. The Pali texts also depict Devadatta as plotting to kill the Buddha, but these plans all fail. They also depict the Buddha as sending his two chief disciples (Sariputta and Moggallana) to this schismatic community in order to convince the monks who left with Devadatta to return. All the major early Buddhist Vinaya texts depict Devadatta as a divisive figure who attempted to split the Buddhist community, but they disagree on what issues he disagreed with the Buddha on. The Sthavira texts generally focus on "five points" which are seen as excessive ascetic practices, while the Mahāsaṅghika Vinaya speaks of a more comprehensive disagreement, which has Devadatta alter the discourses as well as monastic discipline. At around the same time of Devadatta's schism, there was also war between Ajatasattu's Kingdom of Magadha, and Kosala, led by an elderly king Pasenadi. Ajatasattu seems to have been victorious, a turn of events the Buddha is reported to have regretted. Last days and parinirvana The main narrative of the Buddha's last days, death and the events following his death is contained in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta (DN 16) and its various parallels in Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan. According to Anālayo, these include the Chinese Dirgha Agama 2, "Sanskrit fragments of the Mahaparinirvanasutra", and "three discourses preserved as individual translations in Chinese". The Mahaparinibbana sutta depicts the Buddha's last year as a time of war. It begins with Ajatasattu's decision to make war on the Vajjian federation, leading him to send a minister to ask the Buddha for advice. The Buddha responds by saying that the Vajjians can be expected to prosper as long as they do seven things, and he then applies these seven principles to the Buddhist Sangha, showing that he is concerned about its future welfare. The Buddha says that the Sangha will prosper as long as they "hold regular and frequent assemblies, meet in harmony, do not change the rules of training, honor their superiors who were ordained before them, do not fall prey to worldly desires, remain devoted to forest hermitages, and preserve their personal mindfulness." He then gives further lists of important virtues to be upheld by the Sangha. The early texts also depict how the Buddha's two chief disciples, Sariputta and Moggallana, died just before the Buddha's death. The Mahaparinibbana depicts the Buddha as experiencing illness during the last months of his life but initially recovering. It also depicts him as stating that he cannot promote anyone to be his successor. When Ānanda requested this, the Mahaparinibbana records his response as follows: Ananda, why does the Order of monks expect this of me? I have taught the Dhamma, making no distinction of “inner” and “ outer”: the Tathagata has no “teacher's fist” (in which certain truths are held back). If there is anyone who thinks: “I shall take charge of the Order”, or “the Order is under my leadership”, such a person would have to make arrangements about the Order. The Tathagata does not think in such terms. Why should the Tathagata make arrangements for the Order? I am now old, worn out … I have reached the term of life, I am turning eighty years of age. Just as an old cart is made to go by being held together with straps, so the Tathagata's body is kept going by being bandaged up … Therefore, Ananda, you should live as islands unto yourselves, being your own refuge, seeking no other refuge; with the Dhamma as an island, with the Dhamma as your refuge, seeking no other refuge… Those monks who in my time or afterwards live thus, seeking an island and a refuge in themselves and in the Dhamma and nowhere else, these zealous ones are truly my monks and will overcome the darkness (of rebirth). After traveling and teaching some more, the Buddha ate his last meal, which he had received as an offering from a blacksmith named Cunda. Falling violently ill, Buddha instructed his attendant Ānanda to convince Cunda that the meal eaten at his place had nothing to do with his death and that his meal would be a source of the greatest merit as it provided the last meal for a Buddha. Bhikkhu and von Hinüber argue that the Buddha died of mesenteric infarction, a symptom of old age, rather than food poisoning. The precise contents of the Buddha's final meal are not clear, due to variant scriptural traditions and ambiguity over the translation of certain significant terms. The Theravada tradition generally believes that the Buddha was offered some kind of pork, while the Mahayana tradition believes that the Buddha consumed some sort of truffle or other mushroom. These may reflect the different traditional views

as a bhikkhu when the Buddha visited his old home, Kapilavastu. Over time, other Shakyans joined the order as bhikkhus, such as Buddha's cousin Ananda, Anuruddha, Upali the barber, the Buddha's half-brother Nanda and Devadatta. Meanwhile, the Buddha's father Suddhodana heard his son's teaching, converted to Buddhism and became a stream-enterer. The early texts also mention an important lay disciple, the merchant Anāthapiṇḍika, who became a strong lay supporter of the Buddha early on. He is said to have gifted Jeta's grove (Jetavana) to the sangha at great expense (the Theravada Vinaya speaks of thousands of gold coins). Formation of the bhikkhunī order The formation of a parallel order of female monastics (bhikkhunī) was another important part of the growth of the Buddha's community. As noted by Anālayo's comparative study of this topic, there are various versions of this event depicted in the different early Buddhist texts. According to all the major versions surveyed by Anālayo, Mahāprajāpatī Gautamī, Buddha's step-mother, is initially turned down by the Buddha after requesting ordination for her and some other women. Mahāprajāpatī and her followers then shave their hair, don robes and begin following the Buddha on his travels. The Buddha is eventually convinced by Ānanda to grant ordination to Mahāprajāpatī on her acceptance of eight conditions called gurudharmas which focus on the relationship between the new order of nuns and the monks. According to Anālayo, the only argument common to all the versions that Ananda uses to convince the Buddha is that women have the same ability to reach all stages of awakening. Anālayo also notes that some modern scholars have questioned the authenticity of the eight gurudharmas in their present form due to various inconsistencies. He holds that the historicity of the current lists of eight is doubtful, but that they may have been based on earlier injunctions by the Buddha. Anālayo also notes that various passages indicate that the reason for the Buddha's hesitation to ordain women was the danger that the life of a wandering sramana posed for women that were not under the protection of their male family members (such as dangers of sexual assault and abduction). Due to this, the gurudharma injunctions may have been a way to place "the newly founded order of nuns in a relationship to its male counterparts that resembles as much as possible the protection a laywoman could expect from her male relatives." Later years According to J.S. Strong, after the first 20 years of his teaching career, the Buddha seems to have slowly settled in Sravasti, the capital of the Kingdom of Kosala, spending most of his later years in this city. As the sangha grew in size, the need for a standardized set of monastic rules arose and the Buddha seems to have developed a set of regulations for the sangha. These are preserved in various texts called "Pratimoksa" which were recited by the community every fortnight. The Pratimoksa includes general ethical precepts, as well as rules regarding the essentials of monastic life, such as bowls and robes. In his later years, the Buddha's fame grew and he was invited to important royal events, such as the inauguration of the new council hall of the Shakyans (as seen in MN 53) and the inauguration of a new palace by Prince Bodhi (as depicted in MN 85). The early texts also speak of how during the Buddha's old age, the kingdom of Magadha was usurped by a new king, Ajatasattu, who overthrew his father Bimbisara. According to the Samaññaphala Sutta, the new king spoke with different ascetic teachers and eventually took refuge in the Buddha. However, Jain sources also claim his allegiance, and it is likely he supported various religious groups, not just the Buddha's sangha exclusively. As the Buddha continued to travel and teach, he also came into contact with members of other śrāmana sects. There is evidence from the early texts that the Buddha encountered some of these figures and critiqued their doctrines. The Samaññaphala Sutta identifies six such sects. The early texts also depict the elderly Buddha as suffering from back pain. Several texts depict him delegating teachings to his chief disciples since his body now needed more rest. However, the Buddha continued teaching well into his old age. One of the most troubling events during the Buddha's old age was Devadatta's schism. Early sources speak of how the Buddha's cousin, Devadatta, attempted to take over leadership of the order and then left the sangha with several Buddhist monks and formed a rival sect. This sect is said to have also been supported by King Ajatasattu. The Pali texts also depict Devadatta as plotting to kill the Buddha, but these plans all fail. They also depict the Buddha as sending his two chief disciples (Sariputta and Moggallana) to this schismatic community in order to convince the monks who left with Devadatta to return. All the major early Buddhist Vinaya texts depict Devadatta as a divisive figure who attempted to split the Buddhist community, but they disagree on what issues he disagreed with the Buddha on. The Sthavira texts generally focus on "five points" which are seen as excessive ascetic practices, while the Mahāsaṅghika Vinaya speaks of a more comprehensive disagreement, which has Devadatta alter the discourses as well as monastic discipline. At around the same time of Devadatta's schism, there was also war between Ajatasattu's Kingdom of Magadha, and Kosala, led by an elderly king Pasenadi. Ajatasattu seems to have been victorious, a turn of events the Buddha is reported to have regretted. Last days and parinirvana The main narrative of the Buddha's last days, death and the events following his death is contained in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta (DN 16) and its various parallels in Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan. According to Anālayo, these include the Chinese Dirgha Agama 2, "Sanskrit fragments of the Mahaparinirvanasutra", and "three discourses preserved as individual translations in Chinese". The Mahaparinibbana sutta depicts the Buddha's last year as a time of war. It begins with Ajatasattu's decision to make war on the Vajjian federation, leading him to send a minister to ask the Buddha for advice. The Buddha responds by saying that the Vajjians can be expected to prosper as long as they do seven things, and he then applies these seven principles to the Buddhist Sangha, showing that he is concerned about its future welfare. The Buddha says that the Sangha will prosper as long as they "hold regular and frequent assemblies, meet in harmony, do not change the rules of training, honor their superiors who were ordained before them, do not fall prey to worldly desires, remain devoted to forest hermitages, and preserve their personal mindfulness." He then gives further lists of important virtues to be upheld by the Sangha. The early texts also depict how the Buddha's two chief disciples, Sariputta and Moggallana, died just before the Buddha's death. The Mahaparinibbana depicts the Buddha as experiencing illness during the last months of his life but initially recovering. It also depicts him as stating that he cannot promote anyone to be his successor. When Ānanda requested this, the Mahaparinibbana records his response as follows: Ananda, why does the Order of monks expect this of me? I have taught the Dhamma, making no distinction of “inner” and “ outer”: the Tathagata has no “teacher's fist” (in which certain truths are held back). If there is anyone who thinks: “I shall take charge of the Order”, or “the Order is under my leadership”, such a person would have to make arrangements about the Order. The Tathagata does not think in such terms. Why should the Tathagata make arrangements for the Order? I am now old, worn out … I have reached the term of life, I am turning eighty years of age. Just as an old cart is made to go by being held together with straps, so the Tathagata's body is kept going by being bandaged up … Therefore, Ananda, you should live as islands unto yourselves, being your own refuge, seeking no other refuge; with the Dhamma as an island, with the Dhamma as your refuge, seeking no other refuge… Those monks who in my time or afterwards live thus, seeking an island and a refuge in themselves and in the Dhamma and nowhere else, these zealous ones are truly my monks and will overcome the darkness (of rebirth). After traveling and teaching some more, the Buddha ate his last meal, which he had received as an offering from a blacksmith named Cunda. Falling violently ill, Buddha instructed his attendant Ānanda to convince Cunda that the meal eaten at his place had nothing to do with his death and that his meal would be a source of the greatest merit as it provided the last meal for a Buddha. Bhikkhu and von Hinüber argue that the Buddha died of mesenteric infarction, a symptom of old age, rather than food poisoning. The precise contents of the Buddha's final meal are not clear, due to variant scriptural traditions and ambiguity over the translation of certain significant terms. The Theravada tradition generally believes that the Buddha was offered some kind of pork, while the Mahayana tradition believes that the Buddha consumed some sort of truffle or other mushroom. These may reflect the different traditional views on Buddhist vegetarianism and the precepts for monks and nuns. Modern scholars also disagree on this topic, arguing both for pig's flesh or some kind of plant or mushroom that pigs like to eat. Whatever the case, none of the sources which mention the last meal attribute the Buddha's sickness to the meal itself. As per the Mahaparinibbana sutta, after the meal with Cunda, the Buddha and his companions continued traveling until he was too weak to continue and had to stop at Kushinagar, where Ānanda had a resting place prepared in a grove of Sala trees. After announcing to the sangha at large that he would soon be passing away to final Nirvana, the Buddha ordained one last novice into the order personally, his name was Subhadda. He then repeated his final instructions to the sangha, which was that the Dhamma and Vinaya was to be their teacher after his death. Then he asked if anyone had any doubts about the teaching, but nobody did. The Buddha's final words are reported to have been: "All saṅkhāras decay. Strive for the goal with diligence (appamāda)" (Pali: 'vayadhammā saṅkhārā appamādena sampādethā'). He then entered his final meditation and died, reaching what is known as parinirvana (final nirvana, the end of rebirth and suffering achieved after the death of the body). The Mahaparinibbana reports that in his final meditation he entered the four dhyanas consecutively, then the four immaterial attainments and finally the meditative dwelling known as nirodha-samāpatti, before returning to the fourth dhyana right at the moment of death. Posthumous events According to the Mahaparinibbana sutta, the Mallians of Kushinagar spent the days following the Buddha's death honoring his body with flowers, music and scents. The sangha waited until the eminent elder Mahākassapa arrived to pay his respects before cremating the body. The Buddha's body was then cremated and the remains, including his bones, were kept as relics and they were distributed among various north Indian kingdoms like Magadha, Shakya and Koliya. These relics were placed in monuments or mounds called stupas, a common funerary practice at the time. Centuries later they would be exhumed and enshrined by Ashoka into many new stupas around the Mauryan realm. Many supernatural legends surround the history of alleged relics as they accompanied the spread of Buddhism and gave legitimacy to rulers. According to various Buddhist sources, the First Buddhist Council was held shortly after the Buddha's death to collect, recite and memorize the teachings. Mahākassapa was chosen by the sangha to be the chairman of the council. However, the historicity of the traditional accounts of the first council is disputed by modern scholars. Teachings Tracing the oldest teachings One method to obtain information on the oldest core of Buddhism is to compare the oldest versions of the Pali Canon and other texts, such as the surviving portions of Sarvastivada, Mulasarvastivada, Mahisasaka, Dharmaguptaka, and the Chinese Agamas. The reliability of these sources, and the possibility of drawing out a core of oldest teachings, is a matter of dispute. According to Tilmann Vetter, inconsistencies remain, and other methods must be applied to resolve those inconsistencies. According to Lambert Schmithausen, there are three positions held by modern scholars of Buddhism: "Stress on the fundamental homogeneity and substantial authenticity of at least a considerable part of the Nikayic materials." "Scepticism with regard to the possibility of retrieving the doctrine of earliest Buddhism." "Cautious optimism in this respect." Regarding their attribution to the historical Buddha Gautama "Sakyamuni", scholars such as Richard Gombrich, Akira Hirakawa, Alexander Wynne and A.K. Warder hold that these Early Buddhist Texts contain material that could possibly be traced to this figure. Influences According to scholars of Indology such as Richard Gombrich, the Buddha's teachings on Karma and Rebirth are a development of pre-Buddhist themes that can be found in Jain and Brahmanical sources, like the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Likewise, samsara, the idea that we are trapped in cycle of rebirth and that we should seek liberation from this through non-harming (ahimsa) and spiritual practices, pre-dates the Buddha and was likely taught in early Jainism. In various texts, the Buddha is depicted as having studied under two named teachers, Āḷāra Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmaputta. According to Alexander Wynne, these were yogis who taught doctrines and practices similar to those in the Upanishads. The Buddha's tribe of origin, the Shakyas, also seem to have had non-Vedic religious practices which influenced Buddhism, such as the veneration of trees and sacred groves, and the worship of tree spirits (yakkhas) and serpent beings (nagas). They also seem to have built burial mounds called stupas. Tree veneration remains important in Buddhism today, particularly in the practice of venerating Bodhi trees. Likewise, yakkas and nagas have remained important figures in Buddhist religious practices and mythology. In the Early Buddhist Texts, the Buddha also references Brahmanical devices. For example, in Samyutta Nikaya 111, Majjhima Nikaya 92 and Vinaya i 246 of the Pali Canon, the Buddha praises the Agnihotra as the foremost sacrifice and the Gayatri mantra as the foremost meter. The Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence may also reflect Upanishadic or other influences according to K.R. Norman. According to Johannes Bronkhorst, the "meditation without breath and reduced intake of food" which the Buddha practiced before his awakening are forms of asceticism which are similar to Jain practices. The Buddhist practice called Brahma-vihara may have also originated from a Brahmanic term; but its usage may have been common in the sramana traditions. Teachings preserved in the Early Buddhist Texts The Early Buddhist Texts present many teachings and practices which may have been taught by the historical Buddha. These include basic doctrines such as Dependent Origination, the Middle Way, the Five Aggregates, the Three unwholesome roots, the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. According to N. Ross Reat, all of these doctrines are shared by the Theravada Pali texts and the Mahasamghika school's Śālistamba Sūtra. A recent study by Bhikkhu Analayo concludes that the Theravada Majjhima Nikaya and Sarvastivada Madhyama Agama contain mostly the same major doctrines. Likewise, Richard Salomon has written that the doctrines found in the Gandharan Manuscripts are "consistent with non-Mahayana Buddhism, which survives today in the Theravada school of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, but which in ancient times was represented by eighteen separate schools." These basic teachings such as the Four Noble Truths tend to be widely accepted as basic doctrines in all major schools of Buddhism, as seen in ecumenical documents such as the Basic points unifying Theravāda and Mahāyāna. Critique of Brahmanism In the early Buddhist texts, the Buddha critiques the Brahmanical religion and social system on certain key points. The Brahmin caste held that the Vedas were eternal revealed (sruti) texts. The Buddha, on the other hand, did not accept that these texts had any divine authority or value. The Buddha also did not see the Brahmanical rites and practices as useful for spiritual advancement. For example, in the Udāna, the Buddha points out that ritual bathing does not lead to purity, only "truth and morality" lead to purity. He especially critiqued animal sacrifice as taught in Vedas. The Buddha contrasted his teachings, which were taught openly to all people, with that of the Brahmins', who kept their mantras secret. He also critiqued numerous other Brahmanical practices, such astrology, divination, fortune-telling, and so on (as seen in the Tevijja sutta and the Kutadanta sutta). The Buddha also attacked the Brahmins' claims of superior birth and the idea that different castes and bloodlines were inherently pure or impure, noble or ignoble. In the Vasettha sutta the Buddha argues that the main difference among humans is not birth but their actions and occupations. According to the Buddha, one is a "Brahmin" (i.e. divine, like Brahma) only to the extent that one has cultivated virtue. Because of this the early texts report that he proclaimed: "Not by birth one is a Brahman, not by birth one is a non-Brahman; - by moral action one is a Brahman" The Aggañña Sutta explains all classes or varnas can be good or bad and gives a sociological explanation for how they arose, against the Brahmanical idea that they are divinely ordained. According to Kancha Ilaiah, the Buddha posed the first contract theory of society. The Buddha's teaching then is a single universal moral law, one Dharma valid for everybody, which is opposed to the Brahmanic ethic founded on “one's own duty” (svadharma) which depends on caste. Because of this, all castes including untouchables were welcome in the Buddhist order and when someone joined, they renounced all caste affiliation. Analysis of existence The early Buddhist texts present the Buddha's worldview as focused on understanding the nature of dukkha, which is seen as the fundamental problem of life. Dukkha refers to all kinds of suffering, unease, frustration, and dissatisfaction that sentient beings experience. At the core of the Buddha's analysis of dukkha is the fact that everything we experience is impermanent, unstable and thus unreliable. A common presentation of the core structure of Buddha's teaching found in the early texts is that of the Four Noble Truths. This teaching is most famously presented in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta ("The discourse on the turning of the Dharma wheel") and its many parallels. The basic outline of the four truths is as follows: There is dukkha. There are causes and conditions for the arising of dukkha. Various conditions are outlined in the early texts, such as craving (taṇhā), but the three most basic ones are greed, aversion and delusion. If the conditions for dukkha cease, dukkha also ceases. This is "Nirvana" (literally 'blowing out' or 'extinguishing'). There is path to follow that leads to Nirvana. According to Bhikkhu Analayo, the four truths schema appears to be based "on an analogy with Indian medical diagnosis" (with the form: "disease, pathogen, health, cure") and this comparison is "explicitly made in several early Buddhist texts". In another Pali sutta, the Buddha outlines how "eight worldly conditions", "keep the world turning around...Gain and loss, fame and disrepute, praise and blame, pleasure and pain." He then explains how the difference between a noble (arya) person and an uninstructed worldling is that a noble person reflects on and understands the impermanence of these conditions. The Buddha's analysis of existence includes an understanding that karma and rebirth are part of life. According to the Buddha, the constant cycle of dying and being reborn (i.e. saṃsāra) according to one's karma is just dukkha and the ultimate spiritual goal should be liberation from this cycle. According to the Pali suttas, the Buddha stated that "this saṃsāra is without discoverable beginning. A first point is not discerned of beings roaming and wandering on hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving." The Buddha's teaching of karma differed to that of the Jains and Brahmins, in that on his view, karma is primarily mental intention (as opposed to mainly physical action or ritual acts). The Buddha is reported to have said "By karma I mean intention." Richard Gombrich summarizes the Buddha's view of karma as follows: "all thoughts, words, and deeds derive their moral value, positive or negative, from the intention behind them." For the Buddha, our karmic acts also affected the rebirth process in a positive or negative way. This was seen as an impersonal natural law similar to how certain seeds produce certain plants and fruits (in fact, the result of a karmic act was called its "fruit" by the Buddha). However, it is important to note that the Buddha did not hold that everything that happens is the result of karma alone. In fact when the Buddha was asked to state the causes of pain and pleasure he listed various physical and environmental causes alongside karma. Dependent Origination In the early texts, the process of the arising of dukkha is most thoroughly explained by the Buddha through the teaching of Dependent Origination. At its most basic level, Dependent Origination is an empirical teaching on the nature of phenomena which says that nothing is experienced independently of its conditions. The most basic formulation of Dependent Origination is given in the early texts as: 'It being thus, this comes about' (Pali: evam sati idam hoti). This can be taken to mean that certain phenomena only arise when there are other phenomena present (example: when there is craving, suffering arises), and so, one can say that their arising is "dependent" on other phenomena. In other words, nothing in experience exists without a cause. In numerous early texts, this basic principle is expanded with a list of phenomena that are said to be conditionally

Level Bridge across the River Tyne in Newcastle upon Tyne, completed in 1849, is an early example of a double-decked bridge. The upper level carries a railway, and the lower level is used for road traffic. Other examples include Britannia Bridge over the Menai Strait and Craigavon Bridge in Derry, Northern Ireland. The Oresund Bridge between Copenhagen and Malmö consists of a four-lane highway on the upper level and a pair of railway tracks at the lower level. Tower Bridge in London is different example of a double-decked bridge, with the central section consisting of a low-level bascule span and a high-level footbridge. Viaducts A viaduct is made up of multiple bridges connected into one longer structure. The longest and some of the highest bridges are viaducts, such as the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway and Millau Viaduct. Multi-way bridge A multi-way bridge has three or more separate spans which meet near the center of the bridge. Multi-way bridges with only three spans appear as a "T" or "Y" when viewed from above. Multi-way bridges are extremely rare. The Tridge, Margaret Bridge, and Zanesville Y-Bridge are examples. Bridge types by use A bridge can be categorized by what it is designed to carry, such as trains, pedestrian or road traffic (road bridge), a pipeline or waterway for water transport or barge traffic. An aqueduct is a bridge that carries water, resembling a viaduct, which is a bridge that connects points of equal height. A road-rail bridge carries both road and rail traffic. Overway is a term for a bridge that separates incompatible intersecting traffic, especially road and rail. A bridge can carry overhead power lines as does the Storstrøm Bridge. Some bridges accommodate other purposes, such as the tower of Nový Most Bridge in Bratislava, which features a restaurant, or a bridge-restaurant which is a bridge built to serve as a restaurant. Other suspension bridge towers carry transmission antennas. Conservationists use wildlife overpasses to reduce habitat fragmentation and animal-vehicle collisions. The first animal bridges sprung up in France in the 1950s, and these types of bridges are now used worldwide to protect both large and small wildlife. Bridges are subject to unplanned uses as well. The areas underneath some bridges have become makeshift shelters and homes to homeless people, and the undertimbers of bridges all around the world are spots of prevalent graffiti. Some bridges attract people attempting suicide, and become known as suicide bridges. Bridge types by material The materials used to build the structure are also used to categorize bridges. Until the end of the 18th century, bridges were made out of timber, stone and masonry. Modern bridges are currently built in concrete, steel, fiber reinforced polymers (FRP), stainless steel or combinations of those materials. Living bridges have been constructed of live plants such as Ficus elastica tree roots in India and wisteria vines in Japan. Analysis and design Unlike buildings whose design is led by architects, bridges are usually designed by engineers. This follows from the importance of the engineering requirements; namely spanning the obstacle and having the durability to survive, with minimal maintenance, in an aggressive outdoor environment. Bridges are first analysed; the bending moment and shear force distributions are calculated due to the applied loads. For this, the finite element method is the most popular. The analysis can be one-, two-, or three-dimensional. For the majority of bridges, a two-dimensional plate model (often with stiffening beams) is sufficient or an upstand finite element model. On completion of the analysis, the bridge is designed to resist the applied bending moments and shear forces, section sizes are selected with sufficient capacity to resist the stresses. Many bridges are made of prestressed concrete which has good durability properties, either by pre-tensioning of beams prior to installation or post-tensioning on site. In most countries, bridges, like other structures, are designed according to Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) principles. In simple terms, this means that the load is factored up by a factor greater than unity, while the resistance or capacity of the structure is factored down, by a factor less than unity. The effect of the factored load (stress, bending moment) should be less than the factored resistance to that effect. Both of these factors allow for uncertainty and are greater when the uncertainty is greater. Aesthetics Most bridges are utilitarian in appearance, but in some cases, the appearance of the bridge can have great importance. Often, this is the case with a large bridge that serves as an entrance to a city, or crosses over a main harbor entrance. These are sometimes known as signature bridges. Designers of bridges in parks and along parkways often place more importance on aesthetics, as well. Examples include the stone-faced bridges along the Taconic State Parkway in New York. Generally bridges are more aesthetically pleasing if they are simple in shape, the deck is thinner (in proportion to its span), the lines of the structure are continuous, and the shapes of the structural elements reflect the forces acting on them. To create a beautiful image, some bridges are built much taller than necessary. This type, often found in east-Asian style gardens, is called a Moon bridge, evoking a rising full moon. Other garden bridges may cross only a dry bed of stream-washed pebbles, intended only to convey an impression of a stream. Often in palaces, a bridge will be built over an artificial waterway as symbolic of a passage to an important place or state of mind. A set of five bridges cross a sinuous waterway in an important courtyard of the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. The central bridge was reserved exclusively for the use of the Emperor and Empress, with their attendants. Bridge maintenance The estimated life of bridges varies between 25 and 80 years depending on location and material. However, bridges may age hundred years with proper maintenance and rehabilitation. Bridge maintenance consisting of a combination of structural health monitoring and testing. This is regulated in country-specific engineer standards and includes an ongoing monitoring every three to six months, a simple test or inspection every two to three years and a major inspection every six to ten years. In Europe, the cost of maintenance is considerable and is higher in some countries than spending on new bridges. The lifetime of welded steel bridges can be significantly extended by aftertreatment of the weld transitions. This results in a potential high benefit, using existing bridges

Newcastle upon Tyne, completed in 1849, is an early example of a double-decked bridge. The upper level carries a railway, and the lower level is used for road traffic. Other examples include Britannia Bridge over the Menai Strait and Craigavon Bridge in Derry, Northern Ireland. The Oresund Bridge between Copenhagen and Malmö consists of a four-lane highway on the upper level and a pair of railway tracks at the lower level. Tower Bridge in London is different example of a double-decked bridge, with the central section consisting of a low-level bascule span and a high-level footbridge. Viaducts A viaduct is made up of multiple bridges connected into one longer structure. The longest and some of the highest bridges are viaducts, such as the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway and Millau Viaduct. Multi-way bridge A multi-way bridge has three or more separate spans which meet near the center of the bridge. Multi-way bridges with only three spans appear as a "T" or "Y" when viewed from above. Multi-way bridges are extremely rare. The Tridge, Margaret Bridge, and Zanesville Y-Bridge are examples. Bridge types by use A bridge can be categorized by what it is designed to carry, such as trains, pedestrian or road traffic (road bridge), a pipeline or waterway for water transport or barge traffic. An aqueduct is a bridge that carries water, resembling a viaduct, which is a bridge that connects points of equal height. A road-rail bridge carries both road and rail traffic. Overway is a term for a bridge that separates incompatible intersecting traffic, especially road and rail. A bridge can carry overhead power lines as does the Storstrøm Bridge. Some bridges accommodate other purposes, such as the tower of Nový Most Bridge in Bratislava, which features a restaurant, or a bridge-restaurant which is a bridge built to serve as a restaurant. Other suspension bridge towers carry transmission antennas. Conservationists use wildlife overpasses to reduce habitat fragmentation and animal-vehicle collisions. The first animal bridges sprung up in France in the 1950s, and these types of bridges are now used worldwide to protect both large and small wildlife. Bridges are subject to unplanned uses as well. The areas underneath some bridges have become makeshift shelters and homes to homeless people, and the undertimbers of bridges all around the world are spots of prevalent graffiti. Some bridges attract people attempting suicide, and become known as suicide bridges. Bridge types by material The materials used to build the structure are also used to categorize bridges. Until the end of the 18th century, bridges were made out of timber, stone and masonry. Modern bridges are currently built in concrete, steel, fiber reinforced polymers (FRP), stainless steel or combinations of those materials. Living bridges have been constructed of live plants such as Ficus elastica tree roots in India and wisteria vines in Japan. Analysis and design Unlike buildings whose design is led by architects, bridges are usually designed by engineers. This follows from the importance of the engineering requirements; namely spanning the obstacle and having the durability to survive, with minimal maintenance, in an aggressive outdoor environment. Bridges are first analysed; the bending moment and shear force distributions are calculated due to the applied loads. For this, the finite element method is the most popular. The analysis can be one-, two-, or three-dimensional. For the majority of bridges, a two-dimensional plate model (often with stiffening beams) is sufficient or an upstand finite element model. On completion of the analysis, the bridge is designed to resist the applied bending moments and shear forces, section sizes are selected with sufficient capacity to resist the stresses. Many bridges are made of prestressed concrete which has good durability properties, either by pre-tensioning of beams prior to installation or post-tensioning on site. In most countries, bridges, like other structures, are designed according to Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) principles. In simple terms, this means that the load is factored up by a factor greater than unity, while the resistance or capacity of the structure is factored down, by a factor less than unity. The effect of the factored load (stress, bending moment) should be less than the factored resistance to that effect. Both of these factors allow for uncertainty and are greater when the uncertainty is greater. Aesthetics Most bridges are utilitarian in appearance, but in some cases, the appearance of the bridge can have great importance. Often, this is the case with a large bridge that serves as an entrance to a city, or crosses over a main harbor entrance. These are sometimes known as signature bridges. Designers of bridges in parks and along parkways often place more importance on aesthetics, as well. Examples include the stone-faced bridges along the Taconic State Parkway in New York. Generally bridges are more aesthetically pleasing if they are simple in shape, the deck is thinner (in proportion to its span), the lines of the structure are continuous, and the shapes of the structural elements reflect the forces acting on them. To create a beautiful image, some bridges are built much taller than necessary. This type, often found in east-Asian style gardens, is called a Moon bridge, evoking a rising full moon. Other garden bridges may cross only a dry bed of stream-washed pebbles, intended only to convey an impression of a stream. Often in palaces, a bridge will be built over an artificial waterway as symbolic of a passage to an important place or state of mind. A set of five bridges cross a sinuous waterway in an important courtyard of the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. The central bridge was reserved exclusively for the use of the Emperor and Empress, with their attendants. Bridge maintenance The estimated life of bridges varies between 25 and 80 years depending on location and material. However, bridges may age hundred years with proper maintenance and rehabilitation. Bridge maintenance consisting of a combination of structural health monitoring and testing. This is regulated in country-specific engineer standards and includes an ongoing monitoring every three to six months, a simple test or inspection every two to three years and a major inspection every six to ten years. In Europe, the cost of maintenance is considerable and is higher in some countries than spending on new bridges. The lifetime of welded steel bridges can be significantly extended by aftertreatment of the weld transitions. This results in a potential high benefit, using existing bridges far beyond the planned lifetime. Bridge traffic loading While the response of a bridge to the applied loading is well understood, the applied traffic loading itself is still the subject of research. This is a statistical problem as loading is highly variable, particularly for road bridges. Load Effects in bridges (stresses, bending moments) are designed for using the principles of Load and Resistance Factor Design. Before factoring to allow for uncertainty, the load effect is generally considered to be the maximum characteristic value in a specified return period. Notably, in Europe, it is the maximum value expected in 1000 years. Bridge standards generally include a load model, deemed to represent the characteristic maximum load to be expected in the return period. In the past, these load models were agreed by standard drafting committees of experts but today, this situation is changing. It is now possible to measure the components of bridge traffic load, to weigh trucks, using weigh-in-motion (WIM) technologies. With extensive WIM databases, it is possible to calculate the maximum expected load effect in the specified return period. This is an active area of research, addressing issues of opposing direction lanes, side-by-side (same direction) lanes, traffic growth, permit/non-permit vehicles and long-span bridges (see below). Rather than repeat this complex process every time a bridge is to be designed, standards authorities specify simplified notional load models, notably HL-93, intended to give the same load effects as the characteristic maximum values. The Eurocode is an example of a standard for bridge traffic loading that was developed in this way. Traffic loading on long span bridges Most bridge standards are only applicable for short and medium spans - for example, the Eurocode is only applicable for loaded lengths up to 200 m. Longer spans are dealt with on a case-by-case basis. It is generally accepted that the intensity of load reduces as span increases because the probability of many trucks being closely spaced and extremely heavy reduces as the number of trucks involved increases. It is also generally assumed that short spans are governed by a small number of trucks traveling at high speed, with an allowance for dynamics. Longer spans on the other hand, are governed by congested traffic and no allowance for dynamics is needed. Calculating the loading due to congested traffic remains a challenge as there is a paucity of data on inter-vehicle gaps, both within-lane and inter-lane, in congested conditions. Weigh-in-Motion (WIM) systems provide data on inter-vehicle gaps but only operate well in free flowing traffic conditions. Some authors have used cameras to measure gaps and vehicle lengths in jammed situations and have inferred weights from lengths using WIM data. Others have used microsimulation to generate typical clusters of vehicles on the bridge. Bridge vibration Bridges vibrate under load and this contributes, to a greater or lesser extent, to the stresses. Vibration and dynamics are generally more significant for slender structures such as pedestrian bridges and long-span road or rail bridges. One of the most famous examples is the Tacoma Narrows Bridge that collapsed shortly after being constructed due to excessive vibration. More recently, the Millennium Bridge in London vibrated excessively under pedestrian loading and was closed and retrofitted with a system of dampers. For smaller bridges, dynamics is not catastrophic but can contribute an added amplification to the stresses due to static effects. For example, the Eurocode for bridge loading specifies amplifications of between 10% and 70%, depending on the span, the number of traffic lanes and the type of stress (bending moment or shear force). Vehicle-bridge dynamic interaction There have been many studies of the dynamic interaction between vehicles and bridges during vehicle crossing events. Fryba did pioneering work on the interaction of a moving load and an Euler-Bernoulli beam. With increased computing power, vehicle-bridge interaction (VBI) models have become ever more sophisticated. The concern is that one of the

found near-ubiquitously across the ancient world, often made of locally available materials. For example, the Athabaskan peoples of Alaska used tusk shells (scaphopod mollusks), which are naturally hollow, as beads and incorporated them into elaborate jewelry. Beadwork has historically been used for religious purposes, as good luck talismans, for barter and trade, and for ritual exchange. Modern beading Today, beadwork is commonly practiced by jewelers, hobbyists, and contemporary artists; artists known for using beadwork as a medium include Liza Lou, Ran Hwang, Hew Locke, Jeffery Gibson, and Joyce J. Scott. Some ancient stitches have become especially popular among contemporary artists. The off-loom peyote stitch, for example, is used in Native American Church members' beadwork. European beadwork Beadwork in Europe, much like in Egypt and the Americas, can be traced to the use of bone and shell as adornments amongst early modern humans. As glassmaking increased in popularity through the Middle Ages, glass beads began to appear extensively in bead embroidery, beaded necklaces, and similar wares. By 1291, artists in Murano, Italy had begun production of intricate glass Murano beads inspired by Venetian glassware. With the advent of lampwork glass, Europeans started producing seed beads for embroidery, crochet, and other, mostly off-loom techniques. Czech seed beads are among the most popular contemporary bead styles. Beadwork is a central component of the traditional dress of many European peoples. In Northern Russia, for example, the Kokoshnik headdress typically includes river pearl netting around the forehead in addition to traditional bead embroidery. Native American beadwork Native American beadwork, already established via the use of materials like shells, dendrite, claws, and bone, evolved to incorporate glass beads as Europeans brought them to the Americas beginning in the early 17th century. Native beadwork today heavily utilizes small glass beads, but artists also continue to use traditionally important materials. Wampum shells, for instance, are ceremonially and politically important to a range of Eastern Woodlands tribes, and are used to depict important events. Several Native American artists from a wide range of nations are considered to be at the forefront of modern American bead working. These artists include Teri Greeves (Kiowa, known for beaded commentaries on Native voting rights), Marcus Amerman (Choctaw, known for realistic beaded portraits of historical figures and celebrities), and Jamie Okuma (Luiseño-Shoshone-Bannock, known for beaded dolls). Great Lakes tribes Ursuline nuns in the Great Lakes introduced floral patterns

be carbon-dated to 10,000 BC. Faience beads, a type of ceramic created by mixing powdered clays, lime, soda, and silica sand with water until a paste forms, then molding it around a stick or straw and firing until hard, were notably used in ancient Egyptian jewelry from the First Dynasty (beginning in the early Bronze age) onward. Faience and other ceramic beads with vitrified quartz coatings predate pure glass beads. Beads and work created with them were found near-ubiquitously across the ancient world, often made of locally available materials. For example, the Athabaskan peoples of Alaska used tusk shells (scaphopod mollusks), which are naturally hollow, as beads and incorporated them into elaborate jewelry. Beadwork has historically been used for religious purposes, as good luck talismans, for barter and trade, and for ritual exchange. Modern beading Today, beadwork is commonly practiced by jewelers, hobbyists, and contemporary artists; artists known for using beadwork as a medium include Liza Lou, Ran Hwang, Hew Locke, Jeffery Gibson, and Joyce J. Scott. Some ancient stitches have become especially popular among contemporary artists. The off-loom peyote stitch, for example, is used in Native American Church members' beadwork. European beadwork Beadwork in Europe, much like in Egypt and the Americas, can be traced to the use of bone and shell as adornments amongst early modern humans. As glassmaking increased in popularity through the Middle Ages, glass beads began to appear extensively in bead embroidery, beaded necklaces, and similar wares. By 1291, artists in Murano, Italy had begun production of intricate glass Murano beads inspired by Venetian glassware. With the advent of lampwork glass, Europeans started producing seed beads for

affluent 1880s, Americans witnessed the publication of Algeresque rags to riches games that permitted players to emulate the capitalist heroes of the age. One of the first such games, The Game of the District Messenger Boy, encouraged the idea that the lowliest messenger boy could ascend the corporate ladder to its topmost rung. Such games insinuated that the accumulation of wealth brought increased social status. Competitive capitalistic games culminated in 1935 with Monopoly, the most commercially successful board game in U.S. history. McLoughlin Brothers published similar games based on the telegraph boy theme including Game of the Telegraph Boy, or Merit Rewarded (1888). Greg Downey notes in his essay, "Information Networks and Urban Spaces: The Case of the Telegraph Messenger Boy", that families who could afford the deluxe version of the game in its chromolithographed, the wood-sided box would not "have sent their sons out for such a rough apprenticeship in the working world." Margaret Hofer described the period of the 1880s–1920s as "The Golden Age" of board gaming in America. Board game popularity was boosted, like that of many items, through mass production, which made them cheaper and more easily available. Although there are no detailed statistics, some scholars suggest that the 20th century saw a decline in the popularity of the hobby. Chinese, Arabic and Indian Outside of Europe and the U.S., many traditional board games are popular. In China, Go and many variations of Chess are popular. In Africa and the Middle East, mancala is a popular board game archetype with a lot of regional variations. In India, a community game called Carrom is popular. Modern The late 1990s onwards have seen substantial growth in the reach and market of board games. This has been attributed to, among other factors, the Internet, which has made it easier for people to find out about games and to find opponents to play against, as well as with a general increase in leisure time and consumer spending on entertainment. Around the year 2000 the board gaming industry began significant growth with companies producing a rising number of new games to be sold to a growing worldwide audience. In the 2010s, a number of publications referred to board games as having a new Golden Age, though some board-gamers prefer to call it a 'renaissance', as The Golden Age is both predefined and a common term. Board game venues are also growing in popularity; in 2016, over 5,000 board game cafes opened in the U.S. alone. Board game cafes are also reported to be very popular in China. Luck, strategy, and diplomacy Some games, such as chess, depend completely on player skill, while many children's games such as Candy Land and Snakes and Ladders require no decisions by the players and are decided purely by luck. Many games require some level of both skill and luck. A player may be hampered by bad luck in backgammon, Monopoly, or Risk; but over many games a skilled player will win more often. The elements of luck can also make for more excitement at times, and allow for more diverse and multifaceted strategies, as concepts such as expected value and risk management must be considered. Luck may be introduced into a game by a number of methods. The use of dice of various sorts goes back to the earliest board games. These can decide everything from how many steps a player moves their token, as in Monopoly, to how their forces fare in battle, as in Risk, or which resources a player gains, as in Catan. Other games such as Sorry! use a deck of special cards that, when shuffled, create randomness. Scrabble does something similar with randomly picked letters. Other games use spinners, timers of random length, or other sources of randomness. German-style board games are notable for often having less luck element than many North American board games. Another important aspect of some games is diplomacy, that is, players making deals with one another. Negotiation generally features only in games with three or more players, cooperative games being the exception. An important facet of Catan, for example, is convincing players to trade with you rather than with opponents. In Risk, two or more players may team up against others. Easy diplomacy involves convincing other players that someone else is winning and should therefore be teamed up against. Advanced diplomacy (e.g., in the aptly named game Diplomacy) consists of making elaborate plans together, with the possibility of betrayal. In perfect information games, such as chess, each player has complete information on the state of the game, but in other games, such as Tigris and Euphrates or Stratego, some information is hidden from players. This makes finding the best move more difficult and may involve estimating probabilities by the opponents. Software Many board games are now available as video games, which can include the computer playing as one or more opponents. Many board games can now be played online against a computer and/or other players. Some websites (such as boardgamearena.com, yucata.de, etc.) allow play in real time and immediately show the opponents' moves, while others use email to notify the players after each move. The Internet and cheaper home printing has also influenced board games via print-and-play games that may be purchased and printed. Some games use external media such as audio cassettes or DVDs in accompaniment to the game. There are also virtual tabletop programs that allow online players to play a variety of existing and new board games through tools needed to manipulate the game board, but do not necessarily enforce the game's rules, leaving this up to the players. There are generalized programs such as Vassal, Tabletop Simulator and Tabletopia that can be used to play any board or card game, while programs like Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds that are more specialized for role-playing games. Some of these virtual tabletops have worked with the license holders to allow for use of their game's assets within the program; for example, Fantasy Grounds has licenses for both Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder materials, while Tabletop Simulator allows game publishers to provide paid downloadable content for their games. However, as these games offer the ability to add in content through user modifications, there are also unlicensed uses of board game assets available through these programs. Market While the board gaming market is estimated to be smaller than that for video games, it has also experienced significant growth from the late 1990s. A 2012 article in The Guardian described board games as "making a comeback". Other expert sources suggest that board games never went away, and that board games have remained a popular leisure activity which has only grown over time. Another from 2014 gave an estimate that put the growth of the board game market at "between 25% and 40% annually" since 2010, and described the current time as the "golden era for board games". The rise in board game popularity has been attributed to quality improvement (more elegant mechanics, , artwork, and graphics) as well as increased availability thanks to sales through the Internet. Crowd-sourcing for board games is a large facet of the market, with $233 million raised on Kickstarter in 2020. A 1991 estimate for the global board game market was over $1.2 billion. A

the first board games based on materialism and capitalism published in the United States. The game is a typical roll-and-move track board game. Players move their tokens along the track at the spin of the arrow toward the goal at the track's end. Some spaces on the track will advance the player while others will send him back. In the affluent 1880s, Americans witnessed the publication of Algeresque rags to riches games that permitted players to emulate the capitalist heroes of the age. One of the first such games, The Game of the District Messenger Boy, encouraged the idea that the lowliest messenger boy could ascend the corporate ladder to its topmost rung. Such games insinuated that the accumulation of wealth brought increased social status. Competitive capitalistic games culminated in 1935 with Monopoly, the most commercially successful board game in U.S. history. McLoughlin Brothers published similar games based on the telegraph boy theme including Game of the Telegraph Boy, or Merit Rewarded (1888). Greg Downey notes in his essay, "Information Networks and Urban Spaces: The Case of the Telegraph Messenger Boy", that families who could afford the deluxe version of the game in its chromolithographed, the wood-sided box would not "have sent their sons out for such a rough apprenticeship in the working world." Margaret Hofer described the period of the 1880s–1920s as "The Golden Age" of board gaming in America. Board game popularity was boosted, like that of many items, through mass production, which made them cheaper and more easily available. Although there are no detailed statistics, some scholars suggest that the 20th century saw a decline in the popularity of the hobby. Chinese, Arabic and Indian Outside of Europe and the U.S., many traditional board games are popular. In China, Go and many variations of Chess are popular. In Africa and the Middle East, mancala is a popular board game archetype with a lot of regional variations. In India, a community game called Carrom is popular. Modern The late 1990s onwards have seen substantial growth in the reach and market of board games. This has been attributed to, among other factors, the Internet, which has made it easier for people to find out about games and to find opponents to play against, as well as with a general increase in leisure time and consumer spending on entertainment. Around the year 2000 the board gaming industry began significant growth with companies producing a rising number of new games to be sold to a growing worldwide audience. In the 2010s, a number of publications referred to board games as having a new Golden Age, though some board-gamers prefer to call it a 'renaissance', as The Golden Age is both predefined and a common term. Board game venues are also growing in popularity; in 2016, over 5,000 board game cafes opened in the U.S. alone. Board game cafes are also reported to be very popular in China. Luck, strategy, and diplomacy Some games, such as chess, depend completely on player skill, while many children's games such as Candy Land and Snakes and Ladders require no decisions by the players and are decided purely by luck. Many games require some level of both skill and luck. A player may be hampered by bad luck in backgammon, Monopoly, or Risk; but over many games a skilled player will win more often. The elements of luck can also make for more excitement at times, and allow for more diverse and multifaceted strategies, as concepts such as expected value and risk management must be considered. Luck may be introduced into a game by a number of methods. The use of dice of various sorts goes back to the earliest board games. These can decide everything from how many steps a player moves their token, as in Monopoly, to how their forces fare in battle, as in Risk, or which resources a player gains, as in Catan. Other games such as Sorry! use a deck of special cards that, when shuffled, create randomness. Scrabble does something similar with randomly picked letters. Other games use spinners, timers of random length, or other sources of randomness. German-style board games are notable for often having less luck element than many North American board games. Another important aspect of some games is diplomacy, that is, players making deals with one another. Negotiation generally features only in games with three or more players, cooperative games being the exception. An important facet of Catan, for example, is convincing players to trade with you rather than with opponents. In Risk, two or more players may team up against others. Easy diplomacy involves convincing other players that someone else is winning and should therefore be teamed up against. Advanced diplomacy (e.g., in the aptly named game Diplomacy) consists of making elaborate plans together, with the possibility of betrayal. In perfect information games, such as chess, each player has complete information on the state of the game, but in other games, such as Tigris and Euphrates or Stratego, some information is hidden from players. This makes finding the best move more difficult and may involve estimating probabilities by the opponents. Software Many board games are now available as video games, which can include the computer playing as one or more opponents. Many board games can now be played online against a computer and/or other players. Some websites (such as boardgamearena.com, yucata.de, etc.) allow play in real time and immediately show the opponents' moves, while others use email to notify the players after each move. The Internet and cheaper home printing has also influenced board games via print-and-play games that may be purchased and printed. Some games use external media such as audio cassettes or DVDs in accompaniment to the game. There are also virtual tabletop programs that allow online players to play a variety of existing and new board games through tools needed to manipulate the game board, but do not necessarily enforce the game's rules, leaving this up to the players. There are generalized programs such as Vassal, Tabletop Simulator and Tabletopia that can be used to play any board or card game, while programs like Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds that are more specialized for role-playing games. Some of these virtual tabletops have worked with the license holders to allow for use of their game's assets within the program; for example, Fantasy Grounds has licenses for both Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder materials, while Tabletop Simulator allows game publishers to provide paid downloadable content for their games. However, as these games offer the ability to add in content through user modifications, there are also unlicensed uses of board game assets available through these programs. Market While the board gaming market is estimated to be smaller than that for video games, it has also experienced significant growth from the late 1990s. A 2012 article in The Guardian described board games as "making a comeback". Other expert sources suggest that board games never went away, and that board games have remained a popular leisure activity which has only grown over time. Another from 2014 gave an estimate that put the growth of the board game market at "between 25% and 40% annually" since 2010, and described the current time as the "golden era for board games". The rise in board game popularity has been attributed to quality improvement (more elegant mechanics, , artwork, and graphics) as well as increased availability thanks to sales through the Internet. Crowd-sourcing for board games is a large facet of the market, with $233 million raised on Kickstarter in 2020. A 1991 estimate for the global board game market was over $1.2 billion. A 2001 estimate for the United States "board games and puzzle" market gave a value of under $400 million, and for United Kingdom, of about £50 million. A 2009 estimate for the Korean market was put at 800 million won, and another estimate for the American board game market for the same year was at about $800 million. A 2011 estimate for the Chinese board game market was at over 10 billion yuan. (Some estimates may split board games from collectible card, miniature and role-playing games; for example another 2014 estimate distinguishing board games from other types of hobby games gave the estimate for the U.S. and Canada market at only $75 million, with the total size of what it defined as the hobby game market at over $700 million, with a 2015 estimate suggesting a value of almost $900 million) A 2013 estimate put the size of the German toy market at 2.7 billion euros (out of which, the board games and puzzle market is worth about 375 million euros), and Polish markets, at 2 billion and 280 million złoties, respectively. Per capita, in 2009 Germany was considered to be the best market, with the highest number of games sold per individual. Research A dedicated field of research into gaming exists, known as game studies or ludology. While there has been a fair amount of scientific research on the psychology of older board games (e.g., chess, Go, mancala), less has been done on contemporary board games such as Monopoly, Scrabble, and Risk. Much research has been carried out on chess, in part because many tournament players are publicly ranked in national and international lists, which makes it possible to compare their levels of expertise. The works of Adriaan de Groot, William Chase, Herbert A. Simon, and Fernand Gobet have established that knowledge, more than the ability to anticipate moves, plays an essential role in chess-playing. Linearly arranged board games have been shown to improve children's spatial numerical understanding. This is because the game is similar to a number line in that they promote a linear understanding of numbers rather than the innate logarithmic one. Research studies show that board games such as Snakes and Ladders result in children showing significant improvements in aspects of basic number skills such as counting, recognizing numbers, numerical estimation and number comprehension. They also practice fine motor skills each time they grasp a game piece. Playing board games has also been tied to improving children's executive functions and help reducing risks of dementia for the elderly. Related to this is a growing academic interest in the topic of game accessibility, culminating in the development of guidelines for assessing the accessibility of modern tabletop games and the extent to which they are playable for people with disabilities. Additionally, board games can be therapeutic. Bruce Halpenny, a games inventor said when interviewed about his game, The Great Train Robbery:With crime you deal with every basic human emotion and also have enough elements to combine action with melodrama. The player's imagination is fired as they plan to rob the train. Because of the gamble they take in the early stage of the game there is a build-up of tension, which is immediately released once the train is robbed. Release of tension is therapeutic and useful in our society because most jobs are boring and repetitive. Playing games has been suggested as a viable addition to traditional educational curriculum if the content is appropriate and the gameplay informs students on the curriculum content. Categories There are a number of ways in which board games can be classified, and considerable overlap may exist, so that a game belong in several categories. The following is a list of some of the most common: Abstract strategy games – e.g. Chess, Checkers, Go, Reversi, tafl games, or modern games such as Abalone, Dameo, Stratego, Hive, or GIPF

occurring alloys such as electrum. Synthetic materials The oldest-surviving synthetic materials used for bead making have generally been ceramics: pottery and glass. Beads were also made from ancient alloys such as bronze and brass, but as those were more vulnerable to oxidation they have generally been less well-preserved at archaeological sites. Many different subtypes of glass are now used for beadmaking, some of which have their own component-specific names. Lead crystal beads have a high percentage of lead oxide in the glass formula, increasing the refractive index. Most of the other named glass types have their formulations and patterns inseparable from the manufacturing process. Small, colorful, fusible plastic beads can be placed on a solid plastic-backed peg array to form designs and then melted together with a clothes iron; alternatively, they can be strung into necklaces and bracelets or woven into keychains. Fusible beads come in many colors and degrees of transparency/opacity, including varieties that glow in the dark or have internal glitter; peg boards come in various shapes and several geometric patterns. Plastic toy beads, made by chopping plastic tubes into short pieces, were introduced in 1958 by Munkplast AB in Munka-Ljungby, Sweden. Known as Indian beads, they were originally sewn together to form ribbons. The pegboard for bead designs was invented in the early 1960s (patented 1962, patent granted 1967) by Gunnar Knutsson in Vällingby, Sweden, as a therapy for elderly homes; the pegboard later gained popularity as a toy for children. The bead designs were glued to cardboard or Masonite boards and used as trivets. Later, when the beads were made of polyethylene, it became possible to fuse them with a flat iron. Hama come in three sizes: mini (diameter 2.5 mm), midi (5 mm) and maxi (10 mm). Perler beads come in two sizes called classic (5 mm) and biggie (10 mm). Pyssla beads (by IKEA) only come in one size (5 mm). Manufacturing Modern mass-produced beads are generally shaped by carving or casting, depending on the material and desired effect. In some cases, more specialized metalworking or glassworking techniques may be employed, or a combination of multiple techniques and materials may be used such as in cloisonné. Glassworking Most glass beads are pressed glass, mass-produced by preparing a molten batch of glass of the desired color and pouring it into molds to form the desired shape. This is also true of most plastic beads. A smaller and more expensive subset of glass and lead crystal beads are cut into precise faceted shapes on an individual basis. This was once done by hand but has largely been taken over by precision machinery. "Fire-polished" faceted beads are a less expensive alternative to hand-cut faceted glass or crystal. They derive their name from the second half of a two-part process: first, the glass batch is poured into round bead molds, then they are faceted with a grinding wheel. The faceted beads are then poured onto a tray and briefly reheated just long enough to melt the surface, "polishing" out any minor surface irregularities from the grinding wheel. Specialized glass techniques and types There are several specialized glassworking techniques that create a distinctive appearance throughout the body of the resulting beads, which are then primarily referred to by the glass type. If the glass batch is used to create a large massive block instead of pre-shaping it as it cools, the result

less expensive alternative to hand-cut faceted glass or crystal. They derive their name from the second half of a two-part process: first, the glass batch is poured into round bead molds, then they are faceted with a grinding wheel. The faceted beads are then poured onto a tray and briefly reheated just long enough to melt the surface, "polishing" out any minor surface irregularities from the grinding wheel. Specialized glass techniques and types There are several specialized glassworking techniques that create a distinctive appearance throughout the body of the resulting beads, which are then primarily referred to by the glass type. If the glass batch is used to create a large massive block instead of pre-shaping it as it cools, the result may then be carved into smaller items in the same manner as stone. Conversely, glass artisans may make beads by lampworking the glass on an individual basis; once formed, the beads undergo little or no further shaping after the layers have been properly annealed. Most of these glass subtypes are some form of fused glass, although goldstone is created by controlling the reductive atmosphere and cooling conditions of the glass batch rather than by fusing separate components together. Dichroic glass beads incorporate a semitransparent microlayer of metal between two or more layers. Fibre optic glass beads have an eyecatching chatoyant effect across the grain. There are also several ways to fuse many small glass canes together into a multicolored pattern, resulting in millefiori beads or chevron beads (sometimes called "trade beads"). "Furnace glass" beads encase a multicolored core in a transparent exterior layer which is then annealed in a furnace. More economically, millefiori beads can also be made by limiting the patterning process to long, narrow canes or rods known as murrine. Thin cross-sections, or "decals", can then be cut from the murrine and fused into the surface of a plain glass bead. Shapes Round This is the most common shape of beads that are strung on wire to create necklaces, and bracelets. The shape of the round beads lay together and are pleasing to the eye. Rounds beads can be made of glass, stone, ceramic, metal, or wood. Square or Cubed Square beads can be to enhance a necklace design as a spacer however a necklace can be strung with just square beads. The necklaces with square beads are used in Rosary necklaces/prayer necklaces, and wooden or shell ones are made for beachwear. Oval Tube Potato Hair pipe beads Elk rib bones were the original material for the long, tubular hair pipe beads. Today these beads are commonly made of bison and water buffalo bones and are popular for breastplates and chokers among Plains Indians. Black variations of these beads are made from the animals' horns. Seed beads Seed beads are uniformly shaped spheroidal or tube shaped beads ranging in size from under a millimetre to several millimetres. "Seed bead" is a generic term for any small bead. Usually rounded in shape, seed beads are most commonly used for loom and off-loom bead weaving. Place or period of origin African trade beads or slave beads may be antique beads that were manufactured in Europe and used for trade during the colonial period, such as chevron beads; or they may have been made in West Africa by and for Africans, such as Mauritanian Kiffa beads, Ghanaian and Nigerian powder glass beads, or African-made brass beads. Austrian crystal is a generic term for cut lead-crystal beads, based on the location and prestige of the Swarovski firm. Czech glass beads are made in the Czech Republic, in particular an area called Jablonec nad Nisou. Production of glass beads in the area dates back to the 14th century, though production was depressed under communist rule. Because of this long tradition, their workmanship and quality has an excellent reputation. Islamic glass beads have been made in a wide geographical and historical range of Islamic cultures. Used and manufactured from medieval Spain and North Africa in the West and to China in the East, they can be identified by recognizable features, including styles and techniques. Vintage beads, in the collectibles and antique market, refers to items that are at least 25 or more years old. Vintage beads are available in materials that include lucite, plastic, crystal, metal and glass. Miscellaneous ethnic beads Tibetan Dzi beads and Rudraksha beads are used to make Buddhist and Hindu rosaries (malas). Magatama are traditional Japanese beads, and cinnabar was often used for making beads in China. Wampum are cylindrical white or purple beads made from quahog or North Atlantic channeled whelk shells by northeastern Native American tribes, such as the Wampanoag and Shinnecock. Job's tears are seed beads popular among southeastern Native American tribes. Heishe are beads made of shells or stones by the Kewa Pueblo people of New Mexico. Symbolic meaning of beads In many parts of the world, beads are used for symbolic purposes, for example: use for prayer or devotion - e.g. rosary beads for Roman Catholics and many other Christians, misbaha for Shia and many other Muslims, japamala/Buddhist prayer beads/nenju for Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, some Sikhs, Confucianism, Taoists/Daoists, Shinto, etc. use for anti-tension devices, e.g. worry beads use as currency e.g. Aggrey beads from Ghana use for gaming e.g. owari beads for mankala Greek komboloi beads as in Crete History Beads are thought to be one of the earliest forms of trade between members of the human

beads are pressed in between the warp threads. The needle is passed back through the beads above the warp threads to lock the beads into place. Heddle looms were popular near the beginning of the 20th century. They allowed weaving of beads by raising every other thread and inserting strung beads in the shed, the space between the lowered and raised threads. There are still a few Heddle Bead Looms being manufactured today. The most difficult part of loomwork is finishing off the warp threads. Although loomed pieces are typically rectangular, it is possible to increase and decrease to produce angular or curvy shapes. Fringe can also be added during weaving or before the piece is removed from the loom. Bead looms vary in size and are typically made of wood or metal. Usually, a comb or spring is used to hold the warp threads a bead-width apart. Some looms have roller bars that allow the weaver to produce pieces that are longer than the loom. Most looms are meant

the warp threads to lock the beads into place. Heddle looms were popular near the beginning of the 20th century. They allowed weaving of beads by raising every other thread and inserting strung beads in the shed, the space between the lowered and raised threads. There are still a few Heddle Bead Looms being manufactured today. The most difficult part of loomwork is finishing off the warp threads. Although loomed pieces are typically rectangular, it is possible to increase and decrease to produce angular or curvy shapes. Fringe can also be added during weaving or before the piece is removed from the loom. Bead looms vary in size and are typically made of wood or metal. Usually, a comb or spring is used to hold the warp threads a bead-width apart. Some looms have roller bars that allow the weaver to produce pieces that are longer than the loom. Most looms are meant to sit on a table, but some have floor stands or are meant to sit in the lap. Off-loom beadweaving Off-loom beadweaving is a family of beadwork techniques in which seed beads are woven together into a flat fabric, a tubular rope, or a three-dimensional object such as a ball, clasp, box, or a piece of jewelry. Most off-loom techniques can be accomplished using a single needle and thread (no warp threads), and some have two-needle

as fish food. There are 300 species spread across 8 families. Lipostraca Lipostraca contains a single extinct Early Devonian species, Lepidocaris rhyniensis, which is the most abundant animal in the Rhynie chert deposits. It resembles modern Anostraca, to which it is probably closely related, although its relationships to other orders remain unclear. The body is long, with 23 body segments and 19 pairs of appendages, but no carapace. It occurred chiefly among charophytes, probably in alkaline temporary pools. Notostraca The order Notostraca comprises the single family Triopsidae, containing the tadpole shrimp or shield shrimp. The two genera, Triops and Lepidurus, are considered living fossils, having not changed significantly in outward form since the Triassic. They have a broad, flat carapace, which conceals the head and bears a single pair of compound eyes. The abdomen is long, appears to be segmented and bears numerous pairs of flattened legs. The telson is flanked by a pair of long, thin caudal rami. Phenotypic plasticity within taxa makes species-level identification difficult, and is further compounded by variation in the mode of reproduction. The evidence of phenotypic plasticity of Arctic tadpole shrimp (Lepidurus arcticus, Notostraca) has been observed in Svalbard. Notostracans are the largest branchiopodans and are omnivores living on the bottom of temporary pools, ponds and shallow lakes. Laevicaudata, Spinicaudata and Cyclestherida (once Conchostraca) Clam shrimp are bivalved animals which have lived since at least the Devonian. The three groups are not believed to form a clade. They have 10–32 trunk segments, decreasing in size from front to back,

food. There are 300 species spread across 8 families. Lipostraca Lipostraca contains a single extinct Early Devonian species, Lepidocaris rhyniensis, which is the most abundant animal in the Rhynie chert deposits. It resembles modern Anostraca, to which it is probably closely related, although its relationships to other orders remain unclear. The body is long, with 23 body segments and 19 pairs of appendages, but no carapace. It occurred chiefly among charophytes, probably in alkaline temporary pools. Notostraca The order Notostraca comprises the single family Triopsidae, containing the tadpole shrimp or shield shrimp. The two genera, Triops and Lepidurus, are considered living fossils, having not changed significantly in outward form since the Triassic. They have a broad, flat carapace, which conceals the head and bears a single pair of compound eyes. The abdomen is long, appears to be segmented and bears numerous pairs of flattened legs. The telson is flanked by a pair of long, thin caudal rami. Phenotypic plasticity within taxa makes species-level identification difficult, and is further compounded by variation in the mode of reproduction. The evidence of phenotypic plasticity of Arctic tadpole shrimp (Lepidurus arcticus, Notostraca) has been observed in Svalbard. Notostracans are the largest branchiopodans and are omnivores living on the bottom of temporary pools, ponds and shallow lakes. Laevicaudata, Spinicaudata and Cyclestherida (once Conchostraca) Clam shrimp are bivalved animals which have lived since at least the Devonian. The three groups are not believed to form a clade. They have 10–32 trunk segments, decreasing in size from front to back, and each bears a pair of legs which also carry gills. A strong muscle can close the two halves of the shell together. Anomopoda, Ctenopoda, Onychopoda, and Haplopoda (once Cladocera) These four orders make up a group of small crustaceans commonly called water fleas. Around 620 species have been recognised so far, with many more undescribed. They are ubiquitous in inland aquatic habitats, but rare in the oceans. Most are long, with a down-turned head, and a carapace covering the apparently unsegmented thorax and abdomen. There is a single median compound eye. Most species show cyclical parthenogenesis, where asexual reproduction is occasionally supplemented by sexual reproduction, which produces resting eggs that allow the species to survive harsh conditions and disperse to distant habitats. Evolution The fossil record of branchiopods extends back at least into the Upper Cambrian and possibly further. The group is thought to be monophyletic, with the Anostraca having been the first group to branch off. It is thought that the group evolved in the seas, but

lens with focal length of in 1687 from one of Spinoza's grinding dishes, ten years after his death. He was said by anatomist Theodor Kerckring to have produced an "excellent" microscope, the quality of which was the foundation of Kerckring's anatomy claims. During his time as a lens and instrument maker, he was also supported by small but regular donations from close friends. The Hague In 1670, Spinoza moved to The Hague where he lived on a small pension from Jan de Witt and a small annuity from the brother of his dead friend, Simon de Vries. He worked on the Ethics, wrote an unfinished Hebrew grammar, began his Political Treatise, wrote two scientific essays ("On the Rainbow" and "On the Calculation of Chances"), and began a Dutch translation of the Bible (which he later destroyed). Spinoza was offered the chair of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, but he refused it, perhaps because of the possibility that it might in some way curb his freedom of thought. Textbooks and encyclopaedias often depict Spinoza as a solitary soul who eked out a living as a lens grinder; in reality, he had many friends but kept his needs to a minimum. He preached a philosophy of tolerance and benevolence. Anthony Gottlieb described him as living "a saintly life". Reviewer M. Stuart Phelps noted, "No one has ever come nearer to the ideal life of the philosopher than Spinoza." Harold Bloom wrote, "As a teacher of reality, he practised his own wisdom, and was surely one of the most exemplary human beings ever to have lived." According to The New York Times: "In outward appearance he was unpretending, but not careless. His way of living was exceedingly modest and retired; often he did not leave his room for many days together. He was likewise almost incredibly frugal; his expenses sometimes amounted only to a few pence a day." Bloom writes of Spinoza, "He appears to have had no sexual life." Spinoza also corresponded with Peter Serrarius, a radical Protestant and millenarian merchant. Serrarius was a patron to Spinoza after Spinoza left the Jewish community and even had letters sent and received for the philosopher to and from third parties. Spinoza and Serrarius maintained their relationship until Serrarius' death in 1669. By the beginning of the 1660s, Spinoza's name became more widely known. Henry Oldenburg paid him visits and became a correspondent with Spinoza for the rest of his life. In 1676, Leibniz came to the Hague to discuss the Ethics, Spinoza's principal philosophical work which he had completed earlier that year. Death Spinoza's health began to fail in 1676, and he died on 21 February 1677 at the age of 44. His premature death was said to be due to lung illness, possibly silicosis as a result of breathing in glass dust from the lenses that he ground. Later, a shrine was made of his home in The Hague. Writings and correspondence The writings of René Descartes have been described as "Spinoza's starting point". Spinoza's first publication was his 1663 geometric exposition of proofs using Euclid's model with definitions and axioms of Descartes' Principles of Philosophy. Spinoza has been associated with Leibniz and Descartes as "rationalists" in contrast to "empiricists". Spinoza engaged in correspondence from December 1664 to June 1665 with Willem van Blijenbergh, an amateur Calvinist theologian, who questioned Spinoza on the definition of evil. Later in 1665, Spinoza notified Oldenburg that he had started to work on a new book, the Theologico-Political Treatise, published in 1670. Leibniz disagreed harshly with Spinoza in his own manuscript "Refutation of Spinoza", but he is also known to have met with Spinoza on at least one occasion (as mentioned above), and his own work bears some striking resemblances to specific important parts of Spinoza's philosophy (see: Monadology). When the public reactions to the anonymously published Theologico-Political Treatise were extremely unfavourable to his brand of Cartesianism, Spinoza was compelled to abstain from publishing more of his works. Wary and independent, he wore a signet ring which he used to mark his letters and which was engraved with the word caute (Latin for "cautiously") underneath a rose, itself a symbol of secrecy. "For, having chosen to write in a language that was so widely intelligible, he was compelled to hide what he had written." The Ethics and all other works, apart from the Descartes' Principles of Philosophy and the Theologico-Political Treatise, were published after his death in the Opera Posthuma, edited by his friends in secrecy to avoid confiscation and destruction of manuscripts. The Ethics contains many still-unresolved obscurities and is written with a forbidding mathematical structure modelled on Euclid's geometry and has been described as a "superbly cryptic masterwork". In a letter, written in December 1675 and sent to Albert Burgh, who wanted to defend Catholicism, Spinoza clearly explained his view of both Catholicism and Islam. He stated that both religions are made "to deceive the people and to constrain the minds of men". He also states that Islam far surpasses Catholicism in doing so. The Tractatus de Deo, Homine, ejusque Felicitate (Treatise on God, man and his happiness) was one of the last Spinoza's works to be published, between 1851 and 1862. Philosophy Spinoza's philosophy is considered part of the rationalist school of thought, which means that at its heart is the assumption that ideas correspond to reality perfectly, in the same way that mathematics is supposed to be an exact representation of the world. Following René Descartes, he aimed to understand truth through logical deductions from 'clear and distinct ideas', a process which always begins from the 'self-evident truths' of axioms. Substance, attributes, and modes Following Maimonides, Spinoza defined substance as "that which is in itself and is conceived through itself", meaning that it can be understood without any reference to anything external. Being conceptually independent also means that the same thing is ontologically independent, depending on nothing else for its existence and being the 'cause of itself' (causa sui). A mode is something which cannot exist independently but rather must do so as part of something else on which it depends, including properties (for example colour), relations (such as size) and individual things. Modes can be further divided into 'finite' and 'infinite' ones, with the latter being evident in every finite mode (he gives the examples of "motion" and "rest"). The traditional understanding of an attribute in philosophy is similar to Spinoza's modes, though he uses that word differently. To him, an attribute is "that which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of substance", and there are possibly an infinite number of them. It is the essential nature which is "attributed" to reality by intellect. Spinoza defined God as "a substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses eternal and infinite essence", and since "no cause or reason" can prevent such a being from existing, it therefore must exist. This is a form of the ontological argument, which is claimed to prove the existence of God, but Spinoza went further in stating that it showed that only God exists. Accordingly, he stated that "Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can exist or be conceived without God". This means that God is identical with the universe, an idea which he encapsulated in the phrase "Deus sive Natura" ('God or Nature'), which has been interpreted by some as atheism or pantheism. God can be known either through the attribute of extension or the attribute of thought. Thought and extension represent giving complete accounts of the world in mental or physical terms. To this end, he says that "the mind and the body are one and the same thing, which is conceived now under the attribute of thought, now under the attribute of extension". Spinoza argues that "things could not have been produced by God in any other way or in any other order than is the case". Therefore, concepts such as 'freedom' and 'chance' have little meaning. This picture of Spinoza's determinism is illuminated by this famous quote in Ethics: ″the infant believes that it is by free will that it seeks the breast; the angry boy believes that by free will he wishes vengeance; the timid man thinks it is with free will he seeks flight; the drunkard believes that by a free command of his mind he speaks the things which when sober he wishes he had left unsaid. … All believe that they speak by a free command of the mind, whilst, in truth, they have no power to restrain the impulse which they have to speak.″ In his letter to G. H. Schuller (Letter 58), he wrote: "men are conscious of their desire and unaware of the causes by which [their desires] are determined." He also held that knowledge of true causes of passive emotion can transform it to an active emotion, thus anticipating one of the key ideas of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis. According to Professor Eric Schliesser, Spinoza was sceptical regarding the possibility of knowledge of nature and as a consequence at odds with scientists like Galileo and Huygens. Ethical philosophy Spinoza shared ethical beliefs with ancient Epicureans, in renouncing ethics beyond the material world, although Epicureans focused more on physical pleasure and Spinoza more on emotional wellbeing. Encapsulated at the start in his Treatise on the Improvement of the Understanding (Tractatus de intellectus emendatione) is the core of Spinoza's ethical philosophy, what he held to be the true and final good. Spinoza held good and evil to be relative concepts, claiming that nothing is intrinsically good or bad except relative to a particularity. Things that had classically been seen as good or evil, Spinoza argued, were simply good or bad for humans. Spinoza believes in a deterministic universe in which "All things in nature proceed from certain [definite] necessity and with the utmost perfection." Nothing happens by chance in Spinoza's world, and nothing is contingent. Given Spinoza's insistence on a completely ordered world where "necessity" reigns, Good and Evil have no absolute meaning. The world as it exists looks imperfect only because of our limited perception. Spinoza argued against gender equality. In A Political Treatise, chapter XI, section 4, Spinoza wrote: "But, perhaps, someone will ask, whether women are under men's authority by nature or institution? For if it has been by mere institution, then we had no reason compelling us to exclude women from government. But if we consult experience itself, we shall find that the origin of it is in their weakness. For there has never been a case of men and women reigning together, but wherever on the earth men are found, there we see that men rule, and women are ruled, and that on this plan, both sexes live in harmony." Spinoza's Ethics In the universe anything that happens comes from the essential nature of objects, or of God or Nature. According to Spinoza, reality is perfection. If circumstances are seen as unfortunate it is only because of our inadequate conception of reality. While components of the chain of cause and effect are not beyond the understanding of human reason, human grasp of the infinitely complex whole is limited because of the limits of science to empirically take account of the whole sequence. Spinoza also asserted that sense perception, though practical and useful, is inadequate for discovering truth. His concept of "conatus" states that human beings' natural inclination is to strive toward preserving an essential being, and asserts that virtue/human power is defined by success in this preservation of being by the guidance of reason as one's central ethical doctrine. According to Spinoza, the highest virtue is the intellectual love or knowledge of God/Nature/Universe. Also in the Ethics, Spinoza discusses his beliefs about what he considers to be the three kinds of knowledge that come with perceptions: The first kind of knowledge he writes about is the knowledge of experiences. More precisely, this first type of knowledge can be known as the knowledge of things that could be "mutilated, confused, and without order". Another explanation of what the first knowledge can be is that it is the knowledge of dangerous reasoning. Dangerous reason lacks any type of rationality, and causes the mind to be in a "passive" state. This type of "passive mind" that Spinoza writes about in the earlier books of The Ethics is a state of the mind in which adequate causes become passions. Spinoza’s second knowledge involves reasoning plus emotions. He explains that this knowledge is had by the rationality of any adequate causes that have to do with anything common to the human mind. An example of this could be anything that is classified as being of imperfect virtue. Imperfect virtues are seen as those which are incomplete. Many philosophers, such as Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, would compare imperfect virtue to pagan virtue. Spinoza defines the third and final knowledge as the knowledge of God, which requires rationality and reason of the mind. In more detail, Spinoza uses this type of knowledge to join together the essence of God with the individual essence. This knowledge is also formed from any adequate causes that include perfect virtue. In the final part of the Ethics, his concern with the meaning of "true blessedness", and his explanation of how emotions must be detached from external causes in order to master them, foreshadow psychological techniques developed in the 1900s. His concept of three types of knowledge—opinion, reason, intuition—and his assertion that intuitive knowledge provides the greatest satisfaction of mind, led to his proposition that the more we are conscious of ourselves and Nature/Universe, the more perfect and blessed we are (in reality) and that only intuitive knowledge is eternal. History of reception Pantheism, panentheism and atheism It is a widespread belief that Spinoza equated God with the material universe. He has therefore been called the "prophet" and "prince" and most eminent expounder of pantheism. More specifically, in a letter to Henry Oldenburg he states, "as to the view of certain people that I identify God with Nature (taken as a kind of mass or corporeal matter), they are quite mistaken". For Spinoza, the universe (cosmos) is a mode under two attributes of Thought and Extension. God has infinitely many other attributes which are not present in the world. According to German philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883–1969), when Spinoza wrote (Latin for 'God or Nature'), Spinoza meant God was (nature doing what nature does; literally, 'nature naturing'), not (nature already created; literally, 'nature natured'). Jaspers believed that Spinoza, in his philosophical system, did not mean to say that God and Nature are interchangeable terms, but rather that God's transcendence was attested by his infinitely many attributes, and that two attributes known by humans, namely Thought and Extension, signified God's immanence. Even God under the attributes of thought and extension cannot be identified strictly with our world. That world is of course "divisible"; it has parts. But Spinoza said, "no attribute of a substance can be truly conceived from which it follows that the substance can be divided", meaning that one cannot conceive an attribute in a way that leads to division of substance. He also said, "a substance which is absolutely infinite is indivisible" (Ethics, Part I, Propositions 12 and 13). Following this logic, our world should be considered as a mode under two attributes of thought and extension. Therefore, according to Jaspers, the pantheist formula "One and All" would apply to Spinoza only if the "One" preserves its transcendence and the "All" were not interpreted as the totality of finite things. Martial Guéroult (1891–1976) suggested the term "panentheism", rather than "pantheism" to describe Spinoza's view of the relation between God and the world. The world is not God, but it is, in a strong sense, "in" God. Not only do finite things have God as their cause; they cannot be conceived without God. However, American panentheist philosopher Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000) insisted on the term Classical Pantheism to describe Spinoza's view. In 1785, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi published a condemnation of Spinoza's pantheism, after Gotthold Lessing was thought to have confessed on his deathbed to being a "Spinozist", which was the equivalent in his time of being called an atheist. Jacobi claimed that Spinoza's doctrine was pure materialism, because all Nature and God are said to be nothing but extended substance. This, for Jacobi, was the result of Enlightenment rationalism and it would finally end in absolute atheism. Moses Mendelssohn disagreed with Jacobi, saying that there is no actual difference between theism and pantheism. The issue became a major intellectual and religious concern for European civilization at the time. The attraction of Spinoza's philosophy to late 18th-century Europeans was that it provided an alternative to materialism, atheism, and deism. Three of Spinoza's ideas strongly appealed to them: the unity of all that exists; the regularity of all that happens; the identity of spirit and nature. By 1879, Spinoza’s pantheism was praised by many, but was considered by some to be alarming and dangerously inimical. Spinoza's "God or Nature" (Deus sive Natura) provided a living, natural God, in contrast to Isaac Newton's first cause argument and the dead mechanism of Julien Offray de La Mettrie's (1709–1751) work, Man a Machine (). Coleridge and Shelley saw in Spinoza's philosophy a religion of nature. Novalis called him the "God-intoxicated man". Spinoza inspired the poet Shelley to write his essay "The Necessity of Atheism". Spinoza was considered to be an atheist because he used the word "God" (Deus) to signify a concept that was different from that of traditional Judeo–Christian monotheism. "Spinoza expressly denies personality and consciousness to God; he has neither intelligence, feeling, nor will; he does not act according to purpose, but everything follows necessarily from his nature, according to law...." Thus, Spinoza's cool, indifferent God is the antithesis to the concept of an anthropomorphic, fatherly God who cares about humanity. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spinoza's God is an "infinite intellect" (Ethics 2p11c) — all knowing (2p3), and capable of loving both himself—and us, insofar as we are part of his perfection (5p35c). And if the mark of a personal being is that it is one towards which we can entertain personal attitudes, then we should note too that Spinoza recommends amor intellectualis dei (the intellectual love of God) as the supreme good for man (5p33). However, the matter is complex. Spinoza's God does not have free will (1p32c1), he does not have purposes or intentions (1 appendix), and Spinoza insists that "neither intellect nor will pertain to the nature of God" (1p17s1). Moreover, while we may love God, we need to remember that God is really not the kind of being who could ever love us back. "He who loves God cannot strive that God should love him in return", says Spinoza (5p19). Steven Nadler suggests that settling the question of Spinoza's atheism or pantheism depends on an analysis of attitudes. If pantheism is associated with religiosity, then Spinoza is not a pantheist, since Spinoza believes that the proper stance to take towards God is not one of reverence or religious awe, but instead one of objective study and reason, since taking the religious stance would leave one open to the possibility of error and superstition. Michael Rosenthal considers Spinoza intolerant toward atheists. Comparison to Eastern philosophies Similarities between Spinoza's philosophy and Eastern philosophical traditions have been discussed by many authors. The 19th-century German Sanskritist Theodor Goldstücker was one of the early figures to notice the similarities between Spinoza's religious conceptions and the Vedanta tradition of India, writing that Spinoza's thought was ... a western system of philosophy which occupies a foremost rank amongst the philosophies of all nations and ages, and which is so exact a representation of the ideas of the Vedanta, that we might have suspected its founder to have borrowed the fundamental principles of his system from the Hindus, did his biography not satisfy us that he was wholly unacquainted with their doctrines... We mean the philosophy of Spinoza, a man whose very life is a picture of that moral purity and intellectual indifference to the transitory charms of this world, which is the constant longing of the true Vedanta philosopher... comparing the fundamental ideas of both we should have no difficulty in proving that, had Spinoza been a Hindu, his system would in all probability mark a last phase of the Vedanta philosophy. Max Müller, in his lectures, noted the striking similarities between Vedanta and the system of Spinoza, saying "the Brahman, as conceived in the Upanishads and defined by Sankara, is clearly the same as Spinoza's 'Substantia'." Helena Blavatsky, a founder of the Theosophical Society also compared Spinoza's religious thought to Vedanta, writing in an unfinished essay "As to Spinoza's Deity—natura naturans—conceived in his attributes simply and alone; and the same Deity—as natura naturata or as conceived in the endless series of modifications or correlations, the direct out-flowing results from the properties of these attributes, it is the Vedantic Deity pure and simple." Spinoza's reception in the 19th and 20th centuries Anthony Gottlieb opined in 1999 that "Coleridge and Shelley saw in [Spinoza's ] a religion of nature. George Eliot, who translated some of the Ethics into English, liked Spinoza for his vehement attacks on superstition. Karl Marx liked him for what he took to be his materialistic account of the universe. Goethe could not say exactly what it was that he liked in the Ethics, but he knew he was profoundly moved by something or other" even though Goethe admitted to not always understanding Spinoza. Nietzsche respected few philosophers, but held Spinoza in high esteem without reading Spinoza's works; Nietzsche learned about Spinoza from Kuno Fischer's History of Modern Philosophy. When George Santayana graduated from college, he published an essay, "The Ethical Doctrine of Spinoza", in The Harvard Monthly. Later, he wrote an introduction to Spinoza's Ethics and "De intellectus emendatione". In 1932, Santayana was invited to present an essay (published as "Ultimate Religion") at a meeting at The Hague celebrating the tricentennial of Spinoza's birth. In Santayana's autobiography, he characterized Spinoza as his "master and model" in understanding the naturalistic basis of morality. Philosophers Louis Althusser, Antonio Negri and Étienne Balibar have each drawn upon Spinoza's philosophy from a leftist or Marxist perspective. Gilles Deleuze, in his doctoral thesis (1968), calls Spinoza "the prince of philosophers". Spinoza's religious criticism and its effect on the philosophy of language Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein evoked Spinoza with the title (suggested to him by G. E. Moore) of the English translation of his first definitive philosophical work, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, an allusion to Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Elsewhere, Wittgenstein deliberately borrowed the expression sub specie aeternitatis from Spinoza (Notebooks, 1914–16, p. 83). The structure of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus does have some structural affinities with Spinoza's Ethics (though, admittedly, not with the latter's own Tractatus) in erecting complex philosophical arguments upon basic logical assertions and principles. Furthermore, in propositions 6.4311 and 6.45 he alludes to a Spinozian understanding of eternity and interpretation of the religious concept of eternal life, stating that "If by eternity is understood not eternal temporal duration, but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present." (6.4311) "The contemplation of the world sub specie aeterni is its contemplation as a limited whole." (6.45) Leo Strauss dedicated his first book, Spinoza's Critique of Religion, to an examination of the latter's ideas. In the book, Strauss identified Spinoza as part of the tradition of Enlightenment rationalism that eventually produced Modernity. Moreover, he identifies Spinoza and his works as the beginning of Jewish Modernity. More recently Jonathan Israel argued that, from 1650 to 1750, Spinoza was "the chief challenger of the fundamentals of revealed religion, received ideas, tradition, morality, and what was everywhere regarded, in absolutist and non-absolutist states alike, as divinely constituted political authority." Spinoza in literature, art, and popular culture Spinoza has had influence beyond the confines of philosophy. Spinoza has been the subject of numerous biographies and scholarly treatises. Spinoza is an important historical figure in the Netherlands, where his portrait was featured prominently on the Dutch 1000-guilder banknote, legal tender until the euro was introduced in 2002. The highest and most prestigious scientific award of the Netherlands is named the Spinozaprijs (Spinoza prize). Spinoza was included in a 50 theme canon that attempts to summarise the history of the Netherlands. In 2014 a copy of Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus was presented to the Chair of the Dutch Parliament, and shares a shelf with the Bible and the Quran. Chronological list 17th century: The philosopher John Locke, who spent some time in Amsterdam, was influenced by his "pioneering and profound conceptions of religious tolerance and democratic government", according to Cornel West. 1811–1833: In his autobiography From My Life: Poetry and Truth, Goethe recounts the way in which Spinoza's Ethics calmed the sometimes unbearable emotional turbulence of his youth. Goethe later displayed his grasp of Spinoza's metaphysics in a fragmentary elucidation of

of Western philosophy's most important thinkers. In it, "Spinoza wrote the last indisputable Latin masterpiece, and one in which the refined conceptions of medieval philosophy are finally turned against themselves and destroyed entirely". Hegel said, "The fact is that Spinoza is made a testing-point in modern philosophy, so that it may really be said: You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all." His philosophical accomplishments and moral character prompted Gilles Deleuze to name him "the 'prince' of philosophers". Biography Family and community origins Spinoza's ancestors were Marranos descended from Sephardic Jews and were a part of the community of Portuguese Jews that had settled in the city of Amsterdam in the wake of the Portuguese Inquisition (1536), which had resulted in forced conversions and expulsions from the Iberian Peninsula. Attracted by the Decree of Toleration issued in 1579 by the Union of Utrecht, Portuguese converts to Catholicism first sailed to Amsterdam in 1593 and promptly reconverted to Judaism. In 1598, permission was granted to build a synagogue, and in 1615 an ordinance for the admission and government of the Jews was passed. As a community of exiles, the Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam were highly proud of their identity. Although the Portuguese name "de Espinosa" or "Espinosa", then spelled with a "z", can be confused with the Spanish "de Espinoza" or "Espinoza", there is no evidence in Spinoza's genealogy that his family came from Espinosa de los Monteros, near Burgos, or from Espinosa de Cerrato, near Palencia, both in Northern Castile, Spain. Espinoza was a common Spanish conversos family name. Links do suggest that the Espinoza family probably came from Spain and went to The Netherlands through Portugal. The Spinoza family were expelled from Spain in 1492 and fled to Portugal. Portugal compelled them to convert to Catholicism in 1498, and so they left for the Netherlands. Spinoza's father was born roughly a century after the forced conversions in the small Portuguese city of Vidigueira, near Beja in Alentejo. When Spinoza's father Miguel (Michael) was still a child, Spinoza's grandfather, Isaac de Spinoza, who was from Lisbon, took his family to Nantes in France. They were expelled in 1615 and moved to Rotterdam, where Isaac died in 1627. Spinoza's father and his uncle Manuel then moved to Amsterdam where they resumed the practice of Judaism. Miguel was a successful merchant and became a warden of the synagogue and of the Amsterdam Jewish school. He buried three wives and three of his six children died before reaching adulthood. 17th-century Netherlands Amsterdam and Rotterdam operated as important cosmopolitan centres where merchant ships from many parts of the world brought people of various customs and beliefs. This flourishing commercial activity encouraged a culture relatively tolerant of the play of new ideas, to a considerable degree sheltered from the censorious hand of ecclesiastical authority (though those considered to have gone "too far" might have been persecuted even in the Netherlands). Not by chance were the philosophical works of both Descartes and Spinoza developed in the cultural and intellectual background of the Dutch Republic in the 17th century. Spinoza may have had access to a circle of friends who were unconventional in terms of social tradition, including members of the Collegiants. One of the people he knew was Niels Stensen, a brilliant Danish student in Leiden; others included Albert Burgh, with whom Spinoza is known to have corresponded. Early life Baruch Espinosa was born on 24 November 1632 in the Jodenbuurt in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He was the second son of Miguel de Espinoza, a successful, although not wealthy, Portuguese Sephardic Jewish merchant in Amsterdam. His mother, Ana Débora, Miguel's second wife, died when Baruch was only six years old. Spinoza's mother tongue was Portuguese, although he also knew Hebrew, Spanish, Dutch, perhaps French, and later Latin. Although he wrote in Latin, Spinoza learned the language only late in his youth. Spinoza had a traditional Jewish upbringing, attending the Keter Torah yeshiva of the Amsterdam Talmud Torah congregation headed by the learned and traditional senior Rabbi Saul Levi Morteira. His teachers also included the less traditional Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel, "a man of wide learning and secular interests, a friend of Vossius, Grotius, and Rembrandt". While presumably a star pupil, and perhaps considered as a potential rabbi, Spinoza never reached the advanced study of the Torah in the upper levels of the curriculum. Instead, at the age of 17, after the death of his elder brother, Isaac, he cut short his formal studies in order to begin working in the family importing business. The precise date of Spinoza's first studies of Latin with Francis van den Enden (Franciscus van den Enden) is not known. Some state it began as early as 1654–1655, when Spinoza was 20; others note that the documentary record only attests to his presence in van den Enden's circle around 1657–1658. Van den Enden was a notorious free thinker, former Jesuit, and radical democrat who likely introduced Spinoza to scholastic and modern philosophy, including that of Descartes. (A decade later, in the early 1660s, Van den Enden was considered to be a Cartesian and atheist, and his books were put on the Catholic Index of Banned Books.) Spinoza's father, Miguel, died in 1654 when Spinoza was 21. He duly recited Kaddish, the Jewish prayer of mourning, for eleven months as required by Jewish law. When his sister Rebekah disputed his inheritance seeking it for herself, on principle he sued her to seek a court judgment, he won the case, but then renounced claim to the court’s judgment in his favour and assigned his inheritance to her. Spinoza adopted the Latin name Benedictus de Spinoza, began boarding with Van den Enden, and began teaching in his school. Following an anecdote in an early biography by , he is said to have fallen in love with his teacher's daughter, Clara, but she rejected him for a richer student. (This story has been questioned on the basis that Clara Maria van den Enden was born in 1643 and would have been no more than about 13 years old when Spinoza left Amsterdam. In 1671 she married Dirck Kerckring.) During this period Spinoza also became acquainted with the Collegiants, an anti-clerical sect of Remonstrants with tendencies towards rationalism, and with the Mennonites who had existed for a century but were close to the Remonstrants. Many of his friends belonged to dissident Christian groups which met regularly as discussion groups and which typically rejected the authority of established churches as well as traditional dogmas. Spinoza's break with the prevailing dogmas of Judaism, and particularly the insistence on non-Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, was not sudden; rather, it appears to have been the result of a lengthy internal struggle: "If anyone thinks my criticism [regarding the authorship of the Bible] is of too sweeping a nature and lacking sufficient foundation, I would ask him to undertake to show us in these narratives a definite plan such as might legitimately be imitated by historians in their chronicles... If he succeeds, I shall at once admit defeat, and he will be my mighty Apollo. For I confess that all my efforts over a long period have resulted in no such discovery. Indeed, I may add that I write nothing here that is not the fruit of lengthy reflection; and although I have been educated from boyhood in the accepted beliefs concerning Scripture, I have felt bound in the end to embrace the views I here express." Nevertheless, after he was branded as a heretic, Spinoza's clashes with authority became more pronounced. For example, questioned by two members of his synagogue, Spinoza apparently responded that God has a body and nothing in scripture says otherwise. He was later attacked on the steps of the synagogue by a knife-wielding assailant shouting "Heretic!" He was apparently quite shaken by this attack and for years kept (and wore) his torn cloak, unmended, as a souvenir. After his father's death in 1654, Spinoza and his younger brother Gabriel (Abraham) ran the family importing business. The business ran into serious financial difficulties, however, perhaps as a result of the First Anglo-Dutch War. In March 1656, Spinoza filed suit with the Amsterdam municipal authorities to be declared an orphan in order to escape his father's business debts and so that he could inherit his mother's estate (which at first was incorporated into his father's estate) without it being subject to his father's creditors. In addition, after having made substantial contributions to the Talmud Torah synagogue in 1654 and 1655, he reduced his December 1655 contribution and his March 1656 pledge to nominal amounts (and the March 1656 pledge was never paid). Spinoza was eventually able to relinquish responsibility for the business and its debts to his younger brother, Gabriel, and devote himself chiefly to the study of philosophy, especially the system expounded by Descartes, and to optics. Expulsion from the Jewish community On 27 July 1656, the Talmud Torah congregation of Amsterdam issued a writ of cherem (Hebrew: , a kind of ban, shunning, ostracism, expulsion, or excommunication) against the 23-year-old Spinoza. The following document translates the official record of the censure: The Lords of the ma'amad, having long known of the evil opinions and acts of Baruch de Espinoza, have endeavoured by various means and promises, to turn him from his evil ways. But having failed to make him mend his wicked ways, and, on the contrary, daily receiving more and more serious information about the abominable heresies which he practised and taught and about his monstrous deeds, and having for this numerous trustworthy witnesses who have deposed and borne witness to this effect in the presence of the said Espinoza, they became convinced of the truth of the matter; and after all of this has been investigated in the presence of the honourable chachamim [sages], they have decided, with their consent, that the said Espinoza should be excommunicated and expelled from the people of Israel. By the decree of the angels, and by the command of the holy men, we excommunicate, expel, curse and damn Baruch de Espinoza, with the consent of God, Blessed be He, and with the consent of all the Holy Congregation, in front of these holy Scrolls with the six-hundred-and-thirteen precepts which are written therein, with the excommunication with which Joshua banned Jericho, with the curse with which Elisha cursed the boys and with all the curses which are written in the Book of the Law. Cursed be he by day and cursed be he by night; cursed be he when he lies down, and cursed be he when he rises up; cursed be he when he goes out, and cursed be he when he comes in. The Lord will not spare him; the anger and wrath of the Lord will rage against this man, and bring upon him all the curses which are written in this book, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven, and the Lord will separate him to his injury from all the tribes of Israel with all the curses of the covenant, which are written in the Book of the Law. But you who cleave unto the Lord God are all alive this day. We order that no one should communicate with him orally or in writing, or show him any favour, or stay with him under the same roof, or within four ells of him, or read anything composed or written by him. The Talmud Torah congregation issued censure routinely, on matters great and small, so such an edict was not unusual. The language of Spinoza's censure is unusually harsh, however, and does not appear in any other censure known to have been issued by the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam. The exact reason ("horrendas heregias", abominable heresies) for expelling Spinoza is not stated. The censure refers only to the "abominable heresies that he practised and taught", to his "monstrous deeds", and to the testimony of witnesses "in the presence of the said Espinoza". There is no record of such testimony, but there appear to have been several likely reasons for the issuance of the censure. First, there were Spinoza's radical theological views that he was apparently expressing in public. As philosopher and Spinoza biographer Steven Nadler puts it: "No doubt he was giving utterance to just those ideas that would soon appear in his philosophical treatises. In those works, Spinoza denies the immortality of the soul; strongly rejects the notion of a providential God—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and claims that the Law was neither literally given by God nor any longer binding on Jews. Can there be any mystery as to why one of history's boldest and most radical thinkers was sanctioned by an orthodox Jewish community?" Second, the Amsterdam Jewish community was largely composed of Spanish and Portuguese former conversos who had respectively fled from the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition within the previous century, with their children and grandchildren. This community must have been concerned to protect its reputation from any association with Spinoza lest his controversial views provide the basis for their own possible persecution or expulsion. There is little evidence that the Amsterdam municipal authorities were directly involved in Spinoza's censure itself. But "in 1619, the town council expressly ordered [the Portuguese Jewish community] to regulate their conduct and ensure that the members of the community kept to a strict observance of Jewish law." Other evidence makes it clear that the danger of upsetting the civil authorities was never far from mind, such as bans adopted by the synagogue on public wedding or funeral processions and on discussing religious matters with Christians, lest such activity might "disturb the liberty we enjoy". Thus, the issuance of Spinoza's censure was almost certainly, in part, an exercise in self-censorship by the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam. Third, it appears likely that Spinoza had already taken the initiative to separate himself from the Talmud Torah congregation and was vocally expressing his hostility to Judaism itself, also through his philosophical works, such as the Part I of Ethics. He had probably stopped attending services at the synagogue, either after the lawsuit with his sister or after the knife attack on its steps. He might already have been voicing the view expressed later in his Theological-Political Treatise that the civil authorities should suppress Judaism as harmful to the Jews themselves. Either for financial or other reasons, he had in any case effectively stopped contributing to the synagogue by March 1656. He had also committed the "monstrous deed", contrary to the regulations of the synagogue and the views of some rabbinical authorities (including Maimonides), of filing suit in a civil court rather than with the synagogue authorities—to renounce his father's heritage, no less. Upon being notified of the issuance of the censure, he is reported to have said: "Very well; this does not force me to do anything that I would not have done of my own accord, had I not been afraid of a scandal." Thus, unlike most of the censure issued routinely by the Amsterdam congregation to discipline its members, the censure issued against Spinoza did not lead to repentance and so was never withdrawn. After the censure, Spinoza is said to have addressed an "Apology" (defence), written in Spanish, to the elders of the synagogue, "in which he defended his views as orthodox, and condemned the rabbis for accusing him of 'horrible practices and other enormities' merely because he had neglected ceremonial observances". This "Apology" does not survive, but some of its contents may later have been included in his Theological-Political Treatise. For example, he cited a series of cryptic statements by medieval Biblical commentator Abraham ibn Ezra intimating that some apparently anachronistic passages of the Pentateuch (e.g., "[t]he Canaanite was then in the land", Genesis 12:6, which ibn Ezra called a "mystery" and exhorted those "who understand it [to] keep silent") were not of Mosaic authorship as proof that his own views had valid historical precedent. The most remarkable aspect of the censure may be not so much its issuance, or even Spinoza's refusal to submit, but the fact that Spinoza's expulsion from the Jewish community did not lead to his conversion to Christianity. Spinoza kept the Latin (and so implicitly Christian) name Benedict de Spinoza, maintained a close association with the Collegiants (a Christian sect of Remonstrants) and Quakers, even moved to a town near the Collegiants' headquarters, and was buried in a Christian Protestant graveyard—but there is no evidence or suggestion that he ever accepted baptism or participated in a Christian mass or Quaker meeting. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson explains "For Spinoza truth is not a property of Scripture, as Jewish philosophers since Philo had maintained, but a characteristic of the method of interpreting Scripture." Neither is there evidence he maintained any sense of Jewish identity. Furthermore, "Spinoza did not envision secular Judaism. To be a secular and assimilated Jew is, in his view, nonsense." Reconsideration in modern times David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of the new state of Israel, called Spinoza "the first Zionist of the last 300 years", and in 1953 published an article in praise of the philosopher, renewing discussion about his excommunication. Israeli politicians, rabbis and Jewish press worldwide joined the debate. Some call for the cherem to be reversed. However, none of them had the authority to rescind it; this can only be done by the Amsterdam Talmud Torah congregation. In September 2012, the Portugees-Israëlietische Gemeente te Amsterdam (Portuguese-Israelite commune of Amsterdam) asked the chief rabbi of their community, Haham Pinchas Toledano, to reconsider the cherem after consulting several Spinoza experts. However he declined to remove it, citing Spinoza's "preposterous ideas, where he was tearing apart the very fundamentals of our religion". In December 2015, the present-day Amsterdam Jewish community organised a symposium to discuss lifting the cherem, inviting scholars from around the world to form an advisory committee at the meeting, including Steven Nadler of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A debate was held in front of over 500 people, discussing (according to Nadler) "what were Spinoza's philosophical views, what were the historical circumstances of the ban, what might be the advantages of lifting the cherem, and what might be the disadvantages?". Most of the community would have liked to have seen the ban lifted, but the rabbi of the congregation ruled that it should hold, on the basis that he had no greater wisdom than his predecessors, and that Spinoza's views had not become less problematic over time. In November 2021, Spinoza-scholar Yitzhak Melamed was denied entry into the synagoge of the Portuguese-Israelite community of Amsterdam and declared persona-non-grata by Rabbi Joseph Serfati, after he requested permission to make a movie about the ban in the premises. Later life and career Spinoza spent his remaining 21 years writing and studying as a private scholar. Spinoza believed in a "Philosophy of tolerance and benevolence" and actually lived the life which he preached. He was criticized and ridiculed during his life and afterwards for his alleged atheism. However, even those who were against him "had to admit he lived a saintly life". Besides the religious controversies, nobody really had much bad to say about Spinoza other than, "he sometimes enjoyed watching spiders chase flies". After the cherem, the Amsterdam municipal authorities expelled Spinoza from Amsterdam, "responding to the appeals of the rabbis, and also of the Calvinist clergy, who had been vicariously offended by the existence of a free thinker in the synagogue". He spent a brief time in or near the village of Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, but returned soon afterwards to Amsterdam and lived there quietly for several years, giving private philosophy lessons and grinding lenses, before leaving the city in 1660 or 1661. During this time in Amsterdam, Spinoza wrote his Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being, which he never published in his lifetime—assuming with good reason that it might get suppressed. Two Dutch translations of it survive, discovered about 1810. In 1660 or 1661, Spinoza moved from Amsterdam to Rijnsburg (near Leiden), the headquarters of the Collegiants. In Rijnsburg, he began work on his Descartes' "Principles of Philosophy" as well as on his masterpiece, the Ethics. In 1663, he returned briefly to Amsterdam, where he finished and published Descartes' "Principles of Philosophy", the only work published in his lifetime under his own name, and then moved the same year to Voorburg. Voorburg In Voorburg, Spinoza continued work on the Ethics and corresponded with scientists, philosophers, and theologians throughout Europe. He also wrote and published his Theological-Political Treatise in 1670, in defence of secular and constitutional government, and in support of Jan de Witt, the Grand Pensionary of the Netherlands, against the Stadtholder, the Prince of Orange. Leibniz visited Spinoza and claimed that Spinoza's life was in danger when supporters of the Prince of Orange murdered de Witt in 1672. While published anonymously, the work did not long remain so, and de Witt's enemies characterized it as "forged in Hell by a renegade Jew and the Devil, and issued with the knowledge of Jan de Witt". It was condemned in 1673 by the Synod of the Reformed Church and formally banned in 1674. Lens-grinding and optics Spinoza earned a modest living from lens-grinding and instrument making, yet he was involved in important optical investigations of the day while living in Voorburg, through correspondence and friendships with scientist Christiaan Huygens and mathematician Johannes Hudde, including debate over microscope design with Huygens, favouring small objectives and collaborating on calculations for a prospective focal length telescope which would have been one of the largest in Europe at the time. He was known for making not just lenses but also telescopes and microscopes. The quality of Spinoza's lenses was much praised by Christiaan Huygens, among others. In fact, his technique and instruments were so esteemed that Constantijn Huygens ground a "clear and bright" telescope lens with focal length of in 1687 from one of Spinoza's grinding dishes, ten years after his death. He was said by anatomist Theodor Kerckring to have produced an "excellent" microscope, the quality of which was the foundation of Kerckring's anatomy claims. During his time as a lens and instrument maker, he was also supported by small but regular donations from close friends. The Hague In 1670, Spinoza moved to The Hague where he lived on a small pension from Jan de Witt and a small annuity from the brother of his dead friend, Simon de Vries. He worked on the Ethics, wrote an unfinished Hebrew grammar, began his Political Treatise, wrote two scientific essays ("On the Rainbow" and "On the Calculation of Chances"), and began a Dutch translation of the Bible (which he later destroyed). Spinoza was offered the chair of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, but he refused it, perhaps because of the possibility that it might in some way curb his freedom of thought. Textbooks and encyclopaedias often depict Spinoza as a solitary soul who eked out a living as a lens grinder; in reality, he had many friends but kept his needs to a minimum. He preached a philosophy of tolerance and benevolence. Anthony Gottlieb described him as living "a saintly life". Reviewer M. Stuart Phelps noted, "No one has ever come nearer to the ideal life of the philosopher than Spinoza." Harold Bloom wrote, "As a teacher of reality, he practised his own wisdom, and was surely one of the most exemplary human beings ever to have lived." According to The New York Times: "In outward appearance he was unpretending, but not careless. His way of living was exceedingly modest and retired; often he did not leave his room for many days together. He was likewise almost incredibly frugal; his expenses sometimes amounted only to a few pence a day." Bloom writes of Spinoza, "He appears to have had no sexual life." Spinoza also corresponded with Peter Serrarius, a radical Protestant and millenarian merchant. Serrarius was a patron to Spinoza after Spinoza left the Jewish community and even had letters sent and received for the philosopher to and from third parties. Spinoza and Serrarius maintained their relationship until Serrarius' death in 1669. By the beginning of the 1660s, Spinoza's name became more widely known. Henry Oldenburg paid him visits and became a correspondent with Spinoza for the rest of his life. In 1676, Leibniz came to the Hague to discuss the Ethics, Spinoza's principal philosophical work which he had completed earlier that year. Death Spinoza's health began to fail in 1676, and he died on 21 February 1677 at the age of 44. His premature death was said to be due to lung illness, possibly silicosis as a result of breathing in glass dust from the lenses that he ground. Later, a shrine was made of his home in The Hague. Writings and correspondence The writings of René Descartes have been described as "Spinoza's starting point". Spinoza's first publication was his 1663 geometric exposition of proofs using Euclid's model with definitions and axioms of Descartes' Principles of Philosophy. Spinoza has been associated with Leibniz and Descartes as "rationalists" in contrast to "empiricists". Spinoza engaged in correspondence from December 1664 to June 1665 with Willem van Blijenbergh, an amateur Calvinist theologian, who questioned Spinoza on the definition of evil. Later in 1665, Spinoza notified Oldenburg that he had started to work on a new book, the Theologico-Political Treatise, published in 1670. Leibniz disagreed harshly with Spinoza in his own manuscript "Refutation of Spinoza", but he is also known to have met with Spinoza on at least one occasion (as mentioned above), and his own work bears some striking resemblances to specific important parts of Spinoza's philosophy (see: Monadology). When the public reactions to the anonymously published Theologico-Political Treatise were extremely unfavourable to his brand of Cartesianism, Spinoza was compelled to abstain from publishing more of his works. Wary and independent, he wore a signet ring which he used to mark his letters and which was engraved with the word caute (Latin for "cautiously") underneath a rose, itself a symbol of secrecy. "For, having chosen to write in a language that was so widely intelligible, he was compelled to hide what he had written." The Ethics and all other works, apart from the Descartes' Principles of Philosophy and the Theologico-Political Treatise, were published after his death in the Opera Posthuma, edited by his friends in secrecy to avoid confiscation and destruction of manuscripts. The Ethics contains many still-unresolved obscurities and is written with a forbidding mathematical structure modelled on Euclid's geometry and has been described as a "superbly cryptic masterwork". In a letter, written in December 1675 and sent to Albert Burgh, who wanted to defend Catholicism, Spinoza clearly explained his view of both Catholicism and Islam. He stated that both religions are made "to deceive the people and to constrain the minds of men". He also states that Islam far surpasses Catholicism in doing so. The Tractatus de Deo, Homine, ejusque Felicitate (Treatise on God, man and his happiness) was one of the last Spinoza's works to be published, between 1851 and 1862. Philosophy Spinoza's philosophy is considered part of the rationalist school of thought, which means that at its heart is the assumption that ideas correspond to reality perfectly, in the same way that mathematics is supposed to be an exact representation of the world. Following René Descartes, he aimed to understand truth through logical deductions from 'clear and distinct ideas', a process which always begins from the 'self-evident truths' of axioms. Substance, attributes, and modes Following Maimonides, Spinoza defined substance as "that which is in itself and is conceived through itself", meaning that it can be understood without any reference to anything external. Being conceptually independent also means that the same thing is ontologically independent, depending on nothing else for its existence and being the 'cause of itself' (causa sui). A mode is something which cannot exist independently but rather must do so as part of something else on which it depends, including properties (for example colour), relations (such as size) and individual things. Modes can be further divided into 'finite' and 'infinite' ones, with the latter being evident in every finite mode (he gives the examples of "motion" and "rest"). The traditional understanding of an attribute in philosophy is similar to Spinoza's modes, though he uses that word differently. To him, an attribute is "that which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of substance", and there are possibly an infinite number of them. It is the essential nature which is "attributed" to reality by intellect. Spinoza defined God as "a substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses eternal and infinite essence", and since "no cause or reason" can prevent such a being from existing, it therefore must exist. This is a form of the ontological argument, which is claimed to prove the existence of God, but Spinoza went further in stating that it showed that only God exists. Accordingly, he stated that "Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can exist

regard to the fact that Persian, as the mother tongue of both Avicenna and Sadrā, was in conflict with either Greek or Arabic in this regard, these philosophers should have been warned implicitly by their mother tongue not to confuse two kinds of linguistic beings (viz. copula vs. existential). In fact when analyzed thoroughly, copula, or Persian ast ('is') indicates an ever-moving chain of relations with no fixed entity to hold onto (every entity, say A, will be dissolved into "A is B" and so on, as soon as one tries to define it). Therefore, the whole reality or what we see as existence ("found" in our world) resembles an ever-changing world of astī (is-ness) flowing in time and space. On the other hand, while Persian ast can be considered as the 3rd person singular of the verb 'to be', there is no verb but an arbitrary one supporting hast ('is' as an existential be= exists) has neither future nor past tense and nor a negative form of its own: hast is just a single untouchable lexeme. It needs no other linguistic element to be complete (Hast. is a complete sentence meaning "s/he it exists"). In fact, any manipulation of the arbitrary verb, e.g. its conjugation, turns hast back into a copula. Eventually from such linguistic analyses, it appears that while astī (is-ness) would resemble the world of Heraclitus, hastī (existence) would rather approaches a metaphysical concept resembling the Parmenidas's interpretation of existence. In this regard, Avicenna, who was a firm follower of Aristotle, could not accept either Heraclitian is-ness (where only constant was change), nor Parmenidean monist immoveable existence (the hastī itself being constant). To solve the contradiction, it so appeared to philosophers of the Islamic world that Aristotle considered the core of existence (i.e. its substance/essence) to be a fixed constant, while its facade (accident) was prone to change. To translate such a philosophical image into Persian it is like having hastī (existence) as a unique constant core covered by astī (is-ness) as a cloud of ever-changing relationships. It is clear that the Persian language, deconstructs such a composite as a sheer mirage, since it is not clear how to link the interior core (existence) with the exterior shell (is-ness). Furthermore, hast cannot be linked to anything but itself (as it is self-referent). The argument has a theological echos as well. Assuming that God is the Existence, beyond time and space, the question is raised by philosophers of the Islamic world as how he, a transcendental existence, may ever create or contact a world of is-ness within space-time. However, Avicenna, who was more philosopher than theologian, followed the same line of argumentation as that of his ancient master, Aristotle, and tried to reconcile between ast and hast by considering the latter as a higher order of existence than the former. It is like a hierarchical order of existence. It was a philosophical Tower of Babel that the restriction of his own mother tongue (Persian) would not allow to be built, but he could maneuver in Arabic by giving the two concepts the same name wujud, although with different attributes. So implicitly, astī (is-ness), appears as ممکن الوجود "momken-al-wujud" (contingent being), and hastī (existence) appears as واجب الوجود "wājeb-al-wujud" (necessary being). On the other hand, centuries later, Sadrā chose a more radical route, inclining towards the reality of astī (is-ness) as the true mode of existence and tried to get rid of the concept of hastī (existence as fixed or immovable). Thus, in his philosophy, the universal movement penetrates deep into the Aristotelian substance/essence, in unison with changing accident. He called this deep existential change حرکت جوهری harekat-e jowhari (Substantial Movement). In such a changing existence the whole world has to go through instantaneous annihilation and incessant recreation, while as Avicenna had predicted in his remarks on Nature, such a universal change or substantial movement would eventually entail the shortening and lengthening of time as well, which has never been observed. This logical objection, which was made on Aristotle's argumentation, could not be answered in ancient times or the medieval age, but now it does not sound contradictory to the real nature of Time (as addressed in relativity theory). So by a reverse argument, a philosopher may indeed deduce that everything is changing (moving), even in the deepest core of Being. Being in the Age of Reason Although innovated in the late medieval period, Thomism was dogmatized in the Renaissance. From roughly 1277 to 1567 it dominated the philosophic landscape. The rationalist philosophers, however, with a new emphasis on reason as a tool of the intellect, brought the classical and medieval traditions under new scrutiny, exercising a new concept of doubt, with varying outcomes. Foremost among the new doubters were the empiricists, the advocates of the scientific method, with its emphasis on experimentation and reliance on evidence gathered from sensory experience. In the meantime the Enlightenment mouthpiece Fontenelle (1657-1757) put being in its place, saying Je souffre d'être ("I suffer from being"). In parallel with the revolutions against rising political absolutism based on established religion and the replacement of faith by reasonable faith, charismatic professors such as Immanuel Kant and Hegel promulgated new systems of metaphysics in the lecture halls. The late 19th and 20th centuries featured an emotional return to the concept of existence under the name of existentialism. Existentialist philosophers were concerned mainly with ethics and religion. The metaphysical side became the domain of the phenomenalists. In parallel with these philosophies Thomism continued under the protection of the Catholic Church; in particular of the Jesuit order. Empiricist doubts Rationalism and empiricism have had many definitions, most concerned with specific schools of philosophy or groups of philosophers in particular countries, such as Germany. In general, rationalism is the predominant school of thought in the multi-national, cross-cultural Age of reason, which began in the century straddling 1600 as a conventional date, empiricism is the reliance on sensory data gathered in experimentation by scientists of any country, who, in the Age of Reason were rationalists. An early professed empiricist, Thomas Hobbes, known as an eccentric denizen of the court of Charles II of England (an "old bear"), published in 1651 Leviathan, a political treatise written during the English Civil War, containing an early manifesto in English of rationalism. Hobbes said:"The Latines called Accounts of mony Rationes ... and thence it seems to proceed that they extended the word Ratio, to the faculty of Reckoning in all other things....When a man reasoneth hee does nothing else but conceive a summe totall ... For Reason ... is nothing but Reckoning ... of the consequences of generall names agreed upon, for the marking and signifying of our thoughts ...." In Hobbes’ reasoning is the right process of drawing conclusions from definitions (the "names agreed upon"). He goes on to define error as self-contradiction of definition ("an absurdity, or senselesse Speech") or conclusions that do not follow the definitions on which they are supposed to be based. Science, on the other hand, is the outcome of "right reasoning", which is based on "natural sense and imagination", a kind of sensitivity to nature, as "nature it selfe cannot erre". Having chosen his ground carefully, Hobbes launches an epistemological attack on metaphysics. The academic philosophers had arrived at the Theory of Matter and Form from consideration of certain natural paradoxes subsumed under the general heading of the Unity Problem. For example, a body appears to be one thing and yet it is distributed into many parts. Which is it, one or many? Aristotle had arrived at the real distinction between matter and form, metaphysical components whose interpenetration produces the paradox. The whole unity comes from the substantial form and the distribution into parts from the matter. Inhering in the parts giving them really distinct unities are the accidental forms. The unity of the whole being is actuated by another really distinct principle, the existence. If nature cannot err, then there are no paradoxes in it; to Hobbes, the paradox is a form of the absurd, which is inconsistency: "Natural sense and imagination, are not subject to absurdity" and "For error is but a deception ... But when we make a generall assertion, unlesse it be a true one, the possibility of it is inconceivable. And words whereby we conceive nothing but the sound, are those we call Absurd ...." Among Hobbes examples are "round quadrangle", "immaterial substance", "free subject." Of the scholastics he says:"Yet they will have us beleeve, that by the Almighty power of God, one body may be at one and the same time in many places [the problem of the universals]; and many bodies at one and the same time in one place [the whole and the parts]; ... And these are but a small part of the Incongruencies they are forced to, from their disputing philosophically, instead of admiring, and adoring of the Divine and Incomprehensible Nature ...." The real distinction between essence and existence, and that between form and matter, which served for so long as the basis of metaphysics, Hobbes identifies as "the Error of Separated Essences." The words "Is, or Bee, or Are, and the like" add no meaning to an argument nor do derived words such as "Entity, Essence, Essentially, Essentiality", which "are the names of nothing" but are mere "Signes" connecting "one name or attribute to another: as when we say, "a man is a living body", we mean not that the man is one thing, the living body another, and the is, or being a third: but that the

being"). The notion of "being" has, inevitably, been elusive and controversial in the history of philosophy, beginning in Western philosophy with attempts among the pre-Socratics to deploy it intelligibly. The first effort to recognize and define the concept came from Parmenides, who famously said of it that "what is-is". Common words such as "is", "are", and "am" refer directly or indirectly to being. As an example of efforts in recent times, the German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) (who himself drew on ancient Greek sources) adopted German terms like Dasein to articulate the topic. Several modern approaches build on such continental European exemplars as Heidegger and apply metaphysical results to the understanding of human psychology and the human condition generally (notably in the existentialist tradition). By contrast, in mainstream analytical philosophy the topic is more confined to abstract investigation, in the work of such influential theorists as W. V. O. Quine (1908–2000), to name one of many. One of the most fundamental questions that has been contemplated in various cultures and traditions (e.g., Native American) and continues to exercise philosophers was articulated thus by William James (1842–1910) in 1909: "How comes the world to be here at all instead of the nonentity which might be imagined in its place? ... from nothing to being there is no logical bridge." The substantial being Being and the substance theorists The deficit of such a bridge was first encountered in history by the Pre-Socratic philosophers during the process of evolving a classification of all beings (noun). Aristotle, who wrote after the Pre-Socratics, applies the term category (perhaps not originally) to ten highest-level classes. They comprise one category of substance (ousiae) existing independently (man, tree) and nine categories of accidents, which can only exist in something else (time, place). In Aristotle, substances are to be clarified by stating their definition: a note expressing a larger class (the genus) followed by further notes expressing specific differences (differentiae) within the class. The substance so defined was a species. For example, the species, man, may be defined as an animal (genus) that is rational (difference). As the difference is potential within the genus; that is, an animal may or may not be rational, the difference is not identical to, and may be distinct from, the genus. Applied to being, the system fails to arrive at a definition for the simple reason that no difference can be found. The species, the genus, and the difference are all equally being: a being is a being that is being. The genus cannot be nothing because nothing is not a class of everything. The trivial solution that being is being added to nothing is only a tautology: being is being. There is no simpler intermediary between being and non-being that explains and classifies being. Pre-Socratic reaction to this deficit was varied. As substance theorists they accepted a priori the hypothesis that appearances are deceiving, that reality is to be reached through reasoning. Parmenides reasoned that if everything is identical to being and being is a category of the same thing then there can be neither differences between things nor any change. To be different, or to change, would amount to becoming or being non-being; that is, not existing. Therefore, being is a homogeneous and non-differentiated sphere and the appearance of beings is illusory. Heraclitus, on the other hand, foreshadowed modern thought by denying existence. Reality does not exist, it flows, and beings are an illusion upon the flow. Aristotle knew of this tradition when he began his Metaphysics, and had already drawn his own conclusion, which he presented under the guise of asking what being is:"And indeed the question which was raised of old is raised now and always, and is always the subject of doubt, viz., what being is, is just the question, what is substance? For it is this that some assert to be one, others more than one, and that some assert to be limited in number, others unlimited. And so we also must consider chiefly and primarily and almost exclusively what that is which is in this sense." and reiterates in no uncertain terms: "Nothing, then, which is not a species of a genus will have an essence – only species will have it ....". Being, however, for Aristotle, is not a genus. Aristotle's theory of act and potency One might expect a solution to follow from such certain language but none does. Instead Aristotle launches into a rephrasing of the problem, the Theory of Act and Potency. In the definition of man as a two-legged animal Aristotle presumes that "two-legged" and "animal" are parts of other beings, but as far as man is concerned, are only potentially man. At the point where they are united into a single being, man, the being, becomes actual, or real. Unity is the basis of actuality: "... 'being' is being combined and one, and 'not being' is being not combined but more than one." Actuality has taken the place of existence, but Aristotle is no longer seeking to know what the actual is; he accepts it without question as something generated from the potential. He has found the potency, which is fully being as part of some other substance. Substances, in Aristotle, unite what they actually are now with everything they might become. The transcendental being Some of Thomas Aquinas' propositions were reputedly condemned by Étienne Tempier, the local Bishop of Paris (not the Papal Magisterium itself) in 1270 and 1277, but his dedication to the use of philosophy to elucidate theology was so thorough that he was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1568. Those who adopt it are called Thomists. Thomistic analogical predication of being In a single sentence, parallel to Aristotle's statement asserting that being is substance, St. Thomas pushes away from the Aristotelian doctrine: "Being is not a genus, since it is not predicated univocally but only analogically." His term for analogy is Latin analogia. In the categorical classification of all beings, all substances are partly the same: man and chimpanzee are both animals and the animal part in man is "the same" as the animal part in chimpanzee. Most fundamentally all substances are matter, a theme taken up by science, which postulated one or more matters, such as earth, air, fire or water (Empedocles). In today's chemistry the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen in a chimpanzee are identical to the same elements in a man. The original text reads, "Although equivocal predications must be reduced to univocal, still in actions, the non-univocal agent must precede the univocal agent. For the non-univocal agent is the universal cause of the whole species, as for instance the sun is the cause of the generation of all men; whereas the univocal agent is not the universal efficient cause of the whole species (otherwise it would be the cause of itself, since it is contained in the species), but is a particular cause of this individual which it places under the species by way of participation. Therefore the universal cause of the whole species is not an univocal agent; and the universal cause comes before the particular cause. But this universal agent, whilst it is not univocal, nevertheless is not altogether equivocal, otherwise it could not produce its own likeness, but rather it is to be called an analogical agent, as all univocal predications are reduced to one first non-univocal analogical predication, which is being." If substance is the highest category and there is no substance, being, then the unity perceived in all beings by virtue of their existing must be viewed in another way. St. Thomas chose the analogy: all beings are like, or analogous to, each other in existing. This comparison is the basis of his Analogy of Being. The analogy is said of being in many different ways, but the key to it is the real distinction between existence and essence. Existence is the principle that gives reality to an essence not the same in any way as the existence: "If things having essences are real, and it is not of their essence to be, then the reality of these things must be found in some principle other than (really distinct from) their essence." Substance can be real or not. What makes an individual substance – a man, a tree, a planet – real is a distinct act, a "to be", which actuates its unity. An analogy of proportion is therefore possible: "essence is related to existence as potency is related to act." Existences are not things; they do not themselves exist, they lend themselves to essences, which do not intrinsically have them. They have no nature; an existence receives its nature from the essence it actuates. Existence is not being; it gives being – here a customary phrase is used, existence is a principle (a source) of being, not a previous source, but one which is continually in effect. The stage is set for the concept of God as the cause of all existence, who, as the Almighty, holds everything actual without reason or explanation as an act purely of will. The transcendentals Aristotle's classificatory scheme had included the five predicables, or characteristics that might be predicated of a substance. One of these was the property, an essential universal true of the species, but not in the definition (in modern terms, some examples would be grammatical language, a property of man, or a spectral pattern characteristic of an element, both of which are defined in other ways). Pointing out that predicables are predicated univocally of substances; that is, they refer to "the same thing" found in each instance, St. Thomas argued that whatever can be said about being is not univocal, because all beings are unique, each actuated by a unique existence. It is the analogous possession of an existence that allows them to be identified as being; therefore, being is an analogous predication. Whatever can be predicated of all things is universal-like but not universal, category-like but not a category. St. Thomas called them (perhaps not originally) the transcendentia, "transcendentals", because they "climb above" the categories, just as being climbs above substance. Later academics also referred to them as "the properties of being." The number is generally three or four. Being in Islamic philosophy The nature of "being" has also been debated and explored in Islamic philosophy, notably by Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Suhrawardi, and Mulla Sadra. A modern linguistic approach, which notices that Persian language has exceptionally developed two kinds of "is"es, i.e. ast ("is", as a copula) and hast (as an existential "is"), examines the linguistic properties of the two lexemes in the first place, then evaluates how the statements made by other languages with regard to being can stand the test of Persian frame of reference. In this modern linguistic approach, it is noticed that the original language of the source, e.g. Greek (like German or French or English), has only one word for two concepts, ast and hast, or, like Arabic, has no word at all for either word. It therefore exploits the Persian hast (existential is) versus ast (predicative is or copula) to address both Western and Islamic ontological arguments on being and existence. This linguistic method shows the scope of confusion created by languages which cannot differentiate between existential be and copula. It manifests, for instance, that the main theme of Heidegger's Being and Time is astī (is-ness) rather than hastī (existence). When, in the beginning of his book, Heidegger claims that people always talk about existence in their everyday language, without knowing what it means. The example he resorts to is: "the sky is blue", which in Persian can ONLY be translated with the use of the copula ast, and says nothing about being or existence. In the same manner, the linguistic method addresses the ontological works written in Arabic. Since Arabic, like Latin in Europe, had become the official language of philosophical and scientific works in the so-called Islamic World, the early Persian or Arab philosophers had difficulty discussing being

phylogenetically as all descendants of the most recent common ancestor of modern birds and Archaeopteryx lithographica. However, an earlier definition proposed by Jacques Gauthier gained wide currency in the 21st century, and is used by many scientists including adherents of the Phylocode system. Gauthier defined Aves to include only the crown group of the set of modern birds. This was done by excluding most groups known only from fossils, and assigning them, instead, to the broader group Avialae, in part to avoid the uncertainties about the placement of Archaeopteryx in relation to animals traditionally thought of as theropod dinosaurs. Gauthier and de Queiroz identified four different definitions for the same biological name "Aves", which is a problem. The authors proposed to reserve the term Aves only for the crown group consisting of the last common ancestor of all living birds and all of its descendants, which corresponds to meaning number 4 below. He assigned other names to the other groups. Aves can mean all archosaurs closer to birds than to crocodiles (alternately Avemetatarsalia) Aves can mean those advanced archosaurs with feathers (alternately Avifilopluma) Aves can mean those feathered dinosaurs that fly (alternately Avialae) Aves can mean the last common ancestor of all the currently living birds and all of its descendants (a "crown group", in this sense synonymous with Neornithes) Under the fourth definition Archaeopteryx, traditionally considered one of the earliest members of Aves, is removed from this group, becoming a non-avian dinosaur instead. These proposals have been adopted by many researchers in the field of palaeontology and bird evolution, though the exact definitions applied have been inconsistent. Avialae, initially proposed to replace the traditional fossil content of Aves, is often used synonymously with the vernacular term "bird" by these researchers. Most researchers define Avialae as branch-based clade, though definitions vary. Many authors have used a definition similar to "all theropods closer to birds than to Deinonychus", with Troodon being sometimes added as a second external specifier in case it is closer to birds than to Deinonychus. Avialae is also occasionally defined as an apomorphy-based clade (that is, one based on physical characteristics). Jacques Gauthier, who named Avialae in 1986, re-defined it in 2001 as all dinosaurs that possessed feathered wings used in flapping flight, and the birds that descended from them. Despite being currently one of the most widely used, the crown-group definition of Aves has been criticised by some researchers. Lee and Spencer (1997) argued that, contrary to what Gauthier defended, this definition would not increase the stability of the clade and the exact content of Aves will always be uncertain because any defined clade (either crown or not) will have few synapomorphies distinguishing it from its closest relatives. Their alternative definition is synonymous to Avifilopluma. Dinosaurs and the origin of birds Based on fossil and biological evidence, most scientists accept that birds are a specialised subgroup of theropod dinosaurs and, more specifically, members of Maniraptora, a group of theropods which includes dromaeosaurids and oviraptorosaurs, among others. As scientists have discovered more theropods closely related to birds, the previously clear distinction between non-birds and birds has become blurred. Recent discoveries in the Liaoning Province of northeast China, which demonstrate many small theropod feathered dinosaurs, contribute to this ambiguity. The consensus view in contemporary palaeontology is that the flying theropods, or avialans, are the closest relatives of the deinonychosaurs, which include dromaeosaurids and troodontids. Together, these form a group called Paraves. Some basal members of Deinonychosauria, such as Microraptor, have features which may have enabled them to glide or fly. The most basal deinonychosaurs were very small. This evidence raises the possibility that the ancestor of all paravians may have been arboreal, have been able to glide, or both. Unlike Archaeopteryx and the non-avialan feathered dinosaurs, who primarily ate meat, recent studies suggest that the first avialans were omnivores. The Late Jurassic Archaeopteryx is well known as one of the first transitional fossils to be found, and it provided support for the theory of evolution in the late 19th century. Archaeopteryx was the first fossil to display both clearly traditional reptilian characteristics—teeth, clawed fingers, and a long, lizard-like tail—as well as wings with flight feathers similar to those of modern birds. It is not considered a direct ancestor of birds, though it is possibly closely related to the true ancestor. Early evolution Over 40% of key traits found in modern birds evolved during the 60 million year transition from the earliest bird-line archosaurs to the first maniraptoromorphs, i.e. the first dinosaurs closer to living birds than to Tyrannosaurus rex. The loss of osteoderms otherwise common in archosaurs and acquisition of primitive feathers might have occurred early during this phase. After the appearance of Maniraptoromorpha, the next 40 million years marked a continuous reduction of body size and the accumulation of neotenic (juvenile-like) characteristics. Hypercarnivory became increasingly less common while braincases enlarged and forelimbs became longer. The integument evolved into complex, pennaceous feathers. The oldest known paravian (and probably the earliest avialan) fossils come from the Tiaojishan Formation of China, which has been dated to the late Jurassic period (Oxfordian stage), about 160 million years ago. The avialan species from this time period include Anchiornis huxleyi, Xiaotingia zhengi, and Aurornis xui. The well-known probable early avialan, Archaeopteryx, dates from slightly later Jurassic rocks (about 155 million years old) from Germany. Many of these early avialans shared unusual anatomical features that may be ancestral to modern birds, but were later lost during bird evolution. These features include enlarged claws on the second toe which may have been held clear of the ground in life, and long feathers or "hind wings" covering the hind limbs and feet, which may have been used in aerial manoeuvreing. Avialans diversified into a wide variety of forms during the Cretaceous period. Many groups retained primitive characteristics, such as clawed wings and teeth, though the latter were lost independently in a number of avialan groups, including modern birds (Aves). Increasingly stiff tails (especially the outermost half) can be seen in the evolution of maniraptoromorphs, and this process culminated in the appearance of the pygostyle, an ossification of fused tail vertebrae. In the late Cretaceous, about 100 million years ago, the ancestors of all modern birds evolved a more open pelvis, allowing them to lay larger eggs compared to body size. Around 95 million years ago, they evolved a better sense of smell. A third stage of bird evolution starting with Ornithothoraces (the "bird-chested" avialans) can be associated with the refining of aerodynamics and flight capabilities, and the loss or co-ossification of several skeletal features. Particularly significant are the development of an enlarged, keeled sternum and the alula, and the loss of grasping hands. Early diversity of bird ancestors The first large, diverse lineage of short-tailed avialans to evolve were the Enantiornithes, or "opposite birds", so named because the construction of their shoulder bones was in reverse to that of modern birds. Enantiornithes occupied a wide array of ecological niches, from sand-probing shorebirds and fish-eaters to tree-dwelling forms and seed-eaters. While they were the dominant group of avialans during the Cretaceous period, enantiornithes became extinct along with many other dinosaur groups at the end of the Mesozoic era. Many species of the second major avialan lineage to diversify, the Euornithes (meaning "true birds", because they include the ancestors of modern birds), were semi-aquatic and specialised in eating fish and other small aquatic organisms. Unlike the Enantiornithes, which dominated land-based and arboreal habitats, most early euornithes lacked perching adaptations and seem to have included shorebird-like species, waders, and swimming and diving species. The latter included the superficially gull-like Ichthyornis and the Hesperornithiformes, which became so well adapted to hunting fish in marine environments that they lost the ability to fly and became primarily aquatic. The early euornithes also saw the development of many traits associated with modern birds, like strongly keeled breastbones, toothless, beaked portions of their jaws (though most non-avian euornithes retained teeth in other parts of the jaws). Euornithes also included the first avialans to develop true pygostyle and a fully mobile fan of tail feathers, which may have replaced the "hind wing" as the primary mode of aerial maneuverability and braking in flight. A study on mosaic evolution in the avian skull found that the last common ancestor of all Neornithes might have had a beak similar to that of the modern hook-billed vanga and a skull similar to that of the Eurasian golden oriole. As both species are small aerial and canopy foraging omnivores, a similar ecological niche was inferred for this hypothetical ancestor. Diversification of modern birds All modern birds lie within the crown group Aves (alternately Neornithes), which has two subdivisions: the Palaeognathae, which includes the flightless ratites (such as the ostriches) and the weak-flying tinamous, and the extremely diverse Neognathae, containing all other birds. These two subdivisions have variously been given the rank of superorder, cohort, or infraclass. Depending on the taxonomic viewpoint, the number of known living bird species varies anywhere from 9,800 to 10,758. The discovery of Vegavis from the Maastrichtian, the last stage of the Late Cretaceous proved that the diversification of modern birds started before the Cenozoic era. The affinities of an earlier fossil, the possible galliform Austinornis lentus, dated to about 85 million years ago, are still too controversial to provide a fossil evidence of modern bird diversification. In 2020, Asteriornis from the Maastrichtian was described, it appears to be a close relative of Galloanserae, the earliest diverging lineage within Neognathae. Most studies agree on a Cretaceous age for the most recent common ancestor of modern birds but estimates range from the Early Cretaceous to the latest Late Cretaceous. Similarly, there is no agreement on whether most of the early diversification of modern birds occurred before or after the Cretaceous–Palaeogene extinction event. This disagreement is in part caused by a divergence in the evidence; most molecular dating studies suggests a Cretaceous evolutionary radiation, while fossil evidence points to a Cenozoic radiation (the so-called 'rocks' versus 'clocks' controversy). Previous attempts to reconcile molecular and fossil evidence have proved controversial, but more recent estimates, using a more comprehensive sample of fossils and a new way of calibrating molecular clocks, showed that while according to some studies, modern birds originated early in the Late Cretaceous in Western Gondwana, a pulse of diversification in all major groups occurred around the Cretaceous–Palaeogene extinction event. Modern birds expanded from West Gondwana to the Laurasia through two routes. One route was an Antarctic interchange in the Paleogene. This can be confirmed with the presence of multiple avian groups in Australia and New Zealand. The other route was probably through North America, via land bridges, during the Paleocene. This allowed the expansion and diversification of Neornithes into the Holarctic and Paleotropics. On the other hand, the occurrence of Asteriornis in the Northern Hemisphere challenges biogeographical hypotheses of a Gondwanan origin of crown birds. Classification of bird orders Cladogram of modern bird relationships based on Braun & Kimball (2021) The classification of birds is a contentious issue. Sibley and Ahlquist's Phylogeny and Classification of Birds (1990) is a landmark work on the classification of birds, although it is frequently debated and constantly revised. Most evidence seems to suggest the assignment of orders is accurate, but scientists disagree about the relationships between the orders themselves; evidence from modern bird anatomy, fossils and DNA have all been brought to bear on the problem, but no strong consensus has emerged. More recently, new fossil and molecular evidence is providing an increasingly clear picture of the evolution of modern bird orders. Genomics , the genome had been sequenced for only two birds, the chicken and the zebra finch. the genomes of 542 species of birds had been completed. At least one genome has been sequenced from every order. These include at least one species in about 90% of extant avian families (218 out of 236 families recognised by the Howard and Moore Checklist). Being able to sequence and compare whole genomes gives researchers many types of information, about genes, the DNA that regulates the genes, and their evolutionary history. This has led to reconsideration of some of the classifications that were based solely on the identification of protein-coding genes. Waterbirds such as pelicans and flamingos, for example, may have in common specific adaptations suited to their environment that were developed independently. Distribution Birds live and breed in most terrestrial habitats and on all seven continents, reaching their southern extreme in the snow petrel's breeding colonies up to inland in Antarctica. The highest bird diversity occurs in tropical regions. It was earlier thought that this high diversity was the result of higher speciation rates in the tropics; however recent studies found higher speciation rates in the high latitudes that were offset by greater extinction rates than in the tropics. Many species migrate annually over great distances and across oceans; several families of birds have adapted to life both on the world's oceans and in them, and some seabird species come ashore only to breed, while some penguins have been recorded diving up to deep. Many bird species have established breeding populations in areas to which they have been introduced by humans. Some of these introductions have been deliberate; the ring-necked pheasant, for example, has been introduced around the world as a game bird. Others have been accidental, such as the establishment of wild monk parakeets in several North American cities after their escape from captivity. Some species, including cattle egret, yellow-headed caracara and galah, have spread naturally far beyond their original ranges as agricultural practices created suitable new habitat. Anatomy and physiology Compared with other vertebrates, birds have a body plan that shows many unusual adaptations, mostly to facilitate flight. Skeletal system The skeleton consists of very lightweight bones. They have large air-filled cavities (called pneumatic cavities) which connect with the respiratory system. The skull bones in adults are fused and do not show cranial sutures. The orbital cavities that house the eyeballs are large and separated from each other by a bony septum (partition). The spine has cervical, thoracic, lumbar and caudal regions with the number of cervical (neck) vertebrae highly variable and especially flexible, but movement is reduced in the anterior thoracic vertebrae and absent in the later vertebrae. The last few are fused with the pelvis to form the synsacrum. The ribs are flattened and the sternum is keeled for the attachment of flight muscles except in the flightless bird orders. The forelimbs are modified into wings. The wings are more or less developed depending on the species; the only known groups that lost their wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Excretory system Like the reptiles, birds are primarily uricotelic, that is, their kidneys extract nitrogenous waste from their bloodstream and excrete it as uric acid, instead of urea or ammonia, through the ureters into the intestine. Birds do not have a urinary bladder or external urethral opening and (with exception of the ostrich) uric acid is excreted along with faeces as a semisolid waste. However, birds such as hummingbirds can be facultatively ammonotelic, excreting most of the nitrogenous wastes as ammonia. They also excrete creatine, rather than creatinine like mammals. This material, as well as the output of the intestines, emerges from the bird's cloaca. The cloaca is a multi-purpose opening: waste is expelled through it, most birds mate by joining cloaca, and females lay eggs from it. In addition, many species of birds regurgitate pellets. It is a common but not universal feature of altricial passerine nestlings (born helpless, under constant parental care) that instead of excreting directly into the nest, they produce a fecal sac. This is a mucus-covered pouch that allows parents to either dispose of the waste outside the nest or to recycle the waste through their own digestive system. Reproductive system Males within Palaeognathae (with the exception of the kiwis), the Anseriformes (with the exception of screamers), and in rudimentary forms in Galliformes (but fully developed in Cracidae) possess a penis, which is never present in Neoaves. The length is thought to be related to sperm competition. When not copulating, it is hidden within the proctodeum compartment within the cloaca, just inside the vent. Female birds have sperm storage tubules that allow sperm to remain viable long after copulation, a hundred days in some species. Sperm from multiple males may compete through this mechanism. Most female birds have a single ovary and a single oviduct, both on the left side, but there are exceptions: species in at least 16 different orders of birds have two ovaries. Even these species, however, tend to have a single oviduct. It has been speculated that this might be an adaptation to flight, but males have two testes, and it is also observed that the gonads in both sexes decrease dramatically in size outside the breeding season. Also terrestrial birds generally have a single ovary, as does the platypus, an egg-laying mammal. A more likely explanation is that the egg develops a shell while passing through the oviduct over a period of about a day, so that if two eggs were to develop at the same time, there would be a risk to survival. While rare, mostly abortive, parthenogenesis is not unknown in birds and eggs can be diploid, automictic and results in male offspring. Birds are solely gonochoric. Meaning they have two sexes: either female or male. The sex of birds is determined by the Z and W sex chromosomes, rather than by the X and Y chromosomes present in mammals. Male birds have two Z chromosomes (ZZ), and female birds have a W chromosome and a Z chromosome (WZ). In nearly all species of birds, an individual's sex is determined at fertilisation. However, one 2007 study claimed to demonstrate temperature-dependent sex determination among the Australian brushturkey, for which higher temperatures during incubation resulted in a higher female-to-male sex ratio. This, however, was later proven to not be the case. These birds do not exhibit temperature-dependent sex determination, but temperature-dependent sex mortality. Respiratory and circulatory systems Birds have one of the most complex respiratory systems of all animal groups. Upon inhalation, 75% of the fresh air bypasses the lungs and flows directly into a posterior air sac which extends from the lungs and connects with air spaces in the bones and fills them with air. The other 25% of the air goes directly into the lungs. When the bird exhales, the used air flows out of the lungs and the stored fresh air from the posterior air sac is simultaneously forced into the lungs. Thus, a bird's lungs receive a constant supply of fresh air during both inhalation and exhalation. Sound production is achieved using the syrinx, a muscular chamber incorporating multiple tympanic membranes which diverges from the lower end of the trachea; the trachea being elongated in some species, increasing the volume of vocalisations and the perception of the bird's size. In birds, the main arteries taking blood away from the heart originate from the right aortic arch (or pharyngeal arch), unlike in the mammals where the left aortic arch forms this part of the aorta. The postcava receives blood from the limbs via the renal portal system. Unlike in mammals, the circulating red blood cells in birds retain their nucleus. Heart type and features The avian circulatory system is driven by a four-chambered, myogenic heart contained in a fibrous pericardial sac. This pericardial sac is filled with a serous fluid for lubrication. The heart itself is divided into a right and left half, each with an atrium and ventricle. The atrium and ventricles of each side are separated by atrioventricular valves which prevent back flow from one chamber to the next during contraction. Being myogenic, the heart's pace is maintained by pacemaker cells found in the sinoatrial node, located on the right atrium. The sinoatrial node uses calcium to cause a depolarising signal transduction pathway from the atrium through right and left atrioventricular bundle which communicates contraction to the ventricles. The avian heart also consists of muscular arches that are made up of thick bundles of muscular layers. Much like a mammalian heart, the avian heart is composed of endocardial, myocardial and epicardial layers. The atrium walls tend to be thinner than the ventricle walls, due to the intense ventricular contraction used to pump oxygenated blood throughout the body. Avian hearts are generally larger than mammalian hearts when compared to body mass. This adaptation allows more blood to be pumped to meet the high metabolic need associated with flight. Organisation Birds have a very efficient system for diffusing oxygen into the blood; birds have a ten times greater surface area to gas exchange volume than mammals. As a result, birds have more blood in their capillaries per unit of volume of lung than a mammal. The arteries are composed of thick elastic muscles to withstand the pressure of the ventricular contractions, and become more rigid as they move away from the heart. Blood moves through the arteries, which undergo vasoconstriction, and into arterioles which act as a transportation system to distribute primarily oxygen as well as nutrients to all tissues of the body. As the arterioles move away from the heart and into individual organs and tissues they are further divided to increase surface area and slow blood flow. Blood travels through the arterioles and moves into the capillaries where gas exchange can occur. Capillaries are organised into capillary beds in tissues; it is here that blood exchanges oxygen for carbon dioxide waste. In the capillary beds, blood flow is slowed to allow maximum diffusion of oxygen into the tissues. Once the blood has become deoxygenated, it travels through venules then veins and back to the heart. Veins, unlike arteries, are thin and rigid as they do not need to withstand extreme pressure. As blood travels through the venules to the veins a funneling occurs called vasodilation bringing blood back to the heart. Once the blood reaches the heart, it moves first into the right atrium, then the right ventricle to be pumped through the lungs for further gas exchange of carbon dioxide waste for oxygen. Oxygenated blood then flows from the lungs through the left atrium to the left ventricle where it is pumped out to the body. Nervous system The nervous system is large relative to the bird's size. The most developed part of the brain is the one that controls the flight-related functions, while the cerebellum coordinates movement and the cerebrum controls behaviour patterns, navigation, mating and nest building. Most birds have a poor sense of smell with notable exceptions including kiwis, New World vultures and tubenoses. The avian visual system is usually highly developed. Water birds have special flexible lenses, allowing accommodation for vision in air and water. Some species also have dual fovea. Birds are tetrachromatic, possessing ultraviolet (UV) sensitive cone cells in the eye as well as green, red and blue ones. They also have double cones, likely to mediate achromatic vision. Many birds show plumage patterns in ultraviolet that are invisible to the human eye; some birds whose sexes appear similar to the naked eye are distinguished by the presence of ultraviolet reflective patches on their feathers. Male blue tits have an ultraviolet reflective crown patch which is displayed in courtship by posturing and raising of their nape feathers. Ultraviolet light is also used in foraging—kestrels have been shown to search for prey by detecting the UV reflective urine trail marks left on the ground by rodents. With the exception of pigeons and a few other species, the eyelids of birds are not used in blinking. Instead the eye is lubricated by the nictitating membrane, a third eyelid that moves horizontally. The nictitating membrane also covers the eye and acts as a contact lens in many aquatic birds. The bird retina has a fan shaped blood supply system called the pecten. Eyes of most birds are large, not very round and capable of only limited movement in the orbits, typically 10–20°. Birds with eyes on the sides of their heads have a wide visual field, while birds with eyes on the front of their heads, such as owls, have binocular vision and can estimate the depth of field. The avian ear lacks external pinnae but is covered by feathers, although in some birds, such as the Asio, Bubo and Otus owls, these feathers form tufts which resemble ears. The inner ear has a cochlea, but it is not spiral as in mammals. Defence and intraspecific combat A few species are able to use chemical defences against predators; some Procellariiformes can eject an unpleasant stomach oil against an aggressor, and some species of pitohuis from New Guinea have a powerful neurotoxin in their skin and feathers. A lack of field observations limit our knowledge, but intraspecific conflicts are known to sometimes result in injury or death. The screamers (Anhimidae), some jacanas (Jacana, Hydrophasianus), the spur-winged goose (Plectropterus), the torrent duck (Merganetta) and nine species of lapwing (Vanellus) use a sharp spur on the wing as a weapon. The steamer ducks (Tachyeres), geese and swans (Anserinae), the solitaire (Pezophaps), sheathbills (Chionis), some guans (Crax) and stone curlews (Burhinus) use a bony knob on the alular metacarpal to punch and hammer opponents. The jacanas Actophilornis and Irediparra have an expanded, blade-like radius. The extinct Xenicibis was unique in having an elongate forelimb and massive hand which likely functioned in combat or defence as a jointed club or flail. Swans, for instance, may strike with the bony spurs and bite when defending eggs or young. Feathers, plumage, and scales Feathers are a feature characteristic of birds (though also present in some dinosaurs not currently considered to be true birds). They facilitate flight, provide insulation that aids in thermoregulation, and are used in display, camouflage, and signalling. There are several types of feathers, each serving its own set of purposes. Feathers are epidermal growths attached to the skin and arise only in specific tracts of skin called pterylae. The distribution pattern of these feather tracts (pterylosis) is used in taxonomy and systematics. The arrangement and appearance of feathers on the body, called plumage, may vary within species by age, social status, and sex. Plumage is regularly moulted; the standard plumage of a bird that has moulted after breeding is known as the "" plumage, or—in the Humphrey–Parkes terminology—"basic" plumage; breeding plumages or variations of the basic plumage are known under the Humphrey–Parkes system as "" plumages. Moulting is annual in most species, although some may have two moults a year, and large birds of prey may moult only once every few years. Moulting patterns vary across species. In passerines, flight feathers are replaced one at a time with the innermost being the first. When the fifth of sixth primary is replaced, the outermost begin to drop. After the innermost tertiaries are moulted, the starting from the innermost begin to drop and this proceeds to the outer feathers (centrifugal moult). The greater primary are moulted in synchrony with the primary that they overlap. A small number of species, such as ducks and geese, lose all of their flight feathers at once, temporarily becoming flightless. As a general rule, the tail feathers are moulted and replaced starting with the innermost pair. Centripetal moults of tail feathers are however seen in the Phasianidae. The centrifugal moult is modified in the tail feathers of woodpeckers and treecreepers, in that it begins with the second innermost pair of feathers and finishes with the central pair of feathers so that the bird maintains a functional climbing tail. The general pattern seen in passerines is that the primaries are replaced outward, secondaries inward, and the tail from centre outward. Before nesting, the females of most bird species gain a bare brood patch by losing feathers close to the belly. The skin there is well supplied with blood vessels and helps the bird in incubation. Feathers require maintenance and birds preen or groom them daily, spending an average of around 9% of their daily time on this. The bill is used to brush away foreign particles and to apply waxy secretions from the uropygial gland; these secretions protect the feathers' flexibility and act as an antimicrobial agent, inhibiting the growth of feather-degrading bacteria. This may be supplemented with the secretions of formic acid from ants, which birds receive through a behaviour known as anting, to remove feather parasites. The scales of birds are composed of the same keratin as beaks, claws, and spurs. They are found mainly on the toes and metatarsus, but may be found further up on the ankle in some birds. Most bird scales do not overlap significantly, except in the cases of kingfishers and woodpeckers. The scales of birds are thought to be homologous to those of reptiles and mammals. Flight Most birds can fly, which distinguishes them from almost all other vertebrate classes. Flight is the primary means of locomotion for most bird species and is used for searching for food and for escaping from predators. Birds have various adaptations for flight, including a lightweight skeleton, two large flight muscles, the pectoralis (which accounts for 15% of the total mass of the bird) and the supracoracoideus, as well as a modified forelimb (wing) that serves as an aerofoil. Wing shape and size generally determine a bird's flight style and performance; many birds combine powered, flapping flight with less energy-intensive soaring flight. About 60 extant bird species are flightless, as were many extinct birds. Flightlessness often arises in birds on isolated islands, most likely due to limited resources and the absence of mammalian land predators. Flightlessnes is almost exclusively correlated with gigantism due to an island's inheren condition of isolation. Although flightless, penguins use similar musculature and movements to "fly" through the water, as do some flight-capable birds such as auks, shearwaters and dippers. Behaviour Most birds are diurnal, but some birds, such as many species of owls and nightjars, are nocturnal or crepuscular (active during twilight hours), and many coastal waders feed when the tides are appropriate, by day or night. Diet and feeding are varied and often include nectar, fruit, plants, seeds, carrion, and various small animals, including other birds. The digestive system of birds is unique, with a crop for storage and a gizzard that contains swallowed stones for grinding food to compensate for the lack of teeth. Some species such as pigeons and some psittacine species do not have a gallbladder. Most birds are highly adapted for rapid digestion to aid with flight. Some migratory birds have adapted to use protein stored in many parts of their bodies, including protein from the intestines, as additional energy during migration. Birds that employ many strategies to obtain food or feed on a variety of food items are called generalists, while others that concentrate time and effort on specific food items or have a single strategy to obtain food are considered specialists. Avian foraging strategies can vary widely by species. Many birds glean for insects, invertebrates, fruit, or seeds. Some hunt insects by suddenly attacking from a branch. Those species that seek pest insects are considered beneficial 'biological control agents' and their presence encouraged in biological pest control programmes. Combined, insectivorous birds eat 400–500 million metric tons of arthropods annually. Nectar feeders such as hummingbirds, sunbirds, lories, and lorikeets amongst others have specially adapted brushy tongues and in many cases bills designed to fit co-adapted flowers. Kiwis and shorebirds with long bills probe for invertebrates; shorebirds' varied bill lengths and feeding methods result in the separation of ecological niches. Loons, diving ducks, penguins and auks pursue their prey underwater, using their wings or feet for propulsion, while aerial predators such as sulids, kingfishers and terns plunge dive after their prey. Flamingos, three species of prion, and some ducks are filter feeders. Geese and dabbling ducks are primarily grazers. Some species, including frigatebirds, gulls, and skuas, engage in kleptoparasitism, stealing food items from other birds. Kleptoparasitism is thought to be a supplement to food obtained by hunting, rather than a significant part of any species' diet; a study of great frigatebirds stealing from masked boobies estimated that the frigatebirds stole at most 40% of their food and on average stole only 5%. Other birds are scavengers; some of these, like vultures, are specialised carrion eaters, while others, like gulls, corvids, or other birds of prey, are opportunists. Water and drinking Water is needed by many birds although their mode of excretion and lack of sweat glands reduces the physiological demands. Some desert birds can obtain their water needs entirely from moisture in their food. They may also have other adaptations such as allowing their body temperature to rise, saving on moisture loss from evaporative cooling or panting. Seabirds can drink seawater and have salt glands inside the head that eliminate excess salt out of the nostrils. Most birds scoop water in their beaks and raise their head to let water run down the throat. Some species, especially of arid zones, belonging to the pigeon, finch, mousebird, button-quail and bustard families are capable of sucking up water without the need to tilt back their heads. Some desert birds depend on water sources and sandgrouse are particularly well known for their daily congregations at waterholes. Nesting sandgrouse and many plovers carry water to their young by wetting their belly feathers. Some birds carry water for chicks at the nest in their crop or regurgitate it along with food. The pigeon family, flamingos and penguins have adaptations to produce a nutritive fluid called crop milk that they provide to their chicks. Feather

40% of key traits found in modern birds evolved during the 60 million year transition from the earliest bird-line archosaurs to the first maniraptoromorphs, i.e. the first dinosaurs closer to living birds than to Tyrannosaurus rex. The loss of osteoderms otherwise common in archosaurs and acquisition of primitive feathers might have occurred early during this phase. After the appearance of Maniraptoromorpha, the next 40 million years marked a continuous reduction of body size and the accumulation of neotenic (juvenile-like) characteristics. Hypercarnivory became increasingly less common while braincases enlarged and forelimbs became longer. The integument evolved into complex, pennaceous feathers. The oldest known paravian (and probably the earliest avialan) fossils come from the Tiaojishan Formation of China, which has been dated to the late Jurassic period (Oxfordian stage), about 160 million years ago. The avialan species from this time period include Anchiornis huxleyi, Xiaotingia zhengi, and Aurornis xui. The well-known probable early avialan, Archaeopteryx, dates from slightly later Jurassic rocks (about 155 million years old) from Germany. Many of these early avialans shared unusual anatomical features that may be ancestral to modern birds, but were later lost during bird evolution. These features include enlarged claws on the second toe which may have been held clear of the ground in life, and long feathers or "hind wings" covering the hind limbs and feet, which may have been used in aerial manoeuvreing. Avialans diversified into a wide variety of forms during the Cretaceous period. Many groups retained primitive characteristics, such as clawed wings and teeth, though the latter were lost independently in a number of avialan groups, including modern birds (Aves). Increasingly stiff tails (especially the outermost half) can be seen in the evolution of maniraptoromorphs, and this process culminated in the appearance of the pygostyle, an ossification of fused tail vertebrae. In the late Cretaceous, about 100 million years ago, the ancestors of all modern birds evolved a more open pelvis, allowing them to lay larger eggs compared to body size. Around 95 million years ago, they evolved a better sense of smell. A third stage of bird evolution starting with Ornithothoraces (the "bird-chested" avialans) can be associated with the refining of aerodynamics and flight capabilities, and the loss or co-ossification of several skeletal features. Particularly significant are the development of an enlarged, keeled sternum and the alula, and the loss of grasping hands. Early diversity of bird ancestors The first large, diverse lineage of short-tailed avialans to evolve were the Enantiornithes, or "opposite birds", so named because the construction of their shoulder bones was in reverse to that of modern birds. Enantiornithes occupied a wide array of ecological niches, from sand-probing shorebirds and fish-eaters to tree-dwelling forms and seed-eaters. While they were the dominant group of avialans during the Cretaceous period, enantiornithes became extinct along with many other dinosaur groups at the end of the Mesozoic era. Many species of the second major avialan lineage to diversify, the Euornithes (meaning "true birds", because they include the ancestors of modern birds), were semi-aquatic and specialised in eating fish and other small aquatic organisms. Unlike the Enantiornithes, which dominated land-based and arboreal habitats, most early euornithes lacked perching adaptations and seem to have included shorebird-like species, waders, and swimming and diving species. The latter included the superficially gull-like Ichthyornis and the Hesperornithiformes, which became so well adapted to hunting fish in marine environments that they lost the ability to fly and became primarily aquatic. The early euornithes also saw the development of many traits associated with modern birds, like strongly keeled breastbones, toothless, beaked portions of their jaws (though most non-avian euornithes retained teeth in other parts of the jaws). Euornithes also included the first avialans to develop true pygostyle and a fully mobile fan of tail feathers, which may have replaced the "hind wing" as the primary mode of aerial maneuverability and braking in flight. A study on mosaic evolution in the avian skull found that the last common ancestor of all Neornithes might have had a beak similar to that of the modern hook-billed vanga and a skull similar to that of the Eurasian golden oriole. As both species are small aerial and canopy foraging omnivores, a similar ecological niche was inferred for this hypothetical ancestor. Diversification of modern birds All modern birds lie within the crown group Aves (alternately Neornithes), which has two subdivisions: the Palaeognathae, which includes the flightless ratites (such as the ostriches) and the weak-flying tinamous, and the extremely diverse Neognathae, containing all other birds. These two subdivisions have variously been given the rank of superorder, cohort, or infraclass. Depending on the taxonomic viewpoint, the number of known living bird species varies anywhere from 9,800 to 10,758. The discovery of Vegavis from the Maastrichtian, the last stage of the Late Cretaceous proved that the diversification of modern birds started before the Cenozoic era. The affinities of an earlier fossil, the possible galliform Austinornis lentus, dated to about 85 million years ago, are still too controversial to provide a fossil evidence of modern bird diversification. In 2020, Asteriornis from the Maastrichtian was described, it appears to be a close relative of Galloanserae, the earliest diverging lineage within Neognathae. Most studies agree on a Cretaceous age for the most recent common ancestor of modern birds but estimates range from the Early Cretaceous to the latest Late Cretaceous. Similarly, there is no agreement on whether most of the early diversification of modern birds occurred before or after the Cretaceous–Palaeogene extinction event. This disagreement is in part caused by a divergence in the evidence; most molecular dating studies suggests a Cretaceous evolutionary radiation, while fossil evidence points to a Cenozoic radiation (the so-called 'rocks' versus 'clocks' controversy). Previous attempts to reconcile molecular and fossil evidence have proved controversial, but more recent estimates, using a more comprehensive sample of fossils and a new way of calibrating molecular clocks, showed that while according to some studies, modern birds originated early in the Late Cretaceous in Western Gondwana, a pulse of diversification in all major groups occurred around the Cretaceous–Palaeogene extinction event. Modern birds expanded from West Gondwana to the Laurasia through two routes. One route was an Antarctic interchange in the Paleogene. This can be confirmed with the presence of multiple avian groups in Australia and New Zealand. The other route was probably through North America, via land bridges, during the Paleocene. This allowed the expansion and diversification of Neornithes into the Holarctic and Paleotropics. On the other hand, the occurrence of Asteriornis in the Northern Hemisphere challenges biogeographical hypotheses of a Gondwanan origin of crown birds. Classification of bird orders Cladogram of modern bird relationships based on Braun & Kimball (2021) The classification of birds is a contentious issue. Sibley and Ahlquist's Phylogeny and Classification of Birds (1990) is a landmark work on the classification of birds, although it is frequently debated and constantly revised. Most evidence seems to suggest the assignment of orders is accurate, but scientists disagree about the relationships between the orders themselves; evidence from modern bird anatomy, fossils and DNA have all been brought to bear on the problem, but no strong consensus has emerged. More recently, new fossil and molecular evidence is providing an increasingly clear picture of the evolution of modern bird orders. Genomics , the genome had been sequenced for only two birds, the chicken and the zebra finch. the genomes of 542 species of birds had been completed. At least one genome has been sequenced from every order. These include at least one species in about 90% of extant avian families (218 out of 236 families recognised by the Howard and Moore Checklist). Being able to sequence and compare whole genomes gives researchers many types of information, about genes, the DNA that regulates the genes, and their evolutionary history. This has led to reconsideration of some of the classifications that were based solely on the identification of protein-coding genes. Waterbirds such as pelicans and flamingos, for example, may have in common specific adaptations suited to their environment that were developed independently. Distribution Birds live and breed in most terrestrial habitats and on all seven continents, reaching their southern extreme in the snow petrel's breeding colonies up to inland in Antarctica. The highest bird diversity occurs in tropical regions. It was earlier thought that this high diversity was the result of higher speciation rates in the tropics; however recent studies found higher speciation rates in the high latitudes that were offset by greater extinction rates than in the tropics. Many species migrate annually over great distances and across oceans; several families of birds have adapted to life both on the world's oceans and in them, and some seabird species come ashore only to breed, while some penguins have been recorded diving up to deep. Many bird species have established breeding populations in areas to which they have been introduced by humans. Some of these introductions have been deliberate; the ring-necked pheasant, for example, has been introduced around the world as a game bird. Others have been accidental, such as the establishment of wild monk parakeets in several North American cities after their escape from captivity. Some species, including cattle egret, yellow-headed caracara and galah, have spread naturally far beyond their original ranges as agricultural practices created suitable new habitat. Anatomy and physiology Compared with other vertebrates, birds have a body plan that shows many unusual adaptations, mostly to facilitate flight. Skeletal system The skeleton consists of very lightweight bones. They have large air-filled cavities (called pneumatic cavities) which connect with the respiratory system. The skull bones in adults are fused and do not show cranial sutures. The orbital cavities that house the eyeballs are large and separated from each other by a bony septum (partition). The spine has cervical, thoracic, lumbar and caudal regions with the number of cervical (neck) vertebrae highly variable and especially flexible, but movement is reduced in the anterior thoracic vertebrae and absent in the later vertebrae. The last few are fused with the pelvis to form the synsacrum. The ribs are flattened and the sternum is keeled for the attachment of flight muscles except in the flightless bird orders. The forelimbs are modified into wings. The wings are more or less developed depending on the species; the only known groups that lost their wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Excretory system Like the reptiles, birds are primarily uricotelic, that is, their kidneys extract nitrogenous waste from their bloodstream and excrete it as uric acid, instead of urea or ammonia, through the ureters into the intestine. Birds do not have a urinary bladder or external urethral opening and (with exception of the ostrich) uric acid is excreted along with faeces as a semisolid waste. However, birds such as hummingbirds can be facultatively ammonotelic, excreting most of the nitrogenous wastes as ammonia. They also excrete creatine, rather than creatinine like mammals. This material, as well as the output of the intestines, emerges from the bird's cloaca. The cloaca is a multi-purpose opening: waste is expelled through it, most birds mate by joining cloaca, and females lay eggs from it. In addition, many species of birds regurgitate pellets. It is a common but not universal feature of altricial passerine nestlings (born helpless, under constant parental care) that instead of excreting directly into the nest, they produce a fecal sac. This is a mucus-covered pouch that allows parents to either dispose of the waste outside the nest or to recycle the waste through their own digestive system. Reproductive system Males within Palaeognathae (with the exception of the kiwis), the Anseriformes (with the exception of screamers), and in rudimentary forms in Galliformes (but fully developed in Cracidae) possess a penis, which is never present in Neoaves. The length is thought to be related to sperm competition. When not copulating, it is hidden within the proctodeum compartment within the cloaca, just inside the vent. Female birds have sperm storage tubules that allow sperm to remain viable long after copulation, a hundred days in some species. Sperm from multiple males may compete through this mechanism. Most female birds have a single ovary and a single oviduct, both on the left side, but there are exceptions: species in at least 16 different orders of birds have two ovaries. Even these species, however, tend to have a single oviduct. It has been speculated that this might be an adaptation to flight, but males have two testes, and it is also observed that the gonads in both sexes decrease dramatically in size outside the breeding season. Also terrestrial birds generally have a single ovary, as does the platypus, an egg-laying mammal. A more likely explanation is that the egg develops a shell while passing through the oviduct over a period of about a day, so that if two eggs were to develop at the same time, there would be a risk to survival. While rare, mostly abortive, parthenogenesis is not unknown in birds and eggs can be diploid, automictic and results in male offspring. Birds are solely gonochoric. Meaning they have two sexes: either female or male. The sex of birds is determined by the Z and W sex chromosomes, rather than by the X and Y chromosomes present in mammals. Male birds have two Z chromosomes (ZZ), and female birds have a W chromosome and a Z chromosome (WZ). In nearly all species of birds, an individual's sex is determined at fertilisation. However, one 2007 study claimed to demonstrate temperature-dependent sex determination among the Australian brushturkey, for which higher temperatures during incubation resulted in a higher female-to-male sex ratio. This, however, was later proven to not be the case. These birds do not exhibit temperature-dependent sex determination, but temperature-dependent sex mortality. Respiratory and circulatory systems Birds have one of the most complex respiratory systems of all animal groups. Upon inhalation, 75% of the fresh air bypasses the lungs and flows directly into a posterior air sac which extends from the lungs and connects with air spaces in the bones and fills them with air. The other 25% of the air goes directly into the lungs. When the bird exhales, the used air flows out of the lungs and the stored fresh air from the posterior air sac is simultaneously forced into the lungs. Thus, a bird's lungs receive a constant supply of fresh air during both inhalation and exhalation. Sound production is achieved using the syrinx, a muscular chamber incorporating multiple tympanic membranes which diverges from the lower end of the trachea; the trachea being elongated in some species, increasing the volume of vocalisations and the perception of the bird's size. In birds, the main arteries taking blood away from the heart originate from the right aortic arch (or pharyngeal arch), unlike in the mammals where the left aortic arch forms this part of the aorta. The postcava receives blood from the limbs via the renal portal system. Unlike in mammals, the circulating red blood cells in birds retain their nucleus. Heart type and features The avian circulatory system is driven by a four-chambered, myogenic heart contained in a fibrous pericardial sac. This pericardial sac is filled with a serous fluid for lubrication. The heart itself is divided into a right and left half, each with an atrium and ventricle. The atrium and ventricles of each side are separated by atrioventricular valves which prevent back flow from one chamber to the next during contraction. Being myogenic, the heart's pace is maintained by pacemaker cells found in the sinoatrial node, located on the right atrium. The sinoatrial node uses calcium to cause a depolarising signal transduction pathway from the atrium through right and left atrioventricular bundle which communicates contraction to the ventricles. The avian heart also consists of muscular arches that are made up of thick bundles of muscular layers. Much like a mammalian heart, the avian heart is composed of endocardial, myocardial and epicardial layers. The atrium walls tend to be thinner than the ventricle walls, due to the intense ventricular contraction used to pump oxygenated blood throughout the body. Avian hearts are generally larger than mammalian hearts when compared to body mass. This adaptation allows more blood to be pumped to meet the high metabolic need associated with flight. Organisation Birds have a very efficient system for diffusing oxygen into the blood; birds have a ten times greater surface area to gas exchange volume than mammals. As a result, birds have more blood in their capillaries per unit of volume of lung than a mammal. The arteries are composed of thick elastic muscles to withstand the pressure of the ventricular contractions, and become more rigid as they move away from the heart. Blood moves through the arteries, which undergo vasoconstriction, and into arterioles which act as a transportation system to distribute primarily oxygen as well as nutrients to all tissues of the body. As the arterioles move away from the heart and into individual organs and tissues they are further divided to increase surface area and slow blood flow. Blood travels through the arterioles and moves into the capillaries where gas exchange can occur. Capillaries are organised into capillary beds in tissues; it is here that blood exchanges oxygen for carbon dioxide waste. In the capillary beds, blood flow is slowed to allow maximum diffusion of oxygen into the tissues. Once the blood has become deoxygenated, it travels through venules then veins and back to the heart. Veins, unlike arteries, are thin and rigid as they do not need to withstand extreme pressure. As blood travels through the venules to the veins a funneling occurs called vasodilation bringing blood back to the heart. Once the blood reaches the heart, it moves first into the right atrium, then the right ventricle to be pumped through the lungs for further gas exchange of carbon dioxide waste for oxygen. Oxygenated blood then flows from the lungs through the left atrium to the left ventricle where it is pumped out to the body. Nervous system The nervous system is large relative to the bird's size. The most developed part of the brain is the one that controls the flight-related functions, while the cerebellum coordinates movement and the cerebrum controls behaviour patterns, navigation, mating and nest building. Most birds have a poor sense of smell with notable exceptions including kiwis, New World vultures and tubenoses. The avian visual system is usually highly developed. Water birds have special flexible lenses, allowing accommodation for vision in air and water. Some species also have dual fovea. Birds are tetrachromatic, possessing ultraviolet (UV) sensitive cone cells in the eye as well as green, red and blue ones. They also have double cones, likely to mediate achromatic vision. Many birds show plumage patterns in ultraviolet that are invisible to the human eye; some birds whose sexes appear similar to the naked eye are distinguished by the presence of ultraviolet reflective patches on their feathers. Male blue tits have an ultraviolet reflective crown patch which is displayed in courtship by posturing and raising of their nape feathers. Ultraviolet light is also used in foraging—kestrels have been shown to search for prey by detecting the UV reflective urine trail marks left on the ground by rodents. With the exception of pigeons and a few other species, the eyelids of birds are not used in blinking. Instead the eye is lubricated by the nictitating membrane, a third eyelid that moves horizontally. The nictitating membrane also covers the eye and acts as a contact lens in many aquatic birds. The bird retina has a fan shaped blood supply system called the pecten. Eyes of most birds are large, not very round and capable of only limited movement in the orbits, typically 10–20°. Birds with eyes on the sides of their heads have a wide visual field, while birds with eyes on the front of their heads, such as owls, have binocular vision and can estimate the depth of field. The avian ear lacks external pinnae but is covered by feathers, although in some birds, such as the Asio, Bubo and Otus owls, these feathers form tufts which resemble ears. The inner ear has a cochlea, but it is not spiral as in mammals. Defence and intraspecific combat A few species are able to use chemical defences against predators; some Procellariiformes can eject an unpleasant stomach oil against an aggressor, and some species of pitohuis from New Guinea have a powerful neurotoxin in their skin and feathers. A lack of field observations limit our knowledge, but intraspecific conflicts are known to sometimes result in injury or death. The screamers (Anhimidae), some jacanas (Jacana, Hydrophasianus), the spur-winged goose (Plectropterus), the torrent duck (Merganetta) and nine species of lapwing (Vanellus) use a sharp spur on the wing as a weapon. The steamer ducks (Tachyeres), geese and swans (Anserinae), the solitaire (Pezophaps), sheathbills (Chionis), some guans (Crax) and stone curlews (Burhinus) use a bony knob on the alular metacarpal to punch and hammer opponents. The jacanas Actophilornis and Irediparra have an expanded, blade-like radius. The extinct Xenicibis was unique in having an elongate forelimb and massive hand which likely functioned in combat or defence as a jointed club or flail. Swans, for instance, may strike with the bony spurs and bite when defending eggs or young. Feathers, plumage, and scales Feathers are a feature characteristic of birds (though also present in some dinosaurs not currently considered to be true birds). They facilitate flight, provide insulation that aids in thermoregulation, and are used in display, camouflage, and signalling. There are several types of feathers, each serving its own set of purposes. Feathers are epidermal growths attached to the skin and arise only in specific tracts of skin called pterylae. The distribution pattern of these feather tracts (pterylosis) is used in taxonomy and systematics. The arrangement and appearance of feathers on the body, called plumage, may vary within species by age, social status, and sex. Plumage is regularly moulted; the standard plumage of a bird that has moulted after breeding is known as the "" plumage, or—in the Humphrey–Parkes terminology—"basic" plumage; breeding plumages or variations of the basic plumage are known under the Humphrey–Parkes system as "" plumages. Moulting is annual in most species, although some may have two moults a year, and large birds of prey may moult only once every few years. Moulting patterns vary across species. In passerines, flight feathers are replaced one at a time with the innermost being the first. When the fifth of sixth primary is replaced, the outermost begin to drop. After the innermost tertiaries are moulted, the starting from the innermost begin to drop and this proceeds to the outer feathers (centrifugal moult). The greater primary are moulted in synchrony with the primary that they overlap. A small number of species, such as ducks and geese, lose all of their flight feathers at once, temporarily becoming flightless. As a general rule, the tail feathers are moulted and replaced starting with the innermost pair. Centripetal moults of tail feathers are however seen in the Phasianidae. The centrifugal moult is modified in the tail feathers of woodpeckers and treecreepers, in that it begins with the second innermost pair of feathers and finishes with the central pair of feathers so that the bird maintains a functional climbing tail. The general pattern seen in passerines is that the primaries are replaced outward, secondaries inward, and the tail from centre outward. Before nesting, the females of most bird species gain a bare brood patch by losing feathers close to the belly. The skin there is well supplied with blood vessels and helps the bird in incubation. Feathers require maintenance and birds preen or groom them daily, spending an average of around 9% of their daily time on this. The bill is used to brush away foreign particles and to apply waxy secretions from the uropygial gland; these secretions protect the feathers' flexibility and act as an antimicrobial agent, inhibiting the growth of feather-degrading bacteria. This may be supplemented with the secretions of formic acid from ants, which birds receive through a behaviour known as anting, to remove feather parasites. The scales of birds are composed of the same keratin as beaks, claws, and spurs. They are found mainly on the toes and metatarsus, but may be found further up on the ankle in some birds. Most bird scales do not overlap significantly, except in the cases of kingfishers and woodpeckers. The scales of birds are thought to be homologous to those of reptiles and mammals. Flight Most birds can fly, which distinguishes them from almost all other vertebrate classes. Flight is the primary means of locomotion for most bird species and is used for searching for food and for escaping from predators. Birds have various adaptations for flight, including a lightweight skeleton, two large flight muscles, the pectoralis (which accounts for 15% of the total mass of the bird) and the supracoracoideus, as well as a modified forelimb (wing) that serves as an aerofoil. Wing shape and size generally determine a bird's flight style and performance; many birds combine powered, flapping flight with less energy-intensive soaring flight. About 60 extant bird species are flightless, as were many extinct birds. Flightlessness often arises in birds on isolated islands, most likely due to limited resources and the absence of mammalian land predators. Flightlessnes is almost exclusively correlated with gigantism due to an island's inheren condition of isolation. Although flightless, penguins use similar musculature and movements to "fly" through the water, as do some flight-capable birds such as auks, shearwaters and dippers. Behaviour Most birds are diurnal, but some birds, such as many species of owls and nightjars, are nocturnal or crepuscular (active during twilight hours), and many coastal waders feed when the tides are appropriate, by day or night. Diet and feeding are varied and often include nectar, fruit, plants, seeds, carrion, and various small animals, including other birds. The digestive system of birds is unique, with a crop for storage and a gizzard that contains swallowed stones for grinding food to compensate for the lack of teeth. Some species such as pigeons and some psittacine species do not have a gallbladder. Most birds are highly adapted for rapid digestion to aid with flight. Some migratory birds have adapted to use protein stored in many parts of their bodies, including protein from the intestines, as additional energy during migration. Birds that employ many strategies to obtain food or feed on a variety of food items are called generalists, while others that concentrate time and effort on specific food items or have a single strategy to obtain food are considered specialists. Avian foraging strategies can vary widely by species. Many birds glean for insects, invertebrates, fruit, or seeds. Some hunt insects by suddenly attacking from a branch. Those species that seek pest insects are considered beneficial 'biological control agents' and their presence encouraged in biological pest control programmes. Combined, insectivorous birds eat 400–500 million metric tons of arthropods annually. Nectar feeders such as hummingbirds, sunbirds, lories, and lorikeets amongst others have specially adapted brushy tongues and in many cases bills designed to fit co-adapted flowers. Kiwis and shorebirds with long bills probe for invertebrates; shorebirds' varied bill lengths and feeding methods result in the separation of ecological niches. Loons, diving ducks, penguins and auks pursue their prey underwater, using their wings or feet for propulsion, while aerial predators such as sulids, kingfishers and terns plunge dive after their prey. Flamingos, three species

Request Live the following day. She had a mini-Disney concert titled "Britney Spears & Joey McIntyre in Concert." Spears and Joey McIntyre performed live in the taped concert event. In November, Spears performed the album's first two singles at the MTV Europe Music Awards. Promotion for the album continued in early 2000, where Spears performed at the 2000 American Music Awards, and also performed "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart" in a medley with "...Baby One More Time" at the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards. On March 5, 1999, it was reported that Spears was planning her first headlining tour. She announced that the tour would start in July. On May 12, Tommy Hilfiger was announced as the main tour sponsor. During the time of the announcement, Spears was being featured in the company's "AllStars" campaign. On December 17, during the premiere of the music video of "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart" on TRL, Spears called the show to announce March 2000 United States tour dates. The extension, entitled Crazy 2k Tour, was considered a prelude to her future world tour, Oops!... I Did It Again World Tour. The leg's main sponsor was Got Milk?. Media director Peter Gardiner explained, "Britney is magic with teen-age girls, and that's an absolutely crucial target for milk". Spears shot an advertising campaign to be shown before her performances began. The secondary sponsor was Polaroid and the corporation released the I-Zone as the tour's official camera. Spears used the I-Zone onstage to take pictures of the audience and further promote the product. The show was divided into segments, separated by interlude, ending with an encore. The set list consisted of songs from her debut album and several covers. Some changes were made during the 2000 leg, with the covers replaced by songs from her second studio album, Oops!... I Did It Again. The tour received positive critical appreciation. During the tour, Spears was accused of lip synching, although she denied these claims. On April 20, 2000, the concert at Hilton Hawaiian Village in Honolulu, Hawaii, was taped. It was slightly altered from its Crazy 2k incarnation and featured different costumes. On June 5, 2000, it was broadcast on Fox. The special was aired several times during the year. On November 21, 2000, Jive Records released the Live and More! DVD, which included the Fox special. It was certified triple Platinum by the RIAA for shipping 300,000 units. Singles "...Baby One More Time" was released to radio airplay as Spears' debut single on September 28, 1998, followed on October 23 by the retail CD and cassette singles. The song received generally favorable critical reviews, mostly praising its composition. After the music video appeared in late November, the single attained worldwide success in early 1999, reaching number one in every European country where it charted. It received numerous certifications around the world, and is one of the best-selling singles of all time, at over ten million copies. The video, directed by Nigel Dick, portrays Spears as a high school student who starts to sing and dance around the school, while watching her love interest from afar. In 2010, the music video for "...Baby One More Time" was voted the third-most influential video in the history of pop music. "Sometimes" was released as the second single on April 6, 1999. "Sometimes" achieved commercial success worldwide, reaching number one on Ultratop Flanders Singles in Belgium, Mega Single Top 100 in Netherlands and RIANZ Singles in New Zealand, while peaking inside the top five in four countries. In the United States, "Sometimes" missed the top-twenty, peaking at number twenty-one on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video for the song was directed by Nigel Dick. During rehearsals, on February 11, 1999, Spears injured her left knee and needed surgery. After recuperating in Kentwood, Louisiana, the music video was shot on April 9–10, 1999 at Paradise Cove in Malibu, California. It was released on May 6, 1999, on MTV's Total Request Live. In May 1999, Max Martin and Spears went to the Battery Studios in New York City to re-record the vocals of "(You Drive Me) Crazy", for a reproduced version called "The Stop! Remix" that was going to be included on the original motion picture soundtrack of the film Drive Me Crazy (1999). "The Stop! Remix" of the song was released as the album's third single on August 24, 1999. The remix has the addition of a stanza where Spears yells "Stop!", then all sound cutting out, followed by a transition. It also omits the lines "Lovin' you mean so much more, more than anything I ever loved before". The music video was directed by Nigel Dick, and featured actors Melissa Joan Hart and Adrian Grenier. "Born to Make You Happy" was released in Europe on December 6, 1999, as the fourth single, and received mixed reviews from music critics. The song achieved commercial success, peaking inside the top-five in eleven countries. The music video for it was directed by Billie Woodruff and produced by Geneva Films, choreographed by Wade Robson. The song was not released as a single in the United States. "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart" was released on December 14, 1999, as the fifth and final single. The song also received mixed reviews, finding the song a classic hit and competent single, despite considering it as an unremarkable song that refers only to kissing. "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart" achieved moderate success, peaking at number thirty-seven in Australia, and twenty-three in New Zealand. Through imports, the song reached one hundred seventy-four in the United Kingdom. In the United States, "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart" reached number fourteen on Billboard Hot 100, and seventeen on Pop Songs, and was later certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on March 28, 2000, for selling over 1,000,000 physical units of the single. The music video, directed by Gregory Dark, was released on December 17, 1999. It was highly criticized due to the fact that Dark had previously directed porn films. Critical reception At the time of its release, ...Baby One More Time received mixed reviews from critics. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic gave the album four out of five stars, Billboards Paul Verna considered the album "a top 40-ready workout filled with hook-laden songs from the same bag as the title cut". Village Voice critic Robert Christgau highlighted the title track and "Soda Pop" while summing the album up as a "girl next door" version of Madonna. Kyle Anderson of MTV said he "was surprised in more ways than one" with his first listening of ...Baby One More Time, commenting he "expected there to be a lot of filler (there sort of is), though I didn't expect it to be as odd (at least sonically) as it ended up being. There has never been any mystery to why Spears became such a superstar, but these songs probably would have been huge even if Britney wore burlap sacks in all of her videos." Barry Walters of Rolling Stone gave the album two stars out of five, and compared the album's sound to early hits of Debbie Gibson, Mariah Carey, and Samantha Fox. Walters also said that "while several Cherion-crafted kiddie-funk jams serve up beefy hooks, shameless schlock slowies, like 'E-Mail My Heart', is pure spam." A NME reviewer rated ...Baby One More Time 1 out of 10, saying that "we seem to have reached crisis point: pubescent pop is now so rife that 17-year-old Britney 'lizard-lounge' Spears is already halfway through her lucrative showbiz career". He also found the album premature, commenting, "hopefully, if she starts to live the wretched life that we all eventually do, her voice will show the scars, she'll stop looking so fucking smug, she'll find solace in drugs and we'll be all the happier for it. Now grow up, girl. Quick!" Amanda Murray of Sputnikmusic felt that, "with the exception of the terrific title track, ...Baby One More Time is a collection of either competent pop songs underwhelmingly executed or underwhelmingly written pop songs competently executed." The album has listed as the 16th best female album of all time on Billboard 200. Accolades |- ! scope="row"| 1999 | Juno Award | Best Selling Album (Foreign or Domestic) | rowspan="2"| ...Baby One More Time | | style="text-align:center;"| |- ! scope="row"| 1999 | Teen Choice Award | Choice Music – Album | | style="text-align:center;"| |- ! scope="row"| 1999 | YoungStar Award | Best Young Recording Artist or Musical Group | rowspan="2"| Britney Spears | | style="text-align:center;"| |- ! scope="row"| 1999 | Billboard Music Award | Female Albums Artist of the Year | | style="text-align:center;"| |- ! scope="row"| 2000 | Guinness World Records | Best Selling Album in the US by a Female Artist | rowspan="5"| ...Baby One More Time | | style="text-align:center;"| |- ! scope="row"| 2000 | American Music Award | Favorite Pop/Rock Album | | style="text-align:center;"| |- ! scope="row"| 2000 | Blockbuster Entertainment Award | Favorite CD | | style="text-align:center;"| |- ! scope="row"| 2000 | Hungarian Music Award | Foreign Pop Album of the Year | | style="text-align:center;"| |- ! scope="row"| 2003 | Guinness World Records | Best Selling Album by a Teenage Solo Artist | | style="text-align:center;"| |} Commercial performance ...Baby One More Time debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 selling 121,000 copies in its first week, replacing DMX's Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood (1998). Spears broke several records by doing so. The singer became the first new female artist to have a number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one album on the Billboard 200 at the same time; the first new artist (male or female) to have a single go to the number one spot the same week that the album debuted at number one; and the first new female artist to have the first single and first album at number one the same week. Spears is also the youngest female in Billboard history to have a simultaneous single and album at number one in the same week. After four weeks since its release, the album had sold more than 500,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan sales data. After dropping to the top five, the album went back to number one in its fourth week. On its fifth week, it reached its highest sales week with 229,000 copies sold, and a total of over 804,000 copies sold. ...Baby One More Time spent a total of six non-consecutive weeks at number one, and sold more than 1.8 million copies in its first two months of release in the country. In its forty-seventh week on the Billboard 200, the album held strong at number three, and with sales of over of 10 million copies in the United States alone. The album was later certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), making Spears the youngest artist to receive that award, breaking Alanis Morissette's record, who was 21-years-old when she released Jagged Little Pill (1995). The album was the 14th album since 1991 to sell over 10 million copies in the United States, and Spears became the best-selling female artist of 1999. ...Baby One More Time spent a total of 51 weeks in the top 10 of the Billboard 200. It was the second best-selling album in the US, only behind Millennium by the Backstreet Boys. The album spent a total of one-hundred-and-three weeks on the chart. ...Baby One More Time landed at number three on BMG Music Club all-time best-sellers list, selling 1.6 million units, behind Shania Twain's Come on Over (1997). As of May 2020, ...Baby One More Time has sold 10.7 million copies in the United States according to Nielsen SoundScan, with the additional 1.6 million sold at BMG Music Clubs. Nielsen SoundScan does not count copies sold through clubs like the BMG Music Service, which were significantly popular in the 1990s. The album debuted at number one on the Canadian Albums Chart, totaling nine non-consecutive weeks at the top. On December 12, 1999, the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) certified it diamond, for sales over one million units. ...Baby One More Time spent two weeks at number two on the European Top 100 Albums, and sold over four million copies within the continent, being certified quadruple platinum by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). The album reached number two on the UK Albums Chart, number four on French Albums Chart and was certified quadruple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), double platinum by the Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique (SNEP), triple gold in Germany by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), and decuple platinum (diamond) by the Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry (ZPAV). ...Baby One More Time debuted at number nine in May 1999 on the ARIA Albums Chart in Australia, reaching number two nine weeks later, placing behind the Dawson's Creek soundtrack. The album became the seventh highest-selling of 1999 in the country, and was certified quadruple platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) the following year after shipping 280,000 copies to retailers. The album debuted at number three on the RIANZ Albums Chart in New Zealand, placing behind Shania Twain's Come on Over (1997) and The Corrs' Talk on Corners (1997). The album was later certified triple platinum in the country by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ). Impact and legacy Spears was at the forefront of the female teen pop explosion starting in 1999 and extending through the 2000s, leading the pack of Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, and Mandy Moore. All of these performers had been developing material in 1998, but the market changed dramatically in December 1998 when Spears's debut single and video were charting highly. RCA Records signed Aguilera and rushed her debut single to capitalize on Spears's success, producing the hit single "Genie in a Bottle" in June 1999 and Aguilera's debut album a few months later. Her album sold millions but not as many as Spears's. Simpson consciously modeled her persona as more mature than Spears; her "I Wanna Love You Forever" charted in

karaoke song along with some pictures. Rudolph decided to pitch her to record labels, which required a professional demo. He sent Spears an unused song from Toni Braxton; she rehearsed for a week and recorded in a studio with a sound engineer. Spears traveled to New York with the demo and met executives from four labels, returning to Kentwood the same day. Three rejected her, arguing audiences wanted pop bands such as the Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls, and "there wasn't going to be another Madonna, another Debbie Gibson or another Tiffany." Two weeks later, executives from Jive Records returned calls to Rudolph. Senior vice president of A&R Jeff Fenster stated, "It's very rare to hear someone that age who can deliver emotional content and commercial appeal. [...] For any artist, the motivation—the 'eye of the tiger'—is extremely important. And Britney had that." They appointed her to work with producer Eric Foster White for a month, who reportedly shaped her voice from "lower and less poppy" delivery to "distinctively, unmistakably Britney." Recording and production Spears recorded thirteen songs with Eric Foster White, including "Autumn Goodbye", "E-Mail My Heart", "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart", "I'm So Curious", "I Will Still Love You", "Luv the Hurt Away", "Let Me Take You There", "Soda Pop", "Thinkin' About You", "Nothing Less than Real", "Wishing on a Falling Star" and "You Got It All". The singer also recorded a cover of Sonny & Cher's 1967 single "The Beat Goes On". White was responsible for the vocal recording and song production, while additional production was done by English electronic music group All Seeing I. After hearing the material, president Clive Calder ordered a full album. Spears flew to Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, Sweden, where half of the album was recorded from May 1998, with producers Max Martin and Rami Yacoub, and contributions from others including songwriting from Denniz Pop who was too ill to attend any recording sessions. Martin showed Spears and her management a track titled "Hit Me Baby One More Time", which was originally written for American R&B group TLC; however, they rejected it. Spears later said that she felt excited when she heard it and knew it was going to be a hit. "We at Jive said, 'This is a fuckin' smash'," revealed the label's A&R executive, Steven Lunt; however, other executives were concerned that the line "Hit Me" would condone domestic violence, and later revised it to "...Baby One More Time". The singer revealed that she "didn't do well at all the first day in the studio [recording the song], I was just too nervous. So I went out that night and had some fun. The next day I was completely relaxed and nailed it. You gotta be relaxed singing '... Baby One More Time'." By June 1998, the album was done, and Spears embarked on a promotional tour sponsored by L'Oréal. The title track was released as a single in September 1998, followed its video in November, and it rose quickly up the pop charts. The album was initially set to release in October but due to marketing issues, it was pushed back to January 12, 1999. Music and lyrics Spears originally envisioned "Sheryl Crow music, but younger more adult contemporary", but she acquiesced to the wishes of her label, since "It made more sense to go pop, because I can dance to it—it's more me." The album opens with the first single "...Baby One More Time", a teen pop and dance-pop song that begins with a three-note motif in the bass range of the piano. The opening was compared to many other songs, such as "We Will Rock You" (1977), "Start Me Up" (1981), "These Words" (2004) and the theme song of the film Jaws due to the fact the track "makes its presence known in exactly one second". According to magazine Blender, "...Baby One More Time" is composed by "wah-wah guitar lines and EKG-machine bass-slaps". Claudia Mitchell and Jacqueline Reid-Walsh, authors of Girl Culture: Studying girl culture : a readers' guide (2008), observed that the lyrics of the song "gesture toward [Spears] longing for the return of an ex-boyfriend." The next song and third single, "(You Drive Me) Crazy" runs through a moderately slow dance beat, and has a rhythm and blues melody mixed with edgy synthesized instrumentals. The third track and second single "Sometimes" is a ballad, that Spears begins with "You tell me you're in love with me/That you can't take your pretty eyes away from me/It's not that I don't wanna stay/But every time you come too close I move away". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic noted the song has "a catchy hook and endearing melody, with a reminiscent euro-dance rhythm." After "Sometimes" is ...Baby One More Time's fourth track, "Soda Pop", a song that draws influences from bubblegum pop and dancehall, and features background vocals from co-writer Mikey Bassie. Spears' vocals on the fifth track, "Born to Make You Happy" (which was released as the album's fourth single in Europe), span more than an octave. Its lyrics allude to a relationship that a woman desires to repair, not quite understanding what went wrong, as she comes to realize that "I don't know how to live without your love/I was born to make you happy". The sixth track and final single, "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart", is a sentimental slow-tempo teen pop ballad. "I Will Be There" is a pop rock song that features a guitar riff similar to Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn" (1997), with a "rousing chorus about standing by your man (or a best friend or a house pet)", as noted by Kyle Anderson of MTV. The eleventh track, "E-Mail My Heart", is a sensitive piano ballad where Spears sings, "E-mail me back/ And say our love will stay alive". The cover of Sonny & Cher's 1967 single "The Beat Goes On" is influenced by bossa nova and trip hop, and features a similar sound to spy movies themes. Among the bonus tracks included on some editions of the album is a cover of J'Son's 1996 song "I'll Never Stop Loving You". Release and promotion ...Baby One More Time was released in North America and Philippines on January 12, 1999, in Japan on February 24 and in Europe and Oceania on March 8. The album was re-released in Europe on June 30, 2003, and the digital deluxe edition was released on December 25, 2007 (Christmas Day), in the United States. On August 14, 2017, it was announced that 2,500 pink-and-white-swirl copies of ...Baby One More Time would be released on vinyl exclusively through Urban Outfitters on November 3, 2017. Promotion began in 1998, when Spears did a small tour in malls and food courts that were located mostly in larger cities around the United States and Canada. Each show lasted around thirty minutes, and Spears had two male dancers with her on the stage. The promo tour is also known as the L'Oréal Mall Tour, after its sponsor. The singer made several promotional appearances including talk shows and live performances around the world. In December 1998, the lead single first showed up on MTV's and the Box's most-requested video charts. Spears appeared on the Ricki Lake Show, the Howie Mandel Show, and was the presenter of the 1999 American Music Awards, prior to the release of the album. The singer also appeared on MTV's Spring Break and on the hundredth episode of Nickelodeon's All That. However, after hurting her knee, she had rescheduled appearances several shows such as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Live with Regis and Kathie Lee. After recovering, Spears embarked on another promotional schedule. The singer appeared on Nickelodeon's 12th Annual Kids' Choice Awards on May 1, MTV's FANatic on May 12, Live with Regis and Kathie Lee on May 3, and The Rosie O'Donnell Show on May 25. Outside the United States, Spears visited German talk show Wetten, dass..? and Top of the Pops on June 25, 1999. She also went to the United Kingdom, making appearances on programmes such as This Morning, CD:UK and National Lottery. She visited a music variety show called Hey! Hey! Hey! Music Champ in Japan, and performed at the Festival Bar in Italy. Spears was also featured on an episode of ABC television sitcom, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, in which she played herself. Spears was returning a favor to actress Melissa Joan Hart, who played a cameo role in Spears' video for "(You Drive Me) Crazy," according to People. The episode aired on September 24, 1999. The same month, Spears performed on The Rosie O'Donnell Show on September 27, and visited Carson Daly on MTV's Total Request Live the following day. She had a mini-Disney concert titled "Britney Spears & Joey McIntyre in Concert." Spears and Joey McIntyre performed live in the taped concert event. In November, Spears performed the album's first two singles at the MTV Europe Music Awards. Promotion for the album continued in early 2000, where Spears performed at the 2000 American Music Awards, and also performed "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart" in a medley with "...Baby One More Time" at the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards. On March 5, 1999, it was reported that Spears was planning her first headlining tour. She announced that the tour would start in July. On May 12, Tommy Hilfiger was announced as the main tour sponsor. During the time of the announcement, Spears was being featured in the company's "AllStars" campaign. On December 17, during the premiere of the music video of "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart" on TRL, Spears called the show to announce March 2000 United States tour dates. The extension, entitled Crazy 2k Tour, was considered a prelude to her future world tour, Oops!... I Did It Again World Tour. The leg's main sponsor was Got Milk?. Media director Peter Gardiner explained, "Britney is magic with teen-age girls, and that's an absolutely crucial target for milk". Spears shot an advertising campaign to be shown before her performances began. The secondary sponsor was Polaroid and the corporation released the I-Zone as the tour's official camera. Spears used the I-Zone onstage to take pictures of the audience and further promote the product. The show was divided into segments, separated by interlude, ending with an encore. The set list consisted of songs from her debut album and several covers. Some changes were made during the 2000 leg, with the covers replaced by songs from her second studio album, Oops!... I Did It Again. The tour received positive critical appreciation. During the tour, Spears was accused of lip synching, although she denied these claims. On April 20, 2000, the concert at Hilton Hawaiian Village in Honolulu, Hawaii, was taped. It was slightly altered from its Crazy 2k incarnation and featured different costumes. On June 5, 2000, it was broadcast on Fox. The special was aired several times during the year. On November 21, 2000, Jive Records released the Live and More! DVD, which included the Fox special. It was certified triple Platinum by the RIAA for shipping 300,000 units. Singles "...Baby One More Time" was released to radio airplay as Spears' debut single on September 28, 1998, followed on October 23 by the retail CD and cassette singles. The song received generally favorable critical reviews, mostly praising its composition. After the music video appeared in late November, the single attained worldwide success in early 1999, reaching number one in every European country where it charted. It received numerous certifications around the world, and is one of the best-selling singles of all time, at over ten million copies. The video, directed by Nigel Dick, portrays Spears as a high school student who starts to sing and dance around the school, while watching her love interest from afar. In 2010, the music video for "...Baby One More Time" was voted the third-most influential video in the history of pop music. "Sometimes" was released as the second single on April 6, 1999. "Sometimes" achieved commercial success worldwide, reaching number one on Ultratop Flanders Singles in Belgium, Mega Single Top 100 in Netherlands and RIANZ Singles in New Zealand, while peaking inside the top five in four countries. In the United States, "Sometimes" missed the top-twenty, peaking at number twenty-one on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video for the song was directed by Nigel Dick. During rehearsals, on February 11, 1999, Spears injured her left knee and needed surgery. After recuperating in Kentwood, Louisiana, the music video was shot on April 9–10, 1999 at Paradise Cove in Malibu, California. It was released on May 6, 1999, on MTV's Total Request Live. In May 1999, Max Martin and Spears went to the Battery Studios in New York City to re-record the vocals of "(You Drive Me) Crazy", for a reproduced version called "The Stop! Remix" that was going to be included on the original motion picture soundtrack of the film Drive Me Crazy (1999). "The Stop! Remix" of the song was released as the album's third single on August 24, 1999. The remix has the addition of a stanza where Spears yells "Stop!", then all sound cutting out, followed by a transition. It also omits the lines "Lovin' you mean so much more, more than anything I ever loved before". The music video was directed by Nigel Dick, and featured actors Melissa Joan Hart and Adrian Grenier. "Born to Make You Happy" was released in Europe on December 6, 1999, as the fourth single, and received mixed reviews from music critics. The song achieved commercial success, peaking inside the top-five in eleven countries. The music video for it was directed by Billie Woodruff and produced by Geneva Films, choreographed by Wade Robson. The song was not released as a single in the United States. "From the

occurs. Sometimes a misdealt card (such as one of the down cards in poker that has flashed during the deal) will be used as the burn card—in those cases, the card should be immediately placed face up on the deck after the deal is complete. When Texas hold 'em (as well as in Omaha hold 'em) is played in casinos (or

burn card might be marginally useful, such as knowing there is one fewer Ace in the deck, but far less so than knowing it is about to be in play. Two other uses for burning are: to prevent second dealing and to provide extra cards for use when an irregularity of play occurs. Sometimes a misdealt card (such as one of the down cards in poker that has flashed during the deal) will be used as the burn card—in those cases, the card should be immediately placed face up on the deck after the deal is complete. When Texas hold

commission prior to participating in a national election. Normally, the prime minister-elect is the leader of the party receiving the most votes in parliamentary elections, although this is not always the case. Unlike the prime minister, presidential domestic power is more limited. The directly elected president serves as head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and has the authority to return a bill for further debate, although the parliament can override the presidential veto by a simple majority vote. Political parties gather in the National Assembly, a body of 240 deputies elected to four-year terms by direct popular vote. The National Assembly has the power to enact laws, approve the budget, schedule presidential elections, select and dismiss the prime minister and other ministers, declare war, deploy troops abroad, and ratify international treaties and agreements. Overall, Bulgaria displays a pattern of unstable governments. Boyko Borisov served three terms as prime minister since between 2009 and 2021, when his centre-right, pro-EU party GERB won the general election and ruled as a minority government with 117 seats in the National Assembly. His first government resigned on 20 February 2013 after nationwide protests caused by high costs of utilities, low living standards, corruption and the perceived failure of the democratic system. The protest wave was notable for self-immolations, spontaneous demonstrations and a strong sentiment against political parties. The subsequent snap elections in May resulted in a narrow win for GERB, but the Bulgarian Socialist Party eventually formed a government led by Plamen Oresharski after Borisov failed to secure parliamentary support. The Oresharski government resigned in July 2014 amid continuing large-scale protests. A caretaker government took over and called the October 2014 elections which resulted in a third GERB victory, but a total of eight parties entered parliament. Borisov formed a coalition with several right-wing parties, but resigned again after the candidate backed by his party failed to win the 2016 Presidential election. The March 2017 snap election was again won by GERB, but with 95 seats in Parliament. They formed a coalition with the far-right United Patriots, who hold 27 seats. Borisov's last cabinet saw a dramatic decrease in freedom of the press, and a number of corruption revelations that triggered yet another wave of mass protests in 2020. GERB came out first in the regular April 2021 election, but with its weakest result so far. All other parties refused to form a government, and after a brief deadlock, another elections were called for July 2021, with Stefan Yanev serving as an interim Prime Minister of a caretaker cabinet until then. In July 2021 snap election, anti-elite party called There Is Such a People (ITN) finished first with 24.08 percent and former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov's GERB-led coalition was the second with 23.51 percent of the vote. Freedom House has reported a continuing deterioration of democratic governance after 2009, citing reduced media independence, stalled reforms, abuse of authority at the highest level and increased dependence of local administrations on the central government. Bulgaria is still listed as "Free", with a political system designated as a semi-consolidated democracy, albeit with deteriorating scores. The Democracy Index defines it as a "Flawed democracy". A 2018 survey by the Institute for Economics and Peace reported that less than 15% of respondents considered elections to be fair. Legal system Bulgaria has a civil law legal system. The judiciary is overseen by the Ministry of Justice. The Supreme Administrative Court and the Supreme Court of Cassation are the highest courts of appeal and oversee the application of laws in subordinate courts. The Supreme Judicial Council manages the system and appoints judges. The legal system is regarded by both domestic and international observers as one of Europe's most inefficient due to pervasive lack of transparency and corruption. Law enforcement is carried out by organisations mainly subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior. The General Directorate of National Police (GDNP) combats general crime and maintains public order. GDNP fields 26,578 police officers in its local and national sections. The bulk of criminal cases are transport-related, followed by theft and drug-related crime; homicide rates are low. The Ministry of the Interior also heads the Border Police Service and the National Gendarmerie—a specialised branch for anti-terrorist activity, crisis management and riot control. Counterintelligence and national security are the responsibility of the State Agency for National Security. Administrative divisions Bulgaria is a unitary state. Since the 1880s, the number of territorial management units has varied from seven to 26. Between 1987 and 1999, the administrative structure consisted of nine provinces (oblasti, singular oblast). A new administrative structure was adopted in parallel with the decentralisation of the economic system. It includes 27 provinces and a metropolitan capital province (Sofia-Grad). All areas take their names from their respective capital cities. The provinces are subdivided into 265 municipalities. Municipalities are run by mayors, who are elected to four-year terms, and by directly elected municipal councils. Bulgaria is a highly centralised state where the Council of Ministers directly appoints regional governors and all provinces and municipalities are heavily dependent on it for funding. Largest cities and towns Foreign relations and security Bulgaria became a member of the United Nations in 1955 and since 1966 has been a non-permanent member of the Security Council three times, most recently from 2002 to 2003. It was also among the founding nations of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 1975. Euro-Atlantic integration has been a priority since the fall of communism, although the communist leadership also had aspirations of leaving the Warsaw Pact and joining the European Communities by 1987. Bulgaria signed the European Union Treaty of Accession on 25 April 2005, and became a full member of the European Union on 1 January 2007. In addition, it has a tripartite economic and diplomatic collaboration with Romania and Greece, good ties with China and Vietnam and a historical relationship with Russia. Bulgaria deployed significant numbers of both civilian and military advisors in Soviet-allied countries like Nicaragua and Libya during the Cold War. The first deployment of foreign troops on Bulgarian soil since World War II occurred in 2001, when the country hosted six KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft and 200 support personnel for the war effort in Afghanistan. International military relations were further expanded with accession to NATO in March 2004 and the US-Bulgarian Defence Cooperation Agreement signed in April 2006. Bezmer and Graf Ignatievo air bases, the Novo Selo training range, and a logistics centre in Aytos subsequently became joint military training facilities cooperatively used by the United States and Bulgarian militaries. Despite its active international defence collaborations, Bulgaria ranks as among the most peaceful countries globally, tying 6th alongside Iceland regarding domestic and international conflicts, and 26th on average in the Global Peace Index. Domestic defence is the responsibility of the all-volunteer Bulgarian armed forces, composed of land forces, navy and an air force. The land forces consist of two mechanised brigades and eight independent regiments and battalions; the air force operates 106 aircraft and air defence systems across six air bases, and the navy operates various ships, helicopters and coastal defence weapons. Active troops dwindled from 152,000 in 1988 to 31,300 in 2017, supplemented by 3,000 reservists and 16,000 paramilitary troops. Military inventory mainly consists of Soviet equipment like Mikoyan MiG-29 and Sukhoi Su-25 jets, S-300PT air defence systems and SS-21 Scarab short-range ballistic missiles. Economy Bulgaria has an open, upper middle income range market economy where the private sector accounts for more than 70% of GDP. From a largely agricultural country with a predominantly rural population in 1948, by the 1980s Bulgaria had transformed into an industrial economy, with scientific and technological research at the top of its budgetary expenditure priorities. The loss of COMECON markets in 1990 and the subsequent "shock therapy" of the planned system caused a steep decline in industrial and agricultural production, ultimately followed by an economic collapse in 1997. The economy largely recovered during a period of rapid growth several years later, but the average salary of 1,036 leva ($615) per month remains the lowest in the EU. More than a fifth of the labour force work for a minimum wage of $1.16 per hour. A balanced budget was achieved in 2003 and the country began running a surplus the following year. Expenditures amounted to $21.15 billion and revenues were $21.67 billion in 2017. Most government spending on institutions is earmarked for security. The ministries of defence, the interior and justice are allocated the largest share of the annual government budget, whereas those responsible for the environment, tourism and energy receive the least funding. Taxes form the bulk of government revenue at 30% of GDP. Bulgaria has some of the lowest corporate income tax rates in the EU at a flat 10% rate. The tax system is two-tier. Value added tax, excise duties, corporate and personal income tax are national, whereas real estate, inheritance, and vehicle taxes are levied by local authorities. Strong economic performance in the early 2000s reduced government debt from 79.6% in 1998 to 14.1% in 2008. It has since increased to 28.7% of GDP by 2016, but remains the third lowest in the EU. The Yugozapaden planning area is the most developed region with a per capita gross domestic product (PPP) of $29,816 in 2018. It includes the capital city and the surrounding Sofia Province, which alone generate 42% of national gross domestic product despite hosting only 22% of the population. GDP per capita (in PPS) and the cost of living in 2019 stood at 53 and 52.8% of the EU average (100%), respectively. National PPP GDP was estimated at $143.1 billion in 2016, with a per capita value of $20,116. Economic growth statistics take into account illegal transactions from the informal economy, which is the largest in the EU as a percentage of economic output. The Bulgarian National Bank issues the national currency, lev, which is pegged to the euro at a rate of 1.95583 levа per euro. After several consecutive years of high growth, repercussions of the financial crisis of 2007–2008 resulted in a 3.6% contraction of GDP in 2009 and increased unemployment. Industrial output declined 10%, mining by 31%, and ferrous and metal production marked a 60% drop. Positive growth was restored in 2010 but intercompany debt exceeded $59 billion, meaning that 60% of all Bulgarian companies were mutually indebted. By 2012, it had increased to $97 billion, or 227% of GDP. The government implemented strict austerity measures with IMF and EU encouragement to some positive fiscal results, but the social consequences of these measures, such as increased income inequality and accelerated outward migration, have been "catastrophic" according to the International Trade Union Confederation. Siphoning of public funds to the families and relatives of politicians from incumbent parties has resulted in fiscal and welfare losses to society. Bulgaria ranks 71st in the Corruption Perceptions Index and experiences the worst levels of corruption in the European Union, a phenomenon that remains a source of profound public discontent. Along with organised crime, corruption has resulted in a rejection of the country's Schengen Area application and withdrawal of foreign investment. Government officials reportedly engage in embezzlement, influence trading, government procurement violations and bribery with impunity. Government procurement in particular is a critical area in corruption risk. An estimated 10 billion leva ($5.99 billion) of state budget and European cohesion funds are spent on public tenders each year; nearly 14 billion ($8.38 billion) were spent on public contracts in 2017 alone. A large share of these contracts are awarded to a few politically connected companies amid widespread irregularities, procedure violations and tailor-made award criteria. Despite repeated criticism from the European Commission, EU institutions refrain from taking measures against Bulgaria because it supports Brussels on a number of issues, unlike Poland or Hungary. Structure and sectors The labour force is 3.36 million people, of whom 6.8% are employed in agriculture, 26.6% in industry and 66.6% in the services sector. Extraction of metals and minerals, production of chemicals, machine building, steel, biotechnology, tobacco, food processing and petroleum refining are among the major industrial activities. Mining alone employs 24,000 people and generates about 5% of the country's GDP; the number of employed in all mining-related industries is 120,000. Bulgaria is Europe's fifth-largest coal producer. Local deposits of coal, iron, copper and lead are vital for the manufacturing and energy sectors. The main destinations of Bulgarian exports outside the EU are Turkey, China and the United States, while Russia and Turkey are by far the largest import partners. Most of the exports are manufactured goods, machinery, chemicals, fuel products and food. Two-thirds of food and agricultural exports go to OECD countries. Although cereal and vegetable output dropped by 40% between 1990 and 2008, output in grains has since increased, and the 2016–2017 season registered the biggest grain output in a decade. Maize, barley, oats and rice are also grown. Quality Oriental tobacco is a significant industrial crop. Bulgaria is also the largest producer globally of lavender and rose oil, both widely used in fragrances. Within the services sector, tourism is a significant contributor to economic growth. Sofia, Plovdiv, Veliko Tarnovo, coastal resorts Albena, Golden Sands and Sunny Beach and winter resorts Bansko, Pamporovo and Borovets are some of the locations most visited by tourists. Most visitors are Romanian, Turkish, Greek and German. Tourism is additionally encouraged through the 100 Tourist Sites system. Science and technology Spending on research and development amounts to 0.78% of GDP, and the bulk of public R&D funding goes to the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS). Private businesses accounted for more than 73% of R&D expenditures and employed 42% of Bulgaria's 22,000 researchers in 2015. The same year, Bulgaria ranked 39th out of 50 countries in the Bloomberg Innovation Index, the highest score being in education (24th) and the lowest in value-added manufacturing (48th). Bulgaria was ranked 37th in the Global Innovation Index in 2020, up from 40th in 2019. Chronic government underinvestment in research since 1990 has forced many professionals in science and engineering to leave Bulgaria. Despite the lack of funding, research in chemistry, materials science and physics remains strong. Antarctic research is actively carried out through the St. Kliment Ohridski Base on Livingston Island in Western Antarctica. The information and communication technologies (ICT) sector generates three per cent of economic output and employs 40,000 to 51,000 software engineers. Bulgaria was known as a "Communist Silicon Valley" during the Soviet era due to its key role in COMECON computing technology production. A concerted effort by the communist government to teach computing and IT skills in schools also indirectly made Bulgaria a major source of computer viruses in the 1980s and 90s. The country is a regional leader in high performance computing: it operates Avitohol, the most powerful supercomputer in Southeast Europe, and will host one of the eight petascale EuroHPC supercomputers. Bulgaria has made numerous contributions to space exploration. These include two scientific satellites, more than 200 payloads and 300 experiments in Earth orbit, as well as two cosmonauts since 1971. Bulgaria was the first country to grow wheat and vegetables in space with its Svet greenhouses on the Mir space station. It was involved in the development of the Granat gamma-ray observatory and the Vega program, particularly in modelling trajectories and guidance algorithms for both Vega probes. Bulgarian instruments have been used in the exploration of Mars, including a spectrometer that took the first high quality spectroscopic images of Martian moon Phobos with the Phobos 2 probe. Cosmic radiation en route to and around the planet has been mapped by Liulin-ML dosimeters on the ExoMars TGO. Variants of these instruments have also been fitted on the International Space Station and the Chandrayaan-1 lunar probe. Another lunar mission, SpaceIL's Beresheet, was also equipped with a Bulgarian-manufactured imaging payload. Bulgaria's first geostationary communications satellite—BulgariaSat-1—was launched by SpaceX in 2017. Infrastructure Telephone services are widely available, and a central digital trunk line connects most regions. Vivacom (BTC) serves more than 90% of fixed lines and is one of the three operators providing mobile services, along with A1 and Telenor. Internet penetration stood at 69.2% of the population aged 16–74 and 78.9% of households in 2020. Bulgaria's strategic geographic location and well-developed energy sector make it a key European energy centre despite its lack of significant fossil fuel deposits. Thermal power plants generate 48.9% of electricity, followed by nuclear power from the Kozloduy reactors (34.8%) and renewable sources (16.3%). Equipment for a second nuclear power station at Belene has been acquired, but the fate of the project remains uncertain. Installed capacity amounts to 12,668 MW, allowing Bulgaria to exceed domestic demand and export energy. The national road network has a total length of , of which are paved. Railroads are a major mode of freight transportation, although highways carry a progressively larger share of freight. Bulgaria has of railway track, with rail links available to Romania, Turkey, Greece, and Serbia, and express trains serving direct routes to Kyiv, Minsk, Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Sofia and Plovdiv are the country's air travel hubs, while Varna and Burgas are the principal maritime trade ports. Demographics The population of Bulgaria is 7,364,570 people according to the 2011 national census. The majority of the population, 72.5%, reside in urban areas. , Sofia is the most populated urban centre with 1,241,675 people, followed by Plovdiv (346,893), Varna (336,505), Burgas (202,434) and Ruse (142,902). Bulgarians are the main ethnic group and constitute 84.8% of the population. Turkish and Roma minorities account for 8.8 and 4.9%, respectively; some 40 smaller minorities account for 0.7%, and 0.8% do not self-identify with an ethnic group. Former Statistics head Reneta Indzhova has disputed the 2011 census figures, suggesting the actual population is smaller than reported. The Roma minority is usually underestimated in census data and may represent up to 11% of the population. Population density is 65 per square kilometre, almost half the European Union average. In 2018, the average total fertility rate (TFR) in Bulgaria was 1.56 children per woman, below the replacement rate of 2.1 and considerably below the historical high of 5.83 children per woman in 1905. Bulgaria thus has one of the oldest populations in the world, with an average age of 43 years. Bulgaria is in a state of demographic crisis. It has had negative population growth since the early 1990s, when the economic collapse caused a long-lasting emigration wave. Some 937,000 to 1,200,000 people—mostly young adults—had left the country by 2005. The majority of children are born to unmarried women. Furthermore, a third of all households consist of only one person and 75.5% of families do not have children under the age of 16. The resulting birth rates are among the lowest in the world while death rates are among the highest. Bulgaria scores high in gender equality, ranking 18th in the 2018 Global Gender Gap Report. Although women's suffrage was enabled relatively late, in 1937, women today have equal political rights, high workforce participation and legally mandated equal pay. In 2021, market research agency Reboot Online ranked Bulgaria as the best European country for women to work. Bulgaria has the highest ratio of female ICT researchers in the EU, as well as the second-highest ratio of females in the technology sector at 44.6% of the workforce. High levels of female participation are a legacy of the Socialist era. Health High death rates result from a combination of an ageing population, high numbers of people at risk of poverty, and a weak healthcare system. Over 80% of deaths are due to cancer and cardiovascular conditions; nearly a fifth of those are avoidable. Although healthcare in Bulgaria is nominally universal, out-of-pocket expenses account for nearly half of all healthcare spending, significantly limiting access to medical care. Other problems disrupting care provision are the emigration of doctors due to low wages, understaffed and under-equipped regional hospitals, supply shortages and frequent changes to the basic service package for those insured. The 2018 Bloomberg Health Care Efficiency Index ranked Bulgaria last out of 56 countries. Average life expectancy is 74.8 years, compared with an EU average of 80.99 and a world average of 72.38. Education Public expenditures for education are far below the European Union average as well. Educational standards were once high, but have declined significantly since the early 2000s. Bulgarian students were among the highest-scoring in the world in terms of reading in 2001, performing better than their Canadian and German counterparts; by 2006, scores in reading, math and science had dropped. By 2018, Programme for International Student Assessment studies found 47% of pupils in the 9th grade to be functionally illiterate in reading and natural sciences. Average basic literacy stands high at 98.4% with no significant difference between sexes. The Ministry of Education and Science partially funds public schools, colleges and universities, sets criteria for textbooks and oversees the publishing process. Education in primary and secondary public schools is free and compulsory. The process spans 12 grades, in which grades one through eight are primary and nine through twelve are secondary level. Higher education consists of a 4-year bachelor degree and a 1-year master's degree. Bulgaria's highest-ranked higher education institution is Sofia University. Language Bulgarian is the only language with official status and native for % of the population. It belongs to the Slavic group of languages but has a number of grammatical peculiarities, shared with its closest relative Macedonian, that set it apart from other Slavic languages: these include a complex verbal morphology (which also codes for distinctions in evidentiality), the absence of noun cases and infinitives, and the use of a suffixed definite article. Other significant languages spoken in Bulgaria are Turkish and Romani, which according to the 2011 census were spoken natively by 9.1% and 4.2% of the population, respectively. Religion More than three-quarters of Bulgarians subscribe to Eastern Orthodoxy. Sunni Muslims are the second-largest religious community and constitute 10% of Bulgaria's overall religious makeup, although a majority of them are not observant and find the use of Islamic veils in schools unacceptable. Less than 3% of the population are affiliated with other religions and 11.8% are irreligious or do not self-identify with a religion. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church gained autocephalous status in AD 927, and has 12 dioceses and over 2,000 priests. Bulgaria is a secular state with guaranteed religious freedom by constitution, but Orthodoxy is designated as a "traditional" religion. Culture Contemporary Bulgarian culture blends the formal culture that helped forge a national consciousness towards the end of Ottoman rule with millennia-old folk traditions. An essential element of Bulgarian folklore is fire, used to banish evil spirits and illnesses. Many of these are personified as witches, whereas other creatures like zmey and samodiva (veela) are either benevolent guardians or ambivalent tricksters. Some rituals against evil spirits have survived and are still practised, most notably kukeri and survakari. Martenitsa is also widely celebrated. Nestinarstvo, a ritual fire-dance of Thracian origin, is included in the list of UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage. Nine historical and natural objects are UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Pirin National Park, Sreburna Nature Reserve, the Madara Rider, the Thracian tombs in Sveshtari and Kazanlak, the Rila Monastery, the Boyana Church, the Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo and the ancient city of Nesebar. The Rila Monastery was established by Saint John of Rila, Bulgaria's patron saint, whose life has been the subject of numerous literary accounts since Medieval times. The establishment of the Preslav and Ohrid literary schools in the 10th century is associated with a golden period in Bulgarian literature during the Middle Ages. The schools' emphasis on Christian scriptures made the Bulgarian Empire a centre of Slavic culture, bringing Slavs under the influence of Christianity and providing them with a written language. Its alphabet, Cyrillic script, was developed by the Preslav Literary School. The Tarnovo Literary School, on the other hand, is associated with a Silver age of literature defined by high-quality manuscripts on historical or mystical themes under the Asen and Shishman dynasties. Many literary and artistic masterpieces were destroyed by the Ottoman conquerors, and artistic activities did not re-emerge until the National Revival in the 19th century. The enormous body of work of Ivan Vazov (1850–1921) covered every genre and touched upon every facet of Bulgarian society, bridging pre-Liberation works with literature of the newly established state. Notable later works are Bay Ganyo by Aleko Konstantinov, the Nietzschean poetry of Pencho Slaveykov, the Symbolist poetry of Peyo Yavorov and Dimcho Debelyanov, the Marxist-inspired works of Geo Milev and Nikola Vaptsarov, and the Socialist realism novels of Dimitar Dimov and Dimitar Talev. Tzvetan Todorov is a notable contemporary author, while Bulgarian-born Elias Canetti was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981. А religious visual arts heritage includes frescoes, murals and icons, many produced by the medieval Tarnovo Artistic School. Like literature, it was not until the National Revival when Bulgarian visual arts began to reemerge. Zahari Zograf was a pioneer of the visual arts in the pre-Liberation era. After the Liberation, Ivan Mrkvička, Anton Mitov, Vladimir Dimitrov, Tsanko Lavrenov and Zlatyu Boyadzhiev introduced newer styles and substance, depicting scenery from Bulgarian villages,

kept their ethnic identity alive, enabling its survival in remote rural areas, and in the militant Catholic community in the northwest of the country. As Ottoman power began to wane, Habsburg Austria and Russia saw Bulgarian Christians as potential allies. The Austrians first backed an uprising in Tarnovo in 1598, then a second one in 1686, the Chiprovtsi Uprising in 1688 and finally Karposh's Rebellion in 1689. The Russian Empire also asserted itself as a protector of Christians in Ottoman lands with the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774. The Western European Enlightenment in the 18th century influenced the initiation of a national awakening of Bulgaria. It restored national consciousness and provided an ideological basis for the liberation struggle, resulting in the 1876 April Uprising. Up to 30,000 Bulgarians were killed as Ottoman authorities put down the rebellion. The massacres prompted the Great Powers to take action. They convened the Constantinople Conference in 1876, but their decisions were rejected by the Ottomans. This allowed the Russian Empire to seek a military solution without risking confrontation with other Great Powers, as had happened in the Crimean War. In 1877, Russia declared war on the Ottomans and defeated them with the help of Bulgarian rebels, particularly during the crucial Battle of Shipka Pass which secured Russian control over the main road to Constantinople. Third Bulgarian state The Treaty of San Stefano was signed on 3 March 1878 by Russia and the Ottoman Empire. It was to set up an autonomous Bulgarian principality spanning Moesia, Macedonia and Thrace, roughly on the territories of the Second Bulgarian Empire, and this day is now a public holiday called National Liberation Day. The other Great Powers immediately rejected the treaty out of fear that such a large country in the Balkans might threaten their interests. It was superseded by the Treaty of Berlin, signed on 13 July. It provided for a much smaller state, the Principality of Bulgaria, only comprising Moesia and the region of Sofia, and leaving large populations of ethnic Bulgarians outside the new country. This significantly contributed to Bulgaria's militaristic foreign affairs approach during the first half of the 20th century. The Bulgarian principality won a war against Serbia and incorporated the semi-autonomous Ottoman territory of Eastern Rumelia in 1885, proclaiming itself an independent state on 5 October 1908. In the years following independence, Bulgaria increasingly militarised and was often referred to as "the Balkan Prussia". It became involved in three consecutive conflicts between 1912 and 1918—two Balkan Wars and World War I. After a disastrous defeat in the Second Balkan War, Bulgaria again found itself fighting on the losing side as a result of its alliance with the Central Powers in World War I. Despite fielding more than a quarter of its population in a 1,200,000-strong army and achieving several decisive victories at Doiran and Monastir, the country capitulated in 1918. The war resulted in significant territorial losses and a total of 87,500 soldiers killed. More than 253,000 refugees from the lost territories immigrated to Bulgaria from 1912 to 1929, placing additional strain on the already ruined national economy. The resulting political unrest led to the establishment of a royal authoritarian dictatorship by Tsar Boris III (1918–1943). Bulgaria entered World War II in 1941 as a member of the Axis but declined to participate in Operation Barbarossa and saved its Jewish population from deportation to concentration camps. The sudden death of Boris III in mid-1943 pushed the country into political turmoil as the war turned against Germany, and the communist guerrilla movement gained momentum. The government of Bogdan Filov subsequently failed to achieve peace with the Allies. Bulgaria did not comply with Soviet demands to expel German forces from its territory, resulting in a declaration of war and an invasion by the USSR in September 1944. The communist-dominated Fatherland Front took power, ended participation in the Axis and joined the Allied side until the war ended. Bulgaria suffered little war damage and the Soviet Union demanded no reparations. But all wartime territorial gains, with the notable exception of Southern Dobrudzha, were lost. The left-wing coup d'état of 9 September 1944 led to the abolition of the monarchy and the executions of some 1,000–3,000 dissidents, war criminals, and members of the former royal elite. But it was not until 1946 that a one-party people's republic was instituted following a referendum. It fell into the Soviet sphere of influence under the leadership of Georgi Dimitrov (1946–1949), who established a repressive, rapidly industrialising Stalinist state. By the mid-1950s, standards of living rose significantly and political repression eased. The Soviet-style planned economy saw some experimental market-oriented policies emerging under Todor Zhivkov (1954–1989). Compared to wartime levels, national GDP increased five-fold and per capita GDP quadrupled by the 1980s, although severe debt spikes took place in 1960, 1977 and 1980. Zhivkov's daughter Lyudmila bolstered national pride by promoting Bulgarian heritage, culture and arts worldwide. Facing declining birth rates among the ethnic Bulgarian majority, Zhivkov's government in 1984 forced the minority ethnic Turks to adopt Slavic names in an attempt to erase their identity and assimilate them. These policies resulted in the emigration of some 300,000 ethnic Turks to Turkey. The Communist Party was forced to give up its political monopoly on 10 November 1989 under the influence of the Revolutions of 1989. Zhivkov resigned and Bulgaria embarked on a transition to a parliamentary democracy. The first free elections in June 1990 were won by the Communist Party, now rebranded as the Bulgarian Socialist Party. A new constitution that provided for a relatively weak elected president and for a prime minister accountable to the legislature was adopted in July 1991. The new system initially failed to improve living standards or create economic growth—the average quality of life and economic performance remained lower than under communism well into the early 2000s. After 2001, economic, political and geopolitical conditions improved greatly, and Bulgaria achieved high Human Development status in 2003. It became a member of NATO in 2004 and participated in the War in Afghanistan. After several years of reforms, it joined the European Union and the single market in 2007, despite EU concerns over government corruption. Bulgaria hosted the 2018 Presidency of the Council of the European Union at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia. Geography Bulgaria is a small country situated in Southeastern Europe, in the east of the Balkans. Its territory covers an area of , while land borders with its five neighbouring countries run a total length of , and its coastline is long. Bulgaria's geographic coordinates are 43° N 25° E. The most notable topographical features of the country are the Danubian Plain, the Balkan Mountains, the Thracian Plain, and the Rila-Rhodope massif. The southern edge of the Danubian Plain slopes upward into the foothills of the Balkans, while the Danube defines the border with Romania. The Thracian Plain is roughly triangular, beginning southeast of Sofia and broadening as it reaches the Black Sea coast. The Balkan mountains run laterally through the middle of the country from west to east. The mountainous southwest has two distinct alpine type ranges—Rila and Pirin, which border the lower but more extensive Rhodope Mountains to the east, and various medium altitude mountains to west, northwest and south, like Vitosha, Osogovo and Belasitsa. Musala, at , is the highest point in both Bulgaria and the Balkans. The Black Sea coast is the country's lowest point. Plains occupy about one third of the territory, while plateaux and hills occupy 41%. Most rivers are short and with low water levels. The longest river located solely in Bulgarian territory, the Iskar, has a length of . The Struma and the Maritsa are two major rivers in the south. Bulgaria has a varied and changeable climate, which results from being positioned at the meeting point of the Mediterranean, Oceanic and Continental air masses combined with the barrier effect of its mountains. Northern Bulgaria averages cooler, and registers more precipitation, than the regions south of the Balkan mountains. Temperature amplitudes vary significantly in different areas. The lowest recorded temperature is , while the highest is . Precipitation averages about per year, and varies from in Dobrudja to more than in the mountains. Continental air masses bring significant amounts of snowfall during winter. Biodiversity and environment The interaction of climatic, hydrological, geological and topographical conditions has produced a relatively wide variety of plant and animal species. Bulgaria's biodiversity, one of the richest in Europe, is conserved in three national parks, 11 nature parks, 10 biosphere reserves and 565 protected areas. Ninety-three of the 233 mammal species of Europe are found in Bulgaria, along with 49% of butterfly and 30% of vascular plant species. Overall, 41,493 plant and animal species are present. Larger mammals with sizable populations include deer (106,323 individuals), wild boars (88,948), jackals (47,293) and foxes (32,326). Partridges number some 328,000 individuals, making them the most widespread gamebird. A third of all nesting birds in Bulgaria can be found in Rila National Park, which also hosts Arctic and alpine species at high altitudes. Flora includes more than 3,800 vascular plant species of which 170 are endemic and 150 are considered endangered. A checklist of larger fungi in Bulgaria by the Institute of Botany identifies more than 1,500 species. More than 35% of the land area is covered by forests. In 1998, the Bulgarian government adopted the National Biological Diversity Conservation Strategy, a comprehensive programme seeking the preservation of local ecosystems, protection of endangered species and conservation of genetic resources. Bulgaria has some of the largest Natura 2000 areas in Europe covering 33.8% of its territory. It also achieved its Kyoto Protocol objective of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 30% from 1990 to 2009. Bulgaria ranks 30th in the 2018 Environmental Performance Index, but scores low on air quality. Particulate levels are the highest in Europe, especially in urban areas affected by automobile traffic and coal-based power stations. One of these, the lignite-fired Maritsa Iztok-2 station, is causing the highest damage to health and the environment in the European Union. Pesticide use in agriculture and antiquated industrial sewage systems produce extensive soil and water pollution. Water quality began to improve in 1998 and has maintained a trend of moderate improvement. Over 75% of surface rivers meet European standards for good quality. Politics Bulgaria is a parliamentary democracy where the prime minister is the head of government and the most powerful executive position. The political system has three branches—legislative, executive and judicial, with universal suffrage for citizens at least 18 years old. The Constitution also provides possibilities of direct democracy, namely petitions and national referendums. Elections are supervised by an independent Central Election Commission that includes members from all major political parties. Parties must register with the commission prior to participating in a national election. Normally, the prime minister-elect is the leader of the party receiving the most votes in parliamentary elections, although this is not always the case. Unlike the prime minister, presidential domestic power is more limited. The directly elected president serves as head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and has the authority to return a bill for further debate, although the parliament can override the presidential veto by a simple majority vote. Political parties gather in the National Assembly, a body of 240 deputies elected to four-year terms by direct popular vote. The National Assembly has the power to enact laws, approve the budget, schedule presidential elections, select and dismiss the prime minister and other ministers, declare war, deploy troops abroad, and ratify international treaties and agreements. Overall, Bulgaria displays a pattern of unstable governments. Boyko Borisov served three terms as prime minister since between 2009 and 2021, when his centre-right, pro-EU party GERB won the general election and ruled as a minority government with 117 seats in the National Assembly. His first government resigned on 20 February 2013 after nationwide protests caused by high costs of utilities, low living standards, corruption and the perceived failure of the democratic system. The protest wave was notable for self-immolations, spontaneous demonstrations and a strong sentiment against political parties. The subsequent snap elections in May resulted in a narrow win for GERB, but the Bulgarian Socialist Party eventually formed a government led by Plamen Oresharski after Borisov failed to secure parliamentary support. The Oresharski government resigned in July 2014 amid continuing large-scale protests. A caretaker government took over and called the October 2014 elections which resulted in a third GERB victory, but a total of eight parties entered parliament. Borisov formed a coalition with several right-wing parties, but resigned again after the candidate backed by his party failed to win the 2016 Presidential election. The March 2017 snap election was again won by GERB, but with 95 seats in Parliament. They formed a coalition with the far-right United Patriots, who hold 27 seats. Borisov's last cabinet saw a dramatic decrease in freedom of the press, and a number of corruption revelations that triggered yet another wave of mass protests in 2020. GERB came out first in the regular April 2021 election, but with its weakest result so far. All other parties refused to form a government, and after a brief deadlock, another elections were called for July 2021, with Stefan Yanev serving as an interim Prime Minister of a caretaker cabinet until then. In July 2021 snap election, anti-elite party called There Is Such a People (ITN) finished first with 24.08 percent and former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov's GERB-led coalition was the second with 23.51 percent of the vote. Freedom House has reported a continuing deterioration of democratic governance after 2009, citing reduced media independence, stalled reforms, abuse of authority at the highest level and increased dependence of local administrations on the central government. Bulgaria is still listed as "Free", with a political system designated as a semi-consolidated democracy, albeit with deteriorating scores. The Democracy Index defines it as a "Flawed democracy". A 2018 survey by the Institute for Economics and Peace reported that less than 15% of respondents considered elections to be fair. Legal system Bulgaria has a civil law legal system. The judiciary is overseen by the Ministry of Justice. The Supreme Administrative Court and the Supreme Court of Cassation are the highest courts of appeal and oversee the application of laws in subordinate courts. The Supreme Judicial Council manages the system and appoints judges. The legal system is regarded by both domestic and international observers as one of Europe's most inefficient due to pervasive lack of transparency and corruption. Law enforcement is carried out by organisations mainly subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior. The General Directorate of National Police (GDNP) combats general crime and maintains public order. GDNP fields 26,578 police officers in its local and national sections. The bulk of criminal cases are transport-related, followed by theft and drug-related crime; homicide rates are low. The Ministry of the Interior also heads the Border Police Service and the National Gendarmerie—a specialised branch for anti-terrorist activity, crisis management and riot control. Counterintelligence and national security are the responsibility of the State Agency for National Security. Administrative divisions Bulgaria is a unitary state. Since the 1880s, the number of territorial management units has varied from seven to 26. Between 1987 and 1999, the administrative structure consisted of nine provinces (oblasti, singular oblast). A new administrative structure was adopted in parallel with the decentralisation of the economic system. It includes 27 provinces and a metropolitan capital province (Sofia-Grad). All areas take their names from their respective capital cities. The provinces are subdivided into 265 municipalities. Municipalities are run by mayors, who are elected to four-year terms, and by directly elected municipal councils. Bulgaria is a highly centralised state where the Council of Ministers directly appoints regional governors and all provinces and municipalities are heavily dependent on it for funding. Largest cities and towns Foreign relations and security Bulgaria became a member of the United Nations in 1955 and since 1966 has been a non-permanent member of the Security Council three times, most recently from 2002 to 2003. It was also among the founding nations of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 1975. Euro-Atlantic integration has been a priority since the fall of communism, although the communist leadership also had aspirations of leaving the Warsaw Pact and joining the European Communities by 1987. Bulgaria signed the European Union Treaty of Accession on 25 April 2005, and became a full member of the European Union on 1 January 2007. In addition, it has a tripartite economic and diplomatic collaboration with Romania and Greece, good ties with China and Vietnam and a historical relationship with Russia. Bulgaria deployed significant numbers of both civilian and military advisors in Soviet-allied countries like Nicaragua and Libya during the Cold War. The first deployment of foreign troops on Bulgarian soil since World War II occurred in 2001, when the country hosted six KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft and 200 support personnel for the war effort in Afghanistan. International military relations were further expanded with accession to NATO in March 2004 and the US-Bulgarian Defence Cooperation Agreement signed in April 2006. Bezmer and Graf Ignatievo air bases, the Novo Selo training range, and a logistics centre in Aytos subsequently became joint military training facilities cooperatively used by the United States and Bulgarian militaries. Despite its active international defence collaborations, Bulgaria ranks as among the most peaceful countries globally, tying 6th alongside Iceland regarding domestic and international conflicts, and 26th on average in the Global Peace Index. Domestic defence is the responsibility of the all-volunteer Bulgarian armed forces, composed of land forces, navy and an air force. The land forces consist of two mechanised brigades and eight independent regiments and battalions; the air force operates 106 aircraft and air defence systems across six air bases, and the navy operates various ships, helicopters and coastal defence weapons. Active troops dwindled from 152,000 in 1988 to 31,300 in 2017, supplemented by 3,000 reservists and 16,000 paramilitary troops. Military inventory mainly consists of Soviet equipment like Mikoyan MiG-29 and Sukhoi Su-25 jets, S-300PT air defence systems and SS-21 Scarab short-range ballistic missiles. Economy Bulgaria has an open, upper middle income range market economy where the private sector accounts for more than 70% of GDP. From a largely agricultural country with a predominantly rural population in 1948, by the 1980s Bulgaria had transformed into an industrial economy, with scientific and technological research at the top of its budgetary expenditure priorities. The loss of COMECON markets in 1990 and the subsequent "shock therapy" of the planned system caused a steep decline in industrial and agricultural production, ultimately followed by an economic collapse in 1997. The economy largely recovered during a period of rapid growth several years later, but the average salary of 1,036 leva ($615) per month remains the lowest in the EU. More than a fifth of the labour force work for a minimum wage of $1.16 per hour. A balanced budget was achieved in 2003 and the country began running a surplus the following year. Expenditures amounted to $21.15 billion and revenues were $21.67 billion in 2017. Most government spending on institutions is earmarked for security. The ministries of defence, the interior and justice are allocated the largest share of the annual government budget, whereas those responsible for the environment, tourism and energy receive the least funding. Taxes form the bulk of government revenue at 30% of GDP. Bulgaria has some of the lowest corporate income tax rates in the EU at a flat 10% rate. The tax system is two-tier. Value added tax, excise duties, corporate and personal income tax are national, whereas real estate, inheritance, and vehicle taxes are levied by local authorities. Strong economic performance in the early 2000s reduced government debt from 79.6% in 1998 to 14.1% in 2008. It has since increased to 28.7% of GDP by 2016, but remains the third lowest in the EU. The Yugozapaden planning area is the most developed region with a per capita gross domestic product (PPP) of $29,816 in 2018. It includes the capital city and the surrounding Sofia Province, which alone generate 42% of national gross domestic product despite hosting only 22% of the population. GDP per capita (in PPS) and the cost of living in 2019 stood at 53 and 52.8% of the EU average (100%), respectively. National PPP GDP was estimated at $143.1 billion in 2016, with a per capita value of $20,116. Economic growth statistics take into account illegal transactions from the informal economy, which is the largest in the EU as a percentage of economic output. The Bulgarian National Bank issues the national currency, lev, which is pegged to the euro at a rate of 1.95583 levа per euro. After several consecutive years of high growth, repercussions of the financial crisis of 2007–2008 resulted in a 3.6% contraction of GDP in 2009 and increased unemployment. Industrial output declined 10%, mining by 31%, and ferrous and metal production marked a 60% drop. Positive growth was restored in 2010 but intercompany debt exceeded $59 billion, meaning that 60% of all Bulgarian companies were mutually indebted. By 2012, it had increased to $97 billion, or 227% of GDP. The government implemented strict austerity measures with IMF and EU encouragement to some positive fiscal results, but the social consequences of these measures, such as increased income inequality and accelerated outward migration, have been "catastrophic" according to the International Trade Union Confederation. Siphoning of public funds to the families and relatives of politicians from incumbent parties has resulted in fiscal and welfare losses to society. Bulgaria ranks 71st in the Corruption Perceptions Index and experiences the worst levels of corruption in the European Union, a phenomenon that remains a source of profound public discontent. Along with organised crime, corruption has resulted in a rejection of the country's Schengen Area application and withdrawal of foreign investment. Government officials reportedly engage in embezzlement, influence trading, government procurement violations and bribery with impunity. Government procurement in particular is a critical area in corruption risk. An estimated 10 billion leva ($5.99 billion) of state budget and European cohesion funds are spent on public tenders each year; nearly 14 billion ($8.38 billion) were spent on public contracts in 2017 alone. A large share of these contracts are awarded to a few politically connected companies amid widespread irregularities, procedure violations and tailor-made award criteria. Despite repeated criticism from the European Commission, EU institutions refrain from taking measures against Bulgaria because it supports Brussels on a number of issues, unlike Poland or Hungary. Structure and sectors The labour force is 3.36 million people, of whom 6.8% are employed in agriculture, 26.6% in industry and 66.6% in the services sector. Extraction of metals and minerals, production of chemicals, machine building, steel, biotechnology, tobacco, food processing and petroleum refining are among the major industrial activities. Mining alone employs 24,000 people and generates about 5% of the country's GDP; the number of employed in all mining-related industries is 120,000. Bulgaria is Europe's fifth-largest coal producer. Local deposits of coal, iron, copper and lead are vital for the manufacturing and energy sectors. The main destinations of Bulgarian exports outside the EU are Turkey, China and the United States, while Russia and Turkey are by far the largest import partners. Most of the exports are manufactured goods, machinery, chemicals, fuel products and food. Two-thirds of food and agricultural exports go to OECD countries. Although cereal and vegetable output dropped by 40% between 1990 and 2008, output in grains has since increased, and the 2016–2017 season registered the biggest grain output in a decade. Maize, barley, oats and rice are also grown. Quality Oriental tobacco is a significant industrial crop. Bulgaria is also the largest producer globally of lavender and rose oil, both widely used in fragrances. Within the services sector, tourism is a significant contributor to economic growth. Sofia, Plovdiv, Veliko Tarnovo, coastal resorts Albena, Golden Sands and Sunny Beach and winter resorts Bansko, Pamporovo and Borovets are some of the locations most visited by tourists. Most visitors are Romanian, Turkish, Greek and German. Tourism is additionally encouraged through the 100 Tourist Sites system. Science and technology Spending on research and development amounts to 0.78% of GDP, and the bulk of public R&D funding goes to the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS). Private businesses accounted for more than 73% of R&D expenditures and employed 42% of Bulgaria's 22,000 researchers in 2015. The same year, Bulgaria ranked 39th out of 50 countries in the Bloomberg Innovation Index, the highest score being in education (24th) and the lowest in value-added manufacturing (48th). Bulgaria was ranked 37th in the Global Innovation Index in 2020, up from 40th in 2019. Chronic government underinvestment in research since 1990 has forced many professionals in science and engineering to leave Bulgaria. Despite the lack of funding, research in chemistry, materials science and physics remains strong. Antarctic research is actively carried out through the St. Kliment Ohridski Base on Livingston Island in Western Antarctica. The information and communication technologies (ICT) sector generates three per cent of economic output and employs 40,000 to 51,000 software engineers. Bulgaria was

zooids stick. Other freshwater species have plant-like shapes with "trunks" and "branches", which may stand erect or spread over the surface. A few species can creep at about per day. Each colony grows by asexual budding from a single zooid known as the ancestrula, which is round rather than shaped like a normal zooid. This occurs at the tips of "trunks" or "branches" in forms that have this structure. Encrusting colonies grow round their edges. In species with calcareous exoskeletons, these do not mineralize until the zooids are fully grown. Colony lifespans range from one to about 12 years, and the short-lived species pass through several generations in one season. Species that produce defensive zooids do so only when threats have already appeared, and may do so within 48 hours. The theory of "induced defenses" suggests that production of defenses is expensive and that colonies which defend themselves too early or too heavily will have reduced growth rates and lifespans. This "last minute" approach to defense is feasible because the loss of zooids to a single attack is unlikely to be significant. Colonies of some encrusting species also produce special heterozooids to limit the expansion of other encrusting organisms, especially other bryozoans. In some cases this response is more belligerent if the opposition is smaller, which suggests that zooids on the edge of a colony can somehow sense the size of the opponent. Some species consistently prevail against certain others, but most turf wars are indecisive and the combatants soon turn to growing in uncontested areas. Bryozoans competing for territory do not use the sophisticated techniques employed by sponges or corals, possibly because the shortness of bryozoan lifespans makes heavy investment in turf wars unprofitable. Bryozoans have contributed to carbonate sedimentation in marine life since the Ordovician period. Bryozoans take responsibility for many of the colony forms, which have evolved in different taxonomic groups and vary in sediment producing ability. The nine basic bryozoan colony-forms include: encrusting, dome-shaped, palmate, foliose, fenestrate, robust branching, delicate branching, articulated and free-living. Most of these sediments come from two distinct groups of colonies: domal, delicate branching, robust branching and palmate; and fenestrate. Fenestrate colonies generate rough particles both as sediment and components of stromatoporiods coral reefs. The delicate colonies however, create both coarse sediment and form the cores of deep-water, subphotic biogenic mounds. Nearly all post- bryozoan sediments are made up of growth forms, with the addition to free-living colonies which include significant numbers of various colonies. “In contrast to the Palaeozoic, post-Palaeozoic bryozoans generated sediment varying more widely with the size of their grains; they grow as they moved from mud, to sand, to gravel.” Taxonomy The phylum was originally called "Polyzoa", but this name was eventually replaced by Ehrenberg's term "Bryozoa". The name "Bryozoa" was originally applied only to the animals also known as Ectoprocta (), in which the anus lies outside the "crown" of tentacles. After the discovery of the Entoprocta (lit. 'inside-anus'), in which the anus lies within a "crown" of tentacles, the name "Bryozoa" was promoted to phylum level to include the two classes Ectoprocta and Entoprocta. However, in 1869 Hinrich Nitsche regarded the two groups as quite distinct for a variety of reasons, and coined the name "Ectoprocta" for Ehrenberg's "Bryozoa". Despite their apparently similar methods of feeding, they differed markedly anatomically; in addition to the different positions of the anus, ectoprocts have hollow tentacles and a coelom, while entoprocts have solid tentacles and no coelom. Hence the two groups are now widely regarded as separate phyla, and the name "Bryozoa" is now synonymous with "Ectoprocta". This has remained the majority view ever since, although most publications have preferred the name "Bryozoa" rather than "Ectoprocta". Nevertheless, some notable scientists have continued to regard the "Ectoprocta" and Entoprocta as close relatives and group them under "Bryozoa". The ambiguity about the scope of the name "Bryozoa" led to proposals in the 1960s and 1970s that it should be avoided and the unambiguous term "Ectoprocta" should be used. However, the change would have made it harder to find older works in which the phylum was called "Bryozoa", and the desire to avoid ambiguity, if applied consistently to all classifications, would have necessitated renaming of several other phyla and many lower-level groups. In practice, zoological naming of split or merged groups of animals is complex and not completely consistent. Works since 2000 have used various names to resolve the ambiguity, including: "Bryozoa", "Ectoprocta", "Bryozoa (Ectoprocta)", and "Ectoprocta (Bryozoa)". Some have used more than one approach in the same work. The common name "moss animals" is the literal meaning of "Bryozoa", from Greek ('moss') and ('animals'). It's based on the mossy appearance of encrusting species. Until 2008 there were "inadequately known and misunderstood type species belonging to the Cyclostome Bryozoan family Oncousoeciidae." (Taylor, Zaton 2008) Modern research and experiments have been done using low-vacuum scanning electron microscopy of uncoated type material to critically examine and perhaps revise the taxonomy of three genera belonging to this family, including Oncousoecia, Microeciella, and Eurystrotos. This method permits data to be obtained that would be difficult to recognize with an optical microscope. The valid type species of Oncousoecia was found to be Oncousoecia lobulata. This interpretation stabilizes Oncousoecia by establishing a type species that corresponds to the general usage of the genus. Fellow Oncousoeciid Eurystrotos is now believed to be not conspecific with O. lobulata, as previously suggested, but shows enough similarities to be considered a junior synonym of Oncousoecia. Microeciella suborbicularus has also been recently distinguished from O. lobulata and O. dilatans, using this modern method of low vacuum scanning, with which it has been inaccurately synonymized with in the past. A new genus has also been recently discovered called Junerossia in the family Stomachetosellidae, along with 10 relatively new species of bryozoa such as Alderina flaventa, Corbulella extenuata, Puellina septemcryptica, Junerossia copiosa, Calyptotheca kapaaensis, Bryopesanser serratus, Cribellopora souleorum, Metacleidochasma verrucosa, Disporella compta, and Favosipora adunca. Classification and diversity Counts of formally described species range between 4,000 and 4,500. The Gymnolaemata and especially Cheilostomata have the greatest numbers of species, possibly because of their wide range of specialist zooids. Under the Linnaean system of classification, which is still used as a convenient way to label groups of organisms, living members of the phylum Bryozoa are divided into: Fossil record Fossils of about 15,000 bryozoan species have been found. Bryozoans are among the three dominant groups of Paleozoic fossils. The oldest species with a mineralized skeleton occurs in the Lower Ordovician. It is likely that the first bryozoans appeared much earlier and were entirely soft-bodied, and the Ordovician fossils record the appearance of mineralized skeletons in this phylum. By the Arenigian stage of the Early Ordovician period, about , all the modern orders of stenolaemates were present, and the ctenostome order of gymnolaemates had appeared by the Middle Ordovician, about . The Early Ordovician fossils may also represent forms that had already become significantly different from the original members of the phylum. Ctenostomes with phosphatized soft tissue are known from the Devonian. Other types of filter feeders appeared around the same time, which suggests that some change made the environment more favorable for this lifestyle. Fossils of cheilostomates, another order of gymnolaemates, first appear in the Mid Jurassic, about , and these have been the most abundant and diverse bryozoans from the Cretaceous to the present. Evidence compiled from the last 100 million years show that cheilostomates consistently grew over cyclostomates in territorial struggles, which may help to explain how cheilostomates replaced cyclostomates as the dominant marine bryozoans. Marine fossils from the Paleozoic era, which ended , are mainly of erect forms, those from the Mesozoic are fairly equally divided by erect and encrusting forms, and more recent ones are predominantly encrusting. Fossils of the soft, freshwater phylactolaemates are very rare, appear in and after the Late Permian (which began about ) and consist entirely of their durable statoblasts. There are no known fossils of freshwater members of other classes. Evolutionary family tree Scientists are divided about whether the Bryozoa (Ectoprocta) are a monophyletic group (whether they include all and only a single ancestor species and all its descendants), about what are the phylum's closest relatives in the family tree of animals, and even about whether they should be regarded as members of the protostomes or deuterostomes, the two major groups that account for all moderately complex animals. Molecular phylogeny, which attempts to work out the evolutionary family tree of organisms by comparing their biochemistry and especially their genes, has done much to clarify the relationships between the better-known invertebrate phyla. However, the shortage of genetic data about "minor phyla" such as bryozoans and entoprocts has left their relationships to other groups unclear. Traditional view The traditional view is that the Bryozoa are a monophyletic group, in which the class Phylactolaemata is most closely related to Stenolaemata and Ctenostomatida, the classes that appear earliest in the fossil record. However, in 2005 a molecular phylogeny study that focused on phylactolaemates concluded that these are more closely related to the phylum Phoronida, and especially to the only phoronid species that is colonial, than they are to the other ectoproct classes. That implies that the Entoprocta are not monophyletic, as the Phoronida are a sub-group of ectoprocts but the standard definition of Entoprocta excludes the Phoronida. In 2009 another molecular phylogeny study, using a combination of genes from mitochondria and the cell nucleus, concluded that Bryozoa is a monophyletic phylum, in other words includes all the descendants of a common ancestor that is itself a bryozoan. The analysis also concluded that the classes Phylactolaemata, Stenolaemata and Gymnolaemata are also monophyletic, but could not determine whether Stenolaemata are more closely related to Phylactolaemata or Gymnolaemata. The Gymnolaemata are traditionally divided into the soft-bodied Ctenostomatida and mineralized Cheilostomata, but the 2009 analysis considered it more likely that neither of these orders is monophyletic and that mineralized skeletons probably evolved more than once within the early Gymnolaemata. Bryozoans' relationships with other phyla are uncertain and controversial. Traditional phylogeny, based on anatomy and on the development of the adult forms from embryos, has produced no enduring consensus about the position of ectoprocts. Attempts to reconstruct the family tree of animals have largely ignored ectoprocts and other "minor phyla", which have received little scientific study because they are generally tiny, have relatively simple body plans, and have little impact on human economies – despite the fact that the "minor phyla" include most of the variety in the evolutionary history of animals. In the opinion of Ruth Dewel, Judith Winston, and Frank McKinney, "Our standard interpretation of bryozoan morphology and embryology is a construct resulting from over 100 years of attempts to synthesize a single framework for all invertebrates," and takes little account of some peculiar features of ectoprocts. In ectoprocts, all of the larva's internal organs are destroyed during the metamorphosis to the adult form and the adult's organs are built from the larva's epidermis and mesoderm, while in other bilaterians some organs including the gut are built from endoderm. In most bilaterian embryos the blastopore, a dent in the outer wall, deepens to become the larva's gut, but in ectoprocts the blastopore disappears and a new dent becomes the point from which the gut grows. The ectoproct coelom is formed by neither of the processes used by other bilaterians, enterocoely, in which pouches that form on the wall of the gut become separate cavities, nor schizocoely, in which the tissue between the gut and the body wall splits, forming paired cavities. Entoprocts When entoprocts were discovered in the 19th century, they and bryozoans (ectoprocts) were regarded as classes within the phylum Bryozoa, because both groups were sessile animals that filter-fed by means of a crown of tentacles that bore cilia. From 1869 onwards increasing awareness of differences, including the position of the entoproct anus inside the feeding structure and the difference in the early pattern of division of cells in their embryos, caused scientists to regard the two groups as separate phyla, and "Bryozoa" became just an alternative name for ectoprocts, in which the anus is outside the feeding organ. A series of molecular phylogeny studies from 1996 to 2006 have also concluded that bryozoans (ectoprocts) and entoprocts are not sister groups. However, two well-known zoologists, Claus Nielsen and Thomas Cavalier-Smith, maintain on anatomical and developmental grounds that bryozoans and entoprocts are member of the same phylum, Bryozoa. A molecular phylogeny study in 2007 also supported this old idea, while its conclusions about other phyla agreed with those of several other analyses. Grouping into the Lophophorata By 1891 bryozoans (ectoprocts) were grouped with phoronids in a super-phylum called "Tentaculata". In the 1970s comparisons between phoronid larvae and the cyphonautes larva of some gymnolaete bryozoans produced suggestions that the bryozoans, most of which are colonial, evolved from a semi-colonial species of phoronid. Brachiopods were also assigned to the "Tentaculata", which were renamed Lophophorata as they all use a lophophore for filter feeding. The majority of scientists accept this, but Claus Nielsen thinks these similarities are superficial. The Lophophorata are usually defined as animals with a lophophore, a three-part coelom and a U-shaped gut. In Nielsen's opinion, phoronids' and brachiopods' lophophores are more like those of pterobranchs, which are members of the phylum Hemichordata. Bryozoan's tentacles bear cells with multiple cilia, while the corresponding cells of phoronids', brachiopods' and pterobranchs' lophophores have one cilium per cell; and bryozoan tentacles have no hemal canal ("blood vessel"), which those of the other three phyla have. If the grouping of bryozoans with phoronids and brachiopods into Lophophorata is correct, the next issue is whether the Lophophorata are protostomes, along with most invertebrate phyla, or deuterostomes, along with chordates, hemichordates and echinoderms. The traditional view was that lophophorates were a mix of protostome and deuterostome features. Research from the 1970s onwards suggested they were deuterostomes, because of some features that were thought characteristic of deuterostomes: a three-part coelom; radial rather than spiral cleavage in the development of the embryo; and formation of the coelom by enterocoely. However the coelom of ectoproct larvae shows no sign of division into three sections, and that of adult ectoprocts is different from that of other coelomate phyla as it is built anew from epidermis and mesoderm after metamorphosis has destroyed the larval coelom. Lophophorate molecular phylogenetics Molecular phylogeny analyses from 1995 onwards, using a variety of biochemical evidence and analytical techniques, placed the lophophorates as protostomes and closely related to annelids and molluscs in a super-phylum called Lophotrochozoa. "Total evidence" analyses, which used both morphological features and a relatively small set of genes, came to various conclusions, mostly favoring a close relationship between lophophorates and Lophotrochozoa. A study in 2008, using a larger set of genes, concluded that the lophophorates were closer to the Lophotrochozoa than to deuterostomes, but also that the lophophorates were not monophyletic. Instead, it concluded that brachiopods and phoronids formed a monophyletic group, but bryozoans (ectoprocts) were closest to entoprocts, supporting the original definition of "Bryozoa". They are the only major phylum of exclusively clonal animals, composed of modular units known as zooids. Because they thrive in colonies, colonial growth allows them to develop unrestricted variations in form. Despite this, only a small number of basic growth forms have been found and have commonly reappeared throughout the history of the bryozoa. Ectoproct molecular phylogenetics The phylogenetic position of the ectoproct bryozoans remains uncertain, but it remains certain that they belong to the Protostomia and more specifically to the Lophotrochozoa. This implies that the ectoproct larva is a trochophore with the corona being a homologue of the prototroch; this is supported from the similarity between the coronate larvae and the Type 1 pericalymma larvae of some molluscs and sipunculans, where the prototroch zone is expanded to cover the hyposphere. A study of the mitochondrial DNA sequence suggests that the Bryozoa may be related to the Chaetognatha. Physiology Feeding and excretion Most species are filter feeders that sieve small particles, mainly phytoplankton (microscopic floating plants), out of the water. The freshwater species Plumatella emarginata feeds on diatoms, green algae, cyanobacteria, non-photosynthetic bacteria, dinoflagellates, rotifers, protozoa, small nematodes, and microscopic crustaceans. While the currents that bryozoans generate to draw food towards the mouth are well understood, the exact method of capture is still debated. All species also flick larger particles towards the mouth with a tentacle, and a few capture zooplankton (planktonic animals) by using their tentacles as cages. In addition the tentacles, whose surface area is increased by microvilli (small hairs and pleats), absorb organic compounds dissolved in the water. Unwanted particles may be flicked away by tentacles or shut out by closing the mouth. A study in 2008 showed that both encrusting and erect colonies fed more quickly and grew faster in gentle than in strong currents. In some species the first part of the stomach forms a muscular gizzard lined with chitinous teeth that crush armored prey such as diatoms. Wave-like peristaltic contractions move the food through the stomach for digestion. The final section of the stomach is lined with cilia (minute hairs) that compress undigested solids, which then pass through the intestine and out through the anus. There are no nephridia ("little kidneys") or other excretory organs in bryozoa, and it is thought that ammonia diffuses out through the body wall and lophophore. More complex waste products are not excreted but accumulate in the polypide, which degenerates after a few weeks. Some of the old polypide is recycled, but much of it remains as a large mass of dying cells containing accumulated wastes, and this is compressed into a "brown body". When the degeneration is complete, the cystid (outer part of the animal) produces a new polypide, and the brown body remains in the coelom, or in the stomach of the new polypide and is expelled next time the animal defecates. Respiration and circulation There are no respiratory organs, heart or blood vessels. Instead, zooids absorb oxygen and eliminate carbon dioxide through diffusion. Bryozoa accomplish diffusion through the use of either a thin membrane (in the case of anascans and some polyzoa) or through pseudopores located on the outer dermis of the zooid. The different bryozoan groups use various methods to share nutrients and oxygen between zooids: some have quite large gaps in the body walls, allowing the coelomic fluid to circulate freely; in others, the funiculi (internal "little ropes") of adjacent zooids connect via small pores in the body wall. Reproduction and life cycles Zooids of all phylactolaemate species are simultaneous hermaphrodites. Although those of many marine species are protandric, in other words function first as males and then as females, their colonies contain a combination of zooids that are in their male and female stages. In all species the ovaries develop on the inside of the body wall, and the testes on the funiculus connecting the stomach to the body wall. Eggs and sperm are released into the coelom, and sperm exit into the water through pores in the tips of some of the tentacles, and then are captured by the feeding currents of zooids that are producing eggs. Some species' eggs are fertilized externally after being released through a pore between two tentacles, which in some cases is at the tip of a small projection called the "intertentacular organ" in the base of a pair of tentacles. Others' are fertilized internally, in the intertentacular organ or in the coelom. In ctenostomes the mother provides a brood chamber for the fertilized eggs, and her polypide disintegrates, providing nourishment to the embryo. Stenolaemates produce specialized zooids to serve as brood chambers, and their eggs divide within this to produce

autozooids, and those of some groups also contain non-feeding specialist heterozooids; colony members are genetically identical and co-operate, rather like the organs of larger animals. What type of zooid grows where in a colony is determined by chemical signals from the colony as a whole or sometimes in response to the scent of predators or rival colonies. The bodies of all types have two main parts. The cystid consists of the body wall and whatever type of exoskeleton is secreted by the epidermis. The exoskeleton may be organic (chitin, polysaccharide or protein) or made of the mineral calcium carbonate. The body wall consists of the epidermis, basal lamina (a mat of non-cellular material), connective tissue, muscles, and the mesothelium which lines the coelom (main body cavity) – except that in one class, the mesothelium is split into two separate layers, the inner one forming a membranous sac that floats freely and contains the coelom, and the outer one attached to the body wall and enclosing the membranous sac in a pseudocoelom. The other main part of the bryozoan body, known as the polypide and situated almost entirely within the cystid, contains the nervous system, digestive system, some specialized muscles and the feeding apparatus or other specialized organs that take the place of the feeding apparatus. Feeding zooids The most common type of zooid is the feeding autozooid, in which the polypide bears a "crown" of hollow tentacles called a lophophore, which captures food particles from the water. In all colonies a large percentage of zooids are autozooids, and some consist entirely of autozooids, some of which also engage in reproduction. The basic shape of the "crown" is a full circle. Among the freshwater bryozoans (Phylactolaemata) the crown appears U-shaped, but this impression is created by a deep dent in the rim of the crown, which has no gap in the fringe of tentacles. The sides of the tentacles bear fine hairs called cilia, whose beating drives a water current from the tips of the tentacles to their bases, where it exits. Food particles that collide with the tentacles are trapped by mucus, and further cilia on the inner surfaces of the tentacles move the particles towards the mouth in the center. The method used by ectoprocts is called "upstream collecting", as food particles are captured before they pass through the field of cilia that creates the feeding current. This method is also used by phoronids, brachiopods and pterobranchs. The lophophore and mouth are mounted on a flexible tube called the "invert", which can be turned inside-out and withdrawn into the polypide, rather like the finger of a rubber glove; in this position the lophophore lies inside the invert and is folded like the spokes of an umbrella. The invert is withdrawn, sometimes within 60 milliseconds, by a pair of retractor muscles that are anchored at the far end of the cystid. Sensors at the tips of the tentacles may check for signs of danger before the invert and lophophore are fully extended. Extension is driven by an increase in internal fluid pressure, which species with flexible exoskeletons produce by contracting circular muscles that lie just inside the body wall, while species with a membranous sac use circular muscles to squeeze this. Some species with rigid exoskeletons have a flexible membrane that replaces part of the exoskeleton, and transverse muscles anchored on the far side of the exoskeleton increase the fluid pressure by pulling the membrane inwards. In others there is no gap in the protective skeleton, and the transverse muscles pull on a flexible sac which is connected to the water outside by a small pore; the expansion of the sac increases the pressure inside the body and pushes the invert and lophophore out. In some species the retracted invert and lophophore are protected by an operculum ("lid"), which is closed by muscles and opened by fluid pressure. In one class, a hollow lobe called the "epistome" overhangs the mouth. The gut is U-shaped, running from the mouth, in the center of the lophophore, down into the animal's interior and then back to the anus, which is located on the invert, outside and usually below the lophophore. A network of strands of mesothelium called "funiculi" ("little ropes") connects the mesothelium covering the gut with that lining the body wall. The wall of each strand is made of mesothelium, and surrounds a space filled with fluid, thought to be blood. A colony's zooids are connected, enabling autozooids to share food with each other and with any non-feeding heterozooids. The method of connection varies between the different classes of bryozoans, ranging from quite large gaps in the body walls to small pores through which nutrients are passed by funiculi. There is a nerve ring round the pharynx (throat) and a ganglion that serves as a brain to one side of this. Nerves run from the ring and ganglion to the tentacles and to the rest of the body. Bryozoans have no specialized sense organs, but cilia on the tentacles act as sensors. Members of the genus Bugula grow towards the sun, and therefore must be able to detect light. In colonies of some species, signals are transmitted between zooids through nerves that pass through pores in the body walls, and coordinate activities such as feeding and the retraction of lophophores. The solitary individuals of Monobryozoon are autozooids with pear-shaped bodies. The wider ends have up to 15 short, muscular projections by which the animals anchor themselves to sand or gravel and pull themselves through the sediments. Avicularia and vibracula Some authorities use the term avicularia (pl. of avicularium) to refer to any type of zooid in which the lophophore is replaced by an extension that serves some protective function, while others restrict the term to those that defend the colony by snapping at invaders and small predators, killing some and biting the appendages of others. In some species the snapping zooids are mounted on a peduncle (stalk), their bird-like appearance responsible for the term – Charles Darwin described these as like "the head and beak of a vulture in miniature, seated on a neck and capable of movement". Stalked avicularia are placed upside-down on their stalks. The "lower jaws" are modified versions of the opercula that protect the retracted lophophores in autozooids of some species, and are snapped shut "like a mousetrap" by similar muscles, while the beak-shaped upper jaw is the inverted body wall. In other species the avicularia are stationary box-like zooids laid the normal way up, so that the modified operculum snaps down against the body wall. In both types the modified operculum is opened by other muscles that attach to it, or by internal muscles that raise the fluid pressure by pulling on a flexible membrane. The actions of these snapping zooids are controlled by small, highly modified polypides that are located inside the "mouth" and bear tufts of short sensory cilia. These zooids appear in various positions: some take the place of autozooids, some fit into small gaps between autozooids, and small avicularia may occur on the surfaces of other zooids. In vibracula, regarded by some as a type of avicularia, the operculum is modified to form a long bristle that has a wide range of motion. They may function as defenses against predators and invaders, or as cleaners. In some species that form mobile colonies, vibracula around the edges are used as legs for burrowing and walking. Other types of colonial zooid Kenozooids (from Greek 'empty') consist only of the body wall and funicular strands crossing the interior, and no polypide. In some species they form the stems of branching structures, while in others they act as spacers that enable colonies to grow quickly in a new direction. Spinozooids form defensive spines, and sometimes appear on top of autozooids. Gonozooids act as brood chambers for fertilized eggs. Some species have miniature nanozooids with small single-tentacled polypides, and these may grow on other zooids or within the body walls of autozooids that have degenerated. Colony forms and composition Although zooids are microscopic, colonies range in size from to over . However, the majority are under across. The shapes of colonies vary widely, depend on the pattern of budding by which they grow, the variety of zooids present and the type and amount of skeletal material they secrete. Some marine species are bush-like or fan-like, supported by "trunks" and "branches" formed by kenozooids, with feeding autozooids growing from these. Colonies of these types are generally unmineralized but may have exoskeletons made of chitin. Others look like small corals, producing heavy lime skeletons. Many species form colonies which consist of sheets of autozooids. These sheets may form leaves, tufts or, in the genus Thalamoporella, structures that resemble an open head of lettuce. The most common marine form, however, is encrusting, in which a one-layer sheet of zooids spreads over a hard surface or over seaweed. Some encrusting colonies may grow to over and contain about 2,000,000 zooids. These species generally have exoskeletons reinforced with calcium carbonate, and the openings through which the lophophores protrude are on the top or outer surface. The moss-like appearance of encrusting colonies is responsible for the phylum's name (Ancient Greek words meaning 'moss' and meaning 'animal'). Large colonies of encrusting species often have "chimneys", gaps in the canopy of lophophores, through which they swiftly expel water that has been sieved, and thus avoid re-filtering water that is already exhausted. They are formed by patches of non-feeding heterozooids. New chimneys appear near the edges of expanding colonies, at points where the speed of the outflow is already high, and do not change position if the water flow changes. Some freshwater species secrete a mass of gelatinous material, up to in diameter, to which the zooids stick. Other freshwater species have plant-like shapes with "trunks" and "branches", which may stand erect or spread over the surface. A few species can creep at about per day. Each colony grows by asexual budding from a single zooid known as the ancestrula, which is round rather than shaped like a normal zooid. This occurs at the tips of "trunks" or "branches" in forms that have this structure. Encrusting colonies grow round their edges. In species with calcareous exoskeletons, these do not mineralize until the zooids are fully grown. Colony lifespans range from one to about 12 years, and the short-lived species pass through several generations in one season. Species that produce defensive zooids do so only when threats have already appeared, and may do so within 48 hours. The theory of "induced defenses" suggests that production of defenses is expensive and that colonies which defend themselves too early or too heavily will have reduced growth rates and lifespans. This "last minute" approach to defense is feasible because the loss of zooids to a single attack is unlikely to be significant. Colonies of some encrusting species also produce special heterozooids to limit the expansion of other encrusting organisms, especially other bryozoans. In some cases this response is more belligerent if the opposition is smaller, which suggests that zooids on the edge of a colony can somehow sense the size of the opponent. Some species consistently prevail against certain others, but most turf wars are indecisive and the combatants soon turn to growing in uncontested areas. Bryozoans competing for territory do not use the sophisticated techniques employed by sponges or corals, possibly because the shortness of bryozoan lifespans makes heavy investment in turf wars unprofitable. Bryozoans have contributed to carbonate sedimentation in marine life since the Ordovician period. Bryozoans take responsibility for many of the colony forms, which have evolved in different taxonomic groups and vary in sediment producing ability. The nine basic bryozoan colony-forms include: encrusting, dome-shaped, palmate, foliose, fenestrate, robust branching, delicate branching, articulated and free-living. Most of these sediments come from two distinct groups of colonies: domal, delicate branching, robust branching and palmate; and fenestrate. Fenestrate colonies generate rough particles both as sediment and components of stromatoporiods coral reefs. The delicate colonies however, create both coarse sediment and form the cores of deep-water, subphotic biogenic mounds. Nearly all post- bryozoan sediments are made up of growth forms, with the addition to free-living colonies which include significant numbers of various colonies. “In contrast to the Palaeozoic, post-Palaeozoic bryozoans generated sediment varying more widely with the size of their grains; they grow as they moved from mud, to sand, to gravel.” Taxonomy The phylum was originally called "Polyzoa", but this name was eventually replaced by Ehrenberg's term "Bryozoa". The name "Bryozoa" was originally applied only to the animals also known as Ectoprocta (), in which the anus lies outside the "crown" of tentacles. After the discovery of the Entoprocta (lit. 'inside-anus'), in which the anus lies within a "crown" of tentacles, the name "Bryozoa" was promoted to phylum level to include the two classes Ectoprocta and Entoprocta. However, in 1869 Hinrich Nitsche regarded the two groups as quite distinct for a variety of reasons, and coined the name "Ectoprocta" for Ehrenberg's "Bryozoa". Despite their apparently similar methods of feeding, they differed markedly anatomically; in addition to the different positions of the anus, ectoprocts have hollow tentacles and a coelom, while entoprocts have solid tentacles and no coelom. Hence the two groups are now widely regarded as separate phyla, and the name "Bryozoa" is now synonymous with "Ectoprocta". This has remained the majority view ever since, although most publications have preferred the name "Bryozoa" rather than "Ectoprocta". Nevertheless, some notable scientists have continued to regard the "Ectoprocta" and Entoprocta as close relatives and group them under

biennial plant is a flowering plant that takes two years, generally in a temperate climate, to complete its biological life cycle. In the first year, the plant undergoes primary growth, in which its leaves, stems, and roots (vegetative structures) develop. Usually, the stem of the plant remains short and the leaves are low to the ground, forming a rosette. After the first year, the plant enters a period of dormancy for the colder months. Many biennials require a cold treatment, or vernalization, before they will flower. During the next spring or summer, the stem of the biennial plant elongates greatly, or "bolts". The plant then flowers, producing fruits and seeds before it finally dies. There are far fewer biennials than either perennial plants or annual plants. Biennials do not always follow a strict two year life cycle and the majority of plants in the wild can take 3 or more years to fully mature. Rosette leaf size has been found to predict when a plant may enter its second stage of flowering and seed production. Alternatively, under extreme climatic conditions, a biennial plant may complete its

plant may complete its life cycle rapidly (e.g., in three months instead of two years). This is quite common in vegetable or flower seedlings that were vernalized before they were planted in the ground. This behavior leads to many normally biennial plants being treated as annuals in some areas. Conversely, an annual grown under extremely favorable conditions may have highly successful seed propagation, giving it the appearance of being biennial or perennial. Some short-lived perennials may appear to be biennial rather than perennial. True biennials flower only once, while many perennials will flower every year once mature. Biennials grown for flowers, fruits, or seeds need to be grown for two years. Biennials that are grown for edible leaves or roots are grown for just one year (and not grown on a second year to run to seed). Examples of biennial plants are members of the onion family including leek, some members of the cabbage family, common mullein, parsley, fennel, Lunaria,

it is much stronger. Bay leaves are also used in the making of jerk chicken in the Caribbean Islands. The bay leaves are soaked and placed on the cool side of the grill. Pimento sticks are placed on top of the leaves, and the chicken is placed on top and smoked. The leaves are also added whole to soups, stews, and other Caribbean dishes. Bay leaves can also be used scattered in a pantry to repel meal moths, flies, and cockroaches. Mediouni-Ben Jemaa and Tersim 2011 find the essential oil to be usable as an insect repellent. Bay leaves have been used in entomology as the active ingredient in killing jars. The crushed, fresh, young leaves are put into the jar under a layer of paper. The vapors they release kill insects slowly but effectively and keep the specimens relaxed and easy to mount. The leaves discourage the growth of molds. They are not effective for killing large beetles and similar specimens, but insects that have been killed in a cyanide killing jar can be transferred to a laurel jar to await mounting. There is confusion in the literature about whether Laurus nobilis is a source of cyanide to any practical extent, but there is no evidence that cyanide is relevant to its value in killing jars. It certainly is rich in various essential oil components that could incapacitate insects in high concentrations; such compounds include 1,8-cineole, alpha-terpinyl acetate, and methyl eugenol. It also is unclear to what extent the alleged effect of cyanide released by the crushed leaves has been mis-attributed to Laurus nobilis in confusion with the unrelated Prunus laurocerasus, the so-called cherry laurel, which certainly does contain dangerous concentrations of cyanogenic glycocides together with the enzymes to generate the hydrogen cyanide from the glycocides if the leaf is physically damaged. Safety Some members of the laurel

bay leaves are about twice as long and wider, usually olive green in colour and have three veins running the length of the leaf. Culinarily, Indian bay leaves are quite different, having a fragrance and taste similar to cinnamon (cassia) bark, but milder. Indonesian bay leaf or Indonesian laurel (salam leaf, Syzygium polyanthum, Myrtaceae) is not commonly found outside Indonesia; this herb is applied to meat and, less often, to vegetables. West Indian bay leaf, the leaf of the West Indian bay tree (Pimenta racemosa, Myrtaceae) is used culinarily (especially in Caribbean cuisine) and to produce the cologne called bay rum. Mexican bay leaf (Litsea glaucescens, Lauraceae). Chemical constituents The leaves contain about 1.3% essential oils (ol. lauri folii), consisting of 45% eucalyptol, 12% other terpenes, 8-12% terpinyl acetate, 3–4% sesquiterpenes, 3% methyleugenol, and other α- and β-pinenes, phellandrene, linalool, geraniol, terpineol, and also contain lauric acid. Taste and aroma If eaten whole, bay leaves are pungent and have a sharp, bitter taste. As with many spices and flavourings, the fragrance of the bay leaf is more noticeable than its taste. When the leaf is dried, the aroma is herbal, slightly floral, and somewhat similar to oregano and thyme. Myrcene, a component of many essential oils used in perfumery, can be extracted from the bay leaf. They also contain eugenol. Uses In Indian cuisine, bay laurel leaves are sometimes used in place of Indian bay leaf, although they have a different flavour. They are most often used in rice dishes like biryani and as an ingredient in garam masala. Bay (laurel) leaves are called (, in Hindi) and তেজ পাত in Assamese. In the Philippines, dried bay laurel leaves are used in several Filipino dishes, such as menudo, beef pares, and adobo. Bay leaves were used for flavouring by the ancient Greeks. They are a fixture in the cooking of many European cuisines (particularly those of the Mediterranean), as well as in the Americas. They are used in soups, stews, brines, meat, seafood, vegetable dishes, and sauces. The leaves also flavour many classic French and Italian dishes. The leaves are most often used whole (sometimes in a ) and removed before serving (they can be abrasive in the digestive tract). Thai and Laotian cuisine employs bay leaf (, ) in a few Arab-influenced dishes, notably massaman curry. Bay leaves can also be crushed or ground before cooking. Crushed bay leaves impart more fragrance than whole leaves, but are more difficult to remove and thus they are often used in a muslin bag or tea infuser. Ground bay laurel may be substituted for whole leaves and does not need to be removed, but

Gröbner basis Hilbert's basis theorem Generating set of a group Base (topology) Change of basis Greedoid Normal basis Polynomial basis Radial basis function Standard basis Transcendence basis of a field extension Basis database Chemistry Basis (crystal structure), the positions of the atoms inside the unit cell Basis set (chemistry) Dry basis, an expression of a calculation in which the presence of water is ignored Organizations Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services Basis Educational Group Basis Schools, a group of schools in Arizona, Washington, D.C., and Texas Basis Technology Corp., a text analytics company People Dimitris Basis, Greek singer Liron Basis (born 1974), Israeli footballer See also Base (disambiguation)

similar security Basis of futures, the value differential between a future and the spot price Basis (options), the value differential between a call option and a put option Basis swap, an interest rate swap Cost basis, in income tax law, the original cost of property adjusted for factors such as depreciation Tax basis, cost of an asset and technology Basis function Basis (linear algebra)

at a number of localities near the town of Field in Yoho National Park and the Kicking Horse Pass. Another outcrop is in Kootenay National Park 42 km to the south. History and significance The Burgess Shale was discovered by palaeontologist Charles Walcott on 30 August 1909, towards the end of the season's fieldwork. He returned in 1910 with his sons, daughter, and wife, establishing a quarry on the flanks of Fossil Ridge. The significance of soft-bodied preservation, and the range of organisms he recognised as new to science, led him to return to the quarry almost every year until 1924. At that point, aged 74, he had amassed over 65,000 specimens. Describing the fossils was a vast task, pursued by Walcott until his death in 1927. Walcott, led by scientific opinion at the time, attempted to categorise all fossils into living taxa, and as a result, the fossils were regarded as little more than curiosities at the time. It was not until 1962 that a first-hand reinvestigation of the fossils was attempted, by Alberto Simonetta. This led scientists to recognise that Walcott had barely scratched the surface of information available in the Burgess Shale, and also made it clear that the organisms did not fit comfortably into modern groups. Excavations were resumed at the Walcott Quarry by the Geological Survey of Canada under the persuasion of trilobite expert Harry Blackmore Whittington, and a new quarry, the Raymond, was established about 20 metres higher up Fossil Ridge. Whittington, with the help of research students Derek Briggs and Simon Conway Morris of the University of Cambridge, began a thorough reassessment of the Burgess Shale, and revealed that the fauna represented were much more diverse and unusual than Walcott had recognized. Many of the animals present had bizarre anatomical features and only the slightest resemblance to other known animals. Examples include Opabinia, with five eyes and a snout like a vacuum cleaner hose and Hallucigenia, which was originally reconstructed upside down, walking on bilaterally symmetrical spines. With Parks Canada and UNESCO recognising the significance of the Burgess Shale, collecting fossils became politically more difficult from the mid-1970s. Collections continued to be made by the Royal Ontario Museum. The curator of invertebrate palaeontology, Desmond Collins, identified a number of additional outcrops, stratigraphically both higher and lower than the original Walcott quarry. These localities continue to yield new organisms faster than they can be studied. Stephen Jay Gould's book Wonderful Life, published in 1989, brought the Burgess Shale fossils to the public's attention. Gould suggests that the extraordinary diversity of the fossils indicates that life forms at the time were much more disparate in body form than those that survive today, and that many of the unique lineages were evolutionary experiments that became extinct. Gould's interpretation of the diversity of Cambrian fauna relied heavily on Simon Conway Morris's reinterpretation of Charles Walcott's original publications. However, Conway Morris strongly disagreed with Gould's conclusions, arguing that almost all the Cambrian fauna could be classified into modern day phyla. The Burgess Shale has attracted the interest of paleoclimatologists who want to study and predict long-term future changes in Earth's climate. According to Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee in the 2003 book The Life and Death of Planet Earth, climatologists study the fossil records in the Burgess Shale to understand the climate of the Cambrian explosion. It can be used to predict what Earth's climate would look like 500 million years in the future as a warming and expanding Sun, combined with declining CO2 and oxygen levels, eventually heat the Earth toward temperatures not seen since the Archean Eon 3 billion years ago (before the first plants and animals appeared). This in turn furthers understanding of how and when the last living things on Earth could potentially die out. See also Future of the Earth. After the Burgess Shale site was registered as a World Heritage Site in 1980, it was included in the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks WHS designation in 1984. In February 2014, the discovery was announced of another Burgess Shale outcrop in Kootenay National Park to the south. In just 15 days of field collecting in 2013, 50 animal species were unearthed at the new site. Geological setting The fossil-bearing deposits of the Burgess Shale correlate to the Stephen Formation, a collection of slightly calcareous dark mudstones, about old. The beds were deposited at the base of a cliff about 160 m tall, below the depth agitated by waves during storms. This vertical cliff was composed of the calcareous reefs of the Cathedral Formation, which probably formed shortly before the deposition of the Burgess Shale. The precise formation mechanism is not known for certain, but the most widely accepted hypothesis suggests that the edge of the Cathedral Formation reef became detached from the rest of the reef, slumping and being transported some

parts of its fossils. At old (middle Cambrian), it is one of the earliest fossil beds containing soft-part imprints. The rock unit is a black shale and crops out at a number of localities near the town of Field in Yoho National Park and the Kicking Horse Pass. Another outcrop is in Kootenay National Park 42 km to the south. History and significance The Burgess Shale was discovered by palaeontologist Charles Walcott on 30 August 1909, towards the end of the season's fieldwork. He returned in 1910 with his sons, daughter, and wife, establishing a quarry on the flanks of Fossil Ridge. The significance of soft-bodied preservation, and the range of organisms he recognised as new to science, led him to return to the quarry almost every year until 1924. At that point, aged 74, he had amassed over 65,000 specimens. Describing the fossils was a vast task, pursued by Walcott until his death in 1927. Walcott, led by scientific opinion at the time, attempted to categorise all fossils into living taxa, and as a result, the fossils were regarded as little more than curiosities at the time. It was not until 1962 that a first-hand reinvestigation of the fossils was attempted, by Alberto Simonetta. This led scientists to recognise that Walcott had barely scratched the surface of information available in the Burgess Shale, and also made it clear that the organisms did not fit comfortably into modern groups. Excavations were resumed at the Walcott Quarry by the Geological Survey of Canada under the persuasion of trilobite expert Harry Blackmore Whittington, and a new quarry, the Raymond, was established about 20 metres higher up Fossil Ridge. Whittington, with the help of research students Derek Briggs and Simon Conway Morris of the University of Cambridge, began a thorough reassessment of the Burgess Shale, and revealed that the fauna represented were much more diverse and unusual than Walcott had recognized. Many of the animals present had bizarre anatomical features and only the slightest resemblance to other known animals. Examples include Opabinia, with five eyes and a snout like a vacuum cleaner hose and Hallucigenia, which was originally reconstructed upside down, walking on bilaterally symmetrical spines. With Parks Canada and UNESCO recognising the significance of the Burgess Shale, collecting fossils became politically more difficult from the mid-1970s. Collections continued to be made by the Royal Ontario Museum. The curator of invertebrate palaeontology, Desmond Collins, identified a number of additional outcrops, stratigraphically both higher and lower than the original Walcott quarry. These localities continue to yield new organisms faster than they can be studied. Stephen Jay Gould's book Wonderful Life, published in 1989, brought the Burgess Shale fossils to the public's attention. Gould suggests that the extraordinary diversity of the fossils indicates that life forms at the time were much more disparate in body form than those that survive today, and that many of the unique lineages were evolutionary experiments that became extinct. Gould's interpretation of the diversity of Cambrian fauna relied heavily on Simon Conway Morris's reinterpretation of Charles Walcott's original publications. However, Conway Morris strongly disagreed with Gould's conclusions, arguing that almost all the Cambrian fauna could be classified into modern day phyla. The Burgess Shale has attracted the interest of paleoclimatologists who want to study and predict long-term future changes in Earth's climate. According to Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee in the 2003 book The Life and Death of Planet Earth, climatologists study the fossil records in the Burgess Shale to understand the climate of the Cambrian explosion. It can be used to predict what Earth's climate would look like 500 million years in the future as a warming and expanding Sun, combined with declining CO2 and oxygen levels, eventually heat the Earth toward temperatures not seen since the Archean Eon 3 billion years ago (before the first plants and animals appeared). This in turn furthers understanding of how and when the last living things on Earth could potentially die out. See also Future of the Earth. After the Burgess Shale site was registered as a World Heritage Site in 1980, it was included in the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks WHS designation in 1984. In February 2014, the discovery was announced of another Burgess Shale outcrop in Kootenay National Park to the south. In just 15 days of field collecting in 2013, 50 animal species were unearthed at the new site. Geological setting The fossil-bearing deposits of the Burgess Shale correlate to the Stephen Formation, a collection of slightly calcareous dark mudstones, about old. The beds were deposited at the base of a cliff about 160 m tall, below the depth agitated by waves during storms. This vertical cliff was composed of the calcareous reefs of the Cathedral Formation, which probably formed shortly before the deposition of the Burgess Shale. The precise formation mechanism is not known for

last moment at the demand of Judge, who owned approval rights for video releases of the series, though some copies made it to some store shelves. According to Judge, the History set was made up of episodes that he had previously rejected for home video release and had been prepared without his knowledge or consent. In all, half of the 32 episodes on The History of Beavis and Butt-Head were not included on later releases of the series, including all but two episodes on the first disc. The Mike Judge Collection MTV and Paramount Home Entertainment released on November 8, 2005, a three-disc DVD compilation titled Beavis and Butt-Head: The Mike Judge Collection, Volume 1. The DVD set includes 40 episodes and 11 music video segments from the original shows. The set was followed by Volume2 and Volume3. On January 27, 2008, MTV and Apple made all three collections available on the iTunes Store. A Blu-ray and DVD release of Season 8, titled Beavis and Butt-Head – Volume 4, was released on February 15, 2012, in the U.S. On February 14, 2017, MTV released Beavis and Butt-Head – The Complete Collection, a 12-disc set containing all four previously released volumes of The Mike Judge Collection, along with a special collector's edition of Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. Many music video segments and content from other third parties were never released due to licensing issues with the rights holders. Early episodes featuring Beavis and Butt-Head engaging in unusually cruel and criminal activities were never released due to Mike Judge and MTV's dislike of them. Mike Judge's Most Wanted A DVD set featuring Mike Judge's favorite episodes. The set includes 20 episodes plus "The Taint of Greatness: The Journey of Beavis and Butt-Head"; it also features the original "Frog Baseball" and scenes from season 8. Related media Marvel Comics From 1994 to 1996, Marvel Comics published a monthly Beavis and Butt-Head comic under the Marvel Absurd imprint by a variety of writers, but with each issue drawn by artist Rick Parker. It was also reprinted by Marvel UK, which created new editorial material. The letters page was answered by Beavis and Butt-Head or one of their supporting characters. As a comic counterpart to the cartoon's music-video riffing segments, they reviewed (custom-made) pages from other Marvel Comics. In their review of a Ghost Rider comic, Beavis tries to avoid using the word "fire" to describe the character's fiery skull. In the comic, minor characters like Earl, Billy Bob, Clark Cobb, and Mistress Cora Anthrax would get repeated appearances; Earl was quite regular, and Anthrax was in two issues and got to answer a letters page. AC/DC Ballbreaker World Tour In 1996, Beavis and Butt-Head were featured in AC/DC’s Ballbreaker World Tour for the album of the same name. In it, both are backstage trying to meet the band and score some chicks. Both bang on the rehearsal door. A cartoony version of lead guitarist Angus Young appears behind the door and whistles for the Ballbreaker dominatrix featured on some of the promotional posters. She licks a mechanical drill and throws her cape to obscure the screen. Both Beavis and Butt-Head are heard screaming moments before the band appear on stage. The promotional film can be found on AC/DC’s DVD box set Plug Me In. Daria A spin-off based on classmate Daria Morgendorffer premiered in 1997. Mike Judge was not involved at all except to give permission for use of the character (created by Glenn Eichler and designed by Bill Peckmann). The only reference to the original show is Daria's mentioning that Lawndale cannot be a second Highland "unless there's uranium in the drinking water here too". Video games MTV's Beavis and Butt-Head, a set of games released by Viacom New Media for the Game Gear, Genesis and Super NES in 1994. All three games featured music composed by Gwar. Talking MTV's Beavis and Butt-Head: This Game Rules!!!, a handheld LCD video game released by Tiger Electronics in 1994. Beavis and Butt-Head in Virtual Stupidity, a graphic adventure game released for Windows 95 in 1995. A PlayStation port was released exclusively in Japan in 1998 featuring dubbed voice acting by Atsushi Tamura and Ryō Tamura from Owarai duo London Boots Ichi-gō Ni-gō. Beavis and Butt-Head in Calling All Dorks, a collection of desktop themes for Windows 95 released in 1995 by Viacom New Media. Beavis and Butt-Head in Wiener Takes All, a Beavis and Butt-Head-themed trivia game by Viacom New Media. Released as a PC/Macintosh-compatible CD-ROM in 1996. Beavis and Butt-Head in Little Thingies, a mini-game collection released for Windows 95 in 1996 featuring four mini-games from the previously-released Virtual Stupidity and three new ones. Beavis and Butt-Head, a coin-operated video game developed by Atari Games for a 3DO Interactive Multiplayer-based hardware. The game underwent location testing 1996, but was unreleased due to poor reception. Beavis and Butt-Head in Screen Wreckers, a collection of screensavers released for Windows 95 in 1997. Beavis and Butt-Head: Bunghole in One, a Beavis and Butt-Head-themed golf video game released for Windows 95 by GT Interactive Software in 1998. Beavis and Butt-Head, an overhead action game released by GT Interactive Software for the Game Boy in 1998. Beavis and Butt-Head Do Hollywood, an unreleased 3D action game that was being produced by GT Interactive Software. It was announced for the PlayStation in 1998. Beavis and Butt-Head Do U., a graphic adventure game released by GT Interactive Software for Windows 95 in 1999. Books (NOTE: This book is a bundle of four previous books 'Ensucklopedia,' 'Huh Huh for Hollywood,' 'The Butt-Files,' and 'Chicken Soup for the Butt' which are no longer in print separately). Album A CD, The Beavis and Butt-Head Experience, was released featuring many hard rock and heavy metal bands such as Megadeth, Primus, Nirvana and White Zombie. Moreover, Beavis and Butt-Head do a duet with Cher on "I Got You Babe" and a track by themselves called "Come to Butt-Head". The track with Cher also resulted in a music video directed by Tamra Davis and Yvette Kaplan. Chart success The Beavis and Butt-Head duet with Cher on "I Got You Babe" was released as a single in the UK, Australia, Europe and the US, the UK CD had a special limited edition sticker to promote The Beavis and Butt-Head Experience available with the release. On January 15, 1994, the song charted at number 35 in the UK charts and stayed on the charts for 4 weeks. On December 4, 1993, the song charted on the official Billboard charts in the US peaking at number 8. The single also charted at number 69 in Australia, 19 in Belgium, 18 in Denmark, 69 on the European Hot 100, 9 on the Netherlands Dutch Top 40, 10 on the Netherlands top 100 and number 40 in Sweden. Slot game In 2019, Gauselmann Group's UK-based games studio Blueprint Gaming launched the Beavis and Butt-Head online slot game. The game features moments and scenes from the TV show and film. The branded game was among the 10 most exposed slot games in UK online casinos days after its release in late May 2019. Appearances in other media Beavis and Butt-Head have appeared in another one of MTV's animated shows, Celebrity Deathmatch. Beavis and Butt-Head also appeared in Robot Chicken. They also appear in a cutaway gag in the 1990s-set Family Guy episode "Peter & Lois' Wedding" and are once again voiced by Mike Judge. References External links Beavis and Butt-Head at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on February 22, 2018. Beavis and Butt-Head at EpisodeWorld.com - MTV 1990s American adult animated television series 1990s American animated comedy television series 1990s American high school television series 1990s American satirical television series 1993 American television series debuts 1997 American television series endings 2010s American adult animated television series 2010s American animated comedy television series 2010s American high school television series 2010s American satirical television series 2011 American television series debuts 2011 American television series endings American adult animated television spin-offs American adult animated comedy television series American television series revived after cancellation American television series with live

March 8, 1993, to November 28, 1997. The series was revived with an eighth season airing on MTV from October 27, 2011, to December 29, 2011, but was cancelled a second time following the season's conclusion. A second revival consisting of two seasons is scheduled to release on Paramount+. During its initial run, Beavis and Butt-Head received widespread critical acclaim for its satirical, scathing commentary on society. The show's popularity spawned various related media, including the theatrical film Beavis and Butt-Head Do America in 1996. A second film has also been announced to be released in July 2022 on Paramount+. Premise The series centers on two unintelligent teenage delinquent couch potatoes named Beavis and Butt-Head (both voiced by Judge) who lack social skills. They attend school at Highland High in a town named Highland, located somewhere in Texas or New Mexico. If they are not at school or out causing mayhem, they're at home watching TV, looking at pornographic magazines, or eating nachos and other junk food. Beavis and Butt-Head have little to no adult supervision and are barely literate. Both lack any empathy or moral scruples even when regarding each other, and have no hesitance to inflict serious physical harm to each other. They will usually deem an experience "cool" if it somehow involves heavy metal, violence, sex, destruction, or the macabre. While inexperienced with women, they share an obsession with sex and tend to chortle whenever they hear words or phrases that could be even vaguely interpreted as sexual or scatological. Butt-Head tends to be very emotionless and lackadaisical with regard to his conduct, whereas Beavis tends to be more "over-the-top" and extroverted (he is also shown to be somewhat more aware of social norms and certain morals than Butt-Head is, though Butt-Head seems to be somewhat more intelligent at reading and planning ahead). Each episode features frequent interstitial scenes in which they critique music videos using commentary improvised by Judge (much in the same way as Mystery Science Theater 3000; in season eight, they also commented on clips from other MTV shows such as Jersey Shore and True Life, plus shows from other Viacom-owned networks such as Spike). The remainder of the episodes depict the duo embarking on various schemes or adventures. The staff at Highland High are often at a loss as to how to deal with them, and, in many episodes, Beavis and Butt-Head skip school altogether. Their actions sometimes result in serious consequences (sometimes for themselves but often for others), for which they themselves do not express any remorse due to being too stupid to understand that their actions have caused serious problems. Cast Mike Judge as Beavis, Butt-Head, Coach Buzzcut, Principal McVicker, Mr. Van Driessen, Tom Anderson, many others Tracy Grandstaff as Daria Morgendorffer Adam Welsh as Stewart Stevenson Episodes Reception Over its run, Beavis and Butt-Head received both positive and negative reactions from the public with its combination of lewd humor and implied criticism of society. It became the focus of criticism from some social critics such as Michael Medved, while others such as David Letterman and the National Review defended it as a cleverly subversive vehicle for social criticism and a particularly creative and intelligent comedy. Either way, the show captured the attention of many young television viewers and is often considered a classic piece of 1990s youth culture and Generation X. Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of South Park, cite the series as an influence and compared it to the blues. In 1997, Dan Tobin of The Boston Phoenix commented on the series' humor, saying it transformed "stupidity into a crusade, forcing us to acknowledge how little it really takes to make us laugh." In 1997, Ted Drozdowski of The Boston Phoenix described the 1997 Beavis and Butt-Head state as "reduced to self-parody of their self-parody." In December 2005, TV Guide ranked the duo's distinct laughing at #66 on their list of the 100 Greatest TV Quotes and Catchphrases. In 2012, TV Guide ranked Beavis and Butt-Head as one of the top 60 Greatest TV Cartoons of All Time. Mike Judge himself is highly critical of the animation and quality of earlier episodes, in particular the first two—"Give Blood/Blood Drive" and "Door to Door"—which he described as "awful, I don't know why anybody liked it... I was burying my head in the sand." Controversy The show was blamed for the death of two-year-old Jessica Matthews in Moraine, Ohio, in October 1993. The girl's five-year-old brother, Austin Messner, set fire to his mother's mobile home with a cigarette lighter, killing the two-year-old. The mother later claimed that her son watched an episode in which the characters said "fire was fun". However, the neighbors stated that the family did not even have cable television and would thus be unable to view the show. As a result, all references to fire were removed from subsequent airings and prompted the show to a later time slot. The creators found a censorship loophole and took delight in sometimes making Beavis scream things that sounded very similar to his previous "Fire! Fire!" (such as "Fryer! Fryer!" when he and Butt-Head are working the late shift at Burger World) and also having him almost say the forbidden word (such as one time when he sang "Liar, liar, pants on..." and pausing before "fire"). There was also a music video where a man runs on fire in slow motion ("California" by Wax). Beavis is hypnotized by it and can barely say "fire". However, MTV eventually removed the episode entirely. References to fire were cut from earlier episodes—even the original master tapes were altered permanently. Other episodes MTV opted not to rerun included "Stewart's House" and "Way Down Mexico Way". Copies of early episodes with the controversial content intact are rare, and the copies that exist are made from home video recordings of the original broadcasts, typically on VCR. In an interview included with the Mike Judge Collection DVD set, Judge said he is uncertain whether some of the earlier episodes still exist in their original, uncensored form. When the series returned in 2011, MTV allowed Beavis to use the word "fire" once again uncensored. During the first video segment, "Werewolves of Highland", the first new episode of the revival, Beavis utters the word "fire" a total of seven times within 28 seconds, with Butt-Head saying it once as well. In February 1994, watchdog group Morality in Media claimed that the death of eight-month-old Natalia Rivera, struck by a bowling ball thrown from an overpass onto a highway in Jersey City, New Jersey, near the Holland Tunnel by 18-year-old Calvin J. Settle, was partially inspired by Beavis and Butt-Head. The group said that Settle was influenced by the episode "Ball Breakers", in which Beavis and Butt-Head load a bowling ball with explosives and drop it from a rooftop. While Morality in Media claimed that the show inspired Settle's actions, the case's prosecutors did not. It was later revealed by both prosecutors and the defendant that Settle did not have cable TV, nor did he watch the show. In "Lightning Strikes", the show parodies the desire to blame things on youth culture. When a reporter asks the duo why they had been flying a kite in a thunderstorm, they explain that they had been inspired by a documentary about "some old dude with long hair and glasses". The interview continues until they mention having watched rock music videos earlier in the day; the reporter concludes (on the air) that the videos are to blame for their actions. MTV also responded by broadcasting the program after 11:00 p.m. and included a disclaimer, reminding viewers: Beavis and Butt-Head are not real. They are stupid cartoon people completely made up by this Texas guy whom we hardly even know. Beavis and Butt-Head are dumb, crude, thoughtless, ugly, sexist, self-destructive fools. But for some reason, the little wienerheads make us laugh. This was later changed to: Beavis and Butt-Head are not role models. They're not even human. They're cartoons. Some of the things they do would cause a person to get hurt, expelled, arrested, possibly deported. To put it another way: don't try this at home. This disclaimer also appears before the opening of their Sega Genesis and Super NES games as well as their Windows game Beavis and Butt-Head in Virtual Stupidity. They were famously lambasted by Democratic South Carolina Senator Fritz Hollings as "Buffcoat and Beaver". This subsequently became a running gag on the show where adults mispronounced their names. For example, one character on the show, Tom Anderson, originally called them "Butthole" and "Joe" and believed the two to be of Asian ethnicity (describing them to the police as "Oriental"). In later episodes, Anderson uses the Hollings mispronunciation once and, on at least one occasion, refers to them as "Penis and Butt-Munch". President Clinton called them "Beavis and Bum-head" in "Citizen Butt-head", as well as in the movie, where an old lady (voiced by Cloris Leachman) consistently calls them "Travis" and "Bob-head". In "Incognito", when another student threatens to kill them, the duo uses this to their advantage, pretending to be exchange students named "Crevis and Bung-Head". The bully, seeing through the disguises, calls them "Beaver and Butt-Plug". In "Right On!", when the duo appear on the Gus Baker Show, host Gus Baker (a caricature of Rush Limbaugh) introduces them as "Beavis and Buffcoat". Beavis and Butt-Head have been compared to idiot savants because of their creative and subversively intelligent observations of music videos. This part of the show was mostly improvised by Mike Judge. With regard to criticisms of the two as "idiots", Judge responded that a show about straight-A students would not be funny. Films Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996) In 1996, a full-length film featuring the duo titled Beavis and Butt-Head Do America was released in theaters by Paramount Pictures. The film features the voices of Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, Cloris Leachman, Robert Stack, Eric Bogosian, Richard Linklater, Greg Kinnear (in an uncredited role) and David Letterman (credited as Earl Hofert). It gained mostly positive reviews from film critics and a "two thumbs up" from Siskel and Ebert. The film earned over $60 million at the domestic box office, a strong return for a film that cost only $12 million to produce. Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe (2022) In 2008, Judge stated, "I like to keep the door open on Beavis and Butt-Head, because it's my favorite thing that I've ever done. It's the thing I'm most proud of." However, he stated his reservations regarding the "year and half [to] two and a half years" that it would take "to do that right," saying that a revival project "comes up every three years." In 2009, while promoting his film Extract, Judge said he would like to see the characters on the big screen again, and that "I kind of think of them as being either 15 or in their 60s.... I wouldn't mind doing something with them as these two dirty old men sitting on the couch." In March 2018, Judge told Rotten Tomatoes that the idea of doing a second Beavis and Butt-Head movie had been brought up two months prior, saying "It's just a matter of coming up with

it always has had the same circumscription: consisting only of the family Bromeliaceae, the bromeliad or pineapple family. The order is not recognized in the APG II system, of 2003, which places the plants involved in the order Poales. Some examples are: The Cronquist system of 1981 placed this order in subclass Zingiberidae, of

system of 1981 placed this order in subclass Zingiberidae, of class Liliopsida [=monocotyledons]. The Thorne system (1992) placed the order in superorder Commelinanae in subclass Liliidae [=monocotyledons]. The Dahlgren system placed the order in superorder Bromeliiflorae (also known as Bromelianae) in subclass Liliidae [=monocotyledons] together with five other orders. The

Salvadoraceae – three genera found from Africa to Java Setchellanthaceae Tiganophytaceae Tovariaceae Tropaeolaceae – nasturtium family Classification The following diagram shows the phylogeny of the Brassicales families along with their estimated ages, based on a 2018 study of plastid DNA: On 20 April 2020, a newly described monotypic species from Namibia, namely, Tiganophyton karasense is placed under this order as a monotypic member of new family Tiganophytaceae, which is closely related to Bataceae, Salvadoraceae and Koeberliniaceae. Historic classifications Under the Cronquist system, the Brassicales were called the Capparales, and included among the "Dilleniidae". The only families included were the Brassicaceae and Capparaceae (treated as separate families), the Tovariaceae, Resedaceae, and Moringaceae. Other taxa now included here were placed in various other orders. The families Capparaceae and Brassicaceae are closely related. One group, consisting of Cleome and related genera, was traditionally included in the Capparaceae but doing so results in a paraphyletic Capparaceae. Therefore, this group is generally now either included in the Brassicaceae or as its own

salt-tolerant shrubs from America and Australasia Brassicaceae – mustard and cabbage family; may include the Cleomaceae Capparaceae – caper family, sometimes included in Brassicaceae Caricaceae – papaya family Cleomaceae Gyrostemonaceae – several genera of small shrubs and trees endemic to temperate parts of Australia Koeberliniaceae – one species of thorn bush native to Mexico and the US Southwest Limnanthaceae – meadowfoam family Moringaceae – thirteen species of trees from Africa and India Pentadiplandraceae – African species whose berries have two highly sweet tasting proteins Resedaceae – mignonette

the BBS possible for the first time, as it allowed software on the computer to pick up an incoming call, communicate with the user, and then hang up the call when the user logged off. The first public dial-up BBS was developed by Ward Christensen and Randy Suess. According to an early interview, when Chicago was snowed under during the Great Blizzard of 1978, the two began preliminary work on the Computerized Bulletin Board System, or CBBS. The system came into existence largely through a fortuitous combination of Christensen having a spare S-100 bus computer and an early Hayes internal modem, and Suess's insistence that the machine be placed at his house in Chicago where it would be a local phone call for more users. Christensen patterned the system after the cork board his local computer club used to post information like "need a ride". CBBS officially went online on 16 February 1978. CBBS, which kept a count of callers, reportedly connected 253,301 callers before it was finally retired. Smartmodem A key innovation required for the popularization of the BBS was the Smartmodem manufactured by Hayes Microcomputer Products. Internal modems like the ones used by CBBS and similar early systems were usable, but generally expensive due to the manufacturer having to make a different modem for every computer platform they wanted to target. They were also limited to those computers with internal expansion, and could not be used with other useful platforms like video terminals. External modems were available for these platforms but required the phone to be dialed using a conventional handset. Internal modems could be software-controlled to perform both outbound and inbound calls, but external modems had only the data pins to communicate with the host system. Hayes' solution to the problem was to use a small microcontroller to implement a system that examined the data flowing into the modem from the host computer, watching for certain command strings. This allowed commands to be sent to and from the modem using the same data pins as all the rest of the data, meaning it would work on any system that could support even the most basic modems. The Smartmodem could pick up the phone, dial numbers, and hang up again, all without any operator intervention. The Smartmodem was not necessary for BBS use but made overall operation dramatically simpler. It also improved usability for the caller, as most terminal software allowed different phone numbers to be stored and dialed on command, allowing the user to easily connect to a series of systems. The introduction of the Smartmodem led to the first real wave of BBS systems. Limited in both speed and storage capacity, these systems were normally dedicated solely to messaging, both private email and public forums. File transfers were extremely slow at these speeds, and file libraries were typically limited to text files containing lists of other BBS systems. These systems attracted a particular type of user who used the BBS as a unique type of communications medium, and when these local systems were crowded from the market in the 1990s, their loss was lamented for many years. Higher speeds, commercialization Speed improved with the introduction of 1200 bit/s asynchronous modems in the early 1980s, giving way to 2400 bit/s fairly rapidly. The improved performance led to a substantial increase in BBS popularity. Most of the information was displayed using ordinary ASCII text or ANSI art, but a number of systems attempted character-based graphical user interfaces which began to be practical at 2400 bit/s. There was a lengthy delay before 9600 bit/s models began to appear on the market. 9600 bit/s was not even established as a strong standard before V.32bis at 14.4 kbit/s took over in the early 1990s. This period also saw the rapid rise in capacity and a dramatic drop in the price of hard drives. By the late 1980s, many BBS systems had significant file libraries, and this gave rise to leechingusers calling BBSes solely for their files. These users would use the modem for some time, leaving less time for other users, who got busy signals. The resulting upheaval eliminated many of the pioneering message-centric systems. This also gave rise to a new class of BBS systems, dedicated solely to file upload and downloads. These systems charged for access, typically a flat monthly fee, compared to the per-hour fees charged by Event Horizons BBS and most online services. Many third-party services were developed to support these systems, offering simple credit card merchant account gateways for the payment of monthly fees, and entire file libraries on compact disk that made initial setup very easy. Early 1990s editions of Boardwatch were filled with ads for single-click install solutions dedicated to these new sysops. While this gave the market a bad reputation, it also led to its greatest success. During the early 1990s, there were a number of mid-sized software companies dedicated to BBS software, and the number of BBSes in service reached its peak. Towards the early 1990s, BBS became so popular that it spawned three monthly magazines, Boardwatch, BBS Magazine, and in Asia and Australia, Chips 'n Bits Magazine which devoted extensive coverage of the software and technology innovations and people behind them, and listings to US and worldwide BBSes. In addition, in the US, a major monthly magazine, Computer Shopper, carried a list of BBSes along with a brief abstract of each of their offerings. GUIs Through the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was considerable experimentation with ways to improve the BBS experience from its command-line interface roots. Almost every popular system improved matters somewhat by adding ANSI-based color menus to make reading easier, and most also allowed cursor commands to offer command-line recall and similar features. Another common feature was the use of autocomplete to make menu navigation simpler, a feature that would not re-appear on the Web until decades later. A number of systems also made forays into GUI-based interfaces, either using character graphics sent from the host, or using custom GUI-based terminal systems. The latter initially appeared, unsurprisingly, on the Macintosh platform, where TeleFinder and FirstClass became very popular. FirstClass offered a host of features that would be difficult or impossible under a terminal-based solution, including bi-directional information flow and non-blocking operation that allowed the user to exchange files in both directions while continuing to use the message system and chat, all in separate windows. Skypix featured on Amiga a complete markup language. It used a standardized set of icons to indicate mouse driven commands available online and to recognize different filetypes present on BBS storage media. It was capable of transmitting data like images, audio files, and audio clips between users linked to the same BBS or off-line if the BBS was in the circuit of the FidoNet organization. On the PC, efforts were more oriented to extensions of the original terminal concept, with the GUI being described in the information on the host. One example was the Remote Imaging Protocol, essentially a picture description system, which remained relatively obscure. Probably the ultimate development of this style of operation was the dynamic page implementation of the University of Southern California BBS (USCBBS) by Susan Biddlecomb, which predated the implementation of the HTML Dynamic web page. A complete Dynamic web page implementation was accomplished using TBBS with a TDBS add-on presenting a complete menu system individually customized for each user. Rise of the Internet and decline of BBS The demand for complex ANSI and ASCII screens and larger file transfers taxed available channel capacity, which in turn increased demand for faster modems. 14.4 kbit/s modems were standard for a number of years while various companies attempted to introduce non-standard systems with higher performancenormally about 19.2 kbit/s. Another delay followed due to a long V.34 standards process before 28.8 kbit/s was released, only to be quickly replaced by 33.6 kbit/s, and then 56 kbit/s. These increasing speeds had the side effect of dramatically reducing the noticeable effects of channel efficiency. When modems were slow, considerable effort was put into developing the most efficient protocols and display systems possible. Running a general-purpose protocol like TCP/IP over a 1200 bit/s modem was a painful experience. With 56 kbit/s modems, however, the overhead was so greatly reduced as to be unnoticeable. Dial-up Internet service became widely available in 1994, and a must-have option for any general-use operating system by 1995. These developments together resulted in the sudden obsolescence of bulletin board technology in 1995 and the collapse of its supporting market. Technically, Internet service offered an enormous advantage over BBS systems, as a single connection to the user's Internet service provider allowed them to contact services around the world. In comparison, BBS systems relied on a direct point-to-point connection, so even dialing multiple local systems required multiple phone calls. Moreover, Internet protocols allowed that same single connection to be used to contact multiple services at the same time; for example, downloading files from an FTP library while checking the weather on a local news website. In comparison, a connection to a BBS allowed access only to the information on that system. Estimating numbers According to the FidoNet Nodelist, BBSes reached their peak usage around 1996, which was the same period that the World Wide Web and AOL became mainstream. BBSes rapidly declined in popularity thereafter, and were replaced by systems using the Internet for connectivity. Some of the larger commercial BBSes, such as MaxMegabyte and ExecPC BBS, evolved into Internet service providers. The website textfiles.com serves as an archive that documents the history of the BBS. The historical BBS list on textfiles.com contains over 105,000 BBSes that have existed over a span of 20 years in North America alone. The owner of textfiles.com, Jason Scott, also produced BBS: The Documentary, a DVD film that chronicles the history of the BBS and features interviews with well-known people (mostly from the United States) from the heyday BBS era. In the 2000s, most traditional BBS systems migrated to the Internet using Telnet or SSH protocols. Between 700 and 800 are thought to be active in 2020fewer than 30 of these being of the traditional "dial-up" (modem) variety. Software and hardware Unlike modern websites and online services that are typically hosted by third-party companies in commercial data centers, BBS computers (especially for smaller boards) were typically operated from the system operator's home. As such, access could be unreliable, and in many cases, only one user could be on the system at a time. Only larger BBSes with multiple phone lines using specialized hardware, multitasking software, or a LAN connecting multiple computers, could host multiple simultaneous users. The first BBSes used homebrew software, quite often written or customized by the system operators themselves, running on early S-100 bus microcomputer systems such as the Altair 8800, IMSAI 8080 and Cromemco under the CP/M operating system. Soon after, BBS software was being written for all of the major home computer systems of the late 1970s erathe Apple II, Atari 8-bit family, Commodore and TRS-80 being some of the most popular. A few years later, in 1981, IBM introduced the first DOS based IBM PC, and due to the overwhelming popularity of PCs and their clones, DOS soon became the operating system on which the majority of BBS programs were run. RBBS-PC, ported over from the CP/M world, and Fido BBS, developed by Tom Jennings (who later founded FidoNet) were the first notable DOS BBS programs. Many successful commercial BBS programs were developed for DOS, such as PCBoard BBS, RemoteAccess BBS, and Wildcat! BBS. Some popular freeware BBS programs for DOS included Telegard BBS and Renegade BBS, which both had early origins from leaked WWIV BBS source code. There were several dozen other BBS programs developed over the DOS era, and many were released under the shareware concept, while some were released as freeware including iniquity. BBS systems on other systems remained popular, especially home computers, largely because they catered to the audience of users running those machines. The ubiquitous Commodore 64 (introduced in 1982) was a common platform in the 1980s. Popular commercial BBS programs were Blue Board, Ivory BBS, Color64 and CNet 64. In the early 1990s, a small number of BBSes were also running on the Commodore Amiga. Popular BBS software for the Amiga were ABBS, Amiexpress, C-Net, StormforceBBS, Infinity and Tempest. There was also a small faction of devoted Atari BBSes that used the Atari 800, then the 800XL, and eventually the 1040ST. The earlier machines generally lacked hard drive capabilities, which limited them primarily to messaging. MS-DOS continued to be the most popular operating system for BBS use up until the mid-1990s, and in the early years, most multi-node BBSes were running under a DOS based multitasker such as DESQview or consisted of multiple computers connected via a LAN. In the late 1980s, a handful of BBS developers implemented multitasking communications routines inside their software, allowing multiple phone lines and users to connect to the same BBS computer. These included Galacticomm's MajorBBS (later WorldGroup), eSoft The Bread Board System (TBBS), and Falken. Other popular BBS's were Maximus and Opus, with some associated applications such as BinkleyTerm being based on characters from the Berkley Breathed cartoon strip of Bloom County. Though most BBS software had been written in BASIC or Pascal (with some low-level routines written in assembly language), the C language was starting to gain popularity. By 1995, many of the DOS-based BBSes had begun switching to modern multitasking operating systems, such as OS/2, Windows 95, and Linux. One of the first graphics-based BBS applications was Excalibur BBS with low-bandwidth applications that required its own client for efficiency. This led to one of the earliest implementations of Electronic Commerce in 1996 with replication of partner stores around the globe. TCP/IP networking allowed most of the remaining BBSes to evolve and include Internet hosting capabilities. Recent BBS software, such as Synchronet, Mystic BBS, EleBBS, DOC or Wildcat! BBS, provide access using the Telnet protocol rather than dialup, or by using legacy DOS-based BBS software with a FOSSIL-to-Telnet redirector such as NetFoss. Presentation BBSes were generally text-based, rather than GUI-based, and early BBSes conversed using the simple ASCII character set. However, some home computer manufacturers extended the ASCII character set to take advantage of the advanced color and graphics capabilities of their systems. BBS software authors included these extended character sets in their software, and terminal program authors included the ability to display them when a compatible system was called. Atari's native character set was known as ATASCII, while most Commodore BBSes supported PETSCII. PETSCII was also supported by the nationwide online service Quantum Link. The use of these custom character sets was generally incompatible between manufacturers. Unless a caller was using terminal emulation software written for, and running on, the same type of system as the BBS, the session would simply fall back to simple ASCII output. For example, a Commodore 64 user calling an Atari BBS would use ASCII rather than the native character set of either. As time progressed, most terminal programs began using the ASCII standard, but could use their native character set if it was available. COCONET, a BBS system made by Coconut Computing, Inc., was released in 1988 and only supported a GUI (no text interface was initially available but eventually became available around 1990), and worked in EGA/VGA graphics mode, which made it stand out from text-based BBS systems. COCONET's bitmap and vector graphics and support for multiple type fonts were inspired by the PLATO system, and the graphics capabilities were based on what was available in the Borland Graphics Interface library. A competing approach called Remote Imaging Protocol (RIP) emerged and was promoted by Telegrafix in the early to mid-1990s but it never became widespread. A teletext technology called NAPLPS was also considered, and although it became the underlying graphics technology behind the Prodigy service, it never gained popularity in the BBS market. There were several GUI-based BBSes on the Apple Macintosh platform, including TeleFinder and FirstClass, but these were mostly confined to the Mac market. In the UK, the BBC Micro based OBBS software, available from Pace for use with their modems, optionally allowed for color and graphics using the Teletext based graphics mode available on that platform. Other systems used the Viewdata protocols made popular in the UK by British Telecom's Prestel service, and the on-line magazine Micronet 800 whom were busy giving away modems with their subscriptions. Over time, terminal manufacturers started to support ANSI X3.64 in addition to or instead of proprietary terminal control codes, e.g., color, cursor positioning. The most popular form of online graphics was ANSI art, which combined the IBM Extended

be considered a sort of ultra-local BBS when used in this fashion. Commercial systems, expressly intended to offer these features to the public, became available in the late 1970s and formed the online service market that lasted into the 1990s. One particularly influential example was PLATO, which had thousands of users by the late 1970s, many of whom used the messaging and chat room features of the system in the same way that would later become common on BBSes. The first BBSes Early modems were generally either expensive or very simple devices using acoustic couplers to handle telephone operation. The user would pick up the phone, dial a number, then press the handset into rubber cups on the top of the modem. Disconnecting at the end of a call required the user to pick up the handset and return it to the phone. Examples of direct-connecting modems did exist, and these often allowed the host computer to send it commands to answer or hang up calls, but these were very expensive devices used by large banks and similar companies. With the introduction of microcomputers with expansion slots, like the S-100 bus machines and Apple II, it became possible for the modem to communicate instructions and data on separate lines. These machines typically only supported asynchronous communications, and synchronous modems were much more expensive than asynchronous modems. A number of modems of this sort were available by the late 1970s. This made the BBS possible for the first time, as it allowed software on the computer to pick up an incoming call, communicate with the user, and then hang up the call when the user logged off. The first public dial-up BBS was developed by Ward Christensen and Randy Suess. According to an early interview, when Chicago was snowed under during the Great Blizzard of 1978, the two began preliminary work on the Computerized Bulletin Board System, or CBBS. The system came into existence largely through a fortuitous combination of Christensen having a spare S-100 bus computer and an early Hayes internal modem, and Suess's insistence that the machine be placed at his house in Chicago where it would be a local phone call for more users. Christensen patterned the system after the cork board his local computer club used to post information like "need a ride". CBBS officially went online on 16 February 1978. CBBS, which kept a count of callers, reportedly connected 253,301 callers before it was finally retired. Smartmodem A key innovation required for the popularization of the BBS was the Smartmodem manufactured by Hayes Microcomputer Products. Internal modems like the ones used by CBBS and similar early systems were usable, but generally expensive due to the manufacturer having to make a different modem for every computer platform they wanted to target. They were also limited to those computers with internal expansion, and could not be used with other useful platforms like video terminals. External modems were available for these platforms but required the phone to be dialed using a conventional handset. Internal modems could be software-controlled to perform both outbound and inbound calls, but external modems had only the data pins to communicate with the host system. Hayes' solution to the problem was to use a small microcontroller to implement a system that examined the data flowing into the modem from the host computer, watching for certain command strings. This allowed commands to be sent to and from the modem using the same data pins as all the rest of the data, meaning it would work on any system that could support even the most basic modems. The Smartmodem could pick up the phone, dial numbers, and hang up again, all without any operator intervention. The Smartmodem was not necessary for BBS use but made overall operation dramatically simpler. It also improved usability for the caller, as most terminal software allowed different phone numbers to be stored and dialed on command, allowing the user to easily connect to a series of systems. The introduction of the Smartmodem led to the first real wave of BBS systems. Limited in both speed and storage capacity, these systems were normally dedicated solely to messaging, both private email and public forums. File transfers were extremely slow at these speeds, and file libraries were typically limited to text files containing lists of other BBS systems. These systems attracted a particular type of user who used the BBS as a unique type of communications medium, and when these local systems were crowded from the market in the 1990s, their loss was lamented for many years. Higher speeds, commercialization Speed improved with the introduction of 1200 bit/s asynchronous modems in the early 1980s, giving way to 2400 bit/s fairly rapidly. The improved performance led to a substantial increase in BBS popularity. Most of the information was displayed using ordinary ASCII text or ANSI art, but a number of systems attempted character-based graphical user interfaces which began to be practical at 2400 bit/s. There was a lengthy delay before 9600 bit/s models began to appear on the market. 9600 bit/s was not even established as a strong standard before V.32bis at 14.4 kbit/s took over in the early 1990s. This period also saw the rapid rise in capacity and a dramatic drop in the price of hard drives. By the late 1980s, many BBS systems had significant file libraries, and this gave rise to leechingusers calling BBSes solely for their files. These users would use the modem for some time, leaving less time for other users, who got busy signals. The resulting upheaval eliminated many of the pioneering message-centric systems. This also gave rise to a new class of BBS systems, dedicated solely to file upload and downloads. These systems charged for access, typically a flat monthly fee, compared to the per-hour fees charged by Event Horizons BBS and most online services. Many third-party services were developed to support these systems, offering simple credit card merchant account gateways for the payment of monthly fees, and entire file libraries on compact disk that made initial setup very easy. Early 1990s editions of Boardwatch were filled with ads for single-click install solutions dedicated to these new sysops. While this gave the market a bad reputation, it also led to its greatest success. During the early 1990s, there were a number of mid-sized software companies dedicated to BBS software, and the number of BBSes in service reached its peak. Towards the early 1990s, BBS became so popular that it spawned three monthly magazines, Boardwatch, BBS Magazine, and in Asia and Australia, Chips 'n Bits Magazine which devoted extensive coverage of the software and technology innovations and people behind them, and listings to US and worldwide BBSes. In addition, in the US, a major monthly magazine, Computer Shopper, carried a list of BBSes along with a brief abstract of each of their offerings. GUIs Through the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was considerable experimentation with ways to improve the BBS experience from its command-line interface roots. Almost every popular system improved matters somewhat by adding ANSI-based color menus to make reading easier, and most also allowed cursor commands to offer command-line recall and similar features. Another common feature was the use of autocomplete to make menu navigation simpler, a feature that would not re-appear on the Web until decades later. A number of systems also made forays into GUI-based interfaces, either using character graphics sent from the host, or using custom GUI-based terminal systems. The latter initially appeared, unsurprisingly, on the Macintosh platform, where TeleFinder and FirstClass became very popular. FirstClass offered a host of features that would be difficult or impossible under a terminal-based solution, including bi-directional information flow and non-blocking operation that allowed the user to exchange files in both directions while continuing to use the message system and chat, all in separate windows. Skypix featured on Amiga a complete markup language. It used a standardized set of icons to indicate mouse driven commands available online and to recognize different filetypes present on BBS storage media. It was capable of transmitting data like images, audio files, and audio clips between users linked to the same BBS or off-line if the BBS was in the circuit of the FidoNet organization. On the PC, efforts were more oriented to extensions of the original terminal concept, with the GUI being described in the information on the host. One example was the Remote Imaging Protocol, essentially a picture description system, which remained relatively obscure. Probably the ultimate development of this style of operation was the dynamic page implementation of the University of Southern California BBS (USCBBS) by Susan Biddlecomb, which predated the implementation of the HTML Dynamic web page. A complete Dynamic web page implementation was accomplished using TBBS with a TDBS add-on presenting a complete menu system individually customized for each user. Rise of the Internet and decline of BBS The demand for complex ANSI and ASCII screens and larger file transfers taxed available channel capacity, which in turn increased demand for faster modems. 14.4 kbit/s modems were standard for a number of years while various companies attempted to introduce non-standard systems with higher performancenormally about 19.2 kbit/s. Another delay followed due to a long V.34 standards process before 28.8 kbit/s was released, only to be quickly replaced by 33.6 kbit/s, and then 56 kbit/s. These increasing speeds had the side effect of dramatically reducing the noticeable effects of channel efficiency. When modems were slow, considerable effort was put into developing the most efficient protocols and display systems possible. Running a general-purpose protocol like TCP/IP over a 1200 bit/s modem was a painful experience. With 56 kbit/s modems, however, the

final movement of the Quartet Op. 130, written as a replacement for the Große Fuge, was composed later. The op. 135 quartet was premiered by the Schuppanzigh Quartet in March 1828, one year after Beethoven's death. The work is on a smaller scale than the other late quartets. Under the introductory slow chords in the last movement Beethoven wrote in

the faster main theme of the movement, "Es muß sein!" (It must be!). The whole movement is headed "Der schwer gefaßte Entschluß" (The Difficult Decision). It is in four movements: Allegretto (F major) Vivace (F major) Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo (D major) "Der schwer gefaßte Entschluß". Grave, ma non troppo tratto ("Muss es sein?") – Allegro ("Es muss sein!") – Grave, ma non troppo tratto – Allegro (F minor – F major) The performance of the work takes around 22–25 minutes. Notes External links Project Gutenberg E-Book of the Quartet Performance by the Borromeo String Quartet from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in

tempos. He was turning the pages of his score and beating time for an orchestra he could not hear. There are a number of anecdotes about the premiere of the Ninth. Based on the testimony of the participants, there are suggestions that it was under-rehearsed (there were only two full rehearsals) and rather scrappy in execution. On the other hand, the premiere was a great success. In any case, Beethoven was not to blame, as violinist Joseph Böhm recalled:Beethoven himself conducted, that is, he stood in front of a conductor's stand and threw himself back and forth like a madman. At one moment he stretched to his full height, at the next he crouched down to the floor, he flailed about with his hands and feet as though he wanted to play all the instruments and sing all the chorus parts. —The actual direction was in [Louis] Duport's hands; we musicians followed his baton only.When the audience applauded—testimonies differ over whether at the end of the scherzo or symphony—Beethoven was several bars off and still conducting. Because of that, the contralto Caroline Unger walked over and turned Beethoven around to accept the audience's cheers and applause. According to the critic for the Theater-Zeitung, "the public received the musical hero with the utmost respect and sympathy, listened to his wonderful, gigantic creations with the most absorbed attention and broke out in jubilant applause, often during sections, and repeatedly at the end of them." The audience acclaimed him through standing ovations five times; there were handkerchiefs in the air, hats, and raised hands, so that Beethoven, whom they knew could not hear the applause, could at least see the ovations. Editions The first German edition was printed by B. Schott's Söhne (Mainz) in 1826. The Breitkopf & Härtel edition dating from 1864 has been used widely by orchestras. In 1997, Bärenreiter published an edition by Jonathan Del Mar. According to Del Mar, this edition corrects nearly 3,000 mistakes in the Breitkopf edition, some of which were "remarkable". David Levy, however, criticized this edition, saying that it could create "quite possibly false" traditions. Breitkopf also published a new edition by Peter Hauschild in 2005. Instrumentation The symphony is scored for the following orchestra. These are by far the largest forces needed for any Beethoven symphony; at the premiere, Beethoven augmented them further by assigning two players to each wind part. Form The symphony is in four movements. The structure of each movement is as follows: {| class="wikitable" ! style="background: Silver" |Tempo marking ! style="background: Silver" |Meter ! style="background: Silver" |Key |- ! colspan="3" align="center" |Movement I |- |Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso = 88 | align="center" | | align="center" | d |- ! colspan="3" align="center" |Movement II |- |Molto vivace = 116 | align="center" | | align="center" | d |- |Tempo#Basic_tempo_markings|Presto = 116 | align="center" | | align="center" | D |- |Molto vivace | align="center" | | align="center" | d |- |Presto | align="center" | | align="center" | D |- ! colspan="3" align="center" |Movement III |- |Tempo#Basic_tempo_markings|Adagio molto e cantabile = 60 | align="center" | | align="center" | B |- |Tempo#Basic_tempo_markings|Andante moderato = 63 | align="center" | | align="center" | D |- |Tempo I | align="center" | | align="center" | B |- |Andante moderato | align="center" | | align="center" | G |- |Adagio | align="center" | | align="center" | E |- |Lo stesso tempo | align="center" | | align="center" | B |- ! colspan="3" align="center" |Movement IV |- |Presto = 96 | align="center" | | align="center" | d |- |Allegro assai = 80 | align="center" | | align="center" | D |- |Presto ("O Freunde") | align="center" | | align="center" | d |- |Allegro assai ("Freude, schöner Götterfunken") | align="center" | | align="center" | D |- |Alla marcia; Allegro assai vivace = 84 ("Froh, wie seine Sonnen") | align="center" | | align="center" | B |- |Andante maestoso = 72 ("Seid umschlungen, Millionen!") | align="center" | | align="center" | G |- |Allegro energico, sempre ben marcato = 84("Freude, schöner Götterfunken" – "Seid umschlungen, Millionen!") | align="center" | | align="center" | D |- |Allegro ma non tanto = 120 ("Freude, Tochter aus Elysium!") | align="center" | | align="center" | D |- |Tempo#Basic_tempo_markings|Prestissimo = 132 ("Seid umschlungen, Millionen!") | align="center" | | align="center" | D |- |} Beethoven changes the usual pattern of Classical symphonies in placing the scherzo movement before the slow movement (in symphonies, slow movements are usually placed before scherzi). This was the first time he did this in a symphony, although he had done so in some previous works, including the String Quartet Op. 18 no. 5, the "Archduke" piano trio Op. 97, the Hammerklavier piano sonata Op. 106. And Haydn, too, had used this arrangement in a number of his own works such as the String Quartet No. 30 in E major, as did Mozart in three of the Haydn Quartets and the G minor String Quintet. I. Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso The first movement is in sonata form without an exposition repeat. It begins with open fifths (A and E) played pianissimo by tremolo strings, steadily building up until the first main theme in D minor at bar 17. The opening, with its perfect fifth quietly emerging, resembles the sound of an orchestra tuning up. At the outset of the recapitulation (which repeats the main melodic themes) in bar 301, the theme returns, this time played fortissimo and in D major, rather than D minor. The movement ends with a massive coda that takes up nearly a quarter of the movement, as in Beethoven's Third and Fifth Symphonies. A typical performance lasts about 15 minutes. II. Molto vivace The second movement is a scherzo and trio. Like the first movement, the scherzo is in D minor, with the introduction bearing a passing resemblance to the opening theme of the first movement, a pattern also found in the Hammerklavier piano sonata, written a few years earlier. At times during the piece, Beethoven specifies one downbeat every three bars—perhaps because of the fast tempo—with the direction ritmo di tre battute (rhythm of three beats) and one beat every four bars with the direction ritmo di quattro battute (rhythm of four beats). Normally, a scherzo is in triple time. Beethoven wrote this piece in triple time but punctuated it in a way that, when coupled with the tempo, makes it sound as if it is in quadruple time. While adhering to the standard compound ternary design (three-part structure) of a dance movement (scherzo-trio-scherzo or minuet-trio-minuet), the scherzo section has an elaborate internal structure; it is a complete sonata form. Within this sonata form, the first group of the exposition (the statement of the main melodic themes) starts out with a fugue in D minor on the subject below. For the second subject, it modulates to the unusual key of C major. The exposition then repeats before a short development section, where Beethoven explores other ideas. The recapitulation (repeating of the melodic themes heard in the opening of the movement) further develops the exposition's themes, also containing timpani solos. A new development section leads to the repeat of the recapitulation, and the scherzo concludes with a brief codetta. The contrasting trio section is in D major and in duple time. The trio is the first time the trombones play. Following the trio, the second occurrence of the scherzo, unlike the first, plays through without any repetition, after which there is a brief reprise of the trio, and the movement ends with an abrupt coda. The duration of the movement is about 12 minutes, but this may vary depending on whether two (frequently omitted) repeats are played. III. Adagio molto e cantabile The third movement is a lyrical, slow movement in B major—a minor sixth away from the symphony's main key of D minor. It is in a double variation form, with each pair of variations progressively elaborating the rhythm and melodic ideas. The first variation, like the theme, is in time, the second in . The variations are separated by passages in , the first in D major, the second in G major, the third in E major, and the fourth in B major. The final variation is twice interrupted by episodes in which loud fanfares from the full orchestra are answered by octaves by the first violins. A prominent French horn solo is assigned to the fourth player. A performance lasts about 16 minutes. IV. Finale The choral finale is Beethoven's musical representation of universal brotherhood based on the "Ode to Joy" theme and is in theme and variations form. The movement starts with an introduction in which musical material from each of the preceding three movements—though none are literal quotations of previous music—are successively presented and then dismissed by instrumental recitatives played by the low strings. Following this, the "Ode to Joy" theme is finally introduced by the cellos and double basses. After three instrumental variations on this theme, the human voice is presented for the first time in the symphony by the baritone soloist, who sings words written by Beethoven himself: ''O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!' Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenvollere.'' ("Oh friends, not these sounds! Let us instead strike up more pleasing and more joyful ones!"). At about 24 minutes in length, the last movement is the longest of the four movements. Indeed, it is longer than some entire symphonies of the Classical era. Its form has been disputed by musicologists, as Nicholas Cook explains: Cook gives the following table describing the form of the movement: In line with Cook's remarks, Charles Rosen characterizes the final movement as a symphony within a symphony, played without interruption. This "inner symphony" follows the same overall pattern as the Ninth Symphony as a whole, with four "movements": Theme and variations with slow introduction. The main theme, first in the cellos and basses, is later recapitulated by voices. Scherzo in a military style. It begins at Alla marcia (bar 331) and concludes with a variation of the main theme with chorus. Slow section with a new theme on the text "Seid umschlungen, Millionen!" It begins at Andante maestoso (bar 595). Fugato finale on the themes of the first and third "movements". It begins at Allegro energico (bar 763). Rosen notes that the movement can also be analysed as a set of variations and simultaneously as a concerto sonata form with double exposition (with the fugato acting both as a development section and the second tutti of the concerto). Text of the fourth movement The text is largely taken from Friedrich Schiller's "Ode to Joy", with a few additional introductory words written specifically by Beethoven (shown in italics). The text, without repeats, is shown below, with a translation into English. The score includes many repeats. For the full libretto, including all repetitions, see German Wikisource. Towards the end of the movement, the choir sings the last four lines of the main theme, concluding with "Alle Menschen" before the soloists sing for one last time the song of joy at a slower tempo. The chorus repeats parts of "Seid umschlungen, Millionen!", then quietly sings, "Tochter aus Elysium", and finally, "Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Götterfunken!". Reception The symphony was dedicated to the King of Prussia, Frederick William III. Music critics almost universally consider the Ninth Symphony one of Beethoven's greatest works, and among the greatest musical works ever written. The finale, however, has had its detractors: "[e]arly critics rejected [the finale] as cryptic and eccentric, the product of a deaf and ageing composer." Verdi admired the first three movements but lamented the confused structure and the bad writing for the voices in the last movement: Performance challenges Metronome markings Conductors in the historically informed performance movement, notably Roger Norrington, have used Beethoven's suggested tempos, to mixed reviews. Benjamin Zander has made a case for following Beethoven's metronome markings, both in writing and in performances with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and Philharmonia Orchestra of London. Beethoven's metronome still exists and was tested and found accurate, but the original heavy weight (whose position is vital to its accuracy) is missing and many musicians have considered his metronome marks to be unacceptably high. Re-orchestrations and alterations A number of conductors have made alterations in the instrumentation of the symphony. Notably, Richard Wagner doubled many woodwind passages, a modification greatly extended by Gustav Mahler, who revised the orchestration of the Ninth to make it sound like what he believed Beethoven would have wanted if given a modern orchestra. Wagner's Dresden performance of 1864 was the first to place the chorus and the solo singers behind the orchestra as has since become standard; previous conductors placed them between the orchestra and the audience. 2nd bassoon doubling basses in the finale Beethoven's indication that the 2nd bassoon should double the basses in bars 115–164 of the finale was not included in the Breitkopf & Härtel parts, though it was included in the full score. Notable performances and recordings The British premiere of the symphony was presented on 21 March 1825 by its commissioners, the Philharmonic Society of London, at its Argyll Rooms conducted by Sir George Smart and with the choral part sung in Italian. The American premiere was presented on 20 May 1846 by the newly formed New York Philharmonic at Castle Garden (in an attempt to raise funds for a new concert hall), conducted by the English-born George Loder, with the choral part translated into English for the first time. Leopold Stokowski's 1934 Philadelphia Orchestra and 1941 NBC Symphony Orchestra recordings also used English lyrics in the fourth movement. Richard Wagner inaugurated his Bayreuth Festspielhaus by conducting the Ninth; since then it is traditional to open each Bayreuth Festival with a performance of the Ninth. Following the festival's temporary suspension after World War II, Wilhelm Furtwängler and the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra reinaugurated it with a performance of the Ninth. Leonard Bernstein conducted a version of the Ninth at the Schauspielhaus in East Berlin, with (Freedom) replacing (Joy), to celebrate the fall of

class="wikitable" ! style="background: Silver" |Tempo marking ! style="background: Silver" |Meter ! style="background: Silver" |Key |- ! colspan="3" align="center" |Movement I |- |Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso = 88 | align="center" | | align="center" | d |- ! colspan="3" align="center" |Movement II |- |Molto vivace = 116 | align="center" | | align="center" | d |- |Tempo#Basic_tempo_markings|Presto = 116 | align="center" | | align="center" | D |- |Molto vivace | align="center" | | align="center" | d |- |Presto | align="center" | | align="center" | D |- ! colspan="3" align="center" |Movement III |- |Tempo#Basic_tempo_markings|Adagio molto e cantabile = 60 | align="center" | | align="center" | B |- |Tempo#Basic_tempo_markings|Andante moderato = 63 | align="center" | | align="center" | D |- |Tempo I | align="center" | | align="center" | B |- |Andante moderato | align="center" | | align="center" | G |- |Adagio | align="center" | | align="center" | E |- |Lo stesso tempo | align="center" | | align="center" | B |- ! colspan="3" align="center" |Movement IV |- |Presto = 96 | align="center" | | align="center" | d |- |Allegro assai = 80 | align="center" | | align="center" | D |- |Presto ("O Freunde") | align="center" | | align="center" | d |- |Allegro assai ("Freude, schöner Götterfunken") | align="center" | | align="center" | D |- |Alla marcia; Allegro assai vivace = 84 ("Froh, wie seine Sonnen") | align="center" | | align="center" | B |- |Andante maestoso = 72 ("Seid umschlungen, Millionen!") | align="center" | | align="center" | G |- |Allegro energico, sempre ben marcato = 84("Freude, schöner Götterfunken" – "Seid umschlungen, Millionen!") | align="center" | | align="center" | D |- |Allegro ma non tanto = 120 ("Freude, Tochter aus Elysium!") | align="center" | | align="center" | D |- |Tempo#Basic_tempo_markings|Prestissimo = 132 ("Seid umschlungen, Millionen!") | align="center" | | align="center" | D |- |} Beethoven changes the usual pattern of Classical symphonies in placing the scherzo movement before the slow movement (in symphonies, slow movements are usually placed before scherzi). This was the first time he did this in a symphony, although he had done so in some previous works, including the String Quartet Op. 18 no. 5, the "Archduke" piano trio Op. 97, the Hammerklavier piano sonata Op. 106. And Haydn, too, had used this arrangement in a number of his own works such as the String Quartet No. 30 in E major, as did Mozart in three of the Haydn Quartets and the G minor String Quintet. I. Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso The first movement is in sonata form without an exposition repeat. It begins with open fifths (A and E) played pianissimo by tremolo strings, steadily building up until the first main theme in D minor at bar 17. The opening, with its perfect fifth quietly emerging, resembles the sound of an orchestra tuning up. At the outset of the recapitulation (which repeats the main melodic themes) in bar 301, the theme returns, this time played fortissimo and in D major, rather than D minor. The movement ends with a massive coda that takes up nearly a quarter of the movement, as in Beethoven's Third and Fifth Symphonies. A typical performance lasts about 15 minutes. II. Molto vivace The second movement is a scherzo and trio. Like the first movement, the scherzo is in D minor, with the introduction bearing a passing resemblance to the opening theme of the first movement, a pattern also found in the Hammerklavier piano sonata, written a few years earlier. At times during the piece, Beethoven specifies one downbeat every three bars—perhaps because of the fast tempo—with the direction ritmo di tre battute (rhythm of three beats) and one beat every four bars with the direction ritmo di quattro battute (rhythm of four beats). Normally, a scherzo is in triple time. Beethoven wrote this piece in triple time but punctuated it in a way that, when coupled with the tempo, makes it sound as if it is in quadruple time. While adhering to the standard compound ternary design (three-part structure) of a dance movement (scherzo-trio-scherzo or minuet-trio-minuet), the scherzo section has an elaborate internal structure; it is a complete sonata form. Within this sonata form, the first group of the exposition (the statement of the main melodic themes) starts out with a fugue in D minor on the subject below. For the second subject, it modulates to the unusual key of C major. The exposition then repeats before a short development section, where Beethoven explores other ideas. The recapitulation (repeating of the melodic themes heard in the opening of the movement) further develops the exposition's themes, also containing timpani solos. A new development section leads to the repeat of the recapitulation, and the scherzo concludes with a brief codetta. The contrasting trio section is in D major and in duple time. The trio is the first time the trombones play. Following the trio, the second occurrence of the scherzo, unlike the first, plays through without any repetition, after which there is a brief reprise of the trio, and the movement ends with an abrupt coda. The duration of the movement is about 12 minutes, but this may vary depending on whether two (frequently omitted) repeats are played. III. Adagio molto e cantabile The third movement is a lyrical, slow movement in B major—a minor sixth away from the symphony's main key of D minor. It is in a double variation form, with each pair of variations progressively elaborating the rhythm and melodic ideas. The first variation, like the theme, is in time, the second in . The variations are separated by passages in , the first in D major, the second in G major, the third in E major, and the fourth in B major. The final variation is twice interrupted by episodes in which loud fanfares from the full orchestra are answered by octaves by the first violins. A prominent French horn solo is assigned to the fourth player. A performance lasts about 16 minutes. IV. Finale The choral finale is Beethoven's musical representation of universal brotherhood based on the "Ode to Joy" theme and is in theme and variations form. The movement starts with an introduction in which musical material from each of the preceding three movements—though none are literal quotations of previous music—are successively presented and then dismissed by instrumental recitatives played by the low strings. Following this, the "Ode to Joy" theme is finally introduced by the cellos and double basses. After three instrumental variations on this theme, the human voice is presented for the first time in the symphony by the baritone soloist, who sings words written by Beethoven himself: ''O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!' Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenvollere.'' ("Oh friends, not these sounds! Let us instead strike up more pleasing and more joyful ones!"). At about 24 minutes in length, the last movement is the longest of the four movements. Indeed, it is longer than some entire symphonies of the Classical era. Its form has been disputed by musicologists, as Nicholas Cook explains: Cook gives the following table describing the form of the movement: In line with Cook's remarks, Charles Rosen characterizes the final movement as a symphony within a symphony, played without interruption. This "inner symphony" follows the same overall pattern as the Ninth Symphony as a whole, with four "movements": Theme and variations with slow introduction. The main theme, first in the cellos and basses, is later recapitulated by voices. Scherzo in a military style. It begins at Alla marcia (bar 331) and concludes with a variation of the main theme with chorus. Slow section with a new theme on the text "Seid umschlungen, Millionen!" It begins at Andante maestoso (bar 595). Fugato finale on the themes of the first and third "movements". It begins at Allegro energico (bar 763). Rosen notes that the movement can also be analysed as a set of variations and simultaneously as a concerto sonata form with double exposition (with the fugato acting both as a development section and the second tutti of the concerto). Text of the fourth movement The text is largely taken from Friedrich Schiller's "Ode to Joy", with a few additional introductory words written specifically by Beethoven (shown in italics). The text, without repeats, is shown below, with a translation into English. The score includes many repeats. For the full libretto, including all repetitions, see German Wikisource. Towards the end of the movement, the choir sings the last four lines of the main theme, concluding with "Alle Menschen" before the soloists sing for one last time the song of joy at a slower tempo. The chorus repeats parts of "Seid umschlungen, Millionen!", then quietly sings, "Tochter aus Elysium", and finally, "Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Götterfunken!". Reception The symphony was dedicated to the King of Prussia, Frederick William III. Music critics almost universally consider the Ninth Symphony one of Beethoven's greatest works, and among the greatest musical works ever written. The finale, however, has had its detractors: "[e]arly critics rejected [the finale] as cryptic and eccentric, the product of a deaf and ageing composer." Verdi admired the first three movements but lamented the confused structure and the bad writing for the voices in the last movement: Performance challenges Metronome markings Conductors in the historically informed performance movement, notably Roger Norrington, have used Beethoven's suggested tempos, to mixed reviews. Benjamin Zander has made a case for following Beethoven's metronome markings, both in writing and in performances with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and Philharmonia Orchestra of London. Beethoven's metronome still exists and was tested and found accurate, but the original heavy weight (whose position is vital to its accuracy) is missing and many musicians have considered his metronome marks to be unacceptably high. Re-orchestrations and alterations A number of conductors have made alterations in the instrumentation of the symphony. Notably, Richard Wagner doubled many woodwind passages, a modification greatly extended by Gustav Mahler, who revised the orchestration of the Ninth to make it sound like what he believed Beethoven would have wanted if given a modern orchestra. Wagner's Dresden performance of 1864 was the first to place the chorus and the solo singers behind the orchestra as has since become standard; previous conductors placed them between the orchestra and the audience. 2nd bassoon doubling basses in the finale Beethoven's indication that the 2nd bassoon should double the basses in bars 115–164 of the finale was not included in the Breitkopf & Härtel parts, though it was included in the full score. Notable performances and recordings The British premiere of the symphony was presented on 21 March 1825 by its commissioners, the Philharmonic Society of London, at its Argyll Rooms conducted by Sir George Smart and with the choral part sung in Italian. The American premiere was presented on 20 May 1846 by the newly formed New York Philharmonic at Castle Garden (in an attempt to raise funds for a new concert hall), conducted by the English-born George Loder, with the choral part translated into English for the first time. Leopold Stokowski's 1934 Philadelphia Orchestra and 1941 NBC Symphony Orchestra recordings also used English lyrics in the fourth

Op. 1 No. 3 - Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor Allegro con brio (C minor), Andante cantabile con Variazioni (E-flat major), Minuetto. Quasi allegro (C minor, with a trio in C major), Finale. Prestissimo (C minor, concluding in C major), Unlike the other piano trios in this opus, the third trio does not have a scherzo as its third movement but a minuet instead. This third piano trio was later reworked by Beethoven into the C minor string quintet, Op. 104. References External links Performance of Piano Trio No. 1 by the Claremont Trio from

with a trio in B minor), Finale. Presto (G major), Op. 1 No. 3 - Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor Allegro con brio (C minor), Andante cantabile con Variazioni (E-flat major), Minuetto. Quasi allegro (C minor, with a trio in C major), Finale. Prestissimo (C minor, concluding in C major), Unlike the other piano trios in this opus, the third trio does not have a scherzo as its third movement but a minuet instead. This third piano trio was later reworked by Beethoven into the C minor string quintet, Op. 104. References External links Performance

from roughly 1803 to 1812, and which included many of his most famous works. Beethoven wrote the two piano trios while spending the summer of 1808 back once again in Heiligenstadt, Vienna, where he had completed his Symphony No. 5 the previous summer. He wrote the two trios immediately after finishing his Sinfonia pastorale, Symphony No. 6. This was a period of uncertainty in Beethoven's life, in particular because he had no dependable source of income at the time. Although these two trios are sometimes numbered as "No. 5" and "No. 6", the numbering of Beethoven's twelve piano trios is not standardized, and in other sources the two Op. 70 trios may be shown as having different numbers, if any. Piano Trio in D major, Op.70 No.1

of Beethoven's "Middle" stylistic period, which went from roughly 1803 to 1812, and which included many of his most famous works. Beethoven wrote the two piano trios while spending the summer of 1808 back once again in Heiligenstadt, Vienna, where he had completed his Symphony No. 5 the previous summer. He wrote the two trios immediately after finishing his Sinfonia pastorale, Symphony No. 6. This was a period of uncertainty in Beethoven's life, in particular because he had no dependable source of income at the time. Although these two trios are sometimes numbered as "No. 5" and "No. 6", the numbering of Beethoven's twelve piano trios is not standardized, and in other sources the two Op. 70 trios may be shown as having different numbers, if any. Piano Trio in D major, Op.70 No.1 "Ghost" Allegro vivace e con brio, D major, 3/4 Largo assai ed

Rudolph of Austria, the youngest of twelve children of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor. Rudolf was an amateur pianist and a patron, friend, and composition student of Beethoven. Beethoven dedicated a total of fourteen compositions to the Archduke, who dedicated one of his own to Beethoven in return. The trio was written late in Beethoven's so-called "middle period". He began composing it in the summer of 1810 and completed it in March 1811. Although the "Archduke Trio" is sometimes numbered as "No. 7", the numbering of Beethoven's twelve piano trios is not standardized, and in other sources the Op. 97 trio may be shown as having a different number, if any. First performance The first public performance was given by Beethoven himself, Ignaz Schuppanzigh (violin), and Josef Linke (cello) at the Viennese hotel Zum römischen Kaiser on 11 April 1814. At the time, Beethoven's deafness compromised his ability as a performer, and after a repeat performance a few weeks later, Beethoven never appeared again in public as a pianist. The violinist and composer Louis Spohr witnessed a rehearsal of

so that the music was unintelligible unless one could look into the pianoforte part. I was deeply saddened at so hard a fate." The pianist and composer Ignaz Moscheles attended the premiere, and wrote about the work: "In the case of how many compositions is the word 'new' misapplied! But never in Beethoven's, and least of all in this, which again is full of originality. His playing, aside from its intellectual element, satisfied me less, being wanting in clarity and precision; but I observed many traces of the grand style of playing which I had long recognized in his compositions." Structure The work is in four movements: A typical performance runs approximately 36 to 45 minutes in length. References in popular culture The trio, referred to as The Archduke, plays a significant role in Elizabeth George's mystery A Traitor to Memory (2001) In Haruki Murakami's novel Kafka on the Shore (2002), the piece and its history are used to explain the relationship between

each other in both key and character. However, the two were not published together and thus have different opus numbers. The reason for the separation is unknown. Structure The work is in four movements: The entire sonata takes approximately 22 minutes to perform. See also Violin Sonata in A major (Beethoven) References Notes Sources External links Performance of Violin Sonata No. 5 by Corey Cerovsek

by Ludwig van Beethoven. It was first published in 1801. The work is commonly known as the Spring Sonata (Frühlingssonate), although the name "Spring" was apparently given to it after Beethoven's death. The sonata was dedicated to Count Moritz von Fries, a patron to whom Beethoven also dedicated two other works of the same year—the String Quintet in C major, Op. 29 and the Violin Sonata No. 4—as well as his later Symphony No. 7 in A major. Origin Beethoven initially intended to pair this work with his Violin Sonata No. 4, Opus 23, and the two sonatas complement each other in both

It said that there had been no indictments for this offence for "many years" and that, as an indictable misdemeanor, it was "wholly obsolete". Its recommendation was implemented by the Criminal Law Act 1967. Scotland In Scots law, barratry referred to the crime committed by a judge who is induced by bribery to pronounce judgment. United States Several jurisdictions in the United States have declared barratry (in the sense of a frivolous or harassing litigant) to be a crime as part of their tort reform efforts. For example, in the U.S. states of California, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington, barratry is a misdemeanor. In Texas, barratry is a misdemeanor on the first conviction, but a felony on subsequent convictions. California Penal Code Section 158: "Common barratry is the practice of exciting groundless judicial proceedings, and is punishable by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months and by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000)." California Penal Code Section 159: "No person can be convicted of common barratry except upon proof that he has excited suits or proceedings at law in at least three instances, and with a corrupt or malicious intent to vex and annoy." Revised Code of Washington 9.12.010: "Every person who brings on his or her own behalf, or instigates, incites, or encourages another to bring, any false suit at law or in equity in any court of this state, with intent thereby to distress or harass a defendant in the suit, or who serves or sends any paper or document purporting to be or resembling a judicial process, that is not in fact a judicial process, is guilty of a misdemeanor; and in case the person offending is an attorney, he or she may, in addition thereto be disbarred from practicing law within this state." Virginia laws on barratry, champerty, and maintenance were overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States in NAACP v. Button 371 U.S. 415 (1963). Vermont Statutes Title 13, § 701: "A person who is a common barrator shall be fined not more than $50.00 and become bound with sufficient surety for his or her good behavior for not less than one year." Other In his Inferno, Canto XXI, Dante places barrators in

It said that there had been no indictments for this offence for "many years" and that, as an indictable misdemeanor, it was "wholly obsolete". Its recommendation was implemented by the Criminal Law Act 1967. Scotland In Scots law, barratry referred to the crime committed by a judge who is induced by bribery to pronounce judgment. United States Several jurisdictions in the United States have declared barratry (in the sense of a frivolous or harassing litigant) to be a crime as part of their tort reform efforts. For example, in the U.S. states of California, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington, barratry is a misdemeanor. In Texas, barratry is a misdemeanor on the first conviction, but a felony on subsequent convictions. California Penal Code Section 158: "Common barratry is the practice of exciting groundless judicial proceedings, and is punishable by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months and by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000)." California Penal Code Section 159: "No person can be convicted of common barratry except upon proof that he has excited suits or proceedings at law in at least three instances, and with a corrupt or malicious intent to vex and annoy." Revised Code of Washington 9.12.010: "Every person who brings on his or her own behalf, or instigates, incites, or encourages another to bring, any false suit at law or in equity in any court of this state, with intent thereby to distress or harass a defendant in the suit, or who serves or sends any paper or document purporting to be or resembling a judicial process, that is not

and attack. With the advent of ICBMs the role of the bomber was brought to a more tactical focus in close air support roles, and a focus on stealth technology for strategic bombers. Classification Strategic Strategic bombing is done by heavy bombers primarily designed for long-range bombing missions against strategic targets such as supply bases, bridges, factories, shipyards, and cities themselves, to diminish the enemy's ability to wage war by limiting access to resources through crippling infrastructure or reducing industrial output. Current examples include the strategic nuclear-armed bombers: B-2 Spirit, B-52 Stratofortress, Tupolev Tu-95 'Bear', Tupolev Tu-22M 'Backfire' and Tupolev Tu-160 "Blackjack"; historically notable examples are the: Gotha G.IV, Avro Lancaster, Heinkel He 111, Junkers Ju 88, Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, Consolidated B-24 Liberator, Boeing B-29 Superfortress, and Tupolev Tu-16 'Badger'. Tactical Tactical bombing, aimed at countering enemy military activity and in supporting offensive operations, is typically assigned to smaller aircraft operating at shorter ranges, typically near the troops on the ground or against enemy shipping. This role is filled by tactical bomber class, which crosses and blurs with various other aircraft categories: light bombers, medium bombers, dive bombers, interdictors, fighter-bombers, attack aircraft, multirole combat aircraft, and others. Current examples: Xian JH-7, Dassault-Breguet Mirage 2000D, and the Panavia Tornado IDS Historical examples: Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik, Junkers Ju 87 Stuka, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, Hawker Typhoon and Mikoyan MiG-27. History The first use of an air-dropped bomb (actually four hand grenades specially manufactured by the Italian naval arsenal) was carried out by Italian Second Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti on 1 November 1911 during the Italo-Turkish war in Libya – although his plane was not designed for the task of bombing, and his improvised attacks on Ottoman positions had little impact. These picric acid-filled steel spheres were nicknamed "ballerinas" from the fluttering fabric ribbons attached. Early bombers On 16 October 1912, observer Prodan Tarakchiev dropped two of those bombs on the Turkish railway station of Karağaç (near the besieged Edirne) from an Albatros F.2 aircraft piloted by Radul Milkov, for the first time in this campaign. This is deemed to be the first use of an aircraft as a bomber. The first heavier-than-air aircraft purposely designed for bombing were the Italian Caproni Ca 30 and British Bristol T.B.8, both of 1913. The Bristol T.B.8 was an early British single engined biplane built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company. They were fitted with a prismatic Bombsight in the front cockpit and a cylindrical bomb carrier in the lower forward fuselage capable of carrying twelve 10 lb (4.5 kg) bombs, which could be dropped singly or as a salvo as required. The aircraft was purchased for use both by the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), and three T.B.8s, that were being displayed in Paris during December 1913 fitted with bombing equipment, were sent to France following the outbreak of war. Under the command of Charles Rumney Samson, a bombing attack on German gun batteries at Middelkerke, Belgium was executed on 25 November 1914. The dirigible, or airship, was developed in the early 20th century. Early airships were prone to disaster, but slowly the airship became more dependable, with a more rigid structure and stronger skin. Prior to the outbreak of war, Zeppelins, a larger and more streamlined form of airship designed by German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, were outfitted to carry bombs to attack targets at long range. These were the first long range, strategic bombers. Although the German air arm was strong, with a total of 123 airships by the end of the war, they were vulnerable to attack and engine failure, as well as navigational issues. German airships inflicted little damage on all 51 raids, with 557 Britons killed and 1,358 injured. The German Navy lost 53 of its 73 airships, and the German Army lost 26 of its 50 ships. The Caproni Ca 30 was built by Gianni Caproni in Italy. It was a twin-boom biplane with three 67 kW (80 hp) Gnome rotary engines and first flew in October 1914. Test flights revealed power to be insufficient and the engine layout unworkable, and Caproni soon adopted a more conventional approach installing three 81 kW (110 hp) Fiat A.10s. The improved design was bought by the Italian Army and it was delivered in quantity from August 1915. While mainly used as a trainer, Avro 504s were also briefly used as bombers at the start of the First World War by the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) when they were used for raids on the German airship sheds.

shipping. This role is filled by tactical bomber class, which crosses and blurs with various other aircraft categories: light bombers, medium bombers, dive bombers, interdictors, fighter-bombers, attack aircraft, multirole combat aircraft, and others. Current examples: Xian JH-7, Dassault-Breguet Mirage 2000D, and the Panavia Tornado IDS Historical examples: Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik, Junkers Ju 87 Stuka, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, Hawker Typhoon and Mikoyan MiG-27. History The first use of an air-dropped bomb (actually four hand grenades specially manufactured by the Italian naval arsenal) was carried out by Italian Second Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti on 1 November 1911 during the Italo-Turkish war in Libya – although his plane was not designed for the task of bombing, and his improvised attacks on Ottoman positions had little impact. These picric acid-filled steel spheres were nicknamed "ballerinas" from the fluttering fabric ribbons attached. Early bombers On 16 October 1912, observer Prodan Tarakchiev dropped two of those bombs on the Turkish railway station of Karağaç (near the besieged Edirne) from an Albatros F.2 aircraft piloted by Radul Milkov, for the first time in this campaign. This is deemed to be the first use of an aircraft as a bomber. The first heavier-than-air aircraft purposely designed for bombing were the Italian Caproni Ca 30 and British Bristol T.B.8, both of 1913. The Bristol T.B.8 was an early British single engined biplane built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company. They were fitted with a prismatic Bombsight in the front cockpit and a cylindrical bomb carrier in the lower forward fuselage capable of carrying twelve 10 lb (4.5 kg) bombs, which could be dropped singly or as a salvo as required. The aircraft was purchased for use both by the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), and three T.B.8s, that were being displayed in Paris during December 1913 fitted with bombing equipment, were sent to France following the outbreak of war. Under the command of Charles Rumney Samson, a bombing attack on German gun batteries at Middelkerke, Belgium was executed on 25 November 1914. The dirigible, or airship, was developed in the early 20th century. Early airships were prone to disaster, but slowly the airship became more dependable, with a more rigid structure and stronger skin. Prior to the outbreak of war, Zeppelins, a larger and more streamlined form of airship designed by German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, were outfitted to carry bombs to attack targets at long range. These were the first long range, strategic bombers. Although the German air arm was strong, with a total of 123 airships by the end of the war, they were vulnerable to attack and engine failure, as well as navigational issues. German airships inflicted little damage on all 51 raids, with 557 Britons killed and 1,358 injured. The German Navy lost 53 of its 73 airships, and the German Army lost 26 of its 50 ships. The Caproni Ca 30 was built by Gianni Caproni in Italy. It was a twin-boom biplane with three 67 kW (80 hp) Gnome rotary engines and first flew in October 1914. Test flights revealed power to be insufficient and the engine layout unworkable, and Caproni soon adopted a more conventional approach installing three 81 kW (110 hp) Fiat A.10s. The improved design was bought by the Italian Army and it was delivered in quantity from August 1915. While mainly used as a trainer, Avro 504s were also briefly used as bombers at the start of the First World War by the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) when they were used for raids on the German airship sheds. Strategic bombing Bombing raids and interdiction operations were mainly carried out by French and

points. The first straight rail professional tournament was held in 1879 where Jacob Schaefer Sr. scored 690 points in a single turn (that is, 690 separate strokes without a miss). With the balls repetitively hit and barely moving in endless "nursing", there was little for the fans to watch. Balkline In light of these skill developments in straight rail, the game of balkline soon developed to make it impossible for a player to keep the balls gathered in one part of the table for long, greatly limiting the effectiveness of nurse shots. A is a line parallel to one end of a billiards table. In the game of balkline, the players have to drive at least one object ball past a balkline parallel to each rail after a specified number of points have been scored. Cushion billiards Another solution was to require a player's cue ball to make contact with the rail cushions in the process of contacting the other balls. This in turn saw the three-cushion version emerge, where the cue ball must make three separate cushion contacts during a shot. This is difficult enough that even the best players can only manage to average one to two points per turn. This is sometimes described as "hardest to learn" and "require most skill" of all billiards. Games played on a pool table There are many variations of games played on a standard pool table. Popular pool games include eight-ball, nine-ball, straight pool and one-pocket. Even within games types (e.g. eight-ball), there may be variations, and people may play recreationally using relaxed or local rules. A few of the more popular examples of pool games are given below. In eight-ball and nine-ball, the object is to sink object balls until one can legally pocket the winning eponymous "". Well-known but waning in popularity is straight pool, in which players seek to continue sinking balls, rack after rack if they can, to reach a pre-determined winning score (typically 150). Related to nine-ball, another well-known game is rotation, where the lowest-numbered object ball on the table must be struck first, although any object ball may be pocketed (i.e., combination shot). Each pocketed ball is worth its number, and the player with the highest score at the end of the rack is the winner. Since there are only 120 points available (1 + 2 + 3 ⋯ + 15 = 120), scoring 61 points leaves no opportunity for the opponent to catch up. In both one-pocket and bank pool, the players must sink a set number of balls; respectively, all in a particular , or all by . In snooker, players score points by alternately potting and various special "". Two-player or -team games Eight-ball: The goal is to () all of one's designated of balls (either vs. , or vs. , depending upon the equipment), and then pocket the in a pocket. Nine-ball: The goal is to pocket the 9 ball; the initial contact of the each turn must be with the lowest-numbered remaining on the table; there are numerous variants such as seven-ball, six-ball, and the older forms of three-ball and ten-ball, that simply use a different number of balls and have a different . Straight pool (a.k.a. 14.1 continuous pool): The goal is to reach a predetermined number of (e.g. 100); a point is earned by pocketing any called ball into a designated pocket; game play is by of 15 balls, and the last object ball of a rack is not pocketed, but left on the table with the opponent re-racking the remaining 14 before game play continues. Bank pool: The goal is to reach a predetermined number of points; a point is earned by pocketing any called ball by it into a designated pocket using one or more . Speed pool Speed pool is a standard billiards game where the balls must be pocketed in as little time as possible. Rules vary greatly from tournament to tournament. The International Speed Pool Challenge has been held annually since 2006. Games played on a snooker table English billiards Dating to approximately 1800, English billiards, called simply billiards in many former British colonies and in the UK where it originated, was originally called the winning and losing carambole game, folding in the names of three predecessor games, the winning game, the losing game and the carambole game (an early form of straight rail), that combined to form it. The game features both (caroms) and the pocketing of balls as objects of play. English billiards requires two and a red . The object of the game is to score either a fixed number of points, or score the most points within a set time frame, determined at the start of the game. Points are awarded for: Two-ball cannons: striking both the object ball and the other (opponent's) cue ball on the same shot (2 points). Winning hazards: the red ball (3 points); potting the other cue ball (2 points). (or "in-offs"): potting one's cue ball by cannoning off another ball (3 points if the red ball was hit first; 2 points if the other cue ball was hit first, or if the red and other cue ball were "", i.e., hit simultaneously). Snooker Snooker is a pocket billiards game originated by British officers stationed in India during the 19th century, based on earlier pool games such as black pool and life pool. The name of the game became generalized to also describe one of its prime strategies: to "" the opposing player by causing that player to foul or leave an opening to be exploited. In the United Kingdom, snooker is by far the most popular cue sport at the competitive level, and major national pastime along with association football and cricket. It is played in many Commonwealth countries as well, and in areas of Asia, becoming increasingly popular in China in particular. Snooker is uncommon in North America, where pool games such as eight-ball and nine-ball dominate, and Latin America and Continental Europe, where carom games dominate. The first World Snooker Championship was held in 1927, and it has been held annually since then with few exceptions. The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) was established in 1968 to regulate the professional game, while the International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF) regulates the amateur games. List of cue sports and games Carom games Pocket games Pool games Non-pool pocket games Snooker games Technically a form of pocket billiards, snooker has its own worldwide sporting community separate from that of pool. Hybrid carom and pocket games These combine aspects of carom and pocket billiards, and are played on tables with pockets (often as s not targets). Obstacle and target games Disk games These are variations using small disks instead of balls, and light-weight cue sticks. Ground games Cueless games See also Glossary of cue sports terms BCA Hall of Fame Hustling Cue sports techniques References Citations Sources External links Sports entertainment French

Kant, Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, George Washington, French president Jules Grévy, Charles Dickens, George Armstrong Custer, Theodore Roosevelt, Lewis Carroll, W. C. Fields, Babe Ruth, Bob Hope, and Jackie Gleason. History All cue sports are generally regarded to have evolved into indoor games from outdoor stick-and-ball lawn games, specifically those retroactively termed ground billiards, and as such to be related to the historical games jeu de mail and palle-malle, and modern trucco, croquet, and golf, and more distantly to the stickless bocce and bowls. The word billiard may have evolved from the French word or , meaning 'stick', in reference to the , an implement similar to a golf putter, and which was the forerunner to the modern cue; however, the term's origin could have been from French , meaning 'ball'. The modern term cue sports can be used to encompass the ancestral mace games, and even the modern cueless variants, such as finger billiards, for historical reasons. Cue itself came from , the French word for 'tail'. This refers to the early practice of using the tail or butt of the mace, instead of its club foot, to strike the ball when it lay against a . A recognizable form of billiards was played outdoors in the 1340s, and was reminiscent of croquet. King Louis XI of France (1461–1483) had the first known indoor billiard table. Louis XIV further refined and popularized the game, and it swiftly spread among the French nobility. While the game had long been played on the ground, this version appears to have died out (aside from trucco) in the 17th century, in favor of croquet, golf and bowling games, even as table billiards had grown in popularity as an indoor activity. The imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots, complained when her was taken away (by those who eventually became her executioners, who were to cover her body with the table's cloth). Billiards grew to the extent that by 1727, it was being played in almost every Paris café. In England, the game was developing into a very popular activity for members of the gentry. By 1670, the thin butt end of the mace began to be used not only for shots under the cushion (which itself was originally only there as a preventative method to stop balls from rolling off), but players increasingly preferred it for other shots as well. The footless, straight cue as it is known today was finally developed by about 1800. Initially, the mace was used to push the balls, rather than strike them. The newly developed striking cue provided a new challenge. Cushions began to be stuffed with substances to allow the balls to rebound, in order to enhance the appeal of the game. After a transitional period where only the better players would use cues, the cue came to be the first choice of equipment. The demand for tables and other equipment was initially met in Europe by John Thurston and other furniture makers of the era. The early balls were made from wood and clay, but the rich preferred to use ivory. Early billiard games involved various pieces of additional equipment, including the "arch" (related to the croquet hoop), "port" (a different hoop, often rectangular), and "king" (a pin or skittle near the arch) in the early 17th to late 18th century, but other game variants, relying on the cushions (and pockets cut into them), were being formed that would go on to play fundamental roles in the development of modern billiards. The early croquet-like games eventually led to the development of the carom billiards category. These games are games played with three or sometimes four balls, on a table without holes in which the goal is generally to strike one with a , then have the cue ball rebound off of one or more of the cushions and strike a second object ball. Variations include straight rail, balkline, one-cushion, three-cushion, five-pins, and four-ball, among others. One type of obstacle remained a feature of many tables, originally as a hazard and later as a target, in the form of pockets, or holes partly cut into the table bed and partly into the cushions, leading to the rise of pocket billiards, including "pool" games such as eight-ball, nine-ball, straight pool, and one-pocket; Russian pyramid; snooker; English billiards; and others. In the United States, pool and billiards had died out for a bit, but between 1878 and 1956 the games became very popular. Players in annual championships began to receive their own cigarette cards. This was mainly due to the fact that it was a popular pastime for troops to take their minds off from battle. However, by the end of World War II, pool and billiards began to die down once again. It was not until 1961 when the film The Hustler came out that sparked a new interest in the game. Now the game is generally a well-known game and has many players of all different skill levels. As a sport The games with regulated international professional competition, if not others, have been referred to as "sports" or "sporting" events, not simply "games", since 1893 at the latest. Quite a variety of particular games (i.e., sets of rules and equipment) are the subject of present-day competition, including many of those already mentioned, with competition being especially broad in nine-ball, snooker, three-cushion, and eight-ball. Snooker, though a pocket billiards variant and closely related in its equipment and origin to the game of English billiards, is a professional sport organized at an international level, and its rules bear little resemblance to those of modern pool, pyramid, and other such games. A "Billiards" category encompassing pool, snooker, and carom has been part of the World Games since 2005. Equipment Billiard balls Billiard balls vary from game to game, in size, design and quantity. Russian pyramid and kaisa have a size of 68 mm ( in). In Russian pyramid there are sixteen balls, as in pool, but fifteen are white and numbered, and the is usually red. In kaisa, five balls are used: the yellow (called the kaisa in Finnish), two red object balls, and the two white cue balls (usually differentiated by one cue ball having a dot or other marking on it and each of which serves as an object ball for the opponent). Carom billiards balls are larger than pool balls, having a diameter of 61.5 mm ( in), and come as a set of two cue balls (one colored or marked) and an object ball (or two object balls in the case of the game four-ball). Standard pool balls are 57.15 mm ( in), are used in many pool games found throughout the world, come in sets of two of object balls, seven and seven , an and a ; the balls are racked differently for different games (some of which do not use the entire ball set). Blackball (English-style eight-ball) sets are similar, but have unmarked of and balls instead of solids and stripes, known as "casino" style. They are used principally in Britain, Ireland, and some Commonwealth countries, though not exclusively, since they are unsuited for playing nine-ball. The diameter varies but is typically slightly smaller than that of standard solids-and-stripes sets. Snooker balls are smaller than American-style pool balls with a diameter of 52.5 mm ( in), and come in sets of 22 (15 reds, 6 "", and a cue ball). English billiard balls are the same size as snooker balls and come in sets of three balls (two cue balls and a red object ball). Other games, such as bumper pool, have custom ball sets. Billiard balls have been made from many different materials since the start of the game, including clay, bakelite, celluloid, crystallite, ivory, plastic, steel and wood. The dominant material from 1627 until the early 20th century was ivory. The search for a substitute for ivory use was not for environmental concerns, but based on economic motivation and fear of danger for elephant hunters. It was in part spurred on by a New York billiard table manufacturer who announced a prize of $10,000 for a substitute material. The first viable substitute was celluloid, invented by John Wesley Hyatt in 1868, but the material was volatile, sometimes exploding during manufacture, and was highly flammable. Tables There are many sizes and styles of billiard tables. Generally, tables are rectangles twice as long as they are wide. Table sizes are typically referred to by the nominal length of their longer dimension. Full-size snooker tables are long. Carom billiards tables are typically . Regulation pool tables are , though pubs and other establishments catering to casual play will typically use tables which are often coin-operated, nicknamed . Formerly, ten-foot pool tables were common, but such tables are now considered antiques. High-quality tables have a made of thick slate, in three pieces to prevent warping and changes due to temperature and humidity. The slates on modern carom tables are usually heated to stave off moisture and provide a consistent playing surface. Smaller bar tables are most commonly made with a single piece of slate. Pocket billiards tables of all types normally have six pockets, three on each side (four corner pockets, and two side or middle pockets). Cloth All types of tables are covered with billiard cloth (often called "felt", but actually a woven wool or wool/nylon blend called baize). Cloth has been used to cover billiards tables since the 15th century. Bar or tavern tables, which get a lot of play, use "slower", more durable cloth. The cloth used in upscale pool (and snooker) halls and home billiard rooms is "faster" (i.e., provides less friction, allowing the balls to roll farther across the table ), and competition-quality pool cloth is made from 100% worsted wool. Snooker cloth traditionally has a nap (consistent fiber directionality) and balls behave differently when rolling against versus along with the nap. The cloth of the billiard table has traditionally been green, reflecting its origin (originally the grass of ancestral lawn games), and has been so colored since at least the 16th century, but it is also produced in other colors such as red and blue. Television broadcasting of pool as well as 3 Cushion billiards prefers a blue colored cloth which was chosen for better visibility and contrast against colored balls. Rack A rack is the name given to a frame (usually wood, plastic or aluminium) used to organize billiard balls at the beginning of a game. This is traditionally triangular in shape, but varies with the type of billiards played. There are two main types of racks; the more common triangular shape which is used for eight-ball and straight pool and the diamond-shaped rack used for nine-ball. There are several other types of less common rack types that are also used, based on a "template" to hold the billiard balls tightly together. Most commonly it is a thin plastic sheet with diamond-shaped cut-outs that hold the balls that is placed on the table with the balls set on top of the rack. The rack is used to set up the “break” and removed once the break has been completed and no balls are obstructing the template. Cues Billiards games are mostly played with a stick known as a cue. A cue is usually either a one-piece tapered stick or a two-piece stick divided in the middle by a joint of metal or phenolic resin. High-quality cues are generally two pieces and are made of a hardwood, generally maple for billiards and ash for snooker. The end of the cue is of larger circumference and is intended to be gripped by a player's hand. The of the cue is of smaller circumference, usually tapering to an terminus called a (usually made of fiberglass or brass in better cues), where a rounded leather is affixed, flush with the ferrule, to make final contact with balls. The tip, in conjunction with chalk, can be used to impart spin to the cue ball when it is not hit in its

defunct Geauga Lake Park in Ohio, US Big Dipper (Luna Park Sydney), a wooden roller coaster operating at Luna Park Sydney, Australia from 1935 until 1981 Big Dipper (Michigan's Adventure), a steel roller coaster in Michigan, US Cyclone (Dreamworld), a steel roller coaster which operated as Big Dipper at Luna Park Sydney, Australia from 1995 to 2001 Sport Wilt Chamberlain (1936–1999), American basketball player Robert DiPierdomenico (born 1958), Australian rules footballer Chris Duncan (born 1981), American baseball player Music Big Dipper (band), a 1980s-1990s Boston alternative-rock band Big Dipper, professional name of American rapper Dan Stermer. Big Dipper (album), a 2003 album by Drop Trio The Great Dipper (album), a 2015 album by Roy Kim Big Dipper (Elton John song), a 1978 song by Elton John "Big Dipper", a song by Jethro Tull from their

Battersea Park, London, England, from 1951 until 1972 Big Dipper (Blackpool), a wooden roller coaster at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, England Big Dipper (Geauga Lake), a wooden roller coaster formerly at the now defunct Geauga Lake Park in Ohio, US Big Dipper (Luna Park Sydney), a wooden roller coaster operating at Luna Park Sydney, Australia from 1935 until 1981 Big Dipper (Michigan's Adventure), a steel roller coaster in Michigan, US Cyclone (Dreamworld), a steel roller coaster which operated as Big Dipper at Luna Park Sydney, Australia from 1995 to 2001 Sport Wilt Chamberlain (1936–1999), American basketball player Robert DiPierdomenico (born 1958), Australian rules footballer Chris Duncan (born 1981), American baseball player Music Big Dipper (band), a 1980s-1990s Boston alternative-rock band Big Dipper, professional name

has a physical therapy centre which also makes use of thermal water. Transportation Bursa has a metro (Bursaray), trams and bus system for inner-city public transport, while taxi cabs are also available. Bursa's Yenişehir Airport is away from the city centre. The citizens of Bursa also prefer Istanbul's airports such as Istanbul Airport and Sabiha Gökçen International Airport for flights to foreign countries, due to Istanbul's proximity to Bursa. There are numerous daily bus and ferry services between the two cities. The long Bursa Uludağ Gondola () connects Bursa with the ski resort areas high on the mountain Uludağ. The only railway station in Bursa is the Harmancık station on the Balıkesir-Kütahya railway, which was opened in 1930. The average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Bursa, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 62 min. 12% of public transit riders ride for more than 2 hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 18 min, while 31% of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is , while 17% travel for over in a single direction. Education Bursa has two public universities and one private university. Uludağ University, founded in 1975 in Görükle, is the oldest institution of higher education in the city. Founded first as the Bursa University then renamed Uludağ University in 1982, the university has a student body of 47,000, one of the largest in Turkey. Bursa Technical University is the second public university of Bursa and was established in 2010, beginning education in the 2011–2012 academic year. The first private university of Bursa was the Bursa Orhangazi University, which started education in the 2012–2013 academic year. However, Orhangazi University was shut down by the Turkish government after the failed coup attempt of July 2016. Istanbul Commerce University has opened graduate programs in Bursa in 2013. The Bursa Sports High School is located in Osmangazi district. Sports The city has one professional football club, Bursaspor, which formerly competed in the Süper Lig (Super League), the top-tier of Turkish football, until finishing 16th at the end of the 2018–19 Süper Lig season and being relegated to the TFF First League. A few years earlier, Bursaspor had managed to become the Turkish champions at the end of the 2009–10 Süper Lig season, thereby becoming the second Anatolian club to ever win the Süper Lig championship title after Trabzonspor. Henceforth, Bursaspor was often considered to be one of the five biggest football clubs in Turkey, along with Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe, Beşiktaş and Trabzonspor. The club's relegation to the TFF First League at the end of the 2018–19 season was a major shock for its fans and became a first in the history of Turkish football: Never before a club which had won the Süper Lig championship title was relegated. Bursaspor plays its home games at the Timsah Arena (meaning "Crocodile Arena", crocodile being the mascot of the team), which has a seating capacity of 45,000. The city has a professional basketball team in the Turkish Basketball League, Tofaş S.K., which is among the most successful teams. The club plays its games at the Tofaş Nilüfer Sports Hall. Politics The current Mayor of the Bursa Metropolitan Municipality is Alinur Aktaş from the Justice and Development Party (AKP), in office since 2019, the AKP coalition won 49.6% of the vote against the CHP coalition which got 47% of the vote. Main sights Ulu Cami (Grand Mosque) Ulu Cami is the largest mosque in Bursa and a landmark of early Ottoman architecture, which incorporated many elements from Seljuk architecture. Ordered by Sultan Bayezid I, the mosque was designed and built by architect Ali Neccar in 1396–1400. It is a large and rectangular building, with a total of twenty domes that are arranged in four rows of five, and are supported by 12 columns. Supposedly the twenty domes were built instead of the twenty separate mosques which Sultan Bayezid I had promised for winning the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396. The mosque has two minarets. Inside the mosque there are 192 monumental wall inscriptions written by the famous calligraphers of that period. There is also a fountain (şadırvan) where worshipers can perform ritual ablutions before prayer; the dome over the şadırvan is capped by a skylight which creates a soft, serene light below; thus playing an important role in the illumination of the large building. The horizontally spacious and dimly lit interior is designed to feel peaceful and contemplative. The subdivisions of space formed by multiple domes and pillars create a sense of privacy and even intimacy. This atmosphere contrasts with the later Ottoman mosques (see for example the works of Suleiman the Magnificent's chief architect Mimar Sinan.) The mosques that were built after the conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul) by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, and influenced by the design of the 6th century Byzantine basilica of Hagia Sophia, had increasingly elevated and large central domes, which create a vertical emphasis that is intended to be more overwhelming; in order to convey the divine power of Allah, the majesty of the Ottoman Sultan, and the governmental authority of the Ottoman State. Places of interest A brief list of places of interest in and around Bursa is presented below. For a longer list, see places of interest in Bursa. Mosques and külliye complexes Bursa Grand Mosque and Yeşil Mosque and Bayezid I Mosque and Muradiye Mosque and Emir Sultan Mosque and Orhan Gazi Mosque and Hüdavendigar Mosque and Koca Sinan Paşa Mosque and İshak Paşa Mosque and Karacabey Grand Mosque Karabaş-i Veli Cultural Centre Somuncu Baba Mosque Üftade Tekkesi Mosque and complex Babasultan Mosque and complex Bazaars and caravanserais Yıldırım Bazaar (bedesten) Koza Han Pirinç Han İpek Han Other historic monuments Bursa Castle Irgandı Bridge İnkaya Sycamore, very big and impressive 600-year-old tree (Platanus orientalis) Museums Bursa Archaeological Museum Bursa Atatürk Museum, Bursa City Museum, Bursa Energy Museum Bursa Forestry Museum Bursa Karagöz Museum Bursa Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art Bursa Turkish Architecture Museum İznik Museum Mudanya Armistice House Museum of Ottoman House Tofaş Museum of Cars and Anatolian Carriages Parks and gardens Uludağ National Park Bursa Zoo and Botanical Garden Hot springs and thermal baths Keramet hot spring Çekirge hot spring Armutlu hot spring Oylat hot spring Gemlik hot spring Çelik Palas thermal bath Beaches Armutlu beach Kumla beach Kurşunlu beach Orhangazi beach Mudanya beach Gallery Twin towns – sister cities

Sports High School is located in Osmangazi district. Sports The city has one professional football club, Bursaspor, which formerly competed in the Süper Lig (Super League), the top-tier of Turkish football, until finishing 16th at the end of the 2018–19 Süper Lig season and being relegated to the TFF First League. A few years earlier, Bursaspor had managed to become the Turkish champions at the end of the 2009–10 Süper Lig season, thereby becoming the second Anatolian club to ever win the Süper Lig championship title after Trabzonspor. Henceforth, Bursaspor was often considered to be one of the five biggest football clubs in Turkey, along with Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe, Beşiktaş and Trabzonspor. The club's relegation to the TFF First League at the end of the 2018–19 season was a major shock for its fans and became a first in the history of Turkish football: Never before a club which had won the Süper Lig championship title was relegated. Bursaspor plays its home games at the Timsah Arena (meaning "Crocodile Arena", crocodile being the mascot of the team), which has a seating capacity of 45,000. The city has a professional basketball team in the Turkish Basketball League, Tofaş S.K., which is among the most successful teams. The club plays its games at the Tofaş Nilüfer Sports Hall. Politics The current Mayor of the Bursa Metropolitan Municipality is Alinur Aktaş from the Justice and Development Party (AKP), in office since 2019, the AKP coalition won 49.6% of the vote against the CHP coalition which got 47% of the vote. Main sights Ulu Cami (Grand Mosque) Ulu Cami is the largest mosque in Bursa and a landmark of early Ottoman architecture, which incorporated many elements from Seljuk architecture. Ordered by Sultan Bayezid I, the mosque was designed and built by architect Ali Neccar in 1396–1400. It is a large and rectangular building, with a total of twenty domes that are arranged in four rows of five, and are supported by 12 columns. Supposedly the twenty domes were built instead of the twenty separate mosques which Sultan Bayezid I had promised for winning the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396. The mosque has two minarets. Inside the mosque there are 192 monumental wall inscriptions written by the famous calligraphers of that period. There is also a fountain (şadırvan) where worshipers can perform ritual ablutions before prayer; the dome over the şadırvan is capped by a skylight which creates a soft, serene light below; thus playing an important role in the illumination of the large building. The horizontally spacious and dimly lit interior is designed to feel peaceful and contemplative. The subdivisions of space formed by multiple domes and pillars create a sense of privacy and even intimacy. This atmosphere contrasts with the later Ottoman mosques (see for example the works of Suleiman the Magnificent's chief architect Mimar Sinan.) The mosques that were built after the conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul) by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, and influenced by the design of the 6th century Byzantine basilica of Hagia Sophia, had increasingly elevated and large central domes, which create a vertical emphasis that is intended to be more overwhelming; in order to convey the divine power of Allah, the majesty of the Ottoman Sultan, and the governmental authority of the Ottoman State. Places of interest A brief list of places of interest in and around Bursa is presented below. For a longer list, see places of interest in Bursa. Mosques and külliye complexes Bursa Grand Mosque and Yeşil Mosque and Bayezid I Mosque and Muradiye Mosque and Emir Sultan Mosque and Orhan Gazi Mosque and Hüdavendigar Mosque and Koca Sinan Paşa Mosque and İshak Paşa Mosque and Karacabey Grand Mosque Karabaş-i Veli Cultural Centre Somuncu Baba Mosque Üftade Tekkesi Mosque and complex Babasultan Mosque and complex Bazaars and caravanserais Yıldırım Bazaar (bedesten) Koza Han Pirinç Han İpek Han Other historic monuments Bursa Castle Irgandı Bridge İnkaya Sycamore, very big and impressive 600-year-old tree (Platanus orientalis) Museums Bursa Archaeological Museum Bursa Atatürk Museum, Bursa City Museum, Bursa Energy Museum Bursa Forestry Museum Bursa Karagöz Museum Bursa Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art Bursa Turkish Architecture Museum İznik Museum Mudanya Armistice House Museum of Ottoman House Tofaş Museum of Cars and Anatolian Carriages Parks and gardens Uludağ National Park Bursa Zoo and Botanical Garden Hot springs and thermal baths Keramet hot spring Çekirge hot spring Armutlu hot spring Oylat hot spring Gemlik hot spring Çelik Palas thermal bath Beaches Armutlu beach Kumla beach Kurşunlu beach Orhangazi beach Mudanya beach Gallery Twin towns – sister cities Bursa is twinned with: Darmstadt, Germany (1971) Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (1972) Oulu, Finland (1978) Kairouan, Tunisia (1987) Anshan, China (1991) Bitola, North Macedonia (1996) Ceadîr-Lunga, Moldova (1997) Kyzylorda, Kazakhstan (1997) Mascara, Algeria (1998) Kulmbach, Germany (1998) Pleven, Bulgaria (1998) Plovdiv, Bulgaria (1998) Tirana,

including Sayle – chose to return to Bermuda. To survive, the remaining settlers salvaged goods from wrecks. In 1670, King Charles II granted the islands to the Lords Proprietors of the Carolinas in North America. They rented the islands from the king with rights of trading, tax, appointing governors, and administering the country from their base on New Providence. Piracy and attacks from hostile foreign powers were a constant threat. In 1684, Spanish corsair Juan de Alcon raided the capital Charles Town (later renamed Nassau), and in 1703, a joint Franco-Spanish expedition briefly occupied Nassau during the War of the Spanish Succession. 18th century During proprietary rule, the Bahamas became a haven for pirates, including Blackbeard (circa 1680–1718). To put an end to the "Pirates' republic" and restore orderly government, Britain made the Bahamas a crown colony in 1718, which they dubbed "the Bahama islands" under the royal governorship of Woodes Rogers. After a difficult struggle, he succeeded in suppressing piracy. In 1720, the Spanish attacked Nassau during the War of the Quadruple Alliance. In 1729, a local assembly was established giving a degree of self-governance for British settlers. The reforms had been planned by the previous Governor George Phenney and authorised in July 1728. During the American War of Independence in the late 18th century, the islands became a target for US naval forces. Under the command of Commodore Esek Hopkins, US Marines, the US Navy occupied Nassau in 1776, before being evacuated a few days later. In 1782 a Spanish fleet appeared off the coast of Nassau, and the city surrendered without a fight. Later, in April 1783, on a visit made by Prince William of the United Kingdom (later to become King William IV) to Luis de Unzaga at his residence in the Captaincy General of Havana, they made prisoner exchange agreements and also dealt with the preliminaries of the Treaty of Paris (1783), in which the recently conquered Bahamas would be exchanged for East Florida, which would still have to conquer the city of St. Augustine, Florida in 1784 by order of Luis de Unzaga; after that, also in 1784, the Bahamas would be declared a British colony. After US independence, the British resettled some 7,300 Loyalists with their African slaves in the Bahamas, including 2,000 from New York and at least 1,033 European, 2,214 African ancestrals and a few Native American Creeks from East Florida. Most of the refugees resettled from New York had fled from other colonies, including West Florida, which the Spanish captured during the war. The government granted land to the planters to help compensate for losses on the continent. These Loyalists, who included Deveaux and also Lord Dunmore, established plantations on several islands and became a political force in the capital. European Americans were outnumbered by the African-American slaves they brought with them, and ethnic Europeans remained a minority in the territory. 19th century The Slave Trade Act 1807 abolished slave trading to British possessions, including the Bahamas. The United Kingdom pressured other slave-trading countries to also abolish slave-trading, and gave the Royal Navy the right to intercept ships carrying slaves on the high seas. Thousands of Africans liberated from slave ships by the Royal Navy were resettled in the Bahamas. In the 1820s during the period of the Seminole Wars in Florida, hundreds of North American slaves and African Seminoles escaped from Cape Florida to the Bahamas. They settled mostly on northwest Andros Island, where they developed the village of Red Bays. From eyewitness accounts, 300 escaped in a mass flight in 1823, aided by Bahamians in 27 sloops, with others using canoes for the journey. This was commemorated in 2004 by a large sign at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park. Some of their descendants in Red Bays continue African Seminole traditions in basket making and grave marking. In 1818, the Home Office in London had ruled that "any slave brought to the Bahamas from outside the British West Indies would be manumitted." This led to a total of nearly 300 enslaved people owned by US nationals being freed from 1830 to 1835. The American slave ships Comet and Encomium used in the United States domestic coastwise slave trade, were wrecked off Abaco Island in December 1830 and February 1834, respectively. When wreckers took the masters, passengers and slaves into Nassau, customs officers seized the slaves and British colonial officials freed them, over the protests of the Americans. There were 165 slaves on the Comet and 48 on the Encomium. The United Kingdom finally paid an indemnity to the United States in those two cases in 1855, under the Treaty of Claims of 1853, which settled several compensation cases between the two countries. Slavery was abolished in the British Empire on 1 August 1834. After that British colonial officials freed 78 North American slaves from the Enterprise, which went into Bermuda in 1835; and 38 from the Hermosa, which wrecked off Abaco Island in 1840. The most notable case was that of the Creole in 1841: as a result of a slave revolt on board, the leaders ordered the US brig to Nassau. It was carrying 135 slaves from Virginia destined for sale in New Orleans. The Bahamian officials freed the 128 slaves who chose to stay in the islands. The Creole case has been described as the "most successful slave revolt in U.S. history". These incidents, in which a total of 447 enslaved people belonging to US nationals were freed from 1830 to 1842, increased tension between the United States and the United Kingdom. They had been co-operating in patrols to suppress the international slave trade. However, worried about the stability of its large domestic slave trade and its value, the United States argued that the United Kingdom should not treat its domestic ships that came to its colonial ports under duress as part of the international trade. The United States worried that the success of the Creole slaves in gaining freedom would encourage more slave revolts on merchant ships. During the American Civil War of the 1860s, the islands briefly prospered as a focus for blockade runners aiding the Confederate States. Early 20th century The early decades of the 20th century were ones of hardship for many Bahamians, characterised by a stagnant economy and widespread poverty. Many eked out a living via subsistence agriculture or fishing. In August 1940, the Duke of Windsor was appointed Governor of the Bahamas. He arrived in the colony with his wife. Although disheartened at the condition of Government House, they "tried to make the best of a bad situation". He did not enjoy the position, and referred to the islands as "a third-class British colony". He opened the small local parliament on 29 October 1940. The couple visited the "Out Islands" that November, on Axel Wenner-Gren's yacht, which caused controversy; the British Foreign Office strenuously objected because they had been advised by United States intelligence that Wenner-Gren was a close friend of the Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring of Nazi Germany. The Duke was praised at the time for his efforts to combat poverty on the islands. A 1991 biography by Philip Ziegler, however, described him as contemptuous of the Bahamians and other non-European peoples of the Empire. He was praised for his resolution of civil unrest over low wages in Nassau in June 1942, when there was a "full-scale riot". Ziegler said that the Duke blamed the trouble on "mischief makers – communists" and "men of Central European Jewish descent, who had secured jobs as a pretext for obtaining a deferment of draft". The Duke resigned from the post on 16 March 1945. Post-Second World War Modern political development began after the Second World War. The first political parties were formed in the 1950s, split broadly along ethnic lines, with the United Bahamian Party (UBP) representing the English-descended Bahamians (known informally as the "Bay Street Boys") and the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) representing the Afro-Bahamian majority. A new constitution granting the Bahamas internal autonomy went into effect on 7 January 1964, with Chief Minister Sir Roland Symonette of the UBP becoming the first Premier. In 1967, Lynden Pindling of the PLP became the first black Premier of the Bahamian colony; in 1968, the title of the position was changed to Prime Minister. In 1968, Pindling announced that the Bahamas would seek full independence. A new constitution giving the Bahamas increased control over its own affairs was adopted in 1968. In 1971, the UBP merged with a disaffected faction of the PLP to form a new party, the Free National Movement (FNM), a de-racialised, centre-right party which aimed to counter the growing power of Pindling's PLP. The British House of Lords voted to give The Bahamas its independence on 22 June 1973. Prince Charles delivered the official documents to Prime Minister Lynden Pindling, officially declaring The Bahamas a fully independent nation on 10 July 1973, and this date is now celebrated as the country's Independence Day. It joined the Commonwealth of Nations on the same day. Sir Milo Butler was appointed the first governor-general of The Bahamas (the official representative of Queen Elizabeth II) shortly after independence. Post-independence Shortly after independence, The Bahamas joined the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on 22 August 1973, and later the United Nations on 18 September 1973. Politically, the first two decades were dominated by Pindling's PLP, who went on to win a string of electoral victories. Allegations of corruption, links with drug cartels and financial malfeasance within the Bahamian government failed to dent Pindling's popularity. Meanwhile, the economy underwent a dramatic growth period fuelled by the twin pillars of tourism and offshore finance, significantly raising the standard of living on the islands. The Bahamas' booming economy led to it becoming a beacon for immigrants, most notably from Haiti. In 1992, Pindling was unseated by Hubert Ingraham of the FNM. Ingraham went on to win the 1997 Bahamian general election, before being defeated in 2002, when the PLP returned to power under Perry Christie. Ingraham returned to power from 2007 to 2012, followed by Christie again from 2012 to 2017. With economic growth faltering, Bahamians re-elected the FNM in 2017, with Hubert Minnis becoming the fourth prime minister. In September 2019, Hurricane Dorian struck the Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama at Category 5 intensity, devastating the northwestern Bahamas. The storm inflicted at least US$7 billion in damages and killed more than 50 people, with 1,300 people still missing. In September 2021, the ruling Free National Movement lost to the opposition Progressive Liberal Party in a snap election, as the economy struggles to recover from its deepest crash since at least 1971. Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) won 32 of the 39 seats in the House of Assembly. Free National Movement (FNM), led by Minnis, took the remaining seats. On 17 September 2021, the chairman of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Phillip “Brave” Davis was sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Bahamas to succeed Hubert Minnis. Geography The Bahamas consists of a chain of islands spread out over some in the Atlantic Ocean, located to the east of Florida in the United States, north of Cuba and Hispaniola and west of the British Overseas Territory of the Turks and Caicos Islands (with which it forms the Lucayan archipelago). It lies between latitudes 20° and 28°N, and longitudes 72° and 80°W and straddles the Tropic of Cancer. There are some 700 islands and 2,400 cays in total (of which 30 are inhabited) with a total land area of . Nassau, capital city of The Bahamas, lies on the island of New Providence; the other main inhabited islands are Grand Bahama, Eleuthera, Cat Island, Rum Cay, Long Island, San Salvador Island, Ragged Island, Acklins, Crooked Island, Exuma, Berry Islands, Mayaguana, the Bimini islands, Great Abaco and Great Inagua. The largest island is Andros. All the islands are low and flat, with ridges that usually rise no more than . The highest point in the country is Mount Alvernia (formerly Como Hill) on Cat Island at . The country contains three terrestrial ecoregions: Bahamian dry forests, Bahamian pine mosaic, and Bahamian mangroves. It had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 7.35/10, ranking it 44th globally out of 172 countries. Climate According to the Köppen climate classification, the climate of The Bahamas is mostly tropical savannah climate or Aw, with a hot and wet season and a warm and dry season. The low latitude, warm tropical Gulf Stream, and low elevation give The Bahamas a warm and winterless climate. As with most tropical climates, seasonal rainfall follows the sun, and summer is the wettest season. There is only a difference between the warmest month and coolest month in most of the Bahama islands. Every few decades low temperatures can fall below for a few hours when a severe cold outbreak comes down from the North American mainland, however there has never been a frost or freeze recorded in the Bahamian Islands. Only once in recorded history has snow been seen in the air anywhere in The Bahamas, this occurred in Freeport on 19 January 1977, when snow mixed with rain was seen in the air for a short time. The Bahamas are often sunny and dry for long periods of time, and average more than 3,000 hours or 340 days of sunlight annually. Much of the natural vegetation is tropical scrub and cactus and succulents are common in landscapes. Tropical storms and hurricanes occasionally impact The Bahamas. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew passed over the northern portions of the islands, and Hurricane Floyd passed near the eastern portions of the islands in 1999. Hurricane Dorian of 2019 passed over the archipelago at destructive Category 5 strength with sustained winds of and wind gusts up to , becoming the strongest tropical cyclone on record to impact the northwestern islands of Grand Bahama and Great Abaco. Geology It was generally believed that the Bahamas were formed in approximately 200 million years ago, when Pangaea started to break apart. In current times, it endures as an archipelago containing over 700 islands and cays, fringed around different coral reefs. The limestone that comprises the Banks has been accumulating since at least the Cretaceous period, and perhaps as early as the Jurassic; today the total thickness under the Great Bahama Bank is over 4.5 kilometres (2.8 miles). As the limestone was deposited in shallow water, the only way to explain this massive column is to estimate that the entire platform has subsided under its own weight at a rate of roughly 3.6 centimetres (2 inches) per 1,000 years. The Bahamas is part of the Lucayan Archipelago, which continues into the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Mouchoir Bank, the Silver Bank, and the Navidad Bank. The Bahamas Platform, which includes The Bahamas, Southern Florida, Northern Cuba, the Turks and Caicos, and the Blake Plateau, formed about 150 Ma, not long after the formation of the North Atlantic. The thick limestones, which predominate in The Bahamas, date back to the Cretaceous. These limestones would have been deposited in shallow seas, assumed to be a stretched and thinned portion of the North American continental crust. Sediments were forming at about the same rate as the crust below was sinking due to the added weight. Thus, the entire area consisted of a large marine plain with some islands. Then, at about 80 Ma, the area became flooded by the Gulf Stream. This resulted in the drowning of the Blake Plateau, the separation of The Bahamas from Cuba and Florida, the separation of the southeastern Bahamas into separate banks, the creation of the Cay Sal Bank, plus the Little and Great Bahama Banks. Sedimentation from the "carbonate factory" of each bank, or atoll, continues today at the rate of about per kyr. Coral reefs form the "retaining walls" of these atolls, within which oolites and pellets form. Coral growth was greater through the Tertiary, until the start of the ice ages, and hence those deposits are more abundant below a depth of . In fact, an ancient extinct reef exists half a km seaward of the present one, below sea level. Oolites form when oceanic water penetrate the shallow banks, increasing the temperature about and the salinity by 0.5 per cent. Cemented ooids are referred to as grapestone. Additionally, giant stromatolites are found off the Exuma Cays. Sea level changes resulted in a drop in sea level, causing wind blown oolite to form sand dunes with distinct cross-bedding. Overlapping dunes form oolitic ridges, which become rapidly lithified through the action of rainwater, called eolianite. Most islands have ridges ranging from , though Cat Island has a ridge in height. The land between ridges is conducive to the formation of lakes and swamps. Solution weathering of the limestone results in a "Bahamian Karst" topography. This includes potholes, blue holes such as Dean's Blue Hole, sinkholes, beachrock such as the Bimini Road ("pavements of Atlantis"), limestone crust, caves due to the lack of rivers, and sea caves. Several blue holes are aligned along the South Andros Fault line. Tidal flats and tidal creeks are common, but the more impressive drainage patterns are formed by troughs and canyons such as Great Bahama Canyon with the evidence of turbidity currents and turbidite deposition. The stratigraphy of the islands consists of the Middle Pleistocene Owl's Hole Formation, overlain by the Late Pleistocene Grotto Beach Formation, and then the Holocene Rice Bay Formation. However, these units are not necessarily stacked on top of each other but can be located laterally. The oldest formation, Owl's Hole, is capped by a terra rosa paleosoil, as is the Grotto Beach, unless eroded. The Grotto Beach Formation is the most widespread. Government and politics The Bahamas is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy, with the queen of the Bahamas (Elizabeth II) as head of state represented locally by a governor-general. Political and legal traditions closely follow those of England and the Westminster system. The Bahamas is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations and shares its head of state with other Commonwealth realms. The prime minister is the head of government and is the leader of the party with the most seats in the House of Assembly. Executive power is exercised by the Cabinet, selected by the prime minister and drawn from his supporters in the House of Assembly. The current governor-general is The Honourable Cornelius A. Smith, and the current prime minister is The Hon. Philip Davis MP. Legislative power is vested in a bicameral parliament, which consists of a 38-member House of Assembly (the lower house), with members elected from single-member districts, and a 16-member Senate, with members appointed by the governor-general, including nine on the advice of the Prime Minister, four on the advice of the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, and three on the advice of the prime minister after consultation with the Leader of the Opposition. As under the Westminster system, the prime minister may dissolve Parliament and call a general election at any time within a five-year term. Constitutional safeguards include freedom of speech, press, worship, movement and association. The Judiciary of the Bahamas is independent of the executive and the legislature. Jurisprudence is based on English law. Political culture The Bahamas has a two-party system dominated by the centre-left Progressive Liberal Party and the centre-right Free National Movement. A handful of other political parties have been unable to win election to parliament; these have included the Bahamas Democratic Movement, the Coalition for Democratic Reform, Bahamian Nationalist Party and the Democratic National Alliance. Foreign relations The Bahamas has strong bilateral relationships with the United States and the United Kingdom, represented by an ambassador in Washington and High Commissioner in London. The Bahamas also associates closely with other nations of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). The embassy of the United States in Nassau donated $3.6 million to the Minister for Disaster Preparedness, Management, and Reconstruction for modular shelters, medical evacuation boats, and construction materials. The donation was made 2 weeks after the one year anniversary of ‘Hurricane Dorian'. Armed forces The Bahamian military is the Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF), the navy

and the Dominican Republic) and the Turks and Caicos Islands, southeast of the American state of Florida, and east of the Florida Keys. The capital is Nassau on the island of New Providence. The Royal Bahamas Defence Force describes The Bahamas' territory as encompassing of ocean space. The Bahama Islands were inhabited by the Lucayans, a branch of the Arawakan-speaking Taíno, for many centuries. Columbus was the first European to see the islands, making his first landfall in the "New World" in 1492. Later, the Spanish shipped the native Lucayans to and enslaved them on Hispaniola, after which the Bahama islands were mostly deserted from 1513 until 1648, when English colonists from Bermuda settled on the island of Eleuthera. The Bahamas became a British crown colony in 1718, when the British clamped down on piracy. After the American Revolutionary War, the Crown resettled thousands of American Loyalists to the Bahamas; they took enslaved people with them and established plantations on land grants. African enslaved people and their descendants constituted the majority of the population from this period on. The slave trade was abolished by the British in 1807; slavery in the Bahamas was abolished in 1834. Subsequently, the Bahamas became a haven for freed African slaves. Africans liberated from illegal slave ships were resettled on the islands by the Royal Navy, while some North American slaves and Seminoles escaped to the Bahamas from Florida. Bahamians were even known to recognise the freedom of enslaved people carried by the ships of other nations which reached the Bahamas. Today Afro-Bahamians make up 90% of the population of 332,634. The country gained governmental independence in 1973, led by Sir Lynden O. Pindling, with Elizabeth II as its queen. In terms of gross domestic product per capita, The Bahamas is one of the richest countries in the Americas (following the United States and Canada), with an economy based on tourism and offshore finance. Etymology The name Bahamas is derived from the Lucayan name ('large upper middle island'), used by the indigenous Taíno people for the island of Grand Bahama. Tourist guides often state that the name comes from the Spanish ('shallow sea'). Wolfgang Ahrens of York University argues that this is a folk etymology. Alternatively, it may originate from , a local name of unclear meaning. First attested on the 1523 Turin Map, Bahama originally referred to Grand Bahama alone but was used inclusively in English by 1670. Toponymist Isaac Taylor argues that the name was derived from Bimani (Bimini), which Spaniards in Haiti identified with Palombe, a legendary place where John Mandeville's Travels said there was a fountain of youth. History Geological history The landmass that makes up what is the modern-day Bahamas, lies at the northern part of the Greater Antilles region and was believed to have been formed 200 millions of years ago when they began to separate from the supercontinent Pangaea. The Pleistocene Ice Age around 3 million years ago, had a profound impact on the archipelago's formation. Pre-colonial era The first inhabitants of the Bahamas were the Taino people, who moved into the uninhabited southern islands from Hispaniola and Cuba around the 800s–1000s AD, having migrated there from South America; they came to be known as the Lucayan people. An estimated 30,000 Lucayans inhabited the Bahamas at the time of Christopher Columbus's arrival in 1492. Arrival of the Spanish Columbus's first landfall in what was to Europeans a "New World" was on an island he named San Salvador (known to the Lucayans as Guanahani). Whilst there is a general consensus that this island lay within the Bahamas, precisely which island Columbus landed on is a matter of scholarly debate. Some researchers believe the site to be present-day San Salvador Island (formerly known as Watling's Island), situated in the southeastern Bahamas, whilst an alternative theory holds that Columbus landed to the southeast on Samana Cay, according to calculations made in 1986 by National Geographic writer and editor Joseph Judge, based on Columbus's log. On the landfall island, Columbus made first contact with the Lucayans and exchanged goods with them, claiming the islands for the Crown of Castile, before proceeding to explore the larger isles of the Greater Antilles. The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas theoretically divided the new territories between the Kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom of Portugal, placing the Bahamas in the Spanish sphere; however they did little to press their claim on the ground. The Spanish did however exploit the native Lucayan peoples, many of whom were enslaved and sent to Hispaniola for use as forced labour. The slaves suffered harsh conditions and most died from contracting diseases to which they had no immunity; half of the Taino died from smallpox alone. As a result of these depredations the population of the Bahamas was severely diminished. Arrival of the English The English had expressed an interest in the Bahamas as early as 1629. However, it was not until 1648 that the first English settlers arrived on the islands. Known as the Eleutherian Adventurers and led by William Sayle, they migrated from Bermuda seeking greater religious freedom. These English Puritans established the first permanent European settlement on an island which they named Eleuthera, Greek for freedom. They later settled New Providence, naming it Sayle's Island. Life proved harder than envisaged however, and many – including Sayle – chose to return to Bermuda. To survive, the remaining settlers salvaged goods from wrecks. In 1670, King Charles II granted the islands to the Lords Proprietors of the Carolinas in North America. They rented the islands from the king with rights of trading, tax, appointing governors, and administering the country from their base on New Providence. Piracy and attacks from hostile foreign powers were a constant threat. In 1684, Spanish corsair Juan de Alcon raided the capital Charles Town (later renamed Nassau), and in 1703, a joint Franco-Spanish expedition briefly occupied Nassau during the War of the Spanish Succession. 18th century During proprietary rule, the Bahamas became a haven for pirates, including Blackbeard (circa 1680–1718). To put an end to the "Pirates' republic" and restore orderly government, Britain made the Bahamas a crown colony in 1718, which they dubbed "the Bahama islands" under the royal governorship of Woodes Rogers. After a difficult struggle, he succeeded in suppressing piracy. In 1720, the Spanish attacked Nassau during the War of the Quadruple Alliance. In 1729, a local assembly was established giving a degree of self-governance for British settlers. The reforms had been planned by the previous Governor George Phenney and authorised in July 1728. During the American War of Independence in the late 18th century, the islands became a target for US naval forces. Under the command of Commodore Esek Hopkins, US Marines, the US Navy occupied Nassau in 1776, before being evacuated a few days later. In 1782 a Spanish fleet appeared off the coast of Nassau, and the city surrendered without a fight. Later, in April 1783, on a visit made by Prince William of the United Kingdom (later to become King William IV) to Luis de Unzaga at his residence in the Captaincy General of Havana, they made prisoner exchange agreements and also dealt with the preliminaries of the Treaty of Paris (1783), in which the recently conquered Bahamas would be exchanged for East Florida, which would still have to conquer the city of St. Augustine, Florida in 1784 by order of Luis de Unzaga; after that, also in 1784, the Bahamas would be declared a British colony. After US independence, the British resettled some 7,300 Loyalists with their African slaves in the Bahamas, including 2,000 from New York and at least 1,033 European, 2,214 African ancestrals and a few Native American Creeks from East Florida. Most of the refugees resettled from New York had fled from other colonies, including West Florida, which the Spanish captured during the war. The government granted land to the planters to help compensate for losses on the continent. These Loyalists, who included Deveaux and also Lord Dunmore, established plantations on several islands and became a political force in the capital. European Americans were outnumbered by the African-American slaves they brought with them, and ethnic Europeans remained a minority in the territory. 19th century The Slave Trade Act 1807 abolished slave trading to British possessions, including the Bahamas. The United Kingdom pressured other slave-trading countries to also abolish slave-trading, and gave the Royal Navy the right to intercept ships carrying slaves on the high seas. Thousands of Africans liberated from slave ships by the Royal Navy were resettled in the Bahamas. In the 1820s during the period of the Seminole Wars in Florida, hundreds of North American slaves and African Seminoles escaped from Cape Florida to the Bahamas. They settled mostly on northwest Andros Island, where they developed the village of Red Bays. From eyewitness accounts, 300 escaped in a mass flight in 1823, aided by Bahamians in 27 sloops, with others using canoes for the journey. This was commemorated in 2004 by a large sign at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park. Some of their descendants in Red Bays continue African Seminole traditions in basket making and grave marking. In 1818, the Home Office in London had ruled that "any slave brought to the Bahamas from outside the British West Indies would be manumitted." This led to a total of nearly 300 enslaved people owned by US nationals being freed from 1830 to 1835. The American slave ships Comet and Encomium used in the United States domestic coastwise slave trade, were wrecked off Abaco Island in December 1830 and February 1834, respectively. When wreckers took the masters, passengers and slaves into Nassau, customs officers seized the slaves and British colonial officials freed them, over the protests of the Americans. There were 165 slaves on the Comet and 48 on the Encomium. The United Kingdom finally paid an indemnity to the United States in those two cases in 1855, under the Treaty of Claims of 1853, which settled several compensation cases between the two countries. Slavery was abolished in the British Empire on 1 August 1834. After that British colonial officials freed 78 North American slaves from the Enterprise, which went into Bermuda in 1835; and 38 from the Hermosa, which wrecked off Abaco Island in 1840. The most notable case was that of the Creole in 1841: as a result of a slave revolt on board, the leaders ordered the US brig to Nassau. It was carrying 135 slaves from Virginia destined for sale in New Orleans. The Bahamian officials freed the 128 slaves who chose to stay in the islands. The Creole case has been described as the "most successful slave revolt in U.S. history". These incidents, in which a total of 447 enslaved people belonging to US nationals were freed from 1830 to 1842, increased tension between the United States and the United Kingdom. They had been co-operating in patrols to suppress the international slave trade. However, worried about the stability of its large domestic slave trade and its value, the United States argued that the United Kingdom should not treat its domestic ships that came to its colonial ports under duress as part of the international trade. The United States worried that the success of the Creole slaves in gaining freedom would encourage more slave revolts on merchant ships. During the American Civil War of the 1860s, the islands briefly prospered as a focus for blockade runners aiding the Confederate States. Early 20th century The early decades of the 20th century were ones of hardship for many Bahamians, characterised by a stagnant economy and widespread poverty. Many eked out a living via subsistence agriculture or fishing. In August 1940, the Duke of Windsor was appointed Governor of the Bahamas. He arrived in the colony with his wife. Although disheartened at the condition of Government House, they "tried to make the best of a bad situation". He did not enjoy the position, and referred to the islands as "a third-class British colony". He opened the small local parliament on 29 October 1940. The couple visited the "Out Islands" that November, on Axel Wenner-Gren's yacht, which caused controversy; the British Foreign Office strenuously objected because they had been advised by United States intelligence that Wenner-Gren was a close friend of the Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring of Nazi Germany. The Duke was praised at the time for his efforts to combat poverty on the islands. A 1991 biography by Philip Ziegler, however, described him as contemptuous of the Bahamians and other non-European peoples of the Empire. He was praised for his resolution of civil unrest over low wages in Nassau in June 1942, when there was a "full-scale riot". Ziegler said that the Duke blamed the trouble on "mischief makers – communists" and "men of Central European Jewish descent, who had secured jobs as a pretext for obtaining a deferment of draft". The Duke resigned from the post on 16 March 1945. Post-Second World War Modern political development began after the Second World War. The first political parties were formed in the 1950s, split broadly along ethnic lines, with the United Bahamian Party (UBP) representing the English-descended Bahamians (known informally as the "Bay Street Boys") and the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) representing the Afro-Bahamian majority. A new constitution granting the Bahamas internal autonomy went into effect on 7 January 1964, with Chief Minister Sir Roland Symonette of the UBP becoming the first Premier. In 1967, Lynden Pindling of the PLP became the first black Premier of the Bahamian colony; in 1968, the title of the position was changed to Prime Minister. In 1968, Pindling announced that the Bahamas would seek full independence. A new constitution giving the Bahamas increased control over its own affairs was adopted in 1968. In 1971, the UBP merged with a disaffected faction of the PLP to form a new party, the Free National Movement (FNM), a de-racialised, centre-right party which aimed to counter the growing power of Pindling's PLP. The British House of Lords voted to give The Bahamas its independence on 22 June 1973. Prince Charles delivered the official documents to Prime Minister Lynden Pindling, officially declaring The Bahamas a fully independent nation on 10 July 1973, and this date is now celebrated as the country's Independence Day. It joined the Commonwealth of Nations on the same day. Sir Milo Butler was appointed the first governor-general of The Bahamas (the official representative of Queen Elizabeth II) shortly after independence. Post-independence Shortly after independence, The Bahamas joined the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on 22 August 1973, and later the United Nations on 18 September 1973. Politically, the first two decades

they never formally annexed it. The United States raised the question at the beginning of the 1920s and after some diplomatic exchanges, in 1935 they launched the American Equatorial Islands Colonization Project and in May 1936 issued Executive Order 7358 to clarify their sovereignty. This short-lived attempt at colonization, via the American Equatorial Islands Colonization Project, began when American colonists arrived aboard the USCGC Itasca, the same vessel that brought colonists to neighboring Howland Island, on April 3, 1935. They built a lighthouse and substantial dwellings, and they attempted to grow various plants. The settlement was named Meyerton, after Captain H.A. Meyer of the United States Army, who helped establish the camps in 1935. One sad-looking clump of coconut palms was jokingly called King–Doyle Park after two well-known citizens of Hawaii who visited on the Taney in 1938. This clump was the best on the island, planted near a water seep, but the dry climate and seabirds, eager for anything upon which to perch, did not give the trees or shrubs much of a chance to survive. King–Doyle Park was later adopted as a geographic name by the United States Geological Survey. According to the 1940 U.S. Census, its population was three American civilians, all of whom were evacuated in 1942 after Japanese air and naval attacks. During World War II it was occupied by the U.S. military. Airfield On August 11, 1943, a US Army defense force arrived on Baker Island as part of the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign. In September 1943 a airfield was opened and was subsequently used as a staging base by Seventh Air Force B-24 Liberator bombers for attacks on Mili Atoll. The 45th Fighter Squadron operated P-40 fighters from the airfield from September 1 - November 27, 1943. By January 1, 1944, the airfield was abandoned. LORAN Station Baker LORAN radio navigation station Baker was a radio operations base in operation from September 1944 to July 1946. The station unit number was 91 and the radio call sign was NRN-1. Flora and fauna Baker has no natural fresh water sources. It is treeless, with sparse vegetation consisting of four kinds of grass, prostrate vines and low-growing shrubs. The island, with its surrounding waters, is primarily a nesting, roosting, and foraging habitat for seabirds,

annexed it. The United States raised the question at the beginning of the 1920s and after some diplomatic exchanges, in 1935 they launched the American Equatorial Islands Colonization Project and in May 1936 issued Executive Order 7358 to clarify their sovereignty. This short-lived attempt at colonization, via the American Equatorial Islands Colonization Project, began when American colonists arrived aboard the USCGC Itasca, the same vessel that brought colonists to neighboring Howland Island, on April 3, 1935. They built a lighthouse and substantial dwellings, and they attempted to grow various plants. The settlement was named Meyerton, after Captain H.A. Meyer of the United States Army, who helped establish the camps in 1935. One sad-looking clump of coconut palms was jokingly called King–Doyle Park after two well-known citizens of Hawaii who visited on the Taney in 1938. This clump was the best on the island, planted near a water seep, but the dry climate and seabirds, eager for anything upon which to perch, did not give the trees or shrubs much of a chance to survive. King–Doyle Park was later adopted as a geographic name by the United States Geological Survey. According to the 1940 U.S. Census, its population was three American civilians, all of whom were evacuated in 1942 after Japanese air and naval attacks. During World War II it was occupied by the U.S. military. Airfield On August 11, 1943, a US Army defense force arrived on Baker Island as part of the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign. In September 1943 a airfield was opened and was subsequently used as a staging base by Seventh Air Force B-24 Liberator bombers for attacks on Mili Atoll. The 45th Fighter Squadron operated P-40 fighters from the airfield from September 1 - November 27, 1943. By January 1, 1944, the airfield was abandoned. LORAN Station Baker LORAN radio navigation station Baker was a radio operations base in operation from September 1944 to July 1946. The station unit number was 91 and the radio call sign was NRN-1. Flora and fauna Baker has no natural fresh water sources. It is treeless, with sparse vegetation consisting of four kinds of grass, prostrate vines and low-growing shrubs. The island, with its surrounding waters, is primarily a nesting, roosting, and foraging habitat for seabirds, waders and marine wildlife. It has been recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports breeding colonies of lesser frigatebirds, masked boobies and sooty terns. Several species of migratory, arctic-breeding waders visit the island seasonally, including ruddy turnstones, bar-tailed godwits, sanderlings, Pacific golden plovers and bristle-thighed curlews. Green turtles and hawksbill turtles, both critically endangered, can be found along the reef. National Wildlife Refuge On June 27, 1974, Secretary of the Interior Rogers Morton created Baker Island National Wildlife Refuge which was expanded in 2009 to add submerged lands within of the island. The refuge now includes of land and of water. Baker, along with six other islands, was administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the Pacific Remote Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex. In January 2009, that entity was redesignated the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument by President George W. Bush. Environmental challenges include abandoned military debris from World War II and illegal fishing offshore. Invasive exotics introduced by human activity, including cockroaches and coconut palms, have also displaced native wildlife. Feral cats, first introduced in 1937, were eradicated in 1965. Public entry to the island is only by special use permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and it is generally restricted to scientists and educators. Representatives from the agency visit the island on average once every two years, usually coordinating transportation with a NOAA vessel. Ruins and artifacts Debris from past human occupation

1,531,300 people are enslaved in modern-day Bangladesh, or 0.95% of the population. A number of slaves in Bangladesh are forced to work in the fish and shrimp industries. Corruption Like for many developing countries, institutional corruption is a serious concern for Bangladesh. Bangladesh was ranked 146th among 180 countries on Transparency International's 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index. According to survey conducted by the Bangladesh chapter of TI, in 2015, bribes made up 3.7 percent of the national budget. Land administration was the sector with the most bribery in 2015, followed by education, police and water supply. The Anti Corruption Commission was formed in 2004, and it was active during the 2006–08 Bangladeshi political crisis, indicting many leading politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen for graft. Economy Bangladesh has the world's 33rd largest economy in terms of market exchange rates and 29th largest in terms of purchasing power parity, which ranks second in South Asia after India. Bangladesh is also one of the world's fastest-growing economies and one of the fastest growing middle-income countries. The country has a market-based mixed economy. A developing nation, Bangladesh is one of the Next Eleven emerging markets. According to the IMF, its per-capita income was in 2019, with a GDP of $317 billion. Bangladesh has the second-highest foreign-exchange reserves in South Asia (after India). The Bangladeshi diaspora contributed $15.31 billion in remittances in 2015. Bangladesh's largest trading partners are the European Union, the United States, Japan, India, Australia, China and ASEAN. Expat workers in the Middle East and Southeast Asia send back a large chunk of remittances. The economy is driven by strong domestic demand. During its first five years of independence, Bangladesh adopted socialist policies. The subsequent military regime and BNP and Jatiya Party governments restored free markets and promoted the country's private sector. In 1991, finance minister Saifur Rahman introduced a programme of economic liberalisation. The Bangladeshi private sector has rapidly expanded, with a number of conglomerates driving the economy. Major industries include textiles, pharmaceuticals, shipbuilding, steel, electronics, energy, construction materials, chemicals, ceramics, food processing, and leather goods. Export-oriented industrialisation has increased with fiscal year 2018–19 exports increasing by 10.1% over the previous year to $40 billion. Most export earnings are from the garment-manufacturing industry. However, an insufficient power supply is a significant obstacle to Bangladesh's economic development. According to the World Bank, poor governance, corruption and weak public institutions are also major challenges. In April 2010, Standard & Poor's gave Bangladesh a BB- long-term credit rating, below India's but above those of Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Bangladesh is the seventh-largest natural gas producer in Asia, ahead of neighbouring Myanmar, and 56 percent of the country's electricity is generated by natural gas. Major gas fields are located in the northeastern (particularly Sylhet) and southern (including Barisal and Chittagong) regions. Petrobangla is the national energy company. The American multinational corporation Chevron produces 50 percent of Bangladesh's natural gas. According to geologists, the Bay of Bengal contains large, untapped gas reserves in Bangladesh's exclusive economic zone. Bangladesh has substantial coal reserves, with several coal mines operating in the northwest. Jute exports remain significant, although the global jute trade has shrunk considerably since its World War II peak. Bangladesh has one of the world's oldest tea industries and is a major exporter of fish and seafood. Bangladesh's textile and ready-made garment industries are the country's largest manufacturing sector, with 2017 exports of $34.1 billion. Leather-goods manufacturing, particularly footwear, is the second-largest export sector. The pharmaceutical industry meets 97 percent of domestic demand, and exports to many countries. Shipbuilding has grown rapidly, with exports to Europe. Steel is concentrated in the port city of Chittagong, and the ceramics industry is prominent in international trade. In 2005 Bangladesh was the world's 20th-largest cement producer, an industry dependent on limestone imports from northeast India. Food processing is a major sector, with local brands such as PRAN increasing their international presence. The electronics industry is growing rapidly with contributions from companies like the Walton Group. Bangladesh's defense industry includes the Bangladesh Ordnance Factories and the Khulna Shipyard. The service sector accounts for 51 percent of the country's GDP. Bangladesh ranks with Pakistan as South Asia's second-largest banking sector. The Dhaka and Chittagong Stock Exchanges are the country's twin financial markets. Bangladesh's telecommunications industry is one of the world's fastest-growing, with 171.854 million cellphone subscribers in January 2021, and Grameenphone, Robi, Banglalink and TeleTalk respectively are major companies. Tourism is developing, with the beach resort of Cox's Bazar at the centre of the industry. The Sylhet region, home to Bangladesh's tea gardens, also hosts a large number of visitors. The country has three UNESCO World Heritage Sites (the Mosque City, the Buddhist Vihara and the Sundarbans) and five tentative-list sites. Following the pioneering work of Akhter Hameed Khan on rural development at Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development, several NGOs in Bangladesh including BRAC (the world's largest NGO), and Grameen Bank, focused on rural development and poverty alleviation in the country. Muhammad Yunus successfully pioneered microfinance as a sustainable tool for poverty alleviation and others followed suit. As of 2015, the country had over 35 million microcredit borrowers. In recognition of their tangible contribution to poverty alleviation, Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. Agriculture Transport Transport is a major sector of the economy. Aviation has grown rapidly and is dominated by the flag carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines and other privately owned airlines. Bangladesh has a number of airports including three international and several domestic STOL (short takeoff and landing) airports. The busiest, Shahjalal International Airport connects Dhaka with major destinations. Bangladesh has a long rail network operated by the state-owned Bangladesh Railway. The total length of the country's road and highway network is nearly 21,000 kilometers (13,000 miles). With of navigable waters, Bangladesh has one of the largest inland waterway networks in the world. The southeastern port of Chittagong is its busiest seaport, handling over $60 billion in annual trade (more than 80 percent of the country's export-import commerce). The second-busiest seaport is Mongla. Bangladesh has three seaports and 22 river ports. Energy and infrastructure Bangladesh had an installed electrical capacity of 20,000 megawatts in 2018, reaching 23,548 MW in 2020. About 56 percent of the country's commercial energy is generated by natural gas, followed by oil, hydropower and coal. Bangladesh has planned to import hydropower from Bhutan and Nepal. A nuclear power plant is under construction with Russian support in the Ruppur Nuclear Power Plant project which will add 2160 MW when fully operational. The country ranks fifth worldwide in the number of renewable energy green jobs, and solar panels are increasingly used to power urban and off-grid rural areas. An estimated 98 percent of the country's population had access to improved water sources by 2004 (a high percentage for a low-income country), achieved largely through the construction of hand pumps with support from external donors. However, in 1993 it was discovered that much of Bangladesh's groundwater (the source of drinking water for 97 percent of the rural population and a significant share of the urban population) is naturally contaminated with arsenic. Another challenge is low cost recovery due to low tariffs and poor economic efficiency, especially in urban areas (where water revenue does not cover operating costs). An estimated 56 percent of the population had access to adequate sanitation facilities in 2010. Community-led total sanitation, addressing the problem of open defecation in rural areas, is credited with improving public health since its introduction in 2000. Science and technology The Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, founded in 1973, traces its roots to the East Pakistan Regional Laboratories established in Dhaka (1955), Rajshahi (1965) and Chittagong (1967). Bangladesh's space agency, SPARRSO, was founded in 1983 with assistance from the United States. The country's first communications satellite, Bangabandhu-1, was launched from the United States in 2018. The Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission operates a TRIGA research reactor at its atomic-energy facility in Savar. In 2015, Bangladesh was ranked the 26th global IT outsourcing destination. Tourism Bangladesh's tourist attractions include historical sites and monuments, resorts, beaches, picnic spots, forests and wildlife of various species. Activities for tourists include angling, water skiing, river cruising, hiking, rowing, yachting, and sea bathing. The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) reported in 2019 that the travel and tourism industry in Bangladesh directly generated 1,180,500 jobs in 2018 or 1.9 percent of the country's total employment. According to the same report, Bangladesh experiences around 125,000 international tourist arrivals per year. Domestic spending generated 97.7 percent of direct travel and tourism gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012. Bangladesh's world ranking in 2012 for travel and tourism's direct contribution to GDP, as a percentage of GDP, was 120 out of 140. Demographics Estimates of the Bangladeshi population vary, but UN data suggests (162.9 million) in 2017. The 2011 census estimated 142.3 million, much less than 2007–2010 estimates of Bangladesh's population (150–170 million). Bangladesh is the world's eighth-most-populous nation and the most densely-populated large country in the world, ranking 7th in population density even when small countries and city-states are included. The country's population-growth rate was among the highest in the world in the 1960s and 1970s, when its population grew from 65 to 110 million. With the promotion of birth control in the 1980s, Bangladesh's growth rate began to slow. Its total fertility rate is now 2.05, lower than India's (2.58) and Pakistan's (3.07). The population is relatively young, with 34 percent aged 15 or younger and five percent 65 or older. Life expectancy at birth was estimated at 72.49 years in 2016. According to the World Bank, 14.8% of the country lives below the international poverty line on less than $1.90 per day. Bengalis are 98 percent of the population. Of Bengalis, Muslims are the majority, followed by Hindus, Christians and Buddhists. The Adivasi population includes the Chakma, Marma, Tanchangya, Tripuri, Kuki, Khiang, Khumi, Murang, Mru, Chak, Lushei, Bawm, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Khasi, Jaintia, Garo, Santal, Munda and Oraon tribes. The Chittagong Hill Tracts region experienced unrest and an insurgency from 1975 to 1997 in an autonomy movement by its indigenous people. Although a peace accord was signed in 1997, the region remains militarised. Bangladesh is home to a significant Ismaili community. It hosts many Urdu-speaking immigrants, who migrated there after the partition of India. Stranded Pakistanis were given citizenship by the Supreme Court in 2008. Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh number at around 1 million, making Bangladesh one of the countries with the largest refugee populations in the world. Urban centres Dhaka is Bangladesh's capital and largest city and is overseen by two city corporations who manage between them the northern and southern part of the city. There are 12 city corporations which hold mayoral elections: Dhaka South, Dhaka North, Chittagong, Comilla, Khulna, Mymensingh, Sylhet, Rajshahi, Barisal, Rangpur, Gazipur and Narayanganj. Mayors are elected for five-year terms. Altogether there are 506 urban centres in Bangladesh among which 43 cities have a population of more than 100,000. Language The predominant language of Bangladesh is Bengali (also known as Bangla). Bengali is one of the easternmost branches of the Indo-European language family. It is a part of the Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, which developed between the 10th and 13th centuries. Bengali is written using the Bengali script. In ancient Bengal, Sanskrit was the language of written communication, especially by priests. During the Islamic period, Bengali replaced Sanskrit as the vernacular language. The Sultans of Bengal promoted the production of Bengali literature instead of Sanskrit. Bengali also received Persian and Arabic loanwords during the Sultanate of Bengal. Under British rule, Bengali was significantly modernised by Europeans. Modern Standard Bengali emerged as the lingua franca of the region. Hindu scholars employed a heavily Sanskritised version of Bengali during the Bengali Renaissance. Muslim writers such as Kazi Nazrul Islam gave attention to the Persian and Arabic vocabulary of the language. Today, the Bengali language standard is prescribed by the Bangla Academy in Bangladesh. More than 98 percent of people in Bangladesh speak Bengali as their native language. Bengali is described as a dialect continuum where there are various dialects spoken throughout the country. Currently there is a diglossia in which much of the population are able to understand or speak Standard Colloquial Bengali and in their regional dialect, such as Chittagonian or Sylheti, which some linguists consider as separate languages. The Bengali Language Implementation Act, 1987 made it mandatory to use Bengali in all government affairs in Bangladesh. Although laws were historically written in English, they were not translated into Bengali until the act. All subsequent acts, ordinances and laws have been promulgated in Bengali since 1987. English is often used in the verdicts delivered by the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, and is also used in higher education. The Chakma language is another native Eastern Indo-Aryan language of Bangladesh. It is written using the Chakma script. The unique aspect of the language is that it is used by the Chakma people, who are a population with similarities to the people of East Asia, rather than the Indian subcontinent. The Chakma language is endangered due to its decreasing use in schools and institutions. Other tribal languages include Garo, Meitei, Kokborok and Rakhine. Among the Austroasiatic languages, the Santali language is spoken by the Santali tribe. Many of these languages are written in the Bengali script, while some usage of the Latin script is also used. Urdu has a significant heritage in Bangladesh, in particular Old Dhaka. The language was introduced to Bengal in the 17th-century. Traders and migrants from North India often spoke the language in Bengal, as did sections of the Bengali upper class. Urdu poets lived in many parts of Bangladesh. The use of Urdu became controversial during the Bengali Language Movement when the people of East Bengal resisted attempts to impose Urdu as the main official language. In modern Bangladesh, the Urdu-speaking community is restricted to the country's Bihari community (formerly Stranded Pakistanis); and some sections of the Old Dhakaiya population. Religion The constitution grants freedom of religion and officially makes Bangladesh a secular state, while establishing Islam as the "state religion of the Republic". Islam is followed by 90 percent of the population. Most Bangladeshis are Bengali Muslims, who form the largest Muslim ethnoreligious group in South Asia and the second largest in the world after the Arabs. There is also a minority of non-Bengali Muslims. The vast majority of Bangladeshi Muslims are Sunni, followed by minorities of Shia and Ahmadiya. About four percent are non-denominational Muslims. Bangladesh has the fourth-largest Muslim population in the world, and is the third-largest Muslim-majority country (after Indonesia and Pakistan). Sufism has an extensive heritage in the region. Liberal Bengali Islam sometimes clashes with orthodox movements. The largest gathering of Muslims in Bangladesh is the apolitical Bishwa Ijtema, held annually by the orthodox Tablighi Jamaat. The Ijtema is the second-largest Muslim congregation in the world, after the Hajj. The Islamic Foundation is an autonomous government agency responsible for some religious matters under state guidance, including monitoring of sighting of the moon in accordance with the lunar Islamic calendar in order to set festival dates; as well as the charitable tradition of zakat. Public holidays include the Islamic observances of Eid-ul-Fitr, Eid-al-Adha, the Prophet's Birthday, Ashura and Shab-e-Barat. Hinduism is followed by 8.5 per cent of the population; most are Bengali Hindus, and some are members of ethnic minority groups. Bangladeshi Hindus are the country's second-largest religious group and the third-largest Hindu community globally, after those in India and Nepal. Hindus in Bangladesh are evenly distributed, with concentrations in Gopalganj, Dinajpur, Sylhet, Sunamganj, Mymensingh, Khulna, Jessore, Chittagong and parts of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. The festivals of Durga's Return and Krishna's Birthday are public holidays. Buddhism is the third-largest religion, at 0.6 per cent. Bangladeshi Buddhists are concentrated among ethnic groups in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (particularly the Chakma, Marma and Tanchangya peoples). At the same time, coastal Chittagong is home to many Bengali Buddhists. Although Mahayana Buddhism was historically prevalent in the region, Bangladeshi Buddhists today adhere to the Theravada school. Buddha's Birthday is a public holiday. The chief Buddhist priests are based at a monastery in Chittagong. Christianity is the fourth-largest religion, at 0.4 per cent. Roman Catholicism is the largest denomination among Bangladeshi Christians. Bengali Christians are spread across the country. At the same time, there are many Christians among minority ethnic groups in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (southeastern Bangladesh) and within the Garo tribe of Mymensingh (north-central Bangladesh). The country also has Protestant, Baptist, and Oriental Orthodox churches. Christmas is a public holiday. The Constitution of Bangladesh declares Islam the state religion but bans religion-based politics. It proclaims equal recognition of Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and people of all faiths. In 1972, Bangladesh was South Asia's first constitutionally-secular country. Article 12 of the constitution continues to call for secularism, the elimination of interfaith tensions and prohibits the abuse of religion for political purposes and any discrimination against, or persecution of, persons practising a particular religion. Article 41 of the constitution subjects religious freedom to public order, law and morality; it gives every citizen the right to profess, practise or propagate any religion; every religious community or denomination the right to establish, maintain and manage its religious institutions; and states that no person attending any educational institution shall be required to receive religious instruction, or to take part in or to attend any religious ceremony or worship if that instruction, ceremony or worship relates to a religion other than his own. Education Bangladesh has a heavily flawed education system; with a low literacy rate of 74.7% percent as of 2019: 77.4% for males and 71.9% for females. The country's educational system is three-tiered and heavily subsidised, with the government operating many schools at the primary, secondary and higher secondary levels and subsidising many private schools. In the tertiary education sector, the Bangladeshi government funds over 45 state universities through the University Grants Commission. Despite, the government does not grant free education, and education is not declared a fundamental right in the constitution. The education system is divided into five levels: primary (first to fifth grade), junior secondary (sixth to eighth grade), secondary (ninth and tenth grade), higher secondary (11th and 12th grade), and tertiary. Five years of secondary education (including junior secondary) ends with a Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examination. Since 2009, the Primary Education Closing (PEC) examination has also been introduced. Students who pass the PEC examination proceed to secondary or matriculation training, culminating in the SSC examination. Students who pass the PEC examination proceed to three years of junior secondary education, culminating in the Junior School Certificate (JSC) examination. Students who pass this examination proceed to two years of secondary education, culminating in the SSC examination. Students who pass this examination proceed to two years of higher secondary education, culminating in the Higher Secondary School Certificate (HSC) examination. Universities in Bangladesh are of three general types: public (government-owned and subsidised), private (privately owned universities) and international (operated and funded by international organisations). They are accredited by and affiliated with the University Grants Commission (UGC), created by Presidential Order 10 in 1973. The country has 47 public, 105 private and two international universities; Bangladesh National University has the largest enrollment, and the University of Dhaka (established in 1921) is the oldest. University of Chittagong (established in 1966) is the largest University (Campus: Rural, 2,100 acres (8.5 km2)). Medical education is provided by 29 government and private medical colleges. All medical colleges are affiliated with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Health Healthcare facilities in Bangladesh are considered less than adequate, although they have improved as poverty levels have decreased significantly. Findings from a recent study in Chakaria (a rural upazila under Cox's Bazar District) revealed that the "village doctors", practicing allopathic medicine without formal training, were reported to have provided 65% of the healthcare sought for illness episodes occurring within 14 days prior to the survey. Formally-trained providers made up only four percent of the total health workforce. The Future Health Systems survey indicated significant deficiencies in the treatment practices of village doctors, with widespread harmful and inappropriate drug prescribing. Receiving health care from informal providers is encouraged. A 2007 study of 1,000 households in rural Bangladesh found that direct payments to formal and informal healthcare providers and indirect costs (loss of earnings because of illness) associated with illness were deterrents to accessing healthcare from qualified providers. A community survey of 6,183 individuals in rural Bangladesh found a gender difference in treatment-seeking behaviour, with women less likely to seek treatment than to men. The use of skilled birth attendant (SBA) services, however, rose from 2005 to 2007 among women from all socioeconomic quintiles except the highest. A health watch, a pilot community-empowerment tool, was successfully developed and implemented in south-eastern Bangladesh to improve the uptake and monitoring of public-health services. Bangladesh's poor health conditions are attributed to the lack of healthcare provision by the government. According to a 2010 World Bank report, 2009 healthcare spending was 3.35 percent of the country's GDP. Government spending on healthcare that year was 7.9 percent of the total budget; out-of-pocket expenditures totalled 96.5 percent. According to the government sources, the number of hospital beds is 8 per 10,000 population (as of 2015). Malnutrition has been a persistent problem in Bangladesh, with the World Bank ranking the country first in the number of malnourished children worldwide. More than 54% of preschool-age children are stunted, 56% are underweight and more than 17% are wasted. More than 45 percent of rural families and 76 percent of urban families were below the acceptable caloric-intake level. Culture Visual arts The recorded history of art in Bangladesh can be traced to the 3rd century BCE, when terracotta sculptures were made in the region. In classical antiquity, a notable sculptural Hindu, Jain and Buddhist art developed in the Pala Empire and the Sena dynasty. Islamic art has evolved since the 14th century. The architecture of the Bengal Sultanate saw a distinct style of domed mosques with complex niche pillars that had no minarets. Mughal Bengal's most celebrated artistic tradition was the weaving of Jamdani motifs on fine muslin, which is now classified by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage. Jamdani motifs were similar to Iranian textile art (buta motifs) and Western textile art (paisley). The Jamdani weavers in Dhaka received imperial patronage. Ivory and brass were also widely used in Mughal art. Pottery is widely used in Bengali culture. The modern art movement in Bangladesh took shape during the 1950s, particularly with the pioneering works of Zainul Abedin. East Bengal developed its own modernist painting and sculpture traditions, which were distinct from the art movements in West Bengal. The Art Institute Dhaka has been an important centre for visual art in the region. Its annual Bengali New Year parade was enlisted as an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2016. Modern Bangladesh has produced many of South Asia's leading painters, including SM Sultan, Mohammad Kibria, Shahabuddin Ahmed, Kanak Chanpa Chakma, Kafil Ahmed, Saifuddin Ahmed, Qayyum Chowdhury, Rashid Choudhury, Quamrul Hassan, Rafiqun Nabi and Syed Jahangir, among others. Novera Ahmed and Nitun Kundu were the country's pioneers of modernist sculpture. In recent times, photography as a medium of art has become popular. Biennial Chobi Mela is considered the largest photography festival in Asia. Literature The oldest evidence of writing in Bangladesh is the Mahasthan Brahmi Inscription, which dates back to the 3rd century BCE. In the Gupta Empire, Sanskrit literature thrived in the region. Bengali developed from Sanskrit and Magadhi Prakrit in the 8th to 10th century. Bengali literature is a millennium-old tradition; the Charyapadas are the earliest examples of Bengali poetry. Sufi spiritualism inspired many Bengali Muslim writers. During the Bengal Sultanate, medieval Bengali writers were influenced by Arabic and Persian works. The Chandidas are the notable lyric poets from the early Medieval Age. Syed Alaol was the bard of middle Bengali literature. The Bengal Renaissance shaped modern Bengali literature, including novels, short stories and science fiction. Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-European laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature and is described as the Bengali Shakespeare. Kazi Nazrul Islam was a revolutionary poet who espoused political rebellion against colonialism and fascism. Begum Rokeya is regarded as the pioneer feminist writer of Bangladesh. Other renaissance icons included Michael Madhusudan Dutt and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. The writer Syed Mujtaba Ali is noted for his cosmopolitan Bengali worldview. Jasimuddin was a renowned pastoral poet. Shamsur Rahman and Al Mahmud are considered two of the greatest Bengali poets to have emerged in the 20th century. Farrukh Ahmad, Sufia Kamal, Syed Ali Ahsan, Ahsan Habib, Abul Hussain, Shahid Qadri, Fazal Shahabuddin, Abu Zafar Obaidullah, Omar Ali, Al Mujahidi, Syed Shamsul Huq, Nirmalendu Goon, Abid Azad, Hasan Hafizur Rahman and Abdul Hye Sikder are important figures of modern Bangladeshi poetry. Ahmed Sofa is regarded as the most important Bangladeshi intellectual in the post-independence era. Humayun Ahmed was a popular writer of modern Bangladeshi magical realism and science fiction. Notable writers of Bangladeshi fictions include Mir Mosharraf Hossain, Akhteruzzaman Elias, Alauddin Al Azad, Shahidul Zahir, Rashid Karim, Mahmudul Haque, Syed Waliullah, Shahidullah Kaiser, Shawkat Osman, Selina Hossain, Shahed Ali, Razia Khan, Anisul Hoque, and Abdul Mannan Syed. The annual Ekushey Book Fair and Dhaka Literature Festival, organised by the Bangla Academy, are among the largest literary festivals in South Asia. Women in Bangladesh Although , several women occupied major political office in Bangladesh. Its women continue to live under a patriarchal social regime where violence is common. Whereas in India and Pakistan women participate less in the workforce as their education increases, the reverse is the case in Bangladesh. Bengal has a long history of feminist activism dating back to the 19th century. Begum Rokeya and Faizunnessa Chowdhurani played an important role in emancipating Bengali Muslim women from purdah, before the country's division, as well as promoting girls' education. Several women were elected to the Bengal Legislative Assembly in the British Raj. The first women's magazine, Begum, was published in 1948. In 2008, Bangladeshi female workforce participation stood at 26%. Women dominate blue collar jobs in the Bangladeshi garment industry. Agriculture, social services, healthcare and education are also major occupations for Bangladeshi women, while their employment in white collar positions has steadily increased. Architecture The architectural traditions of Bangladesh have a 2,500-year-old heritage. Terracotta architecture is a distinct feature of Bengal. Pre-Islamic Bengali architecture reached its pinnacle in the Pala Empire, when the Pala School of Sculptural Art established grand structures such as the Somapura Mahavihara. Islamic architecture began developing under the Bengal Sultanate, when local terracotta styles influenced medieval mosque construction. The Sixty Dome Mosque was the largest medieval mosque built in Bangladesh and is a fine example of Turkic-Bengali architecture. The Mughal style replaced indigenous architecture when Bengal became a province of the Mughal Empire and influenced urban housing development. The Kantajew Temple and Dhakeshwari Temple are excellent examples of late medieval Hindu temple architecture. Indo-Saracenic Revival architecture, based on Indo-Islamic styles, flourished during the British period. The zamindar gentry in Bangladesh built numerous Indo-Saracenic palaces and country mansions, such as the Ahsan Manzil, Tajhat Palace, Dighapatia Palace, Puthia Rajbari and Natore Rajbari. Bengali vernacular architecture is noted for pioneering the bungalow. Bangladeshi villages consist of thatched roofed houses made of natural materials like mud, straw, wood and bamboo. In modern times, village bungalows are increasingly made of tin. Muzharul Islam was the pioneer of Bangladeshi modern architecture. His varied works set the course of modern architectural practice in the country. Islam brought leading global architects, including Louis Kahn, Richard Neutra, Stanley Tigerman, Paul Rudolph, Robert Boughey and Konstantinos Doxiadis, to work in erstwhile East Pakistan. Louis Kahn was chosen to design the National Parliament Complex in Sher-e-Bangla Nagar. Kahn's monumental designs, combining regional red brick aesthetics, his own concrete and marble brutalism and the use of lakes to represent Bengali geography, are regarded as one of the masterpieces of the 20th century. In more recent times, award-winning architects like Rafiq Azam have set the course of contemporary architecture by adopting influences from the works of Islam and Kahn. Performing arts Theatre in Bangladesh includes various forms with a history dating back to the 4th century CE. It includes narrative forms, song and dance forms, supra-personae forms, performances with scroll paintings, puppet theatre and processional forms. The Jatra is the most popular form of Bengali folk theatre. The dance traditions of Bangladesh include indigenous tribal and Bengali dance forms, as well as classical Indian dances, including the Kathak, Odissi and Manipuri dances. The music of Bangladesh features the Baul mystical tradition, listed by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Fakir Lalon Shah popularised Baul music in the country in the 18th century and it has since been one of the most popular music genera in the country since then. Most modern Bauls are devoted to Lalon Shah. Numerous lyric-based musical traditions, varying from one region to the next, exist, including Gombhira, Bhatiali and Bhawaiya. Folk music is accompanied by a one-stringed instrument known as the ektara. Other instruments include the dotara, dhol, flute, and tabla. Bengali classical music includes Tagore songs and Nazrul Sangeet. Bangladesh has a rich tradition of Indian classical music, which uses instruments like the sitar, tabla, sarod and santoor. Sabina Yasmin and Runa Laila are considered the leading playback singers in the modern time, while musician Ayub Bachchu is credited with popularising Bengali rock music in Bangladesh. Textiles The Nakshi Kantha is a centuries-old embroidery tradition for quilts, said to be indigenous to eastern Bengal (i.e. Bangladesh). The sari is the national dress for Bangladeshi women. Mughal Dhaka was renowned for producing the finest Muslin saris, as well as the famed Dhakai and Jamdani, the weaving of which is listed by UNESCO as one of the masterpieces of humanity's intangible cultural heritage. Bangladesh also produces the Rajshahi silk. The shalwar kameez is also widely worn by Bangladeshi women. In urban areas, some women can be seen in western clothing. The kurta and sherwani are the national dress of Bangladeshi men; the lungi and dhoti are worn by them in informal settings. Aside from ethnic wear, domestically tailored suits and neckties are customarily worn by the country's men in offices, in schools and at social events. The handloom industry supplies 60–65% of the country's clothing demand. The Bengali ethnic fashion industry has flourished in the changing environment of the fashion world. The retailer Aarong is one of South Asia's most successful ethnic wear brands. The development of the Bangladesh textile industry, which supplies leading international brands, has promoted the local production and retail of modern Western attire. The country now has a number of expanding local brands like Westecs and Yellow. Bangladesh is the world's second-largest garments exporter. Among Bangladesh's fashion designers, Bibi Russell has received international acclaim for her "Fashion for Development" shows. Cuisine White rice is the staple of Bangladeshi cuisine, along with many vegetables and lentils. Rice preparations also include Bengali biryanis, pulaos, and khichuris. Mustard sauce, ghee, sunflower oil and fruit chutneys are

which returned Begum Zia and the BNP to power. The second Zia administration saw improved economic growth, but political turmoil gripped the country between 2004 and 2006. A radical Islamist militant group, the JMB, carried out a series of terror attacks. The evidence of staging these attacks by these extremist groups have been found in the investigation. Hundreds of suspected members were detained in numerous security operations in 2006, including the two chiefs of the JMB, Shaykh Abdur Rahman and Bangla Bhai, who was executed with other top leaders in March 2007, bringing the militant group to an end. In 2006, at the end of the term of the BNP administration, there was widespread political unrest related to the handover of power to a caretaker government. As such, the Bangladeshi military urged President Iajuddin Ahmed to impose a state of emergency and a caretaker government, led by technocrat Fakhruddin Ahmed, was installed. Emergency rule lasted for two years, during which time investigations into members of both Awami League and BNP were conducted, including their leaders Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia. In 2008, the ninth general election saw a return to power for Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League led Grand Alliance in a landslide victory. In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled martial law illegal and affirmed secular principles in the constitution. The following year, the Awami League abolished the caretaker government system. Citing the lack of caretaker government, the 2014 general election was boycotted by the BNP and other opposition parties, giving the Awami League a decisive victory. The election was controversial with reports of violence and an alleged crackdown on the opposition in the run-up to the election, and 153 seats (of 300) went uncontested in the election. Despite the controversy, Hasina went on to form a government that saw her return for a third term as Prime Minister. Due to strong domestic demand, Bangladesh emerged as one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. However, human rights abuses increased under the Hasina administration, particularly enforced disappearances. Between 2016 and 2017, an estimated 1 million Rohingya refugees took shelter in southeastern Bangladesh amid a military crackdown in neighbouring Rakhine State, Myanmar. In 2018, the country saw major movements for government quota reforms and road-safety. The 2018 Bangladeshi general election was marred by allegations of widespread vote rigging. The Awami League won 259 out of 300 seats and the main opposition alliance Jatiya Oikya Front secured only 8 seats, with Sheikh Hasina becoming the longest-serving prime minister in Bangladeshi history. Pro-democracy leader Dr. Kamal Hossain called for an annulment of the election result and for a new election to be held in a free and fair manner. The election was also observed by European Union observers. Geography Bangladesh is a small, lush country in South Asia, located on the Bay of Bengal. It is surrounded almost entirely by neighbouring India—and shares a small border with Myanmar to its southeast, though it lies very close to Nepal, Bhutan, and China. The country is divided into three regions. Most of the country is dominated by the fertile Ganges Delta, the largest river delta in the world. The northwest and central parts of the country are formed by the Madhupur and the Barind plateaus. The northeast and southeast are home to evergreen hill ranges. The Ganges delta is formed by the confluence of the Ganges (local name Padma or Pôdda), Brahmaputra (Jamuna or Jomuna), and Meghna rivers and their respective tributaries. The Ganges unites with the Jamuna (main channel of the Brahmaputra) and later joins the Meghna, finally flowing into the Bay of Bengal. Bangladesh is called the "Land of Rivers"; as it is home to over 57 trans-boundary rivers. However, this resolves water issues politically complicated, in most cases, as the country is a lower riparian state to India. Bangladesh is predominantly rich fertile flat land. Most of it is less than above sea level, and it is estimated that about 10% of its land would be flooded if the sea level were to rise by . 17% of the country is covered by forests and 12% is covered by hill systems. The country's haor wetlands are of significance to global environmental science. With an elevation of , Saka Haphong (also known as Mowdok Mual) near the border with Myanmar, is claimed to be the highest peak of Bangladesh. However, it is not yet widely recognised as the highest point of the country, and most sources give the honor to Keokradong. Administrative geography Bangladesh is divided into eight administrative divisions, each named after their respective divisional headquarters: Barisal (officially Barishal), Chittagong (officially Chattogram), Dhaka, Khulna, Mymensingh, Rajshahi, Rangpur, and Sylhet. Divisions are subdivided into districts (zila). There are 64 districts in Bangladesh, each further subdivided into upazila (subdistricts) or thana. The area within each police station, except for those in metropolitan areas, is divided into several unions, with each union consisting of multiple villages. In the metropolitan areas, police stations are divided into wards, further divided into mahallas. There are no elected officials at the divisional or district levels, and the administration is composed only of government officials. Direct elections are held in each union (or ward) for a chairperson and a number of members. In 1997, a parliamentary act was passed to reserve three seats (out of 12) in every union for female candidates. Climate Straddling the Tropic of Cancer, Bangladesh's climate is tropical, with a mild winter from October to March and a hot, humid summer from March to June. The country has never recorded an air temperature below , with a record low of in the northwest city of Dinajpur on 3 February 1905. A warm and humid monsoon season lasts from June to October and supplies most of the country's rainfall. Natural calamities, such as floods, tropical cyclones, tornadoes, and tidal bores occur almost every year, combined with the effects of deforestation, soil degradation and erosion. The cyclones of 1970 and 1991 were particularly devastating, the latter killing some 140,000 people. In September 1998, Bangladesh saw the most severe flooding in modern world history. As the Brahmaputra, the Ganges and Meghna spilt over and swallowed 300,000 houses, of road and of embankment, 1,000 people were killed and 30 million more were made homeless; 135,000 cattle were killed; of land were destroyed; and of roads were damaged or destroyed. Effectively, two-thirds of the country was underwater. The severity of the flooding was attributed to unusually high monsoon rains, the shedding of equally unusually large amounts of melt water from the Himalayas, and the widespread cutting down of trees (that would have intercepted rain water) for firewood or animal husbandry. As a result of various international and national level initiatives in disaster risk reduction, human toll and economic damage from floods and cyclones have come down over the years. A similar country wide flood in 2007, which left five million people displaced, had a death toll around 500. Bangladesh is recognised to be one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change. Over the course of a century, 508 cyclones have affected the Bay of Bengal region, 17 percent of which are believed to have caused landfall in Bangladesh. Natural hazards that come from increased rainfall, rising sea levels, and tropical cyclones are expected to increase as the climate changes, each seriously affecting agriculture, water and food security, human health, and shelter. It is estimated that by 2050, a 3 feet rise in sea levels will inundate some 20 percent of the land and displace more than 30 million people. To address the sea level rise threat in Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 has been launched. Biodiversity Bangladesh ratified the Rio Convention on Biological Diversity on 3 May 1994. , the country was set to revise its National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan. Bangladesh is located in the Indomalayan realm, and lies within four terrestrial ecoregions: Lower Gangetic Plains moist deciduous forests, Mizoram–Manipur–Kachin rain forests, Sundarbans freshwater swamp forests, and Sundarbans mangroves. Its ecology includes a long sea coastline, numerous rivers and tributaries, lakes, wetlands, evergreen forests, semi evergreen forests, hill forests, moist deciduous forests, freshwater swamp forests and flat land with tall grass. The Bangladesh Plain is famous for its fertile alluvial soil which supports extensive cultivation. The country is dominated by lush vegetation, with villages often buried in groves of mango, jackfruit, bamboo, betel nut, coconut and date palm. The country has up to 6000 species of plant life, including 5000 flowering plants. Water bodies and wetland systems provide a habitat for many aquatic plants. Water lilies and lotuses grow vividly during the monsoon season. The country has 50 wildlife sanctuaries. Bangladesh is home to much of the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, covering an area of 6,000 km2 in the southwest littoral region. It is divided into three protected sanctuaries–the South, East and West zones. The forest is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The northeastern Sylhet region is home to haor wetlands, a unique ecosystem. It also includes tropical and subtropical coniferous forests, a freshwater swamp forest, and mixed deciduous forests. The southeastern Chittagong region covers evergreen and semi-evergreen hilly jungles. Central Bangladesh includes the plainland Sal forest running along with the districts of Gazipur, Tangail and Mymensingh. St. Martin's Island is the only coral reef in the country. Bangladesh has an abundance of wildlife in its forests, marshes, woodlands and hills. The vast majority of animals dwell within a habitat of 150,000 km2 . The Bengal tiger, clouded leopard, saltwater crocodile, black panther and fishing cat are among the chief predators in the Sundarbans. Northern and eastern Bangladesh is home to the Asian elephant, hoolock gibbon, Asian black bear and oriental pied hornbill. The Chital deer are widely seen in southwestern woodlands. Other animals include the black giant squirrel, capped langur, Bengal fox, sambar deer, jungle cat, king cobra, wild boar, mongooses, pangolins, pythons and water monitors. Bangladesh has one of the largest populations of Irrawaddy dolphins and Ganges dolphins. A 2009 census found 6,000 Irrawaddy dolphins inhabiting the littoral rivers of Bangladesh. The country has numerous species of amphibians (53), reptiles (139), marine reptiles (19) and marine mammals (5). It also has 628 species of birds. Several animals became extinct in Bangladesh during the last century, including the one-horned and two-horned rhinoceros and common peafowl. The human population is concentrated in urban areas, limiting deforestation to a certain extent. Rapid urban growth has threatened natural habitats. Although many areas are protected under law, some Bangladeshi wildlife is threatened by this growth. Furthermore, access to biocapacity in Bangladesh is low. In 2016, Bangladesh had 0.4 global hectares of biocapacity per person within its territory, or about one fourth of the world average. In contrast, in 2016, they used 0.84 global hectares of biocapacity – their ecological footprint of consumption. As a result, Bangladesh is running a biocapacity deficit. The Bangladesh Environment Conservation Act was enacted in 1995. The government has designated several regions as Ecologically Critical Areas, including wetlands, forests, and rivers. The Sundarbans tiger project and the Bangladesh Bear Project are among the key initiatives to strengthen conservation. Politics and government Bangladesh is a de jure representative democracy under its constitution, with a Westminster-style unitary parliamentary republic that has universal suffrage. The head of government is the Prime Minister, who is invited to form a government every five years. The President invites the leader of the largest party in parliament to become Prime Minister of the world's fifth-largest democracy. Bangladesh experienced a two party system between 1990 and 2014, when the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) alternated in power. During this period, elections were managed by a neutral caretaker government. But the caretaker government was abolished by the Awami League government in 2011. The BNP boycotted the next election in 2014, arguing that it would not be fair without a caretaker government. The BNP-led Jatiya Oikya Front participated in the 2018 election. The election saw many allegations of irregularities. One of the key aspects of Bangladeshi politics is the "spirit of the liberation war", which refers to the ideals of the liberation movement during the Bangladesh Liberation War. The Proclamation of Independence enunciated the values of "equality, human dignity and social justice". In 1972, the constitution included a bill of rights and declared "nationalism, socialism, democracy and secularity" as the principles of government policy. Socialism was later de-emphasised and neglected by successive governments. Bangladesh has a market-based economy. To many Bangladeshis, especially in the younger generation, the spirit of the liberation war is a vision for a society based on civil liberties, human rights, the rule of law and good governance. Executive branch The Government of Bangladesh is overseen by a cabinet headed by the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. The tenure of a parliamentary government is five years. The Bangladesh Civil Service assists the cabinet in running the government. Recruitment for the civil service is based on a public examination. In theory, the civil service should be a meritocracy. But a disputed quota system coupled with politicisation and preference for seniority have allegedly affected the civil service's meritocracy. The President of Bangladesh is the ceremonial head of state whose powers include signing bills passed by parliament into law. The President is elected by the parliament and has a five-year term. Under the constitution, the president acts on the prime minister's advice. The President is the Supreme Commander of the Bangladesh Armed Forces and the chancellor of all universities. Legislative branch The Jatiya Sangshad (National Parliament) is the unicameral parliament. It has 350 Members of Parliament (MPs), including 300 MPs elected on the first past the post system and 50 MPs appointed to reserved seats for women's empowerment. Article 70 of the Constitution of Bangladesh forbids MPs from voting against their party. However, several laws proposed independently by MPs have been transformed into legislation, including the anti-torture law. The parliament is presided over by the Speaker of the Jatiya Sangsad, who is second in line to the president as per the constitution. There is also a Deputy Speaker. When a president is incapable of performing duties (i.e. due to illness), the Speaker steps in as Acting President and the Deputy Speaker becomes Acting Speaker. A recurring proposal suggests that the Deputy Speaker should be an opposition member. Legal system The Supreme Court of Bangladesh is the highest court of the land, followed by the High Court and Appellate Divisions. The head of the judiciary is the Chief Justice of Bangladesh, who sits on the Supreme Court. The courts have wide latitude in judicial review, and judicial precedent is supported by Article 111 of the constitution. The judiciary includes district and metropolitan courts divided into civil and criminal courts. Due to a shortage of judges, the judiciary has a large backlog. The Bangladesh Judicial Service Commission is responsible for judicial appointments, salaries, and discipline. Bangladesh's legal system is based on common law and its principal source of laws are acts of Parliament. The Bangladesh Code includes a list of all laws in force in the country. The code began in 1836, and most of its listed laws were crafted under the British Raj by the Bengal Legislative Council, the Bengal Legislative Assembly, the Eastern Bengal and Assam Legislative Council, the Imperial Legislative Council and the Parliament of the United Kingdom. One example is the 1860 Penal Code. From 1947 to 1971, laws were enacted by Pakistan's national assembly and the East Pakistani legislature. The Constituent Assembly of Bangladesh was the country's provisional parliament until 1973 when the first elected Jatiyo Sangshad (National Parliament) was sworn in. Although most of Bangladesh's laws were compiled in English, after a 1987 government directive, laws are now primarily written in Bengali. While most Bangladeshi law is secular; marriage, divorce, and inheritance are governed by Islamic, Hindu and Christian family law. Legal developments often influence the judiciary in the Commonwealth of Nations, such as the doctrine of legitimate expectation. The constitution includes a list of fundamental rights inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and was drafted by leading lawyer Kamal Hossain. In the 1970s, judges invalidated detentions under the Special Powers Act, 1974 through cases such as Aruna Sen v. Government of Bangladesh and Abdul Latif Mirza v. Government of Bangladesh. In 2008, the Supreme Court paved the way for citizenship for the Stranded Pakistanis, who were an estimated 300,000 stateless people. Despite being a non-signatory of the UN Refugee Convention, Bangladesh has taken in Rohingya refugees since 1978 and the country is now home to a million refugees. Bangladesh is an active member of the International Labour Organization (ILO) since 1972. It has ratified 33 ILO conventions, including the seven fundamental ILO conventions. Bangladesh has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Judicial activism has often upheld human rights. Military The Bangladesh Armed Forces have inherited the institutional framework of the British military and the British Indian Army. It was formed in 1971 from the military regiments of East Pakistan. In 2018, the active personnel strength of the Bangladesh Army was around 157,500, excluding the Air Force and the Navy (24,000). In addition to traditional defence roles, the military has supported civil authorities in disaster relief and provided internal security during periods of political unrest. For many years, Bangladesh has been the world's largest contributor to UN peacekeeping forces. In February 2015, the country had deployments in Côte d'Ivoire, Cyprus, Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Golan Heights, Haiti, Lebanon, Liberia and South Sudan. The military budget of Bangladesh accounts for 1.3% of GDP, amounting to US$ 4.3 billion in 2021. The Bangladesh Navy, one of the largest in the Bay of Bengal, includes a fleet of frigates, submarines, corvettes and other vessels. The Bangladesh Air Force has a small fleet of multi-role combat aircraft, including the MiG-29 and Chengdu-F7. Most of Bangladesh's military equipment comes from China. Other key military suppliers include Turkey, the United States, South Korea, Russia, Ukraine, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. There has been speculation regarding Bangladesh's relationship with the Quad. China has warned Bangladesh against joining the Quad. This warning was criticized by Bangladesh. Bangladesh continues to hold joint military exercises with members of the Quad and the Royal Navy. In January 2021, a tri-service continent of the Bangladesh Armed Forces participated in the Delhi Republic Day parade for the first time. In December 2021, a tri-service contingent of the Indian Armed Forces participated in the Dhaka Victory Day parade for the first time, along with contingents from Bhutan and Russia and military observer groups from the United States and Mexico. 2021 marked the 50th anniversary and golden jubilee of Bangladesh's independence. In recent years, Bangladesh and India have increased joint military exercises, high level visits of military leaders, counter-terrorism cooperation and intelligence sharing. Bangladesh is vital to ensuring stability and security in northeast India. C130 Hercules aircraft of the Bangladesh Air Force have been involved in relief operations after the 2015 Nepal earthquake and in evacuations for the Maldives during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Bangladesh Navy was also dispatched to the Maldives during a water shortage crisis in the capital Male. Bangladesh's strategic importance in the eastern subcontinent hinges on its proximity to China, its frontier with Burma, the separation of mainland and northeast India, and its maritime territory in the Bay of Bengal. In 1972, Bangladesh and India signed a 25-year friendship treaty which expired in 1997 and was not renewed. Article 8 of the treaty stipulated that "In accordance with the ties of friendship existing between the two countries, each of the contracting parties solemnly declare that it shall not enter into or participate in any military alliance directed against the other party. Each of the parties shall refrain from any aggression against the other party and shall not allow the use of its territory for committing any act that may cause military damage to or constitute a threat to the security of the other contracting party". In the 1980s, Pakistan transferred several Shenyang J-6 aircraft to Bangladesh but these were destroyed during a cyclone. In 2002, Bangladesh and China signed a Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) which the governments of both countries said will “institutionalize the existing accords in defence sector and also to rationalize the existing piecemeal agreements to enhance cooperation in training, maintenance and in some areas of production”. The United States has pursued negotiations with Bangladesh on a Status of Forces Agreement, an Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement and a General Security of Military Information Agreement. In 2019, Bangladesh ratified the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Foreign relations The first major intergovernmental organisation joined by Bangladesh was the Commonwealth of Nations in 1972. The country joined the United Nations in 1974 and has been elected twice to the UN Security Council. Ambassador Humayun Rashid Choudhury was elected president of the UN General Assembly in 1986. Bangladesh relies on multilateral diplomacy in the World Trade Organization. It is a major contributor to UN peacekeeping, providing 113,000 personnel to 54 UN missions in the Middle East, the Balkans, Africa and the Caribbean in 2014. In addition to membership in the Commonwealth of Nations and the United Nations, Bangladesh pioneered regional co-operation in South Asia. Bangladesh is a founding member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), an organisation designed to strengthen relations and promote economic and cultural growth among its members. It has hosted several summits, and two Bangladeshi diplomats were the organisation's secretary-general. Bangladesh joined the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in 1973. It has hosted the summit of OIC foreign ministers, which addresses issues, conflicts and disputes affecting Muslim-majority countries. Bangladesh is a founding member of the Developing 8 Countries, a bloc of eight Muslim-majority republics. The neighbouring country of Myanmar (Burma) was one of the first countries to recognise Bangladesh. Despite common regional interests, Bangladesh-Myanmar relations have been strained by the Rohingya refugee crisis and the isolationist policies of the Myanmar military. In 2012, both countries came to terms at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea over maritime boundaries in the Bay of Bengal. In 2016 and 2017, relations with Myanmar have strained once again as over 700,000 Rohingya refugees illegally entered Bangladesh fleeing persecution, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and other atrocities in Myanmar. The parliament, government, and civil society of Bangladesh have been at the forefront of international criticism against Myanmar for military operations against the Rohingya, which the United Nations has described as ethnic cleansing. Bangladesh's most politically important bilateral relationship is with neighbouring India. In 2015, major Indian newspapers called Bangladesh a "trusted friend". Bangladesh and India are South Asia's largest trading partners. The countries are collaborating in regional economic and infrastructure projects, such as a regional motor-vehicle agreement in eastern South Asia and a coastal shipping agreement in the Bay of Bengal. Indo-Bangladesh relations often emphasise a shared cultural heritage, democratic values and a history of support for Bangladeshi independence. Despite political goodwill, border killings of Bangladeshi civilians and the lack of a comprehensive water-sharing agreement for 54 transboundary rivers are major issues. In 2017, India joined Russia and China in refusing to condemn Myanmar's atrocities against the Rohingya, which contradicted with Bangladesh's demand for recognising Rohingya human rights. However, the Indian air force delivered aid shipments for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. The crackdown against cattle smuggling in India has also affected Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi beef and leather industries have seen increased prices due to the Indian BJP government's campaign against the export of beef and cattle skin. Pakistan and Bangladesh have a US$550 million trade relationship, particularly in Pakistani cotton imports for the Bangladeshi textile industry. Although Bangladeshi and Pakistani businesses have invested in each other, diplomatic relations are strained because of Pakistani denial of the 1971 Bangladesh genocide. The execution of a Jamaat-e-Islami leader in 2013 on committing of war crimes during the liberation war was opposed in Pakistan and led to further strained ties. Sino-Bangladesh relations date to the 1950s and are relatively warm, despite the Chinese leadership siding with Pakistan during Bangladesh's war of independence. China and Bangladesh established bilateral relations in 1976, which have significantly strengthened, and the country is considered a cost-effective source of arms for the Bangladeshi military. Since the 1980s 80 percent of Bangladesh's military equipment has been supplied by China (often with generous credit terms), and China is Bangladesh's largest trading partner. Both countries are part of the BCIM Forum. Japan is Bangladesh's largest economic-aid provider in the form of loans and the countries have common political goals. The United Kingdom has longstanding economic, cultural and military links with Bangladesh. The United States is a major economic and security partner, its largest export market and foreign investor. Seventy-six percent of Bangladeshis viewed the United States favourably in 2014, one of the highest ratings among Asian countries. The United States views Bangladesh as a key partner in the Indo-Pacific. The European Union is Bangladesh's largest regional market, conducting public diplomacy and providing development assistance. Relations with other countries are generally positive. Shared democratic values ease relations with Western countries and similar economic concerns forge ties to other developing countries. Despite poor working conditions and war affecting overseas Bangladeshi workers, relations with Middle Eastern countries are friendly and bounded by religion and culture. More than a million Bangladeshis are employed in the region. In 2016, the king of Saudi Arabia called Bangladesh "one of the most important Muslim countries". However, Bangladesh has not established diplomatic relationship with Israel in support of a sovereign Palestinian state and "an end to Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine". Bangladeshi aid agencies work in many developing countries. An example is BRAC in Afghanistan, which benefits 12 million people in that country. Bangladesh has a record of nuclear nonproliferation as a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and is also a member of Non-Aligned Movement since 1973. It is a state party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Bangladeshi foreign policy is influenced by the principle of "friendship to all and malice to none", first articulated by Bengali statesman H. S. Suhrawardy in 1957. Suhrawardy led East and West Pakistan to join the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, CENTO and the Regional Cooperation for Development. Civil society Since the colonial period, Bangladesh has had a prominent civil society. There are various special interest groups, including non-governmental organisations, human rights organisations, professional associations, chambers of commerce, employers' associations and trade unions. The National Human Rights Commission of Bangladesh was set up in 2007. Notable human rights organisations and initiatives include the Centre for Law and Mediation, Odhikar, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association, the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council and the War Crimes Fact Finding Committee. The world's largest international NGO BRAC is based in Bangladesh. There have been concerns regarding the shrinking space for independent civil society in recent years, with commentators labelling the civil society movement dead under the authoritarianism of the Awami League. Human rights Torture is banned by Article 35 (5) of the Constitution of Bangladesh. Despite this constitutional ban, torture is rampantly used by Bangladesh's security forces. Bangladesh joined the Convention against Torture in 1998; but it enacted its first anti-torture law, the Torture and Custodial Death (Prevention) Act, in 2013. The first conviction under this law was announced in 2020. Amnesty International Prisoners of Conscience from Bangladesh have included Saber Hossain Chowdhury and Shahidul Alam. The Digital Security Act of 2018 has greatly reduced freedom of expression in Bangladesh, particularly on the internet. The Digital Security Act has been used to target critics of the government and bureaucracy. Newspaper editorials have been demanding the repeal of the Digital Security Act. On International Human Rights Day in December 2021, the United States Department of Treasury announced sanctions on commanders of the Rapid Action Battalion for extrajudicial killings, torture and other human rights abuses. According to Freedom House, "Bangladesh's ruling Awami League (AL) has consolidated political power through sustained harassment of the opposition and those perceived to be allied with it, as well as of critical media and voices in civil society. Corruption is a serious problem, and anticorruption efforts have been weakened by politicized enforcement. Due process guarantees are poorly upheld and security forces carry out a range of human right abuses with near impunity. The threat posed by Islamist extremists has receded since 2016, when the government enacted a harsh crackdown that saw the arrest of some 15,000 people". Bangladesh is ranked "partly free" in Freedom House's Freedom in the World report, but its press freedom has deteriorated from "free" to "not free" in recent years due to increasing pressure from the government on the country's diverse, privately owned and once fiercely outspoken media. According to the British Economist Intelligence Unit, the country has a hybrid regime: the third of four rankings in its Democracy Index. Bangladesh was the third-most-peaceful South Asian country in the 2015 Global Peace Index. According to National Human Rights Commission, 70% of alleged human-rights violations are committed by law-enforcement agencies. Homosexuality is outlawed by section 377 of the criminal code (a legacy of the colonial period), and is punishable by a maximum of life imprisonment. However, Bangladesh recognises the third gender and accords limited rights for transgender people. According to the 2016 Global Slavery Index, an estimated 1,531,300 people are enslaved in modern-day Bangladesh, or 0.95% of the population. A number of slaves in Bangladesh are forced to work in the fish and shrimp industries. Corruption Like for many developing countries, institutional corruption is a serious concern for Bangladesh. Bangladesh was ranked 146th among 180 countries on Transparency International's 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index. According to survey conducted by the Bangladesh chapter of TI, in 2015, bribes made up 3.7 percent of the national budget. Land administration was the sector with the most bribery in 2015, followed by education, police and water supply. The Anti Corruption Commission was formed in 2004, and it was active during the 2006–08 Bangladeshi political crisis, indicting many leading politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen for graft. Economy Bangladesh has the world's 33rd largest economy in terms of market exchange rates and 29th largest in terms of purchasing power parity, which ranks second in South Asia after India. Bangladesh is also one of the world's fastest-growing economies and one of the fastest growing middle-income countries. The country has a market-based mixed economy. A developing nation, Bangladesh is one of the Next Eleven emerging markets. According to the IMF, its per-capita income was in 2019, with a GDP of $317 billion. Bangladesh has the second-highest foreign-exchange reserves in South Asia (after India). The Bangladeshi diaspora contributed $15.31 billion in remittances in 2015. Bangladesh's largest trading partners are the European Union, the United States, Japan, India, Australia, China and ASEAN. Expat workers in the Middle East and Southeast Asia send back a large chunk of remittances. The economy is driven by strong domestic demand. During its first five years of independence, Bangladesh adopted socialist policies. The subsequent military regime and BNP and Jatiya Party governments restored free markets and promoted the country's private sector. In 1991, finance minister Saifur Rahman introduced a programme of economic liberalisation. The Bangladeshi private sector has rapidly expanded, with a number of conglomerates driving the economy. Major industries include textiles, pharmaceuticals, shipbuilding, steel, electronics, energy, construction materials, chemicals, ceramics, food processing, and leather goods. Export-oriented industrialisation has increased with fiscal year 2018–19 exports increasing by 10.1% over the previous year to $40 billion. Most export earnings are from the garment-manufacturing industry. However, an insufficient power supply is a significant obstacle to Bangladesh's economic development. According to the World Bank, poor governance, corruption and weak public institutions are also major challenges. In April 2010, Standard & Poor's gave Bangladesh a BB- long-term credit rating, below India's but above those of Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Bangladesh is the seventh-largest natural gas producer in Asia, ahead of neighbouring Myanmar, and 56 percent of the country's electricity is generated by natural gas. Major gas fields are located in the northeastern (particularly Sylhet) and southern (including Barisal and Chittagong) regions. Petrobangla is the national energy company. The American multinational corporation Chevron produces 50 percent of Bangladesh's natural gas. According to geologists, the Bay of Bengal contains large, untapped gas reserves in Bangladesh's exclusive economic zone. Bangladesh has substantial coal reserves, with several coal mines operating in the northwest. Jute exports remain significant, although the global jute trade has shrunk considerably since its World War II peak. Bangladesh has one of the world's oldest tea industries and is a major exporter of fish and seafood. Bangladesh's textile and ready-made garment industries are the country's largest manufacturing sector, with 2017 exports of $34.1 billion. Leather-goods manufacturing, particularly footwear, is the second-largest export sector. The pharmaceutical industry meets 97 percent of domestic demand, and exports to many countries. Shipbuilding has grown rapidly, with exports to Europe. Steel is concentrated in the port city of Chittagong, and the ceramics industry is prominent in international trade. In 2005 Bangladesh was the world's 20th-largest cement producer, an industry dependent on limestone imports from northeast India. Food processing is a major sector, with local brands such as PRAN increasing their international presence. The electronics industry is growing rapidly with contributions from companies like the Walton Group. Bangladesh's defense industry includes the Bangladesh Ordnance Factories and the Khulna Shipyard. The service sector accounts for 51 percent of the country's GDP. Bangladesh ranks with Pakistan as South Asia's second-largest banking sector. The Dhaka and Chittagong Stock Exchanges are the country's twin financial markets. Bangladesh's telecommunications industry is one of the world's fastest-growing, with 171.854 million cellphone subscribers in January 2021, and Grameenphone, Robi, Banglalink and TeleTalk respectively are major companies. Tourism is developing, with the beach resort of Cox's Bazar at the centre of the industry. The Sylhet region, home to Bangladesh's tea gardens, also hosts a large number of visitors. The country has three UNESCO World Heritage Sites (the Mosque City, the Buddhist Vihara and the Sundarbans) and five tentative-list sites. Following the pioneering work of Akhter Hameed Khan on rural development at Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development, several NGOs in Bangladesh including BRAC (the world's largest NGO), and Grameen Bank, focused on rural development and poverty alleviation in the country. Muhammad Yunus successfully pioneered microfinance as a sustainable tool for poverty alleviation and others followed suit. As of 2015, the country had over 35 million microcredit borrowers. In recognition of their tangible contribution to poverty alleviation, Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. Agriculture Transport Transport is a major sector of the economy. Aviation has grown rapidly and is dominated by the flag carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines and other privately owned airlines. Bangladesh has a number of airports including three international and several domestic STOL (short takeoff and landing) airports. The busiest, Shahjalal International Airport connects Dhaka with major destinations. Bangladesh has a long rail network operated by the state-owned Bangladesh Railway. The total length of the country's road and highway network is nearly 21,000 kilometers (13,000 miles). With of navigable waters, Bangladesh has one of the largest inland waterway networks in the world. The southeastern port of Chittagong is its busiest seaport, handling over $60 billion in annual trade (more than 80 percent of the country's export-import commerce). The second-busiest seaport is Mongla. Bangladesh has three seaports and 22 river ports. Energy and infrastructure Bangladesh had an installed electrical capacity of 20,000 megawatts in 2018, reaching 23,548 MW in 2020. About 56 percent of the country's commercial energy is generated by natural gas, followed by oil, hydropower and coal. Bangladesh has planned to import hydropower from Bhutan and Nepal. A nuclear power plant is under construction with Russian support in the Ruppur Nuclear Power Plant project which will add 2160 MW when fully operational. The country ranks fifth worldwide in the number of renewable energy green jobs, and solar panels are increasingly used to power urban and off-grid rural areas. An estimated 98 percent of the country's population had access to improved water sources by 2004 (a high percentage for a low-income country), achieved largely through the construction of hand pumps with support from external donors. However, in 1993 it was discovered that much of Bangladesh's groundwater (the source of drinking water for 97 percent of the rural population and a significant share of the urban population) is naturally contaminated with arsenic. Another challenge is low cost recovery due to low tariffs and poor economic efficiency, especially in urban areas (where water revenue does not cover operating costs). An estimated 56 percent of the population had access to adequate sanitation facilities in 2010. Community-led total sanitation, addressing the problem of open defecation in rural areas, is credited with improving public health since its introduction in 2000. Science and technology The Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, founded in 1973, traces its roots to the East Pakistan Regional Laboratories established in Dhaka (1955), Rajshahi (1965) and Chittagong (1967). Bangladesh's space agency, SPARRSO, was founded in 1983 with assistance from the United States. The country's first communications satellite, Bangabandhu-1, was launched from the United States in 2018. The Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission operates a TRIGA research reactor at its atomic-energy facility in Savar. In 2015, Bangladesh was ranked the 26th global IT outsourcing destination. Tourism Bangladesh's tourist attractions include historical sites and monuments, resorts, beaches, picnic spots, forests and wildlife of various species. Activities for tourists include angling, water skiing, river cruising, hiking, rowing, yachting, and sea bathing. The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) reported in 2019 that the travel and tourism industry in Bangladesh directly generated 1,180,500 jobs in 2018 or 1.9 percent of the country's total employment. According to the same report, Bangladesh experiences around 125,000 international tourist arrivals per year. Domestic spending generated 97.7 percent of direct travel and tourism gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012. Bangladesh's world ranking in 2012 for travel and tourism's direct contribution to GDP, as a percentage of GDP, was 120 out of 140. Demographics Estimates of the Bangladeshi population vary, but UN data suggests (162.9 million) in 2017. The 2011 census estimated 142.3 million, much less than 2007–2010 estimates of Bangladesh's population (150–170 million). Bangladesh is the world's eighth-most-populous nation and the most densely-populated large country in the world, ranking 7th in population density even when small countries and city-states are included. The country's population-growth rate was among the highest in the world in the 1960s and 1970s, when its population grew from 65 to 110 million. With the promotion of birth control in the 1980s, Bangladesh's growth rate began to slow. Its total fertility rate is now 2.05, lower than India's (2.58) and Pakistan's (3.07). The population is relatively young, with 34 percent aged 15 or younger and five percent 65 or older. Life expectancy at birth was estimated at 72.49 years in 2016. According to the World Bank, 14.8% of the country lives below the international poverty line on less than $1.90 per day. Bengalis are 98 percent of the population. Of Bengalis, Muslims are the majority, followed by Hindus, Christians and Buddhists. The Adivasi population includes the Chakma, Marma, Tanchangya, Tripuri, Kuki, Khiang, Khumi, Murang, Mru, Chak, Lushei, Bawm, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Khasi, Jaintia, Garo, Santal, Munda and Oraon tribes. The Chittagong Hill Tracts region experienced unrest and an insurgency from 1975 to 1997 in an autonomy movement by its indigenous people. Although a peace accord was signed in 1997, the region remains militarised. Bangladesh is home to a significant Ismaili community. It hosts many Urdu-speaking immigrants, who migrated there after the partition of India. Stranded Pakistanis were given citizenship by the Supreme Court in 2008. Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh number at around 1 million, making Bangladesh one of the countries with the largest refugee populations in the world. Urban centres Dhaka is Bangladesh's capital and largest city and is overseen by two city corporations who manage between them the northern and southern part of the city. There are 12 city corporations which hold mayoral elections: Dhaka South, Dhaka North, Chittagong, Comilla, Khulna, Mymensingh, Sylhet, Rajshahi, Barisal, Rangpur, Gazipur and Narayanganj. Mayors are elected for five-year terms. Altogether there are 506 urban centres in Bangladesh among which 43 cities have a population of more than 100,000. Language The predominant language of Bangladesh is Bengali (also known as Bangla). Bengali is one of the easternmost branches of the Indo-European language family. It is a part of the Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, which developed between the 10th and 13th centuries. Bengali is written using the Bengali script. In ancient Bengal, Sanskrit was the language of written communication, especially by priests. During the Islamic period, Bengali replaced Sanskrit as the vernacular language. The Sultans of Bengal promoted the production of Bengali literature instead of Sanskrit. Bengali also received Persian and Arabic loanwords during the Sultanate of Bengal. Under British rule, Bengali was significantly modernised by Europeans. Modern Standard Bengali emerged as the lingua franca of the region. Hindu scholars employed a heavily Sanskritised version of Bengali during the Bengali Renaissance. Muslim writers such as Kazi Nazrul Islam gave attention to the Persian and Arabic vocabulary of the language. Today, the Bengali language standard is prescribed by the Bangla Academy in Bangladesh. More than 98 percent of people in Bangladesh speak Bengali as their native language. Bengali is described as a dialect continuum where there are various dialects spoken throughout the country. Currently there is a diglossia in which much of the population are able to understand or speak Standard Colloquial Bengali and in their regional dialect, such as Chittagonian or Sylheti, which some linguists consider as separate languages. The Bengali Language Implementation Act, 1987 made it mandatory to use Bengali in all government affairs in Bangladesh. Although laws were historically written in English, they were not translated into Bengali until the act. All subsequent acts, ordinances and laws have been promulgated in Bengali since 1987. English is often used in the verdicts delivered by the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, and is also used in higher education. The Chakma language is another native Eastern Indo-Aryan language of Bangladesh. It is written using the Chakma script. The unique aspect of the language is that it is used by the Chakma people, who are a population with similarities to the people of East Asia, rather than the Indian subcontinent. The Chakma language is endangered due to its decreasing use in schools and institutions. Other tribal languages include Garo, Meitei, Kokborok and Rakhine. Among the Austroasiatic languages, the Santali language is spoken by the Santali tribe. Many of these languages are written in the Bengali script, while some usage of the Latin script is also used. Urdu has a significant heritage in Bangladesh, in particular Old Dhaka. The language was introduced to Bengal in the 17th-century. Traders and migrants from North India often spoke the language in Bengal, as did sections of the Bengali upper class. Urdu poets lived in many parts of Bangladesh. The use of Urdu became controversial during the Bengali Language Movement when the people of East Bengal resisted attempts to impose Urdu as the main official language. In modern Bangladesh, the Urdu-speaking community is restricted to the country's Bihari community (formerly Stranded Pakistanis); and some sections of the Old Dhakaiya population. Religion The constitution grants freedom of religion and officially makes Bangladesh a secular state, while establishing Islam as the "state religion of the Republic". Islam is followed by 90 percent of the population. Most Bangladeshis are Bengali Muslims, who form the largest Muslim ethnoreligious group in South Asia and the second largest in the world after the Arabs. There is also a minority of non-Bengali Muslims. The vast majority of Bangladeshi Muslims are Sunni, followed by minorities of Shia and Ahmadiya. About four percent are non-denominational Muslims. Bangladesh has the fourth-largest Muslim population in the world, and is the third-largest Muslim-majority country (after Indonesia and Pakistan). Sufism has an extensive heritage in the region. Liberal Bengali Islam sometimes clashes with orthodox movements. The largest gathering of Muslims in Bangladesh is the apolitical Bishwa Ijtema, held annually by the orthodox Tablighi Jamaat. The Ijtema is the second-largest Muslim congregation in the world, after the Hajj. The Islamic Foundation is an autonomous government agency responsible for some religious matters under state guidance, including monitoring of sighting of the moon in accordance with the lunar Islamic calendar in order to set festival dates; as well as the charitable tradition of zakat. Public holidays include the Islamic observances of Eid-ul-Fitr, Eid-al-Adha, the Prophet's Birthday, Ashura and Shab-e-Barat. Hinduism is followed by 8.5 per cent of the population; most are Bengali Hindus, and some are members of ethnic minority groups. Bangladeshi Hindus are the country's second-largest religious group and the third-largest Hindu community globally, after those in India and Nepal. Hindus in Bangladesh are evenly distributed, with concentrations in Gopalganj, Dinajpur, Sylhet, Sunamganj, Mymensingh, Khulna, Jessore, Chittagong and parts of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. The festivals of Durga's Return and Krishna's Birthday are public holidays. Buddhism is the third-largest religion, at 0.6 per cent. Bangladeshi Buddhists are concentrated among ethnic groups in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (particularly the Chakma, Marma and Tanchangya peoples). At the same time, coastal Chittagong is home to many Bengali Buddhists. Although Mahayana Buddhism was historically prevalent in the region, Bangladeshi Buddhists today adhere to the Theravada school. Buddha's Birthday is a public holiday. The chief Buddhist priests are based at a monastery in Chittagong. Christianity is the fourth-largest religion, at 0.4 per cent. Roman Catholicism is the largest denomination among Bangladeshi Christians. Bengali Christians are spread across the country. At the same time, there are many Christians among minority ethnic groups in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (southeastern Bangladesh) and within the Garo tribe of Mymensingh (north-central Bangladesh). The country also has Protestant, Baptist, and Oriental Orthodox churches. Christmas is a public holiday. The Constitution of Bangladesh declares Islam the state religion but bans religion-based politics. It proclaims equal recognition of Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and people of all faiths. In 1972, Bangladesh was South Asia's first constitutionally-secular country. Article 12 of the constitution continues to call for secularism, the elimination of interfaith tensions and prohibits the abuse of religion for political purposes and any discrimination against, or persecution of, persons practising a particular religion. Article 41 of the constitution subjects religious freedom to public order, law and morality; it gives every citizen the right to profess, practise or propagate any religion; every religious community or denomination the right to establish, maintain and manage its religious institutions; and states that no person attending any educational institution shall be required to receive religious instruction, or to take part in or to attend any religious ceremony or worship if that instruction, ceremony or worship relates to a religion other than his own. Education Bangladesh has a heavily flawed education system; with a low literacy rate of 74.7% percent as of 2019: 77.4% for males and 71.9% for females. The country's educational system is three-tiered and heavily subsidised, with the government operating many schools at the primary, secondary and higher secondary levels and subsidising many private schools. In the tertiary education sector, the Bangladeshi government funds over 45 state universities through the University Grants Commission. Despite, the government does not grant free education, and education is not declared a fundamental right in the constitution. The education system is divided into five levels: primary (first to fifth grade), junior secondary (sixth to eighth grade), secondary (ninth and tenth grade), higher secondary (11th and 12th grade), and tertiary. Five years of secondary education (including junior

sent a message of congratulations to President Mason and the people of Barbados, saying: "As you celebrate this momentous day, I send you and all Barbadians my warmest good wishes for your happiness, peace and prosperity in the future." A survey was taken between October 23, 2021 and November 10, 2021 by the University of the West Indies that showed 34% of respondents being in favour of transitioning to a republic, while 30% were indifferent. Notably, no overall majority was found in the survey; with 24% not indicating a preference, and the remaining 12% being opposed to the removal of Queen Elizabeth. Geography and climate Barbados is situated in the Atlantic Ocean, east of the other West Indies Islands. Barbados is the easternmost island in the Lesser Antilles. It is long and up to wide, covering an area of . It lies about east of both the countries of Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; south-east of Martinique and north-east of Trinidad and Tobago. It is flat in comparison to its island neighbours to the west, the Windward Islands. The island rises gently to the central highland region known as Scotland District, with the highest point being Mount Hillaby above sea level. In the parish of Saint Michael lies Barbados's capital and main city, Bridgetown, containing one third of the country's population. Other major towns scattered across the island include Holetown, in the parish of Saint James; Oistins, in the parish of Christ Church; and Speightstown, in the parish of Saint Peter. Geology Barbados lies on the boundary of the South American and the Caribbean Plates. The subduction of the South American plate beneath the Caribbean plate scrapes sediment from the South American plate and deposits it above the subduction zone forming an accretionary prism. The rate of this depositing of material allows Barbados to rise at a rate of about per 1,000 years. This subduction means geologically the island is composed of coral roughly thick, where reefs formed above the sediment. The land slopes in a series of "terraces" in the west and goes into an incline in the east. A large proportion of the island is circled by coral reefs. The erosion of limestone in the northeast of the island, in the Scotland District, has resulted in the formation of various caves and gullies. On the Atlantic east coast of the island coastal landforms, including stacks, have been created due to the limestone composition of the area. Also notable in the island is the rocky cape known as Pico Teneriffe or Pico de Tenerife, which is named after the fact that the island of Tenerife in Spain is the first land east of Barbados according to the belief of the locals. Climate The country generally experiences two seasons, one of which includes noticeably higher rainfall. Known as the "wet season", this period runs from June to December. By contrast, the "dry season" runs from December to May. Annual precipitation ranges between . From December to May the average temperatures range from , while between June and November, they range from . On the Köppen climate classification scale, much of Barbados is regarded as a tropical monsoon climate (Am). However, breezes of abound throughout the year and give Barbados a climate which is moderately tropical. Infrequent natural hazards include earthquakes, landslips, and hurricanes. Barbados lies outside the principal Atlantic hurricane belt and is often spared the worst effects of the region's tropical storms and hurricanes during the rainy season. Its location in the south-east of the Caribbean region puts the country just outside the principal hurricane strike zone. On average, a major hurricane strikes about once every 26 years. The last significant hit from a hurricane to cause severe damage to Barbados was Hurricane Janet in 1955; in 2010 the island was struck by Hurricane Tomas, but this caused only minor damage across the country as it was only at Tropical Storm level of formation. Environmental issues Barbados is susceptible to environmental pressures. As one of the world's most densely populated isles, the government worked during the 1990s to aggressively integrate the growing south coast of the island into the Bridgetown Sewage Treatment Plant to reduce contamination of offshore coral reefs. As of the first decade of the 21st century, a second treatment plant has been proposed along the island's west coast. Being so densely populated, Barbados has made great efforts to protect its underground aquifers. As a coral-limestone island, Barbados is highly permeable to seepage of surface water into the earth. The government has placed great emphasis on protecting the catchment areas that lead directly into the huge network of underground aquifers and streams. On occasion illegal squatters have breached these areas, and the government has removed squatters to preserve the cleanliness of the underground springs which provide the island's drinking water. The government has placed a huge emphasis on keeping Barbados clean with the aim of protecting the environment and preserving offshore coral reefs which surround the island. Many initiatives to mitigate human pressures on the coastal regions of Barbados and seas come from the Coastal Zone Management Unit (CZMU). Barbados has nearly of coral reefs just offshore and two protected marine parks have been established off the west coast. Overfishing is another threat which faces Barbados. Although on the opposite side of the Atlantic, and some west of Africa, Barbados is one of many places in the American continent that experience heightened levels of mineral dust from the Sahara Desert. Some particularly intense dust episodes have been blamed partly for the impacts on the health of coral reefs surrounding Barbados or asthmatic episodes, but evidence has not wholly supported the former claim. Access to biocapacity in Barbados is much lower than world average. In 2016, Barbados had 0.17 global hectares of biocapacity per person within its territory, much less than the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In 2016 Barbados used 0.84 global hectares of biocapacity per person - their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use approximately five times as much biocapacity as Barbados contains. As a result, Barbados is running a biocapacity deficit. Wildlife Barbados is host to four species of nesting turtles (green turtles, loggerheads, hawksbill turtles, and leatherbacks) and has the second-largest hawksbill turtle-breeding population in the Caribbean. The driving of vehicles on beaches can crush nests buried in the sand and such activity is discouraged in nesting areas. Barbados is also the host to the green monkey. The green monkey is found in West Africa from Senegal to the Volta River. It has been introduced to the Cape Verde islands off north-western Africa, and the West Indian islands of Saint Kitts, Nevis, Saint Martin, and Barbados. It was introduced to the West Indies in the late 17th century when slave trade ships travelled to the Caribbean from West Africa. The green monkey in most cases, is well known to be a very curious and mischievous/troublesome creature to the locals on the island. Demographics The 2010 national census conducted by the Barbados Statistical Service reported a resident population of 277,821, of which 144,803 were female and 133,018 were male. The life expectancy for Barbados residents is 80 years. The average life expectancy is 83 years for females and 79 years for males (2020). Barbados and Japan have the highest per capita occurrences of centenarians in the world. The crude birth rate is 12.23 births per 1,000 people, and the crude death rate is 8.39 deaths per 1,000 people. The infant mortality rate is 11.63 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. Ethnic groups Close to 90% of all Barbadians (also known colloquially as "Bajan") are of Afro-Caribbean descent ("Afro-Bajans") and mixed descent. The remainder of the population includes groups of Europeans ("Anglo-Bajans" / "Euro-Bajans") mainly from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, and Italy. Other European groups consisted of the French, Austrians, Spaniards, and Russians. Asians, predominantly from Hong Kong and India (both Hindu and Muslim) make up less than 1% of the population. Other groups in Barbados include people from the United States and Canada. Barbadians who return after years of residence in the United States and children born in America to Bajan parents are called "Bajan Yankees", a term considered derogatory by some. Generally, Bajans recognise and accept all "children of the island" as Bajans, and refer to each other as such. The biggest communities outside the Afro-Caribbean community are: The Indo-Guyanese, an important part of the economy due to the increase of immigrants from partner country Guyana. There are reports of a growing Indo-Bajans diaspora originating from Guyana and India starting around 1990. Predominantly from southern India, they are growing in size but are smaller than the equivalent communities in Trinidad and Guyana. The Muslim Barbadians of Indian origin are largely of Gujarati ancestry. Many small businesses in Barbados are run and operated by Muslim-Indian Bajans. Euro-Bajans (5% of the population) have settled in Barbados since the 17th century, originating from England, Ireland, Portugal, and Scotland. In 1643, there were 37,200 whites in Barbados (86% of the population). More commonly they are known as "White Bajans". Euro-Bajans introduced folk music, such as Irish music and Highland music, and certain place names, such as "Scotland District", a hilly region in the parish of St. Andrew. Among White Barbadians there exists an underclass known as Redlegs comprising followers of the Duke of Monmouth after his defeat at the Battle of Sedgemoor, as well as the descendants of Irish indentured labourers and prisoners imported to the island. Many additionally moved on to become the earliest settlers of modern-day North and South Carolina in the United States. Today the Redlegs number only around 400. Chinese-Barbadians are a small portion of Barbados's wider Asian population. Chinese food and culture is becoming part of everyday Bajan culture. Lebanese and Syrians form the island's Arab Barbadian community. Jews arrived in Barbados just after the first settlers in 1627. Bridgetown is the home of Nidhe Israel Synagogue, one of the oldest Jewish synagogues in the Americas, dating from 1654, though the current structure was erected in 1833, replacing one ruined by the hurricane of 1831. Tombstones in the neighbouring cemetery date from the 1630s. Now under the care of the Barbados National Trust, the site was deserted in 1929 but was saved and restored by the Jewish community beginning in 1986. In the seventeenth century, Romani people were sent from the United Kingdom to work as slaves in the plantations in Barbados. Languages English is the official language of Barbados, and is used for communications, administration, and public services all over the island. In its capacity as the official language of the country, the standard of English tends to conform to vocabulary, pronunciations, spellings, and conventions akin to, but not exactly the same as, those of British English. For most people, however, Bajan Creole is the language of everyday life. It does not have a standardised written form, but it is used by over 90% of the population. Religion Christianity is the largest religion in Barbados, with the largest denomination being Anglican (23.9% of the population in 2019). Other Christian denominations with significant followings in Barbados are the Catholic Church (administered by Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgetown), Pentecostals (19.5%), Jehovah's Witnesses, the Seventh-day Adventist Church and Spiritual Baptists. The Church of England was the official state religion until its legal disestablishment by the Parliament of Barbados following independence. As of 2019, 21% of Barbadians report having no religion, making the non-religious the second largest group after Anglicans. Smaller religions in Barbados include Hinduism, Islam, the Baháʼí Faith, and Judaism. The state is considered secular, guaranteeing freedom of religion or belief to all and featuring only symbolic allusions to a higher power in the preamble to the constitution. Government and politics Barbados has been an independent country since 30 November 1966. It functions as a parliamentary republic modelled on the British Westminster system. The head of state is the President of Barbados – presently Sandra Mason – elected by the Parliament of Barbados for a term of four years, and advised on matters of the Barbadian state by the Prime Minister of Barbados, who is head of government. There are 30 representatives within the House of Assembly, the lower chamber of Parliament. The Constitution of Barbados is the supreme law of the country. Legislation is passed by the Parliament of Barbados but does not have the force of law unless the President grants her assent to that law. The right to withhold assent is absolute and cannot be overridden by Parliament. The Attorney General heads the independent judiciary. During the 1990s, at the suggestion of Trinidad and Tobago's Patrick Manning, Barbados attempted a political union with Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana. The project stalled after the then prime minister of Barbados, Lloyd Erskine Sandiford, became ill and his Democratic Labour Party lost the next general election. Barbados continues to share close ties with Trinidad and Tobago and with Guyana, claiming the highest number of Guyanese immigrants after the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Barbados is a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Political culture Barbados functions as a two-party system. The dominant political parties are the Democratic Labour Party and the incumbent Barbados Labour Party. Since independence on 30 November 1966, the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) has governed from 1966 to 1976; 1986 to 1994; and from 2008 to 2018; and the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) has governed from 1976 to 1986; 1994 to 2008; and from 2018 to present. Foreign relations Barbados follows a policy of nonalignment and seeks cooperative relations with all friendly states. Barbados is a full and participating member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), the Organization of American States (OAS), the Commonwealth of Nations, and the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). In 2005, the Parliament of Barbados voted on a measure replacing the UK's Judicial Committee of the Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice based in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. World Trade Organization, European Commission, CARIFORUM Barbados is an original member (1995) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and participates actively in its work. It grants at least MFN treatment to all its trading partners. European Union relations and cooperation with Barbados are carried out both on a bilateral and a regional basis. Barbados is party to the Cotonou Agreement, through which, , it is linked by an Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Commission. The pact involves the Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM) subgroup of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP). CARIFORUM is the only part of the wider ACP-bloc that has concluded the full regional trade-pact with the European Union. There are also ongoing EU-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and EU-CARIFORUM dialogues. Trade policy has also sought to protect a small number of domestic activities, mostly food production, from foreign competition, while recognising that most domestic needs are best met by imports. The Double Taxation Relief (CARICOM) Treaty 1994 On 6 July 1994, at the Sherbourne Conference Centre, St. Michael, Barbados, representatives of eight countries signed the Double Taxation Relief (CARICOM) Treaties 1994. The countries which were represented were: Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. On 19 August 1994, a representative of the Government of Guyana signed a similar treaty. Military and law enforcement The Barbados Defence Force has roughly 800 members. Within it, service members aged 14 to 18 years make up the Barbados Cadet Corps. The defence preparations of the island nation are closely tied to defence treaties with the United Kingdom, the United States, and the People's Republic of China. The Barbados Police Service is the sole law enforcement agency on the island of Barbados. Administrative divisions Barbados is divided into 11 parishes: St. George and St. Thomas are in the middle of the country and are the only parishes without coastlines. Economy Barbados is the 52nd richest country in the world in terms of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita, has a well-developed mixed economy, and a moderately high standard of living. According to the World Bank, Barbados is one

The law's text was influential in laws in other colonies. By 1680 there were 20,000 free whites and 46,000 enslaved Africans; by 1724, there were 18,000 free whites and 55,000 enslaved Africans. 18th and 19th centuries The harsh conditions endured by the slaves resulted in several planned slave rebellions, the largest of which was Bussa's rebellion in 1816 which was suppressed by British troops. In 1819, a slave revolt broke out on Easter Day. The revolt was put down in blood, with heads being displayed on stakes. Nevertheless, the brutality of the repression shocked even England and strengthened the abolitionist movement. Growing opposition to slavery led to its abolition in the British Empire in 1833. The plantocracy class retained control of political and economic power on the island, with most workers living in relative poverty. The 1780 hurricane killed over 4,000 people on Barbados. In 1854, a cholera epidemic killed over 20,000 inhabitants. 20th century before independence Deep dissatisfaction with the situation on Barbados led many to emigrate. Things came to a head in the 1930s during the Great Depression, as Barbadians began demanding better conditions for workers, the legalisation of trade unions and a widening of the franchise, which at that point was limited to male property owners. As a result of the increasing unrest the British sent a commission, called the West Indies Royal Commission, or Moyne Commission, in 1938, which recommended enacting many of the requested reforms on the islands. As a result, Afro-Barbadians began to play a much more prominent role in the colony's politics, with universal suffrage being introduced in 1950. Prominent among these early activists was Grantley Herbert Adams, who helped found the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) in 1938. He became the first Premier of Barbados in 1953, followed by fellow BLP-founder Hugh Gordon Cummins from 1958 to 1961. A group of left-leaning politicians who advocated swifter moves to independence broke off from the BLP and founded the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) in 1955. The DLP subsequently won the 1961 Barbadian general election and their leader Errol Barrow became premier. Full internal self-government was enacted in 1961. Barbados joined the short-lived West Indies Federation from 1958 to 1962, later gaining full independence on 30 November 1966. Errol Barrow became the country's first prime minister. Barbados opted to remain within the Commonwealth of Nations. The effect of independence meant that the Queen of the United Kingdom ceased to have sovereignty over Barbados, but the island chose to remain a constitutional monarchy with Elizabeth II as Queen of Barbados. The Monarch was represented locally by a Governor-General. Post-independence era The Barrow government sought to diversify the economy away from agriculture, seeking to boost industry and the tourism sector. Barbados was also at the forefront of regional integration efforts, spearheading the creation of CARIFTA and CARICOM. The DLP lost the 1976 Barbadian general election to the BLP under Tom Adams. Adams adopted a more conservative and strongly pro-Western stance, allowing the Americans to use Barbados as the launchpad for their invasion of Grenada in 1983. Adams died in office in 1985 and was replaced by Harold Bernard St. John; however, St. John lost the 1986 Barbadian general election, which saw the return of the DLP under Errol Barrow, who had been highly critical of the US intervention in Grenada. Barrow, too, died in office, and was replaced by Lloyd Erskine Sandiford, who remained Prime Minister until 1994. Owen Arthur of the BLP won the 1994 Barbadian general election, remaining Prime Minister until 2008. Arthur was a strong advocate of republicanism, though a planned referendum to replace Queen Elizabeth as Head of State in 2008 never took place. The DLP won the 2008 Barbadian general election, but the new Prime Minister David Thompson died in 2010 and was replaced by Freundel Stuart. The BLP returned to power in 2018 under Mia Mottley, who became Barbados's first female Prime Minister. Transition to republic The Government of Barbados announced on 15 September 2020 that it intended to become a republic by 30 November 2021, the 55th anniversary of its independence resulting in the replacement of the hereditary monarch of Barbados with an elected president. Barbados would then cease to be a Commonwealth realm, but could maintain membership in the Commonwealth of Nations, like Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. On 20 September 2021, just over a full year after the announcement for the transition was made, the Constitution (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 2021 was introduced to the Parliament of Barbados. Passed on 6 October, the Bill made amendments to the Constitution of Barbados, introducing the office of the President of Barbados to replace the role of Elizabeth II, Queen of Barbados. The following week, on 12 October 2021, incumbent Governor-General of Barbados Sandra Mason was jointly nominated by the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition as candidate to be the first President of Barbados, and was subsequently elected on 20 October. Mason took office on 30 November 2021. Prince Charles, who was heir apparent to the Barbadian Crown, attended the swearing-in ceremony in Bridgetown at the invitation of the Government of Barbados. Queen Elizabeth II sent a message of congratulations to President Mason and the people of Barbados, saying: "As you celebrate this momentous day, I send you and all Barbadians my warmest good wishes for your happiness, peace and prosperity in the future." A survey was taken between October 23, 2021 and November 10, 2021 by the University of the West Indies that showed 34% of respondents being in favour of transitioning to a republic, while 30% were indifferent. Notably, no overall majority was found in the survey; with 24% not indicating a preference, and the remaining 12% being opposed to the removal of Queen Elizabeth. Geography and climate Barbados is situated in the Atlantic Ocean, east of the other West Indies Islands. Barbados is the easternmost island in the Lesser Antilles. It is long and up to wide, covering an area of . It lies about east of both the countries of Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; south-east of Martinique and north-east of Trinidad and Tobago. It is flat in comparison to its island neighbours to the west, the Windward Islands. The island rises gently to the central highland region known as Scotland District, with the highest point being Mount Hillaby above sea level. In the parish of Saint Michael lies Barbados's capital and main city, Bridgetown, containing one third of the country's population. Other major towns scattered across the island include Holetown, in the parish of Saint James; Oistins, in the parish of Christ Church; and Speightstown, in the parish of Saint Peter. Geology Barbados lies on the boundary of the South American and the Caribbean Plates. The subduction of the South American plate beneath the Caribbean plate scrapes sediment from the South American plate and deposits it above the subduction zone forming an accretionary prism. The rate of this depositing of material allows Barbados to rise at a rate of about per 1,000 years. This subduction means geologically the island is composed of coral roughly thick, where reefs formed above the sediment. The land slopes in a series of "terraces" in the west and goes into an incline in the east. A large proportion of the island is circled by coral reefs. The erosion of limestone in the northeast of the island, in the Scotland District, has resulted in the formation of various caves and gullies. On the Atlantic east coast of the island coastal landforms, including stacks, have been created due to the limestone composition of the area. Also notable in the island is the rocky cape known as Pico Teneriffe or Pico de Tenerife, which is named after the fact that the island of Tenerife in Spain is the first land east of Barbados according to the belief of the locals. Climate The country generally experiences two seasons, one of which includes noticeably higher rainfall. Known as the "wet season", this period runs from June to December. By contrast, the "dry season" runs from December to May. Annual precipitation ranges between . From December to May the average temperatures range from , while between June and November, they range from . On the Köppen climate classification scale, much of Barbados is regarded as a tropical monsoon climate (Am). However, breezes of abound throughout the year and give Barbados a climate which is moderately tropical. Infrequent natural hazards include earthquakes, landslips, and hurricanes. Barbados lies outside the principal Atlantic hurricane belt and is often spared the worst effects of the region's tropical storms and hurricanes during the rainy season. Its location in the south-east of the Caribbean region puts the country just outside the principal hurricane strike zone. On average, a major hurricane strikes about once every 26 years. The last significant hit from a hurricane to cause severe damage to Barbados was Hurricane Janet in 1955; in 2010 the island was struck by Hurricane Tomas, but this caused only minor damage across the country as it was only at Tropical Storm level of formation. Environmental issues Barbados is susceptible to environmental pressures. As one of the world's most densely populated isles, the government worked during the 1990s to aggressively integrate the growing south coast of the island into the Bridgetown Sewage Treatment Plant to reduce contamination of offshore coral reefs. As of the first decade of the 21st century, a second treatment plant has been proposed along the island's west coast. Being so densely populated, Barbados has made great efforts to protect its underground aquifers. As a coral-limestone island, Barbados is highly permeable to seepage of surface water into the earth. The government has placed great emphasis on protecting the catchment areas that lead directly into the huge network of underground aquifers and streams. On occasion illegal squatters have breached these areas, and the government has removed squatters to preserve the cleanliness of the underground springs which provide the island's drinking water. The government has placed a huge emphasis on keeping Barbados clean with the aim of protecting the environment and preserving offshore coral reefs which surround the island. Many initiatives to mitigate human pressures on the coastal regions of Barbados and seas come from the Coastal Zone Management Unit (CZMU). Barbados has nearly of coral reefs just offshore and two protected marine parks have been established off the west coast. Overfishing is another threat which faces Barbados. Although on the opposite side of the Atlantic, and some west of Africa, Barbados is one of many places in the American continent that experience heightened levels of mineral dust from the Sahara Desert. Some particularly intense dust episodes have been blamed partly for the impacts on the health of coral reefs surrounding Barbados or asthmatic episodes, but evidence has not wholly supported the former claim. Access to biocapacity in Barbados is much lower than world average. In 2016, Barbados had 0.17 global hectares of biocapacity per person within its territory, much less than the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In 2016 Barbados used 0.84 global hectares of biocapacity per person - their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use approximately five times as much biocapacity as Barbados contains. As a result, Barbados is running a biocapacity deficit. Wildlife Barbados is host to four species of nesting turtles (green turtles, loggerheads, hawksbill turtles, and leatherbacks) and has the second-largest hawksbill turtle-breeding population in the Caribbean. The driving of vehicles on beaches can crush nests buried in the sand and such activity is discouraged in nesting areas. Barbados is also the host to the green monkey. The green monkey is found in West Africa from Senegal to the Volta River. It has been introduced to the Cape Verde islands off north-western Africa, and the West Indian islands of Saint Kitts, Nevis, Saint Martin, and Barbados. It was introduced to the West Indies in the late 17th century when slave trade ships travelled to the Caribbean from West Africa. The green monkey in most cases, is well known to be a very curious and mischievous/troublesome creature to the locals on the island. Demographics The 2010 national census conducted by the Barbados Statistical Service reported a resident population of 277,821, of which 144,803 were female and 133,018 were male. The life expectancy for Barbados residents is 80 years. The average life expectancy is 83 years for females and 79 years for males (2020). Barbados and Japan have the highest per capita occurrences of centenarians in the world. The crude birth rate is 12.23 births per 1,000 people, and the crude death rate is 8.39 deaths per 1,000 people. The infant mortality rate is 11.63 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. Ethnic groups Close to 90% of all Barbadians (also known colloquially as "Bajan") are of Afro-Caribbean descent ("Afro-Bajans") and mixed descent. The remainder of the population includes groups of Europeans ("Anglo-Bajans" / "Euro-Bajans") mainly from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, and Italy. Other European groups consisted of the French, Austrians, Spaniards, and Russians. Asians, predominantly from Hong Kong and India (both Hindu and Muslim) make up less than 1% of the population. Other groups in Barbados include people from the United States and Canada. Barbadians who return after years of residence in the United States and children born in America to Bajan parents are called "Bajan Yankees", a term considered derogatory by some. Generally, Bajans recognise and accept all "children of the island" as Bajans, and refer to each other as such. The biggest communities outside the Afro-Caribbean community are: The Indo-Guyanese, an important part of the economy due to the increase of immigrants from partner country Guyana. There are reports of a growing Indo-Bajans diaspora originating from Guyana and India starting around 1990. Predominantly from southern India, they are growing in size but are smaller than the equivalent communities in Trinidad and Guyana. The Muslim Barbadians of Indian origin are largely of Gujarati ancestry. Many small businesses in Barbados are run and operated by Muslim-Indian Bajans. Euro-Bajans (5% of the population) have settled in Barbados since the 17th century, originating from England, Ireland, Portugal, and Scotland. In 1643, there were 37,200 whites in Barbados (86% of the population). More commonly they are known as "White Bajans". Euro-Bajans introduced folk music, such as Irish music and Highland music, and certain place names, such as "Scotland District", a hilly region in the parish of St. Andrew. Among White Barbadians there exists an underclass known as Redlegs comprising followers of the Duke of Monmouth after his defeat at the Battle of Sedgemoor, as well as the descendants of Irish indentured labourers and prisoners imported to the island. Many additionally moved on to become the earliest settlers of modern-day North and South Carolina in the United States. Today the Redlegs number only around 400. Chinese-Barbadians are a small portion of Barbados's wider Asian population. Chinese food and culture is becoming part of everyday Bajan culture. Lebanese and Syrians form the island's Arab Barbadian community. Jews arrived in Barbados just after the first settlers in 1627. Bridgetown is the home of Nidhe Israel Synagogue, one of the oldest Jewish synagogues in the Americas, dating from 1654, though the current structure was erected in 1833, replacing one ruined by the hurricane of 1831. Tombstones in the neighbouring cemetery date from the 1630s. Now under the care of the Barbados National Trust, the site was deserted in 1929 but was saved and restored by the Jewish community beginning in 1986. In the seventeenth century, Romani people were sent from the United Kingdom to work as slaves in the plantations in Barbados. Languages English is the official language of Barbados, and is used for communications, administration, and public services all over the island. In its capacity as the official language of the country, the standard of English tends to conform to vocabulary, pronunciations, spellings, and conventions akin to, but not exactly the same as, those of British English. For most people, however, Bajan Creole is the language of everyday life. It does not have a standardised written form, but it is used by over 90% of the population. Religion Christianity is the largest religion in Barbados, with the largest denomination being Anglican (23.9% of the population in 2019). Other Christian denominations with significant followings in Barbados are the Catholic Church (administered by Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgetown), Pentecostals (19.5%), Jehovah's Witnesses, the Seventh-day Adventist Church and Spiritual Baptists. The Church of England was the official state religion until its legal disestablishment by the Parliament of Barbados following independence. As of 2019, 21% of Barbadians report having no religion, making the non-religious the second largest group after Anglicans. Smaller religions in Barbados include Hinduism, Islam, the Baháʼí Faith, and Judaism. The state is considered secular, guaranteeing freedom of religion or belief to all and featuring only symbolic allusions to a higher power in the preamble to the constitution. Government and politics Barbados has been an independent country since 30 November 1966. It functions as a parliamentary republic modelled on the British Westminster system. The head of state is the President of Barbados – presently Sandra Mason – elected by the Parliament of Barbados for a term of four years, and advised on matters of the Barbadian state by the Prime Minister

barren rocky islets, with no vegetation, totalling in area. Those on the north and east sides are high, while those on the west and south sides are high. The reef, whose coastline measures , is completely covered by the sea from three hours before high tide to three hours afterward. The region is also subject to cyclones, making the atoll a long-time maritime hazard and the site of numerous shipwrecks. Jaguar Seamount and Hall Tablemount lie, respectively, about further southwest. History The Bassas da India was first recorded by Portuguese explorers in the early sixteenth century as the "Baixo da Judia" ("Jewess Shoals"). The Judia ("Jewess", for the ancestry of its owner Fernão de Loronha) was the Portuguese ship that discovered the feature by running aground on it in 1506. The name became "Bassas da India" due to transcription errors by cartographers. The Santiago broke up on the shoal in 1585. It was rediscovered by the Europa in 1774, whence the name "Europa Rocks".

shipwrecks. Jaguar Seamount and Hall Tablemount lie, respectively, about further southwest. History The Bassas da India was first recorded by Portuguese explorers in the early sixteenth century as the "Baixo da Judia" ("Jewess Shoals"). The Judia ("Jewess", for the ancestry of its owner Fernão de Loronha) was the Portuguese ship that discovered the feature by running aground on it in 1506. The name became "Bassas da India" due to transcription errors by cartographers. The Santiago broke up on the shoal in 1585. It was rediscovered by the Europa in 1774, whence the name "Europa Rocks". The Malay was lost 27 July 1842 on the Europa Rocks. In 1897, the shoal became a French possession, later being placed under the administration of a commissioner residing in Réunion in 1968. Madagascar became independent in 1960 and has claimed sovereignty over the shoal since 1972. Wildlife The presence of Galapagos sharks was reported in 2003, which is a first in the Mozambique Channel. Tourism Mooring at Bassas da India requires a permit from the French Government.

1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster entered Belarusian territory, and about a fifth of Belarusian land (principally farmland and forests in the southeastern regions) was affected by radiation fallout. The United Nations and other agencies have aimed to reduce the level of radiation in affected areas, especially through the use of caesium binders and rapeseed cultivation, which are meant to decrease soil levels of caesium-137. Belarus borders five countries: Latvia to the north, Lithuania to the northwest, Poland to the west, Russia to the north and the east, and Ukraine to the south. Treaties in 1995 and 1996 demarcated Belarus's borders with Latvia and Lithuania, and Belarus ratified a 1997 treaty establishing the Belarus-Ukraine border in 2009. Belarus and Lithuania ratified final border demarcation documents in February 2007. Governance In a formal sense Belarus is a presidential republic enjoying a separation of powers, governed by a president and the National Assembly. In reality Belarus is an autocracy where power is concentrated in the hands of the president, elections are not free and judicial independence is weak. The term for each presidency is five years. Under the 1994 constitution, the president could serve for only two terms as president, but a change in the constitution in 2004 eliminated term limits. Alexander Lukashenko has been the president of Belarus since 1994. In 1996, Lukashenko called for a controversial vote to extend the presidential term from five to seven years, and as a result the election that was supposed to occur in 1999 was pushed back to 2001. The referendum on the extension was denounced as a "fantastic" fake by the chief electoral officer, Viktar Hanchar, who was removed from the office for official matters only during the campaign. The National Assembly is a bicameral parliament comprising the 110-member House of Representatives (the lower house) and the 64-member Council of the Republic (the upper house). The House of Representatives has the power to appoint the prime minister, make constitutional amendments, call for a vote of confidence on the prime minister, and make suggestions on foreign and domestic policy. The Council of the Republic has the power to select various government officials, conduct an impeachment trial of the president, and accept or reject the bills passed by the House of Representatives. Each chamber has the ability to veto any law passed by local officials if it is contrary to the constitution. The government includes a Council of Ministers, headed by the prime minister and five deputy prime ministers. The members of this council need not be members of the legislature and are appointed by the president. The judiciary comprises the Supreme Court and specialized courts such as the Constitutional Court, which deals with specific issues related to constitutional and business law. The judges of national courts are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Council of the Republic. For criminal cases, the highest court of appeal is the Supreme Court. The Belarusian Constitution forbids the use of special extrajudicial courts. In the 2012 parliamentary election, 105 of the 110 members elected to the House of Representatives were not affiliated with any political party. The Communist Party of Belarus won 3 seats, and the Agrarian Party and Republican Party of Labour and Justice, one each. Most non-partisans represent a wide scope of social organizations such as workers' collectives, public associations, and civil society organizations, similar to the composition of the Soviet legislature. Elections Belarus has often been described as "Europe's last dictatorship" by some media outlets, politicians and authors due to its authoritarian government. The Council of Europe removed Belarus from its observer status since 1997 as a response for election irregularities in the November 1996 constitutional referendum and parliament by-elections. Re-admission of the country into the council is dependent on the completion of benchmarks set by the council, including the improvement of human rights, rule of law, and democracy. Neither the pro-Lukashenko parties, such as the Belarusian Socialist Sporting Party and the Republican Party of Labour and Justice nor the People's Coalition 5 Plus opposition parties, such as the Belarusian People's Front and the United Civil Party of Belarus, won any seats in the 2004 elections. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) ruled that the elections were unfair because opposition candidates were arbitrarily denied registration and the election process was designed to favor the ruling party. In the 2006 presidential election, Lukashenko was opposed by Alaksandar Milinkievič, who represented a coalition of opposition parties, and by Alaksandar Kazulin of the Social Democrats. Kazulin was detained and beaten by police during protests surrounding the All Belarusian People's Assembly. Lukashenko won the election with 80% of the vote; the Russian Federation and the CIS deemed the vote open and fair while the OSCE and other organizations called the election unfair. After the December completion of the 2010 presidential election, Lukashenko was elected to a fourth straight term with nearly 80% of the vote in elections. The runner-up opposition leader Andrei Sannikov received less than 3% of the vote; independent observers criticized the election as fraudulent. When opposition protesters took to the streets in Minsk, many people, including most rival presidential candidates, were beaten and arrested by the state militia. Many of the candidates, including Sannikov, were sentenced to prison or house arrest for terms which are mainly and typically over four years. Six months later amid an unprecedented economic crisis, activists utilized social networking to initiate a fresh round of protests characterized by wordless hand-clapping. In the 2020 presidential election, Lukashenko won again with official results giving him 80% of the vote, leading to mass protests and numerous countries not recognizing the result, with the EU imposing sanctions. Foreign relations The Byelorussian SSR was one of the two Soviet republics that joined the United Nations along with the Ukrainian SSR as one of the original 51 members in 1945. Belarus and Russia have been close trading partners and diplomatic allies since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Belarus is dependent on Russia for imports of raw materials and for its export market. The union of Russia and Belarus, a supranational confederation, was established in a 1996–99 series of treaties that called for monetary union, equal rights, single citizenship, and a common foreign and defense policy. However, the future of the union has been placed in doubt because of Belarus's repeated delays of monetary union, the lack of a referendum date for the draft constitution, and a dispute over the petroleum trade. Belarus was a founding member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Belarus has trade agreements with several European Union member states (despite other member states' travel ban on Lukashenko and top officials), including neighboring Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. Travel bans imposed by the European Union have been lifted in the past in order to allow Lukashenko to attend diplomatic meetings and also to engage his government and opposition groups in dialogue. Bilateral relations with the United States are strained; the United States had not had an ambassador in Minsk since 2007 and Belarus never had an ambassador in Washington since 2008. Diplomatic relations remained tense, and in 2004, the United States passed the Belarus Democracy Act, which authorized funding for anti-government Belarusian NGOs, and prohibited loans to the Belarusian government, except for humanitarian purposes. Sino-Belarusian relations have improved, strengthened by the visit of President Lukashenko to China in October 2005. Belarus also has strong ties with Syria, considered a key partner in the Middle East. In addition to the CIS, Belarus is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union (previously the Eurasian Economic Community), the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, the international Non-Aligned Movement since 1998, and the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). As an OSCE member state, Belarus's international commitments are subject to monitoring under the mandate of the U.S. Helsinki Commission. Belarus is included in the European Union's Eastern Partnership program, part of the EU's European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), which aims to bring the EU and its neighbours closer in economic and geopolitical terms. However, Belarus suspended its participation in the Eastern Partnership program on 28 June 2021, after the EU imposed more sanctions against the country. Military Lieutenant General Viktor Khrenin heads the Ministry of Defence, and Alexander Lukashenko (as president) serves as Commander-in-Chief. The armed forces were formed in 1992 using parts of the former Soviet Armed Forces on the new republic's territory. The transformation of the ex-Soviet forces into the Armed Forces of Belarus, which was completed in 1997, reduced the number of its soldiers by 30,000 and restructured its leadership and military formations. Most of Belarus's service members are conscripts, who serve for 12 months if they have higher education or 18 months if they do not. Demographic decreases in the Belarusians of conscription age have increased the importance of contract soldiers, who numbered 12,000 in 2001. In 2005, about 1.4% of Belarus's gross domestic product was devoted to military expenditure. Belarus has not expressed a desire to join NATO but has participated in the Individual Partnership Program since 1997, and Belarus provides refueling and airspace support for the ISAF mission in Afghanistan. Belarus first began to cooperate with NATO upon signing documents to participate in their Partnership for Peace Program in 1995. However, Belarus cannot join NATO because it is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation. Tensions between NATO and Belarus peaked after the March 2006 presidential election in Belarus. Human rights and corruption Belarus's Democracy Index rating is the lowest in Europe, the country is labelled as "not free" by Freedom House, as "repressed" in the Index of Economic Freedom, and is rated as the worst country for press freedom in Europe in the 2013–2014 Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders, which ranks Belarus 157th out of 180 nations. The Belarusian government is also criticized for human rights violations and its persecution of non-governmental organisations, independent journalists, national minorities, and opposition politicians. Lukashenko announced a new law in 2014 that will prohibit kolkhoz workers (around 9% of total work force) from leaving their jobs at will—a change of job and living location will require permission from governors. The law was compared with serfdom by Lukashenko himself. Similar regulations were introduced for the forestry industry in 2012. Belarus is the only European country still using capital punishment having carried out executions in 2011. The judicial system in Belarus lacks independence and is subject to political interference. Corrupt practices such as bribery often took place during tender processes, and whistleblower protection and national ombudsman are lacking in Belarus's anti-corruption system. On 1 September 2020, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights declared that its experts received reports of 450 documented cases of torture and ill-treatment of people who were arrested during the protests following the presidential election. The experts also received reports of violence against women and children, including sexual abuse and rape with rubber batons. At least three detainees suffered injuries indicative of sexual violence in Okrestino prison in Minsk or on the way there. The victims were hospitalized with intramuscular bleeding of the rectum, anal fissure and bleeding, and damage to the mucous membrane of the rectum. In an interview from September 2020 Lukashenko claimed that detainees faked their bruises, saying, "Some of the girls there had their butts painted in blue". On 23 May 2021, Belarusian authorities forcibly diverted a Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius in order to detain opposition activist and journalist Roman Protasevich along with his girlfriend; in response, the European Union imposed stricter sanctions on Belarus. In May 2021, Lukashenko threatened that he will flood the European Union with migrants and drugs as a response to the sanctions. In July 2021, Belarusian authorities launched a hybrid warfare by human trafficking of migrants to the European Union. Lithuanian authorities and top European officials Ursula von der Leyen, Josep Borrell condemned the usage of migrants as a weapon and suggested that Belarus could be subject to further sanctions. In August 2021, Belarusian officials, wearing uniforms, riot shields and helmets, were recorded on camera near the Belarus–Lithuania border pushing and urging the migrants to cross the European Union border. Following the granting of humanitarian visas to an Olympic athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya and her husband, Poland also accused Belarus for organizing a hybrid warfare as the number of migrants crossing the Belarus–Poland border sharply increased multiple times when compared to the 2020 statistics. Illegal migrants numbers also exceeded the previous annual numbers in Latvia. On 2 December 2021, the United States, European Union, United Kingdom and Canada imposed new sanctions on Belarus. Administrative divisions Belarus is divided into six regions called oblasts (; ), which are named after the cities that serve as their administrative centers: Brest, Gomel, Grodno, Mogilev, Minsk, and Vitebsk. Each region has a provincial legislative authority, called a region council (; ), which is elected by its residents, and a provincial executive authority called a region administration (; ), whose chairman is appointed by the president. The Regions are further subdivided into 118 raions, commonly translated as districts (; ). Each raion has its own legislative authority, or raion council, (; ) elected by its residents, and an executive authority or raion administration appointed by oblast executive powers. The city of Minsk is split into nine districts and enjoys special status as the nation's capital at the same administration level as the oblasts. It is run by an executive committee and has been granted a charter of self-rule. Local government Local government in Belarus is administered by administrative-territorial units (; ), and occurs on two levels: basic and primary. At the basic level are 118 raions councils and 10 cities of oblast subordination councils, which are supervised by the governments of the oblasts. At the primary level are 14 cities of raion subordination councils, 8 urban-type settlements councils, and 1,151 village councils. The councils are elected by their residents, and have executive committees appointed by their executive committee chairs. The chairs of executive committees for raions and city of oblast subordinations are appointed by the regional executive committees at the level above; the chairs of executive committees for towns of raion subordination, settlements and villages are appointed by their councils, but upon the recommendation of the raion executive committees. In either case, the councils have the power to approve or reject a nonimee for executive committee chair. Settlements without their own local council and executive committee are called territorial units (; ). These territorial units may also be classified as a city of regional or raion subordination, urban-type settlement or rural settlement, but whose government is administered by the council of another primary or basic unit. In October 1995, a presidential decree abolished the local governments of cities of raion subordination and urban-type settlements which served as the administrative center of raions, demoting them from administrative-territorial units to territorial units. As for 2019, the administrative-territorial and territorial units include 115 cities, 85 urban-type settlements, and 23,075 rural settlements. Economy Belarus has trade relations with over 180 countries. The main trading partners are Russia, which accounts for about 45% of Belarusian exports and 55% of imports, and the EU countries, which account for 25% of exports and 20% of imports. In 2019 the share of manufacturing in GDP was 31%, over two-thirds of this amount falls on manufacturing industries. The number of people employed in the industry is 34.7% of the working population. The growth rate is much lower than for the economy as a whole—about 2.2% in 2021. At the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Belarus was one of the world's most industrially developed states by percentage of GDP as well as the richest CIS member-state. In 2015, 39.3% of Belarusians were employed by state-controlled companies, 57.2% were employed by private companies (in which the government has a 21.1% stake) and 3.5% were employed by foreign companies. The country relies on Russia for various imports, including petroleum. Important agricultural products include potatoes and cattle byproducts, including meat. In 1994, Belarus's main exports included heavy machinery (especially tractors), agricultural products, and energy products. Economically, Belarus involved itself in the CIS, Eurasian Economic Community, and Union with Russia. In the 1990s, however, industrial production plunged due to decreases in imports, investment, and demand for Belarusian products from its trading partners. GDP only began to rise in 1996; the country was the fastest-recovering former Soviet republic in the terms of its economy. In 2006, GDP amounted to US$83.1 billion in purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars (estimate), or about $8,100 per capita. In 2005, GDP increased by 9.9%; the inflation rate averaged 9.5%. Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, under Lukashenko's leadership, Belarus has maintained government control over key industries and eschewed the large-scale privatizations seen in other former Soviet republics. Due to its failure to protect labor rights, including passing laws forbidding unemployment or working outside of state-controlled sectors, Belarus lost its EU Generalized System of Preferences status on 21 June 2007, which raised tariff rates to their prior most favored nation levels. Belarus applied to become a member of the World Trade Organization in 1993. The labor force consists of more than four million people, among whom women hold slightly more jobs than men. In 2005, nearly a quarter of the population was employed by industrial factories. Employment is also high in agriculture, manufacturing sales, trading goods, and education. The unemployment rate, according to government statistics, was 1.5% in 2005. There were 679,000 unemployed Belarusians, two-thirds of whom were women. The unemployment rate has been in decline since 2003, and the overall rate of employment is the highest since statistics were first compiled in 1995. The currency of Belarus is the Belarusian ruble. The currency was introduced in May 1992 to replace the Soviet ruble and it has undergone redenomination twice since then. The first coins of the Republic of Belarus were issued on 27 December 1996. The ruble was reintroduced with new values in 2000 and has been in use ever since. As part of the Union of Russia and Belarus, both states have discussed using a single currency along the same lines as the Euro. This led to a proposal that the Belarusian ruble be discontinued in favor of the Russian ruble (RUB), starting as early as 1 January 2008. The National Bank of Belarus abandoned pegging the Belarusian ruble to the Russian ruble in August 2007. On 23 May 2011, the Belarusian ruble depreciated 56% against the United States dollar. The depreciation was even steeper on the black market and financial collapse seemed imminent as citizens rushed to exchange their rubles for dollars, euros, durable goods, and canned goods. On 1 June 2011, Belarus requested an economic rescue package from the International Monetary Fund.Belarus Appeals To IMF For $8bln Rescue Loan. Associated Press, 1 June 2011; retrieved 2 June 2011 A new currency, the new Belarusian ruble (ISO 4217 code: BYN) was introduced in July 2016, replacing the Belarusian ruble in a rate of 1:10,000 (10,000 old rubles = 1 new ruble). From 1 July until 31 December 2016, the old and new currencies were in parallel circulation and series 2000 notes and coins can be exchanged for series 2009 from 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2021. This redenomination can be considered an effort to fight the high inflation rate. The banking system of Belarus consists of two levels: Central Bank (National Bank of the Republic of Belarus) and 25 commercial banks. Demographics According to the 2019 census the population was 9.41 million with ethnic Belarusians constituting 84.9% of Belarus's total population. Minority groups include: Russians (7.5%), Poles (3.1%), and Ukrainians (1.7%). Belarus has a population density of about 50 people per square kilometre (127 per sq mi); 70% of its total population is concentrated in urban areas. Minsk, the nation's capital and largest city, was home to 1,937,900 residents . Gomel, with a population of 481,000, is the second-largest city and serves as the capital of the Homiel Voblast. Other large cities are Mogilev (365,100), Vitebsk (342,400), Hrodna (314,800) and Brest (298,300). Like many other Eastern European countries, Belarus has a negative population growth rate and a negative natural growth rate. In 2007, Belarus's population declined by 0.41% and its fertility rate was 1.22, well below the replacement rate. Its net migration rate is +0.38 per 1,000, indicating that Belarus experiences slightly more immigration than emigration. , 69.9% of Belarus's population is aged 14 to 64; 15.5% is under 14, and 14.6% is 65 or older. Its population is also aging; the median age of 30–34 is estimated to rise to between 60 and 64 in 2050. There are about 0.87 males per female in Belarus. The average life expectancy is 72.15 (66.53 years for men and 78.1 years for women). Over 99% of Belarusians aged 15 and older are literate. Religion and languages According to the census of November 2011, 58.9% of all Belarusians adhered to some kind of religion; out of those, Eastern Orthodoxy (Belarusian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church) made up about 82%. Roman Catholicism is practiced mostly in the western regions, and there are also different denominations of Protestantism. Minorities also practice Greek Catholicism, Judaism, Islam and Neopaganism. Overall, 48.3% of the population is Orthodox Christian, 41.1% is not religious, 7.1% is Catholic and 3.3% follows other religions. Belarus's Catholic minority is concentrated in the western part of the country, especially around Hrodna, is made up of a mixture of Belarusians and the country's Polish and Lithuanian minorities. President Lukashenko has stated that Orthodox and Catholic believers are the "two main confessions in our country". Belarus was once a major center of European Jews, with 10% of the population being Jewish. But since the mid-20th century, the number of Jews has been reduced by the Holocaust, deportation, and emigration, so that today it is a very small minority of less than one percent. The Lipka Tatars, numbering over 15,000, are predominantly Muslims. According to Article 16 of the Constitution, Belarus has no official religion. While the freedom of worship is granted in the same article, religious organizations deemed harmful to the government or social order can be prohibited. Belarus's two official languages are Russian and Belarusian; Russian is the most common language spoken at home, used by 70% of the population, while Belarusian, the official first language, is spoken at home by 23%. Minorities also speak Polish, Ukrainian and Eastern Yiddish. Belarusian, although not as widely used as Russian, is the mother tongue of 53.2% of the population, whereas Russian is the mother tongue of only 41.5%. Culture Arts and literature The Belarusian government sponsors annual cultural festivals such as the Slavianski Bazaar in Vitebsk, which showcases Belarusian performers, artists, writers, musicians, and actors. Several state holidays, such as Independence Day and Victory Day, draw big crowds and often include displays such as fireworks and military parades, especially in Vitebsk and Minsk. The government's Ministry of Culture finances events promoting Belarusian arts and culture both inside and outside the country. Belarusian literature began with 11th- to 13th-century religious scripture, such as the 12th-century poetry of Cyril of Turaw. By the 16th century, Polotsk resident Francysk Skaryna translated the Bible into Belarusian. It was published in Prague and Vilnius sometime between 1517 and 1525, making it the first book printed in Belarus or anywhere in Eastern Europe. The modern era of Belarusian literature began in the late 19th century; one prominent writer was Yanka Kupala. Many Belarusian writers of the time, such as Uładzimir Žyłka, Kazimir Svayak, Yakub Kolas, Źmitrok Biadula, and Maksim Haretski, wrote for Nasha Niva, a Belarusian-language paper published that was previously published in Vilnius but now is published in Minsk. After Belarus was incorporated into the Soviet Union, the Soviet government took control of the Republic's cultural affairs. At first, a policy of "Belarusianization" was followed in the newly formed Byelorussian SSR. This policy was reversed in the 1930s, and the majority of prominent Belarusian intellectuals and nationalist advocates were either exiled or killed in Stalinist purges. The free development of literature occurred only in Polish-held territory until Soviet occupation in 1939. Several poets and authors went into exile after the Nazi occupation of Belarus and would not return until the 1960s. The last major revival of Belarusian literature occurred in the 1960s with novels published by Vasil Bykaŭ and Uladzimir Karatkievich. An influential author who devoted his work to awakening the awareness of the catastrophes the country has suffered, was Ales Adamovich. He was named by Svetlana Alexievich, the Belarusian winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2015, as "her main teacher, who helped her to find a path of her own". Music in Belarus largely comprises a rich tradition of folk and religious music. The country's folk music traditions can be traced back to the times of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In the 19th century, Polish composer Stanisław Moniuszko composed operas and chamber music pieces while living in Minsk. During his stay, he worked with Belarusian poet Vintsent Dunin-Martsinkyevich and created the opera Sialanka (Peasant Woman). At the end of the 19th century, major Belarusian cities formed their own opera and ballet companies. The ballet Nightingale by M. Kroshner was composed during the Soviet era and became the first Belarusian ballet showcased at the National Academic Vialiki Ballet Theatre in Minsk. After the Second World War, music focused on the hardships of the Belarusian people or on those who took up arms in defense of the homeland. During this period, Anatoly Bogatyrev, creator of the opera In Polesye Virgin Forest, served as the "tutor" of Belarusian composers. The National Academic Theatre of Ballet in Minsk was awarded the Benois de la Dance Prize in 1996 as the top ballet company in the world. Rock music has become increasingly popular in recent years, though the Belarusian government has attempted to limit the amount of foreign music aired on the radio in favor of traditional Belarusian music. Since 2004, Belarus has been sending artists to the Eurovision Song Contest.National State Teleradiocompany Marc Chagall was born in Liozna (near Vitebsk) in 1887. He spent the World War I years in Soviet Belarus, becoming one of the country's most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avant-garde and was a founder of the Vitebsk Arts College. Dress The traditional Belarusian dress originates from the Kievan Rus' period. Due to the cool climate, clothes were designed to conserve body heat and were usually made from flax or wool. They were decorated with ornate patterns influenced by the neighboring cultures: Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, Russians, and other European nations. Each region of Belarus has developed specific design patterns. One ornamental pattern common in early dresses currently decorates the hoist of the Belarusian national flag, adopted

that occupied parts of territory of modern Belarus and Ukraine in 4th and 5th centuries. The self-naming of Goths was Gutans and Gytos which are close to Gudija. Yet another hypothesis is based on the idea that Gudija in Lithuanian means "the other" and may have been used historically by Lithuanians to refer to any people who did not speak Lithuanian. History Early history From 5000 to 2000 BC, Bandkeramik cultures predominated. In addition, remains from the Dnieper–Donets culture were found in Belarus and parts of Ukraine. Cimmerians and other pastoralists roamed through the area by 1,000 BC, and by 500 AD, Slavs had taken up residence, which was circumscribed by the Scythians who roamed its outskirts. Invaders from Asia, among whom were the Huns and Avars, swept through c. 400–600 AD, but were unable to dislodge the Slavic presence. The region that is now Belarus was first settled by Baltic tribes in the 3rd century. The Przeworsk culture was discovered in what is today Poland, and the Zarubintsy culture further east in what is today Ukraine. Around the 5th century, the area was taken over by Slavic tribes. The takeover was partially due to the lack of military coordination of the Balts but the gradual assimilation of the Balts into Slavic culture was peaceful in nature. Kievan Rus' In the 9th century the territory of modern Belarus became part of Kievan Rus', a vast East Slavic state ruled by the Rurikid dynasty. Upon the death of Kievan Rus' ruler Yaroslav I the Wise in 1054, the state split into independent principalities. The Battle on the Nemiga River in 1067 was one of the more notable events of the period, the date of which is considered the founding date of Minsk. Many early Rus' principalities were virtually razed or severely affected by a major Mongol invasion in the 13th century, but the lands of modern-day Belarus avoided the brunt of the invasion and eventually joined the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. There are no sources of military seizure, but the annals affirm the alliance and united foreign policy of Polotsk and Lithuania for decades. Trying to avoid the Tatar Yoke, the Principality of Minsk sought protection from Lithuanian princes further north and in 1242, the Principality of Minsk became a part of the expanding Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Incorporation into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania resulted in an economic, political and ethno-cultural unification of Belarusian lands. Of the principalities held by the Duchy, nine of them were settled by a population that would eventually become the Belarusians. During this time, the Duchy was involved in several military campaigns, including fighting on the side of Poland against the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410; the joint victory allowed the Duchy to control the northwestern borderlands of Eastern Europe. The Muscovites, led by Ivan III of Moscow, began military campaigns in 1486 in an attempt to incorporate the former lands of Kievan Rus', specifically the territories of modern-day Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth On 2 February 1386, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland were joined in a personal union through a marriage of their rulers. This union set in motion the developments that eventually resulted in the formation of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, created in 1569 by the Union of Lublin. The Lithuanian nobles were forced to go for rapprochement because of the threat coming from Muscovy. To strengthen the independence in the format of the union, three editions of the Statutes of Lithuania were issued in the 16th century. The third Article of the Statute establishes that all lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania will be eternally in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and never enter as a part of other states. It allowed the right to own land within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to only its own families. Anyone from outside the Duchy gaining rights to a property would actually own it only after swearing allegiance to the Grand Duke of Lithuania. These articles were aimed to defend the rights of the nobility of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania nobility against Polish, Prussian and other aristocracies of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the years following the union, the process of gradual Polonization of both Lithuanians and Ruthenians gained steady momentum. In culture and social life, both the Polish language and Catholicism became dominant, and in 1696, Polish replaced Ruthenian as the official language—with the Ruthenian language being banned from administrative use. At the same time, the Ruthenian peasants continued to speak their own language and were part of the Belarusian Greek Catholic Church, which was formed by the Poles after the Union of Brest. The church entered full communion with the See of Rome while keeping their Byzantine liturgy in the Church Slavonic language, Statutes were initially issued in the Ruthenian language alone and later also in Polish. Around 1840 the Statutes were banned by the Russian tsar following the November Uprising. Modern Ukrainian lands used it until 1860s. Russian Empire The union between Poland and Lithuania ended in 1795 with the Third Partition of Poland by Imperial Russia, Prussia, and Austria. The Belarusian territories acquired by the Russian Empire under the reign of Catherine II were included into the Belarusian Governorate () in 1796 and held until their occupation by the German Empire during World War I. Under Nicholas I and Alexander III the national cultures were repressed. Policies of Polonization changed by Russification, which included the return to Orthodox Christianity of Belarusian Uniates. Belarusian language was banned in schools while in neighboring Samogitia primary school education with Samogitian literacy was allowed. In a Russification drive in the 1840s, Nicholas I prohibited use of the Belarusian language in public schools, campaigned against Belarusian publications and tried to pressure those who had converted to Catholicism under the Poles to reconvert to the Orthodox faith. In 1863, economic and cultural pressure exploded in a revolt, led by Konstanty Kalinowski (also known as Kastus). After the failed revolt, the Russian government reintroduced the use of Cyrillic to Belarusian in 1864 and no documents in Belarusian were permitted by the Russian government until 1905. During the negotiations of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Belarus first declared independence under German occupation on 25 March 1918, forming the Belarusian People's Republic. Immediately afterwards, the Polish–Soviet War ignited, and the territory of Belarus was divided between Poland and Soviet Russia. The Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic exists as a government in exile ever since then; in fact, it is currently the world's longest serving government in exile. Early states and interwar period The Belarusian People's Republic was the first attempt to create an independent Belarusian state under the name "Belarus". Despite significant efforts, the state ceased to exist, primarily because the territory was continually dominated by the German Imperial Army and the Imperial Russian Army in World War I, and then the Bolshevik Red Army. It existed from only 1918 to 1919 but created prerequisites for the formation of a Belarusian state. The choice of name was probably based on the fact that core members of the newly formed government were educated in tsarist universities, with corresponding emphasis on the ideology of West-Russianism. The Republic of Central Lithuania was a short-lived political entity, which was the last attempt to restore Lithuania in the historical confederacy state (it was also supposed to create Lithuania Upper and Lithuania Lower). The republic was created in 1920 following the staged rebellion of soldiers of the 1st Lithuanian–Belarusian Division of the Polish Army under Lucjan Żeligowski. Centered on the historical capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Vilna (, ), for 18 months the entity served as a buffer state between Poland, upon which it depended, and Lithuania, which claimed the area. After a variety of delays, a disputed election took place on 8 January 1922, and the territory was annexed to Poland. Żeligowski later in his memoir which was published in London in 1943 condemned the annexation of the Republic by Poland, as well as the policy of closing Belarusian schools and general disregard of Marshal Józef Piłsudski's confederation plans by Polish ally. Years earlier interrogation report of 19-year-old revolutionary Pilsudski of 10 March 1887 indicated that he called himself a "Belarusian nobleman". In 1919 a part of Belarus under Russian rule emerged as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (Byelorussian SSR). Soon thereafter it merged to form the Lithuanian-Byelorussian SSR. The contested lands were divided between Poland and the Soviet Union after the war ended in 1921, and the Byelorussian SSR became a founding member of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922. In the 1920s and 1930s, Soviet agricultural and economic policies, including collectivization and five-year plans for the national economy, led to famine and political repression. The western part of modern Belarus remained part of the Second Polish Republic. After an early period of liberalization, tensions between increasingly nationalistic Polish government and various increasingly separatist ethnic minorities started to grow, and the Belarusian minority was no exception. The polonization drive was inspired and influenced by the Polish National Democracy, led by Roman Dmowski, who advocated refusing Belarusians and Ukrainians the right for a free national development. A Belarusian organization, the Belarusian Peasants' and Workers' Union, was banned in 1927, and opposition to Polish government was met with state repressions. Nonetheless, compared to the (larger) Ukrainian minority, Belarusians were much less politically aware and active, and thus suffered fewer repressions than the Ukrainians. In 1935, after the death of Józef Piłsudski, a new wave of repressions was released upon the minorities, with many Orthodox churches and Belarusian schools being closed. Use of the Belarusian language was discouraged. Belarusian leadership was sent to Bereza Kartuska prison. World War II In 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Poland, marking the beginning of World War II. The Soviets invaded and annexed much of eastern Poland, which had been part of the country since the Peace of Riga two decades earlier. Much of the northern section of this area was added to the Byelorussian SSR, and now constitutes West Belarus. The Soviet-controlled Byelorussian People's Council officially took control of the territories, whose populations consisted of a mixture of Poles, Ukrainians, Belarusians and Jews, on 28 October 1939 in Białystok. Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. The defense of Brest Fortress was the first major battle of Operation Barbarossa. The Byelorussian SSR was the hardest-hit Soviet republic in World War II; it remained in Nazi hands until 1944. The German called for the extermination, expulsion, or enslavement of most or all Belarusians for the purpose of providing more living space in the East for Germans. Most of Western Belarus became part of the Reichskommissariat Ostland in 1941, but in 1943 the German authorities allowed local collaborators to set up a client state, the Belarusian Central Council. The German occupation in 1941–1944 and war on the Eastern Front devastated Belarus. During that time, 209 out of 290 towns and cities were destroyed, 85% of the republic's industry, and more than one million buildings. After the war, it was estimated that 2.2 million local inhabitants had died and of those some 810,000 were combatants—some foreign. This figure represented a staggering quarter of the prewar population. In the 1990s some raised the estimate even higher, to 2.7 million. The Jewish population of Belarus was devastated during the Holocaust and never recovered. The population of Belarus did not regain its pre-war level until 1971. Post-war After the war, Belarus was among the 51 founding member states of the United Nations Charter and as such it was allowed an additional vote at the UN, on top of the Soviet Union's vote. Vigorous postwar reconstruction promptly followed the end of the war and the Byelorussian SSR became a major center of manufacturing in the western USSR, creating jobs and attracting ethnic Russians. The borders of the Byelorussian SSR and Poland were redrawn, in accord with the 1919-proposed Curzon Line. Joseph Stalin implemented a policy of Sovietization to isolate the Byelorussian SSR from Western influences. This policy involved sending Russians from various parts of the Soviet Union and placing them in key positions in the Byelorussian SSR government. After Stalin's death in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev continued his predecessor's cultural hegemony program, stating, "The sooner we all start speaking Russian, the faster we shall build communism." Soviet Belarusian communist politician Andrei Gromyko, who served as Soviet foreign minister (1957–1985) and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (1985–1988), was responsible for many top decisions on Soviet foreign policy until he was replaced by Eduard Shevardnadze. In 1986, the Byelorussian SSR was contaminated with most (70%) of the nuclear fallout from the explosion at the Chernobyl power plant located 16 km beyond the border in the neighboring Ukrainian SSR. By the late 1980s, political liberalization led to a national revival, with the Belarusian Popular Front becoming a major pro-independence force. Independence In March 1990, elections for seats in the Supreme Soviet of the Byelorussian SSR took place. Though the opposition candidates, mostly associated with the pro-independence Belarusian Popular Front, took only 10% of the seats. Belarus declared itself sovereign on 27 July 1990 by issuing the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic. Mass protests erupted in spring 1991 and became known as the Belarusian revolution. With the support of the Communist Party, the country's name was changed to the Republic of Belarus on 25 August 1991. Stanislau Shushkevich, the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Belarus, met with Boris Yeltsin of Russia and Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine on 8 December 1991 in Białowieża Forest to formally declare the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States. A national constitution was adopted in March 1994 in which the functions of prime minister were given to the President of Belarus. A two-round election for the presidency on 24 June 1994 and 10 July 1994 catapulted the formerly unknown Alexander Lukashenko into national prominence. He garnered 45% of the vote in the first round and 80% in the second, defeating Vyacheslav Kebich who received 14% of the vote. Lukashenko was re-elected in 2001, in 2006, in 2010, in 2015 and again in 2020. The 2000s saw a number of economic disputes between Belarus and its primary economic partner, Russia. The first one was the 2004 Russia–Belarus energy dispute when Russian energy giant Gazprom ceased the import of gas into Belarus because of price disagreements. The 2007 Russia–Belarus energy dispute centered on accusations by Gazprom that Belarus was siphoning oil off of the Druzhba pipeline that runs through Belarus. Two years later the so-called Milk War, a trade dispute, started when Russia wanted Belarus to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and through a series of events ended up banning the import of dairy products from Belarus. In 2011, Belarus suffered a severe economic crisis attributed to Lukashenko's government's centralised control of the economy. Inflation reached 108.7% and a currency black market was created, recovery was difficult. Around the same time the 2011 Minsk Metro bombing occurred in which 15 people were killed and 204 were injured. Two suspects, who were arrested within two days, confessed to being the perpetrators and were executed by shooting in 2012. The official version of events as publicised by the Belarusian government was questioned in the unprecedented wording of the UN Security Council statement condemning "the apparent terrorist attack" intimating the possibility that the Belarusian government itself was behind the bombing. Mass protests erupted across the country following the disputed 2020 Belarusian presidential election, in which Lukashenko sought a sixth term in office. Neighbouring countries Poland and Lithuania do not recognize Lukashenko as the legitimate president of Belarus and the Lithuanian government has allotted a residence for main opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and other members of the Belarusian opposition in Vilnius. Neither is Lukashenko recognized as the legitimate president of Belarus by the European Union, Canada, the United Kingdom nor United States.Dave Lawler, U.S. no longer recognizes Lukashenko as legitimate president of Belarus, Axios (24 September 2020). The European Union, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States have all imposed sanctions against Belarus because of the rigged election and political oppression during the ongoing protests in the country. Geography Belarus lies between latitudes 51° and 57° N, and longitudes 23° and 33° E. Its extension from north to south is , from west to east is . It is landlocked, relatively flat, and contains large tracts of marshy land. About 40% of Belarus is covered by forests. The country lies within two ecoregions: Sarmatic mixed forests and Central European mixed forests. Many streams and 11,000 lakes are found in Belarus. Three major rivers run through the country: the Neman, the Pripyat, and the Dnieper. The Neman flows westward towards the Baltic sea and the Pripyat flows eastward to the Dnieper; the Dnieper flows southward towards the Black Sea. The highest point is Dzyarzhynskaya Hara (Dzyarzhynsk Hill) at , and the lowest point is on the Neman River at . The average elevation of Belarus is above sea level. The climate features mild to cold winters, with January minimum temperatures ranging from in southwest (Brest) to in northeast (Vitebsk), and cool and moist summers with an average temperature of . Belarus has an average annual rainfall of . The country is in the transitional zone between continental climates and maritime climates. Natural resources

women were granted the right to vote. Since 1974, the party system in Belize has been dominated by the centre-left People's United Party and the centre-right United Democratic Party, although other small parties took part in all levels of elections in the past. Though none of these small political parties has ever won any significant number of seats or offices, their challenge has been growing over the years. Foreign relations Belize is a full participating member of the United Nations; the Commonwealth of Nations; the Organization of American States (OAS); the Central American Integration System (SICA); the Caribbean Community (CARICOM); the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME); the Association of Caribbean States (ACS); and the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), which currently serves as a final court of appeal for only Barbados, Belize, and Guyana. In 2001 the Caribbean Community heads of government voted on a measure declaring that the region should work towards replacing the UK's Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as final court of appeal with the Caribbean Court of Justice. It is still in the process of acceding to CARICOM treaties including the trade and single market treaties. Belize is an original member (1995) of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and participates actively in its work. The pact involves the Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM) subgroup of the Group of African, Caribbean, and Pacific states (ACP). CARIFORUM presently the only part of the wider ACP-bloc that has concluded the full regional trade-pact with the European Union. The British Army Garrison in Belize is used primarily for jungle warfare training, with access to over of jungle terrain. Belize is a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Armed forces The Belize Defence Force (BDF) serves as the country's military and is responsible for protecting the sovereignty of Belize. The BDF, with the Belize National Coast Guard and the Immigration Department, is a department of the Ministry of Defence and Immigration. In 1997 the regular army numbered over 900, the reserve army 381, the air wing 45 and the maritime wing 36, amounting to an overall strength of approximately 1,400. In 2005, the maritime wing became part of the Belizean Coast Guard. In 2012, the Belizean government spent about $17 million on the military, constituting 1.08% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). After Belize achieved independence in 1981 the United Kingdom maintained a deterrent force (British Forces Belize) in the country to protect it from invasion by Guatemala (see Guatemalan claim to Belizean territory). During the 1980s this included a battalion and No. 1417 Flight RAF of Harriers. The main British force left in 1994, three years after Guatemala recognized Belizean independence, but the United Kingdom maintained a training presence via the British Army Training and Support Unit Belize (BATSUB) and 25 Flight AAC until 2011 when the last British Forces left Ladyville Barracks, with the exception of seconded advisers. Administrative divisions Belize is divided into six districts. These districts are further divided into 31 constituencies. Local government in Belize comprises four types of local authorities: city councils, town councils, village councils and community councils. The two city councils (Belize City and Belmopan) and seven town councils cover the urban population of the country, while village and community councils cover the rural population. Guatemalan territorial dispute Throughout Belize's history, Guatemala has claimed sovereignty over all or part of Belizean territory. This claim is occasionally reflected in maps drawn by Guatemala's government, showing Belize as Guatemala's twenty-third department. The Guatemalan territorial claim involves approximately 53% of Belize's mainland, which includes significant portions of four districts: Belize, Cayo, Stann Creek, and Toledo. Roughly 43% of the country's population (≈154,949 Belizeans) reside in this region. , the border dispute with Guatemala remains unresolved and contentious. Guatemala's claim to Belizean territory rests, in part, on Clause VII of the Anglo-Guatemalan Treaty of 1859, which obligated the British to build a road between Belize City and Guatemala. At various times, the issue has required mediation by the United Kingdom, Caribbean Community heads of government, the Organization of American States (OAS), Mexico, and the United States. However, on 15 April 2018, Guatemala's government held a referendum to determine if the country should take its territorial claim on Belize to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to settle the long-standing issue. Guatemalans voted 95% yes on the matter. A similar referendum was to be held in Belize on 10 April 2019, but a court ruling led to its postponement. The referendum was held on 8 May 2019, and 55.4% of voters opted to send the matter to the ICJ. Both countries submitted requests to the ICJ (in 2018 and 2019, respectively) and the ICJ ordered Guatemala's initial brief be submitted by December 2020 and Belize's response by 2022. Indigenous land claims Belize backed the United Nations (UN) Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, which established legal land rights to indigenous groups. Other court cases have affirmed these rights like the Supreme Court of Belize's 2013 decision to uphold its ruling in 2010 that acknowledges customary land titles as communal land for indigenous peoples. Another such case is the Caribbean Court of Justice's (CCJ) 2015 order on the Belizean government, which stipulated that the country develop a land registry to classify and exercise traditional governance over Mayan lands. Despite these rulings, Belize has made little progress to support the land rights of indigenous communities; for instance, in the two years since the CCJ's decision, Belize's government has failed to launch the Mayan land registry, prompting the group to take action into its own hands. The exact ramifications of these cases need to be examined. , Belize still struggles to recognize indigenous populations and their respective rights. According to the 50-page voluntary national report Belize created on its progress toward the UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, indigenous groups are not factored into the country's indicators whatsoever. In fact, the groups 'Creole' and 'Garinagu' are not included in the document, and 'Maya' and 'Mestizo' only occur once throughout the entirety of the report. it is yet to be seen if the Belizean government will highlight the consequences of the territorial claim on indigenous land rights prior to the referendum vote in 2019. Geography Belize is on the Caribbean coast of northern Central America. It shares a border on the north with the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, on the west with the Guatemalan department of Petén, and on the south with the Guatemalan department of Izabal. To the east in the Caribbean Sea, the second-longest barrier reef in the world flanks much of the of predominantly marshy coastline. The area of the country totals , an area slightly larger than El Salvador, Israel, New Jersey, or Wales. The many lagoons along the coasts and in the northern interior reduces the actual land area to . It is the only Central American country with no Pacific coastline. Belize is shaped like a rectangle that extends about north-south and about east-west, with a total land boundary length of . The undulating courses of two rivers, the Hondo and the Sarstoon River, define much of the course of the country's northern and southern boundaries. The western border follows no natural features and runs north–south through lowland forest and highland plateau. The north of Belize consists mostly of flat, swampy coastal plains, in places heavily forested. The flora is highly diverse considering the small geographical area. The south contains the low mountain range of the Maya Mountains. The highest point in Belize is Doyle's Delight at . Belize's rugged geography has also made the country's coastline and jungle attractive to drug smugglers, who use the country as a gateway into Mexico. In 2011, the United States added Belize to the list of nations considered major drug producers or transit countries for narcotics. Environment preservation and biodiversity Belize has a rich variety of wildlife because of its unique position between North and South America and a wide range of climates and habitats for plant and animal life. Belize's low human population and approximately of undistributed land make for an ideal home for the more than 5,000 species of plants and hundreds of species of animals, including armadillos, snakes, and monkeys. The Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary is a nature reserve in south-central Belize established to protect the forests, fauna, and watersheds of an approximately area of the eastern slopes of the Maya Mountains. The reserve was founded in 1990 as the first wilderness sanctuary for the jaguar and is regarded by one author as the premier site for jaguar preservation in the world. Vegetation and flora While over 60% of Belize's land surface is covered by forest, some 20% of the country's land is covered by cultivated land (agriculture) and human settlements. Belize had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 6.15/10, ranking it 85th globally out of 172 countries. F Savanna, scrubland and wetland constitute the remainder of Belize's land cover. Important mangrove ecosystems are also represented across Belize's landscape. Four terrestrial ecoregions lie within the country's borders – the Petén–Veracruz moist forests, Belizian pine forests, Belizean Coast mangroves, and Belizean Reef mangroves. As a part of the globally significant Mesoamerican Biological Corridor that stretches from southern Mexico to Panama, Belize's biodiversity – both marine and terrestrial – is rich, with abundant flora and fauna. Belize is also a leader in protecting biodiversity and natural resources. According to the World Database on Protected Areas, 37% of Belize's land territory falls under some form of official protection, giving Belize one of the most extensive systems of terrestrial protected areas in the Americas. By contrast, Costa Rica only has 27% of its land territory protected. Around 13.6% of Belize's territorial waters, which contain the Belize Barrier Reef, are also protected. The Belize Barrier Reef is a UNESCO-recognized World Heritage Site and is the second-largest barrier reef in the world, behind Australia's Great Barrier Reef. A remote sensing study conducted by the Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin America and the Caribbean (CATHALAC) and NASA, in collaboration with the Forest Department and the Land Information Centre (LIC) of the government of Belize's Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (MNRE), and published in August 2010 revealed that Belize's forest cover in early 2010 was approximately 62.7%, down from 75.9% in late 1980. A similar study by Belize Tropical Forest Studies and Conservation International revealed similar trends in terms of Belize's forest cover. Both studies indicate that each year, 0.6% of Belize's forest cover is lost, translating to the clearing of an average of each year. The USAID-supported SERVIR study by CATHALAC, NASA, and the MNRE also showed that Belize's protected areas have been extremely effective in protecting the country's forests. While only some 6.4% of forests inside of legally declared protected areas were cleared between 1980 and 2010, over a quarter of forests outside of protected areas were lost between 1980 and 2010. As a country with a relatively high forest cover and a low deforestation rate, Belize has significant potential for participation in initiatives such as REDD. Significantly, the SERVIR study on Belize's deforestation was also recognized by the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), of which Belize is a member nation. Natural resources and energy Belize is known to have a number of economically important minerals, but none in quantities large enough to warrant mining. These minerals include dolomite, barite (source of barium), bauxite (source of aluminium), cassiterite (source of tin), and gold. In 1990 limestone, used in road construction, was the only mineral resource exploited for domestic or export use. In 2006, the cultivation of newly discovered crude oil in the town of Spanish Lookout has presented new prospects and problems for this developing nation. Access to biocapacity in Belize is much higher than world average. In 2016, Belize had 3.8 global hectares of biocapacity per person within its territory, much more than the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In 2016 Belize used 5.4 global hectares of biocapacity per person – their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use more biocapacity than Belize contains. As a result, Belize is running a biocapacity deficit. Belize Barrier Reef The Belize Barrier Reef is a series of coral reefs straddling the coast of Belize, roughly offshore in the north and in the south within the country limits. The Belize Barrier Reef is a section of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, which is continuous from Cancún on the northeast tip of the Yucatán Peninsula through the Riviera Maya up to Honduras making it one of the largest coral reef systems in the world. It is the top tourist destination in Belize, popular for scuba diving and snorkelling, and attracting almost half of its 260,000 visitors. It is also vital to its fishing industry. In 1842 Charles Darwin described it as "the most remarkable reef in the West Indies". The Belize Barrier Reef was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1996 due to its vulnerability and the fact that it contains important natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biodiversity. Species The Belize Barrier Reef is home to a large diversity of plants and animals, and is one of the most diverse ecosystems of the world: 70 hard coral species 36 soft coral species 500 species of fish hundreds of invertebrate species With 90% of the reef still to be researched, some estimate that only 10% of all species have been discovered. Conservation Belize became the first country in the world to completely ban bottom trawling in December 2010. In December 2015, Belize banned offshore oil drilling within of the Barrier Reef and all of its seven World Heritage Sites. Despite these protective measures, the reef remains under threat from oceanic pollution as well as uncontrolled tourism, shipping, and fishing. Other threats include hurricanes, along with global warming and the resulting increase in ocean temperatures, which causes coral bleaching. It is claimed by scientists that over 40% of Belize's coral reef has been damaged since 1998. Climate Belize has a tropical climate with pronounced wet and dry seasons, although there are significant variations in weather patterns by region. Temperatures vary according to elevation, proximity to the coast, and the moderating effects of the northeast trade winds off the Caribbean. Average temperatures in the coastal regions range from in January to in July. Temperatures are slightly higher inland, except for the southern highland plateaus, such as the Mountain Pine Ridge, where it is noticeably cooler year round. Overall, the seasons are marked more by differences in humidity and rainfall than in temperature. Average rainfall varies considerably, from in the north and west to over in the extreme south. Seasonal differences in rainfall are greatest in the northern and central regions of the country where, between January and April or May, less than of rainfall per month. The dry season is shorter in the south, normally only lasting from February to April. A shorter, less rainy period, known locally as the "little dry", usually occurs in late July or August, after the onset of the rainy season. Hurricanes have played key—and devastating—roles in Belizean history. In 1931, an unnamed hurricane destroyed over two-thirds of the buildings in Belize City and killed more than 1,000 people. In 1955, Hurricane Janet levelled the northern town of Corozal. Only six years later, Hurricane Hattie struck the central coastal area of the country, with winds in excess of and storm tides. The devastation of Belize City for the second time in thirty years prompted the relocation of the capital some inland to the planned city of Belmopan. In 1978, Hurricane Greta caused more than US$25 million in damages along the southern coast. In 2000, Hurricane Keith, the wettest tropical cyclone in the nation's record, stalled, and hit the nation as a Category 4 storm on 1 October, causing 19 deaths and at least $280 million in damage. Soon after, on 9 October 2001, Hurricane Iris made landfall at Monkey River Town as a Category 4 storm. The storm demolished most of the homes in the village, and destroyed the banana crop. In 2007, Hurricane Dean

to the land until Britain defeated the Spanish in the Battle of St. George's Caye (1798). In 1840 it became a British colony known as British Honduras, and a Crown colony in 1862. It achieved its idependence from the United Kingdom on 21 September 1981. Belize has a diverse society that is composed of many cultures and languages that reflect its rich history. It is the only Central American country where English is the official language, while Belizean Creole is the most widely spoken dialect. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language, followed by Mayan languages, German dialects, and Garifuna. Over half the population is multilingual, due to the diverse linguistic backgrounds of the population. It is known for its September Celebrations, its extensive barrier reef coral reefs, and punta music. Belize's abundance of terrestrial and marine species and its diversity of ecosystems give it a key place in the globally significant Mesoamerican Biological Corridor. It is considered a Central American and Caribbean nation with strong ties to both the American and Caribbean regions. It is a member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and the Central American Integration System (SICA), the only country to hold full membership in all three regional organizations. It is the only mainland Central American country which is a Commonwealth realm, with Queen Elizabeth II as its monarch and head of state, represented by a Governor General (currently, Froyla Tzalam). It is considered a tax haven. Etymology The earliest known record of the name "Belize" appears in the journal of the Dominican priest Fray José Delgado, dating to 1677. Delgado recorded the names of three major rivers that he crossed while travelling north along the Caribbean coast: Rio Soyte, Rio Kibum, and Rio Balis. The names of these waterways, which correspond to the Sittee River, Sibun River, and Belize River, were provided to Delgado by his translator. It has been proposed that Delgado's "Balis" was actually the Mayan word belix (or belize), meaning "muddy-watered". More recently, it has been proposed that the name comes from the Mayan phrase "bel Itza", meaning "the road to Itza". In the 1820s, the Creole elite of Belize invented the legend that the toponym Belize derived from the Spanish pronunciation of the name of a Scottish buccaneer, Peter Wallace, who established a settlement at the mouth of the Belize River in 1638. There is no proof that buccaneers settled in this area and the very existence of Wallace is considered a myth. Writers and historians have suggested several other possible etymologies, including postulated French and African origins. History Early history The Maya Civilization emerged at least three millennia ago in the lowland area of the Yucatán Peninsula and the highlands to the south, in the area of present-day southeastern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and western Honduras. Many aspects of this culture persist in the area, despite nearly 500 years of European domination. Prior to about 2500 BC, some hunting and foraging bands settled in small farming villages; they domesticated crops such as corn, beans, squash, and chili peppers. A profusion of languages and subcultures developed within the Maya core culture. Between about 2500 BC and 250 AD, the basic institutions of Maya civilization emerged. Maya civilization The Maya civilization spread across the territory of present-day Belize around 1500BC and flourished there until about AD900. The recorded history of the middle and southern regions focuses on Caracol, an urban political centre that may have supported over 140,000 people. North of the Maya Mountains, the most important political centre was Lamanai. In the late Classic Era of Maya civilization (600–1000AD), an estimated 400,000 to 1,000,000 people inhabited the area of present-day Belize. When Spanish explorers arrived in the 16th century, the area of present-day Belize included three distinct Maya territories: Chetumal province, which encompassed the area around Corozal Bay Dzuluinicob province, which encompassed the area between the New River and the Sibun River, west to Tipu a southern territory controlled by the Manche Ch'ol Maya, encompassing the area between the Monkey River and the Sarstoon River. Early colonial period (1506–1862) Spanish conquistadors explored the land and declared it part of the Spanish Empire, but they failed to settle the territory because of its lack of resources and the hostile tribes of the Yucatán. English pirates sporadically visited the coast of what is now Belize, seeking a sheltered region from which they could attack Spanish ships (see English settlement in Belize) and cut logwood (Haematoxylum campechianum) trees. The first British permanent settlement was founded around 1716 in what became the Belize District, and during the 18th century, established a system using enslaved Africans to cut logwood trees. This yielded a valuable fixing agent for clothing dyes, and was one of the first ways to achieve a fast black before the advent of artificial dyes. The Spanish granted the British settlers the right to occupy the area and cut logwood in exchange for their help suppressing piracy. The British first appointed a superintendent over the Belize area in 1786. Before then the British government had not recognized the settlement as a colony for fear of provoking a Spanish attack. The delay in government oversight allowed the settlers to establish their own laws and forms of government. During this period, a few successful settlers gained control of the local legislature, known as the Public Meeting, as well as of most of the settlement's land and timber. Throughout the 18th century, the Spanish attacked Belize every time war broke out with Britain. The Battle of St. George's Caye was the last of such military engagements, in 1798, between a Spanish fleet and a small force of Baymen and their slaves. From 3 to 5 September, the Spaniards tried to force their way through Montego Caye shoal, but were blocked by defenders. Spain's last attempt occurred on 10 September, when the Baymen repelled the Spanish fleet in a short engagement with no known casualties on either side. The anniversary of the battle has been declared a national holiday in Belize and is celebrated to commemorate the "first Belizeans" and the defence of their territory. As part of the British Empire (1862–1981) In the early 19th century, the British sought to reform the settlers, threatening to suspend the Public Meeting unless it observed the government's instructions to eliminate slavery outright. After a generation of wrangling, slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833. As a result of their enslaved Africans' abilities in the work of mahogany extraction, owners in British Honduras were compensated at £53.69 per enslaved African on average, the highest amount paid in any British territory. (This was a form of reparation that was not given to the enslaved Africans at the time, nor since.) However, the end of slavery did little to change the formerly enslaved Africans' working conditions if they stayed at their trade. A series of institutions restricted the ability of emancipated African individuals to buy land, in a debt-peonage system. Former "extra special" mahogany or logwood cutters undergirded the early ascription of the capacities (and consequently the limitations) of people of African descent in the colony. Because a small elite controlled the settlement's land and commerce, formerly enslaved Africans had little choice but to continue to work in timber cutting. In 1836, after the emancipation of Central America from Spanish rule, the British claimed the right to administer the region. In 1862, the United Kingdom formally declared it a British Crown Colony, subordinate to Jamaica, and named it British Honduras. Since 1854, the richest inhabitants elected an assembly of notables by censal vote, which was replaced by a legislative council appointed by the British monarchy. As a colony, Belize began to attract British investors. Among the British firms that dominated the colony in the late 19th century was the Belize Estate and Produce Company, which eventually acquired half of all privately held land and eventually eliminated peonage. Belize Estate's influence accounts in part for the colony's reliance on the mahogany trade throughout the rest of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. The Great Depression of the 1930s caused a near-collapse of the colony's economy as British demand for timber plummeted. The effects of widespread unemployment were worsened by a devastating hurricane that struck the colony in 1931. Perceptions of the government's relief effort as inadequate were aggravated by its refusal to legalize labour unions or introduce a minimum wage. Economic conditions improved during World War II, as many Belizean men entered the armed forces or otherwise contributed to the war effort. Following the war, the colony's economy stagnated. Britain's decision to devalue the British Honduras dollar in 1949 worsened economic conditions and led to the creation of the People's Committee, which demanded independence. The People's Committee's successor, the People's United Party (PUP), sought constitutional reforms that expanded voting rights to all adults. The first election under universal suffrage was held in 1954 and was decisively won by the PUP, beginning a three-decade period in which the PUP dominated the country's politics. Pro-independence activist George Cadle Price became PUP's leader in 1956 and the effective head of government in 1961, a post he would hold under various titles until 1984. Under a new constitution, Britain granted British Honduras self-government in 1964. On 1 June 1973, British Honduras was officially renamed Belize. Progress toward independence, however, was hampered by a Guatemalan claim to sovereignty over Belizean territory. Independent Belize (since 1981) Belize was granted independence on 21 September 1981. Guatemala refused to recognize the new nation because of its longstanding territorial dispute with the British colony, claiming that Belize belonged to Guatemala. About 1,500 British troops remained in Belize to deter any possible incursions. With Price at the helm, the PUP won all national elections until 1984. In that election, the first national election after independence, the PUP was defeated by the United Democratic Party (UDP). UDP leader Manuel Esquivel replaced Price as prime minister, with Price himself unexpectedly losing his own House seat to a UDP challenger. The PUP under Price returned to power after elections in 1989. The following year the United Kingdom announced that it would end its military involvement in Belize, and the RAF Harrier detachment was withdrawn the same year, having remained stationed in the country continuously since its deployment had become permanent there in 1980. British soldiers were withdrawn in 1994, but the United Kingdom left behind a military training unit to assist with the newly created Belize Defence Force. The UDP regained power in the 1993 national election, and Esquivel became prime minister for a second time. Soon afterwards, Esquivel announced the suspension of a pact reached with Guatemala during Price's tenure, claiming Price had made too many concessions to gain Guatemalan recognition. The pact may have curtailed the 130-year-old border dispute between the two countries. Border tensions continued into the early 2000s, although the two countries cooperated in other areas. In 1996, the Belize Barrier Reef, one of the Western Hemipsphere's most pristine ecosystems, was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The PUP won a landslide victory in the 1998 national elections, and PUP leader Said Musa was sworn in as prime minister. In the 2003 elections the PUP maintained its majority, and Musa continued as prime minister. He pledged to improve conditions in the underdeveloped and largely inaccessible southern part of Belize. In 2005, Belize was the site of unrest caused by discontent with the PUP government, including tax increases in the national budget. On 8 February 2008, Dean Barrow was sworn in as prime minister after his UDP won a landslide victory in general elections. Barrow and the UDP were re-elected in 2012 with a considerably smaller majority. Barrow led the UDP to a third consecutive general election victory in November 2015, increasing the party's number of seats from 17 to 19. However, he stated the election would be his last as party leader and preparations are under way for the party to elect his successor. On 11 November 2020, the People's United Party (PUP), led by Johnny Briceño, defeated the United Democratic Party (UDP) for the first time since 2003, having won 26 seats out of 31 to form the new government of Belize. Briceño took office as Prime Minister on 12 November. Government and politics Belize is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The structure of government is based on the British parliamentary system, and the legal system is modelled on the common law of England. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title Queen of Belize. The Queen lives in the United Kingdom, and is represented in Belize by the governor-general. Executive authority is exercised by the cabinet, which advises the governor-general and is led by the Prime Minister of Belize, who is head of government. Cabinet ministers are members of the majority political party in parliament and usually hold elected seats within it concurrent with their cabinet positions. The bicameral National Assembly of Belize comprises a House of Representatives and a Senate. The 31 members of the House are popularly elected to a maximum five-year term and introduce legislation affecting the development of Belize. The governor-general appoints the 12 members of the Senate, with a Senate president selected by the members. The Senate is responsible for debating and approving bills passed by the House. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Parliament of Belize. Constitutional safeguards include freedom of speech, press, worship, movement, and association. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. Members of the independent judiciary are appointed. The judicial system includes local magistrates grouped under the Magistrates' Court, which hears less serious cases. The Supreme Court (chief justice) hears murder and similarly serious cases, and the Court of Appeal hears appeals from convicted individuals seeking to have their sentences overturned. Defendants may, under certain circumstances, appeal their cases to the Caribbean Court of Justice. Political culture In 1935, elections were reinstated, but only 1.8 percent of the population was eligible to vote. In 1954, women were granted the right to vote. Since 1974, the party system in Belize has been dominated by the centre-left People's United Party and the centre-right United Democratic Party, although other small parties took part in all levels of elections in the past. Though none of these small political parties has ever won any significant number of seats or offices, their challenge has been growing over the years. Foreign relations Belize is a full participating member of the United Nations; the Commonwealth of Nations; the Organization of American States (OAS); the Central American Integration System (SICA); the Caribbean Community (CARICOM); the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME); the Association of Caribbean States (ACS); and the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), which currently serves as a final court of appeal for only Barbados, Belize, and Guyana. In 2001 the Caribbean Community heads of government voted on a measure declaring that the region should work towards replacing the UK's Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as final court of appeal with the Caribbean Court of Justice. It is still in the process of acceding to CARICOM treaties including the trade and single market treaties. Belize is an original member (1995) of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and participates actively in its work. The pact involves the Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM) subgroup of the Group of African, Caribbean, and Pacific states (ACP). CARIFORUM presently the only part of the wider ACP-bloc that has concluded the full regional trade-pact with the European Union. The British Army Garrison in Belize is used primarily for jungle warfare training, with access to over of jungle terrain. Belize is a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Armed forces The Belize Defence Force (BDF) serves as the country's military and is responsible for protecting the sovereignty of Belize. The BDF, with the Belize National Coast Guard and the Immigration Department, is a department of the Ministry of Defence and Immigration. In 1997 the regular army numbered over 900, the reserve army 381, the air wing 45 and the maritime wing 36, amounting to an overall strength of approximately 1,400. In 2005, the maritime wing became part of the Belizean Coast Guard. In 2012, the Belizean government spent about $17 million on the military, constituting 1.08% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). After Belize achieved independence in 1981 the United Kingdom maintained a deterrent force (British Forces Belize) in the country to protect it from invasion by Guatemala (see Guatemalan claim to Belizean territory). During the 1980s this included a battalion and No. 1417 Flight RAF of Harriers. The main British force left in 1994, three years after Guatemala recognized Belizean independence, but the United Kingdom maintained a training presence via the British Army Training and Support Unit Belize (BATSUB) and 25 Flight AAC until 2011 when the last British Forces left Ladyville Barracks, with the exception of seconded advisers. Administrative divisions Belize is divided into six districts. These districts are further divided into 31 constituencies. Local government in Belize comprises four types of local authorities: city councils, town councils, village councils and community councils. The two city councils (Belize City and Belmopan) and seven town councils cover the urban population of the country, while village and community councils cover the rural population. Guatemalan territorial dispute Throughout Belize's history, Guatemala has claimed sovereignty over all or part of Belizean territory. This claim is occasionally reflected in maps drawn by Guatemala's government, showing Belize as Guatemala's twenty-third department. The Guatemalan territorial claim involves approximately 53% of Belize's mainland, which includes significant portions of four districts: Belize, Cayo, Stann Creek, and Toledo. Roughly 43% of the country's population (≈154,949 Belizeans) reside in this region. , the border dispute with Guatemala remains unresolved and contentious. Guatemala's claim to Belizean territory rests, in part, on Clause VII of the Anglo-Guatemalan Treaty of 1859, which obligated the British to build a road between Belize City and Guatemala. At various times, the issue has required mediation by the United Kingdom, Caribbean Community heads of government, the Organization of American States (OAS), Mexico, and the United States. However, on 15 April 2018, Guatemala's government held a referendum to determine if the country should take its territorial claim on Belize to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to settle the long-standing issue. Guatemalans voted 95% yes on the matter. A similar referendum was to be held in Belize on 10 April 2019, but a court ruling led to its postponement. The referendum was held on 8 May 2019, and 55.4% of voters opted to send the matter to the ICJ. Both countries submitted requests to the ICJ (in 2018 and 2019, respectively) and the ICJ ordered Guatemala's initial brief be submitted by December 2020 and Belize's response by 2022. Indigenous land claims Belize backed the United Nations (UN) Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, which established legal land rights to indigenous groups. Other court cases have affirmed these rights like the Supreme Court of Belize's 2013 decision to uphold its ruling in 2010 that acknowledges customary land titles as communal land for indigenous peoples. Another such case is the Caribbean Court of Justice's (CCJ) 2015 order on the Belizean government, which stipulated that the country develop a land registry to classify and exercise traditional governance over Mayan lands. Despite these rulings, Belize has made little progress to support the land rights of indigenous communities; for instance, in the two years since the CCJ's decision, Belize's government has failed to launch the Mayan land registry, prompting the group to take action into its own hands. The exact ramifications of these cases need to be examined. , Belize still struggles to recognize indigenous populations and their respective rights. According to the 50-page voluntary national report Belize created on its progress toward the UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, indigenous groups are not factored into the country's indicators whatsoever. In fact, the groups 'Creole' and 'Garinagu' are not included in the document, and 'Maya' and 'Mestizo' only occur once throughout the entirety of the report. it is yet to be seen if the Belizean government will highlight the consequences of the territorial claim on indigenous land rights prior to the referendum vote in 2019. Geography Belize is on the Caribbean coast of northern Central America. It shares a border on the north with the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, on the west with the Guatemalan department of Petén, and on the south with the Guatemalan department of Izabal. To the east in the Caribbean Sea, the second-longest barrier reef in the world flanks much of the of predominantly marshy coastline. The area of the country totals , an area slightly larger than El Salvador, Israel, New Jersey, or Wales. The many lagoons along the coasts and in the northern interior reduces the actual land area to . It

Gulf of Guinea in the northernmost tropical portion of the Atlantic Ocean. The capital of Benin is Porto-Novo, but the seat of government is in Cotonou, the country's largest city and economic capital. Benin covers an area of and its population in was estimated to be approximately million. Benin is a tropical nation, highly dependent on agriculture, and is a large exporter of palm oil and cotton. Substantial employment and income arise from subsistence farming. The official language of Benin is French, with several indigenous languages such as Fon, Bariba, Yoruba and Dendi also being commonly spoken. The largest religious group in Benin is Roman Catholicism, followed closely by Islam, Vodun (commonly referred to as Voodoo outside the country) and Protestantism. Benin is a member of the United Nations, the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone, La Francophonie, the Community of Sahel–Saharan States, the African Petroleum Producers Association and the Niger Basin Authority. From the 17th to the 19th century, the main political entities in the area were the Kingdom of Dahomey, along with the city-state of Porto-Novo, and a large area with many different nations to the north. This region was referred to as the Slave Coast from as early as the 17th century due to the large number of people who were kidnapped and trafficked to the New World during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. After slavery was abolished, France took over the country and renamed it French Dahomey. In 1960, Dahomey gained full independence from France. The sovereign state has had a tumultuous history since then, with many different democratic governments, military coups, and military governments. A self-described Marxist–Leninist state called the People's Republic of Benin existed between 1975 and 1990. In 1991, it was replaced by the current multi-party Republic of Benin. Etymology During French colonial rule and after independence on 1 August 1960, the country was named Dahomey, after the Kingdom of Dahomey. On 30 November 1975, the country was renamed Benin following a Marxist-Leninist military coup. The Bight of Benin borders the country, and the bight takes its name from the Kingdom of Benin, located in present-day Nigeria. History Precolonial period The current country of Benin combines three areas which had distinctly different political systems and ethnicities prior to French colonial control. Before 1700, there were a few important city-states along the coast (primarily of the Aja ethnic group, but also including Yoruba and Gbe peoples) and a mass of tribal regions inland (composed of Bariba, Mahi, Gedevi, and Kabye peoples). The Oyo Empire, located primarily to the east of modern Benin, was the most significant large-scale military force in the region. It regularly conducted raids and exacted tribute from the coastal kingdoms and the tribal regions. The situation changed in the 1600s and early 1700s as the Kingdom of Dahomey, consisting mostly of Fon people, was founded on the Abomey plateau and began taking over areas along the coast. By 1727, king Agaja of the Kingdom of Dahomey had conquered the coastal cities of Allada and Whydah, but it had become a tributary of the Oyo empire and did not directly attack the Oyo allied city-state of Porto-Novo. The rise of the kingdom of Dahomey, the rivalry between the kingdom and the city of Porto-Novo, and the continued tribal politics of the northern region, persisted into the colonial and post-colonial periods. The Dahomey Kingdom was known for its culture and traditions. Young boys were often apprenticed to older soldiers, and taught the kingdom's military customs until they were old enough to join the army. Dahomey was also famous for instituting an elite female soldier corps, called Ahosi, i.e. the king's wives, or Mino, "our mothers" in the Fon language Fongbe, and known by many Europeans as the Dahomean Amazons. This emphasis on military preparation and achievement earned Dahomey the nickname of "black Sparta" from European observers and 19th-century explorers such as Sir Richard Burton. Dahomey became the birthplace of the Voodoo religion, which has endured as the official national religion of Benin since 1996 with the national holiday January 10, Fête du Vodoun, which commemorates the nation's heritage of the traditional religion and its spiritual cults. Early Portuguese trade The kings of Dahomey sold their war captives into transatlantic slavery. They also had a practice of killing war captives in a ceremony known as the Annual Customs. By about 1750, the King of Dahomey was earning an estimated £250,000 per year by selling African captives to European slave-traders. Although the leaders of Dahomey initially resisted the slave trade, it flourished in the region of Dahomey for almost three hundred years, beginning in 1472 with a trade agreement with Portuguese merchants. The area was named the "Slave Coast" because of this flourishing trade. Court protocols, which demanded that a portion of war captives from the kingdom's many battles be decapitated, decreased the number of enslaved people exported from the area. The number went from 102,000 people per decade in the 1780s to 24,000 per decade by the 1860s. The decline was partly due to the Slave Trade Act 1807 banning the trans-Atlantic slave trade by Britain in 1808, followed by other countries. This decline continued until 1885, when the last slave ship departed from the coast of the modern Benin Republic bound for Brazil in South America, which had yet to abolish slavery. The capital's name Porto-Novo is of Portuguese origin, meaning "New Port". It was originally developed as a port for the slave trade. Among the goods the Portuguese sought were carved items of ivory made by Benin's artisans in the form of carved saltcellars, spoons, and hunting horns - the first pieces of African art produced for sale abroad as exotic objects. French colonial period By the middle of the nineteenth century, Dahomey had begun to weaken and lose its status as the regional power. This enabled the French to take over the area in 1892. In 1899, the French included the land called French Dahomey within the larger French West Africa colonial region. France sought to benefit from Dahomey but the region appeared to lack the necessary agricultural or mineral resources for large-scale capitalist development. As a result, France treated Dahomey as a sort of preserve in case future discoveries revealed ressources worth developing. The French government immediately outlawed the capture and sale of slaves with the result that the slave-owning class suffered. Previous slaveowners sought to redefine their control over slaves as control over land, tenants, and lineage members. This provoked a struggle among Dahomeans, "concentrated in the period from 1895 to 1920, for the redistribution of control over land and labor. Villages sought to redefine boundaries of lands and fishing preserves. Religious disputes scarcely veiled the factional struggles over control of land and commerce which underlay them. Factions struggled for the leadership of great families". In 1958, France granted autonomy to the Republic of Dahomey, and full independence on 1 August 1960, which is celebrated each year as Independence Day, a national holiday. The president who led the country to independence was Hubert Maga. Post-colonial period For the next twelve years after 1960, ethnic strife contributed to a period of turbulence. There were several coups and regime changes, with the figures of Hubert Maga, Sourou Apithy, Justin Ahomadégbé, and Émile Derlin Zinsou dominating; the first three each represented a different area and ethnicity of the country. These three agreed to form a Presidential Council after violence marred the 1970 elections. On 7 May 1972, Maga ceded power to Ahomadégbé. On 26 October 1972, Lt. Col. Mathieu Kérékou overthrew the ruling triumvirate, becoming president and stating that the country would not "burden itself by copying foreign ideology, and wants neither Capitalism, Communism, nor Socialism". On 30 November 1974 however, he announced that the country was officially Marxist, under control of the Military Council of the Revolution (CMR), which nationalized the petroleum industry and banks. On 30 November 1975, he renamed the country to the People's Republic of Benin. The regime of the People's Republic of Benin underwent significant changes over the course of its existence: a brief nationalist period (1972-1974); a socialist phase (1974-1982); and a phase involving an opening to Western countries and economic liberalism (1982-1990). Large-scale economic and social development programs were put in place, but the results were mixed. In 1974, under the influence of young revolutionaries - the "Ligueurs" - the government embarked on a socialist program: nationalization of strategic sectors of the economy, reform of the education system, establishment of agricultural cooperatives and new local government structures, and a campaign to eradicate "feudal forces" including tribalism. The regime banned opposition activities. Mathieu Kérékou was elected president by the National Revolutionary Assembly in 1980, re-elected in 1984. Establishing relations with China, North Korea, and Libya, he put nearly all businesses and economic activities under state control, causing foreign investment in Benin to dry up. Kérékou attempted to reorganize education, pushing his own aphorisms such as "Poverty is not a fatality", resulting in a mass exodus of teachers, along with numerous other professionals. The regime financed itself by contracting to take nuclear waste, first from the Soviet Union and later from France. In the 1980s, Benin's economic situation became increasingly critical. The country experienced high economic growth rates (15.6% in 1982, 4.6% in 1983 and 8.2% in 1984), but the closure of the Nigerian border with Benin led to a sharp drop in customs and tax revenues. The government was no longer able to pay civil servants' salaries. In 1989, riots broke out when the regime did not have enough money to pay its army. The banking system collapsed. Eventually, Kérékou renounced Marxism, and a convention forced Kérékou to release political prisoners and arrange elections. Marxism–Leninism was abolished as the nation's form of government. The country's name was officially changed to the Republic of Benin on 1 March 1990, after the newly formed government's constitution was completed. In a 1991 election, Kérékou lost to Nicéphore Soglo. Kérékou returned to power after winning the 1996 vote. In 2001, a closely fought election resulted in Kérékou winning another term, after which his opponents claimed election irregularities. In 1999, Kérékou issued a national apology for the substantial role that Africans had played in the Atlantic slave trade. Kérékou and former president Soglo did not run in the 2006 elections, as both were barred by the constitution's restrictions on age and total terms of candidates. On 5 March 2006, an election was held that was considered free and fair. It resulted in a runoff between Yayi Boni and Adrien Houngbédji. The runoff election was held on 19 March and was won by Boni, who assumed office on 6 April. The success of the fair multi-party elections in Benin won praise internationally. Boni was reelected in 2011, taking 53.18% of the vote in the first round—enough to avoid a runoff election. He was the first president to win an election without a runoff since the restoration of democracy in 1991. On 14 October 2015, former military ruler Mathieu Kérékou died at the age of 82. Shortly after, a seven-day period of national mourning for the former civilian president was held. In the March 2016 presidential elections, in which Boni Yayi was barred by the constitution from running for a third term, businessman Patrice Talon won the second round with 65.37% of the vote, defeating investment banker and former Prime Minister Lionel Zinsou. Talon was sworn in on 6 April 2016. Speaking on the same day that the Constitutional Court confirmed the results, Talon said that he would "first and foremost tackle constitutional reform", discussing his plan to limit presidents to a single term of five years in order to combat "complacency".

development assistance to the country. Administrative divisions Benin is divided into 12 departments (French: départements) which, in turn, are subdivided into 77 communes. In 1999, the previous six departments were each split into two halves, forming the current 12. The six new departments were assigned official capitals in 2008. Demographics The majority of Benin's 11,485,000 inhabitants live in the south of the country. The population is young, with a life expectancy of 62 years. About 42 African ethnic groups live in this country, including the Yoruba in the southeast (migrated from what is now Nigeria in the 12th century); the Dendi in the north-central area (who came from Mali in the 16th century); the Bariba and the Fula in the northeast; the Betammaribe and the Somba in the Atakora Mountains; the Fon in the area around Abomey in the South Central and the Mina, Xueda, and Aja (who came from Togo) on the coast. Recent migrations have brought other African nationals to Benin that include Nigerians, Togolese, and Malians. The foreign community also includes many Lebanese and Indians involved in trade and commerce. The personnel of the many European embassies and foreign aid missions and of nongovernmental organisations and various missionary groups account for a large part of the 5,500 European population. A small part of the European population consists of Beninese citizens of French ancestry. Religion In the 2013 census, 48.5% of the population of Benin were Christian (25.5% Roman Catholic, 6.7% Celestial Church of Christ, 3.4% Methodist, 12.9% other Christian denominations), 27.7% were Muslim, 11.6% practiced Vodun, 2.6% practiced other local traditional religions, 2.6% practiced other religions, and 5.8% claimed no religious affiliation. A government survey conducted by the Demographic and Health Surveys Program in 2011-2012 indicated that followers of Christianity were 57.5% of the population (with Catholics making up 33.9%, Methodists 3.0%, Celestials 6.2% and other Christians 14.5%), while Muslims were 22.8%. Traditional religions include local animistic religions in the Atakora (Atakora and Donga provinces), and Vodun and Orisha veneration among the Yoruba and Tado peoples in the center and south of the nation. The town of Ouidah on the central coast is the spiritual center of Beninese Vodun. Today the two largest religions are Christianity, followed throughout the south and center of Benin and in Otammari country in the Atakora, and Islam, introduced by the Songhai Empire and Hausa merchants, and now followed throughout Alibori, Borgou and Donga provinces, as well as among the Yoruba (who also follow Christianity). Many, however, continue to hold Vodun and Orisha beliefs and have incorporated the pantheon of Vodun and Orisha into Christianity. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, a small Muslim sect originating in the 19th century, has a minor presence in the country. Geography and climate Benin, a narrow, north–south strip of land in West Africa, lies between latitudes 6° and 13°N, and longitudes 0° and 4°E. Benin is bounded by Togo to the west, Burkina Faso and Niger to the north, Nigeria to the east, and the Bight of Benin to the south. The distance from the Niger River in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the south is about . Although the coastline measures , the country measures about at its widest point. Four terrestrial ecoregions lie within Benin's borders: Eastern Guinean forests, Nigerian lowland forests, Guinean forest-savanna mosaic, and West Sudanian savanna. It had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 5.86/10, ranking it 93rd globally out of 172 countries. Benin shows little variation in elevation and can be divided into four areas from the south to the north, starting with the low-lying, sandy, coastal plain (highest elevation ) which is, at most, wide. It is marshy and dotted with lakes and lagoons communicating with the ocean. Behind the coast lies the Guinean forest-savanna mosaic-covered plateaus of southern Benin (altitude between ), which are split by valleys running north to south along the Couffo, Zou, and Ouémé Rivers. This geography makes it vulnerable to climate change. With the majority of the country living near the coast in low-lying areas sea level rise could have large effects on the economy and population. Northern areas will see additional regions become deserts, making agriculture difficult in a region with many subsistence farmers. An area of flat land dotted with rocky hills whose altitude seldom reaches extends around Nikki and Save. A range of mountains extends along the northwest border and into Togo; these are the Atacora. The highest point, Mont Sokbaro, is at . Benin has fallow fields, mangroves, and remnants of large sacred forests. In the rest of the country, the savanna is covered with thorny scrub and dotted with huge baobab trees. Some forests line the banks of rivers. In the north and the northwest of Benin, the Reserve du W du Niger and Pendjari National Park attract tourists eager to see elephants, lions, antelopes, hippos, and monkeys. Pendjari National Park together with the bordering Parks Arli and W in Burkina Faso and Niger are among the most important strongholds for the endangered West African lion. With an estimated 356 (range: 246–466) lions, W-Arli-Pendjari harbors the largest remaining population of lions in West Africa. Historically Benin has served as habitat for the endangered painted hunting dog, Lycaon pictus; however, this canid is thought to have been locally extirpated. Benin's climate is hot and humid. Annual rainfall in the coastal area averages 1300 mm or about 51 inches. Benin has two rainy and two dry seasons per year. The principal rainy season is from April to late July, with a shorter less intense rainy period from late September to November. The main dry season is from December to April, with a short cooler dry season from late July to early September. Temperatures and humidity are high along the tropical coast. In Cotonou, the average maximum temperature is ; the minimum is . Variations in temperature increase when moving north through savanna and plateau toward the Sahel. A dry wind from the Sahara called the Harmattan blows from December to March, when grass dries up, other vegetation turns reddish brown, and a veil of fine dust hangs over the country, causing the skies to be overcast. It is also the season when farmers burn brush in the fields. Economy The economy of Benin is dependent on subsistence agriculture, cotton production, and regional trade. Cotton accounts for 40% of the GDP and roughly 80% of official export receipts. Growth in real output has averaged around 5% in the past seven years, but rapid population growth has offset much of this increase. Inflation has subsided over the past several years. Benin uses the CFA franc, which is pegged to the euro. Benin's economy has continued to strengthen over the past years, with real GDP growth estimated at 5.1 and 5.7% in 2008 and 2009, respectively. The main driver of growth is the agricultural sector, with cotton being the country's main export, while services continue to contribute the largest part of GDP largely because of Benin's geographical location, enabling trade, transportation, transit and tourism activities with its neighboring states. Benin's overall macroeconomic conditions were positive in 2017, with a growth rate of around 5.6 percent. Economic growth was largely driven by Benin's cotton industry and other cash crops, the Port of Cotonou, and telecommunications. Cashew and pineapple production and processing have substantial commercial potential. The country's primary source of revenue is the Port of Cotonou, although the government is seeking to expand its revenue base. In 2017, Benin imported about $2.8 billion in goods such as rice, meat and poultry, alcoholic beverages, fuel plastic materials, specialized mining and excavating machinery, telecommunications equipment, passenger vehicles, and toiletries and cosmetics. Principal exports are ginned cotton, cotton cake and cotton seeds, cashew, shea butter, cooking oil, and lumber. Access to biocapacity in Benin is lower than world average. In 2016, Benin had 0.9 global hectares of biocapacity per person within its territory, much less than the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In 2016 Benin used 1.4 global hectares of biocapacity per person - their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use slightly under double as much biocapacity as Benin contains. As a result, Benin is running a biocapacity deficit. In order to raise growth still further, Benin plans to attract more foreign investment, place more emphasis on tourism, facilitate the development of new food processing systems and agricultural products, and encourage new information and communication technology. Projects to improve the business climate by reforms to the land tenure system, the commercial justice system, and the financial sector were included in Benin's US$307 million Millennium Challenge Account grant signed in February 2006. The Paris Club and bilateral creditors have eased the external debt situation, with Benin benefiting from a G8 debt reduction announced in July 2005, while pressing for more rapid structural reforms. An insufficient electrical supply continues to adversely affect Benin's economic growth though the government recently has taken steps to increase domestic power production. Although trade unions in Benin represent up to 75% of the formal workforce, the large informal economy has been noted by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITCU) to contain ongoing problems, including a lack of women's wage equality, the use of child labor, and the continuing issue of forced labor. Benin is a member of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA). Cotonou has the country's only seaport and international airport. A new port is currently under construction between Cotonou and Porto Novo. Benin is connected by two-lane asphalted roads to its neighboring countries (Togo, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria). Mobile telephone service is available across the country through various operators. ADSL connections are available in some areas. Benin is connected to the Internet by way of satellite connections (since 1998) and a single submarine cable SAT-3/WASC (since 2001), keeping the price of data extremely high. Relief is expected with the initiation of the Africa Coast to Europe cable in 2011. Despite the GDP growth rate of 4-5% remaining consistent over the past two decades, poverty has been increasing. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Analysis in Benin, those living under the poverty line have increased from 36.2% in 2011 to 40.1% in 2015. Education The literacy rate in Benin is among the lowest in the world: in 2015 it was estimated to be 38.4% (49.9% for males and 27.3% for females). Benin has achieved universal primary education and half of the children (54%) were enrolled in secondary education in 2013, according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Although at one time the education system was not free, Benin has abolished school fees and is carrying out the recommendations of its 2007 Educational Forum. The government has devoted more than 4% of GDP to education since 2009. In 2015, public expenditure on education (all levels) amounted to 4.4% of GDP, according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Within this expenditure, Benin devoted quite a large share to tertiary education: 0.97% of GDP. Between 2009 and 2011, the share of young people enrolled at university rose from 10% to 12% of the 18–25 year age cohort, one of the highest ratios in West Africa. Student enrollment in tertiary education more than doubled between 2006 and 2011 from 50,225 to 110,181. These statistics encompass not only bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. programmes but also students enrolled in non-degree post-secondary diplomas. Science and technology National policy framework The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research is responsible for implementing science policy. The National Directorate of Scientific and Technological Research handles planning and coordination, whereas the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research and National Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters each play an advisory role. Financial support comes from Benin's National Fund for Scientific Research and Technological Innovation. The Benin Agency for the Promotion of Research Results and Technological Innovation carries out technology transfer through the development and dissemination of research results. Benin was ranked 126th in the Global Innovation Index in 2020, down from 123rd in 2019. The regulatory framework has evolved since 2006 till date when the country's first science policy was prepared. This has since been updated and complemented by new texts on science and innovation (the year of adoption is between brackets): a manual for monitoring and evaluating research structures and organizations (2013); a manual on how to select research programmes and projects and apply to the National Fund for Scientific Research and Technological Innovation (2013) for competitive grants; a draft act for funding scientific research and innovation and a draft code of ethics for scientific research and innovation were both submitted to the Supreme Court in 2014; a strategic plan for scientific research and innovation (under development in 2015). Equally important are Benin's efforts to integrate science into existing policy documents: Benin Development Strategies 2025: Benin 2025 Alafia (2000); Growth Strategy for Poverty Reduction 2011–2016 (2011); Phase 3 of the Ten-year Development Plan for the Education Sector, covering 2013–2015; Development Plan for Higher Education and Scientific Research 2013–2017 (2014). In 2015, Benin's priority areas for scientific research were: health, education, construction and building materials, transportation and trade, culture, tourism and handicrafts, cotton/textiles, food, energy and climate change. The main challenges facing research and development in Benin are: the unfavorable organizational framework for

slipped out of his tent, worked his way over a barbed-wire fence, swam 1.5 miles (2.4 km) past patrol boats and bright spotlights, through storm-wracked waters, using the distant Gibbs Hill Lighthouse for navigation until he arrived ashore on the main island. From there he escaped to the port of St. George's and a week later, he stowed away on a boat heading to Baltimore, Maryland. He settled in the US and later became a spy for Germany in both World Wars. He claimed to be responsible for the 1916 death of Lord Kitchener in the sinking of , the head of the British Army who had also commanded British forces in South Africa during the second Boer War, but this had resulted from a mine. In 1942, Col. Duquesne was arrested by the FBI for leading the Duquesne Spy Ring, which to this day remains the largest espionage case in the history of the United States. Lord Kitchener's brother, Lt. Gen. Sir Walter Kitchener, had been the governor of Bermuda from 1908 until his death in 1912. His son, Major Hal Kitchener, bought Hinson's Island (with his partner, Major Hemming, another First World War aviator). The island had formerly been part of the Boer POW camp, housing teenaged prisoners from 1901 to 1902. 20th and 21st centuries In the early 20th century, as modern transport and communication systems developed, Bermuda became a popular destination for American, Canadian and British tourists arriving by sea. The US Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which enacted protectionist trade tariffs on goods imported into the US, led to the demise of Bermuda's once-thriving agricultural export trade to America and encouraged development of tourism as an alternative source of income. The island was one of the centres for illegal alcohol smuggling during the era of Prohibition in the United States (1920–1933). A rail line was constructed in Bermuda in the 1920s, opening in 1931 as the Bermuda Railway. Although popular, its high operating costs and the introduction of automobiles to the islands doomed the line, which was abandoned in 1948. The right of way is now the Bermuda Railway Trail. In 1930, after several failed attempts, a Stinson Detroiter seaplane flew to Bermuda from New York City, the first aeroplane ever to reach the islands. The flight was not without incident, as the aircraft had to land twice in the ocean, once because of darkness and again when it needed to refuel. Navigation and weather forecasting improved in 1933 when the Royal Air Force (then responsible for providing equipment and personnel for the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm) established a station at the Royal Naval Dockyard to repair float planes (and supply replacements) for the fleet. In 1936, Luft Hansa began to experiment with seaplane flights from Berlin via the Azores with continuation flights to New York City. In 1937, Imperial Airways and Pan American Airways began operating scheduled flying boat airline services from New York and Baltimore to Darrell's Island, Bermuda. In World War II the Hamilton Princess Hotel became a censorship centre. All mail, radio and telegraphic traffic bound for Europe, the US and the Far East was intercepted and analysed by 1,200 censors, of British Imperial Censorship, part of British Security Coordination (BSC), before being routed to their destination. With BSC working closely with the FBI, the censors were responsible for the discovery and arrest of a number of Axis spies operating in the US, including the Joe K ring. In 1948, a regularly scheduled commercial airline service began to operate, using land-based aeroplanes landing at Kindley Field (now L.F. Wade International Airport), helping tourism to reach a peak in the 1960s and 1970s. By the end of the 1970s, however, international business had supplanted tourism as the dominant sector of Bermuda's economy. The Royal Naval Dockyard and its attendant military garrison remained important to Bermuda's economy until the mid-20th century. In addition to considerable building work, the armed forces needed to source food and other materials from local vendors. Beginning in World War II, US military installations were also located in Bermuda, including a naval air station and submarine base along with US Army air, anti-aircraft, and coast artillery forces. The Army forces were under the Bermuda Base Command during the war, with some shifting and renaming of bases between the US Army, Navy, and Air Force after the war. The American military presence lasted until 1995. Universal adult suffrage and development of a two-party political system took place in the 1960s. Universal suffrage was adopted as part of Bermuda's Constitution in 1967; voting had previously been dependent on a certain level of property ownership. On 10 March 1973, the governor of Bermuda, Richard Sharples, was assassinated by local Black Power militants during a period of civil unrest. Some moves were made towards possible independence for the islands, however this was decisively rejected in a referendum in 1995. At the 2020 Summer Olympics, Bermuda became the smallest overseas territory to earn a medal, as Flora Duffy won gold in the women's triathlon. Geography Bermuda is a group of low-forming volcanoes in the Atlantic Ocean, in the west of the Sargasso Sea, roughly east-southeast of Cape Hatteras on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, United States which is the nearest landmass. Although usually referred to as one island, the territory consists of 181 islands, with a total area of . The largest island is Main Island (also called Bermuda). Eight larger and populated islands are connected by bridges. The territory is largely low-lying, with the tallest peak being Town Hill on Main Island at 79 metres tall (260'). The territory's coastline is . Bermuda gives its name to the Bermuda Triangle, a region of sea in which, according to legend, a number of aircraft and boats have disappeared under unexplained or mysterious circumstances. Main sights Bermuda's pink sand beaches and clear, cerulean blue ocean waters are popular with tourists. Many of Bermuda's hotels are located along the south shore of the island. In addition to its beaches, there are a number of sightseeing attractions. Historic St. George's is a designated World Heritage Site. Scuba divers can explore numerous wrecks and coral reefs in relatively shallow water (typically in depth), with virtually unlimited visibility. Many nearby reefs are readily accessible from shore by snorkellers, especially at Church Bay. Bermuda's most popular visitor attraction is the Royal Naval Dockyard, which includes the National Museum of Bermuda. Other attractions include the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo, Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute, the Botanical Gardens and Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art, lighthouses, and the Crystal Caves with stalactites and underground saltwater pools. Non-residents are prohibited from driving cars on the island. Public transport and taxis are available or visitors can hire scooters for use as private transport. Geology Bermuda consists of over 150 limestone islands, but especially five main islands, along the southern margin of the Bermuda Platform, one of three topographic highs found on the Bermuda Pedestal. This Bermuda Pedestal sits atop the Bermuda Rise, a mid-basin swell surrounded by abyssal plains. The Bermuda Pedestal is one of four topographic highs aligned roughly from North-East to South-West. The others, all submerged, being Bowditch Seamount to the North-East, and Challenger Bank and Argus Bank to the South-West. Initial uplift of this rise occurred in the Middle to Late Eocene and concluded by the Late Oligocene, when it subsided below sea level. The volcanic rocks associated with this rise are tholeiitic lavas and intrusive lamprophyre sheets, which form a volcanic basement, on average, 50 metres (165') below the island carbonate surface. The limestones of Bermuda consist of biocalcarenites with minor conglomerates. The portion of Bermuda above sea level consists of rocks deposited by aeolian processes, with a karst terrain. These eolianites are actually the type locality, and formed during interglaciations (i.e., the upper levels of the limestone cap, formed primarily by calcium-secreting algae, was broken down into sand by wave action during interglaciation when the seamount was submerged, and during glaciation, when the top of the seamount was above sea level, that sand was blown into dunes and fused together into a limestone sandstone), and are laced by red paleosols, also referred to as geosols or terra rossas, indicative of Saharan atmospheric dust and forming during glacial stages. The stratigraphic column starts with the Walsingham Formation, overlain by the Castle Harbour Geosol, the Lower and Upper Town Hill Formations separated by the Harbour Road Geosol, the Ord Road Geosol, the Belmont Formation, the Shore Hills Geosol, the Rocky Bay Formation, and the Southampton Formation. The older eolianite ridges (Older Bermuda) are more rounded and subdued compared to the outer coastline (Younger Bermuda). Thus, post deposition morphology includes chemical erosion, with inshore water bodies demonstrating that much of Bermuda is partially drowned Pleistocene karst. The Walsingham Formation is a clear example, constituting the cave district around Castle Harbour. The Upper Town Hill Formation forms the core of the Main Island, and prominent hills such as Town Hill, Knapton Hill, and St. David's Lighthouse, while the highest hills, Gibbs Hill Lighthouse, are due to the Southampton Formation. Bermuda has two major aquifers, the Langton Aquifer located within the Southampton, Rocky Bay and Belmont Formations, and the Brighton Aquifer located within the Town Hill Formation. Four freshwater lenses occur in Bermuda, with the Central Lens being the largest on Main Island, containing an area of 7.2 km2 (1,800 acres) and a thickness greater than 10 metres (30'). Climate Bermuda has a tropical rainforest climate (Köppen climate classification: Af), bordering very closely on a humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification: Cfa). It is also an oceanic climate, common to many oceanic islands and to the western coasts of continents in the Northern Hemisphere (resulting in a more moderate climate on the western coast of Europe than on the eastern coast of North America), characterised by high relative humidity that moderates temperature, ensuring generally mild winters and summers. Bermuda is warmed by the nearby Gulf Stream, and low latitude. The islands may experience modestly cooler temperatures in January, February, and March [average ]. There has never been snow, a frost or freeze on record in Bermuda. Summertime heat index in Bermuda can be high, although mid-August temperatures rarely exceed . The highest recorded temperature was in August 1989. The average annual temperature of the Atlantic Ocean around Bermuda is , from in February to in August. Bermuda is in the hurricane belt. Along the Gulf Stream, it is often directly in the path of hurricanes recurving in the westerlies, although they usually begin to weaken as they approach Bermuda, whose small size means that direct landfalls of hurricanes are rare. Hurricane Emily was the first to do so in three decades when it struck Bermuda without warning in 1987. The most recent hurricanes to cause significant damage to Bermuda were category 2 Hurricane Gonzalo on 18 October 2014 and category 3 Hurricane Nicole on 14 October 2016, both of which struck the island directly. Hurricane Paulette directly hit the island in 2020. Before that, Hurricane Fabian on 5 September 2003 was the last major hurricane to hit Bermuda directly. With no rivers or freshwater lakes, the only source of fresh water is rainfall, which is collected on roofs and catchments (or drawn from underground lenses) and stored in tanks. Each dwelling usually has at least one of these tanks forming part of its foundation. The law requires that each household collect rainwater that is piped down from the roof of each house. Average monthly rainfall is highest in October, at over , and lowest in April and May. Access to biocapacity in Bermuda is much lower than world average. In 2016, Bermuda had 0.14 global hectares of biocapacity per person within its territory, far lower than the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In 2016 Bermuda used 7.5 global hectares of biocapacity per person—their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use much more biocapacity than Bermuda contains. As a result, Bermuda runs a biocapacity deficit. Flora and fauna When discovered, Bermuda was uninhabited by humans and mostly dominated by forests of Bermuda cedar, with mangrove marshes along its shores. Only 165 of the island's current 1,000 vascular plant species are considered native; fifteen of those, including the eponymous cedar, are endemic. The semi-tropical climate of Bermuda allowed settlers to introduce many species of trees and plants to the island. Today, many types of palm trees, fruit trees, and bananas grow on Bermuda, though the cultivated coconut palms are considered non-native and may be removed. The country contains the Bermuda subtropical conifer forests terrestrial ecoregion. The only indigenous mammals of Bermuda are five species of bat, all of which are also found in the eastern United States: Lasionycteris noctivagans, Lasiurus borealis, Lasiurus cinereus, Lasiurus seminolus and Perimyotis subflavus. Other commonly known fauna of Bermuda include its national bird, the Bermuda petrel or cahow, which was rediscovered in 1951 after having been thought extinct since the 1620s. The cahow is important as an example of a Lazarus species, hence the government has a programme to protect it, including restoration of its habitat areas. Another well-known species includes the white-tailed tropicbird, locally known as the Longtail. These birds come inland to breed around February to March and are Bermudians' first sign of incoming spring. The Bermuda rock lizard (or Bermuda rock skink) was long thought to have been the only indigenous land vertebrate of Bermuda, discounting the marine turtles that lay their eggs on its beaches. However, scientists have recently discovered through genetic DNA studies that a species of turtle, the diamondback terrapin, previously thought to have been introduced to the archipelago, actually pre-dated the arrival of humans. Demographics Bermuda's 2016 Census put its population at 63,779 and, with an area of , it has a calculated population density of 1,201/km2 (3,111/mi2). As of July 2018, the population is estimated to be 71,176. The racial makeup of Bermuda as recorded by the 2016 census, was 52% Black, 31% White, 9% multiracial, 4% Asian, and 4% other races, these numbers being based on self-identification. The majority of those who answered "Black" may have any mixture of black, white or other ancestry. Native-born Bermudians made up 70% of the population, compared to 30% non-natives. The island experienced large-scale immigration over the 20th century, especially after World War II. Bermuda has a diverse population including both those with relatively deep roots in Bermuda that extend back for centuries, and newer communities whose ancestry results from recent immigration, especially from Britain, North America, the West Indies, and the Portuguese Atlantic islands (especially the Azores and Madeira), although these groups are steadily merging. About 64% of the population identified themselves with Bermudian ancestry in 2010, which was an increase from the 51% who did so in the 2000 census. Those identifying with British ancestry dropped by 1% to 11% (although those born in Britain remain the largest non-native group at 3,942 persons). The number of people born in Canada declined by 13%. Those who reported West Indian ancestry were 13%. The number of people born in the West Indies actually increased by 538. A significant segment of the population is of Portuguese ancestry (25%), the result of immigration over the past 160 years, of whom 79% have residency status. In June 2018, Premier Edward David Burt announced that 4 November 2019 "will be declared a public holiday to mark the 170th anniversary of the arrival of the first Portuguese immigrants in Bermuda" due to the significant impact that Portuguese immigration has had on the territory. Those first immigrants arrived from Madeira aboard the vessel the Golden Rule on 4 November 1849. There are also several thousand expatriate workers, principally from Britain, Canada, the West Indies, South Africa and the United States, who reside in Bermuda. They are primarily engaged in specialised professions such as accounting, finance, and insurance. Others are employed in various trades, such as hotels, restaurants, construction, and landscaping services. The availability of jobs in these industries make Bermuda a popular place to work. Despite the high cost of living, the high salaries offer expatriates several benefits by moving to Bermuda and working for a period of time. However, several laws indicate that workers outside of the country are required to obtain a work permit before entering and are not entitled to citizenship. Of the total workforce of 38,947 persons in 2005, government employment figures stated that 11,223 (29%) were non-Bermudians. Languages The predominant language on Bermuda is Bermudian English. It exhibits characteristics of English as spoken on the Atlantic Seaboard of the United States of America (especially in the region around Virginia), in the Canadian Maritimes, southern England, and parts of the British West Indies. There has been noticeable variation in Bermudian English depending on the part of Bermuda and the demographic of the speaker. Much of the population adopted trans-Atlantic English over the latter decades of the twentieth century, while immigration has affected certain areas more than others. Many West Indian workers immigrated to Bermuda in the twentieth century, starting with hundreds of labourers brought in to expand the Royal Naval Dockyard at the West End at the start of the century. Many others immigrated later in the century, settling mostly in Pembroke Parish and western Devonshire Parish, north of the City of Hamilton, and the "back of town" (of Hamilton) dialect and the English spoken by many Blacks at the West End consequently reflects this. The West End also absorbed large numbers of civilian shipwrights and other British workers who were employed at the dockyard until it was reduced to a base in 1951. The central parishes also absorbed considerable numbers of white immigrants from Britain and elsewhere, especially in the years after World War II (when the local government loosened immigration laws to encourage white immigration to counter Black immigration from the West Indies), speaking various varieties of Southern England English, Northern England English, and Scots, et cetera. The central parishes were also where most immigrants from Portuguese territories have settled since the 1840s, and many Bermudians in this area especially speak a Portuguese-influenced Bermudian English as a badge of pride. The East End of Bermuda, which became increasingly cut off from investment and development after the capital moved from St. George's to Hamilton in 1815, has seen the least immigration over the twentieth century, with the least effect how English is spoken there, though the introduction of motor vehicles in 1948 has led to considerable spread of previously more isolated populations throughout Bermuda. The English of the St. David's Islanders, while often derided, is generally perceived as the most authentic form of Bermudian English. British English spellings and conventions are used in print media and formal written communications. Portuguese is also spoken by migrants from the Azores, Madeira, and the Cape Verde Islands and their descendants. Religion Christianity is the largest religion on Bermuda. Various Protestant denominations are dominant at 46.2% (including Anglican 15.8%, African Methodist Episcopal 8.6%, Seventh-day Adventist 6.7%, Pentecostal 3.5%, Methodist 2.7%, Presbyterian 2.0%, Church of God 1.6%, Baptist 1.2%, Salvation Army 1.1%, Brethren 1.0%, other Protestant 2.0%). Roman Catholics form 14.5%, Jehovah's Witnesses 1.3%, and other Christians 9.1%. The balance of the population are Muslim 1%, other 3.9%, none 17.8%, or unspecified 6.2% (2010 est.). The Anglican Church of Bermuda, an Anglican Communion diocese separate from the Church of England, operates the oldest non-Catholic parish in the New World, St. Peter's Church. Catholics are served by a single Latin diocese, the Diocese of Hamilton in Bermuda. Politics Bermuda is an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom, and the Government of the United Kingdom is the sovereign government. Executive authority in Bermuda is vested in the British monarch (currently Elizabeth II) and is exercised on her behalf by the governor of Bermuda. The governor is appointed by the queen on the advice of the British Government. Since December 2020, the governor is Rena Lalgie; she was sworn in on 14 December 2020. There is also a deputy governor (currently Alison Crocket). Defence and foreign affairs are the responsibility of the United Kingdom, which also retains responsibility to ensure good government and must approve any changes to the Constitution of Bermuda. Bermuda is Britain's oldest overseas territory. Although the House of Commons remains the sovereign Parliament, in 1620, a Royal Proclamation granted Bermuda limited self-governance; delegating to the House of Assembly of the Parliament of Bermuda the internal legislation of the colony. The Parliament of Bermuda is the fifth oldest legislature in the world, behind the Parliament of England, the Tynwald of the Isle of Man, the Althing of Iceland, and the Sejm of Poland. The Constitution of Bermuda came into force in 1968 and has been amended several times since then. The head of government is the premier of Bermuda; a cabinet is nominated by the premier and appointed officially by the governor. The legislative branch consists of a bicameral parliament modelled on the Westminster system. The Senate is the upper house, consisting of 11 members appointed by the governor on the advice of the premier and the leader of the opposition. The House of Assembly, or lower house, has 36 members, elected by the eligible voting populace in secret ballot to represent geographically defined constituencies. Elections for the Parliament of Bermuda must be called at no more than five-year intervals. The most recent took place on 1st October 2020. Following this election, the Progressive Labour Party held onto power, with Edward David Burt sworn in as Premier for the second time. There are few accredited diplomats in Bermuda. The United States maintains the largest diplomatic mission in Bermuda, comprising both the United States Consulate and the US Customs and Border Protection Services at the L.F. Wade International Airport. The United States is Bermuda's largest trading partner (providing over 71% of total imports, 85% of tourist visitors, and an estimated $163 billion of US capital in the Bermuda insurance/re-insurance industry). According to the 2016 Bermuda census 5.6% of Bermuda residents were born in the US, representing over 18% of all foreign-born persons. Nationality and citizenship Historically, English (later British) colonials shared the same citizenship as those born within that part of the sovereign territory of the Kingdom of England (including the Principality of Wales) that lay within the Island of Britain (although the Magna Carta had effectively created English citizenship, citizens were still termed subjects of the King of England or English subjects. With the 1707 union of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, this was replaced with British Subject, which encompassed citizens throughout the sovereign territory of the British Government, including its colonies, though not the British protectorates). With no representation at the sovereign or national level of government, British colonials were therefore not consulted, or required to give their consent, to a series of Acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom between 1968 and 1982, which were to limit their rights and ultimately change their citizenship. When several colonies had been elevated before the Second World War to Dominion status, collectively forming the old British Commonwealth (as distinct from the United Kingdom and its dependent colonies), their citizens remained British Subjects, and in theory, any British Subject born anywhere in the World had the same basic right to enter, reside, and work in the United Kingdom as a British Subject born in the United Kingdom whose parents were also both British Subjects born in the United Kingdom (although many governmental policies and practices acted to thwart the free exercise of these right by various groups of colonials, including Greek Cypriots). When the Dominions and an increasing number of colonies began choosing complete independence from the United Kingdom after the Second World War, the Commonwealth was transformed into a community of independent nations, or Commonwealth Realms, each recognising the British monarch as its own head of state (creating separate monarchies with the same person occupying all of the separate Thrones; the exception being republican India). British Subject was replaced by the British Nationality Act 1948 with Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies for the residents of the United Kingdom and its colonies, as well as for the Crown Dependencies. However, as it was desired to retain free movement for all Commonwealth Citizens throughout the Commonwealth, British Subject was retained as a blanket nationality shared by Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies (the British realm) as well as the citizens of the various other Commonwealth realms. The inflow of people of colour to the United Kingdom in the 1940s and 1950s from both the remaining colonies and newly independent Commonwealth nations was responded to with a backlash that led to the passing of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, which restricted the rights of Commonwealth nationals to enter, reside and work in the United Kingdom. This Act also allowed certain colonials (primarily ethnic-Indians in African colonies) to retain Citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies if their colonies became independent, which was intended as a measure to ensure these persons did not become stateless if they were denied the citizenship of their newly independent nation. Many ethnic-Indians from former African colonies (notably Kenya) subsequently relocated to the United Kingdom, in response to which the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968 was rapidly passed, stripping all British Subjects (including Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies) who were not born in the United Kingdom, and who did not have a Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies parent or grandparent born in the United Kingdom or some other qualification (such as existing residence status), of the rights to freely enter, reside and work in the United Kingdom. Although the 1968 Act was intended primarily to bar immigration of specific British passport holders from Commonwealth countries in Africa, it amended the wording of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 in such a way as to apply to apply to all Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies who were not specifically excepted, including most colonials. By comparison: Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962: Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968: This was followed by the Immigration Act 1971, which effectively divided Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies into two types, although their citizenship remained the same: Patrials, who were those from (or with a specified qualifying connection to) the United Kingdom itself, who retained the rights of free entry, abode, and work in the United Kingdom; and those born in the colonies (or in foreign countries to British Colonial parents), from whom those rights were denied. The British Nationality Act 1981, which entered into force on 1 January 1983, abolished British Subject status, and stripped colonials of their full British Citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies, replacing it with British Dependent Territories Citizenship, which entailed no right of abode or to work anywhere. This left Bermudians and most other erstwhile British colonials as British nationals without the rights of British citizenship. The exceptions were the Gibraltarians (permitted to retain British Citizenship in order to also retain Citizenship of the European Union) and the Falkland Islanders, who were permitted to retain the same new British Citizenship that became the default citizenship for those from the United Kingdom and the Crown dependencies. As the Act was widely understood to have been passed in preparation for the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China (in order to prevent ethnic-Chinese British nationals from migrating to the United Kingdom), and given the history of neglect and racism those colonies with sizeable non-European (to use the British Government's parlance) populations had endured from the British Government since the end of Empire, the changing of the default citizenship to British Dependent Territories Citizenship only for the colonies with sizeable non-European populations has been understood by Bermudians as a particularly egregious example of racism. This has been further emphasised by the sizeable percentage of white Bermudians who retained right-of-abode in the United Kingdom while very few black Bermudians did. The stripping of birth rights from Bermudians by the British Government in 1968 and 1971, and the change of their citizenship in 1983, actually violated the rights granted them by Royal Charters at the founding of the colony. Bermuda (fully The Somers Isles or Islands of Bermuda) had been settled by the London Company (which had been in occupation of the archipelago since the 1609 wreck of the Sea Venture) in 1612, when it received its Third Royal Charter from King James I, amending the boundaries of the First Colony of Virginia far enough across the Atlantic to include Bermuda. The citizenship rights guaranteed to settlers by King James I in the original Royal Charter of the 10 April 1606, thereby applied to Bermudians: These rights were confirmed in the Royal Charter granted to the London Company's spin-off, the Company of the City of London for the Plantacion of The Somers Isles, in 1615 on Bermuda being separated from Virginia: Bermuda is not the only territory whose citizenship rights were laid down in a Royal Charter. In regards to St. Helena, Lord Beaumont of Whitley in the House of Lords debate on the British Overseas Territories Bill on 10 July 2001, stated: Some Conservative Party backbenchers stated that it was the unpublished intention of the Conservative British Government to return to a single citizenship for the United Kingdom and all of the remaining territories once Hong Kong had been handed over to China. Whether this was so will never be known as by 1997 the Labour Party was in Government. The Labour Party had declared prior to the election that the colonies had been ill-treated by the British Nationality Act 1981, and it had made a pledge to return to a single citizenship for the United Kingdom and the remaining territories part of its election manifesto. Other matters took precedence, however, and this commitment was not acted upon during Labour's first term in Government. The House of Lords, in which many former colonial Governors sat (including former Governor of Bermuda Lord Waddington), lost patience and tabled and passed its own bill, then handed it down to the House of Commons to confirm in 2001. As a result, the British Dependent Territories were renamed the British Overseas Territories in 2002 (the term dependent territory had caused much ire in the former colonies, especially well-heeled and self-reliant Bermuda, as it implied not only that British Dependent Territories Citizens were other than British, but that their relationship to Britain and to real British people was both inferior and parasitic). At the same time, although Labour had promised a return to a single citizenship for the United Kingdom, Crown dependencies, and all remaining territories, British Dependent Territories Citizenship, renamed British Overseas Territories Citizenship, remained the default citizenship for the territories, other than the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar (for which British Citizenship is still the default citizenship). The bars to residence and work in the United Kingdom that had been raised against holders of British Dependent Territories Citizenship by The British Nationality Act 1981 were, however, removed, and British Citizenship was made attainable by simply obtaining a second British passport with the citizenship recorded as British Citizen (requiring a change to passport legislation as prior to 2002, it had been illegal to possess two British Passports). Administrative divisions Bermuda is divided into nine parishes and two incorporated municipalities. Bermuda's nine parishes are: Devonshire Hamilton Paget Pembroke Sandys Smith's Southampton St George's Warwick Bermuda's two incorporated municipalities are: Hamilton (city) St George's (town) Bermuda's two informal villages are: Flatts Village Somerset Village Jones Village in Warwick, Cashew City (St. George's), Claytown (Hamilton), Middle Town (Pembroke), and Tucker's Town (St. George's) are neighbourhoods (the original settlement at Tucker's Town was replaced with a golf course in the 1920s and the few houses in the area today are mostly on the water's edge of Castle Harbour or the adjacent peninsula); Dandy Town and North Village are sports clubs, and Harbour View Village is a small public housing development. International relations As a British Overseas Territory, Bermuda does not have a seat in the United Nations; it is represented by Britain in matters of foreign affairs. To promote its economic interests abroad, Bermuda maintains representative offices in London and Washington, D.C. Only the United States and Portugal have full-time diplomatic representation in Bermuda (the U.S. maintains a Consulate-General, and Portugal maintains a Consulate), while 17 countries maintain honorary consuls in Bermuda. Bermuda's proximity to the US had made it attractive as the site for summit conferences between British prime ministers and US presidents. The first summit was held in December 1953, at the insistence of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, to discuss relations with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Participants included Churchill, US president Dwight D. Eisenhower and French premier Joseph Laniel. In 1957 a second summit conference was held. The British prime minister, Harold Macmillan, arrived earlier than President Eisenhower, to demonstrate they were meeting on British territory, as tensions were still high regarding the previous year's conflict over the Suez Canal. Macmillan returned in 1961 for the third summit with President John F. Kennedy. The meeting was called to discuss Cold War tensions arising from construction of the Berlin Wall. The most recent summit conference in Bermuda between the two powers occurred in 1990, when British prime minister Margaret Thatcher met US president George H. W. Bush. Direct meetings between the president of the United States and the premier of Bermuda have been rare. The most recent meeting was on 23 June 2008, between Premier Ewart Brown and President George W. Bush. Prior to this, the leaders of Bermuda and the United States had not met at the White House since a 1996 meeting between Premier David Saul and President Bill Clinton. Bermuda has also joined several other jurisdictions in efforts to protect the Sargasso Sea. In 2013 and 2017 Bermuda chaired the United Kingdom Overseas Territories Association. Asylum offer to four former Guantánamo detainees On 11 June 2009, four Uyghurs who had been held in the United States Guantánamo Bay detention camp, in Cuba, were transferred to Bermuda. The four men were among 22 Uyghurs who claimed to be refugees who were captured in 2001 in Pakistan after fleeing the American aerial bombardment of Afghanistan. They were accused of training to assist the Taliban's military. They were cleared as safe for release from Guantánamo in 2005 or 2006, but US domestic law prohibited deporting them back to China, their country of citizenship, because the US government determined that China was likely to violate their human rights. In September 2008, the men were cleared of all suspicion and Judge Ricardo Urbina in Washington ordered their release. Congressional opposition to their admittance to the United States was very strong and the US failed to find a home for them until Bermuda and Palau agreed to accept the 22 men in June 2009. The secret bilateral discussions that led to prisoner transfers between the US and the devolved Bermuda government sparked diplomatic ire from the United Kingdom, which was not consulted on the move despite Bermuda being a British territory. The British Foreign Office issued the following statement: In August 2018, the four Uyghurs were granted limited citizenship in Bermuda. The men now have the same rights as Bermudians except the right to vote. British North America, British West Indies and the Caribbean Community The British Government originally grouped Bermuda with North America (given its proximity, and Bermuda having been established as an extension of the Colony of Virginia, and with Carolina Colony, the nearest landfall, having been settled from Bermuda). After the acknowledgement by the British Government of the independence of thirteen continental colonies (including Virginia and the Carolinas) in 1783, Bermuda was generally grouped regionally by the British Government with The Maritimes and Newfoundland and Labrador (and more widely, with British North America), substantially nearer to Bermuda than the Caribbean. From 1783 through 1801, the British Empire, including British North America, was administered by the Home Office and by the Home Secretary, then from 1801 to 1854 by the War Office (which became the War and Colonial Office) and Secretary of State for War and Colonies (as the Secretary of State for War was renamed). From 1824, the British Empire was divided by the War and Colonial Office into four administrative departments, including NORTH AMERICA, the WEST INDIES, MEDITERRANEAN AND AFRICA, and EASTERN COLONIES, of which North America included: NORTH AMERICA Upper Canada, Lower Canada New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island Bermuda, Newfoundland The Colonial Office and War Office, and the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Secretary of State for War, were separated in 1854. The War Office, from then until the 1867 confederation of the Dominion of Canada, split the military administration of the British colonial and foreign stations into nine districts: NORTH AMERICA AND NORTH ATLANTIC; WEST INDIES; MEDITERRANEAN; WEST COAST OF AFRICA AND SOUTH ATLANTIC; SOUTH AFRICA; EGYPT AND THE SUDAN; INDIAN OCEAN; AUSTRALASIA; and CHINA. NORTH AMERICA AND NORTH ATLANTIC included the following stations (or garrisons): NORTH AMERICA AND NORTH ATLANTIC New Westminster (British Columbia) Newfoundland Quebec Halifax Kingston, Canada West Bermuda However, with the confederation of the Canadas and the Maritimes and their attainment of Dominion status in the 1860s, the British political, naval and military hierarchy in Bermuda became increasingly separated from that of the Canadian Government (the Royal Navy headquarters for the North America and West Indies Station had spent summers at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and winters at Bermuda, but settled at Bermuda year round with the Royal Naval Dockyard, Halifax finally being transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy in 1907, and the Bermuda Garrison had been placed under the military Commander-in-Chief America in New York during the American War of Independence, and had been part of the Nova Scotia Command thereafter, but became the separate Bermuda Command from the 1860s with the Major-General or Lieutenant-General appointed as Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda also filling the civil role of Governor of Bermuda), and Bermuda was increasingly perceived by the British Government as in, or at least grouped for convenience with, the British West Indies (although the established Church of England in Bermuda, which from 1825 to 1839 had been attached to the See of Nova Scotia) remained part of the Diocese of Newfoundland and Bermuda until 1879, when the Synod of the Church of England in Bermuda was formed and a Diocese of Bermuda became separate from the Diocese of Newfoundland, but continued to be grouped under the Bishop of Newfoundland and Bermuda until 1919, when Newfoundland and Bermuda each received its own bishop. Newfoundland attained Dominion status in 1907, leaving the nearest other territories to Bermuda that were still within the British Realm (a term which replaced Dominion in 1952 as the dominions and many colonies moved towards full political independence) as the British colonies in the British West Indies. Other denominations also at one time included Bermuda with Nova Scotia or Canada. Following the separation of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic worship was outlawed in England (subsequently Britain) and its colonies, including Bermuda, until the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791, and operated thereafter under restrictions until the Twentieth Century. Once Roman Catholic worship was established, Bermuda formed part of the Archdiocese of Halifax, Nova Scotia until 1953, when it was separated to become the Apostolic Prefecture of Bermuda Islands. The congregation of the first African Methodist Episcopal Church in Bermuda (St. John African Methodist Episcopal Church, erected in 1885 in Hamilton Parish) had previously been part of the British Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada. Bermuda became an associate member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in July 2003, despite not being in the Caribbean region. CARICOM is a socio-economic bloc of nations in or near the Caribbean Sea established in 1973. Other outlying member states include the Co-operative Republic of Guyana and the Republic of Suriname in South America, and Belize in Central America. The Turks and Caicos Islands, an associate member of CARICOM, and the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, a full member of CARICOM, are in the Atlantic, but close to the Caribbean. Other nearby nations or territories, such as the United States, are not members (although the US Commonwealth of Puerto Rico has observer status, and the United States Virgin Islands announced in 2007 that they would seek ties with CARICOM). Bermuda has minimal trade with the Caribbean region, and little in common with it economically, being roughly a thousand miles from the Caribbean Sea; it joined CARICOM primarily to strengthen cultural links with the region. Among some scholars, "the Caribbean" can be a socio-historical category, commonly referring to a cultural zone characterised by the legacy of slavery (a characteristic Bermuda shared with the Caribbean and the US) and the plantation system (which did not exist in Bermuda). It embraces the islands and parts of the neighbouring continent, and may be extended to include the Caribbean Diaspora overseas. The PLP, which was the party in government when the decision was made to join CARICOM, has been dominated for decades by West Indians and their descendants. The prominent roles of West Indians among Bermuda's black politicians and labour activists predated party politics in Bermuda, as exemplified by E. F. Gordon. The late PLP leader, Dame Lois Browne-Evans, and her Trinidadian-born husband, John Evans (who co-founded the West Indian Association of Bermuda in 1976), were prominent members of this group. They have emphasised Bermuda's cultural connections with the West Indies. Many Bermudians, both black and white, who lack family connections to the West Indies have objected to this emphasis. The decision to join CARICOM stirred up a huge amount of debate and speculation among the Bermudian community and politicians. Opinion polls conducted by two Bermudian newspapers, The Royal Gazette and The Bermuda Sun, showed that clear majorities of Bermudians were opposed to joining CARICOM. The UBP, which had been in government from 1968 to 1998, argued that joining CARICOM was detrimental to Bermuda's interests: Bermuda's trade with the West

the years after World War II (when the local government loosened immigration laws to encourage white immigration to counter Black immigration from the West Indies), speaking various varieties of Southern England English, Northern England English, and Scots, et cetera. The central parishes were also where most immigrants from Portuguese territories have settled since the 1840s, and many Bermudians in this area especially speak a Portuguese-influenced Bermudian English as a badge of pride. The East End of Bermuda, which became increasingly cut off from investment and development after the capital moved from St. George's to Hamilton in 1815, has seen the least immigration over the twentieth century, with the least effect how English is spoken there, though the introduction of motor vehicles in 1948 has led to considerable spread of previously more isolated populations throughout Bermuda. The English of the St. David's Islanders, while often derided, is generally perceived as the most authentic form of Bermudian English. British English spellings and conventions are used in print media and formal written communications. Portuguese is also spoken by migrants from the Azores, Madeira, and the Cape Verde Islands and their descendants. Religion Christianity is the largest religion on Bermuda. Various Protestant denominations are dominant at 46.2% (including Anglican 15.8%, African Methodist Episcopal 8.6%, Seventh-day Adventist 6.7%, Pentecostal 3.5%, Methodist 2.7%, Presbyterian 2.0%, Church of God 1.6%, Baptist 1.2%, Salvation Army 1.1%, Brethren 1.0%, other Protestant 2.0%). Roman Catholics form 14.5%, Jehovah's Witnesses 1.3%, and other Christians 9.1%. The balance of the population are Muslim 1%, other 3.9%, none 17.8%, or unspecified 6.2% (2010 est.). The Anglican Church of Bermuda, an Anglican Communion diocese separate from the Church of England, operates the oldest non-Catholic parish in the New World, St. Peter's Church. Catholics are served by a single Latin diocese, the Diocese of Hamilton in Bermuda. Politics Bermuda is an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom, and the Government of the United Kingdom is the sovereign government. Executive authority in Bermuda is vested in the British monarch (currently Elizabeth II) and is exercised on her behalf by the governor of Bermuda. The governor is appointed by the queen on the advice of the British Government. Since December 2020, the governor is Rena Lalgie; she was sworn in on 14 December 2020. There is also a deputy governor (currently Alison Crocket). Defence and foreign affairs are the responsibility of the United Kingdom, which also retains responsibility to ensure good government and must approve any changes to the Constitution of Bermuda. Bermuda is Britain's oldest overseas territory. Although the House of Commons remains the sovereign Parliament, in 1620, a Royal Proclamation granted Bermuda limited self-governance; delegating to the House of Assembly of the Parliament of Bermuda the internal legislation of the colony. The Parliament of Bermuda is the fifth oldest legislature in the world, behind the Parliament of England, the Tynwald of the Isle of Man, the Althing of Iceland, and the Sejm of Poland. The Constitution of Bermuda came into force in 1968 and has been amended several times since then. The head of government is the premier of Bermuda; a cabinet is nominated by the premier and appointed officially by the governor. The legislative branch consists of a bicameral parliament modelled on the Westminster system. The Senate is the upper house, consisting of 11 members appointed by the governor on the advice of the premier and the leader of the opposition. The House of Assembly, or lower house, has 36 members, elected by the eligible voting populace in secret ballot to represent geographically defined constituencies. Elections for the Parliament of Bermuda must be called at no more than five-year intervals. The most recent took place on 1st October 2020. Following this election, the Progressive Labour Party held onto power, with Edward David Burt sworn in as Premier for the second time. There are few accredited diplomats in Bermuda. The United States maintains the largest diplomatic mission in Bermuda, comprising both the United States Consulate and the US Customs and Border Protection Services at the L.F. Wade International Airport. The United States is Bermuda's largest trading partner (providing over 71% of total imports, 85% of tourist visitors, and an estimated $163 billion of US capital in the Bermuda insurance/re-insurance industry). According to the 2016 Bermuda census 5.6% of Bermuda residents were born in the US, representing over 18% of all foreign-born persons. Nationality and citizenship Historically, English (later British) colonials shared the same citizenship as those born within that part of the sovereign territory of the Kingdom of England (including the Principality of Wales) that lay within the Island of Britain (although the Magna Carta had effectively created English citizenship, citizens were still termed subjects of the King of England or English subjects. With the 1707 union of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, this was replaced with British Subject, which encompassed citizens throughout the sovereign territory of the British Government, including its colonies, though not the British protectorates). With no representation at the sovereign or national level of government, British colonials were therefore not consulted, or required to give their consent, to a series of Acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom between 1968 and 1982, which were to limit their rights and ultimately change their citizenship. When several colonies had been elevated before the Second World War to Dominion status, collectively forming the old British Commonwealth (as distinct from the United Kingdom and its dependent colonies), their citizens remained British Subjects, and in theory, any British Subject born anywhere in the World had the same basic right to enter, reside, and work in the United Kingdom as a British Subject born in the United Kingdom whose parents were also both British Subjects born in the United Kingdom (although many governmental policies and practices acted to thwart the free exercise of these right by various groups of colonials, including Greek Cypriots). When the Dominions and an increasing number of colonies began choosing complete independence from the United Kingdom after the Second World War, the Commonwealth was transformed into a community of independent nations, or Commonwealth Realms, each recognising the British monarch as its own head of state (creating separate monarchies with the same person occupying all of the separate Thrones; the exception being republican India). British Subject was replaced by the British Nationality Act 1948 with Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies for the residents of the United Kingdom and its colonies, as well as for the Crown Dependencies. However, as it was desired to retain free movement for all Commonwealth Citizens throughout the Commonwealth, British Subject was retained as a blanket nationality shared by Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies (the British realm) as well as the citizens of the various other Commonwealth realms. The inflow of people of colour to the United Kingdom in the 1940s and 1950s from both the remaining colonies and newly independent Commonwealth nations was responded to with a backlash that led to the passing of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, which restricted the rights of Commonwealth nationals to enter, reside and work in the United Kingdom. This Act also allowed certain colonials (primarily ethnic-Indians in African colonies) to retain Citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies if their colonies became independent, which was intended as a measure to ensure these persons did not become stateless if they were denied the citizenship of their newly independent nation. Many ethnic-Indians from former African colonies (notably Kenya) subsequently relocated to the United Kingdom, in response to which the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968 was rapidly passed, stripping all British Subjects (including Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies) who were not born in the United Kingdom, and who did not have a Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies parent or grandparent born in the United Kingdom or some other qualification (such as existing residence status), of the rights to freely enter, reside and work in the United Kingdom. Although the 1968 Act was intended primarily to bar immigration of specific British passport holders from Commonwealth countries in Africa, it amended the wording of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 in such a way as to apply to apply to all Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies who were not specifically excepted, including most colonials. By comparison: Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962: Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968: This was followed by the Immigration Act 1971, which effectively divided Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies into two types, although their citizenship remained the same: Patrials, who were those from (or with a specified qualifying connection to) the United Kingdom itself, who retained the rights of free entry, abode, and work in the United Kingdom; and those born in the colonies (or in foreign countries to British Colonial parents), from whom those rights were denied. The British Nationality Act 1981, which entered into force on 1 January 1983, abolished British Subject status, and stripped colonials of their full British Citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies, replacing it with British Dependent Territories Citizenship, which entailed no right of abode or to work anywhere. This left Bermudians and most other erstwhile British colonials as British nationals without the rights of British citizenship. The exceptions were the Gibraltarians (permitted to retain British Citizenship in order to also retain Citizenship of the European Union) and the Falkland Islanders, who were permitted to retain the same new British Citizenship that became the default citizenship for those from the United Kingdom and the Crown dependencies. As the Act was widely understood to have been passed in preparation for the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China (in order to prevent ethnic-Chinese British nationals from migrating to the United Kingdom), and given the history of neglect and racism those colonies with sizeable non-European (to use the British Government's parlance) populations had endured from the British Government since the end of Empire, the changing of the default citizenship to British Dependent Territories Citizenship only for the colonies with sizeable non-European populations has been understood by Bermudians as a particularly egregious example of racism. This has been further emphasised by the sizeable percentage of white Bermudians who retained right-of-abode in the United Kingdom while very few black Bermudians did. The stripping of birth rights from Bermudians by the British Government in 1968 and 1971, and the change of their citizenship in 1983, actually violated the rights granted them by Royal Charters at the founding of the colony. Bermuda (fully The Somers Isles or Islands of Bermuda) had been settled by the London Company (which had been in occupation of the archipelago since the 1609 wreck of the Sea Venture) in 1612, when it received its Third Royal Charter from King James I, amending the boundaries of the First Colony of Virginia far enough across the Atlantic to include Bermuda. The citizenship rights guaranteed to settlers by King James I in the original Royal Charter of the 10 April 1606, thereby applied to Bermudians: These rights were confirmed in the Royal Charter granted to the London Company's spin-off, the Company of the City of London for the Plantacion of The Somers Isles, in 1615 on Bermuda being separated from Virginia: Bermuda is not the only territory whose citizenship rights were laid down in a Royal Charter. In regards to St. Helena, Lord Beaumont of Whitley in the House of Lords debate on the British Overseas Territories Bill on 10 July 2001, stated: Some Conservative Party backbenchers stated that it was the unpublished intention of the Conservative British Government to return to a single citizenship for the United Kingdom and all of the remaining territories once Hong Kong had been handed over to China. Whether this was so will never be known as by 1997 the Labour Party was in Government. The Labour Party had declared prior to the election that the colonies had been ill-treated by the British Nationality Act 1981, and it had made a pledge to return to a single citizenship for the United Kingdom and the remaining territories part of its election manifesto. Other matters took precedence, however, and this commitment was not acted upon during Labour's first term in Government. The House of Lords, in which many former colonial Governors sat (including former Governor of Bermuda Lord Waddington), lost patience and tabled and passed its own bill, then handed it down to the House of Commons to confirm in 2001. As a result, the British Dependent Territories were renamed the British Overseas Territories in 2002 (the term dependent territory had caused much ire in the former colonies, especially well-heeled and self-reliant Bermuda, as it implied not only that British Dependent Territories Citizens were other than British, but that their relationship to Britain and to real British people was both inferior and parasitic). At the same time, although Labour had promised a return to a single citizenship for the United Kingdom, Crown dependencies, and all remaining territories, British Dependent Territories Citizenship, renamed British Overseas Territories Citizenship, remained the default citizenship for the territories, other than the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar (for which British Citizenship is still the default citizenship). The bars to residence and work in the United Kingdom that had been raised against holders of British Dependent Territories Citizenship by The British Nationality Act 1981 were, however, removed, and British Citizenship was made attainable by simply obtaining a second British passport with the citizenship recorded as British Citizen (requiring a change to passport legislation as prior to 2002, it had been illegal to possess two British Passports). Administrative divisions Bermuda is divided into nine parishes and two incorporated municipalities. Bermuda's nine parishes are: Devonshire Hamilton Paget Pembroke Sandys Smith's Southampton St George's Warwick Bermuda's two incorporated municipalities are: Hamilton (city) St George's (town) Bermuda's two informal villages are: Flatts Village Somerset Village Jones Village in Warwick, Cashew City (St. George's), Claytown (Hamilton), Middle Town (Pembroke), and Tucker's Town (St. George's) are neighbourhoods (the original settlement at Tucker's Town was replaced with a golf course in the 1920s and the few houses in the area today are mostly on the water's edge of Castle Harbour or the adjacent peninsula); Dandy Town and North Village are sports clubs, and Harbour View Village is a small public housing development. International relations As a British Overseas Territory, Bermuda does not have a seat in the United Nations; it is represented by Britain in matters of foreign affairs. To promote its economic interests abroad, Bermuda maintains representative offices in London and Washington, D.C. Only the United States and Portugal have full-time diplomatic representation in Bermuda (the U.S. maintains a Consulate-General, and Portugal maintains a Consulate), while 17 countries maintain honorary consuls in Bermuda. Bermuda's proximity to the US had made it attractive as the site for summit conferences between British prime ministers and US presidents. The first summit was held in December 1953, at the insistence of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, to discuss relations with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Participants included Churchill, US president Dwight D. Eisenhower and French premier Joseph Laniel. In 1957 a second summit conference was held. The British prime minister, Harold Macmillan, arrived earlier than President Eisenhower, to demonstrate they were meeting on British territory, as tensions were still high regarding the previous year's conflict over the Suez Canal. Macmillan returned in 1961 for the third summit with President John F. Kennedy. The meeting was called to discuss Cold War tensions arising from construction of the Berlin Wall. The most recent summit conference in Bermuda between the two powers occurred in 1990, when British prime minister Margaret Thatcher met US president George H. W. Bush. Direct meetings between the president of the United States and the premier of Bermuda have been rare. The most recent meeting was on 23 June 2008, between Premier Ewart Brown and President George W. Bush. Prior to this, the leaders of Bermuda and the United States had not met at the White House since a 1996 meeting between Premier David Saul and President Bill Clinton. Bermuda has also joined several other jurisdictions in efforts to protect the Sargasso Sea. In 2013 and 2017 Bermuda chaired the United Kingdom Overseas Territories Association. Asylum offer to four former Guantánamo detainees On 11 June 2009, four Uyghurs who had been held in the United States Guantánamo Bay detention camp, in Cuba, were transferred to Bermuda. The four men were among 22 Uyghurs who claimed to be refugees who were captured in 2001 in Pakistan after fleeing the American aerial bombardment of Afghanistan. They were accused of training to assist the Taliban's military. They were cleared as safe for release from Guantánamo in 2005 or 2006, but US domestic law prohibited deporting them back to China, their country of citizenship, because the US government determined that China was likely to violate their human rights. In September 2008, the men were cleared of all suspicion and Judge Ricardo Urbina in Washington ordered their release. Congressional opposition to their admittance to the United States was very strong and the US failed to find a home for them until Bermuda and Palau agreed to accept the 22 men in June 2009. The secret bilateral discussions that led to prisoner transfers between the US and the devolved Bermuda government sparked diplomatic ire from the United Kingdom, which was not consulted on the move despite Bermuda being a British territory. The British Foreign Office issued the following statement: In August 2018, the four Uyghurs were granted limited citizenship in Bermuda. The men now have the same rights as Bermudians except the right to vote. British North America, British West Indies and the Caribbean Community The British Government originally grouped Bermuda with North America (given its proximity, and Bermuda having been established as an extension of the Colony of Virginia, and with Carolina Colony, the nearest landfall, having been settled from Bermuda). After the acknowledgement by the British Government of the independence of thirteen continental colonies (including Virginia and the Carolinas) in 1783, Bermuda was generally grouped regionally by the British Government with The Maritimes and Newfoundland and Labrador (and more widely, with British North America), substantially nearer to Bermuda than the Caribbean. From 1783 through 1801, the British Empire, including British North America, was administered by the Home Office and by the Home Secretary, then from 1801 to 1854 by the War Office (which became the War and Colonial Office) and Secretary of State for War and Colonies (as the Secretary of State for War was renamed). From 1824, the British Empire was divided by the War and Colonial Office into four administrative departments, including NORTH AMERICA, the WEST INDIES, MEDITERRANEAN AND AFRICA, and EASTERN COLONIES, of which North America included: NORTH AMERICA Upper Canada, Lower Canada New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island Bermuda, Newfoundland The Colonial Office and War Office, and the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Secretary of State for War, were separated in 1854. The War Office, from then until the 1867 confederation of the Dominion of Canada, split the military administration of the British colonial and foreign stations into nine districts: NORTH AMERICA AND NORTH ATLANTIC; WEST INDIES; MEDITERRANEAN; WEST COAST OF AFRICA AND SOUTH ATLANTIC; SOUTH AFRICA; EGYPT AND THE SUDAN; INDIAN OCEAN; AUSTRALASIA; and CHINA. NORTH AMERICA AND NORTH ATLANTIC included the following stations (or garrisons): NORTH AMERICA AND NORTH ATLANTIC New Westminster (British Columbia) Newfoundland Quebec Halifax Kingston, Canada West Bermuda However, with the confederation of the Canadas and the Maritimes and their attainment of Dominion status in the 1860s, the British political, naval and military hierarchy in Bermuda became increasingly separated from that of the Canadian Government (the Royal Navy headquarters for the North America and West Indies Station had spent summers at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and winters at Bermuda, but settled at Bermuda year round with the Royal Naval Dockyard, Halifax finally being transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy in 1907, and the Bermuda Garrison had been placed under the military Commander-in-Chief America in New York during the American War of Independence, and had been part of the Nova Scotia Command thereafter, but became the separate Bermuda Command from the 1860s with the Major-General or Lieutenant-General appointed as Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda also filling the civil role of Governor of Bermuda), and Bermuda was increasingly perceived by the British Government as in, or at least grouped for convenience with, the British West Indies (although the established Church of England in Bermuda, which from 1825 to 1839 had been attached to the See of Nova Scotia) remained part of the Diocese of Newfoundland and Bermuda until 1879, when the Synod of the Church of England in Bermuda was formed and a Diocese of Bermuda became separate from the Diocese of Newfoundland, but continued to be grouped under the Bishop of Newfoundland and Bermuda until 1919, when Newfoundland and Bermuda each received its own bishop. Newfoundland attained Dominion status in 1907, leaving the nearest other territories to Bermuda that were still within the British Realm (a term which replaced Dominion in 1952 as the dominions and many colonies moved towards full political independence) as the British colonies in the British West Indies. Other denominations also at one time included Bermuda with Nova Scotia or Canada. Following the separation of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic worship was outlawed in England (subsequently Britain) and its colonies, including Bermuda, until the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791, and operated thereafter under restrictions until the Twentieth Century. Once Roman Catholic worship was established, Bermuda formed part of the Archdiocese of Halifax, Nova Scotia until 1953, when it was separated to become the Apostolic Prefecture of Bermuda Islands. The congregation of the first African Methodist Episcopal Church in Bermuda (St. John African Methodist Episcopal Church, erected in 1885 in Hamilton Parish) had previously been part of the British Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada. Bermuda became an associate member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in July 2003, despite not being in the Caribbean region. CARICOM is a socio-economic bloc of nations in or near the Caribbean Sea established in 1973. Other outlying member states include the Co-operative Republic of Guyana and the Republic of Suriname in South America, and Belize in Central America. The Turks and Caicos Islands, an associate member of CARICOM, and the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, a full member of CARICOM, are in the Atlantic, but close to the Caribbean. Other nearby nations or territories, such as the United States, are not members (although the US Commonwealth of Puerto Rico has observer status, and the United States Virgin Islands announced in 2007 that they would seek ties with CARICOM). Bermuda has minimal trade with the Caribbean region, and little in common with it economically, being roughly a thousand miles from the Caribbean Sea; it joined CARICOM primarily to strengthen cultural links with the region. Among some scholars, "the Caribbean" can be a socio-historical category, commonly referring to a cultural zone characterised by the legacy of slavery (a characteristic Bermuda shared with the Caribbean and the US) and the plantation system (which did not exist in Bermuda). It embraces the islands and parts of the neighbouring continent, and may be extended to include the Caribbean Diaspora overseas. The PLP, which was the party in government when the decision was made to join CARICOM, has been dominated for decades by West Indians and their descendants. The prominent roles of West Indians among Bermuda's black politicians and labour activists predated party politics in Bermuda, as exemplified by E. F. Gordon. The late PLP leader, Dame Lois Browne-Evans, and her Trinidadian-born husband, John Evans (who co-founded the West Indian Association of Bermuda in 1976), were prominent members of this group. They have emphasised Bermuda's cultural connections with the West Indies. Many Bermudians, both black and white, who lack family connections to the West Indies have objected to this emphasis. The decision to join CARICOM stirred up a huge amount of debate and speculation among the Bermudian community and politicians. Opinion polls conducted by two Bermudian newspapers, The Royal Gazette and The Bermuda Sun, showed that clear majorities of Bermudians were opposed to joining CARICOM. The UBP, which had been in government from 1968 to 1998, argued that joining CARICOM was detrimental to Bermuda's interests: Bermuda's trade with the West Indies is negligible, its primary economic partners being the US, Canada, and UK (it has no direct air or shipping links to Caribbean islands); CARICOM is moving towards a single economy; the Caribbean islands are generally competitors to Bermuda's already ailing tourism industry; and participation in CARICOM would involve considerable investment of money and the time of government officials that could more profitably be spent elsewhere. Military A former Imperial fortress colony once known as "the Gibraltar of the West" and "Fortress Bermuda", defence of Bermuda, as part of the British nation-state, is the responsibility of the British Government. For the first two centuries of settlement, the most potent armed force operating from Bermuda was its merchant shipping fleet, which turned to privateering at every opportunity. The Bermuda government maintained a local (infantry) militia and fortified coastal artillery batteries manned by volunteer artillerymen. Bermuda tended toward the Royalist side during the English Civil War, being the first of six colonies to recognise Charles II as King on the execution of his father, Charles I, in 1649, and was one of those targeted by the Rump Parliament in An Act for prohibiting Trade with the Barbadoes, Virginia, Bermuda and Antego, which was passed on 30 October 1650. With control of the "army" (the militia and coastal artillery), the colony's Royalists deposed the Governor, Captain Thomas Turner, elected John Trimingham to replace him, and exiled many of its Parliamentary-leaning Independents to settle the Bahamas under William Sayle as the Eleutheran Adventurers. Bermuda's barrier reef, coastal artillery batteries and militia provided a defence too powerful for the fleet sent in 1651 by Parliament under the command of Admiral Sir George Ayscue to capture the Royalist colonies. The Parliamentary Navy was consequently forced to blockade Bermuda for several months 'til the Bermudians negotiated a peace. After the American Revolutionary War, Bermuda was established as the Western Atlantic headquarters of the North America Station (later called the North America and West Indies Station, and later still the America and West Indies Station as it absorbed other stations) of the Royal Navy. Once the Royal Navy established a base and dockyard defended by regular soldiers, however, the militias were disbanded following the War of 1812. At the end of the 19th century, the colony raised volunteer units to form a reserve for the military garrison. Due to its isolated location in the North Atlantic Ocean, Bermuda was vital to the Allies' war effort during both world wars of the 20th century, serving as a marshalling point for trans-Atlantic convoys, as well as a naval air base. By the Second World War, both the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm and the Royal Air Force were operating Seaplane bases on Bermuda. In May 1940, the US requested base rights in Bermuda from the United Kingdom, but British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was initially unwilling to accede to the American request without getting something in return. In September 1940, as part of the Destroyers for Bases Agreement, the UK granted the US base rights in Bermuda. Bermuda and Newfoundland were not originally included in the agreement, but both were added to it, with no war material received by the UK in exchange. One of the terms of the agreement was that the airfield the US Army built would be used jointly by the US and the UK (which it was for the duration of the war, with RAF Transport Command relocating there from Darrell's Island in 1943). The US Army established the Bermuda Base Command in 1941 to co-ordinate its air, anti-aircraft, and coast artillery assets during the war. The US Navy operated a submarine base on Ordnance Island from 1942 through 1945. Construction began in 1941 of two airbases consisting of of land, largely reclaimed from the sea. For many years, Bermuda's bases were used by US Air Force transport and refuelling aircraft and by US Navy aircraft patrolling the Atlantic for enemy submarines, first German and, later, Soviet. The principal installation, Kindley Air Force Base on the eastern coast, was transferred to the US Navy in 1970 and redesignated Naval Air Station Bermuda. As a naval air station, the base continued to host both transient and deployed USN and USAF aircraft, as well as transitioning or deployed Royal Air Force and Canadian Forces aircraft. The original NAS Bermuda on the west side of the island, a seaplane base until the mid-1960s, was designated as the Naval Air Station Bermuda Annex. It provided optional anchorage and/or dockage facilities for transiting US Navy, US Coast Guard and NATO vessels, depending on size. An additional US Navy compound known as Naval Facility Bermuda (NAVFAC Bermuda), a submarine-detecting SOSUS station, was located to the west of the Annex near a Canadian Forces communications facility in the Tudor Hill area; it was converted from a US Army coast artillery bunker in 1954 and operated until 1995. Although leased for 99 years, US forces withdrew in 1995, as part of the wave of base closures following the end of the Cold War. Canada, which had operated a war-time naval base, HMCS Somers Isles, on the old Royal Navy base at Convict Bay, St George's, also established a radio-listening post at Daniel's Head in the West End of the islands during this time. In the 1950s, after the end of World War II, the Royal Naval dockyard and the military garrison were closed. A small Royal Navy supply base, HMS Malabar, continued to operate within the dockyard area, supporting transiting Royal Navy ships and submarines until it, too, was closed in 1995, along with the American and Canadian bases. Bermudians served in the British armed forces during both World War I and World War II. After the latter, Major-General Glyn Charles Anglim Gilbert, Bermuda's highest-ranking soldier, was instrumental in developing the Bermuda Regiment. A number of other Bermudians and their descendants had preceded him into senior ranks, including Bahamian-born Admiral Lord Gambier, and Bermudian-born Royal Marines Brigadier Harvey. When promoted to brigadier at age 39, following his wounding at the Anzio landings, Harvey became the youngest-ever Royal Marine Brigadier. The Cenotaph in front of the Cabinet Building (in Hamilton) was erected in tribute to Bermuda's Great War dead (the tribute was later extended to Bermuda's Second World War dead) and is the site of the annual Remembrance Day commemoration. Today, the only military unit remaining in Bermuda, other than naval and army cadet corps, is the Royal Bermuda Regiment, an amalgam of the voluntary units originally formed toward the end of the 19th century. Although the Regiment's predecessors were voluntary units, the modern body is formed primarily by conscription: balloted males are required to serve for three years, two months part-time, once they turn 18. In early 2020 Bermuda formed the Bermuda Coast Guard. Its 24-hour on-duty service

tender fewer foodstuffs to the elites. As the surplus of food decreased, and thus the amount available to underpin their power, the control of the elites began to falter. The capital city became the last place viable for food production due to the resiliency of the raised field method of agriculture. Tiwanaku disappeared around AD 1000 because food production, the main source of the elites' power, dried up. The area remained uninhabited for centuries thereafter. Between 1438 and 1527, the Inca empire expanded from its capital at Cusco, Peru. It gained control over much of what is now Andean Bolivia and extended its control into the fringes of the Amazon basin. Colonial period The Spanish conquest of the Inca empire began in 1524 and was mostly completed by 1533. The territory now called Bolivia was known as Charcas, and was under the authority of the Viceroy of Lima. Local government came from the Audiencia de Charcas located in Chuquisaca (La Plata—modern Sucre). Founded in 1545 as a mining town, Potosí soon produced fabulous wealth, becoming the largest city in the New World with a population exceeding 150,000 people. By the late 16th century, Bolivian silver was an important source of revenue for the Spanish Empire. A steady stream of natives served as labor force under the brutal, slave conditions of the Spanish version of the pre-Columbian draft system called the mita. Charcas was transferred to the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776 and the people from Buenos Aires, the capital of the Viceroyalty, coined the term "Upper Peru" () as a popular reference to the Royal Audiencia of Charcas. Túpac Katari led the indigenous rebellion that laid siege to La Paz in March 1781, during which 20,000 people died. As Spanish royal authority weakened during the Napoleonic wars, sentiment against colonial rule grew. Independence and subsequent wars The struggle for independence started in the city of Sucre on 25 May 1809 and the Chuquisaca Revolution (Chuquisaca was then the name of the city) is known as the first cry of Freedom in Latin America. That revolution was followed by the La Paz revolution on 16 July 1809. The La Paz revolution marked a complete split with the Spanish government, while the Chuquisaca Revolution established a local independent junta in the name of the Spanish King deposed by Napoleon Bonaparte. Both revolutions were short-lived and defeated by the Spanish authorities in the Viceroyalty of the Rio de La Plata, but the following year the Spanish American wars of independence raged across the continent. Bolivia was captured and recaptured many times during the war by the royalists and patriots. Buenos Aires sent three military campaigns, all of which were defeated, and eventually limited itself to protecting the national borders at Salta. Bolivia was finally freed of Royalist dominion by Marshal Antonio José de Sucre, with a military campaign coming from the North in support of the campaign of Simón Bolívar. After 16 years of war the Republic was proclaimed on 6 August 1825. In 1836, Bolivia, under the rule of Marshal Andrés de Santa Cruz, invaded Peru to reinstall the deposed president, General Luis José de Orbegoso. Peru and Bolivia formed the Peru-Bolivian Confederation, with de Santa Cruz as the Supreme Protector. Following tension between the Confederation and Chile, Chile declared war on 28 December 1836. Argentina separately declared war on the Confederation on 9 May 1837. The Peruvian-Bolivian forces achieved several major victories during the War of the Confederation: the defeat of the Argentine expedition and the defeat of the first Chilean expedition on the fields of Paucarpata near the city of Arequipa. The Chilean army and its Peruvian rebel allies surrendered unconditionally and signed the Paucarpata Treaty. The treaty stipulated that Chile would withdraw from Peru-Bolivia, Chile would return captured Confederate ships, economic relations would be normalized, and the Confederation would pay Peruvian debt to Chile. However, the Chilean government and public rejected the peace treaty. Chile organized a second attack on the Confederation and defeated it in the Battle of Yungay. After this defeat, Santa Cruz resigned and went to exile in Ecuador and then Paris, and the Peruvian-Bolivian Confederation was dissolved. Following the renewed independence of Peru, Peruvian president General Agustín Gamarra invaded Bolivia. On 18 November 1841, the battle de Ingavi took place, in which the Bolivian Army defeated the Peruvian troops of Gamarra (killed in the battle). After the victory, Bolivia invaded Perú on several fronts. The eviction of the Bolivian troops from the south of Peru would be achieved by the greater availability of material and human resources of Peru; the Bolivian Army did not have enough troops to maintain an occupation. In the district of Locumba – Tacna, a column of Peruvian soldiers and peasants defeated a Bolivian regiment in the so-called Battle of Los Altos de Chipe (Locumba). In the district of Sama and in Arica, the Peruvian colonel José María Lavayén organized a troop that managed to defeat the Bolivian forces of Colonel Rodríguez Magariños and threaten the port of Arica. In the battle of Tarapacá on 7 January 1842, Peruvian militias formed by the commander Juan Buendía defeated a detachment led by Bolivian colonel José María García, who died in the confrontation. Bolivian troops left Tacna, Arica and Tarapacá in February 1842, retreating towards Moquegua and Puno. The battles of Motoni and Orurillo forced the withdrawal of Bolivian forces occupying Peruvian territory and exposed Bolivia to the threat of counter-invasion. The Treaty of Puno was signed on 7 June 1842, ending the war. However, the climate of tension between Lima and La Paz would continue until 1847, when the signing of a Peace and Trade Treaty became effective. The estimated population of the main three cities in 1843 was La Paz 300,000, Cochabamba 250,000 and Potosi 200,000. A period of political and economic instability in the early-to-mid-19th century weakened Bolivia. In addition, during the War of the Pacific (1879–83), Chile occupied vast territories rich in natural resources south west of Bolivia, including the Bolivian coast. Chile took control of today's Chuquicamata area, the adjoining rich salitre (saltpeter) fields, and the port of Antofagasta among other Bolivian territories. Since independence, Bolivia has lost over half of its territory to neighboring countries. Through diplomatic channels in 1909, it lost the basin of the Madre de Dios River and the territory of the Purus in the Amazon, yielding 250,000 km2 to Peru. It also lost the state of Acre, in the Acre War, important because this region was known for its production of rubber. Peasants and the Bolivian army fought briefly but after a few victories, and facing the prospect of a total war against Brazil, it was forced to sign the Treaty of Petrópolis in 1903, in which Bolivia lost this rich territory. Popular myth has it that Bolivian president Mariano Melgarejo (1864–71) traded the land for what he called "a magnificent white horse" and Acre was subsequently flooded by Brazilians, which ultimately led to confrontation and fear of war with Brazil. In the late 19th century, an increase in the world price of silver brought Bolivia relative prosperity and political stability. Early 20th century During the early 20th century, tin replaced silver as the country's most important source of wealth. A succession of governments controlled by the economic and social elite followed laissez-faire capitalist policies through the first 30 years of the 20th century. Living conditions of the native people, who constitute most of the population, remained deplorable. With work opportunities limited to primitive conditions in the mines and in large estates having nearly feudal status, they had no access to education, economic opportunity, and political participation. Bolivia's defeat by Paraguay in the Chaco War (1932–35), where Bolivia lost a great part of the Gran Chaco region in dispute, marked a turning-point. On April 7th, 1943, Bolivia entered World War II, joining part of the Allies, which caused president Enrique Peñaranda to declare war on the Axis powers of Germany, Italy and Japan. The Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR), the most historic political party, emerged as a broad-based party. Denied its victory in the 1951 presidential elections, the MNR led a successful revolution in 1952. Under President Víctor Paz Estenssoro, the MNR, having strong popular pressure, introduced universal suffrage into his political platform and carried out a sweeping land-reform promoting rural education and nationalization of the country's largest tin mines. Late 20th century Twelve years of tumultuous rule left the MNR divided. In 1964, a military junta overthrew President Estenssoro at the outset of his third term. The 1969 death of President René Barrientos Ortuño, a former member of the junta who was elected president in 1966, led to a succession of weak governments. Alarmed by the rising Popular Assembly and the increase in the popularity of President Juan José Torres, the military, the MNR, and others installed Colonel (later General) Hugo Banzer Suárez as president in 1971. He returned to the presidency in 1997 through 2001. Juan José Torres, who had fled Bolivia, was kidnapped and assassinated in 1976 as part of Operation Condor, the U.S.-supported campaign of political repression by South American right-wing dictators. The United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) financed and trained the Bolivian military dictatorship in the 1960s. The revolutionary leader Che Guevara was killed by a team of CIA officers and members of the Bolivian Army on 9 October 1967, in Bolivia. Félix Rodríguez was a CIA officer on the team with the Bolivian Army that captured and shot Guevara. Rodriguez said that after he received a Bolivian presidential execution order, he told "the soldier who pulled the trigger to aim carefully, to remain consistent with the Bolivian government's story that Che had been killed in action during a clash with the Bolivian army." Rodriguez said the US government had wanted Che in Panama, and "I could have tried to falsify the command to the troops, and got Che to Panama as the US government said they had wanted", but that he had chosen to "let history run its course" as desired by Bolivia. Elections in 1979 and 1981 were inconclusive and marked by fraud. There were coups d'état, counter-coups, and caretaker governments. In 1980, General Luis García Meza Tejada carried out a ruthless and violent coup d'état that did not have popular support. He pacified the people by promising to remain in power only for one year. At the end of the year, he staged a televised rally to claim popular support and announced, "Bueno, me quedo", or, "All right; I'll stay [in office]." After a military rebellion forced out Meza in 1981, three other military governments in 14 months struggled with Bolivia's growing problems. Unrest forced the military to convoke the Congress, elected in 1980, and allow it to choose a new chief executive. In October 1982, Hernán Siles Zuazo again became president, 22 years after the end of his first term of office (1956–60). Democratic transition In 1993, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was elected president in alliance with the Tupac Katari Revolutionary Liberation Movement, which inspired indigenous-sensitive and multicultural-aware policies. Sánchez de Lozada pursued an aggressive economic and social reform agenda. The most dramatic reform was privatization under the "capitalization" program, under which investors, typically foreign, acquired 50% ownership and management control of public enterprises in return for agreed upon capital investments. In 1993, Sanchez de Lozada introduced the Plan de Todos, which led to the decentralization of government, introduction of intercultural bilingual education, implementation of agrarian legislation, and privatization of state owned businesses. The plan explicitly stated that Bolivian citizens would own a minimum of 51% of enterprises; under the plan, most state-owned enterprises (SOEs), though not mines, were sold. This privatization of SOEs led to a neoliberal structuring. The reforms and economic restructuring were strongly opposed by certain segments of society, which instigated frequent and sometimes violent protests, particularly in La Paz and the Chapare coca-growing region, from 1994 through 1996. The indigenous population of the Andean region was not able to benefit from government reforms. During this time, the umbrella labor-organization of Bolivia, the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB), became increasingly unable to effectively challenge government policy. A teachers' strike in 1995 was defeated because the COB could not marshal the support of many of its members, including construction and factory workers. 1997–2002 General Banzer Presidency In the 1997 elections, General Hugo Banzer, leader of the Nationalist Democratic Action party (ADN) and former dictator (1971–78), won 22% of the vote, while the MNR candidate won 18%. At the outset of his government, President Banzer launched a policy of using special police-units to eradicate physically the illegal coca of the Chapare region. The MIR of Jaime Paz Zamora remained a coalition-partner throughout the Banzer government, supporting this policy (called the Dignity Plan). The Banzer government basically continued the free-market and privatization-policies of its predecessor. The relatively robust economic growth of the mid-1990s continued until about the third year of its term in office. After that, regional, global and domestic factors contributed to a decline in economic growth. Financial crises in Argentina and Brazil, lower world prices for export commodities, and reduced employment in the coca sector depressed the Bolivian economy. The public also perceived a significant amount of public sector corruption. These factors contributed to increasing social protests during the second half of Banzer's term. Between January 1999 and April 2000, large-scale protests erupted in Cochabamba, Bolivia's third largest city, in response to the privatization of water resources by foreign companies and a subsequent doubling of water prices. On 6 August 2001, Banzer resigned from office after being diagnosed with cancer. He died less than a year later. Vice President Jorge Fernando Quiroga Ramírez completed the final year of his term. 2002–2005 Sánchez de Lozada / Mesa Presidency In the June 2002 national elections, former President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada (MNR) placed first with 22.5% of the vote, followed by coca-advocate and native peasant-leader Evo Morales (Movement Toward Socialism, MAS) with 20.9%. A July agreement between the MNR and the fourth-place MIR, which had again been led in the election by former President Jaime Paz Zamora, virtually ensured the election of Sánchez de Lozada in the congressional run-off, and on 6 August he was sworn in for the second time. The MNR platform featured three overarching objectives: economic reactivation (and job creation), anti-corruption, and social inclusion. In 2003 the Bolivian gas conflict broke out. On 12 October 2003, the government imposed martial law in El Alto after 16 people were shot by the police and several dozen wounded in violent clashes. Faced with the option of resigning or more bloodshed, Sánchez de Lozada offered his resignation in a letter to an emergency session of Congress. After his resignation was accepted and his vice president, Carlos Mesa, invested, he left on a commercially scheduled flight for the United States. The country's internal situation became unfavorable for such political action on the international stage. After a resurgence of gas protests in 2005, Carlos Mesa attempted to resign in January 2005, but his offer was refused by Congress. On 22 March 2005, after weeks of new street protests from organizations accusing Mesa of bowing to U.S. corporate interests, Mesa again offered his resignation to Congress, which was accepted on 10 June. The chief justice of the Supreme Court, Eduardo Rodríguez, was sworn as interim president to succeed the outgoing Carlos Mesa. 2005–2019 Morales Presidency Evo Morales won the 2005 presidential election with 53.7% of the votes in Bolivian elections. On 1 May 2006, Morales announced his intent to re-nationalize Bolivian hydrocarbon assets following protests which demanded this action. Fulfilling a campaign promise, on 6 August 2006, Morales opened the Bolivian Constituent Assembly to begin writing a new constitution aimed at giving more power to the indigenous majority. In August 2007, a conflict which came to be known as The Calancha Case arose in Sucre. Local citizens demanded that an official discussion of the seat of government be included in the agenda of the full body of the Bolivian Constituent Assembly. The people of Sucre wanted to make Sucre the full capital of the country, including returning the executive and legislative branches to the city, but the government rejected the demand as impractical. Three people died in the conflict and as many as 500 were wounded. The result of the conflict was to include text in the constitution stating that the capital of Bolivia is officially Sucre, while leaving the executive and legislative branches in La Paz. In May 2008, Evo Morales was a signatory to the UNASUR Constitutive Treaty of the Union of South American Nations. 2009 marked the creation of a new constitution and the renaming of the country to the Plurinational State of Bolivia. The previous constitution did not allow a consecutive reelection of a president, but the new constitution allowed just for one reelection, starting the dispute if Evo Morales was enabled to run for a second term arguing he was elected under the last constitution. This also triggered a new general election in which Evo Morales was re-elected with 61.36% of the vote. His party, Movement for Socialism, also won a two-thirds majority in both houses of the National Congress. By the year 2013 after being reelected under the new constitution, Evo Morales and his party attempt for a third term as President of Bolivia. The opposition argued that a third term would be unconstitutional but the Bolivian Constitutional Court ruled that Morales' first term under the previous constitution, did not count towards his term limit. This allowed Evo Morales to run for a third term in 2014, and he was re-elected with 64.22% of the vote. On 17 October 2015, Morales surpassed Andrés de Santa Cruz's nine years, eight months, and twenty-four days in office and became Bolivia's longest serving president. During his third term, Evo Morales began to plan for a fourth, and the 2016 Bolivian constitutional referendum asked voters to override the constitution and allow Evo Morales to run for an additional term in office. Morales narrowly lost the referendum, however in 2017 his party then petitioned the Bolivian Constitutional Court to override the constitution on the basis that the American Convention on Human Rights made term limits a human rights violation. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights determined that term limits are not a human rights violation in 2018, however, once again the Bolivian Constitutional Court ruled that Morales has the permission to run for a fourth term in the 2019 elections, and the permission was not retracted. "[...] the country’s highest court overruled the constitution, scrapping term limits altogether for every office. Morales can now run for a fourth term in 2019 – and for every election thereafter." described an article in The Guardian in 2017. Interim government 2019–2020 During the 2019 elections, the transmission of the unofficial quick counting process was interrupted; at the time, Morales had a lead of 46.86 percent to Mesa's 36.72, after 95.63 percent of tally sheets were counted. The Transmisión de Resultados Electorales Preliminares (TREP) is a quick count process used in Latin America as a transparency measure in electoral processes that is meant to provide a preliminary results on election day, and its shutdown without further explanation raised consternation among opposition politicians and certain election monitors. Two days after the interruption, the official count showed Morales fractionally clearing the 10-point margin he needed to avoid a runoff election, with the final official tally counted as 47.08 percent to Mesa's 36.51 percent, starting a wave of protests and tension in the country. Amidst allegations of fraud perpetrated by the Morales government, widespread protests were organized to dispute the election. On 10 November, the Organization of American States (OAS) released a preliminary report concluding several irregularities in the election, though these findings were heavily disputed. The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) concluded that "it is very likely that Morales won the required 10 percentage point margin to win in the first round of the election on 20 October 2019." David Rosnick, an economist for CEPR, showed that "a basic coding error" was discovered in the OAS's data, which explained that the OAS had misused its own data when it ordered the time stamps on the tally sheets alphabetically rather than chronologically. However, the OAS stood by its findings arguing that the "researchers’ work did not address many of the allegations mentioned in the OAS report, including the accusation that Bolivian officials maintained hidden servers that could have permitted the alteration of results". Additionally, observers from the European Union released a report with similar findings and conclusions as the OAS. The tech security company hired by the TSE (under the Morales administration) to audit the elections, also stated that there were multiple irregularities and violations of procedure and that "our function as an auditor security company is to declare everything that was found, and much of what was found supports the conclusion that the electoral process should be declared null and void". The New York Times reported on 7 June 2020, that the OAS analysis immediately after the 20 October election was flawed yet fuelled "a chain of events that changed the South American nation’s history". After weeks of protests, Morales resigned on national television shortly after the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces General Williams Kaliman had urged that he do so in order to restore "peace and stability". Morales flew to Mexico and was granted asylum there, along with his vice president and several other members of his government. Opposition Senator Jeanine Áñez's declared herself interim president, claiming constitutional succession after the president, vice president and both head of the legislature chambers. She was confirmed as interim president

Vice President serves as titular head of the combined Assembly. The judiciary consists of the Supreme Court of Justice, the Plurinational Constitutional Court, the Judiciary Council, Agrarian and Environmental Court, and District (departmental) and lower courts. In October 2011, Bolivia held its first judicial elections to choose members of the national courts by popular vote, a reform brought about by Evo Morales. The Plurinational Electoral Organ is an independent branch of government which replaced the National Electoral Court in 2010. The branch consists of the Supreme Electoral Court, the nine Departmental Electoral Court, Electoral Judges, the anonymously selected Juries at Election Tables, and Electoral Notaries. Wilfredo Ovando presides over the seven-member Supreme Electoral Court. Its operations are mandated by the Constitution and regulated by the Electoral Regime Law (Law 026, passed 2010). The Organ's first elections were the country's first judicial election in October 2011, and five municipal special elections held in 2011. Capital Bolivia has its constitutionally recognized capital in Sucre, while La Paz is the seat of government. La Plata (now Sucre) was proclaimed the provisional capital of the newly independent Alto Perú (later, Bolivia) on 1 July 1826. On 12 July 1839, President José Miguel de Velasco proclaimed a law naming the city as the capital of Bolivia, and renaming it in honor of the revolutionary leader Antonio José de Sucre. The Bolivian seat of government moved to La Paz at the start of the twentieth century as a consequence of Sucre's relative remoteness from economic activity after the decline of Potosí and its silver industry and of the Liberal Party in the War of 1899. The 2009 Constitution assigns the role of national capital to Sucre, not referring to La Paz in the text. In addition to being the constitutional capital, the Supreme Court of Bolivia is located in Sucre, making it the judicial capital. Nonetheless, the Palacio Quemado (the Presidential Palace and seat of Bolivian executive power) is located in La Paz, as are the National Congress and Plurinational Electoral Organ. La Paz thus continues to be the seat of government. Law and crime There are 54 prisons in Bolivia, which incarcerate around 8,700 people . The prisons are managed by the Penitentiary Regime Directorate (). There are 17 prisons in departmental capital cities and 36 provincial prisons. Foreign relations Despite losing its maritime coast, the so-called Litoral Department, after the War of the Pacific, Bolivia has historically maintained, as a state policy, a maritime claim to that part of Chile; the claim asks for sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean and its maritime space. The issue has also been presented before the Organization of American States; in 1979, the OAS passed the 426 Resolution, which declared that the Bolivian problem is a hemispheric problem. On 4 April 1884, a truce was signed with Chile, whereby Chile gave facilities of access to Bolivian products through Antofagasta, and freed the payment of export rights in the port of Arica. In October 1904, the Treaty of Peace and Friendship was signed, and Chile agreed to build a railway between Arica and La Paz, to improve access of Bolivian products to the ports. The Special Economical Zone for Bolivia in Ilo (ZEEBI) is a special economic area of of maritime coast, and a total extension of , called Mar Bolivia ("Sea Bolivia"), where Bolivia may maintain a free port near Ilo, Peru under its administration and operation for a period of 99 years starting in 1992; once that time has passed, all the construction and territory revert to the Peruvian government. Since 1964, Bolivia has had its own port facilities in the Bolivian Free Port in Rosario, Argentina. This port is located on the Paraná River, which is directly connected to the Atlantic Ocean. The dispute with Chile was taken to the International Court of Justice. The court ruled in support of the Chilean position, and declared that although Chile may have held talks about a Bolivian corridor to the sea, the country was not required to negotiate one or to surrender its territory. Military The Bolivian military comprises three branches: Ejército (Army), Naval (Navy) and Fuerza Aérea (Air Force). The legal age for voluntary admissions is 18; however, when numbers are small the government in the past has recruited people as young as 14. The tour of duty is generally 12 months. The Bolivian army has around 31,500 men. There are six military regions (regiones militares—RMs) in the army. The army is organized into ten divisions. Although it is landlocked Bolivia keeps a navy. The Bolivian Naval Force (Fuerza Naval Boliviana in Spanish) is a naval force about 5,000 strong in 2008. The Bolivian Air Force ('Fuerza Aérea Boliviana' or 'FAB') has nine air bases, located at La Paz, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, Puerto Suárez, Tarija, Villamontes, Cobija, Riberalta, and Roboré. In 2018, Bolivia signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The Bolivian government annually spends $130 million on defense. Administrative divisions Bolivia has nine departments—Pando, La Paz, Beni, Oruro, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, Potosí, Chuquisaca, Tarija. According to what is established by the Bolivian Political Constitution, the Law of Autonomies and Decentralization regulates the procedure for the elaboration of Statutes of Autonomy, the transfer and distribution of direct competences between the central government and the autonomous entities. There are four levels of decentralization: Departmental government, constituted by the Departmental Assembly, with rights over the legislation of the department. The governor is chosen by universal suffrage. Municipal government, constituted by a Municipal Council, with rights over the legislation of the municipality. The mayor is chosen by universal suffrage. Regional government, formed by several provinces or municipalities of geographical continuity within a department. It is constituted by a Regional Assembly. Original indigenous government, self-governance of original indigenous people on the ancient territories where they live. While Bolivia's administrative divisions have similar status under governmental jurisprudence, each department varies in quantitative and qualitative factors. Generally speaking, Departments can be grouped either by geography or by political-cultural orientation. For example, Santa Cruz, Beni and Pando make up the low-lying "Camba" heartlands of the Amazon, Moxos and Chiquitanía. When considering political orientation, Beni, Pando, Santa Cruz, Tarija are generally grouped for regionalist autonomy movements; this region is known as the "Media Luna". Conversely, La Paz, Oruro, Potosí, Cochabamba have been traditionally associated with Andean politics and culture. Today, Chuquisaca vacillates between the Andean cultural bloc and the Camba bloc. Economy Bolivia's estimated 2012 gross domestic product (GDP) totaled $27.43 billion at official exchange rate and $56.14 billion at purchasing power parity. Despite a series of mostly political setbacks, between 2006 and 2009 the Morales administration has spurred growth higher than at any point in the preceding 30 years. The growth was accompanied by a moderate decrease in inequality. Under Morales per capita GDP doubled from US$1,182 in 2006 to US$2,238 in 2012. GDP growth under Morales averaged 5 percent a year, and in 2014 only Panama and the Dominican Republic performed better in all of Latin America. Bolivia's nominal GDP increased from 11.5 billion in 2006 to 41 billion in 2019. Bolivia in 2016 boasted the highest proportional rate of financial reserves of any nation in the world, with Bolivia's rainy day fund totaling some US$15 billion or nearly two-thirds of total annual GDP, up from a fifth of GDP in 2005. Even the IMF was impressed by Morales' fiscal prudence. A major blow to the Bolivian economy came with a drastic fall in the price of tin during the early 1980s, which impacted one of Bolivia's main sources of income and one of its major mining industries. Since 1985, the government of Bolivia has implemented a far-reaching program of macroeconomic stabilization and structural reform aimed at maintaining price stability, creating conditions for sustained growth, and alleviating scarcity. A major reform of the customs service has significantly improved transparency in this area. Parallel legislative reforms have locked into place market-liberal policies, especially in the hydrocarbon and telecommunication sectors, that have encouraged private investment. Foreign investors are accorded national treatment. In April 2000, Hugo Banzer, the former president of Bolivia, signed a contract with Aguas del Tunari, a private consortium, to operate and improve the water supply in Bolivia's third-largest city, Cochabamba. Shortly thereafter, the company tripled the water rates in that city, an action which resulted in protests and rioting among those who could no longer afford clean water. Amidst Bolivia's nationwide economic collapse and growing national unrest over the state of the economy, the Bolivian government was forced to withdraw the water contract. Bolivia has the second largest natural gas reserves in South America. The government has a long-term sales agreement to sell natural gas to Brazil through 2019. The government held a binding referendum in 2005 on the Hydrocarbon Law. The US Geological Service estimates that Bolivia has 5.4 million cubic tonnes of lithium, which represent 50%–70% of world reserves. However, to mine for it would involve disturbing the country's salt flats (called Salar de Uyuni), an important natural feature which boosts tourism in the region. The government does not want to destroy this unique natural landscape to meet the rising world demand for lithium. On the other hand, sustainable extraction of lithium is attempted by the government. This project is carried out by the public company "Recursos Evaporíticos" subsidiary of COMIBOL. It is thought that due to the importance of lithium for batteries for electric vehicles and stabilization of electric grids with large proportions of intermittent renewables in the electricity mix, Bolivia could be strengthened geopolitically. However, this perspective has also been criticized for underestimating the power of economic incentives for expanded production in other parts of the world. Once Bolivia's government depended heavily on foreign assistance to finance development projects and to pay the public staff. At the end of 2002, the government owed $4.5 billion to its foreign creditors, with $1.6 billion of this amount owed to other governments and most of the balance owed to multilateral development banks. Most payments to other governments have been rescheduled on several occasions since 1987 through the Paris Club mechanism. External creditors have been willing to do this because the Bolivian government has generally achieved the monetary and fiscal targets set by IMF programs since 1987, though economic crises have undercut Bolivia's normally good record. However, by 2013 the foreign assistance is just a fraction of the government budget thanks to tax collection mainly from the profitable exports to Brazil and Argentina of natural gas. Foreign-exchange reserves The amount in reserve currencies and gold held by Bolivia's Central Bank advanced from 1.085 billion US dollars in 2000, under Hugo Banzer Suarez's government, to 15.282 billion US dollars in 2014 under Evo Morales' government. Tourism The income from tourism has become increasingly important. Bolivia's tourist industry has placed an emphasis on attracting ethnic diversity. The most visited places include Nevado Sajama, Torotoro National Park, Madidi National Park, Tiwanaku and the city of La Paz. The best known of the various festivals found in the country is the "Carnaval de Oruro", which was among the first 19 "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity", as proclaimed by UNESCO in May 2001. Transport Roads Bolivia's Yungas Road was called the "world's most dangerous road" by the Inter-American Development Bank, called () in Spanish. The northern portion of the road, much of it unpaved and without guardrails, was cut into the Cordillera Oriental Mountain in the 1930s. The fall from the narrow path is as much as in some places and due to the humid weather from the Amazon there are often poor conditions like mudslides and falling rocks. Each year over 25,000 bikers cycle along the road. In 2018, an Israeli woman was killed by a falling rock while cycling on the road. The Apolo road goes deep into La Paz. Roads in this area were originally built to allow access to mines located near Charazani. Other noteworthy roads run to Coroico, Sorata, the Zongo Valley (Illimani mountain), and along the Cochabamba highway (). According to researchers with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bolivia's road network was still underdeveloped as of 2014. In lowland areas of Bolivia there is less than of paved road. There have been some recent investments; animal husbandry has expanded in Guayaramerín, which might be due to a new road connecting Guayaramerín with Trinidad. Air traffic The General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics (Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil—DGAC) formerly part of the FAB, administers a civil aeronautics school called the National Institute of Civil Aeronautics (Instituto Nacional de Aeronáutica Civil—INAC), and two commercial air transport services TAM and TAB. TAM – Transporte Aéreo Militar (the Bolivian Military Airline) was an airline based in La Paz, Bolivia. It was the civilian wing of the 'Fuerza Aérea Boliviana' (the Bolivian Air Force), operating passenger services to remote towns and communities in the North and Northeast of Bolivia. TAM (a.k.a. TAM Group 71) has been a part of the FAB since 1945. The airline company has suspended its operations since 23 September 2019. Boliviana de Aviación, often referred to as simply BoA, is the flag carrier airline of Bolivia and is wholly owned by the country's government. A private airline serving regional destinations is Línea Aérea Amaszonas, with services including some international destinations. Although a civil transport airline, TAB – Transportes Aéreos Bolivianos, was created as a subsidiary company of the FAB in 1977. It is subordinate to the Air Transport Management (Gerencia de Transportes Aéreos) and is headed by an FAB general. TAB, a charter heavy cargo airline, links Bolivia with most countries of the Western Hemisphere; its inventory includes a fleet of Hercules C130 aircraft. TAB is headquartered adjacent to El Alto International Airport. TAB flies to Miami and Houston, with a stop in Panama. The three largest, and main international airports in Bolivia are El Alto International Airport in La Paz, Viru Viru International Airport in Santa Cruz, and Jorge Wilstermann International Airport in Cochabamba. There are regional airports in other cities that connect to these three hubs. Railways Technology Bolivia owns a communications satellite which was offshored/outsourced and launched by China, named Túpac Katari 1. In 2015, it was announced that electrical power advancements include a planned $300 million nuclear reactor developed by the Russian nuclear company Rosatom. Bolivia was ranked 105th in the Global Innovation Index in 2020, up from 110th in 2019. Water supply and sanitation Bolivia's drinking water and sanitation coverage has greatly improved since 1990 due to a considerable increase in sectoral investment. However, the country has the continent's lowest coverage levels and services are of low quality. Political and institutional instability have contributed to the weakening of the sector's institutions at the national and local levels. Two concessions to foreign private companies in two of the three largest cities – Cochabamba and La Paz/El Alto – were prematurely ended in 2000 and 2006 respectively. The country's second largest city, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, manages its own water and sanitation system relatively successfully by way of cooperatives. The government of Evo Morales intends to strengthen citizen participation within the sector. Increasing coverage requires a substantial increase of investment financing. According to the government the main problems in the sector are low access to sanitation throughout the country; low access to water in rural areas; insufficient and ineffective investments; a low visibility of community service providers; a lack of respect of indigenous customs; "technical and institutional difficulties in the design and implementation of projects"; a lack of capacity to operate and maintain infrastructure; an institutional framework that is "not consistent with the political change in the country"; "ambiguities in the social participation schemes"; a reduction in the quantity and quality of water due to climate change; pollution and a lack of integrated water resources management; and the lack of policies and programs for the reuse of wastewater. Only 27% of the population has access to improved sanitation, 80 to 88% has access to improved water sources. Coverage in urban areas is bigger than in rural ones. Demographics According to the last two censuses carried out by the Bolivian National Statistics Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, INE), the population increased from 8,274,325 (from which 4,123,850 were men and 4,150,475 were women) in 2001 to 10,059,856 in 2012. In the last fifty years the Bolivian population has tripled, reaching a population growth rate of 2.25%. The growth of the population in the inter-census periods (1950–1976 and 1976–1992) was approximately 2.05%, while between the last period, 1992–2001, it reached 2.74% annually. Some 67.49% of Bolivians live in urban areas, while the remaining 32.51% in rural areas. The most part of the population (70%) is concentrated in the departments of La Paz, Santa Cruz and Cochabamba. In the Andean Altiplano region the departments of La Paz and Oruro hold the largest percentage of population, in the valley region the largest percentage is held by the departments of Cochabamba and Chuquisaca, while in the Llanos region by Santa Cruz and Beni. At national level, the population density is 8.49, with variations marked between 0.8 (Pando Department) and 26.2 (Cochabamba Department). The largest population center is located in the so-called "central axis" and in the Llanos region. Bolivia has a young population. According to the 2011 census, 59% of the population is between 15 and 59 years old, 39% is less than 15 years old. Almost 60% of the population is younger than 25 years of age. Genetics According to a genetic study done on Bolivians, average values of Native American, European and African ancestry are 86%, 12.5%, and 1.5%, in individuals from La Paz and 76.8%, 21.4%, and 1.8% in individuals from Chuquisaca; respectively. Ethnic and racial classifications The vast majority of Bolivians are mestizo (with the indigenous component higher than the European one), although the government has not included the cultural self-identification "mestizo" in the November 2012 census. There are approximately three dozen native groups totaling approximately half of the Bolivian population – the largest proportion of indigenous people in the Americas. Exact numbers vary based on the wording of the ethnicity question and the available response choices. For example, the 2001 census did not provide the racial category "mestizo" as a response choice, resulting in a much higher proportion of respondents identifying themselves as belonging to one of the available indigenous ethnicity choices. Mestizos are distributed throughout the entire country and make up 26% of the Bolivian population, with the predominantly mestizo departments being Beni, Santa Cruz, and Tarija. Most people assume their mestizo identity while at the same time identifying themselves with one or more indigenous cultures. A 2018 estimate of racial classification put mestizo (mixed white and Amerindian) at 68%, indigenous at 20%, white at 5%, cholo at 2%, black at 1%, other at 4%, while 2% were unspecified; 44% attributed themselves to some indigenous group, predominantly the linguistic categories of Quechuas or Aymaras. White Bolivians comprised about 14% of the population in 2006, and are usually concentrated in the largest cities: La Paz, Santa Cruz de la Sierra and Cochabamba, but as well in some minor cities like Tarija and Sucre. The ancestry of whites and the white ancestry of mestizos lies within Europe and the Middle East, most notably Spain, Italy, Germany, Croatia, Lebanon and Syria. In the Santa Cruz Department, there are several dozen colonies of German-speaking Mennonites from Russia totaling around 40,000 inhabitants (). Afro-Bolivians, descendants of African slaves who arrived in the time of the Spanish Empire, inhabit the department of La Paz, and are located mainly in the provinces of Nor Yungas and Sud Yungas. Slavery was abolished in Bolivia in 1831. There are also important communities of Japanese (14,000) and Lebanese (12,900). Indigenous peoples, also called "originarios" ("native" or "original") and less frequently, Amerindians, could be categorized by geographic area, such as Andean, like the Aymaras and Quechuas (who formed the ancient Inca Empire), who are concentrated in the western departments of La Paz, Potosí, Oruro, Cochabamba and Chuquisaca. There also are ethnic populations in the east, composed of the Chiquitano, Chané, Guaraní and Moxos, among others, who inhabit the departments of Santa Cruz, Beni, Tarija and Pando. There are small numbers of European citizens from Germany, France, Italy and Portugal, as well as from other countries of the Americas, as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuado], the United States, Paraguay, Peru, Mexico and Venezuela, among others. There are important Peruvian colonies in La Paz, El Alto and Santa Cruz de la Sierra. There are around 140,000 Mennonites in Bolivia of Friesian, Flemish and German ethnic origins. Indigenous peoples The Indigenous peoples of Bolivia can be divided into two categories of ethnic groups: the Andeans, who are located in the Andean Altiplano and the valley region; and the lowland groups, who inhabit the warm regions of central and eastern Bolivia, including the valleys of Cochabamba Department, the Amazon Basin areas of northern La Paz Department, and the lowland departments of Beni, Pando, Santa Cruz, and Tarija (including the Gran Chaco region in the southeast of the country). Large numbers of Andean peoples have also migrated to form Quechua, Aymara, and intercultural communities in the lowlands. Andean ethnicities Aymara people. They live on the high plateau of the departments of La Paz, Oruro and Potosí, as well as some small regions near the tropical flatlands. Quechua people. They mostly inhabit the valleys in Cochabamba and Chuquisaca. They also inhabit some mountain regions in Potosí and Oruro. They divide themselves into different Quechua nations, as the Tarabucos, Ucumaris, Chalchas, Chaquies, Yralipes, Tirinas, among others. Uru people Ethnicities of the Eastern Lowlands Guaraníes: made up of Guarayos, Pausernas, Sirionós, Chiriguanos, Wichí, Chulipis, Taipetes, Tobas, and Yuquis. Tacanas: made up of Lecos, Chimanes, Araonas, and Maropas. Panos: made up of Chacobos, Caripunas, Sinabos, Capuibos, and Guacanaguas. Aruacos: made up of Apolistas, Baures, Moxos, Chané, Movimas, Cayabayas, Carabecas, and Paiconecas (Paucanacas). Chapacuras: made up of Itenez (More), Chapacuras, Sansinonianos, Canichanas, Itonamas, Yuracares, Guatoses, and Chiquitanos. Botocudos: made up of Bororos and Otuquis. Zamucos: made up of Ayoreos. Language Bolivia has great linguistic diversity as a result of its multiculturalism. The Constitution of Bolivia recognizes 36 official languages besides Spanish: Aymara, Araona, Baure, Bésiro, Canichana, Cavineño, Cayubaba, Chácobo, Chimán, Ese Ejja, Guaraní, Guarasu'we, Guarayu, Itonama, Leco, Machajuyai-Kallawaya, Machineri, Maropa, Mojeño-Ignaciano, Mojeño-Trinitario, Moré, Mosetén, Movima, Pacawara, Puquina, Quechua, Sirionó, Tacana, Tapieté, Toromona, Uru-Chipaya, Weenhayek, Yaminawa, Yuki, Yuracaré, and Zamuco. Spanish is the most spoken official language in the country, according to the 2001 census; as it is spoken by two-thirds of the population. All legal and official documents issued by the State, including the Constitution, the main private and public institutions, the media, and commercial activities, are in Spanish. The main indigenous languages are: Quechua (21.2% of the population in the 2001 census), Aymara (14.6%), Guarani (0.6%) and others (0.4%) including the Moxos in the department of Beni. Plautdietsch, a German dialect, is spoken by about 70,000 Mennonites in Santa Cruz. Portuguese is spoken mainly in the areas close to Brazil. Bilingual education was implemented in Bolivia under the leadership of President Evo Morales. His program placed emphasis on the expansion of indigenous languages in the educational systems of the country. Religion Bolivia is a constitutionally secular state that guarantees the freedom of religion and the independence of government from religion. According to the 2001 census conducted by the National Institute of Statistics of Bolivia, 78% of the population is Roman Catholic, followed by 19% that are Protestant, as well as a small number of Bolivians that are Orthodox, and 3% non-religious. The Association of Religion Data Archives (relying on the World Christian Database) records that in 2010, 92.5% of Bolivians identified as Christian (of any denomination), 3.1% identified with indigenous religion, 2.2% identified as Baháʼí, 1.9% identified as agnostic, and all other groups constituted 0.1% or less. Much of the indigenous population adheres to different traditional beliefs marked by inculturation or syncretism with Christianity. The cult of Pachamama, or "Mother Earth", is notable. The veneration of the Virgin of Copacabana, Virgin of Urkupiña and Virgin of Socavón, is also an important feature of Christian pilgrimage. There also are important Aymaran communities near Lake Titicaca that have a strong devotion to James the Apostle. Deities worshiped in Bolivia include Ekeko, the Aymaran god of abundance and prosperity, whose day is celebrated every 24 January, and Tupá, a god of the Guaraní people. Largest cities and towns Approximately 67% of Bolivians live in urban areas, among the lowest proportion in South America. Nevertheless, the rate of urbanization is growing steadily, at around 2.5% annually. According to the 2012 census, there are total of 3,158,691 households in Bolivia – an increase of 887,960 from 2001. In 2009, 75.4% of homes were classified as a house, hut, or Pahuichi; 3.3% were apartments; 21.1% were rental residences; and 0.1% were mobile homes. Most of the country's largest cities are located in the highlands of the west and central regions. Culture Bolivian culture has been heavily influenced by the Spanish, the Aymara, the Quechua, as well as the popular cultures of Latin America as a whole. The cultural development is divided into three distinct periods: precolumbian, colonial, and republican. Important archaeological ruins, gold and silver ornaments, stone monuments, ceramics, and weavings remain from several important pre-Columbian cultures. Major ruins include

after consultation with the Presidency, who cannot be Bosnian citizens. However, the highest political authority in the country is the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, the chief executive officer for the international civilian presence in the country and is selected by the European Union. Since 1995, the High Representative has been able to bypass the elected parliamentary assembly, and since 1997 has been able to remove elected officials. The methods selected by the High Representative have been criticized as undemocratic. International supervision is to end when the country is deemed politically and democratically stable and self-sustaining. Military The Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina (OSBiH) were unified into a single entity in 2005, with the merger of the Army of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Army of Republika Srpska, which had defended their respective regions. The Ministry of Defence was formed in 2004. The Bosnian military consists of the Bosnian Ground Forces and Air Force and Air Defense. The Ground Forces number 7,200 active and 5,000 reserve personnel. They are armed with a mix of American, Yugoslavian, Soviet, and European-made weaponry, vehicles, and military equipment. The Air Force and Air Defense Forces have 1,500 personnel and about 62 aircraft. The Air Defense Forces operate MANPADS hand-held missiles, surface-to-air missile (SAM) batteries, anti-aircraft cannons, and radar. The Army has recently adopted remodeled MARPAT uniforms, used by Bosnian soldiers serving with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. A domestic production program is now underway to ensure that army units are equipped with the correct ammunition. Beginning in 2007, the Ministry of Defence undertook the army's first ever international assistance mission, enlisting the military to serve with ISAF peace missions to Afghanistan, Iraq and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2007. Five officers, acting as officers/advisors, served in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 45 soldiers, mostly acting as base security and medical assistants, served in Afghanistan. 85 Bosnian soldiers served as base security in Iraq, occasionally conducting infantry patrols there as well. All three deployed groups have been commended by their respective international forces as well as the Ministry of Defence of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The international assistance operations are still ongoing. The Air Force and Anti-Aircraft Defence of Bosnia and Herzegovina was formed when elements of the Army of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska Air Force were merged in 2006. The Air Force has seen improvements in the last few years with added funds for aircraft repairs and improved cooperation with the Ground Forces as well as to the citizens of the country. The Ministry of Defence is pursuing the acquisition of new aircraft including helicopters and perhaps even fighter jets. Foreign relations European Union integration is one of the main political objectives of Bosnia and Herzegovina; it initiated the Stabilisation and Association Process in 2007. Countries participating in the SAP have been offered the possibility to become, once they fulfill the necessary conditions, Member States of the EU. Bosnia and Herzegovina is therefore a potential candidate country for EU accession. The implementation of the Dayton Agreement in 1995 has focused the efforts of policymakers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the international community, on regional stabilization in the countries-successors of the former Yugoslavia. Within Bosnia and Herzegovina, relations with its neighbors of Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro have been fairly stable since the signing of the Dayton Agreement. On 23 April 2010, Bosnia and Herzegovina received the Membership Action Plan from NATO, which is the last step before full membership in the alliance. Full membership was initially expected in 2014 or 2015, depending on the progress of reforms. In December 2018, NATO approved a Bosnian Membership Action Plan. Demography According to the 1991 census, Bosnia and Herzegovina had a population of 4,369,319, while the 1996 World Bank Group census showed a decrease to 3,764,425. Large population migrations during the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s have caused demographic shifts in the country. Between 1991 and 2013, political disagreements made it impossible to organize a census. A census had been planned for 2011, and then for 2012, but was delayed until October 2013. The 2013 census found a total population of 3,531,159 people, a drop of approximately 20% since 1991. The 2013 census figures include non-permanent Bosnian residents and for this reason are contested by Republika Srpska officials and Serb politicians (see Ethnic groups below). Ethnic groups Bosnia and Herzegovina is home to three ethnic "constituent peoples", namely Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats, plus a number of smaller groups including Jews and Roma. According to data from the 2013 census published by the Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosniaks constitute 50.1% of the population, Serbs 30.8%, Croats 15.5% and others 2.7%, with the remaining respondents not declaring their ethnicity or not answering. The census results are contested by the Republika Srpska statistical office and by Bosnian Serb politicians. The dispute over the census concerns the inclusion of non-permanent Bosnian residents in the figures, which Republika Srpska officials oppose. The European Union's statistics office, Eurostat, concluded in May 2016 that the census methodology used by the Bosnian statistical agency is in line with international recommendations. Languages Bosnia's constitution does not specify any official languages. However, academics Hilary Footitt and Michael Kelly note the Dayton Agreement states it is "done in Bosnian, Croatian, English and Serbian", and they describe this as the "de facto recognition of three official languages" at the state level. The equal status of Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian was verified by the Constitutional Court in 2000. It ruled the provisions of the Federation and Republika Srpska constitutions on language were incompatible with the state constitution, since they only recognised Bosnian and Croatian (in the case of the Federation) and Serbian (in the case of Republika Srpska) as official languages at the entity level. As a result, the wording of the entity constitutions was changed and all three languages were made official in both entities. The three standard languages are fully mutually intelligible and are known collectively under the appellation of Serbo-Croatian, despite this term not being formally recognized in the country. Use of one of the three languages has become a marker of ethnic identity. Michael Kelly and Catherine Baker argue: "The three official languages of today's Bosnian state...represent the symbolic assertion of national identity over the pragmatism of mutual intelligibility". According to the 1992 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML), Bosnia and Herzegovina recognizes the following minority languages: Albanian, Montenegrin, Czech, Italian, Hungarian, Macedonian, German, Polish, Romani, Romanian, Rusyn, Slovak, Slovene, Turkish, Ukrainian and Jewish (Yiddish and Ladino). The German minority in Bosnia and Herzegovina are mostly remnants of Donauschwaben (Danube Swabians), who settled in the area after the Habsburg monarchy claimed the Balkans from the Ottoman Empire. Due to expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars, the number of ethnic Germans in Bosnia and Herzegovina was drastically diminished. In the 2013 census, 52.86% of the population consider their mother tongue Bosnian, 30.76% Serbian, 14.6% Croatian and 1.57% another language, with 0.21% not giving an answer. Religion Bosnia and Herzegovina is a religiously diverse country. According to the 2013 census, Muslims comprised 50.7% of the population, while Orthodox Christians made 30.7%, Catholic Christians 15.2%, 1.2% other and 1.1% atheist or agnostic, with the remainder not declaring or not answering the question. A 2012 survey found 54% of Bosnia's Muslims were non-denominational, while 38% followed Sunnism. Urban areas Sarajevo is home to 419,957 inhabitants in its urban area which comprises the City of Sarajevo as well as the municipalities of Ilidža, Vogošća, Istočna Ilidža, Istočno Novo Sarajevo and Istočni Stari Grad. The metro area has a population of 555,210 and includes Sarajevo Canton, East Sarajevo and the municipalities of Breza, Kiseljak, Kreševo and Visoko. Economy During the Bosnian War, the economy suffered €200 billion in material damages. Bosnia and Herzegovina faces the dual-problem of rebuilding a war-torn country and introducing transitional liberal market reforms to its formerly mixed economy. One legacy of the previous era is a strong industry; under former republic president Džemal Bijedić and Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito, metal industries were promoted in the republic, resulting in the development of a large share of Yugoslavia's plants; SR Bosnia and Herzegovina had a very strong industrial export oriented economy in the 1970s and 1980s, with large scale exports worth millions of US$. For most of Bosnia's history, agriculture has been conducted on privately owned farms; Fresh food has traditionally been exported from the republic. The war in the 1990s, caused a dramatic change in the Bosnian economy. GDP fell by 60% and the destruction of physical infrastructure devastated the economy. With much of the production capacity unrestored, the Bosnian economy still faces considerable difficulties. Figures show GDP and per capita income increased 10% from 2003 to 2004; this and Bosnia's shrinking national debt being negative trends, and high unemployment 38.7% and a large trade deficit remain cause for concern. The national currency is the (Euro-pegged) Convertible Mark (KM), controlled by the currency board. Annual inflation is the lowest relative to other countries in the region at 1.9% in 2004. The international debt was $5.1 billion (as of 31 December 2014). Real GDP growth rate was 5% for 2004 according to the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Statistical Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia and Herzegovina has displayed positive progress in the previous years, which decisively moved its place from the lowest income equality rank of income equality rankings fourteen out of 193 nations. According to Eurostat data, Bosnia and Herzegovina's PPS GDP per capita stood at 29 per cent of the EU average in 2010. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced a loan to Bosnia worth US$500 million to be delivered by Stand-By Arrangement. This was scheduled to be approved in September 2012. The United States Embassy in Sarajevo produces the Country Commercial Guide – an annual report that delivers a comprehensive look at Bosnia and Herzegovina's commercial and economic environment, using economic, political, and market analysis. By some estimates, grey economy is 25.5% of GDP. In 2017, exports grew by 17% when compared to the previous year, totaling €5.65 billion. The total volume of foreign trade in 2017 amounted to €14.97 billion and increased by 14% compared to the previous year. Imports of goods increased by 12% and amounted to €9.32 billion. The coverage of imports by exports increased by 3% compared to the previous year and now it is 61 percent. In 2017, Bosnia and Herzegovina mostly exported car seats, electricity, processed wood, aluminium and furniture. In the same year, it mostly imported crude oil, automobiles, motor oil, coal and briquettes. The unemployment rate in 2017 was 20.5%, but The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies is predicting falling unemployment rate for the next few years. In 2018, the unemployment should be 19.4% and it should further fall to 18.8% in 2019. In 2020, the unemployment rate should go down to 18.3%. On 31 December 2017, the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina issued the report on public debt of Bosnia and Herzegovina, stating the public debt was reduced by €389.97 million, or by more than 6% when compared to 31 December 2016. By the end of 2017, public debt was €5.92 billion, which amounted to 35.6 percent of GDP. , there were 32,292 registered companies in the country, which together had revenues of €33.572 billion that same year. In 2017, the country received €397.35 million in foreign direct investment, which equals to 2.5% of the GDP. In 2017, Bosnia and Herzegovina ranked 3rd in the world in terms of the number of new jobs created by foreign investment, relative to the number of inhabitants. In 2018, Bosnia and Herzegovina exported goods worth 11.9 billion KM (€6.07 billion), which is 7.43% higher than in the same period in 2017, while imports amounted to 19.27 billion KM (€9.83 billion), which is 5.47% higher. The average price of new apartments sold in the country in the first 6 months of 2018 is 1,639 km (€886.31) per square metre. This represents a jump of 3.5% from the previous year. On 30 June 2018, public debt of Bosnia and Herzegovina amounted to about €6.04 billion, of which external debt is 70.56 percent, while the internal debt is 29.4 percent of total public indebtedness. The share of public debt in gross domestic product is 34.92 percent. In the first 7 months of 2018, 811,660 tourists visited the country, a 12.2% jump when compared to the first 7 months of 2017. In the first 11 months of 2018, 1,378,542 tourists visited Bosnia-Herzegovina, an increase of 12.6%, and had 2,871,004 overnight hotel stays, a 13.8% increase from the previous year. Also, 71.8% of the tourists came from foreign countries. In the first seven months of 2019, 906,788 tourists visited the country, an 11.7% jump from the previous year. In 2018, the total value of mergers and acquisitions in Bosnia and Herzegovina amounted to €404.6 million. In 2018, 99.5 percent of enterprises in Bosnia and Herzegovina used computers in their business, while 99.3 percent had internet connections, according to a survey conducted by the Bosnia and Herzegovina Statistics Agency. In 2018, Bosnia and Herzegovina received 783.4 million KM (€400.64 million) in direct foreign investment, which was equivalent to 2.3% of GDP. In 2018, the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina made a profit of 8,430,875 km (€4,306,347). The World Bank predicted that the economy would grow 3.4% in 2019. Bosnia and Herzegovina was placed 83rd on the Index of Economic Freedom for 2019. The total rating for Bosnia and Herzegovina is 61.9. This position represents some progress relative to the 91st place in 2018. This result is below the regional level, but still above the global average, making Bosnia and Herzegovina a "moderately free" country. On 31 January 2019, total deposits in Bosnian banks were KM 21.9 billion (€11.20 billion), which represents 61.15% of nominal GDP. In the second quarter of 2019, the average price of new apartments sold in Bosnia and Herzegovina was 1,606 km (€821.47) per square metre. In the first six months of 2019, exports amounted to 5.829 billion KM (€2.98 billion), which is 0.1% less than in the same period of 2018, while imports amounted to 9.779 billion KM (€5.00 billion), which is by 4.5% more than in the same period of the previous year. In the first six months of 2019, foreign direct investment amounted to 650.1 million KM (€332.34 million). Tourism According to projections by the World Tourism Organization, Bosnia and Herzegovina had the third highest tourism growth rate in the world between 1995 and 2020. In 2017, 1,307,319 tourists visited Bosnia and Herzegovina, an increase of 13.7%, and had 2,677,125 overnight hotel stays, a 12.3% increase from the previous year. 71.5% of the tourists came from foreign countries. In 2018, 1.883.772 tourists visited Bosnia and Herzegovina, an increase of 44,1%, and had 3.843.484 overnight hotel stays, a 43.5% increase from the previous year. Also, 71.2% of the tourists came from foreign countries. In 2006, when ranking the best cities in the world, Lonely Planet placed Sarajevo, the national capital and host of the 1984 Winter Olympics, as #43 on the list. Tourism in Sarajevo is chiefly focused on historical, religious, and cultural aspects. In 2010, Lonely Planet's "Best in Travel" nominated it as one of the top ten cities to visit that year. Sarajevo also won travel blog Foxnomad's "Best City to Visit" competition in 2012, beating more than one hundred other cities around the entire world. Međugorje has become one of the most popular pilgrimage sites for Christians in the world and has turned into Europe's third most important religious place, where each year more than 1 million people visit. It has been estimated that 30 million pilgrims have come to Međugorje since the reputed apparitions began in 1981. Since 2019, pilgrimages to Međugorje have been officially authorized and organized by the Vatican. Bosnia has also become an increasingly popular skiing and Ecotourism destination. The mountains that hosted the winter olympic games of Bjelašnica, Jahorina and Igman are the most visited skiing mountains in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Bosnia and Herzegovina remains one of the last undiscovered natural regions of the southern area of the Alps, with vast tracts of wild and untouched nature attracting adventurers and nature lovers. National Geographic named Bosnia and Herzegovina as the best mountain biking adventure destination for 2012. The central Bosnian Dinaric Alps are favored by hikers and mountaineers, as they contain both Mediterranean and Alpine climates. Whitewater rafting has become somewhat of a national pastime in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The primary rivers used for whitewater rafting in the country include the Vrbas, Tara, Drina, Neretva and Una. Meanwhile, the most prominent rivers are the Vrbas and Tara, as they both hosted The 2009 World Rafting Championship. The reason the Tara river is immensely popular for whitewater rafting is because it contains the deepest river canyon in Europe, the Tara River Canyon. Most recently, the Huffington Post named Bosnia and Herzegovina the "9th Greatest Adventure in the World for 2013", adding that the country boasts "the cleanest water and air in Europe; the greatest untouched forests; and the most wildlife. The best way to experience is the three rivers trip, which purls through the best the Balkans have to offer." Infrastructure Transport Sarajevo International Airport, also known as Butmir Airport, is the main international airport in Bosnia and Herzegovina, located southwest of the Sarajevo main railway station in the city of Sarajevo in the suburb of Butmir. Railway operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina are successors of the Yugoslav Railways within the country boundaries following independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1992. Today, they are operated by the Railways of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ŽFBiH) in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and by Republika Srpska Railways (ŽRS) in Republika Srpska. Telecommunications The Bosnian communications market was fully liberalised in January 2006. The three landline telephone operators predominantly provide services in their operating areas but have nationwide licenses for domestic and international calls. Mobile data services are also available, including high-speed EDGE, 3G and 4G services. Oslobođenje (Liberation), founded in 1943, is one of the country's longest running continuously circulating newspapers. There are many national publications, including the Dnevni avaz (Daily Voice), founded in 1995, and Jutarnje Novine (Morning News), to name but a few in circulation in Sarajevo. Other local periodicals include the Croatian Hrvatska riječ newspaper and Bosnian Start magazine, as well as Slobodna Bosna (Free Bosnia) and BH Dani (BH Days) weekly newspapers. Novi Plamen, a monthly magazine, was the most left-wing publication. International news station Al Jazeera maintains a sister channel catering to the Balkan region, Al Jazeera Balkans, broadcasting out of and based in Sarajevo. Since 2014, the N1 platform has broadcast as an affiliate of CNN International, with offices in Sarajevo, Zagreb and Belgrade. As of 2021, Bosnia and Herzegovina ranked second highest in press freedom in the region, after Croatia, and is placed 58th internationally. , there are 3,064,072 internet users in the country, or 86.77% of the entire population. Education Higher education has a long and rich tradition in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The first bespoke higher-education institution was a school of Sufi philosophy established by Gazi Husrev-beg in 1531. Numerous other religious schools then followed. In 1887, under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a Sharia law school began a five-year program. In the 1940s, the University of Sarajevo became the city's first secular higher education institute. In the 1950s, post-bachelaurate graduate degrees became available. Severely damaged during the war, it was recently rebuilt in partnership with more than 40 other universities. There are various other institutions of higher education, including: University Džemal Bijedić of Mostar, University of Banja Luka, University of Mostar, University of East Sarajevo, University of Tuzla, American University in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is held in high regard as one of the most prestigious creative arts academies in the region. Also, Bosnia and Herzegovina is home to several private and international higher education institutions, some of which are: Sarajevo School of Science and Technology International University of Sarajevo American University in Bosnia and Herzegovina Sarajevo Graduate School of Business International Burch University Primary schooling lasts for nine years. Secondary education is provided by general and technical secondary schools (typically Gymnasiums) where studies typically last for four years. All forms of secondary schooling include an element of vocational training. Pupils graduating from general secondary schools obtain the Matura and can enroll in any tertiary educational institution or academy by passing a qualification examination prescribed by the governing body or institution. Students graduating technical subjects obtain a Diploma. Culture Architecture The architecture of Bosnia and Herzegovina is largely influenced by four major periods where political and social changes influenced the creation of distinct cultural and architectural habits of the population. Each period made its influence felt and contributed to a greater diversity of cultures and architectural language in this region. Media Some television, magazines, and newspapers in Bosnia and Herzegovina are state-owned, and some are for-profit corporations funded by advertising, subscription, and other sales-related revenues. The Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina guarantees freedom of speech. As a country in transition with a post-war legacy and a complex domestic political structure, Bosnia and Herzegovina's media system is under transformation. In the early post-war period (1995–2005), media development was guided mainly by international donors and cooperation agencies, who invested to help reconstruct, diversify, democratize and professionalize media outlets. Post-war developments included the establishment of an independent Communication Regulatory Agency, the adoption of a Press Code, the establishment of the Press Council, the decriminalization of libel and defamation, the introduction of a rather advanced Freedom of Access to Information Law, and the creation of a Public Service Broadcasting System from the formerly state-owned broadcaster. Yet, internationally backed positive developments have been often obstructed by domestic elites, and the professionalisation of media and journalists has proceeded only slowly. High levels of partisanship and linkages between the media and the political systems hinder the adherence to professional code of conducts. Literature Bosnia and Herzegovina has a rich literature, including the Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andrić and poets such as Antun Branko Šimić, Aleksa Šantić, Jovan Dučić and Mak Dizdar, writers such as Zlatko Topčić, Meša Selimović, Semezdin Mehmedinović, Miljenko Jergović, Isak Samokovlija, Safvet-beg Bašagić, Abdulah Sidran, Petar Kočić, Aleksandar Hemon and Nedžad Ibrišimović. The National Theater was founded in 1919 in Sarajevo and its first director was dramatist Branislav Nušić. Magazines such as Novi Plamen or Sarajevske sveske are some of the more prominent publications covering cultural and literary themes. Art The art of Bosnia and Herzegovina was always evolving and ranged from the original medieval tombstones called Stećci to paintings in Kotromanić court. However, only with the arrival of Austro-Hungarians did the painting renaissance in Bosnia really begin to flourish. The first educated artists from European academies appeared with the beginning of the 20th century. Among those are: Gabrijel Jurkić, Petar Šain, Roman Petrović and Lazar Drljača. After World War II, artists like Mersad Berber and Safet Zec rose in popularity. In 2007, Ars Aevi, a museum of contemporary art that includes works by renowned world artists, was founded in Sarajevo. Music Typical Bosnian songs are ganga, rera, and the traditional Slavic music for the folk dances such as kolo, while from the Ottoman era the most popular is Sevdalinka. Pop and Rock music has a tradition here as well, with the more famous musicians including Dino Zonić, Goran Bregović, Davorin Popović, Kemal Monteno, Zdravko Čolić, Elvir Laković Laka, Edo Maajka, Hari Varešanović, Dino Merlin, Mladen Vojičić Tifa, Željko Bebek, etc. Other composers such as Đorđe Novković, Al' Dino, Haris Džinović, Kornelije Kovač, and many rock and pop bands, for example, Bijelo Dugme, Crvena jabuka, Divlje jagode, Indexi, Plavi orkestar, Zabranjeno Pušenje, Ambasadori, Dubioza kolektiv, who were among the leading ones in the former Yugoslavia. Bosnia is home to the composer Dušan Šestić, the creator of the National Anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina and father of singer Marija Šestić, to the world known jazz musician, educator and Bosnian jazz ambassador Sinan Alimanović, composer Saša Lošić and pianist Saša Toperić. In the villages, especially in Herzegovina, Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats play the ancient gusle. The gusle is used mainly to recite epic poems in a usually dramatic tone. Probably the most distinctive and identifiably "Bosnian" of music, Sevdalinka is a kind of emotional, melancholic folk song that often describes sad subjects such as love and loss, the death of a dear person or heartbreak. Sevdalinkas were traditionally performed with a saz, a Turkish string instrument, which was later replaced by the accordion. However the more modern arrangement, to the derision of some purists, is typically a vocalist accompanied by the accordion along with snare drums, upright bass, guitars, clarinets and violins. Rural folk traditions in Bosnia and Herzegovina include the shouted, polyphonic ganga and "ravne pjesme" (flat song) styles, as well as instruments like a droneless bagpipe, wooden flute and šargija. The gusle, an instrument found throughout the Balkans, is also used to accompany ancient Slavic epic poems. There are also Bosnian folk songs in the Ladino language, derived from the area's Jewish population. Bosnian roots music came from Middle Bosnia, Posavina, the Drina valley and Kalesija. It is usually performed by singers with two violinists and a šargija player. These bands first appeared around World War I and became popular in the 1960s. This is the third oldest music after the Sevdalinka and ilahija. Self-taught people, mostly in two or three members of the different choices of old instruments, mostly in the violin, sacking, saz, drums, flutes (zurle) or wooden flute, as others have already called, the original performers of Bosnian music that can not be written notes, transmitted by ear from generation to generation, family is usually hereditary. It is thought to be brought from Persia-Kalesi tribe that settled in the area of the present Sprečanski valleys and hence probably the name Kalesija. In this part of Bosnia it is the most common. This kind of music was enjoyed by all three peoples in Bosnia, Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats, and it contributed a lot to reconcile people socializing, entertainment and other organizations through festivals. In Kalesija, it is maintained each year with the Original Bosnian Festival music. Cinema and theatre Sarajevo is internationally renowned for its eclectic and diverse selection of festivals. The Sarajevo Film Festival was established in 1995, during the Bosnian War and has become the premier and largest film festival in the Balkans and Southeast Europe. Bosnia has a rich cinematic and film heritage, dating back to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia; many Bosnian filmmakers have achieved international prominence and some have won international awards ranging from the Academy Awards to multiple Palme d'Ors and Golden Bears. Some notable Bosnian screenwriters, directors and producers are Danis Tanović (known for the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award winning 2001 film No Man's Land and Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize winning 2016 film Death in Sarajevo), Jasmila Žbanić (won Golden Bear, Academy Award and BAFTA nominated 2020 film Quo Vadis, Aida?), Emir Kusturica (won two Palme d'Ors at Cannes), Zlatko Topčić, Ademir Kenović, Ahmed Imamović, Pjer Žalica, Aida Begić, etc. Cuisine Bosnian cuisine uses many spices, in moderate quantities. Most dishes are light, as they are boiled; the sauces are fully natural, consisting of little more than the natural juices of the vegetables in the dish. Typical ingredients include tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, peppers, cucumbers, carrots, cabbage, mushrooms, spinach, zucchini, dried beans, fresh beans, plums, milk, paprika and cream called pavlaka. Bosnian cuisine is balanced between Western and Eastern influences. As a result of the Ottoman administration for almost 500 years, Bosnian food is closely related to Turkish, Greek and other former Ottoman and Mediterranean cuisines. However, because of years of Austrian rule, there are many influences from Central Europe. Typical meat dishes include primarily beef and lamb. Some local specialties are ćevapi, burek, dolma, sarma, pilav, goulash, ajvar and a whole range of Eastern sweets. Ćevapi is a grilled dish of minced meat, a type of kebab, popular in former Yugoslavia and considered a national dish in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. Local wines come from Herzegovina where the climate is suitable for growing grapes. Herzegovinian loza (similar to Italian Grappa but less sweet) is very popular. Plum (rakija) or apple (jabukovača) alcohol beverages are produced in the north. In the south, distilleries used to produce vast quantities of brandy and supply all of ex-Yugoslav alcohol factories (brandy is the base of most alcoholic drinks). Coffeehouses, where Bosnian coffee is served in džezva with rahat lokum and sugar cubes, proliferate Sarajevo and every city in the country. Coffee drinking is a favorite Bosnian pastime and part of the culture. Bosnia and Herzegovina is the ninth country in the entire world by per capita coffee consumption. Sports Bosnia and Herzegovina has produced many athletes, both as a state in Yugoslavia and independently after 1992. The most important international sporting event in the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina were the 14th Winter Olympics, held in Sarajevo from 7 to 19 February 1984. The Borac handball club has won seven Yugoslav Handball Championships, as well as the European Cup in 1976 and the International Handball Federation Cup in 1991. Amel Mekić, Bosnian judoka, became European champion in 2011. Track and field athlete Amel

while numerous other Bosnians rose through the ranks of the Ottoman military to occupy the highest positions of power in the Empire, including admirals such as Matrakçı Nasuh; generals such as Isa-Beg Ishaković, Gazi Husrev-beg, Telli Hasan Pasha and Sarı Süleyman Pasha; administrators such as Ferhad Pasha Sokolović and Osman Gradaščević; and Grand Viziers such as the influential Sokollu Mehmed Pasha and Damat Ibrahim Pasha. Some Bosnians emerged as Sufi mystics, scholars such as Muhamed Hevaji Uskufi Bosnevi, Ali Džabić; and poets in the Turkish, Albanian, Arabic, and Persian languages. However, by the late 17th century the Empire's military misfortunes caught up with the country, and the end of the Great Turkish War with the treaty of Karlowitz in 1699 again made Bosnia the Empire's westernmost province. The 18th century was marked by further military failures, numerous revolts within Bosnia, and several outbreaks of plague. The Porte's efforts at modernizing the Ottoman state were met with distrust growing to hostility in Bosnia, where local aristocrats stood to lose much through the proposed Tanzimat reforms. This, combined with frustrations over territorial, political concessions in the north-east, and the plight of Slavic Muslim refugees arriving from the Sanjak of Smederevo into Bosnia Eyalet, culminated in a partially unsuccessful revolt by Husein Gradaščević, who endorsed a Bosnia Eyalet autonomous from the authoritarian rule of the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II, who persecuted, executed and abolished the Janissaries and reduced the role of autonomous Pashas in Rumelia. Mahmud II sent his Grand vizier to subdue Bosnia Eyalet and succeeded only with the reluctant assistance of Ali Pasha Rizvanbegović. Related rebellions were extinguished by 1850, but the situation continued to deteriorate. New nationalist movements appeared in Bosnia by the middle of the 19th century. Shortly after Serbia's breakaway from the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century, Serbian and Croatian nationalism rose up in Bosnia, and such nationalists made irredentist claims to Bosnia's territory. This trend continued to grow in the rest of the 19th and 20th centuries. Agrarian unrest eventually sparked the Herzegovinian rebellion, a widespread peasant uprising, in 1875. The conflict rapidly spread and came to involve several Balkan states and Great Powers, a situation that led to the Congress of Berlin and the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. Austro-Hungarian Empire At the Congress of Berlin in 1878, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister Gyula Andrássy obtained the occupation and administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and he also obtained the right to station garrisons in the Sanjak of Novi Pazar, which would remain under Ottoman administration until 1908, when the Austro-Hungarian troops withdrew from the Sanjak. Although Austro-Hungarian officials quickly came to an agreement with the Bosnians, tensions remained and a mass emigration of Bosnians occurred. However, a state of relative stability was reached soon enough and Austro-Hungarian authorities were able to embark on a number of social and administrative reforms they intended would make Bosnia and Herzegovina into a "model" colony. Habsburg rule had several key concerns in Bosnia. It tried to dissipate the South Slav nationalism by disputing the earlier Serb and Croat claims to Bosnia and encouraging identification of Bosnian or Bosniak identity. Habsburg rule also tried to provide for modernisation by codifying laws, introducing new political institutions, establishing and expanding industries. Austria–Hungary began to plan the annexation of Bosnia, but due to international disputes the issue was not resolved until the annexation crisis of 1908. Several external matters affected the status of Bosnia and its relationship with Austria–Hungary. A bloody coup occurred in Serbia in 1903, which brought a radical anti-Austrian government into power in Belgrade. Then in 1908, the revolt in the Ottoman Empire raised concerns that the Istanbul government might seek the outright return of Bosnia and Herzegovina. These factors caused the Austro-Hungarian government to seek a permanent resolution of the Bosnian question sooner, rather than later. Taking advantage of turmoil in the Ottoman Empire, Austro-Hungarian diplomacy tried to obtain provisional Russian approval for changes over the status of Bosnia and Herzegovina and published the annexation proclamation on 6 October 1908. Despite international objections to the Austro-Hungarian annexation, Russians and their client state, Serbia, were compelled to accept the Austrian-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in March 1909. In 1910, Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph proclaimed the first constitution in Bosnia, which led to relaxation of earlier laws, elections and formation of the Bosnian parliament and growth of new political life. On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb member of the revolutionary movement Young Bosnia, assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo—an event that was the spark that set off World War I. At the end of the war, the Bosniaks had lost more men per capita than any other ethnic group in the Habsburg Empire whilst serving in the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Infantry (known as Bosniaken) of the Austro-Hungarian Army. Nonetheless, Bosnia and Herzegovina as a whole managed to escape the conflict relatively unscathed. The Austro-Hungarian authorities established an auxiliary militia known as the Schutzkorps with a moot role in the empire's policy of anti-Serb repression. Schutzkorps, predominantly recruited among the Muslim (Bosniak) population, were tasked with hunting down rebel Serbs (the Chetniks and Komitadji) and became known for their persecution of Serbs particularly in Serb populated areas of eastern Bosnia, where they partly retaliated against Serbian Chetniks who in fall 1914 had carried out attacks against the Muslim population in the area. The proceedings of the Austro-Hungarian authorities led to around 5,500 citizens of Serb ethnicity in Bosnia and Herzegovina being arrested, and between 700 and 2,200 died in prison while 460 were executed. Around 5,200 Serb families were forcibly expelled from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Kingdom of Yugoslavia Following World War I, Bosnia and Herzegovina joined the South Slav Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (soon renamed Yugoslavia). Political life in Bosnia at this time was marked by two major trends: social and economic unrest over property redistribution and the formation of several political parties that frequently changed coalitions and alliances with parties in other Yugoslav regions. The dominant ideological conflict of the Yugoslav state, between Croatian regionalism and Serbian centralization, was approached differently by Bosnia's major ethnic groups and was dependent on the overall political atmosphere. The political reforms brought about in the newly established Yugoslavian kingdom saw few benefits for the Bosniaks; according to the 1910 final census of land ownership and population according to religious affiliation conducted in Austro-Hungary, Muslims (Bosniaks) owned 91.1%, Orthodox Serbians owned 6.0%, Croatian Catholics owned 2.6% and others, 0.3% of the property. Following the reforms Bosnian Muslims were dispossessed of a total of 1,175,305 hectares of agricultural and forest land. Although the initial split of the country into 33 oblasts erased the presence of traditional geographic entities from the map, the efforts of Bosnian politicians, such as Mehmed Spaho, ensured the six oblasts carved up from Bosnia and Herzegovina corresponded to the six sanjaks from Ottoman times and, thus, matched the country's traditional boundary as a whole. The establishment of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929, however, brought the redrawing of administrative regions into banates or banovinas that purposely avoided all historical and ethnic lines, removing any trace of a Bosnian entity. Serbo-Croat tensions over the structuring of the Yugoslav state continued, with the concept of a separate Bosnian division receiving little or no consideration. The Cvetković-Maček Agreement that created the Croatian banate in 1939 encouraged what was essentially a partition of Bosnia between Croatia and Serbia. However the rising threat of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany forced Yugoslav politicians to shift their attention. Following a period that saw attempts at appeasement, the signing of the Tripartite Treaty, and a coup d'état, Yugoslavia was finally invaded by Germany on 6 April 1941. World War II (1941–45) Once the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was conquered by German forces in World War II, all of Bosnia was ceded to the Nazi puppet regime, the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) led by the Ustaše. The NDH leaders embarked on a campaign of extermination of Serbs, Jews, Romani as well as dissident Croats, and, later, Josip Broz Tito's Partisans by setting up a number of death camps. The regime systematically and brutally massacred Serbs in villages in the countryside, using a variety of tools. The scale of the violence meant that approximately every sixth Serb living in Bosnia and Herzegovina was the victim of a massacre and virtually every Serb had a family member that was killed in the war, mostly by the Ustaše. The experience had a profound impact in the collective memory of Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia. An estimated 209,000 Serbs or 16.9% of its Bosnia population were killed on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war. The Ustaše recognized both Roman Catholicism and Islam as the national religions, but held the position Eastern Orthodox Church, as a symbol of Serbian identity, was their greatest foe. Although Croats were by far the largest ethnic group to constitute the Ustaše, the Vice President of the NDH and leader of the Yugoslav Muslim Organization Džafer Kulenović was a Muslim, and Muslims (Bosniaks) in total constituted nearly 12% of the Ustaše military and civil service authority. Many Serbs themselves took up arms and joined the Chetniks, a Serb nationalist movement with the aim of establishing an ethnically homogeneous 'Greater Serbian' state within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The Chetniks, in turn, pursued a genocidal campaign against ethnic Muslims and Croats, as well as persecuting a large number of communist Serbs and other Communist sympathizers, with the Muslim populations of Bosnia, Herzegovina and Sandžak being a primary target. Once captured, Muslim villagers were systematically massacred by the Chetniks. Of the 75,000 Muslims who lost their lives in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war, approximately 30,000 (mostly civilians) were killed by the Chetniks. Massacres against Croats were smaller in scale but similar in action. Between 64,000 and 79,000 Bosnian Croats were killed between April 1941 to May 1945. Of these, about 18,000 were killed by the Chetniks. A percentage of Muslims served in Nazi Waffen-SS units. These units were responsible for massacres of Serbs in northwest and eastern Bosnia, most notably in Vlasenica. On 12 October 1941, a group of 108 prominent Sarajevan Muslims signed the Resolution of Sarajevo Muslims by which they condemned the persecution of Serbs organized by the Ustaše, made distinction between Muslims who participated in such persecutions and the Muslim population as a whole, presented information about the persecutions of Muslims by Serbs, and requested security for all citizens of the country, regardless of their identity. Starting in 1941, Yugoslav communists under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito organized their own multi-ethnic resistance group, the Partisans, who fought against both Axis and Chetnik forces. On 29 November 1943, the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) with Tito at its helm held a founding conference in Jajce where Bosnia and Herzegovina was reestablished as a republic within the Yugoslavian federation in its Habsburg borders. During the entire course of World War II in Yugoslavia, 64.1% of all Bosnian Partisans were Serbs, 23% were Muslims and 8.8% Croats. Military success eventually prompted the Allies to support the Partisans, resulting in the successful Maclean Mission, but Tito declined their offer to help and relied on his own forces instead. All the major military offensives by the antifascist movement of Yugoslavia against Nazis and their local supporters were conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its peoples bore the brunt of fighting. More than 300,000 people died in Bosnia and Herzegovina in World War II. At the end of the war, the establishment of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, with the constitution of 1946, officially made Bosnia and Herzegovina one of six constituent republics in the new state. Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1945–1992) Due to its central geographic position within the Yugoslavian federation, post-war Bosnia was selected as a base for the development of the military defense industry. This contributed to a large concentration of arms and military personnel in Bosnia; a significant factor in the war that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. However, Bosnia's existence within Yugoslavia, for the large part, was relatively peaceful and very prosperous, with high employment, a strong industrial and export oriented economy, a good education system and social and medical security for every citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Several international corporations operated in Bosnia — Volkswagen as part of TAS (car factory in Sarajevo, from 1972), Coca-Cola (from 1975), SKF Sweden (from 1967), Marlboro, (a tobacco factory in Sarajevo), and Holiday Inn hotels. Sarajevo was the site of the 1984 Winter Olympics. During the 1950s and 1960s, Bosnia was a political backwater of Yugoslavia. In the 1970s, a strong Bosnian political elite arose, fueled in part by Tito's leadership in the Non-Aligned Movement and Bosnians serving in Yugoslavia's diplomatic corps. While working within the Socialist system, politicians such as Džemal Bijedić, Branko Mikulić and Hamdija Pozderac reinforced and protected the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their efforts proved key during the turbulent period following Tito's death in 1980, and are today considered some of the early steps towards Bosnian independence. However, the republic did not escape the increasingly nationalistic climate of the time. With the fall of communism and the start of the breakup of Yugoslavia, doctrine of tolerance began to lose its potency, creating an opportunity for nationalist elements in the society to spread their influence. Bosnian War (1992–1995) On 18 November 1990, multi-party parliamentary elections were held throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. A second round followed on 25 November, resulting in a national assembly where communist power was replaced by a coalition of three ethnically based parties. Following Slovenia and Croatia's declarations of independence from Yugoslavia, a significant split developed among the residents of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the issue of whether to remain within Yugoslavia (overwhelmingly favored by Serbs) or seek independence (overwhelmingly favored by Bosniaks and Croats). The Serb members of parliament, consisting mainly of the Serb Democratic Party members, abandoned the central parliament in Sarajevo, and formed the Assembly of the Serb People of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 24 October 1991, which marked the end of the three-ethnic coalition that governed after the elections in 1990. This Assembly established the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in part of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 9 January 1992. It was renamed Republika Srpska in August 1992. On 18 November 1991, the party branch in Bosnia and Herzegovina of the ruling party in the Republic of Croatia, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), proclaimed the existence of the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia in a separate part of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina with the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) as its military branch. It went unrecognized by the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which declared it illegal. A declaration of the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 15 October 1991 was followed by a referendum for independence on 29 February and 1 March 1992, which was boycotted by the great majority of Serbs. The turnout in the independence referendum was 63.4 percent and 99.7 percent of voters voted for independence. Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence on 3 March 1992 and received international recognition the following month on 6 April 1992. The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was admitted as a member state of the United Nations on 22 May 1992. Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević and Croatian leader Franjo Tuđman are believed to have agreed on a partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina in March 1991, with the aim of establishing Greater Serbia and Greater Croatia. Following Bosnia and Herzegovina's declaration of independence, Bosnian Serb militias mobilized in different parts of the country. Government forces were poorly equipped and unprepared for the war. International recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina increased diplomatic pressure for the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) to withdraw from the republic's territory, which they officially did in June 1992. The Bosnian Serb members of the JNA simply changed insignia, formed the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS), and continued fighting. Armed and equipped from JNA stockpiles in Bosnia, supported by volunteers and various paramilitary forces from Serbia, and receiving extensive humanitarian, logistical and financial support from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Republika Srpska's offensives in 1992 managed to place much of the country under its control. The Bosnian Serb advance was accompanied by the ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats from VRS-controlled areas. Dozens of concentration camps were established in which inmates were subjected to violence and abuse, including rape. The ethnic cleansing culminated in the Srebrenica massacre of more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in July 1995, which was ruled to have been a genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Bosniak and Bosnian Croat forces also committed war crimes against civilians from different ethnic groups, though on a smaller scale. Most of the Bosniak and Croat atrocities were committed during the Croat–Bosniak War, a sub-conflict of the Bosnian War that pitted the Army of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) against the HVO. The Bosniak-Croat conflict ended in March 1994, with the signing of the Washington Agreement, leading to the creation of a joint Bosniak-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which amalgamated HVO-held territory with that held by the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH). Recent history On 4 February 2014, the protests against the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of the country's two entities, dubbed the Bosnian Spring, the name being taken from the Arab Spring, began in the northern town of Tuzla. Workers from several factories that had been privatised and gone bankrupt assembled to demand action over jobs, unpaid salaries and pensions. Soon protests spread to the rest of the Federation, with violent clashes reported in close to 20 towns, the biggest of which were Sarajevo, Zenica, Mostar, Bihać, Brčko and Tuzla. The Bosnian news media reported that hundreds of people had been injured during the protests, including dozens of police officers, with bursts of violence in Sarajevo, in the northern city of Tuzla, in Mostar in the south, and in Zenica in central Bosnia. The same level of unrest or activism did not occur in Republika Srpska, but hundreds of people also gathered in support of protests in the city of Banja Luka against its separate government. The protests marked the largest outbreak of public anger over high unemployment and two decades of political inertia in the country since the end of the Bosnian War in 1995. According to a report made by Christian Schmidt of the Office of High Representative, Bosnia and Herzegovina has been experiencing intensified political and ethnic tensions, which could potentially break the country apart and slide it back into war once again. The European Union fears this will lead to Balkanization in the region. Geography Bosnia and Herzegovina is in the western Balkans, bordering Croatia () to the north and west, Serbia () to the east, and Montenegro () to the southeast. It has a coastline about long surrounding the town of Neum. It lies between latitudes 42° and 46° N, and longitudes 15° and 20° E. The country's name comes from the two alleged regions Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose border was never defined. Historically, Bosnia's official name never included any of its many regions until the Austro-Hungarian occupation. The country is mostly mountainous, encompassing the central Dinaric Alps. The northeastern parts reach into the Pannonian Basin, while in the south it borders the Adriatic. The Dinaric Alps generally run in a southeast–northwest direction, and get higher towards the south. The highest point of the country is the peak of Maglić at , on the Montenegrin border. Other major mountains include Volujak, Zelengora, Lelija, Lebršnik, Orjen, Kozara, Grmeč, Čvrsnica, Prenj, Vran, Vranica, Velež, Vlašić, Cincar, Romanija, Jahorina, Bjelašnica, Treskavica and Trebević. The geological composition of the Dinaric chain of mountains in Bosnia consists primarily of limestone (including Mesozoic limestone), with deposits of iron, coal, zinc, manganese, bauxite, lead, and salt present in some areas, especially in central and northern Bosnia. Overall, nearly 50% of Bosnia and Herzegovina is forested. Most forest areas are in the centre, east and west parts of Bosnia. Herzegovina has a drier Mediterranean climate, with dominant karst topography. Northern Bosnia (Posavina) contains very fertile agricultural land along the Sava river and the corresponding area is heavily farmed. This farmland is a part of the Pannonian Plain stretching into neighboring Croatia and Serbia. The country has only of coastline, around the town of Neum in the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton. Although the city is surrounded by Croatian peninsulas, by international law, Bosnia and Herzegovina has a right of passage to the outer sea. Sarajevo is the capital and largest city. Other major cities include Banja Luka and Prijedor in the northwest region known as Bosanska Krajina, Tuzla, Bijeljina, Doboj and Brčko in the northeast, Zenica in the central part of the country, and Mostar, the largest city in the southern region of Herzegovina. There are seven major rivers in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Biodiversity Phytogeographically, Bosnia and Herzegovina belongs to the Boreal Kingdom and is shared between the Illyrian province of the Circumboreal Region and Adriatic province of the Mediterranean Region. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina can be subdivided into four ecoregions: Balkan mixed forests, Dinaric Mountains mixed forests, Pannonian mixed forests and Illyrian deciduous forests. The country had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 5.99/10, ranking it 89th globally out of 172 countries. Politics Government As a result of the Dayton Agreement, the civilian peace implementation is supervised by the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina selected by the Peace Implementation Council (PIC). The High Representative is the highest political authority in the country. The High Representative has many governmental and legislative powers, including the dismissal of elected and non-elected officials. Due to the vast powers of the High Representative over Bosnian politics and essential veto powers, the position has also been compared to that of a viceroy. Politics take place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democracy, whereby executive power is exercised by the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Legislative power is vested in both the Council of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Members of the Parliamentary Assembly are chosen according to a proportional representation (PR) system. Bosnia and Herzegovina is a liberal democracy. It has several levels of political structuring, according to the Dayton Agreement. The most important of these levels is the division of the country into two entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina covers 51% of Bosnia and Herzegovina's total area, while Republika Srpska covers 49%. The entities, based largely on the territories held by the two warring sides at the time, were formally established by the Dayton Agreement in 1995 because of the tremendous changes in Bosnia and Herzegovina's ethnic structure. Since 1996, the power of the entities relative to the State government has decreased significantly. Nonetheless, entities still have numerous powers to themselves. The Brčko District in the north of the country was created in 2000, out of land from both entities. It officially belongs to both, but is governed by neither, and

over hundreds of years. The arrival of the ancestors of the Tswana-speakers who came to control the region has yet to be dated precisely. Members of the Bakwena, a chieftaincy under a legendary leader named Kgabo II, made their way into the southern Kalahari by AD 1500, at the latest, and his people drove the Bakgalagadi inhabitants west into the desert. Over the years, several offshoots of the Bakwena moved into adjoining territories. The Bangwaketse occupied areas to the west, while the Bangwato moved northeast into formerly Kalanga areas. Not long afterwards, a Bangwato offshoot known as the Batawana migrated into the Okavango Delta, probably in the 1790s. Effects of the Mfecane and Batswana-Boer Wars The first written records relating to modern-day Botswana appear in 1824. What these records show is that the Bangwaketse had become the predominant power in the region. Under the rule of Makaba II, the Bangwaketse kept vast herds of cattle in well-protected desert areas, and used their military prowess to raid their neighbours. Other chiefdoms in the area, by this time, had capitals of 10,000 or so and were fairly prosperous. This equilibrium came to end during the Mfecane period, 1823–1843, when a succession of invading peoples from South Africa entered the country. Although the Bangwaketse were able to defeat the invading Bakololo in 1826, over time all the major chiefdoms in Botswana were attacked, weakened, and impoverished. The Bakololo and AmaNdebele raided repeatedly and took large numbers of cattle, women, and children from the Batswana—most of whom were driven into the desert or sanctuary areas such as hilltops and caves. Only after 1843, when the Amandebele moved into western Zimbabwe, did this threat subside. During the 1840s and 1850s trade with Cape Colony-based merchants opened up and enabled the Batswana chiefdoms to rebuild. The Bakwena, Bangwaketse, Bangwato and Batawana cooperated to control the lucrative ivory trade and then used the proceeds to import horses and guns, which in turn enabled them to establish control over what is now Botswana. This process was largely complete by 1880, and thus the Bushmen, the Kalanga, the Bakgalagadi, and other current minorities were subjugated by the Batswana. Following the Great Trek, Afrikaners from the Cape Colony established themselves on the borders of Botswana in the Transvaal. In 1852 a coalition of Tswana chiefdoms led by Sechele I defeated Afrikaner incursions at the Battle of Dimawe and, after about eight years of intermittent tensions and hostilities, eventually came to a peace agreement in Potchefstroom in 1860. From that point on, the modern-day border between South Africa and Botswana was agreed on, and the Afrikaners and Batswana traded and worked together comparatively peacefully. In 1884 Batawana, a northern based Tswana clan's cavalry under the command of Kgosi Moremi fought and defeated the Ndebele's invasion of northern Botswana at the Battle of Khutiyabasadi. This blow to the larger invading Ndebele force signalled the start of the collapse of the Ndebele Kingdom in Zimbabwe and helped galvanize Tswana speaking authority of the area now making part of northern Botswana. Due to newly peaceful conditions, trade thrived between 1860 and 1880. Taking advantage of this were Christian missionaries. The Lutherans and the London Missionary Society both became established in the country by 1856. By 1880 every major village had a resident missionary, and their influence slowly became felt. Khama III (reigned 1875–1923) was the first of the Tswana chiefs to make Christianity a state religion and changed a great deal of Tswana customary law as a result. Christianity became the de facto official religion in all the chiefdoms by World War I. Colonialism and the Bechuanaland Protectorate During the Scramble for Africa the territory of Botswana was coveted by both the German Empire and Britain. During the Berlin Conference, Britain decided to annex Botswana in order to safeguard the Road to the North and thus connect the Cape Colony to its territories further north. It unilaterally annexed Tswana territories in January 1885 and then sent the Warren Expedition north to consolidate control over the area and convince the chiefs to accept British overrule. Despite their misgivings, they eventually acquiesced to this fait accompli. In 1890 areas north of 22 degrees were added to the new Bechuanaland Protectorate. During the 1890s the new territory was divided into eight different reserves, with fairly small amounts of land being left as freehold for white settlers. During the early 1890s, the British government decided to hand over the Bechuanaland Protectorate to the British South Africa Company. This plan, which was well on its way to fruition despite the entreaties of Tswana leaders who toured England in protest, was eventually foiled by the failure of the Jameson Raid in January 1896. When the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910 from the main British colonies in the region, the High Commission Territories – the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Basutoland (now Lesotho), and Swaziland (now Eswatini) — were not included, but provision was made for their later incorporation. However, the UK began to consult with their inhabitants as to their wishes. Although successive South African governments sought to have the territories transferred to their jurisdiction, the UK kept delaying; subsequently, it never occurred. The election of the Nationalist government in 1948, which instituted apartheid, and South Africa's withdrawal from the Commonwealth in 1961, ended any prospect of the UK or these territories agreeing to incorporation into South Africa. An expansion of British central authority and the evolution of native government resulted in the 1920 establishment of two advisory councils to represent both Africans and Europeans. The African Council consisted of the eight heads of the Tswana tribes and some elected members. Proclamations in 1934 regulated tribal rule and powers. A European-African advisory council was formed in 1951, and the 1961 constitution established a consultative legislative council. Independence In June 1964, the United Kingdom accepted proposals for a democratic self-government in Botswana. An independence conference was held in London in February 1966. The seat of government was moved in 1965 from Mahikeng in South Africa, to the newly established Gaborone, which is located near Botswana's border with South Africa. Based on the 1965 constitution, the country held its first general elections under universal suffrage and gained independence on 30 September 1966. Seretse Khama, a leader in the independence movement and the legitimate claimant to the Ngwato chiefship, was elected as the first president, and subsequently re-elected twice. The presidency passed to the sitting vice-president, Quett Masire, who was elected in his own right in 1984 and re-elected in 1989 and 1994. Masire retired from office in 1998. He was succeeded by Festus Mogae, who was elected in his own right in 1999 and re-elected in 2004. The presidency passed in 2008 to Ian Khama (son of the first president), who had been serving as Mogae's vice-president since resigning his position in 1998 as Commander of the Botswana Defence Force to take up this civilian role. On 1 April 2018 Mokgweetsi Eric Keabetswe Masisi was sworn in as the 5th President of Botswana succeeding Ian Khama. He represents the Botswana Democratic Party, which has also won a majority in every parliamentary election since independence. All the previous presidents have also represented the same party. A long-running dispute over the northern border with Namibia's Caprivi Strip was the subject of a ruling by the International Court of Justice in December 1999. It ruled that Kasikili Island belongs to Botswana. In 2001, the Tsodilo Hills were gained as a listing of a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its cultural significance of rock art and ancestral place of worship. Geography At Botswana is the world's 48th-largest country. It is similar in size to Madagascar or France. It lies between latitudes 17° and 27° south, and longitudes 20° and 30° east. Botswana is predominantly flat, tending towards gently rolling tableland. Botswana is dominated by the Kalahari Desert, which covers up to 70% of its land surface. The Okavango Delta, one of the world's largest inland river deltas, is in the north-west. The Makgadikgadi Pan, a large salt pan, lies in the north. The Limpopo River Basin, the major landform of all of southern Africa, lies partly in Botswana, with the basins of its tributaries, the Notwane, Bonwapitse, Mahalapye, Lotsane, Motloutse and the Shashe, located in the eastern part of the country. The Notwane provides water to the capital through the Gaborone Dam. The Chobe River lies to the north, providing a boundary between Botswana and Namibia's Zambezi Region. The Chobe River meets with the Zambezi River at a place called Kazungula (meaning a small sausage tree, a point where Sebitwane and his Makololo tribe crossed the Zambezi into Zambia). Biodiversity and conservation Botswana has diverse areas of wildlife habitat. In addition to the delta and desert areas, there are grasslands and savannas, where blue wildebeest, antelopes, and other mammals and birds are found. Northern Botswana has one of the few remaining large populations of the endangered African wild dog. Chobe National Park, found in the Chobe District, has the world's largest concentration of African elephants. The park covers about and supports about 350 species of birds. The Chobe National Park and Moremi Game Reserve (in the Okavango Delta) are major tourist destinations. Other reserves include the Central Kalahari Game Reserve located in the Kalahari Desert in Ghanzi District; Makgadikgadi Pans National Park and Nxai Pan National Park are in Central District in the Makgadikgadi Pan. Mashatu Game Reserve is privately owned, located at the confluence of the Shashe and Limpopo Rivers in eastern Botswana. The other privately owned reserve is Mokolodi Nature Reserve near Gaborone. There are also specialised sanctuaries like Khama Rhino Sanctuary (for rhinoceros) and Makgadikgadi Sanctuary (for flamingos). They are both located in Central District. Botswana faces two major environmental problems, drought and desertification, which are heavily linked. Three-quarters of the country's human and animal populations depend on groundwater due to drought. Groundwater use through deep borehole drilling has somewhat eased the effects of drought. Surface water is scarce in Botswana and less than 5% of the agriculture in the country is sustainable by rainfall. In the remaining 95% of the country, raising livestock is the primary source of rural income. Approximately 71% of the country's land is used for communal grazing, which has been a major cause of the desertification and the accelerating soil erosion of the country. Since raising livestock has been profitable for the people of Botswana, they continue to exploit the land with dramatically increasing numbers of animals. From 1966 to 1991, the livestock population grew from 1.7 million to 5.5 million. Similarly, the human population has increased from 574,000 in 1971 to 1.5 million in 1995, a 161% increase in 24 years. "Over 50% of all households in Botswana own cattle, which is currently the largest single source of rural income." "Rangeland degradation or desertification is regarded as the reduction in land productivity as a result of overstocking and overgrazing, or as a result of veld product gathering for commercial use. Degradation is exacerbated by the effects of drought and climate change." Environmentalists report that the Okavango Delta is drying up due to the increased grazing of livestock. The Okavango Delta is one of the major semi-forested wetlands in Botswana and one of the largest inland deltas in the world; it is a crucial ecosystem to the survival of many animals. The Department of Forestry and Range Resources has already begun to implement a project to reintroduce indigenous vegetation into communities in Kgalagadi South, Kweneng North and Boteti. Reintroduction of indigenous vegetation will help reduce the degradation of the land. The United States Government has also entered into an agreement with Botswana, giving them US$7 million to reduce Botswana's debt by US$8.3 million. The stipulation of the US reducing Botswana's debt is that Botswana will focus on more extensive conservation of the land. The country had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 9.13/10, ranking it 8th globally out of 172 countries. The United Nations Development Programme claims that poverty is a major problem behind the overexploitation of resources, including land, in Botswana. To help change this the UNDP joined in with a project started in the southern community of Struizendam in Botswana. The purpose of the project is to draw from "indigenous knowledge and traditional land management systems". The leaders of this movement are supposed to be the people in the community, to draw them in, in turn increasing their possibilities to earn an income and thus decreasing poverty. The UNDP also stated that the government has to effectively implement policies to allow people to manage their own local resources and are giving the government information to help with policy development. Government and politics Botswana is its continent's oldest democracy. The Constitution of Botswana is the rule of law, which protects the citizens of Botswana and represents their rights. The politics of Botswana take place in a framework of a multi-party representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Botswana is both head of state and head of government, and is elected by and accountable to the Parliament of Botswana. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Parliament of Botswana. The most recent election, its eleventh, was held on 23 October 2019. Since independence was declared, the party system has been dominated by the Botswana Democratic Party. Botswana was ranked as a "flawed democracy" and 33rd out of 167 states in the 2020 Democracy Index. This was the second highest rating in Africa, and highest ranking in continental Africa (only the offshore archipelago of Cape Verde bested its ranking). According to Transparency International, Botswana is the least corrupt country in Africa and ranks just below Portugal and South Korea. Judiciary The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. It consists of a typical court system of local Magistrates Courts, a High Court and a Court of Appeal. The High Court is a superior court of record with unlimited original jurisdiction to hear and determine any criminal, civil or constitutional cases under any law. Appeals can be heard by the Court of Appeal. The Head of the High Court is the Chief Justice. The Court of Appeal is the highest and final court in the country and deals with appeals from the High Court and the Industrial Court. The Head of the Court of Appeal is the Judge President. Judges are appointed by the President of Botswana on the recommendation of the Judicial Services Commission. Chief Justices: 1968–1971 John Richard Dendy Young 1972–1975 Akinola Aguda 1975–1977 George O.L. Dyke 1977–1981 Robert John Hayfron-Benjamin 1981–1987 James Aiden O'Brien Quinn 1987–1992 Livesey Luke 1992–1997 Moleleki Didwell Mokama 1997–2010 Julian Mukwesu Nganunu 2010–2018 Maruping Dibotelo 2018–present Terence Rannowane With regard to the legal profession, although the Law Society of Botswana has been in existence since 1997, there is still no clear indication in their registry of attorneys as to how certain demographics, such as women, have fared in the legal field. Foreign relations and military At the time of independence, Botswana had no armed forces. It was only after the Rhodesian and South African armies attacked the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army and Umkhonto we Sizwe bases respectively that the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) was formed in 1977. The president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces and appoints a defence council and the BDF currently consists of roughly 60,000 servicemen. In 2019, Botswana signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Following political changes in South Africa and the region, the BDF's missions have increasingly focused on prevention of poaching, preparing for disasters, and foreign peacekeeping. The United States has been the largest single foreign contributor to the development of the BDF, and a large segment of its officer corps have received U.S. training. The Botswana government gave the United States permission to explore the possibility of establishing an Africa Command (AFRICOM) base in the country. Human rights Many of the indigenous San people have been forcibly relocated from their land to reservations. To make them relocate, they were denied access to water on their land and faced arrest if they hunted, which was their primary source of food. Their lands lie in the middle of the world's richest diamond field. Officially, the government denies that there is any link to mining and claims the relocation is to preserve the wildlife and ecosystem, even though the San people have lived sustainably on the land for millennia. On the reservations they struggle to find employment, and alcoholism is rampant. On 24 August 2018 the UN Special Rapporteur on Minorities, Fernand de Varennes, issued a statement calling on Botswana "to step up efforts to recognize and protect the rights of minorities in relation to public services, land and resource use and the use of minority languages in education and other critical areas." Until June 2019, homosexual acts were illegal in Botswana. A Botswana High Court decision of 11 June of that year struck down provisions in the Criminal Code that punished "carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature" and "acts of gross indecency", making Botswana one of twenty-two African countries that have either decriminalised or legalised homosexual acts. Capital punishment is a legal penalty for murder in Botswana, and executions are carried out by hanging. The Botswana Centre for Human Rights, Ditshwanelo, was established in 1993. Administrative divisions Botswana's ten districts are: Southern District South-East District Kweneng District Kgatleng District Central District North-East District Ngamiland District Kgalagadi District Chobe District Ghanzi District Botswana's councils created from urban or town councils are: Gaborone City, Francistown, Lobatse Town, Selebi-Phikwe Town, Jwaneng Town, Orapa Town and Sowa Township. Economy Since independence, Botswana has had one of the fastest growth

(meaning a small sausage tree, a point where Sebitwane and his Makololo tribe crossed the Zambezi into Zambia). Biodiversity and conservation Botswana has diverse areas of wildlife habitat. In addition to the delta and desert areas, there are grasslands and savannas, where blue wildebeest, antelopes, and other mammals and birds are found. Northern Botswana has one of the few remaining large populations of the endangered African wild dog. Chobe National Park, found in the Chobe District, has the world's largest concentration of African elephants. The park covers about and supports about 350 species of birds. The Chobe National Park and Moremi Game Reserve (in the Okavango Delta) are major tourist destinations. Other reserves include the Central Kalahari Game Reserve located in the Kalahari Desert in Ghanzi District; Makgadikgadi Pans National Park and Nxai Pan National Park are in Central District in the Makgadikgadi Pan. Mashatu Game Reserve is privately owned, located at the confluence of the Shashe and Limpopo Rivers in eastern Botswana. The other privately owned reserve is Mokolodi Nature Reserve near Gaborone. There are also specialised sanctuaries like Khama Rhino Sanctuary (for rhinoceros) and Makgadikgadi Sanctuary (for flamingos). They are both located in Central District. Botswana faces two major environmental problems, drought and desertification, which are heavily linked. Three-quarters of the country's human and animal populations depend on groundwater due to drought. Groundwater use through deep borehole drilling has somewhat eased the effects of drought. Surface water is scarce in Botswana and less than 5% of the agriculture in the country is sustainable by rainfall. In the remaining 95% of the country, raising livestock is the primary source of rural income. Approximately 71% of the country's land is used for communal grazing, which has been a major cause of the desertification and the accelerating soil erosion of the country. Since raising livestock has been profitable for the people of Botswana, they continue to exploit the land with dramatically increasing numbers of animals. From 1966 to 1991, the livestock population grew from 1.7 million to 5.5 million. Similarly, the human population has increased from 574,000 in 1971 to 1.5 million in 1995, a 161% increase in 24 years. "Over 50% of all households in Botswana own cattle, which is currently the largest single source of rural income." "Rangeland degradation or desertification is regarded as the reduction in land productivity as a result of overstocking and overgrazing, or as a result of veld product gathering for commercial use. Degradation is exacerbated by the effects of drought and climate change." Environmentalists report that the Okavango Delta is drying up due to the increased grazing of livestock. The Okavango Delta is one of the major semi-forested wetlands in Botswana and one of the largest inland deltas in the world; it is a crucial ecosystem to the survival of many animals. The Department of Forestry and Range Resources has already begun to implement a project to reintroduce indigenous vegetation into communities in Kgalagadi South, Kweneng North and Boteti. Reintroduction of indigenous vegetation will help reduce the degradation of the land. The United States Government has also entered into an agreement with Botswana, giving them US$7 million to reduce Botswana's debt by US$8.3 million. The stipulation of the US reducing Botswana's debt is that Botswana will focus on more extensive conservation of the land. The country had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 9.13/10, ranking it 8th globally out of 172 countries. The United Nations Development Programme claims that poverty is a major problem behind the overexploitation of resources, including land, in Botswana. To help change this the UNDP joined in with a project started in the southern community of Struizendam in Botswana. The purpose of the project is to draw from "indigenous knowledge and traditional land management systems". The leaders of this movement are supposed to be the people in the community, to draw them in, in turn increasing their possibilities to earn an income and thus decreasing poverty. The UNDP also stated that the government has to effectively implement policies to allow people to manage their own local resources and are giving the government information to help with policy development. Government and politics Botswana is its continent's oldest democracy. The Constitution of Botswana is the rule of law, which protects the citizens of Botswana and represents their rights. The politics of Botswana take place in a framework of a multi-party representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Botswana is both head of state and head of government, and is elected by and accountable to the Parliament of Botswana. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Parliament of Botswana. The most recent election, its eleventh, was held on 23 October 2019. Since independence was declared, the party system has been dominated by the Botswana Democratic Party. Botswana was ranked as a "flawed democracy" and 33rd out of 167 states in the 2020 Democracy Index. This was the second highest rating in Africa, and highest ranking in continental Africa (only the offshore archipelago of Cape Verde bested its ranking). According to Transparency International, Botswana is the least corrupt country in Africa and ranks just below Portugal and South Korea. Judiciary The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. It consists of a typical court system of local Magistrates Courts, a High Court and a Court of Appeal. The High Court is a superior court of record with unlimited original jurisdiction to hear and determine any criminal, civil or constitutional cases under any law. Appeals can be heard by the Court of Appeal. The Head of the High Court is the Chief Justice. The Court of Appeal is the highest and final court in the country and deals with appeals from the High Court and the Industrial Court. The Head of the Court of Appeal is the Judge President. Judges are appointed by the President of Botswana on the recommendation of the Judicial Services Commission. Chief Justices: 1968–1971 John Richard Dendy Young 1972–1975 Akinola Aguda 1975–1977 George O.L. Dyke 1977–1981 Robert John Hayfron-Benjamin 1981–1987 James Aiden O'Brien Quinn 1987–1992 Livesey Luke 1992–1997 Moleleki Didwell Mokama 1997–2010 Julian Mukwesu Nganunu 2010–2018 Maruping Dibotelo 2018–present Terence Rannowane With regard to the legal profession, although the Law Society of Botswana has been in existence since 1997, there is still no clear indication in their registry of attorneys as to how certain demographics, such as women, have fared in the legal field. Foreign relations and military At the time of independence, Botswana had no armed forces. It was only after the Rhodesian and South African armies attacked the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army and Umkhonto we Sizwe bases respectively that the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) was formed in 1977. The president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces and appoints a defence council and the BDF currently consists of roughly 60,000 servicemen. In 2019, Botswana signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Following political changes in South Africa and the region, the BDF's missions have increasingly focused on prevention of poaching, preparing for disasters, and foreign peacekeeping. The United States has been the largest single foreign contributor to the development of the BDF, and a large segment of its officer corps have received U.S. training. The Botswana government gave the United States permission to explore the possibility of establishing an Africa Command (AFRICOM) base in the country. Human rights Many of the indigenous San people have been forcibly relocated from their land to reservations. To make them relocate, they were denied access to water on their land and faced arrest if they hunted, which was their primary source of food. Their lands lie in the middle of the world's richest diamond field. Officially, the government denies that there is any link to mining and claims the relocation is to preserve the wildlife and ecosystem, even though the San people have lived sustainably on the land for millennia. On the reservations they struggle to find employment, and alcoholism is rampant. On 24 August 2018 the UN Special Rapporteur on Minorities, Fernand de Varennes, issued a statement calling on Botswana "to step up efforts to recognize and protect the rights of minorities in relation to public services, land and resource use and the use of minority languages in education and other critical areas." Until June 2019, homosexual acts were illegal in Botswana. A Botswana High Court decision of 11 June of that year struck down provisions in the Criminal Code that punished "carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature" and "acts of gross indecency", making Botswana one of twenty-two African countries that have either decriminalised or legalised homosexual acts. Capital punishment is a legal penalty for murder in Botswana, and executions are carried out by hanging. The Botswana Centre for Human Rights, Ditshwanelo, was established in 1993. Administrative divisions Botswana's ten districts are: Southern District South-East District Kweneng District Kgatleng District Central District North-East District Ngamiland District Kgalagadi District Chobe District Ghanzi District Botswana's councils created from urban or town councils are: Gaborone City, Francistown, Lobatse Town, Selebi-Phikwe Town, Jwaneng Town, Orapa Town and Sowa Township. Economy Since independence, Botswana has had one of the fastest growth rates in per capita income in the world. Botswana has transformed itself from one of the poorest countries in the world to an upper middle-income country. GDP per capita grew from $1,344 in 1950 to $15,015 in 2016. Although Botswana was resource-abundant, a good institutional framework allowed the country to reinvest resource-income in order to generate stable future income. By one estimate, it has the fourth highest gross national income at purchasing power parity in Africa, giving it a standard of living around that of Mexico. The Ministry of Trade and Industry of Botswana is responsible for promoting business development throughout the country. According to the International Monetary Fund, economic growth averaged over 9% per year from 1966 to 1999. Botswana has a high level of economic freedom compared to other African countries. The government has maintained a sound fiscal policy, despite consecutive budget deficits in 2002 and 2003, and a negligible level of foreign debt. It earned the highest sovereign credit rating in Africa and has stockpiled foreign exchange reserves (over $7 billion in 2005/2006) amounting to almost two and a half years of current imports. The constitution provides for an independent judiciary, and the government respects this in practice. The legal system is sufficient to conduct secure commercial dealings, although a serious and growing backlog of cases prevents timely trials. The protection of intellectual property rights has improved significantly. Botswana is ranked second only to South Africa among sub-Saharan Africa countries in the 2014 International Property Rights Index. While generally open to foreign participation in its economy, Botswana reserves some sectors for citizens. Increased foreign investment plays a significant role in the privatisation of state-owned enterprises. Investment regulations are transparent, and bureaucratic procedures are streamlined and open, although somewhat slow. Investment returns such as profits and dividends, debt service, capital gains, returns on intellectual property, royalties, franchise's fees, and service fees can be repatriated without limits. Botswana imports refined petroleum products and electricity from South Africa. There is some domestic production of electricity from coal. Energy Finance An array of financial institutions populates the country's financial system, with pension funds and commercial banks being the two most important segments by asset size. Banks remain profitable, well-capitalised, and liquid, as a result of growing national resources and high interest rates. The Bank of Botswana serves as a central bank. The country's currency is the Botswana pula. Botswana's competitive banking system is one of Africa's most advanced. Generally adhering to global standards in the transparency of financial policies and banking supervision, the financial sector provides ample access to credit for entrepreneurs. The Capital Bank opened in 2008. , there are a dozen licensed banks in the country. The government is involved in banking through state-owned financial institutions and a special financial incentives program that is aimed at increasing Botswana's status as a financial centre. Credit is allocated on market terms, although the government provides subsidised loans. Reform of non-bank financial institutions has continued in recent years, notably through the establishment of a single financial regulatory agency that provides more effective supervision. The government has abolished exchange controls, and with the resulting creation of new portfolio investment options, the Botswana Stock Exchange is growing. Gemstones and precious metals In Botswana, the Department of Mines and Mineral Resources, Green Technology and Energy Security led by Hon Sadique Kebonang in Gaborone, maintains data regarding mining throughout the country. Debswana, the largest diamond mining company operating in Botswana, is 50% owned by the government. The mineral industry provides about 40% of all government revenues. In 2007, significant quantities of uranium were discovered, and mining was projected to begin by 2010. Several international mining corporations have established regional headquarters in Botswana, and prospected for diamonds, gold, uranium, copper, and even oil, many coming back with positive results. Government announced in early 2009 that they would try to shift their economic dependence on diamonds, over serious concern that diamonds are predicted to dry out in Botswana over the next twenty years. Botswana's Orapa mine is the largest diamond mine in the world in terms of value and quantity of carats produced annually. Estimated to have produced over 11 million carats in 2013, with an average price of $145/carat, the Orapa mine was estimated to produce over $1.6 billion worth of diamonds in 2013. Creative industries Increasing importance is being given to the economic contribution of the creative industries to national economies. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development(UNCTAD) recompiles statistics about the export and import of goods and services related to the creative industries. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has assisted in the preparation of national studies measuring the size of over 50 copyright industries around the world. According to the WIPO compiled data, the national contribution of creative industries varies from 2% to 11% depending on the country. Using the WIPO-framework, the Companies and Intellectual Property Authority(CIPA) and the Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis published by a sector-specific study in 2019. In 2016, copyright industries contributed 5.46% to value-added and 2.66% to the total labor force, 1.28% to exports, and 3.47% to imports. Demographics As of 2012, the Tswana are the majority ethnic group in Botswana, making up approximately 79% of the population, followed by Kalanga at 11% and the San (Basarwa) at 3%. The remaining 7% is made up of White Batswana/European Batswana (3%), Indians, and a number of other smaller Southern African ethnic groups. Native groups include the Bayei, Bambukushu, Basubia, Baherero and Bakgalagadi. The Indian minority is made up of both recent migrants and descendants of Indian migrants who arrived from Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritius and South Africa. Since 2000, because of deteriorating economic conditions in Zimbabwe, the number of Zimbabweans in Botswana has risen into the tens of thousands. Fewer than

in the northern Philippines (Manila) which Brunei incorporated via territorial acquisition accomplished through royal marriages. For political reasons, the historical rulers of Maynila maintained close cognatic ties through intermarriage with the ruling houses of the Sultanate of Brunei, but Brunei's political influence over Maynila is not considered to have extended to military or political rule. Intermarriage was a common strategy for large thalassocratic states (maritime states) such as Brunei to extend their influence, and for local rulers such as those of Maynila to help strengthen their family claims to nobility. Sultan Bolkiah had extended Brunei's power to its greatest extent when it conquered Manila and Sulu as he even attempted but failed to conquer the Visayas islands even though Sultan Bolkiah was half-Visayan himself being descended from a Visayan mother and he was famously known as Sultan Ragam "The Singing Captain", his powerful musical voice was a trait he inherited from his Visayan lineage since Visayans were culturally obsessed with singing, with the best Visayan singers often also being members of their warrior castes too. However, Islamic Brunei's power was not uncontested in Borneo since it had a Hindu rival in a state founded by Indians called Kutai in the south which they overpowered but didn't destroy. Brunei's dominance in the Philippines was also challenged by two Indianized kingdoms, the Rajahanates of Cebu and Butuan which were also coincidentally allied with Kutai and were also at war with Brunei's dependencies; Sulu and Manila as well as their mutual ally, the Sultanate of Maguindanao. The Kedatuans of Madja-as and Dapitan were also belligerent against Brunei due to them being the targets of constant Muslim attacks organized from Maguindanao and Ternate, a Papuan speaking state in the vicinity of Oceania that grew wealthy by monopolizing spice production. Nevertheless, by the 16th century, Islam was firmly rooted in Brunei, and the country had built one of its biggest mosques. In 1578, Alonso Beltrán, a Spanish traveller, described it as being five stories tall and built on the water. War with Spain and decline Brunei briefly rose to prominence in Southeast Asia when the Portuguese occupied Malacca and thereby forced the wealthy and powerful but displaced Muslim refugees there to relocate to nearby Sultanates such as Aceh and Brunei. The Bruneian Sultan then intervened in a territorial conflict between Hindu Tondo and Muslim Manila in the Philippines by appointing the Bruneian descended Rajah Ache of Manila as admiral of the Bruneian navy in a rivalry against Tondo and as the enforcer of Bruneian interests in the Philippines. He subsequently encountered the Magellan expedition wherein Antonio Pigafetta noted that under orders from his grandfather the Sultan of Brunei, Ache had previously sacked the Buddhist city of Loue in Southwest Borneo for being faithful to the old religion and rebelling against the authority of Sultanate. However, European influence gradually brought an end to Brunei's regional power, as Brunei entered a period of decline compounded by internal strife over royal succession. In the face of these invasions by European Christian powers, the Ottoman Caliphate aided the beleaguered Southeast Asian Sultanates by making Aceh a protectorate and sending expeditions to reinforce, train and equip the local mujahideen. Turks were routinely migrating to Brunei as evidenced by the complaints of Manila Oidor Melchor Davalos who in his 1585 report, say that Turks were coming to Sumatra, Borneo and Ternate every year, including defeated veterans from the Battle of Lepanto. The presence of Turks assisting Brunei against Habsburg Spain, makes the subsequent Castille War a part of the Ottoman–Habsburg wars. Spain declared war in 1578, planning to attack and capture Kota Batu, Brunei's capital at the time. This was based in part on the assistance of two Bruneian noblemen, Pengiran Seri Lela and Pengiran Seri Ratna. The former had travelled to Manila, then the centre of the Spanish colony. Manila itself was captured from Brunei, Christianised and made a territory of the Viceroyalty of New Spain which was centered in Mexico City. Pengiran Seri Lela came to offer Brunei as a tributary to Spain for help to recover the throne usurped by his brother, Saiful Rijal. The Spanish agreed that if they succeeded in conquering Brunei, Pengiran Seri Lela would be appointed as the sultan, while Pengiran Seri Ratna would be the new Bendahara. In March 1578, a fresh Spanish fleet had arrived from Mexico and settled at the Philippines, they were led by De Sande, acting as Capitán-General, he organised an expedition from Manila for Brunei. The expedition consisted of 400 Spaniards and Mexicans, 1,500 Filipino natives and 300 Borneans. The campaign was one of many, which also included action in Mindanao and Sulu. The racial make-up of the Christian side was diverse since it were usually made up of Mestizos, Mulattoes and Amerindians (Aztecs, Mayans and Incans) who were gathered and sent from Mexico and were led by Spanish officers who had worked together with native Filipinos in military campaigns across the Southeast Asia. The Muslim side though was also equally racially diverse. In addition to the native Malay warriors, the Ottomans had repeatedly sent military expeditions to nearby Aceh. The expeditions were composed mainly of Turks, Egyptians, Swahilis, Somalis, Sindhis, Gujaratis and Malabars. These expeditionary forces had also spread to other nearby Sultanates such as Brunei and had taught new fighting tactics and techniques on how to forge cannons. Eventually, the Spanish invaded the capital on 16 April 1578, with the help of Pengiran Seri Lela and Pengiran Seri Ratna, burning towns and raping populations. The Sultan Saiful Rijal and Paduka Seri Begawan Sultan Abdul Kahar were forced to flee to Meragang then to Jerudong. In Jerudong, they made plans to chase the conquering army away from Brunei. Suffering high fatalities due to a cholera or dysentery outbreak, the Spanish decided to abandon Brunei and returned to Manila on 26 June 1578, after 72 days. Before doing so, they burned the mosque, a high structure with a five-tier roof. Pengiran Seri Lela died in August or September 1578, probably from the same illness suffered by his Spanish allies. There was suspicion that he the legitimist sultan could have been poisoned by the ruling sultan. Seri Lela's daughter, a Bruneian princess, "Putri", had left with the Spanish, she abandoned her claim to the crown and then she married a Christian Tagalog, named Agustín de Legazpi de Tondo. Agustin de Legaspi along with his family and associates were soon implicated in the Conspiracy of the Maharlikas, an attempt by Filipinos to link up with the Brunei Sultanate and Japanese Shogunate to expel the Spaniards from the Philippines. However, upon the Spanish suppression of the conspiracy, the Bruneian descended aristocracy of precolonial Manila were exiled to Guerrero, Mexico which consequently later became a center of the Mexican war of independence against Spain. The local Brunei accounts of the Castilian War differ greatly from the generally accepted view of events. What was called the Castilian War was seen as a heroic episode, with the Spaniards being driven out by Bendahara Sakam, purportedly a brother of the ruling sultan, and a thousand native warriors. Most historians consider this to be a folk-hero account, which probably developed decades or centuries after. Brunei eventually descended into anarchy. The country suffered a civil war from 1660 to 1673. British intervention The British have intervened in the affairs of Brunei on several occasions. Britain attacked Brunei in July 1846 due to internal conflicts over who was the rightful Sultan. In the 1880s, the decline of the Bruneian Empire continued. The sultan granted land (now Sarawak) to James Brooke, who had helped him quell a rebellion, and allowed him to establish the Raj of Sarawak. Over time, Brooke and his nephews (who succeeded him) leased or annexed more land. Brunei lost much of its territory to him and his dynasty, known as the White Rajahs. Sultan Hashim Jalilul Alam Aqamaddin appealed to the British to stop further encroachment by the Brookes. The "Treaty of Protection" was negotiated by Sir Hugh Low and signed into effect on 17 September 1888. The treaty said that the sultan "could not cede or lease any territory to foreign powers without British consent"; it provided Britain effective control over Brunei's external affairs, making it a British protected state (which continued until 1984). But, when the Raj of Sarawak annexed Brunei's Pandaruan District in 1890, the British did not take any action to stop it. They did not regard either Brunei or the Raj of Sarawak as 'foreign' (per the Treaty of Protection). This final annexation by Sarawak left Brunei with its current small land mass and separation into two parts. British residents were introduced in Brunei under the Supplementary Protectorate Agreement in 1906. The residents were to advise the sultan on all matters of administration. Over time, the resident assumed more executive control than the sultan. The residential system ended in 1959. Discovery of oil Petroleum was discovered in 1929 after several fruitless attempts. Two men, F. F. Marriot and T. G. Cochrane, smelled oil near the Seria river in late 1926. They informed a geophysicist, who conducted a survey there. In 1927, gas seepages were reported in the area. Seria Well Number One (S-1) was drilled on 12 July 1928. Oil was struck at on 5 April 1929. Seria Well Number 2 was drilled on 19 August 1929, and, , continues to produce oil. Oil production was increased considerably in the 1930s with the development of more oil fields. In 1940, oil production was at more than six million barrels. The British Malayan Petroleum Company (now Brunei Shell Petroleum Company) was formed on 22 July 1922. The first offshore well was drilled in 1957. Oil and natural gas have been the basis of Brunei's development and wealth since the late 20th century. Japanese occupation The Japanese invaded Brunei on 16 December 1941, eight days after their attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States Navy. They landed 10,000 troops of the Kawaguchi Detachment from Cam Ranh Bay at Kuala Belait. After six days' fighting, they occupied the entire country. The only Allied troops in the area were the 2nd Battalion of the 15th Punjab Regiment based at Kuching, Sarawak. Once the Japanese occupied Brunei, they made an agreement with Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin over governing the country. Inche Ibrahim (known later as Pehin Datu Perdana Menteri Dato Laila Utama Awang Haji Ibrahim), a former Secretary to the British Resident, Ernest Edgar Pengilly, was appointed Chief Administrative Officer under the Japanese Governor. The Japanese had proposed that Pengilly retain his position under their administration, but he declined. Both he and other British nationals still in Brunei were interned by the Japanese at Batu Lintang camp in Sarawak. While the British officials were under Japanese guard, Ibrahim made a point of personally shaking each one by the hand and wishing him well. The Sultan retained his throne and was given a pension and honours by the Japanese. During the later part of the occupation, he resided at Tantuya, Limbang and had little to do with the Japanese. Most of the Malay government officers were retained by the Japanese. Brunei's administration was reorganised into five prefectures, which included British North Borneo. The Prefectures included Baram, Labuan, Lawas, and Limbang. Ibrahim hid numerous significant government documents from the Japanese during the occupation. Pengiran Yusuf (later YAM Pengiran Setia Negara Pengiran Haji Mohd Yusuf), along with other Bruneians, was sent to Japan for training. Although in the area the day of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Yusuf survived. The British had anticipated a Japanese attack, but lacked the resources to defend the area because of their engagement in the war in Europe. The troops from the Punjab Regiment filled in the Seria oilfield oilwells with concrete in September 1941 to deny the Japanese their use. The remaining equipment and installations were destroyed when the Japanese invaded Malaya. By the end of the war, 16 wells at Miri and Seria had been restarted, with production reaching about half the pre-war level. Coal production at Muara was also recommenced, but with little success. During the occupation, the Japanese had their language taught in schools, and Government officers were required to learn Japanese. The local currency was replaced by what was to become known as duit pisang (banana money). From 1943 hyper-inflation destroyed the currency's value and, at the end of the war, this currency was worthless. Allied attacks on shipping eventually caused trade to cease. Food and medicine fell into short supply, and the population suffered famine and disease. The airport runway was constructed by the Japanese during the occupation, and in 1943 Japanese naval units were based in Brunei Bay and Labuan. The naval base was destroyed by Allied bombing, but the airport runway survived. The facility was developed as a public airport. In 1944 the Allies began a bombing campaign against the occupying Japanese, which destroyed much of the town and Kuala Belait, but missed Kampong Ayer. On 10 June 1945, the Australian 9th Division landed at Muara under Operation Oboe Six to recapture Borneo from the Japanese. They were supported by American air and naval units. Brunei town was bombed extensively and recaptured after three days of heavy fighting. Many buildings were destroyed, including the Mosque. The Japanese forces in Brunei, Borneo, and Sarawak, under Lieutenant-General Masao Baba, formally surrendered at Labuan on 10 September 1945. The British Military Administration took over from the Japanese and remained until July 1946. Post-World War II After World War II, a new government was formed in Brunei under the British Military Administration (BMA). It consisted mainly of Australian officers and servicemen. The administration of Brunei was passed to the Civil Administration on 6 July 1945. The Brunei State Council was also revived that year. The BMA was tasked to revive the Bruneian economy, which was extensively damaged by the Japanese

Habsburg Spain, makes the subsequent Castille War a part of the Ottoman–Habsburg wars. Spain declared war in 1578, planning to attack and capture Kota Batu, Brunei's capital at the time. This was based in part on the assistance of two Bruneian noblemen, Pengiran Seri Lela and Pengiran Seri Ratna. The former had travelled to Manila, then the centre of the Spanish colony. Manila itself was captured from Brunei, Christianised and made a territory of the Viceroyalty of New Spain which was centered in Mexico City. Pengiran Seri Lela came to offer Brunei as a tributary to Spain for help to recover the throne usurped by his brother, Saiful Rijal. The Spanish agreed that if they succeeded in conquering Brunei, Pengiran Seri Lela would be appointed as the sultan, while Pengiran Seri Ratna would be the new Bendahara. In March 1578, a fresh Spanish fleet had arrived from Mexico and settled at the Philippines, they were led by De Sande, acting as Capitán-General, he organised an expedition from Manila for Brunei. The expedition consisted of 400 Spaniards and Mexicans, 1,500 Filipino natives and 300 Borneans. The campaign was one of many, which also included action in Mindanao and Sulu. The racial make-up of the Christian side was diverse since it were usually made up of Mestizos, Mulattoes and Amerindians (Aztecs, Mayans and Incans) who were gathered and sent from Mexico and were led by Spanish officers who had worked together with native Filipinos in military campaigns across the Southeast Asia. The Muslim side though was also equally racially diverse. In addition to the native Malay warriors, the Ottomans had repeatedly sent military expeditions to nearby Aceh. The expeditions were composed mainly of Turks, Egyptians, Swahilis, Somalis, Sindhis, Gujaratis and Malabars. These expeditionary forces had also spread to other nearby Sultanates such as Brunei and had taught new fighting tactics and techniques on how to forge cannons. Eventually, the Spanish invaded the capital on 16 April 1578, with the help of Pengiran Seri Lela and Pengiran Seri Ratna, burning towns and raping populations. The Sultan Saiful Rijal and Paduka Seri Begawan Sultan Abdul Kahar were forced to flee to Meragang then to Jerudong. In Jerudong, they made plans to chase the conquering army away from Brunei. Suffering high fatalities due to a cholera or dysentery outbreak, the Spanish decided to abandon Brunei and returned to Manila on 26 June 1578, after 72 days. Before doing so, they burned the mosque, a high structure with a five-tier roof. Pengiran Seri Lela died in August or September 1578, probably from the same illness suffered by his Spanish allies. There was suspicion that he the legitimist sultan could have been poisoned by the ruling sultan. Seri Lela's daughter, a Bruneian princess, "Putri", had left with the Spanish, she abandoned her claim to the crown and then she married a Christian Tagalog, named Agustín de Legazpi de Tondo. Agustin de Legaspi along with his family and associates were soon implicated in the Conspiracy of the Maharlikas, an attempt by Filipinos to link up with the Brunei Sultanate and Japanese Shogunate to expel the Spaniards from the Philippines. However, upon the Spanish suppression of the conspiracy, the Bruneian descended aristocracy of precolonial Manila were exiled to Guerrero, Mexico which consequently later became a center of the Mexican war of independence against Spain. The local Brunei accounts of the Castilian War differ greatly from the generally accepted view of events. What was called the Castilian War was seen as a heroic episode, with the Spaniards being driven out by Bendahara Sakam, purportedly a brother of the ruling sultan, and a thousand native warriors. Most historians consider this to be a folk-hero account, which probably developed decades or centuries after. Brunei eventually descended into anarchy. The country suffered a civil war from 1660 to 1673. British intervention The British have intervened in the affairs of Brunei on several occasions. Britain attacked Brunei in July 1846 due to internal conflicts over who was the rightful Sultan. In the 1880s, the decline of the Bruneian Empire continued. The sultan granted land (now Sarawak) to James Brooke, who had helped him quell a rebellion, and allowed him to establish the Raj of Sarawak. Over time, Brooke and his nephews (who succeeded him) leased or annexed more land. Brunei lost much of its territory to him and his dynasty, known as the White Rajahs. Sultan Hashim Jalilul Alam Aqamaddin appealed to the British to stop further encroachment by the Brookes. The "Treaty of Protection" was negotiated by Sir Hugh Low and signed into effect on 17 September 1888. The treaty said that the sultan "could not cede or lease any territory to foreign powers without British consent"; it provided Britain effective control over Brunei's external affairs, making it a British protected state (which continued until 1984). But, when the Raj of Sarawak annexed Brunei's Pandaruan District in 1890, the British did not take any action to stop it. They did not regard either Brunei or the Raj of Sarawak as 'foreign' (per the Treaty of Protection). This final annexation by Sarawak left Brunei with its current small land mass and separation into two parts. British residents were introduced in Brunei under the Supplementary Protectorate Agreement in 1906. The residents were to advise the sultan on all matters of administration. Over time, the resident assumed more executive control than the sultan. The residential system ended in 1959. Discovery of oil Petroleum was discovered in 1929 after several fruitless attempts. Two men, F. F. Marriot and T. G. Cochrane, smelled oil near the Seria river in late 1926. They informed a geophysicist, who conducted a survey there. In 1927, gas seepages were reported in the area. Seria Well Number One (S-1) was drilled on 12 July 1928. Oil was struck at on 5 April 1929. Seria Well Number 2 was drilled on 19 August 1929, and, , continues to produce oil. Oil production was increased considerably in the 1930s with the development of more oil fields. In 1940, oil production was at more than six million barrels. The British Malayan Petroleum Company (now Brunei Shell Petroleum Company) was formed on 22 July 1922. The first offshore well was drilled in 1957. Oil and natural gas have been the basis of Brunei's development and wealth since the late 20th century. Japanese occupation The Japanese invaded Brunei on 16 December 1941, eight days after their attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States Navy. They landed 10,000 troops of the Kawaguchi Detachment from Cam Ranh Bay at Kuala Belait. After six days' fighting, they occupied the entire country. The only Allied troops in the area were the 2nd Battalion of the 15th Punjab Regiment based at Kuching, Sarawak. Once the Japanese occupied Brunei, they made an agreement with Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin over governing the country. Inche Ibrahim (known later as Pehin Datu Perdana Menteri Dato Laila Utama Awang Haji Ibrahim), a former Secretary to the British Resident, Ernest Edgar Pengilly, was appointed Chief Administrative Officer under the Japanese Governor. The Japanese had proposed that Pengilly retain his position under their administration, but he declined. Both he and other British nationals still in Brunei were interned by the Japanese at Batu Lintang camp in Sarawak. While the British officials were under Japanese guard, Ibrahim made a point of personally shaking each one by the hand and wishing him well. The Sultan retained his throne and was given a pension and honours by the Japanese. During the later part of the occupation, he resided at Tantuya, Limbang and had little to do with the Japanese. Most of the Malay government officers were retained by the Japanese. Brunei's administration was reorganised into five prefectures, which included British North Borneo. The Prefectures included Baram, Labuan, Lawas, and Limbang. Ibrahim hid numerous significant government documents from the Japanese during the occupation. Pengiran Yusuf (later YAM Pengiran Setia Negara Pengiran Haji Mohd Yusuf), along with other Bruneians, was sent to Japan for training. Although in the area the day of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Yusuf survived. The British had anticipated a Japanese attack, but lacked the resources to defend the area because of their engagement in the war in Europe. The troops from the Punjab Regiment filled in the Seria oilfield oilwells with concrete in September 1941 to deny the Japanese their use. The remaining equipment and installations were destroyed when the Japanese invaded Malaya. By the end of the war, 16 wells at Miri and Seria had been restarted, with production reaching about half the pre-war level. Coal production at Muara was also recommenced, but with little success. During the occupation, the Japanese had their language taught in schools, and Government officers were required to learn Japanese. The local currency was replaced by what was to become known as duit pisang (banana money). From 1943 hyper-inflation destroyed the currency's value and, at the end of the war, this currency was worthless. Allied attacks on shipping eventually caused trade to cease. Food and medicine fell into short supply, and the population suffered famine and disease. The airport runway was constructed by the Japanese during the occupation, and in 1943 Japanese naval units were based in Brunei Bay and Labuan. The naval base was destroyed by Allied bombing, but the airport runway survived. The facility was developed as a public airport. In 1944 the Allies began a bombing campaign against the occupying Japanese, which destroyed much of the town and Kuala Belait, but missed Kampong Ayer. On 10 June 1945, the Australian 9th Division landed at Muara under Operation Oboe Six to recapture Borneo from the Japanese. They were supported by American air and naval units. Brunei town was bombed extensively and recaptured after three days of heavy fighting. Many buildings were destroyed, including the Mosque. The Japanese forces in Brunei, Borneo, and Sarawak, under Lieutenant-General Masao Baba, formally surrendered at Labuan on 10 September 1945. The British Military Administration took over from the Japanese and remained until July 1946. Post-World War II After World War II, a new government was formed in Brunei under the British Military Administration (BMA). It consisted mainly of Australian officers and servicemen. The administration of Brunei was passed to the Civil Administration on 6 July 1945. The Brunei State Council was also revived that year. The BMA was tasked to revive the Bruneian economy, which was extensively damaged by the Japanese during their occupation. They also had to put out the fires on the wells of Seria, which had been set by the Japanese prior to their defeat. Before 1941, the Governor of the Straits Settlements, based in Singapore, was responsible for the duties of British High Commissioner for Brunei, Sarawak, and North Borneo (now Sabah). The first British High Commissioner for Brunei was the Governor of Sarawak, Sir Charles Ardon Clarke. The Barisan Pemuda ("Youth Movement"; abbreviated as BARIP) was the first political party to be formed in Brunei, on 12 April 1946. The party intended to "preserve the sovereignty of the Sultan and the country, and to defend the rights of the Malays". BARIP also contributed to the composition of the country's national anthem. The party was dissolved in 1948 due to inactivity. In 1959, a new constitution was written declaring Brunei a self-governing state, while its foreign affairs, security, and defence remained the responsibility of the United Kingdom. A small rebellion erupted against the monarchy in 1962, which was suppressed with help of the UK. Known as the Brunei Revolt, it contributed to the failure to create the North Borneo Federation. The rebellion partially affected Brunei's decision to opt out of the Malaysian Federation. Brunei gained its independence from the United Kingdom on 1 January 1984. The official National Day, which celebrates the country's independence, is held by tradition on 23 February. Writing of the Constitution In July 1953, Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien III formed a seven-member committee named Tujuh Serangkai, to find out the citizens' views regarding a written constitution for Brunei. In May 1954, the Sultan, Resident and High Commissioner met to discuss the findings of the committee. They agreed to authorise the drafting of a constitution. In March 1959, Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien III led a delegation to London to discuss the proposed Constitution. The British delegation was led by Sir Alan Lennox-Boyd, Secretary of State for the Colonies. The British Government later accepted the draft constitution. On 29 September 1959, the Constitution Agreement was signed in Brunei Town. The agreement was signed by Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien III and Sir Robert Scott, the Commissioner-General for Southeast Asia. It included the following provisions: The Sultan was made the Supreme Head of State. Brunei was responsible for its internal administration. The British Government was responsible for foreign and defence affairs only. The post of Resident was abolished and replaced by a British High Commissioner. Five councils were set up: The Executive Council The Legislative Council of Brunei The Privy Council The Council of Succession The State Religious Council National development plans A series of National Development Plans was initiated by the 28th Sultan of Brunei, Omar Ali Saifuddien III. The first was introduced in 1953. A total sum of B$100 million was approved by the Brunei State Council for the plan. E.R. Bevington, from the Colonial Office in Fiji, was appointed to implement it. A US$14 million Gas Plant was

the main crop and source of foreign trade, and large numbers of slaves were forcibly brought from Africa to work on the sugar cane plantations. The islands prospered economically until the middle of the nineteenth century, when a combination of the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834, a series of disastrous hurricanes, and the growth in the sugar beet crop in Europe and the United States significantly reduced sugar cane production and led to a period of economic decline. In 1917, the United States purchased the Danish Virgin Islands for US$25 million, renaming them the United States Virgin Islands. Economic linkages with the US islands prompted the British Virgin Islands to adopt the US dollar as its currency in 1959. The British Virgin Islands were administered variously as part of the British Leeward Islands or with St. Kitts and Nevis, with an administrator representing the British Government on the islands. The islands gained separate colony status in 1960 and became autonomous in 1967 under the new post of Chief Minister. Since the 1960s, the islands have diversified away from their traditionally agriculture-based economy towards tourism and financial services, becoming one of the wealthiest areas in the Caribbean. The constitution of the islands was amended in 1977, 2004 and 2007, giving them greater local autonomy. In 2017 Hurricane Irma struck the islands, causing four deaths and immense damage. Geography The British Virgin Islands comprise around 60 tropical Caribbean islands, ranging in size from the largest, Tortola, being long and wide, to tiny uninhabited islets, altogether about in extent. They are located in the Virgin Islands archipelago, a few miles east of the US Virgin Islands, and about from the Puerto Rican mainland. About east south-east lies Anguilla. The North Atlantic Ocean lies to the east of the islands, and the Caribbean Sea lies to the west. Most of the islands are volcanic in origin and have a hilly, rugged terrain. The highest point is Mount Sage on Tortola at 521m. Anegada is geologically distinct from the rest of the group, being a flat island composed of limestone and coral. The British Virgin Islands contain the Leeward Islands moist forests and Leeward Islands xeric scrub terrestrial ecoregions. Climate The British Virgin Islands have a tropical rainforest climate, moderated by trade winds. Temperatures vary little throughout the year. In the capital, Road Town, typical daily maxima are around in the summer and in the winter. Typical daily minima are around in the summer and in the winter. Rainfall averages about per year, higher in the hills and lower on the coast. Rainfall can be quite variable, but the wettest months on average are September to November and the driest months on average are February and March. Hurricanes Hurricanes occasionally hit the islands, with the hurricane season running from June to November. Hurricane Danny struck in 2015. Hurricane Irma The islands were struck by Hurricane Irma on 6 September 2017, causing extensive damage, as well as four deaths. A state of emergency was declared by the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency. The most significant damage was on Tortola. The UK's then-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson visited Tortola on 13 September 2017 and said that he was reminded of photos of Hiroshima after it had been hit by the atom bomb. By 8 September, the UK government sent troops with medical supplies and other aid. More troops were expected to arrive a day or two later, but the ship HMS Ocean, carrying more extensive assistance, was not expected to reach the islands for another two weeks, however. Entrepreneur Richard Branson, a resident of Necker Island, called on the UK government to develop a massive disaster recovery plan for British islands that were damaged, to include "both through short-term aid and long-term infrastructure spending". Premier Orlando Smith also called for a comprehensive aid package to rebuild the BVI. On 10 September UK Prime Minister Theresa May pledged £32 million to the Caribbean for a Hurricane relief fund; the UK government would also match donations made by the public via the British Red Cross appeal. Specifics were not provided to the news media as to the amount that would be allocated to the Virgin Islands. Boris Johnson's visit to Tortola on 13 September 2017 during his Caribbean tour was intended to confirm the UK's commitment to helping restore British islands but he provided no additional comments on the aid package. He did confirm that had departed for the BVI carrying items like timber, buckets, bottled water, food, baby milk, bedding and clothing, as well as ten pickup trucks, building materials and hardware. Politics The territory operates as a parliamentary democracy. Ultimate executive authority in the British Virgin Islands is vested in the Queen, and is exercised on her behalf by the Governor of the British Virgin Islands. The governor is appointed by the Queen on the advice of the British Government. Defence and most foreign affairs remain the responsibility of the United Kingdom. The most recent constitution was adopted in 2007 (the Virgin Islands Constitution Order, 2007) and came into force when the Legislative Council was dissolved for the 2007 general election. The head of government under the constitution is the Premier (before the new constitution the office was referred to as Chief Minister), who is elected in a general election along with the other members of the ruling government as well as the members of the opposition. Elections are held roughly every four years. A cabinet is nominated by the Premier and appointed and chaired by the Governor. The Legislature consists of the Queen (represented by the Governor) and a unicameral House of Assembly made up of 13 elected members plus the Speaker and the Attorney General. The current Governor is John Rankin (since 29 January 2020). The current Premier is Andrew Fahie (since 26 February 2019), who is leader of the ruling Virgin Islands Party. Subdivisions The British Virgin Islands is a unitary territory. The territory is divided into nine electoral districts, and each voter is registered in one of those districts. Eight of the nine districts are partly or wholly on Tortola, and encompass nearby neighbouring islands. Only the ninth district (Virgin Gorda and Anegada) does not include any part of Tortola. At elections, in addition to voting their local representative, voters also cast votes for four "at-large" candidates who are elected upon a territory-wide basis. The territory is also technically divided into five administrative districts (one for each of the four largest islands, with the fifth covering all other islands), and into six civil registry districts (three for Tortola, Jost Van Dyke, Virgin Gorda and Anegada) although these have little practical relevance. Law and criminal justice Crime in the British Virgin Islands is comparatively low by Caribbean standards. Whilst statistics and hard data are relatively rare, and are not regularly published by governmental sources in the British Virgin Islands, the Premier did announce that in 2013 there has been a 14% decline in recorded crime as against 2012. Homicides are rare, with just one incident recorded in 2013. The Virgin Islands Prison Service operates a single facility, Her Majesty's Prison in East End, Tortola. The British and US Virgin Islands sit at the axis of a major drugs transshipment point between Latin America and the continental United States. The American Drug Enforcement Administration regards the adjacent US territories of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands as a "High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area". A co-operation agreement exists between the British Virgin Islands and the US Coast Guard allowing American forces to pursue suspected drug traffickers through the territorial waters of the British Virgin Islands. In August 2011 a joint raid between the American DEA and the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force arrested a number of British Virgin Islands residents who are accused of being involved in major drugs transshipments, although their extradition to the United States has since become stalled in protracted legal wrangling. Military As a British Overseas territory, defence of the islands is the responsibility of the United Kingdom. Economy The twin pillars of the economy are financial services (60%) and tourism (roughly 40-45% of GDP). Politically, tourism is the more important of the two, as it employs a greater number of people within the territory, and a larger proportion of the businesses in the tourist industry are locally owned, as are a number of the highly tourism-dependent sole traders (for example, taxi drivers and street vendors). Economically however, financial services associated with the territory's status as an offshore financial centre are by far the more important. 51.8% of the Government's revenue comes directly from licence fees for offshore companies, and considerable further sums are raised directly or indirectly from payroll taxes relating to salaries paid within the trust industry sector (which tend to be higher on average than those paid in the tourism sector). The official currency of the British Virgin Islands has been the United States dollar (US$) since 1959, the currency also used by the United States Virgin Islands. Deemed by some to be a tax haven due to its opaque banking system, the British Virgin Islands enjoys one of the more prosperous economies of the Caribbean region, with a per capita average income of around $42,300 (2010 est.) The average monthly income earned by a worker in the territory was US$2,452 as at the time of the 2010 Census. 29% of the population fell into the "low income" category. Although it is common to hear criticism in the British Virgin Islands' press about income inequality, no serious attempt has been made by economists to calculate a Gini coefficient or similar measure of income equality for the territory. A report from 2000 suggested that, despite the popular perception, income inequality was actually lower in the British Virgin Islands than in any other OECS state, although in global terms income equality is higher in the Caribbean than in many other regions. Tourism Tourism accounts for approximately 45% of national income. The islands are a popular destination for US citizens. Tourists frequent the numerous white sand beaches, visit The Baths on Virgin Gorda, snorkel the coral reefs near Anegada, or experience the well-known bars of Jost Van Dyke. The BVI are known as one of the world's greatest sailing destinations, and charter sailboats are a very popular way to visit less accessible islands. Established in 1972, the BVI hosts the BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival. A substantial number of the tourists who visit the BVI are cruise ship passengers, and although they produce far lower revenue per head than charter boat tourists and hotel based tourists, they are nonetheless important to the substantial - and politically important - taxi driving community. Only Virgin Islanders are permitted to work as taxi drivers. Financial services Financial services account for over half of the income of the territory. The majority of this revenue is generated by the licensing of offshore companies and related services. The British Virgin Islands is a significant global player in the offshore financial services industry. In 2000 KPMG reported in its survey of offshore jurisdictions for the United Kingdom government that over 45% of the world's offshore companies were formed in the British Virgin Islands. Since 2001, financial services in the British Virgin Islands have been regulated by the independent Financial Services Commission. Citco, also known as the Citgo Group of Companies and the Curaçao International Trust Co., is a privately owned global hedge fund administrator headquartered in the British Virgin Islands, founded in 1948. It is the world's largest hedge fund administrator, managing over $1 trillion in assets under administration. At the end of 2012 the banking sector of the British Virgin Islands comprised six commercial banks and one restricted bank, 12 authorised custodians, two licensed money services businesses and one licensed financing service provider. As such the British Virgin Islands is frequently labelled as a "tax haven" by campaigners and NGOs, and has been expressly named in anti-tax haven legislation in other countries on various occasions. Successive governments in the British Virgin Islands have fought against the tax haven label, and made various commitments to tax exchange and recording beneficial ownership information of companies following the 2013 G8 summit. On 10 September 2013, British Prime Minister David Cameron said "I do not think it is fair any longer to refer to any of the Overseas Territories or Crown Dependencies as tax havens. They have taken action to make sure that they have fair and open tax systems. It is very important that our focus should

the English annexation of Anegada and Virgin Gorda followed in 1680. Meanwhile, over the period 1672–1733, the Danish gained control of the nearby islands of Saint Thomas, Saint John and Saint Croix (i.e. the modern US Virgin Islands). The British islands were considered principally a strategic possession. The British introduced sugar cane which was to become the main crop and source of foreign trade, and large numbers of slaves were forcibly brought from Africa to work on the sugar cane plantations. The islands prospered economically until the middle of the nineteenth century, when a combination of the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834, a series of disastrous hurricanes, and the growth in the sugar beet crop in Europe and the United States significantly reduced sugar cane production and led to a period of economic decline. In 1917, the United States purchased the Danish Virgin Islands for US$25 million, renaming them the United States Virgin Islands. Economic linkages with the US islands prompted the British Virgin Islands to adopt the US dollar as its currency in 1959. The British Virgin Islands were administered variously as part of the British Leeward Islands or with St. Kitts and Nevis, with an administrator representing the British Government on the islands. The islands gained separate colony status in 1960 and became autonomous in 1967 under the new post of Chief Minister. Since the 1960s, the islands have diversified away from their traditionally agriculture-based economy towards tourism and financial services, becoming one of the wealthiest areas in the Caribbean. The constitution of the islands was amended in 1977, 2004 and 2007, giving them greater local autonomy. In 2017 Hurricane Irma struck the islands, causing four deaths and immense damage. Geography The British Virgin Islands comprise around 60 tropical Caribbean islands, ranging in size from the largest, Tortola, being long and wide, to tiny uninhabited islets, altogether about in extent. They are located in the Virgin Islands archipelago, a few miles east of the US Virgin Islands, and about from the Puerto Rican mainland. About east south-east lies Anguilla. The North Atlantic Ocean lies to the east of the islands, and the Caribbean Sea lies to the west. Most of the islands are volcanic in origin and have a hilly, rugged terrain. The highest point is Mount Sage on Tortola at 521m. Anegada is geologically distinct from the rest of the group, being a flat island composed of limestone and coral. The British Virgin Islands contain the Leeward Islands moist forests and Leeward Islands xeric scrub terrestrial ecoregions. Climate The British Virgin Islands have a tropical rainforest climate, moderated by trade winds. Temperatures vary little throughout the year. In the capital, Road Town, typical daily maxima are around in the summer and in the winter. Typical daily minima are around in the summer and in the winter. Rainfall averages about per year, higher in the hills and lower on the coast. Rainfall can be quite variable, but the wettest months on average are September to November and the driest months on average are February and March. Hurricanes Hurricanes occasionally hit the islands, with the hurricane season running from June to November. Hurricane Danny struck in 2015. Hurricane Irma The islands were struck by Hurricane Irma on 6 September 2017, causing extensive damage, as well as four deaths. A state of emergency was declared by the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency. The most significant damage was on Tortola. The UK's then-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson visited Tortola on 13 September 2017 and said that he was reminded of photos of Hiroshima after it had been hit by the atom bomb. By 8 September, the UK government sent troops with medical supplies and other aid. More troops were expected to arrive a day or two later, but the ship HMS Ocean, carrying more extensive assistance, was not expected to reach the islands for another two weeks, however. Entrepreneur Richard Branson, a resident of Necker Island, called on the UK government to develop a massive disaster recovery plan for British islands that were damaged, to include "both through short-term aid and long-term infrastructure spending". Premier Orlando Smith also called for a comprehensive aid package to rebuild the BVI. On 10 September UK Prime Minister Theresa May pledged £32 million to the Caribbean for a Hurricane relief fund; the UK government would also match donations made by the public via the British Red Cross appeal. Specifics were not provided to the news media as to the amount that would be allocated to the Virgin Islands. Boris Johnson's visit to Tortola on 13 September 2017 during his Caribbean tour was intended to confirm the UK's commitment to helping restore British islands but he provided no additional comments on the aid package. He did confirm that had departed for the BVI carrying items like timber, buckets, bottled water, food, baby milk, bedding and clothing, as well as ten pickup trucks, building materials and hardware. Politics The territory operates as a parliamentary democracy. Ultimate executive authority in the British Virgin Islands is vested in the Queen, and is exercised on her behalf by the Governor of the British Virgin Islands. The governor is appointed by the Queen on the advice of the British Government. Defence and most foreign affairs remain the responsibility of the United Kingdom. The most recent constitution was adopted in 2007 (the Virgin Islands Constitution Order, 2007) and came into force when the Legislative Council was dissolved for the 2007 general election. The head of government under the constitution is the Premier (before the new constitution the office was referred to as Chief Minister), who is elected in a general election along with the other members of the ruling government as well as the members of the opposition. Elections are held roughly every four years. A cabinet is nominated by the Premier and appointed and chaired by the Governor. The Legislature consists of the Queen (represented by the Governor) and a unicameral House of Assembly made up of 13 elected members plus the Speaker and the Attorney General. The current Governor is John Rankin (since 29 January 2020). The current Premier is Andrew Fahie (since 26 February 2019), who is leader of the ruling Virgin Islands Party. Subdivisions The British Virgin Islands is a unitary territory. The territory is divided into nine electoral districts, and each voter is registered in one of those districts. Eight of the nine districts are partly or wholly on Tortola, and encompass nearby neighbouring islands. Only the ninth district (Virgin Gorda and Anegada) does not include any part of Tortola. At elections, in addition to voting their local representative, voters also cast votes for four "at-large" candidates who are elected upon a territory-wide basis. The territory is also technically divided into five administrative districts (one for each of the four largest islands, with the fifth covering all other islands), and into six civil registry districts (three for Tortola, Jost Van Dyke, Virgin Gorda and Anegada) although these have little practical relevance. Law and criminal justice Crime in the British Virgin Islands is comparatively low by Caribbean standards. Whilst statistics and hard data are relatively rare, and are not regularly published by governmental sources in the British Virgin Islands, the Premier did announce that in 2013 there has been a 14% decline in recorded crime as against 2012. Homicides are rare, with just one incident recorded in 2013. The Virgin Islands Prison Service operates a single facility, Her Majesty's Prison in East End, Tortola. The British and US Virgin Islands sit at the axis of a major drugs transshipment point between Latin America and the continental United States. The American Drug Enforcement Administration regards the adjacent US territories of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands as a "High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area". A co-operation agreement exists between the British Virgin Islands and the US Coast Guard allowing American forces to pursue suspected drug traffickers through the territorial waters of the British Virgin Islands. In August 2011 a joint raid between the American DEA and the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force arrested a number of British Virgin Islands residents who are accused of being involved in major drugs transshipments, although their extradition to the United States has since become stalled in protracted legal wrangling. Military As a British Overseas territory, defence of the islands is the responsibility of the United Kingdom. Economy The twin pillars of the economy are financial services (60%) and tourism (roughly 40-45% of GDP). Politically, tourism is the more important of the two, as it employs a greater number of people within the territory, and a larger proportion of the businesses in the tourist industry are locally owned, as are a number of the highly tourism-dependent sole traders (for example, taxi drivers and street vendors). Economically however, financial services associated with the territory's status as an offshore financial centre are by far the more important. 51.8% of the Government's revenue comes directly from licence fees for offshore companies, and considerable further sums are raised directly or indirectly from payroll taxes relating to salaries paid within the trust industry sector (which tend to be higher on average than those paid in the tourism sector). The official currency of the British Virgin Islands has been the United States dollar (US$) since 1959, the currency also used by the United States Virgin Islands. Deemed by some to be a tax haven due to its opaque banking system, the British Virgin Islands enjoys one of the more prosperous economies of the Caribbean region, with a per capita average income of around $42,300 (2010 est.) The average monthly income earned by a worker in the territory was US$2,452 as at the time of the 2010 Census. 29% of the population fell into the "low income" category. Although it is common to hear criticism in the British Virgin Islands' press about income inequality, no serious attempt has been made by economists to calculate a Gini coefficient or similar measure of income equality for the territory. A report from 2000 suggested that, despite the popular perception, income inequality was actually lower in the British Virgin Islands than in any other OECS state, although in global terms income equality is higher in the Caribbean than in many other regions. Tourism Tourism accounts for approximately 45% of national income. The islands are a popular destination for US citizens. Tourists frequent the numerous white sand beaches, visit The Baths on Virgin Gorda, snorkel the coral reefs near Anegada, or experience the well-known bars of Jost Van Dyke. The BVI are known as one of the world's greatest sailing destinations, and charter sailboats are a very popular way to visit less accessible islands. Established in 1972, the BVI hosts the BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival. A substantial number of the tourists who visit the BVI are cruise ship passengers, and although they produce far lower revenue per head than charter boat tourists and hotel based tourists, they are nonetheless important to the substantial - and politically important - taxi driving community. Only Virgin Islanders are permitted to work as taxi drivers. Financial services Financial services account for over half of the income of the territory. The majority of this revenue is generated by the licensing of offshore companies and related services. The British Virgin Islands is a significant global player in the offshore financial services industry. In 2000 KPMG reported in its survey of offshore jurisdictions for the United Kingdom government that over 45% of the world's offshore companies were formed in the British Virgin Islands. Since 2001, financial services in the British Virgin Islands have been regulated by the independent Financial Services Commission. Citco, also known as the Citgo Group of Companies and the Curaçao International Trust Co., is a privately owned global hedge fund administrator headquartered in the British Virgin Islands, founded in 1948. It is the world's largest hedge fund administrator, managing over $1 trillion in assets under administration. At the end of 2012 the banking sector of the British Virgin Islands comprised six commercial banks and one restricted bank, 12 authorised custodians, two licensed money services businesses and one licensed financing service provider. As such the British Virgin Islands is frequently labelled as a "tax haven" by campaigners and NGOs, and has been expressly

age of five suffer from anemia. Forty percent of infant deaths can be attributed to malnutrition, and in turn, these infant mortality rates have decreased Burkina Faso's total work force by 13.6 percent, demonstrating how food security affects more aspects of life beyond health. These high rates of food insecurity and the accompanying effects are even more prevalent in rural populations compared to urban ones, as access to health services in rural areas is much more limited and awareness and education of children's nutritional needs is lower. An October 2018 report by USAid stated that droughts and floods remained problematic, and that "violence and insecurity are disrupting markets, trade and livelihoods activities in some of Burkina Faso's northern and eastern areas". The report estimated that over 954,300 people needed food security support, and that, according to UNICEF, an "estimated 187,200 children under 5 years of age will experience severe acute malnutrition". Agencies providing assistance at the time included USAID's Office of Food for Peace (FFP) working with the UN World Food Programme, the NGO Oxfam Intermón and ACDI/VOCA. Approaches to improving food security World Food Programme The United Nations’ World Food Programme has worked on programs that are geared towards increasing food security in Burkina Faso. The Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation 200509 (PRRO) was formed to respond to the high levels of malnutrition in Burkina Faso, following the food and nutrition crisis in 2012. The efforts of this project are mostly geared towards the treatment and prevention of malnutrition and include take home rations for the caretakers of those children who are being treated for malnutrition. Additionally, the activities of this operation contribute to families' abilities to withstand future food crises. Better nutrition among the two most vulnerable groups, young children and pregnant women, prepares them to be able to respond better in times when food security is compromised, such as in droughts. The Country Programme (CP) has two parts: food and nutritional assistance to people with HIV/AIDS, and a school feeding program for all primary schools in the Sahel region. The HIV/AIDS nutrition program aims to better the nutritional recovery of those who are living with HIV/AIDS and to protect at-risk children and orphans from malnutrition and food security. As part of the school feeding component, the Country Programme's goals are to increase enrollment and attendance in schools in the Sahel region, where enrollment rates are below the national average. Furthermore, the program aims at improving gender parity rates in these schools, by providing girls with high attendance in the last two years of primary school with take-home rations of cereals as an incentive to households, encouraging them to send their girls to school. The WFP concluded the formation of a subsequently approved plan in August 2018 "to support the Government's vision of 'a democratic, unified and united nation, transforming the structure of its economy and achieving a strong and inclusive growth through patterns of sustainable consumption and production.' It will take important steps in WFP's new strategic direction for strengthened national and local capacities to enable the Government and communities to own, manage, and implement food and nutrition security programmes by 2030". World Bank The World Bank was established in 1944, and comprises five institutions whose shared goals are to end extreme poverty by 2030 and to promote shared prosperity by fostering income growth of the lower forty percent of every country. One of the main projects the World Bank is working on to reduce food insecurity in Burkina Faso is the Agricultural Productivity and Food Security Project. According to the World Bank, the objective of this project is to "improve the capacity of poor producers to increase food production and to ensure improved availability of food products in rural markets." The Agricultural Productivity and Food Security Project has three main parts. Its first component is to work towards the improvement of food production, including financing grants and providing 'voucher for work' programs for households who cannot pay their contribution in cash. The project's next component involves improving the ability of food products, particularly in rural areas. This includes supporting the marketing of food products, and aims to strengthen the capabilities of stakeholders to control the variability of food products and supplies at local and national levels. Lastly, the third component of this project focuses on institutional development and capacity building. Its goal is to reinforce the capacities of service providers and institutions who are specifically involved in project implementation. The project's activities aim to build capacities of service providers, strengthen the capacity of food producer organizations, strengthen agricultural input supply delivery methods, and manage and evaluate project activities. The December 2018 report by the World Bank indicated that the poverty rate fell slightly between 2009 and 2014, from 46% to a still high 40.1%. The report provided this updated summary of the country's development challenges: "Burkina Faso remains vulnerable to climatic shocks related to changes in rainfall patterns and to fluctuations in the prices of its export commodities on world markets. Its economic and social development will, to some extent, be contingent on political stability in the country and the subregion, its openness to international trade, and export diversification". Food security Burkina Faso is faced with high levels of food insecurity. As defined by the 1996 World Food Summit, "food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy lifestyle." There has not been much successful improvement on this issue of food security within recent years. Burkina Faso's rapidly growing population (around 3.6% annually) continues to put a strain on the country's resources and infrastructure, which can further limit accessibility to food. Because the country is landlocked and prone to natural disasters, including drought and floods, many families struggle to protect themselves from severe hunger. While recent harvest productions have improved some, much of the population is still having a hard time overcoming the continuous food and nutrition crises of the past decade. Malnutrition is especially common in women and children, with large amounts of the population suffering from stunted growth and micronutrient deficiencies such as anemia. Food insecurity has grown to be a structural problem in Burkina Faso, only to be intensified by high food prices. All of these factors combined with high poverty levels have left Burkina Faso vulnerable to chronic high levels of food insecurity and malnutrition. Social and economic causes Poverty continues to be strongly linked to food insecurity. As one of the poorest countries in the world, around 43.7% of its population lives under the Poverty Line Burkina Faso ranked 185 out of 188 countries on the UNDP Human Development Index in 2015. The Human Development Index is a measure of quality of life, taking into account three main areas of human development: longevity, education, and economic standard of living. These high levels of poverty found in Burkina Faso, combined with the soaring food prices of the global food crisis continue to contribute to Burkina Faso's issue of food insecurity. The global food crisis of 2007–2008 was a drastic surge in food prices that led to high rates of hunger, malnutrition, and political and economic instability in nations across the globe. This strongly affected Burkina Faso because around 80% of Burkina Faso's population is rural, relying on subsistence farming to make a living. For instance, when natural disasters such as floods, droughts, or locust attacks occur and cause crops to fail, farmers in Burkina Faso become dependent on grain purchases. Because of the global food crisis, local grain prices dramatically increased, limiting farmers' access to grain through market exchanges. Infrastructure and services Water While services remain underdeveloped, the National Office for Water and Sanitation (ONEA), a state-owned utility company run along commercial lines, is emerging as one of the best-performing utility companies in Africa. High levels of autonomy and a skilled and dedicated management have driven ONEA's ability to improve production of and access to clean water. Since 2000, nearly 2 million more people have access to water in the four principal urban centres in the country; the company has kept the quality of infrastructure high (less than 18% of the water is lost through leaks – one of the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa), improved financial reporting, and increased its annual revenue by an average of 12% (well above inflation). Challenges remain, including difficulties among some customers in paying for services, with the need to rely on international aid to expand its infrastructure. The state-owned, commercially run venture has helped the nation reach its Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets in water-related areas, and has grown as a viable company. However, access to drinking water has improved over the last 28 years. According to UNICEF, access to drinking water has increased from 39 to 76% in rural areas between 1990 and 2015. In this same time span, access to drinking water increased from 75 to 97% in urban areas. Electricity A 33-megawatt solar power plant in Zagtouli, near Ouagadougou, came online in late November 2017. At the time of its construction, it was the largest solar power facility in West Africa. Other The growth rate in Burkina Faso is high although it continues to be plagued by corruption and incursions from terrorist groups from Mali and Niger. Transport Transport in Burkina Faso is limited by relatively underdeveloped infrastructure. As of June 2014 the main international airport, Ouagadougou Airport, had regularly scheduled flights to many destinations in West Africa as well as Paris, Brussels and Istanbul. The other international airport, Bobo Dioulasso Airport, has flights to Ouagadougou and Abidjan. Rail transport in Burkina Faso consists of a single line which runs from Kaya to Abidjan in Ivory Coast via Ouagadougou, Koudougou, Bobo Dioulasso and Banfora. Sitarail operates a passenger train three times a week along the route. There are 15,000 kilometres of roads in Burkina Faso, of which 2,500 kilometres are paved. Science and technology In 2009, Burkina Faso spent 0.20% of GDP on research and development (R&D), one of the lowest ratios in West Africa. There were 48 researchers (in full-time equivalents) per million inhabitants in 2010, which is more than twice the average for sub-Saharan Africa (20 per million population in 2013) and higher than the ratio for Ghana and Nigeria (39). It is, however, much lower than the ratio for Senegal (361 per million inhabitants). In Burkina Faso in 2010, 46% of researchers were working in the health sector, 16% in engineering, 13% in natural sciences, 9% in agricultural sciences, 7% in the humanities and 4% in social sciences. Burkina Faso was ranked 118th in the Global Innovation Index in 2020, down from 117th in 2019. In January 2011, the government created the Ministry of Scientific Research and Innovation. Up until then, management of science, technology and innovation had fallen under the Department of Secondary and Higher Education and Scientific Research. Within this ministry, the Directorate General for Research and Sector Statistics is responsible for planning. A separate body, the Directorate General of Scientific Research, Technology and Innovation, co-ordinates research. This is a departure from the pattern in many other West African countries where a single body fulfils both functions. The move signals the government's intention to make science and technology a development priority. In 2012, Burkina Faso adopted a National Policy for Scientific and Technical Research, the strategic objectives of which are to develop R&D and the application and commercialization of research results. The policy also makes provisions for strengthening the ministry's strategic and operational capacities. One of the key priorities is to improve food security and self-sufficiency by boosting capacity in agricultural and environmental sciences. The creation of a centre of excellence in 2014 at the International Institute of Water and Environmental Engineering in Ouagadougou within the World Bank project provides essential funding for capacity-building in these priority areas. A dual priority is to promote innovative, effective and accessible health systems. The government wishes to develop, in parallel, applied sciences and technology and social and human sciences. To complement the national research policy, the government has prepared a National Strategy to Popularize Technologies, Inventions and Innovations (2012) and a National Innovation Strategy (2014). Other policies also incorporate science and technology, such as that on Secondary and Higher Education and Scientific Research (2010), the National Policy on Food and Nutrition Security (2014) and the National Programme for the Rural Sector (2011). In 2013, Burkina Faso passed the Science, Technology and Innovation Act establishing three mechanisms for financing research and innovation, a clear indication of high-level commitment. These mechanisms are the National Fund for Education and Research, the National Fund for Research and Innovation for Development and the Forum of Scientific Research and Technological Innovation. Society Demographics Burkina Faso is an ethnically integrated, secular state where most people are concentrated in the south and centre, where their density sometimes exceeds . Hundreds of thousands of Burkinabè migrate regularly to Ivory Coast and Ghana, mainly for seasonal agricultural work. These flows of workers are affected by external events; the September 2002 coup attempt in Ivory Coast and the ensuing fighting meant that hundreds of thousands of Burkinabè returned to Burkina Faso. The regional economy suffered when they were unable to work. In 2015, most of the population belonged to "one of two West African ethnic cultural groups: the Voltaic and the Mandé. Voltaic Mossi make up about 50% of the population and are descended from warriors who moved to the area from Ghana around 1100, establishing an empire that lasted over 800 years". The total fertility rate of Burkina Faso is 5.93 children born per woman (2014 estimates), the sixth highest in the world. In 2009 the U.S. Department of State's Trafficking in Persons Report reported that slavery in Burkina Faso continued to exist and that Burkinabè children were often the victims. Slavery in the Sahel states in general, is an entrenched institution with a long history that dates back to the trans-Saharan slave trade. In 2018, an estimated 82,000 people in the country were living under "modern slavery" according to the Global Slavery Index. Ethnic groups Burkina Faso's 17.3 million people belong to two major West African ethnic cultural groups—the Voltaic and the Mandé (whose common language is Dioula). The Voltaic Mossi make up about one-half of the population. The Mossi claim descent from warriors who migrated to present-day Burkina Faso from northern Ghana around 1100 AD. They established an empire that lasted more than 800 years. Predominantly farmers, the Mossi kingdom is led by the Mogho Naba, whose court is in Ouagadougou. Languages Burkina Faso is a multilingual country. The official language is French, which was introduced during the colonial period. French is the principal language of administrative, political and judicial institutions, public services, and the press. It is the only language for laws, administration and courts. Altogether, an estimated 69 languages are spoken in the country, of which about 60 languages are indigenous. The Mooré language is the most spoken language in Burkina Faso, spoken by about half the population, mainly in the central region around the capital, Ouagadougou. According to the 2006 Census, the languages spoken natively in Burkina Faso were Mooré by 50.5% of the population, Fula by 9.3%, Gourmanché by 6.1%, Bambara by 4.9%, Bissa by 3.2%, Bwamu by 2.1%, Dagara by 2%, San by 1.9%, Lobiri with 1.8%, Lyélé with 1.7%, Bobo and Sénoufo with 1.4% each, Nuni by 1.2%, Dafing by 1.1%, Tamasheq by 1%, Kassem by 0.7%, Gouin by 0.4%, Dogon, Songhai, and Gourounsi by 0.3% each, Ko, Koussassé, Sembla, and Siamou by 0.1% each, other national languages by 5%, other African languages by 0.2%, French (the official language) by 1.3%, and other foreign languages by 0.1%. In the west, Mandé languages are widely spoken, the most predominant being Dioula (also known as Jula or Dyula), others including Bobo, Samo, and Marka. Fula is widespread, particularly in the north. Gourmanché is spoken in the east, while Bissa is spoken in the south. Religion Statistics on religion in Burkina Faso can be misleading because Islam and Christianity are often practiced in tandem with indigenous religious beliefs. The government of Burkina Faso's 2006 census reported that 60.5% of the population practice Islam, and that the majority of this group belong to the Sunni branch, while a small minority adheres to Shia Islam. A significant number of Sunni Muslims identify with the Tijaniyah Sufi order. The government estimated that 23.2% of the population are Christians (19% being Roman Catholics and 4.2% members of Protestant denominations); 15.3% follow traditional indigenous beliefs such as the Dogon religion, 0.6% have other religions, and 0.4% have none. Health In 2016, the average life expectancy was estimated at 60 for males and 61 for females. In 2018, the under-five mortality rate and the infant mortality rate was 76 per 1000 live births. In 2014, the median age of its inhabitants was 17 and the estimated population growth rate was 3.05%. In 2011, health expenditures was 6.5% of GDP; the maternal mortality ratio was estimated at 300 deaths per 100000 live births and the physician density at 0.05 per 1000 population in 2010. In 2012, it was estimated that the adult HIV prevalence rate (ages 15–49) was 1.0%. According to the 2011 UNAIDS Report, HIV prevalence is declining among pregnant women who attend antenatal clinics. According to a 2005 World Health Organization report, an estimated 72.5% of Burkina Faso's girls and women have had female genital mutilation, administered according to traditional rituals. Central government spending on health was 3% in 2001. , studies estimated there were as few as 10 physicians per 100,000 people. In addition, there were 41 nurses and 13 midwives per 100,000 people. Demographic and Health Surveys has completed three surveys in Burkina Faso since 1993, and had another in 2009. A Dengue fever outbreak in 2016 killed 20 patients. Cases of the disease were reported from all 12 districts of Ouagadougou. Education Education in Burkina Faso is divided into primary, secondary and higher education. High school costs approximately CFA 25,000 (US$50) per year, which is far above the means of most Burkinabè families. Boys receive preference in schooling; as such, girls' education and literacy rates are far lower than their male counterparts. An increase in girls' schooling has been observed because of the government's policy of making school cheaper for girls and granting them more scholarships. To proceed from primary to middle school, middle to high school or high school to college, national exams must be passed. Institutions of higher education include the University of Ouagadougou, The Polytechnic University of Bobo-Dioulasso, and the University of Koudougou, which is also a teacher training institution. There are some small private colleges in the capital city of Ouagadougou but these are affordable to only a small portion of the population. There is also the International School of Ouagadougou (ISO), an American-based private school located in Ouagadougou. The 2008 UN Development Program Report ranked Burkina Faso as the country with the lowest level of literacy in the world, despite a concerted effort to double its literacy rate from 12.8% in 1990 to 25.3% in 2008. Culture Literature in Burkina Faso is based on the oral tradition, which remains important. In 1934, during French occupation, Dim-Dolobsom Ouedraogo published his Maximes, pensées et devinettes mossi (Maximes, Thoughts and Riddles of the Mossi), a record of the oral history of the Mossi people. The oral tradition continued to have an influence on Burkinabè writers in the post-independence Burkina Faso of the 1960s, such as Nazi Boni and Roger Nikiema. The 1960s saw a growth in the number of playwrights being published. Since the 1970s, literature has developed in Burkina Faso with many more writers being published. The theatre of Burkina Faso combines traditional Burkinabè performance with the colonial influences and post-colonial efforts to educate rural people to produce a distinctive national theatre. Traditional ritual ceremonies of the many ethnic groups in Burkina Faso have long involved dancing with masks. Western-style theatre became common during colonial times, heavily influenced by French theatre. With independence came a new style of theatre inspired by forum theatre aimed at educating and entertaining Burkina Faso's rural people. Arts and crafts In addition to several rich traditional artistic heritages among the peoples, there is a large artist community in Burkina Faso, especially in Ouagadougou. Much of the crafts produced are for the country's growing tourist industry. Burkina Faso also hosts the International Art and Craft Fair, Ouagadougou. It is better known by its French name as SIAO, Le Salon International de l' Artisanat de Ouagadougou, and is one of the most important African handicraft fairs. Cuisine Typical of West African cuisine, Burkina Faso's cuisine is based on staple foods of sorghum, millet, rice, maize, peanuts, potatoes, beans, yams and okra. The most common sources of animal protein are chicken, chicken eggs and fresh water fish. A typical Burkinabè beverage is Banji or Palm Wine, which is fermented palm sap; and Zoom-kom, or "grain water" purportedly the national drink of Burkina Faso. Zoom-kom is milky-looking and whitish, having a water and cereal base, best drunk with ice cubes. In the more rural regions, in the outskirts of Burkina, you would find Dolo, which is drink made from fermented millet. Cinema The cinema of Burkina Faso is an important part of West African and African film industry. Burkina's contribution to African cinema started with the establishment of the film festival FESPACO (Festival Panafricain du Cinéma et de la Télévision de Ouagadougou), which was launched as a film week in 1969. Many of the nation's filmmakers are known internationally and have won international prizes. For many years the headquarters of the Federation of Panafrican Filmmakers (FEPACI) was in Ouagadougou, rescued in 1983 from a period of moribund inactivity by the enthusiastic support and funding of President Sankara. (In 2006 the Secretariat of FEPACI moved to South Africa, but the headquarters of the organization is still in Ouagadougou.) Among the best known directors from Burkina Faso are Gaston Kaboré, Idrissa Ouedraogo and Dani Kouyate. Burkina produces popular television series such as Les Bobodiouf. Internationally known filmmakers such as Ouedraogo, Kabore, Yameogo, and Kouyate make popular television series. Sports Sport in Burkina Faso is widespread and includes soccer, basketball, cycling, rugby union, handball, tennis, boxing and martial arts. Soccer is the most popular sport in Burkina Faso, played both professionally, and informally in towns and villages across the country. The national team is nicknamed "Les Etalons" ("the Stallions") in reference to the legendary horse of Princess Yennenga. In 1998, Burkina Faso hosted the Africa Cup of Nations for which the Omnisport Stadium in Bobo-Dioulasso was built. Burkina Faso qualified for the 2013 African Cup of Nations in South Africa and reached the final, but then lost to Nigeria 0–1. The country is currently ranked 53rd in the FIFA World Rankings, and has shown improvement in recent years, although they have never qualified for a FIFA World Cup. Basketball is another sport which enjoys much popularity for both men and women. The country's men's national team had its most successful year in 2013 when it qualified for the AfroBasket, the continent's prime basketball event. At the 2020 Summer Olympics, the athlete Hugues Fabrice Zango won Burkina Faso's first Olympic medal, winning bronze in the men's triple jump. Cricket is also picking up in Burkina Faso with Cricket Burkina Faso running a 10 club league , Media The nation's principal media outlet is its state-sponsored combined television and radio service, Radiodiffusion-Télévision Burkina (RTB). RTB broadcasts on two medium-wave (AM) and several FM frequencies. Besides RTB, there are privately owned sports, cultural, music, and religious FM radio stations. RTB maintains a worldwide short-wave news broadcast (Radio Nationale Burkina) in the French language from the capital at Ouagadougou using a 100 kW transmitter on 4.815 and 5.030 MHz. Attempts to develop an independent press and media in Burkina Faso have been intermittent. In 1998, investigative journalist Norbert Zongo, his brother Ernest, his driver, and another man were assassinated by unknown assailants, and the bodies burned. The crime was never solved. However, an independent Commission of Inquiry later concluded that Norbert Zongo was killed for political reasons because of his investigative work into the death of David Ouedraogo, a chauffeur who worked for François Compaoré, President Blaise Compaoré's brother. In January 1999, François Compaoré was charged with the murder of David Ouedraogo, who had died as a result of torture in January 1998. The charges were later dropped by a military tribunal after an appeal. In August 2000, five members of the President's personal security guard detail (Régiment de la Sécurité Présidentielle, or RSP) were charged with the murder of Ouedraogo. RSP members Marcel Kafando, Edmond Koama, and Ousseini Yaro, investigated as suspects in the Norbert Zongo assassination, were convicted in the Ouedraogo case and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Since the death of Norbert Zongo, several protests regarding the Zongo investigation and treatment of journalists have been prevented or dispersed by government police and security forces. In April 2007, popular radio reggae host Karim Sama, whose programs feature reggae songs interspersed with critical commentary on alleged government injustice and corruption, received several death threats. Sama's personal car was later burned outside the private radio station Ouaga FM by unknown vandals. In response, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) wrote to President Compaoré to request his government investigate the sending of e-mailed death threats to journalists and radio commentators in Burkina Faso who were critical of the government. In December 2008, police in Ouagadougou questioned leaders of a protest march that called for a renewed investigation into the unsolved Zongo assassination. Among the marchers was Jean-Claude Meda, the president of the Association of Journalists of Burkina Faso. Cultural festivals and events Every two years, Ouagadougou hosts the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO), the largest African cinema festival on the continent (February, odd years). Held every two years since 1988, the International Art and Craft Fair, Ouagadougou (SIAO), is one of Africa's most important trade shows for art and handicrafts (late October-early November, even years). Also every two years, the Symposium de sculpture sur granit de Laongo takes place on a site located about from Ouagadougou, in the province of Oubritenga. The National Culture Week of Burkina Faso, better known by its French name La Semaine Nationale de la culture (SNC), is one of the most important cultural activities of Burkina Faso. It is a biennial event which takes place every two years in Bobo Dioulasso, the second-largest city

departments. Each region is administered by a governor. Geography Burkina Faso lies mostly between latitudes 9° and 15° N (a small area is north of 15°), and longitudes 6° W and 3° E. It is made up of two major types of countryside. The larger part of the country is covered by a peneplain, which forms a gently undulating landscape with, in some areas, a few isolated hills, the last vestiges of a Precambrian massif. The southwest of the country, on the other hand, forms a sandstone massif, where the highest peak, Ténakourou, is found at an elevation of . The massif is bordered by sheer cliffs up to high. The average altitude of Burkina Faso is and the difference between the highest and lowest terrain is no greater than . Burkina Faso is therefore a relatively flat country. The country owes its former name of Upper Volta to three rivers which cross it: the Black Volta (or Mouhoun), the White Volta (Nakambé) and the Red Volta (Nazinon). The Black Volta is one of the country's only two rivers which flow year-round, the other being the Komoé, which flows to the southwest. The basin of the Niger River also drains 27% of the country's surface. The Niger's tributaries – the Béli, Gorouol, Goudébo, and Dargol – are seasonal streams and flow for only four to six months a year. They still can flood and overflow, however. The country also contains numerous lakes – the principal ones are Tingrela, Bam, and Dem. The country contains large ponds, as well, such as Oursi, Béli, Yomboli, and Markoye. Water shortages are often a problem, especially in the north of the country. Burkina Faso lies within two terrestrial ecoregions: Sahelian Acacia savanna and West Sudanian savanna. Climate Burkina Faso has a primarily tropical climate with two very distinct seasons. In the rainy season, the country receives between of rainfall; in the dry season, the harmattan – a hot dry wind from the Sahara – blows. The rainy season lasts approximately four months, May/June to September, and is shorter in the north of the country. Three climatic zones can be defined: the Sahel, the Sudan-Sahel, and the Sudan-Guinea. The Sahel in the north typically receives less than of rainfall per year and has high temperatures, . A relatively dry tropical savanna, the Sahel extends beyond the borders of Burkina Faso, from the Horn of Africa to the Atlantic Ocean, and borders the Sahara to its north and the fertile region of the Sudan to the south. Situated between 11° 3′ and 13° 5′ north latitude, the Sudan-Sahel region is a transitional zone with regards to rainfall and temperature. Further to the south, the Sudan-Guinea zone receives more than of rain each year and has cooler average temperatures. Geographic and environmental causes can also play a significant role in contributing to Burkina Faso's food insecurity. As the country is situated in the Sahel region, Burkina Faso experiences some of the most radical climatic variation in the world, ranging from severe flooding to extreme drought. The unpredictable climatic shock that Burkina Faso citizens often face results in strong difficulties in being able to rely on and accumulate wealth through agricultural means. Burkina Faso's climate also renders its crops vulnerable to insect attacks, including attacks from locusts and crickets, which destroy crops and further inhibit food production. Not only is most of the population of Burkina Faso dependent on agriculture as a source of income, but they also rely on the agricultural sector for food that will directly feed the household. Due to the vulnerability of agriculture, more and more families are having to look for other sources of non-farm income, and often have to travel outside of their regional zone to find work. Natural resources Burkina Faso's natural resources include gold, manganese, limestone, marble, phosphates, pumice, and salt. Wildlife Burkina Faso has a larger number of elephants than many countries in West Africa. Lions, leopards and buffalo can also be found here, including the dwarf or red buffalo, a smaller reddish-brown animal which looks like a fierce kind of short-legged cow. Other large predators live in Burkina Faso, such as the cheetah, the caracal or African lynx, the spotted hyena and the African wild dog, one of the continent's most endangered species. Burkina Faso's fauna and flora are protected in four national parks: The W National Park in the east which passes Burkina Faso, Benin, and Niger The Arly Wildlife Reserve (Arly National Park in the east) The Léraba-Comoé Classified Forest and Partial Reserve of Wildlife in the west The Mare aux Hippopotames in the west and several reserves: see List of national parks in Africa and Nature reserves of Burkina Faso. Economy The value of Burkina Faso's exports fell from $2.77 billion in 2011 to $754 million in 2012. Agriculture represents 32% of its gross domestic product and occupies 80% of the working population. It consists mostly of rearing livestock. Especially in the south and southwest, the people grow crops of sorghum, pearl millet, maize (corn), peanuts, rice and cotton, with surpluses to be sold. A large part of the economic activity of the country is funded by international aid, despite having gold ores in abundance. The top five export commodities in 2017 were, in order of importance: gems and precious metals, US$1.9 billion (78.5% of total exports), cotton, $198.7 million (8.3%), ores, slag, ash, $137.6 million (5.8%), fruits, nuts: $76.6 million (3.2%) and oil seeds: $59.5 million (2.5%). A December 2018 report from the World Bank indicates that in 2017, economic growth increased to 6.4% in 2017 (vs. 5.9% in 2016) primarily due to gold production and increased investment in infrastructure. The increase in consumption linked to growth of the wage bill also supported economic growth. Inflation remained low, 0.4% that year but the public deficit grew to 7.7% of GDP (vs. 3.5% in 2016). The government was continuing to get financial aid and loans to finance the debt. To finance the public deficit, the Government combined concessional aid and borrowing on the regional market. The World Bank said that the economic outlook remained favorable in the short and medium term, although that could be negatively impacted. Risks included high oil prices (imports), lower prices of gold and cotton (exports) as well as terrorist threat and labour strikes. Burkina Faso is part of the West African Monetary and Economic Union (UMEOA) and has adopted the CFA franc. This is issued by the Central Bank of the West African States (BCEAO), situated in Dakar, Senegal. The BCEAO manages the monetary and reserve policy of the member states, and provides regulation and oversight of financial sector and banking activity. A legal framework regarding licensing, bank activities, organizational and capital requirements, inspections and sanctions (all applicable to all countries of the Union) is in place, having been reformed significantly in 1999. Microfinance institutions are governed by a separate law, which regulates microfinance activities in all WAEMU countries. The insurance sector is regulated through the Inter-African Conference on Insurance Markets (CIMA). In 2018, tourism was almost non-existent in large parts of the country. The U.S. government (and others) warn their citizens not to travel into large parts of Burkina Faso: "The northern Sahel border region shared with Mali and Niger due to crime and terrorism. The provinces of Kmoandjari, Tapoa, Kompienga, and Gourma in East Region due to crime and terrorism". The 2018 CIA World Factbook provides this updated summary. "Burkina Faso is a poor, landlocked country that depends on adequate rainfall. Irregular patterns of rainfall, poor soil, and the lack of adequate communications and other infrastructure contribute to the economy's vulnerability to external shocks. About 80% of the population is engaged in subsistence farming and cotton is the main cash crop. The country has few natural resources and a weak industrial base. Cotton and gold are Burkina Faso's key exports ...The country has seen an upswing in gold exploration, production, and exports. While the end of the political crisis has allowed Burkina Faso's economy to resume positive growth, the country's fragile security situation could put these gains at risk. Political insecurity in neighboring Mali, unreliable energy supplies, and poor transportation links pose long-term challenges." The report also highlights the 2018–2020 International Monetary Fund program, including the government's plan to "reduce the budget deficit and preserve critical spending on social services and priority public investments". A 2018 report by the African Development Bank Group discussed a macroeconomic evolution: "higher investment and continued spending on social services and security that will add to the budget deficit". This group's prediction for 2018 indicated that the budget deficit would be reduced to 4.8% of GDP in 2018 and to 2.9% in 2019. Public debt associated with the National Economic and Social Development Plan was estimated at 36.9% of GDP in 2017. Burkina Faso is a member of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA). The country also belongs to the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and World Trade Organization. Mining There is mining of copper, iron, manganese, gold, cassiterite (tin ore), and phosphates. These operations provide employment and generate international aid. Gold production increased 32% in 2011 at six gold mine sites, making Burkina Faso the fourth-largest gold producer in Africa, after South Africa, Mali and Ghana. A 2018 report indicated that the country expected record 55 tonnes of gold in that year, a two-thirds increase over 2013. According to Oumarou Idani, there is a more important issue. "We have to diversify production. We mostly only produce gold, but we have huge potential in manganese, zinc, lead, copper, nickel and limestone". Food insecurity According to the Global Hunger Index, a multidimensional tool used to measure and track a country's hunger levels, Burkina Faso ranked 65 out of 78 countries in 2013. It is estimated that there are currently over 1.5 million children who are at risk of food insecurity in Burkina Faso, with around 350,000 children who are in need of emergency medical assistance. However, only about a third of these children will actually receive adequate medical attention. Only 11.4 percent of children under the age of two receive the daily recommended number of meals. Stunted growth as a result of food insecurity is a severe problem in Burkina Faso, affecting at least a third of the population from 2008 to 2012. Additionally, stunted children, on average, tend to complete less school than children with normal growth development, further contributing to the low levels of education of the Burkina Faso population. The European Commission expects that approximately 500,000 children under age 5 in Burkina Faso will suffer from acute malnutrition in 2015, including around 149,000 who will suffer from its most life-threatening form. Rates of micronutrient deficiencies are also high. According to the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS 2010), 49 percent of women and 88 percent of children under the age of five suffer from anemia. Forty percent of infant deaths can be attributed to malnutrition, and in turn, these infant mortality rates have decreased Burkina Faso's total work force by 13.6 percent, demonstrating how food security affects more aspects of life beyond health. These high rates of food insecurity and the accompanying effects are even more prevalent in rural populations compared to urban ones, as access to health services in rural areas is much more limited and awareness and education of children's nutritional needs is lower. An October 2018 report by USAid stated that droughts and floods remained problematic, and that "violence and insecurity are disrupting markets, trade and livelihoods activities in some of Burkina Faso's northern and eastern areas". The report estimated that over 954,300 people needed food security support, and that, according to UNICEF, an "estimated 187,200 children under 5 years of age will experience severe acute malnutrition". Agencies providing assistance at the time included USAID's Office of Food for Peace (FFP) working with the UN World Food Programme, the NGO Oxfam Intermón and ACDI/VOCA. Approaches to improving food security World Food Programme The United Nations’ World Food Programme has worked on programs that are geared towards increasing food security in Burkina Faso. The Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation 200509 (PRRO) was formed to respond to the high levels of malnutrition in Burkina Faso, following the food and nutrition crisis in 2012. The efforts of this project are mostly geared towards the treatment and prevention of malnutrition and include take home rations for the caretakers of those children who are being treated for malnutrition. Additionally, the activities of this operation contribute to families' abilities to withstand future food crises. Better nutrition among the two most vulnerable groups, young children and pregnant women, prepares them to be able to respond better in times when food security is compromised, such as in droughts. The Country Programme (CP) has two parts: food and nutritional assistance to people with HIV/AIDS, and a school feeding program for all primary schools in the Sahel region. The HIV/AIDS nutrition program aims to better the nutritional recovery of those who are living with HIV/AIDS and to protect at-risk children and orphans from malnutrition and food security. As part of the school feeding component, the Country Programme's goals are to increase enrollment and attendance in schools in the Sahel region, where enrollment rates are below the national average. Furthermore, the program aims at improving gender parity rates in these schools, by providing girls with high attendance in the last two years of primary school with take-home rations of cereals as an incentive to households, encouraging them to send their girls to school. The WFP concluded the formation of a subsequently approved plan in August 2018 "to support the Government's vision of 'a democratic, unified and united nation, transforming the structure of its economy and achieving a strong and inclusive growth through patterns of sustainable consumption and production.' It will take important steps in WFP's new strategic direction for strengthened national and local capacities to enable the Government and communities to own, manage, and implement food and nutrition security programmes by 2030". World Bank The World Bank was established in 1944, and comprises five institutions whose shared goals are to end extreme poverty by 2030 and to promote shared prosperity by fostering income growth of the lower forty percent of every country. One of the main projects the World Bank is working on to reduce food insecurity in Burkina Faso is the Agricultural Productivity and Food Security Project. According to the World Bank, the objective of this project is to "improve the capacity of poor producers to increase food production and to ensure improved availability of food products in rural markets." The Agricultural Productivity and Food Security Project has three main parts. Its first component is to work towards the improvement of food production, including financing grants and providing 'voucher for work' programs for households who cannot pay their contribution in cash. The project's next component involves improving the ability of food products, particularly in rural areas. This includes supporting the marketing of food products, and aims to strengthen the capabilities of stakeholders to control the variability of food products and supplies at local and national levels. Lastly, the third component of this project focuses on institutional development and capacity building. Its goal is to reinforce the capacities of service providers and institutions who are specifically involved in project implementation. The project's activities aim to build capacities of service providers, strengthen the capacity of food producer organizations, strengthen agricultural input supply delivery methods, and manage and evaluate project activities. The December 2018 report by the World Bank indicated that the poverty rate fell slightly between 2009 and 2014, from 46% to a still high 40.1%. The report provided this updated summary of the country's development challenges: "Burkina Faso remains vulnerable to climatic shocks related to changes in rainfall patterns and to fluctuations in the prices of its export commodities on world markets. Its economic and social development will, to some extent, be contingent on political stability in the country and the subregion, its openness to international trade, and export diversification". Food security Burkina Faso is faced with high levels of food insecurity. As defined by the 1996 World Food Summit, "food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy lifestyle." There has not been much successful improvement on this issue of food security within recent years. Burkina Faso's rapidly growing population (around 3.6% annually) continues to put a strain on the country's resources and infrastructure, which can further limit accessibility to food. Because the country is landlocked and prone to natural disasters, including drought and floods, many families struggle to protect themselves from severe hunger. While recent harvest productions have improved some, much of the population is still having a hard time overcoming the continuous food and nutrition crises of the past decade. Malnutrition is especially common in women and children, with large amounts of the population suffering from stunted growth and micronutrient deficiencies such as anemia. Food insecurity has grown to be a structural problem in Burkina Faso, only to be intensified by high food prices. All of these factors combined with high poverty levels have left Burkina Faso vulnerable

dollar on a par with the U.S. dollar. The Bahamas is a beneficiary of the U.S.-Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA), Canada's CARIBCAN program, and the European Union's Lome IV Agreement. Although the Bahamas participates in the political aspects of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), it has not entered into joint economic initiatives with other Caribbean states. Industry The Bahamas has a few notable industrial firms: the Freeport pharmaceutical firm, PharmaChem Technologies (GrandBahama) Ltd. (formerly Syntex); the BORCO oil facility, also in Freeport, which transships oil in the region; the Commonwealth Brewery in Nassau, which produces Heineken, Guinness, and Kalik beers; and Bacardi Corp., which distills rum in Nassau for shipment to the U.S. and European markets. Other industries include sun-dried sea salt in Great Inagua, a wet dock facility in Freeport for repair of cruise ships, and mining of aragonite—a type of limestone with several industrial uses—from the sea floor at Ocean Cay. Other smaller but more nimble players in the banking industry include Fidelity Bank (Bahamas) Ltd. (FBB) and Royal Fidelity Merchant Bank & Trust Limited (RFMBT). FBB offers a wide range of innovative banking products including loan products with built-in savings plans. RFMBT is the only merchant bank in the Bahamas and is a joint venture with Royal Bank of Canada. It provides investment products and services and attracts the majority of the corporate business deals in the Bahamas, most recently acting as financial advisor and placement agent for the largest initial public offering (IPO) ever in the Bahamas with the IPO of Commonwealth Brewery, a Heineken subsidiary. The Hawksbill Creek Agreement established a duty-free zone in Freeport, the Bahamas' second-largest city, with a nearby industrial park to encourage foreign industrial investment. The Hong Kong-based firm, Hutchison Whampoa, has opened a container port in Freeport. The Bahamian Parliament approved legislation in 1993 that extended most Freeport tax and duty exemptions through 2054. Taxation The Bahamas has no income tax, corporate tax, capital gains tax, or wealth tax. Payroll taxes fund social insurance benefits and amount to 3.9% paid by the employee and 5.9% paid by the employer. In 2010, overall tax revenue was 17.2% of GDP. A value-added tax (VAT) of 7.5% has been levied 1 January 2015. It then increased from 7.5% to 12% effective from 1 July 2018. Statistics The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980–2017. Household income or consumption by percentage share—highest 10%: 27% (2000) Agriculture - products—citrus, vegetables, poultry Electricity - production—2,505 GWh (2007 est.) - Rank 133 Electricity - consumption—1,793 GWh (2007) - Rank 133 Oil - consumption— (2006 est.) - Rank 115 Oil - exports—transhipments of (2003) Exchange rate—Bahamian dollar is pegged to the

addition to tourism and banking, the government supports the development of a "2nd-pillar", e-commerce. Features of the Bahamian economy The Bahamian economy is almost entirely dependent on tourism and financial services to generate foreign exchange earnings. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of The Bahamas is approximately $5.7 billion with tourism accounting for 50%, financial services nearly 20% and the balance spread among retail and wholesale trade, fishing, light manufacturing and agriculture. The European Union lists the Bahamas as one of several Caribbean "uncooperative jurisdictions" because it fails to meet tax fairness and transparency benchmarks. Tourism Tourism alone provides an estimated 51% of the gross domestic product (GDP) and employs about half the Bahamian workforce. In 2016, over 3 million tourists visited the Bahamas, most of whom are from the United States and Canada. . A major contribution to the recent growth in the overall Bahamian economy is Kerzner International's Atlantis Resort and Casino, which took over the former Paradise Island Resort and has provided a much needed boost to the economy. In addition, the opening of Breezes Super Club and Sandals Resort also aided this turnaround. The Bahamian Government also has adopted a proactive approach to courting foreign investors and has conducted major investment missions to the Far East, Europe, Latin America, and Canada. The primary purpose of the trips was to restore the reputation of the Bahamas in these markets. Offshore financial services Financial services constitute the second-most important sector of the Bahamian economy, accounting for up to 17% of GDP, due to the country's status as an offshore financial center. As of December 1998, 418 banks and trust companies have been licensed in the Bahamas. The Bahamas promulgated the International Business Companies (IBC) Act in January 1990 to enhance the country's status as a leading financial center. The Act simplified and reduced the cost of incorporating offshore companies in the Bahamas. Within 9 years, more than 100,000 IBC-type companies had been established. In February 1991, the government also legalized the establishment of Asset Protection Trusts in the Bahamas. In December 2000, partly as a response to appearing the plenary FATF Blacklist, the government enacted a legislative package to better regulate the financial sector, including creation of a Financial Intelligence Unit and enforcement of "know-your-customer" rules. Other initiatives include the enactment of the Foundations Act in 2004 and the planned introduction of legislation to regulate Private Trust Companies. After being later off the blacklist, in December 2020 Bahamas also was taken off the FATF greylist. Agriculture Agriculture and fisheries industry together account for 5% of GDP. The Bahamas exports lobster and some fish but does not raise these items commercially. There is no large scale agriculture, and most agricultural products are consumed domestically. The Bahamas imports more