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33901 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIYN%20Consortium | WIYN Consortium | WIYN Consortium founding members were the University of Wisconsin–Madison (W), Indiana University (I), Yale University (Y), and the National Optical Astronomy Observatories (N). Yale University withdrew from the WIYN consortium on April 1, 2014, and was replaced by the University of Missouri in the fall of that year. In 2015, a NASA-NSF partnership called NN-EXPLORE effectively took over NOAO's share, although NOAO still manages the operations. Purdue University joined in 2017 for a three-year period.
The consortium operates two telescopes of 3.5 m and 0.9 m diameters.
The universities financed the construction of the WIYN Observatory at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) in 1994.
In 2001, the WIYN Consortium took over control of the KPNO telescope, built in 1960, and rechristened it as the WIYN 0.9 m Telescope. This small but popular telescope was in danger of being mothballed for budgetary reasons.
References
External links
WIYN Consortium - official site
Astronomy institutes and departments |
34110 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwatch%20Institute | Worldwatch Institute | The Worldwatch Institute was a globally focused environmental research organization based in Washington, D.C., founded by Lester R. Brown. Worldwatch was named as one of the top ten sustainable development research organizations by Globescan Survey of Sustainability Experts.
Brown left to found the Earth Policy Institute in 2000. The institute terminated in 2017, after publication of its last State of the World Report. Worldwatch.org was unreachable from mid 2019.
Mission
The mission of the Institute read: "Through research and outreach that inspire action, the Worldwatch Institute works to accelerate the transition to a sustainable world that meets human needs. The Institute's top mission objectives are universal access to renewable energy and nutritious food, expansion of environmentally sound jobs and development, transformation of cultures from consumerism to sustainability, and an early end to population growth through healthy and intentional childbearing."
The Worldwatch Institute aimed to inform policymakers and the public about the links between the world economy and its environmental support systems. Research conducted by the institute was integrative or interdisciplinary and global in scope.
Worldwatch's priority programs included:
Building a low-carbon energy system that dramatically reduces the use of fossil fuels and lowers greenhouse gas emissions.
Nourishing the Planet - methods that create a sustainable food production system that provides a healthy, nutritious diet for all while sustaining the land, water, and biological resources on which life depends. The project resulted in the Worldwatch Institute's flagship publication, State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet.
Transforming economies, cultures, and societies that meets human needs, promotes prosperity, and is in harmony with nature.
Worldwatch also monitored human health, population, water resources, biodiversity, governance, and environmental security.
History
1974—The institute was founded by Lester Brown.
1975—The first Worldwatch Paper was published.
1984—First State of the World published.
1988—World Watch Magazine was launched.
1992—Vital Signs, Worldwatch's third annual series, was premiered.
2000—Christopher Flavin became President of Worldwatch in October.
2000 Lester R. Brown left, to found the Earth Policy Institute in 2001.
2008—Worldwatch hosted the 20th Anniversary of the James E. Hansen hearings.
2010. July/August edition of World Watch magazine was the last.
2011—Robert Engelman became President of Worldwatch in October.
2014—Ed Groark became Acting Interim President of Worldwatch.
2017 Ceased operations after its last State of the World report was published.
Publications
Worldwatch Institute publications have been published in more than three dozen languages by its global partners in 40 countries. Worldwatch publications include:
The State of the World report is an annual assessment of urgent global environmental problems and the innovative ideas proposed and applied across the globe to address them.
Vital Signs tracks social, environmental and economic trends and publishes data and analysis.
See also
Lester R. Brown, founder of Worldwatch Institute
Ed Ayres, former editor of Worldwatch, which ceased publication in 2010.
Sustainable Development
Environmental Movement
List of environmental organizations
World Nuclear Industry Status Report
References
External links
Environmental organizations based in Washington, D.C.
Organizations established in 1974
1974 establishments in Washington, D.C.
Think tanks based in the United States
Human overpopulation think tanks
Population concern advocacy groups
Population concern organizations |
34332 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y%20combinator | Y combinator | Y combinator may refer to:
Y Combinator, an American tech startup accelerator
Y combinator, a fixed-point combinator in untyped lambda calculus |
34474 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguni%20stick-fighting | Nguni stick-fighting | Nguni stick-fighting (also known as donga, or dlala 'nduku, which literally translates as 'playing sticks') is a martial art traditionally practiced by teenage Nguni herdboys in South Africa. Each combatant is armed with two long sticks, one of which is used for defense and the other for offense. Little armor is used.
Although Nguni/Xhosa styles of fighting may use only two sticks, variations of Bantu/Nguni stick-fighting throughout Southern Africa incorporate shields as part of the stick-fighting weaponry. Zulu stick-fighting uses an isikhwili or attacking stick, an ubhoko or defending stick and an ihawu or defending shield.
The object is for two opposing warriors to fight each other to establish which of them is the strongest or the "Bull" (Inkunzi). In modern times this usually occurs as part of the wedding ceremony where warriors from the bridegroom's household and area welcome warriors from the bride's household and area to meet to "get to know each other", other groups of warriors may also be welcome to join in. Warriors do this by engaging in combat with one another. An "induna" or War Captain / Referee from each group of warriors keeps his crew in check and keeps order between fighters.
This tradition is one which arguably developed in societies, cultures and civilisations that used herding as part of their systems of survival; where there are cows, there are stick-fighters. The old regimental structures of the great uShaka KaSenzangakhona KaJama dominate current modern Zulu stick-fighting.
Film maker SiyaBonga Makhathini has directed the film "We Still are Warriors" which captures the essence of the modern-day Zulu stick-fighter, descendant of the kings of old.
Nelson Mandela practiced Nguni stick-fighting as a child, and it was featured on the Discovery and BBC reality TV show Last Man Standing. It has been featured in Season 1 of the television series Deadliest Warrior.
References
Further reading
Coetzee, Marié-Heleen. (2002) "Zulu Stick Fighting: A Socio-Historical Overview," http://ejmas.com/jalt/jaltart_Coetzee_0902.htm
Stick-fighting
African martial arts
Nguni
Sports originating in South Africa |
34615 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920s | 1920s | The 1920s (pronounced "nineteen-twenties" often shortened to the "20s" or the "Twenties") was a decade that began on January 1, 1920, and ended on December 31, 1929. In America, it is frequently referred to as the "Roaring Twenties" or the "Jazz Age", while in Europe the period is sometimes referred to as the "Golden Twenties" because of the economic boom following World War I (1914–1918). French speakers refer to the period as the "Années folles" ("Crazy Years"), emphasizing the era's social, artistic, and cultural dynamism.
The 1920s saw foreign oil companies begin operations in Venezuela, which became the world's second-largest oil-producing nation. The devastating Wall Street Crash in October 1929 is generally viewed as a harbinger of the end of 1920s prosperity in North America and Europe. In the Soviet Union, the New Economic Policy was created by the Bolsheviks in 1921, to be replaced by the first five-year plan in 1928. The 1920s saw the rise of radical political movements, with the Red Army triumphing against White movement forces in the Russian Civil War, and the emergence of far right political movements in Europe. In 1922, the fascist leader Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy. Other dictators that emerged included Józef Piłsudski in Poland, and Peter and Alexander Karađorđević in Yugoslavia. First-wave feminism made advances, with women gaining the right to vote in the United States (1920), Albania (1920), Ireland (1921), and with suffrage being expanded in Britain to all women over 21 years old (1928).
In Turkey, nationalist forces defeated Greece, France, Armenia and Britain in the Turkish War of Independence, leading to the Treaty of Lausanne (July 1923), a treaty more favorable to Turkey than the earlier proposed Treaty of Sèvres. The war also led to the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate. Nationalist revolts also occurred in Ireland (1919–1921) and Syria (1925–1927). Under Mussolini, Italy pursued a more aggressive domestic and foreign policy, leading to the nigh-eradication of the Sicilian Mafia and the Second Italo-Senussi War in Libya respectively. In 1927, China erupted into a civil war between the Kuomintang (KMT)-led government of the Republic of China (ROC) and forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Civil wars also occurred in Paraguay (1922–1923), Ireland (1922–1923), Honduras (1924), Nicaragua (1926–1927), and Afghanistan (1928–1929). Saudi forces conquered Jabal Shammar and subsequently, Hejaz.
A severe famine occurred in Russia in 1921–1922 due to the combined effects of economic disturbance because of the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War, exacerbated by rail systems that could not distribute food efficiently, leading to 5 million deaths. Another severe famine occurred in China in 1928–1930, leading to 6 million deaths. The Spanish flu (1918–1920) and the 1918–1922 Russia typhus epidemic, which had begun in the previous decade, caused 25–50 million and 2–3 million deaths respectively. Major natural disasters of this decade include the 1920 Haiyuan earthquake (258,707~273,407 deaths), the 1922 Shantou typhoon (50,000–100,000 deaths), the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake (105,385–142,800 deaths), and the 1927 Gulang earthquake (40,912 deaths).
Silent films were popular in this decade, with the 1925 American silent epic adventure-drama film Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ being the highest-grossing film of this decade, grossing $9,386,000 worldwide. Other high-grossing films included The Big Parade and The Singing Fool. Sinclair Lewis was a popular author in the United States in the 1920s, with his books Main Street and Elmer Gantry becoming best-sellers. Best-selling books outside the US included the Czech book The Good Soldier Švejk, which sold 20 million copies. Songs of this decade included "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" and "Stardust".
During the 1920s, the world population increased from 1.87 to 2.05 billion, with approximately 700 million births and 525 million deaths in total.
Social history
The Roaring Twenties brought about several novel and highly visible social and cultural trends. These trends, made possible by sustained economic prosperity, were most visible in major cities like New York, Chicago, Paris, Berlin and London. "Normalcy" returned to politics in the wake of hyper-emotional patriotism during World War I, jazz blossomed, and Art Deco peaked. For women, knee-length skirts and dresses became socially acceptable, as did bobbed hair with a finger wave or marcel wave. The women who pioneered these trends were frequently referred to as flappers.
The era saw the large-scale adoption of automobiles, telephones, motion pictures, radio and household electricity, as well as unprecedented industrial growth, accelerated consumer demand and aspirations, and significant changes in lifestyle and culture. The media began to focus on celebrities, especially sports heroes and movie stars. Large baseball stadiums were built in major U.S. cities, in addition to palatial cinemas.
Most independent countries passed women's suffrage after 1918, especially as a reward for women's support of the war effort and endurance of its deaths and hardships.
Politics and wars
Wars
Turkish War of Independence
Greco-Turkish War (May 1919 – October 1922)
Turkish–Armenian War (September–December 1920)
Franco-Turkish War (December 1918 – October 1921)
Royalist and separatist revolts (1919–1923)
Unification of Saudi Arabia
Rashidi–Saudi War (1903–1921)
Kuwait–Saudi War (1919–1920)
Hejaz–Saudi War (1919–1925)
Transjordan-Saudi War (1922–1924)
Polish–Soviet War (February 1919 – March 1922)
Irish War of Independence (January 1919 – July 1921)
Iraqi Revolt (1920)
Rif War (1920–1927)
Second Italo-Senussi War (1923–1932)
Great Syrian Revolt (1925–1927)
United States occupation of Nicaragua (1912–1933)
United States occupation of Haiti (1915–1934)
United States occupation of the Dominican Republic (1916–1924)
Internal conflicts
Russian Civil War (November 1917 – October 1922)
Tambov Rebellion (August 1920 – June 1921)
Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War (1918 – 1925)
Patagonia Rebelde (1920–1922)
Mahmud Barzanji revolts (1920–1922)
Irish Civil War (June 28, 1922 – May 24, 1923)
Chinese Civil War (first phase 1927–1936)
Ararat rebellion (1927–1930)
Kongo-Wara rebellion (1928–1931)
Afghan Civil War (November 14, 1928 – October 13, 1929)
Major political changes
Rise of radical political movements such as communism led by the Soviet Union and fascism led by Italy.
League of Nations and associated bodies as experiment in international cooperation and prevention of wars
Decolonization and independence
Irish Free State gains independence from the United Kingdom in 1922.
Egypt officially becomes an independent country through the Declaration of 1922, though it still remains under the military and political influence of the British Empire.
Prominent political events
Peace and disarmament
Washington Naval Conference of 1922
followup treaties for the Limitation of Naval Armament
Geneva Protocol 1925, outlaws poison gas
Geneva Naval Conference 1927
Kellogg–Briand Pact (1928) signed by most nations promising not to declare war.
London Naval Treaty, 1930
Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments 1932-1934
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage movement continues to make gains as women obtain full voting rights in the United Kingdom in 1918 (women over 30) and in 1928 (full enfranchisement), in the United States in 1920. Also : full or partial gains in Uruguay 1917; Canada, 1917–1925 except Quebec (1940); Czechoslovakia 1920; Irish Free State, 1922; Burma, 1922; Italy, 1925 (partial); Ecuador 1929.
United States
Prohibition of alcohol occurs in the United States. Prohibition in the United States began January 16, 1919, with the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S.Constitution, effective as of January 17, 1920, and it continued throughout the 1920s. Prohibition was finally repealed in 1933. Organized crime turns to smuggling and bootlegging of liquor, led by figures such as Al Capone, boss of the Chicago Outfit.
The Immigration Act of 1924 places restrictions on immigration. National quotas curbed most Eastern and Southern European nationalities, further enforced the ban on immigration of East Asians, Indians and Africans, and put mild regulations on nationalities from the Western Hemisphere (Latin Americans).
The major sport was baseball and the most famous player was Babe Ruth.
The Lost Generation (which characterized disillusionment), was the name Gertrude Stein gave to American writers, poets, and artists living in Europe during the 1920s. Famous members of the Lost Generation include Cole Porter, Gerald Murphy, Patrick Henry Bruce, Waldo Peirce, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, John Dos Passos, and Sherwood Anderson.
A peak in the early 1920s in the membership of the Ku Klux Klan of four to five million members (after its reemergence in 1915), followed by a rapid decline down to an estimated 30,000 members by 1930.
The Scopes Trial (1925), which declared that John T. Scopes had violated the law by teaching evolution in schools, creating tension between the competing theories of creationism and evolutionism.
Europe
Polish–Soviet War (1920–21); Poland defeats Soviet expansion; Ukraine and Belarus were divided.
Major armed conflict in Ireland including Irish War of Independence (1919–1921) resulting in Ireland becoming an independent country in 1922 followed by the Irish Civil War (1922–23).
Russian famine of 1921–22 claimed up to five million victims.
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union) is created in 1922.
Benito Mussolini leader of the National Fascist Party became Prime Minister of Italy, shortly thereafter creating the world's first fascist government. The Fascist regime establishes a totalitarian state led by Mussolini as a dictator. The Fascist regime restores good relations between the Roman Catholic Church and Italy with the Lateran Treaty, which creates Vatican City. The Fascist regime pursues an aggressive expansionist agenda in Europe such as by raiding the Greek island of Corfu in 1923, pressuring Albania to submit to becoming a de facto Italian protectorate in the mid-1920s, and holding territorial aims on the region of Dalmatia in Yugoslavia.
In Germany, the Weimar Republic suffers from economic crisis in the early 1920s and hyperinflation of currency in 1923. From 1923 to 1925 the Occupation of the Ruhr takes place. The Ruhr was an industrial region of Germany taken over by the military forces of the French Third Republic and Belgium, in response to the failure of the Weimar Republic under Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno to keep paying the World War I reparations. The recently formed fringe National Socialist German Workers' Party (a.k.a. Nazi Party) led by Adolf Hitler attempts a coup against the Bavarian and German governments in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, which fails, resulting in Hitler being briefly imprisoned for one year in prison where he writes Mein Kampf.
Turkish War of Independence (1919–23).
United Kingdom general strike (1926).
Asia
The Qajar dynasty ended under Ahmad Shah Qajar as Reza Shah Pahlavi founds the Pahlavi Dynasty, which later became the last monarchy of Iran.
The Northern Expedition (1926-1928)
The Chinese Civil War begins (1927–1937).
In the Kingdom of Afghanistan, Amanullah Khan's reforms cause conflict with conservative factions, resulting in the Afghan Civil War.
Africa
Pan-Africanist supporters of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) are repressed by colonial powers in Africa. Garvey's UNIA-ACL supported the creation of a state led by black people in Africa including African Americans.
Economics
Economic boom ended by "Black Tuesday" (October 29, 1929); the stock market crashes, leading to the Great Depression. The market actually began to drop on Thursday October 24, 1929, and the fall continued until the huge crash on Tuesday October 29, 1929.
The New Economic Policy is created by the Bolsheviks in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, to be replaced by the first five-year plan in 1928.
The Dawes Plan, by which U.S. funded German reparations from 1924 to 1928.
Average annual inflation for the decade was virtually zero but individual years ranged from a high of 3.47% in 1925 to a deflationary −11% in 1921.
Natural disasters
The Great Kantō earthquake struck the main Japanese island of Honshū on 1 September, 1923. The earthquake had a magnitude of 7.9 on the moment magnitude scale.
Assassinations and attempts
Prominent assassinations, targeted killings, and assassination attempts include:
Walther Rathenau, Foreign Minister of Germany is assassinated by Ernst Werner Techow, Erwin Kern, and Hermann Willibald Fischer, all members of Organisation Consul on June 24, 1922.
Francisco "Pancho" Villa, a Mexican Revolutionary general is assassinated by a group of seven assassins on July 20, 1923.
Science and technology
Technology
John Logie Baird invents the first working mechanical television system (1925). In 1928, he invents and demonstrates the first color television.
Warner Brothers produces the first movie with a soundtrack Don Juan in 1926, followed by the first Part-Talkie The Jazz Singer in 1927, the first All-Talking movie Lights of New York in 1928 and the first All-Color All-Talking movie On with the Show, 1929. Silent films start giving way to sound films. By 1936, the transition phase arguably ends, with Modern Times being the last notable silent film.
Karl Ferdinand Braun invents the modern electronic cathode ray tube in 1897. The CRT became a commercial product in 1922.
Record companies (such as Victor, Brunswick and Columbia) introduce an electrical recording process on their phonograph records in 1925 (that had been developed by Western Electric), resulting in a more lifelike sound.
The first electric razor is patented in 1928 by the American manufacturer Col. Jacob Schick.
The first selective Jukeboxes being introduced in 1927 by the Automated Musical Instrument Company.
Harold Stephen Black revolutionizes the field of applied electronics by inventing the negative feedback amplifier in 1927.
Clarence Birdseye invents a process for frozen food in 1925.
Robert Goddard makes the first flight of a liquid-fueled rocket in 1926.
Science
Charles Lindbergh becomes the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean (May 20–21, 1927), nonstop from New York to Paris.
Howard Carter opens the innermost shrine of King Tutankhamun's tomb near Luxor, Egypt, 1922
Insulin was first used as a medication in Canada by Charles Best and Frederick Banting in 1922.
In 1928, Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
Popular culture
Film
Oscar winners: Wings (1927–1928), The Broadway Melody (1928–1929), All Quiet on the Western Front (1929–1930)
First feature-length motion picture with a soundtrack (Don Juan) is released in 1926. First part-talkie (The Jazz Singer) released in 1927, first all-talking feature (Lights of New York) released in 1928 and first all-color all-talking feature (On with the Show) released in 1929.
The first animated short film by Walt Disney is released in 1928, featuring Mickey Mouse. Steamboat Willie was the first sound cartoon to attract widespread notice and popularity.
Fashion
The 1920s is the decade in which fashion entered the modern era. It was the decade in which women first abandoned the more restricting fashions of past years and began to wear more comfortable clothes (such as short skirts or trousers). Men also abandoned highly formal daily attire and even began to wear athletic clothing for the first time. The suits men wear today are still based, for the most part, on those worn in the late 1920s. The 1920s are characterized by two distinct periods of fashion. In the early part of the decade, change was slow, as many were reluctant to adopt new styles. From 1925, the public passionately embraced the styles associated with the Roaring Twenties. These styles continued to characterize fashion until the worldwide depression worsened in 1931.
Music
"The Jazz Age"—jazz and jazz-influenced dance music became widely popular throughout the decade.
George Gershwin wrote Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris.
Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti were the first musicians to incorporate the guitar and violin into jazz.
Radio
First commercial radio stations in the U.S., 8MK (WWJ) in Detroit and (KDKA 1020 AM) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, go on the air on August 27, 1920.
Both stations broadcast the election results between Harding and Cox in early November. The first station to receive a commercial license is WBZ, then in Springfield MA, in mid-September 1921. While there are only a few radio stations in 1920–21, by 1922 the radio craze is sweeping the country.
1922: The BBC begins radio broadcasting in the United Kingdom as the British Broadcasting Company, a consortium between radio manufacturers and newspapers. It became a public broadcaster in 1926.
On August 27, 1920, regular wireless broadcasts for entertainment began in Argentina for the first time, by a Buenos Aires group including Enrique Telémaco Susini. The station is soon called Radio Argentina. (See Radio in Argentina.)
Arts
Beginning of surrealist movement.
Art Deco becomes fashionable.
The Group of Seven (artists).
Pablo Picasso paints Three Musicians in 1921.
René Magritte paints The Treachery of Images.
Albert Gleizes paints Woman with Black Glove, 1920
Marcel Duchamp completes The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass).
The Museum of Modern Art opens in Manhattan, November 7, 1929, nine days after the Wall Street Crash.
The first science fiction comic strip, Buck Rogers, begins January 7, 1929. The first Tarzan comic strip begins on the same date.
Literature
The best-selling books of every year in the United States were as follows:
1920: The Man of the Forest by Zane Grey
1921: Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
1922: If Winter Comes by A. S. M. Hutchinson
1923: Black Oxen by Gertrude Atherton
1924: So Big by Edna Ferber
1925: Soundings by A. Hamilton Gibbs
1926: The Private Life of Helen of Troy by John Erskine
1927: Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis
1928: The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
1929: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Architecture
Art Deco architecture attained its heyday
Walter Gropius builds the Bauhaus in Dessau
Le Corbusier published the book Toward an Architecture serving as the manifesto for a generation of architects.
Sports highlights
1920
January 24: Grand Prix de Paris switches its name to Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (horse race)
February 13: Negro National League created (baseball)
April: Babe Ruth began playing for the New York Yankees
April–September: Summer Olympics held in Antwerp.
August 17: Ray Chapman from the Cleveland Indians is killed by Carl Mays' pitch (baseball)
August 20: National Football League founded
Kenesaw Mountain Landis is named the first Commissioner of Baseball.
1921
March 26: Schooner Bluenose launched
1923
May 26: the 24 hours of Le Mans conducts their first sports car race
October: The New York Yankees win the 1923 World Series, the first title for the team.
1924
January–February: First Winter Olympic Games takes place in Chamonix France.
May–July: Summer Olympics held in Paris, France.
July 10–13: Paavo Nurmi wins five gold medals in Summer Olympics (track and field)
1925
May 28: French Open invites non-French tennis athletes for the first time
Germany and Belgium in first handball international tournament.
1926
August 6: Gertrude Ederle swims English Channel and is first woman to do so.
September 23: Gene Tunney wins Jack Dempsey's world heavyweight boxing title.
1927
May 23: Warwickshire end Yorkshire's 71-match unbeaten sequence in the County Championship – the longest unbeaten sequence in that competition.
June 3: First Ryder Cup golf tournaments are held in Massachusetts
1928
February: Winter Olympics held in St. Moritz Switzerland.
May–August: Women's Olympics takes place for first time, in 1928 Summer Olympics held in Amsterdam.
William Ralph "Dixie" Dean wins the Football League, scores 60 goals in 39 matches for Everton F.C. (English Football)
1929
The English team led by Wally Hammond defeats Australia in The Ashes series (Test Cricket)
Miscellaneous trends
Youth culture of The Lost Generation; flappers, the Charleston, and the bob cut haircut.
Fads such as marathon dancing, mah-jong, crossword puzzles and pole-sitting are popular.
The height of the clip joint.
The Harlem Renaissance centered in a thriving African American community of Harlem, New York City.
Since the 1920s scholars have methodically dug into the layers of history that lie buried at thousands of sites across China.
The tomb of Tutankhamun is discovered intact by Howard Carter (1922). This begins a second revival of Egyptomania.
Twiglets are invented in December 1929 by Frenchman Rondalin Zwadoodie, and sold by Peek Freans.
Smoking in America was deemed socially acceptable, with the first magazine advertising women smoking for the first time in 1927.
Newly improved latex condoms resulted in soaring condom sales in the United States.
People
Science
Albert Einstein
Sigmund Freud
Alexander Fleming
Frederick Banting
Niels Bohr
Werner Heisenberg
Howard Carter
Georges Lemaître
Edwin Powell Hubble
Garrett Morgan
Literature
Alexander Belyaev
Bertolt Brecht
Countee Cullen
Nancy Cunard
T. S. Eliot
William Faulkner
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Zelda Fitzgerald
Ernest Hemingway
Langston Hughes
Zora Neale Hurston
James Weldon Johnson
Erich Kastner
Sinclair Lewis
Alain Locke
Thomas Mann
Claude McKay
Carl Sandburg
William Butler Yeats
Entertainers
Charlie Chaplin
Buster Keaton
Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle
Mary Astor
Josephine Baker
Tallulah Bankhead
Ethel Barrymore
John Barrymore
Lionel Barrymore
Clara Bow
Louise Brooks
Lon Chaney
Katharine Cornell
Joan Crawford
Bebe Daniels
Betty Bronson
Mary Brian
Marion Davies
Douglas Fairbanks
Eva Le Gallienne
Greta Garbo
Janet Gaynor
John Gilbert
Dorothy Gish
Lillian Gish
William Haines
William S. Hart
Harry Houdini
Emil Jannings
Al Jolson
Harold Lloyd
Tom Mix
Colleen Moore
Mae Murray
Pola Negri
Ramón Novarro
Will Rogers
Mary Pickford
Norma Shearer
Gloria Swanson
Chief Tahachee
Norma Talmadge
Rudolph Valentino
Anna May Wong
Musicians
George Gershwin
Al Jolson
Louis Armstrong
Richard Tauber
Irving Berlin
Eddie Cantor
Duke Ellington
Kelly Harrell
Jimmy Rodgers
Jelly Roll Morton
Cole Porter
Rudy Vallée
Paul Whiteman
Fats Waller
Fletcher Henderson
Eddie Lang
Joe Venuti
Bix Beiderbecke
Art Tatum
Béla Bartók
Lonnie Johnson
Bessie Smith
Count Basie
King Oliver
Sidney Bechet
Blind Willie Johnson
Film makers
Harry Beaumont
Busby Berkeley
Frank Borzage
Charles Chaplin
Alan Crosland
Cecil B. DeMille
William C. DeMille
Sergei Eisenstein
Victor Fleming
John Ford
D. W. Griffith
Alfred Hitchcock
Rex Ingram
Buster Keaton
Fritz Lang
Ernst Lubitsch
Lewis Milestone
Erich von Stroheim
King Vidor
Robert Wiene
Artists
Hans Arp
Max Beckmann
Georges Braque
André Breton
Patrick Henry Bruce
Alexander Calder
Carlo Carrà
Marc Chagall
Giorgio de Chirico
Salvador Dalí
Stuart Davis
Charles Demuth
Otto Dix
Theo van Doesburg
Arthur Dove
Marcel Duchamp
Max Ernst
Alberto Giacometti
Julio Gonzalez
Juan Gris
George Grosz
Marsden Hartley
Wassily Kandinsky
Paul Klee
Gaston Lachaise
Fernand Léger
Tamara de Lempicka
René Magritte
Georges Malkine
John Marin
André Masson
Henri Matisse
Joan Miró
Piet Mondrian
Henry Moore
Max Morise
Georgia O'Keeffe
Francis Picabia
Pablo Picasso
Man Ray
Morgan Russell
Kurt Schwitters
Charles Sheeler
Chaïm Soutine
Yves Tanguy
Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Architects
Marcel Breuer
Le Corbusier
Walter Gropius
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Frank Lloyd Wright
Sports figures
Grover Cleveland Alexander (American baseball player)
Ty Cobb, (American baseball player)
Eddie Collins, (American baseball player)
Walter Johnson (American baseball player)
Rogers Hornsby (American baseball player)
Babe Ruth (American baseball player)
Tris Speaker, (American baseball player)
Lou Gehrig (American baseball player)
Kenesaw Mountain Landis (American Baseball Commissioner)
Gene Tunney (American boxer)
Jack Dempsey (American boxer)
Francisco Guilledo (Filipino boxer)
Warwick Armstrong (Australian cricket captain)
Wilfred Rhodes (Yorkshire and England cricketer)
Jack Hobbs (Surrey and England cricketer)
Herbert Sutcliffe (Yorkshire and England cricketer)
Maurice Tate (Sussex and England cricketer)
Jack Gregory, Australian cricketer
Bert Oldfield, Australian cricketer
Herbie Taylor, South African cricketer
Alex Grove (American bowler)
Red Grange (American football player)
Knute Rockne (American football player and coach)
Alex James (Arsenal and Scotland soccer player)
Gordon Coventry (Australian rules football player)
Walter Hagen (American golfer)
Bobby Jones (American golfer)
Paavo Nurmi (Finnish runner)
Fanny "Bobbie" Rosenfeld (Canadian athlete)
Earl Sande (jockey)
Gertrude Ederle (swimming)
Johnny Weissmuller (swimming)
Suzanne Lenglen (French tennis player)
Helen Wills Moody (American tennis player)
Bill Tilden (American tennis player)
See also
Interwar Britain
1920s in television
Table of years in radio
1920s in literature
Roaring Twenties
Timeline
The following articles contain brief timelines listing the most prominent events of the decade:
1920 • 1921 • 1922 • 1923 • 1924 • 1925 • 1926 • 1927 • 1928 • 1929
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
Allen, Frederick Lewis. Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s (1931), classic popular history of United States; online free
Cornelissen, Christoph, and Arndt Weinrich, eds. Writing the Great War - The Historiography of World War I from 1918 to the Present (2020) free download; full coverage for major countries.
Currell, Susan. American Culture in the 1920s (Edinburgh University Press, 2009), a British perspective.
Dumenil, Lynn. The modern temper: American culture and society in the 1920s (Macmillan, 1995).
Grossman, Mark. Encyclopedia of the Interwar Years: From 1919 to 1939 (2000). 400pp.
Jacobson, Jon. "Is there a New International History of the 1920s?." American Historical Review 88.3 (1983): 617–645. online
Johnson, GAynor, and Michael Dockrill eds. Locarno Revisited: European Diplomacy 1920-1929 (2004)
McAuliffe, Mary. When Paris Sizzled: The 1920s Paris of Hemingway, Chanel, Cocteau, Cole Porter, Josephine Baker, and Their Friends (2016) excerpt
Maier, Charles S. Recasting bourgeois Europe: stabilization in France, Germany, and Italy in the decade after World War I (Princeton University Press, 2015).
Mowat, Charles Loch. Britain Between the Wars, 1918–1940 (1955), 690pp; thorough scholarly coverage; emphasis on politics also online free to read, scholarly survey of the era.
Sobel, Robert The Great Bull Market: Wall Street in the 1920s. (1968)
Uldricks, Teddy J. "Russia and Europe: Diplomacy, Revolution, and Economic Development in the 1920s." International History Review 1.1 (1979): 55–83.
Walters, Ryan S. The Jazz Age President: Defending Warren G. Harding (2022) excerpt also online review
Roaring Twenties
1920s decade overviews |
34703 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991 | 1991 | It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union collapsed, leaving fifteen sovereign republics and the CIS in its place. In July 1991, India abandoned its policies of dirigism, license raj and autarky and began extensive liberalisation to its economy. This increased GDP but also increased income inequality over the next two decades. A UN-authorized coalition force from 34 nations fought against Iraq, which had invaded and annexed Kuwait in the previous year, 1990. The conflict would be called the Gulf War and would mark the beginning of a since-constant American military presence in the Middle East. The clash between Serbia and the other Yugoslav republics would lead into the beginning of the Yugoslav Wars, which ran through the rest of the decade.
In the context of the apartheid, the year after the liberation of political prisoner Nelson Mandela, the Parliament of South Africa repeals the Population Registration Act, 1950, overturning the racial classification of the population, a key component of apartheid.
The year 1991 saw the rise of a ten-year-long boost of the US domestic economy with the Dow Jones Industrial Average remarkably closing in April at above 3,000 for the first time. This situation would only be cut short by the Dot-com bubble of 2000–2002.
In August, the World Wide Web, originally conceived during the previous year, was released outside CERN to other research institutions starting in January 1991 and publicly announced in August, also establishing the first website ever, "info.cern.ch". This step was a key factor that lead to the mid-1990s public breakthrough of the internet, which would eventually accelerate the already ongoing globalization around the globe.
In terms of popular culture, during this year alternative rock saw a new height of popularity when some of the earliest music exponents of the virtually unknown grunge sound were released, including the influential Nevermind album by Seattle-based band Nirvana in September 1991. It was also in 1991 that hip-hop music reached an unprecedented mainstream level of success. Electronic music derivative forms were also starting to gain momentum and would define, alone with the previous scenes, the sound for most of the decade.
Events
January
January 1 – Czechoslovakia becomes the second Eastern European country to abandon its command economy.
January 5 – Georgian troops attack Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, starting the 1991–92 South Ossetia War.
January 7 – 1991 Haitian coup d'état: An attempted coup by the Tonton Macoute, a paramilitary force under former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, is thwarted in Haiti. On July 30, he is convicted by a jury of attempting to overthrow the country's first democratically elected government.
January 9
Gulf War: U.S. Secretary of State James Baker meets with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz but fails to produce a plan for the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
In Sebokeng, South Africa, gunmen open fire on mourners attending the funeral of an African National Congress leader, killing 45 people.
January 12 – Gulf War: The 102nd U.S. Congress passes a resolution authorizing the use of military force to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
January 13
Singing Revolution: Soviet forces storm Vilnius to stop Lithuanian independence, killing 14 civilians and injuring 702 more. In Latvia, a series of confrontations between the Latvian government and the Soviet government take place in Riga.
January 15
Gulf War: The UN deadline for the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from occupied Kuwait expires, preparing the way for the start of Operation Desert Storm.
Prime Minister of Cape Verde Pedro Pires resigns following his party's loss in the Cape Verdean parliamentary election, the first ever multiparty election in an African nation. Later on February 17, António Mascarenhas Monteiro wins the country's first multiparty presidential election since 1975.
January 16 – Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm begins with air strikes against Iraq.
January 17
Gulf War: Iraq fires eight Scud missiles into Israel. Iraqi attacks continue with 15 people injured in Tel Aviv on January 19 and 96 people injured in Ramat Gan on January 22.
Harald V of Norway becomes the king of Norway after the death of his father, Olav V.
January 18 – Eastern Air Lines shuts down after 62 years of operations, citing financial problems. Later on December 4, Pan American World Airways ceases its operations.
January 22 – Gulf War: The British Army SAS patrol, Bravo Two Zero, is deployed in Iraq.
January 24 – The government of Papua New Guinea signs a peace agreement with separatist leaders from Bougainville Island, ending fighting that had gone on since 1988.
January 26 – President Siad Barre is overthrown and Somalia enters a civil war. Three days later, Ali Mahdi Muhammad is inaugurated as the next president.
January 29
In South Africa, Nelson Mandela of the African National Congress and Mangosuthu Buthelezi of the Inkatha Freedom Party agree to end violence between the two organizations.
Gulf War: The first major ground engagement of the war, the Battle of Khafji, begins. The battle lasts until February 1.
February
February 1
USAir Flight 1493 collides with a SkyWest Airlines Fairchild Metroliner at Los Angeles International Airport, killing 34 people.
A 6.4 Hindu Kush earthquake causes severe damage in northeast Afghanistan, leaving 848 dead and 200 injured.
February 7
1991 Haitian coup d'état: Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is sworn in. He is ousted on September 30 and later reinstated in 1994. In response to the coup and in an effort to encourage the coup leaders to restore democracy, the U.S. expands trade sanctions on Haiti to include all goods except food and medicine on October 29.
The Provisional Irish Republican Army launches a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street during a cabinet meeting.
Gulf War: Ground troops cross the Saudi Arabian border and enter Kuwait, thus starting the ground phase of the war.
February 11 – The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) is formed in The Hague, Netherlands.
February 13 – Gulf War: Two laser-guided "smart bombs" destroy an underground bunker in Baghdad, killing hundreds of Iraqis. US military intelligence claims it was a military facility while Iraqi officials identify it as a bomb shelter.
February 15 – The Visegrád Group, establishing cooperation to move toward free-market systems, is signed by the leaders of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland.
February 16 – Singing Revolution: The Council of Lithuania declares the independence of Lithuania, ending decades of Soviet rule over the country.
February 18 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army explodes bombs in the early morning, at both Paddington station and Victoria station, in London.
February 20 – President of Albania Ramiz Alia dismisses the government of Prime Minister Adil Çarçani and appoints Fatos Nano as the next prime minister in an effort to stem pro-democracy protests.
February 22 – Gulf War: Iraq accepts a Soviet-proposed cease fire agreement. The U.S. rejects the agreement, instead saying that retreating Iraqi forces will not be attacked if they leave Kuwait within 24 hours.
February 23 – In Thailand, General Sunthorn Kongsompong deposes Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan in a bloodless coup d'état.
February 25 – Gulf War: Part of an Iraqi Scud missile hits an American military barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 29 U.S. soldiers and injuring 99 more. It is the single-most devastating attack on U.S. forces during the war.
February 26 – Gulf War: On Baghdad radio, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein announces the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait. Iraqi soldiers set fire to Kuwaiti oil fields as they retreat; the fire lasts until November 7.
February 27
Gulf War: U.S. President Bush declares victory over Iraq and orders a cease-fire. U.S. troops begin to leave the Persian Gulf on March 10.
In the Bangladeshi general election, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party wins 139 of 300 seats in the Jatiyo Sangshad, leading BNP leader Khaleda Zia to become the president on March 19.
March
March 3
Singing Revolution: Voters in Estonia and Latvia vote more than 3-to-1 in favor of independence from the Soviet Union.
The first presidential election in the history of São Tomé and Príncipe is won by Miguel Trovoada.
A video captures the beating of motorist Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers. Four Los Angeles police officers are indicted on March 15 for the beating.
March 6 – Prime Minister of India Chandra Shekhar resigns following a dispute with former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, whose support had kept him in power.
March 9 – Massive demonstrations are held against Slobodan Milošević in Belgrade; two people are killed and tanks are deployed in the streets.
March 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: In the Salvadoran legislative election, the Nationalist Republican Alliance wins 39 of the 48 seats in the legislative assembly.
March 13
The U.S. Department of Justice announces that Exxon has agreed to pay $1 billion for the clean-up of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.
The Acid Rain Treaty of 1991 is signed between the American and Canadian governments.
March 14
Gulf War: Emir of Kuwait Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah returns to Kuwait after seven months of exile in Saudi Arabia.
The Troubles: After 16 years in prison for allegedly bombing a public house in a Provisional IRA attack, the "Birmingham Six" are freed when a court determines that the police fabricated evidence.
March 15
Germany formally regains complete independence after the four post-World War II occupying powers (France, the U.K., the U.S., and the U.S.S.R.) relinquish all remaining rights to the country.
The U.S. and Albania resume diplomatic relations for the first time since 1939.
March 17
Dissolution of the Soviet Union: In a national referendum, 77% of voters in the Soviet Union vote in favor of keeping the 15 Soviet republics together; six Union Republics effectively boycott the referendum.
In the Finnish parliamentary election, the Centre Party wins 55 of 200 seats in the parliament, ending 25 years of dominance by the Social Democratic Party of Finland.
March 23 – The Sierra Leone Civil War begins when the Revolutionary United Front attempts a coup against the Sierra Leone government.
March 24 – The Beninese presidential election, Benin's first presidential election since 1970, is won by Nicéphore Soglo.
March 26
In Mali, military officers led by Amadou Toumani Touré arrest President Moussa Traoré and suspend the constitution.
Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay sign the Treaty of Asunción, establishing Mercosur.
March 31
Albania holds its first multi-party elections since 1923. The socialist ruling Party of Labour of Albania won a landslide victory with 169 of the 250 seats in the parliament.
Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Georgia votes for independence from the Soviet Union while on April 9, the Supreme Council declares the independent Republic of Georgia.
April
April 2 – Government-imposed prices increase double or triple the cost of consumer goods in the Soviet Union.
April 3 – Iraq disarmament crisis: The UN Security Council passes Resolution 687, which calls for the destruction or removal of all of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons and a complete ban of ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 km. It also calls for an end to Iraq's support for international terrorism; it is accepted by Iraq three days later.
April 4
U.S. Senator John Heinz and six other people are killed when a helicopter collides with their plane over Merion, Pennsylvania.
Forty people are taken hostage in Sacramento, California; six gunmen and hostages are killed.
April 5
Former U.S. Senator John Tower and 22 others are killed in an airplane crash in Brunswick, Georgia.
Space Shuttle Atlantis leaves an observatory in Earths orbit to study gamma rays before returning on April 11. It is followed by Space Shuttle Discovery, which studies instruments related to the Strategic Defense Initiative from April 29 to May 6. Space Shuttle Columbia carries the Spacelab into orbit on June 5.
April 9 – The first Soviet troops leave Poland.
April 10
A South Atlantic tropical cyclone develops in the Southern Hemisphere off the coast of Angola, the first of its kind to be documented by weather satellites.
The Italian ferry Moby Prince collides with an oil tanker in dense fog off Livorno, Italy, resulting in 140 deaths with one survivor.
April 12 – The Warsaw Stock Exchange opens in Poland.
April 14 – In the Netherlands, thieves steal 20 paintings worth $500 million from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam; they are found in an abandoned car near the museum less than an hour later.
April 15
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is inaugurated.
End of Apartheid: The European Economic Community lifts economic sanctions on South Africa.
April 16 – 18 – General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev begins the first ever visit of a Soviet leader to Japan, but fails to resolve the two countries' dispute over ownership of the Kuril Islands.
April 17 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 3,000 for the first time in history, at 3,004.46.
April 18 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraq declares some of its chemical weapons and materials to the UN, as required by Resolution 687, and claims that it does not have a biological weapons program.
April 19 – George Carey is enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
April 22
A 7.7 Limon earthquake strikes Costa Rica and Panama with a maximum Mercalli intensity, causing between 47 and 87 deaths and up to 759 injuries.
In Taiwan, the Temporary Provisions against the Communist Rebellion are abolished, having been in effect for 43 years.
April 23 – Prime Minister of Iceland Steingrímur Hermannsson resigns following an inconclusive parliamentary election; he is succeeded by Davíð Oddsson on April 30.
April 26
A series of 55 tornadoes break out in the central U.S., killing 21. The most notable tornado strikes Andover, Kansas.
Esko Aho at the age of 36 becomes the youngest-ever Prime Minister of Finland.
April 29
A tropical cyclone hits Bangladesh, killing an estimated 138,000 people.
A 7.0 earthquake in Racha, Georgia, kills 270 people and leaves 100,000 others homeless.
April 29 – 30 – In Lesotho, a bloodless coup ousts military ruler Justin Lekhanya, with Chairman of the Military Council Elias Phisoana Ramaema replacing him two days later.
May
May 1 – Angolan Civil War: The MPLA and UNITA agree to the Bicesse Accords, which are formally signed on May 31 in Lisbon.
May 6 – In the U.S., Time magazine publishes "The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power," an article highly critical of the Scientology movement.
May 12 – Nepal holds its first multiparty legislative election since 1959.
May 15 – Édith Cresson becomes France's first female prime minister.
May 16 – Elizabeth II becomes the first British monarch to address the U.S. Congress during a 13-day royal visit in Washington, D.C.
May 18 – Somaliland secedes from Somalia; its independence is not recognised by the international community.
May 19 – Dissolution of Yugoslavia: In the Croatian independence referendum, voters in the Socialist Republic of Croatia vote to leave SFR Yugoslavia.
May 21
At Sriperumbudur, India, a suicide bomber from LTTE attacks a political meeting, killing former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and at least 14 others.
Ethiopian Civil War: Mengistu Haile Mariam, president of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, flees Ethiopia to Zimbabwe, effectively bringing the Ethiopian Civil War to an end.
May 22 – Acting Prime Minister of South Korea Ro Jai-bong resigns in the wake of rioting following the beating to death of a student by police on April 26. He is succeeded by Chung Won-shik two days later.
May 24 – Following authorisation by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Operation Solomon commences to airlift most of the remaining Beta Israel community from Ethiopia to Israel.
May 25 – The Surinamese general election is won by the military-backed New Front for Democracy and Development.
May 26 – Lauda Air Boeing 767 crashes near Bangkok, Thailand, killing all 223 people on board.
May 28 – Ethiopian Civil War: The forces of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front seize the capital Addis Ababa.
June
June 3 – Mount Unzen in Japan erupts, killing 46 people as a result of pyroclastic flow.
June 4
Fatos Nano resigns as Prime Minister of Albania following a nationwide strike. President of Albania Ramiz Alia appoints Ylli Bufi as his successor.
A large solar flare triggers an anomalously large aurora as far south as Pennsylvania.
June 5
President of Algeria Chadli Bendjedid dismisses Prime Minister Mouloud Hamrouche following 11 days of protests against the government and replaces him with Sid Ahmed Ghozali.
End of Apartheid: South Africa repeals the last legal foundations of apartheid.
June 7 – Approximately 200,000 people attend a parade of 8,800 returning Persian Gulf War troops in Washington, D.C.
June 9 – A major collapse at the Emaswati Colliery in Swaziland traps 26 miners 65 meters below the surface; they are rescued 30 hours later.
June 12
Boris Yeltsin is elected President of the Russian SFSR; he officially begins his term on July 10.
Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Army soldiers kill 152 civilians in Kokkadichcholai.
The Party of Labour of Albania is dissolved and succeeded by the Socialist Party of Albania, marking the end of communist rule in Albania.
June 15
In the Philippines, Mount Pinatubo erupts in the second largest terrestrial eruption of the 20th century; the final death toll exceeds 800. This eruption caused a global cooling of the world by around 0.4°C.
The Indian general elections end; the Indian National Congress wins the most seats but fails to secure a majority. Six days later, Congress leader P. V. Narasimha Rao becomes Prime Minister of India.
June 16 – Father's Day Bank Massacre: Four security guards are shot to death during a bank robbery at the United Bank Tower in Denver, Colorado, United States. The person subsequently charged with the crime was acquitted, and the case remains unsolved.
June 17
End of Apartheid: The South African Parliament repeals the Population Registration Act, which had required racial classification of all South Africans at birth.
President of Turkey Turgut Özal appoints Mesut Yılmaz as Prime Minister following Yıldırım Akbulut's resignation. Yılmaz forms a new government on June 23, which lasts until November when it is replaced by the government of Süleyman Demirel.
June 20 – In West Germany, the Bundestag votes to move the capital from Bonn to Berlin.
June 20 – The murder of Harry Collinson, the planning officer for Derwentside District Council, took place in 1991 at Butsfield, County Durham, England.
June 23 – 28 – Iraq disarmament crisis: UN inspection teams attempt to intercept Iraqi vehicles carrying nuclear related equipment. Iraqi soldiers fire warning shots in the air to prevent inspectors from approaching the vehicles.
June 25 – Dissolution of Yugoslavia: Croatia and Slovenia declare their independence from Yugoslavia.
June 28 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Comecon is dissolved in Moscow, Russia.
July
July 1
In the U.S., telephone services go down in Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and San Francisco as a result of a software bug, affecting nearly twelve million customers.
The Warsaw Pact is officially dissolved in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
The world's first GSM telephone call is made in Finland.
July 7 – Dissolution of Yugoslavia: The Brioni Agreement ends the Ten-Day War in Slovenia.
July 4 – President of Colombia César Gaviria lifts the country's 7-year-long state of emergency. The Constituent Assembly of Colombia proclaimed a new constitution on July 4, 1991. President César Gaviria lifted the state of siege on July 7, 1991.
July 9
End of Apartheid: The International Olympic Committee readmits South Africa to the Olympics. The next day, U.S. President Bush terminates 1986-enacted U.S. sanctions on South Africa.
Iran–Contra affair: Alan Fiers agrees to plead guilty to two charges of lying to the U.S. Congress. Later on September 16, D.C. Judge Gerhard Gesell issues a ruling clearing Col. Oliver North of all charges.
July 11
A solar eclipse of record totality occurs in the Northern hemisphere. It is seen by 20 million people in Hawaii, Mexico, and Colombia.
Nigeria Airways Flight 2120, a Douglas DC-8 operated by Canadian airline Nolisair, catches fire and crashes soon after takeoff from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing all 261 people on board.
July 15 – Chemical Bank and Manufacturers Hanover Corporation amalgamate, becoming the largest bank merger in history.
July 16 – Soviet President Gorbachev arrives in London to ask for aid from the leaders of the G7.
July 18 – The governments of Mauritania and Senegal sign a treaty ending the Mauritania–Senegal Border War, which had been fought since 1989.
July 22
U.S. boxer Mike Tyson is arrested and charged with the rape of Miss Black America contestant Desiree Washington three days earlier, in Indianapolis, Indiana.
July 24 – Finance Minister of India Manmohan Singh announces a new industrial policy, marking the start of economic liberalisation in India.
July 25 – British astronomers announce they have found what appears to be an extrasolar planet.
July 29 – In New York City, a grand jury indicts Bank of Credit and Commerce International of the largest bank fraud in history, accusing the bank of defrauding depositors of US$5 billion.
July 31
U.S. President Bush and Soviet President Gorbachev sign START I in Moscow, Soviet Union.
Singing Revolution: Soviet Special Purpose Police Unit (OMON) forces kill seven Lithuanian customs officials in Medininkai, the deadliest of the Soviet OMON assaults on Lithuanian border posts.
August
August 1 – Israel agrees to participate in the Madrid Conference of 1991, which opens on October 30.
August 4 – The cruise liner MTS Oceanos sinks off the coast of South Africa, leading to the rescue of all 571 passengers on board by SAAF helicopters.
August 6 – Tim Berners-Lee announces the World Wide Web project and software on the alt.hypertext newsgroup. The first website, "info.cern.ch", is created.
August 7 – Former Iranian prime minister Shapour Bakhtiar is assassinated in the Parisian suburb of Suresnes.
August 8 – The Warsaw radio mast, the tallest structure in the world at the time, collapses.
August 17 – The remains of the Prussian King Frederick the Great are re-interred in Potsdam, Germany.
August 17 – 20 – Hurricane Bob hits North Carolina and New England, killing 17 people and causing US$1.5 billion in damage.
August 19 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is put under house arrest while vacationing in Crimea during an attempted coup. Led by Vice President Gennady Yanayev and seven others, the coup collapses in less than 72 hours and is protested by over 100,000 people outside the parliament building. He returns to Moscow three days later and arrests the coup leaders.
August 20 – Singing Revolution: Estonia declares independence from the Soviet Union, followed by Latvia the next day.
August 22 – Singing Revolution: Iceland becomes the first nation to recognize the independence of the Baltic states. It is followed by the U.S. on September 2 and the Soviet Union on September 6.
August 23 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Russia restores the white-blue-red tricolour as its national flag.
August 24 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Ukraine declares independence, followed by Belarus the next day, from the Soviet Union.
August 25
Dissolution of Yugoslavia: Serbian forces begin an attack on the Croatian town of Vukovar.
Linus Torvalds posts messages to the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.minix, regarding the new operating system kernel he had developed, called Linux.
Michael Schumacher, regarded as one of the greatest Formula One drivers in history, makes his Formula One debut at the Belgian Grand Prix.
August 29 – Lebanon Hostage Crisis: Maronite general Michel Aoun leaves Lebanon via a French ship into exile.
August 30 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Moldova declares independence from the Soviet Union, followed by Azerbaijan.
August 31 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan declare their independence; Tajikistan follows suit on September 9.
September
September 3 – In Hamlet, North Carolina, a grease fire breaks out at the Imperial Foods chicken processing plant, killing 25 people.
September 4 – Sverdlovsk's name is restored to its pre-communist–era name Yekaterinburg. Two days later, Leningrad is renamed St. Petersburg.
September 5 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: The Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union self-dissolves, being replaced by Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union and State Council of the Soviet Union.
September 8 – Dissolution of Yugoslavia: The Republic of Macedonia becomes independent, beginning a name dispute with Greece.
September 11
Lebanon Hostage Crisis: Israel releases 51 Arab prisoners and the bodies of nine guerrillas, paving the way for the release of the last western hostages in Lebanon.
The Soviet Union announces plans to withdraw military and economic aid to Cuba.
September 15 – In the Swedish general election, the Social Democrats suffer their worst election results in 60 years, leading to the resignation of Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson.
September 17 – North Korea, South Korea, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Marshall Islands, and Micronesia join the UN.
September 19 – Ötzi the Iceman is found in the Alps.
September 21 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Armenia declares independence from the Soviet Union. Nearly a month later on October 27, Turkmenistan declares its independence. Kazakhstan follows suit on December 16.
September 21 – 30 – Iraq disarmament crisis: IAEA inspectors discover files on Iraq's hidden nuclear weapons program. Iraqi officials refuse to let them leave with the documents, prompting a standoff that continues until the UN Security Council threatens enforcement actions on Iraq.
September 22 – The Huntington Library makes the Dead Sea Scrolls available to the public for the first time.
September 24 – Lebanon Hostage Crisis: Lebanese kidnappers release Jackie Mann after more than two years of captivity.
September 25 – Salvadoran Civil War: Representatives of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front reach an agreement with President of El Salvador Alfredo Cristiani, setting the stage for the end of the war.
September 27 – U.S President George H. W. Bush announces unilateral reductions in short-range nuclear weapons and calls off 24-hour alerts for long-range bombers. The Soviet Union responds with similar unilateral reductions on October 5.
September 29 – Salvadoran Civil War: An army colonel of the Atlácatl Battalion is found guilty of the 1989 murders of six Jesuits.
October
October 1 – Dissolution of Yugoslavia: Forces of the Yugoslav People's Army surround Dubrovnik, beginning the Siege of Dubrovnik, which lasts until May 31, 1992.
October 3 – Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Tom Foley announces the closure of the House Bank by the end of the year after revelations that House members have written numerous bad checks.
October 4 – Carl Bildt succeeds Ingvar Carlsson as Prime Minister of Sweden.
October 6 – President Gorbachev condemns antisemitism in the Soviet Union in a statement read on the 50th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacres, which saw the death of 35,000 Jews in Ukraine during WWII.
October 7 – Dissolution of Yugoslavia: The Yugoslav Air Force bombs the office of Croatian President Franjo Tuđman, causing the Croatian Parliament to cut all remaining ties with Yugoslavia the next day.
October 11
In the Russian SFSR, the KGB is replaced by the SVR, with the KGB officially ending operations on November 6.
Iraq disarmament crisis: The UN Security Council passes Resolution 715, demanding that Iraq "accept unconditionally the inspectors and all other personnel designated by the Special Commission." Iraq rejects the resolution, calling it "unlawful".
October 12 – Askar Akayev is confirmed as the first president of Kyrgyzstan in an uncontested poll.
October 13 – In the Bulgarian parliamentary election, the Union of Democratic Forces defeats the Bulgarian Socialist Party, leaving no remaining Communist governments in Eastern Europe.
October 15
Clarence Thomas is confirmed as the new U.S. Supreme Court Justice following Thurgood Marshall's retirement.
The leaders of the Baltic States, Arnold Rüütel of Estonia, Anatolijs Gorbunovs of Latvia and the Vytautas Landsbergis of Lithuania, signed the OSCE Final Act in Helsinki, Finland.
October 18 – The Soviet Union restores its diplomatic relations with Israel, which had been suspended since the 1967 Six-Day War.
October 20
The Harare Declaration is signed in Harare, Zimbabwe, laying down the Commonwealth of Nations membership criteria.
A large suburban firestorm centered in Oakland Hills, California, kills 25 people and injures 150 others.
A 6.8 Mw earthquake strikes Uttarkashi, India, killing at least 768 people and destroying thousands of homes.
October 21 – Lebanon Hostage Crisis: Jesse Turner, a mathematics professor who has been held hostage for more than four years, is released.
October 23 – In Paris, the Vietnam-backed government of the state of Cambodia signs an agreement with the Khmer Rouge to end the civil war and bring the Khmer Rouge into power despite its role in the Cambodian genocide. The deal ends the Cambodian–Vietnamese War and results in the creation of the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia.
October 27 – The first free parliamentary elections in Poland since 1928 are held.
October 28 – November 4 – The 1991 Perfect Storm strikes the northeastern U.S. coast and Atlantic Canada, causing over US$200 million of damage and resulting in 12 direct fatalities.
October 29 – NASA's Galileo spacecraft makes its closest approach to 951 Gaspra, becoming the first probe to visit an asteroid.
October 31 – November 3 – The Halloween blizzard hits the U.S. Upper Midwest, killing 22 people and causing US$100 million in damage.
November
November 4 – 5 – End of Apartheid: The African National Congress leads a general strike, demanding representation in the government and an end to the value-added tax.
November 5
Tropical Storm Thelma causes flash floods in the Philippine city of Ormoc, killing more than 4,900 people.
China and Vietnam restore diplomatic relations after a 13-year rift which followed the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War.
November 6 – The CPSU and its republic-level division, the Communist Party of the Russian SFSR, are banned in the Russian SFSR by presidential decree.
November 7 – The first report on carbon nanotubes is published by Sumio Iijima in Nature.
November 9 – The British JET fusion reactor generates 1.5 MW output power.
November 14
American and British authorities announce indictments against two Libyan intelligence officials in connection with the downing of the Pan Am Flight 103.
Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk returns to Phnom Penh after 13 years of exile.
Lebanon Hostage Crisis: Kidnappers in Lebanon set Anglican Church envoys Terry Waite and Thomas Sutherland free.
November 18
Dissolution of Yugoslavia: The forces of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and Serb paramilitaries take the Croatian town of Vukovar after the 87-day Battle of Vukovar. They kill more than 260 Croatian prisoners of war.
An Azerbaijani Mil Mi-8 helicopter carrying a 19-member peacekeeping mission team is shot down by Armenian military forces in Khojavend district, Azerbaijan.
November 21 – The UN Security Council recommends Egypt's deputy prime minister Boutros Boutros-Ghali to be the next Secretary-General of the UN.
November 23 – Members of the Communist Party of Great Britain vote to dissolve the party and found the think-tank Democratic Left in its place.
November 24 – Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury dies in London from AIDS induced pneumonia. In an unrelated incident, Kiss drummer Eric Carr dies from heart cancer.
November 26 – The National Assembly of Azerbaijan abolishes the autonomous status of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast and renames several cities to their Azeri names.
November 27 – Dissolution of Yugoslavia: The UN Security Council unanimously adopts a resolution opening the way to the establishment of peacekeeping operations in Yugoslavia.
December
December 1 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Ukrainians vote overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union in a referendum.
December 4
Lebanon Hostage Crisis: Journalist Terry A. Anderson is released after seven years of captivity as a hostage in Beirut – the last and longest-held American hostage in Lebanon.
John Leonard Orr, one of the most prolific serial arsonists of the 20th century, is arrested in California.
December 8 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: In the Białowieża Forest Nature Reserve in Belarus, the leaders of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine sign an agreement officially ending the Soviet Union and establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in its place.
December 11 – Dissolution of Yugoslavia: Croatian forces kill 18 Serbs and one Hungarian in the village of Paulin Dvor, Croatia.
December 12
The government of Nigeria moves the capital from Lagos to Abuja.
Ukraine becomes the first post-Soviet republic to decriminalize homosexuality.
December 15 – The Egyptian ferry sinks in the Red Sea, killing more than 450 people.
December 16 – The UN General Assembly adopts UN General Assembly Resolution 46/86, repealing a previous resolution adopted in 1975 which had ruled that Zionism is a form of racism.
December 19
Paul Keating defeats Bob Hawke in a Labor Party leadership ballot and consequently becomes the Prime Minister of Australia; he is sworn in the following day.
Skarnsund Bridge opens in Norway, becoming the world's longest cable-stayed bridge for two years with a span of .
December 21 – The North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NAC-C) meets for the first time.
December 22 – Armed opposition groups launch a military coup against President of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia.
December 24 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Russian SFSR President Boris Yeltsin sends a letter to UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, declaring that Russia will be the succeeding country to the collapsing Soviet Union in the United Nations.
December 25
Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as president of the Soviet Union, from which most republics have already seceded, anticipating the dissolving of the 69-year-old state.
The Russian SFSR officially renames itself the Russian Federation.
December 26 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: The Supreme Soviet meets for the last time, formally dissolves the Soviet Union, and adjourns sine die, ending the Cold War. All remaining Soviet institutions eventually cease operation on December 31.
Births and deaths
Nobel Prizes
Chemistry – Richard R. Ernst
Economics – Ronald Coase
Literature – Nadine Gordimer
Peace – Aung San Suu Kyi
Physics – Pierre-Gilles de Gennes
Physiology or Medicine – Erwin Neher, Bert Sakmann
References |
34788 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1868 | 1868 |
Events
January–March
January 2 – British Expedition to Abyssinia: Robert Napier leads an expedition to free captive British officials and missionaries.
January 3 – The 15-year-old Mutsuhito, Emperor Meiji of Japan, declares the Meiji Restoration, his own restoration to full power, under the influence of supporters from the Chōshū and Satsuma Domains, and against the supporters of the Tokugawa shogunate, triggering the Boshin War.
January 5 – Paraguayan War: Brazilian Army commander Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias enters Asunción, Paraguay's capital. Some days later he declares the war is over. Nevertheless, Francisco Solano López, Paraguay's president, prepares guerrillas to fight in the countryside.
January 7 – The Arkansas constitutional convention meets in Little Rock.
January 9 – Penal transportation from Britain to Australia ends, with arrival of the convict ship Hougoumont in Western Australia, after an 89-day voyage from England. There are 62 Fenians among the transportees.
January 10 – Shōgun Tokugawa Yoshinobu declares the emperor's declaration "illegal", and prepares to attack Kyoto.
January 27–31 – Battle of Toba–Fushimi: forces of the Tokugawa shogunate and the allied pro-Imperial forces of the Chōshū, Satsuma and Tosa Domains clash near Fushimi, Kyoto, ending in a decisive victory for the Imperial forces (although in the January 28 naval Battle of Awa, the Shogunate is victorious against Satsuma).
February – Foreign ministers meeting in Hyōgo are persuaded to recognise the restored Emperor Meiji of Japan, with promises that harbours will be open in accordance with international treaties.
February 13 – The British War Office sanctions the formation of what becomes the Army Post Office Corps.
February 16 – In New York City the Jolly Corks organization is renamed the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE).
February 19 – In the Passage of Humaitá, a Brazilian naval force succeeds in dashing past a Paraguayan fortress on the River Paraguay, considered by some the turning point in the Paraguayan War.
February 24
Impeachment of Andrew Johnson: Three days after his action to dismiss United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, the United States House of Representatives votes 126–47 in favor of a resolution to impeach Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, the first of three Presidents to be impeached by the full House. Johnson is later acquitted by the United States Senate.
The first parade to have floats takes place at Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
March – French geologist Louis Lartet discovers the first identified skeletons of Cro-Magnon, the first early modern humans (early Homo sapiens sapiens), at Abri de Crô-Magnon, a rock shelter at Les Eyzies, Dordogne, France.
March 12
Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Edinburgh, is shot in the back in Sydney, Australia, at a fundraising event for the Sydney Sailors Home, by Irishman Henry James O'Farrell. The prince survives and quickly recovers; O'Farrell is executed on April 21, despite attempts by the prince to gain clemency for him.
Basutoland is proclaimed a British Protectorate, becoming independent in 1966 as Lesotho.
March 23 – The University of California is founded in Oakland, California, when the Organic Act is signed into California law.
March 24 – The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company is formed, in New York City.
March 27 – The Lake Ontario Shore Railroad Company is organized in Oswego, New York.
March – The first transnational women's organization, Association internationale des femmes, is founded.
April–June
April 1 – The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute is established in Hampton, Virginia.
April 7 – The Charter Oath, drawn up by his councilors, is promulgated at the enthronement of the Emperor Meiji of Japan, promising deliberative assemblies and an end to feudalism.
April 9 – Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia massacres at least 197 of his own people at Magdala. These are prisoners incarcerated, for the most part, for very trivial offenses, and are killed for requesting bread and water.
April 9–13 – Battle of Magdala: A British-Indian task force under Robert Napier inflicts 700 deaths and a crushing defeat on the army of Emperor Tewodros II; the British and Indians suffer 30 wounded, two of whom subsequently die. Tewodros commits suicide and Magdala is captured, ending the British Expedition to Abyssinia.
April 11 – July – Fall of Edo: The Japanese city surrenders to Emperor Meiji. Shōgun Tokugawa Yoshinobu submits to the Emperor.
April 29 – General William Tecumseh Sherman brokers the Treaty of Fort Laramie, between the federal government of the United States and the Plains Indians.
May 10–14 – Boshin War – Battle of Utsunomiya Castle, Japan: Forces of the Emperor Meiji resist the retreating troops of the Tokugawa shogunate.
May 16, May 26 – President Andrew Johnson is twice acquitted during his impeachment trial, by one vote in the United States Senate.
May 26 – Fenian bomber Michael Barrett becomes the last person publicly hanged in the United Kingdom.
May 29 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the Capital Punishment Amendment Act, thus ending public hanging.
May 30 – Memorial Day is observed in the United States for the first time (it was proclaimed on May 5 by General John A. Logan).
May 31
Thomas Spence declares himself president of the Republic of Manitobah in Canada; he soon alienates the locals.
The first popular bicycle race is held at Parc de Saint-Cloud, Paris.
June – Tītokowaru's War breaks out in the South Taranaki District of New Zealand's North Island between the Ngāti Ruanui Māori tribe and the New Zealand Government.
June 1 – The Treaty of Bosque Redondo is signed, allowing the Navajo to return to their lands in Arizona and New Mexico.
June 2 – The first Trades Union Congress is held in Manchester, England.
June 10 – Mihailo Obrenović, Prince of Serbia, is assassinated in Košutnjak, Belgrade.
June 20 – Fort Fred Steele is established to protect what is at this time the western terminus of the Union Pacific Railway, near modern-day Sinclair, Wyoming.
July–September
July 1 – The cable-operated West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway in Manhattan becomes the first elevated railway in the United States.
July 4 – Battle of Ueno: Imperial Japanese troops defeat the Shōgitai (elite forces remaining loyal to the shōgun).
July 5 – Preacher William Booth establishes the Christian Mission, predecessor of The Salvation Army, in the East End of London.
July 9 – The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.
July 18 – The Navajo people begin their long march home.
July 25 – Wyoming becomes a United States territory.
July 25 – Paraguayan War: The Allies, in an amphibious operation, capture the fortress of Humaitá.
July 27 – The United States Expatriation Act ("An Act concerning the Rights of American Citizens in foreign States") is adopted.
July 28 – The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is adopted, including the Citizenship Clause and the Equal Protection Clause, legally, if not actually, guaranteeing African Americans full citizenship and equal protection, and all persons in the United States due process of law.
August 13 – The 8.5–9.0 Arica earthquake strikes southern Peru, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), causing 25,000+ deaths and a destructive basin-wide tsunami, that affects Hawaii and New Zealand.
August 18 – The element later named as helium is first detected in the spectrum of the Sun's chromosphere, by French astronomer Jules Janssen, during a total eclipse in Guntur, British India, but is assumed to be sodium.
August 20 – Abergele rail disaster in Wales: An Irish Mail passenger train collides with 4 cargo trucks loaded with paraffin oil (more akin to modern kerosine); 33 are killed (the first major train disaster in Britain).
August 22 – The Yangzhou riot in China targets a station of the China Inland Mission, and nearly leads to war between Britain and China.
September – Glorious Revolution: Queen Isabella II of Spain is effectively deposed and sent into exile; she formally abdicates on June 25, 1870.
September 3 – Emperor Meiji of Japan announces that the name of the city of Edo is to be changed to Tokyo.
September 7 – Tītokowaru's War: Māori leader Titokowaru defeats a New Zealand military force at Te Ngutu o Te Manu, North Island.
September 18 – The University of the South holds its first convocation in Sewanee, Tennessee.
September 23 – Grito de Lares: Rebels (some 400–600 led by Ramón Emeterio Betances) in the town of Lares declare Puerto Rico independent; the local militia easily defeats them a week later.
September 24 – Croatian–Hungarian Settlement (, , ) is concluded, governing Croatia's political status in the Hungarian-ruled part of Austria-Hungary until 1918.
September 28 – The Opelousas massacre, one of the bloodiest massacres of the Reconstruction era in the United States.
October–December
October 1 – Chulalongkorn starts to rule in Siam.
October 6 – The City of New York grants Mount Sinai Hospital a 99-year lease for a property on Lexington Avenue and 66th Street, for the sum of $1.00.
October 10 – Carlos Manuel de Céspedes declares a revolt against Spanish rule in Cuba, in an event known as El Grito de Yara or the Ten Years' War, initiating a war that lasts ten years (Cuba ultimately loses the war at a cost of 400,000 lives and widespread destruction).
October 20
English astronomer Norman Lockyer observes and names the D3 Fraunhofer line in the solar spectrum, and concludes that it is caused by a hitherto unidentified element, which he later names helium.
Pedro Figueredo creates the Cuban national anthem, El Himno de Bayamo.
October 23 – The current Japanese era name is changed to the Meiji period. The 265-year-long Edo period ends.
October 25 – The Uspenski Cathedral, designed by Aleksey Gornostayev, is inaugurated in Helsinki, Finland.
October 28 – Thomas Edison applies for his first patent, the electric vote recorder.
November 2 – Time zone: New Zealand officially adopts a standard time, to be observed nationally.
November 3 – 1868 United States presidential election: Republican Ulysses S. Grant defeats Democrat Horatio Seymour.
November 7 – The Battle of Moturoa, New Zealand, ends in a British defeat, due to an underestimate of Tītokowaru and his fortifications. There are heavy casualties for the colonial army and light casualties for the Māori defenders.
November 27 – American Indian Wars – Battle of Washita River: In the early morning, United States Army Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer leads an attack on a band of Cheyenne living on reservation land with Chief Black Kettle, killing 103 Cheyenne.
December 4 – Battle of Hakodate begins in Japan.
December 4 – Thomas Humber invented the safety bicycle.
December 6 – Paraguayan War – Battle of Ytororó or Itororó: Field-Marshal Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias, leads 13,000 Brazilian troops against a Paraguayan fortified position of 5,000 troops.
December 9 – The world's first traffic signal lights are installed at the junction of Great George Street and Bridge Street in the London Borough of Westminster.
December 24 – The Greek Presidential Guard is established as the royal escort by King George I.
December 25 – U.S. President Andrew Johnson grants unconditional pardon to all Civil War rebels.
Date unknown
Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron patents methods of color photography.
Thomas Henry Huxley discovers what he thinks is primordial matter and names it bathybius haeckelii (he admits his mistake in 1871).
The Académie Julian, a major art school in Paris, France, that admits women, is established.
Brisbane Grammar School is founded, providing the opportunity for secondary education for the first time in the colony of Brisbane in Australia.
Maryland School for the Deaf is established.
The Dortmunder Actien Brauerei is founded in Germany.
Herrenhäuser Brewery is established in Hanover, Germany.
Tata Group is founded by Jamsetji Tata as a trading company in India.
Scottish merchant Thomas Blake Glover develops Japan's first coal mine on Hashima Island.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson is established as the Apostolic Vicariate of Arizona in 1868, taking its territory from the former Diocese of Santa Fe. The Diocese of Tucson is canonically erected on May 8, 1897.
The population of Japan reaches c. 30 million.
Births
January–March
January 1 – Snitz Edwards, Hungarian-born actor (d. 1937)
January 6 – Vittorio Monti, Italian composer (d. 1922)
January 9 – S. P. L. Sørensen, Danish chemist (d. 1939)
January 11 – Cai Yuanpei, Chinese educator (d. 1940)
January 15 – Otto von Lossow, Bavarian and German general (d. 1938)
January 18 – Kantarō Suzuki, 29th Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1948)
January 21 – Felix Hoffmann, German chemist (d. 1946)
January 31 – Theodore William Richards, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1928)
February 4 – Constance Markievicz, Irish politician (d. 1927)
February 5 – Maxine Elliott, American actress (d. 1940)
February 12 – William Faversham, English actor (d. 1940)
February 16 – Edward S. Curtis, American photographer, ethnologist, and film director (d. 1952)
February 23 – W. E. B. Du Bois, African American civil rights leader (d. 1963)
February 25 – Constantin Dumitrescu, Romanian general (d. 1935)
February 26 – Venceslau Brás, Brazilian president (d. 1966)
March 1 – Adolf von Trotha, German admiral (d. 1940)
March 14 – Emily Murphy, Canadian woman's rights activist (d. 1933)
March 22 – Robert Andrews Millikan, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1953)
March 25 – Bill Lockwood, English cricketer (d. 1932)
March 28 – Maxim Gorky, Russian author (d. 1936)
March 29 – Joseph Cawthorn, American actor (d. 1949)
April–June
April 1 – Edmond Rostand, French poet and playwright (d. 1918)
April 10 – George Arliss, English actor (d. 1946)
April 12 – Akiyama Saneyuki, Japanese admiral (d. 1918)
April 17 – Zdeňka Wiedermannová-Motyčková, Moravian pioneer of female education (d. 1915)
April 25
John Moisant, American aviator (d. 1910)
Willie Maley, Scottish football player and manager (d. 1958)
May 6
Gaston Leroux, French writer (d. 1927)
Nicholas II of Russia (d. 1918)
May 12 – Al Shean, German-born actor (d. 1949)
May 21 – John L. Hines, American general, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army (d. 1968)
May 29 – Abdülmecid II, last Caliph of the Ottoman Empire (d. 1944)
June 5 – James Connolly, Irish-Scots socialist (d. 1916)
June 6 – Robert Falcon Scott, English Antarctic explorer (d. 1912)
June 7
Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Scottish architect (d. 1928)
John Sealy Townsend, Irish mathematical physicist (d. 1957)
June 14
Anna B. Eckstein, German peace campaigner (d. 1947)
Karl Landsteiner, Austrian biologist and physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1943)
July–September
July 2 – Traian Moșoiu, Romanian general and politician (d. 1932)
July 4 – Henrietta Swan Leavitt, American astronomer (d. 1921)
July 12 – Stefan George, German poet (d. 1933)
July 14 – Gertrude Bell, English archaeologist, writer, spy and administrator (d. 1926)
July 15 – Nobuyoshi Mutō, Japanese field marshal and ambassador (d. 1933)
July 17 – Mikhail Bakhirev, Russian admiral (d. 1920)
July 19 – Florence Foster Jenkins, American socialite and amateur operatic soprano (d. 1944)
July 20 – Patriarch Miron of Romania, 38th Prime Minister of Romania (d. 1939)
July 24 – Princess Srivilailaksana The Princess of Suphanburi daughter of King Chulalongkorn of Siam and Chao Chom Manda Pae Bunnag (d.1904)
July 28 – Theodor Wulf, German physicist and Jesuit (d. 1946)
August 5 – Oskar Merikanto, Finnish composer (d. 1924)
August 6 – Paul Claudel, French poet, dramatist and diplomat (d. 1955)
August 7 – Martin Wetzer, Finnish general (d. 1954)
August 10 – Hugo Eckener, German dirigible engineer, Commander of Graf Zeppelin I (d. 1954)
August 23 – Edgar Lee Masters, American poet, biographer and dramatist (d. 1950)
August 26 – Charles Stewart, Premier of Alberta (d. 1946)
September 1 – Henri Bourassa, Canadian politician and publisher (d. 1952)
September 6 – Heinrich Häberlin, Swiss politician, member of the Federal Council (d. 1947)
September 17 – James Alexander Calder, Canadian politician (d. 1956)
September 22 – John T. Raulston, American state judge (Scopes Monkey Trial) (d. 1956)
October–December
October 4 – Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear, President of Argentina (d. 1942)
October 15 – J. B. Johnson, American attorney and politician (d. 1940)
October 21 – Ernest Swinton, British Army general (d. 1951)
October 24 – Alexandra David-Néel, French explorer (d. 1969)
October 30 – António Cabreira, Portuguese polygraph (d. 1953)
November 7 – Delfim Moreira, Brazilian president (d. 1920)
November 8 – Felix Hausdorff, German mathematician (d. 1942)
November 9 – Marie Dressler, Canadian actress (d. 1934)
November 17 – Korbinian Brodmann, German neurologist (d. 1918)
November 23 – Mary Brewster Hazelton, American portrait painter (d. 1953)
December 5 – Arnold Sommerfeld, German theoretical physicist (d. 1951)
December 9 – Fritz Haber, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1934)
December 19 – Eleanor H. Porter, American novelist (d. 1920)
December 20 – Arturo Alessandri, Chilean statesman, 3-Time President of Chile (d. 1950)
December 21 – George W. Fuller, American sanitation engineer (d. 1934)
December 22 – Jaan Tõnisson, 2nd Prime Minister of Estonia (d. 1941?)
December 25 – Eugenie Besserer, American silent film actress (d. 1934)
probable – Scott Joplin, African American ragtime composer and pianist (d. 1917)
Deaths
January–June
January 20 – Damien Marchesseault, 7th Mayor of Los Angeles (suicide) (b. 1818)
January 23 – János Erdélyi, Hungarian poet and ethnographer (b. 1814)
January 28 – Adalbert Stifter, Austrian writer (b. 1805)
February 8 – Lai Wenguang, Chinese leader of the Taiping Rebellion and Nien Rebellion (b. 1827)
February 10 – Sir David Brewster, Scottish physicist (b. 1781)
February 11 – Léon Foucault, French physicist (b. 1819)
February 19 – Venancio Flores, Uruguayan general and president of Uruguay (b. 1808)
February 29 – King Ludwig I of Bavaria (b. 1786)
March 4 – Jesse Chisholm, American pioneer (b. 1805)
March 19 – Philipp von Stadion und Thannhausen, Austrian field marshal (b. 1799)
March 28 – James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, British military leader (b. 1797)
April 3 – Franz Berwald, Swedish composer (b. 1796)
April 7 – Thomas D'Arcy McGee, Canadian father of confederation (assassinated) (b. 1825)
April 12 – James Gascoyne-Cecil, 2nd Marquess of Salisbury, British politician and peer (b. 1791)
April 13 – Emperor Theodore or Tewodros II of Ethiopia by suicide (b. 1818)
April 21 – Henry O'Farrell, Irish-Australian criminal (executed) (b. 1833)
May 7 – Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1778)
May 10 – Henry Bennett, American politician (b. 1808)
May 11 – John Crawfurd, Scottish physician, colonial administrator, diplomat and author, last British Resident of Singapore (b. 1783)
May 17 – Isami Kondo, Commander of the Shinsengumi (b. 1834)
May 22 – Julius Plücker, German mathematician and physicist (b. 1801)
May 23 – Kit Carson, American trapper, scout, and Indian agent (b. 1809)
June 1 – James Buchanan, 15th President of the United States (b. 1791)
June 10 – Princess Anka Obrenović, Serbian princess (b. 1821)
June 22 – Heber C. Kimball, Latter Day Saint leader (b. 1801)
June 29 – Sir John Lillie, British army officer, entrepreneur and inventor (b. 1790)
July–December
July 6 – Harada Sanosuke, Shinsengumi Captain (b. 1840)
July 19 – Okita Sōji, Shinsengumi Captain (b. 1842 or 1844)
July 21 – William Bland, Australian politician (b. 1789)
July 26 – Robert Rolfe, 1st Baron Cranworth, English Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1791)
July 29 – John Elliotson, English physician (b. 1791)
August 3 – Edward Welch, Welsh architect (b. 1806)
August 10 – Adah Isaacs Menken, American actress (b. 1835)
August 11 – Thaddeus Stevens, American politician (b. 1792)
August 25 – Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer, German actress, writer and theater director (b. 1799)
August 29 – Christian Friedrich Schönbein, German chemist (b. 1799)
September 1 – Ferenc Gyulay, Hungarian nobleman, general and governor (b. 1799)
September 9 – Mzilikazi, first king of Mthwakazi (b. c.1790)
September 11 – Maria James, Welsh-born American poet (b. 1793)
September 19 – William Sprague, American minister and politician from Michigan (b. 1809)
September 26 – August Ferdinand Möbius, German mathematician and astronomer (b. 1790)
October 1 – Mongkut (Rama IV), King of Siam (Thailand) (b. 1804)
October 9 – Howell Cobb, American politician (b. 1815)
October 17 – Laura Secord, Canadian patriot (b. 1775)
October 27 – Charles Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1794)
November 13 – Gioachino Rossini, Italian composer (b. 1792)
November 15 – James Mayer de Rothschild, German-born banker (b. 1792)
November 27 – Chief Black Kettle, Southern Cheyenne Peace Chief, Survivor of Sand Creek massacre (b. 1803)
December 6 – August Schleicher, German linguist (b. 1821)
December 23 – Sir Herbert Edwardes, British army general and colonial administrator (b. 1819)
December 25 – Linus Yale, Jr., American inventor (b. 1821)
December 31 – Cyrus Kingsbury, American missionary and Choctaw linguist (b.1786)
References
+ via Google Books
Leap years in the Gregorian calendar |
34879 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1326 | 1326 | Year 1326 (MCCCXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
January – March
January 21 – The foundation of Oriel College (or King's College), the University of Oxford's fifth oldest (still surviving) college, is confirmed by royal charter.
February 10–March 11 – The Raid on Brandenburg begins as Polish-Lithuanian forces led by King Wladyslaw the Elbow-High of Poland, and of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania under Gediminas, raid the territories of the Margraviate of Brandenburg (within the Holy Roman Empire), with the sanction of Pope John XXII. Władysław regards the Neumark (East Brandenburg) as Polish territory.
February 14 – Queen Ingbeborg, the regent and de facto ruler of Sweden, is stripped from all political authority. Due to having many debts (known as the Scania affair), she gives up several fiefs.
February 28 – Frederick the Fair becomes the sole Duke of Austria upon the death of his younger brother, Leopold I of the House of Habsburg.
March 11 – The Raid on Brandenburg by King Wladyslaw of Poland is completed with the looting and destruction by Lithuanian troops of the cities of Berlin and Frankfurt an der Oder, and the capture of 6,000 German prisoners of war. The area between Frankfurt an der Order and Berlin is looted and devastated.
March 25 – At Dagnum (a former city in what is now Albania), a peace treaty is signed between Venetian merchants at Ragusa and King Stefan Dečanski of Serbia.
April – June
April 6 – Siege of Bursa: Ottoman forces (some 10,000 men) led by Sultan Orhan I capture the Byzantine city of Bursa. Orhan makes Bursa the first official Ottoman capital.
April 19 – The Peace of Arques, brokered by King Charles IV of France, ends the Flemish Revolt, but the treaty is not supported by rebel districts in Flanders.
May 4 – King Christopher II of Denmark, forced to flee during an uprising, promises to give the Danish Principality of Rügen to John III of Werle and Henry II, Lord of Mecklenburg, leading to the First War of the Rügen Succession.
June 3 – The Treaty of Novgorod, a 10-year armistice, ends decades of border skirmishes between Norway and Novgorod in the far-northern region of Finnmark.
June 6 – In Denmark, the Reichsrat votes to remove King Christopher II from office and to replace him with 11-year-old Valdemar V, Duke of Schleswig. Valdemar's uncle, Count Gerhard of Holstein, becomes the regent for King Valdemar.
July – September
July 14 – Wartislaw IV, Duke of Pomerania makes an alliance with Gerhard III, Count of Holstein-Rendsburg, who has taken control of Denmark after overthrowing King Christopher II. Wartislaw IV becomes ill and dies 18 days later.
July 15 – The Scottish Parliament meets at Cambuskenneth and votes to restore 10-year-old Robert Stewart, grandson of Robert the Bruce to the line of succession to the throne of Scotland. Robert is granted lands in Argyll, Roxburghshire and the Lothians, and will eventually become King of Scotland in 1371.
July 16 – Algerian traveler Ibn Battuta departs from Cairo on a trip through Palestine on the way to Damascus.
August 9 – Ibn Battuta arrives in Damascus after a three-week journey from Cairo.
August 27 – Queen Isabella of France draws up a marriage contract between the 13-year-old Prince Edward (the future Edward III) and Philippa of Hainault, guaranteeing that the wedding will take place within two years.
September 15 – Dmitry, Grand Prince of Tver, is executed for the murder of Grand Duke Yuri of Moscow at Sarai on orders of Özbeg Khan, ruler of the Golden Horde that controls much of what is now Asian Russia.
September 24 – Invasion of England: Isabella of France and her supporters (including Roger Mortimer) land at Orwell in Suffolk. Their aim is to remove King Edward II from his throne and place Prince Edward there as the new ruler. Meanwhile, residing at the Tower of London, Edward tries to raise support in the capital, but instead, there is anarchy in London and mobs killing Edward's officials (including his treasurer, Walter de Stapledon).
October – December
October 18 – Isabella of France begins the Siege of Bristol, which is defended by Hugh Despenser the Elder.
October 26 – After eight days, castle of Bristol is captured by Queen Isabella, and Hugh Despenser the elder is taken captive. With Bristol secured, Isabella moves her base of operations to Hereford, near the Welsh border. There, she orders Henry of Lancaster to locate and arrest Edward II.
October 27 – The day after his capture at Bristol, Hugh Despenser the Elder, the chief adviser to King Edward II of England, is dressed in his armor and hanged in public. Afterwards, Hugh's body is dismembered, with his head presented to Queen Isabella to show to others among Edward's allies.
October 27 – Declaring that they are acting in the name of King Edward and giving as the reason that he is away in France, Queen Isabella and Crown Prince Edward issue a writ summoning the English Parliament to assemble on December 14 at Westminster.
November 16 – King Edward II of England is captured at Neath Abbey in Wales and brought to England, where he is imprisoned at Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire.
December 3 – Queen Isabella and Crown Prince Edward, claiming to act on behalf of King Edward II, issue a new writ postponing the opening of the English Parliament from December 14 to January 7. The new parliament will approve the replacement of King Edward II by the Crown Prince as "Keeper of the Realm".
By place
Europe
Summer – German forces led by Henry II, Lord of Mecklenburg occupy the western territories belonging to the Principality of Rügen. The towns of Barth and Grimmen surrender after a short siege.
Autumn – Gerhard III, Count of Holstein-Rendsburg allies himself with the Danish magnates. In response, the Hanseatic towns of Demmin, Stralsund, Greifswald and Anklam join the alliance.
Middle East
Spring – Ibn Battuta, Moroccan scholar and explorer, arrives after a journey of over 3,500 km (2,200 miles) at the port of Alexandria, at the time part of the Bahri Mamluk Empire.
By topic
Education
Clare College, the University of Cambridge's second oldest (still surviving) college, is founded.
</onlyinclude>
Births
February 3 – Robert Clavering, English official and politician (d. 1394)
March 5 – King Louis I of Hungary and Croatia (d. 1382)
March 30 – Ivan II of Moscow), Russian Grand Prince (d. 1359)
May 1 – Rinchinbal Khan (Ningzong), Mongol emperor (d. 1332)
May 8 – Joan I, queen of France (House of Auvergne) (d. 1360)
June 29 – Murad I, Turkish ruler of the Ottoman Empire (d. 1389)
August 16 – Amaury IV, French nobleman and knight (d. 1373)
September 5 – Beatrice of Sicily, Sicilian noblewoman (d. 1365)
September 15 – Yolande of Bar, French noblewoman (d. 1395)
November 5 – Anawrahta II, Burmese prince and ruler (d. 1349)
date unknown
As-Salih Ismail, Egyptian nobleman, prince and ruler (d. 1345)
Kitabatake Akiyoshi, Japanese nobleman and samurai (d. 1383)
Kusunoki Masatsura, Japanese nobleman and samurai (d. 1348)
Olivier the Butcher, Breton knight and constable (d. 1407)
Imagawa Sadayo, Japanese poet and governor (d. 1420)
Isaac ben Sheshet, Spanish Talmudic authority (d. 1408)
Ivan Asen IV, Bulgarian nobleman and prince (d. 1349)
Manuel Kantakouzenos, Byzantine nobleman (d. 1380)
Robert of Durazzo, Italian nobleman and knight (d. 1356)
Simeon Uroš, Serbian nobleman and pretender (d. 1370)
Tang He (Dingchen), Chinese rebel leader (d. 1395)
Wartislaw V, German nobleman and co-ruler (d. 1390)
William Wingfield, English official and politician (d. 1398)
Deaths
January 18 – Robert FitzWalter, English nobleman and knight (b. 1247)
January 29 – Roger de Beler, English nobleman, justice and politician
February 28 – Leopold I, Duke of Austria, German nobleman (b. 1290)
March 26 – Alessandra Giliani, Italian anatomist and scientist (b. 1307)
April 6 – Pandolfo I Malatesta, Italian nobleman and knight (condottiero)
May 6 – Bernard III, Polish nobleman, knight and ruler (House of Piast)
May 31 – Maurice de Berkeley, English nobleman and peerage (b. 1271)
July 29 – Richard Óg de Burgh, Irish nobleman (House of Burgh) (b. 1259)
August 3 – Roger Mortimer, English nobleman, knight and judge (b. 1256)
September 15
Dmitry of Tver, Russian nobleman and Grand Prince (b. 1299)
William FitzJohn, Irish prelate, archbishop and Lord Chancellor
October 9 – Reginald I, Dutch nobleman, knight and ruler (b. 1255)
October 14
Richard de Stapledon, English nobleman, knight and judge
Walter de Stapledon, English nobleman and bishop (b. 1261)
October 27 – Hugh Despenser the Elder, English chief adviser (b. 1261)
October 31, Juan the One-Eyed, Spanish nobleman (b. 1293)
November 17 – Edmund Fitzalan, English nobleman and knight (b. 1285)
November 24 – Hugh Despenser the Younger, English knight (b. 1286)
November 25 – Koreyasu, Japanese nobleman and shogun (b. 1264)
December 28 – David II Strathbogie, Scottish nobleman and constable
date unknown
Alexander of San Elpidio, Italian friar, bishop and writer (b. 1269)
Al-Yunini, Syrian religious scholar, historian and writer (b. 1242)
Amanieu VII, French nobleman and knight (House of Albret)
David of Grodno, Lithuanian nobleman, knight and castellan
John Palaiologos, Byzantine nobleman and governor (b. 1288)
John Walwayn, English scholar, official and Lord Treasurer
Mondino de Liuzzi, Italian physician and anatomist (b. 1270)
Ser Petracco, Italian jurist, chancellor and politician (b. 1267)
Sheikh Edebali, Ottoman judge and religious leader (b. 1206)
William de Braose, Norman nobleman and knight (b. 1260)
References |
34972 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1554 | 1554 |
Year 1554 (MDLIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
January–June
January 5 – A great fire breaks out in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
January 11 – A Spanish army is defeated by local Mapuche-Huilliches as it tries to cross Bueno River in Southern Chile.
January 12 – Bayinnaung is crowned king of the Burmese Taungoo Dynasty.
January 25 – São Paulo, Brazil, is founded.
February 9 – Thomas Wyatt surrenders to government forces in London.
February 12 – After claiming the throne of England the previous year, Lady Jane Grey is beheaded for treason.
March 18 – Princess Elizabeth is imprisoned in the Tower of London.
April 12 – Mary of Guise becomes Regent of Scotland.
July–December
July 23–25 – Queen Mary I of England marries King Philip of Naples, the only son of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, in Winchester, England.
August 2 – Battle of Marciano: Senese–French forces are defeated by the Florentine–Imperial army.
August 12 – Battle of Renty: French forces led by Francis, Duke of Guise turn back an invasion of Picardy, by Charles V.
November – English captain John Lok voyages to the Guinea Coast.
Date unknown
Mikael Agricola becomes the bishop of Turku.
Saadi conquers the Kingdom of Fez.
Exact center year of Counter Reformation.
The name of the beer brewed by New Belgium Brewing Company is based on a recipe from this date, called "1554."
Luso-Chinese agreement: Portugal reaches an agreement with the Ming Dynasty of China, to be allowed to legally trade in the province of Guangdong.
Rao Surjan Singh becomes ruler of Bundi.
Births
January 1 – Louis III, Duke of Württemberg (d. 1593)
January 9 – Pope Gregory XV (d. 1623)
January 20 – King Sebastian of Portugal (d. 1578)
February 8 – Marina de Escobar, Spanish nun (d. 1633)
February 27 – Giovanni Battista Paggi, Italian painter (d. 1627)
March – Richard Hooker, Anglican theologian (d. 1600)
March 1 – William Stafford, English courtier and conspirator (d. 1612)
March 18 – Josias I, Count of Waldeck-Eisenberg, Count of Waldeck-Eisenberg (1578-1588) (d. 1588)
March 22 – Catherine de Parthenay, French noblewoman and mathematician (d. 1631)
March 26 – Charles of Lorraine, Duke of Mayenne, French military leader (d. 1611)
March 28 – Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich of Russia (d. 1581)
March 30 – Paul Laurentius, German divine (d. 1624)
April – Stephen Gosson, English satirist (d. 1624)
April 15 – Simon VI, Count of Lippe, Count of Lippe-Detmold (1563-1613) (d. 1613)
May 20 – Paolo Bellasio, Italian composer (d. 1594)
June 3 – Pietro de' Medici, Italian noble (d. 1604)
June 5 – Benedetto Giustiniani, Italian Catholic cardinal (d. 1621)
June 21 – Joachim of Zollern, Titular Count of Hohenzollern (d. 1587)
July 5 – Elisabeth of Austria, Queen of France (d. 1592)
October 1 – Leonardus Lessius, Jesuit theologian (d. 1623)
October 3 – Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, English poet (d. 1628)
October 10 – Arnold III, Count of Bentheim-Steinfurt-Tecklenburg-Limburg and Lord of Rheda (d. 1606)
October 20 – Bálint Balassi, Hungarian writer and noble (d. 1594)
October 28 – Enevold Kruse, Danish noble (d. 1621)
October 30 – Prospero Farinacci, Italian jurist (d. 1618)
November 30 – Sir Philip Sidney, English courtier and poet (d. 1586)
December 17 – Ernest of Bavaria, Roman Catholic bishop (d. 1612)
December 19 – Philip William, Prince of Orange (d. 1618)
date unknown
Jacques Bongars, French scholar and diplomat (d. 1612)
James Lancaster, English navigator (d. 1618)
Walter Raleigh, English writer, poet, and explorer (d. 1618)
Francis Throckmorton, English conspirator (d. 1584)
Deaths
January 2 – João Manuel, Prince of Portugal, Portuguese prince (b. 1537)
January 11 – Min Bin, king of Arakan (b. 1493)
January 16
Christiern Pedersen, Danish humanist (b. c. 1480)
Ambrosius Moibanus, German theologian (b. 1494)
February 12
Lord Guildford Dudley, consort of Lady Jane Grey (executed) (b. 1536)
Lady Jane Grey, claimant to the throne of England (executed) (b. 1537)
February 21
Hieronymus Bock, German botanist (b. 1498)
Sibylle of Cleves, Electress consort of Saxony (b. 1512)
February 23 – Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, English politician (executed) (b. c.1515)
March 3 – John Frederick I, Elector of Saxony (b. 1503)
April 11 – Thomas Wyatt the Younger, English rebel (executed) (b. 1521)
April 23 – Gaspara Stampa, Italian poet (b. 1523)
May 2 – William Waldegrave, English Member of Parliament (b. 1507)
June 19
Sixt Birck, German humanist (b. 1501)
Philip II, Count of Nassau-Saarbrücken, German noble (b. 1509)
June 28 – Leone Strozzi, French Navy admiral (b. 1515)
August 25 – Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, English politician (b. 1473)
September 22 – Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, Spanish conquistador (b. c. 1510)
December 22 – Alessandro Bonvicino, Italian painter (b. 1498)
December – John Taylor, Bishop of Lincoln (b. 1503)
approx. date – Susannah Hornebolt, English artist (b. 1503)
date unknown
Argula von Grumbach, German Protestant reformer (b. 1492)
Leo Africanus, Andalusian Berber writer (b. 1485)
Sebastiano Serlio, Italian architect (b. 1475)
Sir Hugh Willoughby, English Arctic explorer
References |
35061 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/60%20Minutes | 60 Minutes | 60 Minutes is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who distinguished it from other news programs by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation. In 2002, 60 Minutes was ranked number six on TV Guides list of the "50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time", and in 2013, it was ranked number 24 on the magazine's list of the "60 Best Series of All Time". The New York Times has called it "one of the most esteemed news magazines on American television".
The program began in 1968 as a bi-weekly television show hosted by Mike Wallace and Harry Reasoner. The two sat on opposite sides of the cream-colored set, though the set's color was later changed to black, the color still in use. The show used a large stopwatch during transition periods and highlighted its topics through chroma key—both techniques are still used. In 1972, the program began airing from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Eastern time, although this time was sometimes disrupted by broadcasting of NFL games on Sundays. Since then, the show has generally kept the Sunday evening format, although the start time has occasionally been shifted. The program generally starts at 7:00 p.m. Eastern. If sports programming is airing that afternoon, 60 Minutes starts at 7:30 p.m. Eastern or at the game's conclusion.
The show is hosted by correspondents who do not share screen time with each other. Full-time hosts include Lesley Stahl, Scott Pelley, Bill Whitaker, and John Dickerson. Several spinoffs have been made, including international formats of the show.
Broadcast history
Early years
The program employed a magazine format similar to that of the Canadian program W5, which had premiered two years earlier. It pioneered many of the most important investigative journalism procedures and techniques, including re-editing interviews, hidden cameras, and "gotcha journalism" visits to the home or office of an investigative subject. Similar programs sprang up in Australia and Canada during the 1970s, as well as on local television news.
Initially, 60 Minutes aired as a bi-weekly show hosted by Mike Wallace and Harry Reasoner debuting on September 24, 1968, and alternating weeks with other CBS News productions on Tuesday evenings at 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The first edition, described by Reasoner in the opening as a "kind of a magazine for television," featured the following segments:
A look inside the headquarters suites of presidential candidates Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey during their respective parties' national conventions that summer;
Commentary by European writers Malcolm Muggeridge, Peter von Zahn, and Luigi Barzini Jr. on the American electoral system;
A commentary by political humor columnist Art Buchwald;
An interview with then-Attorney General Ramsey Clark about police brutality;
"A Digression," a brief, scripted piece in which two silhouetted men (one of them Andy Rooney) discuss the presidential campaign;
An abbreviated version of an Academy Award-winning short film by Saul Bass, Why Man Creates; and
A meditation by Wallace and Reasoner on the relation between perception and reality. Wallace said that the show aimed to "reflect reality".
The first "magazine-cover" chroma key was a photo of two helmeted policemen (for the Clark interview segment). Wallace and Reasoner sat in chairs on opposite sides of the set, which had a cream-colored backdrop; the more famous black backdrop (which is still used ) did not appear until the following year. The logo was in Helvetica type with the word "Minutes" spelled in all lower-case letters; the logo most associated with the show (rendered in Square 721 type with "Minutes" spelled in uppercase) did not appear until about 1974. Further, to extend the magazine motif, the producers added a "Vol. xx, No. xx" to the title display on the chroma key; modeled after the volume and issue number identifications featured in print magazines, this was used until about 1971. The trademark stopwatch, however, did not appear on the inaugural broadcast; it would not debut until several episodes later. Alpo dog food was the sole sponsor of the first program.
Don Hewitt, who had been a producer of the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, sought out Wallace as a stylistic contrast to Reasoner. According to one historian of the show, the idea of the format was to make the hosts the reporters, to always feature stories that were of national importance but focused upon individuals involved with, or in conflict with, those issues, and to limit the reports' airtime to around 13 minutes. However, the initial season was troubled by lack of network confidence, as the program did not garner ratings much higher than that of other CBS News documentaries. As a rule, during that era, news programming during prime time lost money; networks mainly scheduled public affairs programs in prime time in order to bolster the prestige of their news departments, and thus boost ratings for the regular evening newscasts, which were seen by far more people than documentaries and the like. 60 Minutes struggled under that stigma during its first three years.
Changes to 60 Minutes came fairly early in the program's history. When Reasoner left CBS to co-anchor ABC's evening newscast (he would return to CBS and 60 Minutes in 1978), Morley Safer joined the team in 1970, and he took over Reasoner's duties of reporting less aggressive stories. However, when Richard Nixon began targeting press access and reporting, even Safer, formerly the CBS News bureau chief in Saigon and London, began to do "hard" investigative reports, and during the 1970–71 season alone, 60 Minutes reported on cluster bombs, the South Vietnamese Army, draft dodgers, Nigeria, the Middle East, and Northern Ireland.
Effects from the Prime Time Access Rule
By 1971, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) introduced the Prime Time Access Rule, which freed local network affiliates in the top 50 markets (in practice, the entire network) to take a half-hour of prime time from the networks on Mondays through Saturdays and one full hour on Sundays. Because nearly all affiliates found production costs for the FCC's intended goal of increased public affairs programming very high and the ratings (and by association, advertising revenues) low, making it mostly unprofitable, the FCC created an exception for network-authored news and public affairs shows. After a six-month hiatus in late 1971, CBS found a prime place for 60 Minutes in a portion of that displaced time, 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Eastern (5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Central Time) on Sundays in January 1972.
This proved somewhat less than satisfactory, however, because in order to accommodate CBS' telecasts of late afternoon National Football League (NFL) football games, 60 Minutes went on hiatus during the fall from 1972 to 1975 (and the summer of 1972). This took place because football telecasts were protected contractually from interruptions in the wake of the infamous "Heidi Bowl" incident on NBC in November 1968. Despite the irregular scheduling, the program's hard-hitting reports attracted a steadily growing audience, particularly during the waning days of the Vietnam War and the gripping events of the Watergate scandal; at that time, few if any other major network news shows did in-depth investigative reporting to the degree carried out by 60 Minutes. Eventually, during the summers of 1973 through 1975, CBS did allow the program back onto the prime time schedule proper, on Fridays in 1973 and Sundays the two years thereafter, as a replacement for programs aired during the regular television season.
It was only when the FCC returned an hour to the networks on Sundays (for news or family programming), which had been taken away from them four years earlier, in a 1975 amendment to the Access Rule, that CBS finally found a viable permanent timeslot for 60 Minutes. When the family-oriented drama Three for the Road ended after a 12-week run in the fall, the news magazine took its place at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time (6:00 p.m. Central) on December 7, 1975. It has aired at that time since for 47 years , making it not only the longest-running prime time program currently in production, but also the television program (excluding daily programs such as evening newscasts or morning news-talk shows) broadcasting for the longest length of time at a single time period each week in U.S. television history.
This move, and the addition of then-White House correspondent Dan Rather to the reporting team, made the program into a strong ratings hit and, eventually, a general cultural phenomenon. This was no less than a stunning reversal of the historically poor ratings performances of documentary programs on network television. By 1976, 60 Minutes became the top-rated program on Sunday nights in the U.S. By 1979, it had achieved the #1 spot among all television programs in the Nielsen ratings, unheard of before for a news broadcast in prime time. This success translated into great profits for CBS; advertising rates increased from $17,000 per 30-second spot in 1975 to $175,000 in 1982.
The program sometimes does not start until after 7:00 p.m. Eastern, due largely to CBS Sports live sporting events. At the conclusion of an NFL game, 60 Minutes will air in its entirety and delay all subsequent programs. However, in the Pacific time zone, 60 Minutes is always able to start at its scheduled time as live sports coverage ends earlier in the afternoon. The program's success has also led CBS Sports to schedule events (such as the final round of the Masters Tournament and the second round and regional final games of the NCAA men's basketball tournament) leading into 60 Minutes and the rest of the network's primetime lineup for the night (as CBS never airs any sports programming on Sundays in primetime except the Super Bowl).
Starting in the 2012–2013 season, in order to accommodate a new NFL scheduling policy that the second game of a doubleheader start at 4:25 p.m., CBS changed the scheduled start time of 60 Minutes to 7:30 p.m. Eastern time (or game conclusion) for Eastern and Central Time Zone stations which are receiving a game in that window. The start time remains at 7:00 p.m. Eastern/Pacific (or game conclusion if a late single game is airing in the eastern markets) on stations which are not broadcasting a late game in a given week (or for Western time zones even if a Doubleheader airs) .
Radio broadcast and Internet distribution
60 Minutes is also simulcast on several former CBS Radio flagship stations such as KYW in Philadelphia, WBBM in Chicago, WWJ in Detroit and KCBS in San Francisco all are owned by Audacy except for IHeartRadio's WBZ in Boston. When it airs locally on their sister CBS Television Network affiliate, even in the Central and Eastern time zones, the show is aired at the top of the hour at 7:00 p.m./6:00 p.m. Central (barring local sports play-by-play pre-emptions and breaking news coverage) no matter how long the show is delayed on CBS Television, resulting in radio listeners often hearing the show on those stations ahead of the television broadcast. An audio version of each broadcast without advertising began to be distributed via podcast and the iTunes Store, starting with the broadcast on September 23, 2007. Video from 60 Minutes (including full episodes) is also made available for streaming several hours after the program's initial broadcast on CBSNews.com and Paramount+.
Format
60 Minutes normally has three long-form news stories without superimposed graphics. There is a commercial break between two stories. Each story is introduced from a set with a backdrop resembling pages from a magazine story on the same topic. The program undertakes its own investigations and follows up on investigations instigated by national newspapers and other sources. Unlike its competitor 20/20, as well as traditional local and national news programs, the 60 Minutes journalists never share the screen with (or speak to) other 60 Minutes journalists on camera at any time. This creates a strong psychological sense of intimacy between the journalist and the television viewer.
Reporting tone
60 Minutes blends the journalism of the seminal 1950s CBS series See It Now with Edward R. Murrow (for which Hewitt served as director in its first years) and the personality profiles of another Murrow program, Person to Person. In Hewitt's words, 60 Minutes blends "higher Murrow" and "lower Murrow".
"Point/Counterpoint" segment
For most of the 1970s, the program included Point/Counterpoint, in which a liberal and a conservative commentator debated an issue. This segment originally featured James J. Kilpatrick representing the conservative side and Nicholas von Hoffman for the liberal, with Shana Alexander taking over for von Hoffman after he departed in 1974. The segment was an innovation that caught the public imagination as a live version of competing editorials. In 1979, Alexander asked Hewitt to raise the $350 a week pay; Hewitt declined, and the segment ended.
Point/Counterpoint was lampooned by the NBC comedy series Saturday Night Live, which featured Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd as debaters, with Aykroyd announcing the topic, Curtin making an opening statement, then Aykroyd typically retorting with, "Jane, you ignorant slut" and Curtin responding "Dan, you pompous ass"; in the film Airplane! (1980), in which the faux Kilpatrick argues in favor of the plane crashing stating "they bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into"; and in an earlier sketch comedy film, The Kentucky Fried Movie, where the segment was called "Count/Pointercount".
A similar concept was revived briefly in March 2003 featuring Bob Dole and Bill Clinton, former opponents in the 1996 presidential election. The pair agreed to do ten segments, called "Clinton/Dole" and "Dole/Clinton" in alternating weeks, but did not continue into the 2003–2004 fall season. Reports indicated that the segments were considered too gentlemanly, in the style of the earlier "Point/Counterpoint", and lacked the feistiness of Crossfire.
Andy Rooney segment
From 1978 to 2011, the program usually ended with a (usually light-hearted and humorous) commentary by Andy Rooney expounding on topics of wildly varying import, ranging from international politics, to economics, and to personal philosophy on everyday life. One recurring topic was measuring the amount of coffee in coffee cans.
Rooney's pieces, particularly one in which he referred to actor Mel Gibson as a "wacko", on occasion led to complaints from viewers. In 1990, Rooney was suspended without pay for three months by then-CBS News President David Burke, because of the negative publicity around his saying that "too much alcohol, too much food, drugs, homosexual unions, cigarettes [are] all known to lead to premature death." He wrote an explanatory letter to a gay organization after being ordered not to do so. After four weeks without Rooney, 60 Minutes lost 20% of its audience. CBS management concluded that it was in their best interest to have Rooney return immediately.
Rooney published several books documenting his contributions to the program, including Years Of Minutes and A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney. Rooney retired from 60 Minutes, delivering his final commentary on October 2, 2011; it was his 1,097th commentary over his 34-year career on the program. He died one month later on November 4, 2011. On November 13, 2011, 60 Minutes featured an hour-long tribute to Rooney and his career, and included a rebroadcast of his final commentary segment.
Opening sequence
The opening sequence features a 60 Minutes "magazine cover" with the show's trademark, an Aristo stopwatch, intercut with preview clips of the episode's stories. The sequence ends with each of the correspondents and hosts introducing themselves. The last host who appears (currently Scott Pelley) then says, "Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes". When Rooney was a prominent fixture, the final line was "Those stories and Andy Rooney, tonight on 60 Minutes". Before that, and whenever Rooney did not appear, the final line was "Those stories and more, tonight on 60 Minutes".
The stopwatch counts off each of the broadcast's 60 minutes, starting from zero at the beginning of each show. It is seen during the opening title sequence, before each commercial break, and at the tail-end of the closing credits, and each time it appears it displays (within reasonable accuracy) the elapsed time of the episode to that point.
On October 29, 2006, the opening sequence changed from a black background, which had been used for over a decade, to white. Also, the gray background for the Aristo stopwatch in the "cover" changed to red, the color for the title text changed to white, and the stopwatch itself changed from the diagonal position it had been oriented in for 31 years to an upright position.
Web content
Videos and transcripts of 60 Minutes editions, as well as clips that were not included in the broadcast are available on the program's website. In September 2010, the program launched a website called "60 Minutes Overtime", in which stories broadcast on-air are discussed in further detail. Previously the show had a partnership with Yahoo! for distribution of extra content.
Correspondents and hosts
Correspondents and commentators
Hosts
Lesley Stahl (host, 1991–, co-editor)
Scott Pelley (host, 2003–)
Bill Whitaker (host, 2014–)
Cecilia Vega (host, 2023–)
Part-time correspondents
Anderson Cooper (2006–) (also at CNN)
Norah O'Donnell (2015–)
Sharyn Alfonsi (2015–)
Jon Wertheim (2017–)
Former correspondents and hosts
Former hosts
Mike Wallace ꝋ (host, 1968–2006; correspondence emeritus 2006–2008)
Harry Reasoner ꝋ (host, 1968–1970, 1978–1991)
Morley Safer ꝋ (part-time correspondent, 1968–1970; host, 1970–2016)
Dan Rather (part-time correspondent, 1968–1975; host, 1975–1981 and 2005–2006) (at AXS TV since)
Ed Bradley ꝋ (part-time correspondent, 1976–1981; host, 1981–2006)
Diane Sawyer (part-time correspondent, 1981–1984; host, 1984–1989) (at ABC News since)
Meredith Vieira (part-time correspondent, 1982–1985 and 1991–1993; host, 1990–1991)
Bob Simon ꝋ (1996–2015)
Christiane Amanpour (part-time correspondent, 1996–2000; host, 2000–2005)
Lara Logan (part-time correspondent, 2005–2012; host, 2012–2018) (now at Fox News Channel)
Steve Kroft (host, 1989–2019; co-editor, 2019)
John Dickerson (2019–2021)
Former part-time correspondents
Walter Cronkite ꝋ (1968–1981)
Charles Kuralt ꝋ (1968–1979)
Roger Mudd ꝋ (1968–1980)
Bill Plante ꝋ (1968–1995)
Eric Sevareid ꝋ (1968–1969)
John Hart (1969–1975) (retired)
Bob Schieffer (1973–1996)
Morton Dean (1975–1979) (retired)
Marlene Sanders ꝋ (1978–1987)
Charles Osgood (1981–1994) (retired)
Forrest Sawyer (1985–1987)
Connie Chung (1990–1993) (retired)
Paula Zahn (1990–1999)
John Roberts (1992–2005) (at Fox News Channel since)
Russ Mitchell (1995–1998) (at WKYC in Cleveland since)
Carol Marin (1997–2002)
Bryant Gumbel (1998–2002)
Vicki Mabrey (1999-2005)
Katie Couric (2006–2011)
Charlie Rose (2008–2017)
Byron Pitts (2009–2013) (at ABC News since)
Sanjay Gupta (2011–2014) (at CNN since)
Alison Stewart (2012)
Clarissa Ward (2012–2015) (at CNN since)
Oprah Winfrey (2017–2018)
Commentators
Commentators for 60 Minutes have included:
James J. Kilpatrick ꝋ (conservative debater, 1971–1979)
Nicholas von Hoffman ꝋ (liberal debater, 1971–1974)
Shana Alexander ꝋ (liberal debater, 1975–1979)
Andy Rooney ꝋ (commentator, 1978–2011)
Stanley Crouch ꝋ (commentator, 1996)
Molly Ivins ꝋ (liberal commentator, 1996)
P. J. O'Rourke ꝋ (conservative commentator, 1996)
Bill Clinton (liberal debater, 2003)
Bob Dole ꝋ (conservative debater, 2003)
ꝋ = Deceased
Ratings and recognition
Nielsen ratings
Based on viewership ratings, 60 Minutes is the most successful program in U.S. television history since it was moved into its present timeslot in 1975. For five seasons it was the year's top program, a feat matched by the sitcoms All in the Family and The Cosby Show, and surpassed only by the reality competition series American Idol, which had been the #1 show for eight consecutive seasons from the 2003–2004 television season up to the 2010–2011 season. 60 Minutes was a top ten show for 23 seasons in a row (1977–2000), an unsurpassed record, and has made the Top 20 for every season since the 1976–1977 season, except from 2005 to 2008.
60 Minutes first broke into the Nielsen Top 20 during the 1976–77 season. The following season, it was the fourth-most-watched program, and by the 1979–80 season, it was the number one show. During the 21st century, it remained among the top 20 programs in the Nielsen ratings, and the highest-rated news magazine.
On November 16, 2008, the edition featuring an interview with President-elect Barack Obama, earned a total viewership of 25.1 million viewers.
On October 6, 2013, the broadcast (which was delayed by 44 minutes that evening due to a Denver Broncos-Dallas Cowboys NFL game) drew 17.94 million viewers; retaining 63% of the 28.32 million viewers of its lead-in, and making it the most watched 60 Minutes broadcast since December 16, 2012.
On December 1, 2013, the broadcast (delayed 50 minutes due to a Broncos-Kansas City Chiefs game) was watched by 18.09 million viewers, retaining 66% of its NFL lead-in (which earned 28.11 million viewers during the 7:00 p.m. hour).
On March 25, 2018, the edition featuring Stormy Daniels giving details on her alleged affair with President Donald Trump drew 22.1 million viewers, the most since the 2008 Obama interview. The broadcast was delayed due to the NCAA men's basketball regional final on CBS between Kansas and Duke going to overtime.
Recognition
Emmy Awards
, 60 Minutes had won a total of 138 Emmy Awards, a record for U.S. primetime programs.
Peabody Awards
The program has won 20 Peabody Awards for segments including "All in the Family", an investigation into abuses by government and military contractors; "The CIA's Cocaine", which uncovered CIA involvement in drug smuggling, "Friendly Fire", a report on incidents of friendly fire in the Gulf War; "The Duke Rape Case", an investigation into accusations of rape at an off campus lacrosse team party in 2006; and "The Killings in Haditha", an investigation into the killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines.
Other awards
The show received an Investigative Reporter and Editor medal for their segment "The Osprey", documenting a Marine cover-up of deadly flaws in the V-22 Osprey aircraft.
Exoneration
In 1983, a report by Morley Safer, "Lenell Geter's in Jail", helped exonerate a Texas man who was wrongly convicted and imprisoned for armed robbery.
Longest-running primetime show
, 60 Minutes is the longest continuously running program of any genre scheduled during American network prime time. It has aired at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Sundays since December 7, 1975 (although since 2012, it moves to 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Sundays if a CBS affiliate has a late NFL game).
Meet the Press debuted in 1947 in prime time, but it has been a daytime program since 1965. The Walt Disney anthology television series, which premiered in 1954, and the Hallmark Hall of Fame, which has aired since 1951, have aired longer than 60 Minutes, but none of them has aired in prime time continually.
Controversies
The show has been praised for landmark journalism and received many awards. However, it has also become embroiled in some controversy, including (in order of appearance):
Unintended acceleration
On November 23, 1986, 60 Minutes aired a segment greenlit by Hewitt, concerning the Audi 5000 automobile, a popular German luxury car. The story covered a supposed problem of "unintended acceleration" when the brake pedal was pushed, with emotional interviews with six people who sued Audi (unsuccessfully) after they crashed their cars, including one woman whose six-year-old son had been killed. In the 60 Minutes segment footage was shown of an Audi 5000 with the accelerator "moving down on its own", accelerating the car. It later emerged that an expert witness employed by one of the plaintiffs modified the accelerator with a concealed device, causing the "unintended acceleration". Independent investigators concluded that this "unintended acceleration" was most likely due to driver error, where the driver let their foot slip off the brake and onto the accelerator. Tests by Audi and independent journalists showed that even with the throttle wide open, the car would simply stall if the brakes were actually being used.
The incident devastated Audi sales in the United States, which did not rebound for 15 years. The initial incidents which prompted the report were found by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Transport Canada to have been attributable to operator error, where car owners had depressed the accelerator pedal instead of the brake pedal. CBS issued a partial retraction, without acknowledging the test results of involved government agencies. Years later, Dateline NBC, a rival to 60 Minutes, was found guilty of similar tactics regarding the fuel tank integrity of General Motors pickup trucks.
Jeep rollovers
A segment aired in December, 1980, concerning the alleged Jeep CJ-5 high rollover risk as demonstrated in Insurance Institute for Highway Safety testing. The demonstration was a Jeep rolling over during an extreme turn at 20 mph, something that would not cause other cars to roll over. It was deemed by 60 Minutes reporters as the "most dangerous thing on four wheels". After the show aired, many people were concerned about the safety of the vehicle, and following sales plummeted. This tarnished the reputation of the Jeep CJ; the model was discontinued in 1986. Years after the incident occurred, it was found that the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety had attempted to roll the car 435 times, only having 8 rollovers. The show had also failed to mention/show that there were weights hanging on spots of the vehicle that had caused the vehicle to have a higher rollover risk.
Alar
In February 1989, 60 Minutes aired a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council claiming that the use of daminozide (Alar) on apples presented an unacceptably high health risk to consumers. Apple sales dropped and CBS was sued unsuccessfully by apple growers. Alar was subsequently banned for use on food crops in the U.S. by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Werner Erhard
On March 3, 1991, 60 Minutes broadcast "Werner Erhard," which dealt with controversies involving Erhard's personal and business life. A year after the 60 Minutes piece aired, Erhard filed a lawsuit against CBS, claiming that the broadcast contained several "false, misleading and defamatory" statements about him. One month after filing the lawsuit, Erhard filed for dismissal. Erhard later told Larry King in an interview that he dropped the suit after receiving legal advice telling him that in order to win it, he had to prove not only that CBS knew the allegations were false but also that CBS acted with malice. After numerous independent journalists exposed untruths and factual inaccuracies in the story the segment was removed by CBS from its archives, with a disclaimer: "This segment has been deleted at the request of CBS News for legal or copyright reasons."
Brown & Williamson
In 1995, former Brown & Williamson Vice President for Research and Development Jeffrey Wigand provided information to 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman that B&W had systematically hidden the health risks of their cigarettes (see transcription). Furthermore, it was alleged that B&W had introduced foreign agents (such as fiberglass and ammonia) with the intent of enhancing the effect of nicotine. Bergman began to produce a piece based upon the information, but ran into opposition from Don Hewitt who, along with CBS lawyers, feared a billion dollar lawsuit from Brown and Williamson for tortious interference for encouraging Wigand to violate his non-disclosure agreement. A number of people at CBS would benefit from a sale of CBS to Westinghouse Electric Corporation, including the head of CBS lawyers and CBS News. Also, because of the interview, the son of CBS President Laurence Tisch (who also controlled Lorillard Tobacco) was among the people from the big tobacco companies at risk of being caught having committed perjury. Due to Hewitt's hesitation, The Wall Street Journal instead broke Wigand's story. The 60 Minutes piece was eventually aired with substantially altered content and minus some of the most damning evidence against B&W. The exposé of the incident was published in an article in Vanity Fair by Marie Brenner, entitled "The Man Who Knew Too Much".
The New York Times wrote that "the traditions of Edward R. Murrow and "60 Minutes" itself were diluted in the process," though the newspaper revised the quote slightly, suggesting that 60 Minutes and CBS had "betrayed the legacy of Edward R. Murrow". The incident was turned into a seven-times Oscar-nominated feature film entitled The Insider, directed by Michael Mann and starring Russell Crowe as Wigand, Al Pacino as Bergman, and Christopher Plummer as Mike Wallace. Wallace denounced the portrayal of him as inaccurate to his stance on the issue.
U.S. Customs Service
In 1997, 60 Minutes alleged that agents of the U.S. Customs Service ignored drug trafficking across the Mexico–United States border at San Diego. The only evidence was a memorandum apparently written by Rudy Camacho, who was the head of the San Diego branch office. Based on this memo, CBS alleged that Camacho had allowed trucks belonging to a particular firm to cross the border unimpeded. Mike Horner, a former Customs Service employee, had passed the memos on to 60 Minutes, and even provided a copy with an official stamp. Camacho was not consulted about the piece, and his career was devastated in the immediate term as his own department placed suspicion on him. In the end, it turned out that Horner had forged the documents as an act of revenge for his treatment within the Customs Service. Camacho sued CBS and settled for an undisclosed amount of money in damages. Hewitt was forced to issue an on-air retraction.
Kennewick Man
A legal battle between archaeologists and the Umatilla tribe over the remains of a skeleton, nicknamed Kennewick Man, was reported by 60 Minutes on October 25, 1998, to which the Umatilla tribe reacted negatively. The tribe considered the segment heavily biased in favor of the scientists, cutting out important arguments, such as explanations of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The report focused heavily on the racial politics of the controversy and also added inflammatory arguments, such as questioning the legitimacy of Native American sovereignty – much of the racial focus of the segment was later reported to have been either unfounded and/or misinterpreted.
Timothy McVeigh
On March 12, 2000, 60 Minutes aired an interview with Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. At the time, McVeigh had already been convicted and sentenced to death for the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in April 1995, and the subsequent deaths of 168 people. On the program, McVeigh was given the opportunity to vent against the government. Following the program, a federal policy called the Special Confinement Unit Media Policy was enacted prohibiting face-to-face interviews with death row inmates. A federal inmate challenged the policy in Hammer v. Ashcroft, under which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld the prison policy. In March 2010, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in the case, and the policy limiting media access to death row inmates remains in place. CBS refuses to show the entire interview, and has stated no reasons.
Viacom/CBS cross-promotion
In recent years, the program has been accused of promoting books, films, and interviews with celebrities who are published or promoted by sister businesses of media conglomerate Viacom (which owned CBS from 2000 to 2005 and since 2019; both companies' shares since 2000 were majority-owned by National Amusements even during their fourteen-year separation) and publisher Simon & Schuster (which remained a part of CBS Corporation after the 2005 CBS/Viacom split and continued on after its re-merger with Viacom), without disclosing the journalistic conflict-of-interest to viewers.
Killian documents controversy
The Killian documents controversy involved six documents critical of President George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard from 1972 to 1973. Four of these documents were presented as authentic in a 60 Minutes Wednesday broadcast aired on September 8, 2004, less than two months before the 2004 presidential election, but it was later found that CBS had failed to authenticate the documents. Subsequently, several typewriter and typography experts concluded the documents are forgeries, as have some media sources. No forensic document examiners or typography experts authenticated the documents, which may not be possible without original documents. The provider of the documents, Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, claimed to have burned the originals after faxing copies to CBS. The whole incident was turned into a feature-length film entitled Truth.
"The Internet Is Infected" episode and the false hacker photo
On March 29, 2009, a segment titled "The Internet Is Infected" aired on 60 Minutes, which featured an interview with Don Jackson, a data protection professional for SecureWorks. Jackson himself declared in the program that "a part of [his] job is to know the enemy". However, during the interview, Jackson showed a photo of Finnish upper-level comprehensive school pupils and misidentified them as Russian hackers. In the photo, one of the children wears a jacket with the Coat of Arms of Finland on it. Another one wears a cap which clearly has the logo of Karjala, a Finnish brand of beer, on it. The principal of the school in Taivalkoski confirmed that the photo was taken at the school about five years before the program was broadcast.
The photo's exact origins are unknown, but it is widely known in Finland, having been originally posted to the Finnish social networking site IRC-Galleria in the early 2000s. It spread all over Finnish internet communities, and even originated a couple of patriotically titled (but intentionally misspelled) mock sites. 60 Minutes later issued a correction and on-air apology.
Benghazi report
After the 2012 Benghazi attack, 60 Minutes aired a report by correspondent Lara Logan on October 27, 2013, in which British military contractor Dylan Davies, identified by CBS under the pseudonym "Morgan Jones", described racing to the Benghazi compound several hours after the main assault was over, scaling a 12-foot wall and knocking out a lone fighter with the butt of a rifle. He also claimed to have visited a Benghazi hospital earlier that night where he saw Ambassador Christopher Stevens' body.
In the days following the report, Davies' personal actions were challenged. The FBI, which had interviewed Davies several times and considered him a credible source, said the account Davies had given them was different from what he told 60 Minutes. Davies stood by his story, but the inconsistency ultimately prompted 60 Minutes to conclude it was a mistake to include Davies in their report. The show issued a correction.
After the correction, a journalistic review was conducted by Al Ortiz, CBS News' executive director of standards and practices. Ortiz determined that red flags about Davies' account were missed. Davies had told the program and written in his book that he told an alternative version of his actions to his employer, who he said had demanded that he stay inside his Benghazi villa as the attack unfolded. That alternative version was shared with U.S. authorities; 60 Minutes was unable to prove the story Davies had told them was true.
Davies' book, The Embassy House, was published two days after the 60 Minutes report, by Threshold Editions, part of the Simon and Schuster unit of CBS. It was pulled from shelves once 60 Minutes issued its correction.
On November 26, 2013, Logan was forced to take a leave of absence due to the errors in the Benghazi report. Logan returned to work months later.
NSA report
On December 15, 2013, 60 Minutes aired a report on the National Security Agency (NSA) that was widely criticized as false and a "puff piece". The story was reported by John Miller, who once worked in the office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Tesla automaker report
On March 30, 2014, 60 Minutes presented a story on the Tesla Model S luxury electric automobile, with Scott Pelley conducting an interview with CEO Elon Musk concerning the car brand as well as his company SpaceX. Within a day, the automotive blog site Jalopnik reported that the sounds accompanying footage of the car shown during the story were actually sounds from a traditional gasoline engine dubbed over the footage, when in reality the electric car makes no such sounds. CBS released a statement explaining that the sound was the result of an audio editing error, and subsequently removed the sound from the online version of the piece. However, several news outlets, as well as Jalopnik itself, expressed doubt over the authenticity of this explanation, noting the similar scandal involving Tesla Motors and the New York Times in 2013.
Sexual harassment
After the resignation of CBS news head Les Moonves, an investigation into sexual harassment at CBS, including 60 Minutes, uncovered evidence of long-running sexual harassment issues stemming from behavior of producers Jeff Fager and Don Hewitt.
Florida COVID-19 vaccine rollout
In April 2021, Sharyn Alfonsi's story in 60 Minutes on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the state's COVID-19 vaccine rollout faced criticism for suggesting that a donation by the supermarket chain Publix to DeSantis' re-election campaign influenced Florida's partnership with Publix stores for vaccine distribution. Subsequently, Palm Beach County Mayor Dave Kerner accused 60 Minutes of reporting "intentionally false" information, while Karol Markowicz of the New York Post characterized Alfonsi as coming off as a "political activist" in the segment. A spokesperson for 60 Minutes defended the story for having included DeSantis' response to the accusation. PolitiFact stated that by omitting DeSantis' remarks on why the state partnered with Publix to distribute vaccines, the clip could be considered to be "deceptive editing".
Facial recognition report
On May 16, 2021, Anderson Cooper's story in 60 Minutes on the flaws in facial recognition technology used by the police resulting in incorrect identification of people of color received backlash for denying credit to the black female researchers who pioneered the field. The segment was criticized by the Algorithmic Justice League for "deliberately excluding the groundbreaking and award-winning work of prominent black women AI researchers Joy Buolamwini, Dr. Timnit Gebru, and Inioluwa Deborah Raji". The segment was called out for its hypocrisy for failing to credit black women for their pioneering work in a segment highlighting how facial recognition software often leaves out black, Asian, and female faces. CBS later issued a statement explaining that these researchers were not included due to time restrictions of the segment.
Spin-offs
The main 60 Minutes show has created a number of spin-offs over the years.
30 Minutes
30 Minutes was a news magazine aimed at children that was patterned after 60 Minutes, airing as the final program in CBS's Saturday morning lineup from 1978 to 1982. It was hosted by Christopher Glenn (who also served as the voice-over for the interstitial program In the News and was an anchor on the CBS Radio Network), along with Betsy Aaron (1978–1980) and Betty Ann Bowser (1980–1982).
60 Minutes More
60 Minutes More was a spin-off that ran for one season from 1996 to 1997 on the channel CBS Eye on People. The episodes featured popular stories from the past that were expanded with updates on the original story. Each episode featured three of these segments.
60 Minutes II
In 1999, a second edition of 60 Minutes was started in the United States, titled 60 Minutes II. This edition was later renamed 60 Minutes for the fall of 2004 in an effort to sell it as a high-quality program, since some had sarcastically referred to it as 60 Minutes, Jr. CBS News president Andrew Heyward said, "the Roman numeral II created some confusion on the part of the viewers and suggested a watered-down version". However, a widely known controversy which came to be known as "Rathergate", regarding a report that aired on September 8, 2004, caused another name change. The program was retitled 60 Minutes Wednesday both to differentiate itself and to avoid tarnishing the Sunday edition, as the editions were editorially independent from one another. It reverted to its original Roman numeral title on July 8, 2005, when the program moved to Fridays in an 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time slot to finish its run. The show aired its final broadcast on September 2, 2005.
60 Minutes on CNBC
In 2011, CNBC began airing a 60 Minutes spin-off of its own, called 60 Minutes on CNBC. Hosted by Lesley Stahl and Steve Kroft, it aired updated business-related reports seen on the original broadcasts and offers footage that was not included when the segments first aired. It ended in 2015.
60 Minutes Sports
In 2013, CBS's sister premium television network Showtime premiered 60 Minutes Sports, a monthly spin-off focused on sports-related stories and classic interviews from the show's archives. Personalities from CBS Sports also contributed to the program. The spin-off was considered a competitor to HBO's Real Sports; it was cancelled in January 2017.
60 in 6
In June 2020, the show launched 60 in 6 on Quibi, featuring original weekly 6-minute programs. Correspondents are Enrique Acevedo, Seth Doane, Wesley Lowery, and Laurie Segall. It had originally set to launch in April 2020. On the June 21, 2020, broadcast of 60 in 6, Doane covered the show's exposure to COVID-19 in a piece titled "CBS News Battles COVID-19". The piece said CBS News flew in staffers, including from Seattle and Rome, in early March 2020 to begin filming promotional material for 60 in 6. This brought COVID-19-positive people in close contact with CBS employees; as a result, CBS Broadcast Center and several other buildings in Manhattan were temporarily closed.
60 Minutes+
In March 2021, Paramount+ premiered 60 Minutes+, a weekly spin-off aimed at a younger audience. The correspondents from 60 in 6 returned for this spin-off, as well as producer Jonathan Blakely. In January 2022, the show was cancelled after 30 episodes.
25th anniversary edition
For the 60 Minutes 25th anniversary in 1993, Charles Kuralt interviewed Don Hewitt, the active correspondents, some former correspondents, and revisited notable stories and celebrities.
International versions
Australia
The Australian version of 60 Minutes premiered on February 11, 1979. It still airs each Sunday night at 7:30 p.m. on the Nine Network and affiliates. Although Nine Network has the rights to the format, , it does not have rights to stories from the U.S. program, which is owned by competitor 10 News Australia after Network Ten's acquisition by CBS in 2017. Nevertheless, stories from the flagship 60 Minutes program in the U.S. often air on the Australian program by subleasing them from Ten. In 1981, 60 Minutes won a Logie Award for their investigation of lethal abuses at the Chelmsford psychiatric hospital in Sydney.
Germany
In the mid-1980s, an edited version (approx. 30 minutes in length) of the U.S. broadcast edition of 60 Minutes, entitled "60 Minutes: CBS im Dritten" ("60 Minutes: CBS on Channel 3") was shown for a time on West German television. This version retained the English-language soundtrack of the original, but also featured German dubbed.
New Zealand
The New Zealand version of 60 Minutes has aired on national television since 1989, when it was originally launched on TV3. In 1992, the rights were acquired by TVNZ, who began broadcasting it in 1993. The network aired the program for nine years before dropping it in 2002 for its own program, entitled Sunday, which is currently the highest-rated current affairs show broadcast on New Zealand television, followed by 20/20. 60 Minutes was broadcast by rival network TV3, before switching to the Sky Television owned Prime channel in 2013, when the contract changed hands.
Brazil
In 1992, the GNT channel (now GloboNews) brought its original version with dubbed subtitles from that country. And later, in 2004, Rede Bandeirantes, planned a licensed localized version, but the plan was cancelled. And even so that year, it returned as a frame, i.e. a rubric in the program Domingo Espetacular on Rede Record, a competitor of Rede Globo's program Fantástico.
Portugal
SIC Notícias acquired the broadcasting rights to the program in 2001. The original episodes were shown in Portugal with introductory and final comments by journalist Mário Crespo, who conducted the program until 2014. It is presently hosted by anchors of the aforementioned network on a rotational basis, who eventually adopted the previous model.
Chile
The news program of National Broadcasting of Chile (TVN), the public television network in that country, was named 60 Minutos ("60 Minutes") from 1975 to 1988, but the program had no association with the US version and no investigative reporting.
Other versions
A Mexican version, which featured Juan Ruiz Healy serving as anchor, aired in the late 1970s and 1980s.
A Peruvian version aired in the early 1980s, called 60 Minutos. However, in the late 1980s there was also a similarly named series, but unrelated to the series produced by CBS News.
Edited reruns of 60 Minutes interviews have aired on various cable channels in the United States, including TV Land and ESPN Classic.
In Thailand, 60 Minutes (Thailand) was broadcast on TV 9 (from 1995 to 1997) and BBTV Channel 7 (from 1999 to 2001).
In Catalonia, 60 Minutes has been broadcast by TV3 (Catalonia) for 27 seasons.
In France, M6 launched 66 minutes in 2006, a television magazine with a similar concept and format.
See also
This Hour Has Seven Days, and W5 both of which pre-date 60 Minutes by a couple of years, are similar in journalistic style and format
Citations
General and cited sources
Who's Who in America 1998, "Hewitt, Don S." Marquis Who's Who: New Providence, NJ, 1998. p. 1925.
Who's Who in America 1998, "Wallace, Mike." Marquis Who's Who: New Providence, NJ, 1998. p. 4493.
Madsen, Axel. 60 Minutes: The Power and the Politics of America's Most Popular TV News Show. Dodd, Mead and Company: New York City, 1984.
Further reading
. With introduction by Don Hewitt.
External links
Booknotes interview with Don Hewitt on Tell Me a Story: 50 Years and 60 Minutes in Television, April 1, 2001.
60 Minutes+ on Paramount+
Episodes
60 Minutes
Television franchises
1968 American television series debuts
1960s American television news shows
1970s American television news shows
1980s American television news shows
1990s American television news shows
2000s American television news shows
2010s American television news shows
2020s American television news shows
Best Drama Series Golden Globe winners
CBS News
CBS original programming
Current affairs shows
English-language television shows
Nielsen ratings winners
Peabody Award-winning television programs
Super Bowl lead-out shows
Television series by CBS Studios |
35151 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1310s | 1310s | The 1310s was a decade of the Julian Calendar which began on January 1, 1310, and ended on December 31, 1319.
Significant people
Louis the Bavarian
Wang Zhen (inventor)
References |
35241 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1300 | 1300 | The year 1300 (MCCC) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar, the 1300th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 300th year of the 2nd millennium, the 100th and last year of the 13th century, and the 1st year of the 1300s decade. The year 1300 was not a leap year in the Proleptic Gregorian calendar.
Events
January – March
January 6 – In the Middle East, Mahmud Ghazan, designated by the Mongol Empire to be the Ilkhanate ruler of what is now Iran, completes the conquest of Damascus.
January 17 – The marriage of Eleanor of Anjou, daughter of King Charles II of Naples, to Philippe II de Toucy is annulled by Pope Boniface VIII because neither husband nor wife is more than 10 years old, their parents had not sought permission from the Pope to approve the marriage. The dissolution clears the way for Eleanor to marry again, and she will wed Frederick III of Sicily on May 17, 1302, to become Queen Consort of the Italian island kingdom. "Sicily/Naples: Counts and Kings"
January 22 – In the Himalayan Mountains kingdom of Nepal, armies from Mithila capture Bhadagon and occupy the area until the ruling house of Tripura withdraws.
February 14 – Egyptian monk Yohanna Ben-Ebsal is ordained as the 80th Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church and takes the regnal name Pope John VIII, following the death on January 13 of Theodosia III.
February 22 – Pope Boniface VIII begins the practice of Roman pontiffs declaring a Jubilee or "Holy Year" to be observed every 100 years, and issues the papal bull Antiquorum habet fida relatio. Boniface declares that Christians who make a pilgrimage to visit Saint Peter's Basilica will receive a plenary indulgence forgiving them from purgatorial punishment for certain sins. The papal declaration, which also applies to a visit to the Basilica of Saint Paul, results in tens of thousands of people visiting Rome during the Jubilee Year. It is at this celebration that Giovanni Villani decides to write his universal history of Florence, called the Nuova Cronica ("New Chronicles").
March 6 – King Edward I of England convenes his 47th meeting of parliament in 25 years at Westminster for a two week session. Before dissolving on March 20, the parliament approves the articuli super cartas, a 20-article amendment to the original Magna Carta.
March 22 – Shortly after a failed coup d'etat attempt by Marin Bocconio, the Republic of Venice makes major reforms of its Quarantia (from Consiglio dei Quranta or "Council of Forty"), the 40 nobles allowed to elect the Republic's chief executive (the Doge of Venice) and the members of its legislative body, the Mazor Consegio. The change in law requires at least 20 votes by the 40 electors to be added to the Consegio, which had grown to 1,100 members.
March – Franco–Flemish War: King Philip IV ("Philip the Fair") begins to invade Flanders again after the expiration of an armistice in January. French forces plunder and devastate the countryside around Ypres. The king's brother, Charles of Valois, marches from Bruges to the outskirts of Ghent. He burns Nevele and twelve other towns. In March, French forces besiege Damme and Ypres.
April – June
April 30 – Thomas of Corbridge consecrated by Pope Boniface VIII as Archbishop of York on February 28, is given use by the Pope of the income from all of the possessions of the Roman Catholic Church in the Ecclesiastical province of York, covering all of the northern counties of England from Nottingham to the Scottish border.
April – Franco–Flemish War: At the end of April, Damme, Aardenburg and Sluis surrender.
May 8 – Franco-Flemish War: In Flanders (now part of Belgium), the city of Ghent surrenders. By the time that Ypres surrenders on May 21, all of Flanders has been conquered. By the end of the month, all of Flanders is under French control, and several Flemish nobles (like Guy of Namur) are taken into captivity in France.
May 10 – A session of the Parliament of Scotland is held at Rutherglen. Sir Ingram de Umfraville replaces Sir Robert the Bruce as one of the three members of the Guardians of the Kingdom of Scotland, a group of regents who govern Scotland during the "Second Interregnum", a period when King Edward I of England is threatening to annex Scotland. Umfraville joins Baron John Comyn III of Badenoch and Bishop William de Lamberton, but the three step down the following year to make way for a single Guardian, John de Soules. Robert the Bruce later becomes King of Scotland in 1306.
May 25 – Rudolf III, the Habsburg Duke of Austria since 1298, marries the eldest daughter of King Philip III of France, Princess Blanche. The couple remain married until her death on March 1, 1305.
May – After the destruction of Aleppo and withdrawal of the Mongol Empire troops of Khan Ghazan, the Mamluks return to the Middle East from Egypt.
June 15 – In Spain, Diego López V de Haro, Spanish nobleman and Lord of Biscay, founds the city of Bilbao through a municipal charter in Valladolid.
June 17 – In Finland, Turku Cathedral is consecrated by Bishop Magnus I at Turku. During his reign, he helps to complete the Christianization in Finland.
June 24 – English invasion of Scotland (1300): On Midsummer Day, after crossing the border from England into Scotland, England's King Edward I holds a conference at English-occupied Scottish territory at Roxburgh with his advance force King Edward starts another Scottish campaign and marches north with his army, accompanied by several knights of Brittany and Lorraine. The 16-year-old Prince Edward of Caernarfon is appointed to take command of the rearguard of the English army but part from a small skirmish, he sees no action.
June 26 – English invasion of Scotland (1300): The largest part of the English Army marches from Carlisle to renezvous with King Edward I at Caerlaverock Castle. p. 264
July – September
July 10 – English invasion of Scotland (1300): King Edward I of England begins a five-day siege of Caerlaverock Castle in Scotland. Enraged by the defending garrison's request for honorable surrender terms, Edward orders the destruction of the castle with battering rams and stone-lobbing trebuchet catapults, then pulls down the walls of the garrison.
July 17 – English invasion of Scotland (1300): King Edward I ("Edward Longshanks") and the English Army arrive in Galloway and set up camp on July 19 at Kirkcudbright where they remain for 10 days while laying waste to the surrounding country side. They confront a Scottish army under John Comyn III ("the Red") on the River Cree. During the battle, the Scottish cavalry is again defeated. Edward is unable to pursue the fugitives into the wild country, where they flee and take refuge. John escapes with his life and begins to raid the English countryside in smaller groups.
July 18 – Gerard Segarelli, Italian founder of the Apostolic Brethren, is burned at the stake in Parma during a brutal repression of the Apostolics.
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July 20 – A fleet of 16 ships led by Jacques de Molay (Grand Master of the Knights Templar), Henry II of Cyprus (the last European King of Jerusalem), Amalric of Tyre, and an emissary of the Mongol leader Ghazan departs from the Cyprus port of Famagusta and begins a raid of Muslim-occupied cities in Egypt and Palestine before returning to Cyprus.
July 25 – Wenceslaus II, King of Bohemia is crowned King of Poland in a ceremony at Gniezno, near Poznań.
August 9 – After crossing the River Dee and reaching Twynholm, King Edward I and his troops receive new provisions from the English Navy and fights a brief skirmish with the Scots.
August 27 – Robert Winchelsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, arrives at Sweetheart Abbey in Scotland with the papal envoy Lumbardus, to deliver a letter from Boniface VIII to England's King Edward I ("Edward Longshanks") demanding that Edward withdraw from the Kingdom of Scotland. Edward ignores the letter, but because the campaign is not a success, the English forces begin on their home journey and Edward arranges a truce.
September 20 – Italian diplomat Ciolo Bofeti di Anastasio, commonly called "Isol of Pisa", is appointed by Pope Boniface VIII to be the Church's liaison between the European settlements in the Middle East (the Crusader states) and the Mongol Empire, and given the title "Vicar of Syria and the Holy Land for Ghazan the Emperor of the Tartars".
September 26 – King Edward I summons the English Parliament to Lincoln. The parliamentary session will last until January 30, 1301.
October – December
October 28 – (13 Safar 700 AH) After learning that the Mongol Empire plans to stage a new attack on the Middle East, including what is now the area occupied by Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel, the Mamluk Sultan, Nasir ad-Din Muhammad, leads an army from Cairo to confront the invasion.
October 30 – At Dumfries, a truce is concluded between England and Scotland after being mediated by France and both sides agree to a cease hostilities until Whitsunday (May 21) of 1301. King Edward then returns to England.
November 11 – King Edward I holds a session of the English parliament at York, then remains there until shortly after Christmas.
December 30 – (17 Rabi II 700 AH) Mahmud Ghazan, ruler of the Mongol Empire's Ikhanate area in the Middle East, crosses the Euphrates River at Qala'at Jabar (now Raqqa in to invade Syria. Residents of Damascus, Aleppo and other areas of Syria, fearing a repeat of the massacre a few months earlier, flee toward Gaza. Ghazan turns back less than five weeks later because of unusually cold weather (including heavy snow and rain) that kills almost all of his cavalry's 12,000 horses.
By location
Europe
Spring – Bohemian forces under Wenceslaus II of the Czech House of Přemyslid, seize Pomerania and Greater Poland (Wielkopolska). The 28-year-old Wenceslaus has ruled Lesser Poland (Małopolska) since 1291, and forced a number of Silesian princes to swear allegiance to him. He is crowned as king and reunites the Polish territories. During his reign, Wenceslaus also introduces a number of laws and reforms, the most important being the creation of a new type of official known as a starosta (or "Elder"), who rules a small territory as the king's direct representative.
North America
In "Oasisamerica" in what is now the southwestern United States, the Ancestral Puebloans abandon the Mesa Verde region in the Colorado Plateau.
Births
January 21 – Roger Clifford, English nobleman and knight (d. 1322)
January 28 – Chūgan Engetsu, Japanese poet and writer (d. 1375)
February 1 – Bolko II of Ziębice, Polish nobleman and knight (d. 1341)
April 4 – Constance of Aragon, Aragonese princess (infanta) (d. 1327)
June 1 – Thomas of Brotherton, English nobleman and prince (d. 1338)
September 27 – Adolf of the Rhine, German nobleman (d. 1327)
October 9 – John de Grey, English nobleman and knight (d. 1359)
December 22 – Khutughtu Khan Kusala, Mongol emperor (d. 1329)
Charles d'Artois, Neapolitan nobleman, knight and chancellor (d. 1346)
Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro, Italian bishop and theologian (d. 1342)
Gerard III, Dutch nobleman, knight, bailiff and rebel leader (d. 1358)
Guillaume de Harsigny, French doctor and court physician (d. 1393)
Guillaume de Machaut, French priest, poet and composer (d. 1377)
Immanuel Bonfils, French mathematician and astronomer (d. 1377)
Jakov of Serres, Serbian scholar, hierarch and translator (d. 1365)
Jeanne de Clisson, French noblewoman and privateer (d. 1359)
Joanna of Pfirt, German noblewoman (House of Habsburg) (d. 1351)
Johannes Tauler, German preacher, mystic and theologian (d. 1361)
John III, Dutch nobleman and knight (House of Reginar) (d. 1355)
John Sheppey, English administrator, treasurer and bishop (d. 1360)
Jordan of Quedlinburg, German preacher, hermit and writer (d. 1380)
Richard FitzRalph, Norman-Irish archbishop and theologian (d. 1360)
Simon Locard (or Lockhart), Scottish landowner and knight (d. 1371)
Thomas Bradwardine, English archbishop and theologian (d. 1349)
Deaths
January 14 – Isabella of Lusignan, French noblewoman (b. 1224)
February 19 – Munio of Zamora, Spanish friar and bishop (b. 1237)
July 18 – Gerard Segarelli, Italian founder of the Apostolic Brethren
September 24 – Edmund of Cornwall, English nobleman (b. 1249)
September 29 – Juliana FitzGerald, Norman noblewoman (b. 1263)
December 12 – Bartolo da San Gimignano, Italian priest (b. 1228)
Albert III, German nobleman, knight and co-ruler (House of Ascania)
Albertus de Chiavari, Italian priest, Master General and philosopher
Berengaria of Castile, Spanish noblewoman and princess (b. 1253)
Demetrios Pepagomenos, Byzantine physician, scientist and writer
Geoffrey de Mowbray, Scottish nobleman, knight and Chief Justiciar
Guido Cavalcanti, Italian poet and friend of Dante Alighieri (b. 1250)
Güneri of Karaman, Turkish nobleman (bey) (House of Karamanid)
Herman VIII, German nobleman and co-ruler (House of Zähringen)
Jeanne de Montfort de Chambéon, Swiss noblewoman and regent
Kangan Giin, Japanese Buddhist scholar and Zen Master (b. 1217)
Thomas de Somerville, Scottish nobleman and rebel leader (b. 1245)
Tran Hung Dao, Vietnamese Grand Prince and statesman (b. 1228)
William of Nangis, French monk, chronicler and historian (b. 1250)
References
Further reading
Alexandra Gajewski & Zoë Opacic (ed.), The Year 1300 and the Creation of a New European Architecture (Architectura Medii Aevi, 1), Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2007. |
35325 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1252 | 1252 | Year 1252 (MCCLII) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
April 6 – Saint Peter of Verona is assassinated by Carino of Balsamo.
May 15 – Pope Innocent IV issues the papal bull Ad exstirpanda, which authorizes the torture of heretics in the Medieval Inquisition. Torture quickly gains widespread usage across Catholic Europe.
June 1 – Alfonso X is proclaimed king of Castile and León.
July – The settlement of Stockholm in Sweden is founded, by Birger Jarl.
December 25 – Christopher I of Denmark is crowned King of Denmark, in the Lund Cathedral.
The Polish land of Lebus is incorporated into the German state of Brandenburg, marking the start of Brandenburg's expansion into previously Polish areas (Neumark).
The Lithuanian city of Klaipėda (Memel) is founded by the Teutonic Knights.
The town and monastery of Orval Abbey in Belgium burn to the ground; rebuilding takes 100 years.
Thomas Aquinas travels to the University of Paris, to begin his studies there for a master's degree.
In astronomy, work begins on the recording of the Alfonsine tables.
Asia
The classic Japanese text Jikkunsho is completed.
The Chinese era Chunyou ends.
The Mongols take the westernmost province of the Song dynasty empire.
Births
March 25 – Conradin, Duke of Swabia (d. 1268)
Safi-ad-din Ardabili, Persian Sufi leader
Eleanor de Montfort, Princess of Wales, English-born consort (d. 1282)
Deaths
January 1 – Saint Zdislava Berka, Bohemian lay Dominican benefactress
January 23 – Isabella, Queen of Armenia
January – Bohemond V, Prince of Antioch
February 3 – Sviatoslav III of Vladimir, Prince of Novgorod (b. 1196)
April 1 – Kujō Michiie, Japanese regent
April 6 – Saint Peter of Verona
May 3 or May 4 – Günther von Wüllersleben, Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights
May 30 – King Ferdinand III of Castile and Leon
June 6 – Robert Passelewe, Bishop of Chichester
June 9 – Otto I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg
June 29 – Abel, King of Denmark (b. 1218)
August 1 – Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, Italian chronicler of the Mongol Empire
November 27 – Blanche of Castile, queen of Louis VIII of France and regent of France (b. 1188)
date unknown
John of Basingstoke, English scholar and ecclesiastic
Henry I, Count of Anhalt
Sorghaghtani Beki, Mongolian empress and regent
Catherine Sunesdotter, Swedish queen consort
Yesü Möngke, Khan of the Chagatai Khanate
References |
35414 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/750 | 750 |
Year 750 (DCCL) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 750 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Events
By place
Arab Caliphate
January 25 – Battle of the Zab: Abbasid forces under Abdallah ibn Ali defeat the Umayyads near the Great Zab River. Members of the Umayyad house are hunted down and killed. Defeated by his rivals, Caliph Marwan II flees westward to Egypt, perhaps attempting to reach Al-Andalus (Iberian Peninsula), where there are still significant Umayyad armies.
August 6 – Marwan II is caught and killed at Faiyum by supporters of the Abbasid caliph As-Saffah. Almost the entire Umayyad Dynasty is assassinated; Prince Abd al-Rahman I escapes to Al-Andalus. The Abbasids assume control of the Islamic world and establish their first capital at Kufa.
Europe
King Alfonso I of Asturias establishes the Kingdom of Galicia, in roughly the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. The exact time this happened is contested.
The town Slaný in the Central Bohemian Region (Czech Republic) is founded at the site of a salt spring, according to one chronicle written in the sixteenth century (approximate date).
Britain
King Eadberht of Northumbria imprisons Cynewulf, bishop of Lindisfarne, at Bamburgh Castle. King Eadberht does this in order to punish the bishop for sheltering one of his enemies, Prince Offa. He then besieges Prince Offa, son of the late King Aldfrith, in Lindisfarne Priory. Almost dead from hunger, he is dragged from his sanctuary and put to death.
Battle of Mugdock: The Strathclyde Britons under King Teudebur defeat Prince Talorgan of the Picts. This leads to the decline of the power of King Óengus I.
Africa
The Ghana Empire begins (approximate date).
India
Gopala I is proclaimed as the first ruler and founder of the Pala Empire.
America
Native Americans, in the area now known as the Four Corners, begin constructing and occupying pueblos.
The city of Teotihuacan (modern Mexico) is destroyed and left in ruins, its palaces burned to the ground.
Indonesia
Borobudur, or Barabudur (a Mahayana Buddhist temple in Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia, as well as the world's largest Buddhist temple, and also one of the greatest Buddhist monuments in the world) is built (approximate date).
By topic
Art
The "Western Paradise" of Amitābha Buddha, detail of a wall painting in Cave 217, Dunhuang (China), is made during the Tang Dynasty (approximate date).
Food and drink
In China during the Tang Dynasty, a bargeload of tea (a medicinal herb) comes up the Grand Canal to Luoyang, from Zhejiang (approximate date).
Births
January 25 – Leo IV, Byzantine emperor (d. 780)
Abbas ibn al-Ahnaf, Abbasid poet (d. 809)
Abd al-Malik ibn Salih, Abbasid general (d. 812)
Arno, archbishop of Salzburg (approximate date)
Bermudo I, king of Asturias (approximate date)
Clement, Irish scholar and saint (approximate date)
Eigil of Fulda, Bavarian abbot (approximate date)
Hildegrim, bishop of Châlons (approximate date)
Leo III, pope of the Catholic Church (d. 816)
Ragnvald Sigurdsson, great-grandfather to Harald Hårfagre
Sawara, Japanese prince (approximate date)
Theodulf, bishop of Orléans (or 760)
Wu Shaocheng, general of the Tang Dynasty (d. 810)
Deaths
January 25 – Ibrahim ibn al-Walid, Umayyad caliph
August 6 – Marwan II, ruling Umayyad caliph (b. 688)
Abdallah ibn Abd al-Malik, Umayyad prince (or 749)
Agilulfus, bishop of Cologne (approximate date)
Al-Abbas ibn al-Walid, Umayyad prince and general
Basil the Confessor, Eastern Orthodox saint
Boruth, prince (knyaz) of Carantania (approximate date)
Bressal mac Áedo Róin, Dál Fiatach king of Ulaid
Burchard, bishop of Würzburg (approximate date)
Himelin, Scottish priest (approximate date)
Inreachtach mac Dluthach, king of Uí Maine (Ireland)
Irene of Khazaria, Byzantine empress (approximate date)
Isonokami no Otomaro, Japanese nobleman
Veborg, Scandinavian shieldmaiden (approximate date)
References
External links |
35497 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1277 | 1277 | Year 1277 (MCCLXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Byzantine Empire
March 19 – Byzantine–Venetian Treaty: Emperor Michael VIII (Palaiologos) concludes an agreement with the Republic of Venice. Stipulating a two-year truce, and renewing Venetian commercial privileges in the Byzantine Empire. Michael keeps the Venetians and their fleet from participating in the attempts of Charles I, king of Sicily, to organize an anti-Byzantine crusade, while the Venetians can retain their access to the Byzantine market.
Battle of Pharsalus: Michael VIII (Palaiologos) sends a Byzantine expeditionary army under John Synadenos to invade Thessaly. The Byzantines are ambushed and defeated by Greek forces under John I (Doukas), Latin ruler of Thessaly, near Pharsalus (or Old Pharsalus). During the battle, Synadenos is captured and Michael Kaballarios, commander of the Latin mercenaries, dies shortly afterward of his wounds.
Summer – Uprising of Ivaylo: A uprising under Ivaylo breaks out in northeastern Bulgaria against Emperor Constantine I Tikh to cope with the constant Mongol invasions which devastated the country for years. He confronts and defeats the plundering Mongols, and by autumn all Mongols are driven out of Bulgarian territory. In return, Constantine gathers a small army and tries unsuccessfully to suppress the revolt.
Europe
January 21 – Battle of Desio: Lombard forces under Archbishop Ottone Visconti defeat the Della Torre family troops for the rule of Milan. Later, Ottone enters the city in triumph, and imprisons Napoleone della Torre in the Castello Baradello at Como (Northern Italy).
March – Siger of Brabant, Dutch teacher and philosopher, is condemned by the French Inquisition for his advocacy of the Averroist doctrine that reason is separate from Christian faith.
March 18 – Charles I, king of Sicily, buys the title to the Kingdom of Jerusalem from Maria of Antioch, for 1,000 bezants and an annual payment of 4,000 livres tournois.
May 12 – Mehmet I of Karaman, Seljuk vizier, issues a firman (decree) ordering the Turkish language to be used, instead of Arabic or Persian in government offices.
August – Marinid forces led by Sultan Abu Yusuf cross the Strait of Gibraltar and marches north, ravaging the districts of Jerez de la Frontera, Seville and Córdoba.
England
November 10 – Treaty of Aberconwy: Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd and Edward I (Longshanks) sign a peace treaty which leaves Llywelyn only with the western part of Gwynedd.
Roger Bacon, Franciscan friar and University of Oxford lecturer, is arrested for spreading anti-Church views; specifically, the Church's stance on Greek philosopher Galen.
Levant
April 15 – Battle of Elbistan: A Mamluk army (some 14,000 men) under Sultan Baibars marches from Syria into the Mongol-dominated Sultanate of Rum and attacks the Mongol occupation force at Elbistan. Baibars, with at least 10,000 horsemen, defeats and overwhelms the Mongol forces. After the battle, he marches unopposed to Kayseri in the heart of Anatolia in triumph and enters the city on April 23.
Asia
Battle of Ngasaunggyan: A Burmese army (some 80,000 men) led by King Narathihapate (or Sithu IV) invades Mongol territory in Yunnan. The invasion is repelled by the Mongol forces, who counterattack, reaching as far south as the fortress city of Kaungsin ("Gold Teeth"), which guards the Bhamo Pass in northern Myanmar. Later, the Burmese Pagan Empire begins to disintegrate after several Mongol invasions under Kublai Khan.
Migration of the (Southern) Song Dynasty: Some 50,000 citizens of the Song Dynasty in China become the first recorded inhabitants of Macau, as they seek refuge from the invading armies of the Yuan Dynasty. They also stay for a short period in Kowloon (or New Kowloon).
In Japan, a 20 kilometer stone wall defending the coast of Hakata Bay at Fukuoka on the island of Kyushu is completed; it is built in response to the attempted invasion by the Mongol Yuan Dynasty (see 1274).
By topic
Religion
March 7 – Condemnation of 1277: Pope John XXI instructs Étienne Tempier, bishop of Paris, to investigate the complaints of theologians in France. By order 219 propositions of philosophical and theological doctrines such as Averroism are prohibited from discussion in the University of Paris, under a decree promulgated by Tempier.
April – John XXI sends a papal embassy to Constantinople to force Michael VIII (Palaiologos), his 18-year-old son and heir Andronikos, and Patriarch John XI Bekkos, to reaffirm their allegiance to the Union of Lyon in the Palace of Blachernae. Michael refuses to accept a religious union of the Greek Orthodox Church with Rome.
May 20 – John XXI dies after an 8-month pontificate at Viterbo. He is succeeded by Nicholas III as the 188th pope of the Catholic Church (until 1280).
Births
January 7 – Kanzan Egen, Japanese monk (d. 1360)
January 21 – Galeazzo I, Italian nobleman (d. 1328)
March 26 – Christina Ebner, German mystic (d. 1356)
April 17 – Michael IX, Byzantine emperor (d. 1320)
Akamatsu Enshin, Japanese governor (shugo) (d. 1350)
Bernard V, German bishop (House of Lippe) d. 1341)
George I Šubić of Bribir, Croatian nobleman (d. 1302)
Gerhard IV, German nobleman and knight (d. 1323)
Ingeborg Magnusdotter, queen of Denmark (d. 1319)
Isabella of Mar, wife of Robert I (the Bruce) (d. 1296)
Martha of Denmark, queen consort of Sweden (d. 1341)
Meihō Sotetsu, Japanese Zen Buddhist monk (d. 1350)
Smbat I (or Sempad), king of Cilician Armenia (d. 1310)
Wei Yilin, Chinese physician and surgeon (d. 1347)
Deaths
January 12 – Philippe de Toucy, French nobleman
January 17 – Chen Wenlong, Chinese general (b. 1232)
February 14 – Ulrich von Güttingen, German abbot
May 1 – Stefan Uroš I (the Great), king of Serbia
May 14 – Nicholas I of Werle, German nobleman
May 20 – John XXI, pope of the Catholic Church
July 1 – Baibars (or Abu al-Futuh), Mamluk sultan
July 14 – Humbert of Romans, French friar and writer
August 2 – Mu'in al-Din Parwana, Seljuk statesman
September 29 – Balian of Arsuf, Cypriot nobleman
October 17 – Beatrice of Falkenburg, German queen
October 26 – Mastino I della Scala, Italian nobleman
October 27 – Walter de Merton, bishop of Rochester
December 21 – Al-Nawawi, Seljuk scholar (b. 1233)
December 13 – John I, German nobleman (b. 1242)
Constantine I Tikh, Bulgarian nobleman and ruler
Folke Johansson (Angelus), Swedish archbishop
Frederick II, German nobleman (House of Isenburg)
Frederick of Castile, Spanish prince (infante) (b. 1223)
Guo Kan, Chinese general and politician (b. 1217)
Jacopo da Leona, Italian secretary, jurist and poet
Joachim Gutkeled, Hungarian nobleman and knight
Licoricia of Winchester, English businesswoman
Madog II ap Gruffydd, Welsh prince and nobleman
Mehmet I of Karaman, Seljuk nobleman and vizier
Muhammad I al-Mustansir, Hafsid sultan and writer
Muhaqqiq al-Hilli, Persian scholar, poet and writer
Paolo Navigajoso, Venetian nobleman (megadux)
Philip of Sicily, king of Sardinia (House of Anjou)
Savakanmaindan, Malayan ruler of Tambralinga
Simone Paltanieri, Italian archpriest and cardinal
Squarcino Borri (or Scarsini), Italian condottiero
Ulrich of Strasburg, German monk and theologian
William of Saliceto, Italian scholar and physician
References |
35636 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/396 | 396 |
Year 396 (CCCXCVI) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. In the Roman Empire, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Augustus and Augustus (or, less frequently, year 1149 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 396 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Events
By place
Roman Empire
Stilicho, Roman general (magister militum), controls the young emperor Honorius as his regent, and becomes the actual ruler of the Western Roman Empire. He enlists the Alemanni and the Franks, to defend the Rhine frontier.
The Visigoths, led by Alaric I, rampage through Greece and plunder Corinth, Argos and Sparta. They destroy the Temple of Eleusis, and harry the Peloponnese. Stilicho makes peace with the Goths, and allows them to settle in Epirus (Balkans).
China
Emperor Jìn Ān Dì, age 14, succeeds his father Emperor Xiaowu, as ruler of the Eastern Jin dynasty, after he is murdered by his concubine Honoured Lady Zhang.
Lü Guang claims the title "Heavenly Prince" (Tian Wang), signifying his claim to the Later Liang Kingdom.
Births
Petronius Maximus, Western Roman Emperor (approximate date)
Deaths
Duan Yuanfei, empress and wife of emperor Murong Chui
Dowager Helan, mother of emperor Wei Daowudi (b. 351)
Jin Xiaowudi, emperor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (b. 362)
Murong Chui, general and founder of Later Yan (b. 326)
References |
35719 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/584 | 584 |
Year 584 (DLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 584 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Events
By place
Europe
September – King Chilperic I is stabbed to death while returning from a hunt near Chelles, after a 23-year reign over a territory extending from Aquitaine, to the northern seacoast of what later will be France. His wife Fredegund, who has paid for his assassination, seizes his wealth, flees to Paris with her son Chlothar II, and persuades the nobles to accept him as legitimate heir while she serves as regent, continuing her power struggles with Guntram, king of Burgundy, and her sister Brunhilda, queen mother of Austrasia.
The Lombards re-establish a unified monarchy after a 10-year interregnum (Rule of the Dukes). Threatened by a Frankish invasion that the dukes have provoked, they elect Authari (son of Cleph) as their king and give him the capital of Pavia (Northern Italy).
The Visigoths under King Liuvigild capture the city of Seville, after a siege of nearly 2 years. His rebellious son Hermenegild seeks refuge in a church at Córdoba, but is arrested and banished to Tarragona. His wife Inguld flees with her son to Africa.
The Exarchate of Ravenna is founded, and organised into a group of duchies, mainly coastal cities on the Italian Peninsula. The civil and military head of these Byzantine territories is the exarch (governor) in Ravenna.
The Slavs push south on the Balkan Peninsula – partly in conjunction with the Avars under their ruler (khagan) Bayan I – ravaging the cities Athens and Corinth, and threatening the Long Walls of Constantinople.
King Eboric is deposed by his mother (second husband Andeca) who becomes the new ruler of the Kingdom of Galicia (Northern Spain) and the Suevi.
Gundoald, illegitimate son of Chlothar I, tries to expend his territory from Brive-la-Gaillarde (Burgundy) and proclaims himself king (approximate date).
Britain
Battle of Fethanleigh: King Ceawlin of Wessex is defeated by the Britons. He ravages the surrounding countryside in revenge (approximate date).
Asia
Emperor Wéndi of the Sui Dynasty organises the Grand Canal. He builds ships for transportation and grain stores are located at strategic points.
Births
Amand, bishop and saint (approximate date)
Chlothar II, king of the Franks (d. 629)
Yang Zhao, prince of the Sui Dynasty (d. 606)
Deaths
April 15 – Ruadhán of Lorrha, Irish abbot and saint
Chilperic I, king of Neustria (or Soissons)
Deiniol, bishop of Bangor (Wales)
Ingund, wife of Visigoth prince Hermenegild
Maurus, Roman abbot and saint (b. 512)
Approximate date – Bridei I, king of the Picts
References |
35802 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1784 | 1784 |
Events
January–March
January 6 – Treaty of Constantinople: The Ottoman Empire agrees to Russia's annexation of the Crimea.
January 14 – The Congress of the United States ratifies the Treaty of Paris with Great Britain to end the American Revolution, with the signature of President of Congress Thomas Mifflin.
January 15 – Henry Cavendish's paper to the Royal Society of London, Experiments on Air, reveals the composition of water.
February 24 – The Captivity of Mangalorean Catholics at Seringapatam begins.
February 28 – John Wesley ordains ministers for the Methodist Church in the United States.
March 1 – The Confederation Congress accepts Virginia's cession of all rights to the Northwest Territory and to Kentucky.
March 22 – The Emerald Buddha is installed at the Wat Phra Kaew, on the grounds of the Grand Palace in Bangkok.
April–June
April 23 – The Congress of the Confederation passes the Ordinance of Governance to set guidelines for adding to the original 13 states in the United States of America.
April 27 – The Marriage of Figaro, written by playwright Pierre Beaumarchais as a sequel to The Barber of Seville, premieres at the Comédie-Française in Paris.
May 12 – The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3 the previous year, comes into effect.
May 20 – A treaty is signed in Paris between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Dutch Republic, formally ending the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War.
June 4 – Élisabeth Thible is the first woman to ascend in a hot-air balloon, at Lyon, France.
July–September
July 9 – The Bank of New York opens as the first in New York state and continues to operate under that name for almost 223 years until being acquired by Mellon Financial and becoming BNY Mellon.
July 29 – The United States and the Kingdom of France sign a convention for establishing diplomatic relations and "determining the functions and prerogatives of their respective consuls, vice consuls, agents, and commissaries".
August 13 – The East India Company Act, sponsored by British Prime Minister William Pitt is given royal assent.
August 15 – Cardinal de Rohan is called before the French court to account for his actions, in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace.
August 16 – Britain creates the colony of New Brunswick.
September 19 – In France, the Robert brothers (Anne-Jean Robert and Nicolas-Louis Robert) and a Mr. Collin-Hullin (whose first name is lost to history) become the first people to fly more than 100 km or 100 miles in the air, lifting off from Paris and landing 6 hours and 40 minutes later near Bethune after a journey of .
September 22 – Russia establishes a colony at Kodiak, Alaska.
October–December
October 8 – "Kettle War", a 1-day action on the Scheldt in which a ship of the Dutch Republic repels forces of the Holy Roman Empire.
October 22 – North Carolina rescinds its resolution ceding its western territory (modern-day Tennessee) to the United States, after earlier giving Congress two years to accept the terms.
October 31–December 14 – The Revolt of Horea, Cloșca and Crișan in Transylvania causes Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor to suspend the Hungarian Constitution.
November 26 – The Roman Catholic Apostolic Prefecture of the United States is established.
November 27 – The phenomenon of black holes is first posited in a paper by John Michell, in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.
November 30 – Richard Henry Lee of Virginia is selected as the new President of the Confederation Congress.
December – Immanuel Kant's essay "Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment?" is published.
December 25 – The Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States is officially formed at the "Christmas Conference", led by Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury.
Date unknown
The India Act requires that the governor general be chosen from outside the British East India Company, and makes company directors subject to parliamentary supervision.
Britain receives its first bales of imported American cotton.
King Carlos III of the Spanish Empire authorizes land grants in Alta California.
Princess Yekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova is named first president of the newly created Russian Academy.
The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates the town of Morgansborough, named for Daniel Morgan. The town is designated as the county seat for Burke County, North Carolina and is subsequently renamed Morgan, later shortened to Morganton.
The North Carolina General Assembly changes the name of Kingston, North Carolina, originally named for King George III of Great Britain, to Kinston.
The Japanese famine continues as 300,000 die of starvation.
A huge locust swarm hits South Africa.
Foundation of the first theater in Estonia, the Tallinna saksa teater.
Benjamin Franklin invents bifocal spectacles.
Benjamin Franklin tries in vain to persuade the French to alter their clocks in winter to take advantage of the daylight.
Antoine Lavoisier pioneers quantitative chemistry.
Cholesterol is isolated.
Carl Friedrich Gauss pioneers the field of summation with the formula summing at the age of 7.
Madame du Coudray, pioneer of modern midwifery, retires.
Births
January 17 – Philippe Antoine d’Ornano, Marshal of France (d. 1863)
January 28 – George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1860)
February 5 – Nancy Hanks, mother of Abraham Lincoln (d. 1818)
February 20 – John E. Wool, general officer in the United States Army, who served during the War of 1812, Mexican–American War, and the American Civil War (d. 1869)
February 29 – Leo von Klenze, German neoclassicist architect, painter and writer (d. 1864)
March 12 – William Buckland, English geologist, paleontologist (d. 1856)
March 22 – Samuel Hunter Christie, English physicist, mathematician (d. 1865)
March 23 – Tom Molineaux, African-American boxer (d. 1818)
March 27 – Jonathan Jennings, American politician and the first governor of Indiana (d. 1834)
April 5 – Louis Spohr, German violinist, composer (d. 1859)
April 13 – Friedrich Graf von Wrangel, Prussian field marshal (d. 1877)
April 24 – Peter Vivian Daniel, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1860)
June 24 – Juan Antonio Lavalleja, Uruguayan military, political figure (d. 1853)
July 21 – Charles Baudin, French admiral (d. 1854)
July 22 – Friedrich Bessel, German mathematician, astronomer (d. 1846)
July 27 – Denis Davydov, Russian general, poet (d. 1839)
August 18 – Robert Taylor, British Radical writer, freethought advocate (d. 1844)
September 4 – William Pope Duval, first civilian governor of the Florida Territory (d. 1854)
October 13 – King Ferdinand VII of Spain (d. 1833)
October 15 – Thomas Robert Bugeaud, Marshal of France and duke of Isly (d. 1849)
October 19
Leigh Hunt, British critic, essayist (d. 1859)
John McLoughlin, Canadian fur trader (d. 1857)
October 20 – Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1865)
October – Sarah Biffen, armless English painter (d. 1850)
November 24 – Zachary Taylor, 12th President of the United States (d. 1850)
November 27 – August, Prince of Hohenlohe-Öhringen (d. 1853)
Deaths
February 4 – Princess Friederike Luise of Prussia, Prussian princess (b. 1714)
February 27 – Count of St. Germain, French philosopher, adventurer (b. 1710)
March 26 – Thomas Bond, American physician and surgeon (b. 1712)
March 27 – Ralph Bigland, British officer of arms (b. 1712)
March 31 – Thomas Adam, Clergyman, religious writer (b. 1701)
April 26 – Nano Nagle, Irish convent founder (b. 1718)
April 29 – Agustín de Jáuregui, Spanish colonial governor (b. 1711)
May 3 – Anthony Benezet, French-born American abolitionist and educator (b. 1713)
May 10 – Antoine Court de Gébelin, French pastor (b. 1725)
May 12 – Abraham Trembley, Swiss naturalist (b. 1710)
June 8 – Lukrecija Bogašinović Budmani, Croatian poet (b. 1710)
June 13 – Henry Middleton, American president of the Continental Congress (b. 1717)
June 14 – Andrzej Mokronowski, Polish general (b. 1713)
June 26 – Caesar Rodney, American lawyer, signer of the United States Declaration of Independence (b. 1728)
July 1 – Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, German composer (b. 1710)
July 31 – Denis Diderot, French philosopher, encyclopedist (b. 1713)
August 4 – Giovanni Battista Martini, Italian musician (b. 1706)
August 10 – Allan Ramsay, Scottish portrait-painter (b. 1713)
August 14 – Nathaniel Hone, Irish-born painter (b. 1718)
August 28 – Junípero Serra, Spanish Franciscan missionary (b. 1713)
September 1 – Jean-François Séguier, French astronomer and botanist (b. 1703)
September 4 – César-François Cassini de Thury, French astronomer (b. 1714)
September 8 – Ann Lee, American religious leader (b. 1736)
September 15 – Nicolas Bernard Lépicié, French painter (b. 1735)
November 1 – Jean-Jacques Lefranc, Marquis de Pompignan, French polymath, author and poet (b. 1709)
November 9 – George Baylor, officer in the American Continental Army (b. 1752)
December 5 – Phillis Wheatley, first published African-American author (b. 1753)
December 13 – Samuel Johnson, English writer, lexicographer (b. 1709)
December 25 – Yosa Buson, Japanese poet, painter (b. 1716)
December 26 – Seth Warner, American revolutionary leader (b. 1743)
date unknown – Lê Quý Đôn, Vietnamese philosopher, poet, encyclopedist, and government official (b. 1726)
date unknown – Raja Haji Fisabilillah, Buginese monarch of the Johor Sultanate, warrior, emperor, and government official
References
Further reading
Leap years in the Gregorian calendar |
35888 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/825 | 825 |
Year 825 (DCCCXXV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
India
A group of Persio-Assyrian adherents of the Church of the East, under the leadership of two Persian bishops Prod (or Proth, also known as Aphroth) and Sappor (also known as Sabrisho), reach Kerala, India and reside in Quilon.
Europe
Emperor Louis the Pious begins a military campaign against the Wends and Sorbs. Duke Tunglo surrenders his son as hostage, and submits to Frankish rule (approximate date).
Grímur Kamban becomes the first man to set foot in the Faroe Islands, and settles down in Funningur, on the northwest coast of Eysturoy (beginning the Norwegian Viking era on the islands).
Murcia is founded by the emir of Cordoba Abd ar-Rahman II.
Britain
Battle of Ellandun: King Egbert of Wessex defeats Beornwulf of Mercia near Swindon. The battle marks the end of the Mercian domination of southern England. The kingdoms of Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Essex submit to Wessex, and East Anglia acknowledges Egbert as overlord (bretwalda).
King Hywel ap Rhodri of Gwynedd dies after an 11-year reign. The kingdom is seized by his grand-nephew, Merfyn Frych of Man.
Battle of Gafulford: The men of Cornish Dumnonia clash with the West Saxons at modern-day Camelford (approximate date).
By topic
Religion
Borobudur, a Mahayana Buddhist Temple, is completed in Central Java (modern Indonesia).
Births
Ariwara no Narihira, Japanese waka poet (d. 880)
Charles, Frankish bishop and archchancellor (or 830)
Fujiwara no Yasunori, Japanese nobleman (d. 895)
Landulf II, bishop and count of Capua (approximate date)
Louis II, king of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor (d. 875)
Muhammad ibn Abdallah, Muslim governor (or 824)
Ono no Komachi, Japanese poet (approximate date)
Tsunesada, Japanese prince (d. 884)
Deaths
Abu Ubaidah, Muslim scholar (b. 728)
Hywel ap Rhodri, king of Gwynedd (Wales)
Ida of Herzfeld, Frankish noblewoman (approximate date)
Liu Wu, general of the Tang Dynasty
Máel Bressail mac Ailillo, king of Ulaid (Ireland)
Song Ruozhao, Chinese scholar, lady-in-waiting and poet (b. 770)
Rampon, count of Barcelona
Welf, father of Judith of Bavaria
Wihomarc, Breton chieftain
References |
36060 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1190s | 1190s | The 1190s was a decade of the Julian Calendar which began on January 1, 1190, and ended on December 31, 1199.
Significant people
References |
36209 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/954 | 954 | Year 954 (CMLIV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
Spring – A Hungarian army led by Bulcsú crosses the Rhine. He camps at Worms in the capital of his ally Conrad the Red, duke of Lorraine. Bulcsú heads west, attacking the domains of King Otto I, by crossing the rivers Moselle and Maas.
April 6–10 – The Hungarians besiege Cambrai and burn its suburbs, but they are unable to conquer the city. One of Bulcsú's relatives is killed by the defenders, who refuse to pass his body over to the Hungarians. As a revenge, they kill all their captives.
The Hungarians plunder the regions of Hesbaye and Carbonaria (modern Belgium). They plunder and burn the monastery of Saint Lambert from Hainaut, the monastery of Moorsel, sack the cities of Gembloux and Tournai.
Summer – The Hungarians plunder the surroundings of Laon, Reims, Chalon, Metz, and Gorze. After that, they return to Burgundy. In Provence, the Hungarians battle with the Moors from the Muslim enclave of Fraxinet.
September 10 – King Louis IV (d'Outremer) dies after a hunting accident (near his palace in Corbeny). He is succeeded by his 13-year-old son Lothair III under the guardianship of Hugh the Great, count of Paris.
November 12 – Lothair III is crowned by Artald, archbishop of Reims, at the Abbey of Saint-Remi as king of the West Frankish Kingdom. His mother, Queen Gerberga of Saxony, appoints Hugh the Great as regent.
Winter – At the Reichstag in Auerstedt assembled by Otto I, his son Liudolf (duke of Swabia) and Conrad the Red submit to Otto's rule. They are stripped of their duchies, but several rebel nobles continue to resist.
British Isles
King Eric I (Bloodaxe) is killed at Stainmore allowing King Eadred to recover York, reuniting Northumbria with that of All England. High-Reeve Osulf I of Bamburgh is appointed ealdorman ("earl") of Northumbria.
King Malcolm I is killed in battle against the Northmen after an 11-year reign. He is succeeded by Indulf, the son of the late King Constantine II, as ruler of Alba (Scotland).
By topic
Religion
Duke Alberic II, princeps and ruler of Rome, dies after a 22-year reign. On his deathbed he nominates his son Octavianus as his successor.
Seborga (modern-day Liguria) comes under the jurisdiction of the Benedictine monks of Santo Onorato of Lérins.
Births
Fujiwara no Yoshitaka, Japanese waka poet (d. 974)
Malcolm II, king of Alba (Scotland) (approximate date)
Ōnakatomi no Sukechika, Japanese waka poet (d. 1038)
Otto I, duke of Swabia and Bavaria (d. 982)
Wang Yucheng, Chinese official and poet (d. 1001)
Deaths
January 25 – Ashot II, prince of Tao-Klarjeti (Georgia)
February 22 – Guo Wei, emperor of the Later Zhou (b. 904)
May 21 – Feng Dao, Chinese prince and chancellor (b. 882)
September 10 – Louis IV, king of the West Frankish Kingdom
Abul-Aish Ahmad, Idrisid ruler and sultan (Morocco)
Alberic II, princeps and duke of Spoleto (b. 912)
Cellachán Caisil, king of Munster (Ireland)
Eric I (Bloodaxe), Norwegian Viking king
Frederick, archbishop (elector) of Mainz
Fujiwara no Onshi, empress of Japan (b. 885)
Li, Chinese empress dowager of the Later Han
Liu Chong, founder of the Northern Han
Malcolm I, king of Alba (Scotland)
Nuh ibn Nasr, Samanid emir
References |
36296 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1030s | 1030s | The 1030s was a decade of the Julian Calendar which began on January 1, 1030, and ended on December 31, 1039.
Significant people
Al-Qadir caliph of Baghdad
Abu Ja'far al-Qa'im caliph of Baghdad
Al-Zahir li-i'zaz Din Allah caliph of Cairo
Godwin, Earl of Wessex
References |
36382 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/678 | 678 |
Year 678 (DCLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 678 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Events
By place
Byzantine Empire
July 27 – The Siege of Thessalonica (676–678) ends, when the Sclaveni withdraw.
Autumn – Siege of Constantinople: Emperor Constantine IV confronts the Arab besiegers in a head-on engagement. The Byzantine fleet, equipped with Greek fire, destroys the Muslim fleet at Sillyon, ending the Arab threat to Europe, and forcing Yazid (a son of caliph Muawiyah I) to lift the siege on land and sea. The victory also frees up forces that are sent to raise the two-year siege of Thessalonica by the local Slavic tribes.
Britain
King Æthelred of Mercia defeats the Northumbrian forces under King Ecgfrith, in a battle near the River Trent. Archbishop Theodore helps to resolve differences between the two, Æthelred agreeing to pay a weregild to avoid any resumption of hostilities (approximate date).
Japan
April 27 – Emperor Tenmu holds divination for the purpose of proceeding to the Abstinence Palace.
May 3 – Princess Tōchi suddenly takes ill and dies within the palace. Tenmu, her father, is unable to sacrifice to the Gods of Heaven and Earth.
May 10 – Tōchi is buried at a place which could be Akō (Hyōgo Prefecture). Tenmu is graciously pleased to raise lament for her.
By topic
Religion
Wilfrid, bishop of York, is at the height of his power and owns vast estates throughout Northumbria. After his refusal to agree to a division of his see, Ecgfrith and Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, have him banished from Northumbria.
April 11 – Pope Donus dies at Rome, after a reign of 1 year and 160 days. He is succeeded by Agatho I, who becomes the 79th pope. He is the first pope to stop paying tribute to Emperor Constantine IV upon election.
In Japan, the national worshiping to the Gods of Heaven and Earth is planned. Tenmu tries to select his daughter Tōchi as a Saiō to make her serve the Gods. However, Tōchi suddenly takes ill and dies.
The Beomeosa temple complex in Geumjeong-gu (modern South Korea) is constructed, during the reign of King Munmu of Silla.
Births
Childebert III, Merovingian Frankish king and son of Theuderic III
Childebrand I, duke of Burgundy (d. 751)
K'inich Ahkal Mo' Naab' III, Maya ruler of Palenque
Deaths
April 11 – Pope Donus
May 3 – Tōchi, Japanese princess
Abdullah ibn Aamir, Arab general (b. 626)
Ælfwine, king of Deira (approximate date)
Aisha, wife of Muhammad
Arbogast, bishop of Strasbourg
Nathalan, Scottish bishop
Wechtar, Lombard duke of Friuli
Zhang Wenguan, chancellor of the Tang dynasty (b. 606)
References
Sources |
36541 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First%20transcontinental%20railroad | First transcontinental railroad | North America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa, with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay. The rail line was built by three private companies over public lands provided by extensive US land grants. Building was financed by both state and US government subsidy bonds as well as by company-issued mortgage bonds. The Western Pacific Railroad Company built of track from the road's western terminus at Alameda/Oakland to Sacramento, California. The Central Pacific Railroad Company of California (CPRR) constructed east from Sacramento to Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. The Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) built from the road's eastern terminus at the Missouri River settlements of Council Bluffs and Omaha, Nebraska, westward to Promontory Summit.
The railroad opened for through traffic between Sacramento and Omaha on May 10, 1869, when CPRR President Leland Stanford ceremonially tapped the gold "Last Spike" (later often referred to as the "Golden Spike") with a silver hammer at Promontory Summit. In the following six months, the last leg from Sacramento to San Francisco Bay was completed. The resulting coast-to-coast railroad connection revolutionized the settlement and economy of the American West. It brought the western states and territories into alignment with the northern Union states and made transporting passengers and goods coast-to-coast considerably quicker, safer and less expensive.
The first transcontinental rail passengers arrived at the Pacific Railroad's original western terminus at the Alameda Terminal on September 6, 1869, where they transferred to the steamer Alameda for transport across the Bay to San Francisco. The road's rail terminus was moved two months later to the Oakland Long Wharf, about a mile to the north, when its expansion was completed and opened for passengers on November 8, 1869. Service between San Francisco and Oakland Pier continued to be provided by ferry.
The CPRR eventually purchased of UPRR-built grade from Promontory Summit (MP 828) to Ogden, Utah Territory (MP 881), which became the interchange point between trains of the two roads. The transcontinental line became popularly known as the Overland Route after the name of the principal passenger rail service to Chicago that operated over the length of the line until 1962.
Origins
Among the early proponents of building a railroad line that would connect the coasts of the United States was Dr. Hartwell Carver, who in 1847 submitted to the U.S. Congress a "Proposal for a Charter to Build a Railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean", seeking a congressional charter to support his idea.
Preliminary exploration
Congress agreed to support the idea. Under the direction of the Department of War, the Pacific Railroad Surveys were conducted from 1853 through 1855. These included an extensive series of expeditions of the American West seeking possible routes. A report on the explorations described alternative routes and included an immense amount of information about the American West, covering at least . It included the region's natural history and illustrations of reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals.
The report failed, however, to include detailed topographic maps of potential routes needed to estimate the feasibility, cost and select the best route. The survey was detailed enough to determine that the best southern route lay south of the Gila River boundary with Mexico in mostly vacant desert, through the future territories of Arizona and New Mexico. This in part motivated the United States to complete the Gadsden Purchase.
In 1856 the Select Committee on the Pacific Railroad and Telegraph of the US House of Representatives published a report recommending support for a proposed Pacific railroad bill:
Possible routes
The U.S. Congress was strongly divided on where the eastern terminus of the railroad should be—in a southern or northern city. Three routes were considered:
A northern route roughly along the Missouri River through present-day northern Montana to Oregon Territory. This was considered impractical because of the rough terrain and extensive winter snows.
A central route following the Platte River in Nebraska through to the South Pass in Wyoming, following most of the Oregon Trail. Snow on this route remained a concern.
A southern route across Texas, New Mexico Territory, the Sonora desert, connecting to Los Angeles, California. Surveyors found during an 1848 survey that the best route lay south of the border between the United States and Mexico. This was resolved by the Gadsden Purchase in 1853.
Once the central route was chosen, it was immediately obvious that the western terminus should be Sacramento. But there was considerable difference of opinion about the eastern terminus. Three locations along of Missouri River were considered:
St. Joseph, Missouri, accessed via the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad.
Kansas City, Kansas / Leavenworth, Kansas, accessed via the Leavenworth, Pawnee and Western Railroad, controlled by Thomas Ewing Jr. and later by John C. Frémont.
Council Bluffs, Iowa / Omaha, Nebraska, accessed via an extension of Union Pacific financier Thomas C. Durant's proposed Mississippi and Missouri Railroad and the new Union Pacific Railroad, also controlled by Durant.
Council Bluffs had several advantages: It was well north of the Civil War fighting in Missouri; it was the shortest route to South Pass in the Rockies in Wyoming; and it would follow a fertile river that would encourage settlement. Durant had hired the future president Abraham Lincoln in 1857 when he was an attorney to represent him in a business matter about a bridge over the Missouri. Now Lincoln was responsible for choosing the eastern terminus, and he relied on Durant's counsel. Durant advocated for Omaha, and he was so confident of the choice that he began buying up land in Nebraska.
Key individuals
Asa Whitney
One of the most prominent champions of the central route railroad was Asa Whitney. He envisioned a route from Chicago and the Great Lakes to northern California, paid for by the sale of land to settlers along the route. Whitney traveled widely to solicit support from businessmen and politicians, printed maps and pamphlets, and submitted several proposals to Congress, all at his own expense. In June 1845, he led a team along part of the proposed route to assess its feasibility.
Legislation to begin construction of the Pacific Railroad (called the Memorial of Asa Whitney) was first introduced to Congress by Representative Zadock Pratt. Congress did not immediately act on Whitney's proposal.
Theodore Judah
Theodore Judah was a fervent supporter of the central route railroad. He lobbied vigorously in favor of the project and undertook the survey of the route through the rugged Sierra Nevada, one of the chief obstacles of the project.
In 1852, Judah was chief engineer for the newly formed Sacramento Valley Railroad, the first railroad built west of the Mississippi River. Although the railroad later went bankrupt once the easy placer gold deposits around Placerville, California, were depleted, Judah was convinced that a properly financed railroad could pass from Sacramento through the Sierra Nevada mountains to reach the Great Basin and hook up with rail lines coming from the East.
In 1856, Judah wrote a 13,000-word proposal in support of a Pacific railroad and distributed it to Cabinet secretaries, congressmen and other influential people. In September 1859, Judah was chosen to be the accredited lobbyist for the Pacific Railroad Convention, which indeed approved his plan to survey, finance and engineer the road. Judah returned to Washington in December 1859. He had a lobbying office in the United States Capitol, received an audience with President James Buchanan, and represented the Convention before Congress.
Judah returned to California in 1860. He continued to search for a more practical route through the Sierra suitable for a railroad. In mid-1860, local miner Daniel Strong had surveyed a route over the Sierra for a wagon toll road, which he realized would also suit a railroad. He described his discovery in a letter to Judah. Also in 1860, Charles Marsh, a surveyor, civil engineer and water company owner, met with civil engineer Judah. Marsh, who had already surveyed a potential railroad route between Sacramento and Nevada City, California, a decade earlier, went with Judah into the Sierra Nevada Mountains. There they examined the Henness Pass Turnpike Company’s route (Marsh was a founding director of that company). They measured elevations and distances and discussed the possibility of a transcontinental railroad. Both were convinced that it could be done. Judah, Marsh and Strong then met with merchants and businessmen to solicit investors in their proposed railroad.
From January or February 1861 until July, Judah and Strong led a 10-person expedition to survey the route for the railroad over the Sierra Nevada through Clipper Gap and Emigrant Gap, over Donner Pass, and south to Truckee. They discovered a way across the Sierras that was gradual enough to be made suitable for a railroad, although it still needed a lot of work.
The Big Four
Four northern California businessmen formed the Central Pacific Railroad: Leland Stanford, (1824–1893), President; Collis Potter Huntington, (1821–1900), Vice President; Mark Hopkins, (1813–1878), Treasurer; Charles Crocker, (1822–1888), Construction Supervisor. All became substantially wealthy from their association with the railroad. Judah, Marsh, Strong, Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins and Crocker, along with James Bailey and Lucius Anson Booth, became the first board of directors of the Central Pacific Railroad.
Thomas Durant
Former ophthalmologist Dr. Thomas Clark "Doc" Durant was nominally only a vice president of Union Pacific, so he installed a series of respected men like John Adams Dix as president of the railroad. Durant and its financing arrangements were, unlike those of the CPRR, mired in controversy and scandals.
Authorization and funding
In February 1860, Iowa Representative Samuel Curtis introduced a bill to fund the railroad. It passed the House but died when it could not be reconciled with the Senate version because of opposition from southern states who wanted a southern route near the 42nd parallel. Curtis tried and failed again in 1861. After the southern states seceded from the Union, the House of Representatives approved the bill on May 6, 1862, and the Senate on June 20. Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 into law on July 1. It authorized creation of two companies, the Central Pacific in the west and the Union Pacific in the mid-west, to build the railroad. The legislation called for building and operating a new railroad from the Missouri River at Council Bluffs, Iowa, west to Sacramento, California, and on to San Francisco Bay. Another act to supplement the first was passed in 1864. The Pacific Railroad Act of 1863 established the standard gauge to be used in these federally financed railways.
Federal financing
To finance the project, the act authorized the federal government to issue 30-year U.S. government bonds (at 6% interest). The railroad companies were paid $16,000 per mile (approximately $ per mile today) for track laid on a level grade, $32,000 per mile (about $ per mile today) for track laid in foothills, and $48,000 per mile (or about $ per mile today) for track laid in mountains. The two railroad companies sold similar amounts of company-backed bonds and stock.
Union Pacific financing
While the federal legislation for the Union Pacific required that no partner was to own more than 10 percent of the stock, the Union Pacific had problems selling its stock. One of the few subscribers was The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints leader Brigham Young, who also supplied crews for building much of the railroad through Utah. Durant enticed other investors by offering to front money for the stock they purchased in their names. This scheme enabled Durant to control about half of the railroad stock. The initial construction of Union Pacific grade traversed land owned by Durant. Durant's railroad was paid by the mile, and to further inflate its profits, the Union Pacific built oxbows of unneeded track, and by July 4, 1865, it had only reached from Omaha after 2½ years of construction.
Durant manipulated market prices on his stocks by spreading rumors about which railroads he had an interest in were being considered for connection with the Union Pacific. First he touted rumors that his fledgling M&M Railroad had a deal in the works, while secretly buying stock in the depressed Cedar Rapids and Missouri Railroad. Then he circulated rumors that the CR&M had plans to connect to the Union Pacific, at which point he began buying back the M&M stock at depressed prices. It's estimated his scams produced over $5 million in profits for him and his cohorts.
Central Pacific financing
Collis Huntington, a Sacramento hardware merchant, heard Judah's presentation about the railroad at the St. Charles Hotel in November 1860. He invited Judah to his office to hear his proposal in detail. Huntington persuaded Judah to accept financing from himself and four others: Mark Hopkins, his business partner; James Bailey, a jeweler; Leland Stanford, a grocer; and Charles Crocker, a dry-goods merchant. They initially invested $1,500 each and formed a board of directors. These investors became known as The Big Four, and their railroad was called the Central Pacific Railroad. Each eventually made millions of dollars from their investments and control of the Central Pacific Railroad.
Before major construction could begin, Judah traveled back to New York City to raise funds to buy out The Big Four. However, shortly after arriving in New York, Judah died on November 2, 1863, of yellow fever that he had contracted while traveling over the Panama Railroad's transit of the Isthmus of Panama. The CPRR Engineering Department was taken over by his successor Samuel S. Montegue, as well as Canadian trained Chief Assistant Engineer (later Acting Chief Engineer) Lewis Metzler Clement who also became Superintendent of Track.
Land grants
To allow the companies to raise additional capital, Congress granted the railroads a right-of-way corridor, lands for additional facilities like sidings and maintenance yards. They were also granted alternate sections of government-owned lands— per mile (1.6 km)—for on both sides of the track, forming a checkerboard pattern. The railroad companies were given the odd-numbered sections while the federal government retained the even-numbered sections. The exception was in cities, at rivers, or on non-government property. The railroads sold bonds based on the value of the lands, and in areas with good land like the Sacramento Valley and Nebraska sold the land to settlers, contributing to a rapid settlement of the West. The total area of the land grants to the Union Pacific and Central Pacific was larger than the area of the state of Texas: federal government land grants totaled about 130,000,000 acres, and state government land grants totaled about 50,000,000 acres.
It was far from a given that the railroads operating in the thinly-settled west would make enough money to repay their construction and operation. If the railroad companies failed to sell the land granted them within three years, they were required to sell it at prevailing government price for homesteads: . If they failed to repay the bonds, all remaining railroad property, including trains and tracks, would revert to the U.S. government. To encourage settlement in the west, Congress (1861–1863) passed the Homestead Acts which granted an applicant of land with the requirement that the applicant improve the land. This incentive encouraged thousands of settlers to move west.
Railroad self-dealing
The federal legislation lacked adequate oversight and accountability. The two companies took advantage of these weaknesses in the legislation to manipulate the project and produce extra profit for themselves. Despite the generous subsidies offered by the federal government, the railroad capitalists knew they would not turn a profit on the railroad business for many months, possibly years. They determined to make a profit on the construction itself. Both groups of financiers formed independent companies to complete the project, and they controlled management of the new companies along with the railroad ventures. This self-dealing allowed them to build in generous profit margins paid out by the railroad companies. In the west, the four men heading the Central Pacific chose a simple name for their company, the "Contract and Finance Company." In the east, the Union Pacific selected a foreign name, calling their construction firm "Crédit Mobilier of America." The latter company was later implicated in a far-reaching scandal which would greatly effect the railroads purpose, described later.
Also, the lack of federal oversight provided both companies with incentives to continue building their railroads past one other, since they were each being paid, and receiving land grants, based on how many miles of track they laid, even though only one track would eventually be used. This tacitly-agreed profiteering activity was captured (probably accidentally) by Union Pacific photographer Andrew J. Russell in his images of the Promontory Trestle construction.
Labor and wages
Many of the civil engineers and surveyors who were hired by the Union Pacific had been employed during the American Civil War to repair and operate the over of railroad line the U.S. Military Railroad controlled by the end of the war. The Union Pacific also utilized their experience repairing and building truss bridges during the war. Most of the semi-skilled workers on the Union Pacific were recruited from the many soldiers discharged from the Union and Confederate armies along with emigrant Irishmen.
After 1864, the Central Pacific Railroad received the same Federal financial incentives as the Union Pacific Railroad, along with some construction bonds granted by the state of California and the city of San Francisco. The Central Pacific hired some Canadian and European civil engineers and surveyors with extensive experience building railroads, but it had a difficult time finding semi-skilled labor. Most Caucasians in California preferred to work in the mines or agriculture. The railroad experimented by hiring local emigrant Chinese as manual laborers, many of whom were escaping the poverty and terrors of the war in the Sze Yup districts in the Pearl River Delta of Guangdong province in China. When they proved themselves as workers, the CPRR from that point forward preferred to hire Chinese, and even set up recruiting efforts in Canton. Despite their small stature and lack of experience, the Chinese laborers were responsible for most of the heavy manual labor since only a very limited amount of that work could be done by animals, simple machines, or black powder. The railroad also hired some black people escaping the aftermath of the American Civil War. Most of the black and white workers were paid $30 per month and given food and lodging. Most Chinese were initially paid $31 per month and provided lodging, but they preferred to cook their own meals. In 1867 the CPRR raised their wage to $35 (equivalent to $ in ) per month after a strike. CPRR came to see the advantage of good workers employed at low wages: "Chinese labor proved to be Central Pacific's salvation."
Transcontinental route
Construction begun
The Central Pacific broke ground on January 8, 1863. Because of insufficient transportation alternatives from the manufacturing centers on the east coast, virtually all of their tools and machinery including rails, railroad switches, railroad turntables, freight and passenger cars, and steam locomotives were transported first by train to east coast ports. They were then loaded on ships which either sailed around South America's Cape Horn, or offloaded the cargo at the Isthmus of Panama, where it was sent across via paddle steamer and the Panama Railroad. The Panama Railroad gauge was , which was incompatible with the gauge used by the CPRR equipment. The latter route was about twice as expensive per pound. Once the machinery and tools reached the San Francisco Bay area, they were put aboard river paddle steamers which transported them up the final of the Sacramento River to the new state capital in Sacramento. Many of these steam engines, railroad cars, and other machinery were shipped dismantled and had to be reassembled. Wooden timbers for railroad ties, trestles, bridges, firewood, and telegraph poles were harvested in California and transported to the project site.
The Union Pacific Railroad did not start construction for another 18 months until July 1865. They were delayed by difficulties obtaining financial backing and the unavailability of workers and materials due to the Civil War. Their start point in the new city of Omaha, Nebraska, was not yet connected via railroad to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Equipment needed to begin work was initially delivered to Omaha and Council Bluffs by paddle steamers on the Missouri River. The Union Pacific was so slow in beginning construction during 1865 that they sold two of the four steam locomotives they had purchased.
After the U.S. Civil War ended in 1865, the Union Pacific still competed for railroad supplies with companies who were building or repairing railroads in the south, and prices rose.
Rail standards
At that time in the United States, there were two primary standards for track gauge, as defined by the distance between the two rails. In Britain, the gauge was , and this had been adopted by the majority of northern railways. But much of the south had adopted a gauge. Transferring railway cars across a break of gauge required changing out the trucks. Alternatively, cargo was offloaded and reloaded, a time-consuming effort that delayed cargo shipments. For the transcontinental railroad, the builders adopted what is now known as the standard gauge.
The Bessemer process and open hearth furnace steel-making were in use by 1865, but the advantages of steel rails which lasted much longer than iron rails had not yet been demonstrated. The rails used initially in building the railway were nearly all made of an iron flat-bottomed modified I-beam profile weighing or . The railroad companies were intent on completing the project as rapidly as possible at a minimum cost. Within a few years, nearly all railroads converted to steel rails.
Time zones and telegraph usage
Time was not standardized across the United States and Canada until November 18, 1883. In 1865, each railroad set its own time to minimize scheduling errors. To communicate easily up and down the line, the railroads built telegraph lines alongside the tracks. These lines eventually superseded the original First Transcontinental Telegraph which followed much of the Mormon Trail up the North Platte River and across the very thinly populated Central Nevada Route through central Utah and Nevada. The telegraph lines along the railroad were easier to protect and maintain. Many of the original telegraph lines were abandoned as the telegraph business was consolidated with the railroad telegraph lines.
Union Pacific route
The Union Pacific's of track started at MP 0.0 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on the eastern side of the Missouri River. Omaha was chosen by President Abraham Lincoln as the location of its Transfer Depot where up to seven railroads could transfer mail and other goods to Union Pacific trains bound for the west.
Trains were initially transported across the Missouri River by ferry before they could access the western tracks beginning in Omaha, Nebraska Territory. The river froze in the winter, and the ferries were replaced by sleighs. A bridge was not built until 1872, when the Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge was completed.
After the rail line's initial climb through the Missouri River bluffs west of Omaha and out of the Missouri River Valley, the route bridged the Elkhorn River and then crossed over the new Loup River bridge as it followed the north side of the Platte River valley west through Nebraska along the general path of the Oregon, Mormon and California Trails.
By December 1865, the Union Pacific had only completed of track, reaching Fremont, Nebraska, and a further of roadbed.
At the end of 1865, Peter A. Dey, Chief Engineer of the Union Pacific, resigned over a routing dispute with Thomas C. Durant, one of the chief financiers of the Union Pacific.
With the end of the Civil War and increased government supervision in the offing, Durant hired his former M&M engineer Grenville M. Dodge to build the railroad, and the Union Pacific began a mad dash west.
Former Union General John "Jack" Casement was hired as the new Chief Engineer of the Union Pacific. He equipped several railroad cars to serve as portable bunkhouses for the workers and gathered men and supplies to push the railroad rapidly west. Among the bunkhouses, Casement added a galley car to prepare meals, and he even provided for a herd of cows to be moved with the railhead and bunk cars to provide fresh meat. Hunters were hired to provide buffalo meat from the large herds of American bison.
The small survey parties who scouted ahead to locate the roadbed were sometimes attacked and killed by raiding Native Americans. In response, the U.S. Army instituted active cavalry patrols that grew larger as the Native Americans grew more aggressive. Temporary, "Hell on wheels" towns, made mostly of canvas tents, accompanied the railroad as construction headed west.
The Platte River was too shallow and meandering to provide river transport, but the Platte river valley headed west and sloped up gradually at about , often allowing to lay a mile (1.6 km) of track a day or more in 1866 as the Union Pacific finally started moving rapidly west. Building bridges to cross creeks and rivers was the main source of delays. Near where the Platte River splits into the North Platte River and South Platte River, the railroad bridged the North Platte River over a bridge (nicknamed ½ mile bridge). It was built across the shallow but wide North Platte resting on piles driven by steam pile drivers. Here they built the "railroad" town of North Platte, Nebraska, in December 1866 after completing about of track that year. In late 1866, former Major General Grenville M. Dodge was appointed Chief Engineer on the Union Pacific, but hard-working General "Jack" Casement continued to work as chief construction "boss" and his brother Daniel Casement continued as a financial officer.
The original emigrant route across Wyoming of the Oregon, Mormon and California Trails, after progressing up the Platte River valley, went up the North Platte River valley through Casper, Wyoming, along the Sweetwater River and over the Continental Divide at the South Pass. The original westward travelers in their ox and mule pulled wagons tried to stick to river valleys to avoid as much road building as possible—gradients and sharp corners were usually of little or no concern to them. The ox and mule pulled wagons were the original off-road vehicles in their day since nearly all of the Emigrant Trails went cross country over rough, unimproved trails. The route over South Pass's main advantage for wagons pulled by oxen or mules was a shorter elevation over an "easy" pass to cross and its "easy" connection to nearby river valleys on both sides of the continental divide for water and grass. The emigrant trails were closed in winter. The North Platte–South Pass route was far less beneficial for a railroad, as it was about longer and much more expensive to construct up the narrow, steep and rocky canyons of the North Platte. The route along the North Platte was also further from Denver, Colorado, and went across difficult terrain, while a railroad connection to that City was already being planned for and surveyed.
Efforts to survey a new, shorter, "better" route had been underway since 1864. By 1867, a new route was found and surveyed that went along part of the South Platte River in western Nebraska and after entering what is now the state of Wyoming, ascended a gradual sloping ridge between Lodgepole Creek and Crow Creek to the Evans pass (also called Sherman's Pass) which was discovered by the Union Pacific employed English surveyor and engineer, James Evans, in about 1864. This pass now is marked by the Ames Monument () marking its significance and commemorating two of the main backers of the Union Pacific Railroad. From North Platte, Nebraska (elevation ), the railroad proceeded westward and upward along a new path across the Nebraska Territory and Wyoming Territory (then part of the Dakota Territory) along the north bank of the South Platte River and into what would become the state of Wyoming at Lone Pine, Wyoming. Evans Pass was located between what would become the new "railroad" towns of Cheyenne and Laramie. Connecting to this pass, about west of Cheyenne, was the one place across the Laramie Mountains that had a narrow "guitar neck" of land that crossed the mountains without serious erosion at the so-called "gangplank" () discovered by Major General Grenville Dodge in 1865 when he was in the U.S. Army. The new route surveyed across Wyoming was over shorter, had a flatter profile, allowing for cheaper and easier railroad construction, and also went closer by Denver and the known coalfields in the Wasatch and Laramie Ranges.
The railroad gained about in the climb to Cheyenne from North Platte, Nebraska—about —a very gentle slope of less than one degree average. This "new" route had never become an emigrant route because it lacked the water and grass to feed the emigrants' oxen and mules. Steam locomotives did not need grass, and the railroad companies could drill wells for water if necessary.
Coal had been discovered in Wyoming and reported on by John C. Frémont in his 1843 expedition across Wyoming, and was already being exploited by Utah residents from towns like Coalville, Utah, and later Kemmerer, Wyoming, by the time the Transcontinental railroad was built. Union Pacific needed coal to fuel its steam locomotives on the almost treeless plains across Nebraska and Wyoming. Coal shipments by rail were also looked on as a potentially major source of income—this potential is still being realized.
The Union Pacific reached the new railroad town of Cheyenne in December 1867, having laid about that year. They paused over the winter, preparing to push the track over Evans (Sherman's) pass. At , Evans pass is the highest point reached on the transcontinental railroad. About beyond Evans pass, the railroad had to build an extensive bridge over the Dale Creek canyon (). The Dale Creek Crossing was one of their more difficult railroad engineering challenges. Dale Creek Bridge was long and above Dale Creek. The bridge components were pre-built of timber in Chicago, Illinois, and then shipped on rail cars to Dale Creek for assembly. The eastern and western approaches to the bridge site, near the highest elevation on the transcontinental railroad, required cutting through granite for nearly a mile on each side. The initial Dale Creek bridge had a train speed limit of per hour across the bridge. Beyond Dale Creek, railroad construction paused at what became the town of Laramie, Wyoming, to build a bridge across the Laramie River.
Located from Evans pass, Union Pacific connected the new "railroad" town of Cheyenne to Denver and its Denver Pacific Railway and Telegraph Company railroad line in 1870. Elevated above sea level, and sitting on the new Union Pacific route with a connection to Denver, Cheyenne was chosen to become a major railroad center and was equipped with extensive railroad yards, maintenance facilities, and a Union Pacific presence. Its location made it a good base for helper locomotives to couple to trains with snowplows to help clear the tracks of snow or help haul heavy freight over Evans pass. The Union Pacific's junction with the Denver Railroad with its connection to Kansas City, Kansas, Kansas City, Missouri, and the railroads east of the Missouri River again increased Cheyenne's importance as the junction of two major railroads. Cheyenne later became Wyoming's largest city and the capital of the new state of Wyoming.
The railroad established many townships along the way: Fremont, Elkhorn, Grand Island, North Platte, Ogallala and Sidney as the railroad followed the Platte River across Nebraska territory. The railroad even dipped into what would become the new state of Colorado after crossing the North Platte River as it followed the South Platte River west into what would become Julesburg before turning northwest along Lodgepole Creek into Wyoming. In the Dakota Territory (Wyoming) the new towns of Cheyenne, Laramie, Rawlins (named for Union General John Aaron Rawlins, who camped in the locality in 1867), Green River and Evanston (named after James Evans) were established, as well as much more fuel and water stops. The Green River was crossed with a new bridge, and the new "railroad" town of Green River constructed there after the tracks reached the Green River on October 1, 1868—the last big river to cross.
On December 4, 1868, the Union Pacific reached Evanston, having laid almost of track over the Green River and the Laramie Plains that year. By 1871, Evanston became a significant maintenance shop town equipped to carry out extensive repairs on the cars and steam locomotives.
In the Utah Territory, the railroad once again diverted from the main emigrant trails to cross the Wasatch Mountains and went down the rugged Echo Canyon (Summit County, Utah) and Weber River canyon. To speed up construction as much as possible, Union Pacific contracted several thousand Mormon workers to cut, fill, trestle, bridge, blast and tunnel its way down the rugged Weber River Canyon to Ogden, Utah, ahead of the railroad construction. The Mormon and Union Pacific rail work was joined in the area of the present-day border between Utah and Wyoming. The longest of four tunnels built in Weber Canyon was Tunnel 2. Work on this tunnel started in October 1868 and was completed six months later. Temporary tracks were laid around it and Tunnels 3 (), 4 () and 5 () to continue work on the tracks west of the tunnels.
The tunnels were all made with the new dangerous nitroglycerine explosive, which expedited work but caused some fatal accidents. While building the railroad along the rugged Weber River Canyon, Mormon workers signed the Thousand Mile Tree which was a lone tree alongside the track from Omaha. A historic marker has been placed there.
The tracks reached Ogden, Utah, on March 8, 1869, although finishing work would continue on the tracks, tunnels and bridges in Weber Canyon for over a year. From Ogden, the railroad went north of the Great Salt Lake to Brigham City and Corinne using Mormon workers, before finally connecting with the Central Pacific Railroad at Promontory Summit in Utah territory on May 10, 1869. Some Union Pacific officers declined to pay the Mormons all of the agreed upon construction costs of the work through Weber Canyon, and beyond, claiming Union Pacific poverty despite the millions they had extracted through the Crédit Mobilier of America scandal. Only partial payment was secured through court actions against Union Pacific.
Central Pacific route
The Central Pacific laid of track, starting in Sacramento, California, in 1863 and continuing over the rugged Sierra Nevada mountains at Donner Pass into the new state of Nevada. The elevation change from Sacramento (elev. ) to Donner Summit (elev. ) had to be accomplished in about with an average elevation change of 76 feet per mile (14 meters per km), and there were only a few places in the Sierra where this type of "ramp" existed. The discovery and detailed map survey with profiles and elevations of this route over the Sierra Nevada is credited to Theodore Judah, chief engineer of the Central Pacific Railroad until his death in 1863. This route is up a ridge between the North fork of the American River on the south and Bear River (Feather River) and South Yuba River on the north. As the railroad climbed out of Sacramento up to Donner Summit, there was only one section near "Cape Horn CPRR" where the railroad grade slightly exceeded two percent.
In June 1864, the Central Pacific railroad entrepreneurs opened Dutch Flat and Donner Lake Wagon Road (DFDLWR). Costing about $300,000 and a years worth of work, this toll road wagon route was opened over much of the route the Central Pacific railroad (CPRR) would use over Donner Summit to carry freight and passengers needed by the CPRR and to carry other cargo over their toll road to and from the ever-advancing railhead and over the Sierra to the gold and silver mining towns of Nevada. As the railroad advanced, their freight rates with the combined rail and wagon shipments would become much more competitive. The volume of the toll road freight traffic to Nevada was estimated to be about $13,000,000 a year as the Comstock Lode boomed, and getting even part of this freight traffic would help pay for the railroad construction. When the railroad reached Reno, it had the majority of all Nevada freight shipments, and the price of goods in Nevada dropped significantly as the freight charges to Nevada dropped significantly. The rail route over the Sierras followed the general route of the Truckee branch of the California Trail, going east over Donner Pass and down the rugged Truckee River valley.
The route over the Sierra had been plotted out by Judah in preliminary surveys before his death in 1863. Judah's deputy, Samuel S. Montague was appointed as Central Pacific's new Chief Engineer, with Lewis M. Clement as Assistant Chief Engineer and Charles Cadwalader as second assistant. To build the new railroad, detailed surveys had to be run that showed where the cuts, fills, trestles, bridges and tunnels would have to be built. Work that was identified as taking a long time was started as soon as its projected track location could be ascertained and work crews, supplies and road work equipment found to be sent ahead. Tunnels, trestles and bridges were nearly all built this way. The spread-out nature of the work resulted in the work being split into two divisions, with L.M. Clement taking the upper division from Blue Cañon to Truckee and Cadwalader taking the lower division from Truckee to the Nevada border. Other assistant engineers were assigned to specific tasks such as building a bridge, tunnel or trestle which was done by the workers under experienced supervisors.
In total, the Central Pacific had eleven tunnel projects (Nos. 3 through 13) under construction in the Sierra from 1865 to 1868, with seven tunnels located in a stretch on the east side of Donner Summit. The tunnels were usually built by drilling a series of holes in the tunnel face, filling them with black powder and detonating it to break the rock free. The black powder was provided by the California Powder Works near Santa Cruz, California. These works had started production in 1864 after the U.S. Civil War had cut off shipments of black powder from the East to the mining and railroad industry of California and Nevada. The Central Pacific was a prolific user of black powder, often using up to 500 kegs of per day.
The summit tunnel (Number 6), , was started in late 1865, well ahead of the railhead. Through solid granite, the summit tunnel progressed at a rate of only about per day per face as it was being worked by three eight-hour shifts of workers, hand drilling holes with a rock drill and hammer, filling them with black powder and trying to blast the granite loose. One crew worked drilling holes on the faces and another crew collected and removed the loosened rock after each explosion. The workers were pulled off the summit tunnel and the track grading east of Donner Pass in the winter of 1865–66 as there was no way to supply them, nor quarters they could have lived in. The crews were transferred to work on bridges and track grading on the Truckee River canyon.
In 1866 they put in a vertical shaft in the center of the summit tunnel and started work towards the east and west tunnel faces, giving four working faces on the summit tunnel to speed up progress. A steam engine off an old locomotive was brought up with much effort over the wagon road and used as a winch driver to help remove loosened rock from the vertical shaft and two working faces. By the winter of 1866–67, work had progressed sufficiently and a camp had been built for workers on the summit tunnel which allowed work to continue. The cross section of a tunnel face was a , oval with an vertical wall. Progress on the tunnel sped up to over per day per face when they started using the newly invented nitroglycerin—manufactured near the tunnel. They used nitroglycerin to deepen the summit tunnel to the required height after the four tunnel faces met, and made even faster progress. Nearly all other tunnels were worked on both tunnel faces and met in the middle. Depending on the material the tunnels penetrated, they were left unlined or lined with brick, rock walls or timber and post. Some tunnels were designed to bend in the middle to align with the track bed curvature. Despite this potential complication, nearly all the different tunnel center lines met within or so. The detailed survey work that made these tunnel digs as precise as required was nearly all done by the Canadian-born and -trained Lewis Clement, the CPRR's Chief Assistant Engineer and Superintendent of Track, and his assistants.
Hills or ridges in front of the railroad road bed would have to have a flat-bottomed, V-shaped "cut" made to get the railroad through the ridge or hill. The type of material determined the slope of the V and how much material would have to be removed. Ideally, these cuts would be matched with valley fills that could use the dug out material to bring the road bed up to grade—cut and fill construction. In the 1860s there was no heavy equipment that could be used to make these cuts or haul it away to make the fills. The options were to dig it out by pick and shovel, haul the hillside material by wheelbarrow and/or horse or mule cart or blast it loose. To blast a V-shaped cut out, they had to drill several holes up to deep in the material, fill them with black powder, and blast the material away. Since the Central Pacific was in a hurry, they were profligate users of black powder to blast their way through the hills. The only disadvantage came when a nearby valley needed fill to get across it. The explosive technique often blew most of the potential fill material down the hillside, making it unavailable for fill. Initially, many valleys were bridged by "temporary" trestles that could be rapidly built and were later replaced by much lower maintenance and permanent solid fill. The existing railroad made transporting and putting material in valleys much easier—load it on railway dump cars, haul where needed and dump it over the side of the trestle.
The route down the eastern Sierras was done on the south side of Donner Lake with a series of switchbacks carved into the mountain. The Truckee River, which drains Lake Tahoe, had already found and scoured out the best route across the Carson Range of mountains east of the Sierras. The route down the rugged Truckee River Canyon, including required bridges, was done ahead of the main summit tunnel completion. To expedite the building of the railroad through the Truckee River canyon, the Central Pacific hauled two small locomotives, railcars, rails and other material on wagons and sleighs to what is now Truckee, California, and worked the winter of 1867–68 on their way down Truckee canyon ahead of the tracks being completed to Truckee. In Truckee canyon, five Howe truss bridges had to be built. This gave them a head start on getting to the "easy" miles across Nevada.
In order to keep the higher portions of the Sierra grade open in the winter, of timber snow sheds were built between Blue Cañon and Truckee in addition to utilizing snowplows pushed by locomotives, as well as manual shovelling. With the advent of more efficient oil fired steam and later diesel electric power to drive plows, flangers, spreaders, and rotary snow plows, most of the wooden snowsheds have long since been removed as obsolete. Tunnels 1–5 and Tunnel 13 of the original 1860s tunnels on Track 1 of the Sierra grade remain in use today, while additional new tunnels were later driven when the grade was double tracked over the first quarter of the twentieth century. In 1993, the Southern Pacific Railroad (which operated the CPRR-built Oakland–Ogden line until its 1996 merger with the Union Pacific) closed and pulled up the section of Track #1 over the summit running between the Norden complex (Shed 26, MP 192.1) and the covered crossovers in Shed #47 (MP 198.8) about a mile east of the old flyover at Eder, bypassing and abandoning the tunnel 6–8 complex, the concrete snowsheds just beyond them, and tunnels 9–12 ending at MP 195.7, all of which had been located on Track 1 within two miles of the summit. Since then all east- and westbound traffic has been run over the Track #2 grade crossing the summit about one mile (1.6 km) south of Donner Pass through the Tunnel #41 ("The Big Hole") running under Mt. Judah between Soda Springs and Eder, which was opened in 1925 when the summit section of the grade was double tracked. This routing change was made because the Track 2 and Tunnel 41 Summit crossing is far easier and less expensive to maintain and keep open in the harsh Sierra winters.
On June 18, 1868, the Central Pacific reached Reno, Nevada, after completing of railroad up and over the Sierras from Sacramento, California. By then the railroad had already been prebuilt down the Truckee River on the much flatter land from Reno to Wadsworth, Nevada, where they bridged the Truckee for the last time. From there, they struggled across a forty mile desert to the end of the Humboldt river at the Humboldt Sink. From the end of the Humboldt, they continued east over the Great Basin Desert bordering the Humboldt River to Wells, Nevada. One of the most troublesome problems found on this route along the Humboldt was at Palisade Canyon (near Carlin, Nevada), where for the line had to be built between the river and basalt cliffs. From Wells, Nevada, to Promontory Summit, the Railroad left the Humboldt and proceeded across the Nevada and Utah desert. Water for the steam locomotives was provided by wells, springs, or pipelines to nearby water sources. Water was often pumped into the water tanks with windmills. Train fuel and water cranes for the early trains with steam locomotives may have been as often as every . On one memorable occasion, not far from Promontory, the Central Pacific crews organized an army of workers and five train loads of construction material, and laid of track on a prepared rail bed in one day—-a record that still stands today. The Central Pacific and Union Pacific raced to get as much track laid as possible, and the Central Pacific laid about of track from Reno to Promontory Summit in the one year before the Last Spike was driven on May 10, 1869.
Central Pacific had 1,694 freight cars available by May 1869, with more under construction in their Sacramento yard. Major repairs and maintenance on the Central Pacific rolling stock was done in their Sacramento maintenance yard. Near the end of 1869, Central Pacific had 162 locomotives, of which 2 had two drivers (drive wheels), 110 had four drivers, and 50 had six drivers. The steam locomotives had been purchased in the eastern states and shipped to California by sea. Thirty-six additional locomotives were built and coming west, and twenty-eight more were under construction. There was a shortage of passenger cars and more had to be ordered. The first Central Pacific sleeper, the "Silver Palace Sleeping Car", arrived at Sacramento on June 8, 1868.
The CPRR route passed through Newcastle and Truckee in California, Reno, Wadsworth, Winnemucca, Battle Mountain, Elko and Wells in Nevada (with many more fuel and water stops), before connecting with the Union Pacific line at Promontory Summit in the Utah Territory. When the eastern end of the CPRR was extended to Ogden by purchasing the Union Pacific Railroad line from Promontory for about $2.8 million in 1870, it ended the short period of a boom town for Promontory, extended the Central Pacific tracks about and made Ogden a major terminus on the transcontinental railroad, as passengers and freight switched railroads there.
Subsequent to the railhead's meeting at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory, the San Joaquin River Bridge at Mossdale Crossing (near present-day Lathrop, California) was completed on September 8, 1869, with the first through freight train carrying freight from the East Coast leaving Sacramento and crossing the bridge to arrive that evening at the Alameda Wharf on San Francisco Bay. As a result, the western part of the route was extended from Sacramento to the Alameda Terminal in Alameda, California, and shortly thereafter, to the Oakland Long Wharf at Oakland Point in Oakland, California, and on to San Jose, California. Train ferries transferred some railroad cars to and from the Oakland wharves and tracks to wharves and tracks in San Francisco. Before the CPRR was completed, developers were building other feeder railroads like the Virginia and Truckee Railroad to the Comstock Lode diggings in Virginia City, Nevada, and several different extensions in California and Nevada to reach other cities there. Some of their main cargo was the thousands of cords ( each) of firewood needed for the many steam engines and pumps, cooking stoves, heating stoves etc. in Comstock Lode towns and the tons of ice needed by the miners as they worked ever deeper into the "hot" Comstock Lode ore body. In the mines, temperatures could get above at the work face and a miner often used over of ice per shift. This new railroad connected to the Central Pacific near Reno, and went through Carson City, the new capital of Nevada.
After the transcontinental railroads were completed, many other railroads were built to connect up to other population centers in Utah, Wyoming, Kansas, Colorado, Oregon, Washington territories, etc. In 1869, the Kansas Pacific Railway started building the Hannibal Bridge, a swing bridge across the Missouri River between Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas, which connected railroads on both sides of the Missouri while still allowing passage of paddle steamers on the river. After completion, this became another major east–west railroad. To speed completion of the Kansas Pacific Railroad to Denver, construction started east from Denver in March 1870 to meet the railroad coming west from Kansas city. The two crews met at a point called Comanche Crossing, Kansas Territory, on August 15, 1870. Denver was now firmly on track to becoming the largest city and the future capital of Colorado. The Kansas Pacific Railroad linked with the Denver Pacific Railway via Denver to Cheyenne in 1870.
The original transcontinental railroad route did not pass through the two biggest cities in the so-called Great American Desert—Denver, Colorado, and Salt Lake City, Utah. Feeder railroad lines were soon built to service these two and other cities and states along the route.
Modern-day Interstate 80 roughly follows the path of the railroad from Sacramento across modern day California, Nevada, Wyoming and Nebraska, with a few exceptions. Most significantly, the two routes are different between Wells, Nevada, and Echo, Utah. In this area the freeway passes along the south shore of the Great Salt Lake and passes through Salt Lake City, cresting the Wasatch Mountains at Parley's Summit. The railroad was originally routed along the north shore, and later with the Lucin Cutoff directly across the center of the Great Salt Lake, passing through the city of Ogden instead of Salt Lake City. The railroad crosses the Wasatch Mountains via a much gentler grade through Weber Canyon. Most of the other deviations are in mountainous areas where interstate highways allow for grades up to six-percent grades, which allows them to go many places the railroads had to go around, since their goal was to hold their grades to less than two percent.
Construction
Most of the capital investment needed to build the railroad was generated by selling government-guaranteed bonds (granted per mile of completed track) to interested investors. The Federal donation of right-of-way saved money and time as it did not have to be purchased from others. The financial incentives and bonds would hopefully cover most of the initial capital investment needed to build the railroad. The bonds would be paid back by the sale of government-granted land, as well as prospective passenger and freight income. Most of the engineers and surveyors who figured out how and where to build the railroad on the Union Pacific were engineering college trained. Many of Union Pacific engineers and surveyors were Union Army veterans (including two generals) who had learned their railroad trade keeping the trains running and tracks maintained during the U.S. Civil War. After securing the finances and selecting the engineering team, the next step was to hire the key personnel and prospective supervisors. Nearly all key workers and supervisors were hired because they had previous railroad on-the-job training, knew what needed to be done and how to direct workers to get it done. After the key personnel were hired, the semi-skilled jobs could be filled if there was available labor. The engineering team's main job was to tell the workers where to go, what to do, how to do it, and provide the construction material they would need to get it done.
Survey teams were put out to produce detailed contour maps of the options on the different routes. The engineering team looked at the available surveys and chose what was the "best" route. Survey teams under the direction of the engineers closely led the work crews and marked where and by how much hills would have to be cut and depressions filled or bridged. Coordinators made sure that construction and other supplies were provided when and where needed, and additional supplies were ordered as the railroad construction consumed the supplies. Specialized bridging, explosive and tunneling teams were assigned to their specialized jobs. Some jobs like explosive work, tunneling, bridging, heavy cuts or fills were known to take longer than others, so the specialized teams were sent out ahead by wagon trains with the supplies and men to get these jobs done by the time the regular track-laying crews arrived. Finance officers made sure the supplies were paid for and men paid for their work. An army of men had to be coordinated and a seemingly never-ending chain of supplies had to be provided. The Central Pacific road crew set a track-laying record by laying of track in a single day, commemorating the event with a signpost beside the track for passing trains to see.
In addition to the track-laying crews, other crews were busy setting up stations with provisions for loading fuel, water and often also mail, passengers and freight. Personnel had to be hired to run these stations. Maintenance depots had to be built to keep all of the equipment repaired and operational. Telegraph operators had to be hired to man each station to keep track of where the trains were so that trains could run in each direction on the available single track without interference or accidents. Sidings had to be built to allow trains to pass. Provision had to be made to store and continually pay for coal or wood needed to run the steam locomotives. Water towers had to be built for refilling the water tanks on the engines, and provision made to keep them full.
Labor
The majority of the Union Pacific track across the Nebraska and Wyoming territories was built by veterans of the Union and Confederate armies, as well as many recent immigrants. Brigham Young, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, landed contracts with the Union Pacific that offered jobs for around 2,000 members of the church with the hope that the railroad would support commerce in Utah. Church members built most of the road through Utah. Construction superintendent Durant repeatedly failed to pay the wages agreed upon. The Union Pacific train carrying him to the final spike ceremony was held up by a strike by unpaid workers in Piedmont, Wyoming, until he paid them for their work. Representatives of Brigham Young had less success, and failed in court to force him to honor the contract.
The manual labor to build the Central Pacific's roadbed, bridges and tunnels was done primarily by many thousands of emigrant workers from China under the direction of skilled non-Chinese supervisors. The Chinese were commonly referred to at the time as "Celestials" and China as the "Celestial Kingdom." Labor-saving devices in those days consisted primarily of wheelbarrows, horse or mule pulled carts, and a few railroad pulled gondolas. The construction work involved an immense amount of manual labor. Initially, Central Pacific had a hard time hiring and keeping unskilled workers on its line, as many would leave for the prospect of far more lucrative gold or silver mining options elsewhere. Despite the concerns expressed by Charles Crocker, one of the "big four" and a general contractor, that the Chinese were too small in stature and lacking previous experience with railroad work, they decided to try them anyway. After the first few days of trial with a few workers, with noticeably positive results, Crocker decided to hire as many as he could, looking primarily at the California labor force, where the majority of Chinese worked as independent gold miners or in the service industries (e.g.: laundries and kitchens). Most of these Chinese workers were represented by a Chinese "boss" who translated, collected salaries for his crew, kept discipline and relayed orders from an American general supervisor. Most Chinese workers spoke only rudimentary or no English, and the supervisors typically only learned rudimentary Chinese. Many more workers were imported from the Guangdong Province of China, which at the time, beside great poverty, suffered from the violence of the Taiping Rebellion. Most Chinese workers were planning on returning with their newfound "wealth" when the work was completed. Most of the men received between one and three dollars per day, the same as unskilled white workers; but the workers imported directly from China sometimes received less. A diligent worker could save over $20 per month after paying for food and lodging—a "fortune" by Chinese standards. A snapshot of workers in late 1865 showed about 3,000 Chinese and 1,700 white workers employed on the railroad. Nearly all of the white workers were in supervisory or skilled craft positions and made more money than the Chinese.
Most of the early work on the Central Pacific consisted of constructing the railroad track bed, cutting and/or blasting through or around hills, filling in washes, building bridges or trestles, digging and blasting tunnels and then laying the rails over the Sierra Nevada (U.S.) mountains. Once the Central Pacific was out of the Sierras and the Carson Range, progress sped up considerably as the railroad bed could be built over nearly flat ground. In those days, the Central Pacific once did a section of of track in one day as a "demonstration" of what they could do on flat ground like most of the Union Pacific had in Wyoming and Nebraska.
The track laying was divided up into various parts. In advance of the track layers, surveyors consulting with engineers determined where the track would go. Workers then built and prepared the roadbed, dug or blasted through hills, filled in washes, built trestles, bridges or culverts across streams or valleys, made tunnels if needed, and laid the ties. The actual track-laying gang would then lay rails on the previously laid ties positioned on the roadbed, drive the spikes, and bolt the fishplate bars to each rail. At the same time, another gang would distribute telegraph poles and wire along the grade, while the cooks prepared dinner and the clerks busied themselves with accounts, records, using the telegraph line to relay requests for more materials and supplies or communicate with supervisors. Usually the workers lived in camps built near their work site. Supplies were ordered by the engineers and hauled by rail, possibly then to be loaded on wagons if they were needed ahead of the railhead. Camps were moved when the railhead moved a significant distance. Later, as the railroad started moving long distances every few days, some railroad cars had bunkhouses built in them that moved with the workers—the Union Pacific had used this technique since 1866. Almost all of the roadbed work had to be done manually, using shovels, picks, axes, two-wheeled dump carts, wheelbarrows, ropes, scrapers, etc., with initially only black powder available for blasting. Carts pulled by mules, and horses were about the only labor-saving devices available then. Lumber and ties were usually provided by independent contractors who cut, hauled and sawed the timber as required.
Tunnels were blasted through hard rock by drilling holes in the rock face by hand and filling them with black powder. Sometimes cracks were found which could be filled with powder and blasted loose. The loosened rock would be collected and hauled out of the tunnel for use in a fill area or as roadbed, or else dumped over the side as waste. A foot or so advance on a tunnel face was a typical day's work. Some tunnels took almost a year to finish and the Summit Tunnel, the longest, took almost two years. In the final days of working in the Sierras, the recently invented nitroglycerin explosive was introduced and used on the last tunnels including Summit Tunnel.
Supply trains carried all the necessary material for the construction up to the railhead, with mule or horse-drawn wagons carrying it the rest of the ways if required. Ties were typically unloaded from horse-drawn or mule-drawn wagons and then placed on the track ballast and leveled to get ready for the rails. Rails, which weighed the most, were often kicked off the flatcars and carried by gangs of men on each side of the rail to where needed. The rails just in front of the rail car would be placed first, measured for the correct gauge with gauge sticks and then nailed down on the ties with spike mauls. The fishplates connecting the ends of the rails would be bolted on and then the car pushed by hand to the end of the rail and rail installation repeated.
Track ballast was put between the ties as they progressed. Where a proper railbed had already been prepared, the work progressed rapidly. Constantly needed supplies included "food, water, ties, rails, spikes, fishplates, nuts and bolts, track ballast, telegraph poles, wire, firewood (or coal on the Union Pacific) and water for the steam train locomotives, etc." After a flatcar was unloaded, it would usually be hooked to a small locomotive and pulled back to a siding, so another flatcar with rails etc. could be advanced to the railhead. Since juggling railroad cars took time on flat ground, where wagon transport was easier, the rail cars would be brought to the end of the line by steam locomotive, unloaded, and the flat car returned immediately to a siding for another loaded car of either ballast or rails. Temporary sidings were often installed where it could be easily done to expedite getting needed supplies to the railhead.
The railroad tracks, spikes, telegraph wire, locomotives, railroad cars, supplies etc. were imported from the east on sailing ships that sailed the nearly , 200-day trip around Cape Horn. Some freight was put on Clipper ships which could do the trip in about 120 days. Some passengers and high-priority freight were shipped over the newly completed (as of 1855) Panama Railroad across the Isthmus of Panama. Using paddle steamers to and from Panama, this shortcut could be traveled in as little as 40 days. Supplies were normally offloaded at the Sacramento, California, docks where the railroad started.
Central Pacific construction
On January 8, 1863, Governor Leland Stanford ceremonially broke ground in Sacramento, California, to begin construction of the Central Pacific Railroad. After great initial progress along the Sacramento Valley, construction was slowed, first by the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, then by cutting a railroad bed up the mountains themselves. As they progressed higher in the mountains, winter snowstorms and a shortage of reliable labor compounded the problems. On January 7, 1865, a want ad for 5,000 laborers was placed in the Sacramento Union. Consequently, after a trial crew of Chinese workers was hired and found to work successfully, the Central Pacific expanded its efforts to hire more emigrant laborers—mostly Chinese. Emigrants from poverty stricken regions of China, many of which suffered from the strife of the Taiping Rebellion, seemed to be more willing to tolerate the living and working conditions on the railroad construction, and progress on the railroad continued. The increasing necessity for tunneling as they proceeded up the mountains then began to slow progress of the line yet again.
The first step of construction was to survey the route and determine the locations where large excavations, tunnels and bridges would be needed. Crews could then start work in advance of the railroad reaching these locations. Supplies and workers were brought up to the work locations by wagon teams and work on several different sections proceeded simultaneously. One advantage of working on tunnels in winter was that tunnel work could often proceed since the work was nearly all "inside". Unfortunately, living quarters would have to be built outside and getting new supplies was difficult. Working and living in winter in the presence of snow slides and avalanches caused some deaths.
To carve a tunnel, one worker held a rock drill on the granite face while one to two other workers swung eighteen-pound sledgehammers to sequentially hit the drill which slowly advanced into the rock. Once the hole was about deep, it would be filled with black powder, a fuse set and then ignited from a safe distance. Nitroglycerin, which had been invented less than two decades before the construction of the first transcontinental railroad, was used in relatively large quantities during its construction. This was especially true on the Central Pacific Railroad, which owned its own nitroglycerin plant to ensure it had a steady supply of the volatile explosive. This plant was operated by Chinese laborers as they were willing workers even under the most trying and dangerous of conditions.
Chinese laborers were also crucial in the construction of 15 tunnels along the railroad's line through the Sierra Nevada mountains. These were about 32 feet (10 m) high and 16 feet (5 m) wide. When tunnels with vertical shafts were dug to increase construction speed, and tunneling began in the middle of the tunnel and at both ends simultaneously. At first hand-powered derricks were used to help remove loose rocks up the vertical shafts. These derricks were later replaced with steam hoists as work progressed. By using vertical shafts, four faces of the tunnel could be worked at the same time, two in the middle and one at each end. The average daily progress in some tunnels was only 0.85 feet (26 cm) a day per face, which was very slow, or 1.18 feet (36 cm) daily according to historian George Kraus. J. O. Wilder, a Central Pacific-Southern Pacific employee, commented that "The Chinese were as steady, hard-working a set of men as could be found. With the exception of a few whites at the west end of Tunnel No. 6, the laboring force was entirely composed of Chinamen with white foremen and a "boss/translator". A single foreman (often Irish) with a gang of 30 to 40 Chinese men generally constituted the force at work at each end of a tunnel; of these, 12 to 15 men worked on the heading, and the rest on the bottom, removing blasted material. When a gang was small or the men were needed elsewhere, the bottoms were worked with fewer men or stopped so as to keep the headings going." The laborers usually worked three shifts of 8 hours each per day, while the foremen worked in two shifts of 12 hours each, managing the laborers. Once out of the Sierra, construction was much easier and faster. Under the direction of construction superintendent James Harvey Strobridge, Central Pacific track-laying crews set a record with of track laid in one day on April 28, 1869. Horace Hamilton Minkler, track foreman for the Central Pacific, laid the last rail and tie before the Last Spike was driven.
In order to keep the CPRR's Sierra grade open during the winter months, beginning in 1867, of massive wooden snow sheds and galleries were built between Blue Cañon and Truckee, covering cuts and other points where there was danger of avalanches. 2,500 men and six material trains were employed in this work, which was completed in 1869. The sheds were built with two sides and a steep peaked roof, mostly of locally cut hewn timber and round logs. Snow galleries had one side and a roof that sloped upward until it met the mountainside, thus permitting avalanches to slide over the galleries, some of which extended up the mountainside as much as . Masonry walls such as the "Chinese Walls" at Donner Summit were built across canyons to prevent avalanches from striking the side of the vulnerable wooden construction. A few concrete sheds (mostly at crossovers) are still in use today.
Union Pacific construction
The major investor in the Union Pacific was Thomas Clark Durant, who had made his stake money by smuggling Confederate cotton with the aid of Grenville M. Dodge. Durant chose routes that would favor places where he held land, and he announced connections to other lines at times that suited his share dealings. He paid an associate to submit the construction bid to another company he controlled, Crédit Mobilier, manipulating the finances and government subsidies and making himself another fortune. Durant hired Dodge as chief engineer and Jack Casement as construction boss.
In the East, the progress started in Omaha, Nebraska, by the Union Pacific Railroad which initially proceeded very quickly because of the open terrain of the Great Plains. This changed, however, as the work entered Indian-held lands, as the railroad was a violation of Native American treaties with the United States. War parties began to raid the moving labor camps that followed the progress of the line. Union Pacific responded by increasing security and hiring marksmen to kill American Bison, which were both a physical threat to trains and the primary food source for many of the Plains Indians. The Native Americans then began killing laborers when they realized that the so-called "Iron Horse" threatened their existence. Security measures were further strengthened, and progress on the railroad continued.
Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s first postwar command (Military Division of the Mississippi) covered the territory west of the Mississippi and east of the Rocky Mountains, and his top priority was to protect the construction of the railroads. In 1867, he wrote to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, “we are not going to let thieving, ragged Indians check and stop the progress” of the railroads.
"On the ground in the West, Gen. Philip Henry Sheridan, assuming Sherman’s command, took to his task much as he had done in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War, when he ordered the “scorched earth” tactics that presaged Sherman's March to the Sea."
"The devastation of the buffalo population signalled the end of the Indian Wars, and Native Americans were pushed into reservations. In 1869, the Comanche chief Tosawi was reported to have told Sheridan, “Me Tosawi. Me good Indian,” and Sheridan allegedly replied, “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead.” The phrase was later misquoted, with Sheridan supposedly stating, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Sheridan denied he had ever said such a thing."
"By the end of the 19th century, only 300 buffalo were left in the wild. Congress finally took action, outlawing the killing of any birds or animals in Yellowstone National Park, where the only surviving buffalo herd could be protected. Conservationists established more wildlife preserves, and the species slowly rebounded. Today, there are more than 200,000 bison in North America."
"Sheridan acknowledged the role of the railroad in changing the face of the American West, and in his Annual Report of the General of the U.S. Army in 1878, he acknowledged that the Native Americans were scuttled to reservations with no compensation beyond the promise of religious instruction and basic supplies of food and clothing—promises, he wrote, which were never fulfilled."
" 'We took away their country and their means of support, broke up their mode of living, their habits of life, introduced disease and decay among them, and it was for this and against this they made war. Could any one expect less? Then, why wonder at Indian difficulties? ' ”
The "Last Spike" ceremony
Six years after the groundbreaking, laborers of the Central Pacific Railroad from the west and the Union Pacific Railroad from the east met at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. On the Union Pacific side was Union Pacific No 119, a 1868 4-4-0 type. Thrusting westward, the last two rails were laid by Irishmen;. On the Central Pacific side was their Central Pacific No 60 Jupiter, another 1868 4-4-0 type. Thrusting eastward, the last two rails were laid by the Chinese.
It was at Promontory Summit on May 10, 1869, that the two engines met. Leland Stanford drove The Last Spike (or golden spike) that joined the rails of the transcontinental railroad. The spike is now on display at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, while a second "Last" Golden Spike is also on display at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. In perhaps the world's first live mass-media event, the hammers and spike were wired to the telegraph line so that each hammer stroke would be heard as a click at telegraph stations nationwide—the hammer strokes were missed, so the clicks were sent by the telegraph operator. As soon as the ceremonial "Last Spike" had been replaced by an ordinary iron spike, a message was transmitted to both the East Coast and West Coast that simply read, "DONE." Travel from coast to coast was reduced from six months or more to just one week.
Aftermath
Railroad developments
When the last spike was driven, the rail network was not yet connected to the Atlantic or Pacific but merely connected Omaha to Sacramento. To get from Sacramento to the Pacific, the Central Pacific purchased in 1867 the struggling Western Pacific Railroad (unrelated to the railroad of the same name that would later parallel its route) and in February 1868 resumed construction on it, which had halted in October 1866 because of funding troubles. On September 6, 1869, the first transcontinental rail passengers arrived at the Pacific Railroad's original western terminus on the east side of San Francisco Bay at the Alameda Terminal, where they transferred to the steamer Alameda for transport across the Bay to San Francisco. On November 8, 1869, the Central Pacific finally completed the rail connection to its western terminus at Oakland, California, also on the East Bay, where freight and passengers completed their transcontinental link to San Francisco by ferry.
The original route from the Central Valley to the Bay skirted the Delta by heading south out of Sacramento through Stockton and crossing the San Joaquin River at Mossdale, then climbed over the Altamont Pass and reached the east side of the San Francisco Bay through Niles Canyon. The Western Pacific was originally chartered to go to San Jose, but the Central Pacific decided to build along the East Bay instead, as going from San Jose up the Peninsula to San Francisco itself would have brought it into conflict with competing interests. The railroad entered Alameda and Oakland from the south, roughly paralleling what would later become U.S. Route 50 and later still Interstates 5, 205, and 580. A more direct route was obtained with the purchase of the California Pacific Railroad, crossing the Sacramento River and proceeding southwest through Davis to Benicia, where it crossed the Carquinez Strait by means of the enormous Solano train ferry, then followed the shores of the San Pablo and San Francisco bays to Richmond and the Port of Oakland (paralleling U.S. Route 40 which ultimately became Interstate 80). In 1930, a rail bridge across the Carquinez replaced the Benicia ferries.
Very early on, the Central Pacific learned that it would have trouble maintaining an open track in winter across the Sierras. At first they tried plowing the road with special snowplows mounted on their steam engines. When this was only partially successful, an extensive process of building snow sheds over some of the track was instituted to protect it from deep snows and avalanches. These eventually succeeded at keeping the tracks clear for all but a few days of the year.
Both railroads soon instituted extensive upgrade projects to build better bridges, viaducts and dugways as well as install heavier duty rails, stronger ties, better road beds etc. The original track had often been laid as fast as possible with only secondary attention to maintenance and durability. The primary incentive had been getting the subsidies, which meant that upgrades of all kinds were routinely required in the following years. The cost of making these upgrades was relatively small, however, once the railroad was operating. Once the railroad was complete supplies could be moved from distant factories directly to the construction site by rail.
The Union Pacific would not connect Omaha to Council Bluffs until completing the Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge in 1872.
Several years after the end of the Civil War, the competing railroads coming from Missouri finally realized their initial strategic advantage and a building boom ensued. In July 1869, the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad finished the Hannibal Bridge in Kansas City which was the first bridge to cross the Missouri River. This in turn connected to Kansas Pacific trains going from Kansas City to Denver, which in turn had built the Denver Pacific Railway connecting to the Union Pacific. In August 1870, the Kansas Pacific drove the last spike connecting to the Denver Pacific line at Strasburg, Colorado, and the first true Atlantic to Pacific United States railroad was completed.
Kansas City's head start in connecting to a true transcontinental railroad contributed to it rather than Omaha becoming the dominant rail center west of Chicago.
The Kansas Pacific became part of the Union Pacific in 1880.
On June 4, 1876, an express train called the Transcontinental Express arrived in San Francisco via the first transcontinental railroad only 83 hours and 39 minutes after it had left New York City. Only ten years before, the same journey would have taken months over land or weeks on ship, possibly all the way around South America.
The Central Pacific got a direct route to San Francisco when it was merged with the Southern Pacific Railroad to create the Southern Pacific Company in 1885. The Union Pacific initially took over the Southern Pacific in 1901 but was forced by the U.S. Supreme Court to divest it because of monopoly concerns. The two railroads would once again unite in 1996 when the Southern Pacific was sold to the Union Pacific.
Having been bypassed with the completion of the Lucin Cutoff in 1904, the Promontory Summit rails were pulled up in 1942 to be recycled for the World War II effort. This process began with a ceremonial "undriving" at the Last Spike location.
Crédit Mobilier
Despite the transcontinental success and millions in government subsidies, the Union Pacific faced bankruptcy less than three years after the Last Spike as details surfaced about overcharges that Crédit Mobilier had billed Union Pacific for the formal building of the railroad. The scandal hit epic proportions in the 1872 United States presidential election, which saw the re-election of Ulysses S. Grant and became the biggest scandal of the Gilded Age. It would not be resolved until the death of the congressman who was supposed to have reined in its excesses but instead wound up profiting from it.
Durant had initially come up with the scheme to have Crédit Mobilier subcontract to do the actual track work. Durant gained control of the company after buying out employee Herbert Hoxie for $10,000. Under Durant's guidance, Crédit Mobilier was charging Union Pacific often twice or more the customary cost for track work. The process mired down Union Pacific work.
Lincoln asked Massachusetts Congressman Oakes Ames, who was on the railroad committee, to clean things up and get the railroad moving. Ames got his brother Oliver Ames Jr. named president of the Union Pacific, while he himself became president of Crédit Mobilier.
Ames then in turn gave stock options to other politicians while at the same time continuing the lucrative overcharges. The scandal was to implicate Vice President Schuyler Colfax (who was cleared) and future President James Garfield among others.
The scandal broke in 1872 when the New York Sun published correspondence detailing the scheme between Henry S. McComb and Ames. In the ensuing Congressional investigation, it was recommended that Ames be expelled from Congress, but this was reduced to a censure and Ames died within three months.
Durant later left the Union Pacific and a new rail baron, Jay Gould, became the dominant stockholder. As a result of the Panic of 1873, Gould was able to pick up bargains, among them the control of the Union Pacific Railroad and Western Union.
Visible remains
Visible remains of the historic line are still easily located—hundreds of miles are still in service today, especially through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and canyons in Utah and Wyoming. While the original rail has long since been replaced because of age and wear, and the roadbed upgraded and repaired, the lines generally run on top of the original, handmade grade. Vista points on Interstate 80 through California's Truckee Canyon provide a panoramic view of many miles of the original Central Pacific line and of the snow sheds which made winter train travel safe and practical.
In areas where the original line has been bypassed and abandoned, primarily because of the Lucin Cutoff re-route in Utah, the original road grade is still obvious, as are numerous cuts and fills, especially the Big Fill a few miles east of Promontory. The sweeping curve which connected to the east end of the Big Fill now passes a Thiokol rocket research and development facility.
In 1957, Congress authorized the Golden Spike National Historic Site, which was redesignated the Golden Spike National Historical Park in 2019. Today the site features replica engines of Union Pacific No. 119 and Central Pacific Jupiter. The engines are fired up periodically by the National Park Service for the public. On May 10, 2006, on the anniversary of the driving of the spike, Utah announced that its state quarter design would be a representation of the driving of the Last Spike.
Current passenger service
Amtrak's California Zephyr, a daily passenger service from Emeryville, California (in the San Francisco Bay Area) to Chicago, uses the first transcontinental railroad from Sacramento to central Nevada. Because this rail line currently operates in a directional running setup across most of Nevada, the California Zephyr will switch to the Central Corridor at either Winnemucca or Wells.
In popular culture
The joining of the Union Pacific line with the Central Pacific line in May 1869 at Promontory Summit, Utah, was one of the major inspirations for French writer Jules Verne's book entitled Around the World in Eighty Days, published in 1873.
While not exactly accurate, John Ford's 1924 silent movie The Iron Horse captures the fervent nationalism that drove public support for the project. Among the cooks serving the film's cast and crew between shots were some of the Chinese laborers who worked on the Central Pacific section of the railroad.
The feat is depicted in various movies, including the 1939 film Union Pacific, starring Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck and directed by Cecil B. DeMille, which depicts the fictional Central Pacific investor Asa Barrows obstructing attempts of the Union Pacific to reach Ogden, Utah.
The 1939 movie is said to have inspired the Union Pacific Western television series starring Jeff Morrow, Judson Pratt and Susan Cummings which aired in syndication from 1958 until 1959.
The 1962 film How the West Was Won has a whole segment devoted to the construction; one of the movie's most famous scenes, filmed in Cinerama, is of a buffalo stampede over the railroad.
The construction of what presumably is – or is suggested to be – the transcontinental railroad provides the backdrop of the 1968 epic Spaghetti Western Once Upon a Time in the West, directed by Italian director Sergio Leone.
Graham Masterton's 1981 novel A Man of Destiny (published in the UK as Railroad) is a fictionalized account of the line's construction.
The 1993 children's book Ten Mile Day by Mary Ann Fraser tells the story of the record setting push by the Central Pacific in which they set a record by laying of track in a single day on April 28, 1869, to settle a $10,000 bet.
Kristiana Gregory's 1999 book The Great Railroad Race (part of the "Dear America" series) is written as the fictional diary of Libby West, who chronicles the end of the railroad construction and the excitement that engulfed the country at the time.
In the 1999 Will Smith film Wild Wild West, the joining ceremony is the setting of an assassination attempt on then U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant by the film's antagonist Dr. Arliss Loveless.
The main character in The Claim (2000) is a surveyor for the Central Pacific Railroad, and the film is partially about the efforts of a frontier mayor to have the railroad routed through his town.
In the 2002 DreamWorks Animation movie Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, the title character, a horse named Spirit, is delivered with other horses to pull a steam locomotive at a work site for the transcontinental railroad.
The American Experience series' 2002–2003 season documents the railway in the episode titled "Transcontinental Railroad".
The building of the railway is covered by the 2004 BBC documentary series Seven Wonders of the Industrial World in episode 6, "The Line".
The popular sci-fi television show Doctor Who featured the transcontinental railroad in a 2010 BBC audiobook entitled The Runaway Train, read by Matt Smith and written for audio by Oli Smith.
The construction of the transcontinental railroad provides the setting for the AMC television series Hell on Wheels. Thomas Durant is a regular character in the series and is portrayed by actor Colm Meaney.
See also
Chin Lin Sou
History of rail transportation in California
Interstate 80 – present-day New York-to-San Francisco transport link (highway)
List of heritage railroads in the United States
Overland Route (Union Pacific Railroad)
Transcontinental railroad
Notes
References
Further reading
Chang, Gordon H. (2019). Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Cooper, Bruce C., "Riding the Transcontinental Rails: Overland Travel on the Pacific Railroad 1865–1881" (2005), Polyglot Press, Philadelphia
Cooper, Bruce Clement (Ed), "The Classic Western American Railroad Routes". New York: Chartwell Books/Worth Press, 2010. ; ; BINC: 3099794.
Duran, Xavier, "The First U.S. Transcontinental Railroad: Expected Profits and Government Intervention," Journal of Economic History, 73 (March 2013), 177–200.
White, Richard. Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (2010)
Willumson, Glenn. Iron Muse: Photographing the Transcontinental Railroad (University of California Press; 2013) 242 pages; studies the production, distribution, and publication of images of the railroad in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
External links
For maps and railroad pictures of this era shortly after the advent of photography see:
Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum
CPRR Railroad Map collection/museum
1871 CPRR & UPRR Overland Railroad Map "Map of the Central Pacific Railroad and its Connections" published in the California Mail Bag San Francisco News Letter and California Advertiser, Vol. 1, No. 4, Oct–Nov. 1871. accessed May 1, 2013.
Union Pacific Railroad picture Museum Excursion to the 100th Meridian – 1866 accessed March 1, 2013.
The Pacific Tourist Williams, Henry T.; published by Adams & Bishop, New York, 1881 ed. Gives insights to travel in the late 1880s on the transcontinental railroad.
"I Hear the Locomotives: The Impact of the Transcontinental Railroad"
Golden Spike National Historical Park in Utah
Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum
Union Pacific Railroad History
The Transcontinental Railroad
Pacific Railway Act and related resources at the Library of Congress
Chinese-American Contribution to transcontinental railroad
Linda Hall Library's Transcontinental Railroad educational site with free, full-text access to 19th century American railroad periodicals
Newspaper articles and clippings about the Transcontinental Railroad at Newspapers.com
"Transcontinental Railroad", article by Adam Burns in "Railroads In America" site
Maps
Route map at the Library of Congress
Map of Union Pacific Railroad with Dates
Abandoned route of the transcontinental railroad in Utah (with map)
Geography of Chinese Workers Building the Transcontinental Railroad; "A virtual reconstruction of the key historic sites" — Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project; Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA) at Stanford University
1860s in California
1869 in the United States
American frontier
Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks
History of rail transportation in the United States
History of United States expansionism
Rail lines receiving land grants
Rail transportation in California
Rail transportation in Nevada
Rail transportation in Utah
Railway lines in Omaha, Nebraska
Railway lines in the United States
Southern Pacific Railroad
Union Pacific Railroad |
36745 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hestia | Hestia | In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Hestia (; , meaning "hearth" or "fireside") is the virgin goddess of the hearth, the right ordering of domesticity, the family, the home, and the state. In myth, she is the firstborn child of the Titans Cronus and Rhea, and one of the Twelve Olympians.
According to ancient Greek tradition, Hestia, along with four of her five siblings, was devoured by her own father Cronus as an infant due to his fear of being overthrown by one of his offspring, and was only freed when her youngest brother Zeus forced their father to disgorge the children he had eaten. Cronus and the rest of the Titans were cast down, and Hestia then became one of the Olympian gods, the new rulers of the cosmos, alongside her brothers and sisters. After the establishment of the new order and in spite of her status, Hestia withdraws from prominence in mythology, with few and sparse appearances in tales. Like Athena and Artemis, Hestia elected to never marry and remain an eternal virgin goddess instead, forever tending to the hearth of Olympus.
Despite her limited mythology, Hestia remained a very important goddess in ancient Greek society. Greek custom required that as the goddess of sacrificial fire, Hestia should receive the first offering at every sacrifice in the household. In the public domain, the hearth of the prytaneum functioned as her official sanctuary. Whenever a new colony was established, a flame from Hestia's public hearth in the mother city would be carried to the new settlement. The goddess Vesta is her Roman equivalent.
Origins and etymology
Hestia's name means "hearth, fireplace, altar", This stems from the PIE root *wes, "burn" (ultimately from "dwell, pass the night, stay"). It thus refers to the oikos: domestic life, home, household, house, or family. Burkert states that an "early form of the temple is the hearth house; the early temples at Dreros and Prinias on Crete are of this type as indeed is the temple of Apollo at Delphi which always had its inner hestia". The Mycenaean great hall (megaron), like Homer's hall of Odysseus at Ithaca, had a central hearth. Likewise, the hearth of the later Greek prytaneum was the community and government's ritual and secular focus. Hestia's naming thus makes her a personification of the hearth and its fire, a symbol of society and family, also denoting authority and kingship.
Mythology
Origin
Hestia is a goddess of the first Olympian generation. She is the eldest daughter of the Titans Rhea and Cronus, and sister to Demeter, Hades, Hera, Poseidon, and Zeus. Immediately after their birth, Cronus swallowed all his children (Hestia was the first who was swallowed) except the last and youngest, Zeus, who was saved by Rhea. Instead, Zeus forced Cronus to disgorge his siblings and led them in a war against their father and the other Titans. As "first to be devoured . . . and the last to be yielded up again", Hestia is thus both the eldest and youngest daughter; this mythic inversion is found in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (700 BC).
Zeus assigned Hestia a duty to feed and maintain the fires of the Olympian hearth with the fatty, combustible portions of animal sacrifices to the gods. Wherever food was cooked, or an offering was burnt, she thus had her share of honor; also, in all the temples of the gods, she has a share of honor. "Among all mortals she was chief of the goddesses".
Virgin goddess
The gods Poseidon and Apollo both (her brother and nephew respectively) fell in love with Hestia and vied for her hand in marriage. But Hestia would have neither of them, and went to Zeus instead, and swore a great oath, that she would remain a virgin for all time and never marry. In the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, Aphrodite is described as having "no power" over Hestia.
Status and attributes
At Athens, "in Plato's time," notes Kenneth Dorter "there was a discrepancy in the list of the twelve chief gods, as to whether Hestia or Dionysus was included with the other eleven. The altar to them at the agora, for example, included Hestia, but the east frieze of the Parthenon had Dionysus instead." However, the hearth was imovable, and "there is no story of Hestia's "ever having been removed from her fixed abode". Burkert remarks that "Since the hearth is immovable Hestia is unable to take part even in the procession of the gods, let alone the other antics of the Olympians".
Traditionally, Hestia is absent from ancient depictions of the Gigantomachy as she is the one who must keep the home fires burning when the other gods are away. Nevertheless her possible participation in the fight against the Giants is evidenced from an inscription on the northern frieze of the Siphnian Treasury in Delphi; Brinkmann (1985) suggests that the letter tracings of one of the two goddesses right next to Hephaestus be restored as "Hestia", although other possible candidates include Demeter and Persephone, or two of the three Fates.
Her mythographic status as firstborn of Rhea and Cronus seems to justify the tradition in which a small offering is made to Hestia before any sacrifice ("Hestia comes first"), though this was not universal among the Greeks. In Odyssey 14, 432–436, the loyal swineherd Eumaeus begins the feast for his master Odysseus by plucking tufts from a boar's head and throwing them into the fire with a prayer addressed to all the powers, then carved the meat into seven equal portions: "one he set aside, lifting up a prayer to the forest nymphs and Hermes, Maia's son."
Hestia is identified with the hearth as a physical object, and the abstractions of community and domesticity, in contrast to the fire of the forge employed in blacksmithing and metalworking, the province of the god Hephaestus. Portrayals of her are rare and seldom secure. In classical Greek art, she is occasionally depicted as a woman simply and modestly cloaked in a head veil. At times, she is shown with a staff in hand or by a large fire. She sits on a plain wooden throne with a white woolen cushion and, Robert Graves declares, "did not trouble to choose an emblem for herself". Her associated sacrificial animal was a domestic pig.
Equivalence
Her Roman equivalent is Vesta; Vesta has similar functions as a divine personification of Rome's "public", domestic, and colonial hearths, binding Romans together within a form of extended family. The similarity of names between Hestia and Vesta is, however, misleading: "The relationship hestia-histie-Vesta cannot be explained in terms of Indo-European linguistics; borrowings from a third language must also be involved," according to Walter Burkert.
Herodotus equates Hestia with the high ranking Scythian deity Tabiti. Procopius equates her with the Zoroastrian holy fire (atar) of the Sasanians in Adhur Gushnasp. To Vesta is attributed one more story not found in Greek tradition by the Roman poet Ovid in his poem Fasti, where during a feast of the gods Vesta is nearly raped in her sleep by the god Priapus, and only avoids this fate when a donkey cries out, alerting Vesta and prompting the other gods to attack Priapus in defense of the goddess. This story is an almost word-for-word repeat of the myth of Priapus and Lotis, recounted earlier in the same book, with the difference that Lotis had to transform into a lotus tree to escape Priapus, making some scholars suggest the account where Vesta supplants Lotis only exists in order to create some cult drama.
Worship
The worship of Hestia was centered around the hearth, both domestic and civic. The hearth was essential for warmth, food preparation, and the completion of sacrificial offerings to deities. At feasts, Hestia was offered the first and last libations of wine. Pausanias writes that the Eleans sacrifice first to Hestia and then to other gods. Xenophon in Cyropaedia wrote that Cyrus the Great sacrificed first to Hestia, then to sovereign Zeus, and then to any other god that the magi suggested.
The accidental or negligent extinction of a domestic hearth fire represented a failure of domestic and religious care for the family; failure to maintain Hestia's public fire in her temple or shrine was a breach of duty to the broad community. A hearth fire might be deliberately, ritually extinguished at need; but its lighting should be accompanied by rituals of completion, purification, and renewal, comparable with the rituals and connotations of an eternal flame and of sanctuary lamps. At the level of the polis, the hearths of Greek colonies and their mother cities were allied and sanctified through Hestia's cult. Athenaeus, in the Deipnosophistae, writes that in Naucratis the people dined in the Prytaneion on the birthday of Hestia Prytanitis.
Responsibility for Hestia's domestic cult usually fell to the leading woman of the household, although sometimes to a man. Hestia's rites at the hearths of public buildings were usually led by holders of civil office; Dionysius of Halicarnassus testifies that the prytaneum of a Greek state or community was sacred to Hestia, who was served by the most powerful state officials. However, evidence of her dedicant priesthood is extremely rare. Most stems from the early Roman Imperial era, when Sparta offers several examples of women with the priestly title "Hestia"; Chalcis offers one, a daughter of the local elite. Existing civic cults to Hestia probably served as stock for the grafting of Greek ruler-cult to the Roman emperor, the Imperial family, and Rome itself. In Athens, a small seating section at the Theatre of Dionysus was reserved for priesthoods of "Hestia on the Acropolis, Livia, and Julia", and of "Hestia Romain" ("Roman Hestia", thus "The Roman Hearth" or Vesta). At Delos, a priest served "Hestia the Athenian Demos" (the people or state) "and Roma". An eminent citizen of Carian Stratoniceia described himself as a priest of Hestia and several other deities, as well as holding several civic offices. Hestia's political and civic functions are further evidenced by her very numerous privately funded dedications at civic sites, and the administrative rather than religious titles used by the lay-officials involved in her civic cults.
Shrines, temples and colonies
Every private and public hearth was regarded as a sanctuary of the goddess, and a portion of the sacrifices, to whatever divinity they were offered, belonged to her. Aeschines, On the Embassy,
declares that "the hearth of the Prytaneum was regarded as the common hearth of the state and a statue of Hestia was there, and in the senate-house there was an altar of the goddess." A temple at Ephesus was dedicated to Hestia Boulaea - Hestia "of the senate", or boule. Pausanias reports a figurative statue of Hestia in the Athenian Prytaneum, together with one of the goddess Eirene ("Peace"). Hestia offered sanctuary from persecution to those who showed her respect and would punish those who offended her. Diodorus Siculus writes that Theramenes sought asylum directly from Hestia at the Council Chamber, leaping onto her hearth not to save himself, but in the hope that his slayers would demonstrate their impiety by killing him there".
Very few free-standing temples were dedicated to Hestia. Pausanias mentions one in Ermioni and one in Sparta, the latter having an altar but no image. Xenophon's Hellenica mentions fighting around and within Olympia's temple of Hestia, a building separate from the city's council hall and adjoining theatre: A temple to Hestia was in Andros.
Prospective founders of city-states and colonies sought approval and guidance not only of their "mother city" (represented by Hestia) but of Apollo, through one or another of his various oracles. He acted as consulting archegetes (founder) at Delphi. Among his various functions, he was patron god of colonies, architecture, constitutions and city planning. Additional patron deities might also be persuaded to support the new settlement, but without Hestia, her sacred hearth, an agora and prytaneum there could be no polis.
Hymns, odes and oaths
Homeric Hymn 24, To Hestia, is an invocation of five lines, alluding to her role as an attendant to Apollo:
Homeric Hymn 29, To Hestia invokes Hestia and Hermes:
Bacchylides Ode 14b, For Aristoteles of Larisa:
Orphic Hymn 84 and Pindar's 11th Nemean ode are dedicated to Hestia.
In one military oath found at Acharnai, from the Sanctuary of Ares and Athena Areia, dated 350-325 BC, Hestia is called, among many others, to bear witness.
Hestia Tapestry
The Hestia tapestry is a Byzantine tapestry, made in Egypt during the 6th century AD. It is a late and very rare representation of the goddess, whom it identifies in Greek as Hestia Polyolbos; ( "Hestia full of Blessings"). Its history and symbolism are discussed in Friedlander (1945).
Genealogy
See also
Di Penates
46 Hestia, asteroid named after the goddess
Sacred fire of Vesta
Vitex agnus-castus
Zalmoxis
Estia, daily broadsheet newspaper named after Hestia
Citations
General references
Burkert, Walter (1985). Greek Religion. Harvard University Press. Internet Archive.
Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica. Vol 1-2. Immanel Bekker. Ludwig Dindorf. Friedrich Vogel. in aedibus B. G. Teubneri. Leipzig. 1888–1890. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
Evelyn-White, Hugh, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Homeric Hymns. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914.
Friedlander, Paul. (1945). Documents of Dying Paganism. University of California Press.
Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: (Vol. 1), (Vol. 2).
Hesiod, Theogony, in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, Massachusetts., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Homer; The Odyssey with an English Translation by A. T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Kajava, Mika. "Hestia Hearth, Goddess, and Cult", Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 102 (2004): 1–20. .
Kerényi, Karl, The Gods of the Greeks, Thames and Hudson, London, 1951. Internet Archive.
Ovid, Ovid's Fasti: With an English translation by Sir James George Frazer, London: W. Heinemann LTD; Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1959. Internet Archive.
Pausanias, Pausanias Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Pindar, Odes, Diane Arnson Svarlien. 1990. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Stephenson, Hamish. (1985). The Gods of the Romans and Greeks. NYT Writer.
West, M. L., Indo-European Poetry and Myth, Oxford University Press, 2007. . Google Books.
External links
HESTIA from Mythopedia
HESTIA from The Theoi Project
HESTIA from Greek Mythology Link
Domestic and hearth deities
Fire goddesses
Greek virgin goddesses
Children of Cronus
Personifications in Greek mythology
Twelve Olympians
Household deities |
36922 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quran | Quran | The Qur'an (, ; vocalized Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing.: ), which consist of verses (pl.: , sing.: , cons.: ). In addition to its religious significance, it is widely regarded as the finest work in Arabic literature, and has significantly influenced the Arabic language.
Muslims believe that the Quran was orally revealed by God to the final prophet, Muhammad, through the archangel Gabriel incrementally over a period of some 23 years, beginning on Laylat Al Qadr, when Muhammad was 40; and concluding in 632, the year of his death. Muslims regard the Quran as Muhammad's most important miracle, a proof of his prophethood; and the culmination of a series of divine messages starting with those revealed to Adam, including the Tawrat, the Zabur (Psalms) and the Injil (Gospel). The word Quran occurs some 70 times in the text itself, and other names and words are also said to refer to the Quran.
The Quran is believed by Muslims to be not simply divinely inspired, but the literal word of God. Muhammad did not write it as he did not know how to write. In Muslim theology, the Qur'an is considered to be either "created" or "uncreated". According to tradition, several of Muhammad's companions served as scribes, recording the revelations. Shortly after the prophet's death, the Quran was compiled by the companions, who had written down or memorized parts of it. Caliph Uthman established a standard version, now known as the Uthmanic codex, which is generally considered the archetype of the Quran known today. There are, however, variant readings, with mostly minor differences in meaning.
The Quran assumes familiarity with major narratives recounted in the Biblical and apocryphal scriptures. It summarizes some, dwells at length on others and, in some cases, presents alternative accounts and interpretations of events. The Quran describes itself as a book of guidance for humankind ( ). It sometimes offers detailed accounts of specific historical events, and it often emphasizes the moral significance of an event over its narrative sequence. Supplementing the Quran with explanations for some cryptic Quranic narratives, and rulings that also provide the basis for Islamic law in most denominations of Islam, are hadiths—oral and written traditions believed to describe words and actions of Muhammad. During prayers, the Quran is recited only in Arabic.
Someone who has memorized the entire Quran is called a hafiz. Ideally, verses are recited with a special kind of prosody reserved for this purpose, called tajwid. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims typically complete the recitation of the whole Quran during tarawih prayers. In order to extrapolate the meaning of a particular Quranic verse, Muslims rely on exegesis, or commentary rather than a direct translation of the text.
Etymology and meaning
The word appears about 70 times in the Quran itself, assuming various meanings. It is a verbal noun () of the Arabic verb () meaning 'he read' or 'he recited'. The Syriac equivalent is (), which refers to 'scripture reading' or 'lesson'. While some Western scholars consider the word to be derived from the Syriac, the majority of Muslim authorities hold the origin of the word is itself. Regardless, it had become an Arabic term by Muhammad's lifetime. An important meaning of the word is the 'act of reciting', as reflected in an early Quranic passage: "It is for Us to collect it and to recite it ()."
In other verses, the word refers to 'an individual passage recited [by Muhammad]'. Its liturgical context is seen in a number of passages, for example: "So when is recited, listen to it and keep silent." The word may also assume the meaning of a codified scripture when mentioned with other scriptures such as the Torah and Gospel.
The term also has closely related synonyms that are employed throughout the Quran. Each synonym possesses its own distinct meaning, but its use may converge with that of in certain contexts. Such terms include ('book'), ('sign'), and ('scripture'); the latter two terms also denote units of revelation. In the large majority of contexts, usually with a definite article (al-), the word is referred to as the waḥy ('revelation'), that which has been "sent down" (tanzīl) at intervals. Other related words include: ('remembrance'), used to refer to the Quran in the sense of a reminder and warning; and ('wisdom'), sometimes referring to the revelation or part of it.
The Quran describes itself as 'the discernment' (), 'the mother book' (), 'the guide' (), 'the wisdom' (), 'the remembrance' (), and 'the revelation' (; 'something sent down', signifying the descent of an object from a higher place to lower place). Another term is ('The Book'), though it is also used in the Arabic language for other scriptures, such as the Torah and the Gospels. The term mus'haf ('written work') is often used to refer to particular Quranic manuscripts but is also used in the Quran to identify earlier revealed books.
History
Prophetic era
Islamic tradition relates that Muhammad received his first revelation in the Cave of Hira during one of his isolated retreats to the mountains. Thereafter, he received revelations over a period of 23 years. According to hadith and Muslim history, after Muhammad immigrated to Medina and formed an independent Muslim community, he ordered many of his companions to recite the Quran and to learn and teach the laws, which were revealed daily. It is related that some of the Quraysh who were taken prisoners at the Battle of Badr regained their freedom after they had taught some of the Muslims the simple writing of the time. Thus a group of Muslims gradually became literate. As it was initially spoken, the Quran was recorded on tablets, bones, and the wide, flat ends of date palm fronds. Most suras were in use amongst early Muslims since they are mentioned in numerous sayings by both Sunni and Shia sources, relating Muhammad's use of the Quran as a call to Islam, the making of prayer and the manner of recitation. However, the Quran did not exist in book form at the time of Muhammad's death in 632. There is agreement among scholars that Muhammad himself did not write down the revelation.
Sahih al-Bukhari narrates Muhammad describing the revelations as, "Sometimes it is (revealed) like the ringing of a bell" and Aisha reported, "I saw the Prophet being inspired Divinely on a very cold day and noticed the sweat dropping from his forehead (as the Inspiration was over)." Muhammad's first revelation, according to the Quran, was accompanied with a vision. The agent of revelation is mentioned as the "one mighty in power," the one who "grew clear to view when he was on the uppermost horizon. Then he drew nigh and came down till he was (distant) two bows' length or even nearer." The Islamic studies scholar Welch states in the Encyclopaedia of Islam that he believes the graphic descriptions of Muhammad's condition at these moments may be regarded as genuine, because he was severely disturbed after these revelations. According to Welch, these seizures would have been seen by those around him as convincing evidence for the superhuman origin of Muhammad's inspirations. However, Muhammad's critics accused him of being a possessed man, a soothsayer or a magician since his experiences were similar to those claimed by such figures well known in ancient Arabia. Welch additionally states that it remains uncertain whether these experiences occurred before or after Muhammad's initial claim of prophethood.
The Quran describes Muhammad as "," which is traditionally interpreted as 'illiterate', but the meaning is rather more complex. Medieval commentators such as Al-Tabari maintained that the term induced two meanings: first, the inability to read or write in general; second, the inexperience or ignorance of the previous books or scriptures (but they gave priority to the first meaning). Muhammad's illiteracy was taken as a sign of the genuineness of his prophethood. For example, according to Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, if Muhammad had mastered writing and reading he possibly would have been suspected of having studied the books of the ancestors. Some scholars such as Watt prefer the second meaning of —they take it to indicate unfamiliarity with earlier sacred texts.
The final verse of the Quran was revealed on the 18th of the Islamic month of Dhu al-Hijjah in the year 10 A.H., a date that roughly corresponds to February or March 632. The verse was revealed after the Prophet finished delivering his sermon at Ghadir Khumm.
Compilation and preservation
Following Muhammad's death in 632, a number of his companions who knew the Quran by heart were killed in the Battle of Yamama by Musaylimah. The first caliph, Abu Bakr (d. 634), subsequently decided to collect the book in one volume so that it could be preserved. Zayd ibn Thabit (d. 655) was the person to collect the Quran since "he used to write the Divine Inspiration for Allah's Apostle". Thus, a group of scribes, most importantly Zayd, collected the verses and produced a hand-written manuscript of the complete book. The manuscript according to Zayd remained with Abu Bakr until he died. Zayd's reaction to the task and the difficulties in collecting the Quranic material from parchments, palm-leaf stalks, thin stones (collectively known as ) and from men who knew it by heart is recorded in earlier narratives. In 644, Muhammad's widow Hafsa bint Umar was entrusted with the manuscript until the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, requested the standard copy from her.
In about 650, Uthman (d. 656) began noticing slight differences in pronunciation of the Quran as Islam expanded beyond the Arabian Peninsula into Persia, the Levant, and North Africa. In order to preserve the sanctity of the text, he ordered a committee headed by Zayd to use Abu Bakr's copy and prepare a standard text of the Quran. Thus, within 20 years of Muhammad's death, the Quran was committed to written form. That text became the model from which copies were made and promulgated throughout the urban centers of the Muslim world, and other versions are believed to have been destroyed. The present form of the Quran text is accepted by Muslim scholars to be the original version compiled by Abu Bakr.
According to Shia, Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661) compiled a complete version of the Quran shortly after Muhammad's death. The order of this text differed from that gathered later during Uthman's era in that this version had been collected in chronological order. Despite this, he made no objection against the standardized Quran and accepted the Quran in circulation. Other personal copies of the Quran might have existed including Ibn Mas'ud's and Ubay ibn Ka'b's codex, none of which exist today.
The Quran most likely existed in scattered written form during Muhammad's lifetime. Several sources indicate that during Muhammad's lifetime a large number of his companions had memorized the revelations. Early commentaries and Islamic historical sources support the above-mentioned understanding of the Quran's early development. University of Chicago professor Fred Donner states that:[T]here was a very early attempt to establish a uniform consonantal text of the Qurʾān from what was probably a wider and more varied group of related texts in early transmission.… After the creation of this standardized canonical text, earlier authoritative texts were suppressed, and all extant manuscripts—despite their numerous variants—seem to date to a time after this standard consonantal text was established.Although most variant readings of the text of the Quran have ceased to be transmitted, some still are. There has been no critical text produced on which a scholarly reconstruction of the Quranic text could be based. Historically, controversy over the Quran's content has rarely become an issue, although debates continue on the subject.
In 1972, in a mosque in the city of Sana'a, Yemen, manuscripts were discovered that were later proved to be the most ancient Quranic text known to exist at the time. The Sana'a manuscripts contain palimpsests, a manuscript page from which the text has been washed off to make the parchment reusable again—a practice which was common in ancient times due to the scarcity of writing material. However, the faint washed-off underlying text () is still barely visible and believed to be "pre-Uthmanic" Quranic content, while the text written on top () is believed to belong to Uthmanic times. Studies using radiocarbon dating indicate that the parchments are dated to the period before 671 CE with a 99 percent probability. The German scholar Gerd R. Puin has been investigating these Quran fragments for years. His research team made 35,000 microfilm photographs of the manuscripts, which he dated to the early part of the 8th century. Puin has not published the entirety of his work, but noted unconventional verse orderings, minor textual variations, and rare styles of orthography. He also suggested that some of the parchments were palimpsests which had been reused. Puin believed that this implied an evolving text as opposed to a fixed one.
In 2015, fragments of a very early Quran, dating back to 1370 years earlier, were discovered in the library of the University of Birmingham, England. According to the tests carried out by the Oxford University Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, "with a probability of more than 95%, the parchment was from between 568 and 645". The manuscript is written in Hijazi script, an early form of written Arabic. This is possibly the earliest extant exemplar of the Quran, but as the tests allow a range of possible dates, it cannot be said with certainty which of the existing versions is the oldest. Saudi scholar Saud al-Sarhan has expressed doubt over the age of the fragments as they contain dots and chapter separators that are believed to have originated later. However Joseph E. B. Lumbard of Brandeis University has written in the Huffington Post in support of the dates proposed by the Birmingham scholars. Lumbard notes that the discovery of a Quranic text that may be confirmed by radiocarbon dating as having been written in the first decades of the Islamic era, while presenting a text substantially in conformity with that traditionally accepted, reinforces a growing academic consensus that many Western skeptical and 'revisionist' theories of Quranic origins are now untenable in the light of empirical findings—whereas, on the other hand, counterpart accounts of Quranic origins within classical Islamic traditions stand up well in the light of ongoing scientific discoveries.
Significance in Islam
Muslims believe the Quran to be God's final revelation to humanity, a work of divine guidance revealed to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel.
Revered by pious Muslims as "the holy of holies," whose sound moves some to "tears and ecstasy", it is the physical symbol of the faith, the text often used as a charm on occasions of birth, death, marriage. Consequently,
It must never rest beneath other books, but always on top of them, one must never drink or smoke when it is being read aloud, and it must be listened to in silence. It is a talisman against disease and disaster.Ibn Warraq, Why I'm Not a Muslim, 1995: p.105
Traditionally great emphasis was put on children memorizing the 6,200+ verses of the Quran, those succeeding being honored with the title Hafiz. "Millions and millions" of Muslims "refer to the Koran daily to explain their actions and to justify their aspirations," and in recent years many consider it the source of scientific knowledge.
Revelation in Islamic and Quranic contexts means the act of God addressing an individual, conveying a message for a greater number of recipients. The process by which the divine message comes to the heart of a messenger of God is tanzil ('to send down') or ('to come down'). As the Quran says, "With the truth we (God) have sent it down and with the truth it has come down."
The Quran frequently asserts in its text that it is divinely ordained. Some verses in the Quran seem to imply that even those who do not speak Arabic would understand the Quran if it were recited to them. The Quran refers to a written pre-text, "the preserved tablet," that records God's speech even before it was sent down.
Muslims believe that the present wording of the Quran corresponds to that revealed to Muhammad, and according to their interpretation of Quran , it is protected from corruption ("Indeed, it is We who sent down the Quran and indeed, We will be its guardian."). Muslims consider the Quran to be a guide, a sign of the prophethood of Muhammad and the truth of the religion.
The Shīa believe that the Quran was gathered and compiled by Muhammad during his lifetime, rather than being compiled by Uthman ibn Affan. There are other differences in the way Shias interpret the text. Muslims do not agree over whether the Quran was created by God or is eternal and "uncreated." Sunnis (who make up about 85–90% of Muslims) hold that the Quran is uncreated—a doctrine that has been unchallenged among them for many centuries. Shia Twelvers and Zaydi, and the Kharijites—believe the Quran was created. Sufi philosophers view the question as artificial or wrongly framed.
Inimitability
Inimitability of the Quran (or "") is the belief that no human speech can match the Quran in its content and form. The Quran is considered an inimitable miracle by Muslims, effective until the Day of Resurrection—and, thereby, the central proof granted to Muhammad in authentication of his prophetic status. The concept of inimitability originates in the Quran where in five different verses opponents are challenged to produce something like the Quran: "If men and jinn banded together to produce the like of this Quran they would never produce its like not though they backed one another." From the ninth century, numerous works appeared which studied the Quran and examined its style and content. Medieval Muslim scholars including al-Jurjani (d. 1078) and al-Baqillani (d. 1013) have written treatises on the subject, discussed its various aspects, and used linguistic approaches to study the Quran. Others argue that the Quran contains noble ideas, has inner meanings, maintained its freshness through the ages and has caused great transformations at the individual level and in history. Some scholars state that the Quran contains scientific information that agrees with modern science. The doctrine of the miraculousness of the Quran is further emphasized by Muhammad's illiteracy since the unlettered prophet could not have been suspected of composing the Quran.
In worship
The first surah of the Quran is repeated in daily prayers and on other occasions. This surah, which consists of seven verses, is the most often recited surah of the Quran:
Other sections of the Quran of choice are also read in daily prayers.
Respect for the written text of the Quran is an important element of religious faith by many Muslims, and the Quran is treated with reverence. Based on tradition and a literal interpretation of Quran ("none shall touch but those who are clean"), some Muslims believe that they must perform a ritual cleansing with water (wudu or ghusl) before touching a copy of the Quran, although this view is not universal. Worn-out copies of the Quran are wrapped in a cloth and stored indefinitely in a safe place, buried in a mosque or a Muslim cemetery, or burned and the ashes buried or scattered over water.
In Islam, most intellectual disciplines, including Islamic theology, philosophy, mysticism and jurisprudence, have been concerned with the Quran or have their foundation in its teachings. Muslims believe that the preaching or reading of the Quran is rewarded with divine rewards variously called , thawab, or .
In Islamic art
The Quran also inspired Islamic arts and specifically the so-called Quranic arts of calligraphy and illumination. The Quran is never decorated with figurative images, but many Qurans have been highly decorated with decorative patterns in the margins of the page, or between the lines or at the start of suras. Islamic verses appear in many other media, on buildings and on objects of all sizes, such as mosque lamps, metal work, pottery and single pages of calligraphy for muraqqas or albums.
Text and arrangement
The Quran consists of 114 chapters of varying lengths, each known as a sūrah. Chapters are classified as Meccan or Medinan, depending on whether the verses were revealed before or after the migration of Muhammad to the city of Medina. However, a sūrah classified as Medinan may contain Meccan verses in it and vice versa. Sūrah titles are derived from a name or quality discussed in the text, or from the first letters or words of the sūrah. Chapters are not arranged in chronological order, rather the chapters appear to be arranged roughly in order of decreasing size. Some scholars argue the sūrahs are arranged according to a certain pattern. Each sūrah except the ninth starts with the Bismillah (), an Arabic phrase meaning 'In the name of God.' There are, however, still 114 occurrences of the Bismillah in the Quran, due to its presence in Quran as the opening of Solomon's letter to the Queen of Sheba.
Each sūrah consists of several verses, known as āyāt, which originally means a 'sign' or 'evidence' sent by God. The number of verses differs from sūrah to sūrah. An individual verse may be just a few letters or several lines. The total number of verses in the most popular Hafs Quran is 6,236; however, the number varies if the bismillahs are counted separately.
In addition to and independent of the division into chapters, there are various ways of dividing the Quran into parts of approximately equal length for convenience in reading. The 30 juz' (plural ) can be used to read through the entire Quran in a month. Some of these parts are known by names—which are the first few words by which the begins. A is sometimes further divided into two ḥizb (plural ), and each subdivided into four . The Quran is also divided into seven approximately equal parts, manzil (plural ), for it to be recited in a week.
A different structure is provided by semantic units resembling paragraphs and comprising roughly ten each. Such a section is called a rukū`.
The Muqattaʿat ( , 'disjoined letters, disconnected letters'; also 'mysterious letters') are combinations of between one and five Arabic letters figuring at the beginning of 29 out of the 114 chapters of the Quran just after the basmala. The letters are also known as fawātih (), or 'openers', as they form the opening verse of their respective suras. Four surahs are named for their : Ṭāʾ-Hāʾ, Yāʾ-Sīn, Ṣād, and Qāf. The original significance of the letters is unknown. Tafsir (exegesis) has interpreted them as abbreviations for either names or qualities of God or for the names or content of the respective surahs. According to Rashad Khalifa, those letters are Quranic initials for a hypothetical mathematical code in the Quran, namely the Quran code or known as Code 19.
According to one estimate the Quran consists of 77,430 words, 18,994 unique words, 12,183 stems, 3,382 lemmas and 1,685 roots.
Contents
The Quranic content is concerned with basic Islamic beliefs including the existence of God and the resurrection. Narratives of the early prophets, ethical and legal subjects, historical events of Muhammad's time, charity and prayer also appear in the Quran. The Quranic verses contain general exhortations regarding right and wrong and historical events are related to outline general moral lessons. Verses pertaining to natural phenomena have been interpreted by Muslims as an indication of the authenticity of the Quranic message. The style of the Quran has been called "allusive," with commentaries needed to explain what is being referred to—"events are referred to, but not narrated; disagreements are debated without being explained; people and places are mentioned, but rarely named."
Monotheism
The central theme of the Quran is monotheism. God is depicted as living, eternal, omniscient and omnipotent (see, e.g., Quran , , ). God's omnipotence appears above all in his power to create. He is the creator of everything, of the heavens and the earth and what is between them (see, e.g., Quran , , , etc.). All human beings are equal in their utter dependence upon God, and their well-being depends upon their acknowledging that fact and living accordingly.
The Quran uses cosmological and contingency arguments in various verses without referring to the terms to prove the existence of God. Therefore, the universe is originated and needs an originator, and whatever exists must have a sufficient cause for its existence. Besides, the design of the universe is frequently referred to as a point of contemplation: "It is He who has created seven heavens in harmony. You cannot see any fault in God's creation; then look again: Can you see any flaw?"
Eschatology
The doctrine of the last day and eschatology (the final fate of the universe) may be considered the second great doctrine of the Quran. It is estimated that approximately one-third of the Quran is eschatological, dealing with the afterlife in the next world and with the day of judgment at the end of time. There is a reference to the afterlife on most pages of the Quran and belief in the afterlife is often referred to in conjunction with belief in God as in the common expression: "Believe in God and the last day." A number of suras such as 44, 56, 75, 78, 81 and 101 are directly related to the afterlife and its preparations. Some suras indicate the closeness of the event and warn people to be prepared for the imminent day. For instance, the first verses of Sura 22, which deal with the mighty earthquake and the situations of people on that day, represent this style of divine address: "O People! Be respectful to your Lord. The earthquake of the Hour is a mighty thing."
The Quran is often vivid in its depiction of what will happen at the end time. Watt describes the Quranic view of End Time:The climax of history, when the present world comes to an end, is referred to in various ways. It is 'the Day of Judgment,' 'the Last Day,' 'the Day of Resurrection,' or simply 'the Hour.' Less frequently it is 'the Day of Distinction' (when the good are separated from the evil), 'the Day of the Gathering' (of men to the presence of God) or 'the Day of the Meeting' (of men with God). The Hour comes suddenly. It is heralded by a shout, by a thunderclap, or by the blast of a trumpet. A cosmic upheaval then takes place. The mountains dissolve into dust, the seas boil up, the sun is darkened, the stars fall and the sky is rolled up. God appears as Judge, but his presence is hinted at rather than described.… The central interest, of course, is in the gathering of all mankind before the Judge. Human beings of all ages, restored to life, join the throng. To the scoffing objection of the unbelievers that former generations had been dead a long time and were now dust and mouldering bones, the reply is that God is nevertheless able to restore them to life.The Quran does not assert a natural immortality of the human soul, since man's existence is dependent on the will of God: when he wills, he causes man to die; and when he wills, he raises him to life again in a bodily resurrection.
Prophets
According to the Quran, God communicated with man and made his will known through signs and revelations. Prophets, or 'Messengers of God', received revelations and delivered them to humanity. The message has been identical and for all humankind. "Nothing is said to you that was not said to the messengers before you, that your lord has at his Command forgiveness as well as a most Grievous Penalty." The revelation does not come directly from God to the prophets. Angels acting as God's messengers deliver the divine revelation to them. This comes out in Quran , in which it is stated: "It is not for any mortal that God should speak to them, except by revelation, or from behind a veil, or by sending a messenger to reveal by his permission whatsoever He will."
Ethico-religious concepts
Belief is a fundamental aspect of morality in the Quran, and scholars have tried to determine the semantic contents of "belief" and "believer" in the Quran. The ethico-legal concepts and exhortations dealing with righteous conduct are linked to a profound awareness of God, thereby emphasizing the importance of faith, accountability, and the belief in each human's ultimate encounter with God. People are invited to perform acts of charity, especially for the needy. Believers who "spend of their wealth by night and by day, in secret and in public" are promised that they "shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve." It also affirms family life by legislating on matters of marriage, divorce, and inheritance. A number of practices, such as usury and gambling, are prohibited. The Quran is one of the fundamental sources of Islamic law (sharia). Some formal religious practices receive significant attention in the Quran including the formal prayers (salat) and fasting in the month of Ramadan. As for the manner in which the prayer is to be conducted, the Quran refers to prostration. The term for charity, zakat, literally means purification. Charity, according to the Quran, is a means of self-purification.
Encouragement for the sciences
The astrophysicist Nidhal Guessoum, while being highly critical of pseudo-scientific claims made about the Quran, has highlighted the encouragement for sciences that the Quran provides by developing "the concept of knowledge." He writes:The Qur'an draws attention to the danger of conjecturing without evidence (And follow not that of which you have not the (certain) knowledge of... 17:36) and in several different verses asks Muslims to require proofs (Say: Bring your proof if you are truthful 2:111), both in matters of theological belief and in natural science.Guessoum cites Ghaleb Hasan on the definition of "proof" according to the Quran being "clear and strong... convincing evidence or argument." Also, such a proof cannot rely on an argument from authority, citing verse 5:104. Lastly, both assertions and rejections require a proof, according to verse 4:174. Ismail al-Faruqi and Taha Jabir Alalwani are of the view that any reawakening of the Muslim civilization must start with the Quran; however, the biggest obstacle on this route is the "centuries old heritage of tafseer (exegesis) and other classical disciplines" which inhibit a "universal, epidemiological and systematic conception" of the Quran's message. The philosopher Muhammad Iqbal, considered the Quran's methodology and epistemology to be empirical and rational.
There are around 750 verses in the Quran dealing with natural phenomena. In many of these verses the study of nature is "encouraged and highly recommended", and historical Islamic scientists like Al-Biruni and Al-Battani derived their inspiration from verses of the Quran. Mohammad Hashim Kamali has stated that "scientific observation, experimental knowledge and rationality" are the primary tools with which humanity can achieve the goals laid out for it in the Quran. Ziauddin Sardar built a case for Muslims having developed the foundations of modern science, by highlighting the repeated calls of the Quran to observe and reflect upon natural phenomenon.
The physicist Abdus Salam, in his Nobel Prize banquet address, quoted a well known verse from the Quran (67:3–4) and then stated: "This in effect is the faith of all physicists: the deeper we seek, the more is our wonder excited, the more is the dazzlement of our gaze." One of Salam's core beliefs was that there is no contradiction between Islam and the discoveries that science allows humanity to make about nature and the universe. Salam also held the opinion that the Quran and the Islamic spirit of study and rational reflection was the source of extraordinary civilizational development. Salam highlights, in particular, the work of Ibn al-Haytham and Al-Biruni as the pioneers of empiricism who introduced the experimental approach, breaking with Aristotle's influence and thus giving birth to modern science. Salam was also careful to differentiate between metaphysics and physics, and advised against empirically probing certain matters on which "physics is silent and will remain so," such as the doctrine of "creation from nothing" which in Salam's view is outside the limits of science and thus "gives way" to religious considerations.
Literary style
The Quran's message is conveyed with various literary structures and devices. In the original Arabic, the suras and verses employ phonetic and thematic structures that assist the audience's efforts to recall the message of the text. Muslims assert (according to the Quran itself) that the Quranic content and style is inimitable.
The language of the Quran has been described as "rhymed prose" as it partakes of both poetry and prose; however, this description runs the risk of failing to convey the rhythmic quality of Quranic language, which is more poetic in some parts and more prose-like in others. Rhyme, while found throughout the Quran, is conspicuous in many of the earlier Meccan suras, in which relatively short verses throw the rhyming words into prominence. The effectiveness of such a form is evident for instance in Sura 81, and there can be no doubt that these passages impressed the conscience of the hearers. Frequently a change of rhyme from one set of verses to another signals a change in the subject of discussion. Later sections also preserve this form but the style is more expository.
The Quranic text seems to have no beginning, middle, or end, its nonlinear structure being akin to a web or net. The textual arrangement is sometimes considered to exhibit lack of continuity, absence of any chronological or thematic order and repetitiousness. Michael Sells, citing the work of the critic Norman O. Brown, acknowledges Brown's observation that the seeming disorganization of Quranic literary expression—its scattered or fragmented mode of composition in Sells's phrase—is in fact a literary device capable of delivering profound effects as if the intensity of the prophetic message were shattering the vehicle of human language in which it was being communicated. Sells also addresses the much-discussed repetitiveness of the Quran, seeing this, too, as a literary device.
A text is self-referential when it speaks about itself and makes reference to itself. According to Stefan Wild, the Quran demonstrates this metatextuality by explaining, classifying, interpreting and justifying the words to be transmitted. Self-referentiality is evident in those passages where the Quran refers to itself as revelation (), remembrance (dhikr), news (), criterion () in a self-designating manner (explicitly asserting its Divinity, "And this is a blessed Remembrance that We have sent down; so are you now denying it?"), or in the frequent appearance of the "Say" tags, when Muhammad is commanded to speak (e.g., "Say: 'God's guidance is the true guidance'," "Say: 'Would you then dispute with us concerning God?'"). According to Wild the Quran is highly self-referential. The feature is more evident in early Meccan suras.
Interpretation
The Quran has sparked much commentary and explication (), aimed at explaining the "meanings of the Quranic verses, clarifying their import and finding out their significance."
Tafsir is one of the earliest academic activities of Muslims. According to the Quran, Muhammad was the first person who described the meanings of verses for early Muslims. Other early exegetes included a few Companions of Muhammad, such as Abu Bakr, 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, 'Uthman ibn 'Affan, ʻAli ibn Abi Talib, 'Abdullah ibn Mas'ood, ʻAbdullah ibn Abbas, Ubayy ibn Kaʻb, Zayd ibn Thaabit, Abu Moosaa al-Ash’ari, and ‘Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr. Exegesis in those days was confined to the explanation of literary aspects of the verse, the background of its revelation and, occasionally, interpretation of one verse with the help of the other. If the verse was about a historical event, then sometimes a few traditions (hadith) of Muhammad were narrated to make its meaning clear.
Because the Quran is spoken in classical Arabic, many of the later converts to Islam (mostly non-Arabs) did not always understand the Quranic Arabic, they did not catch allusions that were clear to early Muslims fluent in Arabic and they were concerned with reconciling apparent conflict of themes in the Quran. Commentators erudite in Arabic explained the allusions, and perhaps most importantly, explained which Quranic verses had been revealed early in Muhammad's prophetic career, as being appropriate to the very earliest Muslim community, and which had been revealed later, canceling out or "abrogating" () the earlier text (). Other scholars, however, maintain that no abrogation has taken place in the Quran.
There have been several commentaries of the Quran by scholars of all denominations, popular ones include Tafsir ibn Kathir, Tafsir al-Jalalayn, Tafsir Al Kabir, Tafsir al-Tabari. More modern works of Tafsir include Ma'ariful Qur'an written by Mufti Muhammad Shafi and Risale-i Nur by Bediüzzaman Said Nursi.
Esoteric interpretation
Esoteric or Sufi interpretation attempts to unveil the inner meanings of the Quran. Sufism moves beyond the apparent () point of the verses and instead relates Quranic verses to the inner or esoteric (batin) and metaphysical dimensions of consciousness and existence. According to Sands, esoteric interpretations are more suggestive than declarative, they are allusions () rather than explanations (tafsir). They indicate possibilities as much as they demonstrate the insights of each writer.
Sufi interpretation, according to Annabel Keeler, also exemplifies the use of the theme of love, as for instance can be seen in Qushayri's interpretation of the Quran:
Moses, in 7:143, comes the way of those who are in love, he asks for a vision but his desire is denied, he is made to suffer by being commanded to look at other than the Beloved while the mountain is able to see God. The mountain crumbles and Moses faints at the sight of God's manifestation upon the mountain. In Qushayri's words, Moses came like thousands of men who traveled great distances, and there was nothing left to Moses of Moses. In that state of annihilation from himself, Moses was granted the unveiling of the realities. From the Sufi point of view, God is the always the beloved and the wayfarer's longing and suffering lead to realization of the truths.
Muhammad Husayn Tabatabaei says that according to the popular explanation among the later exegetes, indicates the particular meaning a verse is directed towards. The meaning of revelation (tanzil), as opposed to , is clear in its accordance to the obvious meaning of the words as they were revealed. But this explanation has become so widespread that, at present, it has become the primary meaning of , which originally meant 'to return' or 'the returning place'. In Tabatabaei's view, what has been rightly called , or hermeneutic interpretation of the Quran, is not concerned simply with the denotation of words. Rather, it is concerned with certain truths and realities that transcend the comprehension of the common run of men; yet it is from these truths and realities that the principles of doctrine and the practical injunctions of the Quran issue forth. Interpretation is not the meaning of the verse—rather it transpires through that meaning, in a special sort of transpiration. There is a spiritual reality—which is the main objective of ordaining a law, or the basic aim in describing a divine attribute—and then there is an actual significance that a Quranic story refers to.
According to Shia beliefs, those who are firmly rooted in knowledge like Muhammad and the imams know the secrets of the Quran. According to Tabatabaei, the statement "none knows its interpretation except God" remains valid, without any opposing or qualifying clause. Therefore, so far as this verse is concerned, the knowledge of the Quran's interpretation is reserved for God. But Tabatabaei uses other verses and concludes that those who are purified by God know the interpretation of the Quran to a certain extent.
According to Tabatabaei, there are acceptable and unacceptable esoteric interpretations. Acceptable ta'wil refers to the meaning of a verse beyond its literal meaning; rather the implicit meaning, which ultimately is known only to God and can't be comprehended directly through human thought alone. The verses in question here refer to the human qualities of coming, going, sitting, satisfaction, anger and sorrow, which are apparently attributed to God. Unacceptable is where one "transfers" the apparent meaning of a verse to a different meaning by means of a proof; this method is not without obvious inconsistencies. Although this unacceptable has gained considerable acceptance, it is incorrect and cannot be applied to the Quranic verses. The correct interpretation is that reality a verse refers to. It is found in all verses, the decisive and the ambiguous alike; it is not a sort of a meaning of the word; it is a fact that is too sublime for words. God has dressed them with words to bring them a bit nearer to our minds; in this respect they are like proverbs that are used to create a picture in the mind, and thus help the hearer to clearly grasp the intended idea.
History of Sufi commentaries
One of the notable authors of esoteric interpretation prior to the 12th century is Sulami (d. 1021) without whose work the majority of very early Sufi commentaries would not have been preserved. Sulami's major commentary is a book named ('Truths of Exegesis') which is a compilation of commentaries of earlier Sufis. From the 11th century onwards several other works appear, including commentaries by Qushayri (d. 1074), Daylami (d. 1193), Shirazi (d. 1209) and Suhrawardi (d. 1234). These works include material from Sulami's books plus the author's contributions. Many works are written in Persian such as the works of Maybudi (d. 1135) ('the unveiling of the secrets'). Rumi (d. 1273) wrote a vast amount of mystical poetry in his book Mathnawi. Rumi makes heavy use of the Quran in his poetry, a feature that is sometimes omitted in translations of Rumi's work. A large number of Quranic passages can be found in , which some consider a kind of Sufi interpretation of the Quran. Rumi's book is not exceptional for containing citations from and elaboration on the Quran, however, Rumi does mention Quran more frequently. Simnani (d. 1336) wrote two influential works of esoteric exegesis on the Quran. He reconciled notions of God's manifestation through and in the physical world with the sentiments of Sunni Islam. Comprehensive Sufi commentaries appear in the 18th century such as the work of Ismail Hakki Bursevi (d. 1725). His work ('the Spirit of Elucidation') is a voluminous exegesis. Written in Arabic, it combines the author's own ideas with those of his predecessors (notably Ibn Arabi and Ghazali).
Levels of meaning
Unlike the Salafis and Zahiri, Shias and Sufis as well as some other Muslim philosophers believe the meaning of the Quran is not restricted to the literal aspect. For them, it is an essential idea that the Quran also has inward aspects. Henry Corbin narrates a hadith that goes back to Muhammad:
The Quran possesses an external appearance and a hidden depth, an exoteric meaning and an esoteric meaning. This esoteric meaning in turn conceals an esoteric meaning (this depth possesses a depth, after the image of the celestial Spheres, which are enclosed within each other). So it goes on for seven esoteric meanings (seven depths of hidden depth).
According to this view, it has also become evident that the inner meaning of the Quran does not eradicate or invalidate its outward meaning. Rather, it is like the soul, which gives life to the body. Corbin considers the Quran to play a part in Islamic philosophy, because gnosiology itself goes hand in hand with prophetology.
Commentaries dealing with the zahir ('outward aspects') of the text are called , and hermeneutic and esoteric commentaries dealing with the batin are called ta'wil ('interpretation' or 'explanation'), which involves taking the text back to its beginning. Commentators with an esoteric slant believe that the ultimate meaning of the Quran is known only to God. In contrast, Quranic literalism, followed by Salafis and Zahiris, is the belief that the Quran should only be taken at its apparent meaning.
Reappropriation
Reappropriation is the name of the hermeneutical style of some ex-Muslims who have converted to Christianity. Their style or reinterpretation can sometimes be geared towards apologetics, with less reference to the Islamic scholarly tradition that contextualizes and systematizes the reading (e.g., by identifying some verses as abrogated). This tradition of interpretation draws on the following practices: grammatical renegotiation, renegotiation of textual preference, retrieval, and concession.
Translations
Translating the Quran has always been problematic and difficult. Many argue that the Quranic text cannot be reproduced in another language or form. Furthermore, an Arabic word may have a range of meanings depending on the context, making an accurate translation even more difficult.
Nevertheless, the Quran has been translated into most African, Asian, and European languages. The first translator of the Quran was Salman the Persian, who translated surat al-Fatiha into Persian during the seventh century. Another translation of the Quran was completed in 884 in Alwar (Sindh, India, now Pakistan) by the orders of Abdullah bin Umar bin Abdul Aziz on the request of the Hindu Raja Mehruk.
The first fully attested complete translations of the Quran were done between the 10th and 12th centuries in Persian. The Samanid king, Mansur I (961–976), ordered a group of scholars from Khorasan to translate the Tafsir al-Tabari, originally in Arabic, into Persian. Later in the 11th century, one of the students of Abu Mansur Abdullah al-Ansari wrote a complete tafsir of the Quran in Persian. In the 12th century, Najm al-Din Abu Hafs al-Nasafi translated the Quran into Persian. The manuscripts of all three books have survived and have been published several times.
Islamic tradition also holds that translations were made for Emperor Negus of Abyssinia and Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, as both received letters by Muhammad containing verses from the Quran. In early centuries, the permissibility of translations was not an issue, but whether one could use translations in prayer.
In 1936, translations in 102 languages were known. In 2010, the Hürriyet Daily News and Economic Review reported that the Quran was presented in 112 languages at the 18th International Quran Exhibition in Tehran.
Robert of Ketton's 1143 translation of the Quran for Peter the Venerable, Lex Mahumet pseudoprophete, was the first into a Western language (Latin).
Alexander Ross offered the first English version in 1649, from the French translation of (1647) by Andre du Ryer. In 1734, George Sale produced the first scholarly translation of the Quran into English; another was produced by Richard Bell in 1937, and yet another by Arthur John Arberry in 1955. All these translators were non-Muslims. There have been numerous translations by Muslims. Popular modern English translations by Muslims include The Oxford World Classic's translation by Muhammad Abdel Haleem, The Clear Quran by Mustafa Khattab, Sahih International's translation, among various others.
As with translations of the Bible, the English translators have sometimes favored archaic English words and constructions over their more modern or conventional equivalents; for example, two widely read translators, Abdullah Yusuf Ali and Marmaduke Pickthall, use the plural and singular ye and thou instead of the more common you.
The oldest Gurmukhi translation of the Quran Sharif has been found in village Lande of Moga district of Punjab which was printed in 1911.
Recitation
Rules of recitation
The proper recitation of the Quran is the subject of a separate discipline named tajwid which determines in detail how the Quran should be recited, how each individual syllable is to be pronounced, the need to pay attention to the places where there should be a pause, to elisions, where the pronunciation should be long or short, where letters should be sounded together and where they should be kept separate, etc. It may be said that this discipline studies the laws and methods of the proper recitation of the Quran and covers three main areas: the proper pronunciation of consonants and vowels (the articulation of the Quranic phonemes), the rules of pause in recitation and of resumption of recitation, and the musical and melodious features of recitation.
In order to avoid incorrect pronunciation, reciters follow a program of training with a qualified teacher. The two most popular texts used as references for rules are Matn al-Jazariyyah by Ibn al-Jazari and Tuhfat al-Atfal by Sulayman al-Jamzuri.
The recitations of a few Egyptian reciters, like El Minshawy, Al-Hussary, Abdul Basit, Mustafa Ismail, were highly influential in the development of current styles of recitation. Southeast Asia is well known for world-class recitation, evidenced in the popularity of the woman reciters such as Maria Ulfah of Jakarta. Today, crowds fill auditoriums for public Quran recitation competitions.
There are two types of recitation:
is at a slower pace, used for study and practice.
Mujawwad refers to a slow recitation that deploys heightened technical artistry and melodic modulation, as in public performances by trained experts. It is directed to and dependent upon an audience for the reciter seeks to involve the listeners.
Variant readings
Vocalization markers indicating specific vowel sounds (tashkeel) were introduced into the text of the Qur'an during the lifetimes of the last Sahabah. The first Quranic manuscripts lacked these marks, enabling multiple possible recitations to be conveyed by the same written text. The 10th-century Muslim scholar from Baghdad, Ibn Mujāhid, is famous for establishing seven acceptable textual readings of the Quran. He studied various readings and their trustworthiness and chose seven 8th-century readers from the cities of Mecca, Medina, Kufa, Basra and Damascus. Ibn Mujahid did not explain why he chose seven readers, rather than six or ten, but this may be related to a prophetic tradition (Muhammad's saying) reporting that the Quran had been revealed in seven ahruf (meaning seven letters or modes). Today, the most popular readings are those transmitted by Ḥafṣ (d. 796) and Warsh (d. 812) which are according to two of Ibn Mujahid's reciters, Aasim ibn Abi al-Najud (Kufa, d. 745) and Nafi‘ al-Madani (Medina, d. 785), respectively. The influential standard Quran of Cairo uses an elaborate system of modified vowel-signs and a set of additional symbols for minute details and is based on ʻAsim's recitation, the 8th-century recitation of Kufa. This edition has become the standard for modern printings of the Quran.
The variant readings of the Quran are one type of textual variant. According to Melchert (2008), the majority of disagreements have to do with vowels to supply, most of them in turn not conceivably reflecting dialectal differences and about one in eight disagreements has to do with whether to place dots above or below the line.
Nasser categorizes variant readings into various subtypes, including internal vowels, long vowels, gemination (shaddah), assimilation and alternation.
Occasionally, an early Quran shows compatibility with a particular reading. A Syrian manuscript from the 8th century is shown to have been written according to the reading of Ibn Amir ad-Dimashqi. Another study suggests that this manuscript bears the vocalization of himsi region.
Writing and printing
Writing
Before printing was widely adopted in the 19th century, the Quran was transmitted in manuscripts made by calligraphers and copyists. The earliest manuscripts were written in Ḥijāzī-typescript. The Hijazi style manuscripts nevertheless confirm that transmission of the Quran in writing began at an early stage. Probably in the ninth century, scripts began to feature thicker strokes, which are traditionally known as Kufic scripts. Toward the end of the ninth century, new scripts began to appear in copies of the Quran and replace earlier scripts. The reason for discontinuation in the use of the earlier style was that it took too long to produce and the demand for copies was increasing. Copyists would therefore choose simpler writing styles. Beginning in the 11th century, the styles of writing employed were primarily the naskh, muhaqqaq, rayḥānī and, on rarer occasions, the thuluth script. Naskh was in very widespread use. In North Africa and Iberia, the Maghribī style was popular. More distinct is the Bihari script which was used solely in the north of India. Nastaʻlīq style was also rarely used in Persian world.
In the beginning, the Quran was not written with dots or tashkeel. These features were added to the text during the lifetimes of the last of the Sahabah. Since it would have been too costly for most Muslims to purchase a manuscript, copies of the Quran were held in mosques in order to make them accessible to people. These copies frequently took the form of a series of 30 parts or juzʼ. In terms of productivity, the Ottoman copyists provide the best example. This was in response to widespread demand, unpopularity of printing methods and for aesthetic reasons.
Whilst the majority of Islamic scribes were men, some women also worked as scholars and copyists; one such woman who made a copy of this text was the Moroccan jurist, Amina, bint al-Hajj ʿAbd al-Latif.
Printing
Wood-block printing of extracts from the Quran is on record as early as the 10th century.
Arabic movable type printing was ordered by Pope Julius II (r. 1503–1512) for distribution among Middle Eastern Christians. The first complete Quran printed with movable type was produced in Venice in 1537–1538 for the Ottoman market by Paganino Paganini and Alessandro Paganini. But this Quran was not used as it contained a large number of errors. Two more editions include those published by the pastor Abraham Hinckelmann in Hamburg in 1694, and by Italian priest Ludovico Maracci in Padua in 1698 with Latin translation and commentary.
Printed copies of the Quran during this period met with strong opposition from Muslim legal scholars: printing anything in Arabic was prohibited in the Ottoman empire between 1483 and 1726—initially, even on penalty of death. The Ottoman ban on printing in Arabic script was lifted in 1726 for non-religious texts only upon the request of Ibrahim Muteferrika, who printed his first book in 1729. Except for books in Hebrew and European languages, which were unrestricted, very few books, and no religious texts, were printed in the Ottoman Empire for another century.
In 1786, Catherine the Great of Russia, sponsored a printing press for "Tatar and Turkish orthography" in Saint Petersburg, with one Mullah Osman Ismail responsible for producing the Arabic types. A Quran was printed with this press in 1787, reprinted in 1790 and 1793 in Saint Petersburg, and in 1803 in Kazan. The first edition printed in Iran appeared in Tehran (1828), a translation in Turkish was printed in Cairo in 1842, and the first officially sanctioned Ottoman edition was finally printed in Constantinople between 1875 and 1877 as a two-volume set, during the First Constitutional Era.
Gustav Flügel published an edition of the Quran in 1834 in Leipzig, which remained authoritative in Europe for close to a century, until Cairo's Al-Azhar University published an edition of the Quran in 1924. This edition was the result of a long preparation, as it standardized Quranic orthography, and it remains the basis of later editions.
Criticism
Regarding the claim of divine origin, critics refer to preexisting sources, not only taken from the Bible, supposed to be older revelations of God, but also from heretic, apocryphic and talmudic sources, such as The Syriac Infancy Gospel and Gospel of James. However the Bible was not translated into Arabic until after the completion of the Quran with other Judeo-Christian sources being translated even later. Due to rejection of Crucifixion of Jesus in the Quran, some scholars also suspect Manichaean, a dualistic religion believing in two eternal forces, influences on the Quran.
The believe the Quran predicts scientific knowledge, relating the author to non-human origin. Critics argue, verses which allegedly explain modern scientific facts, about subjects such as biology, evolution of the earth, and human life, contain fallacies and are unscientific. Most claims of predictions rely on the ambiguity of the Arabic language, another point of criticism. Despite calling itself a clear book, the Quranic language lacks clarity.
Other criticisms point at the moral attitude asserted by the Quran. Examples include the Sword Verse, which some interpret as promoting violence against "pagans", and An-Nisa, 34, which some view as excusing domestic violence.
Relationship with other literature
Some non-Muslim groups such as the Baháʼí Faith and Druze view the Quran as holy. In the Baháʼí Faith, the Quran is accepted as authentic revelation from God along with the revelations of the other world religions, Islam being a stage within the divine process of progressive revelation. Bahá’u’lláh, the Prophet-Founder of the Baháʼí Faith, testified to the validity of the Quran, writing, "Say: Perused ye not the Qur’án? Read it, that haply ye may find the Truth, for this Book is verily the Straight Path. This is the Way of God unto all who are in the heavens and all who are on the earth." Unitarian Universalists may also seek inspiration from the Quran. It has been suggested that the Quran has some narrative similarities to the Diatessaron, Protoevangelium of James, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and the Arabic Infancy Gospel. One scholar has suggested that the Diatessaron, as a gospel harmony, may have led to the conception that the Christian Gospel is one text.
The Bible
The Quran attributes its relationship with former books (the Torah and the Gospels) to their unique origin, saying all of them have been revealed by the one God.
According to Christoph Luxenberg (in The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran) the Quran's language was similar to the Syriac language. The Quran recounts stories of many of the people and events recounted in Jewish and Christian sacred books (Tanakh, Bible) and devotional literature (Apocrypha, Midrash), although it differs in many details. Adam, Enoch, Noah, Eber, Shelah, Abraham, Lot, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Jethro, David, Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, Jonah, Aaron, Moses, Zechariah, John the Baptist and Jesus are mentioned in the Quran as prophets of God (see Prophets of Islam). In fact, Moses is mentioned more in the Quran than any other individual. Jesus is mentioned more often in the Quran than Muhammad (by name—Muhammad is often alluded to as "The Prophet" or "The Apostle"), while Mary is mentioned in the Quran more than in the New Testament.
Arab writing
After the Quran, and the general rise of Islam, the Arabic alphabet developed rapidly into an art form. The Arabic grammarian Sibawayh wrote one of the earliest books on Arabic grammar, referred to as "Al-Kitab", which relied heavily on the language in the Quran. Wadad Kadi, Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at University of Chicago, and Mustansir Mir, Professor of Islamic studies at Youngstown State University, state that the Quran exerted a particular influence on Arabic literature's diction, themes, metaphors, motifs and symbols and added new expressions and new meanings to old, pre-Islamic words that would become ubiquitous.
See also
Criticism of the Quran
Digital Quran
Hadith al-Thaqalayn
Historical reliability of the Quran
Islamic schools and branches
List of chapters in the Quran
List of translations of the Quran
Quran and miracles
Quran code
Quran translations
Schools of Islamic theology
Violence in the Quran
Women in the Quran
The True Furqan
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
Further reading
Introductory texts
Traditional Quranic commentaries (tafsir)
Topical studies
Literary criticism
.
Encyclopedias
Academic journals
Journal of Qur'anic Studies (), published by the School of Oriental and African Studies
Journal of Qur'anic Research and Studies, published by King Fahd Qur'an Printing Complex
External links
Reference material
The British Library: Discovering Sacred Texts – Islam
Manuscripts
Several digitised Qurans in the Cambridge University Digital Library
2017-232-1 al-Qurʼān. / القرآن at OPenn
Quran browsers and translation
Al-Quran.info
Quran Archive – Texts and Studies on the Quran
Quran text and translation at Tufts University
Tanzil – Online Quran Navigator
Quran.com
Multilingual Quran (Arabic, English, French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian)
Latin script transliterated Qur'an. Hans Zirker. University of Frankfurt.
7th-century books
Islamic theology
Islamic texts
Medieval literature
Religious texts
Islamic terminology
Miracles attributed to Muhammad
7th-century Arabic books |
37125 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian%20Security%20Intelligence%20Organisation | Australian Security Intelligence Organisation | The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO ) is Australia's national security agency responsible for the protection of the country and its citizens from espionage, sabotage, acts of foreign interference, politically motivated violence, attacks on the Australian defence system, and terrorism. ASIO is part of the Australian Intelligence Community and is comparable to the American FBI and the British MI5.
ASIO has a wide range of surveillance powers to collect human and signals intelligence. Generally, ASIO operations requiring police powers of arrest and detention under warrant are co-ordinated with the Australian Federal Police and/or with state and territory police forces.
ASIO Central Office is in Canberra, with a local office being located in each mainland state and territory capital. A new A$630 million Central Office, Ben Chifley Building, named after Ben Chifley, prime minister when ASIO was created, was officially opened by then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on 23 July 2013.
Command, control and organisation
ASIO is the statutory body established and regulated under the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979, responsible to the Parliament of Australia through the Department of Home Affairs. ASIO also reports to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, Senate’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee and is subject to independent review by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. The head of ASIO is the Director-General of Security, who oversees the strategic management of ASIO within guidelines issued by the Attorney-General. The current Director-General of Security is Mike Burgess, who assumed office on 16 September 2019. There are also two Deputy Directors-General.
In 2013, ASIO had a staff of around 1,740. The identity of ASIO officers, apart from the Director-General, remains an official secret. While ASIO is an equal opportunity employer, there has been some media comment of its apparent difficulty in attracting people from a Muslim or Middle Eastern background. Furthermore, ASIO has undergone a period of rapid growth with some 70% of its officers having joined since 2002, leading to what Paul O'Sullivan, Director-General of Security from 2005 to 2009, called 'an experience gap'.
Powers and accountability
Special investigative powers
The special investigative powers available to ASIO officers under warrant signed by the Attorney-General include:
interception of telecommunications,
examination of postal and delivery articles,
use of clandestine surveillance and tracking devices,
remote access to computers, including alteration of data to conceal that access,
covert entry to and search of premises, including the removal or copying of any record or thing found therein, and
conduct of an ordinary or frisk search of a person if they are at or near a premises specified in the warrant.
The Director-General also has the power to independently issue a warrant should a serious security situation arise and a warrant requested of the Attorney-General has not yet been granted.
An ASIO officer may, without warrant, ask an operator of an aircraft or vessel questions about the aircraft or vessel, its cargo, crew, passengers, stores or voyage; and to produce supporting documents relating to these questions.
Special terrorism investigative powers
When investigating terrorism, the Director-General may also seek a warrant from an independent judicial authority to allow:
the compulsory questioning of suspects,
the detention of suspects by the Australian Federal Police, and their subsequent interrogation by ASIO officers,
ordinary, frisk or strip search of suspects by AFP officers upon their detainment,
the seizure of passports, and
the prevention of suspects leaving Australia.
The Director-General is not empowered to independently issue a warrant in relation to the investigation of terrorism.
Immunity from prosecution
While the Act does not define any activities specifically to be legal, that is, to grant immunity for any specific crime, it does provide exceptions that will not be granted immunity. Section 35k (1) defines these activities as not being immune from liability for special intelligence conduct during special intelligence operations. That is to say, an ASIO operative would be deemed to have committed a crime if they were to participate in any of the following activities under any circumstances:
an activity that causes death or serious injury,
torture,
if the activity involves the commission of a sexual offence against any person, or
if the activity causes significant loss of, or serious damage to property.
Collection of foreign intelligence
ASIO also has the power to collect foreign intelligence within Australia at the request of the Minister for Foreign Affairs or the Minister for Defence. Known as Joint Intelligence Operations, and usually conducted in concert with the Australian Secret Intelligence Service the purpose of these operations is the gathering of security intelligence on and from foreign officials, organisations or companies.
Accountability
Because of the nature of its work, ASIO does not make details of its activities public and law prevents the identities of ASIO officers from being disclosed. ASIO and the Australian Government say that operational measures ensuring the legality of ASIO operations have been established.
ASIO briefs the Attorney-General on all major issues affecting security and he/she is also informed of operations when considering granting warrants enabling the special investigative powers of ASIO. Furthermore, the Attorney-General issues guidelines with respect to the conduct of ASIO investigations relating to politically motivated violence and its functions of obtaining intelligence relevant to security.
ASIO reports to several governmental and parliamentary committees dealing with security, legislative and financial matters. This includes the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and the Senate’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee. A classified annual report is provided to the government, an unclassified edited version of which is tabled in federal Parliament.
The Office of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security was established in 1986 to provide additional oversight of Australia’s security and intelligence agencies. The Inspector-General has complete access to all ASIO records and has a range of inquisitorial powers.
Relationships with foreign agencies and services
Australia’s intelligence and security agencies maintain close working relationships with the foreign and domestic intelligence and security agencies of other nations. As of 22 October 2008, ASIO has established liaison relationships with 311 authorities in 120 countries.
History
Pre-ASIO
The Australian Government assumed responsibility for national security and intelligence on Federation in 1901, and took over various state agencies and had to rationalise their functions. There was considerable overlap between the civil and military authorities. Similarly, there was also no Commonwealth agency responsible for enforcing federal laws. At the outbreak of World War I, no Australian government agency was dedicated to security, intelligence or law enforcement. The organisation of security intelligence in Australia took on more urgency with a perceived threat posed by agents provocateurs, fifth columnists and saboteurs within Australia.
In 1915, the British government arranged for the establishment of a Commonwealth branch of the Imperial Counter Espionage Bureau in Australia. The branch came to be known as the Australian Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) in January 1916, and maintained a close relationship with state police forces, and later with the Commonwealth Police Force, created in 1917, to conduct investigations independent of state police forces. After the war, on 1 November 1919, the SIB and Commonwealth Police were merged to form the Investigation Branch within the Attorney General's Department.
During World War II, Commonwealth Security Service was formed in 1941 to investigate organisations and individuals considered likely to be subversive or actively opposed to national interests; to investigate espionage and sabotage; to vet defence force personnel and workers in defence-related industries; to control the issue of passports and visas; and was responsible for the security of airports and wharves, and factories engaged in manufacture of munitions and other items necessary for Australia’s war effort. It was also responsible for radio security. In June 1945 it produced a report warning of the danger of the Communist Party of Australia.
Robert Frederick Bird Wake, one of the foundation directors of ASIO, is credited with getting "the show" started in 1949, as claimed by Valdemar Wake, in his biography No Ribbons or Medals of his father's work as a counter espionage officer. Wake worked closely with Director-General Reed. During World War II, Reed conducted an inquiry into Wake's performance as a security officer and found that he was competent and innocent of the charges laid by the Army's commander-in-chief, General Thomas Blamey. This was the start of a relationship between Reed and Wake that lasted for more than 10 years. Wake was seen as the operational head of ASIO.
Establishment and 'The Case'
Following the end of World War II, the joint United States-UK Venona project uncovered sensitive British and Australian government data being transmitted through Soviet diplomatic channels. Officers from MI5 were dispatched to Australia to assist local investigations. The leak was eventually tracked to a spy ring operating from the Soviet Embassy in Canberra. Allied Western governments expressed disaffection with the state of security in Australia.
On 9 March 1949, Prime Minister Ben Chifley created the post of Director-General of Security and appointed South Australian Supreme Court Justice Geoffrey Reed to the post. On 16 March 1949, Chifley issued a Directive for the Establishment and Maintenance of a Security Service. The Security Service's first authorised telephone interceptions were in June 1949, followed in July by a raid on the Sydney office of the Communist Party of Australia. In August 1949, Reed advised the Prime Minister that he had decided to name the service the 'Australian Security Intelligence Organization' .
The new service was to be modelled on the Security Service of the United Kingdom MI5 and an MI5 liaison team (including Sir Roger Hollis) was attached to the fledgling ASIO during the early 1950s. Historian Robert Manne describes this early relationship as "special, almost filial" and continues "ASIO's trust in the British counter-intelligence service appears to have been near-perfect".
The Labor Government was defeated at the December 1949 federal election, and in March 1950 the new prime minister, Robert Menzies, appointed the Deputy Director of Military Intelligence, Charles Spry, as the second Director-General of Security, commencing on 9 July 1950. Wake resigned shortly after Spry's appointment. On 6 July 1950, a Directive of Prime Minister Menzies set out the Charter of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, which expanded on Chifley's 1949 Directive. ASIO was converted to a statutory body on 13 December 1956 by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1956 (later repealed by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979, the current legislation as amended to 2007). Spry would continue to hold the post until January 1970. The spelling of the organisation was amended by legislation in 1999 to bring it into line with the Australian standard form 'organisation'.
The operation to crack the Soviet spy ring in Canberra consumed much of the resources of ASIO during the 1950s. This operation became internally known as "The Case". Among the prime suspects of the investigations were Wally Clayton, a prominent member of the Australian Communist Party, and two diplomats with the Department of External Affairs, Jim Hill and Ian Milner. However, no charges resulted from the investigations, because Australia did not have any laws against peacetime espionage at the time.
The Petrov Affair
5 February 1951 saw the arrival in Sydney of Vladimir Mikhaylovich Petrov, Third Secretary of the Soviet Embassy. An ASIO field officer identified Petrov as a possible 'legal', an agent of the Soviet Ministry of State Security (MGB, a forerunner to the KGB) operating under diplomatic immunity. The Organisation began gently cultivating Petrov through another agent, Dr. Michael Bialoguski, with the eventual goal of orchestrating his defection. Ultimately, Petrov was accused by the Soviet Ambassador of several lapses in judgement that would have led to his imprisonment and probable execution upon his return to the Soviet Union. Petrov feared for his life and accepted the defection life-line provided by ASIO.
The actual defection occurred on 3 April 1954. Petrov was spirited to a safe house by ASIO officers, but his disappearance and the seeming reluctance of Australian authorities to search for him made the Soviets increasingly suspicious. Fearing a defection by Petrov, MVD officers dramatically escorted his wife Evdokia to a waiting aeroplane in Sydney. There was doubt as to whether she was leaving by choice or through coercion and so Australian authorities initially did not act to prevent her being bundled into the plane. However, ASIO was in communication with the pilot and learned through relayed conversations with a flight attendant that if Evdokia spoke to her husband she might consider seeking asylum in Australia.
An opportunity to allow her to speak with her husband came when the Director-General of Security, Charles Spry, was informed that the MVD agents had broken Australian law by carrying firearms on an airliner in Australian airspace and so could be detained. When the aeroplane landed in Darwin for refuelling, the Soviet party and other passengers were asked to leave the plane. Police, acting on ASIO orders, quickly disarmed and restrained the two MVD officers and Evdokia was taken into the terminal to speak to her husband via telephone. After speaking to him, she became convinced he was alive and speaking freely and asked the Administrator of the Northern Territory for political asylum.
The affair sparked controversy in Australia when circumstantial links were noted between the leader of the Australian Labor Party and the Communist Party of Australia (and hence to the Soviet spy ring). H.V. Evatt, the leader of the Labor Party at the time, accused Prime Minister Robert Menzies of arranging the Petrov defection to discredit him. The accusations lead to a disastrous split in the Labor party.
Petrov was able to provide information on the structure of the Soviet intelligence apparatus in the mid-1950s, information that was highly valuable to the United States. It was by obtaining this information that the Organisation's reputation in the eyes of the United States was greatly enhanced.
In fact, when Brigadier Spry retired, the Deputy Director of the CIA sent the following tribute:
"The relationship between the CIA and ASIO started as a very personal one. The real substantive relationship started with Sir Charles' visit in 1955... Since Sir Charles' first visit, the relationships with ASIO have continued to become closer and closer until today we have no secrets, regardless of classification or sensitivity, that are not made available to ASIO if it is pertinent to Australia’s internal security... I feel, as does the Director, a type of mutual trust in dealing with ASIO that is exceeded by no other service in the world today".
The Cold War
ASIO's counter-intelligence successes continued throughout the Cold War. Following an elaborate investigation between 1961 and 1963, ASIO recommended the ejection of the First Secretary of the Soviet Embassy, Ivan Skripov, and his declaration as persona non-grata. Skripov had been refining Kay Marshall, an English-Australian woman as an agent for Soviet intelligence; however, she was in fact an agent of ASIO.
In April 1983, ASIO uncovered more Soviet attempts at espionage and Valery Ivanov, who also held the post of First Secretary at the Soviet Embassy, was declared persona non-grata. He was ejected from Australia on the grounds that he had performed duties in violation of his diplomatic status.
Penetration by the KGB
These successes were marred, however, by the penetration of ASIO by a KGB mole in the 1970s. Due to the close defence and intelligence ties between Australia and the United States, ASIO became a backdoor to American intelligence. Upon realising ASIO was compromised, the United States pulled back on the information it shared with Australia.
Following a strenuous internal audit and a joint Federal Police investigation, George Sadil was accused of being the mole. Sadil had been a Russian interpreter with ASIO for some 25 years and highly classified documents were discovered in his place of residence. Federal Police arrested Sadil in June 1993 and charged him under the Crimes Act 1914 with several espionage and official secrets related offences. However, parts of the case against him collapsed the following year.
Sadil was committed to trial in March 1994, but the Director of Public Prosecutions decided not to proceed with the more serious espionage-related charges after reviewing the evidence against him. Sadil's profile did not match that of the mole and investigators were unable to establish any kind of money trail between him and the KGB.
Sadil pleaded guilty in December 1994 to thirteen charges of removing ASIO documents contrary to his duty, and was sentenced to three months imprisonment. He was subsequently released on a 12-month good behaviour bond. It is believed that another ASIO officer, now retired, is suspected of being the mole but no prosecution attempts have been made.
In November 2004, former KGB Major-General Oleg Kalugin confirmed to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Four Corners programme that the KGB had in fact infiltrated ASIO in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
ASIO acknowledged in October 2016 that it had been infiltrated.
Sydney 2000 Olympic Games
ASIO began planning for the 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games, held in Sydney, as early as 1995. A specific Olympics Coordination Branch was created in 1997, and began recruiting staff with "specialised skills" the following year. In 1998, ASIO "strengthened information collection and analytical systems, monitored changes in the security environment more broadly, improved its communications technology and provided other agencies with strategic security intelligence assessments to assist their Olympics security planning".
The Olympics Coordination Branch also began planning for the Federal Olympic Security Intelligence Centre (FOSIC) in 1998. FOSIC was to "provide security intelligence advice and threat assessments to State and Commonwealth authorities during the Sydney 2000 Games".
Surveillance of anti-coal activists
In 2012 it was reported that ASIO had been monitoring the actions of Australians protesting against the coal industry, and was increasing its efforts from previous years. Minister Martin Ferguson said that he was particularly concerned about protests relating to the Hazelwood power station in Victoria. An unnamed security source told The Age newspaper that "providing advice and intelligence to safeguard [critical infrastructure] is clearly within ASIO's responsibilities... ASIO has a clear role, including protection against sabotage. And it's clear [environmental] activists pose a greater threat to energy facilities than terrorists." A spokesperson for Attorney General Nicola Roxon described ASIO's responsibility in monitoring political action groups as "limited to activity that is, or has the potential to be, violent for the purposes of achieving a political objective". Australian Greens party leader Bob Brown described ASIO monitoring environmentalists as a "political weapon" used by the Government for the benefit of "foreign-owned mining corporations".
Chinese intelligence activity
Nicola Roxon, the Attorney-General of Australia, blocked Chinese, state-owned company Huawei from seeking a supply contract for the National Broadband Network, on the advice of the ASIO. The Australian government feared Huawei would provide backdoor access for Chinese cyber espionage.
In May 2013, ABC News claimed that China stole blueprints to the headquarters of the ASIO.
Sheri Yan and Roger Uren were investigated by ASIO on suspicion of spying for China. Uren, former Assistant Secretary responsible for the Asia section of the Office of National Assessments, was found to have removed documents pertaining to Chinese intelligence operations in Australia, and kept them in his apartment. Yan was suspected of undertaking influence operations on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party, and introducing Colonel Liu Chaoying, a military intelligence officer, to Australian contacts.
Royal commissions, inquiries and reviews
Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security, 1974–77
On 21 August 1974, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam announced the establishment of the Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security to inquire into Australia's intelligence agencies. Justice Robert Hope of the Supreme Court of New South Wales was appointed as Royal Commissioner. In 1977 the First Hope Commission made many findings about, and recommendations on, ASIO in the Fourth Report, some of which had been preempted by the Whitlam and Fraser governments. The commission marked the first review of the organisation and was fundamental to securing it as part of Australia's state defensive apparatus. In a secret supplementary report, much of which remains classified, Hope indicated his belief that ASIO's past conduct was the result of its infiltration by a hostile foreign intelligence agency. In a 1998 interview Hope stated that saw some of his major recommendations as having been wrong.
The Commission found that ASIO provided the CIA with information about prominent Australian politicians and government officials. The information included accusations of subversive activities and details of private lives.
Protective Security Review, 1978–79
Following the Sydney Hilton bombing in 1978, the government commissioned Justice Hope with conducting a review into national protective security arrangements and into co-operation between Federal and State authorities in regards to security. In the report concluded in 1979, Justice Hope designated ASIO as the agency responsible for national threat assessments in terrorism and politically motivated violence. He also recommended that relations between ASIO and State and Territory police forces be regulated by arrangements between governments.
Royal Commission on Australian Security and Intelligence Agencies, 1983–84
Following the publicity surrounding the expulsion of Valery Ivanov, First Secretary at the Soviet Embassy in Canberra, the Government established a Royal Commission to review the activities of Australian security and intelligence agencies. Justice Hope was again Royal Commissioner.
Justice Hope completed his report in December 1984. His recommendations included that:
the security related activities which ASIO should investigate be redefined. References to subversion and terrorism be removed and replaced with politically motivated violence, attacks on Australia's defence system and promoting communal violence;
ASIO be given additional functions of collecting foreign intelligence and providing protective security advice; and that
a separate office of Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security be established.
Justice Hope also recommended that amendments to the ASIO Act provide that "it is not the purpose of the Act that the right of lawful advocacy, protest or dissent should be affected or that exercising those rights should, by themselves, constitute activity prejudicial to security".
Post-Cold War review, 1992
In early 1992, Prime Minister Paul Keating commissioned a review "of the overall impact of changes in international circumstances on the roles and priorities of the Australian intelligence agencies". In his statement of 21 July 1992, Keating said:
"Consistent with the philosophy of a separation of the assessment, policy and foreign intelligence collection functions, the Government considers that the existing roles of the individual agencies remain valid in the 1990s. The rationale outlined by Mr Justice Hope for ASIO as a freestanding, non-executive, advisory intelligence security agency remains relevant in the 1990s and the Government has therefore decided that ASIO should continue to have the roles and responsibilities laid down in existing legislation."
"The Soviet threat certainly formed an important component of ASIO's activities, but threats from other sources of foreign interference and politically motivated violence have been important to ASIO for some time, and will remain so. However, the implications for ASIO of the changes in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are more far-reaching than for the other agencies. The Government has therefore decided that while ASIO's capacity to meet its responsibilities must be maintained, there is scope for resource reductions."
The resource reductions mentioned were a cut of 60 staff and a $3.81 million budget decrease.
Inquiry into National Security, 1993
Following the trial of George Sadil over the ASIO mole scandal and from concern about the implications of material having been removed from ASIO without authority, the Prime Minister announced the appointment of Mr Michael Cook AO (former head of the Office of National Assessments) to inquire into various aspects of national security. The review was completed in 1994.
Parliamentary Joint Committee inquiries
The Parliamentary Joint Committee completed several reviews and inquiries into ASIO during the 1990s. The first concerned the security assessment process. Another was held in September into "the nature, scope and appropriateness of the way in which ASIO reports to the Australian public on its activities". The Committee concluded that "the total package of information available to the Australian community about ASIO's operations exceeds that available to citizens in other countries about their domestic intelligence agencies." Pursuant to this, recommendations were made regarding the ASIO website and other publicly accessible information.
Criticisms, controversies and conspiracies
Opposition to the political left
ASIO has been accused of executing an agenda against the Left of politics since its inception. In the 1960s, ASIO was also accused of neglecting its proper duties because of this supposed preoccupation with targeting the Left. Like other Western domestic security agencies, ASIO actively monitored protesters against the Vietnam War, Labor politicians and various writers, artists and actors who tended towards the Left. Other claims go further, alleging that the Organisation compiled a list of some 10,000 suspected Communist sympathisers who would be interned should the Cold War escalate.
Raids on ASIO Central Office, 1973
Further accusations against ASIO were raised by the Attorney-General following a series of bombings from 1963 to 1970 on the consulate of Communist Yugoslavia in Australia by Croatian far-right militia. Attorney-General Lionel Murphy alleged that ASIO had withheld information on the group which could have led to preventative measures taken against further bomb attacks (however, Murphy was a member of the recently sworn-in Labor government, which still held a deep-seated suspicion of ASIO).
On 15 March 1973, Murphy and the Commonwealth Police raided the ASIO offices in Melbourne. While some claim the raid was disastrous, serving little purpose other than to shake-up both ASIO and the Whitlam government, the findings of such investigations were not published.
The Sydney Hilton bombing allegations of conspiracy, 1978
On 13 February 1978, the Sydney Hilton Hotel was bombed, one of the few domestic terrorist incidents on Australian soil. The Hotel was the location for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). Three people in the street were killed – two council workers and a policeman – and several others injured. Former police officer Terry Griffiths, who was injured in the explosion, provided some evidence that suggested ASIO might have orchestrated the bombing or been aware of the possibility and allowed it to proceed. In 1985, the Director-General of Security issued a specific denial of the allegation. In 1991 the New South Wales parliament unanimously called for a joint State-Federal inquiry into the bombing. However, the Federal government vetoed any inquiry.
Anti-terrorism bungle, 2001
A few weeks after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States, mistakes led ASIO to incorrectly raid the home of Bilal Daye and his wife. It has been revealed that the search warrant was for a different address. The couple subsequently sought damages and the embarrassing incident was settled out of court in late 2005, with all material relating to the case being declared strictly confidential.
Kim Beazley-Ratih Hardjono investigation, 2004
In June 2004, Kim Beazley was accused of having a "special relationship" with Ratih Hardjono when he was defence minister. Hardjono was allegedly accused of "inappropriately" photographing a secure Australian Defence facility, working with the embassy ID, and having a close working relationship with her uncle, a senior officer in BAKIN (Indonesian Intelligence). In July, journalist Greg Sheridan contacted the then head of ASIO, Dennis Richardson, and discussed a classified operational investigation. Later in July members of the Attorney General's department were still investigating the original allegation, making Richardson's comments premature and inaccurate. The whole episode was a salient reminder to politicians in Canberra of the British experience of 'agents of influence' and honeypots. Ratih Hardjono was married to Bruce Grant in the 1990s.
Detention and removal of Scott Parkin, 2005
In September 2005, the visa of American citizen, Scott Parkin, was cancelled after Director-General of Security, Paul O'Sullivan, issued an adverse security assessment of the visiting peace activist. Parkin was detained in Melbourne and held in custody for five days before being escorted under guard to Los Angeles, where he was informed that he was required to pay the Australian Government A$11,700 for the cost of his detention and removal. Parkin challenged the adverse security assessment in the Federal Court in a joint civil action with two Iraqi refugees, Mohammed Sagar and Muhammad Faisal, who faced indefinite detention on the island of Nauru after also receiving adverse security assessments in 2005.
Prior to his removal, Parkin had given talks on the role of U.S. military contractor Halliburton in the Iraq war and led a small protest outside the Sydney headquarters of Halliburton subsidiary KBR. The Attorney-General at that time, Philip Ruddock, refused to explain the reasons for Parkin's removal, leading to speculation that ASIO had acted under pressure from the United States. This was denied by O'Sullivan before a Senate committee, where he gave evidence that ASIO based its assessment only on Parkin's activities in Australia. O'Sullivan refused to answer questions before a later Senate committee hearing after his legal counsel told the Federal Court that ASIO did not necessarily base its assessment solely on Parkin's activities in Australia.
Kidnap and false imprisonment of Izhar ul-Haque, 2007
On 12 November 2007, the Supreme Court of New South Wales dismissed charges brought against a young medical student, Izhar ul-Haque. ASIO and the Australian Federal Police had investigated ul-Haque for allegedly training with Lashkar-e-Toiba in Pakistan, a declared terrorist organisation under the Security Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Act 2002. However, the case against the medical student collapsed when it was revealed that ASIO officers had engaged in improper conduct during the investigation. Justice Michael Adams determined that because ul-Haque was falsely led to believe that he was legally compelled to comply with the ASIO officers, the conduct of at least one of the investigating ASIO officers constituted false imprisonment and kidnap at common law, and therefore key evidence against ul-Haque was inadmissible.
Archival material
Non-current ASIO files are stored at the National Archives of Australia, and can be released to the public under the Archives Act 1983 after 30 years, unless if they fall into any of 16 exemption categories itemised in section 33 of the Archives Act.
See also
Australian Federal Police (AFP)
National Security Committee
Australian Intelligence Community
Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS)
Australian Signals Directorate (ASD)
Office of National Assessments (ONA)
Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO)
Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation (AGO)
Oversight bodies
Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS)
Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS)
Relevant legislation
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 (ASIO Act)
Intelligence Services Act 2001 (ISA)
Intelligence Services Amendment Act 2004
Overseas counterparts
Canada: Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)
China: Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS)
New Zealand: New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS)
UK: Security Service (MI5) and GCHQ
US: National Security Branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (NSB/FBI)
Russia: Federal Security Service (FSB)
Japan: Japanese National Police Agency and Public Security Intelligence Agency (PSIA)
References
Further reading
available from Digital Print, South Australia.
McKnight, David. Australia's Spies and Their Secrets. Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1994. .
Fowler, Andrew: "Trust and Betrayal" (transcripts), Four Corners (ABC TV), 1 November 2004.
External links
Website: ASIO Website
PDF Document: Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 (Commonwealth)
PDF Document: Statement of Procedures – warrants issued under Division 3 of Part III of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979.
Open Australia Search: Parliamentary records mentioning ASIO.
1949 establishments in Australia
Government agencies established in 1949
Australian intelligence agencies
Commonwealth Government agencies of Australia
Combe–Ivanov affair
Counterintelligence agencies
National security of Australia |
37301 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevie%20Case | Stevie Case | Stevana "Stevie" Case (born 1976–1977) is an American businesswoman. She is known for competing in the first-person shooter game Quake in the late 1990s, as well as contributing professionally to the video game industry.
Competing under the alias KillCreek, she was one of the first notable female esports players, gaining recognition for beating Quake designer John Romero in a Quake deathmatch in 1997. She was the first professional gamer signed to the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL).
Case worked for Ion Storm between 1997 and 2001, conducting quality assurance and level design. She left the company to manage Monkeystone Games with former Ion Storm employees Romero and Tom Hall. After a stint at Warner Bros. managing the production of mobile games, she began working at various companies in business development and sales.
Early life
Case was raised in Olathe, Kansas. Her parents were a science teacher and a social worker. As a child, she enjoyed playing computer games. Her first gaming experiences were with Lode Runner and Joust on an Apple IIe computer her father bought when she was in second grade.
Case attended Olathe East High School from 1991 to 1994. As the student government president, she was one of the plaintiffs in the 1995 court case Case v. Unified School District No. 233. During the trial, students and parents in Olathe successfully challenged the school district's decision to ban Annie on my Mind from the school library. Case later attended the University of Kansas in hopes of getting into law school.
Career
Professional Quake player and John Romero deathmatch
While at the University of Kansas as a freshman studying political science, Case enjoyed playing Doom and Doom II with her circle of friends. She became interested in playing Quake competitively through her then-boyfriend Tom "Entropy" Kimzey, joining his competitive team, Impulse 9, and competing under the alias KillCreek. The name was inspired by the Lawrence, Kansas band Kill Creek. Impulse 9 competed in the Quake competitive league Clanring, and won the T1 competition in 1996.
After a few months of competing and making a name for herself, Case went to Dallas on a pilgrimage to meet some of the developers of her favorite first-person-shooter computer games. During her trip, she got the chance to play a Quake deathmatch against the game's designer, John Romero, but was beaten by him in a close game. After Romero put up a web page jokingly insulting her skill at the game, Case publicly demanded a rematch with him. While Case initially struggled in the best-of-three rematch, she rallied back to win the first round 25–19, and went on to ultimately defeat Romero. As punishment, Romero agreed to set up a web page praising Case.
Case was twenty years old at the time she won the rematch in 1997, and beating one of the co-creators of Quake at his own game brought her a lot of publicity. She gained a sponsor in computer mouse manufacturer SpaceTec IMC that year, and her victory against Romero received coverage in Rolling Stone. Angel Munoz, the founder of Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), convinced Case to join his league in July 1997, becoming its first signed professional gamer. She eventually became one of the league's original founders. Case competed in the first all-female Quake tournament that year, coming in second behind Kornelia Takacs. Case moved to Texas in the middle of 1997. Describing her move, she said that while she had a passion for political science, she "was not excited about the day-to-day aspects of politics or practicing law."
Transition to game design
While playing professionally, Case began looking at game design as a potential career, stating, "I love games, and I love competition -- but having no choice but to play the same game day-in and day-out with all sorts of pressure attached just didn't suit my nature." According to Case, she did freelance game design work from her Dallas home for two years after university, using free design tools that she downloaded. One of the first game levels she designed was for SiN: Wages of Sin (1999). Setting up a small studio called Primitive Earthling Games, she and some friends created a Quake II add-on called Vengeance and submitted it to WizardWorks. However, it never became available for purchase due to publishing delays. Between 1998 and 2000, Case authored three strategy guide books for Prima Games: Jazz Jackrabbit 2 (1998), Buck Bumble (1998), and Daikatana (2000). She also contributed to their Quake II strategy guide.
Case was hired at Ion Storm in the summer of 1997 as a video game tester. In November 1998, Romero offered her a job in level design, which she accepted. Case helped design levels for Daikatana (2000) and Anachronox (2001). It was during this time period that Case began to date Romero. According to David Kushner's Masters of Doom, it was at this point when Case "radically reinvented herself" by losing weight, bleaching her hair, and undergoing breast augmentation surgery. Case received further press coverage, appearing on the March 2000 cover of PC Accelerator, and being featured as one of the "Next Game Gods" in the November 2000 issue of PC Gamer. She was approached by Playboy to appear in a nude pictorial, based on an interview she did in the Los Angeles Times. The pictorial was released online in May 2000. When asked about how she changed after moving to Dallas and making video games a career, Case responded:Making the leap to games helped me to realize that the only way to be truly happy is to live by your own rules, not limited by outside expectations. I love my job, found a wonderful boyfriend and truly found myself through games.Case was still involved in the Cyberathlete Professional League in some capacity. She eventually transitioned into being CPL's "Master of Ceremonies", and in 1999, Case joined the CPL's board of directors.
Case left Ion Storm in January 2001 to follow Romero to his new company, Monkeystone Games, which was founded in August 2001. Monkeystone was a mobile game development company formed from Romero's interest in mobile games, sparked by him wanting to move away from the lengthy development cycles of big-budget computer games. Case worked as a producer for Monkeystone's first game, Hyperspace Delivery Boy!, and also created the music and sound effects. She also was credited on titles like Monkeystone's Red Faction port for the N-Gage. After leaving Monkeystone Games, Case became a senior project manager for Warner Bros. Online's mobile group.
Sales and business development
According to Case, she decided at this point to slowly transition out of working in the game development industry, stating in an interview: There was a ton of harassment and hate and sexism and abuse. People would send me hate email all the time. ... The benefit of connecting with people was so drowned out by how bad it felt to be in the spotlight. Case recalled receiving the opportunity to leave game development when one of her contacts approached her about a potential junior sales position at his workplace. After leaving Warner Bros., Case was employed at Tira Wireless in sales and business development. Afterwards, she held a position with Spleak Media Network, where she was a director of product management.
In September 2008, she was vice president of business development and sales for fatfoogoo, an online commerce company. Case also served as Senior Director of Business Development at Live Gamer, and joined PlaySpan in 2010 as vice president of sales. PlaySpan was acquired by Visa in 2011.
On March 1, 2010, NewWorld, the former parent company of the CPL, announced that it had signed a two-year agreement with Stevie Case for the production of a new podcast show called Stevie FTW. According to the website's RSS feed, the last podcast was uploaded on March 11, 2011, and the last social media update was on the same date.
After working as the vice president of growth at San Francisco-based startup Layer, according to her LinkedIn profile, she is now currently Head of Enterprise West Sales at Twilio. She is also listed as a participant in SheEO, a nonprofit supporting the funding of female entrepreneurs, as well as the female investor group 37 Angels.
Personal life
Case dated Quake player Tom "Entropy" Kimzey, who was also a University of Kansas student and a member of Impulse 9. According to the June 1997 issue of Spin, they were involved romantically until the spring of 1997. Case had also dated game developer Tom Mustaine.
Soon after defeating John Romero in a Quake deathmatch, she and Romero started dating. Case and Romero moved in together in 1999, but their relationship ended in the spring of 2003. Case went on to marry a director of product development at THQ, and had a child with him. In a 2016 interview, Case stated that she had been a single parent with full custody of her child for eight years.
Works
References
External links
Living people
People from Olathe, Kansas
Place of birth missing (living people)
University of Kansas alumni
American video game designers
American esports players
Women video game developers
Women esports players
Year of birth missing (living people) |
37436 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence | Emergence | In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when a complex entity has properties or behaviors that its parts do not have on their own, and emerge only when they interact in a wider whole.
Emergence plays a central role in theories of integrative levels and of complex systems. For instance, the phenomenon of life as studied in biology is an emergent property of chemistry.
In philosophy, theories that emphasize emergent properties have been called emergentism.
In philosophy
Philosophers often understand emergence as a claim about the etiology of a system's properties. An emergent property of a system, in this context, is one that is not a property of any component of that system, but is still a feature of the system as a whole. Nicolai Hartmann (1882–1950), one of the first modern philosophers to write on emergence, termed this a categorial novum (new category).
Definitions
This concept of emergence dates from at least the time of Aristotle. The many scientists and philosophers who have written on the concept include John Stuart Mill (Composition of Causes, 1843) and Julian Huxley (1887–1975).
The philosopher G. H. Lewes coined the term "emergent" in 1875, distinguishing it from the merely "resultant":
Every resultant is either a sum or a difference of the co-operant forces; their sum, when their directions are the same – their difference, when their directions are contrary. Further, every resultant is clearly traceable in its components, because these are homogeneous and commensurable. It is otherwise with emergents, when, instead of adding measurable motion to measurable motion, or things of one kind to other individuals of their kind, there is a co-operation of things of unlike kinds. The emergent is unlike its components insofar as these are incommensurable, and it cannot be reduced to their sum or their difference.
Strong and weak emergence
Usage of the notion "emergence" may generally be subdivided into two perspectives, that of "weak emergence" and "strong emergence". One paper discussing this division is Weak Emergence, by philosopher Mark Bedau. In terms of physical systems, weak emergence is a type of emergence in which the emergent property is amenable to computer simulation or similar forms of after-the-fact analysis (for example, the formation of a traffic jam, the structure of a flock of starlings in flight or a school of fish, or the formation of galaxies). Crucial in these simulations is that the interacting members retain their independence. If not, a new entity is formed with new, emergent properties: this is called strong emergence, which it is argued cannot be simulated, analysed or reduced.
Some common points between the two notions are that emergence concerns new properties produced as the system grows, which is to say ones which are not shared with its components or prior states. Also, it is assumed that the properties are supervenient rather than metaphysically primitive.
Weak emergence describes new properties arising in systems as a result of the interactions at a fundamental level. However, Bedau stipulates that the properties can be determined only by observing or simulating the system, and not by any process of a reductionist analysis. As a consequence the emerging properties are scale dependent: they are only observable if the system is large enough to exhibit the phenomenon. Chaotic, unpredictable behaviour can be seen as an emergent phenomenon, while at a microscopic scale the behaviour of the constituent parts can be fully deterministic.
Bedau notes that weak emergence is not a universal metaphysical solvent, as the hypothesis that consciousness is weakly emergent would not resolve the traditional philosophical questions about the physicality of consciousness. However, Bedau concludes that adopting this view would provide a precise notion that emergence is involved in consciousness, and second, the notion of weak emergence is metaphysically benign.
Strong emergence describes the direct causal action of a high-level system upon its components; qualities produced this way are irreducible to the system's constituent parts. The whole is other than the sum of its parts. It is argued then that no simulation of the system can exist, for such a simulation would itself constitute a reduction of the system to its constituent parts. Physics lacks well-established examples of strong emergence, unless it is interpreted as the impossibility in practice to explain the whole in terms of the parts. Practical impossibility may be a more useful distinction than one in principle, since it is easier to determine and quantify, and does not imply the use of mysterious forces, but simply reflects the limits of our capability.
Viability of strong emergence
Some thinkers question the plausibility of strong emergence as contravening our usual understanding of physics. Mark A. Bedau observes:
Strong emergence can be criticized for leading to causal overdetermination. The canonical example concerns emergent mental states (M and M∗) that supervene on physical states (P and P∗) respectively. Let M and M∗ be emergent properties. Let M∗ supervene on base property P∗. What happens when M causes M∗? Jaegwon Kim says:
If M is the cause of M∗, then M∗ is overdetermined because M∗ can also be thought of as being determined by P. One escape-route that a strong emergentist could take would be to deny downward causation. However, this would remove the proposed reason that emergent mental states must supervene on physical states, which in turn would call physicalism into question, and thus be unpalatable for some philosophers and physicists.
Objective or subjective quality
Crutchfield regards the properties of complexity and organization of any system as subjective qualities determined by the observer.
Defining structure and detecting the emergence of complexity in nature are inherently subjective, though essential, scientific activities. Despite the difficulties, these problems can be analysed in terms of how model-building observers infer from measurements the computational capabilities embedded in non-linear processes. An observer’s notion of what is ordered, what is random, and what is complex in its environment depends directly on its computational resources: the amount of raw measurement data, of memory, and of time available for estimation and inference. The discovery of structure in an environment depends more critically and subtly, though, on how those resources are organized. The descriptive power of the observer’s chosen (or implicit) computational model class, for example, can be an overwhelming determinant in finding regularity in data.
The low entropy of an ordered system can be viewed as an example of subjective emergence: the observer sees an ordered system by ignoring the underlying microstructure (i.e. movement of molecules or elementary particles) and concludes that the system has a low entropy.
On the other hand, chaotic, unpredictable behaviour can also be seen as subjective emergent, while at a microscopic scale the movement of the constituent parts can be fully deterministic.
In science
In physics, emergence is used to describe a property, law, or phenomenon which occurs at macroscopic scales (in space or time) but not at microscopic scales, despite the fact that a macroscopic system can be viewed as a very large ensemble of microscopic systems.
An emergent behavior of a physical system is a qualitative property that can only occur in the limit that the number of microscopic constituents tends to infinity.
According to Laughlin, for many particle systems, nothing can be calculated exactly from the microscopic equations, and macroscopic systems are characterised by broken symmetry: the symmetry present in the microscopic equations is not present in the macroscopic system, due to phase transitions. As a result, these macroscopic systems are described in their own terminology, and have properties that do not depend on many microscopic details.
Novelist Arthur Koestler used the metaphor of Janus (a symbol of the unity underlying complements like open/shut, peace/war) to illustrate how the two perspectives (strong vs. weak or holistic vs. reductionistic) should be treated as non-exclusive, and should work together to address the issues of emergence. Theoretical physicist PW Anderson states it this way:
Meanwhile, others have worked towards developing analytical evidence of strong emergence. Renormalization methods in theoretical physics enable physicists to study critical phenomena that are not tractable as the combination of their parts. In 2009, Gu et al. presented a class of infinite physical systems that exhibits non-computable macroscopic properties. More precisely, if one could compute certain macroscopic properties of these systems from the microscopic description of these systems, then one would be able to solve computational problems known to be undecidable in computer science. These results concern infinite systems, finite systems being considered computable. However, macroscopic concepts which only apply in the limit of infinite systems, such as phase transitions and the renormalization group, are important for understanding and modeling real, finite physical systems. Gu et al. concluded that
In humanity
Human beings are the basic elements of social systems, which perpetually interact and create, maintain, or untangle mutual social bonds. Social bonds in social systems are perpetually changing in the sense of the ongoing reconfiguration of their structure. An early argument (1904–05) for the emergence of social formations can be found in Max Weber's most famous work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Recently, the emergence of a new social system is linked with the emergence of order from nonlinear relationships among multiple interacting units, where multiple interacting units are individual thoughts, consciousness, and actions.
In linguistics, the concept of emergence has been applied in the domain of stylometry to explain the interrelation between the syntactical structures of the text and the author style (Slautina, Marusenko, 2014). It has also been argued that the structure and regularity of language grammar, or at least language change, is an emergent phenomenon. While each speaker merely tries to reach their own communicative goals, they use language in a particular way. If enough speakers behave in that way, language is changed. In a wider sense, the norms of a language, i.e. the linguistic conventions of its speech society, can be seen as a system emerging from long-time participation in communicative problem-solving in various social circumstances.
Economic trends and patterns which emerge are studied intensively by technical analysts.Within the field of group facilitation and organization development, there have been a number of new group processes that are designed to maximize emergence and self-organization, by offering a minimal set of effective initial conditions. Examples of these processes include SEED-SCALE, appreciative inquiry, Future Search, the world cafe or knowledge cafe, Open Space Technology, and others (Holman, 2010). In international development, concepts of emergence have been used within a theory of social change termed SEED-SCALE to show how standard principles interact to bring forward socio-economic development fitted to cultural values, community economics, and natural environment (local solutions emerging from the larger socio-econo-biosphere). These principles can be implemented utilizing a sequence of standardized tasks that self-assemble in individually specific ways utilizing recursive evaluative criteria.
In technology
The bulk conductive response of binary (RC) electrical networks with random arrangements, known as the Universal Dielectric Response (UDR), can be seen as emergent properties of such physical systems. Such arrangements can be used as simple physical prototypes for deriving mathematical formulae for the emergent responses of complex systems. Internet traffic can also exhibit some seemingly emergent properties. In the congestion control mechanism, TCP flows can become globally synchronized at bottlenecks, simultaneously increasing and then decreasing throughput in coordination. Congestion, widely regarded as a nuisance, is possibly an emergent property of the spreading of bottlenecks across a network in high traffic flows which can be considered as a phase transition. Some artificially intelligent (AI) computer applications simulate emergent behavior. One example is Boids, which mimics the swarming behavior of birds.
In religion and art
In religion, emergence grounds expressions of religious naturalism and syntheism in which a sense of the sacred is perceived in the workings of entirely naturalistic processes by which more complex forms arise or evolve from simpler forms. Examples are detailed in The Sacred Emergence of Nature by Ursula Goodenough & Terrence Deacon and Beyond Reductionism: Reinventing the Sacred by Stuart Kauffman, both from 2006, as well as Syntheism – Creating God in The Internet Age by Alexander Bard & Jan Söderqvist from 2014 and Emergentism: A Religion of Complexity for the Metamodern World by Brendan Graham Dempsey (2022).
Michael J. Pearce has used emergence to describe the experience of works of art in relation to contemporary neuroscience. Practicing artist Leonel Moura, in turn, attributes to his "artbots" a real, if nonetheless rudimentary, creativity based on emergent principles.
See also
References
Bibliography
Bejan, Adrian; Zane, J. P. (2012). Design in Nature: How the Constructal Law Governs Evolution in Biology, Physics, Technology, and Social Organizations. Doubleday.
Further reading
Alexander, V. N. (2011). The Biologist’s Mistress: Rethinking Self-Organization in Art, Literature and Nature. Litchfield Park AZ: Emergent Publications.
Chalmers, David J. (2002). "Strong and Weak Emergence" Republished in P. Clayton and P. Davies, eds. (2006) The Re-Emergence of Emergence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Philip Clayton & Paul Davies (eds.) (2006). The Re-Emergence of Emergence: The Emergentist Hypothesis from Science to Religion Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Felipe Cucker and Stephen Smale (2007), The Japanese Journal of Mathematics, The Mathematics of Emergence
Hoffmann, Peter M. "Life's Ratchet: How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos" (2012), Basic Books.
Ignazio Licata & Ammar Sakaji (eds) (2008). Physics of Emergence and Organization, , World Scientific and Imperial College Press.
Solé, Ricard and Goodwin, Brian (2000) Signs of life: how complexity pervades biology, Basic Books, New York
Jakub Tkac & Jiri Kroc (2017), Cellular Automaton Simulation of Dynamic Recrystallization: Introduction into Self-Organization and Emergence (Software) (PDF) Cellular Automaton Simulation of Dynamic Recrystallization: Introduction into Self-Organization and Emergence "Video - Simulation of DRX"
architectureofemergence.com
External links
The Emergent Universe: An interactive introduction to emergent phenomena, from ant colonies to Alzheimer's.
Exploring Emergence: An introduction to emergence using CA and Conway's Game of Life from the MIT Media Lab
ISCE group: Institute for the Study of Coherence and Emergence.
Towards modeling of emergence: lecture slides from Helsinki University of Technology
Biomimetic Architecture – Emergence applied to building and construction
Studies in Emergent Order: Studies in Emergent Order (SIEO) is an open-access journal
Emergence
Emergence – How Stupid Things Become Smart Together – YouTube video by Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
DIEP: Dutch Institute for Emergent Phenomena
Concepts in metaphysics
Metaphysics of mind
Pattern formation
Concepts in the philosophy of mind
Holism
Ontology
Philosophy of physics |
37587 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padthaway%2C%20South%20Australia | Padthaway, South Australia | Padthaway is a small town in the Australian state of South Australia located in the state's south-east within the Limestone Coast region about south east of the state capital of Adelaide and about south-east of the municipal seat of Bordertown. The name is derived from the Potawurutj, the Aboriginal name word for cover or bury. Padthaway is in the Tatiara District Council, the state electorate of MacKillop and the federal Division of Barker.
The 2016 Australian census which was conducted in August 2016 reports that Padthaway had a population of 418 people.
History
Padthaway was the name of the original pastoral station which was established on Bodaruwitj Aboriginal lands in this area in 1847 by a successful Scottish businessman, Robert Lawson. In 1882 the Padthaway Estate Homestead was built by Eliza and Robert Lawson. The historic Padthaway Estate complex is listed on the South Australian Heritage Register.
In 1952 Padthaway became the centre of a soldier settlement scheme. The first vineyards were planted here in 1964 and quickly transformed marginal grazing land into a top wine-producing region. White wines, especially, from the region are regular winners of major awards. These wines may be purchased at the local cellar door sales and at wine retailers around Australia. Agriculture is also strong in Padthaway with onion, olives and seeds being grown along with sheep and cattle which are reared for sale.
Padthaway has a cluster of businesses located in the heart of town including a deli, general store, two rural service centres, an auto and engineering centre, a caravan park, and a park with a playground in the main street, Memorial Drive.
Other public amenities include netball and tennis courts, football oval, town hall, sports complex, medical clinic, playground, skate park and rotunda. The toilets are right near the playground. In 2010 a new medical clinic was built.
The Padthaway Conservation Park which is situated on a former coastal dune is located about north-east of the town centre. The conservation park has stands of yellow gum, ribbon gum, brown stringybark, manna gums, many acacias and banksias. It is also home to a variety of animals including koalas, birds, rabbits, kangaroos and many insects. Sometimes the rare fire orchid may be viewed in flower.
Wine region
Padthaway is also the name of a wine region surrounding the town. It is home to several large commercial vineyards. The oldest vineyard was established in 1964 by Seppelts, with Lindeman's, Hardys and Wynns also establishing vineyards in the 1960s. The wine region is long and wide with over of vineyards. There are only a few cellar doors operating in the region.
Sports
Records for lawn bowls being played in Padthaway go back to 1963. Lawn bowls is played in Padthaway on Saturday during the summer time. Padthaway bowling club plays in the Upper South East association.
The last A grade cricket premiership Padthaway won was in 1993. Padthaway has had a B grade side most years since. Padthaway came fifth in the competition in 2010–2011. In 2011 there was only one competition, an A grade side.
Netball has been played in Padthaway since the mid-late 1960s. In 2011 the Padthaway Netball Club, also called the Lions, has more than seven different teams for netball.
The Padthaway Football Club which commenced in 1967 is known as the Lions and is the main club of the town, competing in the Kowree-Naracoorte-Tatiara Football League. The football club won an A grade premiership grand final in 1993 against Bordertown.
The Padthaway Tennis Club dates back to 1962 and 1972 when the club laid new concrete courts. The Padthaway Tennis club won many premierships between the mid-1970s and into the late 1980s. Tennis is currently played as a social competition on Wednesday nights for a six-eight-week season in the summer before Christmas.
The Padthaway golf course is carved out of scrubland. This tight course is a challenge even for the most professional of golfers. The Padthaway golf club was opened in 1988 and has 9 holes with scrapes.
The community
Apex is a community group which operates in Padthaway composed of men between the ages of 18 and 45 who work together to promote social justice and raise awareness of charity causes by fundraising in interesting and creative ways.
Padthaway has an active Women in Agricultural Business group. WAB is a statewide network with branches throughout SA. It is an organisation for women interested in rural, agricultural and business issues. It provides the opportunity for self-development and friendship.
Schools
The school was built in 1935 and had its 75-year anniversary in 2010. The event was attended by many past, current and future students and staff and a time capsule was buried on the day. In 2011 Padthaway Primary School had 52 students and 12 staff members. Padthaway Primary School caters for years Reception-7 and also has a Child Parent Centre (CPC). At Padthaway Primary School the Student Representative Council (SRC) organises many fundraising activities for students to participate in.
Padthaway Primary School is a school with many activities for students such as the Come out, SAPSASA, Youth Environmental Forum, pancake day, Student Young Leaders Day and school camp. SAPSASA events include football, netball, cricket, tennis, cross country, athletics running events, swimming, diving, golf, hockey and skiing.
Climate
References
Towns in South Australia
Limestone Coast
Australian soldier settlements |
37738 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil | Soil | Soil, commonly referred to as dirt, or earth, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life of plants and soil organisms. Some scientific definitions distinguish dirt from soil by restricting the former term specifically to displaced soil.
Soil consists of a solid phase of minerals and organic matter (the soil matrix), as well as a porous phase that holds gases (the soil atmosphere) and water (the soil solution). Accordingly, soil is a three-state system of solids, liquids, and gases. Soil is a product of several factors: the influence of climate, relief (elevation, orientation, and slope of terrain), organisms, and the soil's parent materials (original minerals) interacting over time. It continually undergoes development by way of numerous physical, chemical and biological processes, which include weathering with associated erosion. Given its complexity and strong internal connectedness, soil ecologists regard soil as an ecosystem.
Most soils have a dry bulk density (density of soil taking into account voids when dry) between 1.1 and 1.6 g/cm3, though the soil particle density is much higher, in the range of 2.6 to 2.7 g/cm3. Little of the soil of planet Earth is older than the Pleistocene and none is older than the Cenozoic, although fossilized soils are preserved from as far back as the Archean.
Collectively the Earth's body of soil is called the pedosphere. The pedosphere interfaces with the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere, and the biosphere. Soil has four important functions:
as a medium for plant growth
as a means of water storage, supply and purification
as a modifier of Earth's atmosphere
as a habitat for organisms
All of these functions, in their turn, modify the soil and its properties.
Soil science has two basic branches of study: edaphology and pedology. Edaphology studies the influence of soils on living things. Pedology focuses on the formation, description (morphology), and classification of soils in their natural environment. In engineering terms, soil is included in the broader concept of regolith, which also includes other loose material that lies above the bedrock, as can be found on the Moon and other celestial objects.
Processes
Soil is a major component of the Earth's ecosystem. The world's ecosystems are impacted in far-reaching ways by the processes carried out in the soil, with effects ranging from ozone depletion and global warming to rainforest destruction and water pollution. With respect to Earth's carbon cycle, soil acts as an important carbon reservoir, and it is potentially one of the most reactive to human disturbance and climate change. As the planet warms, it has been predicted that soils will add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere due to increased biological activity at higher temperatures, a positive feedback (amplification). This prediction has, however, been questioned on consideration of more recent knowledge on soil carbon turnover.
Soil acts as an engineering medium, a habitat for soil organisms, a recycling system for nutrients and organic wastes, a regulator of water quality, a modifier of atmospheric composition, and a medium for plant growth, making it a critically important provider of ecosystem services. Since soil has a tremendous range of available niches and habitats, it contains a prominent part of the Earth's genetic diversity. A gram of soil can contain billions of organisms, belonging to thousands of species, mostly microbial and largely still unexplored. Soil has a mean prokaryotic density of roughly 108 organisms per gram, whereas the ocean has no more than 107 prokaryotic organisms per milliliter (gram) of seawater. Organic carbon held in soil is eventually returned to the atmosphere through the process of respiration carried out by heterotrophic organisms, but a substantial part is retained in the soil in the form of soil organic matter; tillage usually increases the rate of soil respiration, leading to the depletion of soil organic matter. Since plant roots need oxygen, aeration is an important characteristic of soil. This ventilation can be accomplished via networks of interconnected soil pores, which also absorb and hold rainwater making it readily available for uptake by plants. Since plants require a nearly continuous supply of water, but most regions receive sporadic rainfall, the water-holding capacity of soils is vital for plant survival.
Soils can effectively remove impurities, kill disease agents, and degrade contaminants, this latter property being called natural attenuation. Typically, soils maintain a net absorption of oxygen and methane and undergo a net release of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide. Soils offer plants physical support, air, water, temperature moderation, nutrients, and protection from toxins. Soils provide readily available nutrients to plants and animals by converting dead organic matter into various nutrient forms.
Composition
A typical soil is about 50% solids (45% mineral and 5% organic matter), and 50% voids (or pores) of which half is occupied by water and half by gas. The percent soil mineral and organic content can be treated as a constant (in the short term), while the percent soil water and gas content is considered highly variable whereby a rise in one is simultaneously balanced by a reduction in the other. The pore space allows for the infiltration and movement of air and water, both of which are critical for life existing in soil. Compaction, a common problem with soils, reduces this space, preventing air and water from reaching plant roots and soil organisms.
Given sufficient time, an undifferentiated soil will evolve a soil profile which consists of two or more layers, referred to as soil horizons. These differ in one or more properties such as in their texture, structure, density, porosity, consistency, temperature, color, and reactivity. The horizons differ greatly in thickness and generally lack sharp boundaries; their development is dependent on the type of parent material, the processes that modify those parent materials, and the soil-forming factors that influence those processes. The biological influences on soil properties are strongest near the surface, though the geochemical influences on soil properties increase with depth. Mature soil profiles typically include three basic master horizons: A, B, and C. The solum normally includes the A and B horizons. The living component of the soil is largely confined to the solum, and is generally more prominent in the A horizon. It has been suggested that the pedon, a column of soil extending vertically from the surface to the underlying parent material and large enough to show the characteristics of all its horizons, could be subdivided in the humipedon (the living part, where most soil organisms are dwelling, corresponding to the humus form), the copedon (in intermediary position, where most weathering of minerals takes place) and the lithopedon (in contact with the subsoil).
The soil texture is determined by the relative proportions of the individual particles of sand, silt, and clay that make up the soil. The interaction of the individual mineral particles with organic matter, water, gases via biotic and abiotic processes causes those particles to flocculate (stick together) to form aggregates or peds. Where these aggregates can be identified, a soil can be said to be developed, and can be described further in terms of color, porosity, consistency, reaction (acidity), etc.
Water is a critical agent in soil development due to its involvement in the dissolution, precipitation, erosion, transport, and deposition of the materials of which a soil is composed. The mixture of water and dissolved or suspended materials that occupy the soil pore space is called the soil solution. Since soil water is never pure water, but contains hundreds of dissolved organic and mineral substances, it may be more accurately called the soil solution. Water is central to the dissolution, precipitation and leaching of minerals from the soil profile. Finally, water affects the type of vegetation that grows in a soil, which in turn affects the development of the soil, a complex feedback which is exemplified in the dynamics of banded vegetation patterns in semi-arid regions.
Soils supply plants with nutrients, most of which are held in place by particles of clay and organic matter (colloids) The nutrients may be adsorbed on clay mineral surfaces, bound within clay minerals (absorbed), or bound within organic compounds as part of the living organisms or dead soil organic matter. These bound nutrients interact with soil water to buffer the soil solution composition (attenuate changes in the soil solution) as soils wet up or dry out, as plants take up nutrients, as salts are leached, or as acids or alkalis are added.
Plant nutrient availability is affected by soil pH, which is a measure of the hydrogen ion activity in the soil solution. Soil pH is a function of many soil forming factors, and is generally lower (more acid) where weathering is more advanced.
Most plant nutrients, with the exception of nitrogen, originate from the minerals that make up the soil parent material. Some nitrogen originates from rain as dilute nitric acid and ammonia, but most of the nitrogen is available in soils as a result of nitrogen fixation by bacteria. Once in the soil-plant system, most nutrients are recycled through living organisms, plant and microbial residues (soil organic matter), mineral-bound forms, and the soil solution. Both living soil organisms (microbes, animals and plant roots) and soil organic matter are of critical importance to this recycling, and thereby to soil formation and soil fertility. Microbial soil enzymes may release nutrients from minerals or organic matter for use by plants and other microorganisms, sequester (incorporate) them into living cells, or cause their loss from the soil by volatilisation (loss to the atmosphere as gases) or leaching.
Formation
Soil is said to be formed when organic matter has accumulated and colloids are washed downward, leaving deposits of clay, humus, iron oxide, carbonate, and gypsum, producing a distinct layer called the B horizon. This is a somewhat arbitrary definition as mixtures of sand, silt, clay and humus will support biological and agricultural activity before that time. These constituents are moved from one level to another by water and animal activity. As a result, layers (horizons) form in the soil profile. The alteration and movement of materials within a soil causes the formation of distinctive soil horizons. However, more recent definitions of soil embrace soils without any organic matter, such as those regoliths that formed on Mars and analogous conditions in planet Earth deserts.
An example of the development of a soil would begin with the weathering of lava flow bedrock, which would produce the purely mineral-based parent material from which the soil texture forms. Soil development would proceed most rapidly from bare rock of recent flows in a warm climate, under heavy and frequent rainfall. Under such conditions, plants (in a first stage nitrogen-fixing lichens and cyanobacteria then epilithic higher plants) become established very quickly on basaltic lava, even though there is very little organic material. Basaltic minerals commonly weather relatively quickly, according to the Goldich dissolution series. The plants are supported by the porous rock as it is filled with nutrient-bearing water that carries minerals dissolved from the rocks. Crevasses and pockets, local topography of the rocks, would hold fine materials and harbour plant roots. The developing plant roots are associated with mineral-weathering mycorrhizal fungi that assist in breaking up the porous lava, and by these means organic matter and a finer mineral soil accumulate with time. Such initial stages of soil development have been described on volcanoes, inselbergs, and glacial moraines.
How soil formation proceeds is influenced by at least five classic factors that are intertwined in the evolution of a soil: parent material, climate, topography (relief), organisms, and time. When reordered to climate, relief, organisms, parent material, and time, they form the acronym CROPT.
Physical properties
The physical properties of soils, in order of decreasing importance for ecosystem services such as crop production, are texture, structure, bulk density, porosity, consistency, temperature, colour and resistivity. Soil texture is determined by the relative proportion of the three kinds of soil mineral particles, called soil separates: sand, silt, and clay. At the next larger scale, soil structures called peds or more commonly soil aggregates are created from the soil separates when iron oxides, carbonates, clay, silica and humus, coat particles and cause them to adhere into larger, relatively stable secondary structures. Soil bulk density, when determined at standardized moisture conditions, is an estimate of soil compaction. Soil porosity consists of the void part of the soil volume and is occupied by gases or water. Soil consistency is the ability of soil materials to stick together. Soil temperature and colour are self-defining. Resistivity refers to the resistance to conduction of electric currents and affects the rate of corrosion of metal and concrete structures which are buried in soil. These properties vary through the depth of a soil profile, i.e. through soil horizons. Most of these properties determine the aeration of the soil and the ability of water to infiltrate and to be held within the soil.
Soil moisture
Soil water content can be measured as volume or weight. Soil moisture levels, in order of decreasing water content, are saturation, field capacity, wilting point, air dry, and oven dry. Field capacity describes a drained wet soil at the point water content reaches equilibrium with gravity. Irrigating soil above field capacity risks percolation losses. Wilting point describes the dry limit for growing plants. During growing season, soil moisture is unaffected by functional groups or specie richness.
Available water capacity is the amount of water held in a soil profile available to plants. As water content drops, plants have to work against increasing forces of adhesion and sorptivity to withdraw water. Irrigation scheduling avoids moisture stress by replenishing depleted water before stress is induced.
Capillary action is responsible for moving groundwater from wet regions of the soil to dry areas. Subirrigation designs (e.g., wicking beds, sub-irrigated planters) rely on capillarity to supply water to plant roots. Capillary action can result in an evaporative concentration of salts, causing land degradation through salination.
Soil moisture measurement — measuring the water content of the soil, as can be expressed in terms of volume or weight — can be based on in situ probes (e.g., capacitance probes, neutron probes), or remote sensing methods. Soil moisture measurement is an important factor in determining changes in soil activity.
Soil gas
The atmosphere of soil, or soil gas, is very different from the atmosphere above. The consumption of oxygen by microbes and plant roots, and their release of carbon dioxide, decreases oxygen and increases carbon dioxide concentration. Atmospheric CO2 concentration is 0.04%, but in the soil pore space it may range from 10 to 100 times that level, thus potentially contributing to the inhibition of root respiration. Calcareous soils regulate CO2 concentration by carbonate buffering, contrary to acid soils in which all CO2 respired accumulates in the soil pore system. At extreme levels, CO2 is toxic. This suggests a possible negative feedback control of soil CO2 concentration through its inhibitory effects on root and microbial respiration (also called soil respiration). In addition, the soil voids are saturated with water vapour, at least until the point of maximal hygroscopicity, beyond which a vapour-pressure deficit occurs in the soil pore space. Adequate porosity is necessary, not just to allow the penetration of water, but also to allow gases to diffuse in and out. Movement of gases is by diffusion from high concentrations to lower, the diffusion coefficient decreasing with soil compaction. Oxygen from above atmosphere diffuses in the soil where it is consumed and levels of carbon dioxide in excess of above atmosphere diffuse out with other gases (including greenhouse gases) as well as water. Soil texture and structure strongly affect soil porosity and gas diffusion. It is the total pore space (porosity) of soil, not the pore size, and the degree of pore interconnection (or conversely pore sealing), together with water content, air turbulence and temperature, that determine the rate of diffusion of gases into and out of soil. Platy soil structure and soil compaction (low porosity) impede gas flow, and a deficiency of oxygen may encourage anaerobic bacteria to reduce (strip oxygen) from nitrate NO3 to the gases N2, N2O, and NO, which are then lost to the atmosphere, thereby depleting the soil of nitrogen, a detrimental process called denitrification. Aerated soil is also a net sink of methane (CH4) but a net producer of methane (a strong heat-absorbing greenhouse gas) when soils are depleted of oxygen and subject to elevated temperatures.
Soil atmosphere is also the seat of emissions of volatiles other than carbon and nitrogen oxides from various soil organisms, e.g. roots, bacteria, fungi, animals. These volatiles are used as chemical cues, making soil atmosphere the seat of interaction networks playing a decisive role in the stability, dynamics and evolution of soil ecosystems. Biogenic soil volatile organic compounds are exchanged with the aboveground atmosphere, in which they are just 1–2 orders of magnitude lower than those from aboveground vegetation.
Humans can get some idea of the soil atmosphere through the well-known 'after-the-rain' scent, when infiltering rainwater flushes out the whole soil atmosphere after a drought period, or when soil is excavated, a bulk property attributed in a reductionist manner to particular biochemical compounds such as petrichor or geosmin.
Solid phase (soil matrix)
Soil particles can be classified by their chemical composition (mineralogy) as well as their size. The particle size distribution of a soil, its texture, determines many of the properties of that soil, in particular hydraulic conductivity and water potential, but the mineralogy of those particles can strongly modify those properties. The mineralogy of the finest soil particles, clay, is especially important.
Chemistry
The chemistry of a soil determines its ability to supply available plant nutrients and affects its physical properties and the health of its living population. In addition, a soil's chemistry also determines its corrosivity, stability, and ability to absorb pollutants and to filter water. It is the surface chemistry of mineral and organic colloids that determines soil's chemical properties. A colloid is a small, insoluble particle ranging in size from 1 nanometer to 1 micrometer, thus small enough to remain suspended by Brownian motion in a fluid medium without settling. Most soils contain organic colloidal particles called humus as well as the inorganic colloidal particles of clays. The very high specific surface area of colloids and their net electrical charges give soil its ability to hold and release ions. Negatively charged sites on colloids attract and release cations in what is referred to as cation exchange. Cation-exchange capacity is the amount of exchangeable cations per unit weight of dry soil and is expressed in terms of milliequivalents of positively charged ions per 100 grams of soil (or centimoles of positive charge per kilogram of soil; cmolc/kg). Similarly, positively charged sites on colloids can attract and release anions in the soil, giving the soil anion exchange capacity.
Cation and anion exchange
The cation exchange, that takes place between colloids and soil water, buffers (moderates) soil pH, alters soil structure, and purifies percolating water by adsorbing cations of all types, both useful and harmful.
The negative or positive charges on colloid particles make them able to hold cations or anions, respectively, to their surfaces. The charges result from four sources.
Isomorphous substitution occurs in clay during its formation, when lower-valence cations substitute for higher-valence cations in the crystal structure. Substitutions in the outermost layers are more effective than for the innermost layers, as the electric charge strength drops off as the square of the distance. The net result is oxygen atoms with net negative charge and the ability to attract cations.
Edge-of-clay oxygen atoms are not in balance ionically as the tetrahedral and octahedral structures are incomplete.
Hydroxyls may substitute for oxygens of the silica layers, a process called hydroxylation. When the hydrogens of the clay hydroxyls are ionised into solution, they leave the oxygen with a negative charge (anionic clays).
Hydrogens of humus hydroxyl groups may also be ionised into solution, leaving, similarly to clay, an oxygen with a negative charge.
Cations held to the negatively charged colloids resist being washed downward by water and are out of reach of plant roots, thereby preserving the soil fertility in areas of moderate rainfall and low temperatures.
There is a hierarchy in the process of cation exchange on colloids, as cations differ in the strength of adsorption by the colloid and hence their ability to replace one another (ion exchange). If present in equal amounts in the soil water solution:
Al3+ replaces H+ replaces Ca2+ replaces Mg2+ replaces K+ same as replaces Na+
If one cation is added in large amounts, it may replace the others by the sheer force of its numbers. This is called law of mass action. This is largely what occurs with the addition of cationic fertilisers (potash, lime).
As the soil solution becomes more acidic (low pH, meaning an abundance of H+), the other cations more weakly bound to colloids are pushed into solution as hydrogen ions occupy exchange sites (protonation). A low pH may cause the hydrogen of hydroxyl groups to be pulled into solution, leaving charged sites on the colloid available to be occupied by other cations. This ionisation of hydroxy groups on the surface of soil colloids creates what is described as pH-dependent surface charges. Unlike permanent charges developed by isomorphous substitution, pH-dependent charges are variable and increase with increasing pH. Freed cations can be made available to plants but are also prone to be leached from the soil, possibly making the soil less fertile. Plants are able to excrete H+ into the soil through the synthesis of organic acids and by that means, change the pH of the soil near the root and push cations off the colloids, thus making those available to the plant.
Cation exchange capacity (CEC)
Cation exchange capacity is the soil's ability to remove cations from the soil water solution and sequester those to be exchanged later as the plant roots release hydrogen ions to the solution. CEC is the amount of exchangeable hydrogen cation (H+) that will combine with 100 grams dry weight of soil and whose measure is one milliequivalents per 100 grams of soil (1 meq/100 g). Hydrogen ions have a single charge and one-thousandth of a gram of hydrogen ions per 100 grams dry soil gives a measure of one milliequivalent of hydrogen ion. Calcium, with an atomic weight 40 times that of hydrogen and with a valence of two, converts to = 20 milliequivalents of hydrogen ion per 100 grams of dry soil or 20 meq/100 g. The modern measure of CEC is expressed as centimoles of positive charge per kilogram (cmol/kg) of oven-dry soil.
Most of the soil's CEC occurs on clay and humus colloids, and the lack of those in hot, humid, wet climates (such as tropical rainforests), due to leaching and decomposition, respectively, explains the apparent sterility of tropical soils. Live plant roots also have some CEC, linked to their specific surface area.
Anion exchange capacity (AEC)
Anion exchange capacity is the soil's ability to remove anions (such as nitrate, phosphate) from the soil water solution and sequester those for later exchange as the plant roots release carbonate anions to the soil water solution. Those colloids which have low CEC tend to have some AEC. Amorphous and sesquioxide clays have the highest AEC, followed by the iron oxides. Levels of AEC are much lower than for CEC, because of the generally higher rate of positively (versus negatively) charged surfaces on soil colloids, to the exception of variable-charge soils. Phosphates tend to be held at anion exchange sites.
Iron and aluminum hydroxide clays are able to exchange their hydroxide anions (OH−) for other anions. The order reflecting the strength of anion adhesion is as follows:
replaces replaces replaces Cl−
The amount of exchangeable anions is of a magnitude of tenths to a few milliequivalents per 100 g dry soil. As pH rises, there are relatively more hydroxyls, which will displace anions from the colloids and force them into solution and out of storage; hence AEC decreases with increasing pH (alkalinity).
Reactivity (pH)
Soil reactivity is expressed in terms of pH and is a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of the soil. More precisely, it is a measure of hydronium concentration in an aqueous solution and ranges in values from 0 to 14 (acidic to basic) but practically speaking for soils, pH ranges from 3.5 to 9.5, as pH values beyond those extremes are toxic to life forms.
At 25 °C an aqueous solution that has a pH of 3.5 has 10−3.5 moles H3O+ (hydronium ions) per litre of solution (and also 10−10.5 moles per litre OH−). A pH of 7, defined as neutral, has 10−7 moles of hydronium ions per litre of solution and also 10−7 moles of OH− per litre; since the two concentrations are equal, they are said to neutralise each other. A pH of 9.5 has 10−9.5 moles hydronium ions per litre of solution (and also 10−2.5 moles per litre OH−). A pH of 3.5 has one million times more hydronium ions per litre than a solution with pH of 9.5 ( or 106) and is more acidic.
The effect of pH on a soil is to remove from the soil or to make available certain ions. Soils with high acidity tend to have toxic amounts of aluminium and manganese. As a result of a trade-off between toxicity and requirement most nutrients are better available to plants at moderate pH, although most minerals are more soluble in acid soils. Soil organisms are hindered by high acidity, and most agricultural crops do best with mineral soils of pH 6.5 and organic soils of pH 5.5. Given that at low pH toxic metals (e.g. cadmium, zinc, lead) are positively charged as cations and organic pollutants are in non-ionic form, thus both made more available to organisms, it has been suggested that plants, animals and microbes commonly living in acid soils are pre-adapted to every kind of pollution, whether of natural or human origin.
In high rainfall areas, soils tend to acidify as the basic cations are forced off the soil colloids by the mass action of hydronium ions from usual or unusual rain acidity against those attached to the colloids. High rainfall rates can then wash the nutrients out, leaving the soil inhabited only by those organisms which are particularly efficient to uptake nutrients in very acid conditions, like in tropical rainforests. Once the colloids are saturated with H3O+, the addition of any more hydronium ions or aluminum hydroxyl cations drives the pH even lower (more acidic) as the soil has been left with no buffering capacity. In areas of extreme rainfall and high temperatures, the clay and humus may be washed out, further reducing the buffering capacity of the soil. In low rainfall areas, unleached calcium pushes pH to 8.5 and with the addition of exchangeable sodium, soils may reach pH 10. Beyond a pH of 9, plant growth is reduced. High pH results in low micro-nutrient mobility, but water-soluble chelates of those nutrients can correct the deficit. Sodium can be reduced by the addition of gypsum (calcium sulphate) as calcium adheres to clay more tightly than does sodium causing sodium to be pushed into the soil water solution where it can be washed out by an abundance of water.
Base saturation percentage
There are acid-forming cations (e.g. hydronium, aluminium, iron) and there are base-forming cations (e.g. calcium, magnesium, sodium). The fraction of the negatively-charged soil colloid exchange sites (CEC) that are occupied by base-forming cations is called base saturation. If a soil has a CEC of 20 meq and 5 meq are aluminium and hydronium cations (acid-forming), the remainder of positions on the colloids () are assumed occupied by base-forming cations, so that the base saturation is (the compliment 25% is assumed acid-forming cations). Base saturation is almost in direct proportion to pH (it increases with increasing pH). It is of use in calculating the amount of lime needed to neutralise an acid soil (lime requirement). The amount of lime needed to neutralize a soil must take account of the amount of acid forming ions on the colloids (exchangeable acidity), not just those in the soil water solution (free acidity). The addition of enough lime to neutralize the soil water solution will be insufficient to change the pH, as the acid forming cations stored on the soil colloids will tend to restore the original pH condition as they are pushed off those colloids by the calcium of the added lime.
Buffering
The resistance of soil to change in pH, as a result of the addition of acid or basic material, is a measure of the buffering capacity of a soil and (for a particular soil type) increases as the CEC increases. Hence, pure sand has almost no buffering ability, though soils high in colloids (whether mineral or organic) have high buffering capacity. Buffering occurs by cation exchange and neutralisation. However, colloids are not the only regulators of soil pH. The role of carbonates should be underlined, too. More generally, according to pH levels, several buffer systems take precedence over each other, from calcium carbonate buffer range to iron buffer range.
The addition of a small amount of highly basic aqueous ammonia to a soil will cause the ammonium to displace hydronium ions from the colloids, and the end product is water and colloidally fixed ammonium, but little permanent change overall in soil pH.
The addition of a small amount of lime, Ca(OH)2, will displace hydronium ions from the soil colloids, causing the fixation of calcium to colloids and the evolution of CO2 and water, with little permanent change in soil pH.
The above are examples of the buffering of soil pH. The general principal is that an increase in a particular cation in the soil water solution will cause that cation to be fixed to colloids (buffered) and a decrease in solution of that cation will cause it to be withdrawn from the colloid and moved into solution (buffered). The degree of buffering is often related to the CEC of the soil; the greater the CEC, the greater the buffering capacity of the soil.
Redox
Soil chemical reactions involve some combination of proton and electron transfer. Oxidation occurs if there is a loss of electrons in the transfer process while reduction occurs if there is a gain of electrons. Reduction potential is measured in volts or millivolts. Soil microbial communities develop along electron transport chains, forming electrically conductive biofilms, and developing networks of bacterial nanowires.
Redox factors in soil development, where formation of redoximorphic color features provides critical information for soil interpretation. Understanding the redox gradient is important to managing carbon sequestration, bioremediation, wetland delineation, and soil-based microbial fuel cells.
Nutrients
Seventeen elements or nutrients are essential for plant growth and reproduction. They are carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), sulfur (S), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), iron (Fe), boron (B), manganese (Mn), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), molybdenum (Mo), nickel (Ni) and chlorine (Cl). Nutrients required for plants to complete their life cycle are considered essential nutrients. Nutrients that enhance the growth of plants but are not necessary to complete the plant's life cycle are considered non-essential. With the exception of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, which are supplied by carbon dioxide and water, and nitrogen, provided through nitrogen fixation, the nutrients derive originally from the mineral component of the soil. The Law of the Minimum expresses that when the available form of a nutrient is not in enough proportion in the soil solution, then other nutrients cannot be taken up at an optimum rate by a plant. A particular nutrient ratio of the soil solution is thus mandatory for optimizing plant growth, a value which might differ from nutrient ratios calculated from plant composition.
Plant uptake of nutrients can only proceed when they are present in a plant-available form. In most situations, nutrients are absorbed in an ionic form from (or together with) soil water. Although minerals are the origin of most nutrients, and the bulk of most nutrient elements in the soil is held in crystalline form within primary and secondary minerals, they weather too slowly to support rapid plant growth. For example, the application of finely ground minerals, feldspar and apatite, to soil seldom provides the necessary amounts of potassium and phosphorus at a rate sufficient for good plant growth, as most of the nutrients remain bound in the crystals of those minerals.
The nutrients adsorbed onto the surfaces of clay colloids and soil organic matter provide a more accessible reservoir of many plant nutrients (e.g. K, Ca, Mg, P, Zn). As plants absorb the nutrients from the soil water, the soluble pool is replenished from the surface-bound pool. The decomposition of soil organic matter by microorganisms is another mechanism whereby the soluble pool of nutrients is replenished – this is important for the supply of plant-available N, S, P, and B from soil.
Gram for gram, the capacity of humus to hold nutrients and water is far greater than that of clay minerals, most of the soil cation exchange capacity arising from charged carboxylic groups on organic matter. However, despite the great capacity of humus to retain water once water-soaked, its high hydrophobicity decreases its wettability. All in all, small amounts of humus may remarkably increase the soil's capacity to promote plant growth.
Soil organic matter
The organic material in soil is made up of organic compounds and includes plant, animal and microbial material, both living and dead. A typical soil has a biomass composition of 70% microorganisms, 22% macrofauna, and 8% roots. The living component of an acre of soil may include 900 lb of earthworms, 2400 lb of fungi, 1500 lb of bacteria, 133 lb of protozoa and 890 lb of arthropods and algae.
A few percent of the soil organic matter, with small residence time, consists of the microbial biomass and metabolites of bacteria, molds, and actinomycetes that work to break down the dead organic matter. Were it not for the action of these micro-organisms, the entire carbon dioxide part of the atmosphere would be sequestered as organic matter in the soil. However, in the same time soil microbes contribute to carbon sequestration in the topsoil through the formation of stable humus. In the aim to sequester more carbon in the soil for alleviating the greenhouse effect it would be more efficient in the long-term to stimulate humification than to decrease litter decomposition.
The main part of soil organic matter is a complex assemblage of small organic molecules, collectively called humus or humic substances. The use of these terms, which do not rely on a clear chemical classification, has been considered as obsolete. Other studies showed that the classical notion of molecule is not convenient for humus, which escaped most attempts done over two centuries to resolve it in unit components, but still is chemically distinct from polysaccharides, lignins and proteins.
Most living things in soils, including plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi, are dependent on organic matter for nutrients and/or energy. Soils have organic compounds in varying degrees of decomposition which rate is dependent on temperature, soil moisture, and aeration. Bacteria and fungi feed on the raw organic matter, which are fed upon by protozoa, which in turn are fed upon by nematodes, annelids and arthropods, themselves able to consume and transform raw or humified organic matter. This has been called the soil food web, through which all organic matter is processed as in a digestive system. Organic matter holds soils open, allowing the infiltration of air and water, and may hold as much as twice its weight in water. Many soils, including desert and rocky-gravel soils, have little or no organic matter. Soils that are all organic matter, such as peat (histosols), are infertile. In its earliest stage of decomposition, the original organic material is often called raw organic matter. The final stage of decomposition is called humus.
In grassland, much of the organic matter added to the soil is from the deep, fibrous, grass root systems. By contrast, tree leaves falling on the forest floor are the principal source of soil organic matter in the forest. Another difference is the frequent occurrence in the grasslands of fires that destroy large amounts of aboveground material but stimulate even greater contributions from roots. Also, the much greater acidity under any forests inhibits the action of certain soil organisms that otherwise would mix much of the surface litter into the mineral soil. As a result, the soils under grasslands generally develop a thicker A horizon with a deeper distribution of organic matter than in comparable soils under forests, which characteristically store most of their organic matter in the forest floor (O horizon) and thin A horizon.
Humus
Humus refers to organic matter that has been decomposed by soil microflora and fauna to the point where it is resistant to further breakdown. Humus usually constitutes only five percent of the soil or less by volume, but it is an essential source of nutrients and adds important textural qualities crucial to soil health and plant growth. Humus also feeds arthropods, termites and earthworms which further improve the soil. The end product, humus, is suspended in colloidal form in the soil solution and forms a weak acid that can attack silicate minerals by chelating their iron and aluminum atoms. Humus has a high cation and anion exchange capacity that on a dry weight basis is many times greater than that of clay colloids. It also acts as a buffer, like clay, against changes in pH and soil moisture.
Humic acids and fulvic acids, which begin as raw organic matter, are important constituents of humus. After the death of plants, animals, and microbes, microbes begin to feed on the residues through their production of extra-cellular soil enzymes, resulting finally in the formation of humus. As the residues break down, only molecules made of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, assembled and stabilized by oxygen and hydrogen bonds, remain in the form of complex molecular assemblages collectively called humus. Humus is never pure in the soil, because it reacts with metals and clays to form complexes which further contribute to its stability and to soil structure. Although the structure of humus has in itself few nutrients (with the exception of constitutive metals such as calcium, iron and aluminum) it is able to attract and link, by weak bonds, cation and anion nutrients that can further be released into the soil solution in response to selective root uptake and changes in soil pH, a process of paramount importance for the maintenance of fertility in tropical soils.
Lignin is resistant to breakdown and accumulates within the soil. It also reacts with proteins, which further increases its resistance to decomposition, including enzymatic decomposition by microbes. Fats and waxes from plant matter have still more resistance to decomposition and persist in soils for thousand years, hence their use as tracers of past vegetation in buried soil layers. Clay soils often have higher organic contents that persist longer than soils without clay as the organic molecules adhere to and are stabilised by the clay. Proteins normally decompose readily, to the exception of scleroproteins, but when bound to clay particles they become more resistant to decomposition. As for other proteins clay particles absorb the enzymes exuded by microbes, decreasing enzyme activity while protecting extracellular enzymes from degradation. The addition of organic matter to clay soils can render that organic matter and any added nutrients inaccessible to plants and microbes for many years. A study showed increased soil fertility following the addition of mature compost to a clay soil. High soil tannin content can cause nitrogen to be sequestered as resistant tannin-protein complexes.
Humus formation is a process dependent on the amount of plant material added each year and the type of base soil. Both are affected by climate and the type of organisms present. Soils with humus can vary in nitrogen content but typically have 3 to 6 percent nitrogen. Raw organic matter, as a reserve of nitrogen and phosphorus, is a vital component affecting soil fertility. Humus also absorbs water, and expands and shrinks between dry and wet states to a higher extent than clay, increasing soil porosity. Humus is less stable than the soil's mineral constituents, as it is reduced by microbial decomposition, and over time its concentration diminishes without the addition of new organic matter. However, humus in its most stable forms may persist over centuries if not millennia. Charcoal is a source of highly stable humus, called black carbon, which had been used traditionally to improve the fertility of nutrient-poor tropical soils. This very ancient practice, as ascertained in the genesis of Amazonian dark earths, has been renewed and became popular under the name of biochar. It has been suggested that biochar could be used to sequester more carbon in the fight against the greenhouse effect.
Climatological influence
The production, accumulation and degradation of organic matter are greatly dependent on climate. For example, when a thawing event occurs, the flux of soil gases with atmospheric gases is significantly influenced. Temperature, soil moisture and topography are the major factors affecting the accumulation of organic matter in soils. Organic matter tends to accumulate under wet or cold conditions where decomposer activity is impeded by low temperature or excess moisture which results in anaerobic conditions. Conversely, excessive rain and high temperatures of tropical climates enables rapid decomposition of organic matter and leaching of plant nutrients. Forest ecosystems on these soils rely on efficient recycling of nutrients and plant matter by the living plant and microbial biomass to maintain their productivity, a process which is disturbed by human activities. Excessive slope, in particular in the presence of cultivation for the sake of agriculture, may encourage the erosion of the top layer of soil which holds most of the raw organic material that would otherwise eventually become humus.
Plant residue
Cellulose and hemicellulose undergo fast decomposition by fungi and bacteria, with a half-life of 12–18 days in a temperate climate. Brown rot fungi can decompose the cellulose and hemicellulose, leaving the lignin and phenolic compounds behind. Starch, which is an energy storage system for plants, undergoes fast decomposition by bacteria and fungi. Lignin consists of polymers composed of 500 to 600 units with a highly branched, amorphous structure, linked to cellulose, hemicellulose and pectin in plant cell walls. Lignin undergoes very slow decomposition, mainly by white rot fungi and actinomycetes; its half-life under temperate conditions is about six months.
Horizons
A horizontal layer of the soil, whose physical features, composition and age are distinct from those above and beneath, is referred to as a soil horizon. The naming of a horizon is based on the type of material of which it is composed. Those materials reflect the duration of specific processes of soil formation. They are labelled using a shorthand notation of letters and numbers which describe the horizon in terms of its colour, size, texture, structure, consistency, root quantity, pH, voids, boundary characteristics and presence of nodules or concretions. No soil profile has all the major horizons. Some, called entisols, may have only one horizon or are currently considered as having no horizon, in particular incipient soils from unreclaimed mining waste deposits, moraines, volcanic cones sand dunes or alluvial terraces. Upper soil horizons may be lacking in truncated soils following wind or water ablation, with concomitant downslope burying of soil horizons, a natural process aggravated by agricultural practices such as tillage. The growth of trees is another source of disturbance, creating a micro-scale heterogeneity which is still visible in soil horizons once trees have died. By passing from a horizon to another, from the top to the bottom of the soil profile, one goes back in time, with past events registered in soil horizons like in sediment layers. Sampling pollen, testate amoebae and plant remains in soil horizons may help to reveal environmental changes (e.g. climate change, land use change) which occurred in the course of soil formation. Soil horizons can be dated by several methods such as radiocarbon, using pieces of charcoal provided they are of enough size to escape pedoturbation by earthworm activity and other mechanical disturbances. Fossil soil horizons from paleosols can be found within sedimentary rock sequences, allowing the study of past environments.
The exposure of parent material to favourable conditions produces mineral soils that are marginally suitable for plant growth, as is the case in eroded soils. The growth of vegetation results in the production of organic residues which fall on the ground as litter for plant aerial parts (leaf litter) or are directly produced belowground for subterranean plant organs (root litter), and then release dissolved organic matter. The remaining surficial organic layer, called the O horizon, produces a more active soil due to the effect of the organisms that live within it. Organisms colonise and break down organic materials, making available nutrients upon which other plants and animals can live. After sufficient time, humus moves downward and is deposited in a distinctive organic-mineral surface layer called the A horizon, in which organic matter is mixed with mineral matter through the activity of burrowing animals, a process called pedoturbation. This natural process does not go to completion in the presence of conditions detrimental to soil life such as strong acidity, cold climate or pollution, stemming in the accumulation of undecomposed organic matter within a single organic horizon overlying the mineral soil and in the juxtaposition of humified organic matter and mineral particles, without intimate mixing, in the underlying mineral horizons.
Classification
One of the first soil classification systems was developed by Russian scientist Vasily Dokuchaev around 1880. It was modified a number of times by American and European researchers and was developed into the system commonly used until the 1960s. It was based on the idea that soils have a particular morphology based on the materials and factors that form them. In the 1960s, a different classification system began to emerge which focused on soil morphology instead of parental materials and soil-forming factors. Since then, it has undergone further modifications. The World Reference Base for Soil Resources aims to establish an international reference base for soil classification.
Uses
Soil is used in agriculture, where it serves as the anchor and primary nutrient base for plants. The types of soil and available moisture determine the species of plants that can be cultivated. Agricultural soil science was the primeval domain of soil knowledge, long time before the advent of pedology in the 19th century. However, as demonstrated by aeroponics, aquaponics and hydroponics, soil material is not an absolute essential for agriculture, and soilless cropping systems have been claimed as the future of agriculture for an endless growing mankind.
Soil material is also a critical component in mining, construction and landscape development industries. Soil serves as a foundation for most construction projects. The movement of massive volumes of soil can be involved in surface mining, road building and dam construction. Earth sheltering is the architectural practice of using soil for external thermal mass against building walls. Many building materials are soil based. Loss of soil through urbanization is growing at a high rate in many areas and can be critical for the maintenance of subsistence agriculture.
Soil resources are critical to the environment, as well as to food and fibre production, producing 98.8% of food consumed by humans. Soil provides minerals and water to plants according to several processes involved in plant nutrition. Soil absorbs rainwater and releases it later, thus preventing floods and drought, flood regulation being one of the major ecosystem services provided by soil. Soil cleans water as it percolates through it. Soil is the habitat for many organisms: the major part of known and unknown biodiversity is in the soil, in the form of earthworms, woodlice, millipedes, centipedes, snails, slugs, mites, springtails, enchytraeids, nematodes, protists), bacteria, archaea, fungi and algae; and most organisms living above ground have part of them (plants) or spend part of their life cycle (insects) below-ground. Above-ground and below-ground biodiversities are tightly interconnected, making soil protection of paramount importance for any restoration or conservation plan.
The biological component of soil is an extremely important carbon sink since about 57% of the biotic content is carbon. Even in deserts, cyanobacteria, lichens and mosses form biological soil crusts which capture and sequester a significant amount of carbon by photosynthesis. Poor farming and grazing methods have degraded soils and released much of this sequestered carbon to the atmosphere. Restoring the world's soils could offset the effect of increases in greenhouse gas emissions and slow global warming, while improving crop yields and reducing water needs.
Waste management often has a soil component. Septic drain fields treat septic tank effluent using aerobic soil processes. Land application of waste water relies on soil biology to aerobically treat BOD. Alternatively, landfills use soil for daily cover, isolating waste deposits from the atmosphere and preventing unpleasant smells. Composting is now widely used to treat aerobically solid domestic waste and dried effluents of settling basins. Although compost is not soil, biological processes taking place during composting are similar to those occurring during decomposition and humification of soil organic matter.
Organic soils, especially peat, serve as a significant fuel and horticultural resource. Peat soils are also commonly used for the sake of agriculture in Nordic countries, because peatland sites, when drained, provide fertile soils for food production. However, wide areas of peat production, such as rain-fed sphagnum bogs, also called blanket bogs or raised bogs, are now protected because of their patrimonial interest. As an example, Flow Country, covering 4,000 square kilometres of rolling expanse of blanket bogs in Scotland, is now candidate for being included in the World Heritage List. Under present-day global warming peat soils are thought to be involved in a self-reinforcing (positive feedback) process of increased emission of greenhouse gases (methane and carbon dioxide) and increased temperature, a contention which is still under debate when replaced at field scale and including stimulated plant growth.
Geophagy is the practice of eating soil-like substances. Both animals and humans occasionally consume soil for medicinal, recreational, or religious purposes. It has been shown that some monkeys consume soil, together with their preferred food (tree foliage and fruits), in order to alleviate tannin toxicity.
Soils filter and purify water and affect its chemistry. Rain water and pooled water from ponds, lakes and rivers percolate through the soil horizons and the upper rock strata, thus becoming groundwater. Pests (viruses) and pollutants, such as persistent organic pollutants (chlorinated pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls), oils (hydrocarbons), heavy metals (lead, zinc, cadmium), and excess nutrients (nitrates, sulfates, phosphates) are filtered out by the soil. Soil organisms metabolise them or immobilise them in their biomass and necromass, thereby incorporating them into stable humus. The physical integrity of soil is also a prerequisite for avoiding landslides in rugged landscapes.
Degradation
Land degradation is a human-induced or natural process which impairs the capacity of land to function. Soil degradation involves acidification, contamination, desertification, erosion or salination.
Acidification
Soil acidification is beneficial in the case of alkaline soils, but it degrades land when it lowers crop productivity, soil biological activity and increases soil vulnerability to contamination and erosion. Soils are initially acid and remain such when their parent materials are low in basic cations (calcium, magnesium, potassium and sodium). On parent materials richer in weatherable minerals acidification occurs when basic cations are leached from the soil profile by rainfall or exported by the harvesting of forest or agricultural crops. Soil acidification is accelerated by the use of acid-forming nitrogenous fertilizers and by the effects of acid precipitation. Deforestation is another cause of soil acidification, mediated by increased leaching of soil nutrients in the absence of tree canopies.
Contamination
Soil contamination at low levels is often within a soil's capacity to treat and assimilate waste material. Soil biota can treat waste by transforming it, mainly through microbial enzymatic activity. Soil organic matter and soil minerals can adsorb the waste material and decrease its toxicity, although when in colloidal form they may transport the adsorbed contaminants to subsurface environments. Many waste treatment processes rely on this natural bioremediation capacity. Exceeding treatment capacity can damage soil biota and limit soil function. Derelict soils occur where industrial contamination or other development activity damages the soil to such a degree that the land cannot be used safely or productively. Remediation of derelict soil uses principles of geology, physics, chemistry and biology to degrade, attenuate, isolate or remove soil contaminants to restore soil functions and values. Techniques include leaching, air sparging, soil conditioners, phytoremediation, bioremediation and Monitored Natural Attenuation. An example of diffuse pollution with contaminants is copper accumulation in vineyards and orchards to which fungicides are repeatedly applied, even in organic farming.
Microfibres from synthetic textiles are another type of plastic soil contamination, 100% of agricultural soil samples from southwestern China contained plastic particles, 92% of which were microfibres. Sources of microfibres likely included string or twine, as well as irrigation water in which clothes had been washed.
The application of biosolids from sewage sludge and compost can introduce microplastics to soils. This adds to the burden of microplastics from other sources (e.g. the atmosphere). Approximately half the sewage sludge in Europe and North America is applied to agricultural land. In Europe it has been estimated that for every million inhabitants 113 to 770 tonnes of microplastics are added to agricultural soils each year.
Desertification
Desertification, an environmental process of ecosystem degradation in arid and semi-arid regions, is often caused by badly adapted human activities such as overgrazing or excess harvesting of firewood. It is a common misconception that drought causes desertification. Droughts are common in arid and semiarid lands. Well-managed lands can recover from drought when the rains return. Soil management tools include maintaining soil nutrient and organic matter levels, reduced tillage and increased cover. These practices help to control erosion and maintain productivity during periods when moisture is available. Continued land abuse during droughts, however, increases land degradation. Increased population and livestock pressure on marginal lands accelerates desertification. It is now questioned whether present-day climate warming will favour or disfavour desertification, with contradictory reports about predicted rainfall trends associated with increased temperature, and strong discrepancies among regions, even in the same country.
Erosion
Erosion of soil is caused by water, wind, ice, and movement in response to gravity. More than one kind of erosion can occur simultaneously. Erosion is distinguished from weathering, since erosion also transports eroded soil away from its place of origin (soil in transit may be described as sediment). Erosion is an intrinsic natural process, but in many places it is greatly increased by human activity, especially unsuitable land use practices. These include agricultural activities which leave the soil bare during times of heavy rain or strong winds, overgrazing, deforestation, and improper construction activity. Improved management can limit erosion. Soil conservation techniques which are employed include changes of land use (such as replacing erosion-prone crops with grass or other soil-binding plants), changes to the timing or type of agricultural operations, terrace building, use of erosion-suppressing cover materials (including cover crops and other plants), limiting disturbance during construction, and avoiding construction during erosion-prone periods and in erosion-prone places such as steep slopes. Historically, one of the best examples of large-scale soil erosion due to unsuitable land-use practices is wind erosion (the so-called dust bowl) which ruined American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s, when immigrant farmers, encouraged by the federal government of both countries, settled and converted the original shortgrass prairie to agricultural crops and cattle ranching.
A serious and long-running water erosion problem occurs in China, on the middle reaches of the Yellow River and the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. From the Yellow River, over 1.6 billion tons of sediment flow each year into the ocean. The sediment originates primarily from water erosion (gully erosion) in the Loess Plateau region of northwest China.
Soil piping is a particular form of soil erosion that occurs below the soil surface. It causes levee and dam failure, as well as sink hole formation. Turbulent flow removes soil starting at the mouth of the seep flow and the subsoil erosion advances up-gradient. The term sand boil is used to describe the appearance of the discharging end of an active soil pipe.
Salination
Soil salination is the accumulation of free salts to such an extent that it leads to degradation of the agricultural value of soils and vegetation. Consequences include corrosion damage, reduced plant growth, erosion due to loss of plant cover and soil structure, and water quality problems due to sedimentation. Salination occurs due to a combination of natural and human-caused processes. Arid conditions favour salt accumulation. This is especially apparent when soil parent material is saline. Irrigation of arid lands is especially problematic. All irrigation water has some level of salinity. Irrigation, especially when it involves leakage from canals and overirrigation in the field, often raises the underlying water table. Rapid salination occurs when the land surface is within the capillary fringe of saline groundwater. Soil salinity control involves watertable control and flushing with higher levels of applied water in combination with tile drainage or another form of subsurface drainage.
Reclamation
Soils which contain high levels of particular clays with high swelling properties, such as smectites, are often very fertile. For example, the smectite-rich paddy soils of Thailand's Central Plains are among the most productive in the world. However, the overuse of mineral nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides in irrigated intensive rice production has endangered these soils, forcing farmers to implement integrated practices based on Cost Reduction Operating Principles.
Many farmers in tropical areas, however, struggle to retain organic matter and clay in the soils they work. In recent years, for example, productivity has declined and soil erosion has increased in the low-clay soils of northern Thailand, following the abandonment of shifting cultivation for a more permanent land use. Farmers initially responded by adding organic matter and clay from termite mound material, but this was unsustainable in the long-term because of rarefaction of termite mounds. Scientists experimented with adding bentonite, one of the smectite family of clays, to the soil. In field trials, conducted by scientists from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) in cooperation with Khon Kaen University and local farmers, this had the effect of helping retain water and nutrients. Supplementing the farmer's usual practice with a single application of of bentonite resulted in an average yield increase of 73%. Other studies showed that applying bentonite to degraded sandy soils reduced the risk of crop failure during drought years.
In 2008, three years after the initial trials, IWMI scientists conducted a survey among 250 farmers in northeast Thailand, half of whom had applied bentonite to their fields. The average improvement for those using the clay addition was 18% higher than for non-clay users. Using the clay had enabled some farmers to switch to growing vegetables, which need more fertile soil. This helped to increase their income. The researchers estimated that 200 farmers in northeast Thailand and 400 in Cambodia had adopted the use of clays, and that a further 20,000 farmers were introduced to the new technique.
If the soil is too high in clay or salts (e.g. saline sodic soil), adding gypsum, washed river sand and organic matter (e.g.municipal solid waste) will balance the composition.
Adding organic matter, like ramial chipped wood or compost, to soil which is depleted in nutrients and too high in sand will boost its quality and improve production.
Special mention must be made of the use of charcoal, and more generally biochar to improve nutrient-poor tropical soils, a process based on the higher fertility of anthropogenic pre-Columbian Amazonian Dark Earths, also called Terra Preta de Índio, due to interesting physical and chemical properties of soil black carbon as a source of stable humus. However, the uncontrolled application of charred waste products of all kinds may endanger soil life and human health.
History of studies and research
The history of the study of soil is intimately tied to humans' urgent need to provide food for themselves and forage for their animals. Throughout history, civilizations have prospered or declined as a function of the availability and productivity of their soils.
Studies of soil fertility
The Greek historian Xenophon (450–355 BCE) is credited with being the first to expound upon the merits of green-manuring crops: 'But then whatever weeds are upon the ground, being turned into earth, enrich the soil as much as dung.'
Columella's Of husbandry, circa 60 CE, advocated the use of lime and that clover and alfalfa (green manure) should be turned under, and was used by 15 generations (450 years) under the Roman Empire until its collapse. From the fall of Rome to the French Revolution, knowledge of soil and agriculture was passed on from parent to child and as a result, crop yields were low. During the European Middle Ages, Yahya Ibn al-'Awwam's handbook, with its emphasis on irrigation, guided the people of North Africa, Spain and the Middle East; a translation of this work was finally carried to the southwest of the United States when under Spanish influence. Olivier de Serres, considered the father of French agronomy, was the first to suggest the abandonment of fallowing and its replacement by hay meadows within crop rotations. He also highlighted the importance of soil (the French terroir) in the management of vineyards. His famous book contributed to the rise of modern, sustainable agriculture and to the collapse of old agricultural practices such as soil amendment for crops by the lifting of forest litter and assarting, which ruined the soils of western Europe during the Middle Ages and even later on according to regions.
Experiments into what made plants grow first led to the idea that the ash left behind when plant matter was burned was the essential element but overlooked the role of nitrogen, which is not left on the ground after combustion, a belief which prevailed until the 19th century. In about 1635, the Flemish chemist Jan Baptist van Helmont thought he had proved water to be the essential element from his famous five years' experiment with a willow tree grown with only the addition of rainwater. His conclusion came from the fact that the increase in the plant's weight had apparently been produced only by the addition of water, with no reduction in the soil's weight. John Woodward ( 1728) experimented with various types of water ranging from clean to muddy and found muddy water the best, and so he concluded that earthy matter was the essential element. Others concluded it was humus in the soil that passed some essence to the growing plant. Still others held that the vital growth principal was something passed from dead plants or animals to the new plants. At the start of the 18th century, Jethro Tull demonstrated that it was beneficial to cultivate (stir) the soil, but his opinion that the stirring made the fine parts of soil available for plant absorption was erroneous.
As chemistry developed, it was applied to the investigation of soil fertility. The French chemist Antoine Lavoisier showed in about 1778 that plants and animals must combust oxygen internally to live. He was able to deduce that most of the weight of van Helmont's willow tree derived from air. It was the French agriculturalist Jean-Baptiste Boussingault who by means of experimentation obtained evidence showing that the main sources of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen for plants were air and water, while nitrogen was taken from soil. Justus von Liebig in his book Organic chemistry in its applications to agriculture and physiology (published 1840), asserted that the chemicals in plants must have come from the soil and air and that to maintain soil fertility, the used minerals must be replaced. Liebig nevertheless believed the nitrogen was supplied from the air. The enrichment of soil with guano by the Incas was rediscovered in 1802, by Alexander von Humboldt. This led to its mining and that of Chilean nitrate and to its application to soil in the United States and Europe after 1840.
The work of Liebig was a revolution for agriculture, and so other investigators started experimentation based on it. In England John Bennet Lawes and Joseph Henry Gilbert worked in the Rothamsted Experimental Station, founded by the former, and that plants took nitrogen from the soil, and that salts needed to be in an available state to be absorbed by plants. Their investigations also produced the superphosphate, consisting in the acid treatment of phosphate rock. This led to the invention and use of salts of potassium (K) and nitrogen (N) as fertilizers. Ammonia generated by the production of coke was recovered and used as fertiliser. Finally, the chemical basis of nutrients delivered to the soil in manure was understood and in the mid-19th century chemical fertilisers were applied. However, the dynamic interaction of soil and its life forms was still not understood.
In 1856, J. Thomas Way discovered that ammonia contained in fertilisers was transformed into nitrates, and twenty years later Robert Warington proved that this transformation was done by living organisms. In 1890 Sergei Winogradsky announced he had found the bacteria responsible for this transformation.
It was known that certain legumes could take up nitrogen from the air and fix it to the soil but it took the development of bacteriology towards the end of the 19th century to lead to an understanding of the role played in nitrogen fixation by bacteria. The symbiosis of bacteria and leguminous roots, and the fixation of nitrogen by the bacteria, were simultaneously discovered by the German agronomist Hermann Hellriegel and the Dutch microbiologist Martinus Beijerinck.
Crop rotation, mechanisation, chemical and natural fertilisers led to a doubling of wheat yields in western Europe between 1800 and 1900.
Studies of soil formation
The scientists who studied the soil in connection with agricultural practices had considered it mainly as a static substrate. However, soil is the result of evolution from more ancient geological materials, under the action of biotic and abiotic processes. After studies of the improvement of the soil commenced, other researchers began to study soil genesis and as a result also soil types and classifications.
In 1860, while in Mississippi, Eugene W. Hilgard (1833–1916) studied the relationship between rock material, climate, vegetation, and the type of soils that were developed. He realised that the soils were dynamic, and considered the classification of soil types. His work was not continued. At about the same time, Friedrich Albert Fallou was describing soil profiles and relating soil characteristics to their formation as part of his professional work evaluating forest and farm land for the principality of Saxony. His 1857 book, (First principles of soil science) established modern soil science. Contemporary with Fallou's work, and driven by the same need to accurately assess land for equitable taxation, Vasily Dokuchaev led a team of soil scientists in Russia who conducted an extensive survey of soils, observing that similar basic rocks, climate and vegetation types lead to similar soil layering and types, and established the concepts for soil classifications. Due to language barriers, the work of this team was not communicated to western Europe until 1914 through a publication in German by Konstantin Glinka, a member of the Russian team.
Curtis F. Marbut, influenced by the work of the Russian team, translated Glinka's publication into English, and, as he was placed in charge of the U.S. National Cooperative Soil Survey, applied it to a national soil classification system.
See also
References
Sources
Bibliography
Further reading
Soil-Net.com A free schools-age educational site teaching about soil and its importance.
Adams, J.A. 1986. Dirt. College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press
Certini, G., Scalenghe, R. 2006. Soils: Basic concepts and future challenges. Cambridge Univ Press, Cambridge.
David R. Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations,
Faulkner, Edward H. 1943. Plowman's Folly. New York, Grosset & Dunlap.
LandIS Free Soilscapes Viewer Free interactive viewer for the Soils of England and Wales
Jenny, Hans. 1941. Factors of Soil Formation: A System of Quantitative Pedology
Logan, W.B. 1995. Dirt: The ecstatic skin of the earth.
Mann, Charles C. September 2008. " Our good earth" National Geographic Magazine
Photographs of sand boils.
Soil Survey Division Staff. 1999. Soil survey manual. Soil Conservation Service. U.S. Department of Agriculture Handbook 18.
Soil Survey Staff. 1975. Soil Taxonomy: A basic system of soil classification for making and interpreting soil surveys. USDA-SCS Agric. Handb. 436. United States Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.
Soils (Matching suitable forage species to soil type), Oregon State University
Janick, Jules. 2002. Soil notes, Purdue University
LandIS Soils Data for England and Wales a pay source for GIS data on the soils of England and Wales and soils data source; they charge a handling fee to researchers.
External links
Land management
Horticulture
Granularity of materials
Natural materials
Natural resources |
37885 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falstaff%20%28opera%29 | Falstaff (opera) | Falstaff () is a comic opera in three acts by the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian-language libretto was adapted by Arrigo Boito from the play The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2, by William Shakespeare. The work premiered on 9 February 1893 at La Scala, Milan.
Verdi wrote Falstaff, the last of his 28 operas, as he approached the age of 80. It was his second comedy, and his third work based on a Shakespeare play, following Macbeth and Otello. The plot revolves around the thwarted, sometimes farcical, efforts of the fat knight Sir John Falstaff to seduce two married women to gain access to their husbands' wealth.
Verdi was concerned about working on a new opera at his advanced age, but he yearned to write a comic work and was pleased with Boito's draft libretto. It took the collaborators three years from mid-1889 to complete. Although the prospect of a new opera from Verdi aroused immense interest in Italy and around the world, Falstaff did not prove to be as popular as earlier works in the composer's canon. After the initial performances in Italy, other European countries and the US, the work was neglected until the conductor Arturo Toscanini insisted on its revival at La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera in New York from the late 1890s into the next century. Some felt that the piece suffered from a lack of the full-blooded melodies of the best of Verdi's previous operas, a view that Toscanini strongly opposed. Conductors of the generation after Toscanini to champion the work included Herbert von Karajan, Georg Solti and Leonard Bernstein. The work is now part of the standard operatic repertory.
Verdi made numerous changes to the music after the first performance, and editors have found difficulty in agreeing on a definitive score. The work was first recorded in 1932 and has subsequently received many studio and live recordings. Singers closely associated with the title role have included Victor Maurel (the first Falstaff), Mariano Stabile, Giuseppe Valdengo, Tito Gobbi, Geraint Evans, Bryn Terfel and Ambrogio Maestri.
Composition history
Conception
By 1889 Verdi had been an opera composer for more than fifty years. He had written 27 operas, of which only one was a comedy, his second work, Un giorno di regno, staged unsuccessfully in 1840. His fellow composer Rossini commented that he admired Verdi greatly, but thought him incapable of writing a comedy. Verdi disagreed and said that he longed to write another light-hearted opera, but nobody would give him the chance. He had included moments of comedy even in his tragic operas, for example in Un ballo in maschera and La forza del destino.
For a comic subject Verdi considered Cervantes' Don Quixote and plays by Goldoni, Molière and Labiche, but found none of them wholly suitable. The singer Victor Maurel sent him a French libretto based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Verdi liked it, but replied that "to deal with it properly you need a Rossini or a Donizetti". Following the success of Otello in 1887 he commented, "After having relentlessly massacred so many heroes and heroines, I have at last the right to laugh a little." He confided his ambition to the librettist of Otello, Arrigo Boito. Boito said nothing at the time, but he secretly began work on a libretto based on The Merry Wives of Windsor with additional material taken from Henry IV, parts 1 and 2. Many composers had set the play to music, with little success, among them Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1796), Antonio Salieri (1799), Michael William Balfe (1835) and Adolphe Adam (1856). The first version to secure a place in the operatic repertoire was Otto Nicolai's The Merry Wives of Windsor in 1849, but its success was largely confined to German opera houses.
Boito was doubly pleased with The Merry Wives as a plot. Not only was it Shakespearian, it was based in part on Trecento Italian works – Il Pecorone by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, and Boccaccio's Decameron. Boito adopted a deliberately archaic form of Italian to "lead Shakespeare's farce back to its clear Tuscan source", as he put it. He trimmed the plot, halved the number of characters in the play, and gave the character of Falstaff more depth by incorporating dozens of passages from Henry IV.
Verdi received the draft libretto a few weeks later, by early July 1889, at a time when his interest had been piqued by reading Shakespeare's play: "Benissimo! Benissimo! ... No one could have done better than you", he wrote back. Like Boito, Verdi loved and revered Shakespeare. The composer did not speak English, but he owned and frequently re-read Shakespeare's plays in Italian translations by Carlo Rusconi and , which he kept by his bedside. He had earlier set operatic adaptations of Shakespeare's Macbeth (in 1847) and Othello (in 1887) and had considered King Lear as a subject; Boito had suggested Antony and Cleopatra.
Verdi still had doubts, and on the next day sent another letter to Boito expressing his concerns. He wrote of "the large number of years" in his age, his health (which he admitted was still good) and his ability to complete the project: "if I were not to finish the music?" He said that the project could all be a waste of the younger man's time and distract Boito from completing his own new opera (which became Nerone). Yet, as his biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz notes, "Verdi could not hide his delight at the idea of writing another opera". On 10 July 1889 he wrote again:
Composition
Boito's original sketch is lost, but surviving correspondence shows that the finished opera is not greatly different from his first thoughts. The major differences were that an act 2 monologue for Ford was moved from scene 2 to scene 1, and that the last act originally ended with the marriage of the lovers rather than with the lively vocal and orchestral fugue, which was Verdi's idea. He wrote to Boito in August 1889 telling him that he was writing a fugue: "Yes, Sir! A fugue... and a buffa fugue", which "could probably be fitted in".
Verdi accepted the need to trim Shakespeare's plot to keep the opera within an acceptable length. He was sorry, nonetheless, to see the loss of Falstaff's second humiliation, dressed up as the Wise Woman of Brentford to escape from Ford. He wrote of his desire to do justice to Shakespeare: "To sketch the characters in a few strokes, to weave the plot, to extract all the juice from that enormous Shakespearian orange". Shortly after the premiere an English critic, R A Streatfeild, remarked on how Verdi succeeded:
In November Boito took the completed first act to Verdi at Sant'Agata, along with the second act, which was still under construction: "That act has the devil on its back; and when you touch it, it burns", Boito complained. They worked on the opera for a week, then Verdi and his wife Giuseppina Strepponi went to Genoa. No more work was done for some time.
The writer Russ McDonald observes that a letter from Boito to Verdi touches on the musical techniques used in the opera – he wrote of how to portray the characters Nannetta and Fenton: "I can't quite explain it: I would like as one sprinkles sugar on a tart to sprinkle the whole comedy with that happy love without concentrating it at any one point."
The first act was completed by March 1890; the rest of the opera was not composed in chronological order, as had been Verdi's usual practice. The musicologist Roger Parker comments that this piecemeal approach may have been "an indication of the relative independence of individual scenes". Progress was slow, with composition "carried out in short bursts of activity interspersed with long fallow periods" partly caused by the composer's depression. Verdi was weighed down by the fear of being unable to complete the score, and also by the deaths and impending deaths of close friends, including the conductors Franco Faccio and Emanuele Muzio. There was no pressure on the composer to hurry. As he observed at the time, he was not working on a commission from a particular opera house, as he had in the past, but was composing for his own pleasure: "in writing Falstaff, I haven't thought about either theatres or singers". He reiterated this idea in December 1890, a time when his spirits were very low after Muzio's death that November: "Will I finish it [Falstaff]? Or will I not finish it? Who knows! I am writing without any aim, without a goal, just to pass a few hours of the day". By early 1891 he was declaring that he could not finish the work that year, but in May he expressed some small optimism, which by mid-June, had turned into:
Boito was overjoyed, and Verdi reported that he was still working on the opera. The two men met in October or November 1891, after which the Verdis were in Genoa for the winter. They were both taken ill there, and two months of work were lost. By mid-April 1892 the scoring of the first act was complete and by June–July Verdi was considering potential singers for roles in Falstaff. For the title role he wanted Victor Maurel, the baritone who had sung Iago in Otello, but at first the singer sought contractual terms that Verdi found unacceptable: "His demands were so outrageous, exorbitant, [and] incredible that there was nothing else to do but stop the entire project". Eventually they reached agreement and Maurel was cast.
By September Verdi had agreed in a letter to his publisher Casa Ricordi that La Scala could present the premiere during the 1892–93 season, but that he would retain control over every aspect of the production. An early February date was mentioned along with the demand that the house would be available exclusively after 2 January 1893 and that, even after the dress rehearsal, he could withdraw the opera: "I will leave the theatre, and [Ricordi] will have to take the score away". The public learned of the new opera towards the end of 1892, and intense interest was aroused, increased rather than diminished by the secrecy with which Verdi surrounded the preparations; rehearsals were in private, and the press was kept at arm's length. Apart from Verdi's outrage at the way that La Scala announced the season's programme on 7 December – "either a revival of Tannhäuser or Falstaff" – things went smoothly in January 1893 up to the premiere performance on 9 February.
Performance history
Premieres
The first performance of Falstaff was at La Scala in Milan on 9 February 1893, nearly six years after Verdi's previous premiere. For the first night, official ticket prices were thirty times greater than usual. Royalty, aristocracy, critics and leading figures from the arts all over Europe were present. The performance was a huge success under the baton of Edoardo Mascheroni; numbers were encored, and at the end the applause for Verdi and the cast lasted an hour. That was followed by a tumultuous welcome when the composer, his wife and Boito arrived at the Grand Hotel de Milan.
Over the next two months the work was given twenty-two performances in Milan and then taken by the original company, led by Maurel, to Genoa, Rome, Venice, Trieste, Vienna and, without Maurel, to Berlin. Verdi and his wife left Milan on 2 March; Ricordi encouraged the composer to go to the planned Rome performance of 14 April, to maintain the momentum and excitement that the opera had generated. The Verdis, along with Boito and Giulio Ricordi, attended together with King Umberto I and other major royal and political figures of the day. The king introduced Verdi to the audience from the Royal Box to great acclaim, "a national recognition and apotheosis of Verdi that had never been tendered him before", notes Phillips-Matz.
During these early performances Verdi made substantial changes to the score. For some of these he altered his manuscript, but for others musicologists have had to rely on the numerous full and piano scores put out by Ricordi. Further changes were made for the Paris premiere in 1894, which are also inadequately documented. Ricordi attempted to keep up with the changes, issuing new edition after new edition, but the orchestral and piano scores were often mutually contradictory. The Verdi scholar James Hepokoski considers that a definitive score of the opera is impossible, leaving companies and conductors to choose between a variety of options. In a 2013 study Philip Gossett disagrees, believing that the autograph is essentially a reliable source, augmented by contemporary Ricordi editions for the few passages that Verdi omitted to amend in his own score.
The first performances outside the Kingdom of Italy were in Trieste and Vienna, in May 1893. The work was given in the Americas and across Europe. The Berlin premiere of 1893 so excited Ferruccio Busoni that he drafted a letter to Verdi, in which he addressed him as "Italy's leading composer" and "one of the noblest persons of our time", and in which he explained that "Falstaff provoked in me such a revolution of spirit that I can ... date [to the experience] the beginning of a new epoch in my artistic life." Antonio Scotti played the title role in Buenos Aires in July 1893; Gustav Mahler conducted the opera in Hamburg in January 1894; a Russian translation was presented in St Petersburg in the same month. Paris was regarded by many as the operatic capital of Europe, and for the production there in April 1894 Boito, who was fluent in French, made his own translation with the help of the Parisian poet Paul Solanges. This translation, approved by Verdi, is quite free in its rendering of Boito's original Italian text. Boito was content to delegate the English and German translations to William Beatty-Kingston and Max Kalbeck respectively. The London premiere, sung in Italian, was at Covent Garden on 19 May 1894. The conductor was Mancinelli, and Zilli and Pini Corsi repeated their original roles. Falstaff was sung by Arturo Pessina; Maurel played the role at Covent Garden the following season. On 4 February 1895 the work was first presented at the Metropolitan Opera, New York; Mancinelli conducted and the cast included Maurel as Falstaff, Emma Eames as Alice, Zélie de Lussan as Nannetta and Sofia Scalchi as Mistress Quickly.
Neglect
After the initial excitement, audiences quickly diminished. Operagoers were nonplussed by the absence of big traditional arias and choruses. A contemporary critic summed it up: "'Is this our Verdi?' they asked themselves. 'But where is the motive; where are the broad melodies ... where are the usual ensembles; the finales?'" By the time of Verdi's death in 1901 the work had fallen out of the international repertoire, though Gustav Mahler, an admirer of Verdi, led a production of "exceptional quality" in 1904 at the Vienna Court Opera. The rising young conductor Arturo Toscanini was a strong advocate of the work, and did much to save it from neglect. As musical director of La Scala (from 1898) and the Metropolitan Opera (from 1908), he programmed Falstaff from the start of his tenure. Richard Aldrich, music critic of The New York Times, wrote that Toscanini's revival "ought to be marked in red letters in the record of the season. Falstaff, which was first produced here on February 4, 1895, has not been given since the following season, and was heard in these two seasons only half a dozen times in all." Aldrich added that though the general public might have had difficulty with the work, "to connoisseurs it was an unending delight".
In Britain, as in continental Europe and the US, the work fell out of the repertoire. Sir Thomas Beecham revived it in 1919, and recalling in his memoirs that the public had stayed away he commented:
Toscanini recognised that this was the view of many, but he believed the work to be Verdi's greatest opera; he said, "I believe it will take years and years before the general public understand this masterpiece, but when they really know it they will run to hear it like they do now for Rigoletto and La traviata."
Re-emergence
Toscanini returned to La Scala in 1921 and remained in charge there until 1929, presenting Falstaff in every season. He took the work to Germany and Austria in the late 1920s and the 1930s, conducting it in Vienna, Berlin and at three successive Salzburg Festivals. Among those inspired by Toscanini's performances were Herbert von Karajan and Georg Solti, who were among his répétiteurs at Salzburg. Toscanini's younger colleague Tullio Serafin continued to present the work in Germany and Austria after Toscanini refused to perform there because of his loathing of the Nazi regime.
When Karajan was in a position to do so he added Falstaff to the repertoire of his opera company at Aachen in 1941, and he remained a proponent of the work for the rest of his career, presenting it frequently in Vienna, Salzburg and elsewhere, and making audio and video recordings of it. Solti also became closely associated with Falstaff, as did Carlo Maria Giulini; they both conducted many performances of the work in mainland Europe, Britain and the US and made several recordings. Leonard Bernstein conducted the work at the Met and the Vienna State Opera, and on record. The advocacy of these and later conductors has given the work an assured place in the modern repertoire.
Among revivals in the 1950s and later, Hepokoski singles out as particularly notable the Glyndebourne productions with Fernando Corena and later Geraint Evans in the title role; three different stagings by Franco Zeffirelli, for the Holland Festival (1956), Covent Garden (1961) and the Metropolitan Opera (1964); and Luchino Visconti's 1966 version in Vienna. A 1982 production by Ronald Eyre, more reflective and melancholy than usual, was staged in Los Angeles, London and Florence; Renato Bruson was Falstaff and Giulini conducted. Among more recent players of the title role Bryn Terfel has taken the part at Covent Garden in 1999, in a production by Graham Vick, conducted by Bernard Haitink. and at the Metropolitan Opera in a revival of the Zeffirelli production, conducted by James Levine in 2006.
Although Falstaff has become a regular repertoire work there nonetheless remains a view expressed by John von Rhein in the Chicago Tribune in 1985: "Falstaff probably always will fall into the category of 'connoisseur's opera' rather than taking its place as a popular favorite on the order of La traviata or Aida."
Roles
Synopsis
Time: The reign of Henry IV, 1399 to 1413
Place: Windsor, England
Act 1
A room at the Garter Inn
Falstaff and his servants, Bardolfo and Pistola, are drinking at the inn. Dr Caius bursts in and accuses Falstaff of burgling his house and Bardolfo of picking his pocket. Falstaff laughs at him; he leaves, vowing only to go drinking with honest, sober companions in future. When the innkeeper presents a bill for the wine, Falstaff tells Bardolfo and Pistola that he needs more money, and plans to obtain it by seducing the wives of two rich men, one of whom is Ford. Falstaff hands Bardolfo a love-letter to one of the wives (Alice Ford), and hands Pistola an identical letter addressed to the other (Meg). Bardolfo and Pistola refuse to deliver the letters, claiming that honour prevents them from obeying him. Falstaff loses his temper and rants at them, saying that "honour" is nothing but a word, with no meaning (Monologue: L'onore! Ladri ... ! / "Honour! You rogues ... !") Brandishing a broom, he chases them out of his sight.
Ford's garden
Alice and Meg have received Falstaff's letters. They compare them, see that they are identical and, together with Mistress Quickly and Nannetta Ford, resolve to punish Falstaff. Meanwhile, Bardolfo and Pistola warn Ford of Falstaff's plan. Ford resolves to disguise himself and visit Falstaff and set a trap for him.
A young, handsome fellow called Fenton is in love with Ford's daughter Nannetta, but Ford wants her to marry Dr. Caius, who is wealthy and respected. Fenton and Nannetta enjoy a moment of privacy, but are interrupted by the return of Alice, Meg and Mistress Quickly. The act ends with an ensemble in which the women and the men separately plan revenge on Falstaff, the women gleefully anticipating an enjoyable prank, while the men angrily mutter dire threats.
Act 2
A room at the Garter Inn
Falstaff is alone at the inn. Bardolfo and Pistola, now in the pay of Ford, enter and beg Falstaff to allow them to re-enter his service, secretly planning to spy on him for Ford. Mistress Quickly enters and tells him that Alice is in love with him and will be alone in Ford's home that afternoon, from two o'clock until three o'clock, just time for an amorous dalliance. Falstaff celebrates his potential success ("Va, vecchio John" / "Go, old Jack, go your own way").
Ford arrives, masquerading as a wealthy stranger, using the false name "Signor Fontana". He tells Falstaff that he is in love with Alice, but she is too virtuous to entertain him. He offers to pay Falstaff to use his impressive title and (alleged) charms to seduce her away from her virtuous convictions, after which he ("Fontana") might have a better chance of seducing her himself. Falstaff, delighted at the prospect of being paid to seduce the wealthy and beautiful woman, agrees, and reveals that he already has a rendezvous arranged with Alice for two o'clock – the hour when Ford is always absent from home. Ford is consumed with jealousy, but conceals his feelings. Falstaff withdraws to a private room to change into his finest clothes, and Ford, left alone, reflects on the evil of an uncertain marriage and vows to have revenge (È sogno o realtà? / "Is it a dream or reality?"). When Falstaff returns in his finery, they leave together with elaborate displays of mutual courtesy.
A room in Ford's house
The three women plot their strategy ("Gaie Comari di Windsor" / "Merry wives of Windsor, the time has come!"). Alice notices that Nannetta is too unhappy and anxious to share their gleeful anticipation. This is because Ford plans to marry her to Dr Caius, a man old enough to be her grandfather; the women reassure her that they will prevent it. Mistress Quickly announces Falstaff's arrival, and Mistress Ford has a large laundry basket and a screen placed in readiness. Falstaff attempts to seduce Alice with tales of his past youth and glory ("Quand'ero paggio del Duca di Norfolk" / "When I was page to the Duke of Norfolk I was slender"). Mistress Quickly rushes in, shouting that Ford has returned home unexpectedly with a retinue of henchmen to catch his wife's lover. Falstaff hides first behind the screen, but realizes that Ford will likely look for him there. The women urge him to hide in the laundry basket, which he does. In the meantime Fenton and Nannetta hide behind the screen for another moment of privacy. Ford and his men storm in and search for Falstaff, and hear the sound of Fenton and Nannetta kissing behind the screen. They assume it is Falstaff with Alice, but instead they find the young lovers. Ford orders Fenton to leave. Badly cramped and almost suffocating in the laundry hamper, Falstaff moans with discomfort while the men resume the search of the house. Alice orders her servants to throw the laundry basket through the window into the River Thames, where Falstaff endures the jeers of the crowd. Ford, seeing that Alice had never intended to betray him, smiles happily.
Act 3
Before the inn
Falstaff, cold and discouraged, glumly curses the sorry state of the world. Some mulled wine soon improves his mood. Mistress Quickly arrives and delivers another invitation to meet Alice. Falstaff at first wants nothing to do with it, but she persuades him. He is to meet Alice at midnight at Herne's Oak in Windsor Great Park dressed up as the ghost of Herne the Hunter who, according to local superstition, haunts the area near the tree, and appears there at midnight with a band of supernatural spirits. He and Mistress Quickly go inside the inn. Ford has realized his error in suspecting his wife, and they and their allies have been watching secretly. They now concoct a plan for Falstaff's punishment: dressed as supernatural creatures, they will ambush and torment him at midnight. Ford draws Dr. Caius aside and privately proposes a separate plot to marry him to Nannetta: Nannetta will be disguised as Queen of the Fairies, Caius will wear a monk's costume, and Ford will join the two of them with a nuptial blessing. Mistress Quickly overhears and quietly vows to thwart Ford's scheme.
Herne's Oak in Windsor Park on a moonlit midnight
Fenton arrives at the oak tree and sings of his happiness ("Dal labbro il canto estasiato vola" / "From my lips, a song of ecstasy flies") ending with "Lips that are kissed lose none of their allure." Nannetta enters to finish the line with "Indeed, they renew it, like the moon." The women arrive and disguise Fenton as a monk, telling him that they have arranged to spoil Ford's and Caius's plans. Nannetta, as the Fairy Queen, instructs her helpers ("Sul fil d'un soffio etesio" / "On the breath of a fragrant breeze, fly, nimble spirits") before all the characters arrive on the scene. Falstaff's attempted love scene with Alice is interrupted by the announcement that witches are approaching, and the men, disguised as elves and fairies, soundly thrash Falstaff. In the middle of the beating, he recognizes Bardolfo in disguise. The joke is over, and Falstaff acknowledges that he has received his due. Ford announces that a wedding will ensue. Caius and the Queen of the Fairies enter. A second couple, also in masquerade, ask Ford to deliver the same blessing for them as well. Ford conducts the double ceremony. Caius finds that instead of Nannetta, his bride is the disguised Bardolfo, and Ford has unwittingly blessed the marriage of Fenton and Nannetta. Ford accepts the fait accompli with good grace. Falstaff, pleased to find himself not the only dupe, proclaims that all the world is folly, and all are figures of fun (Tutto nel mondo è burla ... Tutti gabbati!...Ma ride ben chi ride La risata final. / "Everything in the world is a jest ... but he laughs well who laughs the final laugh"). The entire company repeats his proclamation in an exuberant ten-voice fugue.
Music and drama
Verdi scored Falstaff for three flutes (third doubling piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, four trombones, timpani, percussion (triangle, cymbals, bass drum), harp, and strings. In addition, a guitar, natural horn, and bell are heard from offstage. Unlike most of Verdi's earlier operatic scores, Falstaff is through-composed. No list of numbers is printed in the published full score. The score differs from much of Verdi's earlier work by having no overture: there are seven bars for the orchestra before the first voice (Dr Caius) enters. The critic Rodney Milnes comments that "enjoyment... shines from every bar in its irresistible forward impulse, its effortless melody, its rhythmic vitality, and sureness of dramatic pace and construction." In The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Roger Parker writes that:
The opera was described by its creators as a commedia lirica. McDonald commented in 2009 that Falstaff is very different – a stylistic departure – from Verdi's earlier work. In McDonald's view most of the musical expression is in the dialogue, and there is only one traditional aria. The result is that "such stylistic economy – more sophisticated, more challenging than he had employed before – is the keynote of the work." McDonald argues that consciously or unconsciously, Verdi was developing the idiom that would come to dominate the music of the 20th century: "the lyricism is abbreviated, glanced at rather than indulged. Melodies bloom suddenly and then vanish, replaced by contrasting tempo or an unexpected phrase that introduces another character or idea". In McDonald's view the orchestral writing acts as a sophisticated commentator on the action. It has influenced at least one of Verdi's operatic successors: in 1952 Imogen Holst, musical assistant to Benjamin Britten, wrote, after a performance of Falstaff, "I realised for the first time how much Ben owes to [Verdi]. There are orchestral bits which are just as funny to listen to as the comic instrumental bits in A. Herring!"
The extent to which Falstaff is a "Shakespearian" opera has often been debated by critics. Although the action is taken from The Merry Wives of Windsor, some commentators feel that Boito and Verdi have transmuted Shakespeare's play into a wholly Italian work. The soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf believed there was nothing English or Shakespearian about the comedy: "it was all done through the music". In 1961 Peter Heyworth wrote in The Observer, "Because of Shakespeare we like to think of Falstaff as a work that has a certain Englishness. In fact the opera is no more English than Aida is Egyptian. Boito and Verdi between them transformed the fat knight into one of the archetypes of opera buffa." Verdi himself, however, felt that the Falstaff of the opera is not a conventional Italian buffo character, but portrays Shakespeare's fuller, more ambiguous Falstaff of the Henry IV plays: "My Falstaff is not merely the hero of The Merry Wives of Windsor, who is simply a buffoon, and allows himself to be tricked by the women, but also the Falstaff of the two parts of Henry IV. Boito has written the libretto in accordance." A contemporary critic argued that the text "imitated with marvellous accuracy the metre and rhythm of Shakespeare's verse", but Hepokoski notes Boito's use of traditional Italian metric conventions.
Another recurrent question is how much, if at all, Verdi was influenced by Wagner's comic opera Die Meistersinger. At the time of the premiere this was a sensitive subject; many Italians were suspicious of or hostile to Wagner's music, and were protective in a nationalistic way of Verdi's reputation. Nevertheless, Verdi's new style was markedly different from that of his popular works of the 1850s and 1860s, and it seemed to some to have Wagnerian echoes. In 1999 the critic Andrew Porter wrote, "That Falstaff was Verdi's and Boito's answer to Wagner's Meistersinger seems evident now. But the Italian Falstaff moves more quickly." Toscanini, who did more than anyone else to bring Falstaff into the regular operatic repertoire, commented:
Verdi scholars including Julian Budden have analysed the music in symphonic terms – the opening section "a perfect little sonata movement", the second act concluding with a variant of the classic slow concertante ensemble leading to a fast stretto, and the whole opera ending with "the most academic of musical forms", a fugue. Milnes suggests that this shows "a wise old conservative's warning about the excesses of the verismo school of Italian opera" already on the rise by the 1890s. Among the solo numbers woven into the continuous score are Falstaff's "honour" monologue, which concludes the first scene, and his reminiscent arietta ("Quand'ero paggio") about himself as a young page. The young lovers, Nannetta and Fenton, are given a lyrical and playful duet ("Labbra di foco") in Act I; in Act III, Fenton's impassioned love song, "Dal labbro il canto estasiato vola" briefly becomes a duet when Nannetta joins him. She then has the last substantial solo section of the score, the "fairy" aria, "Sul fil d'un soffio etesio", described by Parker as "yet another aria suffused with the soft orchestral colours that characterize this scene".
The score is seen by the critic Richard Osborne as rich in self-parody, with sinister themes from Rigoletto and Un ballo in maschera transmuted into comedy. For Osborne the nocturnal music of Act III draws on the examples of Weber, Berlioz and Mendelssohn, creating a mood akin to that of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Osborne views the whole opera as an ensemble piece, and he comments that grand soliloquy in the old Verdian style is reserved for Ford's "jealousy" aria in Act II, which is almost tragic in style but comic in effect, making Ford "a figure to be laughed at." Osborne concludes his analysis, "Falstaff is comedy's musical apogee: the finest opera, inspired by the finest dramatist, by the finest opera composer the world has known".
Recordings
There are two early recordings of Falstaff's short arietta "Quand'ero paggio". Pini Corsi, the original Ford, recorded it in 1904, and Maurel followed in 1907. The first recording of the complete opera was made by Italian Columbia in March and April 1932. It was conducted by Lorenzo Molajoli with the chorus and orchestra of La Scala, and a cast including Giacomo Rimini as Falstaff and Pia Tassinari as Alice. Some live stage performances were recorded in the 1930s, but the next studio recording was that conducted by Arturo Toscanini for the 1950 NBC radio broadcast released on disc by RCA Victor. The first stereophonic recording was conducted by Herbert von Karajan for EMI in 1956.
Among the singers whose performances of the title role are on live or studio recordings, Italians include Renato Bruson, Tito Gobbi, Rolando Panerai, Ruggero Raimondi, Mariano Stabile, Giuseppe Taddei and Giuseppe Valdengo; Francophone singers include Gabriel Bacquier, Jean-Philippe Lafont and José van Dam; Germans include Walter Berry, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Hans Hotter; and UK and US singers include Geraint Evans, Donald Gramm, Bryn Terfel, Leonard Warren and Willard White.
Notes, references and sources
Notes
References
Sources
Beaumont, Antony, ed. (1987). Busoni: Selected Letters. New York: Columbia University Press.
Further reading
External links
Libretto at giuseppeverdi.it
Kingston, W. Beatty (translator), Falstaff: A Lyrical Comedy in Three Acts. Libretto with original English translation at archive.org.
Detailed information on the key arias at aria-database.com
Detailed Falstaff discography at operadis-opera-discography.org.uk
Victor Maurel's 1907 recording of "Quand'ero paggio", at the Bibliothèque nationale de France
1893 operas
Italian-language operas
Opera world premieres at La Scala
Operas by Giuseppe Verdi
Operas
Operas based on The Merry Wives of Windsor
Libretti by Arrigo Boito |
38050 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aden | Aden | Aden ( , Old South Arabian : 𐩲𐩵𐩬, Eudaemon Ancient Greek: Ευδαίμων, meaning "blissful/ prosperous''), is a port city located in the southern part of the Arabian peninsula, positioned near the eastern approach to the Red Sea . It is situated approximately 170 km (110 mi) east of the Bab-el-Mandeb strait and north of the Gulf of Aden. With its strategic location on the coastline, Aden serves as a gateway between the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea, making it a crucial maritime hub connecting Africa, Asia, and the Middle East . As of 2023, Aden City has a population of approximately 1,080,000 residents, making it the largest city in South Yemen and one of the largest cites in Yemen. The city spans an area of 760 km2 (290 square miles), providing ample space for its growing population and diverse range of activities. Aden City is strategically positioned at the crossroads of Africa, Asia, and Europe, making it a gateway for international trade and commerce. Aden has a rich cultural heritage that reflects the city's unique history and traditions. The city has been a center of trade and commerce for centuries, which has resulted in a diverse cultural mix of Arabic, Indian, and African influences . The city is renowned for its strategic seaport and the Aden Free Zone. It is strategically positioned near the Bab Al-Mandab Strait, a crucial maritime route. The city is equipped with essential infrastructure, including Aden International Airport, along with prominent public healthcare institutions such as Aljoumhouria teaching Hospital (Queen Elizabeth II) , Aden General Hospital, and Friendship Teaching Hospital. Aden is divided into eight districts, Tawahi District, Mualla District, Crater District, Khur Maksar District, Al Mansura District, Dar Sad District, Sheikh Othman, Al Buraiqa District. These eight districts constitute the modern day Governorate of Aden, during the British Colonialism , Aden referred to the area situated along the north coast of the Gulf of Aden and lies on a peninsula enclosing the eastern side of Al-Tawāhī Harbour, present day Tawahi District, Mualla District, Crater District and most of Khur Maksar District, whereas the peninsula enclosing the western side of the harbour is called Little Aden, which is part of present day Al Buraiqa District.
Prior to the independence, Aden consisted of a number of distinct sub-centres: Crater, the original port city; Ma'alla, the modern port; Tawahi, known as "Steamer Point" in the colonial period; and the resorts of Gold Mohur. Khormaksar, on the isthmus that connects Aden proper with the mainland, includes the city's diplomatic missions, the main offices of Aden University, and Aden International Airport (the former British Royal Air Force station RAF Khormaksar), Yemen's second biggest airport. On the mainland are the sub-centres of Sheikh Othman, a former oasis area; Al-Mansura, a town planned by the British; and Madinat ash-Sha'b (formerly Madinat al-Itihad), the site designated as the capital of the South Arabian Federation and now home to a large power/desalinization facility and additional faculties of Aden University.
Aden encloses the eastern side of a vast, natural harbour that constitutes the modern port. A long time ago this necessitated the existence of Aden's reservoirs, the Cisterns of Tawila. As described by 14th century scholar Ibn Battuta, "These reservoirs accumulate rainwater for the sole purpose of drinking for the city's citizens. Little Aden became the site of the oil refinery and tanker port. Both were established and operated by British Petroleum until they were turned over to South Yemeni government ownership and control in 1978.
Aden, formerly the capital of the state of South Yemen, held that status until it was captured by the northern Yemeni forces on 7 July 1994 during the 1994 Civil War. Currently, it's the seat of the Southern Transitional Council, which exercises complete control over the city and a significant portion of the territory that was once part of South Yemen. It was also declared a temporary capital for the ousted government of Yemen following the 2014 Coup d'état hosting some members of the IRGY (Cabinet of Yemen) mainly in al-Maashiq area.
History
Antiquity
A local legend in Yemen states that Aden may be as old as human history itself. Some also believe that Cain and Abel are buried somewhere in the city.
The port's convenient position on the sea route between India and Europe has made Aden desirable to rulers who sought to possess it at various times throughout history. Known as Eudaemon (, meaning "blissful, prosperous,") in the 1st century BC, it was a transshipping point for the Red Sea trade, but fell on hard times when new shipping practices by-passed it and made the daring direct crossing to India in the 1st century AD, according to the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. The same work describes Aden as "a village by the shore," which would well describe the town of Crater while it was still little-developed. There is no mention of fortification at this stage, Aden was more an island than a peninsula as the isthmus (a tombolo) was not then so developed as it is today.
Medieval and Early Modern
Although the pre-Islamic Himyar civilization was capable of building large structures, there seems to have been little fortification at this stage. Fortifications at Mareb and other places in Yemen and the Hadhramaut make it clear that both the Himyar and the Sabean cultures were well capable of it. Thus, watchtowers, since destroyed, are possible. However, the Arab historians Ibn al Mojawir and Abu Makhramah attribute the first fortification of Aden to Beni Zuree'a. Abu Makhramah has also included a detailed biography of Muhammad Azim Sultan Qamarbandi Naqsh in his work, Tarikh ul-Yemen. The aim seems to have been twofold: to keep hostile forces out and to maintain revenue by controlling the movement of goods, thereby preventing smuggling. In its original form, some of this work was relatively feeble.
After 1175 AD, rebuilding in a more solid form began, and ever since Aden became a popular city attracting sailors and merchants from Egypt, Sindh, Gujarat, East Africa and even China. According to Muqaddasi, Persians formed the majority of Aden's population in the 10th century.
In 1421, China's Ming dynasty Yongle Emperor ordered principal envoy grand eunuch Li Xing and grand eunuch Zhou Man of Zheng He's fleet to convey an imperial edict with hats and robes to bestow on the king of Aden. The envoys boarded three treasure ships and set sail from Sumatra to the port of Aden. This event was recorded in the book Yingyai Shenglan by Ma Huan who accompanied the imperial envoy.
In 1513, the Portuguese, led by Afonso de Albuquerque, launched an unsuccessful four-day naval siege of Aden.
After Ottoman rule, Aden was ruled by the Sultanate of Lahej, under suzerainty of the Zaidi imams of Yemen.
British administration 1839–1967
In 1609 The Ascension was the first English ship to visit Aden, before sailing on to Mocha during the fourth voyage of the East India Company.
British interests in Aden began in 1796 with Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, after which a British fleet docked at Aden for several months at the invitation of the sultan. The French were defeated in Egypt in 1801, and their privateers were tracked down over the subsequent decade. By 1800, Aden was a small village with a population of 600 Arabs, Somalis, Jews, and Indians—housed for the most part in huts of reed matting erected among ruins recalling a vanished era of wealth and prosperity. As there was little British trade in the Red Sea, most British politicians until the 1830s had no further interest in the area beyond the suppression of piracy. However, a small number of government officials and the East India Company officials thought that a British base in the area was necessary to prevent another French advance through Egypt or Russian expansion through Persia. The emergence of Muhammad Ali of Egypt as a strong local ruler only increased their concerns. The governor of Bombay from 1834 to 1838, Sir Robert Grant, was one of those who believed that India could only be protected by preemptively seizing "places of strength" to protect the Indian Ocean.
The Red Sea increased in importance after the steamship sailed from Bombay to the Suez isthmus in 1830, stopping at Aden with the sultan's consent to resupply with coal. Although cargo was still carried around the Cape of Good Hope in sailing ships, a steam route to the Suez could provide a much quicker option for transporting officials and important communications. Grant felt that armed ships steaming regularly between Bombay and Suez would help secure British interests in the region and did all he could to progress his vision. After lengthy negotiations due to the costs of investing in the new technology, the government agreed to pay half the costs for six voyages per year and the East India Company board approved the purchase of two new steamers in 1837. Grant immediately announced that monthly voyages to Suez would take place, despite the fact that no secure coaling station had been found.
In 1838, under Muhsin bin Fadl, Lahej ceded including Aden to the British. On 19 January 1839, the British East India Company landed Royal Marines at Aden to secure the territory and stop attacks by pirates against British shipping to India. In 1850 it was declared a free trade port, with the liquor, salt, arms, and opium trades developing duties as it won all the coffee trade from Mokha. The port lies about equidistant from the Suez Canal, Mumbai, and Zanzibar, which were all important British possessions. Aden had been an entrepôt and a way-station for seamen in the ancient world. There, supplies, particularly water, were replenished, so, in the mid-19th century, it became necessary to replenish coal and boiler water. Thus Aden acquired a coaling station at Steamer Point and Aden was to remain under British control until November 1967.
Until 1937, Aden was governed as part of British India and was known as the Aden Settlement. Its original territory was enlarged in 1857 by the island of Perim, in 1868 by the Khuriya Muriya Islands, and in 1915 by the island of Kamaran. The settlement would become Aden Province in 1935.
In 1937, the settlement was detached from India and became the Colony of Aden, a British Crown colony. The change in government was a step towards the change in monetary units seen in the stamps illustrating this article. When British India became independent in 1947, Indian rupees (divided into annas) were replaced in Aden by East African shillings. The hinterland of Aden and Hadhramaut were also loosely tied to Britain as the Aden Protectorate, which was overseen from Aden.
Aden's location also made it a useful entrepôt for mail passing between places around the Indian Ocean and Europe. Thus, a ship passing from Suez to Bombay could leave mail for Mombasa at Aden for collection (See Postage stamps and postal history of Aden).
The 1947 Aden riots saw more than 80 Jews killed, their property looted and schools burned by a Muslim mob. After the Suez Crisis in 1956, Aden became the main location in the region for the British.
Aden sent a team of two to the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Perth, Western Australia.
Little Aden 1955 to 1967
Little Aden is still dominated by the oil refinery built for British Petroleum. Little Aden was well known to seafarers for its tanker port with a very welcoming seaman's mission near to the BP Aden tugs' jetties, complete with swimming pool and air conditioned bar. The accommodation areas for the refinery personnel were known by the original Arabic names of Bureika and Ghadir.
Bureika was wooden housing bunkhouses built to accommodate the thousands of skilled men and laborers imported to build the refinery, later converted to family housing, plus imported prefabricated houses "the Riley-Newsums" that are also to be found in parts of Australia (Woomera). Bureika also had a protected bathing area and Beach Club.
Ghadir housing was stone built, largely from the local granite quarry; much of this housing still stands today, now occupied by wealthier locals from Aden. Little Aden also has a local township and numerous picturesque fishing villages, including the Lobster Pots of Ghadir. The British Army had extensive camps in Bureika and through Silent Valley in Falaise Camp, these successfully protected the refinery staff and facilities throughout the troubles, with only a very few exceptions. Schooling was provided for children from kindergarten age through to primary school, after that, children were bussed to The Isthmus School in Khormaksar, though this had to be stopped during the Aden Emergency.
Federation of South Arabia and the Aden Emergency
In order to stabilize Aden and the surrounding Aden Protectorate from the designs of the Egyptian backed republicans of North Yemen, the British attempted to gradually unite the disparate states of the region in preparation for eventual independence. On 18 January 1963, the Colony of Aden was incorporated into the Federation of Arab Emirates of the South against the wishes of North Yemen. The city became the State of Aden and the Federation was renamed the Federation of South Arabia (FSA).
An insurgency against British administration known as the Aden Emergency began with a grenade attack by the communist National Liberation Front (NLF), against the British High Commissioner on 10 December 1963, killing one person and injuring fifty, and a "state of emergency" was declared.
In 1964, Britain announced its intention to grant independence to the FSA in 1968, but that the British military would remain in Aden. The security situation deteriorated as NLF and FLOSY (Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen) vied for the upper hand.
In January 1967, there were mass riots between the NLF and their rival FLOSY supporters in the old Arab quarter of Aden town. This conflict continued until mid February, despite the intervention of British troops. On 20 June 1967, 23 British Army soldiers were ambushed and shot dead by members of Aden Police during the Aden Mutiny in the Crater District. During the period there were as many attacks on the British troops by both sides as against each other culminating in the destruction of an Aden Airways DC3 plane in the air with no survivors.
The increased violence was a determining factor in the British ensuring all families were evacuated more quickly than initially intended, as recorded in From Barren Rocks to Living Stones.
On 30 November 1967, British troops were evacuated, leaving Aden and the rest of the FSA under NLF control. The Royal Marines, who had been the first British troops to arrive in Aden in 1839, were the last to leave – with the exception of a Royal Engineer detachment (10 Airfields Squadron left Aden on 13 December 1967).
Independence from the United Kingdom
Aden ceased to be a Colony of the United Kingdom and became the capital of a new state known as the People's Republic of South Yemen which, in 1970, was renamed the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. With the unification of northern and southern Yemen in 1990, Aden was no longer a national capital but remained the capital of Aden Governorate which covered an area similar to that of the Aden Colony.
On 29 December 1992, Al Qaeda conducted its first known terrorist attack in Aden, bombing the Gold Mohur Hotel, where US servicemen were known to have been staying en route to Somalia for Operation Restore Hope. A Yemeni and an Austrian tourist died in the attack.
Aden was briefly the centre of the secessionist Democratic Republic of Yemen from 21 May 1994 but was reunited by Republic of Yemen troops on 7 July 1994.
Members of al Qaeda attempted to bomb the US guided-missile destroyer The Sullivans at the port of Aden as part of the 2000 millennium attack plots. The boat that had the explosives in it sank, forcing the planned attack to be aborted.
The bombing attack on destroyer USS Cole took place in Aden on 12 October 2000.
In 2007 growing dissatisfaction with unification led to the formation of the secessionist South Yemen Movement. According to The New York Times, the Movement's mainly underground leadership includes socialists, Islamists and individuals desiring a return to the perceived benefits of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen.
Civil war
President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi fled to Aden, his hometown, in February 2015 after being deposed in the coup d'état that many consider to be the start of the Yemeni civil war. Others consider that the civil war began in September 2014 when Houthi forces took over the capital city Sana'a, which was followed by a rapid Houthi takeover of the government.
Hadi declared in Aden that he was still Yemen's legitimate president and called on state institutions and loyal officials to relocate to Aden. In a televised speech on 21 March 2015, he declared Aden to be Yemen's "economic and temporary capital" while Sana'a is controlled by the Houthis.
Aden was hit by violence in the aftermath of the coup d'état, with forces loyal to Hadi clashing with those loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh in a battle for Aden International Airport on 19 March 2015. After the airport battle, the entire city became a battleground for the Battle of Aden, which left large parts of the city in ruins and has killed at least 198 people since 25 March 2015.
On 14 July 2015, the Saudi Arabian Army launched an offensive to win control of the city. Within three days, the city was cleared of Houthi rebels, ending the Battle of Aden with a coalition victory.
Beginning on 28 January 2018, separatists loyal to the Southern Transitional Council (STC) seized control of the Yemeni government headquarters in Aden in a coup d'état against the Hadi-led government.
The next day, President of the STC Aidarus al-Zoubaidi announced a state of emergency in Aden and that "the STC has begun the process of overthrowing Hadi's rule over the South".
On 1 August 2019, General Munir Al Yafi the serving commander of the STC was killed in a Houthi-missile strike alongside dozens of Yemeni soldiers in a military camp in western Aden. Later that month, the STC took control of Aden, and in April 2020 they declared self-rule.
On 30 December 2020, the undersecretary of labour and deputy minister of public works were killed along with between 20 and 30 others at the Aden airport while they conducted an international press briefing about their new arrangements with the STC, which includes the partition of forces inside Aden, as they returned from hiding in the Saudi capital. Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed, his ministers and his entourage were conducted to safety under the barrage of hostile fire.
Main sites
Aden has a number of historical and natural sites of interest to visitors. These include:
The historical British churches, one of which lies empty and semi-derelict in 2019.
The Zoroastrian Temple
The Cisterns of Tawila—an ancient water-catchment system located in the sub-centre of Crater
Sira Fort
The Aden Minaret
Little Ben, a miniature Big Ben Clock Tower overlooking Steamer Point. Built during the colonial period, this was restored in 2012 after 3 decades of neglect since the British withdrawal of 1967.
The Landing Pier at Steamer Point is a 19th-century building used by visiting dignitaries during the colonial period, most notably Queen Elizabeth during her 1954 visit to the colony. This building was hit by an airstrike in 2015 and is currently in the process of being restored in 2019.
The Crescent Hotel which contained a number of artifacts relating to the Royal Visit of 1954 and which currently remains derelict as a result of a recent airstrike.
The Palace of the Sultanate of Lahej/National Museum—The National Museum was founded in 1966 and is located in what used to be the Palace of the Sultanate of Lehej. Northern forces robbed it during the 1994 Civil War, but its collection of pieces remains one of the biggest in Yemen.
The Aden Military Museum which features a painting depicting the 20 June 1967 ambush by Arab Police Barracks on a British Army unit when a number of the 22 soldiers killed that day were driving in 2 Landrovers on Queen Arwa Road, Crater.
The Rimbaud House, which opened in 1991, is the two-story house of French poet Arthur Rimbaud who lived in Aden from 1880 to 1891. Rimbaud moved to Aden on his way to Ethiopia in an attempt for a new life. As of the late 1990s, the first floor of the house belonged to the French Consulate, a cultural centre and a library. The house is located in al-Tawahi—the European Quarter of Aden—and is politically and culturally debated for its French nature in an area previously colonized by Britain.
The fortifications of Jebal Hadid and Jebal Shamsan
The beaches of Aden and Little Aden—Some of the popular beaches in Aden consist of Lover's Bay Beach, Elephant Beach and Gold Beach. The popular beach in Little Aden is called Blue Beach. Some beaches are private and some are public, which is subject to change over time due to the changing resort industry. According to the Wall Street Journal, kidnappings on the beaches and the threat of Al Qaeda has caused problems for the resort industry in Aden, which used to be popular among locals and Westerners.
Al-Aidaroos Mosque
Main Pass – now called Al-Aqba Road is the only road into Aden through Crater. Originally an Arched Upper bridge known as Main Gate, it overlooked Aden city and was built during the Ottoman Empire. A painted crest of the 24th British army battalion is still visible on the brickwork adjacent to the Gate site and is believed to be the only remaining army Crest from colonial rule still visible in Aden. In March 1963 the bridge was removed by a British Army controlled explosion to widen the 2 lane roadway to the present 4 lane highway and the only reminder of this bridge is a quarter scale replica built at the end of the Al-Aqba road intersection known as the AdenGate Model roundabout.
Economy
Historically, Aden would import goods from the African coast and from Europe, the United States, and India. As of 1920, the British described it as "the chief emporium of Arabian trade, receiving the small quantities of native produce, and supplying the modest wants of the interior and of most of the smaller Arabian ports." At the docks, the city provided coal to passing ships. The only item being produced by the city, as of 1920, was salt. Also, the port was the stop ships had to take when entering the Bab-el-Mandeb; this was how cities like Mecca had received goods by ship. Yemen Airlines, the national airline of South Yemen, had its head office in Aden. On 15 May 1996, Yemen Airlines merged with Yemenia.
During the early 20th century Aden was a notable centre of coffee production. Women processed coffee beans, grown in the Yemen highlands. Frankincense, wheat, barley, alfalfa, and millet was also produced and exported from Aden. The leaves and stalks of the alfalfa, millet and maize produced in Aden were generally used as fodder. As of 1920, Aden was also gathering salt from salt water. An Italian company called Agostino Burgarella Ajola and Company gathered and process the salt under the name Aden Salt Works. There was also a smaller company from India, called Abdullabhoy and Joomabhoy Lalji & Company that owned a salt production firm in Aden. Both companies exported the salt. Between 1916 and 1917, Aden produced over 120,000 tons of salt. Aden has also produced potash, which was generally exported to Mumbai.
Aden produced jollyboats. Charcoal was produced as well, from acacia, and mainly in the interior of the region. Cigarettes were produced by Jewish and Greek populations in Aden. The tobacco used was imported from Egypt.
Since the outbreak of the Yemeni Civil War spread to Aden in 2015, the city has been struck by constant protests over a range of issues, but especially concerning electricity generation. Aden's power grid is composed solely of diesel generators and is thus heavily dependent on imported fuel. The main power plant is al-Hasswa diesel power plant, which in June 2021 had only two turbines out of five running, producing up to 50 megawatts (MW) of power in a region where the deficit hovers around 300 MW. Nawfal al-Mojamal, the plant director, said "In its 35 years of existence, al-Hasswa station never had any kind of maintenance, except in 2016 ... when the two turbines were restored".
Transportation
Historically, Aden's harbour has been a major hub of transportation for the region. As of 1920, the harbour was in size. Passenger ships landed at Steamer Point now called Tawahi.
During the British colonial period motor vehicles drove on the left, as in the United Kingdom. On 2 January 1977, Aden, along with the rest of South Yemen, changed to driving on the right, bringing it into line with neighbouring Arab states.
The city was served by Aden International Airport, the former RAF Khormaksar station which is away from the city, before the Battle of Aden Airport and the 2015 military intervention in Yemen closed this airport along with other airports in Yemen. On 22 July, Aden International Airport was declared fit for operation again after the Houthi forces were driven from the city, and a Saudi plane carrying aid reportedly became the first plane to land in Aden in four months. The same day, a ship chartered by the World Food Programme carrying fuel docked in Aden's port.
Climate
Aden has a hot desert climate (BWh) in the Köppen-Geiger climate classification system. Although Aden sees next to no precipitation year-round, it is humid throughout the year.
See also
Hadhramaut Mountains
History of the Jews in Aden
Military history of Britain
Postage stamps and postal history of Aden
Yemen Ports Authority
Footnotes
References
Garston, J. "Aden: The First Hundred Years," History Today (March 1965) 15#3 pp 147–158. covers 1839 to 1939.
Further reading
External links
Photos of Aden at the American Center of Research
Populated places in Aden Governorate
Populated coastal places in Yemen
Port cities in the Arabian Peninsula
Ports and harbours of the Indian Ocean
Gulf of Aden
Port cities and towns of the Red Sea
Russian and Soviet Navy bases
Capitals in Asia
Capitals of former nations
Former colonial capitals |
38237 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform | Uniform | A uniform is a variety of costume worn by members of an organization while participating in that organization's activity. Modern uniforms are most often worn by armed forces and paramilitary organizations such as police, emergency services, security guards, in some workplaces and schools and by inmates in prisons. In some countries, some other officials also wear uniforms in their duties; such is the case of the Commissioned Corps of the United States Public Health Service or the French prefects. For some organizations, such as police, it may be illegal for non members to wear the uniform.
Etymology
From the Latin unus, one, and forma, form.
Corporate and work uniforms
Workers sometimes wear uniforms or corporate clothing of one nature or another. Workers required to wear a uniform may include retail workers, bank and post-office workers, public-security and health-care workers, blue-collar employees, personal trainers in health clubs, instructors in summer camps, lifeguards, janitors, public-transit employees, towing- and truck-drivers, airline employees and holiday operators, and bar, restaurant and hotel employees. The use of uniforms in commercial or public-service organizations often reflects an effort in branding and in developing a standard corporate image; it also has important effects on the employees required to wear uniforms.
The term uniform may be misleading because employees are not always fully uniform in appearance and may not always wear attire provided by the organization, while still representing the organization in their attire. Academic work on organizational dress by Rafaeli & Pratt (1993) referred to uniformity (homogeneity) of dress as one dimension, and conspicuousness as a second. Employees all wearing black, for example, may appear conspicuous and thus represent the organization even though their attire is uniform only in the color of their clothing, not in its features. Pratt & Rafaeli, (1997) described struggles between employees and management about organizational dress as struggles about deeper meanings and identities that dress represents. And Pratt & Rafaeli (2001) described dress as one of the larger set of symbols and artifacts in organizations, which coalesce into a communication grammar.
Armed forces and security
Military uniform is the standardised dress worn by members of the armed forces and paramilitaries of various nations. Military dress and military styles have gone through great changes over the centuries from colourful and elaborate to extremely utilitarian. Military uniforms in the form of standardised and distinctive dress, intended for identification and display, are typically a sign of organised military forces equipped by a central authority.
The utilitarian necessities of war and economic frugality are now the dominant factors in uniform design. Most military forces, however, have developed several different uniform types.
Military personnel in most armed forces and some civilian officials may wear some or all of the following: combat uniform, service dress, dress uniform, full dress uniform, mess dress.
Medical workers
Uniforms can distinguish various categories of staff in medical institutions: doctors, surgeons, nurses, ancillary staff and volunteers.
Traditional female nurses' uniforms resemble uniforms (habits) worn by religious orders.
Equipment - notably stethoscopes - worn like a badge of office, may accompany or replace medical uniforms.
Educational
Uniforms are required for students in many schools in different countries. School uniforms vary from a standard issue T-shirt to rigorous requirements for many items of formal wear at private schools. School uniforms are in place in many public schools as well.
Countries where mandatory school uniforms are common include Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, India, Australia, UAE, Singapore, Albania, Philippines, some schools in Taiwan, New Zealand, South Africa, Indonesia and the United Kingdom, among many other places. In some countries, uniform types vary from school to school, in the United Kingdom, many pupils between 11 and 16 of age wear a blazer, tie and trousers for boys and blouse, tie and trousers, skirt, or culottes for girls. The ties tend to have a set pattern or a logo embroidered representing the school, and jackets will usually carry a badge on the breast pocket with the school's name, coat of arms, and motto or emblem. Children in many British state primary schools will have a uniform jumper and/or polo shirt with the school name and logo.
Some universities in the DPRK require students to wear uniforms.
Diplomats
From about 1800 to after the Second World War, diplomats from most countries (and often senior non-military officials generally) wore official uniforms at public occasions. Such uniforms are now retained by only a few diplomatic services, and are seldom worn.
Police
Members of the police in every country have a uniform for identification as law-enforcement personnel or agents. They are distinguished from the public by the uniform the police wear during overt policing activity. Usually each country has its own different police uniform.
Contrast plainclothes law enforcement and undercover operations.
Sports
Most, if not all, sports teams also wear uniforms, made in the team's distinctive colors. In individual sports like tennis and golf, players may choose any clothing design allowed by the competition rules.
To prevent the confusion (for officials, players, and fans) that might result from two opposing teams wearing uniforms (kits) with similar colors, teams have different variations for "home" and "away" games, where typically one is dark and the other is light. In the four major North American sports leagues, one of the two uniforms is almost always predominantly white, and each league except for the National Basketball Association (NBA) has a rule to determine which team should normally wear its white uniform. Customarily, National Football League (NFL) and National Hockey League (NHL) teams wear their color uniforms for home games. By contrast, Major League Baseball (MLB) teams wear their white uniforms for home games. The NBA traditionally required home teams to wear white, or at least a light color, but as of the allows home teams to wear any uniform color, mandating only that away teams wear a color that sufficiently contrasts with the home team's choice. These rules are not strictly enforced, however, for any of the four major professional sports leagues in North America. Some NFL teams, most notably the Dallas Cowboys, prefer to wear their white jerseys for home games. When Joe Gibbs was the head coach of the Washington Redskins — first from 1981 to 1992, and again from 2004 to 2007 — the Redskins exclusively wore white jerseys at home games. In the United Kingdom, especially in football, the terms "kit" or "strip" (as in 'football kit') are more common (instead of uniform).
Domestic workers
Domestic workers are often required by their employers-managers to wear a uniform.
Prison
A prison uniform is any uniform worn by individuals incarcerated in a prison, jail or similar facility of detention.
Beautician
The beauticians use uniforms to protect their skin from harmful chemicals and acid. These chemical resistant and water proof uniforms are not only safe to work in but also provide a professional, polished appearance throughout the day.
Scouting
The Scout uniform is a specific characteristic of the Scouting movement, in the words of Baden-Powell at the 1937 World Jamboree, "it covers the differences of country and race and make all feel that they are members one with another of one World Brotherhood". The original uniform, which has created a familiar image in the public eye, consisted of a khaki button-up shirt, shorts and a broad-brimmed campaign hat. Baden-Powell himself wore shorts since being dressed like the youth contributed to reducing perceived "distance" between the adult and the young person. Nowadays, uniforms are frequently blue, orange, red, or green, and shorts are replaced by long pants in areas where the culture calls for modesty, and in winter weather. The campaign hats have also been dropped in some Scouting organisations.
Buttons
Some uniforms have specially-manufactured buttons, which, in the case of antiques, often outlast the fabric components of the uniform, and become highly collectable items. Nowadays, buttons come in different materials, shapes sizes and colors.
Hygiene
In some countries or regions such as the UK, Australia or Hong Kong, the cost of cleaning one's uniform or work clothing can be partially deducted or rebated from the personal income tax, if the organization for which the person works does not have a laundry department or an outsourced commercial laundry.
See also
Costume
Court dress
Dress code
Industrial laundry
Political uniform
Social behavior
Uniform fetishism
References |
38390 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dementia | Dementia | Dementia is the general name for a decline in cognitive abilities that impacts a person's ability to do everyday activities. This typically involves problems with memory, thinking, and behavior. Aside from memory impairment and a disruption in thought patterns, the most common symptoms include emotional problems, difficulties with language, and decreased motivation. The symptoms may be described as occurring in a continuum over several stages. Dementia ultimately has a significant effect on the individual, caregivers, and on social relationships in general. A diagnosis of dementia requires the observation of a change from a person's usual mental functioning and a greater cognitive decline than what is caused by normal aging.
Several diseases and injuries to the brain such as a stroke can give rise to dementia. However, the most common cause is Alzheimer's disease, a neurodegenerative disorder. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), has re-described dementia as either a mild or major neurocognitive disorder with varying degrees of severity and many causative subtypes. The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) also classes dementia as a neurocognitive disorder (NCD) with many forms or subclasses. Dementia is listed as an acquired brain syndrome, marked by a decline in cognitive function, and is contrasted with neurodevelopmental disorders. Dementia is also described as a spectrum of disorders with causative subtypes of dementia based on a known disorder, such as Parkinson's disease, for Parkinson's disease dementia; Huntington's disease, for Huntington's disease dementia; vascular disease, for vascular dementia; HIV infection, causing HIV dementia; frontotemporal lobar degeneration for frontotemporal dementia; or Lewy body disease for dementia with Lewy bodies, and prion diseases. Subtypes of neurodegenerative dementias may also be based on the underlying pathology of misfolded proteins such as synucleinopathies, and tauopathies. More than one type of dementia existing together is known as mixed dementia.
Many neurocognitive disorders may be caused by another medical condition or disorder that includes brain tumours, and subdural hematoma; endocrine disorders such as hypothyroidism, and hypoglycemia; nutritional deficiencies including thiamine, and niacin; infections, immune disorders, liver or kidney failure, metabolic disorders such as Kufs disease, and some leukodystrophies, and neurological disorders such as epilepsy, and multiple sclerosis. Some of the neurocognitive deficits may sometimes show improvement with treatment of the medical condition.
Diagnosis is usually based on history of the illness and cognitive testing with imaging. Blood tests may be taken to rule out other possible causes that may be reversible, such as hypothyroidism (an underactive thyroid), and to determine the dementia subtype. One commonly used cognitive test is the Mini-Mental State Examination. The greatest risk factor for developing dementia is aging, however dementia is not a normal part of aging. Many people aged 90 and above show no signs of dementia. Several risk factors for dementia, such as smoking and obesity, are preventable by lifestyle changes. Screening the general older population for the disorder is not seen to affect the outcome.
Dementia is currently the seventh leading cause of death worldwide and has 10 million new cases reported every year (one every ~3 seconds). There is no known cure for dementia. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors such as donepezil are often used and may be beneficial in mild to moderate disorder. The overall benefit, however, may be minor. There are many measures that can improve the quality of life of people with dementia and their caregivers. Cognitive and behavioral interventions may be appropriate for treating associated symptoms of depression.
Signs and symptoms
The signs and symptoms of dementia are termed as the neuropsychiatric symptoms, also known as the behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia. Behavioral symptoms can include agitation, restlessness, inappropriate behavior, sexual disinhibition, and aggression, which can be verbal or physical. These symptoms may result from impairments in cognitive inhibition. Psychological symptoms can include depression, hallucinations (most often visual), and delusions, apathy, and anxiety. The most commonly affected areas include memory, visuospatial function affecting perception and orientation, language, attention and problem solving. The rate at which symptoms progress occurs on a continuum over several stages, and they vary across the dementia subtypes. Most types of dementia are slowly progressive with some deterioration of the brain well established before signs of the disorder become apparent. Often there are other conditions present such as high blood pressure, or diabetes, and there can sometimes be as many as four of these comorbidities.
People with dementia are also more likely to have problems with incontinence: they are three times more likely to have urinary and four times more likely to have fecal incontinence compared to people of similar ages.
Dementia symptoms can vary widely from person to person. It affects memory, attention span, communication, reasoning, judgement, problem solving and visual perception, etc. Signs that may point to dementia include getting lost in a familiar neighborhood, using unusual words to refer to familiar objects, forgetting the name of a close family member or friend, forgetting old memories, not being able to complete tasks independently, etc.
Stages
The course of dementia is often described in four stages that show a pattern of progressive cognitive and functional impairment. However, the use of numeric scales allows for more detailed descriptions. These scales include the Global Deterioration Scale for Assessment of Primary Degenerative Dementia (GDS or Reisberg Scale), the Functional Assessment Staging Test (FAST), and the Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR). Using the GDS, which more accurately identifies each stage of the disease progression, a more detailed course is described in seven stages – two of which are broken down further into five and six degrees. Stage 7(f) is the final stage.
Pre-dementia
Pre-dementia states include pre-clinical and prodromal stages. The prodromal stages includes (1) mild cognitive impairment (MCI), (2) delirium-onset, and psychiatric-onset presentations.
Pre-clinical
Sensory dysfunction is claimed for this stage which may precede the first clinical signs of dementia by up to ten years. Most notably the sense of smell is lost. The loss of the sense of smell is associated with depression and loss of appetite leading to poor nutrition. It is suggested that this dysfunction may come about because the olfactory epithelium is exposed to the environment. The lack of blood–brain barrier protection here means that toxic elements can enter and cause damage to the chemosensory networks.
Prodromal
Pre-dementia states considered as prodromal are mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and mild behavioral impairment (MBI).
Kynurenine is a metabolite of tryptophan that regulates microbiome signalling, immune cell response, and neuronal excitation. A disruption in the kynurenine pathway may be associated with the neuropsychiatric symptoms and cognitive prognosis in mild dementia.
In this stage signs and symptoms may be subtle. Often, the early signs become apparent when looking back. 70% of those diagnosed with MCI later progress to dementia. In MCI, changes in the person's brain have been happening for a long time, but symptoms are just beginning to appear. These problems, however, are not severe enough to affect daily function. If and when they do, the diagnosis becomes dementia. They may have some memory trouble and trouble finding words, but they solve everyday problems and competently handle their life affairs. During this stage, it is ideal to ensure that advance care planning has occurred to protect the wishes of the person. Advance directives which are specific to dementia exist, which can be particularly helpful in addressing the decisions related to feeding which come with the progression of the illness.
Mild cognitive impairment has been relisted in both DSM-5, and ICD-11, as mild neurocognitive disorders – milder forms of the major neurocognitive disorder (dementia) subtypes.
Early
In the early stage of dementia, symptoms become noticeable to other people. In addition, the symptoms begin to interfere with daily activities, and will register a score on a Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). MMSE scores are set at 24 to 30 for a normal cognitive rating and lower scores reflect severity of symptoms. The symptoms are dependent on the type of dementia. More complicated chores and tasks around the house or at work become more difficult. The person can usually still take care of themselves but may forget things like taking pills or doing laundry and may need prompting or reminders.
The symptoms of early dementia usually include memory difficulty, but can also include some word-finding problems, and problems with executive functions of planning and organization. Managing finances may prove difficult. Other signs might be getting lost in new places, repeating things, and personality changes.
In some types of dementia, such as dementia with Lewy bodies and frontotemporal dementia, personality changes and difficulty with organization and planning may be the first signs.
Middle
As dementia progresses, initial symptoms generally worsen. The rate of decline is different for each person. MMSE scores between 6–17 signal moderate dementia. For example, people with moderate Alzheimer's dementia lose almost all new information. People with dementia may be severely impaired in solving problems, and their social judgment is usually also impaired. They cannot usually function outside their own home, and generally should not be left alone. They may be able to do simple chores around the house but not much else, and begin to require assistance for personal care and hygiene beyond simple reminders. A lack of insight into having the condition will become evident.
Late
People with late-stage dementia typically turn increasingly inward and need assistance with most or all of their personal care. Persons with dementia in the late stages usually need 24-hour supervision to ensure their personal safety, and meeting of basic needs. If left unsupervised, they may wander or fall; may not recognize common dangers such as a hot stove; or may not realize that they need to use the bathroom and become incontinent. They may not want to get out of bed, or may need assistance doing so. Commonly, the person no longer recognizes familiar faces. They may have significant changes in sleeping habits or have trouble sleeping at all.
Changes in eating frequently occur. Cognitive awareness is needed for eating and swallowing and progressive cognitive decline results in eating and swallowing difficulties. This can cause food to be refused, or choked on, and help with feeding will often be required. For ease of feeding, food may be liquidized into a thick purée. They may also struggle to walk, particularly among those with Alzheimer's disease. In some cases, there is a paradoxical lucidity immediately before death, where there is an unexpected recovery of mental clarity.
Causes
Many causes of dementia are neurodegenerative, and protein misfolding is a cardinal feature of these. Other common causes include vascular dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies, frontotemporal dementia, and mixed dementia (commonly Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia). Less common causes include normal pressure hydrocephalus, Parkinson's disease dementia, syphilis, HIV, and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease accounts for 60–70% of cases of dementia worldwide. The most common symptoms of Alzheimer's disease are short-term memory loss and word-finding difficulties. Trouble with visuospatial functioning (getting lost often), reasoning, judgment and insight fail. Insight refers to whether or not the person realizes they have memory problems.
The part of the brain most affected by Alzheimer's is the hippocampus. Other parts that show atrophy (shrinking) include the temporal and parietal lobes. Although this pattern of brain shrinkage suggests Alzheimer's, it is variable and a brain scan is insufficient for a diagnosis. The relationship between general anesthesia and Alzheimer's in elderly people is unclear.
Little is known about the events that occur during and that actually cause Alzheimer's disease. This is due to the fact that brain tissue from patients with the disease can only be studied after the person's death. However, it is known that one of the first aspects of the disease is a dysfunction in the gene that produces amyloid. Extracellular senile plaques (SPs), consisting of beta-amyloid (Aβ) peptides, and intracellular neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) that are formed by hyperphosphorylated tau proteins, are two well-established pathological hallmarks of AD. Amyloid causes inflammation around the senile plaques of the brain, and too much build up of this inflammation leads to changes in the brain that cannot be controlled, leading to the symptoms of Alzheimer's.
Vascular
Vascular dementia accounts for at least 20% of dementia cases, making it the second most common type. It is caused by disease or injury affecting the blood supply to the brain, typically involving a series of mini-strokes. The symptoms of this dementia depend on where in the brain the strokes occurred and whether the blood vessels affected were large or small. Repeated injury can cause progressive dementia over time, while a single injury located in an area critical for cognition such as the hippocampus, or thalamus, can lead to sudden cognitive decline. Elements of vascular dementia may be present in all other forms of dementia.
Brain scans may show evidence of multiple strokes of different sizes in various locations. People with vascular dementia tend to have risk factors for disease of the blood vessels, such as tobacco use, high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation, high cholesterol, diabetes, or other signs of vascular disease such as a previous heart attack or angina.
Lewy bodies
The prodromal symptoms of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) include mild cognitive impairment, and delirium onset.
The symptoms of DLB are more frequent, more severe, and earlier presenting than in the other dementia subtypes.
Dementia with Lewy bodies has the primary symptoms of fluctuating cognition, alertness or attention; REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD); one or more of the main features of parkinsonism, not due to medication or stroke; and repeated visual hallucinations. The visual hallucinations in DLB are generally vivid hallucinations of people or animals and they often occur when someone is about to fall asleep or wake up. Other prominent symptoms include problems with planning (executive function) and difficulty with visual-spatial function, and disruption in autonomic bodily functions. Abnormal sleep behaviors may begin before cognitive decline is observed and are a core feature of DLB. RBD is diagnosed either by sleep study recording or, when sleep studies cannot be performed, by medical history and validated questionnaires.
Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease is a Lewy body disease that often progresses to Parkinson's disease dementia following a period of dementia-free Parkinson's disease.
Frontotemporal
Frontotemporal dementias (FTDs) are characterized by drastic personality changes and language difficulties. In all FTDs, the person has a relatively early social withdrawal and early lack of insight. Memory problems are not a main feature. There are six main types of FTD. The first has major symptoms in personality and behavior. This is called behavioral variant FTD (bv-FTD) and is the most common. The hallmark feature of bv-FTD is impulsive behavior, and this can be detected in pre-dementia states. In bv-FTD, the person shows a change in personal hygiene, becomes rigid in their thinking, and rarely acknowledges problems; they are socially withdrawn, and often have a drastic increase in appetite. They may become socially inappropriate. For example, they may make inappropriate sexual comments, or may begin using pornography openly. One of the most common signs is apathy, or not caring about anything. Apathy, however, is a common symptom in many dementias.
Two types of FTD feature aphasia (language problems) as the main symptom. One type is called semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (SV-PPA). The main feature of this is the loss of the meaning of words. It may begin with difficulty naming things. The person eventually may lose the meaning of objects as well. For example, a drawing of a bird, dog, and an airplane in someone with FTD may all appear almost the same. In a classic test for this, a patient is shown a picture of a pyramid and below it a picture of both a palm tree and a pine tree. The person is asked to say which one goes best with the pyramid. In SV-PPA the person cannot answer that question. The other type is called non-fluent agrammatic variant primary progressive aphasia (NFA-PPA). This is mainly a problem with producing speech. They have trouble finding the right words, but mostly they have a difficulty coordinating the muscles they need to speak. Eventually, someone with NFA-PPA only uses one-syllable words or may become totally mute.
A frontotemporal dementia associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) known as (FTD-ALS) includes the symptoms of FTD (behavior, language and movement problems) co-occurring with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (loss of motor neurons). Two FTD-related disorders are progressive supranuclear palsy (also classed as a Parkinson-plus syndrome), and corticobasal degeneration. These disorders are tau-associated.
Huntington's disease
Huntington's disease is a neurodegenerative disease caused by mutations in a single gene HTT, that encodes for huntingtin protein. Symptoms include cognitive impairment and this usually declines further into dementia.
The first main symptoms of Huntington's disease often include:
difficulty concentrating
memory lapses
depression - this can include low mood, lack of interest in things, or just abnormal feelings of hopelessness
stumbling and clumsiness that is out of the ordinary
mood swings, such as irritability or aggressive behavior to insignificant things
HIV
HIV-associated dementia results as a late stage from HIV infection, and mostly affects younger people. The essential features of HIV-associated dementia are disabling cognitive impairment accompanied by motor dysfunction, speech problems and behavioral change. Cognitive impairment is characterised by mental slowness, trouble with memory and poor concentration. Motor symptoms include a loss of fine motor control leading to clumsiness, poor balance and tremors. Behavioral changes may include apathy, lethargy and diminished emotional responses and spontaneity. Histopathologically, it is identified by the infiltration of monocytes and macrophages into the central nervous system (CNS), gliosis, pallor of myelin sheaths, abnormalities of dendritic processes and neuronal loss.
Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease
Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease is a rapidly progressive prion disease that typically causes dementia that worsens over weeks to months. Prions are disease-causing pathogens created from abnormal proteins.
Alcoholism
Alcohol-related dementia, also called alcohol-related brain damage, occurs as a result of excessive use of alcohol particularly as a substance abuse disorder. Different factors can be involved in this development including thiamine deficiency and age vulnerability. A degree of brain damage is seen in more than 70% of those with alcohol use disorder. Brain regions affected are similar to those that are affected by aging, and also by Alzheimer's disease. Regions showing loss of volume include the frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes, as well as the cerebellum, thalamus, and hippocampus. This loss can be more notable, with greater cognitive impairments seen in those aged 65 years and older.
Mixed dementia
More than one type of dementia, known as mixed dementia, may exist together in about 10% of dementia cases. The most common type of mixed dementia is Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia. This particular type of mixed dementia's main onsets are a mixture of old age, high blood pressure, and damage to blood vessels in the brain.
Diagnosis of mixed dementia can be difficult, as often only one type will predominate. This makes the treatment of people with mixed dementia uncommon, with many people missing out on potentially helpful treatments. Mixed dementia can mean that symptoms onset earlier, and worsen more quickly since more parts of the brain will be affected.
Other
Chronic inflammatory conditions that may affect the brain and cognition include Behçet's disease, multiple sclerosis, sarcoidosis, Sjögren's syndrome, lupus, celiac disease, and non-celiac gluten sensitivity. These types of dementias can rapidly progress, but usually have a good response to early treatment. This consists of immunomodulators or steroid administration, or in certain cases, the elimination of the causative agent. A 2019 review found no association between celiac disease and dementia overall but a potential association with vascular dementia. A 2018 review found a link between celiac disease or non-celiac gluten sensitivity and cognitive impairment and that celiac disease may be associated with Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, and frontotemporal dementia. A strict gluten-free diet started early may protect against dementia associated with gluten-related disorders.
Cases of easily reversible dementia include hypothyroidism, vitamin B12 deficiency, Lyme disease, and neurosyphilis. For Lyme disease and neurosyphilis, testing should be done if risk factors are present. Because risk factors are often difficult to determine, testing for neurosyphilis and Lyme disease, as well as other mentioned factors, may be undertaken as a matter of course where dementia is suspected.
Many other medical and neurological conditions include dementia only late in the illness. For example, a proportion of patients with Parkinson's disease develop dementia, though widely varying figures are quoted for this proportion. When dementia occurs in Parkinson's disease, the underlying cause may be dementia with Lewy bodies or Alzheimer's disease, or both. Cognitive impairment also occurs in the Parkinson-plus syndromes of progressive supranuclear palsy and corticobasal degeneration (and the same underlying pathology may cause the clinical syndromes of frontotemporal lobar degeneration). Although the acute porphyrias may cause episodes of confusion and psychiatric disturbance, dementia is a rare feature of these rare diseases. Limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy (LATE) is a type of dementia that primarily affects people in their 80s or 90s and in which TDP-43 protein deposits in the limbic portion of the brain.
Hereditary disorders that can also cause dementia include: some metabolic disorders such as lysosomal storage disorders, leukodystrophies, and spinocerebellar ataxias.
Diagnosis
Symptoms are similar across dementia types and it is difficult to diagnose by symptoms alone. Diagnosis may be aided by brain scanning techniques. In many cases, the diagnosis requires a brain biopsy to become final, but this is rarely recommended (though it can be performed at autopsy). In those who are getting older, general screening for cognitive impairment using cognitive testing or early diagnosis of dementia has not been shown to improve outcomes. However, screening exams are useful in 65+ persons with memory complaints.
Normally, symptoms must be present for at least six months to support a diagnosis. Cognitive dysfunction of shorter duration is called delirium. Delirium can be easily confused with dementia due to similar symptoms. Delirium is characterized by a sudden onset, fluctuating course, a short duration (often lasting from hours to weeks), and is primarily related to a somatic (or medical) disturbance. In comparison, dementia has typically a long, slow onset (except in the cases of a stroke or trauma), slow decline of mental functioning, as well as a longer trajectory (from months to years).
Some mental illnesses, including depression and psychosis, may produce symptoms that must be differentiated from both delirium and dementia. These are differently diagnosed as pseudodementias, and any dementia evaluation needs to include a depression screening such as the Neuropsychiatric Inventory or the Geriatric Depression Scale. Physicians used to think that people with memory complaints had depression and not dementia (because they thought that those with dementia are generally unaware of their memory problems). However, researchers have realized that many older people with memory complaints in fact have mild cognitive impairment the earliest stage of dementia. Depression should always remain high on the list of possibilities, however, for an elderly person with memory trouble. Changes in thinking, hearing and vision are associated with normal ageing and can cause problems when diagnosing dementia due to the similarities. Given the challenging nature of predicting the onset of dementia and making a dementia diagnosis clinical decision making aids underpinned by machine learning and artificial intelligence have the potential to enhance clinical practice.
Cognitive testing
Various brief cognitive tests (5–15 minutes) have reasonable reliability to screen for dementia, but may be affected by factors such as age, education and ethnicity. Age and education have a significant influence on the diagnosis of dementia. For example, Individuals with lower education are more likely to be diagnosed with dementia than their educated counterparts. While many tests have been studied, presently the mini mental state examination (MMSE) is the best studied and most commonly used. The MMSE is a useful tool for helping to diagnose dementia if the results are interpreted along with an assessment of a person's personality, their ability to perform activities of daily living, and their behaviour. Other cognitive tests include the abbreviated mental test score (AMTS), the, Modified Mini-Mental State Examination (3MS), the Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument (CASI), the Trail-making test, and the clock drawing test. The MoCA (Montreal Cognitive Assessment) is a reliable screening test and is available online for free in 35 different languages. The MoCA has also been shown somewhat better at detecting mild cognitive impairment than the MMSE. The AD-8 – a screening questionnaire used to assess changes in function related to cognitive decline – is potentially useful, but is not diagnostic, is variable, and has risk of bias. An integrated cognitive assessment (CognICA) is a five-minute test that is highly sensitive to the early stages of dementia, and uses an application deliverable to an iPad. Previously in use in the UK, in 2021 CognICA was given FDA approval for its commercial use as a medical device.
Another approach to screening for dementia is to ask an informant (relative or other supporter) to fill out a questionnaire about the person's everyday cognitive functioning. Informant questionnaires provide complementary information to brief cognitive tests. Probably the best known questionnaire of this sort is the Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly (IQCODE). Evidence is insufficient to determine how accurate the IQCODE is for diagnosing or predicting dementia. The Alzheimer's Disease Caregiver Questionnaire is another tool. It is about 90% accurate for Alzheimer's when by a caregiver. The General Practitioner Assessment Of Cognition combines both a patient assessment and an informant interview. It was specifically designed for use in the primary care setting.
Clinical neuropsychologists provide diagnostic consultation following administration of a full battery of cognitive testing, often lasting several hours, to determine functional patterns of decline associated with varying types of dementia. Tests of memory, executive function, processing speed, attention and language skills are relevant, as well as tests of emotional and psychological adjustment. These tests assist with ruling out other etiologies and determining relative cognitive decline over time or from estimates of prior cognitive abilities.
Laboratory tests
Routine blood tests are usually performed to rule out treatable causes. These include tests for vitamin B12, folic acid, thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), C-reactive protein, full blood count, electrolytes, calcium, renal function, and liver enzymes. Abnormalities may suggest vitamin deficiency, infection, or other problems that commonly cause confusion or disorientation in the elderly.
Imaging
A CT scan or MRI scan is commonly performed to possibly find either normal pressure hydrocephalus, a potentially reversible cause of dementia, or connected tumor. The scans can also yield information relevant to other types of dementia, such as infarction (stroke) that would point at a vascular type of dementia. These tests do not pick up diffuse metabolic changes associated with dementia in a person who shows no gross neurological problems (such as paralysis or weakness) on a neurological exam.
The functional neuroimaging modalities of SPECT and PET are more useful in assessing long-standing cognitive dysfunction, since they have shown similar ability to diagnose dementia as a clinical exam and cognitive testing. The ability of SPECT to differentiate vascular dementia from Alzheimer's disease, appears superior to differentiation by clinical exam.
The value of PiB-PET imaging using Pittsburgh compound B (PiB) as a radiotracer has been established in predictive diagnosis, particularly Alzheimer's disease.
Prevention
Risk factors
A 2020 review increased the number of associated risk factors for dementia; risks of over-indulgence in alcohol, traumatic brain injury, and air pollution were added to lower levels of education, high blood pressure, hearing loss, smoking, obesity, depression, inactivity, diabetes, and low social contact. Many of these identified risk factors including, the lower level of education, smoking, physical inactivity and diabetes, are modifiable. A 2022 review added anemia and sleep to modifiable risk factors. Several of the group are known vascular risk factors that may be able to be reduced or eliminated. Managing these risk factors can reduce the risk of dementia in individuals in their late midlife or older age. A reduction in a number of these risk factors can give a positive outcome. The decreased risk achieved by adopting a healthy lifestyle is seen even in those with a high genetic risk.
In addition to the above risk factors, meta-analyses indicate that there is robust evidence that other psychological traits, including personality (high neuroticism, and low conscientiousness), low purpose in life, and high loneliness, are risk factors for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. For example, based on the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), research found that loneliness in older people increased the risk of dementia by one-third. Not having a partner (being single, divorced, or widowed) doubled the risk of dementia. However, having two or three closer relationships reduced the risk by three-fifths.
The two most modifiable risk factors for dementia are physical inactivity and lack of cognitive stimulation. Physical activity, in particular aerobic exercise, is associated with a reduction in age-related brain tissue loss, and neurotoxic factors thereby preserving brain volume and neuronal integrity. Cognitive activity strengthens neural plasticity and together they help to support cognitive reserve. The neglect of these risk factors diminishes this reserve.
Studies suggest that sensory impairments of vision and hearing are modifiable risk factors for dementia. These impairments may precede the cognitive symptoms of Alzheimer's disease for example, by many years. Hearing loss may lead to social isolation which negatively affects cognition. Social isolation is also identified as a modifiable risk factor. Age-related hearing loss in midlife is linked to cognitive impairment in late life, and is seen as a risk factor for the development of Alzheimer's disease and dementia. Such hearing loss may be caused by a central auditory processing disorder that makes the understanding of speech against background noise difficult. Age-related hearing loss is characterised by slowed central processing of auditory information. Worldwide, mid-life hearing loss may account for around 9% of dementia cases.
Evidence suggests that frailty may increase the risk of cognitive decline, and dementia, and that the inverse also holds of cognitive impairment increasing the risk of frailty. Prevention of frailty may help to prevent cognitive decline.
A 2018 review however concluded that no medications have good evidence of a preventive effect, including blood pressure medications. A 2020 review found a decrease in the risk of dementia or cognitive problems from 7.5% to 7.0% with blood pressure lowering medications.
Economic disadvantage has been shown to have a strong link to higher dementia prevalence, which cannot yet be fully explained by other risk factors.
Dental health
Limited evidence links poor oral health to cognitive decline. However, failure to perform tooth brushing and gingival inflammation can be used as dementia risk predictors.
Oral bacteria
The link between Alzheimer's and gum disease is oral bacteria. In the oral cavity, bacterial species include P. gingivalis, F. nucleatum, P. intermedia, and T. forsythia. Six oral treponema spirochetes have been examined in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. Spirochetes are neurotropic in nature, meaning they act to destroy nerve tissue and create inflammation. Inflammatory pathogens are an indicator of Alzheimer's disease and bacteria related to gum disease have been found in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease. The bacteria invade nerve tissue in the brain, increasing the permeability of the blood–brain barrier and promoting the onset of Alzheimer's. Individuals with a plethora of tooth plaque risk cognitive decline. Poor oral hygiene can have an adverse effect on speech and nutrition, causing general and cognitive health decline.
Oral viruses
Herpes simplex virus (HSV) has been found in more than 70% of those aged over 50. HSV persists in the peripheral nervous system and can be triggered by stress, illness or fatigue. High proportions of viral-associated proteins in amyloid plaques or neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) confirm the involvement of HSV-1 in Alzheimer's disease pathology. NFTs are known as the primary marker of Alzheimer's disease. HSV-1 produces the main components of NFTs.
Diet
Diet is seen to be a modifiable risk factor for the development of dementia. Thiamine deficiency is identified to increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease in adults. The role of thiamine in brain physiology is unique and essential for the normal cognitive function of older people. Many dietary choices of the elderly population, including the higher intake of gluten-free products, compromise the intake of thiamine as these products are not fortified with thiamine.
The Mediterranean and DASH diets are both associated with less cognitive decline. A different approach has been to incorporate elements of both of these diets into one known as the MIND diet. These diets are generally low in saturated fats while providing a good source of carbohydrates, mainly those that help stabilize blood sugar and insulin levels. Raised blood sugar levels over a long time, can damage nerves and cause memory problems if they are not managed. Nutritional factors associated with the proposed diets for reducing dementia risk include unsaturated fatty acids, vitamin E, vitamin C, flavonoids, vitamin B, and vitamin D. A study conducted at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom seems to have confirmed these findings with fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy fats creating an optimum diet that can help reduce the risk of dementia by roughly 25%.
The MIND diet may be more protective but further studies are needed. The Mediterranean diet seems to be more protective against Alzheimer's than DASH but there are no consistent findings against dementia in general. The role of olive oil needs further study as it may be one of the most important components in reducing the risk of cognitive decline and dementia.
In those with celiac disease or non-celiac gluten sensitivity, a strict gluten-free diet may relieve the symptoms given a mild cognitive impairment. Once dementia is advanced no evidence suggests that a gluten-free diet is useful.
Omega-3 fatty acid supplements do not appear to benefit or harm people with mild to moderate symptoms. However, there is good evidence that omega-3 incorporation into the diet is of benefit in treating depression, a common symptom, and potentially modifiable risk factor for dementia.
Management
There are limited options for treating dementia, with most approaches focused on managing or reducing individual symptoms. There are no treatment options available to delay the onset of dementia. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors are often used early in the disorder course; however, benefit is generally small. More than half of people with dementia may experience psychological or behavioral symptoms including agitation, sleep problems, aggression, and/or psychosis. Treatment for these symptoms is aimed at reducing the person's distress and keeping the person safe. Treatments other than medication appear to be better for agitation and aggression. Cognitive and behavioral interventions may be appropriate. Some evidence suggests that education and support for the person with dementia, as well as caregivers and family members, improves outcomes. Palliative care interventions may lead to improvements in comfort in dying, but the evidence is low. Exercise programs are beneficial with respect to activities of daily living, and potentially improve dementia.
The effect of therapies can be evaluated for example by assessing agitation using the Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory (CMAI); by assessing mood and engagement with the Menorah Park Engagement Scale (MPES); and the Observed Emotion Rating Scale (OERS) or by assessing indicators for depression using the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia (CSDD) or a simplified version thereof.
Often overlooked in treating and managing dementia is the role of the caregiver and what is known about how they can support multiple interventions. Findings from a 2021 systematic review of the literature found caregivers of people with dementia in nursing homes do not have sufficient tools or clinical guidance for behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) along with medication use. Simple measures like talking to people about their interests can improve the quality of life for care home residents living with dementia. A programme showed that such simple measures reduced residents' agitation and depression. They also needed fewer GP visits and hospital admissions, which also meant that the programme was cost-saving.
Psychological and psychosocial therapies
Psychological therapies for dementia include some limited evidence for reminiscence therapy (namely, some positive effects in the areas of quality of life, cognition, communication and mood – the first three particularly in care home settings), some benefit for cognitive reframing for caretakers, unclear evidence for validation therapy and tentative evidence for mental exercises, such as cognitive stimulation programs for people with mild to moderate dementia. Offering personally tailored activities may help reduce challenging behavior and may improve quality of life. It is not clear if personally tailored activities have an impact on affect or improve for the quality of life for the caregiver.
Adult daycare centers as well as special care units in nursing homes often provide specialized care for dementia patients. Daycare centers offer supervision, recreation, meals, and limited health care to participants, as well as providing respite for caregivers. In addition, home care can provide one-to-one support and care in the home allowing for more individualized attention that is needed as the disorder progresses. Psychiatric nurses can make a distinctive contribution to people's mental health.
Since dementia impairs normal communication due to changes in receptive and expressive language, as well as the ability to plan and problem solve, agitated behavior is often a form of communication for the person with dementia. Actively searching for a potential cause, such as pain, physical illness, or overstimulation can be helpful in reducing agitation. Additionally, using an "ABC analysis of behavior" can be a useful tool for understanding behavior in people with dementia. It involves looking at the antecedents (A), behavior (B), and consequences (C) associated with an event to help define the problem and prevent further incidents that may arise if the person's needs are misunderstood. The strongest evidence for non-pharmacological therapies for the management of changed behaviors in dementia is for using such approaches. Low quality evidence suggests that regular (at least five sessions of) music therapy may help institutionalized residents. It may reduce depressive symptoms and improve overall behaviors. It may also supply a beneficial effect on emotional well-being and quality of life, as well as reduce anxiety. In 2003, The Alzheimer's Society established 'Singing for the Brain' (SftB) a project based on pilot studies which suggested that the activity encouraged participation and facilitated the learning of new songs. The sessions combine aspects of reminiscence therapy and music. Musical and interpersonal connectedness can underscore the value of the person and improve quality of life.
Some London hospitals found that using color, designs, pictures and lights helped people with dementia adjust to being at the hospital. These adjustments to the layout of the dementia wings at these hospitals helped patients by preventing confusion.
Life story work as part of reminiscence therapy, and video biographies have been found to address the needs of clients and their caregivers in various ways, offering the client the opportunity to leave a legacy and enhance their personhood and also benefitting youth who participate in such work. Such interventions can be more beneficial when undertaken at a relatively early stage of dementia. They may also be problematic in those who have difficulties in processing past experiences
Animal-assisted therapy has been found to be helpful. Drawbacks may be that pets are not always welcomed in a communal space in the care setting. An animal may pose a risk to residents, or may be perceived to be dangerous. Certain animals may also be regarded as "unclean" or "dangerous" by some cultural groups.
Occupational therapy also addresses psychological and psychosocial needs of patients with dementia through improving daily occupational performance and caregivers' competence. When compensatory intervention strategies are added to their daily routine, the level of performance is enhanced and reduces the burden commonly placed on their caregivers. Occupational therapists can also work with other disciplines to create a client centered intervention. To manage cognitive disability, and coping with behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia, combined occupational and behavioral therapies can support patients with dementia even further.
Cognitive training
There is no strong evidence to suggest that cognitive training is beneficial for people with Parkinson's disease, dementia, or mild cognitive impairment.
Personally tailored activities
Offering personally tailored activity sessions to people with dementia in long-term care homes may slightly reduce challenging behavior.
Medications
No medications have been shown to prevent or cure dementia. Medications may be used to treat the behavioral and cognitive symptoms, but have no effect on the underlying disease process.
Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, such as donepezil, may be useful for Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease dementia, DLB, or vascular dementia. The quality of the evidence is poor and the benefit is small. No difference has been shown between the agents in this family. In a minority of people side effects include a slow heart rate and fainting. Rivastigmine is recommended for treating symptoms in Parkinson's disease dementia.
Medications that have anticholinergic effects increase all-cause mortality in people with dementia, although the effect of these medications on cognitive function remains uncertain, according to a systematic review published in 2021.
Before prescribing antipsychotic medication in the elderly, an assessment for an underlying cause of the behavior is needed. Severe and life-threatening reactions occur in almost half of people with DLB, and can be fatal after a single dose. People with Lewy body dementias who take neuroleptics are at risk for neuroleptic malignant syndrome, a life-threatening illness. Extreme caution is required in the use of antipsychotic medication in people with DLB because of their sensitivity to these agents. Antipsychotic drugs are used to treat dementia only if non-drug therapies have not worked, and the person's actions threaten themselves or others. Aggressive behavior changes are sometimes the result of other solvable problems, that could make treatment with antipsychotics unnecessary. Because people with dementia can be aggressive, resistant to their treatment, and otherwise disruptive, sometimes antipsychotic drugs are considered as a therapy in response. These drugs have risky adverse effects, including increasing the person's chance of stroke and death. Given these adverse events and small benefit antipsychotics are avoided whenever possible. Generally, stopping antipsychotics for people with dementia does not cause problems, even in those who have been on them a long time.
N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor blockers such as memantine may be of benefit but the evidence is less conclusive than for AChEIs. Due to their differing mechanisms of action memantine and acetylcholinesterase inhibitors can be used in combination however the benefit is slight.
An extract of Ginkgo biloba known as EGb 761 has been widely used for treating mild to moderate dementia and other neuropsychiatric disorders. Its use is approved throughout Europe. The World Federation of Biological Psychiatry guidelines lists EGb 761 with the same weight of evidence (level B) given to acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, and mementine. EGb 761 is the only one that showed improvement of symptoms in both AD and vascular dementia. EGb 761 is seen as being able to play an important role either on its own or as an add-on particularly when other therapies prove ineffective. EGb 761 is seen to be neuroprotective; it is a free radical scavenger, improves mitochondrial function, and modulates serotonin and dopamine levels. Many studies of its use in mild to moderate dementia have shown it to significantly improve cognitive function, activities of daily living, neuropsychiatric symptoms, and quality of life. However, its use has not been shown to prevent the progression of dementia.
While depression is frequently associated with dementia, the use of antidepressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) do not appear to affect outcomes. However, the SSRIs sertraline and citalopram have been demonstrated to reduce symptoms of agitation, compared to placebo.
No solid evidence indicates that folate or vitamin B12 improves outcomes in those with cognitive problems. Statins have no benefit in dementia. Medications for other health conditions may need to be managed differently for a person who has a dementia diagnosis. It is unclear whether blood pressure medication and dementia are linked. People may experience an increase in cardiovascular-related events if these medications are withdrawn.
The Medication Appropriateness Tool for Comorbid Health Conditions in Dementia (MATCH-D) criteria can help identify ways that a diagnosis of dementia changes medication management for other health conditions. These criteria were developed because people with dementia live with an average of five other chronic diseases, which are often managed with medications. The systematic review that informed the criteria were published subsequently in 2018 and updated in 2022.
Sleep disturbances
Over 40% of people with dementia report sleep problems. Approaches to treating these sleep problems include medications and non-pharmacological approaches. The use of medications to alleviate sleep disturbances that people with dementia often experience has not been well researched, even for medications that are commonly prescribed. In 2012 the American Geriatrics Society recommended that benzodiazepines such as diazepam, and non-benzodiazepine hypnotics, be avoided for people with dementia due to the risks of increased cognitive impairment and falls. Benzodiazepines are also known to promote delirium. Additionally, little evidence supports the effectiveness of benzodiazepines in this population. No clear evidence shows that melatonin or ramelteon improves sleep for people with dementia due to Alzheimer's, but it is used to treat REM sleep behavior disorder in dementia with Lewy bodies. Limited evidence suggests that a low dose of trazodone may improve sleep, however more research is needed.
Non-pharmacological approaches have been suggested for treating sleep problems for those with dementia, however, there is no strong evidence or firm conclusions on the effectiveness of different types of interventions, especially for those who are living in an institutionalized setting such as a nursing home or long-term care home.
Pain
As people age, they experience more health problems, and most health problems associated with aging carry a substantial burden of pain; therefore, between 25% and 50% of older adults experience persistent pain. Seniors with dementia experience the same prevalence of conditions likely to cause pain as seniors without dementia. Pain is often overlooked in older adults and, when screened for, is often poorly assessed, especially among those with dementia, since they become incapable of informing others of their pain. Beyond the issue of humane care, unrelieved pain has functional implications. Persistent pain can lead to decreased ambulation, depressed mood, sleep disturbances, impaired appetite, and exacerbation of cognitive impairment and pain-related interference with activity is a factor contributing to falls in the elderly.
Although persistent pain in people with dementia is difficult to communicate, diagnose, and treat, failure to address persistent pain has profound functional, psychosocial and quality of life implications for this vulnerable population. Health professionals often lack the skills and usually lack the time needed to recognize, accurately assess and adequately monitor pain in people with dementia. Family members and friends can make a valuable contribution to the care of a person with dementia by learning to recognize and assess their pain. Educational resources and observational assessment tools are available.
Eating difficulties
Persons with dementia may have difficulty eating. Whenever it is available as an option, the recommended response to eating problems is having a caretaker assist them. A secondary option for people who cannot swallow effectively is to consider gastrostomy feeding tube placement as a way to give nutrition. However, in bringing comfort and maintaining functional status while lowering risk of aspiration pneumonia and death, assistance with oral feeding is at least as good as tube feeding. Tube-feeding is associated with agitation, increased use of physical and chemical restraints and worsening pressure ulcers. Tube feedings may cause fluid overload, diarrhea, abdominal pain, local complications, less human interaction and may increase the risk of aspiration.
Benefits in those with advanced dementia has not been shown. The risks of using tube feeding include agitation, rejection by the person (pulling out the tube, or otherwise physical or chemical immobilization to prevent them from doing this), or developing pressure ulcers. The procedure is directly related to a 1% fatality rate with a 3% major complication rate. The percentage of people at end of life with dementia using feeding tubes in the US has dropped from 12% in 2000 to 6% as of 2014.
The immediate and long-term effects of modifying the thickness of fluids for swallowing difficulties in people with dementia are not well known. While thickening fluids may have an immediate positive effect on swallowing and improving oral intake, the long-term impact on the health of the person with dementia should also be considered.
Exercise
Exercise programs may improve the ability of people with dementia to perform daily activities, but the best type of exercise is still unclear. Getting more exercise can slow the development of cognitive problems such as dementia, proving to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease by about 50%. A balance of strength exercise, to help muscles pump blood to the brain, and balance exercises are recommended for aging people. A suggested amount of about hours per week can reduce risks of cognitive decay as well as other health risks like falling.
Assistive technology
There is a lack of high-quality evidence to determine whether assistive technology effectively supports people with dementia to manage memory issues. Some of the specific things that are used today that helps with dementia today are: clocks, communication aids, electrical appliances the use monitoring, GPS location/ tracking devices, home care robots, in-home cameras, and medication management are just to name a few.
Alternative medicine
Evidence of the therapeutic values of aromatherapy and massage is unclear. It is not clear if cannabinoids are harmful or effective for people with dementia.
Palliative care
Given the progressive and terminal nature of dementia, palliative care can be helpful to patients and their caregivers by helping people with the disorder and their caregivers understand what to expect, deal with loss of physical and mental abilities, support the person's wishes and goals including surrogate decision making, and discuss wishes for or against CPR and life support. Because the decline can be rapid, and because most people prefer to allow the person with dementia to make their own decisions, palliative care involvement before the late stages of dementia is recommended. Further research is required to determine the appropriate palliative care interventions and how well they help people with advanced dementia.
Person-centered care helps maintain the dignity of people with dementia.
Remotely delivered information for caregivers
Remotely delivered interventions including support, training and information may reduce the burden for the informal caregiver and improve their depressive symptoms. There is no certain evidence that they improve health-related quality of life.
In several localities in Japan, digital surveillance may be made available to family members, if a dementia patient is prone to wandering and going missing.
Epidemiology
The number of cases of dementia worldwide in 2021 was estimated at 55 million, with close to 10 million new cases each year. By 2050, the number of people living with dementia is estimated to be over 150 million globally. Around 7% of people over aged 65 have dementia, with slightly higher rates (up to 10% of those over 65) in places with relatively high life expectancy. An estimated 58% of people with dementia are living in low and middle income countries. The prevalence of dementia differs in different world regions, ranging from 4.7% in Central Europe to 8.7% in North Africa/Middle East; the prevalence in other regions is estimated to be between 5.6 and 7.6%. The number of people living with dementia is estimated to double every 20 years. In 2016 dementia resulted in about 2.4 million deaths, up from 0.8 million in 1990. The genetic and environmental risk factors for dementia disorders vary by ethnicity. For instance, Alzheimer's disease among Hispanic/Latino and African American subjects exhibit lower risks associated with gene changes in the apolipoprotein E gene than do non-Hispanic white subjects.
The annual incidence of dementia diagnosis is nearly 10 million worldwide. Almost half of new dementia cases occur in Asia, followed by Europe (25%), the Americas (18%) and Africa (8%). The incidence of dementia increases exponentially with age, doubling with every 6.3-year increase in age. Dementia affects 5% of the population older than 65 and 20–40% of those older than 85. Rates are slightly higher in women than men at ages 65 and greater. The disease trajectory is varied and the median time from diagnosis to death depends strongly on age at diagnosis, from 6.7 years for people diagnosed aged 60–69 to 1.9 years for people diagnosed at 90 or older.
Dementia impacts not only individuals with dementia, but also their carers and the wider society. Among people aged 60 years and over, dementia is ranked the 9th most burdensome condition according to the 2010 Global Burden of Disease (GBD) estimates. The global costs of dementia was around US$818 billion in 2015, a 35.4% increase from US$604 billion in 2010.
Affected ages
About 3% of people between the ages of 65–74 have dementia, 19% between 75 and 84, and nearly half of those over 85 years of age. As more people are living longer, dementia is becoming more common. For people of a specific age, however, it may be becoming less frequent in the developed world, due to a decrease in modifiable risk factors made possible by greater financial and educational resources. It is one of the most common causes of disability among the elderly but can develop before the age of 65 when it is known as early-onset dementia or presenile dementia. Less than 1% of those with Alzheimer's have gene mutations that cause a much earlier development of the disease, around the age of 45, known as early-onset Alzheimer's disease. More than 95% of people with Alzheimer's disease have the sporadic form (late onset, 80–90 years of age). Worldwide the cost of dementia in 2015 was put at US$818 billion. People with dementia are often physically or chemically restrained to a greater degree than necessary, raising issues of human rights. Social stigma is commonly perceived by those with the condition, and also by their caregivers.
History
Until the end of the 19th century, dementia was a much broader clinical concept. It included mental illness and any type of psychosocial incapacity, including reversible conditions. Dementia at this time simply referred to anyone who had lost the ability to reason, and was applied equally to psychosis, "organic" diseases like syphilis that destroy the brain, and to the dementia associated with old age, which was attributed to "hardening of the arteries".
Dementia has been referred to in medical texts since antiquity. One of the earliest known allusions to dementia is attributed to the 7th-century BC Greek philosopher Pythagoras, who divided the human lifespan into six distinct phases: 0–6 (infancy), 7–21 (adolescence), 22–49 (young adulthood), 50–62 (middle age), 63–79 (old age), and 80–death (advanced age). The last two he described as the "senium", a period of mental and physical decay, and that the final phase was when "the scene of mortal existence closes after a great length of time that very fortunately, few of the human species arrive at, where the mind is reduced to the imbecility of the first epoch of infancy". In 550 BC, the Athenian statesman and poet Solon argued that the terms of a man's will might be invalidated if he exhibited loss of judgement due to advanced age. Chinese medical texts made allusions to the condition as well, and the characters for "dementia" translate literally to "foolish old person".
Athenian philosophers Aristotle and Plato discussed the mental decline that can come with old age and predicted that this affects everyone who becomes old and nothing can be done to stop this decline from taking place. Plato specifically talked about how the elderly should not be in positions that require responsibility because, "There is not much acumen of the mind that once carried them in their youth, those characteristics one would call judgement, imagination, power of reasoning, and memory. They see them gradually blunted by deterioration and can hardly fulfill their function."
For comparison, the Roman statesman Cicero held a view much more in line with modern-day medical wisdom that loss of mental function was not inevitable in the elderly and "affected only those old men who were weak-willed". He spoke of how those who remained mentally active and eager to learn new things could stave off dementia. However, Cicero's views on aging, although progressive, were largely ignored in a world that would be dominated for centuries by Aristotle's medical writings. Physicians during the Roman Empire, such as Galen and Celsus, simply repeated the beliefs of Aristotle while adding few new contributions to medical knowledge.
Byzantine physicians sometimes wrote of dementia. It is recorded that at least seven emperors whose lifespans exceeded 70 years displayed signs of cognitive decline. In Constantinople, special hospitals housed those diagnosed with dementia or insanity, but these did not apply to the emperors, who were above the law and whose health conditions could not be publicly acknowledged.
Otherwise, little is recorded about dementia in Western medical texts for nearly 1700 years. One of the few references was the 13th-century friar Roger Bacon, who viewed old age as divine punishment for original sin. Although he repeated existing Aristotelian beliefs that dementia was inevitable, he did make the progressive assertion that the brain was the center of memory and thought rather than the heart.
Poets, playwrights, and other writers made frequent allusions to the loss of mental function in old age. William Shakespeare notably mentions it in plays such as Hamlet and King Lear.
During the 19th century, doctors generally came to believe that elderly dementia was the result of cerebral atherosclerosis, although opinions fluctuated between the idea that it was due to blockage of the major arteries supplying the brain or small strokes within the vessels of the cerebral cortex.
In 1907, Bavarian psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer was the first to identify and describe the characteristics of progressive dementia in the brain of 51-year-old Auguste Deter. Deter had begun to behave uncharacteristically, including accusing her husband of adultery, neglecting household chores, exhibiting difficulties writing and engaging in conversations, heightened insomnia, and loss of directional sense. At one point, Deter was reported to have "dragged a bed sheet outside, wandered around wildly, and cried for hours at midnight." Alzheimer began treating Deter when she entered a Frankfurt mental hospital on November 25, 1901. During her ongoing treatment, Deter and her husband struggled to afford the cost of the medical care, and Alzheimer agreed to continue her treatment in exchange for Deter's medical records and donation of her brain upon death. Deter died on April 8, 1906, after succumbing to sepsis and pneumonia. Alzheimer conducted the brain biopsy using the Bielschowsky stain method, which was a new development at the time, and he observed senile plaques, neurofibrillary tangles, and atherosclerotic alteration. At the time, the consensus among medical doctors had been that senile plaques were generally found in older patients, and the occurrence of neurofibrillary tangles was an entirely new observation at the time. Alzheimer presented his findings at the 37th psychiatry conference of southwestern Germany in Tübingen on April 11, 1906; however, the information was poorly received by his peers. By 1910, Alois Alzheimer's teacher, Emil Kraepelin, published a book in which he coined the term "Alzheimer's disease" in an attempt to acknowledge the importance of Alzheimer's discovery.
By the 1960s, the link between Neurodegenerative Diseases and age-related cognitive decline had become more established. By the 1970s, the medical community maintained that vascular dementia was rarer than previously thought and Alzheimer's disease caused the vast majority of old age mental impairments. More recently however, it is believed that dementia is often a mixture of conditions.
In 1976, neurologist Robert Katzmann suggested a link between senile dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Katzmann suggested that much of the senile dementia occurring (by definition) after the age of 65, was pathologically identical with Alzheimer's disease occurring in people under age 65 and therefore should not be treated differently. Katzmann thus suggested that Alzheimer's disease, if taken to occur over age 65, is actually common, not rare, and was the fourth- or 5th-leading cause of death, even though rarely reported on death certificates in 1976.
A helpful finding was that although the incidence of Alzheimer's disease increased with age (from 5–10% of 75-year-olds to as many as 40–50% of 90-year-olds), no threshold was found by which age all persons developed it. This is shown by documented supercentenarians (people living to 110 or more) who experienced no substantial cognitive impairment. Some evidence suggests that dementia is most likely to develop between ages 80 and 84 and individuals who pass that point without being affected have a lower chance of developing it. Women account for a larger percentage of dementia cases than men, although this can be attributed to their longer overall lifespan and greater odds of attaining an age where the condition is likely to occur.
Much like other diseases associated with aging, dementia was comparatively rare before the 20th century, because few people lived past 80. Conversely, syphilitic dementia was widespread in the developed world until it was largely eradicated by the use of penicillin after World War II. With significant increases in life expectancy thereafter, the number of people over 65 started rapidly climbing. While elderly persons constituted an average of 3–5% of the population prior to 1945, by 2010 many countries reached 10–14% and in Germany and Japan, this figure exceeded 20%. Public awareness of Alzheimer's Disease greatly increased in 1994 when former US president Ronald Reagan announced that he had been diagnosed with the condition.
In the 21st century, other types of dementia were differentiated from Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementias (the most common types). This differentiation is on the basis of pathological examination of brain tissues, by symptomatology, and by different patterns of brain metabolic activity in nuclear medical imaging tests such as SPECT and PETscans of the brain. The various forms have differing prognoses and differing epidemiologic risk factors. The main cause for many diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, remains unclear.
Terminology
Dementia in the elderly was once called senile dementia or senility, and viewed as a normal and somewhat inevitable aspect of aging.
By 1913–20 the term dementia praecox was introduced to suggest the development of senile-type dementia at a younger age. Eventually the two terms fused, so that until 1952 physicians used the terms dementia praecox (precocious dementia) and schizophrenia interchangeably. Since then, science has determined that dementia and schizophrenia are two different disorders, though they share some similarities. The term precocious dementia for a mental illness suggested that a type of mental illness like schizophrenia (including paranoia and decreased cognitive capacity) could be expected to arrive normally in all persons with greater age (see paraphrenia). After about 1920, the beginning use of dementia for what is now understood as schizophrenia and senile dementia helped limit the word's meaning to "permanent, irreversible mental deterioration". This began the change to the later use of the term. In recent studies, researchers have seen a connection between those diagnosed with schizophrenia and patients who are diagnosed with dementia, finding a positive correlation between the two diseases.
The view that dementia must always be the result of a particular disease process led for a time to the proposed diagnosis of "senile dementia of the Alzheimer's type" (SDAT) in persons over the age of 65, with "Alzheimer's disease" diagnosed in persons younger than 65 who had the same pathology. Eventually, however, it was agreed that the age limit was artificial, and that Alzheimer's disease was the appropriate term for persons with that particular brain pathology, regardless of age.
After 1952, mental illnesses including schizophrenia were removed from the category of organic brain syndromes, and thus (by definition) removed from possible causes of "dementing illnesses" (dementias). At the same, however, the traditional cause of senile dementia – "hardening of the arteries" – now returned as a set of dementias of vascular cause (small strokes). These were now termed multi-infarct dementias or vascular dementias.
Society and culture
The societal cost of dementia is high, especially for caregivers. According to a UK-based study, almost two out of three carers of people with dementia feel lonely. Most of the carers in the study were family members or friends.
, the annual cost per Alzheimer's patient in the United States was around $19,144.36. The total costs for the nation is estimated to be about $167.74 billion. By 2030, it is predicted the annual socioeconomic cost will total to about $507 billion, and by 2050 that number is expected to reach $1.89 trillion. This steady increase will be seen not just within the United States but globally. Global estimates for the costs of dementia were $957.56 billion in 2015, but by 2050 the estimated global cost is 9.12 trillion.
Many countries consider the care of people living with dementia a national priority and invest in resources and education to better inform health and social service workers, unpaid caregivers, relatives and members of the wider community. Several countries have authored national plans or strategies. These plans recognize that people can live reasonably with dementia for years, as long as the right support and timely access to a diagnosis are available. Former British Prime Minister David Cameron described dementia as a "national crisis", affecting 800,000 people in the United Kingdom. In fact, dementia has become the leading cause of death for women in England.
There, as with all mental disorders, people with dementia could potentially be a danger to themselves or others, they can be detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 for assessment, care and treatment. This is a last resort, and is usually avoided by people with family or friends who can ensure care.
Some hospitals in Britain work to provide enriched and friendlier care. To make the hospital wards calmer and less overwhelming to residents, staff replaced the usual nurses' station with a collection of smaller desks, similar to a reception area. The incorporation of bright lighting helps increase positive mood and allow residents to see more easily.
Driving with dementia can lead to injury or death. Doctors should advise appropriate testing on when to quit driving. The United Kingdom DVLA (Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency) states that people with dementia who specifically have poor short-term memory, disorientation, or lack of insight or judgment are not allowed to drive, and in these instances the DVLA must be informed so that the driving license can be revoked. They acknowledge that in low-severity cases and those with an early diagnosis, drivers may be permitted to continue driving.
Many support networks are available to people with dementia and their families and caregivers. Charitable organizations aim to raise awareness and campaign for the rights of people living with dementia. Support and guidance are available on assessing testamentary capacity in people with dementia.
In 2015, Atlantic Philanthropies announced a $177 million gift aimed at understanding and reducing dementia. The recipient was Global Brain Health Institute, a program co-led by the University of California, San Francisco and Trinity College Dublin. This donation is the largest non-capital grant Atlantic has ever made, and the biggest philanthropic donation in Irish history.
In October 2020, the Caretaker's last music release, Everywhere at the End of Time, was popularized by TikTok users for its depiction of the stages of dementia. Caregivers were in favor of this phenomenon; Leyland Kirby, the creator of the record, echoed this sentiment, explaining it could cause empathy among a younger public.
On 2 November 2020, Scottish billionaire Sir Tom Hunter donated £1 million to dementia charities, after watching a former music teacher with dementia, Paul Harvey, playing one of his own compositions on the piano in a viral video. The donation was announced to be split between the Alzheimer's Society and Music for Dementia.
Notes
References
External links
Alzheimer's Association
National Institute on Aging – Alzheimer's disease
Aging-associated diseases
Cognitive disorders
Learning disabilities
Mental disorders due to brain damage
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38579 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity | Gravity | In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the strong interaction, 1036 times weaker than the electromagnetic force and 1029 times weaker than the weak interaction. As a result, it has no significant influence at the level of subatomic particles. However, gravity is the most significant interaction between objects at the macroscopic scale, and it determines the motion of planets, stars, galaxies, and even light.
On Earth, gravity gives weight to physical objects, and the Moon's gravity is responsible for sublunar tides in the oceans (the corresponding antipodal tide is caused by the inertia of the Earth and Moon orbiting one another). Gravity also has many important biological functions, helping to guide the growth of plants through the process of gravitropism and influencing the circulation of fluids in multicellular organisms. Investigation into the effects of weightlessness has shown that gravity may play a role in immune system function and cell differentiation within the human body.
The gravitational attraction between the original gaseous matter in the universe caused it to coalesce and form stars which eventually condensed into galaxies, so gravity is responsible for many of the large-scale structures in the universe. Gravity has an infinite range, although its effects become weaker as objects get farther away.
Gravity is most accurately described by the general theory of relativity (proposed by Albert Einstein in 1915), which describes gravity not as a force, but as the curvature of spacetime, caused by the uneven distribution of mass, and causing masses to move along geodesic lines. The most extreme example of this curvature of spacetime is a black hole, from which nothing—not even light—can escape once past the black hole's event horizon. However, for most applications, gravity is well approximated by Newton's law of universal gravitation, which describes gravity as a force causing any two bodies to be attracted toward each other, with magnitude proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them:
where is the force, and are the masses of the objects interacting, is the distance between the centers of the masses and is the gravitational constant.
Current models of particle physics imply that the earliest instance of gravity in the universe, possibly in the form of quantum gravity, supergravity or a gravitational singularity, along with ordinary space and time, developed during the Planck epoch (up to 10−43 seconds after the birth of the universe), possibly from a primeval state, such as a false vacuum, quantum vacuum or virtual particle, in a currently unknown manner. Scientists are currently working to develop a theory of gravity consistent with quantum mechanics, a quantum gravity theory, which would allow gravity to be united in a common mathematical framework (a theory of everything) with the other three fundamental interactions of physics.
Definitions
Gravitation is the mutual attraction between all masses in the universe, also known as gravitational attraction. Gravity is the gravitational attraction at the surface of a planet or other celestial body.
History
Ancient world
The nature and mechanism of gravity was explored by a wide range of ancient scholars. In Greece, Aristotle believed that objects fell towards the Earth because the Earth was the center of the Universe and attracted all of the mass in the Universe towards it. He also thought that the speed of a falling object should increase with its weight, a conclusion which was later shown to be false. While Aristotle's view was widely accepted throughout Ancient Greece, there were other thinkers such as Plutarch who correctly predicted that the attraction of gravity was not unique to the Earth.
Although he didn't understand gravity as a force, the ancient Greek philosopher Archimedes discovered the center of gravity of a triangle. He also postulated that if two equal weights did not have the same center of gravity, the center of gravity of the two weights together would be in the middle of the line that joins their centers of gravity. Two centuries later, the Roman engineer and architect Vitruvius contended in his De architectura that gravity is not dependent on a substance's weight but rather on its "nature".
In the 6th century CE, the Byzantine Alexandrian scholar John Philoponus proposed the theory of impetus, which modifies Aristotle's theory that "continuation of motion depends on continued action of a force" by incorporating a causative force which diminishes over time.
In India in the seventh century CE, Brahmagupta proposed the idea that gravity is an attractive force which draws objects to the Earth and used the term gurutvākarṣaṇ to describe it.
In the ancient Middle East, gravity was a topic of fierce debate. The Persian intellectual Al-Biruni believed that the force of gravity was not unique to the Earth, and he correctly assumed that other heavenly bodies should exert a gravitational attraction as well. In contrast, Al-Khazini held the same position as Aristotle that all matter in the Universe is attracted to the center of the Earth.
Scientific revolution
In the mid-16th century, various European scientists experimentally disproved the Aristotelian notion that heavier objects fall at a faster rate. In particular, the Spanish Dominican priest Domingo de Soto wrote in 1551 that bodies in free fall uniformly accelerate. De Soto may have been influenced by earlier experiments conducted by other Dominican priests in Italy, including those by Benedetto Varchi, Francesco Beato, Luca Ghini, and Giovan Bellaso which contradicted Aristotle's teachings on the fall of bodies. The mid-16th century Italian physicist Giambattista Benedetti published papers claiming that, due to specific gravity, objects made of the same material but with different masses would fall at the same speed. With the 1586 Delft tower experiment, the Flemish physicist Simon Stevin observed that two cannonballs of differing sizes and weights fell at the same rate when dropped from a tower. Finally, in the late 16th century, Galileo Galilei's careful measurements of balls rolling down inclines allowed him to firmly establish that gravitational acceleration is the same for all objects. Galileo postulated that air resistance is the reason that objects with a low density and high surface area fall more slowly in an atmosphere.
In 1604, Galileo correctly hypothesized that the distance of a falling object is proportional to the square of the time elapsed. This was later confirmed by Italian scientists Jesuits Grimaldi and Riccioli between 1640 and 1650. They also calculated the magnitude of the Earth's gravity by measuring the oscillations of a pendulum.
Newton's theory of gravitation
In 1684, Newton sent a manuscript to Edmond Halley titled De motu corporum in gyrum ('On the motion of bodies in an orbit'), which provided a physical justification for Kepler's laws of planetary motion. Halley was impressed by the manuscript and urged Newton to expand on it, and a few years later Newton published a groundbreaking book called Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy). In this book, Newton described gravitation as a universal force, and claimed that "the forces which keep the planets in their orbs must [be] reciprocally as the squares of their distances from the centers about which they revolve." This statement was later condensed into the following inverse-square law:
where is the force, and are the masses of the objects interacting, is the distance between the centers of the masses and is the gravitational constant
Newton's Principia was well received by the scientific community, and his law of gravitation quickly spread across the European world. More than a century later, in 1821, his theory of gravitation rose to even greater prominence when it was used to predict the existence of Neptune. In that year, the French astronomer Alexis Bouvard used this theory to create a table modeling the orbit of Uranus, which was shown to differ significantly from the planet's actual trajectory. In order to explain this discrepancy, many astronomers speculated that there might be a large object beyond the orbit of Uranus which was disrupting its orbit. In 1846, the astronomers John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier independently used Newton's law to predict Neptune's location in the night sky, and the planet was discovered there within a day.
General relativity
Eventually, astronomers noticed an eccentricity in the orbit of the planet Mercury which could not be explained by Newton's theory: the perihelion of the orbit was increasing by about 42.98 arcseconds per century. The most obvious explanation for this discrepancy was an as-yet-undiscovered celestial body (such as a planet orbiting the Sun even closer than Mercury), but all efforts to find such a body turned out to be fruitless. Finally, in 1915, Albert Einstein developed a theory of general relativity which was able to accurately model Mercury's orbit.
In general relativity, the effects of gravitation are ascribed to spacetime curvature instead of a force. Einstein began to toy with this idea in the form of the equivalence principle, a discovery which he later described as "the happiest thought of my life." In this theory, free fall is considered to be equivalent to inertial motion, meaning that free-falling inertial objects are accelerated relative to non-inertial observers on the ground. In contrast to Newtonian physics, Einstein believed that it was possible for this acceleration to occur without any force being applied to the object.
Einstein proposed that spacetime is curved by matter, and that free-falling objects are moving along locally straight paths in curved spacetime. These straight paths are called geodesics. As in Newton's first law of motion, Einstein believed that a force applied to an object would cause it to deviate from a geodesic. For instance, people standing on the surface of the Earth are prevented from following a geodesic path because the mechanical resistance of the Earth exerts an upward force on them. This explains why moving along the geodesics in spacetime is considered inertial.
Einstein's description of gravity was quickly accepted by the majority of physicists, as it was able to explain a wide variety of previously baffling experimental results. In the coming years, a wide range of experiments provided additional support for the idea of general relativity. Today, Einstein's theory of relativity is used for all gravitational calculations where absolute precision is desired, although Newton's inverse-square law continues to be a useful and fairly accurate approximation.
Modern research
In modern physics, general relativity remains the framework for the understanding of gravity. Physicists continue to work to find solutions to the Einstein field equations that form the basis of general relativity, while some scientists have speculated that general relativity may not be applicable at all in certain scenarios.
Einstein field equations
The Einstein field equations are a system of 10 partial differential equations which describe how matter affects the curvature of spacetime. The system is often expressed in the form
where is the Einstein tensor, is the metric tensor, is the stress–energy tensor, is the cosmological constant, is the Newtonian constant of gravitation and is the speed of light. The constant is referred to as the Einstein gravitational constant.
A major area of research is the discovery of exact solutions to the Einstein field equations. Solving these equations amounts to calculating a precise value for the metric tensor (which defines the curvature and geometry of spacetime) under certain physical conditions. There is no formal definition for what constitutes such solutions, but most scientists agree that they should be expressable using elementary functions or linear differential equations. Some of the most notable solutions of the equations include:
The Schwarzschild solution, which describes spacetime surrounding a spherically symmetric non-rotating uncharged massive object. For compact enough objects, this solution generated a black hole with a central singularity. At points far away from the central mass, the accelerations predicted by the Schwarzschild solution are practically identical to those predicted by Newton's theory of gravity.
The Reissner–Nordström solution, which analyzes a non-rotating spherically symmetric object with charge and was independently discovered by several different researchers between 1916 and 1921. In some cases, this solution can predict the existence of black holes with double event horizons.
The Kerr solution, which generalizes the Schwarzchild solution to rotating massive objects. Because of the difficulty of factoring in the effects of rotation into the Einstein field equations, this solution was not discovered until 1963.
The Kerr–Newman solution for charged, rotating massive objects. This solution was derived in 1964, using the same technique of complex coordinate transformation that was used for the Kerr solution.
The cosmological Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker solution, discovered in 1922 by Alexander Friedmann and then confirmed in 1927 by Georges Lemaître. This solution was revolutionary for predicting the expansion of the Universe, which was confirmed seven years later after a series of measurements by Edwin Hubble. It even showed that general relativity was incompatible with a static universe, and Einstein later conceded that he had been wrong to design his field equations to account for a Universe that was not expanding.
Today, there remain many important situations in which the Einstein field equations have not been solved. Chief among these is the two-body problem, which concerns the geometry of spacetime around two mutually interacting massive objects (such as the Sun and the Earth, or the two stars in a binary star system). The situation gets even more complicated when considering the interactions of three or more massive bodies (the "n-body problem"), and some scientists suspect that the Einstein field equations will never be solved in this context. However, it is still possible to construct an approximate solution to the field equations in the n-body problem by using the technique of post-Newtonian expansion. In general, the extreme nonlinearity of the Einstein field equations makes it difficult to solve them in all but the most specific cases.
Gravity and quantum mechanics
Despite its success in predicting the effects of gravity at large scales, general relativity is ultimately incompatible with quantum mechanics. This is because general relativity describes gravity as a smooth, continuous distortion of spacetime, while quantum mechanics holds that all forces arise from the exchange of discrete particles known as quanta. This contradiction is especially vexing to physicists because the other three fundamental forces (strong force, weak force and electromagnetism) were reconciled with a quantum framework decades ago. As a result, modern researchers have begun to search for a theory that could unite both gravity and quantum mechanics under a more general framework.
One path is to describe gravity in the framework of quantum field theory, which has been successful to accurately describe the other fundamental interactions. The electromagnetic force arises from an exchange of virtual photons, where the QFT description of gravity is that there is an exchange of virtual gravitons. This description reproduces general relativity in the classical limit. However, this approach fails at short distances of the order of the Planck length, where a more complete theory of quantum gravity (or a new approach to quantum mechanics) is required.
Tests of general relativity
Testing the predictions of general relativity has historically been difficult, because they are almost identical to the predictions of Newtonian gravity for small energies and masses. Still, since its development, an ongoing series of experimental results have provided support for the theory:
In 1919, the British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington was able to confirm the predicted gravitational lensing of light during that year's solar eclipse. Eddington measured starlight deflections twice those predicted by Newtonian corpuscular theory, in accordance with the predictions of general relativity. Although Eddington's analysis was later disputed, this experiment made Einstein famous almost overnight and caused general relativity to become widely accepted in the scientific community.
In 1959, American physicists Robert Pound and Glen Rebka performed an experiment in which they used gamma rays to confirm the prediction of gravitational time dilation. By sending the rays down a 74-foot tower and measuring their frequency at the bottom, the scientists confirmed that light is redshifted as it moves towards a source of gravity. The observed redshift also supported the idea that time runs more slowly in the presence of a gravitational field.
The time delay of light passing close to a massive object was first identified by Irwin I. Shapiro in 1964 in interplanetary spacecraft signals.
In 1971, scientists discovered the first-ever black hole in the galaxy Cygnus. The black hole was detected because it was emitting bursts of x-rays as it consumed a smaller star, and it came to be known as Cygnus X-1. This discovery confirmed yet another prediction of general relativity, because Einstein's equations implied that light could not escape from a sufficiently large and compact object.
General relativity states that gravity acts on light and matter equally, meaning that a sufficiently massive object could warp light around it and create a gravitational lens. This phenomenon was first confirmed by observation in 1979 using the 2.1 meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, which saw two mirror images of the same quasar whose light had been bent around the galaxy YGKOW G1.
Frame dragging, the idea that a rotating massive object should twist spacetime around it, was confirmed by Gravity Probe B results in 2011.
In 2015, the LIGO observatory detected faint gravitational waves, the existence of which had been predicted by general relativity. Scientists believe that the waves emanated from a black hole merger that occurred 1.5 billion light-years away.
Specifics
Earth's gravity
Every planetary body (including the Earth) is surrounded by its own gravitational field, which can be conceptualized with Newtonian physics as exerting an attractive force on all objects. Assuming a spherically symmetrical planet, the strength of this field at any given point above the surface is proportional to the planetary body's mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the center of the body.
The strength of the gravitational field is numerically equal to the acceleration of objects under its influence. The rate of acceleration of falling objects near the Earth's surface varies very slightly depending on latitude, surface features such as mountains and ridges, and perhaps unusually high or low sub-surface densities. For purposes of weights and measures, a standard gravity value is defined by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, under the International System of Units (SI).
The force of gravity on Earth is the resultant (vector sum) of two forces: (a) The gravitational attraction in accordance with Newton's universal law of gravitation, and (b) the centrifugal force, which results from the choice of an earthbound, rotating frame of reference. The force of gravity is weakest at the equator because of the centrifugal force caused by the Earth's rotation and because points on the equator are furthest from the center of the Earth. The force of gravity varies with latitude and increases from about 9.780 m/s2 at the Equator to about 9.832 m/s2 at the poles. Canada's Hudson Bay has less gravity than any place on Earth.
Origin
The earliest gravity (possibly in the form of quantum gravity, supergravity or a gravitational singularity), along with ordinary space and time, developed during the Planck epoch (up to 10−43 seconds after the birth of the Universe), possibly from a primeval state (such as a false vacuum, quantum vacuum or virtual particle), in a currently unknown manner.
Gravitational radiation
General relativity predicts that energy can be transported out of a system through gravitational radiation. The first indirect evidence for gravitational radiation was through measurements of the Hulse–Taylor binary in 1973. This system consists of a pulsar and neutron star in orbit around one another. Its orbital period has decreased since its initial discovery due to a loss of energy, which is consistent for the amount of energy loss due to gravitational radiation. This research was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1993.
The first direct evidence for gravitational radiation was measured on 14 September 2015 by the LIGO detectors. The gravitational waves emitted during the collision of two black holes 1.3 billion light years from Earth were measured. This observation confirms the theoretical predictions of Einstein and others that such waves exist. It also opens the way for practical observation and understanding of the nature of gravity and events in the Universe including the Big Bang. Neutron star and black hole formation also create detectable amounts of gravitational radiation. This research was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2017.
Speed of gravity
In December 2012, a research team in China announced that it had produced measurements of the phase lag of Earth tides during full and new moons which seem to prove that the speed of gravity is equal to the speed of light. This means that if the Sun suddenly disappeared, the Earth would keep orbiting the vacant point normally for 8 minutes, which is the time light takes to travel that distance. The team's findings were released in Science Bulletin in February 2013.
In October 2017, the LIGO and Virgo detectors received gravitational wave signals within 2 seconds of gamma ray satellites and optical telescopes seeing signals from the same direction. This confirmed that the speed of gravitational waves was the same as the speed of light.
Anomalies and discrepancies
There are some observations that are not adequately accounted for, which may point to the need for better theories of gravity or perhaps be explained in other ways.
Extra-fast stars: Stars in galaxies follow a distribution of velocities where stars on the outskirts are moving faster than they should according to the observed distributions of normal matter. Galaxies within galaxy clusters show a similar pattern. Dark matter, which would interact through gravitation but not electromagnetically, would account for the discrepancy. Various modifications to Newtonian dynamics have also been proposed.
Flyby anomaly: Various spacecraft have experienced greater acceleration than expected during gravity assist maneuvers.
Accelerating expansion: The metric expansion of space seems to be speeding up. Dark energy has been proposed to explain this. A recent alternative explanation is that the geometry of space is not homogeneous (due to clusters of galaxies) and that when the data are reinterpreted to take this into account, the expansion is not speeding up after all, however this conclusion is disputed.
Anomalous increase of the astronomical unit: Recent measurements indicate that planetary orbits are widening faster than if this were solely through the Sun losing mass by radiating energy.
Extra energetic photons: Photons travelling through galaxy clusters should gain energy and then lose it again on the way out. The accelerating expansion of the Universe should stop the photons returning all the energy, but even taking this into account photons from the cosmic microwave background radiation gain twice as much energy as expected. This may indicate that gravity falls off faster than inverse-squared at certain distance scales.
Extra massive hydrogen clouds: The spectral lines of the Lyman-alpha forest suggest that hydrogen clouds are more clumped together at certain scales than expected and, like dark flow, may indicate that gravity falls off slower than inverse-squared at certain distance scales.
Alternative theories
Historical alternative theories
Aristotelian theory of gravity
Le Sage's theory of gravitation (1784) also called LeSage gravity but originally proposed by Fatio and further elaborated by Georges-Louis Le Sage, based on a fluid-based explanation where a light gas fills the entire Universe.
Ritz's theory of gravitation, Ann. Chem. Phys. 13, 145, (1908) pp. 267–271, Weber–Gauss electrodynamics applied to gravitation. Classical advancement of perihelia.
Nordström's theory of gravitation (1912, 1913), an early competitor of general relativity.
Kaluza Klein theory (1921)
Whitehead's theory of gravitation (1922), another early competitor of general relativity.
Modern alternative theories
Brans–Dicke theory of gravity (1961)
Induced gravity (1967), a proposal by Andrei Sakharov according to which general relativity might arise from quantum field theories of matter
String theory (late 1960s)
ƒ(R) gravity (1970)
Horndeski theory (1974)
Supergravity (1976)
In the modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) (1981), Mordehai Milgrom proposes a modification of Newton's second law of motion for small accelerations
The self-creation cosmology theory of gravity (1982) by G.A. Barber in which the Brans–Dicke theory is modified to allow mass creation
Loop quantum gravity (1988) by Carlo Rovelli, Lee Smolin, and Abhay Ashtekar
Nonsymmetric gravitational theory (NGT) (1994) by John Moffat
Tensor–vector–scalar gravity (TeVeS) (2004), a relativistic modification of MOND by Jacob Bekenstein
Chameleon theory (2004) by Justin Khoury and Amanda Weltman.
Pressuron theory (2013) by Olivier Minazzoli and Aurélien Hees.
Conformal gravity
Gravity as an entropic force, gravity arising as an emergent phenomenon from the thermodynamic concept of entropy.
In the superfluid vacuum theory the gravity and curved spacetime arise as a collective excitation mode of non-relativistic background superfluid.
Massive gravity, a theory where gravitons and gravitational waves have a non-zero mass
See also
Anti-gravity, the idea of neutralizing or repelling gravity
Artificial gravity
Equations for a falling body
Escape velocity
Atmospheric escape
Gauss's law for gravity
Gravitational potential
Micro-g environment, also called microgravity
Newton's laws of motion
Standard gravitational parameter
Weightlessness
Footnotes
References
Further reading
External links
The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol. I Ch. 7: The Theory of Gravitation
Fundamental interactions
Acceleration
Articles containing video clips
Empirical laws |
38678 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002%20Winter%20Olympics | 2002 Winter Olympics | The 2002 Winter Olympics, officially the XIX Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Salt Lake 2002 (; Gosiute Shoshoni: Tit'-so-pi 2002; ; Shoshoni: Soónkahni 2002), was an international winter multi-sport event that was held from February 8 to 24, 2002 in and around Salt Lake City, Utah, United States.
Salt Lake City was selected as the host city in June 1995 at the 104th IOC Session. They were the eighth Olympics to be hosted by the United States, and the most recent to be held in the country (Los Angeles will host the future 2028 Summer Olympics). The 2002 Winter Olympics and Paralympics were both organized by the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC), the first time that both events were organized by a single committee.
The Games featured 2,399 athletes from 78 nations, participating in 78 events in 15 disciplines. Norway topped the medal table, with 13 gold and 25 medals overall, while Germany finished with the most total medals, winning 36 (with 12 of them gold). The hosting United States was third by gold medals and second by overall medals, with 10 and 34 respectively. Australia notably became the first Southern Hemisphere country to ever win gold medals at the Winter Olympics.
The Games finished with a budgetary surplus of US$40 million; the surplus was used to fund the formation of the Utah Athletic Foundation—which has continued to maintain the facilities built for these Olympics. The venues have continued to be used for national and international winter sports events after the Olympics, while the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee has backed the possibility of Salt Lake City bidding for a future Winter Olympics.
Host city selection
Salt Lake City was chosen over Québec City, Canada; Sion, Switzerland; and Östersund, Sweden, on June 16, 1995, at the 104th IOC Session in Budapest, Hungary. Salt Lake City had previously come in second during the bids for the 1998 Winter Olympics, awarded to Nagano, Japan, and had offered to be the provisional host of the 1976 Winter Olympics when the original host, Denver, Colorado, withdrew. The 1976 Winter Olympics were ultimately awarded to Innsbruck, Austria.
There was a scandal involving allegations of bribery used to win the rights to the Games. Prior to its successful bid, Salt Lake City had attempted four times to secure the games, failing each time. In 1998, members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) were accused of taking gifts from the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC) during the bidding process. The allegations resulted in the expulsion of several IOC members and the adoption of new IOC rules. Although nothing strictly illegal had been done, it was felt that the acceptance of the gifts was morally dubious. In addition, legal charges were brought against the leaders of Salt Lake's bid committee by the United States Department of Justice. Investigations were also launched into prior bidding process by other cities, finding that members of the IOC received bribes during the bidding process for both the 1998 Winter Olympics and 2000 Summer Olympics. In response to the scandal, Mitt Romney was hired as the new president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee.
Development and preparation
Torch relay
The torch relay ceremonially began on November 19, 2001, with the traditional kindling of an Olympic flame in Olympia, Greece. On December 3, Greek skier Thanassis Tsailas lit the first torch from the cauldron, and transferred its flame to a ceremonial lantern for transport to Atlanta, where it arrived on December 4 to officially launch the U.S. leg of the relay. The route of the relay covered , passed through 300 communities and 46 U.S. states, and was carried by 12,012 torchbearers.
The torch was modeled after an icicle, with a slight curve to represent speed and fluidity. The torch measures long, wide at the top, at the bottom, and was designed by Axiom Design of Salt Lake City. It was created with three sections, each with its own meaning and representation.
Budget
In February 1999, in response to the bid scandal and a financial shortfall for the Games, Mitt Romney, then CEO of the private equity firm Bain Capital (and future U.S. presidential candidate, U.S. Senator, and Governor of Massachusetts), was hired as the new president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. Romney, Kem C. Gardner, a Utah commercial real estate developer, and Don Stirling, the Olympics' local marketing chief, raised "millions of dollars from Mormon families with pioneer roots: the Eccles family, whose forebears were important industrialists and bankers" to help rescue the Games, according to a later report. An additional US$410 million was received from the federal government. U.S. federal subsidies amounted to $1.3 billion (for infrastructure improvements only), compared to $45 billion of federal funding received by the organizing committee of the 2014 Winter Olympics from the Russian government. The Games were financially successful, raising more money with fewer sponsors than any prior Olympic Games, which left SLOC with a surplus of $40 million. The surplus was used to create the Utah Athletic Foundation, which maintains and operates many of the remaining Olympic venues.
The Oxford Olympics Study established the outturn cost of the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympics at US$2.5 billion in 2015-dollars and cost overrun at 24% in real terms. This includes sports-related costs only, that is, (i) operational costs incurred by the organizing committee to stage the Games, e.g., expenditures for technology, transportation, workforce, administration, security, catering, ceremonies, and medical services, and (ii) direct capital costs incurred by the host city and country or private investors to build, e.g., the competition venues, the Olympic village, international broadcast center, and media and press center, which are required to host the Games. Indirect capital costs are not included, such as for road, rail, or airport infrastructure, or for hotel upgrades or other business investment incurred in preparation for the Games but not directly related to staging the Games. The cost and cost overrun for Salt Lake City 2002 compares with costs of US$2.5 billion and a cost overrun of 13% for Vancouver 2010, and costs of US$51 billion and a cost overrun of 289% for Sochi 2014, the latter being the most costly Olympics to date. The average cost for Winter Games since 1960 is US$3.1 billion, average cost overrun is 142%.
Security
The 2002 Winter Games were the first Olympic Games to take place since September 11, 2001, which meant a higher level of security than ever before provided for the Games. As a result, the Office of Homeland Security (OHS) designated the Olympics a National Special Security Event (NSSE). Aerial surveillance and radar control was provided by the U.S. Marines of Marine Air Control Squadron 2, Detachment C, from Cherry Point, North Carolina. The FBI and NSA arranged with Qwest Communications to use intercept equipment for a period of less than six months around the time of the 2002 Winter Olympics.
When he spoke during the opening ceremonies, Jacques Rogge, presiding over his first Olympics as the IOC president, told the athletes of the United States:
Venues
Work on venues for the 2002 Winter Olympics began as early as 1989, following the passing of a state referendum that authorized the use of taxpayer money to publicly fund the construction of new facilities for a Winter Olympics bid in 1998 or 2002. Their construction was overseen by the Salt Lake Olympic Bid Committee and the Utah Sports Authority—a body created under the referendum.
New facilities built for the Games included the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns, Utah Olympic Park in Summit County, The Ice Sheet at Ogden, and Soldier Hollow at the Wasatch Mountain State Park—the furthest competition venue from Salt Lake City. The E Center in West Valley City and the Peaks Ice Arena in Provo were also built with support from the SLOC, and co-hosted hockey.
Delta Center hosted figure skating and short track speed skating; it was renamed Salt Lake Ice Center for the duration of the Games due to IOC sponsorship rules. Rice-Eccles Stadium at the University of Utah hosted the opening and closing ceremonies. The Olympic Village was built at historic Fort Douglas, whose land had been acquired by the University of Utah to construct new residences. The SLOC provided funding to the project in exchange for its use during the Olympics.
Main Street in Park City was converted into a pedestrian plaza during the Games, with festivities such as concerts, firework shows, and sponsor presences. Medal presentations took place in downtown Salt Lake City; the stage for the ceremony featured the Hoberman Arch, an arch-shaped metal "curtain" designed by Chuck Hoberman.
Transport
The largest public transport project completed for the Games was the TRAX light rail system, which first began operations ahead of the Games in 1999.
To help reduce vehicle traffic to Soldier Hollow and provide a special experience for tourists, Heber Valley Railroad offered service to Wasatch Mountain State Park on steam locomotives during the Games. After arriving, passengers then embarked to Soldier Hollow on horse-drawn sleighs.
The Games
Opening ceremony
The opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics was held at Rice–Eccles Stadium at the University of Utah on February 8, 2002. The facility was renovated and expanded for the Games. The Games were officially opened by President George W. Bush, who was standing among the US athletes (previous heads of state opened the Games from an official box), while the Olympic cauldron was lit by members of the gold medal-winning U.S. men's hockey team from the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York (as made famous by the "Miracle on Ice").
In an acknowledgment of the September 11 attacks, the ceremony opened with the entrance of a damaged American flag recovered from the wreckage of the World Trade Center, carried by an honor guard of athletes nominated by fellow members of the U.S. team (as with the main flagbearer), and police officers from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the New York City Police Department, and firefighters from the New York City Fire Department. The flag was presented during the playing of the U.S. national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner", as performed by the Tabernacle Choir.
The Olympic cauldron was designed to look like an icicle and was made of glass, allowing the fire to be seen burning within, reflecting the Games' slogan "Light the Fire Within" and an overarching "fire and ice" theme. The actual glass cauldron stands atop a twisting glass and steel support, is high, and the flame within burns at . Together with its support, the cauldron stands tall and was made of 738 individual pieces of glass. Small jets send water down the glass sides of the cauldron to keep the glass and metal cooled (so they would not crack or melt) and give the effect of melting ice. The cauldron was designed by WET Design of Los Angeles, its frame built by roller coaster manufacturer Arrow Dynamics of Clearfield, Utah, and its glass pieces created by Western Glass of Ogden, Utah. The cauldron's cost was $2 million, and it was unveiled to the public when originally installed at Rice–Eccles Stadium on January 8, 2002.
Production for the opening and closing ceremonies was designed by Seven Nielsen, and music for both ceremonies was directed by Mark Watters.
Sports
The 2002 Winter Olympics featured 78 medal events over 15 disciplines in 7 sports, an increase of 10 events over the 1998 Winter Olympics. Skeleton made its return to the Winter Olympic program for the first time since 1948, while a women's event was contested for the first time in bobsleigh.
Biathlon
Bobsleigh
Curling
Ice hockey
Luge
Skating
Skiing
Numbers in parentheses indicate the number of medal events contested in each separate discipline.
Participating National Olympic Committees
A total of 78 teams qualified at least one athlete to compete in the Games. Five NOCs made their Winter Olympic debut in Salt Lake, including Cameroon, Hong Kong, Nepal, Tajikistan, and Thailand.
Calendar
In the following calendar for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, each blue box represents an event competition, such as a qualification round, on that day. The yellow boxes represent days during which medal-awarding finals for a sport are held. The number in each box represents the number of finals that were contested on that day.
All dates are in Mountain Standard Time (UTC−7)
Medal table
Podium sweeps
Records
Several medal records were set and/or tied, including:
Norway tied the Soviet Union at the 1976 Winter Olympics for most gold medals at a Winter Olympics, with 13.
Germany set a record for most total medals at a Winter Olympics, with 36.
The United States set a record for most gold medals at a home Winter Olympics, with 10, tying Norway at the 1994 Winter Olympics.
All of the above records were broken at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010.
Closing ceremonies
The closing ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics was held on February 24, 2002, at Rice–Eccles Stadium. It was narrated by Utah natives Donny and Marie Osmond (who voiced animatronic dinosaur skeletons designed by Michael Curry), and featured performances by a number of musicians and bands, including Bon JovI, Christina Aguilera, Creed, Dianne Reeves, Donny and Marie Osmond, Earth, Wind & Fire, Gloria Estefan, Harry Connick Jr., Kiss, Moby and Angie Stone, NSYNC, R. Kelly, Sting, Willie Nelson, and Yo Yo Ma. It also featured appearances by figure skaters such as Kurt Browning, Dorothy Hamill, and Ilia Kulick, as well as dancer Savion Glover.
Departing from Juan Antonio Samaranch's tradition of declaring each Olympics the "best ever", IOC president Jacques Rogge began a tradition of assigning each Games their own identity in his comments, describing the 2002 Winter Olympics as having been "flawless".
Italian singers Irene Grandi and Elisa performed during the cultural presentation by Turin, host city of the 2006 Winter Olympics, while Josh Groban and Charlotte Church performed a duet of "The Prayer" as the Olympic cauldron was extinguished.
Highlights
Competition highlights included biathlete Ole Einar Bjørndalen of Norway, winning gold in all four men's events (10 km, 12.5 km, 20 km, 4 x 7.5 km relay), Nordic combined athlete Samppa Lajunen of Finland winning three gold medals, Simon Ammann of Switzerland taking the double in ski jumping. In alpine skiing, Janica Kostelić won three golds and a silver (the first Winter Olympic medals ever for an athlete from Croatia), while Kjetil André Aamodt of Norway earned his second and third career golds, setting up both athletes to beat the sport's record with their fourth golds earned at the next Winter Olympics near Turin (Aamodt also set the overall medal record in the sport with eight).
Team GB's victory in Women's Curling saw them win their first gold medal in any Winter Olympic sport since Torvill and Dean in 1984.
Ireland reached its best-ever position and came close to winning its first winter medal when Clifton Wrottesley (Clifton Hugh Lancelot de Verdon Wrottesley, 6th Baron Wrottesley) finished fourth in the men's skeleton event.
A feature of these Games was the emergence of extreme sports, such as snowboarding, moguls, and aerials, which appeared in previous Olympic Winter Games but subsequently captured greater public attention.
The United States completed a sweep of the podium in halfpipe snowboarding, with Americans Ross Powers, Danny Kass, and Jarret Thomas all winning medals.
American Sarah Hughes won the gold medal in ladies' singles figure skating. Her team-mate Michelle Kwan fell during her long program and received the bronze medal.
China won its first and second Winter Olympic gold medals, both by women's short-track speed skater Yang Yang (A).
In the men's 1000m competition in short-track speed skating, Australian Steven Bradbury (who had won a bronze in 1994 as part of a relay team) became both the first-ever Australian, and the first-ever athlete from a country in the Southern Hemisphere, to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics. Despite being off their pace, Bradbury benefitted from crashes involving his opponents in both the semi-finals and finals, with the latter occurring coming out of the final turn. A few days later in women's aerials, Australian skier Alisa Camplin won Australia's second gold medal. After the Games, the phrase "doing a Bradbury" would become a local idiom for an unexpected victory in a sporting event at the expense of one's opponents, and was added to the second edition of The Australian National Dictionary in 2016.
Belarus's Vladimir Kopat scored a game winning goal from center ice against Sweden in the men's ice hockey quarterfinals, getting Belarus to their best place in international hockey so far.
The Canadian men's ice hockey team defeated the United States team 5–2 to claim the gold medal, ending a 50-year drought without hockey gold. The Canadian women's team also defeated the American team 3–2 after losing to them in Nagano. In a post-game press conference after the men's gold medal game, Team Canada's executive director Wayne Gretzky revealed that a Canadian $1 coin (colloquially known as a "Loonie") had been secretly placed at center ice by one of the ice technicians. The "lucky Loonie" subsequently became a notable symbol of Canada's victory in the tournament.
Marketing
The overall branding of the 2002 Winter Olympics was based on a concept entitled "Land of Contrast — Fire and Ice", which featured a palette of warm and cool colors to contrast the warmer, rugged, red-rock areas of Southern Utah from the colder, mountainous regions of Northern Utah.
The emblem for the 2002 Winter Olympics was unveiled in October 1999, consisting of a stylized snowflake with segments colored in blue, orange, and yellow. The emblem was designed to resemble an Olympic cauldron and flame, as well as a sun rising from behind mountains. The orange center section of the flame was intended to reflect traditional Navajo weaving. The official event pictograms were inspired by branding irons, and the line thickness and 30-degree angles mirrored those of the emblem.
Mascots
The designs of the mascots of the 2002 Winter Olympics were unveiled on May 19, 1999, during an event marking 1,000 days until the opening ceremony. The mascots represent three animals native to the western United States — a snowshoe hare, coyote, and American black bear respectively, with each mascot symbolizing a character from the legends of local Native Americans, and wearing a charm around their neck with an original Anasazi or Fremont-style petroglyph. For the first time in Olympic history, the names of the mascots were determined by a public vote, using name suggestions submitted by local students; on September 25, the names of the mascots were officially announced as Powder, Copper, and Coal respectively.
Media coverage
International Sports Broadcasting (ISB) served as the host broadcaster for the 2002 Winter Olympics; the Salt Palace convention center served as the International Broadcast Centre and press center for the Games. The IOC estimated that the 2002 Winter Olympics were viewed by over two billion people worldwide, with 13 billion viewer-hours watched.
In the United States, the 2002 Winter Olympics were broadcast by NBC Universal networks. They were the first Winter Olympics under a multi-year rights agreement between NBC and the IOC, under which it would hold exclusive rights to all Olympic Games from 1996 through 2008. The contract had excluded the 1998 Winter Olympics, as CBS Sports had an existing deal to exclusively televise the Winter Olympics from 1992 through 1998.
NBC partnered with HDNet to produce an eight-hour block of daily coverage in high definition, which was carried by HDNet and on the digital signals of participating NBC affiliates. Despite being held in a time zone only one hour ahead of Pacific Time, NBC still tape delayed much of its coverage for the west coast, although Salt Lake City's local NBC affiliate KSL-TV was given permission to air the live, east coast broadcasts to ensure their availability in the Games' host city.
Coverage of the Games by the Seven Network in Australia featured The Ice Dream, a comedy miniseries presented by the double act of Roy and HG as a follow-up to The Dream—their series for the 2000 Summer Olympics. The series featured a running gag of the duo proposing an Australian bid to hold the 2010 Winter Olympics in Smiggin Holes, New South Wales.
Legacy
Ski industry and winter sport
The 2002 Winter Olympics brought a huge amount of success to the Utah skiing industry. Since hosting the Winter Games, Utah has seen a 42% increase in skier and snowboarder visits –11. This increase resulted in direct expenditures from skiers and snowboarders growing 67% from $704 million in 2002–2003 to $1.2 billion in 2010–2011.
Fourteen venues were constructed or expanded in preparation for the Winter Games. One of the venues constructed for the Games was the Utah Olympic Park, which has proven to be one of the most successful venues to date because it has been maintained in top competition form. Owing to the routine maintenance of the park, Utah has been able to host a large number of winter competitions since 2002, including more than 60 World Cup events (e.g. the FIS Freestyle Skiing World Cup), as well as seven world championships, and various other sporting events. Hosting these high-profile competitions has resulted in approximately $1 billion being injected into the local economy. During 2013–2014, Utah held 16 various winter sport events, bringing $27.3 million to the economy of Utah. After holding the Olympics, Utah became home to two National Governing Bodies of Sport. The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association is headquartered in Park City, Utah and the U.S. Olympic speed skating team is based out of the Utah Olympic Oval.
University of Utah expansion
The University of Utah was one of the hosts of the 2002 Winter Olympics; the planning committee approached the University of Utah and asked them to build several student dormitories which would serve as athletes' accommodation during the Games. It was agreed that the university would pay approximately $98 million out of the total required amount of $110 million to complete the construction. As a result, students of the university have benefited as almost 3,500 of them would be housed here after the Games. This was a great economic benefit to the university since the amount of money used to complete such dormitories could take long to be afforded. The university was also asked to expand Rice Eccles Stadium to accommodate 50,000 people up from 32,000. The university would then be refunded almost $59 million and be given an extra $40 million for its maintenance.
The 2002 Olympic Games also benefited the university economically since the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Cauldron Park was elevated by the renovations that took place. Ice rinks were very scarce in Utah, but they became plentiful and offered several entertainment and training opportunities for hockey players and figure skaters due to the Olympic Games. The Cauldron Park located at the University of Utah which was built with $6.5 million in profits and had the following features: a visitors' center which had a theater that showed a thrilling movie about the Olympic Games of 2002 and a "park" which had a dazzling pool and a V-shaped stone wall with the names of all the medalists of the 2002 Olympic Games. Besides, the park had 17 plates that hung on the stadium's fence celebrating the highlights of each day of the Olympics. All these features acted as tourist attraction that boosted the economic development of the university. In addition, it is indicated that the approximate value of media exposure through print during the Games was equated to $22.9 million. Mainly, this was a huge economic benefit to the university as more and more people got to know about the educational establishment, and this also boosted enrollment and future development.
Immigration
Holger Preuss in his book The Economics of Staging the Olympics: A Comparison of the Games 1972–2008 argues that "The export of the 'Olympic Games' service results in an inflow of funds to the host city, causing additional production which, in its turn, leads to employment and income effects." According to the study "2002 Olympic Winter Games, Economic, Demographic and Fiscal Impacts", the estimated creation of new job years of employment was 35,424, and additional earnings of $1,544,203,000. It was noted that the increase of Olympic related job started in 1996 and continued until 2003. These effects can be estimated on the ground of historical relationship between job and corresponding population growth. A lot of people migrated into the future place of the Olympic Games for expanding and favorable employment opportunities that the Olympics ensured. Although residents occupied many of the higher paying jobs created by the Games, many of the vacated jobs were filled by immigrants who relocated for the better employment opportunities.
Basically, the immigration rate was even larger because the employees immigrated with their families. The additional people paid diverse taxes and fees from their income, creating additional revenue on the state and local levels.
Employment
Olympic related jobs in Utah started in 1996 with slight job opportunities of less than 100. However, from the job measurement conducted from 1996 to 2002, steady attainment of job opportunities established and a maximum level was noted in 2001 where there were 12,500 job opportunities attained yearly, and approximately 25,070 jobs created in 2002. Therefore, from 1996 to 2002 the sum of employment equated to 35,000 jobs which lasted a year. February 2002 is when the highest employment opportunities were created compared to other years. There were around 25,070 job opportunities created compared to 35,000 created from 1996 to 2001.
It is difficult to quantify the impact of the 2002 Olympics on the unemployment rates in Utah, due mostly to the effect of the early 2000s recession. In 1996, the unemployment rate in Utah was approximately 3.4%, while the U.S. national average was 5.4% and by the end of 2001, the unemployment rate in Utah was around 4.8%, while the national average had risen to 5.7%. There was a high percentage of visitors to the Games, which raised the number of tourists whose consumption and demand prompted the establishment of job opportunities to meet the demands.
Proposed hosting of a future Winter Olympics
In 2017, an exploratory committee was formed to consider a Salt Lake City bid for a future Winter Olympics. In December 2018, the United States Olympic Committee (USOC, now the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee [USOPC]) named Salt Lake City as its preferred candidate to bid for a future Winter Olympics, citing that its experience and existing venues could be leveraged. In February 2022, amid the 2022 Winter Olympics and the 20th anniversary of the Games in Salt Lake City, the USOPC stated that it was "already in dialogue with the IOC, not yet for a specific year but as part of their evolving process", and acknowledged that there was "very high excitement and support from the local population."
Concerns and controversies
Disqualifications for doping
The 2002 Winter Olympics were the first Winter Olympics held after the formation of the World Anti-Doping Agency, resulting in the first instances of athletes being disqualified for failing drug testing. Athletes in cross-country skiing were disqualified for various reasons, including doping by two Russians and one Spaniard, leading Russia to file protests and threaten to withdraw from the competition.
Pairs figure skating judging controversy
A major scandal emerged during the pairs figure skating competition; the Canadian pair of Jamie Salé and David Pelletier narrowly lost to the Russian pair of Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, despite the Canadians being deemed the favorites to win after their free skate program. The French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne alleged that the head of the French Federation of Ice Sports, Didier Gailhaguet, had pressured her to judge the competition in favor of Russia regardless of performance. Amid criticisms of the incident by both Canadian and American media outlets, and suspicions that this was part of a vote swapping scheme with Russia to benefit the French ice dance team, the International Skating Union (ISU) voted to suspend Le Gougne for failing to immediately inform officials of Gailhaguet's actions. They also recommended to the IOC that the gold medal be jointly awarded to both pairs. An IOC panel voted in favor of the motion, resulting in both Salé and Pelletier, as well as Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze, being jointly awarded gold medals.
Disqualification of Kim Dong-Sung
In the final race A, with one lap remaining and currently in second place, Apolo Ohno of the United States attempted to make a pass on the leader Kim Dong-Sung of South Korea, who then drifted to the inside and as a result, Ohno raised his arms to imply he was blocked. Kim finished first ahead of Ohno, but the Australian referee James Hewish disqualified Kim for what appeared to be impeding, awarding the gold medal to Ohno.
The South Korean team immediately protested the decision of the chief official of the race, but their protests were denied by the International Skating Union (ISU). The South Korean team then appealed to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). The IOC refused to see the case, stating, "This is a matter for the ISU to decide on. At this time, the IOC has received no proposal and taken no action".
The disqualification of Kim upset South Korean supporters, many of whom directed their anger at Ohno and the IOC. A large number of e-mails protesting the race results crashed the IOC's email server, and thousands of accusatory letters, many of which contained death threats, were sent to Ohno and the IOC. South Korean media accused Ohno of simulating foul, using the Konglish word "Hollywood action". The controversy continued at the 2002 FIFA World Cup, held jointly in South Korea and Japan several months after the Olympics. When the South Korean soccer team scored a goal during the group stage match against the U.S. team, South Korean players Ahn Jung-Hwan and Lee Chun-Soo made an exaggerated move imitating the move Ohno had made during the speed skating event to imply the other athlete had drifted into his lane.
See also
2007 Winter Deaflympics
:Category:Competitors at the 2002 Winter Olympics
References
Notes
Citations
External links
Official Salt Lake 2002 Legacy website and archive of website on the Wayback Machine
Olympic Legacy image archives – Utah State Historical Society
2002 Olympic Winter Games Museum in Park City, Utah
2002 Olympic Cauldron Park in Salt Lake City.
O
Olympics
Sports competitions in Salt Lake City
Olympic Games in the United States
Winter multi-sport events in the United States
Winter Olympics 2002
2002 in American sports
2002 in Utah
Winter Olympics by year
2000s in Salt Lake City
February 2002 sports events in the United States
Olympic Games in Utah
2002 in sports in Utah |
38822 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power%20transmission | Power transmission | Power transmission is the movement of energy from its place of generation to a location where it is applied to perform useful work.
Power is defined formally as units of energy per unit time. In SI units:
Since the development of technology, transmission and storage systems have been of immense interest to technologists and technology users.
Electrical power
With the widespread establishment of electrical grids, power transmission is usually associated most with electric power transmission. Alternating current is normally preferred as its voltage may be easily stepped up by a transformer in order to minimize resistive loss in the conductors used to transmit power over great distances; another set of transformers is required to step it back down to safer or more usable voltage levels at destination.
Power transmission is usually performed with overhead lines as this is the most economical way to do so. Underground transmission by high-voltage cables is chosen in crowded urban areas and in high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) submarine connections.
Power might also be transmitted by changing electromagnetic fields or by radio waves; microwave energy may be carried efficiently over short distances by a waveguide or in free space via wireless power transfer.
Mechanical power
Electrical power transmission has replaced mechanical power transmission in all but the very shortest distances.
From the 16th century through the industrial revolution to the end of the 19th century, mechanical power transmission was the norm. The oldest long-distance power transmission technology involved systems of push-rods or jerker lines (stängenkunst or feldstängen) connecting waterwheels to distant mine-drainage and brine-well pumps. A surviving example from 1780 exists at Bad Kösen that transmits power approximately 200 meters from a waterwheel to a salt well, and from there, an additional 150 meters to a brine evaporator. This technology survived into the 21st century in a handful of oilfields in the US, transmitting power from a central pumping engine to the numerous pump-jacks in the oil field.
Mechanical power may be transmitted directly using a solid structure such as a driveshaft; transmission gears can adjust the amount of torque or force vs. speed in much the same way an electrical transformer adjusts voltage vs current. Factories were fitted with overhead line shafts providing rotary power. Short line-shaft systems were described by Agricola, connecting a waterwheel to numerous ore-processing machines. While the machines described by Agricola used geared connections from the shafts to the machinery, by the 19th century, drivebelts would become the norm for linking individual machines to the line shafts. One mid 19th century factory had 1,948 feet of line shafting with 541 pulleys.
Hydraulic systems use liquid under pressure to transmit power; canals and hydroelectric power generation facilities harness natural water power to lift ships or generate electricity. Pumping water or pushing mass uphill with (windmill pumps) is one possible means of energy storage. London had a hydraulic network powered by five pumping stations operated by the London Hydraulic Power Company, with a total effect of 5 MW.
Pneumatic systems use gasses under pressure to transmit power; compressed air is commonly used to operate pneumatic tools in factories and repair garages. A pneumatic wrench (for instance) is used to remove and install automotive tires far more quickly than could be done with standard manual hand tools. A pneumatic system was proposed by proponents of Edison's direct current as the basis of the power grid. Compressed air generated at Niagara Falls would drive far away generators of DC power. The war of the currents ended with alternating current (AC) as the only means of long distance power transmission.
Thermal power
Thermal power can be transported in pipelines containing a high heat capacity fluid such as oil or water as used in district heating systems, or by physically transporting material items, such as bottle cars, or in the ice trade.
Chemicals and fuels
While not technically power transmission, energy is commonly transported by shipping chemical or nuclear fuels. Possible artificial fuels include radioactive isotopes, wood alcohol, grain alcohol, methane, synthetic gas, hydrogen gas (H2), cryogenic gas, and liquefied natural gas (LNG).
See also
Distributed generation
List of energy storage power plants
References
Electric power transmission |
38985 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water%20skiing | Water skiing | Water skiing (also waterskiing or water-skiing) is a surface water sport in which an individual is pulled behind a boat or a cable ski installation over a body of water, skimming the surface on two skis or one ski. The sport requires sufficient area on a stretch of water, one or two skis, a tow boat with tow rope, two or three people (depending on local boating laws), and a personal flotation device. In addition, the skier must have adequate upper and lower body strength, muscular endurance, and good balance.
There are water ski participants around the world, in Asia and Australia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas. In the United States alone, there are approximately 11 million water skiers and over 900 sanctioned water ski competitions every year. Australia boasts 1.3 million water skiers.
There are many options for recreational or competitive water skiers. These include speed skiing, trick skiing, show skiing, slaloming, jumping, barefoot skiing and wakeski. Similar, related sports are wakeboarding, kneeboarding, discing, tubing, and sit-down hydrofoil.
Basic technique
Water skiers can start their ski set in one of two ways: wet is the most common, but dry is possible. Water skiing typically begins with a deep-water start. The skier enters the water with their skis on or they jump in without the skis on their feet, have the skis floated to them, and put them on while in the water. Most times it can be easier to put the skis on when they are wet. Once the skier has their skis on they will be thrown a tow rope from the boat, which they position between their skis or, if on only one ski, to the left if right foot forward and to the right if left foot forward. In the deep-water start, the skier crouches down in the water while holding onto the ski rope; they are in a cannonball position with their legs tucked into their chest, with skis pointing towards the sky and approximately of the ski out of the water. The skier can also perform a "dry start" by standing on the shore or a pier; however, this type of entry is recommended for professionals only. When the skier is ready (usually acknowledged by them yelling "in gear,": followed by "hit it"), the driver accelerates the boat. As the boat accelerates and takes up the slack on the rope, the skier allows the boat to pull them out of the water by applying some muscle strength to get into an upright body position.
By leaning back and keeping the legs slightly bent, the skis will eventually plane out and the skier will start to glide over the water. The skier turns by shifting weight left or right. The skier's body weight should be balanced between the balls of the feet and the heels. While being towed, the skier's arms should be relaxed but still fully extended so as to reduce stress on the arms. The handle can be held vertically or horizontally, depending on whichever position is more comfortable for the skier.
In addition to the driver and the skier, a third person known as the spotter or the observer should be present. The spotter's job is to watch the skier and inform the driver if the skier falls. The spotter usually sits in a chair on the boat facing backwards to see the skier. The skier and the boat's occupants communicate using hand signals (see the Safety section below).
Equipment
Water
Water skiing can take place on any type of water – such as a river, lake, or ocean – but calmer waters are ideal for recreational skiing. There should be a skiing space and the water should be at least deep. There must be enough space for the water skier to safely "get up", or successfully be in the upright skiing position. Skiers and their boat drivers must also have sufficient room to avoid hazards.
Skis
Younger skiers generally start out on children's skis, which consist of two skis tied together at their back and front. These connections mean that less strength is necessary for the child to keep the skis together. Sometimes these skis can come with a handle to help balance the skier as well. Children's skis are short – usually long – reflecting the skier's smaller size. Once a person is strong enough to hold the skis together themselves there are various options depending upon their skill level and weight.
Water skiers can use two skis (one on each foot, also called "combo skiing") or one ski (dominant foot in front of the other foot, also called "slalom skiing"). Generally the heavier the person, the bigger the skis will be. Length will also vary based on the type of water skiing being performed; jump skis, for example, are longer than skis used in regular straight-line recreational skiing or competitive slalom and trick skiing. A trick ski is around 40 inches long and wider than combo skis. Again the skier rides it with his or her dominant foot in front. It has no fins which allows for spins to be performed.
Boat
Competition skiing uses specifically designed towboats. Most towboats have a very small hull and a flat bottom to minimize wake. A true tournament ski boat will have a direct drive motor shaft that centers the weight in the boat for an optimal wake shape. However, some recreational ski boats will have the motor placed in the back of the boat (v-drive), which creates a bigger wake. Permitted towboats used for tournament water skiing are the MasterCraft ProStar 197, MasterCraft ProStar 190, Ski Nautique 200, Malibu Response TXi, and Centurion Carbon Pro. These boats have ability to pull skiers for trick skiing, jumping, and slalom.
Recreational boats can serve as water skiing platforms as well as other purposes such as cruising and fishing. Popular boat types include bowriders, deckboats, cuddy cabins, and jetboats.
The towboat must be capable of maintaining the proper speed. Speeds vary with the skier's weight, experience level, comfort level, and type of skiing. For example, a child on two skis would require speeds of , whereas an adult on one ski might require as high as . Barefoot skiing requires speeds of approximately . Competition speeds have a wide range: as slow as up to for slalom water skiing, and approaching in water ski racing.
The boat must be equipped with a ski rope and handle. The tow rope must be sufficiently long for maneuvering, with a recommended length of (within tolerance) although length varies widely depending on the type of water skiing and the skier's skill level. Competition requirements on rope construction have changed over the years, from "quarter-inch polypropylene rope" in 1992 to the 2003 flexibility as long as the same specification is used "for the entire event." The rope and handle are anchored to the boat and played out at the stern. This anchor point on a recreation boat is commonly a tow ring or cleat, mounted on the boat's stern. For more dedicated skiers, a metal ski pylon is placed in the center of the boat in front of the engine to connect the skier. This pylon must be mounted securely, since a skilled slalom skier can put a considerable amount of tension on the ski rope and the pylon.
Safety measures
As water skiing is a potentially dangerous sport, safety is important.
There should be a wide skiing space and the water should be at least deep. The towboat should stay at least from docks, swim areas, and the shore, and other boats should steer clear of skiers by at least 100 feet. Without proper space and visibility skiing can be extremely dangerous. Skiers should wear a life jacket regardless of swimming ability. Specially-designed life jackets or ski vests allow movement needed for the sport while still providing floation for a downed or injured skier. The most common water ski injuries involve the lower legs, such as the knee, because a fall at high speed can create irregular angles of collision between the skier's body and the water surface. Another common cause of injury is colliding with objects on or near the water, like docks.
The tow boat must contain at least two people: a driver and an observer. In most locales, the observer will need to be at least 12 years of age. The driver maintains a steady course, free of obstacles to the skier. The observer continually observes the skier, relays the condition of the skier to the boat driver, and if necessary, raises the "skier down" warning flag, as required, when a skier is in the water, returning to the boat, or in some localities, the entire time the skier is out of the boat. The skier and observer should agree on a set of standard hand-signals for easy communication: stop, speed up, turn, I'm OK, skier in the water, etc.
History
Water skiing was invented in 1922 when Ralph Samuelson used a pair of boards as skis and a clothesline as a towrope on Lake Pepin in Lake City, Minnesota. Samuelson experimented with different positions on the skis for several days until 2 July 1923. Samuelson discovered that leaning backwards in the water with ski tips up and poking out of the water at the tip was the optimal method. His brother Ben towed him and they reached a speed of . Samuelson spent 15 years performing shows and teaching water skiing to people in the United States.
Samuelson went through several iterations of equipment in his quest to ski on water. His first equipment consisted of barrel staves for skis. He later tried snow skis, but finally fabricated his own design out of lumber with bindings made of strips of leather. The ski rope was made from a long window sash cord. Samuelson never patented any of his ski equipment.
The first patent for water skis was issued to Fred Waller, of Huntington, NY, on 27 October 1925, for skis he developed independently and marketed as "Dolphin Akwa-Skees." Waller's skis were constructed of kiln-dried mahogany, as were some boats at that time. Jack Andresen patented the first trick ski, a shorter, fin-less water ski, in 1940.
In 1928, Don Ibsen developed his own water skis out in Bellevue, Washington, never having heard of Samuelson or Waller. In 1941, Don Ibsen founded The Olympic Water Ski Club in Seattle, Washington. It was the first such club in America. Ibsen, a showman and entrepreneur, was one of the earliest manufacturers of water skis and was a leading enthusiast and promoter of the sport. In 1983, he was inducted into the Water Ski Hall of Fame in Winter Haven, Florida.
The sport of water skiing remained an obscure activity for several years after 1922, until Samuelson performed water ski shows from Michigan to Florida. The American Water Ski Association formally acknowledged Samuelson in 1966 as the first recorded water skier in history. Samuelson was also the first ski racer, slalom skier, and the first organizer of a water ski show.
Parallel to this, an avid sailor, sportsman and early adopter of water skiing, the young Swedish engineer Gunnar Ljungström (1905-1999) pioneered water skiing in slalom moves from 1929. A demonstrating behind a motorboat was made to the Swedish public at the 100th anniversary of the Royal Swedish Yacht Club in Sandhamn outside Stockholm in 1930.
Water skiing gained international attention in the hands of famed promoter, Dick Pope, Sr., often referred to as the "Father of American Water Skiing" and founder of Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven, Florida. Pope cultivated a distinct image for his theme-park, which included countless photographs of the water skiers featured at the park. These photographs began appearing in magazines worldwide in the 1940s and 1950s, helping to bring international attention to the sport for the first time. He was also the first person to complete a jump on water skis, jumping over a wooden ramp in 1928, for a distance of 25 feet. His son, Dick Pope, Jr., is the inventor of bare-foot skiing. Both men are in the Water Ski Hall of Fame. Today, Winter Haven, Florida, with its famous Chain of Lakes, remains an important city for water skiing, with several major ski schools operating there.
Water skiing has developed over time. Water skiing tournaments and water skiing competitions have been organized. As an exhibition sport, water skiing was included in the 1972 Olympics. The first National Show Ski Tournament was held in 1974, and the first ever National Intercollegiate Water Ski Championships were held in 1979. The Home CARE US National Water Ski Challenge, the first competition for people with disabilities, was organized ten years later.
The first patented design of a water ski which included carbon fiber was that of Hani Audah at SPORT labs in 2001. Its first inclusion in tournament slalom skiing was in 2003.
Disciplines
3-event tournament water skiing
In the United States, there are over 900 sanctioned water ski competitions each summer. Orlando, Florida is considered to be the competitive 3-event waterskiing capital of the world. Competitive water skiing consists of three events: slalom, jump, and trick.
Slalom
In an attempt to become as agile as possible, slalom water skiers use only one ski with feet oriented forward, one in front of the other. Slalom skis are narrow and long, at depending on the height and weight of the skier. The two forward-facing bindings vary: they can be made of rubber or thick plastic, and they can be designed more like a snow ski binding or more like a roller blade boot.
Slalom skiing involves a multi-buoy course that the skier must go around in order to complete the pass. A complete slalom water ski course consists of 26 buoys. There are entrance gates at the beginning and end of the course that the skier must go between, and there are 6 turn buoys that the skier must navigate around in a zigzag pattern. The remainder of the buoys are for the driver to ensure the boat goes straight down the center of the course. For a tournament to be sanctioned as 'record capable' by the International Waterski & Wakeboard Federation (IWWF), the entire course must be surveyed prior to competition by a land surveyor to ensure its accuracy. The drivers boat path must be verified as well to ensure that all skiers are getting a fair pull.
Every consecutive pass is harder than the pass before it. When a pass is completed, the boat is sped up by or the rope is shortened by specific increments. The rope is usually not shortened until the maximum speed has been reached for the division, based on the skier's gender and age ( for women and for men). In a tournament, the boat speeds up or the rope shortens until the skier fails to complete the slalom course by falling, not getting around a buoy, or missing an entrance or exit gate.
A skier's score is based upon the number of successful buoys cleared, the speed of the boat, and the length of the rope. In a tournament, skiers choose the starting boat speed and rope length (with a maximum length of ). Professional water skiers will typically start at the max speed of with a rope that has already been shortened to . The skier with the most buoys wins the competition.
The turn buoys are positioned away from the center of the slalom course. As the rope is shortened beyond that, the skiers are required to use the momentum generated through their turns to swing up on the side of the boat and reach out in order to get their ski around the next buoy. At these rope lengths, the skier's body is experiencing intense isometric contractions and extreme upper body torque with loads of up to 600 kg as they begin accelerating after rounding a turn buoy. Their top speeds will generally be more than double the boat's speed, which means that the Pro men can reach speeds in excess of and each turn will generally generate around 4 g of force. Essentially, slalom water skiers are using their body as a lever, which allows them to withstand loads that would otherwise not be possible for the human body.
Jump
Water ski jumpers use two long skis to ride over a water ski jump in an attempt to travel the longest distance. In a tournament, skiers are given three attempts to hit the ramp. The winner is the skier who travels the farthest calculated distance and successfully rides away. There are no style points, simply distance.
Water ski jumps have specific dimensions and the ramp height is adjustable. Skiers may choose their boat speed and ramp height, although there are maximums based the skier's gender and age. Professional ski jumpers have a maximum boat speed of . The ramp height must be between . As a professional jumper approaches the ramp they will zigzag behind the boat in a series of cuts to generate speed and angle. When the jumper hits the ramp they will generally be going over and the load they have generated on the rope can be over .
Trick
The Trick competition has been described as the most technical of the three classic water skiing events.
Trick skiing uses small, oval-shaped or oblong water skis. Beginners generally use two skis while more advanced skiers use one. The shorter, wider Trick ski has a front binding facing forward and a back binding facing at a 45°. It has a smooth bottom that allows it to turn over the surface of the water. According to official 2013 Tournament Rules for 3-event competition in the United States and the Pan-Am Games, skis used in the Tricks event must be a single ski without fins, although molded rails/grooves less than are allowed, as are a foot pad cemented to the ski as a place for the rear foot; in addition, the ski must float with all bindings, fins, etc., installed. The ski's configuration allows the skier to perform both surface and air tricks in quick succession.
In a tournament, skiers are given two 20-second runs during which they perform a series of their chosen tricks. In most cases, one pass is for hand tricks, which includes surface turns, rotations over the wake, and flips. The second pass is for toe tricks, which are done by doing wake turns and rotations with only a foot attaching them to the handle; the foot is either in the toehold part of the handle or, professionally, attached to the rope. The toehold part of the handle does not allow the skier to let go of the handle if they lose their balance and fall into the water, therefore a person in the boat is required to release the rope from the boat using a quick release mechanism installed on the ski pylon. A trick cannot be repeated. Each trick has a point value. A panel of five judges assesses which tricks were completed correctly and assigns that predetermined point value to each successfully completed trick. The skier with the most points wins.
Barefoot water skiing
A barefoot water skier should use a wetsuit instead of a life jacket because the wetsuit covers more of the body in case of a fall at high speed. The wetsuit also allows the skier to do starts in the water where they lie on their back. Unlike a normal life jacket, the "barefoot wetsuit" allows the skier to glide on their back on top of the water once they reach a high enough speed. The barefoot wetsuit is generally thicker in the back, rear, and chest for flotation and impact absorption.
Barefoot skiing requires a higher speed because the skier's feet are smaller than skis, providing less lift. A rule of thumb for barefoot water skiing speed in miles per hour is (M/10)+18=S, where M equals the skier's weight in pounds. In other words, a person would have to divide 175/10, which is 17.5; then simply add 17.5+18 which equals .
Another tool used in barefoot water skiing is the barefoot boom. It provides a stable aluminum bar on the side of the boat where a short rope can be attached or the skier can grip the bar itself. The skier is within earshot of the people in the boat, providing a good platform for teaching. Once the bare footer is good enough, he/she will go behind the boat with a long rope.
A beginner can wear shoes to decrease the necessary speed, lessen foot injury from choppy water, learn better technique, and master the sport.
Show skiing
Show skiing is a type of water skiing where skiers perform tricks somewhat similar to those of gymnasts while being pulled by the boat. Traditional ski show acts include pyramids, ski doubles, freestyle jumping, and swivel skiing. Show skiing is normally performed in water ski shows, with elaborate costumes, choreography, music, and an announcer. Show teams may also compete regionally or nationally. In the US, each team member must be a member of USA Water Ski to compete.
The first organized show occurred in 1928. The bi-annual World Show Ski Championship was inaugurated in September 2012 in Janesville, Wisconsin. Past competition included teams from Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, and the United States.
Freestyle jumping
Freestyle jumping is often related to show skiing. The goal is to go off the jump, perform one of many stunts, and successfully land back on the water. The most common freestyle stunts – in order of usual progression – would be a heli (360°), a flip (forwards), a gainer (a back flip), and a möbius (back flip with 360°).
Ski racing
Water ski racing consists of 1 or 2 skiers per boat who race around a set course behind boats set up for this type of event. It can occur in a 'circle' or lap format type racing or on river courses offering longer distances and higher speeds. Races can be timed events such as 20 minute races and up to 1 hour or on courses where race distance can be over 100 km in length.
Speeds vary by classes but can reach up to 200 km/h. Boats can be inboards or outboards and are generally between 19 and 21 feet in length. Outboards are commonly 300HP and Inboards around 1,300HP (majority are turbocharged).
Current format world championship racing involves men's and women's open (unrestricted), and men's and women formula 2 (limited to single rig, 300 hp outboards, as well as junior classes for under 17's. The World Championships are held every 2 years with the most recent being 2019 in Vichy, France.
Major events include the Southern 80 (Echuca Victoria Australia), the Diamond Race (Viersel Belgium), the Catalina ski race (Long Beach CA United States), and the Bridge to Bridge (Sydney Australia). Races can have anywhere from 10 boats to 150 boats competing (grouped by engine size and age classes).
Disabled
Disabled water skiing uses equipment or other adaptations to allow disabled people to compete in standard 3 event skiing. Seated water skis, special handles, audio slalom gear, and other adaptations are all used for different disabilities.
See also
Cable skiing
Aquaplaning (sport)
Chantal Singer
George A. Blair ("Banana George")
List of Water Ski World Championships champions
Masters Water Ski Tournament
Queenie (waterskiing elephant)
Twiggy the Water-Skiing Squirrel
Water Ski World Championships
Notes
External links
*
Towed water sports |
39158 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior | Superior | Superior may refer to:
Superior (hierarchy), something which is higher in a hierarchical structure of any kind
Places
Superior (proposed U.S. state), an unsuccessful proposal for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to form a separate state
Lake Superior, the largest of the North American Great Lakes, Canada, United States
United Kingdom
Rickinghall Superior, England
United States
Superior, Arizona
Superior, Colorado
Superior, Indiana
Superior, Iowa
Superior Township, Chippewa County, Michigan
Superior Township, Washtenaw County, Michigan
Superior, Montana
Superior, Nebraska
Superior, West Virginia
Superior, Wisconsin, a city
Superior (town), Wisconsin, a town adjacent to the city
Superior (village), Wisconsin, a village adjacent to the city
Superior, Wyoming
Superior (RTA Rapid Transit station), a station on the RTA Red Line in Cleveland, Ohio
Superior Bay, a bay between Minnesota and Wisconsin
Superior Falls, a waterfall between Michigan and Wisconsin
Religious titles
An abbot or prior
Superior general, a supervisory role in a religious order or congregation
Provincial superior, a supervisory role in a religious order or congregations
Entertainment
Superior (band), a progressive metal band from Germany
"Superior", a song by SpongeBob & The Hi-Seas from The Best Day Ever
Superior (album), a 2008 album by Tim Christensen
Superior (manga), a 2009 Manga created by Ichtys
Superior (comics), a creator-owned comic book series written by Mark Millar and illustrated by Leinil Francis Yu
Superior (film), a 2021 drama film by Erin Vassilopoulos
Business
Standard Superior, a German automobile brand built in the 1920s
Superior (bus manufacturer), an Australian manufacturer of buses
Superior Coach Company, a former manufacturer of school buses and that currently builds hearses
Superior Helicopter, a heavy lift helicopter operator of Glendale, Oregon
Superior Industries, a conveyor manufacturer based in Morris, Minnesota
Superior Oil Company, defunct American oil company, now part of ExxonMobil
Superior Software, a video game publisher
Superior Airways, a chartered air service based in Red Lake, Ontario, Canada
Other uses
Superior (anatomy), anatomical term of relative location for a position nearer the top of the head
Superior: The Return of Race Science, a book (2019) by Angela Saini
Roman Catholic Diocese of Superior, Wisconsin
Superior multimineral process, a shale oil extraction technology developed by Superior Oil Company
Superior as a description of the relative position of a flower's ovary
Superior (schooner), an 1816 schooner that operated on the Great Lakes
Superior (potato), a mid-season potato variety
Neil Superior (born 1963), American professional wrestler
Superiority
Superiority may refer to:
Air superiority, the dominance of one military's airborne forces over another in any given conflict
Superiority complex, psychological condition
"Superiority" (short story), a 1951 book by Arthur C. Clarke
See also
Mother Superior (disambiguation)
Superior Aviation (disambiguation)
Superior Bank (disambiguation)
Superior High School (disambiguation)
Superior Lake (disambiguation)
Superior Township (disambiguation)
Superia (disambiguation)
Superior Township (disambiguation)
Stereotypes |
5211773 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basingstoke%20College%20of%20Technology | Basingstoke College of Technology | Basingstoke College of Technology (BCoT) is a further education college in Basingstoke, Hampshire, United Kingdom. The college is located in the centre of Basingstoke on Worting Road, and consists of three campus buildings: North, South, and STEM. The college is listed as a Centre of Vocational Excellence in certain areas, and was rated as 'Good' by Ofsted in 2016.
Courses
BCoT offers a wide range of vocational courses and qualifications on both a full-time and part-time basis. The courses are broken down into subject areas which include:
Access to Higher Education
Animal Management
Art and Design
Automotive
Beauty Therapy and Media Make-Up
Business
Childcare
Computer Science
Construction
Counselling
Education and Training
Engineering
English and Maths
Future Pathways
Hair and Barbering
Health and Social Care
Hospitality and Catering
Media and Games Design
Public Services
Science
Specialist Provision
Sport
Travel and Tourism
Facilities
BCoT is well known for its wide range of industry-standard facilities which includes an in-house restaurant, known as The Restaurant at BCoT. Renovated in July 2012, the Restaurant at BCoT is open to the public and provides students with the chance to learn and gain experience in a professional environment.
Evolve Salon is BCoT's on-site training salon, which is also open to the public and is run by the Beauty Therapy and Hair and Barbering department. Opened in 2017, the Mike Taylor Barbering College is a training barbers for barbering students which is also open to the public and run in partnership with leading UK barber Mike Taylor.
As well as a restaurant, salon and barbers, the College also has an Animal Discover Centre, air cabin crew training room, onsite professional nursery (which is open to the public), a library, gym, science labs, large automotive workshop, three engineering workshops, lecture theatre and dedicated Art and Design studios.
Students are able to buy hot and cold food from an in-house catering outlet known as Taste @ BCoT who operate a refectory on the South Campus and a cafe on the North Campus.
Support for Students
Students have access to an onsite professional counsellor, nurse, careers centre and English and Maths support hub, as well as a dedicated personal tutor.
References
College
Further education colleges in Hampshire |
39517 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1340 | 1340 | Year 1340 (MCCCXL) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
January 26 – King Edward III of England declares himself King of France at Ghent, Flanders.
April 8 – Marinid galleys, under the command of Muhammad ibn Ali al-Azafi, rout the Castellan fleet, off the coast of Algeciras.
April–July – Trapezuntine Civil War: An abortive uprising occurs against Irene Palaiologina of Trebizond, the first of a number of coups, revolts, and succession disputes.
June 7 – Rotterdam is officially declared a city.
June 24
Hundred Years' War: Battle of Sluys – The English fleet, under the command of Edward III of England, battles the French fleet, under that of Admiral Hugues Quiéret and treasurer Nicolas Béhuchet, assisted by Genoese mercenary galleys under Egidio Bocanegra, on the Low Countries coast. The French fleet is virtually destroyed, and both of its commanders are killed.
Valdemar IV of Denmark, son of deceased King Christopher II, is elected to the throne, following 8 years of interregnum.
July 26 – Hundred Years' War: French defeat the English at the Battle of Saint-Omer.
September 25 – Hundred Years' War: The temporary Truce of Espléchin is signed between England and France.
October 30 – Battle of Río Salado in Spain: The kings of Castile and Portugal defeat the Nasrid ruler of Granada and his Moroccan allies.
Europe has about 74 million inhabitants.
An epidemic in northern Italy, recorded by Augustine of Trent in his Epistola astrologica
Bohemian Crusade: The Church authorizes a military expedition against heretics.
The Monarchy of Japan reaches its 2000 year anniversary (according to traditional starting dates).
Births
March 5 – Cansignorio della Scala, Lord of Verona (d. 1375)
March 6 – John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster (d. 1399)
August – Haakon VI, king of Norway 1355–1380 and of Sweden 1362–1364 (d. 1380)
October – Geert Groote, Dutch founder of the Brethren of the Common Life (d. 1384)
November 30 – John, Duke of Berry, son of John II of France (d. 1416)
date unknown
Enguerrand VII, Lord of Coucy (d. 1397)
John of Nepomuk, saint of Bohemia (d. 1393)
Narayana Pandit, Indian mathematician (d. 1400)
probable
Margaret Drummond, queen consort of Scotland (d. 1375)
Philip van Artevelde, Flemish patriot (d. 1382)
Deaths
March 31 – Ivan I of Moscow (b. 1288)
April 5 – William Melton, English archbishop
April 6 – Emperor Basil Megas Komnenos of Trebizond
April 7 – Bolesław Jerzy II of Mazovia (b. 1308)
December 2 – Geoffrey le Scrope, Chief Justice of King Edward III of England
December 4 – Henry Burghersh, English bishop and chancellor (b. 1292)
December 20 – John I, Duke of Bavaria (b. 1329)
date unknown – Simonida, queen consort of Serbia (b. 1294)
References |
39642 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short%20track%20speed%20skating%20at%20the%202002%20Winter%20Olympics | Short track speed skating at the 2002 Winter Olympics | For the long track speed skating events, see Speed skating at the 2002 Winter Olympics
Short track speed skating at the 2002 Winter Olympics was held from 13 to 23 February. Eight events were contested at Salt Lake Ice Center (normally called Delta Center (now Vivint Arena)). Two new events were added for these games, with the men's and women's 1500 metres making debuts.
Medal summary
Medal table
China led the medal table with seven, while Evgenia Radanova's two medals for Bulgaria were their first in the sport.
Men's events
Women's events
Records
Two world records and fifteen Olympic records were set in Salt Lake City.
Participating NOCs
Twenty-six nations competed in the short track events at Salt Lake City. Belarus, the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Israel, Romania and Slovakia made their short track debuts.
References
2002 Winter Olympics events
2002
2002 in short track speed skating |
39825 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton%20Plasma%20Physics%20Laboratory | Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory | Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory for plasma physics and nuclear fusion science. Its primary mission is research into and development of fusion as an energy source. It is known in particular for the development of the stellarator and tokamak designs, along with numerous fundamental advances in plasma physics and the exploration of many other plasma confinement concepts.
PPPL grew out of the top-secret Cold War project to control thermonuclear reactions, called Project Matterhorn. The focus of this program changed from H-bombs to fusion power in 1951, when Lyman Spitzer developed the stellarator concept and was granted funding from the Atomic Energy Commission to study the concept. This led to a series of machines in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1961, after declassification, Project Matterhorn was renamed the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.
PPPL's stellarators proved unable to meet their performance goals. In 1968, Soviet's claims of excellent performance on their tokamaks generated intense scepticism, and to test it, PPPL's Model C stellarator was converted to a tokamak. It verified the Soviet claims, and since that time, PPPL has been a worldwide leader in tokamak theory and design, building a series of record-breaking machines including the Princeton Large Torus, TFTR and many others. Dozens of smaller machines were also built to test particular problems and solutions, including the ATC, NSTX, and LTX.
PPPL is located on Princeton University's Forrestal Campus in Plainsboro Township, New Jersey.
History
Formation
In 1950, John Wheeler was setting up a secret H-bomb research lab at Princeton University. Lyman Spitzer, Jr., an avid mountaineer, was aware of this program and suggested the name "Project Matterhorn".
Spitzer, a professor of astronomy, had for many years been involved in the study of very hot rarefied gases in interstellar space. While leaving for a ski trip to Aspen in February 1951, his father called and told him to read the front page of the New York Times. The paper had a story about claims released the day before in Argentina that a relatively unknown German scientist named Ronald Richter had achieved nuclear fusion in his Huemul Project. Spitzer ultimately dismissed these claims, and they were later proven erroneous, but the story got him thinking about fusion. While riding the chairlift at Aspen, he struck upon a new concept to confine a plasma for long periods so it could be heated to fusion temperatures. He called this concept the stellarator.
Later that year he took this design to the Atomic Energy Commission in Washington. As a result of this meeting and a review of the invention by scientists throughout the nation, the stellarator proposal was funded in 1951. As the device would produce high-energy neutrons, which could be used for breeding weapon fuel, the program was classified and carried out as part of Project Matterhorn. Matterhorn ultimately ended its involvement in the bomb field in 1954, becoming entirely devoted to the fusion power field.
In 1958, this magnetic fusion research was declassified following the United Nations International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy. This generated an influx of graduate students eager to learn the "new" physics, which in turn influenced the lab to concentrate more on basic research.
The early figure-8 stellarators included: Model-A, Model-B, Model-B2, Model-B3. Model-B64 was a square with round corners, and Model-B65 had a racetrack configuration. The last and most powerful stellarator at this time was the "racetrack" Model C (operating from 1961 to 1969).
Tokamak
By the mid-1960s it was clear something was fundamentally wrong with the stellarators, as they leaked fuel at rates far beyond what theory predicted, rates that carried away energy from the plasma that was far beyond what the fusion reactions could ever produce. Spitzer became extremely skeptical that fusion energy was possible and expressed this opinion in very public fashion in 1965 at an international meeting in the UK. At the same meeting, the Soviet delegation announced results about 10 times better than any previous device, which Spitzer dismissed as a measurement error.
At the next meeting in 1968, the Soviets presented considerable data from their devices that showed even greater performance, about 100 times the Bohm diffusion limit. An enormous argument broke out between the AEC and the various labs about whether this was real. When a UK team verified the results in 1969, the AEC suggested PPPL to convert their Model C to a tokamak to test it, as the only lab willing to build one from scratch, Oak Ridge, would need some time to build theirs. Seeing the possibility of being bypassed in the fusion field, PPPL eventually agreed to convert the Model C to what became the Symmetric Tokamak (ST), quickly verifying the approach.
Two small machines followed the ST, exploring ways to heat the plasma, and then the Princeton Large Torus (PLT) to test whether the theory that larger machines would be more stable was true. Starting in 1975, PLT verified these "scaling laws" and then went on to add neutral beam injection from Oak Ridge that resulted in a series of record-setting plasma temperatures, eventually topping out at 78 million kelvins, well beyond what was needed for a practical fusion power system. Its success was major news.
With this string of successes, PPPL had little trouble winning the bid to build an even larger machine, one specifically designed to reach "breakeven" while running on an actual fusion fuel, rather than a test gas. This produced the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor, or TFTR, which was completed in 1982. After a lengthy breaking-in period, TFTR began slowly increasing the temperature and density of the fuel, while introducing deuterium gas as the fuel. In April 1986, it demonstrated a combination of density and confinement, the so-called fusion triple product, well beyond what was needed for a practical reactor. In July, it reached a temperature of 200 million kelvins, far beyond what was needed. However, when the system was operated with both of these conditions at the same time, a high enough triple product and temperature, the system became unstable. Three years of effort failed to address these issues, and TFTR never reached its goal. The system continued performing basic studies on these problems until being shut down in 1997. Beginning in 1993, TFTR was the first in the world to use 1:1 mixtures of deuterium–tritium. In 1994 it yielded an unprecedented 10.7 megawatts of fusion power.
Later designs
In 1999, the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX), based on the spherical tokamak concept, came online at the PPPL.
Odd-parity heating was demonstrated in the 4 cm radius PFRC-1 experiment in 2006. PFRC-2 has a plasma radius of 8 cm. Studies of electron heating in PFRC-2 reached 500 eV with pulse lengths of 300 ms.
In 2015, PPPL completed an upgrade to NSTX to produce NSTX-U that made it the most powerful experimental fusion facility, or tokamak, of its type in the world.
In 2017, the group received a Phase II NIAC grant along with two NASA STTRs funding the RF subsystem and superconducting coil subsystem.
Directors
In 1961 Gottlieb became the first director of the renamed Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.
1951–1961: Lyman Spitzer, director of Project Matterhorn
1961–1980: Melvin B. Gottlieb
1981–1990: Harold Fürth
1991–1996: Ronald C. Davidson
1997 (January–July): John A. Schmidt, interim director
1997–2008: Robert J. Goldston
2008–2016: Stewart C. Prager
2016–2017: Terrence K. Brog (interim)
2017–2018: Richard J. Hawryluk (interim)
2018–present: Sir Steven Cowley, 1 July 2018
Timeline of major research projects and experiments
Other domestic and international research activities
Laboratory scientists are collaborating with researchers on fusion science and technology at other facilities, including DIII-D in San Diego, EAST in China, JET in the United Kingdom, KSTAR in South Korea, the LHD in Japan, the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) device in Germany, and the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in France.
PPPL manages the U.S. ITER project activities together with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Savannah River National Laboratory. The lab delivered 75% of components for the fusion energy experiment's electrical network in 2017 and has been leading the design and construction of six diagnostic tools for analyzing ITER plasmas. The PPPL physicist Richard Hawryluk served as ITER Deputy Director-General from 2011 to 2013. In 2022, PPPL staff developed with researchers from other national labs and universities over several months an US ITER research plan during the joint Fusion Energy Sciences Research Needs Workshop.
Staff are applying knowledge gained in fusion research to a number of theoretical and experimental areas including materials science, solar physics, chemistry, and manufacturing. PPPL also aims to speed the development of fusion energy through the development of an increased number of public-private partnerships.
Plasma science and technology
Beam Dynamics and Nonneutral Plasma
Laboratory for Plasma Nanosynthesis (LPN)
Theoretical plasma physics
DOE Scientific Simulation Initiative
U.S. MHD Working Group
Field Reversed Configuration (FRC) Theory Consortium
Tokamak Physics Design and Analysis Codes
TRANSP Code
National Transport Code Collaboration (NTCC) Modules Library
Transportation
Tiger Transit's Route 3 runs to Forrestal Campus and terminates at PPPL.
See also
Project Sherwood
National Compact Stellarator Experiment (NCSX)
References
External links
Project Matterhorn Publications and Reports, 1951–1958. Princeton University Library Digital Collections
Plainsboro Township, New Jersey
Princeton University
United States Department of Energy national laboratories
Federally Funded Research and Development Centers
1961 establishments in New Jersey
Research institutes in New Jersey |
39965 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1324 | 1324 | Year 1324 (MCCCXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
January – March
January 3 – The Taiding Era begins in China three months after Borjigin Yesün Temür ascends the throne.
January 23 – England's envoy to France, Ralph Basset, and Raymond-Bernard de Montpezat, decline to obey and order to appear before King Charles IV to answer for the October 16 burning of Saint-Sardos. King Charles orders their properties forfeited to the crown.
February 7 – Siege of Villa di Chiesa: Aragonese forces led by Prince Alfonso the Kind capture the city of Villa di Chiesa due to attrition. The Pisan garrison surrenders after an 8-month siege. It represents the first act of the Aragonese conquest of Sardinia, for the creation of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
February 29 – Battle of Lucocisterna: Aragonese forces led by Prince Alfonso defeat a Pisan army, which is disembarked near the area of Capoterra. During the battle, Alfonso loses some 150 knights. On the same day, a Pisan fleet (some 30 galleys) is defeated in the Gulf of Cagliari at Sardinia.
March 23 – Pope John XXII excommunicates Ludwig the Bavarian, King of the Germans, as Louis had not sought papal approval during his conflict against his rival Frederick the Fair. Ludwig, in turn, declares the pope a heretic, because of John's opposition to the view of Christ's absolute poverty held by some Franciscans.
March 26 – Marie of Luxembourg, Queen of France, dies of injuries after falling from a carriage while she and King Charles IV of France were riding from Paris and Avignon. After she fell, she had gone into labor and given birth prematurely to a daughter, who died shortly afterward.
March 31 – Hugh IV becomes the new King of Cyprus upon the death of his father, King Henry II. Hugh also inherits Henry's nominal title of "King of Jerusalem".
April – June
April 15 – The coronation of King Hugh IV of Cyprus, nephew of the late King Henry II, takes place at the Cathedral of Saint Sophia in Nicosia.
April 20 – Boleslaw III, Duke of Wroclaw, declares his Polish duchy to be a vassal of the Holy Roman Empire as part of a defense agreement made with Ludwig the Barbarian, King of Germany.
May 3 – France's Consistori del Gay Saber holds its first annual contest to determine the best poet in the Kingdom. Arnaut Vidal de Castelnou d'Ari wins the first prize, the violeta d'aur. The contest continues for 160 years, ceasing in 1484.
May 22 – King Ludwig the Bavarian comes to the defense of the Spiritual Franciscans, delivering a sharp criticism of Pope John XXII, whom Ludwig describes as a heretic.
June 11 – The Byzantine Empire, represented by diplomatic envoy Stephen Syropoulos, signs a treaty with the Republic of Venice, led by the Doge Giovanni Soranzo.
June 13 – King Edward II of England dispatches his envoy, Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke to France in an attempt to negotiate a peaceful end to the Saint-Sardos incident. Stopping at Saint-Riquier 10 days later, Pembroke dies of a heart attack before reaching Paris.
June 24 –
King Charles IV of France issues an order declaring the Duchy of Aquitaine, French territory ruled by King Edward II of England, forfeited to the crown. The move comes after King Edward fails to render homage, as Duke of Aquitaine, to King Charles. A French army of 7,000 men is massed at the border of Aquitaine for an invasion.
Ludwig the Bavarian, King of the Germans, gives the Duchy of Pomerania (now part of Germany and Poland) to his son, Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg, exacerbating the Brandenburg–Pomeranian conflict.
July – September
July 5 – A royal wedding takes place in France as King Charles IV marries his cousin Joan of Évreux, the 14-year-old daughter of his uncle, Louis, Count of Évreux.
July 11 – Pope John XXII declares that Ludwig the Bavarian will be deposed as King of the Germans because of his March 23 excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church. King Ludwig continues his reign and later receives forgiveness in the 1325 Treaty of Trausnitz.
July 19 – (26 Rajab 724 AH) Mansa Musa, the extraordinarily-wealthy Emperor of Africa's Mali Empire, arrives in Cairo after three days of camping by the pyramids of Giza, and brings with him a large entourage of fellow Muslim pilgrims and a vast supply of gold. Musa, who is making the pilgrimage to Mecca, meets with Egypt's Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad and stays in Cairo for three months before departing with the pilgrims on October 18.
July 26 – Basarab I, ruler of Wallachia (now part of Romania) is designated by King Károly Róbert of Hungary as a subject of the Hungarian crown.
August 5 – The Blitar Regency is established on the island of Java (now part of Indonesia) by Java's King Jayanegara of Majapahit. "Sejarah Kabupaten Blitar" ("History of Blitar Regency"), Pemerintah Kabupaten Blitar (Blitar Regency Government, 2012)
August 15 – The coronation of King Christopher II of Denmark (who has ruled since 1320) takes place at Vordingborg, with his son Prince Erik Christoffersen being crowned alongside him as the samkonge, a junior co-monarch.
August 16 – In Italy, Pagano della Torre, Patriarch of Aquileia, is defeated in battle at Vaprio d'Agogna in Piedmont in his attempt to reclaim Milan from the Visconti family, and abandons further crusades.
August 25 – War of Four Lords: In Western Europe, King John the Blind of Bohemia, his uncle Baldwin, Archbishop of Trier, Count Edward I of Bar and Duke Frederick the Fighter of Lorraine, meet at Remich (now in Luxembourg) and make plans to work jointly on besieging the city of Metz (now in France).
September 4 – James the Unfortunate becomes the new King of Majorca, a set of islands in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Spain, upon the death of his uncle, King Sancho the Peaceful.
September 11 – When the body of King Sancho of Majorca arrives in the French city of Perpignan for interment at the Perpignan Cathedral, a mob attacks the funeral procession and steals valuables that had accompanied the corpse.
September 15 – War of Four Lords: The armies of Bohemia, Luxembourg, Bar and Lorraine begin their siege of the walled city of Metz, capital of the Messin Republic. The attackers use a new weapon, the cannon, to fire projectiles at high speed against the city walls in order to destroy the city. The group withdraws at the end of the month after plundering the surrounding area.
September 22 – The War of Saint-Sardos ends after Charles, Count of Valois forces the surrender of Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent at La Réole, the last English fortress at the Duchy of Aquitaine. A six-month truce follows
October – December
October 7 – (Genko 4, 19th day of 9th month) The Shōchū Incident, the plan by Japan's Emperor Go-Daigo to overthrow the Kamakura shogunate, is discovered by the shogun's security police, the Rokuhara Tandai, and persons involved (other than the Emperor) are arrested and punished.
October 18 – (28 Shawwal 724 AH) After he and his entourage of Muslim pilgrims have stayed in Cairo for three months, the Emperor Mansa Musa of Africa's Mali Empire resumes the group's pilgrimage to Mecca
November 3 – At Kilkenny in Ireland, Petronilla de Meath, the maidservant of Dame Alice Kyteler, becomes the first person in the British Isles to be burned at the stake as a witch. Dame Alice had been able to escape before capture.
November 10 – Pope John XXII issues the papal bull Quia quorundam, his third major statement concerning apostolic poverty and the Fraticelli, in response to a claim that an earlier bull by Pope Nicholas III had implied that Christ and the apostles had lived without possessions. In addition, Pope John restates the doctrine of Papal infallibility, declaring that "What the Roman pontiffs have once defined in faith and morals with the key of knowledge stands so immutably that it is not permitted to a successor to revoke it."
November 22 – In Italy, Marsilio da Carrara becomes the new Lord of Padua upon the death of his uncle, Jacopo I da Carrara.<ref>"Carrara, Giacomo da", in Biografico degli Italiani, 1977), ed. by M. Chiara Ganguzza Billanovich (1977)</ref>
December 25 – The Shōchū era begins in Japan during the reign of the Emperor Go-Daigo.
By place
Asia Minor
Ottoman Sultan Osman I dies after a 25-year reign at Bursa. He is the founder of the Ottoman Empire (first known as a Turkmen principality in the northwest of Anatolia). He is succeeded by his 43-year-old son Orhan I as the second ruler (bey), who places his residence at Söğüt in Bilecik Province (approximate date).
By topic
Literature
Marsilius of Padua writes Defensor pacis ("The Defender of Peace"), a theological treatise arguing against the power of the clergy and in favor of a secular state.
Religion
William of Ockham, English Franciscan friar and philosopher, is summoned by John XXII to the papal court at Avignon and imprisoned.
Births
March 5 – David II, king of Scotland (Clan Bruce) (d. 1371)
August 4 – Siraj al-Din al-Bulqini, Egyptian scholar (d. 1403)
date unknown Bayan Khutugh, Mongol concubine and empress (d. 1365)
Catherine of Savoy, Italian noblewoman and ruler (d. 1388)
Constance of Sicily, Sicilian princess and regent (d. 1355)
Giovanni Manfredi, Italian nobleman and knight (d. 1373)
Louis of Durazzo, Italian nobleman and diplomat (d. 1362)
Tsunenaga, Japanese prince and heir-apparent (d. 1338)
Vettor Pisani, Venetian nobleman and admiral (d. 1380)
William the Rich, Marquis of Namur, French nobleman and ruler (d. 1391)
Deaths
January 8 – Marco Polo, Italian merchant and explorer (b. 1254)
January 23 – Fulk le Strange, English nobleman and seneschal
February 11 – Karl von Trier, German knight and Grand Master
February 26 – Dino Compagni, Italian politician and historian
March 26 – Marie of Luxembourg, queen of France (b. 1304)
March 31 – Henry II of Cyprus, king of Jerusalem (b. 1270)
May 15 – Władysław of Oświęcim, Polish nobleman and ruler
June 23 – Aymer de Valence, English nobleman and knight
July 16 – Yohito, former emperor of Japan (b. 1267)
November 1 – John de Halton, English bishop
November 3 – Petronilla de Meath, Irish maidservant (b. 1300)
November 11 – Henry VII, Count of Schwarzburg-Blankenburg , German nobleman and ruler
November 25 – John Botetourt, English governor and admiral
December 24 – John III, Dutch nobleman and knight (b. 1275)
date unknown''
Domarat Grzymała, Polish bishop (House of Grzymała)
Guecellone VII, Italian nobleman (House of Da Camino)
Hedwig of Holstein, queen consort of Sweden (b. 1260)
Irene of Brunswick, Byzantine empress consort (b. 1293)
Isabella of Ibelin, queen of Cyprus and Jerusalem (b. 1241)
Jacopo the Great, Italian nobleman and military leader
John II, German nobleman and knight (House of Sponheim)
Konoe Iehira, Japanese nobleman (Fujiwara Clan) (b. 1282)
Lampert Hermán, Hungarian nobleman and judge royal
Nijō Tamefuji, Japanese courtier, poet and writer (b. 1275)
Osman I, Ottoman ruler (House of Osman)
Ou Shizi, Chinese Confucian scholar and writer (b. 1234)
Robert Scales, English nobleman, peerage and politician
Sancho I the Peaceful, King of Majorca (b. 1274)
Thawun Nge, Burmese nobleman and governor (b. 1260)
William Liath de Burgh, Irish nobleman and politician
References |
40056 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ski%20jumping | Ski jumping | Ski jumping is a winter sport in which competitors aim to achieve the farthest jump after sliding down on their skis from a specially designed curved ramp. Along with jump length, competitor's aerial style and other factors also affect the final score. Ski jumping was first contested in Norway in the late 19th century, and later spread through Europe and North America in the early 20th century. Along with cross-country skiing, it constitutes the traditional group of Nordic skiing disciplines.
The ski jumping venue, commonly referred to as a hill, consists of the jumping ramp (in-run), take-off table, and a landing hill. Each jump is evaluated according to the distance traveled and the style performed. The distance score is related to the construction point (also known as the K-point), which is a line drawn in the landing area and serves as a "target" for the competitors to reach.
The score of each judge evaluating the style can reach a maximum of 20 points. The jumping technique has evolved over the years, from jumps with the parallel skis with both arms pointing forwards, to the "V-style", which is widely used today.
Ski jumping has been included at the Winter Olympics since 1924 and at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships since 1925. Women's participation in the sport began in the 1990s, while the first women's event at the Olympics has been held in 2014. All major ski jumping competitions are organised by the International Ski Federation. Stefan Kraft holds the official record for the world's longest ski jump with , set on the ski flying hill in Vikersund in 2017. Ski jumping can also be performed in the summer on an in-run where the tracks are made from porcelain and the grass on the slope is covered with water-soaked plastic. The highest level summer competition is the FIS Ski Jumping Grand Prix, contested since 1994.
History
Like most of the Nordic skiing disciplines, the first ski jumping competitions were held in Norway in the 19th century, although there is evidence of ski jumping in the late 18th century. The recorded origins of the first ski jump trace back to 1808, when Olaf Rye reached . Sondre Norheim, who is regarded as the "father" of the modern ski jumping, won the first-ever ski jumping competition with prizes, which was held in Høydalsmo in 1866.
The first larger ski jumping competition was held on Husebyrennet hill in Oslo, Norway, in 1875. Due to its poor infrastructure and the weather conditions, in 1892 the event was moved to Holmenkollen, which is today still one of the main ski jumping events in the season.
In the late 19th century, Sondre Norheim and Nordic skier Karl Hovelsen immigrated to the United States and started developing the sport in that country. In 1924, ski jumping was featured at the 1924 Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France. The sport has been featured at every Olympics since.
Ski jumping was brought to Canada by Norwegian immigrant Nels Nelsen. Starting with his example in 1915 until late 1959, annual ski jumping competitions were held on Mount Revelstoke — the ski hill Nelsen designed — the longest period of any Canadian ski jumping venue. Revelstoke's was the biggest natural ski jump hill in Canada and internationally recognized as one of the best in North America. The length and natural grade of its hill made possible jumps of over —the longest in Canada. It was also the only hill in Canada where world ski jumping records were set, in 1916, 1921, 1925, 1932, and 1933.
In 1935, the origins of the ski flying began in Planica, Slovenia, where Josef Bradl became the first competitor in history to jump over . At the same venue, the first official jump over was achieved in 1994, when Toni Nieminen landed at 203 meters.
In 1964 in Zakopane, Poland, the large hill event was introduced at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships. In the same year, the normal hill event was included on the Olympic programme at the 1964 Winter Olympics. The team event was added later, at the 1988 Winter Olympics.
Rules
Hills
A ski jumping hill is typically built on a steep natural slope. It consists of the jumping ramp (in-run), take-off table, and a landing hill. Competitors glide down from a common point at the top of the in-run, achieving considerable speeds at the take-off table, where they take off, carried by their own momentum. While airborne, they maintain an aerodynamic position with their bodies and skis, which allows them to maximize the length of their jump. The landing slope is constructed so that the jumper's trajectory is near-parallel with it, and the athlete's relative height to the ground is gradually lost, allowing for a gentle and safe landing. The landing space is followed by an out-run, a substantial flat or counter-inclined area that permits the skier to safely slow down. The out-run area is fenced and surrounded by a public auditorium.
The slopes are classified according to the distance that the competitors travel in the air, between the end of the table and the landing. Each hill has a construction point (K-point), which serves as a "target" that the competitors should reach. The classification of the hills are as follows:
Scoring system
Competitors are ranked according to a numerical score obtained by adding up components based on distance, style, inrun length (gate factor) and wind conditions. In the individual event, the scores from each skier's two competition jumps are combined to determine the winner.
Distance score depends on the hill's K-point. For K-90 and K-120 competitions, the K-point is set at 90 meters and 120 meters, respectively. Competitors are awarded 60 points (normal and large hills) and 120 points (flying hills) if they land on the K-point. For every meter beyond or below the K-point, extra points are awarded or deducted; the typical value is 2 points per meter in small hills, 1.8 points in large hills and 1.2 points in ski flying hills. A competitor's distance is measured between the takeoff and the point where the feet came in full contact with the landing slope (for abnormal landings, touchpoint of one foot, or another body part is considered). Jumps are measured with accuracy of 0.5 meters for all competitions.
During the competition, five judges are based in a tower to the side of the expected landing point. They can award up to 20 points each for jumping style, based on keeping the skis steady during flight, balance, optimal body position, and landing. The highest and lowest style scores are disregarded, with the remaining three scores added to the distance score.
Gate and wind factors were introduced by the 2009 rules, to allow fairer comparison of results for a scoring compensation for variable outdoor conditions. Aerodynamics and take-off speed are important variables that affect the jump length, and if weather conditions change during a competition, the conditions will not be the same for all competitors. Gate factor is an adjustment made when the inrun (or start gate) length is adjusted from the initial position in order to provide optimal take-off speed. Since higher gates result in higher take-off speeds, and therefore present an advantage to competitors, points are subtracted when the starting gate is moved up, and added when the gate is lowered. An advanced calculation also determines compensation points for the actual unequal wind conditions at the time of the jump; when there is back wind, points are added, and when there is front wind, points are subtracted. Wind speed and direction are measured at five different points based on average value, which is determined before every competition.
If two or more competitors finish the competition with the same number of points, they are given the same placing and receive same prizes.
Ski jumpers below the minimum safe body mass index are penalized with a shorter maximum ski length, reducing the aerodynamic lift they can achieve. These rules have been credited with stopping the most severe cases of underweight athletes, but some competitors still lose weight to maximize the distance they can achieve. In order to prevent an unfair advantage due to a "sailing" effect of the ski jumping suit, material, thickness and relative size of the suit are regulated.
Techniques
Each jump is divided into four parts: in-run, take-off (jump), flight, and landing.
By using the V-style, firstly pioneered by Swedish ski jumper Jan Boklöv in the mid-1980s, modern skiers are able to exceed the distance of the take-off hill by about 10% compared to the previous technique with parallel skis. Previous techniques included the Kongsberger technique, the Däescher technique and the Windisch technique. Until the mid-1960s, the ski jumper came down the in-run of the hill with both arms pointing forwards. This changed when the Däscher technique was pioneered by Andreas Däscher in the 1950s, as a modification of the Kongsberger and Windisch techniques. A lesser-used technique as of 2017 is the H-style which is essentially a combination of the parallel and V-styles, in which the skis are spread very wide apart and held parallel in an "H" shape. It is prominently used by Domen Prevc.
Skiers are required to touch the ground in the Telemark landing style (), named after the Norwegian county of Telemark. This involves the landing with one foot in front of the other with knees slightly bent, mimicking the style of Telemark skiing. Failure to execute a Telemark landing leads to the deduction of style points, issued by the judges.
Major competitions
All major ski jumping competitions are organized by the International Ski Federation.
The large hill ski jumping event was included at the Winter Olympic Games for the first time in 1924, and has been contested at every Winter Olympics since then. The normal hill event was added in 1964. Since 1992, the normal hill event is contested at the K-90 size hill; previously, it was contested at the K-60 hill. Women's debuted at the Winter Olympics in 2014.
The FIS Ski Jumping World Cup has been contested since the 1979–80 season. It runs between November and March every season, and consists of 25–30 competitions at most prestigious hills across Europe, United States and Japan. Competitors are awarded a fixed number of points in each event according to their ranking, and the overall winner is the one with most accumulated points. FIS Ski Flying World Cup is contested as a sub-event of the World Cup, and competitors collect only the points scored at ski flying hills from the calendar.
The ski jumping at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships was first contested in 1925. The team event was introduced in 1982, while the women's event was first held in 2009.
The FIS Ski Flying World Championships was first contested in 1972 in Planica.
The Four Hills Tournament has been contested since the 1952–53 season. It is contested around the New Year's Day at four venues – two in Germany (Oberstdorf and Garmisch-Partenkirchen) and two in Austria (Innsbruck and Bischofshofen), which are also scored for the World Cup. Those events are traditionally held in a slightly different format than other World Cup events (first round is held as a knockout event between 25 pairs of jumpers), and the overall winner is determined by adding up individual scores from every jump.
Other competitions organised by the International Ski Federation include the FIS Ski Jumping Grand Prix (held in summer), Continental Cup, FIS Cup, FIS Race, and Alpen Cup.
Women's participation
In January 1863 in Trysil, Norway, at that time 16 years old Norwegian Ingrid Olsdatter Vestby, became the first-ever known female ski jumper, who participated in the competition. Her distance is not recorded.
Women began competing at the high level since the 2004–05 Continental Cup season. International Ski Federation organized three women's team events in this competition and so far the only team events in history of women's ski jumping.
Women's made a premiere FIS Nordic World Ski Championships performance in 2009 in Liberec. American ski jumper Lindsey Van became the first world champion.
In the 2011–12 season, women competed for the first time in the World Cup. The first event was held on 3 December 2011 at Lysgårdsbakken at normal hill in
Lillehammer, Norway. The first-ever female World Cup winner was Sarah Hendrickson, who also became the inaugural women's World Cup overall champion. Previously, women had only competed in Continental Cup seasons.
In the 2022-23 season, women competed for the first time ever in ski flying. The historic event was held in Vikersundbakken in Vikersund the 19th March 2023. It was won by Slovenian jumper Ema Klinec
Olympic Games
In 2006, the International Ski Federation proposed that women could compete at the 2010 Winter Olympics, but the proposal was rejected by the IOC because of the low number of athletes and participating countries at the time.
A group of fifteen competitive female ski jumpers later filed a suit against the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games on the grounds that it violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms since men were competing. The suit failed, with the judge ruling that the situation was not governed by the charter.
A further milestone was reached when women's ski jumping was included as part of the 2014 Winter Olympics at normal hill event. The first Olympic champion was Carina Vogt.
Record jumps
Since 1936, when the first jump beyond was made, all world records in the sport have been made in the discipline of ski flying. As of March 2017, the official world record for the longest ski jump is , set by Stefan Kraft at Vikersundbakken in Vikersund, Norway. Two years prior, also in Vikersund, Dimitry Vassiliev reached but fell upon landing; his jump is unofficially the longest ever made.
Ema Klinec holds the women's world record at 226 metres (741 feet) which was set on 19th March, 2023 in Vikersundbakken.
The lists below show the progression of world records through history at 50-meter milestones. Only official results are listed, invalid jumps are not included.
Men
Women
Tandem
Perfect-score jumps
Those who have managed to show a perfect jump, which means that all five judges attributed the maximum style score of 20 points for their jumps. Kazuyoshi Funaki, Sven Hannawald and Wolfgang Loitzl were attributed 4x20 (plus another 19.5) style score points for their second jump, thus receiving nine times the maximum score of 20 points within one competition. Kazuyoshi Funaki is the only one in history who achieved this more than once. So far only seven jumpers are recorded to have achieved this score in total of ten times:
See also
Ski flying
Nordic combined
List of FIS Nordic World Ski Championships medalists in ski jumping
List of FIS Ski Jumping World Cup team events
List of Olympic medalists in ski jumping
List of Four Hills Tournament winners
Medicinernes Skiklub Svartor
FIS Ski Flying World Cup
References
General
Specific
Individual sports
Winter Olympic sports
Snow sports
Sports originating in Norway
Types of skiing
Nordic skiing
Jumping sports |
40202 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th%20century%20BC | 12th century BC | The 12th century BC is the period from 1200 to 1101 BC. The Late Bronze Age collapse in the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean is often considered to begin in this century.
Events
1200 BC: the first civilization in Central and North America develops in about 1200 BC in the coastal regions of the southern part of the Gulf of Mexico. Known as the Olmec civilization, its early site is at San Lorenzo.
1200 BC: the Phoenicians found the port of Lisbon, Portugal
1197 BC: the beginning of the first period (1197 BC – 982 BC) by Shao Yong's concept of the I Ching and history.
1194 BC: the beginning of the legendary Trojan War.
1192 BC: Wu Ding, King of the Shang Dynasty, dies.
1191 BC: Menestheus, legendary King of Athens, dies during the Trojan War after a reign of 23 years and is succeeded by his nephew Demophon, a son of Theseus. Other accounts place his death a decade later and shortly after the Trojan War (see 1180s BC).
1186 BC: end of the Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt, start of the Twentieth Dynasty.
April 24, 1184 BC: traditional date for the fall of Troy, Asia Minor to the Mycenaeans and their allies. This marks the end of the Trojan War of Greek mythology.
1181 BC: Menestheus, legendary King of Athens and veteran of the Trojan War, dies after a reign of 23 years and is succeeded by his nephew Demophon, a son of Theseus. Other accounts place his death a decade earlier and during the Trojan War (see 1190s BC).
1180 BC: the last Kassite King, Anllil-nadin-akhe, is defeated by the Elamites.
1180 BC: collapse of Hittite power in Anatolia with the destruction of their capital Hattusa.
1177 BC: Ramses III of Egypt repels attacks by northern invaders (the "Sea-Peoples") in the 8th year of his reign (1177 or 1186 BC); an event which Eric Cline closely relates to the beginning of the Late Bronze Age collapse.
April 16, 1178 BC: a solar eclipse may mark the return of Odysseus, legendary King of Ithaca, to his kingdom after the Trojan War. He discovers a number of suitors competing to marry his wife Penelope, whom they believe to be a widow, in order to succeed him on the throne. He organizes their slaying and re-establishes himself on the throne.
1160 BC: death of Pharaoh Ramesses V, from smallpox.
1159 BC: the Hekla 3 eruption triggers an 18-year period of climatic cooling.
1154 BC: death of exiled Queen Helen of Sparta at Rhodes (estimated date).
1150 BC: end of Egyptian rule in Canaan, with Ramesses VI the last Pharaoh acknowledged.
1150 BC: Demophon, legendary King of Athens and veteran of the Trojan War, dies after a reign of 33 years and is succeeded by his son Oxyntes.
1137 BC: Ramses VII begins his reign as the sixth ruler of the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt.
1138 BC: Oxyntes, legendary King of Athens, dies after a reign of 12 years and is succeeded by his elder son Apheidas.
1137 BC: Apheidas, legendary King of Athens, is assassinated and succeeded by his younger brother Thymoetes after a reign of 1 year.
1128 BC: Thymoetes, legendary King of Athens, dies childless after a reign of 8 years. He is succeeded by his designated heir Melanthus of Pylos, a fifth-generation descendant of Neleus who had reportedly assisted him in battle against the Boeotians.
1122 BC: legendary founding date of the city of Pyongyang.
1120 BC: Troy VIIb1 is destroyed.
1115 BC: Tiglath-Pileser I becomes King of Assyria.
1104 BC: Cádiz (Gadir) founded by Phoenicians in southwestern Spain.
1100 BC: Tiglath-Pileser I of Assyria conquers the Hittites.
1100 BC: the Dorians supposedly invade Greece.
1100 BC: beginning of the proto-Villanovan culture in northern Italy.
1100 BC: Mycenaean civilization ends. Start of Greek Dark Ages.
1100 BC: the New Kingdom in Egypt comes to an end.
Elamite invaders loot art treasures from Mesopotamia and carry them into Susa.
Fang ding, from Tomb 1004, Houjiazhuang, Anyang, Henan, is made. Shang dynasty, Anyang period. It is now kept at Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan (approximate date).
Inventions, discoveries, introductions
1100s BC—Alphabet, developed by the Phoenicians
Sovereign states
See: List of sovereign states in the 12th century BC
References
-8
-88 |
40338 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayor%20of%20London | Mayor of London | The mayor of London is the chief executive of the Greater London Authority. The role was created in 2000 after the Greater London devolution referendum in 1998, and was the first directly elected mayor in the United Kingdom.
The current mayor is Sadiq Khan, who took office on 9 May 2016. The position was held by Ken Livingstone from the creation of the role on 4 May 2000 until he was defeated in May 2008 by Boris Johnson, who then also served two terms before being succeeded by Khan.
The mayor is scrutinised by the London Assembly and, supported by their Mayoral Cabinet, directs the entirety of London, including the City of London (for which there is also the Lord Mayor of the City of London). Each London Borough also has a ceremonial mayor or, in Hackney, Lewisham, Newham and Tower Hamlets, an elected mayor.
Background
The Greater London Council, the elected government for Greater London, was abolished in 1986 by the Local Government Act 1985. Strategic functions were split off to various joint arrangements. Londoners voted in a referendum in 1998 to create a new governance structure for Greater London. The directly elected mayor of London was created by the Greater London Authority Act 1999 in 2000 as part of the reforms.
Elections
The mayor is elected by the first-past-the-post system for a fixed term of four years, with elections taking place in May. Prior to the Elections Act 2022, the supplementary vote method was used. There are no limits on the number of terms a mayor may serve.
As with most elected posts in the United Kingdom, there is a deposit (in this case of £10,000), which is returnable on the candidate's winning of at least 5% of the first-choice votes cast.
Most recent election
The most recent London mayoral election was held on 6 May 2021, having been delayed from May 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The results were announced in the evening of 8 May. Sadiq Khan was re-elected for a second term, beating the Conservative Shaun Bailey in the second round.
List of mayors
Timeline
Timeline
Powers and functions
Most powers are derived from the Greater London Authority Act 1999, with additional functions coming from the Greater London Authority Act 2007, the Localism Act 2011 and Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011.
The mayor's main functions are:
Strategic planning, including housing, waste management, the environment and production of the London Plan
Refuse or permit planning permission on strategic grounds
Transport policy, delivered by functional body Transport for London
Fire and emergency planning, delivered by functional body London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority
Policing and crime policy, delivered by functional body Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (before 2012 by functional body Metropolitan Police Authority). The Metropolitan Police has a structure different to most others across the country, reporting to the Mayor of London instead of a police and crime commissioner.
Economic development, delivered directly by the Greater London Authority through subsidiary company GLA Land and Property (before 2012 by functional body London Development Agency)
Power to create development corporations, such as the London Legacy Development Corporation
The remaining local government functions are performed by the London borough councils. There is some overlap; for example, the borough councils are responsible for waste management, but the mayor is required to produce a waste management strategy. In 2010, Johnson launched an initiative in partnership with the Multi-academy Trust AET to transform schools across London. This led to the establishment of London Academies Enterprise Trust (LAET) which was intended to be a group of ten academies, but it only reached a group of four before the mayor withdrew it in 2013.
The following is a table comparing power over services of the boroughs to the GLA and mayor.
Initiatives
Ken Livingstone
Initiatives taken by Ken Livingstone as Mayor of London included the London congestion charge on private vehicles using city centre London on weekdays, the creation of the London Climate Change Agency, the London Energy Partnership and the founding of the international Large Cities Climate Leadership Group, now known as C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. The congestion charge led to many new buses being introduced across London. In August 2003, Livingstone oversaw the introduction of the Oyster card electronic ticketing system for Transport for London services. Livingstone supported the withdrawal of the vintage AEC Routemaster buses from regular service in London.
Livingstone introduced the London Partnerships Register which was a voluntary scheme without legal force for same sex couples to register their partnership, and paved the way for the introduction by the United Kingdom Parliament of civil partnerships and later still, Same-sex marriage. Unlike civil partnerships, the London Partnerships Register was open to heterosexual couples who favour a public commitment other than marriage.
As Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone was a supporter of the London Olympics in 2012, ultimately winning the bid to host the Games in 2005. Livingstone encouraged sport in London; especially when sport could be combined with helping charities like The London Marathon and 10K charity races. Livingstone, in a mayoral election debate on the BBC's Question Time in April 2008, stated that the primary reason he supported the Olympic bid was to secure funding for the redevelopment of the East End of London. In July 2007, he brought the Tour de France cycle race to London.
Boris Johnson
In May 2008, Boris Johnson introduced a new transport safety initiative to put 440 high visibility police officers in and around bus stations. A ban on alcohol on underground, and Docklands Light Railway, tram services and stations across the capital was introduced.
Also in May 2008, he announced the closure of The Londoner newspaper, saving approximately £2.9 million. A percentage of this saving was to be spent on planting 10,000 new street trees.
In 2010, he extended the coverage of Oyster card electronic ticketing to all National Rail overground train services. Also in 2010, he opened a cycle hire scheme (originally sponsored by Barclays, now Santander) with 5,000 bicycles available for hire across London. Although initiated by his predecessor, Ken Livingstone, the scheme rapidly acquired the nickname of "Boris Bikes". Johnson withdrew the recently introduced high-speed high-capacity "bendy buses" from service in 2011 which had been bought by Livingstone, and he instead supported the development of the New Routemaster which entered service the next year.
In 2011, Boris Johnson set up the Outer London Fund of £50 million designed to help facilitate improve local high streets. Areas in London were given the chance to submit proposals for two tranches of funding. Successful bids for Phase 1 included Enfield, Muswell Hill and Bexley town centre. The recipients of phase 2 funding were still to be announced .
In January 2013, he appointed journalist Andrew Gilligan as the first Cycling Commissioner for London. In March 2013, Johnson announced £1 billion of investment in infrastructure to make cycling safer in London, including a East to West segregated 'Crossrail for bikes'.
At the General Election of 7 May 2015, Johnson was elected MP for Uxbridge and Ruislip South, He continued to serve as mayor until the mayoral election in May 2016, when Sadiq Khan was elected.
Sadiq Khan
Sadiq Khan introduced the 'bus hopper' fare on TfL buses, which allows passengers to board a second bus within one hour for the same fare. Under Khan, paper and coin cash transactions became obsolete and the Oyster system was expanded to include debit and credit cards. This initiative was started under his predecessor, Johnson.
Upon election, Khan outlined a vision to make London the "greenest city" by investing in walking and cycling infrastructure while reducing polluting vehicles. In 2019, the "Ultra Low Emission Zone" scheme was launched which taxes highly polluting vehicles in its covered territory. London declared itself the world's first "National Park City" (effective from July 2019), reflecting its unusually high amount of green space for a city of its size.
Extended term
The Government postponed all elections due in May 2020, including for the mayor of London, for one year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Khan had therefore served a term in office of five years rather than four, which ended in May 2021. He was re-elected in 2021 for a further four-year term, defeating the Conservative candidate Shaun Bailey.
See also
Foreign relations of the Mayor of London
Leaders of the Greater London Council
Notes
References
External links
Page about the process of nomination
Local government in London
London
2000 establishments in England |
40500 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolicam%20Actuositatem | Apostolicam Actuositatem | Apostolicam Actuositatem (Apostolic Activity), also known as the "Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity", is one of the 16 magisterial documents of the Second Vatican Council.
The final text was approved on 10 November, 1965 by a vote of 2,201 to 2. On 18 November, 1965, it was promulgated by Pope Paul VI, after another vote, this time of 2,340 to 2.
The purpose of the document was to encourage and guide lay Catholics in their Christian service. In this decree the Council sought to describe the nature, character, and diversity of the lay apostolate, to state its basic principles, and to give pastoral directives for its more effective exercise. The specific objectives of lay ministry are: evangelization and sanctification, renewal of the temporal order whereby Christ is first in all things, and charitable works and social aid. The decree quotes Colossians 3:17: "Whatever you do in word or work, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through Him".
Background
Apostolicam Actuositatem follows upon Lumen gentium, the "Dogmatic Constitution on the Church", of 21 November 1964, which in Chapter IV, discusses the laity, by which they mean all the faithful except those in Holy Orders or religious institutes. "They live in the ordinary circumstances of family and social life, from which the very web of their existence is woven. ...led by the spirit of the Gospel they may work for the sanctification of the world from within as a leaven. In this way they may make Christ known to others, especially by the testimony of a life resplendent in faith, hope and charity.
After
The Pontifical Council for the Laity had its foundation in Vatican II's Apostolicam Actuositatem, §26. The Pontifical council was created in January 1967 by Pope Paul VI's motu proprio Catholicam Christi Ecclesiam. In December 1976, the council was included as a permanent fixture of the Roman Curia. In September 2016, its functions were shifted to the new Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life.
See also
Associations of the faithful
Christifideles laici
Lay ecclesial ministry
List of Ecclesial movements
References
Further reading
Francis Cardinal Arinze, The Layperson's Distinctive Role, Ignatius Press, 2013
External links
English translation of text at the Vatican
Original Latin text at EWTN
Decrees
Documents of the Second Vatican Council
Latin texts
Pontifical Council for the Laity
1965 in Christianity
1965 documents |
40634 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convex%20hull | Convex hull | In geometry, the convex hull or convex envelope or convex closure of a shape is the smallest convex set that contains it. The convex hull may be defined either as the intersection of all convex sets containing a given subset of a Euclidean space, or equivalently as the set of all convex combinations of points in the subset. For a bounded subset of the plane, the convex hull may be visualized as the shape enclosed by a rubber band stretched around the subset.
Convex hulls of open sets are open, and convex hulls of compact sets are compact. Every compact convex set is the convex hull of its extreme points. The convex hull operator is an example of a closure operator, and every antimatroid can be represented by applying this closure operator to finite sets of points.
The algorithmic problems of finding the convex hull of a finite set of points in the plane or other low-dimensional Euclidean spaces, and its dual problem of intersecting half-spaces, are fundamental problems of computational geometry. They can be solved in time for two or three dimensional point sets, and in time matching the worst-case output complexity given by the upper bound theorem in higher dimensions.
As well as for finite point sets, convex hulls have also been studied for simple polygons, Brownian motion, space curves, and epigraphs of functions. Convex hulls have wide applications in mathematics, statistics, combinatorial optimization, economics, geometric modeling, and ethology. Related structures include the orthogonal convex hull, convex layers, Delaunay triangulation and Voronoi diagram, and convex skull.
Definitions
A set of points in a Euclidean space is defined to be convex if it contains the line segments connecting each pair of its points. The convex hull of a given set may be defined as
The (unique) minimal convex set containing
The intersection of all convex sets containing
The set of all convex combinations of points in
The union of all simplices with vertices in
For bounded sets in the Euclidean plane, not all on one line, the boundary of the convex hull is the simple closed curve with minimum perimeter containing . One may imagine stretching a rubber band so that it surrounds the entire set and then releasing it, allowing it to contract; when it becomes taut, it encloses the convex hull of . This formulation does not immediately generalize to higher dimensions: for a finite set of points in three-dimensional space, a neighborhood of a spanning tree of the points encloses them with arbitrarily small surface area, smaller than the surface area of the convex hull. However, in higher dimensions, variants of the obstacle problem of finding a minimum-energy surface above a given shape can have the convex hull as their solution.
For objects in three dimensions, the first definition states that the convex hull is the smallest possible convex bounding volume of the objects.
The definition using intersections of convex sets may be extended to non-Euclidean geometry, and the definition using convex combinations may be extended from Euclidean spaces to arbitrary real vector spaces or affine spaces; convex hulls may also be generalized in a more abstract way, to oriented matroids.
Equivalence of definitions
It is not obvious that the first definition makes sense: why should there exist a unique minimal convex set containing , for every ? However, the second definition, the intersection of all convex sets containing , is well-defined. It is a subset of every other convex set that contains , because is included among the sets being intersected. Thus, it is exactly the unique minimal convex set containing . Therefore, the first two definitions are equivalent.
Each convex set containing must (by the assumption that it is convex) contain all convex combinations of points in , so the set of all convex combinations is contained in the intersection of all convex sets containing . Conversely, the set of all convex combinations is itself a convex set containing , so it also contains the intersection of all convex sets containing , and therefore the second and third definitions are equivalent.
In fact, according to Carathéodory's theorem, if is a subset of a -dimensional Euclidean space, every convex combination of finitely many points from is also a convex combination of at most points in . The set of convex combinations of a -tuple of points is a simplex; in the plane it is a triangle and in three-dimensional space it is a tetrahedron. Therefore, every convex combination of points of belongs to a simplex whose vertices belong to , and the third and fourth definitions are equivalent.
Upper and lower hulls
In two dimensions, the convex hull is sometimes partitioned into two parts, the upper hull and the lower hull, stretching between the leftmost and rightmost points of the hull. More generally, for convex hulls in any dimension, one can partition the boundary of the hull into upward-facing points (points for which an upward ray is disjoint from the hull), downward-facing points, and extreme points. For three-dimensional hulls, the upward-facing and downward-facing parts of the boundary form topological disks.
Topological properties
Closed and open hulls
The closed convex hull of a set is the closure of the convex hull, and the open convex hull is the interior (or in some sources the relative interior) of the convex hull.
The closed convex hull of is the intersection of all closed half-spaces containing .
If the convex hull of is already a closed set itself (as happens, for instance, if is a finite set or more generally a compact set), then it equals the closed convex hull. However, an intersection of closed half-spaces is itself closed, so when a convex hull is not closed it cannot be represented in this way.
If the open convex hull of a set is -dimensional, then every point of the hull belongs to an open convex hull of at most points of . The sets of vertices of a square, regular octahedron, or higher-dimensional cross-polytope provide examples where exactly points are needed.
Preservation of topological properties
Topologically, the convex hull of an open set is always itself open, and the convex hull of a compact set is always itself compact. However, there exist closed sets for which the convex hull is not closed. For instance, the closed set
(the set of points that lie on or above the witch of Agnesi) has the open upper half-plane as its convex hull.
The compactness of convex hulls of compact sets, in finite-dimensional Euclidean spaces, is generalized by the Krein–Smulian theorem, according to which the closed convex hull of a weakly compact subset of a Banach space (a subset that is compact under the weak topology) is weakly compact.
Extreme points
An extreme point of a convex set is a point in the set that does not lie on any open line segment between any other two points of the same set.
For a convex hull, every extreme point must be part of the given set, because otherwise it cannot be formed as a convex combination of given points.
According to the Krein–Milman theorem, every compact convex set in a Euclidean space (or more generally in a locally convex topological vector space) is the convex hull of its extreme points. However, this may not be true for convex sets that are not compact; for instance, the whole Euclidean plane and the open unit ball are both convex, but neither one has any extreme points. Choquet theory extends this theory from finite convex combinations of extreme points to infinite combinations (integrals) in more general spaces.
Geometric and algebraic properties
Closure operator
The convex-hull operator has the characteristic properties of a closure operator:
It is extensive, meaning that the convex hull of every set is a superset of .
It is non-decreasing, meaning that, for every two sets and with , the convex hull of is a subset of the convex hull of .
It is idempotent, meaning that for every , the convex hull of the convex hull of is the same as the convex hull of .
When applied to a finite set of points, this is the closure operator of an antimatroid, the shelling antimatroid of the point set.
Every antimatroid can be represented in this way by convex hulls of points in a Euclidean space of high-enough dimension.
Minkowski sum
The operations of constructing the convex hull and taking the Minkowski sum commute with each other, in the sense that the Minkowski sum of convex hulls of sets gives the same result as the convex hull of the Minkowski sum of the same sets. This provides a step towards the Shapley–Folkman theorem bounding the distance of a Minkowski sum from its convex hull.
Projective duality
The projective dual operation to constructing the convex hull of a set of points is constructing the intersection of a family of closed halfspaces that all contain the origin (or any other designated point).
Special cases
Finite point sets
The convex hull of a finite point set forms a convex polygon when , or more generally a convex polytope in . Each extreme point of the hull is called a vertex, and (by the Krein–Milman theorem) every convex polytope is the convex hull of its vertices. It is the unique convex polytope whose vertices belong to and that encloses all of .
For sets of points in general position, the convex hull is a simplicial polytope.
According to the upper bound theorem, the number of faces of the convex hull of points in -dimensional Euclidean space is . In particular, in two and three dimensions the number of faces is at most linear in .
Simple polygons
The convex hull of a simple polygon encloses the given polygon and is partitioned by it into regions, one of which is the polygon itself. The other regions, bounded by a polygonal chain of the polygon and a single convex hull edge, are called pockets. Computing the same decomposition recursively for each pocket forms a hierarchical description of a given polygon called its convex differences tree. Reflecting a pocket across its convex hull edge expands the given simple polygon into a polygon with the same perimeter and larger area, and the Erdős–Nagy theorem states that this expansion process eventually terminates.
Brownian motion
The curve generated by Brownian motion in the plane, at any fixed time, has probability 1 of having a convex hull whose boundary forms a continuously differentiable curve. However, for any angle in the range , there will be times during the Brownian motion where the moving particle touches the boundary of the convex hull at a point of angle . The Hausdorff dimension of this set of exceptional times is (with high probability) .
Space curves
For the convex hull of a space curve or finite set of space curves in general position in three-dimensional space, the parts of the boundary away from the curves are developable and ruled surfaces. Examples include the oloid, the convex hull of two circles in perpendicular planes, each passing through the other's center, the sphericon, the convex hull of two semicircles in perpendicular planes with a common center, and D-forms, the convex shapes obtained from Alexandrov's uniqueness theorem for a surface formed by gluing together two planar convex sets of equal perimeter.
Functions
The convex hull or lower convex envelope of a function on a real vector space is the function whose epigraph is the lower convex hull of the epigraph of .
It is the unique maximal convex function majorized by . The definition can be extended to the convex hull of a set of functions (obtained from the convex hull of the union of their epigraphs, or equivalently from their pointwise minimum) and, in this form, is dual to the convex conjugate operation.
Computation
In computational geometry, a number of algorithms are known for computing the convex hull for a finite set of points and for other geometric objects.
Computing the convex hull means constructing an unambiguous, efficient representation of the required convex shape. Output representations that have been considered for convex hulls of point sets include a list of linear inequalities describing the facets of the hull, an undirected graph of facets and their adjacencies, or the full face lattice of the hull. In two dimensions, it may suffice more simply to list the points that are vertices, in their cyclic order around the hull.
For convex hulls in two or three dimensions, the complexity of the corresponding algorithms is usually estimated in terms of , the number of input points, and , the number of points on the convex hull, which may be significantly smaller than . For higher-dimensional hulls, the number of faces of other dimensions may also come into the analysis. Graham scan can compute the convex hull of points in the plane in time . For points in two and three dimensions, more complicated output-sensitive algorithms are known that compute the convex hull in time . These include Chan's algorithm and the Kirkpatrick–Seidel algorithm. For dimensions , the time for computing the convex hull is , matching the worst-case output complexity of the problem. The convex hull of a simple polygon in the plane can be constructed in linear time.
Dynamic convex hull data structures can be used to keep track of the convex hull of a set of points undergoing insertions and deletions of points, and kinetic convex hull structures can keep track of the convex hull for points moving continuously.
The construction of convex hulls also serves as a tool, a building block for a number of other computational-geometric algorithms such as the rotating calipers method for computing the width and diameter of a point set.
Related structures
Several other shapes can be defined from a set of points in a similar way to the convex hull, as the minimal superset with some property, the intersection of all shapes containing the points from a given family of shapes, or the union of all combinations of points for a certain type of combination. For instance:
The affine hull is the smallest affine subspace of a Euclidean space containing a given set, or the union of all affine combinations of points in the set.
The linear hull is the smallest linear subspace of a vector space containing a given set, or the union of all linear combinations of points in the set.
The conical hull or positive hull of a subset of a vector space is the set of all positive combinations of points in the subset.
The visual hull of a three-dimensional object, with respect to a set of viewpoints, consists of the points such that every ray from a viewpoint through intersects the object. Equivalently it is the intersection of the (non-convex) cones generated by the outline of the object with respect to each viewpoint. It is used in 3D reconstruction as the largest shape that could have the same outlines from the given viewpoints.
The circular hull or alpha-hull of a subset of the plane is the intersection of all disks with a given radius that contain the subset.
The relative convex hull of a subset of a two-dimensional simple polygon is the intersection of all relatively convex supersets, where a set within the same polygon is relatively convex if it contains the geodesic between any two of its points.
The orthogonal convex hull or rectilinear convex hull is the intersection of all orthogonally convex and connected supersets, where a set is orthogonally convex if it contains all axis-parallel segments between pairs of its points.
The orthogonal convex hull is a special case of a much more general construction, the hyperconvex hull, which can be thought of as the smallest injective metric space containing the points of a given metric space.
The holomorphically convex hull is a generalization of similar concepts to complex analytic manifolds, obtained as an intersection of sublevel sets of holomorphic functions containing a given set.
The Delaunay triangulation of a point set and its dual, the Voronoi diagram, are mathematically related to convex hulls: the Delaunay triangulation of a point set in can be viewed as the projection of a convex hull in
The alpha shapes of a finite point set give a nested family of (non-convex) geometric objects describing the shape of a point set at different levels of detail.
Each of alpha shape is the union of some of the features of the Delaunay triangulation, selected by comparing their circumradius to the parameter alpha. The point set itself forms one endpoint of this family of shapes, and its convex hull forms the other endpoint.
The convex layers of a point set are a nested family of convex polygons, the outermost of which is the convex hull, with the inner layers constructed recursively from the points that are not vertices of the convex hull.
The convex skull of a polygon is the largest convex polygon contained inside it. It can be found in polynomial time, but the exponent of the algorithm is high.
Applications
Convex hulls have wide applications in many fields. Within mathematics, convex hulls are used to study polynomials, matrix eigenvalues, and unitary elements, and several theorems in discrete geometry involve convex hulls. They are used in robust statistics as the outermost contour of Tukey depth, are part of the bagplot visualization of two-dimensional data, and define risk sets of randomized decision rules. Convex hulls of indicator vectors of solutions to combinatorial problems are central to combinatorial optimization and polyhedral combinatorics. In economics, convex hulls can be used to apply methods of convexity in economics to non-convex markets. In geometric modeling, the convex hull property Bézier curves helps find their crossings, and convex hulls are part of the measurement of boat hulls. And in the study of animal behavior, convex hulls are used in a standard definition of the home range.
Mathematics
Newton polygons of univariate polynomials and Newton polytopes of multivariate polynomials are convex hulls of points derived from the exponents of the terms in the polynomial, and can be used to analyze the asymptotic behavior of the polynomial and the valuations of its roots. Convex hulls and polynomials also come together in the Gauss–Lucas theorem, according to which the roots of the derivative of a polynomial all lie within the convex hull of the roots of the polynomial.
In spectral analysis, the numerical range of a normal matrix is the convex hull of its eigenvalues.
The Russo–Dye theorem describes the convex hulls of unitary elements in a C*-algebra.
In discrete geometry, both Radon's theorem and Tverberg's theorem concern the existence of partitions of point sets into subsets with intersecting convex hulls.
The definitions of a convex set as containing line segments between its points, and of a convex hull as the intersection of all convex supersets, apply to hyperbolic spaces as well as to Euclidean spaces. However, in hyperbolic space, it is also possible to consider the convex hulls of sets of ideal points, points that do not belong to the hyperbolic space itself but lie on the boundary of a model of that space. The boundaries of convex hulls of ideal points of three-dimensional hyperbolic space are analogous to ruled surfaces in Euclidean space, and their metric properties play an important role in the geometrization conjecture in low-dimensional topology. Hyperbolic convex hulls have also been used as part of the calculation of canonical triangulations of hyperbolic manifolds, and applied to determine the equivalence of knots.
See also the section on Brownian motion for the application of convex hulls to this subject, and the section on space curves for their application to the theory of developable surfaces.
Statistics
In robust statistics, the convex hull provides one of the key components of a bagplot, a method for visualizing the spread of two-dimensional sample points. The contours of Tukey depth form a nested family of convex sets, with the convex hull outermost, and the bagplot also displays another polygon from this nested family, the contour of 50% depth.
In statistical decision theory, the risk set of a randomized decision rule is the convex hull of the risk points of its underlying deterministic decision rules.
Combinatorial optimization
In combinatorial optimization and polyhedral combinatorics, central objects of study are the convex hulls of indicator vectors of solutions to a combinatorial problem. If the facets of these polytopes can be found, describing the polytopes as intersections of halfspaces, then algorithms based on linear programming can be used to find optimal solutions. In multi-objective optimization, a different type of convex hull is also used, the convex hull of the weight vectors of solutions. One can maximize any quasiconvex combination of weights by finding and checking each convex hull vertex, often more efficiently than checking all possible solutions.
Economics
In the Arrow–Debreu model of general economic equilibrium, agents are assumed to have convex budget sets and convex preferences. These assumptions of convexity in economics can be used to prove the existence of an equilibrium.
When actual economic data is non-convex, it can be made convex by taking convex hulls. The Shapley–Folkman theorem can be used to show that, for large markets, this approximation is accurate, and leads to a "quasi-equilibrium" for the original non-convex market.
Geometric modeling
In geometric modeling, one of the key properties of a Bézier curve is that it lies within the convex hull of its control points. This so-called "convex hull property" can be used, for instance, in quickly detecting intersections of these curves.
In the geometry of boat and ship design, chain girth is a measurement of the size of a sailing vessel, defined using the convex hull of a cross-section of the hull of the vessel. It differs from the skin girth, the perimeter of the cross-section itself, except for boats and ships that have a convex hull.
Ethology
The convex hull is commonly known as the minimum convex polygon in ethology, the study of animal behavior, where it is a classic, though perhaps simplistic, approach in estimating an animal's home range based on points where the animal has been observed. Outliers can make the minimum convex polygon excessively large, which has motivated relaxed approaches that contain only a subset of the observations, for instance by choosing one of the convex layers that is close to a target percentage of the samples, or in the local convex hull method by combining convex hulls of neighborhoods of points.
Quantum physics
In quantum physics, the state space of any quantum system — the set of all ways the system can be prepared — is a convex hull whose extreme points are positive-semidefinite operators known as pure states and whose interior points are called mixed states. The Schrödinger–HJW theorem proves that any mixed state can in fact be written as a convex combination of pure states in multiple ways.
Thermodynamics
A convex hull in thermodynamics was identified by Josiah Willard Gibbs (1873), although the paper was published before the convex hull was so named.
In a set of energies of several stoichiometries of a material, only those measurements on the lower convex hull will be stable. When removing a point from the hull and then calculating its distance to the hull, its distance to the new hull represents the degree of stability of the phase.
History
The lower convex hull of points in the plane appears, in the form of a Newton polygon, in a letter from Isaac Newton to Henry Oldenburg in 1676. The term "convex hull" itself appears as early as the work of , and the corresponding term in German appears earlier, for instance in Hans Rademacher's review of . Other terms, such as "convex envelope", were also used in this time frame. By 1938, according to Lloyd Dines, the term "convex hull" had become standard; Dines adds that he finds the term unfortunate, because the colloquial meaning of the word "hull" would suggest that it refers to the surface of a shape, whereas the convex hull includes the interior and not just the surface.
Notes
References
; reprinted in The Scientific Papers of J. Willard Gibbs, Vol. I: Thermodynamics, Longmans, Green, & Co., 1906, pp. 33–54
; see p. 143
; see also review by Hans Rademacher (1922),
, translated in Journal of Soviet Mathematics 33 (4): 1140–1153, 1986,
External links
"Convex Hull" by Eric W. Weisstein, Wolfram Demonstrations Project, 2007.
Closure operators
Convex analysis
Computational geometry
Geometry processing |
40773 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseband | Baseband | In telecommunications and signal processing, baseband is the range of frequencies occupied by a signal that has not been modulated to higher frequencies. Baseband signals typically originate from transducers, converting some other variable into an electrical signal. For example, the electronic output of a microphone is a baseband signal that is analogous to the applied voice audio. In conventional analog radio broadcasting, the baseband audio signal is used to modulate an RF carrier signal of a much higher frequency.
A baseband signal may have frequency components going all the way down to DC, or at least it will have a high ratio bandwidth. A modulated baseband signal is called a passband signal. This occupies a higher range of frequencies and has a lower ratio and fractional bandwidth.
Various uses
Baseband signal
A baseband signal or lowpass signal is a signal that can include frequencies that are very near zero, by comparison with its highest frequency (for example, a sound waveform can be considered as a baseband signal, whereas a radio signal or any other modulated signal is not).
A baseband bandwidth is equal to the highest frequency of a signal or system, or an upper bound on such frequencies, for example the upper cut-off frequency of a low-pass filter. By contrast, passband bandwidth is the difference between a highest frequency and a nonzero lowest frequency.
Baseband channel
A baseband channel or lowpass channel (or system, or network) is a communication channel that can transfer frequencies that are very near zero. Examples are serial cables and local area networks (LANs), as opposed to passband channels such as radio frequency channels and passband filtered wires of the analog telephone network. Frequency division multiplexing (FDM) allows an analog telephone wire to carry a baseband telephone call, concurrently as one or several carrier-modulated telephone calls.
Digital baseband transmission
Digital baseband transmission, also known as line coding, aims at transferring a digital bit stream over baseband channel, typically an unfiltered wire, contrary to passband transmission, also known as carrier-modulated transmission. Passband transmission makes communication possible over a bandpass filtered channel, such as the telephone network local-loop or a band-limited wireless channel.
Baseband transmission in Ethernet
The word "BASE" in Ethernet physical layer standards, for example 10BASE5, 100BASE-TX and 1000BASE-SX, implies baseband digital transmission (i.e. that a line code and an unfiltered wire are used).
Baseband processor
A baseband processor also known as BP or BBP is used to process the down-converted digital signal to retrieve essential data for a wireless digital system. The baseband processing block in GNSS receivers is responsible for providing observable data: that is, code pseudo-ranges and carrier phase measurements, as well as navigation data.
Equivalent baseband signal
An equivalent baseband signal or equivalent lowpass signal is—in analog and digital modulation methods for (passband) signals with constant or varying carrier frequency (for example ASK, PSK QAM, and FSK)—a complex valued representation of the modulated physical signal (the so-called passband signal or RF signal). The equivalent baseband signal is where is the inphase signal, the quadrature phase signal, and the imaginary unit. In a digital modulation method, the and signals of each modulation symbol are evident from the constellation diagram. The frequency spectrum of this signal includes negative as well as positive frequencies. The physical passband signal corresponds to
where is the carrier angular frequency in rad/s.
Modulation
A signal at baseband is often used to modulate a higher frequency carrier signal in order that it may be transmitted via radio. Modulation results in shifting the signal up to much higher frequencies (radio frequencies, or RF) than it originally spanned. A key consequence of the usual double-sideband amplitude modulation (AM) is that the range of frequencies the signal spans (its spectral bandwidth) is doubled. Thus, the RF bandwidth of a signal (measured from the lowest frequency as opposed to 0 Hz) is twice its baseband bandwidth. Steps may be taken to reduce this effect, such as single-sideband modulation. Conversely, some transmission schemes such as frequency modulation use even more bandwidth.
The figure below shows AM modulation:
See also
Complex envelope
Broadband
In-phase and quadrature components
Narrowband
Wideband
References
Signal processing |
40893 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherence%20length | Coherence length | In physics, coherence length is the propagation distance over which a coherent wave (e.g. an electromagnetic wave) maintains a specified degree of coherence. Wave interference is strong when the paths taken by all of the interfering waves differ by less than the coherence length. A wave with a longer coherence length is closer to a perfect sinusoidal wave. Coherence length is important in holography and telecommunications engineering.
This article focuses on the coherence of classical electromagnetic fields. In quantum mechanics, there is a mathematically analogous concept of the quantum coherence length of a wave function.
Formulas
In radio-band systems, the coherence length is approximated by
where is the speed of light in vacuum, is the refractive index of the medium, and is the bandwidth of the source or is the signal wavelength and is the width of the range of wavelengths in the signal.
In optical communications and optical coherence tomography (OCT), assuming that the source has a Gaussian emission spectrum, the roundtrip coherence length is given by
where is the central wavelength of the source, is the group refractive index of the medium, and is the (FWHM) spectral width of the source. If the source has a Gaussian spectrum with FWHM spectral width , then a path offset of will reduce the fringe visibility to 50%. It is important to note that this is a roundtrip coherence length — this definition is applied in applications like OCT where the light traverses the measured displacement twice (as in a Michelson interferometer). In transmissive applications, such as with a Mach–Zehnder interferometer, the light traverses the displacement only once, and the coherence length is effectively doubled.
The coherence length can also be measured using a Michelson interferometer and is the optical path length difference of a self-interfering laser beam which corresponds to fringe visibility, where the fringe visibility is defined as
where is the fringe intensity.
In long-distance transmission systems, the coherence length may be reduced by propagation factors such as dispersion, scattering, and diffraction.
Lasers
Multimode helium–neon lasers have a typical coherence length on the order of centimeters, while the coherence length of longitudinally single-mode lasers can exceed 1 km. Semiconductor lasers can reach some 100 m, but small, inexpensive semiconductor lasers have shorter lengths, with one source claiming 20 cm. Singlemode fiber lasers with linewidths of a few kHz can have coherence lengths exceeding 100 km. Similar coherence lengths can be reached with optical frequency combs due to the narrow linewidth of each tooth. Non-zero visibility is present only for short intervals of pulses repeated after cavity length distances up to this long coherence length.
Other light sources
Tolansky's An introduction to Interferometry has a chapter on sources which quotes a line width of around 0.052 angstroms for each of the Sodium D lines in an uncooled low-pressure sodium lamp, corresponding to a coherence length of around 67 mm for each line by itself. Cooling the low pressure sodium discharge to liquid nitrogen temperatures increases the individual D line coherence length by a factor of 6. A very narrow-band interference filter would be required to isolate an individual D line.
See also
Coherence time
Superconducting coherence length
Spatial coherence
References
Electromagnetic radiation
Physical optics
Waves |
41010 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree%20of%20start-stop%20distortion | Degree of start-stop distortion | In telecommunication, the term degree of start-stop distortion has the following meanings:
In asynchronous serial communication data transmission, the ratio of (a) the absolute value of the maximum measured difference between the actual and theoretical intervals separating any significant instant of modulation (or demodulation) from the significant instant of the start element immediately preceding it to (b) the unit interval.
The highest absolute value of individual distortion affecting the significant instants of a start-stop modulation.
The degree of distortion of a start-stop modulation (or demodulation) is usually expressed as a percentage. Distinction can be made between the degree of late (positive) distortion and the degree of early (negative) distortion.
References
Telecommunications engineering
Data transmission |
41123 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape%20character | Escape character | In computing and telecommunication, an escape character is a character that invokes an alternative interpretation on the following characters in a character sequence. An escape character is a particular case of metacharacters. Generally, the judgement of whether something is an escape character or not depends on the context.
In the telecommunications field, escape characters are used to indicate that the following characters are encoded differently. This is used to alter control characters that would otherwise be noticed and acted on by the underlying telecommunications hardware. In this context, the use of escape characters is often referred to as quoting.
Definition
An escape character may not have its own meaning, so all escape sequences are of two or more characters.
Escape characters are part of the syntax for many programming languages, data formats, and communication protocols. For a given alphabet an escape character's purpose is to start character sequences (so named escape sequences), which have to be interpreted differently from the same characters occurring without the prefixed escape character.
The functions of escape sequences include:
To encode a syntactic entity, such as device commands or special data, which cannot be directly represented by the alphabet.
To represent characters, referred to as character quoting, which cannot be typed in the current context, or would have an undesired interpretation. In this case, an escape sequence is a digraph consisting of an escape character itself and a "quoted" character.
Control character
Generally, an escape character is not a particular case of (device) control characters, nor vice versa. If we define control characters as non-graphic, or as having a special meaning for an output device (e.g. printer or text terminal) then any escape character for this device is a control one. But escape characters used in programming (such as the backslash, "\") are graphic, hence are not control characters. Conversely most (but not all) of the ASCII "control characters" have some control function in isolation, therefore they are not escape characters.
In many programming languages, an escape character also forms some escape sequences which are referred to as control characters. For example, line break has an escape sequence of .
Examples
JavaScript
JavaScript uses the (backslash) as an escape character for:
single quote
double quote
backslash
new line
carriage return
tab
backspace
form feed
vertical tab (Internet Explorer 9 and older treats as instead of a vertical tab (). If cross-browser compatibility is a concern, use instead of .)
null character (U+0000 NULL) (only if the next character is not a decimal digit; else it is an octal escape sequence)
character represented by the hexadecimal byte "FF"
The and escapes are not allowed in JSON strings.
Example code:console.log("Using \\n \nWill shift the characters after \\n one row down")
console.log("Using \\t \twill shift the characters after \\t one tab length to the right")
console.log("Using \\r \rWill imitate a carriage return, which means shifting to the start of the row") // can be used to clear the screen on some terminals. Windows uses \r\n instead of \n alone
ASCII escape character
The ASCII "escape" character (octal: , hexadecimal: , or , or, in decimal, ) is used in many output devices to start a series of characters called a control sequence or escape sequence. Typically, the escape character was sent first in such a sequence to alert the device that the following characters were to be interpreted as a control sequence rather than as plain characters, then one or more characters would follow to specify some detailed action, after which the device would go back to interpreting characters normally. For example, the sequence of , followed by the printable characters , would cause a DEC VT102 terminal to move its cursor to the 10th cell of the 2nd line of the screen. This was later developed to ANSI escape codes covered by the ANSI X3.64 standard. The escape character also starts each command sequence in the Hewlett-Packard Printer Command Language.
An early reference to the term "escape character" is found in Bob Bemer's IBM technical publications, who is credited with inventing this mechanism during his work on the ASCII character set.
The Escape key is usually found on standard PC keyboards. However, it is commonly absent from keyboards for PDAs and other devices not designed primarily for ASCII communications. The DEC VT220 series was one of the few popular keyboards that did not have a dedicated Esc key, instead of using one of the keys above the main keypad. In user interfaces of the 1970s–1980s it was not uncommon to use this key as an escape character, but in modern desktop computers, such use is dropped. Sometimes the key was identified with AltMode (for alternative mode). Even with no dedicated key, the escape character code could be generated by typing while simultaneously holding down .
Programming and data formats
Many modern programming languages specify the double-quote character () as a delimiter for a string literal. The backslash () escape character typically provides two ways to include double-quotes inside a string literal, either by modifying the meaning of the double-quote character embedded in the string ( becomes ), or by modifying the meaning of a sequence of characters including the hexadecimal value of a double-quote character ( becomes ).
C, C++, Java, and Ruby all allow exactly the same two backslash escape styles. The PostScript language and Microsoft Rich Text Format also use backslash escapes. The quoted-printable encoding uses the equals sign as an escape character.
URL and URI use %-escapes to quote characters with a special meaning, as for non-ASCII characters. The ampersand () character may be considered as an escape character in SGML and derived formats such as HTML and XML.
Some programming languages also provide other ways to represent special characters in literals, without requiring an escape character (see e.g. delimiter collision).
Communication protocols
The Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) uses the octet (, or ASCII: ) as an escape character. The octet immediately following should be XORed by before being passed to a higher level protocol. This is applied to both itself and the control character (which is used in PPP to mark the beginning and end of a frame) when those octets need to be transmitted by a higher level protocol encapsulated by PPP, as well as other octets negotiated when the link is established. That is, when a higher level protocol wishes to transmit , it is transmitted as the sequence , and is transmitted as .
Bourne shell
In Bourne shell (sh), the asterisk () and question mark () characters are wildcard characters expanded via globbing. Without a preceding escape character, an will expand to the names of all files in the working directory that do not start with a period if and only if there are such files, otherwise remains unexpanded. So to refer to a file literally called "*", the shell must be told not to interpret it in this way, by preceding it with a backslash (). This modifies the interpretation of the asterisk (). Compare:
Windows Command Prompt
The Windows command-line interpreter uses a caret character () to escape reserved characters that have special meanings (in particular: , , , , , , ). The DOS command-line interpreter, though it has similar syntax, does not support this.
For example, on the Windows Command Prompt, this will result in a syntax error.
C:\>echo <hello world>
The syntax of the command is incorrect.whereas this will output the string:
C:\>echo ^<hello world^>
<hello world>
Windows PowerShell
In Windows, the backslash is used as a path separator; therefore, it generally cannot be used as an escape character. PowerShell uses backtick ( ` ) instead.
For example, the following command:
PS C:\> echo "`tFirst line`nNew line"
First line
New line
Others
Quoted-printable, which encodes 8-bit data into 7-bit data of limited line lengths, uses the equals sign () as an escape character.
See also
AltGr key used to type characters that are unusual for the locale of the keyboard layout.
Escape sequences in C
Leaning toothpick syndrome
Nested quotation
Stropping (syntax) – in some conventions a leading character (such as an apostrophe) functions as an escape character
References
External links
That Powerful ESCAPE Character -- Key and Sequences – Bob Bemer
Pattern matching
Control characters |
41229 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handshake%20%28computing%29 | Handshake (computing) | In computing, a handshake is a signal between two devices or programs, used to, e.g., authenticate, coordinate. An example is the handshaking between a hypervisor and an application in a guest virtual machine.
In telecommunications, a handshake is an automated process of negotiation between two participants (example "Alice and Bob") through the exchange of information that establishes the protocols of a communication link at the start of the communication, before full communication begins. The handshaking process usually takes place in order to establish rules for communication when a computer attempts to communicate with another device. Signals are usually exchanged between two devices to establish a communication link. For example, when a computer communicates with another device such as a modem, the two devices will signal each other that they are switched on and ready to work, as well as to agree to which protocols are being used.
Handshaking can negotiate parameters that are acceptable to equipment and systems at both ends of the communication channel, including information transfer rate, coding alphabet, parity, interrupt procedure, and other protocol or hardware features.
Handshaking is a technique of communication between two entities. However, within TCP/IP RFCs, the term "handshake" is most commonly used to reference the TCP three-way handshake. For example, the term "handshake" is not present in RFCs covering FTP or SMTP. One exception is Transport Layer Security, TLS, setup, FTP RFC 4217. In place of the term "handshake", FTP RFC 3659 substitutes the term "conversation" for the passing of commands.
A simple handshaking protocol might only involve the receiver sending a message meaning "I received your last message and I am ready for you to send me another one." A more complex handshaking protocol might allow the sender to ask the receiver if it is ready to receive or for the receiver to reply with a negative acknowledgement meaning "I did not receive your last message correctly, please resend it" (e.g., if the data was corrupted en route).
Handshaking facilitates connecting relatively heterogeneous systems or equipment over a communication channel without the need for human intervention to set parameters.
Example
TCP three-way handshake
Establishing a normal TCP connection requires three separate steps:
The first host (Alice) sends the second host (Bob) a "synchronize" (SYN) message with its own sequence number , which Bob receives.
Bob replies with a synchronize-acknowledgment (SYN-ACK) message with its own sequence number and acknowledgement number , which Alice receives.
Alice replies with an acknowledgment (ACK) message with acknowledgement number , which Bob receives and to which he doesn't need to reply.
In this setup, the synchronize messages act as service requests from one server to the other, while the acknowledgement messages return to the requesting server to let it know the message was received.
The reason for the client and server not using a default sequence number such as 0 for establishing the connection is to protect against two incarnations of the same connection reusing the same sequence number too soon, which means a segment from an earlier incarnation of a connection might interfere with a later incarnation of the connection.
SMTP
The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is the key Internet standard for email transmission. It includes handshaking to negotiate authentication, encryption and maximum message size.
TLS handshake
When a Transport Layer Security (SSL or TLS) connection starts, the record encapsulates a "control" protocol—the handshake messaging protocol (content type 22). This protocol is used to exchange all the information required by both sides for the exchange of the actual application data by TLS. It defines the messages formatting or containing this information and the order of their exchange. These may vary according to the demands of the client and server—i.e., there are several possible procedures to set up the connection. This initial exchange results in a successful TLS connection (both parties ready to transfer application data with TLS) or an alert message (as specified below).
The protocol is used to negotiate the secure attributes of a session. (RFC 5246, p. 37)
WPA2 wireless
The WPA2 standard for wireless uses a four-way handshake defined in IEEE 802.11i-2004.
Dial-up access modems
One classic example of handshaking is that of dial-up modems, which typically negotiate communication parameters for a brief period when a connection is first established, and there after use those parameters to provide optimal information transfer over the channel as a function of its quality and capacity. The "squealing" (which is actually a sound that changes in pitch 100 times every second) noises made by some modems with speaker output immediately after a connection is established are in fact the sounds of modems at both ends engaging in a handshaking procedure; once the procedure is completed, the speaker might be silenced, depending on the settings of operating system or the application controlling the modem.
Serial "Hardware Handshaking"
This frequently used term describes the use of RTS and CTS signals over a serial interconnection. It is, however, not quite correct; it's not a true form of handshaking, and is better described as flow control.
Mobile device charging
In mobile device chargers offering special quick-charge abilities to supported devices, the charging process will switch up to a higher output voltage for increased power transfer. But this could cause serious damage to an unsupported device or even result in a fire. It is therefore very important for the device and charger to first perform a handshake to "agree" on mutually supported charge parameters. If such a charger can't identify the connected device or determine its compatibility, it will default to normal but much slower charge parameters within the USB standard.
References
Data transmission
Network architecture
Network protocols
de:Datenflusssteuerung |
41345 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main%20lobe | Main lobe | In a radio antenna's radiation pattern, the main lobe, or main beam, is the lobe containing the higher power. This is the lobe that exhibits the greater field strength.
The radiation pattern of most antennas shows a pattern of "lobes" at various angles, directions where the radiated signal strength reaches a maximum, separated by "nulls", angles at which the radiation falls to zero. In a directional antenna in which the objective is to emit the radio waves in one direction, the lobe in that direction is designed to have higher field strength than the others, so on a graph of the radiation pattern it appears biggest; this is the main lobe. The other lobes are called "sidelobes", and usually represent unwanted radiation in undesired directions. The sidelobe in the opposite direction from the main lobe is called the "backlobe".
The radiation pattern referred to above is usually the horizontal radiation pattern, which is plotted as a function of azimuth about the antenna, although the vertical radiation pattern may also have a main lobe. The beamwidth of the antenna is the width of the main lobe, usually specified by the half power beam width (HPBW), the angle encompassed between the points on the side of the lobe where the power has fallen to half (-3 dB) of its maximum value.
The concepts of main lobe and sidelobes also apply to acoustics and optics, and are used to describe the radiation pattern of optical systems like telescopes, and acoustic transducers like microphones and loudspeakers.
See also
Side lobe
Beamwidth
Software defined antenna
Antennas |
41477 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overmodulation | Overmodulation | Overmodulation is the condition that prevails in telecommunication when the instantaneous level of the modulating signal exceeds the value necessary to produce 100% modulation of the carrier. In the sense of this definition, it is almost always considered a fault condition. In layman's terms, the signal is going "off the scale". Overmodulation results in spurious emissions by the modulated carrier, and distortion of the recovered modulating signal. This means that the envelope of the output waveform is distorted.
Although overmodulation is sometimes considered permissible, it should not occur in practice; a distorted waveform envelope will result in a distorted output signal of the receiving medium.
References
See also
Clipping (audio)
Overshoot (signal)
Automatic gain control
Telecommunication theory
Radio modulation modes |
41606 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse%20link%20repeater | Pulse link repeater | In telecommunications, a pulse link repeater (PLR) is a device that interfaces concatenated E and M signaling paths.
A PLR converts a ground, received from the E lead of one signal path, to −48 VDC, which is applied to the M lead of the concatenated signal path.
In many commercial carrier systems, the channel bank cards or modules have a "PLR" option that permits the direct concatenation of E&M signaling paths, without the need for separate PLR equipment.
References
Telecommunications equipment |
41712 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplex%20signaling | Simplex signaling | Simplex signaling (SX) is signaling in which two conductors are used for a single telecommunication circuit, and a center-tapped coil, or its equivalent, is used to split the signaling current equally between the two conductors. The return path for the current is through ground.
It is distinct from a phantom circuit in which the return current path for power or signaling is provided through different signal conductors.
SX signaling may be one-way, for intra-central-office use, or the simplex legs may be connected to form full duplex signaling circuits that function like composite (CX) signaling circuits with E&M lead control.
Simplex is also used to describe a powering method where one or more signal conductors carries direct current to power a remote device, which sends its output signal back on the same conductor. Phantom powering as used in audio is a form of simplex powering, as the return current flows through the ground or shield conductor.
References
Telephony signals |
41829 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA%20product%20types | NSA product types | The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) used to rank cryptographic products or algorithms by a certification called product types. Product types were defined in the National Information Assurance Glossary (CNSSI No. 4009, 2010) which used to define Type 1, 2, 3, and 4 products. The definitions of numeric type products have been removed from the government lexicon and are no longer used in government procurement efforts.
Type 1 product
A Type 1 product was a device or system certified by NSA for use in cryptographically securing classified U.S. Government information. A Type 1 product was defined as:
Cryptographic equipment, assembly or component classified or certified by NSA for encrypting and decrypting classified and sensitive national security information when appropriately keyed. Developed using established NSA business processes and containing NSA approved algorithms. Used to protect systems requiring the most stringent protection mechanisms.
They were available to U.S. Government users, their contractors, and federally sponsored non-U.S. Government activities subject to export restrictions in accordance with International Traffic in Arms Regulations.
Type 1 certification was a rigorous process that included testing and formal analysis of (among other things) cryptographic security, functional security, tamper resistance, emissions security (EMSEC/TEMPEST), and security of the product manufacturing and distribution process.
Type 2 product
A Type 2 product was unclassified cryptographic equipment, assemblies, or components, endorsed by the NSA, for use in telecommunications and automated information systems for the protection of national security information, as defined as:
Cryptographic equipment, assembly, or component certified by NSA for encrypting or decrypting sensitive national security information when appropriately keyed. Developed using established NSA business processes and containing NSA approved algorithms. Used to protect systems requiring protection mechanisms exceeding best commercial practices including systems used for the protection of unclassified national security information.
Type 3 product
A Type 3 product was a device for use with Sensitive, But Unclassified (SBU) information on non-national security systems, defined as:
Unclassified cryptographic equipment, assembly, or component used, when appropriately keyed, for encrypting or decrypting unclassified sensitive U.S. Government or commercial information, and to protect systems requiring protection mechanisms consistent with standard commercial practices. Developed using established commercial standards and containing NIST approved cryptographic algorithms/modules or successfully evaluated by the National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP).
Approved encryption algorithms included three-key Triple DES, and AES (although AES can also be used in NSA-certified Type 1 products). Approvals for DES, two-key Triple DES and Skipjack have been withdrawn as of 2015.
Type 4 product
A Type 4 product was an encryption algorithm that was registered with NIST but is not a Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS), defined as:
Unevaluated commercial cryptographic equipment, assemblies, or components that neither NSA nor NIST certify for any Government usage. These products are typically delivered as part of commercial offerings and are commensurate with the vendor’s commercial practices. These products may contain either vendor proprietary algorithms, algorithms registered by NIST, or algorithms registered by NIST and published in a FIPS.
See also
NSA encryption systems, for a historically oriented list of NSA encryption products (most of them Type 1).
NSA cryptography for algorithms that NSA has participated in the development of.
NSA Suite B Cryptography
NSA Suite A Cryptography
References
Parts of this article have been derived from Federal Standard 1037C, the National Information Systems Security Glossary, and 40 USC 1452.
Cryptographic algorithms
National Security Agency encryption devices |
41980 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard%20Riemann | Bernhard Riemann | Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann (; 17 September 1826 – 20 July 1866) was a German mathematician who made profound contributions to analysis, number theory, and differential geometry. In the field of real analysis, he is mostly known for the first rigorous formulation of the integral, the Riemann integral, and his work on Fourier series. His contributions to complex analysis include most notably the introduction of Riemann surfaces, breaking new ground in a natural, geometric treatment of complex analysis. His 1859 paper on the prime-counting function, containing the original statement of the Riemann hypothesis, is regarded as a foundational paper of analytic number theory. Through his pioneering contributions to differential geometry, Riemann laid the foundations of the mathematics of general relativity. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest mathematicians of all time.
Biography
Early years
Riemann was born on 17 September 1826 in Breselenz, a village near Dannenberg in the Kingdom of Hanover. His father, Friedrich Bernhard Riemann, was a poor Lutheran pastor in Breselenz who fought in the Napoleonic Wars. His mother, Charlotte Ebell, died before her children had reached adulthood. Riemann was the second of six children, shy and suffering from numerous nervous breakdowns. Riemann exhibited exceptional mathematical talent, such as calculation abilities, from an early age but suffered from timidity and a fear of speaking in public.
Education
During 1840, Riemann went to Hanover to live with his grandmother and attend lyceum (middle school years). After the death of his grandmother in 1842, he attended high school at the Johanneum Lüneburg. In high school, Riemann studied the Bible intensively, but he was often distracted by mathematics. His teachers were amazed by his ability to perform complicated mathematical operations, in which he often outstripped his instructor's knowledge. In 1846, at the age of 19, he started studying philology and Christian theology in order to become a pastor and help with his family's finances.
During the spring of 1846, his father, after gathering enough money, sent Riemann to the University of Göttingen, where he planned to study towards a degree in theology. However, once there, he began studying mathematics under Carl Friedrich Gauss (specifically his lectures on the method of least squares). Gauss recommended that Riemann give up his theological work and enter the mathematical field; after getting his father's approval, Riemann transferred to the University of Berlin in 1847. During his time of study, Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, Jakob Steiner, and Gotthold Eisenstein were teaching. He stayed in Berlin for two years and returned to Göttingen in 1849.
Academia
Riemann held his first lectures in 1854, which founded the field of Riemannian geometry and thereby set the stage for Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. In 1857, there was an attempt to promote Riemann to extraordinary professor status at the University of Göttingen. Although this attempt failed, it did result in Riemann finally being granted a regular salary. In 1859, following the death of Dirichlet (who held Gauss's chair at the University of Göttingen), he was promoted to head the mathematics department at the University of Göttingen. He was also the first to suggest using dimensions higher than merely three or four in order to describe physical reality.
In 1862 he married Elise Koch and they had a daughter Ida Schilling who was born on 22 December 1862.
Protestant family and death in Italy
Riemann fled Göttingen when the armies of Hanover and Prussia clashed there in 1866. He died of tuberculosis during his third journey to Italy in Selasca (now a hamlet of Verbania on Lake Maggiore) where he was buried in the cemetery in Biganzolo (Verbania).
Riemann was a dedicated Christian, the son of a Protestant minister, and saw his life as a mathematician as another way to serve God. During his life, he held closely to his Christian faith and considered it to be the most important aspect of his life. At the time of his death, he was reciting the Lord's Prayer with his wife and died before they finished saying the prayer. Meanwhile, in Göttingen his housekeeper discarded some of the papers in his office, including much unpublished work. Riemann refused to publish incomplete work, and some deep insights may have been lost forever.
Riemann's tombstone in Biganzolo (Italy) refers to :
Riemannian geometry
Riemann's published works opened up research areas combining analysis with geometry. These would subsequently become major parts of the theories of Riemannian geometry, algebraic geometry, and complex manifold theory. The theory of Riemann surfaces was elaborated by Felix Klein and particularly Adolf Hurwitz. This area of mathematics is part of the foundation of topology and is still being applied in novel ways to mathematical physics.
In 1853, Gauss asked Riemann, his student, to prepare a Habilitationsschrift on the foundations of geometry. Over many months, Riemann developed his theory of higher dimensions and delivered his lecture at Göttingen in 1854 entitled Ueber die Hypothesen, welche der Geometrie zu Grunde liegen. It was not published until twelve years later in 1868 by Dedekind, two years after his death. Its early reception appears to have been slow, but it is now recognized as one of the most important works in geometry.
The subject founded by this work is Riemannian geometry. Riemann found the correct way to extend into n dimensions the differential geometry of surfaces, which Gauss himself proved in his theorema egregium. The fundamental objects are called the Riemannian metric and the Riemann curvature tensor. For the surface (two-dimensional) case, the curvature at each point can be reduced to a number (scalar), with the surfaces of constant positive or negative curvature being models of the non-Euclidean geometries.
The Riemann metric is a collection of numbers at every point in space (i.e., a tensor) which allows measurements of speed in any trajectory, whose integral gives the distance between the trajectory's endpoints. For example, Riemann found that in four spatial dimensions, one needs ten numbers at each point to describe distances and curvatures on a manifold, no matter how distorted it is.
Complex analysis
In his dissertation, he established a geometric foundation for complex analysis through Riemann surfaces, through which multi-valued functions like the logarithm (with infinitely many sheets) or the square root (with two sheets) could become one-to-one functions. Complex functions are harmonic functions (that is, they satisfy Laplace's equation and thus the Cauchy–Riemann equations) on these surfaces and are described by the location of their singularities and the topology of the surfaces. The topological "genus" of the Riemann surfaces is given by , where the surface has leaves coming together at branch points. For the Riemann surface has parameters (the "moduli").
His contributions to this area are numerous. The famous Riemann mapping theorem says that a simply connected domain in the complex plane is "biholomorphically equivalent" (i.e. there is a bijection between them that is holomorphic with a holomorphic inverse) to either or to the interior of the unit circle. The generalization of the theorem to Riemann surfaces is the famous uniformization theorem, which was proved in the 19th century by Henri Poincaré and Felix Klein. Here, too, rigorous proofs were first given after the development of richer mathematical tools (in this case, topology). For the proof of the existence of functions on Riemann surfaces he used a minimality condition, which he called the Dirichlet principle. Karl Weierstrass found a gap in the proof: Riemann had not noticed that his working assumption (that the minimum existed) might not work; the function space might not be complete, and therefore the existence of a minimum was not guaranteed. Through the work of David Hilbert in the Calculus of Variations, the Dirichlet principle was finally established. Otherwise, Weierstrass was very impressed with Riemann, especially with his theory of abelian functions. When Riemann's work appeared, Weierstrass withdrew his paper from Crelle's Journal and did not publish it. They had a good understanding when Riemann visited him in Berlin in 1859. Weierstrass encouraged his student Hermann Amandus Schwarz to find alternatives to the Dirichlet principle in complex analysis, in which he was successful. An anecdote from Arnold Sommerfeld shows the difficulties which contemporary mathematicians had with Riemann's new ideas. In 1870, Weierstrass had taken Riemann's dissertation with him on a holiday to Rigi and complained that it was hard to understand. The physicist Hermann von Helmholtz assisted him in the work over night and returned with the comment that it was "natural" and "very understandable".
Other highlights include his work on abelian functions and theta functions on Riemann surfaces. Riemann had been in a competition with Weierstrass since 1857 to solve the Jacobian inverse problems for abelian integrals, a generalization of elliptic integrals. Riemann used theta functions in several variables and reduced the problem to the determination of the zeros of these theta functions. Riemann also investigated period matrices and characterized them through the "Riemannian period relations" (symmetric, real part negative). By Ferdinand Georg Frobenius and Solomon Lefschetz the validity of this relation is equivalent with the embedding of (where is the lattice of the period matrix) in a projective space by means of theta functions. For certain values of , this is the Jacobian variety of the Riemann surface, an example of an abelian manifold.
Many mathematicians such as Alfred Clebsch furthered Riemann's work on algebraic curves. These theories depended on the properties of a function defined on Riemann surfaces. For example, the Riemann–Roch theorem (Roch was a student of Riemann) says something about the number of linearly independent differentials (with known conditions on the zeros and poles) of a Riemann surface.
According to Detlef Laugwitz, automorphic functions appeared for the first time in an essay about the Laplace equation on electrically charged cylinders. Riemann however used such functions for conformal maps (such as mapping topological triangles to the circle) in his 1859 lecture on hypergeometric functions or in his treatise on minimal surfaces.
Real analysis
In the field of real analysis, he discovered the Riemann integral in his habilitation. Among other things, he showed that every piecewise continuous function is integrable. Similarly, the Stieltjes integral goes back to the Göttinger mathematician, and so they are named together the Riemann–Stieltjes integral.
In his habilitation work on Fourier series, where he followed the work of his teacher Dirichlet, he showed that Riemann-integrable functions are "representable" by Fourier series. Dirichlet has shown this for continuous, piecewise-differentiable functions (thus with countably many non-differentiable points). Riemann gave an example of a Fourier series representing a continuous, almost nowhere-differentiable function, a case not covered by Dirichlet. He also proved the Riemann–Lebesgue lemma: if a function is representable by a Fourier series, then the Fourier coefficients go to zero for large n.
Riemann's essay was also the starting point for Georg Cantor's work with Fourier series, which was the impetus for set theory.
He also worked with hypergeometric differential equations in 1857 using complex analytical methods and presented the solutions through the behavior of closed paths about singularities (described by the monodromy matrix). The proof of the existence of such differential equations by previously known monodromy matrices is one of the Hilbert problems.
Number theory
Riemann made some famous contributions to modern analytic number theory. In a single short paper, the only one he published on the subject of number theory, he investigated the zeta function that now bears his name, establishing its importance for understanding the distribution of prime numbers. The Riemann hypothesis was one of a series of conjectures he made about the function's properties.
In Riemann's work, there are many more interesting developments. He proved the functional equation for the zeta function (already known to Leonhard Euler), behind which a theta function lies. Through the summation of this approximation function over the non-trivial zeros on the line with real portion 1/2, he gave an exact, "explicit formula" for .
Riemann knew of Pafnuty Chebyshev's work on the Prime Number Theorem. He had visited Dirichlet in 1852.
Writings
Riemann's works include:
1851 – Grundlagen für eine allgemeine Theorie der Functionen einer veränderlichen complexen Grösse, Inauguraldissertation, Göttingen, 1851.
1857 – Theorie der Abelschen Functionen, Journal fur die reine und angewandte Mathematik, Bd. 54. S. 101–155.
1859 – Über die Anzahl der Primzahlen unter einer gegebenen Größe, in: Monatsberichte der Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berlin, November 1859, S. 671ff. With Riemann's conjecture. Über die Anzahl der Primzahlen unter einer gegebenen Grösse. (Wikisource), Facsimile of the manuscript with Clay Mathematics.
1861 – Commentatio mathematica, qua respondere tentatur quaestioni ab Illma Academia Parisiensi propositae, submitted to the Paris Academy for a prize competition
1867 – Über die Darstellbarkeit einer Function durch eine trigonometrische Reihe, Aus dem dreizehnten Bande der Abhandlungen der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen.
1868 – Über die Hypothesen, welche der Geometrie zugrunde liegen. Abh. Kgl. Ges. Wiss., Göttingen 1868. Translation EMIS, pdfOn the hypotheses which lie at the foundation of geometry, translated by W.K.Clifford, Nature 8 1873 183 – reprinted in Clifford's Collected Mathematical Papers, London 1882 (MacMillan); New York 1968 (Chelsea) http://www.emis.de/classics/Riemann/. Also in Ewald, William B., ed., 1996 "From Kant to Hilbert: A Source Book in the Foundations of Mathematics", 2 vols. Oxford Uni. Press: 652–61.
1876 – Berhard Riemann's Gesammelte Mathematische Werke und wissenschaftlicher Nachlass. herausgegeben von Heinrich Weber unter Mitwirkung von Richard Dedekind, Leipzig, B. G. Teubner 1876, 2. Auflage 1892, Nachdruck bei Dover 1953 (with contributions by Max Noether and Wilhelm Wirtinger, Teubner 1902). Later editions The collected works of Bernhard Riemann: the complete German texts. Eds. Heinrich Weber; Richard Dedekind; M Noether; Wilhelm Wirtinger; Hans Lewy. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1953, 1981, 2017
1876 – Schwere, Elektrizität und Magnetismus, Hannover: Karl Hattendorff.
1882 – Vorlesungen über Partielle Differentialgleichungen 3. Auflage. Braunschweig 1882.
1901 – Die partiellen Differential-Gleichungen der mathematischen Physik nach Riemann's Vorlesungen''. PDF on Wikimedia Commons. On archive.org:
2004 –
See also
List of things named after Bernhard Riemann
Non-Euclidean geometry
On the Number of Primes Less Than a Given Magnitude, Riemann's 1859 paper introducing the complex zeta function
References
Further reading
.
.
External links
The Mathematical Papers of Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann
Riemann's publications at emis.de
Bernhard Riemann – one of the most important mathematicians
Bernhard Riemann's inaugural lecture
Richard Dedekind (1892), Transcripted by D. R. Wilkins, Riemanns biography.
1826 births
1866 deaths
19th-century deaths from tuberculosis
19th-century German mathematicians
Differential geometers
Foreign Members of the Royal Society
German Lutherans
Tuberculosis deaths in Italy
People from the Kingdom of Hanover
University of Göttingen alumni
Academic staff of the University of Göttingen
Infectious disease deaths in Piedmont |
42148 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dustin%20Hoffman | Dustin Hoffman | Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor. As one of the key actors in the formation of New Hollywood, Hoffman is known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable characters. He is the recipient of numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, and two Primetime Emmy Awards. Hoffman has received numerous honors including the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1997, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1999, and the Kennedy Center Honors Award in 2012. Actor Robert De Niro described him as "an actor with the everyman's face who embodied the heartbreakingly human".
Hoffman studied at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music before he decided to go into acting, for which he trained at the Pasadena Playhouse. He received two Academy Awards for Best Actor for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), and Rain Man (1988). His other Oscar-nominated roles were for The Graduate (1967), Midnight Cowboy (1969), Lenny (1975), Tootsie (1982), and Wag the Dog (1997). Other notable roles include in Little Big Man (1970), Papillon (1973), Marathon Man (1976), All the President's Men (1976), Ishtar (1987), Dick Tracy (1990), and Hook (1991).
In the 21st century, Hoffman has appeared in films such as Finding Neverland (2004), I Heart Huckabees (2004), and Stranger than Fiction (2006), as well as Meet the Fockers (2004) and the sequel Little Fockers (2010), and The Meyerowitz Stories (2017). Hoffman has done voice work for The Tale of Despereaux (2008) and the Kung Fu Panda film series (2008–2016). In 2012, he made his directorial debut with Quartet.
Hoffman made his Broadway debut in the 1961 play A Cook for Mr. General. He subsequently starred as Willy Loman in the 1984 revival of Death of a Salesman and reprised the role a year later in a television film earning a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. In 1989 he received a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play nomination for his role as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. He received three Drama Desk Awards for his performances in Eh? (1967), Jimmy Shine (1969) and Death of A Salesman (1984).
Early life and education
Dustin Lee Hoffman was born on August 8, 1937, in Los Angeles, California, the younger of two sons of Harry Hoffman (1908–1987) and Lillian (née Gold; 1909–1982). His father worked as a prop supervisor (set decorator) at Columbia Pictures before becoming a furniture salesman.
Hoffman was named after stage and silent screen actor Dustin Farnum. He has an elder brother Ronald, who is a lawyer and economist. Hoffman is Jewish, from an Ashkenazi Jewish family of immigrants from Kyiv, Ukraine (then a part of the Russian Empire), and Iași, Romania. The family's surname was spelled Гойхман (Goikhman) in the Russian Empire.
His upbringing was nonreligious, and he has said, "I don't have any memory of celebrating holidays growing up that were Jewish", and that he had "realized" he was Jewish at around the age of 10.
Hoffman graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1955 and enrolled at Santa Monica College with the intention of studying medicine. But he decided to become an actor, leaving the next year to join the Pasadena Playhouse, although when he told his family about his career goal, his Aunt Pearl warned him, "You can't be an actor. You are not good-looking enough." He also studied with Lee Strasberg and has stated that he did not study with either Sanford Meisner or Stella Adler.
Hoffman initially hoped to become a classical pianist, having studied piano during much of his youth and in college. While at Santa Monica College, he also took an acting class, which he assumed would be easy, and "caught the acting bug". He recalls: "I just was not gifted in music. I did not have an ear." Now an aspiring actor, he spent the next ten years doing odd jobs, being unemployed, and struggling to get any available acting roles, a lifestyle he was later to portray in the comedy film Tootsie. Hoffman composed a song called "Shooting the Breeze", alongside Bette Midler who wrote the words.
Stage career
His first acting role was at the Pasadena Playhouse, alongside future Academy Award–winner Gene Hackman. After two years there, Hackman headed for New York City, with Hoffman soon following. Hoffman, Hackman, and Robert Duvall lived together in the 1960s, whilst all three of them focused on finding acting jobs. Hackman remembers, "The idea that any of us would do well in films simply didn't occur to us. We just wanted to work". Hoffman's appearance—Duvall described him as Barbra Streisand in drag—and small size made him uncastable, Vanity Fair later wrote. During this period, Hoffman got occasional television bit parts, including commercials but, needing income, he briefly left acting to teach.
He then studied at Actors Studio and became a dedicated method actor. In 1960 Hoffman was cast in a role in an off-Broadway production and followed with a bit part in his Broadway debut in production, A Cook for Mr. General (1961). In 1962, appeared in Rabbit Run Theatre's summer stock production of Write Me A Murder in Madison, Ohio and served as an assistant director to Ulu Grosbard on The Days and Nights of Beebee Fenstermaker at off-Broadway's Sheridan Square Playhouse. In 1964, Hoffman appeared in Three Men on a Horse at Princeton's McCarter Theatre and in 1965, in off-Broadway's Harry, Noon and Night with Joel Grey. Grosbard and Hoffman reunited for a 1965 recording of Death of a Salesman starring Lee J. Cobb and Mildred Dunnock, with Hoffman playing Bernard. He was assistant director for Grosbard's 1965 off-Broadway production of A View from the Bridge starring Robert Duvall and Jon Voight and in late 1965, stage managed and appeared in Grosbard's The Subject Was Roses on Broadway. Hoffman's "sharply outlined and vividly colored" performance in off-Broadway's The Journey of the Fifth Horse in April 1966 was followed by another critical success in the play Eh?, by Henry Livings, which had its U.S. premiere at the Circle in the Square Theatre on October 16, 1966. Sidney W. Pink, a producer and 3D-movie pioneer, discovered Hoffman in one of his off-Broadway roles and cast him in Madigan's Millions. Through the early and mid-1960s, Hoffman made appearances in television shows and movies, including Naked City, The Defenders and Hallmark Hall of Fame.
He starred in the 1966 off-Broadway play Eh?, for which he received a Drama Desk Award.
Hoffman made his film debut in The Tiger Makes Out in 1967, alongside Eli Wallach. In 1967, immediately after wrapping up principal filming on The Tiger Makes Out, Hoffman flew from New York City to Fargo, North Dakota, where he directed productions of William Gibson's Two for the Seesaw and William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life for the Fargo-Moorhead Community Theatre. The $1,000 he received for the eight-week contract was all he had to hold him over until the funds from the movie materialized.
Film career
1960s
In 1966, director Mike Nichols auditioned Hoffman for a lead role in the Broadway musical The Apple Tree but rejected him because he could not sing well enough and gave Alan Alda the part. But Nichols was so impressed with Hoffman's overall audition he cast him as the male lead in the movie The Graduate (1967). Hoffman played the character of Benjamin Braddock, a recent college graduate who has an affair with Mrs. Robinson, the wife of his father's law partner. This was Hoffman's first major role, and he received an Academy Award nomination for it but lost to Rod Steiger for In the Heat of the Night.
Although Life magazine joked that "if Dustin Hoffman's face were his fortune, he'd be committed to a life of poverty", The Graduate was a gigantic box office hit for Embassy Pictures, making Hoffman a major new star at the same time. The film received near-unanimous good reviews. Time magazine called Hoffman "a symbol of youth" who represented "a new breed of actors". The film's screenwriter, Buck Henry, notes that Hoffman's character made conventional good looks no longer necessary on screen:
Hoffman's success amazed friends from his early years as an actor, who told him "You were the last one I expected to make it". Biographer Jeff Lenburg wrote that "newspapers across the country were deluged with thousands of letters from fans", with one example published in The New York Times: "I identified with Ben. ... I thought of him as a spiritual brother. He was confused about his future and about his place in the world, as I am. It's a film one digs, rather than understands intellectually".
Turner Classic Movies critic Rob Nixon notes that Hoffman represented "a new generation of actors". He credits Hoffman with breaking "the mold of the traditional movie star and brought to their roles a new candor, ethnicity, and eagerness to dive deep into complex, even unlikable characters." Nixon expands on the significance of the film to Hoffman's career: "In The Graduate, he created a lasting resonance as Ben Braddock that made him an overnight sensation and set him on the road to becoming one of our biggest stars and most respected actors."
Hoffman, however, mostly credits director Mike Nichols for taking a great risk in giving him, a relative unknown, the starring role: "I don't know of another instance of a director at the height of his powers who would take a chance and cast someone like me in that part. It took tremendous courage."
Critic Sam Kashner observed strong similarities between Hoffman's character and that of Nichols when he previously acted with Elaine May in the comedy team of Nichols and May. "Just close your eyes and you'll hear a Mike Nichols—Elaine May routine in any number of scenes." Buck Henry also noticed that "Dustin picked up all these Nichols habits, which he used in the character. Those little noises he makes are straight from Mike", he says.
After completing The Graduate, Hoffman turned down most of the film roles offered to him, preferring to go back to New York and continue performing in live theater. He returned to Broadway to appear in the title role of the musical Jimmy Shine. Hoffman won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance.
Hoffman was paid $20,000 for his role in The Graduate, but netted just $4,000 after taxes and living expenses. After spending that money, Hoffman filed for New York State unemployment benefits, receiving $55 per week while living in a two-room apartment in the West Village of Manhattan. He was then offered the lead in Midnight Cowboy (1969), which he accepted partly to prove many critics were wrong about his acting range and the variety of characters he could portray. Peter Biskind wrote, "it was the very contrast between his preppy character in The Graduate, and Ratso Rizzo" that appealed to Hoffman. 'I had become troubled,' recalls Hoffman, 'by the reviews that I read of The Graduate, that I was not a character actor, which I like to think of myself as. It hurt me. Some of the stuff in the press was brutal.'" Critics assumed that director Mike Nichols got lucky by finding a typical actor with average acting ability to play the part of Benjamin Braddock.
John Schlesinger, who would direct Midnight Cowboy and was seeking lead actors, held that same impression. Hoffman's performance as a button-down college graduate and track star was so convincing to Schlesinger, "he seemed unable to comprehend the fact that he was acting", notes Biskind. To help the director, whom he had never met, overcome that false impression, Hoffman met him in Times Square dressed as a homeless person, wearing a dirty raincoat, his hair slicked back and with an unshaven face. Schlesinger was sold, admitting, "I've only seen you in the context of The Graduate, but you'll do quite well."
Midnight Cowboy premiered in theaters across the United States in May 1969. For his acting, Hoffman received his second Oscar nomination and the film won Best Picture. In 1994 the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Biskind considers Hoffman's acting a major accomplishment:
Also in 1969, Hoffman co-starred with Mia Farrow in the Peter Yates's romantic drama film John and Mary. He received a 1970 British Academy Film Award for Best Actor for his performance in the film, although the film received mixed reviews. He was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy Motion Picture The film was made soon after the success of Farrow's performance in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (1968), and Hoffman's performance in The Graduate which prompted them being hailed on the cover of the February 27, 1969, Time magazine as stars of their generation.
1970s
This was followed by his role in Little Big Man (1970), where Jack Crabb, his character, ages from teenager to a 121-year-old man. The film was widely praised by critics, but was overlooked for an award except for a supporting nomination for Chief Dan George. Hoffman continued to appear in major films over the next few years. Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971), Straw Dogs (also 1971), and Papillon (1973). He returned to Broadway in 1974, directing All Over Town.
Hoffman next starred in Lenny (1974), for which he was again nominated for Best Actor. Lenny was based on the life of stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce, who died at the age of 40, and was known for his open, free-style and critical form of comedy which integrated politics, religion, sex, and vulgarity. Expectations were high that Hoffman would win an Oscar for his portrayal, especially after his similar role in Midnight Cowboy. Film critic Katharine Lowry speculates that director Bob Fosse "never gave him a chance" to go far enough into developing the character. "We never understand what, besides the drugs he injected, made him tick like a time bomb", she says.
However, notes author Paul Gardner, "directing Lenny, his most ambitious project, exhausted Fosse emotionally and physically. It turned his life inside out", with shooting days often lasting 10 to 12 hours:
Hoffman initially turned the part down, saying: "I didn't think the script was strong enough and I wasn't sure I was the one to play the role." While considering the part, he read Lenny Bruce's autobiography and looked at films with Bruce performing stand-up to live audiences. In the same interview with Playboy he recounted: "I began to feel an affinity with him, a realization that there was a lot of Lenny Bruce in me. My wife felt it too ... I realized that I'd have to make use of my own spontaneity because he was so spontaneous. And I admired his guts ... That intimacy is what an actor tries to get ... It occurred to me that if I had known him, I would have wanted us to be friends ... and he was a provocateur, and I love to provoke." Movie critic Judith Crist gave Hoffman credit for the ultimate success of the film:
Lenny was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Cinematography.
All the President's Men (1976) was made less than two years after the Watergate scandal, and starred Hoffman and Robert Redford as the real-life journalists, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, respectively. Based on actual events, Hoffman and Redford play Washington Post reporters who uncover a break-in at the Watergate Hotel and end up investigating a political scandal that reaches all the way to the presidency. The film, as earlier ones, had Hoffman take on a dramatically different character than his previous one (as Lenny Bruce), although both men, Bruce and Bernstein, set their faces against abuses of institutional power, and the tendency for society to ignore such abuses. Author James Morrison compares the two roles: "As Lenny Bruce in Lenny (1974), Hoffman plays a martyr to the cause of establishment oppression, while in All the President's Men, he plays a reporter exposing presidential malfeasance."
Vincent Canby of The New York Times described the film as "a spellbinding detective story". "The strength of the movie", he added, was "the virtually day-to-day record of the way Bernstein and Woodward conducted their investigations." The characters portrayed by Hoffman and Redford shared the rank of No. 27 Hero on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains list, while Entertainment Weekly ranked All the President's Men as one of the 25 "Powerful Political Thrillers".
Hoffman next starred in Marathon Man (1976), a film based on William Goldman's novel of the same name, opposite Laurence Olivier and Roy Scheider. Its director, John Schlesinger also directed Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy in 1969. Described as "Schlesinger's thriller", by author Gene D. Phillips, Hoffman plays the hero, Babe Levy, a part-time long-distance runner and graduate student, who suddenly finds himself being pursued by a fugitive Nazi. To put himself in the mindset of someone under severe emotional distress, Hoffman did not sleep for days at a time and let his body become disheveled and unhealthy.
Goldman describes his inspiration for the novel: "What if someone close to you was something totally different from what you thought? In the story, Hoffman thinks his brother (Roy Scheider) is a businessman where the reality is that the man is a spy, who has been involved with the Nazi, Szell." However, Hoffman remembers a serious disagreement he had with Goldman, who also wrote the screenplay, about how the story ends:
Hoffman's next roles were also successful. He opted out of directing Straight Time (1978), but starred as a thief. His next film, Michael Apted's Agatha (1979), was with Vanessa Redgrave as Agatha Christie, focussing on the missing eleven days of the author's life. The part of Archie Christie was played by Timothy Dalton, then partner of Vanessa Redgrave, and later to star in James Bond movies. Dalton's depiction of cold indifference to his wife produced a perfect foil to Hoffman's portrayal of warm compassion, humor and sensitivity. The film had both romantic and comic moments whilst the overall plot cleverly mirrored one of Christie's detective novels. Agatha was generally very well received by critics, especially in the UK, and maintains an 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Hoffman next starred in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) co-starring Meryl Streep and directed by Robert Benton. The film tells the story of a married couple's divorce and its impact on everyone involved, including the couple's young son. Hoffman won his first Academy Award, and the film also received the Best Picture honor, plus the awards for Best Supporting Actress (Streep), Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
The film required Hoffman to change his attitude, from being a "desensitized advertising art director" into becoming a "responsive and concerned daddy" after his wife (Streep) walks out on him and their six-year-old son, Billy. Hoffman, during the making of the movie, was also going through his own divorce after a ten-year first marriage. Hoffman has said, "Giving myself permission not only to be present but to be a father was a kind of epiphany for me at that time, that I could get to through my work. ... I got closer to being a father by playing a father. That's very painful to say." The role also reminded him of his own love of children in general:
Benton's directing has been praised by Hoffman, who credits him for inspiring the emotional level supporting many scenes: "Perfect directors make you emotional. On Kramer vs. Kramer, Robert Benton made me emotional. He was pulling so hard for me. When I didn't think I could do a scene again I'd say, "I can't give it to you, I haven't got it." Then he'd just get this look on his face and roll the camera and I'd say, "Okay, this is yours." That's what he made you want to do for him—to give him one."
1980s
In Tootsie (1982), Hoffman portrays Michael Dorsey, a struggling actor who finds himself dressing up as a woman to land a role on a soap opera. His co-star was Jessica Lange. Tootsie earned ten Academy Award nominations, including Hoffman's fifth nomination.
Under direction by Sydney Pollack, Hoffman's role demanded "a steady bombardment of opposites—edgy then funny, romantic then realistic, soft then quivering." To film critic David Denby, Hoffman's character "embodies vulnerability and drive in perfect proportion. He has the knack of making everything he does seem perilous, and so audiences feel protective of him and root for him." Hoffman's acting was made more difficult than necessary, however, as he was not given the rehearsal time Pollack promised:
Fellow actor Gary Oldman reported that, during a telephone conversation with Hoffman, the latter recalled having made comments toward a "very powerful" industry figure who ensured that he was unable to find work in Hollywood for some time following Tootsie. In 1983, Hoffman became a Major Donor for The Mirror Theater Ltd, alongside Paul Newman and Al Pacino, matching a grant from Laurance Rockefeller. The men were inspired to invest by their connection with Lee Strasberg, as Lee's then daughter-in-law Sabra Jones was the Founder and Producing Artistic Director of The Mirror.
In 1984, Hoffman starred as Willy Loman in the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman. He reprised his role in a TV movie of the same name, for which he won the 1985 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor along with a Golden Globe.
Hoffman first read the play at the age of 16, but today considers the story much like his own: "It was a blueprint of my family. I was the loser, the flunky, and my brother, a high-school varsity football player, was Biff." Author Marie Brenner notes that Hoffman "has been obsessed with the play" throughout his career: "For years he has wanted to be Willy Loman; when he discovered that Arthur Miller was his neighbor in Connecticut, they began to talk about it in earnest." For Hoffman, the story also left a deep emotional impact from the time he first read it:
Hoffman rehearsed for three weeks with the play's original star, Lee J. Cobb, and remembers seeing his stage performance: "I'll never forget that period in my life. It was so vivid, so intense, watching Lee J. Cobb and his sixteen-inch guns as Willy. God, how I think about what I saw on that stage!" Brenner adds that Hoffman "has been training like a boxer for the role that so exhausted Cobb he had to be replaced after four months." The original play was directed by Elia Kazan, who Hoffman considers "the perfect director, the best there ever was. ... God, I would have done anything to have worked with Kazan."
Hoffman's worst film failure was Elaine May's Ishtar (1987), co-starring Warren Beatty, who also produced it. Hoffman and Beatty play two down-and-out singer-songwriters who travel to Morocco for a nightclub gig and get caught up in foreign intrigue. Much of the movie was filmed in Africa. The film faced severe production problems, mostly related to its $55 million cost, and received overwhelmingly negative reviews. However, Hoffman and Beatty liked the film's final cut and tried to defend it. Hoffman and Beatty were unaffected by the flop, and Ishtar became a cult film. Quentin Tarantino, for one, has called it one of his favorite movies, partly due to the humorous lyrics of the songs written by Paul Williams. Hoffman describes why he loves the film:
Next came director Barry Levinson's Rain Man (1988), where Hoffman starred as an autistic savant, opposite Tom Cruise. Levinson, Hoffman and Cruise worked for two years on the film, and Hoffman's performance gained him his second Academy Award. Behind Hoffman's motivation for doing the film, he has said, "Deep inside, Rain Man is about how autistic we all are." In preparation for the part, Hoffman spent two years befriending autistic people, which included taking them bowling and to fast food restaurants. "It fed my obsession", he has stated.
Hoffman worked at the New York Psychiatric Institute, affiliated with Columbia University, when he was 21. "It was a great experience for me", he said. "All my life I had wanted to get inside a prison or a mental hospital. ... I wanted to get inside where behavior, human behavior, was so exposed. All the things the rest of us were feeling and stopping up were coming out of these people." He used that experience to help him develop the character of Raymond Babbitt, a high-functioning autistic savant, yet a person who critic David Denby described as "a strangely shuttered genius". Hoffman created certain character traits for Raymond. Denby noted: "Hoffman, looking suddenly older and smaller, has developed a small shuffling walk for Raymond, with shoulder bent. His eyes don't make contact with anyone else's, and he flattens his voice to a dry nasal bark."
Rain Man won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Hoffman, and Best Director for Barry Levinson. Having worked closely with Hoffman for two years on filming, Levinson offered some opinions about his skill as an actor:
After Rain Man, Hoffman appeared with Sean Connery and Matthew Broderick in Family Business (1989), directed by Sidney Lumet. The story centers on the estrangement between Vito (Hoffman), a middle-aged man trying to succeed in a legitimate business, and his "hopelessly corrupt but charming father", Jesse (Connery). Critics were mostly not impressed with the story, although the individual performances were praised, especially Connery's.
Because of their different acting styles and nationalities, some industry writers thought Connery and Hoffman might not work well together as close family members. "To the surprise of many", note Connery biographers Lee Pfeiffer and Lisa Philip, "the two superstars developed an immediate rapport and chemistry that translates onto the screen." And Lumet remembered: "Sean is extremely disciplined and Dustin is very improvisational, all over the place with his lines. I didn't know where it would end up, but Sean met Dustin improvisation for improvisation, and a great deal of richness and humor came out of it."
1990s
In 1991, Hoffman voiced substitute teacher Mr. Bergstrom in The Simpsons episode "Lisa's Substitute", under the pseudonym Sam Etic. As a reference to this episode, during the episode featuring the Itchy & Scratchy movie, Lisa claims that Dustin Hoffman had a cameo in that movie but didn't use his real name.
Throughout the 1990s, Hoffman appeared in many large, studio films, such as Dick Tracy (1990) (where his Ishtar co-star Beatty plays the titular character), Hero (1992) and Billy Bathgate (1991) co-starring with Nicole Kidman (who was nominated for a Golden Globe). Hoffman also played the title role of Captain Hook in Steven Spielberg's Hook (also 1991), earning a Golden Globe nomination, and the narrator in Dr. Seuss Video Classics: Horton Hears a Who! (also 1992); in Hook, Hoffman's costume was so heavy that he had to wear an air-conditioned suit under it.
Hoffman played the lead role in Outbreak (1995), alongside Rene Russo, Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Donald Sutherland. In the film, Hoffman is a medical doctor, serving as a Colonel in the U.S. Army Medical Corps., working at the Unites States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), who uncovers a newly discovered Ebola-like virus which came to the U.S. from Africa in an infected monkey. Hoffman races to stop the virus's spread and find a vaccine before it becomes a worldwide pandemic with no cure. It was one of the films that was produced by his production banner, Punch Productions.
The movie is described by critic Roger Ebert as "one of the great scare stories of our time, the notion that deep in the uncharted rain forests, deadly diseases are lurking, and if they ever escape their jungle homes and enter the human bloodstream, there will be a new plague the likes of which we have never seen." Critic David Denby credits Hoffman with giving the movie much of its thriller-like quality:
Following that, he appeared in the 1996 revenge drama/legal thriller Sleepers (1996) with Robert De Niro, Brad Pitt, Jason Patric, and Kevin Bacon.
In the mid-1990s, Hoffman starred in—and was deeply involved in the production of—David Mamet's American Buffalo (also 1996), and an early effort of film editor Kate Sanford. In 1997, Hoffman starred opposite John Travolta in the Costa Gavras film Mad City.
Hoffman gained his seventh Academy Award nomination for his performance in Wag The Dog (1997), in a role that allowed Hoffman the chance to work with both Robert De Niro and Denis Leary. The movie is a black comedy film produced and directed by Barry Levinson, who also directed Hoffman in Rain Man in 1988.
The story takes place a few days before a presidential election, where a Washington, D.C. spin doctor (De Niro) distracts the electorate from a sex scandal by hiring a Hollywood film producer (Hoffman) to construct a fake war with Albania. Hoffman, as a caricature of real life producer Robert Evans, according to some, "gives the kind of wonderfully funny performance that is liable to win prizes, especially since its mixture of affection and murderous parody is so precise. Stanley (Hoffman) conducts business meetings in tennis clothes or in robe and slippers", notes critic Janet Maslin.
He next appeared in another Barry Levinson film, the science fiction psychological thriller, Sphere (1998), opposite Sharon Stone.
In 1999, Hoffman received the AFI Life Achievement Award and recalls the emotional impact that receiving the award had on him:
2000s
Hoffman next appeared in Moonlight Mile (2002), followed by Confidence (2003) opposite Edward Burns, Andy García and Rachel Weisz. Hoffman finally had a chance to work with Gene Hackman in Gary Fleder's Runaway Jury (also 2003), an adaptation of John Grisham's bestselling novel.
Hoffman played theater owner Charles Frohman in the J. M. Barrie historical fantasia Finding Neverland (2004), costarring Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet. In director David O. Russell's I Heart Huckabees (also 2004), Hoffman appeared opposite Lily Tomlin as an existential detective team member. In 2001, his Punch Productions company went to a first look deal with The Walt Disney Studios.
Seven years after his nomination for Wag the Dog, Hoffman got another opportunity to perform again with Robert De Niro, co-starring with Streisand and Ben Stiller in the 2004 comedy Meet the Fockers, a sequel to Meet the Parents (2000). Hoffman won the 2005 MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance. In 2005, he voiced a horse in Racing Stripes, and appeared in cameo roles in Andy García's The Lost City and on the final episode of HBO sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasms fifth season. Hoffman appeared in Stranger than Fiction (2006), played the perfumer Giuseppe Baldini in Tom Tykwer's film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (also 2006).
In 2007, he was featured in an advertising campaign for Australian telecommunications company Telstra's Next G network, appeared in the 50 Cent video "Follow My Lead" as a psychiatrist, and played the title character in the British family film Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium for which he was nominated for a BIFA Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a British Independent Film at the British Independent Film Awards 2007. In 2008, although he was reluctant to perform in an animated feature film (Although he had previously performed voices in a version of The Point! and in an episode of The Simpsons), Hoffman had a prominent role as Shifu in the film Kung Fu Panda, which was praised in part for his comedic chemistry with Jack Black (whom he tutored in acting for an important scene) and his character's poignantly complex relationship with the story's villain. He later won the Annie Award for Voice Acting in an Animated Feature for Kung Fu Panda and has continued into the role in the franchise's subsequent filmed productions outside of the franchise's television series. He next voiced Roscuro in The Tale of Despereaux.
As the title character in Last Chance Harvey, Hoffman acted with co-star Emma Thompson in the story of two lonely people who tentatively forge a relationship over the course of three days. Director Joel Hopkins notes that Hoffman was a perfectionist and self-critical: "He often wanted to try things stripped down, because less is sometimes more. He worries about every little detail."
2010s
He appears in Little Fockers, the critically panned yet financially successful 2010 sequel to Meet the Fockers. However, his character plays a significantly smaller role than in the previous installment.
In 2011, Hoffman reprised his role as Master Shifu in the commercially and critically successful animated film Kung Fu Panda 2. On the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 81% based on 169 reviews, and an average rating of 6.9/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The storyline arc may seem a tad familiar to fans of the original, but Kung Fu Panda 2 offers enough action, comedy, and visual sparkle to compensate." On another aggregator site, Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 67 out of 100 based on 31 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". The film was a financial success making more money than the previous film, Kung Fu Panda. The film made $666 million at the worldwide Box Office. The film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
In 2012, Hoffman's audiobook recording of Jerzy Kosinski's Being There was released at Audible.com. Hoffman starred in the HBO horse racing drama Luck, as a man involved in bookmaking and casino operations. Luck was canceled in March 2012 after three horses died on set.
In 2012, Hoffman made his directorial debut with Quartet, starring Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins, Billy Connolly, and Michael Gambon.
The BBC comedy-drama premiered at the 2012 Toronto Film Festival where it earned respectable reviews from critics. The film is certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, earning an 80%, with the critical consensus reading, "It's sweet, gentle, and predictable to a fault, but Dustin Hoffman's affectionate direction and the talented cast's amiable charm make Quartet too difficult to resist." Smith was nominated for Golden Globe for her performance.
In 2015, Hoffman starred in Roald Dahl's Esio Trot, a BBC television film adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic novel, adapted by Richard Curtis and co-starring Judi Dench. Hoffman received an Emmy Award for Best Performance by an Actor.
In 2017, Hoffman starred in Noah Baumbach's Netflix film The Meyerowitz Stories alongside Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Elizabeth Marvel and Emma Thompson. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2017, where it received a four-minute standing ovation.
The film received a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus reading, "The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) observes the family dynamic through writer-director Noah Baumbach's bittersweet lens and the impressive efforts of a remarkable cast".
In 2017, Hoffman was honored with the Gotham Awards Tribute alongside Sofia Coppola, Nicole Kidman, Edward Lachman. Hoffman was introduced by Elizabeth Marvel.
2020s
In 2020, it was announced that Hoffman would make his return to the Broadway stage in Scott Rudin's revival of Our Town as the Stage Manager. Hoffman's last appearance on stage was 30 years prior in Death of a Salesman in 1989. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Broadway theaters remained shut until 2021.
Hoffman appeared alongside Candice Bergen, Dianna Agron and Simon Helberg in As They Made Us directed by Mayim Bialik. He also starred alongside Sissy Spacek and his son Jake Hoffman in Darren Le Gallo's directorial film debut Sam & Kate which began filming in February 2022. In September 2021, he was attached to feature comedy film Mr. Shaw Goes To Hollywood as co-founder of MGM studio, Louis B Mayer. Filming would tentatively commence fall 2021.
In October 2022, Hoffman was cast in Francis Ford Coppola's latest film Megalopolis.
Filmography
Honors and legacy
In 1999, Hoffman was honored by the American Film Institute, who celebrated him with the 27th Life Achievement Award. Those who praised him and celebrated his work included, Edward Norton, Jon Voight, Goldie Hawn, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Kathy Bates. Jack Nicholson presented Hoffman with the award. Upon receiving the award he quoted the poet Emily Dickinson, "Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open the door".
In 2009, Hoffman received an Honorary Cesar Medal at the César Awards. In 2012, Dustin Hoffman received Kennedy Center Honors, with the following commendation: "Dustin Hoffman's unyielding commitment to the wide variety of roles he plays has made him one of the most versatile and iconoclastic actors of this or any other generation". Those who honored him at the ceremony included Robert De Niro, Liev Schreiber, Naomi Watts, and Billy Connolly.
In 2017, the Gotham Awards announced that they would recognize Hoffman for his lifetime achievement in film. The director of the Independent Filmmaker Project or (IFP) and Made in NY Media Center stated, "We are thrilled to present Dustin Hoffman with the Actor Tribute. Starting with his breakthrough role in the timeless classic The Graduate to his highly praised turn in his upcoming film, The Meyerowitz Stories, Dustin's wide range of roles – often portraying antiheroes or the marginalized – and the creative choices he has embodied in these complex characters, has firmly placed him amongst the most compelling actors to have graced the screen."
Actress Elizabeth Marvel introduced Hoffman where she talked about the influence he's had over her career and stated, "His work is never anything less than extraordinary".
Personal life
Marriage and relationships
Hoffman said that, when they were young and single, he and fellow actor and close friend Robert Duvall were "obsessed with sex". Hoffman related, "As acting students, there were always a few models. One comes up to you and says, "Hi," like you've never looked at her, while for six months you've been imagining her in bed with you. And she says, "I'd like to do a scene with you," and, whoa, she picks a love scene, and you're rehearsing and it's "Yes!" That happened to me and to Bobby. Much as we were adherents to our craft, we looked for classes with women."
After meeting in 1963, Hoffman married Anne Byrne in May 1969. He adopted Karina (b. 1966), Byrne's child from a previous marriage, and with Byrne had daughter Jenna (born October 15, 1970). In 1970, Hoffman and Byrne were living in Greenwich Village in a building next door to a townhouse occupied at the time by members of the Weathermen, when a bomb was accidentally detonated in the townhouse's basement, killing three. In the 2002 documentary The Weather Underground, Hoffman can be seen standing in the street during the aftermath of the explosion. The couple divorced in 1980.
After Hoffman's separation, he began seeing Lisa Gottsegen, their families having had a relationship together growing up. She was finishing her Juris Doctor degree, and the couple married in October 1980. They have four children: Jacob Edward (born March 20, 1981), Rebecca Lillian (b. March 17, 1983), Maxwell Geoffrey (born August 30, 1984), and Alexandra Lydia "Ali" (born October 27, 1987). Hoffman has two grandchildren.
In an interview, he said that all of his children from his second marriage had bar or bat mitzvahs and that he is a more observant Jew now than when he was younger. He has also lamented that he is not fluent in Hebrew.
Political activism
A liberal, Hoffman has long supported the Democratic Party and Ralph Nader. In 1997 he was one of a number of Hollywood stars and executives to sign an open letter to then-German chancellor Helmut Kohl protesting the treatment of Scientologists in Germany, which was published as a newspaper advertisement in the International Herald Tribune.
Cancer treatment
Hoffman was successfully treated for cancer in 2013.
Sexual misconduct allegations
In 2017, seven women accused Hoffman of sexual misconduct or assault. A woman who was 17 at the time alleged that, while working as an intern on a TV production of Death of a Salesman, Hoffman made inappropriate jokes and comments around her and asked her to give him foot massages. Hoffman released an apology to the 17-year-old intern who alleged harassment but denied wrongdoing, saying, "I have the utmost respect for women and feel terrible that anything I might have done could have put her in an uncomfortable situation", continuing, "I am sorry. It is not reflective of who I am." Online magazine Slate reported in 2017 that Meryl Streep had said that Hoffman groped her breast on their first meeting. However, a representative for Meryl Streep responded to Slate saying it was not an accurate rendering of their 1979 meeting. Streep's representative stated "there was an offense and it is something for which Dustin apologized. And Meryl accepted that." Streep has also referred to an incident when Hoffman slapped her—rather than pantomiming a slap—while filming a scene in Kramer vs. Kramer.
In December 2017, comedian John Oliver unexpectedly interrogated Hoffman about the allegations during the 20th anniversary screening of Wag the Dog at the 92nd Street Y. "It's 'not reflective of who I am' – it's that kind of response to this stuff that pisses me off," Oliver said. "Do you understand how that feels like a dismissal?" Hoffman said he felt blindsided by the line of questioning, remarking "You've made the case better than anyone else can. I'm guilty. Because someone has alleged something, I'm guilty. You push a button. It's all over the world: I'm a predator. I'm this and that, and it's not true."
Hoffman has not publicly responded to the other six allegations.
Bill Murray, who costarred with Hoffman in Tootsie (1982) and The Lost City (2005), defended him, saying, "I heard what happened to him, and Dustin Hoffman is a really decent person. He's crazy, a Borscht Belt flirt, has been his whole life. (But) he's a really sweet man." Actors
Chevy Chase and Liam Neeson also came to his defense.
See also
List of actors with Academy Award nominations
List of actors with two or more Academy Award nominations in acting categories
List of actors with two or more Academy Awards in acting categories
References
External links
1937 births
Living people
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
AFI Life Achievement Award recipients
American Ashkenazi Jews
American male comedy actors
American male film actors
American male stage actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
American people of Romanian-Jewish descent
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Annie Award winners
BAFTA Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles winners
Best Actor Academy Award winners
Best Actor BAFTA Award winners
Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners
Best Miniseries or Television Movie Actor Golden Globe winners
Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (film) winners
Best Supporting Actor Genie and Canadian Screen Award winners
California Democrats
Cecil B. DeMille Award Golden Globe winners
César Honorary Award recipients
David di Donatello winners
Drama Desk Award winners
Film directors from Los Angeles
Honorary Golden Bear recipients
International Emmy Award for Best Actor winners
Jewish American male actors
Kennedy Center honorees
Los Angeles High School alumni
Male actors from California
Method actors
Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre alumni
New Star of the Year (Actor) Golden Globe winners
Obie Award recipients
Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie Primetime Emmy Award winners
Royal Shakespeare Company members
Santa Monica College alumni
Theatre World Award winners
American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent |
42313 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Wicker%20Man | The Wicker Man | The Wicker Man is a 1973 British folk horror film directed by Robin Hardy and starring Edward Woodward, Britt Ekland, Diane Cilento, Ingrid Pitt, and Christopher Lee. The screenplay is by Anthony Shaffer, inspired by David Pinner's 1967 novel Ritual, and Paul Giovanni composed the film score.
The plot centres on the visit of a police officer, Sergeant Neil Howie, to the isolated Scottish island of Summerisle in search of a missing girl. Howie, a devout Christian, is appalled to find that the inhabitants of the island have abandoned Christianity and now practise a form of Celtic paganism.
The Wicker Man is well-regarded by critics. Film magazine Cinefantastique described it as "The Citizen Kane of horror movies", and in 2004, Total Film magazine named The Wicker Man the sixth-greatest British film of all time. It also won the 1978 Saturn Award for Best Horror Film. The final scene was number 45 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments, and during the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, it was included as part of a sequence that celebrated British cinema. The film brought the wicker man into modern popular culture.
In 1989, Shaffer wrote a script treatment for The Loathsome Lambton Worm, a direct sequel with fantasy elements. Hardy had no interest in the project, and it was never produced. In 2006, a poorly received American remake was released, from which Hardy and others involved with the original have dissociated themselves. In 2011, a spiritual sequel directed by Hardy, The Wicker Tree, was released; it featured Lee in a cameo appearance. In 2013, the original U.S. theatrical version of The Wicker Man was digitally restored and released.
Plot
Sergeant Neil Howie journeys by seaplane to the remote Hebridean island of Summerisle to investigate the disappearance of a young girl, Rowan Morrison, about whom he has received an anonymous letter. Howie, a devout Christian, is disturbed to find the Islanders paying homage to the pagan Celtic gods of their ancestors. They copulate openly in the fields, include children as part of the May Day celebrations, teach children of the phallic association of the maypole, and place toads in their mouths to cure sore throats. The islanders appear to be trying to thwart his investigation by claiming that Rowan never existed.
While staying at the Green Man Inn, Howie notices a series of photographs celebrating the annual harvest, each featuring a young girl as the May Queen. The photograph of the most recent celebration is missing; the landlord tells him it was broken. At the local school, Howie asks the students about Rowan, but all deny her existence. He checks the school register and finds Rowan's name. He questions the schoolteacher, who directs him to Rowan's grave.
Howie meets the island's leader, Lord Summerisle, grandson of a Victorian agronomist, to get permission for an exhumation. Summerisle explains that his grandfather developed strains of fruit trees that would prosper in Scotland's climate and encouraged the belief that the old gods would use the new strains to bring prosperity to the island among the pagan population. Due to the bountiful harvests, the island's other inhabitants gradually embraced paganism.
Exhuming the grave, Howie finds that the coffin contains only the carcass of a hare. He also finds the missing harvest photograph, showing Rowan standing amidst empty boxes; the harvest had failed. His research reveals that a human sacrifice is offered to the gods in the event of crop failure. He concludes that Rowan is alive and will soon be sacrificed to ensure a successful harvest. Seeking assistance from the mainland, Howie returns to his seaplane to discover it no longer functions and its radio is damaged; he cannot leave or call for help. Later that day during the May Day celebration, Howie subdues the innkeeper and steals his costume and mask (that of Punch, the fool) to infiltrate the parade. Rowan is eventually revealed. Howie sets her free and flees with her into a cave. Exiting it, they are intercepted by the islanders, to whom Rowan happily returns.
Summerisle tells Howie that Rowan was never the intended sacrifice; Howie is. He fits their gods' four requirements – he came of his own free will, has "the power of a king" (by representing the law), is a virgin, and is a "fool". Howie warns Summerisle and the islanders that the crops are failing due to the unsuitability of the climate and that the villagers will turn on Summerisle and sacrifice him next summer when the next harvest fails again, but his pleas are ignored. The villagers force Howie inside a giant wicker man statue along with various animals, set it ablaze, and surround it, singing the Middle English folk song "Sumer Is Icumen In". Inside the wicker man, Howie recites Psalm 23, prays to God and curses the islanders. Howie and the animals burn to death as the head of the wicker man collapses in flames, revealing the setting sun.
Cast
Edward Woodward as Sgt. Neil Howie
Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle
Britt Ekland as Willow MacGregor
Annie Ross as Willow MacGregor (voice)
Rachel Verney as Willow MacGregor (singing voice)
Lesley Mackie as Daisy
Diane Cilento as Miss Rose
Ingrid Pitt as Librarian
Lindsay Kemp as Alder MacGregor (the landlord)
Ian Campbell as Oak
Russell Waters as Harbour Master
Aubrey Morris as Old Gardener/Gravedigger
Irene Sunter as May Morrison
Jennifer Martin as Myrtle Morrison
Donald Eccles as T.H. Lennox
Walter Carr as Schoolmaster
Roy Boyd as Broome
Peter Brewis as Musician
Geraldine Cowper as Rowan Morrison
John Young as Fishmonger
Myra Forsyth as Mrs Grimmond
Alison Hughes as Sgt Howie's fiancé
Barbara Rafferty as woman with baby
John Sharp as Doctor Ewan (longer version)
John Hallam as Police Constable McTaggart (longer version)
Tony Roper as Postman (longer version)
Production
Background
In the early 1970s, Christopher Lee was a Hammer Horror regular, best known for his roles in a series of successful films, beginning with The Curse of Frankenstein (as the monster, 1957). Lee wanted to break free of this image and take on more interesting acting roles. The idea for The Wicker Man film began in 1971 when Lee met with screenwriter Anthony Shaffer, and they agreed to work together. Film director Robin Hardy and British Lion head Peter Snell became involved in the project. Shaffer had a series of conversations with Hardy, and the two decided that making a horror film centring on "old religion" would be fun, in sharp contrast to the Hammer films they had both seen as horror-film fans.
Shaffer read the David Pinner novel Ritual, in which a devout Christian policeman is called to investigate what appears to be the ritual murder of a young girl in a rural village, and decided that it would serve well as the source material for the project. Pinner originally wrote Ritual as a film treatment for director Michael Winner, who had John Hurt in mind as a possible star. Winner eventually declined the project, so Pinner's agent persuaded him to write Ritual as a novel instead. Shaffer and Lee paid Pinner £15,000 () for the rights to the novel, and Shaffer set to work on the screenplay. He soon decided that a direct adaptation would not work well, so drafted a new story based only loosely on the story of the novel.
Shaffer wanted the film to be "a little more literate" than the average horror picture. He specifically wanted a film with a minimum of violence and gore. He was tired of seeing horror films that relied almost entirely on viscera to be scary. The focus of the film was crystallised when he "finally hit upon the abstract concept of sacrifice." The image of the wicker man, which gave the filmmakers their title, was taken from the description of the practice of human sacrifice by the Gauls in Julius Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War: "Others have figures of vast size, the limbs of which formed of osiers they fill with living men, which being set on fire, the men perish enveloped in the flames." For Shaffer, this was "the most alarming and imposing image that I had ever seen." The idea of a confrontation between a modern Christian and a remote, pagan community continued to intrigue Shaffer, who performed painstaking research on paganism. Brainstorming with Hardy, they conceived the film as presenting the pagan elements objectively and accurately, accompanied by authentic music and a believable, contemporary setting. One of their main resources was The Golden Bough, a study of mythology and religion written by Scottish anthropologist James Frazer.
Casting
Television actor Edward Woodward was cast in the role of Sergeant Neil Howie after the part was declined by both Michael York and David Hemmings. In Britain, Woodward was best known for the role of Callan, which he played from 1967 to 1972. After The Wicker Man, Woodward went on to receive international attention for his roles in the 1980 film Breaker Morant and the 1980s TV series The Equalizer.
After Shaffer saw her on the stage, he lured Diane Cilento out of semi-retirement to play the town's schoolmistress. (They lived together in Queensland from 1975, and married in 1985). Ingrid Pitt, another British horror film veteran, was cast as the town librarian and registrar. Swedish actress Britt Ekland was cast as the innkeeper's lascivious daughter, although two body doubles were used for her naked scenes below the waist. Ekland found out that she was three months pregnant with her son Nic, to Lou Adler two weeks into filming. Stuart Hopps (the film's choreographer) called upon Lorraine Peters, a nightclub dancer from Glasgow, who gyrated at the doorway and against the wall of a bedroom in the fully nude "wall" scenes. Her speaking and singing voices were dubbed by Annie Ross and Rachel Verney respectively.
Local girl Jane Jackson was employed as Ekland's stand-in for camera setups. Jackson was blond-haired and bore a resemblance to Ekland, but was otherwise not involved in any filming.
Filming
The film was produced at a time of crisis for the British film industry. The studio in charge of production, British Lion Films, was in financial trouble and was bought by wealthy businessman John Bentley. To convince the unions that he was not about to asset-strip the company, Bentley needed to get a film into production quickly. This meant that The Wicker Man, a film set during spring, actually began filming in October 1972; artificial leaves and blossoms had to be glued to trees in many scenes. The production was kept on a small budget. Christopher Lee was extremely keen to get the film made; he and others worked on the production without pay. While filming took place, British Lion was bought by EMI Films.
The film was shot almost entirely in the small Scottish towns of Stranraer, Gatehouse of Fleet, Newton Stewart, Kirkcudbright, Anwoth and Creetown in Galloway, as well as Plockton in Ross-shire. Some scenes were filmed in and around the Isle of Whithorn, where the owners of the castle, Elizabeth McAdam McLaughland and David Wheatley, plus several other local people, featured in various scenes. Culzean Castle in Ayrshire and its grounds and Floors Castle in Roxburghshire were also used for the shooting. Some of the opening flying shots feature the Isle of Skye, including the pinnacles of The Storr and the Quiraing. The interior cave scenes were filmed inside Wookey Hole in Somerset. Hush Heath Estate in Staplehurst, Kent, makes a brief appearance in the film, doubling as Lord Summerisle's orchard and gardens. The climax of the film was shot at St Ninian's Cave and on the clifftops at Burrow Head in Wigtownshire.
The amphibious aircraft that carries Sergeant Howie was a Thurston Teal, owned and flown in the aerial sequences by Christopher Murphy.
According to Britt Ekland, some animals perished in the wicker man, whereas Robin Hardy said in an interview that great care was taken to ensure that the animals were in no danger of being hurt during this scene, and that they were not inside the wicker man when it was set on fire.
Music
The film's soundtrack often forms a major component of the narrative, just as with other important arthouse films of the era such as Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's Performance. Songs accompany many important scenes, such as the plane's arrival, Willow's dancing, the maypole dance, the girls jumping through fire, the search of the houses, the procession, and the final burning scene. Indeed, according to Seamus Flannery in a subsequent documentary, director Robin Hardy surprised the cast by suddenly announcing midway through filming that they were making a "musical".
Composed, arranged, and recorded by Paul Giovanni, and performed by Magnet (in some versions of the film credited as "Lodestone"), the soundtrack contains 13 folk songs performed by characters in the film. Included are traditional songs, original compositions by Giovanni, and even a nursery rhyme, "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep".
"Willow's Song" has been covered or sampled by various rock music bands. It was first covered by an English musical project known as Nature and Organisation on their 1994 release Beauty Reaps the Blood of Solitude. It was covered by Sneaker Pimps as "How Do", and is included on their 1996 release Becoming X. "How Do" can be heard in the movie Hostel (2005); the song is incorrectly credited in the end titles as being composed by Sneaker Pimps. Additionally, the band has covered "Gently Johnny" as "Johnny"; it is featured as a B-side on their single "Roll On" (1996). It also was covered by Faith and the Muse on their 2003 album The Burning Season, and The Mock Turtles on their album Turtle Soup.
The songs on the soundtrack were composed or arranged by Giovanni under the direction of Hardy and Shaffer, whose research into the oral folk tradition in England and Scotland was based largely on the work of Cecil Sharp, a "founding father" of the folk-revival movement of the early 20th century. Using Sharp's collections as a template, Shaffer noted to Giovanni which scenes were to have music, and in some cases provided lyrics, which would be appropriate to spring pagan festivals. Other songs on the soundtrack come from a later folk tradition; for example, "Corn Riggs", by Scotland's national bard, Robert Burns, accompanies Howie's arrival on Summerisle. The lyrics of this song were taken directly from the Burns song "The Rigs of Barley", but Giovanni used a very different tune. Burns' tune was based on "Corn Riggs", and altered to match his lyrics. The song sung by the cultists of Summerisle at the end of the film, "Sumer Is Icumen In", is a mid-13th-century song about nature in spring.
The Wickerman Festival was an annual music festival held near Auchencairn in Galloway. Dubbed "Scotland's Alternative Music festival", it began in 2001 when the festival's artistic director Sid Ambrose hit upon the idea of a local counterculture based family-friendly festival due to the surrounding area being inextricably linked with various locations used within The Wicker Man. It was held annually until 2015 at East Kirkcarswell Farm, Dundrennan.
Distribution
By the time of the film's completion, the studio had been bought by EMI, and British Lion was managed by Michael Deeley. The DVD commentary track states that studio executives suggested a more "upbeat" ending to the film, in which a sudden rain puts the flames of the wicker man out and spares Howie's life, but this suggestion was refused. Hardy subsequently had to remove about 20 minutes of scenes on the mainland, early investigations, and (to Lee's disappointment) some of Lord Summerisle's initial meeting with Howie.
Original release
The first screening of the film was to trade and cinema distributors on 3 December 1973. The first public theatrical release was a week of test screenings at the Metropole Cinema London on 6 December 1973 ahead of the official public release in January 1974. It runs 87 minutes.
A copy of a finished, 99-minute version was sent to American film producer Roger Corman in Hollywood to make a judgment of how to market the film in the US. Corman recommended an additional 13 minutes be cut from the film. (Corman did not acquire US release rights, and eventually Warner Bros. test-marketed the film in drive-ins.) In Britain, the film was ordered reduced to roughly 87 minutes, with some narrative restructuring, and released as the "B" picture on a double bill with Don't Look Now. According to Lee, the cuts adversely affected the film's continuity.
First restoration
During the mid-1970s, Hardy made inquiries about the film, hoping to restore it to his original vision. Along with Lee and Shaffer, Hardy searched for his original cut, or raw footage. Both of these appeared to have been lost. Director Alex Cox said in his Moviedrome introduction in 1988 that the negative had "ended up in the pylons that support the M4 motorway." Hardy recalled that a copy of the film made prior to Deeley's cuts was sent to Roger Corman, who, it turned out, still had it, possibly the only existing print of Hardy's original cut. The US rights had been sold by Warner Bros. to a small firm called Abraxas, managed by film buff Stirling Smith and critic John Alan Simon. Stirling agreed to an American release of a reconstruction by Hardy. Hardy restored the narrative structure, some of the erotic elements which had been excised, and a very brief pretitle segment of Howie on the mainland (appearing at a church with his fiancée). A 96-minute restored version was released in January 1979, again to critical acclaim.
US VHS versions
The original 99-minute version was available in the US on VHS home video from Media Home Entertainment (and later Magnum) during the 1980s and 1990s. This video includes additional early scenes set inside Howie's police station, which Hardy had left out of the 1979 restoration. In 2001, a remaster of the 88-minute cut was released on VHS, labeled as the "Theatrical Version".
Director's cut
In 2001, the film's new world rights owners, Canal+, tried to release the full-length film. Corman's copy had been lost, but a telecine transfer to 1-inch videotape existed. Missing elements were combined with film elements from the previous versions (in particular, additional scenes of Howie on the mainland were restored, showing him to be the object of gossip at his police station, establishing his devout religiosity). The extended DVD cut was released by Canal+ (Anchor Bay Entertainment handling US DVD distribution) in this 99-minute hybrid, considered the longest and closest version to Hardy's original 100-odd minute version. A two-disc limited edition set was sold with the shortened theatrical release, the new extended version and a documentary, The Wicker Man Enigma. In 2005, Inside The Wicker Man author Allan Brown revealed he had discovered stills taken on the set showing sequences from the script that had never been seen; it had never been certain that the scenes had been filmed. They include scenes where Howie closes a mainland pub open after hours, encounters a prostitute, has a massage from Willow McGregor, and sees a brutal confrontation between Oak and a villager in The Green Man, which were featured in a revised edition of Inside the Wicker Man. Anchor Bay released a limited-edition wooden box of The Wicker Man. About 50,000 two-disc sets were made, of which 20 were signed by Lee and Woodward, Shaffer, Snell, and Hardy. In March 2002, Lee discussed the lost original cut, "I still believe it exists somewhere, in cans with no name. I still believe that. But nobody's ever seen it since, so we couldn't re-cut it, re-edit it, which was what I wanted to do. It would have been ten times as good".
The Final Cut
European distributors of the film StudioCanal began a Facebook campaign in 2013 to find missing material, which culminated in the discovery of a 92-minute 35 mm print at the Harvard Film Archive. This print had previously been known as the "Middle Version" and was itself assembled from a 35 mm print of the original edit Robin Hardy had made in the United Kingdom in 1973, but which was never released. Robin Hardy believed that the original edit will probably never be found, saying, "Sadly, it seems as though this has been lost forever. However, I am delighted that a 1979 Abraxas print has been found as I also put together this cut myself, and it crucially restores the story order to that which I had originally intended."
Hardy reported in July 2013 that Studiocanal intended to restore and release the most complete version possible of the film. Rialto Pictures announced that it was to release the new digital restoration in North American cinemas on 27 September 2013. This new version was also released on DVD on 13 October 2013. It is 91 minutes long, shorter than the director's cut but longer than the theatrical cut, and is known as The Wicker Man: The Final Cut.
The Final Cut (UK) Blu-ray (2013) features short documentaries "Burnt Offering: The Cult of the Wicker Man", "Worshipping the Wicker Man", "The Music of the Wicker Man", interviews with director Robin Hardy and actor Christopher Lee, a restoration comparison, and the theatrical trailer. The second disc features both the UK 87-minute theatrical cut and the 95-minute 2013 director's cut, along with an audio commentary on the director's cut and a making-of for the commentary. The third disc is the soundtrack to the film.
Reception
David McGillivray of The Monthly Film Bulletin praised the film as "an immensely enjoyable piece of hokum, thoroughly well researched, performed and directed." Variety wrote that Anthony Shaffer's screenplay "for sheer imagination and near-terror, has seldom been equalled." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called it "a witty work of the macabre" with "the splendid performances typical of British films." Janet Maslin of The New York Times was more negative, calling it "handsomely photographed" with "good performances," but "something of a howl" even though "it seems to have been made in all seriousness."
The Wicker Man initially had moderate success and won the Golden Licorn for Best Film at the 1974 Paris International Festival of Fantastic and Science-Fiction Film, but largely slipped into obscurity. In 1977 the American film magazine Cinefantastique devoted a commemorative issue to the film, asserting that the film is "the Citizen Kane of horror movies" – an oft-quoted phrase attributed to this issue.
Decades after its release, the film still receives positive reviews from critics and is considered one of the best films of 1973. At the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, The Wicker Man holds an 90% "Fresh" rating based on 58 reviews, with a weighted average score of 7.7/10 and the site's consensus: "This intelligent horror film is subtle in its thrills and chills, with an ending that is both shocking and truly memorable". In 2008, The Wicker Man was ranked by Empire at No. 485 of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time. Christopher Lee considered The Wicker Man his best film. Similarly, Edward Woodward said that The Wicker Man was one of his favourite films and that the character of Howie was the best part he ever played. In addition to Lee's admiration of the final shot of the film (of the collapsing Wicker man), Woodward said that it is the best final shot of any film ever made. In 2010 The Guardian newspaper ranked it as No 4 in its "25 best horror films of all time" listings.
In his 2010 BBC documentary series A History of Horror, writer and actor Mark Gatiss referred to the film as a prime example of a short-lived subgenre he called "folk horror", grouping it with 1968's Witchfinder General and 1971's The Blood on Satan's Claw. In 2003, the Crichton Campus of the University of Glasgow in Dumfries, Dumfries and Galloway hosted a three-day conference on The Wicker Man. The conference led to two collections of articles about the film. In 2004, The Wicker Man ranked No, 45 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.
Accolades
Popular culture
The film brought the wicker man into modern popular culture. In recent times, a wicker man has been burnt at festivals such as Burning Man in the United States, and the former Wickerman Festival in Scotland.
In 1998, Swedish black metal band Marduk used a line from this film on the introduction to the track "Slay The Nazarene" from the album Nightwing.
In 2000, British heavy metal band Iron Maiden released a single called "The Wicker Man" in tribute to the film. In 2016, British band Radiohead released the music video for the song "Burn the Witch", made in stop-motion animation and whose storyline greatly resembles that of The Wicker Man.
In 2018, a rollercoaster inspired by the film opened at Alton Towers, England. Wicker Man is a wooden roller-coaster that features a six-storey wicker man structure which the train passes through three times as it bursts into flames.
In the movie Shallow Grave, Ewan McGregor's character is shown watching the final scene, representing the building sense of doom the character is experiencing.
The creators of The League of Gentlemen television series often reference the film in their work, particularly in the Inside No. 9 episode 'Mr. King'.
Related works
Novelisation
A novelisation, which expands on the story and bears the same title, was released in 1978. It was written by Hardy and Shaffer.
Possible sequel
In 1989, Shaffer wrote a 30-page film script treatment entitled The Loathsome Lambton Worm, a direct sequel to The Wicker Man, for producer Lance Reynolds. It would have been more fantastical in subject matter than the original film, and relied more heavily on special effects. In this continuation of the story, which begins immediately after the ending of the first film, Sergeant Neil Howie is rescued from the burning Wicker Man by a group of police officers from the mainland. Howie sets out to bring Lord Summerisle and his pagan followers to justice, but becomes embroiled in a series of challenges which pit the old gods against his own Christian faith. The script culminates in a climactic battle between Howie and a fire-breathing dragon – the titular Lambton Worm – and ends with a suicidal Howie plunging to his death from a cliff while tied to two large eagles. Shaffer's sequel was never produced, but his treatment, complete with illustrations, was eventually published in the companion book Inside The Wicker Man.
Hardy was not asked to direct the sequel, and never read the script, as he did not like the idea of Howie surviving the sacrifice, or the fact that the actors would have aged by 20 to 30 years between the two films. In May 2010, Hardy discussed The Loathsome Lambton Worm. "I know Tony did write that, but I don't think anyone particularly liked it, or it would have been made."
A fan-made full-cast audio drama adaptation of Shaffer's The Loathsome Lambton Worm treatment was eventually released in 2020.
Remake
An American remake of the same name, starring Nicolas Cage and Ellen Burstyn, and directed by Neil LaBute was released in 2006. Hardy expressed concern about the remake.
Stage production
A stage adaptation was announced for the 2009 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and was directed by Andrew Steggall. The production was based jointly upon Anthony Shaffer's original The Wicker Man script and David Pinner's novel Ritual. Robin Hardy gave input on the project, and original songs and music from the film were supervised by Gary Carpenter, the original music director. Workshop rehearsals were held at The Drill Hall in London in March 2008, and a casting call was held in Glasgow in May 2009. After three weeks at the Pleasance in Edinburgh in August 2009, the production was to visit the Perth Rep, the Eden Court Theatre in Inverness, and then have a short run at Citizen's Theatre in Glasgow, with hopes for a run in London in 2010. However, in July 2009 it was announced that the production had been cancelled, three weeks before it had been due to preview.
In 2011, the National Theatre of Scotland produced An Appointment with the Wicker Man written by Greg Hemphill and Donald McCleary. The production has an amateur theatre company attempting to stage a Wicker Man musical.
Spiritual sequel
In 2011, a spiritual successor entitled The Wicker Tree was released. It was directed by Hardy and featured an appearance by Lee. Hardy first published the story as a novel, under the name Cowboys for Christ. First announced in April 2000, filming on the project began on 19 July 2009 according to IMDb. It follows two young American Christian evangelists who travel to Scotland; like Woodward's character in The Wicker Man, the two Americans are virgins who encounter a pagan laird and his followers. The film received mixed reviews.
Those involved in the production of the film have given conflicting statements regarding the identity of Christopher Lee's character, referred to only as Old Gentleman in the credits. Writer/director Robin Hardy said that the ambiguity was intentional. Fans would immediately recognise Lee's character as Lord Summerisle. Lee himself has contradicted this, stating that the two are not meant to be the same character, and that The Wicker Tree is not a sequel in any way.
Potential graphic novel and third film
As a former artist, Hardy expressed great interest in the medium of comics, and planned a comic book which would retell the story of The Wicker Man, based on his own storyboards for the film. Hardy was in talks with yet unnamed artists to work on the project, as he found it too difficult to make the characters look consistent from one panel to the next. Hardy was working on his next film, The Wrath of the Gods, at the time of his death on 1 July 2016. He intended the graphic novel and the new film to be released at the same time in autumn 2013; however as of autumn 2014 neither had been released, and the film never started production.
See also
Celtic mythology
Hebridean mythology and folklore
List of incomplete or partially lost films
BFI Top 100 British films
References
Bibliography
External links
1973 films
1973 horror films
1970s mystery films
1970s English-language films
1970s British films
British horror films
British Lion Films films
British mystery films
Celtic mythology in popular culture
Films about cults
Films about human sacrifice
Films about murder
Films about neopaganism
Films about virginity
Films based on British novels
Films based on horror novels
Films based on thriller novels
Films set in Scotland
Films set on fictional islands
Films shot in Scotland
Paganism in Europe
Folk horror films
Police detective films
Religious horror films
Films with screenplays by Anthony Shaffer
1970s police procedural films
British police films
1973 directorial debut films
British exploitation films |
42481 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1241 | 1241 | Year 1241 (MCCXLI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
March 18 – Battle of Chmielnik (Mongol invasion of Poland): The Mongols overwhelm the feudal Polish armies of Sandomierz and Kraków provinces, and plunder the abandoned city of Kraków.
April 9 – Battle of Legnica: The Mongols, under the command of Baidar, Kadan and Orda Khan, defeat the feudal Polish nobility, including the Knights Templar.
April 11 – Battle of Mohi: Batu Khan and Subutai defeat Béla IV of Hungary. The battle is the last major event in the Mongol Invasion of Europe.
May – Battle of Giglio: an Imperial fleet defeats a Genoan fleet in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
May 10 – Battle of Cameirge in Ulster: The Milesian Irish septs of the Ó Dónaills from Donegal, the Ó Néills from Armagh and the Ó Dochartaighs of Connacht defeat the last Tuatha Dé Danann sept, the Meic Lochlainn of Tír Eoghain and Inishowen under Domhnall mac Muirchertaigh Mac Lochlainn. From now on the Kings of Tír Eoghain will all be of the Ó Néill dynasty, Brian Ua Néill becoming sole ruler.
Early northern summer – A succession crisis or other priorities results in the Mongols withdrawing behind their river barrier into the Ukraine and the Russias, leaving Central Asian and far Eastern Europe peoples tributary to the Khanates, but leaving Poland and Hungary to begin recovery and reorganization.
August 29 – After Henry III of England's invasion of Wales, the Treaty of Gwerneigron is signed by him and Dafydd ap Llywelyn, curbing the latter's authority and denying him royal title.
September 23 – Snorri Sturluson, Icelandic saga writer, is murdered by Gissur Þorvaldsson, an emissary of King Haakon IV of Norway.
October 25 – Pope Celestine IV succeeds Pope Gregory IX, as the 179th pope.
Emperor Lizong of Song China accepts the Neo-Confucian teachings of the late Zhu Xi, including his commentary on the Four Books. This will have an impact upon the philosophical schools of surrounding countries as well, including Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.
Livonian Crusade: The Estonian rebellion of 1237 is suppressed on Saaremaa Island, by the Livonian Order.
The University of Valladolid is founded in Spain.
Births
September 4 – King Alexander III of Scotland (d. 1286)
Eleanor of Castile, queen of Edward I of England (d. 1290)
Sophia of Denmark, queen consort of Sweden (d. 1286)
Deaths
March 17 – Köten, Cuman chieftain
March 28 – Valdemar II of Denmark (b. 1170)
March 31 – Pousa, voivode of Transylvania
April 9 – Duke Henry II of Poland
April 11 (killed in the Battle of Mohi):
Andrew, son of Serafin, judge royal
Izsép Bő, Hungarian nobleman
Ugrin Csák, Archbishop of Kalocsa (b. c. 1190)
Gregory, Bishop of Győr
Nicholas I Gutkeled, ban of Slavonia
James, Bishop of Nyitra
Dominic I Rátót, master of the treasury
Matthias Rátót, archbishop of Esztergom (b. c. 1206)
Raynald of Belleville, bishop of Transylvania
Denis Tomaj, palatine of Hungary
June 24 – Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria
August 10 – Eleanor, Fair Maid of Brittany (b. c. 1184)
August 22 – Pope Gregory IX
September 20 – Conrad II of Salzwedel, German nobleman and bishop
September 23 – Snorri Sturluson, Icelandic historian, poet and politician (b. 1178)
September 26 – Fujiwara no Teika, Japanese poet
November 10 – Pope Celestine IV
December 1 – Isabella of England, Holy Roman empress, spouse of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1214)
Bernardo di Quintavalle, Italian follower of St. Francis of Assisi
Mary, Countess of Blois (b. 1200)
Nicholas Szák, Hungarian nobleman
Buzád Hahót, Hungarian nobleman and Christian martyr
Coloman of Galicia, Hungarian royalty, Prince (then King) of Halych, Duke of Slavonia (b. 1208)
Ögedei Khan, 2nd Khagan of the Mongol Empire and successor to Genghis Khan (b. c. 1185)
Baba Ishak, charismatic Turkman preacher (b. c. 1239)
References |
42594 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAT-5 | TAT-5 | TAT-5 was AT&T Corporation's 5th transatlantic telephone cable,
in operation from 1970 to 1993, carrying 720 3kHz channels, between Rhode Island, United States and Conil de la Frontera, (Cádiz), Spain. It had 361 repeaters.
References
Infrastructure completed in 1970
Transatlantic communications cables
Spain–United States relations
1970 establishments in Rhode Island
1970 establishments in Spain
1993 disestablishments in Rhode Island
1993 disestablishments in Spain |
42742 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New%20York%20City%20arts%20organizations | New York City arts organizations | The City of New York is home to many arts organizations. They include:
American Dance Festival
Bronx Council on the Arts
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Historic Railway Association
City Parks Foundation
Creative Time
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Municipal Art Society
New York Foundation for the Arts
The Public Theater
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42871 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java%20Platform%2C%20Standard%20Edition | Java Platform, Standard Edition | Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) is a computing platform for development and deployment of portable code for desktop and server environments. Java SE was formerly known as Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE).
The platform uses Java programming language and is part of the Java software-platform family. Java SE defines a range of general-purpose APIs—such as Java APIs for the Java Class Library—and also includes the Java Language Specification and the Java Virtual Machine Specification. OpenJDK is the official reference implementation since version 7.
Nomenclature, standards and specifications
The platform was known as Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition or J2SE from version 1.2, until the name was changed to Java Platform, Standard Edition or Java SE in version 1.5. The "SE" is used to distinguish the base platform from the Enterprise Edition (Java EE) and Micro Edition (Java ME) platforms. The "2" was originally intended to emphasize the major changes introduced in version 1.2, but was removed in version 1.6. The naming convention has been changed several times over the Java version history. Starting with J2SE 1.4 (Merlin), Java SE has been developed under the Java Community Process, which produces descriptions of proposed and final specifications for the Java platform called Java Specification Requests (JSR). JSR 59 was the umbrella specification for J2SE 1.4 and JSR 176 specified J2SE 5.0 (Tiger). Java SE 6 (Mustang) was released under JSR 270.
Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) is a related specification that includes all the classes in Java SE, plus a number that are more useful to programs that run on servers as opposed to workstations.
Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME) is a related specification intended to provide a certified collection of Java APIs for the development of software for small, resource-constrained devices such as cell phones, PDAs and set-top boxes.
The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) and Java Development Kit (JDK) are the actual files downloaded and installed on a computer to run or develop Java programs, respectively.
General purpose packages
java.lang
The Java package contains fundamental classes and interfaces closely tied to the language and runtime system. This includes the root classes that form the class hierarchy, types tied to the language definition, basic exceptions, math functions, threading, security functions, as well as some information on the underlying native system. This package contains 22 of 32 Error classes provided in JDK 6.
The main classes and interfaces in java.lang are:
– the class that is the root of every class hierarchy.
– the base class for enumeration classes (as of J2SE 5.0).
– the class that is the root of the Java reflection system.
– the class that is the base class of the exception class hierarchy.
, , and – the base classes for each exception type.
– the class that allows operations on threads.
– the class for strings and string literals.
and – classes for performing string manipulation (StringBuilder as of J2SE 5.0).
– the interface that allows generic comparison and ordering of objects (as of J2SE 1.2).
– the interface that allows generic iteration using the enhanced for loop (as of J2SE 5.0).
, , , , and – classes that provide "system operations" that manage the dynamic loading of classes, creation of external processes, host environment inquiries such as the time of day, and enforcement of security policies.
and – classes that provide basic math functions such as sine, cosine, and square root (StrictMath as of J2SE 1.3).
The primitive wrapper classes that encapsulate primitive types as objects.
The basic exception classes thrown for language-level and other common exceptions.
Classes in java.lang are automatically imported into every source file.
java.lang.ref
The package provides more flexible types of references than are otherwise available, permitting limited interaction between the application and the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) garbage collector. It is an important package, central enough to the language for the language designers to give it a name that starts with "java.lang", but it is somewhat special-purpose and not used by a lot of developers. This package was added in J2SE 1.2.
Java has an expressive system of references and allows for special behavior for garbage collection. A normal reference in Java is known as a "strong reference." The java.lang.ref package defines three other types of references—soft, weak, and phantom references. Each type of reference is designed for a specific use.
A can be used to implement a cache. An object that is not reachable by a strong reference (that is, not strongly reachable), but is referenced by a soft reference is called "softly reachable." A softly reachable object may be garbage collected at the discretion of the garbage collector. This generally means that softly reachable objects are only garbage collected when free memory is low—but again, this is at the garbage collector's discretion. Semantically, a soft reference means, "Keep this object when nothing else references it, unless the memory is needed."
A is used to implement weak maps. An object that is not strongly or softly reachable, but is referenced by a weak reference is called "weakly reachable". A weakly reachable object is garbage collected in the next collection cycle. This behavior is used in the class . A weak map allows the programmer to put key/value pairs in the map and not worry about the objects taking up memory when the key is no longer reachable anywhere else. Another possible application of weak references is the string intern pool. Semantically, a weak reference means "get rid of this object when nothing else references it at the next garbage collection."
A is used to reference objects that have been marked for garbage collection and have been finalized, but have not yet been reclaimed. An object that is not strongly, softly or weakly reachable, but is referenced by a phantom reference is called "phantom reachable." This allows for more flexible cleanup than is possible with the finalization mechanism alone. Semantically, a phantom reference means "this object is no longer needed and has been finalized in preparation for being collected."
Each of these reference types extends the class, which provides the method to return a strong reference to the referent object (or null if the reference has been cleared or if the reference type is phantom), and the method to clear the reference.
The java.lang.ref also defines the class , which can be used in each of the applications discussed above to keep track of objects that have changed reference type. When a Reference is created it is optionally registered with a reference queue. The application polls the reference queue to get references that have changed reachability state.
java.lang.reflect
Reflection is a constituent of the Java API that lets Java code examine and "reflect" on Java components at runtime and use the reflected members. Classes in the package, along with java.lang.Class and accommodate applications such as debuggers, interpreters, object inspectors, class browsers, and services such as object serialization and JavaBeans that need access to either the public members of a target object (based on its runtime class) or the members declared by a given class. This package was added in JDK 1.1.
Reflection is used to instantiate classes and invoke methods using their names, a concept that allows for dynamic programming. Classes, interfaces, methods, fields, and constructors can all be discovered and used at runtime. Reflection is supported by metadata that the JVM has about the program.
Techniques
There are basic techniques involved in reflection:
Discovery – this involves taking an object or class and discovering the members, superclasses, implemented interfaces, and then possibly using the discovered elements.
Use by name – involves starting with the symbolic name of an element and using the named element.
Discovery
Discovery typically starts with an object and calling the method to get the object's Class. The Class object has several methods for discovering the contents of the class, for example:
– returns an array of objects representing all the public methods of the class or interface
– returns an array of objects representing all the public constructors of the class
– returns an array of objects representing all the public fields of the class or interface
– returns an array of Class objects representing all the public classes and interfaces that are members (e.g. inner classes) of the class or interface
– returns the Class object representing the superclass of the class or interface (null is returned for interfaces)
– returns an array of Class objects representing all the interfaces that are implemented by the class or interface
Use by name
The Class object can be obtained either through discovery, by using the class literal (e.g. MyClass.class) or by using the name of the class (e.g. ). With a Class object, member Method, Constructor, or Field objects can be obtained using the symbolic name of the member. For example:
– returns the Method object representing the public method with the name "methodName" of the class or interface that accepts the parameters specified by the Class... parameters.
– returns the Constructor object representing the public constructor of the class that accepts the parameters specified by the Class... parameters.
– returns the Field object representing the public field with the name "fieldName" of the class or interface.
Method, Constructor, and Field objects can be used to dynamically access the represented member of the class. For example:
– returns an Object containing the value of the field from the instance of the object passed to get(). (If the Field object represents a static field then the Object parameter is ignored and may be null.)
– returns an Object containing the result of invoking the method for the instance of the first Object parameter passed to invoke(). The remaining Object... parameters are passed to the method. (If the Method object represents a static method then the first Object parameter is ignored and may be null.)
– returns the new Object instance from invoking the constructor. The Object... parameters are passed to the constructor. (Note that the parameterless constructor for a class can also be invoked by calling .)
Arrays and proxies
The java.lang.reflect package also provides an class that contains static methods for creating and manipulating array objects, and since J2SE 1.3, a class that supports dynamic creation of proxy classes that implement specified interfaces.
The implementation of a Proxy class is provided by a supplied object that implements the interface. The InvocationHandler's method is called for each method invoked on the proxy object—the first parameter is the proxy object, the second parameter is the Method object representing the method from the interface implemented by the proxy, and the third parameter is the array of parameters passed to the interface method. The invoke() method returns an Object result that contains the result returned to the code that called the proxy interface method.
java.io
The package contains classes that support input and output. The classes in the package are primarily stream-oriented; however, a class for random access files is also provided. The central classes in the package are and , which are abstract base classes for reading from and writing to byte streams, respectively. The related classes and are abstract base classes for reading from and writing to character streams, respectively. The package also has a few miscellaneous classes to support interactions with the host file system.
Streams
The stream classes follow the decorator pattern by extending the base subclass to add features to the stream classes. Subclasses of the base stream classes are typically named for one of the following attributes:
the source/destination of the stream data
the type of data written to/read from the stream
additional processing or filtering performed on the stream data
The stream subclasses are named using the naming pattern XxxStreamType where Xxx is the name describing the feature and StreamType is one of InputStream, OutputStream, Reader, or Writer.
The following table shows the sources/destinations supported directly by the java.io package:
Other standard library packages provide stream implementations for other destinations, such as the InputStream returned by the method or the Java EE class.
Data type handling and processing or filtering of stream data is accomplished through stream filters. The filter classes all accept another compatible stream object as a parameter to the constructor and decorate the enclosed stream with additional features. Filters are created by extending one of the base filter classes , , , or .
The Reader and Writer classes are really just byte streams with additional processing performed on the data stream to convert the bytes to characters. They use the default character encoding for the platform, which as of J2SE 5.0 is represented by the returned by the static method. The class converts an InputStream to a Reader and the class converts an OutputStream to a Writer. Both these classes have constructors that support specifying the character encoding to use. If no encoding is specified, the program uses the default encoding for the platform.
The following table shows the other processes and filters that the java.io package directly supports. All these classes extend the corresponding Filter class.
Random access
The class supports random access reading and writing of files. The class uses a file pointer that represents a byte-offset within the file for the next read or write operation. The file pointer is moved implicitly by reading or writing and explicitly by calling the or methods. The current position of the file pointer is returned by the method.
File system
The class represents a file or directory path in a file system. File objects support the creation, deletion and renaming of files and directories and the manipulation of file attributes such as read-only and last modified timestamp. File objects that represent directories can be used to get a list of all the contained files and directories.
The class is a file descriptor that represents a source or sink (destination) of bytes. Typically this is a file, but can also be a console or network socket. FileDescriptor objects are used to create File streams. They are obtained from File streams and java.net sockets and datagram sockets.
java.nio
In J2SE 1.4, the package (NIO or Non-blocking I/O) was added to support memory-mapped I/O, facilitating I/O operations closer to the underlying hardware with sometimes dramatically better performance. The java.nio package provides support for a number of buffer types. The subpackage provides support for different character encodings for character data. The subpackage provides support for channels, which represent connections to entities that are capable of performing I/O operations, such as files and sockets. The java.nio.channels package also provides support for fine-grained locking of files.
java.math
The package supports multiprecision arithmetic (including modular arithmetic operations) and provides multiprecision prime number generators used for cryptographic key generation. The main classes of the package are:
– provides arbitrary-precision signed decimal numbers. BigDecimal gives the user control over rounding behavior through RoundingMode.
– provides arbitrary-precision integers. Operations on BigInteger do not overflow or lose precision. In addition to standard arithmetic operations, it provides modular arithmetic, GCD calculation, primality testing, prime number generation, bit manipulation, and other miscellaneous operations.
– encapsulate the context settings that describe certain rules for numerical operators.
– an enumeration that provides eight rounding behaviors.
java.net
The package provides special IO routines for networks, allowing HTTP requests, as well as other common transactions.
java.text
The package implements parsing routines for strings and supports various human-readable languages and locale-specific parsing.
java.util
Data structures that aggregate objects are the focus of the package. Included in the package is the Collections API, an organized data structure hierarchy influenced heavily by the design patterns considerations.
Special purpose packages
java.applet
Created to support Java applet creation, the package lets applications be downloaded over a network and run within a guarded sandbox. Security restrictions are easily imposed on the sandbox. A developer, for example, may apply a digital signature to an applet, thereby labeling it as safe. Doing so allows the user to grant the applet permission to perform restricted operations (such as accessing the local hard drive), and removes some or all the sandbox restrictions. Digital certificates are issued by certificate authorities.
java.beans
Included in the package are various classes for developing and manipulating beans, reusable components defined by the JavaBeans architecture. The architecture provides mechanisms for manipulating properties of components and firing events when those properties change.
The APIs in java.beans are intended for use by a bean editing tool, in which beans can be combined, customized, and manipulated. One type of bean editor is a GUI designer in an integrated development environment.
java.awt
The , or Abstract Window Toolkit, provides access to a basic set of GUI widgets based on the underlying native platform's widget set, the core of the GUI event subsystem, and the interface between the native windowing system and the Java application. It also provides several basic layout managers, a datatransfer package for use with the Clipboard and Drag and Drop, the interface to input devices such as mice and keyboards, as well as access to the system tray on supporting systems. This package, along with javax.swing contains the largest number of enums (7 in all) in JDK 6.
java.rmi
The package provides Java remote method invocation to support remote procedure calls between two java applications running in different JVMs.
java.security
Support for security, including the message digest algorithm, is included in the package.
java.sql
An implementation of the JDBC API (used to access SQL databases) is grouped into the package.
javax.rmi
The javax.rmi package provided support for the remote communication between applications, using the RMI over IIOP protocol. This protocol combines RMI and CORBA features.
Java SE Core Technologies - CORBA / RMI-IIOP
javax.swing
Swing is a collection of routines that build on java.awt to provide a platform independent widget toolkit. uses the 2D drawing routines to render the user interface components instead of relying on the underlying native operating system GUI support.
This package contains the largest number of classes (133 in all) in JDK 6. This package, along with java.awt also contains the largest number of enums (7 in all) in JDK 6. It supports pluggable looks and feels (PLAFs) so that widgets in the GUI can imitate those from the underlying native system. Design patterns permeate the system, especially a modification of the model–view–controller pattern, which loosens the coupling between function and appearance. One inconsistency is that (as of J2SE 1.3) fonts are drawn by the underlying native system, and not by Java, limiting text portability. Workarounds, such as using bitmap fonts, do exist. In general, "layouts" are used and keep elements within an aesthetically consistent GUI across platforms.
javax.swing.text.html.parser
The package provides the error tolerant HTML parser that is used for writing various web browsers and web bots.
javax.xml.bind.annotation
The javax.xml.bind.annotation package contained the largest number of Annotation Types (30 in all) in JDK 6. It defines annotations for customizing Java program elements to XML Schema mapping.
OMG packages
org.omg.CORBA
The org.omg.CORBA package provided support for the remote communication between applications using the General Inter-ORB Protocol and supports other features of the common object request broker architecture. Same as RMI and RMI-IIOP, this package is for calling remote methods of objects on other virtual machines (usually via network).
This package contained the largest number of Exception classes (45 in all) in JDK 6. From all communication possibilities CORBA is portable between various languages; however, with this comes more complexity.
These packages were deprecated in Java 9 and removed from Java 11.
org.omg.PortableInterceptor
The org.omg.PortableInterceptor package contained the largest number of interfaces (39 in all) in JDK 6. It provides a mechanism to register ORB hooks through which ORB services intercept the normal flow of execution of the ORB.
Security
Several critical security vulnerabilities have been reported. Security alerts from Oracle announce critical security-related patches to Java SE.
References
External links
Oracle Technology Network's Java SE
Java SE API documentation
JSR 270 (Java SE 6)
1.8
1.7
1.6
Computing platforms
Platform, Standard Edition
Platform, Standard Edition |
43047 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwards%20v.%20Aguillard | Edwards v. Aguillard | Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning the constitutionality of teaching creationism. The Court considered a Louisiana law requiring that where evolutionary science was taught in public schools, creation science must also be taught. The constitutionality of the law was successfully challenged in District Court, Aguillard v. Treen, 634 F. Supp. 426 (ED La.1985), and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed, Aguillard v. Edwards, 765 F.2d 1251 (CA5 1985). The United States Supreme Court ruled that this law violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because the law was specifically intended to advance a particular religion. In its decision, the court opined that "teaching a variety of scientific theories about the origins of humankind to school children might be validly done with the clear secular intent of enhancing the effectiveness of science instruction."
In support of Aguillard, 72 Nobel Prize-winning scientists, 17 state academies of science, and seven other scientific organizations filed amicus briefs that described creation science as being composed of religious tenets.
Background
Modern American creationism arose from the theological split over modernist higher criticism and its rejection by the fundamentalist Christian movement, which promoted Biblical literalism and, post 1920, took up the anti-evolution cause led by William Jennings Bryan. The teaching of evolution had become a common part of the public school curriculum, but his campaign was based on the idea that "Darwinism" had caused German militarism and was a threat to traditional religion and morality. Several states passed legislation to ban or restrict the teaching of evolution. The Tennessee Butler Act was tested in the Scopes Trial of 1925, and continued in effect with the result that evolution was not taught in many schools.
When the United States sought to catch up in science during the 1960s with new teaching standards, which reintroduced evolution, the creation science movement arose, presenting what was claimed to be scientific evidence supporting young Earth creationism. Attempts were made to reintroduce legal bans, but the Supreme Court ruled in 1968’s Epperson v. Arkansas that bans on teaching evolutionary biology are unconstitutional as they violate the establishment clause of the United States Constitution, which forbids the government from advancing a particular religion.
In the early 1980s, several states attempted to introduce creationism alongside the teaching of evolution, and the Louisiana legislature passed a law, authored by State Senator Bill P. Keith of Caddo Parish, entitled the "Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act." The Act did not require teaching either creationism or evolution, but did require that, if evolutionary science was taught, then "creation science" must be taught as well. Creationists lobbied aggressively for the law. The stated purpose of the Act was to protect "academic freedom." Counsel for the state later admitted at the Supreme Court oral argument that the "legislature may not [have] used the term 'academic freedom' in the correct legal sense. They might have [had] in mind, instead, a basic concept of fairness; teaching all the evidence." Governor David C. Treen signed the bill into law in 1981.
The District Court in Aguillard v. Treen, 634 F. Supp. 426 (ED La.1985), and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, 765 F.2d 1251 (CA5 1985), ruled against Louisiana, finding that its actual purpose in enacting the statute was to promote the religious doctrine of "creation science". An Arkansas District Court previously held in a 1982 decision in McLean v. Arkansas that a similar "balanced treatment" statute violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Arkansas did not appeal the loss. Creationists believed the statute at issue in Edwards v. Aguillard had a better chance of passing constitutional muster, and so Louisiana appealed its loss in the trial and appellate courts to the Supreme Court.
The case was styled Edwards v. Aguillard because by the time the case reached the Supreme Court, Edwin Edwards had succeeded David Treen as governor of Louisiana, which was being sued, and Don Aguillard, a science teacher and assistant principal at Acadiana High School in Lafayette Parish, Louisiana, was the lead original plaintiff in District Court among a group of Louisiana teachers, students, parents, scientists and clergy.
Result
On June 19, 1987, the Supreme Court, in a seven-to-two majority opinion written by Justice William J. Brennan, ruled that the Act constituted an unconstitutional infringement on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, based on the three-pronged Lemon test, which is:
The government's action must have a legitimate secular purpose;
The government's action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion; and
The government's action must not result in an "excessive entanglement" of the government and religion.
The Supreme Court held that the Act is facially invalid as violative of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, because it lacks a clear secular purpose (first part of the above Lemon test), since (a) the Act does not further its stated secular purpose of "protecting academic freedom", and (b) the Act impermissibly endorses religion by advancing the religious belief that a supernatural being created humankind.
However, it did note that alternative scientific theories could be taught:
The Court found that, although the Louisiana legislature had stated that its purpose was to "protect academic freedom", that purpose was dubious because the Act gave Louisiana teachers no freedom they did not already possess and instead limited their ability to determine what scientific principles should be taught. Because it was unconvinced by the state's proffered secular purpose, the Court went on to find that the legislature had a "preeminent religious purpose in enacting this statute".
Dissent
Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, dissented, accepting the Act's stated purpose of "protecting academic freedom" as a sincere and legitimate secular purpose. They interpreted the term "academic freedom" to refer to "students' freedom from indoctrination", in this case their freedom "to decide for themselves how life began, based upon a fair and balanced presentation of the scientific evidence". However, they also criticized the first prong of the Lemon test, noting that "to look for the sole purpose of even a single legislator is probably to look for something that does not exist".
Consequences and aftermath
The ruling was one in a series of developments addressing issues related to the American creationist movement and the separation of church and state. The scope of the ruling affected public schools and did not include independent schools, home schools, Sunday schools and Christian schools, which remained free to teach creationism.
During the case, creationists worked on a creationist biology textbook, with the hope of a huge market if the appeal went their way. Drafts were given various titles, including Biology and Creation. After the Edwards v. Aguillard ruling, the authors changed the terms "creation" and "creationists" in the text to "intelligent design" and "design proponents", and the book was published as Of Pandas and People. This supplementary textbook for school use attacked evolutionary biology without mentioning the identity of the "intelligent designer". Promotion of intelligent design creationism by the intelligent design movement eventually led to the textbook's use in a school district being challenged in another court case. Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District went to trial on September 26, 2005, and was decided in U.S. District Court on December 20, 2005, in favor of the plaintiffs, who charged that a mandate that intelligent design be taught was an unconstitutional establishment of religion. The 139-page opinion of Kitzmiller v. Dover was hailed as a landmark decision, firmly establishing that creationism and intelligent design were religious teachings and not areas of legitimate scientific research. Because the Dover school board chose not to appeal, the case never reached a circuit court or the U.S. Supreme Court.
Wendell Bird served as a special assistant attorney general for Louisiana in the case and later became a staff attorney for the Institute for Creation Research and Association of Christian Schools International. Bird later authored books promoting creationism and teaching it in public schools.
See also
Scopes Trial
References
Further reading
External links
1987 in religion
1987 in United States case law
American Civil Liberties Union litigation
Establishment Clause case law
United States creationism and evolution case law
United States Supreme Court cases of the Rehnquist Court
Public education in Louisiana
United States Supreme Court cases |
43240 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas%20Telford | Thomas Telford | Thomas Telford (9 August 1757 – 2 September 1834) was a Scottish civil engineer. After establishing himself as an engineer of road and canal projects in Shropshire, he designed numerous infrastructure projects in his native Scotland, as well as harbours and tunnels. Such was his reputation as a prolific designer of highways and related bridges, he was dubbed the Colossus of Roads (a pun on the Colossus of Rhodes), and, reflecting his command of all types of civil engineering in the early 19th century, he was elected as the first president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, a post he held for 14 years until his death.
The town of Telford in Shropshire was named after him.
Early career
Telford was born on 9 August 1757, at Glendinning, a hill farm east of Eskdalemuir Kirk, in the rural parish of Westerkirk, in Eskdale, Dumfriesshire. His father John Telford, a shepherd, died soon after Thomas was born. Thomas was raised in poverty by his mother Janet Jackson (died 1794).
At the age of 14, he was apprenticed to a stonemason, and some of his earliest work can still be seen on the bridge across the River Esk in Langholm in Dumfries and Galloway. He worked for a time in Edinburgh and in 1782 he moved to London where, after meeting architects Robert Adam and Sir William Chambers, he was involved in building additions to Somerset House there. Two years later he found work at Portsmouth dockyard and – although still largely self-taught – was extending his talents to the specification, design and management of building projects.
In 1787, through his wealthy patron William Pulteney, he became Surveyor of Public Works in Shropshire. His projects included renovation of Shrewsbury Castle, the town's prison (during the planning of which he met leading prison reformer John Howard), the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Bridgnorth and another church, St Michael, in Madeley. Called in to advise on a leaking roof at St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury in 1788, he warned the church was in imminent danger of collapse; his reputation was made locally when it collapsed 3 days later, but he was not the architect for its replacement.
As the Shropshire county surveyor, Telford was also responsible for bridges. In 1790 he designed a bridge carrying the London–Holyhead road over the River Severn at Montford, the first of some 40 bridges he built in Shropshire, including major crossings of the Severn at Buildwas, and Bridgnorth. The bridge at Buildwas was Telford's first iron bridge. He was influenced by Abraham Darby's bridge at Ironbridge, and observed that it was grossly over-designed for its function, and many of the component parts were poorly cast. By contrast, his bridge was wider in span and half the weight, although it now no longer exists. He was one of the first engineers to test his materials thoroughly before construction. As his engineering prowess grew, Telford was to return to this material repeatedly.
In 1795, the bridge at Bewdley in Worcestershire was swept away in the winter floods and Telford was responsible for the design of its replacement. The same winter floods saw the bridge at Tenbury also swept away. This bridge across the River Teme was the joint responsibility of both Worcestershire and Shropshire and the bridge has a bend where the two counties meet. Telford was responsible for the repair to the northern (Shropshire) end of the bridge.
Ellesmere Canal
Telford's reputation in Shropshire led to his appointment in 1793 to manage the detailed design and construction of the Ellesmere Canal, linking the ironworks and collieries of Wrexham via the north-west Shropshire town of Ellesmere, with Chester, utilising the existing Chester Canal, and then the River Mersey.
Among other structures, this involved the spectacular Pontcysyllte Aqueduct over the River Dee in the Vale of Llangollen, where Telford used a new method of construction consisting of troughs made from cast iron plates and fixed in masonry. Extending for over with an altitude of above the valley floor, the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct consists of nineteen arches, each with a span. Being a pioneer in the use of cast-iron for large scaled structures, Telford had to invent new techniques, such as using boiling sugar and lead as a sealant on the iron connections.
Eminent canal engineer William Jessop oversaw the project, but he left the detailed execution of the project in Telford's hands. The aqueduct was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2009.
The same period also saw Telford involved in the design and construction of the Shrewsbury Canal. When the original engineer, Josiah Clowes, died in 1795, Telford succeeded him. One of Telford's achievements on this project was the design of Longdon-on-Tern Aqueduct, the cast-iron aqueduct at Longdon-on-Tern, pre-dating that at Pontcysyllte, and substantially bigger than the UK's first cast-iron aqueduct, built by Benjamin Outram on the Derby Canal just months earlier. The aqueduct is no longer in use, but is preserved as a distinctive piece of canal engineering.
The Ellesmere Canal was left uncompleted in 1805 because it failed to generate the revenues needed to finance the connecting sections to Chester and Shrewbury. However, alongside his canal responsibilities, Telford's reputation as a civil engineer meant he was constantly consulted on numerous other projects. These included water supply works for Liverpool, improvements to London's docklands and the rebuilding of London Bridge (c. 1800).
Most notably (and again William Pulteney was influential), in 1801 Telford devised a master plan to improve communications in the Highlands of Scotland, a massive project that was to last some 20 years. It included the building of the Caledonian Canal along the Great Glen and redesign of sections of the Crinan Canal, some of new roads, over a thousand new bridges (including the Craigellachie Bridge), numerous harbour improvements (including works at Aberdeen, Dundee, Peterhead, Wick, Portmahomack and Banff), and 32 new churches.
Telford also undertook highway works in the Scottish Lowlands, including of new roads and numerous bridges, ranging from a 112 ft (34 m) span stone bridge across the Dee at Tongueland in Kirkcudbright (1805–06) to the 129 ft (39 m) tall Cartland Crags bridge near Lanark (1822).
In 1809, Telford was tasked with improving the Howth Road in Dublin, to connect the new harbour at Howth to the city of Dublin as part of wider plan to improve communication between Dublin and London. The milestones that are a feature of this route from Howth to the GPO on O'Connell Street still mark the route. He also drafted the first design of the Ulster Canal. Irish engineer, William Dargan, was trained by Telford.
Telford was consulted in 1806 by the King of Sweden about the construction of a canal between Gothenburg and Stockholm. His plans were adopted and construction of the Göta Canal began in 1810. Telford travelled to Sweden at that time to oversee some of the more important initial excavations.
Many of Telford's projects were undertaken due to his role as a member of the Exchequer Bill Loan Commission, an organ set up under the Poor Employment Act of 1817, to help finance public work projects that would generate employment.
The 'Colossus of Roads'
During his later years, Telford was responsible for rebuilding sections of the London to Holyhead road, a task completed by his assistant of ten years, John MacNeill; today, much of the route is the A5 trunk road, although the Holyhead Road diverted off the A5 along what is now parts of A45, A41 and A464 through the cities of Coventry, Birmingham and Wolverhampton. Between London and Shrewsbury, most of the work amounted to improvements. Beyond Shrewsbury, and especially beyond Llangollen, the work often involved building a highway from scratch. Notable features of this section of the route include the
Waterloo Bridge across the River Conwy at Betws-y-Coed, the ascent from there to Capel Curig and then the descent from the pass of Nant Ffrancon towards Bangor. Between Capel Curig and Bethesda, in the Ogwen Valley, Telford deviated from the original road, built by Romans during their occupation of this area.
On the island of Anglesey a new embankment across the Stanley Sands to Holyhead was constructed, but the crossing of the Menai Strait was the most formidable challenge, overcome by the Menai Suspension Bridge (1819–26). Spanning , this was the longest suspension bridge of the time. Unlike modern suspension bridges, Telford used individually linked iron eye bars for the cables.
Telford also worked on the North Wales coast road between Chester and Bangor, including another major suspension bridge at Conwy, opened later the same year as its Menai counterpart.
Further afield Telford designed a road to cross the centre of the Isle of Arran. Named the 'String road', this route traverses bleak and difficult terrain to allow traffic to cross between east and west Arran avoiding the circuitous coastal route. His work on improving the Glasgow – Carlisle road, later to become the A74, has been described as "a model for future engineers."
Telford improved on methods for the building of macadam roads by improving the selection of stone based on thickness, taking into account traffic, alignment and slopes.
The punning nickname Colossus of Roads was given to Telford by his friend, the eventual Poet Laureate, Robert Southey.
In 1821, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
The 'Telford Church'
An Act of Parliament in 1823 provided a grant of £50,000 for the building of up to 40 churches and manses in communities without any church buildings (hence the alternative name: 'Parliamentary Church' or 'Parliamentary Kirk'). The total cost was not to exceed £1500 on any site and Telford was commissioned to undertake the design. He developed a simple church of T-shaped plan and two manse designs – a single-storey and a two-storey, adaptable to site and ground conditions, and to brick or stone construction, at £750 each. Of the 43 churches originally planned, 32 were eventually built around the Scottish highlands and islands (the other 11 were achieved by redoing existing buildings). The last of these churches was built in 1830. Some have been restored and/or converted to private use.
Late career
Other works by Telford include the St Katharine Docks (1824–28) close to Tower Bridge in central London, where he worked with the architect Philip Hardwick, the Gloucester and Berkeley Ship Canal (today known as the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal), Over Bridge near Gloucester, the second Harecastle Tunnel on the Trent and Mersey Canal (1827), and the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal (today part of the Shropshire Union Canal) – started in May 1826 but finished, after Telford's death, in January 1835. At the time of its construction in 1829, Galton Bridge was the longest single span in the world. Telford surveyed and planned the Macclesfield Canal, which was completed by William Crosley (or Crossley). He also built Whitstable harbour in Kent in 1832, in connection with the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway with an unusual system for flushing out mud using a tidal reservoir. He also completed the Grand Trunk after James Brindley died due to being over-worked.
In 1820, Telford was appointed the first President of the recently formed Institution of Civil Engineers, a post he held until his death.
Freemasonry
He was Initiated into Freemasonry in Antiquity Lodge, No. 26, (Portsmouth, England) in 1770. This lodge no longer exists. He was a founder member of Phoenix Lodge, No. 257 (also in Portsmouth). Telford designed a room within the George Inn for the lodge. In 1786 he became an affiliate member of Salopian Lodge, No. 262 (Shrewsbury, England).
Telford's death
Telford's young draughtsman and clerk 1830–34 George Turnbull in his diary states:
On the 23rd [August 1834] Mr Telford was taken seriously ill of a bilious derangement to which he had been liable … he grew worse and worse … [surgeons] attended him twice a day, but it was to no avail for he died on the 2nd September, very peacefully at about 5pm. … His old servant James Handscombe and I were the only two in the house [24 Abingdon Street, London] when he died. He was never married. Mr Milne and Mr Rickman were, no doubt, Telford's most intimate friends. … I went to Mr Milne and under his direction … made all the arrangements about the house and correspondence. … Telford had no blood relations that we knew of. The funeral took place on the 10th September [in Westminster Abbey]. … Mr Telford was of the most genial disposition and a delightful companion, his laugh was the heartiest I ever heard; it was a pleasure to be in his society.Pages 15 to 18 of George Turnbull, C.E. the 437-page memoirs published privately 1893: scanned copy held in the British Library, London on compact disk since 2007
Thomas Telford was buried in the nave of Westminster Abbey; a statue was erected to him nearby, in St Andrew's Chapel adjoining the north transept.
Throughout his life Telford had a great affection for his birthplace of Eskdale and its people and in his will left legacies to the two local libraries at Westerkirk and Langholm.
Honours
In 2011 he was one of seven inaugural inductees to the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame.
Telford the poet
Telford's reputation as a man of letters may have preceded his fame as an engineer: he had published poetry between 1779 and 1784, and an account of a tour of Scotland with Robert Southey. His will left bequests to Southey (who would later write Telford's biography), the poet Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) and to the publishers of the Edinburgh Encyclopædia (to which he had been a contributor).
George Turnbull states that Telford wrote and gave him a poem:
(Turnbull includes notes that explain nine references to Burns's life in the poem.)
Turnbull also states:
His ability and perseverance may be understood from various literary compositions of after life, such as the articles he contributed to the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, such as Architecture, Bridge-building, and Canal-making. Singular to say the earliest distinction he acquired in life was as a poet. Even at 30 years of age he reprinted at Shrewsbury a poem called "Eskdale", … Some others of his poems are in my possession.
Another example, later in Telford's life, was To Sir John Malcolm on Receiving His Miscellaneous Poems (1831).
Bridges designed by Telford
Telford designed a number of bridges and aqueducts during his career. They include:
Places named after Telford
Telford is commemorated through the naming of a number of sites:
Telford New Town;
Thomas Telford School;
Thomas Telford Road, Langholm, where Telford was an apprentice in his early years;
Telford Hall, a hall of residence at Loughborough University. A plaque in his honour hangs in the hall's common room;
Telford, Pennsylvania, the Borough of County Line in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania changed its name to Telford in 1857, after the North Pennsylvania Railroad Company named its new station there "Telford" in honour of Thomas Telford;
Telford College, Edinburgh;
Telford Bridge (footbridge), in 2008, a footbridge was erected over the Shubenacadie Canal in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia and named for Telford, who made important contributions to the nineteenth-century Canadian canal;
Thomas Telford Basin, part of a residential development on the Ashton Canal in Manchester.
Autobiography
Telford's autobiography, titled The Life of Thomas Telford, Civil Engineer, written by himself, was published posthumously in 1838.
Bibliography
The Life of Thomas Telford; civil engineer with an introductory history of roads and travelling in Great Britain Samuel Smiles (1867)
Thomas Telford L. T. C. Rolt, Longmans (1958)
Thomas Telford, Penguin (1979),
Thomas Telford, Engineer, Thomas Telford Ltd (1980),
Man of Iron: Thomas Telford and the Building of Britain, Julian Glover, Bloomsbury Publishing (2017),
See also
Works of Thomas Telford
Telford Medal
People acquainted with Thomas Telford
Charles Atherton, fellow civil engineer
Hugh Baird (engineer), fellow civil engineer
Hamilton Fulton, fellow civil engineer
John Gibb (engineer), fellow civil engineer
William Hazledine, supplied ironwork for many projects of Thomas Telford
William Jessop, fellow civil engineer
John Benjamin Macneill, fellow civil engineer
Sir William Pulteney, 5th Baronet, patron of Thomas Telford
William Reynolds (industrialist), constructed Longdon-on-Tern Aqueduct for Telford
George Turnbull (civil engineer), fellow civil engineer
Notes
References
External links
Menai Heritage A community project and museum telling the story of Thomas Telford's Menai Suspension bridge
Revolutionary Players website
The Life of Thomas Telford
1757 births
1834 deaths
British bridge engineers
Scottish architects
Scottish civil engineers
Scottish philanthropists
Scottish stonemasons
Scottish autobiographers
Fellows of the Royal Society
Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
People from Dumfries and Galloway
People of the Industrial Revolution
Burials at Westminster Abbey
British canal engineers
Presidents of the Institution of Civil Engineers
Harbour engineers
Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame inductees |
43411 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very%20High%20Speed%20Integrated%20Circuit%20Program | Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Program | The Very High Speed Integrated Circuit (VHSIC) Program was a United States Department of Defense (DOD) research program that ran from 1980 to 1990. Its mission was to research and develop very high-speed integrated circuits for the United States Armed Forces.
VHSIC was launched in 1980 as a joint tri-service (Army/Navy/Air Force) program. The program led to advances in integrated circuit materials, lithography, packaging, testing, and algorithms, and created numerous computer-aided design (CAD) tools. A well-known part of the program's contribution is VHDL (VHSIC Hardware Description Language), a hardware description language (HDL). The program also redirected the military's interest in GaAs ICs back toward the commercial mainstream of CMOS circuits.
More than $1 billion in total was spent for the VHSIC program for silicon integrated circuit technology development.
A DARPA project which ran concurrently, the VLSI Project, having begun two years earlier in 1978, contributed BSD Unix, the RISC processor, the MOSIS research design fab, and greatly furthered the Mead and Conway revolution in VLSI design automation. By contrast, the VHSIC program was comparatively less cost-effective for the funds invested over a contemporaneous time frame, though the projects had different final objectives and are not entirely comparable for that reason.
The program didn't succeed at producing high-speed ICs as commercial processors by that time were well ahead of what the DOD expected to produce.
References
Integrated circuits
Science and technology in the United States |
43592 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John%20Herschel | John Herschel | Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (; 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor, experimental photographer who invented the blueprint and did botanical work.
Herschel originated the use of the Julian day system in astronomy. He named seven moons of Saturn and four moons of Uranus – the seventh planet, discovered by his father Sir William Herschel. He made many contributions to the science of photography, and investigated colour blindness and the chemical power of ultraviolet rays. His Preliminary Discourse (1831), which advocated an inductive approach to scientific experiment and theory-building, was an important contribution to the philosophy of science.
Early life and work on astronomy
Herschel was born in Slough, Buckinghamshire, the son of Mary Baldwin and astronomer William Herschel. He was the nephew of astronomer Caroline Herschel. He studied shortly at Eton College and St John's College, Cambridge, graduating as Senior Wrangler in 1813. It was during his time as an undergraduate that he became friends with the mathematicians Charles Babbage and George Peacock. He left Cambridge in 1816 and started working with his father. He took up astronomy in 1816, building a reflecting telescope with a mirror in diameter, and with a focal length. Between 1821 and 1823 he re-examined, with James South, the double stars catalogued by his father. He was one of the founders of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1820. For his work with his father, he was presented with the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1826 (which he won again in 1836), and with the Lalande Medal of the French Academy of Sciences in 1825, while in 1821 the Royal Society bestowed upon him the Copley Medal for his mathematical contributions to their Transactions. Herschel was made a Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order in 1831. He also seemed to be aware of Indian thought and mathematics introduced to him by George Everest as claimed by Mary Boole:
He stated in his historical article Mathematics in Brewster's Cyclopedia:
Herschel served as president of the Royal Astronomical Society three times: 1827–1829, 1839–1841 and 1847–1849.
Herschel's A preliminary discourse on the study of natural philosophy, published early in 1831 as part of Dionysius Lardner's Cabinet cyclopædia, set out methods of scientific investigation with an orderly relationship between observation and theorising. He described nature as being governed by laws which were difficult to discern or to state mathematically, and the highest aim of natural philosophy was understanding these laws through inductive reasoning, finding a single unifying explanation for a phenomenon. This became an authoritative statement with wide influence on science, particularly at the University of Cambridge where it inspired the student Charles Darwin with "a burning zeal" to contribute to this work.
He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1854.
Herschel published a catalogue of his astronomical observations in 1864, as the General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters, a compilation of his own work and that of his father's, expanding on the senior Herschel's Catalogue of Nebulae. A further complementary volume was published posthumously, as the General Catalogue of 10,300 Multiple and Double Stars.
Herschel correctly considered astigmatism to be due to irregularity of the cornea and theorised that vision could be improved by the application of some animal jelly contained in a capsule of glass against the cornea. His views were published in an article entitled Light in 1828 and the Encyclopædia Metropolitana in 1845.
Discoveries of Herschel include the galaxies NGC 7, NGC 10, NGC 25, and NGC 28.
Visit to South Africa
He declined an offer from the Duke of Sussex that they travel to South Africa on a Navy ship. Herschel had his own inherited money and he paid £500 for passage on the S.S. Mountstuart Elphinstone. He, his wife, their three children and his 20 inch telescope departed from Portsmouth on 13 November 1833.
The voyage to South Africa was made to catalogue the stars, nebulae, and other objects of the southern skies. This was to be a completion as well as extension of the survey of the northern heavens undertaken initially by his father William Herschel. He arrived in Cape Town on 15 January 1834 and set up a private telescope at Feldhausen at Claremont, a suburb of Cape Town. Amongst his other observations during this time was that of the return of Comet Halley. Herschel collaborated with Thomas Maclear, the Astronomer Royal at the Cape of Good Hope and the members of the two families became close friends. During this time, he also witnessed the Great Eruption of Eta Carinae (December 1837).
In addition to his astronomical work, however, this voyage to a far corner of the British empire also gave Herschel an escape from the pressures under which he found himself in London, where he was one of the most sought-after of all British men of science. While in southern Africa, he engaged in a broad variety of scientific pursuits free from a sense of strong obligations to a larger scientific community. It was, he later recalled, probably the happiest time in his life.
Herschel combined his talents with those of his wife, Margaret, and between 1834 and 1838 they produced 131 botanical illustrations of fine quality, showing the Cape flora. Herschel used a camera lucida to obtain accurate outlines of the specimens and left the details to his wife. Even though their portfolio had been intended as a personal record, and despite the lack of floral dissections in the paintings, their accurate rendition makes them more valuable than many contemporary collections. Some 112 of the 132 known flower studies were collected and published as Flora Herscheliana in 1996. The book also included work by Charles Davidson Bell and Thomas Bowler.
As their home during their stay in the Cape, the Herschels had selected 'Feldhausen' ("Field Houses"), an old estate on the south-eastern side of Table Mountain. Here John set up his reflector to begin his survey of the southern skies.
Herschel, at the same time, read widely. Intrigued by the ideas of gradual formation of landscapes set out in Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology, he wrote to Lyell on 20 February 1836 praising the book as a work that would bring "a complete revolution in [its] subject, by altering entirely the point of view in which it must thenceforward be contemplated" and opening a way for bold speculation on "that mystery of mysteries, the replacement of extinct species by others." Herschel himself thought catastrophic extinction and renewal "an inadequate conception of the Creator" and by analogy with other intermediate causes, "the origination of fresh species, could it ever come under our cognizance, would be found to be a natural in contradistinction to a miraculous process". He prefaced his words with the couplet:
Taking a gradualist view of development and referring to evolutionary descent from a proto-language, Herschel commented:
The document was circulated, and Charles Babbage incorporated extracts in his ninth and unofficial Bridgewater Treatise, which postulated laws set up by a divine programmer. When HMS Beagle called at Cape Town, Captain Robert FitzRoy and the young naturalist Charles Darwin visited Herschel on 3 June 1836. Later on, Darwin would be influenced by Herschel's writings in developing his theory advanced in The Origin of Species. In the opening lines of that work, Darwin writes that his intent is "to throw some light on the origin of species – that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers," referring to Herschel. However, Herschel ultimately rejected the theory of natural selection.
Herschel returned to England in 1838, was created a baronet, of Slough in the County of Buckingham, and published Results of Astronomical Observations made at the Cape of Good Hope in 1847. In this publication he proposed the names still used today for the seven then-known satellites of Saturn: Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Titan, and Iapetus. In the same year, Herschel received his second Copley Medal from the Royal Society for this work. A few years later, in 1852, he proposed the names still used today for the four then-known satellites of Uranus: Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon. A stone obelisk, erected in 1842 and now in the grounds of The Grove Primary School, marks the site where his 20-ft reflector once stood.
Photography
Herschel made numerous important contributions to photography. He made improvements in photographic processes, particularly in inventing the cyanotype process, which became known as blueprints, and variations, such as the chrysotype. In 1839, he made a photograph on glass, which still exists, and experimented with some colour reproduction, noting that rays of different parts of the spectrum tended to impart their own colour to a photographic paper. Herschel made experiments using photosensitive emulsions of vegetable juices, called phytotypes, also known as anthotypes, and published his discoveries in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London in 1842. He collaborated in the early 1840s with Henry Collen, portrait painter to Queen Victoria. Herschel originally discovered the platinum process on the basis of the light sensitivity of platinum salts, later developed by William Willis.
Herschel coined the term photography in 1839. Herschel was also the first to apply the terms negative and positive to photography.
Herschel discovered sodium thiosulfate to be a solvent of silver halides in 1819, and informed Talbot and Daguerre of his discovery that this "hyposulphite of soda" ("hypo") could be used as a photographic fixer, to "fix" pictures and make them permanent, after experimentally applying it thus in early 1839.
Herschel's ground-breaking research on the subject was read at the Royal Society in London in March 1839 and January 1840.
Other aspects of Herschel's career
Herschel wrote many papers and articles, including entries on meteorology, physical geography and the telescope for the eighth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. He also translated the Iliad of Homer.
In 1823, Herschel published his findings on the optical spectra of metal salts.
Herschel invented the actinometer in 1825 to measure the direct heating power of the Sun's rays, and his work with the instrument is of great importance in the early history of photochemistry.
Herschel proposed a correction to the Gregorian calendar, making years that are multiples of 4000 common years rather than leap years, thus reducing the average length of the calendar year from 365.2425 days to 365.24225. Although this is closer to the mean tropical year of 365.24219 days, his proposal has never been adopted because the Gregorian calendar is based on the mean time between vernal equinoxes (currently days).
Herschel was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1832, and in 1836, a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
In 1835, the New York Sun newspaper wrote a series of satiric articles that came to be known as the Great Moon Hoax, with statements falsely attributed to Herschel about his supposed discoveries of animals living on the Moon, including batlike winged humanoids.
Several locations are named for him: the village of Herschel in western Saskatchewan, Canada, site of the discovery of Dolichorhynchops herschelensis, a type of plesiosaur; Mount Herschel in Antarctica; the crater J. Herschel on the Moon; and the settlement of Herschel, Eastern Cape and the Herschel Girls' School in Cape Town, South Africa.
While it is commonly accepted that Herschel Island, in the Arctic Ocean, part of the Yukon Territory, was named after him, the entries in the expedition journal of Sir John Franklin state that the latter wished to honour the Herschel family, of which John Herschel's father, Sir William Herschel, and his aunt, Caroline Herschel, are as notable as John.
Family
Herschel married his cousin Margaret Brodie Stewart (1810–1884) on 3 March 1829 in Edinburgh, and was father of the following children:
Caroline Emilia Mary Herschel (31 March 1830 – 29 January 1909), who married the soldier and politician Alexander Hamilton-Gordon
Isabella Herschel (5 June 1831 – 1893)
Sir William James Herschel, 2nd Bt. (9 January 1833 – 1917),
Margaret Louisa Herschel (1834–1861), an accomplished artist
Prof. Alexander Stewart Herschel (1836–1907), FRS, FRAS
Col. John Herschel FRS, FRAS, (1837–1921) surveyor
Maria Sophia Herschel (1839–1929)
Amelia Herschel (1841–1926) married Sir Thomas Francis Wade, diplomat and sinologist
Julia Herschel (1842–1933) married on 4 June 1878 to Captain (later Admiral) John Fiot Lee Pearse Maclear
Matilda Rose Herschel (1844–1914), a gifted artist, married William Waterfield (Indian Civil Service)
Francisca Herschel (1846–1932)
Constance Anne Herschel (1855–20 June 1939), mathematician and scientist who became lecturer in natural sciences at Girton College, Cambridge
Death
Herschel died on 11 May 1871 at age 79 at Collingwood, his home near Hawkhurst in Kent. On his death, he was given a national funeral and buried in Westminster Abbey.
His obituary by Henry W Field of London was read to the American Philosophical Society on 1 December 1871.
Bibliography
On the Aberration of Compound Lenses and Object-Glasses (1821)
Book-length articles on "Light", "Sound" and "Physical Astronomy" for the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana (30 vols. 1817–45)
Manual of Scientific Inquiry (ed.), (1849)
Meteorology (1861)
General Catalogue of 10,300 Multiple and Double Stars (published posthumously)
General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters
Arms
References
Works cited
Further reading
On Herschel's relationship with Charles Babbage, William Whewell, and Richard Jones, see
External links
Biographical information
R. Derek Wood (2008), 'Fourteenth March 1839, Herschel's Key to Photography'
Herschel Museum of Astronomy
Science in the Making Herschel's papers in the Royal Society's archives
Wikisource copy of a notice from 1823 concerning the star catalogue, published in Astronomische Nachrichten
1792 births
1871 deaths
19th-century British astronomers
Photographers from Buckinghamshire
19th-century English photographers
Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge
Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom
Burials at Westminster Abbey
English Christians
English people of German descent
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Fellows of the Royal Astronomical Society
Fellows of the Royal Society
Honorary members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences
Masters of the Mint
Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
People educated at Eton College
People from Slough
Pioneers of photography
Presidents of the Royal Astronomical Society
Proto-evolutionary biologists
Recipients of the Copley Medal
Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)
Rectors of the University of Aberdeen
Royal Medal winners
Senior Wranglers
Spectroscopists
John
Recipients of the Lalande Prize
Translators of Homer
Wynberg, Cape Town |
43759 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/259 | 259 | Year 259 (CCLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Aemilianus and Bassus (or, less frequently, year 1012 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 259 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Events
By place
Roman Empire
Emperor Valerian leads an army (70,000 men) to relieve Edessa, besieged by the forces of Persian King Shapur I. An outbreak of a plague kills many legionaries, weakening the Roman position in Syria.
Battle of Mediolanum: A Germanic confederation, the Alamanni (300,000 warriors), who crossed the Alps, are defeated by Roman legions under Gallienus, near Mediolanum (modern Milan).
Postumus revolts against Gallienus in Gaul. The western provinces of Britain and Spain join his independent realm—which is called in modern times the Gallic Empire.
Postumus, governor of Gaul, declares himself Emperor, and continues to rule the Gallic Empire until 269, when he is killed by his soldiers.
The Roman fort of Wiesbaden (Germany) is captured by the Alamanni (possibly 260).
The Franks, who invaded the Roman Empire near Cologne in 257, reach Tarraco in Hispania.
Persia
Mesopotamia: Odaenathus, the ruler of the kingdom of Palmyra, sacks the city of Nehardea, destroying its great yeshiva.
By topic
Religion
Pope Dionysius is elected as the pope.
Births
Hui of Jin, Chinese emperor of the Jin Dynasty (d. 307)
Tao Kan (or Shixing), Chinese general and politician (d. 334)
Yang Zhi, Chinese empress of the Jin Dynasty (d. 292)
Deaths
January 10 – Polyeuctus, Roman soldier and saint
January 18 – Sun Chen, Chinese general and regent (b. 232)
Augurius of Tarragona, Christian Hispano-Roman clergyman
Cao Jun (or Zi'an), Chinese prince and son of Cao Cao
Fructuosus of Tarragona, Christian bishop, martyr and saint
Wang Chang (or Wenshu), Chinese general and politician
References |
43921 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9%20Goscinny | René Goscinny | René Goscinny (, ; 14 August 1926 – 5 November 1977) was a French comic editor and writer, who created the Astérix comic book series with illustrator Albert Uderzo. He was raised primarily in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he attended French schools, as well as lived in the United States for a short period of time. There he met Belgian cartoonist Morris. After his return to France, they collaborated for more than 20 years on the comic series Lucky Luke (in what was considered the series' golden age).
He wrote Iznogoud with Jean Tabary. Goscinny also wrote a series of children's books known as Le Petit Nicolas (Little Nicolas) illustrated by Jean-Jacques Sempé.
Early life
Goscinny was born in Paris in 1926, to Jewish immigrants from Poland. His parents were Stanisław Simkha Gościnny, a chemical engineer from Warsaw, and Anna (Hanna) Bereśniak-Gościnna from Chodorków (Ходорків), a small village near Kyiv in Ukraine. Goscinny's maternal grandfather, Abraham Lazare Berezniak, founded a printing company. Claude, Goscinny's older brother, was six years older, born on 10 December 1920.
Stanisław and Anna had met in Paris and married in 1919. When René was two, the Gościnnys moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, because his father had been hired as a chemical engineer there. René had a happy childhood in Buenos Aires and studied in French-language schools there. He was often the "class clown", probably to compensate for a natural shyness. He started drawing very early on, inspired by the illustrated stories which he enjoyed reading.
In December 1943, the year after Goscinny graduated from lycée or high school, his father died of a cerebral hemorrhage (stroke). The youth had to go to work. The next year, he got his first job, as an assistant accountant in a tire recovery factory. After being laid off the following years, Goscinny became a junior illustrator in an advertising agency.
Goscinny, along with his mother, emigrated from Argentina and immigrated to New York, United States in 1945, to join her brother Boris. To avoid service in the United States Armed Forces, he travelled to France to join the French Army in 1946. He served at Aubagne, in the 141st Alpine Infantry Battalion. Promoted to senior corporal, he became the appointed artist of the regiment and drew illustrations and posters for the army.
First works
The following year, Goscinny worked on an illustrated version of the Balzac short story "The Girl with the Golden Eyes." In April of that year he returned to New York.
There he went through the most difficult period of his life. For a while, Goscinny was jobless, alone, and living in poverty. By 1948, though, he had begun working in a small studio, where he became friends with future MAD Magazine contributors Will Elder, Jack Davis, and Harvey Kurtzman. Goscinny became art director at Kunen Publishers, where he wrote four books for children.
Around this time he met two Belgian comic artists, Joseph Gillain, better known as Jijé, and Maurice de Bevere, also known as Morris. Morris lived in the US for six years, having already started his cartoon series Lucky Luke. (He and Goscinny collaborated on this, with Goscinny writing it from 1955 until his death in 1977, a period described as its golden age).
Georges Troisfontaines, chief of the World Press agency, convinced Goscinny to return to France in 1951 in order to work for his agency as the head of the Paris office. There he met Albert Uderzo, with whom he started a longtime collaboration. They started out with some work for Bonnes Soirées, a women's magazine for which Goscinny wrote Sylvie. Goscinny and Uderzo also launched the series Jehan Pistolet and Luc Junior, in the magazine La Libre Junior.
In 1955, Goscinny, together with Uderzo, Jean-Michel Charlier, and Jean Hébrad, founded the syndicate Edipress/Edifrance. The syndicate launched publications such as Clairon for the factory union and Pistolin for a chocolate company. Goscinny and Uderzo cooperated on the series Bill Blanchart in Jeannot, Pistolet in Pistolin, and Benjamin et Benjamine in the magazine of the same name. Under the pseudonym Agostini, Goscinny wrote Le Petit Nicolas for Jean-Jacques Sempé in Le Moustique. It was later published in Sud-Ouest and Pilote magazines.
In 1956, Goscinny began a collaboration with Tintin magazine. He wrote some short stories for Jo Angenot and Albert Weinberg, and worked on Signor Spaghetti with Dino Attanasio, Monsieur Tric with Bob de Moor, Prudence Petitpas with Maurice Maréchal, Globul le Martien and Alphonse with Tibet, Strapontin with Berck and Modeste et Pompon with André Franquin. An early creation with Uderzo, Oumpah-pah, was also adapted for serial publication in Tintin from 1958 to 1962. In addition, Goscinny appeared in the magazines Paris-Flirt (Lili Manequin with Will) and Vaillant (Boniface et Anatole with Jordom, Pipsi with Godard).
Pilote and Astérix (1959)
In 1959, the Édifrance/Édipresse syndicate started the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Pilote. Goscinny became one of the most productive writers for the magazine. In the magazine's first issue, he launched Astérix, with Uderzo. The series was an instant hit and remains popular worldwide. Goscinny also restarted the series Le Petit Nicolas and Jehan Pistolet, now called Jehan Soupolet. Goscinny also began Jacquot le Mousse and Tromblon et Bottaclou with Godard.
The magazine was bought by Georges Dargaud in 1960, and Goscinny became editor-in-chief. He also began new series like Les Divagations de Monsieur Sait-Tout (with Martial), La Potachologie Illustrée (with Cabu), Les Dingodossiers (with Gotlib) and La Forêt de Chênebeau (with Mic Delinx). With Tabary, he launched Calife Haroun El Poussah in Record, a series that was later continued in Pilote as Iznogoud. With Raymond Macherot he created Pantoufle for Spirou.
Family
Goscinny married Gilberte Pollaro-Millo in 1967. In 1968 their daughter Anne Goscinny was born. She also became an author.
Anne Goscinny, the daughter of René Goscinny, co-wrote the screenplay for Little Nicholas: Happy As Can Be, 2022 animation film with Michel Fessler and Massoubre.
Death
Goscinny died at 51, in Paris of cardiac arrest on 5 November 1977, during a routine stress test at his doctor's office. He was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Nice. In accordance with his will, most of his money was transferred to the chief rabbinate of France.
Goscinny's death occurred halfway through the writing of Asterix in Belgium (published in 1979, two years after his death). As a homage to Goscinny, Uderzo drew darkened skies and rain into the comic for the rest of the book, to mark the point at which Goscinny died. There is a further tribute at the end of Asterix in Belgium; near the lower left corner of the final panel of the album, Uderzo drew a rabbit sadly looking over its shoulders towards Goscinny's signature.
After Goscinny's death, Uderzo began to write Asterix himself and continued the series, although at a much slower pace, until passing the series over in 2011 to writer Jean-Yves Ferri and illustrator Didier Conrad. Tabary similarly began to write Iznogoud himself, whereas Morris continued Lucky Luke with various other writers.
In a tribute to Goscinny, Uderzo gave his late colleague's likeness to the Jewish character Saul ben Ephishul in the 1981 album L'Odyssée d'Astérix ("Asterix and the Black Gold"), which is dedicated to Goscinny's memory.
Awards and honors
1974: Adamson Award for best international comic strip artist, Sweden
2005: Inducted in the Will Eisner Hall of Fame as a Judges' choice, U.S.
Since 1996, the René Goscinny Award is presented at the yearly Angoulême International Comics Festival in France as an encouragement for young comic writers.
According to UNESCO's Index Translationum, Goscinny, as of August 2017, was the 20th most-translated author, with 2,200 translations of his work.
On 23 January 2020, a life-sized bronze statue of Goscinny was unveiled near his former home in Paris. It was the first public statue in Paris dedicated to a comic book author.
Filmography
Bibliography
a. As part of a writers' team coming up with gags.
b. The series Lucky Luke, Modeste et Pompon, Asterix and Iznogoud were continued by other writers after Goscinny's death.
Notes
References
Goscinny publications in Pilote, Spirou, French Tintin and Belgian Tintin BDoubliées
Goscinny albums Bedetheque
External links
Goscinny official site
Astérix official site
On Dupuis.com
Goscinny biography on Asterix International!
Goscinny biography on Lambiek Comiclopedia
Daughter Ann lighting Hanuka candles with family.
1926 births
1977 deaths
20th-century French illustrators
20th-century French military personnel
20th-century French writers
Asterix
Comic book editors
French Army soldiers
French cartoonists
French children's writers
French comics writers
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French expatriates in Argentina
French expatriates in the United States
French male writers
French people of Polish-Jewish descent
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Lucky Luke
Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame inductees
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César Honorary Award recipients |
44062 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray%20astronomy | X-ray astronomy | X-ray astronomy is an observational branch of astronomy which deals with the study of X-ray observation and detection from astronomical objects. X-radiation is absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere, so instruments to detect X-rays must be taken to high altitude by balloons, sounding rockets, and satellites. X-ray astronomy uses a type of space telescope that can see x-ray radiation which standard optical telescopes, such as the Mauna Kea Observatories, cannot.
X-ray emission is expected from astronomical objects that contain extremely hot gases at temperatures from about a million kelvin (K) to hundreds of millions of kelvin (MK). Moreover, the maintenance of the E-layer of ionized gas high in the Earth's thermosphere also suggested a strong extraterrestrial source of X-rays. Although theory predicted that the Sun and the stars would be prominent X-ray sources, there was no way to verify this because Earth's atmosphere blocks most extraterrestrial X-rays. It was not until ways of sending instrument packages to high altitudes were developed that these X-ray sources could be studied.
The existence of solar X-rays was confirmed early in the mid-twentieth century by V-2s converted to sounding rockets, and the detection of extra-terrestrial X-rays has been the primary or secondary mission of multiple satellites since 1958. The first cosmic (beyond the Solar System) X-ray source was discovered by a sounding rocket in 1962. Called Scorpius X-1 (Sco X-1) (the first X-ray source found in the constellation Scorpius), the X-ray emission of Scorpius X-1 is 10,000 times greater than its visual emission, whereas that of the Sun is about a million times less. In addition, the energy output in X-rays is 100,000 times greater than the total emission of the Sun in all wavelengths.
Many thousands of X-ray sources have since been discovered. In addition, the intergalactic space in galaxy clusters is filled with a hot, but very dilute gas at a temperature between 100 and 1000 megakelvins (MK). The total amount of hot gas is five to ten times the total mass in the visible galaxies.
Sounding rocket flights
The first sounding rocket flights for X-ray research were accomplished at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico with a V-2 rocket on January 28, 1949. A detector was placed in the nose cone section and the rocket was launched in a suborbital flight to an altitude just above the atmosphere. X-rays from the Sun were detected by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory Blossom experiment on board.
An Aerobee 150 rocket launched on June 19, 1962 (UTC) detected the first X-rays emitted from a source outside our solar system (Scorpius X-1). It is now known that such X-ray sources as Sco X-1 are compact stars, such as neutron stars or black holes. Material falling into a black hole may emit X-rays, but the black hole itself does not. The energy source for the X-ray emission is gravity. Infalling gas and dust is heated by the strong gravitational fields of these and other celestial objects. Based on discoveries in this new field of X-ray astronomy, starting with Scorpius X-1, Riccardo Giacconi received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2002.
The largest drawback to rocket flights is their very short duration (just a few minutes above the atmosphere before the rocket falls back to Earth) and their limited field of view. A rocket launched from the United States will not be able to see sources in the southern sky; a rocket launched from Australia will not be able to see sources in the northern sky.
X-ray Quantum Calorimeter (XQC) project
In astronomy, the interstellar medium (or ISM) is the gas and cosmic dust that pervade interstellar space: the matter that exists between the star systems within a galaxy. It fills interstellar space and blends smoothly into the surrounding intergalactic medium. The interstellar medium consists of an extremely dilute (by terrestrial standards) mixture of ions, atoms, molecules, larger dust grains, cosmic rays, and (galactic) magnetic fields. The energy that occupies the same volume, in the form of electromagnetic radiation, is the interstellar radiation field.
Of interest is the hot ionized medium (HIM) consisting of a coronal cloud ejection from star surfaces at 106-107 K which emits X-rays. The ISM is turbulent and full of structure on all spatial scales. Stars are born deep inside large complexes of molecular clouds, typically a few parsecs in size. During their lives and deaths, stars interact physically with the ISM. Stellar winds from young clusters of stars (often with giant or supergiant HII regions surrounding them) and shock waves created by supernovae inject enormous amounts of energy into their surroundings, which leads to hypersonic turbulence. The resultant structures are stellar wind bubbles and superbubbles of hot gas. The Sun is currently traveling through the Local Interstellar Cloud, a denser region in the low-density Local Bubble.
To measure the spectrum of the diffuse X-ray emission from the interstellar medium over the energy range 0.07 to 1 keV, NASA launched a Black Brant 9 from White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico on May 1, 2008. The Principal Investigator for the mission is Dr. Dan McCammon of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Balloons
Balloon flights can carry instruments to altitudes of up to 40 km above sea level, where they are above as much as 99.997% of the Earth's atmosphere. Unlike a rocket where data are collected during a brief few minutes, balloons are able to stay aloft for much longer. However, even at such altitudes, much of the X-ray spectrum is still absorbed. X-rays with energies less than 35 keV (5,600 aJ) cannot reach balloons. On July 21, 1964, the Crab Nebula supernova remnant was discovered to be a hard X-ray (15–60 keV) source by a scintillation counter flown on a balloon launched from Palestine, Texas, United States. This was likely the first balloon-based detection of X-rays from a discrete cosmic X-ray source.
High-energy focusing telescope
The high-energy focusing telescope (HEFT) is a balloon-borne experiment to image astrophysical sources in the hard X-ray (20–100 keV) band. Its maiden flight took place in May 2005 from Fort Sumner, New Mexico, USA. The angular resolution of HEFT is c. 1.5'. Rather than using a grazing-angle X-ray telescope, HEFT makes use of a novel tungsten-silicon multilayer coatings to extend the reflectivity of nested grazing-incidence mirrors beyond 10 keV. HEFT has an energy resolution of 1.0 keV full width at half maximum at 60 keV. HEFT was launched for a 25-hour balloon flight in May 2005. The instrument performed within specification and observed Tau X-1, the Crab Nebula.
High-resolution gamma-ray and hard X-ray spectrometer (HIREGS)
A balloon-borne experiment called the High-resolution gamma-ray and hard X-ray spectrometer (HIREGS) observed X-ray and gamma-rays emissions from the Sun and other astronomical objects. It was launched from McMurdo Station, Antarctica in December 1991 and 1992. Steady winds carried the balloon on a circumpolar flight lasting about two weeks each time.
Rockoons
The rockoon, a blend of rocket and balloon, was a solid fuel rocket that, rather than being immediately lit while on the ground, was first carried into the upper atmosphere by a gas-filled balloon. Then, once separated from the balloon at its maximum height, the rocket was automatically ignited. This achieved a higher altitude, since the rocket did not have to move through the lower thicker air layers that would have required much more chemical fuel.
The original concept of "rockoons" was developed by Cmdr. Lee Lewis, Cmdr. G. Halvorson, S. F. Singer, and James A. Van Allen during the Aerobee rocket firing cruise of the on March 1, 1949.
From July 17 to July 27, 1956, the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) shipboard launched eight Deacon rockoons for solar ultraviolet and X-ray observations at ~30° N ~121.6° W, southwest of San Clemente Island, apogee: 120 km.
X-ray astronomy satellite
X-ray astronomy satellites study X-ray emissions from celestial objects. Satellites, which can detect and transmit data about the X-ray emissions are deployed as part of branch of space science known as X-ray astronomy. Satellites are needed because X-radiation is absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere, so instruments to detect X-rays must be taken to high altitude by balloons, sounding rockets, and satellites.
X-ray telescopes and mirrors
X-ray telescopes (XRTs) have varying directionality or imaging ability based on glancing angle reflection rather than refraction or large deviation reflection.
This limits them to much narrower fields of view than visible or UV telescopes. The mirrors can be made of ceramic or metal foil.
The first X-ray telescope in astronomy was used to observe the Sun. The first X-ray picture (taken with a grazing incidence telescope) of the Sun was taken in 1963, by a rocket-borne telescope. On April 19, 1960, the very first X-ray image of the sun was taken using a pinhole camera on an Aerobee-Hi rocket.
The utilization of X-ray mirrors for extrasolar X-ray astronomy simultaneously requires:
the ability to determine the location at the arrival of an X-ray photon in two dimensions and
a reasonable detection efficiency.
X-ray astronomy detectors
X-ray astronomy detectors have been designed and configured primarily for energy and occasionally for wavelength detection using a variety of techniques usually limited to the technology of the time.
X-ray detectors collect individual X-rays (photons of X-ray electromagnetic radiation) and count the number of photons collected (intensity), the energy (0.12 to 120 keV) of the photons collected, wavelength (c. 0.008–8 nm), or how fast the photons are detected (counts per hour), to tell us about the object that is emitting them.
Astrophysical sources of X-rays
Several types of astrophysical objects emit, fluoresce, or reflect X-rays, from galaxy clusters, through black holes in active galactic nuclei (AGN) to galactic objects such as supernova remnants, stars, and binary stars containing a white dwarf (cataclysmic variable stars and super soft X-ray sources), neutron star or black hole (X-ray binaries). Some Solar System bodies emit X-rays, the most notable being the Moon, although most of the X-ray brightness of the Moon arises from reflected solar X-rays. A combination of many unresolved X-ray sources is thought to produce the observed X-ray background. The X-ray continuum can arise from bremsstrahlung, black-body radiation, synchrotron radiation, or what is called inverse Compton scattering of lower-energy photons by relativistic electrons, knock-on collisions of fast protons with atomic electrons, and atomic recombination, with or without additional electron transitions.
An intermediate-mass X-ray binary (IMXB) is a binary star system where one of the components is a neutron star or a black hole. The other component is an intermediate mass star.
Hercules X-1 is composed of a neutron star accreting matter from a normal star (HZ Herculis) probably due to Roche lobe overflow. X-1 is the prototype for the massive X-ray binaries although it falls on the borderline, , between high- and low-mass X-ray binaries.
In July 2020, astronomers reported the observation of a "hard tidal disruption event candidate" associated with ASASSN-20hx, located near the nucleus of galaxy NGC 6297, and noted that the observation represented one of the "very few tidal disruption events with hard powerlaw X-ray spectra".
Celestial X-ray sources
The celestial sphere has been divided into 88 constellations. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) constellations are areas of the sky. Each of these contains remarkable X-ray sources. Some of them have been identified from astrophysical modeling to be galaxies or black holes at the centers of galaxies. Some are pulsars. As with sources already successfully modeled by X-ray astrophysics, striving to understand the generation of X-rays by the apparent source helps to understand the Sun, the universe as a whole, and how these affect us on Earth. Constellations are an astronomical device for handling observation and precision independent of current physical theory or interpretation. Astronomy has been around for a long time. Physical theory changes with time. With respect to celestial X-ray sources, X-ray astrophysics tends to focus on the physical reason for X-ray brightness, whereas X-ray astronomy tends to focus on their classification, order of discovery, variability, resolvability, and their relationship with nearby sources in other constellations.
Within the constellations Orion and Eridanus and stretching across them is a soft X-ray "hot spot" known as the Orion-Eridanus Superbubble, the Eridanus Soft X-ray Enhancement, or simply the Eridanus Bubble, a 25° area of interlocking arcs of Hα emitting filaments. Soft X-rays are emitted by hot gas (T ~ 2–3 MK) in the interior of the superbubble. This bright object forms the background for the "shadow" of a filament of gas and dust. The filament is shown by the overlaid contours, which represent 100 micrometre emission from dust at a temperature of about 30 K as measured by IRAS. Here the filament absorbs soft X-rays between 100 and 300 eV, indicating that the hot gas is located behind the filament. This filament may be part of a shell of neutral gas that surrounds the hot bubble. Its interior is energized by ultraviolet (UV) light and stellar winds from hot stars in the Orion OB1 association. These stars energize a superbubble about 1200 lys across which is observed in the visual (Hα) and X-ray portions of the spectrum.
Proposed (future) X-ray observatory satellites
There are several projects that are proposed for X-ray observatory satellites. See main article link above.
Explorational X-ray astronomy
Usually observational astronomy is considered to occur on Earth's surface (or beneath it in neutrino astronomy). The idea of limiting observation to Earth includes orbiting the Earth. As soon as the observer leaves the cozy confines of Earth, the observer becomes a deep space explorer. Except for Explorer 1 and Explorer 3 and the earlier satellites in the series, usually if a probe is going to be a deep space explorer it leaves the Earth or an orbit around the Earth.
For a satellite or space probe to qualify as a deep space X-ray astronomer/explorer or "astronobot"/explorer, all it needs to carry aboard is an XRT or X-ray detector and leave Earth's orbit.
Ulysses was launched October 6, 1990, and reached Jupiter for its "gravitational slingshot" in February 1992. It passed the south solar pole in June 1994 and crossed the ecliptic equator in February 1995. The solar X-ray and cosmic gamma-ray burst experiment (GRB) had 3 main objectives: study and monitor solar flares, detect and localize cosmic gamma-ray bursts, and in-situ detection of Jovian aurorae. Ulysses was the first satellite carrying a gamma burst detector which went outside the orbit of Mars. The hard X-ray detectors operated in the range 15–150 keV. The detectors consisted of 23-mm thick × 51-mm diameter CsI(Tl) crystals mounted via plastic light tubes to photomultipliers. The hard detector changed its operating mode depending on (1) measured count rate, (2) ground command, or (3) change in spacecraft telemetry mode. The trigger level was generally set for 8-sigma above background and the sensitivity is 10−6 erg/cm2 (1 nJ/m2). When a burst trigger is recorded, the instrument switches to record high resolution data, recording it to a 32-kbit memory for a slow telemetry read out. Burst data consist of either 16 s of 8-ms resolution count rates or 64 s of 32-ms count rates from the sum of the 2 detectors. There were also 16 channel energy spectra from the sum of the 2 detectors (taken either in 1, 2, 4, 16, or 32 second integrations). During 'wait' mode, the data were taken either in 0.25 or 0.5 s integrations and 4 energy channels (with shortest integration time being 8 s). Again, the outputs of the 2 detectors were summed.
The Ulysses soft X-ray detectors consisted of 2.5-mm thick × 0.5 cm2 area Si surface barrier detectors. A 100 mg/cm2 beryllium foil front window rejected the low energy X-rays and defined a conical FOV of 75° (half-angle). These detectors were passively cooled and operate in the temperature range −35 to −55 °C. This detector had 6 energy channels, covering the range 5–20 keV.
Theoretical X-ray astronomy
Theoretical X-ray astronomy is a branch of theoretical astronomy that deals with the theoretical astrophysics and theoretical astrochemistry of X-ray generation, emission, and detection as applied to astronomical objects.
Like theoretical astrophysics, theoretical X-ray astronomy uses a wide variety of tools which include analytical models to approximate the behavior of a possible X-ray source and computational numerical simulations to approximate the observational data. Once potential observational consequences are available they can be compared with experimental observations. Observers can look for data that refutes a model or helps in choosing between several alternate or conflicting models.
Theorists also try to generate or modify models to take into account new data. In the case of an inconsistency, the general tendency is to try to make minimal modifications to the model to fit the data. In some cases, a large amount of inconsistent data over time may lead to total abandonment of a model.
Most of the topics in astrophysics, astrochemistry, astrometry, and other fields that are branches of astronomy studied by theoreticians involve X-rays and X-ray sources. Many of the beginnings for a theory can be found in an Earth-based laboratory where an X-ray source is built and studied.
Dynamos
Dynamo theory describes the process through which a rotating, convecting, and electrically conducting fluid acts to maintain a magnetic field. This theory is used to explain the presence of anomalously long-lived magnetic fields in astrophysical bodies. If some of the stellar magnetic fields are really induced by dynamos, then field strength might be associated with rotation rate.
Astronomical models
From the observed X-ray spectrum, combined with spectral emission results for other wavelength ranges, an astronomical model addressing the likely source of X-ray emission can be constructed. For example, with Scorpius X-1 the X-ray spectrum steeply drops off as X-ray energy increases up to 20 keV, which is likely for a thermal-plasma mechanism. In addition, there is no radio emission, and the visible continuum is roughly what would be expected from a hot plasma fitting the observed X-ray flux. The plasma could be a coronal cloud of a central object or a transient plasma, where the energy source is unknown, but could be related to the idea of a close binary.
In the Crab Nebula X-ray spectrum there are three features that differ greatly from Scorpius X-1: its spectrum is much harder, its source diameter is in light-years (ly)s, not astronomical units (AU), and its radio and optical synchrotron emission are strong. Its overall X-ray luminosity rivals the optical emission and could be that of a nonthermal plasma. However, the Crab Nebula appears as an X-ray source that is a central freely expanding ball of dilute plasma, where the energy content is 100 times the total energy content of the large visible and radio portion, obtained from the unknown source.
The "Dividing Line" as giant stars evolve to become red giants also coincides with the Wind and Coronal Dividing Lines. To explain the drop in X-ray emission across these dividing lines, a number of models have been proposed:
low transition region densities, leading to low emission in coronae,
high-density wind extinction of coronal emission,
only cool coronal loops become stable,
changes in a magnetic field structure to that an open topology, leading to a decrease of magnetically confined plasma, or
changes in the magnetic dynamo character, leading to the disappearance of stellar fields leaving only small-scale, turbulence-generated fields among red giants.
Analytical X-ray astronomy
High-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) are composed of OB supergiant companion stars and compact objects, usually neutron stars (NS) or black holes (BH). Supergiant X-ray binaries (SGXBs) are HMXBs in which the compact objects orbit massive companions with orbital periods of a few days (3–15 d), and in circular (or slightly eccentric) orbits. SGXBs show typical the hard X-ray spectra of accreting pulsars and most show strong absorption as obscured HMXBs. X-ray luminosity (Lx) increases up to 1036 erg·s−1 (1029 watts).
The mechanism triggering the different temporal behavior observed between the classical SGXBs and the recently discovered supergiant fast X-ray transients (SFXT)s is still debated.
Stellar X-ray astronomy
Stellar X-ray astronomy is said to have started on April 5, 1974, with the detection of X-rays from Capella. A rocket flight on that date briefly calibrated its attitude control system when a star sensor pointed the payload axis at Capella (α Aur). During this period, X-rays in the range 0.2–1.6 keV were detected by an X-ray reflector system co-aligned with the star sensor. The X-ray luminosity of Lx = 1031 erg·s−1 (1024 W) is four orders of magnitude above the Sun's X-ray luminosity.
Stellar coronae
Coronal stars, or stars within a coronal cloud, are ubiquitous among the stars in the cool half of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. Experiments with instruments aboard Skylab and Copernicus have been used to search for soft X-ray emission in the energy range ~0.14–0.284 keV from stellar coronae. The experiments aboard ANS succeeded in finding X-ray signals from Capella and Sirius (α CMa). X-ray emission from an enhanced solar-like corona was proposed for the first time. The high temperature of Capella's corona as obtained from the first coronal X-ray spectrum of Capella using HEAO 1 required magnetic confinement unless it was a free-flowing coronal wind.
In 1977 Proxima Centauri is discovered to be emitting high-energy radiation in the XUV. In 1978, α Cen was identified as a low-activity coronal source. With the operation of the Einstein observatory, X-ray emission was recognized as a characteristic feature common to a wide range of stars covering essentially the whole Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. The Einstein initial survey led to significant insights:
X-ray sources abound among all types of stars, across the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram and across most stages of evolution,
the X-ray luminosities and their distribution along the main sequence were not in agreement with the long-favored acoustic heating theories, but were now interpreted as the effect of magnetic coronal heating, and
stars that are otherwise similar reveal large differences in their X-ray output if their rotation period is different.
To fit the medium-resolution spectrum of UX Arietis, subsolar abundances were required.
Stellar X-ray astronomy is contributing toward a deeper understanding of
magnetic fields in magnetohydrodynamic dynamos,
the release of energy in tenuous astrophysical plasmas through various plasma-physical processes, and
the interactions of high-energy radiation with the stellar environment.
Current wisdom has it that the massive coronal main sequence stars are late-A or early F stars, a conjecture that is supported both by observation and by theory.
Young, low-mass stars
Newly formed stars are known as pre-main-sequence stars during the stage of stellar evolution before they reach the main-sequence. Stars in this stage (ages <10 million years) produce X-rays in their stellar coronae. However, their X-ray emission is 103 to 105 times stronger than for main-sequence stars of similar masses.
X-ray emission for pre–main-sequence stars was discovered by the Einstein Observatory. This X-ray emission is primarily produced by magnetic reconnection flares in the stellar coronae, with many small flares contributing to the "quiescent" X-ray emission from these stars. Pre–main sequence stars have large convection zones, which in turn drive strong dynamos, producing strong surface magnetic fields. This leads to the high X-ray emission from these stars, which lie in the saturated X-ray regime, unlike main-sequence stars that show rotational modulation of X-ray emission. Other sources of X-ray emission include accretion hotspots and collimated outflows.
X-ray emission as an indicator of stellar youth is important for studies of star-forming regions. Most star-forming regions in the Milky Way Galaxy are projected on Galactic-Plane fields with numerous unrelated field stars. It is often impossible to distinguish members of a young stellar cluster from field-star contaminants using optical and infrared images alone. X-ray emission can easily penetrate moderate absorption from molecular clouds, and can be used to identify candidate cluster members.
Unstable winds
Given the lack of a significant outer convection zone, theory predicts the absence of a magnetic dynamo in earlier A stars. In early stars of spectral type O and B, shocks developing in unstable winds are the likely source of X-rays.
Coolest M dwarfs
Beyond spectral type M5, the classical αω dynamo can no longer operate as the internal structure of dwarf stars changes significantly: they become fully convective. As a distributed (or α2) dynamo may become relevant, both the magnetic flux on the surface and the topology of the magnetic fields in the corona should systematically change across this transition, perhaps resulting in some discontinuities in the X-ray characteristics around spectral class dM5. However, observations do not seem to support this picture: long-time lowest-mass X-ray detection, VB 8 (M7e V), has shown steady emission at levels of X-ray luminosity (LX) ≈ 1026 erg·s−1 (1019 W) and flares up to an order of magnitude higher. Comparison with other late M dwarfs shows a rather continuous trend.
Strong X-ray emission from Herbig Ae/Be stars
Herbig Ae/Be stars are pre-main sequence stars. As to their X-ray emission properties, some are
reminiscent of hot stars,
others point to coronal activity as in cool stars, in particular the presence of flares and very high temperatures.
The nature of these strong emissions has remained controversial with models including
unstable stellar winds,
colliding winds,
magnetic coronae,
disk coronae,
wind-fed magnetospheres,
accretion shocks,
the operation of a shear dynamo,
the presence of unknown late-type companions.
K giants
The FK Com stars are giants of spectral type K with an unusually rapid rotation and signs of extreme activity. Their X-ray coronae are among the most luminous (LX ≥ 1032 erg·s−1 or 1025 W) and the hottest known with dominant temperatures up to 40 MK. However, the current popular hypothesis involves a merger of a close binary system in which the orbital angular momentum of the companion is transferred to the primary.
Pollux is the brightest star in the constellation Gemini, despite its Beta designation, and the 17th brightest in the sky. Pollux is a giant orange K star that makes an interesting color contrast with its white "twin", Castor. Evidence has been found for a hot, outer, magnetically supported corona around Pollux, and the star is known to be an X-ray emitter.
Eta Carinae
New X-ray observations by the Chandra X-ray Observatory show three distinct structures: an outer, horseshoe-shaped ring about 2 light years in diameter, a hot inner core about 3 light-months in diameter, and a hot central source less than 1 light-month in diameter which may contain the superstar that drives the whole show. The outer ring provides evidence of another large explosion that occurred over 1,000 years ago. These three structures around Eta Carinae are thought to represent shock waves produced by matter rushing away from the superstar at supersonic speeds. The temperature of the shock-heated gas ranges from 60 MK in the central regions to 3 MK on the horseshoe-shaped outer structure. "The Chandra image contains some puzzles for existing ideas of how a star can produce such hot and intense X-rays," says Prof. Kris Davidson of the University of Minnesota. Davidson is principal investigator for the Eta Carina observations by the Hubble Space Telescope. "In the most popular theory, X-rays are made by colliding gas streams from two stars so close together that they'd look like a point source to us. But what happens to gas streams that escape to farther distances? The extended hot stuff in the middle of the new image gives demanding new conditions for any theory to meet."
Amateur X-ray astronomy
Collectively, amateur astronomers observe a variety of celestial objects and phenomena sometimes with equipment that they build themselves. The United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) is the home of the US's only undergraduate satellite program, and has and continues to develop the FalconLaunch sounding rockets. In addition to any direct amateur efforts to put X-ray astronomy payloads into space, there are opportunities that allow student-developed experimental payloads to be put on board commercial sounding rockets as a free-of-charge ride.
There are major limitations to amateurs observing and reporting experiments in X-ray astronomy: the cost of building an amateur rocket or balloon to place a detector high enough and the cost of appropriate parts to build a suitable X-ray detector.
History of X-ray astronomy
In 1927, E.O. Hulburt of the US Naval Research Laboratory and associates Gregory Breit and Merle A. Tuve of the Carnegie Institution of Washington explored the possibility of equipping Robert H. Goddard's rockets to explore the upper atmosphere. "Two years later, he proposed an experimental program in which a rocket might be instrumented to explore the upper atmosphere, including detection of ultraviolet radiation and X-rays at high altitudes".
In the late 1930s, the presence of a very hot, tenuous gas surrounding the Sun was inferred indirectly from optical coronal lines of highly ionized species. The Sun has been known to be surrounded by a hot tenuous corona. In the mid-1940s radio observations revealed a radio corona around the Sun.
The beginning of the search for X-ray sources from above the Earth's atmosphere was on August 5, 1948 12:07 GMT. A US Army (formerly German) V-2 rocket as part of Project Hermes was launched from White Sands Proving Grounds. The first solar X-rays were recorded by T. Burnight.
Through the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, the sensitivity of detectors increased greatly during the 60 years of X-ray astronomy. In addition, the ability to focus X-rays has developed enormously—allowing the production of high-quality images of many fascinating celestial objects.
Major questions in X-ray astronomy
As X-ray astronomy uses a major spectral probe to peer into the source, it is a valuable tool in efforts to understand many puzzles.
Stellar magnetic fields
Magnetic fields are ubiquitous among stars, yet we do not understand precisely why, nor have we fully understood the bewildering variety of plasma physical mechanisms that act in stellar environments. Some stars, for example, seem to have magnetic fields, fossil stellar magnetic fields left over from their period of formation, while others seem to generate the field anew frequently.
Extrasolar X-ray source astrometry
With the initial detection of an extrasolar X-ray source, the first question usually asked is "What is the source?" An extensive search is often made in other wavelengths such as visible or radio for possible coincident objects. Many of the verified X-ray locations still do not have readily discernible sources. X-ray astrometry becomes a serious concern that results in ever greater demands for finer angular resolution and spectral radiance.
There are inherent difficulties in making X-ray/optical, X-ray/radio, and X-ray/X-ray identifications based solely on positional coincidents, especially with handicaps in making identifications, such as the large uncertainties in positional determinants made from balloons and rockets, poor source separation in the crowded region toward the galactic center, source variability, and the multiplicity of source nomenclature.
X‐ray source counterparts to stars can be identified by calculating the angular separation between source centroids and the position of the star. The maximum allowable separation is a compromise between a larger value to identify as many real matches as possible and a smaller value to minimize the probability of spurious matches. "An adopted matching criterion of 40" finds nearly all possible X‐ray source matches while keeping the probability of any spurious matches in the sample to 3%."
Solar X-ray astronomy
All of the detected X-ray sources at, around, or near the Sun appear to be associated with processes in the corona, which is its outer atmosphere.
Coronal heating problem
In the area of solar X-ray astronomy, there is the coronal heating problem. The photosphere of the Sun has an effective temperature of 5,570 K yet its corona has an average temperature of 1–2 × 106 K. However, the hottest regions are 8–20 × 106 K. The high temperature of the corona shows that it is heated by something other than direct heat conduction from the photosphere.
It is thought that the energy necessary to heat the corona is provided by turbulent motion in the convection zone below the photosphere, and two main mechanisms have been proposed to explain coronal heating. The first is wave heating, in which sound, gravitational or magnetohydrodynamic waves are produced by turbulence in the convection zone. These waves travel upward and dissipate in the corona, depositing their energy in the ambient gas in the form of heat. The other is magnetic heating, in which magnetic energy is continuously built up by photospheric motion and released through magnetic reconnection in the form of large solar flares and myriad similar but smaller events—nanoflares.
Currently, it is unclear whether waves are an efficient heating mechanism. All waves except Alfvén waves have been found to dissipate or refract before reaching the corona. In addition, Alfvén waves do not easily dissipate in the corona. Current research focus has therefore shifted towards flare heating mechanisms.
Coronal mass ejection
A coronal mass ejection (CME) is an ejected plasma consisting primarily of electrons and protons (in addition to small quantities of heavier elements such as helium, oxygen, and iron), plus the entraining coronal closed magnetic field regions. Evolution of these closed magnetic structures in response to various photospheric motions over different time scales (convection, differential rotation, meridional circulation) somehow leads to the CME. Small-scale energetic signatures such as plasma heating (observed as compact soft X-ray brightening) may be indicative of impending CMEs.
The soft X-ray sigmoid (an S-shaped intensity of soft X-rays) is an observational manifestation of the connection between coronal structure and CME production. "Relating the sigmoids at X-ray (and other) wavelengths to magnetic structures and current systems in the solar atmosphere is the key to understanding their relationship to CMEs."
The first detection of a Coronal mass ejection (CME) as such was made on December 1, 1971, by R. Tousey of the US Naval Research Laboratory using OSO 7. Earlier observations of coronal transients or even phenomena observed visually during solar eclipses are now understood as essentially the same thing.
The largest geomagnetic perturbation, resulting presumably from a "prehistoric" CME, coincided with the first-observed solar flare, in 1859. The flare was observed visually by Richard Christopher Carrington and the geomagnetic storm was observed with the recording magnetograph at Kew Gardens. The same instrument recorded a crotchet, an instantaneous perturbation of the Earth's ionosphere by ionizing soft X-rays. This could not easily be understood at the time because it predated the discovery of X-rays (by Roentgen) and the recognition of the ionosphere (by Kennelly and Heaviside).
Exotic X-ray sources
A microquasar is a smaller cousin of a quasar that is a radio emitting X-ray binary, with an often resolvable pair of radio jets.
LSI+61°303 is a periodic, radio-emitting binary system that is also the gamma-ray source, CG135+01.
Observations are revealing a growing number of recurrent X-ray transients, characterized by short outbursts with very fast rise times (tens of minutes) and typical durations of a few hours that are associated with OB supergiants and hence define a new class of massive X-ray binaries: Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients (SFXTs).
Observations made by Chandra indicate the presence of loops and rings in the hot X-ray emitting gas that surrounds Messier 87. A magnetar is a type of neutron star with an extremely powerful magnetic field, the decay of which powers the emission of copious amounts of high-energy electromagnetic radiation, particularly X-rays and gamma rays.
X-ray dark stars
During the solar cycle, as shown in the sequence of images at right, at times the Sun is almost X-ray dark, almost an X-ray variable. Betelgeuse, on the other hand, appears to be always X-ray dark. Hardly any X-rays are emitted by red giants. There is a rather abrupt onset of X-ray emission around spectral type A7-F0, with a large range of luminosities developing across spectral class F. Altair is spectral type A7V and Vega is A0V. Altair's total X-ray luminosity is at least an order of magnitude larger than the X-ray luminosity for Vega. The outer convection zone of early F stars is expected to be very shallow and absent in A-type dwarfs, yet the acoustic flux from the interior reaches a maximum for late A and early F stars provoking investigations of magnetic activity in A-type stars along three principal lines. Chemically peculiar stars of spectral type Bp or Ap are appreciable magnetic radio sources, most Bp/Ap stars remain undetected, and of those reported early on as producing X-rays only few of them can be identified as probably single stars. X-ray observations offer the possibility to detect (X-ray dark) planets as they eclipse part of the corona of their parent star while in transit. "Such methods are particularly promising for low-mass stars as a Jupiter-like planet could eclipse a rather significant coronal area."
X-ray dark planets and comets
X-ray observations offer the possibility to detect (X-ray dark) planets as they eclipse part of the corona of their parent star while in transit. "Such methods are particularly promising for low-mass stars as a Jupiter-like planet could eclipse a rather significant coronal area."
As X-ray detectors have become more sensitive, they have observed that some planets and other normally X-ray non-luminescent celestial objects under certain conditions emit, fluoresce, or reflect X-rays.
Comet Lulin
NASA's Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission satellite was monitoring Comet Lulin as it closed to 63 Gm of Earth. For the first time, astronomers can see simultaneous UV and X-ray images of a comet. "The solar wind—a fast-moving stream of particles from the sun—interacts with the comet's broader cloud of atoms. This causes the solar wind to light up with X-rays, and that's what Swift's XRT sees", said Stefan Immler, of the Goddard Space Flight Center. This interaction, called charge exchange, results in X-rays from most comets when they pass within about three times Earth's distance from the Sun. Because Lulin is so active, its atomic cloud is especially dense. As a result, the X-ray-emitting region extends far sunward of the comet.
See also
Balloons for X-ray astronomy
Crab (unit)
Gamma-ray astronomy
History of X-ray astronomy
IRAS 13224-3809
List of X-ray space telescopes
Solar X-ray astronomy
Stellar X-ray astronomy
Ultraviolet astronomy
X-ray telescope
References
Sources
The content of this article was adapted and expanded from http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/ (Public Domain)
External links
How Many Known X-Ray (and Other) Sources Are There?
Is My Favorite Object an X-ray, Gamma-Ray, or EUV Source?
X-ray all-sky survey on WIKISKY
Audio – Cain/Gay (2009) Astronomy Cast – X-Ray Astronomy
Space plasmas
Astronomical imaging
Astronomical X-ray sources
Observational astronomy
Astronomical sub-disciplines
X-rays |
44239 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine%20I%20of%20Russia | Catherine I of Russia | Catherine I Alekseevna Mikhailova (; born , ; – ) was the second wife and empress consort of Peter the Great, and Empress Regnant of Russia from 1725 until her death in 1727.
Life as a servant
The life of Catherine I was said by Voltaire to be nearly as extraordinary as that of Peter the Great himself. Only uncertain and contradictory information is available about her early life. Said to have been born on 15 April 1684 (o.s. 5 April), she was originally named Marta Helena Skowrońska. Marta was the daughter of Samuel Skowroński (later spelt Samuil Skavronsky), a Roman Catholic farmer from the eastern parts of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, born to Minsker parents. In 1680 he married Dorothea Hahn at Jakobstadt. Her mother is named in at least one source as Elizabeth Moritz, the daughter of a Baltic German woman and there is debate as to whether Moritz's father was a Swedish officer. It is likely that two stories were conflated, and Swedish sources suggest that the Elizabeth Moritz story is probably incorrect. Some biographies state that Marta's father was a gravedigger and handyman, while others speculate that he was a runaway landless serf.
Marta's parents died of the plague around 1689, leaving five children. According to one of the popular versions, at the age of three Marta was taken by an aunt and sent to Marienburg (the present-day Alūksne in Latvia, near the border with Estonia and Russia) where she was raised by Johann Ernst Glück, a Lutheran pastor and educator who was the first to translate the Bible into Latvian. In his household she served as a lowly servant, likely either a scullery maid or washerwoman. No effort was made to teach her to read and write and she remained illiterate throughout her life.
Marta was considered a very beautiful young girl, and there are accounts that Frau Glück became fearful that she would become involved with her son. At the age of seventeen, she was married off to a Swedish dragoon, Johan Cruse or Johann Rabbe, with whom she remained for eight days in 1702, at which point the Swedish troops were withdrawn from Marienburg. When Russian forces captured the town, Pastor Glück offered to work as a translator, and Field Marshal Boris Sheremetev agreed to his proposal and took him to Moscow.
There are unsubstantiated stories that Marta worked briefly in the laundry of the victorious regiment, and also that she was presented in her undergarments to Brigadier General Rudolph Felix Bauer, later the Governor of Estonia, to be his mistress. She may have worked in the household of his superior, Sheremetev. It is not known whether she was his mistress, or household maid. She travelled back to the Russian court with Sheremetev's army.
Afterwards she became part of the household of Prince Alexander Menshikov, who was the best friend of Peter the Great of Russia. Anecdotal sources suggest that she was purchased by him. Whether the two of them were lovers is disputed, as Menshikov was already engaged to Darya Arsenyeva, his future wife. It is clear that Menshikov and Marta formed a lifetime alliance.
It is possible that Menshikov, who was quite jealous of Peter's attentions and knew his tastes, wanted to procure a mistress on whom he could rely. In any case, in 1703, while visiting Menshikov at his home, Peter met Marta. In 1704, she was well established in the Tsar's household as his mistress, and gave birth to a son, Peter. In 1703, she converted to Orthodoxy and took the new name of Catherine Alexeyevna (Yekaterina Alexeyevna). She and Darya Menshikova accompanied Peter and Menshikov on their military excursions.
Marriage and family life
Though no record exists, Catherine and Peter are described as having married secretly between 23 October and 1 December 1707 in Saint Petersburg. They had twelve children, two of whom survived into adulthood, Anna (born 1708) and Elizabeth (born 1709).
Peter had moved the capital to St. Petersburg in 1703. While the city was being built he lived in a three-room log cabin with Catherine, where she did the cooking and caring for the children, and he tended a garden as though they were an ordinary couple. The relationship was the most successful of Peter's life and a great number of letters exist demonstrating the strong affection between Catherine and Peter. As a person she was very energetic, compassionate, charming, and always cheerful. She was able to calm Peter in his frequent rages and often was called in to do so.
Catherine went with Peter on his Pruth Campaign in 1711. There, she was said to have saved Peter and his Empire, as related by Voltaire in his book Peter the Great. Surrounded by overwhelming numbers of Turkish troops, Catherine suggested before surrendering, that her jewels and those of the other women be used in an effort to bribe the Ottoman grand vizier Baltacı Mehmet Pasha into allowing a retreat.
Mehmet allowed the retreat, whether motivated by the bribe or considerations of trade and diplomacy. In any case Peter credited Catherine and proceeded to marry her again (this time officially) at Saint Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg on 9 February 1712. She was Peter's second wife; he had previously married and divorced Eudoxia Lopukhina, who had borne him the Tsarevich Alexis Petrovich. Upon their wedding, Catherine took the style of her husband and became Tsarina. When Peter elevated the Russian Tsardom to Empire, Catherine became Empress. The Order of Saint Catherine was instituted by her husband on the occasion of their wedding.
Issue
Catherine and Peter had twelve children, all of whom died in childhood except Anna and Elizabeth:
Peter Petrovich (1704–1707), died in infancy
Paul Petrovich (October 1705–1707), died in infancy
Catherine Petrovna (7 February 1707–7 August 1708)
Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna (27 January 1708–15 May 1728)
Grand Duchess Elizabeth Petrovna (29 December 1709–5 January 1762)
Grand Duchess Mary Natalia Petrovna (20 March 1713–17 May 1715)
Grand Duchess Margaret Petrovna (19 September 1714–7 June 1715)
Grand Duke Peter Petrovich (9 November 1715–6 May 1719)
Grand Duke Paul Petrovich (13 January 1717–14 January 1717)
Grand Duchess Natalia Petrovna (31 August 1718–15 March 1725)
Grand Duke Peter Petrovich (7 October 1723–7 October 1723)
Grand Duke Paul Petrovich (1724–1724)
Siblings
Upon Peter's death, Catherine found her four siblings, Krystyna, Anna, Karol, and Fryderyk, gave them the newly created titles of Count and Countess, and brought them to Russia.
Krystyna Skowrońska, renamed Christina () Samuilovna Skavronskaya (1687–14 April 1729), had married Simon Heinrich () (1672–1728) and their descendants became the Counts Gendrikov.
Anna Skowrońska, renamed Anna Samuilovna Skavronskaya, had married one Michael-Joachim N and their descendants became the Counts Efimovsky.
Karol Skowroński, renamed Karel Samuilovich Skavronsky, was created a Count of the Russian Empire on 5 January 1727 and made a Chamberlain of the Imperial Court; he had married Maria Ivanovna, a Russian woman, by whom he had descendants who became extinct in the male line withe the death of Count Paul Martinovich Skavronskyi (1757-1793), father of Princess Catherine Bagration.
Fryderyk Skowroński, renamed Feodor Samuilovich Skavronsky, was created a Count of the Russian Empire on 5 January 1727 and was married twice: to N, a Lithuanian woman, and to Ekaterina Rodionovna Saburova, without having children by either of them.
Reign as empress regnant
Catherine was crowned in 1724. The year before his death, Peter and Catherine had an estrangement over her support of Willem Mons, brother of Peter's former mistress Anna, and brother to one of the current ladies in waiting to Catherine, Matryona. He served as secretary to Catherine. Peter had fought his entire life to clear up corruption in Russia. Catherine had a great deal of influence on who could gain access to her husband. Willem Mons and his sister Matryona had begun selling their influence to those who wanted access to Catherine and, through her, to Peter. Apparently this had been overlooked by Catherine, who was fond of both. Peter found out and had Willem Mons executed and his sister Matryona exiled. He and Catherine did not speak for several months. Rumors flew that she and Mons had had an affair, but there is no evidence for this.
Peter died (28 January 1725 Old Style) without naming a successor. Catherine represented the interests of the "new men", commoners who had been brought to positions of great power by Peter based on competence. A change of government was likely to favor the entrenched aristocrats. For that reason during a meeting of a council to decide on a successor, a coup was arranged by Menshikov and others in which the guards regiments with whom Catherine was very popular proclaimed her the ruler of Russia. Supporting evidence was "produced" from Peter's secretary Makarov and the Bishop of Pskov, both "new men" with motivation to see Catherine take over. The real power, however, lay with Menshikov, Peter Tolstoy, and with other members of the Supreme Privy Council.
Catherine viewed the deposed empress Eudoxia as a threat, so she secretly moved her to Shlisselburg Fortress near St. Petersburg to be put in a secret prison under strict custody as a state prisoner.
Death
Catherine I died two years after Peter I, on 17 May 1727 at age 43, in St. Petersburg, where she was buried at St. Peter and St. Paul Fortress. Tuberculosis, diagnosed as an abscess of the lungs, caused her early demise.
Before her death she recognized Peter II, the grandson of Peter I and Eudoxia, as her successor.
Assessment and legacy
Catherine was the first woman to rule Imperial Russia, opening the legal path for a century almost entirely dominated by women, including her daughter Elizabeth and granddaughter-in-law Catherine the Great, all of whom continued Peter the Great's policies in modernizing Russia. At the time of Peter's death the Russian Army, composed of 130,000 men and supplemented by another 100,000 Cossacks, was easily the largest in Europe. However, the expense of the military was proving ruinous to the Russian economy, consuming some 65% of the government's annual revenue. Since the nation was at peace, Catherine was determined to reduce military expenditure. For most of her reign, Catherine I was controlled by her advisers. However, on this single issue, the reduction of military expenses, Catherine was able to have her way. The resulting tax relief on the peasantry led to the reputation of Catherine I as a just and fair ruler.
The Supreme Privy Council concentrated power in the hands of one party, and thus was an executive innovation. In foreign affairs, Russia reluctantly joined the Austro-Spanish league to defend the interests of Catherine's son-in-law, the Duke of Holstein, against Great Britain.
Catherine gave her name to Catherinehof near St. Petersburg, and built the first bridges in the new capital. She was also the first royal owner of the Tsarskoye Selo estate, where the Catherine Palace still bears her name.
The city of Yekaterinburg is named after her, Yekaterina being the Russian form of her name.
She also gave her name to the Kadriorg Palace (German: Katharinental, meaning "Catherine's Valley"), its adjacent Kadriorg Park and the later Kadriorg neighbourhood of Tallinn, Estonia, which today houses the Presidential Palace of Estonia. The name of the neighbourhood is also used as a metonym for the institution of the President.
In general, Catherine's policies were reasonable and cautious. The story of her humble origins was considered by later generations of tsars to be a state secret.
See also
Bibliography of Russian history (1613–1917)
Rulers of Russia family tree
Notes
References
History of the Russian Empire Under Peter the Great (Vol. I 1759; Vol. II 1763).
Royal Babylon: The Alarming History of European Royalty Broadway; New York, 2001
External links
– Historical reconstruction "The Romanovs". StarMedia. Babich-Design(Russia, 2013)
1684 births
1727 deaths
18th-century Russian monarchs
18th-century women from the Russian Empire
People from Jēkabpils
People from the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia
Russian empresses regnant
Russian empresses consorts
House of Romanov
Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy from Roman Catholicism
Eastern Orthodox monarchs
Baltic German people from the Russian Empire
Russian people of Belarusian descent
Russian people of Swedish descent
17th-century Russian women
17th-century Latvian people
18th-century women rulers
18th-century Latvian people
18th-century deaths from tuberculosis
Tuberculosis deaths in the Russia Empire
Burials at Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral, Saint Petersburg
Recipients of the Order of the White Eagle (Poland) |
44384 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TLS | TLS | TLS may refer to:
Computing
Transport Layer Security, a cryptographic protocol for secure computer network communication
Thread level speculation, an optimisation on multiprocessor CPUs
Thread-local storage, a mechanism for allocating variables in computer science
Transparent LAN Service, a transparent data link connecting remote Ethernet networks
Media
Theaterlexikon der Schweiz, an encyclopedia about theatre in Switzerland
The Times Literary Supplement, a British weekly literary review
Town Life Stuff, one of The Sims 3 Stuff packs
Organisations
Telstra (ASX code), an Australian telecommunications and media company
Trans Link Systems B.V., a company delivering the OV-chipkaart system to public-transport operators in the Netherlands.
Transmitter Location Systems, a US satellite radio interference geolocation company
Education
The Lindsey School, a secondary school in Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire, England
Tallinn Law School, in Estonia
Torrey Life Science, a biology organization of the University of Connecticut, US
Trinity Law School, in Santa Ana, California, US
Trinity Lutheran School (disambiguation), several schools in the US
Tulane University Law School, in New Orleans, Louisiana, US
Science, medicine and technology
Thüringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg, the Karl Schwarzschild Observatory, in Tautenburg, Thuringia, Germany
Terrestrial laser scanning, a 3D laser scanning method
Total least squares, a statistical analysis
Translesion synthesis, a form of DNA repair
Transponder landing system, an airplane landing system
Tumor lysis syndrome, a group of metabolic complications that can occur after treatment of cancer
Tunable laser spectrometer, an instrument in the Mars rover suite Sample Analysis at Mars
Two-level system, a quantum system
Transport
Thorpe-le-Soken railway station, Tendring, England (National Rail station code)
Toulouse–Blagnac Airport (IATA code)
Other uses
East Timor (IOC code) |
44542 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat%20Mastelotto | Pat Mastelotto | Lee Patrick Mastelotto (born September 10, 1955) is an American rock drummer and record producer. He has been a member of King Crimson, Stick Men, Mr. Mister and O.R.k., as well as working as a session drummer with XTC, The Pointer Sisters and The Rembrandts, among others. In addition, he has led or co-led other projects including Mastica, Tuner, TU and The Mastelottos.
For King Crimson, he initially formed part of the "Double Trio" lineup from 1994 to 1997, working with Bill Bruford as part of a double-drumkit arrangement. Following Bruford's departure in 1997, Mastelotto remained with King Crimson, becoming their longest-serving drummer and working both solo and in various configurations with subsequent drummers Gavin Harrison, Bill Rieflin and Jeremy Stacey.
Mastelotto is a pioneer and continuing developer of a mixed acoustic-and-electronic drumming approach which he refers to as "traps and buttons", and which incorporates techniques and methods from rock, pop and electronic dance music styles. As well as being a drummer, he works as a producer, engineer and mixer, working extensively with digital audio workstations.
Career
Early years and Mr. Mister
Mastelotto was born in Chico, California. He started playing the drums at the age of 10; by the time he was 16 he was playing in popular local bands and while still in high school commuted several hours to Lake Tahoe for gigs. Moving to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s, Mastelotto worked for many bands and as a studio session drummer. In this capacity he worked for Martin Briley, Holly Knight, Scandal, Al Jarreau, The Pointer Sisters, Patti LaBelle, Kenny Loggins, Martika, Danny Wilde and Holly Penfield as well as playing drums on the double platinum album Rockland by Canadian rock musician Kim Mitchell.
In 1983, Mastelotto was a founding member of Mr. Mister. The band had a number one album, Welcome to the Real World, and two number one singles, "Broken Wings" and "Kyrie". They recorded four albums, with the fourth, Pull, recorded in 1989–1990 but remaining unreleased until late 2010.
His tenure with Mr. Mister was followed by more session work for bands such as XTC, The Sugarcubes, Hall & Oates, Cock Robin, The Rembrandts, Jude Cole, Eddie Money, Tina Arena, Matthew Sweet, Julia Fordham, Robyn Hitchcock and David Sylvian. In 1991 Mastelotto co-produced Peter Kingsbery's first solo album before being asked to join King Crimson.
King Crimson
Mastelotto has been a member of King Crimson since 1994, resulting in him becoming their longest serving drummer. He was the first of two drummers hired for the "Double Trio" line-up of the mid-1990s, the second being previous long-term King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford. Mastelotto and Bruford operated as parallel drummers for the Double Trio, playing different styles and parts which sometimes intermeshed and sometimes worked separately. Following Bruford's departure in 1997, Mastelotto became the band's sole drummer, working mostly on the electronic Roland V-Drums set and bringing in simultaneous/triggered electronic drum loops and textures based on his interest in intelligent dance music and drum and bass. For King Crimson's 2008 lineup, the band returned to a double-drummer arrangement with Mastelotto now joined by Gavin Harrison.
For the period of King Crimson activity lasting from 2013 to 2021 (the "Seven Headed Beast" and "Three over Five" line-ups), Mastelotto played as part of a three-drummer arrangement, initially with Harrison and Bill Rieflin, and subsequently with Harrison and Jeremy Stacey. In each of these setups, Mastelotto also took on an extended percussionist role incorporating multiple sound effects, samples and programs (taking on something of the function played by percussionist/"allsorts" contributor Jamie Muir in the 1972 King Crimson).
To date, Mastelotto has appeared on three King Crimson studio albums (Thrak, The ConstruKction of Light and The Power to Believe, released between 1995 and 2003), one mini-album, two EPs and numerous live releases between 1995 and 2022.
King Crimson-related
During, and in parallel to, his King Crimson work, Mastelotto has been an integral part of several King Crimson-related bands. He produced, edited, mixed and played on the ProjeKct 3 and ProjeKct 4 releases by the band's "ProjeKcts" subgroupings, playing a particularly dominant role on the IDM-influenced ProjeKct 3.
Mastelotto currently works with King Crimson bass/Chapman Stick player Tony Levin and centrozoon's touch guitarist Markus Reuter in the art rock trio Stick Men. He is also a member of the progressive/experimental bands TU (with fellow King Crimson alumnus Trey Gunn), KTU (with Gunn, Kimmo Pohjonen and Samuli Kosminen), and Tuner (a duo with Markus Reuter).
Mastelotto was one of the two drummers in the Crimson ProjeKct, a six-piece band which merged Stick Men with the Adrian Belew Power Trio in order to play King Crimson music from the 1980s to 2000s periods. In conjunction with engineer/programmer Bill Munyon, Mastelotto formed the IDM project BPM&M (which to date has recorded one album, 2001's 'XtraKcts & ArtifaKcts', which featured or sampled many King Crimson members and associates). In early 2021 he released a new album, A Romantic's Guide to King Crimson, with his wife Deborah on lead vocals, credited to The Mastelottos. The album featured reworked versions of twelve King Crimson songs, deliberately re-arranged in a more popular style in order to accent the group's songwriting and its gentler side.
O.R.k.
In 2015, Mastelotto joined Carmelo Pipitone (guitarist of Italian band Marta sui Tubi), Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari (singer and keyboard player with Berserk! and Obake) and Colin Edwin (former bass player with Porcupine Tree) in a new heavy progressive rock band called O.R.k. Their first album, "Inflamed Rides", was released the same year and was followed in 2017 by Soul of an Octopus, in 2019 by Ramagehead (with artwork by Adam Jones of Tool) and in 2022 by Screamnasium.
Other projects
Mastelotto's other projects include Mastica (an Americana/art-rock trio with Mark "Gum B." Williams of Poi Dog Pondering/Alejandro Escovedo band and Monica 'MonKey' Champion from Baboon Orchestra), and M.P.TU (with Little Feat guitarist Phil Brown, singer Malford Milligan and Spirit/Firefall/Heart bassist Mark Andes). He has continued to guest with Jay Terrien, Cock Robin, drummer Terry Bozzio, Mecca, Herd of Instinct, Tony Levin and the California Guitar Trio, and has contributed to major network television themes.
Since moving to Austin, Texas, Mastelotto has worked with Austinites Storyville, Abra Moore, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead and theremin player Pamelia Kurstin. In 2007 Mastelotto went on tour with The Flower Kings in Europe supporting their album The Sum Of No Evil, followed by an appearance at the enormous Creation of Peace festival in Kazan, Russia, with Adrian Belew, Tony Levin and Eddie Jobson. This was followed by another new project, HoBoLeMa, with Levin, Bozzio and Allan Holdsworth.
In 2014, he released a collaborative album with Tobias Ralph called ToPaRaMa.
Discography
References
External links
Biography at mastica.net
Pat Mastelotto homepage
Tuner MySpace page
1955 births
Living people
American rock drummers
American session musicians
King Crimson members
People from Chico, California
Mr. Mister members
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
Stick Men (prog band) members
HoBoLeMa members |
44708 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferroelectricity | Ferroelectricity | Ferroelectricity is a characteristic of certain materials that have a spontaneous electric polarization that can be reversed by the application of an external electric field. All ferroelectrics are also piezoelectric and pyroelectric, with the additional property that their natural electrical polarization is reversible. The term is used in analogy to ferromagnetism, in which a material exhibits a permanent magnetic moment. Ferromagnetism was already known when ferroelectricity was discovered in 1920 in Rochelle salt by Joseph Valasek. Thus, the prefix ferro, meaning iron, was used to describe the property despite the fact that most ferroelectric materials do not contain iron. Materials that are both ferroelectric and ferromagnetic are known as multiferroics.
Polarization
When most materials are electrically polarized, the polarization induced, P, is almost exactly proportional to the applied external electric field E; so the polarization is a linear function. This is called linear dielectric polarization (see figure). Some materials, known as paraelectric materials, show a more enhanced nonlinear polarization (see figure). The electric permittivity, corresponding to the slope of the polarization curve, is not constant as in linear dielectrics but is a function of the external electric field.
In addition to being nonlinear, ferroelectric materials demonstrate a spontaneous nonzero polarization (after entrainment, see figure) even when the applied field E is zero. The distinguishing feature of ferroelectrics is that the spontaneous polarization can be reversed by a suitably strong applied electric field in the opposite direction; the polarization is therefore dependent not only on the current electric field but also on its history, yielding a hysteresis loop. They are called ferroelectrics by analogy to ferromagnetic materials, which have spontaneous magnetization and exhibit similar hysteresis loops.
Typically, materials demonstrate ferroelectricity only below a certain phase transition temperature, called the Curie temperature (TC) and are paraelectric above this temperature: the spontaneous polarization vanishes, and the ferroelectric crystal transforms into the paraelectric state. Many ferroelectrics lose their pyroelectric properties above TC completely, because their paraelectric phase has a centrosymmetric crystal structure.
Applications
The nonlinear nature of ferroelectric materials can be used to make capacitors with adjustable capacitance. Typically, a ferroelectric capacitor simply consists of a pair of electrodes sandwiching a layer of ferroelectric material. The permittivity of ferroelectrics is not only adjustable but commonly also very high, especially when close to the phase transition temperature. Because of this, ferroelectric capacitors are small in physical size compared to dielectric (non-tunable) capacitors of similar capacitance.
The spontaneous polarization of ferroelectric materials implies a hysteresis effect which can be used as a memory function, and ferroelectric capacitors are indeed used to make ferroelectric RAM for computers and RFID cards. In these applications thin films of ferroelectric materials are typically used, as this allows the field required to switch the polarization to be achieved with a moderate voltage. However, when using thin films a great deal of attention needs to be paid to the interfaces, electrodes and sample quality for devices to work reliably.
Ferroelectric materials are required by symmetry considerations to be also piezoelectric and pyroelectric. The combined properties of memory, piezoelectricity, and pyroelectricity make ferroelectric capacitors very useful, e.g. for sensor applications. Ferroelectric capacitors are used in medical ultrasound machines (the capacitors generate and then listen for the ultrasound ping used to image the internal organs of a body), high quality infrared cameras (the infrared image is projected onto a two dimensional array of ferroelectric capacitors capable of detecting temperature differences as small as millionths of a degree Celsius), fire sensors, sonar, vibration sensors, and even fuel injectors on diesel engines.
Another idea of recent interest is the ferroelectric tunnel junction (FTJ) in which a contact is made up by nanometer-thick ferroelectric film placed between metal electrodes. The thickness of the ferroelectric layer is small enough to allow tunneling of electrons. The piezoelectric and interface effects as well as the depolarization field may lead to a giant electroresistance (GER) switching effect.
Yet another burgeoning application is multiferroics, where researchers are looking for ways to couple magnetic and ferroelectric ordering within a material or heterostructure; there are several recent reviews on this topic.
Catalytic properties of ferroelectrics have been studied since 1952 when Parravano observed anomalies in CO oxidation rates over ferroelectric sodium and potassium niobates near the Curie temperature of these materials. Surface-perpendicular component of the ferroelectric polarization can dope polarization-dependent charges on surfaces of ferroelectric materials, changing their chemistry. This opens the possibility of performing catalysis beyond the limits of the Sabatier principle. Sabatier principle states that the surface-adsorbates interaction has to be an optimal amount: not too weak to be inert toward the reactants and not too strong to poison the surface and avoid desorption of the products: a compromise situation. This set of optimum interactions is usually referred to as "top of the volcano" in activity volcano plots. On the other hand, ferroelectric polarization-dependent chemistry can offer the possibility of switching the surface—adsorbates interaction from strong adsorption to strong desorption, thus a compromise between desorption and adsorption is no longer needed. Ferroelectric polarization can also act as an energy harvester. Polarization can help the separation of photo-generated electron-hole pairs, leading to enhanced photocatalysis. Also, due to pyroelectric and piezoelectric effects under varying temperature (heating/cooling cycles) or varying strain (vibrations) conditions extra charges can appear on the surface and drive various (electro)chemical reactions forward.
Materials
The internal electric dipoles of a ferroelectric material are coupled to the material lattice so anything that changes the lattice will change the strength of the dipoles (in other words, a change in the spontaneous polarization). The change in the spontaneous polarization results in a change in the surface charge. This can cause current flow in the case of a ferroelectric capacitor even without the presence of an external voltage across the capacitor. Two stimuli that will change the lattice dimensions of a material are force and temperature. The generation of a surface charge in response to the application of an external stress to a material is called piezoelectricity. A change in the spontaneous polarization of a material in response to a change in temperature is called pyroelectricity.
Generally, there are 230 space groups among which 32 crystalline classes can be found in crystals. There are 21 non-centrosymmetric classes, within which 20 are piezoelectric. Among the piezoelectric classes, 10 have a spontaneous electric polarization, that varies with the temperature, therefore they are pyroelectric. Ferroelectricity is a subset of pyroelectricity, which brings spontaneous electronic polarization to the material.
Ferroelectric phase transitions are often characterized as either displacive (such as BaTiO3) or order-disorder (such as NaNO2), though often phase transitions will demonstrate elements of both behaviors. In barium titanate, a typical ferroelectric of the displacive type, the transition can be understood in terms of a polarization catastrophe, in which, if an ion is displaced from equilibrium slightly, the force from the local electric fields due to the ions in the crystal increases faster than the elastic-restoring forces. This leads to an asymmetrical shift in the equilibrium ion positions and hence to a permanent dipole moment. The ionic displacement in barium titanate concerns the relative position of the titanium ion within the oxygen octahedral cage. In lead titanate, another key ferroelectric material, although the structure is rather similar to barium titanate the driving force for ferroelectricity is more complex with interactions between the lead and oxygen ions also playing an important role. In an order-disorder ferroelectric, there is a dipole moment in each unit cell, but at high temperatures they are pointing in random directions. Upon lowering the temperature and going through the phase transition, the dipoles order, all pointing in the same direction within a domain.
An important ferroelectric material for applications is lead zirconate titanate (PZT), which is part of the solid solution formed between ferroelectric lead titanate and anti-ferroelectric lead zirconate. Different compositions are used for different applications; for memory applications, PZT closer in composition to lead titanate is preferred, whereas piezoelectric applications make use of the diverging piezoelectric coefficients associated with the morphotropic phase boundary that is found close to the 50/50 composition.
Ferroelectric crystals often show several transition temperatures and domain structure hysteresis, much as do ferromagnetic crystals. The nature of the phase transition in some ferroelectric crystals is still not well understood.
In 1974 R.B. Meyer used symmetry arguments to predict ferroelectric liquid crystals, and the prediction could immediately be verified by several observations of behavior connected to ferroelectricity in smectic liquid-crystal phases that are chiral and tilted. The technology allows the building of flat-screen monitors. Mass production between 1994 and 1999 was carried out by Canon. Ferroelectric liquid crystals are used in production of reflective LCoS.
In 2010 David Field found that prosaic films of chemicals such as nitrous oxide or propane exhibited ferroelectric properties. This new class of ferroelectric materials exhibit "spontelectric" properties, and may have wide-ranging applications in device and nano-technology and also influence the electrical nature of dust in the interstellar medium.
Other ferroelectric materials used include triglycine sulfate, polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and lithium tantalate. A single atom thick ferroelectric monolayer can be created using pure bismuth.
It should be possible to produce materials which combine both ferroelectric and metallic properties simultaneously, at room temperature. According to research published in 2018 in Nature Communications, scientists were able to produce a "two-dimensional" sheet of material which was both "ferroelectric" (had a polar crystal structure) and which conducted electricity.
Theory
An introduction to Landau theory can be found here.
Based on Ginzburg–Landau theory, the free energy of a ferroelectric material, in the absence of an electric field and applied stress may be written as a Taylor expansion in terms of the order parameter, P. If a sixth order expansion is used (i.e. 8th order and higher terms truncated), the free energy is given by:
where Px, Py, and Pz are the components of the polarization vector in the x, y, and z directions respectively, and the coefficients, must be consistent with the crystal symmetry. To investigate domain formation and other phenomena in ferroelectrics, these equations are often used in the context of a phase field model. Typically, this involves adding a gradient term, an electrostatic term and an elastic term to the free energy. The equations are then discretized onto a grid using the finite difference method or finite element method and solved subject to the constraints of Gauss's law and Linear elasticity.
In all known ferroelectrics, and . These coefficients may be obtained experimentally or from ab-initio simulations. For ferroelectrics with a first order phase transition, , whereas for a second order phase transition.
The spontaneous polarization, Ps of a ferroelectric for a cubic to tetragonal phase transition may be obtained by considering the 1D expression of the free energy which is:
This free energy has the shape of a double well potential with two free energy minima at , the spontaneous polarization. We find the derivative of the free energy, and set it equal to zero in order to solve for :
Since the Ps = 0 solution of this equation rather corresponds to a free energy maxima in the ferroelectric phase, the desired solutions for Ps correspond to setting the remaining factor to zero:
whose solution is:
and eliminating solutions which take the square root of a negative number (for either the first or second order phase transitions) gives:
If , the solution for the spontaneous polarization reduces to:
The hysteresis loop (Px versus Ex) may be obtained from the free energy expansion by including the term -Ex Px corresponding to the energy due to an external electric field Ex interacting with the polarization Px, as follows:
We find the stable polarization values of Px under the influence of the external field, now denoted as Pe, again by setting the derivative of the energy with respect to Px to zero:
Plotting Ex (on the X axis) as a function of Pe (but on the Y axis) gives an 'S' shaped curve which is multi-valued in Pe for some values of Ex. The central part of the 'S' corresponds to a free energy local maximum (since ). Elimination of this region, and connection of the top and bottom portions of the 'S' curve by vertical lines at the discontinuities gives the hysteresis loop of internal polarization due to an external electric field.
Sliding ferroelectricity
Sliding ferroelectricity is widely found but only in two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals stacked layers. The vertical electric polarization is switched by in-plane interlayer sliding.
See also
:Category:Ferroelectric materials
Physics
s
Lists
References
Further reading
External links
Ferroelectric Materials at University of Cambridge
Ferroelectric materials
Electric and magnetic fields in matter
Electrical phenomena
Phases of matter |
44828 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven%20hills%20of%20Rome | Seven hills of Rome | The seven hills of Rome (, ) east of the river Tiber form the geographical heart of Rome, within the walls of the city.
Hills
The seven hills are:
Aventine Hill (Latin: Collis Aventinus; Italian: Aventino)
Caelian Hill (Collis Caelius, originally the Mons Querquetulanus; Celio)
Capitoline Hill (Mons Capitolinus; Campidoglio)
Esquiline Hill (Collis Esquilinus; Esquilino)
Palatine Hill (Collis or Mons Palatinus; Palatino)
Quirinal Hill (Collis Quirinalis; Quirinale)
Viminal Hill (Collis Viminalis; Viminale)
The Vatican Hill (Latin Collis Vaticanus) lying northwest of the Tiber, the Pincian Hill (Mons Pincius), lying to the north, the Janiculan Hill (Latin Janiculum), lying to the west, and the Sacred Mount (Latin Mons Sacer), lying to the northeast, are not counted among the traditional Seven Hills, being outside the boundaries of the most ancient part of Rome.
Separate also are the seven hills associated with the Septimontium, a proto-urban festival celebrated by the residents of the seven communities associated with the hills or peaks of Rome. These were the Oppius, Palatium, Velia, Fagutal, Cermalus, Caelius, and Cispius. These are sometimes confused with the traditional seven hills.
History
Tradition holds that Romulus and Remus founded the original city on the Palatine Hill on 21 April 753 BC, and that the seven hills were first occupied by small settlements that were not grouped. The seven hills' denizens began to interact, which began to bond the groups. The city of Rome, thus, came into being as these separate settlements acted as a group, draining the marshy valleys between them and turning them into markets (fora in Latin). Later, in the early 4th century BC, the Servian Walls were constructed to protect the seven hills.
In modern Rome, five of the seven hills—the Aventine, Caelian, Esquiline, Quirinal, and Viminal Hills—are now the sites of monuments, buildings, and parks. The Capitoline Hill is the location of Rome's city hall, and the Palatine Hill is part of the main archaeological area.
A smaller area was covered by the seven peaks associated with the festival of the Septimontium: the Cispian Hill (Cispius Mons), Oppian Hill (Oppius Mons), and Fagutal Hill (Fagutalis Mons), three spurs of the Esquiline Hill, along with the Palatium and Cermalus, the peaks of the Palatine Hill, the Velian Hill, a ridge joining the Palatine and Oppian Hills, and the Caelian Hill.
Other cities with seven hills
Sheffield, Istanbul, Lisbon, Providence and the Massachusetts cities of Worcester, Somerville, and Newton are also said to have been built on seven hills, following the example of Rome.
In the New Testament
In the Book of Revelation, the Whore of Babylon sits on "seven mountains", typically understood by Protestants as the seven hills of Rome and a reference to the Catholic Church (which is based in Rome).
In modern literature
In a 2019 interview Lindsey Davis revealed her plan to set a series of books on the seven hills of Rome, now accomplished with the publication of A Capitol Death, seventh in the Flavia Albia series which began with The Ides of April, set on the Aventine Hill.
See also
Other Roman hills
Mons Sacer
Monte Mario
Oppian Hill (Oppio)
Velian Hill (Velia)
Pincian Hill
Monte Testaccio, an artificial hill composed primarily of broken amphorae
Janiculan Hill (Gianicolo)
General
Seven hills
References
Cultural lists |
44959 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telluride | Telluride | Telluride may refer to:
Telluride, Colorado, the county seat of San Miguel County in southwest Colorado
Telluride Ski Resort, a ski resort located in Mountain Village, Colorado
Telluride Film Festival, a film festival that takes place in Telluride, Colorado
Telluride (chemistry), the tellurium anion and its derivatives
Telluride mineral, any mineral that has the telluride ion as its main component
Telluride Association, an educational non-profit organization in the United States
Telluride House, a Cornell University residential society and one of the Telluride Association's programs
"Telluride" (song), by Tim McGraw, 2001; covered by Josh Gracin, 2008
Kia Telluride, a mid-size crossover SUV made by Kia Motors
See also
:Category:Tellurides |
45141 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonie%20%28disambiguation%29 | Moonie (disambiguation) | A Moonie is a member of the Unification Church of the United States.
Moonie may also refer to:
A member of the worldwide Unification movement
A fan of the manga and anime franchise Sailor Moon
Characters
Moon Knight, Marvel Comics character, nicknamed Moonie by fans
Moonie, character in New Waterford Girl
Moonie, character in comic book series by Nick Cuti
People
Moonie (surname)
Otto Miller (catcher) or Moonie, American baseball player
Brendan Moon or Moonie (born 1958), Australian rugby player
Keith Moon or Moonie (1946–1978), rock and roll drummer
Clifford "Moonie" Pusey, former guitarist for Steel Pulse
Places
Moonie, Queensland, town in Australia
Moonie Highway, road in Australia
Moonie River, river in Australia
Other uses
Moonie (dog), a canine actor
The Moonies, British rock band
See also
Mooney, Irish surname, sometimes spelled "Moonie"
Mount Moonie, mountain in Antarctica
Mooney (disambiguation)
Moony (born 1980), Italian musician
Mouni (disambiguation)
Super Moonies, German pop band |
45303 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread%20%28computing%29 | Thread (computing) | In computer science, a thread of execution is the smallest sequence of programmed instructions that can be managed independently by a scheduler, which is typically a part of the operating system. The implementation of threads and processes differs between operating systems. In Modern Operating Systems, Tanenbaum shows that many distinct models of process organization are possible. In many cases, a thread is a component of a process. The multiple threads of a given process may be executed concurrently (via multithreading capabilities), sharing resources such as memory, while different processes do not share these resources. In particular, the threads of a process share its executable code and the values of its dynamically allocated variables and non-thread-local global variables at any given time.
History
Threads made an early appearance under the name of "tasks" in OS/360 Multiprogramming with a Variable Number of Tasks (MVT) in 1967. Saltzer (1966) credits Victor A. Vyssotsky with the term "thread".
The use of threads in software applications became more common in the early 2000s as CPUs began to utilize multiple cores. Applications wishing to take advantage of multiple cores for performance advantages were required to employ concurrency to utilize the multiple cores.
Related concepts
Scheduling can be done at the kernel level or user level, and multitasking can be done preemptively or cooperatively. This yields a variety of related concepts.
Processes
At the kernel level, a process contains one or more kernel threads, which share the process's resources, such as memory and file handles – a process is a unit of resources, while a thread is a unit of scheduling and execution. Kernel scheduling is typically uniformly done preemptively or, less commonly, cooperatively. At the user level a process such as a runtime system can itself schedule multiple threads of execution. If these do not share data, as in Erlang, they are usually analogously called processes, while if they share data they are usually called (user) threads, particularly if preemptively scheduled. Cooperatively scheduled user threads are known as fibers; different processes may schedule user threads differently. User threads may be executed by kernel threads in various ways (one-to-one, many-to-one, many-to-many). The term "light-weight process" variously refers to user threads or to kernel mechanisms for scheduling user threads onto kernel threads.
A process is a "heavyweight" unit of kernel scheduling, as creating, destroying, and switching processes is relatively expensive. Processes own resources allocated by the operating system. Resources include memory (for both code and data), file handles, sockets, device handles, windows, and a process control block. Processes are isolated by process isolation, and do not share address spaces or file resources except through explicit methods such as inheriting file handles or shared memory segments, or mapping the same file in a shared way – see interprocess communication. Creating or destroying a process is relatively expensive, as resources must be acquired or released. Processes are typically preemptively multitasked, and process switching is relatively expensive, beyond basic cost of context switching, due to issues such as cache flushing (in particular, process switching changes virtual memory addressing, causing invalidation and thus flushing of an untagged translation lookaside buffer, notably on x86).
Kernel threads
A kernel thread is a "lightweight" unit of kernel scheduling. At least one kernel thread exists within each process. If multiple kernel threads exist within a process, then they share the same memory and file resources. Kernel threads are preemptively multitasked if the operating system's process scheduler is preemptive. Kernel threads do not own resources except for a stack, a copy of the registers including the program counter, and thread-local storage (if any), and are thus relatively cheap to create and destroy. Thread switching is also relatively cheap: it requires a context switch (saving and restoring registers and stack pointer), but does not change virtual memory and is thus cache-friendly (leaving TLB valid). The kernel can assign one thread to each logical core in a system (because each processor splits itself up into multiple logical cores if it supports multithreading, or only supports one logical core per physical core if it does not), and can swap out threads that get blocked. However, kernel threads take much longer than user threads to be swapped.
User threads
Threads are sometimes implemented in userspace libraries, thus called user threads. The kernel is unaware of them, so they are managed and scheduled in userspace. Some implementations base their user threads on top of several kernel threads, to benefit from multi-processor machines (M:N model). User threads as implemented by virtual machines are also called green threads.
As user thread implementations are typically entirely in userspace, context switching between user threads within the same process is extremely efficient because it does not require any interaction with the kernel at all: a context switch can be performed by locally saving the CPU registers used by the currently executing user thread or fiber and then loading the registers required by the user thread or fiber to be executed. Since scheduling occurs in userspace, the scheduling policy can be more easily tailored to the requirements of the program's workload.
However, the use of blocking system calls in user threads (as opposed to kernel threads) can be problematic. If a user thread or a fiber performs a system call that blocks, the other user threads and fibers in the process are unable to run until the system call returns. A typical example of this problem is when performing I/O: most programs are written to perform I/O synchronously. When an I/O operation is initiated, a system call is made, and does not return until the I/O operation has been completed. In the intervening period, the entire process is "blocked" by the kernel and cannot run, which starves other user threads and fibers in the same process from executing.
A common solution to this problem (used, in particular, by many green threads implementations) is providing an I/O API that implements an interface that blocks the calling thread, rather than the entire process, by using non-blocking I/O internally, and scheduling another user thread or fiber while the I/O operation is in progress. Similar solutions can be provided for other blocking system calls. Alternatively, the program can be written to avoid the use of synchronous I/O or other blocking system calls (in particular, using non-blocking I/O, including lambda continuations and/or async/await primitives).
Fibers
Fibers are an even lighter unit of scheduling which are cooperatively scheduled: a running fiber must explicitly "yield" to allow another fiber to run, which makes their implementation much easier than kernel or user threads. A fiber can be scheduled to run in any thread in the same process. This permits applications to gain performance improvements by managing scheduling themselves, instead of relying on the kernel scheduler (which may not be tuned for the application). Parallel programming environments such as OpenMP sometimes implement their tasks through fibers. Closely related to fibers are coroutines, with the distinction being that coroutines are a language-level construct, while fibers are a system-level construct.
Threads vs processes
Threads differ from traditional multitasking operating-system processes in several ways:
processes are typically independent, while threads exist as subsets of a process
processes carry considerably more state information than threads, whereas multiple threads within a process share process state as well as memory and other resources
processes have separate address spaces, whereas threads share their address space
processes interact only through system-provided inter-process communication mechanisms
context switching between threads in the same process typically occurs faster than context switching between processes
Systems such as Windows NT and OS/2 are said to have cheap threads and expensive processes; in other operating systems there is not so great a difference except in the cost of an address-space switch, which on some architectures (notably x86) results in a translation lookaside buffer (TLB) flush.
Advantages and disadvantages of threads vs processes include:
Lower resource consumption of threads: using threads, an application can operate using fewer resources than it would need when using multiple processes.
Simplified sharing and communication of threads: unlike processes, which require a message passing or shared memory mechanism to perform inter-process communication (IPC), threads can communicate through data, code and files they already share.
Thread crashes a process: due to threads sharing the same address space, an illegal operation performed by a thread can crash the entire process; therefore, one misbehaving thread can disrupt the processing of all the other threads in the application.
Scheduling
Preemptive vs cooperative scheduling
Operating systems schedule threads either preemptively or cooperatively. Multi-user operating systems generally favor preemptive multithreading for its finer-grained control over execution time via context switching. However, preemptive scheduling may context-switch threads at moments unanticipated by programmers, thus causing lock convoy, priority inversion, or other side-effects. In contrast, cooperative multithreading relies on threads to relinquish control of execution, thus ensuring that threads run to completion. This can cause problems if a cooperatively multitasked thread blocks by waiting on a resource or if it starves other threads by not yielding control of execution during intensive computation.
Single- vs multi-processor systems
Until the early 2000s, most desktop computers had only one single-core CPU, with no support for hardware threads, although threads were still used on such computers because switching between threads was generally still quicker than full-process context switches. In 2002, Intel added support for simultaneous multithreading to the Pentium 4 processor, under the name hyper-threading; in 2005, they introduced the dual-core Pentium D processor and AMD introduced the dual-core Athlon 64 X2 processor.
Systems with a single processor generally implement multithreading by time slicing: the central processing unit (CPU) switches between different software threads. This context switching usually occurs frequently enough that users perceive the threads or tasks as running in parallel (for popular server/desktop operating systems, maximum time slice of a thread, when other threads are waiting, is often limited to 100-200ms). On a multiprocessor or multi-core system, multiple threads can execute in parallel, with every processor or core executing a separate thread simultaneously; on a processor or core with hardware threads, separate software threads can also be executed concurrently by separate hardware threads.
Threading models
1:1 (kernel-level threading)
Threads created by the user in a 1:1 correspondence with schedulable entities in the kernel are the simplest possible threading implementation. OS/2 and Win32 used this approach from the start, while on Linux the GNU C Library implements this approach (via the NPTL or older LinuxThreads). This approach is also used by Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, macOS, and iOS.
N:1 (user-level threading)
An N:1 model implies that all application-level threads map to one kernel-level scheduled entity; the kernel has no knowledge of the application threads. With this approach, context switching can be done very quickly and, in addition, it can be implemented even on simple kernels which do not support threading. One of the major drawbacks, however, is that it cannot benefit from the hardware acceleration on multithreaded processors or multi-processor computers: there is never more than one thread being scheduled at the same time. For example: If one of the threads needs to execute an I/O request, the whole process is blocked and the threading advantage cannot be used. The GNU Portable Threads uses User-level threading, as does State Threads.
M:N (hybrid threading)
M:N maps some number of application threads onto some number of kernel entities, or "virtual processors." This is a compromise between kernel-level ("1:1") and user-level ("N:1") threading. In general, "M:N" threading systems are more complex to implement than either kernel or user threads, because changes to both kernel and user-space code are required. In the M:N implementation, the threading library is responsible for scheduling user threads on the available schedulable entities; this makes context switching of threads very fast, as it avoids system calls. However, this increases complexity and the likelihood of priority inversion, as well as suboptimal scheduling without extensive (and expensive) coordination between the userland scheduler and the kernel scheduler.
Hybrid implementation examples
Scheduler activations used by older versions of the NetBSD native POSIX threads library implementation (an M:N model as opposed to a 1:1 kernel or userspace implementation model)
Light-weight processes used by older versions of the Solaris operating system
Marcel from the PM2 project.
The OS for the Tera-Cray MTA-2
The Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC) for the language Haskell uses lightweight threads which are scheduled on operating system threads.
History of threading models in Unix systems
SunOS 4.x implemented light-weight processes or LWPs. NetBSD 2.x+, and DragonFly BSD implement LWPs as kernel threads (1:1 model). SunOS 5.2 through SunOS 5.8 as well as NetBSD 2 to NetBSD 4 implemented a two level model, multiplexing one or more user level threads on each kernel thread (M:N model). SunOS 5.9 and later, as well as NetBSD 5 eliminated user threads support, returning to a 1:1 model. FreeBSD 5 implemented M:N model. FreeBSD 6 supported both 1:1 and M:N, users could choose which one should be used with a given program using /etc/libmap.conf. Starting with FreeBSD 7, the 1:1 became the default. FreeBSD 8 no longer supports the M:N model.
Single-threaded vs multithreaded programs
In computer programming, single-threading is the processing of one command at a time. In the formal analysis of the variables' semantics and process state, the term single threading can be used differently to mean "backtracking within a single thread", which is common in the functional programming community.
Multithreading is mainly found in multitasking operating systems. Multithreading is a widespread programming and execution model that allows multiple threads to exist within the context of one process. These threads share the process's resources, but are able to execute independently. The threaded programming model provides developers with a useful abstraction of concurrent execution. Multithreading can also be applied to one process to enable parallel execution on a multiprocessing system.
Multithreading libraries tend to provide a function call to create a new thread, which takes a function as a parameter. A concurrent thread is then created which starts running the passed function and ends when the function returns. The thread libraries also offer data synchronization functions.
Threads and data synchronization
Threads in the same process share the same address space. This allows concurrently running code to couple tightly and conveniently exchange data without the overhead or complexity of an IPC. When shared between threads, however, even simple data structures become prone to race conditions if they require more than one CPU instruction to update: two threads may end up attempting to update the data structure at the same time and find it unexpectedly changing underfoot. Bugs caused by race conditions can be very difficult to reproduce and isolate.
To prevent this, threading application programming interfaces (APIs) offer synchronization primitives such as mutexes to lock data structures against concurrent access. On uniprocessor systems, a thread running into a locked mutex must sleep and hence trigger a context switch. On multi-processor systems, the thread may instead poll the mutex in a spinlock. Both of these may sap performance and force processors in symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) systems to contend for the memory bus, especially if the granularity of the locking is too fine.
Other synchronization APIs include condition variables, critical sections, semaphores, and monitors.
Thread pools
A popular programming pattern involving threads is that of thread pools where a set number of threads are created at startup that then wait for a task to be assigned. When a new task arrives, it wakes up, completes the task and goes back to waiting. This avoids the relatively expensive thread creation and destruction functions for every task performed and takes thread management out of the application developer's hand and leaves it to a library or the operating system that is better suited to optimize thread management.
Multithreaded programs vs single-threaded programs pros and cons
Multithreaded applications have the following advantages vs single-threaded ones:
Responsiveness: multithreading can allow an application to remain responsive to input. In a one-thread program, if the main execution thread blocks on a long-running task, the entire application can appear to freeze. By moving such long-running tasks to a worker thread that runs concurrently with the main execution thread, it is possible for the application to remain responsive to user input while executing tasks in the background. On the other hand, in most cases multithreading is not the only way to keep a program responsive, with non-blocking I/O and/or Unix signals being available for obtaining similar results.
Parallelization: applications looking to use multicore or multi-CPU systems can use multithreading to split data and tasks into parallel subtasks and let the underlying architecture manage how the threads run, either concurrently on one core or in parallel on multiple cores. GPU computing environments like CUDA and OpenCL use the multithreading model where dozens to hundreds of threads run in parallel across data on a large number of cores. This, in turn, enables better system utilization, and (provided that synchronization costs don't eat the benefits up), can provide faster program execution.
Multithreaded applications have the following drawbacks:
Synchronization complexity and related bugs: when using shared resources typical for threaded programs, the programmer must be careful to avoid race conditions and other non-intuitive behaviors. In order for data to be correctly manipulated, threads will often need to rendezvous in time in order to process the data in the correct order. Threads may also require mutually exclusive operations (often implemented using mutexes) to prevent common data from being read or overwritten in one thread while being modified by another. Careless use of such primitives can lead to deadlocks, livelocks or races over resources. As Edward A. Lee has written: "Although threads seem to be a small step from sequential computation, in fact, they represent a huge step. They discard the most essential and appealing properties of sequential computation: understandability, predictability, and determinism. Threads, as a model of computation, are wildly non-deterministic, and the job of the programmer becomes one of pruning that nondeterminism."
Being untestable. In general, multithreaded programs are non-deterministic, and as a result, are untestable. In other words, a multithreaded program can easily have bugs which never manifest on a test system, manifesting only in production. This can be alleviated by restricting inter-thread communications to certain well-defined patterns (such as message-passing).
Synchronization costs. As thread context switch on modern CPUs can cost up to 1 million CPU cycles, it makes writing efficient multithreading programs difficult. In particular, special attention has to be paid to avoid inter-thread synchronization from being too frequent.
Programming language support
Many programming languages support threading in some capacity.
IBM PL/I(F) included support for multithreading (called multitasking) as early as in the late 1960s, and this was continued in the Optimizing Compiler and later versions. The IBM Enterprise PL/I compiler introduced a new model "thread" API. Neither version was part of the PL/I standard.
Many implementations of C and C++ support threading, and provide access to the native threading APIs of the operating system. A standardized interface for thread implementation is POSIX Threads (Pthreads), which is a set of C-function library calls. OS vendors are free to implement the interface as desired, but the application developer should be able to use the same interface across multiple platforms. Most Unix platforms, including Linux, support Pthreads. Microsoft Windows has its own set of thread functions in the process.h interface for multithreading, like beginthread.
Some higher level (and usually cross-platform) programming languages, such as Java, Python, and .NET Framework languages, expose threading to developers while abstracting the platform specific differences in threading implementations in the runtime. Several other programming languages and language extensions also try to abstract the concept of concurrency and threading from the developer fully (Cilk, OpenMP, Message Passing Interface (MPI)). Some languages are designed for sequential parallelism instead (especially using GPUs), without requiring concurrency or threads (Ateji PX, CUDA).
A few interpreted programming languages have implementations (e.g., Ruby MRI for Ruby, CPython for Python) which support threading and concurrency but not parallel execution of threads, due to a global interpreter lock (GIL). The GIL is a mutual exclusion lock held by the interpreter that can prevent the interpreter from simultaneously interpreting the applications code on two or more threads at once, which effectively limits the parallelism on multiple core systems. This limits performance mostly for processor-bound threads, which require the processor, and not much for I/O-bound or network-bound ones. Other implementations of interpreted programming languages, such as Tcl using the Thread extension, avoid the GIL limit by using an Apartment model where data and code must be explicitly "shared" between threads. In Tcl each thread has one or more interpreters.
In programming models such as CUDA designed for data parallel computation, an array of threads run the same code in parallel using only its ID to find its data in memory. In essence, the application must be designed so that each thread performs the same operation on different segments of memory so that they can operate in parallel and use the GPU architecture.
Hardware description languages such as Verilog have a different threading model that supports extremely large numbers of threads (for modeling hardware).
See also
Clone (Linux system call)
Communicating sequential processes
Computer multitasking
Multi-core (computing)
Multithreading (computer hardware)
Non-blocking algorithm
Priority inversion
Protothreads
Simultaneous multithreading
Thread pool pattern
Thread safety
Win32 Thread Information Block
References
Further reading
David R. Butenhof: Programming with POSIX Threads, Addison-Wesley,
Bradford Nichols, Dick Buttlar, Jacqueline Proulx Farell: Pthreads Programming, O'Reilly & Associates,
Paul Hyde: Java Thread Programming, Sams,
Jim Beveridge, Robert Wiener: Multithreading Applications in Win32, Addison-Wesley,
Uresh Vahalia: Unix Internals: the New Frontiers, Prentice Hall,
Concurrent computing |
45454 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince%20George%27s%20County%2C%20Maryland | Prince George's County, Maryland | Prince George's County (often shortened to PG County) is a county located in the U.S. state of Maryland bordering the eastern portion of Washington, D.C. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the population was 967,201, making it the second-most populous county in Maryland, behind Montgomery County. The 2020 census counted an increase of nearly 104,000 in the previous ten years. Its county seat is Upper Marlboro. It is the largest and the second most affluent African American-majority county in the United States, with five of its communities identified in a 2015 top ten list.
Prince George's County is included in the Washington metropolitan area. The county also hosts many federal governmental facilities, such as Joint Base Andrews and the United States Census Bureau headquarters.
Etymology
The official name of the county, as specified in the county's charter, is "Prince George's County, Maryland". The county is named after Prince George of Denmark (1653–1708), the consort of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, and the brother of King Christian V of Denmark and Norway. The county's demonym is Prince Georgian, and its motto is Semper Eadem (), a phrase used by Queen Anne. Prince George's County is frequently referred to as "PG" or "PG County", an abbreviation which is the subject of debate, some residents viewing it as a pejorative and others holding neutral feelings toward the term or even preferring the abbreviation over the full name.
History
The Cretaceous Era brought dinosaurs to the area that left fossils now preserved in a park in Laurel. The site, which among other finds has yielded fossilized teeth from Astrodon and Priconodon species, has been called the most prolific in the eastern United States.
In the mid to late Holocene era, the area was occupied by Paleo-Native Americans and then, later, Native Americans. When the first European settlers arrived, what is now Prince George's County was inhabited by people of the Piscataway Indian Nation. Three branches of the tribe are still living today, two of which are headquartered in Prince George's County.
17th century
Prince George's County was created by the English Council of Maryland in the Province of Maryland in April 1696 from portions of Charles and Calvert counties. The county was divided into six districts referred to as "Hundreds": Mattapany, Petuxant, Collington, Mount Calvert, Piscattoway and New Scotland.
18th century
A portion was detached in 1748 to form Frederick County. Because Frederick County was subsequently divided to form the present Allegany, Garrett, Montgomery, and Washington counties, all of these counties in addition were derived from what had up to 1748 been Prince George's County.
In 1791, portions of Prince George's County were ceded to form the new District of Columbia (along with portions of Montgomery County, Maryland and parts of Northern Virginia that were later returned to Virginia).
19th century
During the War of 1812, the British marched through the county by way of Bladensburg to burn the White House. On their return, they kidnapped a prominent doctor, William Beanes. Lawyer Francis Scott Key was asked to negotiate for his release, which resulted in his writing "The Star-Spangled Banner".
Prince George's County had the highest population of slaves within the state of Maryland. These enslaved Africans engaged in forced labor on tobacco farms and plantations throughout Prince George's County.
During the Civil War, hundreds of enslaved Black men in Prince George's County were given freedom in exchange for joining the Union Army and fighting in Colored units against Confederate Forces. When Abraham Lincoln ordered the end of slavery in America, he did not free the slaves in Maryland because he was concerned that slave owning Maryland would revolt and Washington D.C. would then be surrounded by Confederate forces. However John Pendleton Kennedy, a Maryland politician who became an abolitionist after watching a speech by Frederick Douglass, led a referendum campaign to end slavery in the state. In 1864, the citizens of Maryland voted to end slavery. However the state was so divided that the referendum won by only 1,000 votes. Lincoln then ordered the Union Army to enforce the ban in Maryland and all enslaved people in the state were freed.
After the Civil War, many African Americans attempted to become part of Maryland politics, but were met with violent repression after the fall of Reconstruction.
In April 1865, John Wilkes Booth made his escape through Prince George's County while en route to Virginia after killing President Abraham Lincoln.
20th century
The proportion of African Americans declined during the first half of the 20th century, but was renewed to over 50% in the early 1990s when the county again became majority African American. The first African American County Executive was Wayne K. Curry, elected in 1994.
On July 1, 1997, the Prince George's County section of the city of Takoma Park, which straddled the boundary between Prince George's and Montgomery counties, was transferred to Montgomery County. This was done after city residents voted in a referendum to be under the sole jurisdiction of Montgomery County, and subsequent approval by both counties and the Maryland General Assembly. This was the first change in Montgomery/Prince George's County line boundaries since 1968, when the City of Laurel was unified in Prince George's County; additional legislation was proposed in 1990 for a technical correction, though may not have achieved enactment.
21st century
The county's population nearly reached one million residents in the 2020 census. It is the largest and highest-income Black-majority county in the United States. Hispanic residents grew in number to 21% of the total population.
The county experienced a dramatic drop in crime, including record drops in violent crime, although in 2021 and 2022, violent crime increased by 30%. From 2020 to mid-2022 over 2,200 residents died of COVID-19, over 19,000 county residents were left with long-term post-COVID symptoms
and over 193,000 COVID infections had been recorded.
Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (3.2%) is water.
Prince George's County lies in the Atlantic coastal plain, and its landscape is characterized by gently rolling hills and valleys. Along its western border with Montgomery County, Adelphi, Calverton and West Laurel rise into the piedmont, exceeding in elevation.
The Patuxent River forms the county's eastern border with Howard, Anne Arundel, Charles and Calvert counties.
Regions
Terrain, culture, and demographics differ significantly by location within the county. There are five key regions to Prince George's County: North County, Central County, the Rural Tier, the Inner Beltway, and South County. These regions are not formally defined, however, and the terms used to describe each area can vary greatly. In the broadest terms, the county is generally divided into North County and South County with U.S. Route 50 serving as the dividing line.
Southern Prince George's county is also considered to be a part of the Southern Maryland region.
North County
Northern Prince George's County includes Laurel, Beltsville, Adelphi, College Park and Greenbelt. This area of the county is anchored by the Capital Beltway and the Baltimore–Washington Parkway. Laurel is experiencing a population boom with the construction of the Inter-County Connector. The key employers in this region are the University of Maryland, Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, and NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center. Areas of geographic distinction include Greenbelt Park, a wooded reserve adjacent to the planned environmental community of Greenbelt, and University Park, a collection of historic homes adjacent to the University of Maryland. Riversdale Mansion, along with the historic homes of Berwyn Heights, Mt. Rainier and Hyattsville, along with Langley Park are also located in this area. Lake Artemesia and the surrounding park were constructed during the completion of the Washington Metro Green Line, and it incorporates a stocked fishing lake and serves as the trail-head for an extensive Anacostia Tributary Trails system that runs along the Anacostia River and its tributaries. The south and central tracts of the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center also lie in this part of the county; the north tract lies north of the Patuxent River in Anne Arundel County.
Central County
Central County, located on the eastern outskirts of the Capital Beltway, consists of Mitchellville, Woodmore, Greater Upper Marlboro, Springdale, Largo, and Bowie. According to the 2010 census, it has generally been the fastest growing region of the county. Mitchellville is named for a wealthy African American family, the Mitchells, who owned a large portion of land in this area of the county. Central Avenue, a major exit off the I-95 beltway, running east to west, is one of two main roads in this portion of the county. The other major roadway is Old Crain Highway, which runs north to south along the eastern portion of the county. The Newton White Mansion on the grounds is a popular site for weddings and political events. Bowie State University and Prince George's Community College are in the Central region.
Inner Beltway
The inner beltway communities of Capitol Heights, District Heights, Fairmont Heights, Forestville, Suitland, and Seat Pleasant border the neighboring District of Columbia's northeastern and southeastern quadrants. The area has easy access to Metro's blue line, commercial centers, Maryland Route 214, Interstate 95/Interstate 495 (Capital Beltway). Protected bike trails connect residents to the Bladensburg waterfront, Kenilworth parks, and downtown D.C. Fairmont Heights is the second oldest African-American-majority municipality in Prince George's County. The Fairmount Heights Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.
Bowie is best known as a planned Levittown. William Levitt in the 1960s built traditional homes, as well as California contemporaries along U.S. Route 50, the key highway to the eastern shore and the state capital of Annapolis. Bowie has currently grown to be the largest city in Prince George's County, with more than 50,000 people. It also has a large Caucasian population, compared to much of the county (48% of the population). Housing styles vary from the most contemporary to century-old homes in Bowie's antique district (formerly known as Huntingtown), where the town of Bowie began as a haven for thoroughbred horse racing. Areas of geographic distinction include the Oden Bowie Mansion, Allen Pond, key segments of the Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis Trail, as well as planned parks, lakes and walking trails.
Rural Tier
Prince George's rural tier was designated "in the 2002 General Plan as an area where residential growth would be minimal"; it may be found in the area well beyond the Beltway to the east and south of central county, bounded on the north by U.S. Route 50, the west by the communities Accokeek and Fort Washington, and the east by the Patuxent River. Prince George's origins are in this part of the county. Most of this area contains the unincorporated parishes, villages and lost towns of Prince George's County. Largely under postal designations of "Upper Marlboro" or "Brandywine", in truth the town of Upper Marlboro is more central county in character, though it is the post office location for various rural settlements. (The names of these unincorporated areas are listed below in the towns section of this article). Since 1721 Upper Marlboro has been the county seat of government, with families that trace their lineage back to Prince George's initial land grants and earliest governing officials. Names like Clagett, Sasscer, King James and Queen Anne pepper the streets.
The rural tier has been the focus of orchestrated efforts by residents and county government to preserve its rural character and environmental integrity. Under the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC), Patuxent River Park is the largest natural preserve and provides public access for birdwatching and viewing the rural tier's natural waterfront vistas. In season, the park's Jug Bay Natural Area and the Patuxent Riverkeeper in Queen Anne both offer canoeing and kayaking rentals on the Patuxent. The county's largest collection of tobacco planter mansions and preserved homes are in the rural tier, some managed by the M-NCPPC. Many rural tier roads have scenic highway preservation status; a fall drive yields exceptional beauty along the Patuxent valley's Leeland Road, Croom Road, Clagett's Landing Rd., Mill Branch Rd., Queen Anne Rd., and Brandywine Rd. Walking access along roads in this area is very limited, because most property along the roads remains in private ownership. However, walking is much more accessible in the widespread M-NCPPC lands and trails and state holdings in the Patuxent valley, such as Merkle Wildlife Sanctuary and Rosaryville State Park, both popular among hikers and mountain bikers.
South County
South County is a blend of the greenery of the rural tier and the new development of central county. The communities of Clinton, Oxon Hill, Temple Hills and Fort Washington are the largest areas of south county. It is the only portion of Prince George's County to enjoy the Potomac River waterfront, and that geographic distinction has yielded the rise of the National Harbor project: a town center and riverside shopping and living development on the Potomac. The National Harbor, and its associated entertainment (MGM National Harbor) and shopping (Tanger Outlets) districts, have become a major tourist and convention attraction, with significant hotel accommodations, eateries and shopping. Together, these projects were built on land formerly occupied by the Salubria plantation, where a 14-year-old slave girl poisoned her owner, John H. Bayne, and his family in 1831. Water taxi service connects National Harbor to other destinations along the Potomac. Several historic sites, including Jones Point Lighthouse, can be viewed from the harbor front. Piscataway Park in Accokeek preserves many acres of woodland and wetlands along the Potomac River opposite Mount Vernon, Virginia. River Road in Fort Washington also yields great views of the Potomac. Fort Washington Park was a major battery and gives access to the public for tours of the fort, scenic access to the river and other picnic grounds. Oxon Hill Manor offers a working farm and plantation mansion for touring; His Lordship's Kindness is another major historic home. Also, Fort Foote is an old American Civil War fort and tourist destination.
Adjacent counties and independent cities
Anne Arundel County (east)
Calvert County (southeast)
Charles County (south)
Howard County (north)
Montgomery County (northwest)
Fairfax County, Virginia (southwest)
Alexandria, Virginia (southwest)
Washington, D.C. (west)
Prince George's and Montgomery Counties share a bi-county planning and parks agency in the M-NCPPC and a public bi-county water and sewer utility in the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission
National protected areas
Fort Washington Park
Greenbelt Park
Patuxent Wildlife Research Refuge (part)
Piscataway Park
Cedarville State Forest (whose main entrance is in Prince George's county)
Politics and government
Since 1792, the county seat has been Upper Marlboro. Prior to 1792, the county seat was located at Mount Calvert, a 76-acre (308,000 m2) estate along the Patuxent River on the edge of what is now in the unincorporated community of Croom. Since 1991, the county has slowly moved government functions from rural Upper Marlboro to the Largo area, closer to the center of population, while proposals to move the actual county seat remain controversial.
Prince George's County was granted a charter form of government in 1970 with the county executive elected as the head of the executive branch and the county council members as the leadership of the legislative branch. The county is divided into nine councilmanic districts, whose number designations wind roughly from north to south. Two at-large council seats were added in 2018. Prince George's County is part of the Seventh Judicial Circuit of the state of Maryland and holds 23 of the 32 total circuit court judges in the circuit (which includes Calvert, Charles, Prince George's, and St. Mary's counties).
Fitch Ratings assigned a 'AAA' bond rating to Prince George's County on August 25, 2011, re-affirming the county's stable financial outlook. Earlier in 2011, the county received 'AAA' status from Standard & Poor's and Moody's. 'AAA' bond ratings are the highest possible bond ratings a jurisdiction can receive.
As part of the increasingly liberal D.C. suburbs and a nationwide suburban shift towards the Democrats, Prince George's County is a Democratic stronghold, having voted majority-Democratic in every presidential election but four since 1932: Dwight D. Eisenhower's landslide elections in 1952 and 1956, and Richard Nixon's two candidacies in 1968 and 1972. It has not even given over 10% of the vote to the Republican nominee since 2008, and was Joe Biden's second strongest county in the country (and third-best county equivalent after Washington, D.C.) in the 2020 presidential election, only behind Kalawao County, Hawaii, awarding him 89.26% of the vote.
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County executive and council
Other officials
State's Attorney: Aisha N. Braveboy (D)
County Sheriff: John D. B. Carr (D)
County Fire Chief: Tiffany D. Green
Clerk of the Circuit Court: Mahasin El Amin
Chief of the County Police: Malik Aziz
PGCPS Chief Executive Officer: Monica Goldson
Emergency services
Law enforcement
Prince George's County is serviced by multiple law enforcement agencies. The Prince George's County Police Department is the primary police service for county residents residing in unincorporated areas of the county. In addition, the Prince George's County Sheriff's Office acts as the enforcement arm of the county court, and also shares some patrol responsibility with the county police. County parks are serviced by the Prince George's County Division of the Maryland-National Capital Park Police.
Besides the county-level services, all but one of the 27 local municipalities maintain police departments that share jurisdiction with the county police services. Furthermore, the Maryland State Police enforces the law on state highways which pass through the county with the exception of Maryland Route 200 where the Maryland Transportation Authority Police is the primary law enforcement agency and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Police patrol the state parks and navigable waterways located within the county.
Along with the state and local law enforcement agencies, the federal government also maintains several departments that service citizens of the county such as the US Park Police, US Postal Police, the 316th Security Forces Squadron (specifically covering Andrews AFB), and other federal police located on various federal property within the county.
In addition, nearly all of the incorporated cities and towns in the county have their own municipal police force. Notable exceptions include the city of College Park.
Other emergency services
Prince George's County hospitals include Bowie Health Center, Doctors Community Hospital in Lanham, Gladys Spellman Specialty Hospital & Nursing Center in Cheverly, Laurel Regional Hospital in Laurel, Southern Maryland Hospital Center in Clinton, University of Maryland Capital Region Medical Center, a state-of-the-art acute care teaching hospital, and Fort Washington Medical Center. Hospice of the Chesapeake has offices in Largo, with a staff that serves patients in their homes, including skilled nursing, senior living and assisted living facilities.
The Prince George's County Volunteer Firemen's Association was formed in 1922 with several of the first companies organized in the county. The first members of the association were Hyattsville, Cottage City, Mount Rainier, and Brentwood.
In March 1966, the Prince George's County Government employed the firefighters who had been hired by individual volunteer stations and an organized career department was begun. The career firefighters and paramedics are represented by IAFF 1619. Prince George's County Fire/Rescue Operations consists of 45 Fire/EMS stations.
Prince George's County became the first jurisdiction in Maryland to implement the 9-1-1 Emergency Reporting System in 1973. Advanced life support services began for citizens of the county in 1977. Firefighters were certified as Cardiac Rescue Technicians and deployed in what was called at the time Mobile Intensive Care Units to fire stations in Brentwood, Silver Hill, and Laurel.
As of 2007, the Prince George's County Fire/EMS Department operates a combination system staffed by over 800 career firefighters and paramedics, and nearly 1,100 active volunteers.
County law has, for years, required to seize all pitbulls from their owners if they become aware of them. This is controversial and Animal Control itself objects to this law. It has routinely required them to act when they see such a dog behaving peacefully inside of a private home merely because Animal Control is checking something unrelated.
Transportation
The County contains a 28-mile portion of the 65-mile-long Capital Beltway. After a decades-long debate, an east–west toll freeway, the Intercounty Connector ("ICC"), which extends Interstate 370 in Montgomery County to connect I-270 with Interstate 95 and U.S. 1 in Laurel, opened in 2012. An 11.5-mile portion of the 32.5-mile-long Baltimore–Washington Parkway runs from the county's border with Washington, D.C., to its border with Anne Arundel County near Laurel.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority operates Metrobus fixed-route bus service and Metrorail heavy-rail passenger service in and out of the county as well as the regional MetroAccess paratransit system for the handicapped. The Prince George's County Department of Public Works and Transportation also operates TheBus, a County-wide fixed-route bus system, and the Call-A-Bus service for passengers who do not have access to or have difficulty using fixed-route bus service. Call-A-Bus is a demand-response service which generally requires 14-days advance reservations. The county also offers a subsidized taxicab service for elderly and disabled residents called Call-A-Cab in which eligible customers who sign up for the service purchase coupons giving them a 50 percent discount with participating taxicab companies in Prince George's and Montgomery Counties.
Mass transit
Prince George's County Metro Rail
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority has fifteen stations of the Washington Metro system located in Prince George's County, with four of them as terminus stations: Greenbelt, New Carrollton, Largo, and Branch Avenue. The Purple Line, which would link highly developed areas of both Montgomery and Prince George's Counties is currently under-construction and slated to open in 2026. The Purple Line will provide connections to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority's Red Line (Washington Metro) via Northern Prince George's County and Montgomery County. The Orange Line (Washington Metro) and MARC Train's Penn Line will have transfer points at New Carrollton station.
Prince George's County Commuter Rail
The MARC Train (Maryland Area Rail Commuter) train service has two lines that traverse Prince George's County. The Camden Line, which runs between Baltimore Camden Station and Washington Union Station and has six stops in the county at Riverdale, College Park, Greenbelt, Muirkirk, Laurel and Laurel Race Track. The Penn Line runs on the Amtrak route between Pennsylvania and Washington Union stations. It has three stops in the county: Bowie State, Seabrook and New Carrollton.
Airports
The College Park Airport (CGS), established in 1909, is the world's oldest continuously operated airport and is home to the adjacent College Park Aviation Museum.
Privately owned general aviation airfields in the county include Freeway Airport (W00) in Mitchellville, Potomac Airfield (VKX) in Friendly, and Washington Executive Airpark/Hyde Field (W32) in Clinton, along with numerous private heliports.
The area is served by three airports: Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) in Arlington County, Virginia, Baltimore–Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) in neighboring Anne Arundel County, and Dulles International Airport (IAD) in Dulles, Virginia.
Andrews Air Force Base (ADW), the airfield portion of Joint Base Andrews, is also near Camp Springs.
Water taxi
Prince George's County is served by a water taxi that operates from the National Harbor to Alexandria, Virginia and to The Wharf in Washington, D.C.
Major highways
Future transit
Because of its location north and east of Washington, D.C., several future transit technology projects look to be routed partially through Prince George's County. The first stage of The Boring Company's proposed Washington-to-New York hyperloop will travel beneath the Baltimore–Washington Parkway through Prince George's en route to Baltimore. No hyperloop stops within the county are projected. Similarly, former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan has supported efforts to trial a 40-mile superconducting maglev (SCMaglev) train route connecting Washington to Baltimore. Proposed routes would run through Prince George's parallel to the Baltimore–Washington Parkway or along the Amtrak Penn Line corridor. As with the hyperloop, no SCMaglev stop is planned within Prince George's County. The Purple Line light transit rail is currently in construction in College Park and New Carrollton.
Demographics
Prince George's County is the wealthiest African American-majority county in the United States.
2020 census
2010 census
As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 863,420 people, 304,042 households, and 203,520 families residing in the county. The population density was . There were 328,182 housing units at an average density of . The racial and ancestral makeup of the county was:
64.5% black or African American (1.9% Nigerian, 1.5% Jamaican, 0.5% Ethiopian)
14.9% White (3.3% German, 3% Irish, 2% English, 1.5% Italian, 0.7% Polish)
0.5% American Indian
14.9% Hispanic or Latino (any race) (7.67% Salvadoran, 2.52% Mexican, 2.19% Guatemalan, 0.92% Honduran, 0.66% Puerto Rican, 0.56% Dominican)
4.1% Asian (1.08% Filipino, 0.9% Indian, 0.79% Chinese, 0.35% Korean, 0.3% Vietnamese, 0.26% Pakistani, 0.14% Bangladeshi)
0.1% Pacific islander
8.5% from other races
3.2% from two or more races.
Those of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 14.9% of the population, an equal percentage to Whites of indeterminate origin. In terms of ancestry, 6.5% were Subsaharan African, and 2.0% were American.
Of the 304,042 households, 36.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.1% were married couples living together, 20.4% had a female householder with no husband present, 33.1% were non-families, and 26.1% of all households were made up of individuals. The average household size was 2.78 and the average family size was 3.31. The median age was 34.9 years.
The median income for a household in the county was $71,260 and the median income for a family was $82,580. Males had a median income of $49,471 versus $49,478 for females. The per capita income for the county was $31,215. About 5.0% of families and 7.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9.6% of those under age 18 and 6.7% of those age 65 or over.
2000 Census
The racial makeup of the county was as of 2000:
62.70% Black
27.04% White
0.35% Native American
7.12% Hispanic or Latino (of any race)
3.87% Asian
0.06% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
3.38% Some other race
2.61% Two or more races
By the 2008 estimates there were 298,439 households, out of which 65.1% are family households and 34.9% were non-family households. 36.4% of households had children under the age of 18 living with them, 44.00% were married couples living together, 19.60% had a female householder with no husband present. 24.10% of all households were made up of individuals, and 4.90% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.74 persons and the average family size was 3.25 persons.
In the county, the population was spread out, with 26.80% under the age of 18, 10.40% from 18 to 24, 33.00% from 25 to 44, 22.10% from 45 to 64, and 7.70% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33 years. For every 100 females, there were 91.50 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.20 males.
The median income for a household in the county in 2008 was $71,696, and the median income for a family was $81,908. The 2008 mean income for a family in the county was $94,360. As of 2000, males had a median income of $38,904 versus $35,718 for females. The 2008 per capita income for the county was $23,360. About 4.70% of families and 7.40% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9.2% of those under age 18 and 7.1% of those age 65 or over. Prince George's County is the 70th most affluent county in the United States by median income for families and the most affluent county in the United States with an African-American majority. Almost 38.8% of all households in Prince George's County, earned over $100,000 in 2008.
Education
"30.1% of all residents over the age of 25 had graduated from college and obtained a bachelor's degree (17.8%) or professional degree (12.2%). 86.2% of all residents over the age of 25 were high school graduates or higher."
Religion
Prince George's County is relatively religious compared to the rest of Maryland, hosting more than 800 churches, including 12 megachurches, as well as a number of mosques, synagogues, and Hindu and Buddhist temples. Property belonging to religious entities makes up of land in the county, or 1.8% of the total area of the county.
Economy
Top employers
According to the county's comprehensive annual financial report, the top private-sector employers in the county are the following. "NR" indicates not ranked in the top ten for the year given.
The top public-sector employers in the county are as follows. "NR" indicates not ranked in the top ten for the year given.
Crime
Prince George's County accounted for 20% of murders in the State of Maryland from 1985 to 2006. A twenty-year crime index trends study, performed by Prince George's County Police Department Information Resource Management, showed the county had a 23.1% increase in total crime for the years of 2000 to 2004. Between the years of 1984 to 2004, Prince George's had a 62.8% increase in total crime.
However, as of 2009, crime had generally declined in the county and the number of homicides declined from 151 in 2005 to 99 in 2009.
As of the end of 2013, the county had experienced a record drop in crime, especially record lows in violent crimes. In 2021 and 2022, violent crime experienced an upturn, increasing by 30%.
Education
Colleges and universities
The University of Maryland System headquarters are in the unincorporated area of Adelphi.
Public schools
The county's public schools are managed by the Prince George's County Public Schools system. It serves as the school district for the entire county.
Enterprises and recreation
Prince George's County is home to the United States Department of Agriculture's Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the United States Census Bureau, Andrews Air Force Base, the National Archives and Records Administration's College Park facility, the University of Maryland's flagship College Park campus, Six Flags America and Six Flags Hurricane Harbor, FedExField (home of the Washington Commanders), and the National Harbor, which its developers, Peterson Companies and Gaylord Entertainment Company, bill as the largest single mixed-use project and combined convention center–hotel complex on the East Coast.
Media
WPGC-FM, Morningside, MD, take their P-G-C call letters from the name Prince George's County
Prince George's Sentinel, Seabrook, MD, weekly newspaper covering the county with a circulation of 23,000 copies
Recreation
Although Prince George's County is not often credited for the Washington Commanders, the team's home stadium, FedExField, is in Landover. No other major-league professional sports teams are in the county, though Bowie hosts the Bowie Baysox, a minor league baseball team. The county is known for its very successful youth. In basketball, ESPN published an article declaring Prince George's County the new "Hoops Hot Bed" and ranked it as the number one basketball talent pool in the country. A number of basketball prospects, including Kevin Durant, Victor Oladipo, Jeff Green, Roy Hibbert and Ty Lawson, are from AAU basketball teams such as the PG Jaguars, DC Assault, and DC Blue Devils. Besides AAU, basketball has skyrocketed from local high schools such as DeMatha Catholic High School and Bishop McNamara High School, both of which have found some great success locally and nationally.
The county's basketball talent was profiled in the 2020 documentary Basketball County, produced by Kevin Durant. Durant and numerous other residents of the county who went on to success in basketball are featured in the film.
Communities
This county contains the following incorporated municipalities:
Cities
Bowie
College Park
District Heights
Glenarden
Greenbelt
Hyattsville
Laurel
Mount Rainier
New Carrollton
Seat Pleasant
Towns
Berwyn Heights
Bladensburg
Brentwood
Capitol Heights
Cheverly
Colmar Manor
Cottage City
Eagle Harbor
Edmonston
Fairmount Heights
Forest Heights
Landover Hills
Morningside
North Brentwood
Riverdale Park
University Park
Upper Marlboro (county seat)
Part of the city of Takoma Park was formerly in Prince George's County, but since 1997 the city has been entirely in Montgomery County. The part of Takoma Park that changed counties comprises two residential neighborhoods, Carole Highlands (an unincorporated portion of which is still in Prince George's County) and New Hampshire Gardens.
Census-designated places
Unincorporated areas are also considered as towns by many people and listed in many collections of towns, but they lack local government. Various organizations, such as the United States Census Bureau, the United States Postal Service, and local chambers of commerce, define the communities they wish to recognize differently, and since they are not incorporated, their boundaries have no official status outside the organizations in question. The Census Bureau recognizes the following census-designated places in the county:
Accokeek
Adelphi
Andrews AFB
Aquasco
Baden
Beltsville
Brandywine
Brock Hall
Calverton
Camp Springs
Cedarville
Chillum
Clinton
Coral Hills
Croom
East Riverdale
Fairwood
Forestville
Fort Washington
Friendly
Glassmanor
Glenn Dale
Hillandale
Hillcrest Heights
Kettering
Konterra
Lake Arbor
Landover
Langley Park
Lanham
Largo
Marlboro Meadows
Marlboro Village
Marlow Heights
Marlton
Maryland Park
Melwood
Mitchellville
National Harbor
Oxon Hill
Peppermill Village
Queen Anne
Queenland
Rosaryville
Seabrook
Silver Hill
South Laurel
Springdale
Suitland
Summerfield
Temple Hills
Walker Mill
West Laurel
Westphalia
Woodlawn
Woodmore
Unincorporated communities
Ardmore
Avondale
Carmody Hills
Carole Highlands
Cedar Heights
Chapel Oaks
Cheltenham
Collington
Danville
Green Meadows
Indian Creek Village
Kentland
Lewisdale
Meadows
Montpelier
Muirkirk
Palmer Park
Piscataway
Raljon
Rogers Heights
South Bowie
Tantallon
Tuxedo
Vansville
West Hyattsville
White Hall
Woodyard
Ghost town
Good Luck
Sister cities
Royal Bafokeng Nation, South Africa
Rishon LeZion, Israel
Ziguinchor, Senegal
Notable people
Namesakes
The , was a United States Navy Crater-class cargo ship named after the county.
See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Prince George's County, Maryland
References
Further reading
The Dilemma of the Black Middle Class, includes analysis of the county.
External links
Detailed 1861 Map of Prince Georges County – Ghosts of DC blog
Prince George's Community Council records at the University of Maryland Libraries
1696 establishments in Maryland
Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area
Maryland counties
Maryland counties on the Potomac River
Washington metropolitan area
Populated places established in 1696
Majority-minority counties and independent cities in Maryland
Prince George of Denmark |
45634 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread%20safety | Thread safety | Thread safety is a computer programming concept applicable to multi-threaded code. Thread-safe code only manipulates shared data structures in a manner that ensures that all threads behave properly and fulfill their design specifications without unintended interaction. There are various strategies for making thread-safe data structures.
A program may execute code in several threads simultaneously in a shared address space where each of those threads has access to virtually all of the memory of every other thread. Thread safety is a property that allows code to run in multithreaded environments by re-establishing some of the correspondences between the actual flow of control and the text of the program, by means of synchronization.
Levels of thread safety
Software libraries can provide certain thread-safety guarantees. For example, concurrent reads might be guaranteed to be thread-safe, but concurrent writes might not be. Whether a program using such a library is thread-safe depends on whether it uses the library in a manner consistent with those guarantees.
Different vendors use slightly different terminology for thread-safety:
Thread safe: Implementation is guaranteed to be free of race conditions when accessed by multiple threads simultaneously.
Conditionally safe: Different threads can access different objects simultaneously, and access to shared data is protected from race conditions.
Not thread safe: Data structures should not be accessed simultaneously by different threads.
Thread safety guarantees usually also include design steps to prevent or limit the risk of different forms of deadlocks, as well as optimizations to maximize concurrent performance. However, deadlock-free guarantees cannot always be given, since deadlocks can be caused by callbacks and violation of architectural layering independent of the library itself.
Implementation approaches
Below we discuss two classes of approaches for avoiding race conditions to achieve thread-safety.
The first class of approaches focuses on avoiding shared state and includes:
Re-entrancy Writing code in such a way that it can be partially executed by a thread, executed by the same thread, or simultaneously executed by another thread and still correctly complete the original execution. This requires the saving of state information in variables local to each execution, usually on a stack, instead of in static or global variables or other non-local state. All non-local states must be accessed through atomic operations and the data-structures must also be reentrant.
Thread-local storage Variables are localized so that each thread has its own private copy. These variables retain their values across subroutine and other code boundaries and are thread-safe since they are local to each thread, even though the code which accesses them might be executed simultaneously by another thread.
Immutable objects The state of an object cannot be changed after construction. This implies both that only read-only data is shared and that inherent thread safety is attained. Mutable (non-const) operations can then be implemented in such a way that they create new objects instead of modifying existing ones. This approach is characteristic of functional programming and is also used by the string implementations in Java, C#, and Python. (See Immutable object.)
The second class of approaches are synchronization-related, and are used in situations where shared state cannot be avoided:
Mutual exclusion Access to shared data is serialized using mechanisms that ensure only one thread reads or writes to the shared data at any time. Incorporation of mutual exclusion needs to be well thought out, since improper usage can lead to side-effects like deadlocks, livelocks, and resource starvation.
Atomic operations Shared data is accessed by using atomic operations which cannot be interrupted by other threads. This usually requires using special machine language instructions, which might be available in a runtime library. Since the operations are atomic, the shared data is always kept in a valid state, no matter how other threads access it. Atomic operations form the basis of many thread locking mechanisms, and are used to implement mutual exclusion primitives.
Examples
In the following piece of Java code, the Java keyword synchronized makes the method thread-safe:
class Counter {
private int i = 0;
public synchronized void inc() {
i++;
}
}
In the C programming language, each thread has its own stack. However, a static variable is not kept on the stack; all threads share simultaneous access to it. If multiple threads overlap while running the same function, it is possible that a static variable might be changed by one thread while another is midway through checking it. This difficult-to-diagnose logic error, which may compile and run properly most of the time, is called a race condition. One common way to avoid this is to use another shared variable as a "lock" or "mutex" (from mutual exclusion).
In the following piece of C code, the function is thread-safe, but not reentrant:
# include <pthread.h>
int increment_counter ()
{
static int counter = 0;
static pthread_mutex_t mutex = PTHREAD_MUTEX_INITIALIZER;
// only allow one thread to increment at a time
pthread_mutex_lock(&mutex);
++counter;
// store value before any other threads increment it further
int result = counter;
pthread_mutex_unlock(&mutex);
return result;
}
In the above, increment_counter can be called by different threads without any problem since a mutex is used to synchronize all access to the shared counter variable. But if the function is used in a reentrant interrupt handler and a second interrupt arises while the mutex is locked, the second routine will hang forever. As interrupt servicing can disable other interrupts, the whole system could suffer.
The same function can be implemented to be both thread-safe and reentrant using the lock-free atomics in C++11:
# include <atomic>
int increment_counter ()
{
static std::atomic<int> counter(0);
// increment is guaranteed to be done atomically
int result = ++counter;
return result;
}
See also
Concurrency control
Exception safety
Priority inversion
ThreadSafe
References
External links
Threads (computing)
Programming language topics |
45852 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles%20Ponzi | Charles Ponzi | Charles Ponzi (, ; born Carlo Pietro Giovanni Guglielmo Tebaldo Ponzi; March 3, 1882 – January 15, 1949) was an Italian swindler and con artist who operated in the U.S. and Canada. His aliases included Charles Ponci, Carlo, and Charles P. Bianchi.
Born in Lugo, Italy, he became known in the early 1920s as a swindler in North America for his money-making scheme. He promised clients a 50% profit within 45 days or 100% profit within 90 days, by buying discounted postal reply coupons in other countries and redeeming them at face value in the U.S. as a form of arbitrage. In reality, Ponzi was paying earlier investors using the investments of later investors. While this type of fraudulent investment scheme was not invented by Ponzi, it became so identified with him that it now is referred to as a "Ponzi scheme". His scheme ran for over a year before it collapsed, costing his "investors" $20 million.
Ponzi may have been inspired by the scheme of William W. Miller (also known as "520% Miller"), a Brooklyn bookkeeper who in 1899 used a similar deception to take in $1 million (approximately $35 million in 2022).
Early life
Charles Ponzi was born in Lugo, Emilia-Romagna, on March 3, 1882. He told The New York Times he had come from a family in Parma. Ponzi's ancestors had been well-to-do, and his mother continued to use the title "donna", but the family had subsequently fallen upon hard times and had little money. Ponzi took a job as a postal worker early on, but soon was accepted into the University of Rome La Sapienza. His richer friends considered the university a "four-year vacation", and he was inclined to follow them around to bars, cafés, and the opera. This resulted in Ponzi's spending all his money, and four years later he was broke and without a degree. During this time, a number of Italian boys were migrating to the U.S. and returning to Italy as rich people. Ponzi's family encouraged him to do the same, thereby returning his family to its lost glory.
Arrival in the United States
On November 15, 1903, Ponzi arrived in Boston aboard the S.S. Vancouver. By his own account, Ponzi had $2.50 in his pocket (), having gambled away the rest of his life savings during the voyage. "I landed in this country with $2.50 in cash and $1 million in hopes, and those hopes never left me," he later told a reporter for the New York Times. He quickly learned English and spent the next few years doing odd jobs along the East Coast, eventually taking a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant, where he slept on the floor. Ponzi managed to work his way up to the position of waiter, but was fired for theft and shortchanging customers.
Move to Montreal and Banco Zarossi
In 1907, after some years of failing to do well in the U.S., Ponzi moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and became an assistant teller in the newly opened Banco Zarossi, a bank located on Saint Jacques Street started by Luigi "Louis" Zarossi to service the influx of Italian immigrants arriving in the city. By this time, Ponzi had a winning personality and spoke English, Italian, and French, which Zuckoff says helped him get the job at Banco Zarossi.
It was at Banco Zarossi that Ponzi first saw the scheme of "robbing Peter to pay Paul" (which subsequently would be called a Ponzi scheme). Zarossi paid 6% interest on bank deposits—double the going rate at the time—and was growing rapidly as a result. Ponzi eventually rose to bank manager. However, he found out that the bank was in serious financial trouble because of bad real estate loans, and that Zarossi was funding the interest payments not through profit on investments, but by using money deposited in newly opened accounts. The bank eventually failed and Zarossi fled to Mexico with a large portion of the bank's money.
Ponzi stayed in Montreal and, for some time, lived at Zarossi's house helping the man's abandoned family while planning to return to the U.S. and start over. As Ponzi was penniless, this proved to be very difficult. Eventually, he walked into the offices of a former Zarossi customer, Canadian Warehousing, and finding no one there, wrote himself a check for $423.58 in a checkbook he found, forging the signature of Damien Fournier, a director of the company. Confronted by police who had taken note of his large expenditures just after the forged check was cashed, Ponzi held out his wrist up and said, "I'm guilty". He ended up spending three years at St. Vincent-de-Paul Federal Penitentiary [Inmate #6660], a bleak facility located on the outskirts of Montreal . Rather than inform his mother of his imprisonment, he posted her a letter stating that he had found a job as a "special assistant" to a prison warden.
After his release in 1911, Ponzi decided to return to the U.S., but got involved in a scheme to smuggle Italian illegal immigrants across the border. He was caught and spent two years in Atlanta Prison. Here he became a translator for the warden, who was intercepting letters from mobster Ignazio "the Wolf" Lupo. Ponzi ended up befriending Lupo. Another prisoner, Charles W. Morse, became a true role model to Ponzi. Morse, a wealthy Wall Street businessman and speculator, fooled doctors during medical exams by eating soap shavings to give the appearance of ill-health. Morse was soon released from prison. Ponzi completed his prison term following Morse's release, having an additional month added to his term due to his inability to pay a $50 fine.
Work in a mining camp and in Boston
After Ponzi's release from prison, he made his way back to Boston. While working at a mining camp as a nurse, he came up with the idea of going to another mining camp, starting a utility there that would supply water and power, and selling its stock. During this time, a fellow nurse called Pearl Gosid had suffered severe burns in an accident. Despite not knowing her, Ponzi volunteered for two major operations to donate of his skin from his back and legs to Pearl. This resulted in pleurisy and similar complications, and Ponzi's losing his job.
Thereafter Ponzi continued to travel around looking for work, and in Boston, he met Rose Maria Gnecco, a stenographer, to whom he proposed marriage. Gnecco came from a family of Italian-American immigrants who had a small fruit stall in downtown Boston. Though Ponzi did not tell Gnecco about his years in jail, his mother sent Gnecco a letter telling her of Ponzi's past. Nonetheless, she married him in 1918. For the next few months, Ponzi worked at a number of businesses, including his father-in-law's grocery, and the import-export company JR Poole before hitting upon an idea to sell advertising in a large business listing to be sent to various businesses. He was unable to sell this idea to businesses, and his company failed soon after. Ponzi took over his wife's family's fledgling fruit company for a short time, but to no avail, and it also failed shortly thereafter.
Origin of the term "Ponzi scheme" and IRC scheme
An idea to trade IRCs
Ponzi set up a small office at 27 School Street, Boston, in the summer of 1919 attempting to sell business ideas to contacts in Europe. He received a letter from a company in Spain asking about the advertising catalog which included an international reply coupon (IRC), leading Ponzi to find a weakness in the system which, at least in principle, gave him an opportunity to make money.
Postal reply coupons allowed a person in one country to pay for the postage of a reply to a correspondent in another country. IRCs were priced at the cost of postage in the country of purchase, but could be exchanged for stamps to cover the cost of postage in the country where redeemed; if these values were different, there was a potential profit. Inflation after World War I had greatly decreased the cost of postage in Italy expressed in U.S. dollars, so that an IRC could be bought cheaply in Italy and exchanged for U.S. stamps of higher value, which could then be sold. Ponzi claimed that the net profit on these transactions, after expenses and exchange rates, was in excess of 400%. This was a form of arbitrage, or profiting by buying an asset at a lower price in one market and immediately selling it in a market where the price is higher, which was (and is) legal.
Seeing an opportunity, Ponzi quit his job as a translator to set his IRC scheme in motion, but needed a large capital outlay to buy IRCs at lower performing European currencies. He first tried to borrow money from several banks, including the Hanover Trust Company, but they were not convinced, and its manager, Chmielinski, turned him down.
Subsequently, Ponzi set up a stock company to raise money from the public. He also went to several of his friends in Boston and promised that he would double their investment in 90 days. Ponzi later increased this to 45 days at 50% interest, thus doubling investments in three months, in an environment when banks were paying only 5% annual interest. The great returns available from postal reply coupons, he explained to them, made such incredible profits easy. Some people invested and were paid off as promised, receiving $750 interest on initial investments of $1,250.
Securities Exchange Company
In January 1920, Ponzi started his own company, the "Securities Exchange Company", to promote the scheme. In the first month, 18 people invested in his company with a total of $1,800. He paid them promptly, the very next month, with the money obtained from the newer set of investors.
Ponzi set up a larger office, this time in the Niles Building on School Street. Word spread, and investments increased rapidly. Ponzi hired agents and paid them generous commissions. Between February and March 1920, the total amount invested had risen from $5,000 to $25,000 ($ to $ in , respectively). As the scheme grew, Ponzi hired agents to seek out new investors in New England and New Jersey. At that time, investors were being paid impressive rates, which subsequently encouraged others to invest. By May 1920, he had made $420,000 (). By June 1920, people had invested $2.5 million in Ponzi's scheme (). By July, he was approaching a million dollars per day.
Ponzi began depositing the money in the Hanover Trust Bank of Boston (a small bank on Hanover Street in the mostly Italian North End), in the hope that once his account was large enough he could impose his will on the bank or even be made its president; he bought a controlling interest in the bank through himself and several friends after depositing $3 million. By July 1920, Ponzi had made millions. People were mortgaging their homes and investing their life savings. Most did not take their profits but reinvested. Ponzi's company, meanwhile, had set up branches from Maine to New Jersey.
Even though Ponzi's company was bringing in fantastic sums of money each day, the simplest financial analysis would have shown that the operation was running at a large loss. As long as money kept flowing in, existing investors could be paid with the new money. This was the only method Ponzi had to continue providing returns to existing investors, as he made no effort to generate legitimate profits.
Ponzi's initial investors consisted of working-class immigrants like himself. Gradually, news travelled upwards, and many well-to-do Boston Brahmins also invested in his scheme. In its heyday, nearly 75% of Boston's police force had invested in the scheme. Ponzi's investors even included those closest to him, like his chauffeur John Collins and his own brother-in-law. Ponzi was indiscriminate about whom he allowed to invest, from young newspaper boys investing a few dollars to high-net-worth individuals, like a banker from Lawrence, Kansas, who invested $10,000.
Unfeasibility of Ponzi's scheme
Though Ponzi was still paying back investors, mostly from money from subsequent investors, he had not yet figured out a way to actually change the IRCs to cash. He also subsequently realized that changing the coupons to money was logistically impossible. For example: for the initial 18 investors of January 1920, for their $1,800 investment, it would have taken 53,000 postal coupons to actually realize the arbitrage profits. For the subsequent 15,000 investors that Ponzi had, he would have had to fill Titanic-sized ships with postal coupons just to ship them to the U.S. from Europe. However, Ponzi found that all the interest payments returned to him, as investors kept re-investing.
Ponzi's subsequent lifestyle
Ponzi lived luxuriously: he bought a mansion in Lexington, Massachusetts, and he maintained accounts in several banks across New England besides Hanover Trust. He bought a Locomobile, the finest car of that time. He had initially bought two first-class tickets to Italy for a delayed honeymoon with Rose but instead decided to change them to bring his mother from Italy to the U.S. in a first-class stateroom on an ocean liner. She lived with Ponzi and Rose for some time in Lexington, but died soon after. On July 31, 1920, Ponzi told Father Pasquale Di Milla, the director of the Italian Children's Home in Jamaica Plain, that he would donate $100,000 in honor of his mother. Ponzi also bought a macaroni company and part of a wine company in an attempt to gain profits that could be used to repay the investors of his IRC scheme.
Suspicion
Ponzi's rapid rise naturally drew suspicion. When a Boston financial writer suggested there was no way Ponzi could legally deliver such high returns in a short period of time, Ponzi sued for libel and won $500,000 in damages. As libel law at the time placed the burden of proof on the writer and publisher, this effectively neutralized any serious probes into his dealings for some time.
Nonetheless, there were still signs of his eventual ruin. Joseph Daniels, a Boston furniture dealer who had given Ponzi furniture which he could not afford to pay for, sued Ponzi to cash in on the gold rush. The lawsuit was unsuccessful, but it did prompt people to begin asking how Ponzi could have gone from being penniless to being a millionaire in a short span of time. There was a run on the Securities Exchange Company, as some investors decided to pull out. Ponzi paid them and the run stopped.
On July 24, 1920, The Boston Post printed a favorable article on Ponzi and his scheme that brought in investors faster than ever. At that time, Ponzi was making $250,000 a day. Ponzi's good fortune was increased by the fact that just below this favorable article, which seemed to imply that Ponzi was indeed returning 50% return on an investment after only 45 days, was a bank advertisement that stated that the bank was paying 5% returns annually. The next business day after this article was published, Ponzi arrived at his office to find thousands of Bostonians waiting to give him their money.
Despite this reprieve, Post acting publisher Richard Grozier (who was running the paper in the absence of his father Edwin, its owner and publisher) and city editor Eddie Dunn were suspicious and assigned investigative reporters to look into Ponzi. He was also under investigation by Massachusetts authorities, and, on the day the Post printed its article, Ponzi met with state officials. He managed to divert the officials from checking his books by offering to stop taking money during the investigation, a fortunate choice, as proper records were not being kept. Ponzi's offer temporarily calmed the suspicions of the state officials.
Collapse of the scheme
On July 26, the Post started a series of articles that asked hard questions about the operation of Ponzi's money machine. The paper contacted Clarence Barron, the financial journalist who headed Dow Jones & Company, to examine Ponzi's scheme. Barron observed that though Ponzi was offering fantastic returns on investments, Ponzi himself was not investing with his own company.
Barron then noted that to cover the investments made with the Securities Exchange Company, 160 million postal reply coupons would have to be in circulation. However, only about 27,000 actually were in circulation. The United States Post Office stated that postal reply coupons were not being bought in quantity at home or abroad. The gross profit margin in percent on buying and selling each IRC was colossal, but the overhead required to handle the purchase and redemption of these items, which were of extremely low cost and were sold individually, would have exceeded the gross profit. Barron noted that if Ponzi really was doing what he claimed to do, he would effectively be profiting at the expense of a government—either the governments where he bought the coupons or the U.S. government. For this reason, Barron argued that even if Ponzi's operation was legitimate, it was immoral to take advantage of a government in this manner.
The Post articles caused a panic run on the Securities Exchange Company. Ponzi paid out $2 million in three days to a wild crowd outside his office. He canvassed the crowd, passed out coffee and doughnuts, and cheerfully told them they had nothing to worry about. Many changed their minds and left their money with him. However, this attracted the attention of Daniel Gallagher, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. Gallagher commissioned Edwin Pride to audit the Securities Exchange Company's books—an effort made difficult by the fact Ponzi's bookkeeping system consisted merely of index cards with investors' names.
In the meantime, Ponzi had hired a publicist, William McMasters. However, McMasters quickly became suspicious of Ponzi's endless talk of postal reply coupons, as well as the ongoing investigation against him. He later described Ponzi as a "financial idiot" who did not seem to know how to add. The investigation into Ponzi began in late July, when McMasters found several highly incriminating documents that indicated Ponzi was merely "robbing Peter to pay Paul". McMasters went to Grozier, his former employer, with this information. Grozier offered him $5,000 for his story, which was printed in the Post on August 2, 1920. McMaster's article declared Ponzi hopelessly insolvent, reporting that while he claimed $7 million in liquid funds, he was actually at least $2 million in debt. With interest factored in, McMasters wrote, Ponzi was as much as $4.5 million in the red. The story touched off a massive run, and Ponzi paid off in one day. He then sped up plans to build a massive conglomerate that would engage in banking and import/export operations.
Massachusetts Bank Commissioner Joseph Allen became concerned that if major withdrawals exhausted Ponzi's reserves, it would bring Boston's banking system to its knees. Allen's suspicions were further aroused when he found out a large number of Ponzi-controlled accounts had received more than $250,000 in loans from Hanover Trust. This led Allen to speculate that Ponzi was not nearly as well-financed as he claimed, since he was getting large loans from the bank he effectively controlled. He ordered two bank examiners to keep an eye on Ponzi's accounts.
On August 9, the bank examiners reported that enough investors had cashed their checks on Ponzi's main account there that it was almost certainly overdrawn. Allen then ordered Hanover Trust not to pay out any more checks from Ponzi's main account. He also orchestrated an involuntary bankruptcy filing by several small Ponzi investors. The move forced Massachusetts Attorney General J. Weston Allen to release a statement that there was little to support Ponzi's claims of large-scale dealings in postal coupons. State officials then invited Ponzi noteholders to come to the Massachusetts State House to furnish their names and addresses for the purpose of the investigation. On the same day, Ponzi received a preview of Pride's audit, which revealed Ponzi was at least $7 million in debt.
On August 11, the Post published with a front-page story about his criminal activities in Montreal 13 years earlier, including his forgery conviction and his role at Zarossi's scandal-ridden bank. That afternoon, Bank Commissioner Allen seized Hanover Trust due to numerous irregularities. The commissioner thus inadvertently foiled Ponzi's plan to borrow funds from the bank vaults as a last resort in the event all other efforts to obtain funds failed. The following day, Ponzi's certificate of deposit at Hanover Trust, which had been worth $1.5 million, was reduced to $1 million after bank officials tapped into it to cover the overdraft. Even if he had been able to convert it into cash, he would have had only $4 million in assets.
Amid reports that he was about to be arrested any day, Ponzi surrendered to federal authorities and accepted Pride's figures. He was charged with mail fraud for sending letters to his marks telling them their notes had matured. He was originally released on $25,000 bail and was immediately re-arrested on state charges of larceny, for which he posted an additional $10,000 bond. After the Post released the results of the audit, the bail bondsman feared Ponzi might flee the country and withdrew the bail for the federal charges. Attorney General Allen declared that if Ponzi managed to regain his freedom, the state would seek additional charges and seek a bail high enough to ensure Ponzi would stay in custody.
Magnitude of losses
The news brought down five other banks in addition to Hanover Trust. Ponzi's investors were practically wiped out, receiving less than 30 cents to the dollar. They lost about $20 million in 1920 dollars (approximately $ million in dollars). By comparison, Bernie Madoff's similar scheme that collapsed in 2008 cost his investors about $18 billion, 53 times the losses of Ponzi's scheme.
Prison and later life
In two federal indictments, Ponzi was charged with 86 counts of mail fraud and faced life imprisonment. At the urging of his wife, Ponzi pleaded guilty on November 1, 1920, to a single count before Judge Clarence Hale, who declared before sentencing, "Here was a man with all the duties of seeking large money. He concocted a scheme which, on his counsel's admission, did defraud men and women. It will not do to have the world understand that such a scheme as that can be carried out ... without receiving substantial punishment." Ponzi was sentenced to five years in federal prison.
Massachusetts
Ponzi was released after three-and-a-half years and was almost immediately indicted on 22 state charges of larceny, which came as a surprise to Ponzi; he thought he had a deal calling for the state to drop any charges against him if he pleaded guilty to the federal charges. He sued, claiming that he would be facing double jeopardy if Massachusetts essentially retried him for the same offenses spelled out in the federal indictment. The case, Ponzi v. Fessenden, made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. On March 27, 1922, the Supreme Court ruled that federal plea bargains have no standing regarding state charges. It also ruled that Ponzi was not facing double jeopardy because Massachusetts was charging him with larceny while the federal government charged him with mail fraud, even though the charges implicated the same criminal operation.
In October 1922, Ponzi was tried on the first 10 larceny counts. Since he was insolvent, Ponzi served as his own attorney and, speaking as persuasively as he had with his duped investors, was acquitted by the jury on all charges. He was tried a second time on five of the remaining charges, and the jury deadlocked. Ponzi was found guilty at a third trial, and was sentenced to an additional seven to nine years in prison as "a common and notorious thief". Remarkably, during his various prison terms, Ponzi continued to receive Christmas cards from some of his more gullible investors, as well as requests from others to invest their money—from his prison cell. There were efforts to have him deported as an undesirable alien in 1922.
Florida
In September 1925, Ponzi was released on bail as he appealed the state conviction. He fled to the Springfield neighborhood of Jacksonville, Florida, and launched the Charpon Land Syndicate ("Charpon" is an amalgamation of his name), seeking to capitalize on the Florida land boom. He offered investors tiny tracts of land, some underwater, and promised 200% returns in 60 days. In reality, it was a scam that sold swampland in Columbia County. Ponzi was indicted by a Duval County grand jury in February 1926 and charged with violating Florida trust and securities laws. A jury found him guilty on the securities charges, and the judge sentenced him to a year in the Florida State Prison. Ponzi appealed his conviction and was freed after posting a $1,500 bond.
Ponzi traveled to Tampa, where he shaved his head, grew a mustache, and tried to flee the country as a crewman on a merchant ship bound for Italy. However, he revealed his identity to a shipmate. Word spread to a deputy sheriff, who followed the ship to its last American port of call in New Orleans and placed Ponzi under arrest. After Ponzi's pleas to Calvin Coolidge and Benito Mussolini for deportation were ignored, he was sent back to Massachusetts to serve out his prison term. Ponzi served seven more years in prison.
In the meantime, government investigators tried to trace Ponzi's convoluted accounts to figure out how much money he had taken and where it had gone. They never managed to untangle it and could conclude only that millions had gone through his hands.
Italy
Ponzi was released in 1934. With the release came an immediate order to have him deported to Italy. He asked for a full pardon from Massachusetts Governor Joseph B. Ely. However, on July 13, Ely turned the appeal down. Ponzi's charismatic confidence had faded, and when he left the prison gates, he was met by an angry crowd. He told reporters before he left, "I went looking for trouble, and I found it." On October 7, Ponzi was officially deported.
Rose stayed in the U.S. and divorced Ponzi in 1937. She had not wanted to leave Boston, and Ponzi was in no position to support her in any event.
In Italy, Ponzi jumped from scheme to scheme, but little came of them. He eventually got a job in Brazil as an agent for Ala Littoria, the Italian state airline. During World War II, however, the airline's operation in the country was shut down after the British intelligence services intervened and Brazil sided with the Allies. During that time, Ponzi also wrote his autobiography.
Death
Ponzi spent the last years of his life in poverty, working occasionally as a translator. His health deteriorated and in 1941 a heart attack left him considerably weakened. His eyesight began failing, and by 1948 he was almost completely blind. A brain hemorrhage paralyzed his left leg and arm. Ponzi died in a charity hospital in Rio de Janeiro, the Hospital São Francisco de Assis of Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, on January 18, 1949.
Supported by his last and only friend, Francisco Nonato Nunes, a barber who spoke English and had notions of Italian, Ponzi granted one last interview to an American reporter, telling him, "Even if they never got anything for it, it was cheap at that price. Without malice aforethought, I had given them the best show that was ever staged in their territory since the landing of the Pilgrims! It was easily worth fifteen million bucks to watch me put the thing over."
See also
Victor Lustig
Arthur Nadel
Bernie Madoff
References
Bibliography
The History Channel. "In Search of History: Mr. Ponzi and His Scheme". February 9, 2000. (AAE-42325, )
Leila Schneps and Coralie Colmez, Math on Trial: How Numbers Get Used and Abused in the Courtroom, Basic Books, 2013. . (Eighth chapter: "Math error number 8: underestimation. The case of Charles Ponzi: American dream, American scheme").
External links
Charles Ponzi: The Documentary
1882 births
1949 deaths
1920 in the United States
Confidence tricksters
History of Boston
Italian autobiographers
Italian bankers
20th-century Italian criminals
Italian expatriates in Brazil
Italian expatriates in Canada
Italian expatriates in the United States
Italian fraudsters
Italian white-collar criminals
People convicted of fraud
People deported from the United States
People from Lugo, Emilia-Romagna
People from North End, Boston |
46029 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom | Wisdom | Wisdom, sapience, or sagacity is the ability to contemplate and act productively using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight. Wisdom is associated with attributes such as unbiased judgment, compassion, experiential self-knowledge, self-transcendence and non-attachment, and virtues such as ethics and benevolence.
Wisdom has been defined in many different ways, including several distinct approaches to assess the characteristics attributed to wisdom.
Definitions
The Oxford English Dictionary defines wisdom as "Capacity of judging rightly in matters relating to life and conduct; soundness of judgment in the choice of means and ends; sometimes, less strictly, sound sense, esp. in practical affairs: opp. to folly;" also "Knowledge (esp. of a high or abstruse kind); enlightenment, learning, erudition." Charles Haddon Spurgeon defined wisdom as "the right use of knowledge". Robert I. Sutton and Andrew Hargadon defined the "attitude of wisdom" as "acting with knowledge while doubting what one knows". In social and psychological sciences, several distinct approaches to wisdom exist, with major advances made in the last two decades with respect to operationalization and measurement of wisdom as a psychological construct. Wisdom is the capacity to have foreknowledge of something, to know the consequences (both positive and negative) of all the available course of actions, and to yield or take the options with the most advantage either for present or future implication.
Mythological perspectives
The ancient Greeks considered wisdom to be an important virtue, personified as the goddesses Metis and Athena. Metis was the first wife of Zeus, who, according to Hesiod's Theogony, had devoured her pregnant; Zeus earned the title of Mêtieta ("The Wise Counselor") after that, as Metis was the embodiment of wisdom, and he gave birth to Athena, who is said to have sprung from his head. Athena was portrayed as strong, fair, merciful, and chaste. Apollo was also considered a god of wisdom, designated as the conductor of the Muses (Musagetes), who were personifications of the sciences and of the inspired and poetic arts; According to Plato in his Cratylus, the name of Apollo could also mean "Ballon" (archer) and "Omopoulon" (unifier of poles [divine and earthly]), since this god was responsible for divine and true inspirations, thus considered an archer who was always right in healing and oracles: "he is an ever-darting archer". Apollo was considered the god who prophesied through the priestesses (Pythia) in the Temple of Apollo (Delphi), where the aphorism "know thyself" (gnōthi seauton) was inscribed (part of the wisdom of the Delphic maxims). He was contrasted with Hermes, who was related to the sciences and technical wisdom, and, in the first centuries after Christ, was associated with Thoth in an Egyptian syncretism, under the name Hermes Trimegistus. Greek tradition recorded the earliest introducers of wisdom in the Seven Sages of Greece.
To Socrates and Plato, philosophy was literally the love of wisdom (philo-sophia). This permeates Plato's dialogue; in The Republic the leaders of his proposed utopia are philosopher kings who understand the Form of the Good and possess the courage to act accordingly. Aristotle, in Metaphysics, defined wisdom as understanding why things are a certain way (causality), which is deeper than merely knowing things are a certain way. He was the first to make the distinction between phronesis and sophia.
According to Plato and Xenophon, the Pythia of the Delphic Oracle answered the question "who is the wisest man in Greece?" by stating Socrates was the wisest. According to Plato's Apology, Socrates decided to investigate the people who might be considered wiser than him, concluding they lacked true knowledge:
Thus it became popularly immortalized in the phrase "I know that I know nothing" that it is wise to recognize one's own ignorance and to value epistemic humility.
The ancient Romans also valued wisdom which was personified in Minerva, or Pallas. She also represents skillful knowledge and the virtues, especially chastity. Her symbol was the owl which is still a popular representation of wisdom, because it can see in darkness. She was said to be born from Jupiter's forehead.
In Buddhist traditions, developing wisdom plays a central role where comprehensive guidance on how to develop wisdom is provided. In the Inuit tradition, developing wisdom was one of the aims of teaching. An Inuit Elder said that a person became wise when they could see what needed to be done and did it successfully without being told what to do.
In many cultures, the name for third molars, which are the last teeth to grow, is etymologically linked with wisdom, e.g., as in the English wisdom tooth. It has its nickname originated from the classical tradition, which in the Hippocratic writings has already been called sóphronistér (in Greek, related to the meaning of moderation or teaching a lesson), and in Latin dens sapientiae (wisdom tooth), since they appear at the age of maturity in late adolescence and early adulthood.
Educational perspectives
Public schools in the US have an approach to character education. Eighteenth century thinkers such as Benjamin Franklin, referred to this as training wisdom and virtue. Traditionally, schools share the responsibility to build character and wisdom along with parents and the community.
Nicholas Maxwell, a contemporary philosopher in the United Kingdom, advocates that academia ought to alter its focus from the acquisition of knowledge to seeking and promoting wisdom. This he defines as the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others. He teaches that new knowledge and technological know-how increase our power to act. Without wisdom though, Maxwell claims this new knowledge may cause human harm as well as human good. He argues that the pursuit of knowledge is indeed valuable and good, but that it should be considered a part of the broader task of improving wisdom.
Psychological perspectives
Psychologists have begun to gather data on commonly held beliefs or folk theories about wisdom. Initial analyses indicate that although "there is an overlap of the implicit theory of wisdom with intelligence, perceptiveness, spirituality and shrewdness, it is evident that wisdom is an expertise in dealing with difficult questions of life and adaptation to the complex requirements."
Such implicit theories stand in contrast to the explicit theories and empirical research on resulting psychological processes underlying wisdom.
Opinions on the exact psychological definitions of wisdom vary, but there is some consensus that critical to wisdom are certain meta-cognitive processes affording life reflection and judgment about critical life matters. These processes include recognizing the limits of one's own knowledge, acknowledging uncertainty and change, attention to context and the bigger picture, and integrating different perspectives of a situation. Cognitive scientists suggest that wisdom requires coordinating such reasoning processes, as they may provide insightful solutions for managing one's life. Notably, such reasoning is both theoretically and empirically distinct from general intelligence. Robert Sternberg has suggested that wisdom is not to be confused with general (fluid or crystallized) intelligence. In line with this idea, researchers have shown empirically that wise reasoning is distinct from IQ. Several more nuanced characterizations of wisdom are listed below.
Baltes and colleagues in Wisdom: its structure and function in regulating lifespan successful development defined wisdom as "the ability to deal with the contradictions of a specific situation and to assess the consequences of an action for themselves and for others. It is achieved when in a concrete situation, a balance between intrapersonal, inter- personal and institutional interests can be prepared". Balance itself appears to be a critical criterion of wisdom. Empirical research started to provide support to this idea, showing that wisdom-related reasoning is associated with achieving balance between intrapersonal and interpersonal interests when facing personal life challenges, and when setting goals for managing interpersonal conflicts.
Researchers in the field of positive psychology have defined wisdom as the coordination of "knowledge and experience" and "its deliberate use to improve well being." Under this definition, wisdom is further defined with the following facets:
Problem Solving with self-knowledge and sustainable actions.
Contextual sincerity to the circumstances with knowledge of its negative (or constraints) and positive aspects.
Value based consistent actions with knowledge of diversity in ethical opinions.
Tolerance towards uncertainty in life with unconditional acceptance.
Empathy with oneself to understand one's own emotions (or to be emotionally oriented), morals...etc. and others feelings including the ability to see oneself as part of a larger whole.
This theoretical model has not been tested empirically, with an exception of a broad link between wisdom-related reasoning and well-being.
Grossmann and colleagues have synthesized prior psychological literature, indicating that in the face of ill-defined life situations wisdom involves certain cognitive processes affording unbiased, sound judgment: (i) intellectual humility or recognition of limits of own knowledge; (ii) appreciation of perspectives broader than the issue at hand; (iii) sensitivity to the possibility of change in social relations; and (iv) compromise or integration of different perspectives. Grossmann found that habitual speaking and thinking of oneself in the third person increases these characteristics, which means that such a habit makes a person wiser. Importantly, Grossmann highlights the fundamental role of contextual factors, including the role of culture, experiences, and social situations for understanding, development, and propensity of showing wisdom, with implications for training and educational practice. This situated account of wisdom ushered a novel phase of wisdom scholarship, using rigorous evidence-based methods to understand contextual factors affording sound judgment. For instance, Grossmann and Kross have identified a phenomenon they called "the Solomon's paradox" - wiser reflections on other people's problems as compared to one's own. It is named after King Solomon, the third leader of the Jewish Kingdom, who has shown a great deal of wisdom when making judgments about other people's dilemmas but lacked insight when it came to important decisions in his own life.
Empirical scientists have also begun to focus on the role of emotions in wisdom. Most researchers would agree that emotions and emotion regulation would be key to effectively managing the kinds of complex and arousing situations that would most call for wisdom. However, much empirical research has focused on the cognitive or meta-cognitive aspects of wisdom, assuming that an ability to reason through difficult situations would be paramount. Thus, although emotions would likely play a role in determining how wisdom plays out in real events and on reflecting on past events, only recently has empirical evidence started to provide robust evidence on how and when different emotions improve or harm a person's ability to deal wisely with complex events. One notable finding concerns the positive relationship between diversity of emotional experience and wise reasoning, irrespective of emotional intensity.
Measuring wisdom
Measurement of wisdom often depends on a researcher's theoretical position about the nature of wisdom. A major distinction exists between viewing wisdom as a stable personality trait or a context-bound process. The former approach often capitalizes on single-shot questionnaires. However, recent studies indicate that such single-shot questionnaires produce biased responses, something that is antithetical to the wisdom construct and neglects the notion that wisdom is best understood in the contexts where it is most relevant, namely, in complex life challenges. In contrast, the latter approach advocates for measuring wisdom-related features of cognition, motivation, and emotion on the level of a specific situation. Use of such state-level measures provides less biased responses as well as greater power in explaining meaningful psychological processes. Furthermore, a focus on the level of the situation has allowed wisdom researchers to develop a fuller understanding of the role of context itself for producing wisdom. Specifically, studies have shown evidence of cross-cultural and within-cultural variability, and systematic variability in reasoning wisely across contexts and in daily life.
Many, but not all, studies find that adults' self-ratings of perspective and wisdom do not depend on age. This belief stands in contrast to the popular notion that wisdom increases with age. The answer to the question of age–wisdom association depends on how one defines wisdom and the methodological framework used to evaluate theoretical claims. Most recent work suggests that the answer to this question also depends on the degree of experience in a specific domain, with some contexts favoring older adults, others favoring younger adults, and some not differentiating age groups. Notably, rigorous longitudinal work is necessary to fully unpack the question of age–wisdom relationship, and such work is still outstanding, with most studies relying on cross-sectional observations.
The Jeste-Thomas Wisdom Index is based on a 28-question survey (SD-WISE-28) created by researchers at the University of California San Diego to determine how wise a person is. In 2021 Dr. Dilip V. Jeste and his colleages created a much shorter 7-question test (SD-WISE-7) consisting of seven components: acceptance of diverse perspectives, decisiveness, emotional regulation, prosocial behaviors, self-reflection, social advising, and (to a lesser degree) spirituality.
Sapience
Sapience (latin), "sophia" (greek) is often defined as "transcendent wisdom", "ultimate reality", or the ultimate truth of things. Sapiential perspective of wisdom is said to lie in the heart of every religion, where it is often acquired through intuitive knowing. This type of wisdom is described as going beyond mere practical wisdom and includes self-knowledge, interconnectedness, conditioned origination of mind-states and other deeper understandings of subjective experience. This type of wisdom can also lead to the ability of an individual to act with appropriate judgment, a broad understanding of situations and greater appreciation/compassion towards other living beings.
The word sapience is derived from the Latin sapientia, meaning "wisdom".
The corresponding verb sapere has the original meaning of "to taste", hence "to perceive, to discern" and "to know"; its present participle sapiens was chosen by Carl Linnaeus for the Latin binomial for the human species, Homo sapiens.
Religious perspectives
Ancient Near East
In Mesopotamian religion and mythology, Enki, also known as Ea, was the God of wisdom and intelligence. Divine Wisdom allowed the provident designation of functions and the ordering of the cosmos, and it was achieved by humans in following me-s (in Sumerian, order, rite, righteousness), restoring the balance. In addition to hymns to Enki or Ea dating from the third millennium BC., there is amongst the clay tablets of Abu Salabikh from 2600 BC, considered as being the oldest dated texts, an "Hymn to Shamash", in which it is recorded written:
The concept of Logos or manifest word of the divine thought, a concept also present in the philosophy and hymns of Egypt and Ancient Greece (being central to the thinker Heraclitus), and substantial in the Abrahamic traditions, seems to have been derived from Mesopotamian culture.
Sia represents the personification of perception and thoughtfulness in the traditional mythology adhered to in Ancient Egypt. Thoth, married to Maat (in ancient Egyptian, meaning order, righteousness, truth), was also important and regarded as a national introducer of wisdom.
Zoroastrianism
In the Avesta hymns traditionally attributed to Zoroaster, the Gathas, Ahura Mazda means "Lord" (Ahura) and "Wisdom" (Mazda), and it is the central deity who embodies goodness, being also called "Good Thought" (Vohu Manah). In Zoroastrianism in general, the order of the universe and morals is called Asha (in Avestan, truth, righteousness), which is determined by the designations of this omniscient Thought and also considered a deity emanating from Ahura (Amesha Spenta); it is related to another ahura deity, Spenta Mainyu (active Mentality). It says in Yazna 31:
Hebrew Bible and Judaism
The word wisdom (חכם) is mentioned 222 times in the Hebrew Bible. It was regarded as one of the highest virtues among the Israelites along with kindness (חסד) and justice (צדק). Both the books of Proverbs and Psalms urge readers to obtain and to increase in wisdom.
In the Hebrew Bible, wisdom is represented by Solomon, who asks God for wisdom in . Much of the Book of Proverbs, which is filled with wise sayings, is attributed to Solomon. In , the fear of the Lord is called the beginning of wisdom. In , there is also reference to wisdom personified in female form, "Wisdom calls aloud in the streets, she raises her voice in the marketplaces." In , this personified wisdom is described as being present with God before creation began and even taking part in creation itself.
The Talmud teaches that a wise person is a person who can foresee the future. Nolad is a Hebrew word for "future," but also the Hebrew word for birth, so one rabbinic interpretation of the teaching is that a wise person is one who can foresee the consequences of his/her choices (i.e. can "see the future" that he/she "gives birth" to).
Hellenistic religion and Gnosticism
Christian theology
In Christian theology, "wisdom" (From Hebrew: חכמה transliteration: chokmâh pronounced: khok-maw', Greek: Sophia, Latin: Sapientia) describes an aspect of God, or the theological concept regarding the wisdom of God.
There is an oppositional element in Christian thought between secular wisdom and Godly wisdom. Paul the Apostle states that worldly wisdom thinks the claims of Christ to be foolishness. However, to those who are "on the path to salvation" Christ represents the wisdom of God (). Wisdom is considered one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit according to Anglican, Catholic, and Lutheran belief. gives an alternate list of nine virtues, among which wisdom is one.
The book of Proverbs in the Old Testament of the Bible primarily focuses on wisdom, and was primarily written by one of the wisest kings according to Jewish history, King Solomon. Proverbs is found in the Old Testament section of the Bible and gives direction on how to handle various aspects of life; one's relationship with God, marriage, dealing with finances, work, friendships and persevering in difficult situations faced in life.
According to King Solomon, wisdom is gained from God, "For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding" Proverbs 2:6. And through God's wise aide, one can have a better life: "He holds success in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones" Proverbs 2:7-8. "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight" Proverbs 3:5-6. Solomon basically states that with the wisdom one receives from God, one will be able to find success and happiness in life.
There are various verses in Proverbs that contain parallels of what God loves, which is wise, and what God does not love, which is foolish. For example, in the area of good and bad behaviour Proverbs states, "The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, But He loves him who pursues righteousness (Proverbs 15:9). In relation to fairness and business it is stated that, "A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, But a just weight is His delight" (Proverbs 11:1; cf. 20:10,23). On the truth it is said, "Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, But those who deal faithfully are His delight" (12:22; cf. 6:17,19). These are a few examples of what, according to Solomon, are good and wise in the eyes of God, or bad and foolish, and in doing these good and wise things, one becomes closer to God by living in an honorable and kind manner.
King Solomon continues his teachings of wisdom in the book of Ecclesiastes, which is considered one of the most depressing books of the Bible. Solomon discusses his exploration of the meaning of life and fulfillment, as he speaks of life's pleasures, work, and materialism, yet concludes that it is all meaningless. "'Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher [Solomon]. 'Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless'...For with much wisdom comes much sorrow, the more knowledge, the more grief" (Ecclesiastes 1:2,18) Solomon concludes that all life's pleasures and riches, and even wisdom, mean nothing if there is no relationship with God.
The book of James, written by the apostle James, is said to be the New Testament version of the book of Proverbs, in that it is another book that discusses wisdom. It reiterates Proverbs message of wisdom coming from God by stating, "If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you." James 1:5. James also explains how wisdom helps one acquire other forms of virtue, "But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere." James 3:17. In addition, through wisdom for living James focuses on using this God-given wisdom to perform acts of service to the less fortunate.
Apart from Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and James, other main books of wisdom in the Bible are Job, Psalms, and 1 and 2 Corinthians, which give lessons on gaining and using wisdom through difficult situations.
Indian religions
In the Indian traditions, wisdom can be called prajña or vijñana.
Developing wisdom is of central importance in Buddhist traditions, where the ultimate aim is often presented as "seeing things as they are" or as gaining a "penetrative understanding of all phenomena", which in turn is described as ultimately leading to the "complete freedom from suffering". In Buddhism, developing wisdom is accomplished through an understanding of what are known as the Four Noble Truths and by following the Noble Eightfold Path. This path lists mindfulness as one of eight required components for cultivating wisdom.
Buddhist scriptures teach that a wise person is usually endowed with good and maybe bodily conduct, and sometimes good verbal conduct, and good mental conduct.(AN 3:2) A wise person does actions that are unpleasant to do but give good results, and doesn't do actions that are pleasant to do but give bad results (AN 4:115). Wisdom is the antidote to the self-chosen poison of ignorance. The Buddha has much to say on the subject of wisdom including:
He who arbitrates a case by force does not thereby become just (established in Dhamma). But the wise man is he who carefully discriminates between right and wrong.
He who leads others by nonviolence, righteously and equitably, is indeed a guardian of justice, wise and righteous.
One is not wise merely because he talks much. But he who is calm, free from hatred and fear, is verily called a wise man.
By quietude alone one does not become a sage (muni) if he is foolish and ignorant. But he who, as if holding a pair of scales, takes the good and shuns the evil, is a wise man; he is indeed a muni by that very reason. He who understands both good and evil as they really are, is called a true sage.
To recover the original supreme wisdom of self-nature (Buddha-nature or Tathagata) covered by the self-imposed three dusty poisons (the kleshas: greed, anger, ignorance) Buddha taught to his students the threefold training by turning greed into generosity and discipline, anger into kindness and meditation, ignorance into wisdom. As the Sixth Patriarch of Chán Buddhism, Huineng, said in his Platform Sutra, "Mind without dispute is self-nature discipline, mind without disturbance is self-nature meditation, mind without ignorance is self-nature wisdom." In Mahayana and esoteric Buddhist lineages, Mañjuśrī is considered as an embodiment of Buddha wisdom.
In Hinduism, wisdom is considered a state of mind and soul where a person achieves liberation.
The god of wisdom is Ganesha and the goddess of knowledge is Saraswati.
The Sanskrit verse to attain knowledge is:
"Lead me from the unreal to the real.
Lead me from darkness to light.
Lead me from death to immortality.
May there be peace, peace, and peace".
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.3.28.
Wisdom in Hinduism is knowing oneself as the truth, basis for the entire Creation, i.e., of Shristi. In other words, wisdom simply means a person with Self-awareness as the one who witnesses the entire creation in all its facets and forms. Further it means realization that an individual may, through right conduct and right living, come to realize their true relationship with the creation and the Paramatma.
Islam
The Islamic term for wisdom is hikmah. Prophets of Islam are believed by Muslims to possess high wisdom. The term occurs a number of times in the Quran, notably in Chapter 2:269, Chapter 22:46: as well as Chapter 6:151.
The Sufi philosopher Ibn Arabi considers al-Hakim ("The Wise") as one of the names of the Creator. Wisdom and truth, considered divine attributes, were concepts related and valued in the Islamic sciences and philosophy since their beginnings, and the first Arab philosopher, Al-Kindi says at the beginning of his book:
Chinese religion
The Buddhist term Prajñā was translated into Chinese as
(pinyin zhìhuì, characters 智 "knowledge" and 慧 "bright, intelligent").
According to the Doctrine of the Mean, Confucius said:
"Love of learning is akin to wisdom. To practice with vigor is akin to humanity. To know to be shameful is akin to courage (zhi, ren, yong.. three of Mengzi's sprouts of virtue)."
Compare this with the Confucian classic Great Learning, which begins with: "The Way of learning to be great consists in manifesting the clear character, loving the people, and abiding in the highest good." One can clearly see the correlation with the Roman virtue prudence, especially if one interprets "clear character" as "clear conscience". (From Chan's Sources of Chinese Philosophy).
In Taoism, wisdom is construed as adherence to the Three Treasures (Taoism): charity, simplicity, and humility.
"He who knows other men is discerning [智]; he who knows himself is intelligent [明]." (Tao Te Ching 33).
In Chinese Buddhism, the idea of wisdom will however remain closely linked to its Indian equivalent as it appears for instance in certain conceptual continuities that exists between Asanga, Vasubandhu and Xuanzang.
Others
In Norse mythology, the god Odin is especially known for his wisdom, often acquired through various hardships and ordeals involving pain and self-sacrifice. In one instance he plucked out an eye and offered it to Mímir, guardian of the well of knowledge and wisdom, in return for a drink from the well.
In another famous account, Odin hanged himself for nine nights from Yggdrasil, the World Tree that unites all the realms of existence, suffering from hunger and thirst and finally wounding himself with a spear until he gained the knowledge of runes for use in casting powerful magic. He was also able to acquire the mead of poetry from the giants, a drink of which could grant the power of a scholar or poet, for the benefit of gods and mortals alike.
In Baháʼí Faith scripture, "The essence of wisdom is the fear of God, the dread of His scourge and punishment, and the apprehension of His justice and decree." Wisdom is seen as a light, that casts away darkness, and "its dictates must be observed under all circumstances". One may obtain knowledge and wisdom through God, his Word, and his Divine Manifestation and the source of all learning is the knowledge of God.
In the Star Wars universe, wisdom is valued in the narrative of the films, in which George Lucas figured issues of spirituality and morals, recurrent in mythological and philosophical themes; one of his inspirations was Joseph Campbell's The Hero of a Thousand Faces. Master Yoda is generally considered a popular figure of wisdom, evoking the image of an "Oriental Monk", and he is frequently quoted, analogously to Chinese thinkers or Eastern sages in general. Psychologist D. W. Kreger's book "The Tao of Yoda" adapts the wisdom of the Tao Te Ching in relation to Yoda's thinking. Knowledge is canonically considered one of the pillars of the Jedi, which is also cited in the non-canon book The Jedi Path, and wisdom can serve as a tenet for Jediism. The Jedi Code also states: "Ignorance, yet knowledge." In a psychology populational study published by Grossmann and team in 2019, master Yoda is considered wiser than Spock, another fictional character (from the Star Trek series), due to his emodiversity trait, which was positively associated to wise reasoning in people: "Yoda embraces his emotions and aims to achieve a balance between them. Yoda is known to be emotionally expressive, to share a good joke with others, but also to recognize sorrow and his past mistakes".
Wisdom is learning how to understand, who to be and how to live
See also
Sapiens (disambiguation)
Further reading
Notes
References
External links
Center for Practical Wisdom at the University of Chicago
Virtue |
46211 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuna | Tuna | A tuna is a saltwater fish that belongs to the tribe Thunnini, a subgrouping of the Scombridae (mackerel) family. The Thunnini comprise 15 species across five genera, the sizes of which vary greatly, ranging from the bullet tuna (max length: , weight: ) up to the Atlantic bluefin tuna (max length: , weight: ), which averages and is believed to live up to 50 years.
Tuna, opah and mackerel sharks are the only species of fish that can maintain a body temperature higher than that of the surrounding water. An active and agile predator, the tuna has a sleek, streamlined body, and is among the fastest-swimming pelagic fish – the yellowfin tuna, for example, is capable of speeds of up to . Greatly inflated speeds can be found in early scientific reports and are still widely reported in the popular literature.
Found in warm seas, the tuna is commercially fished extensively as a food fish, and is popular as a bluewater game fish. As a result of overfishing, some tuna species, such as the southern bluefin tuna, are threatened with extinction.
Etymology
The term "tuna" comes from Spanish atún < Andalusian Arabic at-tūn, assimilated from al-tūn [Modern Arabic ] : 'tuna fish' < Middle Latin thunnus. is derived from used for the Atlantic bluefin tuna, that name in turn is ultimately derived from thýnō, meaning "to rush, dart along".
Taxonomy
The Thunnini tribe is a monophyletic clade comprising 15 species in five genera:
family Scombridae
tribe Thunnini: tunas
genus Allothunnus: slender tunas
genus Auxis: frigate tunas
genus Euthynnus: little tunas
genus Katsuwonus: skipjack tunas
genus Thunnus: albacores and true tunas
subgenus Thunnus (Thunnus): bluefin group
subgenus Thunnus (Neothunnus): yellowfin group
The cladogram is a tool for visualizing and comparing the evolutionary relationships between taxa, and is read left-to-right as if on a timeline. The following cladogram illustrates the relationship between the tunas and other tribes of the family Scombridae. For example, the cladogram illustrates that the skipjack tunas are more closely related to the true tunas than are the slender tunas (the most primitive of the tunas), and that the next nearest relatives of the tunas are the bonitos of the tribe Sardini.
True species
The "true" tunas are those that belong to the genus Thunnus. Until recently, it was thought that there were seven Thunnus species, and that Atlantic bluefin tuna and Pacific bluefin tuna were subspecies of a single species. In 1999, Collette established that based on both molecular and morphological considerations, they are in fact distinct species.
The genus Thunnus is further classified into two subgenera: Thunnus (Thunnus) (the bluefin group), and Thunnus (Neothunnus) (the yellowfin group).
|}
Other species
The Thunnini tribe also includes seven additional species of tuna across four genera. They are:
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! colspan="9"| Other tuna species
|-
! style="width:10em" | Common name
! style="width:11em" | Scientific name
! Maximumlength
! Commonlength
! Maximumweight
! Maximumage
! Trophiclevel
! Source
! style="width:11em" |IUCN status
|-
| Slender tuna
| Allothunnus fallai(Serventy, 1948)
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:center;"| 3.74
| style="text-align:center;"|
| Least concern
|-
| Bullet tuna
| Auxis rochei(Risso, 1810)
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"| 5 years
| style="text-align:center;"| 4.13
| style="text-align:center;"|
| Least concern
|-
| Frigate tuna
| Auxis thazard (Lacépède, 1800)
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"| 5 years
| style="text-align:center;"| 4.34
| style="text-align:center;"|
| Least concern
|-
| Mackerel tuna,Kawakawa
| Euthynnus affinis(Cantor, 1849)
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"| 6 years
| style="text-align:center;"| 4.50
| style="text-align:center;"|
| Least concern
|-
| Little tunny
| Euthynnus alletteratus(Rafinesque, 1810)
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"| 10 years
| style="text-align:center;"| 4.13
| style="text-align:center;"|
| Least concern
|-
| Black skipjack tuna
| Euthynnus lineatus(Kishinouye, 1920)
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:center;"| 3.83
| style="text-align:center;"|
| Least concern
|-
| Skipjack tuna
| Katsuwonus pelamis(Linnaeus, 1758)
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"|
| style="text-align:right;"| 6–12 yrs
| style="text-align:center;"| 3.75
| style="text-align:center;"|
| Least concern
|}
Biology
Description
The tuna is a sleek and streamlined fish, adapted for speed. It has two closely spaced but separated dorsal fins on its back; The first fin is "depressible" – it can be laid down, flush, in a groove that runs along its back; it is supported by spines. Seven to 10 yellow finlets run from the dorsal fins to the tail, which is lunate – curved like a crescent moon – and tapered to pointy tips. A tuna's pelvic fins are located below the base of the pectoral fins. Both dorsal and pelvic fins retract when the fish is swimming fast.
The tuna's body is countershaded to camouflage itself in deeper water when seen from above, its dorsal side is generally a metallic dark blue while the ventral or under side is silvery or whitish. The caudal peduncle, to which the tail is attached, is quite thin, with three stabilizing horizontal keels on each side.
Physiology
Thunnus are widely but sparsely distributed throughout the oceans of the world, generally in tropical and temperate waters at latitudes ranging between about 45° north and south of the equator. All tunas are able to maintain the temperature of certain parts of their body above the temperature of ambient seawater. For example, bluefin can maintain a core body temperature of , in water as cold as . Unlike other endothermic creatures such as mammals and birds, tuna do not maintain temperature within a relatively narrow range.
Tunas achieve endothermy by conserving the heat generated through normal metabolism. In all tunas, the heart operates at ambient temperature, as it receives cooled blood, and coronary circulation is directly from the gills. The rete mirabile ("wonderful net"), the intertwining of veins and arteries in the body's periphery, allows nearly all of the metabolic heat from venous blood to be "re-claimed" and transferred to the arterial blood via a counter-current exchange system, thus mitigating the effects of surface cooling. This allows the tuna to elevate the temperatures of the highly-aerobic tissues of the skeletal muscles, eyes and brain, which supports faster swimming speeds and reduced energy expenditure, and which enables them to survive in cooler waters over a wider range of ocean environments than those of other fish.
Also unlike most fish, which have white flesh, the muscle tissue of tuna ranges from pink to dark red. The red myotomal muscles derive their color from myoglobin, an oxygen-binding molecule, which tuna express in quantities far higher than most other fish. The oxygen-rich blood further enables energy delivery to their muscles.
For powerful swimming animals like dolphins and tuna, cavitation may be detrimental, because it limits their maximum swimming speed. Even if they have the power to swim faster, dolphins may have to restrict their speed, because collapsing cavitation bubbles on their tail are too painful. Cavitation also slows tuna, but for a different reason. Unlike dolphins, these fish do not feel the bubbles, because they have bony fins without nerve endings. Nevertheless, they cannot swim faster because the cavitation bubbles create a vapor film around their fins that limits their speed. Lesions have been found on tuna that are consistent with cavitation damage.
Fishing
Commerce
Tuna is an important commercial fish. The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) compiled a detailed scientific report on the state of global tuna stocks in 2009, which includes regular updates. According to the ISSF, the most important species for commercial and recreational tuna fisheries are yellowfin (Thunnus albacares), bigeye (T. obesus), bluefin (T. thynnus, T. orientalis, and T. macoyii), albacore (T. alalunga), and skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis).
Based on catches from 2007, the report states:
The Australian government alleged in 2006 that Japan had illegally overfished southern bluefin by taking 12,000 to 20,000 tonnes per year instead of the agreed upon 6,000 tonnes; the value of such overfishing would be as much as US$2 billion. Such overfishing has severely damaged bluefin stocks. According to the WWF, "Japan's huge appetite for tuna will take the most sought-after stocks to the brink of commercial extinction unless fisheries agree on more rigid quotas". Japan's Fisheries Research Agency counters that Australian and New Zealand tuna fishing companies under-report their total catches of southern bluefin tuna and ignore internationally mandated total allowable catch totals.
In recent years, opening day fish auctions at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market and Toyosu Market have seen record-setting prices for bluefin tuna, reflecting market demand. In each of 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2019, new record prices have been set for a single fish – the current record is 333.6 million japanese yen (US$3.1 million) for a bluefin, or a unit price of JP¥ 1,200,000/kg (US$5,057/lb). The opening auction price for 2014 plummeted to less than 5% of the previous year's price, which had drawn complaints for climbing "way out of line". A summary of record-setting auctions are shown in the following table (highlighted values indicate new world records):
In November 2011, a different record was set when a fisherman in Massachusetts caught an tuna. It was captured inadvertently using a dragnet. Due to the laws and restrictions on tuna fishing in the United States, federal authorities impounded the fish because it was not caught with a rod and reel. Because of the tuna's deteriorated condition as a result of the trawl net, the fish sold for just under $5,000.
Methods
Besides for edible purposes, many tuna species are caught frequently as game, often for recreation or for contests in which money is awarded based on weight. Larger specimens are notorious for putting up a fight while hooked, and have been known to injure people who try to catch them, as well as damage their equipment.
Phoenician technique for trapping and catching Atlantic bluefin tuna called Almadraba, still used today in Portugal, Spain, Morocco and Italy which uses a maze of nets. In Sicily, the same method is called Tonnara.
Fish farming (cage system)
Tuna ranching
Longline fishing
Purse seines
Pole and line
Harpoon gun
Big game fishing
Fish aggregating device
Association with whaling
In 2005, Nauru, defending its vote from Australian criticism at that year's meeting of the International Whaling Commission, argued that some whale species have the potential to devastate Nauru's tuna stocks, and that Nauru's food security and economy relies heavily on fishing. Despite this, Nauru does not permit whaling in its own waters and does not allow other fishing vessels to take or intentionally interact with marine mammals in its Exclusive Economic Zone. In 2010 and 2011, Nauru supported Australian proposals for a western Pacific-wide ban on tuna purse-seining in the vicinity of marine mammals – a measure which was agreed by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission at its eighth meeting in March 2012.
Association with dolphins
Dolphins swim beside several tuna species. These include yellowfin tuna in the eastern Pacific Ocean, but not albacore. Tuna schools are believed to associate themselves with dolphins for protection against sharks, which are tuna predators.
Commercial fishing vessels used to exploit this association by searching for dolphin pods. Vessels would encircle the pod with nets to catch the tuna beneath. The nets were prone to entangling dolphins, injuring or killing them. Public outcry and new government regulations, which are now monitored by NOAA have led to more dolphin-friendly methods, now generally involving lines rather than nets. There are neither universal independent inspection programs nor verification of dolphin safety, so these protections are not absolute. According to Consumers Union, the resulting lack of accountability means claims of tuna that is "dolphin safe" should be given little credence.
Fishery practices have changed to be dolphin friendly, which has caused greater bycatch including sharks, turtles and other oceanic fish. Fishermen no longer follow dolphins, but concentrate their fisheries around floating objects such as fish aggregation devices, also known as FADs, which attract large populations of other organisms. Measures taken thus far to satisfy the public demand to protect dolphins can be potentially damaging to other species as well.
Aquaculture
Increasing quantities of high-grade tuna caught at sea are reared in net pens and fed bait fish. In Australia, former fishermen raise southern bluefin tuna (Thunnus maccoyii) and another bluefin species. Farming its close relative, the Atlantic bluefin tuna, Thunnus thynnus, is beginning in the Mediterranean, North America and Japan. Hawaii approved permits for the first U.S. offshore farming of bigeye tuna in water deep in 2009.
Japan is the biggest tuna consuming nation and is also the leader in tuna farming research. Japan first successfully farm-hatched and raised bluefin tuna in 1979. In 2002, it succeeded in completing the reproduction cycle and in 2007, completed a third generation. The farm breed is known as Kindai tuna. Kindai is the contraction of Kinki University in Japanese (Kinki daigaku). In 2009, Clean Seas, an Australian company which has been receiving assistance from Kinki University managed to breed southern bluefin tuna in captivity and was awarded the second place in World's Best Invention of 2009 by Time magazine.
Food
Fresh and frozen
The fresh or frozen flesh of tuna is widely regarded as a delicacy in most areas where it is shipped, being prepared in a variety of ways. When served as a steak, the meat of most species is known for its thickness and tough texture. In the U.K., supermarkets began flying in fresh tuna steaks in the late 1990s, which helped to increase the popularity of using fresh tuna in cooking; by 2009, celebrity chefs regularly featured fresh tuna in salads, wraps, and char-grilled dishes.
Served raw
Various species of tuna are often served raw in Japanese cuisine as sushi or sashimi.
Commercial sashimi tuna may have their coloration fixated by pumping carbon monoxide (CO) into bags containing the tuna, and holding it at 4 °C. For a 2-inch tuna steak, this requires 24 hours. The fish is then vacuum sealed and frozen. In Japan, color fixation using CO is prohibited.
Canned
Tuna is canned in edible oils, in brine, in water, and in various sauces. Tuna may be processed and labeled as "solid", "chunked" ("chunk") or "flaked". When tuna is canned and packaged for sale, the product is sometimes called tuna fish (U.S.), a calque (loan translation) from the German Thunfisch. Canned tuna is sometimes used as food for pets, especially cats.
Australia
Canned tuna was first produced in Australia in 1903 and quickly became popular.
In the early 1980s canned tuna in Australia was most likely southern bluefin, it was usually yellowfin, skipjack, or tongol (labelled "northern bluefin" or "longtail").
Australian standards once required cans of tuna to contain at least 51% tuna, but those regulations were dropped in 2003. The remaining weight is usually oil or water.
United States
The product became more plentiful in the United States in the late 1940s. In 1950, 8,500,000 pounds of canned tuna were produced, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture classified it as a "plentiful food".
In the United States, 52% of canned tuna is used for sandwiches; 22% for tuna salads; and 15% for tuna casseroles and dried, prepackaged meal kits, such as General Mills's Tuna Helper line. Other canned tuna dishes include tuna melts (a type of sandwich where the tuna is mixed with mayonnaise and served on bread with cheese melted on top); salade niçoise (a salad made of tuna, olives, green beans, potatoes, hard-boiled eggs and anchovy dressing); and tuna burgers (served on buns).
In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates canned tuna (see part c).
Precooked
As tunas are often caught far from where they are processed, poor interim conservation can lead to spoilage. Tuna is typically gutted by hand, and later precooked for prescribed times of 45 minutes to three hours. The fish are then cleaned and filleted, canned (and sealed), with the dark lateral blood meat often separately canned for pet food (cat or dog). The sealed can is then heated under pressure (called "retort cooking") for 2–4 hours. This process kills any bacteria, but retains the histamine that may have been produced by those bacteria, and so may still taste spoiled. The international standard sets the maximum histamine level at 200 milligrams per kilogram. An Australian study of 53 varieties of unflavored canned tuna found none to exceed the safe histamine level, although some had "off" flavors.
Light and white
In some markets, depending upon the color of the flesh of the tuna species, the can is marked as "light" or "white" meat, with "light" meaning a greyish pink color and "white" meaning a light pink color. In the United States, only albacore can legally be sold in canned form as "white meat tuna"; in other countries, yellowfin is also acceptable.
Ventresca tuna
Ventresca tuna (from ventre, the Italian word for belly), is a luxury canned tuna, from the fatty bluefin tuna belly, also used in sushi as toro.
Nutrition
Canned light tuna in oil is 29% protein, 8% fat, 60% water, and contains no carbohydrates, while providing 200 calories in a 100 gram reference amount (table). It is a rich source (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) of phosphorus (44% DV) and vitamin D (45% DV), and a moderate source of iron (11% DV).
Mercury and health
Mercury content in tuna can vary widely. Among those calling for improved warnings about mercury in tuna is the American Medical Association, which adopted a policy that physicians should help make their patients more aware of the potential risks. A study published in 2008 found that mercury distribution in the meat of farmed tuna is inversely related to the lipid content, suggesting that higher lipid concentration within edible tissues of tuna raised in captivity might, other factors remaining equal, have a diluting effect on mercury content. Mackerel tuna is one species of tuna that is lower in mercury concentration than skipjack or yellowfin, but this species is known as "black meat" or "dark meat" tuna, which is a lower grade for canning because of the color, unfavorable flavor, and poor yield.
In March 2004, the United States FDA issued guidelines recommending that pregnant women, nursing mothers, and children limit their intake of tuna and other predatory fish. The Environmental Protection Agency provides guidelines on how much canned tuna is safe to eat. Roughly speaking, the guidelines recommend one can of light tuna per week for individuals weighing less than , and two cans per week for those who weigh more. In 2007, it was reported that some canned light tuna such as yellowfin tuna is significantly higher in mercury than skipjack, and caused Consumers Union and other activist groups to advise pregnant women to refrain from consuming canned tuna. In 2009, a California appeals court upheld a ruling that canned tuna does not need warning labels as the methylmercury is naturally occurring.
A January 2008 report revealed potentially dangerous levels of mercury in certain varieties of sushi tuna, reporting levels "so high that the Food and Drug Administration could take legal action to remove the fish from the market."
Management and conservation
The main tuna fishery management bodies are the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, and the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna. The five gathered for the first time in Kobe, Japan in January 2007. Environmental organizations made submissions on risks to fisheries and species. The meeting concluded with an action plan drafted by some 60 countries or areas. Concrete steps include issuing certificates of origin to prevent illegal fishing and greater transparency in the setting of regional fishing quotas. The delegates were scheduled to meet at another joint meeting in January or February 2009 in Europe.
In 2010, Greenpeace International added the albacore, bigeye tuna, Pacific bluefin tuna, Atlantic bluefin tuna, southern bluefin tuna, and yellowfin tuna to its seafood red list, which are fish "commonly sold in supermarkets around the world, and which have a very high risk of being sourced from unsustainable fisheries."
Bluefin tuna have been widely accepted as being severely overfished, with some stocks at risk of collapse. According to the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (a global, nonprofit partnership between the tuna industry, scientists, and the World Wide Fund for Nature), Indian Ocean yellowfin tuna, Pacific Ocean (eastern and western) bigeye tuna, and North Atlantic albacore tuna are all overfished. In April 2009, no stock of skipjack tuna (which makes up roughly 60% of all tuna fished worldwide) was considered to be overfished.
The BBC documentary South Pacific, which first aired in May 2009, stated that, should fishing in the Pacific continue at its current rate, populations of all tuna species could collapse within five years. It highlighted huge Japanese and European tuna fishing vessels, sent to the South Pacific international waters after overfishing their own fish stocks to the point of collapse.
A 2010 tuna fishery assessment report, released in January 2012 by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, supported this finding, recommending that all tuna fishing should be reduced or limited to current levels and that limits on skipjack fishing be considered.
Research indicates that increasing ocean temperatures are taking a toll on the tuna in the Indian Ocean, where rapid warming of the ocean has resulted in a reduction of marine phytoplankton. The bigeye tuna catch rates have also declined abruptly during the past half century, mostly due to increased industrial fisheries, with the ocean warming adding further stress to the fish species.
See also
Environmental impact of fishing
Got Mercury?
List of tuna dishes
Natal homing
References
Further references
Clover, Charles. 2004. The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat. Ebury Press, London.
FAO: Species Catalog Vol. 2 Scombrids of the World. FAO Fisheries Synopsis No. 125, Volume 2. FIR/S125 Vol. 2.
FAO: Review of the state of world marine fishery resources: Tuna and tuna-like species – Global, 2005 Rome.
Majkowski, Jacek (1995) "Tuna and tuna-like species" In: Review of the state of world marine fishery resources, FAO Fisheries technical paper 457, FAO, Rome. .
Majkowski J, Arrizabalaga H, Carocci F and Murua H (2011) "Tuna and tuna-like species" In: Review of the state of world marine fishery resources, pages 227–244, FAO Fisheries technical paper 569, FAO, Rome. .
Standard of Identity for Canned Tuna (United States), Code of Federal Regulations: 21 CFR 161.190 – Canned tuna.
Viñas J and Tudela S (2009) "A validated methodology for genetic identification of tuna species (genus Thunnus)" PLoS One, 4(10): e7606.
Further reading
Bluefin Tuna, Chinese Cobra and Others Added to Red List of Threatened Species, Scientific American, 18 November 2014
How Hot Tuna (and Some Sharks) Stay Warm National Science Foundation, 27 October 2005
Commercial fish
Oily fish
Scombridae
Sport fish |
46407 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shemini%20Atzeret | Shemini Atzeret | Shemini Atzeret (—"Eighth [day of] Assembly") is a Jewish holiday. It is celebrated on the 22nd day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei in the Land of Israel, and on the 22nd and 23rd outside the Land, usually coinciding with late September or early October. It directly follows the Jewish festival of Sukkot which is celebrated for seven days, and thus Shemini Atzeret is literally the eighth day. It is a separate—yet connected—holy day devoted to the spiritual aspects of the festival of Sukkot. Part of its duality as a holy day is that it is simultaneously considered to be both connected to Sukkot and also a separate festival in its own right.
Outside the Land of Israel, this is further complicated by the additional day added to all Biblical holidays except Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The first day of Shemini Atzeret therefore coincides with the eighth day of Sukkot outside the Land of Israel, leading to sometimes involved analysis as to which practices of each holiday are to apply.
The celebration of Simchat Torah is the most distinctive feature of the holiday, but it is a later rabbinical innovation. In the Land of Israel, the celebrations of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah are combined on a single day, and the names are used interchangeably. In the Diaspora, the celebration of Simchat Torah is deferred to the second day of the holiday. Commonly, only the first day is referred to as Shemini Atzeret, while the second is called Simchat Torah.
Karaite Jews and Samaritans also observe Shemini Atzeret, as they do all Biblical holidays. However, it may occur on a different day from the conventional Jewish celebration, due to differences in calendar calculations. Karaites and Samaritans do not include the rabbinical innovation of Simchat Torah in their observance of the day; and do not observe a second day (of any holiday) in the Diaspora.
Biblical origins
According to The Jewish Encyclopedia, atzeret (or in Biblical Hebrew aṣereth) is the name given to this day in four different locations in the Hebrew Bible. It is not mentioned in Deuteronomy 16, and is found only in those parts of the Bible known as the Priestly Code. Like atzarah, atzeret denotes "day of assembly", from atzar = "to hold back" or "keep in"; hence, also the name atzeret given to the seventh day of Pesaḥ. Owing, however, to the fact that both Shemini Atzeret and the seventh day of Pesaḥ are described as atzeret, the name was taken to mean "the closing festival".
Significance
Shemini: "Eighth Day" of Sukkot
When Shemini Atzeret is mentioned in the Torah (Pentateuch), it is always mentioned in the context of the seven-day festival of Sukkot, which it immediately follows. For example, Sukkot is described in detail in Leviticus 23:33–43. Shemini Atzeret is mentioned there only in verses 36 and 39.
The Hebrew word shemini means eighth. This refers to the date of Shemini Atzeret relative to Sukkot; it falls on the eighth day. It is therefore often assumed that Shemini Atzeret is simply the eighth day of Sukkot. That characterization, however, is only partly accurate.
The celebration of Sukkot is characterized by the use of the sukkah (booth or tabernacle) and the Four Species (tree branches and fruit used in the celebration). However, the Torah specifies use of those objects for seven days only, not eight. The observance of Shemini Atzeret therefore differs in substantial ways from that of Sukkot. The Talmud describes Shemini Atzeret with the words "a holiday in its own right" (regel bifnei atzmo).
The Talmud describes six ways in which Shemini Atzeret differs from Sukkot. Four of these relate principally to the Temple service. Two others remain relevant to modern celebration of the holiday. First, the blessing known as Shehecheyanu is recited on the night of Shemini Atzeret, just as it is on the first night of all other major Jewish holidays. Second, the holiday is referred to distinctively as "Shemini Atzeret" and not as "Sukkot" in the prayer service.
Immediately below that discussion, however, the Talmud describes Shemini Atzeret as the "end holiday of the festival [of Sukkot]". The context here is that the Sukkot obligations of joy and recitation of Hallel (Psalms 113–118) last eight days. This is also why one of Sukkot's liturgical aliases, "Time of Our Happiness" (zman simḥatenu), continues to be used to describe Shemini Atzeret (and by extension Simchat Torah) in prayers.
Shemini Atzeret is therefore simultaneously "a holiday in its own right" and the "end holiday of [Sukkot]".
Atzeret: A day for assembly—or pause
Spiritually, Shemini Atzeret can also be seen to "guard the seven days of Sukkot". The Hebrew word atzeret is generally translated as "assembly", but shares a linguistic root with the word atzor, meaning "stop" or "tarry". Shemini Atzeret is characterized as a day when the Jewish people "tarries" to spend an additional day with God at the end of Sukkot. Rashi cites the parable of a king who invites his sons to dine with him for a number of days, but when the time comes for them to leave, he asks them to stay for another day, since it is difficult for him to part from them. According to this idea, Sukkot is a universal holiday, but Shemini Atzeret is only for the Jewish people. Moreover, Shemini Atzeret is a modest holiday, just to celebrate [God's] special relationship with His beloved nation.
A different, but related, interpretation is offered by Yaakov Zevi Mecklenburg, who translates atzeret as "retain": "During the holiday season, we have experienced a heightened religious fervor and a most devout spirit. This last day is devoted to a recapitulation of the message of these days, with the hope that it will be retained the rest of the year".
Connections to the prior Jewish holy days
The day prior to Shemini Atzeret is the last day of Sukkot. Called Hoshana Rabbah, it is unique and different from the other days of Sukkot. While it is part of the intermediate Sukkot days known as Chol HaMoed, Hoshana Rabbah has extra prayers and rituals and is treated and practiced much more seriously and festively than the previous days of Chol HaMoed. In particular during the morning prayer service of Hoshana Rabbah, there are seven hoshanot with their own seven hakafot, the "seven processions". This sets the stage, in ritual, mood, tenor and a heightened sense of festivity, for the days that follow it—namely, of Shemini Atzeret, when seven hakafot are again performed.
The Jewish Encyclopedia states that during the time of the Second Temple, the festival of Shavuot received the specific name of "'Atzarta" as cited by Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews (iii. 10, § 6) and in the Talmud's tractate Pesahim (42b, 68b), signifying "the closing feast" of Passover. and commenting on this fact, the Rabbis in tractate Pesahim say that:
The closing feast of Sukkot (i.e., Shemini Atzeret) ought rightly to have been, like that of Passover (i.e., Shavuot) on the fiftieth day; but, in order not to force the people to make another journey to Jerusalem in the rainy season, God fixed it as early as the eighth day.
These religious celebrations conclude the process that had begun on the days of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year) and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, observed ten days after the start of Rosh Hashanah. Five days after the conclusion of Yom Kippur, Sukkot begins, regarded as the celebration of the anticipated Divine "good judgment" that was hopefully granted on the High Holy Days (Rosh Hashanah + the Ten Days of Repentance + Yom Kippur) and then Hoshana Rabbah + Shemini Atzeret + Simchat Torah culminate the process of open celebration and festivity with joyous prayers, festive meals, and hours of dancing holding the Torah scroll(s) at the center of attention during the hakafot in the synagogue.
Evolution of observances and customs
The Torah explicitly mentions Shemini Atzeret three times, all in the context of Sukkot. Only two observances are specified for Shemini Atzeret. One relates to the Temple service, and is not relevant to modern observance. The other is the avoidance of "servile labor" (melechet avodah), as on other major Jewish holidays. (See also Jewish holidays — "Work" on Sabbath and biblical holidays.) No other specific rituals or ritual objects are specified, making Shemini Atzeret unique in that regard among the festivals mentioned in the Torah.
Two observances of Shemini Atzeret are mentioned in the Prophets and Writings portions of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). The first occurred at the time of the dedication of the First Temple by Solomon. The second came at the time of the Jews' return from the Babylonian exile. In both cases, however, the mention is limited to the observation that an "assembly [atzeret] was held on the eighth day".
According to the Apocryphal Second Book of Maccabees, the first celebration of Hanukkah mimicked that of Sukkot, which the Maccabees and their followers had been unable to celebrate earlier that year. However, the only allusion to Shemini Atzeret in that narrative is that the Hanukkah celebration was fixed for eight days—in remembrance of both the seven days of Sukkot and the additional day of Shemini Atzeret.
Like most Jewish holidays of Biblical origin, Shemini Atzeret is observed for one day within the Land of Israel, and traditionally for two days outside Israel. Reform and Reconstructionist communities generally celebrate this and most Biblical holidays for one day, even outside Israel. The second day observed outside Israel is called Simchat Torah (see next section).
Simchat Torah
The practice of reading the last of the weekly Torah portions on Shemini Atzeret is documented in the Talmud. That Talmudic source does not refer to the occasion as "Simchat Torah", but simply as [the second day of] Shemini Atzeret.
The Simchat Torah celebration of today is of later rabbinic and customary origin. The day (but not the name) is mentioned in the siddur of Rav Amram Gaon (9th century CE); the assignment of the first chapter of Joshua as the haftarah of the day is mentioned there. The reading of the first section of Genesis immediately upon the conclusion of the last section of Deuteronomy—as well as the name "Simchat Torah"—can be found in the 14th century halachic work Arba'ah Turim. By the 16th century CE, most of the features of the modern celebration of Simchat Torah were in place in some form. The Simchat Torah celebration is now the most distinctive feature of this festival—so much so that in the Land of Israel, where Shemini Atzeret lasts only one day, it is more common to refer to the day as "Simchat Torah" than as "Shemini Atzeret".
In the 20th century, Simchat Torah came to symbolize the public assertion of Jewish identity. The Jews of the Soviet Union, in particular, would celebrate the festival en masse in the streets of Moscow. On October 14, 1973, more than 100,000 Jews took part in a post-Simchat Torah rally in New York city on behalf of refuseniks and Soviet Jewry. Dancing in the street with the Torah has become part of the holiday's ritual in various Jewish congregations in the United States as well. In Israel, many communities conduct Hakafot shniyot, or "Second hakafot", on the day after Shemini Atzeret. In part, this shows solidarity with Jewish communities outside Israel, which are still celebrating Simchat Torah (on the second day of the festival). At the same time, it allows for a Simchat Torah celebration unconstrained by festival work restrictions, since the festival is over in Israel according to Jewish law.
Outside Israel, where Shemini Atzeret is observed for two days, Simchat Torah is deferred to the second day, when all agree there is no obligation of sukkah.
Carryover of Sukkot observances outside the Land of Israel
In Israel—and for different reasons in Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism—none of the unique observances of Sukkot (sukkah, lulav and etrog) carry over to Shemini Atzeret.
Shemini Atzeret is a holiday in its own right, without sukkah, lulav and etrog. At the same time, by the rabbinic decree to add one day to all holidays outside the Land of Israel, both Passover and Sukkot, although described in the Torah as seven-day holidays, are observed outside the Land of Israel for eight days. Accordingly, the "eighth day of Sukkot" outside Israel coincides with the separate holiday of Shemini Atzeret.
Psalm 27, which is recited in most communities twice daily starting at the beginning of Elul, continues to be recited on Shemini Atzeret outside the Land of Israel. When Shemini Atzeret falls on the Shabbat, the Scroll of Ecclesiastes, or Kohelet (, otherwise read in Ashkenazi synagogues on the Shabbat of Sukkot), is read on that day outside the Land of Israel. In the Land of Israel, it would have been read on the first day of Sukkot, which would also have been on Shabbat. The Torah reading (Deuteronomy 14:22–16:17) is the same as on the Final Day of Passover and Second Day of Shavuot. However, unlike Passover and Shavuot, the full length of the Torah reading is included on Shemini Atzeret even when the day does not fall on the Shabbat because the reading refers to separation of agricultural gifts (like tithes and terumah), which are due at this time of the year. The Haftarah describes the people's blessing of King Solomon at the end of the dedication of the First Temple.
Taking the lulav and etrog and sleeping in the sukkah
The prevalent practice is that one eats in the sukkah on the eighth day, but without reciting the blessing (berakhah) for sitting in a sukkah. However, one does not take the lulav and etrog (nor does one sleep in the sukkah according to most opinions) on the eighth day. If someone sees a neighbor on the street with a lulav and etrog on the eighth day, the rabbis reason, they might mistakenly assume that it is still the seventh day (ḥol hamoed), when the lulav and etrog are still needed. They might then violate prohibitions of the yom tov of the eighth day. For that reason, the rabbis ruled that one should not take the lulav and etrog on the eighth day, even outside the Land of Israel. They are therefore muktzah; that is, one may not even move them on a holiday where they are not needed. Sleeping in the sukkah brings a similar discussion. Additionally, most people would prefer to sleep indoors at this point in the year due to the weather, so sleeping in the sukkah may impinge on one's own joy during the festival. This is why the rabbis ruled that one does not sleep in the sukkah on Shemini Atzeret, even outside the Land of Israel. Other rabbis, such as the Vilna Gaon, ruled that one should sleep in the sukkah on Shemini Atzeret outside the Land of Israel.
Eating in the sukkah
Eating in the sukkah does not cause a parallel problem because many people simply enjoy eating outdoors in the shade of a sukkah. Hence, seeing someone eating in a sukkah does not per se lead one to assume it is still ḥol hamoed. Likewise, eating in the sukkah does not per se impinge on one's own celebration of Shemini Atzeret. Therefore, the prevalent practice is to eat in the sukkah on Shemini Azeret outside the Land of Israel, but not to recite the berakhah for sitting in a sukkah, as reciting it would "impinge" on the unique status of Shemini Atzeret.
There are, however, those who have different minhagim (customs). Many Hasidic groups have a tradition to recite the morning kiddush and then have refreshments (such as cake) in the sukkah, but to eat both the evening and morning main meals inside, notwithstanding the Talmudic ruling to the contrary. Others eat the evening meal of Shemini Atzeret indoors but the day meal in the sukkah. Each of these approaches addresses aspects of the dual nature of Shemini Atzeret.
Other customs
The Land of Israel's agriculture depends heavily on rains that come only seasonally, so Jewish prayers for rain, such as Tefillat Geshem or Tikun Geshem (Rain Prayer) are prominent during the Land of Israel's rainy (winter) half of the year. The rainy season starts just after the fall Jewish holidays. Because of that, and because the sukkah (and, by extension, pleasant weather) is no longer required on Shemini Atzeret, Jews begin to ask for rain starting with the Musaf amidah prayer of Shemini Atzeret. This prayer is recited in a traditional, distinctive, plaintive melody during the cantor's repetition of the amidah. In most Ashkenazi synagogues, the cantor is clad in a white kittel, a symbol of piety, owing to the vitality of a positive judgment for rain. A brief mention of rain continues to be inserted in the amidah until Passover. The Yizkor memorial service is also recited in Ashkenazi synagogues on this day.
Recital of the Yizkor prayer is said to bring the person "closer to the cold and brittle part of mourning", and is necessary to promote the healing of a broken heart.
Observance in non-rabbinical Jewish traditions
As a biblically-mentioned holiday, Shemini Atzeret is also observed by Karaites and Samaritans:
In Karaite Judaism
For Karaites, followers of a branch of Judaism that accepts the Written Law, but not the Oral Law, Shemini Atzeret is observed as a single day of rest, not associated with the practices of Simchat Torah, which are a rabbinic innovation. Nevertheless, the Karaite cycle of weekly Torah reading, like the Rabbinic cycle, reaches its conclusion on Shemini Atzeret. Accordingly, in at least some Karaite circles, this day is referred to by the name of Simchat Torah.
Additionally, calculation of the Karaite calendar is not based on astronomical calculations, but only on direct observation of the New Moon and the ripening of barley. Because of that, the 22nd day of the 7th month does not necessarily fall on the same date as 22 Tishrei in the (conventional, Rabbinic) Jewish calendar. In 2015, Shemini Atzeret fell on October 7 for Karaites, two days later than in the conventional Jewish calendar. In 2016, Shemini Atzeret fell on the same day according to both calendars.
In the Samaritan tradition
Samaritans, i.e. the northern Israelites who split from Jews during the reign of King Rehoboam, recognise only the first five (or six) books of the Bible as canonical, and thus celebrate only one day of Shemini Aṣereth.
Shortly after midnight, prayers are made in the synagogue for more than ten hours. No work is permitted on this day. At the end of the holiday, the succahs are dismantled. Their poles and nets will be stored until the next Harvest Festival. The fruits will be squeezed into sweetened juice and some will be eaten by the children.
See also
Jewish holidays 2000–2050, showing Gregorian dates for the holidays
Christian observances of Jewish holidays (Shemini Atzeret)
Explanatory notes
Citations
General bibliography
.
Further reading
External links
Chabad.org: Shemini Atzeret
Hebrew names of Jewish holy days
Hebrew words and phrases in Jewish law
Tishrei observances |
46652 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico%20Berlinguer | Enrico Berlinguer | Enrico Berlinguer (; 25 May 1922 – 11 June 1984) was an Italian politician, considered the most popular leader of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), which he led as the national secretary from 1972 until his death during a tense period in Italy's history, marked by the Years of Lead and social conflicts, such as the Hot Autumn of 1969–1970.
During his leadership, he distanced the party from the influence of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and pursued a moderate line, repositioning the party within Italian politics and advocating accommodation and national unity. This strategy came to be termed Eurocommunism, and he was seen as its main spokesperson. It came to be adopted by Western Europe's other significant like-minded parties, such as the Communist Party of Spain and later the French Communist Party; its significance as a political force was cemented by a 1977 meeting in Madrid between Berlinguer, Georges Marchais, and Santiago Carrillo. Berlinguer described his alternative model of socialism, distinct from both the Soviet bloc and the capitalism practiced by Western countries during the Cold War, as terza via; his usage of the term has no relation to the more centrist Third Way practiced by subsequent Prime Ministers Romano Prodi and Matteo Renzi.
Under Berlinguer, the PCI reached the height of its success, winning significant victories in the country's regional and local elections in 1975, and 34% of the vote in the 1976 Italian general election, its highest share of the vote and number of seats. With these gains, he negotiated the Historic Compromise with Christian Democracy (DC), lending support to their government in exchange for consultation on policy decisions, as well as social reforms. He took a firm stand against terrorism after the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro, and used the PCI's influence to steer Italian labour unions towards moderating wage demands to cope with the country's severe inflation rate after the 1973 oil crisis. These stands were not reciprocated with sufficient concessions from Giulio Andreotti's government, leading the PCI to leave the coalition in 1979. The combination of austerity advocacy, hard line against the Red Brigades, and attempts at an accommodation with the DC affected the PCI's vote at the 1979 Italian general election and the compromise was ultimately ended in 1980. The PCI remained in national opposition for the rest of Berlinguer's tenure, retaining a solid core of support at the 1983 Italian general election; its main strength from that point would remain at the regional and local level.
Berlinguer had an austere and modest but charismatic personality, and despite the difficulties that confronted the PCI during the Historic Compromise, he remained a popular politician, respected for his principles, conviction, and bold stands. He characterised the PCI as an honest party in Italy's corruption-ravaged politics, an image that preserved the party's reputation during the Mani pulite corruption scandals. He was characterised by Patrick McCarthy as "the last great communist leader in Western Europe", and remains identified with the causes of Eurocommunism, opposition to Soviet repression in Eastern Europe, and democratic change in Italy.
Early political career
The son of Mario Berlinguer and Maria Loriga, Enrico Berlinguer was born in Sassari on 25 May 1922 to a noble Sardinian family in a notable cultural context, with family ties and political contacts that would heavily influence his life and career. His surname is of Catalan origin, a reminder of the period when Sardinia was part of the dominions of the Crown of Aragon.
He was a second cousin of Francesco Cossiga (who was a leader of Christian Democracy and later became President of the Italian Republic) and both were relatives of Antonio Segni, another Christian Democrat leader and President of the Republic. His maternal grandfather, Giovanni Loriga, and Francesco Cossiga's maternal grandfather, Antonio Zanfarino, were half-brothers on their mother side. Enrico's grandfather, Enrico Berlinguer Sr., was the founder of the Sardinian newspaper La Nuova Sardegna and a personal friend of Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini, whom he had helped in his attempts through his parliamentary work to improve the sad conditions on the island.
In 1937, Berlinguer had his first contacts with Sardinian anti-fascists and formally entered the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in 1943, soon becoming the secretary of the Sassari section. The following year a riot exploded in the town and he was involved in the disorders and arrested, but was discharged after three months of prison.
Immediately after his detention ended, his father brought him to Salerno, the town in which the Royal family and the government had taken refuge after the armistice between Italy and the Allies. In Salerno, his father introduced him to Palmiro Togliatti, the most important leader of the Communist Party.
Togliatti sent Berlinguer back to Sardinia to prepare for his political career. At the end of 1944, Togliatti appointed him to the national secretariat of the Communist Organisation for Youth (FGCI). As a secretary of the FGCI, Berlinguer at one point presented Maria Goretti as an example for activists. He was soon sent to Milan, and he was appointed to the Central Committee as a member in 1945.
In 1946, Togliatti became the national secretary (the highest political position) of the PCI and called Berlinguer to Rome, where his talents let him enter the national leadership only two years later (at the age of 26, one of the youngest members ever admitted). In 1949, he was named national secretary of the FGCI, a post he held until 1956. The following year in 1950, he became president of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, an international anti-fascist youth organisation. In 1957, Berlinguer, as a member of the central school of the PCI, abolished the obligatory visit to the Soviet Union, including political training there, that until then had been necessary for admission to the highest positions in the PCI.
Secretary of the Communist Party
Berlinguer's career was obviously carrying him towards the highest positions in the party. After having held many responsible posts, in 1968 he was elected a deputy for the first time for the electoral district of Rome. The following year, he was elected deputy national secretary of the party (the secretary being Luigi Longo). In this role, he took part in the 1969 international conference of the communist parties in Moscow, where his delegation disagreed with the "official" political line and refused to support the final report.
Berlinguer's unexpected stance made waves: he gave the strongest speech by a major communist leader ever heard in Moscow. He refused to "excommunicate" the Chinese communists and directly told Leonid Brezhnev that the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact countries (which he termed the "tragedy in Prague") had made clear the considerable differences within the communist movement on fundamental questions such as national sovereignty, socialist democracy and the freedom of culture.
Already a prominent leader in the party, Berlinguer was elected to the position of national secretary in 1972 when Luigi Longo resigned on grounds of ill health. In 1973, having been hospitalized after a car accident during a visit to Bulgaria (now widely considered an attempt on his life on orders from Moscow), Berlinguer wrote three famous articles ("Reflections on Italy", "After the facts of Chile" and "After the Coup [in Chile]") for the intellectual weekly magazine of the party, Rinascita. In these, he presented the strategy of the so-called Historic Compromise, a proposed coalition between the Italian Communist Party and the Christian Democrats to grant Italy a period of political stability, at a time of severe economic crisis and in a context in which some forces were allegedly manoeuvering for a coup d'état in Italy.
International relations
The following year in Belgrade, Berlinguer met with Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito, with a view to further developing his relationships with the major communist parties of Europe, Asia and Africa. In 1976, Berlinguer confirmed the autonomous position of the PCI vis-à-vis the Soviet Communist Party. Before 5,000 communist delegates in Moscow, he spoke of a "pluralistic system" (translated by the interpreter as "multiform"), referring to the PCI's intentions to build "a socialism that we believe necessary and possible only in Italy".
When Berlinguer finally secured the PCI's condemnation of any kind of "interference", the rupture with the Soviets was effectively complete (although the party still for some years received money from Moscow). Since Italy was suffering the "interference" of NATO, the Soviets said it seemed that the only interference that the Italian Communists could not suffer was the Soviet one. In an interview with Corriere della Sera, Berlinguer declared that he felt "safer under NATO's umbrella". Berlinguer's acceptance of NATO did not dent U.S. suspicion of him: appearing on the cover of Time on 14 June 1976, he was named "The Red Threat".
In 1977 at a meeting in Madrid between Berlinguer, Santiago Carrillo of the Spanish Communist Party, and Georges Marchais of the French Communist Party, the fundamental lines of Eurocommunism were laid out. A few months later, Berlinguer was again in Moscow, where he gave another speech which was poorly received by his hosts and published by Pravda only in a censored version.
Domestic politics
Moving step by step, Berlinguer was building a consensus in the PCI towards a rapprochement with other components of society. After the surprising opening of 1970 toward conservatives and the still discussed proposal of the Historic Compromise, he published a correspondence with Monsignor Luigi Bettazzi, the Bishop of Ivrea; and it was an astonishing event since Pope Pius XII had excommunicated the communists soon after World War II and the possibility of any relationship between communists and Catholics seemed very unlikely.
This act also served to counteract the allegation, commonly and popularly expressed, that the PCI was protecting leftist terrorists, in the harshest years of terrorism in Italy. In this context, the PCI opened its doors to many Catholics and a debate started about the possibility of contact. Notably, Berlinguer's strictly Catholic family was not brought out of its strictly respected privacy. In the general election of June 1976, the PCI gained 34.4% of the vote.
In Italy, a "government of national solidarity" was ruling, but Berlinguer said that in an emergency government a strong and powerful cabinet to solve a crisis of exceptional gravity was needed. On 16 March 1978, Aldo Moro, President of the Christian Democratic Party, was kidnapped by the Red Brigades, a Marxist-Leninist terrorist group, on the day that the new government was going to be sworn in before parliament.
During this crisis, Berlinguer adhered to the Front of Firmness (fermezza), refusing to negotiate with terrorists, who had proposed to liberate Moro in exchange for the release of some imprisoned terrorists. Despite the PCI's firm stand against terrorism, the Moro incident left the party more isolated.
In June, the PCI gave its approval and ultimately active support to a campaign against President Giovanni Leone, accused of being involved in the Lockheed bribery scandal. This resulted in the President's resignation. Berlinguer also supported the election of the veteran Socialist Sandro Pertini as President of Italy, but his presidency did not produce the effects that the PCI had hoped for.
In Italy, after a new President is elected, the government resigns. The PCI expected Pertini to use his influence in its favour, but the President was influenced by other political leaders like Giovanni Spadolini of the Italian Republican Party and Bettino Craxi of the Italian Socialist Party; and thus the PCI remained out of the government.
During these years the PCI governed many Italian regions, sometimes more than half of them. Notably, the regional governments of Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany were concrete proof of PCI's governmental capabilities. In this period, Berlinguer turned his attention to the exercise of local power to show that "the trains could run on time" under the PCI. He personally took part in electoral campaigns in the provinces and local councils. While other parties sent only local leaders, this helped the party to win many elections at these levels.
Break with the Soviet Union
In 1980, the PCI publicly condemned the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and Moscow then immediately sent Georges Marchais to Rome to try to bring Berlinguer into line, but he was received with perceptible coldness. The break with the Soviets and other communist parties became clear when the PCI did not participate in the 1980 international conference of communist parties held in Paris. Instead, Berlinguer made an official visit to China. In November in Salerno, Berlinguer declared that the idea of a possible Historic Compromise had been put aside and it would be replaced with the idea of the "democratic alternative".
In 1981, Berlinguer said that in his personal opinion "the progressive force of the October Revolution had been exhausted". The PCI criticised the "normalisation" of Poland and very soon the PCI's split with the Soviet Communist Party became definitive and official, followed by a long polemic between Pravda and L'Unità (the official newspaper of PCI), not made any milder after a meeting with Fidel Castro in Havana.
Death
Berlinguer's last major statement was a call for the solidarity among the leftist parties. On 7 June 1984 he suffered a brain haemorrhage while giving a speech at a public meeting in Padua. He entered a coma on the same day and died four days later, on 11 June. More than a million people attended his funeral Piazza San Giovanni, the largest funeral in Italy's history at the time. Reflecting his stature in Italian politics, the leaders of all parties paid tribute to his career and even the Vatican expressed condolences. Deputy Soviet leader Gorbachev and Chinese prime minister Zhao Ziyang also attended his funeral.
Berlinguer's death took place six days before Italy's part of the 1984 European Parliament election. The PCI gained a significant sympathy vote as a result, winning the most votes for the only time.
Analysis
Berlinguer has been described in many ways, but he was generally recognised for political coherence and courage, together with a rare personal and political intelligence. A serious and morally rigorous man, he was sincerely respected even by his opponents and his three days' agony was followed with great attention by the general population. His funeral was attended by a large number of people, perhaps among the highest ever seen in Rome. The most important political act of his career in the PCI was undoubtedly the dramatic break with Soviet Communism, the so-called strappo, together with the creation of Eurocommunism and his substantial work towards contact with the moderate (and particularly the Catholic) half of the country.
Berlinguer nevertheless had many enemies. Opposition within the PCI claimed that he had turned a workers' party into a sort of bourgeois revisionist club. External opponents noted that the strappo took several years to be completed: this was seen as evidence that there had been no definitive decision on the point. However, the acceptance of NATO is generally seen as evidence of the genuine autonomy of the PCI's position. Despite notably successful communist local governments, Berlinguer's efforts failed to bring the PCI into government. His final platform, the "democratic alternative", was never realised. Within a decade of his death, the Soviet Union, the Christian Democrats, and the PCI all disappeared, transforming Italian politics beyond recognition.
Impact on Italian society
Italian singer-songwriter Antonello Venditti posthumously dedicated a song, "Dolce Enrico" ("Sweet Enrico"), to Berlinguer.
Italian actor and director Roberto Benigni declared publicly his admiration and personal love for Berlinguer. Besides making him the protagonist of the movie Berlinguer ti voglio bene (Berlinguer, I Love You), Benigni appeared with Berlinguer during a public political demonstration of the Italian Communist Party (of which he was a sympathiser).
Italian folk music band Modena City Ramblers wrote a song about Berlinguer's funeral, "I funerali di Berlinguer", published on their first full-length album, Riportando tutto a casa.
Electoral history
Writings
Enrico Berlinguer, Antonio Bronda, Stephen Bodington, After Poland, Spokesman, 1982, .
References
Further reading
Wilsford, David, ed. Political leaders of contemporary Western Europe: a biographical dictionary (Greenwood, 1995), pp 31–44.
External links
Profile at Camera.it (in Italian)
1922 births
1984 deaths
Burials at the Cimitero Flaminio
Deputies of Legislature IX of Italy
Deputies of Legislature V of Italy
Deputies of Legislature VI of Italy
Deputies of Legislature VII of Italy
Deputies of Legislature VIII of Italy
Italian Communist Party politicians
Italian atheists
Italian people of Catalan descent
Italian resistance movement members
Neurological disease deaths in Veneto
People from Sassari
Politicians of Sardinia |
46835 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist | Federalist | The term federalist describes several political beliefs around the world. It may also refer to the concept of parties, whose members or supporters called themselves Federalists.
History
Europe federation
In Europe, proponents of deeper European integration are sometimes called Federalists. A major European NGO and advocacy group campaigning for such a political union is the Union of European Federalists. Movements towards a peacefully unified European state have existed since the 1920s, notably the Paneuropean Union. A pan-European party with representation in the European Parliament fighting for the same cause is Volt Europa.
In the European Parliament the Spinelli Group brings together MEPs from different political groups to work together of ideas and projects of European federalism; taking their name from Italian politician and MEP Altiero Spinelli, who himself was a major proponent of European federalism, also meeting with fellow deputies in the Crocodile Club.
Notable European Federalists are former European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, current EC president Ursula von der Leyen, leader of ALDE group Guy Verhofstadt, German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy of Germany Peter Altmaier, German MEP Elmar Brok and the former leader of the SPD Martin Schulz.
Latin America
In the Spanish-speaking parts of Latin America the term "federalist" is used in reference to the politics of 19th-century Argentina and Colombia. The Federalists opposed the Unitarians in Argentina and the Centralists in Colombia through the 19th century. Federalists fought for complete self-government and full provincial autonomy, as opposed to the centralized government that the Unitarians and Centralists favored. Furthermore, Federalists demanded tariff protection for their industries and, in Argentina, called for the end of the Buenos Aires customs as the only intermediary for foreign trade. During the Federal War (1859-1863) in Venezuela, liberal caudillos confronted conservatives, leading to the establishment of the modern federal States of Venezuela.
Argentina
The one Federalist leader in the Platine Region was José Gervasio Artigas, who opposed the centralist governments in Buenos Aires that followed the May Revolution, and created instead the Federal League in 1814 among several Argentine Provinces and the Banda Oriental (modern-day Uruguay). In 1819, the Federal armies rejected the centralist Constitution of the United Provinces of South America and defeated the forces of Supreme Director José Rondeau at the 1820 Battle of Cepeda, effectively ending the central government and securing Provinces' sovereignty through a series of inter-Provincial pacts (v.g. Treaty of Pilar, Treaty of Benegas, Quadrilateral Treaty). A new National Constitution was proposed only in 1826, during the Presidency of Unitarian Bernardino Rivadavia, but it was again rejected by the Provinces, leading to the dissolution of the National Government the following year.
Federalist Buenos Aires Governor Manuel Dorrego took over the management of the foreign affairs of the United Provinces, but he was deposed and executed in 1828 by Unitarian General Juan Lavalle, who commanded troops dissatisfied with the negotiations that ended the War with Brazil. The following year, Juan Manuel de Rosas, leader of Buenos Aires Federalists, defeated Lavalle and secured his resignation. Rosas was elected Governor of Buenos Aires later that year by the Provincial Legislature. To counteract these developments, the Unitarian League was created by General José María Paz in 1830, uniting nine Argentine Provinces. The 1831 Federal Pact between Buenos Aires, Entre Ríos and Santa Fe Provinces opposed a military alliance to the League and ultimately defeated it during 1832, its former members joining the Federal Pact into a loose confederation of Provinces known as the Argentine Confederation. Although the Unitarians were exiled in neighboring countries, the Civil War continued for two decades.
Buenos Aires Governor Juan Manuel de Rosas exerted a growing hegemony over the rest of the country during his 1835-1852 Government and resisted several Unitarian uprisings, but was finally defeated in 1852 by a coalition Army gathered by Entre Ríos Federalist Governor Justo José de Urquiza, who accused Rosas of not complying with Federal Pact provisions for a National Constitution. In 1853, a Federal Constitution was enacted (the current Constitution of Argentina, through amendments) and Urquiza was elected President of the Argentine Confederation. However, on the aftermath of 1852 Battle of Caseros, the Province of Buenos Aires had seceded from the Confederation. In 1859, after the Battle of Cepeda the State of Buenos Aires rejoined the Confederation, although it was granted the right to make some amendments to its Constitution. Finally, after the 1861 Battle of Pavón, Buenos Aires took over the Confederation.
The following federal governments fought the weaker Federalist and Autonomist resistances in the countryside until the 1870s. The last Autonomist rebellion in Buenos Aires was quelled in 1880, leading to the federalization of Buenos Aires city and the stabilization of the Argentine State and government through the National Autonomist Party.
North America
Quebec
Federalism, in regard to the National Question, refers to support for Quebec remaining within Canada, while either keeping the status quo or pursuing greater autonomy and constitutional recognition of a Quebec nation, with corresponding rights and powers for Quebec within the Canadian federation. This ideology is opposed to Quebec sovereigntism, proponents of Quebec independence, most often (but not for all followers) along with an economic union with Canada similar to the European Union.
United States
In the United States the term federalist usually applies to a member of one of the following groups:
Statesmen and public figures supporting the proposed Constitution of the United States between 1787 and 1789. The most prominent advocates were James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. They published The Federalist Papers, which expounded the principles of the early federalist movement to promote and adopt the proposed Constitution.
Statesmen and public figures supporting the administrations of presidents George Washington (1789–1797) and John Adams (1797–1801). They became the Federalist Party, founded by Alexander Hamilton. During the 1790s and early 1800s, the Federalist Party opposed the Democratic-Republican Party (founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison) over issues of how broadly or narrowly to apply the provisions of the new Constitution.
The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies is an organization of conservative and libertarian lawyers and others dedicated to debate of these principles.
Global federalism
The World Federalist Movement is a global citizens movement that advocates for strengthened and democratic world institutions subjected to the federalist principles of subsidiarity, solidarity and democracy. It states that "[w]orld federalists support the creation of democratic global structures accountable to the citizens of the world and call for the division of international authority among separate agencies".
See also
Anti-Federalism
Confederation
Federal (disambiguation)
Federalism
Federalist Era
Federalist Party
Federation
World Federation
References
External links
World Federalist Movement/Institute for Global Policy
A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns 1787-1825
The New Federalist Party 2008
The Anti-Federalist Movement - A Discussion
"unitario ." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 3 Nov. 2008 .
Crow, John A. (1992). The Epic of Latin America. University of California Press. .
"Cepeda, battles of." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 5 Nov. 2008 . |
47030 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius%20Cornelius%20Cinna | Lucius Cornelius Cinna | Lucius Cornelius Cinna (before 130 BC – early 84 BC) was a four-time consul of the Roman republic. Opposing Sulla's march on Rome in 88 BC, he was elected to the consulship of 87 BC, during which he engaged in an armed conflict – the Bellum Octavianum – with his co-consul, Gnaeus Octavius. Emerging victorious, Cinna initiated with his ally, Gaius Marius, extrajudicial killings of their personal enemies. In the aftermath, he dominated the republic for the next three years, serving continuously as consul.
While his domination was not complete – he largely contented himself with securing the consulship for himself and allies – his political rule set a "crucial precedent" for later strongmen in the republic. Through 85 and 84 BC, he prepared for civil war with Sulla, who was soon to return from the First Mithridatic War. But when trying to ferry his men across the Adriatic at Ancona early in 84 BC, they mutinied and Cinna was killed.
Early life and family
Cinna was born some time before 130 BC into a patrician family that was not recently distinguished. Theodor Mommsen considered the Cornelii Cinnae to be plebeians, but most modern authors view them as patricians. His father may have been consul in 127 BC.
He married a woman named Annia, with whom he had three children: two daughters and one homonymous son. His eldest daughter married Gaius Julius Caesar (the dictator and consul of 59 BC), probably during Cinna's second consulship in 86 BC; his younger daughter married Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (who died in 81 BC). Cinna's homonymous son escaped Sulla's retribution by fleeing to Quintus Sertorius – one of Cinna's legates – after Sulla's civil war, before being given amnesty in the lex Plautia and returning to Rome. Afterwards, he became praetor in 44 BC.
Some time before 90 BC, Cinna must have served as praetor. It is known that he also served during the Social War. T.R.S. Broughton reconstructs Cinna as one of the legates which led the successful Roman offensive against the Marsi during the Social War in 89 BC. Very little, however, is known of Cinna's life or career before his election as consul.
First consulship, 87 BC
Electoral context
In 88 BC, there were two major questions in Roman politics. The first was the Italian question. During the Social War, the Roman republic had granted basically all the Italian allies Roman citizenship. Publius Sulpicius Rufus, a plebeian tribune, sought to curry their favour by enrolling them equally into the thirty-five tribes (voting units); in this, he was opposed by politicians who wished to pack the numerous Italians into a limited number of existing – or eight newly-created – tribes. The other question was one of command. Mithridates VI Eupator, king of Pontus, had recently invaded the province of Asia. The commander of the Roman response would have a great opportunity to become wealthy and influential from the plunder and glory of the war.
Sulpicius attempted to link the two matters by securing transfer of then-consul Lucius Cornelius Sulla's command against Mithridates to the aged general Gaius Marius in exchange for Marius' support for Italian enrolment. But after he passed the legislation transferring Sulla's command to Marius, Sulla suborned his army into marching on Rome to overturn Sulpicius' actions. After doing so, he invalidated Sulpicius' laws and banished twelve men, Sulpicus and Marius included. Sulla justified his actions by claiming that as consul he had a duty to free the state from dangerous demagogues. He also may have passed legislation in 88 BC to change the Roman constitution by reducing the powers and legislative initiative of the plebeian tribunes; however, some scholars have suggested these reforms are retrojections of Sulla's later actions as dictator. Sulla's reasons and putative reforms notwithstanding, his march on Rome was the subject of deep and broad revulsion at the elections.
One of Cinna's goals during his consulship was holding Sulla legally responsible for his march on Rome; he promised that if elected he would have Sulla prosecuted at the expiration of his term. Sulla did not support Cinna and instead put forward Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus, an ally who had recently celebrated a triumph. The comitia, still indignant over Sulla's march and treatment of Sulpicius and Marius, rejected Sulla's candidate and elected Cinna with Gnaeus Octavius as his colleague instead. The two consules designati may have, at the time, been friends. Before the results were officially announced, Sulla realised they would be personally unfavourable; seeking not to interfere in the elections directly, he instead tried for a religious solution to protect his actions. Before he declared the winners, he first induced Cinna and Octavius to swear not to overturn Sulla's arrangements publicly. The consuls-designate did so, "since no renuntatio [formal announcement of winners] meant no election". While Octavius seemed to take the oath seriously, Cinna did not.
War on Octavius
Expulsion
Cinna's first act as consul was to have a plebeian tribune prosecute Sulla, possibly for his killing of Sulpicius, who when killed had been a serving and sacrosanct plebeian tribune. This was meant to stop Sulla from leaving Italy at the head of an army, strip him of his imperium, and deprive him of his Mithridatic command. It, was, however, unenforceable: Sulla ignored the tribunician summons and departed with his army for Greece.
According to Appian, Cinna accepted bribes to support the equal enrolment of the new Italian citizens into the thirty-five tribes. Bribed or not, Cinna declared publicly his support for such enrolment, which brought him immediately into conflict with his co-consul Octavius. Both Cinna and Octavius' partisans quickly armed themselves. Attempts by Cinna to promulgate legislation to distribute the new citizens into the tribes were met by tribunician vetoes backed by Octavius, leading to a riot against the tribunes. A senatus consultum ultimum then may have been moved against the rioters; Octavius quickly executed it, taking his hastily armed supporters down the via Sacra and killing the rioters.
Cinna was unharmed and left the city with some of his major supporters, including Quintus Sertorius, Gaius Milonius, Marcus Marius Gratidianus, and six of the ten tribunes of the plebs. After his departure for Italian towns to raise men and money, the Senate illegally and unconstitutionally stripped Cinna of his consulship and declared him a public enemy (hostis), electing Lucius Cornelius Merula (also the flamen Dialis) in his place. Due to Merula's priestly duties and taboos, Octavius served as de facto sole consul.
March on Rome
Cinna reached Nola, an Italian town still holding against Roman siege, where he appeared before the army stationed there in consular regalia. He addressed them as a mistreated consul who had been unjustly deprived of a gift of the people by the senate, who thereby made a mockery of popular sovereignty. The army raised him up and declared their support. Cinna then administered an oath of loyalty for the officers and men. Following this, he travelled around Italian towns saying that he needed their support and that he had been attacked for his pro-Italian advocacy. Meanwhile, Octavius and Merula acted to fortify the city.
Gaius Marius, one of the Sullan exiles, returned to Italy and pledged his loyalty to Cinna. Cinna acknowledged Marius as proconsul, but Marius scrupulously refused the title before drumming up support among the Italians and returning to Cinna's camp with some 6,000 men. The Senate and Octavius had ordered Pompey Strabo – a commander in the northern theatre of the Social war – to return to Rome and defend the city with his army. Encamped outside the city, he was not prepared to commit for either side before treating with both of them. Cinna's forces then arrived and besieged the city. He led the main force opposite the Colline Gate, with two detachments under Sertorius and Marius on the north and south of the city, respectively. Strabo eventually sided with Octavius; the Senate, seeking support, also ordered Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, who was in the field against the Samnites, to make an honourable peace immediately and return to defend the city.
When Metellus negotiated with the Samnites, they demanded citizenship for themselves and all those who had fled to them, release of all war prisoners, and non-reciprocal return of all plunder. Metellus and the Senate refused; Cinna and Marius, however, seized the opportunity and offered all the necessary concessions, gaining the Samnites as allies. After one of the military tribunes in Rome defected and opened the gates to the Janiculum, Cinna and Marius' forces moved to storm the city; they were, however, stopped by six cohorts from Strabo's army. Strabo, seeking to leverage his military forces into a second consulship, initiated secret negotiations with Cinna, but soon died of plague. Extending the siege, Cinna's forces fanned out across the countryside and successfully cut Rome's food supply. The Senate then sent envoys to Cinna to negotiate a truce. Initially put off by Cinna's demand that they address him as consul, the Senate acquiesced on this point after Merula abdicated his consulship.
Extra-legal killings
The envoys secured a promise from Cinna that he would not willingly kill anyone, but his ally Marius stood behind his chair, "grimly and ominously silent". Cinna then entered the city and promulgated a law recalling Marius and the Sullan exiles. A squadron of his cavalry, led by Gaius Marcius Censorinus killed the consul Octavius, who refused to flee. Censorinus then presented the consul's head to Cinna, "the first time a consul's head was so displayed".
Cinna and Marius then moved to purge some of their political opponents: Gaius and Lucius Julius Caesar were killed without trial, along with Publius Licinius Crassus, and Marcus Antoinius. Merula – the recently-abdicated suffect consul – and Marius' old rival, Quintus Lutatius Catulus, were brought up on trial before the people, possibly for usurpation of the consulship and perduellio, respectively; they committed suicide before the verdict.
The killings were not broad across the political class and likely reflected Marius' personal grudges; nor were the victims then linked to Sulla. There is no evidence that the purge targeted the victim's families. While later sources – including Dio, Velleius, Livy, Diodorus, and Plutarch – claim that Cinna and Marius butchered and ravaged their way through the city for five days, these claims are likely Sullan propaganda filtered through Sulla's memoirs. Cicero, more contemporaneous and speaking to men who lived during the Cinnan regime, indicates that Cinna and Marius targeted only political enemies and did not threaten all of Rome's inhabitants or otherwise sack the city.
Dominatio
Upon his return to the city and assumption of public affairs, Cinna took comprehensive measures against Sulla. Sulla was declared hostis and stripped of his priesthood. His property was confiscated, his house demolished, and his legislation repealed. His wife and children fled the city for the protection of Sulla's army in Greece. At elections in late 87 BC, Cinna had himself and Marius elected as consuls – contrary to some ancient sources, an electoral comitia was likely held, just the two were the only candidates – for 86 BC. Marius, though, died just thirteen days after assuming his seventh consulship, possibly of pneumonia. In Marius' place, Cinna elevated Lucius Valerius Flaccus. During 86 BC, a census was conducted by Lucius Marcius Philippus and Marcus Perperna. Although Cinna supported the registration of the Italians as citizens, the number counted in that year – just 463,000 – indicates "the vast mass of enfranchised Italians cannot have been registered". Flaccus, Cinna's co-consul, also brought and passed legislation reducing all outstanding debts by three quarters.
At the close of the year, Flaccus departed for Greece, ostensibly to assume command over a leaderless army – Sulla's command had officially been vacated because he was declared an outlaw – but was soon assassinated by one of his legates, Gaius Flavius Fimbria, who then assumed command. Sulla eventually drove Mithridates from Asia and secured a peace, the Treaty of Dardanos, with generous terms for Pontus by 85 BC, He also suborned Fimbria's army in the east, causing Fimbria to commit suicide.
For the year 85 BC, Cinna chose Gnaeus Papirius Carbo as his consular colleague. Sulla's peace with Pontus, widely regarded as generous so to give Sulla a free hand against his enemies in Italy, and other actions in Asia indicated that he would return in arms. Cinna and Carbo responded by immediately beginning military preparations and a propaganda campaign. They stockpiled money and provisions from all of Italy while levying men and giving warnings that Sulla would, if victorious, overturn Italian enfranchisement. The warnings, given Sulla's violent action against Sulpicius in 88 BC, seemed legitimate.
Late in 85 BC, Sulla sent a letter to the Senate in Rome reciting his achievements in the Mithridatic war and complaining "of the treatment he had received from his enemies in return for these services". He then promised that he would avenge himself upon those enemies in the name of his murdered friends, his exiled family, and Rome. Against Cinna's claims, he also asserted he had no intention to overturn Italian enfranchisement. The Senate responded to the letter by dispatching an embassy to Sulla to try to reconcile him with his political opponents. The Senate also instructed Cinna and Carbo stop military preparations; they agreed to do so but ignored the Senate and continued recruiting. Cinna's strategy seems to have been to force their way east into Greece and fight Sulla there.
Cinna and Carbo continued in office as consuls for 84 BC; early in that year, Cinna started to embark his men for Epirus. When transiting the Adriatic, the first set of ships transited safely. But the second set encountered a storm. Some of the ships sank and many men deserted, saying they were unwilling to fight fellow citizens. The remaining men waiting to depart at Ancona then refused to embark. Appian reports that when Cinna called an assembly, he attempted to impose discipline, which culminated in his men mutinying and killing him. Plutarch delivers a different story centring around soldiers fearing that Cinna had assassinated the then-young Pompey; this story, however, is not credible and "must exaggerate [Pompey's] importance". After his death, his co-consul Carbo was recalled to Rome hold elections for his replacement, but after two attempts to hold elections received bad omens, the elections were indefinitely postponed and Carbo held office without colleague for the rest of the year.
The Senate's envoys brought news of Cinna's death to Sulla. Sulla then rejected the Senate's offers, refused to disband his army, and demanded that the Senate restore restore his legal status, property, and offices. Sulla's rejection of terms was met poorly. Eventually, Sulla invaded Italy in 83 BC, triggering a civil war, in which he was eventually victorious, the next year.
Assessment
The dominatio Cinnae is not well documented and "assessment [of it] is rendered painfully difficult by the way in which our scrappy sources are pervaded by the insidious influence of Sulla's own version of events, diffused without competition after his victory" in the civil war. Cinna and his faction, however, were "the first to dominate the state politically". Taking power in a coup and then setting up a "rogue regime in the city" which "hardly conform[ed] to republican principles", their example set "a crucial precedent" later followed by Sulla, Caesar, and Octavian.
The short length and partial nature of his dominatio – Cinna seems only to have wanted to be consul every year – "make it difficult to pass any confident judgement on him as a man or as a politician". Previous scholarship and ancient narratives, which painted Cinna as an appendage to Marius, are also now largely rejected. He was competent at using popularis-style argumentation, but "there is nothing in the evidence, such as it is, to suggest that he had any awareness of the political problems that confronted the republic".
His support for Italian enfranchisement and distribution among the thirty-five tribes "was clearly based on self-interest... he took up their cause in order to gain support and once he was in power became decidedly lukewarm". After the initial wave of killings with Marius in 86 BC, there are no signs of extra-legal persecutions. The nature of politics during his dominatio was relatively traditional: "the Senate clearly met and discussed... it was prepared to defy Cinna [and make him bend to] its wishes, though equally Cinna... ignored [senatorial] instructions when [he] felt so inclined". While there must have been resentment over Cinna's monopolisation of the consulship, the political class in Rome during his consulships was largely not personally threatened and left alone.
References
Citations
Sources
Further reading
Negatively commented on by : Bennett's "more general conclusions do not seem to be consistent with the facts and he seems to misunderstand both Cinna's position in Rome and his importance in Roman politics".
External links
2nd-century BC births
84 BC deaths
1st-century BC Roman consuls
Ancient Roman generals
Lucius
Deaths by stabbing in Italy
Populares
Roman consuls who died in office
Senators of the Roman Republic
Year of birth unknown |
47261 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect%20of%20taxes%20and%20subsidies%20on%20price | Effect of taxes and subsidies on price | Taxes and subsidies change the price of goods and, as a result, the quantity consumed. There is a difference between an ad valorem tax and a specific tax or subsidy in the way it is applied to the price of the good. In the end levying a tax moves the market to a new equilibrium where the price of a good paid by buyers increases and the proportion of the price received by sellers decreases. The incidence of a tax does not depend on whether the buyers or sellers are taxed since taxes levied on sellers are likely to be met by raising the price charged to buyers. Most of the burden of a tax falls on the less elastic side of the market because of a lower ability to respond to the tax by changing the quantity sold or bought. Introduction of a subsidy, on the other hand, may either lowers the price of production which encourages firms to produce more, or lowers the price paid by buyers, encouraging higher sales volume. Such a policy is beneficial both to sellers and buyers.
Specific tax impact
The effect of a specific tax levied on sellers can be divided into three steps.
First, the demand for a good is the same for a given price level so the demand curve does not change. On the other hand, the tax makes the good in fact more expensive to produce for the seller. This means that the business is less profitable for a given price level and the supply curve shifts upwards.
Second, the higher cost of producing the good reduces the quantity supplied at any given price. The upward shifted supply curve is parallel to the original supply curve because no matter the quantity supplied, the seller’s expenses on the production are the same. Therefore the distance between the original and the new shifted supply curve is equal to the amount of tax imposed. Whatever the price of the good, the net price for which the sellers are selling is effectively the gross price less the amount of the tax. This makes the sellers supply the amount of the good as if the price were lower by the amount of the tax. In order for them to supply a given quantity of the good, the market price needs to be higher by the amount of tax to preserve net income from sales.
Last, after the shift of the supply curve is taken into account, the difference between the initial and after-tax equilibrium can be observed. The growth of market price is determined by the price elasticities of demand and supply. In the case of demand being more elastic than supply, the incidence of the tax falls more heavily on sellers and the consumers feel a smaller growth of price and vice versa. In both cases, the consumers pay more for the good and while the sellers initially receive more money, after the tax is accounted for, they are left with less money than if there were no tax imposed.
The tax raises the price which the customers pay for the good (unless the absorb the whole tax cost) and lowers the price the producers are effectively selling the good for unless they pass on the whole tax cost. The difference between the two prices remains the same no matter who bears most of the burden of the tax.
Example
The original equilibrium price is $3.00 and the equilibrium quantity is 100. The government then levies a tax of $0.50 on the sellers. This leads to a new supply curve which is shifted upward by $0.50 compared to the original supply curve. The new equilibrium price will sit between $3.00 and $3.50 and the equilibrium quantity will decrease. If we say that the consumers pay $3.30 and the new equilibrium quantity is 80, then the producers keep $2.80 and the total tax revenue equals $0.50 x 80 = $40.00. The burden of the tax paid by buyers is $0.30 x 80 = $2.40 and the burden paid by sellers equals $0.20 x 80 = $1.60.
Ad valorem tax impact
Similarly the effect can be broken down into three steps.
First, the tax again affects the sellers. The quantity demanded at a given price remains unchanged and therefore the demand curve stays the same. Since the tax is a certain percentage of the price, with increasing price, the tax grows as well. The supply curve shifts upward but the new supply curve is not parallel to the original one.
Second, the tax raises the production cost as with the specific tax but the amount of tax varies with price level. The upward shift of the supply curve is accompanied by a pivot upwards and to the left of the original supply curve. The vertical distance between the two supply curves is equal to the amount of tax in per cent. The effective price to the sellers is again lower by the amount of the tax and they will supply the good as if the price were lower by the amount of tax.
Last, the total impact of the tax can be observed. The equilibrium price of the good rises and the equilibrium quantity decreases. The buyers and sellers again share the burden of the tax relative to their price elasticities. The buyers have to pay more for the good and the sellers receive less money than before the tax has been imposed.
Example
The pre-tax equilibrium price is $5.00 with respective equilibrium quantity of 100. The government imposes a 20 per cent tax on the sellers. A new supply curve emerges. It is shifted upward and pivoted to the left and upwards in comparison to the original supply curve and their distance is always 20 per cent of the original price. In the pre-tax equilibrium the distance equals $5.00 x 0.20 = $1.00. This burden of the tax is again shared by the buyer and seller. If the new equilibrium quantity decreases to 85 and the buyer bears a higher proportion of the tax burden (e.g. $0.75), the total amount of tax collected equals $1.00 x 85 = $85.00. The buyer then faces the tax of $0.75 x 85 = $63.75 and the tax paid by the seller equals $0.25 x 85 = $21.25. The price the consumer buys the good for equals $5.75 but the seller only receives $4.75.
Subsidy impact
Marginal subsidies on production will shift the supply curve to the right until the vertical distance between the two supply curves is equal to the per unit subsidy; when other things remain equal, this will decrease price paid by the consumers (which is equal to the new market price) and increase the price received by the producers. Similarly, a marginal subsidy on consumption will shift the demand curve to the right; when other things remain equal, this will decrease the price paid by consumers and increase the price received by producers by the same amount as if the subsidy had been granted to producers. However, in this case, the new market price will be the price received by producers. The end result is that the lower price that consumers pay and the higher price that producers receive will be the same, regardless of how the subsidy is administered.
Effect of elasticity
Depending on the price elasticities of demand and supply, who bears more of the tax or who receives more of the subsidy may differ. Where the supply curve is less elastic than the demand curve, producers bear more of the tax and receive more of the subsidy than consumers as the difference between the price producers receive and the initial market price is greater than the difference borne by consumers. Where the demand curve is more inelastic than the supply curve, the consumers bear more of the tax and receive more of the subsidy as the difference between the price consumers pay and the initial market price is greater than the difference borne by producers.
An illustration
The effect of this type of tax can be illustrated on a standard supply and demand diagram. Without a tax, the equilibrium price will be at Pe and the equilibrium quantity will be at Qe.
After a tax is imposed, the price consumers pay will shift to Pc and the price producers receive will shift to Pp. The consumers' price will be equal to the producers' price plus the cost of the tax. Since consumers will buy less at the higher consumer price (Pc) and producers will sell less at a lower producer price (Pp), the quantity sold will fall from Qe to Qt.
See also
Excess burden of taxation
Tax incidence
References
Pricing
Taxation and redistribution
Subsidies |
47422 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster%20group | Monster group | In the area of abstract algebra known as group theory, the monster group M (also known as the Fischer–Griess monster, or the friendly giant) is the largest sporadic simple group, having order
2463205976112133171923293141475971
= 808,017,424,794,512,875,886,459,904,961,710,757,005,754,368,000,000,000
≈ 8.
The finite simple groups have been completely classified. Every such group belongs to one of 18 countably infinite families, or is one of 26 sporadic groups that do not follow such a systematic pattern. The monster group contains 20 sporadic groups (including itself) as subquotients. Robert Griess, who proved the existence of the monster in 1982, has called those 20 groups the happy family, and the remaining six exceptions pariahs.
It is difficult to give a good constructive definition of the monster because of its complexity. Martin Gardner wrote a popular account of the monster group in his June 1980 Mathematical Games column in Scientific American.
History
The monster was predicted by Bernd Fischer (unpublished, about 1973) and Robert Griess as a simple group containing a double cover of Fischer's baby monster group as a centralizer of an involution. Within a few months, the order of M was found by Griess using the Thompson order formula, and Fischer, Conway, Norton and Thompson discovered other groups as subquotients, including many of the known sporadic groups, and two new ones: the Thompson group and the Harada–Norton group. The character table of the monster, a 194-by-194 array, was calculated in 1979 by Fischer and Donald Livingstone using computer programs written by Michael Thorne. It was not clear in the 1970s whether the monster actually existed. Griess constructed M as the automorphism group of the Griess algebra, a 196,884-dimensional commutative nonassociative algebra over the real numbers; he first announced his construction in Ann Arbor on January 14, 1980. In his 1982 paper, he referred to the monster as the Friendly Giant, but this name has not been generally adopted. John Conway and Jacques Tits subsequently simplified this construction.
Griess's construction showed that the monster exists. Thompson showed that its uniqueness (as a simple group satisfying certain conditions coming from the classification of finite simple groups) would follow from the existence of a 196,883-dimensional faithful representation. A proof of the existence of such a representation was announced by Norton, though he has never published the details. Griess, Meierfrankenfeld and Segev gave the first complete published proof of the uniqueness of the monster (more precisely, they showed that a group with the same centralizers of involutions as the monster is isomorphic to the monster).
The monster was a culmination of the development of sporadic simple groups and can be built from any two of three subquotients: the Fischer group Fi24, the baby monster, and the Conway group Co1.
The Schur multiplier and the outer automorphism group of the monster are both trivial.
Representations
The minimal degree of a faithful complex representation is 47 × 59 × 71 = 196,883, hence is the product of the three largest prime divisors of the order of M.
The smallest faithful linear representation over any field has dimension 196,882 over the field with two elements, only one less than the dimension of the smallest faithful complex representation.
The smallest faithful permutation representation of the monster is on
24 · 37 · 53 · 74 · 11 · 132 · 29 · 41 · 59 · 71 (about 1020)
points.
The monster can be realized as a Galois group over the rational numbers, and as a Hurwitz group.
The monster is unusual among simple groups in that there is no known easy way to represent its elements. This is not due so much to its size as to the absence of "small" representations. For example, the simple groups A100 and SL20(2) are far larger, but easy to calculate with as they have "small" permutation or linear representations. Alternating groups, such as A100, have permutation representations that are "small" compared to the size of the group, and all finite simple groups of Lie type, such as SL20(2), have linear representations that are "small" compared to the size of the group. All sporadic groups other than the monster also have linear representations small enough that they are easy to work with on a computer (the next hardest case after the monster is the baby monster, with a representation of dimension 4370).
A computer construction
Martin Seysen has implemented a fast Python package named mmgroup, which claims to be the first implementation of the monster group where arbitrary operations can effectively be performed. The documentation states that multiplication of group elements takes less than 40 milliseconds on a typical modern PC, which is five orders of magnitude faster than estimated by Robert A. Wilson in 2013. The mmgroup software package has been used to find a new, and purportedly final, maximal subgroup of the monster group.
Previously, Robert A. Wilson had found explicitly (with the aid of a computer) two invertible 196,882 by 196,882 matrices (with elements in the field of order 2) which together generate the monster group by matrix multiplication; this is one dimension lower than the 196,883-dimensional representation in characteristic 0. Performing calculations with these matrices was possible but is too expensive in terms of time and storage space to be useful, as each such matrix occupies over four and a half gigabytes.
Wilson asserts that the best description of the monster is to say, "It is the automorphism group of the monster vertex algebra". This is not much help however, because nobody has found a "really simple and natural construction of the monster vertex algebra".
Wilson with collaborators found a method of performing calculations with the monster that was considerably faster, although now superseded by Seysen's abovementioned work. Let V be a 196,882 dimensional vector space over the field with 2 elements. A large subgroup H (preferably a maximal subgroup) of the Monster is selected in which it is easy to perform calculations. The subgroup H chosen is 31+12.2.Suz.2, where Suz is the Suzuki group. Elements of the monster are stored as words in the elements of H and an extra generator T. It is reasonably quick to calculate the action of one of these words on a vector in V. Using this action, it is possible to perform calculations (such as the order of an element of the monster). Wilson has exhibited vectors u and v whose joint stabilizer is the trivial group. Thus (for example) one can calculate the order of an element g of the monster by finding the smallest i > 0 such that giu = u and giv = v.
This and similar constructions (in different characteristics) were used to find some of the non-local maximal subgroups of the monster group. In 2023, Seysen's mmgroup software package was used by Dietrich et al. in announcing that they had completed the classification of the maximal subgroups of the monster group.
Moonshine
The monster group is one of two principal constituents in the monstrous moonshine conjecture by Conway and Norton, which relates discrete and non-discrete mathematics and was finally proved by Richard Borcherds in 1992.
In this setting, the monster group is visible as the automorphism group of the monster module, a vertex operator algebra, an infinite dimensional algebra containing the Griess algebra, and acts on the monster Lie algebra, a generalized Kac–Moody algebra.
Many mathematicians, including Conway, have seen the monster as a beautiful and still mysterious object. Conway said of the monster group: "There's never been any kind of explanation of why it's there, and it's obviously not there just by coincidence. It's got too many intriguing properties for it all to be just an accident." Simon P. Norton, an expert on the properties of the monster group, is quoted as saying, "I can explain what Monstrous Moonshine is in one sentence, it is the voice of God."
McKay's E8 observation
There are also connections between the monster and the extended Dynkin diagrams specifically between the nodes of the diagram and certain conjugacy classes in the monster, known as McKay's E8 observation. This is then extended to a relation between the extended diagrams and the groups 3.Fi24′, 2.B, and M, where these are (3/2/1-fold central extensions) of the Fischer group, baby monster group, and monster. These are the sporadic groups associated with centralizers of elements of type 1A, 2A, and 3A in the monster, and the order of the extension corresponds to the symmetries of the diagram. See ADE classification: trinities for further connections (of McKay correspondence type), including (for the monster) with the rather small simple group PSL(2,11) and with the 120 tritangent planes of a canonic sextic curve of genus 4 known as Bring's curve.
Maximal subgroups
The monster has at least 45 conjugacy classes of maximal subgroups. Non-abelian simple groups of some 60 isomorphism types are found as subgroups or as quotients of subgroups. The largest alternating group represented is A12.
The monster contains 20 of the 26 sporadic groups as subquotients. This diagram, based on one in the book Symmetry and the Monster by Mark Ronan, shows how they fit together. The lines signify inclusion, as a subquotient, of the lower group by the upper one. The circled symbols denote groups not involved in larger sporadic groups. For the sake of clarity redundant inclusions are not shown.
Forty-five of the classes of maximal subgroups of the monster are given by the following list, which is (as of 2023) believed to be complete when taking into account unpublished work of Wilson et. al for almost simple subgroups with non-abelian simple socles of the form U3(4), L2(8), and L2(16). However, tables of maximal subgroups have often been found to contain subtle errors, and in particular at least two of the subgroups on the list below were incorrectly omitted from some previous lists.
2.B centralizer of an involution; contains the normalizer (47:23) × 2 of a Sylow 47-subgroup
21+24.Co1 centralizer of an involution
3.Fi24 normalizer of a subgroup of order 3; contains the normalizer ((29:14) × 3).2 of a Sylow 29-subgroup
22.2E6(22):S3 normalizer of a Klein 4-group
210+16.O10+(2)
22+11+22.(M24 × S3) normalizer of a Klein 4-group; contains the normalizer (23:11) × S4 of a Sylow 23-subgroup
31+12.2Suz.2 normalizer of a subgroup of order 3
25+10+20.(S3 × L5(2))
S3 × Th normalizer of a subgroup of order 3; contains the normalizer (31:15) × S3 of a Sylow 31-subgroup
23+6+12+18.(L3(2) × 3S6)
38.O8− (3).23
(D10 × HN).2 normalizer of a subgroup of order 5
(32:2 × O8+(3)).S4
32+5+10.(M11 × 2S4)
33+2+6+6:(L3(3) × SD16)
51+6:2J2:4 normalizer of a subgroup of order 5
(7:3 × He):2 normalizer of a subgroup of order 7
(A5 × A12):2
53+3.(2 × L3(5))
(A6 × A6 × A6).(2 × S4)
(A5 × U3(8):31):2 contains the normalizer ((19:9) × A5):2 of a Sylow 19-subgroup
52+2+4:(S3 × GL2(5))
(L3(2) × S4(4):2).2 contains the normalizer ((17:8) × L3(2)).2 of a Sylow 17-subgroup
71+4:(3 × 2S7) normalizer of a subgroup of order 7
(52:4.22 × U3(5)).S3
(L2(11) × M12):2 contains the normalizer (11:5 × M12):2 of a subgroup of order 11
(A7 × (A5 × A5):22):2
54:(3 × 2L2(25)):22
72+1+2:GL2(7)
M11 × A6.22
(S5 × S5 × S5):S3
(L2(11) × L2(11)):4
132:2L2(13).4
(72:(3 × 2A4) × L2(7)):2
(13:6 × L3(3)).2 normalizer of a subgroup of order 13
131+2:(3 × 4S4) normalizer of a subgroup of order 13; normalizer of a Sylow 13-subgroup
L2(71) contains the normalizer 71:35 of a Sylow 71-subgroup
L2(59) contains the normalizer 59:29 of a Sylow 59-subgroup
112:(5 × 2A5) normalizer of a Sylow 11-subgroup.
L2(41) Norton and Wilson found a maximal subgroup of this form; due to a subtle error pointed out by Zavarnitsine some previous lists and papers stated that no such maximal subgroup existed
L2(29):2
72:SL2(7) this was accidentally omitted from some previous lists of 7-local subgroups
L2(19):2
L2(13):2
41:40 normalizer of a Sylow 41-subgroup
See also
Supersingular prime, the prime numbers that divide the order of the monster
Citations
Sources
Further reading
published in the US by HarperCollins as Symmetry, ).
External links
What is... The Monster? by Richard E. Borcherds, Notices of the American Mathematical Society, October 2002 1077
MathWorld: Monster Group
Atlas of Finite Group Representations: Monster group
Scientific American June 1980 Issue: The capture of the monster: a mathematical group with a ridiculous number of elements
Moonshine theory
Sporadic groups |
47579 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollock | Pollock | Pollock or pollack (pronounced ) is the common name used for either of the two species of North Atlantic marine fish in the genus Pollachius. Pollachius pollachius is referred to as pollock in North America, Ireland and the United Kingdom, while Pollachius virens is usually known as saithe or coley in Great Britain and Ireland (derived from the older name coalfish). Other names for P. pollachius include the Atlantic pollock, European pollock, lieu jaune, and lythe; while P. virens is also known as Boston blue (distinct from bluefish), silver bill, or saithe.
Species
The recognized species in this genus are:
Pollachius pollachius (Linnaeus, 1758) (pollack)
Pollachius virens (Linnaeus, 1758) (coalfish)
Description
Both species can grow to . P. virens can weigh up to and P. pollachius can weigh up to . P. virens has a strongly defined, silvery lateral line running down the sides. Above the lateral line, the colour is a greenish black. The belly is white, while P. pollachius has a distinctly crooked lateral line, grayish to golden belly, and a dark brown back. P. pollachius also has a strong underbite. It can be found in water up to deep over rocks and anywhere in the water column. Pollock is a whitefish.
As food
Atlantic pollock is largely considered to be a whitefish. Traditionally a popular source of food in some countries, such as Norway, in the United Kingdom it has previously been largely consumed as a cheaper and versatile alternative to cod and haddock. However, in recent years, pollock has become more popular due to overfishing of cod and haddock. It can now be found in most supermarkets as fresh fillets or prepared freezer items. For example, it is used minced in fish fingers or as an ingredient in imitation crab meat and is commonly used to make fish and chips.
In 2009, UK supermarket Sainsbury's briefly renamed Atlantic pollock "colin" in a bid to boost ecofriendly sales of the fish as an alternative to cod. Sainsbury's, which said the new name was derived from the French for cooked pollock (colin), launched the product under the banner "Colin and chips can save British cod."
Pollock is regarded as a "low-mercury fish" – a woman weighing can safely eat up to per week, and a child weighing can safely eat up to .
Other fish called pollock
One member of the genus Gadus is also commonly referred to as pollock: the Alaska pollock or walleye pollock (Gadus chalcogrammus), including the form known as the Norway pollock. They are also members of the family Gadidae but not members of the genus Pollachius.
References
Further reading
Davidson, Alan. Oxford Companion to Food (1999), “Saithe”, p. 682.
Norum, Ben. The Big Book of Ben (2007), "pollock / pollack", p. 32
External links
Gadidae
Commercial fish
Taxa named by Sven Nilsson |
47715 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Station | Station | Station may refer to:
Agriculture
Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production
Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle
Cattle station, a cattle-rearing station in Australia or New Zealand
Sheep station, a sheep-rearing station in Australia or New Zealand
Communications
Radio communication station, a radio frequency communication station of any kind, including audio, TV, and non-broadcast uses
Radio broadcasting station, an audio station intended for reception by the general public
Amateur radio station, a station operating on frequencies allocated for ham or other non-commercial use
Broadcast relay station
Ground station (or Earth station), a terrestrial radio station for extraplanetary telecommunication with satellites or spacecraft
Television station
Courier station, a relay station in a courier system
Station of the cursus publicus, a state-run courier system of the Roman Empire
Station (networking), a device capable of using the IEEE 802.11 networking protocol
Google Station, a public WiFi service
Geography
Gauging station, or stream gauge, a location along a river or stream used for gauging or other measurements
Hill station, a town which is high enough to be relatively cool in summer, mostly in colonial Asia and Africa
Infrastructure
Charging station, a device or location that supplies electric energy for recharging electric vehicles
Filling station, a facility for refilling a vehicle with liquid fuel
Fire station or firehouse, a base for firefighters
Police station, a base for police officers
Research station, an often remote place where scientific research is conducted
Weather station. a place where meteorological readings are taken
Military and government
Diplomatic mission or station, where a diplomatic/consular official (or mission) is posted
Military base
Naval air station, an airbase of the United States Navy
Royal Air Force station
Royal Naval Air Station
Station (frontier defensive structure)
Music, film, and entertainment
Station (album), by the band Russian Circles
Station (1981 film), a Japanese film directed by Yasuo Furuhata
Station (2014 film), a Hindi thriller released in India
Station (TV series), an Armenian TV series
Station.com, a game portal operated by Sony Online Entertainment
Stations (film), a 1983 Canadian film directed by William D. MacGillivray
SM Station, a South Korean digital music channel operated by S.M. Entertainment
Station, a fictional alien character in the 1991 film Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
"Stations", a song from the album Churn by the band Shihad
Places
Station, California, former name of Laws, California
Station, California, former name of Zurich, California
La Station, a community centre in Montreal, originally designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Transport
Bus station
Metro station or subway station, a transit rail station
Station (roller coaster), the place guests load a roller coaster train
Train order station, a control point at which trains can be stopped and controlled
Train station, also known as railway station or railroad station
Tram stop, a tram, streetcar, or light rail station
Other uses
Station, one of the four bases on a baseball field
Station, a term for social status or official rank, based on one's position and prestige in society
Station, in childbirth, the position of the baby in the birth canal
Stations of the Cross, in Western Christian churches, a series of depictions of Jesus on the day of his crucifixion
See also
Service station (disambiguation)
Station to Station (disambiguation)
The Station (disambiguation)
Depot (disambiguation) |
47930 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloucester%20%28disambiguation%29 | Gloucester (disambiguation) | Gloucester is a city and the county town of Gloucestershire, United Kingdom. It may also refer to:
Places
Australia
Gloucester, New South Wales, a town
Gloucester River, a river near the town
Gloucester Shire, a former local government area in New South Wales
Gloucester Tops, a monolithic plateau located adjacent to the Barrington Tops National Park
Canada
Gloucester County, New Brunswick
Acadie—Bathurst, New Brunswick (formerly Gloucester), a federal electoral district
Gloucester, Ontario
Gloucester Township, Ontario
England
Gloucestershire, a county
Gloucester Avenue, London
Gloucester Place, London
Gloucester Road, London
Gloucester Terrace, London
Gloucester (UK Parliament constituency)
Hong Kong
Gloucester Road, Hong Kong
Papua New Guinea
Gloucester Rural LLG, New Britain
Cape Gloucester (Papua New Guinea), New Britain
United States
(by state)
Gloucester, Massachusetts
Gloucester (Natchez, Mississippi), listed on the National Register of Historic Places
Gloucester City, New Jersey
Gloucester Point Grounds, the former baseball grounds for the Philadelphia Athletics
Gloucester County, New Jersey
Gloucester Township, New Jersey
Gloucester County, New York
Gloucester, North Carolina
Gloucester County, Virginia
Gloucester Courthouse, Virginia
Gloucester Point, Virginia
Boats and ships
Gloucester 16, an American sailboat design
Gloucester 19, an American sailboat design
or Glocester, various ships of Britain's Royal Navy
People with the surname
John Gloucester (1776–1822), American Presbyterian minister
Stephen H. Gloucester (1802–1850), an organizer for the Underground Railroad
Titles
Duke of Gloucester, a title in Peerage of the United Kingdom
Earl of Gloucester, a title created several times in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
Other uses
Gloucester (typeface), a version of the Cheltenham display typeface from Monotype
Gloucester Cathedral, in Gloucester, England
Gloucester cattle, a breed of dairy and beef cattle
Gloucester cheese, a British cheese
Gloucester College, Oxford, a former college in England
Gloucestershire Old Spots, a breed of pig sometimes referred to as a "gloucester"
Gloucester Rugby, a professional rugby union team from the English city of the same name
See also
Glocester, Rhode Island, United States
Gloster (disambiguation)
Glouster, Ohio, United States
New Gloucester, Maine, United States |
48152 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity%20money | Commodity money | Commodity money is money whose value comes from a commodity of which it is made. Commodity money consists of objects having value or use in themselves (intrinsic value) as well as their value in buying goods.
This is in contrast to representative money, which has no intrinsic value but represents something of value such as gold or silver, in which it can be exchanged, and fiat money, which derives its value from having been established as money by government regulation.
Examples of commodities that have been used as media of exchange include gold, silver, copper, salt, peppercorns, tea, decorated belts, shells, alcohol, cigarettes, silk, candy, nails, cocoa beans, cowries and barley. Several types of commodity money were sometimes used together, with fixed relative values, in various commodity valuation or price system economies.
Aspects
Commodity money is to be distinguished from representative money, which is a certificate or token which can be exchanged for the underlying commodity, but only by a formal process. A key feature of commodity money is that the value is directly perceived by its users, who recognize the utility or beauty of the tokens as goods in themselves.
Since payment by commodity generally provides a useful good, commodity money is similar to barter, but is distinguishable from it in having a single recognized unit of exchange. Radford (1945) described the establishment of commodity money in P.O.W camps.
Radford documented the way that this 'cigarette currency' was subject to Gresham's law, inflation, and especially deflation.
In another example, in US prisons after smoking was banned circa 2003, commodity money has switched in many places to containers of mackerel fish fillets, which have a fairly standard cost and are easy to store. These may be exchanged for many services in prisons where currency is prohibited.
Metals
In metallic currencies, a government mint will coin money by placing a mark on metal tokens, typically gold or silver, which serves as a guarantee of their weight and purity. In issuing this coinage at a face value higher than its costs, the government gains a profit known as seigniorage.
The role of a mint and of coin differs between commodity money and fiat money. In commodity money, the coin retains its value if it is melted and physically altered, while in a fiat money it does not. Usually, in a fiat money the value drops if the coin is converted to metal, but in a few cases the value of metals in fiat moneys have been allowed to rise to values larger than the face value of the coin. In India, for example fiat Rupees disappeared from the market after 2007 when their content of stainless steel became larger than the fiat or face value of the coins. In the US, the metal in pennies (97.5% zinc since 1982, 95% copper in 1982 and before) and nickels (75% copper, 25% nickel) has a value close to, and sometimes exceeding, the fiat face value of the coin.
History
Commodities often come into being in situations where other forms of money are not available or not trusted, and these are social norms.
Various commodities were used in pre-Revolutionary America including wampum (shell beads), maize (corn), iron nails, beaver pelts, and tobacco.
In Canada, where the Hudson's Bay Company and other fur trading companies controlled most of the country, fur traders quickly realized that gold and silver were of no interest to the First Nations. They wanted goods such as metal knives and axes. Rather than use a barter system, the fur traders established the made beaver (representing a single beaver pelt) as the standard currency, and created a price list for goods:
5 pounds of sugar cost 1 beaver pelt
2 scissors cost 1 beaver pelt
20 fish hooks cost 1 beaver pelt
1 pair of shoes cost 1 beaver pelt
1 gun cost 12 beaver pelts
Other animal furs were convertible into beaver pelts at a standard rate as well, so this created a viable currency in an economy where precious metals were not valued. However, for convenience, Hudson's Bay post managers exchanged made beaver coins, which were stamped pieces of copper or brass.
Long after gold coins became rare in commerce, the Fort Knox gold repository of the United States functioned as a theoretical backing for Federal Reserve. Between 1933 and 1970 (when the U.S. officially left the gold standard), one U.S. dollar was technically worth exactly 1/35 of a troy ounce (889 mg) of gold. However, actual trade in gold bullion as a precious metal within the United States was banned after 1933, with the explicit purpose of preventing the "hoarding" of private gold during an economic depression period in which maximal circulation of money was desired by government policy. This was a fairly typical transition from commodity to representative to fiat money, with people trading in other goods being forced to trade in gold, then to receive paper money that purported to be as good as gold, and finally a fiat currency backed by government authority and social perceptions of value.
Cigarettes and gasoline were used as a form of commodity money in some parts of Europe, including Germany, France and Belgium, in the immediate aftermath of World War II. They have continued to be used as currency in war-torn locations experiencing inadequate supply of common goods and monetary collapse, such as during the Siege of Sarajevo in 1993 or in Russian-occupied Kherson in 2022.
Functions
Although grains such as barley have been used historically in relations of trade and barter (Mesopotamia circa 3000 BC), they can be inconvenient as a medium of exchange or a standard of deferred payment due to transport and storage concerns and eventual spoilage. Gold or other metals are sometimes used in a price system as a durable, easily warehoused store of value (demurrage).
The use of barter-like methods using commodity money may date back to at least 100,000 years ago. Trading in red ochre is attested in Swaziland, shell jewellery in the form of strung beads also dates back to this period, and had the basic attributes needed of commodity money. To organize production and to distribute goods and services among their populations, before market economies existed, people relied on tradition, top-down command, or community cooperation. Relations of reciprocity, and/or redistribution, substituted for market exchange.
The city-states of Sumer developed a trade and market economy based originally on the commodity money of the Shekel, which was a certain weight measure of barley, while the Babylonians and their city-state neighbors later developed the earliest system of economics using a metric of various commodities, that was fixed in a legal code.
Several centuries after the invention of cuneiform script, the use of writing expanded beyond debt/payment certificates and inventory lists to codified amounts of commodity money being used in contract law, such as buying property and paying legal fines.
Legal tender issues
Today, the face value of specie and base-metal coins is set by government fiat, and it is only this value which must be legally accepted as payment for debt, in the jurisdiction of the government which declares the coin to be legal tender. The value of the precious metal in the coin may give it another value, but this varies over time. The value of the metal is subject to bilateral agreement, just as is the case with pure metals or commodities which had not been monetized by any government. As an example, gold and silver coins from other non-U.S. countries are specifically exempted in U.S. law from being legal tender for the payment of debts in the United States, so that a seller who refuses to accept them cannot be sued by the payer who offers them to settle a debt. However, nothing prevents such arrangements from being made if both parties agree on a value for the coins.
See also
Bullion coin
Debasement
Digital gold currency
Hawala
History of money
Metallism
Private currency
Shell money
References
Citations
Sources
Further reading
External links
Commodity Money: Introduction, about commodity money in the early American colonies.
Commodities, a summary.
Linguistic and Commodity Exchanges Examines the structural differences between barter and monetary commodity exchanges and oral and written linguistic exchanges.
Commodities
Metallism
Money
Simple living |
48339 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachute | Parachute | A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag or, in a ram-air parachute, aerodynamic lift. A major application is to support people, for recreation or as a safety device for aviators, who can exit from an aircraft at height and descend safely to earth.
A parachute is usually made of a light, strong fabric. Early parachutes were made of silk. The most common fabric today is nylon. A parachute's canopy is typically dome-shaped, but some are rectangles, inverted domes, and other shapes.
A variety of loads are attached to parachutes, including people, food, equipment, space capsules, and bombs.
History
Middle Ages
In 852, in Córdoba, Spain, the Moorish man Armen Firman attempted unsuccessfully to fly by jumping from a tower while wearing a large cloak. It was recorded that "there was enough air in the folds of his cloak to prevent great injury when he reached the ground."
Early Renaissance
The earliest evidence for the true parachute dates back to the Renaissance period. The oldest parachute design appears in an anonymous manuscript from 1470s Renaissance Italy (British Library, Add MS 34113, fol. 200v), showing a free-hanging man clutching a crossbar frame attached to a conical canopy. As a safety measure, four straps ran from the ends of the rods to a waist belt. The design is a marked improvement over another folio (189v), which depicts a man trying to break the force of his fall using two long cloth streamers fastened to two bars, which he grips with his hands. Although the surface area of the parachute design appears to be too small to offer effective air resistance and the wooden base-frame is superfluous and potentially harmful, the basic concept of a working parachute is apparent.
Shortly after, a more sophisticated parachute was sketched by the polymath Leonardo da Vinci in his Codex Atlanticus (fol. 381v) dated to ca. 1485. Here, the scale of the parachute is in a more favorable proportion to the weight of the jumper. A square wooden frame, which alters the shape of the parachute from conical to pyramidal, held open Leonardo's canopy. It is not known whether the Italian inventor was influenced by the earlier design, but he may have learned about the idea through the intensive oral communication among artist-engineers of the time. The feasibility of Leonardo's pyramidal design was successfully tested in 2000 by Briton Adrian Nicholas and again in 2008 by the Swiss skydiver Olivier Vietti-Teppa. According to historian of technology Lynn White, these conical and pyramidal designs, much more elaborate than early artistic jumps with rigid parasols in Asia, mark the origin of "the parachute as we know it."
The Venetian polymath and inventor Fausto Veranzio, or Faust Vrančić (1551–1617), examined da Vinci's parachute sketch and kept the square frame but replaced the canopy with a bulging sail-like piece of cloth that he came to realize decelerates a fall more effectively. A now-famous depiction of a parachute that he dubbed Homo Volans (Flying Man), showing a man parachuting from a tower, presumably St Mark's Campanile in Venice, appeared in his book on mechanics, Machinae Novae ("New Machines", published in 1615 or 1616), alongside a number of other devices and technical concepts.
It was once widely believed that in 1617, Veranzio, then aged 65 and seriously ill, implemented his design and tested the parachute by jumping from St Mark's Campanile, from a bridge nearby,<ref name="Croatian Language">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9kWNmVnolz0C&pg=PA8 |last=Bogdanski |first=René |title=The Croatian Language by Example |year=2007 |quote=[As an example for Diachronic analysis:] One of his most important inventions, is, without doubt, the parachute, which he experimented and tested on himself, by jumping off a bridge in Venice. As documented by the English bishop John Wilkins (1614–1672) 30 years later, in his book Mathematical Magic published in London in 1648. |page=8 |isbn=9783638740869 |via=Google Books}}</ref> or from St Martin's Cathedral in Bratislava. Various publications incorrectly claimed the event was documented some thirty years later by John Wilkins, founder and secretary of the Royal Society in London, in his book Mathematical Magick or, the Wonders that may be Performed by Mechanical Geometry, published in London in 1648. However, Wilkins wrote about flying, not parachutes, and does not mention Veranzio, a parachute jump, or any event in 1617. Doubts about this test, which include a lack of written evidence, suggest it never occurred, and was instead a misreading of historical notes.
18th and 19th centuries
The modern parachute was invented in the late 18th century by Louis-Sébastien Lenormand in France, who made the first recorded public jump in 1783. Lenormand also sketched his device beforehand.
Two years later, in 1785, Lenormand coined the word "parachute" by hybridizing an Italian prefix para, an imperative form of parare = to avert, defend, resist, guard, shield or shroud, from paro = to parry, and chute, the French word for fall, to describe the aeronautical device's real function.
Also in 1785, Jean-Pierre Blanchard demonstrated it as a means of safely disembarking from a hot-air balloon. While Blanchard's first parachute demonstrations were conducted with a dog as the passenger, he later claimed to have had the opportunity to try it himself in 1793 when his hot air balloon ruptured, and he used a parachute to descend. (This event was not witnessed by others).
Subsequent development of the parachute focused on it becoming more compact. While the early parachutes were made of linen stretched over a wooden frame, in the late 1790s, Blanchard began making parachutes from folded silk, taking advantage of silk's strength and light weight. In 1797, André Garnerin made the first descent of a "frameless" parachute covered in silk. In 1804, Jérôme Lalande introduced a vent in the canopy to eliminate violent oscillations. In 1887, Park Van Tassel and Thomas Scott Baldwin invented a parachute in San Francisco, California, with Baldwin making the first successful parachute jump in the western United States.
Eve of World War I
In 1907 Charles Broadwick demonstrated two key advances in the parachute he used to jump from hot air balloons at fairs: he folded his parachute into a backpack, and the parachute was pulled from the pack by a static line attached to the balloon. When Broadwick jumped from the balloon, the static line became taut, pulled the parachute from the pack, and then snapped.
In 1911 a successful test took place with a dummy at the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The puppet's weight was ; the parachute's weight was . The cables between the puppet and the parachute were long. On February 4, 1912, Franz Reichelt jumped to his death from the tower during initial testing of his wearable parachute.
Also in 1911, Grant Morton made the first parachute jump from an airplane, a Wright Model B piloted by Phil Parmalee, at Venice Beach, California. Morton's device was of the "throw-out" type where he held the parachute in his arms as he left the aircraft. In the same year (1911), Russian Gleb Kotelnikov invented the first knapsack parachute, although Hermann Lattemann and his wife Käthe Paulus had been jumping with bagged parachutes in the last decade of the 19th century.
In 1912, on a road near Tsarskoye Selo, years before it became part of St. Petersburg, Kotelnikov successfully demonstrated the braking effects of a parachute by accelerating a Russo-Balt automobile to its top speed and then opening a parachute attached to the back seat, thus also inventing the drogue parachute.
On 1 March 1912, U.S. Army Captain Albert Berry made the first (attached-type) parachute jump in the United States from a fixed-wing aircraft, a Benoist pusher, while flying above Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis, Missouri. The jump utilized a parachute stored or housed in a cone-shaped casing under the airplane and attached to a harness on the jumper's body.
Štefan Banič patented an umbrella-like design in 1914, and sold (or donated) the patent to the United States military, which later modified his design, resulting in the first military parachute. Banič had been the first person to patent the parachute, and his design was the first to properly function in the 20th century.
On June 21, 1913, Georgia Broadwick became the first woman to parachute-jump from a moving aircraft, doing so over Los Angeles, California. In 1914, while doing demonstrations for the U.S. Army, Broadwick deployed her chute manually, thus becoming the first person to jump free-fall.
World War I
The first military use of the parachute was by artillery observers on tethered observation balloons in World War I. These were tempting targets for enemy fighter aircraft, though difficult to destroy, due to their heavy anti-aircraft defenses. Because it was difficult to escape from them, and dangerous when on fire due to their hydrogen inflation, observers would abandon them and descend by parachute as soon as enemy aircraft were seen. The ground crew would then attempt to retrieve and deflate the balloon as quickly as possible. The main part of the parachute was in a bag suspended from the balloon with the pilot wearing only a simple waist harness attached to the main parachute. When the balloon crew jumped the main part of the parachute was pulled from the bag by the crew's waist harness, first the shroud lines, followed by the main canopy. This type of parachute was first adopted on a large scale for their observation balloon crews by the Germans, and then later by the British and French. While this type of unit worked well from balloons, it had mixed results when used on fixed-wing aircraft by the Germans, where the bag was stored in a compartment directly behind the pilot. In many instances where it did not work the shroud lines became entangled with the spinning aircraft. Although this type of parachute saved a number of famous German fighter pilots, including Hermann Göring, no parachutes were issued to the crews of Allied "heavier-than-air" aircraft. It has been claimed that the reason was to avoid pilots jumping from the plane when hit rather than trying to save the aircraft, but Air Vice Marshall Arthur Gould Lee, himself a pilot during the war, examined the Brtish War Office files after the war and found no evidence of such claim.
Airplane cockpits at that time also were not large enough to accommodate a pilot and a parachute, since a seat that would fit a pilot wearing a parachute would be too large for a pilot not wearing one. This is why the German type was stowed in the fuselage, rather than being of the "backpack" type. Weight was – at the very beginning – also a consideration since planes had limited load capacity. Carrying a parachute impeded performance and reduced the useful offensive and fuel load.
In the UK, Everard Calthrop, a railway engineer and breeder of Arab horses, invented and marketed through his Aerial Patents Company a "British Parachute" and the "Guardian Angel" parachute. As part of an investigation into Calthrop's design, on 13 January 1917, test pilot Clive Franklyn Collett successfully jumped from a Royal Aircraft Factory BE.2c flying over Orford Ness Experimental Station at . He repeated the experiment several days later.
Following on from Collett, balloon officer Thomas Orde-Lees, known as the "Mad Major", successfully jumped from Tower Bridge in London,"Royal Air Force Historical Society Journal, #37", 2006, Page 28 which led to the balloonists of the Royal Flying Corps using parachutes, though they were issued for use in aircraft.
In 1911, Solomon Lee Van Meter, Jr. of Lexington, Kentucky, submitted for and in July 1916 received a patent for a backpack style parachute – the Aviatory Life Buoy. His self-contained device featured a revolutionary quick-release mechanism – the ripcord – that allowed a falling aviator to expand the canopy only when safely away from the disabled aircraft.
Otto Heinecke, a German airship ground crewman, designed a parachute which the German air service introduced in 1918, becoming the world's first air service to introduce a standard parachute. Schroeder company of Berlin manufactured Heinecke's design. The first successful use of this parachute was by Leutnant Helmut Steinbrecher of Jagdstaffel 46, who bailed on 27 June 1918 from his stricken fighter airplane to become the first pilot in history to successfully do so. Although many pilots were saved by the Heinecke design, their efficacy was relatively poor. Out of the first 70 German airmen to bail out, around a third died, These fatalities were mostly due to the chute or ripcord becoming entangled in the airframe of their spinning aircraft or because of harness failure, a problem fixed in later versions.
The French, British, American and Italian air services later based their first parachute designs on the Heinecke parachute to varying extents.
In the UK, Sir Frank Mears, who was serving as a Major in the Royal Flying Corps in France (Kite Balloon section), registered a patent in July 1918 for a parachute with a quick release buckle, known as the "Mears parachute", which was in common use from then onwards.
Post-World War I
The experience with parachutes during the war highlighted the need to develop a design that could be reliably used to exit a disabled airplane. For instance, tethered parachutes did not work well when the aircraft was spinning. After the war, Major Edward L. Hoffman of the United States Army led an effort to develop an improved parachute by bringing together the best elements of multiple parachute designs. Participants in the effort included Leslie Irvin and James Floyd Smith. The team eventually created the Airplane Parachute Type-A. This incorporated three key elements:
storing the parachute in a soft pack worn on the back, as demonstrated by Charles Broadwick in 1906;
a ripcord for manually deploying the parachute at a safe distance from the airplane, from a design by Albert Leo Stevens; and
a pilot chute that draws the main canopy from the pack.
In 1919, Irvin successfully tested the parachute by jumping from an airplane. The Type-A parachute was put into production and over time saved a number of lives. The effort was recognized by the awarding of the Robert J. Collier Trophy to Major Edward L. Hoffman in 1926.
Irvin became the first person to make a premeditated free-fall parachute jump from an airplane. An early brochure of the Irvin Air Chute Company credits William O'Connor as having become, on 24 August 1920, at McCook Field near Dayton, Ohio, the first person to be saved by an Irvin parachute. Test pilot Lt. Harold R. Harris made another life-saving jump at McCook Field on 20 October 1922. Shortly after Harris' jump, two Dayton newspaper reporters suggested the creation of the Caterpillar Club for successful parachute jumps from disabled aircraft.
Beginning with Italy in 1927, several countries experimented with using parachutes to drop soldiers behind enemy lines. The regular Soviet Airborne Troops were established as early as 1931 after a number of experimental military mass jumps starting from 2 August 1930. Earlier the same year, the first Soviet mass jumps led to the development of the parachuting sport in the Soviet Union. By the time of World War II, large airborne forces were trained and used in surprise attacks, as in the battles for Fort Eben-Emael and The Hague, the first large-scale, opposed landings of paratroopers in military history, by the Germans. This was followed later in the war by airborne assaults on a larger scale, such as the Battle of Crete and Operation Market Garden, the latter being the largest airborne military operation ever. Aircraft crew were routinely equipped with parachutes for emergencies as well.
In 1937, drag chutes were used in aviation for the first time, by Soviet airplanes in the Arctic that were providing support for the polar expeditions of the era, such as the first drifting ice station, North Pole-1. The drag chute allowed airplanes to land safely on smaller ice floes.
Most parachutes were made of silk until World War II cut off supplies from Japan. After Adeline Gray made the first jump using a nylon parachute in June 1942, the industry switched to nylon.
Types
Today's modern parachutes are classified into two categories – ascending and descending canopies. All ascending canopies refer to paragliders, built specifically to ascend and stay aloft as long as possible. Other parachutes, including ram-air non-elliptical, are classified as descending canopies by manufacturers.
Some modern parachutes are classified as semi-rigid wings, which are maneuverable and can make a controlled descent to collapse on impact with the ground.
Round
Round parachutes are purely a drag device (that is, unlike the ram-air types, they provide no lift) and are used in military, emergency and cargo applications (e.g. airdrops). Most have large dome-shaped canopies made from a single layer of triangular cloth gores. Some skydivers call them "jellyfish 'chutes" because of the resemblance to the marine organisms. Modern sports parachutists rarely use this type.
The first round parachutes were simple, flat circulars. These early parachutes suffered from instability caused by oscillations. A hole in the apex helped to vent some air and reduce the oscillations. Many military applications adopted conical, i.e., cone-shaped, or parabolic (a flat circular canopy with an extended skirt) shapes, such as the United States Army T-10 static-line parachute. A round parachute with no holes in it is more prone to oscillate and is not considered to be steerable. Some parachutes have inverted dome-shaped canopies. These are primarily used for dropping non-human payloads due to their faster rate of descent.
Forward speed (5–13 km/h) and steering can be achieved by cuts in various sections (gores) across the back, or by cutting four lines in the back thereby modifying the canopy shape to allow air to escape from the back of the canopy, providing limited forward speed. Other modifications sometimes used are cuts in various sections (gores) to cause some of the skirt to bow out. Turning is accomplished by forming the edges of the modifications, giving the parachute more speed from one side of the modification than the other. This gives the jumpers the ability to steer the parachute (such as the United States Army MC series parachutes), enabling them to avoid obstacles and to turn into the wind to minimize horizontal speed at landing.
Cruciform
The unique design characteristics of cruciform parachutes decrease oscillation (its user swinging back and forth) and violent turns during descent. This technology will be used by the United States Army as it replaces its older T-10 parachutes with T-11 parachutes under a program called Advanced Tactical Parachute System (ATPS). The ATPS canopy is a highly modified version of a cross/ cruciform platform and is square in appearance. The ATPS system will reduce the rate of descent by 30 percent from to . The T-11 is designed to have an average rate of descent 14% slower than the T-10D, thus resulting in lower landing injury rates for jumpers. The decline in the rate of descent will reduce the impact energy by almost 25% to lessen the potential for injury.
Pull-down apex
A variation on the round parachute is the pull-down apex parachute, invented by a Frenchman named Pierre-Marcel Lemoigne. Includes photo of Lemoigne. The first widely used canopy of this type was called the Para-Commander (made by the Pioneer Parachute Co.), although there are many other canopies with a pull-down apex produced in the years thereafter - these had minor differences in attempts to make a higher performance rig, such as different venting configurations. They are all considered 'round' parachutes, but with suspension lines to the canopy apex that apply load there and pull the apex closer to the load, distorting the round shape into a somewhat flattened or lenticular shape when viewed from the side. And while called rounds, they generally have an elliptical shape when viewed from above or below, with the sides bulging out more than the for'd-and-aft dimension, the chord (see the lower photo to the right and you likely can ascertain the difference).
Due to their lenticular shape and appropriate venting, they have a considerably faster forward speed than, say, a modified military canopy. And due to controllable rear-facing vents in the canopy's sides, they also have much snappier turning capabilities, though they are decidedly low-performance compared to today's ram-air rigs. From about the mid-1960s to the late-1970s, this was the most popular parachute design type for sport parachuting (prior to this period, modified military 'rounds' were generally used and after, ram-air 'squares' became common). Note that the use of the word elliptical for these 'round' parachutes is somewhat dated and may cause slight confusion, since some 'squares' (i.e. ram-airs) are elliptical nowadays, too.
Annular
Some designs with a pull-down apex have the fabric removed from the apex to open a hole through which air can exit (most, if not all, round canopies have at least a small hole to allow easier tie-down for packing - these aren't considered annular), giving the canopy an annular geometry. This hole can be very pronounced in some designs, taking up more 'space' than the parachute. They also have decreased horizontal drag due to their flatter shape and, when combined with rear-facing vents, can have considerable forward speed. Truly annular designs - with a hole large enough that the canopy can be classified as ring-shaped - are uncommon.
Rogallo wing
Sport parachuting has experimented with the Rogallo wing, among other shapes and forms. These were usually an attempt to increase the forward speed and reduce the landing speed offered by the other options at the time. The ram-air parachute's development and the subsequent introduction of the sail slider to slow deployment reduced the level of experimentation in the sport parachuting community. The parachutes are also hard to build.
Ribbon and Ring
Ribbon and ring parachutes have similarities to annular designs. They are frequently designed to deploy at supersonic speeds. A conventional parachute would instantly burst upon opening and be shredded at such speeds. Ribbon parachutes have a ring-shaped canopy, often with a large hole in the centre to release the pressure. Sometimes the ring is broken into ribbons connected by ropes to leak air even more. These large leaks lower the stress on the parachute so it does not burst or shred when it opens. Ribbon parachutes made of Kevlar are used on nuclear bombs, such as the B61 and B83.
Ram-air
The principle of the Ram-Air Multicell Airfoil was conceived in 1963 by Canadian Domina "Dom" C. Jalbert, but serious problems had to be solved before a ram-air canopy could be marketed to the sport parachuting community. Ram-air parafoils are steerable (as are most canopies used for sport parachuting), and have two layers of fabric—top and bottom—connected by airfoil-shaped fabric ribs to form "cells". The cells fill with higher-pressure air from vents that face forward on the leading edge of the airfoil. The fabric is shaped and the parachute lines trimmed under load such that the ballooning fabric inflates into an airfoil shape. This airfoil is sometimes maintained by use of fabric one-way valves called airlocks. "The first jump of this canopy (a Jalbert Parafoil) was made by International Skydiving Hall of Fame member Paul "Pop" Poppenhager."
Varieties
Personal ram-air parachutes are loosely divided into two varieties – rectangular or tapered – commonly called "squares" or "ellipticals", respectively. Medium-performance canopies (reserve-, BASE-, canopy formation-, and accuracy-type) are usually rectangular. High-performance, ram-air parachutes have a slightly tapered shape to their leading and/or trailing edges when viewed in plan form, and are known as ellipticals. Sometimes all the taper is on the leading edge (front), and sometimes in the trailing edge (tail).
Ellipticals are usually used only by sport parachutists. They often have smaller, more numerous fabric cells and are shallower in profile. Their canopies can be anywhere from slightly elliptical to highly elliptical, indicating the amount of taper in the canopy design, which is often an indicator of the responsiveness of the canopy to control input for a given wing loading, and of the level of experience required to pilot the canopy safely.
The rectangular parachute designs tend to look like square, inflatable air mattresses with open front ends. They are generally safer to operate because they are less prone to dive rapidly with relatively small control inputs, they are usually flown with lower wing loadings per square foot of area, and they glide more slowly. They typically have a lower glide ratio.
Wing loading of parachutes is measured similarly to that of aircraft, comparing exit weight to area of parachute fabric. Typical wing loading for students, accuracy competitors, and BASE jumpers is less than 5 kg per square meter – often 0.3 kilograms per square meter or less. Most student skydivers fly with wing loading below 5 kg per square meter. Most sport jumpers fly with wing loading between 5 and 7 kg per square meter, but many interested in performance landings exceed this wing loading. Professional Canopy pilots compete with wing loading of 10 to over 15 kilograms per square meter. While ram-air parachutes with wing loading higher than 20 kilograms per square meter have been landed, this is strictly the realm of professional test jumpers.
Smaller parachutes tend to fly faster for the same load, and ellipticals respond faster to control input. Therefore, small, elliptical designs are often chosen by experienced canopy pilots for the thrilling flying they provide. Flying a fast elliptical requires much more skill and experience. Fast ellipticals are also considerably more dangerous to land. With high-performance elliptical canopies, nuisance malfunctions can be much more serious than with a square design, and may quickly escalate into emergencies. Flying highly loaded, elliptical canopies is a major contributing factor in many skydiving accidents, although advanced training programs are helping to reduce this danger.
High-speed, cross-braced parachutes, such as the Velocity, VX, XAOS, and Sensei, have given birth to a new branch of sport parachuting called "swooping." A race course is set up in the landing area for expert pilots to measure the distance they are able to fly past the tall entry gate. Current world records exceed .
Aspect ratio is another way to measure ram-air parachutes. Aspect ratios of parachutes are measured the same way as aircraft wings, by comparing span with chord. Low aspect ratio parachutes, i.e., span 1.8 times the chord, are now limited to precision landing competitions. Popular precision landing parachutes include Jalbert (now NAA) Para-Foils and John Eiff's series of Challenger Classics. While low aspect ratio parachutes tend to be extremely stable, with gentle stall characteristics, they suffer from steep glide ratios and a small tolerance, or "sweet spot", for timing the landing flare.
Because of their predictable opening characteristics, parachutes with a medium aspect ratio around 2.1 are widely used for reserves, BASE, and canopy formation competition. Most medium aspect ratio parachutes have seven cells.
High aspect ratio parachutes have the flattest glide and the largest tolerance for timing the landing flare, but the least predictable openings. An aspect ratio of 2.7 is about the upper limit for parachutes. High aspect ratio canopies typically have nine or more cells. All reserve ram-air parachutes are of the square variety, because of the greater reliability, and the less-demanding handling characteristics.
Paragliders
Paragliders - virtually all of which use ram-air canopies - are more akin to today's sport parachutes than, say, parachutes of the mid-1970s and earlier. Technically, they are ascending parachutes, though that term is not used in the paragliding community, and they have the same basic airfoil design of today's 'square' or 'elliptical' sports parachuting canopy, but generally have more sectioned cells, higher aspect ratio and a lower profile. Cell count varies widely, typically from the high 20s to the 70s, while aspect ratio can be 8 or more, though aspect ratio (projected) for such a canopy might be down at 6 or so - both outrageously higher than a representative skydiver's parachute. The wing span is typically so great that it's far closer to a very elongated rectangle or ellipse than a square and that term is rarely used by paraglider pilots. Similarly, span might be ~15 m with span (projected) at 12 m. Canopies are still attached to the harness by suspension lines and (four or six) risers, but they use lockable carabiners as the final connection to the harness. Modern high-performance paragliders often have the cell openings closer to the bottom of the leading edge and the end cells might appear to be closed, both for aerodynamic streamlining (these apparently closed end cells are vented and inflated from the adjacent cells, which have venting in the cell walls).
The main difference is in paragliders' usage, typically longer flights that can last all day and hundreds of kilometres in some cases. The harness is also quite different from a parachuting harness and can vary dramatically from ones for the beginner (which might be just a bench seat with nylon material and webbing to ensure the pilot is secure, no matter the position), to seatboardless ones for high altitude and cross-country flights (these are usually full-body cocoon- or hammock-like devices to include the outstretched legs - called speedbags, aerocones, etc. - to ensure aerodynamic efficiency and warmth). In many designs, there will be protection for the back and shoulder areas built-in, and support for a reserve canopy, water container, etc. Some even have windshields.
Because paragliders are made for foot- or ski-launch, they aren't suitable for terminal velocity openings and there is no slider to slow down an opening (paraglider pilots typically start with an open but uninflated canopy). To launch a paraglider, one typically spreads out the canopy on the ground to closely approximate an open canopy with the suspension lines having little slack and less tangle - see more in Paragliding. Depending on the wind, the pilot has three basic options: 1) a running forward launch (typically in no wind or slight wind), 2) a standing launch (in ideal winds) and 3) a reverse launch (in higher winds). In ideal winds, the pilot pulls on the top risers to have the wind inflate the cells and simply eases the brakes down, much like an aircraft's flaps, and takes off. Or if there is no wind, the pilot runs or skis to make it inflate, typically at the edge of a cliff or hill. Once the canopy is above one's head, it's a gentle pull down on both toggles in ideal winds, a tow (say, behind a vehicle) on flat ground, a continued run down the hill, etc. Ground handling in a variety of winds is important and there are even canopies made strictly for that practice, to save on wear and tear of more expensive canopies designed for say, XC, competition or just recreational flying.
General characteristics
Main parachutes used by skydivers today are designed to open softly. Overly rapid deployment was an early problem with ram-air designs. The primary innovation that slows the deployment of a ram-air canopy is the slider; a small rectangular piece of fabric with a grommet near each corner. Four collections of lines go through the grommets to the risers (risers are strips of webbing joining the harness and the rigging lines of a parachute). During deployment, the slider slides down from the canopy to just above the risers. The slider is slowed by air resistance as it descends and reduces the rate at which the lines can spread. This reduces the speed at which the canopy can open and inflate.
At the same time, the overall design of a parachute still has a significant influence on the deployment speed. Modern sport parachutes' deployment speeds vary considerably. Most modern parachutes open comfortably, but individual skydivers may prefer harsher deployment.
The deployment process is inherently chaotic. Rapid deployments can still occur even with well-behaved canopies. On rare occasions, deployment can even be so rapid that the jumper suffers bruising, injury, or death. Reducing the amount of fabric decreases the air resistance. This can be done by making the slider smaller, inserting a mesh panel, or cutting a hole in the slider.
Deployment
Reserve parachutes usually have a ripcord deployment system, which was first designed by Theodore Moscicki, but most modern main parachutes used by sports parachutists use a form of hand-deployed pilot chute. A ripcord system pulls a closing pin (sometimes multiple pins), which releases a spring-loaded pilot chute, and opens the container; the pilot chute is then propelled into the air stream by its spring, then uses the force generated by passing air to extract a deployment bag containing the parachute canopy, to which it is attached via a bridle. A hand-deployed pilot chute, once thrown into the air stream, pulls a closing pin on the pilot chute bridle to open the container, then the same force extracts the deployment bag. There are variations on hand-deployed pilot chutes, but the system described is the more common throw-out system.
Only the hand-deployed pilot chute may be collapsed automatically after deployment—by a kill line reducing the in-flight drag of the pilot chute on the main canopy. Reserves, on the other hand, do not retain their pilot chutes after deployment. The reserve deployment bag and pilot chute are not connected to the canopy in a reserve system. This is known as a free-bag configuration, and the components are sometimes not recovered after a reserve deployment.
Occasionally, a pilot chute does not generate enough force either to pull the pin or to extract the bag. Causes may be that the pilot chute is caught in the turbulent wake of the jumper (the "burble"), the closing loop holding the pin is too tight, or the pilot chute is generating insufficient force. This effect is known as "pilot chute hesitation," and, if it does not clear, it can lead to a total malfunction, requiring reserve deployment.
Paratroopers' main parachutes are usually deployed by static lines that release the parachute, yet retain the deployment bag that contains the parachute—without relying on a pilot chute for deployment. In this configuration, the deployment bag is known as a direct-bag system, in which the deployment is rapid, consistent, and reliable.
Safety
A parachute is carefully folded, or "packed" to ensure that it will open reliably. If a parachute is not packed properly it can result in a malfunction where the main parachute fails to deploy correctly or fully. In the United States and many developed countries, emergency and reserve parachutes are packed by "riggers" who must be trained and certified according to legal standards. Sport skydivers are always trained to pack their own primary "main" parachutes.
Exact numbers are difficult to estimate because parachute design, maintenance, loading, packing technique and operator experience all have a significant impact on malfunction rates. Approximately one in a thousand sport main parachute openings malfunctions, requiring the use of the reserve parachute, although some skydivers have many thousands of jumps and never needed to use their reserve parachute.
Reserve parachutes are packed and deployed somewhat differently. They are also designed more conservatively, favouring reliability over responsiveness and are built and tested to more exacting standards, making them more reliable than main parachutes. Regulated inspection intervals, coupled with significantly less use contributes to reliability as wear on some components can adversely affect reliability. The primary safety advantage of a reserve parachute comes from the probability of an unlikely main malfunction being multiplied by the even less likely probability of a reserve malfunction. This yields an even smaller probability of a double malfunction, although there is also a small possibility that a malfunctioning main parachute cannot be released and thus interfere with the reserve parachute. In the United States, the 2017 average fatality rate is recorded to be 1 in 133,571 jumps.
Injuries and fatalities in sport skydiving are possible even under a fully functional main parachute, such as may occur if the skydiver makes an error in judgment while flying the canopy which results in a high-speed impact either with the ground or with a hazard on the ground, which might otherwise have been avoided, or results in collision with another skydiver under canopy.
Malfunctions
Below are listed the malfunctions specific to round parachutes.
A "Mae West" or "blown periphery" is a type of round parachute malfunction that contorts the shape of the canopy into the outward appearance of a large brassiere, named after the generous proportions of the late actress Mae West. The column of nylon fabric, buffeted by the wind, rapidly heats from friction and opposite sides of the canopy can fuse together in a narrow region, removing any chance of it opening fully.
A "streamer" is the main chute which becomes entangled in its lines and fails to deploy, taking the shape of a paper streamer. The parachutist cuts it away to provide space and clean air for deploying the reserve.
An "inversion" occurs when one skirt of the canopy blows between the suspension lines on the opposite side of the parachute and then catches air. That portion then forms a secondary lobe with the canopy inverted. The secondary lobe grows until the canopy turns completely inside out.
A "barber's pole" describes having a tangle of lines behind the jumper's head, who cuts away the main and opens his reserve.
The "horseshoe" is an out-of-sequence deployment, when the parachute lines and bag are released before the bag drogue and bridle. This can cause the lines to become tangled or a situation where the parachute drogue is not released from the container.
"Jumper-In-Tow" involves a static line that does not disconnect, resulting in a jumper being towed behind the aircraft.
Records
On August 16, 1960, Joseph Kittinger, in the Excelsior III test jump, set the previous world record for the highest parachute jump. He jumped from a balloon at an altitude of (which was also a piloted balloon altitude record at the time). A small stabilizer chute deployed successfully, and Kittinger fell for 4 minutes and 36 seconds, also setting a still-standing world record for the longest parachute free-fall, if falling with a stabilizer chute is counted as free-fall. At an altitude of , Kittinger opened his main chute and landed safely in the New Mexico desert. The whole descent took 13 minutes and 45 seconds. During the descent, Kittinger experienced temperatures as low as . In the free-fall stage, he reached a top speed of 614 mph (988 km/h or 274 m/s), or Mach 0.8.
According to Guinness World Records, Yevgeni Andreyev, a colonel in the Soviet Air Force, held the official FAI record for the longest free-fall parachute jump (without drogue chute) after falling for 24,500 m (80,380 ft) from an altitude of 25,457 m (83,523 ft) near the city of Saratov, Russia on November 1, 1962, until broken by Felix Baumgartner in 2012.
Felix Baumgartner broke Joseph Kittinger's record on October 14, 2012, with a jump from an altitude of 127,852 feet (38,969.3 m) and reaching speeds up to 833.9 mph (1,342.0 km/h or 372.8 m/s), or nearly Mach 1.1. Kittinger was an advisor for Baumgartner's jump.
Alan Eustace made a jump from the stratosphere on October 24, 2014, from an altitude of 135,889.108 feet (41,419 m). However, because Eustace's jump involved a drogue parachute while Baumgartner's did not, their vertical speed and free fall distance records remain in different record categories.
Uses
In addition to the use of a parachute to slow the descent of a person or object, a drogue parachute is used to aid horizontal deceleration of a land or air vehicle, including fixed-wing aircraft and drag racers, provide stability, as to assist certain types of light aircraft in distress, tandem free-fall; and as a pilot triggering deployment of a larger parachute.
Parachutes are also used as play equipment.
See also
Airdrop
Ballistic parachute
Cirrus Airframe Parachute System
Extreme sport
Free fall
Parachute landing fall
Parachuting
Paragliding
Ejection seat
References
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
CSPA The Canadian Sport Parachuting Association—The governing body for sport skydiving in Canada
First jump with parachute from moving plane – Scientific American, June 7, 1913
Parachute History
Program Executive Office (PEO) Soldier
Skydiving education
Para2000 book
The 2nd FAI World Championships in Canopy Piloting – 2008 at Pretoria Skydiving Club South Africa
USPA The United States Parachute Association—The governing body for sport skydiving in the U.S.
The Parachute History Collection at Linda Hall Library (text-searchable PDFs)
"How Armies Hit The Silk" June 1945, Popular Science'' James L. H. Peck – detailed article on parachutes
NuméroLa Revue aérienne / directeur Emile Mousset First female parachutist
Everard Calthrop Parachutist - Drop From Tower Bridge Part 1 (1918). Film of a successful parachute jump from Tower Bridge during World War I.
Parachuting
Airborne military equipment
French inventions
Italian inventions
Military parachuting
Sports equipment
Parachutes |
48469 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James%20Louis%20Sobieski | James Louis Sobieski | James Louis Henry Sobieski (Polish: Jakub Ludwik Henryk Sobieski; French: Jacques Louis Henri de Sobieski) 2 November 1667 – 19 December 1737) was a Polish-French nobleman, politician, diplomat, scholar, traveller and the son of John III of Poland by his wife Marie de La Grange d'Arquien.
Biography
Jakub Ludwik Henry Sobieski was born on 2 November 1667 in Paris, France. He was given the first name Jakub in honor of his grandfather Jakub Sobieski, while his middle names "Louis" Henry were a gesture to his godparents, Louis XIV of France and Henrietta Maria of France.
Health problems were a constant for Jakub in his youth, and there is a wealth of correspondence exchanged between his parents on the subject. He likely had a spinal deformation, which was likely not very severe because Jakub was known as a good dancer and a proficient equestrian. His mother Maria Kazimiera repeatedly expressed her worry over her son's precarious health in her letters which survived to the present day. Father Kostrzycki became Jakub' guardian and educator in 1671.
Prince of Poland
With his father's election as King of Poland in 1674 the education of Prince Jakub Sobieski became a state matter. As the son of the new monarch, he had every right to receive a proper education. Nonetheless, a fair number of deputies protested and were unwilling to grant royal rights to the Sobieski family. It is worth noting that relatively strong opposition to the king and his family arose within the szlachta's ranks during the peak of the king's popularity, immediately following his victory in the Battle of Khotyn. The general disdain that the nobility projected towards Jakub and his father Jan would be a constant impediment in the careers of both men in the decades to come.
Dynastic plans in Silesia and Ducal Prussia
The young prince was also drawn into his parents' dynastic plans, which only further inflamed the aristocracy's antipathy towards the Sobieski family. Despite efforts by his parents at the Vienna court, they were unable to secure for Jakub rule over the Duchies of Legnica, Brzeg, Wołów, and Oława in Silesia after the Piast dynasty died out in 1675. This led Jakub' father Jan III Sobieski to put a plan together to seize power in Ducal Prussia and elevate his son. The secret treaty of Jaworów signed in 1675 between the Polish king and France committed Poland to aiding France against Brandenburg-Prussia in exchange for French monetary subsidies and support for Polish claims over Ducal Prussia. The French promised to mediate between Poland and the Ottoman Empire so that Polish forces could be diverted from the southern border.
The treaty failed however, as French diplomats were unable to improve the relations between Poland and the Ottomans. The Truce of Żurawno signed the following year was unfavorable to Poland. France eventually concluded the Treaty of Nijmegen with Prussia in 1679. This cooled France's relations with Poland, as Sobieski abandoned his pro-French stance. The Polish-French alliance had completely fallen apart by 1683 when some of the pro-French faction members within Poland were accused of plotting to overthrowing Sobieski, and French ambassador Nicolas-Louis de l'Hospital, Bishop of Beauvais and Marquis of Vitry was forced to leave the country.
The failure of this plan prompted the king to promote Prince Jakub through participation in the war against the Ottoman Empire. In this way, King Jan was aiming to gain social acceptance for an increased role for the prince, who he hoped would become the second most important person in the Commonwealth after himself. These efforts culminated in the fifteen-year-old prince fighting alongside his father against the Turks at the Battle of Vienna in 1683. In line with his parents ambitions for him, Prince Jakub was a member of the Order of the Golden Fleece a Catholic order of chivalry which has been referred to as the most elite brotherhood in the Christian faith.
Attempt to seize the Moldavian throne
Between 1685 and 1693 the Principality of Moldavia was ruled by Hospodar Constantin Cantemir. The first of the Cantemir dynasty on the Moldavian throne, Constantin was an illiterate from petty nobility who once served as an officer in the Polish Army whereas his predecessors had mostly been members of the powerful boyar families. Constantin's reign was characterized by clashes between two powerful factions of boyars, a pro-Polish and a pro-Ottoman camp. While Kantemir himself officially sided with the pro-Ottomans, he nonetheless informally cooperated to some extent with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Sensing weakness, Polish King Jan III Sobieski had Polish troops enter Moldavia twice in 1686 and 1691 to try to put his son Jakub on the Moldavian throne, utilizing the Armenian monastery of Suceava as a base of operations. These efforts were unsuccessful, and Kantemir ordered the execution of the leader of the pro-Polish party.
Duke of Oława
He was initially engaged to Ludwika Karolina Radziwiłł but the marriage never materialized. On 25 March 1691 Jakub Ludwik married Hedwig Elisabeth Amelia of Neuburg (1673–1722), the daughter of the Elector Palatine Philip William. In celebration of their wedding the opera Per goder in amor ci vuol costanza was created by librettist Giovanni Battista Lampugnani and composer Viviano Augustini. The couple had five daughters, two of whom would have progeny. As part of his wife's dowry, he received the Principality of Oława.
Candidacy for the Polish Crown
With the death of Jakub Louis' father in 1696, no fewer than eighteen candidates stood for the vacant Polish throne. Family rivalries prevented the election of Jakub Ludwik Sobieski even though Austria supported his candidacy. Jakub Ludwik Sobieski's own mother, Marie Casimire, favored her son-in-law, Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria. The powerful King Louis XIV of France supported François Louis, Prince of Conti (1664–1709).
In the end, Frederick Augustus, Elector of Saxony, who renounced Lutheranism and converted to Catholicism in order to qualify, was crowned as Augustus II, King of Poland on 1 September 1697. It was the first time that a deceased monarch's son had not been elected to succeed him, the previous king's heir had been debarred from the throne by military force, and that a German became king (which went against a tradition of avoiding German hegemony). Augustus II's first act as king was to expel the prince of Conti from the country.
Exile in Oława and imprisonment
After the coronation of King Augustus II, Sobieski began negotiations to reconcile with the new Polish king. During the talks Jakub was accused of trying to organize a rebellion against the new monarch, and as a result, lost substantial land holdings. Offended, Sobieski refused to pay homage to Augustus and left the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth for Oława in Silesia.
In 1704 Jakub Ludwik Sobieski and his brother Alexander were seized by Augustus II's troops in the vicinity of Wrocław and imprisoned over fears by Augustus that Sobieski may try to gain the Polish throne. The brothers remained in prison in Pleissenburg and Königstein for two years before finally being released after the Treaty of Altranstädt where he signed a formal agreement to never again make any attempt to become King of Poland.
Return to Poland
Jakub Sobieski received a favorable sentence during the Silent Sejm in 1717, which enabled him to return to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and recover his family property which had been confiscated by King Augustus. He returned to Poland and reconciled with the king, and subsequently settled in the Sobieski's ancestral castle in Żółkiew. After falling out of favor with Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI for allowing his daughter Maria Clementina Sobieska to marry James Francis Edward Stuart he lost the principality of Oława in 1719, but was able to regain his Silesian holdings in 1722. Sobieski would return to Oława periodically between 1722 and 1734. He spent the last years of his life managing his properties, traveling between his residences in Ukraine and Silesia, while devoting himself to philanthropy.
Death
Jakub Ludwik Sobieski died of a stroke on 19 December 1737 in Żółkiew, Poland and is buried there. His oldest surviving daughter Maria Karolina, inherited his vast land holdings which included 11 cities and 140 villages.
Sobieski's Legacy in Oława
The connection to the Polish state which Sobieski's rule brought to Oława set this part of Lower Silesia on a different trajectory, and thanks to it the Polish language was preserved here long after Jakub' death in 1737. After the end of the Silesian Wars in 1763, the city along with most of Silesia was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia, which immediately set out to Germanize their subjects. Yet the population remained Polish speaking in the vicinity of Oława. Julius Roger in his ethnographic book on Silesian folk songs recorded a Polish tune from Oława in 1863. In his book "Schlesien: eine Landeskunde für das deutsche Volk" published in 1896, outstanding German geographer Joseph Partsch expresses his surprise that:
After World War II German Silesia was ceded to the Polish People's Republic. Since then, a number of sites within Oława have been renamed to commemorate Jakub Sobieski.
Issue
Maria Leopoldyna (30 April 1693 – 12 July 1695).
Maria Casimira (20 January 1695 – 18 May 1723), engaged to Charles XII of Sweden.
Maria Karolina (15 November 1697 – 8 May 1740) married (1) Frederick Maurice de la Tour d'Auvergne (2) Charles Godefroy de La Tour d'Auvergne and had issue.
Jan (21 October 1698 – July 1699).
Maria Klementyna (18 July 1702 – 24 January 1735) married James Francis Edward Stuart and had issue (Charles Edward Stuart and Henry Benedict Stuart)
Maria Magdalena (born and died 3 August 1704).
Ancestry
See also
Royal elections in Poland
Oława
Zhovkva
References
External links
1667 births
1737 deaths
Nobility from Paris
Polish Prince Royals
Candidates for the Polish elective throne
James Louis
Knights of the Golden Fleece
17th-century Polish nobility
18th-century Polish–Lithuanian politicians
Sons of kings |
48660 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy%20control%20system | Fuzzy control system | A fuzzy control system is a control system based on fuzzy logic—a mathematical system that analyzes analog input values in terms of logical variables that take on continuous values between 0 and 1, in contrast to classical or digital logic, which operates on discrete values of either 1 or 0 (true or false, respectively).
Overview
Fuzzy logic is widely used in machine control. The term "fuzzy" refers to the fact that the logic involved can deal with concepts that cannot be expressed as the "true" or "false" but rather as "partially true". Although alternative approaches such as genetic algorithms and neural networks can perform just as well as fuzzy logic in many cases, fuzzy logic has the advantage that the solution to the problem can be cast in terms that human operators can understand, so that their experience can be used in the design of the controller. This makes it easier to mechanize tasks that are already successfully performed by humans.
History and applications
Fuzzy logic was proposed by Lotfi A. Zadeh of the University of California at Berkeley in a 1965 paper. He elaborated on his ideas in a 1973 paper that introduced the concept of "linguistic variables", which in this article equates to a variable defined as a fuzzy set. Other research followed, with the first industrial application, a cement kiln built in Denmark, coming on line in 1975.
Fuzzy systems were initially implemented in Japan.
Interest in fuzzy systems was sparked by Seiji Yasunobu and Soji Miyamoto of Hitachi, who in 1985 provided simulations that demonstrated the feasibility of fuzzy control systems for the Sendai Subway. Their ideas were adopted, and fuzzy systems were used to control accelerating, braking, and stopping when the Namboku Line opened in 1987.
In 1987, Takeshi Yamakawa demonstrated the use of fuzzy control, through a set of simple dedicated fuzzy logic chips, in an "inverted pendulum" experiment. This is a classic control problem, in which a vehicle tries to keep a pole mounted on its top by a hinge upright by moving back and forth. Yamakawa subsequently made the demonstration more sophisticated by mounting a wine glass containing water and even a live mouse to the top of the pendulum: the system maintained stability in both cases. Yamakawa eventually went on to organize his own fuzzy-systems research lab to help exploit his patents in the field.
Japanese engineers subsequently developed a wide range of fuzzy systems for both industrial and consumer applications. In 1988 Japan established the Laboratory for International Fuzzy Engineering (LIFE), a cooperative arrangement between 48 companies to pursue fuzzy research. The automotive company Volkswagen was the only foreign corporate member of LIFE, dispatching a researcher for a duration of three years.
Japanese consumer goods often incorporate fuzzy systems. Matsushita vacuum cleaners use microcontrollers running fuzzy algorithms to interrogate dust sensors and adjust suction power accordingly. Hitachi washing machines use fuzzy controllers to load-weight, fabric-mix, and dirt sensors and automatically set the wash cycle for the best use of power, water, and detergent.
Canon developed an autofocusing camera that uses a charge-coupled device (CCD) to measure the clarity of the image in six regions of its field of view and use the information provided to determine if the image is in focus. It also tracks the rate of change of lens movement during focusing, and controls its speed to prevent overshoot. The camera's fuzzy control system uses 12 inputs: 6 to obtain the current clarity data provided by the CCD and 6 to measure the rate of change of lens movement. The output is the position of the lens. The fuzzy control system uses 13 rules and requires 1.1 kilobytes of memory.
An industrial air conditioner designed by Mitsubishi uses 25 heating rules and 25 cooling rules. A temperature sensor provides input, with control outputs fed to an inverter, a compressor valve, and a fan motor. Compared to the previous design, the fuzzy controller heats and cools five times faster, reduces power consumption by 24%, increases temperature stability by a factor of two, and uses fewer sensors.
Other applications investigated or implemented include: character and handwriting recognition; optical fuzzy systems; robots, including one for making Japanese flower arrangements; voice-controlled robot helicopters (hovering is a "balancing act" rather similar to the inverted pendulum problem); rehabilitation robotics to provide patient-specific solutions (e.g. to control heart rate and blood pressure ); control of flow of powders in film manufacture; elevator systems; and so on.
Work on fuzzy systems is also proceeding in North America and Europe, although on a less extensive scale than in Japan.
The US Environmental Protection Agency has investigated fuzzy control for energy-efficient motors, and NASA has studied fuzzy control for automated space docking: simulations show that a fuzzy control system can greatly reduce fuel consumption.
Firms such as Boeing, General Motors, Allen-Bradley, Chrysler, Eaton, and Whirlpool have worked on fuzzy logic for use in low-power refrigerators, improved automotive transmissions, and energy-efficient electric motors.
In 1995 Maytag introduced an "intelligent" dishwasher based on a fuzzy controller and a "one-stop sensing module" that combines a thermistor, for temperature measurement; a conductivity sensor, to measure detergent level from the ions present in the wash; a turbidity sensor that measures scattered and transmitted light to measure the soiling of the wash; and a magnetostrictive sensor to read spin rate. The system determines the optimum wash cycle for any load to obtain the best results with the least amount of energy, detergent, and water. It even adjusts for dried-on foods by tracking the last time the door was opened, and estimates the number of dishes by the number of times the door was opened.
In 2017 Xiera Technologies Inc. developed the first auto-tuner for the fuzzy logic controller's knowledge base known as edeX. This technology was tested by Mohawk College and was able to solve non-linear 2x2 and 3x3 multi-input multi-output problems.
Research and development is also continuing on fuzzy applications in software, as opposed to firmware, design, including fuzzy expert systems and integration of fuzzy logic with neural-network and so-called adaptive "genetic" software systems, with the ultimate goal of building "self-learning" fuzzy-control systems. These systems can be employed to control complex, nonlinear dynamic plants, for example, human body.
Fuzzy sets
The input variables in a fuzzy control system are in general mapped by sets of membership functions similar to this, known as "fuzzy sets". The process of converting a crisp input value to a fuzzy value is called "fuzzification". The fuzzy logic based approach had been considered by designing two fuzzy systems, one for error heading angle and the other for velocity control.
A control system may also have various types of switch, or "ON-OFF", inputs along with its analog inputs, and such switch inputs of course will always have a truth value equal to either 1 or 0, but the scheme can deal with them as simplified fuzzy functions that happen to be either one value or another.
Given "mappings" of input variables into membership functions and truth values, the microcontroller then makes decisions for what action to take, based on a set of "rules", each of the form:
IF brake temperature IS warm AND speed IS not very fast
THEN brake pressure IS slightly decreased.
In this example, the two input variables are "brake temperature" and "speed" that have values defined as fuzzy sets. The output variable, "brake pressure" is also defined by a fuzzy set that can have values like "static" or "slightly increased" or "slightly decreased" etc.
Fuzzy control in detail
Fuzzy controllers are very simple conceptually. They consist of an input stage, a processing stage, and an output stage. The input stage maps sensor or other inputs, such as switches, thumbwheels, and so on, to the appropriate membership functions and truth values. The processing stage invokes each appropriate rule and generates a result for each, then combines the results of the rules. Finally, the output stage converts the combined result back into a specific control output value.
The most common shape of membership functions is triangular, although trapezoidal and bell curves are also used, but the shape is generally less important than the number of curves and their placement. From three to seven curves are generally appropriate to cover the required range of an input value, or the "universe of discourse" in fuzzy jargon.
As discussed earlier, the processing stage is based on a collection of logic rules in the form of IF-THEN statements, where the IF part is called the "antecedent" and the THEN part is called the "consequent". Typical fuzzy control systems have dozens of rules.
Consider a rule for a thermostat:
IF (temperature is "cold") THEN turn (heater is "high")
This rule uses the truth value of the "temperature" input, which is some truth value of "cold", to generate a result in the fuzzy set for the "heater" output, which is some value of "high". This result is used with the results of other rules to finally generate the crisp composite output. Obviously, the greater the truth value of "cold", the higher the truth value of "high", though this does not necessarily mean that the output itself will be set to "high" since this is only one rule among many.
In some cases, the membership functions can be modified by "hedges" that are equivalent to adverbs. Common hedges include "about", "near", "close to", "approximately", "very", "slightly", "too", "extremely", and "somewhat". These operations may have precise definitions, though the definitions can vary considerably between different implementations. "Very", for one example, squares membership functions; since the membership values are always less than 1, this narrows the membership function. "Extremely" cubes the values to give greater narrowing, while "somewhat" broadens the function by taking the square root.
In practice, the fuzzy rule sets usually have several antecedents that are combined using fuzzy operators, such as AND, OR, and NOT, though again the definitions tend to vary: AND, in one popular definition, simply uses the minimum weight of all the antecedents, while OR uses the maximum value. There is also a NOT operator that subtracts a membership function from 1 to give the "complementary" function.
There are several ways to define the result of a rule, but one of the most common and simplest is the "max-min" inference method, in which the output membership function is given the truth value generated by the premise.
Rules can be solved in parallel in hardware, or sequentially in software. The results of all the rules that have fired are "defuzzified" to a crisp value by one of several methods. There are dozens, in theory, each with various advantages or drawbacks.
The "centroid" method is very popular, in which the "center of mass" of the result provides the crisp value. Another approach is the "height" method, which takes the value of the biggest contributor. The centroid method favors the rule with the output of greatest area, while the height method obviously favors the rule with the greatest output value.
The diagram below demonstrates max-min inferencing and centroid defuzzification for a system with input variables "x", "y", and "z" and an output variable "n". Note that "mu" is standard fuzzy-logic nomenclature for "truth value":
Notice how each rule provides a result as a truth value of a particular membership function for the output variable. In centroid defuzzification the values are OR'd, that is, the maximum value is used and values are not added, and the results are then combined using a centroid calculation.
Fuzzy control system design is based on empirical methods, basically a methodical approach to trial-and-error. The general process is as follows:
Document the system's operational specifications and inputs and outputs.
Document the fuzzy sets for the inputs.
Document the rule set.
Determine the defuzzification method.
Run through test suite to validate system, adjust details as required.
Complete document and release to production.
As a general example, consider the design of a fuzzy controller for a steam turbine. The block diagram of this control system appears as follows:
The input and output variables map into the following fuzzy set:
—where:
N3: Large negative.
N2: Medium negative.
N1: Small negative.
Z: Zero.
P1: Small positive.
P2: Medium positive.
P3: Large positive.
The rule set includes such rules as:
rule 1: IF temperature IS cool AND pressure IS weak,
THEN throttle is P3.
rule 2: IF temperature IS cool AND pressure IS low,
THEN throttle is P2.
rule 3: IF temperature IS cool AND pressure IS ok,
THEN throttle is Z.
rule 4: IF temperature IS cool AND pressure IS strong,
THEN throttle is N2.
In practice, the controller accepts the inputs and maps them into their membership functions and truth values. These mappings are then fed into the rules. If the rule specifies an AND relationship between the mappings of the two input variables, as the examples above do, the minimum of the two is used as the combined truth value; if an OR is specified, the maximum is used. The appropriate output state is selected and assigned a membership value at the truth level of the premise. The truth values are then defuzzified.
For example, assume the temperature is in the "cool" state, and the pressure is in the "low" and "ok" states. The pressure values ensure that only rules 2 and 3 fire:
The two outputs are then defuzzified through centroid defuzzification:
__
| Z P2
1 -+ * *
| * * * *
| * * * *
| * * * *
| * 222222222
| * 22222222222
| 333333332222222222222
+---33333333222222222222222-->
^
+150
__
The output value will adjust the throttle and then the control cycle will begin again to generate the next value.
Building a fuzzy controller
Consider implementing with a microcontroller chip a simple feedback controller:
A fuzzy set is defined for the input error variable "e", and the derived change in error, "delta", as well as the "output", as follows:
LP: large positive
SP: small positive
ZE: zero
SN: small negative
LN: large negative
If the error ranges from -1 to +1, with the analog-to-digital converter used having a resolution of 0.25, then the input variable's fuzzy set (which, in this case, also applies to the output variable) can be described very simply as a table, with the error / delta / output values in the top row and the truth values for each membership function arranged in rows beneath:
___
-1 -0.75 -0.5 -0.25 0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1
___
mu(LP) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.3 0.7 1
mu(SP) 0 0 0 0 0.3 0.7 1 0.7 0.3
mu(ZE) 0 0 0.3 0.7 1 0.7 0.3 0 0
mu(SN) 0.3 0.7 1 0.7 0.3 0 0 0 0
mu(LN) 1 0.7 0.3 0 0 0 0 0 0
___ —or, in graphical form (where each "X" has a value of 0.1):
LN SN ZE SP LP
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
-1.0 | XXXXXXXXXX XXX : : : |
-0.75 | XXXXXXX XXXXXXX : : : |
-0.5 | XXX XXXXXXXXXX XXX : : |
-0.25 | : XXXXXXX XXXXXXX : : |
0.0 | : XXX XXXXXXXXXX XXX : |
0.25 | : : XXXXXXX XXXXXXX : |
0.5 | : : XXX XXXXXXXXXX XXX |
0.75 | : : : XXXXXXX XXXXXXX |
1.0 | : : : XXX XXXXXXXXXX |
| |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
Suppose this fuzzy system has the following rule base:
rule 1: IF e = ZE AND delta = ZE THEN output = ZE
rule 2: IF e = ZE AND delta = SP THEN output = SN
rule 3: IF e = SN AND delta = SN THEN output = LP
rule 4: IF e = LP OR delta = LP THEN output = LN
These rules are typical for control applications in that the antecedents consist of the logical combination of the error and error-delta signals, while the consequent is a control command output.
The rule outputs can be defuzzified using a discrete centroid computation:
SUM( I = 1 TO 4 OF ( mu(I) * output(I) ) ) / SUM( I = 1 TO 4 OF mu(I) )
Now, suppose that at a given time:
e = 0.25
delta = 0.5
Then this gives:
e delta
mu(LP) 0 0.3
mu(SP) 0.7 1
mu(ZE) 0.7 0.3
mu(SN) 0 0
mu(LN) 0 0
Plugging this into rule 1 gives:
rule 1: IF e = ZE AND delta = ZE THEN output = ZE
mu(1) = MIN( 0.7, 0.3 ) = 0.3
output(1) = 0
-- where:
mu(1): Truth value of the result membership function for rule 1. In terms of a centroid calculation, this is the "mass" of this result for this discrete case.
output(1): Value (for rule 1) where the result membership function (ZE) is maximum over the output variable fuzzy set range. That is, in terms of a centroid calculation, the location of the "center of mass" for this individual result. This value is independent of the value of "mu". It simply identifies the location of ZE along the output range.
The other rules give:
rule 2: IF e = ZE AND delta = SP THEN output = SN
mu(2) = MIN( 0.7, 1 ) = 0.7
output(2) = -0.5
rule 3: IF e = SN AND delta = SN THEN output = LP
mu(3) = MIN( 0.0, 0.0 ) = 0
output(3) = 1
rule 4: IF e = LP OR delta = LP THEN output = LN
mu(4) = MAX( 0.0, 0.3 ) = 0.3
output(4) = -1
The centroid computation yields:
—for the final control output. Simple. Of course the hard part is figuring out what rules actually work correctly in practice.
If you have problems figuring out the centroid equation, remember that a centroid is defined by summing all the moments (location times mass) around the center of gravity and equating the sum to zero. So if is the center of gravity, is the location of each mass, and is each mass, this gives:
In our example, the values of mu correspond to the masses, and the values of X to location of the masses
(mu, however, only 'corresponds to the masses' if the initial 'mass' of the output functions are all the same/equivalent. If they are not the same, i.e. some are narrow triangles, while others maybe wide trapezoids or shouldered triangles, then the mass or area of the output function must be known or calculated. It is this mass that is then scaled by mu and multiplied by its location X_i).
This system can be implemented on a standard microprocessor, but dedicated fuzzy chips are now available. For example, Adaptive Logic INC of San Jose, California, sells a "fuzzy chip", the AL220, that can accept four analog inputs and generate four analog outputs. A block diagram of the chip is shown below:
+---------+ +-------+
analog --4-->| analog | | mux / +--4--> analog
in | mux | | SH | out
+----+----+ +-------+
| ^
V |
+-------------+ +--+--+
| ADC / latch | | DAC |
+------+------+ +-----+
| ^
| |
8 +-----------------------------+
| | |
| V |
| +-----------+ +-------------+ |
+-->| fuzzifier | | defuzzifier +--+
+-----+-----+ +-------------+
| ^
| +-------------+ |
| | rule | |
+->| processor +--+
| (50 rules) |
+------+------+
|
+------+------+
| parameter |
| memory |
| 256 x 8 |
+-------------+
ADC: analog-to-digital converter
DAC: digital-to-analog converter
SH: sample/hold
Antilock brakes
As an example, consider an anti-lock braking system, directed by a microcontroller chip. The microcontroller has to make decisions based on brake temperature, speed, and other variables in the system.
The variable "temperature" in this system can be subdivided into a range of "states": "cold", "cool", "moderate", "warm", "hot", "very hot". The transition from one state to the next is hard to define.
An arbitrary static threshold might be set to divide "warm" from "hot". For example, at exactly 90 degrees, warm ends and hot begins. But this would result in a discontinuous change when the input value passed over that threshold. The transition wouldn't be smooth, as would be required in braking situations.
The way around this is to make the states fuzzy. That is, allow them to change gradually from one state to the next. In order to do this, there must be a dynamic relationship established between different factors.
Start by defining the input temperature states using "membership functions":
With this scheme, the input variable's state no longer jumps abruptly from one state to the next. Instead, as the temperature changes, it loses value in one membership function while gaining value in the next. In other words, its ranking in the category of cold decreases as it becomes more highly ranked in the warmer category.
At any sampled timeframe, the "truth value" of the brake temperature will almost always be in some degree part of two membership functions: i.e.: '0.6 nominal and 0.4 warm', or '0.7 nominal and 0.3 cool', and so on.
The above example demonstrates a simple application, using the abstraction of values from multiple values. This only represents one kind of data, however, in this case, temperature.
Adding additional sophistication to this braking system, could be done by additional factors such as traction, speed, inertia, set up in dynamic functions, according to the designed fuzzy system.
Logical interpretation of fuzzy control
In spite of the appearance there are several difficulties to give a rigorous logical interpretation of the IF-THEN rules. As an example, interpret a rule as IF (temperature is "cold") THEN (heater is "high") by the first order formula Cold(x)→High(y) and assume that r is an input such that Cold(r) is false. Then the formula Cold(r)→High(t) is true for any t and therefore any t gives a correct control given r. A rigorous logical justification of fuzzy control is given in Hájek's book (see Chapter 7) where fuzzy control is represented as a theory of Hájek's basic logic.
In Gerla 2005 another logical approach to fuzzy control is proposed based on fuzzy logic programming: Denote by f the fuzzy function arising of an IF-THEN systems of rules. Then this system can be translated into a fuzzy program P containing a series of rules whose head is "Good(x,y)". The interpretation of this predicate in the least fuzzy Herbrand model of P coincides with f. This gives further useful tools to fuzzy control.
Fuzzy qualitative simulation
Before an Artificial Intelligence system is able to plan the action sequence, some kind of model is needed. For video games, the model is equal to the game rules. From the programming perspective, the game rules are implemented as a Physics engine which accepts an action from a player and calculates, if the action is valid. After the action was executed, the game is in follow up state. If the aim isn't only to play mathematical games but determine the actions for real world applications, the most obvious bottleneck is, that no game rules are available. The first step is to model the domain. System identification can be realized with precise mathematical equations or with Fuzzy rules.
Using Fuzzy logic and ANFIS systems (Adaptive network based fuzzy inference system) for creating the forward model for a domain has many disadvantages. A qualitative simulation isn't able to determine the correct follow up state, but the system will only guess what will happen if the action was taken. The Fuzzy qualitative simulation can't predict the exact numerical values, but it's using imprecise natural language to speculate about the future. It takes the current situation plus the actions from the past and generates the expected follow up state of the game.
The output of the ANFIS system isn't providing correct information, but only a Fuzzy set notation, for example [0,0.2,0.4,0]. After converting the set notation back into numerical values the accuracy get worse. This makes Fuzzy qualitative simulation a bad choice for practical applications.
Applications
Fuzzy control systems are suitable when the process complexity is high including uncertainty and nonlinear behavior, and there are no precise mathematical models available. Successful applications of fuzzy control systems have been reported worldwide mainly in Japan with pioneering solutions since 80s.
Some applications reported in the literature are:
Air conditioners
Automatic focus systems in cameras
Domestic appliances (refrigerators, washing machines...)
Control and optimization of industrial processes and system
Writing systems
Fuel efficiency in engines
Environment
Expert systems
Decision trees
Robotics
Autonomous vehicles
See also
Dynamic logic
Bayesian inference
Function approximation
Fuzzy concept
Fuzzy markup language
Hysteresis
Neural networks
Neuro-fuzzy
Fuzzy control language
Type-2 fuzzy sets and systems
References
Further reading
Kevin M. Passino and Stephen Yurkovich, Fuzzy Control, Addison Wesley Longman, Menlo Park, CA, 1998 (522 pages)
Cox, E. (Oct. 1992). Fuzzy fundamentals. IEEE Spectrum, 29:10. pp. 58–61.
Cox, E. (Feb. 1993) Adaptive fuzzy systems. IEEE Spectrum, 30:2. pp. 7–31.
Jan Jantzen, "Tuning Of Fuzzy PID Controllers", Technical University of Denmark, report 98-H 871, September 30, 1998.
Jan Jantzen, Foundations of Fuzzy Control. Wiley, 2007 (209 pages) (Table of contents)
Computational Intelligence: A Methodological Introduction by Kruse, Borgelt, Klawonn, Moewes, Steinbrecher, Held, 2013, Springer,
External links
Introduction to Fuzzy Control
Fuzzy Logic in Embedded Microcomputers and Control Systems
IEC 1131-7 CD1 IEC 1131-7 CD1 PDF
Online interactive demonstration of a system with 3 fuzzy rules
Data driven fuzzy systems
Fuzzy logic
Control engineering |