url stringlengths 19 730 | title stringlengths 3 700 | text stringlengths 0 130k |
|---|---|---|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefano_Ludovico_Straneo | Stefano Ludovico Straneo | Stefano Ludovico Straneo (also Lodovico) (Turin, 6 June 1902 – Milan, 9 December 1997) was an Italian entomologist, teacher, academic administrator and author.
Straneo's primary fields of interest were the beetles (Coleoptera), in particular the family of ground beetles (Carabidae, tribe Pterostichinae). He described 64 new genera and almost 1,200 new species. His collection, Coleoptera: Carabidae and Paussidae, is on display at the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano.
Straneo's father was a theoretical physicist and an acquaintance of Albert Einstein. He showed an early interest in biology and began collecting insects, eventually focusing on carabid beetles. He published his first paper in 1933 and 238 more until 1995. He received the Italian Golden Medal for Distinguished Educator in Culture And Art in 1972.
== Works ==
1984 - Two new species or Pterostichini (Coleoptera, Carabidae) in the collections of the Museum of Natural History of the Humboldt University of Berlin.
1984 - Un nuovo genere del Camerun della tribù Pterostichini (Coleoptera Carabidae).
1983 - Nuovi pterostichini asiatici (Coleoptera, Carabidae).
1984 - Un nuovo Pterostichus dell'Anatolia occidentale (Col., Carabidae).
1984 - Sul genere Amolopsa Beach (Coleoptera Carabidae). |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Sea#Deepest_point | Solomon Sea#Deepest point | The Solomon Sea is a sea located within the Pacific Ocean. It lies between Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. Many major battles were fought there during World War II.
== Extent ==
The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Solomon Sea as follows:
On the Northwest. By the Southeast limit of Bismarck Sea [A line from the Southern point of New Ireland along the parallel of 4°50' South to the coast of New Britain, along its Northern coast and thence a line from its Western extreme through the Northern point of Umboi Island to Teliata Point, New Guinea (5°55′S 147°24′E)].
On the Northeast. By a line from the Southern point of New Ireland to the North point of Buka Island, through this island to the Northwest point of Bougainville Island, along the Southern coasts of Bougainville, Choisel [Choiseul], Ysabel [Santa Isabel], Malaita and San Cristobal [Makira] Islands.
On the South. The Northern limit of the Coral Sea between San Cristobal Island, the Solomon Islands, and Gado-Gadoa Island, off the Southeast extreme of New Guinea [Gado-Gadoa Island near its Southeastern extreme (10°38′S 150°34′E), down this meridian to the 100-fathom [600 ft; 183 m] line and thence along the Southern edges of Uluma (Suckling) Reef and those extending to the Eastward as far as the Southeast point of Lawik Reef (11°43.5′S 153°56.5′E) off Tagula Island [Vanatinai], thence a line to the Southern extreme of Rennell Island and from its Eastern point to Cape Surville, the Eastern extreme of San Cristobal Island].
On the Southwest. By the coast of New Guinea and a line from its Southeasternmost point through the Louisiade Archipelago to Rossel Island.
== Etymology ==
The Solomon Sea is named after the Solomon Islands. These islands received their name "Islas Salomón" from the legend of the biblical land of Ophir — fabled as the source of King Solomon's wealth which was hoped to be discovered, in the first 1568 voyage by their discoverer Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira. They were so named after his voyage when it was mapped.
== Deepest point ==
The Solomon Sea roughly corresponds with the Solomon Sea Plate, a tectonic feature, and includes the New Britain Trench, in the New Britain subduction zone, which reaches its maximum depth at 29,988 feet (9,140 m) below sea level in the Planet Deep. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley | Aleister Crowley | Aleister Crowley (; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, novelist, mountaineer, and painter. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the prophet entrusted with guiding humanity into the Æon of Horus in the early 20th century. A prolific writer, he published widely over the course of his life.
Born to a wealthy family in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, Crowley rejected his parents' fundamentalist Christian Plymouth Brethren faith to pursue an interest in Western esotericism. He was educated at Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, where he focused his attention upon mountaineering and poetry, resulting in several publications. Some biographers allege that here he was recruited into a British intelligence agency, further suggesting that he remained a spy throughout his life. In 1898, he joined the esoteric Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, where he was trained in ceremonial magic by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers and Allan Bennett. He went mountaineering in Mexico with Oscar Eckenstein, before studying Hindu and Buddhist practices in India. In 1904, he married Rose Edith Kelly, and they honeymooned in Cairo, Egypt, where Crowley wrote down The Book of the Law—a sacred text that serves as the basis for Thelema, which he said had been dictated to him by a supernatural entity named Aiwass. The Book announced the start of the Æon of Horus and declared that its followers should "Do what thou wilt": seek to align themselves with their True Will via the practice of ceremonial magic.
After the unsuccessful 1905 Kanchenjunga expedition and a visit to India and China, Crowley returned to Britain, where he attracted attention as a prolific author of poetry, novels, and occult literature. In 1907, he and George Cecil Jones co-founded an esoteric order—the A∴A∴, through which they propagated Thelema. After spending time in Algeria, in 1912 he was initiated into another esoteric order, the German-based Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.); he rose to become the leader of its British branch, which he reformulated in accordance with Thelema. Through O.T.O., Thelemite groups were established in Britain, Australia, and North America. Crowley spent the First World War in the United States, where he took up painting, and campaigned for the German war effort against Britain. His biographers later revealed that he had infiltrated the pro-German movement to assist the British intelligence services. In 1920, he established the Abbey of Thelema, a religious commune in Cefalù, Sicily, where he lived with various followers. His libertine lifestyle led to denunciations in the British press, and the Italian government evicted him in 1923. He divided the following two decades between France, Germany, and England, and continued to promote Thelema until his death.
Crowley gained widespread notoriety during his lifetime, being a drug user, a bisexual, and an individualist social critic. Crowley has remained a highly influential figure over western esotericism and the counterculture of the 1960s, and he continues to be considered a prophet in Thelema. He is the subject of various biographies and academic studies.
== Early life ==
=== Youth ===
Crowley was born Edward Alexander Crowley at 30 Clarendon Square in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England, on 12 October 1875. His father, Edward Crowley (1829–1887), was trained as an engineer, but his share in a lucrative family brewing business, Crowley's Alton Ales, allowed him to retire before his son was born. His mother, Emily Bertha Bishop (1848–1917), came from a Devonshire-Somerset family and had a strained relationship with her son; she described him as "the Beast", a name that he revelled in. The couple had been married at London's Kensington Registry Office in November 1874, and were evangelical Christians. Crowley's father was born a Quaker, but converted to the Exclusive Brethren, a faction of a Christian fundamentalist group known as the Plymouth Brethren; Emily likewise converted upon marriage. Crowley's father was particularly devout, spending his time as a travelling preacher for the sect and reading a chapter from the Bible to his wife and son after breakfast every day. Following the death of their baby daughter in 1880, in 1881 the Crowleys moved to Redhill, Surrey. At the age of 8, Crowley was sent to H. T. Habershon's evangelical Christian boarding school in Hastings, and then to Ebor preparatory school in Cambridge, run by the Reverend Henry d'Arcy Champney, whom Crowley considered a sadist.
In March 1887, when Crowley was eleven years old, his father died of tongue cancer. Crowley described this as a turning point in his life, and he always maintained an admiration of his father, describing him as "my hero and my friend". Inheriting a third of his father's wealth, he began misbehaving at school and was harshly punished by Champney; Crowley's family removed him from the school when he developed albuminuria. He then attended Malvern College and Tonbridge School, both of which he despised and left after a few terms. He became increasingly sceptical of Christianity, pointing out Biblical inconsistencies to his religious teachers, and went against the Christian morality of his upbringing by smoking, masturbating, and having sex with prostitutes from whom he contracted gonorrhea. Sent to live with a Brethren tutor in Eastbourne, he undertook chemistry courses at Eastbourne College. Crowley developed interests in chess, poetry, and mountain climbing, and in 1894 climbed Beachy Head before visiting the Alps and joining the Scottish Mountaineering Club. The following year he returned to the Bernese Alps, climbing the Eiger, Trift, Jungfrau, Mönch, and Wetterhorn.
=== Cambridge University: 1895–1898 ===
Having adopted the name of Aleister over Edward, in October 1895 Crowley began a three-year course at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was entered for the Moral Science Tripos studying philosophy. With approval from his personal tutor, he changed to English literature, which was not then part of the curriculum offered. Crowley spent much of his time at university engaged in his pastimes, becoming president of the chess club and practising the game for two hours a day; he briefly considered a professional career as a chess player. Crowley also embraced his love of literature and poetry, particularly the works of Richard Francis Burton and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Many of his own poems appeared in student publications such as The Granta, Cambridge Magazine, and Cantab. He continued his mountaineering, going on holiday to the Alps to climb every year from 1894 to 1898, often with his friend Oscar Eckenstein, and in 1897 he made the first ascent of the Mönch without a guide. These feats led to his recognition in the Alpine mountaineering community.
Crowley had his first significant mystical experience while on holiday in Stockholm in December 1896. Several biographers, including Lawrence Sutin, Richard Kaczynski, and Tobias Churton, believed that this was the result of Crowley's first same-sex sexual experience, which enabled him to recognize his bisexuality. At Cambridge, Crowley maintained a vigorous sex life with women—largely with female prostitutes, from one of whom he caught syphilis—but eventually he took part in same-sex activities, despite their illegality. In October 1897, Crowley met Herbert Charles Pollitt, president of the Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club, and the two entered into a relationship. They broke apart because Pollitt did not share Crowley's increasing interest in Western esotericism, a break-up that Crowley regretted for many years.
In 1897, Crowley travelled to Saint Petersburg, Russia, later saying that he was trying to learn Russian, because he was considering a future diplomatic career there. In October 1897, a brief illness triggered considerations of mortality and "the futility of all human endeavour", and he abandoned all thoughts of a diplomatic career in favour of pursuing an interest in the occult.
In March 1898, he obtained A. E. Waite's The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts and Karl von Eckartshausen's The Cloud upon the Sanctuary, furthering his occult interests. That same year, Leonard Smithers, a publisher who Crowley met through Pollitt, published 100 copies of Crowley's poem Aceldama: A Place to Bury Strangers In, but it was not a particular success. That same year, Crowley published a string of other poems, including White Stains, a Decadent collection of erotic poetry that was printed abroad lest its publication be prohibited by the British authorities. In July 1898, he left Cambridge without a degree, despite a "first class" showing in his 1897 exams and consistent "second class honours" results before that.
=== The Golden Dawn: 1898–1899 ===
In August 1898, Crowley was in Zermatt, Switzerland, where he met the chemist Julian L. Baker, and the two began discussing their common interest in alchemy. Back in London, Baker introduced Crowley to George Cecil Jones, Baker's brother-in-law and a fellow member of the occult society known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which was founded in 1888. Crowley was initiated into the Outer Order of the Golden Dawn on 18 November 1898 by the group's leader, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers. The ceremony took place in the Golden Dawn's Isis-Urania Temple held at London's Mark Masons Hall, where Crowley took the magical motto and name "Frater Perdurabo", which he interpreted as "Brother I shall endure to the end".
Crowley moved into his own luxury flat at 67–69 Chancery Lane and soon invited a senior Golden Dawn member, Allan Bennett, to live with him as his personal magical tutor. Bennett taught Crowley more about ceremonial magic and the ritual use of drugs, and together they performed the rituals of the Goetia, until Bennett left for South Asia to study Buddhism. In November 1899, Crowley purchased Boleskine House in Foyers on the shore of Loch Ness in Scotland. He developed a love of Scottish culture, describing himself as the "Laird of Boleskine", and took to wearing traditional highland dress even during visits to London. He continued writing poetry, publishing Jezebel and Other Tragic Poems, Tales of Archais, Songs of the Spirit, Appeal to the American Republic, and Jephthah in 1898–99; most gained mixed reviews from literary critics, although Jephthah was considered a particular critical success.
Crowley soon progressed through the lower grades of the Golden Dawn, and was ready to enter the group's inner Second Order. He was unpopular in the group; his bisexuality and libertine lifestyle gained him a bad reputation, and he developed feuds with some of the members, including W. B. Yeats. When the Golden Dawn's London lodge refused to initiate Crowley into the Second Order, he visited Mathers in Paris, who personally admitted him into the Adeptus Minor Grade. A schism had developed between Mathers and the London members of the Golden Dawn, who were unhappy with his autocratic rule. Acting under Mathers' orders, Crowley—with the help of his mistress and fellow initiate Elaine Simpson—attempted to seize the Vault of the Adepts, a temple space at 36 Blythe Road in West Kensington, from the London lodge members. When the case was taken to court, the judge ruled in favour of the London lodge, as they had paid for the space's rent, leaving both Crowley and Mathers isolated from the group.
=== Mexico, India, Paris, and marriage: 1900–1903 ===
In 1900, Crowley travelled to Mexico via the United States, settling in Mexico City and starting a relationship with a local woman. Developing a love of the country, he continued experimenting with ceremonial magic, working with John Dee's Enochian invocations. He later said he had been initiated into Freemasonry while there, and he wrote a play based on Richard Wagner's opera Tannhäuser as well as a series of poems published as Oracles (1905). Eckenstein joined him later in 1900, and together they climbed several mountains, including Iztaccihuatl, Popocatepetl, and Colima, the latter of which they had to abandon owing to a volcanic eruption. Leaving Mexico, Crowley headed to San Francisco before sailing for Hawaii aboard the Nippon Maru. On the ship, he had a brief affair with a married woman named Mary Alice Rogers; saying he fell in love with her, he wrote a series of poems about the romance, published as Alice: An Adultery (1903).
Briefly stopping in Japan and Hong Kong, Crowley reached Ceylon, where he met with Allan Bennett, who was there studying Shaivism. The pair spent some time in Kandy before Bennett decided to become a Buddhist monk in the Theravada tradition, travelling to Burma to do so. Crowley decided to tour India, devoting himself to the Hindu practice of Rāja yoga, by which means he believed he had achieved the spiritual state of dhyana. He spent much of this time studying at the Meenakshi Temple in Madura. At this time he also wrote poetry which was published as The Sword of Song (1904). He contracted malaria, and had to recuperate from the disease in Calcutta and Rangoon. In 1902, he was joined in India by Eckenstein and several other mountaineers: Guy Knowles, H. Pfannl, V. Wesseley, and Jules Jacot-Guillarmod. Together, the Eckenstein-Crowley expedition attempted K2, which was never climbed before. On the journey, Crowley was afflicted with influenza, malaria, and snow blindness, and other expedition members were also struck with illness. They reached an altitude of 20,000 feet (6,100 m) before turning back.
Having arrived in Paris in November 1902, he socialized with his friend the painter Gerald Kelly, and through him became a fixture of the Parisian arts scene. Whilst there, Crowley wrote a series of poems on the work of an acquaintance, the sculptor Auguste Rodin. These poems were later published as Rodin in Rime (1907). One of those frequenting this milieu was W. Somerset Maugham, who after briefly meeting Crowley later used him as a model for the character of Oliver Haddo in his novel The Magician (1908). He returned to Boleskine in April 1903. In August, Crowley wed Gerald Kelly's sister Rose Edith Kelly in a "marriage of convenience" to prevent her from entering an arranged marriage; the marriage appalled the Kelly family and damaged his friendship with Gerald. Heading on a honeymoon to Paris, Cairo, and then Ceylon, Crowley fell in love with Rose and worked to prove his affections. While on his honeymoon, he wrote her a series of love poems, published as Rosa Mundi and other Love Songs (1906), as well as authoring the religious satire Why Jesus Wept (1904).
== Developing Thelema ==
=== Egypt and The Book of the Law: 1904 ===
In February 1904, Crowley and Rose arrived in Cairo. Pretending to be a prince and princess, they rented an apartment in which Crowley set up a temple room and began invoking ancient Egyptian deities, while studying Islamic mysticism and Arabic. According to Crowley's later account, Rose regularly became delirious and informed him "they are waiting for you." On 18 March, she explained that "they" were the god Horus, and on 20 March proclaimed that "the Equinox of the Gods has come". She led him to a nearby museum, where she showed him a seventh-century BCE mortuary stele known as the Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu; Crowley thought it important that the exhibit's number was 666, the Number of the Beast in Christian belief, and in later years termed the artefact the "Stele of Revealing".
According to Crowley's later statements, on 8 April he heard a disembodied voice identifying itself as that of Aiwass, the messenger of Horus, or Hoor-Paar-Kraat. Crowley said that he wrote down everything the voice told him over the course of the next three days, and titled it Liber AL vel Legis or The Book of the Law. The book proclaimed that humanity was entering a new Aeon, and that Crowley would serve as its prophet. It stated that a supreme moral law was to be introduced in this Aeon, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law," and that people should learn to live in tune with their Will. This book, and the philosophy that it espoused, became the cornerstone of Thelema. Crowley said that at the time he was unsure what to do with The Book of the Law. Often resenting it, he said that he ignored the instructions which the text commanded him to perform, which included taking the Stele of Revealing from the museum, fortifying his own island, and translating the book into all the world's languages. According to his account, he instead sent typescripts of the work to several occultists he knew, putting the manuscript away and ignoring it.
=== Kanchenjunga and China: 1905–1906 ===
Returning to Boleskine, Crowley came to believe that Mathers was using magic against him, and the relationship between the two broke down. On 28 July 1905, Rose gave birth to Crowley's first child, a daughter named Lilith, and Crowley wrote the pornographic Snowdrops from a Curate's Garden to entertain his recuperating wife. He also founded a publishing company through which to publish his poetry, naming it the Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth in parody of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Among its first publications were Crowley's Collected Works, edited by Ivor Back, an old friend of Crowley's who was both a practicing surgeon and an enthusiast of literature. His poetry often received strong reviews (either positive or negative), but never sold well. In an attempt to gain more publicity, he issued a reward of £100 for the best essay on his work. The winner of this was J. F. C. Fuller, a British Army officer and military historian, whose essay, The Star in the West (1907), heralded Crowley's poetry as some of the greatest ever written.
Crowley decided to climb Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas of Nepal, widely recognised as the world's most treacherous mountain. The collaboration between Jacot-Guillarmod, Charles Adolphe Reymond, Alexis Pache, and Alcesti C. Rigo de Righi, the expedition was marred by much argument between Crowley and the others, who thought that he was reckless. They eventually mutinied against Crowley's control, with the other climbers heading back down the mountain as nightfall approached despite Crowley's warnings that it was too dangerous. Subsequently, Pache and several porters were killed in an accident, something for which Crowley was widely blamed by the mountaineering community.
Spending time in Moharbhanj, where he took part in big-game hunting and wrote the homoerotic work The Scented Garden, Crowley met up with Rose and Lilith in Calcutta before being forced to leave India after non-lethally shooting two men who tried to mug him. Briefly visiting Bennett in Burma, Crowley and his family decided to tour Southern China, hiring porters and a nanny for the purpose. Crowley smoked opium throughout the journey, which took the family from Tengyueh through to Yungchang, Tali, Yunnanfu, and then Hanoi. On the way, he spent much time on spiritual and magical work, reciting the "Bornless Ritual", an invocation to his Holy Guardian Angel, on a daily basis.
While Rose and Lilith returned to Europe, Crowley headed to Shanghai to meet old friend Elaine Simpson, who was fascinated by The Book of the Law; together they performed rituals in an attempt to contact Aiwass. Crowley then sailed to Japan and Canada, before continuing to New York City, where he unsuccessfully solicited support for a second expedition up Kanchenjunga. Upon arrival in Britain, Crowley learned that his daughter Lilith had died of typhoid in Rangoon, something he later blamed on Rose's increasing alcoholism. Under emotional distress, his health began to suffer, and he underwent a series of surgical operations. He began short-lived romances with actress Vera "Lola" Neville (née Snepp) and author Ada Leverson, while Rose gave birth to Crowley's second daughter. Lola Zaza was born in 1906: either in late summer or in September or in the following winter. The child contracted bronchitis and almost died.
=== The A∴A∴ and The Holy Books of Thelema: 1907–1909 ===
With his old mentor George Cecil Jones, Crowley continued performing the Abramelin rituals at the Ashdown Park Hotel in Coulsdon, Surrey. Crowley believed that in doing so he attained samadhi, or union with the Godhead, thereby marking a turning point in his life. Making heavy use of hashish during these rituals, he wrote an essay on "The Psychology of Hashish" (1909) in which he championed the drug as an aid to mysticism. He also said he had been contacted once again by Aiwass in late October and November 1907, adding that Aiwass dictated two further texts to him, "Liber VII" and "Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente", both of which were later classified in the corpus of The Holy Books of Thelema. Crowley wrote down more Thelemic Holy Books during the last two months of the year, including "Liber LXVI", "Liber Arcanorum", "Liber Porta Lucis, Sub Figura X", "Liber Tau", "Liber Trigrammaton" and "Liber DCCCXIII vel Ararita", which he again said he had received from a preternatural source. Crowley stated that in June 1909, when the manuscript of The Book of the Law was rediscovered at Boleskine, he developed the opinion that Thelema represented objective truth.
Crowley's inheritance was running out. Trying to earn money, he was hired by George Montagu Bennett, the Earl of Tankerville, to help protect him from witchcraft; recognising Bennett's paranoia as being based in his cocaine addiction, Crowley took him on holiday to France and Morocco to recuperate. In 1907, he also began taking in paying students, whom he instructed in occult and magical practice. Victor Neuburg, whom Crowley met in February 1907, became his sexual partner and closest disciple; in 1908 the pair toured northern Spain before heading to Tangier, Morocco. The following year Neuburg stayed at Boleskine, where he and Crowley engaged in sadomasochism. Crowley continued to write prolifically, producing such works of poetry as Ambergris, Clouds Without Water, and Konx Om Pax, as well as his first attempt at an autobiography, The World's Tragedy. Recognizing the popularity of short horror stories, Crowley wrote his own, some of which were published, and he also published several articles in Vanity Fair, a magazine edited by his friend Frank Harris. He also wrote Liber 777, a book of magical and Qabalistic correspondences that borrowed from Mathers and Bennett.
In November 1907, Crowley and Jones decided to found an occult order to act as a successor to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, being aided in doing so by Fuller. The result was the A∴A∴. The group's headquarters and temple were situated at 124 Victoria Street in central London, and their rites borrowed much from those of the Golden Dawn, but with an added Thelemic basis. Its earliest members included solicitor Richard Noel Warren, artist Austin Osman Spare, Horace Sheridan-Bickers, author George Raffalovich, Francis Henry Everard Joseph Feilding, engineer Herbert Edward Inman, Kenneth Ward, and Charles Stansfeld Jones. In March 1909, Crowley began production of a biannual periodical titled The Equinox. He billed this periodical, which was to become the "Official Organ" of the A∴A∴, as "The Review of Scientific Illuminism".
Crowley became increasingly frustrated with Rose's alcoholism, and in November 1909 he divorced her on the grounds of his own adultery. Lola was entrusted to Rose's care; the couple remained friends and Rose continued to live at Boleskine. Her alcoholism worsened, and as a result she was institutionalized in September 1911.
=== Algeria and the Rites of Eleusis: 1909–1911 ===
In November 1909, Crowley and Neuburg travelled to Algeria, touring the desert from El Arba to Aumale, Bou Saâda, and then Dā'leh Addin, with Crowley reciting the Quran to fortify himself against growing feelings of awe and dread. During the trip he invoked the thirty aethyrs of Enochian magic, with Neuburg recording the results, later published in The Equinox as The Vision and the Voice. Following a mountaintop sex magic ritual, Crowley also performed an evocation to the demon Choronzon involving blood sacrifice, and considered the results to be a watershed in his magical career. Returning to London in January 1910, Crowley found that Mathers was suing him for publishing Golden Dawn secrets in The Equinox; the court found in favour of Crowley. The case was widely reported in the press, with Crowley gaining wider fame. Crowley enjoyed this, and played up to the sensationalist stereotype of being a Satanist and advocate of human sacrifice, despite being neither.
The publicity attracted new members to the A∴A∴, among them Frank Bennett, James Bayley, Herbert Close, and James Windram. The Australian violinist Leila Waddell soon became Crowley's lover. Deciding to expand his teachings to a wider audience, Crowley developed the Rites of Artemis, a public performance of magic and symbolism featuring A∴A∴ members personifying various deities. It was first performed at the A∴A∴ headquarters, with attendees given a fruit punch containing peyote to enhance their experience. Various members of the press attended, and reported largely positively on it. In October and November 1910, Crowley decided to stage something similar, the Rites of Eleusis, at Caxton Hall, Westminster; this time press reviews were mixed. Crowley came under particular criticism from West de Wend Fenton, editor of The Looking Glass newspaper, who called him "one of the most blasphemous and cold-blooded villains of modern times". Fenton's articles suggested that Crowley and Jones were involved in homosexual activity; Crowley did not mind, but Jones unsuccessfully sued for libel. Fuller broke off his friendship and involvement with Crowley over the scandal, and Crowley and Neuburg returned to Algeria for further magical workings.
The Equinox continued publishing, and various books of literature and poetry were also published under its imprint, like Crowley's Ambergris, The Winged Beetle, and The Scented Garden, as well as Neuburg's The Triumph of Pan and Ethel Archer's The Whirlpool. In 1911, Crowley and Waddell holidayed in Montigny-sur-Loing, where he wrote prolifically, producing poems, short stories, plays, and 19 works on magic and mysticism, including the two final Holy Books of Thelema. In Paris, he met Mary Desti, who became his next "Scarlet Woman", with the two undertaking magical workings in St. Moritz; Crowley believed that one of the Secret Chiefs, Ab-ul-Diz, was speaking through her. Based on Desti's statements when in trance, Crowley wrote the two-volume Book 4 (1912–13) and at the time developed the spelling "magick" in reference to the paranormal phenomenon as a means of distinguishing it from the stage magic of illusionists.
=== Ordo Templi Orientis and the Paris Working: 1912–1914 ===
In early 1912, Crowley published The Book of Lies, a work of mysticism that biographer Lawrence Sutin described as "his greatest success in merging his talents as poet, scholar, and magus". The German occultist Theodor Reuss later accused him of publishing some of the secrets of his own occult order, Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), within The Book. Crowley convinced Reuss that the similarities were coincidental, and the two became friends. Reuss appointed Crowley as head of O.T.O's British branch, the Mysteria Mystica Maxima (MMM), and at a ceremony in Berlin Crowley adopted the magical name of Baphomet and was proclaimed "X° Supreme Rex and Sovereign Grand Master General of Ireland, Iona, and all the Britons". With Reuss' permission, Crowley set about advertising the MMM and re-writing many O.T.O. rituals, which were then based largely on Freemasonry; his incorporation of Thelemite elements proved controversial in the group. Fascinated by O.T.O's emphasis on sex magic, Crowley devised a magical working based on anal sex and incorporated it into the syllabus for those O.T.O. members who were initiated into the eleventh degree.
In March 1913, Crowley acted as producer for The Ragged Ragtime Girls, a group of female violinists led by Waddell, as they performed at London's Old Tivoli theatre. They subsequently performed in Moscow for six weeks, where Crowley had a sadomasochistic relationship with the Hungarian Anny Ringler. In Moscow, Crowley continued to write plays and poetry, including "Hymn to Pan", and the Gnostic Mass, a Thelemic ritual that became a key part of O.T.O. liturgy. Churton suggested that Crowley had travelled to Moscow on the orders of British intelligence to spy on revolutionary elements in the city. In January 1914, Crowley and Neuburg settled into an apartment in Paris, where the former was involved in the controversy surrounding Jacob Epstein's new monument to Oscar Wilde. Together Crowley and Neuburg performed the six-week "Paris Working", a period of intense ritual involving strong drug use in which they invoked the gods Mercury and Jupiter. As part of the ritual, the couple performed acts of sex magic together, at times being joined by journalist Walter Duranty. Inspired by the results of the Working, Crowley wrote Liber Agapé, a treatise on sex magic. Following the Paris Working, Neuburg began to distance himself from Crowley, resulting in an argument in which Crowley cursed him.
=== United States: 1914–1919 ===
By 1914, Crowley was living a hand-to-mouth existence, relying largely on donations from A∴A∴ members and dues payments made to O.T.O. In May, he transferred ownership of Boleskine House to the MMM for financial reasons, and in July he went mountaineering in the Swiss Alps. During this time the First World War broke out. After recuperating from a bout of phlebitis, Crowley set sail for the United States aboard the RMS Lusitania in October 1914. Arriving in New York City, he moved into a hotel and began earning money writing for the American edition of Vanity Fair and undertaking freelance work for the famed astrologer Evangeline Adams. In the city, he continued experimenting with sex magic, through the use of masturbation, female prostitutes, and male clients of a Turkish bathhouse; all of these encounters were documented in his diaries.
Professing to be of Irish ancestry and a supporter of Irish independence from Great Britain, Crowley began to espouse support for Germany in their war against Britain. He became involved in New York's pro-German movement, and in January 1915 pro-German propagandist George Sylvester Viereck employed him as a writer for his propagandist paper, The Fatherland, which was dedicated to keeping the US neutral in the conflict. In later years, detractors denounced Crowley as a traitor to Britain for this action.
Crowley entered into a relationship with Jeanne Robert Foster, with whom he toured the West Coast. In Vancouver, headquarters of the North American O.T.O., he met with Charles Stansfeld Jones and Wilfred Talbot Smith to discuss the propagation of Thelema on the continent. In Detroit he experimented with peyote at Parke-Davis, then visited Seattle, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Los Angeles, San Diego, Tijuana, and the Grand Canyon, before returning to New York. There he befriended Ananda Coomaraswamy and his wife Alice Richardson; Crowley and Richardson performed sex magic in April 1916, following which she became pregnant and then miscarried. Later that year he took a "magical retirement" to a cabin by Lake Pasquaney owned by Evangeline Adams. There, he made heavy use of drugs and undertook a ritual after which he proclaimed himself "Master Therion". He also wrote several short stories based on James George Frazer's The Golden Bough and a work of literary criticism, The Gospel According to Bernard Shaw.
In December, he moved to New Orleans, his favourite US city, before spending February 1917 with evangelical Christian relatives in Titusville, Florida. Returning to New York City, he moved in with artist and A∴A∴ member Leon Engers Kennedy in May, learning of his mother's death. After the collapse of The Fatherland, Crowley continued his association with Viereck, who appointed him contributing editor of arts journal The International. Crowley used it to promote Thelema, but it soon ceased publication. He then moved to the studio apartment of Roddie Minor, who became his partner and Scarlet Woman. Through their rituals, which Crowley called "The Amalantrah Workings", he believed that they were contacted by a preternatural entity named Lam. The relationship soon ended.
In 1918, Crowley went on a magical retreat in the wilderness of Esopus Island on the Hudson River in upstate New York. Here, he began an adaptation of the Tao Te Ching, painted Thelemic slogans on the riverside cliffs, and—he later wrote—experienced past life memories of being Ge Xuan, Pope Alexander VI, Alessandro Cagliostro, and Éliphas Lévi. Back in New York City, he moved to Greenwich Village, where he took Leah Hirsig as his lover and next Scarlet Woman. He took up painting as a hobby, exhibiting his work at the Greenwich Village Liberal Club and attracting the attention of The Evening World. With the financial assistance of sympathetic Freemasons, Crowley revived The Equinox with the first issue of volume III, known as The Blue Equinox. He spent mid-1919 on a climbing holiday in Montauk, New York, before returning to London in December.
=== Abbey of Thelema: 1920–1923 ===
Now destitute and back in London, Crowley came under attack from the tabloid John Bull, which labelled him traitorous "scum" for his work with the German war effort; several friends aware of his intelligence work urged him to sue, but he decided not to. When he was suffering from asthma, a doctor prescribed him heroin, to which he soon became addicted. In January 1920, he moved to Paris, renting a house in Fontainebleau with Leah Hirsig; they were soon joined in a ménage à trois by Ninette Shumway, and also (in living arrangement) by Leah's newborn daughter Anne "Poupée" Leah. Crowley had ideas of forming a community of Thelemites, which he called the Abbey of Thelema after the Abbaye de Thélème in François Rabelais' satire Gargantua and Pantagruel. After consulting the I Ching, he chose Cefalù in Sicily as a location, and after arriving there, began renting the old Villa Santa Barbara as his Abbey on 2 April.
Moving to the commune with Hirsig, Shumway, and their children Hansi, Howard, and Poupée, Crowley described the scenario as "perfectly happy ... my idea of heaven." They wore robes, and performed rituals to the sun god Ra at set times during the day, also occasionally performing the Gnostic Mass; the rest of the day they were left to follow their own interests. Undertaking widespread correspondences, Crowley continued to paint, wrote a commentary on The Book of the Law, and revised the third part of Book 4. He offered a libertine education for the children, allowing them to play all day and witness acts of sex magic. He occasionally travelled to Palermo to visit rent boys and buy supplies, including drugs; his heroin addiction came to dominate his life, and cocaine began to erode his nasal cavity. There was no cleaning rota, and wild dogs and cats wandered throughout the building, which soon became unsanitary. Poupée died in October 1920, and Ninette gave birth to a daughter, Astarte Lulu Panthea, soon afterwards.
New followers continued to arrive at the Abbey to be taught by Crowley. Among them was film star Jane Wolfe, who arrived in July 1920, where she was initiated into the A∴A∴ and became Crowley's secretary. Another was Cecil Frederick Russell, who often argued with Crowley, disliking the same-sex sexual magic that he was required to perform, and left after a year. More conducive was the Australian Thelemite Frank Bennett, who also spent several months at the Abbey. In February 1922, Crowley returned to Paris for a retreat in an unsuccessful attempt to kick his heroin addiction. He then went to London in search of money, where he published articles in The English Review criticising the Dangerous Drugs Act 1920 and wrote a novel, The Diary of a Drug Fiend, completed in July. On publication, it received mixed reviews; he was lambasted by the Sunday Express, which called for its burning and used its influence to prevent further reprints.
Subsequently, a young Thelemite named Raoul Loveday moved to the Abbey with his wife Betty May; while Loveday was devoted to Crowley, May detested him and life at the commune. She later said that Loveday was made to drink the blood of a sacrificed cat, and that they were required to cut themselves with razors every time they used the pronoun "I". Loveday drank from a local polluted stream, soon developing a liver infection resulting in his death in February 1923. Returning to London, May told her story to the press. John Bull proclaimed Crowley "the wickedest man in the world" and "a man we'd like to hang", and although Crowley deemed many of their accusations against him to be slanderous, he was unable to afford the legal fees to sue them. As a result, John Bull continued its attack, with its stories being repeated in newspapers throughout Europe and in North America. The Fascist government of Benito Mussolini learned of Crowley's activities, and in April 1923 he was given a deportation notice forcing him to leave Italy; without him, the Abbey closed.
== Later life ==
=== Tunisia, Paris, and London: 1923–1929 ===
Crowley and Hirsig went to Tunis, where, dogged by continuing poor health, he unsuccessfully tried again to give up heroin, and began writing what he termed his "autohagiography", The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. They were joined in Tunis by the Thelemite Norman Mudd, who became Crowley's public relations consultant. Employing a local boy, Mohammad ben Brahim, as his servant, Crowley went with him on a retreat to Nefta, where they performed sex magic together. In January 1924, Crowley travelled to Nice, France, where he met with Frank Harris, underwent a series of nasal operations, and visited the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man, developing a positive opinion of its founder George Gurdjieff. Destitute, he took on a wealthy student, Alexander Zu Zolar, before taking on another American follower, Dorothy Olsen. Crowley took Olsen back to Tunisia for a magical retreat in Nefta, where he also wrote To Man (1924), a declaration of his own status as a prophet entrusted with bringing Thelema to humanity. After spending the winter in Paris, in early 1925 Crowley and Olsen returned to Tunis, where he wrote The Heart of the Master (1938) as an account of a vision he experienced in a trance. In March Olsen became pregnant, and Hirsig was called to take care of her; she miscarried, following which Crowley took Olsen back to France. Hirsig later distanced herself from Crowley, who then denounced her.
According to Crowley, Reuss named him head of O.T.O. upon his death, but this was challenged by a leader of the German O.T.O., Heinrich Tränker. Tränker called the Hohenleuben Conference in Thuringia, Germany, which Crowley attended. There, prominent members like Karl Germer and Martha Küntzel championed Crowley's leadership, but other key figures like Albin Grau, Oskar Hopfer, and Henri Birven backed Tränker by opposing it, resulting in a split in O.T.O. Moving to Paris, where he broke with Olsen in 1926, Crowley went through a large number of lovers over the following years, with whom he experimented in sex magic. Throughout, he was dogged by poor health, largely caused by his heroin and cocaine addictions. In 1928, Crowley was introduced to Israel Regardie, a young Englishman, who embraced Thelema and became Crowley's secretary for the next three years. That year, Crowley also met Gerald Yorke, who began organising Crowley's finances but never became a Thelemite. He also befriended the journalist Tom Driberg; Driberg did not accept Thelema either. It was here that Crowley also published one of his most significant works, Magick in Theory and Practice, which received little attention at the time.
In December 1928 Crowley met the Nicaraguan Maria Teresa Sanchez (Maria Teresa Ferrari de Miramar). Crowley was deported from France by the authorities, who disliked his reputation and feared that he was a German agent. So that she could join him in Britain, Crowley married Sanchez in August 1929. Now based in London, Mandrake Press agreed to publish his autobiography in a limited edition six-volume set, also publishing his novel Moonchild and book of short stories The Stratagem. Mandrake went into liquidation in November 1930, before the entirety of Crowley's Confessions could be published. Mandrake's owner P. R. Stephensen meanwhile wrote The Legend of Aleister Crowley, an analysis of the media coverage surrounding him.
=== Berlin and London: 1930–1938 ===
In April 1930, Crowley moved to Berlin, where he took Hanni Jaegar as his magical partner; the relationship was troubled. In September he went to Lisbon in Portugal to meet the poet Fernando Pessoa. There, he decided to fake his own death, doing so with Pessoa's help at the Boca do Inferno rock formation. He then returned to Berlin, where he reappeared three weeks later at the opening of his art exhibition at the Gallery Neumann-Nierendorf. Crowley's paintings fitted with the fashion for German Expressionism; few of them sold, but the press reports were largely favourable. In August 1931, he took Bertha Busch as his new lover; they had a violent relationship, and often physically assaulted one another. He continued to have affairs with both men and women while in the city, and met with famous people like Aldous Huxley and Alfred Adler. After befriending him, in January 1932 he took the communist Gerald Hamilton as a lodger, through whom he was introduced to many figures within the Berlin far left; it is possible that he was operating as a spy for British intelligence at this time, monitoring the communist movement.
Crowley left Busch and returned to London, where he took Pearl Brooksmith as his new Scarlet Woman. Undergoing further nasal surgery, it was here in 1932 that he was invited to be guest of honour at Foyles' Literary Luncheon, also being invited by Harry Price to speak at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research. In need of money, he launched a series of court cases against people whom he believed to have libelled him, some of which proved successful. He gained much publicity for his lawsuit against Constable and Co for publishing Nina Hamnett's Laughing Torso (1932)—a book he alleged libelled him by referring to his occult practice as black magic—but lost the case. The court case added to Crowley's financial problems, and in February 1935 he was declared bankrupt. During the hearing, it was revealed that Crowley was spending three times his income for several years.
Crowley developed a friendship with Deidre Patricia Doherty; she offered to bear his child, who was born in May 1937. Named Randall Gair, Crowley nicknamed him Aleister Atatürk. He died in a car accident in 2002 at the age of 65. Crowley continued to socialize with friends, holding curry parties in which he cooked particularly spicy food for them. In 1936, he published his first book in six years, The Equinox of the Gods, which contained a facsimile of The Book of the Law and was considered to be volume III, number 3, of The Equinox periodical. The work sold well, resulting in a second print run. In 1937, he gave a series of public lectures on yoga in Soho. Crowley was now living largely off contributions supplied by O.T.O.'s Agape Lodge in California, led by rocket scientist Jack Parsons. Crowley was intrigued by the rise of Nazism in Germany, and influenced by his friend Martha Küntzel believed that Adolf Hitler might convert to Thelema; when the Nazis abolished the German O.T.O. and imprisoned Germer, who fled to the US, Crowley then lambasted Hitler as a black magician.
=== Second World War and death: 1939–1947 ===
When the Second World War broke out, Crowley wrote to the Naval Intelligence Division offering his services, but they declined. He associated with a variety of figures in Britain's intelligence community at the time, including Dennis Wheatley, Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, and Maxwell Knight, and wrote that he originated the "V for Victory" sign first used by the BBC; this has never been proven. In 1940, his asthma worsened, and with his German-produced medication unavailable, he returned to using heroin, once again becoming addicted. As the Blitz hit London, Crowley relocated to Torquay, where he was briefly admitted to hospital with asthma, and entertained himself with visits to the local chess club. Tiring of Torquay, he returned to London, where he was visited by American Thelemite Grady McMurtry, to whom Crowley awarded the title of "Hymenaeus Alpha". He stipulated that though Germer would be his immediate successor, McMurty should succeed Germer as head of O.T.O. after the latter's death. With O.T.O. initiate Lady Frieda Harris, Crowley developed plans to produce a tarot card set, designed by him and painted by Harris. Accompanying this was a book, published in a limited edition as The Book of Thoth by Chiswick Press in 1944. To aid the war effort, he wrote a proclamation on the rights of humanity, "Liber OZ", and a poem for the liberation of France, La Gauloise. Crowley's final publication during his lifetime was a book of poetry, Olla: An Anthology of Sixty Years of Song. Another of his projects, Aleister Explains Everything, was posthumously published as Magick Without Tears.
In April 1944 Crowley briefly moved to Aston Clinton in Buckinghamshire, where he was visited by the poet Nancy Cunard, before relocating to Hastings in Sussex, where he took up residence at the Netherwood boarding house. He took a young man named Kenneth Grant as his secretary, paying him in magical teaching rather than wages. He was also introduced to John Symonds, whom he appointed to be his literary executor; Symonds thought little of Crowley, later publishing unfavorable biographies of him. Corresponding with the illusionist Arnold Crowther, it was through him that Crowley was introduced to Gerald Gardner, the future founder of Gardnerian Wicca. They became friends, with Crowley authorising Gardner to revive Britain's ailing O.T.O. Another visitor was Eliza Marian Butler, who interviewed Crowley for her book The Myth of the Magus. Other friends and family also spent time with him, among them Doherty and Crowley's son Aleister Atatürk.
On 1 December 1947, Crowley died at Netherwood of chronic bronchitis aggravated by pleurisy and myocardial degeneration, aged 72. His funeral was held at Woodvale Crematorium, Brighton on 5 December; about a dozen people attended, and Louis Wilkinson read excerpts from the Gnostic Mass, The Book of the Law, and "Hymn to Pan". The funeral generated press controversy, and was labelled a Black Mass by the tabloids. Crowley's body was cremated; his ashes were sent to Karl Germer in the US, who buried them in his garden in Hampton, New Jersey.
== Beliefs and thought ==
Crowley's belief system, Thelema, has been described by scholars as a religion, and more specifically as both a new religious movement, and as a "magico-religious doctrine". Although holding The Book of the Law—which was composed in 1904—as its central text, Thelema took shape as a complete system in the years after 1904.
In his autobiography, Crowley wrote that his purpose in life was to "bring oriental wisdom to Europe and to restore paganism in a purer form", although what he meant by "paganism" was unclear. Crowley also wrote in the 4th Book of Magick about a great pagan Umbral fleet ruled by Ottovius that would be handed down to the great Spartan. The esoteric nature of this was also unclear. Crowley's thought was not always cohesive, and was influenced by a variety of sources, ranging from eastern religious movements and practices like Hindu yoga and Buddhism, scientific naturalism, and various currents within Western esotericism, among them ceremonial magic, alchemy, astrology, Rosicrucianism, Kabbalah, and the Tarot. He was steeped in the esoteric teachings he had learned from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, although pushed further with his own interpretations and strategies than the Golden Dawn had done. Crowley incorporated concepts and terminology from South Asian religious traditions like yoga and Tantra into his Thelemic system, believing that there was a fundamental underlying resemblance between Western and Eastern spiritual systems. The historian Alex Owen noted that Crowley adhered to the "modus operandi" of the Decadent movement throughout his life.
Crowley believed that the twentieth century marked humanity's entry to the Aeon of Horus, a new era in which humans would take increasing control of their destiny. He believed that this Aeon follows on from the Aeon of Osiris, in which paternalistic religions like Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism dominated the world, and that this in turn had followed the Aeon of Isis, which was maternalistic and dominated by goddess worship. He believed that Thelema was the proper religion of the Aeon of Horus, and also deemed himself to be the prophet of this new Aeon. Thelema revolves around the idea that human beings each have their own True Will that they should discover and pursue, and that this exists in harmony with the Cosmic Will that pervades the universe. Crowley referred to this process of searching and discovery of one's True Will to be "the Great Work" or the attaining of the "knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel". His favoured method of doing so was through the performance of the Abramelin operation, a ceremonial magic ritual obtained from a 17th-century grimoire. The moral code of "Do What Thou Wilt" is believed by Thelemites to be the religion's ethical law, although the historian of religion Marco Pasi noted that this was not anarchistic or libertarian in structure, as Crowley saw individuals as part of a wider societal organism.
=== Magick and theology ===
Crowley believed in the objective existence of magic, which he chose to spell as "Magick", which is an archaic spelling of the word. He provided various different definitions of this term over his career. In his book Magick in Theory and Practice, Crowley defined Magick as "the Science and Art of causing change to occur in conformity with Will". He also told his disciple Karl Germer that "Magick is getting into communication with individuals who exist on a higher plane than ours. Mysticism is the raising of oneself to their level." Crowley saw Magick as a third way between religion and science, giving The Equinox the subtitle of The Method of Science; the Aim of Religion. Within that journal, he expressed positive sentiments toward science and the scientific method, and urged magicians to keep detailed records of their magical experiments, having said: "The more scientific the record is, the better." His understanding of magic was also influenced by the work of the anthropologist James Frazer, in particular the belief that magic was a precursor to science in a cultural evolutionary framework. Unlike Frazer, however, Crowley did not see magic as a survival from the past that required eradication, but rather he believed that magic had to be adapted to suit the new age of science. In Crowley's alternative schema, old systems of magic had to decline (per Frazer's framework) so that science and magic could synthesize into magick, which would simultaneously accept the existence of the supernatural and an experimental method. Crowley deliberately adopted an exceptionally broad definition of magick that included almost all forms of technology as magick, adopting an instrumentalist definition of magic, science, and technology.
Sexuality played an important role in Crowley's ideas about magick and his practice of it, and has been described as being central to Thelema. He outlined three forms of sex magick—the autoerotic, homosexual, and heterosexual—and argued that such acts could be used to focus the magician's will onto a specific goal such as financial gain or personal creative success. For Crowley, sex was treated as a sacrament, with the consumption of sexual fluids interpreted as a Eucharist. This was often manifested as the Cakes of Light, a biscuit containing either menstrual blood or a mixture of semen and vaginal fluids. The Gnostic Mass is the central religious ceremony within Thelema.
Crowley's theological beliefs were not clear. The historian Ronald Hutton noted that some of Crowley's writings could be used to argue that he was an atheist, while some support the idea that he was a polytheist, and others would bolster the idea that he was a mystical monotheist. On the basis of the teachings in The Book of the Law, Crowley described a pantheon of three deities taken from the ancient Egyptian pantheon: Nuit, Hadit, and Ra-Hoor-Khuit. In 1928, he wrote that all true deities were derived from this trinity. Jason Josephson Storm has argued that Crowley built on 19th-century attempts to link early Christianity to pre-Christian religions, such as Frazer's Golden Bough, to synthesize Christian theology and Neopaganism while remaining critical of institutional and traditional Christianity.
Both during his life and after it, Crowley has been widely described as a Satanist, usually by detractors. Crowley stated he did not consider himself a Satanist, nor did he worship Satan, as he did not accept the Christian world view in which Satan was believed to exist. He nevertheless used Satanic imagery, for instance by describing himself as "the Beast 666" and referring to the Whore of Babylon in his work, while in later life he sent "Antichristmas cards" to his friends. In his writings, Crowley occasionally identified Aiwass as Satan and designated him as "Our Lord God the Devil" at one occasion. The scholar of religion Gordan Djurdjevic stated that Crowley "was emphatically not" a Satanist, "if for no other reason than simply because he did not identify himself as such". Crowley nevertheless expressed strong anti-Christian sentiment, stating that he hated Christianity "as Socialists hate soap", an animosity probably stemming from his experiences among the Plymouth Brethren. He was nevertheless influenced by the King James Bible, especially the Book of Revelation, the impact of which can be seen in his writings. He was also accused of advocating human sacrifice, largely because of a passage in Book 4 in which he stated that "A male child of perfect innocence and high intelligence is the most satisfactory victim" and added that he had sacrificed about 150 every year. This was a tongue-in-cheek reference to ejaculation, something not realized by his critics.
== Image and opinions ==
Crowley considered himself to be one of the outstanding figures of his time. The historian Ronald Hutton stated that in Crowley's youth, he was "a self-indulgent and flamboyant young man" who "set about a deliberate flouting and provocation of social and religious norms", while being shielded from an "outraged public opinion" by his inherited wealth. Hutton also described Crowley as having both an "unappeasable desire" to take control of any organisation that he belonged to, and "a tendency to quarrel savagely" with those who challenged him. Crowley biographer Martin Booth asserted that Crowley was "self-confident, brash, eccentric, egotistic, highly intelligent, arrogant, witty, wealthy, and, when it suited him, cruel". Similarly, Richard B. Spence noted that Crowley was "capable of immense physical and emotional cruelty". Biographer Lawrence Sutin noted that Crowley exhibited "courage, skill, dauntless energy, and remarkable focus of will" while at the same time showing a "blind arrogance, petty fits of bile, [and] contempt for the abilities of his fellow men". The Thelemite Lon Milo DuQuette noted that Crowley "was by no means perfect" and "often alienated those who loved him dearest."
=== Political opinions ===
Crowley enjoyed being outrageous and flouting conventional morality, with John Symonds noting that he "was in revolt against the moral and religious values of his time". Crowley's political thought was studied by the academic Marco Pasi, who noted that for Crowley, socio-political concerns were subordinate to metaphysical and spiritual ones. He was neither on the political left nor right but perhaps best categorized as a "conservative revolutionary" despite not being affiliated with the German-based movement of the same name. Pasi described Crowley's fascination with the extreme ideologies of Nazism and Marxism–Leninism, which aimed to violently overturn society: "What Crowley liked about Nazism and communism, or at least what made him curious about them, was the anti-Christian position and the revolutionary and socially subversive implications of these two movements. In their subversive powers, he saw the possibility of an annihilation of old religious traditions, and the creation of a void that Thelema, subsequently, would be able to fill." Crowley described democracy as an "imbecile and nauseating cult of weakness", and commented that The Book of the Law proclaimed that "there is the master and there is the slave; the noble and the serf; the 'lone wolf' and the herd". In this attitude, he was influenced by Social Darwinism and the work of Friedrich Nietzsche. Although he had contempt for most of the British aristocracy, he regarded himself as an aristocrat and styled himself as Laird Boleskine, once describing his ideology as "aristocratic communism".
Crowley was bisexual, but exhibited a preference for women, with his relationships with men being fewer and mostly in the early part of his life. In particular he was attracted to "exotic women", and said he had fallen in love on multiple occasions; Kaczynski stated that "when he loved, he did so with his whole being, but the passion was typically short-lived". Even in later life, Crowley was able to attract young bohemian women to be his lovers, largely due to his charisma. He applied the term "Scarlet Woman" to various female lovers whom he believed played an important role in his magical work. During homosexual acts, he usually played 'the passive role', which Booth believed "appealed to his masochistic side". An underlying theme in many of his writings is that spiritual enlightenment arises through transgressing socio-sexual norms.
Crowley advocated complete sexual freedom for both men and women. He argued that homosexual and bisexual people should not suppress their sexual orientation, commenting that a person "must not be ashamed or afraid of being homosexual if he happens to be so at heart; he must not attempt to violate his own true nature because of public opinion, or medieval morality, or religious prejudice which would wish he were otherwise." On other issues he adopted a more conservative attitude; he opposed abortion on moral grounds, believing that no woman following her True Will would ever desire one.
Biographer Lawrence Sutin stated that "blatant bigotry is a persistent minor element in Crowley's writings". Sutin thought Crowley "a spoiled scion of a wealthy Victorian family who embodied many of the worst John Bull racial and social prejudices of his upper-class contemporaries", noting that he "embodied the contradiction that writhed within many Western intellectuals of the time: deeply held racist viewpoints courtesy of society, coupled with a fascination with people of colour". Crowley is said to have insulted his close Jewish friend Victor Neuburg, using antisemitic slurs, and he had mixed opinions about Jewish people as a group. Although he praised their "sublime" poetry and stated that they exhibited "imagination, romance, loyalty, probity and humanity", he also thought that centuries of persecution had led some Jewish people to exhibit "avarice, servility, falseness, cunning and the rest". He was also known to praise various ethnic and cultural groups, for instance he thought that the Chinese people exhibited a "spiritual superiority" to the English, and praised Muslims for exhibiting "manliness, straightforwardness, subtlety, and self-respect".
Both critics of Crowley and adherents of Thelema have accused Crowley of sexism. Booth described Crowley as exhibiting a "general misogyny", something the biographer believed arose from Crowley's bad relationship with his mother. Sutin noted that Crowley "largely accepted the notion, implicitly embodied in Victorian sexology, of women as secondary social beings in terms of intellect and sensibility". The scholar of religion Manon Hedenborg White noted that some of Crowley's statements are "undoubtedly misogynist by contemporary standards", but characterized Crowley's attitude toward women as complex and multi-faceted. Crowley's comments on women's role varied dramatically within his written work, even that produced in similar periods. Crowley described women as "moral inferiors" who had to be treated with "firmness, kindness and justice", while also arguing that Thelema was essential to women's emancipation.
== Possible links to intelligence ==
Biographers Richard B. Spence and Tobias Churton have suggested that Crowley was a spy for the British secret services and that among other things he joined the Golden Dawn under their command to monitor the activities of Mathers, who was known to be a Carlist. Spence suggested that the conflict between Mathers and the London lodge for the temple was part of an intelligence operation to undermine Mathers' authority. Spence has suggested that the purpose of Crowley's trip to Mexico might have been to explore Mexican oil prospects for British intelligence. Spence has suggested that his trip to China was orchestrated as part of a British intelligence scheme to monitor the region's opium trade. Churton suggested that Crowley had travelled to Moscow on the orders of British intelligence to spy on revolutionary elements in the city.
Spence and Sutin both wrote that Crowley's pro-German work in the United States during World War I was actually a cover for him being a double agent for Britain, citing his hyperbolic articles in The Fatherland to make the German lobby appear ridiculous in the eyes of the American public. Spence also wrote that Crowley encouraged the German Navy to destroy the Lusitania, informing them that it would ensure the US stayed out of the war, while in reality hoping that it would bring the US into the war on Britain's side.
== Legacy and influence ==
Crowley has remained an influential figure, both amongst occultists and in popular culture, particularly that of Britain, but also of other parts of the world. In 2002, a BBC poll placed Crowley number 73 in a list of the 100 Greatest Britons. Richard Cavendish has written of him that "In native talent, penetrating intelligence and determination, Aleister Crowley was the best-equipped magician to emerge since the seventeenth century." The scholar of esotericism Egil Asprem described him as "one of the most well-known figures in modern occultism". The scholar of esotericism Wouter Hanegraaff asserted that Crowley was an extreme representation of "the dark side of the occult", adding that he was "the most notorious occultist magician of the twentieth century". The philosopher John Moore opined that Crowley stood out as a "Modern Master" when compared with other prominent occult figures like George Gurdjieff, P. D. Ouspensky, Rudolf Steiner, or Helena Blavatsky, also describing him as a "living embodiment" of Oswald Spengler's "Faustian Man". Biographer Tobias Churton considered Crowley "a pioneer of consciousness research". Hutton noted that Crowley had "an important place in the history of modern Western responses to Oriental spiritual traditions", while Sutin thought that he had made "distinctly original contributions" to the study of yoga in the West.
Thelema continued to develop and spread following Crowley's death. In 1969, O.T.O. was reactivated in California under the leadership of Grady Louis McMurtry; in 1985 its right to the title was unsuccessfully challenged in court by a rival group, the Society Ordo Templi Orientis, led by Brazilian Thelemite Marcelo Ramos Motta. Another American Thelemite is the filmmaker Kenneth Anger, who was influenced by Crowley's writings from a young age. In the United Kingdom, Kenneth Grant propagated a tradition known as Typhonian Thelema through his organisation, the Typhonian O.T.O., later renamed the Typhonian Order. Also in Britain, an occultist known as Amado Crowley claimed to be Crowley's son; this has been refuted by academic investigation. Amado argued that Thelema was a false religion created by Crowley to hide his true esoteric teachings, which Amado said he was propagating.
Several Western esoteric traditions other than Thelema were also influenced by Crowley, with Djurdjevic observing that "Crowley's influence on twentieth-century and contemporary esotericism has been enormous". Gerald Gardner, the founder of Gardnerian Wicca, used much of Crowley's published material when composing the Gardnerian ritual liturgy, and the Australian witch Rosaleen Norton was also heavily influenced by Crowley's ideas. More widely, Crowley became "a dominant figure" in the modern Pagan community. L. Ron Hubbard, the American founder of Scientology, was involved in Thelema in the early 1940s via Jack Parsons, and it has been argued that Crowley's ideas influenced some of Hubbard's work. The scholars of religion Asbjørn Dyrendel, James R. Lewis, and Jesper Petersen noted that despite the fact that Crowley was not a Satanist, he "in many ways embodies the pre-Satanist esoteric discourse on Satan and Satanism through his lifestyle and his philosophy", with his "image and ought" becoming an "important influence" on the later development of religious Satanism. For instance, two prominent figures in religious Satanism, Anton LaVey and Michael Aquino, were influenced by Crowley's work.
=== In popular culture ===
Crowley also had a wider influence in British popular culture. After his time in Cefalù, which brought him to public attention in Britain, various "literary Crowleys" appeared: characters in fiction based upon him. One of the earliest was the character of the poet Shelley Arabin in John Buchan's 1926 novel The Dancing Floor. In his novel The Devil Rides Out, the writer Dennis Wheatley used Crowley as a partial basis for the character of Damien Mocata, a portly bald defrocked priest who engages in black magic. The occultist Dion Fortune used Crowley as a basis for characters in her books The Secrets of Doctor Taverner (1926) and The Winged Bull (1935). Crowley was one of the inspirations for the character of Dr Trelawney in Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time. He was included as one of the figures on the cover art of The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), and his motto of "Do What Thou Wilt" was inscribed on the vinyl of Led Zeppelin's album Led Zeppelin III (1970). Led Zeppelin co-founder Jimmy Page bought Boleskine in 1971, and part of the band's film The Song Remains the Same was filmed in the grounds. He sold it in 1992. David Bowie included references to Crowley and his works in many songs, including After All, "Quicksand" (1971), and Station To Station and it has been suggested that the lyrics of Bowie's No. 1 hit single "Let's Dance" (1983) may substantially paraphrase Crowley's 1923 poem "Lyric of Love to Leah". Ozzy Osbourne and his lyricist Bob Daisley wrote a song titled "Mr. Crowley" (1980). A prophetic quote about the coming of the New Aeon borrowed from Crowley's work Magick in Theory and Practice (1911) has been featured as the opening introduction to the video game Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (1996). Crowley began to receive scholarly attention from academics in the late 1990s. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpongeBob_SquarePants#Franchise | SpongeBob SquarePants#Franchise | SpongeBob SquarePants, also known simply as SpongeBob, is an American animated comedy television series created by marine science educator and animator Stephen Hillenburg for Nickelodeon. It first aired as a sneak peek after the Kids' Choice Awards on May 1, 1999, and officially premiered on July 17, 1999. It chronicles the adventures of the character SpongeBob SquarePants and his aquatic friends in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom.
Many of the series' ideas originated in The Intertidal Zone, an unpublished educational comic book Hillenburg created in the 1980s to teach his students about undersea life. After spending several years as an artist and director on Nickelodeon's series Rocko's Modern Life, Hillenburg began developing SpongeBob SquarePants into a television series, and in 1997, he and his crew pitched a seven-minute pilot to Nickelodeon. The network's executives wanted SpongeBob to be a child in school, but Hillenburg preferred SpongeBob to be an adult character. He was prepared to abandon the series, but compromised by creating a boating school so SpongeBob could attend school as an adult.
SpongeBob was an immediate hit and received widespread critical acclaim in its early years. After three seasons, Hillenburg made The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004), then departed the series, although he later returned. The show received criticism for a perceived decline in quality following Hillenburg's initial departure.
SpongeBob has won a variety of awards, including six Annie Awards, eight Golden Reel Awards, four Emmy Awards, two BAFTA Children's Awards, and a record twenty-two Kids' Choice Awards. The show has been noted as a cultural touchstone for Millennials and Generation Z, becoming ubiquitous within Internet culture and spawning numerous online memes.
The series has run for fifteen seasons, with its sixteenth season premiering on June 27, 2025. SpongeBob is the fourth longest-running American animated series in history, and the longest-running American children's animated series as of 2025. Its popularity has made it a multimedia franchise and Nickelodeon's most profitable program, generating over $16 billion in merchandising revenue by 2024. The franchise now includes four theatrical feature films, two streaming feature films, a Broadway musical, a comic book series, numerous video games and two spin-off series: Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years (2021–2024) and The Patrick Star Show (2021–present).
== Premise ==
=== Characters ===
The series follows SpongeBob SquarePants—an energetic and optimistic sea sponge who lives in a submerged pineapple—and his aquatic friends. SpongeBob has a childlike enthusiasm for life and works as a fry cook at the Krusty Krab, a fast food restaurant. His favorite pastimes include "jellyfishing", which involves catching jellyfish with a net in a manner similar to butterfly catching, and blowing soap bubbles into elaborate shapes. He has a pet sea snail named Gary, who meows like a cat.
SpongeBob's best friend is Patrick Star, a dimwitted yet friendly pink starfish who resides under a rock. Patrick is unaware of his stupidity and considers himself intelligent. Squidward Tentacles, SpongeBob's neighbor and co-worker at the Krusty Krab, is a grumpy and cynical octopus who lives in an Easter Island moai. He despises his job and is constantly annoyed by the antics of SpongeBob and Patrick. Mr. Krabs, a greedy red crab, is the owner of the Krusty Krab and often serves as a father figure to SpongeBob. He has a teenage daughter, a grey sperm whale named Pearl, who has no interest in taking over the family business. Another of SpongeBob's friends is Sandy Cheeks, a thrill-seeking squirrel from Texas, who wears a diving suit to breathe underwater. She is an expert in karate.
Located across the street from the Krusty Krab is an unsuccessful rival restaurant called the Chum Bucket. It rarely has any customers due to its sale of chum-based food, which is considered cannibalistic by most of the fish population. It is run by a small, green, one-eyed copepod named Plankton and his computer wife, Karen. Plankton constantly tries to steal the secret recipe for Mr. Krabs's Krabby Patty burgers. When SpongeBob is not working at the Krusty Krab, he can often be found taking boating lessons from Mrs. Puff, a paranoid but patient pufferfish. SpongeBob wants to obtain a boat-driving license, but he often panics and crashes, causing him to fail the course multiple times.
The French Narrator, or "Frenchy", is an unseen narrator who often introduces episodes and narrates intertitles as if the series were a documentary about the ocean. His role and manner of speaking are references to the oceanographer Jacques Cousteau. Beginning in season 10, the narrator has appeared infrequently in live-action as a diver in a heavy deep sea diving suit.
Recurring guest characters include the retired superheroes Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, who are idolized by SpongeBob and Patrick; a pirate specter known as the Flying Dutchman; the muscular lifeguard Larry the Lobster; and the merman god of the sea, King Neptune.
Special episodes of the show are hosted by a live-action pirate named Patchy and his pet parrot Potty, whose segments are presented in a dual narrative with the animated stories. Patchy is depicted as the president of a fictional SpongeBob fan club, and his greatest aspiration is to meet SpongeBob himself.
=== Setting ===
The series takes place primarily in the fictional underwater city of Bikini Bottom located in the Pacific Ocean beneath the real-life coral reef known as Bikini Atoll. Its citizens are mostly multicolored fish who live in buildings made from ship funnels, and use "boatmobiles" for transportation. Recurring locations within Bikini Bottom include the neighboring houses of SpongeBob, Patrick, and Squidward; two competing restaurants, the Krusty Krab and the Chum Bucket; Mrs. Puff's Boating School, which includes a driving course and a sunken lighthouse; the Treedome, an oxygenated glass enclosure where Sandy lives; Shady Shoals Rest Home; a seagrass meadow called Jellyfish Fields; and Goo Lagoon, a subaqueous brine pool that is a popular beach hangout.
When the SpongeBob crew began production of the series' pilot episode, they were tasked with designing stock locations where many scenes would take place. The idea was "to keep everything nautical", so the crew included objects like ropes, wooden planks, ships' wheels, netting, anchors, boilerplates, and rivets. Transitions between scenes are marked by bubbles filling the screen, accompanied by the sound of rushing water. The settings also feature "sky flowers", which have a similar function to clouds, according to background designer Kenny Pittenger. The sky flowers are also meant to "evoke the look of a flower-print Hawaiian shirt".
In 2015, Tom Kenny, who voices SpongeBob, denied a fan theory claiming that the series' characters are mutants who were exposed to nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll. In 2024, Plankton voice actor Mr. Lawrence said the theory is true, and that the real-life nuclear testing influenced other aspects of the show as well.
== Production ==
=== Development ===
==== Early inspirations ====
Series creator Stephen Hillenburg became fascinated with the ocean as a child and began developing his artistic abilities at a young age. Although these interests would not overlap for some time—the idea of drawing fish seemed boring to him—Hillenburg pursued both during college, majoring in marine biology and minoring in art at Humboldt State University. After graduating in 1984, he joined the Ocean Institute, an organization in Dana Point, California, dedicated to educating the public about marine science and maritime history.
While Hillenburg was working at the Ocean Institute, his love of the ocean began to influence his art. He created a comic book precursor to SpongeBob titled The Intertidal Zone, which was used by the institute to teach visitors about the animal life of tide pools. The comic featured various anthropomorphic lifeforms, many of which would evolve into SpongeBob characters. Hillenburg tried to get the comic published, but none of the companies he sent it to were interested.
One of Hillenburg's major inspirations was Ween's 1997 album The Mollusk, which had a nautical and underwater theme. Hillenburg contacted the band shortly after the album's release, explaining the baseline ideas for SpongeBob. He also commissioned a song, "Loop de Loop", which was used in the SpongeBob episode "Your Shoe's Untied".
==== Concept ====
While working as a staff artist at the Ocean Institute, Hillenburg intended to return to college for a master's degree in art. However, after attending an animation festival, he decided to instead study experimental animation at California Institute of the Arts. His thesis film, Wormholes, is about the theory of relativity. It was screened at festivals, and at one of these, Hillenburg met Joe Murray, who was in the process of developing the popular Nickelodeon animated series Rocko's Modern Life. Murray was impressed by the style of Hillenburg's film and offered him a job as a director for the first season, which began airing in 1993. Hillenburg worked on the series throughout its entire four-season run, and during the fourth season he took on the roles of producer and creative director.
Martin Olson, one of the writers for Rocko's Modern Life, read The Intertidal Zone and encouraged Hillenburg to create a television series with a similar concept. At that point, Hillenburg had not considered creating his own series. He began to develop some of the characters from The Intertidal Zone, including Bob the Sponge. He wanted his series to stand out from other popular cartoons of the time, many of which were buddy comedies like The Ren & Stimpy Show. Hillenburg decided to focus on a single main character: a sea sponge, the "weirdest" sea creature he could think of. Bob the Sponge resembled a real-life sea sponge, and Hillenburg used this design in the early stages. He decided to model the character after a kitchen sponge after realizing it would perfectly match the character's "square" personality. In determining the character's behavior, Hillenburg was inspired by innocent, childlike figures that he enjoyed, such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Jerry Lewis, and Pee-wee Herman.
Seeking a voice actor for the series' main character, Hillenburg approached Tom Kenny, whose career in animation had started alongside Hillenburg's on Rocko's Modern Life. Elements of Kenny's own personality were employed to develop the character further. Initially, Hillenburg wanted to use the name "SpongeBoy"—the character had no last name—and the series would have been named SpongeBoy Ahoy! However, the Nickelodeon legal department discovered that the name "SpongeBoy" was already in use by a line of pencils. In choosing a replacement name, Hillenburg felt he still had to use the word "Sponge", so that viewers would not mistake the character for a "cheese man". He settled on the name "SpongeBob". The surname "SquarePants" was chosen after Kenny saw a picture of the character and remarked, "Boy, look at this sponge in square pants, thinking he can get a job in a fast food place." When he heard Kenny say it, Hillenburg loved the phrase and felt it would reinforce the character's nerdiness.
==== Assembling the crew ====
Many of the major contributors to SpongeBob had previously worked with Hillenburg on Rocko's Modern Life, including creative director Derek Drymon, art director Nick Jennings, supervising director Alan Smart, writer and voice actor Mr. Lawrence, and Tim Hill, who helped develop the series bible. Although Drymon would go on to have a significant influence on SpongeBob, he was not offered a role on the series initially. As a late recruit to Rocko's Modern Life, he had not established a strong relationship with Hillenburg prior to SpongeBob's development. Hillenburg first sought to recruit Drymon's storyboard partner, Mark O'Hare, but he had recently created the soon-to-be syndicated comic strip, Citizen Dog, and lacked the time to get involved with SpongeBob, although he would later join the series as a writer. Drymon begged Hillenburg for a job, and after Hillenburg gave it some thought, he brought Drymon on as creative director. The two began meeting at Hillenburg's house several times a week to develop the series. According to Drymon, this occurred in 1996, shortly after the end of Rocko's Modern Life.
Nick Jennings was also instrumental in SpongeBob's genesis, and was described by Kenny as an "early graphics mentor". On weekends, Kenny joined Hillenburg, Jennings, and Drymon for creative sessions where they recorded ideas on a tape recorder. Kenny performed audio tests as SpongeBob during these sessions, while Hillenburg voiced the other characters. Tim Hill contributed scripts for the pilot and several first-season episodes, and was offered the role of story editor. He turned down the offer, and Pete Burns was hired instead.
==== Pitching ====
When pitching the idea for the series to Nickelodeon executives, Drymon said the SpongeBob crew "went all out" because they thought the pilot would only be accepted if the executives laughed. Hillenburg wore a Hawaiian shirt, brought along a terrarium containing models of the characters, and played Hawaiian music to set the tone. Executive Eric Coleman described the pitch as "pretty amazing"; his colleagues Kevin Kay and Albie Hecht had to step outside because they were exhausted from laughing. Drymon expected the executives to take weeks to make a decision, but they offered to make the series immediately. The crew was given money and two weeks to write the pilot episode "Help Wanted".
Before commissioning the full series, Nickelodeon executives insisted that it would not be popular unless SpongeBob was a child who went to school, citing one of their shows, Hey Arnold!, as an example. Hillenburg was ready to abandon the series, since he wanted SpongeBob to be an adult, but he compromised by adding a new character, Mrs. Puff, a boat-driving teacher whose school SpongeBob would attend. Hillenburg was satisfied with the compromise and happy that it brought in a new character.
=== Executive producers and showrunners ===
Hillenburg served as the executive producer of the series from its debut in 1999 until his death in 2018. He was its showrunner from 1999 until 2004. Hillenburg halted production of the show in 2002 to work on the feature film The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, which he intended to be the series finale. However, the show's massive financial success led to its continuation. Hillenburg appointed Paul Tibbitt, who had previously served as a writer, director, and storyboard artist, to take over as showrunner. He considered Tibbitt one of his favorite crew members, and deeply trusted him. Although Hillenburg no longer had a direct role in the series' production, he maintained an advisory role and reviewed each episode.
In December 2014, it was announced that Hillenburg would return to the series in an unspecified position. In March 2017, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57, he died of complications from the disease. In February 2019, incoming Nickelodeon president Brian Robbins vowed to keep SpongeBob in production for as long as the network exists. As of 2024, former writers and storyboard directors Vincent Waller and Marc Ceccarelli are serving as the series' showrunners.
=== Writing ===
According to writer and storyboard artist Luke Brookshier, SpongeBob is written differently from many other television shows—it does not use written scripts. Instead, storylines are developed by a team of five "outline and premise" writers. A two-page outline is then assigned to a team of storyboard directors, who produce a complete rough draft of the storyboard. Most of the dialogue and jokes are added during this stage. Brookshier has compared this process to how cartoons were made in the early days of animation. Almost every episode is divided into two 11-minute segments, due to Hillenburg's belief that SpongeBob works better in short-form than in long-form. The writing staff often used their personal experiences as inspiration for storylines. For example, the episode "Sailor Mouth", in which SpongeBob and Patrick learn profanity and begin to swear profusely, was inspired by Drymon's childhood experience of getting into trouble for using the word "fuck" in front of his mother.
=== Voice actors ===
==== Main cast ====
Tom Kenny as SpongeBob SquarePants, Gary, French Narrator and Patchy the Pirate
Bill Fagerbakke as Patrick Star
Rodger Bumpass as Squidward Tentacles
Clancy Brown as Mr. Krabs
Mr. Lawrence as Plankton, Potty the Parrot (starting in season 10), Larry the Lobster, Realistic Fish Head and Fred
Jill Talley as Karen
Carolyn Lawrence as Sandy Cheeks
Mary Jo Catlett as Mrs. Puff
Lori Alan as Pearl Krabs
Most one-off and background characters are voiced by Dee Bradley Baker, Sirena Irwin, Bob Joles, Mark Fite and Thomas F. Wilson.
==== Casting ====
As Hillenburg, Drymon and Hill were writing the pilot episode, Hillenburg was also conducting auditions for voice actors. Tom Kenny had previously worked with Hillenburg on Rocko's Modern Life, and Hillenburg liked the voice he had used for a minor character. He approached Kenny about voicing SpongeBob, but Kenny had forgotten how to perform the voice; Hillenburg used a video clip from Rocko to remind him. Nickelodeon insisted on auditioning more actors for the role of SpongeBob, but Hillenburg turned them down. According to Kenny, Hillenburg described SpongeBob to him as childlike and naive, somewhere between an adult and a child. The casting crew wanted SpongeBob to have an annoying laugh in the tradition of Popeye and Woody Woodpecker.
During Bill Fagerbakke's audition for Patrick, Hillenburg played him a portion of Kenny's performance as SpongeBob to serve as a counterpoint. Whenever Patrick is angry, Fagerbakke models his performance on the actress Shelley Winters. Rodger Bumpass described his character Squidward as "a very nasally, monotone kind of guy." Bumpass found Squidward interesting due to his range of emotions, including frustration, apoplexy and sarcasm. Hillenburg modeled Mr. Krabs after his former manager at a seafood restaurant, whose strong Maine accent reminded Hillenburg of a pirate. Clancy Brown added a slight Scottish accent to the "piratey" voice of the character.
When the series began, Mr. Lawrence voiced a variety of minor characters, including Plankton, who was only meant to appear in one episode. According to Lawrence, Nickelodeon executives wanted Hillenburg to stunt-cast a celebrity for Plankton, but he declined. Jill Talley, a Chicago native, uses a Midwestern accent for Karen. Electronic sound effects are added to create a robotic sound when she speaks. Talley and Mr. Lawrence often improvise the dialogue of Plankton and Karen; Lawrence said improvisation is his favorite part of the job.
During her audition for Pearl, Lori Alan was shown an early drawing of the characters and noted that Pearl was much larger than the others. She decided to express the character's size by making her voice deep and full in tone, while also incorporating the low sound of whale vocalizations. At the same time, Alan sought to make the teenage Pearl sound childlike, spoiled and lovable.
In addition to the main cast, some episodes feature guest voice performers. Recurring guest performers include Ernest Borgnine as Mermaid Man (1999–2012), Tim Conway as Barnacle Boy (1999–2019), Brian Doyle-Murray as the Flying Dutchman and Marion Ross as Grandma SquarePants. Notable guests with cameo appearances include David Bowie as Lord Royal Highness, John Goodman as Santa, Johnny Depp as the surf guru Jack Kahuna Laguna, and Victoria Beckham as Queen Amphitrite.
Voice recording sessions always include the full cast of actors, which gives SpongeBob a unique feeling according to Kenny. For the first three seasons, Hillenburg and Drymon directed the actors. Andrea Romano became the voice director in the fourth season, and Kenny took over during the ninth.
=== Animation ===
Until at least 2009, the production of SpongeBob was overseen at Nickelodeon Animation Studio in Burbank, California, with additional animation services carried out at Rough Draft Korea in Seoul. The California crew would create storyboards, which would then be used as templates by the crew at Rough Draft, who would animate each scene by hand, color each cel on computers, and paint backgrounds. The final stages of production, including editing and adding music, would be completed in California.
During the first season, the series used cel animation. A shift was made the following year to digital ink and paint animation. Starting with the fifth season episode "Pest of the West" (2008), the crew began using drawing tablets, which allowed them to draw on computer screens and make immediate changes or undo mistakes. Background designer Kenny Pittenger noted that many of his colleagues did not like the tablets, preferring the immediacy of drawing on paper.
Since 2004, the SpongeBob crew has periodically collaborated with the Los Angeles-based animation studio Screen Novelties to create stop-motion sequences for special episodes. The studio produced a brief claymation scene for the climax of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, followed by an opening sequence for the series' tenth anniversary special in 2009. The abominable snow mollusk, an octopus-like creature who acts as the antagonist of the episode "Frozen Face-Off", was also animated by the company using claymation.
In 2011, the SpongeBob team asked Screen Novelties to animate an entire episode—the holiday special "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!"—using stop motion animation. The episode reimagined the show's characters as if they were part of a Rankin/Bass holiday film. Unconventional materials such as baking soda, glitter, wood chips and breakfast cereal were used to create sets for the episode. For their work on the holiday special, Screen Novelties earned one award and two nominations at the 30th Annie Awards, a nomination at the 2013 Golden Reel Awards, and a nomination at the 2013 Annecy International Animated Film Festival. A second stop-motion special, themed around Halloween and using the same Rankin/Bass-inspired character models, was produced for season 11.
=== Music ===
Mark Harrison and Blaise Smith composed the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song, with lyrics written by Hillenburg and Drymon. The melody was inspired by the sea shanty "Blow the Man Down". The opening sequence of each episode features "Painty the Pirate", a character in an oil painting who sings the theme song. Patrick Pinney voices Painty, while Hillenburg's lips are superimposed onto the painting and move along with the lyrics. Kenny joked that the lips are the closest fans will ever come to seeing Hillenburg, due to his private nature.
A cover of the theme song by Avril Lavigne can be found on The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie soundtrack. Another cover by the Violent Femmes aired on Nickelodeon as a promotion when SpongeBob moved to prime time. Steve Belfer wrote and performed the music heard during the end credits of each episode.
The series' music editor and main composer is Nicolas Carr. After working with Hillenburg on Rocko's Modern Life, he struggled to find another job in his field. He was considering a career change before Hillenburg offered him the role of composer for SpongeBob. The first season's score primarily featured selections from the Associated Production Music Library (APML), which Carr has said includes "lots of great old corny Hawaiian music and big, full, dramatic orchestral scores." Carr said he tries to make the show's music "as funny and ridiculous as possible."
Hillenburg felt it was important for the series to develop its own music library, consisting of scores that could be reused and re-edited throughout the years. He wanted these scores to be composed by unknowns, and a group of twelve was assembled. They formed "The Sponge Divers Orchestra", which includes Carr and Belfer. The group went on to provide most of the music for later seasons, although Carr still draws from the APML, as well as a library he founded himself—Animation Music Inc.
== Release ==
=== Broadcast ===
SpongeBob SquarePants premiered on May 1, 1999, and is now in its 16th season.
=== Home video ===
SpongeBob SquarePants DVD releases are distributed by Paramount Home Entertainment under the Nickelodeon label.
=== Streaming ===
In May 2013, a deal between Netflix and Nickelodeon's parent company Viacom expired, which resulted in shows such as SpongeBob and Dora the Explorer being removed from Netflix in the United States, although SpongeBob continues to be available on Netflix in certain other regions. In June of that year, Viacom announced a $200 million multi-year licensing agreement which would move its programs, including SpongeBob, to Amazon. SpongeBob was available on Hulu from 2012 until 2016, and on Amazon Prime Video after the Netflix deal ended. In 2020, SpongeBob became available on Paramount+. As of June 2025, the first six seasons of the series are available on Amazon, and the first 14 seasons are available on Paramount+.
=== Anniversaries ===
Nickelodeon began celebrating the series' 10th anniversary on January 18, 2009, with a live cast reading of the episode "SpongeBob vs. The Big One" at the Sundance Film Festival. In July, the Madame Tussauds wax museum in New York unveiled a wax sculpture of SpongeBob, which made him the first animated character to be sculpted entirely out of wax. A documentary about the series, Square Roots: The Story of SpongeBob SquarePants, premiered on VH1 on July 14. Three days later, the network celebrated the series' official anniversary with a 50-hour television marathon titled "The Ultimate SpongeBob SpongeBash Weekend". It began with a new episode, "To SquarePants or Not to SquarePants". The marathon also featured a broadcast of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, a countdown of the top ten episodes as selected by fans, and the premiere of ten new episodes. An eight-episode DVD set featuring "To SquarePants or Not to SquarePants" was released shortly after the marathon, and a 14-disc DVD set titled The First 100 Episodes was released in September. On November 6, an hour-long television film, titled Truth or Square, debuted on Nickelodeon. The film is narrated by Ricky Gervais and features live-action cameo appearances by various celebrities. It was released as part of a DVD set in November 2009.
In 2019, Nickelodeon honored the twentieth anniversary of SpongeBob with a series of celebrations known as the "Best Year Ever". Pantone created color shades known as "SpongeBob SquarePants Yellow" and "Patrick Star Pink" to be used by Nickelodeon's licensing partners. SpongeBob-themed garments were presented during New York Fashion Week and Amsterdam Fashion Week, and Nike released a SpongeBob series of shoes, accessories, and apparel. The "Best Year Ever" also included the launch of a SpongeBob-themed cosmetics line, an official SpongeBob YouTube channel and a mobile game based on the series. On July 12, a television special titled SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout premiered. On July 15, Amazon celebrated SpongeBob on Amazon Prime Day with the early release of a 30-disc DVD set, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Best 200 Episodes Ever! The 20th anniversary celebrations culminated with the August 14 release of The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run.
A celebration of the series' 25th anniversary, known as "SpongeBob 25", began on July 13, 2024, with SpongeBob and Patrick hosting the Kids' Choice Awards. The following week, Nickelodeon released a series of SpongeBob episodes with Easter eggs and nods to previous episodes. A collaboration with Wendy's and other restaurants called the Krabby Patty Kollab began in October, in which the restaurants created real-life Krabby Patties. A one-hour television special, Kreepaway Kamp, premiered on October 10. A 44-disc DVD compilation of three box sets, titled SpongeBob SquarePants: The Best 300 Episodes Ever, was released on October 15.
== Reception ==
=== Critical response ===
Laura Fries of Variety described SpongeBob as thoughtful, inventive, charming, whimsical, and "clever enough" to appeal to teenagers and young adults as well as children. James Poniewozik of Time magazine and Joyce Millman of The New York Times also praised SpongeBob for appealing to both children and adults. In her 2001 review, Millman called SpongeBob "the most charming toon on television", describing SpongeBob himself as "darned lovable" and referring to his world as "excellently strange". She said that like Pee-wee's Playhouse, SpongeBob "joyfully dances on the fine line between childhood and adulthood, guilelessness and camp, the warped and the sweet." Robert Thompson, a professor of communications and director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, described the series as "a refreshing breath from the pre-irony era". He felt the show is subversive because it is deliberately naive, and since it is not trying to be hip or cool, "hipness can be grafted onto it". Bettijane Levine of the Los Angeles Times also acknowledged the series' appeal for adults, describing it as a "brain balm for stressed-out grown-ups".
=== Ratings and run-length achievements ===
Within its first month on the air, SpongeBob overtook Pokémon as the highest rated Saturday-morning children's series on television. It held an average national Nielsen rating of 4.9 among children aged two through eleven, denoting 1.9 million viewers. Two years later, the series had firmly established itself as Nickelodeon's second highest-rated children's program, after Rugrats. SpongeBob was credited with helping Nickelodeon take the "Saturday-morning ratings crown" for the third straight season in 2001. The series had gained a significant adult audience by that point—nearly 40 percent of its 2.2 million viewers were aged 18 to 34. In response to its weekend success, Nickelodeon gave SpongeBob time slots at 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm, Monday through Thursday, to increase the series' exposure. By the end of 2001, the show had the highest ratings for any children's series, on all of television. Weekly viewership of the series had reached around fifteen million, at least five million of whom were adults.
In October 2002, the Nickelodeon children's series The Fairly OddParents briefly surpassed SpongeBob's 2.4 million child viewers aged two to eleven. Due to the climbing ratings of The Fairly OddParents, Nickelodeon installed it in an 8:00 PM time slot previously occupied by SpongeBob. In 2012, SpongeBob's viewership among children began to decline. Nielsen reported a 29% drop in viewership in the first quarter of 2012 compared with the previous year. John Jannarone of The Wall Street Journal suggested that the decline in viewership could be due to the age of the series, or to overexposure; with Nickelodeon frequently airing SpongeBob reruns, SpongeBob programming accounted for between 31–40% of the network's total programming in 2011. Media analyst Todd Juenger attributed the decline in network viewers to the availability of Nickelodeon content on streaming services such as Netflix. A Nickelodeon spokesman denied that SpongeBob's decline was related to the channel's overall ratings.
SpongeBob is one of the longest-running series on Nickelodeon, and one of the longest-running American animated series on television. It became the Nickelodeon series with the most episodes during its eighth season, surpassing the 172 episodes of Rugrats, and in 2025 became the longest-running American children's animated series. According to CNN, SpongeBob has become a fixture in pop culture, especially among millenials.
=== Perceived decline in quality ===
In the mid-to-late 2000s, the tone and emphasis of the show began to change. Some media outlets including MSN, The A.V. Club, and Vulture commented on the show's perceived decline in quality, after Hillenburg's departure as showrunner following The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie in 2004. In 2012, MSN cited a post on Encyclopedia SpongeBobia, a Fandom-hosted wiki, which said that many fans felt the series had "jumped the shark" following the release of the film and that online fansites were becoming "deserted". In 2018, Vulture noted the most popular online memes of the series typically originated in episodes from the first three seasons. That same year, The A.V. Club wrote that as the series went on, "[it] leaned hard into kid-friendly physical humor and gross-out moments that appealed to no one in particular."
=== Social and political issues ===
SpongeBob has occasionally provoked public debates about social and political issues. In 2002, after The Wall Street Journal reported that SpongeBob was popular with gay men, Hillenburg said that the character SpongeBob is not gay, but rather "somewhat asexual".
In 2005, an online video that included clips from SpongeBob and other children's shows set to the Sister Sledge song "We Are Family" was attacked by Focus on the Family, an American evangelical group. The group's founder, James Dobson, accused the video of promoting homosexuality because it was created by the We Are Family Foundation, a pro-tolerance group. Following Dobson's accusation, John H. Thomas, the general minister and president of the United Church of Christ, stated that his ministry would welcome SpongeBob. He said, "Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we."
In his article "Queertoons", queer theorist Jeffery P. Dennis argues that SpongeBob and Patrick "are paired with arguably erotic intensity". The Ukrainian organization Family Under the Protection of the Holy Virgin, which has been described as a "fringe Catholic" group by The Wall Street Journal, tried to have SpongeBob banned for its alleged "promotion of homosexuality". Questions about SpongeBob's sexuality resurfaced in 2020 after Nickelodeon posted an image on Twitter of the character, in rainbow colors and with text celebrating the LGBTQ+ community during Pride Month.
The season 9 episode "SpongeBob, You're Fired" (2013) was the subject of a debate in the media about government services.
In 2019, University of Washington professor Holly M. Barker wrote an article titled "Unsettling SpongeBob and the legacies of violence on Bikini Bottom". She argues that because Bikini Bottom is named after Bikini Atoll, where indigenous people were displaced by the U.S. government for nuclear testing, SpongeBob promotes "violent and racist" colonialism.
In 2021, the season 3 episode "Mid-Life Crustacean" was removed from circulation. Popular speculation is that the removal is due to its ending in which SpongeBob, Patrick, and Mr. Krabs partake in a panty raid. The release of a season 12 episode, "Kwarantined Krab", was delayed for two years because its themes were reminiscent of the COVID-19 pandemic.
=== Effect on children ===
In 2006, the watchdog group Parents Television Council accused SpongeBob of promoting the use of profanity among children through the season 2 episode "Sailor Mouth".
A 2011 University of Virginia study published in the journal Pediatrics suggested that allowing preschool-aged children to watch SpongeBob caused short-term disruptions in mental function and attention span because of frequent shot changes, compared to control groups watching Caillou and drawing pictures. A Nickelodeon executive responded in an interview the series was not intended for an audience of that age and that the study used "questionable methodology and could not possibly provide the basis for any valid findings that parents could trust."
In 2014, Zabira Orazalieva, chairwoman of the Committee for the Protection of Children's Rights in Kazakhstan, deemed the series too violent for children, calling SpongeBob a "self-absorbed hooligan" who enjoys inflicting violence on others.
== Accolades ==
SpongeBob has received four Emmy Awards, six Annie Awards, and two BAFTA Children's Awards. In 2006, IGN ranked SpongeBob the 15th best animated series of all time, and in 2013 it ranked the series 12th on its list of the Top 25 Animated Series for Adults.
In 2007, Time television critic James Poniewozik ranked SpongeBob among the best 100 television series of all time. Viewers of UK television network Channel 4 voted SpongeBob the 28th Greatest Cartoon in a 2004 poll. In 2013, the publication ranked SpongeBob SquarePants eighth on its list of the Greatest TV Cartoons of All Time. Critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz ranked SpongeBob as the 22nd greatest American television series of all time in their 2016 book TV (The Book).
== Franchise ==
=== Spin-offs ===
==== Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years ====
In June 2019, production began on a SpongeBob spin-off series titled Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years. The plot focuses on the adventures of a 10-year-old SpongeBob and his friends at a camp in the Kelp Forest, where they spend the summer catching jellyfish, building campfires, and swimming in Lake Yuckymuck. The series served as a tie-in to the animated film The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (2020), and had the same executive producers as SpongeBob: Marc Ceccarelli, Jennie Monica, and Vincent Waller. Kamp Koral is produced using computer-generated animation (CGI) rather than the digital ink and paint animation used for SpongeBob. The series premiered on March 4, 2021, and a second season debuted on July 10, 2024.
==== The Patrick Star Show ====
On August 10, 2020, it was reported that a Patrick Star talk show titled The Patrick Star Show was in development with a 13-episode order. Additionally, it was reported that the show would be similar to other talk shows such as The Larry Sanders Show and Comedy Bang! Bang! The series premiered on Nickelodeon on July 9, 2021, with the series set to be available on Paramount+ sometime in the future.
Fans and former SpongeBob showrunner Paul Tibbitt criticized Nickelodeon when it greenlit spin-offs after the death of Hillenburg in 2018. In a tweet, Tibbit said Hillenburg would have hated the spin-offs, and he angrily admonished his former colleagues for working on them. In a 2009 interview, Hillenburg had been skeptical about the viability of spin-offs focusing on characters other than SpongeBob, and in 2017 Hillenburg's colleague Vincent Waller had stated that Hillenburg was against the creation of spin-offs.
=== Super Bowl ===
SpongeBob SquarePants first appeared in the Super Bowl during the Super Bowl LIII halftime show, making a cameo appearance in the form of a short animation featuring Squidward, Mr. Krabs, Mrs. Puff, SpongeBob, and Patrick Star, which included footage of the Bikini Bottom band from the episode Band Geeks, before segueing into Travis Scott's section of the performance. This led to fan outrage, as fans requested "Sweet Victory", the song featured in the episode, be played during the show, which ultimately did not occur. According to animator Nico Colaleo, the animation was completed in a few days.
On August 1, 2023, CBS Sports announced that it would carry a youth-oriented alternate broadcast of Super Bowl LVIII on Nickelodeon, the first such broadcast for a Super Bowl. Billed as Super Bowl LVIII: Live from Bikini Bottom, the broadcast incorporated SpongeBob-themed augmented reality effects and features (in addition to those seen on previous games aired by the network), and appearances by characters from the series (SpongeBob and Patrick acted as "analysts" alongside announcers Noah Eagle and Nate Burleson, with Sandy Cheeks taking on "sideline reporter" duties).
=== Comic books ===
The 32-page bimonthly comic book series, SpongeBob Comics, was announced in November 2010 and debuted the following February. Before this, SpongeBob SquarePants comics had been published in Nickelodeon Magazine, and episodes of the television series had been adapted by Cine-Manga, but SpongeBob Comics was the first American comic book series devoted solely to SpongeBob SquarePants. It also served as SpongeBob SquarePants creator Stephen Hillenburg's debut as a comic book author. The series was published by Hillenburg's production company, United Plankton Pictures, and distributed by Bongo Comics Group. Hillenburg described the stories from the comic books as "original and always true to the humor, characters, and universe of the SpongeBob SquarePants series." Leading up to the release of the series, Hillenburg said, "I'm hoping that fans will enjoy finally having a SpongeBob comic book from me."
Chris Duffy, the former senior editor of Nickelodeon Magazine, serves as managing editor of SpongeBob Comics. Hillenburg and Duffy met with various cartoonists—including James Kochalka, Hilary Barta, Graham Annable, Gregg Schigiel, and Jacob Chabot—to contribute to each issues. Retired horror comics writer and artist Stephen R. Bissette returned to write a special Halloween issue in 2012, with Tony Millionaire and Al Jaffee. In an interview with Tom Spurgeon, Bissette said, "I've even broken my retirement to do one work-for-hire gig [for SpongeBob Comics] so I could share everything about that kind of current job."
In the United Kingdom, Titan Magazines published comics based on SpongeBob SquarePants every four weeks from February 3, 2005, through November 28, 2013. Titan Magazines also teamed up with Lego to release a limited edition SpongeBob-themed comic.
=== Films ===
There have been five SpongeBob films that have been released theatrically or via streaming services: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004), The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015), The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (2020), Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie (2024), and Plankton: The Movie (2025). The series' regulars have reprised their roles for each film. The films have had an overall positive reception.
The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants was released in theatres in 2025, while another unnamed character spin-off project remains to be released on Netflix in the foreseeable future, according to ViacomCBS' revision in February 2022.
==== Main series ====
The first SpongeBob film, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, an animated film adaptation of the series, was released on November 19, 2004. The film was directed by Hillenburg and written by long-time series writers Derek Drymon, Tim Hill, Kent Osborne, Aaron Springer, Paul Tibbitt, and Hillenburg. He and Julia Pistor produced the film, while Gregor Narholz composed the film's score. Its plot concerns Plankton's evil plan to steal King Neptune's crown and send it to Shell City. SpongeBob and Patrick must retrieve it and save Mr. Krabs' life from Neptune's raft and their home, Bikini Bottom, from Plankton's plan. It features guest appearances by Jeffrey Tambor as King Neptune, Scarlett Johansson as the King's daughter Mindy, Alec Baldwin as Dennis, and David Hasselhoff as himself. The film received a positive critical reception and was a box office success, grossing over $140 million worldwide.
A sequel to the 2004 film, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, was released in theaters on February 6, 2015. The series' main cast members reprised their roles. The underwater parts are animated traditionally in the manner of the series—the live-action parts use CGI animation for the SpongeBob characters. The film had a budget similar to the previous film, costing less than $100 million to produce. It was met with positive reviews, and was also a financial success, grossing over $325.2 million worldwide.
A third film, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, was initially scheduled for a May 2020 release date. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film faced multiple delays. Eventually in June 2020, it's worldwide theatrical release was canceled, opting Paramount to eventually release the film as a launch-day exclusive for its premium video on demand service Paramount+ in the US on March 4, 2021. Internationally, Canada received a theatrical release on August 14, 2020, while Netflix received the streaming rights in foreign regions excluding the US, China, and Canada on November 5, 2020. Unlike the other two SpongeBob films, the film mainly uses stylized-CGI animation. The film received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics, with audiences being less favorable. Due to the pandemic, the film was not financially successful, grossing $4.8 million from its limited theatrical run.
In August 2021, Brian Robbins, CEO of Nickelodeon, stated that a new theatrical SpongeBob film was "in the works." The film was initially set for release on May 23, 2025, but was later delayed to December 19; Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning took its previous date due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. It will be the fourth main SpongeBob film as well as the franchise's sixth film overall, titled The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants.
==== Spin-off films ====
Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie is an animated adventure comedy film released on Netflix on August 2, 2024. It is the first character-focused spin-off film, as well as the franchise's fourth film overall. It centers around Sandy and SpongeBob going on a mission to save Bikini Bottom, while a subplot centers on the latter's family's exploits in the Circus. Prior to its release, the entire film was leaked on January 21, 2024, as a video upload on X (the website formerly known as Twitter). The film received mixed reviews from critics.
Plankton: The Movie is an animated musical comedy film which was released on Netflix on March 7, 2025. It is the second character-focused spin-off film, and the fifth film in the franchise overall. As with the Sandy Cheeks Movie, the entire film was leaked onto X (Twitter) in August 2024.
==== Television films ====
Three television films were released: SpongeBob's Atlantis SquarePantis (2007), SpongeBob's Truth or Square (2009), and SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout (2019).
=== Music ===
Collections of original music featured in the series have been released on the albums SpongeBob SquarePants: Original Theme Highlights (2001), SpongeBob's Greatest Hits (2009), and The Yellow Album (2005). The first two charted on the US Billboard 200, reaching number 171 and 122, respectively.
Several songs have been recorded for the purpose of a single or album release and have not been featured on the show. The song "My Tighty Whiteys" written by Tom Kenny and Andy Paley was released only on the album The Best Day Ever (2006). Kenny's inspiration for the song was "underwear humor," saying: "Underwear humor is always a surefire laugh-getter with kids ... Just seeing a character that odd wearing really prosaic, normal, Kmart, three-to-a-pack underwear is a funny drawing ... We thought it was funny to make a really lush, beautiful love song to his underwear."
A soundtrack album, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie – Music from the Movie and More, featuring the film's score, was released along with the feature-length film in November 2004. Various artists including the Flaming Lips, Wilco, Ween, Motörhead, the Shins, and Avril Lavigne contributed to the soundtrack that reached number 76 on the US Billboard 200.
=== Theme park rides ===
A SpongeBob SquarePants 4-D film and ride opened at several locations, including Six Flags Over Texas, Flamingo Land Resort, and the Shedd Aquarium. The ride features water squirts, real bubbles, and other sensory features. In 2012, Nickelodeon teamed up again with SimEx-Iwerks Entertainment and Super 78 to produce SpongeBob SquarePants 4-D: The Great Jelly Rescue. The attraction opened in early 2013 at the Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration. It was also installed at the Nickelodeon Suites Resort Orlando in Orlando, Florida. The seven-minute film follows SpongeBob, Patrick, and Sandy rescuing the jellyfish of Jellyfish Fields from Plankton's evil clutches. On May 23, 2015, an interactive 3D show titled SpongeBob SubPants Adventure opened in Texas at Moody Gardens. The show was replaced with a generic "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" re-theme in 2019. A dark ride shooter attraction titled SpongeBob's Crazy Carnival Ride opened at the Circus Circus Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2024.
A variety of SpongeBob SquarePants-related attractions are currently located within Nickelodeon themed-areas at Movie Park Germany, Pleasure Beach Blackpool, Sea World, American Dream Meadowlands, and Mall of America, which includes the SpongeBob SquarePants Rock Bottom Plunge euro-fighter roller coaster.
In 2026, Universal Kids Resort will open a themed land based on the franchise.
=== Video games ===
Numerous video games based on the series have been produced. Some of the early games include: Legend of the Lost Spatula (2001) and SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom (2003). In 2013, Nickelodeon published and distributed SpongeBob Moves In!, a freemium city-building game app developed by Kung Fu Factory for iOS and Android. On June 5, 2019, THQ Nordic announced SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated, a full remake of the console versions of the original 2003 game. The game was released one year later on June 23, 2020 and includes cut content from the original game. On May 28, 2020, Apple Arcade released a game called SpongeBob SquarePants: Patty Pursuit. In 2021, EA Sports introduced a SpongeBob-themed level to the Yard section of its Madden NFL 21 video game.
On September 17, 2021, THQ Nordic announced SpongeBob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake, a new original game based on the franchise.
=== SpongeBob SquareShorts ===
Nickelodeon launched the first global SpongeBob SquarePants-themed short film competition, SpongeBob SquareShorts: Original Fan Tributes, in 2013. The contest encouraged fans and filmmakers around the world to create original short films inspired by SpongeBob for a chance to win a prize and a trip for four people to a screening event in Hollywood. The contest opened on May 6 and ran through June 28, 2013. On July 19, 2013, Nickelodeon announced the competition's finalists. On August 13, 2013, the under-18 category was won by David of the United States for his The Krabby Commercial, while the Finally Home short by Nicole of South Africa won the 18 and over category.
=== Theater ===
SpongeBob was adapted as a stage musical, SpongeBob SquarePants, The Broadway Musical, by director Tina Landau. It premiered in Chicago in 2016 and opened on Broadway at the Palace Theatre on December 4, 2017. It received twelve award nominations at the 72nd Tony Awards in 2018.
== Merchandise ==
By the time the SpongeBob franchise celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2024, it had generated $16 billion in retail sales. Popular board games such as Monopoly, Life, Operation, Ants in the Pants, and Yahtzee have been given SpongeBob-themed editions.
In 2001, Nickelodeon signed a marketing deal with Target Corporation and Burger King, expanding its merchandising. In 2002, SpongeBob dolls sold at a rate of 75,000 per week—faster than the popular Tickle Me Elmo dolls were selling at the time. By 2007, SpongeBob merchandise was gaining popularity in Japan, thanks to a carefully orchestrated marketing campaign targeting young Japanese women. Ratings and merchandise sales showed SpongeBob SquarePants had caught on with parents and with college audiences. In a 2013 promotion, college-oriented website Music.com gave away 80,000 SpongeBob T-shirts, four times more than during a similar promotion for Comedy Central's South Park.
Kids' meal tie-ins have been released in fast food restaurants in many parts of the world, including Burger King in Europe and North America, as well as Wendy's in North America, and Hungry Jack's in Australia. A McDonald's Happy Meal tie-in with SpongeBob-themed Happy Meal boxes and toys was released in Europe and other international markets in the summer of 2007. In Australia, the advertisement for the McDonald's SpongeBob Happy Meal won the Pester Power Award because the ads enticed young children to desire its food because of the free toy. As a tie-in beverage for the DVD release of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, 7-Eleven released the limited edition Under-the-Sea Pineapple Slurpee in March 2004. Pirate's Booty released limited edition SpongeBob SquarePants Pirate's Booty snacks in 2013.
In 2007, high-end SpongeBob-themed electronics were introduced by Imation Electronics Products under the Npower brand, including MP3 players, digital cameras, a DVD player, and a flatscreen television. Pictures of SpongeBob SquarePants began to appear on the labels of 8-ounce cans of Green Giant cut green beans and packages of frozen Green Giant green beans and butter sauce in 2007, which featured free stickers. This was part of an initiative to encourage children to eat vegetables. Simmons Jewelry Co. released a $75,000 diamond pendant as part of a SpongeBob collection. In New Zealand, the UK-based Beechdean Group unveiled the SpongeBob SquarePants Vanilla Ice Cream character product as part of a license deal with Nickelodeon. NZ Drinks launched SpongeBob SquarePants bottled water.
Build-A-Bear Workshop introduced the new SpongeBob SquarePants collection in stores and online in North America on May 17, 2013. Shoppers can dress their SpongeBob and Patrick plush in a variety of clothing and accessories. Sandy Cheeks and Gary the Snail are also available as pre-stuffed minis. Build-A-Bear Workshop stores nationwide celebrated the arrival of SpongeBob with a series of special events from May 17 through May 19.
On July 13, 2013, Toyota, with Nickelodeon, unveiled a SpongeBob-inspired Toyota Highlander. The 2014 Toyota Highlander was launched on SpongeBob Day at the San Diego Padres v. Giants game. The SpongeBob Toyota Highlander visited seven US locations during its release, including the Nickelodeon Suites Resort Orlando in Florida.
In April 2019, Nickelodeon released a series of toys adapted from various SpongeBob Internet memes. These included "Handsome Squidward", "Imaginaaation SpongeBob", "Mocking SpongeBob", "SpongeGar", and "Surprised Patrick". Shortly after the release of the line, most of the toys sold out on Amazon.
SpongeBob has also appeared as a guest character in multiple video games, mainly Nickelodeon based ones such as the Nicktoons Unite! and Nick All-Star Brawl franchises, and a crossover game with the MLB entitled Nicktoons MLB. Additionally, there are SpongeBob skins in mobile games such as Stumble Guys and Brawl Stars.
In 2024, Nickelodeon collaborated with various local restaurants and fast food chain Wendy's to create Krabby Patty Kollab meals, including a recreation of the Krabby Patty (which was just the Dave's burgers from Wendy's with special sauce) and various SpongeBob themed food items, including a Pineapple Under The Sea Frosty from Wendy's, along with specialized items at select local restaurants nationwide. While the promotion was popular, it was also criticized for allegedly going against Stephen Hillenburg's wishes of not selling themed fast food based on the property.
In 2025, Wizards of the Coast released a SpongeBob-themed Secret Lair would be released for Magic: The Gathering (Secret Lair is the label for special limited edition cards for the game). Also in 2025, clothing brand Uniqlo released SpongeBob-inspired designs by streetwear brand Cactus Plant Flea Market. In August of 2025, the United States Postal Service released a series of SpongeBob-themed stamps.
== Legacy ==
SpongeBob has been viewed in at least 170 countries and has been available in at least 24 languages.SpongeBob has become a trend in Egypt at Cairo's Tahrir Square. After the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, SpongeBob became a fashion phenomenon, appearing on various merchandise items from hijabs to boxer shorts. The phenomenon led to the creation of the Tumblr project called "SpongeBob on the Nile". The project was founded by American students Andrew Leber and Elisabeth Jaquette and attempts to document every appearance of SpongeBob in Egypt. Sherief Elkeshta cited the phenomenon in an essay about the incoherent state of politics in Egypt in an independent monthly paper titled Midan Masr. He wrote, "Why isn't he [SpongeBob] at least holding a Molotov cocktail? Or raising a fist?" The phenomenon has even spread to Libya, where a Libyan rebel in SpongeBob dress was photographed celebrating the revolution. Although The Guardian and Vice have asserted that the trend has little to no political significance, "joke" presidential campaigns have been undertaken for SpongeBob in Egypt and Syria.
A clip was posted to YouTube in February 2013 that features soldiers in the Russian army and navy singing the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song as they marched. According to the website that uploaded the video, it was one of the "most popular marching songs" in the Russian military. The video garnered nearly 50,000 views within its first week.
In his 2005 commentary for The Ren & Stimpy Show episode "Stimpy's Cartoon Show", creator John Kricfalusi said SpongeBob SquarePants was a spiritual successor to the series.
In 2014, a SpongeBob-themed eatery opened in Ramallah, West Bank, Palestine. The restaurant is modeled after the Krusty Krab and serves Krabby Patties.
Following Hillenburg's death in November 2018, more than 1.2 million fans signed a petition for the National Football League to have the song "Sweet Victory" from the season 2 episode "Band Geeks" performed in his honor at the Super Bowl LIII halftime show. Speculation about the song's inclusion intensified in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl when Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium's Twitter account, the venue of the show, tweeted a GIF of a scene from the aforementioned episode, and Maroon 5, the headliner, including a brief clip of SpongeBob in a preview video. While the song's opening was ultimately included, it served as a transition into rapper Travis Scott's set, which was negatively received by fans. In response to fans' disappointment at not hearing the complete "Sweet Victory" song during the halftime show at Super Bowl LIII, the Dallas Stars of the National Hockey League showed a clip of the full "Sweet Victory" song during a game at the American Airlines Center. In the clip, the characters' band uniforms are recolored green, modeled after the Stars. An animated remake of Sweet Victory opened Nickelodeon's broadcast of Super Bowl LVIII, implementing clips of the 2023 San Francisco 49ers and 2023 Kansas City Chiefs during the performance.
In honor of Hillenburg, a nonprofit fan project titled The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie Rehydrated was released online on May 1, 2022. It consists of a re-creation of the SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, reanimated by 300 people with re-recorded music and dialogue. Amid the YouTube premiere, the video was taken down by Paramount Global due to copyright laws. As a result, the hashtag #JusticeForSpongeBob trended on Twitter against Paramount's action. The video was restored the following day.
=== SpongeBob in internet culture ===
Online memes originating from or relating to SpongeBob SquarePants have achieved widespread popularity on the Internet, so much so that Vox's Aja Romano declared in 2019 that "Spongebob memes came to rule internet culture". A subreddit devoted to memes based on the animated series has, as of May 2019, accumulated over 1.7 million subscribers, a figure much higher than subreddits devoted to the series itself.
Matt Schimkowitz, a senior editor for Know Your Meme, told Time magazine that a combination of factors make SpongeBob memes so popular. He speculated that nostalgia for the past, alongside the cartoon's young audience, contributed to SpongeBob SquarePants' outsized presence in Internet meme culture. Schimkowitz further added that memes derived from the series are exceptionally good at expressing emotions. Michael Gold of The New York Times opined that because of the show's "high episode count" and that it was "so ubiquitous at the beginning of the 21st century", SpongeBob SquarePants became "easy meme fodder".
Nickelodeon and members of the SpongeBob cast have expressed approval for the trend. Tom Kenny told Time that he found SpongeBob memes relatable and good-natured. Kenny said that while the show's characters can be considered complex, they are also simple, creating a wealth of content for meme creators to work with. Nickelodeon has manufactured a line of toys based on some of the show's most recognizable meme formats, and has even included references to well-known memes in SpongeBob video games.
Among the show's most popular memes are the mocking SpongeBob meme, referring to an image macro from the episode "Little Yellow Book", an image of Spongebob appearing exhausted in the episode "Nature Pants", and a particularly disheveled illustration of Squidward from "Squid's Day Off".
A Spongebob meme that surfaced in 2023 is the 'Freakbob' meme. Associated with Gen Z humor, Freakbob (sometimes called Freaky Bob) is typically shown on the dialing end of a phone call. The vast rise in popularity has sparked many variations of the meme on social media.
In 2024, an Internet meme surfaced consisting of Richard Myhill's "Woe Is Me!", taken from the episode "Squilliam Returns", paired with a hamster staring up in despair. Dubbed the "sad hamster meme", the trend experienced rapid popularity on social media platforms as a way for users to express reflection to sadness and unfortunate situations.
Fans of the show have created various pages replicating Bikini Bottom News, a news show within the SpongeBob universe, with versions of the anchors Realistic Fish Head and Perch Perkins generated with artificial intelligence. Some of these pages are criticized for how they handle topics and potentially facilitate fear mongering as a result. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nier | Nier | Nier is a 2010 action role-playing game developed by Cavia and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. In Japan, the game was released as Nier Replicant for the PlayStation 3 with a younger main character, while an alternative version titled Nier Gestalt with an older main character was released for the Xbox 360; Gestalt was released outside Japan as Nier for both platforms. A remaster of the Japanese version, Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139... was released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows in 2021.
The game is a spin-off from the Drakengard series, following the fifth ending of the first game, the events of which have left Earth in ruin. Set over a thousand years later, the story follows the unnamed protagonist attempting to find a cure for a terminal illness afflicting the girl, Yonah—either his sister or daughter. The gameplay borrows elements from various video game genres, occasionally switching between them and the main role-playing-based gameplay.
Beginning production in 2007, the game was directed by Drakengard creator Yoko Taro, who was given a lot of creative freedom with the project. Its storyline drew inspiration from the September 11 attacks and the war on terror, while its gameplay was partly inspired by the God of War series. Due to feedback outside of Japan, multiple versions of the protagonist were created. The music was composed by Monaca, a music studio founded by Keiichi Okabe, with several albums being released.
Nier was released to mixed reception; reviewers praised the story, characters, and soundtrack and were mixed in their opinions of how well the disparate gameplay elements were connected. The execution of some gameplay elements was criticized, notably the side quests, and the graphics were regarded as substandard. Despite this, the game acquired acclaim among players over time, becoming a cult classic. The original Nier sold 500,000 copies, while the updated version sold over 2 million copies worldwide. A sequel developed by PlatinumGames, titled Nier: Automata, was released in 2017.
== Gameplay ==
Nier is an action role-playing game in which players take on the role of a player-named protagonist; the protagonist is a middle-aged man in Nier Gestalt and a teenage boy in Nier Replicant, named by the player. The player directly controls the main character through a third-person perspective to interact with people, objects, and enemies throughout the game. The player can turn the camera around the characters, which allows for a 360° view of the surroundings. The three-dimensional world is divided into areas separated by loading screens, and the player can move freely throughout these areas by walking, running, jumping, and climbing ladders. In some rooms and buildings, the camera swings to the side, and the main character is restricted to moving as in a two-dimensional platforming environment, while during certain battles, the camera pulls up to simulate a top-down shoot 'em up or other video game genres.
While traveling the player is frequently attacked by monsters, which include shadowy figures called Shades, large animals, and robots. Defeating these enemies gives the player experience points that can increase the main character's power and money that can be used to purchase items. The player's weapons can be customized to have greater damage and abilities using materials that can be purchased, dropped from monsters, or scavenged around the world. Multiple varieties of each weapon type can be acquired. The player can also use magic spells, which require enough energy from a constantly regenerating amount to cast. These spells include projectiles and large shadowy fists, among others; new spells are acquired in the first half of the game by completing specific battles. In addition to the main plotline, Nier includes numerous sidequests, which give the player experience points and money, as well as fishing and farming segments.
== Synopsis ==
In the mid 21st century, in the midst of a snowstorm in summer amid a ruined city, the protagonist fends off ethereal black monsters to protect the sick young girl Yonah—either his younger sister or daughter, depending on the version. The protagonist uses a magical book to fend off the creatures, but Yonah touches it and is covered in black markings, worsening her condition. The story moves to over a thousand years later, with the current feudal civilization in decline and the black creatures—dubbed Shades—becoming more hostile. The protagonist and Yonah live in a village built within post-industrial ruins, with the protagonist taking odd jobs from the village leaders Devola and Popola to earn money to support the sick Yonah. While rescuing Yonah from a temple after she wanders there looking for a rare flower, the protagonist meets the talking book Grimoire Weiss, which suggests that the two team up to use Weiss's magic and to find a cure for Yonah's disease, identified as the terminal Black Scrawl. In their search, they encounter Kainé, a hot-tempered and foul-mouthed swordswoman, and Emil, a blindfolded boy whose eyes petrify anyone they see. After journeying for a time, the protagonist's village is attacked by a giant Shade. The battle ends with Emil being forced to petrify Kainé to seal the shade, and Yonah being kidnapped by a master Shade dubbed the Shadowlord.
The game jumps forward five years, with the situation worsening. The protagonist and Emil successfully find the power necessary to free Kainé and kill the giant Shade, but getting the power transforms Emil into a skeletal being the villagers fear. Under Devola's and Popola's guidance, the party seeks parts of a stone key that will unlock a pathway to the Shadowlord. After defeating five Shades and assembling the key, the team goes to defeat the Shadowlord. Devola and Popola then confront the party, revealing themselves to be allied with the Shadowlord in the name of a greater plan. 1300 years prior, humanity faced extinction due to an incurable disease. In an attempt to survive, they separated their souls from their bodies; the current humans are the artificial Replicants who developed their own personalities, while the Shades are human souls—dubbed Gestalts—who are slowly losing their minds through being unable to reunite with their bodies. The Black Scrawl is a side effect of the Gestalts' insanity degrading their Replicant counterparts. The Shadowlord is the prime Gestalt used to stabilise them, and Devola and Popola are androids who oversee the system. The party defeats them, with Emil sacrificing himself in the process. The remaining group then defeats the Shadowlord, revealed to be the Gestalt of the prologue's protagonist, with his actions driven by the wish to save his Yonah by reuniting her Gestalt and Replicant. The Gestalt Yonah dissipates to save her Replicant version's life, and the protagonist kills the Shadowlord after Grimoire Weiss sacrifices himself to weaken his power.
If the player enters further playthroughs, events start just after Kainé is freed. Kainé's past is focused on, showing the discrimination she suffered due to her parents' deaths, being born intersex, and later being partially possessed by the rogue Gestalt Tyrann. Through Tyrann, the player can understand the previously garbled speech of Gestalts. New story sequences show the Gestalt antagonists' motivations and backstory, showing them to be sentient and fighting for their own beliefs and goals. The second ending shows the spirit of the Gestalt protagonist and Yonah reuniting in the afterlife and reveals that Emil survived; further information confirms that the Shadowlord's death will lead to humanity's extinction as Replicants and Gestalts can no longer be rejoined. In a third or further playthrough, Kainé becomes overwhelmed by Tyrann, going berserk and forcing the protagonist to fight her. The protagonist can either kill her to end her suffering (the third ending) or sacrifice his life for her (the fourth ending). The latter choice erases memory of him from Kainé and Yonah and deletes all of the player's save data.
The updated version of Replicant adds a fifth ending after a new game is begun following the fourth ending, beginning after the defeat of Kainé's Shade nemesis Hook. Three years after the Shadowlord's defeat, Kainé continues having nightmares about losing something precious and fights increasingly hostile Shades. Investigating a settlement, she finds its people killed by robots emerging from its central tree, the control unit recording Replicant memories. Kainé, who is talked to by the control unit's AI through twin childlike avatars. Kainé is aided in fighting past machine duplicates of her by Emil, eventually entering the tree's mainframe and battling enemies drawn from her memories, culminating in a battle with a more powerful Hook helped by the data remains of Grimoire Weiss. Kainé destroys Hook and the AI, restoring the protagonist in his young form; all of the player's save data prior to the fourth ending is consequently restored.
== Development ==
The concept that would become Nier was first proposed following the release of Drakengard 2 and the reveal of seventh-generation consoles. The original concept was for a third entry in the Drakengard series. As the project evolved, the original ideas were reworked, and the game eventually became a spin-off from the main series. Despite this, the game's director Yoko Taro continues to think of it as the third Drakengard game. Different reports described its planned platforms. An earlier report stated it was intended as an Xbox 360 exclusive, then expanded onto the PlayStation 3 (PS3). Yoko later stated that the PS3 version was the original one planned due to the lessening importance of the PlayStation 2, which Drakengard 2 had been made for. Including concept planning, the total development time lasted three years, with two years spent actually developing the game. It was initially a small-scale project, but during planning it grew into a full-fledged role-playing game.
Development was handled by Cavia with help from publisher Square Enix, who had previously provided development support for the Drakengard games. Square Enix had minimal input on Yoko's vision for the game's atmosphere and story, allowing him high creative control. Nier is intended to be set over 1000 years after the original Drakengard's fifth ending. In this scenario, the game's protagonists Caim and Angelus travel across a dimensional boundary to fight a monstrous beast. After winning the battle and killing the monster, they are shot down by a fighter jet and killed; their introduction of magic to the world leads to magical research that results in the Black Scrawl. According to Yoko, after the dark story of Drakengard, Yoko focused on more positive themes of friendship and combined effort. Much of the game was inspired by the September 11 attacks and the war on terror. Yoko took from it the idea of a terrible event where both sides believed they were doing the right thing and wanted to show the player multiple perspectives of the same events. The term "Replicant" was borrowed by Yoko from the 1982 science fiction movie Blade Runner, although Yoko did not cite a particular source for Nier's name, passing it off as a codename that persisted through development.
The characters were designed by an artist under the moniker D.K. Two character designs for the protagonist were created for Nier. The developers believed that the Japanese audience would respond more strongly to a younger protagonist, while non-Japanese audiences would prefer an adult protagonist character. Other than changing the protagonists appearance and modifying a few lines of dialogue to fit with him being a father rather than a brother to Yonah, the developers made no changes between the two versions; it was initially believed that the older protagonist was the character's original design. Many characters underwent changes during development, and some needed to be cut. There were originally thirteen Grimoires, with all but three—Weiss, Noir, and Rubrum—being cut. Emil's character was derived from a female character named Halua, while Kainé was originally a far more feminine type who hid her violent nature. Yonah's original Japanese name was derived from the Biblical name Jonah; this could not be taken verbatim into its localized form due to the name being associated with a man, so the name was changed to "Yonah". Yoko was initially shocked at Kainé's design but warmed to it and had it kept. Kainé's character was made intersex, since the team felt it fit in with many other aspects of her gritty backstory. Kainé's status as intersex caused some "commotion" in some regions outside of Japan, which is something the team did not actively intend. Yoko attributed the original suggestion to female staff members working on the game. The in-game cutscenes were created and directed by Studio Anima.
The combat and action elements of Nier were inspired by the God of War series of games, which both Taro and Saito enjoyed. While the games had not been as popular in Japan as in North America, the two felt that the idea of having boss fights with different combat styles than the regular battles was an idea that would appeal to players in both regions. The changing styles, as well as the occasional changes in camera angle and movement, were meant to "accentuate [the] gap between real, modern scenery and the fantasy world" as a tie-in to the game's story. The game was designed to have gameplay that would appeal to non-Japanese players in mind, with producer Saito stating that they wanted to depart from menu-based combat. The game was meant to appeal to older players; it was intended as an action role-playing game (RPG) for an older market than Square Enix's action-RPG series Kingdom Hearts. This influenced the decision to have a main character in his 30s for the international version, as well as more blood and swearing than typical in a Square Enix RPG. The fusion of different gameplay styles was included as a homage to earlier gameplay styles and genres.
=== Music ===
The soundtrack to Nier was composed by a collaboration of the studio MoNACA, directed by Keiichi Okabe and including Kakeru Ishihama and Keigo Hoashi, and Cavia's Takafumi Nishimura. Okabe served as the lead composer and as the director for the project as a whole. Okabe was brought onto the project when the concept for the game was first being devised and worked intermittently on the soundtrack for the next three years until its release. The music for the game was generally composed entirely separately from the game's development. The music was designed for different motifs to appear in various arrangements throughout the soundtrack and also to convey a sense of sadness even during the "thrilling" tracks. Okabe was allowed a great deal of freedom regarding what the music was to sound like; game director Yoko Taro's main request was that he use a lot of vocal works.
The soundtrack to Nier is largely composed of melancholy acoustic pieces that heavily feature vocals by vocalist Emi Evans (Emiko Rebecca Evans), a singer from England living in Tokyo. She is the singer for the band freesscape, and had previously worked on video games such as Etrian Odyssey. In addition to singing, Evans was asked to write her own lyrics in futuristic languages. The composers gave her preliminary version of songs and the style they wished the language to be in, such as Gaelic or French, and she invented the words. Evans wrote songs in versions of Gaelic, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, English, and Japanese, where she tried to imagine what they would sound like after 1,000 years of drifting.
Square Enix released a soundtrack album of music from the game, titled Nier Gestalt & Replicant Original Soundtrack, on April 21, 2010. The soundtrack album reached number 24 on the Japanese Oricon music charts and remained on the charts for 11 weeks. As preorder bonuses for Nier Gestalt and Nier Replicant, two mini-albums, Nier Gestalt Mini Album and Nier Replicant Mini Album, were included. An album of arranged music, NieR Gestalt & Replicant 15 Nightmares & Arrange Tracks, was published by Square Enix on December 8, 2010. The arranged album reached number 59 on the Oricon music charts, a position it held for a week. Another album, NieR Tribute Album -echo-, was released on September 14, 2011, and an album of piano arrangements, Piano Collections Nier Gestalt & Replicant, was published on March 21, 2012.
== Release ==
Nier was officially unveiled in June 2009 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009 for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, along with its developer and publisher. The localizations for the game—in English, French, and German—were produced during development so that all of the versions could be released at the same time and so that Cavia and Square Enix could solicit feedback from North America and Europe on the game so that it would appeal to players outside Japan. Due to its high violence, the game was given a CERO D rating in Japan. In Japan, two versions of the game were released: Nier Gestalt for the 360, which would use the adult lead, and Nier Replicant for the PS3, which used the young lead. Outside of Japan, the Gestalt version was released on both platforms under the title Nier. The PS3 version had a Japanese voice cast, while the 360 release used the English dub. Nier released worldwide by Square Enix in April 2010: it was released on April 22 in Japan and Australia, April 23 in Europe, and April 27 in North America.
A supplementary guidebook, Grimoire Nier: The Complete Guide + Cels, was released on May 28, 2010, by ASCII Media Works. The guidebook included documentation of in-game elements, developer interviews, and novellas detailing both additional character stories and a post-game ending scenario. On May 11, Square Enix released a piece of downloadable content for the game, titled "The World of Recycled Vessel". The small expansion features a series of fifteen battles with the incarnation of Nier other than the one in the specific version of the game. Nier enters the battles in a dream world accessed through a diary in his house. The expansion offers new costumes and weapons for the game. A CD drama, NieR Replicant Drama CD The Lost Words and the Red Sky was released on April 27, 2011. The CD covers additional stories related to the game's backstory and characters.
=== Remaster ===
An updated version of Nier titled Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139... was announced in March 2020 as part of the 10th anniversary celebrations for the series and was slated for a worldwide release for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows. It was released on console in Asia on April 22, 2021, and worldwide the following day. The Windows version was released worldwide on April 23. The game came in both standard and a limited "White Snow" edition exclusive to the Square Enix online store. Pre-orders came with a digital soundtrack and platform-specific art-based bonuses. An updated version of Grimoire Nier was released in Japan in 2021 and, for the first time, in English in 2023.
Yosuke Saito returned as the producer, Yoko Taro remained as creative director, and the role of game director went to Saki Ito. Development was handled by Toylogic. The combat redesign was supervised by Takahisa Taura of PlatinumGames, who had worked on the game's sequel Nier: Automata. Toylogic was brought on board due to Yoko knowing its founder, Yoichi Take, from their time working together at Cavia. Kazuma Koda, who worked on later Nier projects, contributed promotional artwork. Ito described his work reworking the combat and graphical design as preserving as much as possible while matching his own idealised memories of the game and creating something to please fans of Nier: Automata. The characters were redrawn by Akihiko Yoshida, Toshiyuki Itahana, and Kimihiko Fujisaka; all three had contributed to the Drakengard and Nier series and were brought in at Yoko's request. Yoshida worked on the redesigns of the young protagonist, Kainé, Yonah, and Emil; Itahana redesigned Devola and Popola; and Fujisaka reworked the designs for the king of Facade, his queen Fyra, and the father protagonist and designed new character Louise.
The game included new story content, content creating a narrative link to its sequel, and story content originally cut from the game. For the remaster, Yoko chose to exclusively use the brother version of the protagonist, as he had initially wanted. As the father character had apparently seen mixed responses outside of Japan, Yoko decided to feature the brother in the remaster. The father protagonist was featured as the player character in the "15 Nightmares" content, originally released as DLC dubbed "World of Recycled Vessel". The Mermaid story, featuring new character Louise, was planned for the original game but cut due to budget and reworked into a later novella. Yoko decided to include it given the opportunity but did not incorporate other novella material, as those were original stories rather than cut content. Weapon Stories, a feature from the Drakengard series and Nier: Automata, was also incorporated. The fifth ending, originally a backup plan in case the original save data deletion was dropped and later written into a novella, was included both due to Saito's request for fan service and having the budget to incorporate it. Tying into later developments in the series, elements of the fifth ending featured advanced technology.
ver.1.22474487139... features new Japanese voice work to make the game fully voiced and both new and rearranged music. The score was arranged by Okabe, Hoashi, Ryuichi Takada, Kuniyuki Takahashi, Shotaro Seo, and Oliver Good. Okabe and Hoashi composed the new tracks. Evans returned to perform vocals with Saki Nakae. The chorus work was done by Evans, Nakae, Okabe, Shotaro Seo, Yukino Orita, and KOCHO. Most of the English original cast returned, including Laura Bailey (Kaine), Liam O'Brien (Grimoire Weiss), Julie Ann Taylor (Emil), and Eden Riegel (Devola and Popola). The protagonist had two voice actors; Zach Aguilar voiced the younger version, while Ray Chase voiced the older version after the time skip.
== Reception ==
=== Initial release ===
Nier Gestalt sold over 12,500 copies in Japan the week of its release, while Replicant sold over 60,000 and was the top-selling video game in Japan that week. Replicant sold over 121,000 copies in Japan by the end of May 2010 and ended the year with over 134,000 copies sold. In 2019, Yoko estimated that Nier had sold around 500,000 copies worldwide. According to Yoko, "we weren't really in the red, but it wasn't exactly a success either".
Nier received mixed reviews. Reviewers criticized the graphics, with Ryan Clements of IGN saying that "one of Nier's greatest flaws is its visuals," while GameSpot's Kevin VanOrd bemoaned the "flavorless visuals" and "lifeless environments". Dustin Quillen of 1UP.com said that the game "looks downright primitive", while Adriaan den Ouden of RPGamer, who awarded the game a higher score than most, said that "the environments are bland and poorly rendered". The music and voice acting, however, were praised; Clements said that "both are quite excellent", den Ouden called the soundtrack "absolutely fantastic", Chris Schilling of Eurogamer said that the music was full of "memorable themes", and one of the four reviewers for the Japanese Weekly Famitsu termed it "a cut above".
Reviewers were divided in their opinion on the effectiveness of the multiple styles of gameplay presented. Seth Schiesel of The New York Times said that while "there are plenty of games that surpass it in each area," that Nier pulled all of the styles together into a "coherent, compelling whole" instead of feeling "disjointed"; he especially praised a section of the game that is presented entirely through text. Patrick Kolan of IGN Australia, however, said that while the different styles were "interesting" and one of the game's biggest strengths, they suffered from poor execution and cohesion and left the game "with split-personality disorder". Clements said that "the developers' ideas sometimes outshine the actual implementation", while highlighting the gameplay elements as part of what made the game fun. Adriaan den Ouden called out the variety as the best part of the game, likening it to a buffet table, while also acknowledging that none of the sections were "amazing" on their own and could easily be looked upon poorly.
The regular combat was reviewed as solid, if not exceptional, and the sidequests were seen as repetitive, with Quillen saying that "the side quests in Nier are about as numerous as they are totally mindless," VanOrd calling them "a series of monotonous events, often connected only by long stretches of nothing," and a Famitsu reviewer saying that they "didn't see much purpose" to them. Clements said that the combat had "a fair amount of satisfaction", though players should "not expect anything too extraordinary", and Kolan termed the combat as "moderately deep". Critics gave a generally positive review to the plot and characters; VanOrd liked most of the characters but thought Nier was bland and the story "soggy", while Schiesel called the story "provocative" and "profound", saying that it "succeeds at fostering an emotional investment in its characters and in its world". Quillen said that the plot "takes some fascinating and truly original turns" and that Nier has "a supporting cast of genuinely interesting folks," and Schilling said that the story made the game "difficult to dislike". The Famitsu reviewer that viewed the game the most favorably said that he was "blown away" by the multiple endings and that "nothing like it's been done in gaming".
In 2015, Jeffrey Matulef of Eurogamer characterized Nier as "the rare game that gets better with age". Despite "poor sales and tepid reviews", he wrote, the game had acquired a cult following, which he attributed to its "sense of wonder" due to its cryptic storytelling, mashup assortment of game mechanics, and melancholy mood.
=== Replicant ver.1.22474487139... ===
By June 2021, Replicant ver 1.22474487139... had shipped over one million copies worldwide in both physical and digital sales, noted as being double the estimates for the original version. By November 2022, Replicant ver 1.22474487139... had shipped 1.5 million copies worldwide. As of February 2026, it has sold over 2 million units.
Famitsu lauded the gameplay improvements and visual upgrade, though one reviewer noted the lack of fast travel and another said some players might be thrown off by "quirks" in the design. Electronic Gaming Monthly's Mollie L. Patterson enjoyed the remaster, liking the young version of the protagonist better than the earlier adult version and praising its reworked gameplay and additions. Jason Guisao of Game Informer felt the visual upgrade was inconsistent and disliked the side quest structure but lauded the overall narrative and improvements to the game's mechanics. GameSpot's Michael Higham was generally positive about the game, praising its narrative, new elements and music while finding its gameplay and world held back by archaic design.
Mitchell Saltzmann of IGN negatively noted the repetition in later areas and the side quest design but praised the graphical and gameplay updates along with the new story content. Julie Muncy of PC Gamer positively noted the improvements to combat and general movement and praised the story's tone and additions but highlighted that the original's pacing issues were also retained. Chris Plante of Polygon enjoyed the slow pace of the narrative and the combat but disliked the archaic design and was uncomfortable with some of Kainé's storyline. Malindy Hetfeld of Eurogamer did not like the game as a whole but enjoyed its later narrative and noted that the graphical and gameplay improvements had made it playable for modern audiences and series fans.
Replicant ver 1.22474487139... won the "Best Score/Music" category at The Game Awards 2021. It also saw nominations at the 2021 NAVGTR awards in "Outstanding Animation, Technical", "Outstanding Game, Franchise Role-playing", "Outstanding Original Dramatic Score, Franchise", and "Outstanding Song, Original or Adapted".
== Legacy ==
Nier was the last game that Cavia made; the company was absorbed into its parent company, AQ Interactive, in July 2010. Square Enix executive producer Yosuke Saito later commented that "a number of things" related to Nier were in progress and that an announcement could be due in 2011. The only announcement ended up not being for a new Nier video game, but instead for a live evening concert for Nier's music titled "Nier Night ~ Evening of Madness" which took place on October 28, 2011. In March 2011, there were plans made between Yoko and Takuya Iwasaki, one of the original producers for Drakengard, to develop a port of Nier for the PlayStation Vita at Iwasaki's company Orca. The port would have incorporated material from both versions of the game. When Orca was chosen to help develop Dragon Quest X, the project was shelved. A number of key staff from Nier's development, including director Yoko and Okabe, would later reunite to work on a new entry (Drakengard 3) in the Drakengard series from which Nier was spun off.
A sequel titled Nier: Automata, developed by Square Enix and PlatinumGames for the PlayStation 4, was released in Japan on February 23, in North America on March 7, and worldwide on March 10, 2017. The PC version of Nier: Automata was released on March 17, 2017. The Xbox One version was released on June 26, 2018. The Nintendo Switch version was released on October 6, 2022. Yoko, Saito, and Okabe returned to their previous roles. Other staff members include Yoshida as lead artist and producer Atsushi Inaba. A mobile game, Nier Reincarnation, produced by Applibot, with Yoshida returning to design the characters, was released on February 18, 2021. Owing to the success of Automata, Nier was reprinted for the PlayStation 3 in PAL territories in April 2017. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Globe_Award_for_Best_Actor_in_a_Motion_Picture_%E2%80%93_Drama | Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama | The Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama is a Golden Globe Award that was first awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association as a separate category in 1951. Previously, there was a single award for "Best Actor in a Motion Picture" but the splitting allowed for recognition of it and the Best Actor – Musical or Comedy.
The formal title has varied since its inception. In 2005, it was officially called: "Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama". As of 2013, the wording is "Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama".
== Winners and nominees ==
=== 1940s ===
=== 1950s ===
=== 1960s ===
=== 1970s ===
=== 1980s ===
=== 1990s ===
=== 2000s ===
=== 2010s ===
=== 2020s ===
== Multiple nominations ==
== Multiple wins ==
== Firsts ==
José Ferrer became the first Latino as well as the first Puerto Rican actor to win in 1951.
Sidney Poitier became the first actor of African descent as well as the first Bahamian actor to win in 1963.
Omar Sharif became the first actor of Middle Eastern descent as well as the first Egyptian actor to win in 1966.
Peter Finch became the first actor to win posthumously in 1977.
Ben Kingsley became the first actor of Asian descent to win in 1983.
Wagner Moura became the first actor to win for a foreign language/non-English language performance in 2025. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Lewis | Ray Lewis | Raymond Anthony Lewis Jr. (born May 15, 1975) is an American former professional football player who spent his entire 17-year career as a linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Miami Hurricanes, earning All-America honors. He is considered one of the greatest linebackers of all time.
Lewis was selected by the Ravens in the first round of the 1996 NFL draft, and upon his retirement following the 2012 season, was the last remaining active player from the team's inaugural season. Lewis immediately became a leader on defense and led the team in tackles as a rookie, the first of 14 times he led the Ravens in tackles.
In 2000, Lewis pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in connection with the stabbing deaths of two men; he testified as a key witness at the trial, and a jury determined the killings were acts of self-defense. The following season, he was named NFL Defensive Player of the Year and led the Ravens' record-setting defense, which established a 16-game single-season record for the fewest points allowed (165) and the fewest rushing yards allowed (970), to victory in Super Bowl XXXV. Lewis also became the second linebacker to win the Super Bowl Most Valuable Player Award, and the first to win the award on the winning Super Bowl team. Lewis won his second Defensive Player of the Year award in 2003, becoming the sixth player to win the award multiple times. After a triceps tear that sidelined him for most of the 2012 regular season, Lewis returned for the Ravens' playoff run and earned his second Super Bowl victory in his final NFL game. On February 3, 2018, the fifth anniversary of his final game, Lewis was selected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.
During his tenure with the Ravens, he accumulated 2,059 career combined tackles, including 1,568 solo tackles, both of which are NFL records. Due to his numerous accolades and prodigious football play, Lewis is widely considered to be the greatest middle linebacker in NFL history. He was a 13-time Pro Bowler, a 10-time All-Pro, and one of the few players in NFL history to play in a Pro Bowl in three decades (1990s, 2000s, and 2010s). He is also considered to be the greatest Baltimore Raven of all time, as well as one of the greatest defensive players of all time.
== Early life ==
Raymond Anthony Jackson was born in Bartow, Florida, located in Central Florida, the oldest of five siblings. His mother, Sunseria Smith, was just 15 at the time of his birth, while his father, Elbert Ray Jackson, was absent for most of his life. Not much was known about his father's life other that he was a record-setting high school wrestler before he was incarcerated for drug-related offenses. As a boy, and the eventual older brother to four younger siblings, Lewis quickly became the man of the house. He helped his sisters with their hair and made sure his younger brother arrived at daycare on time. When his father's contact became less frequent, he abandoned his last name and changed it to the last name of his mother's friend, Ray Lewis.
Lewis attended Kathleen High School in Lakeland, Florida, where he was a star high school football player and wrestler. As a wrestler, Lewis was a Florida wrestling state champion. He was an All-American linebacker on the football field at Kathleen, overcoming his smaller size at the time with his intensity and instincts. Lewis later revealed that his stepfather was extremely abusive towards his mother, and got a deck of 52 playing cards to start his push-up regimen, so he could get stronger to protect her. This also was the reason behind choosing the #52 jersey in his professional career. His younger brother, Keon Lattimore, was a former running back at the University of Maryland.
== College career ==
Lewis enrolled in the University of Miami, where he was a member of the Miami Hurricanes football team. As a freshman, he was an immediate contributor and became a starter for the Hurricanes' final five games. He compiled 81 tackles, two sacks, two tackles for loss, and four pass deflections en route to being named to the freshman All-American team.
In his sophomore season, Lewis earned first-team All-American and All-Big East honors. Lewis led the Big East with 153 tackles and also contributed nine tackles for a loss, two sacks, and an interception for a Hurricanes team that had the nation's top-ranked defense and finished No. 6 in both the writers' and coaches' polls.
Lewis's junior campaign was even more successful, as he was again named to the All-American and All-Big East teams, and finished as runner-up for the Butkus Award, given to the top linebacker in college football. Lewis finished his junior season with 160 tackles, the second highest in University of Miami team history after Ed Weisacosky's 164 in 1965.
Lewis led the Big East in tackles his last two seasons and accumulated the fifth most in Miami history despite playing only three seasons.
After the 1995 season, Lewis decided to forgo his final year of college eligibility and enter the NFL draft. The Baltimore Ravens, who were entering their inaugural season, selected Lewis 26th overall in the first round of the 1996 NFL draft. Lewis was the Ravens' second ever draft pick behind offensive tackle Jonathan Ogden who was selected #4 overall the same year. Lewis eventually earned his undergraduate degree in Arts and Science in 2004 at the University of Maryland University College.
== Professional career ==
=== 1996 season: Rookie season ===
Lewis was the top-rated inside linebacker heading into the 1996 NFL Draft, in which Kevin Hardy was considered the draft's only outstanding linebacker prospect. Taken as the fifth linebacker in the draft, Lewis was seen by scouts as possessing speed, tackling ability, and intensity, as well as being praised for his ability to go into pass coverage. But many considered his lack of size a potential liability. In his first career game, a Week 1 19–14 victory over the Oakland Raiders, Lewis earned AFC Defensive Player of the Week for his seven-tackle performance, along with an unusual interception. Lewis earned USA Today's All-Rookie team honors after his 15 tackles for loss led the NFL and 110 tackles led the Ravens in the 1996 season. He finished his rookie season with two and a half sacks, six pass deflections, and an interception on the season as the Ravens finished with a 4–12 record.
=== 1997 season ===
In Week 9, against the Washington Redskins, Lewis earned his second AFC Defensive Player of the Week honor. Lewis recorded an NFL-best and career high 184 tackles in 1997, which also included 156 solo tackles, the most ever in single season, and earned his first Pro Bowl berth at the end of that season. In addition, Lewis totaled four sacks, an interception, a forced fumble, a fumble recovery, and 11 pass deflections in the Ravens' 6–9–1 season.
=== 1998 season ===
In Week 12 of the 1998 season, Lewis recorded two interceptions and a sack against the Bengals in a 20–13 win. Lewis made his second trip to the Pro Bowl after recording 120 tackles, three sacks, two interceptions, a forced fumble, and seven pass deflections. He led the 6–10 Ravens in tackles for the third consecutive season. He was also named to The Sporting News All-Pro Team. In what would prove to be Hall of Fame Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders's final game, Lewis and the rest of the Ravens defense held him to just 41 rushing yards on 19 attempts.
=== 1999 season ===
In 1999, during the first game of the regular season against the St. Louis Rams, Lewis had 14 solo tackles, four tackles for loss, an interception, and a sack in the 27–10 loss. In Week 2 against the Pittsburgh Steelers, he finished with a team leading 13 combined tackles in the 23–20 loss. In Week 3 against the Cleveland Browns, Lewis had ten combined tackles and a sack in the 17–10 win. In Week 4 against the Atlanta Falcons, Lewis finished with 12 combined tackles in the 19–13 overtime win. During Week 5 against the Tennessee Titans, Lewis had 13 tackles and the only scored safety of his career in the 14–11 loss. In Week 8 against the Buffalo Bills, Lewis had 14 tackles and a sack in the 13–10 loss. Despite the Ravens having an 8–8 regular season record, Lewis led the NFL in tackles with 165. He was named to a third-straight Pro Bowl and the All-Pro first team. In addition, he totaled three and a half sacks, three interceptions, eight pass deflections, a safety, and a forced fumble. Lewis won the 1999 NFL Alumni Linebacker Of The Year chosen by past NFL players voting according to the position they played.
=== 2000: Record-setting defense, Defensive Player of the Year and Super Bowl XXXV MVP ===
In 2000, Lewis led a defense which many call the greatest in NFL history for a single season. In Week 2 of the regular season against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Lewis led the team in tackles with 11 tackles in the 39–36 win. In Week 3 against the Miami Dolphins, Lewis had 11 tackles in the 19–6 loss. In Week 6 against the Jacksonville Jaguars, he finished 13 tackles and a fumble recovery in the 15–10 win. In Week 13 against the Cleveland Browns, Lewis had five tackles and two sacks in the 44–7 blowout win. Lewis finished the regular season with a franchise leading 137 tackles, as well as two interceptions, six pass deflections, and three fumble recoveries. The team set a 16-game single-season record for fewest points allowed (165) and fewest rushing yards allowed (970). The team recorded four shutouts, one shy of the single-season record. The unit finished first league-wide in six key defensive categories. Including the postseason, and excluding three combined touchdowns that were given up by the Ravens offense and special teams, Baltimore's defense allowed only 184 points in 20 games. After the regular season, he earned a unanimous All-Pro selection, and was once again named to start in the Pro Bowl. In the Wild Card Round against the Denver Broncos, Lewis had seven tackles and an interception in the 21–3 win. In the Divisional Round against the Tennessee Titans, Lewis had 12 combined tackles and an interception returned 50 yards for the clinching touchdown in the 24–10 win. In the AFC Championship against the Oakland Raiders, he had seven combined tackles and a fumble recovery in the 16–3 win. Lewis was named NFL Defensive Player of The Year for the 2000 season. The Ravens became only the second team to ever record a defensive shutout in a Super Bowl, as they dominated the New York Giants 34–7 to win the franchise's first ever Super Bowl championship. Lewis's five combined tackles and four passes defended earned him Super Bowl XXXV MVP honors. He also added 31 tackles, two interceptions, 9 pass deflections, one fumble recovery, and a touchdown in the four-game playoff run.
=== 2001 season ===
In 2001, Lewis earned his fifth consecutive Pro Bowl selection, when he led the NFL in tackles with 162 and earned first-team All-Pro honors. In Week 12, he had a career-high 18 total tackles and one sack in the 39–27 victory over the Colts. In Week 15, he earned his third AFC Defensive Player of the Week honor in a 15–0 shutout of the Cincinnati Bengals. He had two interceptions and 11 total tackles in the win. The Ravens earned a playoff berth with a 10–6 record. In the Ravens' two playoff games, he totaled 17 tackles, three forced fumbles, and one pass deflection as the team's season ended in the divisional round.
=== 2002 season ===
In 2002, Lewis was limited to only five games due to a shoulder injury. He still managed to rank fifth on the team with 58 tackles. In addition, Lewis compiled two interceptions, two pass deflections, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery. Lewis earned AFC Defensive Player of the Week honors in Week 4 against the Denver Broncos after posting and tying his career-high with 18 tackles (11 solo), two pass deflections, and an interception. After having been selected to the Pro Bowl for five consecutive seasons (1997–2001), Lewis's streak was stopped by his season-ending injury. In his absence, the Baltimore Ravens defense finished ranked 19th in points allowed the team as a whole finished with a 7–9 record.
=== 2003 season: Second Defensive Player of the Year award ===
Lewis was the leading vote recipient for the 2003 AP All-Pro team, earning 49 of 50 votes. He also won the annual AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year with 43 votes out of 50. He was named to his sixth career Pro Bowl for the 2003 season. Additionally, Lewis earned Pro Football Weekly, PFWA, and Football Digest Defensive MVP honors and was named to Dr. Z's Sports Illustrated All-Pro team, Pro Football Weekly's All-NFL team, Pro Football Weekly's All-AFC team, Football Digest's All-Pro first team, and The Sporting News' All-Pro team. Lewis also earned the KC 101 AFC Defensive Player of the Year award for the 3rd time in four years, the 2003 NFL Alumni Linebacker Of The Year, and finished with 161 tackles, one and a half sacks, six interceptions, two forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries, 14 pass deflections, and one touchdown. He was named NFL Defensive Player of the Month for November and AFC Defensive Player of the Week for his 15-tackle, one-interception performance against the Pittsburgh Steelers in week 17. In the Wild Card Round loss to the Tennessee Titans, Lewis totaled 17 tackles.
=== 2004 season ===
In 2004, Lewis was named first-team All-Pro by the AP, second-team "All Pro" by College and Pro Football Weekly and Football Digest, and "All Pro" by The Sporting News. He finished the 2004 season playing 15 games while recording 146 total tackles, one sack, two fumble recoveries, one fumble forced, and six pass deflections as the Ravens went 9–7. He earned a seventh Pro Bowl nomination.
=== 2005 season ===
Lewis's 2005 season was cut short by an injury in Week 6. He was placed on injured reserve in Week 8, having amassed 46 tackles, a sack, an interception, two pass deflections, and a fumble recovery in the season's first six games. The Ravens struggled to a final record of 6–10.
=== 2006 season ===
In 2006, Lewis led the Ravens defense to an NFL-best ranking in 14 major defensive categories, including total yards allowed, points per game allowed, and interceptions. The Ravens also finished second in sacks, take-aways, and rushing yards allowed. Lewis missed two games due to an injury, but still recorded 103 tackles, a personal best of five sacks, two interceptions, and eight pass deflections in 14 games. He also forced a fumble and recovered one. The Ravens allowed just one 100-yard rushing performance in the 14 games Lewis played. Lewis was named AFC Defensive Player of the Week following his seven-tackle, one-sack, and three-pass-deflection performance against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the season opener. He was also selected to the Pro Bowl, but withdrew because of a hand injury, ceding his spot to fellow Ravens linebacker Bart Scott. Lewis finished fifth in voting for Defensive Player of the Year. Lewis totaled 15 tackles and a pass deflection in the Divisional Round loss to the Indianapolis Colts.
=== 2007 season ===
Despite the Ravens' mediocre 5–11 season, Lewis was the team's leading tackler. Against the Cleveland Browns, Lewis recorded 16 tackles, recovered a fumble, and returned an interception for a touchdown. He earned his ninth career Pro Bowl nomination. He finished the season with 120 total tackles, two sacks, two forced fumbles, one fumble recovery, ten passes deflected, two interceptions, and one touchdown.
=== 2008 season ===
In 2008, Lewis helped lead the Ravens to the AFC Championship while totaling 117 tackles, three and a half sacks, three interceptions, two forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries, and nine passes deflected. He was named a starter to the Pro Bowl, his tenth such nomination, and was named an Associated Press first-team All-Pro for the sixth time. In addition, he was named the AFC Defensive Player of the Week following his eight tackles, two interception, and two pass deflections against the Houston Texans in Week 10. In the three playoff games against the Miami Dolphins, Tennessee Titans, and Pittsburgh Steelers, Lewis totaled 29 tackles, two forced fumbles, and one pass deflection in three games. After the season, he became an unrestricted free agent, but agreed to return to the Baltimore Ravens to complete his career. The contract, which would have run through 2015 (including two option years), was said to be worth $10 million the first year, but was highly incentivized.
=== 2009 season ===
In 2009, Lewis was named first-team All-Pro by the Associated Press for the seventh time (ninth selection overall) and named to his 11th Pro Bowl. He accumulated an AFC-leading 134 tackles on the season. He also added three sacks, two forced fumbles, one fumble recovery, and seven passes deflected. Lewis added 21 tackles, one sack, and one pass deflection in two playoff games. In the September 2009 issue of Sporting News' Magazine, Lewis was selected to their Team of the Decade (2000s). In Week 2 against the San Diego Chargers, Lewis made the game-saving tackle on running back Darren Sproles on a fourth-down play. After the game, Lewis said it was one of the best tackles he has made in his career. Lewis was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame 1st team All-2000s Team.
=== 2010 season ===
In 2010, Lewis was named second-team All-Pro by the Associated Press for the third time (10th All-Pro selection overall) and named to his 12th Pro Bowl. He totaled 139 tackles, two sacks, two interceptions, two forced fumbles, three fumble recoveries, four pass deflections, and one defensive touchdown, which came on a 24-yard pick six against the Panthers in Week 11. Lewis added 13 tackles, one sack, and a forced fumble in two playoff games. On Sunday, November 21, 2010, Lewis became only the second player in NFL history to record at least 30 interceptions and 30 sacks for their career. He was the fastest player (204 games) to achieve that feat. He was ranked fourth by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2011. He earned the highest ranking for a defensive player on the initial ranking by the NFL players.
=== 2011 season ===
In Week 3, Lewis was named AFC Defensive Player of the Week for his performance against the St. Louis Rams. In the 37–7 victory, Lewis had one sack, one forced fumble, and ten solo tackles. In the 2011 season, Lewis was named to his 13th and what proved to be his final Pro Bowl, and led the Ravens with 95 tackles despite missing four games with an injury. Lewis also collected two sacks, one interception, two forced fumbles, and seven pass deflections. Lewis totaled 20 tackles and one pass deflection in two playoff games. On Sunday, October 16, 2011, against the Houston Texans, Lewis became the first player in NFL history with at least 40 sacks and 30 interceptions in his career. He was ranked 20th by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2012.
=== 2012: Final year and second Super Bowl ===
Lewis suffered torn triceps on October 14, 2012, during a game against the Dallas Cowboys, and had them surgically repaired three days later. Several sources had reported he was expected to return to action December 16 in the game against the Denver Broncos, much earlier than his expected return in January, but he was inactive for the game. On January 2, 2013, Lewis announced he would retire after his team finished the 2012–13 NFL playoffs.
He returned to action for Baltimore's Wild Card Round game against the Colts and led the defense to a 24–9 win. On the game's last play, Lewis lined up on offense at fullback. The Ravens were not slated to play another home playoff game (since they were the number-four seed, and the day before, the Houston Texans beat the number-six seed Cincinnati Bengals), so they wanted Lewis to be on the field for the final play. Next, the Ravens defeated the Denver Broncos in the Divisional Round, 38–35 in double overtime, and then defeated the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship, 28–13.
Lewis's final career NFL game was Super Bowl XLVII, where the Ravens defeated the San Francisco 49ers by a score of 34–31. Lewis finished the regular season with 57 tackles, one sack, one forced fumble, one fumble recovery, and one deflection in six games. In the postseason, Lewis led the NFL with 51 tackles. He contributed two tackles for loss and one pass deflection in the Ravens' Super Bowl XLVII run.
== NFL career statistics ==
=== Regular season ===
=== Playoffs ===
== Murder trial ==
Following a Super Bowl XXXIV party in Atlanta on January 31, 2000, a fight broke out between Lewis' entourage and another group of people, resulting in the stabbing deaths of Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar. Lewis and two companions, Reginald Oakley and Joseph Sweeting, were questioned by Atlanta police, and 11 days later the three men were indicted on murder and aggravated assault charges. The fight occurred about 200 yards (180 m) from the Cobalt Lounge at 265 East Paces Ferry Road in the Buckhead Village neighborhood about two miles north of downtown Atlanta where Lewis had been celebrating.
The white suit Lewis was wearing the night of the killings was never found. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard alleged the blood-stained suit was dumped in a garbage bin outside a fast food restaurant. A knife found at the scene did not have any fingerprints or DNA. Lewis subsequently testified that Oakley and Sweeting had bought knives earlier in the week before the Super Bowl from a Sports Authority where Lewis had been signing autographs. Baker's blood was found inside of Lewis's limousine.
Two weeks into the trial, Lewis's attorneys, Don Samuel and Ed Garland, negotiated a plea agreement with the District Attorney in which the murder charges against Lewis were dismissed in exchange for his testimony against Oakley and Sweeting, and his guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge of obstruction of justice. Lewis admitted he gave a misleading statement to police on the morning after the killings (initially telling them that he was not at the scene). Superior Court Judge Alice D. Bonner sentenced Lewis to 12 months' probation. One year in prison is the maximum sentence for a first-time offender, and the immediate probation was the judge's decision. He was also fined $250,000 by the NFL, which was believed to be the highest fine levied against an NFL player for an infraction not involving substance abuse. Under the terms of the sentence, Lewis could not use drugs or alcohol during the duration of the probation.
=== Outcome ===
Oakley and Sweeting maintained that they had acted in self-defense, and after five hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted them of all charges in June 2000. The following year, Lewis was named Super Bowl XXXV MVP. However, the signature phrase "I'm going to Disney World!" was given instead to quarterback Trent Dilfer.
On April 29, 2004, Lewis reached an out-of-court settlement with four-year-old India Lollar, born months after the death of her father Richard, pre-empting a scheduled civil proceeding. Lewis also reached an undisclosed settlement with Baker's family.
During a taped pre-game interview with Shannon Sharpe that aired on CBS before Super Bowl XLVII, Sharpe told Lewis that the families of the slain men find it difficult to see Lewis idolized by millions of fans, believing he knows more about the killings than he shared, and asked what he had to say to those families. Lewis responded, "God has never made a mistake. That's just who He is, you see.... To the family, if you knew, if you really knew the way God works, He don't use people who commits anything like that for His glory."
The Ravens' crisis management around Lewis's murder trial was revisited by former head coach Brian Billick, by then a media analyst, after the 2013 arrest of Aaron Hernandez and his swift release by the New England Patriots.
== Legacy ==
Throughout his career, Lewis built a reputation as a leader and intimidating force at middle linebacker. He has led his team in tackles in 12 of his 14 seasons. The Ravens did not allow a single 100-yard rusher in 51 consecutive games from the 1998 through 2001 seasons. In addition to his run defense, Lewis has also gained a reputation as a complete defender. His 31 interceptions rank fifth all-time among NFL linebackers, and just six short of the top spot. Since the murder allegations, Lewis's image has recovered, and today he is considered one of the most dominant linebackers in the history of the NFL. Lewis was also selected as the third-best linebacker of all time on the show The Sports List. A poll of NFL coaches selected him as the most dominant player in the NFL before the 2003 season by being mentioned on 10 ballots, while no other player was mentioned more than twice. Team owner Steve Bisciotti stated his intention to erect a statue of Lewis outside M&T Bank Stadium. On September 4, 2014, days before the Ravens season opener, a statue of Lewis was unveiled in front of M&T Bank Stadium.
Lewis has been referenced in television shows such as The Wire, films such as The Rundown (by that movie's star and Lewis's friend & former teammate at Miami, Dwayne Johnson), and in music videos, such as in Mario's "Just a Friend 2002" and Nelly's "Heart of a Champion". Lewis has appeared in television ads for NFL Network, Reebok, Under Armour, Old Spice, and Eastern Motors. He was the featured athlete on the cover of Madden NFL 2005. That season, he missed a number of games to an injury, adding to the "Madden Curse". He was documented in NFL Network's documentary series A Football Life. He was named to the NFL 100 All Time Team.
== Other work ==
Lewis opened the Ray Lewis Full Moon Bar-B-Que, which operated in Baltimore's Canton neighborhood from February 2005 until 2008. He has also gained several national corporate endorsements, some of which draw upon his tough image. In 2004, Lewis was placed on the cover of the highly popular Madden NFL 2005 video game published by EA Sports, and is also a very avid player of the same series. In 2006, it was announced that Lewis, Hall of Fame running back Gale Sayers, and entrepreneur Mark Bloomquist would form S&L Racing, intending to race both cars and trucks from a North Carolina headquarters. Lewis's attempt to join NASCAR racing failed.
On March 13, 2013, it was announced that Lewis would join ESPN as a contributor for their NFL coverage. Lewis was let go by ESPN in 2016. On June 20, 2017, it was announced Lewis had been hired by cable sports network Fox Sports 1.
Lewis competed against tight end Tony Gonzalez in an episode of Spike (now Paramount Network)'s Lip Sync Battle, which aired on February 2, 2017. He emerged victorious with performances of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" and "Hot in Herre" by Nelly, who joined him for the performance.
In August 2019, Lewis was announced as one of the celebrities to compete on season 28 of Dancing with the Stars. He later withdrew from the competition due to a tendon injury in his foot, requiring surgery.
== Charitable activities ==
Lewis has been heavily involved in charitable activities throughout his professional career. He started the Ray Lewis 52 Foundation which is a nonprofit corporation whose mission is to provide personal and economic assistance to disadvantaged youth. The foundation has funded such events as adopting 10 families in Baltimore community for the holidays, an annual celebrity auction and bowling tournament, the Great Maryland Duck Derby, Thanksgiving food drives on North Avenue in Baltimore, and Ray's Summer Days. All proceeds have helped fund the Ray Lewis Foundation.
Lewis has since been involved in pressing political, business, and philanthropic leaders for a stronger commitment to disability sports both here and in the developing world. Lewis was also honored with a JB award (named in honor of CBS broadcaster James Brown) during the 2006 off-season and received the "Act of Kindness" Award for his work in the community.
== Awards and accolades ==
Since his rookie year in 1996, Lewis has won numerous NFL awards, including being named Defensive Player of the Year twice (2000 and 2003), as well as Super Bowl MVP after winning Super Bowl XXXV after the 2000 season. He is also a 13-time Pro Bowler and seven-time AP First Team All-Pro player, a three-time AP Second Team All-Pro Selection, and was also a two-time All-American in college (1994 and 1995).
On May 11, 2010, a portion of Baltimore's North Avenue was renamed "Ray Lewis Way" in honor of the linebacker and his charitable work.
Lewis had career totals of 2,059 total tackles (1,568 solo), 19 forced fumbles, 117 passes defended, 102.5 stuffs for a loss, 41.5 sacks, 20 fumble recoveries, 31 interceptions for 503 yards, one safety, and three touchdowns in 228 games. He has been selected to 13 NFL Pro Bowl games, a record for an inside/middle linebacker, in his 17 seasons, and led the NFL in tackles five times (1997, 1999, 2001, 2003 and 2004). In 2003, Lewis led all linebackers with six interceptions, a total matching the post-merger all-time record for a middle linebacker in a single season. Lewis was named first-team Associated Press All-Pro in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2008, 2009 and second-team All-Pro in 1997, 1998, and 2010. His 10 total All-Pro selections is a record for an inside/middle linebacker and ties the record for a linebacker (Lawrence Taylor also has 10 selections). In 21 career playoff games, Lewis has totaled 214 tackles (135 solo), two sacks, six forced fumbles, one fumble recovery, two interceptions for 54 yards, 15 pass deflections, 10.5 stuffs for a loss, and one touchdown.
Lewis was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018, his first year of eligibility. Lewis joined teammate Jonathan Ogden in Canton; the two were the Ravens' first two draft picks after the team relocated to Baltimore.
== Personal life ==
Lewis is a Christian, and his commitment to his faith was featured in a Sports Illustrated cover story in 2006. He has a total of six children: four boys, and two girls.
His son Ray III played college football at the University of Miami, and later Coastal Carolina. Ray III would later play indoor football for the Wyoming Mustangs in 2021. Ray III died at the age of 28 on June 15, 2023, of an accidental overdose.
His son Rayshad played at Utah State and University of Maryland.
Michael Phelps, a Baltimore native and Ravens fan, stated that he found his life purpose and desire to compete in the 2016 Summer Olympics after seeking Lewis's advice.
Lewis is a fan of English soccer club Manchester City FC. In 2015, Lewis' autobiography, I Feel Like Going On: Life, Game, and Glory, was published. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachael_Leigh_Cook | Rachael Leigh Cook | Rachael Leigh Cook (born October 4, 1979) is an American actress and model. She has starred in the films The Baby-Sitters Club (1995), She's All That (1999), and Josie and the Pussycats (2001), and in the television series Into the West and Perception. She is also the voice behind various characters in Robot Chicken and Tifa Lockhart in the Final Fantasy series, starting with the English version of the film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Since 2016, her television appearances have primarily been made-for-TV movies on the Hallmark Channel.
== Early life ==
Rachael Leigh Cook was born on October 4, 1979, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the daughter of Thomas Howard Cook, a social worker and former stand-up comedian, and JoAnn, a cooking instructor and weaver. She is of part English and Italian descent. Cook first appeared in a public service announcement for foster care at seven years of age and began working as a child print model at the age of 10, including nationwide advertisements for Target and appearing on the boxes of Milk-Bone dog biscuits. She attended Clara Barton Open School, Laurel Springs School, and Minneapolis South High School.
== Career ==
Cook began auditioning for acting work at age 14. She made her screen debut as an actress in the 1995 film The Baby-Sitters Club. She also played a role in the adventure film Tom and Huck, released in December 1995. In 1996, her modeling agency sent her to star in a short film, 26 Summer Street. In 1997, Cook appeared in a leading role in the film Country Justice as a 15-year-old rape victim who is impregnated by her rapist.
In 1999, Cook starred in her breakout role in the romantic comedy film She's All That, the most financially successful film of her career. In 2000, she starred opposite Elijah Wood in the well-received The Bumblebee Flies Anyway. She took the lead role in 2001's Josie and the Pussycats, which turned out to be a box office failure, although it has since become a cult classic.
In 2000, she was the cover girl for the U.S. March/April issue of FHM. She also starred in the music video for New Found Glory's 2000 single "Dressed to Kill". In 2002, she was ranked No. 26 in Stuff magazine's "102 Sexiest Women in the World". In 2003, she starred in the film 11:14 as Cheri. She also appeared as a main cast member in the 2005 television miniseries Into the West produced by Steven Spielberg. In 2006, she appeared in the music video for Daniel Powter's "Love You Lately".
In 2007, Cook was seen in the big screen adaptation of Nancy Drew. She played the female lead in the independent sports drama The Final Season. She has appeared in numerous episodes of the Seth Green comedies Titan Maximum and Robot Chicken. In 2008, she guest-starred as Abigail Lytar in two third-season episodes of the USA Network series Psych. She reprised the role in the following season.
In February 2010, Cook signed on to play the female lead role in Fox TV's comedy pilot Nirvana. She had a role in the Western horror film Vampire, the English-language feature debut of Japanese director Iwai Shunji. In 2012, Cook signed on to play the female lead role in the TNT crime drama series Perception opposite Eric McCormack. She starred in the independent film Broken Kingdom, which was directed by her husband Daniel Gillies. She also appeared in a Funny or Die sketch with Chad Michael Murray.
Cook starred in the Hallmark Channel original film Summer Love in 2016. In the same year, she starred in another Hallmark film, Autumn In the Vineyard, followed by its sequel Summer in the Vineyard in 2017. 2017 also saw Cook develop, star and executive produce the Hallmark Channel film Frozen in Love, which was broadcast in January 2018 as part of the channel's 'Winterfest' season of programming.
Cook provided the voice for Chelsea Cunningham on the Kids' WB animated series Batman Beyond and in the animated film Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. Cook voiced Tifa Lockhart in the video games Kingdom Hearts II, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII and Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, as well as the film Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. In 2011, she voiced the character of Jaesa Willsaam in the MMO game, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Cook's latest voice-over role is for the video game Yakuza in which she voices the role of Reina. In 2020 Cook appeared in the fifteenth season of Criminal Minds playing the role of Max in the final episodes of the series.
Cook owns her own production company, Ben's Sister Productions (in reference to her younger brother Ben Cook). She produced and starred in the film Love, Guaranteed, which debuted on Netflix on September 3, 2020.
== Public service ==
Cook first gained national attention in 1997, when she was featured in an updated This Is Your Brain on Drugs public service announcement (PSA) television advertisement, in which she proceeds to destroy a kitchen with a frying pan.
In 2011, she was selected by the Obama administration as a Champion of Change for Arts Education.
In June 2012, she began to award a small scholarship to students between ages 14 and 19. The scholarship helps pay for career classes, mentoring programs, and other school fees.
In 2017, Rachael Leigh Cook reprised her "This Is Your Brain on Drugs" role twenty years later for a PSA by the Drug Policy Alliance critiquing the war on drugs and its alleged contribution to mass incarceration, societal racism and poverty. The ad was posted to YouTube on April 20, 2017, in recognition of 4/20.
== Personal life ==
Cook married New Zealand-Canadian actor Daniel Gillies on August 8, 2004, saying: "We got engaged after dating for maybe five months and we got married a couple of months after that". They have two children: a daughter born in September 2013 and a son born in April 2015. The couple separated in June 2019 and divorced in 2021.
As of July 2025, Cook has been dating American actor, Brandon Routh.
Cook is a vegetarian.
== Filmography ==
=== Film ===
=== Television ===
=== Music videos ===
=== Video games ===
== Awards and nominations == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_number-one_country_songs_of_2012 | List of Billboard number-one country songs of 2012 | Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay are charts that rank the top-performing country music songs in the United States, published by Billboard magazine. At the start of 2012, Hot Country Songs ranked songs based on weekly airplay data from country music radio stations compiled by Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems. With effect from the issue dated October 20, 2012, however, the magazine significantly altered the methodology of this chart, incorporating digital downloads, streaming, and airplay not only from country stations but from stations of all formats. These changes were controversial, as some critics felt that they unduly benefited acts with crossover appeal, as opposed to those whose songs were played only on country stations. At the same time, Billboard launched the new Country Airplay listing, which used the methodology of ranking tracks based solely on country radio airplay. Although this chart was published for the first time in 2012, Billboard retrospectively considers the period since Hot Country Songs began using Nielsen data in 1990 to also form part of the history of the Country Airplay listing.
An immediate beneficiary of the change in methodology for the Hot Country Songs chart was Taylor Swift. In the first week of the new system, her song "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", which had been falling down the chart and had been at number 21 the previous week based on country radio airplay alone, rose straight to number one when streaming, downloads, and plays on other radio formats began to be counted. Swift's song would remain in the top spot for nine consecutive weeks, breaking the record for the longest unbroken run at number one by a female singer held since 1965 by Connie Smith's "Once a Day". Based on country radio airplay alone, however, Swift's song dropped even further to number 36 on the first published Country Airplay chart, the same week that it jumped to number one on Hot Country Songs. The song's greater popularity on pop music radio than country stations highlighted Swift's increasing move away from the country genre.
After Swift's nine weeks in the top spot, the second highest total number of weeks at number one on Hot Country Songs was four. This was achieved by Blake Shelton, who was one of six acts to have two number ones during the year. Several acts had their first chart-toppers in 2012. In January, "Let It Rain" by David Nail featuring Sarah Buxton spent a single week in the top spot, becoming the first number one for both singers. The following week Eric Church achieved his first chart-topper with "Drink in My Hand". In April "A Woman Like You" gave Lee Brice his first number one, and in June Kip Moore achieved the same feat with "Somethin' 'Bout a Truck". At the end of August, Love and Theft reached number one for the first time with "Angel Eyes", as did Little Big Town three weeks later with "Pontoon". In the issue of Billboard dated September 29, Hunter Hayes gained his first chart-topper with "Wanted", with which the 21-year old gained the distinction of being the youngest solo male artist to have a number-one country song. The final act to gain a first-time chart-topper in 2012 was Florida Georgia Line, whose debut single, "Cruise", held the peak position on both charts in the last issue of Billboard of the year. The track would go on to become the best-selling country digital single to date and set a new record for the most weeks spent at number one on the Hot Country Songs chart.
== Chart history == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard_Island | Wizard Island | Wizard Island is a volcanic cinder cone which forms an island at the west end of Crater Lake in Crater Lake National Park, Oregon. The top of the island reaches 6,933 feet (2,113 m) above sea level, about 755 feet (230 m) above the average surface of the lake.
The cone is capped by a volcanic crater about 500 feet (150 m) wide and 100 feet (30 m) deep. The crater was named the "Witches Cauldron" by William Gladstone Steel in 1885, who also gave Wizard Island its name at the same time.
The land area of the island is 315.85 acres (127.82 ha).
== Formation ==
Wizard Island was created after Mount Mazama, a large complex volcano, erupted violently approximately 7,700 years ago, forming its caldera which now contains Crater Lake. Following the cataclysmic caldera-forming eruption, which left a hole about 4,000 feet (1,200 m) deep where the mountain had once stood, a series of smaller eruptions over the next several hundred years formed several cinder cones on the caldera floor. The highest of these cones, the only one to rise above the current lake level, is Wizard Island, which rises over 2,700 feet (820 m) above the lowest point on the caldera floor and the deepest point in the lake.
Another large cinder cone, Merriam Cone, is in the northeast part of the lake. Although Merriam Cone rises about 1,400 feet (430 m) above the caldera floor, its summit is still 505 feet (154 m) below the average lake level. Its surface features and lack of a crater indicate that Merriam Cone formed under water.
== Access ==
Current public access to Wizard Island is available only during the summer months when boat tours on Crater Lake are in operation. The tours depart from Cleetwood Cove at the north end of the lake, and circle the lake in the counterclockwise direction, stopping at a dock at Governors Bay on the south side of Wizard Island.
Passengers on boat trips early in the day may choose to disembark on the island, but must be prepared to spend the entire day on the island if subsequent boats are too full to take on additional passengers. Those on late afternoon boat trips are not permitted to disembark. A final boat is dispatched at the end of each day to pick up any stragglers since overnight camping is not permitted on the island.
Two hiking trails are available on Wizard Island, one of which switchbacks up the flanks of the cone and circles the crater on top while the other trail meanders from the dock towards the western end of the island. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minyong_Kim | Minyong Kim | Minyong Kim (Korean: 김민용; sometimes known as Dragon) is an impersonator of Kim Jong Un, the supreme leader of North Korea. His impersonation gained attention when he was an undergraduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
== Impersonator career ==
Kim was born in Seoul to a working class family and studied business at the University of Illinois. He first enrolled at the university in 2009, then went back to South Korea for 25 months to complete mandatory military service in the Korean Air Force. He remained in South Korea to work as a teacher and save money, and when he returned to university classes in spring 2013 studied abroad in China which was cheaper for him. In 2014, his Kim Jong Un Halloween costume went viral on Korean social media.
He decided to capitalize on his resemblance to Kim Jong Un by gaining weight, buying a black Mao suit, and getting a trapezoidal haircut. Kim told USA Today that he got stopped on the University of Illinois campus more than 100 times per day by people who wanted photos. Several weeks later, he told a reporter the number was "200 to 300 times per day, usually like 40 to 50 times per hour." His reason for impersonating the North Korean leader, he said, is to make people happy.
Kim does not agree with Kim Jong Un's politics but he shares the supreme leader's interest in the Chicago Bulls. Because of Kim Jong Un's divisiveness, Minyong Kim said his parents feared he would be kidnapped or assassinated. He told the Champaign News-Gazette, "my girlfriend really abhors this... not only hates it, but abhors."
After Kim's graduation in late 2015, he began running an agency that prepares South Korean students for school in the United States. His career goal is to expand affordable education options in South Korea.
=== Film, television, and advertising ===
His resemblance to Kim Jong Un has earned him roles in movies, commercials, soap operas, and music videos. In April 2015, he and a Barack Obama impersonator named Reggie Brown, who also attended the University of Illinois, appeared in commercial for eNuri, a South Korean online marketplace. In a commercial for an air purifier, he acted like he was creating new weapons to destroy germs in the air. In a 2015 YouTube video made by QPark, Kim walked around New York City in full costume. The video got ten million views in its first two months. In April 2015, Kim appeared on a South Korean talk show to startle North Korean defectors, who were on the show discussing their previous lives under the totalitarian dictatorship. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin | Joseph Stalin | Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (né Dzhugashvili; 18 December [O.S. 6 December] 1878 – 5 March 1953) was a Soviet revolutionary and politician who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held office as general secretary of the Communist Party from 1922 to 1952 and as premier from 1941 until his death. Despite initially governing the country as part of a collective leadership, he eventually consolidated power to become a dictator by the 1930s. Stalin codified the party's official interpretation of Marxism as Marxism–Leninism, and his version of it is referred to as Stalinism.
Born into a poor Georgian family in Gori, Russian Empire, Stalin attended the Tiflis Theological Seminary before joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He raised funds for Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction through bank robberies and other crimes, and edited the party's newspaper, Pravda. He was repeatedly arrested and underwent several exiles to Siberia. After the Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution of 1917, Stalin served as a member of the Politburo, and from 1922 used his position as General Secretary to gain control over the party bureaucracy. After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin won the leadership struggle over rivals including Leon Trotsky. Stalin's doctrine of socialism in one country became central to the party's ideology, and his five-year plans starting in 1928 led to forced agricultural collectivisation, rapid industrialisation, and a centralised command economy. His policies contributed to a famine in 1932–1933 which killed millions, including in the Holodomor in Ukraine. Between 1936 and 1938, Stalin executed hundreds of thousands of his real and perceived political opponents in the Great Purge. Under his regime, an estimated 18 million people passed through the Gulag system of forced labour camps, and more than six million people, including kulaks and entire ethnic groups, were deported to remote areas of the country.
Stalin promoted Marxism–Leninism abroad through the Communist International and supported European anti-fascist movements. In 1939, his government signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Germany, enabling the Soviet invasion of Poland at the start of World War II. Germany broke the pact by invading the Soviet Union in 1941, leading Stalin to join the Allies. The Red Army, with Stalin as its commander-in-chief, repelled the German invasion and captured Berlin in 1945, ending the war in Europe. The Soviet Union established Soviet-aligned states in Eastern Europe, and with the United States emerged as a superpower, with the two countries entering a period of rivalry known as the Cold War. Stalin presided over post-war reconstruction and the first Soviet atomic bomb test in 1949. During these years, the country experienced another famine and a state-sponsored antisemitic campaign culminating in the "doctors' plot". In 1953, Stalin died after a stroke. He was succeeded as leader by Georgy Malenkov and eventually Nikita Khrushchev, who in 1956 denounced Stalin's rule and began a campaign of "de-Stalinisation".
One of the 20th century's most significant figures, Stalin has a deeply contested legacy. During his rule, he was the subject of a pervasive personality cult within the international Marxist–Leninist movement, which revered him as a champion of socialism and the working class. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Stalin has retained a degree of popularity in some of the post-Soviet states (particularly Russia and Georgia) as an economic moderniser and victorious wartime leader who transformed the Soviet Union into an industrialised superpower. Conversely, his regime has been widely condemned for overseeing mass repression and man-made famine which resulted in the suffering and deaths of millions of Soviet citizens.
== Early life ==
Stalin was born on 18 December [O.S. 6 December] 1878 in Gori, Georgia, then part of the Tiflis Governorate of the Russian Empire. An ethnic Georgian, his birth name was Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili (Russified as Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili). His parents were Besarion Jughashvili and Ekaterine Geladze; Stalin was their third child and the only one to survive past infancy. After Besarion's shoemaking workshop went into decline, the family fell into poverty, and he became an alcoholic who beat his wife and son. Ekaterine and her son left the home by 1883, moving through nine different rented rooms. In 1888, Stalin enrolled at the Gori Church School, where he excelled. He faced health problems: an 1884 smallpox infection left him with facial scars, and at age 12 he was seriously injured when he was struck by a phaeton, causing a lifelong disability in his left arm.
In 1894, Stalin enrolled as a trainee Russian Orthodox priest at the Tiflis Theological Seminary, enabled by a scholarship. He initially achieved high grades, but lost interest in his studies. Stalin became influenced by Nikolay Chernyshevsky's pro-revolutionary novel What Is to Be Done?, and Alexander Kazbegi's The Patricide, with Stalin adopting the nickname "Koba" from its bandit protagonist. After reading Das Kapital, Stalin focused on Karl Marx's philosophy of Marxism, which was on the rise as a variety of socialism opposed to the Tsarist authorities. He began attending secret workers' meetings, and left the seminary in April 1899.
=== 1899–1905: Russian Social Democratic Labour Party ===
During October 1899, he worked as a meteorologist at the Tiflis observatory. He attracted a group of socialist supporters, and co-organised a secret workers' meeting where he convinced many to strike on May Day 1900. The empire's secret police, the Okhrana, became aware of Stalin's activities and attempted to arrest him in March 1901, but he went into hiding during which he lived off donations from friends. He helped plan a demonstration in Tiflis on May Day 1901, at which 3,000 marchers clashed with the authorities. Stalin was elected to the Tiflis Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), a Marxist party founded in 1898, in November 1901.
That month, he travelled to Batumi. His militant rhetoric proved divisive among the city's Marxists, some of whom suspected that he was an agent provocateur. Stalin began working at the Rothschild refinery storehouse, where he co-organised two workers' strikes. After the strike leaders were arrested, he co-organised a mass demonstration which led to the storming of the prison. Stalin was arrested in April 1902 and sentenced to three years exile in Siberia, arriving in Novaya Uda in November 1903. After one failed attempt, Stalin escaped from his exile in January 1904 and travelled to Tiflis, where he co-edited the Marxist newspaper Proletariatis Brdzola ("Proletarian Struggle") with Filipp Makharadze. During his exile, the RSDLP had become divided between Vladimir Lenin's "Bolshevik" faction and Julius Martov's "Mensheviks". Stalin, who detested many Mensheviks in Georgia, aligned himself with the Bolsheviks.
=== 1905–1912: Revolution of 1905 and aftermath ===
In January 1905, government troops massacred protesters in Saint Petersburg and unrest spread across the Empire in the Revolution of 1905. Stalin was in Baku in February when ethnic violence broke out between Armenians and Azeris, and he formed Bolshevik "battle squads" which he used to keep the city's warring ethnic factions apart. His armed squads attacked local police and troops, raided arsenals, and raised funds via protection rackets. In November 1905, the Georgian Bolsheviks elected Stalin as one of their delegates to a Bolshevik conference in Tampere, Finland, where he met Lenin. Although Stalin held Lenin in deep respect, he vocally disagreed with his view that the Bolsheviks should field candidates for the 1906 election to the State Duma; Stalin viewed parliamentary process as a waste of time. In April 1906, he attended the RSDLP's Fourth Congress in Stockholm, where the party—then led by a Menshevik majority—agreed that it would not raise funds using armed robbery. Lenin and Stalin disagreed with this, and privately discussed continuing the robberies for the Bolshevik cause.
Stalin married Kato Svanidze in July 1906, and in March 1907 she gave birth to their son Yakov. Stalin, who by now had established himself as "Georgia's leading Bolshevik", organised the June 1907 robbery of a bank stagecoach in Tiflis to fund the Bolsheviks. His operatives ambushed the convoy in Erivansky Square with guns and homemade bombs; around 40 people were killed. Stalin settled in Baku with his wife and son, where Mensheviks confronted him about the robbery and voted to expel him from the RSDLP, but he ignored them. Stalin secured Bolshevik domination of RSDLP branch and edited two Bolshevik newspapers. In November 1907, his wife died of typhus, and he left his son with her family in Tiflis. He then reassembled his gang, which attacked Black Hundreds and raised money through racketeering, counterfeiting, robberies and kidnapping the children of wealthy figures for ransom.
In March 1908, Stalin was arrested and imprisoned. He led the imprisoned Bolsheviks, organised discussion groups, and ordered the killing of suspected informants. He was sentenced to two years of exile in Solvychegodsk in northern Russia, arriving there in February 1909. In June, Stalin escaped to Saint Petersburg, but was arrested again in March 1910 and sent back to Solvychegodsk. In June 1911, Stalin was given permission to move to Vologda, where he stayed for two months. He then escaped to Saint Petersburg, where he was arrested again in September 1911 and sentenced to a further three years of exile in Vologda.
=== 1912–1917: Rise to the Central Committee and Pravda ===
In January 1912, the first Bolshevik Central Committee was elected at the Prague Conference. Lenin and Grigory Zinoviev decided to co-opt Stalin to the committee, which Stalin (while still in exile in Vologda) agreed to. Lenin believed that Stalin, as a Georgian, would help secure support from the empire's minority ethnicities.
In February 1912, Stalin again escaped to Saint Petersburg, where he was tasked with converting the Bolshevik weekly newspaper, Zvezda ("Star") into a daily, Pravda ("Truth"). The new newspaper was launched in April 1912 and Stalin's role as editor was kept secret. In May 1912, he was again arrested and sentenced to three years of exile in Siberia. In July, he arrived in Narym, where he shared a room with fellow Bolshevik Yakov Sverdlov. After two months, they escaped to Saint Petersburg, where Stalin continued work on Pravda.
After the October 1912 Duma elections, Stalin wrote articles calling for reconciliation between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks; Lenin criticised him and he relented. In January 1913, Stalin travelled incognito (using a false passport bearing the name "Stavros Papadopoulos") to Vienna, where he researched the "national question" of how the Bolsheviks should deal with the Empire's national and ethnic minorities. His article "Marxism and the National Question" was first published in the March, April, and May 1913 issues of the Bolshevik journal Prosveshcheniye under the pseudonym "K. Stalin". The alias, which he had used since 1912, is derived from the Russian for steel (stal), and has been translated as "Man of Steel". In February 1913, Stalin was again arrested in Saint Petersburg and sentenced to four years of exile in Turukhansk in Siberia, where he arrived in August. Still concerned over a potential escape, the authorities moved him to Kureika in March 1914.
=== 1917: Russian Revolution ===
While Stalin was in exile, Russia entered the First World War, and in October 1916 he and other exiled Bolsheviks were conscripted into the Russian Army. They arrived in Krasnoyarsk in February 1917, where a medical examiner ruled Stalin unfit for service due to his crippled arm. Stalin was required to serve four more months of his exile and successfully requested to serve it in Achinsk. Stalin was in the city when the February Revolution took place; the Tsar abdicated and the Empire became a de facto republic. In a celebratory mood, Stalin travelled by train to Petrograd (as Saint Petersburg had been renamed) in March. He assumed control of Pravda alongside Lev Kamenev, and was appointed as a Bolshevik delegate to the executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet, an influential workers' council.
Stalin helped organise the July Days uprising, an armed display of strength by supporters of the Bolsheviks. After the demonstration was suppressed, the Provisional Government initiated a crackdown on the party, raiding Pravda. Stalin smuggled Lenin out of the paper's office and took charge of his safety, moving him between Petrograd safe houses before smuggling him to nearby Razliv. In Lenin's absence, Stalin continued editing Pravda and served as acting leader of the Bolsheviks, overseeing the party's Sixth Congress. Lenin began calling for the Bolsheviks to seize power by toppling the Provisional Government, a plan which was supported by Stalin and fellow senior Bolshevik Leon Trotsky, but opposed by Kamenev, Zinoviev, and other members.
On 24 October, police raided the Bolshevik newspaper offices, smashing machinery and presses; Stalin salvaged some of the equipment. In the early hours of 25 October, Stalin joined Lenin in a Central Committee meeting in Petrograd's Smolny Institute, from where the Bolshevik coup—the October Revolution—was directed. Bolshevik militia seized Petrograd's power station, main post office, state bank, telephone exchange, and several bridges. A Bolshevik-controlled ship, the Aurora, opened fire on the Winter Palace; the Provisional Government's assembled delegates surrendered and were arrested. Stalin, who had been tasked with briefing the Bolshevik delegates of the Second Congress of Soviets about the situation, had not played a publicly visible role. Trotsky and other later opponents used this as evidence his role had been insignificant, although various historians reject this, placing great significance in his role as a member of the Central Committee and as an editor of Pravda. However, according to Russian historian Oleg Khlevni͡uk, 2015, "Russia was not allowed to follow the course of reform long enough to yield [significant] results", citing Stalin's frequent abuse of power and mis-directing the course of the Revolution.
== In Lenin's government ==
=== 1917–1918: People's Commissar for Nationalities ===
On 26 October 1917, Lenin declared himself chairman of the new government, the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom). Stalin supported Lenin's decision not to form a coalition with the Socialist Revolutionary Party. He became part of an informal leadership group alongside Lenin, Trotsky, and Sverdlov, and his importance within the Bolshevik ranks grew. Stalin's office was near Lenin's in the Smolny Institute, and he and Trotsky had direct access to Lenin without an appointment. Stalin co-signed Lenin's decrees shutting down hostile newspapers, and co-chaired the committee drafting a constitution for the newly-formed Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. He supported Lenin's formation of the Cheka security service and the Red Terror, arguing that state violence was an effective tool for capitalist powers. Unlike some Bolsheviks, Stalin never expressed concern about the Cheka's rapid expansion and the Red Terror.
Having left his role as Pravda editor, Stalin was appointed the People's Commissar for Nationalities. He appointed Nadezhda Alliluyeva as his secretary, and married her in early 1919. In November 1917, he signed the Decree on Nationality, granting ethnic minorities the right to secession and self-determination. He travelled to Helsinki to meet with the Finnish Social Democrats, and granted Finland's request for independence from Russia in December. Due to the threats posed by the First World War, in March 1918 the government relocated from Petrograd to the Moscow Kremlin. Stalin supported Lenin's desire to sign an armistice with the Central Powers; Stalin thought this necessary because he—unlike Lenin—was unconvinced that Europe was on the verge of proletarian revolution. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed in March 1918, ceding vast territories and angering many; the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries withdrew from the coalition government. The Bolsheviks were renamed the Russian Communist Party.
=== 1918–1921: Military command ===
In May 1918, during the intensifying Russian Civil War, Sovnarkom sent Stalin to Tsaritsyn to take charge of food procurement in Southern Russia. Eager to prove himself as a commander, he took control of regional military operations and befriended Kliment Voroshilov and Semyon Budyonny, who later formed the core of his military support base. Stalin sent large numbers of Red Army troops to battle the region's White armies, resulting in heavy losses and drawing Lenin's concern. In Tsaritsyn, Stalin commanded the local Cheka branch to execute suspected counter-revolutionaries, often without trial, and purged the military and food collection agencies of middle-class specialists, who were also executed. His use of state violence was at a greater scale than most Bolshevik leaders approved of, for instance, he ordered several villages torched to ensure compliance with his food procurement program.
In December 1918, Stalin was sent to Perm to lead an inquiry into how Alexander Kolchak's White forces had been able to decimate Red troops there. He returned to Moscow in January 1919, before being assigned to the Western Front at Petrograd. When the Red Third Regiment defected, he ordered the public execution of captured defectors. In September he returned to the Southern Front. During the war, Stalin proved his worth to the Central Committee by displaying decisiveness and determination. However, he also disregarded orders and repeatedly threatened to resign when affronted. In November 1919, the government awarded him the Order of the Red Banner for his service.
The Bolsheviks won the main phase of the civil war by the end of 1919. By that time, Sovnarkom had turned its attention to spreading proletarian revolution abroad, forming the Communist International in March 1919; Stalin attended its inaugural ceremony. Although Stalin did not share Lenin's belief that Europe's proletariat were on the verge of revolution, he acknowledged that Soviet Russia remained vulnerable. In February 1920, he was appointed to head the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate (Rabkrin); that same month he was also transferred to the Caucasian Front.
The Polish–Soviet War broke out in early 1920, with the Poles invading Ukraine, and in May, Stalin was moved to the Southwest Front. Lenin believed that the Polish proletariat would rise up to support an invasion, but Stalin argued that nationalism would lead them to support their government's war effort. Stalin lost the argument and accepted Lenin's decision. On his front, Stalin became determined to conquer Lvov; in focusing on this goal, he disobeyed orders to transfer his troops to assist Mikhail Tukhachevsky's forces at the Battle of Warsaw in early August, which ended in a major defeat for the Red Army. Stalin then returned to Moscow, where Tukhachevsky blamed him for the loss. Humiliated, he demanded demission from the military, which was granted on 1 September. At the 9th Party Congress in late September, Trotsky accused Stalin of "strategic mistakes" and claimed that he had sabotaged the campaign; Lenin joined in the criticism. Stalin felt disgraced and his antipathy toward Trotsky increased.
=== 1921–1924: Lenin's final years ===
The Soviet government sought to bring neighbouring states under its domination; in February 1921 it invaded the Menshevik-governed Georgia, and in April 1921, Stalin ordered the Red Army into Turkestan to reassert Soviet control. As People's Commissar for Nationalities, Stalin believed that each ethnic group had the right to an "autonomous republic" within the Russian state in which it could oversee various regional affairs. In taking this view, some Marxists accused him of bending too much to bourgeois nationalism, while others accused him of remaining too Russo-centric. In his diverse native Caucasus, however, Stalin opposed the idea of separate autonomous republics, arguing that these would oppress ethnic minorities within their territories; instead, he called for a Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. The Georgian Communist Party opposed the idea, resulting in the Georgian affair. In mid-1921, Stalin returned to the South Caucasus, calling on Georgian communists to reject the chauvinistic nationalism which he argued had marginalised the Abkhazian, Ossetian, and Adjarian minorities. In March 1921, Nadezhda gave birth to another of Stalin's sons, Vasily.
After the civil war, workers' strikes and peasant uprisings broke out across Russia in opposition to Sovnarkom's food requisitioning project; in response, Lenin introduced market-oriented reforms in the New Economic Policy (NEP). There was also turmoil within the Communist Party, as Trotsky led a faction calling for abolition of trade unions; Lenin opposed this, and Stalin helped rally opposition to Trotsky's position. At the 11th Party Congress in March and April 1922, Lenin nominated Stalin as the party's General Secretary, which was intended as a purely organisational role. Although concerns were expressed that adopting the new position would overstretch his workload and grant him too much power, Stalin was appointed to the post.
In May 1922, a massive stroke left Lenin partially paralysed. Residing at his Gorki dacha, his main connection to Sovnarkom was through Stalin. Despite their comradeship, Lenin disliked what he referred to as Stalin's "Asiatic" manner and told his sister Maria that Stalin was "not intelligent". The two men argued on the issue of foreign trade; Lenin believed that the Soviet state should have a monopoly on foreign trade, but Stalin supported Grigori Sokolnikov's view that doing so was impractical. Another disagreement came over the Georgian affair, with Lenin backing the Georgian Central Committee's desire for a Georgian Soviet Republic over Stalin's idea of a Transcaucasian one. They also disagreed on the nature of the Soviet state; Lenin called for establishment of a new federation named the "Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia", while Stalin believed that this would encourage independence sentiment among non-Russians. Lenin accused Stalin of "Great Russian chauvinism", while Stalin accused Lenin of "national liberalism". A compromise was reached in which the federation would be named the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (USSR), whose formation was ratified in December 1922.
Their differences also became personal; Lenin was angered when Stalin was rude to his wife Krupskaya during a telephone conversation. In the final years of his life, Krupskaya provided leading figures with Lenin's Testament, which criticised Stalin's rude manners and excessive power and suggested that he be removed as general secretary. Some historians have questioned whether Lenin wrote the document, suggesting that it was written by Krupskaya; Stalin never publicly voiced concerns about its authenticity. Most historians consider it an accurate reflection of Lenin's views.
== Consolidation of power ==
=== 1924–1928: Succeeding Lenin ===
Upon Lenin's death in January 1924, Stalin took charge of the funeral and was a pallbearer. To bolster his image as a devoted Leninist amid his growing personality cult, Stalin gave nine lectures at Sverdlov University on the Foundations of Leninism, later published in book form. At the 13th Party Congress in May 1924, Lenin's Testament was read only to the leaders of the provincial delegations. Embarrassed by its contents, Stalin offered his resignation as General Secretary; this act of humility saved him, and he was retained in the post.
As General Secretary, Stalin had a free hand in making appointments to his own staff, and implanted loyalists throughout the party. Favouring new members from proletarian backgrounds to "Old Bolsheviks", who tended to be middle-class university graduates, he ensured that he had loyalists dispersed across the regions. Stalin had much contact with young party functionaries, and the desire for promotion led many to seek his favour. Stalin also developed close relations with key figures in the secret police: Felix Dzerzhinsky, Genrikh Yagoda, and Vyacheslav Menzhinsky. His wife gave birth to a daughter, Svetlana, in February 1926.
In the wake of Lenin's death, a power struggle emerged to become his successor: alongside Stalin was Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, and Mikhail Tomsky. Stalin saw Trotsky—whom he personally despised—as the main obstacle to his dominance, and during Lenin's illness had formed an unofficial triumvirate (troika) alongside Kamenev and Zinoviev. Although Zinoviev was concerned about Stalin's growing power, he rallied behind him at the 13th Congress as a counterweight to Trotsky, who now led a faction known as the Left Opposition. Trotsky's supporters believed that the NEP conceded too much to capitalism, and they called Stalin a "rightist" for his support of the policy. Stalin built up a retinue of his supporters within the Central Committee as the Left Opposition were marginalised.
In late 1924, Stalin moved against Kamenev and Zinoviev, removing their supporters from key positions. In 1925, the two moved into open opposition to Stalin and Bukharin and launched an unsuccessful attack on their faction at the 14th Party Congress in December. Stalin accused Kamenev and Zinoviev of reintroducing factionalism, and thus instability. In mid-1926, Kamenev and Zinoviev joined with Trotsky to form the United Opposition against Stalin; in October the two agreed to stop factional activity under threat of expulsion, and later publicly recanted their views. The factionalist arguments continued, with Stalin threatening to resign in October and December 1926, and again in December 1927. In October 1927, Trotsky was removed from the Central Committee; he was later exiled to Kazakhstan in 1928 and deported from the country in 1929.
Stalin was now the supreme leader of the party and state. He entrusted the position of head of government to Vyacheslav Molotov; other important supporters on the Politburo were Voroshilov, Lazar Kaganovich, and Sergo Ordzhonikidze, with Stalin ensuring his allies ran state institutions. His growing influence was reflected in naming of locations after him; in June 1924 the Ukrainian city of Yuzovka became Stalino, and in April 1925, Tsaritsyn was renamed Stalingrad. In 1926, Stalin published On Questions of Leninism, in which he argued for the concept of "socialism in one country", which was presented as an orthodox Leninist perspective despite clashing with established Bolshevik views that socialism could only be achieved globally through the process of world revolution. In 1927, there was some argument in the party over Soviet policy regarding China. Stalin had called for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), led by Mao Zedong, to ally itself with Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT) nationalists, viewing a CCP-KMT alliance as the best bulwark against Japanese imperialism. Instead, the KMT repressed the CCP and a civil war broke out between the two sides.
=== 1928–1932: First five-year plan ===
==== Economic policy ====
The Soviet Union lagged far behind the industrial and agricultural development of the Western powers. Stalin's government feared attack from capitalist countries, and many communists, including in Komsomol, OGPU, and the Red Army, were eager to be rid of the NEP and its market-oriented approach. They had concerns about those who profited from the policy: affluent peasants known as "kulaks" and small business owners, or "NEPmen". At this point, Stalin turned against the NEP, which put him on a course to the "left" even of Trotsky or Zinoviev.
In early 1928, Stalin travelled to Novosibirsk, where he alleged that kulaks were hoarding grain and ordered them be arrested and their grain confiscated, with Stalin bringing much of the grain back to Moscow with him in February. At his command, grain procurement squads surfaced across West Siberia and the Urals, with violence breaking out between the squads and the peasantry. Stalin announced that kulaks and the "middle peasants" must be coerced into releasing their harvest. Bukharin and other Central Committee members were angered that they had not been consulted about the measure. In January 1930, the Politburo approved the "liquidation" of the kulak class, which was exiled to other parts of the country or concentration camps. By July 1930, over 320,000 households had been affected. According to Dmitri Volkogonov, dekulakisation was "the first mass terror applied by Stalin in his own country."
In 1929, the Politburo announced the mass collectivisation of agriculture, establishing both kolkhoz collective farms and sovkhoz state farms. Although officially voluntary, many peasants joined the collectives out of fear they would face the fate of the kulaks. By 1932, about 62% of households involved in agriculture were part of collectives, and by 1936 this had risen to 90%. Many collectivised peasants resented the loss of their private farmland, and productivity slumped. Famine broke out in many areas, with the Politburo frequently being forced to dispatch emergency food relief. Armed peasant uprisings broke out in Ukraine, the North Caucasus, Southern Russia, and Central Asia, reaching their apex in March 1930; these were suppressed by the army. Stalin responded with an article insisting that collectivisation was voluntary and blaming violence on local officials. Although he and Stalin had been close for many years, Bukharin expressed concerns and regarded them as a return to Lenin's old "war communism" policy. By mid-1928, he was unable to rally sufficient support in the party to oppose the reforms; in November 1929, Stalin removed him from the Politburo.
Officially, the Soviet Union had replaced the "irrationality" and "wastefulness" of a market economy with a planned economy organised along a long-term and scientific framework; in reality, Soviet economics were based on ad hoc commandments issued often to make short-term targets. In 1928, the first five-year plan was launched by Stalin with a main focus on boosting Soviet heavy industry; it was finished a year ahead of schedule, in 1932. The country underwent a massive economic transformation: new mines were opened, new cities like Magnitogorsk constructed, and work on the White Sea–Baltic Canal began. Millions of peasants moved to the cities, and large debts were accrued purchasing foreign-made machinery.
Many major construction projects, including the White Sea–Baltic Canal and the Moscow Metro, were constructed largely through forced labour. The last elements of workers' control over industry were removed, with factory managers receiving privileges; Stalin defended wage disparity by pointing to Marx's argument that it was necessary during the lower stages of socialism. To promote intensification of labour, medals and awards as well as the Stakhanovite movement were introduced. Stalin argued that socialism was being established in the USSR while capitalism was crumbling during the Great Depression. His rhetoric reflected his utopian vision of the "new Soviet person" rising to unparallelled heights of human development.
==== Cultural and foreign policy ====
In 1928, Stalin declared that class war between the proletariat and their enemies would intensify as socialism developed. He warned of a "danger from the right", including from within the Communist Party. The first major show trial in the USSR was the Shakhty Trial of 1928, in which middle-class "industrial specialists" were convicted of sabotage. From 1929 to 1930, show trials were held to intimidate opposition; these included the Industrial Party Trial, Menshevik Trial, and Metro-Vickers Trial. Aware that the ethnic Russian majority may have concerns about being ruled by a Georgian, he promoted ethnic Russians throughout the state bureaucracy and made Russian compulsory in schools, albeit in tandem with local languages. Nationalist sentiment was suppressed. Conservative social policies were promoted to boost population growth; this included a focus on strong family units, re-criminalisation of homosexuality, restrictions on abortion and divorce, and abolition of the Zhenotdel women's department.
Stalin desired a "cultural revolution", entailing both the creation of a culture for the "masses" and the wider dissemination of previously elite culture. He oversaw a proliferation of schools, newspapers, and libraries, as well as advancement of literacy and numeracy. Socialist realism was promoted throughout the arts, while Stalin wooed prominent writers, namely Maxim Gorky, Mikhail Sholokhov, and Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy. He expressed patronage for scientists whose research fit within his preconceived interpretation of Marxism; for instance, he endorsed the research of agrobiologist Trofim Lysenko despite the fact that it was rejected by the majority of Lysenko's scientific peers as pseudo-scientific. The government's anti-religious campaign was re-intensified, with increased funding given to the League of Militant Atheists. Priests, imams, and Buddhist monks faced persecution. Religious buildings were demolished, most notably Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, destroyed in 1931 to make way for the Palace of the Soviets. Religion retained an influence over the population; in the 1937 census, 57% of respondents were willing to admit to being religious.
Throughout the 1920s, Stalin placed a priority on foreign policy. He personally met with a range of Western visitors, including George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, both of whom were impressed with him. Through the Communist International, Stalin's government exerted a strong influence over Marxist parties elsewhere; he left the running of the organisation to Bukharin before his ousting. At its 6th Congress in July 1928, Stalin informed delegates that the main threat to socialism came from non-Marxist socialists and social democrats, whom he called "social fascists"; Stalin recognised that in many countries, these groups were Marxist–Leninists' main rivals for working-class support. This focus on opposing rival leftists concerned Bukharin, who regarded the growth of fascism and the far right across Europe as a greater threat.
In 1929, Stalin's son Yakov unsuccessfully attempted suicide, shooting himself in the chest and narrowly missing his heart; his failure earned the contempt of Stalin, who is reported to have brushed off the attempt by saying "He can't even shoot straight." His relationship with Nadezhda was strained amid their arguments and her mental health problems. In November 1932, after a group dinner in the Kremlin in which Stalin flirted with other women, Nadezhda shot herself in the heart. Publicly, the cause of death was given as appendicitis; Stalin also concealed the real cause of death from his children. Stalin's friends noted that he underwent a significant change following her suicide, becoming emotionally harder.
=== 1932–1939: Major crises ===
==== Famine of 1932–1933 ====
Within the Soviet Union, civic disgruntlement against Stalin's government was widespread. Social unrest in urban areas led Stalin to ease some economic policies in 1932. In May 1932, he introduced kolkhoz markets where peasants could trade surplus produce. However, penal sanctions became harsher; a decree in August 1932 made the theft of a handful of grain a capital offence. The second five-year plan reduced production quotas from the first, focusing more on improving living conditions through housing and consumer goods. Emphasis on armament production increased after Adolf Hitler became German chancellor in 1933.
The Soviet Union experienced a major famine which peaked in the winter of 1932–1933, with 5–7 million deaths. The worst affected areas were Ukraine (where the famine was called the Holodomor), Southern Russia, Kazakhstan and the North Caucasus. In the case of Ukraine, historians debate whether the famine was intentional, with the purpose of eliminating a potential independence movement; no documents show Stalin explicitly ordered starvation. Poor weather led to bad harvests in 1931 and 1932, compounded by years of declining productivity. Rapid industrialisation policies, neglect of crop rotation, and failure to build reserve grain stocks exacerbated the crisis. Stalin blamed hostile elements and saboteurs among the peasants. The government provided limited food aid to famine-stricken areas, prioritising urban workers; for Stalin, Soviet industrialisation was more valuable than peasant lives. Grain exports declined heavily. Stalin did not acknowledge his policies' role in the famine, which was concealed from foreign observers.
==== Ideological and foreign affairs ====
In 1936, Stalin oversaw the adoption of a new constitution with expansive democratic features; it was designed as propaganda, as all power rested in his hands. He declared that "socialism, the first phase of communism, has been achieved". In 1938, the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) was released; commonly known as the "Short Course", it became the central text of Stalinism. Authorised Stalin biographies were also published, though Stalin preferred to be viewed as the embodiment of the Communist Party, rather than have his life story explored.
Seeking better international relations, in 1934 the Soviet Union joined the League of Nations, from which it had previously been excluded. Stalin initiated confidential communications with Hitler in October 1933, shortly after the latter came to power. Stalin admired Hitler, particularly his manoeuvres to remove rivals within the Nazi Party in the Night of the Long Knives. Stalin nevertheless recognised the threat posed by fascism and sought to establish better links with the liberal democracies of Western Europe; in May 1935, the Soviets signed treaties of mutual assistance with France and Czechoslovakia. At the Communist International's 7th Congress in July–August 1935, the Soviet Union encouraged Marxist–Leninists to unite with other leftists as part of a popular front against fascism. In response, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact.
When the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936, the Soviets sent military aid to the Republican faction, including 648 aircraft and 407 tanks, along with 3,000 Soviet troops and 42,000 members of the International Brigades. Stalin took a personal involvement in the Spanish situation. Germany and Italy backed the Nationalist faction, which was ultimately victorious in March 1939. With the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in July 1937, the Soviet Union and China signed a non-aggression pact. Stalin aided the Chinese as the KMT and the Communists suspended their civil war and formed his desired United Front against Japan.
==== Great Purge ====
Stalin's approach to state repression was often contradictory. In May 1933, he released many convicted of minor offences, ordering the security services not to enact further mass arrests and deportations, and in September 1934, he launched a commission to investigate false imprisonments. That same month, he called for the execution of workers at the Stalin Metallurgical Factory accused of spying for Japan. During the 17th Congress of the Communist Party, Stalin was re-elected as a member of the Central Committee, by a vote of 1059 or 1225, with 166 ballots missing or 13.5% of those attending. After Sergei Kirov was murdered in December 1934, Stalin became increasingly concerned about assassination threats, and state repression intensified. Stalin issued a decree establishing NKVD troikas which could issue rapid and severe sentences without involving the courts. In 1935, he ordered the NKVD to expel suspected counterrevolutionaries from urban areas; over 11,000 were expelled from Leningrad alone in early 1935.
In 1936, Nikolai Yezhov became head of the NKVD, after which Stalin moved to orchestrate the arrest and execution of his remaining opponents in the Communist Party in the Great Purge. The first Moscow Trial in August 1936 saw Kamenev and Zinoviev executed. The second trial took place in January 1937, and the third in March 1938, with Bukharin and Rykov executed. By late 1937, all remnants of collective leadership were gone from the Politburo, which was now effectively under Stalin's control. There were mass expulsions from the party, with Stalin also ordering foreign communist parties to purge anti-Stalinist elements. These purges replaced most of the party's old guard with younger officials loyal to Stalin. Party functionaries readily carried out their commands and sought to ingratiate themselves with Stalin, to avoid becoming victims. Such functionaries often carried out more arrests and executions than their quotas set by government.
Repressions intensified further from December 1936 until November 1938. In May 1937, Stalin ordered the arrest of much of the army's high command, and mass arrests in the military followed. By late 1937, purges extended beyond the party to the wider population. In July 1937, the Politburo ordered a purge of "anti-Soviet elements", targeting anti-Stalin Bolsheviks, former Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, priests, ex–White Army soldiers, and common criminals. Stalin initiated "national operations", the ethnic cleansing of non-Soviet ethnic groups — among them Poles, Germans, Latvians, Finns, Greeks, Koreans, and Chinese — through internal or external exile. More than 1.6 million people were arrested, 700,000 shot, and an unknown number died under torture. The NKVD also assassinated defectors and opponents abroad; in August 1940, Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico, eliminating Stalin's last major opponent.
Stalin initiated all key decisions during the purge, and personally directed many operations. Historians debate his motives, noting his personal writings from the period were "unusually convoluted and incoherent", filled with claims about enemies encircling him. He feared a domestic fifth column in the event of war with Japan and Germany, particularly after right-wing forces overthrew the leftist Spanish government. The Great Purge ended when Yezhov was replaced by Lavrentiy Beria, a fellow Georgian completely loyal to Stalin. Yezhov himself was arrested in April 1939 and executed in 1940. The purge damaged the Soviet Union's reputation abroad, particularly among leftist sympathisers. As it wound down, Stalin sought to deflect his responsibility, blaming its "excesses" and "violations of law" on Yezhov.
== World War II ==
=== 1939–1941: Pact with Nazi Germany ===
As a Marxist–Leninist, Stalin considered conflict between competing capitalist powers inevitable; after Nazi Germany annexed Austria and then part of Czechoslovakia in 1938, he recognised a major war was looming. He sought to maintain Soviet neutrality, hoping that a German war against France and the United Kingdom would lead to Soviet dominance in Europe. The Soviets faced a threat from the east, with Soviet troops clashing with the expansionist Japanese in the latter part of the 1930s, culminating in the Battles of Khalkhin Gol in 1939. Stalin initiated a military build-up, with the Red Army more than doubling between January 1939 and June 1941, although in haste many of its officers were poorly trained. Between 1940 and 1941, Stalin purged the military, leaving it with a severe shortage of trained officers when war eventually broke out.
As Britain and France seemed unwilling to commit to an alliance with the Soviet Union, Stalin saw a better deal with the Germans. On 3 May 1939, he replaced his Western-oriented foreign minister Maxim Litvinov with Vyacheslav Molotov. Germany began negotiations with the Soviets, proposing that Eastern Europe be divided between the two powers. In August 1939, the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Germany, a non-aggression pact negotiated by Molotov and German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop with a secret protocol dividing Eastern Europe. On 1 September, Germany invaded Poland, leading the UK and France to declare war on Germany. On 17 September, the Red Army entered eastern Poland, officially to restore order. On 28 September, Germany and the Soviet Union exchanged some of their conquered territories, and a German–Soviet Frontier Treaty was signed shortly after in Stalin's presence. The two states continued trading, undermining the British blockade of Germany.
The Soviets further demanded parts of eastern Finland, but the Finnish government refused. The Soviets invaded Finland in November 1939, starting the Winter War; despite numerical inferiority, the Finns kept the Red Army at bay. International opinion backed Finland, with the Soviet Union being expelled from the League of Nations. Embarrassed by their inability to defeat the Finns, the Soviets signed an interim peace treaty, in which they received territorial concessions. In June 1940, the Red Army occupied the Baltic states, which were forcibly merged into the Soviet Union in August; they also invaded and annexed Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, parts of Romania. The Soviets sought to forestall dissent in the new territories with mass repressions. A noted instance was the Katyn massacre of April and May 1940, in which around 22,000 members of the Polish armed forces, police, and intelligentsia were executed by the NKVD.
The speed of the German victory over and occupation of France in mid-1940 took Stalin by surprise. He seemingly focused on appeasement in order to delay conflict. After the Tripartite Pact was signed by the Axis powers of Germany, Japan, and Italy in October 1940, Stalin proposed that the USSR also join the Axis alliance. To demonstrate peaceful intentions, in April 1941 the Soviets signed a neutrality pact with Japan. Stalin, who had been the country's de facto head of government for almost 15 years, concluded that relations with Germany had deteriorated to such an extent that he needed to become de jure head of government as well, and on 6 May, replaced Molotov as Premier of the Soviet Union.
=== 1941–1942: German invasion ===
In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, initiating the war on the Eastern Front. Despite intelligence agencies repeatedly warning him of Germany's intentions, Stalin was taken by surprise. He formed a State Defence Committee, which he headed as Supreme Commander, as well as a military Supreme Command (Stavka), with Georgy Zhukov as its chief of staff. The German tactic of blitzkrieg was initially highly effective; the Soviet air force in the western borderlands was destroyed within two days. The German Wehrmacht pushed deep into Soviet territory; soon, Ukraine, Byelorussia, and the Baltic states were under German occupation, and Leningrad was under siege; and Soviet refugees were flooding into Moscow and surrounding cities. By July, Germany's Luftwaffe was bombing Moscow, and by October the Wehrmacht was amassing for a full assault on the capital. Plans were made for the Soviet government to evacuate to Kuibyshev, although Stalin decided to remain in Moscow, believing his flight would damage troop morale. The German advance on Moscow was halted after two months of battle in increasingly harsh weather conditions.
Going against the advice of Zhukov and other generals, Stalin emphasised attack over defence. In June 1941, he ordered a scorched earth policy of destroying infrastructure and food supplies before the Germans could seize them, also commanding the NKVD to kill around 100,000 political prisoners in areas the Wehrmacht approached. He purged the military command; several high-ranking figures were demoted or reassigned and others were arrested and executed. With Order No. 270, Stalin commanded soldiers risking capture to fight to the death, describing the captured as traitors; among those taken as a prisoner of war was Stalin's son Yakov, who died in German custody. Stalin issued Order No. 227 in July 1942, which directed that those retreating unauthorised would be placed in "penal battalions" and used as cannon fodder. Both the German and Soviet armies disregarded the laws of war in the Geneva Conventions; the Soviets heavily publicised Nazi massacres of communists, Jews, and Romani. In April 1942, Stalin sponsored the formation of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) to garner global Jewish support for the war effort.
The Soviets allied with the UK and US; although the US joined the war against Germany in 1941, little direct American assistance reached the Soviets until late 1942. Responding to the invasion, the Soviets expanded their industry in central Russia, focusing almost entirely on military production. They achieved high levels of productivity, outstripping Germany. During the war, Stalin was more tolerant of the Russian Orthodox Church and allowed it to resume some of its activities. He also permitted a wider range of cultural expression, notably permitting formerly suppressed writers and artists like Anna Akhmatova and Dmitri Shostakovich to disperse their work more widely. "The Internationale" was dropped as the country's national anthem, to be replaced with a more patriotic song. The government increasingly promoted Pan-Slavist sentiment, while encouraging increased criticism of cosmopolitanism, particularly "rootless cosmopolitanism", an approach with particular repercussions for Soviet Jews. The Communist International was dissolved in 1943, and Stalin began encouraging foreign Marxist–Leninist parties to emphasise nationalism over internationalism in order to broaden their domestic appeal.
In April 1942, Stalin overrode Stavka by ordering the Soviets' first serious counter-attack, an attempt to seize German-held Kharkov in eastern Ukraine. This attack proved unsuccessful. That year, Hitler shifted his primary goal from an overall victory on the Eastern Front to the goal of securing the oil fields in the southern Soviet Union crucial to a long-term German war effort. While Red Army generals saw evidence that Hitler would shift efforts south, Stalin considered this to be a flanking move in a renewed effort to take Moscow. In June 1942, the German Army began a major offensive in Southern Russia, threatening Stalingrad; Stalin ordered the Red Army to hold the city at all costs, resulting in the protracted Battle of Stalingrad, which became the bloodiest and fiercest battle of the entire war. In February 1943, the German forces attacking Stalingrad surrendered. The Soviet victory there marked a major turning point in the war; in commemoration, Stalin declared himself Marshal of the Soviet Union in March.
=== 1942–1945: Soviet counter-attack ===
By November 1942, the Soviets had begun to repulse the German southern campaign and, although there were 2.5 million Soviet casualties in that effort, it permitted the Soviets to take the offensive for most of the rest of the war on the Eastern Front. In summer 1943, Germany attempted an encirclement attack at Kursk, which was successfully repulsed by the Soviets. By the end of the year, the Soviets occupied half of the territory taken by the Germans to that point. Soviet military industrial output also had increased substantially from late 1941 to early 1943 after Stalin had moved factories well to the east of the front, safe from invasion and aerial assault.
In Allied countries, Stalin was increasingly depicted in a positive light over the course of the war. In 1941, the London Philharmonic Orchestra performed a concert to celebrate his birthday, and in 1942, Time magazine named him "Man of the Year". When Stalin learnt that people in Western countries affectionately called him "Uncle Joe" he was initially offended, regarding it as undignified. There remained mutual suspicions between Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, together known as the "Big Three". Churchill flew to Moscow to visit Stalin in August 1942 and again in October 1944. Stalin scarcely left Moscow during the war, frustrating Roosevelt and Churchill with his reluctance to meet them.
In November 1943, Stalin met with Churchill and Roosevelt in Tehran, a location of Stalin's choosing. There, Stalin and Roosevelt got on well, with both desiring the post-war dismantling of the British Empire. At Tehran, the trio agreed that to prevent Germany rising to military prowess yet again, the German state should be broken up. Roosevelt and Churchill also agreed to Stalin's demand that the German city of Königsberg be declared Soviet territory. Stalin was impatient for the UK and US to open up a Western Front to take the pressure off the East; they eventually did so in mid-1944. Stalin insisted that, after the war, the Soviet Union should incorporate the portions of Poland it had occupied in 1939, which Churchill opposed. Later in 1944, discussing the fate of the Balkans, Churchill agreed to Stalin's suggestion that after the war, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Yugoslavia would come under the Soviet sphere of influence while Greece would come under that of the Western powers.
In 1944, the Soviet Union made significant advances across Eastern Europe toward Germany, including Operation Bagration, a massive offensive in the Byelorussian SSR against the German Army Group Centre. In 1944, the German armies were pushed out of the Baltic states, which were then re-annexed into the Soviet Union. As the Red Army reconquered the Caucasus and Crimea, various ethnic groups living in the region—the Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingushi, Karachai, Balkars, and Crimean Tatars—were accused of having collaborated with the Germans. Using the idea of collective responsibility as a basis, Stalin's government abolished their autonomous republics and between late 1943 and 1944 deported the majority of their populations to Central Asia and Siberia. Over one million people were deported as a result of the policy, with high rates of mortality.
In February 1945, the three leaders met at the Yalta Conference. Roosevelt and Churchill conceded to Stalin's demand that Germany pay the Soviet Union 20 billion dollars in reparations, and that his country be permitted to annex Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in exchange for entering the war against Japan. An agreement was also made that a post-war Polish government should be a coalition consisting of both communist and conservative elements. Privately, Stalin sought to ensure that Poland would come fully under Soviet influence. The Red Army withheld assistance to Polish resistance fighters battling the Germans in the Warsaw Uprising, with Stalin believing that any victorious Polish militants could interfere with his future aspirations to dominate Poland. Stalin placed great emphasis on capturing Berlin before the Western Allies, believing that this would enable him to bring more of Europe under long-term Soviet control. Churchill, concerned by this, unsuccessfully tried to convince the US that they should pursue the same goal.
=== 1945: Victory ===
In April 1945, the Red Army seized Berlin, Hitler killed himself, and Germany surrendered in May. Stalin had wanted Hitler captured alive; he had his remains brought to Moscow in order to prevent them becoming a relic for Nazi sympathisers. Many Soviet soldiers engaged in looting, pillaging, and rape, both in Germany and parts of Eastern Europe. Stalin refused to punish the offenders. With Germany defeated, Stalin switched focus to the war with Japan, transferring half a million troops to the Far East. Stalin was pressed by his allies to enter the war and wanted to cement the Soviet Union's strategic position in Asia. On 8 August, in between the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet army invaded Japanese-occupied Manchuria and northern Korea, defeating the Kwantung Army. These events led to the Japanese surrender and the war's end. The US rebuffed Stalin's desire for the Red Army to take a role in the Allied occupation of Japan.
At the Potsdam Conference in July–August 1945, Stalin repeated previous promises that he would refrain from a "Sovietisation" of Eastern Europe. Stalin pushed for reparations from Germany without regard to the base minimum supply for German citizens' survival, which worried Harry Truman and Churchill, who thought that Germany would become a financial burden for the Western powers. Stalin also pushed for "war booty", which would permit the Soviet Union to directly seize property from conquered nations without quantitative or qualitative limitation, and a clause was added permitting this to occur with some limitations. Germany was divided into four zones: Soviet, American, British, and French, with Berlin—located in the Soviet area—also divided thusly.
== Post-war era ==
=== 1945–1947: Post-war reconstruction ===
After the war, Stalin was at the apex of his career. Within the Soviet Union he was widely regarded as the embodiment of victory and patriotism, and his armies controlled Central and Eastern Europe up to the River Elbe. In June 1945, Stalin adopted the title of Generalissimo and stood atop Lenin's Mausoleum to watch a celebratory parade led by Zhukov through Red Square. At a banquet held for army commanders, he described the Russian people as "the outstanding nation" and "leading force" within the Soviet Union, the first time that he had unequivocally endorsed Russians over the other Soviet nationalities. In 1946, the state published Stalin's Collected Works. In 1947, it brought out a second edition of his official biography, which glorified him to a greater extent than its predecessor. He was quoted in Pravda on a daily basis and pictures of him remained pervasive on the walls of workplaces and homes.
Despite his popularity and strengthened international position, Stalin was cautious about internal dissent and desire for change among the population of the Soviet Union. He was also concerned about his returning armies, who had been exposed to a wide range of consumer goods in Germany, much of which they had looted and brought back with them. In this he recalled the 1825 Decembrist Revolt by Russian soldiers returning from having defeated France in the Napoleonic Wars. He ensured that returning Soviet prisoners of war went through "filtration" camps as they arrived in the Soviet Union, in which 2,775,700 were interrogated to determine if they were traitors. About half were then imprisoned in labour camps. In the Baltic states, where there was much opposition to Soviet rule, dekulakisation and de-clericalisation programmes were initiated, resulting in 142,000 deportations between 1945 and 1949. The Gulag system of forced labour camps was expanded further. By January 1953, three percent of the Soviet population was imprisoned or in internal exile, with 2.8 million in "special settlements" in isolated areas and another 2.5 million in camps, penal colonies, and prisons.
The NKVD were ordered to catalogue the scale of destruction during the war. It was established that 1,710 Soviet towns and 70,000 villages had been destroyed. The NKVD recorded that between 26 and 27 million Soviet citizens had been killed, with millions more being wounded, malnourished, or orphaned. In the war's aftermath, some of Stalin's associates suggested modifications to government policy. Post-war Soviet society was more tolerant than its pre-war phase in various respects. Stalin allowed the Russian Orthodox Church to retain the churches it had opened during the war, and academia and the arts were also allowed greater freedom. Recognising the need for drastic steps to be taken to combat inflation and promote economic recovery, in December 1947 Stalin's government devalued the rouble and abolished the food rationing system. Capital punishment was abolished in 1947 but re-instituted in 1950. Stalin's health deteriorated, and he grew increasingly concerned that senior figures might try to oust him. He demoted Molotov, and increasingly favoured Beria and Malenkov for key positions. In the Leningrad affair, the city's leadership was purged amid accusations of treachery; executions of many of the accused took place in 1950.
In the post-war period there were often food shortages in Soviet cities, and the USSR experienced a major famine from 1946 to 1947. Sparked by a drought and ensuing bad harvest in 1946, it was exacerbated by government policy towards food procurement, including the state's decision to build up stocks and export food rather than distributing it to famine-hit areas. Estimates indicate that between one million and 1.5 million people died from malnutrition or disease as a result. While agricultural production stagnated, Stalin focused on a series of major infrastructure projects, including the construction of hydroelectric plants, canals, and railway lines running to the polar north. Many of these were constructed through prison labour.
=== 1947–1950: Cold War policy ===
In the aftermath of the war, the British Empire declined, leaving the US and USSR as the dominant world powers. Tensions among these former Allies grew, resulting in the Cold War. Although Stalin publicly described the British and US governments as aggressive, he thought it unlikely that a war with them would be imminent, believing that several decades of peace was likely. He nevertheless secretly intensified Soviet research into nuclear weaponry, intent on creating an atom bomb. Still, Stalin foresaw the undesirability of a nuclear conflict, stating that "atomic weapons can hardly be used without spelling the end of the world." He personally took a keen interest in the development of the weapon. In August 1949, the bomb was successfully tested in the deserts outside Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan. Stalin also initiated a new military build-up; the Soviet army was expanded from 2.9 million soldiers, as it stood in 1949, to 5.8 million by 1953.
The US began pushing its interests on every continent, acquiring air force bases in Africa and Asia and ensuring pro-US regimes took power across Latin America. It launched the Marshall Plan in June 1947, with which it sought to undermine Soviet hegemony throughout Eastern Europe. The US offered financial assistance to countries on the condition that they opened their markets to trade, aware that the Soviets would never agree. The Allies demanded that Stalin withdraw the Red Army from northern Iran. He initially refused, leading to an international crisis in 1946, but relented one year later. Stalin also tried to maximise Soviet influence on the world stage, unsuccessfully pushing for Libya—recently liberated from Italian occupation—to become a Soviet protectorate. He sent Molotov as his representative to San Francisco to take part in negotiations to form the United Nations, insisting that the Soviets have a place on its Security Council. In April 1949, the Western powers established the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), an anti-Soviet military alliance led by the US In the West, Stalin was increasingly portrayed as the "most evil dictator alive" and compared to Hitler.
In 1948, Stalin edited and rewrote sections of Falsifiers of History, published as a series of Pravda articles in February 1948 and then in book form. Written in response to public revelations of the 1939 Soviet alliance with Germany, it focused on blaming the Western powers for the war. He also erroneously claimed that the initial German advance in the early part of the war, during Operation Barbarossa, was not a result of Soviet military weakness, but rather a deliberate Soviet strategic retreat. In 1949, celebrations took place to mark Stalin's 70th birthday (although he actually was turning 71 at the time) at which Stalin attended an event at the Bolshoi Theatre alongside Marxist–Leninist leaders from across Europe and Asia.
==== Eastern Bloc ====
After the war, Stalin sought to retain Soviet dominance across Eastern Europe while expanding its influence in Asia. Cautiously regarding the responses from the Western Allies, Stalin avoided immediately installing communist governments in Eastern Europe, instead initially ensuring that Marxist-Leninists were placed in coalition ministries. In contrast to his approach to the Baltic states, he rejected the proposal of merging the new communist states into the Soviet Union, rather recognising them as independent nation-states. He was faced with the problem that there were few Marxists left in Eastern Europe, with most having been killed by the Nazis. He demanded that war reparations be paid by Germany and its Axis allies Hungary, Romania, and the Slovak Republic. Aware that the countries of Eastern Europe had been pushed to socialism through invasion rather than revolution, Stalin called them "people's democracies" instead of "dictatorships of the proletariat".
Churchill observed that an "Iron Curtain" had been drawn across Europe, separating the east from the west. In September 1947, a meeting of Eastern European communist leaders established the Cominform to coordinate communist parties across Eastern Europe and also in France and Italy. Stalin did not personally attend the meeting, sending Andrei Zhdanov in his place. Various East European communists also visited Stalin in Moscow. There, he offered advice on their ideas; for instance, he cautioned against the Yugoslav idea for a Balkan Federation incorporating Bulgaria and Albania. Stalin had a particularly strained relationship with Yugoslavian leader Josip Broz Tito due to the latter's continued calls for a Balkan federation and for Soviet aid for the communist forces in the ongoing Greek Civil War. In March 1948, Stalin launched an anti-Tito campaign, accusing the Yugoslav communists of adventurism and deviating from Marxist–Leninist doctrine. At the second Cominform conference, held in Bucharest in June 1948, East European communist leaders all denounced Tito's government, accusing them of being fascists and agents of Western capitalism. Stalin ordered several assassination attempts on Tito's life and even contemplated an invasion of Yugoslavia itself.
Stalin suggested that a unified, but demilitarised, German state be established, hoping that it would either come under Soviet influence or remain neutral. When the US and UK opposed this, Stalin sought to force their hand by blockading Berlin in June 1948. He gambled that the Western powers would not risk war, but they airlifted supplies into West Berlin until May 1949, when Stalin relented and ended the blockade. In September 1949, the Western powers transformed their zones into an independent Federal Republic of Germany; in response the Soviets formed theirs into the German Democratic Republic in October. In accordance with earlier agreements, the Western powers expected Poland to become an independent state with free democratic elections. In Poland, the Soviets merged various socialist parties into the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR), and vote rigging was used to ensure that the PZPR secured office. The 1947 Hungarian elections were also rigged by Stalin, with the Hungarian Working People's Party taking control. In Czechoslovakia, where the communists did have a level of popular support, they were elected the largest party in 1946. Monarchy was abolished in Bulgaria and Romania. Across Eastern Europe, the Soviet model was enforced, with a termination of political pluralism, agricultural collectivisation, and investment in heavy industry. It was aimed at establishing economic autarky within the Eastern Bloc.
==== Asia ====
In October 1949, Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong took power in China and proclaimed the People's Republic of China. Marxist governments now controlled a third of the world's land mass. Privately, Stalin revealed that he had underestimated the Chinese Communists and their ability to win the civil war, instead encouraging them to make another peace with the KMT. In December 1949, Mao visited Stalin. Initially, Stalin refused to repeal the Sino-Soviet Treaty of 1945, which significantly benefited the Soviet Union over China, although in January 1950 he relented and agreed to sign a new treaty. Stalin was concerned that Mao might follow Tito's example by pursuing a course independent of Soviet influence, and made it known that if displeased he would withdraw assistance; the Chinese desperately needed said assistance after decades of civil war.
At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union and the US divided up the Korean Peninsula, formerly a Japanese colonial possession, along the 38th parallel, setting up a communist government in the north and a pro-Western, anti-communist government in the south. North Korean leader Kim Il Sung visited Stalin in March 1949 and again in March 1950; he wanted to invade the south, and although Stalin was initially reluctant to provide support, he eventually agreed by May 1950. The North Korean Army launched the Korean War by invading South Korea in June 1950, making swift gains and capturing Seoul. Both Stalin and Mao believed that a swift victory would ensue. The US went to the UN Security Council—which the Soviets were boycotting over its refusal to recognise Mao's government—and secured international military support for the South Koreans. US-led forces pushed the North Koreans back. Stalin wanted to avoid direct Soviet conflict with the US, and convinced the Chinese to enter the war to aid the North in October 1950.
The Soviet Union was one of the first nations to extend diplomatic recognition to the newly created state of Israel in 1948, in hopes of obtaining an ally in the Middle East. When the Israeli ambassador Golda Meir arrived in the USSR, Stalin was angered by the Jewish crowds who gathered to greet her. He was further angered by Israel's growing alliance with the US After Stalin fell out with Israel, he launched an anti-Jewish campaign within the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. In November 1948, he abolished the JAC, and show trials took place for some of its members. The Soviet press engaged in vituperative attacks on Zionism, Jewish culture, and "rootless cosmopolitanism", with growing levels of antisemitism being expressed across Soviet society. Stalin's increasing tolerance of antisemitism may have stemmed from his increasing Russian nationalism or from the recognition that antisemitism had proved a useful tool for Hitler; he may have increasingly viewed the Jewish people as a "counter-revolutionary" nation. There were rumours that Stalin was planning on deporting all Soviet Jews to the Jewish Autonomous Region in Birobidzhan in Siberia.
=== 1950–1953: Final years ===
During the last three years of his life, Stalin was in poor health. He took increasingly long holidays; in the summer of 1950 and again in 1951 where he spent almost five months on holiday at his Abkhazian dacha. Stalin nevertheless mistrusted his doctors; in January 1952 he had one imprisoned after they suggested that he should retire to improve his health. In September 1952, several Kremlin doctors were arrested for allegedly plotting to kill senior politicians in what came to be known as the doctors' plot; the majority of the accused were Jewish. Stalin ordered that the doctors be tortured to ensure confessions. In November, the Slánský trial took place in Czechoslovakia, in which 13 senior Communist Party figures, 11 of them Jewish, were accused and convicted of being part of a vast Zionist-American conspiracy to subvert the Eastern Bloc. The same month, a much publicised trial of accused Jewish industrial wreckers took place in Ukraine. In 1951, Stalin initiated the Mingrelian affair, a purge of the Georgian Communist Party which resulted in over 11,000 deportations.
From 1946 until his death, Stalin only gave three public speeches, two of which lasted only a few minutes. The amount of written material that he produced also declined. In 1950, Stalin issued the article "Marxism and Problems of Linguistics", which reflected his interest in questions of Russian nationhood. In 1952, Stalin's last book, Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, was published. It sought to provide a guide to leading the country after his death. In October 1952, he gave an hour and a half speech at the Central Committee plenum. There, he emphasised what he regarded as necessary leadership qualities, and highlighted the weaknesses of potential successors, notably Molotov and Mikoyan. In 1952, he eliminated the Politburo and replaced it with a larger version he named the Presidium.
==== Death, funeral, and aftermath ====
On the late afternoon of 1 March 1953, Stalin's staff found him semi-conscious on the bedroom floor of his Kuntsevo Dacha. He was moved onto a couch and remained there for three days, during which he was hand-fed using a spoon and given various medicines and injections. Stalin's condition continued to deteriorate, and he died on 5 March. An autopsy revealed that he had died of a cerebral haemorrhage, and that his cerebral arteries had been severely damaged by atherosclerosis. Stalin's death was announced on 6 March; his body was embalmed, and then displayed in Moscow's House of Unions for three days. The crowds coming to view the body were so large and disorganised that many people were killed in a crowd crush. At the funeral on 9 March, attended by hundreds of thousands, Stalin was laid to rest in Lenin's Mausoleum in Red Square.
Stalin left neither a designated successor nor a framework within which a peaceful transfer of power could take place. The Central Committee met on the day of his death, after which Malenkov, Beria, and Khrushchev emerged as the party's dominant figures. The system of collective leadership was restored, and measures introduced to prevent any one member from attaining autocratic domination. The collective leadership included Georgy Malenkov, Lavrentiy Beria, Vyacheslav Molotov, Kliment Voroshilov, Nikita Khrushchev, Nikolai Bulganin, Lazar Kaganovich, and Anastas Mikoyan. Reforms to the Soviet system were immediately implemented. Economic reform scaled back mass construction projects, placed a new emphasis on house building, and eased the levels of taxation on the peasantry to stimulate production. The new leaders sought rapprochement with Yugoslavia and a less hostile relationship with the US, and they pursued a negotiated end to the Korean War in July 1953. The imprisoned doctors were released and the antisemitic purges ceased. A mass amnesty for certain convicts was issued, halving the country's inmate population, and the state security and Gulag systems were reformed.
== Political ideology and beliefs ==
Stalin claimed to have embraced Marxism at the age of 15, and it served as the guiding philosophy throughout his adult life; according to Kotkin, Stalin held "zealous Marxist convictions", while Montefiore suggested that Marxism held a "quasi-religious" value for Stalin. Erik van Ree argues that Stalin did not view Marxism as a literal religion, but believed it was necessary for the masses to experience it as one, calling it "the religion of a class". Stalin believed that the masses required an object of religious devotion and had the "psychology of the herd" and needed a "leading ram", a paternalist "tsar", "a person they can worship and in whose name they can live and work." Although he never became a Georgian nationalist, during his early life elements from Georgian nationalist thought blended with Marxism in his outlook. Stalin believed in the need to adapt Marxism to changing circumstances; in 1917, he declared that "there is dogmatic Marxism and there is creative Marxism. I stand on the ground of the latter". According to scholar Robert Service, Stalin's "few innovations in ideology were crude, dubious developments of Marxism".
Stalin believed in an inevitable "class war" between the world's proletariat and bourgeoisie in which the working classes would prove victorious and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, regarding the Soviet Union as an example of such a state. He also believed that this proletarian state would need to introduce repressive measures against foreign and domestic "enemies" to ensure the full crushing of the propertied classes, and thus the class war would intensify with the advance of socialism. As a propaganda tool, the shaming of "enemies" explained all inadequate economic and political outcomes, the hardships endured by the populace, and military failures.
Stalin adhered to the Leninist variant of Marxism. In his book, Foundations of Leninism, he stated that "Leninism is the Marxism of the epoch of imperialism and of the proletarian revolution". He claimed to be a loyal Leninist, although was—according to Service—"not a blindly obedient Leninist". Stalin respected Lenin, but not uncritically, and spoke out when he believed that Lenin was wrong. During the period of his revolutionary activity, Stalin regarded some of Lenin's views and actions as being the self-indulgent activities of a spoilt émigré, deeming them counterproductive for those Bolshevik activists based within the Russian Empire itself. After the October Revolution, they continued to have differences, although Kotkin suggested that Stalin's friendship with Lenin was "the single most important relationship in Stalin's life".
Stalin viewed nations as contingent entities which were formed by capitalism and could merge into others. Ultimately, he believed that all nations would merge into a single, global community, and regarded all nations as inherently equal. In his work, he stated that "the right of secession" should be offered to the ethnic minorities of the Russian Empire, but that they should not be encouraged to take that option. He was of the view that if they became fully autonomous, then they would end up being controlled by the most reactionary elements of their community. Stalin's push for Soviet westward expansion into Eastern Europe resulted in accusations of Russian imperialism.
== Personal life and characteristics ==
Ethnically Georgian, Stalin grew up speaking the Georgian language, and did not begin learning Russian until age eight or nine. It has been argued that his ancestry was genetically Ossetian, but he never acknowledged an Ossetian identity. He remained proud of his Georgian identity, and throughout his life retained a heavy Georgian accent when speaking Russian. Some colleagues described him as "Asiatic", and he supposedly said that "I am not a European man, but an Asian, a Russified Georgian".
Described as soft-spoken and a poor orator, Stalin's style was "simple and clear, without flights of fancy, catchy phrases or platform histrionics". He rarely spoke before large audiences and preferred to express himself in writing. In adulthood, Stalin measured 1.70 m (5 feet 7 inches) in height. His moustached face was pock-marked from smallpox during childhood; this was airbrushed from published photographs. His left arm had been injured in childhood leaving it shorter than his right and lacking in flexibility. Stalin was a lifelong smoker, who smoked both a pipe and cigarettes. Publicly, he lived relatively plainly, with simple and inexpensive clothing and furniture. As leader, Stalin rarely left Moscow unless for holiday; he disliked travel, and refused to travel by plane. In 1934, his Kuntsevo Dacha was built 9 km (5.6 mi) from the Kremlin and became his primary residence. He holidayed in the south USSR every year from 1925 to 1936 and 1945 to 1951, often in Abkhazia, being a friend of its leader, Nestor Lakoba.
=== Personality ===
Trotsky and several other Soviet figures promoted the idea that Stalin was a mediocrity, a characterisation which gained widespread acceptance outside of the Soviet Union during his lifetime. However, historians have described him as having a complex mind, remarkable self-control, and strong memory. Stalin was a diligent worker and an effective and strategic organiser, with a keen interest in learning. As a leader, he meticulously scrutinised details, from film scripts to military plans, and judged others by their inner strength and cleverness. He was skilled at playing different roles depending on the audience, as well as in deception. Although he could be rude, Stalin rarely raised his voice; however, as his health deteriorated, he became unpredictable and bad-tempered. He could be charming and enjoyed cracking jokes when relaxed. At social events, Stalin encouraged singing and drinking, hoping others would drunkenly reveal secrets to him.
Stalin lacked compassion, possibly exacerbated by his repeated imprisonments and exiles, though he occasionally showed kindness to strangers, even during the Great Purge. He could be self-righteous, resentful, and vindictive, often holding grudges for years. By the 1920s, he had become suspicious and conspiratorial, prone to believing in plots against him and international conspiracies. While he never attended torture sessions or executions, Stalin took pleasure in degrading and humiliating people and kept even close associates in a state of "unrelieved fear". Service suggested he had tendencies toward a paranoid and sociopathic personality disorder. Historian E. A. Rees believed it was psychopathy that bred Stalin's tyranny, citing a 1927 diagnosis by neuropathologist Vladimir Bekhterev that described him as a "typical case of severe paranoia". Others have linked Stalin's brutality to his commitment to the survival of the Soviet Union and Marxist–Leninist ideology.
Stalin had a keen interest in the arts. He protected certain Soviet writers, such as Mikhail Bulgakov, even when their work was criticised as harmful to his regime. Stalin enjoyed classical music, owned around 2,700 records, and often attended the Bolshoi Theatre in the 1930s and 40s. His taste was conservative, favouring classical drama, opera, and ballet over what he dismissed as experimental "formalism", and disliked avant-garde in the visual arts. An autodidact, Stalin was a voracious reader who kept over 20,000 books, with little fiction. His favourite subject was history, and he was especially interested in the reigns of Russian leaders Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, and Catherine the Great. Lenin was his favourite author, but he read and appreciated works by Trotsky and other adversaries.
=== Relationships and family ===
Stalin married his first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, in 1906. Volkogonov suggested that she was "probably the one human being he had really loved". When she died in 1907, Stalin allegedly said: "This creature softened my heart of stone. She died and with her died my last warm feelings for humanity." They had a son, Yakov, who frequently frustrated and annoyed Stalin. After Yakov was captured by the German Army during World War II, Stalin refused to agree to a prisoner exchange between him and German field marshal Friedrich Paulus, and Yakov died at a Nazi concentration camp in 1943.
In exile in Solvychegodsk in 1910, Stalin had an affair with his landlady, Maria Kuzakova, who in 1911 gave birth to his alleged second son, Konstantin Kuzakov, who later taught philosophy at the Leningrad Military Mechanical Institute, but never met Stalin. In 1914 in Kureika, Stalin, aged 35, had a relationship with Lidia Pereprygina, aged 14 (considered a minor at the time), who allegedly became pregnant with Stalin's child. In December 1914, Pereprygina gave birth to the child, although the infant died soon after. In 1916, Pereprygina was pregnant again. She gave birth to their alleged son, Alexander Davydov, in around April 1917. He was raised as the son of a peasant fisherman; Stalin later came to know of the child's existence but showed no interest in him.
Stalin's second wife was Nadezhda Alliluyeva, whom he married in 1919; theirs was not an easy relationship, they often fought. They had two biological children—a son, Vasily, and daughter, Svetlana—and adopted another son, Artyom Sergeev, in 1921. It is unclear if Stalin had a mistress during or after this marriage. She suspected he was unfaithful, and committed suicide in 1932. Stalin regarded Vasily as spoiled and often chastised his behaviour; as Stalin's son, he was swiftly promoted through the Red Army and allowed a lavish lifestyle. Conversely, Stalin had an affectionate relationship with Svetlana during her childhood, and was very fond of Artyom. He disapproved of Svetlana's suitors and husbands, which put strain on their relationship. After World War II, he made little time for his children, and his family played a diminishing role in his life. After Stalin's death, Svetlana changed her surname to Alliluyeva, and defected to the US.
== Legacy ==
Leninists remain divided in their views on Stalin; some view him as Lenin's authentic successor, while others believe he betrayed Lenin's ideas by deviating from them. The historian Robert Conquest stated that Stalin perhaps "determined the course of the twentieth century" more than any other individual. For most Westerners and anti-communist Russians, he is viewed overwhelmingly negatively as a mass murderer; for significant numbers of Russians and Georgians, he is regarded as a great statesman and state-builder. The historian Dmitri Volkogonov characterised him as "one of the most powerful figures in human history."
According to Service, Stalin strengthened and stabilised the Soviet Union. In under three decades, Stalin transformed the country into a major industrial world power, one which could "claim impressive achievements" in terms of urbanisation, military strength, education and Soviet pride. Under his rule, the average Soviet life expectancy grew due to improved living conditions, nutrition and medical care as mortality rates declined. Although millions of Soviet citizens despised him, support for Stalin was nevertheless widespread throughout Soviet society. Conversely, the historian Vadim Rogovin argued that Stalin's purges "caused losses to the communist movement both in the USSR and throughout the world from which the movement has not recovered to this very day". Similarly, Nikita Khrushchev believed his purges of the Old Bolsheviks and leading figures in the military and academia had "undoubtedly" weakened the nation.
Stalin's necessity for the Soviet Union's economic development has been questioned, and it has been argued that his policies from 1928 onwards may have been a limiting factor. Stalin's Soviet Union has been characterised as a totalitarian state, with Stalin its authoritarian leader. Various biographers have described him as a dictator, an autocrat, or accused him of practising Caesarism. Montefiore argued that while Stalin initially ruled as part of a Communist Party oligarchy, the government transformed into a personal dictatorship in 1934, with Stalin only becoming "absolute dictator" after March–June 1937, when senior military and NKVD figures were eliminated. In both the Soviet Union and elsewhere he came to be portrayed as an "Oriental despot". McDermott nevertheless cautioned against "over-simplistic stereotypes"—promoted in the fiction of writers like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn—which portrayed Stalin as an omnipotent and omnipresent tyrant who controlled every aspect of Soviet life.
A vast literature devoted to Stalin has been produced. During Stalin's lifetime, his approved biographies were largely hagiographic in content. Stalin ensured that these works gave very little attention to his early life, particularly because he did not wish to emphasise his Georgian origins in a state numerically dominated by Russians. Since his death many more biographies have been written, although until the 1980s these relied largely on the same sources of information. Under Mikhail Gorbachev's Soviet administration various previously classified files on Stalin's life were made available to historians, at which point he became "one of the most urgent and vital issues on the public agenda" in the Soviet Union. After the dissolution of the Union in 1991, the rest of the archives were opened to historians, resulting in much new information about Stalin coming to light, and producing a flood of new research.
=== Death toll ===
Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the archival revelations, some Western historians estimated that the numbers killed by Stalin's regime were 20 million or higher. The scholarly consensus affirms that Soviet archival materials declassified in 1991 contain irrefutable data much lower than Western sources used prior to 1991, such as statements from emigres and other informants. Based on these records, scholars have estimated that 1.8 million people were deported to remote regions of the country during Stalin's dekulakisation campaign, in addition to 1 million peasants and ethnic minorities deported in the 1930s, and 3.5 million people (mainly ethnic minorities) deported in the 1940s and 1950s, for a total of 6.3 million. The Soviet archives also contain official records of 799,455 executions from 1921 to 1953, around 1.5 to 1.7 million deaths in Gulag camps (out of an estimated 18 million people who passed through), some 390,000 deaths during the dekulakisation forced resettlement, and up to 400,000 deaths of persons deported during the 1940s, with a total of about 3.3 million officially recorded victims in these categories. According to historian Stephen Wheatcroft, approximately 1 million of these deaths were "purposive" while the rest happened through neglect and irresponsibility.
The deaths of at least 3.5 to 6.5 million persons in the Soviet famine of 1932–1933 are sometimes, though not always, included with the victims of the Stalin era. Stalin has also been accused of genocide in the cases of forced population transfer of ethnic minorities across the Soviet Union and the Holodomor famine. However, British historian Michael Ellman argues that mass deaths from famines should be placed in a different category than the repression victims, mentioning that throughout Russian history famines and droughts have been a common occurrence. Famines were widespread throughout the world in the 19th and 20th centuries in countries such as China, India, Ireland, and Russia. Ellman compared the behaviour of the Stalinist regime to that of the British government (towards Ireland and India) and the G8 in contemporary times, and Stalin's "behaviour was no worse than that of many rulers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries".
=== In the Soviet Union and post-Soviet states ===
Shortly after his death, the Soviet Union went through a period of de-Stalinisation. Malenkov denounced the Stalin personality cult, and the cult was subsequently criticised in Pravda. In 1956, Khrushchev gave his "Secret Speech", titled "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences", to a closed session of the Party's 20th Congress. There, Khrushchev denounced Stalin for both his mass repression and his personality cult. He repeated these denunciations at the 22nd Party Congress in October 1962. In October 1961, Stalin's body was removed from the mausoleum and buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, the location marked by a bust. Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd that year.
Khrushchev's de-Stalinisation process ended when he was replaced as leader by Leonid Brezhnev in 1964; the latter introduced a level of re-Stalinisation within the Soviet Union. In 1969 and again in 1979, plans were proposed for a full rehabilitation of Stalin's legacy but on both occasions were halted due to fears of damaging the USSR's public image. Mikhail Gorbachev saw the total denunciation of Stalin as necessary for the regeneration of Soviet society.
After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Boris Yeltsin continued Gorbachev's denunciation of Stalin but added to it a denunciation of Lenin. His successor Vladimir Putin did not seek to rehabilitate Stalin but emphasised the celebration of Soviet achievements under Stalin's leadership rather than the Stalinist repressions. In October 2017, Putin opened the Wall of Grief, a memorial to the victims of Stalin's repressions, in Moscow. Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the government and general public of Russia has been accused of rehabilitating Stalin. In May 2025, Russian authorities re-added a statue of Stalin at the Taganskaya metro station after the original was removed in 1966 as part of the 90th anniversary of the opening of the metro. In July, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation described Khrushchev's 1956 speech denouncing Stalin's cult of personality as a "mistake" and "politically biased", further urging Putin to restore "Stalingrad" as the official name of the Russian city of Volgograd.
Admiration for Stalin has remained consistently widespread in Georgia, although Georgian attitudes have been very divided. A number of Georgians resent criticism of Stalin, the most famous figure from their nation's modern history. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%27%C3%A8_la_luna_mezzo_mare#Notable_recordings | C'è la luna mezzo mare#Notable recordings | "Cc'è la luna n menzu ô mari" (Sicilian for 'There's the moon amid the sea'), mostly known in the English-speaking world as "C'è la luna mezzo mare", "Luna mezz'o mare" and other similar titles, is a comic Sicilian song with worldwide popularity, traditionally styled as a brisk 68 tarantella. The song portrays a mother-daughter "coming of age" exchange consisting of various comic, and sometimes sexual, innuendos. It is frequently performed at Italian-American wedding receptions and other festive occasions. Hit versions have included "Oh! Ma-Ma! (The Butcher Boy)" by Rudy Vallée and "Lazy Mary (Luna Mezzo Mare)" by Lou Monte.
== Origin ==
Related music and lyrics appeared as early as 1835, in the art song "La Danza" (tarantella napoletana) by Gioachino Rossini and Carlo Pepoli. By 1871 in Italy, bawdier versions were circulating. In 1927, New York City's Italian Book Company arranged and recorded a version by Sicilian sailor Paolo Citorello (sometimes spelled Citarella), and an American court upheld their copyright in 1928.
== Popularity ==
Since the first recording in 1927, the song has proliferated with different titles and lyrics in English, Sicilian, and Neapolitan. Hit recordings in the United States have included "Oh! Ma-Ma!" by Rudy Vallée (1938, peaked at No. 8) and "Lazy Mary" by Lou Monte (1958, peaked at No. 12). Monte's version was initially banned from British broadcasts for undesirable innuendo, but has been played to a family-filled baseball stadium during the seventh-inning stretch at almost every New York Mets home game since the mid-1990s, as the result of a fan survey. The humorous lyrics center around a young woman wondering about marriage with various tradesmen (butcher, fisherman, fireman, etc.), ensuring the song's sustained popularity at Italian wedding receptions, including the opening scene of The Godfather (1972). The song was also included in the 2010 videogame Mafia II, as part of the fictional radio station Empire Classic. In early 2022 the song was used as part of a popular TikTok trend where creators would use the song showing things in their home that "just make sense" while making a stereotypical Italian hand gesture to the beat of the song.
In the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, the cast sang the song in the episodes "Mia Famiglia" and "Italy".
== Notable recordings ==
The song has been notably recorded with the following performers and titles:
1927: Paolo Citorello, "Luna mezzomare (Moonlight at Sea)" (Brunswick Records – 58042)
1928: Rosina Gioiosa, "Mi vogghiu maritari (I Want to Get Married)" (Brunswick Records – 58073)
1929: Paolo Citorello, "Mamma a cu m'addari"
1930: Paolo Citorello, "Mi vulissi maritari (I Want to Get Married)"
1930s: Silvia Coruzzolo, "A luna mezzo o mare"
1930s: I Diavoli, "La luna in mezzo al mare (A luna mmezzu 'u mari)"
1938: Rudy Vallée, "Oh! Ma-Ma! (The Butcher Boy)", 1975 compilation Jukebox Saturday Night. 96 Great Jukebox Hits (Reader's Digest – RDA 139-A)
1938: Billy Cotton and His Band, "Oh! Ma-Ma" (Rex – 9309)
1938: Joe Loss and His Band, "Oh! Ma-Ma!" (Regal Zonophone Records – MR 2785)
1938: Dick Robertson and His Orchestra, "Oh! Ma-Ma! (The Butcher Boy)" (Decca Records – 1726)
1938: Gracie Fields, "Oh! Ma-Ma (The Butcher Boy)" (Rex – 9350)
1938: Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians "Oh! Ma-Ma (The Butcher Boy)" (Victor – 25857)
1938: Nat Gonella & His Georgians "Oh! Ma-Ma" (Odeon Records – O.F. 5712)
1938: George Hall, "Oh! Ma Ma (The Butcher Boy)"
1938: Andrews Sisters, "Oh! Ma-Ma! (The Butcher Boy)" (Decca Records – 1859); 1957 album Andrews Sisters by Popular Demand (Decca Records – DL 8360)
1938: Gail Reese and Glenn Miller Orchestra, "Oh! Ma-Ma! (The Butcher Boy)", 2001 album The Complete Sustaining Broadcasts: Volume 3 - On the Sentimental Side (Jazz Band Records – EBCD 2180/81-2)
1939: Paolo Dones, "'A luna 'mmenzu 'u mari!" (Columbia Records – 14359-F)
1940: Trio Vocale Sorelle Lescano, "Ohi Ma - Ma! (Parlophon – G.P. 92840)
1946: Rose Marie, "Chena a luna", 1953 album Show Stoppers (Mercury Records – MG 25143)
1951: Dean Martin, "Luna mezzo mare" (Capitol Records – 1724); 1993 album Pardners (Fremus – CDFR 0507)
1954: Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians, "Oh! Ma-Ma" (Disque "Gramophone" – K-8170); album Guy Lombardo Plays (RCA Camden – CAL-255)
1958: Lou Monte, "Lazy Mary (Luna mezz 'o mare)", album Lou Monte Sings For You (Per te) (RCA Victor – LPM-1651)
1958: Johnny Puleo and His Harmonica Gang, "C'è la luna in mezzo mare", album Molto Italiano! (Audio Fidelity Records – AFLP 1883)
1960: The Mills Brothers, "Oh! Ma-Ma! (The Butcher Boy)" (Dot Records – 45-16049); 1974 album The Best of The Mills Brothers Volume II (Famous Twinsets – PAS-2-1027)
1961: Marianne, "Oh! Ma-Ma!" (Sonet Records – T 8109)
1961: Louis Prima, "Oh Ma Ma Twist" (Dot Records – 45-16301); 1962 compilation Februar I/1962 (Telefunken – MU 4)
1962: Marino Marini and his quartet "Oh! Ma-Ma Twist" (durium - Ld A 7201)
1963: Louis Prima, "Che-la-luna" (Prima Magnagroove – PS 3001); 1964 album The King of Clubs (Prima Magnagroove – PM 3003)
1973: Salix Alba, "Oh Mama" (Disques Vogue – VB. 278); album Salix Alba (Disques Vogue – CLPVB)
1975: I' Liguri, "Luna mezzo o mare", album I' Liguri (Complex IV – XPL-1055)
1979: De Deurzakkers, "Oh, Mama" (Philips - 6012 880)
1983: Stars on 45, album Star Sisters Album (Delta – DEL 7018)
1999: Frank Simms, "Luna mezzo mare", compilation Mickey Blue Eyes (Milan Records – 73138-35888-2)
2002: Enrique Rodríguez and his Orchestra, album El "Chato" Flores en el recuerdo (EMI – 7243 5 41705 2 2)
2005: Patrizio Buanne, "Luna mezz'o mare", album Patrizio The Italian (Universal Music TV – 9871823)
2013: Guido Luciani, "Luna mezzo mare", album That's amore! A night in Little Italy (Somerset Group)
2015: Famiglia Amica Valenza, "C'è la luna mezz'o mare"
xxxx: Len Hughes and his Orchestra "Oh! Ma-Ma!" (Tempo - 667)
xxxx: Kristian Haugers Danseorkester – "Oh, Ma-Ma" (Telefunken – T-8198) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham | Birmingham | Birmingham ( BUR-ming-əm) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands region, in England. It is the largest local authority district in England by population and the second-largest city in Britain – commonly referred to as the second city of the United Kingdom – with a population of 1.2 million people in the city proper in 2024. Birmingham borders the Black Country to its west and, together with the city of Wolverhampton and towns including Dudley and Solihull, forms the West Midlands conurbation. The royal town of Sutton Coldfield is incorporated within the city limits to the northeast. Birmingham's urban area has a population of 2.7 million and its wider metropolitan area has a population of 4.3 million.
Located in the West Midlands region of England, Birmingham is considered to be the social, cultural, financial and commercial centre of the Midlands. It is just west of the traditional centre point of England at Meriden, and is the most inland major city in the country, lying north of the Cotswolds and east of the Shropshire Hills. Distinctively, Birmingham only has small rivers flowing through it, mainly the River Tame and its tributaries River Rea and River Cole – one of the closest main rivers is the Severn, approximately 20 miles (32 km) west of the city centre. The city does however have numerous canals, collectively named the Birmingham Canal Navigations.
Historically a market town in Warwickshire in the medieval period, Birmingham grew during the 18th century during the Midlands Enlightenment and during the Industrial Revolution, which saw advances in science, technology and economic development, producing a series of innovations that laid many of the foundations of modern industrial society. By 1791, it was being hailed as "the first manufacturing town in the world". Birmingham's distinctive economic profile, with thousands of small workshops practising a wide variety of specialised and highly skilled trades, encouraged exceptional levels of creativity and innovation; this provided an economic base for prosperity that was to last into the final quarter of the 20th century.
The resulting high level of social mobility also fostered a culture of political radicalism which, under leaders from Thomas Attwood to Joseph Chamberlain, was to give it a political influence unparalleled in Britain outside London and a pivotal role in the development of British democracy. From the summer of 1940 to the spring of 1943, Birmingham was bombed heavily by the German Luftwaffe in what is known as the Birmingham Blitz. The damage done to the city's infrastructure, in addition to a deliberate policy of demolition and new building by planners, led to extensive urban regeneration in subsequent decades.
Birmingham's economy is now dominated by the service sector. The city is a major international commercial centre and an important transport, retail, events and conference hub. Its metropolitan economy is the second-largest in the United Kingdom with a GDP of £95.94bn (2014). Its five universities, including the University of Birmingham, make it the largest centre of higher education in the country outside London. Birmingham's major cultural institutions – the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Library of Birmingham and Barber Institute of Fine Arts – enjoy international reputations, and the city has vibrant and influential grassroots art, music, literary and culinary scenes. Birmingham was the host city for the 2022 Commonwealth Games. In 2021, Birmingham was the third most visited city in the UK by people from foreign nations.
== Toponymy ==
The name Birmingham comes from the Old English Beormingahām, meaning the home or settlement of the Beormingas – a tribe or clan whose name means 'Beorma's people' and which may have formed an early unit of Anglo-Saxon administration. Beorma, after whom the tribe was named, could have been its leader at the time of the Anglo-Saxon settlement, a shared ancestor, or a mythical tribal figurehead. Place names ending in -ingahām are characteristic of primary settlements established during the early phases of Anglo-Saxon colonisation of an area, suggesting that Birmingham was probably in existence by the early 7th century at the latest. Surrounding settlements with names ending in -tūn ('farm'), -lēah ('woodland clearing'), -worð ('enclosure') and -field ('open ground') are likely to be secondary settlements created by the later expansion of the Anglo-Saxon population, in some cases possibly on earlier British sites.
== History ==
=== Pre-history and medieval ===
There is evidence of early human activity in the Birmingham area dating back to around 8000 BC, with Stone Age artefacts suggesting seasonal settlements, overnight hunting parties and woodland activities such as tree felling. The many burnt mounds that can still be seen around the city indicate that modern humans first intensively settled and cultivated the area during the Bronze Age, when a substantial but short-lived influx of population occurred between 1700 BC and 1000 BC, possibly caused by conflict or immigration in the surrounding area. During the 1st-century Roman conquest of Britain, the forested country of the Birmingham Plateau formed a barrier to the advancing Roman legions, who built the large Metchley Fort in the area of modern-day Edgbaston in AD 48, and made it the focus of a network of Roman roads. Birmingham was then later established by the Beormingas around the 6th or 7th century as a small settlement in the then heavily forested Arden region in Mercia.
The development of Birmingham into a significant urban and commercial centre began in 1166, when the Lord of the Manor Peter de Bermingham obtained a charter to hold a market at his castle, and followed this with the creation of a planned market town and seigneurial borough within his demesne or manorial estate, around the site that became the Bull Ring. This established Birmingham as the primary commercial centre for the Birmingham Plateau at a time when the area's economy was expanding rapidly, with population growth nationally leading to the clearance, cultivation and settlement of previously marginal land. Within a century of the charter Birmingham had grown into a prosperous urban centre of merchants and craftsmen. By 1327 it was the third-largest town in Warwickshire, a position it would retain for the next 200 years.
=== Early modern ===
The principal governing institutions of medieval Birmingham – including the Guild of the Holy Cross and the lordship of the de Birmingham family – collapsed between 1536 and 1547, leaving the town with an unusually high degree of social and economic freedom and initiating a period of transition and growth.
The importance of the manufacture of iron goods to Birmingham's economy was recognised as early as 1538, and grew rapidly as the century progressed. Equally significant was the town's emerging role as a centre for the iron merchants who organised finance, supplied raw materials and traded and marketed the industry's products. By the 1600s Birmingham formed the commercial hub of a network of forges and furnaces stretching from South Wales to Cheshire and its merchants were selling finished manufactured goods as far afield as the West Indies. These trading links gave Birmingham's metalworkers access to much wider markets, allowing them to diversify away from lower-skilled trades producing basic goods for local sale, towards a broader range of specialist, higher-skilled and more lucrative activities.
By the time of the English Civil War Birmingham's booming economy, its expanding population, and its resulting high levels of social mobility and cultural pluralism, had seen it develop new social structures very different from those of more established areas. Relationships were built around pragmatic commercial linkages rather than the rigid paternalism and deference of feudal society, and loyalties to the traditional hierarchies of the established church and aristocracy were weak. The town's reputation for political radicalism and its strongly Parliamentarian sympathies saw it attacked by Royalist forces in the Battle of Birmingham in 1643, and it developed into a centre of Puritanism in the 1630s and as a haven for Nonconformists from the 1660s.
By 1700 Birmingham's population had increased fifteen-fold and the town was the fifth-largest in England and Wales. The 18th century saw this tradition of free-thinking and collaboration blossom into the cultural phenomenon now known as the Midlands Enlightenment. The town developed into a notable centre of literary, musical, artistic and theatrical activity; and its leading citizens – particularly the members of the Lunar Society of Birmingham – became influential participants in the circulation of philosophical and scientific ideas among Europe's intellectual elite. The close relationship between Enlightenment Birmingham's leading thinkers and its major manufacturers – in men like Matthew Boulton and James Keir they were often in fact the same people – made it particularly important for the exchange of knowledge between pure science and the practical world of manufacturing and technology. This created a "chain reaction of innovation", forming a pivotal link between the earlier Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Revolution that would follow.
=== Industrial Revolution ===
Birmingham's explosive industrial expansion started earlier than that of the textile-manufacturing towns of the North of England, and was driven by different factors. Instead of the economies of scale of a low-paid, unskilled workforce producing a single bulk product such as cotton or wool in large, mechanised units of production, Birmingham's industrial development was built on the adaptability and creativity of a highly paid workforce with a strong division of labour, practising a broad variety of skilled specialist trades and producing a constantly diversifying range of products, in a highly entrepreneurial economy of small, often self-owned workshops. This led to exceptional levels of inventiveness: between 1760 and 1850 – the core years of the Industrial Revolution – Birmingham residents registered over three times as many patents as those of any other British town or city.
The demand for capital to feed rapid economic expansion also saw Birmingham grow into a major financial and commercial centre with extensive international connections. Lloyds Bank was founded in the town in 1765, and Ketley's Building Society, the world's first building society, in 1775. By 1800 the West Midlands had more banking offices per head than any other region in Britain, including London.
Innovation in 18th-century Birmingham often took the form of incremental series of small-scale improvements to existing products or processes, but also included major developments that lay at the heart of the emergence of industrial society. In 1709 the Birmingham-trained Abraham Darby I moved to Coalbrookdale in Shropshire and built the first blast furnace to successfully smelt iron ore with coke, transforming the quality, volume and scale on which it was possible to produce cast iron. In 1732 Lewis Paul and John Wyatt invented roller spinning, the "one novel idea of the first importance" in the development of the mechanised cotton industry. In 1741 they opened the world's first cotton mill in Birmingham's Upper Priory. In 1746 John Roebuck invented the lead chamber process, enabling the large-scale manufacture of sulphuric acid, and in 1780 James Keir developed a process for the bulk manufacture of alkali, together marking the birth of the modern chemical industry. In 1765 Matthew Boulton opened the Soho Manufactory, pioneering the combination and mechanisation under one roof of previously separate manufacturing activities through a system known as "rational manufacture". As the largest manufacturing unit in Europe, this came to symbolise the emergence of the factory system.
Most significant, however, was the development in 1776 of the industrial steam engine by James Watt and Matthew Boulton. Freeing for the first time the manufacturing capacity of human society from the limited availability of hand, water and animal power, this was arguably the pivotal moment of the entire Industrial Revolution and a key factor in the worldwide increases in productivity over the following century.
=== Regency and Victorian ===
Birmingham rose to national political prominence in the campaign for political reform in the early 19th century, with Thomas Attwood and the Birmingham Political Union bringing the country to the brink of civil war during the Days of May that preceded the passing of the Reform Act 1832. The union's meetings on Newhall Hill in 1831 and 1832 were the largest political assemblies Britain had ever seen. Lord Durham, who drafted the act, wrote that "the country owed Reform to Birmingham, and its salvation from revolution". This reputation for having "shaken the fabric of privilege to its base" in 1832 led John Bright to make Birmingham the platform for his successful campaign for the Reform Act 1867, which extended voting rights to the urban working class.
The original charter of incorporation, dated 31 October 1838, was received in Birmingham on 1 November, then read in the town hall on 5 November with elections for the first Birmingham Town Council being held on 26 December. Sixteen aldermen and 48 councillors were elected and the borough was divided into 13 wards. William Scholefield became the first mayor and William Redfern was appointed as town clerk. Birmingham Town Police were established the following year.
Birmingham's tradition of innovation continued into the 19th century. Birmingham was the terminus for both of the world's first two long-distance railway lines: the 82-mile (132 km) Grand Junction Railway of 1837 and the 112-mile (180 km) London and Birmingham Railway of 1838. Birmingham schoolteacher Rowland Hill invented the postage stamp and created the first modern universal postal system in 1839. Alexander Parkes invented the first human-made plastic in the Jewellery Quarter in 1855.
By the 1820s, the country's extensive canal system had been constructed, giving greater access to natural resources and fuel for industries. During the Victorian era, the population of Birmingham grew rapidly to well over half a million and Birmingham became the second largest population centre in England. Birmingham was granted city status in 1889 by Queen Victoria. Joseph Chamberlain, mayor of Birmingham and later an MP, and his son Neville Chamberlain, who was Lord Mayor of Birmingham and later the British Prime Minister, are two of the most well-known political figures who have lived in Birmingham. The city established its own university in 1900.
=== 20th century and contemporary ===
The city suffered heavy bomb damage during World War II's "Birmingham Blitz". The city was also the scene of two scientific discoveries that were to prove critical to the outcome of the war. Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls first described how a practical nuclear weapon could be constructed in the Frisch–Peierls memorandum of 1940, the same year that the cavity magnetron, the key component of radar and later of microwave ovens, was invented by John Randall and Henry Boot. Details of these two discoveries, together with an outline of the first jet engine invented by Frank Whittle in nearby Rugby, were taken to the United States by the Tizard Mission in September 1940, in a single black box later described by an official American historian as "the most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores".
The city was extensively redeveloped during the 1950s and 1960s. This included the construction of large tower block estates, such as Castle Vale. The Bull Ring was reconstructed and New Street station was redeveloped. In the decades following World War II, the ethnic makeup of Birmingham changed significantly, as it received waves of immigration from the Commonwealth of Nations and beyond. The city's population peaked in 1951 at 1,113,000 residents.
21 people were killed and 182 were injured in a series of bomb attacks in 1974, thought to be carried out by the Provisional IRA. The bombings were the worst terror attacks in England up until the 2005 London bombings and consisted of bombs being planted in two pubs in central Birmingham. Six men were convicted, who became known later as the Birmingham Six and sentenced to life imprisonment. They were acquitted after 16 years by the Court of Appeal. The convictions are now considered one of the worst miscarriages of justice in the UK in recent times. The true perpetrators of the attacks are yet to be arrested.
Birmingham remained by far Britain's most prosperous provincial city as late as the 1970s, with household incomes exceeding even those of London and the South East, but its economic diversity and capacity for regeneration declined in the decades that followed World War II as Central Government sought to restrict the city's growth and disperse industry and population to the stagnating areas of Wales and Northern England. These measures hindered "the natural self-regeneration of businesses in Birmingham, leaving it top-heavy with the old and infirm", and the city became increasingly dependent on the motor industry. The recession of the early 1980s saw Birmingham's economy collapse, with unprecedented levels of unemployment and outbreaks of social unrest in inner-city districts.
Since the turn of the 21st century, many parts of Birmingham have been transformed, with the redevelopment of the Bullring Shopping Centre, the construction of the new Library of Birmingham (the largest public library in Europe) and the completed regeneration of old industrial areas such as Brindleyplace, The Mailbox and the International Convention Centre, ongoing rebuilding of Eastside, Digbeth, and Centenary Square, as well as the rationalisation of the Inner Ring Road. In 1998 Birmingham hosted the 24th G8 summit. The city successfully hosted the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
On 5 September 2023, Birmingham city council issued a Section 114 notice to say that it could not meet its financial commitments after an equal pay lawsuit. Effectively this meant the council was bankrupt. Major contributing factors include a £1.1 billion sum that has been paid out since 2010 for equal pay claims, an ongoing bill for £760 million, increasing by £14 million a month, and problems with a new IT system that was projected to cost £19 million, but is now closer to £100 million. There is a projected £87 million deficit for the financial year 2023/2024.
== Government ==
Birmingham City Council has 104 councillors representing 69 wards as of 2024. Its headquarters are at the Council House in Victoria Square. As of 2023, the council has a Labour Party majority and is led by John Cotton. Labour replaced the previous no overall control status at the May 2012 elections. The honour and dignity of a Lord Mayoralty was conferred on Birmingham by Letters Patent on 3 June 1896.
Birmingham's ten parliamentary constituencies are represented in the House of Commons as of 2024 by one Conservative, one independent and eight Labour MPs.
Originally part of Warwickshire, Birmingham expanded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, absorbing parts of Worcestershire to the south and Staffordshire to the north and west. The city absorbed Sutton Coldfield in 1974 and became a metropolitan borough in the new West Midlands county, comprising Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall, and Wolverhampton. A top-level government body, the West Midlands Combined Authority, was formed in April 2016. The WMCA holds devolved powers in transport, development planning, economic growth, and large-scale investment. The authority is governed by a directly elected mayor, currently Labour's Richard Parker, similar to the Mayor of London.
== Geography ==
Birmingham is located in the centre of the West Midlands region of England on the Birmingham Plateau – an area of relatively high ground, ranging between 500 and 1,000 feet (150 and 300 metres) above sea level and crossed by Britain's main north–south watershed between the basins of the Rivers Severn and Trent. To the immediate south west of the city lie the Lickey Hills, Clent Hills and Walton Hill, which reach 1,033 feet (315 m) and have extensive views over the city. Birmingham is drained only by minor rivers and brooks, primarily the River Tame and its tributaries the Cole and the Rea. Birmingham is located significantly inland, and its nearest body of sea is at Liverpool Bay. It lies at the same latitude as Lowestoft, Britain's easternmost settlement; it is therefore much more proximate to the western coast of Wales, at Cardigan Bay.
The City of Birmingham forms a conurbation with the borough of Solihull to the south east, and with the city of Wolverhampton and the industrial towns of the Black Country to the north west, which form the West Midlands Built-up Area covering 59,972 ha (600 km2; 232 sq mi). Surrounding this is Birmingham's metropolitan area – the area to which it is closely economically tied through commuting – which includes the towns of Tamworth and Cannock to the north; the city of Coventry and the towns of Nuneaton, Warwick and Leamington Spa to the east in Warwickshire and the Worcestershire towns of Redditch, Kidderminster and Bromsgrove to the south west.
As the crow flies, Birmingham lies approximately 100 miles (160 km) north-west of London, 85 miles (137 km) north-east of the Welsh capital Cardiff, 45 miles (72 km) south-west of Nottingham, 70 miles (110 km) south of Manchester, and 75 miles (121 km) north-north-east of Bristol.
Much of the area now occupied by the city was originally a northern reach of the ancient Forest of Arden and the city remains relatively densely covered by oak in a large number of districts such as Moseley, Saltley, Yardley, Stirchley and Hockley. These places, with names ending in "-ley", deriving from Old English -lēah meaning "woodland clearing", are named after the former forest.
=== Geology ===
Birmingham is dominated by the Birmingham Fault, which runs diagonally through the city from the Lickey Hills in the south west, passing through Edgbaston and the Bull Ring, to Erdington and Sutton Coldfield in the north east. To the south and east of the fault the ground is largely softer Mercia Mudstone, interspersed with beds of Bunter pebbles and crossed by the valleys of the Rivers Tame, Rea and Cole and their tributaries. To the north and west of the fault, between 150 and 600 feet (46 and 183 metres) higher than the surrounding area and underlying much of the city centre, lies a long ridge of harder Keuper Sandstone. The bedrock underlying Birmingham was mostly laid down during the Permian and Triassic periods.
The area has evidence of glacial deposits, with prominent erratic boulders becoming a tourist attraction in the early 1900s.
=== Climate ===
Birmingham has a temperate maritime climate (Cfb according to the Köppen climate classification), like much of the British Isles, with average maximum temperatures in summer (July) being around 21.3 °C (70.3 °F); and in winter (January) around 6.7 °C (44.1 °F). Between 1971 and 2000 the warmest day of the year on average was 28.8 °C (83.8 °F) and the coldest night typically fell to −9.0 °C (15.8 °F). Some 11.2 days each year rose to a temperature of 25.1 °C (77.2 °F) or above and 51.6 nights reported an air frost. The highest recorded temperature recorded at the Edgbaston Campus was 37.4 °C (99.3 °F), whilst a temperature of 37.0 °C (98.6 °F) was recorded at Birmingham Airport on the city's eastern edge, both recorded on 19 July 2022.
Like most other large cities, Birmingham has a considerable urban heat island effect. During the coldest night recorded, 14 January 1982, the temperature fell to −20.8 °C (−5.4 °F) at Birmingham Airport, but just −14.3 °C (6.3 °F) at Edgbaston, near the city centre. Birmingham is a snowy city relative to other large UK conurbations, due to its inland location and comparatively high elevation. Between 1961 and 1990 Birmingham Airport averaged 13.0 days of snow lying annually, compared to 5.33 at London Heathrow. Snow showers often pass through the city via the Cheshire gap on north westerly airstreams, but can also come off the North Sea from north easterly airstreams.
The city has been known to experience tornadoes: according to TORRO, Birmingham experienced 15 significant tornadoes between 1946 and 2005, with some being incredibly destructive. Most notably, a deadly F3 tornado on June 14, 1931, and another IF3 tornado which followed a similar path on 28 July 2005, becoming the United Kingdom's costliest tornado on record. On 23 November 1981, during a record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak, three tornadoes touched down within the Birmingham city limits – in Erdington, Selly Oak, and King's Heath–with three more tornadoes touching down within the boundaries of the wider West Midlands county. Notable tornadoes also struck the city in 1946, 1968, and 1999.
=== Environment ===
There are 571 parks within Birmingham – more than any other European city – totalling over 3,500 hectares (14 sq mi) of public open space. The city has over six million trees, and 250 miles (400 kilometres) of urban brooks and streams. Sutton Park, which covers 2,400 acres (971 ha) in the north of the city, is the largest urban park in Europe and a national nature reserve. Birmingham Botanical Gardens, located close to the city centre, retains the regency landscape of its original design by J. C. Loudon in 1829, while the Winterbourne Botanic Garden in Edgbaston reflects the more informal Arts and Crafts tastes of its Edwardian origins.
Several green spaces within the borough are designated as green belt, as a portion of the wider West Midlands Green Belt. This is a strategic local government policy used to prevent urban sprawl and preserve greenfield land. Areas included are the aforementioned Sutton Park; land along the borough boundary by the Sutton Coldfield, Walmley and Minworth suburbs; Kingfisher, Sheldon, Woodgate Valley country parks; grounds by the Wake Green football club; Bartley and Frankley reservoirs; and Handsworth cemetery with surrounding golf courses.
Birmingham has many areas of wildlife that lie in both informal settings such as the Project Kingfisher and Woodgate Valley Country Park and in a selection of parks such as Lickey Hills Country Park, Pype Hayes Park & Newhall Valley, Handsworth Park, Kings Heath Park, and Cannon Hill Park, the latter also housing the mini zoo, Birmingham Wildlife Conservation Park.
== Demographics ==
The 2021 census recorded 1,144,900 people living in Birmingham, an increase of around 6.7% from 2011 when 1,073,045 were recorded. It is the 27th largest city in Europe by population within its city boundary. Birmingham's continuous urban area extends beyond the city's boundaries: the Birmingham Larger Urban Zone, a Eurostat measure of the functional city-region approximated to local government districts, had a population of 2,357,100 in 2004. In addition to Birmingham itself, the LUZ (West Midlands conurbation) includes the Metropolitan Boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull and Walsall, along with the districts of Lichfield, Tamworth, North Warwickshire and Bromsgrove. Beyond this is the wider metropolitan area with a population numbering 3,558,916 in 2019 according to Eurostat. Around 305,688 or 26.7% of the population in 2021 were foreign-born, making it a city with one of the largest migrant populations in Europe.
=== Ethnic groups ===
According to figures from the 2021 census, 48.7% of the population was White (42.9% White British, 1.5% White Irish, 4.0% Other White, 0.2% Roma, 0.1% Irish Traveller), 31% were Asian (17.0% Pakistani, 5.8% Indian, 4.2% Bangladeshi, 1.1% Chinese, 2.9% Other Asian), 10.9% were Black (5.8% African, 3.9% Caribbean, 1.2% Other Black), 4.8% of Mixed race (2.2% White and Black Caribbean, 0.4% White and Black African, 1.1% White and Asian, 1.1% Other Mixed), 1.7% Arab and 4.6% of Other ethnic heritage. The 2021 census showed 26.7% of the population were born outside the UK, an increase of 4.5% percentage points from 2011. Figures showed that the five largest foreign-born groups living in Birmingham were born in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Romania and Jamaica.
In 2011, 57% of primary and 52% of secondary pupils were from non-White British families. As of 2021, 31.6% of school pupils in Birmingham were White, 37.7% were Asian, 12.6% were Black, 9.7% were Mixed race and 8.4% were Other.
There is particularly a large community of Asian descent, especially from Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi backgrounds, as well as Afro-Caribbeans from the Commonwealth, and a solid Chinese presence through migrants from the former colony of Hong Kong. Birmingham also has an older Irish connection, with the city having the largest population of Irish in mainland Britain and home to its only Irish quarter, Digbeth.
=== Age structure and median age ===
In Birmingham, 65.9% of the population were aged between 15 and 64, higher than when compared to the national average of 64.1% in England and Wales. Furthermore, 20.9% of the population were aged under 15, higher than the national average of 17.4% while the population aged over 65 was 13.1%, which was lower than the national average of 18.6% respectively. Birmingham is one of the youngest cities in Europe with 40% of its population below the age of 25 and the median age being 34 years of age, below the national average of 40.
=== Religion ===
Christianity is the largest religion within Birmingham, with 34% of residents identifying as Christians in the 2021 census. The city's religious profile is highly diverse: outside London, Birmingham has the United Kingdom's largest Muslim, Sikh and Buddhist communities; its second largest Hindu community; and its seventh largest Jewish community. Between the 2001, 2011, and 2021 censuses, the proportion of Christians in Birmingham decreased from 59.1% to 46.1% to 34%, while the proportion of Muslims increased from 14.3% to 21.8% to 29.9% and the proportion of people with no religious affiliation increased from 12.4% to 19.3% to 24.1%. All other religions remained proportionately similar.
St Philip's Cathedral was upgraded from church status when the Anglican Diocese of Birmingham was created in 1905. There are two other cathedrals: St Chad's, seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham and the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Dormition of the Mother of God and St Andrew. The Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Midlands is also based at Birmingham, with a cathedral under construction. The original parish church of Birmingham, St Martin in the Bull Ring, is Grade II* listed. A short distance from Five Ways the Birmingham Oratory was completed in 1910 on the site of Cardinal Newman's original foundation. There are several Christadelphian meeting halls in the city and the Christadelphian Magazine and Publishing Group has its headquarters in Hall Green.
The oldest surviving synagogue in Birmingham is the 1825 Greek Revival Severn Street Synagogue, now a Freemasons' Lodge hall. It was replaced in 1856 by the Grade II* listed Singers Hill Synagogue. Birmingham Central Mosque, one of the largest in Europe, was constructed in the 1960s. During the late 1990s Ghamkol Shariff Masjid was built in Small Heath. The Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha Sikh Gurdwara was built on Soho Road in Handsworth in the late 1970s and the Theravada Buddhist Dhamma Talaka Peace Pagoda near Edgbaston Reservoir in the 1990s. Winners' Chapel also maintains physical presence in Digbeth.
== Economy ==
Birmingham grew to prominence as a centre of manufacturing and engineering. The economy of Birmingham is dominated by the service sector, which accounted for 88% of the city's employment in 2012. Birmingham is the largest centre in the UK for employment in public administration, education and health; and after Leeds the second-largest centre outside London for employment in financial and other business services.
The Gun Quarter is a district of the city that was, for many years, a centre of the world's gun-manufacturing industry. The first recorded gun maker in Birmingham was in 1630, and locally made muskets were used in the English Civil War. The Gun Quarter is an industrial area to the north of the city centre, bounded by Steelhouse Lane, Shadwell Street, and Loveday Street, specialising in the production of military firearms and sporting guns. Many buildings in the area are disused but plans are in place for redevelopment including in Shadwell Street and Vesey Street.
The wider metropolitan economy is the second-largest in the United Kingdom with a GDP of $121.1 billion (2014 estimate, PPP). Major companies headquartered in Birmingham include the engineering company IMI plc, Mobico Group, Patisserie Valerie, Claire's, and Mitchells & Butlers; including the wider metropolitan area, the city has the largest concentration of major companies outside London and the South East. hosting headquarters for Gymshark and Severn Trent Water. With major facilities such as the National Exhibition Centre and International Convention Centre, Birmingham attracts 42% of the UK's total conference and exhibition trade.
In 2012, manufacturing accounted for 8% of the employment in Birmingham, a figure below the average for the UK as a whole. Major industrial plants in the city include Jaguar Land Rover in Castle Bromwich and Cadbury in Bournville, with large local producers also supporting a supply chain of precision-based small manufacturers and craft industries. More traditional industries also remain: 40% of the jewellery made in the UK is still produced by the 300 independent manufacturers of the city's Jewellery Quarter, continuing a trade first recorded in Birmingham in 1308. In June 2025, Birmingham was declared a World Craft City by the World Crafts Council, because of its continuing jewellery trade.
Birmingham's GVA was estimated to be £24.8 billion in 2015, economic growth accelerated each successive year between 2013 and 2015, and with an annual growth of 4.2% in 2015, GVA per head grew at the second-fastest rate of England's eight "Core Cities". The value of manufacturing output in the city declined by 21% in real terms between 1997 and 2010, but the value of financial and insurance activities more than doubled. With 16,281 start-ups registered during 2013, Birmingham has the highest level of entrepreneurial activity outside London, while the number of registered businesses in the city grew by 8.1% during 2016. Birmingham was behind only London and Edinburgh for private sector job creation between 2010 and 2013.
Economic inequality in Birmingham is greater than in any other major English city, exceeded only by Glasgow in the United Kingdom. Levels of unemployment are among the highest in the country, with 10% of the economically active population unemployed in June 2016. In the inner-city wards of Aston and Washwood Heath, the figure is higher than 30%. Two-fifths of Birmingham's population live in areas classified as in the 10% most deprived parts of England, and overall Birmingham is the most deprived local authority in England in terms of income and employment deprivation. The city's infant mortality rate is high, around 60% worse than the national average. Meanwhile, just 49% of women have jobs, compared to 65% nationally, and only 28% of the working-age population in Birmingham have degree level qualifications in contrast to the average of 34% across other core cities.
According to the 2014 Mercer Quality of Living Survey, Birmingham was placed 51st in the world, which was the second-highest rating in the UK. The city's quality of life rating has continued to improve over the years and Birmingham was ranked 49th in the world in the 2019 survey. This is the first time it has featured in the top 50. The Big City Plan of 2008 aims to move the city into the index's top 20 by 2026. An area of the city has been designated an enterprise zone, with tax relief and simplified planning to lure investment. According to 2019 property investment research, Birmingham is rated as the number one location for "the best places to invest in property in the UK". This was attributed to a 5% increase in house prices and local investment into infrastructure.
== Culture ==
=== Music ===
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra's home venue is Symphony Hall. Other notable professional orchestras based in the city include the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, the Royal Ballet Sinfonia and Ex Cathedra, a Baroque chamber choir and period instrument orchestra. The Orchestra of the Swan is the resident chamber orchestra at Birmingham Town Hall, where weekly recitals have also been given by the City Organist since 1834.
The Birmingham Triennial Music Festivals took place from 1784 to 1912. Music was specially composed, conducted or performed by Mendelssohn, Gounod, Sullivan, Dvořák, Bantock and Edward Elgar, who wrote four of his most famous choral pieces for Birmingham. Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius had its début performance there in 1900. Composers born in the city include Albert William Ketèlbey and Andrew Glover.
Jazz has been popular in the city since the 1920s, and there are many regular festivals such as the Harmonic Festival, the Mostly Jazz Festival and the annual International Jazz Festival.
Birmingham's other city-centre music venues include Arena Birmingham (previously known as the National Indoor Arena and the Barclaycard Arena), which was opened in 1991, O2 Academy on Bristol Street, which opened in September 2009 replacing the O2 Academy in Dale End, the CBSO Centre, opened in 1997, HMV Institute in Digbeth and the Bradshaw Hall at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
During the 1960s, Birmingham was the home of a music scene comparable to that of Liverpool. It was "a seething cauldron of musical activity", and the international success of groups such as The Move, The Spencer Davis Group, The Moody Blues, Traffic and the Electric Light Orchestra had a collective influence that stretched into the 1970s and beyond. The city was a centre for early heavy metal music, with pioneering metal bands from the late 1960s and 1970s such as Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and half of Led Zeppelin having come from Birmingham.
The next decade saw the metal bands Napalm Death and Godflesh emerge from the city, as well as Benediction and the extreme black death metal act Anaal Nathrakh later. The funeral doom band Esoteric has been operating in the sub-genre since 1992. Birmingham was the birthplace of modern bhangra in the 1960s, and by the 1980s had established itself as the global centre of bhangra culture, which has grown into a global phenomenon embraced by members of the Indian diaspora worldwide from Los Angeles to Singapore. The 1970s also saw the rise of reggae and ska in the city with such bands as Steel Pulse, UB40, Musical Youth, The Beat and Beshara, expounding racial unity with politically leftist lyrics and multiracial line-ups, mirroring social currents in Birmingham at that time.
Other popular bands from Birmingham include Duran Duran, Johnny Foreigner, Fine Young Cannibals, Felt, Broadcast, Ocean Colour Scene, The Streets, The Twang, King Adora, Dexys Midnight Runners, and Magnum. Musicians Jeff Lynne, Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Bill Ward, Geezer Butler, GBH, John Lodge, Roy Wood, Joan Armatrading, Toyah Willcox, Denny Laine, Sukshinder Shinda, Apache Indian, Steve Winwood, Jamelia, Oceans Ate Alaska, Fyfe Dangerfield and Laura Mvula all grew up in the city.
=== Performing arts ===
Birmingham Repertory Theatre is Britain's longest-established producing theatre, presenting a wide variety of work in its three auditoria on Centenary Square and touring nationally and internationally. Other producing theatres in the city include the Blue Orange Theatre in the Jewellery Quarter; the Old Rep, home stage of the Birmingham Stage Company; and @ A. E. Harris, the base of the experimental Stan's Cafe theatre company, located within a working metal fabricators' factory. Touring theatre companies include the politically radical Banner Theatre, the Maverick Theatre Company and Kindle Theatre. The Alexandra Theatre and the Birmingham Hippodrome host large-scale touring productions, while professional drama is performed on a wide range of stages across the city, including the Crescent Theatre, the Custard Factory, the Old Joint Stock Theatre, the Drum in Aston and the mac in Cannon Hill Park.
The Birmingham Royal Ballet is one of the United Kingdom's five major ballet companies and one of three based outside London. It is resident at the Birmingham Hippodrome and tours extensively nationally and internationally. The company's associated ballet school – Elmhurst School for Dance in Edgbaston – is the oldest vocational dance school in the country.
The Birmingham Opera Company under artistic director Graham Vick has developed an international reputation for its avant-garde productions, which often take place in factories, abandoned buildings and other found spaces around the city. More conventional seasons by Welsh National Opera and other visiting opera companies take place regularly at the Birmingham Hippodrome. The first dedicated comedy club outside London, The Glee Club, was opened in The Arcadian Centre, city centre, in 1994, and continues to host performances by leading regional, national and international acts.
In the 1920s, Oscar Deutsch opened his first Odeon cinema in the UK, in Perry Barr. By 1930, the Odeon brand was a household name and still thrives today. The Electric on Station Street opened on 27 December 1909, and is the oldest independent working cinema in the UK, continuing to operate despite multiple threats of closure over the years. In 1931, the Birmingham Film Society was established, with an inaugural screening on 18 January 1931 at the Hampton Cinema in Livery Street. The largest cinema screen in the West Midlands was located at Millennium Point in Birmingham's Eastside, and opened in September 2001 as an IMAX format screen. Unable to maintain commercial viability as large 3D screens became commonplace across commercial cinema multiplexes, the IMAX screen was closed and downgraded in September 2011, before its replacement Giant Screen Cinema was closed in January 2015.
The city's primary film festival, the Birmingham Film Festival, was co-founded by filmmaker Kevin McDonagh and actor Dean Williams in 2015 and has been held every year since. It patrons include Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight and advertising executive Trevor Beattie, whilst its Grand Jury has featured judges including actress Kia Pegg and filmmakers Michael B. Clifford and Joanna Quinn.
Screen West Midlands, the regional screen agency for the West Midlands, is based in the city's Jewellery Quarter. Film Birmingham is the Birmingham City Council's Film and Television office, handling queries and filming requests from national and international productions.
=== Literature ===
Literary figures associated with Birmingham include Samuel Johnson who stayed in Birmingham for a short period and was born in nearby Lichfield. Arthur Conan Doyle worked in the Aston area of Birmingham whilst poet Louis MacNeice lived in Birmingham for six years. It was whilst staying in Birmingham that American author Washington Irving produced several of his most famous literary works, such as Bracebridge Hall and The Humorists, A Medley which are based on Aston Hall, as well as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle.
The poet W. H. Auden grew up in the Harborne area of the city and during the 1930s formed the core of the Auden Group with Birmingham University lecturer Louis MacNeice. Other influential poets associated with Birmingham include Roi Kwabena, who was the city's sixth poet laureate, and Benjamin Zephaniah, who was born in the city.
The author J. R. R. Tolkien was brought up in the Kings Heath area of Birmingham. He referred to Birmingham as his home town and to himself as a ‘Birmingham man’. There is a dedicated 'Tolkien Trail' across Birmingham which takes those who follow it to the landmarks which are said to have inspired Tolkien's works.
The political playwright David Edgar was born in Birmingham, and the science fiction author John Wyndham spent his early childhood in the Edgbaston area of the city.
Birmingham has a vibrant contemporary literary scene, with local authors including David Lodge, Jim Crace, Jonathan Coe, Joel Lane and Judith Cutler. The city's leading contemporary literary publisher is the Tindal Street Press, whose authors include prize-winning novelists Catherine O'Flynn, Clare Morrall and Austin Clarke.
=== Art and design ===
The Birmingham School of landscape artists emerged with Daniel Bond in the 1760s and was to last into the mid-19th century. Its most important figure was David Cox, whose later works make him an important precursor of impressionism. The influence of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists and the Birmingham School of Art made Birmingham an important centre of Victorian art, particularly within the Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts movements. Major figures included the Pre-Raphaelite and symbolist Edward Burne-Jones; Walter Langley, the first of the Newlyn School painters; and Joseph Southall, leader of the group of artists and craftsmen known as the Birmingham Group.
The Birmingham Surrealists were among the "harbingers of surrealism" in Britain in the 1930s and the movement's most active members in the 1940s, while more abstract artists associated with the city included Lee Bank-born David Bomberg and CoBrA member William Gear. Birmingham artists were prominent in several post-war developments in art: Peter Phillips was among the central figures in the birth of Pop Art; John Salt was the only major European figure among the pioneers of photo-realism; and the BLK Art Group used painting, collage and multimedia to examine the politics and culture of Black British identity. Contemporary artists from the city include the Turner Prize winner Gillian Wearing and the Turner Prize shortlisted artists Richard Billingham, John Walker, Roger Hiorns, and conceptual artist Pogus Caesar whose work has been acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum, National Portrait Gallery, Wolverhampton Art Gallery and Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.
Birmingham's role as a manufacturing and printing centre has supported strong local traditions of graphic design and product design. Iconic works by Birmingham designers include the Baskerville font, Ruskin Pottery, the Acme Thunderer whistle, the Art Deco branding of the Odeon Cinemas and the Mini.
=== Museums and galleries ===
Birmingham has two major public art collections. Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery is best known for its works by the Pre-Raphaelites, a collection "of outstanding importance". It also holds a significant selection of old masters – including major works by Bellini, Rubens, Canaletto and Claude – and particularly strong collections of 17th-century Italian Baroque painting and English watercolours. Its design holdings include Europe's pre-eminent collections of ceramics and fine metalwork. The Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Edgbaston is one of the finest small art galleries in the world, with a collection of exceptional quality representing Western art from the 13th century to the present day.
Birmingham Museums Trust runs other museums in the city including Aston Hall, Blakesley Hall, the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter, Soho House and Sarehole Mill. The Birmingham Back to Backs are the last surviving court of back-to-back houses in the city. Cadbury World is a museum showing visitors the stages and steps of chocolate production and the history of chocolate and the company. The Ikon Gallery hosts displays of contemporary art, as does Eastside Projects.
Thinktank is Birmingham's main science museum, with a giant screen cinema, a planetarium and a collection that includes the Smethwick Engine, the world's oldest working steam engine. Other science-based museums include the National Sea Life Centre in Brindleyplace, the Lapworth Museum of Geology at the University of Birmingham and the Centre of the Earth environmental education centre in Winson Green.
=== Nightlife ===
Nightlife in Birmingham is mainly concentrated along Broad Street and into Brindleyplace. Although in more recent years, Broad Street has lost its popularity due to the closing of several clubs; the Arcadian now has more popularity in terms of nightlife. Outside the Broad Street area are many stylish and underground venues. The Medicine Bar in the Custard Factory, hmv Institute, Rainbow Pub and Air are large clubs and bars in Digbeth. Around Birmingham Chinatown are areas such as the Arcadian and Hurst Street Gay Village, that abound with bars and clubs. Summer Row, The Mailbox, O2 Academy in Bristol Street, Snobs Nightclub, St Philips/Colmore Row, St Paul's Square and the Jewellery Quarter all have a vibrant night life. There are a number of late night pubs in the Irish Quarter. Outside the city centre is Star City entertainment complex on the former site of Nechells Power Station.
=== Festivals ===
Birmingham is home to many national, religious, and cultural festivals, including a St. George's Day party. The city's largest single-day event is its St. Patrick's Day parade (Europe's second largest, after Dublin). The Nowka Bais is a Bengali boat racing festival which takes place annually in Birmingham. It is a leading cultural event in the West Midlands attracting not only the Bangladeshi diaspora but a variety of cultures. It is also the largest kind of boat race in the United Kingdom. Other multicultural events include the Bangla Mela and the Vaisakhi Mela. The Birmingham Heritage Festival is a Mardi Gras style event in August. Caribbean and African culture are celebrated with parades and street performances by buskers. The Caribbean-style Birmingham International Carnival takes place in odd-numbered years.From 1997 until December 2006, the city hosted an annual arts festival, ArtsFest, the largest free arts festival in the UK at the time.
The UK's largest two-day Gay Pride is Birmingham Pride (LGBT festival), which is typically held over the spring bank holiday weekend in May. The streets of Birmingham's gay district pulsate with a carnival parade, live music, a dance arena with DJs, cabaret stage, women's arena and a community village. In addition, founded and organised by local comedian Joe Lycett with support from local businesses and the community, the smaller Queens Heath Pride is held annually, typically late June to early July. With stalls, events, and free entry, Queens Heath Pride lasts one day and takes place on York Road and Heathfield Road, Kings Heath. The event doesn't charge for entry, but independent market stalls sell a range of souvenirs, clothes, food, and drinks.
The Birmingham Tattoo is a long-standing military show held annually at the National Indoor Arena. The Birmingham Comedy Festival (since 2001; 10 days in October), has been headlined by such acts as Peter Kay, The Fast Show, Jimmy Carr, Lee Evans and Lenny Henry. Since 2001, Birmingham has been host to the Frankfurt Christmas Market. Modelled on its German counterpart, it has grown to become the UK's largest outdoor Christmas market and is the largest German market outside Germany and Austria, attracting over 3.1 million visitors in 2010 and over 5 million visitors in 2011.
The biennial Birmingham International Dance Festival (BIDF) started in 2008, organised by DanceXchange and involving indoor and outdoor venues across the city. Other festivals in the city include the Birmingham International Jazz Festival. Moseley Folk and Arts Festival, and Mostly Jazz Festival.
=== Cuisine ===
Birmingham's development as a commercial town was originally based around its market for agricultural produce, established by royal charter in 1166. Despite the industrialisation of subsequent centuries this role has been retained and the Birmingham Wholesale Markets remain the largest combined wholesale food markets in the country, selling meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, and flowers, and supplying fresh produce to restaurateurs and independent retailers from as far as 100 miles (161 km) away.
Birmingham is the only city outside London to have five Michelin-starred restaurants: Simpson's in Edgbaston, Carters of Moseley, and Purnell's, Opheem, and Adam's in the city centre.
Birmingham based breweries included Ansells, Davenport's and Mitchells & Butlers. Aston Manor Brewery is currently the only brewery of any significant size. Many fine Victorian pubs and bars can still be found across the city, whilst there is also a plethora of more modern nightclubs and bars, notably along Broad Street.
The Wing Yip food empire first began in the city and now has its headquarters in Nechells. The Balti, a type of curry, was invented in the city, which has received much acclaim for the 'Balti Belt' or 'Balti Triangle'. Famous food brands that originated in Birmingham include Typhoo tea, Bird's Custard, Cadbury's chocolate and HP Sauce. There is also a thriving independent and artisan food sector in Birmingham, encompassing microbreweries like Two Towers, and collective bakeries such as Loaf. Recent years have seen these businesses increasingly showcased at farmers markets, popular street food events and food festivals including Birmingham Independent Food Fair.
=== Entertainment and leisure ===
Birmingham is home to many entertainment and leisure venues, including Europe's largest leisure and entertainment complex Star City as well as Europe's first out-of-city-centre entertainment and leisure complex Resorts World Birmingham owned by the Genting Group. The Mailbox which caters for more affluent clients is based within the city.
=== Architecture ===
Birmingham is chiefly a product of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries; its growth began during the Industrial Revolution. Consequently, relatively few buildings survive from its earlier history and those that do are protected. There are 1,946 listed buildings in Birmingham and thirteen scheduled monuments. Birmingham City Council also operate a locally listing scheme for buildings that do not fully meet the criteria for statutorily listed status.
Traces of medieval Birmingham can be seen in the oldest churches, notably the original parish church, St Martin in the Bull Ring. A few other buildings from the medieval and Tudor periods survive, among them the Lad in the Lane and The Old Crown, the 15th century Saracen's Head public house and Old Grammar School in Kings Norton and Blakesley Hall.
A number of Georgian buildings survive, including St Philip's Cathedral, Soho House, Perrott's Folly, the Town Hall and much of St Paul's Square. The Victorian era saw extensive building across the city. Major civic buildings such as the Victoria Law Courts (in characteristic red brick and terracotta), the Council House and the Museum & Art Gallery were constructed. St Chad's Cathedral was the first Roman Catholic cathedral to be built in the UK since the Reformation. Across the city, the need to house the industrial workers gave rise to miles of redbrick streets and terraces, many of back-to-back houses, some of which were later to become inner-city slums.
Postwar redevelopment and anti-Victorianism resulted in the loss of dozens of Victorian buildings like New Street station and the old Central Library, often replaced by brutalist architecture. Sir Herbert Manzoni, City Engineer and Surveyor of Birmingham from 1935 until 1963, believed conservation of old buildings was sentimental and that the city did not have any of worth anyway. In inner-city areas too, much Victorian housing was demolished and redeveloped. Existing communities were relocated to tower block estates like Castle Vale.
In a partial reaction against the Manzoni years, Birmingham City Council is demolishing some of the brutalist buildings like the Central Library and has an extensive tower block demolition and renovation programme. There has been much redevelopment in the city centre in recent years, including the award-winning Future Systems' Selfridges building in the Bullring Shopping Centre, the Brindleyplace regeneration project, the Millennium Point science and technology centre, and the refurbishment of the iconic Rotunda building. Funding for many of these projects has come from the European Union; the Town Hall for example received £3 million in funding from the European Regional Development Fund.
Highrise development has slowed since the 1970s and mainly in recent years because of enforcements imposed by the Civil Aviation Authority on the heights of buildings as they could affect aircraft from the Airport (e.g. Beetham Tower).
=== Demonymy and identity ===
People from Birmingham are called Brummies, a term derived from the city's nickname of "Brum", which originates from the city's old name, Brummagem. The Brummie accent and dialect are particularly distinctive.
== Transport ==
Partly due to its central location, Birmingham is a major transport hub for motorway, railway and canal networks.
=== Roads ===
The city is served by the M5, M6, M40 and M42 motorways, and possibly the most well known motorway junction in the United Kingdom: Spaghetti Junction, a colloquial name for the Gravelly Hill Interchange. The M6 passes through the city on the Bromford Viaduct, which at 3.5 miles (5.6 km) is the longest bridge in the UK. The Middleway (A4540) is a ring road that runs around the city centre. In the past there used to be a smaller ring road in the core of the city named Inner Ring Road.
Birmingham introduced a Clean Air Zone from 1 June 2021, which charges polluting vehicles to travel into the city centre.
=== Air ===
Birmingham Airport, located 6 miles (9.7 km) east of the city centre in the neighbouring borough of Solihull, is the seventh busiest airport by passenger traffic in the UK and the third busiest outside the London area, after Manchester and Edinburgh. It is a major base for easyJet, Jet2, Ryanair and TUI Airways, and is the former headquarters and main hub of now-defunct airline, Fly:Be. Airline services operate from Birmingham to many destinations in Europe, Africa, the Americas, Middle East, Asia and Oceania.
=== Public transport ===
Birmingham's local public transport network is co-ordinated by Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) which is a branch of the West Midlands Combined Authority.
Birmingham has a high level of public transport usage; in 2015, 63% of morning peak trips into Birmingham were made by public transport, with the remaining 37% made by private car. Rail was the most popular public transport mode, accounting for 36.4% of journeys, followed by buses at 26.3% and the Metro at 0.3%.
There is currently no underground system in Birmingham; it is the largest city in Europe not to have one. In recent years, ideas of an underground system have started to appear, but none so far have been planned in earnest primarily due to the ongoing expansion of the West Midlands Metro tram network being viewed as a higher priority.
==== Railway ====
The main railway station in the city is Birmingham New Street, which is the busiest railway station in the UK outside London, both for passenger entries/exits and for passenger interchanges. It is the national hub for CrossCountry, the most extensive long-distance train network in Britain, and a major destination for Avanti West Coast services from London Euston, Glasgow Central and Edinburgh Waverley. Birmingham Moor Street and Birmingham Snow Hill are the northern termini for Chiltern Railways trains running from London Marylebone and Oxford. Snow Hill, north on the same line, is another main station serving Birmingham's Colmore Business district, for other services towards Kidderminster and Worcester. Both stations serve West Midlands Railway and Chiltern Railway services to Kidderminster, Worcester Foregate Street, Leamington Spa, Stratford-upon-Avon, and Dorridge. Curzon Street railway station, currently under construction, adjacent to Moor Street, will be the terminus for trains to the city on High Speed 2, the first phase of which has, as of June 2025, been delayed to beyond 2033, with no new date given.
Birmingham and the surrounding region have a network of local and suburban railways, mostly operated by West Midlands Trains. There are a total of 70 railway stations within the West Midlands county, 34 of which are within Birmingham's city boundaries. Suburban railway lines in Birmingham include the Cross-City Line, the Chase Line, the Snow Hill Lines and the Birmingham loop. In 2016/2017, there were nearly 55 million rail passenger journeys within the TfWM area, a big increase over the 23 million back in 2000/01.
==== Tram ====
Historically, Birmingham had a substantial tram system operated by Birmingham Corporation Tramways which was closed in 1953. In 1999, trams returned to the city with the West Midlands Metro (formerly known as Midland Metro) which operates services to the city of Wolverhampton. Since 2015–2016, after extension work, the tram network runs in the streets of central Birmingham, for the first time since 1953; further expansions of the West Midlands Metro system are underway with extensions planned eastwards to Chelmsley Wood and Birmingham Airport, and new lines being constructed, linking Bull Street and Digbeth High Street.
==== Bus and coach ====
Bus networks throughout the city and wider region are widespread. 247 million bus journeys were made in the TfWM area in 2024/25. Bus routes are mainly operated commercially by private companies, although TfWM and local councils subsidise socially necessary services. With Mobico Group (formerly National Express Group) being based in Birmingham, National Express West Midlands, accounts for nearly 80% of all bus journeys in the city, with other companies operating within the city including Arriva Midlands, Diamond Bus, Stagecoach Midlands and other smaller independent operators.
The number 11 Outer Circle bus route, run by National Express West Midlands, which operates in both clockwise and anti-clockwise directions around the outskirts of the city, is the longest urban bus route in Europe, being over 26 miles (42 km) long with 272 bus stops.
The headquarters of Mobico Group are located in Digbeth, who own both National Express West Midlands and National Express Coaches, are based in offices above Birmingham Coach Station which also forms the latter's national hub. As well as National Express Coaches, the city is also served by Flixbus and Megabus.
==== Cycling ====
Sustrans' National Cycle Route 5 goes through central Birmingham, connecting with National Cycle Route 81 at Smethwick. National Cycle Route 535 from Sutton Coldfield terminates just north of Birmingham Snow Hill railway station. In 2021, Transport for West Midlands launched a cycle hire scheme involving over 300 bikes and 43 docking stations across the West Midlands, including central Birmingham.
=== Canals ===
An extensive canal system still remains in Birmingham from the Industrial Revolution. The city has more miles of canal than Venice, though the canals in Birmingham are a less prominent and essential feature due to the larger size of the city and the fact that few of its buildings are accessed by canal. The canals are mainly used today for leisure purposes; canalside regeneration schemes such as Brindleyplace have turned the canals into a tourist attraction.
== Education ==
=== Further and higher education ===
Birmingham is home to five universities: Aston University, University of Birmingham, Birmingham City University, University College Birmingham and Newman University. The city also hosts major campuses of the University of Law and BPP University, as well as the Open University's West Midlands regional base. In 2011 Birmingham had 78,259 full-time students from all over the world aged 18–74 resident in the city during term time, more than any other city in the United Kingdom outside London. Birmingham has 32,690 research students, also the highest number of any major city outside London.
The Birmingham Business School, established by Sir William Ashley in 1902, is the oldest graduate-level business school in the United Kingdom. Another top business school in the city includes Aston Business School, one of fewer than 1% of business schools globally to be granted triple accreditation, and Birmingham City Business School. Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, part of Birmingham City University, offers professional training in music and acting.
Birmingham is an important centre for religious education. St Mary's College, Oscott is one of the three seminaries of the Catholic Church in England and Wales; Woodbrooke is the only Quaker study centre in Europe; and Queen's College, Edgbaston is an ecumenical theological college serving the Church of England, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church.
Birmingham Metropolitan College is one of the largest further education colleges in the country, with fourteen campuses spread across Birmingham and into the Black Country and Worcestershire. South & City College Birmingham has nine campuses spread throughout the city. Bournville College is based in a £66 million, 4.2 acre campus in Longbridge that opened in 2011. Fircroft College is a residential college based in a former Edwardian mansion in Selly Oak, founded in 1909 around a strong commitment to social justice, with many courses aimed at students with few prior formal qualifications. Queen Alexandra College is a specialist college based in Harborne offering further education to visually impaired or disabled students from all over the United Kingdom.
=== Primary and secondary education ===
Birmingham City Council is England's largest local education authority, directly or indirectly responsible for nursery schools, primary schools, secondary schools, special schools, sixth form colleges, further education colleges, and adult education. It provides around 3,500 adult education courses throughout the year.
Most of Birmingham's state schools are academy schools, community schools, free schools and voluntary aided schools. Since the 1970s, most secondary schools in Birmingham have been 11-–-16/18 comprehensive schools, while post GCSE students have the choice of continuing their education in either a school's sixth form or at a further education college. There are eight state grammar schools.
King Edward's School, Birmingham, founded in 1552 by King Edward VI, is one of the oldest schools in the city, teaching GCSE and IB, with alumni including J R R Tolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings books and The Hobbit. Independent schools in the city include the Birmingham Blue Coat School, King Edward VI High School for Girls and Edgbaston High School for Girls. Bishop Vesey's Grammar School was founded by Bishop Vesey in 1527.
== Public services ==
=== Library services ===
The former Birmingham Central Library, opened in 1972, was considered to be the largest municipal library in Europe. Six of its collections were designated by the Arts Council England as being "pre-eminent collections of national and international importance", out of only eight collections to be so recognised in local authority libraries nationwide.
A new Library of Birmingham in Centenary Square, replacing Central Library, was opened on 3 September 2013. It was designed by the Dutch architects Mecanoo and has been described as "a kind of public forum ... a memorial, a shrine, to the book and to literature". The library is viewed by the Birmingham City Council as a flagship project for the city's redevelopment. It has been described as the largest public library in the United Kingdom, the largest public cultural space in Europe, and the largest regional library in Europe. 2,414,860 visitors came to the library in 2014 making it the 10th most popular visitor attraction in the UK.
There are 41 local libraries in Birmingham, plus a regular mobile library service. The library service has 4 million visitors annually.
=== Emergency services ===
Law enforcement in Birmingham is carried out by West Midlands Police, whose headquarters are at Lloyd House in the city centre. With 87.92 recorded offences per 1000 population in 2009–10, Birmingham's crime rate is above the average for England and Wales, but lower than any of England's other major core cities and lower than many smaller cities such as Oxford, Cambridge or Brighton. Fire and rescue services in Birmingham are provided by West Midlands Fire Service and emergency medical care by West Midlands Ambulance Service.
=== Healthcare ===
There are several major National Health Service hospitals in Birmingham. The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, adjacent to the Birmingham Medical School in Edgbaston, is one of the largest teaching hospitals in the United Kingdom with over 1,200 beds. It is a major trauma centre offering services to the extended West Midlands region and houses the largest single-floor critical care unit in the world, with 100 beds. The hospital has the largest solid organ transplantation programme in Europe as well as the largest renal transplant programme in the United Kingdom and it is a national specialist centre for liver, heart and lung transplantation, as well as cancer studies. It is the home of the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine for military personnel injured in conflict zones.
Other general hospitals in the city include Heartlands Hospital in Bordesley Green, Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield and City Hospital in Winson Green. There are also many specialist hospitals, such as Birmingham Children's Hospital, Birmingham Women's Hospital, Birmingham Dental Hospital, and the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital. Birmingham saw the first ever use of radiography in an operation, and the UK's first ever hole-in-the-heart operation was performed at Birmingham Children's Hospital.
=== Water supply ===
The Birmingham Corporation Water Department was set up in 1876 to supply water to Birmingham, up until 1974 when its responsibilities were transferred to Severn Trent Water. Most of Birmingham's water is supplied by the Elan aqueduct, opened in 1904; water is fed by gravity to Frankley Reservoir, Frankley, and Bartley Reservoir, Bartley Green, from reservoirs in the Elan Valley, Wales.
=== Energy from waste ===
Within Birmingham the Tyseley Energy from Waste Plant, a large incineration plant built in 1996 for Veolia, burns some 366,414 tonnes of household waste annually and produces 166,230 MWh of electricity for the National Grid along with 282,013 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
== Sport ==
Birmingham has played an important part in the history of modern sport. The Football League – the world's first league football competition – was founded by Birmingham resident and Aston Villa director William McGregor, who wrote to fellow club directors in 1888 proposing "that ten or twelve of the most prominent clubs in England combine to arrange home-and-away fixtures each season". The modern game of tennis was developed between 1859 and 1865 by Harry Gem and his friend Augurio Perera at Perera's house in Edgbaston, with the Edgbaston Archery and Lawn Tennis Society remaining the oldest tennis club in the world. The Birmingham and District Cricket League is the oldest cricket league in the world, and Birmingham was the host for the first ever Cricket World Cup, a Women's Cricket World Cup in 1973. Birmingham was the first city to be named National City of Sport by the Sports Council. Birmingham was selected ahead of London and Manchester to bid for the 1992 Summer Olympics, but was unsuccessful in the final selection process, which was won by Barcelona.
Today, the city is home of two of the country's oldest professional football teams: Aston Villa F.C., which was founded in 1874 and plays at Villa Park; and Birmingham City F.C., which was founded in 1875 and plays at St Andrew's. Rivalry between the clubs is fierce and the fixture between the two is called the Second City derby. Aston Villa currently play in the Premier League while Birmingham City currently play in the EFL Championship. West Bromwich Albion also draw support within the Birmingham area, being located at The Hawthorns just outside the city boundaries in Sandwell. Rival football team Coventry City also played briefly at St Andrew's for two seasons between 2019 and 2021 due to an ongoing dispute with their landlords over use of the Coventry Building Society Arena.
Warwickshire County Cricket Club play at Edgbaston Cricket Ground, which also hosts test cricket and one day internationals and is the largest cricket ground in the United Kingdom after Lord's. Edgbaston was the scene of the highest ever score by a batsman in first-class cricket, when Brian Lara scored 501 not out for Warwickshire in 1994.
Birmingham is also home to professional Rugby Union clubs such as Birmingham Moseley and Birmingham & Solihull. The city also has a semiprofessional Rugby League club, the Midlands Hurricanes as well as an amateur club the Birmingham Bulldogs. The city is also home to one of the oldest American football teams in the BAFA National Leagues, the Birmingham Bulls and a baseball club, Birmingham Baseball Club, with two teams, the Metalheads and the Bats.
Two major championship golf courses lie on the city's outskirts. The Belfry near Sutton Coldfield is the headquarters of the Professional Golfers' Association and has hosted the Ryder Cup more times than any other venue. The Forest of Arden Hotel and Country Club near Birmingham Airport is also a regular host of tournaments on the PGA European Tour, including the British Masters and the English Open.
The Birmingham Classic is, alongside Wimbledon and Eastbourne, one of only three UK tennis tournaments on the WTA Tour. It is played annually at the Edgbaston Priory Club, which in 2010 announced plans for a multimillion-pound redevelopment, including a new showcase centre court and a museum celebrating the game's Birmingham origins.
The Alexander Stadium in Perry Barr is the headquarters of UK Athletics, and one of only two British venues to host fixtures in the elite international IAAF Diamond League. It is also the home of Birchfield Harriers, which has many international athletes among its members. The National Indoor Arena hosted the 2007 European Athletics Indoor Championships and the 2003 and 2018 World Indoor Championships, as well as hosting the annual Aviva Indoor Grand Prix – the only British indoor athletics fixture to qualify as an IAAF Indoor Permit Meeting – and a wide variety of other sporting events.
Professional boxing, hockey, skateboarding, stock-car racing, greyhound racing and speedway also take place within the city. Since 1994 Birmingham has hosted the All England Open Badminton Championships at Arena Birmingham.
=== Commonwealth Games ===
Birmingham hosted the 2022 Commonwealth Games, which took place between 28 July and 8 August 2022. This was the first time that Birmingham hosted the Commonwealth Games and the 22nd edition of the Commonwealth Games to take place. Alexander Stadium, which hosted the opening and closing ceremonies and athletics was renovated, and the capacity was increased to 30,000 seats. The event contributed £1.2 billion to the economy of the United Kingdom.
== Media ==
Birmingham is home to a media industry that includes news and magazine publishers, radio and television networks, film production and specialist educational media training. Birmingham has several major local newspapers – the daily Birmingham Mail and the weekly Birmingham Post and Sunday Mercury, all owned by Reach plc. Forward is a freesheet produced by Birmingham City Council, which is distributed to homes in the city. Birmingham is also the hub for various national ethnic media, lifestyle magazines, digital news platforms, and the base for two regional Metro editions (East and West Midlands).
Birmingham has three mainstream digital-only news publishers, I Am Birmingham, Birmingham Updates and Second City. Birmingham has a long cinematic history; The Electric on Station Street is the oldest working cinema in the UK. Birmingham is the location for several British and international film productions including Felicia's Journey of 1999, which used locations in Birmingham that were used in Take Me High of 1973 to contrast the changes in the city.
The BBC has two facilities in the city. The Mailbox, in the city centre, is the national headquarters of BBC English Regions and the headquarters of BBC West Midlands and the BBC Birmingham network production centre. These were previously located at the Pebble Mill Studios in Edgbaston. The BBC Drama Village, based in Selly Oak, is a production facility specialising in television drama.
Central/ATV studios in Birmingham was the location for the recording of various programmes for ITV, including Tiswas and Crossroads, until the complex was closed in 1997, and Central moved to its current Gas Street studios. Central's output from Birmingham now consists of only the West and East editions of the regional news programme ITV News Central.
The city is served by numerous national and regional radio stations, as well as hyperlocal radio stations. These include Hits Radio Birmingham and Greatest Hits Radio Birmingham & The West Midlands, Capital Midlands, Heart West Midlands, and Smooth West Midlands. The city has a community radio scene, with stations including BRMB, New Style Radio, Brum Radio, Switch Radio, Scratch Radio, Raaj FM, and Unity FM.
The Archers, the world's longest running radio soap, is recorded in Birmingham for BBC Radio 4. BBC Birmingham studios additionally produce shows for BBC Radio WM and BBC Asian Network in the city.
The late night show Late Night Lycett is filmed in Birmingham.
Guz Khan's comedy-drama series on BBC Three, Man Like Mobeen, is both set and filmed in Small Heath, with small parts in Coventry and Istanbul.
== Notable people ==
== International relations ==
Birmingham is twinned with:
Birmingham also has friendly relations with:
Changchun, China (since 1983)
Mirpur, Pakistan (since 1993)
Nanjing, China (since 2007) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Stanley_Cup_champions | List of Stanley Cup champions | The Stanley Cup is a trophy awarded annually to the playoff champion club of the National Hockey League (NHL). It was donated by the Governor General of Canada Lord Stanley of Preston in 1892, and is the oldest professional sports trophy in North America. Inscribed the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup, the trophy was first awarded to Canada's amateur ice hockey clubs who won the trophy as the result of challenge games and league play. Professional clubs came to dominate the competition in the early years of the twentieth century, and in 1913 the two major professional ice hockey organizations, the National Hockey Association (NHA), forerunner of the NHL, and the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA), reached a gentlemen's agreement in which their respective champions would face each other in an annual series for the Stanley Cup. After a series of league mergers and folds, it became the de facto championship trophy of the NHL in 1926, though it was nominally still subject to external challenge. After 1947, the Cup became the de jure NHL championship prize.
From 1915 to the end of the 2024–25 season, the trophy has been won 109 times. 27 teams have won the cup, 22 of which are still active in the NHL. Prior to that, the challenge cup was held by nine teams. The Montreal Canadiens have won the Stanley Cup 24 times and made the Final an additional 11 times. There were two years when the Stanley Cup was not awarded: 1919, because of the Spanish flu pandemic, and 2005, because of the 2004–05 NHL lockout.
The most recent Stanley Cup champions are the Florida Panthers, who won the trophy in 2024 and 2025.
== Challenge Cup era (1893–1914) ==
The origins of the Challenge era come from the method of play of the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada prior to 1893. From 1887 to 1893, the league did not play a round-robin format, but rather challenges between teams of the association that year, with the winner of the series being the 'interim' champion, with the final challenge winner becoming the league champion for the year. The Stanley Cup kept the tradition going, but added league championships as another way that a team could win the trophy. If a team in the same league as the current champion won the league championship, it would then inherit the Cup, without a challenge. The only time this rule was not followed was in 1904, when the Ottawa Senators club withdrew from its league, the CAHL. The trustees ruled that the Cup stayed with Ottawa, instead of the CAHL league champion.
During the challenge cup period, none of the leagues that played for the trophy had a formal playoff system to decide their respective champions; whichever team finished in first place after the regular season won the league title. A playoff would only be played if teams tied for first-place in their leagues at the end of the regular season. Challenge games were played until 1912 at any time during hockey season by challenges approved or ordered by the Stanley Cup trustees. In 1912, Cup trustees declared that it was only to be defended at the end of the champion team's regular season.
In 1908, the Allan Cup was introduced as the trophy for Canada's amateurs, as the Stanley Cup became a symbol of professional hockey supremacy.
This table lists the outcome of all Stanley Cup wins, including successful victories and defenses in challenges, and league championships for the challenge era.
Notes
^ A. Although the Montreal Victorias won the AHAC title in 1895, the Stanley Cup trustees had already accepted a challenge from the 1894 Cup champion Montreal HC and Queen's University. As a compromise, the trustees decided that if the Montreal HC won the challenge match, the Victorias would become the Stanley Cup champions. The Montreals eventually won the game, 5–1, and their crosstown rivals were awarded the Cup.
^ B. Intended to be a best-of-three series, Ottawa Capitals withdrew their challenge after the first game.
^ C. The January 31 (a Saturday) game was tied 2–2 at midnight and the Mayor of Westmount refused to allow play to continue on Sunday. The game was played on February 2 (a Monday) and the January 31 game was considered to be void.
^ D. For most of 1904, the Ottawa Hockey Club was not affiliated with any league.
^ E. The Montreal Wanderers were disqualified as the result of a dispute. After game one ended tied at the end of regulation, 5–5, the Wanderers refused to play overtime with the current referee, and then subsequently refused to play the next game of the series in Ottawa.
^ F. During the series, it was revealed that the Victoria club had not filed a formal challenge. A letter arrived from the Stanley Cup trustees on March 17, stating that the trustees would not let the Stanley Cup travel west, as they did not consider Victoria a proper challenger because they had not formally notified the trustees. However, on March 18, Trustee William Foran stated that it was a misunderstanding. PCHA president Frank Patrick had not filed a challenge because he had expected Emmett Quinn, president of the NHA to make all of the arrangements in his role as hockey commissioner, whereas the trustees thought they were being deliberately ignored. In any case, all arrangements had been ironed out and the Victoria challenge was accepted.
Sources
Coleman (1964)
Montreal Gazette
Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa Journal
Winnipeg Tribune
== NHA/NHL vs. PCHA/WCHL/WHL champions (1915–1926) ==
Several days after the Victoria Aristocrats – Toronto Hockey Club series, Stanley Cup trustee William Foran wrote to NHA president Emmett Quinn that the trustees are "perfectly satisfied to allow the representatives of the three pro leagues (NHA, PCHA, and Maritime) to make all arrangements each season as to the series of matches to be played for the Cup." The Maritime league did not challenge for the Cup in 1914, and folded after the 1915 season. The Stanley Cup championship finals alternated between the East and the West each year, with games played alternately under NHA or PCHA rules. The Cup trustees agreed to this new arrangement, because after the Allan Cup became the highest prize for amateur hockey teams in Canada, the trustees had become dependent on the top two professional leagues to bolster the prominence of the trophy.
After the New Westminster Royals moved to Portland in the summer of 1914 becoming the Portland Rosebuds, an American-based team, the trustees issued a statement that the Cup was no longer for the best team in Canada, but now for the best team in the world. In March 1916, the Rosebuds became the first American team to play in the Stanley Cup championship final. In 1917, the Seattle Metropolitans became the first American team to win the Cup. After that season, the NHA suspended operations and the National Hockey League (NHL) took its place.
In 1919, the Spanish influenza epidemic forced the Montreal Canadiens and the Seattle Metropolitans to cancel their series tied at 2–2–1, marking the first time the Stanley Cup was not awarded.
The format for the Stanley Cup championship changed in 1922, with the creation of the Western Canada Hockey League (WCHL). Now three leagues competed for the Cup and this necessitated a semi-final series between two league champions, with the third having a bye directly to the final. In 1924, the PCHA folded and only the Vancouver and Victoria teams entered the WCHL. With the loss of the PCHA, the championship reverted to a single series. After their win in 1925, the Victoria Cougars became the last team outside the NHL to win the Stanley Cup. For the 1925–26 season the WCHL was renamed the Western Hockey League (WHL). With the Victoria Cougars' loss in 1926, it would be the last time a non-NHL team competed for the Stanley Cup.
Numbers in parentheses in the table indicate the number of times that team has appeared in the Stanley Cup Final, as well as each respective teams' Stanley Cup Final record to date.
== NHL champions (since 1927) ==
When the WHL folded in 1926, its remaining assets were acquired by the NHL, making it the only remaining league with teams competing for the Cup. Other leagues and clubs have issued challenges, but from that year forward no non-NHL team has played for it, leading it to become the de facto championship trophy of the NHL. In 1947, the NHL reached an agreement with trustees P. D. Ross and Cooper Smeaton to grant control of the Cup to the NHL, allowing the league itself to reject challenges from other leagues that may have wished to play for the Cup. A 2006 Ontario Superior Court case found that the trustees had gone against Lord Stanley's conditions in the 1947 agreement. The NHL has agreed to allow other teams to play for the Cup should the league not be operating, as was the case in the 2004–05 NHL lockout.
Since 1927, the league's playoff format, deciding which teams advanced to the Stanley Cup Final, has changed multiple times. In some systems that were previously used, playoff teams were seeded regardless of division or conference. From 1942 to 1967 the Cup was competed for by the league's six teams, also known as the Original Six. For three seasons after the 1967 NHL Expansion, the Final was competed between the East Division champion and the West Division champion. In 1971, the league returned to using playoff systems that allowed cross-over between the divisions and conferences. From 1982 to 2020, the Final was played between the league's conference playoff champions; during that period the Campbell/Western champions went a combined 111–101 in the Final against the Wales/Eastern champions (winning 20 of 38 series). In 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting travel restrictions along the Canada–United States border forced the league to temporarily realign the teams into four regional divisions with no conferences, and hold a divisional-based playoff format: the four divisional playoff champions advanced to the Stanley Cup semifinals, and the winners of those series moved on to the Final. The league then returned to the Eastern vs. Western Conference format in 2022.
Numbers in parentheses in the table indicate the number of times that team has appeared in the Stanley Cup Final, as well as each respective team's Stanley Cup Final record to date.
Championships summary
1927–1928: American Division vs. Canadian Division
1929–1967, 1971–1981, 2021: Teams advanced to the Final regardless of division or conference
1968–1970: East Division vs. West Division
1982–1993: Campbell Conference vs. Prince of Wales Conference
1994–2020, 2022–present: Eastern Conference vs. Western Conference
== Appearances ==
=== Challenge Cup era (1893–1914) ===
Legend: SC = successful Stanley Cup challenge or defense of championship (win); UC = unsuccessful Stanley Cup challenge or defense of championship (loss); Years in bold denote a Stanley Cup win. Numbers in brackets beside years indicate the team appeared multiple times in a challenge or a defense of a championship in that year.
The following 16 teams unsuccessfully challenged for a Stanley Cup only once: Berlin Dutchmen (1910), Dawson City Nuggets (1905), Halifax Crescents (1900), Moncton Victorias (1912), Montreal Canadiens (1914), New Glasgow Cubs (1906), Ottawa Capitals (1897), Ottawa Victorias (1908), Port Arthur Bearcats (1911), Smiths Falls (1906), Sydney Millionaires (1913), Toronto Marlboros (1904), Toronto Professionals (1908), Toronto Wellingtons (1902), Victoria Aristocrats (1914), Winnipeg Rowing Club (1904).
=== Stanley Cup Final era (since 1915) ===
==== Active teams ====
In the sortable table below, teams are ordered first by number of appearances, then by number of wins, and finally by alphabetical order. In the "Season(s)" column, bold years indicate winning Stanley Cup Final appearances. Unless marked otherwise, teams played in the NHL exclusively at the time they competed for the Stanley Cup.
Five active teams have yet to make a Stanley Cup Final appearance:
Columbus Blue Jackets (24 seasons, 6 playoffs)
Minnesota Wild (24 seasons, 14 playoffs, 1 division title)
Seattle Kraken (4 seasons, 1 playoff)
Utah Mammoth (1 season)
Winnipeg Jets (14 seasons, 8 playoffs, 1 division title) – formerly Atlanta Thrashers (11 seasons, 1 playoff, 1 division title)
Five relocated teams have won the Stanley Cup in their current location, but never in their former location:
Quebec Nordiques (16 seasons, 9 playoffs, 2 division titles) – won the Stanley Cup three times as Colorado Avalanche
Kansas City Scouts (2 seasons, never made playoffs)/Colorado Rockies (6 seasons, 1 playoff) – won the Stanley Cup three times as New Jersey Devils
California Golden Seals (9 seasons, 2 playoffs)/Cleveland Barons (2 seasons, never made playoffs) – merged with Minnesota North Stars, who lost twice in the Finals, then won the Stanley Cup once as Dallas Stars
Atlanta Flames (8 seasons, 6 playoffs) – won the Stanley Cup once as Calgary Flames
Hartford Whalers (18 seasons, 8 playoffs, 1 division title) – won the Stanley Cup once as Carolina Hurricanes
==== Defunct teams ====
Listed after the team name is the name of the affiliated league(s) when the team competed for the Stanley Cup. A bold year denotes a Stanley Cup win.
Notes
a The Montreal Canadiens and the Seattle Metropolitans appearance totals include the 1919 Stanley Cup Final that ended with a no-decision because of the Spanish flu epidemic. It is not considered an official series win or loss by either team.
b The franchise known today as the Toronto Maple Leafs won the Cup in 1918 as the Toronto Hockey Club (later engraved on the Stanley Cup as the Toronto Arenas in 1947), and in 1922 as the Toronto St. Patricks.
c The Chicago Blackhawks were known as the Chicago Black Hawks prior to the 1986–87 season.
d The Dallas Stars totals include two series losses as the Minnesota North Stars.
e The Anaheim Ducks totals include one series loss as the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.
f The Ottawa Senators (1992–present) are named after the original Senators (1883–1934). |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Ledecky | Katie Ledecky | Kathleen Genevieve Ledecky ( lə-DEK-ee; born March 17, 1997) is an American competitive swimmer. She is the most decorated female swimmer in history and the most decorated American woman in Olympic history, with a total of 14 Olympic medals, including nine golds. She is regarded as the greatest female swimmer of all time.
Ledecky has won a record 18 individual gold medals at the World Aquatics Championships, and is the world record holder in the women's 800- and 1500-meter freestyle long course and 1500-meter freestyle short course, as well as the former world record holder in the women's 400-meter freestyle (long course) and 800-meter freestyle (short course). In her international debut at the 2012 London Olympic Games as a 15-year-old, Ledecky unexpectedly won the gold medal in the women's 800-metre freestyle. Four years later, she left Rio de Janeiro as the most decorated female athlete of the 2016 Olympic Games, with four gold medals, one silver medal, and two world records.
At the 2020 Olympic Games, Ledecky emerged as the most decorated U.S. female athlete and became the first American female swimmer to win an individual event in three straight Olympiads. In 2025, she won gold in the 800 meter World Championship, becoming the first swimmer—male or female—to win seven World Championship gold medals in the same event. In total, she has won 54 medals (40 golds, 11 silvers, and 3 bronzes) in major international competitions, spanning the Summer Olympics, World Championships, and Pan Pacific Championships. During her career, she has broken 17 world records.
Ledecky's success has earned her Swimming World's Female World Swimmer of the Year a record five times. Ledecky was also named Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year in 2017 and 2022, international female Champion of Champions by L'Équipe in 2014 and 2017, United States Olympic Committee Female Athlete of the Year in 2013, 2016 and 2017, Sportswoman of the Year by the Women's Sports Foundation in 2017, and the ESPY Best Female Athlete in 2022. In 2024, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden.
== Early life, swimming, and education ==
Ledecky was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in the suburb of Bethesda, Maryland, the daughter of Mary Gen (née Hagan) and David Ledecky. Her Czech-born paternal grandfather Jaromír Ledecky arrived in New York City on September 8, 1947, as a student. He later became an economist and married an Ashkenazi Jewish woman named Berta Ruth Greenwald in Brooklyn, New York, on December 30, 1956. Through her paternal grandmother, Ledecky has relatives who were murdered in the Holocaust. Ledecky's mother is of Irish descent. She was raised Catholic and continues to practice the faith, often praying the Hail Mary before her races. Her uncle Jon Ledecky is a businessman and a co-owner of the NHL team New York Islanders.
Ledecky began swimming at the age of six under the influence of her older brother, Michael, and her mother, who swam for the University of New Mexico. In Bethesda, she attended Little Flower School through eighth grade and graduated from Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in 2015. During her high-school swimming career, Ledecky twice set the American and US Open record in the 500-yard freestyle, and she twice set the national high-school record in the 200-yard freestyle.
During the summers prior to 2012, she swam for Palisades Swim Team in Cabin John, Maryland. During the summer of 2012, she trained with the Nation's Capital Swim Club (formerly the Curl Burke Swim Club) under coach Yuri Suguiyama. Following Suguiyama's departure to coach for the University of California, Berkeley, she continued to train with the Nation's Capital Swim Club under coach Bruce Gemmell through the 2016 Summer Olympics. Ledecky accepted an athletic scholarship to Stanford University, where she swam for coach Greg Meehan's Stanford Cardinal women's swimming team.
In December 2016, Ledecky was chosen as one of the sponsors of the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Enterprise alongside Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast Simone Biles. They were the first Olympians to be given this honor.
In December 2020, she completed a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and minor in political science from Stanford University, and graduated in June 2021.
== Swimming career ==
=== 2012 ===
==== US Olympic Trials ====
At the 2012 United States Olympic trials in Omaha, Nebraska (her first senior national competition), Ledecky made the Olympic team by placing first in the 800-meter freestyle with a time of 8:19.78, which was over two seconds ahead of second-place finisher Kate Ziegler. In Omaha, Ledecky also placed third in the 400-meter freestyle (4:05.00) and ninth in the 200-meter freestyle (1:58.66). Her third-place finish in the 400-meter freestyle was the fastest time ever swum by a 15- to 16-year-old American. At 15 years, 4 months, and 10 days, she was the youngest American participant at the 2012 Olympic Games.
==== Summer Olympic Games ====
At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Ledecky qualified to swim in the final of the 800-meter freestyle by placing third overall in the heats with a time of 8:23.84. In the final, Ledecky stunned the field, winning gold by more than four seconds, with a time of 8:14.63, the then second-fastest effort of all time just behind Rebecca Adlington's world record of 8:14.10 set in 2008. In addition, she broke Janet Evans' American record of 8:16.22 that had stood since 1989. In the final, Ledecky went out hard and, by the 200-meter mark, she had already established an almost body-length lead. Her 400-meter split was 4:04.34, a personal best for Ledecky in that distance, and would have placed fifth in the individual 400-meter freestyle. At the 750-meter mark, Ledecky was 3.42 seconds ahead of Mireia Belmonte García, and 0.31 seconds under world record pace. Ledecky won by 4.13 seconds and just missed the world record by 0.53 seconds. Her gold was the first international medal of her career, earning her the 2012 Best Female Performance of the Year and Breakout Performer of the Year at the Golden Goggle Awards.
=== 2013 ===
==== USA Swimming Championships ====
At the 2013 US National Championships, Ledecky qualified to swim in four individual events and the 4×200-meter freestyle relay at the 2013 World Aquatics Championships in Barcelona, Spain, though she later dropped the 200-meter freestyle from her program. At the National Championships, she finished first in the 400-, 800- and 1500-meter freestyle, and second in the 200-meter freestyle.
==== World Championships ====
At the 2013 World Championships, Ledecky won gold in the 400-, 800-, and 1500-meter freestyle, and in the 4×200-meter freestyle relay, and set two world records. In winning the 400 through 1500-meter titles, she became the second woman ever to win the events in a World Championships since German Hannah Stockbauer in 2003. In her first event in Barcelona, the 400-meter freestyle, Ledecky became a world champion for the first time by winning in 3:59.82, setting a new American record and becoming the second-fastest performer of all time in the event.
In her second event, Ledecky won gold in the 1500-meter freestyle in a world record time of 15:36.53, breaking the record held by compatriot Kate Ziegler by six seconds. The hard-fought race saw Ledecky overcome Dane Lotte Friis in the final few hundred meters after losing the lead at the 300-meter mark and included a final 50 split of 29.47.
In her third, and first relay event of her international career, the 4×200-meter freestyle, Ledecky and teammates Shannon Vreeland, Karlee Bispo, and Missy Franklin won gold in 7:45.14. Anchor Missy Franklin overtook Australian Alicia Coutts in the last 200 meters, giving the US the gold. Ledecky provided the US with an early lead, swimming the first leg in a personal best of 1:56.32.
In her fourth and last event, the 800-meter freestyle, Ledecky won gold in a world record of 8:13.86, bettering Rebecca Adlington's world record of 8:14.10. Much like the 1500-meter freestyle, Ledecky let Lotte Friis lead most of the race, making a move at the 650-meter mark to eventually win the race by 2.46 seconds.
Ledecky scored more points than any other swimmer to earn the FINA trophy for best female swimmer of the meet.
At year's end, Ledecky was named the American Swimmer of the Year and the World Swimmer of the Year by Swimming World magazine. She was also named the best female swimmer for 2013 by FINA Aquatics World magazine.
=== 2014 ===
Ledecky began the year by breaking her own world records in the 800- and 1500-meter freestyle at the 2014 Woodlands Swim Team Senior Invitational in June. Despite being in season and swimming multiple events, Ledecky was able to first break the world record in the 1500-meter freestyle with a time of 15:34.23, bettering her previous mark of 15:36.53. Three days later, Ledecky then broke the world record in the 800-meter freestyle with a time of 8:11.00, bettering her previous mark of 8:13.86.
==== USA Swimming Championships ====
At the 2014 US National Championships, the qualifying meet for both the 2014 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships and the 2015 World Aquatics Championships, Ledecky finished first in the 200-, 400-, and 800-meter freestyle. In the 400-meter freestyle, Ledecky set her third world record of the year by breaking Federica Pellegrini's 2009 world record of 3:59.15 with a time of 3:58.86. With her mark in the 400, Ledecky became the first female since Janet Evans to hold world records simultaneously in the 400-, 800-, and 1500-meter freestyles.
==== Pan Pacific Championships ====
At the 2014 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships in Gold Coast, Australia, Ledecky won five gold medals and broke two world records. Her wins came in the 200-, 400-, 800-, and 1500-meter freestyle and the 4×200-meter freestyle. Ledecky almost broke the world record in the 800-meter freestyle, finishing with a time of 8:11.35. Her world records came in the 400- and 1500-meter freestyles, with times of 3:58.37 and 15:28.36, respectively. She became the first woman to win four individual gold medals at a single Pan Pacific Championship.
In the 200-meter freestyle final, Ledecky had over a half-second lead on the field at the halfway point before winning by 1.46 seconds with a meet record time of 1:55.74. Less than an hour later, Ledecky won the 800-meter freestyle, swimming under her world record pace for most of the race before touching in at 8:11.35, the second-fastest time ever, to win by 7.52 seconds over New Zealand swimmer Lauren Boyle.
The next day, Ledecky added her third meet record by swimming on the American 4×200-meter freestyle relay team with Shannon Vreeland, Missy Franklin, and Leah Smith. Swimming the anchor leg, Ledecky erased a 1.2-second deficit going into the final leg of the race, passing Australia's Melanie Schlanger with a 1:54.36 split over the final 200 meters. She also swam in the 100-meter freestyle heats.
On the third day of the meet, Ledecky set her fourth meet record in the 400-meter freestyle prelim heats with a time of 4:03.09. That night, Ledecky lowered the record again, setting the first world record ever at the new Gold Coast Aquatic Center with a time of 3:58.37. Ledecky's winning time was over six seconds quicker than American teammate and silver medalist Cierra Runge.
On the meet's final day, Ledecky set her fifth world record of the year, lowering her record in the 1500-meter freestyle by nearly six seconds with a time of 15:28.36. Ledecky swam the second half of the race faster than the first, completing the final 800 meters in 8:14.11—faster than any other woman has completed a regular 800-meter race in a textile suit. Ledecky lapped three competitors in the final and finished 27.33 seconds ahead of silver medalist Boyle. National Team Director Frank Busch described Ledecky's 1500 performance as "the most impressive race I have ever seen, and I've been in the sport for 50 years.... She's blazing a completely different trail than anyone who has come before."
During the championships' closing ceremonies, Ledecky was named the female swimmer of the meet.
At year's end, Ledecky was named the World Swimmer of the Year and American Swimmer of the Year by Swimming World Magazine.
=== 2015 ===
==== World Championships ====
At the 2015 World Aquatics Championships in Kazan, Russia, Ledecky won five gold medals and broke three world records. Her wins came in the 200-, 400-, 800-, and 1500-meter freestyles and the 4×200-meter freestyle. Her world records came in the 800- and 1500-meter freestyles. Ledecky became the first and only swimmer—male or female—to win the 200-, 400-, 800- and 1500-meter freestyles in a major competition. Ledecky was also named the female swimmer of the meet.
Ledecky began the World Championships by winning gold in the 400-meter freestyle in a time of 3:59.13, a new championship record and almost four seconds ahead of her closest competitor.
In the heats of the 1500-meter freestyle on the second day of competition, Ledecky broke her own world record in a time of 15:27.71.
On the third day of competition during the morning session, Ledecky swam in the heats of the 200-meter freestyle and qualified first with a time of 1:55.82. In the evening session, Ledecky faced a tough double with the 1500-meter freestyle final and the semi-finals of the 200-meter freestyle shortly after. In the 1500-meter freestyle, Ledecky broke her own world record in a time of 15:25.48. Twenty-nine minutes later, Ledecky qualified 6th in the 200-meter freestyle with a time of 1:56.76.
In her only event on the fourth day of competition, the 200-meter freestyle, Ledecky won her third gold medal of the meet, winning in a time of 1:55.16. Unlike her other races, it was not an easy win for Ledecky, which featured the likes of Missy Franklin and Federica Pellegrini. In the end, Ledecky was able to hold off a fast charging Pellegrini, eventually winning by a 0.16 margin. Ledecky's final 50-meter split of 29.33 was the second-fastest in the field behind Pellegrini's 29.23.
On the fifth day of competition, Ledecky, with Missy Franklin, Leah Smith, and Katie McLaughlin won gold in the 4×200-meter freestyle relay. Swimming the anchor leg, Ledecky recorded a split of 1:55.64 and the Americans finished with an aggregate time of 7:45.37.
On the seventh day of competition, Ledecky completed her World Championships run by winning gold in the 800-meter freestyle in a world record time of 8:07.39, breaking her own record by 3.61 seconds.
=== 2016 ===
Ledecky began 2016 at the Arena Pro Swim Series at Austin. On the final day of competition, she reset her world record in the 800-meter freestyle, clocking a time of 8:06.68. Earlier in the meet, she set world-leading times in the 200- and 400-meter freestyles and a U.S.-leading time in the 100-meter freestyle.
==== US Olympic Trials ====
At the 2016 United States Olympic trials in Omaha, Nebraska, Ledecky won the 200-, 400- and 800-meter freestyles to qualify for her second Olympic team. Ledecky opened the Trials with a win and meet record in the 400-meter freestyle (3:58.98). Two days later, she recorded a time of 1:54.88 en route to winning the 200-meter freestyle. On July 1, Ledecky broke Janet Evans's 28-year-old national championship record in the morning preliminary heats of the 800-meter freestyle (8:10.91) before placing seventh that evening in the 100-meter freestyle (53.99). The next day, Ledecky lowered her meet record, winning the 800-meter freestyle final by nearly 10 seconds (8:10.32). With her pair of swims in the 800-meter freestyle, Ledecky took control of the top 11 fastest times in the event's history. At the conclusion of the week, Ledecky was named the female swimmer of the meet.
==== Summer Olympic Games ====
Ledecky's first event in the 2016 Summer Olympics was the 4×100-meter freestyle relay, swimming the anchor leg for the United States in both the prelims and final. Ledecky recorded a split of 52.64 in the heats. In the final, she joined Simone Manuel, Abbey Weitzeil, and Dana Vollmer and recorded a split of 52.79, helping the team earn a silver medal (behind Australia) with a time of 3:31.89, a new national record for the United States.
Her first individual event was the 400-meter freestyle. Ledecky qualified in the heats with a time of 3:58.71, an Olympic record. In the final, she won the gold medal with a world record time of 3:56.46––nearly two seconds faster than her previous record from 2014 and almost 5 seconds ahead of the silver medalist, Jazmin Carlin.
Ledecky won a second gold in the 200-meter freestyle with a personal best of 1:53.73, beating Sarah Sjöström by 0.35 seconds.
Ledecky claimed her third gold in the 4×200-meter freestyle relay, with Allison Schmitt, Leah Smith, and Maya DiRado. Swimming the anchor leg again, Ledecky provided the fastest split of the field (1:53.74) to turn a 0.89-second deficit into a 1.84-second victory, stopping the clock at 7:43.03.
She won a fourth gold in her final individual event, the 800-meter freestyle. She qualified in the heats with an Olympic record, 8:12.86, and set a world record in the finals of 8:04.79, over 11 seconds faster than the silver medalist, Jazmin Carlin.
With three individual titles, Ledecky became the first swimmer to win the 200, 400 and 800 m freestyle at the same Olympics since Debbie Meyer did so in 1968 in Mexico City. Ledecky's final medal total (four golds, one silver) is the most decorated single-Olympics performance by a U.S. female athlete in terms of gold medals, topping Missy Franklin (2012; four golds, 1 bronze), Simone Biles (2016; four golds, 1 bronze), and Amy Van Dyken (1996; four golds). Ledecky was also the 2nd most decorated Olympian at the 2016 games behind Michael Phelps (5 golds, 1 silver).
=== 2017 ===
==== NCAA ====
During the 2016–17 NCAA season, Ledecky set 12 NCAA records and nine American records while swimming as a freshman for Stanford University.
At the Ohio State Invitational in November 2016, Ledecky lowered her American and U.S. Open marks in the women's 500-yard freestyle and 1650-yard freestyle.
At the Pac-12 Championships in Federal Way, Washington, Ledecky earned Swimmer of the Meet honors with four American records as Stanford won its first conference title in four years. On the first day of the meet, Ledecky anchored the 800-yard freestyle relay with a 1:40.28 split to break the NCAA, American, and U.S. Open record in the 800-yard freestyle relay with Lia Neal, Katie Drabot, and Ella Eastin. The next day, Ledecky lowered her own mark again in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:25.15. On the meet's third day, she won the 400-yard individual medley in a new American record of 3:57.68 before finishing second to teammate Simone Manuel in the 200-yard freestyle with a personal best time less than a half hour later. On the meet's final day, Ledecky joined Manuel, Neal, and Janet Hu to break the NCAA and American record in the 400-yard freestyle relay.
At the NCAA Championships in Indianapolis, Ledecky helped lead Stanford to its first team title since 1998. She reset her American, NCAA, and U.S. Open records in the 800-yard freestyle relay, 500-yard freestyle, and 400-yard freestyle relay and won a meet-best five race titles overall. On the meet's first day, she recorded the team's fastest split to lower the 800-yard freestyle relay record to 6:45.91 with Manuel, Neal, and Eastin. The next day, she lowered her own record in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:24.06, beating the second-fastest performer of all time, Leah Smith, by nearly five seconds. On the meet's third day, Ledecky's 20th birthday, Ledecky recorded a personal-best time of 1:40.36 in the 200-yard freestyle to edge Manuel and tie Louisville sophomore Mallory Comerford for the title. On the meet's final day, Ledecky set an NCAA record in the 1000-yard freestyle (9:06.90) en route to a championship record in the 1650-yard freestyle (15:07.70), defeating runner-up Smith by 21.19 seconds and lapping all other competitors. In the meet's final event, Ledecky joined Manuel, Neal, and Hu to swim the second leg of Stanford's 400-yard freestyle relay. The team lowered its previous record with a time of 3:07.61, securing a 526.5–366 decision over runner-up California-Berkeley, the largest championship margin of victory since 2003.
Following the season, Ledecky became the first freshman in 35 years to receive the Honda Cup, which recognizes the nation's top female collegiate athlete.
==== USA Swimming Championships ====
At the 2017 USA Swimming Championships, the qualifying meet for the 2017 World Aquatics Championships, Ledecky won the 200-meter freestyle (1:54.84), 400-meter freestyle (3:58.44), and 800-meter freestyle (8:11.50) and earned a spot on six events.
==== World Championships ====
At the 2017 World Aquatics Championships in Budapest, Ledecky broke the World Aquatics Championships' all-time female gold medal record, winning five golds and one silver to bring her career title total to 14.
In her first event, the 400-meter freestyle, Ledecky successfully defended her world title, finishing with a championship record time of 3:58.34. Later that evening, Ledecky swam the third leg of the 4×100-meter freestyle. Joined with Mallory Comerford, Kelsi Worrell, and Simone Manuel, Ledecky recorded a split of 53.83, helping the team win gold with a time of 3:31.72, a new national record for the United States.
On the third day of competition, Ledecky defended her 1500-meter freestyle title, winning with a time of 15:31.82. With this win being Ledecky's twelfth World Championship gold medal, Ledecky passed Missy Franklin for the most gold medals won by a female swimmer in long course World Championships history.
On the fourth day of competition, Ledecky tied for silver in the 200-meter freestyle (with Emma McKeon), finishing behind Federica Pellegrini with a time of 1:55.18. This was Ledecky's first international loss in a final in individual event. Notably, in the semifinals the day prior, Ledecky recorded the top time in the semifinals with a time of 1:54.69. She achieved this result less than an hour after swimming the 1500-meter freestyle final.
On the fifth day of competition, Ledecky, with Leah Smith, Mallory Comerford, and Melanie Margalis won gold in the 4×200-meter freestyle relay. Swimming the anchor leg, Ledecky recorded a split of 1:54.02, and the Americans finished with an aggregate time of 7:43.39.
Ledecky concluded the meet with a win in the 800-meter freestyle, her fifth-straight title in the event across Olympics and World Championships.
=== 2018 ===
==== NCAA ====
During the 2017–18 NCAA season, Ledecky set another three NCAA records and two American records while helping lead Stanford to its second straight team title.
At the Texas A&M Invitational in November 2017, Ledecky lowered her American and U.S. Open mark in the 1650-yard freestyle with a time of 15:03.31.
Following another undefeated dual meet season, Ledecky earned Swimmer of the Meet honors for the second straight year at the Pac-12 Championships in Federal Way, sweeping the 500-yard freestyle, 400-yard individual medley, and 200-yard freestyle. In the 400-yard individual medley, Ledecky broke Katinka Hosszú's all-time record by one-hundredth of a second, finishing in 3:56.53. Stanford earned its second team title in as many years.
At the NCAA Championships, Ledecky won the 500 and 1650-yard freestyle events by record margins and anchored the winning 800-yard freestyle relay team of Katie Drabot, Brooke Forde, and Ella Eastin. Ledecky finished second in the 400-yard individual medley to Eastin, who lowered the record Ledecky set a month earlier at the Pac-12 Championships. In the 1650-yard freestyle, Ledecky re-set her NCAA record in the 1000-yard free with a split of 9:05.89 en route to winning by more than 28 seconds. In the team standings, Stanford beat runner-up California-Berkeley by 220 points, the largest margin of victory in 25 years.
A week following Stanford's championship win, Ledecky announced at the National Press Club that she will forego her final two seasons of NCAA eligibility in order to accept professional endorsement and sponsorship opportunities. She signed with Wasserman sports agent Dan Levy for representation.
At the academic year's conclusion, the College Sports Information Directors of America named Ledecky the Division I Academic All-America Team Member of the Year for her athletic and academic achievements.
==== Professional career ====
Ledecky made her debut as a professional swimmer on May 16, 2018, at the TYR Pro Swim Series in Indianapolis, Indiana, where she beat her old world record in the 1500-meter freestyle, setting a new world record of 15:20.48. She broke the existing mark by five seconds.
Ledecky signed her first sponsorship deal with TYR Sport, Inc. on June 8, 2018.
==== USA Swimming Championships ====
In July 2018, at the 2018 USA Swimming Championships in Irvine, Ledecky qualified for the 2018 Pan Pacific Championships by finishing first in the 200-, 400-, and 800-meter freestyle.
==== Pan Pacific Championships ====
At the 2018 Pan Pacific Championships in Tokyo, Ledecky led all swimmers with three individual titles, winning golds in the 400-, 800-, and 1500-meter freestyle. She also took bronze in the 200-meter freestyle and silver in the 4x200-meter freestyle.
On the first day of competition, Ledecky won gold in the 800-meter freestyle with a championship-record time of 8:09.13, topping runner-up Ariarne Titmus of Australia by 7.94 seconds. Just over an hour later, Ledecky took third in the 200-meter freestyle (1:55.15), finishing behind Canada's Taylor Ruck (1:54.44) and Japan's Rikako Ikee (1:54.85).
The next day, Ledecky anchored the United States team of Allison Schmitt, Leah Smith, and Katie McLaughlin in the 4x200-meter freestyle relay. Entering the water with a 2.88-second deficit, Ledecky swam the fourth-fastest relay split in history (1:53.84), nearly overtaking Australian Madeline Groves, who touched 0.25 seconds ahead of Ledecky to set a new championship and national record.
On the third day, Ledecky defeated Titmus wire-to-wire in the 400-meter freestyle.
Ledecky concluded the championships with another gold medal in the 1500-meter freestyle, winning by a margin of 21.11 seconds (15:38.97).
=== 2019 ===
==== World Championships ====
At the 2019 World Aquatics Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, Ledecky battled illness and withdrew from two events before winning her fourth-straight World Championship title in the 800-meter freestyle.
On the first day of competition, Ledecky led Australian Ariarne Titmus into the final wall of the 400-meter freestyle final before fading to second. The next morning, Ledecky struggled through her preliminary heat of the 1500-meter freestyle despite qualifying first for the event's final. She subsequently announced her withdrawal from the 1500 and 200-meter freestyle due to illness.
Ledecky returned to competition three days later to swim the final of the women's 4x200-meter freestyle relay. The Americans (Simone Manuel, Ledecky, Melanie Margalis and Katie McLaughlin) set a new American record and swam under the existing world record with a time of 7:41.87, yet placed second to the Australian team (7:41.50).
Still recovering from illness, Ledecky qualified second the next day for the final of the 800-meter freestyle. In the final, Ledecky swam to an early lead before Italian swimmer Simona Quadarella took over midway through the race. Ledecky trailed Quadarella into the final wall. Ledecky passed Quadarella and pulled away in the final 50 meters to win by 1.41 seconds.
In the inaugural season of the International Swimming League, Ledecky represented DC Trident.
For the seventh-straight year, Ledecky finished the year with the top times in the world in both the 800- and 1500-meter freestyle (8:10.70 and 15:35.98).
Ledecky collected several end-of-decade honors. Fifty-two percent of SwimSwam.com readers voted Ledecky the top swimmer of the decade, ahead of Michael Phelps. Readers of The London Evening Standard voted Ledecky the International Sportswoman of the Decade. She finished third in the Associated Press's Female Athlete of the Decade voting, behind Serena Williams and Simone Biles.
=== 2020 ===
Ledecky began 2020 at the TYR Pro Swim Series in Des Moines, Iowa, where she won the 200-, 400- and 1500-meter freestyle races. Ledecky withdrew from the 800-meter freestyle race due to illness. Ledecky did not compete at any other events during 2020.
=== 2021 ===
Ledecky began 2021 at the TYR Pro Swim Series at San Antonio, Texas. She won the 200-, 400-, 800- and 1500-meter freestyle races.
On Thursday May 20, 2021, at the Longhorn Aquatics Elite Invite Ledecky won the long course 100 meter freestyle final by one one-hundredth of a second in a time of 53.82 with second place going to Simone Manuel.
==== US Olympic Trials ====
As part of the NBC evening telecast for day one of the 2020 USA Swimming Olympic trials (postponed to June 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic), Ledecky was featured in an interview discussing Stanford University's commencement, finishing her college degree, and training for the Olympic Trials. Because training facilities were closed during the pandemic, Ledecky and her colleague Simone Manuel trained for the Olympics in a 25-yard private pool in Atherton, in the backyard of masters swimmer Tod Spieker.
On the second day, June 14, 2021, Ledecky competed in the prelims of the 400 meter freestyle in the morning, swimming a 4:03.07, ranking 1st out of all prelims heats, and advancing to the final in the evening. The 400 meter freestyle was the first race on Ledecky's schedule where she had the opportunity to make the 2020 USA Olympic Team. In the evening final of the 400 meter freestyle, Ledecky finished first with a time of 4:01.27, securing her first spot on her third US Olympic Team swimming the 400 meter freestyle at the 2020 Summer Olympics. This accomplishment was highlighted by various news outlets including NBC Sports, Newsweek, and USA Today.
In the morning of day three, Ledecky swam a 1:57.58 in the 200 meter freestyle prelims, ranking second fastest of all heats. Two events later, she swam a 15:43.10 in the 1500 meter freestyle prelims, ranking as the fastest swimmer of prelims heat, advancing to the final, and setting a new Championship Record over four seconds faster than the previous record she set in 2013. Later the same day in the evening semifinals for the 200 meter freestyle, Ledecky finished first with a time of 1:55.83.
On day 4, June 16, she won both the 200m and 1500m freestyle finals in the evening. Ledecky swam a 15:40.50 in the 1500 meter freestyle, lowering her Championship Record from the day before and becoming the first winner of the women's 1500 meter freestyle at the US Olympic Trials. She swam a 1:55.11 in the 200 meter freestyle. These two swims secured her spots on the US Olympic Team for the 2020 Summer Olympics in the 1500 meter freestyle and 200 meter freestyle individual events as well as the 4 × 200 meter freestyle relay. Ledecky won the 200 meter and 1500 meter freestyle finals in a time span of about 70 minutes as well as collecting her medal at the 200 meter freestyle medal ceremony and eating a snack.
Friday June 18, 2021, the sixth day of competition, Ledecky won with a time of 8:16.61 in the prelims heats of the 800-meter freestyle and advanced to the final. The following day in the final, Ledecky won with a time of 8:14.62 and qualified to swim the 800 meter freestyle at the 2020 Summer Olympics for the United States.
==== Summer Olympic Games ====
At the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, Ledecky won two gold medals and two silver medals, making her the most decorated U.S. female athlete for a second straight Summer Olympics. Ledecky began her racing in the prelims of the 400 meter freestyle, ranking first overall with her time of 4:00.45 and advancing to the final. However, she finished second to Australian swimmer Ariarne Titmus to win the silver medal, trailing Titmus by half a second after leading at the 300m mark. Ledecky's time of 3:57.36 was the second-fastest time of her career and fourth-fastest in history. This was Ledecky's first loss in an individual event at the Olympics.
In the debut of the women's 1500 meter freestyle at the Summer Olympics, Ledecky set an Olympic record in her heat with a time of 15:35.35 and advanced to the final ranked first overall. In the same prelims session as the 1500 meter freestyle, Ledecky ranked first in the 200 meter freestyle with a time of 1:55.28 and advanced to the event's semifinals. She swam a 1:55.34 in the semifinals of the 200 meter freestyle and advanced to the final ranking third overall. In the finals of these two events, Ledecky failed to reach the podium for the 200 m freestyle, placing 5th behind Titmus, Haughey, Oleksiak, and Yang, but placed 1st in the 1500 m race, leading teammate Erica Sullivan (silver) by 4 seconds, clinching her first gold medal of the Games. She finished the final in 15:37.34, but her record from the preliminary round still holds.
The next day, Ledecky anchored for Team USA in the women's 4 × 200 freestyle relay, winning a silver medal alongside teammates Allison Schmitt, Paige Madden, and Katie McLaughlin behind China. Before she entered the pool, the United States was trailing both Australia and China, but she swam a time of 1:53.76 to finish the race 0.4 seconds behind the Chinese swimmer Li Bingjie and ahead of Australia, who were the favorites coming into the competition. Ledecky's split was the fastest of all swimmers in the relay finals. Ledecky won her second gold medal of the Olympics and her seventh of all time in the 800-meter freestyle. Her six individual gold medals are the most of any female Olympic swimmer and female US Olympian, and the second-most of all Olympic swimmers behind Michael Phelps. She became the first swimmer to win a distance event three times in a row, as well as the youngest and oldest person to win the 800 free (at age 15 in 2012 and age 24 in 2021).
Following the Olympic Games on September 22, Ledecky announced her intention to train with coach Anthony Nesty at the University of Florida. Additionally, Ledecky signed on to be a volunteer swim coach for the Florida Gators.
=== 2022 ===
==== US International Team Trials ====
At the 2022 USA Swimming International Team Trials in Greensboro, Ledecky qualified for the 2022 World Aquatics Championships by finishing first in the 200-meter freestyle (1:55.15), the 400-meter freestyle (3:59.52), the 800-meter freestyle (8:09.27) and the 1500-meter freestyle (15:38.99).
==== World Championships ====
At the 2022 World Aquatics Championships in Budapest, Ledecky won all four of her events: the 400 meter freestyle, 1500 meter freestyle, 4 × 200 freestyle relay, and 800-meter freestyle. With four golds, Ledecky expanded her career World Championships medal haul to 22, passing Natalie Coughlin for most for a female swimmer. Ledecky earned FINA's female swimmer of the meet trophy for a third time.
On the first day of competition, Ledecky won the 400-meter freestyle in a championship record 3:58.15, besting Canadian silver medalist Summer McIntosh by 1.24 seconds. Ledecky's swim was the seventh-fastest performance in history.
Ledecky won the 1500-meter freestyle two days later in a time of 15:30.15, over 14 seconds faster than runner-up and teammate Katie Grimes. Ledecky's time was the sixth-fastest ever (behind only her own performances) and over 7 seconds faster than her winning time at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Ledecky joined Claire Weinstein, Leah Smith, and Bella Sims on the U.S. 4 × 200 freestyle relay on day five. Swimming the third leg, Ledecky passed Australia and Canada to take the lead with the third-fastest split in history (1:53.67). Sims anchored the team to a championship record time of 7:41.45.
On day 7, Ledecky won her final event by over 10 seconds, recording a time of 8:08.04 in the 800-meter freestyle. The swim was the fifth-fastest in history and earned Ledecky the 28 fastest times in the distance. With the victory, Ledecky became the first swimmer, male or female, to win five consecutive world championship titles in an individual event.
==== USA Swimming Championships ====
At the 2022 USA Swimming Championships in Irvine, Ledecky won three gold medals by finishing first in the 200-meter freestyle (1:54.50), the 800-meter freestyle (8:12.03), and the 400-meter individual medley (4:35.77).
==== FINA Swimming World Cup ====
On October 29, during the Toronto round of the FINA Swimming World Cup, Ledecky swam the 1500m short course event for the first time. She set a time of 15:08.24, breaking the previous world record set by German swimmer Sarah Köhler by almost 10 seconds.
The following week at the World Cup's Indianapolis stop, Ledecky broke the world record in the 800m short course freestyle. Her time of 7:57.42 surpassed Mireia Belmonte's mark from 2013.
=== 2023 ===
==== USA Swimming Championships ====
At the 2023 USA Swimming Championships in Indianapolis, Ledecky won three gold medals (400-, 800- and 1500-meter freestyle) and a silver medal (200-meter freestyle). Her times in the 800-meter freestyle (8:07.07) and 1500-meter freestyle (15:29.64) were the third- and sixth-fastest times in history, trailing only her own performances.
==== World Championships ====
At the 2023 World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, Ledecky won two gold medals and two silver medals. Her 16th career individual gold medal surpassed Michael Phelps for most individual gold medals at the world championships.
On the first day of competition, Ledecky placed second in the 400-meter freestyle to Ariarne Titmus, who set a new world record in the event (3:55.38). Ledecky's time of 3:58.73 topped New Zealand's Erika Fairweather (3:59.59) and Canada's Summer McIntosh (3:59.94) in the first women's 400-meter race that saw four swimmers break the 4-minute barrier.
Two days later, Ledecky won the 1500-meter freestyle by over 17 seconds. Her time of 15:26.27 was the third-fastest time in history, trailing only her world and world championship records.
Ledecky joined Erin Gemmell, Bella Sims, and Alex Shackell to earn the silver medal in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay. Ledecky swam the second leg and posted a team-best split of 1:54.39 as Australia lowered the world record by 1.79 seconds.
Ledecky concluded her meet on Day 7 with the final of the 800-meter freestyle. Ledecky posted the sixth-fastest time in history (8:08.87) to top China's Li Bingjie by 4.44 seconds. Li and Ariarne Titmus became the second- and third-fastest performers ever in the event, while Ledecky retained the 29 fastest times in history. With the victory, Ledecky passed Michael Phelps as the swimmer with the most career individual world championship gold medals and became the first swimmer to win six-straight world titles in an event.
=== 2024 ===
==== Memoir ====
Ledecky's memoir, Just Add Water, was published on June 11. In the book, she discloses that she has postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS).
==== US Olympic Trials ====
At the 2024 US Olympic trials, Ledecky qualified for her fourth Olympics. She finished in first place in four events: 200-meter freestyle (1:55.22), 400-meter freestyle (3:58.35), 800-meter freestyle (8:14.12), and 1500-meter freestyle (15:37.35).
==== Summer Olympic Games ====
On the first night of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, Ledecky finished third in the 400-metre freestyle behind Ariarne Titmus and Summer McIntosh. Ledecky later defended her title in the 1500 metre freestyle event, setting the new Olympic record with a time of 15:30:02. She won her fourth consecutive gold medal and eighth individual gold (an all-time record for women at the Olympics, a new all-time record for women at the Olympics, the previous one set by gymnast Věra Čáslavská had stood for 56 years) in the 800 metre freestyle and also competed in the 4x200m freestyle relay, joined by Claire Weinstein, Paige Madden, and Erin Gemmell. With a collective time of 7:40.86, the team won the silver medal.
=== 2025 ===
Ledecky started 2025 with the TYR Swim Pro Series; and, on May 3, 2025, in Fort Lauderdale, she broke her own world record in the women's 800-metre freestyle, setting a new world record of 8:04.12.
==== USA Swimming Championships ====
At the 2025 USA Swimming Championships, she qualified for four events: the 400-m., the 800-m., and the 1500-m., as well as the 4×200 m freestyle relay.
==== World Championships ====
At the 2025 World Aquatics Championships, held in Singapore, she won a bronze medal on July 27, at the 400 meter freestyle. Two nights later, on July 29, she earned gold in the 1500 meter freestyle. On July 31, she earned a silver medal as part of the 4 × 200 metre freestyle relay. Lastly, on the penultimate evening, August 2, she won gold in the 800 meter freestyle, beating out both Summer McIntosh and Lani Pallister and setting a new championship record, as well.
==== Katie Ledecky Invitational ====
In October 2025, the Nation's Capital Invitational, held annually in December, was renamed the Katie Ledecky Invitational in her honor. The meet is hosted by her former club team, NCAP, on the campus of the University of Maryland at the Eppley Recreation Center Natatorium. As part of the renaming, Ledecky returned to swim in the meet where in 2015 she set an American record in the 1000-yard freestyle with a time of 8:59.65, becoming the first woman to swim a time under nine minutes in the event. In 2025, she entered the 1650-yard freestyle, where the American record previously stood at 15:01.43, set by Ledecky in March 2023. On December 14, she became the first woman to swim a time under fifteen minutes at 14:59.62, setting a new American and U.S. Open record.
== Honors and awards ==
Ledecky was a USA Olympic team member in 2012, 2016, 2020, and 2024. She also holds the women's record for most individual gold medals (18) and overall gold medals (23) at the World Aquatics Championships.
Her combined 26 individual titles at the Olympics (8) and World Aquatics Championships (18) is also a record for female swimmers.
Ledecky has also received the following awards:
Swimming World World Swimmer of the Year Award: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018
Swimming World American Swimmer of the Year Award: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022
SwimSwam Top 100 (Women's): 2021 (#1), 2022 (#1)
FINA World Championships Best Female Swimmer: 2013, 2015, 2022
FINA Swimmer of the Year: 2013, 2022
FINA Best Swimming Performance of the Year: 2015, 2016
Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year: 2017, 2022
L'Équipe Champion of Champions: 2014, 2017
Time 100: 2016 (youngest person on the list)
USOC SportsWoman of the Year: 2012–13, 2016, 2017
USA Swimming Athlete of the Year: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018
USA Swimming Performance of the Year Award: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016
Golden Goggle Female Athlete of the Year: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2025
Golden Goggle Female Race of the Year: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2022
Golden Goggle Breakout Performer of the Year: 2012
Honda Sports Award Winner for NCAA Division I Swimming and Diving: 2016–17
Honda Cup Winner: 2016–17
Women's Sports Foundation Athlete of the Year (Individual Sport): 2017
Academic All-America Team Member of the Year, Division I: 2017–2018
Best Female Athlete ESPY Award at the 2022 ESPY Awards
Best Female Olympian ESPY Award at the 2022 ESPY Awards
Ledecky has also received the following honors:
Presidential Medal of Freedom: 2024
Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement: 2024 – presented by Cal Ripken Jr.
In October 2024, Montgomery County executive Marc Elrich presented Ledecky with a proclamation declaring October 17 as "Katie Ledecky Day".
== Personal bests ==
As of May 3, 2025
=== Long course meters (50 m pool) ===
=== Short course meters (25 m pool) ===
=== Short course yards (25 y pool) ===
== World records ==
=== Long course (50 m pool) ===
=== Short course (25 m pool) ===
== Publications ==
=== Books ===
Author, Just Add Water: My Swimming Life. 2024. Simon & Schuster |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Masters_Tournament | 1954 Masters Tournament | The 1954 Masters Tournament was the 18th Masters Tournament, held April 8–12 at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia. Sam Snead defeated defending champion Ben Hogan by one stroke in an 18-hole Monday playoff to win his third Masters tournament. It was Snead's seventh and final major victory.
Both Snead and Hogan were age 41, and they had won the previous three Masters; Snead in 1952 and Hogan in 1951 and 1953. Hogan was also the reigning champion of the U.S. Open and British Open; he did not win another major, but often contended until his final appearances in 1967 at the Masters and U.S. Open.
Snead's 289 (+1), along with Jack Burke Jr. in 1956 and Zach Johnson in 2007, remains the highest winning total in Masters history. Amateur Billy Joe Patton, 31, led after the first and second rounds and during the fourth, but a seven at the 13th hole and a six at the 15th ended his title hopes, and he finished one stroke back.
Snead remained the oldest winner of the Masters for nearly a quarter century, until Gary Player won his third green jacket at age 42 in 1978.
== Field ==
1. Masters champions
Jimmy Demaret (10), Claude Harmon (12), Ben Hogan (2,4,6,9,10), Byron Nelson (2,6), Gene Sarazen (2,4,6), Horton Smith, Sam Snead (4,6,7,9,10), Craig Wood (2)
Ralph Guldahl (2), Herman Keiser and Henry Picard (6) did not play.
2. U.S. Open champions
Julius Boros (9,10), Lawson Little (3,5), Lloyd Mangrum (7,9,10), Fred McLeod, Cary Middlecoff (7), Sam Parks Jr., Lew Worsham
3. U.S. Amateur champions
Dick Chapman (5,8,a), Charles Coe (8,9,a), Gene Littler (8,11), Billy Maxwell, Skee Riegel, Jess Sweetser (5,a)
4. British Open champions
Jock Hutchison (6), Denny Shute (6)
5. British Amateur champions
Frank Stranahan (9,10,a), Robert Sweeny Jr. (a), Harvie Ward (8,9,a)
6. PGA champions
Walter Burkemo (7,12), Jim Ferrier (9), Vic Ghezzi, Chandler Harper (9), Johnny Revolta, Jim Turnesa (7,10)
7. Members of the U.S. 1953 Ryder Cup team
Jack Burke Jr. (9,10), Dave Douglas (12), Fred Haas (10), Ted Kroll (9,10), Ed Oliver (9)
8. Members of the U.S. 1953 Walker Cup team
Arnold Blum (a), William C. Campbell (a), Don Cherry (a), Jimmy Jackson (a), Jim McHale Jr. (a), Billy Joe Patton (a), Ken Venturi (a)
Sam Urzetta (3,a) and Jack Westland (3,a) did not play. Blum, McHale and Patton were reserves for the team.
9. Top 24 players and ties from the 1953 Masters Tournament
Jerry Barber, Al Besselink, Tommy Bolt, Doug Ford (10), Leland Gibson, Chick Harbert, Fred Hawkins, Dick Mayer, Al Mengert (10), Dick Metz (10), Johnny Palmer, Earl Stewart
Bob Hamilton (6) did not play.
10. Top 24 players and ties from the 1953 U.S. Open
Pete Cooper, Gardner Dickinson, Clarence Doser, George Fazio, Marty Furgol, Dutch Harrison, Jay Hebert, Bill Nary (12), Bill Ogden, Bob Rosburg, Frank Souchak (a)
11. 1953 U.S. Amateur quarter-finalists
Don Albert (a), Bruce Cudd (a), Bobby Kuntz (a), Dale Morey (a), Ray Palmer (a), Angelo Santilli (a)
Ted Richards Jr. did not play.
12. 1953 PGA Championship quarter-finalists
Jimmy Clark, Jack Isaacs, Felice Torza
Henry Ransom did not play.
13. One amateur, not already qualified, selected by a ballot of ex-U.S. Amateur champions
Johnny Dawson (a) was selected but did not play.
14. One professional, not already qualified, selected by a ballot of ex-U.S. Open champions
Skip Alexander
15. Two players, not already qualified, with the best scoring average in the winter part of the 1954 PGA Tour
Bud Holscher, Bob Toski
16. Foreign invitations
Peter Thomson
== Round summaries ==
=== First round ===
Thursday, April 8, 1954
=== Second round ===
Friday, April 9, 1954
=== Third round ===
Saturday, April 10, 1954
=== Final round ===
Sunday, April 11, 1954
==== Final leaderboard ====
Sources:
==== Scorecard ====
Cumulative tournament scores, relative to par
=== Playoff ===
Monday, April 12, 1954
==== Scorecard ====
Source: |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Windsor | Edith Windsor | Edith Windsor (née Schlain; June 20, 1929 – September 12, 2017) was an American LGBT rights activist and a technology manager at IBM. She was the lead plaintiff in the 2013 Supreme Court of the United States case United States v. Windsor, which overturned Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act and was considered a landmark legal victory for the same-sex marriage movement in the United States. The Obama administration and federal agencies extended rights, privileges and benefits to married same-sex couples because of the decision.
== Early life and education ==
Windsor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 20, 1929, the youngest of three children of James and Celia Schlain, a Russian Jewish immigrant family of modest means. During her childhood, her family suffered as a result of the Great Depression, and her father lost both his candy-and-ice-cream store and their home above it. In school, she at times experienced anti-Semitism. Throughout school, she dated boys her age, but said later she recalls having crushes on girls.
Windsor received her bachelor's degree from Temple University in 1950. In 1955, she began pursuing a master's degree in mathematics, which she obtained from New York University in 1957. She then joined IBM, where she worked for the next sixteen years. During this time, she spent two semesters studying applied mathematics at Harvard University on an IBM fellowship.
== Career ==
While attending New York University, Windsor worked for the university's math department, entering data into its UNIVAC. She also worked as a programmer at Combustion Engineering, Inc., where she worked with physicists and the UNIVAC.
After receiving her master's degree in mathematics in 1957 from New York University, Windsor began work in senior technical and management positions at IBM in 1958. Her work at IBM was primarily related to systems architecture and implementation of operating systems and natural language processors. Windsor began her career at IBM as a mainframe programmer. In May 1968, she attained the title designating the highest level technical position at IBM, senior systems programmer. Windsor worked at IBM for 16 years and was well known around IBM for her "top-notch debugging skills". She received the first IBM PC delivered in New York City. However, the company rejected her insurance form naming her partner Thea Spyer as a beneficiary. Windsor also assisted the Atomic Energy Commission, and was at one point even investigated by the FBI. Windsor feared that it was because of her closeted homosexuality. This was during the time right after the Lavender Scare. She later found out it was because of her sister's ties to the Teachers' Union.
In 1975, Windsor left IBM and became the founding president of PC Classics, a consulting firm specializing in software development projects. During this time consulting, Windsor helped many LGBTQ groups become "tech literate". She helped many LGBTQ organizations computerize their mail systems.
== Personal life ==
Saul Windsor was Edie's older brother's best friend, whom she had known for many years and respected. They went to college together and during their third year, Saul proposed marriage and Edie accepted. Their relationship ended at one time during the engagement when Edie fell in love with a female classmate. However, after Windsor decided she did not want to live life as a lesbian, they reconciled and got married after graduation, in May 1951. They divorced less than one year afterward, on March 3, 1952, and she confided in him that she longed to be with women. Shortly after her divorce, Windsor left Philadelphia for New York City.
Windsor met Thea Spyer, an Amsterdam-born psychologist, in 1963 at Portofino, a restaurant in Greenwich Village. When they initially met, each was already in a relationship. They occasionally saw each other at events over the next two years, but it was not until a trip to the East End of Long Island in the late spring of 1965 that they began dating each other. To help keep the relationship a secret from her co-workers, Windsor invented a relationship with Spyer's fictional brother Willy – who was actually a childhood doll belonging to Windsor – to explain Spyer's phone calls to the office. In 1967, Spyer asked Windsor to marry, although it was not yet legal anywhere in the United States. Fearing that a traditional engagement ring might expose Windsor's sexual orientation to her coworkers, Spyer instead proposed with a circular diamond pin.
Six months after getting engaged, Windsor and Spyer moved into an apartment in Greenwich Village. In 1968, they purchased a small house on Long Island together, where they went on vacation for the following forty summers. The couple often took trips both in the United States and internationally. They also entertained at their home frequently, with Spyer preparing meals, including an annual Memorial Day weekend celebration of their anniversary.
In 1977, Spyer was diagnosed with progressive multiple sclerosis. The disease caused a gradual, but ever-increasing paralysis. Windsor used her early retirement to become a full-time caregiver for Spyer, and the couple continued to adjust their daily behavior to accommodate.
Windsor and Spyer entered a domestic partnership in New York City in 1993. Registering on the first available day, they were issued certificate number eighty.
Spyer suffered a heart attack in 2002 and was diagnosed with aortic stenosis. In 2007, her doctors told her she had less than a year to live. New York had not yet legalized same-sex marriage, so the couple opted to marry in Toronto, Canada, on May 22, 2007, with Canada's first openly gay judge, Justice Harvey Brownstone, presiding, and with the assistance of a filmmaker and same-sex marriage activist familiar with the laws in both countries. An announcement of their wedding was published in The New York Times. Spyer died from complications related to her heart condition on February 5, 2009. After Spyer's death, Windsor was hospitalized with stress cardiomyopathy.
On September 26, 2016, Windsor married Judith Kasen at New York City Hall. At the time of the wedding, Windsor was age 87 and Kasen was age 51.
Windsor was also a member of the non-denominational Congregation Beit Simchat Torah synagogue, which has been self-described as the world's largest LGBTQ synagogue.
In October 2019, Windsor's memoir A Wild and Precious Life was published by St. Martin's Press. The writing was begun before Windsor's death in 2017 and was completed by her co-author Joshua Lyon. It was also released as an audiobook, read by Donna Postel and Joshua Lyon.
== Activism ==
In June 1969, Windsor and Spyer returned from a vacation in Italy to discover the Stonewall Riots had begun the night before. In the following years, the couple publicly participated in LGBT marches and events. They also lent their Cadillac convertible to LGBT rights organizations.
Following her departure from IBM in 1975, she increased her involvement with LGBT organizations. She volunteered for the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, the East End Gay Organization, the LGBT Community Center, 1994 Gay Games New York, and helped found Old Queers Acting Up, an improv group utilizing skits to address social justice issues. She served on the board of Services & Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE) from 1986 to 1988 and again from 2005 to 2007.
Windsor continued to be a public advocate for same-sex marriage in the years following United States v. Windsor. She helped Senator Dianne Feinstein and Representative Jerrold Nadler introduce the Respect for Marriage Act at a press conference in Washington, D.C., in 2011. She was also a prominent supporter of Israeli LGBT rights group A Wider Bridge. In 2013, Time magazine named Windsor as a finalist for their Person of the Year award, losing out only to Pope Francis. Later in life, she became an ardent supporter of New York City's largest LGBTQ+ band, the Lesbian & Gay Big Apple Corps, calling them "her band". They performed a concert called The Roaring Music of Women: A Tribute to the Iconic Edie Windsor in her honor on Saturday, April 7, 2018.
== United States v. Windsor ==
Upon Spyer's death on February 5, 2009, Windsor became the executor and sole beneficiary of Spyer's estate, via a revocable trust. Windsor was required to pay $363,053 in federal estate taxes on her inheritance of her wife's estate. Had federal law recognized the validity of their marriage, Windsor would have qualified for an unlimited spousal deduction and paid no federal estate taxes.
Windsor sought to claim the federal estate tax exemption for surviving spouses. She was barred from doing so by Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) (codified at 1 U.S.C. § 7), which provided that the term "spouse" only applied to marriages between a man and woman. The Internal Revenue Service found that the exemption did not apply to same-sex marriages, denied Windsor's claim, and compelled her to pay $363,053 in estate taxes.
In 2010 Windsor filed a lawsuit against the federal government in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeking a refund because DOMA singled out legally married same-sex couples for "differential treatment compared to other similarly situated couples without justification." In 2012, Judge Barbara S. Jones ruled that Section 3 of DOMA was unconstitutional under the due process guarantees of the Fifth Amendment and ordered the federal government to issue the tax refund, including interest. The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in a 2–1 decision later in 2012.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case in March 2013, and on June 26 of that year issued a 5–4 decision affirming that Section 3 of DOMA was unconstitutional "as a deprivation of the liberty of the person protected by the Fifth Amendment."
== Recognition ==
Windsor was honored by the National Computing Conference in 1987 as a "pioneer in operating systems".
On Windsor's 70th birthday in 1999, the Edie Windsor Fund for Old Lesbians was gifted to Windsor by Spyer and their friends. It is maintained and administered by Open Meadows Foundation, and provides grants to projects for and by older lesbians.
A 2009 documentary, Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement, by Susan Muska and Greta Olfsdottir, documents Windsor and Spyer's life and wedding. The DVD of the film contains a full-length interview with Justice Harvey Brownstone, the Canadian judge who officiated at the Windsor/Spyer wedding.
She was the grand marshal of the 2013 New York City LGBT Pride March.
She was a runner-up, to Pope Francis, for 2013 Time Person of the Year.
Windsor was honored as The New Jewish Home's Eight Over Eighty Gala 2014 honoree.
On May 22, 2014, she received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Johns Hopkins University.
In June 2014 Windsor traveled back to Toronto, the city where she married Thea Spyer, to receive an award at WorldPride. While in Toronto she appeared on the CTV Television Network's national morning show, Canada AM, with Harvey Brownstone, the Toronto judge who officiated at her wedding.
On June 26, 2014, Windsor was featured on Logo TV's 2014 LOGO Trailblazers.
In 2016, Lesbians Who Tech initiated the Edie Windsor Coding Scholarship Fund.
In 2017, the Midtown SAGE Center for LGBT seniors in Manhattan was renamed as The Edie Windsor SAGE Center in New York City.
In 2018, a block of South 13th Street in Philadelphia was designated as Edie Windsor Way.
In June 2019, Windsor was one of the inaugural fifty American "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes" inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument (SNM) in New York City's Stonewall Inn. The SNM is the first U.S. national monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights and history, while the Wall's unveiling was timed to take place during the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.
=== Awards ===
Windsor received numerous awards related to her work in technology and LGBT activism.
== Death ==
On September 12, 2017, Windsor's wife Judith Kasen-Windsor confirmed that Windsor had died in Manhattan, but did not specify a cause. Former US President Bill Clinton, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, California US Senator Dianne Feinstein, and various politicians and celebrities posted words of tribute on their Twitter accounts. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke at her funeral. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_IV | William IV | William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded his elder brother George IV, becoming the last king and penultimate monarch of the United Kingdom's House of Hanover.
William served in the Royal Navy in his youth, spending time in British North America and the Caribbean, and was later nicknamed the "Sailor King". In 1789, he was created Duke of Clarence and St Andrews. Between 1791 and 1811, he cohabited with the actress Dorothea Jordan, with whom he had ten children. In 1818, he married Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen. In 1827, he was appointed Britain's Lord High Admiral, the first since 1709.
As his two elder brothers died without leaving legitimate issue, William inherited the throne when he was 64 years old. His reign saw several reforms: the Poor Law was updated, child labour restricted, slavery abolished in nearly all of the British Empire, and the electoral system refashioned by the Reform Act 1832. Although William did not engage in politics as much as his brother or his father, he was the last British monarch to appoint a prime minister contrary to the will of Parliament. He granted his German kingdom a short-lived liberal constitution. William had no surviving legitimate children at the time of his death, so he was succeeded by his niece Victoria in the United Kingdom and his brother Ernest Augustus in Hanover, ending the 123-year personal union between the two countries.
== Early life ==
William was born in the early hours of the morning on 21 August 1765 at Buckingham House, the third child and son of King George III and Queen Charlotte. He had two elder brothers, George, Prince of Wales, and Prince Frederick (later Duke of York and Albany), and was not expected to inherit the Crown. He was baptised in the Great Council Chamber of St James's Palace on 20 September 1765. His godparents were the King's siblings: Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh; Prince Henry (later Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn); and Princess Augusta, Hereditary Duchess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.
William spent most of his early life in Richmond and at Kew Palace, where he was educated by private tutors. At the age of thirteen, he joined the Royal Navy as a midshipman, in Admiral Robert Digby's squadron. For four years the lieutenant of his watch was Richard Goodwin Keats, with whom he formed a life-long friendship and whom he described as the one to whom he owed all his professional knowledge. He was present at the Battle of Cape St Vincent in 1780, when the San Julián struck her colours to his ship. His experiences in the navy seem to have been little different from those of other midshipmen, though in contrast to other sailors he was accompanied on board ship by a tutor. He did his share of the cooking and got arrested with his shipmates after a drunken brawl in Gibraltar; he was hastily released from custody after his identity became known.
William served in New York during the American War of Independence, making him the only member of the British royal family to visit America up to and through the American Revolution. While William was in America, George Washington approved a plot to kidnap him, writing:
The spirit of enterprise so conspicuous in your plan for surprising in their quarters and bringing off the Prince William Henry and Admiral Digby merits applause; and you have my authority to make the attempt in any manner, and at such a time, as your judgment may direct. I am fully persuaded, that it is unnecessary to caution you against offering insult or indignity to the persons of the Prince or Admiral...
The plot did not come to fruition; the British heard of it and assigned guards to William, who had until then walked around New York unescorted. In September 1781, William held court at the Manhattan home of Governor James Robertson. In attendance were Mayor David Mathews, Admiral Digby, and General Oliver De Lancey.
William became a lieutenant in 1785 and captain of HMS Pegasus the following year, during which he spent time in the colonies of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Later in 1786, he was stationed in the West Indies under Horatio Nelson, who wrote of William, "in his professional line, he is superior to two-thirds, I am sure, of the [naval] list; and in attention to orders, and respect to his superior officer, I hardly know his equal." The two were great friends, and dined together almost nightly. At Nelson's wedding, William insisted on giving the bride away. After touring Quebec in 1787, he was, the next year, given command of the frigate HMS Andromeda and promoted to rear-admiral while commanding HMS Valiant in 1790.
William sought to be made a duke like his elder brothers, and to receive a similar parliamentary grant, but his father was reluctant. To put pressure on him, William threatened to stand for the House of Commons for the constituency of Totnes in Devon. Appalled at the prospect of his son making his case to the voters, the King created him Duke of Clarence and St Andrews and Earl of Munster on 19 May 1789, supposedly saying: "I well know it is another vote added to the Opposition." William's political record was inconsistent and, like many politicians of the time, cannot be ascribed to a single party. However, he allied himself publicly with the Whigs, as did his elder brothers, who were known to be in conflict with the political positions of their father.
== Naval career ==
William ceased his active service in the Royal Navy in 1790. When Britain declared war on France in 1793, he was eager to serve his country and expected to be given a command but was not, perhaps at first because he had broken his arm by falling down some stairs drunk, but later perhaps because he gave a speech in the House of Lords opposing the war. The following year he spoke in favour of the war, and expected a command after his change of heart; none came. The Admiralty did not reply to his request. He did not lose hope of being appointed to an active post. In 1798 he was made an admiral, but the rank was purely nominal. Despite repeated petitions, he was never given a command throughout the Napoleonic Wars. In 1811, he was appointed to the honorary position of Admiral of the Fleet. In 1813, he came nearest to involvement in actual fighting, when he visited the British troops fighting in the Low Countries. Watching the bombardment of Antwerp from a church steeple, he came under fire, and a bullet pierced his coat.
Instead of serving at sea, William spent time in the House of Lords, where he spoke in opposition to the abolition of slavery, which still existed in the British colonies. Freedom would do the slaves little good, he argued. He had travelled widely and, in his eyes, the living standard among freemen in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland was worse than that among slaves in the West Indies. His experience in the Caribbean, where he "quickly absorbed the plantation owners' views about slavery", lent weight to his position, which was perceived as well-argued and just by some of his contemporaries. In his first speech before Parliament he called himself "an attentive observer of the state of the negroes" who found them well cared for and "in a state of humble happiness". Others thought it "shocking that so young a man, under no bias of interest, should be earnest in continuance of the slave trade". In his speech to the House, William insulted William Wilberforce, the leading abolitionist, saying: "the proponents of the abolition are either fanatics or hypocrites, and in one of those classes I rank Mr. Wilberforce". On other issues he was more liberal, such as supporting moves to abolish penal laws against dissenting Christians. He also opposed efforts to bar those found guilty of adultery from remarriage.
== Relationships and marriage ==
William had an illegitimate son before 1791 whose mother is unknown; the son, also called William, likely drowned off Madagascar when HMS Blenheim sank or foundered in February 1807. Caroline von Linsingen, whose father was a general in the Hanoverian infantry, claimed to have had a son, Heinrich, by William in around 1790 but William was not in Hanover at the time that she claims, and the story is considered implausible by historians.
From 1791, William lived with an Irish actress, Dorothea Bland, better known by her stage name Mrs Jordan, the title "Mrs" being assumed at the start of her stage career to explain an inconvenient pregnancy and "Jordan" because she had "crossed the water" from Ireland to Britain. He appeared to enjoy the domesticity of his life with Mrs. Jordan, remarking to a friend: "Mrs Jordan is a very good creature, very domestic and careful of her children. To be sure she is absurd sometimes and has her humours. But there are such things more or less in all families." The couple, while living quietly, enjoyed entertaining, with Mrs. Jordan writing in late 1809: "We shall have a full and merry house this Christmas, 'tis what the dear Duke delights in." The King was accepting of his son's relationship with the actress (though recommending that he halve her allowance); in 1797, he created William the Ranger of Bushy Park, which included a large residence, Bushy House, for William's growing family. William used Bushy as his principal residence until he became king. His London residence, Clarence House, was constructed to the designs of John Nash between 1825 and 1827.
William and Jordan had ten illegitimate children—five sons and five daughters—nine of whom were named after William's siblings; each was given the surname "FitzClarence". Their affair lasted for twenty years before ending in 1811. Mrs Jordan had no doubt about the reason for the break-up: "Money, money, my good friend, has, I am convinced made HIM at this moment the most wretched of men", adding, "With all his excellent qualities, his domestic virtues, his love for his lovely children, what must he not at this moment suffer?" She was given a financial settlement of £4,400 (equivalent to £294,100 in 2023) per year and custody of her daughters on condition that she did not resume the stage. When she resumed acting in an effort to repay debts incurred by the husband of one of her daughters from a previous relationship, William took custody of the daughters and stopped paying the £1,500 (equivalent to £98,800 in 2023) designated for their maintenance. After Mrs Jordan's acting career began to fail, she fled to France to escape her creditors and died, impoverished, near Paris in 1816.
Deeply in debt, William attempted to marry wealthy heiresses Catherine Tylney-Long and Sophia Wykeham, but his suits were unsuccessful. Following the death of William's niece Princess Charlotte of Wales, then second-in-line to the British throne, in 1817, George III was left with twelve children but no legitimate grandchildren. The race was on among his sons, the royal dukes, to marry and produce an heir. William had great advantages in this race—his two older brothers were both childless and estranged from their wives, who were both beyond childbearing age anyway, and William was the healthiest of the three. If he lived long enough, he would almost certainly ascend the British and Hanoverian thrones and have the opportunity to sire the next monarch. William's initial choices of potential wives either met with the disapproval of his eldest brother, the Prince of Wales, or turned him down. His younger brother Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, was sent to Germany to scout out the available Protestant princesses; he came up with Princess Augusta of Hesse-Kassel, but her father, Frederick, declined the match. Two months later Adolphus married Augusta himself. Eventually, however, a princess was found who was amiable, home-loving and willing to accept (even enthusiastically welcome) William's nine surviving children, several of whom had not yet reached adulthood. In the Drawing Room at Kew Palace on 11 July 1818, William married Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen.
William's marriage, which lasted almost twenty years until his death, was a happy one. Adelaide took both William and his finances in hand. For their first year of marriage the couple lived in economical fashion in Germany. William's debts were soon on the way to being paid, especially since Parliament had voted him an increased allowance, which he reluctantly accepted after his requests to have it increased further were refused. William is not known to have had mistresses after his marriage. The couple had two short-lived daughters and Adelaide suffered two miscarriages. Despite this, false rumours that she was pregnant persisted into William's reign—he dismissed them as "damned stuff".
== Lord High Admiral ==
William's eldest brother, the Prince of Wales, had been Prince Regent since 1811 because of the mental illness of their father. In 1820, George III died and the Prince Regent became George IV. William was now second in the line of succession, preceded only by his brother Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany. Reformed since his marriage, William walked for hours, ate relatively frugally, and the only drink he imbibed in quantity was barley water flavoured with lemon. Both of his older brothers were unhealthy, and it was considered only a matter of time before he became king. When Frederick died in 1827, William, then more than 60 years old, became heir presumptive. Later that year, the incoming prime minister, George Canning, appointed him to the office of Lord High Admiral, which had been in commission (that is, exercised by a board rather than by a single individual) since 1709. While in office, William had repeated conflicts with his Council, which was composed of Admiralty officers. Things finally came to a head in 1828 when, as Lord High Admiral, he put to sea with a squadron of ships, leaving no word of where they were going, and remained away for ten days. The King requested his resignation through the prime minister, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington; he complied.
Despite the difficulties William experienced, he did considerable good as Lord High Admiral. He abolished the cat o' nine tails for most offences other than mutiny, attempted to improve the standard of naval gunnery, and required regular reports of the condition and preparedness of each ship. He commissioned the first steam warship and advocated the construction of more. Holding the office permitted him to make mistakes and learn from them—a process that might have been far more costly if he had not learnt before becoming king that he should act only with the advice of his councillors.
William spent much of his remaining time during his brother's reign in the House of Lords. He supported the Catholic Emancipation Bill against the opposition of his younger brother Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, describing the latter's position on the Bill as "infamous", to Ernest's outrage. George IV's health was increasingly bad; it was obvious by early 1830 that he was near death. The King took his leave of William at the end of May, stating, "God's will be done. I have injured no man. It will all rest on you then." William's genuine affection for his older brother could not mask his rising anticipation that he would soon be king.
== Reign ==
=== Early reign ===
When George IV died on 26 June 1830 without surviving legitimate issue, William succeeded him as William IV. Aged 64, he was the oldest person at that point to assume the British throne, a distinction he would hold until surpassed by Charles III in 2022.
Unlike his extravagant brother, William was unassuming, discouraging pomp and ceremony. In contrast to George IV, who tended to spend most of his time in Windsor Castle, William was known, especially early in his reign, to walk, unaccompanied, through London or Brighton. Until the Reform Crisis eroded his standing he was very popular among the people, who saw him as more approachable and down-to-earth than his brother.
The King immediately proved himself a conscientious worker. The prime minister, the Duke of Wellington, stated that he had done more business with King William in ten minutes than he had with George IV in as many days. Lord Brougham described him as an excellent man of business, asking enough questions to help him understand the matter—whereas George IV feared to ask questions lest he display his ignorance and George III would ask too many and then not wait for a response.
The King did his best to endear himself to the people. Charlotte Williams-Wynn wrote shortly after his accession: "Hitherto the King has been indefatigable in his efforts to make himself popular, and do good natured and amiable things in every possible instance." Emily Eden noted: "He is an immense improvement on the last unforgiving animal, who died growling sulkily in his den at Windsor. This man at least wishes to make everybody happy, and everything he has done has been benevolent."
William dismissed his brother's French chefs and German band, replacing them with English ones to public approval. He gave much of George IV's art collection to the National Gallery and halved the royal stud. George had begun an extensive (and expensive) renovation of Buckingham Palace; William refused to reside there and twice tried to give the palace away, once to the Army as a barracks and once to Parliament after the Houses of Parliament burned down in 1834. His informality could be startling: when in residence at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, he used to send to the hotels for a list of their guests and invite anyone he knew to dinner, urging guests not to "bother about clothes. The Queen does nothing but embroider flowers after dinner."
Upon taking the throne, William did not forget his nine surviving illegitimate children, creating his eldest son, George, Earl of Munster and granting the other children the precedence of a daughter or a younger son of a marquess. Despite this his children importuned for greater opportunities, disgusting elements of the press who reported that the "impudence and rapacity of the FitzJordans is unexampled". The relationship between William and his sons "was punctuated by a series of savage and, for the King at least, painful quarrels" over money and honours. His daughters, on the other hand, proved an ornament to his court, as "They are all, you know, pretty and lively, and make society in a way that real princesses could not."
=== Reform crisis ===
At the time, the death of the monarch caused fresh Parliamentary elections and, in the general election of 1830, Wellington's Tories lost ground to the Whigs under Lord Grey, though the Tories still had the largest number of seats. With the Tories bitterly divided, Wellington was defeated in the House of Commons in November, and Lord Grey formed a government. Grey pledged to reform the electoral system, which had seen few changes since the fifteenth century. The inequities in the system were great; for example, large towns such as Manchester and Birmingham elected no members (though they were part of county constituencies), while small boroughs, known as rotten or pocket boroughs—such as Old Sarum with just seven voters—elected two members of Parliament each. Often, the rotten boroughs were controlled by great aristocrats, whose nominees were invariably elected by the constituents—who were, most often, their tenants—especially since the secret ballot was not yet used in Parliamentary elections. Landowners who controlled seats were even able to sell them to prospective candidates.
When the First Reform Bill was defeated in the House of Commons in 1831, Grey's ministry urged William to dissolve Parliament, which would lead to a new general election. At first, William hesitated to exercise his prerogative powers to dissolve Parliament because elections had just been held the year before and the country was in a state of high excitement which might boil over into violence. He was, however, irritated by the conduct of the Opposition, which announced its intention to move the passage of an Address, or resolution, in the House of Lords, against dissolution. Regarding the Opposition's motion as an attack on his prerogative, and at the urgent request of Lord Grey and his ministers, the King prepared to go in person to the House of Lords and prorogue Parliament. The monarch's arrival would stop all debate and prevent passage of the Address. When initially told that his horses could not be ready at such short notice, William is supposed to have said, "Then I will go in a hackney cab!" Coach and horses were assembled quickly and he immediately proceeded to Parliament. Said The Times of the scene before William's arrival, "It is utterly impossible to describe the scene ... The violent tones and gestures of noble Lords ... astonished the spectators, and affected the ladies who were present with visible alarm." Lord Londonderry brandished a whip, threatening to thrash the Government supporters, and was held back by four of his colleagues. William hastily put on the crown, entered the Chamber, and dissolved Parliament. This forced new elections for the House of Commons, which yielded a great victory for the reformers. But although the Commons was clearly in favour of parliamentary reform, the Lords remained implacably opposed to it.
The crisis saw a brief interlude for the celebration of the King's coronation on 8 September 1831. At first, William wished to dispense with the coronation entirely, feeling that his wearing the crown while proroguing Parliament answered any need. He was persuaded otherwise by traditionalists. He refused, however, to celebrate the coronation in the expensive way his brother had—the 1821 coronation had cost £240,000, of which £16,000 was merely to hire the jewels. At William's instructions, the Privy Council budgeted less than £30,000 for the coronation. When traditionalist Tories threatened to boycott what they called the "Half Crown-nation", the King retorted that they should go ahead, and that he anticipated "greater convenience of room and less heat".
After the rejection of the Second Reform Bill by the House of Lords in October 1831, agitation for reform grew across the country; demonstrations grew violent in so-called "Reform Riots". In the face of popular excitement, the Grey ministry refused to accept defeat, and re-introduced the Bill, despite the continued opposition of peers in the House of Lords. Frustrated by the Lords' obdurate attitude, Grey suggested that the King create a sufficient number of new peers to ensure the passage of the Reform Bill. The King objected—though he had the power to create an unlimited number of peers, he had already created 22 new peers in his Coronation Honours. William reluctantly agreed to the creation of the number of peers sufficient "to secure the success of the bill". However, the King, citing the difficulties with a permanent expansion of the peerage, told Grey that the creations must be restricted as much as possible to the eldest sons and collateral heirs of existing peers, so that the created peerages would for the most part be absorbed as subsidiary titles. This time, the Lords did not reject the bill outright, but began preparing to change its basic character through amendments. Grey and his fellow ministers decided to resign if the King did not agree to an immediate and large creation to force the bill through in its entirety. The King refused, and accepted their resignations. The King attempted to restore the Duke of Wellington to office, but Wellington had insufficient support to form a ministry and the King's popularity sank to an all-time low. Mud was slung at his carriage and he was publicly hissed. The King agreed to reappoint Grey's ministry, and to create new peers if the House of Lords continued to pose difficulties. Concerned by the threat of the creations, most of the bill's opponents abstained and the Reform Act 1832 was passed. The mob blamed William's actions on the influence of his wife and brother, and his popularity recovered.
=== Foreign policy ===
William distrusted foreigners, particularly anyone French, which he acknowledged as a "prejudice". He also felt strongly that Britain should not interfere in the internal affairs of other states, which brought him into conflict with the interventionist foreign secretary, Lord Palmerston. William supported Belgian independence and, after unacceptable Dutch and French candidates were put forward, favoured Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the widower of his niece Charlotte, as a candidate for the newly created Belgian throne.
Though he had a reputation for tactlessness and buffoonery, William could be shrewd and diplomatic. He foresaw that the potential construction of a canal at Suez would make good relations with Egypt vital to Britain. Later in his reign, he flattered the American ambassador at a dinner by announcing that he regretted not being "born a free, independent American, so much did he respect that nation, which had given birth to George Washington, the greatest man that ever lived". By exercising his personal charm, William assisted in the repair of Anglo-American relations, which had been so deeply damaged during the reign of his father.
=== King of Hanover ===
Public perception in Germany was that Britain dictated Hanoverian policy. This was not the case. In 1832, Austrian chancellor Klemens von Metternich introduced laws that curbed fledgling liberal movements in Germany. Lord Palmerston opposed this, and sought William's influence to cause the Hanoverian government to take the same position. The Hanoverian government instead agreed with Metternich, much to Palmerston's dismay, and William declined to intervene. The conflict between William and Palmerston over Hanover was renewed the following year when Metternich called a conference of the German states, to be held in Vienna, and Palmerston wanted Hanover to decline the invitation. Instead, William's brother Prince Adolphus, Viceroy of Hanover, accepted, backed fully by William. In 1833, William signed a new constitution for Hanover, which empowered the middle class, gave limited power to the lower classes, and expanded the role of the parliament. The constitution would later be revoked by his brother and successor in Hanover, King Ernest Augustus.
=== Later reign and death ===
For the remainder of his reign, William interfered actively in politics only once, in 1834, when he became the last British sovereign to choose a prime minister contrary to the will of Parliament. In 1834, the ministry was facing increasing unpopularity and Lord Grey retired; the home secretary, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, replaced him. Melbourne retained most Cabinet members, and his ministry retained an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons. Some members of the Government, however, were anathema to the King, and increasingly left-wing policies concerned him. The previous year Grey had already pushed through legislation reforming the Protestant Church of Ireland. The Church collected tithes throughout Ireland, supported multiple bishoprics and was wealthy. However, barely an eighth of the Irish population belonged to the Church of Ireland. In some parishes, there were no Church of Ireland members at all, but there was still a priest paid for by tithes collected from the local Catholics and Presbyterians, leading to charges that idle priests were living in luxury at the expense of Irish people living at the level of subsistence. Grey's Act had reduced the number of bishoprics by half, abolished some of the sinecures and overhauled the tithe system. Further measures to appropriate the surplus revenues of the Church of Ireland were mooted by the more radical members of the Government, including Lord John Russell. The King had an especial dislike for Russell, calling him "a dangerous little Radical."
In November 1834, the leader of the House of Commons and chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Althorp, inherited a peerage, thus removing him from the Commons to the Lords. Melbourne had to appoint a new Commons leader and a new Chancellor (who by long custom, must be drawn from the Commons), but the only candidate whom Melbourne felt suitable to replace Althorp as Commons leader was Lord John Russell, whom William (and many others) found unacceptable due to his radical politics. William claimed that the ministry had been weakened beyond repair and used the removal of Lord Althorp—who had previously indicated that he would retire from politics upon becoming a peer—as the pretext for the dismissal of the entire ministry. With Lord Melbourne gone, William chose to entrust power to a Tory, Sir Robert Peel. Since Peel was then in Italy, the Duke of Wellington was provisionally appointed prime minister. When Peel returned and assumed leadership of the ministry for himself, he saw the impossibility of governing because of the Whig majority in the House of Commons. Consequently, Parliament was dissolved to force fresh elections. Although the Tories won more seats than in the previous election, they were still in the minority. Peel remained in office for a few months but resigned after a series of parliamentary defeats. Melbourne was reappointed as prime minister, remaining there for the rest of William's reign, and the King was forced to accept Russell as Commons leader.
The King had a mixed relationship with Lord Melbourne. Melbourne's government mooted more ideas to introduce greater democracy, such as the devolution of powers to the Legislative Council of Lower Canada, which greatly alarmed the King, who feared it would eventually lead to the loss of the colony. At first, the King bitterly opposed these proposals. William exclaimed to Lord Gosford, Governor General-designate of Canada: "Mind what you are about in Canada ... mind me, my Lord, the Cabinet is not my Cabinet; they had better take care or by God, I will have them impeached." When William's son Augustus enquired of his father whether the King would be entertaining during Ascot week, William gloomily replied, "I cannot give any dinners without inviting the ministers, and I would rather see the devil than any one of them in my house." Nevertheless, William approved the Cabinet's recommendations for reform. Despite his disagreements with Melbourne, the King wrote warmly to congratulate the prime minister when he triumphed in the adultery case brought against him concerning Caroline Norton—he had refused to permit Melbourne to resign when the case was first brought. The King and Lord Melbourne eventually found a modus vivendi, with Melbourne applying tact and firmness when called for and William realising that his prime minister was far less radical in his politics than the King had feared.
Both the King and Queen were fond of their niece, Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent. Their attempts to forge a close relationship with the girl were frustrated by the conflict between the King and Victoria's widowed mother, the Duchess of Kent and Strathearn. The King, angered at what he took to be disrespect from the Duchess to his wife, took the opportunity at what proved to be his final birthday banquet in August 1836 to settle the score. Speaking to those assembled at the banquet, who included the Duchess and Princess Victoria, William expressed his hope that he would survive until Victoria was 18 so that the Duchess would never be regent. He said, "I trust to God that my life may be spared for nine months longer ... I should then have the satisfaction of leaving the exercise of the Royal authority to the personal authority of that young lady, heiress presumptive to the Crown, and not in the hands of a person now near me, who is surrounded by evil advisers and is herself incompetent to act with propriety in the situation in which she would be placed." The speech was so shocking that Victoria burst into tears, while her mother sat in silence and was only with difficulty persuaded not to leave immediately after dinner (the two left the next day). William's outburst undoubtedly contributed to Victoria's tempered view of him as "a good old man, though eccentric and singular". William survived, though mortally ill, to the month after Victoria's coming of age. "Poor old man!", Victoria wrote as he was dying, "I feel sorry for him; he was always personally kind to me."
William was "very much shaken and affected" by the death of his eldest daughter, Sophia, Lady de L'Isle and Dudley, in childbirth in April 1837. William and his eldest son, the Earl of Munster, were estranged at the time, but William hoped that a letter of condolence from Munster signalled a reconciliation. His hopes were not fulfilled and Munster, still thinking he had not been given sufficient money or patronage, remained bitter to the end.
Queen Adelaide attended the dying William devotedly, not going to bed herself for more than ten days. William died at 2:12 am on 20 June 1837 at Windsor Castle. He was buried in the Royal Vault at St George's Chapel on 8 July.
== Legacy ==
As William had no living legitimate issue, the British throne passed to his niece Victoria, the only legitimate child of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, George III's fourth son. Under Salic Law, a woman could not rule Hanover and so the Hanoverian throne went to George III's fifth son, Ernest Augustus. William's death thus ended the personal union of Britain and Hanover, which had persisted since 1714. The main beneficiaries of his will were his eight surviving children by Mrs Jordan. Although William is not the direct ancestor of the later monarchs of the United Kingdom, he has many notable descendants through his illegitimate children with Mrs Jordan, including British prime minister David Cameron, TV presenter Adam Hart-Davis, and author and statesman Duff Cooper.
William IV had a short but eventful reign. In Britain, the Reform Crisis marked the ascendancy of the House of Commons and the corresponding decline of the House of Lords, and the King's unsuccessful attempt to remove the Melbourne ministry indicated a reduction in the political influence of the Crown and of the King's influence over the electorate. During the reign of George III, the king could have dismissed one ministry, appointed another, dissolved Parliament, and expected the electorate to vote in favour of the new administration. Such was the result of a dissolution in 1784, after the dismissal of the Fox-North Coalition, and in 1807, after the dismissal of Lord Grenville. But when William dismissed the Melbourne ministry, the Tories under Peel failed to win the ensuing elections. The monarch's ability to influence the opinion of the electorate, and therefore national policy, had been reduced. None of William's successors has attempted to remove a government or to appoint another against the wishes of Parliament. William understood that as a constitutional monarch he had no power to act against the opinion of Parliament. He said, "I have my view of things, and I tell them to my ministers. If they do not adopt them, I cannot help it. I have done my duty."
During William's reign, the British Parliament enacted major reforms, including the Factory Act 1833 (preventing child labour), the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (emancipating slaves in the colonies), and the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 (standardising provision for the destitute). William attracted criticism both from reformers, who felt that reform did not go far enough, and from reactionaries, who felt that reform went too far. A modern interpretation sees him as failing to satisfy either political extreme by trying to find a compromise between two bitterly opposed factions, but in the process proving himself more capable as a constitutional monarch than many had supposed.
== Honours and arms ==
British and Hanoverian honours
5 April 1770: Knight of the Thistle (KT)
19 April 1782: Knight of the Garter (KG)
23 June 1789: Member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom (PC)
2 January 1815: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB)
12 August 1815: Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order
26 April 1827: Royal Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)
Foreign honours
Kingdom of Prussia: 11 April 1814: Knight of the Black Eagle
Kingdom of France: 24 April 1814: Knight of the Holy Spirit
Russian Empire:
9 June 1814: Knight of St. Andrew
9 June 1814: Knight of St. Alexander Nevsky
Denmark: 15 July 1830: Knight of the Elephant
Baden:
1831: Knight of the House Order of Fidelity
1831: Knight Grand Cross of the Zähringer Lion
Spain: 21 February 1834: Knight of the Golden Fleece
Württemberg: Knight Grand Cross of the Württemberg Crown
=== Arms ===
Before becoming king, William, as a son of the sovereign, was granted the use of the royal arms (without the electoral inescutcheon in the Hanoverian quarter) in 1781, differenced by a label of three points argent, the centre point bearing a cross gules, the outer points each bearing an anchor azure. In 1801 his arms altered with the royal arms, however the marks of difference remained the same.
As king, William used the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom undifferenced: Quarterly, I and IV Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England); II Or a lion rampant within a tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland); III Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland); overall an escutcheon tierced per pale and per chevron (for Hanover), I Gules two lions passant guardant Or (for Brunswick), II Or a semy of hearts Gules a lion rampant Azure (for Lüneburg), III Gules a horse courant Argent (for Westphalia), overall an inescutcheon Gules charged with the crown of Charlemagne Or, the whole escutcheon surmounted by a crown.
== Issue ==
== Ancestry == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_NBA_Finals | 1981 NBA Finals | The 1981 NBA World Championship Series was the championship round of the National Basketball Association (NBA)'s 1980–81 season, and the culmination of the season's playoffs. It pitted the 62–20 Eastern Conference champion Boston Celtics against the 40–42 Western Conference champion Houston Rockets. The Celtics defeated the Rockets in six games for their fourteenth NBA championship.
This series has the distinction of featuring for the third time in NBA history, and last to date, a team with a losing record in the Finals. They were the first team since the Minneapolis Lakers in 1959 to reach the championship round despite having more regular season losses than wins. This, along with 1986 (which was also played by the Celtics and the Rockets), was one of the only two NBA Finals of the 1980s not to feature the Lakers.
== Background ==
=== Houston Rockets ===
Prior to the season, the NBA moved the Rockets and San Antonio Spurs from the Central Division of the Eastern Conference to the Midwest Division of the Western Conference. The Rockets and Spurs traded places with the Chicago Bulls and Milwaukee Bucks. The Midwest Division also took in the expansion Dallas Mavericks.
The Rockets that season were led by Moses Malone, who practically carried the Rockets to the NBA Finals. Meanwhile, Calvin Murphy, the shortest player in the league at the time, set two NBA records, sinking 78 consecutive free throws to break Rick Barry's mark of 60 set in 1976 and achieving a free-throw percentage of .958, breaking Rick Barry's record set with the Rockets in 1979. Other key contributors of the 1980–81 team were Rudy Tomjanovich, Robert Reid, Mike Dunleavy Sr., Allen Leavell, Billy Paultz, Bill Willoughby, Calvin Garrett, Tom Henderson, and Major Jones. The Rockets clinched the last spot in the playoffs on the final night of the regular season following a loss by the Golden State Warriors to Seattle, as Golden State had the tiebreaker over Houston. Houston tied with Kansas City for second place in the Midwest behind San Antonio with a regular season record of 40–42 (this would be only the second time that an NBA team with a losing record would make the Finals, after 1959).
Houston's playoff run began by drawing the defending NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers and Magic Johnson in the first round. The Rockets upset Los Angeles, two games to one, with the Rockets winning both games in Los Angeles. The Western Conference semifinals matchup featured the Rockets against the Spurs and multi-year scoring champion George Gervin in a Texas Shootout. The Rockets would win the series in seven games behind strong contributions from Murphy and Reid, including Murphy's career playoff high of 42 points in the climactic Game 7 at San Antonio. This set up an unlikely Conference finals matchup with Kansas City, being that both teams finished the regular season with identical losing records, together compiling just 80 total victories of 164 games played. The Kings, led by Otis Birdsong, Scott Wedman, and Phil Ford fell to the Rockets in five games, and the Rockets would break into the NBA Finals for the first time, the first of four in franchise history. It would be the only time two conference finalists in the playoffs both had losing records, and the second and last time to date a team with a losing record made it all the way to the Finals round (the first being the 1959 Minneapolis Lakers).
=== Boston Celtics ===
This was the Celtics' first appearance in The Finals since their 1976 championship winning team against the Phoenix Suns. The Celtics were not quite the same team as five years before, as they added the likes of Larry Bird, Robert Parish, and Kevin McHale, a trio that would come to be known as "The Big Three." M. L. Carr, Cedric Maxwell, and Nate Archibald were also capable players off the bench, and key cogs in Boston's balanced offensive attack. However, the Celtics lost future Hall of Famers Dave Cowens and JoJo White to retirement. Still, the Celtics, led by Bird, won 62 games and managed to squeak past Philadelphia for the league's best record due to tiebreakers.
The Celtics's playoff run started with a first-round bye, straight into the conference semifinals. Despite the layoff, the Celtics easily swept the Artis Gilmore-led Chicago Bulls, and then faced the defending Eastern Conference champion Philadelphia 76ers for the right to advance to The Finals. After a hard-fought and physical series, the Celtics eventually came back from a three-games-to-one deficit to defeat the Sixers, repeating a feat they accomplished in 1968. Five of the games in the series ended with the winning team on top by two points or less, including a 91-90 nail-biter in Game 7.
Both teams had met in the playoffs the year earlier, when the Rockets were in their final season in the Eastern Conference. The 1980 Eastern Conference semifinal matchup had a slightly different Celtics team, with Hall of Fame center Dave Cowens still playing for the team, as well not featuring perennial stars Kevin McHale and Robert Parish, both of whom would not arrive in Boston until the 1981 season. Rick Barry for Houston was also in the final season of his career in 1980. The Celtics blew out the Rockets in a four-game sweep, by a total of 74 points in the 1980 Eastern Conference semis.
=== Road to the Finals ===
(*)The Celtics were tied with the Philadelphia 76ers for the NBA's best record, but the Celtics earned the division title and the overall top seed based on tie-breakers.
=== Regular season series ===
The Boston Celtics won both games in the regular season series:
== Series summary ==
== Game summaries ==
=== Game 1 ===
No one figured this series to be much of a Finals. Houston, in fact, had lost its previous dozen games to the Celtics, including a 4–0 series sweep in the previous years' playoffs. But Malone, who had averaged nearly 28 points and 15 rebounds over the season, would have none of the "Boston Curse". He came into the series fired up, going so far as to call the Celtics "chumps". The Celtics, meanwhile, were coming off three close games in the Eastern Conference finals in upsetting the heavily favored Philadelphia 76ers. So, the Celtics were understandably flat.
Houston led 57–51 at the half and kept that intensity through the game. Late in the fourth period, with the Celtics trailing 87–84, Bird put up an 18-footer from the right side. As soon as he turned it loose, he immediately rushed in for the rebound. He caught the ball in midair as his momentum was carrying him out of bounds on the baseline just right of the lane. In an instant, he switched the ball to his left hand (a right-handed shot would have hit the side of the backboard) and flipped it in the basket. Bird would finish with 18 points, 21 rebounds, and nine assists. Moses Malone would grab 15 rebounds, but was held to 13 points.
The crowd went nuts over Bird's shot, with general manager Red Auerbach leading the cheers. Bill Russell, who was broadcasting the game for CBS, looked on in disbelief.
"Larry was able to make the play", said Russell, "because he not only knew where the ball was going to land, he knew that he knew."
The shot carried Boston to a 98–95 win and Auerbach proclaimed, "It was one of the best shots I've ever seen a player make."
=== Game 2 ===
Malone would come up big in this game, scoring 31 points and pulling down another 15 boards. Bill Willoughby would add 14 off the bench to make up for poor shooting by Robert Reid (0 for 7) and Calvin Murphy (4 for 13). Reserve guard Allen Leavell's late basket would give the Rockets the 92–90 victory. Bird would lead the Celtics once again with 19 points and 21 rebounds. The victory was Houston's eighth road win of the playoffs, a record that stood until the 1995 Rockets won nine playoff games en route to winning the championship.
=== Game 3 ===
With the series back in Houston, Robert Reid, matched up with Larry Bird, would begin to garner attention for his defense on the Celtics star, holding him to three baskets and eight points. But, the Celtics would not need Bird's scoring in this one. The Rockets shot a paltry 3 for 17 in the second quarter, fell behind by 17, and never recovered.
The Celtics had six players who scored in double figures, led by Cedric Maxwell with 19 points. His teammates, meanwhile, played some pretty good defense of their own, holding the Rockets to 71 points, the lowest output for an NBA team in a Finals game since the Syracuse Nationals scored 71 in the 1955 NBA Finals (which was, incidentally, the year the shot clock was introduced). The record low stood until it was embarrassingly shattered by the Utah Jazz in Game 3 of the 1998 Finals when they lost 96–54 to Chicago Bulls.
=== Game 4 ===
Reid continued his air-tight defense on Bird, holding him to another eight points, while scoring 19 himself. The star of this game was Mike Dunleavy, Sr., who had 28 points. Malone would add 24 points and 22 rebounds as the Rockets tied the series. Another key was the Rockets' relentless offensive rebounding and second-chance opportunities; they grabbed 28 offensive rebounds (Reid had 10 and Malone nine with four put-back dunks) on the way to out-shooting the Celtics in attempts, 103 to 74.
=== Game 5 ===
The Rockets had a losing regular season record at 40–42, but, up to Game 5, they showed they definitely belonged in the finals with the Celtics. So, no one could blame Moses Malone for doing some trash-talking. Earlier, he had simply declared, "Boston ain't that good." Before Game 5, though, Malone went a little too far, saying, "I could get four guys off the street in Petersburg (Virginia, Malone's hometown) and beat them." This was all coach Bill Fitch would need to motivate his troops.
With Bird still struggling offensively, Cedric Maxwell shouldered the load, scoring 28 points and pulling down 15 rebounds and sparking several fast breaks to a Celtics rout, 109–80.
The infamous on-air incident between Rick Barry and Bill Russell occurred early in the third quarter of this game.
=== Game 6 ===
Motivated from Malone's previous barbs, the Celtics took it right to the Rockets back at The Summit, leading 84–67 in the final period. However, as coach Fitch looked on in disgust, the Celtics went five minutes without a basket as the Rockets, led by Calvin Garrett, reeled off 13 unanswered points in a furious comeback and eventually cut the lead to only three, with the Houston crowd erupting louder after each basket. Larry Bird then finally broke out of his shooting doldrums to personally blunt the Rockets' rally. Bird hit a 15-foot jumper, fed series MVP Maxwell for a basket, and hit a back-breaking, 24-foot, three-point shot to put the Rockets away for good and send Boston to its 14th NBA Championship, and at last a championship ring for 11-year veteran Nate Archibald.
As of 2024, this is the most recent time the Celtics have clinched a championship on the road, with each of their next four titles being won at home.
== Player statistics ==
Boston Celtics
Houston Rockets
== Television coverage ==
The 1981 NBA Finals received the lowest television rating in history up to that point, with a 6.7 rating. (It would remain the lowest ever until the 2003 Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and New Jersey Nets drew a 6.5 rating.) Due to this, the 1981 finals were the last to be broadcast on tape-delay, with weeknight games airing after the late local news in most cities. Games 3 and 4 were played back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday, May 9 and 10, to give CBS two live Finals games; it is the last time Finals games were played on consecutive days. Game 3 was the last Finals contest played on a Saturday until Game 5 in 2021. Game 4 tipped off at noon Central (1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Pacific) in order for CBS to telecast golf following the game. Had Game 7 been played, it would have tipped off at 1 p.m. Eastern.
Following the Finals, Gary Bender became the lead play-by-play announcer for CBS' coverage of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, while Rick Barry's contract, following his questionable racial comments about Bill Russell during the Finals, was not renewed. Russell would remain the main color analyst for the next two years alongside newly promoted main play-by-play commentator Dick Stockton. Curiously, Barry and Russell would reunite, this time on the NBA on TBS for two seasons beginning in the 1984–85 season. Russell was replaced as CBS' lead analyst following the 1983 Finals by former Celtics teammate Tom Heinsohn.
Brent Musburger narrated the duration of the 1981 NBA Playoffs on film, known as "The Dynasty Renewed". The 1981 film was expanded from 30 minutes to one hour, with more highlights from rounds prior to the finals.
== Team rosters ==
=== Boston Celtics ===
=== Houston Rockets === |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_(album) | So (album) | So is the fifth studio album by the English singer-songwriter Peter Gabriel, released on 19 May 1986 by Charisma Records, Virgin Records and Geffen Records. After working on the soundtrack to the film Birdy (1984), producer Daniel Lanois was invited to remain at Gabriel's Somerset home during 1985 to work on his next solo project. Initial sessions for So consisted of Gabriel, Lanois and guitarist David Rhodes, although these grew to include a number of percussionists.
Although Gabriel continued to use the pioneering Fairlight CMI digital sampling synthesizer, songs from these sessions were less experimental than his previous material. Nevertheless, Gabriel drew on various musical influences, fusing pop, soul, and art rock with elements of traditional world music, particularly African and Brazilian styles. It is Gabriel's first non-eponymous album, So representing an "anti-title" that resulted from label pressure to "properly" market his music. Gabriel toured So on the This Way Up tour (1986–1987), with some songs performed at human rights and charity concerts during this period.
Often considered his best and most accessible album, So was an immediate commercial success and transformed Gabriel from a cult artist into a mainstream star, becoming his best-selling solo release. It has been certified fivefold platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America and triple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry. The album's lead single, "Sledgehammer", was promoted with an innovative animated music video and achieved particular success, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and subsequently winning a record of nine MTV Video Music Awards. It was followed by four further singles, "Don't Give Up" (a duet with Kate Bush), "Big Time", "In Your Eyes", and "Red Rain".
The album received positive reviews from most critics, who praised its songwriting, melodies and fusion of genres, although some retrospective reviews have criticised its overt commercialism and 1980s production sounds. So was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1987 but lost to Paul Simon's Graceland. It has appeared in lists of the best albums of the 1980s, and Rolling Stone included the album in their 2003 and 2020 editions of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2000 it was voted number 82 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. So was remastered in 2002, partially re-recorded for Gabriel's 2011 orchestral project New Blood and issued as a box set in 2012.
== Recording ==
Since 1978, Gabriel had composed his music at Ashcombe House, including his album Security (1982) and the Birdy soundtrack (1984). He had an inexpensive studio in the adjacent barn consisting of two rooms, one where Gabriel would produce his vocals and work on lyrics, and another where the music would be assembled. Preparing for So, Gabriel considered Bill Laswell and Chic's Nile Rodgers as potential producers. He eventually asked his Birdy collaborator Daniel Lanois to stay at Ashcombe and work with him further.
Work on the album began in earnest in February 1985, with "We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)" as the first song; the first six months would be spent on writing and developing song sketches. The songs were usually recorded in the studio with Gabriel, Lanois and guitarist David Rhodes playing together to a drum machine, based on an idea or chord structure Gabriel had. Lanois recalled they had "a nice starting point [as] in that kind of scenario, it's not a good idea to have a lot of people around because you get nervous that you're wasting other people's time". Consequently, there was a relaxed atmosphere surrounding these sessions and the trio would jokingly refer to themselves as the "Three Stooges". This also involved the wearing of construction site hard hats as they had a "turning up for work humour".
Once they had the songs' foundations, bass and drums were overdubbed - primarily with Tony Levin, and Manu Katché, respectively. According to Lanois, he usually liked "to capture as much of the live playing as possible in any session, but these [sessions] were really the reverse... It was like overdubbing the rhythm section on top of a demo. That was the spirit of the record." During the recording, Gabriel would occasionally invite Levin, Rhodes and Katché back to re-do their parts as the songs continued to take shape and evolve.
The studio's basic equipment consisted of an SSL console and two analog Studer A80 24-track machines - one stock and one modified with custom audio cards. To record vocals, a Neumann U47 tube microphone and a Decca compressor were used without equalization. All of So's songs were made in a similar format. Gabriel would record demo parts on a modified "B machine" - using mainly a Yamaha piano and Prophet-5 over a Linn 9000 drum beat - and play this to the band. During takes, the band would listen to the B machine through headphones and record their parts onto the "A machine"; parts of Gabriel's demo would also be transferred to the A machine at this stage. Subsequent takes of the song were then put onto the B machine in order for the band to hear what they had played with the demo, as well as the song's new and old takes.
Other equipment included the "groundbreaking" Fairlight CMI synthesizer, which Gabriel said in an interview for Billboard meant "more human imagination is involved". He added, "the creative decision-making process has become more important than technique. You have a wider range of tools, a wider range of decisions". Although remaining continually inspired to produce new music, he often struggled to write lyrics and would procrastinate. His proclivity to being dissatisfied with them required Killen to isolate certain vocal performances as the master track, in order to keep other tracks available so new lyrics could be edited in. Lanois took adverse measures to encourage his writing, such as destroying his much-used telephone in the nearby woods and, on one occasion, nailed the studio door shut to lock him inside.
Towards the end of recording, Gabriel became "obsessed" with the track listing and created an audio cassette of all the song's beginnings and ends to hear how the sounds blended together. He wanted to have "In Your Eyes" as the final track, but its prominent bassline meant it had to be placed earlier on the vinyl edition as there is more room for the stylus to vibrate. With later CD releases, this restriction was removed and the track was placed at the end of the album. So was completed in February 1986 and cost £200,000 to make. It was overdubbed at Power Station Studios in New York (as well as all horn section parts having been recorded there), despite Gabriel considering sending it via a computer-telephone set up, reasoning, "that's a lot of information to send via phone. Isn't it amazing though? You can send a song idea around the world to musicians then beam parts back by satellite". It was mastered by Ian Cooper in mid-February 1986 at London's Townhouse Studios.
== Composition ==
So has been described as Gabriel's most commercially accessible and least experimental album, one that features pop songs and incorporates art pop and progressive pop throughout. Like his previous albums, its basis is in art rock, although on So, Gabriel develops an increased focus on melody and combines this with elements of soul and African music. "With a song like (the previous album's) 'The Rhythm of the Heat' or 'The Family and the Fishing Net', if I were to strum that along on a guitar or piano, the song might not work very well ... whereas more of the things on this album do work just as lyric, melody and chords in a more traditional sense." Gabriel began with around 30 compositional ideas and 20 recorded tracks, which he later winnowed down to twelve songs that were "within finishing distance".
The songs are highly influenced by traditional world music, particularly African and Brazilian music, with Gabriel incorporating rhythms and drum beats from these regions. In a 2011 interview for Uncut, Gabriel said, "I'd had my fill of instrumental experimenting for a while, and I wanted to write proper pop songs, albeit on my own terms." Jon Pareles of The New York Times notes that Gabriel "doesn't just add on African drums or Indian violin to ordinary songs; they are part of the foundation." Chris Roberts of Classic Rock also notes that the album "[takes] the Fairlight synth and [adds] a palatable dash of world music to art pop." Daniel Lanois' production was noted as textured, replete with ambient details and "immaculate warmth giving each note room to breathe, its textures lavish (in the preferred style of the time) without being sterile".
=== Side one ===
Gabriel wanted the album to "crash open at the front". Despite disliking "metal" percussion instruments, he was persuaded by Lanois to allow the Police's Stewart Copeland to play cymbals and hi-hat on its opener, "Red Rain". Gabriel sings – in his upper register, with a throaty, gravelly texture – of a destructive world with social problems such as torture and kidnapping. Its concept originated from a dream in which he envisaged the parting of a vast, red sea and human-like glass bottles filling up with blood. It was also intended to continue the story of Mozo, a recurring character on Gabriel's first and second albums.
"Sledgehammer" was the final track to be conceived. Most of Gabriel's band had packed away their equipment and were ready to leave the studio, but he asked them to reassemble to quickly run through a song he had an idea for. "Sledgehammer" was partially inspired by the music of Otis Redding, and Gabriel sought out Wayne Jackson, whom Gabriel had seen on tour with Redding in the 1960s, to record horns for the track. Opened by a shakuhachi bamboo flute, its beat is dominated by brass instruments, particularly Jackson's horn, and features lyrics abundant with sexual euphemisms. Manu Katché's drums were recorded in one take as he believed any subsequent version would be inferior to his original interpretation of the music.
So's most political statement, "Don't Give Up", was fuelled by Gabriel's discontent with rising unemployment during Margaret Thatcher's premiership and Dorothea Lange's photograph "Migrant Mother". The track began as a Linn drum machine pattern of slow, low-pitched tom-tom drums that Gabriel made, and Lanois believed could serve as the centrepiece of a song. Tony Levin added bass to create a more harmonious sound, and during the second half of the track, put a nappy behind his bass strings to dampen the sound. Gabriel ensured the song, which follows a narrative of an unemployed man and his lover, was written as a conversational piece. He initially sought Dolly Parton to portray the woman; although Parton declined, his friend Kate Bush agreed to feature. Bush serves as the song's respondent, she assumes a comforting role and with delicate vocals, sings lines such as "Rest your head/ you worry too much".
The album's first side culminates with "That Voice Again", in which Gabriel explores the concept of conscience, examining the "parental voice in our heads that either helps or defeats us". Co-written with David Rhodes, who plays guitar over Katché and Levin's input, the song was written after Gabriel's initial discussions with Martin Scorsese about scoring The Last Temptation of Christ (1988).
=== Side two ===
"In Your Eyes" has been described as Gabriel's greatest love song. Inspired by the Sagrada Família and its architect Antoni Gaudí, Gabriel sings over a drumbeat of only feeling complete in the eyes of his lover. The track features vocal contributions from the Senegalese musician Youssou N'Dour, who sang the song in his native Wolof.
Gabriel became interested in the late American poet Anne Sexton after reading the anthology To Bedlam and Part Way Back. He dedicated So's sixth track to her, calling it "Mercy Street" after "45 Mercy Street", a poem released in another posthumous collection. "Mercy Street" is set to one of several Forró-inspired percussion compositions that Gabriel recorded in Rio de Janeiro. When these compositions were unearthed in the studio, they were accidentally played back ten per cent slower than the original recording, giving them a grainy quality that Gabriel and Lanois thought highlighted the cymbal and guitars. It features two harmonious Gabriel vocals; one a shadow vocal an octave below the main vocal. Intended to give a sensual, haunting effect, this was hard to capture except when Gabriel first woke up.
The dance song "Big Time" has funk influences and is built on a "percussive bass sound". Its lyrics satirise the yuppie culture of the 1980s, materialism and consumerism and are the result of Gabriel's self-examination, after he considered whether he may have desired fame after all.
"We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)" was originally recorded for Peter Gabriel (or Melt). The song relates to the experiment on obedience carried out by the American social psychologist Stanley Milgram, intended as a reference to the obedience citizens show to dictators during times of war. Marotta's drums on the song – said to resemble "a heartbeat heard from the womb" – were coupled with Shankar's violin and "two overdubbed guitar tracks by Rhodes".
While "We Do What We're Told" was the final song on initial LP versions of the album, the cassette and CD releases close with "This Is the Picture (Excellent Birds)". "Excellent Birds" was composed with American musician Laurie Anderson. They recorded the song and they filmed music video over a period of three days — which was relatively quick by Gabriel's standards — for inclusion on the 1984 global satellite television broadcast Good Morning, Mr. Orwell. This was interpolated into a recording called "This Is the Picture", on which Nile Rodgers plays rhythm guitar. According to Anderson, she and Gabriel "could never agree on what a bassline was. (I think I probably don’t hear so well down there.) I wanted to learn from him, but it turned into a standoff and so we each put out our own version of the song." However, Gabriel remembered it slightly differently: both of them quite liked the song such that they agreed to release it on their own albums. Anderson's version, with Gabriel on additional vocals, appeared on her 1984 album Mister Heartbreak, which is closer to the version premiered on Good Morning, Mr. Orwell. Gabriel's own version was based on the groove, while Anderson's version was "more fragmented".
== Release ==
So is Gabriel's first non-eponymous album. Gabriel has noted his dislike for titling albums, mainly because it distracts from the sleeve design. In an interview for Rolling Stone, he explained that his American label Geffen Records refused to release Peter Gabriel IV until it was retitled Security. He elaborated that for So "[he] decided to go for the anti-title ... It can be more a piece of graphic, if you like, as opposed to something with meaning and intention. And that's what I've done ever since". When the album was profiled in the Classic Albums documentary series, Gabriel quipped that its short title meant it could be enlarged and useful when marketing it. Before the album was eventually named So, it was meant to be entitled Good. The album's cover is a portrait of Gabriel photographed by Trevor Key, who was then most famous for capturing the bell artwork for Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells (1973). The sleeve was designed by Peter Saville and Brett Wickens; Saville was best known for designing several sleeves for Factory Records artists and was paid £20,000 for his work on So. According to Saville, the cover was based on the one he designed for New Order's album Low-Life the previous year, utilizing a similar method of taking Polaroid photos to produce a "groovy" portrait of the artist; Saville described the results as "contemporary, young but grown up, mature." Gabriel recalled: "The only compromise I made was to go with Peter Saville's idea for a retro-style portrait. I was told my usual obscure LP sleeves alienated women." Saville, meanwhile, stated that the cover was influenced by the impassioned tone and unusually accessible nature of the music, following a nighttime drive where he witnessed a car crash, then reluctantly started playing a test cassette of the album and was moved to tears by Gabriel's performance. The cover was partly influenced by photographer David Bailey's work.
So was released on 19 May 1986. It topped the charts of seven countries worldwide, including the United Kingdom, where it became Gabriel's second number one album. In the United States, So became one of Geffen Records' most commercially successful releases, peaking at number two and remaining on the chart for ninety-three weeks. In April 1986, "Sledgehammer" was released as the album's lead single and became Gabriel's first and only number one on the Billboard Hot 100, displacing his former band Genesis' first and only US number one "Invisible Touch". The track reached number four in the United Kingdom, where it ties with "Games Without Frontiers" as his highest-charting single, and peaked at number one in Canada. The success of "Sledgehammer" can be seen, in part, due to its hugely popular and innovative stop motion music video, designed by Aardman Animations. Gabriel would go on to say in an interview for Rolling Stone that he believed the video exposed So's songs to a wider audience, bolstering the album's success. Two high-charting singles followed, "Don't Give Up", which rose to number nine on the UK Singles Chart and a less successful seventy-nine in America, while "Big Time" peaked at number thirteen in the UK and number eight in America. "In Your Eyes" saw moderate success in America, where it reached twenty-six on the Hot 100, while "Red Rain" peaked at forty-six in the United Kingdom.
Bono contacted Gabriel to perform at A Conspiracy of Hope, a series of Live Aid-inspired concerts that intended to spread awareness of human rights issues in light of Amnesty International's twenty-fifth anniversary. Gabriel accepted and in June 1986, he performed alongside Sting, the Police, Lou Reed, and Joan Baez, with a set that opened with "Red Rain" and featured "Sledgehammer". Gabriel described it as "the best tour [he'd] ever been on". In the same month, Gabriel performed at London's Clapham Common, along with Boy George and Elvis Costello, for Artists Against Apartheid. Gabriel eventually embarked on the ninety-three date This Way Up tour to support So, beginning in Rochester, New York on 7 November 1986. One of the dates was a special two-night residency (20–21 December) at Tokyo's Meiji Jingu Stadium to fund a global computer system for the University for Peace, a United Nations project. The tour suspended in early 1987 until June when it reached Europe, before going on to America and finishing at the Lycabettus Amphitheatre in Athens in October. Gabriel partially performed So at The Prince's Trust Concert and at Human Rights Now! Tour in 1988.
== Critical reception ==
So received mostly favourable reviews from music critics. Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote "only a handful of Western rock musicians have managed to use exotic rhythms and instruments with so much ingenuity and conviction". Pareles also praised his vocals, describing them as "grainy but not bluesy, ageless and joyless, the voice of some ancient mariner recounting disasters". Tim Holmes of Rolling Stone described the album as "a record of considerable emotional complexity and musical sophistication" and felt that the mainstream pop music scene would be encouraged to innovate by the album.
Terry Atkinson of Los Angeles Times viewed the album as offering "an amazing variety of tones, moods and topics, and a consistently powerful level of expression". Although disliking "Big Time", Atkinson concluded So was "a great album, possibly Gabriel's best". Steve Hochman, also of Los Angeles Times, praised Gabriel's reinvention too, describing it as "real progress" compared to the contemporaneous work of other progressive rock acts such as Genesis, GTR and Marillion. Chicago Tribune's Lynn Van Matre praised the album's "wave of funky rhythms" and called for more appreciation of Gabriel's talent, but noted a lack of "quirkiness" and said there were no tracks as impactful as his 1980 single "Biko". Robert Christgau was also lukewarm in The Village Voice, writing that "Gabriel's so smart he knows rhythm is what makes music go, which relieves him of humdrum melodic responsibilities but doesn't get him up on the one—smart guys do go for texture in a pinch."
So has continued to perform well in most retrospective reviews. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic commended So as the "catchiest, happiest record he ever cut". Erlewine particularly praised Gabriel's fusion of art rock with African music and soul. Jude Rogers of the BBC wrote, "once you look past the bombast of 'Sledgehammer', ... you notice how easily its artful ideas slipped inside the 80s mainstream". The Quietus' Wyndham Wallace praised So's sincerity and called it "a heartfelt journey through intense emotional territory, assembled and arranged with intricacy and commitment, laboured over with such care that it sounds effortless".
Ryan Bray, writer for Consequence of Sound, concluded So was an "all-too-rare record that manages to have it both ways, earning its richly deserved critical and commercial respect without giving so much as an artistic inch". He added that "it still stands on its own two feet as one of the consensus best records of the 80s". Mark Blake of Q described the album as "carbon-dated to 1986 thanks to those blaring saxes and Fairlight CMI digital sampling synths". He added that "Gabriel crafted an album of user-friendly pop that was still reassuringly odd." Terry Staunton of Classic Rock wrote "Red Rain was familiarly pensive and politically charged, but the radio waves completely surrendered to the record's muscular dance rock and slower tempo eloquence." Staunton concluded that Gabriel had displayed "a masterful confidence, delivering a satisfyingly unified whole".
In a less positive retrospective review, Mojo's David Buckley contrasted the album with Gabriel's earlier, more experimental work, stating "on 1986's So, he switched tack to write pop, and write big. The results are mixed. 'Sledgehammer', echoing both Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition' and David Bowie's 'Fame', retains its punch. Elsewhere, Gabriel sounds airbrushed on 'Mercy Street', 'Red Rain' and 'In Your Eyes', with only 'We Do What We're Told' a reminder of a daring past." In a mostly positive 8/10 review for Uncut, John Lewis also directed criticism at the album. He praised its state-of-the-art production in parts, highlighting "Big Time" and "Sledgehammer" as standout tracks, but stated elsewhere it interfered in places, such as the Fairlight CMI synthesizer on "That Voice Again" and whistling ambient accompaniment on "Mercy Street".
== Legacy ==
At the 29th Annual Grammy Awards, So was nominated for Album of the Year, losing to Paul Simon's Graceland (1986), while "Sledgehammer" received nominations for Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. At the sixth Brit Awards, hosted by Jonathan King at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London, Gabriel won Best British Male Artist and "Sledgehammer" won Best British Music Video. Gabriel was most successful at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards where he was honoured with the Video Vanguard Award and "Sledgehammer" won an additional nine awards including Video of the Year, a record that has not been challenged. Its video is the most played music video in the history of MTV.
So is often regarded as Gabriel's best album, as well as one of the best albums of the 1980s. It enabled Gabriel to transform from a cult artist, acclaimed for his cerebral, experimental solo work, into a mainstream, internationally known star. Rolling Stone placed So at 187 (2003 edition) and 297 (2020 edition) on its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and at 14 on its 100 Best Albums of the 1980s, noting that "despite its mass appeal, however, So also presented compelling challenges." Stereogum placed it at number one on its list of Gabriel's best albums, writing, "Peter Gabriel's fifth studio album is a mesmerizing dichotomy: simultaneously hooky and experimental; timeless, yet completely crystallizing its moment in history ... It's a masterpiece.
So has been profiled in the Classic Albums series and featured in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Slant Magazine listed the album at 41 on its list of the 100 Best Albums of the 1980s, describing it as "Gabriel's most accessible yet ambitious work. A chronicle of political, emotional, and artistic exploration, the album [attempts] to balance standard pop orthodoxy with his still-rumbling desire for sonic experimentation". Jim Allen wrote for Ultimate Classic Rock, "What makes So important is the way he seamlessly blended peerless pop savvy with an iconoclast’s adventurous artistic instincts. His slightly twisted pop songs packed enough emotional impact, sonic surprises and catchy melodies to make for one of the era’s most consistently rewarding records." Conversely, in 2002 The Guardian's lead critic Alexis Petridis stated that Gabriel had "suffered a musical mid-life crisis", lampooning it as "an album packed with ultra-commercial priapic cod-funk" and calling it "a ruthless bid for mainstream success, yet he emerged without a stain on his avant-garde credentials".
So is Gabriel's best-selling album, having been certified fivefold platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and triple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).[1] In 2002, So was re-issued and remastered. In 2011, several of tracks from So were featured on Gabriel's ninth studio release New Blood, a project of orchestral re-recordings from Gabriel's discography. In 2012, for the album's twenty-fifth anniversary, a limited-edition box set was released. It includes the remastered So album, the Live at Athens (1987) album and a So DNA album which examines its production, as well as new liner notes, photographs, vinyl collectibles and the So: Classic Albums documentary. In the same year, Gabriel embarked on the Back to Front Tour, where Gabriel plays every song on the So album with several of the session musicians from its recording.
Michael Glabicki of the American band Rusted Root acknowledges this album as a key influence on his own career exploring worldbeat music, saying, "I just kind of got locked into that sound. Peter Gabriel's So kind of gave everyone the go-ahead that this could work in a popular fashion. For people like me who were exploring those sounds, the wonder of if it's going to work or not just went away at that point." English musician Steven Wilson said, "People think the 80s were a shallow, superficial era", but he cited So as an album that was "really smart".
== Track listing ==
All songs written by Peter Gabriel, except "That Voice Again" written with David Rhodes and "This Is the Picture (Excellent Birds)" written with Laurie Anderson.
Notes:
"This Is the Picture (Excellent Birds)" did not appear on vinyl pressings until 2002.
"In Your Eyes" appears as side 2, track 5 (track 9 on CD) on all pressings from 2002 and later.
== Personnel ==
Credits adapted from So's liner notes. The track numbers correspond to the original release.
Peter Gabriel – lead and backing vocals, CMI (all tracks), Prophet synthesizer (all except tracks 5 & 9), piano (all except tracks 7 & 9), Linn 9000 (tracks 3 & 7), synthesizer (tracks 5 & 7), percussion (track 4), Yamaha CS-80 (track 6), LinnDrum (track 9), Synclavier (track 9)
Tony Levin – bass guitar (tracks 1–5), drumstick bass (fretting only) (track 7)
David Rhodes – guitar (all except tracks 6 & 9), backing vocals (tracks 1 & 5)
Jerry Marotta – drums (tracks 1 & 8), additional drums (track 5), bass guitar (drumming only) (track 7)
Manu Katché – drums (tracks 2–5), percussion (tracks 3–5), talking drum (tracks 5 & 9)
Chris Hughes – electronic drums, programming (track 1)
Stewart Copeland – hi-hat (track 1), drums (track 7)
Daniel Lanois – guitar (tracks 1, 2 & 4), tambourine (track 2), surf guitar (track 7), twelve-string guitar (track 9)
Wayne Jackson – trumpet (tracks 2 & 7), cornet (track 7)
Mark Rivera – tenor saxophone (tracks 2 & 7), processed saxophone (track 6), alto saxophone, baritone saxophone (track 7)
Don Mikkelsen – trombone (tracks 2 & 7)
P. P. Arnold – backing vocals (tracks 2 & 7)
Coral Gordon – backing vocals (tracks 2 & 7)
Dee Lewis – backing vocals (tracks 2 & 7)
Richard Tee – piano (tracks 3, 5 & 6)
Simon Clark – keyboards, backing vocals (track 3), Hammond organ, programming, bass guitar (track 7)
Kate Bush – vocals (track 3)
L. Shankar – violin (tracks 4 & 8)
Larry Klein – bass guitar (tracks 5 & 6)
Youssou N'Dour – backing vocals (track 5)
Michael Been – backing vocals (track 5)
Jim Kerr – backing vocals (track 5)
Ronnie Bright – bass vocals (track 5)
Djalma Corrêa – surdo, congas, triangle (track 6)
Jimmy Bralower – programming kick (track 7)
Bill Laswell – bass guitar (track 9)
Nile Rodgers – guitar (track 9)
Laurie Anderson – synthesizer and vocals (track 9)
Greg Fulginiti – mastering
== Charts ==
== Certifications == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Download_Festival | Download Festival | Download Festival is an open-air rock and metal festival held each June since 2003 at Donington Park in Leicestershire, England. It is the United Kingdom's largest rock festival, with more than 100 bands playing on several stages and 75,000–80,000 attendees in recent years. The site covers around 900 acres (360 ha) and includes a large 'village' area with stalls, bars and entertainment. It surrounds Donington racetrack and is beside East Midlands Airport. Between 2016 and 2022 it was held in multiple locations as well as Donington: this included Paris (France), Madrid (Spain), Hockenheimring (Germany), Sydney and Melbourne (Australia).
Download was created by Andy Copping as a successor to Monsters of Rock, which had been held at Donington until 1996. Download has hosted some of the biggest rock and metal bands. It is similar to the nearby Bloodstock Festival, but Download is much larger and has a broader range of genres as well as more mainstream acts.
== History ==
The Download Festival was conceived as a follow-up to the Monsters of Rock festivals which had been held at the Donington Park circuit between 1980 and 1996. The first Download Festival was created by Stuart Galbraith and co-booked by Andy Copping in 2003 in the same location. Download was initially a two-day event, expanding to three days in 2005.
The name Download was chosen for the festival for two reasons. Downloading was a dirty word in the music industry at the time, due to file sharing, and rock is seen as a rebellious genre of music. Download festivals were meant to be Monsters of Rock festivals for the 21st century, also having the internet provide connectivity with its audience.
The 2003 festival tickets included a code that allowed festival-goers to download tracks from bands that had performed. Although this feature was discontinued in later years, the festival organizers have cultivated an online community through the Download Festival Forums. Originally a platform for fans and critics to share their views, the forums have become an integral part of the festival, with regular contributions from festival director John Probyn and promoter Andy Copping. They also facilitate face-to-face feedback through Fan Forum meetings (started in 2006) and organize events such as the Boardie BBQ (from 2006), the Boardie Takeover night (2009), football tournaments, and a pub quiz for R.I.P. campers who arrive on Wednesday night.
When Download began, it took place on the Donington Park circuit infield as had Monsters of Rock. However, in 2008 developments for Formula One meant that the infield was no longer suitable as a festival site. The festival moved to the "Sunday Markets" site to the west of the circuit. Although adequate, numbers were limited and the location of the campsite meant that getting from tents to the arena was quite a hike. 2009 saw the arena move to a much more suitable location to the south of the circuit and has remained there every year since. In 2019 the capacity was 111,000.
Security for the festival has constantly been undertaken by professional crowd management specialists Specialized Security, although the campsite area has had various contractors throughout.
From 2009 to 2019 and returning in 2021, there has been on-site radio broadcasting from Rock Radio on 87.7FM. This RSL broadcast has aired music from festival bands, interviews and news to the festival site and the surrounding area, with the signal reaching as far as Nottingham.
=== The Download Dog ===
The Download Dog is the official mascot of the Download Festival and appears on a wide range of material related to the festival, such as tickets, stage banners, merchandise, marketing, and the official Download website.
== Overview by year ==
== 2003 ==
The first Download was held on 31 May – 1 June 2003. The original headliners were Iron Maiden and Limp Bizkit, although the latter pulled out and were replaced by Audioslave. Metallica attempted to step in as headliners, but were unable to do so, owing to headlining that year's Reading and Leeds Festivals. Instead, having performed an exclusive club show in London the night before, they played an unannounced "secret slot" in the afternoon on the second stage, with no soundcheck. "Sunday belonged to Metallica," wrote Mick Middles in Classic Rock. "At 3.15 the band were fired into the heart of the festival. Before me, a nonplussed, earplugged infant was held aloft. Somehow it seemed historical. Debuting selections from St. Anger, Metallica swept into a 90-minute frenzy so irresistible that even the Hells Angels were seen clapping in wholehearted appreciation at the end. The coup was complete."
Chevelle were scheduled to play the Scuzz stage on Sunday but pulled out at the last minute. Instruction, playing their second set of the festival, stepped in as the replacements.
== 2004 ==
=== Donington ===
The 2004 edition of the festival was held on 5–6 June. Another stage was added to the festival, bringing the total to three. Seventy-two bands played over the two days. The 2004 event was also notable for several last minute hitches. First, SOiL got lost on the way to Donington and missed their main stage appearance on Saturday (they later joined Drowning Pool on stage to perform Drowning Pool's "Bodies" and their own song "Halo"). Static-X missed their slot due to a bus breakdown. On Sunday, Slayer arrived on time, but their equipment did not, leading to a slot change from the middle of the afternoon on the main stage to a later slot (and longer set) on the second stage. Slayer were replaced on the main stage by Damageplan, who were scheduled to play the second stage. Their setlist ended with a rendition of Damageplan founders Vinnie Paul and Dimebag Darrell's most recognisable song from Pantera, "Walk."
The biggest news came from the headliners Metallica, when Lars Ulrich was rushed to hospital. Taking to the stage an hour and a half late, James Hetfield explained the situation with Ulrich and the show then began with Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo playing on "Battery" and "The Four Horsemen." Slipknot's Joey Jordison played the rest of the set apart from Fade to Black which was played by Metallica's drum technician, Flemming Larsen.
The full line-up included:
=== Scotland ===
In June 2004 a two-day Download Festival was held on Glasgow Green, several days before the Donington event. This had a limited line up with only nine bands performing over a two-day period. The bands which did play included the headliners, Metallica and Linkin Park. Download Scotland also saw an appearance from the Welsh rock band Lostprophets who did not perform at Donington.
Acts which also appeared over the two days at Download Scotland were Korn, Slipknot, Iggy and the Stooges, Machine Head, the Distillers and HIM.
The running order went as follows:
== 2005 ==
Download 2005 was held again at Donington Park, on 10–12 June 2005. This festival was different from previous years as the Saturday was officially dubbed Ozzfest 2005, as well as an "Indie day" on the first day of the festival.
Billy Idol performed on the Snickers stage on the Friday night, his first UK gig after a lengthy hiatus, performing songs such as White Wedding, Rebel Yell and a cover version of Van Halen's anthem, Jump.
Feeder's frontman Grant Nicholas was so relieved the band had won the crowd over (there were concerns that they would be received badly by the traditional attendees to the festival), he decided to smash his green Fender Jazzmaster guitar after "Descend" was performed. He later said that he regretted it, but also said he kept the neck and the tremeloes, and might use what was left to make a new guitar. In a July 2010 interview with Kerrang!, it was suggested to Nicholas that he destroyed the guitar as he was frustrated at trying to win the crowd over, as their music was different from the Download demographic, but claimed himself in reply to this that he "Wanted to do the most rock and roll thing after eventually winning over the crowd". In the same interview, Nicholas said that they were "guinea pigs" at the festival as part of the organisers experiment to make it an alternative festival, but said it was a moment of the band's career he is still proud of.
Lemmy also took to the stage, with former MC5 members, and Gilby Clarke, to perform Back in the USA.
Initially, Bert McCracken of the Used and Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance were asked to perform their cover of Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie, but the former friends refused the offer to perform the cover as they had recently fallen out.
The official line-up included:
== 2006 ==
The 2006 Download Festival was held at Donington Park, England on 9–11 June. The headlining acts (Tool, Metallica and Guns N' Roses) have sales of approximately 200–250 million albums between them, more than the entire line up of 2006's V Festival.
2006 was the first time the festival was mirrored in the Republic of Ireland, as Download Festival Ireland.
2006 was also by far the warmest year Download has ever had.
During the festival Korn vocalist Jonathan Davis was rushed to hospital. Similar to 2004's Metallica set, Munky, Fieldy and David Silveria arrived and explained to the fans why Davis could not make it and played with guest vocalists Corey Taylor from Slipknot, Dez Fafara from DevilDriver, Jesse Hasek from 10 Years, Benji Webbe from Skindred, M. Shadows from Avenged Sevenfold, and Matt Heafy from Trivium. Lyrics from the song "Blind" were displayed on the screen for Matt Heafy. Metallica played the album Master of Puppets in its entirety in honour of its twentieth anniversary. Guns N' Roses also performed material from the long forthcoming Chinese Democracy album.
Main Stage
The main stage was situated in the centre of the arena with crowd control moving around it, and was the largest of all three stages, the safety barriers used at this stage were in a T shape so as to avoid crowd crush in the middle. The stage was open-air and named in honour of the 25th anniversary of Kerrang! magazine. Down played an unannounced set on Saturday (With the laminates showing ??? in their time slot); opening up the Main Stage.
Snickers Stage
The Snickers Stage was situated in a tent, behind the main stage and was the second largest stage at the festival. Access to the stage was via a one-way system which attempted to spread people around the site, rather than all attempting to push through a rather small space.
Soilwork were scheduled to play on Sunday, but were replaced by DevilDriver (playing their second set of the festival).
Gibson/Myspace Stage
The Myspace stage was the smallest of the three and under a smaller tent. It was positioned across from the front of the main stage.
=== Controversy ===
During the Sunday headline set of Guns N' Roses, bottles were thrown at the band. This caused problems after the band's lead singer, Axl Rose, slipped on the wet surface and a bottle hit bassist Tommy Stinson. Stinson threw his bass, hitting one of the cameramen, and left the stage. He returned after the song and apologised, but warned the crowd that if this activity continued, he would leave for good. There were some disturbances but they eventually died down, and later in the set Rose commented "I'm actually having quite a good time now! I couldn't have said that an hour ago!"
On the final night, fires were started by some festival goers and police were called, arresting twelve people. At around 4 am, the fire brigade arrived to put out a large fire at the gold campsite. A number of people had taken the railings that had been used to separate the campsite area from the path and used them to barricade the road to prevent the fire engines from reaching the main fire. At this point a number of police assembled in riot gear stormed the campsite. The festival director, John Probyn, posted a message on the official website stating that "About 150 people spoiled the end of what had been a great weekend for over 75,000 of us."
== 2007 ==
The 2007 Download Festival took place on 8–10 June 2007.
The three bands that headlined the 2007 festival were My Chemical Romance, Linkin Park and Iron Maiden. Korn's Jonathan Davis stated that the reason for the band returning in 2007 was because of his absence due to illness the previous year. He stated on the official Download Festival website, "I am so looking forward to coming to the Download Festival this year. I was heartbroken to pull out last time. So this time I am very happy to be coming back and we promise to rock the place! I will definitely make-up for missing the last one. You can expect an amazing Korn show!"
Download 2007 was Dimmu Borgir's first ever festival appearance in England. Hardcore Superstar pulled out of their slot on the Tuborg stage on the Sunday because their tour bus broke down in Germany. Download 2007 featured an Indian band Parikrama. They became the first band from India to make it to Donington.
Download 2007 also featured the first band to officially perform on the Thursday of the festival. Scumface played on the Tuborg Stage during the boardie barbecue.
Lamb of God's DVD Walk With Me in Hell features the band's full performance at the festival.
== 2008 ==
The 2008 festival took place on 13–15 June. It had a significantly different layout to previous years: the arena area was situated in land to the west of the race track instead of the traditional race track infield area. Among numerous changes, the second stage became larger and moved from a marquee to open-air, on a tarmac car park.
"I am looking forward to humiliating those little boys in little bands who think they count," declared Gene Simmons of Kiss. "We're going to blow their shit to pieces... If U2 or Radiohead are on the bill at Download, then I accept these are good bands. But they will still run for cover when Kiss take the stage, for they are in the presence of a transcendent rock force."
Chris Cornell was scheduled, but cancelled his European tour to focus on a new album. Twin Method, and Finger Eleven were announced but removed from the official website's lineup. On the Friday of the festival, Kid Rock was meant to appear between Seether and Disturbed on the Main Stage but pulled out at the last minute. At first it was announced that this was due to illness. Rock later claimed he left the festival grounds after becoming dissatisfied with the amenities. But, the following year, Download's booker theorised that it had been due to a broken heart. Rock's no-show allowed two bands following him, Disturbed and Judas Priest, to play longer sets.
The 2008 Boardie BBQ took place on the Gibson stage on Thursday 12 June and included a performance by Forever Never.
== 2009 ==
The 2009 Download Festival took place on 12–14 June at Donington Park with an estimated attendance of 120,000 over 3 days. The arena had once again changed location, this time to an open field area south of the race track which was more suitable and a shorter walking distance from the camping areas than last year.
The headliners were Faith No More (Friday), Slipknot (Saturday) and Def Leppard (Sunday). Sunday had a strong classic rock themed line-up on the main stage with bands such as Whitesnake, ZZ Top and Journey, somewhat reminiscent of Monsters of Rock. This would become a recurring feature in future years. Other notable performers included Limp Bizkit, who were playing in the UK with their original line-up for the first time since 2001, Trivium returning for their third appearance and first head lining spot, Anvil, the band featured in the 2008 film Anvil! The Story of Anvil, and Steel Panther, who were making their first appearance in the UK on the Tuborg Stage. A fourth stage, the "Red Bull Bedroom Jam Stage", also made an appearance at this year's festival. This stage was also present at other UK festivals, such as T in the Park in Balado, Scotland, and the Underage Festival in Victoria Park, London.
The 2009 Boardie BBQ took place in the Red Bull Bedroom Jam Stage on Thursday 11 June. This year the band was Attica Rage.
The Thursday night of the 2009 festival also saw the Boardie Takeover night. Four bands, three DJ's: Cyst, Dave KC and Gabber Fox, solo singers Hevs and TonsO'Fun, a stand-up and a burlesque dancer – all members of the Download Festival Forums – performed to a full house in the End Tent. These bands were Scumface (returning after a successful appearance at the Boardie BBQ in 2007), Orestea, Echovirus and headliners, Silent Descent.
On Monday 18 May the festival confirmed on its official website that Camping tickets had completely sold out.
On 19 May, it was revealed in an interview with Andy Copping on Music Channel Scuzz that there would be secret sets. It was later revealed the bands would be Enter Shikari and Thunder.
On Wednesday 3 June, one week before the campsite opened, Download released a further 2,500 camping tickets. These limited tickets sold out within 24 hours of being released.
The winners of the "Red Bull Bedroom Jam Competition" was Gravesend-based band After the Ordeal. This set was a 'virtual gig', with the band playing live from their bedroom and this footage being streamed live onto the Main Stage at Download Festival, between Pendulum and Marilyn Manson.
The winners of the "Tuborg Battle of the bands" was Leeds punk band Acid Drop and they opened the Tuborg stage on Saturday 13 June.
The Ghost of a Thousand were scheduled to headline the Red Bull Bedroom Jam Stage on Saturday but the band cancelled. the Blackout stepped in to play their slot, thus giving them two slots on the festival's bill.
Slipknot's performance is available in their new DVD (sic)nesses. It was released on 28 September 2010 and served as a tribute to their late bassist Paul Gray. It was Gray's last UK gig with Slipknot before his death in May 2010.
== 2010 ==
The Download Festival was confirmed to return to Donington on the weekend 11–13 June 2010, the campsites opening on 9 June. On 25 January, nine bands were announced at the official Download website, including AC/DC as one of the main stage headliners. On 15 February Rage Against the Machine and Aerosmith were confirmed as the other two main stage headliners, as well as 5 more bands confirmed a few hours later.
Saxon performed their 'Wheels of Steel' album in its entirety to commemorate its 30th anniversary. Download 2010 was also the 30th anniversary of rock festivals at Donington Park, since the first one – which Saxon performed at – in 1980.
It was announced on 16 May that the second stage would be renamed "The Ronnie James Dio Stage" in tribute to the singer who died of stomach cancer on the same day. It was also announced that the main stage would be called the Maurice Jones Stage after the co-founder of Monsters of Rock who also died the previous year.
28 May saw 15 more bands added, and an official announcement of the Jägermeister-sponsored fifth stage, which would host acoustic acts, including bands also performing regular sets at the festival. The initially announced Sum 41 cancelled, owing to drummer Steve Jocz being involved in an accident. On 30 May 2010 it was announced that Wolfmother had to cancel due to illness. They were replaced by Killswitch Engage.
Aside from Dio, the year was sadly memorable for other deaths. Y&T performed the Pepsi Max Stage to a jam-packed audience, marking the band's long-anticipated return to Donington after performing at Monsters of Rock in 1984. Download would be bassist Phil Kennemore's last UK show in the UK: he died from lung cancer six months later. Killing For Company drummer Stuart Cable, previously of Stereophonics, died the week of the festival, at which the band were to play.
Ratt were scheduled to play on Sunday, but cancelled due to illness of vocalist Stephen Pearcy. On 9 June, FM were announced as Ratt's replacement.
The Boardie Takeover ran for the second year in a row on Thursday 10 June. It featured the bands Silent Descent, Fallen Fate, Jacknife Holiday and Cyster Scalpel, as well as singers, DJs and a burlesque dancer.
AC/DC played on an exclusive stage next to the Maurice Jones stage, allowing the band to utilise their full stadium show, as announced on 28 May. This marked the first time a headlining band brought their own stage to Donington. All headlining bands on the other stages had finished before AC/DC began. The stage was used only by AC/DC; the next day, the runway at the front was dismantled and the stage remained empty. "I took my son to see AC/DC..." recalled Saxon's Biff Byford. "Watching Angus from out in the crowd was great, and it was a rite of passage for my son."
The final day saw torrential rain. "By the time Aerosmith take the stage," noted Classic Rock, "we're essentially one amorphous mud blob of an organism blinking through the mire towards the bright lights. They, on the other hand, have Steven Tyler, a man whose dress sense... makes Lady Gaga look like a vicar's wife."
== 2011 ==
The Download Festival was confirmed to return to Donington on the 10, 11, and 12 June 2011. Linkin Park and System of a Down were the two main stage headliners officially announced, with Saturday subheadliners Avenged Sevenfold and Sunday second stage headliner Rob Zombie announced a short while later.
On 22 February, Def Leppard were announced as Friday's main stage headliner, with Twisted Sister, Down, Duff McKagan's Loaded and Trash Talk also added to the line-up.
15 March saw the Darkness unveiled as the widely speculated Friday subheadliner, with Funeral for a Friend, Plain White T's, Framing Hanley and Hyro Da Hero also added. In April, the Red Bull Bedroom Jam stage and Jägermeister Acoustic stage's acts were revealed.
Wayne Static was scheduled to open up the main stage on the Sunday, but he pulled out a month prior. Masters of Reality were scheduled to perform but pulled out on 30 March and Karma to Burn were to play the second stage on Sunday but were replaced by Hyro Da Hero, thus giving him three sets over the course of the festival; the most in Download history.
Steward 0836 was manning the main stage at the festival, when he caught the attention of fans waiting for Sunday's bands to appear. Some friendly interaction led to cheers from the audience, then one of the giant stage-screens showed him making the "devil horns" gesture, which was applauded by tens of thousands of rock fans. The official Download Festival website even featured him as an artist on their site.
== 2012 ==
On 12 July 2011 it was confirmed via Twitter, and the Download official website that the festival would be staged in 2012 between 8–10 June. Limited early-bird tickets were put on sale on 15 July. It was announced on 10 November via BBC Radio 1 that Metallica would headline the main stage on the Saturday and also that they would be playing their self titled album in its entirety. The next day Black Sabbath were announced to headline the main stage on Sunday 10 June, closing the festival. On 18 November, the Prodigy was announced as the headliner for Friday 8 June.
On 12 April 2012, Download Festival announced on their website, official Facebook page and official Twitter page that the main stage will be named after Jim Marshall who died a week earlier.
Due to the wet and windy conditions on the site, there was a delay in opening the arena on the Friday, resulting in the cancellation/postponement of certain performers.
American heavy metal band Machine Head reportedly broke the festival record for the most circle pits happening during one song, with a reported 29 pits happening at once.
Comedian Bob Slayer, who is a regular on the comedy stage at Download, broke his neck doing a wheelie bin crowd surf stunt whilst entertaining at the festival.
The line-up won an award in the 2012 UK Festival Awards, and festival director John Probyn won a "Lifetime achievement award".
Five Finger Death Punch were scheduled to perform on Sunday on the Main Stage between DevilDriver and Kyuss Lives! but on 5 April they pulled out due to logistical difficulties. Anthrax, who were initially set to play on the Zippo Encore Stage, were brought up to the main stage (later dubbed the Jim Marshall stage) due to Five Finger Death Punch's cancellation.
T. Mills was scheduled to perform on Saturday on the Red Bull stage but pulled out in May and also Porter Robinson, who was also set to play on the same stage on the Friday pulled out due to the recording of a new album. He was replaced by Voodoo Six.
=== Problems ===
Due to the wet and windy weather, Download did not open its Arena gates on Friday 8 June until 14:00 whilst laying down straw in the Arena and removing potentially dangerous signs and banners which could prove hazardous in high winds, meaning some of the bands were shifted around. Cancer Bats were moved from second opening band on the Jim Marshall Stage to a headline slot on the Red Bull Bedroom Jam Stage, with Rise to Remain and Six Hour Sundown missing out on a slot entirely. Fear Factory were also given an additional 10 minutes of performance time due Cancer Bats being relocated to a different stage and Rise to Remain being cancelled. Europe were scheduled to play the Zippo Encore stage on Friday before Little Angels, but it was announced at the last minute that they will not be able to perform due to traffic and transportation issues. Much criticism was aimed at the organisers for not preparing better as the poor weather occurred before the festival goers arrived. Also the conditions in the camping and arena meant that many fans who required disabled access were left stuck in the mud requiring help from their fellow fans to reach their destination, or even the toilets, often with little to no help from organisers.
== 2013 ==
The eleventh annual Download festival was confirmed for 14–16 June 2013. Early bird tickets went on sale 15 June 2012, where a newly implemented deposit scheme was introduced; which allowed customers to pay for their ticket(s) over three payments rather than one. Iron Maiden were announced as the Saturday headliner on 20 September 2012 to commemorate 25 Years since first appearing and headlining Monsters of Rock in 1988 on Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour . Rammstein let slip on the same day that they will be headlining Download on the Sunday, which was confirmed by the festival organisers the following morning. Seven days later it was confirmed via Andy Copping (festival promoter) that Slipknot would be the Friday headliner. From 5 November, bands started to be announced sporadically via Facebook, Scuzz TV, BBC Radio 1, Kerrang! Magazine and the personal Twitter account of Andy Copping.
Goldsboro were due to be playing at the festival, but on 19 February they confirmed they would not be able to perform. After the Burial were scheduled to perform on the Red Bull Studios stage, but pulled out on 17 May in order to focus on their new album.
On 28 May, Skin and Red, White & Blues cancelled their appearances at the festival. Both acts were to perform twice over the weekend, on the Zippo Encore and Jägermeister Acoustic stages. On 3 June, Andy Copping confirmed that Buckcherry would be pulling out of the festival and that they would be replaced by Black Star Riders.
== 2014 ==
The twelfth annual festival was held 13–15 June 2014. Earlybird tickets went on sale 21 June 2013. Between 4–6 November, all three main stage headliners were confirmed, along with all the sub-headliners. Linkin Park performed their debut album, Hybrid Theory album in its entirety.
Reactions to Avenged Sevenfold being announced as headliners were very mixed. After a Facebook user suggested that Dying Fetus headline the festival instead, a social media trend titled #WhyNotDyingFetus was started as a joke. However, this actually led to the band being booked to play, although not in a headline slot, and they were officially confirmed on 6 November.
To commemorate its 20th anniversary, the Offspring performed their third studio album, Smash, in its entirety. Also, their appearance marked the first time in Download history that a previous main stage headliner returned to play a lower slot (though Limp Bizkit, who were originally scheduled to headline the festival in 2003 would return in 2009 to play a lower slot).
Andy Copping confirmed via Twitter that there would be a Secret Set on the Pepsi Max Stage on the Sunday, performing in the time slot in between Crazy Town and Memphis May Fire. This transpired to be Black Stone Cherry.
On 23 May, the Main stage was renamed the Stephen Sutton stage after Stephen Sutton who died on 14 May.
The Boardie Takeover returned on Thursday 12 June and featured four bands and 2 DJs. The bands playing the Takeover are: Last Edition, Scumface, Dumbjaw & Incinery.
Joe Bonamassa was originally booked to play on the Zippo Encore Stage Saturday before Status Quo but he was moved to the Sunday Main Stage due to a double booking. Trivium were initially confirmed to be headlining the Red Bull Studios Live stage on the Sunday, but following a generally negative response from fans due to the size and limited capacity of the tent, the band was moved to Zippo Encore Stage headliner.
In Flames were scheduled to sub-headline the Zippo Encore stage on Sunday, but they were quietly removed from the line-up poster on 26 February. It was later revealed that they had cancelled all of their Summer shows to finish recording their new album. On 22 March the latest announcement was leaked by Classic Rock Magazine. Shortly after the leak, Defeater, who were scheduled to play on the Pepsi Max Stage Sunday, were confirmed to have pulled out due to their lead singer, Derek Archambault, suffering an injury and having to undergo hip replacement surgery. Danger Danger were originally confirmed, but pulled out on 7 April, claiming that bookings had been erroneously made for various dates. September Mourning were confirmed for the Pepsi Max Stage on the Friday but were removed from the lineup on 2 May (as they wished to focus on getting their sophomore album completed), they were replaced by I Am Fire. Cage the Gods also pulled out on 2 May. King 810 pulled out the day before they were due to play because their lead vocalist and bassist were arrested. Upon a Burning Body were scheduled to appear on the Pepsi Max stage on Saturday, but were forced to pull out because singer Danny Leal was taken seriously ill with an inner ear infection that meant doctors would not clear him to fly to the UK.
The unknown band 'Iceman Thesis' were subtly added to the lineup poster in the buildup to the event. They were scheduled to perform for five minutes on both the Pepsi Max and Red Bull Studios Live Stage on the Saturday at the same time. The band performed both sets as scheduled with all ten (two bands of five) member's identities hidden using balaclavas. They performed one song known as 'Return to Harmony' before leaving the stages.
== 2015 ==
The 2015 edition of the festival took place on 12–14 June. The top three acts on the main stage and the second stage headliner for each day were announced over 18, 19 and 20 November. Bad weather on Friday night and Saturday left the Arena, Village and campsites extremely muddy. Many tents were abandoned over night due to flooding and leaks.
On 22 March 2015, the Download Dog made an appearance at a Progress Wrestling show in London. The Dog invited the entire roster to do a show at Download 2015 but excluded the current Progress Champion Jimmy Havoc. Havoc attacked the Dog at the show. It was confirmed that Progress would do a show at Download after previously in 2014 doing three shows at the Sonisphere Festival.
Following on from the Offspring's second stage appearance in 2014, Faith No More's subheadlining position marks the second time a previous main stage headliner have returned to play in a lower slot. Mötley Crüe's performance was their last ever UK festival appearance.
Several bands who pulled out of the 2014's festival returned to play in 2015, these bands include In Flames, Defeater, Upon a Burning Body & September Mourning.
The Sword were due to play on the Maverick Stage on Friday, but were removed from the line-up poster in March, later being confirmed to have pulled out. King 810 were due to play the Maverick Stage on Sunday, but pulled out on 15 May due to undisclosed reasons, just as they had done before in 2014. On 22 May, Ghost Town, who were confirmed to play on Jake's stage on Saturday, pulled out due to undisclosed reasons; they were replaced by Dub War. Antemasque were due to play on the Zippo Encore Stage on Friday, but pulled out in May, the Cadillac Three were moved up from Jake's Stage to replace them.
After many weeks of discussion surrounding the identities of two secret bands playing over the weekend, Young Guns and the Darkness were confirmed on 8 June. Babymetal also joined DragonForce on stage to perform their song "Gimme Chocolate!!".
The Jägermeister Acoustic Stage will no longer be present at the festival, due to Jägermeister pulling out as a sponsor, however, bands will still perform acoustic sets, on the brand new Dog's Bed Stage. Hands Like Houses were scheduled to perform there on Friday, but the show was cancelled.
Returning for its 7th year, the Boardie Takeover took place on the Thursday night in the Doghouse Tent located within the festivals Village area. This year's bands were selected by the Takeover team, Hevs and Phil
=== Police surveillance ===
At the 2015 festival, the police and the festival organizers engaged in massive technological surveillance of those who attended the festival. RFID wristband and facial recognition technology were used, installed by the Leicestershire Police without notifying the public prior to the event, and compared visual scans of the festival attendees against a European criminal database. RFID wristbands were the only way to make purchases or travel across the festival grounds' zones. Information about purchases were stored and sold to other marketers. Muse frontman Matt Bellamy commented on the surveillance during the band's performance of "Uprising", in which he said "Fuck Leicestershire police for scanning your faces!"
== 2016 ==
=== Donington ===
The 14th annual Download Festival was held on 10–12 June 2016. All three headliners were confirmed between 19–21 October 2015 and it was confirmed that Bruce Dickinson was due to fly his Ed Force One 747-400 Jumbo Jet across Download to get to the festival. However, this didn't happen, and in fact Ed Force One flew into East Midlands airport from the opposite direction. Motörhead were due to play the Main Stage on the Friday of the festival; however, due to the death of lead singer Lemmy Kilmister on 28 December 2015, the band would no longer be playing, as confirmed by drummer Mikkey Dee. On 7 February 2016, 36 more bands were added to the bill, as well as the announcement that the Main Stage would be renamed "The Lemmy Stage" in memory of Kilmister, instead of having a band replace Motörhead, it was confirmed that there would be a tribute to Lemmy, which was confirmed at the fan forum to be a 20-minute video.
Heavy rain caused the venue to flood, with some campsites suffering worse than others. The Met Office later confirmed that it could have been the wettest in the festival's history. By Saturday, The Village area was mainly mud with a bit of straw laid down near the entrance to the Blue Campsite. This led to great difficulty trying to get to the main arena, as one had to walk through thick mud most of the way. Architects was scheduled to play on the Encore stage on 11 June but had dropped all of their European festival tours due to a family emergency and were replaced by Against the Current.
Both Moses and Ghost were also forced to pull out of their scheduled sets on Friday and Sunday respectively due to illness on both counts.
The Maverick stage on Friday was closed out by a screening of Gutterdämmerung, coupled with a live score; described as a "rock ‘n’ roll / film / gig concept from the mind of Belgian-Swedish visual artist Bjorn Tagemose".
As confirmed by The Mirror, NXT also appeared at this years event, although where Progress Wrestling was after the bands in the campsite, WWE NXT was in the main arena, with a special stage constructed. During the event, the companies' COO and founder of NXT Triple H was awarded by Dave Mustaine the Spirit of Lemmy Award due to their friendship and working relationship.
=== France ===
In addition to the annual UK edition of Download Festival, it was also announced that in 2016 there would also be a Download held at the Longchamp Racecourse (French: Hippodrome de Longchamp) in Paris on the same weekend as the UK Festival. The lineup will be similar to the UK Festival, but not identical. Iron Maiden were announced as the Friday headliner on 19 October 2015, part of their The Book Of Souls Tour. Rammstein were announced as Sunday headliners on 21 October 2015.
== 2017 ==
The 15th annual event took place on 9–11 June 2017. From 3 November 2016, band announcements began, including the headline acts in System of a Down, Biffy Clyro and Aerosmith.
=== Donington ===
=== France ===
Returning for its second year, Download Festival France takes place just south of Paris the same weekend as the Donington event. So far five bands have been announced including headliners System Of A Down, Linkin Park, and Green Day the lineup reads as follows:
=== Spain ===
Download Festival Madrid is a brand new member of the rock and metal festival family, taking place in the Spanish capital. After hosting a Parisian edition of the festival for the first time last year, the iconic festival spreads its reach even further in 2017, establishing a new outpost in Madrid.
== 2018 ==
The 2018 event has been confirmed for the weekend of 8, 9 & 10 June 2018. On 6 November Ozzy Osbourne was announced as the first headliner, with Avenged Sevenfold and Guns N' Roses being announced on 8 and 10 November.
=== Donington ===
=== Australia ===
It has been confirmed that Live Nation, Unified and Secret Sounds will take the UK-founded rock festival to Melbourne's Flemington Racecourse on Saturday 24 March 2018. This will be a one-day event and the line-up is to be announced on Thursday 9 November. There were talks for the "Black Stage" to be headlined by Linkin Park, but the deal was never finalized due to the death of Chester Bennington.
=== France ===
Returning for its third year, Download Festival France takes place in Brétigny-sur-Orge just south of Paris the weekend after the Donington event (15th, 16, 17 & 18 June). Headliners were Ozzy Osbourne, Marilyn Manson, Guns N' Roses & Foo Fighters. Originally, Black Veil Brides was supposed to play on 15 June but pulled out the festival to join the Vans Warped Tour back in America.
=== Spain ===
Returning for its second year, Download Festival Spain takes place just south of Madrid three weekends after the Donington event (28, 29 & 30 June).
== 2019 ==
=== Donington ===
The 2019 event took place during 14–16 June. The first 20 bands, including all three main stage headliners, were announced at 2 pm on 23 October 2018. More bands were announced on 27 January 2019. In terms of genres, 44 artists represented rock (out of 117), while 41 bands played metal music.
Now three-time headliner Def Leppard played their seminal album Hysteria in full as part of their set.
Some people left the festival before any of the bands had even started playing due to heavy rain turning the site into a "mud-bath". Several festival goers injured themselves due to falling over because of the conditions.
=== Australia ===
The 2019 event was held in Sydney on 9 March and in Melbourne on 11 March.
Ozzy Osbourne was announced as the headliner of the festival, but cancelled due to his illness, pneumonia.
=== Japan ===
The Live Nation and Creativeman Productions took place at the UK-founded rock festival to Makuhari Messe, located in Chiba, on Thursday, 21 March 2019. This was a one-day event.
Ozzy Osbourne was announced as the headliner of the festival, but cancelled due to his illness, pneumonia.
=== Spain ===
== 2020 (cancelled) ==
The 2020 Download events were due to be held in the UK, Australia and Japan. They were all cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A return of the Paris edition was also planned but was cancelled in September 2019 due to construction work on the festival site by French transportation company SNCF.
The 2020 event at Donington was scheduled to take place during 12–14 June. The initial lineup was announced on 23 September 2019, with Kiss, Iron Maiden and System of a Down to headline. On 26 March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, it was announced that the 2020 event had been cancelled.
The 2020 festival was replaced by Download TV, a 3 day virtual festival showing old performances, unseen interviews, new performances and more. The online festival started on the same day the festival was due to take place.
The 2020 event in Australia was scheduled to take place in Melbourne on 20 March and in Sydney on 21 March. However, due to headliners My Chemical Romance withdrawing from the festival due to fears regarding the pandemic, and the organisers unable to secure a replacement headline act in such a short time, Download Australia 2020 was cancelled. The other headliners were to be Deftones and Jimmy Eat World.
The 2020 event in Japan was scheduled to take place in Chiba City on 29 March, headlined by My Chemical Romance.
== 2021 (Download Pilot) ==
For 2021, only a UK Download event was scheduled to take place from 4 to 6 June. The dates for the 2021 Download event in the UK were announced on 3 June 2020. The announcement revealed that two headliners, KISS and System of a Down, as well as many other acts, would be returning to the festival after its cancellation in 2020. As was the case with the previous year, the 2021 event was cancelled on 1 March 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom.
The 2021 event was replaced with another virtual event similar to 2020. It was announced on 14 May 2021 that there would be two special programmes on Sky Arts on 5 and 6 June featuring the best headliners from the past 10 years of Download.
As part of the second phase of the UK Government's Event Research Programme, a pilot testing event of Download Festival 2021 was announced on 26 May 2021 called Download Festival Pilot. The event was held from 18 to 20 June with an all-British lineup headlined by Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes, Enter Shikari and Bullet For My Valentine. The main stage on the Sunday experienced a few sound issues, notable during Loathe's set which saw them lose their sound during the final song of their set, and The Wildhearts who ended their set early and left the stage.
== 2022 ==
The 2022 UK Download event took place from 10 to 12 June.
=== Donington ===
The dates for the 2022 Download event in the UK were announced on 1 March 2021, with Kiss, Iron Maiden and Biffy Clyro set to headline. Wednesday 13 pulled out a few weeks before due to bicep surgery.
On Saturday 11 June, East Midlands Airport was forced to close its runway for a short time due to drones being in the vicinity, which were reported by Leicestershire Police and the Festival as being flown by guests at the festival.
=== Germany ===
=== Japan ===
== 2023 ==
The 2023 event took place from Thursday 8 June to Sunday 11 June. As a celebration for the twentieth anniversary of the festival, a four night event was announced.
On 7 November, over 60 artists were announced to perform at the festival; including headliners Bring Me the Horizon, Slipknot and two unique sets from Metallica. Five Finger Death Punch were originally scheduled to headline the Opus Stage on the Thursday but had do withdraw due to an illness of lead vocalist Ivan Moody. On 26 May, Skindred were announced as a replacement.
Greg Puciato was scheduled to perform on the Saturday but on Friday 9 June he announced his decision to pull out due to "multiple inner circle emergencies". nothing,nowhere., also scheduled to perform on the Saturday, also pulled out of the festival line-up for undisclosed reasons.
On 14 June 2023, Derbyshire Live reported on the experience of disabled festival goers who highlighted overflowing toilets, camping on gravel, staff unaware of basic information and "appalling" transport for disabled people.
== 2024 ==
Billed as Download XXI, the twenty first iteration of the Donington-based festival took place between 14 and 16 June 2024. It returned to the three-day festival format that began in 2005.
The first wave of acts, including headliners Queens of the Stone Age, Fall Out Boy and Avenged Sevenfold were announced on 7 November.
Scowl, Pest Control, Zulu, Speed and Ithaca were booked to perform but pulled out because of the festivals partnership with Barclays, and their ties to Israel. The bank later suspended their sponsorship of Download and other UK festivals, following pressure from fans of Download and other artists who had been booked to play at the festival.
Bad Omens were set to headline the Opus stage on the Friday, but pulled out due to mental health concerns, they were replaced by Funeral for a Friend
== 2025 ==
Download Festival returned to Donington Park on 13–15 June 2025. Band announcements began on 12 November 2024, with over 90 acts confirmed to appear, including main stage headliners Green Day, Sleep Token and Korn. The festival received backlash led by artists NOAHFINNCE, Pinkshift, and Witch Fever after the festival stated that it would be acting in accordance with UK governmental guidance prohibiting trans women from using women's facilities. In response, the festival said it would make the majority of its bathrooms gender neutral, but that segregated women's facilities would still be there.
Cattle Decapitation were scheduled to play on the Sunday, but pulled out in June 2025.
== 2026 ==
Download is set to return to Donington Park on 12–14 June 2026, including headliners Limp Bizkit, Guns N' Roses and Linkin Park. Other bands announced are:
Imminence were originally scheduled to perform, but pulled out on 23 February 2026 due to "scheduling conflicts". |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Liepmann | Hugo Liepmann | Hugo Karl Liepmann (April 9, 1863 – May 6, 1925) was a German neurologist and psychiatrist born in Berlin, into a Jewish family.
Initially, he studied both chemistry and philosophy at the Universities of Freiburg and Leipzig, obtaining his doctorate in 1885. His interests later turned to medicine, and after completion of studies, worked as an assistant to Carl Wernicke in the psychiatric clinic at Breslau. In 1906 he became head physician at Dalldorf (Berlin-Wittenau), followed by an assignment as director of the Städtische Irrenanstalt zu Lichtenberg (Herzberge) in 1914.
Liepmann is remembered for his pioneer work involving cerebral localization of function. From anatomical studies, he postulated that planned or commanded actions were controlled in the parietal lobe of the brain's dominant hemisphere, and not in the frontal lobe. He conducted extensive research of a disorder he called apraxia, a term that he introduced in 1900. Apraxia is described as the inability to coordinate voluntary muscular movements that is symptomatic of some central nervous system disorders and injuries and not due to muscle weakness. Liepmann believed that damage in the parietal lobe prevented activation of learned sequences of actions that are necessary to produce desired results on command. As a result of his studies, he divided apraxia into three types:
ideational: object blindness, where the patient is incapable of making appropriate use of familiar objects upon command.
ideomotor: the inability to follow verbal commands or mimic an action, such as saluting or waving goodbye.
kinetic: clumsiness in performing a precision act that is not due to paralysis, muscle weakness, or sensory loss.
== Published works ==
Das Krankheitsbild der Apraxie ("motorischen Asymbolie") : auf Grund eines Falles von einseitiger Apraxie, 1900 – The pathology of apraxia ("motor asymbolia") pursuant to a case of unilateral apraxia.
Über Ideenflucht. Begriffsbestimmung und psychologische Analyse, 1904 – On flight of ideas : Definition and psychological analysis.
Ueber Störungen des Handelns bei Gehirnkranken, 1905 – On disorders of action involving brain health.
Drei Aufsätze aus dem Apraxiegebiet : neu Durchgesehen und mit Zusätzen versehen, 1908 – Three essays on the apraxia region.
"Translations from Liepmann's essays on apraxia", 1980. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Llorona#Literature | La Llorona#Literature | La Llorona (Latin American Spanish: [la ʝoˈɾona]; 'the Crying Woman, the Weeping Woman, the Wailer') is a vengeful ghost in Hispanic American folklore who is said to roam near bodies of water mourning her children whom she drowned in a jealous rage after discovering her husband was unfaithful to her. Whoever hears her crying is said to either suffer misfortune, death, or become extremely unsuccessful in life.
== Origins ==
Known for being Malintzin in her original nomenclature, today, the lore of La Llorona is well known in Mexico and the southwestern United States.
The earliest documentation of La Llorona is traced back to 1550 in Mexico City. But there are theories about her story being connected to specific Aztec mythological creation stories. "The Hungry Woman" includes a wailing woman constantly crying for food, which has been compared to La Llorona's signature nocturnal wailing for her children. The motherly nature of La Llorona's tragedy has been compared to Cihuacoatl, an Aztec goddess deity of motherhood. Her seeking of children to keep for herself is significantly compared to Coatlicue, known as "Our Lady Mother" or Tonantzin (who is also comparable to the Virgen de Guadalupe, another significant mother figure in Mexican culture), also a monster that devours filth or sin.
The legend of La Llorona is traditionally told throughout Mexico, Central America and northern South America.
La Llorona is sometimes conflated with La Malinche, the Nahua woman who served as Hernán Cortés's interpreter and also bore his son. La Malinche is considered both the mother of the modern Mexican people and a symbol of national treachery for her role in aiding the Spanish.
Stories of weeping female phantoms are common in the folklore of both Iberian and Amerindian cultures. Scholars have pointed out similarities between La Llorona and the Cihuacōātl of Aztec mythology, as well as Eve and Lilith of Hebrew mythology. Author Ben Radford's investigation into the legend of La Llorona, published in Mysterious New Mexico, found common elements of the story in the German folktale "Die Weiße Frau" dating from 1486. La Llorona also bears a resemblance to the ancient Greek tale of the demigoddess Lamia, in which Hera, Zeus's wife, learned of his affair with Lamia and killed all the children Lamia had with Zeus. Out of jealousy over the loss of her own children, Lamia kills other women's children.
The Florentine Codex is an important text about the Spanish invasion of Mexico in 1519, a quote from which is, "The sixth omen was that many times a woman would be heard going along weeping and shouting. She cried out loudly at night, saying, 'Oh my children, we are about to go forever.' Sometimes she said, 'Oh my children, where am I to take you?'"
While the roots of the La Llorona legend appear to be pre-Hispanic, the earliest published reference to the legend is a 19th-century sonnet by Mexican poet Manuel Carpio. The poem makes no reference to infanticide, rather La Llorona is identified as the ghost of a woman named Rosalia who was murdered by her husband.
== Regional versions ==
The legend has a wide variety of details and versions. In a typical version of the legend, a beautiful woman named María marries a rich ranchero / conquistador to whom she bears two children. One day, María sees her husband with another woman and in a fit of blind rage, she drowns their children in a river, which she immediately regrets. Unable to save them and consumed by guilt, she drowns herself as well but is unable to enter the afterlife, forced to be in purgatory and roam this earth until she finds her children.
In another version of the story, her children are illegitimate, and she drowns them so that their father cannot take them away to be raised by his new wife. Recurring themes in variations on the La Llorona myth include a white, wet dress, nocturnal wailing, and an association with water.
=== Mexico ===
The legend of La Llorona is deeply rooted in Mexican popular culture. Her story is told to children to encourage them not to wander off in the dark and near bodies of water such as rivers and lakes alone. Her spirit is often evoked in artwork, such as that of Alejandro Colunga. La Cihuacoatle, Leyenda de la Llorona is a yearly waterfront theatrical performance of the legend of La Llorona set in the canals of the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, which was established in 1993 to coincide with the Day of the Dead. In 1930s the reference and representation of La Llorona is seen in the production of films. La Llorona is portrayed as a vengeful and evil monster in many films. The classic film La Venganza de la Llorona (1974) produced by Miguel M. Delgado is one of the many popular renditions of La Llorona. In Chicano culture, the tale of La Llorona acts as a warning particularly for women on what is considered acceptable behavior within the culture. In Mexican culture La Llorona represents a vengeful lover who goes from a resentful wife to a monstrous mother who drowns her children after discovering her husband's infidelity.
== Chicana Feminism and the Decolonization of La Llorona ==
In the late twentieth century, Chicana feminist writers and poets began retelling the story of La Llorona, portraying her as a symbol of resistance and female identity. Chicana writers and artists redefined La Llorona based on embodied experience and the social and political pressures they faced. The rise of Chicana feminism and the Chicano movement encouraged Chicana writers and artists to reinvent their historical and cultural Mexican presence in the United States. La Llorona was rewritten as a strong woman who had been forced to accommodate to the colonizers ruling and had been punished for challenging traditional female roles. Chicanas related to the agony that La Llorona faced while being stripped of her identity by Spanish colonizers. La Llorona symbolizes the pain and grief and became a metaphorical representation of the challenges and struggles faced by marginalized groups.
Writers Gloria Anzaldúa and Sandra Cisneros present her as a spiritual guide representing colonial oppression and patriarchal hierarchies. Anzaldúa reinterprets La Llorona’s wail as the resistance of Indian, Mexican, and Chicana women against border violence, reproductive injustice, gender discrimination, domestic violence, and other issues associated with colonization and patriarchal control. Cisneros’s depiction of La Llorona reimagines her as a weeping victim to a hollering, independent figure.
=== Gloria Anzaldúa ===
Gloria Anzaldúa challenges colonialism by repositioning La Llorona within the Aztec and Indigenous family tree. In Anzaldúa’s poem “My Black Angelos,” La Llorona is reimagined as a figure whose roots trace back to the Aztecs, reclaiming spiritual and cultural authority taken by the Spanish. Anzaldúa’s young protagonist, Pretita, encounters La Llorona while lost in the woods searching for an herb to save her mother. Pretita hears La Llorona’s wail, but instead of taking the child, she points Pretita to the herb needed to save her mother. Anzaldúa illustrates how La Llorona functions as a guide for Chicanas navigating trauma, displacement, and border identity.
=== Sandra Cisneros ===
In her short story “Woman Hollering Creek,” Sandra Cisneros offers another reinterpretation of La Llorona. The protagonist, Cleófilas, experiences patriarchal violence and emotional abandonment similar to traditional La Llorona narratives. However, unlike the weeping woman, Cleófilas does not direct her suffering toward her children. Instead, she escapes domestic abuse through the support of other women. In a pivotal scene, a woman named Felice drives Cleófilas towards her freedom. As Felice crosses the bridge over La Gritona, a creek named after the wailing woman, she hollers, signifying freedom. Cisneros transforms La Llorona’s despairing wail into one of joy, power, and liberation.
=== Guatemala ===
According to the local legend, in Guatemala City lived a woman who had an affair with a lover. She became pregnant and gave birth to a child named Juan de la Cruz whom she drowned so her husband would not know. The woman was condemned in the afterlife to search for her murdered son in every place where there is a pool of water. She does that by crying out for him—hence her moniker of the Wailing Woman (La Llorona). It is a popular scary legend that in one iteration or another has been told to generations of children. The terrifying cry of "Oh, my children!!" (¡Ay mis hijos!) is well known due to the story. Additionally, one peculiar detail is that when a person hears the cry from afar means that the ghost is nearby, but if the cry is heard nearby, it means the ghost is afar. Someone unlucky enough to face the specter is "won over" to the afterlife, never to be seen again. The legend is deeply rooted in Antigua Guatemala, the former capital of the Kingdom of Guatemala (current Central America and southern state of Chiapas, Mexico)
=== Ecuador ===
Throughout Latin America, there are various versions of the folktale of La Llorona. The Ecuadorian version often features a woman known as either La Llorona de Los Ríos (The Crying Woman of the Rivers) or La Llorona de Los Andes (The Crying Woman of the Andes) depending on the region. In this story, she lost her lover and, in desperation, drowned her children in a river. She now cries uncontrollably and searches the riverbanks for her missing children. Many similarities exist between the traditional Mexican version of La Llorona, in which many people are familiar with. Nonetheless, one of its main focuses is the environment of Ecuadorian rivers and mountains. The Ecuadorian La Llorona is known for her connection to rivers, like the Guayas River, where locals say they can hear her somber cries at night. The tale of La Llorona warns kids about disobedience and the importance of avoiding bodies of water and locations at night, similar in other versions around the world.
=== United States ===
In the Southwestern United States, the story of La Llorona is told to scare children into good behavior, sometimes specifically to deter children from playing near dangerous water. Also told to them is that her cries are heard as she walks around the street or near bodies of water to scare children from wandering around, resembling the stories of El Cucuy. In Chumash mythology indigenous to Southern California, La Llorona is linked to the nunašɨš, a mythological creature with a cry similar to that of a newborn baby. It is a very popular story.
=== Venezuela ===
The tale of La Llorona is set in the Venezuelan Llanos during the colonial period. La Llorona is said to be the spirit of a woman that died of sorrow after her children were killed, either by herself or by her family. Families traditionally place wooden crosses above their doors to ward off such spirits.
=== Spain ===
The tales of La Llorona are seen differently in Spain, as detailed in Elvira, La Llorona published by José Maria León y Domínguez, a Jesuit academic from Cadiz. The tale begins with a woman named Elvira who experiences a devastating life which slowly led to her transformation into the spectral figure La Llorona.
== Other mythologies ==
In Eastern Europe, the modern Rusalka is a type of water spirit in Slavic mythology. They come to be after a woman drowns due to suicide or murder, especially if they had an unwanted pregnancy. Then they must stay in this world for a period of time.
The Greek legend of Jason and Medea also features the motif of a woman who murders her children as an act of revenge against her husband, who has left her.
== In popular culture ==
=== Film ===
The story of La Llorona first appeared on film in 1933's La Llorona, filmed in Mexico. René Cardona's 1960 film La Llorona was also shot in Mexico, as was the 1963 horror film The Curse of the Crying Woman, directed by Rafael Baledón.
In a pivotal scene in the 2001 film Mulholland Drive, Rebekah Del Rio plays La Llorona de Los Angeles, a mysterious singer who performs Llorando, a Spanish language version of "Crying" by Roy Orbison. In keeping with the legend, the characters who witness this performance suffer severe consequences.
The 2008 Mexican horror film Kilometer 31 is inspired by the legend of La Llorona. Additionally the early 2000s saw a spate of low-budget movies based on La Llorona, including:
The River: The Legend of La Llorona
Revenge of La Llorona
The Wailer: La Llorona
The Curse of La Llorona
La Llorona is the primary antagonist in the 2007 movie J-ok'el. In the 2011 Mexican animated film La Leyenda de la Llorona, she is portrayed as a more sympathetic character, whose children die in an accident rather than at their mother's hands.
In the 2017 Pixar film Coco, "La Llorona", the Mexican folk song popularized by Andres Henestrosa in 1941 is sung by Alanna Ubach in her role as Mamá Imelda, joined by Antonio Sol as the singing voice of Ernesto de la Cruz.
In July 2019, James Wan, Gary Dauberman and Emilie Gladstone produced a film titled The Curse of La Llorona for Warner Bros. Pictures. The film was directed by Michael Chaves and stars Linda Cardellini, Raymond Cruz, Patricia Velasquez and Marisol Ramirez as La Llorona. A sequel, The Revenge of La Llorona, was directed by Santiago Menghini and is set to be theatrically released.
Also in 2019, Jayro Bustamante directed the Guatemalan film La Llorona, starring María Mercedes Coroy, which screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival.
The Legend of La Llorona was a film released in January 2022 and stars Danny Trejo, Autumn Reeser, and Antonio Cupo.
=== Theater ===
Mexican playwright Josefina López wrote Unconquered Spirits, which uses the myth of La Llorona as a plot device. The play premiered at California State University, Northridge's Little Theatre in 1995.
=== Literature ===
Nancy Farmer's 2002 science fiction novel, The House of the Scorpion includes references to La Llorona.
The legend of La Llorona is discussed in Jaquira Díaz's 2019 memoir, Ordinary Girls:
The scariest part was not that La Llorona was a monster, or that she came when you called her name three times in the dark, or that she could come into your room at night and take you from your bed like she'd done with her own babies. It was that once she'd been a person, a woman, a mother. And then a moment, an instant, a split second later, she was a monster.
The novel Paola Santiago and the River of Tears, the first part of a young adult trilogy by Tehlor Kay Mejia, is based on the legend of La Llorona.
Rodolfo Anaya's novel Bless Me, Ultima references La Llorona, describing her as a spirit of the river without mentioning her origins.
"Advice from La Llorona" by Deborah A. Miranda is a poem exploring grief and loss.
In Summer of the Mariposas, by Guadalupe Garcia McCall, she serves as a mentor to the Garza Sisters.
The Weeping Woman: Encounters with La Llorona by Edward Garcia Kraul and Judith Beatty, is a valuable resource that brings together of encounters and retellings of La Llorona with diverse perspectives and different regions.[1]
Bess Lomax Hawes, an American folklorist, published his article in 1968, La Llorona in Juvenile Hall containing details of the hauntings in California's juvenile detention facility with sightings of a “weeping woman.”[2]
Gloria Anzaldua's book Borderlands/La Frontera references La Llorona as one of the three mothers of Chicanas.
The Figure of the Monster in Global Theatre: Further Readings on the Aesthetics of Disqualification, is a valuable resource that gives insight on international perspectives on "monster" figures in writing. Makes many references to La Llorona and explores La Llorona within Chicano culture.
=== Music ===
"La Llorona" is a Mexican folk song popularized by Andres Henestrosa in 1941. It has since been covered by various musicians, including Chavela Vargas, Joan Baez, Lila Downs, and Rosalía.
North American singer-songwriter Lhasa de Sela's debut album La Llorona (1997) explored the dark mysteries of Latin folklore. She combined a variety of musical genres including klezmer, gypsy jazz and Mexican folk music, all in the Spanish language. The album was certified Platinum in Canada, and it earned her a Canadian Juno Award for Best Global Artist in 1998.
Manic Hispanic, a rock band from Los Angeles, California, have a song titled "She Turned Into Llorona" on their 2003 album Mijo Goes To Jr. College.
La Llorona is the name of a fictional punk band in the alternative comic book Love and Rockets. They are known for their song "Two Faces Have I", the title of which is generally misheard as "Do Vases Have Eyes(?)".
=== Television ===
La Llorona is an antagonist in the TV series Supernatural, portrayed by Sarah Shahi in the pilot episode and by Shanae Tomasevich in "Moriah" and season 15.
La Llorona is an antagonist in a 2012 second-season episode of the TV series Grimm.
La Llorona appears in the Victor and Valentino episode "The Lonely Haunts 3: La Llorona" voiced by Vanessa Marshall. Contrary to the usual depictions, this version of La Llorona is good and simply lonely and claims to have had twenty kids who had all grown up and left her; implying that she suffers from Empty nest syndrome.
La Llorona appears in the Craig of the Creek episode "The Legend of the Library" voiced by Carla Tassara. Craig and the Stump Kids visit their friend Stacks at the local library to get out of the rain. When the power goes out and their fellow Creek Kids begin disappearing, Stacks believes that La Llorona is to blame. In the end, it is revealed that the "ghost" was actually Lorraine, the substitute librarian who is very serious about her job. She makes the kids promise to take good care of the library along with a warning, showing a ghostly face at the same time. Whether or not Lorraine was in fact La Llorona or the face was imagined is left ambiguous.
La Llorona appears in the Riverdale episode "Chapter 97: Ghost Stories". The characters tell ghost stories about people related to them or the town that had died. La Llorona is one. She haunts Sweetwater River and she also manages to possess Toni and take Betty's unborn child away.
La Llorona is portrayed by drag queen, Mirage, during the 3rd episode of Season 16 of Rupaul's Drag Race. During this episode the queens had to show three different looks in the runway and she portrayed La Llorona in the second theme named "Significant Mother" where they needed to show an outfit based on an iconic mother.
=== Art ===
La Llorona is portrayed as a protective figure in the 2004 mural, La Llorona’s Sacred Waters by Juana Alicia. The mural also includes the Aztec goddess, Chalchiuhtlicue. It is a large, blue mural with red elements that is two stories high and sixty feet long. Juana Alicia painted La Llorona’s Sacred Waters due to warnings of water damage in one of her murals, Las Lechugeras (1983). Both murals depict women's environmental and labor struggles and their roles in environmental justice. Despite the representation of water through the use of blue in La Llorona's Sacred Waters, she used a monochromatic color palette, with the exception of red, in order to not distract the viewers. She uses the palette to draw attention to the seriousness of the subject and to keep a somber tone. She also used blue and red due to their affiliations with gangs in order to unify different groups of people. La Llorona is reimagined in La Llorona's Sacred Waters as a protector of the people, used as a cultural anchor, represents womanhood, and in a multitude of other ways.
=== Video games ===
La Llorona appears as a collectible demon in Atlus's Shin Megami Tensei series of role-playing games, making her first appearance in the 1997 installment, Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers for the Sega Saturn.
=== Distilling ===
Tears of Llorona, an extra añejo tequila named after the ghost, earned the top score in its category at the 2025 World Spirits Championships. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looney_Tunes | Looney Tunes | Looney Tunes is an American media franchise owned by Warner Bros. Entertainment. The franchise began as a series of animated short films that originally ran from 1930 to 1969, alongside its spin-off series Merrie Melodies, produced by Warner Bros. Cartoons during the golden age of American animation. Following a revival in the late 1970s, new shorts were released theatrically as recently as 2014. The two series introduced a large cast of characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd and Porky Pig. The term Looney Tunes has since been expanded to also refer to the characters themselves.
Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies were initially produced by Leon Schlesinger and animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising from 1930 to 1933. Schlesinger assumed full production from 1933 until he sold his studio to Warner Bros. in 1944, after which it was renamed Warner Bros. Cartoons. The Looney Tunes title was inspired by that of Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies. The shorts initially showcased musical compositions owned by Warner's music publishing interests through the adventures of such characters as Bosko, Foxy and Buddy. However, the shorts gained a higher profile upon the debuts of directors Tex Avery, Friz Freleng, Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, and Robert McKimson, and voice actor Mel Blanc later in the decade. Porky Pig and Daffy Duck became the featured Looney Tunes characters, while Merrie Melodies featured one-shot cartoons and minor recurring characters.
After Bugs Bunny became popular in the Merrie Melodies shorts of the early 1940s, Looney Tunes moved from black-and-white to color production between 1942 and 1943 (Merrie Melodies having already been in color since 1934). The two series gradually lost their distinctions, and shorts were assigned to each series arbitrarily. From 1942 to 1964, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies were the most popular animated shorts in movie theaters.
Looney Tunes has become one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time, spawning several television series, feature films, comic books, music albums, video games, and amusement park rides. Many of the characters have made and continue to make cameo appearances in television shows, films, and other media. Bugs Bunny, in particular, is regarded as a cultural icon as well as the mascot of Warner Bros. Pictures, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Many Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies films are ranked among the greatest animated cartoons of all time, and five of them have won Academy Awards. In 2013, TV Guide counted Looney Tunes as the third greatest television cartoon series of all time, behind The Simpsons and The Flintstones, the latter of which also featured the voice talents of Mel Blanc and Bea Benaderet.
== History ==
Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies were so named as a reference to Disney's Silly Symphonies and were initially developed to showcase tracks from Warner Bros.' extensive music library; the title of the first Looney Tunes short, Sinkin' in the Bathtub (1930), is a pun on Singin' in the Bathtub. Between 1934 and 1943, Merrie Melodies were produced in color and Looney Tunes in black-and-white. After 1943, both series were produced in color and became virtually indistinguishable, varying only in their opening theme music and titles. Both series made use of the various Warner Bros. characters. By 1937, the theme music for Looney Tunes was "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" by Cliff Friend and Dave Franklin, and the theme music for Merrie Melodies was an adaptation of "Merrily We Roll Along" by Charles Tobias, Murray Mencher and Eddie Cantor.
=== 1930–1933: Harman and Ising era ===
In 1929, to compete against Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse series, Warner Bros. became interested in developing a series of animated shorts to promote their music. They had recently acquired Brunswick Records along with four music publishers for US$28 million (equivalent to $540 million in 2025) and were eager to promote this material for the sales of sheet music and phonograph records. Warner made a deal with Leon Schlesinger to produce cartoons for them. Schlesinger hired Rudolf Ising and Hugh Harman to produce a series of cartoons, impressed by their 1929 pilot film, Bosko, The Talk-Ink Kid. The first Looney Tunes short was Sinkin' in the Bathtub starring Bosko, which was released in 1930.
=== 1933–1936: Leon Schlesinger Productions ===
When Harman and Ising left Warner Bros. in 1933 over a budget dispute with Schlesinger, they took with them all the rights of the characters they had created. A new character called Buddy became the only star of the Looney Tunes series for a couple of years, but quickly became unpopular.
New directors including Tex Avery, Friz Freleng and Bob Clampett were brought in or promoted to work with animators in the Schlesinger studio, with Avery's unit housed in a bungalow which the animators dubbed "Termite Terrace." In 1935, Porky Pig, the first major Looney Tunes star, made his debut in the Merrie Melodies cartoon I Haven't Got a Hat, directed by Friz Freleng, featuring an ensemble of characters headed by Beans the Cat. However, after Avery's Looney Tune debut Gold Diggers of '49 it was Porky who emerged as the star instead of Beans. The ensemble characters of I Haven't Got a Hat, such as Oliver Owl and the twin dogs Ham and Ex, were quickly dropped. Beans would be phased out as well by mid-1936, leaving Porky as the only star of the Schlesinger studio.
=== 1936–1944: More star characters and switch to color ===
The debuts of other memorable Looney Tunes stars soon followed: Daffy Duck in Porky's Duck Hunt (1937), Elmer Fudd in the Merrie Melodies short Elmer's Candid Camera (1940), Bugs Bunny in the Merrie Melodies short A Wild Hare (1940), and Tweety in the Merrie Melodies short A Tale of Two Kitties (1942).
Bugs initially starred in the color Merrie Melodies shorts following the success of 1940's A Wild Hare, and formally joined the Looney Tunes series with the release of Buckaroo Bugs in 1944.
Schlesinger began to phase in the production of color Looney Tunes with the 1942 cartoon The Hep Cat. The final black-and-white Looney Tunes short was Puss n' Booty in 1943, directed by Frank Tashlin. The inspiration for the changeover was Warner's decision to re-release only the color cartoons in the Blue Ribbon Classics series of Merrie Melodies. A brief cameo at the end of Tashlin's 1943 cartoon Porky Pig's Feat would be Bugs' only official appearance in a black-and-white Looney Tunes short.
Schlesinger sold the cartoon studio in 1944 to Warner Bros. and went into retirement; he died five years later.
=== 1944–1964: The Golden era ===
More popular Looney Tunes characters were created (most of which first appeared in Merrie Melodies cartoons), such as Pepé Le Pew (debuted in 1945's Odor-able Kitty), Sylvester (debuted in 1945's Life with Feathers), Yosemite Sam (debuted in 1945's Hare Trigger), Foghorn Leghorn (debuted in 1946's Walky Talky Hawky), Marvin the Martian (debuted in 1948's Haredevil Hare), Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner (debuted in 1949's Fast and Furry-ous), Granny (debuted in 1950's Canary Row), Speedy Gonzales (debuted in 1953's Cat Tails for Two), the Tasmanian Devil (debuted in 1954's Devil May Hare), and Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog (debuted in 1953's Don't Give Up the Sheep).
It was during this era that the series won five Academy Awards:
Tweetie Pie (1947)
For Scent-imental Reasons (1949)
Speedy Gonzales (1955)
Birds Anonymous (1957)
Knighty Knight Bugs (1958)
=== 1964–1969: DePatie–Freleng and Seven Arts era ===
During the mid-late 1960s, the shorts were produced by DePatie–Freleng Enterprises (and Format Productions) (1964–1967) and Warner Bros.-Seven Arts (1967–1969) after Warner Bros. shut down their animation studio. The shorts from this era can be identified by their different title sequence, featuring stylized limited animation and graphics on a black background and a new arrangement, by William Lava, of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" which had first been used in the 1963 experimental short "Now Hear This" directed by Chuck Jones.
In 1967, Warner Bros.-Seven Arts commissioned an animation studio in South Korea to redraw 79 black-and-white Looney Tunes produced from 1935 to 1943 in color which were syndicated to TV stations from the late 1960s to the early 1990s.
The original Looney Tunes theatrical series ran from 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub to 1969's Injun Trouble by Robert McKimson.
A Cool Cat cartoon called "Stage Cat" was planned, about Cool Cat being in a stage production, but it was cancelled when Warner Bros.-Seven Arts shut down.
=== 1970–1999: Syndication and return to television and film ===
The Looney Tunes series' popularity was further strengthened when it began airing on network and syndicated television in the 1950s under various titles and formats. The Looney Tunes shorts were broadcast with edits to remove scenes of violence (particularly suicidal gags and scenes of characters performing dangerous stunts that impressionable viewers could easily imitate), stereotypes, and alcohol consumption.
Production of theatrical animated shorts was dormant from 1969 until 1979, when new shorts were made to introduce the Looney Tunes to a new generation of audiences. New shorts have been produced and released sporadically for theaters since then, though usually as promotional tie-ins with various family movies produced by Warner Bros. While many have been released in limited releases theatrically for Academy Award consideration, only a few have gained theatrical releases with movies.
In the 1970s through the early 1990s, several feature-film compilations and television specials were produced, mostly centering on Bugs Bunny and/or Daffy Duck, with a mixture of new and old footage. These releases include The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie (1979), The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie (1981), Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales (1982), Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island (1983), and Daffy Duck's Quackbusters (1988).
In 1976, the Looney Tunes characters made their way into the amusement park business when they became the mascots for Marriott's two Great America theme parks in Gurnee, Illinois, and Santa Clara, California. After the Gurnee park was sold to Six Flags in 1984, they also claimed the rights to use the characters at the other Six Flags parks, which continues to the present. (Warner Bros. parent company Time Warner would own the Six Flags chain in whole or part for most of the 1990s.)
Between 1985 and 1992, AMC Theatres showed selected late 1950s/early 1960s-era Warner Bros. cartoons before several films, most of them comedies and family-oriented movies.
In 1988, several Looney Tunes characters appeared in cameo roles in the Disney film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The more significant cameos featured Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Tweety, and Yosemite Sam. It is the only time in which Looney Tunes characters have shared screen time with their rivals at Disney (producers of the film)—particularly in the scenes where Bugs and Mickey Mouse are skydiving, and when Daffy and Donald Duck are performing their "Dueling Pianos" sequence.
On July 10, 1989, after a battle with heart problems, Mel Blanc died at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of cardiovascular disease. A picture depicting the Looney Tunes characters entitled "Speechless" was released shortly after his death.
Viacom-owned Nickelodeon aired Looney Tunes cartoons in a show called Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon between 1988 and 1999. Initially, the Nickelodeon package included cartoons that were typically omitted from the higher-profile Saturday morning network and syndicated weekday packages, including black-and-white Bosko cartoons that had not aired in many years and cartoons from the late DePatie–Freling and Seven Arts eras. In January 1999, it was reported that the cartoons shown on Nickelodeon would move to Cartoon Network in the fall of that year. To date, Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon is the longest-airing animated series on the network that was not a Nicktoon.
In 1991, the Looney Tunes characters made their appearance at Warner Bros. Movie World on the Gold Coast in Australia. It marked the launch of "Looney Tunes Land," the park's inaugural themed area.
In 1996, Space Jam, a live-action animated film, was released to theaters starring Bugs Bunny and basketball player Michael Jordan. Despite a mixed critical reception, the film was a major box-office success, grossing nearly $100 million in the U.S. alone, almost becoming the first non-Disney animated film to achieve that feat. For a two-year period, it was the highest grossing non-Disney animated film ever. The film also introduced the character Lola Bunny, who subsequently became another recurring member of the Looney Tunes cast, usually as a love interest for Bugs.
In 1997, Bugs Bunny was featured on a U.S. 32 cent postage stamp, the first of five Looney Tunes themed stamps to be issued.
The Looney Tunes also achieved success in the area of television during this era, with appearances in several originally produced series, including Taz-Mania (1991, starring Taz) and The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries (1995, starring Sylvester, Tweety, and Granny). The gang also made frequent cameos in the 1990 spinoff series Tiny Toon Adventures, from executive producer Steven Spielberg, where they played teachers and mentors to a younger generation of cartoon characters (Plucky Duck, Hamton J. Pig, Babs and Buster Bunny, etc.), plus occasional cameos in the later Warner Bros. shows such as Animaniacs (also from Spielberg) and Histeria!. Traditional cel animation was used to animate the characters for Looney Tunes' cartoons until 1999 when it was replaced with digital ink and paint animation.
In 1979, Bugs Bunny's Christmas Carol premiered. After The Chocolate Chase, there would not be another short released for seven years. In 1990, it was made so there would be about one short per year until 1998. In 2003, there would be seven shorts produced to promote Looney Tunes: Back in Action. The first of these to be released was Whizzard of Ow, which appeared on a DVD release of Back in Action that was sold exclusively at Wal-Mart stores. Only about half of the shorts were shown in theaters; the rest would not be made available until 2004, when all seven shorts were included on the general home video release of the film. In 2010, five computer-animated shorts would be released and directed by Matthew O'Callaghan, who would also direct another short, Flash in the Pain, in 2014.
=== 2000–2014: Network exploration ===
In March 2000, it was revealed that the entire Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies library would be exclusive to Cartoon Network, starting with the fall of that year. Looney Tunes shorts were still airing on Disney's ABC as part of The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show at the time and the decision led to the show's cancellation. This decision would remain in effect for over 20 years until MeTV began airing the classic Warner Bros. cartoons (along with MGM and Paramount's library) in January 2021. In 2003, another feature film was released, this time in an attempt to recapture the spirit of the original shorts: the live-action/animated Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Although the film was not financially successful, it was met with mixed-to-positive reviews from film critics and has been argued by animation historians and fans as the finest original feature-length appearance of the cartoon characters. In 2006, Warner Home Video released a new and Christmas-themed Looney Tunes direct-to-video film called Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas, a parody of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Other Looney Tunes TV series made during this time were Baby Looney Tunes (2001–2006), Duck Dodgers (2003–2005) and Loonatics Unleashed (2005–2007).
On October 22, 2007, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons became available for the first time in High-definition via Microsoft's Xbox Live service, including some in Spanish. From February 29 – May 18, 2008, many Looney Tunes artifacts, including original animation cels and concept drawings, were on display at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, just off the campus of Youngstown State University, near where the Warners lived early in life.
At the 2009 Cartoon Network upfront, The Looney Tunes Show was announced. After several delays, the series premiered on May 3, 2011. Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, the series centers on Bugs and Daffy as they leave the woods and move to the suburbs with "colorful neighbors" including Sylvester, Tweety, Granny, Yosemite Sam, etc. The series introduced the character Tina Russo, a duck who becomes Daffy's girlfriend. The show also features 2-minute music videos titled respectfully "Merrie Melodies" (as a tribute to the Looney Tunes sister shorts) which features the characters singing original songs, as well as CGI animated shorts starring Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner (which were removed after the first season). The series was cancelled after its second season.
Also, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner returned to the big screen in a series of 3-D shorts that preceded select Warner Bros. films. There were six in the works that began with the first short, Coyote Falls, that preceded the film Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, which was released on July 30, 2010. On September 24, 2010, Fur of Flying preceded the film, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, and on December 17, 2010, Rabid Rider preceded the film, Yogi Bear. On June 8, 2011, Warner Bros. Animation announced that there would be more Looney Tunes 3-D theatrical shorts; the first titled Daffy's Rhapsody with Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd, the next being I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat with Sylvester, Tweety, and Granny. Daffy's Rhapsody was to precede the film Happy Feet Two, until the studio decided to premiere I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat instead. Daffy's Rhapsody instead premiered in 2012, preceding Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. All five shorts were directed by Matthew O'Callaghan.
In 2012, several announcements were made about a Looney Tunes reboot film titled Acme, in development. Former Saturday Night Live cast member Jenny Slate was said to be on board as writer for the new film. Jeffrey Clifford, Harry Potter producer David Heyman, and Dark Shadows writers David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith were slated to produce the film. On August 27, 2014, writers Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz were hired to script the film, directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa were in talks to direct the film, while actor Steve Carell was rumored to be starring in a lead role. By October 2014, the project was no longer in the works.
=== 2015–2022: Revival ===
At the 2014 Cartoon Network upfront, another series titled Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production (later New Looney Tunes) was announced. Starring Bugs Bunny, the series premiered on both Cartoon Network and its sister channel Boomerang in late 2015. The series had an unusually slow rollout, with the series being moved to the Boomerang streaming service in 2017, and was eventually cancelled on January 30, 2020.
On June 11, 2018, another series, titled Looney Tunes Cartoons, was announced by Warner Bros. Animation. It premiered on May 27, 2020, on the streaming service HBO Max. The series features "1,000 minutes of new one-to-six minute cartoons featuring the brand's marquee characters", voiced by their current voice actors in "simple, gag-driven and visually vibrant stories" that are rendered by multiple artists employing "a visual style that will resonate with fans", most noticeably having a style reminiscent of the styles of Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng and Robert McKimson. According to co-executive producer Peter Browngardt, "We're not doing guns, but we can do cartoony violence — TNT, the Acme stuff. All that was kind of grandfathered in." Sam Register, president of Warner Bros. Animation also served as a co-executive producer for the series. The final season was released on July 27, 2023, and a bonus episode was released on June 13, 2024.
On February 11, 2021, it was announced two new series were in the works: Bugs Bunny Builders and Tweety Mysteries. Bugs Bunny Builders began airing on Cartoon Network as part of Cartoonito and HBO Max on July 25, 2022; Tweety Mysteries would also air on Cartoon Network. Bugs Bunny Builders is aimed towards preschoolers; while Tweety Mysteries would have been a live-action/animated hybrid. However, the latter was scrapped for unknown reasons.
A sequel to Space Jam titled Space Jam: A New Legacy, starring basketball player LeBron James, was released in theaters and HBO Max on July 16, 2021, after a Los Angeles special screening on July 12, 2021. It is a film with a story of LeBron James' second son, Dom (Cedric Joe), who gets kidnapped by an evil AI named Al. G Rhythm (Don Cheadle), into the Warner Bros. server-verse. LeBron then assembles the Tune Squad to play against the algorithm and get his son back. It received generally negative reviews and underperformed at the box office.
=== 2022–present: Warner Bros. Discovery ownership ===
A reboot of Tiny Toon Adventures titled Tiny Toons Looniversity premiered on September 8, 2023, on Max and then aired the following day on Cartoon Network. The Looney Tunes characters reprise their roles as the professors at Acme Looniversity in this series.
In September 2021, it was reported that a film based on the Looney Tunes Cartoons, titled The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie and starring Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, was announced for release on HBO Max and Cartoon Network. However, it was reported in August 2022 that the film would instead be shopped around to other streaming services. In October 2023, it was announced the film would instead be released in theaters, becoming the first animated non-compilation feature film in the franchise to do so. In early August 2024, it was announced that Ketchup Entertainment acquired the North American theatrical distribution rights to the film. The film was released in theaters in the United States on March 14, 2025.
On December 31, 2022, 256 classic Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts were removed from HBO Max, including What's Opera, Doc? and Duck Amuck, though many were later re-added in March 2024 when the shorts on the service were rotated.
In August 2024, it was reported that Warner Bros. was planning to relaunch the Looney Tunes theatrical film series in 2028. In October 2024, it was reported that Warner Bros. was working on a "super secret Looney Tunes project" with directors Todd Wilderman and Hamish Grieve.
On March 16, 2025, two days after The Day the Earth Blew Up expanded to a wide release, all of the classic Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts were removed from the Max streaming service. Three days later, it was reported that Warner Bros. was in talks with Ketchup, who had distributed The Day the Earth Blew Up in the United States, to sell the distribution rights to the shelved movie Coyote vs. Acme. On March 31, the negotiations proved successful. The film is currently scheduled to be released in theaters in the United States on August 28, 2026.
At CinemaCon 2025, Warner Bros. Pictures Animation confirmed development on a new Looney Tunes animated feature film.
On August 15, 2025, the classic Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts began streaming on the ad-supported free streaming service Tubi.
On January 26, 2026, it was announced that Turner Classic Movies would air the series, with each short preceding feature films as a homage to its origins.
=== Home media ===
In the 1980s, the shorts received VHS releases, with the pre-August 1948 shorts released by MGM/UA Home Video and the post-July 1948 shorts released by Warner Home Video. In 2003, Warner Home Video began releasing select shorts on DVD, aimed at collectors, in four-disc sets known as the Looney Tunes Golden Collection starting with Volume 1. This continued until 2008, when the final volume of the Golden Collection was released. Then, from 2010 until 2013, the company released the Looney Tunes Super Stars DVDs. There have been numerous complaints regarding the Super Stars releases, however (particularly the first two), having the post-1953 shorts in a 16:9 widescreen format. The last DVD in the Super Stars series was Sylvester and Hippety Hopper: Marsupial Mayhem, released on April 23, 2013. 2010 and 2011 saw the releases of The Essential Bugs Bunny and The Essential Daffy Duck DVDs. In 2011, the shorts were released on Blu-ray Disc for the first time with the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection series. On September 19, 2017, Warner Home Video's Warner Archive Collection released the five-disc Porky Pig 101 DVD set.
In 2023, it was announced that a new line of single-disc Blu-ray sets called the Looney Tunes Collector's Choice would release beginning on May 30. The following shorts known to be on this set are all newly remastered from the original negatives. It is a successor to the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection DVD/Blu-ray sets. Four Blu-ray sets were released until November 26, 2024. A two-disc successor to Collector's Choice, titled Looney Tunes Collector's Vault, began releasing on June 17, 2025.
== Licensing and ownership ==
In 1933, Harman and Ising left, taking the rights to Bosko with them. However, Warner Bros. retained the rights to the cartoons and the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies brand names, leaving their former producer Leon Schlesinger to start his own animation studio to continue the Looney Tunes series. With their retained Bosko rights, Harman and Ising began making cartoons at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1934 until they were fired in 1937 due to a lack of success. MGM proceeded to form their own studio to create its own cartoons. Time Warner eventually acquired the Bosko characters from Harman and Ising's estates. Meanwhile, the Schlesinger studio continued to make popular cartoons until 1944 when Schlesinger sold his studio to Warner Bros. Since then, Warner Bros. has owned all rights to all post-1933 characters created by Leon Schlesinger Productions and Warner Bros. Cartoons, even after the rights to individual cartoons were placed in other hands.
In 1955, Warner Bros. sold the television distribution rights to 191 of its cartoons (which included the black-and-white Looney Tunes and the black-and-white Merrie Melodies made after Harman and Ising left) to Guild Films. The copyrights to those cartoons were assigned to Sunset Productions, an entity owned by Warner Bros. The cartoons were distributed by Guild Films until it went bankrupt and was bought by Seven Arts Productions. Seven Arts bought WB in 1967, and WB regained the TV distribution rights to the black-and-white cartoons.
In 1956, Associated Artists Productions (a.a.p.) acquired television distribution rights to most of Warner Bros.' pre-1950 library, including all Merrie Melodies (except for those sold to Guild and Lady, Play Your Mandolin!) and color Looney Tunes shorts that were released prior to August 1948, while Warner still owned the copyright to all of the cartoons. Unlike the previous TV package, this package had the Warner titles kept intact and an "Associated Artists Productions presents" title inserted at the head of each reel (as a result, each post-1936 Merrie Melodies cartoon and pre-1956 Blue Ribbon cartoon had the song "Merrily We Roll Along" playing twice). Two years later, United Artists bought a.a.p. (which had also bought Paramount's Popeye films) who merged the company into its television division, United Artists Television. In 1981, UA was sold to MGM. In 1982, Warner Communications was in talks to buy back rights to the pre-1950 Warner Bros. Pictures library (which consists of the live-action and animation short titles made before 1948) from MGM/UA for $100 million in cash. The deal was called off on July 28 of that year; the negotiations fell apart because of dozens of unresolved points, probably relating to the oldest Warner Bros. films. When in 1986, Ted Turner acquired all of MGM's legacy content up to that point, he also acquired the rights to the a.a.p. library. Turner's company, Turner Broadcasting System (whose Turner Entertainment Co. division oversaw the film library), was purchased by Warner Bros.' corporate parent, Time Warner (now Warner Bros. Discovery), in 1996. When MGM/UA terminated its distribution deal with Time Warner in 1999, it surrendered its home video rights to the a.a.p. library to Warner Home Video, restoring full rights to the pre-August 1948 cartoons to Warner Bros.
Starting in 1960, the cartoons were repackaged into several different TV programs that remained popular for several decades before being purchased by Turner Broadcasting System. Turner's Cartoon Network reran the cartoons from its launch in 1992 until 2004, again from 2009 until 2017, and making a temporary return in April 2023 to celebrate WB's 100th anniversary. The Looney Tunes Show (not to be confused with the 2010s animated series of the same name), an early 2000s anthology produced by Warner Bros. Animation for the network, was broadcast from 2001 to 2004. The show featured shorts from the original Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical series. As of 2025, classic cartoons continue to air on CN's sister channels Boomerang and Discovery Family and are licensed to Weigel Broadcasting-owned MeTV. Starting in 2024, the classic cartoons began airing on MeTV's sister channel MeTV Toons.
=== Public domain status ===
Five dozen Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts from before 1944 have fallen into the American public domain and are thus freely distributed through various unofficial releases. All shorts from 1930 and 1931 and most shorts from 1932 are believed to be in the public domain due to non-renewal. The earliest short with a known copyright renewal is Ride Him, Bosko! from 1932.
== Filmography ==
== Characters ==
The major characters of the original Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series are Bugs Bunny, a clever and insouciant rabbit who is portrayed as a trickster; Daffy Duck, a black duck who was originally portrayed as a screwball, but later became greedy and egocentric; Porky Pig, a stuttering pig who often appears as the straight man to Daffy, and is the oldest of the franchise's recurring characters; Sylvester the Cat, his prey Tweety (a small canary), and their elderly owner Granny; Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, who routinely engage in high-speed chases in their home in the Southwest American desert; Elmer Fudd, an unintelligent hunter who is Bugs' oldest nemesis; Yosemite Sam, a hot-tempered cowboy who is another of Bugs' archenemies; Foghorn Leghorn, a rooster who is known for his often excessive ranting; Marvin the Martian, an alien commander from the planet Mars, who aims to conquer the Earth; the Tasmanian Devil (often nicknamed "Taz" in later media), a vicious, brutal marsupial with an insatiable appetite; Pepé Le Pew, a French skunk who is always looking for love and romance; and Speedy Gonzales, the self-proclaimed "fastest mouse in all of Mexico". One additional major character was introduced in post-Golden Age Looney Tunes media (starting with Space Jam): Lola Bunny, a female rabbit who is usually portrayed as Bugs' girlfriend.
== Racial stereotypes and censorship controversies ==
Due to content considered offensive, stereotyped or insensitive, in 1968 United Artists, then the owners of the pre-August 1948 color cartoon library, removed the "Censored Eleven" episodes of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons from broadcast or distribution. Depictions included those of African Americans (as in Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs and Jungle Jitters), Native Americans, Japanese people (especially during WWII, as in Tokio Jokio and Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips), Germans, Italians, White Southerners, and Mexicans.
In 1999, Cartoon Network ceased broadcast of all of Speedy Gonzales' cartoons, due to concerns about stereotyping of Mexicans. Many Latinos protested that they were not offended, and expressed fondness for Speedy; the character's shorts were made available for broadcast on CN again in 2002.
Many Warner Bros. cartoons contain fleeting or sometimes extended gags that make reference to racial or ethnic stereotypes, or use ethnic humor. The release of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3 includes a disclaimer at the beginning of each DVD in the volume given by Whoopi Goldberg. She explains that the cartoons are products of their time and contain racial and ethnic stereotypes that "were wrong then and they are wrong today", but the cartoons are presented on the DVD uncut and uncensored because "editing them would be the same as denying that the stereotypes existed." A similarly phrased written disclaimer is shown at the beginning of each DVD in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4, Volume 5, and Volume 6 sets, as well as the Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, and Porky Pig Looney Tunes Super Stars sets, the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2 and Volume 3 sets, the Porky Pig 101 set, and the Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection.
== Accolades ==
=== Inducted into the National Film Registry ===
Porky in Wackyland (1938), selected in 2000
Duck Amuck (1953), selected in 1999
One Froggy Evening (1955), selected in 2003
What's Opera, Doc? (1957), selected in 1992
=== Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film (Cartoon) ===
Tweetie Pie (1947) (MM)
For Scent-imental Reasons (1949) (LT)
Speedy Gonzales (1955) (MM)
Birds Anonymous (1957) (MM)
Knighty Knight Bugs (1958) (LT)
=== Academy Award nominations ===
Swooner Crooner (1944)
Walky Talky Hawky (1946)
Mouse Wreckers (1949)
From A to Z-Z-Z-Z (1954)
Sandy Claws (1955)
Tabasco Road (1957)
Mexicali Shmoes (1959)
Mouse and Garden (1960)
High Note (1960)
The Pied Piper of Guadalupe (1961)
Beep Prepared (1961)
Now Hear This (1963)
== Related media ==
=== Television series ===
Series marked with * are compilations of earlier shorts.
The Bugs Bunny Show (1960–2000)*
The Porky Pig Show (1964–1967)*
The Road Runner Show (1966–1973)*
The Merrie Melodies Show (1972)*
Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny & Friends (1990–1994)*
Tiny Toon Adventures (1990–1992)
Taz-Mania (1991–1995)
The Plucky Duck Show (1992)
The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries (1995–2000)
Bugs 'n' Daffy (1995–1998)*
Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain (1998–1999)
Baby Looney Tunes (2002–2005)
Duck Dodgers (2003–2005)
Loonatics Unleashed (2005–2007)
The Looney Tunes Show (2011–2013)
New Looney Tunes (2015–2020)
Looney Tunes Cartoons (2020–2024)
Bugs Bunny Builders (2022–2025)
Tiny Toons Looniversity (2023–2025)
=== Television specials ===
Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies (1972)
Bugs and Daffy's Carnival of the Animals (1976)
Bugs Bunny's Easter Special (1977)*
Bugs Bunny's Howl-oween Special (1977)*
Bugs Bunny's Thanksgiving Diet (1979)*
Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales (1979)
Bugs Bunny's Bustin' Out All Over (1980)
The Bugs Bunny Mystery Special (1980)*
Bugs vs. Daffy: Battle of the Music Video Stars (1988)*
Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue (1990)
Bugs Bunny's Overtures to Disaster (1991)*
=== Films ===
==== Compilation films ====
The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie (1979)
The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie (1981)
Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales (1982)
Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island (1983)
Daffy Duck's Quackbusters (1988)
==== Feature films ====
Two Guys from Texas (1948) (cameo of Bugs Bunny only)
My Dream Is Yours (1949) (cameos of Bugs Bunny and Tweety Bird only)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) (cameos only)
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) (cameos of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig only)
Space Jam (1996)
Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003)
Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004) (cameo of Taz only)
Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021)
The Day the Earth Blew Up (2024)
Coyote vs. Acme (2026)
==== Direct-to-video ====
Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation (1992)
Tweety's High-Flying Adventure (2000)
Baby Looney Tunes' Eggs-traordinary Adventure (2003)
Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas (2006)
Justice League: The New Frontier (2008) (cameo of Bugs Bunny only)
Looney Tunes: Rabbits Run (2015)
King Tweety (2022)
Taz: Quest for Burger (2023)
=== Comic books ===
Looney Tunes comic books were published beginning in 1941 by Dell Comics under license. These comics were, like many published by Dell, were produced in partnership with Western Publishing. After Dell and Western ended their partnership in 1962, Western continued the series under their Gold Key Comics and Whitman imprints through 1984. Beginning in 1990, DC Comics, which is owned by Warner Bros., has published Looney Tunes comics.
==== Dell Comics (1941–1962) ====
Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Comics #1–165 (1941–1955)/Looney Tunes #166–246 (1955–1962)
Bugs Bunny #1–85 (1942–1962)
Porky Pig #1–81 (1942–1962)
Tweety and Sylvester #1–37 (1952–1962)
Daffy Duck #1–30 (1953–1962)
Looney Tunes #166–246 (1955–1962)
Beep Beep The Road Runner #1–14 (1958–1962)
==== Western Publishing (1962–1984) ====
Bugs Bunny #86–245 (1962–1984)
Daffy Duck #31–145 (1962–1984)
Tweety and Sylvester #1–120 (1963–1984)
Porky Pig #1–109 (1965–1984)
Yosemite Sam and Bugs Bunny #1–80 (1970–1983)
Beep Beep The Road Runner #1–105 (1971–1984)
Looney Tunes #1–47 (1975–1984)
==== DC Comics (1990–2024) ====
Bugs Bunny #1–3 (1990); #1–3 (1993)
Looney Tunes #1–281 (1994–2024)
=== Video games ===
Video games based on Looney Tunes characters began in 1979 with the Road Runner pinball machine. More titles would continue to be released as video game hardware evolved throughout the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. Prominent characters who have received multiple video games include Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, the Tasmanian Devil, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, Speedy Gonzales, and Sylvester and Tweety. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972# | 1972# | 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1972nd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 972nd year of the 2nd millennium, the 72nd year of the 20th century, and the 3rd year of the 1970s decade.
Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using mean solar time [the legal time scale], its duration was 31622401.141 seconds of Terrestrial Time (or Ephemeris Time), which is slightly shorter than 1908).
== Events ==
=== January ===
January 1 – Kurt Waldheim becomes Secretary-General of the United Nations.
January 4 – The first scientific hand-held calculator (HP-35) is introduced (price $395).
January 7 – Iberia Airlines Flight 602 crashes into a 462-meter peak on the island of Ibiza; 104 are killed.
January 9 – The RMS Queen Elizabeth catches fire and sinks in Hong Kong's Victoria harbor while undergoing conversion to a floating university.
January 10 – Independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returns to Bangladesh after spending over nine months in prison in Pakistan.
January 11 – Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declares a new constitutional government in Bangladesh, with himself as president.
January 12 – In a 10-hour siege, a cell of 4 left-wing insurgents hold off a task force of 2500 army soldiers and police agents in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: eight members of the security forces and the entire insurgent cell are killed in the course of the siege.
January 13 – Prime Minister of Ghana Kofi Abrefa Busia is overthrown in a military coup by Colonel Ignatius Kutu Acheampong.
January 14 – Queen Margrethe II of Denmark succeeds her father, King Frederik IX, on the throne of Denmark, the first queen regnant of Denmark since 1412 and the first Danish monarch not named Frederick or Christian since 1513.
January 18 – Members of the Mukti Bahini lay down their arms to the government of the newly independent Bangladesh, 33 days after winning the war against the occupying Pakistan Army.
January 19 – The Libertarian enclave Minerva on a platform in the South Pacific, sponsored by the Phoenix Foundation, declares independence. Soon neighboring Tonga annexes the area and dismantles the platform.
January 20 – President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto announces that Pakistan will immediately begin a nuclear weapons program.
January 21
A New Delhi bootlegger sells wood alcohol to a wedding party; 100 people die.
Tripura, part of the former independent Twipra Kingdom, becomes a full state of India.
January 24 – Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi is discovered in Guam; he has spent 28 years in the jungle, having failed to surrender after World War II.
January 26
Yugoslavian air stewardess Vesna Vulović is the only survivor when her plane crashes in Czechoslovakia. She survives after falling 10,160 meters (33,330 feet) in the tail section of the aircraft.
The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is set up on the lawn of Parliament House in Canberra.
January 30
Bloody Sunday: The British Army kills 14 unarmed nationalist civil rights marchers in Derry, Northern Ireland.
Pakistan withdraws from the Commonwealth of Nations.
January 31 – King Birendra succeeds his father as King of Nepal.
=== February ===
February 2
A bomb explodes at the British Yacht Club in West Berlin, killing Irwin Beelitz, a German boat builder. The German militant group June 2 Movement claims responsibility, announcing its support of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
Anti-British riots take place throughout Ireland. The British Embassy in Dublin is burned to the ground, as are several British-owned businesses.
February 3–13 – The 1972 Winter Olympics are held in Sapporo, Japan.
February 4 – Mariner 9 sends pictures as it orbits Mars.
February 15 – President of Ecuador José María Velasco Ibarra is deposed for the fourth time.
February 17 – Volkswagen Beetle sales exceed those of the Ford Model T when the 15,007,034th Beetle is produced.
February 19 – Asama-Sansō incident: Five United Red Army members break into a lodge below Mount Asama in Japan, taking the wife of the lodgekeeper hostage.
February 21 – The Soviet uncrewed spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon.
February 21–28 – U.S. President Richard Nixon makes an unprecedented 8-day visit to the People's Republic of China and meets with Mao Zedong.
February 22
The Troubles: 1972 Aldershot bombing – A car bomb planted by the Official Irish Republican Army kills seven people outside a British military base in Aldershot, England.
Lufthansa Flight 649 is hijacked and taken to Aden. Passengers are released the following day after a ransom of 5 million US dollars is agreed.
February 23 – US activist Angela Davis is released from jail. Rodger McAfee, a farmer from Caruthers, California, helps her make bail.
February 26 – Luna 20 comes back to Earth with 55 grams (1.9 ounces) of lunar soil.
February 28 – The Asama-Sansō incident ends in a standoff between 5 members of the Japanese United Red Army and the authorities, in which two policemen are killed and 12 injured.
=== March ===
March 1 – Juan María Bordaberry is sworn in as President of Uruguay amid accusations of electoral fraud.
March 2
The Club of Rome presents the research results leading to its report The Limits to Growth, published later in the month.
The Pioneer 10 spacecraft is launched from Cape Kennedy, to be the first man-made spacecraft to leave the Solar System.
Jean-Bédel Bokassa becomes President of the Central African Republic.
March 4
Libya and the Soviet Union sign a cooperation treaty.
The Organisation of the Islamic Conference Charter is signed (effective February 28, 1973).
March 19 – India and Bangladesh sign the Indo-Bangladeshi Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Peace.
March 22
The 92nd U.S. Congress votes to send the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the states for ratification.
Eisenstadt v. Baird: The Supreme Court of the U.S. rules that unmarried people have the right to access contraception on the same basis as married couples
March 25 – "Après toi" sung by Vicky Leandros (music by Klaus Munro & Mario Panas, lyric by Klaus Munro & Yves Dessca) wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1972 (staged in Edinburgh) for Luxembourg.
March 26 – An avalanche on Mount Fuji in Japan kills 19 climbers.
March 27
The First Sudanese Civil War ends.
The Soviet Union launches Venera 8, which will make the first soft landing on Venus.
March 30 – Vietnam War: The Easter Offensive begins after North Vietnamese forces cross into the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) of South Vietnam
=== April ===
April 4 – The U.S. formally recognizes Bangladesh.
April 10
The U.S. and the Soviet Union join some 70 nations in signing the Biological Weapons Convention, an agreement to ban biological warfare.
Tombs containing bamboo slips, among them Sun Tzu's Art of War and Sun Bin's lost military treatise, are accidentally discovered by construction workers in Shandong.
The 6.7 Mw Qir earthquake shakes southern Iran with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), killing 5,374 people in the province of Fars.
The 44th Annual Academy Awards are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles.
April 13 – The Universal Postal Union decides to recognize the People's Republic of China as the only legitimate Chinese representative, effectively expelling the Republic of China administering Taiwan.
April 16
Apollo 16 (John Young, Ken Mattingly, Charlie Duke) is launched. During the mission, the astronauts, driving the Lunar Roving Vehicle, achieve a lunar rover speed record of 17 km/h.
Vietnam War: Nguyen Hue Offensive – Prompted by the North Vietnamese offensive, the United States resumes bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong.
April 26 – The Lockheed L-1011 TriStar enters service with Eastern Airlines.
April 27
Ikiza: Burundi government forces begin a 4-month genocide against the Hutu people, killing 100,000–300,000.
A no-confidence vote against German Chancellor Willy Brandt fails under obscure circumstances; years later it turned out that at least one opposition MP was paid by the East German Stasi for not supporting the vote.
April 29 – The fourth anniversary of the Broadway musical Hair is celebrated with a free concert at a Central Park bandshell, followed by dinner at the Four Seasons. There, 13 Black Panther protesters and the show's co-author, Jim Rado, are arrested for disturbing the peace and for using marijuana.
=== May ===
May 2 – Fire at the Sunshine Mine, a silver mine in Idaho, kills 91.
May 5 – An Alitalia DC-8 crashes west of Palermo, Sicily; 115 die.
May 7 – General elections are held in Italy.
May 10 – Operation Linebacker and Operation Custom Tailor begin with large-scale bombing operations against North Vietnam by tactical fighter aircraft.
May 13 – A fire in a nightclub atop the Sennichi department store in Osaka, Japan, kills 115.
May 21 – In St. Peter's Basilica (Vatican City), Laszlo Toth attacks Michelangelo's Pietà statue with a geologist's hammer, shouting that he is Jesus Christ.
May 22
The Dominion of Ceylon becomes the republic of Sri Lanka under prime minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, when its new constitution is ratified.
Ferit Melen forms the new (interim) government of Turkey (35th government)
May 23 – The Tamil United Front (later known as Tamil United Liberation Front), a pro-Tamil organization, is founded in Sri Lanka.
May 26
Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT I treaty in Moscow, as well as the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and other agreements.
Willandra National Park is established in Australia.
May 27 – Mark Donohue wins the Indianapolis 500 in a Penske Racing McLaren–Offenhauser.
May 30
Lod Airport massacre: Three Japanese Red Army members operating on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – External Operations kill 26 and injure 80 people at Lod Airport, Israel.
The Troubles: The Official Irish Republican Army declares a ceasefire.
=== June ===
June – Iraq nationalizes the Iraq Petroleum Company.
June 3 – Sally Priesand becomes the first American woman (and the second known woman anywhere) to be ordained as a rabbi within Judaism.
June 5–16 – The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment is held in Stockholm, Sweden
June 8
Seven men and three women hijack a plane from Czechoslovakia to West Germany.
Vietnam War: Associated Press photographer Nick Ut takes his Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a naked nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc running down a road after being burned by napalm.
June 9 – The Black Hills flood kills 238 in South Dakota.
June 11 – Henri Pescarolo (France) and co-driver former World Drivers' Champion Graham Hill (Britain) win the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the Equipe Matra MS670.
June 12 – Popeyes was formed in Arabi, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans, Louisiana, in St. Bernard Parish.
June 14–23 – Hurricane Agnes kills 117 on the U.S. East Coast.
June 14 – Japan Airlines Flight 471 crashes outside New Delhi airport, killing 82 of 87 occupants.
June 16 – 108 die as two passenger trains hit the debris of a collapsed railway tunnel near Soissons, France.
June 17
Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives are arrested for burgling the offices of the Democratic National Committee.
Chilean president Salvador Allende forms a new government.
June 18
Staines air disaster: 118 die when a British European Airways Trident 1 jet airliner crashes two minutes after takeoff from London Heathrow Airport.
West Germany beats the Soviet Union 3–0 in the final to win Euro '72.
Hong Kong's worst flooding and landslides in recorded history with 653.2 millimetres (25.72 in) of rainfall in the previous three days. 67 people die due to building collapses in Mid-levels districts landslide and building collapses, with a further 83 due to flooding-related fatalities. It is the second worst fatality due to building collapses, and the worst flooding in Hong Kong's recorded history.
June 23
Watergate scandal: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon and White House chief of staff H. R. Haldeman are taped talking about using the C.I.A. to obstruct the investigation by the F.B.I. into the Watergate break-ins.
The United Kingdom Chancellor of the Exchequer, Anthony Barber, announces a decision for the pound sterling to move to a floating exchange rate. Although intended to be temporary, this remains permanent. Foreign exchange controls are applied to most members of the sterling area.
June 30 – The International Time Bureau adds the first leap second (23:59:60) of this year to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
=== July ===
July 1 – The Canadian ketch Vega, flying the Greenpeace III banner, collides with the French naval minesweeper La Paimpolaise while in international waters to protest French nuclear weapon tests in the South Pacific.
July 2 – Following Pakistan's surrender to India in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, both nations sign the historic Simla Agreement, agreeing to settle their disputes bilaterally.
July 4 – The first Rainbow Gathering is held in Colorado.
July 10 – At least 24 people have been killed by elephants crazed by heat and drought in separate incidents in the Chandka Forest of India, according to news agency reports.
July 11
The long anticipated chess match between world champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union, and United States champion Bobby Fischer, begins in Iceland at Reykjavík.
Curtis Mayfield releases the soundtrack to the 1972 film, Super Fly.
July 10–14 – The Democratic National Convention meets in Miami Beach. Senator George McGovern, who backs the immediate and complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Vietnam, is nominated for president. He names fellow Senator Thomas Eagleton as his running mate.
July 18 – Anwar Sadat expels 20,000 Soviet advisors from Egypt.
July 21
The Troubles: Bloody Friday – 22 bombs planted by the Provisional Irish Republican Army explode in Belfast, Northern Ireland; nine people are killed and 130 seriously injured.
A collision between two trains near Seville, Spain, kills 76 people.
July 22 - The Soviet probe Venera 8 lands on the surface of Venus and transmits data for 50 minutes about the planet's surface temperature and atmospheric pressure.
July 23 – The United States launches Landsat 1, the first Earth-resources satellite.
July 24 – Jigme Singye Wangchuck succeeds his father Jigme Dorji Wangchuck as King of Bhutan.
July 25 – U.S. health officials admit that African-American men were used as guinea pigs in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study without their informed consent.
July 27 – The McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle fighter aircraft makes its first flight in the United States.
July 31 – The Troubles, Northern Ireland:
Operation Motorman 4:00 AM: The British Army begins to regain control of the "no-go areas" established by Irish republican paramilitaries in Belfast, Derry ("Free Derry") and Newry.
Claudy bombing ("Bloody Monday"), 10:00 AM: Three car bombs in Claudy, County Londonderry, kill nine. It becomes public knowledge only in 2010 that a local Catholic priest was an IRA officer believed to be involved in the bombings but his role was covered up by the authorities.
=== August ===
August 4
Expulsion of Asians from Uganda: Dictator Idi Amin declares that Uganda will expel 50,000 Asians with British passports to Britain within 3 months. Most of their property is confiscated.
August 1972 solar storms: A huge solar flare (one of the largest ever recorded) knocks out cable lines in the U.S. It begins with the appearance of sunspots on August 2; an August 4 flare kicks off high levels of activity until August 10.
August 10 – 1972 Great Daylight Fireball: A brilliant meteor is seen in the western U.S. and Canada as an Apollo asteroid skips off the Earth's atmosphere.
August 12 – Oil tankers Oswego-Guardian and Texanita collide near Stilbaai, South Africa.
August 14 – An East German Ilyushin airliner crashes near East Berlin; all 156 on board perish.
August 16 – As part of a coup attempt, members of the Royal Moroccan Air Force fire upon, but fail to bring down, Hassan II of Morocco's plane while he is traveling back to Rabat.
August 19 – The first daytime episode of the second incarnation of the American game show The Price Is Right is taped at CBS Television City, to be aired on September 4.
August 21 – The Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida, renominates U.S. President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew for a second term.
August 22
Rhodesia is expelled by the International Olympic Committee for its racist policies.
In the Almirante Zar Naval Base, Argentina, 16 detainees are executed by firing squad in the Trelew massacre.
August 26–September 10 – The 1972 Summer Olympics are held in Munich, West Germany.
=== September ===
September 1
Bobby Fischer defeats Boris Spassky in a chess match in Reykjavík, Iceland, becoming the first American world chess champion.
The Second Cod War begins between the United Kingdom and Iceland.
September 5–6 – Munich massacre: Eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich are murdered after eight members of the Arab terrorist group Black September invade the Olympic Village; five guerillas and one policeman are also killed in a failed hostage rescue.
September 10 – Brazilian driver Emerson Fittipaldi wins the Italian Grand Prix at Monza and becomes the youngest Formula One World Champion at the age of 25.
September 14 – West Germany and Poland renew diplomatic relations.
September 23 – Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos announces on national television the issuance of Proclamation No. 1081 placing the entire country under martial law.
September 24 – An F-86 fighter aircraft leaving an air show at Sacramento Executive Airport fails to become airborne and crashes into a Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour, killing 12 children and 11 adults.
September 25 – 1972 Norwegian EC referendum: Norway rejects membership of the European Economic Community.
September 28 – The Canada men's national ice hockey team defeats the Soviet national ice hockey team in the eighth and final game of the 1972 Summit Series 6–5 to win the series 4–3–1.
September 29 – China–Japan relations: The Joint Communiqué of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People's Republic of China is signed in Beijing, which normalizes Japanese diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China after breaking official ties with the Republic of China (Taiwan).
=== October ===
October – In Somalia, the government of President Siad Barre formally introduces the Somali alphabet as the country's official writing script.
October 1
The first publication reporting the production of a recombinant DNA molecule, by Paul Berg and colleagues, marks the birth of modern molecular biology methodology.
Alex Comfort's bestselling manual The Joy of Sex is published.
October 2 – Denmark joins the European Community; the Faroe Islands stay out.
October 5 – The United Reformed Church in England is founded out of the Congregational and Presbyterian Churches.
October 6 – A train crash in Saltillo, Mexico, kills 208 people.
October 8 – A major breakthrough occurs in the Paris peace talks between Henry Kissinger and Lê Đức Thọ.
October 13 – Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571: A Fairchild FH-227D passenger aircraft transporting a rugby union team crashes at about 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in the Andes mountain range, near the Argentina/Chile border. Sixteen of the survivors are found alive December 20 but they have had to resort to cannibalism to survive.
October 22 – The Oakland Athletics defeat the Cincinnati Reds four games to three to capture Major League Baseball's World Series. It is the Athletics' first championship since 1930, when the franchise was in Philadelphia.
October 25 – Belgian Eddy Merckx sets a new world hour record in cycling in Mexico City.
October 26 – A coup in the Republic of Dahomey (later Benin) led by Mathieu Kérékou removes a civilian government (which has been headed by a triumvirate consisting of Ahomadégbé, Apithy and Maga).
October 28 – The Airbus A300 flies for the first time.
=== November ===
November – The Nishitetsu Lions baseball club, part of the NPB's Pacific League, is sold to the Fukuoka Baseball Corporation, a subsidiary of Nishi-Nippon Railroad. The team is renamed the Taiheiyo Club Lions.
November 7 – 1972 United States presidential election: Republican incumbent Richard Nixon defeats Democratic Senator George McGovern in a landslide. The election has the lowest voter turnout since 1948, with only 55 percent of the electorate voting.
November 11 – Vietnam War: Vietnamization – The United States Army turns over the massive Long Binh military base to South Vietnam.
November 14 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 1,000 (1,003.16) for the first time.
November 16 – The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization adopts the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage.
November 19 – Seán Mac Stíofáin, a leader of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, is arrested in Dublin after giving a radio interview to RTÉ and charged with being a member of the IRA.
November 28 – The last executions in Paris, France. Roger Bontems and Claude Buffet – the Clairvaux Mutineers – are guillotined at La Santé Prison by chief executioner André Obrecht. Bontems, found not guilty of murder by the court, is condemned as Buffet's accomplice. President Georges Pompidou, in private an abolitionist, upholds both death sentences in deference to French public opinion.
November 29
The "tea house" Mellow Yellow opens on the river Amstel in Amsterdam, pioneering the legal sale of cannabis in the Netherlands.
Atari in the United States release the production version of Pong, one of the first video games to achieve widespread popularity in both the arcade and home console markets, devised by Nolan Bushnell and Allan Alcorn.
=== December ===
December 2 – 1972 Australian federal election: The Labor Party led by Gough Whitlam defeats the Liberal/Country Coalition government led by Prime Minister William McMahon. Consequently, Whitlam becomes the first Labor Prime Minister of Australia since the defeat of Ben Chifley in 1949. Whitlam will be sworn in on December 5; his first action using executive power is to withdraw all Australian personnel from the Vietnam War. McMahon resigns from the Liberal leadership almost immediately; he will be replaced by outgoing Treasurer Billy Snedden.
December 7
Apollo 17 (Gene Cernan, Ronald Evans, Harrison Schmitt), the last crewed Moon mission until the Artemis II flyby in 2026, is launched and The Blue Marble photograph of the Earth is taken. The mission also includes five mice.
Imelda Marcos, First Lady of the Philippines, is stabbed and seriously wounded by an assailant; her bodyguards shoot the assailant.
December 8
United Airlines Flight 553 crashes short of a runway in Chicago, killing 43 of 61 passengers and two people on the ground. A day later, over $10,000 cash is found in the purse of Watergate conspirator Howard Hunt's wife, who was on board.
International Human Rights Day is proclaimed by the United Nations.
December 11 – Apollo 17 lands on the Moon.
December 14 – Apollo program: Eugene Cernan becomes the last person to walk on the Moon until 2028 at the earliest, after he and Harrison Schmitt complete the third and final extra-vehicular activity (EVA) of Apollo 17.
December 15 – The United Nations Environment Programme is established as a specialized agency of the United Nations.
December 16
The Constitution of Bangladesh comes into effect.
Mozambican War of independence: The Portuguese army kills 400 Africans in Tete, Mozambique.
December 19 – Apollo program: Apollo 17 returns to Earth, concluding the program of lunar exploration.
December 21 – Rhodesian Bush War: ZANLA troopers attack Altera Farm in north-east Rhodesia.
December 22
Australia establishes diplomatic relations with China and East Germany.
A peace delegation that includes singer-activist Joan Baez and human rights attorney Telford Taylor visit Hanoi to deliver Christmas mail to American prisoners of war (they will be caught in the Christmas bombing of North Vietnam).
December 23
The 6.2 Mw Nicaragua earthquake kills 5,000–11,000 people in the capital Managua. President Anastasio Somoza Debayle is later accused of not distributing millions of dollars worth of foreign aid.
Swedish Prime minister Olof Palme compares the American bombings of North Vietnam to Nazi massacres. The U.S. breaks diplomatic contact with Sweden.
Asker accident: Braathens SAFE Flight 239 crashes during approach to Oslo Airport, Fornebu, Norway; forty people on board are killed.
December 28 – The bones of Nazi Party official Martin Bormann are discovered in Berlin during construction work.
December 29 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 crashes into the Everglades in Florida, killing 101 of 176 on board. It is the first hull loss of a wide-body aircraft.
December 31 – For the first and last time, a 2nd leap second is added (23:59:60) to a year, making 1972 366 days and two seconds long, the longest year ever within the context of UTC.
=== Date unknown ===
Colombian looters find the lost 1st millennium city of Ciudad Perdida; it is not reached by official archaeologists until 1976.
== Births ==
=== January ===
January 1 – Lilian Thuram, French football player
January 2 – Shiraz Minwalla, Indian theoretical physicist and string theorist
January 5
Ariel McDonald, American-Slovenian basketball player
Sakis Rouvas, Greek recording, film and television artist, athlete and businessman
January 10 – Thomas Alsgaard, Norwegian cross-country skier
January 11 – Amanda Peet, American actress
January 12 – Toto Wolff, Austrian racing driver and team principal
January 13
Nicole Eggert, American actress
Vitaly Scherbo, Belarusian gymnast
January 16
Salah Hissou, Moroccan long-distance runner
Greg Page, Australian singer, musician and actor (The Wiggles)
January 20 – Nikki Haley, Indian-American politician, Governor of South Carolina (2010–2017) and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (2017–2018)
January 21 – Billel Dziri, Algerian footballer and manager
January 22 – Gabriel Macht, American actor
January 23 – Marcel Wouda, Dutch swimmer
January 27
Bibi Gaytán, Mexican singer and actress
Mark Owen, British pop singer (Take That)
Keith Wood, Irish rugby player
January 28 – Amy Coney Barrett, American attorney, jurist and associate justice, U.S. Supreme Court
January 30 – Mike Johnson, 56th Speaker of the US House of Representatives
=== February ===
February 1
Tego Calderón, Puerto Rican hip hop musician and actor
Leymah Gbowee, Liberian peace activist, Nobel Peace Prize laureate
February 2
Klára Dobrev, Hungarian politician
Hendrick Ramaala, South African long-distance runner
February 3 – Michael Kovrig, Canadian diplomat and hostage victim
February 5 – Queen Mary of Denmark
February 8 – Big Show, American professional wrestler
February 9 – Norbert Rózsa, Hungarian swimmer
February 11
Craig Jones, American sampler / keyboardist
Steve McManaman, British footballer
Kelly Slater, American professional surfer
February 13
Virgilijus Alekna, Lithuanian discus thrower
Ana Paula Connelly, Brazilian beach volleyball player
February 14 – Rob Thomas, American singer-songwriter (Matchbox Twenty)
February 15 – Jaromír Jágr, Czech ice hockey player
February 17
Billie Joe Armstrong, American rock musician and lead singer/guitarist (Green Day)
Taylor Hawkins, American musician (d. 2022)
Valeria Mazza, Argentinian model and businesswoman
February 18 – Olexandra Timoshenko, Ukrainian rhythmic gymnast
February 22
Michael Chang, American tennis player
Claudia Pechstein, German speed-skater
Haim Revivo, Israeli footballer
February 24
Pooja Bhatt, Indian actress
Richard Chelimo, Kenyan athlete (d. 2001)
February 26 – Keith Ferguson, American voice actor
February 29
Dave Williams, American singer (d. 2002)
Pedro Sánchez, Spanish politician, Prime Minister 2018–
=== March ===
March 4 – Pae Gil-su, North Korean gymnast
March 6
Shaquille O'Neal, American basketball player
Marianne Thieme, Dutch politician and activist
March 10 – Timbaland, American record producer, songwriter and rapper
March 13
Leigh-Allyn Baker, American actress
Common, African-American rapper and actor
March 15 – Mark Hoppus, American musician and bassist (blink-182)
March 17 – Mia Hamm, American soccer player
March 20 – Segundo Cernadas, Argentine actor
March 21
Balázs Kiss, Hungarian Olympic athlete
Derartu Tulu, Ethiopian long-distance runner
March 22
Shawn Bradley, American basketball player
Elvis Stojko, Canadian figure skater
March 23
Joe Calzaghe, Welsh boxer
Judith Godrèche, French actress
March 25 – Naftali Bennett, Israeli politician
March 26 – Leslie Mann, American actress
March 27
Kieran Modra, Australian Paralympic swimmer and cyclist (d. 2019)
Charlie Haas, American professional wrestler
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Dutch footballer
March 28 – Nick Frost, English actor, comedian and screenwriter
March 29
Hera Björk, Icelandic singer
Rui Costa, Portuguese footballer
Priti Patel, British Indian politician, Secretary of State for the Home Department
March 30 – Karel Poborský, Czech footballer
=== April ===
April 2 – Eyal Berkovic, Israeli footballer
April 3 – Jennie Garth, American actress
April 4 – Jill Scott, American singer-songwriter and model
April 7 – Tim Peake, British astronaut
April 10 – Vincent Zhao, Chinese actor and martial artist
April 12 – Marco Goecke, German choreographer
April 13 – Mariusz Czerkawski, Polish ice hockey player
April 15 – Arturo Gatti, Canadian boxer (d. 2009)
April 16 – Conchita Martínez, Spanish tennis player
April 17
Jennifer Garner, American actress
Muttiah Muralitharan, Sri Lankan cricketer
April 19 – Rivaldo, Brazilian footballer
April 20
Lê Huỳnh Đức, Vietnamese footballer
Carmen Electra, American actress and singer
Željko Joksimović, Serbian singer, composer songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer
Stephen Marley, American musician
April 21
Narges Mohammadi, Iranian human rights activist, Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Stefan Brogren, Canadian actor
April 26 – Avi Nimni, Israeli footballer
April 28
Sergio Massa, Argentine lawyer and politician
Violent J, American rapper actor and one-half of the Insane Clown Posse
=== May ===
May 1 – Julie Benz, American actress
May 2 – Dwayne Johnson, American professional wrestler and actor
May 3 – Steve Barclay, British politician
May 4 – Mike Dirnt, American rock musician and bassist (Green Day)
May 5
Devin Townsend, Canadian musician
James Cracknell, British Olympic rower
May 6
Martin Brodeur, Canadian ice hockey goaltender
Naoko Takahashi, Japanese long-distance runner
May 7 – Asghar Farhadi, Iranian film director
May 8 – Darren Hayes, Australian musician
May 9 – Daniela Silivaș, Romanian gymnast
May 10 – Katja Seizinger, German alpine skier
May 15 – Élisa Martin, French politician
May 19
Jenny Berggren, Swedish rock singer (Ace of Base)
Özcan Deniz, Turkish actor, singer and composer
Claudia Karvan, Australian actress
May 20 – Busta Rhymes, African-American rapper and actor
May 21 – The Notorious B.I.G., African-American rapper (d. 1997)
May 22 – Max Brooks, American horror author and screenwriter
May 23
Rubens Barrichello, Brazilian racing driver
Kevin Ullyett, Zimbabwean tennis player
May 24 – Maia Sandu, Prime Minister of Moldova
May 25
Karan Johar, Indian film director, producer and screenwriter
Cung Le, Vietnamese-born American actor and mixed martial artist
May 26 – Dhani Muhammad Prasetyo, Indonesian singer-songwriter, musician, arranger, record executive, entrepreneur, and politician
May 28 – Michael Boogerd, Dutch cyclist
May 29 – Laverne Cox, American actress and LGBTQ+ advocate
May 30 – Manny Ramírez, Dominican baseball player
May 31 – Frode Estil, Norwegian cross-country skier
=== June ===
June 2 – Wentworth Miller, British-born American actor and screenwriter
June 4 – Stoja, Serbian singer
June 5 – Yogi Adityanath, Indian priest and politician
June 6
Noriaki Kasai, Japanese ski jumper
Natalie Morales, American journalist
Cristina Scabbia, Italian singer
June 7 – Karl Urban, New Zealand actor
June 15 – Poppy Montgomery, Australian-American actress
June 16 – John Cho, Korean-American actor and musician
June 17 – Iztok Čop, Slovenian rower
June 18 – Michal Yannai, Israeli actress
June 19 – Jean Dujardin, French actor, comedian and film director
June 21 – Irene van Dyk, South African born New Zealand netball player
June 23 – Zinedine Zidane, French footballer and manager
June 24
Robbie McEwen, Australian professional bicycle road racer
Kim Yeo-jin, South Korean actress and activist
June 28
Geeta Tripathee, Nepali poet, lyricist and literary critic
Maria Butyrskaya, Russian figure skater
June 29
DJ Shadow, American DJ and record producer
Samantha Smith, American peace activist (d. 1985)
June 30
Molly Parker, Canadian actress
=== July ===
July 1 – Steffi Nerius, German javelin thrower
July 2 – Darren Shan, Irish author
July 4
Nina Badrić, Croatian pop singer
Alexei Shirov, Spanish chess Grandmaster
Craig Spearman, New Zealand cricketer
July 5
Robert Esmie, Canadian Olympic athlete
Gary Shteyngart, Soviet-born American writer
July 6
Isabelle Boulay, French Canadian singer
Zhanna Pintusevich-Block, Ukrainian sprinter
July 7
Lisa Leslie, American basketball player
Kirsten Vangsness, American actress and writer
July 8 – Sourav Ganguly, Indian cricketer
July 10
Sofía Vergara, Colombian-American actress, television producer, comedian, presenter and model
Julián Legaspi, Uruguayan-Peruvian actor
July 11 – Michael Rosenbaum, American actor, producer, singer and comedian
July 17 – Jaap Stam, Dutch football player and coach
July 20 – Jozef Stümpel, Slovak professional ice hockey player
July 21 – Catherine Ndereba, Kenyan long-distance runner
July 22
Andrew Holness, 9th Prime Minister of Jamaica
Keyshawn Johnson, American football player
Nataša Ninković, Serbian actress
July 23 – Marlon Wayans, American actor, comedian, producer and screenwriter
July 25 – Carole Samaha, Lebanese singer and actress
July 27
Clint Robinson, Australian kayaker
Maya Rudolph, American actress, comedienne and singer
Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, Malaysian orthopaedic surgeon and the first commercial astronaut
July 28
Elizabeth Berkley, American actress
Evan Farmer, American television host, actor and musician
July 29 – Wil Wheaton, American actor, blogger and writer
=== August ===
August 1 – Devon Hughes, American professional wrestler
August 4 – Audrey Azoulay, French politician and civil servant
August 6 – Geri Halliwell, British pop singer (Spice Girls)
August 7 – Chip Roy, American politician
August 9
A-mei, Taiwanese singer
Ryan Bollman, American actor
Bang Si-Hyuk, South Korean Producer
August 10 – Angie Harmon, American actress
August 12 – Demir Demirkan, Turkish rock musician and songwriter
August 13 – Michael Sinterniklaas, French-American voice actor
August 14 – Yoo Jae-suk, South Korean comedian and television comedy show host
August 15 – Ben Affleck, American actor and film director
August 19
Roberto Abbondanzieri, Argentine footballer
Sammi Cheng, Hong Kong singer and actress
August 27
Denise Lewis, English track and field athlete
The Great Khali, Indian promoter, actor, powerlifter and professional wrestler
August 29 – Bae Yong-joon, South Korean actor
August 30
Cameron Diaz, American actress
Pavel Nedvěd, Czech footballer
=== September ===
September 2 – Sergejs Žoltoks, Latvian hockey player (d. 2004)
September 4
Daniel Nestor, Serbian born-Canadian tennis player
Françoise Yip, Chinese-Canadian actress
September 6 – Idris Elba, English actor
September 9 – Goran Višnjić, Croatian-American actor
September 10 – Ghada Shouaa, Syrian athlete
September 12 – Vebjørn Rodal, Norwegian middle-distance athlete
September 15 – Queen Letizia of Spain
September 16
Sprent Dabwido, Nauruan politician (d. 2019)
Vebjørn Rodal, Norwegian Olympic athlete
September 17 – Bobby Lee, Asian-American comedian
September 19 – Ashot Nadanian, Armenian chess player, theoretician and coach
September 20 – Victor Ponta, 3-Time Prime Minister of Romania
September 21
Liam Gallagher, British singer (Oasis)
Erin Fitzgerald, Canadian-American voice actress
September 23
Pierre Amine Gemayel, Lebanese politician (d. 2006)
Galit Gutman, Israeli female model
September 26
Beto O'Rourke, American politician, representative of Texas 16th congressional district
Shawn Stockman, American singer and musician (Boyz II Men)
September 27 – Gwyneth Paltrow, American actress
September 28 – Dita Von Teese, American burlesque artist, model and businesswoman
September 30
Ari Behn, Norwegian author (d. 2019)
José Lima, Dominican baseball player (d. 2010)
Shaan, Indian singer
=== October ===
October 2 – Konstantinos Papadakis, Greek pianist
October 3 – Kim Joo-hyuk, South Korean actor (d. 2017)
October 5 – Grant Hill, African-American basketball player
October 6 – Mark Schwarzer, Australian soccer player
October 11 – Claudia Black, Australian actress
October 15 – Sandra Kim, Belgian singer, Eurovision Song Contest 1986 winner
October 17
Eminem, American rapper and actor
Sharon Leal, American actress and director
Tarkan, Turkish singer
October 21
Evgeny Afineevsky, Russian-born American film director and producer
Evhen Tsybulenko, Ukrainian professor of international law
October 22 – Saffron Burrows, British actress
October 24 – Kim Ji-soo, South Korean actress
October 25 – Esther Duflo, French American economist, recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
October 26 – Dianno A. Jakelj, Slovenian abstract painter
October 27
Elissa, Lebanese singer
Maria de Lurdes Mutola, Mozambican athlete
October 28 – Brad Paisley, American country music singer-songwriter and guitarist.
October 29 – Gabrielle Union, American actress
=== November ===
November 1
Mario Barth, German comedian
Toni Collette, Australian actress, singer and musician
Jenny McCarthy, American actress and model
November 2 – Vladimir Vorobiev, Russian ice hockey player
November 4 – Luís Figo, Portuguese footballer
November 5 – Jonny Greenwood, English musician and composer and lead guitarist of Radiohead
November 6
Adonis Georgiades, Greek historian and politician, Minister of Health
Thandiwe Newton, British actress
Rebecca Romijn, American actress and model
November 8
Gretchen Mol, American actress
Maja Marijana, Serbian pop-folk singer
November 9
Eric Dane, American actor (d. 2026)
Corin Tucker, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
November 10
Trevor Devall, Canadian voice actor and podcaster
DJ Ashba, American musician
November 11 – Adam Beach, Canadian actor
November 13 – Takuya Kimura, Japanese actor
November 14 – Josh Duhamel, American actor and model
November 15 – Jonny Lee Miller, English-American actor
November 16
Aurelia Dobre, Romanian artistic gymnast
Missi Pyle, American actress and singer
November 18 – Zubeen Garg, Indian singer and actor (d. 2025)
November 23 – Alfie Haaland, Norwegian footballer
November 26 – Arjun Rampal, Indian actor
November 29
Brian Baumgartner, American actor and director
Andreas Goldberger, Austrian ski jumper
Rodrigo Pessoa, Brazilian equestrian
November 30 – Christopher Fitzgerald, American actor
=== December ===
December 4 – Yūko Miyamura, Japanese voice actress, actress and singer
December 7 – Hermann Maier, Austrian skier
December 9
Tré Cool, American rock musician and drummer (Green Day)
Fabrice Santoro, French tennis player
December 11 – Daniel Alfredsson, Swedish-Canadian ice hockey player
December 12
Wilson Kipketer, Kenyan-Danish athlete
Arihito Muramatsu, Japanese baseball player
December 13 – Mauricio Solís, Costa Rican footballer
December 14 – Miranda Hart, British comedian and actress
December 15 – Lee Jung-jae, South Korean actor
December 16 – Zeljko Kalac, Australian footballer
December 17
John Abraham, Indian actor
Iván Pedroso, Cuban long jumper
December 18
Eimear Quinn, Irish Celtic singer, Eurovision Song Contest 1996 winner
Lawrence Wong, Singapore economist and fourth Prime Minister of Singapore
December 19 – Alyssa Milano, American actress
December 22 – Vanessa Paradis, French singer and actress
December 24 – Álvaro Mesén, Costa Rican footballer
December 25 – Qu Yunxia, Chinese middle-distance runner
December 27 – Colin Charvis, Welsh rugby player
December 28 – Pat Rafter, Australian tennis player
December 29
Jude Law, British actor
Leonor Varela, Chilean actress
December 31 – Grégory Coupet, French footballer
=== Date unknown ===
Sanita Pavļuta-Deslandes, Latvian civil servant and diplomat
== Deaths ==
=== January ===
January 1
Maurice Chevalier, French singer and actor (b. 1888)
Maximus V of Constantinople, Turkish Orthodox Christian bishop (b. 1897)
January 3 – Frans Masereel, Belgian painter and graphic artist (b. 1889)
January 6 – Chen Yi, Chinese military commander and politician (b. 1901)
January 7 – Emma P. Carr, American spectroscopist (b. 1880)
January 8 – Wesley Ruggles, American film director (b. 1889)
January 10
Nubar Gulbenkian, Ottoman-born Armenian-British oil trader, socialite and intelligence operative (b. 1896)
Aksel Larsen, Danish politician (b. 1897)
January 14 – King Frederik IX of Denmark (b. 1899)
January 16 – Ross Bagdasarian, American record producer (b. 1919)
January 17 – Rochelle Hudson, American actress, heart attack (b. 1916)
January 19 – Mohammad Al-Abbasi, 45th Prime Minister of Jordan (b. 1914)
January 25 – Erhard Milch, German field marshal and Luftwaffe officer (b. 1892)
January 27 – Mahalia Jackson, American gospel singer (b. 1911)
January 30
Beatrice Forbes, Countess of Granard, American-born heiress (b. 1883)
Prince Sisowath Watchayavong, 5th Prime Minister of Cambodia (b. 1891)
January 31 – King Mahendra of Nepal (b. 1920)
=== February ===
February 2 – Jessie Royce Landis, American actress (b. 1896)
February 5 – Marianne Moore, American poet (b. 1887)
February 7 – Walter Lang, American film director (b. 1896)
February 11 – Colin Munro MacLeod, Canadian-American geneticist (b. 1909)
February 17 – Gavriil Popov, Soviet Russian composer (b. 1904)
February 19
John Grierson, Scottish documentary filmmaker (b. 1898)
Lee Morgan, American jazz trumpeter and composer (b. 1938)
February 20
Maria Goeppert Mayer, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1906)
Walter Winchell, American journalist (b. 1897)
February 25 – Gottfried Fuchs, German footballer (b. 1889)
=== March ===
March 8 – Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, German Nazi politician and SS functionary (b. 1899)
March 11
Fredric Brown, American science fiction and mystery writer (b. 1906)
Zack Wheat, American baseball player (b. 1888)
March 20 – Marilyn Maxwell, American actress (b. 1921)
March 23 – Cristóbal Balenciaga, Spanish couturier (b. 1895)
March 27
M. C. Escher, Dutch artist (b. 1898)
Lorenzo Wright, American athlete (b. 1926)
March 28 – Joseph Paul-Boncour, 71st Prime Minister of France (b. 1873)
March 30 – Johannes Spieß, German U-boat commander during World War I (b. 1888)
March 31 – Meena Kumari, Indian actress, singer and poet (b. 1933; cirrhosis of the liver)
=== April ===
April 2 – Franz Halder, German general (b. 1884)
April 3 – Ferde Grofé, American pianist and composer (b. 1892)
April 4 – Stefan Wolpe, German-born American composer (b. 1902)
April 4 – Gil Hodges, American baseball player (b. 1924)
April 5 – Isabel Jewell, American actress (b. 1907)
April 6
Brian Donlevy, American actor (b. 1901)
Heinrich Lübke, 2nd President of the Federal Republic of Germany (b. 1894)
April 7
Abeid Karume, 1st President of Zanzibar (b. 1905)
August Zaleski, 6th President of Poland (b. 1883)
April 9 – James F. Byrnes, United States Secretary of State and Justice of the Supreme Court (b. 1882)
April 10 – Henry de La Falaise, French film director, Croix de guerre recipient (b. 1898)
April 16 – Yasunari Kawabata, Japanese novelist (b. 1899)
April 20 – Andrea Andreen, Swedish physician (b. 1888)
April 24
Fernando Amorsolo, Filipino painter (b. 1892)
Nora K. Chadwick, English philologist (b. 1891)
April 25 – George Sanders, Russian-born British actor (b. 1906)
April 27 – Kwame Nkrumah, 1st President of Ghana (b. 1909)
April 29 – King Ntare V of Burundi (b. 1947)
April 30
Gia Scala, British actress (b. 1934)
Clara Campoamor, Spanish politician and suffragist (b. 1888)
=== May ===
May 2 – J. Edgar Hoover, American civil servant, 1st Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) (b. 1895)
May 3 – Bruce Cabot, American actor (b. 1904)
May 4
Father Chrysanthus, Dutch arachnologist (b. 1905)
Edward Calvin Kendall, American chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1886)
Josep Samitier, Spanish footballer (b. 1902)
May 5
Reverend Gary Davis, American blues and gospel singer (b. 1896)
Frank Tashlin, American animation director (b. 1913)
May 6 – Deniz Gezmiş, Turkish Marxist revolutionary (executed) (b. 1947)
May 10 – Rice Gemmell, Australian tennis champion (b. 1896)
May 11 – Lee Beom-seok, Korean activist, 1st Prime Minister of South Korea (b. 1900)
May 12 – Lionel Penrose, English geneticist (b. 1898)
May 13 – Dan Blocker, American actor (b. 1928)
May 15 – Nigel Green, South African-English actor (b. 1924)
May 17 – Sir Gordon Lowe, Bt., British tennis player (b. 1884)
May 22
Cecil Day-Lewis, British poet (b. 1904)
Dame Margaret Rutherford, English actress (b. 1892)
May 23 – Richard Day, Canadian art director (b. 1896)
May 24 – Asta Nielsen, Danish silent film star (b. 1881)
May 28
The Duke of Windsor, previously King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom (b. 1894)
Violette Leduc, French writer (b. 1907)
May 29 – Prithviraj Kapoor, Indian actor and director (b. 1906)
May 30 – Watchman Nee, Chinese Christian preacher and church leader (b. 1903)
May 31 – Walter Jackson Freeman II, American neurologist (b. 1895)
=== June ===
June 9 – Rudolf Belling, German sculptor (b. 1886)
June 12
Saul Alinsky, American political activist (b. 1909)
Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Austrian biologist (b. 1901)
Edmund Wilson, American writer and critic (b. 1895)
June 13
Georg von Békésy, Hungarian biophysicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1899)
Stephanie von Hohenlohe, Austrian-born German World War II spy (b. 1891)
Clyde McPhatter, American singer (b. 1932)
Felix Stump, American admiral (b. 1894)
June 18 – Milton L. Humason, American astronomer (b. 1891)
June 22 – Vladimir Durković, Serbian footballer (b. 1937)
June 25 – Jan Matulka, Czech-born American artist (b. 1890)
June 28 – Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, Indian scientist (b. 1893)
June 30 – Joe Deakin, British Olympic athlete (b. 1879)
=== July ===
July 2 – Joseph Fielding Smith, 10th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b. 1876)
July 5 – Raúl Leoni, 55th President of Venezuela (b. 1905)
July 6 – Brandon deWilde, American actor (b. 1942)
July 7
Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople (b. 1886)
King Talal of Jordan (b. 1909)
July 8 – Ghassan Kanafani, Palestinian author (b. 1936)
July 20 – Geeta Dutt, Indian singer (b. 1930)
July 21
Ralph Craig, American Olympic athlete (b. 1889)
King Jigme Dorji Wangchuck (b. 1929)
July 24 − Lance Reventlow, English playboy, entrepreneur and racing driver (b. 1936)
July 25 − Oscar Elton Sette, American fisheries scientist (b. 1900)
July 27 – Count Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, Austrian-Japanese politician and philosopher (b. 1894)
July 28 – Helen Traubel, American soprano (b. 1899)
July 31
Alfons Gorbach, Austrian politician, 15th Chancellor of Austria (b. 1898)
Paul-Henri Spaak, Belgian politician and statesman, 31st Prime Minister of Belgium and 2nd Secretary General of NATO (b. 1899)
=== August ===
August 8 – Andrea Feldman, American actress (b. 1948)
August 9 – Ernst von Salomon, German writer (b. 1902)
August 11 – Max Theiler, South African-born American virologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1899)
August 14
Oscar Levant, American pianist and actor (b. 1906)
Jules Romains, French poet and writer (b. 1885)
August 16 – Pierre Brasseur, French actor (b. 1905)
August 18 – Pavla Hočevar, Slovenian teacher, writer, socialist and suffragist (b. 1889)
August 20 – Juan Manuel Gálvez, 39th President of Honduras (b. 1887)
August 24 – Jinichi Kusaka, Japanese admiral (b. 1888)
August 26 – Sir Francis Chichester, British sailor and aviator (b. 1901)
August 28 – Prince William of Gloucester (b. 1941)
August 29
Lale Andersen, German singer (b. 1905)
René Leibowitz, French composer (b. 1913)
=== September ===
September 1 – He Xiangning, Chinese revolutionary, feminist, politician, painter and poet (b. 1878)
September 2 – Ivan Yumashev, Soviet admiral (b. 1895)
September 5 (Munich massacre):
Yossef Romano, Israeli weightlifter (b. 1940)
Moshe Weinberg, Israeli wrestling coach (b. 1939)
September 6 (Munich massacre):
David Berger, Israeli weightlifter (b. 1944)
Ze'ev Friedman, Israeli weightlifter (b. 1944)
Yossef Gutfreund, Israeli wrestling referee (b. 1931)
Eliezer Halfin, Israeli wrestler (b. 1948)
Amitzur Shapira, Israeli athletics coach (b. 1932)
Kehat Shorr, Israeli shooting coach (b. 1919)
Mark Slavin, Israeli wrestler (b. 1954)
Andre Spitzer, Israeli fencing coach (b. 1945)
September 8 – Warren Kealoha, American Olympic swimmer (b. 1903)
September 12 – William Boyd, American actor (b. 1895)
September 13 – Zoel Parenteau, American composer (b. 1883)
September 15
Ásgeir Ásgeirsson, 2nd President of Iceland (b. 1894)
Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1887)
September 17 – Akim Tamiroff, Armenian actor (b. 1899)
September 19 – Robert Casadesus, French pianist (b. 1899)
September 21 – Henry de Montherlant, French writer (b. 1896)
September 25 – Max Fleischer, American animator (b. 1883)
=== October ===
October 1 – Louis Leakey, British paleontologist (b. 1903)
October 5 – Ivan Yefremov, Soviet paleontologist and science fiction author (b. 1908)
October 8 – Prescott Bush, American banker and politician (b. 1895)
October 9 – Miriam Hopkins, American actress (b. 1902)
October 10 – Kenneth Edgeworth, Irish army officer, economist and astronomer (b. 1880)
October 16 – Leo G. Carroll, English actor (b. 1886)
October 17 – George, Crown Prince of Serbia (b. 1887)
October 20 – Harlow Shapley, American astronomer (b. 1885)
October 24
Jackie Robinson, African-American baseball player (b. 1919)
Claire Windsor, American actress (b. 1892)
October 26 – Igor Sikorsky, Soviet aviation engineer (b. 1889)
October 27 – Katherine Oppenheimer, American biologist (b. 1910)
October 28 – Mitchell Leisen, American film director (b. 1898)
=== November ===
November 1 – Ezra Pound, American poet (b. 1885)
November 5 – Reginald Owen, English actor (b. 1887)
November 12
Rudolf Friml, Czech composer (b. 1879)
José Nucete Sardi, Venezuelan historian and diplomat (b. 1897)
November 13 – Arnold Jackson, British Olympic athlete (b. 1891)
November 14 – Martin Dies Jr., American politician (b. 1900)
November 17
Thomas C. Kinkaid, American admiral (b. 1888)
Eugène Minkowski, French psychiatrist (b. 1885)
November 20 – Ennio Flaiano, Italian screenwriter, playwright, novelist, journalist and drama critic (b. 1910)
November 23 – Marie Wilson, American actress (b. 1916)
November 25 – Henri Coandă, Romanian aerodynamics pioneer (b. 1886)
November 28
Havergal Brian, English composer (b. 1876)
Princess Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (b. 1908)
November 29 – Carl W. Stalling, American musician (b. 1891)
=== December ===
December 1 – Antonio Segni, 34th Prime Minister of Italy and 4th President of the Italian Republic (b. 1891)
December 2 – Ettore Bastico, Italian field marshal (b. 1876)
December 9
William Dieterle, German film director (b. 1893)
Louella Parsons, American gossip columnist (b. 1881)
December 11 – Numa Turcatti, Uruguayan law student, victim of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crash (b. 1947)
December 12 – Thomas H. Robbins Jr., American admiral (b. 1900)
December 13 – René Mayer, 91st Prime Minister of France (b. 1895)
December 20 – Günter Eich, German lyricist, dramatist and author (b. 1907)
December 21
Horace Mann Bond, American historian and college administrator (b. 1904)
Paul Hausser, German Waffen SS general and commander (b. 1880)
December 23 – Andrei Tupolev, Soviet aircraft designer (b. 1888)
December 24
Charles Atlas, Italian-born American strongman and sideshow performer (b. 1892)
Gisela Richter, English art historian (b. 1882)
December 25 – C. Rajagopalachari, Indian politician and freedom-fighter. Last Governor-General of India (1948–50) (b. 1878)
December 26 – Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States (b. 1884)
December 27 – Lester B. Pearson, 14th Prime Minister of Canada, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1897)
December 29 – Joseph Cornell, American sculptor (b. 1903)
December 31 – Roberto Clemente, Puerto Rican baseball player (b. 1934)
== Nobel Prizes ==
Physics – John Bardeen, Leon Neil Cooper, John Robert Schrieffer
Chemistry – Christian B. Anfinsen, Stanford Moore, William H. Stein
Physiology or Medicine – Gerald M. Edelman, Rodney R. Porter
Literature – Heinrich Böll
Peace – not awarded
Economics – John Hicks, Kenneth Arrow
== Other academic awards ==
Turing Award – Edsger W. Dijkstra |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali#Ethnic_groups | Mali#Ethnic groups | Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the eighth-largest country in Africa and the 23rd largest country in the world, with an area of over 1,240,192 square kilometres (478,841 sq mi).
The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east by Niger, to the northwest by Mauritania, to the south by Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, and to the west by Guinea and Senegal. The population of Mali is about 23.29 million, 47.19% of which are estimated to be under the age of 15 in 2024. Its capital and largest city is Bamako. The country has 13 official languages, of which Bambara is the most commonly spoken.
Mali's northern borders reach deep into the middle of the Sahara Desert. The country's southern part, where the majority of inhabitants live, is in the Sudanian savanna and has the Niger and Senegal rivers running through it. The country's economy centres on agriculture and mining with its most prominent natural resources including gold (of which it is the third largest producer in Africa) and salt.
Mali was part of three successive powerful and wealthy West African empires that controlled trans-Saharan trade: the Ghana Empire (for which Ghana is named), the Mali Empire (for which Mali is named), and the Songhai Empire. At its peak in 1300, the Mali Empire was the wealthiest country in Africa with its 14th-century emperor Mansa Musa believed to be one of the wealthiest individuals in history. Besides being a hub of trade and mining, medieval Mali was a centre of Islam, culture and knowledge, with Timbuktu becoming a renowned place of education with its university, one of the oldest in the world and still active. The expanding Songhai Empire absorbed the empire in 1468, followed by a Saadian army which defeated the Songhai in 1591.
In the late 19th century, during the Scramble for Africa, France seized control of Mali, making it a part of French Sudan; as the Sudanese Republic, a brief federation with Senegal was formed, achieving independence in 1960. After Senegal's withdrawal, the Republic of Mali was established. After a long period of one-party rule, a coup in 1991 led to a new constitution and the establishment of Mali as a democratic, multi-party state.
In January 2012, an armed conflict broke out in northern Mali, in which Tuareg rebels took control of a territory in the north, and in April declared the secession of a new state, Azawad. The conflict was complicated by a military coup in March 2012 and later fighting between Tuareg and other rebel factions. In response to territorial gains, the French military launched Operation Serval in January 2013. A month later, Malian and French forces recaptured most of the north, although the conflict continued.
Presidential elections were held on 28 July 2013, with a second-round run-off held on 11 August, and legislative elections were held on 24 November and 15 December 2013. In 2020 and 2021, two coups led by Colonel Assimi Goïta overthrew the Mali government. A military junta led by Goïta has since ruled Mali. In May 2025, the junta dissolved all political parties. In July 2025, the transitional parliament granted Goïta a five-year presidential term, renewable without elections. In September 2025 the al-Qaeda affiliate JNIM imposed a blockade on fuel imports to major cities in the south, including the capital Bamako, causing economic disruption.
== Etymology ==
The name Mali is taken from the name of the Mali Empire. It means "the place where the king lives" and carries a connotation of strength.
Fourteenth-century Maghrebi traveller Ibn Battuta reported that the capital of the empire was called Mali. One Mandinka tradition tells that the legendary first emperor Sundiata Keita changed himself into a hippopotamus upon his death in the Sankarani River and that it was possible to find villages in the area of this river called "old Mali". A study of Malian proverbs noted that in old Mali, there is a village called Malikoma, which means "New Mali", and that Mali could have formerly been the name of a city.
Another theory suggests that Mali is a Fulani pronunciation of the name of the Mande peoples. It is suggested that a sound shift led to the change, whereby in Fulani the alveolar segment /nd/ shifts to /l/ and the terminal vowel denasalizes and raises, leading "Manden" to shift to /mali/.
== History ==
=== Before colonization ===
The rock art in the Sahara suggests that northern Mali has been inhabited since 10,000 BC, when the Sahara was fertile and rich in wildlife. Early ceramics have been discovered at the central Malian site of Ounjougou dating to about 9,400 BC, and are believed to represent an instance of the independent invention of pottery in the region. Farming took place by 5000 BC and iron was used by around 500 BC.
In the first millennium BC, early cities and towns were created by Mande peoples related to the Soninke people, along the middle Niger River in central Mali, including Dia which began from around 900 BC, and reached its peak around 600 BC, and Djenne-Djenno, which lasted from around 300 BC to 900 AD. Through approximately 6th century BC and 4th century BC, the lucrative trans-Saharan trade in pack-animals, gold, salt and slaves had begun, facilitating the rise of West Africa's great empires.
There are a few references to Mali in early Islamic literature. Among these are references to "Pene" and "Malal" in the work of al-Bakri in 1068, the story of the conversion of an early ruler, known to Ibn Khaldun (by 1397) as Barmandana, and a few geographical details in the work of al-Idrisi.
Mali was once part of three famed West African empires which controlled trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt, other precious commodities, and slaves majorly during the reign of Mansa Musa from c. 1312 – c. 1337. These Sahelian kingdoms had neither rigid geopolitical boundaries nor rigid ethnic identities. The earliest of these empires was the Ghana Empire, which was dominated by the Soninke, a Mande-speaking people. The empire expanded throughout West Africa from the eighth century until 1078, when it was conquered by the Almoravids.
The Battle of Kirina in 1235, culminated in a victory for the Mandinka under the command of the exiled prince Sundiata Keita, which led to the downfall of the Sosso Empire.
The Mali Empire later formed on the upper Niger River, and reached the height of power in the 14th century. Under the Mali Empire, the ancient cities of Djenné and Timbuktu were centers of both trade and Islamic learning. The empire later declined as a result of internal intrigue, ultimately being supplanted by the Songhai Empire. The Songhai had long been a major power in West Africa subject to the Mali Empire's rule.
In the late 14th century, the Songhai gradually gained independence from the Mali Empire and expanded, ultimately subsuming the entire eastern portion of the Mali Empire. The Songhai Empire's eventual collapse was largely the result of the Moroccan invasion of 1591 under the command of Judar Pasha. The fall of the Songhai Empire marked the end of the region's role as a trading crossroads. Following the establishment of sea routes by the European powers, the trans-Saharan trade routes lost significance. At that time, the Mali Empire's abundance in wealth expanded its commercial assets of salt and gold.
One of the worst famines in the region's recorded history occurred in the 18th century. According to John Iliffe, "The worst crises were in the 1680s, when famine extended from the Senegambian coast to the Upper Nile and 'many sold themselves for slaves, only to get a sustenance', and especially in 1738–1756, when West Africa's greatest recorded subsistence crisis, due to drought and locusts, reportedly killed half the population of Timbuktu."
=== French colonial rule ===
Mali fell under the control of France during the Scramble for Africa in the late 19th century. By 1905, most of the area was under firm French control as a part of French Sudan.
In November 1915, a large anti-French uprising broke out among the tribes in the regions of present-day Mali and Burkina Faso. The last resistance was suppressed only in September 1916. During the suppression of the uprising, over 100 villages were destroyed by French colonial troops.
On 24 November 1958, French Sudan (which changed its name to the Sudanese Republic) became an autonomous republic within the French Community. In January 1959, Mali and Senegal united to become the Mali Federation.
=== Independence ===
The Mali Federation gained independence from France on 20 June 1960. Senegal withdrew from the federation in August 1960, which allowed the Sudanese Republic to become the independent Republic of Mali on 22 September 1960, and that date is now the country's Independence Day.
Modibo Keïta was elected the first president. He quickly established a one-party state, adopted an independent African and socialist orientation with close ties to the East, and implemented extensive nationalization of economic resources. In 1960, the population of Mali was reported to be about 4.1 million. On 19 November 1968, following progressive economic decline, the Keïta regime was overthrown in a bloodless military coup led by Moussa Traoré, a day which is now commemorated as Liberation Day.
=== Moussa Traoré regime ===
The subsequent military-led regime, with Traoré as president, attempted to reform the economy. His efforts were frustrated by political turmoil and a devastating drought from 1968 to 1974, in which famine killed thousands of people. The Traoré regime faced student unrest beginning in the late 1970s and three coup attempts. The Traoré regime repressed all dissenters until the late 1980s.
Opposition to the corrupt and dictatorial regime of General Moussa Traoré grew during the 1980s. During this time strict programs, imposed to satisfy demands of the International Monetary Fund, brought increased hardship upon the country's population, while elites close to the government supposedly lived in growing wealth. The government continued to attempt economic reforms, and the populace became increasingly dissatisfied. In response to growing demands for multi-party democracy, the Traoré regime allowed some limited political liberalization in the late 1980s, but refused to usher in a full-fledged democratic system.
In 1990, cohesive opposition movements began to emerge, and was complicated by the turbulent rise of ethnic violence in the north following the return of many Tuaregs who had migrated to Algeria and Libya during the drought. Peaceful student protests in January 1991 were brutally suppressed, with mass arrests and torture of leaders and participants. Scattered acts of rioting and vandalism of public buildings followed, but most actions by the dissidents remained nonviolent.
From 22 March through 26 March 1991, mass pro-democracy rallies and a nationwide strike was held in both urban and rural communities, which became known as les évenements ("the events") or the March Revolution. In Bamako, in response to mass demonstrations organized by university students and later joined by trade unionists and others, soldiers opened fire indiscriminately on the nonviolent demonstrators. Riots broke out briefly following the shootings. Barricades as well as roadblocks were erected and Traoré declared a state of emergency and imposed a nightly curfew. Despite an estimated loss of 300 lives over the course of four days, nonviolent protesters continued to return to Bamako each day demanding the resignation of the dictatorial president and the implementation of democratic policies.
By 26 March, the growing refusal of soldiers to fire into the largely nonviolent protesting crowds turned into a full-scale tumult. Military soldiers clashed with peaceful protesters, resulting in the massacre of dozens under the orders of Traoré. That afternoon, Lieutenant Colonel Amadou Toumani Touré announced on the radio that he had arrested the dictatorial president, Moussa Traoré. He and three associates were, tried, convicted and received the death sentence for their role in this massacre. The date is now a national holiday in Mali. The coup is remembered as Mali's March Revolution of 1991.
=== Multi-party democracy ===
Opposition parties were legalized, a transitional government was formed and a national congress of civil and political groups met to draft a new democratic constitution to be approved by a national referendum. In 1992, Alpha Oumar Konaré won Mali's first democratic, multi-party presidential election, before being re-elected for a second term in 1997, which was the last allowed under the constitution. Amadou Toumani Touré, a retired general who had been the leader of the military aspect of the 1991 democratic uprising, was elected in 2002. During this democratic period Mali was regarded as one of the most politically and socially stable countries in Africa.
Slavery persists in Mali today with as many as 200,000 people held in direct servitude to a master. In the Tuareg Rebellion of 2012, ex-slaves were a vulnerable population with reports of some slaves being recaptured by their former masters.
=== Northern Mali conflict ===
In January 2012 a Tuareg rebellion began in northern Mali, led by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA). In March, military officer Amadou Sanogo seized power in a coup d'état, citing Touré's failures in quelling the rebellion, and leading to sanctions and an embargo by the Economic Community of West African States. The MNLA quickly took control of the north, declaring its independence as Azawad. However, Islamist groups, including Ansar Dine and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), who had helped the MNLA defeat the government, turned on the Tuareg and took control of the north with the goal of implementing sharia in Mali.
On 11 January 2013, the French Armed Forces intervened at the request of the interim government of president Dioncounda Traoré. On 30 January, the coordinated advance of the French and Malian troops claimed to have retaken the last remaining Islamist stronghold of Kidal, which was also the last of three northern provincial capitals. On 2 February, French president François Hollande joined Dioncounda Traoré in a public appearance in recently recaptured Timbuktu.
In August 2013, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was elected as the new president of Mali in the second round of the election.
=== Conflict in Central Mali ===
In the central Mali province of Mopti, conflict has escalated since 2015 between agricultural communities like the Dogon and the Bambara, and the pastoral Fula (or Fulani) people. Historically, the two sides have fought over access to land and water, factors which have been exacerbated by climate change as the Fula move into new areas. The Dogon and the Bambara communities have formed "self-defense groups" to fight the Fula. They accuse the Fula of working with armed Islamists linked to al-Qaeda. While some Fula have joined Islamist groups, Human Rights Watch reports that the links have been "exaggerated and instrumentalized by different actors for opportunistic ends".
Added a top Mali military commander:I’ve discussed the growing violence with my commanders and with village chiefs from all sides. Yes, sure, there are jihadists in this zone, but the real problem is banditry, animal theft, score settling – people are enriching themselves using the fight against terrorists as a cover.
The conflict has seen the creation and growth of Dogon and Bambara militias. The government of Mali is suspected of supporting some of these groups under the guise of being proxies in the war against Islamists in the Northern Mali conflict. The government denies this. One such militia is the Dogon group Dan Na Ambassagou, created in 2016.
In the 2018 Malian presidential election held on 29 July 2018, no candidate received more than 50% of the vote in the first round. A runoff was held on 12 August 2018 between the top two candidates, incumbent president Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta of the Rally for Mali and Soumaïla Cissé of the Union for the Republic and Democracy, and Keïta was re-elected with 67% of the vote.
In September 2018, the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue negotiated a unilateral ceasefire with Dan Na Ambassagou "in the context of the conflict which opposes the group to other community armed groups in central Mali". However, the group has been blamed for the 24 March 2019 massacre of 160 Fula villagers. The group denied the attack, but afterwards Malian president Keita ordered the group to disband. The UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, warned of a growing ethnicization of the conflict. By 2020, more than 600,000 people had been displaced by the conflict in Mali. The United Nations reported that the number of children killed in the conflict in the first six months of 2019 was twice as many for the entire year of 2018. Many of the children have been killed in intercommunal attacks attributed to ethnic militias, with the majority of attacks occurring around Mopti. It is reported that around 900 schools have closed down and that armed militias are recruiting children.
During the first week of October 2019, two jihadist attacks in the towns of Boulikessi and Mondoro killed more than 25 Mali soldiers near the border with Burkina Faso. President Keïta declared that "no military coup will prevail in Mali", continuing by saying that he does not think it "is on the agenda at all and cannot worry us". On 1 November 2019, the IS-GS militants killed at least 50 soldiers in the 2019 Indelimane attack in the Ménaka Region of Mali. In February 2020, Human Rights Watch documented atrocities against civilians in Central Mali and said that at least 456 civilians were killed, while hundreds were injured from January 2019 until November.
=== 2020s coups and Assimi Goïta junta ===
Popular unrest began on 5 June 2020 following irregularities in the March and April parliamentary elections, including outrage against the kidnapping of opposition leader Soumaïla Cissé. Between 11 and 23 deaths followed protests that took place from 10 to 13 June. In July, President Keïta dissolved the constitutional court.
Members of the military led by Colonel Assimi Goïta and Colonel-Major Ismaël Wagué in Kati, Koulikoro Region, began a mutiny on 18 August 2020. President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta and Prime Minister Boubou Cissé were arrested, and shortly after midnight Keïta announced his resignation, saying he did not want to see any bloodshed. Wagué announced the formation of the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP) and promised elections in the future. A curfew was begun and the streets of Bamako were quiet. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) condemned the coup and demanded that Keïta be reinstated as president.
On 12 September 2020, the CNSP agreed to an 18-month political transition to civilian rule. Shortly after, Bah N'daw was named interim president by a group of 17 electors, with Goïta being appointed vice president. The government was inaugurated on 25 September 2020. On 18 January 2021, the transitional government announced that the CNSP had been disbanded, almost four months after had been promised under the initial agreement.
Tensions between the civilian transitional government and the military ran high after the handover of power in September 2020. The tensions came to a head on 24 May 2021 after a cabinet reshuffle, where two leaders of the 2020 military coup – Sadio Camara and Modibo Kone – were replaced by N'daw's administration. Later that day, journalists reported that three key civilian leaders – President N'daw, Prime Minister Moctar Ouane and Defence Minister Souleymane Doucouré, were being detained in a military base in Kati, outside Bamako. On 7 June 2021, Mali's military commander Assimi Goïta was sworn into office as the new interim president.
In 2022 and 2023, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara saw major gains in the Mali War, occupying large swathes of territory in southeastern Mali. Ansongo and Tidermène were also captured by the group. By mid-2023, the militant group had doubled the amount of territory it controlled since the overthrow of the previous government and establishment of the junta.
On 10 January 2022, Mali announced the closure of its borders and recalled several ambassadors to ECOWAS countries in response to sanctions placed on Mali for deferring elections for four years. On 4 February, France's ambassador was expelled. According to Human Rights Watch, Malian troops and suspected Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group executed around 300 civilian men in central Mali in March 2022. France had started withdrawing French troops from Mali in February 2022, commencing the end of Operation Barkhane. On 2 May, the military government announced breaking its defence accords concluded in 2013 with France, constituting an additional step in the deterioration of Malian–French relations. This latest announcement has been criticized by French authorities and considered as "illegitimate". A UN panel reported that in the first three months of 2022, 543 civilians were killed and 269 wounded, warning the 2015 peace agreement between the government and pro-independence groups was threatened by a potential risk of confrontation for the first time in five years. The report also noted a sharp increase in the number of people needing humanitarian assistance over the previous year.
In June 2023, Mali removed French as an official language with the approval of a new constitution by 97% of voters in a referendum conducted by the junta.
On 7 September 2023, al-Qaeda linked JNIM militants attacked a vessel on the Niger River, killing at least 154 civilians.
In July 2024, CSP-DPA rebels and JNIM militants killed dozens of Russian mercenaries and Malian government forces during the Battle of Tinzaouaten. On 5 August 2024 the Republic of Mali announced that it was severing diplomatic relations with Ukraine.
On 17 September 2024, al-Qaeda linked JNIM militants attacked several locations across Bamako, killing at least 77 people and injuring 255 others.
In July 2025, JNIM began a strategy to blockade the government-controlled cities from foreign fuel imports and to cut them off from each other. Mali depends on foreign fuel imports, receiving 95% of its fuel from Senegal or Ivory Coast. Starting from 1 July, JNIM attacks cut off connections to Mauritania and Senegal, and they were followed by similar attacks in the south near Ivory Coast and Guinea. From 3 September, JNIM imposed a blockade against cities in southern Mali, including the capital Bamako, after the government had stopped fuel sales in rural areas. This increased fuel prices in the capital by 500% and has led to economic disruption, lines at gas stations, school closures, and cancellations of flights from the Bamako International Airport. In early September the Malian truckers' union stopped operations for two weeks due to the dangerous conditions along roads in southern Mali, leaving 1,000 fuel trucks waiting in Ivory Coast. On 28 October, the U.S. Embassy advised all American citizens to leave the country immediately because of increasing instability, and to do so by plane, because of "terrorist attacks along national highways".
== Geography ==
Mali is a landlocked country in West Africa, located southwest of Algeria. It lies between latitudes 10° and 25°N, and longitudes 13°W and 5°E. Mali borders Algeria to the north-northeast, Niger to the east, Burkina Faso to the southeast, Ivory Coast to the south, Guinea to the south-west, and Senegal to the west and Mauritania to the north-west.
At 1,240,192 square kilometres (478,841 sq mi), Mali is the 24th-largest country in the world and the eighth-largest country in Africa. It is comparable in size to South Africa or Angola. Most of the country lies in the southern Sahara Desert, which produces an extremely hot, dust-laden Sudanian savanna zone. Mali is mostly flat, rising to rolling northern plains covered by sand. The Adrar des Ifoghas massif lies in the northeast.
Mali lies in the torrid zone and is among the hottest countries in the world. The thermal equator, which matches the hottest spots year-round on the planet based on the mean daily annual temperature, crosses the country. Most of Mali receives negligible rainfall and droughts are very frequent. Late April to early October is the rainy season in the southernmost area. During this time, flooding of the Niger River is common, creating the Inner Niger Delta. The vast northern desert part of Mali has a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification BWh) with long, extremely hot summers and scarce rainfall which decreases northwards. The central area has a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification BSh) with very high temperatures year-round, a long, intense dry season and a brief, irregular rainy season. The southern areas have a tropical wet and dry climate (Köppen climate classification Aw).
Mali has considerable natural resources, with gold, uranium, phosphates, kaolinite, salt and limestone being most widely exploited. Mali is estimated to have in excess of 17,400 tonnes of uranium (measured + indicated + inferred). In 2012, a further uranium mineralized north zone was identified. Mali faces numerous environmental challenges, including desertification, deforestation, soil erosion, and inadequate supplies of potable water.
=== Biodiversity ===
Five terrestrial ecoregions lie within Mali's borders: Sahelian Acacia savanna, West Sudanian savanna, Inner Niger Delta flooded savanna, South Saharan steppe and woodlands, and West Saharan montane xeric woodlands. The country had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 7.16/10, ranking it 51st globally out of 172 countries.
== Politics and government ==
=== Government ===
Until the military coup of 22 March 2012, Mali was a constitutional democracy governed by the Constitution of 12 January 1992, which was amended in 1999. The constitution provides for a separation of powers among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. The system of government can be described as "semi-presidential". Executive power is vested in a president, who is elected to a five-year term by universal suffrage and is limited to two terms.
The president serves as a chief of state and commander in chief of the armed forces. A prime minister appointed by the president serves as head of government and in turn appoints the Council of Ministers. The unicameral National Assembly is Mali's sole legislative body, consisting of deputies elected to five-year terms. Following the 2007 elections, the Alliance for Democracy and Progress held 113 of 160 seats in the assembly. The assembly holds two regular sessions each year, during which it debates and votes on legislation that has been submitted by a member or by the government.
Mali's constitution provides for an independent judiciary, but the executive continues to exercise influence over the judiciary by virtue of power to appoint judges and oversee both judicial functions and law enforcement. Mali's highest courts are the Supreme Court, which has both judicial and administrative powers, and a separate Constitutional Court that provides judicial review of legislative acts and serves as an election arbiter. Various lower courts exist, though village chiefs and elders resolve most local disputes in rural areas.
The transition government pushed back the timetable for a new election, initially to be held in February 2022, to February 2024. In exchange for the government's commitment to a 2024 election, ECOWAS agreed to lift sanctions on the country.
According to International IDEA's Global State of Democracy (GSoD) Indices and Democracy Tracker, Mali performs in the low range on overall democratic measures, with particular weaknesses in political representation and rule of law.
=== Foreign relations ===
Until 2012, Mali's foreign policy orientation had become increasingly pragmatic and pro-Western over time. Since the institution of a democratic form of government in 2002, Mali's relations with the West in general and with the United States in particular have improved significantly. Mali has a longstanding yet ambivalent relationship with France, a former colonial ruler. Mali was active in regional organizations such as the African Union until its suspension over the 2012 Malian coup d'état.
Working to control and resolve regional conflicts, such as in Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, is one of Mali's major foreign policy goals. Mali feels threatened by the potential for the spillover of conflicts in neighboring states, and relations with those neighbors are often uneasy. General insecurity along borders in the north, including cross-border banditry and terrorism, remain troubling issues in regional relations.
In early 2019, Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for an attack on a United Nations base in Mali that killed 10 peacekeepers from Chad. 25 people were reported to have been injured in the attack.
=== Military ===
The Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) consist of the Army and the Air Force, numbering 19,000 and 2,000 personnel respectively, as of 2024. The Army is organized into nine motorized infantry battalions and several support and special forces units. There are also paramilitary forces with 20,000 personnel, including 6,000 in the Gendarmerie, 10,000 in the National Guard, 1,000 in the National Police, and 3,000 in the Militia. The Malian military is under-equipped and has a limited capability for manufacturing and maintenance of equipment.
=== Regions and cercles ===
Mali was divided into ten regions and the District of Bamako. Each region has a governor. The implementation of the two newest regions, Taoudénit (formerly part of Tombouctou Region) and Ménaka (formerly Ménaka Cercle in Gao Region), has been ongoing since January 2016; a governor and transitional council has been appointed for both regions.
Since 2023, Mali has added nine new regions to its administrative structure, bringing the total to 19 regions plus the district of Bamako. This reorganization aims to improve governance and bring public services closer to local populations. This initiative continues the decentralization efforts that began with the creation of the Taoudénit and Ménaka regions in 2016. The nineteen regions in turn are subdivided into 159 cercles and 815 communes.
The régions and Capital District are:
== Economy ==
The Central Bank of West African States handles the financial affairs of Mali and additional members of the Economic Community of West African States. Mali is considered one of the poorest countries in the world. The average worker's annual salary is approximately US$1,500.
Mali underwent economic reform, beginning in 1988 by signing agreements with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. During 1988 to 1996, Mali's government largely reformed public enterprises. Since the agreement, sixteen enterprises were privatized, 12 partially privatized, and 20 liquidated. In 2005, the Malian government conceded a railroad company to the Savage Corporation. Two major companies, Societé de Telecommunications du Mali (SOTELMA) and the Cotton Ginning Company (CMDT), were expected to be privatized in 2008.
Between 1992 and 1995, Mali implemented an economic adjustment programme that resulted in economic growth and a reduction in financial imbalances. The programme increased social and economic conditions, and led to Mali joining the World Trade Organization on 31 May 1995.
Mali is also a member of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA). The gross domestic product (GDP) has risen since. In 2002, the GDP amounted to US$3.4 billion, and increased to US$5.8 billion in 2005, which amounts to an approximately 17.6% annual growth rate.
Mali is a part of the "Franc Zone" (Zone Franc), which means that it uses the CFA franc. Mali is connected with the French government by agreement since 1962 (creation of BCEAO). Today all seven countries of BCEAO (including Mali) are connected to French Central Bank.
Before the August 2020 coup, U.S. foreign assistance to Mali exceeded $135 million in FY 2020, aiming to bolster fragile peace, democratic governance and regional security, while addressing social and economic vulnerabilities. Post-coup, assistance is restricted under U.S. law, but ongoing programs focus on stability, public trust in government, community resilience and socio-economic prosperity.
Mali was ranked 135th out of 139 in the Global Innovation Index in 2025.
=== Agriculture ===
Mali's key industry is agriculture. Cotton is the country's largest crop export and is exported west throughout Senegal and Ivory Coast. During 2002, 620,000 tons of cotton were produced in Mali but cotton prices declined significantly in 2003. In addition to cotton, Mali produces rice, millet, corn, vegetables, tobacco, and tree crops. Gold, livestock, and agriculture amount to 80% of Mali's exports.
Eighty percent of Malian workers are employed in agriculture. 15% of Malian workers are employed in the service sector. Seasonal variations lead to regular temporary unemployment of agricultural workers.
=== Mining ===
In 1991, with the assistance of the International Development Association, Mali relaxed the enforcement of mining codes which led to renewed foreign interest and investment in the mining industry. Gold is mined in the southern region and Mali has the third highest gold production in Africa (after South Africa and Ghana). In 2015, the country has produced 41 metric tonnes of gold.
The emergence of gold as Mali's leading export product since 1999 has helped mitigate some of the negative impact of the cotton and Ivory Coast crises. Other natural resources include kaolin, salt, phosphate, and limestone.
=== Energy ===
Electricity and water are maintained by the Energie du Mali, or EDM, and textiles are generated by Industry Textile du Mali, or ITEMA. Mali has made efficient use of hydroelectricity, consisting of over half of Mali's electrical power. In 2002, 700 GWh of hydroelectric power were produced in Mali.
Energie du Mali is an electric company that provides electricity to Mali citizens. Only 55 percent of the population in cities have access to EDM.
=== Transport infrastructure ===
In Mali, there is a railway that connects to bordering countries. There are also approximately 29 airports, of which 8 have paved runways. Urban areas are known for their large quantity of green and white taxicabs. A significant sum of the population is dependent on public transportation.
== Demographics ==
In 2021, Mali's population was an estimated 21.9 million. Mali's population grew from 7.7 million in 1982 to 19.9 million in 2018. The population is predominantly rural (68% in 2002), and 5%–10% of Malians are nomadic. More than 90% of the population lives in the southern part of the country, especially in Bamako, which has over 2 million residents.
In 2024, about 47% of Malians were 14 years old or younger, 50% were 15–64 years old, and 3% were 65 and older. The median age was 16.4 years. The birth rate in 2024 was 40 births per 1,000, and the total fertility rate in 2024 was 5.35 children per woman. The death rate in 2024 was 8.1 deaths per 1,000. Life expectancy at birth was 63.2 years total (60.9 for males and 65.6 for females). Mali has one of the world's highest rates of infant mortality, with 57.4 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2024.
=== Largest cities in Mali ===
=== Ethnic groups ===
Mali's population encompasses a number of sub-Saharan ethnic groups. The Bambara are by far the largest single ethnic group, making up a third of the population. The largest ethnic groups are Bambara (33.3%), Fulani (Peuhl) (13.3%), Sarakole/Soninke/Marka (9.8%), Senufo/Manianka (9.6%), Malinke (8.8%), Dogon (8.7%), Sonrai (5.9%), Bobo (2.1%), Tuareg/Bella (1.7%), other Malian (6%), from members of Economic Community of West Africa (0.4%), other (0.3%) (2018 est.). In Mali and in Niger, the Moors are also known as Azawagh Arabs, named after the Azawagh region of the Sahara. They speak mainly Hassaniya Arabic, one of the regional varieties of Arabic.
In the far north, there is a division between Berber-descended Tuareg nomad populations and the darker-skinned Bella or Tamasheq people, due to the historical spread of slavery in the region. An estimated 800,000 people in Mali are descended from slaves. Slavery has persisted in Mali for centuries. The Arabic population kept slaves well into the 20th century, until slavery was suppressed by French authorities around the mid-20th century. There still persist certain hereditary servitude relationships, and according to some estimates, even today approximately 200,000 Malians are still enslaved.
Some mixed European/African descendants of Muslims of Spanish, as well as French, Irish, Italian and Portuguese origin, live in Mali, where they are known as the Arma people (1% of the nation's population).
Although Mali has enjoyed reasonably good inter-ethnic relationships based on a long history of coexistence, some hereditary servitude and bondage relationship exist, as well as ethnic tension between settled Songhai and nomadic Tuaregs of the north. Due to a backlash against the northern population after independence, Mali is now in a situation where both groups complain about discrimination on the part of the other group. This conflict also plays a role in the continuing Northern Mali conflict where there is a tension between both Tuaregs and the Malian government, and the Tuaregs and radical Islamists who are trying to establish sharia law.
There is also a small Jewish community in Mali.
=== Languages ===
In January 2022, due to deteriorating relations between Mali and the French government, the Mali government announced making Bambara the official language. In July 2023, French was dropped as an official language, becoming instead a working language. At the same time, the 13 national languages, namely Bambara, Bobo, Bozo, Dogon, Fula, Hassaniya Arabic, Kassonke, Maninke, Minyanka, Senufo, the Songhai, Soninke and Tamasheq, became official languages. The lingua franca in Mali is mainly Bambara, which about 80 percent of the population can communicate in. Over 40 other African languages are spoken by the various ethnic groups of Mali.
According to the 2009 census, the languages spoken natively in Mali were Bambara by 51.5%, Fula (8.3%), Dogon (6.6%) Soninké (5.7%), Songhai (5.3%), Mandinka (5.2%), Minianka (3.8%), Tamasheq (3.2%), Sénoufo (2%), Bobo (1.9%), Tieyaxo Bozo (1.6%), Kassonké (1.1%), Maure or Hassaniya Arabic (1%), Dafing (0.4%), Samogo (0.4%), Arabic (other dialects) (0.3%), other Malian languages (0.5%), other African languages (0.2%), and other non-African languages (0.2%); 0.7% did not declare their first language.
=== Religion ===
Islam was introduced to West Africa in the 11th century and remains the predominant religion in much of the region. An estimated 90% of Malians are Muslim (mostly non-denominational and Sunni), approximately 5% are Christian (about two-thirds Roman Catholic and one-third Protestant) and the remaining 5% adhere to traditional African religions such as the Dogon religion. Atheism and agnosticism are believed to be rare among Malians, most of whom practise their religion daily.
The constitution establishes a secular state and provides for freedom of religion, and the government largely respects this right.
Islam as historically practised in Mali has been malleable and adapted to local conditions; relations between Muslims and practitioners of minority religious faiths have generally been amicable.
After the 2012 imposition of sharia rule in northern parts of the country, however, Mali came to be listed high (number 7) in the Christian persecution index published by Open Doors, which described the persecution in the north as severe.
=== Education ===
Public education in Mali is in principle provided free of charge and is compulsory for nine years between the ages of seven and sixteen. The system encompasses six years of primary education beginning at age 7, followed by six years of secondary education. Mali's actual primary school enrollment rate is low, in large part because families are unable to cover the cost of uniforms, books, supplies, and other fees required to attend.
In 2017, the primary school enrollment rate was 61% (65% of males and 58% of females). In the late 1990s, the secondary school enrollment rate was 15% (20% of males and 10% of females). The education system is plagued by a lack of schools in rural areas, as well as shortages of teachers and materials.
Estimates of literacy rates in Mali range from 27–30 to 46.4%, with literacy rates significantly lower among women than men. The University of Bamako, which includes four constituent universities, is the largest university in the country and enrolls approximately 60,000 undergraduate and graduate students.
=== Health ===
Mali faces numerous health challenges related to poverty, malnutrition, and inadequate hygiene and sanitation. Mali's health and development indicators rank among the worst in the world. Life expectancy at birth is estimated to be 63.2 years in 2024. In 2000, 62–65% of the population was estimated to have access to safe drinking water and only 69% to sanitation services of some kind. In 2001, the general government expenditures on health totaled about US$4 per capita at an average exchange rate.
Efforts have been made to improve nutrition, and reduce associated health problems, by encouraging women to make nutritious versions of local recipes. For example, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and the Aga Khan Foundation, trained women's groups to make equinut, a healthy and nutritional version of the traditional recipe di-dèguè (comprising peanut paste, honey and millet or rice flour). The aim was to boost nutrition and livelihoods by producing a product that women could make and sell, and which would be accepted by the local community because of its local heritage.
Medical facilities in Mali are very limited, and medicines are in short supply. Malaria and other arthropod-borne diseases are prevalent in Mali, as are a number of infectious diseases such as cholera and tuberculosis. Mali's population also suffers from a high rate of child malnutrition and a low rate of immunization. An estimated 1.9% of the adult and children population was afflicted with HIV/AIDS that year, among the lowest rates in Sub-Saharan Africa. An estimated 85%–91% of Mali's girls and women have had female genital mutilation (2006 and 2001 data).
In 2024, approximately 7.1 million people in Mali, including over 3.8 million children, require urgent humanitarian assistance due to escalating conflict and climate crises. UNICEF is amplifying its efforts to provide essential services like health, education, and protection, while appealing for $133.5 million to address these needs. The situation is dire, with over 522,000 children lacking access to education and millions at risk of malnutrition amid underfunded humanitarian responses. Urgent action is needed to mitigate the impacts of violence, insecurity and climate change on vulnerable populations in Mali.
=== Gender inequality ===
In 2017, Mali ranked 157th out of 160 countries in the gender inequality index as reported by the United Nations Development Programme. The Malian Constitution states that it protects women's rights, however many laws exist that discriminate against women. Provisions in the laws limit women's decision-making power after marriage, in which the husband becomes superior to his wife. Women are blamed for not maintaining the appearance of their husbands and are also blamed for the actions of their children if they misbehave, which encourages the cultural attitude that women are inferior to men. The lack of participation of women in politics is due to the idea that politics is associated with men and that women should avoid this sector. Education is also an area in which boys dominate, since it is a better investment for the parents. As traditional values and practices have contributed to gender inequality in Mali, conflict and lawlessness have also influenced the growing gap in gender through gender-based violence. The unstable government of Mali has led to organizations like USAID attempting to improve the lives of the people, mainly women and girls' rights in order to re-engage the development of the country.
Religion, the patriarchal norms, and gender-based violence are major negative factors shaping the life of women in Mali. Patriarchal norms cause major gender inequalities and lead to male domination within the household. Girls learn household activities like chores, cooking, childcare, etc. at a young age and are expected to take the main responsibility of household chores throughout their life. This hampers women's ability to enter the formal workforce and leads to a lack of education of girls. Gender-based violence in Mali happens both on a national and a family level. At the national level, in 2012 the conflict in the Northern part of the country increased cases of kidnappings and rapes. The conflict also reduced women's access to resources, economy, and opportunities. At the household level, Malian women face gender-based violence through domestic violence, forced marriages, and marital rape. The Demographic Health Survey for Mali in 2013 stated that 76% of women and 54% of men believed physical harm towards women was acceptable if the women burnt food, argued back, went out without notifying her husband, or refused sexual relations with her husband. In 2024, Mali officials approved a bill criminalising intimate relations between same-sex couples.
After adjusting the entrance requirements and access to education, girls still have lower enrollment rates and less access to formal education. Drop-out rates for girls are 15% higher than that of boys because they have a higher responsibility at home and most parents refuse to allow all their children to go to school, so boys tend to become educated. Similarly, technical and vocational education has a lower numbers of girls participating and are inadequately distributed in the country because the training centers are focused in the urban cities. Finally, higher education for girls consist of short programs because early marriages prevent most girls from pursuing a longer term education program like those in science. Although women do not have the same access of education, in recent decades women have been entering and representing in decision-making positions in the Public Administration sector. Out of 147 members of Parliament, 15 were women in 2010. Recent decades show that women are slowly joining important decision-making positions which is changing the attitude and status of women in Mali, which has led to the promotion of women's rights in the political sphere.
Legislation at the international and national levels have been implemented over the decades to help promote women's rights in Mali. At the international, Mali signed the Beijing Platform for Action which suggest that women should participate in decision-making and the convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women which is the foundation to women's rights promotion. At the national level, Mali's Constitution has the Decree No. 092-073P-CTSP that claims equality to all Malian citizens and discrimination is prohibited, which has not been followed. The Poverty Reduction Strategy Programme (PRSP) and the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy Programme under the Malian Government seek to improve the well-being of the citizens, and changes to governance and gender in the country. The Ministry for Advancement of Women, Children and the Family was created specifically for women and children so that their basics rights and needs get met under the law. Although there exists legislation and policy for gender equality the institutionalization of the National Gender Policy of Mali is necessary to support the importance of women's rights. Strengthening and the support of girls' and women's access to education and training is recommended to improve gender equality in Mali. The involvement of international organizations like USAID assist Mali financially to enhance their development through the efforts of the improvement of women's rights.
== Culture ==
The varied everyday culture of Malians reflects the country's ethnic and geographic diversity. Most Malians wear flowing, colorful robes called boubous that are typical of West Africa. Malians frequently participate in traditional festivals, dances, and ceremonies.
=== Music ===
Malian musical traditions are derived from the griots, who are known as "Keepers of Memories". Malian music is diverse and has several different genres. Some famous Malian influences in music are kora virtuoso musician Toumani Diabaté, the ngoni with Bassekou Kouyate the virtuoso of the electric jeli ngoni, the late roots and blues guitarist Ali Farka Touré, the Tuareg band Tinariwen, Khaira Arby, and several Afro-pop artists such as Salif Keita, the duo Amadou et Mariam, Oumou Sangare, Fatoumata Diawara, Rokia Traore, and Habib Koité. Dance also plays a large role in Malian culture. Dance parties are common events among friends, and traditional mask dances are performed at ceremonial events.
=== Literature ===
Though Mali's literature is less famous than its music, Mali has always been one of Africa's liveliest intellectual centers. Mali's literary tradition is passed mainly by word of mouth, with jalis reciting or singing histories and stories known by heart. Amadou Hampâté Bâ, Mali's best-known historian, spent much of his life writing these oral traditions down for the world to remember.
The best-known novel by a Malian writer is Yambo Ouologuem's Le devoir de violence, which won the 1968 Prix Renaudot but whose legacy was marred by accusations of plagiarism. Other well-known Malian writers include Baba Traoré, Modibo Sounkalo Keita, Massa Makan Diabaté, Moussa Konaté, and Fily Dabo Sissoko.
=== Sport ===
The most popular sport in Mali is association football, which became more prominent after Mali hosted the 2002 African Cup of Nations. Most towns and cities have regular games; the most popular teams nationally are Djoliba AC, Stade Malien, and Real Bamako, all based in the capital. Informal games are often played by youths using a bundle of rags as a ball.
Basketball is another major sport; the Mali women's national basketball team, led by Hamchetou Maiga, competed at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Traditional wrestling (la lutte) is also somewhat common, though popularity has declined in recent years. The game wari, a mancala variant, is a common pastime.
Mali featured a men's national team in beach volleyball that competed at the 2018–2020 CAVB Beach Volleyball Continental Cup.
=== Cuisine ===
Rice and millet are the staples of Malian cuisine, which is heavily based on cereal grains. Grains are generally prepared with sauces made from edible leaves, such as spinach or baobab, with tomato peanut sauce, and may be accompanied by pieces of grilled meat (typically chicken, mutton, beef, or goat). Malian cuisine varies regionally. Other popular dishes include fufu, jollof rice, and maafe.
=== Media ===
In Mali, there are several newspapers such as Les Echos, L'Essor, Info Matin, Nouvel Horizon, and Le Républicain. Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision du Mali is the state-owned service. Telecommunications in Mali include 869,600 mobile phones, 45,000 televisions and 414,985 Internet users. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Sisters_(British_Columbia) | The Two Sisters (British Columbia) | |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Mississippi | University of Mississippi | The University of Mississippi (byname Ole Miss) is a public research university in University and Oxford, Mississippi, United States. The university's medical center is located in Jackson, Mississippi.
The Mississippi Legislature chartered the university on February 24, 1844, and in 1848 admitted its first 80 students. During the Civil War, the university operated as a Confederate hospital and narrowly avoided destruction by Ulysses S. Grant's forces. In 1962, during the civil rights movement, a race riot occurred on campus when segregationists tried to prevent the enrollment of African American student James Meredith. The university has since taken measures to improve its image. The university is closely associated with writer William Faulkner and owns and manages his former Oxford home Rowan Oak, which with other on-campus sites Barnard Observatory and Lyceum–The Circle Historic District, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Ole Miss is classified as "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". It is one of 33 institutions participating in the National Sea Grant Program and also participates in the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program. Its research efforts include the National Center for Physics Acoustics, the National Center for Natural Products Research, and the Mississippi Center for Supercomputing Research. The university operates the country's only federally contracted Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved cannabis facility. It also operates interdisciplinary institutes such as the Center for the Study of Southern Culture. Its athletic teams compete as the Ole Miss Rebels in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I Southeastern Conference.
The university's alumni, faculty, and affiliates include 27 Rhodes Scholars, 10 governors, 5 US senators, a head of government, and a Nobel Prize Laureate. Other alumni have received accolades in the arts such as Emmy Awards, Grammy Awards, and Pulitzer Prizes. Its medical center performed the first human lung transplant and animal-to-human heart transplant.
== History ==
=== Founding and early history ===
The Mississippi Legislature chartered the University of Mississippi on February 24, 1844. Planners selected an isolated, rural site in Oxford as a "sylvan exile" that would foster academic studies and focus. In 1845, residents of Lafayette County donated land west of Oxford for the campus and the following year, architect William Nichols oversaw construction of an academic building called the Lyceum, two dormitories, and faculty residences. On November 6, 1848, the university, offering a classical curriculum, opened to its first class of 80 students, most of whom were children of elite slaveholders, all of whom were white, and all but one of whom were from Mississippi. For 23 years, the university was Mississippi's only public institution of higher learning, and for 110 years, its only comprehensive university. In 1854, the University of Mississippi School of Law was established, becoming the fourth state-supported law school in the United States.
Early president Frederick A. P. Barnard sought to increase the stature of the university, placing him in conflict with the more conservative board of trustees. His hundred-page 1858 report to the trustees on his proposals resulted in little besides the university head's title being changed to "chancellor". Barnard's northern background—he was born in Massachusetts and graduated from Yale—and Union sympathies resulted in heightened tensions: a student assaulted his slave and the state legislature investigated him. Following the presidential election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, Mississippi became the second state to secede, with the articles of secession drafted by the university's mathematics professor Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar. Students organized themselves into a military company called the "University Greys", which merged with the Confederate States Army. Within a month of the Civil War's outbreak, only 5 students remained at the University of Mississippi, and, by fall 1861, the university closed. In its final action, the board of trustees awarded Barnard a doctorate of divinity.
Within six months, Confederates converted the campus into a hospital. It was evacuated in November 1862 as General Ulysses S. Grant's Union forces approached. Although Kansan troops destroyed much of the medical equipment, a lone remaining professor persuaded Grant against burning the campus. After three weeks, Grant and his forces left, and the campus returned to being a Confederate hospital. Throughout the war, over 700 wounded died and were buried on campus.
=== Post-Civil War ===
The University of Mississippi reopened in October 1865. To avoid rejecting veterans, the university lowered admission standards and decreased costs by eliminating tuition and allowing students to live off-campus. The student body remained entirely white: in 1870 the chancellor declared that he and the entire faculty would resign rather than admit "negro" students. In 1882, the university began admitting women but they were not permitted to live on campus or attend law school. In 1885, the University of Mississippi hired Sarah McGehee Isom, becoming the first southeastern US college to hire a female faculty member. Nearly 100 years later, in 1981, the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies was established in her honor.
The university's byname "Ole Miss" was first used in 1897, when it won a contest of suggestions for a yearbook title. The term originated as a title domestic slaves used to distinguish the mistress of a plantation from "young misses". Fringe origin theories include it coming from a diminutive of "Old Mississippi", or from the name of the "Ole Miss" train that ran from Memphis to New Orleans. Within two years, students and alumni were using "Ole Miss" to refer to the university.
Between 1900 and 1930, the Mississippi Legislature introduced bills aiming to relocate, close, or merge the university with Mississippi State University. All such legislation failed. During the 1930s, the governor of Mississippi Theodore G. Bilbo was politically hostile toward the University of Mississippi, firing administrators and faculty, and replacing them with his friends in the "Bilbo purge". Bilbo's actions severely damaged the university's reputation, leading to the temporary loss of its accreditation. Consequently, in 1944, the Constitution of Mississippi was amended to protect the university's board of trustees from political pressure. During World War II, the University of Mississippi was one of 131 colleges and universities that participated in the national V-12 Navy College Training Program, which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
=== Integration ===
In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Eight years after the Brown decision, all attempts by African American applicants to enroll at the University of Mississippi had failed. Shortly after the 1961 inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, James Meredith—an African American Air Force veteran and former student at Jackson State University—applied to the University of Mississippi. After months of obstruction by Mississippi officials, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Meredith's enrollment, and the Department of Justice under Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy entered the case on Meredith's behalf. On three occasions, either governor Ross R. Barnett or lieutenant governor Paul B. Johnson Jr. physically blocked Meredith's entry to the campus.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held both Barnett and Johnson Jr. in contempt, and issued fines exceeding $10,000 for each day they refused to enroll Meredith. On September 30, 1962, President Kennedy dispatched 127 U.S. Marshals, 316 deputized U.S. Border Patrol agents, and 97 federalized Federal Bureau of Prisons personnel to escort Meredith. After nightfall, far-right former Major General Edwin Walker and outside agitators arrived, and a gathering of segregationist students before the Lyceum became a violent mob. Segregationist rioters threw Molotov cocktails and bottles of acid, and fired guns at federal marshals and reporters. 160 marshals would be injured, with 28 receiving gunshot wounds, and two civilians—French journalist Paul Guihard and Oxford repairman Ray Gunter—were killed by gunfire. Eventually, 13,000 soldiers arrived in Oxford and quashed the riot. One-third of the federal officers—166 men—were injured, as were 40 federal soldiers and National Guardsmen. More than 30,000 personnel were deployed, alerted, and committed in Oxford—the most in American history for a single disturbance. Meredith enrolled and attended a class on October 1. By 1968, Ole Miss had around 100 African American students, and by the 2019–2020 academic year, African Americans constituted 12.5 percent of the student body.
=== Recent history ===
In 1972, Ole Miss purchased Rowan Oak, the former home of Nobel Prize–winning writer William Faulkner. The building—a National Historic Landmark—has been preserved as it was at Faulkner's death in 1962. Faulkner was the university's postmaster in the early 1920s and wrote As I Lay Dying (1930) at the university powerhouse. His Nobel Prize medallion is displayed in the university library. The university hosted the inaugural Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference in 1974. In 1980, Willie Morris became the university's first writer in residence.
In 2002, Ole Miss marked the 40th anniversary of integration with a yearlong series of events, including an oral history of the university, symposiums, a memorial, and a reunion of federal marshals who served at the campus. In 2006, the 44th anniversary of integration, a statue of Meredith was dedicated on campus. Two years later, the site of the 1962 riots was designated as a National Historic Landmark. The university also held a yearlong program to mark the 50th anniversary of integration in 2012. The university hosted the first presidential debate of 2008—the first presidential debate held in Mississippi—between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama.
Ole Miss retired its mascot Colonel Reb in 2003, citing its Confederate imagery. Although a grass-roots movement to adopt Star Wars character Admiral Ackbar of the Rebel Alliance gained significant support, Rebel Black Bear, a reference to Faulkner's short story The Bear, was selected in 2010. The Bear was replaced with another mascot, Tony the Landshark, in 2017. Beginning in 2022, football coach Lane Kiffin's dog Juice became the de facto mascot. In 2015, the university removed the Mississippi State Flag, which included the Confederate battle emblem, and in 2020, it relocated a prominent Confederate monument.
== Campus ==
=== Oxford campus ===
The University of Mississippi's Oxford campus is partially located in Oxford and partially in University, Mississippi, a census-designated place. The main campus is situated at an altitude of around 500 feet (150 m), and has expanded from one square mile (260 ha) of land to around 1,200 acres (1.9 sq mi; 490 ha). The campus' buildings are largely designed in a Georgian architectural style; some of the newer buildings have a more contemporary architecture.
At the campus' center is "The Circle", which consists of eight academic buildings organized around an ovaloid common. The buildings include the Lyceum (1848), the "Y" Building (1853), and six later buildings constructed in a Neoclassical Revival style. The Lyceum was the first building on the campus and was expanded with two wings in 1903. According to the university, the Lyceum's bell is the oldest academic bell in the United States. Near the Circle is The Grove, a 10-acre (4.0 ha) plot of land that was set aside by chancellor Robert Burwell Fulton c. 1893, and hosts up to 100,000 tailgaters during home games. Barnard Observatory, which was constructed under Chancellor Barnard in 1859, was designed to house the world's largest telescope. Due to the Civil War's outbreak, however, the telescope was never delivered and was instead acquired by Northwestern University. The observatory was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The first major building built after the Civil War was Ventress Hall, which was constructed in a Victorian Romanesque style in 1889.
From 1929 to 1930, architect Frank P. Gates designed 18 buildings on campus, mostly in Georgian Revival architectural style, including (Old) University High School, Barr Hall, Bondurant Hall, Farley Hall (also known as Lamar Hall), Faulkner Hall, and Wesley Knight Field House. During the 1930s, the many building projects at the campus were largely funded by the Public Works Administration and other federal entities. Among the notable buildings built in this period is the dual-domed Kennon Observatory (1939).
Two large modern buildings—the Ole Miss Union (1976) and Lamar Hall (1977)—caused controversy by diverging from the university's traditional architecture. In 1998, the Gertrude C. Ford Foundation donated $20 million to establish the Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts, which was the first building on campus to be solely dedicated to the performing arts. As of 2020, the university was constructing a 202,000-square-foot (18,800 m2) STEM facility, the largest single construction project in the campus' history. The university owns and operates the University of Mississippi Museum, which comprises collections of American fine art, Classical antiquities, and Southern folk art, as well as historic properties in Oxford. Ole Miss also owns University-Oxford Airport, which is located north of the main campus.
North Mississippi Japanese Supplementary School, a Japanese weekend school, is operated in conjunction with Ole Miss, with classes held on campus. It opened in 2008 and was jointly established by several Japanese companies and the university. Many children have parents who are employees at Toyota facilities in Blue Springs.
=== Satellite campuses ===
In 1903, the University of Mississippi School of Medicine was established on the Oxford campus. It offered only two years of medical courses; students had to attend an out-of-state medical school to complete their degrees. This form of medical education continued until 1955, when the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) was established on a 164-acre (66 ha) site in Jackson, Mississippi, and the School of Medicine was relocated there. A nursing school was established in 1956 and since then, other health-related schools have been added. As of 2021, UMMC offers medical and graduate degrees. In addition to the medical center, the university has satellite campuses in Booneville, DeSoto, Grenada, Rankin, and Tupelo.
== Organization and administration ==
=== Divisions of the university ===
The University of Mississippi consists of 15 schools. The largest undergraduate school is the College of Liberal Arts. Graduate schools include a law school, a school of business administration, an engineering school, and a medical school.
=== Administration ===
The University of Mississippi's chief administrative officer is the chancellor, a position Glenn Boyce has held since 2019. The chancellor is supported by vice-chancellors who administer areas such as research and intercollegiate athletics. The provost oversees the university's academic affairs, and a dean oversees each school, as well as general studies and the honors college. A faculty senate advises the administration.
The board of trustees of the Mississippi State Institutions of Higher Learning is the constitutional governing body that is responsible for policy and financial oversight of the University of Mississippi and the state's other seven public secondary institutions. the board consists of 12 members, who serve staggered nine-year terms and represent the state's three Supreme Court Districts. The board appoints the commissioner of higher education, who administers its policies.
=== Finances ===
As of April 2021, the University of Mississippi's endowment was $775 million. The university's budget for fiscal year 2019 was over $540 million. Less than 13% of operating revenues are funded by the state of Mississippi, and the university relies heavily on private donations. The Ford Foundation has donated nearly $65 million to the Oxford campus and UMMC.
== Academics ==
The University of Mississippi is the state's largest university by enrollment and is considered the state's flagship university. In 2015, the student-faculty ratio was 19:1. Of its classes, 47.4 percent have fewer than 20 students. The most popular subjects include marketing, education and teaching, accountancy, finance, pharmaceutical sciences, and administration. To receive a bachelor's degree, students must have at least 120 semester hours with passing grades and a cumulative 2.0 GPA.
The university also offers graduate degrees such as PhDs and masters of art, science, and fine arts. The university maintains the Mississippi Teacher Corps, a free graduate program that educates teachers for critical-needs public schools.
Taylor Medals, which were first awarded in 1905, are presented to exceptional students nominated by the faculty. The medals are named in honor of Marcus Elvis Taylor, who graduated in 1871 and are given to less than one percent of each class.
=== Research ===
Ole Miss is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". According to the National Science Foundation, the university spent $137 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 142nd in the nation. It is one of the 33 colleges and universities participating in the National Sea Grant Program and participates in the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program. Since 1948, the university has been a member of the Oak Ridge Associated Universities.
In 1963, University of Mississippi Medical Center surgeons, led by James Hardy, performed the world's first human lung transplant, and in 1964 the world's first animal-to-human heart transplant. Because Hardy researched transplantation, consisting of primate studies during the previous nine years, the heart of a chimpanzee was used for the transplant.
In 1965, the university established its Medicinal Plant Garden, which the School of Pharmacy uses for drug research. Since 1968, the school has operated the only legal marijuana farm and production facility in the United States. The National Institute on Drug Abuse contracts to the university production of cannabis for use in approved research studies and for distribution to the seven surviving medical marijuana patients grandfathered into the Compassionate Investigational New Drug program. The facility is the only source of marijuana medical researchers can use to conduct Food and Drug Administration-approved tests.
The National Center for Physics Acoustics (NCPA), which Congress established in 1986, is located on campus. In addition to conducting research, the NCPA houses the Acoustical Society of America's archives. The university also operates the University of Mississippi Field Station, which includes 223 research ponds and supports long-term ecological research, and hosts the Mississippi Center for Supercomputing Research and the Mississippi Law Research Institute. In 2012, the university completed Insight Park, a research park that "welcomes companies commercializing University of Mississippi research".
=== Special programs ===
Honors education at the University of Mississippi, consisting of lectures by distinguished academics, began in 1953. In 1974, this program became the University Scholars Program, and in 1983, the University Honors Program was created and honors-core courses were offered. In 1997, Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale and wife Sally donated $5.4 million to establish the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College (SMBHC), which provides a capstone project—a senior thesis—and endowed scholarships.
In 1977, the university established its Center for the Study of Southern Culture with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which is housed in the College of Liberal Arts. The center provides for interdisciplinary studies of Southern history and culture. In 2000, the university established the Trent Lott Leadership Institute, which is named after alumnus and then-US Senate majority leader Trent Lott. The institute was funded with large corporate donations from MCI Inc., Lockheed Martin, and other companies. In addition to leadership initiatives, the institute offers a BA degree in Public Policy Leadership.
The Center for Intelligence and Security Studies (CISS) delivers academic programming on intelligence analysis and engages in applied research and consortium building with government, private, and academic partners. In 2012, the United States Director of National Intelligence designated CISS as an Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence (CAE), becoming one of 29 such college programs in the United States. Other special programs include the Haley Barbour Center for Manufacturing Excellence—established jointly by the university and Toyota in 2008— as well as the Arabic Language Flagship Program and the Chinese Language Flagship Program (simplified Chinese: 中文旗舰项目; traditional Chinese: 中文旗艦項目; pinyin: Zhōngwén Qíjiàn Xiàngmù). The Croft Institute for International Studies, which was founded in 1998, provides the only international studies undergraduate program in Mississippi.
The University of Mississippi is a member of the SEC Academic Consortium, which has since been renamed SECU. The collaborative initiative was designed to promote research, scholarship, and achievement among the member universities in the Southeastern Conference. In 2013, the university participated in the SEC Symposium on renewable energy in Atlanta, Georgia, which was organized and led by the University of Georgia and the UGA Bioenergy Systems Research Institute.
In 2021, actor Morgan Freeman and Professor Linda Keena donated $1 million to the University of Mississippi to create the Center for Evidence-Based Policing and Reform, which will provide law-enforcement training and seek to improve engagement between law enforcement and communities.
=== Rankings and accolades ===
In U.S. News & World Report's 2023 rankings, the University of Mississippi was tied for 163rd place among national universities and 88th among public universities. In 2023, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked the professional MBA program at the School of Business Administration #72 nationally, and the online MBA program in the top 25. As of 2018, all three degree programs at the Patterson School of Accountancy were among the top 10 accounting programs according to the Public Accounting Report.
Since 2012, the Chronicle of Higher Education has named the University of Mississippi as one of the "Great Colleges to Work For". In the 2018 results, released in the Chronicle's annual report on "The Academic Workplace", the university was among 84 institutions honored from the 253 colleges and universities surveyed. In 2018, the university's campus was ranked the second-safest in the SEC and one of the safest in the U.S.
As of 2019, the university has had 27 Rhodes Scholars. Since 1998, it has 10 Goldwater Scholars, seven Truman Scholars, 18 Fulbright Scholars, one Marshall Scholar, three Udall Scholars, two Gates Cambridge Scholars, one Mitchell Scholar, 19 Boren Scholars, one Boren fellow, and one German Chancellor Fellowship.
== Student life ==
=== Student body ===
As of the 2023–2024 academic year, the student body consists of 18,533 undergraduates and 2,264 in graduate programs. Around 57 percent of the undergraduate student body were female. As of Fall 2023, minorities composed 23.5 percent of the body. The median family income of students is $116,600, and over half of students come from the top 20 percent. According to The New York Times, the University of Mississippi has the seventh-highest share of students from the economic top-one percent among selective public schools. The median starting salary of a graduate is $47,700, according to US News.
Although 54 percent of undergraduates are from Mississippi, the student body is geographically diverse. As of late 2020, the university's undergraduates represented all 82 counties in Mississippi, 49 states, the District of Columbia, and 86 countries. The average freshman retention rate, an indicator of student success and satisfaction, is 85.7 percent. In 2020, the student body included over 1,100 transfer students.
=== Traditions ===
A common greeting on campus is "Hotty Toddy!", which is also used in the school chant. The phrase has no explicit meaning and its origin is unknown. The chant was first published in 1926, but "Hotty Toddy" was spelled "Heighty Tighty"; this early spelling has led some to suggest it originated with Virginia Tech's regimental band, The Heighty Tighties. Other proposed origins are "hoity-toity", meaning snobbish, and the alcoholic drink hot toddy.
On football game days, the Grove, a 10-acre (4.0 ha) plot of trees, hosts an elaborate tailgating tradition; according to The New York Times, "Perhaps there isn't a word for the ritualized pregame revelry ... 'Tailgating' certainly does not do it justice". The tradition began in 1991 when cars were banned from the Grove. Prior to each game, over 2,000 red-and-blue trash cans are placed throughout the Grove. This event is known as "Trash Can Friday". Each barrel marks a tailgating spot. The spots are claimed by tailgaters, who erect a "tent city" of 2,500 shelters. Many of the tents are extravagant, feature chandeliers and fine china, and typically host meals of Southern cuisine. To accommodate the crowds, the university maintains elaborate portable bathrooms on 18-wheeler platforms known as "Hotty Toddy Potties".
=== Student organizations ===
The University of Mississippi's first sanctioned student organizations, literary societies the Hermaean Society and the Phi Sigma Society, were established in 1849. Weekly meetings, of which attendance was mandatory, were held in the Lyceum until 1853 and then in the chapel. With the university's emphasis on rhetoric, student-organized public orations on the first Monday of every month were popular. Studies were sometimes canceled so students could attend speeches of visiting politicians such as Jefferson Davis and William L. Sharkey.
In the 1890s, extracurricular and nonintellectual activities proliferated on campus, and interest in oratory and the now-voluntary literary societies diminished. Turn-of-the-20th-century student organizations included Cotillion Club, the elite Stag Club, and German Club. In the 1890s, the local YMCA began publishing a list of the organizations in the M-Book. As of 2021, the handbook was still provided to students.
The Associated Student Body (ASB), which was established in 1917, is the university's student government organization. Students are elected to the ASB Senate in the spring semester and leftover seats are voted on in open-seat elections in the fall. Senators can represent registered student organizations such as the Greek councils and sports clubs, or they can run to represent their academic school. The University of Mississippi's marching band The Pride of the South performs in-concert and at athletic events. The band was formally organized in 1928, but it existed before that date as a smaller organization led by a student director. A Phi Beta Kappa chapter was established in 2001.
=== Amenities ===
Approximately 5,300 students live on campus in thirteen residence halls, two residential colleges, and two apartment complexes. Students are required to live on-campus during their first year. Within residence halls, students designated as community assistants provide information and resolve issues. In the early 20th century, the university provided cottages for married students. In 1947, Vet Village was constructed to room the surge in World War II veteran applicants.
The University of Mississippi provides Oxford-University Transit, a shuttle system that is free of charge for students, faculty, and staff. In early 2020, Starship Technologies introduced an automated food delivery consisting of a fleet of 30 robots on campus; it was the first such system of any SEC school.
On-campus dining services Catering at UM and the Rebel Market are the only Certified Green restaurants in the state of Mississippi. In 2019, the university opened a 98,000-square-foot (9,100 m2) recreation center containing a gym, indoor climbing wall, basketball courts, and other services.
=== Greek life ===
Greek life at the University of Mississippi comprises 33 organizations and around 8,700 affiliated students. Greek societies at the University of Mississippi are housed along Fraternity Row and Sorority Row, which were constructed in the 1930s with federal funds.
The Rainbow Fraternity, which was founded at the University of Mississippi in 1848, was the first fraternity to be founded in the South. Other early fraternities established at the university include Delta Kappa Epsilon (1850), Delta Kappa (1853), Delta Psi (1854), and Epsilon Alpha (1855). By 1900, a majority of University of Mississippi students were members of a fraternity or a sorority. Non-member students felt excluded on campus and tensions between members and non-members escalated. The University Magazine denounced the Greek societies as "the most vicious institution that has grown up in any college". In 1902, Lee Russell, a poor student who was rejected by the fraternities, appeared before the board of trustees to criticize the Greek societies. In response, the board threatened to abolish Greek life if non-member students continued to be ostracized. In 1903, rumors Greek-life members and non-member students were preparing to "meet in combat" appeared. Multiple state-legislative investigations were held to address the issue. All Greek life at the university was suspended from 1912 to 1926 due to statewide anti-fraternity legislation.
As part of a larger crackdown on embarrassing fraternity incidents, Chancellor Gerald Turner ended the traditional Shrimp and Beer Festival in 1984. In 1988, Phi Beta Sigma, a black fraternity, was preparing to move into a house on the all-white Fraternity Row when arsonists burned their house. An alumnus helped purchase another house and Fraternity Row was integrated two months later. In a 1989 incident, fraternity members dropped naked students painted with racist slurs at the historically black Rust College. In 2014, three fraternity members placed a noose and a Confederate symbol on the Meredith statue, and in 2019, fraternity members posed with guns in front of an Emmett Till historical marker.
=== Media ===
The first student publication at the University of Mississippi was The University Magazine, which was founded in 1856 and published by the literary societies. The rivalry between the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State originated from an 1895 condemnation by The University Magazine of a Mississippi State publication which had written that the University of Mississippi "lacked dignity". The first student newspaper The University Record began publication in 1898; it and the Magazine suffered financially and were suspended in 1902.
In 1907, the YMCA and student athletic organization revived the university's newspaper as the Varsity Voice. In 1911, this newspaper was superseded by another student-published newspaper, The Daily Mississippian. The paper is editorially independent and is the only daily college newspaper in the state. The paper is also published online as TheDMonline.com, with supplementary content.
NewsWatch, which was established in 1980, is a student-produced, live newscast and the only local newscast in Lafayette County. The University of Mississippi owns and operates WUMS 92.1 Rebel Radio, which began broadcasting in 1989; it is one of a few university-operated commercial FM radio stations in the United States.
== Athletics ==
The University of Mississippi's athletic teams participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), Southeastern Conference (SEC), Division I as the Ole Miss Rebels. Women's varsity athletic teams at the University of Mississippi include basketball, cross country, golf, rifle, soccer, softball, tennis, track and field, and volleyball. Men's varsity teams are baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, tennis, and track and field.
In 1893, professor Alexander Bondurant organized the university's football team. As collegiate athletic teams began to receive names, a contest result selected the name "Mississippi Flood" in 1929. Due to the lasting harm of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, however, the name was changed to the "Rebels" in 1936. The first prime-time telecast of college football was of a 1969 Ole Miss game. The team has won six SEC championships. Major rivals include Louisiana State University and Mississippi State University, which Ole Miss plays against in the Magnolia Bowl and Egg Bowl, respectively. Other rivalries include Tulane and Vanderbilt. Football alumni Archie and Eli Manning, both quarterbacks, are honored on campus with speed limits set to 18 and 10 mph; their respective jersey numbers.
Outside football, Ole Miss baseball has won seven overall SEC championships and three SEC Tournaments. They have played in the Men's College World Series six times, and won the 2022 series. The men's tennis team has won five overall SEC championships and has had one NCAA Singles Champion—Devin Britton. The women's basketball team has won one overall SEC championship. Notable former players include Armintie Price, who holds the SEC record for steals in a game and was the third pick in the 2007 WNBA draft, and Jennifer Gillom, 1986 SEC Female Athlete of the Year and 1988 Olympic Gold Medalist. Men's basketball has won two SEC Tournaments. In 2021, Ole Miss women's golf won its first NCAA Division I Women's Golf Championship; the men's team has won two NCAA individual titles in 2017 and 2025.
== Notable people ==
=== Faculty ===
As of the 2020–2021 academic year, there were—excluding those of UMMC—1,092 professors, of whom 424 were tenured. At this time, there were 592 male and 500 female professors. With the early emphasis on classical studies, multiple notable classicists including George Tucker Stainback, Wilson Gaines Richardson, and William Hailey Willis, have held teaching positions at the University of Mississippi. Archeologist David Moore Robinson, who is credited with discovering the ancient city Olynthus, also taught classics at the university.
Former Mississippi Governor Ronnie Musgrove was a political science lecturer, and Kyle Duncan was an assistant law professor prior to his appointment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Landon Garland taught astronomy and philosophy before becoming the first president of Vanderbilt University. Actor James Best, who is best known for his work on The Dukes of Hazzard, was an artist in residence. Robert Q. Marston, director of the National Institutes of Health, served as the dean of the medical school, and Eugene W. Hilgard, considered the father of soil science, taught chemistry at Ole Miss. Other notable scientific faculty include psychologist David H. Barlow and physicist Mack A. Breazeale.
=== Alumni ===
In addition to William Faulkner, notable writers who attended the University of Mississippi include Florence Mars, Patrick D. Smith, Stark Young, and John Grisham. Alumni in film include Emmy Award-winning actor Gerald McRaney and Tate Taylor, director of The Help. Musicians who studied at the university include Mose Allison and Grammy Award-winner Glen Ballard. Athlete graduates include 12-time Grand Slam tennis champion Mahesh Bhupathi, New York Yankees catcher Jake Gibbs, and Michael Oher, NFL offensive lineman and subject of the film The Blind Side. Three Miss Americas and one Miss USA are also among its alumni.
The University of Mississippi's alumni include five US senators and ten governors. Other public servant graduates include Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justices Sydney M. Smith and Bill Waller Jr., US Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, White House Press Secretary Larry Speakes, and Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit. Notable academics include Pomona College president E. Wilson Lyon, Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard professor Thomas K. McCraw, and Mercer University president James Bruton Gambrell. Notable physicians include Arthur Guyton, American Medical Association head Edward Hill, and Thomas F. Frist Sr., co-founder of Hospital Corporation of America. Alumnus William Parsons served as director of NASA's Stennis Space Center and later that of Kennedy Space Center.
== Notes and references ==
=== Notes ===
=== Citations === |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijay_Singh | Vijay Singh | Vijay Singh (Fiji Hindi: विजय सिंह pronounced [ˈʋɪdʒəj sɪ̃ɦ]; born 22 February 1963) is a Fijian professional golfer. In 1982, Singh turned professional and played on the local Asia Golf Circuit. However, his early career met with controversy, as he was accused of numerous rules violations, and he was banned from the AGC. Singh turned to Africa and Europe where he had much success on the respective tours, the Safari Circuit and European Tour, winning several times on each. In 1993, he won the PGA Tour's Buick Classic, earning him tour membership and ultimately Rookie of the Years honors. In 1998, he won his first major championship, the PGA Championship, and two years later the Masters. In 2004, Singh had one of the best seasons in the history of golf, winning nine times including the PGA Championship, overtaking Tiger Woods as the #1 golfer in the world.
== Early life ==
Singh recollected to reporters about his childhood: "When we were kids we couldn't afford golf balls so we had to make do with coconuts. My father used to say, 'Little Vijay, golf balls don't fall off trees you know,' so I found some that did!" Growing up, he played snooker, cricket, football, and the country's most popular sport, rugby. He is the son of Mohan Singh, an airplane technician who also taught golf. Growing up, he admired the swing of Tom Weiskopf, using it as an early model for his own.
== Professional career ==
=== Asia Golf Circuit ===
Singh turned professional in 1982. Two years later, he won the 1984 Malaysian PGA Championship. However, his career was plunged into crisis after he was suspended from the Asia Golf Circuit in 1985 over allegations he doctored his scorecard. It was alleged that he lowered his score from one over to one under in order to make the cut, but Singh denies this, saying that in any case, it should only have resulted in disqualification from the event rather than a ban. After investigation by the Tour of this and other alleged violations proved true, John Bender, Asian PGA Tour president, issued Singh a lifetime ban on Asian PGA Tour play.
Singh felt he had been more harshly treated because the marker was "the son of a VIP in the Indonesian PGA." He then took a job at the Keningau Club in Sabah, Malaysia, before his move to the Miri Golf Club in Sarawak. While this was a period of hardship for him, he continued to gain experience.
=== European Tour ===
Singh saved the money he needed to resurrect his career and began to re-enter tournaments. In 1988 he teamed up with a sponsor, Red Baron, which funded a trip to Africa to compete on the now-defunct Safari Circuit, an offshoot circuit of the European Tour. Singh captured his first event, the 1988 Nigerian Open, as locals cheered him loudly. At the end of that year he entered the European Tour Qualifying school for the second consecutive year, and was successful on this occasion.
In 1989, Singh won his first European Tour title at the Volvo Open Championship in Italy and finished 24th on the European Tour Order of Merit, putting his early struggles firmly behind him. He won four times in 1989, at the Volvo Open di Firenze, Ivory Coast Open, Nigerian Open and Zimbabwe Open. He also finished tied for 23rd at The Open Championship. He won on the European Tour again in 1990 and did so twice in 1992. He also won several tournaments in Asia and Africa in this period.
=== PGA Tour ===
Singh earned membership for the PGA Tour in 1993, winning his first tournament, the Buick Classic in a playoff over Mark Wiebe. That victory led to his being named the 1993 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year. After being hampered with back and neck problems in 1994, he came back to win the Buick Classic again in 1995 as well as the Phoenix Open. After playing well in 1996 (but with no victories), he won both the Memorial Tournament and the Buick Open in 1997.
In 1998, Singh was victorious at the PGA Championship at Sahalee Country Club in Sammamish, Washington, playing a 70-66-67-68 over the four days (the 66 tied a course record) and earning him his first Major title. He followed this up by winning The Masters in 2000, with a three-stroke victory over Ernie Els.
Singh did not win on the PGA Tour in 2001, but finished the year with a Tour-best 14 top-10 finishes and was fourth on the money list with $3,440,829 for the year. In 2002, he won at the Shell Houston Open at TPC at The Woodlands, setting a new tournament 72-hole scoring record with a 266, and at the Tour Championship, winning by two strokes over Charles Howell III.
2003 proved to be a very successful year for Singh. He won four tournaments, had 18 top-10 finishes and was the PGA Tour's money leader (and had the second-highest single-season total in PGA Tour history) with $7,573,907, beating Tiger Woods by $900,494, though Singh played 27 tournaments compared to Woods' 18 tournaments. Singh also tied a 9-hole scoring record at the U.S. Open with a 29 on the back nine of his second round. His victories came at the Phoenix Open, the EDS Byron Nelson Championship, the John Deere Classic and the FUNAI Classic at the Walt Disney World Resort. He narrowly lost the vote for the PGA of America's Player of the Year to Tiger Woods.
However, the 2003 season was also spotted with controversy involving Singh surrounding the year's event at the Bank of America Colonial. LPGA star Annika Sörenstam became the first woman to play at a PGA Tour event since Babe Zaharias at the 1945 Los Angeles Open. Surrounding this fervor, Singh was misquoted as having said that Sörenstam "didn't belong" on the men's tour and that he would not play if he were paired with her. What he actually said is that he would not be paired with her because his playing partner was being selected from the past champion's pool. Singh later clarified, "There are guys out there trying to make a living. It's not a ladies' tour. If she wants to play, she should—or any other woman for that matter—if they want to play the man's tour, they should qualify and play like everybody else."
Singh began 2004 by winning the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am at −16 and winning $954,000 in prize money. This was his first win on tour in 2004 and his 16th all-time on the PGA Tour. It was his 12th consecutive top-10 finish, which is two shy of Jack Nicklaus' all-time record.
Singh won the final major of 2004, winning the PGA Championship, his third major, in a three-hole aggregate playoff over Justin Leonard and Chris DiMarco. Singh was the leader by one shot over Leonard going into the final round, but made no birdies in the final round, finishing regulation at 67-68-69-76=280. His final round of 76 was the highest winning score by a major champion since 1955. The playoff was a tense affair, and Singh's birdie on the first playoff hole, his first birdie of the day, proved to be the difference.
On 6 September 2004 (Labor Day), Singh won the Deutsche Bank Championship in Norton, Massachusetts. With the win, he overtook Tiger Woods at the top of the Official World Golf Ranking, ending Woods' streak of 264 weeks at the top of the golf world.
Singh finished the 2004 season with a career-best nine victories, 18 top-10s, and a record $10,905,166 in earnings and was named the PGA Tour's and PGA of America's Player of the Year. The former award is decided by a vote of active PGA Tour players.
Despite picking up a win early in 2005, Singh lost his world number 1 ranking when Tiger Woods won the Ford Championship at Doral on 6 March, but just two weeks later he took it back again after notching up top-three finishes in three consecutive weeks. Following Woods' win at the 2005 Masters, Singh once again lost his place as World No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking and finished tied for fifth place. In April, he became the youngest living person elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame, garnering 56% of the ballot. Thirty-year-old Karrie Webb was inducted into the Hall of Fame in October 2005, but Singh remained the youngest living electee, as Webb qualified for the Hall without an election process. (The 19th century great Tom Morris, Jr., who was elected in 1975, died at age 24.) Singh deferred his induction for a year, and it took place in October 2006.
In 2006, Singh played enough European Tour events to be listed on the European Tour Order of Merit title for the first time since 1995.
At the start of the 2007 season, Singh won the Mercedes-Benz Championship which was the first FedEx Cup event in PGA Tour history. This win got Singh his 18th tour win over the age of 40, surpassing Sam Snead as most over 40 wins, and making all-time over 40 tour winner. He won again at The Arnold Palmer Invitational in March, but did not win for the rest of the year which turned into a disappointing year for Singh. He did not finish in a top ten of a major for the first time in ten years and finished 10th in the FedEx Cup race. He went through swing changes during the end of 2007 which resulted in weeks of missed cuts and staying outside the top ten through the Presidents Cup.
A new swing brought big changes for Singh in 2008, although he had good opportunities at Pebble Beach and Bay Hill, he was not competing at a high level for the first half of the year. His game was plagued by poor putting for the better part of two years, but his season started to turn around with a tie for fifth at the Travelers Championship. After missing the cut at The Open Championship, Singh won the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in early August for his first win of the year and first World Golf Championship. His win had been a relief after missing short putts throughout the week. He missed the cut the following two weeks including at Oakland Hills for the PGA Championship and entered the PGA Tour FedEx Cup playoffs ranked 7th in the standings. At the first playoff event, Singh prevailed for his first FedEx Cup win defeating Sergio García and Kevin Sutherland in a playoff. On the first playoff hole García and Singh matched long birdie putts before Singh won with birdie on the second playoff hole. Singh was propelled into first place in the FedEx Cup race with three events remaining. At the second event of the playoffs, he triumphed once again, this time at the Deutsche Bank Championship bewildering the field with a five strokes victory and a final round 63. He had won three times in his last five starts and created an almost insurmountable lead in the points race. He would not contend in the remaining two events, but by playing in both the 2008 FedEx Cup title belonged to Singh. His season which looked to be a major disappointment in July turned into an historic year for Singh: he won the PGA Tour money list for the third time in his career and he surpassed Harry Cooper for most PGA Tour wins of all time for a non-American.
Singh has won 22 times on the PGA Tour since turning 40 – beating the record previously set by Sam Snead. He is the second man to reach $60 million in PGA Tour career earnings, after Tiger Woods. His 34 career victories are the most on the PGA Tour by a non-American player and place him 14th on the all-time list. He has spent over 540 weeks ranked in the top 10 of the Official World Golf Ranking. Singh's longevity on the PGA Tour and his number of wins earn him a lifetime exemption on the PGA Tour.
Kenny Perry, another player who found success at a late age is good friends with Singh, who calls him "Biggie". Of Singh, Perry said "Vijay has always been good to me. We talk a lot. He wants to know how my family is doing. I think the world of him."
After the 2008 playoffs, Singh announced his withdrawal from a couple of Asian Tour events because of a nagging back injury and was advised by doctors to rest. He missed two and a half months, returning to win Tiger Woods's tournament, the Chevron World Challenge at Sherwood Country Club in California in December. It was his first victory in the event. During the start of the 2009 season Singh announced that he would miss three weeks after undergoing arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee. Singh had a mediocre 2009 season, with no top 5 finishes and ended the year with his lowest ever ranking on the PGA Tour money list in 68th.
His poor form continued into 2010, resulting in him being 66th on the PGA Tour money list. He dropped out of the top 50 in the world rankings for the first time since the early 1990s.
After returning from knee surgery, Singh started the 2011 season making five out of his first five cuts. In February, Singh was in contention to win his first PGA Tour Title since 2008 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open in Scottsdale, Arizona. Despite shooting a final round 66, Singh finished two shots behind Jason Dufner and eventual winner Mark Wilson. A couple of weeks later, Singh was in contention again, this time at the Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club. However, he came up short again, not helped by back-to-back bogeys on holes 12 and 13. He would eventually finish two shots back of the winner Aaron Baddeley, although he did secure second spot on his own. This early season form however was not enough to secure a spot at the opening World Golf Championship of the year, the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship the following week. However, at number 10 in the 2011 FedEx Cup standings, it was just enough to secure a spot at the WGC-Cadillac Championship in March.
On 6 June 2011, Singh missed his tee-time for the U.S. Open qualifying in Columbus, Ohio. At the time, this ended the longest active streak of consecutive majors played by a professional golfer, at 67.
On 30 January 2013, Singh admitted to using deer-antler spray while not knowing that it is a banned substance. The PGA Tour later dropped its case against him. On 8 May 2013, Singh sued the PGA Tour for exposing him to public humiliation and ridicule during a 12-week investigation into his use of deer-antler spray. On 20 November 2018, the PGA Tour and Singh announced that the lawsuit had been settled. The PGA Tour confirmed that it does not believe that Singh intended to gain an unfair advantage over his fellow competitors in this matter. Other terms of the settlement were not announced.
=== PGA Tour Champions ===
Singh played his first PGA Tour Champions event in 2013, finishing T6 at the Pacific Links Hawai'i Championship. During this era, he still played some PGA Tour events, finishing second at the Quicken Loans National, three strokes behind winner Billy Hurley III.
In 2017, Singh won his first senior event, the Bass Pro Shops Legends of Golf with Carlos Franco. In March 2018, Singh won the Toshiba Classic. Four months later, in July, Singh won one of the PGA Tour Champions' major tournaments, the Constellation Senior Players Championship in a playoff over Jeff Maggert. At the end of the season, in November, Singh won the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship in Phoenix, Arizona. The victory was worth $440,000. By winning the tournament, he also finished fourth in the season-long Charles Schwab Cup, winning an additional $200,000.
In March 2019, Singh shot his way into the final group of the final round of the Honda Classic. Singh shot even-par to finish sixth, three strokes behind winner Keith Mitchell.
In 2026, Singh returned to the PGA Tour using a one-time exemption for those in the top-50 in career earnings. Singh, whose career earnings are over $71 million, is eligible for most full-field events and the Masters as a former winner.
== Personal life ==
An Indo-Fijian practising Hinduism, Singh was born in Lautoka, Fiji and grew up in Nadi. A resident of Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, he is known for his meticulous preparation, often arriving hours before, and staying long after his tournament rounds to work on his game on the driving range and putting greens.
Singh has a brother named Krishna who is also a professional golfer.
== Media relations ==
Controversy surrounded Singh in 2003 before the Bank of America Colonial. Annika Sörenstam was scheduled to play the event, and Singh was quoted as saying, "I hope she misses the cut ... because she doesn't belong out here." He later said that the substance of his interview to an Associated Press reporter was that she would be displacing some other struggling male player, for whom he had his sympathies. However, the media focused on this statement. Golf Digest wrote that Singh had become "pro golf's bad guy."
After Singh's win at the Masters, Ernie Els took issue with some of the negative press his friend received. He wrote an article in Sports Illustrated to defend him, saying, "Golf should be proud of Vijay Singh." Later Els said of Singh "He's a wonderful guy. I've known him for the better part of 10 years now. He's a great competitor. I think people have a misconception of Vijay. He's a really good guy."
In May 2005, Singh was appointed a goodwill ambassador for Fiji. He said that he did not expect anything in return from the Fijian government for representing his country. At a press conference on 18 May 2005, Singh commented on what he said was a deterioration in race relations in Fiji, saying that for such a small country, people of all races should live together, put their differences aside, and get on with life. Relations between Indo-Fijians and indigenous Fijians had been more harmonious when he was younger, he said.
== Awards and honors ==
In 1993, Singh won the PGA Tour's Rookie of the Year honors.
In 2003, 2004, and 2008 he finished atop the PGA Tour's money list.
In 2004, Singh was voted by his colleagues to be PGA Tour Player of the Year.
In 2004, he also earned PGA Player of the Year honors, based on a points-based system, from the PGA of America.
In 2004, Singh also earned the PGA Tour's Byron Nelson Award and the PGA of America's Vardon Trophy. The honors respectively go the player with the lowest adjusted scoring average over the course of the year and the overall leader in scoring average, non-adjusted.
In 2004, Singh was European Tour Golfer of the Year, dispensed by the golf media figures in Europe.
In 2006, Singh was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame.
In 2008, he won the season-long FedEx Cup.
== Professional wins (66) ==
=== PGA Tour wins (34) ===
PGA Tour playoff record (8–4)
=== European Tour wins (13) ===
1Co-sanctioned by the Southern Africa Tour
2Co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour
European Tour playoff record (2–0)
=== Asian Tour wins (5) ===
1Co-sanctioned by the European Tour
2Co-sanctioned by the Korean Tour
Asian Tour playoff record (2–0)
=== Asia Golf Circuit wins (1) ===
=== Southern Africa Tour wins (2) ===
1Co-sanctioned by the European Tour
=== Safari Circuit wins (4) ===
=== Swedish Golf Tour wins (1) ===
=== Other wins (8) ===
Other playoff record (1–2)
=== PGA Tour Champions wins (5) ===
PGA Tour Champions playoff record (1–0)
== Major championships ==
=== Wins (3) ===
1Defeated Justin Leonard and Chris DiMarco in three-hole playoff: Singh (3-3-4=10), Leonard (4-3-x=x), and DiMarco (4-3-x=x)
=== Results timeline ===
Results not in chronological order in 2020.
CUT = missed the half way cut
WD = withdrew
"T" indicates a tie for a place.
NT = no tournament due to COVID-19 pandemic
=== Summary ===
Most consecutive cuts made – 15 (2002 PGA – 2006 U.S. Open)
Longest streak of top-10s – 7 (2004 PGA – 2006 U.S. Open)
== Results in The Players Championship ==
CUT = missed the halfway cut
"T" indicates a tie for a place
== World Golf Championships ==
=== Wins (1) ===
=== Results timeline ===
1Cancelled due to 9/11
QF, R16, R32, R64 = Round in which player lost in match play
"T" = tied
NT = No tournament
Note that the HSBC Champions did not become a WGC event until 2009.
== Senior major championships ==
=== Wins (1) ===
=== Results timeline ===
Results not in chronological order
CUT = missed the halfway cut
WD = withdrew
"T" indicates a tie for a place
NT = no tournament due to COVID-19 pandemic
== PGA Tour career summary ==
*As of the 2020 season.
There is a summary of Singh's European Tour career here.
== Team appearances ==
Amateur
Eisenhower Trophy (representing Fiji): 1980
Professional
Presidents Cup (International Team): 1994, 1996, 1998 (winners), 2000, 2003 (tie), 2005, 2007, 2009
World Cup (representing Fiji): 2001, 2002, 2013
Alfred Dunhill Challenge (representing Australasia): 1995 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%9319_Women%27s_Volleyball_Thailand_League | 2018–19 Women's Volleyball Thailand League | The 2018–19 Women's Volleyball Thailand League is the 14th season of the Women's Volleyball Thailand League, the top Thai professional league for women's volleyball clubs, since its establishment in 2005, also known as CP Women's Volleyball Thailand League due to the sponsorship deal with Charoen Pokphand. A total of 8 teams will compete in the league. The season will begin on 27 October 2018, and is scheduled to conclude in 2019. This season will be organized by the Thailand Volleyball Association (TVA) instead Thailand Volleyball Co., Ltd. The season started.
Supreme Chonburi are the defending champions, also the reigning Asian club champions, while the 2018 Pro Challenge champion will has entered as the promoted team from the 2018 Volleyball Pro Challenge.
== Changes from last season ==
=== Team changes ===
==== Promoted clubs ====
Promoted from the 2018 Women's Volleyball Pro Challenge
Opart 369 (2018 Pro Challenge champion)
Rangsit University (2018 Pro Challenge runner-up)
==== Relegated clubs ====
Relegated from the 2017–18 Women's Volleyball Thailand League
Rangsit University
Cosmo Chiang Rai
==== Reformed club ====
Bangkok Glass authorize from Quint Air Force
== Clubs ==
=== Personnel and sponsorship ===
=== Managerial changes ===
=== National team players ===
Note :: players who released during second leg transfer window;: players who registered during second leg transfer window;→: players who left club after registered during first or second leg.
National team player quotas except from regulation
Hattaya Bamrungsuk is first time in national team with Nakhon Ratchasima The Mall.
Pimpichaya Kokram is first time in national team with 3BB Nakornnont.
Chitaporn Kamlangmak is first time in national team with Thai–Denmark Khonkaen Star.
Supattra Pairoj is first time in national team with Generali Supreme Chonburi-E.Tech.
Watchareeya Nuanjam is first time in national team with Generali Supreme Chonburi-E.Tech.
Academic players will not including in national team player quota.
=== Foreign players ===
Note :: players who released during second leg transfer window;: players who registered during second leg transfer window;→: players who left club after registered during first or second leg.
=== Transfers ===
==== First leg ====
==== Second leg ====
== Format ==
=== Regular season ===
First leg: single round-robin.
Second leg: single round-robin.
==== Regular season standing procedure ====
Number of matches won
Match points
Sets ratio
Points ratio
Result of the last match between the tied teams
Match won 3–0 or 3–1: 3 match points for the winner, 0 match points for the loser
Match won 3–2: 2 match points for the winner, 1 match point for the loser
=== Finals series ===
== Venues ==
Note
^A Keelawes 1 Gymnasium is initiatively proposed venue in Week 4 (17 to 18 November 2018), but TVA moved venue to Mcc Hall The Mall Bangkapi.
^B Chonburi Municipal Gymnasium is initiatively proposed venue in Week 5 (1 to 2 December 2018), but TVA moved venue to Mcc Hall The Mall Bangkapi.
^C Khon Kaen Provincial Gymnasium is initiatively proposed venue in Week 6 and 7 (15 to 16 and 22 to 23 December 2018), but TVA moved venue to Khonkaen International Convention and Exhibition Center.
== Regular season ==
=== League table ===
=== Head-to-Head results ===
=== Positions by round ===
=== Results ===
==== First leg ====
All times are Indochina Time (UTC+07:00).
===== Week 1 – Chonburi =====
===== Week 2 – Nakhon Ratchasima =====
===== Week 3 – Nakhon Ratchasima =====
===== Week 4 – Bangkok =====
===== Week 5 – Bangkok =====
===== Week 6 – Khon Kaen =====
===== Week 7 – Khon Kaen =====
==== Second leg ====
All times are Indochina Time (UTC+07:00).
===== Week 8 – Khon Kaen =====
===== Week 9 – Nonthaburi =====
===== Week 10 – Nonthaburi =====
===== Week 11 – Nakhon Ratchasima =====
===== Week 12 – Nakhon Ratchasima =====
===== Week 13 – Bangkok =====
===== Week 14 – Bangkok =====
== Finals series ==
All times are Indochina Time (UTC+07:00).
=== Final Team ===
=== Venue ===
The final series matches are played at the MCC Hall The Mall Bang Kapi in Bangkok.
=== Semi-finals ===
=== 3rd place ===
=== Final ===
== Final standing ==
== Awards ==
== Statistics leader ==
The statistics of each group follows the vis reports P2 and P5. The statistics include 6 volleyball skills; serve, reception, set, spike, block, and dig. The table below shows the top 5 ranked players in each skill plus top scorers at the completion of the tournament.
=== Regular season ===
After Leg 2 Week 7 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom%C3%A1%C5%A1_Pekhart | Tomáš Pekhart | Tomáš Pekhart (born 26 May 1989) is a Czech professional footballer who plays as a forward for Czech First League club Dukla Prague. He represented the Czech Republic at both junior and senior level.
== Club career ==
=== Early career ===
Born in Sušice, Czechoslovakia, he began his youth career with his hometown club TJ Sušice and also played for TJ Klatovy before joining Slavia Prague in 2003.
Pekhart joined the Tottenham Hotspur youth academy during the summer of 2006.
==== Loan to Southampton ====
In August 2008, Pekhart joined Championship side Southampton on loan until January 2009. He made his first league appearance as a substitute on 14 September, away against Queens Park Rangers which Southampton lost 4–1. He scored his only league goal for Southampton in a 2–2 home draw against Ipswich.
==== Loan to Slavia Prague ====
He returned to Spurs in January 2009 and on transfer deadline day Pekhart returned to his old club Slavia Prague on a year-long loan until January 2010. On 15 March 2009, Pekhart scored a late goal for Slavia in a 2–1 victory over FK Jablonec. Pekhart was rewarded for his first goal with the club and was handed a start on 22 March, scoring the lone goal in the 1–0 victory over FC Zlín.
=== FK Jablonec ===
On 12 January 2010, FK Jablonec confirmed the signing of Pekhart on a three-and-a-half-year deal for an undisclosed fee. On 20 March 2010, Pekhart scored his first goal for Jablonec, a late winner in a 2–1 victory over Příbram. On 2 May 2010, Pekhart scored two goals in a 4–0 victory over Bohemians 1905. On 8 May 2010, Pekhart scored the opening goal in a 3–0 victory over his former club Slavia Prague. Pekhart continued his fine form during the 2010–11 season, scoring 11 goals in 15 league matches. However, after just half of the 2010–11 Czech First League season, he moved on loan to fellow Czech First League side Sparta Prague as part of a deal with 1. FC Nürnberg, whom he joined on 1 July 2011.
==== Loan to Sparta Prague ====
Pekhart moved on loan for the second half of the 2010–11 season to Sparta Prague. On 19 March 2011, Pekhart scored his first two goals for Sparta in a 2-0 victory over FC Zbrojovka Brno. In nine league games for Sparta, Pekhart scored seven goals. He ended the 2010-11 season scoring 18 goals in 24 matches, one goal behind former teammate David Lafata in the Czech First League scoring table.
=== Nürnberg ===
On 6 August 2011, Pekhart scored in his debut in the Bundesliga, helping 1. FC Nürnberg to a 1–0 victory over Hertha Berlin on the opening day of Germany’s football season. On 1 October 2011, Pekhart scored the equalizer in a 3–3 draw with Mainz. He ended his first season in Germany with 10 goals in 34 matches.
=== FC Ingolstadt 04 ===
On 28 August 2014, Pekhart signed a three-year deal with the German second league side FC Ingolstadt 04. He made his debut for the club on 31 August, appearing as a second half substitute in a 0–3 victory over SV Sandhausen. While with Ingolstadt Pekhart was seldom used.
=== AEK Athens ===
Pekhart moved to AEK Athens on 1 February 2016. On 4 February 2016, he made his debut with the club, in an away 1–1 draw against Iraklis at Kaftanzoglio Stadium. On 20 February 2016, Pekhart scored his first goal for AEK in a 1–1 draw with Iraklis. On 10 April 2016, Pekhart scored two goals in a 2–1 victory over Panionios F.C. During the 2016–17 season, Pekhart was AEK's top scorer, scoring 12 goals in 31 matches.
=== Hapoel Be'er Sheva ===
On 21 July 2017, Pekhart signed with Hapoel Be'er Sheva for three years. On 10 August 2017, Pekhart scored his first goal for Hapoel in a 4–2 victory over Bnei Yehuda Tel Aviv in the 2017 Israel Super Cup, claiming his first title with the Israeli side. On 19 August 2017, Pekhart scored his first goal in the Israeli league in a 1–1 draw with Maccabi Netanya. He ended the 2017–18 season scoring 10 goals in 28 matches, helping Hapoel win its fifth league title.
=== Las Palmas ===
On 13 August of the following year, he agreed to a two-year deal with Segunda División side UD Las Palmas. Pekhart scored his first goal for Las Palmas on 18 November 2018 in a 4–1 loss to Cádiz CF. On 27 September 2019, he scored his club's third goal in a 3–2 victory over Albacete Balompié. With the trio of Pekhart, Pedri, and Jonathan Viera Las Palmas went on an unbeaten run to move up the Segunda Division standings. On 5 October 2019, Pedri and Pekhart goals helped the island side to a 0–2 victory over CD Lugo. On 13 October 2019, Las Palmas won their fourth straight match, defeating Deportivo La Coruña 3–0 with two goals by Pekhart and one by Jonathan Viera.
=== Legia Warsaw ===
On 10 February 2020, Pekhart agreed to a two-and-a-half-year deal with Ekstraklasa side Legia Warsaw. On 22 February 2020, Pekhart made his debut for Legia, scoring his club's fourth goal in a 4–0 victory over Jagiellonia Białystok. On 7 June 2020, Pekhart scored two goals to help Legia to a 1–3 victory over Wisła Kraków. He ended his first season in Poland appearing in 11 league matches scoring 5 goals, helping Legia to a league title.
On 21 March 2021, Pekhart scored four goals in a 4–0 victory over Zagłębie Lubin. During the 2020–21 season, he was the leading scorer in Ekstraklasa, scoring 22 goals as Legia won the league title again. On 14 July 2021, Pekhard scored the second goal in a 2–0 victory in the second leg of the first round of UEFA Champions League qualifying against FK Bodø/Glimt as the Polish champions advanced to the next round. Pekhart ended the 2021–22 season in Poland appearing in 45 matches and scoring 10 goals, in a season in which Legia finished 10th in the league standings. After rejecting offers to renew his contract by Legia, Pekhart left the Polish club on 30 June 2022.
=== Gaziantep ===
On 10 August 2022, Pekhart joined Gaziantep in Turkey on a two-year contract.
=== Return to Legia Warsaw ===
On 30 January 2023, Pekhart agreed to a one-and-a-half-year deal with Ekstraklasa side Legia Warsaw.
On 23 May 2025, Legia announced they would not extend their deal with Pekhart for the following season.
=== FK Dukla Prague ===
On 4 January 2026, Pekhart signed a contract with Dukla Prague.
== International career ==
Pekhart has represented his country at youth international level. Pekhart played and scored in the final of the 2006 UEFA Under-17 Championship in Luxembourg for his country against Russia.
In 2007, he represented his country in the FIFA Under-20 World Cup in Canada as the youngest player in the squad having just turned 18. He played in all seven matches of the tournament, including the final against Argentina in which the Czechs finished runners up after Mauro Zárate scored the winning goal four minutes from full-time for Argentina.
He made his debut for the Czech Republic on 22 May 2010 in a match against Turkey.
== Career statistics ==
=== Club ===
As of match played 24 May 2025
=== International ===
As of match played 19 November 2022
Scores and results list the Czech Republic's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Pekhart goal.
== Honours ==
Slavia Prague
Czech First League: 2008–09
FC Ingolstadt
2. Bundesliga: 2014–15
AEK Athens
Greek Cup: 2015–16
Hapoel Be'er-Sheva
Israeli Premier League: 2017–18
Israel Super Cup: 2017
Legia Warsaw
Ekstraklasa: 2019–20, 2020–21
Polish Cup: 2022–23, 2024–25
Polish Super Cup: 2023
Czech Republic U17
UEFA European Under-17 Championship runner-up: 2006
Czech Republic U20
FIFA U-20 World Cup runner-up: 2007
Individual
Ekstraklasa top scorer: 2020–21 (22 goals)
Ekstraklasa Forward of the Season: 2020–21
Piłka Nożna Foreigner of the Year: 2020 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Cleveland#:~:text=Stephen%20Grover%20Cleveland%20(March%2018,serve%20non%2Dconsecutive%20presidential%20terms. | Grover Cleveland#:~:text=Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18,serve non-consecutive presidential terms. | Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837 – June 24, 1908) was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, serving from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. He was the first U.S. president to serve nonconsecutive terms and the first Democrat elected president after the American Civil War.
Born in Caldwell, New Jersey, Cleveland was elected mayor of Buffalo in 1881 and governor of New York in 1882. While governor, he closely cooperated with state assembly minority leader Theodore Roosevelt to pass reform measures, winning national attention. He led the Bourbon Democrats, a pro-business movement opposed to high tariffs, free silver, inflation, imperialism, and subsidies to businesses, farmers, or veterans. His crusade for political reform and fiscal conservatism made him an icon for American conservatives of the time. Cleveland also won praise for honesty, self-reliance, integrity, and commitment to classical liberalism. His fight against political corruption, patronage, and bossism convinced many like-minded Republicans, called "Mugwumps", to cross party lines and support him in the 1884 presidential election, which he narrowly won against Republican James G. Blaine.
During his first presidency, Cleveland signed the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, which made the railroad industry the first industry subject to federal regulation by a regulatory body, and the Dawes Act, which subdivided Native American tribal communal landholdings into individual allotments. This policy led to Native Americans ceding control of about two-thirds of their land between 1887 and 1934. In the 1888 election, Cleveland won the popular vote but lost the electoral college and therefore the election to Benjamin Harrison. He returned to New York City and joined a law firm.
In a rematch against Harrison for the 1892 election, Cleveland won both the popular vote and electoral college, returning him to the White House. One month before his second presidency began, the Panic of 1893 sparked a severe national depression. An anti-imperialist, Cleveland opposed the push to annex Hawaii, launched an investigation into the 1893 coup against Queen Liliʻuokalani, and called for her restoration. Cleveland intervened in the 1894 Pullman Strike to keep the railroads moving, angering Illinois Democrats and labor unions nationwide; his support of the gold standard and opposition to free silver alienated the agrarian wing of the Democrats. Critics complained that Cleveland had little imagination and seemed overwhelmed by the nation's economic disasters—depressions and strikes—in his second term. Many voters blamed the Democrats, opening the way for a Republican landslide in 1894 and for the agrarian and free silver (silverite) seizure of the Democratic Party at the 1896 Democratic convention. By the end of his second term, he was highly unpopular, even among Democrats.
After leaving the White House, Cleveland served as a trustee of Princeton University. He joined the American Anti-Imperialist League in protest of the 1898 Spanish–American War. He died in 1908.
== Early life ==
=== Childhood and family history ===
Stephen Grover Cleveland was born on March 18, 1837, in Caldwell, New Jersey, to Ann (née Neal) and Richard Falley Cleveland. Cleveland's father, originally from Connecticut, was a Congregational and Presbyterian minister. His mother was from Baltimore and was the daughter of a bookseller. On his father's side, Cleveland was descended from English ancestors who first emigrated to Massachusetts from Ipswich, England, in 1635. On his mother's side, Cleveland was descended from Anglo-Irish Protestants and German Quakers. Cleveland was distantly related to General Moses Cleaveland, after whom the city of Cleveland, Ohio, was named.
Cleveland, the fifth of nine children, was named Stephen Grover in honor of the first pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Caldwell, where his father was pastor at the time. He became known as Grover in his adult life. In 1841, the Cleveland family moved to Fayetteville, New York, where Grover spent much of his childhood. Neighbors later described him as "full of fun and inclined to play pranks", and fond of outdoor sports.
In 1850, Cleveland's father Richard moved his family to Clinton, New York, accepting a job there as district secretary for the American Home Missionary Society. Despite his father's dedication to his missionary work, his income was insufficient for the large family. Financial conditions forced him to remove Grover from school and place him in a two-year mercantile apprenticeship in Fayetteville. The experience was valuable, though brief. Grover returned to Clinton and his schooling at the completion of the apprentice contract. In 1853, missionary work began to take a toll on Richard's health. He took a new work assignment in Holland Patent, New York, and moved his family once again. Shortly after, Richard Cleveland died from a gastric ulcer. Grover was said to have learned about his father's death from a boy selling newspapers.
=== Education and moving west ===
Cleveland received his elementary education at the Fayetteville Academy and the Clinton Grammar School (not to be confused with the Clinton Liberal Institute). After his father died in 1853, he again left school to help support his family. Later that year, Cleveland's brother William was hired as a teacher at the New York Institute for the Blind in New York City, and William obtained a place for Cleveland as an assistant teacher. Cleveland returned home to Holland Patent at the end of 1854, where an elder in his church offered to pay for his college education if he promised to become a minister. Cleveland declined, and in 1855 he decided to move west.
He stopped first in Buffalo, New York, where his cousin Lewis F. Allen gave him a clerical job. Allen was an important man in Buffalo, and he introduced Cleveland to influential men there, including the partners in the law firm of Rogers, Bowen, and Rogers. Cleveland later took a clerkship with the firm, began to read the law with them, and was admitted to the New York bar in 1859.
=== Early career and the American Civil War ===
Cleveland worked for the Rogers firm for three years before leaving in 1862 to start his own practice. In January 1863, he was appointed assistant district attorney of Erie County, New York. With the American Civil War raging, Congress passed the Conscription Act of 1863, requiring able-bodied men to serve in the army if called upon, or else to hire a substitute. Cleveland chose the latter, paying $150, equivalent to $3,922 in 2025, to George Benninsky, a Polish immigrant, to serve in his place.
As a lawyer, Cleveland became known for his single-minded concentration and dedication to hard work. In 1866, he successfully defended some participants in the Fenian raid, working pro bono (free of charge). In 1868, Cleveland attracted professional attention for his winning defense of a libel suit against the editor of Buffalo's Commercial Advertiser. During this time, Cleveland assumed a lifestyle of simplicity, taking residence in a plain boarding house. He devoted his growing income to the support of his mother and younger sisters. While his personal quarters were austere, Cleveland enjoyed an active social life and "the easy-going sociability of hotel-lobbies and saloons". He shunned the circles of higher society of Buffalo in which his uncle-in-law's family traveled.
== Political career in New York ==
=== Sheriff of Erie County ===
From his earliest involvement in politics, Cleveland aligned with the Democratic Party. He had a decided aversion to Republicans John C. Frémont and Abraham Lincoln, and the heads of the Rogers law firm were solid Democrats. In 1865, he ran for District Attorney, losing narrowly to his friend and roommate, Lyman K. Bass, the Republican nominee.
In 1870, with the help of friend Oscar Folsom, Cleveland secured the Democratic nomination for sheriff of Erie County, New York. He won the election by a 303-vote margin and took office on January 1, 1871, at age 33. While this new career took him away from the practice of law, it was rewarding in other ways: the fees were said to yield up to $40,000, equivalent to $1,075,000 in 2025, over the two-year term.
Cleveland's service as sheriff was unremarkable. Biographer Rexford Tugwell described the time in office as a waste for Cleveland politically. Cleveland was aware of graft in the sheriff's office during his tenure and chose not to confront it. A notable incident of his term took place on September 6, 1872, when Patrick Morrissey was executed. He had been convicted of murdering his mother. As sheriff, Cleveland was responsible for either personally carrying out the execution or paying a deputy $10 to perform the task. In spite of reservations about the hanging, Cleveland executed Morrissey himself. He hanged another murderer, John Gaffney, on February 14, 1873.
After his term as sheriff ended, Cleveland returned to his law practice, opening a firm with his friends Lyman K. Bass and Wilson S. Bissell. Bass was later replaced by George J. Sicard. Elected to Congress in 1872, Bass did not spend much time at the firm, but Cleveland and Bissell soon rose to the top of Buffalo's legal community. Up to that point, Cleveland's political career had been honorable and unexceptional. As biographer Allan Nevins wrote, "Probably no man in the country, on March 4, 1881, had less thought than this limited, simple, sturdy attorney of Buffalo that four years later he would be standing in Washington and taking the oath as President of the United States."
It was during this period that Cleveland began courting a widow, Maria Halpin. She later accused him of raping her. It is unclear if Halpin was actually raped by Cleveland or if their relationship was consensual. In March 1876, Cleveland accused Halpin of being an alcoholic and had her child removed from her custody. The child was taken to the Protestant Orphan Asylum, and Cleveland paid for his stay there. Cleveland had Halpin admitted to the Providence Asylum. Halpin was only kept at the asylum for five days because she was deemed not to be insane. Cleveland later provided financial support for her to begin her own business outside of Buffalo. Although lacking irrefutable evidence that Cleveland was the father, the child became a campaign issue for the Republican Party in Cleveland's first presidential campaign, where they smeared him by claiming that he was "immoral" and for allegedly acting cruelly by not raising the child himself.
=== Mayor of Buffalo ===
In the 1870s, the municipal government in Buffalo had grown increasingly corrupt, with Democratic and Republican political machines cooperating to share the spoils of political office. When the Republicans nominated a slate of particularly disreputable machine politicians for the 1881 election, Democrats saw an opportunity to gain the votes of disaffected Republicans by nominating a more honest candidate. Party leaders approached Cleveland, who agreed to run for Mayor of Buffalo provided the party's slate of candidates for other offices was to his liking. More notorious politicians were left off the Democratic ticket and he accepted the nomination. Cleveland was elected mayor that November with 15,120 votes, while his Republican opponent Milton Earl Beebe received 11,528 votes. He took office on January 2, 1882.
Cleveland's term as mayor was spent fighting the entrenched interests of the party machines. Among the acts that established his reputation was a veto of the street-cleaning bill passed by the Buffalo Common Council. The street-cleaning contract had been the subject of competitive bidding, and the Council selected the highest bidder at $422,000, rather than the lowest at $100,000 less, because of the political connections of the bidder. Previous mayors had allowed similar bills in the past, but Cleveland's veto message said, "I regard it as the culmination of a most bare-faced, impudent, and shameless scheme to betray the interests of the people, and to worse than squander the public money." The Council reversed itself and awarded the contract to the lowest bidder. Cleveland also asked the state legislature to form a Commission to develop a plan to improve the sewer system in Buffalo at a much lower cost than previously proposed locally; this plan was successfully adopted. For this, and other actions safeguarding public funds, Cleveland began to gain a reputation beyond Erie County as a leader willing to purge government corruption.
=== Governor of New York ===
Democratic party officials started to consider Cleveland a possible nominee for Governor of New York. Daniel Manning, a party insider who admired Cleveland's record, was instrumental in his candidacy. With a split in the state Republican Party in 1882, the Democratic party was considered to be at an advantage; several men contended for that party's nomination. The two leading Democratic candidates were Roswell P. Flower and Henry Warner Slocum. Their factions deadlocked and the convention could not agree on a nominee. Cleveland, who came in third place on the first ballot, picked up support in subsequent votes and emerged as the compromise choice. With Republicans still divided heading into the general election, Cleveland emerged the victor, receiving 535,318 votes to Republican nominee Charles J. Folger's 342,464. Cleveland's margin of victory was, at the time, the largest in a contested New York election. The Democrats also picked up seats in both houses of the New York State Legislature.
Cleveland brought his opposition to needless spending to the governor's office. He promptly sent the legislature eight vetoes in his first two months in office. The first to attract attention was his veto of a bill to reduce the fares on New York City elevated trains to five cents. The bill had broad support because the trains' owner, Jay Gould, was unpopular, and his fare increases were widely denounced. Cleveland saw the bill as unjust—Gould had taken over the railroads when they were failing and had made the system solvent again. Cleveland believed that altering Gould's franchise would violate the Contract Clause of the federal Constitution. Despite the initial popularity of the fare-reduction bill, the newspapers praised Cleveland's veto. Theodore Roosevelt, then a member of the Assembly, had reluctantly voted for the bill with the intention of holding railroad barons accountable. After the veto, Roosevelt and other legislators reversed their position, and Cleveland's veto was sustained.
Cleveland's defiance of political corruption won him popular acclaim; it also brought the enmity of New York City's influential Tammany Hall organization and its boss, John Kelly. Tammany Hall and Kelly had disapproved of Cleveland's nomination for governor, and their resistance intensified after Cleveland openly opposed and prevented the reelection of Thomas F. Grady, their point man in the State Senate. Cleveland also steadfastly opposed other Tammany nominees, as well as bills passed as a result of their deal-making. The loss of Tammany's support was offset by the support of Theodore Roosevelt and other reform-minded Republicans, who helped Cleveland pass several laws to reform municipal governments. Cleveland closely worked with Roosevelt, who served as assembly minority leader in 1883; the municipal legislation they cooperated on gained Cleveland national recognition.
== Election of 1884 ==
=== Nomination for president ===
In June 1884, the Republican Party convened their national convention in Chicago, selecting former U.S. House Speaker James G. Blaine of Maine as their nominee for president. Blaine's nomination alienated many Republicans, including the Mugwumps, who viewed Blaine as ambitious and immoral. The Republican standard-bearer was further weakened when the Conkling faction and President Chester Arthur refused to give Blaine their strong support. Democratic party leaders believed the Republicans' choice gave them an opportunity to win the White House for the first time since 1856 if the right candidate could be found.
Among the Democrats, Samuel J. Tilden was the initial front-runner, having been the party's nominee in the contested election of 1876. After Tilden declined a nomination due to his poor health, his supporters shifted to several other contenders. Cleveland was among the leaders in early support, and Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware, Allen G. Thurman of Ohio, Samuel Freeman Miller of Iowa, and Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts also had considerable followings, along with various favorite sons. Each of the other candidates had hindrances to his nomination: Bayard had spoken in favor of secession in 1861, making him unacceptable to Northerners; Butler, conversely, was reviled throughout the Southern United States for his actions during the American Civil War; Thurman was generally well-liked, but was growing old and infirm, and his views on the silver question were uncertain.
Cleveland, too, had detractors—Tammany remained opposed to him—but the nature of his enemies made him still more friends. Cleveland led on the first ballot, with 392 votes out of 820. On the second ballot, Tammany threw its support behind Butler, but the rest of the delegates shifted to Cleveland, who won. Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana was selected as his running mate.
=== Campaign against Blaine ===
Corruption in politics was the central issue in 1884; Blaine had over the span of his career been involved in several questionable deals. Cleveland's reputation as an opponent of corruption proved the Democrats' strongest asset. William C. Hudson created Cleveland's contextual campaign slogan "A public office is a public trust." Reform-minded Republicans called "Mugwumps" denounced Blaine as corrupt and flocked to Cleveland. The Mugwumps, including such men as Carl Schurz and Henry Ward Beecher, were more concerned with morality than with party, and felt Cleveland was a kindred soul who would promote civil service reform and fight for efficiency in government. At the same time that the Democrats gained support from the Mugwumps, they lost some blue-collar workers to the Greenback-Labor party, led by ex-Democrat Benjamin Butler. In general, Cleveland abided by the precedent of minimizing presidential campaign travel and speechmaking; Blaine became one of the first to break with that tradition.
The campaign focused on the candidates' moral standards, as each side cast aspersions on their opponents. Cleveland's supporters rehashed the old allegations that Blaine had corruptly influenced legislation in favor of the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad and the Union Pacific Railway, later profiting on the sale of bonds he owned in both companies. Although the stories of Blaine's favors to the railroads had made the rounds eight years earlier, this time Blaine's correspondence was discovered, making his earlier denials less plausible. On some of the most damaging correspondence, Blaine had written "Burn this letter", giving Democrats the last line to their rallying cry: "Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, the continental liar from the state of Maine, 'Burn this letter!'"
Regarding Cleveland, commentator Jeff Jacoby notes that, "Not since George Washington had a candidate for President been so renowned for his rectitude." But the Republicans found a refutation buried in Cleveland's past. Aided by the sermons of Reverend George H. Ball, a minister from Buffalo, they made public the allegation that Cleveland had fathered a child while he was a lawyer there, and their rallies soon included the chant "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa?". When confronted with the scandal, Cleveland immediately instructed his supporters to "Above all, tell the truth." He admitted to paying child support in 1874 to Maria Crofts Halpin, the woman who asserted he had fathered her son Oscar Folsom Cleveland and he assumed responsibility. Shortly before the 1884 election, the Republican media published an affidavit from Halpin in which she stated that until she met Cleveland, her "life was pure and spotless", and "there is not, and never was, a doubt as to the paternity of our child, and the attempt of Grover Cleveland, or his friends, to couple the name of Oscar Folsom, or any one else, with that boy, for that purpose is simply infamous and false."
The electoral votes of closely contested New York, New Jersey, Indiana, and Connecticut would determine the election. In New York, the Tammany Democrats decided that they would gain more from supporting a Democrat they disliked than a Republican who would do nothing for them. Blaine hoped that he would have more support from Irish Americans than Republicans typically did; while the Irish were mainly a Democratic constituency in the 19th century, Blaine's mother was Irish Catholic, and he had been supportive of the Irish National Land League while he was Secretary of State. The Irish, a significant group in three of the swing states, did appear inclined to support Blaine until a Republican, Samuel D. Burchard, gave a speech pivotal for the Democrats, denouncing them as the party of "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion". The Democrats spread the word of this implied anti-Catholic insult on the eve of the election. They also blistered Blaine for attending a banquet with some of New York City's wealthiest men.
After the votes were counted, Cleveland narrowly won all four of the swing states, including New York by 1,200 votes. While the popular vote total was close, with Cleveland winning by just one-quarter of a percent, the electoral votes gave Cleveland a majority of 219–182. Following the electoral victory, the "Ma, Ma ..." attack phrase gained a classic riposte: "Gone to the White House. Ha! Ha! Ha!"
== First presidency (1885–1889) ==
=== Reform ===
Soon after taking office, Cleveland was faced with the task of filling all the government jobs for which the president had the power of appointment. These jobs were typically filled under the spoils system, but Cleveland announced that he would not fire any Republican who was doing his job well, and would not appoint anyone solely on the basis of party service. He also used his appointment powers to reduce the number of federal employees, as many departments had become bloated with political time-servers. Later in his term, as his fellow Democrats chafed at being excluded from the spoils, Cleveland began to replace more of the partisan Republican officeholders with Democrats; this was especially the case with policymaking positions. While some of his decisions were influenced by party concerns, more of Cleveland's appointments were decided by merit alone than was the case in his predecessors' administrations.
Cleveland also reformed other parts of the government. In 1887, he signed an act creating the Interstate Commerce Commission. He and Secretary of the Navy William C. Whitney undertook to modernize the Navy and canceled construction contracts that had resulted in inferior ships. Cleveland angered railroad investors by ordering an investigation of Western lands they held by government grant. Secretary of the Interior Lucius Q. C. Lamar charged that the rights of way for this land must be returned to the public because the railroads failed to extend their lines according to agreements. The lands were forfeited, resulting in the return of approximately 81,000,000 acres (330,000 km2).
Cleveland was the first Democratic president subject to the Tenure of Office Act which originated in 1867; the act purported to require the Senate to approve the dismissal of any presidential appointee who was originally subject to its advice and consent. Cleveland objected to the act in principle and his steadfast refusal to abide by it prompted its fall into disfavor and led to its ultimate repeal in 1887.
=== Vetoes ===
As Congress and its Republican-led Senate sent Cleveland legislation he opposed, he often resorted to using his veto power. He vetoed hundreds of private pension bills for American Civil War veterans, believing that if their pensions requests had already been rejected by the Pension Bureau, Congress should not attempt to override that decision. When Congress, pressured by the Grand Army of the Republic, passed a bill granting pensions for disabilities not caused by military service, Cleveland also vetoed that. In his first term alone, Cleveland used the veto 414 times, which was more than four times more often than any previous president had used it. In 1887, Cleveland issued his most well-known veto, that of the Texas Seed Bill. After a drought had ruined crops in several Texas counties, Congress appropriated $100,000 (equivalent to $3,583,333 in 2025) to purchase seed grain for farmers there. Cleveland vetoed the expenditure. In his veto message, he espoused a theory of limited government:
I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the general government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the government, the government should not support the people. The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.
=== Silver ===
One of the most volatile issues of the 1880s was whether the currency should be backed by gold and silver, or by gold alone. The issue cut across party lines, with Western Republicans and Southern Democrats joining in the call for the free coinage of silver, and both parties' representatives in the northeast holding firm for the gold standard. Because silver was worth less than its legal equivalent in gold, taxpayers paid their government bills in silver, while international creditors demanded payment in gold, resulting in a depletion of the nation's gold supply.
Cleveland and Treasury Secretary Daniel Manning stood firmly on the side of the gold standard, and tried to reduce the amount of silver that the government was required to coin under the Bland–Allison Act of 1878. Cleveland unsuccessfully appealed to Congress to repeal this law before he was inaugurated. Angered Westerners and Southerners advocated for cheap money to help their poorer constituents. In reply, one of the foremost silverites, Richard P. Bland, introduced a bill in 1886 that would require the government to coin unlimited amounts of silver, inflating the then-deflating currency. While Bland's bill was defeated, so was a bill the administration favored that would repeal any silver coinage requirement. The result was a retention of the status quo, and a postponement of the resolution of the free-silver issue.
=== Tariffs ===
Another contentious financial issue at the time was the protective tariff. These tariffs had been implemented as a temporary measure during the civil war to protect American industrial interests but remained in place after the war. While it had not been a central point in his campaign, Cleveland's opinion on the tariff was that of most Democrats: that the tariff ought to be reduced. Republicans generally favored a high tariff to protect American industries. American tariffs had been high since the Civil War, and by the 1880s the tariff brought in so much revenue that the government was running a surplus.
In 1886, a bill to reduce the tariff was narrowly defeated in the House. The tariff issue was emphasized in the Congressional elections that year, and the forces of protectionism increased their numbers in the Congress, but Cleveland continued to advocate tariff reform. As the surplus grew, Cleveland and the reformers called for a tariff for revenue only. His message to Congress in 1887 (quoted at right) highlighted the injustice of taking more money from the people than the government needed to pay its operating expenses. Republicans, as well as protectionist northern Democrats like Samuel J. Randall, believed that American industries would fail without high tariffs, and they continued to fight reform efforts. Roger Q. Mills, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, proposed a bill to reduce the tariff from about 47% to about 40%. After significant exertions by Cleveland and his allies, the bill passed the House but not the Senate.
=== Foreign policy, 1885–1889 ===
Cleveland was a committed noninterventionist who had campaigned in opposition to expansion and imperialism. He refused to promote the previous administration's Nicaragua canal treaty, and generally was less of an expansionist in foreign relations. Cleveland's Secretary of State, Thomas F. Bayard, negotiated with Joseph Chamberlain of the United Kingdom over fishing rights in the waters off Canada, and struck a conciliatory note, despite the opposition of New England's Republican Senators. Cleveland also withdrew from Senate consideration of the Berlin Conference treaty which guaranteed an open door for U.S. interests in the Congo.
=== Military and naval policy, 1885–1889 ===
Cleveland's military policy emphasized self-defense and modernization. In 1885 Cleveland appointed the Board of Fortifications under Secretary of War William C. Endicott to recommend a new coastal fortification system for the United States. No improvements to U.S. coastal defenses had been made since the late 1870s. The Board's 1886 report recommended a massive $127 million construction program (equivalent to $4.6 billion in 2025) at 29 harbors and river estuaries, to include new breech-loading rifled guns, mortars, and naval minefields. The Board and the program are usually called the Endicott Board and the Endicott Program. Most of the Board's recommendations were implemented, and by 1910, 27 locations were defended by over 70 forts. Many of the weapons remained in place until scrapped in World War II as they were replaced with new defenses. Endicott also proposed to Congress a system of examinations for Army officer promotions. For the Navy, the Cleveland administration, spearheaded by Secretary of the Navy William Collins Whitney, moved towards modernization, although no ships were constructed that could match the best European warships. Although completion of the four steel-hulled warships begun under the previous administration was delayed due to a corruption investigation and subsequent bankruptcy of their building yard, these ships were completed in a timely manner in naval shipyards once the investigation was over. Sixteen additional steel-hulled warships were ordered by the end of 1888. These ships played a vital role during the Spanish–American War of 1898, and many later served in World War I. Among them were the "second-class battleships" Maine and Texas, designed to match modern armored ships recently acquired by South American countries from Europe, such as the Brazilian battleship Riachuelo. Eleven protected cruisers (including the famous Olympia), one armored cruiser, and one monitor were also ordered, along with the experimental cruiser Vesuvius.
=== Civil rights and immigration ===
Under Cleveland, gains in civil rights for African Americans were limited. Cleveland, like a growing number of Northerners and nearly all white Southerners, saw Reconstruction as a failed experiment, and was reluctant to use federal power to enforce the 15th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guaranteed voting rights to African Americans. Though Cleveland appointed no black Americans to patronage jobs, he allowed Frederick Douglass to continue in his post as recorder of deeds in Washington, D.C., and appointed another black man (James Campbell Matthews, a former New York judge) to replace Douglass upon his resignation. His decision to replace Douglass with a black man was met with outrage, but Cleveland claimed to have known Matthews personally.
Although Cleveland had condemned the "outrages" against Chinese immigrants, he believed that Chinese immigrants were unwilling to assimilate into white society. Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard negotiated an extension to the Chinese Exclusion Act, and Cleveland lobbied the Congress to pass the Scott Act, written by Congressman William Lawrence Scott, which prevented the return of Chinese immigrants who left the United States. The Scott Act easily passed both houses of Congress, and Cleveland signed it into law on October 1, 1888.
=== Native American policy ===
Cleveland viewed Native Americans as wards of the state, saying in his first inaugural address that "[t]his guardianship involves, on our part, efforts for the improvement of their condition and enforcement of their rights." He encouraged the idea of cultural assimilation, pushing for the passage of the Dawes Act, which would allow lands held in trust by the federal government for the tribes to instead be distributed to individual tribe members. While a conference of Native leaders endorsed the act, in practice the majority of Native Americans disapproved of it. Cleveland believed the Dawes Act would lift Native Americans out of poverty and encourage their assimilation into white society. It ultimately weakened the tribal governments and allowed individual Indians to sell land and keep the money. The act led to Native Americans ceding control of about 100 million acres of land between 1887 and 1934, which was around "two-thirds of the land base they held in 1887."
In the month before Cleveland's 1885 inauguration, President Arthur opened four million acres of Ho-Chunk and Crow Creek lands in the Dakota Territory to white settlement by executive order. Tens of thousands of settlers gathered at the border of these lands and prepared to take possession of them. Cleveland believed Arthur's order to be in violation of treaties with the tribes, and rescinded it on April 17 of that year, ordering the settlers out of the territory. Cleveland sent in eighteen companies of Army troops to enforce the treaties and ordered General Philip Sheridan, at the time Commanding General of the U.S. Army, to investigate the matter.
=== Marriage and children ===
Cleveland was 47 years old when he entered the White House as a bachelor. His sister Rose Cleveland joined him, acting as hostess for the first 15 months of his administration. Unlike the previous bachelor president James Buchanan, Cleveland did not remain a bachelor for long. In 1885, the daughter of Cleveland's friend Oscar Folsom visited him in Washington. Frances Folsom was a student at Wells College. When she returned to school, President Cleveland received her mother's permission to correspond with her, and they were soon engaged to be married. The wedding occurred on June 2, 1886, in the Blue Room at the White House. Cleveland was 49 years old at the time; Frances was 21. He was the second president to wed while in office and remains the only president to marry in the White House. This marriage was unusual because Cleveland was the executor of Oscar Folsom's estate and had supervised Frances's upbringing after her father's death; nevertheless, the public took no exception to the match. At 21 years, Frances Folsom Cleveland was and remains the youngest First Lady in history, and soon became popular for her warm personality.
The Clevelands had five children: Ruth (1891–1904), Esther (1893–1980), Marion (1895–1977), Richard (1897–1974), and Francis (1903–1995). British philosopher Philippa Foot (1920–2010) was their granddaughter. Ruth contracted diphtheria on January 2, 1904, and died five days after her diagnosis. The Curtiss Candy Company would later assert that the "Baby Ruth" candy bar was named after her. Cleveland also claimed paternity of a child with Maria Crofts Halpin, Oscar Folsom Cleveland, who was born in 1874.
=== Administration and Cabinet ===
=== Supreme Court appointments ===
During his first term, Cleveland successfully nominated two justices to the Supreme Court of the United States. The first, Lucius Q. C. Lamar, was a former Mississippi senator who served in Cleveland's Cabinet as Interior Secretary. When William Burnham Woods died, Cleveland nominated Lamar to his seat in late 1887. Lamar's nomination was confirmed by the narrow margin of 32 to 28.
Chief Justice Morrison Waite died a few months later, and Cleveland nominated Melville Fuller to fill his seat on April 30, 1888. Fuller accepted. The Senate Judiciary Committee spent several months examining the little-known nominee, before the Senate confirmed the nomination 41 to 20. Cleveland was the second Democratic president to appoint a Chief Justice, after Andrew Jackson.
== Election of 1888 ==
The Republicans nominated Benjamin Harrison, the former U.S. Senator from Indiana for president and Levi P. Morton of New York for vice president. Cleveland was renominated at the Democratic convention in St. Louis. Following Vice President Thomas A. Hendricks' death in 1885, the Democrats chose Allen G. Thurman of Ohio to be Cleveland's new running mate.
The Republicans gained the upper hand in the campaign, as Cleveland's campaign was poorly managed by Calvin S. Brice and William H. Barnum, whereas Harrison had engaged more aggressive fundraisers and tacticians in Matt Quay and John Wanamaker.
The Republicans campaigned heavily on the tariff issue, turning out protectionist voters in the important industrial states of the North. Further, the Democrats in New York were divided over the gubernatorial candidacy of David B. Hill, weakening Cleveland's support in that swing state. A letter from the British ambassador supporting Cleveland caused a scandal that cost Cleveland votes in New York.
As in 1884, the election focused on the swing states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Indiana. But unlike that year, when Cleveland had triumphed in all four, in 1888 he won only two, losing his home state of New York by 14,373 votes. Cleveland won a plurality of the popular vote – 48.6 percent vs. 47.8 percent for Harrison – but Harrison won the Electoral College vote easily, 233–168. The Republicans won Indiana, largely as the result of a fraudulent voting practice known as Blocks of Five. Cleveland continued his duties diligently until the end of the term and began to look forward to returning to private life.
== Between presidencies (1889–1893) ==
As Frances Cleveland left the White House, she told a staff member, "Now, Jerry, I want you to take good care of all the furniture and ornaments in the house, for I want to find everything just as it is now, when we come back again." When asked when she would return, she responded, "We are coming back four years from today."
In the meantime, the Clevelands moved to New York City, where the former president took a position with the law firm of Bangs, Stetson, Tracy, and MacVeigh. This affiliation was more of an office-sharing arrangement, though quite compatible. Cleveland's law practice brought only a moderate income, perhaps because he spent considerable time at Gray Gables, the couple's vacation home at Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, where fishing became his obsession.
In February 1890, Cleveland sold "Oak View", the 26.5-acre country estate that he had purchased for $21,500 four years earlier in a rural part of northwest Washington, D.C. He sold it for $140,000 ($4.45 million today) to Francis Newlands, who was assembling the land that would become upper Connecticut Avenue NW and the Chevy Chase suburbs. Another developer soon named the area Cleveland Park.
While the Clevelands lived in New York, their first child, Ruth, was born in 1891.
The Harrison administration worked with Congress to pass the McKinley Tariff, an aggressively protectionist measure, and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which increased money backed by silver; these were among policies Cleveland deplored as dangerous to the nation's financial health. At first he refrained from criticizing his successor, but by 1891 Cleveland felt compelled to speak out, addressing his concerns in an open letter to a meeting of reformers in New York. The "silver letter" thrust Cleveland's name back into the spotlight just as the 1892 election was approaching.
== Election of 1892 ==
=== Nomination for president ===
Cleveland's enduring reputation as chief executive and his recent pronouncements on the monetary issues made him a leading contender for the Democratic nomination. His leading opponent was David B. Hill, a Senator for New York. Hill united the anti-Cleveland elements of the Democratic party—silverites, protectionists, and Tammany Hall—but was unable to create a coalition large enough to deny Cleveland the nomination. Despite some desperate maneuvering by Hill, Cleveland was nominated on the first ballot at the party convention in Chicago.
For vice president, the Democrats chose to balance the ticket with Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois, a silverite. Although the Cleveland forces preferred Isaac P. Gray of Indiana for vice president, they accepted the convention favorite. As a supporter of greenbacks and free silver to inflate the currency and alleviate economic distress in the rural districts, Stevenson balanced the otherwise hard-money, gold-standard ticket headed by Cleveland.
=== Campaign against Harrison ===
The Republicans renominated President Harrison, making the 1892 election a rematch of the one four years earlier. Unlike the turbulent and controversial elections of 1876, 1884, and 1888, the 1892 election was, according to Cleveland biographer Allan Nevins, "the cleanest, quietest, and most creditable in the memory of the post-war generation", in part because Harrison's wife, Caroline, was dying of tuberculosis. Harrison did not personally campaign at all. Following Caroline Harrison's death on October 25, two weeks before the national election, Cleveland and all of the other candidates stopped campaigning, thus making Election Day a somber and quiet event for the whole country as well as the candidates.
The issue of the tariff had worked to the Republicans' advantage in 1888. Now, however, the legislative revisions of the past four years had made imported goods so expensive that by 1892, many voters favored tariff reform and were skeptical of big business. Many Westerners (traditionally Republican voters), defected to James B. Weaver, the candidate of the new Populist Party. Weaver promised free silver, generous veterans' pensions, and an eight-hour work day. The Tammany Hall Democrats adhered to the national ticket, allowing a united Democratic party to carry New York. At the campaign's end, many Populists and labor supporters endorsed Cleveland following an attempt by the Carnegie Corporation to break the union during the Homestead strike in Pittsburgh and after a similar conflict between big business and labor at the Tennessee Coal and Iron Co.
The final result was a victory for Cleveland by wide margins in both the popular and electoral votes, and it was Cleveland's third consecutive popular vote plurality. Cleveland's victory made him the first U.S. president to serve two nonconsecutive terms.
== Second presidency (1893–1897) ==
=== Economic panic and the silver issue ===
Shortly after Cleveland's second term began, the Panic of 1893 struck the stock market, leaving Cleveland and the nation to face an economic depression. The panic was worsened by the acute shortage of gold that resulted from the increased coinage of silver, and Cleveland called Congress into special session to deal with the problem. The debate over the coinage was as heated as ever, and the effects of the panic had driven more moderates to support repealing the coinage provisions of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. Even so, the silverites rallied their following at a convention in Chicago, and the House of Representatives debated for fifteen weeks before passing the repeal by a considerable margin. In the Senate, the repeal of silver coinage was equally contentious. Cleveland, forced against his better judgment to lobby the Congress for repeal, convinced enough Democrats—and along with eastern Republicans, they formed a 48–37 majority for repeal. Depletion of the Treasury's gold reserves continued, at a lesser rate, and subsequent bond issues replenished supplies of gold. At the time the repeal seemed a minor setback to silverites, but it marked the beginning of the end of silver as a basis for American currency.
=== Tariff reform ===
Having succeeded in reversing the Harrison administration's silver policy, Cleveland sought next to reverse the effects of the McKinley Tariff. The Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act was introduced by West Virginian Representative William L. Wilson in December 1893. After lengthy debate, the bill passed the House by a considerable margin. The bill proposed moderate downward revisions in the tariff, especially on raw materials. The shortfall in revenue was to be made up by an income tax of two percent on income above $4,000 (equivalent to $143,333 in 2025).
The bill was next considered in the Senate, where it faced stronger opposition from key Democrats, led by Arthur Pue Gorman of Maryland, who insisted that more protection for their states' industries be added. The bill passed the Senate with more than 600 amendments attached that nullified most of the reforms. The Sugar Trust in particular lobbied for changes that favored it at the expense of the consumer. Cleveland was outraged with the final bill, and denounced it as a disgraceful product of the control of the Senate by trusts and business interests. Even so, he believed it was an improvement over the McKinley tariff and allowed it to become law without his signature.
=== Voting rights ===
In 1892, Cleveland had campaigned against the Lodge Bill, which would have strengthened voting rights protections through the appointing of federal supervisors of congressional elections upon a petition from the citizens of any district. The Enforcement Act of 1871 had provided for a detailed federal overseeing of the electoral process, from registration to the certification of returns. Cleveland succeeded in ushering in the 1894 repeal of this law (ch. 25, 28 Stat. 36).
=== Labor unrest ===
The Panic of 1893 had damaged labor conditions across the United States, and the victory of anti-silver legislation worsened the mood of western laborers. A group of workingmen led by Jacob S. Coxey began to march east toward Washington, D.C., to protest Cleveland's policies. This group, known as Coxey's Army, agitated in favor of a national roads program to give jobs to workingmen, and a weakened currency to help farmers pay their debts. By the time they reached Washington, only a few hundred remained, and when Coxey and other protest leaders were arrested the next day for walking on the lawn of the United States Capitol, the group scattered. Even though Coxey's Army may not have been a threat to the government, it signaled a growing dissatisfaction in the West with Eastern monetary policies.
=== Pullman Strike ===
The Pullman Strike had a significantly greater impact than Coxey's Army. A strike began against the Pullman Company over low wages and twelve-hour workdays, and sympathy strikes, led by American Railway Union leader Eugene V. Debs, soon followed. By June 1894, 125,000 railroad workers were on strike, paralyzing the nation's commerce. Because the railroads carried the mail, and because several of the affected lines were in federal receivership, Cleveland believed a federal solution was appropriate. Cleveland obtained an injunction in federal court, and when the strikers refused to obey it, he sent federal troops into Chicago and 20 other rail centers. "If it takes the entire army and navy of the United States to deliver a postcard in Chicago", he proclaimed, "that card will be delivered." Most governors supported Cleveland except Democrat John P. Altgeld of Illinois, who became his bitter foe in 1896. Leading newspapers of both parties applauded Cleveland's actions, but the use of troops hardened the attitude of organized labor toward his administration.
Just before the 1894 election, Cleveland was warned by Francis Lynde Stetson, an advisor: "We are on the eve of [a] very dark night, unless a return of commercial prosperity relieves popular discontent with what they believe [is] Democratic incompetence to make laws, and consequently [discontent] with Democratic Administrations anywhere and everywhere." The warning was appropriate, for in the Congressional elections, Republicans won their biggest landslide in decades, taking full control of the House, while the Populists lost most of their support. Cleveland's factional enemies gained control of the Democratic Party in state after state, including full control in Illinois and Michigan, and made major gains in Ohio, Indiana, Iowa and other states. Wisconsin and Massachusetts were two of the few states that remained under the control of Cleveland's allies. The Democratic opposition were close to controlling two-thirds of the vote at the 1896 national convention, which they needed to nominate their own candidate. They failed for lack of unity and a national leader, as Illinois governor John Peter Altgeld had been born in Germany and was ineligible to be nominated for president.
=== Foreign policy, 1893–1897 ===
When Cleveland took office, he faced the question of Hawaiian annexation. In his first term, he had supported free trade with the Hawaiian Kingdom and accepted an amendment that gave the United States a coaling and naval station in Pearl Harbor. A treaty of peace and friendship existed between the United States and Hawai'i. In the intervening four years, however, Honolulu businessmen of European and American ancestry had denounced Queen Liliuokalani as a tyrant who rejected constitutional government. In January 1893 they overthrew her, set up a provisional government under Sanford B. Dole, and sought to join the United States.
The Harrison administration had quickly agreed with representatives of the new government on a treaty of annexation and submitted it to the Senate for approval. However, the presence in Honolulu of U.S. Marines from the USS Boston while the coup unfolded, deployed at the request of U.S. Minister to Hawaii John L. Stevens, caused serious controversy. Five days after taking office on March 9, 1893, Cleveland withdrew the treaty from the Senate and sent former Congressman James Henderson Blount to Hawai'i to investigate the situation.
Cleveland agreed with Blount's report, which found the native Hawaiians to be opposed to annexation; the report also found U.S. diplomatic and military involvement in the coup. It included over a thousand pages of documents. A firm anti-imperialist, Cleveland opposed American actions in Hawaii and called for the queen to be restored; he disapproved of the new provisional government under Dole. But matters stalled when Liliuokalani initially refused to grant amnesty as a condition for regaining her throne, saying she would either execute or banish the new leadership in Honolulu. Dole's government was in full control and rejected her demands. By December 1893, the matter was still unresolved, and Cleveland referred the issue to Congress. Cleveland delivered a message to Congress dated December 18, 1893, rejecting annexation and encouraging Congress to continue the American tradition of nonintervention (see excerpt at right). He expressed himself in forceful terms, saying the presence of U.S. forces near the Hawaiian government building and royal palace during the coup was a "substantial wrong" and an "act of war," and lambasted the actions of minister Stevens. Cleveland described the incident as the "subversion of the constitutional Government of Hawaii," and argued "it has been the settled policy of the United States to concede to people of foreign countries the same freedom and independence in the management of their domestic affairs that we have always claimed for ourselves."
The House of Representatives adopted a resolution against annexation and voted to censure the U.S. minister. However the Senate, under Democratic control but opposed to Cleveland, commissioned and produced the Morgan Report, which contradicted Blount's findings and found the overthrow was a completely internal affair. Senator John Tyler Morgan of Alabama, chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, oversaw the report. It declared that the "action of the Queen in an effort to overturn the constitution of 1887...amounted to an act of abdication on her part." The "constitution of 1887" mentioned in the report was the so-called Bayonet Constitution, which King Kalakaua had signed under pressure that year. The Morgan Report said that the troops landed on Oahu from the USS Boston gave "no demonstration of actual hostilities," and described their conduct as "quiet" and "respectful." The United States already had a presence in the region, and acquired exclusive rights to enter and establish a naval base at Pearl Harbor in 1887, when the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 was renewed during Cleveland's first term. Cleveland dropped his push to restore the queen, and went on to recognize and maintain diplomatic relations with the new Republic of Hawaii under President Dole, who took office in July 1894.
Closer to home, Cleveland adopted a broad interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine that not only prohibited new European colonies, but also declared an American national interest in any matter of substance within the hemisphere. When Britain and Venezuela disagreed over the boundary between Venezuela and the colony of British Guiana, Cleveland and Secretary of State Richard Olney protested. British Prime Minister Robert Cecil and the British ambassador to Washington, Julian Pauncefote, misjudged how important the dispute was to Washington, and to the anti-British Irish Catholic element in Cleveland's Democratic Party. They prolonged the crisis before accepting the American demand for arbitration. An international tribunal in 1899 awarded the bulk of the disputed territory to British Guiana. But by standing with a Latin American nation against the encroachment of a colonial power, Cleveland improved relations with Latin America. The cordial manner in which the arbitration was conducted also strengthened relations with Britain and encouraged the major powers to consider arbitration as a way to settle their disputes.
=== Military policy, 1893–1897 ===
The second Cleveland administration was as committed to military modernization as the first, and ordered the first ships of a navy capable of offensive action. Construction continued on the Endicott program of coastal fortifications begun under Cleveland's first administration. The adoption of the Krag–Jørgensen rifle, the U.S. Army's first bolt-action repeating rifle, was finalized. In 1895–1896 Secretary of the Navy Hilary A. Herbert, having recently adopted the aggressive naval strategy advocated by Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, successfully proposed ordering five battleships (the Kearsarge and Illinois classes) and sixteen torpedo boats. Completion of these ships nearly doubled the Navy's battleships and created a new torpedo boat force, which previously had only two boats. The battleships and seven of the torpedo boats were not completed until 1899–1901, after the Spanish–American War.
=== Cancer ===
In the midst of the fight for repeal of free-silver coinage in 1893, Cleveland sought the advice of the White House doctor, Robert O'Reilly, about soreness on the roof of his mouth and a crater-like edge ulcer with a granulated surface on the left side of Cleveland's hard palate. Clinical samples were sent anonymously to the Army Medical Museum. The diagnosis was an epithelioma, rather than a malignant cancer.
Cleveland decided to have surgery secretly, to avoid further panic that might worsen the financial depression. The surgery occurred on July 1, to give Cleveland time to make a full recovery in time for the upcoming Congressional session. Under the guise of a vacation cruise, Cleveland and his surgeon, Joseph D. Bryant, left for New York. The surgeons operated aboard the Oneida, a yacht owned by Cleveland's friend Elias Cornelius Benedict, as it sailed off Long Island. The surgery was conducted through the President's mouth, to avoid any scars or other signs of surgery. The team, sedating Cleveland with nitrous oxide and ether, successfully removed parts of his upper left jaw and hard palate. The size of the tumor and the extent of the operation left Cleveland's mouth disfigured. During another surgery, Cleveland was fitted with a hard rubber dental prosthesis that corrected his speech and restored his appearance. A cover story about the removal of two bad teeth kept the suspicious press placated. Even when a newspaper story appeared giving details of the actual operation, the participating surgeons discounted the severity of what transpired during Cleveland's vacation. In 1917, one of the surgeons present on the Oneida, William Williams Keen, wrote an article detailing the operation.
Cleveland enjoyed many years of life after the tumor was removed, and there was some debate as to whether it was actually malignant. Several doctors, including Keen, stated after Cleveland's death that the tumor was a carcinoma.
Other suggestions included ameloblastoma or a benign salivary mixed tumor (also known as a pleomorphic adenoma).
In the 1980s, analysis of the specimen finally confirmed the tumor to be verrucous carcinoma, a low-grade epithelial cancer with a low potential for metastasis.
=== Administration and cabinet ===
=== Judicial appointments ===
Cleveland's trouble with the Senate hindered the success of his nominations to the Supreme Court in his second term. In 1893, after the death of Samuel Blatchford, Cleveland nominated William B. Hornblower to the Court. Hornblower, the head of a New York City law firm, was thought to be a qualified appointee, but his campaign against a New York machine politician had made Senator David B. Hill his enemy. Further, Cleveland had not consulted the Senators before naming his appointee, leaving many who were already opposed to Cleveland on other grounds even more aggrieved. The Senate rejected Hornblower's nomination on January 15, 1894, by a vote of 24 to 30.
Cleveland continued to defy the Senate by next appointing Wheeler Hazard Peckham another New York attorney who had opposed Hill's machine in that state. Hill used all of his influence to block Peckham's confirmation, and on February 16, 1894, the Senate rejected the nomination by a vote of 32 to 41. Reformers urged Cleveland to continue the fight against Hill and to nominate Frederic R. Coudert, but Cleveland acquiesced in an inoffensive choice, that of Senator Edward Douglass White of Louisiana, whose nomination was accepted unanimously. Later, in 1895, another vacancy on the Court led Cleveland to consider Hornblower again, but he declined to be nominated. Instead, Cleveland nominated Rufus Wheeler Peckham, the brother of Wheeler Hazard Peckham, and the Senate confirmed the second Peckham easily.
=== States admitted to the Union ===
No new states were admitted to the Union during Cleveland's first term. On February 22, 1889, 10 days before leaving office, the 50th Congress passed the Enabling Act of 1889, authorizing North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington to form state governments and to gain admission to the Union. All four officially became states in November 1889, during the first year of the Benjamin Harrison administration. During Cleveland's second term, the 53rd United States Congress passed an Enabling Act that permitted Utah to apply for statehood. Cleveland signed it on July 16, 1894. Utah joined the Union as the 45th state on January 4, 1896.
== Election of 1896 and retirement (1897–1908) ==
Cleveland's agrarian and silverite enemies took control of state Democratic parties over the course of his second term, such that Cleveland's pro-gold ideology was marginalized outside of urban areas in solidly Democratic states such as Arkansas. They gained control of the national Democratic Party in 1896, repudiated his administration and the gold standard, and nominated William Jennings Bryan on a free-silver platform. Cleveland silently supported the Gold Democrats' third-party ticket that promised to defend the gold standard, limit government, and oppose high tariffs, but he declined their nomination for a third term. The party won only 100,000 votes in the general election, and William McKinley, the Republican nominee, triumphed over Bryan. Agrarians nominated Bryan again in 1900. In 1904, the conservatives, with Cleveland's support, regained control of the Democratic Party and nominated Alton B. Parker.
After leaving the White House on March 4, 1897, Cleveland lived in retirement at his estate, Westland Mansion, in Princeton, New Jersey. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1897. For a time, he was a trustee of Princeton University, and was one of the majority of trustees who preferred the dean Andrew Fleming West's plans for the Graduate School and undergraduate living over those of Woodrow Wilson, then president of the university. Cleveland consulted occasionally with President Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909) but was financially unable to accept the chairmanship of the commission handling the Coal Strike of 1902. Cleveland still made his views known in political matters. In a 1905 article in The Ladies Home Journal, Cleveland weighed in on the women's suffrage movement, writing that "sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by men and women in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence."
In 1906, a group of New Jersey Democrats promoted Cleveland as a possible candidate for the United States Senate. The incumbent, John F. Dryden, was not seeking reelection, and some Democrats felt that the former president could attract the votes of some disaffected Republican legislators who might be drawn to Cleveland's statesmanship and conservatism.
== Death ==
Cleveland's health had been declining for several years, and in the autumn of 1907, he fell seriously ill. In 1908, he suffered a heart attack and died on June 24 at age 71 in his Princeton residence. His last words were, "I have tried so hard to do right." He is buried at Princeton Cemetery of the Nassau Presbyterian Church.
== Honors and memorials ==
In his first term in office, Cleveland sought a summer house to escape the heat and smells of Washington, D.C. He secretly bought a farmhouse, Oak View (or Oak Hill), in a then rural upland part of the District of Columbia, in 1886, and remodeled it into a Queen Anne style summer estate. He sold Oak View upon losing his bid for reelection in 1888. Not long thereafter, suburban residential development reached the area, which came to be known as Oak View, and then Cleveland Heights, and eventually Cleveland Park. The Clevelands are depicted in local murals.
Grover Cleveland Hall at Buffalo State University in New York is named after Cleveland. Cleveland was a member of the first board of directors of the then Buffalo Normal School. Grover Cleveland Middle School in his birthplace, Caldwell, New Jersey, was named for him, as is Grover Cleveland High School (Buffalo, New York), the town of Cleveland, Mississippi, and Mount Cleveland in Alaska.
In 1895, he became the first U.S. president to be filmed. The first U.S. postage stamp to honor Cleveland appeared in 1923. His only two subsequent stamp appearances have been in issues devoted to the full roster of U.S. Presidents, released, respectively, in 1938 and 1986.
Cleveland's portrait was on the U.S. $1000 bill of series 1928 and series 1934. He also appeared on the $20 Federal Reserve Note of series 1914 and the $20 Federal Reserve Bank Note of series 1915 and series 1918. Since he was both the 22nd and 24th president, he was featured on two separate dollar coins released in 2012 as part of the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005. In 2013, Cleveland was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condor_(mountain) | Condor (mountain) | Condor (possibly from Quechua for condor) is a mountain in the Andes of Peru, about 5,200 metres (17,060 ft) high. It is located in the Arequipa Region, Caylloma Province, Choco District. It lies in the Chila mountain range north of the Colca River. Condor is situated at the Umaranra valley. Its stream flows to the Collpamayo (possibly from Quechua for "salpeter river") whose waters feed the Colca River. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ID;_Peace_B | ID; Peace B | ID; Peace B is the debut studio album by South Korean singer BoA, released on August 25, 2000 by SM Entertainment. It saw moderate levels of success in South Korea upon its release, peaking at number 16 on the Recording Industry Association of Korea's monthly album chart in October 2000. The album sold 156,354 copies in 2000 and was the 59th best-selling album of the year. The album was released on May 29, 2002 in Japan, where it reached number 30 on the Oricon Albums Chart.
== Production and lyrics ==
The song "Sara" is about a cat, "I'm Sorry" is about the tragedy of loving the lover of her older sister, and "ID; Peace B" is about the generation gap due to the use of the internet.
== Track listing ==
== Charts ==
== Release history == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Engelmann | George Engelmann | George Engelmann, also known as Georg Engelmann, (2 February 1809 – 4 February 1884) was a German-American botanist. He was instrumental in describing the flora of the west of North America, then very poorly known to Europeans; he was particularly active in the Rocky Mountains and northern Mexico, one of his constant companions being another German-American, the botanical illustrator Paulus Roetter.
== Biography ==
=== Origins ===
George Engelmann was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, the oldest of thirteen children, nine of whom reached maturity. His father, Julius Bernhardt Engelmann, was a member of a family from which for several successive generations were chosen ministers for the Reformed Church at Bacharach-on-the-Rhine. Julius was a graduate of the University of Halle, and was also educated for the ministry, but he devoted his life to education. He established a school for young women in Frankfurt, which was rare at the time. George Engelmann's mother, Julie Antoinette, was the only daughter of Antoinette André and George Oswald May. The latter, in his earlier years, was an artist of note at the Court of Weimar. Julie Antoinette was Julius Engelmann's coadjutor in the school for young women, and its success was largely due to her management and tact.
His cousin, Adolph Engelmann, was a colonel during the Mexican-American War and the American Civil War.
=== Education ===
George Engelmann received his early education at the gymnasium in Frankfurt. According to himself, he first became interested in plants around age 15. He voluntarily devoted much of his time after school duties to studying history, modern languages, and drawing.
Assisted by a scholarship (founded by the “Reformed Congregation of Frankfurt”), in 1827 he began to study sciences at the University of Heidelberg, where he met Karl Schimper and Alexander Braun. With the latter especially an intimate friendship and correspondence were preserved unbroken until Braun's death in 1877. He also retained friendship with Schimper. However, that erratic genius abandoned botany despite obtaining a remarkable grasp of philosophical botany and laying the foundations of phyllotaxy.
In 1828 young Engelmann's studies at Heidelberg were interrupted by his having joined the students in a political demonstration. He thereupon left Heidelberg and entered the University of Berlin, where he stayed for two years. In 1831, he received the degree of MD from the University of Würzburg.
His dissertation for the medical degree, more related to botany than to medicine, was published at Frankfurt in 1832 under the title of De Antholysi Prodromus. It was devoted to morphology — mainly to the structure of monstrosities and aberrant forms of plants — and was illustrated by five plates of figures drawn and transferred to the lithographic stone by the author's own hand. Its subject was so directly in line with that of a treatise on the metamorphosis of plants by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe that it was heartily welcomed by the poet-philosopher, whose own life was then approaching its close. Having received Engelmann's treatise through his correspondent Marianne von Willemer, Goethe inquired after the young author, saying that Engelmann had completely apprehended Goethe's ideas concerning vegetable morphology, and had shown a peculiar genius for their development. So strong was his confidence in Engelmann's ability that he offered to give him his whole store of unpublished notes and sketches.
In 1832 Engelmann went to Paris, where he again became associated with Braun, and also with Louis Agassiz.
=== Emigration to United States ===
Wishing to visit America, he accepted a proposition from his uncles to become their agent for the purchase of lands in the United States. In September 1832, he sailed from Bremen for Baltimore, Maryland. In addition to his duties assessing land investment opportunities, he also spent time on botanical travels, first visiting Thomas Nuttall in Philadelphia. He then went to St. Louis, Missouri, and from there around to the adjacent states. He settled with his relatives and the lawyer Gustav Koerner on a farm in St. Clair County, Illinois near Belleville for three years.
For the purpose of forming a correct judgment of the lands of the new country to which he had come, he made many long, lonesome, and often adventurous horse-back journeys in Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas. He often suffered sickness and hardship upon those journeys, but he persevered until he finished all the business he had planned to do. He made much use of his scientific, as well as practical, knowledge in the prosecution of that business, doing mineralogical and geological work, but only the botanical notes which he then made were used in his subsequent scientific career.
=== Medical practice ===
Having completed his business engagement, in the autumn of 1835 Engelmann moved to St. Louis and established a medical practice. During the three years that had passed since he left his native land the slender means he brought with him became exhausted, and he began the practice of his profession in absolute poverty. To furnish an office he was even obliged to part with his gun and with the faithful horse which had carried him on so many long and lonesome journeys. At that time St. Louis was little more than a frontier trading post, but Engelmann had strong faith in its future greatness, and he lived to see it become one of the chief cities of the United States. In 1836 he founded a German newspaper called Das Westland, which contained valuable articles on life and manners in the United States, and gained a high reputation both in the United States and in Europe.
Four years were passed before he had laid the foundation of his medical practice and had earned the means of making a visit to his old German home. In 1840 he returned to Germany, where in Kreuznach he married his cousin Dorothea Horstmann on June 11. (Their son George Julius Engelmann became a noted gynecologist.) They soon returned to America. Upon reaching New York City, Engelmann for the first time met Asa Gray, already the most noted of American botanists, and the friendship between those two eminent men thus begun was broken only by death. This friendship is noteworthy because of the evidently beneficial effect which it had upon botanical science in America.
Upon his return to St. Louis with his young wife, Engelmann immediately resumed his medical practice. Then, and long afterward, a large proportion of the inhabitants of St. Louis were of French and German-speaking families, and his familiarity with those languages, as well as with the English, gave him great advantage in extending his practice. Because of this and of his great professional ability, as the years went on he acquired a financial competence that gave him an independence. Never, however, did he take advantage of his success in this respect to lessen his labors, for whenever his medical labors were relaxed his scientific work fully engrossed his attention.
The confidence he inspired in his medical clientele was such that as he grew older he could take long vacations and resume his practice almost at will. After 1869, he no longer kept a medical office and attended the few patients he saw in his study. Still, it was always difficult for him to refuse medical aid to those who sought it, and even up to the last year of his life there were old friends to whose families he was the only acceptable medical adviser and whose appeal for aid he could not refuse. Illustrating this fact, as well as Engelmann's energetic manner, his son relates the following incident: “It was a bitter, sleety winter night, when the ringing of the doorbell awoke me, and I heard an urgent call for father from the messenger of a patient. I would not arouse him, and proposed to go myself; but he had heard all, and, hurrying into his clothes, was ready to go in spite of my remonstrance 'What of the night?' he said, vexed at my interference, 'Am I already useless, to be cast aside? I would rather die in harness than rust out.' So I helped him down the icy steps, through the blinding sleet, into his carriage, and off on his mission of mercy.”
=== Botanical studies ===
Engelmann devoted himself to his medical practice, but in his later years made a specialty of botany. An 1842 monograph on dodders, a very difficult genus to examine, had established his reputation as a botanist. Other taxonomically difficult plants groups that he studied include conifers, cacti, grapes, rushes, yuccas and mistletoes.
He took several vacations from his medical practice and devoted them all to the gathering of data for his scientific work, the details of which were elaborated at his home. One of these vacations extended from 1856 to 1858, the greater part of the first summer having been spent in botanical work at the Harvard gardens and herbarium in companionship with Asa Gray. Then, with his wife and young son, he visited his native land and other parts of Europe, occupying his time with scientific observation and study. In 1868 Dr. Engelmann and his wife again visited Europe for a year, the son being then in Berlin pursuing his medical studies. These visits to Europe were also the occasions of frequent and familiar personal interviews with men whose names were well known to the scientific world, such as Joseph Dalton Hooker, Alexander Braun, De Bary, Virchow, and others.
In 1859, he published Cactaceae of the Boundary which studied cacti on the border of the United States and Mexico.
He also made special studies of the pines, rushes, spurges, and other little-known and difficult groups, contributing numerous articles on them to the St. Louis Academy of Sciences, to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and to government reports. Material in his specialties collected by the federal government was sent to him for examination. He was one of the earliest to study the North American vines, and nearly all that is known scientifically of the American species and forms is due to his investigations. His first monograph on The Grape-Vines of Missouri was published in 1860, and his latest on this subject shortly before his death. His two major works on cacti remain important today.
He was a founder and longtime president of the St. Louis Academy of Sciences, and encouraged the wealthy St. Louis businessman Henry Shaw to develop his gardens to be of scientific as well as public use; "Shaw's Gardens" became the Missouri Botanical Garden. On a visit to England in 1857, he had consulted with William Jackson Hooker on the establishment of Shaw's gardens, eventually becoming Missouri Botanical Garden's scientific advisor, in addition to his roles as physician and botanist. He was also one of the original founders of the National Academy of Sciences. With Asa Gray and Ferdinand Lindheimer he edited the exsiccata-like series Lindheimer Flora Texana exsiccata.
=== Phylloxera ===
In 1861, Engelmann had published a pioneering paper in the United States examining plant diseases. It focussed on the grape. He also established an herbarium for 10 species of grape (Vitis) he had discovered. Engelmann's comprehensive research on North American Vitis and his lengthy work with the wine industry were parts of his botanical career that dovetailed with his medical career (he prescribed wine as medicine) and had culturally significant implications.
For example, Engelmann played an important, but little known role in rescuing the French wine industry. In the 1870s French vineyards came under attack by a small insect, Phylloxera vastatrix, an aphid-like pest which sucks sap from the roots of grape vines. Growers observed that certain imported American vines resisted this pest, and the French government dispatched a scientist to St. Louis to consult with the Missouri state entomologist and with Engelmann, who had studied American grapes since the 1850s. Engelmann verified that certain living American species had resisted Phylloxera for nearly 40 years. In addition, Vitis riparia, a wild vine of the Mississippi Valley, did not cross pollinate with less resistant species, the cause of previous grafting failures. Engelmann arranged to have millions of shoots and seeds collected and sent to France, where the species proved to be very successful in providing rootstock.
=== Other fields ===
While botanical investigations constituted much the greater part of Dr. Engelmann's scientific work, he always had in hand data for other investigations. For example, he began meteorological observations when he first settled at St. Louis, and personally, or by proxy during his absence, he continued them without intermission until his death — a longer period, it is believed, than that of similar observations by any one man in America.
Engelmann often compared meteorological data with his friend and contemporary Augustus Fendler. The two also collaborated on horticultural experiments on cacti, and frequently corresponded on the matter of specimen collection.
Among the animals he studied were tapeworms (Taenia), the opossum, squirrels and mudpuppies (Menobranchus).
He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1862.
=== Later explorations ===
The death of his wife on January 29, 1879, greatly affected him. He turned to plants, seeking relief in study, but life and a continuance of its labors seemed to be almost hopeless. His condition changed but little during the remainder of the winter, but when in the spring C. S. Sargent came with the proposition that he should join him in a journey through the forests of the Pacific Coast region he accepted it. That journey, although a difficult one for a man of his age, was of great benefit to him physically. His shattered spirit also was much revived and, among his friends, he resumed and sustained his lifelong habit of cheerfulness of manner.
== Legacy ==
He is commemorated in the names of several plants, including Engelmann Oak (Quercus engelmannii), Engelmann Spruce (Picea engelmannii), Apache Pine (Pinus engelmannii), Engelmann's quillwort or Appalachian quillwort (Isoetes engelmannii), and Engelmann's Prickly-pear (Opuntia engelmannii).
Engelmann's botanical collection, valuable as containing the original specimens from which many western plants have been named and described, was given to the Missouri Botanical Garden. This gift led to the founding of the Henry Shaw School of Botany as a department of Washington University in St. Louis, where an Engelmann professorship of botany has been established by Shaw in his honor.
Engelmann was interred in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birdman_(film) | Birdman (film) | Birdman, stylized as BİRDMAN or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), is a 2014 American satirical surrealist black comedy-drama film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. The film stars Michael Keaton as a faded Hollywood actor, best known for playing a superhero named Birdman, and follows the struggles he faces while trying to make a comeback by writing, directing, and starring in a Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver's short story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love". The film's supporting cast includes Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, Andrea Riseborough, Amy Ryan, Emma Stone, and Naomi Watts.
With a brief exception, Birdman is presented as though it was filmed in one continuous take, an idea Iñárritu had from the film's conception. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki believed that the recording time necessary for the long take approach could not have been made with older technology. The film was shot in New York City during the spring of 2013 with a budget of $16.5 million, jointly financed by Fox Searchlight Pictures, Regency Enterprises, and Worldview Entertainment. It premiered at the 71st Venice International Film Festival in 2014.
Birdman had a limited theatrical release in the United States on October 17, 2014, followed by a wide release on November 14. Grossing more than $103 million worldwide, the film received critical acclaim, with praise for its screenplay, direction, cinematography, and the performances of the cast (particularly Keaton, Norton, and Stone). It won the Academy Award for Best Picture, along with Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography from a total of nine nominations, tying it with The Grand Budapest Hotel for the most nominated and awarded film at the 87th Academy Awards. It also won Outstanding Cast in a Motion Picture at the 21st Screen Actors Guild Awards, as well as Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for Keaton and Best Screenplay at the 72nd Golden Globe Awards.
== Plot ==
Riggan Thomson is a faded actor famous for playing a superhero named Birdman in a film trilogy from 1989 to 1992. He is tormented by the mocking and critical internal voice of his past self as Birdman and frequently visualizes himself performing feats of levitation and telekinesis. Riggan is trying to regain recognition by writing, directing, and starring in a Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver's short story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love". However, the Birdman voice wants Riggan to return to blockbuster cinema and insists that he is essential to Riggan's identity.
Riggan's best friend and lawyer Jake is producing the play, which co-stars Riggan's girlfriend Laura and Broadway newcomer Lesley. Riggan's daughter Sam, a recovering drug addict with whom he is trying to reconnect, works as his assistant. A light fixture falls onto Riggan's hapless co-star Ralph the day before the first preview. At Lesley's suggestion, Riggan replaces Ralph with her boyfriend, the brilliant but volatile and self-absorbed method actor Mike Shiner.
The first previews are disastrous: Mike breaks character over replacing his gin with water, attempts to rape Lesley during a sex scene, and complains that the prop gun does not look natural. When Riggan berates Sam after finding her smoking marijuana, she insultingly rebukes and chastises him, telling him that he is irrelevant and the play is for his own vanity. Riggan clashes continually with Mike, culminating in a brawl after Riggan reads a New York Times interview with Mike in which he steals Riggan's personal reason for doing a Raymond Carver play. Jake persuades Riggan to continue with the play.
During the final preview, after seeing Mike and Sam kissing backstage, Riggan goes for a smoke and accidentally locks himself outside with his robe stuck in the fire escape door. He is forced to walk through Times Square in his briefs and enter through the audience to begin the final scene. A concerned Sam is waiting in his dressing room after the show, and she thinks the performance was very unusual but interesting. She shows him that the Times Square footage is going viral and explains how this actually helps him.
Riggan goes to a bar for a drink and approaches Tabitha Dickinson, a cynical and highly influential theater critic. She reveals her hatred for him and promises to "kill" his play with a deprecating review without seeing it. On the way back, Riggan buys a pint of whiskey, drinks it, and passes out on a stoop. The next day, walking to the theater with a severe hangover, he visualizes Birdman trying to convince him to abandon the play and make a fourth Birdman film. Riggan then imagines himself flying through the streets of Manhattan before arriving at the theater.
On opening night, the play goes very well. In his dressing room, a strangely calm Riggan confesses to his ex-wife, Sylvia, that several years ago, he attempted to drown himself in the ocean after she caught him having an affair. He also tells her about the Birdman voice, which she ignores. After Sylvia leaves, Riggan picks up a real gun for the final scene in which his character commits suicide. At the climax, Riggan shoots himself seemingly through the head on stage. The play receives a standing ovation.
Riggan wakes up in a hospital and learns he merely shot off his nose, which has been surgically reconstructed. Tabitha has published a glowing review of the play, mistaking the suicide attempt for a new acting technique. Sam visits with flowers and takes a picture of him to share with the skyrocketing number of followers on the Twitter account she has created for him. While she steps outside to find a vase, Riggan goes into the bathroom, removes the bandages revealing his swollen new nose, and says goodbye to Birdman. Fascinated by the birds flying outside his room, he opens the window, peers up at them, and then climbs out onto the ledge. Sam returns to an empty room and frantically runs to the open window, scanning the ground before slowly looking up into the sky and smiling at what she sees.
== Cast ==
== Production ==
=== Development ===
Birdman director Alejandro G. Iñárritu originally conceived the film as a comedy filmed in a single shot set in a theatre. The original choice behind the film's genre, which was subsequently re-adapted to concentrate on Riggan's final emotional tailspin, came from the director wanting to see a change in his approach. All his previous films were dramas, and after directing Biutiful, he did not want to approach his new film in the same tragic manner again. The decision to make the film appear as a single shot came from his realization that "we live our lives with no editing". By presenting the film as a continuous shot, he could "submerge the protagonist in an 'inescapable reality' and take the audience with him". Iñárritu shared his idea with the Argentine screenwriters/cousins Nicolás Giacobone and Armando Bo, as well as playwright Alexander Dinelaris Jr., who had all worked with him on his previous film. Their first reaction was to tell him the continuous-shot idea could not work. According to Dinelaris and Giacobone, "huge" and "important" people told him to not even try the project for the same reason. Iñárritu himself described the technique as "almost suicidal", worrying that it would be distracting, instead of immersive. Dinelaris later said that had they truly paused and considered the idea, they might have talked Iñárritu out of it.
The personal and vocational experiences of the four co-writers were central to writing the script. Dinelaris' exposure to Broadway shaped the depictions of rehearsals and events backstage, though he admitted exaggerating these. He also felt his background writing long scenes of dialogue helped since scenes in the film "were really more like play scenes". Iñárritu's own experiences influenced many of Birdman's themes. "What this film talks about, I have been through", Iñárritu recalled. "I have seen and experienced all of it; it's what I have been living through the last years of my life." Dinelaris described this aspect as "a laughing look at oneself", but said it had to be done in a comedic way; otherwise, "it would have been the most unbelievably self-absorbed look at the subject". Themes from Raymond Carver's short story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love", which Riggan adapts for stage in the story, also influenced the script. Iñárritu wanted to find the connection between the themes in Riggan's story and those of Carver's. Because of this, it was important to the director that Carver's story be the subject of the play depicted within the film. Therefore, Iñárritu stated that his desire to use Carver's work was "terrifying" because the rights to using the Carver material were still subject to the possibility of being rejected during development of the film, but no issues arose. Carver's widow, writer Tess Gallagher, loved the script and permitted the adaptation, saying that Carver would be laughing about the film.
While some aspects of the film – the first frame with Riggan, for instance – went unchanged from Birdman's conception to release, others went through several iterations. One of these was the sequence in which alter ego Birdman takes complete control over Riggan's thoughts. The writers knew it would occur at Riggan's lowest point, so at one stage planned for it to happen after Riggan hears the initial negative press coverage and destroys his dressing room. In another discarded version, Riggan tries to drown himself in Central Park and flies out to save himself.
The film's ending also changed, the final version being written halfway through filming. The original intended to depict Johnny Depp in Riggan's dressing room with a Pirates of the Caribbean poster in the back. Iñárritu grew to strongly dislike this ending, calling it "so embarrassing", and rewrote it with Dinelaris and Giacobone after a new ending came to him in a dream. Iñárritu was reluctant to describe the original ending, but it was leaked by Dinelaris. He said the original ending was set in the theatre, instead of the hospital, and involved Depp putting on Riggan Thomson's wig, and in Jack Sparrow's voice, "... the poster asks Depp, 'What the fuck are we doing here, mate?', and it was going to be the satire of the endless loop of that." The director and co-authors ruled out the satirical ending, and favored the new, more ambiguous, ending.
The project of co-writing was expedited by the collaboration between the four co-writers on the internet working from different geographical locations. With Iñárritu in Los Angeles, Giacobone and Bo in Buenos Aires, and Dinelaris in New York, the script was mainly written through Skype calls and emails. Although this complicated the writing process, Dinelaris said he believed the best ideas in Birdman came from Skype sessions at two in the morning where he and Giacobone were "cracking each other up". Incorporating the one-shot feature also affected the writing. Bo said: "We wrote everything thinking of this one shot, and a lot of decisions that would mostly be taken in the editing room were taken before shooting". The one-shot approach meant the scenes could not be removed or re-ordered in post-production, so the writers needed to be "very, very sure about what was on the page". As a result, it took about a year and a half to complete the final draft. As Dinelaris summarized, "You have to be an idiot to do it all in one shot. You have to be an idiot to attempt it. It takes a great, great deal of ignorance to not pay attention to the difficulties and to think you're going to do this. Birdman looks like a good idea now, but [at the time of production] we did not know how we would land."
=== Casting ===
Iñárritu cast several of the leading roles before the film was financed. Among these was the lead role. Early in script development, Iñárritu did not have Keaton in mind, but he had changed his mind by the end: "When I finished the script, I knew that Michael was not the choice or option, he was the guy". Iñárritu cast Keaton for his depth in a variety of acting styles: He could handle the demands of the stage, up-close work, and comedy and empathy "with a profound depth to both".
Keaton knew about Birdman before Iñárritu contacted him. He was in the middle of production of another project when he learned that Iñárritu was making another film. Keaton, a fan of his work, flew home to find out more. Iñárritu sent him the script and they discussed it over dinner. The first thing Keaton asked Iñárritu was whether he was making fun of him (regarding his role in Tim Burton's Batman films), but after Iñárritu explained the role, its technicalities, and the film's production, Keaton agreed to play Riggan. Despite this, the final film contains numerous references to Burton's Batman films, including the year Riggan is mentioned to have last played Birdman being 1992.
Iñárritu called his decision behind casting Galifianakis as Jake "a bet". Galifianakis met Iñárritu's criteria of being lovable and funny, but Iñárritu also considered him sensitive, which scored him the role. Emma Stone already knew she wanted to work with Iñárritu before she was offered the role of Sam. The script that Iñárritu gave her and the rest of the cast came with the photo Man on Wire, which featured Philippe Petit crossing the Twin Towers on a tightrope. Iñárritu told the cast, "We are doing that".
Once these actors were committed, Iñárritu sought funding. He first invited Fox Searchlight Pictures to finance the project, but they turned his offer down because they felt his asking budget was too high. At one stage Megan Ellison of Annapurna Pictures wanted to be involved in the project, but decided against it because, unlike her other films, she had not been involved since the beginning. Iñárritu approached Brad Weston, president of New Regency, who accepted the offer. When executive Claudia Lewis of Searchlight heard about the deal, she reconsidered and asked to be included in the deal. Searchlight and New Regency had previously worked together to finance 12 Years a Slave, and they decided to join together for Birdman, financing a budget of $16.5 million.
Weston and Lewis developed a close relationship with Iñárritu, editing the script with him and switching some of the actors. When they joined production, Josh Brolin was set to play the role of Mike Shiner, but the financiers decided to switch him for Norton because of scheduling conflicts.
He said Norton's experience as a theatre actor, combined with his self-confidence, meant that "in a way, there was some kind of mental reality to Edward", but Norton believes he was the one who convinced Iñárritu to take him on. Norton was a fan of the director's work and impressed with his ability to push outside film-making boundaries. Norton heard about Iñárritu's project from a friend. Once he got the script, he read it straight through until 3:00 am. Norton said, "I laughed so hard I woke people up." Norton wanted to meet Iñárritu the next day, and once they met, Norton told him he could not cast someone who was the "embodiment" of what the script was taking aim at. Instead, the director needed to cast someone "who has at least a little bit of authentic depth of experience, in this world". Iñárritu agreed.
Amy Ryan, one of the last actors to be cast, was invited because Iñárritu had seen her in the play Detroit. Lindsay Duncan had vast experience in the theatre world too, and decided to accept the offer to play the critic because of the quality of the script. "It's delicious because of the writing." But like Shiner's character, Iñárritu found casting Laura difficult. Riseborough met him on a street corner for a cup of tea, and recalling the event, said, "I told him that I would crawl across hot coals to work with him". Iñárritu described Laura as "a very wacky, quirky role", but said, "when [Andrea Riseborough] did it, I knew that it was her, because she did it right in the tone, and she understood who she was – she was not judging".
=== Rehearsal and filming ===
Once the writing was finished, Iñárritu contacted friend and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki to discuss his idea for the film. After reading the script, Lubezki was worried that Iñárritu would offer him the job since Birdman "had all of the elements of a movie that I did not want to do at all" – comedy, studio work and long takes – but changed his mind after further discussion with the director. The pair had worked together on commercials and a short film in the anthology To Each His Own Cinema, but not on any feature films. Lubezki wanted to be sure that this was a decision Rodrigo Prieto, cinematographer of all four of Iñárritu's feature films, was comfortable with, but after receiving his blessing, the two headed into pre-production.
Lubezki was concerned that no film had been shot in the way Iñárritu envisioned, meaning there would be no reference material to look up. The two decided the only way to learn how to shoot it would be to shoot it themselves, so they built a proxy stage at Sony Studios in Los Angeles. The setup was minimal. Canvas and C-stands were used for walls, while tape and a few pieces of furniture marked out areas. Using a camera and some stand-ins, the duo worked through the movie to see if it was possible. Realizing no theatre could accommodate the intricate camerawork they needed, they hired Kaufman Astoria Studios in New York. Still, Iñárritu wanted to shoot at a Broadway theater, but would have to wait until several weeks into rehearsals before securing St. James Theatre. They then spent a few months designing and making "blueprints" of the shots and blocking the scenes, using the stand-ins to read and walk through the script. The planning was precise. Iñárritu said: "There was no room to improvise at all. Every movement, every line, every door opening, absolutely everything was rehearsed." The actors started rehearsing once this preliminary work was completed: According to Lubezki, they did the scenes with the actors "once we kind of knew what the rhythm of the scenes were". He described the atypical approach "like an upside down movie where you do post-production before the production".
Editors Douglas Crise and Stephen Mirrione were involved in the project by this stage. When Iñárritu told Mirrione that he planned for Lubezki to record table readings and the rehearsals, he suggested they edit them immediately to discover what was and was not working early on. The editing also allowed the editors to discuss pacing issues with the director, such as the position of the night-day transitions and other moments of rest in the film. Production designer Kevin Thompson was on hand too, and mapped out the scenes. The camerawork required many elements of the set to be built in a certain way. For example, Riggan's makeup mirror and desk were constructed so that the camera would see his reflection. Thompson also took into consideration the needs of the crew, for instance designing the stairs a little wider for Steadicam operator Chris Haarhoff's footsize.
He then constructed a template of the set they would build when in New York. The writers were also involved in the rehearsals, fine-tuning the script to "make sure the film was fluid and never stopped".
Once the logistics of the scenes were worked out and they had the timing down, the team headed to Kaufman Studios for more rehearsals, followed by principal photography based exclusively in New York during the spring of 2013. The studios were used to film the backstage areas of the film, including Riggan's dressing room and the theatre corridors. St. James Theatre was used for two weeks; it was the location for the stage scenes. The bar segments were shot in The Rum House on 47th Street, and 43rd Street was used for the action-sequence. The film was unable to be shot chronologically because of scheduling with the theatre. Throughout the locations, including the studio, the scenes were lit with natural light, since Lubezki wanted the movie "to look as naturalistic as possible". The night-time scenes were possible to film in this way due to the brightness of New York. Lubezki found lighting the scenes to be the hardest part of his work on the film. Not only did the lighting need to look realistic, but also had to be designed so that the continuous movements of the camera did not project the crew's shadows onto the actors.
Throughout shooting, Arri Alexa cameras were used; an Alexa M was used for handheld sequences, and an Alexa XT was attached to the Steadicam. Neither used matte boxes, however. Steadicam operator Chris Haarhoff explained this decision: "We didn't want this big black thing gliding into their eyeline. This way we could get very close and get the light past the lens and onto the actor's face." Lubezki – who did all the handheld camerawork – had chosen the Alexa M because the camera was very small and allowed him to get into tiny spaces and close to the actors, sometimes filming two inches (5 cm) away from Keaton's face. The camera also allowed recording for such a long period – necessary for the long takes of the movie – that Lubezki went so far as to say the movie would have been impossible to do years before. The cameras were lensed with Leica Summilux-C or Zeiss Master Primes. Lubezki stated that these gave clean images, saying "You can have all these lights in the frame and they are not really causing bad flare or things like that". In terms of sizes, they initially trialled a 21mm, but this did not give Iñárritu the "intimacy" he wanted. The crew instead went to an 18mm Leica, which was used for the majority of the film. Only when emphasis was needed did they switch the lens to a 14mm, but this was rare.
Despite all the preparation, a typical shooting day would begin with rehearsals. These usually lasted most of the morning, after which photography followed. The meticulous timing for the scenes meant that takes were cancelled because of the slightest mishaps. Emma Stone, in an interview with Jimmy Fallon, recalled how a six-minute take of the scene where Riggan first meets Mike was ruined after she walked around a corner too quickly. Takes were also repeated if a scene's rhythm did not feel right to Iñárritu, or if he and Lubezki were not satisfied with a shot's framing. As shooting progressed, lines of dialog would also be dropped, giving Iñárritu more options during post-production. Because of this, the number of takes for a given scene was high, usually 20 for the shorter scenes, the takes running smoothly around the fifteenth. Chris Haarhoff described it as "a type of dance where everyone would hopefully try to peak all at the same moment". The locations sometimes placed restrictions on the takes too; the live Times Square sequence was shot only twice since they did not want to attract the attention of tourists.
Whenever shooting was taking place there was pressure on everyone involved, but the cast had a positive experience. Norton said that normally in movie production half the people can "check out" due to repetitive aspects, but during the shooting of Birdman, "everybody's on, the whole thing, and you're all on pins and needles because you're all relying on forty other people not to drop the ball". Because of this, Stone said the director was able to get the best out of the cast, saying Iñárritu's process "creates this sort of fury in you, and then you end up realizing that he just got so much out of you that you didn't even know you had". Naomi Watts commented that the atmosphere "felt emblematic of how it feels onstage – at least my long-time memories from long ago". Andrea Riseborough, meanwhile, described the process as "wonderful", mentioning how it was possible to hear the filming of a sequence from far away before the camera arrived, and then "the magic happens with you, and then everything leaves you, and everything's silent". Once they successfully completed a take though, it was obvious to everybody involved. Norton said: "I've never, ever been on a set where every day ended with an enormous, authentic sort of cheer at having made it. You're waiting for the scream from [Iñárritu], and everybody was genuinely excited."
=== Music and soundtrack ===
The film's original music segments are a drum score consisting entirely of solo jazz percussion performances by Antonio Sánchez. The score is offset by a number of well-known classical music pieces, including Mahler and Tchaikovsky. Iñárritu did not regard the particular choice of classical pieces as important. Nonetheless, the choice of classical music was strongly oriented to highly melodic scores taken predominantly from the 19th century classical repertoire (Mahler, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Ravel). Iñárritu stated that the classical components come from the world of the play, citing the radio in Riggan's room and the show itself as two sources of the music. The classical music segments also included two compositions by American composer John Adams. Several jazz compositions by Victor Hernández Stumpfhauser and Joan Valent counterbalance the original music composition by Sánchez. The drum sections comprise the majority of the score, however, and were composed by Sánchez. Iñárritu explained the choice by saying they helped to structure scenes, and that "The drums, for me, was a great way to find the rhythm of the film... In comedy, rhythm is king, and not having the tools of editing to determine time and space, I knew I needed something to help me find the internal rhythm of the film."
Iñárritu contacted friend and jazz drummer Antonio Sánchez in January 2013, inviting him to compose the score for the film. His reaction to writing a soundtrack using only drums was similar to Lubezki's thoughts of shooting the movie like a single shot: "It was a scary proposition because I had no point of reference of how to achieve this. There's no other movie I know that has a score like this." Sánchez had also not worked on a film before, nevertheless, after receiving the script, he composed "rhythmic themes" for each of the characters. Iñárritu was looking for the opposite approach, however, preferring spontaneity and improvisation. Sánchez then waited until production moved to New York before composing more, where he visited the set for a couple of days to get a better idea of the film. Following this, a week before principal photography, he and Iñárritu went to a studio to record some demos. During these sessions the director would first talk him through the scene, then while Sánchez was improvising guide him by raising his hand to indicate an event – such as a character opening a door – or by describing the rhythm with verbal sounds. They recorded around seventy demos, which Iñárritu used to inform the pacing of the scenes on set, and once filming was complete, spliced them into the rough cut. Sánchez summarized the process by saying, "The movie fed on the drums, and the drums fed on the imagery". The official soundtrack was released as a CD (77 min) in October 2014, and as an LP (69 min) in April 2015.
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released their longlist for the Academy Award for Best Original Score in December 2014, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) was absent from the list. The previous day, Sánchez received a note from the award committee explaining the decision, quoting rule fifteen of the 87th Academy Award Rules, noting "the fact that the film also contains over a half an hour of non-original (mostly classical) music cues that are featured very prominently in numerous pivotal moments in the film made it difficult for the committee to accept your submission". Sánchez launched an appeal, and along with Iñárritu and the executive vice-president of Fox Music, they sent letters to Charles Fox, the chair of the Academy's music branch executive committee, asking that the committee reconsider their decision. One of the points they raised was that the committee incorrectly calculated the ratio of classical to original music, which after being clarified Sánchez thought he was "on really solid ground". A response from Fox on December 19, however, explained that a special meeting of the music committee was held, and although its members had "great respect" for the score and considered it "superb", they thought that the classical music "was also used as scoring", "equally contributes to the effectiveness of the film", and that the musical identity of the film was created by both the drums and classical music. Ultimately, they did not overturn their decision. Sánchez said that he and Iñárritu were not satisfied with the explanation.
=== Post-production and visual effects ===
The film was edited by Douglas Crise and Stephen Mirrione, who had both worked with the director before on 21 Grams and Babel. Stitching shots together was a crucial component of the editing, but Crise and Mirrione already had experience doing this. The director had included takes that were joined together in previous films, but in these if the editors did not think the stitching worked, they had the ability to introduce cuts. Mirrione said that in Birdman, Iñárritu had "let go of that safety net". Because of this the editors needed to be involved in the project early on, and during principal photography Crise was on set every day. (Mirrione was busy and unable to be in New York.) Crise was not used to being on set and providing feedback, but said he was happy Iñárritu "dragged it out" of him, knowing that they would not have much room to fix scenes later so they needed to get them right. For stitching, aside from the director, Crise also discussed strategies with Lubezki and Thompson, and techniques for gluing takes together included panning on walls and actors' bodies. The editors were used to being able to adjust the rhythm of a scene by the positioning of cuts, so without this tool used Sánchez's music instead. The director gave the New York recordings to Crise early on to help with pacing, asking him to cut the music to the film. Still, in terms of the editing workflow, Crise described it as "pretty traditional". The editors cut the film together back in Los Angeles. A few weeks after shooting, they were quite far along the cut itself, and transitioned into visual-effects mode, where they fine-tuned the shots.
The visual effects for the film were created by Montreal based studio Rodeo FX. They spent four months working on the film, and according to visual effects supervisor Ara Khanikian "visual effects touched 90% of the frames in the movie". A lot of the work was subtle, such as stitching shots together, or creating the background for the windows in the hospital scene. Many shots in the film feature mirrors, and much work was spent removing the reflections of the crew from these. To accomplish this the studio created a 2.5D digital matte painting of the reflected environment. They then rotoscoped out the parts of the mirror not containing the foreground actors and their reflections, and replaced these with the digital environment. Some of the original shots captured smudges and dirt on the mirrors, so the studio developed a way to extract them so they could paste them back into the film. A matte-painting was constructed for the night-day time lapses in the film too, created by matchmoving and reprojecting shots of the buildings it features, captured at different times of the day, together. Rodeo FX also adjusted the pace of scenes. Iñárritu demanded a "very precise rhythm and flow" to the film, so the studio had to re-speed much of it with timewarp curves to fit the pacing the director desired.
Unlike some of the smaller adjustments though, the flying sequence required extensive preparation. Iñárritu spent three weeks with Halon Entertainment to previsualize the sequence. In New York, Lubezki then used the choreography of the previsualization to shoot background plates for the sequence, using a camera crane on a truck. When these were shot, Lubezki had mounted four GoPro cameras to the lens of the film camera to capture the light environment around him. Later, on a greenstage in Montreal, using a technique he had developed on Gravity, Lubezki lit Keaton with LED panels featuring high-dynamic-range images of the surrounding New York footage. The panels then realistically lit Keaton. Khanikian described the effect of the process, saying, "Instead of using standard lighting on greenscreen, [we were getting] the proper red bounce from the red bricks, and the same color of the sky reflected on Michael's head. It worked so well." Rodeo FX then completed the final shots. The sequence was the last piece the editors inserted into the film. Mirrione commented that before the sequence was finished, they "had only imagined what it was going to feel like", but once it was completed, "it took the movie to this ecstatic level that absolutely blew me away".
Sound design for the film was handled by Martín Hernández, who has worked on all the director's feature films. The production sound his team was given was "surprisingly perfect and clean", so they did not need to spend much time tidying it. The lack of visual cuts in the film meant a departure from the usual way Hernández edited sound though. "Normally, Alejandro likes, as he calls it, 'the clashing of the sounds'. The camera changes angle within the scene and there is a change of everything – backgrounds, texture, dialog. Obviously, that would not work on Birdman because here, everything is flowing." Additionally, the sound of objects in the film needed to be coordinated with their position onscreen, a non-trivial task, since the camera was nearly always moving. Hernández also helped to cut Sánchez's tracks, selecting and editing moments from the New York recordings against the film. When the tracks were re-recording in Los Angeles, in order "to have distance, and closeness and resonance" the team used thirty-two microphones for each take. Hernández described the job as "crazy". A large challenge of the post-production soundwork was designing the sound of the theatre audience, particularly in the scene when Mike is drunk and comes out of character. Iñárritu knew how he wanted the audience to respond, but figuring out the sound of their reaction took four months of work from five sound designers. Hernández said he thought, for a film in general, that the narrative created by sound "provokes more 'explosions'" than that created by images, and that in Birdman, "Alejandro has sound exploding all throughout the film".
The digital intermediate was completed by a team at Technicolor led by Steven Scott. They had previously collaborated with Lubezki on Gravity, but needed to approach Birdman differently because of the continuous-shot approach. According to Scott, "we have never done anything like it before". The color timing had to be done in such a way that the transitions between color-corrected environments were invisible, in contrast to a usual film where the transitions coincide with visible cuts. To do this, the team inserted their own cuts whenever the camera was stationary, and in the middle of pans and other camera movements. They then devised a way to color correct the stationary cuts and turn the moving cuts into a form of dissolve, allowing them to "do all these independent, crazy, complicated, color corrections that would flow organically from one to another". Inserting the dissolves required rotoscoping methods which the software Scott and his team were using did not have, but an enterprise agreement between Technicolor and the software's developer led to the creation of a tool Scott required. For the color timing itself, one of the priorities of the team was making the faces as dimensional and readable as possible. This required, amongst other things, that faces be highlighted, but the moving camerawork meant that the mattes used in this process had to be animated by hand. Lubezki would provide notes on the areas he wanted tracked, then the team would carry out the animations. Of the whole process, Iñárritu remarked that "everyone was out of their comfort zone", while Scott said it was the most challenging DI project of his career.
== Analysis and themes ==
Iñárritu has emphasized and defended the various ambiguities intentionally included in the film: "At the ending of the film, [it] can be interpreted as many ways as there are seats in the theater." Many aspects of film theory were debated concerning the film by critical reviews which included, among other subjects, (a) film genre; (b) intended and unresolved ambiguities of plot; and (c) the complex interaction of Riggan's personal life with his professional life as an actor. A short list of the diverse forms of film genre associated with the film has included it being referred to alternatively as a black-humor film, a mental health film, a realism/surrealism/magical realism film, a dark-humor parody film, a film of psychological realism, a failed domestic reconciliation drama, or a film concerning theatrical realism and naturalism. Iñárritu has maintained his penchant, well-known to followers of his previous films, for deliberately including multiple plot lines in this film which are intentionally left unresolved at the ending. Separate reviews in the press have also summarized the film as closely associated with the theme of the final tailspin of a late mid-life crisis in the life of a has-been actor seeking closure and resolution in his public and private life.
The father-daughter themes in the film, portrayed through the relationship of Riggan and Samantha, were the "most difficult" and important parts of the film to depict for co-writers Dinelaris and Giacobone, as they both had similar experiences within their families involving their own relationships with their daughters. When the writers were asked about the meaning of the ambiguous ending which the director refused to comment upon, they stated that any comedic ending was completely ruled out. The writers also stated that reflections about the conclusion to the film were not directly concentrated upon Riggan or the character of Birdman as much as upon the lives of the surviving characters portrayed in the film, in particular the portrayal of Riggan's daughter Samantha.
Noting the thematic pull between Riggan's insanity or actual superpowers, Travis LaCouter of First Things writes that "the importance of these powers – real or imagined – is apparent: They are for Riggan the thing beyond the labels, the kernel of his genius and, because he sees drawing upon them as selling out, the source of his great angst." LaCouter concludes that "the quirky profundity of this film is in how it dares the viewer to consider the everyday magic that we tend to ignore, repress, or resent".
Critics Barbara Schweizerhof and Matthew Pejkovici see the film's central theme as a satirical critique of contemporary theatrical realism, with Pejkovici comparing it favorably to Fellini's film 8½ (1963). As Pejkovici states: "Much like Fellini's 1960[sic] classic 8½, Iñárritu's Birdman is a very intimate film about an artist's malaise, yet is epic, innovative, and ambitious in approach. Iñárritu captures the artist's battle between ambition, admiration, and celebrity with stunning scope and skill in the form of a one-take format, as his camera sweeps through the backstage corridors, across the stage, out on the busy NYC streets, and back again in breathtaking fashion."
Thematically, Richard Brody also compared it to Opening Night (1977) by John Cassavetes. Brody said that the actors played in "the sort of modern naturalism, without eccentricity of gesture, excess of expression, or heightened and formalistic precision, that is the business-casual of contemporary cinema". The Wall Street Journal's Caryn James compared the story to that of Don Quixote (who believes himself to be a knight), as the main character believes he is a superhero (the equivalent to a knight in the 21st century). This relationship was also highlighted by the scholarly literature.
== Release and reception ==
Birdman was selected as the opening film of the 71st Venice International Film Festival along with Mohsen Makhmalbaf's new film. A limited release began in four North American theatres on October 17, 2014, followed by a nationwide release in 857 theatres on November 14, 2014.
=== Box office ===
Birdman grossed $42.3 million in North America and $60.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $103.2 million, against a budget of about $17 million.
The film earned $424,397 during its limited North America opening in four theatres in New York and Los Angeles on the weekend of October 17, 2014, a per-theater average of $106,099, making it the 18th all-time earner (eighth among live-action movies) and ranking No. 20. In the second weekend of October 24, 2014, Birdman expanded to 50 theaters and earned $1.38 million, which translates to a $27,593 per-theater average. The film expanded nationwide to 857 theaters in the weekend of November 14, 2014, grossing $2,471,471, with a per theatre average of $2,884, and ranking No. 10. In the same weekend, Birdman grossed $11.6 million.
The film opened in Mexico on November 13, 2014, grossing $628,915 in its opening weekend, and opened in the United Kingdom on January 2, 2015, grossing $2,337,407 over the weekend. In the United Kingdom, Australia, and Italy, the film grossed $7.6 million, $3.97 million, and $1.97 million, respectively.
=== Critical response ===
On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, Birdman holds an approval rating of 91%, based on 351 reviews, and an average rating of 8.50/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "A thrilling leap forward for director Alejandro González Iñárritu, Birdman is an ambitious technical showcase powered by a layered story and outstanding performances from Michael Keaton and Edward Norton." On Metacritic, the film received a weighted average score of 87 out of 100, based on 58 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale. In 2015, the film was named as one of the top 50 films of the decade so far by The Guardian.
Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton from At the Movies praised the film's writing, direction, performances and cinematography. Stratton also described the implementation of the percussion score as "really exciting", while Pomeranz summarised: "It's just really beautifully written and stunningly performed and beautifully made." The pair both gave the film five stars, making Birdman the only film to receive such a rating from the hosts in 2014. In The New York Times, Manohla Dargis compared the main character to Icarus, the Greek mythological figure who crashed to his death after flying too close to the sun. She also noted a reference to Susan Sontag's Against Interpretation in the dressing-room mirror.
Richard Kolker compared the film to both Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) and Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark (2002). Kolker concludes that Birdman is "a film about acting, identity, transformation, and the mysterious effects of superheroes, (and) is filmed to create the illusion of being made in one continuous take. As with Rope, the edits are hidden, and the result is a rhythmic slide through the life of an actor in search of his self, a search doomed from the start." Ollie Cochran called the film "an amalgam of technical prowess, hypnotising visuals and pragmatically perceptive dialogue", believing it to be "a thought-provoking, energetic perspective of a fading actor looking to revitalise his career."
International reception of the film was also at a high level of praise. In Germany, a film aggregate rating at EPD Film gave the film a 3.4 out of 5 rating, based on seven critiques. The German critic Barbara Schweizerhof gave the film a 4 out of 5 possible stars, complimenting the director's satirical virtuosity in making the film. In her review, Schweizerhof spoke of the film as inviting the viewer to re-watch it "a second and third time", and praised the technical achievement of representing a storyline depicting "the feverish stream of consciousness" of its main character throughout the film.
The camerawork, which depicts most of the film as one continuous take, was met with extensive acclaim for its execution and usage. The acting was widely praised, particularly Keaton's, with Peter Debruge of Variety calling the performance the "comeback of the century". Debruge described the film as "a self-aware showbiz satire", and called it "a triumph on every creative level". Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph rated the film 5/5 and gave particular praise to the use of long takes by Emmanuel Lubezki, director of photography. Richard Roeper gave the film an "A" and wrote that Keaton made a serious case for an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination (which Keaton later achieved).
Writing for The New Yorker, Richard Brody called the film "Godardian", comparing it to Pierrot le Fou (1965), Every Man for Himself (1980), Alphaville (1965), and Germany Year 90 Nine Zero (1991), four classic films by French director Jean-Luc Godard. However, he suggested the film fell short of reaching the same cinematic mastery, adding, "it's not a good idea for a filmmaker to get in the ring with Mr. Godard". In his critical comments on the film, he concluded that the film "trade[d] on facile, casual dichotomies of theatre versus cinema and art versus commerce" and "deliver[ed] a work of utterly familiar and unoriginal drama". In another review in The New Yorker separately supplementing the review by Brody, Anthony Lane rejected the film's suggestion that film critics are out to destroy films, explaining, "Someone could have told Iñárritu that critics, though often mean, are not preemptively so, and that anybody who'd say, as Tabitha does, 'I'm going to destroy your play', before actually seeing it, would not stay long in the job."
=== Accolades ===
At the 87th Academy Awards, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) won four Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography. Michael Keaton was nominated for Best Actor, Edward Norton and Emma Stone were nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress respectively, and it also received nominations for Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing.
Keaton received his first Golden Globe Award, winning for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy at the 72nd Golden Globe Awards. The film also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay.
In 2021, members of Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) and Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) voted its screenplay 51st in WGA’s 101 Greatest Screenplays of the 21st Century (So Far). In 2025, it was one of the films voted for the "Readers' Choice" edition of The New York Times' list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century," finishing at number 114.
==== Top ten lists ====
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) was listed on many critics' top ten lists. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_Major_League_Baseball_stadiums | List of current Major League Baseball stadiums | There are 30 stadiums in use by Major League Baseball (MLB) teams. The oldest ballpark is Fenway Park in Boston, home of the Boston Red Sox, which opened in 1912. The newest stadium is Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, home of the Texas Rangers, which opened in 2020. Two ballparks were built in the 1910s, two in the 1960s, one in the 1970s, one in the 1980s, seven in the 1990s, thirteen in the 2000s, three in the 2010s, and one in the 2020s. Twenty-five ballparks have natural grass surfaces, while five have artificial turf. Eight ballparks do not have corporate naming rights deals: Angel Stadium, Dodger Stadium, Fenway Park, Kauffman Stadium, Nationals Park, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Wrigley Field, and Yankee Stadium. Sutter Health Park is being used temporarily by the Athletics until a new stadium in Las Vegas is completed in 2028. Though the Dodgers sold naming rights of the field to Uniqlo, the team retains stadium branding under the Dodger Stadium name.
== Stadiums ==
Legend:
† Denotes stadium with a fixed roof
‡ Denotes stadium with a retractable roof
=== Future ballparks === |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Spire | Chicago Spire | Chicago Spire is a cancelled skyscraper project that was partially built between 2007 and 2008 located at 400 Lake Shore in Chicago. If completed, it would have stood 2,000 feet (610 m) high with 150 floors and been the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. When originally proposed as the Fordham Spire in July 2005, the design had 116 stories, included a hotel and condominiums, and was topped with a broadcast antenna mast. The building was designed and spearheaded by Spanish architect-engineer Santiago Calatrava and Chicago developer Christopher T. Carley of the Fordham Company. On March 16, 2006, the Chicago Plan Commission unanimously approved the initial design of the building. Initial construction started but the Great Recession began in late 2007. On November 4, 2014, a court ruling brought the original development plan and the extended litigation over the nine-year-old project to a close. Developer Garrett Kelleher signed over the property location to the project's biggest creditor, Related Midwest, who announced that they would not build the Spire and made plans for the two tower 400 Lake Shore by David Childs.
== Planning ==
Christopher T. Carley of the Fordham Company proposed the Fordham Spire in July 2005. In the proposal the Spire was to be a 116-story structure with hotel and condominiums topped by a tall broadcast antenna mast. The initial design of the building was passed unanimously by the Chicago Plan Commission on March 16, 2006, and by the Chicago Zoning Committee on March 23, 2006. On March 29, 2006, the Chicago City Council also approved the building's design. As part of the approval process, the council passed a measure that raised the height limit on structures at the site to accommodate the 2,000-foot (610 m) design height. The Fordham Spire would have become the second tallest building in the entire world, surpassed only by the Burj Khalifa, and would have become the tallest freestanding structure as well as the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, surpassing the CN Tower in Toronto.
The building was designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and was being developed by Garrett Kelleher of Shelbourne Development Group, Inc., the then-owner of St Patrick's Athletic F.C.
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley approved of the design, stating that it was environmentally friendly. Burton F. Natarus, who was the 42nd-ward alderman when the building was announced, said, "This is a very unique opportunity for the city of Chicago. This building belongs to Chicago and should be in Chicago." Donald Trump immediately voiced opposition to the building, stating that the tall structure would be a target for terrorists and did not even seem to be a viable project.
== Development ==
=== Initial financial problems ===
After several months of development in 2005, Carley failed to obtain sufficient financing for the construction of the building. Irish developer Garrett Kelleher, executive chairman of Shelbourne Development Group, Inc., acquired the land and took over the project. It was announced that he would put up 100% of the equity, something Carley had been unable to do. He also had the financial backing to acquire the land, something Carley lacked. Kelleher stated he would consider using Carley's services on the development and that "Carley will be paid an unspecified sum for his involvement in the deal so far." Kelleher later renamed the project "Chicago Spire" after briefly going by "400 North Lake Shore Drive", as it was no longer a Fordham project.
=== New designs ===
In the final quarter of 2006, Shelbourne Development issued two separate press releases regarding the construction and design of the spire. A November 2006 press release stated that construction of the Chicago Spire would begin in June 2007. In early December 2006, Shelbourne Development issued another press release stating that the design of the building had been revised. This included the removal of the hotel and the antenna mast, making the building consist solely of condominium units. The design change altered the building design such that it was wider than the original plan. Additionally, the spire no longer tapered at the top, resulting in an increase in floor space and overall floor count. The revision also removed the separate parking structure from the original plan, instead incorporating underground parking into the spire itself. This first major redesign of the Chicago Spire was criticized by architectural critics and city officials.
In late December 2006, the Chicago Tribune reported that the developer was soliciting opinions on a further revision from community leaders. Several weeks following that report the Chicago Tribune held an exclusive interview with architect Santiago Calatrava and lead developer Garrett Kelleher. During the interview, Calatrava drew out design ideas restoring the rotating design of the building and showcasing his vision for the Chicago Spire's lobby. On March 26, 2007, further revisions were shown during a public presentation by Shelbourne Development showcasing the most recent design.
=== Approval ===
Following the March 26, 2007 public presentation by Shelbourne Development, residents showed a favorable reaction to the newest design of the Chicago Spire. The Chicago Plan Commission approved the final plans of the Chicago Spire on April 19, 2007. Chicago's zoning committee also approved the tower on April 26 and, on May 9, 2007, the Chicago City Council approved the final design of the Chicago Spire.
=== Marketing ===
By June 2008, Shelbourne had sold more than 350 of the 1,193 units—more than half of those to foreign investors in markets where certain United States Securities and Exchange Commission regulations do not apply. Shelbourne announced on September 30, 2008 that the building's penthouse had been sold to Beanie Babies manufacturer Ty Warner. Kelleher offered to rent out units at a guaranteed 7.5% return to spur sales. The approach is common outside the United States where the tower was marketed more heavily and was meant to spur sales of the smallest units, which are the most likely to be purchased as rental property investments by foreigners.
=== Financial crisis and suspension of construction ===
By October 2008, the late-2000s recession was beginning to affect the project. Construction was suspended and the tower's architect, Santiago Calatrava, placed an $11.34 million lien on the construction site, stating that Kelleher had not yet paid him for his work. Within a few months Anglo Irish Bank, the primary lender for the project, was on the brink of financial collapse. The bank's stocks had lost nearly all of their value and Anglo Irish Bank was facing nationalization. Due to the bank's dire financial situation, Shelbourne Development was forced to suspend construction, and would eventually have to pay back the $69.5 million (USD) it had already borrowed.
Additional litigation and liens threatened the project by autumn 2009. The owner of the NBC Tower in Chicago sued to evict Shelbourne Development from their sales office, where extensive modeling of Chicago Spire units had been installed. The lawsuit alleged that Shelbourne was behind $316,000 (USD) in lease payments. In addition to this and other liens listed on the property, Bank of America filed a lawsuit against Shelbourne Development for $4.92 million (USD). The lawsuit was an attempt to collect that sum on two unpaid loans used for initial construction at the Chicago Spire site.
After these setbacks, the AFL–CIO and Kelleher announced in late 2009 that they were discussing the potential for a $170 million (USD) land loan that would retire Kelleher's loan from Anglo Irish Bank, pay off the outstanding liens, and restart work in exchange for making the construction a complete union job. Due to the lack of construction and the sluggish economy, Chicago unions were desperate to find work for their employees as they faced near 30% unemployment. Construction of the Chicago Spire would have provided approximately 900 full-time jobs to union members for four years if construction had resumed. In addition to the $194 million (USD) that Kelleher has invested personally in the project already, backup financing of an unspecified amount and from an unknown source in the form of mezzanine capital and bridge loans has been guaranteed and would have kicked in automatically if the $170 million (USD) AFL-CIO loan had been secured.
But within weeks of the official announcement that Kelleher was searching for union bailouts, four major labor union investment funds declined to offer Shelbourne Development any loans. Kelleher continued to search for financing. Shelbourne Development faced eviction from its offices on the 50th floor of 111 South Wacker Drive on which Shelbourne owed $27,600 in unpaid rent. Earlier in the year, the spire's Chicago sales office had been ejected from the nearby NBC Tower.
In October 2010 Anglo Irish Bank Corp. filed a $77 million foreclosure lawsuit against Kelleher, claiming that loans made to Kelleher's development company had been in default for a year. The bank was expected to take possession of the site. By the end of the year, courts handed control of the site to a receiver, leaving the project (at the time) dead. In addition, two Chicago firms purchased the tax lien certificates on the property.
=== End of the project ===
In 2013, with the Chicago Spire site for sale by Ireland's National Asset Management Agency (NAMA), interest resumed, drawing in at least a half-dozen offers for the property. Under the involuntary bankruptcy ruling in October 2013, Shelbourne had until the end of March 2014 to obtain approval of a reorganization plan, and was considering a bid to take back control of the property, reigniting hope that the skyscraper might actually be built.
However, on October 31, 2014, the developer failed to make a required payment to Related Midwest and Related filed suit to compel Shelbourne to turn over the deed to the property. On November 4, 2014, Garrett Kelleher signed over the property located at 400 N. Lake Shore Drive to Related Midwest. President Curt Bailey said that Related Midwest would not build the Spire.
In February 2016, Shelbourne sought court approval to take up an offer of up to $135 million from Atlas Apartment Holdings intended to underpin the project's emergence from bankruptcy, with a deadline of August 31, 2016 for having a court-approved reorganization plan. At a hearing on March 11, 2016, Shelbourne announced that it had reached agreement on a repayment plan with the project's creditors, including Related Midwest, which had bought up much of the project's debt. Assuming the project finds funding to satisfy that agreement, Atlas said that the building would be built and that Atlas would control the project, but that Kelleher would still be the developer, with the intention of building the same building planned prior to the suspension of construction.
In early 2018, the former developer Garrett Kelleher launched a $1.2 billion (USD) lawsuit, in the US Federal District Court in Illinois, against NAMA alleging that the agency destroyed his chances of building the Chicago Spire through a combination of "sheer spite" and "consistent incompetence". The lawsuit is formally brought by Kelleher's company, Shelbourne North Water Street Corporation.
=== Future site development ===
In 2016, Crain's Chicago Business reported that Related Midwest had hired former SOM architect Michael Pfeffer to guide the design of developments on the former Chicago Spire site. Although President Curt Bailey disclosed no project details—such as whether, for example, Related Midwest plans to build one big tower or multiple structures on the site—he did announce the development firm's intent to discuss plan outlines with the public in 2017.
In 2018, it was revealed that Related Midwest will build two skyscrapers at the site of the Spire. The taller of the two would include 300 condominiums and a 175-room luxury hotel and the other 550 apartments. The two tower plan has been approved by the city and the development will be called 400 Lake Shore Drive.
== Location ==
The skyscraper was being constructed at 400 N. Lake Shore Drive, on Chicago's waterfront west of Navy Pier and northeast of the Loop, in the Streeterville neighborhood of the Near North Side community area. The site is at the junction of Lake Michigan and the Chicago River, and is bordered by the Ogden Slip of the Chicago River to the north, North Lake Shore Drive to the east, the Chicago River to the south, and existing residential property to the west. The site was originally zoned for two 35 to 50-story buildings. Originally, it was to be sold by a joint venture of LR Development Company of Chicago and JER Partners of Virginia for $64 million to Christopher Carley of the Fordham Company. After numerous short-term extensions, and later Carley's failure to obtain financing, Kelleher of Shelbourne Development purchased the land instead and pledged to finance the rest of the project.
=== DuSable Park ===
When the project was first announced, the Fordham Company pledged almost $500,000 to assist in the development of the city's proposed DuSable Park, which would adjoin the property of the Chicago Spire. DuSable Park would cover 3.24 acres (1.31 ha) and a $11.4 million budget was planned for its renovation. On March 26, 2007, Shelbourne pledged to pay $6 million toward the development of the park, making up the deficit left over from the city's own initial pledge of $6 million and far exceeding the Fordham Co's initial offer. In May 2007 Shelbourne's pledge jumped to $9.6 million. Soil tests performed in December 2000 on the soil of the proposed park showed contamination of radioactive thorium. Thorium was used by the Lindsay Light Company, which operated a location nearby. After the closing of the location in the 1930s, contaminated soil was dumped on the location of the proposed park. In March 2003, the Chicago Park District stated that the thorium clean-up on that land was incomplete. Hazards of contamination can be avoided by laying a minimum of 6 inches (15 cm) of concrete over any affected soil, an approach that would be more feasible for the site of the Chicago Spire than for the adjacent park.
In 2012 the Chicago Park District received funding from the EPA for remediation of the site, bagging the radioactive soil and shipping it to a Superfund site. By summer 2013 the Park District website reported the remediation had been completed by September 2012.
== Architecture ==
As with many of his designs, Calatrava was inspired by themes and designs in nature for the tall, twisting skyscraper. He likened the structure to an imaginary smoke spiral coming from a campfire near the Chicago River lit by Native Americans indigenous to the area, and also related the building's newly designed pinnacle to the "graceful" and "rotating forms" of a snail shell.
Standing at 2,000 feet (610 m), the Chicago Spire would have further transformed the always-growing Chicago skyline. Plans for the tower included 1,193 condominiums with each of the building's 150 stories rotated 2.4 degrees from the one below it for a total 360-degree rotation. In February 2008, prices for the condominiums were announced as ranging from $750,000 to US$40 million. For supplemental structural support, each floor was to be surrounded by cantilevered corners and four concave sides. Similar to the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) and John Hancock Center observation decks, the Chicago Spire design included a community room on the top floor offering residents a view of four U.S. states. The design for the soaring four story lobby of the skyscraper included translucent glass walls framed by arching, steel-reinforced concrete vaults. The building has been described as a giant "drill bit" by the public and others in the media have likened it to a "tall twisting tree" and a "blade of grass".
The curved design offered two major benefits to the structure of the building. First, curved designs, such as that found in Calatrava's Turning Torso in Malmö, Sweden, tend to add to the strength of a structure. A similar principle has been used in the past with curved stadium roofs. In addition to structural support, the curved face of the exterior would minimize wind forces. In rectangular buildings, a fluid wind flow puts pressure on the windward face of the building; while air moves around it, a suction is applied to the leeward face. This often causes a sway in tall buildings usually counteracted, at least partially, by stiffening the structure or by using a dynamic wind damper. Since the curved design of the Chicago Spire would not completely negate wind forces, a tapering concrete core and twelve shear walls radiating from it were planned to counteract the remaining wind load.
Additionally, the Chicago Spire was designed with world-class sustainable engineering practices to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Gold recognition. Sustainable features included recycled rainwater, river water used for cooling, ornithologically-sensitive glass to protect migratory birds, intelligent building and management systems, waste storage and recycling management, and monitored outdoor air delivery.
== Construction ==
Following the city approval, it was announced that construction of the Chicago Spire was to begin in the summer of 2007, with caisson work scheduled to begin as early as June 2007. DuSable Park was designated as a staging area for the construction of the tower. The sales center for the Chicago Spire opened on January 14, 2008.
On September 19, 2008, a spokeswoman for the developer announced that construction was continuing on the building, but that the pace of construction would be slowed until the financial markets recovered from the subprime mortgage crisis. Kelleher promised that he still had financial backing, although analysts questioned the ability of the project to survive the current economic decline. A contractor to build the building's superstructure had not yet been named. The October 1, 2008 edition of The Wall Street Journal said that the building foundation was complete and the above ground construction would not continue until the markets recover. The Spire has remained a fenced-off hole in the ground at 400 N. Lake Shore Drive since 2008. But before Shelbourne faced financial difficulties and was forced into bankruptcy, about 370 of the planned 1,200 luxury condos were sold, half of which were to people outside the U.S., according to the suit.
“Shelbourne remains the only person logically capable of completing it because it still owns the intellectual property necessary to construct it and it still maintains the goodwill of the diverse governmental and community interests without which a project of this dimension would be doomed,” the lawsuit states.
=== Underground phase ===
Crane parts and construction equipment arrived at the site on June 25, 2007. The following day Shelbourne Development officially announced the first construction contract. In preparation for construction, 34 concrete and steel caissons were drilled 120 feet (37 m) into bedrock underground; this was completed June 25, 2008. A cofferdam with a 104 foot (32 m) diameter and 78 foot (24 m) depth was installed to create a work environment and would have later acted as a foundation for the building's core. Utility upgrades were planned for the surrounding neighborhood.
=== Images === |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulona_schausi | Mulona schausi | Mulona schausi is a moth of the subfamily Arctiinae first described by William Dewitt Field in 1952. It is found on Cuba. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Louis-Dreyfus | Julia Louis-Dreyfus | Julia Scarlett Elizabeth Louis-Dreyfus ( LOO-ee DRY-fəs; born January 13, 1961) is an American actress, comedian, and producer. She is known for her roles in a string of successful comedy series and several comedy films. She has received numerous accolades including 11 Primetime Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and nine Screen Actors Guild Awards.
The daughter of French billionaire Gérard Louis-Dreyfus, she entered comedy as a performer with the Practical Theatre Company and was a cast member on the sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1982 to 1985. Her breakthrough came playing Elaine Benes on the NBC sitcom Seinfeld (1990–1998), one of the most successful sitcoms in television history. She earned further acclaim for her roles as Christine Campbell on The New Adventures of Old Christine (2006–2010) and Selina Meyer on Veep (2012–2019), and has guest starred on shows such as Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and 30 Rock.
Louis-Dreyfus has had leading film roles in the comedy-dramas Enough Said (2013), Downhill (2020), You Hurt My Feelings (2023), and Tuesday (2023), with supporting film roles in comedy films such as Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), Deconstructing Harry (1997), and You People (2023). Her voice acting work includes roles in the Disney animated films A Bug's Life (1998), Planes (2013), and Onward (2020). She has played Valentina Allegra de Fontaine in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2021.
Louis-Dreyfus is one of the most awarded actors in television history, winning more Emmy and Screen Actors Guild Awards than any other performer. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010 and was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2014. She was named as one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2016. She also received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2018 and the National Medal of Arts in 2021.
== Early life ==
Julia Scarlett Elizabeth Louis-Dreyfus was born in New York City on January 13, 1961. Her mother, Judith (née LeFever), is an American writer and special needs educator. Her father, Gérard Louis-Dreyfus (1932–2016), was a French billionaire who served as chairman of the Louis Dreyfus Company. Her paternal grandfather, Pierre Louis-Dreyfus (1908–2011), was president of the Louis Dreyfus Group commodities and shipping conglomerate. He came from a family of Alsatian Jews, and served as a cavalry officer and member of the French Resistance during World War II. Louis-Dreyfus is the great-great-granddaughter of French businessman Léopold Louis-Dreyfus (1833–1915), founder of the Louis Dreyfus Group, which members of her family still control. She is the fifth cousin four times removed of Alfred Dreyfus (1859–1935) of the infamous Dreyfus affair. Robert Louis-Dreyfus (1946–2009), her father's second cousin, was the CEO of Adidas and owner of the soccer team Olympique de Marseille. Julia's paternal grandmother was the American-born daughter of a Brazilian father and a Mexican mother.
In 1962, a year after her birth, Louis-Dreyfus's parents divorced. She has said that she first noticed her penchant for comedy after sticking raisins up her nose at the age of three, which first made her mother laugh but then led to an emergency hospital visit. After moving to Washington, D.C., when Louis-Dreyfus was four, her mother married L. Thompson Bowles, dean of the George Washington University Medical School; Louis-Dreyfus gained a half-sister, Lauren Bowles, also an actress. Due to her stepfather's work with Project HOPE, she spent her childhood in several U.S. states and countries such as Colombia, Sri Lanka, and Tunisia. In 1979, she graduated from the all-girls Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland. She later said of the school, "There were things I did in school that, had there been boys in the classroom, I would have been less motivated to do. For instance, I was president of the honor society."
Louis-Dreyfus matriculated at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in 1979, where she was a member of the Delta Gamma sorority. She studied theatre and performed in the Mee-Ow Show, a student-run improv and sketch comedy revue, before dropping out during her junior year to take a job at Saturday Night Live. In 2007, she received an honorary doctor of arts degree from Northwestern University.
== Career ==
=== 1980s: Early career and Saturday Night Live ===
As part of her comedic training, Louis-Dreyfus appeared in The Second City, one of the best-known improvisational theatre groups. It was her performance with The Practical Theatre Company at their "Golden 50th Anniversary Jubilee" that led to her being asked to join the cast of NBC's Saturday Night Live at the age of 21.
Louis-Dreyfus subsequently became a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1982 to 1985, the youngest female cast member in the history of the program at that time. It was during her third and final year on SNL that she met writer Larry David during his only year on the show. David later co-created Seinfeld. Louis-Dreyfus has commented that her casting on SNL was a "Cinderella-getting-to-go-to-the-ball kind of experience"; however, she has also admitted that at times it was often quite tense, stating that she "didn't know how to navigate the waters of show business in general and specifically doing a live sketch-comedy show".
Recurring characters on Saturday Night Live
April May June, a televangelist
Becky, El Dorko's (Gary Kroeger) date
Consuela, Chi Chi's friend and co-host of Let's Watch TV
Darla in SNL's parody of The Little Rascals
Weather Woman, a superhero who controls the weather
Patti Lynn Hunnsucker, a teenage correspondent on Weekend Update
Following her 1985 departure from SNL, Louis-Dreyfus appeared in several films, including Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) by Woody Allen, Soul Man (1986), and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), in which she starred alongside fellow SNL alumnus Chevy Chase. In 1987, Louis-Dreyfus appeared in the NBC sitcom pilot The Art of Being Nick, an intended spin-off from Family Ties starring Scott Valentine. When the pilot did not make it to series, Louis-Dreyfus was retained by producer Gary David Goldberg for a role on his new sitcom Day by Day, as the sarcastic and materialistic neighbor, Eileen Swift. Premiering in early 1988, Day by Day aired for two seasons on NBC before being cancelled.
=== 1990s: Seinfeld and widespread recognition ===
In the early 1990s, Louis-Dreyfus became famous for the role of Elaine Benes on NBC's Seinfeld. She played the role for nine seasons, appearing in all but three episodes. One of the episodes that she did not appear in was the pilot episode, "The Seinfeld Chronicles", because her character was not initially intended to be a part of the series. It was only after the first episode that NBC executives felt the show was too male-centric and demanded that creators Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld add a woman to the cast. It was revealed in the commentary on the DVD package that the addition of a female character was the condition for commissioning the show. Louis-Dreyfus won the role over several other actresses who also eventually enjoyed TV success, including Patricia Heaton and Megan Mullally. On the "Notes About Nothing" featurette on the DVD package, Seinfeld says that Louis-Dreyfus's ability to eat a peanut M&M without breaking the peanut described her: "She cracks you up without breaking your nuts."
Louis-Dreyfus garnered critical acclaim for her performance on the series, and she was a regular winner and nominee at television award shows throughout the 1990s. Her performance earned her two Golden Globe Award nominations, winning once in 1994, nine Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, winning one in 1995 and two in both 1997 and 1998, and seven American Comedy Awards, winning five times in 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997 and 1998. In 1996, she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, an award she was nominated for on seven occasions from 1992 to 1998. After receiving the award, Louis-Dreyfus said the win was a "shocker", and that after being in both positions, it was "much better to win than to lose."
In 1998, Jerry Seinfeld decided to end the series after nine seasons. The series finale aired on May 14 and was one of the most-watched TV events in history, with over 76 million viewers tuning in. During her time on Seinfeld, she appeared in several films, including the comedy films Fathers' Day (1997), opposite Robin Williams and Billy Crystal, and Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry (1997). Following a voice role in the highly successful Pixar film A Bug's Life (1998), Louis-Dreyfus lent her voice as Snake's girlfriend Gloria in The Simpsons episode "A Hunka Hunka Burns in Love".
=== 2000s: Post-Seinfeld and The New Adventures of Old Christine ===
In 2001, she made several special guest appearances on Seinfeld co-creator Larry David's show Curb Your Enthusiasm, playing herself fictionally trying to break the "curse" by planning to star in a show in which she would play an actress affected by a Seinfeld-like curse.
After several years away from a regular TV job, Louis-Dreyfus began a new single-camera sitcom, Watching Ellie, which premiered on NBC in February 2002. The series was created by husband Brad Hall and co-starred Steve Carell and Louis-Dreyfus's half-sister Lauren Bowles. The initial premise of the show was to present viewers with a "slice of life" from the goings-on and happenings of the life of Ellie Riggs, a Southern California jazz singer. The first season included a 22-minute countdown kept digitally in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, which many critics panned, claiming it was useless and "did nothing for the show." Overall, the show received mixed reviews but debuted strongly with over 16 million viewers tuning in for the series premiere, and maintained an average audience of about 10 million viewers per week.
When the series returned for a second season in the spring of 2003, it suffered a decline in viewership, averaging around eight million viewers per week. The show had undergone a drastic stylistic change between the production of seasons one and two. The first season was filmed in the single-camera format, but the second season was presented as a traditional multicamera sitcom filmed in front of a live studio audience. With dwindling viewership and failing to retain the numbers from its Frasier lead-in, the series was cancelled by NBC in May 2003.
Following NBC's cancellation of Watching Ellie, the media began circulating rumors of a so-called "Seinfeld curse", which claimed that none of the former Seinfeld actors could ever achieve success again in the television industry. Louis-Dreyfus dismissed the rumor as "a made-up thing by the media", while Seinfeld co-creator Larry David asserted that the curse was "completely idiotic." Louis-Dreyfus was interested in the role of Susan Mayer on Desperate Housewives, the role that ultimately went to Teri Hatcher. Instead, Louis-Dreyfus scored a recurring guest role as Maggie Lizer, the deceitful prosecutor and love interest of Michael Bluth on the Emmy-winning comedy Arrested Development, from 2004 to 2005.
In 2005, Louis-Dreyfus was cast in the title role of a new CBS sitcom, The New Adventures of Old Christine. The series and its concept were created by writer and producer of Will & Grace, Kari Lizer. The series told the story of Christine Campbell, a single mother who manages to maintain a fantastic relationship with her ex-husband while running a women's gym. The series debuted on CBS in March 2006 to an audience of 15 million and was initially a ratings winner for the network.
Louis-Dreyfus received considerable critical acclaim for her performance on the show, with Brian Lowry of Variety stating that Louis-Dreyfus broke the so-called "Seinfeld curse [...] with one of the best conventional half-hours to come along in a while." Alessandra Stanley from The New York Times asserted that Louis-Dreyfus's performance on the series proved she is "one of the funniest women on network television." Louis-Dreyfus also earned the 2006 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her performance in the first season. Referring to the curse, she stated in her acceptance speech, "I'm not somebody who really believes in curses, but curse this, baby!" Throughout the course of the series, she received five consecutive Emmy Award nominations, three consecutive Satellite Award nominations, two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, and a nomination for a Golden Globe Award. In 2007, she also received two nominations for a People's Choice Award due to her return to popularity, thanks to the success of Old Christine.
In May 2006, Louis-Dreyfus hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live, becoming the first female former cast member to return to the show as a host. In the episode, she appeared with her Seinfeld co-stars Jason Alexander and Jerry Seinfeld in her opening monologue, parodying the so-called "Seinfeld curse". After a successful reception of her 2006 episode, Louis-Dreyfus again hosted SNL on March 17, 2007, and April 17, 2016. Louis-Dreyfus reprised her role as Gloria in two Simpsons episodes: 2007's "I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" and 2008's "Sex, Pies and Idiot Scrapes". In the fall of 2009, she appeared with the rest of the cast of Seinfeld in four episodes of the seventh season of Larry David's sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm. The reunion shows received much media attention, and the episode received strong ratings for the series.
In 2009, Louis-Dreyfus was granted the honorary award for Legacy of Laughter at the TV Land Awards. Previous winners had included Lucille Ball and Mike Myers. She was presented with the award by friend Amy Poehler. The following year, Louis-Dreyfus received the 2,407th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on May 4, 2010, for her remarkable contribution to the broadcast television industry as both an actress and a comedian. Originally, the star was set with Louis-Dreyfus's name spelled incorrectly. It was missing both the 'o' and the hyphen in her last name. The star was corrected and the misspelled portion was removed and presented to her. Celebrity guests at the event included past and current colleagues from throughout her career, including Clark Gregg, Larry David, Eric McCormack, and Jason Alexander.
=== 2010s: Veep and acclaim ===
Old Christine was cancelled by CBS on May 18, 2010, after 5 years. Discussions were held with ABC to revive the show but the show was never revived. In the spring of 2010, Louis-Dreyfus guest-starred several times in the third season of the web series Web Therapy, starring Lisa Kudrow. Louis-Dreyfus played the sister of the main character, Fiona Wallice, who gives her therapy online. When the series made the transition to cable television on the Showtime network, Louis-Dreyfus's appearance from the web series was included in the second season, airing in July 2012. In fall 2010, Louis-Dreyfus made a guest appearance on the live episode of 30 Rock, playing Tina Fey's role of Liz Lemon in the cutaway shots. Louis-Dreyfus was among several Saturday Night Live alumni appearing in the episode, including Rachel Dratch, Bill Hader, and regulars Tracy Morgan and Fey herself. Louis-Dreyfus also starred in a "Women of SNL" special on November 1, 2010, on NBC.
In May and June 2011, Louis-Dreyfus teamed up with husband Brad Hall for her first short film, Picture Paris. This was the first time the couple had collaborated since their early-2000s NBC comedy Watching Ellie. Hall wrote and directed the film, while Louis-Dreyfus played the lead role of an ordinary woman with an extraordinary obsession with the city of Paris. The film premiered on January 29, 2012, at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and has received considerable critical acclaim. It made its television premiere on HBO on December 17, 2012.
In early 2011, HBO confirmed that Louis-Dreyfus had been cast in the lead role of U.S. Vice President Selina Meyer in a new satirical comedy series titled Veep. The series was commissioned for a first season of eight episodes. In addition to her starring role, Louis-Dreyfus would also be a producer. In preparation for her role, Louis-Dreyfus spoke with Al Gore and another former vice president, senators, speechwriters, chiefs of staffs of various offices, and schedulers. Louis-Dreyfus commended HBO for allowing the cast and crew to engage in a "protracted pre-production process", which included a six-week rehearsal period before filming began.
The first season was filmed in the fall of 2011, in Baltimore, and the series premiered on April 22, 2012. The premiere episode was met with high praise from critics, particularly for Louis-Dreyfus's performance. The Hollywood Reporter asserted the character of Selina Meyer was her "best post-Seinfeld role" to date and claimed she gives "an Emmy-worthy effort", while the Los Angeles Times contended the series demonstrates she is "one of the medium's great comediennes." Following the success of the first season, Louis-Dreyfus was named by the Huffington Post as one of the funniest people of 2012, asserting that she is the "most magnetic and naturally funny woman on TV since Mary Tyler Moore."
For her performance on Veep, Louis-Dreyfus received several accolades, most notably seven nominations for the Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series between 2012 and 2019, winning the award six times. These Emmy wins for Veep, following previous wins for Seinfeld and The New Adventures of Old Christine, resulted in her becoming the only woman to win an acting award for three separate comedy series. Her sixth win in 2016 surpassed the record previously held by Mary Tyler Moore and Candice Bergen for the most wins in that category. In 2017, her sixth consecutive win, and eighth acting win, overall made her the performer with the most Emmys for the same role in the same series, surpassing Candice Bergen and Don Knotts, and put her in a tie with Cloris Leachman for the most Emmys ever won by a performer. She was also nominated as one of the producers for Veep in the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series category for all seven seasons, winning the award in 2015, 2016 and 2017 for the fourth, fifth and sixth seasons respectively. Louis-Dreyfus also received five Critics' Choice Television Award nominations, winning twice in 2013 and 2014, ten Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, winning twice in 2014 and 2017, and five Television Critics Association Award nominations, winning once in 2014. Her performance additionally garnered her five Satellite Award nominations and five consecutive Golden Globe Award nominations.
Louis-Dreyfus lent her voice to the 2013 animated film Planes, in the role of Rochelle. To date, the film has grossed well over $200 million at the box office worldwide. She also starred in the film Enough Said, directed by Nicole Holofcener, which was released on September 18, 2013. This marked her debut as a lead actress in a full-length feature film. The film garnered rave reviews from film critics, ranking among the best-reviewed films of 2013. The website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 96% based on 152 reviews, many of them praising Louis-Dreyfus's performance. She received several Best Actress nominations including for the Golden Globe Awards and the Critics' Choice Movie Awards. Another review aggregation website, Metacritic, gave the film a score of 78 out of 100, based on 44 critics, signifying "generally favorable reviews".
Since December 2014, Louis-Dreyfus has appeared in a series of television commercials for Old Navy. In 2015 she acted in the Comedy Central sketch series Inside Amy Schumer alongside Tina Fey and Patricia Arquette, playing a version of themselves giving advice on aging to Amy Schumer. Dreyfus said of the experience "I started to feel unbelievably paranoid that I was making fun of myself and wondering, was this really happening to me? Like, how meta is this moment in my life? I started to have a kind of soul-searching crisis in the middle of the day. And I didn't know [the other women] well enough to bring it up, so I was just trying to be a good sport even though I was dying a little bit on the inside." On April 16, 2016, she returned to Saturday Night Live serving as host for the third time with musical guest Nick Jonas. During the episode's cold open, she reprised her role of Elaine Benes from Seinfeld.
=== 2020s: Professional expansion ===
In 2020, Louis-Dreyfus headlined the comedy-drama Downhill, opposite Will Ferrell. The film premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was theatrically released on February 14. Next, she voiced a suburban elf mother, Laurel Lightfoot, in Pixar's Onward opposite Tom Holland and Chris Pratt. The film was released on March 6, 2020. In January 2020, Louis-Dreyfus signed a multi-year deal with Apple TV+. Under the deal, she will develop new projects for Apple TV+ as both an executive producer and star. The following year Louis-Dreyfus appeared in the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021) as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, which is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, though she was originally intended to debut in the film Black Widow (where she appears in the post credit scene). She reprised the role in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), and also appears in the film Thunderbolts* (2025). In 2022 she was a guest on the Netflix show My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman.
In 2023 she reunited with Nicole Holofcener starring in the A24 independent comedy film You Hurt My Feelings. Dreyfus produced the film and acted alongside Tobias Menzies, Michaela Watkins, Arian Moayed and Jeannie Berlin. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to positive reviews. Peter Bradshaw praised her performance writing, "Louis-Dreyfus is such a superb comic performer that it is interesting seeing her take on something low-key". That same year she portrayed a liberal Jewish mother in the Netflix romantic comedy You People (2023). She also starred in the A24 film Tuesday, directed by Daina Oniunas-Pusić, which premiered at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival.
In 2023, Louis-Dreyfus became host of the podcast Wiser Than Me. On the show, she interviews women older than her on their lived experience and earned wisdom. Guests have included Jane Fonda, Carol Burnett, Isabel Allende and Amy Tan. The show, produced by Lemonada Media, was named Apple's Best Podcast of the Year in 2023. Among her season two guests, Louis-Dreyfus interviews Billie Jean King, Patti Smith, and Julie Andrews.
In 2024, Apple announced that Wiser Than Me was the 3rd most shared show in the United States on Apple Podcasts in 2024.
== Artistry and reception ==
Louis-Dreyfus said she respects "women who are not afraid of making themselves look bad or foolish to get a laugh" and cites her acting idols as Lucille Ball, Mary Tyler Moore, Madeline Kahn, Teri Garr, Valerie Harper, and Cloris Leachman. The actress Tina Fey said that Louis-Dreyfus inspired her character Liz Lemon on the NBC comedy series 30 Rock.
Louis-Dreyfus is widely regarded as one of the finest comedic actresses of her generation. Jake Coyle of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal said "Few comediennes have both her gift for physical comedy... and vocal precision". According to the journalist Molly Ball, Louis-Dreyfus has played mostly "funny, self-centered women who are compelling despite often being ill-behaved." Louis-Dreyfus said she had turned playing unlikeable people into a career. Ball said: "She has also left an indelible cultural mark, expanding the possibilities for women in comedy–and maybe in politics and public life as well."
== Personal life ==
Louis-Dreyfus was raised Catholic but moved towards agnosticism; she said she had no "traditional religious affiliation".
=== Marriage and family ===
Louis-Dreyfus's maternal half-sister, Lauren Bowles, is also an actress. She also has two paternal half-sisters, Phoebe and Emma. Emma died in August 2018.
While at Northwestern University, Louis-Dreyfus met her future husband, the Saturday Night Live comedian Brad Hall. They married in 1987 and have two sons. Their older son, Henry Hall, is a singer-songwriter who has performed on The Tonight Show. Their younger son, Charlie Hall, is an actor. Her first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage.
=== Health ===
On September 28, 2017, Louis-Dreyfus announced that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, which she discovered the day after winning a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her role in Veep. She said: "One in eight women get breast cancer. Today, I'm the one. The good news is that I have the most glorious group of supportive and caring family and friends, and fantastic insurance through my union. The bad news is that not all women are so lucky, so let's fight all cancers and make universal healthcare a reality." On October 18, 2018, she announced on an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! that she was cancer-free.
=== Activism and politics ===
Louis-Dreyfus supported Al Gore's 2000 U.S. presidential bid and Barack Obama's bid for the presidency in both 2008 and 2012. She appeared in a video that urged Obama to reject the proposal of the Keystone XL pipeline, arguing that if the pipeline ever were to leak, it would cause massive pollution across the U.S. She has voiced her concern for several environmental issues and has raised millions for Heal the Bay, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Trust for Public Land. She also worked for the successful passage of Proposition O, which allocated $500 million for cleaning up the Los Angeles water supply.
In October 2010, before the U.S. Senate election in California, Louis-Dreyfus starred in a humorous Barbara Boxer ad regarding energy policy. During the 2016 Democratic National Convention, she supported Hillary Clinton in that year's presidential election. In her acceptance speech at the 2017 Screen Actors Guild Awards, she denounced President Donald Trump's executive order, referred to as the "Muslim ban", as "un-American" and said, "My father fled religious persecution in Nazi-occupied France."
Louis-Dreyfus emceed the final night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention, endorsing Joe Biden. She has also published information regarding voting by mail and urged all Americans to vote. Louis-Dreyfus endorsed Representative Karen Bass in the 2022 Los Angeles mayoral election, in various social media posts. In 2024, she supported Vice President Kamala Harris for president in the general election.
== Filmography ==
=== Film ===
=== Television ===
== Awards and nominations ==
Julia Louis-Dreyfus has won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series seven times: once for her role on The New Adventures of Old Christine (2006) and six consecutive awards for playing Selina Meyer on Veep (2012–17), as well as Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series once for Seinfeld (1996).
As of 2017, she holds the record for the most Primetime Emmy awards as an actor for the same role and is tied with fellow Northwestern University alum Cloris Leachman for the most acting Primetime Emmy awards (with eight). She has also been nominated for nine Golden Globe Awards, winning one for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries, or Television Film for her role as Elaine Benes on Seinfeld (1995).
She has also been nominated for twenty-one Screen Actors Guild Awards and has won five for individual performance (nine altogether) for her work on Seinfeld (1997–98) and Veep (2014, 2017–18). In 2016, she won the Crossover Talent award at the 4th Annual American Reality Television Awards.
In 2018, she was the twentieth recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
In 2023, the podcast she hosts, Wiser Than Me, won Apple's Best Podcast of the Year. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappadonna | Cappadonna | Darryl Hill (born September 18, 1968), better known by his stage name Cappadonna, is an American rapper. He is a member of the hip-hop collective Wu-Tang Clan and is a member of the hip-hop group Theodore Unit together with Ghostface Killah.
== Career ==
Cappadonna (also known as Cappachino) was known to the future members of the Wu-Tang Clan, and had been U-God's mentor. However, Cappadonna went to prison and was replaced in the group by Method Man.
Cappadonna made his recording debut as an affiliate of the Wu-Tang Clan on Raekwon's 1995 single "Ice Cream" on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx.... He was also a guest star, along with Raekwon, on Ghostface Killah's solo debut album, Ironman. He made his first appearance on a Wu-Tang Clan album in 1997 on Wu-Tang Forever on the single "Triumph". Following his appearance on Forever, he contributed significantly to the group's third studio album, The W, at which point his appearances were no longer marked with "Featuring Cappadonna", as they had been on Forever. After a falling-out with RZA the next year over royalties, he did not appear at all on the group's subsequent album Iron Flag. He reunited with the group for their concert at 2004's Rock the Bells, and appeared on 2007 release 8 Diagrams.
Cappadonna's status as a Wu-Tang member or as a featured artist has varied throughout the years, while long referred to by both the group and fans as the "Unofficial Tenth Member". Also, while his vocals on 8 Diagrams were not marked with "Feat. Cappadonna", much like The W, he does not appear on the front cover with the original eight living members, and is not featured in the album's booklet with a picture, although he is included in the group's shout-outs sections. In a press conference held October 2, 2014, at Warner Studios for the upcoming release of the Wu-Tang Clan's A Better Tomorrow album, RZA clarified any misunderstanding of Cappadonna's affiliation with Wu-Tang Clan, stating that Cappadonna has been an official member of Wu-Tang Clan since 8 Diagrams.
Cappadonna's first solo effort was 1998's The Pillage which debuted and peaked at number 3 on the charts and certified Gold. His follow-up – 2001's The Yin and The Yang – debuted at number 51 on the charts. Staying vigilant in his support of The Clan, he then featured on over 25 releases including classics from Raekwon, Method Man and Ghostface.
Known for his colorful wardrobe, he frequently refers to fashion designers and his large collection of boutique clothing in his raps.
In 2019 Cappadonna was featured in Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men, a documentary in honor of the 25th anniversary of Wu-Tang Clan's debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).
Cappadonna once mentioned in a podcast that his name is an acronym for "Consider All Poor People Acceptable Don't Oppress Nor Neglect Anyone.".
Cappadonna used to be a member of the Five-Percent Nation until late January 2024, when he, along with RZA & his son, took their Shahada in Masjid al-Haram in Mecca.
== Discography ==
=== Albums ===
=== Collaboration albums ===
=== Singles and EPs ===
1996 "Taking Drastic Measures"
1997 "Tragedy"
1998 "Slang Editorial"
1998 "Run"
1999 "Black Boy"
2001 "Super Model"
2007 "Don't Turn Around"
2009 "Somebody's Got To Go"
2011 "Cuban Link Kings"
=== Guest Appearances ===
1995 "Ice Cream"; "Ice Water" (Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...)
1996 "If It's Alright with You" (The Great White Hype (soundtrack))
1996 "Winter Warz" (Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (soundtrack))
1996 "Wu-Wear: The Garment Renaissance" (High School High (soundtrack))
1997 "For Heavenz' Sake"; "Maria"; "Triumph"; "Little Ghetto Boy"; "Heaterz" (Wu-Tang Forever)
1998 "Strange Fruit" (Soul Survivor)
1998 "Sweet Love" (Tical 2000: Judgement Day)
1998 "'97 Mentality" (The Swarm)
1998 I Can See" (Slam (soundtrack))
1998 "Run" (Bulworth (soundtrack))
1999 "'96 Recreation" (Wu-Chronicles)
2000 "Buck 50"; "Wu-Banga 101" (Supreme Clientele)
2000 "One Four Love Part 2" (Hip Hop for Respect EP) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Harrison | William Henry Harrison | William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773 – April 4, 1841) was the ninth president of the United States, serving from March 4 to April 4, 1841, the shortest presidency in U.S. history. He was also the first U.S. president to die in office, causing a brief constitutional crisis, since presidential succession was not then fully defined in the U.S. Constitution. Harrison was the last president born as a British subject in the Thirteen Colonies. He was a member of the Harrison family of Virginia, and a son of Benjamin Harrison V, who was a U.S. Founding Father. His own son John Scott Harrison was the father of Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd U.S. president.
Harrison was born in Charles City County, Virginia. In 1794, he participated in the Battle of Fallen Timbers, an American military victory that ended the Northwest Indian War. In 1811, he led a military force against Tecumseh's confederacy at the Battle of Tippecanoe, for which he earned the nickname "Old Tippecanoe". He was promoted to major general in the Army during the War of 1812, and led American infantry and cavalry to victory at the Battle of the Thames in Upper Canada.
Harrison's political career began in 1798, with an appointment as secretary of the Northwest Territory. In 1799, he was elected as the territory's non-voting delegate in the U.S. House of Representatives. He became governor of the newly established Indiana Territory in 1801 and, through multiple treaties with American Indian tribes, he acquired millions of acres for the nation. After the War of 1812, he moved to Ohio where, in 1816, he was elected to represent the state's 1st district in the House. In 1824, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, though his Senate term was cut short by his appointment as minister plenipotentiary to Gran Colombia in 1828.
Harrison returned to private life in Ohio until he was one of four Whig Party nominees in the 1836 U.S. presidential election, which he lost to Democrat Martin Van Buren. In the 1840 presidential election, the party nominated him again, with John Tyler as his running mate, under the campaign slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too", and Harrison defeated Van Buren. Just three weeks after his inauguration, Harrison fell ill and died days later. After resolution of an ambiguity in the constitution regarding succession, Tyler became president. Harrison is remembered for his Indian treaties, and also his inventive election campaign tactics. He is often omitted in historical presidential rankings due to the brevity of his tenure.
== Early life and education ==
William Henry Harrison was the seventh and youngest child of Benjamin Harrison V and Elizabeth (Bassett) Harrison. Born on February 9, 1773, at Berkeley Plantation, the home of the Harrison family of Virginia on the James River in Charles City County, he became the last United States president not born as an American citizen. The Harrisons were a prominent political family of English descent whose ancestors had been in Virginia since the 1630s. His father was a Virginia planter, who served as a delegate to the Continental Congress and who signed the Declaration of Independence. His father also served in the Virginia legislature and as the fifth governor of Virginia (1781–1784) in the years during and after the American Revolutionary War. Harrison's older brother Carter Bassett Harrison represented Virginia in the House of Representatives (1793–1799). William Henry often referred to himself as a "child of the revolution", as indeed he was, having grown up in a home just 30 mi (48 km) from where Washington won the war against the British in the Battle of Yorktown.
Harrison was tutored at home until age 14 when he attended Hampden–Sydney College, a Presbyterian college in Hampden Sydney, Virginia. He studied there for three years, receiving a classical education that included Latin, Greek, French, logic, and debate. His Episcopalian father removed him from the college, possibly for religious reasons, and after brief stays at an academy in Southampton County, Virginia, and with his elder brother Benjamin Harrison VI in Richmond, he went to Philadelphia in 1790.
His father died in the spring of 1791, and he was placed in the care of Robert Morris, a close family friend in Philadelphia. He studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. While at Penn, he studied with Benjamin Rush, a founding father of the United States, a Penn professor of chemistry and medicine, and a doctor, and William Shippen Sr. William Harrison's older brother inherited their father's money, so William lacked the funds for his further medical schooling, which he had also discovered he did not prefer. He withdrew from Penn, although school archives record him as a "non-graduate alumnus of Penn's medical school class of 1793". With the influence of his father's friend, Governor Henry Lee III, he embarked upon a military career.
=== Early military career ===
On August 16, 1791, within 24 hours of meeting Lee, William Harrison, age 18, was commissioned as an ensign in the United States Army and assigned to the First American Regiment. He was initially assigned to Fort Washington, Cincinnati in the Northwest Territory where the army was engaged in the ongoing Northwest Indian War. Biographer William W. Freehling says that young Harrison, in his first military act, rounded up about eighty thrill-seekers and troublemakers off Philadelphia's streets, talked them into signing enlistment papers, and marched them to Fort Washington.
Harrison was promoted to lieutenant after Major General "Mad Anthony" Wayne took command of the western army in 1792, after a disastrous defeat under Arthur St. Clair. In 1793, he became Wayne's aide-de-camp and acquired the skills to command an army on the frontier; he participated in Wayne's decisive victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers on August 20, 1794, which ended the Northwest Indian War. He received the following commendation from Wayne for his role in the battle: "I must add the name of my faithful and gallant Aide-de-camp ... Lieutenant Harrison, who ... rendered the most essential service by communicating my orders in every direction ... conduct and bravery exciting the troops to press for victory." Harrison was a signatory of the Treaty of Greenville (1795), as witness to Wayne, the principal negotiator for the U.S. Under the terms of the treaty, a coalition of Indians ceded a portion of their lands to the federal government, opening two-thirds of Ohio to settlement.
At his mother's death in 1793, Harrison inherited a portion of his family's Virginia estate, including approximately 3,000 acres (12 km2) of land and some slaves. He was serving in the Army at the time and sold the land to his brother. Harrison was promoted to captain in May 1797 and resigned from the Army on June 1, 1798.
=== Marriage and family ===
Harrison met Anna Tuthill Symmes of North Bend, Ohio in 1795 when he was 22. She was a daughter of Anna Tuthill and Judge John Cleves Symmes, who served as a colonel in the Revolutionary War and as a representative to the Congress of the Confederation. Harrison asked the judge for permission to marry Anna but was refused, so the couple waited until Symmes left on business. They then eloped and were married on November 25, 1795, at the North Bend home of Stephen Wood, treasurer of the Northwest Territory. They honeymooned at Fort Washington, since Harrison was still on military duty.
Judge Symmes confronted him two weeks later at a farewell dinner for General Wayne, sternly demanding to know how he intended to support a family. Harrison responded, "by my sword, and my own right arm, sir". The match was advantageous for Harrison, as he eventually exploited his father-in-law's connections with land speculators, which facilitated his departure from the army. Judge Symmes' doubts about him persisted, as he wrote to a friend, "He can neither bleed, plead, nor preach, and if he could plow I should be satisfied." Matters eventually became cordial with the father-in-law, who later sold the Harrisons 160 acres (65 ha) of land in North Bend, which enabled Harrison to build a home and start a farm. Anna was frequently in poor health during their marriage, primarily because of her many pregnancies, yet she outlived William by 23 years, dying on February 25, 1864, at 88. The Harrisons had ten children:
Elizabeth Bassett (1796–1846)
John Cleves Symmes (1798–1830), who married the only surviving daughter of Zebulon Pike
Lucy Singleton (1800–1826)
William Henry Jr. (1802–1838)
John Scott (1804–1878), father of future U.S. president Benjamin Harrison
Benjamin (1806–1840)
Mary Symmes (1809–1842)
Carter Bassett (1811–1839)
Anna Tuthill (1813–1865)
James Findlay (1814–1817)
Professor Kenneth R. Janken, in his biography of Walter Francis White, claims that Harrison had six children by an enslaved African-American woman named Dilsia and, before running for president, gave four of them to a brother to avoid scandal. The assertion is based on the White family's oral history. In her 2012 biography of Harrison, author Gail Collins describes this as an unlikely story, although White believed it to be true.
== Political career ==
Harrison began his political career when he temporarily resigned from the military on June 1, 1798, and campaigned among his friends and family for a post in the Northwest Territorial government. His close friend Timothy Pickering was serving as Secretary of State, and along with Judge Symmes's influence, he was recommended to replace Winthrop Sargent, the outgoing territorial secretary. President John Adams appointed Harrison to the position in July 1798. The work of recording the activities of the territory was tedious, and he soon became bored, and sought a position in the U.S. Congress.
=== U.S. Congress ===
Harrison had many friends in the Eastern aristocracy and quickly gained a reputation among them as a frontier leader. He ran a successful horse-breeding enterprise that won him acclaim throughout the Northwest Territory. Congress had legislated a territorial policy that led to high land costs, a primary concern for settlers in the Territory; Harrison became their champion to lower those prices. The Northwest Territory's population reached a sufficient number to have a congressional delegate in October 1799, and Harrison ran for election. He campaigned to encourage further migration to the territory, which eventually led to statehood.
Harrison defeated Arthur St. Clair Jr. to become the Northwest Territory's first congressional delegate in 1798 at age 26, and served in the Sixth United States Congress from March 4, 1799, to May 14, 1800. He had no authority to vote on legislative bills, but he was permitted to serve on a committee, to submit legislation, and to engage in debate. He became chairman of the Committee on Public Lands and promoted the Land Act of 1800, which made it easier to buy Northwest Territory land in smaller tracts at a lower cost. Freeholders were permitted to buy smaller lots with a down payment of only five percent, and this became an important factor in the Territory's rapid population growth.
Harrison was also instrumental in arranging the division of the Territory into two sections. The eastern section continued to be known as the Northwest Territory and included present-day Ohio and eastern Michigan; the western section was named the Indiana Territory and included present-day Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, a portion of western Michigan, and an eastern portion of Minnesota. The two new territories were formally established by law in 1800.
On May 13, 1800, President John Adams appointed Harrison as the governor of the Indiana Territory, based on his ties to the west and his apparent neutral political stances. He served in this capacity for twelve years. His governorship was confirmed by the Senate and he resigned from Congress to become the first Indiana territorial governor in 1801.
=== Indiana territorial governor ===
Harrison began his duties on January 10, 1801, at Vincennes, the capital of the Indiana Territory. Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were members of the Democratic-Republican Party, and they reappointed him as governor in 1803, 1806, and 1809. In 1804, Harrison was assigned to administer the civilian government of the District of Louisiana. He conducted the district's affairs for five weeks until the Louisiana Territory was formally established on July 4, 1805, and Brigadier General James Wilkinson assumed the duties of governor.
In 1805, Harrison built a plantation-style home near Vincennes that he named Grouseland, in tribute to the birds on the property. The 26-room home was one of the first brick structures in the territory; and it served as a center of social and political life in the territory during his tenure as governor. Harrison founded a university at Vincennes in 1801, which was incorporated as Vincennes University on November 29, 1806. The territorial capital was eventually moved to Corydon in 1813, and Harrison built a second home at nearby Harrison Valley.
Harrison's primary responsibility was to obtain title to Indian lands that would allow future settlement and increase the territory's population, a requirement for statehood. He was also eager to expand the territory for personal reasons, as his political fortunes were tied to Indiana's eventual statehood. While benefiting from land speculation on his own behalf, and acquiring two milling operations, he was credited as a good administrator, with significant improvements in roads and other infrastructure.
When Harrison was reappointed as the Indiana territorial governor on February 8, 1803, he was given expanded authority to negotiate and conclude treaties with the Indians. The 1804 Treaty of St. Louis with Quashquame required the Sauk and Meskwaki tribes to cede much of western Illinois and parts of Missouri. Many of the Sauk resented the loss of lands, especially their leader Black Hawk. Harrison thought that the Treaty of Grouseland (1805) appeased some of the Indians, but tensions remained high along the frontier. The Treaty of Fort Wayne (1809) raised new tensions when Harrison purchased more than 2.5 million acres (10,000 km2) from the Potawatomi, Delaware, Miami, and Eel River tribes. Some Indians disputed the authority of the tribes joining in the treaty. Harrison was also able to conduct matters unquestioned by the government, as the administration changed hands from Jefferson to Madison.
He pursued the treaty process aggressively, offering large subsidies to the tribes and their leaders, so as to gain political favor with Jefferson before his departure. Biographer Freehling asserts that the Indians perceived the ownership of land was as common to all, just as the air that is breathed. In 1805, Harrison succeeded in acquiring for the nation as many as 51,000,000 acres from the Indians, after plying five of their chiefs with alcohol, for no more than a dollar per 20,000 acres ($21.50 in 2025), and comprising two-thirds of Illinois and sizable chunks of Wisconsin and Missouri.
In addition to resulting tensions with the Indians, Harrison's pro-slavery position made him unpopular with the Indiana Territory's abolitionists, as he tried in vain to encourage slavery in the territory. In 1803, he had lobbied Congress to temporarily suspend for ten years Article VI of the Northwest Ordinance prohibiting slavery in the Indiana Territory. Though Harrison asserted that the suspension was necessary to promote settlement and make the territory economically viable and ready for statehood, the proposal failed. Lacking the suspension of Article VI, in 1807 the territorial legislature, with Harrison's support, enacted laws that authorized indentured servitude and gave masters authority to determine the length of service.
President Jefferson, primary author of the Northwest Ordinance, made a secret compact with James Lemen to defeat the nascent pro-slavery movement supported by Harrison. He donated $100 to encourage Lemen with abolition and other good works, and later (in 1808) another $20 ($403.10 in 2025) to help fund the church known as Bethel Baptist Church. In Indiana, the planting of the anti-slavery church led to citizens signing a petition and organizing politically to defeat Harrison's efforts to legalize slavery in the territory.
The Indiana Territory held elections to the legislature's upper and lower houses for the first time in 1809. Harrison found himself at odds with the legislature after the abolitionists came to power, and the eastern portion of the Indiana Territory grew to include a large anti-slavery population. The Territory's general assembly convened in 1810, and its anti-slavery faction immediately repealed the indenturing laws previously enacted. After 1809, the Indiana legislature assumed more authority and the territory advanced toward statehood.
== Army general ==
=== Tecumseh and Tippecanoe ===
Indian resistance to American expansion came to a head, with the leadership of Shawnee brothers Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa ("The Prophet"), in a conflict that became known as Tecumseh's War. Tenskwatawa convinced the tribes that they would be protected by the Great Spirit and that no harm could befall them if they rose up against the settlers. He encouraged resistance by telling the tribes to pay white traders only half of what they owed and to give up all the white man's ways, including their clothing, muskets, and especially whiskey. Harrison received word of the resistance through spies he had placed within the tribes, and asked Madison to fund military preparations. Madison dragged his feet, and Harrison attempted to negotiate, sending a letter to Tecumseh saying, "Our Blue Coats (U.S. Army soldiers) are more numerous than you can count, and our hunting shirts (volunteer militiamen) are like the leaves of the forests or the grains of sand on the Wabash."
In August 1810, Tecumseh led 400 warriors down the Wabash River to meet with Harrison in Vincennes. They were dressed in war paint, and their sudden appearance at first frightened the soldiers at Vincennes. The leaders of the group were escorted to Grouseland, where they met Harrison. Tecumseh berated the condescending Harrison repeatedly, and insisted that the Fort Wayne Treaty was illegitimate, arguing that one tribe could not sell land without the approval of the other tribes. He asked Harrison to nullify it and warned that Americans should not attempt to settle the lands sold in the treaty. Tecumseh informed Harrison that he had threatened to kill the chiefs who signed the treaty if they carried out its terms and that his confederation of tribes was growing rapidly. Harrison said that the individual tribes were the owners of the land and could sell it as they wished. He rejected Tecumseh's claim that all the Indians formed one nation and said that each tribe could have separate relations with the United States if they chose to do so. Harrison argued that the Great Spirit would have made all the tribes speak one language if they were to be one nation.
Tecumseh launched an "impassioned rebuttal", in the words of one historian, but Harrison was unable to understand his language. Tecumseh then began shouting at Harrison and called him a liar. A Shawnee friendly to Harrison cocked his pistol from the sidelines to alert Harrison that Tecumseh's speech was leading to trouble, and some witnesses reported that Tecumseh was encouraging the warriors to kill Harrison. Many of them began to pull their weapons, representing a substantial threat to Harrison and the town, which held a population of only 1,000. Harrison drew his sword, and Tecumseh's warriors backed down when the officers presented their firearms in his defense. Chief Winamac was friendly to Harrison, and he countered Tecumseh's arguments, telling the warriors that they should return home in peace since they had come in peace. Before leaving, Tecumseh informed Harrison that he would seek an alliance with the British if the Fort Wayne Treaty was not nullified. After the meeting, Tecumseh journeyed to meet with many of the tribes in the region, hoping to create a confederation to battle the United States.
Harrison was concerned that Tecumseh's actions would endanger the statehood of Indiana, as well as his political future, leaving it "the haunt of a few wretched savages". Tecumseh was traveling in 1811, leaving Tenskwatawa in charge of Indian forces. Harrison saw a window of opportunity in Tecumseh's absence, and advised Secretary of War William Eustis to present a show of force to the Indian confederation. Despite being 13 years removed from military action, Harrison convinced Madison and Eustis to allow him to assume command. He led an army north with 950 men to intimidate the Shawnee into making peace, but the tribes launched a surprise attack early on November 7 in the Battle of Tippecanoe. Harrison countered and defeated the tribal forces at Prophetstown next to the Wabash and Tippecanoe Rivers; the battle became famous and he was hailed as a national hero. Although his troops had suffered 62 dead and 126 wounded during the battle and the Shawnee just 150 casualties, the Shawnee prophet's vision of spiritual protection had been shattered. Tenskwatawa and his forces fled to Canada, and their campaign to unite the tribes of the region to reject assimilation failed.
When reporting to Secretary Eustis, Harrison had informed him of the battle near the Tippecanoe River and that he had anticipated an attack. A first dispatch had not been clear which side had won the conflict, and the secretary interpreted it as a defeat until the follow-up dispatch clarified the situation. When no second attack came, the Shawnee defeat had become more certain. Eustis demanded to know why Harrison had not taken adequate precautions in fortifying his camp against the initial attack, and Harrison said that he had considered the position strong enough. The dispute was the catalyst of a disagreement between Harrison and the Department of War, which continued into the War of 1812. Freehling says that Harrison's rusty skills resulted in his troops setting campfires the night before the battle, exposing their position to a surprise attack and casualties.
The press did not cover the battle at first, until one Ohio paper misinterpreted Harrison's first dispatch to mean that he was defeated. By December, however, most major American papers carried stories on the battle victory, and public outrage grew over the Shawnee. Americans blamed the British for inciting the tribes to violence and supplying them with firearms, and Congress passed resolutions condemning the British for interfering in American domestic affairs. Congress declared war on June 18, 1812, and Harrison left Vincennes to seek a military appointment.
=== War of 1812 ===
The outbreak of war with the British in 1812 led to continued conflict with Indians in the Northwest. Harrison briefly served as a major general in the Kentucky militia until the government commissioned him on September 17 to command the Army of the Northwest. He received federal military pay for his service, and he also collected a territorial governor's salary from September until December 28, when he formally resigned as governor and continued his military service. Authors Gugin and St. Clair claim the resignation was forced upon him. Harrison was succeeded by John Gibson as acting governor of the territory.
The Americans suffered a defeat in the siege of Detroit. General James Winchester offered Harrison the rank of brigadier general, but Harrison wanted sole command of the army. President James Madison removed Winchester from command in September, and Harrison became commander of the fresh recruits. He received orders to retake Detroit and boost morale, but he initially held back, unwilling to press the war northward. The British and their Indian allies greatly outnumbered Harrison's troops, so Harrison constructed a defensive position during the winter along the Maumee River in northwest Ohio. He named it Fort Meigs in honor of Ohio governor Return J. Meigs Jr. He then received reinforcements in 1813, took the offensive, and led the army north to battle. He won victories in the Indiana Territory as well as Ohio and recaptured Detroit before invading Upper Canada (Ontario). His army defeated the British, and Tecumseh was killed, on October 5, 1813, at the Battle of the Thames. It was considered to be one of the great American victories in the war, second only to the Battle of New Orleans, and secured a national reputation for Harrison.
In 1814, Secretary of War John Armstrong Jr. divided the command of the army, assigning Harrison to an outlying post and giving control of the front to one of Harrison's subordinates. Armstrong and Harrison had disagreed over the lack of coordination and effectiveness in the invasion of Canada, and Harrison resigned from the army in May. After the war ended, Congress investigated Harrison's resignation and determined that Armstrong had mistreated him during his military campaign and that his resignation was justified. Congress awarded Harrison a gold medal for his services during the war.
Harrison and Michigan Territory's Governor Lewis Cass were responsible for negotiating the peace treaty with the Indians. President Madison appointed Harrison in June 1815 to help in negotiating a second treaty with the Indians that became known as the Treaty of Springwells, in which the tribes ceded a large tract of land in the west, providing additional land for American purchase and settlement.
== Postwar life ==
=== Ohio politician and diplomat ===
Harrison resigned from the army in 1814, shortly before the conclusion of the War of 1812, and returned to his family and farm in North Bend, Ohio. Freehling claims that his expenses then well exceeded his means and he fell into debt, that Harrison chose "celebrity over duty", as he sought the adulation found at parties in New York, Washington, and Philadelphia, and that he became an office seeker. He was elected in 1816 to complete John McLean's term in the House of Representatives, representing Ohio's 1st congressional district until 1819. He attempted to secure the post of Secretary of War under President Monroe in 1817 but lost out to John C. Calhoun. He was also passed over for a diplomatic post to Russia. He was elected to the Ohio Senate in 1819 and served until 1821, having lost the election for Ohio governor in 1820. He ran in the 1822 election for the United States House of Representatives, but lost to James W. Gazlay. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1824, and was an Ohio presidential elector in 1820 for James Monroe and for Henry Clay in 1824.
Harrison was appointed in 1828 as minister plenipotentiary to Gran Colombia, so he resigned from Congress and served in his new post until March 8, 1829. He arrived in Bogotá on December 22, 1828, and found the condition of Colombia saddening. He reported to the Secretary of State that the country was on the edge of anarchy, and that Simón Bolívar was about to become a military dictator. He wrote a letter of polite rebuke to Bolívar, stating that "the strongest of all governments is that which is most free" and calling on Bolívar to encourage the development of democracy. In response, Bolívar wrote that the United States "seem destined by Providence to plague America with torments in the name of freedom", a sentiment that achieved fame in Latin America.
Freehling indicates Harrison's missteps in Colombia were "bad and frequent", that he failed to properly maintain a position of neutrality in Colombian affairs, by publicly opposing Bolivar, and that Colombia sought his removal. Andrew Jackson took office in March 1829, and recalled Harrison in order to make his own appointment to the position. Biographer James Hall claims that Harrison found in Colombia a military despotism and that "his liberal opinions, his stern republican integrity, and the plain simplicity of his dress and manners, contrasted too strongly with the arbitrary opinions and ostentatious behaviour of the public officers, to allow him to be long a favourite with those who had usurped the power of that government. They feared that the people would perceive the difference between a real and a pretended patriot, and commenced a series of persecutions against our minister, which rendered his situation extremely irksome." A very similar sentiment of the situation is related by biographer Samuel Burr.
Harrison, after leaving his post but while still in the country, wrote his roughly ten-page letter to Bolivar, which is reproduced in full in the Hall and Burr biographies. It left the former struck by Harrison's "deeply imbued principles of liberty". Burr describes the letter as "replete with wisdom, goodness, and patriotism…and the purest of principles".
=== Private citizen ===
Harrison returned to the United States and his North Bend farm, living in relative privacy after nearly four decades of government service. He had accumulated no substantial wealth during his lifetime, and he lived on his savings, a small pension, and the income produced by his farm. Burr references M. Chavalier, who encountered Harrison in Cincinnati at this time, and described Harrison as "poor, with a numerous family, abandoned by the Federal government, yet vigorous with independent thinking".
In May 1817, Harrison served as one of the founding vestry members of the Episcopal congregation, Christ Church in downtown Cincinnati (now Christ Church Cathedral). He went on to serve as a vestry member through 1819, and then again in 1824.
Local supporters had come to Harrison's relief, by appointing him Clerk of Courts for Hamilton County, where he worked from 1836 until 1840. Chevalier remarked, "His friends back east talk of making him President, while here we make him clerk of an inferior court." He also cultivated corn and established a distillery to produce whiskey, but closed it after he became disturbed by the effects of alcohol on its consumers. In an address to the Hamilton County Agricultural Board in 1831, he said that he had sinned in making whiskey and hoped that others would learn from his mistake and stop the production of liquors.
About this time, he met abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor George DeBaptiste who lived in nearby Madison, and the two became friends. Harrison wrote at the time, "we might look forward to a day when a North American sun would not look down upon a slave." DeBaptiste became his valet, and later White House steward.
Although denied by some of Harrison's friends, Burr closes his account of Harrison by describing an event, a reception given the general at Philadelphia in 1836, that illustrates Harrison's popularity at this time. According to Burr, "Thousands and tens of thousands crowded Chesnut street wharf upon his arrival, and greeted him with continual cheering as he landed. He stepped into the barouche but the crowd pressed forward so impetuously, that the horses became frightened and reared frequently. A rush was made to unharness the animals when the General spoke to several of them and endeavored to prevent it; but the team was soon unmanageable, and it became necessary to take them off. A rope was brought, and attached to the carriage, by which the people drew it to the Marshall House. This act was the spontaneous burst of ten thousand grateful hearts. Pennsylvanians fought under the hero, and they loved him. We speak particularly on this point, because we were eyewitnesses of all that passed."
=== 1836 presidential campaign ===
Harrison was the western Whig candidate for president in 1836, one of four regional Whig party candidates. The others were Daniel Webster, Hugh Lawson White, and Willie P. Mangum. More than one Whig candidate emerged in an effort to defeat the incumbent Vice President Martin Van Buren, who was the popular Jackson-chosen Democrat. The Democrats charged that, by running multiple candidates, the Whigs sought to prevent a Van Buren victory in the electoral college, and force the election into the House. If there was such a plan, then it failed. Harrison finished in second, and carried nine of the twenty-six states in the Union.
Harrison ran in all the non-slave states except Massachusetts, and in the slave states of Delaware, Maryland, and Kentucky. White ran in the remaining slave states except for South Carolina. Daniel Webster ran in Massachusetts, and Mangum in South Carolina. Van Buren won the election with 170 electoral votes. A swing of just over 4,000 votes in Pennsylvania would have given that state's 30 electoral votes to Harrison and the election would have been decided in the House of Representatives.
=== 1840 presidential campaign ===
Harrison faced incumbent Van Buren as the sole Whig candidate in the 1840 election. The Whigs saw in Harrison a born southerner and war hero, who would contrast well with the aloof, uncaring, and aristocratic Van Buren. He was chosen over more controversial members of the party, such as Clay and Webster; his campaign highlighted his military record and focused on the weak U.S. economy caused by the Panic of 1837.
The Whigs blamed Van Buren for the economic problems and dubbed him "Van Ruin". The Democrats, in turn, ridiculed the elder Harrison by calling him "Granny Harrison, the petticoat general", because he resigned from the army before the War of 1812 ended. They noted for the voters what Harrison's name would be when spelled backwards: "No Sirrah". They cast him as a provincial, out-of-touch old man who would rather "sit in his log cabin drinking hard cider" than attend to the administration of the country. This strategy backfired when Harrison and running mate John Tyler adopted the log cabin and hard cider as campaign symbols. Their campaign used the symbols on banners and posters and created bottles of hard cider shaped like log cabins, all to connect the candidates to the "common man". Freehling wrote that, "One bitter pro-Van Buren paper lamented after his defeat, 'We have been sung down, lied down and drunk down.' In one sentence, this described the new American political process."
Harrison came from a wealthy, slaveholding Virginia family, yet his campaign promoted him as a humble frontiersman in the style popularized by Andrew Jackson, while presenting Van Buren as a wealthy elitist. A memorable example was the Gold Spoon Oration that Pennsylvania's Whig representative Charles Ogle delivered in the House, ridiculing Van Buren's elegant White House lifestyle and lavish spending. The Whigs invented a chant in which people would spit tobacco juice as they chanted "wirt-wirt", and this also exhibited the difference between candidates from the time of the election:
The Whigs boasted of Harrison's military record and his reputation as the hero of the Battle of Tippecanoe. The campaign slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too" became one of the most famous in American politics. While Van Buren campaigned from the White House, Harrison was on the campaign trail, entertaining with his impressions of Indian war whoops, and took people's minds off the nation's economic troubles. In June 1840, a Harrison rally at the site of the Tippecanoe battle drew 60,000 people. The Village of North Bend, Ohio, as well as the alumni of Ohio State University claim that the state's use of the nickname "Buckeyes" began with Harrison's campaign message. Harrison's campaign was the victim of what is described as the nation's first "October surprise." Just days before voters went to the polls, Van Buren's Justice Department alleged that Whig Party officials had committed "the most stupendous and atrocious fraud," when they paid Pennsylvanians to travel to New York to vote for Whig candidates two years earlier.
Voter turnout shot to 80%, 20 points higher than the previous election. Harrison won a landslide victory in the Electoral College, 234 electoral votes to Van Buren's 60. The popular vote margin was much closer, at fewer than 150,000 votes, though he carried nineteen of the twenty-six states.
== Presidency (1841) ==
=== Inauguration ===
When Harrison came to Washington, he wanted to show that he was still the steadfast hero of Tippecanoe and that he was a better educated and more thoughtful man than the backwoods caricature portrayed in the campaign. He took the oath of office on March 4, 1841, a cold and wet day. He braved the chilly weather and chose not to wear an overcoat or a hat, rode on horseback to the grand ceremony, and then delivered the longest inaugural address in American history at 8,445 words. It took him nearly two hours to read, although his friend and fellow Whig Daniel Webster had edited it for length. Freehling opines that speeches like this were actually common at the time, and that its irony was rich, as Harrison, "a lifelong office seeker, elected by deeply partisan politics, harshly criticized both practices".
The inaugural address was a detailed statement of the Whig agenda, a repudiation of Jackson's and Van Buren's policies, and the first and only formal articulation by Harrison of his approach to the presidency. The address began with Harrison's sincere regard for the trust being placed in him:
However strong may be my present purpose to realize the expectations of a magnanimous and confiding people, I too well understand the dangerous temptations to which I shall be exposed from the magnitude of the power which it has been the pleasure of the people to commit to my hands not to place my chief confidence upon the aid of that Almighty Power which has hitherto protected me and enabled me to bring to favorable issues other important but still greatly inferior trusts heretofore confided to me by my country. Harrison promised to re-establish the Bank of the United States and extend its capacity for credit by issuing paper currency in Henry Clay's American system. He intended to rely on the judgment of Congress in legislative matters, using his veto power only if an act were unconstitutional, and to reverse Jackson's spoils system of executive patronage. He promised to use patronage to create a qualified staff, not to enhance his own standing in government, and under no circumstance would he run for a second term. He condemned the financial excesses of the prior administration and pledged not to interfere with congressional financial policy. All in all, Harrison committed to a weak presidency, deferring to "the First Branch", the Congress, in keeping with Whig principles.
He addressed the nation's already hotly debated issue of slavery. As a slaveholder himself, Harrison agreed with the right of states to control the matter:
The lines, too, separating powers to be exercised by the citizens of one state from those of another seem to be so distinctly drawn as to leave no room for misunderstanding…The attempt of those of one state to control the domestic institutions of another can only result in feelings of distrust and jealousy, the certain harbingers of disunion, violence, and civil war, and the ultimate destruction of our free institutions.
When about to conclude his remarks, he incorporated his reliance upon the country's freedom of religion while taking pains to present himself as part of the religious mainstream rather than a dissenter or member of a minority faith:
I deem the present occasion sufficiently important and solemn to justify me in expressing to my fellow-citizens a profound reverence for the Christian religion and a thorough conviction that sound morals, religious liberty, and a just sense of religious responsibility are essentially connected with all true and lasting happiness; and to that good Being who has blessed us by the gifts of civil and religious freedom, who watched over and prospered the labors of our fathers and has hitherto preserved to us institutions far exceeding in excellence those of any other people, let us unite in fervently commending every interest of our beloved country in all future time.
Harrison's lengthy speech offered vague clues about what his presidency would offer to the people of the United States. He declared he would only serve for one term in office and not abuse his veto power. Harrison was against devising financial schemes for the nation; rather, he left that wholly to Congress. He was against agitating the Southern United States on the slavery question. He did not discuss the tariff and distribution. He said little of the national bank, except he mentioned he was open to paper money, rather than metallic currency. Harrison's concept of the presidency was very limited. This followed closely with Harrison's Whig political ideology.
Following the speech, he rode through the streets in the inaugural parade, stood in a three-hour receiving line at the White House, and attended three inaugural balls that evening, including one at Carusi's Saloon entitled the "Tippecanoe" ball with 1,000 guests who had paid $10 per person (equal to $371 in 2025).
=== The press of patronage ===
Clay was a leader of the Whigs and a powerful legislator, as well as a frustrated presidential candidate in his own right, and he expected to have substantial influence in the Harrison administration. He ignored his own platform plank of overturning the "spoils" system and attempted to influence Harrison's actions before and during his brief presidency, especially in putting forth his own preferences for Cabinet offices and other presidential appointments. Harrison rebuffed his aggression, saying, "Mr. Clay, you forget that I am the President." The dispute escalated when Harrison named as Secretary of State Daniel Webster, Clay's arch-rival for control of the Whig Party. Harrison also appeared to give Webster's supporters some highly coveted patronage positions. His sole concession to Clay was to name his protégé John J. Crittenden to the post of Attorney General. Despite this, the contretemps continued until the president's death.
Clay was not the only one who hoped to benefit from Harrison's election. Hordes of office applicants came to the White House, which was then open to any who wanted a meeting with the president. Most of Harrison's business during his month-long presidency involved extensive social obligations and receiving visitors at the White House. He was advised to have an administration in place before the inauguration but declined, wanting to focus on the festivities. As such, job seekers awaited him at all hours and filled the Executive Mansion, with no process for organizing and vetting them.
Harrison wrote in a letter dated March 10, "I am so much harassed by the multitude that calls upon me that I can give no proper attention to any business of my own." U.S. Marshal of the District of Columbia Alexander Hunter recalled an incident in which Harrison was besieged by office seekers who were preventing him from getting to a cabinet meeting; when his pleas for their consideration were ignored, Harrison finally "accepted their petitions, which filled his arms and pockets". Another anecdote of the time recounted that the halls were so full one afternoon that in order to get from one room to the next, Harrison had to be helped out a window, walked the length of the White House exterior, and then helped in through another window.
Harrison took seriously his pledge to reform executive appointments, visiting each of the six cabinet departments to observe its operations and issuing through Webster an order that electioneering by employees would be considered grounds for dismissal. He resisted pressure from other Whigs over partisan patronage. A group arrived in his office on March 16 to demand the removal of all Democrats from any appointed office, and Harrison proclaimed, "So help me God, I will resign my office before I can be guilty of such an iniquity!" His own cabinet attempted to countermand his appointment of John Chambers as Governor of the Iowa Territory in favor of Webster's friend James Wilson. Webster attempted to press this decision at a March 25 cabinet meeting, and Harrison asked him to read aloud a handwritten note, which said simply "William Henry Harrison, President of the United States". Harrison then stood and declared: "William Henry Harrison, President of the United States, tells you, gentlemen, that, by God, John Chambers shall be governor of Iowa!"
Harrison's only other official decision of consequence was whether to call Congress into a special session. He and Clay had disagreed over the necessity of such a session, and Harrison's cabinet proved evenly divided, so the president initially vetoed the idea. Clay pressed him on the special session on March 13, but Harrison rebuffed him and told him not to visit the White House again, to address him only in writing. A few days later, however, Treasury Secretary Thomas Ewing reported to Harrison that federal funds were in such trouble that the government could not continue to operate until Congress's regularly scheduled session in December; Harrison thus relented, and proclaimed the special session on March 17, in the interests of "the condition of the revenue and finance of the country". The session would have begun on May 31 as scheduled if Harrison had lived.
== Death and funeral ==
Harrison had been physically exhausted by the constant stream of office seekers and a demanding social schedule. He also frequently ignored the cold late-winter weather, often going out without wearing appropriate clothing, perhaps weakening his immune system. After delivering a two-hour inaugural address in the rain on March 4 without a hat or coat, Harrison continued to expose himself to the elements. Three weeks later on March 24, 1841, Harrison took his daily morning walk to local markets, again without a coat or hat. Despite being caught in a sudden rainstorm, he did not change his wet clothes upon returning to the White House. On March 26, Harrison became ill with cold-like symptoms and sent for his doctor, Thomas Miller, though he told the doctor he felt better after having taken medication for "fatigue and mental anxiety". The next day, Saturday, the doctor was called again, and arrived to find Harrison in bed with a "severe chill", after taking another early morning walk. Miller applied mustard plaster to his stomach and gave him a mild laxative, and he felt better that afternoon. At 4:00 a.m. March 28, Harrison developed severe pain in the side and the doctor initiated bloodletting; the procedure was terminated when there was a drop in his pulse rate. Miller also applied heated cups to the president's skin to enhance blood flow. The doctor then gave him castor oil and medicines to induce vomiting, and diagnosed him with pneumonia in the right lung. A team of doctors was called in Monday, March 29, and they confirmed right lower lobe pneumonia. Harrison was then administered laudanum, opium, and camphor, along with wine and brandy.
No official announcements were made concerning Harrison's illness, which fueled public speculation and concern the longer he remained out of public view. Washington society had noticed his uncharacteristic absence from church on Sunday. Conflicting and unconfirmed newspaper reports were based on leaks by people with contacts in the White House. A Washington paper reported on April 1, that Harrison's health was decidedly better. In fact, Harrison's condition had seriously weakened, and Cabinet members and family were summoned to the White House—his wife Anna had remained in Ohio due to her own illness. According to papers in Washington on Friday, Harrison had rallied, despite a Baltimore Sun report that his condition was of a "more dangerous character". A reporter for the New York Commercial indicated that "the country's people were deeply distressed and many of them in tears."
During the evening of April 3, Harrison developed severe diarrhea and became delirious, and at 8:30 p.m. he uttered his last words, to his attending doctor, assumed to be for Vice President John Tyler: "Sir, I wish you to understand the true principles of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more." Harrison died at 12:30 a.m. on April 4, 1841, nine days after becoming ill and exactly one month after taking the oath of office; he was the first president to die in office. His wife Anna was still in Ohio packing for the trip to Washington when learning of him dying. She never moved into the White House. Their daughter-in-law Jane Irwin Harrison, the widow of William Henry Harrison Jr., had served as hostess of the White House in Anna's place while Harrison was president.
The prevailing theory at the time was that his illness had been caused by the bad weather at his inauguration three weeks earlier. Jane McHugh and Philip A. Mackowiak did an analysis in Clinical Infectious Diseases (2014), examining Miller's notes and records showing that the White House water supply was downstream of public sewage, and they concluded that he likely died of septic shock due to "enteric fever" (typhoid or paratyphoid fever).
A 30-day period of mourning commenced following the president's death. The White House hosted various public ceremonies, modeled after European royal funeral practices. An invitation-only funeral service was also held on April 7 in the East Room of the White House, after which Harrison's coffin was brought to Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., where it was placed in the Public Vault. Solomon Northup gave an account of the procession in Twelve Years a Slave:
The next day there was a great pageant in Washington. The roar of cannon and the tolling of bells filled the air, while many houses were shrouded with crape, and the streets were black with people. As the day advanced, the procession made its appearance, coming slowly through the Avenue, carriage after carriage, in long succession, while thousands upon thousands followed on foot—all moving to the sound of melancholy music. They were bearing the dead body of Harrison to the grave…. I remember distinctly how the window glass would break and rattle to the ground, after each report of the cannon they were firing in the burial ground.
That June, Harrison's body was transported by train and river barge to North Bend, Ohio, and he was buried on July 7 at the summit of Mt. Nebo, which is now the William Henry Harrison Tomb State Memorial.
=== Tyler's accession to office ===
On April 5, Fletcher Webster, the son of Secretary of State Daniel Webster, notified Tyler that Harrison had died in office. Tyler had been visiting family in Williamsburg and returned to Washington on the morning of April 6. That same day, Tyler was sworn into office in front of Harrison's cabinet, officially beginning his presidency. On April 9, Tyler gave a brief inaugural address. In his address to the nation, Tyler did not give any personal consolation to Harrison's widow Anna or family members. Tyler did compliment Harrison by saying Harrison had been elected for a "great work" of purging the federal government of corruption. Tyler and his family moved into the White House one week after Harrison's funeral, before Harrison's 30-day mourning period was over. The White House state rooms were still hung with black mourning crêpe.
=== Impact of Harrison's death ===
Harrison's death called attention to an ambiguity in Article II, Section 1, Clause 6, of the Constitution regarding succession to the presidency. The Constitution specifically provided for the vice president to take over the "Powers and Duties of the said Office" in the event of a president's removal, death, resignation, or inability, but it was unclear whether the vice president formally became president of the United States, or simply temporarily assumed the powers and duties of that office, in a case of succession.
Harrison's cabinet insisted that Tyler was "Vice President acting as President". Tyler was resolute in his claim to the title of President and in his determination to exercise the full powers of the presidency. The cabinet consulted with Chief Justice Roger Taney and decided that, if Tyler took the presidential oath of office, he would assume the office of president. Tyler obliged and was sworn into office on April 6, 1841. Congress convened, and on May 31, 1841, after a short period of debate in both houses, passed a joint resolution, which confirmed Tyler as president for the remainder of Harrison's term. This succession became the Tyler Precedent, which was followed on seven occasions when an incumbent president died prior to being written into the Constitution in 1967 through Section One of the Twenty-fifth Amendment.
== Legacy ==
=== Historical reputation ===
Among Harrison's most enduring legacies is the series of treaties that he negotiated and signed with Indian leaders during his tenure as the Indiana territorial governor. As part of the treaty negotiations, the tribes ceded large tracts of land in the west which provided additional acreage for purchase and settlement by the nation.
Harrison's long-term impact on American politics includes his campaigning methods, which laid the foundation for modern presidential campaign tactics. Harrison died nearly penniless, and Congress voted his wife Anna a presidential widow's pension of $25,000, one year of Harrison's salary (equivalent to about $780,000 in 2025). She also received the right to mail letters free of charge.
Freehling refers to Harrison as "the most dominant figure in the evolution of the Northwest territories into the Upper Midwest today". Harrison, age 68 at the time of his inauguration, was the oldest person to assume the U.S. presidency, a distinction he held until 1981, when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated at age 69.
Harrison's son John Scott Harrison represented Ohio in the House of Representatives between 1853 and 1857. Harrison's grandson Benjamin Harrison of Indiana served as the 23rd president from 1889 to 1893, making William and Benjamin Harrison the only grandparent-grandchild pair of presidents.
=== Honors and tributes ===
Various monuments and memorial statues have been erected in tribute to Harrison. There are public statues of him in downtown Indianapolis, Cincinnati's Piatt Park, the Tippecanoe County Courthouse, Harrison County, Indiana, and Owen County, Indiana. Numerous counties and towns also bear his name.
The village of North Bend, Ohio, honors Harrison every year with a parade to celebrate his birthday. The Gen. William Henry Harrison Headquarters in Franklinton, Ohio, commemorates him. The house was his military headquarters from 1813 to 1814. On February 19, 2009, the United States Mint released the ninth coin in the Presidential $1 Coin Program, bearing Harrison's likeness. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher | Margaret Thatcher | Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (née Roberts; 13 October 1925 – 8 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to hold the position. As prime minister, she implemented policies that came to be known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady," a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style.
Thatcher studied chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, and worked briefly as a research chemist before becoming a barrister. She was elected Member of Parliament for Finchley in 1959. Edward Heath appointed her secretary of state for education and science in his 1970–1974 government. In 1975, she defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election to become leader of the opposition, the first woman to lead a major political party in the UK.
On becoming prime minister after winning the 1979 general election, Thatcher introduced a series of economic policies intended to reverse high inflation and Britain's struggles in the wake of the Winter of Discontent and an oncoming recession. Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasized greater individual liberty, the privatisation of state-owned companies, and reducing the power and influence of trade unions. Her popularity in her first years in office waned amid the recession and rising unemployment. Victory in the 1982 Falklands War and the recovering economy brought a resurgence of support, resulting in her landslide re-election in 1983. She survived an assassination attempt by the Provisional IRA in the 1984 Brighton hotel bombing and achieved a political victory against the National Union of Mineworkers in the 1984–85 miners' strike. In 1986, Thatcher oversaw the deregulation of UK financial markets, leading to an economic boom, in what came to be known as the Big Bang.
Thatcher was re-elected for a third term with another landslide in 1987, but her subsequent support for the Community Charge (also known as the "poll tax") was widely unpopular, and her increasingly Eurosceptic views on the European Community were not shared by others in her cabinet. She resigned as prime minister and party leader in 1990, after a challenge was launched to her leadership, and was succeeded by John Major, her chancellor of the Exchequer. After retiring from the Commons in 1992, she was given a life peerage as Baroness Thatcher (of Kesteven in the County of Lincolnshire) which entitled her to sit in the House of Lords. In 2013, she died of a stroke at the Ritz Hotel, London, at the age of 87.
A polarizing figure in British politics, Thatcher is nonetheless viewed favourably in historical rankings and public opinion of British prime ministers. Her tenure constituted a realignment towards neoliberal policies in Britain; the complex legacy attributed to this shift continues to be debated into the 21st century.
== Early life and education ==
=== Family and childhood (1925–1943) ===
Margaret Hilda Roberts was born on 13 October 1925 in Grantham, Lincolnshire. Her parents were Alfred Roberts (1892–1970), from Northamptonshire, and Beatrice Ethel Stephenson (1888–1960), from Lincolnshire. Her father's maternal grandmother, Catherine Sullivan, was born in County Kerry, Ireland.
Roberts spent her childhood in Grantham, where her father owned a tobacconist's and a grocery shop. In 1938, before the Second World War, the Roberts family briefly gave sanctuary to a teenage Jewish girl who had escaped Nazi Germany. With her pen-friending elder sister Muriel, Margaret saved pocket money to help pay for the teenager's journey.
Alfred was an alderman and a Methodist local preacher. He brought up his daughter as a strict Wesleyan Methodist, attending the Finkin Street Methodist Church, but Margaret was more sceptical; the future scientist told a friend that she could not believe in angels, having calculated that they needed a breastbone 6 feet (1.8 m) long to support wings. Alfred came from a Liberal family but stood (as was then customary in local government) as an Independent. He served as Mayor of Grantham from 1945 to 1946 and lost his position as alderman in 1952 after the Labour Party won its first majority on Grantham Council in 1950.
Roberts attended Huntingtower Road Primary School and won a scholarship to Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School, a grammar school. Her school reports showed hard work and continual improvement; her extracurricular activities included the piano, field hockey, poetry recitals, swimming and walking. She was head girl in 1942–43, and outside school, while the Second World War was ongoing, she voluntarily worked as a fire watcher in the local ARP service. Other students thought of Roberts as the "star scientist", although mistaken advice regarding cleaning ink from parquetry almost caused chlorine gas poisoning. In her upper sixth year, Roberts was accepted for a scholarship to study chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, a women's college, starting in 1944. After another candidate withdrew, Roberts entered Oxford in October 1943.
=== Oxford (1943–1947) ===
Following her arrival at Oxford, Roberts began studies under X-ray crystallographer Dorothy Hodgkin, the tutor in chemistry for Somerville College since 1934. Hodgkin considered Roberts a "good" student, and later recalled that "[o]ne could always rely on her producing a sensible, well-read essay". She opted to read for a classified honours degree, entailing an additional year of supervised research. As her thesis supervisor, Hodgkin assigned Roberts to work with Gerhard Schmidt, a researcher in Hodgkin's lab, to determine the structure of the antibiotic peptide gramicidin S. Although the research made some progress, the peptide's structure proved more complex than anticipated, and Schmidt would only determine its full structure much later; Roberts (by then Thatcher) learned this in the 1960s while visiting the Weizmann Institute, where her former research partner was then working.
Roberts graduated in 1947 with a second-class honours degree in chemistry, and in 1950 also received the degree of Master of Arts (as an Oxford BA, she was entitled to the degree 21 terms after her matriculation). Although Hodgkin would later be critical of her former student's politics, they continued to correspond into the 1980s, and Roberts in her memoirs would describe her mentor as "ever-helpful", "a brilliant scientist and a gifted teacher". As prime minister, she would keep a portrait of Hodgkin at 10 Downing Street. Later in life, she was reportedly prouder of becoming the first prime minister with a science degree than becoming the first female prime minister. While prime minister, she attempted to preserve Somerville as a women's college. Twice a week outside study, she worked in a local forces canteen.
During her time at Oxford, Roberts was noted for her isolated and serious attitude. Her first boyfriend, Tony Bray (1926–2014), recalled that she was "very thoughtful and a very good conversationalist. That's probably what interested me. She was good at general subjects".
She was a member of Wesley Memorial Church, became a lay preacher and joined the John Wesley Society. She also attended Somerville College Chapel and St Mary's.
Roberts's coursework involved subjects beyond chemistry as she was already contemplating an entry into law and politics. Her enthusiasm for politics as a girl made Bray think of her as "unusual" and her parents as "slightly austere" and "very proper". Roberts became President of the Oxford University Conservative Association in 1946. She was influenced at university by political works such as Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (1944), which condemned economic intervention by government as a precursor to an authoritarian state.
=== Post-Oxford career (1947–1951) ===
After graduating, Roberts secured a position as a research chemist for British Xylonite (BX Plastics) following a series of interviews arranged by Oxford; she subsequently moved to Colchester in Essex to work at the firm. Little is known about her brief time there. By her own account, she was initially enthusiastic about the position, as she had been intended to function as a personal assistant to the company's head of research and development, providing opportunities to learn about operations management: "But on my arrival it was decided that there was not enough to do in that capacity." Instead, she seems to have researched methods of attaching polyvinyl chloride (PVC) to metals. While with the firm, she joined the Association of Scientific Workers. In 1948, she applied for a job at Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) but was rejected after the personnel department assessed her as "headstrong, obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated". Jon Agar in Notes and Records argues that her understanding of modern scientific research later impacted her views as prime minister.
Roberts joined the local Conservative Association and attended the party conference at Llandudno, Wales, in 1948, as a representative of the University Graduate Conservative Association. Meanwhile, she became a high-ranking affiliate of the Vermin Club, a group of grassroots Conservatives formed in response to a derogatory comment made by Aneurin Bevan. One of her Oxford friends was also a friend of the Chair of the Dartford Conservative Association in Kent, who were looking for candidates. Officials of the association were so impressed by her that they asked her to apply, even though she was not on the party's approved list; she was selected in January 1950 (aged 24) and added to the approved list post ante.
At a dinner following her formal adoption as Conservative candidate for Dartford in February 1949, she met divorcé Denis Thatcher, a successful and wealthy businessman, who drove her to her Essex train. After their first meeting, she described him to Muriel as "not a very attractive creature – very reserved but quite nice". In preparation for the election, Roberts moved to Dartford, while she supported herself by working as a research chemist for J. Lyons and Co. in Hammersmith, reportedly as part of a team developing emulsifiers for ice cream. As the work was more theoretical in nature than during her prior role with BX Plastics, Roberts found it "more satisfying". While at Lyons, she worked under the supervision of Hans Jellinek, who headed the company's physical chemistry section. Jellinek assigned her to research the saponification of α-monostearin (glycerol monostearate), which has properties as an emulsifier, stabiliser and food preservative. Agar has noted the research may have been connected with the emulsification of ice cream, but only as a possibility. In September 1951, their research was published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, a recently launched publication of the Society of Chemical Industry, as "The saponification of α-monostearin in a monolayer". This would be Roberts's sole scientific publication. In 1979, following his former assistant's election as prime minister, Jellinek, by then a professor of physical chemistry at Clarkson University in the United States, said she had done "a very good job" on the project, "showing great determination". She sent Jellinek a congratulatory letter upon his retirement in 1984, and another letter shortly before his death two years later.
Roberts married at Wesley's Chapel and her children were baptised there, but she and her husband began attending Church of England services and would later convert to Anglicanism.
== Early political career ==
In the 1950 and 1951 general elections, Roberts was the Conservative candidate for the Labour seat of Dartford. The local party selected her as its candidate because, though not a dynamic public speaker, Roberts was well-prepared and fearless in her answers. A prospective candidate, Bill Deedes, recalled: "Once she opened her mouth, the rest of us began to look rather second-rate." She attracted media attention as the youngest and the only female candidate; in 1950, she was the youngest Conservative candidate in the country. She lost on both occasions to Norman Dodds but reduced the Labour majority by 6,000 and then a further 1,000. During the campaigns, she was supported by her parents and by her future husband Denis Thatcher, whom she married in December 1951. She trained at the Inns of Court School of Law (now part of The City Law School) and qualified as a barrister in 1953 (specialising in taxation). Denis funded his wife's studies for the bar. Later that same year, their twins Carol and Mark were born, delivered prematurely by Caesarean section.
=== Member of Parliament (1959–1970) ===
In 1954, Thatcher was defeated when she sought selection to be the Conservative Party candidate for the Orpington by-election of January 1955. She chose not to stand as a candidate in the 1955 general election, in later years, stating: "I really just felt the twins were [...] only two, I really felt that it was too soon. I couldn't do that." Afterwards, Thatcher began looking for a Conservative safe seat and was selected as the candidate for Finchley in April 1958 (narrowly beating Ian Montagu Fraser). She was elected as MP for the seat after a hard campaign in the 1959 election. Benefiting from her fortunate result in a lottery for backbenchers to propose new legislation, Thatcher's maiden speech was, unusually, in support of her private member's bill, the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960, requiring local authorities to hold their council meetings in public; the bill was successful and became law. In 1961 she went against the Conservative Party's official position by voting for the restoration of birching as a judicial corporal punishment.
==== On the frontbenches ====
Thatcher's talent and drive caused her to be mentioned as a future prime minister in her early 20s although she herself was more pessimistic, stating as late as 1970: "There will not be a woman prime minister in my lifetime – the male population is too prejudiced." In October 1961 she was promoted to the frontbench as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry for Pensions by Harold Macmillan. Thatcher was the youngest woman in history to receive such a post, and among the first MPs elected in 1959 to be promoted. After the Conservatives lost the 1964 election, she became spokeswoman on housing and land. In that position, she advocated her party's policy of giving tenants the right to buy their council houses. She moved to the Shadow Treasury team in 1966 and, as Treasury spokeswoman, opposed Labour's mandatory price and income controls, arguing they would unintentionally produce effects that would distort the economy.
Jim Prior suggested Thatcher as a Shadow Cabinet member after the Conservatives' 1966 defeat, but party leader Edward Heath and Chief Whip William Whitelaw eventually chose Mervyn Pike as the Conservative shadow cabinet's sole woman member. At the 1966 Conservative Party conference, Thatcher criticised the high-tax policies of the Labour government as being steps "not only towards Socialism, but towards Communism", arguing that lower taxes served as an incentive to hard work. Thatcher was one of the few Conservative MPs to support Leo Abse's bill to decriminalise male homosexuality. She voted in favour of David Steel's bill to legalise abortion, as well as a ban on hare coursing. She supported the retention of capital punishment and voted against the relaxation of divorce laws.
==== In the Shadow Cabinet ====
In 1967, the United States Embassy chose Thatcher to take part in the International Visitor Leadership Program (then called the Foreign Leader Program), a professional exchange programme that allowed her to spend about six weeks visiting various US cities and political figures as well as institutions such as the International Monetary Fund. Although she was not yet a Shadow Cabinet member, the embassy reportedly described her to the State Department as a possible future prime minister. The description helped Thatcher meet with prominent people during a busy itinerary focused on economic issues, including Paul Samuelson, Walt Rostow, Pierre-Paul Schweitzer and Nelson Rockefeller. Following the visit, Heath appointed Thatcher to the Shadow Cabinet as fuel and power spokeswoman. Before the 1970 general election, she was promoted to shadow transport spokeswoman and later to education.
In 1968, Enoch Powell delivered his "Rivers of Blood" speech in which he strongly criticised Commonwealth immigration to the United Kingdom and the then-proposed Race Relations Bill. When Heath telephoned Thatcher to inform her that he would sack Powell from the Shadow Cabinet, she recalled that she "really thought that it was better to let things cool down for the present rather than heighten the crisis". She believed that his main points about Commonwealth immigration were correct and that the selected quotations from his speech had been taken out of context. In a 1991 interview for Today, Thatcher stated that she thought Powell had "made a valid argument, if in sometimes regrettable terms".
Around this time, she gave her first Commons speech as a shadow transport minister and highlighted the need for investment in British Rail. She argued: "[I]f we build bigger and better roads, they would soon be saturated with more vehicles and we would be no nearer solving the problem." Thatcher made her first visit to the Soviet Union in the summer of 1969 as the Opposition transport spokeswoman, and in October, delivered a speech celebrating her ten years in Parliament. In early 1970, she told The Finchley Press that she would like to see a "reversal of the permissive society".
=== Education Secretary (1970–1974) ===
The Conservative Party, led by Edward Heath, won the 1970 general election, and Thatcher was appointed to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Education and Science. Thatcher caused controversy when, after only a few days in office, she withdrew Labour's Circular 10/65, which attempted to force comprehensivisation, without going through a consultation process. She was highly criticised for the speed at which she carried this out. Consequently, she drafted her own new policy (Circular 10/70), which ensured that local authorities were not forced to go comprehensive. Her new policy was not meant to stop the development of new comprehensives; she said: "We shall [...] expect plans to be based on educational considerations rather than on the comprehensive principle."
Thatcher supported Lord Rothschild's 1971 proposal for market forces to affect government funding of research. Although many scientists opposed the proposal, her research background probably made her sceptical of their claim that outsiders should not interfere with funding. The department evaluated proposals for more local education authorities to close grammar schools and to adopt comprehensive secondary education. Although Thatcher was committed to a tiered secondary modern-grammar school system of education and attempted to preserve grammar schools, during her tenure as education secretary, she turned down only 326 of 3,612 proposals (roughly 9 per cent) for schools to become comprehensives; the proportion of pupils attending comprehensive schools consequently rose from 32 per cent to 62 per cent. Nevertheless, she managed to save 94 grammar schools.
During her first months in office, she attracted public attention due to the government's attempts to cut spending. She gave priority to academic needs in schools, while administering public expenditure cuts on the state education system, resulting in the abolition of free milk for schoolchildren aged seven to eleven. She held that few children would suffer if schools were charged for milk but agreed to provide younger children with 0.3 imperial pints (0.17 L) daily for nutritional purposes. She also argued that she was simply carrying on with what the Labour government had started since they had stopped giving free milk to secondary schools. Milk would still be provided to those children that required it on medical grounds, and schools could still sell milk. The aftermath of the milk row hardened her determination; she told the editor-proprietor Harold Creighton of The Spectator: "Don't underestimate me, I saw how they broke Keith [Joseph], but they won't break me."
Cabinet papers later revealed that she opposed the policy but had been forced into it by the Treasury. Her decision provoked a storm of protest from Labour and the press, leading to her being notoriously nicknamed "Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher". She reportedly considered leaving politics in the aftermath and later wrote in her autobiography: "I learned a valuable lesson. I had incurred the maximum of political odium for the minimum of political benefit."
=== Leader of the Opposition (1975–1979) ===
The Heath government continued to experience difficulties with oil embargoes and union demands for wage increases in 1973, subsequently losing the February 1974 general election. Labour formed a minority government and went on to win a narrow majority in the October 1974 general election. Heath's leadership of the Conservative Party looked increasingly in doubt. Thatcher was not initially seen as the obvious replacement, but she eventually became the main challenger, promising a fresh start. Her main support came from the parliamentary 1922 Committee and The Spectator, but Thatcher's time in office gave her the reputation of a pragmatist rather than that of an ideologue. She defeated Heath on the first ballot, and he resigned from the leadership. In the second ballot she defeated Whitelaw, Heath's preferred successor. Thatcher's election had a polarising effect on the party; her support was stronger among MPs on the right, and also among those from southern England, and those who had not attended public schools or Oxbridge.
Thatcher became Conservative Party leader and Leader of the Opposition on 11 February 1975; she appointed Whitelaw as her deputy. Heath was never reconciled to Thatcher's leadership of the party.
Television critic Clive James, writing in The Observer prior to her election as Conservative Party leader, compared her voice of 1973 to "a cat sliding down a blackboard". Thatcher had already begun to work on her presentation on the advice of Gordon Reece, a former television producer. By chance, Reece met the actor Laurence Olivier, who arranged lessons with the National Theatre's voice coach.
Thatcher began attending lunches regularly at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a think tank founded by Hayekian poultry magnate Antony Fisher; she had been visiting the IEA and reading its publications since the early 1960s. There she was influenced by the ideas of Ralph Harris and Arthur Seldon and became the face of the ideological movement opposing the British welfare state. Keynesian economics, they believed, was weakening Britain. The institute's pamphlets proposed less government, lower taxes, and more freedom for business and consumers.
Thatcher intended to promote neoliberal economic ideas at home and abroad. Despite setting the direction of her foreign policy for a Conservative government, Thatcher was distressed by her repeated failure to shine in the House of Commons. Consequently, Thatcher decided that as "her voice was carrying little weight at home", she would "be heard in the wider world". Thatcher undertook visits across the Atlantic, establishing an international profile and promoting her economic and foreign policies. She toured the United States in 1975 and met President Gerald Ford, visiting again in 1977, when she met President Jimmy Carter. Among other foreign trips, she met Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi during a visit to Iran in 1978. Thatcher chose to travel without being accompanied by her shadow foreign secretary, Reginald Maudling, in an attempt to make a bolder personal impact.
In domestic affairs, Thatcher opposed Scottish devolution (home rule) and the creation of a Scottish Assembly. She instructed Conservative MPs to vote against the Scotland and Wales Bill in December 1976, which was successfully defeated, and then when new Bills were proposed, she supported amending the legislation to allow the English to vote in the 1979 referendum on Scottish devolution.
Britain's economy during the 1970s was so weak that then Foreign Secretary James Callaghan warned his fellow Labour Cabinet members in 1974 of the possibility of "a breakdown of democracy", telling them: "If I were a young man, I would emigrate." In mid-1978, the economy began to recover, and opinion polls showed Labour in the lead, with a general election being expected later that year and a Labour win a serious possibility. Now prime minister, Callaghan surprised many by announcing on 7 September that there would be no general election that year and that he would wait until 1979 before going to the polls. Thatcher reacted to this by branding the Labour government "chickens", and Liberal Party leader David Steel joined in, criticising Labour for "running scared".
The Labour government then faced fresh public unease about the direction of the country and a damaging series of strikes during the winter of 1978–79, dubbed the "Winter of Discontent". The Conservatives attacked the Labour government's unemployment record, using advertising with the slogan "Labour Isn't Working". A general election was called after the Callaghan ministry lost a motion of no confidence in early 1979. The Conservatives won a 44-seat majority in the House of Commons, and Thatcher became the first female British prime minister.
==== "Iron Lady" ====
I stand before you tonight in my Red Star chiffon evening gown, my face softly made up and my fair hair gently waved, the Iron Lady of the Western world.
In 1976, Thatcher gave her "Britain Awake" foreign policy speech which lambasted the Soviet Union, saying it was "bent on world dominance". The Soviet Army journal Red Star reported her stance in a piece headlined "Iron Lady Raises Fears", alluding to her remarks on the Iron Curtain. The Sunday Times covered the Red Star article the next day, and Thatcher embraced the epithet a week later; in a speech to Finchley Conservatives she likened it to the Duke of Wellington's nickname "Iron Duke". The "Iron" metaphor followed her throughout the rest of her career, and would become a generic sobriquet for other strong-willed female politicians.
== Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1979–1990) ==
Thatcher became prime minister on 4 May 1979. Arriving at Downing Street she said, paraphrasing the Prayer of Saint Francis:
In office throughout the 1980s, Thatcher was frequently referred to as the most powerful woman in the world.
=== Domestic affairs ===
==== Minorities ====
Thatcher was the Opposition leader and prime minister at a time of increased racial tension in Britain. During the 1977 local elections, The Economist commented: "The Tory tide swamped the smaller parties – specifically the National Front [NF], which suffered a clear decline from last year." Her standing in the polls had risen by 11% after a 1978 interview for World in Action in which she said "the British character has done so much for democracy, for law and done so much throughout the world that if there is any fear that it might be swamped people are going to react and be rather hostile to those coming in", as well as "in many ways [minorities] add to the richness and variety of this country. The moment the minority threatens to become a big one, people get frightened". In the 1979 general election, the Conservatives had attracted votes from the NF, whose support almost collapsed. In a July 1979 meeting with Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington and Home Secretary William Whitelaw, Thatcher objected to the number of Asian immigrants, in the context of limiting the total of Vietnamese boat people allowed to settle in the UK to fewer than 10,000 over two years.
==== The Queen ====
As prime minister, Thatcher met weekly with Queen Elizabeth II to discuss government business, and their relationship came under scrutiny. Campbell (2011a, p. 464) states:
One question that continued to fascinate the public about the phenomenon of a woman Prime Minister was how she got on with the Queen. The answer is that their relations were punctiliously correct, but there was little love lost on either side. As two women of very similar age – Mrs Thatcher was six months older – occupying parallel positions at the top of the social pyramid, one the head of government, the other head of state, they were bound to be in some sense rivals. Mrs Thatcher's attitude to the Queen was ambivalent. On the one hand she had an almost mystical reverence for the institution of the monarchy [...] Yet at the same time she was trying to modernise the country and sweep away many of the values and practices which the monarchy perpetuated.
Michael Shea, the Queen's press secretary, in 1986 leaked stories of a deep rift to The Sunday Times. He said that she felt Thatcher's policies were "uncaring, confrontational and socially divisive". Thatcher later wrote: "I always found the Queen's attitude towards the work of the Government absolutely correct [...] stories of clashes between 'two powerful women' were just too good not to make up."
==== Economy and taxation ====
Thatcher's economic policy was influenced by monetarist thinking and economists such as Milton Friedman and Alan Walters. Together with her first chancellor, Geoffrey Howe, she lowered direct taxes on income and increased indirect taxes. She increased interest rates to slow the growth of the money supply, and thereby lower inflation; introduced cash limits on public spending and reduced expenditure on social services such as education and housing. Cuts to higher education led to Thatcher being the first Oxonian post-war prime minister without an honorary doctorate from Oxford University after a 738–319 vote of the governing assembly and a student petition.
Some Heathite Conservatives in the Cabinet, the so-called "wets", expressed doubt over Thatcher's policies. The 1981 England riots resulted in the British media discussing the need for a policy U-turn. At the 1980 Conservative Party conference, Thatcher addressed the issue directly with a speech written by the playwright Ronald Millar, that notably included the following lines:To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the "U" turn, I have only one thing to say. "You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning."
Thatcher's job approval rating fell to 23% by December 1980, lower than recorded for any previous prime minister. As the recession of the early 1980s deepened, she increased taxes, despite concerns expressed in a March 1981 statement signed by 364 leading economists, which argued there was "no basis in economic theory [...] for the Government's belief that by deflating demand they will bring inflation permanently under control", adding that "present policies will deepen the depression, erode the industrial base of our economy and threaten its social and political stability".
By 1982, the UK began to experience signs of economic recovery; inflation was down to 8.6% from a high of 18%, but unemployment was over 3 million for the first time since the 1930s. By 1983, overall economic growth was stronger, and inflation and mortgage rates had fallen to their lowest levels in 13 years, although manufacturing employment as a share of total employment fell to just over 30%, with total unemployment remaining high, peaking at 3.3 million in 1984.
During the 1982 Conservative Party Conference, Thatcher said: "We have done more to roll back the frontiers of socialism than any previous Conservative Government." She said at the Party Conference the following year that the British people had completely rejected state socialism and understood "the state has no source of money other than money which people earn themselves [...] There is no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers' money."
By 1987, unemployment was falling, the economy was stable and strong, and inflation was low. Opinion polls showed a comfortable Conservative lead, and local council election results had also been successful, prompting Thatcher to call a general election for 11 June that year, despite the deadline for an election still being 12 months away. The election saw Thatcher re-elected for a third successive term.
Thatcher had been firmly opposed to British membership of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM, a precursor to European Economic and Monetary Union), believing that it would constrain the British economy, despite the urging of both Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson and Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe; in October 1990 she was persuaded by John Major, Lawson's successor as chancellor, to join the ERM at what proved to be too high a rate.
Thatcher reformed local government taxes by replacing domestic rates (a tax based on the nominal rental value of a home) with the Community Charge (or poll tax) in which the same amount was charged to each adult resident. The new tax was introduced in Scotland in 1989 and in England and Wales the following year, and proved to be among the most unpopular policies of her premiership. Public disquiet culminated in a 70,000 to 200,000-strong demonstration in London in March 1990; the demonstration around Trafalgar Square deteriorated into riots, leaving 113 people injured and 340 under arrest. The Community Charge was abolished in 1991 by her successor, John Major. It has since transpired that Thatcher herself had failed to register for the tax and was threatened with financial penalties if she did not return her form.
==== Industrial relations ====
Thatcher believed that the trade unions were harmful to both ordinary trade unionists and the public. She was committed to reducing the power of the unions, whose leadership she accused of undermining parliamentary democracy and economic performance through strike action. Several unions launched strikes in response to legislation introduced to limit their power, but resistance eventually collapsed. Only 39% of union members voted Labour in the 1983 general election. According to the BBC's political correspondent in 2004, Thatcher "managed to destroy the power of the trade unions for almost a generation". The miners' strike of 1984–85 was the biggest and most devastating confrontation between the unions and the Thatcher government.
In March 1984, the National Coal Board (NCB) proposed to close 20 of the 174 state-owned mines and cut 20,000 jobs out of 187,000. Two-thirds of the country's miners, led by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) under Arthur Scargill, went on strike in protest. However, Scargill refused to hold a ballot on the strike, having previously lost three ballots on a national strike (in January and October 1982, and March 1983). This led to the strike being declared illegal by the High Court of Justice.
Thatcher refused to meet the union's demands and compared the miners' dispute to the Falklands War, declaring in a speech in 1984: "We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands. We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and more dangerous to liberty." Thatcher's opponents characterised her words as indicating contempt for the working class and have been employed in criticism of her ever since.
After a year out on strike in March 1985, the NUM leadership conceded without a deal. The cost to the economy was estimated to be at least £1.5 billion, and the strike was blamed for much of the pound's fall against the US dollar. Thatcher reflected on the end of the strike in her statement that "if anyone has won", it was "the miners who stayed at work" and all those "that have kept Britain going".
The government closed 25 unprofitable coal mines in 1985, and by 1992 a total of 97 mines had been closed; those that remained were privatised in 1994. The resulting closure of 150 coal mines, some of which were not losing money, resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs and had the effect of devastating entire communities. Strikes had helped bring down Heath's government, and Thatcher was determined to succeed where he had failed. Her strategy of preparing fuel stocks, appointing hardliner Ian MacGregor as NCB leader and ensuring that police were adequately trained and equipped with riot gear contributed to her triumph over the striking miners.
The number of stoppages across the UK peaked at 4,583 in 1979, when more than 29 million working days had been lost. In 1984, the year of the miners' strike, there were 1,221, resulting in the loss of more than 27 million working days. Stoppages then fell steadily throughout the rest of Thatcher's premiership; in 1990, there were 630 and fewer than 2 million working days lost, and they continued to fall thereafter. Thatcher's tenure also witnessed a sharp decline in trade union density, with the percentage of workers belonging to a trade union falling from 57.3% in 1979 to 49.5% in 1985. In 1979 up until Thatcher's final year in office, trade union membership also fell, from 13.5 million in 1979 to fewer than 10 million.
==== Privatisation ====
The policy of privatisation has been called "a crucial ingredient of Thatcherism". After the 1983 election, the sale of state utilities accelerated; more than £29 billion was raised from the sale of nationalised industries, and another £18 billion from the sale of council houses. The process of privatisation, especially the preparation of nationalised industries for privatisation, was associated with marked improvements in performance, particularly in terms of labour productivity.
Some of the privatised industries, including gas, water, and electricity, were natural monopolies for which privatisation involved little increase in competition. The privatised industries that demonstrated improvement sometimes did so while still under state ownership. British Steel Corporation had made great gains in profitability while still a nationalised industry under the government-appointed MacGregor chairmanship, which faced down trade-union opposition to close plants and halve the workforce. Regulation was also significantly expanded to compensate for the loss of direct government control, with the foundation of regulatory bodies such as Oftel (1984), Ofgas (1986), and the National Rivers Authority (1989). There was no clear pattern to the degree of competition, regulation, and performance among the privatised industries.
In most cases, privatisation benefited consumers in terms of lower prices and improved efficiency but results overall have been mixed. Not all privatised companies have had successful share price trajectories in the longer term. A 2010 review by the free-market think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs states: "[I]t does seem to be the case that once competition and/or effective regulation was introduced, performance improved markedly [...] But I hasten to emphasise again that the literature is not unanimous."
Thatcher always resisted privatising British Rail and was said to have told Transport Secretary Nicholas Ridley: "Railway privatisation will be the Waterloo of this government. Please never mention the railways to me again." Shortly before her resignation in 1990, she accepted the arguments for privatisation, which her successor John Major implemented in 1994.
The privatisation of public assets was combined with financial deregulation to fuel economic growth. Chancellor Geoffrey Howe abolished the UK's exchange controls in 1979, which allowed more capital to be invested in foreign markets, and the Big Bang of 1986 removed many restrictions on the London Stock Exchange.
==== Northern Ireland ====
In 1980 and 1981, Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoners in Northern Ireland's Maze Prison carried out hunger strikes to regain the status of political prisoners that had been removed in 1976 by the preceding Labour government. Bobby Sands began the 1981 strike, saying that he would fast until death unless prison inmates won concessions over their living conditions. Thatcher refused to countenance a return to political status for the prisoners, having declared "Crime is crime is crime; it is not political". Nevertheless, the British government privately contacted republican leaders in a bid to bring the hunger strikes to an end. After the deaths of Sands and nine others, the strike ended. Some rights were restored to paramilitary prisoners, but not official recognition of political status. Violence in Northern Ireland escalated significantly during the hunger strikes.
Thatcher narrowly escaped injury in an IRA assassination attempt at a Brighton hotel early in the morning on 12 October 1984. Five people were killed, including the wife of minister John Wakeham. Thatcher was staying at the hotel to prepare for the Conservative Party conference, which she insisted should open as scheduled the following day. She delivered her speech as planned, though rewritten from her original draft, in a move that was supported across the political spectrum and enhanced her popularity with the public.
On 6 November 1981, Thatcher and Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Garret FitzGerald had established the Anglo-Irish Inter-Governmental Council, a forum for meetings between the two governments. On 15 November 1985, Thatcher and FitzGerald signed the Hillsborough Anglo-Irish Agreement, which marked the first time a British government had given the Republic of Ireland an advisory role in the governance of Northern Ireland. In protest, the Ulster Says No movement led by Ian Paisley attracted 100,000 to a rally in Belfast, Ian Gow, later assassinated by the PIRA, resigned as Minister of State in HM Treasury, and all 15 Unionist MPs resigned their parliamentary seats; only one was not returned in the subsequent by-elections on 23 January 1986.
=== Environment ===
Thatcher supported an active climate protection policy; she was instrumental in the passing of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, the founding of the Hadley Centre for Climate Research and Prediction, the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the ratification of the Montreal Protocol on preserving the ozone.
Thatcher helped to put climate change, acid rain and general pollution in the British mainstream in the late 1980s, calling for a global treaty on climate change in 1989. Her speeches included one to the Royal Society in 1988, followed by another to the UN General Assembly in 1989. However, by the 2003 release of her book Statecraft, she had revised her opinion on climate change.
=== Foreign affairs ===
Thatcher appointed Lord Carrington, an ennobled member of the party and former Secretary of State for Defence, to run the Foreign Office in 1979. Although considered a "wet", he avoided domestic affairs and got along well with Thatcher. One issue was what to do with Rhodesia, where the white minority had determined to rule the prosperous, black-majority breakaway colony in the face of overwhelming international criticism. With the 1975 Portuguese collapse in the continent, South Africa (which had been Rhodesia's chief supporter) realised that their ally was a liability; black rule was inevitable, and the Thatcher government brokered a peaceful solution to end the Rhodesian Bush War in December 1979 via the Lancaster House Agreement. The conference at Lancaster House was attended by Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith, as well as by the key black leaders: Muzorewa, Mugabe, Nkomo and Tongogara. The result was the new Zimbabwean nation under black rule in 1980.
==== Cold War ====
Thatcher's first foreign-policy crisis came with the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. She condemned the invasion, said it showed the bankruptcy of a détente policy and helped convince some British athletes to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics. She gave weak support to US president Jimmy Carter who tried to punish the USSR with economic sanctions. Britain's economic situation was precarious, and most of NATO was reluctant to cut trade ties. Thatcher nevertheless gave the go-ahead for Whitehall to approve MI6 (along with the SAS) to undertake "disruptive action" in Afghanistan. As well as working with the CIA in Operation Cyclone, they also supplied weapons, training and intelligence to the mujaheddin.
The Financial Times reported in 2011 that her government had secretly supplied Iraq under Saddam Hussein with "non-lethal" military equipment since 1981.
Having withdrawn formal recognition from the Pol Pot regime in 1979, the Thatcher government backed the Khmer Rouge keeping their UN seat after they were ousted from power in Cambodia by the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. Although Thatcher denied it at the time, it was revealed in 1991 that, while not directly training any Khmer Rouge, from 1983 the Special Air Service (SAS) was sent to secretly train "the armed forces of the Cambodian non-communist resistance" that remained loyal to Prince Norodom Sihanouk and his former prime minister Son Sann in the fight against the Vietnamese-backed puppet regime.
Thatcher was one of the first Western leaders to respond warmly to reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Following Reagan–Gorbachev summit meetings and reforms enacted by Gorbachev in the USSR, she declared in November 1988 that "[w]e're not in a Cold War now" but rather in a "new relationship much wider than the Cold War ever was". She went on a state visit to the Soviet Union in 1984 and met with Gorbachev and Council of Ministers chairman Nikolai Ryzhkov.
==== Ties with the US ====
Despite opposite personalities, Thatcher bonded quickly with US president Ronald Reagan. She gave strong support to the Reagan administration's Cold War policies based on their shared distrust of communism. A sharp disagreement came in 1983 when Reagan did not consult with her on the invasion of Grenada.
During her first year as prime minister, she supported NATO's decision to deploy US nuclear cruise and Pershing II missiles in Western Europe, permitting the US to station more than 160 cruise missiles at RAF Greenham Common, starting in November 1983 and triggering mass protests by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. She bought the Trident nuclear missile submarine system from the US to replace Polaris, tripling the UK's nuclear forces at an eventual cost of more than £12 billion (at 1996–97 prices). Thatcher's preference for defence ties with the US was demonstrated in the Westland affair of 1985–86 when she acted with colleagues to allow the struggling helicopter manufacturer Westland to refuse a takeover offer from the Italian firm Agusta in favour of the management's preferred option, a link with Sikorsky Aircraft. Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine, who had supported the Agusta deal, resigned from the government in protest.
In April 1986 she permitted US F-111s to use Royal Air Force bases for the bombing of Libya in retaliation for the Libyan bombing of a Berlin discothèque, citing the right of self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Polls suggested that fewer than one in three British citizens approved of her decision.
Thatcher was in the US on a state visit when Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990. During her talks with President George H. W. Bush, who succeeded Reagan in 1989, she recommended intervention, and put pressure on Bush to deploy troops in the Middle East to drive the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait. Bush was apprehensive about the plan, prompting Thatcher to remark to him during a telephone conversation: "This was no time to go wobbly!" Thatcher's government supplied military forces to the international coalition in the build-up to the Gulf War, but she had resigned by the time hostilities began on 17 January 1991. She applauded the coalition victory on the backbenches, while warning that "the victories of peace will take longer than the battles of war". It was disclosed in 2017 that Thatcher had suggested threatening Saddam with chemical weapons after the invasion of Kuwait.
==== Crisis in the South Atlantic ====
On 2 April 1982, the military junta in Argentina ordered the invasion of the Crown colony of the Falkland Islands and its dependency of South Georgia, beginning the Falklands War. The subsequent crisis was "a defining moment of [Thatcher's] premiership". At the suggestion of Harold Macmillan and Robert Armstrong, she set up and chaired a small War Cabinet to oversee the conduct of the war, which by 5–6 April had authorised and dispatched a naval task force to retake the islands. Argentina surrendered on 14 June and Operation Corporate was hailed a success, notwithstanding the deaths of 255 British servicemen and three Falkland Islanders. Argentine fatalities totalled 649, half of them aboard ARA General Belgrano that was torpedoed and sunk by HMS Conqueror on 2 May.
Thatcher was criticised for the neglect of the Falklands' defence that led to the war, and especially by Labour MP Tam Dalyell in Parliament for the decision to torpedo the General Belgrano, but overall, she was considered a competent and committed war leader. The "Falklands factor", an economic recovery beginning early in 1982, and a bitterly divided opposition, all contributed to Thatcher's second election victory in 1983. Thatcher often referred after the war to the "Falklands spirit".
==== Negotiating Hong Kong ====
In September 1982, she visited China to discuss with Deng Xiaoping the sovereignty of Hong Kong after 1997. China was the first communist state Thatcher had visited as prime minister, and she was the first British prime minister to visit China. Throughout their meeting, she sought the PRC's agreement to a continued British presence in the territory. Deng insisted that the PRC's sovereignty over Hong Kong was non-negotiable but stated his willingness to settle the sovereignty issue with the British government through formal negotiations. Both governments promised to maintain Hong Kong's stability and prosperity. After the two-year negotiations, Thatcher conceded to the PRC government and signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration in Beijing in 1984, agreeing to hand over Hong Kong's sovereignty in 1997.
==== Apartheid in South Africa ====
Despite saying that she was in favour of "peaceful negotiations" to end apartheid, Thatcher opposed sanctions imposed on South Africa by the Commonwealth and the European Economic Community (EEC). She attempted to preserve trade with South Africa while persuading its government to abandon apartheid. This included "[c]asting herself as President Botha's candid friend" and inviting him to visit the UK in 1984, despite the "inevitable demonstrations" against his government. Alan Merrydew of the Canadian broadcaster BCTV News asked Thatcher what her response was "to a reported ANC statement that they will target British firms in South Africa?" to which she later replied: "[...] when the ANC says that they will target British companies [...] This shows what a typical terrorist organisation it is. I fought terrorism all my life and if more people fought it, and we were all more successful, we should not have it and I hope that everyone in this hall will think it is right to go on fighting terrorism." During his visit to Britain five months after his release from prison, Nelson Mandela praised Thatcher: "She is an enemy of apartheid [...] We have much to thank her for."
==== Europe ====
Thatcher and her party supported British membership of the EEC in the 1975 national referendum and the Single European Act of 1986, and obtained the UK rebate on contributions, but she believed that the role of the organisation should be limited to ensuring free trade and effective competition, and feared that the EEC approach was at odds with her views on smaller government and deregulation. Believing that the single market would result in political integration, Thatcher's opposition to further European integration became more pronounced during her premiership and particularly after her third government in 1987. In her Bruges speech in 1988, Thatcher outlined her opposition to proposals from the EEC, forerunner of the European Union, for a federal structure and increased centralisation of decision-making:We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level, with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels.
Sharing the concerns of French president François Mitterrand, Thatcher was initially opposed to German reunification, telling Gorbachev that it "would lead to a change to postwar borders, and we cannot allow that because such a development would undermine the stability of the whole international situation and could endanger our security". She expressed concern that a united Germany would align itself more closely with the Soviet Union and move away from NATO.
In March 1990, Thatcher held a Chequers seminar on the subject of German reunification that was attended by members of her cabinet and historians such as Norman Stone, George Urban, Timothy Garton Ash and Gordon A. Craig. During the seminar, Thatcher described "what Urban called 'saloon bar clichés' about the German character, including 'angst, aggressiveness, assertiveness, bullying, egotism, inferiority complex [and] sentimentality'". Those present were shocked to hear Thatcher's utterances and "appalled" at how she was "apparently unaware" about the post-war German collective guilt and Germans' attempts to work through their past. The words of the meeting were leaked by her foreign-policy advisor Charles Powell and, subsequently, her comments were met with fierce backlash and controversy.
During the same month, German chancellor Helmut Kohl reassured Thatcher that he would keep her "informed of all his intentions about unification", and that he was prepared to disclose "matters which even his cabinet would not know".
=== Challenges to leadership and resignation ===
During her premiership, Thatcher had the second-lowest average approval rating (40%) of any post-war prime minister. Since Nigel Lawson's resignation as chancellor in October 1989, polls consistently showed that she was less popular than her party. A self-described conviction politician, Thatcher always insisted that she did not care about her poll ratings and pointed instead to her unbeaten election record.
In December 1989, Thatcher was challenged for the leadership of the Conservative Party by the little-known backbench MP Sir Anthony Meyer. Of the 374 Conservative MPs eligible to vote, 314 voted for Thatcher and 33 for Meyer. Her supporters in the party viewed the result as a success and rejected suggestions that there was discontent within the party.
Opinion polls in September 1990 reported that Labour had established a 14% lead over the Conservatives, and by November, the Conservatives had been trailing Labour for 18 months. These ratings, together with Thatcher's combative personality and tendency to override collegiate opinion, contributed to further discontent within her party.
In July 1989, Thatcher removed Geoffrey Howe as foreign secretary after he and Lawson had forced her to agree to a plan for Britain to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). Britain joined the ERM in October 1990.
On 1 November 1990, Howe, by then the last remaining member of Thatcher's original 1979 cabinet, resigned as deputy prime minister, ostensibly over her open hostility to moves towards European monetary union. In his resignation speech on 13 November, which was instrumental in Thatcher's downfall, Howe attacked Thatcher's openly dismissive attitude to the government's proposal for a new European currency competing against existing currencies (a "hard ECU"):
How on earth are the Chancellor and the Governor of the Bank of England, commending the hard ECU as they strive to, to be taken as serious participants in the debate against that kind of background noise? I believe that both the Chancellor and the Governor are cricketing enthusiasts, so I hope that there is no monopoly of cricketing metaphors. It is rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease only for them to find, the moment the first balls are bowled, that their bats have been broken before the game by the team captain.
On 14 November, Michael Heseltine mounted a challenge for the leadership of the Conservative Party. Opinion polls had indicated that he would give the Conservatives a national lead over Labour. Although Thatcher led on the first ballot with the votes of 204 Conservative MPs (54.8%) to 152 votes (40.9%) for Heseltine, with 16 abstentions, she was four votes short of the required 15% majority. A second ballot was therefore necessary. Thatcher initially declared her intention to "fight on and fight to win" the second ballot, but consultation with her cabinet persuaded her to withdraw. After holding an audience with the Queen, calling other world leaders, and making one final Commons speech, on 28 November she left Downing Street in tears. She reportedly regarded her ousting as a betrayal. Her resignation was a shock to many outside Britain, with such foreign observers as Henry Kissinger and Gorbachev expressing private consternation.
Chancellor John Major replaced Thatcher as head of government and party leader, whose lead over Heseltine in the second ballot was sufficient for Heseltine to drop out. Major oversaw an upturn in Conservative support in the 17 months leading to the 1992 general election and led the party to a fourth successive victory on 9 April 1992. Thatcher had lobbied for Major in the leadership contest against Heseltine, but her support for him waned in later years.
== Later life ==
=== Return to backbenches (1990–1992) ===
After leaving the premiership, Thatcher returned to the backbenches as a constituency parliamentarian. Her domestic approval rating recovered after her resignation, though public opinion remained divided on whether her government had been good for the country. Aged 66, she retired from the House of Commons at the 1992 general election, saying that leaving the Commons would allow her more freedom to speak her mind.
=== Post-Commons (1992–2003) ===
On leaving the Commons, Thatcher became the first former British prime minister to set up a foundation; the British wing of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation was dissolved in 2005 due to financial difficulties. She wrote two volumes of memoirs, The Downing Street Years (1993) and The Path to Power (1995). In 1991, she and her husband Denis moved to a house in Chester Square, a residential garden square in central London's Belgravia district.
Thatcher was hired by the tobacco company Philip Morris as a "geopolitical consultant" in July 1992 for $250,000 per year and an annual contribution of $250,000 to her foundation. Thatcher earned $50,000 for each speech she delivered.
Thatcher became an advocate of Croatian and Slovenian independence. Commenting on the Yugoslav Wars, in a 1991 interview for Croatian Radiotelevision, she was critical of Western governments for not recognising the breakaway republics of Croatia and Slovenia as independent and for not supplying them with arms after the Serbian-led Yugoslav Army attacked. In August 1992, she called for NATO to stop the Serbian assault on Goražde and Sarajevo to end ethnic cleansing during the Bosnian War, comparing the situation in Bosnia–Herzegovina to "the barbarities of Hitler's and Stalin's".
She made a series of speeches in the Lords criticising the Maastricht Treaty, describing it as "a treaty too far" and stated: "I could never have signed this treaty." She cited A. V. Dicey when arguing that, as all three main parties were in favour of the treaty, the people should have their say in a referendum.
Thatcher served as honorary chancellor of the College of William & Mary in Virginia from 1993 to 2000, while also serving as chancellor of the private University of Buckingham from 1992 to 1998, a university she had formally opened in 1976 as the former education secretary.
After Tony Blair's election as Labour Party leader in 1994, Thatcher praised Blair as "probably the most formidable Labour leader since Hugh Gaitskell", adding: "I see a lot of socialism behind their front bench, but not in Mr Blair. I think he genuinely has moved." Blair responded in kind: "She was a thoroughly determined person, and that is an admirable quality."
In 1998, Thatcher called for the release of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet when Spain had him arrested and sought to try him for human rights violations. She cited the help he gave Britain during the Falklands War. In 1999, she visited him while he was under house arrest near London. Pinochet was released in March 2000 on medical grounds by Home Secretary Jack Straw.
At the 2001 general election, Thatcher supported the Conservative campaign, as she had done in 1992 and 1997, and in the Conservative leadership election following its defeat, she endorsed Iain Duncan Smith over Kenneth Clarke. In 2002 she encouraged George W. Bush to aggressively tackle the "unfinished business" of Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and praised Blair for his "strong, bold leadership" in standing with Bush in the Iraq War.
Thatcher broached the same subject in her Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, which was published in April 2002 and dedicated to Ronald Reagan, writing that there would be no peace in the Middle East until Saddam was toppled. Her book also said that Israel must trade land for peace and that the European Union (EU) was a "fundamentally unreformable", "classic utopian project, a monument to the vanity of intellectuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is failure". She argued that Britain should renegotiate its terms of membership or else leave the EU and join the North American Free Trade Area.
Following several small strokes, her doctors advised her not to engage in further public speaking. In March 2002 she announced that, on doctors' advice, she would cancel all planned speaking engagements and accept no more.
On 26 June 2003, Thatcher's husband, Sir Denis, died aged 88; his body was cremated on 3 July at Mortlake Crematorium in London.
=== Final years (2003–2013) ===
On 11 June 2004, Thatcher (against doctors' orders) attended the state funeral service for Ronald Reagan. She delivered her eulogy via videotape; in view of her health, the message had been pre-recorded several months earlier. Thatcher flew to California with the Reagan entourage, and attended the memorial service and interment ceremony for the president at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
In 2005, Thatcher criticised how Blair had decided to invade Iraq two years previously. Although she still supported the intervention to topple Saddam Hussein, she said that (as a scientist) she would always look for "facts, evidence and proof" before committing the armed forces. She celebrated her 80th birthday on 13 October at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hyde Park, London; guests included the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Alexandra and Tony Blair. Geoffrey Howe, Baron Howe of Aberavon, was also in attendance and said of his former leader: "Her real triumph was to have transformed not just one party but two, so that when Labour did eventually return, the great bulk of Thatcherism was accepted as irreversible."
In 2006, Thatcher attended the official Washington memorial service to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the US. She was a guest of Vice President Dick Cheney and met Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit. In February 2007 Thatcher became the first living British prime minister to be honoured with a statue in the Houses of Parliament. The bronze statue stood opposite that of her political hero, Winston Churchill, and was unveiled on 21 February 2007 with Thatcher in attendance; she remarked in the Members' Lobby of the Commons: "I might have preferred iron – but bronze will do [...] It won't rust."
Thatcher was a public supporter of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism and the resulting Prague Process and sent a public letter of support to its preceding conference.
After collapsing at a House of Lords dinner, Thatcher, suffering low blood pressure, was admitted to St Thomas' Hospital in central London on 7 March 2008 for tests. In 2009 she was hospitalised again when she fell and broke her arm. Thatcher returned to 10 Downing Street in late November 2009 for the unveiling of an official portrait by artist Richard Stone, an unusual honour for a living former prime minister. Stone was previously commissioned to paint portraits of the Queen and the Queen Mother.
On 4 July 2011, Thatcher was to attend a ceremony for the unveiling of a 10 ft (3.0 m) statue of Ronald Reagan outside the US embassy in London, but was unable to attend due to her frail health. She last attended a sitting of the House of Lords on 19 July 2010, and on 30 July 2011 it was announced that her office in the Lords had been closed. Earlier that month, Thatcher was named the most competent prime minister of the past 30 years in an Ipsos MORI poll.
Thatcher's daughter Carol first revealed that her mother had dementia in 2005, saying "Mum doesn't read much any more because of her memory loss". In her 2008 memoir, Carol wrote that her mother "could hardly remember the beginning of a sentence by the time she got to the end". She later recounted how she was first struck by her mother's dementia when, in conversation, Thatcher confused the Falklands and Yugoslav conflicts; she recalled the pain of needing to tell her mother repeatedly that her husband Denis was dead.
=== Death and funeral (2013) ===
Thatcher died on 8 April 2013, aged 87, after suffering a stroke. She had been staying in a suite at the Ritz Hotel in London since December 2012, having experienced difficulty with the stairs at her Chester Square home in Belgravia. Her death certificate recorded the primary causes of death as a "cerebrovascular accident" and "repeated transient ischaemic attack"; secondary causes were listed as "carcinoma of the bladder" and dementia.
Reactions across the UK were sharply divided, ranging from tributes describing her as Britain's greatest peacetime prime minister to public celebrations of her death and expressions of intense personal hostility.
Arrangements for Thatcher's funeral had been settled with her in advance. She received a ceremonial funeral with full military honours, including a church service at St Paul's Cathedral on 17 April. Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh attended, the second and final time during her reign that she attended the funeral of one of her former prime ministers, the first being Churchill's state funeral in 1965.
Following the service at St Paul's, Thatcher's body was cremated at Mortlake, where her husband had also been cremated. On 28 September, a service was held in the All Saints Chapel of the Royal Hospital Chelsea's Margaret Thatcher Infirmary, after which her ashes were interred privately in the hospital grounds beside her husband's.
== Legacy ==
=== Political impact ===
Thatcherism represented a systematic and decisive overhaul of the post-war consensus, whereby the major political parties largely agreed on the central themes of Keynesianism, the welfare state, nationalised industry, and close regulation of the economy, and high taxes. Thatcher generally supported the welfare state while proposing to rid it of abuses.
She promised in 1982 that the highly popular National Health Service was "safe in our hands". At first, she ignored the question of privatising nationalised industries; heavily influenced by right-wing think tanks, and especially by Sir Keith Joseph, Thatcher broadened her attack. Thatcherism came to refer to her policies as well as aspects of her ethical outlook and personal style, including moral absolutism, nationalism, liberal individualism, and an uncompromising approach to achieving political goals.
Thatcher defined her political philosophy, in a major and controversial break with the one-nation conservatism of her predecessor Edward Heath, in a 1987 interview published in Woman's Own magazine:
I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand "I have a problem, it is the Government's job to cope with it!" or "I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!" "I am homeless, the Government must house me!" and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations.
==== Overview ====
The number of adults owning shares rose from 7 per cent to 25 per cent during her tenure, and more than a million families bought their council houses, increasing from 55 per cent to 67 per cent in owner-occupiers from 1979 to 1990. The houses were sold at a discount of 33–55 per cent, leading to large profits for some new owners. Personal wealth rose by 80 per cent in real terms during the 1980s, mainly due to rising house prices and increased earnings. Shares in the privatised utilities were sold below their market value to ensure quick and wide sales rather than maximise national income.
The "Thatcher years" were also marked by periods of high unemployment and social unrest, and many critics on the left of the political spectrum fault her economic policies for the unemployment level; many of the areas affected by mass unemployment as well as her monetarist economic policies remained blighted for decades, by such social problems as drug abuse and family breakdown. Unemployment did not fall below its May 1979 level during her tenure, only falling below its April 1979 level in 1990. The long-term effects of her policies on manufacturing remain contentious.
Speaking in Scotland in 2009, Thatcher insisted she had no regrets and was right to introduce the poll tax and withdraw subsidies from "outdated industries, whose markets were in terminal decline", subsidies that created "the culture of dependency, which had done such damage to Britain". Political economist Susan Strange termed the neoliberal financial growth model "casino capitalism", reflecting her view that speculation and financial trading were becoming more important to the economy than industry.
Critics on the left describe her as divisive and say she condoned greed and selfishness. Leading Welsh politician Rhodri Morgan, among others, characterised Thatcher as a "Marmite" figure. Journalist Michael White, writing in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, challenged the view that her reforms were still a net benefit. Others consider her approach to have been "a mixed bag" and "[a] Curate's egg".
Thatcher did "little to advance the political cause of women" within her party or the government. Some British feminists regarded her as "an enemy". June Purvis in Women's History Review says that, although Thatcher had struggled laboriously against the sexist prejudices of her day to rise to the top, she made no effort to ease the path for other women. Thatcher did not regard women's rights as requiring particular attention as she did not, especially during her premiership, consider that women were being deprived of their rights. She had once suggested the shortlisting of women by default for all public appointments and proposed that those with young children should leave the workforce.
Thatcher's stance on immigration in the late 1970s was perceived as part of a rising racist public discourse, which Martin Barker terms "new racism". In opposition, Thatcher believed that the National Front (NF) was winning over large numbers of Conservative voters with warnings against floods of immigrants. Her strategy was to undermine the NF narrative by acknowledging that many of their voters had serious concerns in need of addressing. In 1978 she criticised Labour's immigration policy to attract voters away from the NF to the Conservatives. Her rhetoric was followed by increased Conservative support at the expense of the NF. Critics on the left accused her of pandering to racism.
Many Thatcherite policies influenced the Labour Party, which returned to power in 1997 under Tony Blair. Blair rebranded the party "New Labour" in 1994 with the aim of increasing its appeal beyond its traditional supporters, and to attract those who had supported Thatcher, such as the "Essex man". Thatcher is said to have regarded the "New Labour" rebranding as her greatest achievement. In contrast to Blair, the Conservative Party under William Hague attempted to distance himself and the party from Thatcher's economic policies in an attempt to gain public approval.
Shortly after Thatcher died in 2013, Scottish first minister Alex Salmond argued that her policies had the "unintended consequence" of encouraging Scottish devolution. Lord Foulkes of Cumnock agreed on Scotland Tonight that she had provided "the impetus" for devolution. Writing for The Scotsman in 1997, Thatcher argued against devolution on the basis that it would eventually lead to Scottish independence.
==== Reputation ====
Thatcher's tenure of 11 years and 209 days as British prime minister was the longest since Lord Salisbury in the late 19th century (13 years and 252 days, in three spells) and the longest continuous period in office since Lord Liverpool in the early 19th century (14 years and 305 days).
Having led the Conservative Party to victory in three consecutive general elections, twice in a landslide, she ranks among the most popular party leaders in British history regarding votes cast for the winning party; over 40 million ballots were cast in total for the party under her leadership. Her electoral successes were dubbed a "historic hat trick" by the British press in 1987.
Thatcher ranked highest among living persons in the 2002 BBC poll 100 Greatest Britons. In 1999, Time deemed Thatcher one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century. In 2015 she topped a poll by Scottish Widows, a major financial services company, as the most influential woman of the past 200 years; and in 2016 topped BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour Power List of women judged to have had the biggest impact on female lives over the past 70 years. In 2020, Time magazine included Thatcher's name on its list of 100 Women of the Year. She was chosen as the Woman of the Year in 1982 when the Falklands War began under her command, resulting in the British victory.
In contrast to her relatively poor average approval rating as prime minister, Thatcher has since ranked highly in retrospective opinion polling and, according to YouGov, is "see[n] in overall positive terms" by the British public. Just after her death in 2013, according to a poll by The Guardian, about half of the public viewed her positively while one third viewed her negatively. In a 2019 opinion poll by YouGov, most Britons rated her as Britain's greatest post-war leader (with Churchill coming second). According to the poll, more than four in ten Britons (44%) think that Thatcher was a "good" or "great" prime minister, compared to 29% who think she was a "poor" or "terrible" one. She was voted the fourth-greatest British prime minister of the 20th century in a 2011 poll of 139 academics organised by MORI. In a 2016 University of Leeds survey of 82 academics specialising in post-1945 British history and politics, she was voted the second-greatest British prime minister after the Second World War.
=== Cultural depictions ===
According to theatre critic Michael Billington, Thatcher left an "emphatic mark" on the arts while prime minister. One of the earliest satires of Thatcher as prime minister involved satirist John Wells (as writer and performer), actress Janet Brown (voicing Thatcher) and future Spitting Image producer John Lloyd (as co-producer), who in 1979 were teamed up by producer Martin Lewis for the satirical audio album The Iron Lady, which consisted of skits and songs satirising Thatcher's rise to power. The album was released in September 1979. Thatcher was heavily satirised on Spitting Image, and The Independent labelled her "every stand-up's dream".
Thatcher was the subject or the inspiration for 1980s protest songs. Musicians Billy Bragg and Paul Weller helped to form the Red Wedge collective to support Labour in opposition to Thatcher. Known as "Maggie" by supporters and opponents alike, the chant song "Maggie Out" became a signature rallying cry among the left during the latter half of her premiership.
Wells parodied Thatcher in several media. He collaborated with Richard Ingrams on the spoof "Dear Bill" letters, which ran as a column in Private Eye magazine; they were also published in book form and became a West End stage revue titled Anyone for Denis?, with Wells in the role of Thatcher's husband. It was followed by a 1982 TV special directed by Dick Clement, in which Thatcher was played by Angela Thorne.
Since her premiership, Thatcher has been portrayed in a number of television programmes, documentaries, films and plays. She was portrayed by Patricia Hodge in Ian Curteis's long unproduced The Falklands Play (2002) and by Andrea Riseborough in the TV film The Long Walk to Finchley (2008). She is the protagonist in two films, played by Lindsay Duncan in Margaret (2009) and by Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady (2011), in which she is depicted as suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's disease. She is a main character in the fourth season of The Crown, played by Gillian Anderson. Thatcher has a supporting role in the 2024 biographical film Reagan, played by Lesley-Anne Down.
== Titles, awards and honours ==
Thatcher became a privy counsellor (PC) on becoming a secretary of state in 1970. She was the first woman entitled to full membership rights as an honorary member of the Carlton Club on becoming Conservative Party leader in 1975.
As prime minister, Thatcher received two honorary distinctions:
24 October 1979 (1979-10-24): Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Institute of Chemistry (), which was merged into the Royal Society of Chemistry the following year; and
1 July 1983 (1983-07-01): Fellowship of the Royal Society (), a point of controversy among some of the then Fellows.
Two weeks after her resignation, Thatcher was appointed Member of the Order of Merit (OM) by Queen Elizabeth II. Thatcher's husband, Denis, was made a hereditary baronet at the same time; as his wife, Thatcher was entitled to use the honorific style "Lady", an automatically conferred title that she declined to use. She would be made Lady Thatcher in her own right on her subsequent ennoblement.
In the Falklands, Margaret Thatcher Day has been marked each 10 January since 1992, commemorating her first visit to the Islands in January 1983, six months after the end of the Falklands War in June 1982.
Thatcher became a member of the House of Lords in 1992 with a life peerage as Baroness Thatcher, of Kesteven in the County of Lincolnshire. Subsequently, the College of Arms granted her use of a personal coat of arms; she was allowed to revise these arms, in 1995, on her appointment as Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter (LG), the UK's highest order of chivalry.
In the US, Thatcher received the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award from the Reagan Presidential Foundation in 1998; she was designated a patron of the Heritage Foundation in 2006, where she established the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom.
== Published works == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/89th_Academy_Awards | 89th Academy Awards | The 89th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2016, and took place on February 26, 2017, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, at 5:30 p.m. PST. During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards (commonly referred to as Oscars) in 24 categories. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by Michael De Luca and Jennifer Todd and directed by Glenn Weiss. Comedian Jimmy Kimmel hosted the ceremony for the first time.
In related events, the academy held its 8th Annual Governors Awards ceremony at the Grand Ballroom of the Hollywood and Highland Center on November 12, 2016. On November 25, 2016, the AMPAS announced that no anime shorts would be considered for this year's ceremony. On February 11, 2017, in a ceremony at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, the Academy Scientific and Technical Awards were presented by hosts John Cho and Leslie Mann.
In the main ceremony, Moonlight won three awards including Best Picture—after La La Land was mistakenly announced as the winner—as well as Best Supporting Actor for Mahershala Ali. La La Land won six awards, the most for the evening, out of its record-tying 14 nominations, including Best Actress for Emma Stone and Best Director for Damien Chazelle. Hacksaw Ridge and Manchester by the Sea won two awards each with Casey Affleck winning Best Actor for the latter. Viola Davis won the Best Supporting Actress honor for Fences. The telecast was viewed by 33 million people in the United States.
== Winners and nominees ==
The nominees for the 89th Academy Awards were announced on January 24, 2017, via global live stream from the academy. La La Land received the most nominations with a record-tying fourteen (1950's All About Eve and 1997's Titanic also achieved this distinction); Arrival and Moonlight came in second with eight apiece. La La Land's Best Picture loss to Moonlight meant it set a record for most nominations without winning Best Picture. Four of the five nominations for Best Original Score were by first-time nominees, the highest figure since 1967.
The winners were announced during the awards ceremony on February 26, 2017. Moonlight became the first film with an all-black cast and the first LGBT-themed film to win Best Picture. In an event unprecedented in the history of the Oscars, La La Land was incorrectly announced as the Best Picture, and, a few minutes later, the error was corrected and Moonlight was declared the winner. O.J.: Made in America, at 467 minutes, became the longest film to win an Academy Award, surpassing the 431-minute long War and Peace, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1969. Following the five-part documentary's win, new academy rules barred any "multi-part or limited series" from being eligible for documentary categories. With Casey Affleck winning the Oscar for Best Actor, he and his older brother, Ben Affleck, became the 16th pair of siblings to win Academy Awards. Mahershala Ali became the first Muslim actor to win an Oscar. Viola Davis became the first black person to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting with her Oscar, Emmy, and Tony wins.
At the age of thirty-two years and thirty-eight days, Damien Chazelle became the youngest person to win Best Director; Norman Taurog was only two hundred and twenty-two days older than Chazelle when he won Best Director for the 1931 comedy Skippy.
Kevin O'Connell finally ended the longest losing streak in Oscar history after 20 unsuccessful nominations for sound mixing, winning for Hacksaw Ridge. Moonlight's Dede Gardner became the first woman to win twice for producing, following her previous Best Picture win for 12 Years a Slave.
=== Awards ===
Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger (‡).
=== Governors Awards ===
The academy held its 8th annual Governors Awards ceremony on November 12, 2016, during which the following awards were presented:
==== Honorary Awards ====
To Jackie Chan, an international film star who has captivated millions with his wit, boundless energy and unparalleled athletic artistry.
To Anne V. Coates, in recognition of a film editing career of remarkable breadth and exceptional collaborative achievement.
To Lynn Stalmaster, a true pioneer whose keen insight and inspired creativity transformed the art of motion picture casting.
To Frederick Wiseman, whose masterful and distinctive documentaries examine the familiar and reveal the unexpected.
=== Films with multiple nominations and awards ===
== Presenters and performers ==
The following individuals, listed in order of appearance, presented awards or performed musical numbers.
=== Presenters ===
=== Performers ===
== Ceremony information ==
Due to the mixed reception and low ratings of the previous year's ceremony, producers David Hill and Reginald Hudlin declined to helm the Oscar production. They were replaced by Michael De Luca and Jennifer Todd as producers. Actor and comedian Chris Rock told Variety regarding if he would return to host, "someone else will do it." On December 5, 2016, it was announced that Jimmy Kimmel would host the ceremony. Kimmel expressed that it was truly an honor and a thrill to be asked to host Academy Awards, commenting "Mike and Jennifer have an excellent plan and their enthusiasm is infectious. I am honored to have been chosen to host the 89th and final Oscars."
Due to his hosting duties, ABC did not broadcast a special episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! following the ceremony, as in past years. Instead, ABC aired Live from Hollywood: The After Party, co-hosted by Anthony Anderson and Lara Spencer of Good Morning America. The stage set was designed by Derek McLane.
=== Box office performance of nominated films ===
At the time of the nominations announcement on January 24, 2017, the combined gross of the nine Best Picture nominees at the North American box offices was $483.8 million, with an average of $53.8 million per film. When the nominations were announced, Arrival was the highest-grossing film among the Best Picture nominees with $95.7 million in domestic box office receipts. La La Land was the second-highest-grossing film with $90.5 million, followed by Hidden Figures ($85 million), Hacksaw Ridge ($65.5 million), Fences ($48.8 million), Manchester by the Sea ($39 million), Hell or High Water ($27 million), Lion ($16.5 million) and Moonlight ($15.8 million). Moonlight became the second-lowest-grossing film to win Best Picture award.
Thirty-five nominations went to 13 films on the list of the top 50 grossing movies of the year. Of those 13 films, only Zootopia (3rd), Moana (15th), La La Land (45th), and Arrival (48th) were nominated for Best Picture, Best Animated Feature or any of the directing, acting or screenwriting awards. The other top 50 box-office hits that earned nominations were Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (4th), The Jungle Book (5th), Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (8th), Suicide Squad (10th), Doctor Strange (11th), Star Trek Beyond (24th), Trolls (25th), Passengers (30th), and Sully (32nd).
=== Racial diversity ===
In the previous two years, the awards had come under scrutiny for the lack of racial diversity among the nominees in major categories, which included no actors of color being nominated. After the nominees for the 89th Awards were announced on January 24, many media outlets noted the diversity of the nominations, which included a record-tying seven non-white actors and a record-setting six black actors. For the first time in the academy's history, each acting category had black actors, with three nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category and three black screenwriters nominated in the Best Adapted Screenplay category in the same year. Also nominated was one black director, the fourth in Oscar history.
The awards continued to be criticized by actors and media organizations representing non-black minorities in America. The National Hispanic Media Coalition stated that Latino actors were "not getting the opportunities to work in front of camera, and with few exceptions, in back of the camera as well." Daniel Mayeda, chair of the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition, stated that the omission of Asian actors from the nominations list (with only one actor, Dev Patel, nominated) reflected "the continued lack of real opportunities for Asians in Hollywood". A skit performed during the ceremony, in which a group of tourists enter the theater, led to criticism of host Kimmel when he was accused of mocking an Asian woman's name.
Having previously been nominated for Doubt (2008) and The Help (2011), Viola Davis became the first African-American actress to garner three Academy Award nominations. She went on to win the award, making her the first African-American to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting: winning a competitive Emmy, Tony, and Oscar in acting categories. Bradford Young became the first African-American to be nominated for Best Cinematography, while Joi McMillon became the first African-American to be nominated for Best Film Editing since Hugh A. Robertson for Midnight Cowboy, as well as the first black woman to be nominated for that award. Octavia Spencer became the first African-American actress to be nominated after having already won before. Moonlight became the first film with an all-black cast to win the Best Picture award. Additionally, the ceremony had the most black winners of the Academy Awards ever.
=== Travel ban controversy ===
Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, who won the award for Best Foreign Language Film for The Salesman, was revealed to initially be unable to attend the ceremony due to President Donald Trump's immigration ban. He boycotted the event, saying, "I have decided to not attend the Academy Awards ceremony alongside my fellow members of the cinematic community." The academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs reacted to the travel ban, saying, "America should always be not a barrier but a beacon and each and every one of us knows that there are some empty chairs in this room which has made academy artists into activists."
Two prominent Iranian Americans – engineer Anousheh Ansari, known as the first female space tourist, and Firouz Naderi, a former director of Solar Systems Exploration at NASA – accepted Asghar Farhadi's Oscar on his behalf at the ceremony. Congratulations which had initially been tweeted to the Iranian people from the US State Department's official Persian-language Twitter account were deleted following the acceptance speech given by Firouz Naderi in which President Trump's travel ban was described as "inhumane".
=== Best Picture announcement error ===
Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway came onstage to present the award for Best Picture, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Bonnie and Clyde. After opening the envelope, Beatty hesitated, eventually showing it to Dunaway, who glanced at it and declared La La Land to be the winner. However, more than two minutes later, as the producers of La La Land were making their acceptance speeches, Oscar crew members came on stage and took the envelopes from those assembled, explaining to them that there had been a mistake. La La Land producer Fred Berger, having heard the news, concluded his brief speech by saying "we lost, by the way".
Beatty was then given the correct opened envelope as La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz stepped to the microphone, announced the error, stated that Moonlight had actually won the award, and took the card bearing the film's title from Beatty's hand and showed it to the camera and the audience as proof. The La La Land team, particularly Horowitz, would later be praised for their professional handling of the situation. Beatty returned to the microphone and explained that the envelope he had initially been given named Emma Stone for her actress performance in La La Land, hence his confused pause, and confirmed that Moonlight was the winner. The producers of Moonlight then came onstage, Horowitz presented the Best Picture award given to them, and they gave their acceptance speeches.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) – the accounting firm responsible for tabulating results, preparing the envelopes, and handing them to presenters – creates two sets of envelopes, which are kept on opposite sides of the stage. It is intended that each award has one primary envelope and one backup envelope that remains with one of the PwC staff in the wings. (An emergency third set of envelopes is kept at an undisclosed location until the first two sets of envelopes are confirmed to have arrived at the Oscars ceremony location safely.) Video stills from the broadcast show that Beatty and Dunaway had been given the single remaining still-unopened backup envelope for the Best Actress award as they walked onto the stage.
PwC issued a statement apologizing for this error:
We sincerely apologize to Moonlight, La La Land, Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, and Oscar viewers for the error that was made during the award announcement for Best Picture. The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered, was immediately corrected. We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred. We appreciate the grace with which the nominees, the Academy, ABC, and Jimmy Kimmel handled the situation.
An article from The New York Times explained:
The design of the envelopes could have been a factor. The envelopes were redesigned this year to feature red paper with gold lettering that specified the award enclosed, rather than gold paper with dark lettering. That could have made the lettering harder to read. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, not PwC, is responsible for the design and procurement of the envelopes.
Brian Cullinan, the PwC accountant who gave the wrong envelope to Beatty, had been instructed not to use social media during the event; however, moments after handing over the envelope, he had tweeted a snapshot of Stone standing backstage. Variety published photographs of Cullinan that were taken at the time which showed him backstage while tweeting the image.
=== Critical reviews ===
The show received a mixed reception from media publications. Some media outlets were more critical and complained of repetitive jokes; Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly complained that the show "didn't know when to stop and didn't know when to bail on stuff that wasn't working", and Kristi Turnquist of The Oregonian agreed and especially noted the repeated segments featuring actors discussing their favorite films at length to be "tedious and ill-advised". Writing for Time television critic Daniel D'Addario bemoaned that, "It was unfortunate that the evening's host didn't seem to share the evening's general embrace of humanity."
Some media outlets reviewed the broadcast more positively with some praise for Kimmel. Variety television critic Sonia Saraiya praised Kimmel's performance writing that he "found a way to balance the telecast between that sensibility – the treacly self-satisfaction of sweeping orchestrals and tap dancing starlets." Chief television critics, Robert Bianco of USA Today and Frazier Moore from Associated Press applauded Kimmel's hosting saying he "was up to the challenge" while Moore added that the ceremony's induction of the montage of moviegoers shows that "Hollywood can surmount its share of walls." Brian Lowry of CNN gave an average critique of the ceremony but acclaimed Kimmel's hosting. Many critics praised the playful jabs between Kimmel and Matt Damon, who was introduced as Ben Affleck's unnamed guest as well as music being played over him.
=== Rating and reception ===
The American telecast on ABC drew an average of 33 million people over its length, which was a 4% decrease from the previous year. The show also earned lower Nielsen ratings compared to the previous ceremony with 22.4% of households watching over a 36 share. In addition, it received a lower 18–49 demo rating with a 9.1 rating over a 26 share. It also had the lowest U.S. viewership since the 80th ceremony in 2008, which averaged 32 million viewers. Nonetheless, it was the eighth most watched television broadcast in the United States in 2017.
In July 2017, the ceremony presentation received six nominations for the 69th Primetime Creative Arts Emmys. The following month, the ceremony won two of those nominations for Outstanding Creative Achievement In Interactive Media within an Unscripted Program and for Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special (Glenn Weiss).
== "In Memoriam" ==
The annual "In Memoriam" segment was introduced by Jennifer Aniston, with Sara Bareilles performing a rendition of the Joni Mitchell song "Both Sides, Now" during the montage. Beforehand, Aniston paid verbal tribute to actor Bill Paxton, who died the day before the ceremony. The segment paid tribute to:
The slide for Janet Patterson, an Australian costume designer, mistakenly used a photograph of Australian producer Jan Chapman, who is still alive. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Maternity_Hospital | Liverpool Maternity Hospital | The Liverpool Maternity Hospital was established as the Lying-in Hospital and Dispensary for the Diseases of Women and Children in Horatio Street, Scotland Road, Liverpool, in November 1841. It was replaced by the Liverpool Women's Hospital in November 1995.
== History ==
The hospital was established as the Lying-in Hospital and Dispensary for the Diseases of Women and Children in Horatio Street, Scotland Road, Liverpool, in November 1841. It moved to Pembroke Place in 1845 and to Myrtle Street in 1862 and, having become the Ladies Charity and Lying-In Hospital in 1869, it moved to new purpose-built facilities in Brownlow Street in 1885.
A foundation stone for a new facility in Oxford Street was laid by the Princess Mary, Viscountess Lascelles in March 1924 and it was officially opened by Christiana Hartley, the social and welfare rights activist, as the Liverpool Maternity Hospital in September 1926. Famous people born in the hospital included John Lennon who was born there in October 1940. It joined the National Health Service in 1948. The Walton sextuplets were born to Graham and Janet (née Leadbetter) Walton at the hospital in November 1983.
After services transferred to the Liverpool Women's Hospital, the Liverpool Maternity Hospital closed in November 1995 and has since been converted into student accommodation.
== Notable staff ==
Notable staff include:
Ethel Mary Cauty, OBE (1872–1962) Matron, 1907–1938. During her thirty one year matronship the hospital increased dramatically in size – from 21 beds to 100, with over 2500 deliveries per annum by 1938. She was well regarded by the nursing staff and was renowned for her devotion to the mothers and babies. Cauty trained at The London Hospital, under Matron Eva Luckes. After which she trained as a midwife at York Road Lying in Hospital, London. She was a founder member of the College of Nursing, later the Royal College of Nursing.
== Notable births ==
John Lennon, English musician and political activist (b. 1940)
Walton sextuplets, a set of sextuplets born on 18 November 1983 |
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_(fireboat) | Illinois (fireboat) | The Illinois was a fireboat operated by the Chicago Fire Department.
She was commissioned in 1888, and she was then described as the most powerful fireboat afloat.
She was one of the first fireboats to have a steel hull at a time when other fireboats were built of wood.
The Illinois was struck by falling debris while fighting a massive fire in 1908, and sunk in 20 feet of water in the Chicago River.
She was however quickly refloated, and put back into service. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catwoman | Catwoman | Catwoman is a character appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, she debuted as "the Cat" in Batman #1 (spring 1940). She has become one of the superhero Batman's most prominent enemies, belonging to the collective of adversaries that make up his rogues gallery, as well as Batman's best known and most enduring love interest, with many stories depicting their complex love–hate relationship. Since 1993, Catwoman has had her own ongoing series, Catwoman.
Catwoman is the alter ego of Selina Kyle, a burglar in Gotham City who usually wears a skintight bodysuit and uses a bullwhip for a weapon. She was originally characterized as a supervillain and adversary of Batman, but has been featured in an eponymous series since the 1990s that portrays her as an antiheroine, often with a utilitarian moral philosophy. The character thrived in her earliest appearances, but she took an extended hiatus from September 1954 to November 1966 due to the developing Comics Code Authority in 1954. These issues involved the rules regarding the development and portrayal of female characters that were in violation of the Comics Code, a code which is no longer in use. In the comics, Holly Robinson and Eiko Hasigawa have both adopted the Catwoman identity, apart from Selina Kyle.
Catwoman has been adapted in various media incarnations, having been portrayed in film by Lee Meriwether in Batman (1966), Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns (1992), Halle Berry in Catwoman (2004), Anne Hathaway in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), and Zoë Kravitz in The Batman (2022). On television, she has been played by Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt in Batman, where the name Selina Kyle was never used; and Camren Bicondova and Lili Simmons in Gotham.
Catwoman was ranked 11th on IGN's list of the "Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time", and 51st on Wizard magazine's "100 Greatest Villains of All Time" list. Conversely, she was ranked 20th on IGN's "Top 100 Comic Book Heroes of All Time" list.
== Development ==
=== Creation ===
Batman co-creator Bob Kane was a great movie fan and his love for film provided the impetus for several Batman characters, among them, Catwoman. Kane's inspiration for Catwoman was drawn from multiple sources to include actresses Jean Harlow, Hedy Lamarr, and his cousin, Ruth Steele. Kane and Finger wanted to give their comic book sex appeal, as well as a character who could appeal to female readers; they thus created a "friendly foe who committed crimes but was also a romantic interest in Batman's rather sterile life." Catwoman was meant to be a love interest and to engage Batman in a chess game, with him trying to reform her. At the same time, this character was meant to be different from other Batman villains like the Joker in that she was never a killer or evil.
As for using cat imagery with the character, Kane stated that he and Finger saw cats as "kind of the antithesis of bats".
I felt that women were feline creatures and men were more like dogs. While dogs are faithful and friendly, cats are cool, detached, and unreliable. I felt much warmer with dogs around me—cats are as hard to understand as women are. Men feel more sure of themselves with a male friend than a woman. You always need to keep women at arm's length. We don't want anyone taking over our souls, and women have a habit of doing that. So there's a love-resentment thing with women. I guess women will feel that I'm being chauvinistic to speak this way, but I do feel that I've had better relationships with male friends than women. With women, once the romance is over, somehow they never remain my friends.
== Fictional character biography ==
=== Golden Age ===
Catwoman, then called "the Cat", first appeared in Batman #1 (spring 1940) as a mysterious burglar and jewel thief, revealed at the end of the story to be a young, attractive (unnamed) woman, having disguised herself as an old woman during the story and been hired to commit a burglary. Although she does not wear her iconic cat-suit, the story establishes her core personality as a femme fatale who both antagonizes and attracts Batman. It is implied Batman may have deliberately let her get away by blocking Robin as he tried to leap after her. She next appears in Batman #2 in a story also involving the Joker but escapes Batman in the end. In Batman #3 she wears a fur mask and again succeeds in escaping Batman.
Batman #62 (December 1950) reveals that Catwoman was an amnesiac flight attendant who turned to crime after suffering a prior blow to the head during a plane crash she survived. She reveals this in the Batcave after being hit on the head by a piece of rubble while saving Batman while he was chasing her. However, in The Brave and the Bold #197 (April 1983), she later admits that she made up the amnesia story because she wanted a way out of her past life of crime. She reforms for several years, helping out Batman in Batman #65 (June 1951) and 69 (February 1952), until she decides to return to a life of crime in Detective Comics #203 (January 1954), after a newspaper publishes stories of Batman's past adventures and some crooks mock her about it. However, Catwoman prevents her thugs from murdering Batman once he is later found knocked out, but quickly claims she wants him as a hostage. Catwoman appears again as a criminal in Batman #84 (June 1954) and Detective Comics #211 (September 1954), which were her two final appearances until 1966. This was mostly due to her possible violation of the developing Comics Code Authority's rules for portrayal of female characters that started in 1954.
=== Silver Age ===
Catwoman made her first Silver Age appearance in Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #70-71 (November–December 1966); afterward, she continued to make appearances across the various Batman comics.
Several stories in the 1970s featured Catwoman committing murder, something that neither the Earth-One nor Earth-Two versions of her would ever do. This version of Catwoman was later assigned to the alternate world of Earth-B, an alternate Earth that included stories that could not be considered canonical on Earth-One or Earth-Two.
=== Modern Age ===
==== Tangled origins ====
Catwoman's origin—and, to an extent, her character—was revised in 1987 when writer Frank Miller and artist David Mazzucchelli published Batman: Year One, a revision of Batman's origin. She worked as a dominatrix for a pimp named Stan in order to survive, and also sheltered a child prostitute named Holly Robinson who was working for him. Selina got into a fight with a disguised Bruce after he grabbed Holly, who had stabbed him during a fight with Stan, but was knocked out.
As the story progresses, Selina decides to leave prostitution and takes Holly with her. She gets into burglary to make money and starts robbing the rich and powerful men of Gotham, donning a catsuit costume while committing her heists. While trying to rob Carmine Falcone, she gets rescued by Batman but is irked of being thought of as his sidekick by the media.
The 1989 Catwoman limited series, written by Mindy Newell and with art by J.J. Birch, expanded upon Miller's Year One origin. This storyline, known as "Her Sister's Keeper", explores Selina's early life as a dominatrix and the start of her career as Catwoman. The story culminates with Selina's former pimp, Stan, abducting and beating her sister Maggie, who, in contrast to Selina, is a nun. Selina kills Stan to save her sister, and gets away with it. Most of this is revealed in the former series, but is expanded upon in "Her Sister's Keeper".
Catwoman (vol. 2) #69 provides details about Selina's childhood and neglects Maggie's existence. Maria Kyle is a distant parent who preferred to spend her time with cats, and commits suicide when Selina is very young. Her alcoholic father, Brian, is cold to Selina for resembling her mother, whom he resents for dying, and eventually drinks himself to death. To survive, Selina takes to the streets for a time before getting caught and sent first to an orphanage, then juvenile detention center, "where Selina began to see how hard the world could really be". Maggie's fate at this point in the timeline is not alluded to. However, when Ed Brubaker reintroduces her into the comic, he implies that Maggie may have directly entered an orphanage and promptly been adopted.
When she is 13 years old, Selina discovers that the detention center's administrator has been embezzling funds, and she confronts her. In an attempt to cover up her crime, the administrator puts Selina in a bag and drops her in a river to drown (like a cat). She escapes and returns to the orphanage, where she steals documents exposing the administrator's corruption. She uses these to blackmail the administrator into erasing "Selina Kyle" from the city's records, then steals the administrator's diamond necklace and escapes from the orphanage. Selina eventually finds herself in "Alleytown – a network of cobblestone streets that form a small borough between the East End and Old Gotham." Selina is taken in by Mama Fortuna, the elderly leader of a gang of young thieves, and is taught how to steal. Fortuna treats her students like slaves, keeping their earnings for herself. Selina eventually runs away, accompanied by her friend Sylvia. However, the two have difficulty surviving on their own, and in desperation try to support themselves by working as prostitutes. The two drift apart afterward, with Sylvia coming to resent Selina for not inquiring about what had happened to her at the hands of her abusive first client.
In the Catwoman: Year One story, Selina, who is now an adult, achieves some success as a thief. Following a disastrous burglary, however, she accepts an offer to "lie low" as a dominatrix employed by a pimp named Stan. They plan to trick men into divulging information that might be used in future crimes. According to this storyline, Selina trains under the Armless Master of Gotham City, receiving education in martial arts and culture. During this time, a client gives her a cat o' nine tails, which Selina keeps as a trophy.
Batman: Dark Victory, the sequel to Batman: The Long Halloween, implies that Catwoman suspects she is the illegitimate daughter of Mafia boss Carmine Falcone, although she finds no definitive proof. Selina's connection to the Falcone crime family is further explored in the miniseries Catwoman: When in Rome. Though the story adds more circumstantial evidence to the theory of Selina's Falcone heritage, establishing that the Falcones' second-born daughter was put up for adoption in America, it also supplies no definitive proof. During Batman: The Long Halloween, Selina (out of costume) develops a relationship with Bruce Wayne, even leading her to save Bruce from Poison Ivy. However, this relationship appears to end on the Fourth of July when Bruce rejects her advances twice; once as Bruce and once as Batman. She leaves him for good and also leaves Gotham for a while in Batman: Dark Victory, after he stands her up on two holidays. When the two meet at an opera many years later, during the events of Batman: Hush, Bruce comments that the two no longer have a relationship as Bruce and Selina.
Catwoman also appears in the Batman: Knightfall saga, where she is approached by Bane's henchmen while robbing a house. Bane asks her to work for him, but she refuses, as she is repulsed by the criminal who "broke" Batman. Later in the story, she boards a plane with Bruce Wayne to fly to Santa Prisca. She next appears in the Batman: Knightquest saga, where Azrael is masquerading as Batman. She is one of the few to recognize that this Batman is an impostor, later being present when the true Batman returns to the fold as he struggles against his successor, his willingness to save even criminals confirming his true identity for Selina.
==== Catwoman solo series ====
In 1993, Catwoman was given her first ongoing comic book series. This series, written by an assortment of writers, but primarily penciled by Jim Balent, generally depicted the character as an international thief (and occasional bounty hunter) with an ambiguous moral code.
Story-lines include her adoption of teenage runaway and former sidekick, Arizona; aiding Bane, whom she later betrays to Azrael; and a stint as a reluctant government operative. The series also delves into her origin, revealing her beginnings as a young thief, her difficult period in juvenile incarceration, and her training with Ted Grant.
Moving to New York City, Selina becomes corporate vice president of Randolf Industries, a Mafia-influenced company and then becomes its CEO through blackmail. She plans to use this position to run for Mayor of New York City, but her hopes are dashed when the Trickster inadvertently connects her to her criminal alter ego.
After her time in New York City, Selina returns to Gotham City, which at this time is in the midst of the "No Man's Land" storyline. As Catwoman, she assists Batman against Lex Luthor in the reconstruction of the city. After being arrested by Commissioner Gordon, she escapes from prison. Later that year, during the "Officer Down" storyline in the Batman titles, Catwoman is initially the chief suspect. Although later cleared, she displays increasingly erratic behavior throughout the story, with her series later revealing that she has developed a form of personality disorder after exposure to the Scarecrow's fear gas, causing her to act as herself and an identity that appears to be her sister Maggie pretending to be her. Soon afterward, she disappears and is believed to have been killed by the assassin Deathstroke the Terminator, ending her series at issue #94.
Catwoman then appears in a series of back-up stories in Detective Comics #759–762 (August–November 2001). In the back-up storyline "Trail of the Catwoman", by writer Ed Brubaker and artist Darwyn Cooke, private detective Slam Bradley attempts to find out what really happened to Selina Kyle. This storyline leads into the newest Catwoman series in late 2001 (written by Brubaker initially with Cooke, later joined by artist Cameron Stewart). In this series, Selina Kyle, joined by new supporting cast members Holly and Bradley, becomes protector of the residents of Gotham's East End, while still carrying out an ambitious career as a cat burglar.
During the Batman: Hush storyline, Batman and Catwoman briefly work together and have a romantic relationship, during which he reveals his true identity to her. At the end, he breaks off their relationship when he suspects it has been manipulated by the Riddler and Hush. This is the second story to establish that she knows Batman's true identity. In an early 1980s storyline, Selina and Bruce develop a relationship. The concluding story features a closing panel in which she refers to Batman as "Bruce". A change in the editorial team at that point, however, brought a swift end to that storyline and, apparently, all that transpired during the story arc.
In the Justice League story arc "Crisis of Conscience", Catwoman fights alongside Batman and the Justice League against the old Secret Society of Super Villains, of which she had once briefly been a member.
==== Mindwiping revelations ====
Catwoman appears to be completely reformed, and her love for Batman is true (although brash and unpredictable). However, she has learned her reformation was the result of a mindwipe by Zatanna, a procedure known to deeply affect and, in at least one case, physically incapacitate its victims. Zatanna gives no reason for her actions, but in a flashback, it is shown that she had acted with the consent and aid of five of the seven JLA members who had helped her mindwipe Dr. Light and Batman. Catwoman's response to this revelation is unequivocal: she gags Zatanna with duct tape, rendering her powerless, and pushes her out a window. Afterward, she is seen covering her bed with past versions of her Catwoman costume.
Still unbalanced and uncertain of herself in issue #52, Selina is forced to decide whether to kill a supervillain. Black Mask, in an attempt to "improve himself", threatens the most important people in Selina's life, from Slam Bradley to Holly. The villain had also previously tortured Selina's sister Maggie by drilling out her husband's eyeballs and feeding them to Maggie, which drove her insane. Black Mask learns Selina's identity through his earlier alliance with Selina's childhood friend Sylvia, who still harbors a grudge against Selina. Still thinking that Selina adheres to a strict no-kill rule, Black Mask is caught by surprise when Selina shoots him in the head. This action continues to haunt her throughout the "One Year Later" storyline, and it is suggested that this might have been the first time she had ever directly taken a life.
==== As a mother ====
Following the events of Infinite Crisis, the DC Universe jumps forward in time. After "One Year later", Selina Kyle is no longer Catwoman, she has left the East End, and has given birth to a daughter named Helena. The father of her new daughter is initially unrevealed; however, Batman demonstrates great concern for the child and at one point asks to have Helena stay at his mansion. Selina attempts to live a safe and somewhat normal life, and gives up her more dangerous ways of living as Catwoman. Holly Robinson takes over as the new Catwoman while Selina, living under the alias Irena Dubrovna, turns her attention to caring for her daughter (Selina's alias was inspired by the name of the main character in the 1942 film Cat People).
Though she takes her role as a new mother quite seriously, Selina dons the costume for a run through the East End some days after Helena's birth. Having gained a few pounds, Selina finds that her costume is now tighter. In addition, she is easily distracted by a common criminal. Although the situation is defused through Holly's opportune arrival, the sight of two Catwomen active simultaneously in the city is caught on video. Selina returns home from her adventure to find that the mysterious movie aficionado the Film Freak has deduced her alias, teamed up with the Angle Man, and grabbed Helena. After rescuing her daughter, Selina convinces Zatanna to mindwipe the Film Freak and the Angle Man in order to preserve her secret identity. Following the procedure, the Angle Man turns himself in to the authorities; the Film Freak, however, embarks upon a murderous rampage.
A twist occurs when Wildcat informs Selina that Holly has been arrested for the murder of Black Mask. Selina infiltrates the police station and frees Holly. Finally defeating the Film Freak, Selina returns home to find that Bradley has deduced that Helena is the daughter of his son Sam Bradley, Jr., and therefore his granddaughter (although it is still strongly hinted that Bruce Wayne may be the father).
Batman asks Catwoman to infiltrate the violent tribe of the Bana Amazons during the Amazons Attack! crossover. Posing as a criminal, Selina gains the Bana's trust and thwarts a terror attack aimed at causing mass casualties in Gotham City.
Selina questions whether she should be raising a daughter when her life as Catwoman has already proven to be such a danger to the child. After enlisting Batman's help in faking the death of both herself and her daughter, Selina puts Helena up for adoption. A month after Helena is placed with a new family, Catwoman asks Zatanna to erase her memories of Helena and change her mind back to a criminal mentality. Zatanna refuses, judging that such an act would be cruel to both mother and daughter. She tells Selina that she could never reverse Selina's mindset, since she was on the path to becoming a hero on her own. Believing she can no longer function as a criminal, Selina decided to become one of Batman's Outsiders. She quickly quits, however, and is replaced by Batgirl.
==== Salvation Run ====
In Salvation Run #2, Catwoman is sent to the Prison Planet. She allies with Lex Luthor in an attempt to return to Earth, and mistakenly ends up on an alternate universe-Earth where Catwoman is a notorious villain. It is later revealed that this Earth is a creation of her own mind, and she has not left the planet. When accused of being a traitor by Luthor, she reveals the Martian Manhunter is posing as the Blockbuster, which would soon lead to the hero's death.
Using the trust she regained in Luthor's eyes, she earns a passage to the 'real' Earth, in a jerry-rigged teleport machine built by Luthor to let the villains escape. On Earth, she resumes being a hero, with occasional lapses into thievery by commission, simply for the thrill of it.
==== Heart of Hush ====
Later, in Detective Comics, Selina is quite uncertain about pursuing a romantic relationship with Batman. She talks with Bruce about Jezebel Jet, his current girlfriend, and then has a quick pep talk with Zatanna, whom she believes is also courting Bruce. Zatanna confirms and admits her feelings, adding that she has since chosen to forget them, but extremely encourages Selina to open her heart to Bruce Wayne before Jet is able to "seal the deal". Hush eavesdrops on the conversation, targeting both women as a way to hurt his enemy, Bruce Wayne.
In Detective Comics #848 (November 2008), Hush attacks Selina as she is in her apartment, kidnapping her and surgically removing her heart. She is delivered anonymously to a Gotham hospital. Batman receives word of her situation, and while he goes in search of Hush, he leaves Selina in the care of Doctor Mid-Nite, who is considered the superhero community's chief doctor.
Batman recovers Selina's heart and Mid-Nite returns it to her body; however, the doctor also makes a prognosis on whether she can still return to her former life swinging through rooftops. While Selina is still in a coma, she encounters Zatanna, who apologizes for not warning her about Hush. She tells Selina that she was so happy about her relationship with Bruce that she ignored the other warnings in the cards. Zatanna gives her a little bottle supposedly containing aloe vera for her post-op scars. It is hinted that there is a little magic in there to help Selina with her recovery. Selina is sad that she might end up alone again. In the meantime, Bruce enters the recovery room and, believing her unconscious, launches into a soliloquy. He ends by telling Selina that he will always love her, when she opens her eyes and reveals to him that she was awake all the time and heard his confession.
==== Batman R.I.P. ====
During the events of Batman R.I.P., Selina and Bruce's romance lasts only for a night because Bruce must continue to pose as Jezebel's lover to bring down the Black Glove. While still recuperating, she pulls off one more heist and exacts her revenge on Hush. With the help of a few allies on both sides; the Oracle, Holly Robinson, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, and Slam Bradley, Selina taps into Hush's assets, leaving him penniless and suffering from wounds inflicted by Batman.
==== Battle for the Cowl ====
In Batman: Battle for the Cowl, Selina is seen as one of the members of Nightwing and Robin's contingency team known as "the Network", where she is seen taking down a gang of thugs before seeing Tim Drake dressed in a Batman uniform and is initially taken by surprise.
==== Batman: Reborn and Gotham City Sirens ====
In the first issue of Gotham City Sirens, Selina runs into the Bonebuster, a new villain trying to make a name for himself, and is saved by Poison Ivy. Selina, fearing the many dangers of a post-Batman Gotham, proposes that she, Ivy, and Harley Quinn team up, living together at a single base in an abandoned animal shelter. Ivy agrees under one condition: using home-grown drugs to weaken Selina's resistance, Ivy demands the identity of the true Batman. Selina flashes back three years to when Talia al Ghul requested her presence in Tibet. There, Talia made it so that Selina would not relinquish the true identity of Batman under any circumstances. After the interrogation is over, Selina sees Harley with Bruce Wayne on TV. Selina tells Ivy that she knows it is Hush in disguise.
==== Blackest Night ====
During the events of Blackest Night, Selina is attacked by Black Mask after he has been reborn as a member of the Black Lantern Corps. After he tells her that he plans on getting an emotional response before killing her, Selina steals a car and heads to the mental institution where Maggie is held, believing Black Mask is coming for her. Black Mask attacks the institution, and somehow awakens Maggie from her coma. Selina arrives in time to help her sister flee into the sewers. While on the run, Maggie angrily tells Selina that she ruined both of their lives the day she decided to become Catwoman. Devastated by her sister's statement, Selina fails to realize they have both been heading into a trap. Just as Black Mask is about to gouge Maggie's eyes out and shove them down Selina's throat, Harley and Ivy arrive and defeat the Black Lantern by trapping him in the stomach of a man-eating plant. Selina is helped to her feet by her friends, who tell her that Maggie has fled the scene. The next day, the staff members of the mental institution are shown discussing Maggie's escape, also mentioning that a nun that works at the hospital had been found beaten and stripped of her uniform. Maggie is then shown in the depths of the Gotham City sewers clad in the bloodied nun robes, muttering about her plan to kill Catwoman in order to free Selina's soul. Now calling herself Sister Zero, Maggie attempts to kill Selina, but ultimately flees after being defeated by the Sirens. She is last seen going over her options, now realizing that she cannot murder her own sister, and therefore must personally exorcise the "cat demon" from within Selina's body.
==== The Return of Bruce Wayne ====
In the build-up to The Return of Bruce Wayne, the Sirens help Zatanna put out a massive fire at a local park near their home, only for them to be ambushed by a creature made of mud. After being dragged underneath the soil by the creature, Catwoman awakens bound and gagged on the floor of a dark room, and is quickly forced into an illusion by her unseen captors. Back in reality, Talia reveals to the Sirens that just a few hours prior, an unknown benefactor had offered up a massive reward to whoever could kidnap and deliver Catwoman to him, with the hopes that he could penetrate her mind and learn Batman's secret identity. Before the knowledge can be ripped from her mind, Selina's captors (revealed to be Shrike and a new villain named Sempai), are eventually defeated by the other Sirens.
Once Selina is freed, Talia orders Zatanna to wipe Bruce's identity from her memory, reasoning that her kidnapping has proved that the knowledge is too dangerous for her to handle. The two women initially restrain Selina and attempt to remove the knowledge from her, but Zatanna refuses at the last moment and ends up fighting Talia in order to protect Selina. Talia tries to kill Selina before vanishing, but she survives and ultimately reunites with Bruce, who had recently returned to the present.
After stealing the contents of a safe belonging to the Falcone crime family, Selina returns home to find Kitrina, a teenaged escape artist and Carmine Falcone's long-lost daughter, breaking into her room. She attacks and subdues Kitrina, who tells Selina that she had unknowingly stolen a map that details the location of the new Black Mask's underground bunker. Realizing that she could use the map to capture Black Mask and claim the 50 million dollar bounty on his head, Selina leaves Kitrina bound in a locked room so that she can keep the map for herself. She later calls Batman to her house in order to turn the would-be thief over to the police, but discovers that Kitrina had managed to free herself and steal back the map. This impresses Selina, who mentions that she had tied up the child using an "inescapable" knot that Bruce had shown her years earlier.
Following a battle with Black Mask and his henchmen, which ends with neither woman being able to claim the bounty, Selina agrees to take on Kitrina as her new sidekick, Catgirl. Once Bruce Wayne returns from his time in the past, he establishes Batman Incorporated, a global team of Batmen. Selina accompanies Batman on a mission to break into Doctor Sivana's armory, and later travels with him to Tokyo in order to recruit a Japanese representative for Batman Inc. Catwoman teams up with Batman to stop Harley Quinn from breaking the Joker out of Arkham Asylum. After defeating Harley and the Joker, Catwoman tells Poison Ivy that they are no longer friends, this after Ivy drugged her in an attempt to uncover Batman's secret identity.
Shortly afterwards, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn have escaped and set off to pursue revenge on Catwoman for leaving them behind. The two of them found Catwoman and fought her. While they were fighting, Catwoman says that she saw good in them and only wanted to help them. Batman was about to arrest them, but Catwoman helped the two of them escape.
=== The New 52 / Catwoman (vol. 4) ===
In 2011, DC Comics relaunched its main line of superhero titles under the umbrella The New 52, which revised and updated the fictional history of its superhero characters. Catwoman's new monthly title now focused on Selina's earlier days as Catwoman, though not the identity's origins. The series begins with Selina frantically escaping from unknown masked men who are invading her apartment. After flitting from rooftop to rooftop, Selina looks back just in time to see her apartment blown apart by explosives. She turns to her informant, Lola, who often supplies Catwoman with information and various jobs. In this instance, Lola tips Selina off to an unoccupied penthouse where Selina can lie low for a few weeks, as well as a job stealing a painting from Russian mobsters. For this job, Selina infiltrates a Russian club by posing as the bartender. There, she recognizes a man who murdered a friend of hers, and she takes her revenge. Once her cover is blown, Selina dons her Catwoman outfit and fights her way out of the club. It is revealed through Selina's inner monologue that she and Batman are lovers, and the premiere issue ends with the first sex scene between the two. Her revised origin in Catwoman (vol. 4) #0 draws from Batman Returns.
Catwoman is later confronted by Steve Trevor, who offers her a spot on Amanda Waller's new Justice League of America. Selina initially refuses, but accepts the offer after Trevor promises to help her track down a woman who has apparently been posing as Selina. It is later revealed that Catwoman was chosen specifically to take down Batman should the JLA ever need to defeat the original Justice League. The teams eventually come into conflict in the publisher's "Trinity War" crossover.
In the Earth-Two continuity, Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne are married, and their daughter, Helena Wayne, is that universe's Robin. In this universe, either Selina has reformed or was never a supervillain in the first place. It is revealed in issue #0 of Worlds' Finest that this Selina was killed while trying to stop what she believed was a human trade ring.
==== Keeper of the Castle and Inheritance ====
From 2014 to 2015, science fiction writer Genevieve Valentine took over the series and penned a 10-issue story arc focused on Selina Kyle's reign as a Gotham City crime boss. Following events from Batman Eternal and preceding those in Batman #28, Selina takes over control of the Calabrese crime family, after being revealed as the daughter of Rex Calabrese. During this time she stops wearing the Catwoman costume, prompting Eiko Hasigawa, heir to the rival Hasigawa family, to replace her in the role.
The women confront each other several times, discussing Eiko's motivations to dress as Catwoman and whether Selina's plans for Gotham and the families are worth the sacrifices required. During one of their encounters, Selina and Eiko kiss, establishing their relationship as a romantic one.
=== DC Universe ===
In June 2016, the DC Rebirth event again relaunched DC Comics' entire line of superhero comic book titles with partial revisions of their characters' fictional histories. Catwoman assumes a prominent role in the third volume of Batman. In December 2017, DC Comics ended the DC Rebirth branding, opting to include everything under a larger DC Universe banner and naming, and Catwoman continues to be featured in the third volume of Batman. The series reveals Selina Kyle's origin through a series of flashbacks and letters exchanged between her and Bruce. Selina's parents died when she was young, and she hardly remembers them. She is sent to the Thomas and Martha Wayne Home For the Boys and Girls of Gotham, and even after being placed in various foster homes, Selina would escape to return to the orphanage.
Eventually, Selina takes on the Catwoman persona. During one of her heists, she is approached by the Kite Man to aide the Joker in a gang war against the Riddler, which she refuses. She later aides Batman, with whom she already has a romantic relationship, to spy on the Joker. She is shot from a window, but is unharmed. At some point in the future, her childhood orphanage is bombed by a terrorist group called the Dogs of War. Batman reluctantly arrests Catwoman after all 237 of them are killed, despite Catwoman's insistence on her guilt.
Catwoman's first appearance following the start of DC Rebirth is in Batman (vol. 3) #9, where she is revealed to be imprisoned in Arkham Asylum for the alleged murders of the Dogs of War. Batman is determined to prove her innocence, and makes a deal with Amanda Waller to get her off death row in exchange for her help on a mission to Santa Prisca. The mission to find the Psycho-Pirate is a success, and Batman and Catwoman return to Gotham City. Before Batman can return her to custody, she escapes. Batman investigates the murders of the terrorists that she has been charged with, and deduces that it was in fact Holly Robinson who committed the murders after the terrorists burned down the orphanage she and Selina were raised in. After being attacked by Holly Robinson, Batman is rescued by Catwoman.
Bruce proposes to Selina at the end of Batman (vol. 3) #24. In issue #32, Selina asks Bruce to propose to her again, to which she says, "Yes". The two leave Gotham for Khadym to where Holly Robinson has fled to in order to clear Selina's name, ultimately facing Talia al Ghul.
Batman Annual (vol. 3) #2 (January 2018) centers on a romantic storyline between Batman and Catwoman, beginning with their initial meetings and acceptance of their shared mutual attraction towards one and another. Towards the end, the story is flash-forwarded to the future, in which Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle are a married couple in their golden years. Bruce receives a terminal medical diagnosis, and Selina cares for him until his death.
On the day of their wedding, Selina decides to call off the wedding as she realises that marrying Bruce would ultimately take away what makes him Batman. This is later revealed to be due to the manipulations of Holly under the instructions of Bane as to finally break Batman of both spirit and will. Subsequently, Selina leaves Gotham and starts a new life in the city of Villa Hermosa, California (Catwoman (vol. 5) #1). She faces opposition from the power-hungry Creel family who run Villa Hermosa, specifically First Lady Raina Creel.
She reappears in the "City of Bane" storyline, reuniting with Bruce following his defeat against both Bane and his father Thomas Wayne from the Flashpoint reality. They proceed to go to Paris for Bruce to recover, before going to disrupt a shipment of Venom under the jurisdiction of Bane's lieutenant, the Magpie. During this, they reconcile and finally determine when they actually first met (Batman believed it to be on a boat when they first met under their alter-egos; whilst Catwoman believed it to be in the streets as their true identities, reminiscent of their meeting in Batman: Year One). They subsequently go back to Gotham and defeat all of Batman's enemies who had sided with Bane before taking on and defeating Bane himself, at which point the two are taken by Thomas who, in an attempt to finally break Bruce's spirit, shows him the corpse of the recently murdered Alfred. However, both Bruce and Selina then defeat Thomas utilizing both Scarface and the Psycho-Pirate.
== Equipment ==
=== Weapons ===
During the Silver Age, Catwoman, like most Batman villains, used a variety of themed weapons, vehicles, and equipment, such as a custom cat-themed car called the "Cat-illac". This usage also appeared in the 1960s Batman television series. In her Post-Crisis appearances, Catwoman's favored weapon is a whip. She wields both a standard bullwhip and a cat o' nine tails with expert proficiency. She uses the whip because it is a weapon that the user must be trained to use, and therefore it can not be taken from her and used against her in a confrontation. She can also be seen using a pistol against people if her whip is taken from her. Catwoman uses caltrops as an anti-personnel weapon and bolas to entangle opponents at a distance.
Catwoman has also been shown to have various items to restrain her victims, such as rope for binding hands and feet, and a roll of duct tape used to gag her targets, as she has done with various victims during her robberies over the years. Often, especially in the TV series, she uses sleeping gas or knockout darts to subdue victims. Catwoman's attractiveness and feminine wiles have also allowed her to take advantage of male opponents.
=== Costume ===
Catwoman, in her first appearance, wore no costume or disguise at all. It was not until her next appearance that she donned a mask, which was a theatrically face-covering cat-mask that had the appearance of a real cat, rather than a more stylized face mask seen in her later incarnations. Later, she wore a dress with a hood that came with ears, and still later, a catsuit with attached boots and either a domino or glasses-mask.
In the 1960s, Catwoman's catsuit was green, which was typical of villains of that era. In the 1990s, she usually wore a mostly purple, skintight catsuit before switching to a black catsuit similar to Michelle Pfeiffer's costume in Batman Returns, except not haphazardly stitched together.
In recent years, artists have typically depicted Catwoman in some variation of a tight, black bodysuit. Ed Brubaker, the writer behind the 2001 revamp of the character, has stated that Selina's current costume was inspired by Emma Peel's iconic leather catsuit in The Avengers television series. It has a more high tech look, with domino-shaped infrared goggles on her cowl. Many of her costumes have incorporated retractable metal claws on the fingertips of her gloves and sometimes on the toes of her boots. On rare occasions, she has also sported a cat's tail.
On May 21, 2018, DC Comics unveiled Selina's revamped Catwoman costume designed by comic book writer and artist Joëlle Jones. The new costume is black with openings under her arms and shoulders for mobility along with reinforcement in the middle. Gone are the goggles in favor of a cowl and sleeker, more stylish gloves and boots. Jones, who had been drawing the covers and interior art for DC Rebirth's Batman was announced as the writer and artist of a new solo Catwoman series (volume 5).
Holly Robinson uses the same costume Selina used prior to Infinite Crisis.
== Other versions ==
=== Earth-Two ===
In the 1970s comics, the Catwoman of Earth-Two (the parallel Earth that was retroactively declared as the home of DC's Golden Age characters) has the same history as her Golden Age counterpart. Selina later reformed in the 1950s (after the events of Batman #69) and had married Bruce Wayne; soon afterward, she gave birth to the couple's only child, Helena Wayne (the Huntress). The Brave and the Bold #197 (April 1983) elaborates upon the Golden Age origin of Catwoman given in Batman #62, after Selina reveals that she never suffered from amnesia. It is revealed that Selina Kyle had been in a bad marriage, and eventually decided to leave her husband. However, her husband kept her jewelry in his private vault, and she had to break into it to retrieve it. Selina enjoyed this experience so much she decided to become a professional costumed cat burglar, and thus began a career that repeatedly led to her encountering Batman.
The Earth-Two/Golden Age Selina Kyle eventually dies in the late 1970s after being blackmailed by her former underling "Silky" Cernak into going into action again as Catwoman, as shown in DC Super-Stars #17 (December 1977). She was killed when Cernak henchman's gun went off and hit her on the chest enough for her to fall from the fourth floor mezzanine. She died in Bruce's arms claiming "I did it all for you". This incident led to Helena Wayne becoming Huntress and bringing Cernak to justice.
=== The Dark Knight Returns ===
Selina Kyle appears as an aging and somewhat overweight madam in Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns four times; all are brief. The first time is in a phone message to Bruce ("Selina. Bruce, I'm lonely."). Next, she is attacked by the Joker, who uses a mind control drug to convince her to send one of her prostitutes to use the same substance on a governor. The Joker then beats her, dresses her in a Wonder Woman outfit, ties her up and gags her, leaving her for Batman to find. Selina's final appearance in the book is at Bruce Wayne's funeral, where she yells at Superman, telling him that she knows who killed Bruce. She does not appear in Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Miller's follow-up story, although she is referred to in the prologue written for the trade paperback version, but in the book, Carrie Kelley's moniker of "Catgirl" is an homage to Catwoman.
=== Prose books ===
Two 1990s prose books feature Catwoman: The Further Adventures of Batman: Volume 3 featuring Catwoman, a short story anthology with stories written by various authors, and Catwoman: Tiger Hunt, a novel. Both books feature a Batman: Year One-influenced Catwoman who wears a gray cat costume and was once a prostitute.
=== Kingdom Come ===
Catwoman also made a small cameo in Kingdom Come, mostly accompanying the Riddler; she is predominantly seen, but not much heard in the series. She is not dressed in costume, but appears in the very dress she first wore in Batman #1 as the Cat. According to the novelization by Elliot S. Maggin, she runs a multibillion-dollar cosmetics company. An armored, metahuman successor called "Catwoman II" is also featured in the story as one of the "new heroes" who follow the new "man of tomorrow" Magog's anti-heroic, violent example.
=== Batman: Digital Justice ===
In the all-digital graphic novel Batman: Digital Justice, which is set some time in the future long after the original Batman has died, Sheila Romero, also known as the hit pop music star Gata (the Spanish female noun for "cat") and daughter of the Mayor of Gotham City, is jealous of the new Batman, James Gordon, because media coverage of his activities have been cutting into her airtime. Setting out to learn as much about Batman and his enemies as she can, Gata becomes the new Catwoman. Near the end of the story, Gata and her followers face off against Batman, but the two later fall in love, and Maria Romero, also known as Madame X, tells Sheila that she is really a clone of Maria. Maria confesses that she had planned to transplant her brain into Gata's body, but she could not bring herself to do it because she loved her "daughter" too much. Maria then dies in Sheila's arms.
=== Elseworlds ===
In the Elseworlds tale Catwoman: Guardian of Gotham, Selina Kyle is the daughter of millionaires Thomas and Martha Kyle. Walking home after seeing the film Cat People, the young Selina chases after an alley cat and watches in horror as her parents are gunned down by a robber. Selina learns that the crook has stolen a ring she found in a Cracker Jack box and had given to her mother. Years later she becomes Catwoman, the defender of Gotham City, operating out of a Catcave beneath Kyle Manor, aided by a young maid named Brooks (this universe's version of Alfred Pennyworth). Her major enemy is a psychopathic criminal named Batman, who beats her entire rogues gallery half-to-death just to get rid of the competition.
In the Elseworlds tale Batman: Nine Lives, where Batman and his supporting characters are re-invented as a pulp noir detective story, an African-American Selina Kyle is a murdered owner of the bankrupt Kit Kat Club who was blackmailing many of the city's most powerful figures. She is nicknamed "the Catwoman".
In the Elseworlds tale Batman/Tarzan: Claws of the Cat-woman, set in the 1930s, explorer and adventurer Finnegan Dent is revealed to be stealing the sacred artifacts of an African tribe. During an encounter with Batman and Tarzan, a female thief, dressed as a cat, is revealed to be the princess of the tribe, as well as the priestess of its cat-cult, trying to reclaim the artifacts.
In the Elseworlds tale JLA: The Nail, featuring a world where costumed heroes have no symbol of inspiration as Superman was never recovered by the Kents, Catwoman is diagnosed by the head warden of Arkham Asylum as not being a true "criminal", but simply enjoying playing a "cat-and-mouse" game with Batman, donning her costume simply to attract his attention. During her time in Arkham, the Joker attacks the asylum armed with Kryptonian gauntlets provided by the story's secret villain, forcing the inmates to fight each other—Catwoman being the last one standing—before Batman arrives. Although the Joker uses his gauntlets to brutally murder Robin and Batgirl while forcing Batman to watch, Catwoman distracts him long enough for Batman to escape the Joker's hold and destroy the gauntlets. He then proceeds to kill the Joker in a trauma-induced rage, taking the gauntlets and Catwoman back to the Batcave. With Selina and Alfred having broken through Batman's grief, Selina becomes Batwoman and joins Batman in rescuing the JLA from captivity. Although Batman resigns from the League after he is cleared of the Joker's murder, even Catwoman's support cannot help him past his grief until the events of JLA: Another Nail, where the two briefly travel into the afterlife to investigate recent supernatural disturbances with the aid of Deadman, with Batgirl and Robin's spirits appearing to forgive their mentor for his failure to save them before he returns to life.
In the Elseworlds tale Batman: In Darkest Knight, featuring a world if Bruce Wayne discovered the body of dying alien Abin Sur, instead of Green Lantern Hal Jordan, also features familiar Batman characters mixed with some of Green Lantern's enemies. Selina Kyle (recognized by Bruce as "that night in the East End", a reference to Batman: Year One"), along with Harvey Dent are corrupted by Sinestro, who absorbs the mind of the Waynes' killer Joe Chill and became crazed. The two known as Star Sapphire (Selina) and Binary Star (Harvey Dent) team with Sinestro to take out Green Lantern, but are stopped.
=== Batman: Bloodstorm ===
In Batman: Bloodstorm, the first of two sequels to Batman & Dracula: Red Rain, where Batman was forced to become a vampire to save Gotham from an attack by Dracula, Selina is turned into a werecat after being bitten by one of the remaining vampires. Hunting for the monster that transformed her, Selina encounters Batman as he hunts for the remaining vampires, the two subsequently joining forces to eliminate the vampire horde. As they fight together, Batman finds that Selina's selfless love for him allows him to control his thirst for blood that had begun to consume him. She sacrifices herself to save him from the Joker, who had become the leader of the remaining vampires after Dracula's death, taking a crossbow bolt to the heart that the Joker had fired at Batman. Batman's grief and rage over her death causes him to finally lose control of his bloodlust as he drinks the Joker's blood. In the second and final sequel, Batman: Crimson Mist, the corrupted Batman reflects grimly that he can no longer understand Selina's noble sacrifice after his psyche has become increasingly corrupted by his surrender to his vampire side.
=== Thrillkiller ===
In Howard Chaykin's Thrillkiller, Selina Kyle is a stripper in a cat-themed strip club. She acts as an informant for GCPD detective Bruce Wayne.
=== Dark Allegiances ===
In Howard Chaykin's Dark Allegiances, Selina Kyle becomes a film star under the stage name of Kitty Grimalkin. Prior to becoming a star, she was an alcoholic whose actions during one of her "blackouts" were recorded into an underground porn film. The stills from the film are used to blackmail her into stealing information from Wayne Enterprises.
=== Batman: Shadow of the Bat ===
In Alan Grant's Batman: Shadow of the Bat Annual #2, Vikki Vale, a reporter for Wayne Media, is Catwoman. She is hired by Anarky to steal information, but she gets caught and is tortured by Jonathan Crane, whom she calls a "demented scarecrow".
=== All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder ===
In Frank Miller's All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, Catwoman expresses interest when the Joker's invites her to join him in "some mischief". She may be involved in sadomasochism, as she first advises the Joker — who has just murdered his latest lover—that "I've heard rumors on how you handle women — and even I don't play it that rough". Two issues later, however, Catwoman is found brutally beaten and cut, bleeding badly. She struggles to tell Batman, "Juh... Juh... It was Juh..."
=== Batman: Two Faces ===
In Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning's Batman: Two Faces, Selina Kyle is a madame in 19th century Gotham, who defends streetwalkers in a mask, bustier, and fishnets and occasionally works with amateur detective Bruce Wayne. The Joker attacks and paralyzes her, much like he does to Barbara Gordon in Batman: The Killing Joke.
=== Batman: Leatherwing ===
In Detective Comics Annual #7 ("Batman: Leatherwing") by Chuck Dixon, set in the 18th century Caribbean, Capitana Felina is a Spanish Contessa turned pirate, who rails against the chauvinism of her own crew. She initially teams up with the Laughing Man (the Joker) against the English freebooter Captain Leatherwing (Batman), before turning to Leatherwing's side, and eventually marrying him.
=== Batman Beyond ===
A futuristic Catwoman appears in Batman Beyond (vol. 3). Like the current Batman, Terry McGinnis, the new Catwoman sports a high-tech costume complete with advanced gadgetry. The new Hush hires her to plant a tracking device on Batman, only for Hush to begin strangling her after "paying" her with a box full of playing cards, regarding her death as a continuation of his efforts to destroy Batman's "family" by killing his rogues gallery. Bruce Wayne saves her with 'Bat-Wraith' robots. She is revealed to be the daughter of the villain Multiplex; she inherits her father's ability to self-duplicate, but can only create nine copies of herself, explaining her adoption of the Catwoman moniker. She is later revealed to be intimately involved with Dick Grayson.
=== Flashpoint ===
In the alternate timeline of the Flashpoint event, Selina Kyle becomes the Oracle, having been apparently paralyzed under unspecified circumstances.
=== Batman: Earth One ===
In the second volume of the Batman: Earth One graphic novel series, Selena Kyle appears and helps Batman tending his wounds after chasing the Riddler, pretending to be a single mother who lives in the apartment building where he was injured. Batman later discovers that she is neither the apartment's tenant or a mother, but a burglar who was robbing the building at the time.
=== Scooby-Doo Team-Up ===
During a crossover with the cast of Scooby-Doo, Catwoman poses as a ghost in order to con Harley and Ivy out of the Opal of Isis, a rare artifact. After the members of Mystery, Inc. unravel her scam, Catwoman tries to flee with the opal. She is soon found bound and gagged, with Batgirl having managed to defeat her and reclaim the opal off-screen.
=== Earth 2 ===
In 2011, The New 52 revised and relaunched DC Comics superhero titles, including revisions to the alternate-universe stories and characters of "Earth-Two"—renamed "Earth-2". The Earth 2 version of Catwoman is married to Batman and is the mother of Helena Wayne. Catwoman trained her daughter in crimefighting so that she can one day aid her father, who is busy protecting the world from bigger threats. Batman found out about the outing and got angry, only for Catwoman to calm him down and kiss him. Helena later came to her father's aid and found that soldiers from another world killed Catwoman as Batman mourns her death.
=== Batman '89 ===
In 2021, DC announced that it would be releasing a comic book continuation of Tim Burton's first two Batman films, Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), Batman '89, written by Sam Hamm, and illustrated by Joe Quinones. The book picks up following the events of Batman Returns (1992) and includes the return of Michelle Pfeiffer's Selina Kyle / Catwoman.
=== Absolute Batman ===
The Absolute Universe version of Selina Kyle / Catwoman debuts in Absolute Batman. This version is a childhood friend and later girlfriend of Bruce Wayne, having both grown up in Crime Alley along with Waylon Jones, Harvey Dent, Edward Nigma, and Oswald Cobblepot. As an adult, she leaves Gotham to travel the world and becomes Catwoman, wearing a dome-shaped helmet with ears and wielding a submachinegun. She later returning to help Bruce, now Batman, fight Bane, taking a vial of venom with her after they defeat him. In 2025, DC announced that Selina would be receiving her own limited spin-off series, Absolute Catwoman, releasing in 2026.
== In other media ==
Catwoman made her live-action debut in the 1966 Batman television series, portrayed by Julie Newmar; she was also portrayed by Lee Meriwether in the film adaptation and Eartha Kitt in the third season. The character later appeared in Tim Burton's Batman Returns, portrayed by Michelle Pfeiffer. A solo Catwoman film was released in 2004 in which she was portrayed by Halle Berry. Anne Hathaway portrayed the character in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises. She was voiced by Zoë Kravitz in the 2017 animated film The Lego Batman Movie, and in 2022, she portrayed the character in Matt Reeves' live-action film The Batman. Catwoman has also appeared in the television series Gotham (2014–2019), in which she was portrayed by Camren Bicondova and Lili Simmons (adult).
== Reception ==
Catwoman was ranked 11th on IGN's "Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time" list, and 51st on Wizard magazine's "100 Greatest Villains of All Time" list. Conversely, she was ranked 20th on IGN's "Top 100 Comic Book Heroes of All Time" list, as well as 23rd in Comics Buyer's Guide's "100 Sexiest Women in Comics" list. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Knudson | George Knudson | George Alfred Christian Knudson, CM (June 28, 1937 – January 24, 1989) was a Canadian professional golfer, who along with Mike Weir holds the record for the Canadian with the most wins on the PGA Tour, with eight career victories.
== Early life and amateur career ==
Knudson was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He learned to play golf at the St. Charles Country Club. He won the 1954 and 1955 Manitoba Junior Championships. In addition, he won the 1955 Canadian Junior Championship.
== Professional career ==
In 1958, Knudson moved to Toronto and worked at the Oakdale Golf & Country Club where he received instruction and encouragement from the Club, to improve his game; the club has named one of its three nines after him. He was then able to secure some financial backing to try the PGA Tour. He won the Manitoba Open in 1958, 1959, and 1960, and the Ontario Open in 1960, 1961, 1971, 1976 and 1978.
Between 1961 and 1972, he won eight tournaments on the PGA Tour. He won the Canadian PGA Championship five times, and won the World Cup with Al Balding in 1968.
Knudson's last official PGA TOUR victory was the Kaiser Invitational in October 1972. However, Knudson nearly won again the next week at the Sahara Invitational. He carried the lead going into the final round at 15-under par after shooting 65-70-66, but a final round 76 dropped him into a T-7th at 11-under.
In seven Masters appearances, Knudson posted three top-10s, including 10th in his 1965 debut and sixth a year later. Knudson's best finish in a major championship was a tie for second in the 1969 Masters Tournament, one shot behind champion George Archer. Knudson's birdie putt on the 72nd hole to tie Archer came up 3 inches short.
Knudson left tournament golf in the late 1970s, and started teaching golf, with success, at a facility in the Toronto area. His teaching methods have since been adopted by the Canadian PGA.
== Death ==
Knudson had long been a heavy smoker and was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1987. He recovered well enough to compete at the 1988 Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf senior tournament. Shortly thereafter, it was discovered the cancer had spread to his brain. George Knudson died in January 1989 at age 51 and was buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto.
== Awards and honors ==
In 1969, Knudson was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.
In 1988, Knudson was inducted into both Royal Canadian Golf Association Hall of Fame and the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame and Museum
In 1988, he was also made a member of the Order of Canada.
In 1996, he was inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame.
== Amateur wins ==
1954 Manitoba Junior Championship
1955 Manitoba Junior Championship, Canadian Junior Championship
== Professional wins (30) ==
=== PGA Tour wins (8) ===
PGA Tour playoff record (3–0)
=== Canadian wins (16) ===
This list may be incomplete
1958 Manitoba Open
1959 Manitoba Open
1960 Manitoba Open, Ontario Open
1961 Ontario Open
1964 Canadian PGA Championship
1966 Millar Trophy
1967 Canadian PGA Championship
1968 Canadian PGA Championship
1971 Ontario Open
1976 Canadian PGA Championship
1976 Ontario Open
1977 Canadian PGA Championship, Shrine Pro-Am (shared with Dan Halldorson and Gar Hamilton)
1978 Ontario Open, Shrine Pro-Am
=== Latin American wins (4) ===
1962 Maracaibo Open Invitational, Puerto Rico Open
1963 Panama Open
1964 Caracas Open
=== Other wins (3) ===
1966 Canada Cup (individual trophy)
1968 World Cup (team event with Al Balding)
1969 Wills Masters (Australia)
== Results in major championships ==
Note: Knudson never played in The Open Championship.
CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" indicates a tie for a place
=== Summary ===
Most consecutive cuts made – 16 (1962 PGA – 1970 PGA)
Longest streak of top-10s – 1 (three times)
== Team appearances ==
Amateur
Americas Cup (representing Canada): 1956
Professional
World Cup (representing Canada): 1962, 1964, 1965, 1966 (individual winner), 1967, 1968 (winners), 1969, 1976, 1977 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_hockey_at_the_Pan_American_Games | Field hockey at the Pan American Games | The winner of the field hockey event of the Pan American Games qualifies for the Summer Olympics in the following year.
Women's field hockey was introduced at the 1987 edition, and has served as the Olympics qualifying event since 1999.
== Men's tournament ==
=== Results ===
=== Summary ===
=== Team appearances ===
== Women's tournament ==
=== Results ===
=== Summary ===
=== Team appearances ===
== Medal table ==
=== Total ===
=== Men ===
=== Women === |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco_Cristaldo | Franco Cristaldo | Franco Sebastián Cristaldo (born 15 August 1996) is an Argentine professional footballer who plays mainly as an attacking midfielder for Talleres.
== Club career ==
Born in Morón, Buenos Aires, Cristaldo was a Boca Juniors youth graduate. On 16 November 2014, he made his first team debut, coming on as a second-half substitute for Luciano Acosta in a 1–1 away draw against Arsenal de Sarandí.
Cristaldo was definitely promoted to the main squad in January 2015 by manager Rodolfo Arruabarrena. He scored his first professional goal on 29 March, netting the last in a 3–0 home win against Estudiantes de la Plata.
On 11 January 2016, Cristaldo joined Elche CF in Segunda División, on loan until the end of the season.
== Honours ==
Boca Juniors
Argentine Primera División: 2015
Grêmio
Campeonato Gaúcho: 2023, 2024
Recopa Gaúcha: 2023, 2025 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_titles_leaders | List of Major League Baseball titles leaders | At the end of each Major League Baseball season, the league leaders of various statistical categories are announced. Leading either the American League or the National League in a particular category is referred to as a title.
The following lists describe which players hold the most titles in a career for a particular category. Listed are players with four or more titles in a category. Active players are highlighted.
== Batting titles ==
12 Ty Cobb (1907–1915, 1917–1919)*
8 Honus Wagner (1900, 1903–1904, 1906–1909, 1911)
8 Tony Gwynn (1984, 1987–1989, 1994–1997)
7 Rogers Hornsby (1920–1925, 1928)
7 Stan Musial (1943, 1946, 1948, 1950–1952, 1957)
7 Rod Carew (1969, 1972–1975, 1977–1978)
6 Ted Williams (1941–1942, 1947–1948, 1957–1958)
5 Dan Brouthers (1882–1883, 1889, 1891–1892)
5 Wade Boggs (1983, 1985–1988)
4 Nap Lajoie (1901, 1903–1904, 1910)*
4 Harry Heilmann (1921, 1923, 1925, 1927)
4 Roberto Clemente (1961, 1964–1965, 1967)
4 Bill Madlock (1975–1976, 1981, 1983)
4 Miguel Cabrera (2011-2013, 2015)
* The 1910 American League batting title is disputed, with different sources giving the title to Ty Cobb or to Nap Lajoie or to both. See 1910 Chalmers Award.
== On-base percentage ==
12 Ted Williams (1940–1942, 1946–1949, 1951, 1954, 1956–1958)
10 Babe Ruth (1919–1921, 1923–1924, 1926–1927, 1930–1932)
9 Rogers Hornsby (1920–1925, 1927–1928, 1931)
7 Barry Bonds (1992, 2001–2004, 2006–2007)
7 Ty Cobb (1909–1910, 1913–1915, 1917–1918)
7 Joey Votto (2010−2013, 2016–2018)
6 Stan Musial (1943–1944, 1948–1949, 1953, 1957)
6 Wade Boggs (1983, 1985–1989)
5 Dan Brouthers (1882–1883, 1887, 1890–1891)
5 Billy Hamilton (1891, 1893–1894, 1896, 1898)
5 Lou Gehrig (1928, 1934–1937)
5 Carl Yastrzemski (1963, 1965, 1967–1968, 1970)
4 Honus Wagner (1904, 1907–1909)
4 Richie Ashburn (1954–1955, 1958, 1960)
4 Joe Morgan (1972, 1974–1976)
4 Rod Carew (1974–1975, 1977–1978)
4 Frank Thomas (1991–1992, 1994, 1997)
4 Mike Trout (2016−2019)
== Slugging percentage ==
13 Babe Ruth (1919–1924, 1926–1932)
9 Rogers Hornsby (1917, 1920–1925, 1928–1929)
9 Ted Williams (1941–1942, 1946–1949, 1951, 1954, 1957)
8 Ty Cobb (1907–1912, 1914, 1917)
7 Dan Brouthers (1881–1886, 1891)
6 Honus Wagner (1900, 1902, 1904, 1907–1909)
6 Stan Musial (1943–1944, 1946, 1948, 1950, 1952)
6 Barry Bonds (1992-1993, 2001-2004)
5 Ed Delahanty (1892–1893, 1896, 1899, 1902)
5 Jimmie Foxx (1932–1933, 1935, 1938–1939)
5 Willie Mays (1954, 1955, 1957, 1964, 1965)
5 Mike Schmidt (1974, 1980–1982, 1986)
4 Nap Lajoie (1897, 1901, 1903–1904)
4 Johnny Mize (1938–1940, 1942)
4 Mickey Mantle (1955–1956, 1961–1962)
4 Hank Aaron (1959, 1963, 1967, 1971)
4 Frank Robinson (1960–1962, 1966)
4 Alex Rodriguez (2003, 2005, 2007–2008)
== On-base plus slugging ==
13 Babe Ruth (1918–1924, 1926–1931)
11 Rogers Hornsby (1917, 1920–1925, 1927–1929, 1931)
10 Ted Williams (1941–1942, 1946–1949, 1951, 1954, 1957–1958)
9 Ty Cobb (1907–1912, 1914–1915, 1917)
8 Dan Brouthers (1882–1887, 1891, 1892)
7 Honus Wagner (1902, 1904, 1906–1909, 1911)
7 Stan Musial (1943–1944, 1946, 1948, 1950, 1952, 1957)
6 Barry Bonds (1992-1993, 2001-2004)
5 Ed Delahanty (1895–1896, 1899, 1901–1902)
5 Jimmie Foxx (1932–1933, 1935, 1938–1939)
5 Willie Mays (1954–1955, 1958, 1964–1965)
5 Mickey Mantle (1955–1956, 1960, 1962, 1964)
5 Mike Schmidt (1980–1982, 1984, 1986)
4 Frank Robinson (1960–1962, 1966)
4 Carl Yastrzemski (1965, 1967–1968, 1970)
4 Frank Thomas (1991–1992, 1994, 1997)
== At bats ==
8 Ichiro Suzuki (2001, 2004–2008, 2010–2011)
7 Doc Cramer (1933–1935, 1938, 1940–1942)
5 Nellie Fox (1952, 1955–1956, 1959–1960)
4 Abner Dalrymple (1880, 1882, 1884–1885)
4 Eddie Foster (1912, 1914–1915, 1918)
4 Pete Rose (1965, 1972–1973, 1977)
4 Jimmy Rollins, (2001–2002, 2007, 2009)
== Plate appearances ==
7 Pete Rose (1965, 1972–1974, 1976–1978)
5 Donie Bush (1909, 1913–1915, 1918)
5 Nellie Fox (1956–1960)
5 Craig Biggio (1992, 1995, 1997–1999)
5 Derek Jeter (1997, 1999, 2005, 2010, 2012)
4 George Burns (1915–1916, 1920, 1923)
4 Richie Ashburn (1952, 1956–1958)
4 Ichiro Suzuki (2001, 2004, 2006, 2008)
== Runs titles ==
8 Babe Ruth (1919–1921, 1923–1924, 1926–1928)
6 Ted Williams (1940–1942, 1946–1947, 1949)
6 Mickey Mantle (1954, 1956–1958, 1960–1961)
5 George J. Burns (1914, 1916–1917, 1919–1920)
5 Ty Cobb (1909–1911, 1915–1916)
5 Rickey Henderson (1981, 1985–1986, 1989–1990)
5 Rogers Hornsby (1921–1922, 1924, 1927, 1929)
5 Stan Musial (1946, 1948, 1951–1952, 1954)
5 Alex Rodriguez (1996, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007)
5 Albert Pujols (2003–2005, 2009–2010)
4 Billy Hamilton (1891, 1894–1895, 1897)
4 Lou Gehrig (1931, 1933, 1935–1936)
4 Pete Rose (1969, 1974–1976)
4 Mike Trout (2012−2014, 2016)
== Hits titles ==
8 Ty Cobb (1907–1909, 1911–1912, 1915, 1917, 1919)
7 Tony Gwynn (1984, 1986–1987, 1989, 1994–1995, 1997)
7 Pete Rose (1965, 1968, 1970, 1972–1973, 1976, 1981)
7 Ichiro Suzuki (2001, 2004, 2006–2010)
6 Stan Musial (1943–1944, 1946, 1948–1949, 1952)
5 Tony Oliva (1964–1966, 1969–1970)
4 Ginger Beaumont (1902–1904, 1906)
4 Nap Lajoie (1901, 1904, 1906, 1910)
4 Rogers Hornsby (1920–1922, 1924)
4 Nellie Fox (1952, 1954, 1957–1958)
4 Harvey Kuenn (1953–1954, 1956, 1959)
4 Kirby Puckett (1987–1989, 1992)
4 Jose Altuve (2014–2017)
== Total bases titles ==
8 Hank Aaron (1956–1957, 1959–1961, 1963, 1967, 1969)
7 Rogers Hornsby (1917, 1920–1922, 1924–1925, 1929)
6 Honus Wagner (1900, 1904, 1906–1909)
6 Ty Cobb (1907–1909, 1911, 1915, 1917)
6 Babe Ruth (1919, 1921, 1923–1924, 1926, 1928)
6 Ted Williams (1939, 1942, 1946–1947, 1949, 1951)
6 Stan Musial (1943, 1946, 1948–1949, 1951–1952)
4 Dan Brouthers (1882–1883, 1886, 1892)
4 Nap Lajoie (1897, 1901, 1904, 1910)
4 Chuck Klein (1930–1933)
4 Lou Gehrig (1927, 1930–1931, 1934)
4 Jim Rice (1977–1979, 1983)
4 Alex Rodriguez (1996, 2001–2002, 2007)
4 Albert Pujols, (2003–2004, 2008–2009)
== Doubles ==
8 Tris Speaker (1912, 1914, 1916, 1918, 1920–1923)
8 Stan Musial (1943–1944, 1946, 1948–1949, 1952–1954)
7 Honus Wagner (1900, 1902, 1904, 1906–1909)
5 Ed Delahanty (1895–1896, 1899, 1901–1902)
5 Nap Lajoie (1898, 1901, 1904, 1906, 1910)
5 Pete Rose (1974–1976, 1978, 1980)
4 Rogers Hornsby (1920–1922, 1924)
4 Hank Aaron (1955–1956, 1961, 1965)
4 Tony Oliva (1964, 1967, 1969–1970)
== Triples ==
5 Stan Musial (1943, 1946, 1948–1949, 1951)
5 Lance Johnson (1991–1994, 1996)
5 Willie Wilson (1980, 1982, 1985, 1987–1988)
4 Ty Cobb (1908, 1911, 1917–1918)
4 Brett Butler (1983, 1986, 1994–1995)
4 Jimmy Rollins (2001–2002, 2004, 2007)
4 Carl Crawford (2004–2006, 2010)
4 José Reyes (2005–2006, 2008, 2011)
== Home run titles ==
12 Babe Ruth (1918–1921, 1923–1924, 1926–1931)
8 Mike Schmidt (1974–1976, 1980–1981, 1983–1984, 1986)
7 Ralph Kiner (1946–1952)
6 Gavvy Cravath (1913–1915, 1917–1919)
6 Mel Ott (1932, 1934, 1936–1938, 1942)
6 Harmon Killebrew (1959, 1962–1964, 1967, 1969)
5 Mark McGwire (1987, 1996-1999)
5 Harry Stovey (1880, 1883, 1885, 1889, 1891)
5 Alex Rodriguez (2001–2003, 2005, 2007)
4 Harry Davis (1904–1907)
4 Frank Baker (1911–1914)
4 Cy Williams (1916, 1920, 1923, 1927)
4 Hack Wilson (1926–1928, 1930)
4 Chuck Klein (1929, 1931–1933)
4 Jimmie Foxx (1932–1933, 1935, 1939)
4 Hank Greenberg (1935, 1938, 1940, 1946)
4 Johnny Mize (1939–1940, 1947–1948)
4 Ted Williams (1941–1942, 1947, 1949)
4 Mickey Mantle (1955–1956, 1958, 1960)
4 Willie Mays (1955, 1962, 1964–1965)
4 Hank Aaron (1957, 1963, 1966–1967)
4 Ken Griffey Jr. (1994,1997–1999)
4 Reggie Jackson (1973, 1975, 1980, 1982)
== RBI titles ==
8 Cap Anson (1880–1882, 1884–1886, 1888, 1891)
6 Babe Ruth (1919–1921, 1923, 1926, 1928)
5 Honus Wagner (1901–1902, 1908–1909, 1912)
5 Lou Gehrig (1927–1928, 1930–1931, 1934)
4 Ty Cobb (1907–1909, 1911)
4 Sherry Magee (1907, 1910, 1914, 1918)
4 Rogers Hornsby (1920–1922, 1925)
4 Hank Greenberg (1935, 1937, 1940, 1946)
4 Ted Williams (1939, 1942, 1947, 1949)
4 Hank Aaron (1957, 1960, 1963, 1966)
4 Mike Schmidt (1980–1981, 1984, 1986)
== Base on balls (walks) ==
11 Babe Ruth (1920–1921, 1923–1924, 1926–1928, 1930–1933)
8 Ted Williams (1941–1942, 1946–1949, 1951, 1954)
8 Barry Bonds (1992, 1996-1997, 2001-2004, 2007)
7 Roy Thomas (1900–1904, 1906–1907)
6 Mel Ott (1929, 1931–1933, 1937, 1942)
6 Eddie Yost (1950, 1952–1953, 1956, 1959–1960)
5 Billy Hamilton (1891, 1894–1897)
5 Topsy Hartsel (1902, 1905–1908)
5 Donie Bush (1909–1912, 1914)
5 George Burns (1917, 1919–1921, 1923)
5 Mickey Mantle (1955, 1957–1958, 1961–1962)
4 Miller Huggins (1905, 1907, 1910, 1914)
4 Eddie Mathews (1955, 1961–1963)
4 Ron Santo (1964, 1966–1968)
4 Harmon Killebrew (1966–1967, 1969, 1971)
4 Mike Schmidt (1979, 1981–1983)
4 Rickey Henderson (1982–1983, 1989, 1998)
4 Frank Thomas (1991–1992, 1994–1995)
4 Joey Votto (2011−2013, 2016)
== Strikeouts (batters) ==
7 Jimmie Foxx (1929–1931, 1933, 1935–1936, 1941)
6 Vince DiMaggio (1937–1938, 1942–1945)
5 Babe Ruth (1918, 1923–1924, 1927–1928)
5 Hack Wilson (1927–1930, 1932)
5 Mickey Mantle (1952, 1954, 1958–1960)
5 Reggie Jackson (1968–1971, 1982)
4 Pud Galvin (1879–1881, 1883)
4 Tom Brown (1891–1892, 1894–1895)
4 Dolph Camilli (1934–1935, 1939, 1941)
4 Pat Seerey (1944–1946, 1948)
4 Mike Schmidt (1974–1976, 1983)
4 Rob Deer (1987–1988, 1991, 1993)
4 Juan Samuel (1984–1987)
4 Andrés Galarraga (1988–1990, 1995)
4 Mark Reynolds (2008–2011)
== Stolen base titles ==
12 Rickey Henderson (1980–1986, 1988–1991, 1998)
10 Max Carey (1913, 1915–1918, 1920, 1922–1925)
9 Luis Aparicio (1956–1964)
8 Lou Brock (1966–1969, 1971–1974)
6 Ty Cobb (1907, 1909, 1911, 1915–1917)
6 George Case (1939–1943, 1946)
6 Bert Campaneris (1965–1968, 1970, 1972)
6 Maury Wills (1960–1965)
6 Vince Coleman (1985–1990)
5 Honus Wagner (1901–1902, 1904, 1907–1908)
5 Kenny Lofton (1992–1996)
4 Billy Hamilton (1890–1891, 1894–1895)
4 Bob Bescher (1909–1912)
4 Eddie Collins (1910, 1919, 1923–1924)
4 George Sisler (1918, 1921–1922, 1927)
4 Kiki Cuyler (1926, 1928–1930)
4 Ben Chapman (1931–1933, 1937)
4 Willie Mays (1956–1959)
4 Tim Raines (1981–1984)
4 Carl Crawford (2003–2004, 2006–2007)
== Sacrifice bunts ==
5 Mule Haas (1930–1934)
4 Otto Knabe (1907–1908, 1910, 1913)
4 Phil Rizzuto (1949–1952)
== ERA titles ==
9 Lefty Grove (1926, 1929–1932, 1935–1936, 1938–1939)
7 Roger Clemens (1986, 1990–1992, 1997–1998, 2005)
5 Christy Mathewson (1905, 1908–1909, 1911, 1913)
5 Grover Cleveland Alexander (1915–1917, 1919–1920)
5 Walter Johnson (1912–1913, 1918–1919, 1924)
5 Sandy Koufax (1962–1966)
5 Pedro Martínez (1997, 1999–2000, 2002–2003)
5 Clayton Kershaw (2011–2014, 2017)
4 Greg Maddux (1993–1995, 1998)
4 Randy Johnson (1995, 1999, 2001–2002)
== Wins titles ==
8 Warren Spahn (1949–1950, 1953, 1957–1961)
6 Grover Cleveland Alexander (1911, 1914–1917, 1920)
6 Walter Johnson (1913–1916, 1918, 1924)
6 Bob Feller (1939–1941, 1946–1947, 1951)
5 Cy Young (1892, 1895, 1901–1903)
5 Joe McGinnity (1899–1900, 1903–1904, 1906)
5 Tom Glavine (1991–1993, 1998, 2000)
4 Christy Mathewson (1905, 1907–1908, 1910)
4 Lefty Grove (1928, 1930–1931, 1933)
4 Hal Newhouser (1944–1946, 1948)
4 Robin Roberts (1952–1955)
4 Steve Carlton (1972, 1977, 1980, 1982)
4 Roger Clemens (1986–1987, 1997–1998)
4 Justin Verlander (2009, 2011, 2019, 2022)
== WHIP ==
7 Cy Young (1892, 1895, 1899, 1901, 1904–1905, 1907)
6 Walter Johnson (1912–1913, 1915, 1918–1919, 1924)
6 Carl Hubbell (1931–1934, 1936, 1938)
6 Pedro Martínez (1997, 1999–2000, 2002–2003, 2005)
5 Babe Adams (1911, 1914, 1919–1921)
5 Pete Alexander (1915–1916, 1923, 1926–1927)
5 Lefty Grove (1930–1932, 1935–1936)
5 Justin Verlander (2011, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2022)
4 Tim Keefe (1880, 1883, 1887–1888)
4 Christy Mathewson (1905, 1908–1909, 1913)
4 Warren Spahn (1947, 1953, 1958, 1961)
4 Sandy Koufax (1962–1965)
4 Don Sutton (1972, 1975, 1980–1981)
4 Greg Maddux (1993–1995, 1998)
4 Johan Santana (2004–2007)
4 Clayton Kershaw (2011–2014)
== Games pitched ==
6 Firpo Marberry (1924–1926, 1928–1929, 1932)
6 Joe McGinnity (1901, 1903–1907)
5 Ed Walsh (1907–1908, 1910–1912)
4 Mike Marshall (1972–1974, 1979)
4 Kent Tekulve (1978–1979, 1982, 1987)
4 Paul Quantrill (2001–2004)
== Saves titles ==
5 Ed Walsh (1907–1908, 1910–1912)
5 Firpo Marberry (1924–1926, 1929, 1932)
5 Dan Quisenberry (1980, 1982–1985)
5 Bruce Sutter (1979–1982, 1984)
4 Kid Nichols (1891, 1895, 1897–1898)
4 Mordecai Brown (1908–1911)
4 Johnny Murphy (1938–1939, 1941–1942)
4 Lee Smith (1983, 1991–1992, 1994)
4 Craig Kimbrel (2011–2014)
== Innings pitched titles ==
7 Grover Cleveland Alexander (1911–1912, 1914–1917, 1920)
5 Walter Johnson (1910, 1913–1916)
5 Bob Feller (1939–1941, 1946–1947)
5 Robin Roberts (1951–1955)
5 Steve Carlton (1972–1973, 1980, 1982–1983)
5 Greg Maddux (1991–1995)
4 John Clarkson (1885, 1887–1889)
4 Joe McGinnity (1900–1901, 1903–1904)
4 Bob Lemon (1948, 1950, 1952–1953)
4 Warren Spahn (1947, 1949, 1958–1959)
4 Wilbur Wood (1972–1975)
4 Jim Palmer (1970, 1976–1978)
4 Phil Niekro (1974, 1977–1979)
4 Roy Halladay (2002-2003, 2008, 2010)
4 Justin Verlander (2009, 2011, 2012, 2019)
== Strikeout titles (pitchers) ==
12 Walter Johnson (1910, 1912–1919, 1921, 1923–1924)
11 Nolan Ryan (1972–1974, 1976–1979, 1987–1990)
9 Randy Johnson (1992–1995, 1999–2002, 2004)§
7 Dazzy Vance (1922–1928)
7 Lefty Grove (1925–1931)
7 Bob Feller (1938–1941, 1946–1948)
6 Rube Waddell (1902–1907)
6 Grover Cleveland Alexander (1912, 1914–1917, 1920)
5 Amos Rusie (1890–1891, 1893–1895)
5 Christy Mathewson (1903–1905, 1907–1908)
5 Sam McDowell (1965–1966, 1968–1970)
5 Tom Seaver (1970–1971, 1973, 1975–1976)
5 Steve Carlton (1972, 1974, 1980, 1982–1983)
5 Roger Clemens (1988, 1991, 1996–1998)
5 Justin Verlander (2009, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2018)
4 Dizzy Dean (1932–1935)
4 Warren Spahn (1949–1952)
4 Sandy Koufax (1961, 1963, 1965–1966)
§ In 1998, because of a mid-season trade, Randy Johnson led Major League Baseball in strikeouts, but neither the AL nor the NL.
== Games started titles ==
7 Greg Maddux (1990–1993, 2000, 2003, 2005)
6 Robin Roberts (1950–1955)
6 Tom Glavine (1993, 1996, 1999–2002)
5 Bob Feller (1940–1941, 1946–1948)
5 Early Wynn (1943, 1951, 1954, 1957, 1959)
4 Walter Johnson (1910, 1914–1915, 1924)
4 Bobo Newsom (1936–1939)
4 Don Drysdale (1962–1965)
4 Phil Niekro (1977–1980)
4 Tom Browning (1986, 1988–1990)
4 Dave Stewart (1988–1991)
4 Barry Zito (2001, 2002, 2005, 2006)
== Complete games ==
9 Warren Spahn (1949, 1951, 1957–1963)
7 Roy Halladay (2003, 2005, 2007–2011)
6 Walter Johnson (1910–1911, 1913–1916)
6 Pete Alexander (1911, 1914–1917, 1920)
5 Bob Lemon (1948, 1950, 1952, 1954, 1956)
5 Robin Roberts (1952–1956)
4 Burleigh Grimes (1921, 1923–1924, 1928)
4 Wes Ferrell (1931, 1935–1937)
4 Ferguson Jenkins (1967, 1970–1971, 1974)
4 Phil Niekro (1974, 1977–1979)
4 Randy Johnson (1994, 1999–2000, 2002)
4 Curt Schilling (1996, 1998, 2000–2001)
== Shutouts ==
7 Cy Young (1892, 1895–1896, 1900–1901, 1903–1904)
7 Walter Johnson (1911, 1913–1915, 1918–1919, 1924)
7 Pete Alexander (1911, 1913, 1915–1917, 1919, 1921)
6 Roger Clemens (1987–1988, 1990–1992, 1997)
5 Greg Maddux (1994–1995, 1998, 2000–2001)
4 Amos Rusie (1891, 1893–1895)
4 Christy Mathewson (1902, 1905, 1907–1908)
4 Dazzy Vance (1922, 1925, 1928, 1930)
4 Bob Feller (1940–1941, 1946–1947)
4 Warren Spahn (1947, 1951, 1959, 1961)
4 Bob Gibson (1962, 1966, 1968, 1971)
4 Roy Halladay (2003, 2008–2010)
== Losses ==
4 Bobo Newsom (1934–1935, 1941, 1945)
4 Pedro Ramos (1958–1961)
4 Phil Niekro (1977–1980)
== Wild pitches ==
6 Nolan Ryan (1972, 1977–1978, 1981, 1986, 1989)
6 Larry Cheney (1912–1914, 1916–1918)
6 Jack Morris (1983–1985, 1987, 1991, 1994)
5 Jimmy Ring (1921–1923, 1925–1926)
4 Will White (1878–1880, 1882)
4 Joe Niekro (1979, 1982–1983, 1985)
== Hit batsmen ==
6 Howard Ehmke (1920–1923, 1925, 1927)
5 Tommy Byrne (1948–1952)
5 Don Drysdale (1958–1961, 1965)
5 Dave Stieb (1981, 1983–1984, 1986, 1989)
4 Roy Parmelee (1933, 1935–1937)
4 Frank Lary (1956–1958, 1960)
4 Jim Bunning (1964–1967) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes#Largest_earthquakes_by_magnitude | Lists of earthquakes#Largest earthquakes by magnitude | Earthquakes are caused by movements within the Earth's crust and uppermost mantle. They range from weak events detectable only by seismometers, to sudden and violent events lasting many minutes which have caused some of the biggest disasters in human history. Below, there are earthquakes listed by period, region or country, year, magnitude, cost, fatalities, and number of scientific studies.
== Deadliest earthquakes ==
The following is a summary list of earthquakes with over approximately 100,000 deaths. The 893 Ardabil earthquake is most likely the same as the 893 Dvin earthquake, due to misreading of the Arabic word for Dvin, "Dabil" as "Ardabil".
=== Deadliest earthquakes by year since 1920 ===
== Strongest earthquakes by magnitude ==
For those which occurred before the development and deployment of seismographs – starting around 1900 – magnitudes are estimated from historical reports of the extent and severity of damage.
=== Pre-instrumental earthquakes ===
=== Strongest earthquakes by magnitude each year since 1907 ===
=== Strongest earthquakes by magnitude by country/territory ===
This list is a work in progress. Information is likely to be changed.
The list refers to current country boundaries rather than those at the date of the earthquake.
Please note, multiple countries could have the same earthquake listed, such as the 1906 Ecuador–Colombia earthquake being listed for both Ecuador and Colombia.
Unless otherwise noted, magnitudes are reported on the Moment magnitude scale (Mw).
== Earthquakes with the most property damage ==
This is the top ten major earthquakes by the US dollar value of property (public and private) losses directly attributable to the earthquake.
== Most studied earthquakes ==
The 50 most studied earthquakes according to the International Seismological Centre (ISC), based on a count of scientific papers (mostly in English) that discuss that earthquake. The "Event #" is linked to the ISC Event Bibliography for that event.
Modified from figure 2, "The most studied events", at the ISC's Overview of the ISC Event Bibliography.
International Seismological Centre. Event Bibliography. Thatcham, United Kingdom. 2018.
== Lists by time period ==
=== By century ===
Before 1900
1901–2000
2001–present
=== By decade ===
2001–2010
2011–2020
2021–present
=== By year ===
== Lists by location ==
=== By country ===
=== By region ===
British Isles
Caribbean
Levant
South Asia |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Summer_Olympics | 1996 Summer Olympics | The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. These were the fourth Summer Olympics to be hosted by the United States, making it the first country to have three different cities host the Summer Olympics. It also marked the 100th anniversary of the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens, the inaugural edition of the modern Olympic Games. These were also the first Summer Olympics to be held in a different year than the Winter Olympics since the Winter Olympics commenced in 1924, as part of a new IOC practice implemented in 1994 to hold the Summer and Winter Games in alternating, even-numbered years. The 1996 Games were the first of the two consecutive Summer Olympics to be held in a predominantly English-speaking country, preceding the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. These were also the last Summer Olympics to be held in North America until 2028, when Los Angeles will host the games for the third time.
10,318 athletes from 197 National Olympic Committees competed in 26 sports, including the Olympic debuts of beach volleyball, mountain biking and softball, as well as the new disciplines of lightweight rowing, women's swimming 4 x 200 freestyle relay, women's fencing, team rhythmic gymnastics, and women's association football. A total of 24 countries made their Summer Olympic debuts in Atlanta, including 11 former Soviet republics participating for the first time as independent nations. With a total of 101 medals, the United States topped both the gold and overall medal count for the first time since 1984 (and for the first time since 1968 in a non-boycotted Summer Olympics), also winning the most gold (44) and silver (32) medals out of all the participating nations. Notable performances during the competition included those of Andre Agassi, whose gold medal in these Games would be followed up with the French Open title in 1999, making him the first men's singles tennis player to complete the Career Golden Slam; Donovan Bailey, who set a new world record of 9.84 for the men's 100 meters; Lilia Podkopayeva, who became the second gymnast to win an individual event gold medal after winning the all-around title in the same Olympics; and the Magnificent Seven, who dramatically won the first ever U.S. gold medal in the women's artistic gymnastics team all-around.
The Games were marred by violence on July 27, 1996, when a pipe bomb was detonated at Centennial Olympic Park (which had been built to serve as a public focal point for the festivities), killing two and injuring 111. Years later, Eric Rudolph confessed to the bombing and a series of related terrorist attacks, and was sentenced to life in prison. Nonetheless, the 1996 Olympics turned a profit, helped by record revenue from sponsorship deals and broadcast rights, and a reliance on private funding, among other factors. There were 8.3 million tickets sold for events at this Olympics, a record broken only in 2024. There was some criticism of the perceived over-commercialization of the Games, with other issues raised by European officials, such as the availability of food and transport. The event had a lasting impact on the city; Centennial Olympic Park led a revitalization of Atlanta's downtown area, and has served as a symbol of the legacy of the 1996 Games; the Olympic Village buildings have since been used as residential housing for area universities; and Centennial Olympic Stadium has since been redeveloped twice, first as the Turner Field baseball stadium, then as the Center Parc American football stadium.
== Bidding process ==
Atlanta was selected on September 18, 1990, in Tokyo, Japan, over Athens, Belgrade, Manchester, Melbourne, and Toronto at the 96th IOC Session. The city entered the competition as a dark horse, being up against stiff competition. The US media also criticized Atlanta as a second-tier city and complained of Georgia's Confederate history. However, the IOC Evaluation Commission ranked Atlanta's infrastructure and facilities the highest, while IOC members said that it could guarantee large television revenues similar to the success of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, the most recent Olympics in the United States. Additionally, former US ambassador to the UN and Atlanta mayor Andrew Young touted Atlanta's civil rights history and reputation for racial harmony. Young also wanted to showcase a reformed American South. The strong economy of Atlanta and improved race relations in the South helped to impress the IOC officials. Coca-Cola, a long-standing partner of the Olympics, was also a strong advocate to bring the Games to its hometown. The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) also proposed a substantial revenue-sharing with the IOC, USOC, and other NOCs. Atlanta's main rivals were Toronto, whose front-running bid that began in 1986 had chances to succeed after Canada had held a successful 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, and Melbourne, Australia, who hosted the 1956 Summer Olympics and after Brisbane, Australia's failed bid for the 1992 games (which were awarded to Barcelona) and prior to Sydney, Australia's successful 2000 Summer Olympics bid. This would be Toronto's fourth failed attempt since 1960 (tried in 1960, 1964, and 1976, but was defeated by Rome, Tokyo and Montreal).
Greece, the home of the ancient and first modern Olympics, was considered by many observers the "natural choice" for the Centennial Games, due to its "divine right" in history. Athens bid chairman Spyros Metaxas gave repeated warnings to the IOC and demanded to give them the games to mark the centennial, saying "You don't hold a 100th birthday in someone else's home. The Centenary Games should be held in Athens." He also warned that "if we don't get the Olympics in 1996 we will never bid again to host them."
However, the Athens bid was described as "arrogant and poorly prepared," being regarded as "not being up to the task of coping with the modern and risk-prone extravaganza" of the current Games. Athens faced numerous obstacles, including "political instability, potential security problems, air pollution, traffic congestion and the fact that it would have to spend about US$3 billion to improve its infrastructure of airports, roads, rail lines and other amenities." Athens would later be selected to host the 2004 Summer Olympics seven years later on September 5, 1997.
== Development and preparation ==
=== Budget ===
The total cost of the 1996 Summer Olympics was estimated to be around US$1.7 billion. The venues and the Games themselves were funded entirely via private investment, and the only public funding came from the U.S. government for security, and around $500 million of public money used on physical public infrastructure including streetscaping, road improvements, Centennial Olympic Park (alongside $75 million in private funding), expansion of the airport, improvements in public transportation, and redevelopment of public housing projects. $420 million worth of tickets were sold, sale of sponsorship rights accounted for $540 million, and sale of the domestic broadcast rights to NBC accounted for $456 million. In total, the Games turned a profit of $19 million.
The cost for Atlanta 1996 compares with costs of $4.6 billion for Rio 2016, $40–44 billion for Beijing 2008, and $51 billion for Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics (the most expensive Olympic Games without differentiating between summer and winter in history). The average cost for the Summer Games since 1960 is $5.2 billion. Using the 1984 Summer Olympics financing model, this edition was organized 100% privately without any cent of public money. Beijing 2008 and Sochi 2014 were financed entirely by the governments of their respective countries.
=== Venues and infrastructure ===
Events of the 1996 Games were held in a completely decentralized way using mostly existing facilities that were not built for the Games. Most of the events were held in the so-called Olympic Ring, a 3 mi (4.8 km) circle from the center of Atlanta. Others were held at Stone Mountain, about 20 miles (32 km) outside of the city. In many cases, it was decided to remove events from the Atlanta Metropolitan Region to save money, while in others the calendar was a difficulty, as was the case with association football (soccer) which ended up having its host cities spread across the Southeastern United States region.
During early planning stages in 1992, Payne and the ACOG wanted a golf event to be held at Augusta National Golf Club. Initially, Augusta agreed, but protests from civil rights leaders and politicians against the club's strict admission policies led to the collapse of the idea.
Alexander Memorial Coliseum – Boxing
Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium – Baseball
Centennial Olympic Stadium – Opening/Closing Ceremonies, Athletics
Clayton County International Park (Jonesboro, Georgia) – Beach Volleyball
Forbes Arena – Basketball
Georgia Dome – Basketball (final), Gymnastics (artistic), Handball (men's final)
Georgia International Horse Park (Conyers, Georgia) – Cycling (mountain), Equestrian, Modern pentathlon (riding, running)
Georgia State University Sports Arena – Badminton
Georgia Tech Aquatic Center – Diving, Modern pentathlon (swimming), Swimming, Synchronized Swimming, Water Polo
Georgia World Congress Center – Fencing, Handball, Judo, Modern pentathlon (fencing, shooting), Table Tennis, Weightlifting, Wrestling
Golden Park (Columbus, Georgia) – Softball
Herndon Stadium – Field hockey (final)
Lake Lanier (Gainesville, Georgia) – Canoeing (sprint), Rowing
Legion Field (Birmingham, Alabama) – Football
Miami Orange Bowl (Miami, Florida) – Football
Omni Coliseum – Volleyball (indoor final)
Ocoee Whitewater Center (Polk County, Tennessee) – Canoeing (slalom)
Panther Stadium – Field hockey
RFK Stadium (Washington, D.C.) – Football
Stone Mountain Tennis Center (Stone Mountain, Georgia) – Tennis
Stone Mountain Park Archery Center (Stone Mountain, Georgia) – Archery
Stone Mountain Park Velodrome (Stone Mountain, Georgia) – Cycling (track)
Sanford Stadium (Athens, Georgia) at the University of Georgia – Football (final)
Stegeman Coliseum (Athens, Georgia) at the University of Georgia – Gymnastics (rhythmic), Volleyball (indoor)
Wassaw Sound (Savannah, Georgia) – Sailing
Wolf Creek Shooting Complex – Shooting
=== Marketing ===
The Olympiad's official theme, "Summon the Heroes", was written by John Williams, making it the third Olympiad at that point for which he had composed (official composer in 1984, NBC's coverage composer in 1988). The opening ceremony featured Céline Dion singing "The Power of the Dream", the theme song of the 1996 Olympics. The closing ceremony featured Gloria Estefan singing "Reach", the official theme song of the 1996 Olympics. The mascot for the Olympiad was an abstract, animated character named Izzy. In contrast to the standing tradition of mascots of national or regional significance in the city hosting the Olympiad, Izzy was an amorphous, fantasy figure. A video game featuring the Games' mascot, Izzy's Quest for the Olympic Rings, was also released.
Atlanta's Olympic slogan "Come Celebrate Our Dream" was written by Jack Arogeti, a managing director at McCann-Erickson in Atlanta at the time. The slogan was selected from more than 5,000 submitted by the public to the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau. Billy Payne noted that Jack "captured the spirit and our true motivation for the Olympic games."
In 1994, African-American artist Kevin Cole was commissioned to create the Coca-Cola Centennial Olympic Wall, and the 15-story mural took two years to complete.
== Calendar ==
All times are in Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-4); the other, Birmingham, Alabama, uses Central Daylight Time (UTC-5)
== Games ==
=== Opening ceremony ===
The ceremony began with a 60-second countdown, which included footage from all of the previous Olympic Games at twenty-two seconds. There was then a flashback to the closing ceremony of the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, showing the then president of the IOC, Juan Antonio Samaranch, inviting the athletes to compete in Atlanta in 1996. Then, spirits ascended in the northwest corner of the stadium, each representing one of the colors in the Olympic rings. The spirits called the tribes of the world which, after mixed percussion, formed the Olympic rings while the youth of Atlanta formed the number 100. Famed film score composer John Williams wrote the official overture for the 1996 Olympics, called "Summon the Heroes"; this was his second overture for Olympic games, the first being "Olympic Fanfare and Theme" written for the 1984 Summer Olympics. Céline Dion performed David Foster's official 1996 Olympics song "The Power of the Dream", accompanied by Foster on the piano, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Centennial Choir (comprising Morehouse College Glee Club, Spelman College Glee Club and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus). Gladys Knight sang Georgia's official state song, "Georgia on My Mind".
There was a showcase entitled "Welcome To The World", featuring cheerleaders, Chevrolet pick-up trucks, marching bands, and steppers, which highlighted the American youth and a typical Saturday college football game in the South, including the wave commonly produced by spectators in sporting events around the world. There was another showcase entitled "Summertime" which focused on Atlanta and the Old South, emphasizing its beauty, spirit, music, history, culture, and rebirth after the American Civil War. The ceremony also featured a memorable dance tribute to the athletes and to the goddesses of victory of the ancient Greek Olympics, using silhouette imagery. The accompanying music, "The Tradition of the Games", was composed by Basil Poledouris.
Muhammad Ali lit the Olympic cauldron and later received a replacement gold medal for his boxing victory in the 1960 Summer Olympics. For the torch ceremony, more than 10,000 Olympic torches were manufactured by the American Meter Company and electroplated by Erie Plating Company. Each torch weighed about 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg) and was made primarily of aluminum, with a Georgia pecan wood handle and gold ornamentation.
The city of Savannah, Georgia, host of the yachting events, also held their own opening ceremony on the first day of their competitions. The event was headlined by a performance by country musician Trisha Yearwood.
=== Closing ceremony ===
=== Sports ===
The 1996 Summer Olympic program featured 271 events in 26 sports. Softball, beach volleyball and mountain biking debuted on the Olympic program, together with women's football, lightweight events in rowing, Women's 4 × 200 metre freestyle relay in swimming, the Women's épée in fencing and the group all-around event in rhythmic gymnastics.
In women's gymnastics, Ukrainian Lilia Podkopayeva became the all-around Olympic champion. Podkopayeva also won a second gold medal in the floor exercise final and a silver on the beam – becoming the only female gymnast since Nadia Comăneci to win an individual event gold after winning the all-around title in the same Olympics. Kerri Strug of the United States women's gymnastics team vaulted with an injured ankle and landed on one foot, winning the first women's team gold medal for the US. Shannon Miller won the gold medal on the balance beam event, the first time an American gymnast had won an individual gold medal in non-boycotted Olympic games. The Spanish team won the first gold medal in the new competition of women's rhythmic group all-around. The team was formed by Estela Giménez, Marta Baldó, Nuria Cabanillas, Lorena Guréndez, Estíbaliz Martínez and Tania Lamarca.
Amy Van Dyken won four gold medals in the Olympic swimming pool, the first American woman to win four titles in a single Olympiad. Penny Heyns, swimmer of South Africa, won the gold medals in both the 100-meter and 200-meter breaststroke events. Michelle Smith of Ireland won three gold medals and a bronze in swimming. She remains her nation's most decorated Olympian. However, her victories were overshadowed by doping allegations even though she did not test positive in 1996. She received a four-year suspension in 1998 for tampering with a urine sample, though her medals and records were allowed to stand.
In track and field, Donovan Bailey of Canada won the men's 100 m, setting a new world record of 9.84 seconds at that time. He also anchored his team's gold in the 4 × 100 m relay.
Michael Johnson won gold in both the 200 m and 400 m, setting a new world record of 19.32 seconds in the 200 m. Marie-José Pérec equaled Johnson's performance, although without a world record, by winning the rare 200 m/400 m double. Carl Lewis won his 4th long jump gold medal at the age of 35.
In tennis, Andre Agassi won the gold medal, which would eventually make him the first man and second singles player overall (after his eventual wife, Steffi Graf) to win the career Golden Slam, which consists of an Olympic gold medal and victories in the singles tournaments held at professional tennis' four major events (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open).
There were a series of national firsts realized during the Games. Deon Hemmings became the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal for Jamaica and the English-speaking West Indies. Lee Lai Shan won a gold medal in sailing, the only Olympic medal that Hong Kong ever won as a British colony (1842–1997). This meant that for the only time, the colonial flag of Hong Kong was raised to the accompaniment of the British national anthem "God Save the Queen", as Hong Kong's sovereignty was later transferred to China in 1997. The U.S. women's soccer team won the gold medal in the first-ever women's football event. For the first time, Olympic medals were won by athletes from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burundi, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Georgia, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Mozambique, Slovakia, Tonga, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. Another first in Atlanta was that this was the first Summer Olympics ever that not a single nation swept all three medals in a single event.
== Records ==
== Medal table ==
These are the top ten nations that won medals at the 1996 Games.
* Host nation (United States)
== Participating National Olympic Committees ==
A total of 197 nations, all of the then-existing and recognized National Olympic Committees, were represented at the 1996 Games, and the combined total of athletes was about 10,318. Twenty-four countries made their Olympic debut this year, including eleven of the ex-Soviet countries that competed as part of the Unified Team in 1992. Russia participated in the Summer Olympics separately from the other countries of the former Soviet Union for the first time since 1912 (when it was the Russian Empire). Russia had been a member of the Unified Team at the 1992 Summer Olympics together with 11 post-Soviet states. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia competed as Yugoslavia. After missing the 1992 Summer Games Afghanistan and Cambodia returned to send delegations to Atlanta.
The 14 countries making their Olympic debut were: Azerbaijan, Burundi, Cape Verde, Comoros, Dominica, Guinea-Bissau, Macedonia, Nauru, Palestinian Authority, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The ten countries making their Summer Olympic debut (after competing at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer) were: Armenia, Belarus, Czech Republic, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Slovakia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The Czech Republic and Slovakia attended the games as independent nations for the first time since the breakup of Czechoslovakia, while the rest of the nations that made their Summer Olympic debut were formerly part of the Soviet Union.
=== Number of athletes by National Olympic Committee ===
10,339 athletes from 197 NOCs participated in the 1996 Summer Olympics.
== Centennial Olympic Park bombing ==
The 1996 Olympics were marred by the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, which occurred on July 27. Security guard Richard Jewell discovered the pipe bomb and immediately notified law enforcement, helping to evacuate as many people as possible from the area before it exploded. Although Jewell's quick actions are credited for saving many lives, the bombing killed spectator Alice Hawthorne, wounded 111 others, and caused the death of Melih Uzunyol by a heart attack. Jewell was later considered a suspect in the bombing but was never charged, and he was cleared in October 1996.
Fugitive Eric Rudolph was arrested in May 2003 and charged with the Olympic Park bombing as well as the bombings of two abortion clinics and a gay nightclub. At his trial two years later, he confessed to all charges and afterwards released a statement, saying: "the purpose of the attack on July 27th was to confound, anger and embarrass the Washington government in the eyes of the world for its abominable sanctioning of abortion on demand." He received four life sentences without parole, to be served at USP Florence ADMAX near Florence, Colorado.
== Legacy ==
Preparations for the Olympics lasted more than seven years and had an economic impact of at least US$5.14 billion. Over two million visitors came to Atlanta, and approximately 3.5 billion people around the world watched at least some of the events on television. Although marred by the tragedy of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, the Games were a financial success, due in part to TV rights contracts and sponsorships at record levels. Atlanta also set a new record for the most tickets sold at a single Games (8.3 million), and held it until 2024.
Beyond international recognition, the Games resulted in many modern infrastructure improvements. The mid-rise dormitories built for the Olympic Village, which became the first residential housing for Georgia State University (Georgia State Village), are now used by the Georgia Institute of Technology (North Avenue Apartments). As designed, the Centennial Olympic Stadium was converted into Turner Field after the Paralympics, which became the home of the Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball team from 1997 to 2016. The Braves' former home, Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, was demolished in 1997 and the site became a parking lot for Turner Field; the Omni Coliseum was demolished the same year to make way for State Farm Arena. The city's permanent memorial to the 1996 Olympics is Centennial Olympic Park, which was built as a focal point for the Games. The park initiated a revitalization of the surrounding area and now serves as the hub for Atlanta's tourism district.
In November 2016, a commemorative plaque was unveiled for Centennial Olympic Park to honor the 20th anniversary of the Games.
Following the Braves' departure from Turner Field to Truist Park in 2017, Georgia State University acquired the former Olympic Stadium and surrounding parking lots. It reconfigured the stadium for a second time into Center Parc Stadium for its college football team.
The 1996 Olympic cauldron was originally built and placed at the intersection of Fulton Street and Capitol Avenue, near the Centennial Olympic Stadium. After the Paralympics, in order to make room for the stadium conversion, the Olympic cauldron was moved (except its ramp, which was demolished) to the intersection of Capitol Avenue and Fulton Street in 1997, where it has stayed since. Since Georgia State University's acquisition of the former Olympic Stadium and surrounding lots, there has been proposals and growing calls to move the Olympic cauldron to Centennial Olympic Park.
The Olympic cauldron was re-lit in February 2020 for the 2020 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials.
The 1996 Olympics are the most recent edition of the Summer Olympics to be held in the United States. Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics, 32 years after the Games were held in Atlanta.
== Sponsors ==
The 1996 Summer Olympics relied heavily on commercial sponsorship. The Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Company was the exclusive provider of soft drinks at Olympics venues, and built an attraction known as Coca-Cola Olympic City for the Games. As part of a sponsorship agreement with Columbia TriStar Television, the syndicated game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune both produced episodes with Olympics tie-ins (including branded memorabilia and contests) for broadcast between April and July 1996. These included a Jeopardy! international tournament, and three weeks of Wheel of Fortune episodes filmed on-location at Atlanta's Fox Theatre.
The Games were affected by several instances of ambush marketing—in which companies attempt to use the Games as a means to promote their brand, in competition with the exclusive, category-based sponsorship rights issued by the Atlanta organizing committee and the IOC (which grants the rights to use Olympics-related terms and emblems in marketing). The Atlanta organizing committee threatened legal actions against advertisers whose marketing implied an official association with the Games. Several non-sponsors set up marketing activities in areas near venues, such as Samsung (competing with Motorola), which ambushed the Games with its "96 Expo". The city of Atlanta had also licensed street vendors to sell products from competitors to Olympic sponsors.
The most controversial ambush campaign was undertaken by Nike, Inc., which had begun an advertising campaign with aggressive slogans that mocked the Games' values, such as "Faster, Higher, Stronger, Badder", "If you're not here to win, you're a tourist", and "You don't win silver, you lose gold." The slogans were featured on magazine ads and billboards it purchased in Atlanta. Nike also opened a pop-up store known as the Nike Center near the Athletes' Village, which distributed Nike-branded flags to visitors (presumably to be used at events). IOC marketing director Michael Payne expressed concern for the campaign, believing that athletes could perceive them as being an insult to their accomplishments. Payne and the United States Olympic Committee's marketing director, John Krimsky, met with Howard Slusher, a subordinate of Nike co-founder Phil Knight. The meeting quickly turned aggressive, with Payne warning that the IOC could pull accreditation for Nike employees and ban the display of its logos on equipment; he also threatened to organize a press conference where silver medallists from the Games, as well as prominent Nike-sponsored athlete Michael Johnson (who attracted attention during the Games for wearing custom, gold-colored Nike shoes), would denounce the company. Faced with these threats, Nike agreed to retract most of its negative advertising and public relations stunts.
== Reception ==
At the closing ceremony, IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch said in his closing speech, "Well done, Atlanta" and simply called the Games "most exceptional." This broke precedent for Samaranch, who had traditionally labeled each Games "the best Olympics ever" at each closing ceremony, a practice he resumed at the subsequent Winter Games in Nagano in 1998.
A report prepared after the Games by European Olympic officials was critical of Atlanta's performance in several key areas, including the level of crowding in the Olympic Village, the quality of available food, the accessibility and convenience of transportation, and the Games' general atmosphere of commercialism. IOC vice-president Dick Pound responded to criticism of the commercialization of these Games, stating that they still adhered to a historic policy barring the display of advertising within venues, and that "you have to look to the private sector for at least a portion of the funding, and unless you're looking for handouts, you're dealing with people who are investing business assets, and they have to get a return."
In 1997, Athens was awarded the 2004 Summer Olympics. Along with addressing the shortcomings of its 1996 bid, it was lauded for its efforts to promote the traditional values of the Olympic Games, which some IOC observers felt had been lost due to the over-commercialization of the 1996 Games. However, the 2004 Games heavily relied on public funding and eventually failed to make a profit, which some have claimed contributed to the financial crisis in Greece.
The financial struggles faced by many later Games, such as the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, have caused some to offer more positive reappraisals of the management of the 1996 Summer Games. Former JPMorgan Chase president (and torchbearer) Kabir Sehgal noted that in contrast to many later Olympics, those of 1996 were financially viable, had a positive economic impact on the city, and most of the facilities constructed continued to be used after the Games. Sehgal contrasted the 1996 Games' "grassroots" effort backed almost entirely by private funding, with the only significant public spending coming from infrastructure associated with the Games, to modern "top-down" bids, instigated by local governments and reliant on taxpayer funding, making them unpopular among citizens who may not necessarily be interested. The 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles will rely almost entirely on private funding, with the city of Los Angeles and state of California each intending to provide up to $250 million in funding in the event of shortfalls, and the U.S. federal government providing funding solely for security. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Lee_Sutton | Crystal Lee Sutton | Crystal Lee Sutton (née Pulley; December 31, 1940 – September 11, 2009) was an American union organizer and advocate who gained fame in 1979 when the film Norma Rae was released, based on events related to her being fired from her job at the J.P. Stevens plant in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, on May 30, 1973, for "insubordination" after she copied an anti-union letter posted on the company bulletin board.
== Union activism and recognition ==
Sutton was one of the union activists during the J.P. Stevens controversy—one of "the ugliest episodes in labor history in the United States which took place from about 1963 to 1980" during which Stevens "repeatedly harassed or fired union activists" and the union "countered with a boycott of Stevens products" and a "campaign to isolate the company by pressuring companies that dealt with Stevens or had Stevens officers on their boards." In 1973 Crystal saw a union poster hanging in one of the seven mills in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina owned by J.P. Stevens & Company mills where three generations of her family had worked—living in a neighborhood where the Company "owned every shotgun house" in Sutton's neighborhood. She had been "thinking about the paltry wages, the bone-tiring work and the stingy benefits that she and her parents had suffered. She wanted something better for her children." In 1978 Sutton was fired after trying to unionize employees. Shortly after, by August 28, 1978, Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) began to represent workers at the plant.
The Textile Workers Union of America sent union organizer Eli Zivkovich to unionize J.P. Stevens & Company's Roanoke Rapids mills employees and worked with Sutton. He said "in {his} 20 years as an organizer he had never known anyone who matched Sutton's zeal." "Management and others treated me as if I had leprosy," she stated. Sutton earned $2.65 per hour folding towels (equivalent to $19.22 in 2025).
She received threats and was finally fired from her job. But before she left, she took one final stand, portrayed in Norma Rae. "I took a piece of cardboard and wrote the word UNION on it in big letters, got up on my work table, and slowly turned it around. The workers started cutting their machines off and giving me the victory sign. All of a sudden the plant was very quiet…" Sutton was physically removed from the plant by police, but she achieved her goal. On August 28, 1974, the 3,133 workers at the Roanoke Rapids plant voted to allow The Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) to represent them by a slim 237 vote margin. However, because of the intractability of J.P. Stevens, workers at the plant continued without a contract until 1980. Thanks to a coalition of black and white women employees of the mill, Sutton's national speaking tour, and local organizing on behalf of workers among religious groups, J.P. Stevens and ACTWU agreed to a settlement in 1980. Sutton became a paid organizer for the ACTWU and went on a national speaking tour as "the real Norma Rae." Sutton was the 13th recipient of the Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award in 1980. The honor was named after a 1963 encyclical letter, Pacem in terris (Peace on Earth), by Pope John XXIII, that calls upon all people of good will to secure peace among all nations.
Sutton was critical of the ACTWU for not supporting her after her arrest, relaying that union leaders "...acted like they were ashamed to have ever had anything to do with Crystal Lee." She reported that, when she was reinstated at J.P. Stevens, she was snubbed by the union organizer. "I mean, I walked into that mill that day and the organizer said he didn't even know who I was. There was nobody from the regional office. No press, nothing." Two days later she took her accumulated sick days to demonstrate her value to the union. Ultimately her relationship with the Union was mended and she began working directly for the ACTWU.
== Norma Rae ==
The 1979 film Norma Rae, starring Sally Field, is based on Sutton's early union work. The movie is based on the 1975 book about her by New York Times reporter Henry "Hank" Leifermann Crystal Lee: A Woman of Inheritance. Her papers and memorabilia are located at Alamance Community College in North Carolina, where she took classes in nursing in 1988.
== Personal life ==
Sutton was born Crystal Lee Pulley in Roanoke Rapids on December 31, 1940. She married at 19, gave birth to her first child at 20, and was widowed at 21. She married Larry Jordan Jr. and had her third child at 25. Following the events that made her famous and before the release of Norma Rae, she and Jordan were divorced. She married Lewis Sutton Jr. about 1977. Obituaries state they were married 32 years.
== Death ==
Crystal Lee Sutton died of inoperable brain cancer at Hospice Home in Burlington, North Carolina on September 11, 2009. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dye-transfer_process | Dye-transfer process | Dye transfer is a continuous-tone color photographic printing process. It was used to print Technicolor films, as well as to produce paper colour prints used in advertising, or large transparencies for display.
== History ==
The use of dye imbibition for making full-color prints from a set of black-and-white photographs taken through different color filters was first proposed and patented by Charles Cros in 1880. It was commercialized by Edward Sanger-Shepherd, who in 1900 was marketing kits for making color prints on paper and slides for projection.
Imbibition printing was initially in monochrome. The basic underlying principle is that bichromate development of a silver gelatine photographic emulsion (not strictly a real chemical emulsion) results in the gelatine being differentially tanned or hardened in proportion to the exposure received, and blackening obtained. When washed in hot water a relief gelatine image is obtained which is then immersed in a dye bath, washed off in a 3% acetic acid solution (one liter for a 16 x 20 inch print to remove excess dye) then to the 1% acetic acid holding bath. Photographic paper was removed from the conditioner (mordant bath) and matrix was rolled into contact with photographic paper consisting of a paper base, a baryta coating to improve light reflectance and a gelatine coating without the light-sensitive silver salts in regular photographic bromide paper. The gelatine absorbs dye from the matrix (which is the same size as the print). Finally, the print is dried between blotters, or by heat.
The colour process depends on superimposing three images in the subtractive colours: cyan, magenta and yellow in exact register, facilitated by means of register pins mounted at the edge of a glass rolling bed, using a purpose designed punch to make holes at the edge of the matrix films.
As three matrices are required for each print, which are the same size as the print, the process is relatively expensive.
Colour separation negatives together with their high contrast highlight masks that keep specular highlights clear from fogging over by exposing the contrast reducing masks through them.
Technicolor introduced dye transfer in its Process 3, introduced in the feature film The Viking (1928), which was produced by the Technicolor Corporation and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Technicolor's two previous systems were an additive color process and a physically problematic subtractive color process, the latter requiring two prints cemented together back-to-back. Process 3 used an imbibition process pioneered by the Handschiegl color process, which had been created in 1916 for Cecil B. DeMille's feature film Joan the Woman (1917). Technicolor further refined the imbibition dye transfer process in its Process 4, introduced in 1932, which employed three simultaneously filmed negatives.
In the 1940s, this process was popularized by the work of Jeannette Klute at Eastman Kodak for general-purpose graphic arts work, but not for motion picture work, which remained exclusive to Technicolor (and for which Eastman Kodak was manufacturing Technicolor's light-sensitive camera and printing films, including the "blank receiver" film, on an exclusive basis, but not Technicolor's dyes), and is sometimes referred to by such generic names as "wash-off relief printing" and "dye imbibition" printing. The graphic arts process requires making three printing matrices from three colour separation negatives made from a colour transparency original or at one time directly in a large format camera fitted with a sliding plate holder or film holder (to minimize camera movement when changing regular plate holders). The matrices, which are relief gelatine images on a film support (one for each subtractive primary color) absorb dye in proportion to the optical densities of the gelatin relief image. Successive placement of the dyed film matrices, one at a time, "transfers" each primary dye by physical contact from the matrix to a mordanted, gelatin-coated paper. It took a technician one whole day to produce one print. Firstly, three colour separation negatives were made using three high contrast highlight masks to produce three contrast reducing and colour correction unsharp masks. The unsharp masks were made with an oblique light source (and a clear film as a spacer, the contact frame exposed while rotating on a gramophone turntable. The original was either a miniature 6 x 6 cm or 35 mmm colour transparency, or else a large format 5 x 7 or 8 x 10 inch colour transparency. Three separation negatives were made on panchromatic film exposing the colour transparency through a red, green and blue filter that would eventually print in the subtractive dyes: cyan, magenta and yellow respectively. The red separation negative was exposed onto panchromatic film through the red unsharp mask. The green separation negative was also exposed through the red unsharp mask. The blue separation negative was exposed through the green unsharp mask. The purpose of the contrast reducing masks was to reduce the contrast range of the original transparencies to a level that could be handled by reflected copy material. By swapping the masks, colour correction was achieved to compensate for deficiencies in the dyes. The 8 x 10 separation negatives were placed in an enlarger to expose the printing matrices. These were developed in plastic developing trays, and when fixed were washed in hot water to remove unexposed gelatin. After drying in a room with a fan heater each matrix was placed in a dye bath: the red matrix in cyan; the green matrix in magenta, and the blue matrix in yellow dye. Before being rolled into contact with the mordanted paper with a gelatine surface, the first matrix was lifted out of the cyan dye bath and allowed to drain until the stream of dye broke into drops. It was then placed into a plastic developing dish and one litre of 3% acetic acid. The dish was vigorously rocked back and forth and right to left from side to side to wash off the dye on the surface of the matrix. The matrix was lifted clear of the solution once so as to allow the acetic acid solution to reach the back of the matrix film. To facilitate registration, a special punch with pairs of matching register pins: one round on the left and a squarish pin on the right; both pins mounted at the edge of a glass rolling bed. The paper was placed on the glass rolling bed gelatine surface up. The matrix held by one short edge high in the air while the left (round) hole fitted onto the register pin, and then the right (squarish) hole pressed down onto the pin. Then a rubber roller is taken and the matrix firmly rolled away from the operator into contact with the paper which is kept in a pile in a conditioning bath. The dye is absorbed by the paper for one minute after which the matrix is picked up by the farthermost corners and peeled off the paper. The same procedure is followed for the magenta and yellow matrices.
While technicolor live action movies ended in 1954, the dye-transfer process would continue to be used for another twenty years for films shot with the single-negative Eastmancolor process.
== Status today ==
In 1994, Eastman Kodak stopped making all materials for this process. The dyes used in the process are very spectrally pure compared to normal coupler-induced photographic dyes, with the exception of the Kodak cyan. The dyes have excellent light and dark fastness. The dye transfer process possesses a larger color gamut and tonal scale than any other process, including inkjet. Another important characteristic of dye transfer is that it allows the practitioner the highest degree of photographic control compared to any other photochemical color print process.
A peculiar advantage of the process was that skilled dye transfer retouchers would use the same dyes the image was printed with to fill in blank white spaces between two or three separate colour photographs such as a background shot (rocks and a waterfall) one or more human figures, and more often than not a product shot (a cigarette pack) to produce a "strip in". Using the same dyes for photographically printing the images and for retouching meant that colour matching by eye would not show up differently when rephotographed. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Costner | Kevin Costner | Kevin Michael Costner (born January 18, 1955) is an American actor and filmmaker. He has received various accolades, including two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award.
Costner rose to prominence starring in such films as The Untouchables (1987), Bull Durham (1988), Field of Dreams (1989), JFK (1991), Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), The Bodyguard (1992), and A Perfect World (1993). During this time, he directed and starred in the western epic Dances With Wolves (1990), for which he won two Academy Awards: Best Picture, and Best Director. He then starred in and co-produced Wyatt Earp (1994) and Waterworld (1995), and directed The Postman (1997), Open Range (2003), and Horizon: An American Saga (2024).
Costner's other notable films include Silverado (1985), No Way Out (1987), Tin Cup (1996), Message in a Bottle (1999), For Love of the Game (1999), Thirteen Days (2000), Mr. Brooks (2007), Swing Vote (2008), The Company Men (2010), 3 Days to Kill (2014), Draft Day (2014), Black or White (2014), McFarland, USA (2015), and The Highwaymen (2019). He has also played supporting parts in such films as The Upside of Anger (2005), Man of Steel (2013), Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014), Hidden Figures (2016), Molly's Game (2017), and Let Him Go (2020).
On television, Costner portrayed Devil Anse Hatfield in the miniseries Hatfields & McCoys (2012), winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. From 2018 to 2024, he portrayed rancher John Dutton on the Paramount Network drama series Yellowstone, for which he received a Golden Globe award.
== Early life and education ==
Costner was born on January 18, 1955, in Lynwood, California, and grew up in Compton, California. His parents were William and Sharon Costner. He is the youngest of three boys, the second of whom died at birth. Sharon Rae Costner (née Tedrick) was a welfare worker, and William Costner was an electrician and a utilities executive. Costner's father's heritage originates with German immigrants to North Carolina in the 1700s, and Costner also has English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and Cherokee ancestry. Costner was raised Baptist. He was not academically inclined in school, but did play sports (especially football), take piano lessons, write poetry, and sing in the First Baptist Choir. He has said that watching the 1962 film How the West Was Won as a child inspired his love for Western films.
Costner has stated that he spent his teenage years in different parts of California as his father's career progressed. He has described this time as a period when he "lost a lot of confidence", having to make new friends often. Costner lived in Ventura, then in Visalia. Costner attended Mt. Whitney High School where he was in the marching band. Costner graduated from Villa Park High School in 1973. He played baseball at Villa Park and was teammates with Dennis Burtt. He earned a BA from California State University, Fullerton (CSUF) in 1978. While at CSUF, he became a brother in the Delta Chi fraternity.
Costner became interested in acting and dancing while in his last year of college. In 1978, while on an airplane returning from his honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta, Costner had a chance encounter with actor Richard Burton. At that time, Costner was uncertain about whether he should become an actor, and he approached Burton to ask his advice. Costner has said that Burton encouraged him to pursue acting. Costner has also stated that he asked Burton whether it was possible to be an actor without experiencing turmoil in one's private life; according to Costner, Burton replied that he thought it was possible. Costner credits Burton with inspiring him to become an actor.
Having agreed to undertake a job as a marketing executive, Costner began taking acting lessons five nights a week, with the support of his wife. His marketing job lasted 30 days. He took jobs that allowed him to develop his acting skills by paying his tuition, including working on fishing boats, as a truck driver, and giving tours of movie stars' Hollywood homes.
== Career ==
=== 1981–1986: Rise to prominence ===
Costner made his film debut in Sizzle Beach, U.S.A. (1981). Costner played a minor role as "Frat Boy #1" in the Ron Howard film Night Shift (1982). In 1983, Costner starred in Stacy's Knights.
Costner appeared in a commercial for the Apple Lisa and Table for Five in 1983, and, the same year, had a small role in the nuclear holocaust film Testament. Later, he was cast in The Big Chill and filmed several scenes that were planned as flashbacks, but they were removed from the final cut. His role was that of Alex, the friend who committed suicide, the event that brings the rest of the cast together. Costner was a friend of director Lawrence Kasdan, who promised the actor a role in a future project. That became Silverado (1985) and a breakout role for Costner. He also starred that year in the smaller films Fandango and American Flyers and appeared alongside Kiefer Sutherland in an hour-long special episode of Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories.
=== 1987–1994: Stardom and acclaim ===
Costner achieved movie star status in 1987, when he starred as federal agent Eliot Ness in The Untouchables and in the leading role of the thriller No Way Out. He solidified his A-list status in the baseball-themed films Bull Durham (1988) and Field of Dreams (1989). In 1990, he partnered with producer Jim Wilson to form the production company Tig Productions. Tig's first film was the epic Dances With Wolves which Costner directed and starred in. The film was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won seven, including two for him personally (Best Picture and Best Director). The same year saw the release of Revenge, in which he starred along with Anthony Quinn and Madeleine Stowe, directed by Tony Scott; Costner had wanted to direct it himself.
Costner portrayed Robin Hood in the action-adventure film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) where he also served as a producer. Costner starred alongside Alan Rickman, Morgan Freeman, and Christian Slater. The film received mixed reviews but was an immense box-office success. He then starred as District Attorney Jim Garrison in the Oliver Stone-directed political epic thriller JFK (1991). The film gained significant controversy for its historical inaccuracies but was also praised for its style, direction, and performances. Costner received a nomination for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama for his role. Critic Roger Ebert praised his performance writing, "As Garrison, Costner gives a measured yet passionate performance. Like a man who has hold of an idea he cannot let go, he forges ahead, insisting that there is more to the assassination than meets the eye."
He then starred opposite Whitney Houston in the romantic drama The Bodyguard (1992) where he also served as a producer. The film was a pop-culture sensation and financial success. The next year he starred as a criminal on the run in Clint Eastwood's drama A Perfect World (1993). Film critic Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly wrote, "Costner seems about as pathological as a koala bear, and his gentle charisma reinforces the film's touchy-feely theme". He took the title role in the western biopic Wyatt Earp (1994), directed by Lawrence Kasdan, where he also served as a producer. That same year, he starred in the drama film The War. The film also co-starred Elijah Wood. The film seemed to gain little attention.
=== 1995–2011: Career fluctuations ===
The science fiction-post-apocalyptic epics Waterworld (1995) and The Postman (1997), the latter of which Costner also directed, were both commercial disappointments and both largely regarded by critics as artistic failures. However, while Waterworld achieved respectable box office and some positive reviews, results for The Postman were far worse and it ended up winning five Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture, Worst Actor, and Worst Director for Costner. Costner starred in the golf comedy Tin Cup (1996) for Ron Shelton, who had previously directed him in Bull Durham. He developed the film Air Force One and was set to play the lead role of the President, but ultimately decided to concentrate on finishing The Postman instead. He personally offered the project to Harrison Ford. In 1999, he starred in Message in a Bottle with Robin Wright, based on the novel of the same name by Nicholas Sparks. The film drew mixed reviews and just about broke even at the box office.
His career revived somewhat in 2000 with Thirteen Days, in which he portrayed Kenneth O'Donnell, a top adviser to John F. Kennedy. The western Open Range, which he directed and starred in, received critical acclaim in 2003, and was a surprise success commercially. He received some of his best reviews for his supporting role as retired professional baseball player Denny Davies in The Upside of Anger, for which he received a nomination from the Broadcast Film Critics Association and won the San Francisco Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor. After that, Costner starred in The Guardian and in Mr. Brooks, in which he portrayed a serial killer. In 2008, his Tig Productions company closed and was changed to Tree House Films.
In 2008, Costner starred in Swing Vote. He starred opposite Jennifer Aniston in the 2005 movie Rumour Has It. Costner was honored on September 6, 2006, when his handprints and footprints were set in concrete in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre alongside those of other celebrated actors and entertainers. In 2010, he appeared in The Company Men alongside Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, and Chris Cooper. It debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, and received good reviews. It was released in cinemas worldwide in January 2011.
Costner announced that he would be returning to the director's chair for the first time in seven years, in 2011, with A Little War of Our Own. He was also about to team up again with director Kevin Reynolds in Learning Italian. No updates have been released about either film since their original production announcement. He also appears, as a special cameo, in Funny or Die's "Field of Dreams 2: NFL Lockout". Costner portrayed Jonathan Kent in the rebooted Superman film Man of Steel, directed by Zack Snyder. Costner was going to have a role in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts.
=== 2012–present: Resurgence and Yellowstone ===
Costner portrayed Devil Anse Hatfield in the three-part miniseries Hatfields & McCoys, which premiered on May 28, 2012, on the History Channel. It broke a record by pulling 13.9 million viewers. The miniseries tells the true American story of a legendary family feud – one that spanned decades and nearly launched a war between Kentucky and West Virginia. The role earned Costner the 2012 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie, the 2013 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie, and the 2013 Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Limited Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television.
In 2014, Costner appeared in the spy film Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, as Thomas Harper, a mentor for the series' title character. The same year, he starred in the thriller 3 Days to Kill, and the drama Draft Day, and produced and starred in Black or White. Black or White premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival and opened in the United States in 2015. In 2015, Costner played coach Jim White in the drama film McFarland, USA, about cross-country running. In 2016, he played the fictional character Al Harrison, a NASA Space Task Group supervisor, in Hidden Figures, and in 2017, he starred with Jessica Chastain in Aaron Sorkin's directorial debut film Molly's Game. From 2018 until mid-way through the show's fifth season, he has starred in and executive produced the television series Yellowstone, marking the first regular TV series role of his career. In 2019, Costner starred in The Art of Racing in the Rain, where he voiced Enzo the dog. It was his first voice-over film in his career. In 2020 Costner co-starred with Diane Lane in the neo-Western thriller Let Him Go (2020) (a No.1 box office hit during the COVID pandemic).
In August 2022, Costner began production on Horizon: An American Saga, a Western epic that will be split into at least four films, each just under three hours in length. Costner plans on the films being released over a series of months. Costner will both star in and direct the project and said the film was proposed as an event television series. Production on the first film was expected to last at least 220 days, but was completed by November 2022. Production of the next films was underway by May 2023. The first film, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1, was released in June 2024, earning mixed reviews, and was a box office flop. The poor box-office returns of Chapter 1 was a factor in the indefinite delay of Chapter 2, which too had received mixed reviews after its debut at the 81st Venice International Film Festival. Chapter 2 was originally set for an August 16, 2024 release date.
A 2025 story from the Hollywood Reporter has indicated that production on Yellowstone was rife with power struggles and arguments, listing it among various other incidents that has marred Costner's reputation among colleagues in Hollywood.
== Other ventures ==
=== Country music ===
Costner is the singer in Kevin Costner & Modern West, a country rock band which he founded with the encouragement of his then wife, Christine. In October 2007, they began a worldwide tour, which included shows in Istanbul and Rome. The group also performed at NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races at Daytona International Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina.
The band released a country album, Untold Truths, on November 11, 2008, on Universal South Records. The album peaked at No. 61 on the Billboard Top Country Albums and No. 35 on the Top Heatseekers chart. Three singles ("Superman 14", "Long Hot Night", and "Backyard") have been released to radio, although none have charted. For the single "Superman 14" a live music video was made.
In 2009, they went on tour with opening act The Alternate Routes. In August, at the Big Valley Jamboree in Camrose, Alberta, Costner and the band were scheduled next on stage when a severe thunderstorm struck, causing the stage and stands on the main stage to collapse. One person was reported dead and forty injured. Later, an auction was held to raise money for the two young sons of the woman killed. A dinner with Costner was auctioned off for $41,000. Two guitars, one autographed by Costner, helped raise another $10,000 each.
A second Kevin Costner and Modern West album, Turn It On, was released in February 2010 in Europe and was supported by a European tour. In July 2012, the band performed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, at the 20th annual Telus World Skins Game in support of the IWK Health Centre Foundation, donating a guitar autographed by Costner.
Costner has also appeared in the documentary film Country Roads by Marieke Schröder.
The most recent album released by Kevin Costner and Modern West, Tales from Yellowstone, was written by Costner and his co-writers from the perspective of John Dutton, Costner's character on the hit TV series Yellowstone. Songs from the album were featured on Season 3 of the show.
=== Baseball ===
Several of Costner's films have included a baseball theme: Chasing Dreams, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, For Love of the Game, and The Upside of Anger, in three of which his character is a pro baseball player and one a former pro baseball player.
Costner has a home in Austin, Texas, and sometimes appears at Texas Longhorns baseball practices and games. He was a close friend of former Longhorns baseball coach Augie Garrido from Garrido's days coaching at Cal State Fullerton, Costner's alma mater. He cast Garrido to play the role of the Yankee manager in For Love of the Game. He tries to attend every College World Series game that the CSUF Titans team plays in Omaha, Nebraska. Costner walked on for a tryout, but did not make the team early in his time at the university.
Costner was a partial owner of the Zion, Illinois-based Lake County Fielders independent baseball team in the North American League. The Fielders name was an homage to Field of Dreams, with the logo showing a ballplayer standing amid a field of corn. On August 12, 2021, he led the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox onto the field prior to the MLB at Field of Dreams game held in Dyersville, Iowa and gave a short speech.
=== Business interests ===
In 1995, Costner bought a company that was developing oil separation machines based on a patent he purchased from the US government. The machines developed by the company were of little commercial interest until the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, when BP took six of the machines from a company in which Costner owned an interest, Ocean Therapy Solutions, for testing in late May 2010. On June 16, 2010, BP entered into a lease with Ocean Therapy Solutions for 32 of the oil-water separation devices.
Although Spyron Contoguris and Stephen Baldwin had previously sold their interests in Ocean Therapy Solutions in mid-June to another investor in the company, they filed a lawsuit in Louisiana District Court claiming $10.64 million for securities fraud and misrepresentation. The suit claimed that Costner kept a meeting with BP secret from them, and the secret meeting resulted in an $18-million down payment on a $52 million purchase, and that after the down payment, but before any announcement, another investor used part of the down payment to buy out their shares, thus excluding them from their share of the profits from the total sale. The suit claimed that, despite public statements by Costner, Ocean Therapy Solutions, BP, and others to the contrary, Baldwin and Contogouris were told that BP was still testing the machines and had not yet committed to lease the machines from Ocean Therapy Solutions and that the other investor in Ocean Therapy Solutions purchased their shares for $1.4 million to Baldwin and $500,000, to Contogouris. In June 2012, a federal jury in Louisiana deliberated for less than two hours before rejecting Baldwin's and Contogouris' claims in the multimillion-dollar oil-clean-up case, and the court ordered Baldwin and Contogouris to reimburse Costner and the other defendants in the case for their costs.
On June 6, 2004, Costner opened Tatanka: The Story of the Bison one mile south of Deadwood, South Dakota, on U.S. Route 85, saying he hoped it would be an educational and emotional place for people to learn about America's westward expansion. Promoters stated in a news release that the $5-million attraction had a new, 3,800-square-foot interactive center featuring exhibits, retail, and food and beverage areas, offices, and a small theater. The visitor center features graphics and text about the bison and the relationship of the Plains Indians to the animals – historically hunting and now raising them for food and clothing, among other things. The centerpiece is a bronze sculpture depicting a buffalo jump by Hill City artist Peggy Detmers, depicting 14 bronze bison in the act of running from their pursuers and three bronze Lakota riders on horseback. Three of the massive bison are posed in midair, cascading over the face of a cliff. Costner commissioned the work in 1994 from Detmers. The five-fourths-scale bronzes, each weighing between 2,500 and 8,000 pounds, were cast at Eagle Bronze Foundry in Lander, Wyoming.
Costner opened the Midnight Star Casino and Restaurant in Deadwood, S.D., in 1991. He hired Francis and Carla Caneva to manage the establishment and gave each of them a 3.25 percent ownership and paid them salaries and bonuses. He terminated their employment in July 2004 and asked to agree to an amicable disassociation. When they declined, Costner dissolved the partnership and hired an accountant who determined its fair market value to be $3.1 million. The Canevas sued Costner to buy their shares based on twice that amount or sell the company on the open market. They won in the lower court but, on Costner's appeal, lost in the South Dakota Supreme Court. Costner closed the establishment in 2017 and sold it in 2020.
In 2020, Costner joined Woody Sears's new audio entertainment travel app, HearHere, as a co-founder, podcast narrator, and investor. Costner narrates some of the audio stories provided by the iPhone subscription app for travelers on road trips across the United States who want to hear about the people, places, and histories they are encountering on their travels.
=== Philanthropy ===
Costner serves on an honorary board for the National World War I Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. In spring 2011, he recorded two radio spots for the museum that were aired on Kansas City Royals Radio Network.
=== NASCAR ===
Costner was named ceremonial Grand Marshal of the NASCAR Cup Series' Auto Club 500 which took place on February 25, 2007, at the California Speedway. In 2008, he worked with the NASCAR Media Group and CMT Films to help produce the NASCAR Documentary The Ride of Their Lives which was released in December of that year. Costner would be the narrator for that documentary. Also in 2009, he was named the spokesman for NASCAR Day which took place on May 15. The next day, May 16, he and his country music band would perform in the infield of Charlotte Motor Speedway as well as participate as a judge in the 2nd annual Victory Challenge before the 25th Running of the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race.
=== Writing ===
In 2015, Costner co-authored The Explorer's Guild: A Passage to Shambhala, a hybrid adventure novel and graphic novel, with John Baird, researcher Stephen C. Meyer, and illustrator Rick Ross.
Costner has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans.
== Personal life ==
=== Relationships ===
In 1975, while in college, Costner started dating fellow student Cindy Silva, and they married three years later. During their marriage, they had two daughters born in 1984 and 1986, and a son born in 1988. The couple divorced in 1994 after 16 years of marriage, due to Costner allegedly having an affair while on the set of Waterworld. Cindy Silva received a settlement of $80 million (equivalent to $153 million in 2024).
Following his divorce, he had a brief relationship with Bridget Rooney, future wife of billionaire Bill Koch; Costner and Rooney had a son together, born in 1996. He then dated political activist Birgit Cunningham. In 1996, he lived with supermodel Elle Macpherson.
On September 25, 2004, Costner married his girlfriend of four years, model, and handbag designer, Christine Baumgartner, at his ranch in Aspen, Colorado. They have two sons, born in 2007 and 2009, and a daughter born in 2010. In May 2023, Baumgartner filed for divorce. They finalized their divorce on February 20, 2024.
=== Political activism ===
Early in his life, Costner was a Republican. He was both a supporter and friend of Ronald Reagan, frequently playing golf with the former president. He eventually switched his affiliation in the early 1990s. Since 1992, Costner has financially supported a variety of Democratic politicians, including Al Gore and Tom Daschle, but also made contributions to Republican Phil Gramm as late as 1995.
In 2008, he said publicly that he had no ambition to run for political office, adding "I've lived quite a colorful life". In the final days before that year's United States presidential election, Costner campaigned for Barack Obama, visiting various places in Colorado, where he has a home. In his speech, Costner stated the need for young voters to get to the polls, early, and with enthusiasm. "We were going to change the world and we haven't", Costner said at a Colorado State University rally. "My generation didn't get it done, and we need you to help us."
In October 2014, Costner sent a tribute to British troops serving around the world, thanking them for their work.
On December 22, 2019, Costner endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg at a rally in Indianola, Iowa. Later, Costner supported Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Costner narrated a commercial for J. D. Scholten, a Democrat running for the U.S. House of Representatives from Iowa's 4th congressional district. For the 2022 United States House of Representatives election in Wyoming, Costner endorsed Republican Liz Cheney for reelection.
== Acting credits and accolades ==
Over Costner's career he has received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director Dances With Wolves (1990). He received three Golden Globe Awards for Dances with Wolves, Hatfields & McCoys (2012), and Yellowstone (2023). He also received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography | Photography | Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed in many fields of science, manufacturing (e.g., photolithography), and business, as well as its more direct uses for art, film and video production, recreational purposes, hobby, and mass communication. A person who operates a camera to capture or take photographs is called a photographer, while the captured image, also known as a photograph, is the result produced by the camera.
Typically, a lens is used to focus the light reflected or emitted from objects into a real image on the light-sensitive surface inside a camera during a timed exposure. With an electronic image sensor, this produces an electrical charge at each pixel, which is electronically processed and stored in a digital image file for subsequent display or processing. The result with photographic emulsion is an invisible latent image, which is later chemically "developed" into a visible image, either negative or positive, depending on the purpose of the photographic material and the method of processing. A negative image on film is traditionally used to photographically create a positive image on a paper base, known as a print, either by using an enlarger or by contact printing.
Before the emergence of digital photography, photographs that utilized film had to be developed to produce negatives or projectable slides, and negatives had to be printed as positive images, usually in enlarged form. This was typically done by photographic laboratories, but many amateur photographers, students, and photographic artists did their own processing.
== Etymology ==
The word "photography" was created from the Greek roots φωτός (phōtós), genitive of φῶς (phōs), "light" and γραφή (graphé) "representation by means of lines" or "drawing", together meaning "drawing with light".
Several people may have coined the same new term from these roots independently. Hércules Florence, a French painter and inventor living in Campinas, Brazil, used the French form of the word, photographie, in private notes which a Brazilian historian believes were written in 1834. This claim is widely reported but is not yet largely recognized internationally. The first use of the word by Florence became widely known after the research of Boris Kossoy in 1980.
On 25 February 1839, the German newspaper Vossische Zeitung published an article titled Photographie, discussing several priority claims, especially that of Henry Fox Talbot's, in relation to Daguerre's claim of invention. The article is the earliest known occurrence of the word in public print. It was signed "J.M.", believed to have been Berlin astronomer Johann von Maedler. The astronomer John Herschel is also credited with coining the word, independent of Talbot, in 1839.
The inventors Nicéphore Niépce, Talbot, and Louis Daguerre seem not to have known or used the word "photography", but referred to their processes as "Heliography" (Niépce), "Photogenic Drawing"/"Talbotype"/"Calotype" (Talbot), and "Daguerreotype" (Daguerre).
== History ==
=== Precursor technologies ===
Photography is the result of combining several technical discoveries relating to seeing an image and capturing the image. The discovery of the camera obscura ("dark chamber" in Latin) that provides an image of a scene dates back to ancient China. Greek mathematicians Aristotle and Euclid independently described a camera obscura in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. In the 6th century CE, Byzantine mathematician Anthemius of Tralles used a type of camera obscura in his experiments.
The Arab physicist Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) (965–1040) also invented a camera obscura as well as the first true pinhole camera. The invention of the camera has been traced back to the work of Ibn al-Haytham. While the effects of a single light passing through a pinhole had been described earlier, Ibn al-Haytham gave the first correct analysis of the camera obscura, including the first geometrical and quantitative descriptions of the phenomenon, and was the first to use a screen in a dark room so that an image from one side of a hole in the surface could be projected onto a screen on the other side. He also first understood the relationship between the focal point and the pinhole, and performed early experiments with afterimages, laying the foundations for the invention of photography in the 19th century.
Leonardo da Vinci mentions natural camerae obscurae that are formed by dark caves on the edge of a sunlit valley. A hole in the cave wall will act as a pinhole camera and project a laterally reversed, upside down image on a piece of paper. Renaissance painters used the camera obscura which, in fact, gives the optical rendering in color that dominates Western art. It is a box with a small hole in one side, which allows specific light rays to enter, projecting an inverted image onto a viewing screen or paper.
The birth of photography was then concerned with inventing means to capture and keep the image produced by the camera obscura. Albertus Magnus (1193–1280) discovered silver nitrate, and Georg Fabricius (1516–1571) discovered silver chloride.
Daniele Barbaro described a diaphragm in 1566. Wilhelm Homberg described how light darkened some chemicals (photochemical effect) in 1694. Around 1717, Johann Heinrich Schulze used a light-sensitive slurry to capture images of cut-out letters on a bottle and on that basis many German sources and some international ones credit Schulze as the inventor of photography.
The fiction book Giphantie, published in 1760, by French author Tiphaigne de la Roche, described what can be interpreted as photography.
In June 1802, British inventor Thomas Wedgwood made the first known attempt to capture the image in a camera obscura by means of a light-sensitive substance. He used paper or white leather treated with silver nitrate. Although he succeeded in capturing the shadows of objects placed on the surface in direct sunlight, and even made shadow copies of paintings on glass, it was reported in 1802 that "the images formed by means of a camera obscura have been found too faint to produce, in any moderate time, an effect upon the nitrate of silver." The shadow images eventually darkened all over.
=== Invention ===
The first permanent photoetching was an image produced in 1822 by the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce, but it was destroyed in a later attempt to make prints from it. Niépce was successful again in 1825. In 1826 he made the View from the Window at Le Gras, the earliest surviving photograph from nature (i.e., of the image of a real-world scene, as formed in a camera obscura by a lens).
Because Niépce's camera photographs required an extremely long exposure (at least eight hours and probably several days), he sought to greatly improve his bitumen process or replace it with one that was more practical. In partnership with Louis Daguerre, he worked out post-exposure processing methods that produced visually superior results and replaced the bitumen with a more light-sensitive resin, but hours of exposure in the camera were still required. With an eye to eventual commercial exploitation, the partners opted for total secrecy.
Niépce died in 1833 and Daguerre then redirected the experiments toward the light-sensitive silver halides, which Niépce had abandoned many years earlier because of his inability to make the images he captured with them light-fast and permanent. Daguerre's efforts culminated in what would later be named the daguerreotype process. The essential elements—a silver-plated surface sensitized by iodine vapor, developed by mercury vapor, and "fixed" with hot saturated salt water—were in place in 1837. The required exposure time was measured in minutes instead of hours. Daguerre took the earliest confirmed photograph of a person in 1838 while capturing a view of a Paris street: unlike the other pedestrian and horse-drawn traffic on the busy boulevard, which appears deserted, one man having his boots polished stood sufficiently still throughout the several-minutes-long exposure to be visible. The existence of Daguerre's process was publicly announced, without details, on 7 January 1839. The news created an international sensation. France soon agreed to pay Daguerre a pension in exchange for the right to present his invention to the world as the gift of France, which occurred when complete working instructions were unveiled on 19 August 1839. In that same year, American photographer Robert Cornelius is credited with taking the earliest surviving photographic self-portrait. Moreover, Daguerre informed the Academy of Science in Paris on 7 January 1840 of the invention.
In Brazil, Hercules Florence had started working out a silver-salt-based paper process in 1832, later naming it photographia, at least four years before John Herschel coined the English word photography. In 1834, having settled on silver nitrate on paper, a combination which had been the subject of experiments by Thomas Wedgwood around the year 1800, Florence's notebooks indicate that he eventually succeeded in creating light-fast, durable images. Partly because he never published his invention adequately, partly because he was an obscure inventor living in a remote and undeveloped province, Hércules Florence died, in Brazil, unrecognized internationally as one of the inventors of photography during his lifetime.
Meanwhile, a British inventor, William Fox Talbot, had succeeded in making crude but reasonably light-fast silver images on paper as early as 1834 but had kept his work secret. After reading about Daguerre's invention in January 1839, Talbot published his hitherto secret method in a paper to the Royal Society and set about improving on it. At first, like other pre-daguerreotype processes, Talbot's paper-based photography typically required hours-long exposures in the camera, but in 1840 he created the calotype process, which used the chemical development of a latent image to greatly reduce the exposure needed and compete with the daguerreotype. In both its original and calotype forms, Talbot's process, unlike Daguerre's, created a translucent negative which could be used to print multiple positive copies; this is the basis of most modern chemical photography up to the present day, as daguerreotypes could only be replicated by rephotographing them with a camera. Talbot's famous tiny paper negative of the Oriel window in Lacock Abbey, one of a number of camera photographs he made in the summer of 1835, may be the oldest camera negative in existence.
In March 1837, Franz von Kobell, used silver chloride and a cardboard camera to make pictures in negative of the Frauenkirche and other buildings in Munich, then taking another picture of the negative to get a positive, the actual black and white reproduction of a view on the object. In 1839, Kobell, together with Carl August von Steinheil, reported on their experiments to the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. The pictures produced were round with a diameter of 4 cm, the method was later named the "Steinheil method".
In France, Hippolyte Bayard invented his own process for producing direct positive paper prints and claimed to have invented photography earlier than Daguerre or Talbot.
British chemist John Herschel made many contributions to the new field. He invented the cyanotype process, later familiar as the "blueprint". He was the first to use the terms "photography", "negative" and "positive". He had discovered in 1819 that sodium thiosulphate was a solvent of silver halides, and in 1839 he informed Talbot (and, indirectly, Daguerre) that it could be used to "fix" silver-halide-based photographs and make them completely light-fast. He made the first glass negative in late 1839.
In the March 1851 issue of The Chemist, Frederick Scott Archer published his wet plate collodion process. It became the most widely used photographic medium until the gelatin dry plate, introduced in the 1870s, eventually replaced it. There are three subsets to the collodion process; the Ambrotype (a positive image on glass), the Ferrotype or Tintype (a positive image on metal) and the glass negative, which was used to make positive prints on albumen or salted paper.
Many advances in photographic glass plates and printing were made during the rest of the 19th century. In 1891, Gabriel Lippmann introduced a process for making natural-color photographs based on the optical phenomenon of the interference of light waves. His scientifically elegant and important but ultimately impractical invention earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1908.
Glass plates were the medium for most original camera photography from the late 1850s until the general introduction of flexible plastic films during the 1890s. Although the convenience of the film greatly popularized amateur photography, early films were somewhat more expensive and of markedly lower optical quality than their glass plate equivalents, and until the late 1910s they were not available in the large formats preferred by most professional photographers, so the new medium did not immediately or completely replace the old. Because of the superior dimensional stability of glass, the use of plates for some scientific applications, such as astrophotography, continued into the 1990s, and in the niche field of laser holography, it has persisted into the 21st century.
=== Film ===
Hurter and Driffield began pioneering work on the light sensitivity of photographic emulsions in 1876. Their work enabled the first quantitative measure of film speed to be devised.
The first flexible photographic roll film was marketed by George Eastman, founder of Kodak in 1885, but this original "film" was actually a coating on a paper base. As part of the processing, the image-bearing layer was stripped from the paper and transferred to a hardened gelatin support. The first transparent plastic roll film followed in 1889. It was made from highly flammable nitrocellulose known as nitrate film.
Although cellulose acetate or "safety film" had been introduced by Kodak in 1908, at first it found only a few special applications as an alternative to the hazardous nitrate film, which had the advantages of being considerably tougher, slightly more transparent, and cheaper. The changeover was not completed for X-ray films until 1933, and although safety film was always used for 16 mm and 8 mm home movies, nitrate film remained standard for theatrical 35 mm motion pictures until it was finally discontinued in 1951.
Films remained the dominant form of photography until the early 21st century when advances in digital photography drew consumers to digital formats. Although modern photography is dominated by digital users, film continues to be used by enthusiasts and professional photographers. The distinctive "look" of film based photographs compared to digital images is likely due to a combination of factors, including (1) differences in spectral and tonal sensitivity (S-shaped density-to-exposure (H&D curve) with film vs. linear response curve for digital CCD sensors), (2) resolution, and (3) continuity of tone.
=== Black-and-white ===
Originally, all photography was monochrome, or black-and-white. Even after color film was readily available, black-and-white photography continued to dominate for decades, due to its lower cost, chemical stability, and its "classic" photographic look. The tones and contrast between light and dark areas define black-and-white photography. Monochromatic pictures are not necessarily composed of pure blacks, whites, and intermediate shades of gray but can involve shades of one particular hue depending on the process. The cyanotype process, for example, produces an image composed of blue tones. The albumen print process, publicly revealed in 1847, produces brownish tones.
Many photographers continue to produce some monochrome images, sometimes because of the established archival permanence of well-processed silver-halide-based materials. Some full-color digital images are processed using a variety of techniques to create black-and-white results, and some manufacturers produce digital cameras that exclusively shoot monochrome. Monochrome printing or electronic display can be used to salvage certain photographs taken in color which are unsatisfactory in their original form; sometimes when presented as black-and-white or single-color-toned images they are found to be more effective. Although color photography has long predominated, monochrome images are still produced, mostly for artistic reasons. Almost all digital cameras have an option to shoot in monochrome, and almost all image editing software can combine or selectively discard RGB color channels to produce a monochrome image from one shot in color.
=== Color ===
Color photography was explored beginning in the 1840s. Early experiments in color required extremely long exposures (hours or days for camera images) and could not "fix" the photograph to prevent the color from quickly fading when exposed to white light.
The first permanent color photograph was taken in 1861 using the three-color-separation principle first published by Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1855. The foundation of virtually all practical color processes, Maxwell's idea was to take three separate black-and-white photographs through red, green and blue filters. This provides the photographer with the three basic channels required to recreate a color image. Transparent prints of the images could be projected through similar color filters and superimposed on the projection screen, an additive method of color reproduction. A color print on paper could be produced by superimposing carbon prints of the three images made in their complementary colors, a subtractive method of color reproduction pioneered by Louis Ducos du Hauron in the late 1860s.
Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii made extensive use of this color separation technique, employing a special camera which successively exposed the three color-filtered images on different parts of an oblong plate. Because his exposures were not simultaneous, unsteady subjects exhibited color "fringes" or, if rapidly moving through the scene, appeared as brightly colored ghosts in the resulting projected or printed images.
Implementation of color photography was hindered by the limited sensitivity of early photographic materials, which were mostly sensitive to blue, only slightly sensitive to green, and virtually insensitive to red. The discovery of dye sensitization by photochemist Hermann Vogel in 1873 suddenly made it possible to add sensitivity to green, yellow and even red. Improved color sensitizers and ongoing improvements in the overall sensitivity of emulsions steadily reduced the once-prohibitive long exposure times required for color, bringing it ever closer to commercial viability.
Autochrome, the first commercially successful color process, was introduced by the Lumière brothers in 1907. Autochrome plates incorporated a mosaic color filter layer made of dyed grains of potato starch, which allowed the three color components to be recorded as adjacent microscopic image fragments. After an Autochrome plate was reversal processed to produce a positive transparency, the starch grains served to illuminate each fragment with the correct color and the tiny colored points blended together in the eye, synthesizing the color of the subject by the additive method. Autochrome plates were one of several varieties of additive color screen plates and films marketed between the 1890s and the 1950s.
Kodachrome, the first modern "integral tripack" (or "monopack") color film, was introduced by Kodak in 1935. It captured the three color components in a multi-layer emulsion. One layer was sensitized to record the red-dominated part of the spectrum, another layer recorded only the green part and a third recorded only the blue. Without special film processing, the result would simply be three superimposed black-and-white images, but complementary cyan, magenta, and yellow dye images were created in those layers by adding color couplers during a complex processing procedure.
Agfa's similarly structured Agfacolor Neu was introduced in 1936. Unlike Kodachrome, the color couplers in Agfacolor Neu were incorporated into the emulsion layers during manufacture, which greatly simplified the processing. Currently, available color films still employ a multi-layer emulsion and the same principles, most closely resembling Agfa's product.
Instant color film, used in a special camera which yielded a unique finished color print only a minute or two after the exposure, was introduced by Polaroid in 1963.
Color photography may form images as positive transparencies, which can be used in a slide projector, or as color negatives intended for use in creating positive color enlargements on specially coated paper. The latter is now the most common form of film (non-digital) color photography owing to the introduction of automated photo printing equipment. After a transition period centered around 1995–2005, color film was relegated to a niche market by inexpensive multi-megapixel digital cameras. Film continues to be the preference of some photographers because of its distinctive "look".
=== Digital ===
In 1981, Sony unveiled the first consumer camera to use a charge-coupled device for imaging, eliminating the need for film: the Sony Mavica. While the Mavica saved images to disk, the images were displayed on television, and the camera was not fully digital.
The first digital camera to both record and save images in a digital format was the Fujix DS-1P created by Fujifilm in 1988.
In 1991, Kodak unveiled the DCS 100, the first commercially available digital single-lens reflex camera. Although its high cost precluded uses other than photojournalism and professional photography, commercial digital photography was born.
Digital imaging uses an electronic image sensor to record the image as a set of electronic data rather than as chemical changes on film. An important difference between digital and chemical photography is that chemical photography resists photo manipulation because it involves film and photographic paper, while digital imaging is a highly manipulative medium. This difference allows for a degree of image post-processing that is comparatively difficult in film-based photography and permits different communicative potentials and applications.
Digital photography dominates the 21st century. More than 99% of photographs taken around the world are through digital cameras, increasingly through smartphones.
== Techniques ==
A large variety of photographic techniques and media are used in the process of capturing images for photography. These include the camera; dual photography; full-spectrum, ultraviolet and infrared media; light field photography; and other imaging techniques.
=== Cameras ===
The camera is the image-forming device, and a photographic plate, photographic film or a silicon electronic image sensor is the capture medium. The respective recording medium can be the plate or film itself, or a digital magnetic or electronic memory.
Photographers control the camera and lens to "expose" the light recording material to the required amount of light to form a "latent image" (on plate or film) or RAW file (in digital cameras) which, after appropriate processing, is converted to a usable image. Digital cameras use an electronic image sensor based on light-sensitive electronics such as charge-coupled device (CCD) or complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The resulting digital image is stored electronically, but can be reproduced on paper.
The camera (or 'camera obscura') is a dark room or chamber from which, as far as possible, all light is excluded except the light that forms the image. It was discovered and used in the 16th century by painters. The subject being photographed, however, must be illuminated. Cameras can range from small to very large, a whole room that is kept dark while the object to be photographed is in another room where it is properly illuminated. This was common for reproduction photography of flat copy when large film negatives were used (see Process camera).
As soon as photographic materials became "fast" (sensitive) enough for taking candid or surreptitious pictures, small "detective" cameras were made, some actually disguised as a book or handbag or pocket watch (the Ticka camera) or even worn hidden behind an Ascot necktie with a tie pin that was really the lens.
The movie camera is a type of photographic camera that takes a rapid sequence of photographs on recording medium. In contrast to a still camera, which captures a single snapshot at a time, the movie camera takes a series of images, each called a "frame". This is accomplished through an intermittent mechanism. The frames are later played back in a movie projector at a specific speed, called the "frame rate" (number of frames per second). While viewing, a person's eyes and brain merge the separate pictures to create the illusion of motion.
=== Stereoscopic ===
Photographs, both monochrome and color, can be captured and displayed through two side-by-side images that emulate human stereoscopic vision. Stereoscopic photography was the first that captured figures in motion. While known colloquially as "3-D" photography, the more accurate term is stereoscopy. Such cameras have long been realized by using film and more recently in digital electronic methods (including cell phone cameras).
=== Dualphotography ===
Dualphotography consists of photographing a scene from both sides of a photographic device at once (e.g. camera for back-to-back dualphotography, or two networked cameras for portal-plane dualphotography). The dualphoto apparatus can be used to simultaneously capture both the subject and the photographer, or both sides of a geographical place at once, thus adding a supplementary narrative layer to that of a single image.
=== Full-spectrum, ultraviolet and infrared ===
Ultraviolet and infrared films have been available for many decades and employed in a variety of photographic avenues since the 1960s. New technological trends in digital photography have opened a new direction in full spectrum photography, where careful filtering choices across the ultraviolet, visible and infrared lead to new artistic visions.
Modified digital cameras can detect some ultraviolet, all of the visible and much of the near infrared spectrum, as most digital imaging sensors are sensitive from about 350 nm to 1000 nm. An off-the-shelf digital camera contains an infrared hot mirror filter that blocks most of the infrared and a bit of the ultraviolet that would otherwise be detected by the sensor, narrowing the accepted range from about 400 nm to 700 nm.
Replacing a hot mirror or infrared blocking filter with an infrared pass or a wide spectrally transmitting filter allows the camera to detect the wider spectrum light at greater sensitivity. Without the hot-mirror, the red, green and blue (or cyan, yellow and magenta) colored micro-filters placed over the sensor elements pass varying amounts of ultraviolet (blue window) and infrared (primarily red and somewhat lesser the green and blue micro-filters).
Uses of full spectrum photography are for fine art photography, geology, forensics and law enforcement.
=== Layering ===
Layering is a photographic composition technique that manipulates the foreground, subject or middle-ground, and background layers in a way that they all work together to tell a story through the image. Layers may be incorporated by altering the focal length, distorting the perspective by positioning the camera in a certain spot. People, movement, light and a variety of objects can be used in layering.
=== Light field ===
Digital methods of image capture and display processing have enabled the new technology of "light field photography" (also known as synthetic aperture photography). This process allows focusing at various depths of field to be selected after the photograph has been captured. As explained by Michael Faraday in 1846, the "light field" is understood as 5-dimensional, with each point in 3-D space having attributes of two more angles that define the direction of each ray passing through that point.
These additional vector attributes can be captured optically through the use of microlenses at each pixel point within the 2-dimensional image sensor. Every pixel of the final image is actually a selection from each sub-array located under each microlens, as identified by a post-image capture focus algorithm.
=== Other ===
Besides the camera, other methods of forming images with light are available. For instance, a photocopy or xerography machine forms permanent images but uses the transfer of static electrical charges rather than photographic medium, hence the term electrophotography. Photograms are images produced by the shadows of objects cast on the photographic paper, without the use of a camera. Objects can also be placed directly on the glass of an image scanner to produce digital pictures.
== Types ==
=== Amateur ===
Amateur photographers take photos for personal use, as a hobby or out of casual interest, rather than as a business or job. The quality of amateur work can be comparable to that of many professionals. Amateurs can fill a gap in subjects or topics that might not otherwise be photographed if they are not commercially useful or salable. Amateur photography grew during the late 19th century due to the popularization of the hand-held camera. Twenty-first century social media and near-ubiquitous camera phones have made photographic and video recording pervasive in everyday life. In the mid-2010s smartphone cameras added numerous automatic assistance features like color management, autofocus face detection and image stabilization that significantly decreased skill and effort needed to take high quality images.
=== Commercial ===
Commercial photography is probably best defined as any photography for which the photographer is paid for images rather than works of art. In this light, money could be paid for the subject of the photograph or the photograph itself. The commercial photographic world could include:
Advertising photography: There are photographs made to illustrate and usually sell a service or product. These images, such as packshots, are generally done with an advertising agency, design firm or with an in-house corporate design team.
Architectural photography focuses on capturing photographs of buildings and architectural structures that are aesthetically pleasing and accurate in terms of representations of their subjects.
Event photography focuses on photographing guests and occurrences at mostly social events.
Fashion and glamour photography usually incorporates models and is a form of advertising photography. Fashion photography, like the work featured in Harper's Bazaar, emphasizes clothes and other products; glamour emphasizes the model and body form while glamour photography is popular in advertising and men's magazines. Models in glamour photography sometimes work nude.
360 product photography displays a series of photos to give the impression of a rotating object. This technique is commonly used by ecommerce websites to help shoppers visualise products.
Concert photography focuses on capturing candid images of both the artist or band as well as the atmosphere (including the crowd). Many of these photographers work freelance and are contracted through an artist or their management to cover a specific show. Concert photographs are often used to promote the artist or band in addition to the venue.
Crime scene photography consists of photographing scenes of crime such as robberies and murders. A black and white camera or an infrared camera may be used to capture specific details.
Still life photography usually depicts inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made. Still life is a broader category for food and some natural photography and can be used for advertising purposes.
Real estate photography focuses on the production of photographs showcasing a property that is for sale, such photographs requires the use of wide-lens and extensive knowledge in high-dynamic-range imaging photography.
Food photography can be used for editorial, packaging or advertising use. Food photography is similar to still life photography but requires some special skills.
Photojournalism can be considered a subset of editorial photography. Photographs made in this context are accepted as a documentation of a news story.
Paparazzi is a form of photojournalism in which the photographer captures candid images of athletes, celebrities, politicians, and other prominent people.
Portrait and wedding photography: Are photographs made and sold directly to the end user of the images.
Landscape photography typically captures the presence of nature but can also focus on human-made features or disturbances of landscapes.
Wildlife photography demonstrates the life of wild animals.
=== Art ===
During the 20th century, both fine art photography and documentary photography became accepted by the English-speaking art world and the gallery system. In the United States, a handful of photographers, including Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, John Szarkowski, F. Holland Day, and Edward Weston, spent their lives advocating for photography as a fine art.
At first, fine art photographers tried to imitate painting styles. This movement is called Pictorialism, often using soft focus for a dreamy, 'romantic' look. In reaction to that, Weston, Ansel Adams, and others formed the Group f/64 to advocate 'straight photography', the photograph as a (sharply focused) thing in itself and not an imitation of something else.
The aesthetics of photography is a matter that continues to be discussed regularly, especially in artistic circles. Many artists argued that photography was the mechanical reproduction of an image. If photography is authentically art, then photography in the context of art would need redefinition, such as determining what component of a photograph makes it beautiful to the viewer. The controversy began with the earliest images "written with light"; Nicéphore Niépce, Louis Daguerre, and others among the very earliest photographers were met with acclaim, but some questioned if their work met the definitions and purposes of art.
Clive Bell in his classic essay Art states that only "significant form" can distinguish art from what is not art.
There must be some one quality without which a work of art cannot exist; possessing which, in the least degree, no work is altogether worthless. What is this quality? What quality is shared by all objects that provoke our aesthetic emotions? What quality is common to Sta. Sophia and the windows at Chartres, Mexican sculpture, a Persian bowl, Chinese carpets, Giotto's frescoes at Padua, and the masterpieces of Poussin, Piero della Francesca, and Cezanne? Only one answer seems possible – significant form. In each, lines and colors combined in a particular way, certain forms and relations of forms, stir our aesthetic emotions.
On 7 February 2007, Sotheby's London sold the 2001 photograph 99 Cent II Diptychon for an unprecedented $3,346,456 to an anonymous bidder, making it the most expensive at the time.
Conceptual photography turns a concept or idea into a photograph. Even though what is depicted in the photographs are real objects, the subject is strictly abstract.
In parallel to this development, the then largely separate interface between painting and photography was closed in the second half of the 20th century with the chemigram of Pierre Cordier and the chemogram of Josef H. Neumann. In 1974 the chemograms by Josef H. Neumann concluded the separation of the painterly background and the photographic layer by showing the picture elements in a symbiosis that had never existed before, as an unmistakable unique specimen, in a simultaneous painterly and at the same time real photographic perspective, using lenses, within a photographic layer, united in colors and shapes. This Neumann chemogram from the 1970s thus differs from the beginning of the previously created cameraless chemigrams of a Pierre Cordier and the photogram Man Ray or László Moholy-Nagy of the previous decades. These works of art were almost simultaneous with the invention of photography by various important artists who characterized Hippolyte Bayard, Thomas Wedgwood, William Henry Fox Talbot in their early stages, and later Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy in the twenties and by the painter in the thirties Edmund Kesting and Christian Schad by draping objects directly onto appropriately sensitized photo paper and using a light source without a camera.
=== Photojournalism ===
Photojournalism is a particular form of photography (the collecting, editing, and presenting of news material for publication or broadcast) that employs images in order to tell a news story. It is now usually understood to refer only to still images, but in some cases the term also refers to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (e.g., documentary photography, social documentary photography, street photography or celebrity photography) by complying with a rigid ethical framework which demands that the work be both honest and impartial whilst telling the story in strictly journalistic terms. Photojournalists create pictures that contribute to the news media, and help communities connect with one other. Photojournalists must be well informed and knowledgeable about events happening right outside their door. They deliver news in a creative format that is not only informative, but also entertaining, including sports photography.
=== Science and forensics ===
The camera has a long and distinguished history as a means of recording scientific phenomena from the first use by Daguerre and Fox-Talbot, such as astronomical events (eclipses for example), small creatures and plants when the camera was attached to the eyepiece of microscopes (in photomicroscopy) and for macro photography of larger specimens. The camera also proved useful in recording crime scenes and the scenes of accidents, such as the Wootton bridge collapse in 1861. The methods used in analysing photographs for use in legal cases are collectively known as forensic photography. Crime scene photos are usually taken from three vantage points: overview, mid-range, and close-up.
In 1845 Francis Ronalds, the Honorary Director of the Kew Observatory, invented the first successful camera to make continuous recordings of meteorological and geomagnetic parameters. Different machines produced 12- or 24-hour photographic traces of the minute-by-minute variations of atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, atmospheric electricity, and the three components of geomagnetic forces. The cameras were supplied to numerous observatories around the world and some remained in use until well into the 20th century. Charles Brooke a little later developed similar instruments for the Greenwich Observatory.
Science regularly uses image technology that has derived from the design of the pinhole camera to avoid distortions that can be caused by lenses. X-ray machines are similar in design to pinhole cameras, with high-grade filters and laser radiation.
Photography has become universal in recording events and data in science and engineering, and at crime scenes or accident scenes. The method has been much extended by using other wavelengths, such as infrared photography and ultraviolet photography, as well as spectroscopy. Those methods were first used in the Victorian era and improved much further since that time.
The first photographed atom was discovered in 2012 by physicists at Griffith University, Australia. They used an electric field to trap an "Ion" of the element, Ytterbium. The image was recorded on a CCD, an electronic photographic film.
=== Wildlife photography ===
Wildlife photography involves capturing images of various forms of wildlife. Unlike other forms of photography such as product or food photography, successful wildlife photography requires a photographer to choose the right place and right time when specific wildlife are present and active. It often requires great patience and considerable skill and command of the right photographic equipment.
== Social and cultural implications ==
There are many ongoing questions about different aspects of photography. In her On Photography (1977), Susan Sontag dismisses the objectivity of photography. This is a highly debated subject within the photographic community. Sontag argues, "To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means putting one's self into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge, and therefore like power." Photographers decide what to take a photo of, what elements to exclude and what angle to frame the photo, and these factors may reflect a particular socio-historical context. Along these lines, it can be argued that photography is a subjective form of representation.
Modern photography has raised a number of concerns on its effect on society. In Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), the camera is presented as promoting voyeurism. 'Although the camera is an observation station, the act of photographing is more than passive observing'.
The camera doesn't rape or even possess, though it may presume, intrude, trespass, distort, exploit, and, at the farthest reach of metaphor, assassinate – all activities that, unlike the sexual push and shove, can be conducted from a distance, and with some detachment.
Digital imaging has raised ethical concerns because of the ease of manipulating digital photographs in post-processing. Many photojournalists have declared they will not crop their pictures or are forbidden from combining elements of multiple photos to make "photomontages", passing them as "real" photographs. Today's technology has made image editing relatively simple for even the novice photographer. However, recent changes of in-camera processing allow digital fingerprinting of photos to detect tampering for purposes of forensic photography.
Photography is one of the new media forms that changes perception and changes the structure of society. Further unease has been caused around cameras in regards to desensitization. Fears that disturbing or explicit images are widely accessible to children and society at large have been raised. Particularly, photos of war and pornography are causing a stir. Sontag is concerned that "to photograph is to turn people into objects that can be symbolically possessed". Desensitization discussion goes hand in hand with debates about censored images. Sontag writes of her concern that the ability to censor pictures means the photographer has the ability to construct reality.
One of the practices through which photography constitutes society is tourism. Tourism and photography combine to create a "tourist gaze" in which local inhabitants are positioned and defined by the camera lens. However, it has also been argued that there exists a "reverse gaze" through which indigenous photographees can position the tourist photographer as a shallow consumer of images.
== Law ==
Photography is both restricted and protected by the law in many jurisdictions. Protection of photographs is typically achieved through the granting of copyright or moral rights to the photographer. In the United States, photography is protected as a First Amendment right and anyone is free to photograph anything seen in public spaces as long as it is in plain view. In the UK, the Counter-Terrorism Act (2008) has increased the power of the police to prevent people, even press photographers, from taking pictures in public places. In South Africa, any person may photograph any other person, without their permission, in public spaces and the only specific restriction placed on what may not be photographed by government is related to anything classed as national security. Each country has different laws. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Peace_Prize | Sydney Peace Prize | The Sydney Peace Prize is awarded by the Sydney Peace Foundation,
a non profit organisation associated with the University of Sydney. The prize promotes peace with justice and the practice of nonviolence. It aims to encourage public interest and discussion about issues of peace, social justice, human rights, and non-violent conflict resolution.
== Support ==
The City of Sydney is a major supporter of the Sydney Peace Prize. This involves a significant financial contribution along with other in-kind support in order to foster peace with justice.
== The prize ==
Over three months each year, the Sydney Peace Prize jury – comprising seven individuals who represent corporate, media, academic and community sector interests – assesses the merits of the nominees' efforts to promote peace with justice. It is awarded to an organisation or individual:
who has made significant contributions to global peace including improvements in personal security and steps towards eradicating poverty, and other forms of structural violence
whose role and responsibilities enable the recipient to use the prize to further the cause of peace with justice
whose work illustrates the philosophy and principles of non-violence
== Considerations ==
The jury has been prepared to make some controversial choices. Sydney Peace Foundation Founder, Emeritus Professor Stuart Rees, said, "The initiators of the Sydney Peace Prize aimed to influence public interest in peace with justice, an ideal which is often perceived as controversial. The choice of a non-controversial candidate for a peace prize would be a safe option but unlikely to prompt debate or to increase understanding. Consensus usually encourages compliance, often anaesthetises and seldom informs."
== Prize winners ==
1998 – Professor Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank for the poor and Nobel Peace Prize recipient
1999 – Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize recipient
2000 – Xanana Gusmão, the poet-artist and president of East Timor
2001 – Sir William Deane, the former Governor-General of Australia
2002 – Mary Robinson, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
2003 – Hanan Ashrawi, Palestinian academic and human rights campaigner
2004 – Arundhati Roy, Indian novelist and peace activist
2005 – Olara Otunnu, United Nations Under Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict from Uganda
2006 – Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International
2007 – Hans Blix, chairman of the UN Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission
2008 – Patrick Dodson, chairman of the Lingiari Foundation, "father of reconciliation"
2009 – John Pilger, Australian journalist and documentary maker
2010 – Vandana Shiva, Indian social justice and environmental activist, eco-feminist and author
2011 – Noam Chomsky, American linguist and activist
2012 – Sekai Holland, Zimbabwean Senator
2013 – Cynthia Maung, Burmese doctor
2014 – Julian Burnside, Australian barrister, human rights and refugee advocate
2015 – George Gittoes, Australian artist who chronicles conflicts around the world
2016 – Naomi Klein, Canadian journalist, author and prominent activist for climate justice
2017 – Black Lives Matter, International civil rights activist movement
2018 – Joseph E. Stiglitz, American economist and academic
2019 – Tarana Burke and Tracey Spicer, American founders of the #MeToo Movement
2020 – Midnight Oil, Australian rock band
2021–2022 – The Uluru Statement from the Heart
2023 – Nazanin Boniadi, British actress and activist
2025 – Navi Pillay, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
== Gold medal for Peace with Justice ==
The foundation also occasionally awards a special gold medal for significant contributions to peace and justice. Winners of the gold medal include South African statesman Nelson Mandela, 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, Japanese Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda, WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, Costa Rican Christina Figueres and Australian band Midnight Oil. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sliced_bread | Sliced bread | Sliced bread is a loaf of bread, sliced with a machine and packaged for convenience, as opposed to the consumer cutting it with a knife. It was first sold in 1928, advertised as "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped". By 1933, around 80% of bread sold in the US was pre-sliced, leading to the popular idiom "greatest thing since sliced bread".
== History ==
Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa, United States, invented the first single loaf bread-slicing machine. A prototype he built in 1912 was destroyed in a fire, and it was not until 1928 that Rohwedder had a fully working machine ready. The first commercial use of the machine was by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri, who sold their first slices on July 7, 1928. Their product, "Kleen Maid Sliced Bread", proved to be a success. Battle Creek, Michigan, has a competing claim as the first city to sell bread sliced by Rohwedder's machine; however, historians have produced no documentation backing up Battle Creek's claim. The bread was advertised as "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped".
St. Louis baker Gustav Papendick bought Rohwedder's second bread slicer and set out to improve it by devising a way to keep the slices together at least long enough to allow the loaves to be wrapped. After failures trying rubber bands and metal pins, he settled on placing the slices into a cardboard tray. The tray aligned the slices, allowing mechanized wrapping machines to function.
W.E. Long, who promoted the Holsum Bread brand, used by various independent bakers around the country, pioneered and promoted the packaging of sliced bread, beginning in 1928. In 1930, Wonder Bread, first sold in 1925, started marketing sliced bread nationwide.
In the United Kingdom, the first slicing and wrapping machine was installed in the Wonderloaf Bakery in Tottenham, London, in 1937. By the 1950s around 80% of bread sold in Britain was pre-sliced.
== Effects ==
As commercially sliced bread resulted in uniform and somewhat thinner slices, people ate more slices of bread at a time. They also ate bread more frequently, because of the ease of getting and eating another piece of bread. This increased consumption of bread and, in turn, increased consumption of spreads, such as jam, to put on the bread.
== 1943 U.S. ban ==
In 1943, U.S. officials imposed a short-lived ban on sliced bread as a wartime conservation measure. The ban was ordered by Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard, who held the position of Food Administrator, and took effect on January 18, 1943. According to The New York Times, officials explained that "the ready-sliced loaf must have a heavier wrapping than an unsliced one if it is not to dry out." It was also intended to counteract a rise in the price of bread, caused by the Office of Price Administration's authorization of a ten percent increase in flour prices.
In a Sunday radio address on January 24th, New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia suggested that bakeries that had their own bread-slicing machines should be allowed to continue to use them, and on January 26th, 1943, a letter appeared in The New York Times from a distraught housewife:
I should like to let you know how important sliced bread is to the morale and saneness of a household. My husband and four children are all in a rush during and after breakfast. Without ready-sliced bread I must do the slicing for toast—two pieces for each one—that's ten. For their lunches I must cut by hand at least twenty slices, for two sandwiches apiece. Afterward I make my own toast. Twenty-two slices of bread to be cut in a hurry!
On January 26th, however, John F. Conaboy, the New York Area Supervisor of the Food Distribution Administration, warned bakeries, delicatessens, and other stores that were continuing to slice bread to stop, saying that "to protect the cooperating bakeries against the unfair competition of those who continue to slice their own bread... we are prepared to take stern measures if necessary."
On March 8th, 1943, the ban was rescinded. While public outcry is generally credited for the reversal, Wickard stated that "Our experience with the order, however, leads us to believe that the savings are not as much as we expected, and the War Production Board tells us that sufficient wax paper to wrap sliced bread for four months is in the hands of paper processor and the baking industry."
== Around the world ==
Due to its convenience, sliced bread is popular in many parts of the world, and the usual thickness varies by company and country:
In the United Kingdom, sliced bread is sold as "Extra Thick", "Thick", "Medium" or "Thin", ranging from 16 mm down to 10 mm.
In the Republic of Ireland, the most popular bread type is known as "sliced pan", sold in 800- or 400-gram loaves, wrapped in wax paper.
In Japan, the same half-loaf of bread is labeled by the number of slices it is cut into (commonly a four or six cut, but also eight or ten), meaning a higher number is a thinner cut. Whole cut loaves are rarely seen. Thin sliced crustless "sandwich bread" is also sold in Japan, since regular four–six slice bread is deemed too thick.
In Canada and the United States, Texas toast is a type of packaged bread sliced twice as thick as most sliced bread.
In Australia most sliced bread slices are about 18 mm thick, known as "toast" thickness, while 12–13 mm is known as "sandwich". Less common is "café" thickness, about 24 mm.
== In popular culture ==
The phrase "the greatest thing since sliced bread" is a common idiom used to praise an invention or development. A writer for The Kansas City Star wrote that "the phrase is the ultimate depiction of innovative achievement and American know-how."
In 1933, an advertisement for a bread offering thick and thin slices in the same loaf called it "the first improvement since sliced bread". In 1940, a package of bread consisting of two wrapped sliced half-loaves was advertised as the "greatest convenience since sliced bread". |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Orme | Great Orme | The Great Orme (Welsh: Y Gogarth) is a limestone headland on the north coast of Wales, north-west of the town of Llandudno. Referred to as Cyngreawdr Fynydd by the 12th-century poet Gwalchmai ap Meilyr, its English name derives from the Old Norse word for sea serpent. The Little Orme, a smaller but very similar limestone headland, is on the eastern side of Llandudno Bay. The headland is a tourist attraction, with a Victorian tramway, a cableway, walking routes and a mining museum.
== Toponym ==
Both the Great and Little Ormes have been etymologically linked to the Old Norse words urm or orm that mean sea serpent (English worm is a cognate). One explanation is that the Great Orme is the head, with its body being the land between the Great and Little Ormes, whilst another, possibly more likely, is that the shape of the Great Orme viewed as one enters the isthmus of Llandudno from the southeast landward end resembles a giant sleeping creature. The Vikings left no written texts of their time in North Wales although they certainly raided the area. They did not found any permanent settlements, unlike on the Wirral Peninsula, but some Norse names remain in use in the former Kingdom of Gwynedd (such as Point of Ayr near Talacre).
Despite there being a theory for the origin of the name "Orme", the word was not commonly used until after the creation of the Victorian resort of Llandudno in the mid-19th century. Before this, Welsh names were predominantly used locally and in cartography to name the headland's landward features and the surrounding area. The entire peninsula on which Llandudno was built was known as the Creuddyn (the medieval name of the cwmwd – a historical division of land in Wales); the headland itself was called Y Gogarth or Pen y Gogarth; its promontories were Pen trwyn, Llech, and Trwyn y Gogarth.
Orme only appears to have been applied to the headland as seen from the sea. In 1748, the Plan of the Bay & Harbour of Conway in Caernarvon Shire by Lewis Morris names the body of the peninsula "CREUDDYN" but applies the name "Orme's Head" to the headland's north-westerly seaward point. The first series Ordnance Survey map (published in 1841 and before the establishment of Llandudno) follows this convention. The headland is called the "Great Orme's Head" but its landward features all have Welsh names. It is likely that Orme became established as its common name due to Llandudno's burgeoning tourist trade because a majority of visitors and holidaymakers arrived by sea. The headland was the first sight of their destination in the three-hour journey from Liverpool by paddle steamer.
== Natural history ==
Parts of the Great Orme are managed as a nature reserve by the Conwy County Borough Countryside Service. The area, which is two miles (three kilometres) long by 1 mile (1.5 kilometres) wide, has a number of protective designations including Special Area of Conservation, Heritage Coast, Country Park, and Site of Special Scientific Interest. The local authority provides a warden service on the Great Orme that regularly patrols the special scientific and conservation areas. There are numerous maintained paths for walking to the summit; a section of the long-distance North Wales Path also crosses the headland. About half the Great Orme is in use as farmland, mostly for sheep grazing. In 2015, the National Trust purchased the summit's 140-acre (57-hectare) Parc Farm for £1million.
=== Geology ===
The Great Orme is a peninsula made mostly of limestone and dolomite, formed during the Early Carboniferous part of the Earth's geological history. Most of the Great Orme's rocks are between 339 and 326 million years old. The upper surface of the Great Orme is particularly noted for its limestone pavements covering several headland areas. There are also rich seams of dolomite-hosted copper ore. The Great Orme copper mine was estimated to have produced enough copper to make about 2,000 tons of bronze during the Bronze Age.
The slopes of the Great Orme are subject to occasional subsidence.
=== Wells ===
Natural wells were greatly prized in limestone districts and the Great Orme was no exception. Water was required for copper mining purposes as well as for domestic and agricultural use. The following Great Orme wells are known and most still supply running water:
Ffynnon Llygaid. Possibly one of the wells supplying the needs of the once populous Gogarth community before much of it was lost to coastal erosion.
Ffynnon Gogarth. The main water source for Gogarth and in the later 18th and early 19th centuries the power source to operate the famous Tom and Gerry engine that through a long series of Brammock rods powered the mine water pumps at the Higher shaft near the summit above Pyllau.
Ffynnon Powel. One of the water supplies together with ffynnon Tudno and ffynnon Rufeining serving the medieval farming community of Cyngreawdr.
Ffynnon Galchog. This well, near Mynydd Isaf, to the north of Pen Dinas, is a source of lime-rich water known for its petrifying qualities, it is one of two wells known to have been used in the washing of copper ores.
Ffynnon Tudno. Situated beyond the road, near the northeast corner of St Tudno's Church, ffynnon Tudno was, together with ffynnon Rufeining, a principal source of water for the community settled around the church.
Ffynnon Rufeinig. Translated as "Roman Well", it takes its name from the tradition that Roman copper miners used its waters to wash the copper ores mined nearby.
Ffynnon Llech. A spring of water in Ogof Llech, a cave on the headland which is very difficult to access. It is claimed to have been used as a hermitage by Saint Tudno, a sixth-century monk of Bangor-is-y-Coed who established the first church here.
Ffynnon Gaseg. Literally "Mare's well", this spring was revealed at the side of the road, about halfway round and near the highest point, during the construction of the Marine Drive in the 19th century. It was ideally situated to refresh the horses on the five-mile carriage drive round the base of the Great Orme.
=== Flora ===
The Great Orme has a very rich flora, including most notably the only known site of the critically endangered wild cotoneaster (Cotoneaster cambricus), of which only six wild plants are known. Many of the flowers growing in shallow lime-rich earth on the headland have developed from the alpine sub-Arctic species that developed following the last ice-age. Spring and early summer flowers include bloody cranesbill, thrift and sea campion, clinging to the sheer rock face, while pyramidal orchid, common rockrose and wild thyme carpet the grassland. The old mines and quarries also provide suitable habitat for species of plants including spring squill growing on the old copper workings. The white horehound (Marrubium vulgare), which is found growing on the westernmost slopes of the Orme is said to have been used, and perhaps cultivated, by 14th-century monks, no doubt to make herbal remedies including cough mixtures. The rare horehound plume moth (Wheeleria spilodactylus) lays her eggs amongst the silky leaves and its caterpillars rely for food solely upon this one plant.
=== Fauna ===
The headland is the habitat of several endangered species of butterflies and moths, including the silky wave, the silver-studded blue (Plebejus argus subsp. caernesis) and the grayling (Hipparchia semele thyone) These last two have adapted to the Great Orme by appearing earlier in the year to take advantage of the limestone flowers and grasses. Also they are smaller than in other parts of the country and are recognised as a definite subspecies. The Great Orme is reported as the northernmost known habitat within Britain for several 'southern' species of spider notably: Segestria bavarica, Episinus truncatus, Micrargus laudatus, Drassyllus praeficus, Liocranum rupicola and Ozyptila scabricula.
The headland is also home to about 200 Kashmir goats. The herd, which has roamed the Orme since the middle of the 19th century, is descended from a pair of goats that were presented by the Shah of Persia to Queen Victoria shortly after her coronation in 1837. Numbers are controlled by compulsory sterilization; the action was taken because competition for resources was forcing goats off the Orme into gardens and property. The Royal Welsh, a large regiment in the British Army, is permitted by the British monarch to choose an animal from the herd to be a regimental goat (if it passes selection, it is given the honorary rank of lance corporal). During the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions in Wales, goats began entering the town because of the lack of people; at the same time, the goat population on the Orme grew rapidly because park wardens were unable to administer sterilisation injections. With the end of the pandemic, the town council has created a special task force to manage goat numbers.
The caves and abandoned mine workings are home to large colonies of the rare horseshoe bat. This small flying mammal navigates the caves and tunnels by using echolocation to obtain a mental picture of its surroundings. During the daytime, horseshoe bats are found suspended from the roof of tunnels and caves, with their wings tightly wrapped around their bodies. Only at dusk do the bats leave the caves and mine shafts, to feed on beetles and moths.
The cliffs are host to colonies of seabirds (such as guillemots, kittiwakes, razorbills and even fulmars as well as gulls). The Great Orme is also home to many resident and migrant land birds including ravens, little owls and peregrine falcons. The red-billed chough is occasionally spotted.
Below the cliffs, the rock-pools around the headland are a rich and varied habitat for aquatic plants and animals including barnacles, red beadlet anemones and hermit crabs.
== History ==
=== Copper mines ===
Large-scale human activity on the Great Orme began around 4,000 years ago during the Bronze Age with the opening of several copper mines. The copper ore malachite was mined using stones and bone tools. It is estimated that up to 1,760 tonnes of copper was mined during the period. The mine was most productive in the period between 1700BC and 1400BC, after which most of the readily accessible copper had been extracted. The site was so productive that by 1600BC, there were no other copper mines left open in Britain because they could not compete with the Great Orme.
The mine was abandoned and evidence suggests it was not worked again until the late 17th century, due to the demand for copper and improved ability to pump water out of the mine. A steam engine was introduced in 1832 and ten years later an 822-metre long tunnel was mined at sea level to drain the deeper mine workings. Commercial-scale mining on the Great Orme ended in the 1850s, although small-scale mining continued until the mines were finally abandoned in 1881.
In 1987, the improvement of the derelict mine site was commissioned by the local council and Welsh Development Agency. The area was to be landscaped and turned into a car park. Since excavation began in 1987, over five miles (eight kilometres) of prehistoric tunnels have been discovered. It is estimated that less than half of the prehistoric tunnels have been discovered so far.
In April 1991 the Great Orme Mines site was opened to the public. Pathways and viewing platforms were constructed to give access to the surface excavations. In 1996 a bridge was erected over the top of Vivian's Shaft. The visitor centre's extension, built-in 2014, contains a selection of mining tools and bronze axes along with displays about life and death in the Bronze Age, mining and ancient metallurgy. Also accessible is the 3,500-year-old Great Cavern.
=== Medieval period ===
The medieval parish of Llandudno comprised three townships all established on the lower slopes of the Great Orme. The township of Y Gogarth at the south-western 'corner' of the Great Orme was latterly the smallest but it contained the palace of the Bishop of Bangor. The Manor of Gogarth (which included all three townships) had been bestowed on Anian, Bishop of Bangor by King Edward I in 1284 in recognition of services rendered to the crown, notably the baptism of the first English Prince of Wales, newly born at Caernarfon. The palace was burnt down by Owain Glyndŵr in 1400 and the ruins have mostly been washed away together with much of the township by coastal erosion in the Conwy Estuary.
The significant agricultural yet north-facing township of Cyngreawdr includes the original parish church and rectory of St Tudno, a sixth- or seventh-century foundation. Following the Glyndŵr uprising, the villagers of the Creuddyn peninsula were harshly taxed and by 1507 they had nearly all fled their homes. Henceforth the cultivated land lay fallow and is now grazed by sheep and goats. Llandudno's Victorian cemetery, which is still in regular use, was laid out in 1859 adjacent to the 12th-century church of Saint Tudno where open-air services are held every Sunday morning in summer. Nearby are several large ancient stones that have become shrouded in folklore and also an unexplained stone-lined avenue called Hwylfa'r Ceirw leading towards Cilfin Ceirw (Precipice of Deer).
The third township was Yn Wyddfid clustered below the Iron Age hill fort of Pen y Dinas at the northeastern "corner" of the Great Orme. With the reopening of the copper mines from the 18th century onwards, this township grew considerably in size with the streets and cottages of the mining village laid out on the largely abandoned agricultural holdings.
=== Victorian expansion ===
In 1825 the Board of the Port of Liverpool obtained a local act of Parliament, the Liverpool Improvement Act 1825 (6 Geo. 4. c. clxxxvii) to help improve safety and communications for the merchant marine operating in the Irish Sea and Liverpool Bay. The act allowed them to erect and maintain telegraph stations between Liverpool and the Isle of Anglesey. This would help ship-owners, merchants and port authorities in Liverpool know the location of all mercantile shipping along the North Wales coast.
In 1826 the summit of the Great Orme was chosen as the location for one of the 11 optical semaphore stations that would form an unbroken 80 mi (130 km) chain from Liverpool to Holyhead. The original semaphore station on the Orme, which consisted of small building with living accommodation, used a 15 m (49 ft) ship's mast with three pairs of moveable arms to send messages to either Puffin Island 7 mi (11 km) to the west or 8+1⁄2 mi (14 km) to Llysfaen in the east. Skilled telegraphers could send semaphore messages between Liverpool and Holyhead in under a minute.
In March 1855 the Great Orme telegraph station was converted to electric telegraph. Landlines and submarine cables connected the Orme to Liverpool and Holyhead. At first the new equipment was installed in the original Semaphore Station on the summit until it was moved down to the Great Orme lighthouse in 1862. Two years later the Great Orme semaphore station closed with the completion of a direct electric telegraph connection from Liverpool to Holyhead.
By the late 1860s, Llandudno's blossoming tourist trade saw many Victorians visit the old semaphore station at the summit to enjoy the panorama. This led to the development of the summit complex.
=== Twentieth century ===
By the early 20th century, a nine-bed hotel was built on the site. It served as the clubhouse for the Great Orme Golf Club that was founded in the early 1900s. The course closed in 1939 and is now a sheep farm.
On 11 July 1914, Beatrice Blore drove a Singer Ten car up the cable track of the Great Orme, with a gradient of 1 in 3 in places, becoming the first woman to drive up the steep and challenging headland. She was six months pregnant at the time and the drive was a publicity stunt developed by her partner George Wilkin Browne to help sell the cars at his Llandudno garage, North Wales Silver Motors. Her feat is commemorated by her unusual gravestone in St Tudno's graveyard.
=== Second World War and beyond ===
During the Second World War, the RAF built a Chain Home Low radar station at the summit.
The Royal Artillery coast artillery school was transferred from Shoeburyness to the Great Orme in 1940 (and, additionally, a Practice Camp was established on the Little Orme in 1941) during the war. Target practice was undertaken from the headland using both towed and anchored boats. Experimental work and training were also provided for radio direction finding. The foundations of some of the buildings and installations remain and can be seen from the western end of Marine Drive. The site of the school was scheduled as an Ancient Monument in 2011 by CADW, the Welsh Government's historic monuments body. This was done in recognition of the site's significance in a UK and Welsh context.
Also of note was the Aerial Defence Research and Development Establishment (ADRDE) known as "X3", which was a three-storey building erected in 1942. This seems to have been a secret radar experimental station above the artillery school. The road put in to serve it now serves a car park on the approximate site of the station, which was demolished in 1956.
In 1952 the site was taken into private ownership, until it was acquired by Llandudno Urban Town Council in 1961.
== Tourism ==
With the creation of Llandudno, the first route round the perimeter of the Great Orme was a footpath constructed in 1858 by Reginald Cust, a trustee of the Mostyn Estate. In 1872 the Great Ormes Head Marine Drive Co. Ltd. was formed to turn the path into a Victorian carriage road. But it went bankrupt before work was finished. A second company completed the road in 1878. The contractors for the scheme were Messrs Hughes, Morris, Davies, a consortium led by Richard Hughes of Madoc Street, Llandudno. The road was bought by Llandudno Urban District Council in 1897. The four-mile (six-kilometre) one-way toll road starts at the foot of the Happy Valley. After about 1+1⁄2 miles (2.5 km) a side road leads to St. Tudno's Church, the Bronze Age Copper Mines and to the Great Orme Summit complex with car park. The toll road ticket also pays for the parking at the Summit Complex. Marine Drive has been used as a stage on the Wales Rally GB in 1981, 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2018.
In 1902, the Great Orme Tramway was built to convey visitors to the top of the Great Orme. In 1969, the Llandudno Cable Car was also constructed to take visitors up to the summit attractions. These include a tourist shop, cafeteria, visitors' centre, play areas, a licensed hotel, and the vintage tram/cable-car stations.
On clear days Winter Hill, the Isle of Man and the Lake District can be seen from the summit of the Orme.
The Orme has one of only two artificial ski slopes in North Wales, complete with one of the longest toboggan runs in the United Kingdom.
Landscaped gardens in the Happy Valley and terraces in the Haulfre Garden cover the lower landward facing steeply sloping southern side. Walkways link the Haulfre Gardens with the western end of the Marine Drive.
On the northernmost point of the Orme is the former Llandudno lighthouse. It was constructed in 1862 by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company. The navigation aid remained in continuous use until 22 March 1985 when it was decommissioned. The building has now been converted into a small bed & breakfast guest house. The lantern and its optics are now on permanent display at the Summit Complex visitors' centre. The old established "Rest and be thankful" café is also nearby. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conquest_of_Bread | The Conquest of Bread | The Conquest of Bread is an 1892 book by the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin. Originally written in French, it first appeared as a series of articles in the anarchist journal Le Révolté. It was first published in Paris with a preface by Élisée Reclus, who also suggested the title. Between 1892 and 1894, it was serialized in part in the London journal Freedom, of which Kropotkin was a co-founder.
In the work, Kropotkin identified what he considered to be the defects of the economic systems of feudalism and capitalism, and argued that these systems thrive on and maintain poverty and scarcity. He proceeded to propose a more decentralized economic system based on mutual aid and voluntary cooperation, asserting that the tendencies for this kind of organization already exist, both in evolution and in human society.
The Conquest of Bread has become a classic of political anarchist literature. It was heavily influential on the Occupy movement.
== Background ==
In 1886, Kropotkin was released from French prison. Fearful of the anarchist scare that was gripping continental Europe following the assassination of Alexander II and wishing to focus more time on composing theory and arguing for his revolutionary ideals, Kropotkin moved to London in the same year. Following the death of Mikhail Bakunin in 1876, anarchists desired a prominent and respected theorist to explain their ideas and—after the splitting of the First International between Marxists and anarchists—Kropotkin wished to formally explain anarchist communism in a way that would clearly differentiate the anarchists from the Marxists, but also help to correct what he saw as flaws in Bakunin's ideology of collectivist anarchism. With this aim, Kropotkin spent a great deal of time in London writing multiple books and pamphlets, in between his international speaking tours to the United States and Canada. It was during this time of rapid literary output that Kropotkin wrote The Conquest of Bread, which became his most well-known attempt to systematically explain the essential parts of anarchist communism.
Kropotkin originally wrote the text in French and published in the French journal Le Révolté, where he served as the primary editor. Following its publication in France, Kropotkin published a serialized version in English in the London anarchist journal Freedom. The book would later be collected and published as a book in France in 1892 and in England in 1906.
The publication of the text was a watershed moment in anarchist history, being the first time that a completed and in-depth theoretical work of anarchist communism was available to the public. The publication of the text shifted the focus of anarchism from individualist, mutualist and collectivist strains to social and communist tendencies. This shift would prove to be one of the most enduring changes in the history of anarchism as anarchism developed throughout the 20th century with Kropotkin and The Conquest of Bread as firm reference points.
== Summary ==
=== Chapters 1–3: Right to well-being ===
Throughout the first three chapters, Kropotkin constructs an argument for the common ownership of all intellectual and useful property due to the collective work that went into creating it. Kropotkin does not argue that the product of a worker's labor should belong to the worker. Instead, Kropotkin asserts that every individual product is essentially the work of everyone since every individual relies on the intellectual and physical labor of those who came before them as well as those who built the world around them. Because of this, Kropotkin proclaims that every human deserves an essential right to well-being because every human contributes to the collective social product: No more of such vague formulae as "The right to work", or "To each the whole result of his labour." What we proclaim is the Right to Well-Being; Well-Being for All!
Kropotkin further contends that the central obstacle preventing humanity from claiming this right is the state's violent protection of private property. Kropotkin compares this relationship to feudalism, saying that even if the forms have changed, the essential relationship between the propertied and the landless is the same as the relationship between feudal lords and their serfs. Kropotkin calls for the destruction of the state and the expropriation of all property into the commons, where the right to well-being can be achieved for all people.
=== Chapters 4–11: Anarchist communist society ===
Throughout the middle of the book, Kropotkin sketches a picture of what he feels an anarchist communist society could look like. He points to the huge levels of production that modern industrial society achieved in terms of food production, clothing production, and housing production, and he uses this as evidence of the feasibility of an anarchist communist society. More than enough of the essentials are produced for all people, Kropotkin argues; if they were only distributed properly, nobody would have any unmet needs. Kropotkin further argues that with the level of production output being so high, people should not have to work more than five hours a day and they should be able to reduce that as much as possible, giving them free time for leisure, socialization, and to work on innovations that would reduce their labor.
Near the end of this section, Kropotkin discusses luxury items, recognizing that they are a necessity for a good life and affirming that luxury items would still be produced, even if production were taken under the purview of common need. Kropotkin claims that luxury items would be produced on a collective basis by those most interested in their production. He uses an example of a group of pianists dedicating time to building luxury pianos with the help of a group of collective carpenters. Kropotkin argues that this system of collective production could produce necessary luxury items—on top of the production of the necessities—for everybody to live a fulfilling life.
=== Chapters 12–17: Objections and conclusion ===
In the final chapters, Kropotkin lays out what he feels will be prominent objections to his theory as well as his responses to them. He figures that many critics will claim that people are naturally lazy and they would not work without a profit incentive, even if it is only for five hours and for basic necessities. Kropotkin counters by saying that people are willing to work in jobs they enjoy and given the necessary free time to work on their own, with the guarantee of material stability, people will work willingly on collective gardens or in collective garment factories.
Near the end of the work, Kropotkin cautions against the state centralization of industry, warning people against more authoritarian strands of socialism and claiming that any revolution must guarantee bread and freedom to the workers and revolutionaries. He ends with a long chapter on agriculture, marveling at the many ways in which humans have cultivated and advanced agricultural production, dreaming about the ways that it could be used to feed everybody and guarantee a healthy and happy life for all people.
== Legacy ==
The Conquest of Bread has made an impact which exceeds Kropotkin's own lifetime. It has played a prominent role in the anarchist militias of the Spanish Civil War as well as inspiring anarchist history, theory and praxis throughout the 20th century. Due to the authoritarian and sectarian violence of Marxism–Leninism in the Soviet Union, some thinkers came to regard the book as prophetic, with Kropotkin anticipating the many pitfalls and human rights abuses that would occur with the centralization of industry.
After the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent Occupy movement, Kropotkin's work took on increased prominence. David Graeber, one of the intellectual leaders of the Occupy movement, cited Kropotkin directly as an inspiration for the world the Occupy protesters were attempting to create. In 2015, David Priestland, writing for The Guardian, called for a renewed look at Kropotkin and The Conquest of Bread in the West, given the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the 2008 financial crisis.
Sometimes the subject of leftist memes, it is known as "The Bread Book" colloquially. Since 2018, a loose group of left-leaning YouTube content creators have collectively been referred to as BreadTube, inspired by the title of the book. The term "breadpilled" refers to the act of becoming an anarcho-socialist, alluding to the red pill and blue pill from the 1999 film The Matrix. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda_Mountain_Gorilla_Rally | Rwanda Mountain Gorilla Rally | The Rwanda Mountain Gorilla Rally, known originally as the Fraternity Rally, is an international rallying event organised by the Rwanda Automobile Club. The rally is based in the Rwandan capital of Kigali. The event is a round of the African Rally Championship and the Rwandan National Rally Championship.
The Fraternity Rally was first run in 1999 as motorsport re-established itself after the Genocide against the Tutsi. It began as a cross-border rally that began in Kampala, Uganda before finishing in Kigali. The rally became part of the African championship the following year, restoring a Rwandan presence to the African championship absent since 1988. Over time the Ugandan portion of the event faded and the rally was renamed the Rwanda Mountain Gorilla Rally 2002.
Burundi driver Rudy Cantanhede is the most successful driver in the rallies history with three wins to his credit. Italian born local driver Giancarlo Davite has two wins to his credit. All bar two events have been won by drivers of Subaru Imprezas.
== List of winners ==
Sourced in part from: |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_von_B%C3%BClow | Bernhard von Bülow | Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin, Prince of Bülow (German: Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin Fürst von Bülow [fɔn ˈbyːloː]; 3 May 1849 – 28 October 1929) was a German politician who served as the imperial chancellor of the German Empire and minister-president of Prussia from 1900 to 1909. A fervent supporter of Weltpolitik, Bülow devoted his chancellorship to transforming Germany into a global power. Despite presiding over sustained economic growth and major scientific breakthroughs within his country, his government's bellicose foreign policy did much to antagonize France, Great Britain and Russia thereby significantly contributing to the outbreak of World War I.
Born into a prominent family of Danish-German aristocrats, Bülow entered the German foreign service after his father, Bernhard Ernst von Bülow, was appointed foreign secretary in Otto von Bismarck's government. He held several diplomatic posts, including German ambassador to Rome, before being appointed foreign secretary in 1897 by Wilhelm II. Three years later, he was appointed chancellor following the resignation of the Prince of Hohenlohe.
As chancellor, Bülow promoted cautious and conservative domestic policies while pursuing an ambitious and expansionist policy in foreign affairs. His open challenge to France's growing control over Morocco sparked the First Moroccan Crisis, which aggravated the French and the British and helped strengthen the Entente Cordiale. In 1908, Wilhelm's indiscreet remarks were published during the Daily Telegraph Affair, causing significant damage to German foreign relations and the Kaiser's prestige. Bülow was blamed for failing to prevent the blunder and, having lost the support of both the Kaiser and the Reichstag, he resigned in 1909 and was succeeded by Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg.
Bülow moved to Rome after his resignation. He came out of retirement in late 1914 to serve as interim ambassador to Italy, but was unable to bring King Victor Emmanuel III to the side of the Central Powers. Bülow died in Rome in 1929 at the age of 80.
== Early life ==
He was born at Klein-Flottbeck, Holstein (now part of Altona, Hamburg). His father, Bernhard Ernst von Bülow, was a Danish and German statesman and member of an old House of Bülow, while his mother was a wealthy heiress, Louise Victorine Rücker (1821–1894). His brother, Major-General Karl Ulrich von Bülow, was a cavalry commander during World War I. Bülow attributed his grasp of English and French to having learnt it from governesses as a young child. His father spoke French, and his mother spoke English, as was common in Hamburg society.
In 1856, his father was sent to the Federal Diet in Frankfurt to represent Holstein and Lauenburg, when Otto von Bismarck was also there to represent Prussia. He became a great friend of Bismarck's son Herbert when they played together. At 13, the family moved to Neustrelitz when his father became Chief Minister to the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, where Bernhard attended the Frankfort gymnasium, before attending Lausanne, Leipzig, and Berlin Universities.
He volunteered for military service during the Franco-Prussian War and became a lance-corporal in the King's Hussar Regiment. In December 1870, the squadron was in action near Amiens, and he later described charging and killing French riflemen with his sabre. He was promoted to lieutenant and was invited to remain in the army after the war but declined. He completed his law degree at the University of Greifswald in 1872. Afterwards, he entered first the Prussian Civil Service and then the diplomatic service.
His religion was Lutheran.
== Early career ==
In 1873 his father became State Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the German government, serving under Bismarck. Bülow entered the diplomatic corps. His first short assignments were to Rome, St. Petersburg, Vienna and then Athens. In 1876, he was appointed attaché to the German embassy in Paris, attended the Congress of Berlin as a secretary and became second secretary to the embassy in 1880.
In 1884, he had hoped to be posted to London but instead became first secretary at the embassy in St. Petersburg. On the way to his new assignment, he stayed for a couple of days at Varzin with the Bismarck family. Bismarck explained that he considered relations with Russia much more important than with Britain and so he had posted Bülow there. Bismarck reported himself as impressed by Bülow's calmness and demeanour during the interview. In Russia, he acted as chargé d'affaires in 1887 and advocated the ethnic cleansing of Poles from Polish territories of the German Empire in a future armed conflict. Bülow wrote regularly to the Foreign Office, complaining about his superior, Ambassador Schweinitz, who, however, was well-liked. Bülow earned for himself a reputation as only a schemer. In 1885, Friedrich von Holstein noted that Bülow was attempting to have Prince Chlodwig von Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst removed as ambassador to France to get the post despite meanwhile exchanging friendly letters with him.
On 9 January 1886, still in St. Petersburg, he married Maria Anna Zoe Rosalia Beccadelli di Bologna, Principessa di Camporeale, Marchesa di Altavilla, whose first marriage with Count Karl von Dönhoff had been annulled by the Holy See in 1884. The princess, an accomplished pianist and pupil of Franz Liszt, was a stepdaughter of Marco Minghetti and the daughter of Donna Laura Minghetti (née Acton). She had been married for sixteen years and had three children. Bülow previously had numerous love affairs, but the marriage was intended to further his career. In 1888, he was offered the choice of appointments to Washington, DC, or Bucharest, and chose Bucharest, as Maria objected to the prospect of traveling to the United States and leaving her family behind. He spent the next five years scheming to be appointed to Rome, where his wife was well connected. King Umberto I of Italy was persuaded to write to Kaiser Wilhelm that he would be pleased if Bülow became ambassador there, which occurred in 1893.
== State Secretary for Foreign Affairs ==
On 21 June 1897 Bülow received a telegram instructing him to go to Kiel to speak to Wilhelm. On the way, he stopped at Frankfurt while changing trains and spoke to Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg. Eulenburg explained that Wilhelm wanted a new State Secretary for Foreign Affairs and urged Bülow to take the post, which his father had once held. Eulenburg also passed on advice about how best to manage Wilhelm, who lived on praise and could not stand to be contradicted. In Berlin, Bülow first spoke to Friedrich von Holstein, who was head of the political department of the German Foreign Office. Holstein advised him that although he would have preferred the present Secretary, Adolf Marschall von Bieberstein, to stay in his post, Wilhelm was determined to replace him and that he would prefer the successor to be Bülow. Perhaps Bülow might be able to find him an ambassador's post in due course. Chancellor Hohenlohe, desperate to retire because of old age, urged Bülow to take the position with an eye to succeeding him as chancellor. Bülow urged Hohenlohe to continue in office for as long as he could.
On 26 June, Bülow met with the Kaiser, who advised that it would be one of the new secretary's main tasks to set about building a world-class fleet capable of taking on the British without precipitating a war. Bülow asked for time to consider the offer, and on 3 August, he accepted. The two men formed a good working relationship. Rather than oppose Wilhelm, which some of his predecessors had done, Bülow agreed with him on all matters by sometimes privately relying on Wilhelm's bad memory and frequent changes of opinion to take the action that he thought best and ignore Wilhelm had instructed. The post of State Secretary was subordinate to that of the Chancellor and under Bismarck's chancellorship, it had been only a functionary. Under Bülow, that was largely reversed, Hohenlohe being content to let Bülow manage foreign affairs with his principal adviser, Holstein. Wilhelm would call on Bülow every morning to discuss state affairs but would rarely see the chancellor.
== Imperial State Secretary ==
Bülow also held a seat in the Prussian government. Under the Imperial German Constitution, Wilhelm was both emperor of all Germany, and king of Prussia. As Foreign Secretary, Bülow was chiefly responsible for carrying out the policy of colonial expansion with which the emperor was identified. He was welcomed by the Foreign Office because he was the first professional diplomat to be placed in charge since Bismarck's resignation in 1890. Bülow had been wary of accepting the post if Holstein remained as Imperial First Councillor, as Holstein had in practice held great authority in recent years. Holstein was regarded as indispensable because of his long experience in office, rank, cunning and phenomenal memory. Eulenburg advised Bülow to stake out a firm but working relationship immediately on his arrival, and both succeeded in working together. In 1899, on bringing to a successful conclusion the negotiations by which Germany acquired the Caroline Islands, he was raised to the rank of Count.
In October 1900, Bülow was summoned to Wilhelm's hunting retreat at Hubertsstock, where Wilhelm asked Bülow to become Chancellor of the German Empire and Prime Minister of Prussia. Bülow queried whether he was the best man for the job. Wilhelm admitted he would have preferred Eulenburg on a personal level but was not sure he was sufficiently able. On 16 October, Bülow was summoned again to Homburg, where the Kaiser met his train in person. Wilhelm explained that Hohenlohe had announced he could no longer be and so Bülow accepted the job. A replacement State Secretary was necessary, which was first offered to Holstein, who turned it down since he preferred not to take a position that required appearing before the Reichstag. The post was given to Baron Oswald von Richthofen, who had already been serving as undersecretary to Bülow. It was made clear that the State Secretary's post would now revert to the subordinate role it had played in Bismarck's time, with Holstein remaining the more important adviser on foreign affairs.
== Chancellor ==
Bülow's mornings were reserved for Wilhelm, who would visit the chancellery every morning when in Berlin. His determination to remain on Wilhelm's good side was remarkable, even for those accustomed to his irascible manner. Wilhelm's household controller noted, "Whenever, by oversight, he expresses an opinion in disagreement with the emperor, he remains silent for a few moments and then says the exact contrary, with the preface, 'as Your Majesty so wisely remarked'". He gave up tobacco, beer, coffee and liqueurs and took 35 minutes of exercise every morning and would ride in good weather through the Tiergarten. He would, on Sundays, take long walks in the woods. In 1905, at 56, he led his old Hussars regiment at the gallop in an imperial parade and was rewarded by an appointment to the rank of major general. Wilhelm remarked to Eulenburg in 1901, "Since I have Bülow I can sleep peacefully". His first conspicuous act as chancellor was a masterly defence in the Reichstag of German imperialism in China. Bülow often spent his time defending German foreign policy there, to say nothing of covering for the Kaiser's many undiplomatic gaffes. In a speech in November 1906, Bülow introduced the concept of "encirclement" to the Reichstag that triggered the Teutonic press to blame Der Krieg in der Gegenwart. To Germany, the Triple Entente was a disaster, but he put a brave face on it.
=== Domestic policy and politics ===
Various reforms were also introduced during his tenure, including an extension of the period in which workers could claim accident insurance (1900), the making of industrial arbitration courts compulsory for towns with a population of more than 20,000 (1901) and an extension of health insurance and further controls on child labour (1903). A polling booth law was introduced that improved the secret ballot in 1904. Two years later, payment for Reichstag deputies was introduced.
In preparation for the 1907 election, Bülow created the "Bülow Bloc" of parties that were fervently antisocialist and anticlerical, devoutly patriotic, enthusiastically imperialist, and loyal to the Kaiser and the Fatherland. What Bebel labeled the "Hottentot election" was a disaster for the Social Democrats, who lost almost half their seats. However, Bülow was unable to turn the election coalition into a stable bloc in parliament
Bülow also produced proposals for the expropriation of lands from Prussian Poland for purposes of German settlement. In 1908, after the passing of an expropriation bill in the Diet, Bülow quelled concerns from Cardinal Kopp that the bill was too extreme. Other protesters of Bülow's expropriation bills included Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz, who pleaded publicly to the global intellectual community for support.
=== Economic policy ===
Under pressure from the Junker-dominated Agrarian League, Bülow passed a tariff in 1902 that increased the duties on agriculture. As a result, the German grain production became one of the most protected in the world. Bülow's government also negotiated a series of commercial treaties with other European countries that came into force in March 1906.
=== Foreign policy ===
Bülow served as foreign minister, 1897–1909. To gain a stronger voice in world affairs he encouraged Admiral Tirpitz's naval expansion policy. Expecting Britain to be defeated by Russia he planned to pick up some colonies of the British Empire. He miscalculated, and alienated Britain even more, as it moved closer to an alliance with France and Russia. Bülow was motivated by domestic political concerns in his support of Tirpitz naval policy. In 1898 he said that such a policy would "mobilize the best patriotic forces" and "appeal to the highest national emotions" which would in turn "keep the non-Socialist workers away from Social Democracy" and pull the worker away from "the ensnarements of the socialists and accustom him to the monarchical order".
Britain still held the balance of power in Europe. France and Britain had been colonial rivals and had a long mutual opposition, but King Edward VII was determined to boost British popularity in France by a personal tour. Serious negotiations for the Entente Cordiale began between the French ambassador to London, Paul Cambon, and the British Foreign Secretary, Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne. As part of settling differences, France agreed not to dispute British control of Egypt if Britain agreed to France's claims to Morocco.
On 24 March 1904, France formally informed the German ambassador of the new Anglo-French Convention. Prince Hugo von Radolin, the ambassador, responded that he felt the agreement natural and justified. The German press noted that the deal in Morocco did not harm national interests and that the French intervention to restore order in the country might help German trade. Still, Bülow was cynical and took the Social Darwinist's view that expansion was a fact of life. His policy was unclear, even to the generals.
Although not swayed by bellicose generals, he followed a central planning agenda. If Prussia was euphoric, Bülow remained ambitious for imperial grandiosity and world power. Commercial growth in iron, steel, mining, railways and ironclads, and a new navy was driven by huge outputs and highly-competitive contractors. His chauvinism was extensive, a defensive embrasure against British alliance-building on which Germany would reject negotiations. He had promised to reply directly to British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain but thought better of it: "it is the English who must make advances to us". That unintentionally entrenched the Entente.
Bülow assured the British ambassador that he was pleased to see Britain and France settling their differences. He informed the Reichstag that Germany had no objections to the deal and no concerns about German interests in Morocco. Holstein had a different view: intervention in Moroccan affairs was governed by the Treaty of Madrid. Holstein argued that Germany had been sidelined by not being included in the negotiations and that Morocco was a country that showed promise for German influence and trade, which must eventually suffer if it came under French control. Previously he had dismissed any possibility of agreement between France and Britain. France now offered military assistance to Morocco to improve order in the country. Bülow responded by supporting the position of an independent Morocco, encouraging the United States to become involved and threatened war if France intervened. He was now convinced that the new friendliness between France and Britain was a threat to Germany, particularly if the accord deepened, but France was ill-prepared for war. Despite the possible risks of assassination, Bülow persuaded Wilhelm to make a visit to Tangier in 1905, where he made a speech supporting Morocco's independence, but his presence there simultaneously demonstrated Germany's determination to maintain its own influence.
=== Algeciras Conference ===
A friendly German naval presence in Morocco and a military base nearby could threaten the British or the important trade routes through the Mediterranean. The British continued to support beleaguered French Foreign Minister Theophile Delcassé. Lansdowne had been surprised by the German reaction, but Britain might take on the fledgling German fleet before it grew too large. On 3 June 1905, Abdelaziz of Morocco, prompted by Germany, rejected the French offer of assistance and called for an international conference. On 6 June, after Delcassé had resigned, news spread to Berlin. The following morning, Bülow was elevated to the rank of prince (Fürst). The occasion coincided with the marriage of the crown prince and echoed the elevation of Bismarck to prince in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. Germany continued to press for further French concessions. Bülow carefully instructed Radolin and also spoke to the French ambassador in Berlin. However, the effect was somewhat the reverse of what he intended by hardening the resolve of French Premier Maurice Rouvier to resist further demands for rapprochement. The Algeciras Conference commenced on 16 January 1906 at Algeciras Town Hall. During the conference, a British fleet of 20 battleships, with accompanying cruisers and destroyers, visited the port town, and all of the delegates were invited on board.
The conference went badly for Germany, with a vote against German proposals that was 10–3. Holstein wished to threaten war against France, but Bülow ordered Holstein to take no further part in the conference. No satisfactory outcome for Germany was in sight by April, which left the only course of action to wind it down as best he could. The result was received badly in Germany, with objections raised in the press. On 5 April 1906, Bülow was obliged to appear before the Reichstag to defend the outcome, and during a heated exchange, he collapsed and was carried from the hall. At first, it was thought he had suffered a fatal stroke. Lord Fitzmaurice, in the British House of Lords, compared the incident with that of the death of William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, a compliment that was much appreciated in Germany. Bülow's collapse was ascribed to overwork and influenza but, after a month's rest, he was able to resume his duties.
=== Scandal ===
In 1907, during the Harden–Eulenburg Affair, Adolf Brand, the founding editor of the homosexual periodical Der Eigene, printed a pamphlet alleging that Bülow had been blackmailed for engaging in homosexual practices and was morally obligated to oppose Paragraph 175 of the German penal code, which outlawed homosexuality. Sued for slander and brought to trial on 7 November 1907, Brand asserted that Bülow had embraced and kissed his private secretary, Privy Councilor Max Scheefer, at all-male gatherings hosted by Eulenburg. Testifying in his own defense, Bülow denied the accusation but remarked he had heard unsavoury rumours about Eulenburg. Taking the stand, Eulenburg defended himself against Brand's charge by denying that he had ever held such events and claimed that he had never engaged in same-sex acts, which subsequently led to a perjury trial. Despite concluding testimony by the chief of the Berlin police that Bülow may have been the victim of a homosexual blackmailer, he easily prevailed in court, and Brand was sent to prison.
=== Daily Telegraph Affair ===
In November 1907, Wilhelm made a long-planned state visit to Britain. He had attempted to cancel the visit because of the recent scandals, but it went ahead and was so successful that he decided to remain in Britain for a holiday. He rented a house for the purpose from Colonel Edward Montague Stuart-Wortley and spoke freely to its owner while he was there. In September 1908, they discussed Wortley's idea to have London's Daily Telegraph publish the contents of their conversations using the notes Stuart-Wortley had taken. He believed that doing so would help improve relations between their two countries. Wilhelm agreed, and the journalist Harold Spender wrote an article in the form of an interview. The Daily Telegraph then sent the draft to Wilhelm in Berlin and asked for approval to publish it.
What happened with the manuscript next, and especially Bülow's role in the matter, has been a subject of historical controversy for decades. Recent scholarship has largely disproved Bülow's claim that he never read the draft and had relied on the Foreign Office to make any necessary changes and approve it. Historian John C. G. Röhl calls Bülow's version a "cynical cover-up" to deflect from himself the blame for the publishing of the damaging article. It is all but certain that Bülow did read the draft that Wilhelm forwarded to him and then sent it to the Foreign Office for review. The officials there made a few minor factual corrections and sent it back to Bülow on the assumption that he would make the final decision on publication since the matter was so highly political. Bülow personally discussed the article with Wilhelm on 12 October. After talking the next day with Foreign Affairs Secretary Wilhelm von Schoen about various suggested changes, Bülow sent the manuscript to Martin Freiherr von Rücker-Jenisch, a cousin of his who was liaison with the Foreign Office in the Kaiser's suite. Jenisch sent the draft back to Wilhelm with a letter outlining three places where "exception can be taken to the wording" and noting changes in the margins based on the comments Bülow had made. Wilhelm signed the cover letter and sent the annotated draft to Stuart-Wortley on 16 October. (The source does not say whether either Stuart-Wortley or The Daily Telegraph made any of the suggested changes to the original draft.)
The article appeared in print on 28 October and caused a storm in both Britain and Germany. Wilhelm expressed many controversial and offensive opinions in it:
The English were mad as March hares because they repeatedly rejected his offers of friendship.
Most Germans disliked the English, and his own friendly attitude put him in a "distinct minority".
He had intervened against France and Russia on Britain's behalf during the Second Boer War.
He had provided a campaign plan that was used by the British during the war.
Germany's fleet buildup was directed not against Britain but Japan.
Wilhelm thus managed to offend Japanese, French, Russian and especially British sensibilities. Even Germans were outraged, as he claimed to have helped the British in their war against the Boers, whom most Germans had favoured.
Bülow accused the Foreign Office of failing to comment properly on the article. The office responded that it was his role to decide on publication in such a situation. Questions arose as to Wilhelm's competence to rule and the role he should be permitted under the constitution. The matter was debated in the Reichstag, where Bülow had to defend his own position and that of Wilhelm. Bülow wrote to Wilhelm and offered to resign unless Wilhelm could give him full support in the matter. Bülow arranged the publication of a defence of the events in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, which glossed over Wilhelm's remarks and concentrated on the failings of the Foreign Office in not examining the article properly. It explained that Bülow had offered to take full responsibility for the office's failings, but Wilhelm had refused to accept his resignation.
Bülow succeeded in turning away criticism from himself in the Reichstag and finished his speech to cheering from the assembly. Holstein observed that the nature of the comments meant that he could almost certainly not have defended Wilhelm for making them and that Bülow could not have done otherwise: disputing the factual accuracy of much of what Wilhelm had said and leaving blame for events squarely with him. His explanation was that the comments had been made with the best of intentions and would certainly not be repeated. He declared his conviction that the disastrous effects of the interview would induce Wilhelm to observe strict reserve, even in private conversations, or neither he nor any successor could assume responsibility.
Wilhelm was due to be away from Germany during the Reichstag debate on a trip to Austria and received much criticism for not staying at home. Wilhelm queried whether he ought to cancel the trip, but Bülow advised him to continue with it. Holstein asked Bülow about Wilhelm's absence; Bülow denied advising Wilhelm to go. Matters were not improved when during the visit, Count Dietrich von Hülsen-Haeseler, the chief of the German Imperial Military Cabinet, died from a heart attack at Donaueschingen, the estate of Prince Max von Fürstenberg. On Wilhelm's return, Bülow persuaded him to endorse a statement that he concurred with Bülow's statements to the Reichstag. Wilhelm was at that point close to breakdown and considering abdication.
Wilhelm withdrew from public appearances for six weeks, which was generally seen as an act of penitence rather than the consequence of his depression. Public opinion began to reflect on whether the Chancellor had failed to advise him properly and then failed to defend Wilhelm's actions in the Reichstag. Wilhelm's own view of the affair began to change to blaming Bülow for failing to warn him of the difficulties that the article would cause. He determined that Bülow would have to be replaced. In June 1909, difficulties arose in obtaining additional financing for ongoing ship construction. Wilhelm warned Bülow that if he failed to carry a majority for imposing inheritance taxes, Bülow would have to resign. He was defeated by eight votes. On board the royal yacht, Hohenzollern, on 26 June, Bülow offered his resignation, exactly twelve years after accepting the office.
On 14 July, the resignation was announced, and Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg became the new Chancellor. Wilhelm dined with the Bülows and expressed his regret that the prince was determined to resign. He observed that he had been informed that some of those who voted against the inheritance tax had done so out of animosity against Bülow and his handling of the Telegraph affair, rather out of opposition to the tax. For his services to the state, Bülow was awarded the Order of the Black Eagle set in diamonds.
== Later life ==
After his resignation in 1909, Bülow lived principally at the villa in Rome that he had purchased for his retirement. Part of the summer was usually spent by him at Klein Flottbek, near Hamburg, or on the island of Norderney. A large fortune left him by a cousin, a Hamburg merchant, enabled him to live in elegant leisure and to make his house in Rome a centre of literary and political society.
He employed his leisure in writing for the centenary celebrations of the Wars of Liberation, a remarkable book on Imperial Germany, extolling its achievements and defending the main lines of his own foreign policy. In a revised edition of his book on Imperial Germany, published after the start of the First World War, he omitted or altered many passages that seemed compromising in light of the war like his policy of lulling Britain into a false sense of security while the German Navy was being constructed. He was understood to be in deeply malodorous company with Wilhelm, who never forgave him his attitude and action with regard to a 1908 interview in The Daily Telegraph.
=== Wartime diplomat ===
In 1914–1915, Bülow was the ambassador to Italy but failed to bring King Victor Emmanuel III to join the Central Powers. Italy had declared its neutrality at the outbreak of the war but intimated on 5 July 1914 through diplomatic channels that Austria-Hungary's ultimatum to Serbia was aggressive and provocative. On 9 December 1914, Sidney Sonnino addressed the Austrian Note to the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, Count Berchtold, to call attention to Article VII of the treaty by which Italy participated in the Triple Alliance, with particular reference to the clause that bound Austria-Hungary, if it disturbed the status quo in the Balkans even by a temporary occupation of Serbian territory, to come to an agreement with Italy and to arrange for compensations. The questions of the Trentino Agreement and Trieste were thus formally opened.
Austria-Hungary manifested great reluctance to enter upon the question of compensations, but Germany was more alert to its own concerns. Bülow was, therefore, entrusted with the temporary charge of the German embassy in Rome since the actual ambassador, Flotow, went on sick leave (19 December 1914). Bülow at once plunged into active negotiations and was sympathetic with Italian demands for compensation. He had, however, to fight the intransigence of Hungarian Prime Minister István Tisza, and Tisza's nominee, who was Berchtold's successor, Baron von Burian. Bülow was from the first for the complete cession of the Trentino region to Italy, but Austria-Hungary was willing to cede only part of it. Sonnino pointed out that Italian feeling would not be satisfied even with the whole of the Trentino but would also, in accordance with its irredentism, demand Trieste. Bülow continued to urge that all he could mediate for was the Trentino but that Austria would fight to keep Trieste.
In early April 1915, Italy's secret negotiations demanded the Trentino, Trieste and the Curzolane Islands, off the coast of Dalmatia. Austria-Hungary recognised Italian sovereignty over Valona. However, negotiations dragged on until the middle of May, when Bülow made a grave but characteristic tactical mistake. He induced the former Italian Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti to come to Rome from Turin in the hope of preventing a rupture and bringing about the acceptance of the Austro-Hungarian terms.
Prime Minister Antonio Salandra suddenly resigned. There was a great outburst of popular indignation, fanned by the impassioned eloquence of d'Annunzio and expressed in demonstrations in front of the Quirinal, the royal palace, and on the Capitoline Hill, the centre of Rome. After a great majority in the Italian Parliament had on 20 May supported Salandra, a general mobilisation was ordered on 22 May, and the formal declaration of war against Austria-Hungary followed on 23 May 1915. The next day, Bülow left Rome. He regarded his task as impossible in any case, and on returning, he remarked: "Morale and attitude of the German people: A-1. Political leadership: Z-Minus".
=== Considered for chancellorship ===
He lived in Berlin, but after the peace he again resided in Rome for part of every year and spent the rest of the year in Germany. His name was mentioned in a ministerial crisis of 1921, as a possible chancellor. Although many of the leading figures in the Reichstag, including Matthias Erzberger, hoped that Bülow would succeed Bethmann Hollweg, who resigned in 1917, he was entirely unacceptable to the vast majority of both the German people and the Reichstag.
He died on 28 October 1929 in Rome.
== Personality ==
Bülow spoke several languages and was a charming conversationalist. He was comfortably at home in high society and could entertain and impress even his opponents. He was thought by some colleagues to be untrustworthy: Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter referred to him as "the Eel". Once he had obtained power and position in the German government, he had no overarching ideas of what to do with them, allowing others to guide policy. His character made him a good choice to work with Kaiser Wilhelm II, who required agreement and flattery from his senior ministers, even if they sometimes then ignored his instructions. He wrote four volumes of autobiography, to be published after his death, which markedly altered public perception of his character, as they included his candid and malicious descriptions of others. He was a fine debater in the Reichstag but was generally lazy in carrying out his duties. He was described by Friedrich von Holstein, who was for 30 years the first councillor in the foreign department and a major influence on policy throughout that time, as having "read more Machiavelli than he could digest". His mother-in-law claimed, "Bernhard makes a secret out of everything".
== Honours ==
Granted the noble title of Prince (Fürst) in 1905.
Honorary member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences
Honorary doctorates from the Universities of Königsberg and Münster
Canon of the Brandenburg Cathedral chapter
Bülowplatz in Berlin-Mitte named in his honour between 1910 and 1933 (now Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz)
German orders and decorations
Foreign orders and decorations
Military appointments
À la suite of the Prussian Army |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden_Pond | Walden Pond | Walden Pond is a historic pond in Concord, Massachusetts, in the United States. A good example of a kettle hole, it was formed by retreating glaciers 10,000–12,000 years ago. The pond is protected as part of Walden Pond State Reservation, a 335-acre (136 ha) state park and recreation site managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. The reservation was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962 for its association with the writer Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), whose two years living in a cabin on its shore provided the foundation for his famous 1854 work, Walden; or, Life in the Woods. The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 ensured federal support for the preservation of the pond.
== Description ==
The Walden Pond Reservation is located south of Massachusetts Route 2 and (mostly) west of Massachusetts Route 126 in Concord and Lincoln, Massachusetts. The Fitchburg Line of the MBTA Commuter Rail passes west of the pond; however, the nearest station is in Concord center, 1.4 miles northwest of the reservation.
The reservation is 335 acres (136 ha) in size, and its principal feature is Walden Pond, a 64.5-acre (26.1 ha) body of water. A short way north of the pond the site of Thoreau's cabin is marked by a series of granite posts. Portions of the pond's shore are beach, while other parts descend steeply to the water from trails that ring the pond. There are three buildings at the main beach area at the southeastern shore of the pond. The reservation's parking area is located across Route 126, and a ramped footpath descends from that roadway to the pond.
=== History ===
The writer, transcendentalist, and philosopher Henry David Thoreau lived on the northern shore of the pond for two years from the summer of 1845. Thoreau was inspired by former enslaved woman Zilpah White, who lived in a one-room house on the common land that bordered Walden Road and made a living spinning flax into linen fibers. White's ability to provide for herself at a time when few if any other Concord women lived alone was a singular accomplishment.
Thoreau's account of his experience at the pond was recorded in Walden; or, Life in the Woods, and made the pond famous. The land at that end was owned by Thoreau's friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who let Thoreau use it for his experiment. Walden Pond was in a neglected, heavily used and even socially dangerous area just outside the town, where African American slaves had frequently lived and atrocities against them had been committed; the earth there had been mined, the town dump was eventually located across from it, and it was full of marks from mining hauls, and pottery and charcoal making. Thus, according to Austin Meredith, Thoreau's writing can be credited not only with encouraging a general respect for Nature, but with inspiring special care for and reclamation of land that has in history been abused or exploited. The Concord Museum contains the bed, chair, and desk from Thoreau's cabin.
During the winter he lived at Walden Pond a large group of men decamped from the train to cut ice there for sixteen days. In his journal, Thoreau philosophized upon the wintry sight of the ice harvesters: "The sweltering inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink at my well ... The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges". It was well known at the time that ice shipped from Boston went to many ports, including India.
An amusement park with swings, concession stands and an event hall, located at the western end of the pond, burned down in 1902 and was never rebuilt.
Descendants of Emerson and other families deeded the land around the pond to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1922. In 1961, the Middlesex County Commissioners, then managing the land, proposed leveling a significant portion of the preserve for a parking lot and other "improvements." An acre of woodland had been leveled for access to the public beach when the Commissioners were sued to stop the destruction of the existing environment. Judge David A Rose, sitting in the Massachusetts Superior Court, ruled that Walden's deed donating the property to the Commonwealth required preservation of the land and barred further development. The decision received national recognition, and Judge Rose received hundreds of letters from school children across the country thanking him for saving the land. Walden Pond became part of the state parks system in 1975. It is also among the national landmarks preserved by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966.
In 1977, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts installed a porous pavement parking area at Walden Pond as a special technology transfer demonstration project, following methodology generated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1972. The porous pavement still functions decades later, despite experiencing more freeze-thaw cycling than most other parts of the world.
Recording artist Don Henley initiated The Walden Woods Project in 1990 to prevent the area around Walden Pond from being developed. Through a joint effort of The Trust for Public Land, the Walden Woods Project, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, more than 85 acres of land were permanently protected, including Bear Garden Hill, where Thoreau took moonlit walks. In 1995, The Trust for Public Land also assisted in the acquisition of a historic home, which would become the research center and library for the Thoreau Institute.
== Legend ==
=== Formation, from "The Ponds" (Walden, 1854) ===
While living in Walden Woods for two years beginning in 1845, Henry David Thoreau contemplated Walden Pond's features. In "The Ponds" section of Walden, published in 1854, Thoreau extols the water's physical properties. He details its unparalleled water quality; its clarity, color, and temperature; its unique animal life (aquatic, bird, and mammal); its rock formations and bed; and especially, its mirror-like surface properties.
Thoreau contemplates the source of the pristine water body in the woods. He observes that it had no visible inlet or outlet, and considers the possibility of an unidentified spring at the bottom. Noting the kettle landform's ramparts and resilient shore, he concludes that a unique, natural geologic event formed the site, while recognizing local myths:
Some have been puzzled to tell how the shore became so regularly paved. My townsmen have all heard the tradition -- the oldest people tell me that they heard it in their youth -- that anciently the Indians were holding a pow-wow upon a hill here, which rose as high into the heavens as the pond now sinks deep into the earth, and they used much profanity, as the story goes, though this vice is one of which the Indians were never guilty, and while they were thus engaged the hill shook and suddenly sank, and only one old squaw, named Walden, escaped, and from her the pond was named. It has been conjectured that when the hill shook these stones rolled down its side and became the present shore. It is very certain, at any rate, that once there was no pond here, and now there is one; and this Indian fable does not in any respect conflict with the account of that ancient settler whom I have mentioned, who remembers so well when he first came here with his divining-rod, saw a thin vapor rising from the sward, and the hazel pointed steadily downward, and he concluded to dig a well here. As for the stones, many still think that they are hardly to be accounted for by the action of the waves on these hills; but I observe that the surrounding hills are remarkably full of the same kind of stones, so that they have been obliged to pile them up in walls on both sides of the railroad cut nearest the pond; and, moreover, there are most stones where the shore is most abrupt; so that, unfortunately, it is no longer a mystery to me. I detect the paver. If the name was not derived from that of some English locality -- Saffron Walden, for instance -- one might suppose that it was called originally Walled-in Pond.
=== Romanticism, from "The Ponds" (Walden, 1854) ===
Also in "The Ponds," Thoreau describes incorporeal experiences around the water, both experiences related to him by others and his own. Thoreau, who was well read and a transcendentalist, and therefore presumably intimately familiar with Romanticism, relates the stories in a way that could be argued to interpret or reveal the pond as the locale of the Grail Legend in the Americas. In the following passage, Walden Pond's vanishing treasure chest echoes the protagonist's fleeting encounter with the grail in Wolfram von Eschenbach's German romance Parzival, and the pond's canoe is reminiscent of the boat in A Fairy Tale. (Goethe, who was a Classicist, not a Romanticist, positively viewed Parzival.) Thoreau wrote:
An old man who used to frequent this pond nearly sixty years ago, when it was dark with surrounding forests, tells me that in those days he sometimes saw it all alive with ducks and other water-fowl, and that there were many eagles about it. He came here a-fishing, and used an old log canoe which he found on the shore. It was made of two white pine logs dug out and pinned together, and was cut off square at the ends. It was very clumsy, but lasted a great many years before it became water-logged and perhaps sank to the bottom. He did not know whose it was; it belonged to the pond. He used to make a cable for his anchor of strips of hickory bark tied together. An old man, a potter, who lived by the pond before the Revolution, told him once that there was an iron chest at the bottom, and that he had seen it. Sometimes it would come floating up to the shore; but when you went toward it, it would go back into the deep water and disappear ...
When I first paddled a boat on Walden, it was completely surrounded by thick and lofty pine and oak woods, and in some of its coves grapevines had run over the trees next the water and formed bowers under which a boat could pass. The hills which form its shores are so steep, and the woods on them were then so high, that, as you looked down from the west end, it had the appearance of an amphitheater for some kind of sylvan spectacle. I have spent many an hour, when I was younger, floating over its surface as the zephyr willed, having paddled my boat to the middle, and lying on my back across the seats, in a summer forenoon, dreaming awake, until I was aroused by the boat touching the sand, and I arose to see what shore my fates had impelled me to; days when idleness was the most attractive and productive industry.
== Activities and amenities ==
In addition to being a popular swimming destination in the summer, Walden Pond State Reservation provides opportunities for boating, birdwatching, hiking, picnicking, and fishing. There is a replica of Thoreau's cabin available for viewing. The reservation is open year-round for day use, but does not allow camping overnight.
A new Walden Pond Visitor Center, designed by Maryann Thompson, opened in 2016. The building uses no fossil fuel and has many other sustainable design features.
== Influences ==
Walden Pond inspired the naming of the American film company Walden Media and is a frequent subject of professional and amateur photographers.
C-SPAN broadcast an episode of its American Writers series from the shores of Walden Pond in 2001.
Walden Pond appears in the video game Fallout 4 where Thoreau's cabin is preserved. The pond also serves as the backdrop for the game 'Walden, a game' where players assume the role of author Henry David Thoreau during his time living at the pond in the 1840s. The game was in development for more than ten years and is currently available on Mac, PC, and PS4.
== Gallery == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Shore_School_District | North Shore School District | |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synsphyronus#Species | Synsphyronus#Species | Synsphyronus is a genus of pseudoscorpions in the Garypidae family. It was described in 1930 by American arachnologist Joseph Conrad Chamberlin. Its distribution is mainly in Australia, but also extends to New Zealand and New Caledonia.
== Species ==
The genus contains the following species: |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cillian_Murphy | Cillian Murphy | Cillian Murphy ( KILL-ee-ən; born 25 May 1976) is an Irish actor and film producer. His works encompass both stage and screen, and his accolades include an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe Award.
He made his professional debut in Enda Walsh's 1996 play Disco Pigs, a role he later reprised in the 2001 screen adaptation. His early film credits include the horror film 28 Days Later (2002), the dark comedy Intermission (2003), the thriller Red Eye (2005), the Irish war drama The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), and the science fiction thriller Sunshine (2007). He played a transgender Irish woman in the comedy-drama Breakfast on Pluto (2005), which earned him his first Golden Globe Award nomination.
Murphy began his collaboration with filmmaker Christopher Nolan in 2005, playing the Scarecrow in The Dark Knight trilogy (2005–2012) as well as appearing in Inception (2010) and Dunkirk (2017). He gained greater prominence for his role as Tommy Shelby in the BBC period drama series Peaky Blinders (2013–2022) and for starring in the horror sequel A Quiet Place Part II (2020). Murphy portrayed J. Robert Oppenheimer in Nolan's Oppenheimer (2023), for which he won the BAFTA and Academy Award for Best Actor.
== Early life and education ==
Murphy was born on 25 May 1976 in Douglas, Cork. His mother taught French while his father, Brendan, worked for the Department of Education. His grandfather, aunts, and uncles were also teachers. He was raised in Ballintemple, Cork, alongside his younger brother Páidi and younger sisters Sile and Orla. He started writing and performing songs at the age of 10.
Murphy was raised Catholic and attended the fee-paying Catholic secondary school Presentation Brothers College, where he did well academically but often got into trouble, sometimes being suspended; he decided in his fourth year that misbehaving was not worth the hassle. Not keen on sports, which was a major part of the school's curriculum, he found that artistic pursuits were neglected at the school.
Murphy got his first taste of performing in secondary school when he participated in a drama module presented by Corcadorca Theatre Company director Pat Kiernan. He later described the experience as a "huge high" and a "fully alive" feeling that he then set out to chase. Novelist William Wall, who was his English teacher, encouraged him to pursue acting but he was set on becoming a rock star. In his late teens and early 20s, he sang and played the guitar in several bands alongside his brother, Páidi, and the Beatles-obsessed duo named their most successful band The Sons of Mr. Green Genes, which they adopted from the Frank Zappa song of the same name. He later said the band "specialised in wacky lyrics and endless guitar solos". They were offered a five-album deal by Acid Jazz Records, which they rejected because Páidi was still in school and the duo did not agree with the small amount of money they would get for giving the record label the rights to Murphy's compositions. Murphy later confessed, "I'm very glad in retrospect that we didn't sign because you kind of sign away your life to a label and the whole of your music."
Murphy began studying law at University College Cork (UCC) in 1996 but failed his first-year exams because he "had no ambitions to do it". Not only was he busy with his band, but he knew within days after starting at UCC that he did not want to practise law. After seeing Corcadorca's stage production of A Clockwork Orange, directed by Kiernan, he began directing his attention to acting. His first major role was in the UCC Drama Society's amateur production of Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, which starred Irish-American comedian Des Bishop. Murphy also played the lead in their production of Little Shop of Horrors, which was performed in the Cork Opera House. He later admitted that his primary motivation at the time was not to pursue an acting career, but to go to parties and meet women.
== Career ==
=== 1996–2002: Theatre work breakthrough and early roles ===
Murphy pressured Pat Kiernan until he got an audition at Corcadorca Theatre Company, and in September 1996, he made his professional acting debut on the stage, playing the part of a volatile Cork teenager in Enda Walsh's Disco Pigs. Walsh recalled meeting and discovering Murphy: "There was something about him – he was incredibly enigmatic and he would walk into a room with real presence and you'd go, "My God". It had nothing to do with those bloody eyes that everyone's going on about all the time." Murphy observed, "I was unbelievably cocky and had nothing to lose, and it suited the part, I suppose". Originally intended to run for three weeks in Cork, Disco Pigs ended up touring throughout Europe, Canada and Australia for two years, and Murphy left both university and his band. Though he had intended to go back to playing music, he secured representation after his first agent caught a performance of Disco Pigs, and his acting career began to take off. In 2023, Murphy went on to call this moment in time pivotal: "It all happened to me in one month, in August ’96: (my band) got offered a record deal, I failed my law exams, I got the part in Disco Pigs, and I met my wife. I now look back and go, 'Oh, shit, I didn’t know then how important all these things were' - the sort of domino effect that they would have on my life ... I love the chaos and the randomness. I love the beauty of the unexpected."
He proceeded to star in many other theatre productions, including Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing (1998), The Country Boy, and Juno and the Paycock (both 1999). At the turn of the 21st century, he began appearing in independent films such as On the Edge (2001), and in short films, including Filleann an Feall (2000) and Watchmen (2001). He also reprised his role for the film adaption of Disco Pigs (2001) and appeared in the BBC television mini-series adaptation of The Way We Live Now. During this period, he moved from Cork, relocating first to Dublin for a few years, then to London in 2001. In 2002, Murphy starred as Adam in a theatre production of Neil LaBute's The Shape of Things at the Gate Theatre in Dublin. Writing for The Irish Times, Fintan O'Toole praised Murphy's performance, "Murphy measures out his metamorphosis with an impressive subtlety and intelligence".
=== 2002–2004: 28 Days Later and breakthrough ===
Murphy was cast in the lead role in Danny Boyle's horror film 28 Days Later (2002). He portrayed pandemic survivor Jim, who is "perplexed to find himself alone in the desolate, post-apocalyptic world" after waking from a coma in a London hospital. Casting director Gail Stevens suggested that Boyle audition Murphy for the role, having been impressed with his performance in Disco Pigs. Stevens stated that it was only after seeing his slender physique during filming that they decided to feature him fully nude at the beginning of the film. She recalled that Murphy was shy on set with the tendency to look slightly away from the camera, but enthused that he had a "dreamy, slightly de-energised, floating quality that is fantastic for the film". Released in the UK in late 2002, by the following July, 28 Days Later had become a sleeper hit in North America, and success worldwide, putting Murphy in front of a mass audience for the first time. His performance earned him a nomination for Best Newcomer at the 8th Empire Awards, and Breakthrough Male Performance at the 2004 MTV Movie Awards. Murphy professed that he considered the film to be much deeper than a zombie or horror film, expressing surprise at the film's success, and that American audiences responded well to its content and violence. Murphy said, "The film did so well. And you watch zombie stuff [now], we were the first people to make zombies run, and [that] changed everything. It has a very special place in my heart, that movie."
In 2003, Murphy played the role of Konstantine in a stage production of Chekhov's The Seagull at the Edinburgh International Festival. He said that he wanted to play Konstantine because the character "goes on this amazing journey through the play [...] he comes to realise there's no point being an iconoclastic writer just for the sake of it, and that the search for new forms has to have something behind it".
Murphy starred as a lovelorn, hapless supermarket stocker who plots a bank heist with Colin Farrell in Intermission (2003), which became the highest-grossing Irish independent film in Irish box office history (until The Wind That Shakes the Barley broke the record in 2006). Reflecting on his roles in 28 Days Later and the "sad-sack Dublin shelf-stacker" in Intermission, Sarah Lyall of the International Herald Tribune stated that Murphy brought "fluent ease to the roles he takes on, a graceful and wholly believable intensity. His delicate good looks have, as much as his acting prowess, caused people to mark him as Ireland's next Colin Farrell, albeit one who seems less likely to be caught tomcatting around or brawling drunkenly at premieres." He had a minor supporting role in the successful Hollywood period drama Cold Mountain (2003). He portrayed a deserting soldier who shares a grim scene with Jude Law's character, and was on location in Romania for only a week. Murphy stated that it was a "massive production", remarking that director Anthony Minghella was the calmest director he had ever met. Murphy also had a role as a butcher in Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) with Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth.
In 2004, Murphy toured Ireland with the Druid Theatre Company, in The Playboy of the Western World (playing the character of Christy Mahon) under the direction of Garry Hynes—who had previously directed Murphy back in 1999 in the theatre productions of Juno and the Paycock—and also in The Country Boy.
=== 2005–2006: Villainous roles and critical success ===
Murphy appeared as Dr. Jonathan Crane in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005). Originally asked to audition for the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman, Murphy never saw himself as having the right physique for the superhero, but leapt at the chance to connect with director Nolan. Though the lead went to Christian Bale, Nolan was so impressed with Murphy that he gave him the supporting role of Dr. Crane, whose alter ego is supervillain Scarecrow. Nolan told Spin magazine, "He has the most extraordinary eyes, and I kept trying to invent excuses for him to take his glasses off in close-ups". He starred as Jackson Rippner, who terrorises Rachel McAdams on an overnight flight in Wes Craven's thriller, Red Eye (2005). The New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis asserted that Murphy made "a picture-perfect villain" and that his "baby blues look cold enough to freeze water and his wolfish leer suggests its own terrors". The film was favourably reviewed and earned almost $100 million worldwide.
Murphy received several awards nominations for his 2005 villainous roles, among them a nomination as Best Villain at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards for Batman Begins. Entertainment Weekly ranked him among its 2005 "Summer MVPs", a cover story list of 10 entertainers with outstanding breakthrough performances. The New Yorker's David Denby wrote: "Cillian Murphy, who has angelic looks that can turn sinister, is one of the most elegantly seductive monsters in recent movies."
Murphy starred as Patrick/"Kitten" Braden, a transgender Irish woman in search of her mother, in Neil Jordan's comedy-drama Breakfast on Pluto (2005), based on the novel of the same title by Patrick McCabe. Seen against the film's kaleidoscopic backdrop of 1970s glitter rock fashion, magic shows, red-light districts and IRA violence, Murphy transforms from androgynous teen to a blonde drag queen. He had auditioned for the role in 2001 and, though Jordan liked him for the part, the director of The Crying Game was hesitant to revisit transgender and IRA issues. The actor lobbied Jordan for several years in a bid to get the film made before Murphy became too old to play the part; in 2004, he prepared for the role by meeting a transvestite who dressed him and took him clubbing with other transvestites. The role required "serious primping" with eyebrow plucking and chest and leg hair removal, and Roger Ebert noted the way that Murphy played the character with a "bemused and hopeful voice". While lukewarm reviews of Breakfast on Pluto tended to praise Murphy's performance highly, a few critics dissented: The Village Voice, which panned the film, found him "unconvincing" and overly cute. Murphy was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for Breakfast on Pluto and won the fourth Irish Film and Television Academy Best Actor Award. Premiere magazine cited his performance as Kitten in their "The 24 Finest Performances of 2005" feature.
In 2006, Murphy starred in The Wind That Shakes the Barley, a film about the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War, which won the Palme d'Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and became the most successful Irish independent film at the Irish box office. Murphy was especially keen on appearing in the film due to his intimate connections to Cork, Ireland, where the film was shot. Murphy auditioned six times for the role of Damien O'Donovan, a young doctor turned revolutionary, before winning the part. Murphy considered it a very special privilege to have been given the role and stated that he was "tremendously proud" of the film, remarking that the "memories run very, very deep – the politics, the divisions and everybody has stories of family members who were caught up in the struggle." David Denby noted Murphy's moments of deep stillness and idiosyncrasies in portraying the character. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "Murphy is especially good at playing the zealotry as well as the soul-searching and the regret, at showing us a man who is eaten up alive because he's forced to act in ways that are contrary to his background and his training". GQ magazine presented Murphy with its 2006 Actor of the Year award for his work in The Wind That Shakes the Barley.
=== 2006–2012: Further theatre and film roles ===
Murphy returned to the stage starring opposite Neve Campbell at the New Ambassadors Theatre in London's West End from November 2006 to February 2007, playing the lead role of John Kolvenbach's play Love Song. Theatre Record described his character of Beane as a "winsomely cranky" mentally unstable "sentimentalised lonely hero", noting how he magnetically, with "all blue eyes and twitching hands", moves "comically from painfully shy "wallpaper" to garrulous, amorous male". Variety magazine considered his performance to be "as magnetic onstage as onscreen", remarking that his "unhurried puzzlement pulls the slight preciousness in the character's idiot-savant naivete back from the brink".
He starred in the science fiction film Sunshine (2007) as a physicist-astronaut charged with re-igniting the sun, also directed by Danny Boyle. He starred opposite Lucy Liu in Paul Soter's romantic comedy Watching the Detectives (2007); the indie film premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival and was released direct-to-DVD. Murphy starred as Richard Neville, editor of the psychedelic radical underground magazine Oz in the film Hippie Hippie Shake, which was filmed in 2007, but the project, much delayed, was eventually shelved in 2011.
Murphy made a brief re-appearance as the Scarecrow in Nolan's The Dark Knight (2008), the sequel to Batman Begins, before starring in The Edge of Love—about a love quadrangle involving the poet Dylan Thomas—with Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller and Matthew Rhys. In July 2008, Murphy made a debut appearance in another medium—on a postage stamp; the Irish Post Office, An Post, released a series of four stamps paying homage to the creativity of films recently produced in Ireland, including one featuring Murphy in a still from The Wind That Shakes the Barley. In 2009, Murphy starred opposite rock singer Feist and actor David Fox in The Water, directed by Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene. The 15-minute Canadian short film, released online in April 2009, is nearly silent until the Feist song of the same title plays close to the end. Murphy was attracted to the role as a fan of Broken Social Scene and the prospect of making a silent movie, which he considered to be the "hardest test for any actor". Murphy also starred in Perrier's Bounty, a crime dramedy from the makers of Intermission, in which he portrayed a petty criminal on the run from a gangster played by Brendan Gleeson.
In 2010, he made a return to theatre in From Galway to Broadway and back again, which was a stage show that celebrated the Druid Theatre Company's 35th birthday. The direct-to-video psychological thriller Peacock (2010), co-starring Elliot Page, Susan Sarandon and Bill Pullman, starred Murphy as a man with a split personality who fools people into believing he is also his own wife. Christian Toto of The Washington Times referred to the film as "a handsomely mounted psychological drama with an arresting lead turn by Cillian Murphy", and noted that although Murphy was not a stranger to playing in drag, his work in the film set a "new standard for gender-bending performances". Murphy next starred in Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010), playing entrepreneur Robert Fischer, whose mind is infiltrated by DiCaprio's character Cobb to convince him to dissolve his business. That year, Murphy also made an uncredited cameo as programmer Edward Dillinger Jr., son of original Tron antagonist Ed Dillinger (David Warner) in Tron: Legacy.
In 2011, Murphy performed in the stage monodrama Misterman, written and directed by Enda Walsh, with whom he had previously worked on Disco Pigs. The production was initially staged in Galway and was taken to St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York. Murphy said of the role, "The live nature of it makes it so dangerous. You're only there because of the goodwill of the audience, and that's compounded by its being a one-man show." His performance earned critical acclaim, garnering Irish Times Theatre Award and a Drama Desk Award. Sarah Lyall of the International Herald Tribune described Murphy's character Thomas Magill to be a "complicated mixture of sympathetic and not nice at all – deeply wounded, but with a dangerous, skewed moral code", praising his ability to mimic wickedly. Lyall noted Murphy's "unusual ability to create and inhabit creepy yet fascinating characters from the big screen to the small stage in the intense one-man show Misterman", and documented that on one evening the "theatre was flooded, not with applause but with silence", eventually culminating in a standing ovation at his powerful performance. He played the lead in the British horror film Retreat (2011), which had a limited release. He also appeared in the science fiction film In Time (2011), starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried, which was poorly reviewed.
Murphy starred in Red Lights (2012) with Robert De Niro and Sigourney Weaver. He played Tom Buckley, the assistant to Weaver's character who is a paranormal investigator. Murphy considered working with De Niro to have been one of the most intimidating moments in his career. He remarked: "My first scene when I come to visit him my character is supposed to be terrified and intimidated. There was no acting involved. The man has presence. You can't act presence. I'll never have that. Watching him use it... when you put a camera on it, it just becomes something else." The film was panned by critics and under-performed at the box office. Murphy went on to reprise his role as the Scarecrow for the third time in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), and had a supporting role as Mike in the British independent film Broken (2012). His performance earned him a British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actor nomination.
=== 2013–present: Peaky Blinders and Oppenheimer ===
Beginning in 2013, Murphy starred as Thomas Shelby in the BBC television series Peaky Blinders, a series about a criminal gang in Birmingham during the post-World War I period. Jason Statham was initially picked for the role by director Steven Knight, who met both actors to talk about the role. Knight later said, "Cillian, when you meet him, isn't Tommy, obviously, but I was stupid enough not to understand that". He picked Murphy after receiving a text message from Murphy that read, "Remember, I'm an actor". Murphy told The Independent, "[The scripts] were so compelling and confident, and the character was so rich and complex, layered and contradictory. I was like, 'I have to do this.'" Peaky Blinders was praised and received high ratings. A second series began broadcasting on the BBC in October 2014. On 25 August 2019, the first episode of season 5 was broadcast on BBC One. In an interview with Digital Spy, director Anthony Byrne said, "if we did start shooting in January (2021), we wouldn't finish until May or June and then it's another 6 months of editing". Series six premiered on 27 February 2022.
In 2013, Murphy made his directorial debut with a music video for the band Money's single Hold Me Forever. The video features dancers from the English National Ballet and was filmed at The Old Vic Theatre in London. In 2014, Murphy starred in the drama Aloft, and Wally Pfister's Transcendence. Both of these garnered mostly unfavourable critic reviews according to the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. That same year, Murphy reunited with Enda Walsh in the play Ballyturk. He starred in Ron Howard's 2015 film In the Heart of the Sea. In 2015, he contributed spoken vocals to the tracks "8:58" and "The Clock" from Paul Hartnoll's album 8:58. The two previously met while Hartnoll was scoring the second season of Peaky Blinders. In 2016, Murphy starred in Ben Wheatley's Free Fire, and appeared in Anthropoid, in which he portrayed Czechoslovak World War II army soldier Jozef Gabčík, who was involved in Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Rupert Hawksley of The Telegraph said that Murphy's performance in Anthropoid was "solid, if unremarkable" and that he was "not asked to do an awful lot, other than smoke and look perplexed".
In 2017, Murphy played a shell-shocked army officer who is recovered from a wrecked ship in Christopher Nolan's war film Dunkirk, which emerged as a critical and box-office success. He felt that his character, who is nameless and was credited simply as Shivering Soldier, was "representative of something experienced by thousands of soldiers, which is the profound emotional and psychological toll that war can have". Murphy has also played a role in the feature film Anna as Miller, released in June 2019. His next release, A Quiet Place Part II (2021), stars Murphy as Emmett, a hardened survivor and old family friend of the Abbotts. Murphy's character reluctantly takes in the Abbotts following the events of the first film. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian praised his performance.
Since 2020, Murphy has hosted Cillian Murphy's Limited Edition, a limited-run radio series broadcasting on BBC Radio 6 Music in which he draws from his personal music collection and answers "reasonable questions" from listeners. As of 2024, three seasons of Limited Edition have been produced, totalling 28 episodes.
Murphy portrayed J. Robert Oppenheimer in the biographical thriller Oppenheimer, released in 2023. The film marks the sixth collaboration between Nolan and Murphy, and the first starring Murphy as the lead. To prepare for the role, Murphy lost a significant amount of weight to match Oppenheimer's near-emaciated appearance, extensively researched Oppenheimer's life and took inspiration from David Bowie's appearance in the 1970s. Murphy's performance was lauded, with Empire's Dan Jolin writing: "At the film's pulsing nucleus is Murphy as Oppenheimer, and he is compelling throughout." For his performance, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama, the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, the Actor Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role, and the Academy Award for Best Actor. He was the first Irish-born performer to win the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Murphy launched the independent production company Big Things Films with Alan Moloney in February 2024. He produced and starred in the historical drama Small Things like These, which opened the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, and the drama film Steve, through a collaboration with Netflix. Murphy executive produced the two sequels to 28 Days Later, titled 28 Years Later and 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, reprising his role as Jim in the latter. In 2026, Murphy reprised his role as Shelby in the film Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, which served as a continuation of the Peaky Blinders series.
== Public image ==
Reserved and private, Murphy professes a lack of interest in the celebrity scene, finding the red carpet experience "a challenge" that he does not "want to overcome". He intentionally practises a lifestyle that will not interest the tabloids, stating, "I haven't created any controversy, I don't sleep around, I don't go and fall down drunk". He prefers not to speak about his life outside of acting and did not appear on any television talk shows until 2010, when he was a guest on Ireland's Late Late Show to promote Perrier's Bounty, remaining reserved. Murphy's introverted nature and lack of interest in social media has prompted several fans to create memes on his detached demeanour in press interviews. In 2017, upon being asked his opinion on the "Disappointed Cillian Murphy" meme, he answered, "What's a meme?"
In 2015, Murphy was named one of GQ's 50 best-dressed men, and in 2024, he was announced as the new face of Italian luxury fashion company Versace. He is also considered an unconventional sex symbol.
== Activism ==
Murphy participated in the 2007 Rock the Vote Ireland campaign, targeting young voters for the general election, and campaigning for the rights of the homeless with the organisation Focus Ireland. In 2011, he became a patron of the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre at the National University of Ireland Galway. He is closely associated with the work of Professor Pat Dolan, Director of UCFRC and UNESCO Chair in Children, Youth and Civic Engagement. In February 2012, he wrote a message of support to the former Vita Cortex workers involved in a sit-in at their plant, congratulating them for "highlighting [what] is hugely important to us all as a nation". Murphy was a supporter of the 2018 Irish referendum to repeal the eighth amendment of the constitution that restricted access to abortions, appearing on The Blindboy Podcast to urge men to support women and vote in favour of the referendum.
== Personal life ==
In 2004, Murphy married his longtime girlfriend Yvonne McGuinness, whom he met at one of his rock band's shows in 1996. They lived in Dublin until 2001 when they moved to London so his wife could attend the Royal College of Art. After 14 years, they moved back to Dublin in 2015. They have two sons, born in 2005 and 2007.
Murphy was raised Catholic. He stated that he had been verging on agnosticism until his role as a physicist and astronaut in the 2007 film Sunshine, at which point his views shifted towards atheism. In 2019, he said the Catholic faith still shaped his morality.
He was a vegetarian for around 15 years, which he said happened because he was "worried about getting mad cow disease" rather than a moral decision. He also had qualms about unhealthy agribusiness practices. He began eating meat again to bulk up for his role in Peaky Blinders. In a 2022 interview, he said he had returned to vegetarianism.
== Acting credits and awards ==
Murphy's most commercially successful films have been his many collaborations with Nolan, including Oppenheimer, Inception, Batman Begins, and Dunkirk. Following the success of Oppenheimer and the Barbenheimer phenomenon, Murphy was named in Variety's list of the most influential figures of 2023 in the entertainment and media industry. Murphy's works also include other critically acclaimed films, such as A Quiet Place II and The Wind that Shakes the Barley. He has received several accolades over the course of his career, including four Irish Film & Television Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robat-e_Morad | Robat-e Morad | Robat-e Morad (Persian: رباطمراد) is a village in, and the capital of, Galehzan Rural District of the Central District of Khomeyn County, Markazi province, Iran.
== Demographics ==
=== Population ===
At the time of the 2006 National Census, the village's population was 1,738 in 555 households. The following census in 2011 counted 1,688 people in 607 households. The 2016 census measured the population of the village as 1,415 people in 532 households. It was the most populous village in its rural district. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Days#Characters | Happy Days#Characters | Happy Days is an American television sitcom that aired on ABC from January 15, 1974 to July 19, 1984 with a total of 255 half-hour episodes spanning 11 seasons. Created by Garry Marshall, it was one of the most successful series of the 1970s. The series presented life in the 1950s and early 1960s Midwestern United States, where it also featured an ensemble cast, starring Ron Howard as Richie Cunningham, Henry Winkler as his friend Fonzie and Tom Bosley and Marion Ross as Richie's parents, Howard and Marion Cunningham. Although it opened to mixed reviews from critics, Happy Days became successful and popular over time.
The series began as an unsold pilot starring Howard, Ross and Anson Williams, which aired in 1972 as a segment titled "Love and the Television Set" (later retitled "Love and the Happy Days" for syndication) on ABC's anthology show Love, American Style. Based on the pilot, director George Lucas cast Howard as the lead in his 1973 film American Graffiti, causing ABC to take a renewed interest in the pilot. The first two seasons of Happy Days focused on the experiences and dilemmas of "innocent teenager" Richie Cunningham, his family, and his high school friends, attempting to "honestly depict a wistful look back at adolescence".
Initially a moderate success, the series' ratings began to fall during its second season, causing Marshall to retool it. The new format emphasized broad comedy and spotlighted the previously minor character of Fonzie, a cool biker and high school dropout. Following these changes, Happy Days became the number-one program in television in 1976–1977, Fonzie became one of the most merchandised characters of the 1970s, and Henry Winkler became a major star. The series also spawned a number of spin-offs, including Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy.
== Plot ==
Set in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, during the 1950s and 1960s, the series revolves around teenager Richie Cunningham and his family: his father, Howard, who owns a hardware store; traditional homemaker and mother, Marion; younger sister Joanie Cunningham; Richie's older brother Chuck (briefly in seasons 1 and 2 only, disappearing from storylines afterward); and high school dropout, leather-jacket–clad greaser, suave and promiscuous mechanic Fonzie, who would eventually become Richie's best friend and the Cunninghams' over-the-garage tenant. Season 1 likely takes place in 1958, given the popular songs that are played and performed. The earliest episodes revolve around Richie and his friends, Potsie Weber and Ralph Malph, with Fonzie as a secondary character.
However, as the series progressed, Fonzie proved to be a favorite with viewers, and soon more story lines were written to reflect his growing popularity, Winkler was top billed in the opening credits alongside Howard by season 3. Fonzie befriended Richie and the Cunningham family and, when Richie left the series for military service, Fonzie became the central figure of the show, with Winkler receiving sole top billing. In later seasons, other characters were introduced including Fonzie's young cousin, Chachi Arcola, who became a love interest for Joanie Cunningham.
The series' pilot was originally shown as "Love and the Television Set", later retitled "Love and the Happy Days" for syndication, a one-episode teleplay on the anthology series Love, American Style, aired on February 25, 1972. Happy Days spawned successful television shows Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy as well as three failures: Joanie Loves Chachi, Blansky's Beauties featuring Nancy Walker as Howard's cousin, and Out of the Blue. The show is the basis for the Happy Days musical touring the United States since 2008. The leather jacket worn by Winkler during the series was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution for the permanent collection at the National Museum of American History. The original, light grey McGregor windbreaker Winkler wore during the first season eventually was thrown into the garbage after ABC relented and allowed the Fonzie character to wear a leather jacket.
== Episodes ==
== Cast ==
== Characters ==
=== Main ===
Richie Cunningham — The protagonist for the first seven seasons of the series (1974–1980). When Ron Howard left the show due to his burgeoning directorial career, Richie was written out by leaving to join the United States Army. He marries his girlfriend, Lori Beth, in season eight by phone so that she will be able to join him at his post in Greenland, while Fonzie stands in for him in the wedding. Howard returned for guest appearances as Richie during the show's final season. He came back with Lori Beth and their son, Richie Jr., and Ralph in the season 11 two-part episode, "Welcome Home", and then left for California with Lori Beth and Richie Jr. to pursue a career in screenwriting. He also returned in "Passages", when he and his family attended Joanie and Chachi's wedding.
Marion Cunningham (née Kelp) — Wife of Howard, mother of Chuck, Richie, and Joanie, and a traditional homemaker. She is the only character who is allowed to call Fonzie by his real first name, Arthur, which she does affectionately. She sometimes gets tired of being at home, such as in "Marion Rebels" where she gets into an argument with Howard and briefly gets a job as a waitress at Arnold's. Marion was one of only four characters to remain with the show throughout its entire run.
Howard Cunningham — Husband of Marion, father of Chuck, Richie, and Joanie, business owner of a hardware store called "Cunningham's Hardware", he is a lodge member, and family man. Howard is one of only two characters (the other being Fonzie) to appear in every episode of the series.
Joanie Cunningham — Richie's younger sister. In early seasons, she is sometimes snooping on Richie's activities and would occasionally be sent to her room by her parents. She is affectionately called "Shortcake" by Fonzie.
Arthur Fonzarelli, a.k.a. The Fonz or Fonzie — Initially a secondary or recurring character, billed in the end credits, during the first season, he became a popular breakout character and was promoted to front billing by the second season. Fonzarelli's "Fonzie" nickname and comeback phrase, "Sit on it", were created by the show's producer Bob Brunner. His parents abandoned him as a child and his grandmother raised him from the age of four.
Warren "Potsie" Weber — Richie's best friend and an aspiring and talented singer.
Ralph Malph — In the first season, Ralph was intended as more of a secondary character, billed in the end credits, along with Winkler and Moran, but by season 2, Ralph was front billed with them.
Mitsumo "Arnold" Takahashi (Noriyuki "Pat" Morita) (seasons 1-3, 10–11: 26 episodes) is the owner of Arnold's Drive-In (1975–76). Morita also played "Arnold" as a guest star in 1977 and 1979 before returning as a recurring character after Al Molinaro departed in 1982.
Chachi Arcola (Scott Baio) — Fonzie's younger cousin and later Al Delvecchio's stepson. Fonzie acts as his older brother/father figure. He has much of Fonzie's smoothness and charisma, "wah wah wah" being his catchphrase. Chachi becomes "one of the guys", joining Richie, Potsie, Ralph, and Fonzie in their antics and as their bandmate/drummer.
Jenny Piccalo (Cathy Silvers) — Joanie's boy-crazy best friend (1980–1983), frequently mentioned but never seen in early episodes. She made her first on-screen appearance in the eighth season and remained a recurring character through the ninth season, becoming a regular during the tenth season in 1983. She returned as a guest star in the 1984 series finale. Jenny's father, played by Cathy Silvers' real-life father Phil Silvers, appeared in one episode (S9E8 "Just a Piccalo").
Roger Phillips (Ted McGinley) — Marion's nephew; coach and teacher at Jefferson High, until the episode "Vocational Education" when he became principal at Patton High. Introduced in 1980 after Richie left the show as a recurring character.
Lori Beth Allen-Cunningham (Lynda Goodfriend) — Richie's girlfriend and later his wife (1977–82). She married Richie by phone in season eight. Fonzie helped Lori Beth deliver her baby in "Little Baby Cunningham". She returned as a guest star in the final season, where she is pregnant with her second baby.
Ashley Pfister (Linda Purl) — Divorced mother who becomes Fonzie's steady girlfriend until they break up offscreen sometime before "Where the Guys Are". (Purl also portrays Richie's part-time girlfriend Gloria in season 2).
=== Minor/recurring ===
Marsha Simms (Beatrice Colen) (seasons 1–3, 5; 22 episodes) — A carhop waitress in the first 3 seasons with comic sides and plot development appearances. She returned for a flashback (guest) appearance in the episode "Our Gang".
Bobby Melner (Harris Kal) (seasons 8–11; 19 episodes) — Friend of Chachi and Joanie seen in episodes after Richie and Ralph left the show. He is a student in Fonzie's auto shop class, as well as in Roger's health class. At one point, he was also on the Jefferson High basketball team, and performed in a band with Joanie and Chachi.
K.C. Cunningham (Crystal Bernard) (season 10; 15 episodes) — Howard's niece. She moves in with Howard and Marion after Joanie leaves for Chicago. She left an all-girls boarding school in Texas because it closed down.
Leopold "Flip" Phillips (Billy Warlock) (seasons 9–10; 13 episodes) — Roger's rebellious younger brother. He usually wears a shirt cut off over his bellybutton.
Tommy (Kevin Sullivan) (seasons 8–11; 13 episodes) — Another friend of Chachi and Joanie in episodes after Ron Howard and Don Most left the show. Like Bobby, Tommy is a student in Fonzie's auto shop class, as well as in Roger's health class.
Heather Pfister (Heather O'Rourke) (season 10; 12 episodes) — Ashley Pfister's daughter. Initially she does not get along with Fonzie, but gradually learns to accept him as a father figure.
Charles "Chuck" Cunningham (Gavan O'Herlihy, Randolph Roberts) (seasons 1–2; 11 episodes) — The oldest son of Howard and Marion Cunningham and older brother of Richie and Joanie, Chuck is a college student and basketball player. He is rarely seen and disappears without explanation in season three, never to be seen nor referenced again after season 2's "Fish and Fins". The character's disappearance gave rise to the term "Chuck Cunningham Syndrome", used to describe TV characters that disappear from shows without an in-narrative explanation and are nowhere to be seen or mentioned again. Gavan O'Herlihy played Chuck, but then he asked to leave the series. He was replaced by Randolph Roberts. In several late-season episodes, Howard and Marion say they are "very proud of our two children", with no on-screen reference to Chuck.
Eugene Belvin (Denis Mandel) (seasons 8–9; 10 episodes) — Nerdy classmate of Joanie and Chachi, and twin brother of Melvin Belvin. He takes Fonzie's auto shop class and has a crush on Jenny Piccolo. Despite being a general stooge to his classmates at Jefferson High, he frequently tags along with Joanie and Chachi's circle of friends.
"Bag" Zombroski (Neil J. Schwartz) (seasons 1–4; 9 episodes) — A Jefferson High schoolmate, drummer of Richie's band and a leader of a jacket club called "The Demons".
Police Officer Kirk / Army Reserve Major Kirk (Ed Peck) (seasons 3–10; 9 episodes) — Fonzie's nemesis and antagonist, who is eager to demonstrate his inflated sense of authority, and on the watch for delinquents and "pinkos" (communists). Kirk takes over as acting sheriff following the untimely death of Sheriff Flanaghan.
Wendy (Misty Rowe) (season 2; 8 episodes) — A carhop from Arnold's in season two. She is paired with Marsha Simms in 5 episodes.
Trudy (Tita Bell) (seasons 1–4; 8 episodes) — A Jefferson High classmate, Potsie's and Fonzie's date in various episodes
Melvin Belvin (Scott Bernstein) (seasons 9–10; 8 episodes) — A nerdy classmate of Joanie and Chachi, and twin brother of Eugene Belvin. Like his brother, Melvin frequently tags along with Joanie's and Chachi's circle of friends.
Leather Tuscadero (Suzi Quatro) (seasons 5–6; 7 episodes) — A musician, younger sister of Pinky Tuscadero and a former juvenile delinquent, she forms her own girl group called "Leather and the Suedes".
Jennifer Jerome (Lorrie Mahaffey) (seasons 5–6; 6 episodes) — Potsie's steady girlfriend. Mahaffey was Anson Williams' then wife.
Laverne De Fazio (Penny Marshall) and Shirley Feeney (Cindy Williams) (seasons 3, 6–7; 5 episodes) — Dating interest of Fonzie, Laverne and her friend Shirley appeared prominently in three episodes during season three ("A Date with Fonzie", "Football Frolics", and "Fonzie the Superstar"), which led to the Marshall and Williams starring in the spin-off series Laverne & Shirley; they also made guest appearances in season six's "Fonzie's Funeral (Part 2)" and season seven's "Shotgun Wedding" (Part 1) (the second part of "Shotgun Wedding" concluded on a crossover episode of Laverne and Shirley.)
Louisa Arcola-Delvecchio (Ellen Travolta) (seasons 8–11; 5 episodes) — Mother of Chachi Arcola and aunt of Fonzie. She marries Al Delvecchio and they move to Chicago.
Gloria (Linda Purl) (season 2; 5 episodes) — Richie's occasional girlfriend in season two.
Dr. Mickey Malph (Alan Oppenheimer, Jack Dodson) (season 3–4, 7; 4 episodes) — Ralph's father, an optometrist and, like his son, a self-styled comedian. He briefly separates from his wife Minnie, but apparently resolves the issues with her after a talk with Ralph.
Raymond "Spike" Fonzarelli (Danny Butch) (seasons 2–4; 4 episodes) — Fonzie's cousin (often referred to as his nephew, but Fonzie explains that he could not be his nephew, as Fonzie was an only child) and his copycat. He goes on a date with Joanie in "Not with My Sister, You Don't" and made only fleeting appearances before the introduction of Chachi.
Grandma Nussbaum (Frances Bay) (seasons 3, 9–11: 4 episodes) — Chachi Arcola and Fonzie's grandmother. Grandma Nussbaum was played by Lillian Bronson in the season 3 episode "Fonzie Moves In".
Carol "Pinky" Tuscadero (Roz Kelly) (season 4; 3 episodes) — Former girlfriend of Fonzie and a traveling demolition derby driver.
Clarence (Gary Friedkin) (season 10; 3 episodes) — A cook at Arnold's who is referred to several times throughout the show, but never actually seen until the episode "A Woman Not Under the Influence". There, it is revealed that Clarence is a little person.
Bill "Sticks" Downey (John Anthony Bailey) (season 3; 2 episodes) — Friend of Fonzie, Richie, Potsie, and Ralph and drummer for their band, hence his nickname "Sticks", though he claims he got the nickname because he was skinny.
== Production ==
Happy Days originated during a time of 1950s nostalgic interest as evident in 1970s film, television, and music. In late winter of 1971, Michael Eisner was snowed in at Newark airport where he bumped into Tom Miller, head of development at Paramount. Eisner has stated that he told Miller, "Tom, this is ridiculous. We're wasting our time here. Let's write a show." The script treatment that came out of that did not sell. But in spite of the market research department telling them that the 1950s theme would not work, they decided to redo it, and this was accepted as a pilot. This unsold pilot was filmed in late 1971 and titled New Family in Town, with Harold Gould in the role of Howard Cunningham, Marion Ross as Marion, Ron Howard as Richie, Anson Williams as Potsie, Ric Carrott as Charles "Chuck" Cunningham, and Susan Neher as Joanie. Paramount passed on making it into a weekly series, and the pilot was recycled with the title Love and the Television Set (later retitled Love and the Happy Days for syndication), for presentation on the television anthology series Love, American Style. Also in 1971, the musical Grease had a successful opening in Chicago, and by the following year became successful on Broadway. In 1972, George Lucas asked to view the pilot to determine if Ron Howard would be suitable to play a teenager in American Graffiti, then in pre-production. Lucas immediately cast Howard in the film, which became one of the top-grossing films of 1973. With the movie's success generating a renewed interest in the 1950s era (although the film was set in 1962), TV show creator Garry Marshall and ABC recast the unsold pilot to turn Happy Days into a series. According to Marshall in an interview, executive producer Tom Miller said while developing the sitcom, "If we do a TV series that takes place in another era, and when it goes into reruns, then it won't look old." This made sense to Marshall while on the set of the show.
Gould had originally been tapped to reprise the role of Howard Cunningham on the show. However, during a delay before the start of production he found work doing a play abroad and when he was notified the show was ready to begin production, he declined to return because he wanted to honor his commitment. Bosley was then offered the role.
For the role of Fonzie it was narrowed down to Micky Dolenz and Henry Winkler but the role eventually went to the latter, Dolenz later said that Winkler "deserved it".
=== Production and scheduling notes ===
Jerry Paris, who played next-door neighbor Jerry Helper on The Dick Van Dyke Show and directed 84 episodes of that series, directed every episode of Happy Days from season three on, except for three episodes in season three ("Jailhouse Rock", "Dance Contest", and "Arnold's Wedding").
Producer and writer Bob Brunner created Arthur Fonzarelli's "Fonzie" nickname and the phrase that appeared in Season 3 onward which became his iconic comeback: "Sit on it."
Beginning in September 1979 until the show went out of production, reruns of the show were syndicated under the title Happy Days Again.
Happy Days was produced by Miller-Milkis Productions, a teaming of Thomas L. Miller with former film editor Edward K. Milkis, which became Miller-Milkis-Boyett Productions when Robert L. Boyett joined the company in 1980, and was the first-ever show to be produced by the company's most recent incarnation, Miller-Boyett Productions, which followed Milkis's resignation from the partnership. It was also produced by Henderson Productions and was one of the popular shows produced in association with Paramount Television.
In its 11 seasons on the air, Happy Days is the third-longest-running sitcom in ABC's history (behind The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, which ran 14 seasons, from 1952 to 1966), and one of the longest-running primetime programs in the network's history. It is also unique in that it remained in the same time slot, leading off ABC's Tuesday night programming at 8:00 p.m. Eastern/Pacific (7:00 p.m. in the Central and Mountain zones) for its first ten seasons. That half-hour became a signature timeslot for ABC, with Who's the Boss? instantly entering the top 10 when it was moved from Thursdays and staying in that time slot for six seasons, followed by the equally family-friendly sitcom Full House (another Miller-Boyett co-production). That sitcom also hit the top 10 immediately after inheriting the Tuesday at 8:00/7:00 p.m. slot and then stayed there for four seasons.
Happy Days also proved to be quite popular in daytime reruns; the show joined the ABC daytime schedule in September 1975, airing reruns at 11:30 a.m. ET (10:30 a.m. CT/MT/PT), being moved to 11:00/10:00 a.m. in April 1977, paired with Family Feud following at 11:30/10:30 a.m. It was replaced on the daytime schedule by reruns of its spin-off, Laverne & Shirley, in April 1979.
CBS programming head Fred Silverman scheduled the Maude spin-off Good Times directly against Happy Days during their respective second seasons in an attempt to kill the ABC show's growing popularity. In a way this move backfired on Silverman, as he was named president of ABC in 1975, thus forcing him to come up with a way to save the show he tried to kill the year before. After having knocked Happy Days out of the top 20 programs on television his last year at CBS, Silverman had the series at the top of the Nielsen ratings by 1977 (see below). Good Times was later ended in 1979.
Ron Howard later revealed that many of the exterior scenes filmed in Happy Days were actually shot in Munster, Indiana.
The official series finale ("Passages") aired on May 8, 1984. But there were five "leftover" episodes that ABC did not have time to air during the regular season due to the Winter Olympics and the spring run of a.k.a. Pablo. Four of these aired on Thursday nights during the summer of 1984; the fifth and final official episode of the entire series ("Fonzie's Spots") aired on September 24, 1984.
==== Production styles ====
The first two seasons of Happy Days (1974–75) were filmed using a single-camera setup and laugh track. One episode of season two ("Fonzie Gets Married") was filmed in front of a studio audience with three cameras as a test run. From the third season on (1975–84), the show was a three-camera production in front of a live audience (with a cast member, usually Tom Bosley, announcing in voice-over, "Happy Days is filmed before a live audience" at the start of most episodes), giving these later seasons a markedly different style. A laugh track was still used during post-production to smooth over live reactions.
Garry Marshall's earlier television series The Odd Couple had undergone an identical change in production style after its first season in 1970–71.
==== Sets ====
The show had two main sets: the Cunningham home and Arnold's/Al's Drive-In.
In seasons one and two, the Cunningham house was arranged with the front door on the left and the kitchen on the right of screen, in a triangular arrangement. From season three on, the house was rearranged to accommodate multiple cameras and a studio audience.
The Cunninghams' official address is 565 North Clinton Drive, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The house that served as the exterior of the Cunningham residence is actually located at 565 North Cahuenga Boulevard (south of Melrose Avenue) in Los Angeles, several blocks from the Paramount lot on Melrose Avenue.
The Milky Way Drive-In, located on Port Washington Road in the North Shore suburb of Glendale, Wisconsin (now Kopp's Frozen Custard Stand), was the inspiration for the original Arnold's Drive-In; it has since been demolished. The exterior of Arnold's was a standing set on the Paramount Studios lot that has since been demolished. This exterior was close to Stage 19, where the rest of the show's sets were located.
The set of the diner in the first two seasons was a room with the same vague details of the later set, such as the paneling, and the college pennants. When the show changed to a studio production in 1975, the set was widened and the entrance was hidden, but allowed an upstage, central entrance for cast members. The barely-seen kitchen was also upstaged and seen only through a pass-through window. The diner had orange booths, downstage center for closeup conversation, as well as camera left. There were two restroom doors camera right, labeled "Guys" and "Dolls". A 1953 Seeburg Model G jukebox (with replaced metal pilasters from Wico Corp.) was positioned camera right, and an anachronistic "Nip-It" pinball machine (actually produced in 1972) was positioned far camera right.
In 2004, two decades after the first set was destroyed, the Happy Days 30th Anniversary Reunion requested that the reunion take place in Arnold's. The set was rebuilt by production designer James Yarnell based on the original floor plan. The reunion special was taped at CBS Television City's Bob Barker Studio in September 2004.
=== Theme music ===
Season one used a newly recorded version of "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets (recorded in the fall of 1973) as the opening theme song. This recording was not commercially released at the time, although the original 1954 recording returned to the American Billboard charts in 1974 as a result of the song's use on the show. The "Happy Days" recording had its first commercial release in 2005 by the German label Hydra Records. (When Happy Days entered syndication in 1979, the series was retitled Happy Days Again and used an edited version of the 1954 recording instead of the 1973 version.) In some prints intended for reruns and overseas broadcasts, as well as on the Season 2 DVD set release and later re-releases of the Season 1 DVD set, the original "Rock Around the Clock" opening theme is replaced by the more standard "Happy Days" theme, because of music rights issues.
The show's closing theme song in seasons one and two was a fragment from "Happy Days" (although in a different recording with a different lyric from that which would become the standard version), whose music was composed by Charles Fox and whose lyric was written by Norman Gimbel. According to SAG, this version was performed by Jim Haas on lead vocals, The Ron Hicklin Singers, Stan Farber, Jerry Whitman, and Gary Garrett on backing vocals, and studio musicians.
From seasons three to ten inclusive, a longer version of "Happy Days" replaced "Rock Around the Clock" at the beginning of the show. Released as a single in 1976 by Pratt & McClain, "Happy Days" cracked the Top 5. The show itself finished the 1976–77 television season at No. 1, ending the five-year Nielsen reign of All in the Family.
For the show's 11th and final season (1983–84), the theme was rerecorded in a more modern style. It featured Bobby Arvon on lead vocals, with several back-up vocalists. To accompany this new version, new opening credits were filmed, and the flashing Happy Days logo was reanimated to create an overall "new" feel which incorporated 1980s sensibilities with 1950s nostalgia (although by this time the show was set in 1965).
=== Merchandising revenue lawsuit ===
On April 19, 2011, Happy Days co-stars Erin Moran, Don Most, Marion Ross and Anson Williams, as well as the estate of Tom Bosley (who died in 2010), filed a $10 million breach-of-contract lawsuit against CBS, which owns the show, claiming they had not been paid for merchandising revenues owed under their contracts. The cast members claimed they had not received revenues from show-related items, including comic books, T-shirts, scrapbooks, trading cards, games, lunch boxes, dolls, toy cars, magnets, greeting cards and DVDs where their images appear on the box covers. Under their contracts, they were supposed to be paid 5% of the net proceeds of merchandising if their sole image were used, and half that amount if they were in a group. CBS said it owed the actors $8,500 and $9,000 each, most of it from slot machine revenues, but the group said they were owed millions. The lawsuit was initiated after Ross was informed by a friend playing slots at a casino of a Happy Days machine on which players win the jackpot when five Marion Rosses are rolled.
In October 2011, a judge rejected the group's fraud claim, which meant they could not receive millions of dollars in potential damages. On June 5, 2012, a judge denied a motion filed by CBS to have the case thrown out, which meant it would go to trial on July 17 if the matter was not settled by then. In July 2012, the actors settled their lawsuit with CBS. Each received a payment of $65,000 and a promise by CBS to continue honoring the terms of their contracts.
== Daytime reruns ==
The series was rebroadcast on ABC from September 1, 1975, to March 30, 1979.
== Legacy ==
In 1978, actor Robin Williams made his screen debut during the fifth season of Happy Days, as the character "Mork" in the episode "My Favorite Orkan". Sought after as a last-minute cast replacement for a departing actor, Williams impressed the producer with his quirky sense of humor when he sat on his head when asked to take a seat for the audition. While portraying Mork on Happy Days, Williams improvised much of his dialogue and physical comedy, speaking in a high, nasal voice, and he made the most of the script. The cast and crew, as well as TV network executives were deeply impressed with his performance. As such, the executives moved quickly to get the performer on contract just four days later before competitors could make their own offers.
In 1980, the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution asked Winkler to donate one of Fonzie's leather jackets.
In 1985, Jon Hein developed the phrase jumping the shark in response to the season 5 episode "Hollywood: Part 3", written by Fred Fox Jr., which aired on September 20, 1977. In this episode, Fonzie jumps over a shark while on water-skis. The phrase is used to suggest that a creative outlet appears to be making a misguided attempt at generating new attention or publicity for something that is perceived to be once, but no longer, widely popular. In a 2019 interview with NPR, Terry Gross asked Winkler what it was "about that scene or that episode that came to signify when something's time is up – when it's over?" Winkler responded: "You know what? I don't know. To them, the Fonz water skiing was just like the last straw. The only thing is it wasn't to the audience because we were number one for years after that. So it didn't much matter to anybody." In addition, he told TheWrap in 2018 that he is "not embarrassed" by the phrase. He stated that "newspapers would mention jumping the shark... and they would show a picture of me in my leather jacket and swim shorts water-skiing. And at that time I had great legs. So I thought, 'I don't care.' And we were number one for the next four or five years." As his character Barry Zuckerkorn (in the sitcom Arrested Development) hopped over a shark in Episode 13 of the second season, Winkler also noted that there "was a book, there was a board game and it is an expression that is still used today ... [and] I'm very proud that I am the only actor, maybe in the world, that has jumped the shark twice – once on Happy Days, and once on Arrested Development."
In 1999 TV Guide ranked Fonzie as number 4 on its 50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time list.
In a 2001 poll conducted by Channel 4 in the UK, the Fonz was ranked 13th on their list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters.
In 2008, American artist Gerald P. Sawyer unveiled the Bronze Fonz (a public artwork) on the Milwaukee Riverwalk in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
In December 2023, Variety ranked Happy Days number 87 on its list of the 100 greatest TV shows of all time.
== Home media ==
Paramount Home Entertainment and CBS DVD have released the first six seasons of Happy Days on DVD in Region 1, as of December 2, 2014. For the second season, CBS features music replacements due to copyright issues, including the theme song "Rock Around the Clock". ('The Complete First Season' retains the original opening, as it was released before CBS was involved). Only seasons 1, 3 and 4 of the DVD release contain the original music. The sixth season was released on December 2, 2014. The remaining 5 seasons have not been released.
The season 7 premiere "Shotgun Wedding: Part 1" was also released on the Laverne & Shirley season 5 DVD. To date, this is the last episode released on home media.
The first four seasons have also been released on DVD in the UK (Region 2) and Australia (Region 4).
== Reunion specials ==
There have been two reunion specials which aired on ABC: the first was The Happy Days Reunion Special originally aired in March 1992, followed by Happy Days: 30th Anniversary Reunion in February 2005 to commemorate the program's 30th anniversary. Both were set up in interview/clip format.
== Spin-offs ==
Happy Days resulted in seven different spin-off series, including two that were animated: Laverne & Shirley, Blansky's Beauties, Mork & Mindy, Out of the Blue, Joanie Loves Chachi, The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang (animated), and Laverne & Shirley with The Fonz (animated).
The most successful of these spin-offs, Laverne & Shirley (1976–83) starring Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams, respectively, also took place in early/mid-1960s Milwaukee. As Shotz Brewery workers, modeled after the Miller, Schlitz, and Pabst Breweries once located in Milwaukee, Laverne and Shirley find themselves in adventures with The Fonz, Lenny and Squiggy and even the Cunninghams also living in the midwestern city. The two starring characters eventually moved to Los Angeles in the show's later years. Penny Marshall was the sister of producer Garry Marshall. Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley had a crossover episode, "Shotgun Wedding", in which Richie and Fonzie get into trouble with a farmer for courting his daughters, and Laverne and Shirley try to help them. Part one is the season seven premiere of Happy Days and part two is the season five premiere of Laverne & Shirley.
After Robin Williams appeared as Mork in "My Favorite Orkan", he was given his own sitcom, Mork & Mindy (1978–82). In this series, Mork is an alien from the planet Ork, who lands in 1970s Boulder, Colorado, to study humans. He moves in with Pam Dawber's character of Mindy McConnell.
Joanie Loves Chachi (1982–83) was a show about Richie's younger sister Joanie and Fonzie's younger cousin Chachi's relationship during their years as musicians in Chicago. While commonly believed that the show was canceled due to low ratings, the program finished in the Top 20 its first season, but ABC determined that the show was losing too much of its lead-in, suggesting low appeal if the show were moved (a suggestion that came to be realized, as the show's ratings dropped dramatically after a move to another time slot in its second season). This type of cancellation seemed strange in the early 1980s, but soon became a commonplace part of TV audience research.
Out of the Blue (1979) is a spin-off of Happy Days, though a scheduling error had the series airing prior to the main character's introduction on Happy Days.
Blansky's Beauties (1977) starred Nancy Walker as former Las Vegas showgirl Nancy Blansky. One week before the show's premiere, the Blansky character appeared on Happy Days as a cousin of Howard Cunningham. Scott Baio and Lynda Goodfriend co-starred before joining Happy Days the following fall, and Pat Morita reprised his role of Arnold. Similarly, Eddie Mekka of Laverne & Shirley played the cousin of his Carmine character, while pulling double duty as a regular in both shows.
Spin-off pilots that did not succeed include The Ralph and Potsie Show as well as The Pinky Tuscadero Show. A pilot for a sequel titled Happy Days '92 was shot but not picked up for broadcast.
== List of songs performed on Happy Days ==
== In other media ==
=== Books ===
A series of novels based on characters and dialog of the series was written by William Johnston and published by Tempo Books in the 1970s.
=== Comic books ===
Western Publishing published a Happy Days comic book series from March 1979 to February 1980 under their Gold Key Comics and Whitman Comics brands.
=== Animation ===
There are two animated series, both produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in association with Paramount Television (now known as CBS Television Distribution). The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang ran from 1980 to 1982. There are also animated spin-offs of Laverne & Shirley (Laverne & Shirley in the Army) and Mork & Mindy (centering on a young Mork and Mindy in high school). The following season, they were connected together as Mork & Mindy/Laverne & Shirley/Fonz Hour (1982).
=== Musicals ===
In the late 1990s, a touring arena show called Happy Days: The Arena Spectacular toured Australia's major cities. The story featured a property developer, and former girlfriend of Fonzie's, called Miss Frost (Rebecca Gibney), wanting to buy the diner and redevelop it. It starred Craig McLachlan as Fonzie, Max Gillies and Wendy Hughes as Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham, Doug Parkinson as Al, and Jo Beth Taylor as Richie's love interest Laura. Tom Bosley presented an introduction before each performance live on stage, and pop group Human Nature played a 1950s-style rock group.
Another stage show, Happy Days: A New Musical, began touring in 2008.
==== Music videos ====
The music video for the song "Buddy Holly" (which takes place at Arnold's Drive-in) by Weezer features footage from the series, including clips of Richie, Potsie, Ralph Malph, Joanie, and Fonzie. Al Molinaro also reprises his role as Al Delvecchio in the video, joking about how bad his fish is at the beginning and end of the video.
=== Video games ===
A 1976 arcade racing game named Fonz was released based on Fonzie, with a picture of the character appearing on the side of the arcade cabinet. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Macron | Emmanuel Macron | Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron (born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France and Co-Prince of Andorra since 2017. He served as Minister of Economics and Finance under President François Hollande from 2014 to 2016. He has been a member of Renaissance since founding the party in 2016.
Born in Amiens, Macron studied philosophy at Paris Nanterre University. He completed a master's degree in public affairs at Sciences Po and graduated from the École nationale d'administration in 2004. He worked as a senior civil servant at the General Inspectorate of Finance and as an investment banker at Rothschild & Co. Macron was a senior adviser to President Hollande, being appointed as Élysée deputy secretary-general by Hollande after the 2012 presidential election. He was later appointed as Economics Minister in 2014 in the second Valls government, and led several business-friendly reforms. He resigned in 2016 to launch his 2017 presidential campaign. A member of the Socialist Party between 2006 and 2009, he ran in the election under the banner of En Marche !, a centrist and pro-European political movement which he founded in 2016.
Partly due to the Fillon affair, Macron was elected President in May 2017 with 66% of the vote in the second round, defeating Marine Le Pen of the National Front. Aged 39, he became the youngest president in French history. In the 2017 legislative election, his party, renamed La République En Marche! (LREM), secured a majority in the National Assembly. During his presidency, Macron has overseen reforms to labour laws, taxation, and pensions; and pursued a renewable energy transition. Dubbed "president of the rich" by opponents, increasing protests against his reforms culminated in 2018–2020 with the yellow vests protests and the pension reform strike. From 2020, he led France's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent recession, including by overseeing the country's vaccination rollout. In foreign policy, Macron called for reforms to the European Union (EU) and signed treaties with Germany and Italy. He conducted €40 billion in trade and business agreements with China during the China–United States trade war and oversaw a dispute with Australia and the U.S. over the AUKUS security pact. Macron has also continued Opération Chammal in the war against the Islamic State and joined in the international condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Macron was elected to a second term in the 2022 presidential election, again defeating Le Pen and becoming the first French presidential candidate to win reelection since Jacques Chirac in 2002. In the 2022 legislative election, Macron's centrist coalition lost its majority, resulting in a hung parliament and formation of France's first minority government since 1993. In 2023, the government of his prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, passed legislation raising the retirement age from 62 to 64; this led to public sector strikes and violent protests. In 2024, Macron appointed Gabriel Attal as Prime Minister after a government crisis. He then dissolved the National Assembly and called a snap legislative election following overwhelming defeat at the 2024 European Parliament elections, which resulted in another hung parliament and an electoral defeat for his coalition. Afterwards, Macron appointed Michel Barnier, a conservative and former chief Brexit negotiator, as Prime Minister. Three months in, Barnier was toppled by a historic vote of no confidence, prompting Macron to replace him with centrist veteran François Bayrou. After Bayrou was himself brought down by a confidence vote in September 2025, Macron appointed Sébastien Lecornu, Minister of the Armed Forces, as Prime Minister. Lecornu resigned less than a month later following political backlash over the composition of his government, but was reappointed by Macron shortly afterwards. The formations of these short-lived governments have marked a political crisis.
== Early life ==
Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron was born on 21 December 1977 in Amiens. He is the son of Françoise Macron (née Noguès), a physician, and Jean-Michel Macron, professor of neurology at the University of Picardy. The couple divorced in 2010. He has two siblings, Laurent, born in 1979, and Estelle, born in 1982. Françoise and Jean-Michel's first child was stillborn.
The Macron family legacy is traced back to the village of Authie, Picardy. One of his paternal great-grandfathers, George William Robertson, was English, and was born in Bristol, United Kingdom. His maternal grandparents, Jean and Germaine Noguès (née Arribet), are from the Pyrenean town of Bagnères-de-Bigorre, Gascony. He commonly visited Bagnères-de-Bigorre to visit his grandmother Germaine, whom he called "Manette". Macron associates his enjoyment of reading and his leftward political leanings to Germaine, who, after coming from a modest upbringing of a stationmaster father and a housekeeping mother, became a teacher and then a principal.
Although raised in a non-religious family, Macron was baptized a Catholic at his own request at age 12; he is agnostic today. His parents chose his name in reference to the biblical prophecy of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel.
Macron was educated mainly at the Jesuit institute Lycée la Providence in Amiens before his parents sent him to finish his last year of school at the elite Lycée Henri-IV in Paris, where he completed the high school curriculum and the undergraduate program with a "Bac S, Mention Très bien". At the same time, he was nominated for the "Concours général" (most selective national level high school competition) in French literature and received his diploma for his piano studies at Amiens Conservatory. His parents sent him to Paris due to their alarm at the bond he had formed with Brigitte Auzière, a married teacher with three children at Jésuites de la Providence, who later became his wife.
In Paris, Macron twice failed to gain entry to the École normale supérieure. He instead studied philosophy at the University of Paris-Ouest Nanterre La Défense, obtaining a DEA degree (a master level degree), with a thesis on Machiavelli and Hegel. Around 1999 Macron worked as an editorial assistant to Paul Ricoeur, the French Protestant philosopher who was then writing his last major work, La Mémoire, l'Histoire, l'Oubli. Macron worked mainly on the notes and bibliography. Macron became a member of the editorial board of the literary magazine Esprit.
Macron did not perform national service because he was pursuing his graduate studies. Born in December 1977, he belonged to the last cohort for whom military service was mandatory.
Macron obtained a master's degree in public affairs at Sciences Po, majoring in "Public Guidance and Economy" before training for a senior civil service career at the selective École nationale d'administration (ENA), training at the French Embassy in Nigeria and at the prefecture of Oise before graduating in 2004.
== Professional career ==
=== Inspector of Finances ===
After graduating from ENA in 2004, Macron became an Inspector in the Inspection générale des finances (IGF), a branch of the Finance Ministry. Macron was mentored by Jean-Pierre Jouyet, the then-head of the IGF. During his time as an Inspector of Finances, Macron gave lectures during the summer at the "prep'ENA" (a special cram school for the ENA entrance examination) at IPESUP, an elite private school specializing in preparation for the entrance examinations of the Grandes écoles, such as HEC or Sciences Po.
In 2006, Laurence Parisot offered him the job of managing director for Mouvement des Entreprises de France, the largest employer federation in France, but he declined.
In August 2007, Macron was appointed deputy rapporteur for Jacques Attali's "Commission to Unleash French Growth". In 2008, Macron paid €50,000 to buy himself out of his government contract. He then became an investment banker in a highly-paid position at Rothschild & Cie Banque. In March 2010, he was appointed to the Attali Commission as a member.
=== Investment banker ===
In September 2008, Macron left his job as an Inspector of Finances and took a position at Rothschild & Cie Banque. Macron left the government when Nicolas Sarkozy became president. He was originally offered the job by François Henrot. His first responsibility at the bank was assisting with the acquisition of Cofidis by Crédit Mutuel Nord Europe.
Macron formed a relationship with Alain Minc, a businessman on the supervisory board of Le Monde. In 2010, Macron was promoted to partner with the bank after working on the recapitalization of Le Monde and the acquisition by Atos of Siemens IT Solutions and Services. In the same year, Macron was put in charge of Nestlé's acquisition of Pfizer's infant nutrition division for €9 billion, which made him a millionaire.
In February 2012, Macron advised businessman Philippe Tillous-Borde, the CEO of the Avril Group.
Macron reported that he had earned €2 million between December 2010 and May 2012. Official documents show that between 2009 and 2013, Macron had earned almost €3 million. He left Rothschild & Cie in 2012.
== Early political career ==
In his youth beginning in 1998, Macron worked for the Citizens' Movement for two years, but he never applied to be a member. Macron was an assistant for Mayor Georges Sarre of the 11th arrondissement of Paris during his time at Sciences Po. Macron joined the Socialist Party at the age of 24, but last renewed his membership for the period 2006–2009.
Macron met François Hollande through Jean-Pierre Jouyet in 2006 and joined his staff in 2010. In 2007, Macron attempted to run for a seat in the National Assembly in Picardy under the Socialist Party label in the 2007 legislative elections; however, his application was declined. Macron was offered the chance to be the deputy chief of staff to Prime Minister François Fillon in 2010, though he declined.
=== Deputy Secretary-General of the Élysée (2012–2014) ===
On 15 May 2012, Macron became the deputy secretary-general of the Élysée, a senior role in President François Hollande's staff. Macron served with Nicolas Revel. He served under the secretary-general, Pierre-René Lemas.
During the summer of 2012, Macron put forward a proposal that would increase the 35-hour work week to 37 hours until 2014. He also tried to hold back the large tax increases on the highest earners that were planned by the government. Hollande refused Macron's proposals. In 2013, his was one of the deciding votes against regulating the salaries of CEOs. Nicolas Revel, the other deputy secretary-general of the Élysée opposed Macron on a proposed budget responsibility pact favoured by the Medef.
On 10 June 2014, it was announced that Macron had resigned from his role and was replaced by Laurence Boone. Reasons given for his departure included his disappointment at not being included in the first Government of Manuel Valls and his frustration with his lack of influence on the reforms proposed by the government. This was following the appointment of Jean-Pierre Jouyet as chief of staff.
Jouyet said that Macron left to "continue personal aspirations" and create his own financial consultancy firm. It was later reported that he was planning to create an investment firm that would attempt to fund educational projects. Shortly afterwards he was hired as a research fellow at the University of Berlin with the help of businessman Alain Minc. He had also sought a position at Harvard University.
Offered a chance to be a candidate in the municipal elections in 2014 in his hometown of Amiens, Macron declined, leading François Hollande to reject Manuel Valls's idea of appointing him Budget Minister, as he had never been elected to public office.
=== Minister of Economics and Finance (2014–2017) ===
He was appointed as the Minister of Economics and Finance in the Second Valls government on 26 August 2014, replacing Arnaud Montebourg. He was the youngest Minister of Economics since Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in 1962. Macron was branded by the media as the "Anti-Montebourg" due to being pro-EU and much more liberal, while Montebourg was eurosceptic and left-wing. As Minister of Economics, Macron was at the forefront of pushing through business-friendly reforms. On 17 February 2015, prime minister Manuel Valls pushed Macron's signature law package through a reluctant parliament using the special 49.3 procedure.
Macron increased the French share in the company Renault from 15% to 20% and then enforced the Florange law which grants double voting rights on shares registered for more than two years unless two-thirds of shareholders vote to overturn it. This gave the French state a minority share in the company though Macron later stated that the government would limit its powers within Renault.
Macron was widely criticized for being unable to prevent the closing down of an Ecopla factory in Isère.
In August 2015, Macron said that he was no longer a member of the Socialist Party and was an independent.
==== Macron Law ====
A law which had originally been sponsored by Arnaud Montebourg before he left the government, and which had focused on "purchasing power", grew into the Macron law, a grab bag of measures liberalizing laws prohibiting work on Sunday and at night; restrictions on coaches for public transportation; regulations for debt collectors, barristers and auctioneers; and rules governing the rental of equipment by the military from private companies. The law also sought to simplify many government procedures, such as that for obtaining a driving licence. Manuel Valls, fearing that it would not pass in the National Assembly, decided to push the law through with the 49.3 procedure and so it was adopted on 10 April 2015.
Estimates of the increase in GDP the law might generate ranged from 0.3% to 0.5%.
=== 2017 presidential campaign ===
==== Formation of En Marche and resignation from government ====
Macron first became known to the French public after his appearance on the French TV programme Des Paroles Et Des Actes in March 2015. Before forming his political party En Marche!, he gave a number of speeches, his first one in March 2015 in Val-de-Marne. He threatened to leave Manuel Valls' second government over the proposed removal of dual-nationality from terrorists. He also took various foreign trips, including one to Israel where he spoke on the advancement of digital technology.
Tensions around the question of Macron's loyalty to the Valls government and Hollande increased when they turned down a bill he put forward dubbed "Macron 2", which had a larger scope than his original law. Macron was given the chance to help draft into the El Khomri law and put specific parts of "Macron 2" into the law though El Khomri was able to overturn these with the help of other ministers.
Amid tensions and deterioration of relations with the current government, Macron founded an independent political party, En Marche, in Amiens on 6 April 2016. A social-liberal, progressive political movement that gathered huge media coverage when it was first established, the party and Macron were both reprimanded by President Hollande and the question of Macron's loyalty to the government was raised. Several MEPs spoke out in support for the movement though the majority of the Socialist Party spoke against En Marche including Manuel Valls, Michel Sapin, Axelle Lemaire and Christian Eckert.
In June 2016, support for Macron and his movement, En Marche, began to grow in the media with Libération reporting that L'Express, Les Échos, Le 1, and L'Opinion had begun to support him. Following several controversies surrounding trade unionists and their protests, Acrimed reported that major newspapers began to run front-page stories about Macron and En Marche. Criticized by both the far-left and the far-right, these pro-Macron influencers in the press were dubbed "Macronites".
In May 2016, Orleans mayor Olivier Carré invited Macron to the festival commemorating the 587th anniversary of Joan of Arc's efforts during the Siege of Orléans. LCI reported that Macron was trying to take back the symbol of Joan of Arc from the far-right. Macron later went to Puy du Fou and declared he was "not a socialist" in a speech amid rumours he was going to leave the current government.
On 30 August 2016, Macron resigned from the government ahead of the 2017 presidential election, to devote himself to his En Marche movement. There had been rising tensions and several reports that he had wanted to leave the Valls government since early 2015. He initially planned to leave after the cancellation of his "Macron 2" law but decided to stay on temporarily after a meeting with President François Hollande. Michel Sapin was announced as Macron's replacement, while Hollande said he felt Macron had "methodically betrayed" him. An IFOP poll showed that 84% of those surveyed agreed with his decision to resign.
==== First round of the presidential election ====
Macron first showed his intention to run by forming En Marche, but following his resignation from the government, he was able to dedicate more time to his movement. He first announced that he was considering running for president in April 2016, and after his resignation from the position of economy minister, media sources began to identify patterns in his fundraising indicating he would run. In October 2016, Macron criticized Hollande's goal of being a "normal" president, saying that France needed a more "Jupiterian presidency".
On 16 November 2016, Macron formally declared his candidacy for the French presidency after months of speculation. In his announcement speech, he called for a "democratic revolution" and promised to "unblock France". He had expressed hope that Hollande would run several months earlier, saying that—as the sitting president—he was the legitimate Socialist party candidate. Macron's book Révolution was published on 24 November 2016 and reached fifth position on the French best-seller list in December 2016.
Shortly after announcing his run, Jean-Christophe Cambadélis and Manuel Valls both asked Macron to run in the Socialist Party presidential primary, which he ultimately refused to do. Jean-Christophe Cambadélis began to threaten to exclude members who associated or supported Macron following Lyon mayor Gérard Collomb throwing his support behind him.
Macron's campaign, headed by French economist Sophie Ferracci, announced in December 2016 that it had raised 3.7 million euros in donations, three times the budget of then-front runner Alain Juppé. Macron came under criticism from several individuals, including Benoît Hamon−who requested he reveal a list of his donors and accused him of conflicts of interest due to the time he spent at Rothschilds, which Macron dismissed as "demagogy". Journalists Marion L'Hour and Frédéric Says later reported that he had spent €120,000 on setting up dinners and meetings with various personalities within the media and in French popular culture while at Bercy. Christian Jacob and Philippe Vigier accused him of using this money to campaign without campaigning. His successor, Michel Sapin, saw nothing illegal about his actions, saying that he had the right to spend the funds. Macron called the allegations "defamatory" and said that none of the ministerial budget had been spent on his party.
Macron's campaign enjoyed considerable coverage from the media. Mediapart reported that over fifty magazine covers were dedicated purely to him. Friends with the owners of Le Monde and Claude Perdiel, the former owner of Nouvel Observateur, he was labelled the "media candidate" by the far-left and far-right and was viewed as such in opinion polls. Many observers compared his campaign to a product being sold due to Maurice Lévy, a former Publicis CEO, using marketing tactics to try to advance his presidential ambitions. The magazine Marianne reported that BFM TV, owned by Patrick Drahi, broadcast more coverage of Macron than of all the other main candidates combined. Marianne speculated that this might be due to the campaigns links with Drahi through Bernard Mourad.
François Bayrou, with whom Macron had been compared, announced he was not going to stand in the presidential election and instead formed an electoral alliance with Macron, whose poll ratings began to rise. After several legal issues surrounding François Fillon were publicized, Macron overtook him in the polls to become the front-runner.
Macron attracted criticism for the time taken to spell out a formal program during his campaign; despite declaring in November that he had still not released a complete set of proposals by February, attracting both attacks from critics and concern among allies and supporters. He eventually laid out his 150-page formal program on 2 March, publishing it online and discussing it at a marathon press conference that day.
Macron accumulated a wide array of supporters, securing endorsements from François Bayrou of the Democratic Movement (MoDem), MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the ecologist candidate François de Rugy of the primary of the left, and Socialist MP Richard Ferrand, secretary-general of En Marche, as well as numerous others – many of them from the Socialist Party, but also a significant number of centrist and centre-right politicians. The Grand Mosque of Paris urged French Muslims to vote en masse for Macron.
On 23 April 2017, Macron received the most votes in the first round of the presidential election, with more than 8 million votes (24%) and faced Marine Le Pen in the second round, with the support of former candidates François Fillon and Benoît Hamon and the sitting president François Hollande.
==== Second round of the presidential election ====
Many foreign politicians supported Macron in his bid against right-wing populist candidate Marine Le Pen, including European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and former US President Barack Obama.
A debate was arranged between Macron and Le Pen on 3 May 2017. The debate lasted for two hours and opinion polls showed that he was perceived to have won.
In March 2017, Macron's digital campaign manager, Mounir Mahjoubi, told Britain's Sky News that Russia is behind "high level attacks" on Macron, and said that its state media are "the first source of false information". He said: "We are accusing RT (formerly known as Russia Today) and Sputnik News (of being) the first source of false information shared about our candidate ...".
Two days before the French presidential election on 7 May, it was reported that nine gigabytes of Macron's campaign emails had been anonymously posted to Pastebin, a document-sharing site. These documents were then spread onto the imageboard 4chan, which led to the hashtag "#macronleaks" trending on Twitter. In a statement the same evening, Macron's political movement, En Marche, said: "The En Marche movement has been the victim of a massive and coordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information". Macron's campaign had previously been presented a report in March 2017 by the Japanese cyber security firm Trend Micro detailing how En Marche had been the target of phishing attacks. Trend Micro said that the group conducting these attacks was the Russian hacking group Fancy Bear, also accused of hacking the Democratic National Committee on 22 July 2016. 21,075 verified emails and another 50,773 emails it could not verify were released in July 2017 by WikiLeaks. This followed Le Pen accusing Macron of tax avoidance.
On 7 May 2017, Macron was elected President of France with 66.1% of the vote to Marine Le Pen's 33.9%. The election had record abstention at 25.4%, and 8% of ballots were blank or spoiled. Macron resigned from his role as president of En Marche and Catherine Barbaroux became interim leader.
== Presidency (2017–present) ==
=== First term (2017–2022) ===
Macron formally became president on 14 May. At 39, he became the youngest president in French history and the youngest French head of state since Napoleon. He is also the first president of France born after the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958.
He appointed Patrick Strzoda as his chief of staff and Ismaël Emelien as his special advisor for strategy, communication and speeches. On 15 May, he appointed Édouard Philippe of the Republicans as Prime Minister. On the same day, he made his first official foreign visit, meeting in Berlin with Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany. The two leaders emphasised the importance of France–Germany relations to the European Union. They agreed to draw up a "common road map" for Europe, insisting that neither was against changes to the Treaties of the European Union.
In the 2017 legislative election, Macron's party La République En Marche and its Democratic Movement allies secured a comfortable majority, winning 350 seats out of 577. After the Republicans emerged as the winners of the Senate elections, government spokesman Christophe Castaner stated the elections were a "failure" for his party.
On 3 July 2020, Macron appointed the centre-right Jean Castex as the Prime Minister of France. Castex, described as a social conservative, was a member of the Republicans. The appointment was described as "doubling down on a course that is widely seen as centre-right in economic terms".
==== Domestic policy ====
In his first few months as president, Macron pressed for the enactment of a package of reforms on public ethics, labour laws, taxes, and law enforcement agency powers.
==== Anti-corruption ====
In response to Penelopegate, the National Assembly passed a part of Macron's proposed law to stop mass corruption in French politics by July 2017, banning elected representatives from hiring family members. Meanwhile, the second part of the law scrapping a constituency fund was scheduled for voting after Senate objections.
Macron's plan to give his wife an official role within government came under fire with criticisms ranging from its being undemocratic to what critics perceive as a contradiction to his fight against nepotism. Following an online petition of nearly 290,000 signatures on change.org Macron abandoned the plan. On 9 August, the National Assembly adopted the bill on public ethics, a key theme of Macron's campaign, after debates on the scrapping the constituency funds.
==== Labour policy and unions ====
Macron aims to shift union-management relations away from the adversarial lines of the current French system and toward a more flexible, consensus-driven system modelled after Germany and Scandinavia. He has also pledged to act against companies employing cheaper labour from eastern Europe and in return affecting jobs of French workers, what he has termed as "social dumping". Under the Posted Workers Directive 1996, eastern European workers can be employed for a limited time at the salary level in eastern European countries, which has led to dispute between the EU states.
The French government announced the proposed changes to France's labour rules ("Code du Travail"), being among the first steps taken by Macron and his government to galvanize the French economy. Macron's reform efforts have encountered resistance from some French trade unions. The largest trade union, the CFDT, has taken a conciliatory approach to Macron's push and has engaged in negotiations with the president, while the more militant CGT is more hostile to reforms. Macron's labour minister, Muriel Pénicaud, is overseeing the effort.
The National Assembly, including the Senate approved the proposal, allowing the government to loosen the labour laws after negotiations with unions and employers' groups. The reforms, which were discussed with unions, limit payouts for dismissals deemed unfair and give companies greater freedom to hire and fire employees as well as to define acceptable working conditions. The president signed five decrees reforming the labour rules on 22 September. Government figures released in October 2017 revealed that during the legislative push to reform the labour code, the unemployment rate had dropped 1.8%, the biggest since 2001.
===== Migrant crisis =====
Speaking on refugees and, specifically, the Calais Jungle, Macron said on 16 January 2018 that he would not allow another refugee camp to form in Paris before outlining the government policy towards immigration and asylum. He has also announced plans to speed up asylum applications and deportations but give refugees better housing.
On 23 June 2018, President Macron said: "The reality is that Europe is not experiencing a migration crisis of the same magnitude as the one it experienced in 2015", "a country like Italy has not at all the same migratory pressure as last year. The crisis we are experiencing today in Europe is a political crisis". In November 2019, Macron introduced new immigration rules to restrict the number of refugees reaching France, while stating to "take back control" of the immigration policy.
In 2022, the total number of new foreigners coming to France rose above 320,000 for the first time, with nearly a majority coming from Africa.
===== Economic policy =====
Pierre de Villiers, then-Chief of the General Staff of the Armies, stepped down on 19 July 2017 following a confrontation with Macron. De Villiers cited the military budget cut of €850 million as the main reason he was stepping down. Le Monde later reported that De Villiers told a parliamentary group, "I will not let myself be fucked like this." Macron named François Lecointre as De Villiers' replacement.
Macron's government presented its first budget on 27 September, the terms of which reduced taxes as well as spending to bring the public deficit in line with the EU's fiscal rules. The budget replaced the wealth tax with one targeting real estate, fulfilling Macron's campaign pledge to scrap the wealth tax. Before it was replaced, the tax collected up to 1.5% of the wealth of French residents whose global worth exceeded €1.3m.
In February 2018, Macron announced a plan to offer voluntary redundancy in an attempt to further cut jobs from the French civil service.
In December 2019, Macron announced that he would scrap the 20th-century pension system and introduce a single national pension system managed by the state. In January 2020, after weeks of public transport shutdown and vandalism across Paris against the new pension plan, Macron compromised on the plan by revising the retirement age. In February, the pension overhaul was adopted by decree using Article 49 of the French constitution. However, on 16 March 2020, Macron announced that the draft legislation would be pulled as France went into lockdown to slow the spread of COVID-19.
===== Terrorism =====
In July 2017, the Senate approved its first reading of a controversial bill with stricter anti-terror laws, a campaign pledge of Macron. The National Assembly voted on 3 October to pass bill 415–127, with 19 abstentions. Interior Minister Gérard Collomb described France as being "still in a state of war" ahead of the vote, with the 1 October Marseille stabbing having taken place two days prior. The Senate then passed the bill on its second reading by a 244–22 margin on 18 October. Later that day Macron stated that 13 terror plots had been foiled since early 2017. The law replaced the state of emergency in France and made some of its provisions permanent.
The bill was criticized by human rights advocates. A public poll by Le Figaro showed 57% of the respondents approved of it even though 62% thought it would encroach on personal freedoms.
The law gives authorities expanded power to search homes, restrict movement, close places of worship, and search areas around train stations and international ports and airports. It was passed after modifications to address concerns about civil liberties. The most punitive measures will be reviewed annually and were scheduled to lapse by the end of 2020. The bill was signed into law by Macron on 30 October 2017. He announced that starting 1 November, it would bring an end to the state of emergency.
===== Civil rights =====
Visiting Corsica in February 2018, Macron sparked controversy when he rejected Corsican nationalist wishes for Corsican as an official language but offered to recognize Corsica in the French constitution.
Macron also proposed a plan to "reorganise" the Islamic religion in France saying: "We are working on the structuring of Islam in France and also on how to explain it, which is extremely important – my goal is to rediscover what lies at the heart of laïcité, the possibility of being able to believe as not to believe, in order to preserve national cohesion and the possibility of having freedom of conscience." He declined to reveal further information about the plan.
===== Foreign policy and national defence =====
Macron attended the 2017 Brussels summit on 25 May 2017, his first NATO summit as president of France. At the summit, he met US President Donald Trump for the first time. The meeting was widely publicized due to a handshake between the two of them, characterized as a "power-struggle".
On 29 May 2017, Macron met with Vladimir Putin at the Palace of Versailles. The meeting sparked controversy when Macron denounced Russia Today and Sputnik, accusing the news agencies of being "organs of influence and propaganda, of lying propaganda". Macron also urged cooperation in the conflict against ISIS and warned that France would respond with force in Syria if chemical weapons were used. In response to the chemical attack in Douma, Syria in 2018, Macron directed French participation in airstrikes against Syrian government sites, coordinated with the United States and the United Kingdom.
In his first major foreign policy speech on 29 August, President Macron stated that fighting Islamist terrorism at home and abroad was France's top priority. Macron urged a tough international stance to pressure North Korea into negotiations, on the same day it fired a missile over Japan. He also affirmed his support for the Iranian nuclear deal and criticized Venezuela's government as a "dictatorship". He added that he would announce his new initiatives on the future of the European Union after the German elections in September. At the 56th Munich Security Conference in February, Macron presented his 10-year vision policy to strengthen the European Union. Macron remarked that larger budget, integrated capital markets, effective defence policy and quick decision-making held the key for Europe. He added that reliance on NATO and especially the US and the UK was not good for Europe, and a dialogue must be established with Russia.
Prior to the 45th G7 summit in Biarritz, France, Macron hosted Vladimir Putin at the Fort de Brégançon, stating that "Russia fully belongs within a Europe of values." At the summit itself, Macron was invited to attend on the margins by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. Macron, who "attempted a high-risk diplomatic gambit", thought that the Foreign Minister of Iran might be able to defuse the tense situation over the Iranian nuclear programme in spite of the recent uptick in tensions between the Islamic Republic and the United States and Britain.
In March 2019, at a time when China–U.S. economic relations were troubled with a trade war underway, Macron and Chinese leader Xi Jinping signed a series of 15 large-scale trade and business agreements totaling 40 billion euros (US$45 billion) which covered many sectors over a period of years. This included a €30 billion purchase of airplanes from Airbus. Going beyond aviation, the new trade agreement covered French exports of chicken, a French-built offshore wind farm in China, a Franco-Chinese cooperation fund, as well as billions of Euros of co-financing between BNP Paribas and the Bank of China. Other plans included billions of euros to be spent on modernizing Chinese factories, as well as new ship building. In June 2019, Macron announced that France would designate April 24 as a national day of remembrance for the Armenian genocide.
In July 2020, Macron called for sanctions against Turkey for violating Greece's and Cyprus' sovereignty, saying it is "unacceptable that the maritime space of (EU) member states be violated and threatened". He also criticized Turkish military intervention in Libya. Macron said that "We have the right to expect more from Turkey than from Russia, given that it is a member of NATO."
In 2021, Macron was reported as saying Northern Ireland was not truly part of the United Kingdom following disputes with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson over implementations of the Northern Ireland protocol. He later denied this, saying he was referring to the fact that Great Britain is separated from Northern Ireland by sea in reference to the Irish Sea border.
French-U.S. relations became tense in September 2021 due to fallout from the AUKUS security pact between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The security pact is directed at countering Chinese power in the Indo-Pacific region. As part of the agreement, the U.S. agreed to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. After entering into AUKUS, the Australian government canceled an agreement that it had made with France for the provision of French conventionally powered submarines, angering the French government. On 17 September, France recalled its ambassadors from Australia and the US for consultations. Despite tension in the past, France had never before withdrawn its ambassador to the United States. After a call between Macron and U.S. President Joe Biden on request from the latter, the two leaders agreed to reduce bilateral tensions, and the White House acknowledged the crisis could have been averted if there had been open consultations between allies.
On 26 November 2021, Macron and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi signed the Quirinal Treaty at the Quirinal Palace in Rome. The treaty aimed to promote the convergence and coordination of French and Italian positions in matters of European and foreign policies, security and defence, migration policy, economy, education, research, culture and cross-border cooperation.
During the prelude to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Macron spoke face-to-face and on the phone to Russian President Vladimir Putin. During Macron's campaign for the re-election, nearly two months after the Russian invasion began, Macron called on European leaders to maintain dialogue with Putin.
===== Approval ratings =====
According to an IFOP poll for Le Journal du Dimanche, Macron started his five-year term with a 62% approval rating, which rose to 64% by 24 June. One month later, Macron suffered a 10% point drop in popularity, the largest at the beginning of a term for any president since Jacques Chirac in 1995, and by August, his popularity had fallen off 24 percentage points since June. This was attributed to his recent confrontations with former Chief of Defence Staff Pierre de Villiers, the nationalization of the Chantiers de l'Atlantique shipyard owned by the bankrupt STX Offshore & Shipbuilding, and a reduction in housing benefits.
By the end of September 2017, seven out of ten respondents said that they believed Emmanuel Macron was respecting his campaign promises, though a majority felt that the policies the government was putting forward were "unfair". Macron's popularity fell sharply again in 2018, reaching about 25% by the end of November during the yellow vests movement. During the COVID-19 pandemic in France, his popularity increased, reaching 50% at its highest in July 2020.
===== Benalla affair =====
On 18 July 2018, Le Monde revealed in an article that a member of Macron's staff Alexandre Benalla posed as a police officer and beat a protester during May Day demonstrations in Paris earlier in the year and was suspended for a period of 15 days before only being internally demoted. The Élysée failed to refer the case to the public prosecutor and a preliminary investigation into the case was not opened until the day after the publication of the article, and the lenient penalty served by Benalla raised questions within the opposition about whether the executive deliberately chose not to inform the public prosecutor as required under the code of criminal procedure.
==== 2022 presidential campaign ====
In the 2022 election, Macron was the first incumbent to be re-elected since Jacques Chirac defeated Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 2002 election. Macron again defeated Marine Le Pen in the runoff, this time by a closer margin, with 58.55% of the votes to Le Pen's 41.45%. Due to near-record abstentions, this represented 38.52% of registered voters, the lowest figure since Georges Pompidou's 37.5% in 1969. The French far-right received their highest vote total since the start of the French Republic, with nationalist candidates (Le Pen, Zemmour and Dupont-Aignan) winning 32.3% of the votes in the first round and Le Pen achieving a record 41.5% of the votes in the second round.
=== Second term (2022–present) ===
Though Macron's second inauguration took place on 7 May 2022, his second presidential term officially began on 14 May 2022.
==== Borne government ====
On 16 May 2022, Prime Minister Jean Castex resigned after 22 months as head of government. The same day, President Macron appointed Élisabeth Borne at the Hôtel Matignon, thus making her the second female PM in French history after Édith Cresson between 1991 and 1992. She then formed a new government on 20 May 2022.
==== 2022 legislative election ====
In June 2022, one month into his second term, less than two weeks before the end of the French presidency of the Council of the EU and days after he called for voters to hand him a "solid majority" in a controversial 'tarmac speech', Macron lost his parliamentary majority and was returned a hung parliament in the second round of the 2022 legislative election: Macron's presidential coalition, which enjoyed a 115-seat majority going into the election, failed to reach the threshold of 289 seats needed to command an overall majority in the National Assembly, retaining only 251 out of the 346 it had held in the previous Assembly, and falling 38 short of an absolute majority. Crucially, three close political allies to President Macron were defeated in the elections: incumbent President of the National Assembly Richard Ferrand, Macron's own LREM parliamentary party leader Christophe Castaner and MoDem parliamentary group leader Patrick Mignola, thus effectively "decapitating" Macron's parliamentary bloc leadership and further weakening the President's political position in hung parliament territory.
Three government ministers resigned after losing their seats: Justine Bénin (junior minister for the Sea), Brigitte Bourguignon (Minister for Health and Prevention) and Amélie de Montchalin (Minister for Ecological Transition).
Macron's government, still led by Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, was reshuffled in early July 2022 and continued as a minority administration, after talks with opposition leaders to form a stable majority government failed.
==== Domestic affairs ====
Macron's second presidential term began with two significant political controversies. Hours after the new Borne cabinet was announced, rape accusations against newly appointed Minister for Solidarity Damien Abad were made public, and on 28 May, the handling of the 2022 UEFA Champions League final chaos at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis drew criticism at home and abroad.
Despite its minority status in the legislature after the 2022 legislative election, Macron's government passed bills to ease the cost-of-living crisis, to repeal the COVID-era "state of health emergency", and to revive the French nuclear energy sector. However, government proposals were defeated several times in the National Assembly and by the end of 2022, the Borne cabinet had had to use the provisions of Article 49.3 of the Constitution ten times in a row to pass the 2023 Government Budget and Social Security Budget.
In May 2024, protests and riots broke out in New Caledonia. On 22 May, Macron visited the island.
===== Pension reform =====
In March 2023, Macron's government passed a law raising the retirement age from 62 to 64, partly bypassing Parliament by again resorting to Article 49.3 to break the parliamentary deadlock.
Nationwide protests that had begun when the bill was introduced back in January increased in intensity after the reform was passed without a solemn vote.
===== Votes of no-confidence in the Borne government =====
On 20 March 2023, Macron's cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Borne, survived a cross-party motion of no-confidence by only nine votes, the slimmest margin for such a vote since 1992.
On 12 June 2023, his government survived its 17th no-confidence motion since the beginning of the 16th legislature; the motion, brought by the left-wing NUPES coalition, fell 50 votes short of the 289 votes needed.
===== Nahel Merzouk riots =====
In early summer 2023, French authorities faced riots following the killing of Nahel M., aged 17, by a police officer during a traffic stop. To calm widespread unrest, comparable in intensity to the 2005 French riots, Macron's administration ramped up government response, with a total of 45,000 police officers deployed on the ground and a ministerial order advising courts to apply harsher sentences and accelerated procedures: this crackdown resulted in over 1,300 arrests on the fourth night of unrest alone, bringing the total number of arrests since the riots' beginning to over 2,000 as of 1 July.
===== 2023 government reshuffle =====
On 20 July 2023, Macron carried out a government reshuffle at the end of the "hundred days of appeasement and action" he called for in April 2023 following the violent protests surrounding the passage of his pension system reform. Pap Ndiaye and Marlène Schiappa were sacked as part of the reshuffle.
===== Defence policy =====
On 1 August 2023, Macron signed into law a multi-year military planning bill, which set the stage for a 40%-increase in military spending to a total of €413 billion between 2024 and 2030, after it was passed by the French parliament on 13 July 2023.
===== Immigration policy =====
In February 2023, Macron's government introduced an immigration and asylum bill aimed at removing deportation safeguards, fast-tracking asylum application process and immigration litigation, while also facilitating legalization of undocumented workers. His government later pulled the draft legislation amid fears of defeat in Parliament, instead planning to hold talks with the centre-right LR party before reintroducing the bill in the autumn.
In August 2023, in a lengthy interview with weekly magazine Le Point, Macron said that France "must significantly reduce immigration, starting with illegal immigration" because the "current situation is not sustainable".
On 11 December 2023, the "flagship" immigration bill introduced by Macron's government was unexpectedly defeated after the narrow passage of a motion for preliminary dismissal in the National Assembly. Political commentators and news media described the vote as a "spectacular debacle", eventually sparking a major political crisis for Macron's minority administration.
In an effort to salvage the bill, Macron's government sent the draft legislation to a joint parliamentary committee: it resulted in a deal with the conservative-controlled Senate on a drastically hardened bill. On 19 December 2023, the French Parliament passed the piece of legislation thanks to support from the conservative LR and far-right RN parliamentary groups and in spite of a major rebellion from Macron's own coalition and ministers. Health Minister Aurélien Rousseau, whom Macron had appointed to the government only six months earlier, resigned shortly after the vote.
===== Constitutional reform =====
On the 65th anniversary of the French Constitution on 4 October 2023, Macron unveiled avenues for constitutional reform: broadening the scope and relaxing rules for referendums; enshrining the right to abortion and climate protection in the Constitution; stepping up the level of territorial devolution; giving some form of political autonomy to Corsica and New Caledonia.
On 4 March 2024, a joint session of the French Parliament passed a constitutional amendment supported by Macron to protect abortion as a 'guaranteed freedom' in the Constitution. It represented the first constitutional reform since 2008 and the first since Macron took office in 2017.
===== Attal government =====
In January 2024, in the wake of the government crisis produced by the passage of the 'controversial' immigration bill, Macron requested Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne to resign and subsequently replaced her by Education minister Gabriel Attal, making him both the youngest head of government in French history and the first openly gay man ever to hold the job.
The new Attal cabinet was widely described as the most right-leaning government since the start of the Macron Presidency: out of the 14 Cabinet ministers appointed on 11 January 2024 by Macron and Attal, 57% are former members of the conservative UMP/LR party, while prominent left-leaning ministers of the outgoing Borne government were sacked, moves described as indicating a notable tilt to the right.
===== Economy =====
In February 2024, amid slowing economic growth and disappointing unemployment figures, Macron's government unveiled €10 billion in emergency spending cuts to hold to its 2024 deficit goal.
A month later, Macron convened a 'crisis meeting' to discuss the state of France's public finances amid reports showing that the government had heavily missed its 2023 fiscal targets, with a bigger-than-forecasted deficit, putting the country's credit rating at risk of downgrade.
==== 2024 snap legislative election ====
On 9 June 2024, following the results of the 2024 European Parliament elections in which his centrist grouping received only 14.6% of the votes, finishing nearly 17 points behind Le Pen's RN party, Macron unexpectedly dissolved the National Assembly and called for an early legislative election to be held on 30 June and 7 July 2024.
In the first round of the election, on 30 June, Macron's grouping received only 20.04% of the votes nationwide, placing third well behind the hard-right RN (33.15%) and the left-wing NFP alliance (27.99%), which constituted the worst electoral performance for a governing coalition in a general election since the start of the modern French Republic in 1870. Exit polls released shortly after 8pm on 30 June suggested the RN-led alliance was on course to win either a plurality of seats or an outright majority in the second round, while Macron's coalition was set to lose at least half of the seats it won in 2022.
In the second round, on 7 July, Macron was handed another hung parliament with the left-wing coalition unexpectedly winning a plurality of seats though 90 to 100 seats short of an overall majority, leaving the left theoretically unable to form a government on its own. Macron's grouping lost both 86 seats and its status as the largest parliamentary bloc while the RN-led alliance, though dramatically underperforming the polls, still managed to make significant gains, eventually becoming the largest single party in the new National Assembly. The results presented unprecedented potential for political crisis and parliamentary gridlock.
Shortly after exit polls were released on the night of 7 July, Macron's Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, announced he would tender his resignation to the President. The following day, Macron refused Attal's resignation, instead asking him to stay on until a new government could be formed.
On 27 August, Macron refused to appoint NFP-designate Lucie Castets as prime minister.
After holding talks with leaders from parties represented in Parliament in an effort to find a working majority, Macron appointed conservative figure Michel Barnier as Prime Minister on 5 September and invited him to form a "unity government". Barnier's appointment was seen as a growing sign of Le Pen's influence on French politics since she had previously blocked the appointment of Xavier Bertrand, another conservative figure seen as a serious contender for the premiership.
===== Vote of no-confidence in the Barnier government =====
In early December 2024, Prime Minister Michel Barnier resorted to Article 49.3 of the Constitution to pass the 2025 Social Security budget without parliamentary approval. In response to Barnier's move, the National Assembly approved a vote of no confidence on 4 December, effectively bringing down the government. Barnier resigned, but Macron vowed to stay in office until the end of his term. It was the first French cabinet to be toppled by Parliament since 1962. Macron addressed the country on 5 December. He accepted the resignation of Barnier but vowed to remain in office until the end of his term. He blamed an alliance of 'extreme left and extreme right' for the collapse of the French government.
==== Foreign affairs ====
On 16 June 2022, Macron visited Ukraine alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italy's Prime Minister Mario Draghi. He met with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and expressed "European Unity" for Ukraine. He said that the nations that remained neutral in the Russo-Ukrainian War made a historic mistake and were complicit in the new imperialism.
In September 2022, Macron criticized the United States, Norway and other "friendly" natural gas supplier states for the extremely high prices of their supplies, saying in October 2022 that Europeans are "paying four times as much as the price at which you sell to your industry. That is not exactly the meaning of friendship."
Macron and his wife attended the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey, London, on 19 September 2022, and the coronation of King Charles III the following year.
On 23 October 2022, Macron became the first foreign leader to meet new Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, just a day after she and her ministers were sworn into office.
During a summit to China with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, which included a formal meeting with Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and President of China, Macron called for Europe to reduce its dependence on the United States in general and to stay neutral and avoid being drawn into any possible confrontation between the U.S. and China over Taiwan. Speaking after a three-day state visit to China, Macron emphasised his theory of strategic autonomy, suggesting that Europe could become a "third superpower". He argued that Europe should focus on boosting its own defence industries and additionally reduce its dependence on the United States dollar (USD). in a follow-up speech in The Hague to further outline his vision of strategic autonomy for Europe. On 7 June 2023, a report by the pan-European think tank European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) found that most Europeans agree with Macron's views on China and the United States.
In February 2023, he welcomed Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in Paris to normalize relations between France and Ethiopia, strained by the Tigray War between the Ethiopian government and Tigray rebels.
On 31 May 2023 Macron visited the GLOBSEC forum in Bratislava, where he again delivered a speech on European sovereignty. During the question and answer session that followed the Bratislava speech, he said that negotiating with Putin may have to take priority over any war crimes tribunal which some others, including Zelensky, wish to see.
On 12 June 2023, Macron promised to deliver more ammunition, weapons and armed vehicles to help Ukrainian forces with the ongoing counter-offensive to liberate Russian-occupied southeastern Ukraine. At the NATO Summit in Vilnius, he promised to supply Ukraine with Scalp long-range cruise missiles to hit Russian targets deep behind the front lines. On 10 November 2023, he said that what Russia is doing in Ukraine is "imperialism and colonialism" and it was the "duty" of France and other countries to help Ukraine defend itself, but added that maybe the time will come to hold fair peace negotiations and find a solution with Russia.
In June 2023 Macron hosted a global climate finance conference described by many as the new Bretton Woods Conference. The purpose is to adjust the global economy to the contemporary threats of climate change and hunger. One of the propositions is to offer low income countries aid instead of credit so they can use their resources for stopping climate change and poverty instead of debt payments. Macron supported the idea, but a climate activist from Uganda remarked that the promises were meaningless if at the same time Macron supported projects such as the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, a major threat to the climate and to the drinking water of 40 million people. At the summit Macron proposed an international taxation system and debt restructuring but stressed it can have an effect only with international cooperation.
In July 2023, Macron postponed his planned state visit to Germany due to the ongoing Nahel M. riots.
In October 2023, Macron condemned Hamas's actions during the Gaza war and expressed his support to Israel and its right to self-defense. On 10 November 2023, he called for a ceasefire and urged Israel to stop bombing Gaza and killing civilians. In July 2025, Macron announced that at the next meeting of the UN General Assembly, France would officially recognise a Palestinian state.
In February 2024, during a meeting with other European states, Macron generated controversy by suggesting sending ground troops to Ukraine. On 28 May 2024, Macron gave Ukraine permission to use SCALP EG missiles against targets on Russian soil. Such usage was instructed to be limited "to neutralize military sites from which missiles are being fired, military sites from which Ukraine is being attacked". On 24 February 2025, during a meeting with US President Donald Trump, Macron said that a truce between Ukraine and Russia could be agreed in the coming weeks. On 22 February 2025, Macron pledged to continue its supply of defense equipment to Armenia after the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, as well as humanitarian aid of 29 million euros to displaced Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh. He also stated support for the International Court of Justice's decision on November 17, 2023, of which calls on the rights of ethnic Armenian residents to return safely to their homeland.
In February 2025, Macron characterised Russia as an "existential threat" to Europe, convening a special meeting in Paris to coordinate European responses under the Weimar+ framework. In March 2025, German lawmakers approved an amendment to the Basic Law that would allow Friedrich Merz's government to implement the most massive rearmament of Germany since World War II. Germany's decision to massively increase defense spending was welcomed by Macron.
Following the Israeli strikes on Iran on 13 June 2025, Macron called for "maximum restraint" while reaffirming "Israel's right to defend itself and ensure its security." On 17 June 2025, he claimed that president Trump's haste departure from the G7 summit, was to reach a cease fire between Israel and Iran. To which Trump responded "Wrong! He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire. Much bigger than that. Whether purposely or not, Emmanuel always gets it wrong. Stay Tuned!". On 23 June 2025, Macron called Trump's air strikes on Iranian nuclear sites "illegal" and counterproductive, and called for the resumption of diplomatic talks with Iran.
In January 2026, following the capture of Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces, Macron formally called for Edmundo González to lead a "peaceful, democratic" transition in Venezuela. Macron praised the removal of the "Maduro dictatorship," stating that the Venezuelan people "can only rejoice" at being rid of his rule.
On 9 January 2026, Macron, along with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, issued a joint statement addressing the escalating anti-government protests in Iran, which had started in late December 2025. In their statement, they called on the Iranian authorities to exercise restraint and to avoid further violence.
During his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on 20 January 2026, Macron emphasized the importance of increasing Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in key European sectors to promote economic growth and facilitate technology transfer. He urged China to move beyond simply exporting products to Europe and instead focus on local manufacturing and physical presence on the continent.
==== Controversies ====
===== Uber Files =====
On 10 July 2022, The Guardian revealed that Macron had assisted Uber in lobbying during his term as the Minister of Economics and Finance, leading to calls from opposition lawmakers for a parliamentary inquiry. In his own defence, Macron expressed that he "did his job" and that he would "do it again tomorrow and the day after tomorrow". He stated, "I'm proud of it".
=== Co-prince of Andorra ===
As president of France, Macron also serves ex officio as one of the two co-princes of Andorra. His chief of staff Patrick Strzoda serves as his representative in this capacity. Joan Enric Vives i Sicília, appointed as the Bishop of Urgell on 12 May 2003, served as Macron's co-prince until Josep-Lluís Serrano Pentinat succeeded him in 2025. Macron swore the Constitution of Andorra through Strzoda in an act that took place on 15 June 2017 in Casa de la Vall. Macron visited the country on a State visit on 12 September 2019. The following day he spoke at the historic building of the General Council of Andorra alongside Episcopal Co-Prince Joan Enric Vives, Prime Minister Xavier Espot and the General Syndic Roser Suñé Pascuet.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Andorran government asked France for economic aid, but Macron refused, arguing that the Bank of France could not offer loans to another country without the approval of the European Central Bank.
In January 2024, former New Caledonian high commissioner Patrice Faure was appointed chief of staff to Macron, and in November, his representative to Andorra.
== Political positions ==
Macron's political views have been described as moderate, centrist, and pragmatic.
== Personal life ==
Macron is married to Brigitte Trogneux. She is his former La Providence High School teacher and is close to 25 years his senior. They met during a theatre workshop that she was giving when she was a 39-year-old teacher and he was a 15-year-old student and classmate of her daughter. A romantic relationship started later, and his parents attempted to separate the couple by sending him away to Paris to finish the final year of his schooling, as they felt his youth made this relationship inappropriate. (The age of consent in France is 15.) The couple reunited after Macron graduated and were married in 2007. She has three children from a previous marriage; he has no children of his own. Her role in Macron's 2017 presidential campaign has been considered pivotal, with close Macron allies stating that Brigitte Macron helped him to develop skills such as public speaking.
His best man was Henry Hermand, a businessman who loaned €550,000 to Macron for the purchase of his first apartment in Paris when he was Inspector of Finances. Hermand also let Macron use some of his offices on the Avenue des Champs Élysées in Paris for his movement En Marche.
In the 2002 French presidential election, Macron voted for souverainist Jean-Pierre Chevènement. In 2007 Macron voted for Ségolène Royal in the second round of the presidential election. During the Socialist Party primary in 2011, Macron voiced his support for François Hollande.
Macron plays the piano, which he studied for ten years in his youth. He especially enjoys the work of Robert Schumann and Franz Liszt. Macron also skis, plays tennis, and enjoys boxing. In addition to his native French, Macron speaks fluent English.
In August 2017 a photojournalist was arrested and detained by the police for six hours after he entered the private residence where Macron was vacationing in Marseille. Macron subsequently filed a complaint for "harassment". In September 2017 he dropped the complaint "as a gesture of appeasement".
On 27 August 2017, Macron and his wife Brigitte adopted Nemo, a black Labrador Retriever-Griffon dog who lives with them in the Élysée Palace.
When he was a schoolboy, Macron decided to be baptised as a Catholic. In June 2018, prior to meeting Pope Francis, he identified himself as an agnostic Catholic. In the same year he agreed to become an honorary canon of St John Lateran, the cathedral of Rome.
A fan of football, Macron is a supporter of French club Olympique de Marseille. During the 2018 World Cup, he attended the semi-final between France and Belgium with the Belgian King Philippe and Queen Mathilde; and at the World Cup final against Croatia, he sat and celebrated alongside Croatian president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović. Macron received widespread media attention for his celebrations and his interactions with the Croatian president.
At a new year's celebration for military forces on 15 January 2026, Macron was seen with a bulging eye. The condition is known as a "sub-conjunctival haemorrhage". He chose to wear aviator sunglasses in public spaces to obscure this injury. After gaining attention for wearing aviator sunglasses while speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on 20 January, demand for Henry Jullien sunglasses spiked. The brand's website crashed and its parent company, iVision, saw its stock price increase by 28%.
== Honours and decorations ==
=== National honours ===
=== Foreign honours ===
== Prizes ==
Le Trombinoscope (2014, 2016)
Charlemagne Prize (2018)
Champion of the Earth (2018)
Westfälischer Friedenspreis (2024)
== Publications ==
Macron, Emmanuel; Goldberg, Jonathan; Scott, Juliette (2017). Revolution. Brunswick, Victoria, Australia: Scribe Publications. ISBN 978-1-925322-71-2. OCLC 992124322.
——; Fottorino, Éric (2017). Macron par Macron (in French). La Tour d'Aigues, France: Editions de l'Aube. ISBN 978-2-8159-2484-9. OCLC 1003593124. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_NBA_Finals | 1989 NBA Finals | The 1989 NBA Finals was the championship series of the National Basketball Association's (NBA) 1988–89 season, and the conclusion of the season's playoffs. The series was a rematch of the previous year's championship round between the Eastern Conference champion Detroit Pistons and the two-time defending NBA champion and Western Conference champion Los Angeles Lakers. This, along with the 1983 NBA Finals, were the only two NBA championships of the 1980s not to be won by either the Lakers or the Boston Celtics; every NBA Finals of that decade featured either the Lakers or Celtics, and sometimes both (1984, 1985, 1987). Coincidentally, the Lakers were also swept in the 1983 NBA Finals, that time by the Philadelphia 76ers.
During the season, the Lakers had won their division, with Magic Johnson collecting his second MVP award. The team swept the first three playoff series (Pacific Division foes: Portland, Seattle, and Phoenix), resulting in a rematch with the Detroit Pistons in the Finals.
The Pistons had dominated the Eastern Conference, winning 63 games during the regular season. After sweeping the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks, the Pistons beat the Chicago Bulls in six games, earning a second straight trip to the NBA Finals. In the season before, the Lakers had beaten them in a tough, seven-game series.
The Pistons won the series in a four-game sweep of the injury-riddled Lakers, winning their first championship in franchise history and becoming the last of the NBA's "Original Eight" charter teams to win a championship. It marked the first time a team (Lakers) had swept the first three rounds of the playoffs, only to be swept in the finals. As of 2026, the 1989 Pistons are the most recent Eastern Conference team to sweep an NBA Finals. The Pistons teams clinched all four series on the road, which were later followed by the 1999 San Antonio Spurs and the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers.
For their rough physical play, and sometimes arrogant demeanor, Pistons' center Bill Laimbeer nicknamed the team 'The Bad Boys'. The name became an unofficial slogan for the Pistons throughout the next season as well.
Following the series, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar announced his retirement at 42, after 20 years with the NBA.
Pistons' guard Joe Dumars was named MVP for the series.
== Background ==
=== Detroit Pistons ===
Before the season began, the Pistons moved from the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan to the brand-new The Palace of Auburn Hills, Michigan. The new arena was envisioned by Pistons owner William Davidson. The arena consisted of luxury boxes and club seating, which added profits compared to older arenas. The Pistons sold out all 41 games at The Palace.
The team itself was also an improvement, highlighted by a mid-season trade that sent Adrian Dantley to the Dallas Mavericks for Mark Aguirre. With Aguirre taking over the starting small forward spot, the Pistons went on a tear, winning 31 of its final 37 games to finish with a league-best 63–19 record.
Their second-half momentum carried over to the playoffs, sweeping both the Boston Celtics and the Milwaukee Bucks in the first two rounds. However, they lost two of the first three games to their archrival Chicago Bulls in the conference finals, but after devising the Jordan Rules scheme to contain Michael Jordan, the Pistons won the final three games to earn another Finals berth.
=== Los Angeles Lakers ===
Prior to the season, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar announced that the 1988–89 season was to be his last. Therefore, his 'retirement tour' consisted of pregame tributes in every arena to pay homage to the retiring Lakers captain.
Seeking to become the first team since the Boston Celtics dynasty of the 1960s to win three consecutive championships, the Lakers managed to put up a conference-best 57–25 record. The team's core remained mostly intact, save for veteran forward Kurt Rambis, who signed with the expansion Charlotte Hornets as a free agent. Their most notable addition was former Chicago Bulls forward Orlando Woolridge.
In the playoffs, the Lakers turned it up a notch. They became the first team to win their first 11 playoff games, as they swept the Portland Trail Blazers, Seattle SuperSonics and Phoenix Suns in each of the first three rounds. Magic Johnson won the MVP award that year.
=== Road to the Finals ===
=== Regular season series ===
The Detroit Pistons won both games in the regular season series:
== Series summary ==
== Game summaries ==
=== Game 1 ===
Just before Game 1, Lakers guard Byron Scott suffered a severe hamstring injury in practice; he would miss the series. His absence would especially be felt on the defensive end. Magic Johnson had a size advantage, but was too slow to defend against the Pistons' three-headed backcourt monster of Joe Dumars, Isiah Thomas, and Vinnie Johnson. Super-sub Michael Cooper would have to log more minutes than he was accustomed to, and rookie David Rivers was inexperienced. Another option was Tony Campbell, but he played very little during the season.
Without Scott's quick switches and help defense, the Piston guards smoked the Lakers in Game 1. Thomas had 24 points, Dumars 22, and Johnson 19. With six minutes left, Detroit led 97–79, and the final score was 109–97.
=== Game 2 ===
The short-handed Lakers snapped right back in Game 2, pounding the boards and taking a strong first-quarter lead. Joe Dumars had a hot first half with 24 points (he would finish with 33) to keep Detroit close. Los Angeles held a 62–56 lead at halftime.
With about four minutes left in the third period, a major misfortune would befall the Lakers, leading 75–73. John Salley blocked a Mychal Thompson shot, which started a Detroit fast break. Magic Johnson dropped back to play defense, and in so doing, pulled his hamstring. Magic was visibly hurt and frustrated, and had to be coaxed into leaving the floor. Dick Stockton, commentating for CBS, said, "I've never seen him (Magic) look like that", referring to Magic's look of intense pain combined with resignation.
The Pistons had made the bucket on the break to tie the game at 75–75, but the Lakers, minus Johnson, charged to a 90–81 lead late in the period. In the fourth, however, the Lakers missed three easy baskets and committed an offensive foul as Detroit first tied the game, then went up 102–95. The gritty Lakers charged back and cut the lead to 106–104. The Pistons committed a 24-second violation, giving the Lakers the ball with eight seconds left.
James Worthy drove to the basket and was fouled, giving him an opportunity to tie the game. But the 1988 Finals MVP missed the first free throw. He made the second, bringing the Lakers within one, 106–105. Isiah Thomas then hit two free throws with one second remaining to give the Pistons a three-point lead and the Lakers, who called timeout to advance the ball to midcourt, one last chance to force overtime, but Jeff Lamp lost the ball on the inbound pass, and the horn sounded, ending Game 2 with the Pistons winning, 108–105, to take a 2–0 series lead.
=== Game 3 ===
The Pistons had a 2–0 series lead, but knew it would be tough going in L.A. Magic Johnson tried to play, but the pain of his hamstring injury was just too great. He left Game 3 after just five minutes with the Lakers leading, 11–8.
Without Magic, the Lakers made a heroic effort. James Worthy scored 26 points, and the 42-year-old Kareem Abdul-Jabbar found the fountain of youth, contributing 24 points and 13 rebounds. Michael Cooper, the last remaining backcourt veteran, had 13 assists and 15 points. But it wasn't enough.
Dennis Rodman, despite suffering from painful back spasms, pulled down 19 rebounds between trips to the sideline for rubdowns. But the main effort came from the guards. Joe Dumars scored 31, including a remarkable third quarter in which he scored 17 consecutive points (21 in all for the period). Vinnie Johnson added 17, including 13 points in the fourth. Isiah Thomas pitched in with 26 points and eight assists, including six and three in the final period.
The Pistons led 113–108 with 15 seconds left when Thomas allowed A.C. Green to tie him up and steal the ball. Thomas then fouled Lakers rookie point guard David Rivers, who made both free throws, pulling Los Angeles to within three at 113–110 with 13 seconds left. Dumars then lost the ball out of bounds with nine seconds left, giving the Lakers a shot at the tie.
The Lakers then ran a play where Rivers got free for an open three-pointer in the corner. Dumars lunged and blocked the shot, and saved the ball from going out of bounds. The Pistons then ran out the clock after Bill Laimbeer's free throw to close the game with a 114–110 win, putting them on the verge of an unexpected sweep.
=== Game 4 ===
With the Lakers' backs to the wall, coach Pat Riley admonished key offensive player James Worthy to step up his game. Worthy responded with a championship effort of 40 points on 17-of-26 field-goal shooting with Rick Mahorn in his face every step of the way. The Forum crowd was also anticipating Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's possible curtain call. During the pregame warmups and introductions, Kareem received several ovations.
With Worthy playing out of his mind, the Lakers took a 35–23 lead at the end of the first period. Despite trouble at the free-throw line (11 missed), the Pistons began to claw back as Los Angeles led 55–49 at intermission.
The Pistons started fast in the third quarter, beginning with a three-point basket by Bill Laimbeer. Mahorn then scored four quick points, and the Pistons took a 59–58 lead moments later. Dumars hit a driving bank shot, drew the foul and made the free throw, giving him 19 points on the evening. Mahorn followed that with another bucket and the Lakers called timeout. Worthy led the Lakers back into a 78–76 lead at the end of the third, but they knew the Pistons were coming on.
The Pistons took control of the game in the fourth, with James Edwards scoring particularly well. With 3:23 left and the Pistons leading 100–94, the crowd rose to a standing ovation as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar left the game. For the next two minutes, it seemed nobody wanted to hit a shot. Abdul-Jabbar reentered the game and spun and hit a bank shot with 1:37 left, his last two NBA points, cutting the Pistons' margin to 100–96. Kareem went out of the game with 47 seconds remaining amid thunderous applause.
Laimbeer hit a jumper at the 28-second mark, and the Pistons began celebrating. Riley sent Abdul-Jabbar back in after the timeout, but Michael Cooper missed a three-pointer and Isiah Thomas was fouled. Riley then sent Orlando Woolridge in for Abdul-Jabbar, this time for good, prompting a standing ovation from the crowd and acknowledgment from the players on both the Lakers and, in a rare show of sportsmanship, the Pistons. Thomas then hit the foul shots, closing out the 105–97 win and the championship. With Magic Johnson and Byron Scott sidelined by injuries, the Lakers were unable to contain the Pistons, who completed the sweep with a 105–97 win. Dumars was named Finals MVP after averaging 27.3 points per game during the series.
The Pistons won the series 4–0, capturing their first NBA championship. This was the first NBA Finals that ended in a four-game sweep since the Finals went to the 2–3–2 format in 1985.
== Team rosters ==
=== Detroit Pistons ===
=== Los Angeles Lakers ===
== Player statistics ==
Detroit Pistons
Los Angeles Lakers
== Television coverage ==
This series was aired on CBS. Dick Stockton and Hubie Brown called the action. Stockton also narrated the season-ending documentary "Motor City Madness" for NBA Entertainment.
That year, Pat O'Brien filled in for Brent Musburger for Game 2 as pre-game, half-time and post-game host as Musburger was on assignment for CBS Sports, the same thing that happened in 1988. CBS used three sideline reporters which were O'Brien (the Pistons' sideline), Lesley Visser (the Lakers' sideline) and James Brown (both teams). This was Musburger's last NBA Finals assignment for CBS, as he was fired on April 1, 1990, months before NBA's television contract with CBS expired. Musburger moved to ABC and ESPN, and later called nine NBA Finals series for ESPN Radio between 1996 and 2004.
For the start of 1989 NBA Finals CBS completely revamped their opening montage for their NBA broadcasts. The computer-generated imagery (once again set in and around a virtual arena) was made to look more realistic (live-action footage was incorporated in the backdrops). Also, the familiar theme music (an uptempo series of four notes and three bars composed by Allyson Bellink since the 1983 NBA Finals) each was rearranged to sound more intricate and to have a more emotional impact, along the lines of the network's later World Series coverage. Between the 1989 NBA Finals and the 1990 NBA Finals' intros, the theme music was slightly revised; the 1989 Finals intro incorporated more of a guitar riff, while the 1990 Finals intro featured a little more usage of trumpets.
=== International ===
== Aftermath ==
The Pistons would repeat as champions in the next year, knocking off the Clyde Drexler-led Portland Trail Blazers in five games. The Pistons team who repeated the following season was virtually the same, minus Rick Mahorn, who was left unprotected and therefore selected in the 1989 expansion draft by the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Pistons were conducting their victory celebration in Detroit while the draft was happening and Mahorn was taken aside during the festivities, so he could be told. Pistons general manager Jack McCloskey tried to reacquire Mahorn to no avail, and years later Mahorn was shown to still be bothered by what transpired as the story of the expansion draft brought him to tears during the 2014 ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary about the team.
This was Pat Riley’s last Finals appearance as the Lakers’ head coach. The next season, he resigned and became, after a brief stint as a broadcaster with NBC, the head coach of the New York Knicks from 1992 to 1995. The Lakers did make it back to the finals in 1991 in spite of Riley’s absence, but fell to Michael Jordan and his Chicago Bulls in five games, becoming the first victim of the first Bulls’ three-peat from 1991 to 1993.
A decade later, Dennis Rodman and John Salley would play for the Lakers. Salley won a championship during the last year of his career with the Lakers in 2000.
The Pistons and Lakers met one more time in the 2004 NBA Finals. Much had changed since they last met, but they still took on the personalities of their respective teams: the more physical, defensive Pistons against the finesse, offensively-minded Lakers. In the rematch, the underdog Pistons, led by Ben Wallace, Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace and Tayshaun Prince, and coached by Larry Brown, upset the star-studded future Hall-of-Fame Lakers team of Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal, Karl Malone and Gary Payton, and coached by Phil Jackson, in five games.
This was the first NBA Finals to feature special on-court decals made for the event. These were placed within the center court of each participating team's home arenas. The NBA continued to place these decals until 2014. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1901 | 1901 | 1901 (MCMI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar, the 1901st year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 901st year of the 2nd millennium, the 1st year of the 20th century, and the 2nd year of the 1900s decade. As of the start of 1901, the Gregorian calendar was 13 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
December 13 of this year is the beginning of signed 32-bit Unix time, and is scheduled to end in January 19, 2038.
== Summary ==
=== Political and military ===
1901 started with the unification of multiple British colonies in Australia on January 1 to form the Commonwealth of Australia after a referendum in 1900, Subsequently, the 1901 Australian election would see the first Australian prime minister, Edmund Barton. On the same day, Nigeria became a British protectorate.
Following this, the Victorian Era would come to an end after Queen Victoria died on January 22 after a reign of 63 years and 216 days, which was longer than those of any of her predecessors, Her son, Edward VII, succeeded her to the throne.
== Events ==
=== January ===
January 1
The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia; Edmund Barton becomes the first Prime Minister of Australia.
Nigeria becomes a British protectorate.
January 9 – Lord Kitchener reports that Christiaan de Wet has shot one of the "peace" envoys, and flogged two more, who had gone to his commando to ask the Burgher citizens of South Africa to halt fighting.
January 22 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom dies at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. She is 81 years old and, having ruled for nearly 64 years, will be the second longest-reigning monarch in British history. Her eldest son, Prince Albert Edward, "Bertie", the longest-serving Prince of Wales to this time, succeeds his mother at the age of 59, reigning as King Edward VII, of the United Kingdom and in innovation the British Dominions and also becoming Emperor of India.
January 31 – Anton Chekhov's play Three Sisters (Три сeстры, Tri sestry) is premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre.
=== February ===
February 2 – The State funeral of Queen Victoria, held at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, UK, is attended by many European royals, including Kaiser Wilhelm II and Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria.
February 12 – Viceroy of India Lord Curzon creates the new North-West Frontier Province in the north of the Punjab region, bordering Afghanistan.
February 14 – Edward VII opens his first parliament of the United Kingdom.
February 20 – The Hawaii Territory Legislature convenes for the first time.
February 22 – The Pacific Mail Steamship Company's SS City of Rio de Janeiro sinks entering San Francisco Bay, killing 128.
February 23 – The United Kingdom and Germany agree on the frontier between German East Africa and Nyasaland.
February 25 – U.S. Steel is incorporated by industrialist J. P. Morgan, as the first billion-dollar corporation.
February 26
Chi-hsui and Hsu-cheng-yu, Boxer Rebellion leaders, are executed in Peking.
The Middelburg peace conference fails in South Africa, as Boers continue to demand autonomy.
February 27 – The Sultan of Turkey orders 50,000 troops to the Bulgarian frontier because of unrest in Macedonia.
=== March ===
March 1
The United Kingdom, Germany and Japan protest the Sino-Russian agreement on Manchuria.
The 1901 Census of India is taken, the fourth, and first reliable, census of the British Raj.
March 2 – The United States Congress passes the Platt Amendment, limiting the autonomy of Cuba as a condition for the withdrawal of American troops.
March 5 – Irish nationalist demonstrators are ejected by police from the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in London.
March 6 – In Bremen, an assassination attempt is made on Wilhelm II, German Emperor.
March 17 – The first large-scale showing of Van Gogh's paintings takes place in Paris, as 71 are shown at the Bernheim-Jeune gallery, 11 years after his death.
March 31
A 7.2 Mw Black Sea earthquake occurs off the northeast coast of Bulgaria, with a maximum intensity of X (Extreme). A destructive tsunami affects the province of Dobrich.
The United Kingdom Census 1901 is taken. The number of people employed in manufacturing is at its highest-ever level.
=== April ===
April 19 – The First Philippine Republic is formally dissolved, after president Emilio Aguinaldo calls all Filipino forces to lay down arms and cease hostilities.
April 29 – Anti-Semitic rioting breaks out in Budapest.
=== May ===
May 5 – The Caste War of Yucatán in Mexico officially ends, although Mayan skirmishers continue sporadic fighting for another decade.
May 9 – The first Australian Parliament opens in Melbourne.
May 17 – Panic of 1901: The New York Stock Exchange crashes.
May 24 – 81 miners are killed in an accident at Universal Colliery, Senghenydd in South Wales.
May 25 – The Club Atlético River Plate is founded in Argentina.
May 28 – D'Arcy Concession: Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar of Persia grants British businessman William Knox D'Arcy a concession giving him an exclusive right to prospect for oil.
=== June ===
June 12 – Cuba becomes a United States protectorate.
June 15 – RMS Lucania is the first Cunard Line ship to receive a wireless radio set.
June 18 – British peace campaigner Emily Hobhouse reports on the high mortality and cruel conditions in the Second Boer War concentration camps.
June 24
The first showing of Picasso's paintings in Paris as the 19-year-old Spanish artist exhibits his work at Ambroise Vollard's gallery.
English Association Football Club Brighton & Hove Albion is formed by John Jackson to replace the amateur Brighton and Hove Rangers, following a meeting at the Seven Stars Hotel on Ship Street, Brighton.
=== July–August ===
July 1 – The first United Kingdom Fingerprint Bureau is established at Scotland Yard, the Metropolitan Police headquarters in London, by Edward Henry.
July 4
The 1,282 foot (390 m) covered bridge crossing the Saint John River at Hartland, New Brunswick, Canada opens. It is the longest covered bridge in the world.
William Howard Taft becomes Governor-General of the Philippines.
July 10 – The world's first passenger-carrying trolleybus in regular service operates on the Biela Valley Trolleybus route at Königstein, Germany.
August 5 – Peter O'Connor sets the first International Association of Athletics Federations recognised long jump world record, of 24 ft 11¾ ins (7.61m). The record will stand for 20 years.
August 6 – Discovery Expedition: Robert Falcon Scott sets sail from Britain on the RRS Discovery to explore the Ross Sea in Antarctica.
August 14 – The first claimed powered flight is made, by German-born American aviator Gustave Whitehead, in his Number 21, in Connecticut.
August 21 – The International Secretariat of National Trade Union Centres is founded in Copenhagen.
August 30 – Hubert Cecil Booth patents an electric vacuum cleaner, in the United Kingdom.
=== September ===
September 5 – The National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (later renamed Minor League Baseball), is formed in Chicago.
September 6 – William McKinley assassination: American anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots U.S. President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley dies 8 days later.
September 7 – The Boxer Rebellion in Qing dynasty China officially ends with the signing of the Boxer Protocol.
September 14 – Vice President Theodore Roosevelt becomes the 26th president of the United States, upon President William McKinley's death.
September 28 – Philippine–American War: Balangiga massacre: Filipino guerrillas kill more than forty United States soldiers in a surprise attack in the town of Balangiga.
=== October ===
October 2 – The British Royal Navy's first submarine, Holland 1, is launched at Barrow-in-Furness.
October 4 – The American yacht Columbia defeats the British Shamrock in the America's Cup yachting race in New York.
October 24 – Michigan schoolteacher Annie Edson Taylor goes over Niagara Falls in a barrel and survives.
October 29
Leon Czolgosz is executed in the electric chair for the assassination of William McKinley in Buffalo, New York on September 6.
In Amherst, New York, nurse Jane Toppan is arrested for murdering the Davis family of Boston with an overdose of morphine; she will confess to at least 31 killings.
=== November ===
November 1 – The Sigma Phi Epsilon college fraternity is founded in Richmond, Virginia.
November 9 – Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 is premiered in Moscow with the composer playing the solo part.
November 14 – 1901 Caister lifeboat disaster: a life-boat capsizes on service on the east coast of England during a great storm; nine of the twelve crew on board are killed. This gives ride to the lifeboatmen's motto "Never turn back."
November 15 – The Alpha Sigma Alpha fraternity is founded at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia.
November 18 – The Hay–Pauncefote Treaty is signed by the United Kingdom and United States, allowing the U.S. to build the Panama Canal under its sole control.
November 25 – Auguste Deter is first examined by German psychiatrist Dr. Alois Alzheimer, leading to a diagnosis of the condition that will carry Alzheimer's name.
=== December ===
December 3
U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt delivers a 20,000-word speech to the United States House of Representatives asking Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits".
The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 is passed by the new Parliament of Australia as the basis of a White Australia policy.
December 10 – The first Nobel Prize ceremony is held in Stockholm, on the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death.
December 12 – Guglielmo Marconi receives the first trans-Atlantic radio signal, sent from Poldhu, England, to St. John's, Newfoundland; it is the letter "S" in Morse code.
December 20 – The final spike is driven into the Mombasa–Victoria–Uganda Railway, in modern-day Kisumu, Kenya.
=== Date unknown ===
The okapi is observed for the first time by Europeans (previously known only to African natives).
New Zealand inventor Ernest Godward invents the spiral hairpin.
German engineer Richard Fiedler invents the modern flamethrower, the Kleinflammenwerfer.
American businessman William S. Harley draws up plans for his first prototype motorcycle.
AB Lux, as the predecessor of Electrolux, founded in Sweden.
American retail pharmacy Walgreens is founded in Chicago.
The Intercollegiate Prohibition Association is established in Chicago.
The Bulgarian Women's Union is founded.
Splošno slovensko žensko društvo , the first women's organisation in Slovenia, is founded.
== Births ==
=== January ===
January 1 – George of Drama, Greek Orthodox priest, elder and saint (d. 1959)
January 3 – Ngô Đình Diệm, 1st president of South Vietnam (d. 1963)
January 4 – C. L. R. James, Trinidad-born writer, journalist (d. 1989)
January 7 – Teodora Fracasso, Italian Roman Catholic religious professed (d. 1927)
January 9 – Vilma Bánky, Hungarian-born American actress (d. 1991)
January 10 – Henning von Tresckow, German Wehrmacht Major General (d. 1944)
January 11 – Kwon Ki-ok, Korean pilot (d. 1988)
January 13
A. B. Guthrie Jr., American novelist and historian (d. 1991)
Wilhelm Hanle, German physicist (d. 1993)
January 14
Bebe Daniels, American actress (d. 1971)
Alfred Tarski, Polish logician and mathematician (d. 1983)
January 16 – Fulgencio Batista, Cuban leader (d. 1973)
January 17 – Susana Calandrelli, Argentine writer and teacher (d. 1978)
January 22 – Alberto Hurtado, Chilean Jesuit priest and saint (d. 1952)
January 25 – Mildred Dunnock, American actress (d. 1991)
January 27 – Art Rooney, American football team owner (d. 1988)
January 29 – E. P. Taylor, Canadian business tycoon (d. 1989)
January 30
Samir Al-Rifai, 9th Prime Minister of Jordan (d. 1965)
Rudolf Caracciola, German race car driver (d. 1959)
=== February ===
February 1
Frank Buckles, last surviving American veteran of World War I (d. 2011)
Clark Gable, American actor (d. 1960)
Langston Hughes, African-American writer (d. 1967)
February 2 – Jascha Heifetz, Lithuanian violinist (d. 1987)
February 3 – Arvid Wallman, Swedish diver (d. 1982)
February 9
Brian Donlevy, American actor (d. 1972)
Sebastiaan Matheus Sigismund de Ranitz, Dutch jurist and Nazi collaborator (d. 1987)
February 10 – Stella Adler, American actress, acting teacher (d. 1992)
February 15 – Kenneth Callow, British biochemist (d. 1983)
February 16 – Chester Morris, American actor (d. 1970)
February 20 – Mohammed Naguib, 30th Prime Minister of Egypt and 1st President of Egypt (d. 1984)
February 25 – Zeppo Marx, American comedian (d. 1979)
February 28 – Linus Pauling, American chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and Peace (d. 1994)
=== March ===
March 3 – Claude Choules, British World War I veteran, last surviving combat veteran from any nation (d. 2011)
March 4 – Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, Malagasy poet (d. 1937)
March 13 – Paul Fix, American actor (d. 1983)
March 23 – Bhakti Hridaya Bon, Indian guru, religious writer (d. 1982)
March 24 – Ub Iwerks, American cartoonist (d. 1971)
March 25 – Ed Begley, American actor (d. 1970)
March 26 – Teresa Demjanovich, American Roman Catholic religious professed and blessed (d. 1927)
March 27
Carl Barks, American cartoonist, screenwriter (d. 2000)
Enrique Santos Discépolo, Argentine tango, milonga musician and composer (d. 1951)
Eisaku Satō, Prime Minister of Japan, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1975)
Kenneth Slessor, Australian poet (d. 1971)
=== April ===
April 1 – Whittaker Chambers, American spy (d. 1961)
April 5 – Melvyn Douglas, American actor (d. 1981)
April 6 – Pier Giorgio Frassati, Italian Catholic youth leader and socialist.(d.1925)
April 13 – Jacques Lacan, French psychoanalyst, psychiatrist (d. 1981)
April 15
Joe Davis, English snooker, billiards player (d. 1978)
René Pleven, prime minister of France (d. 1993)
April 16 – Lajos Dinnyés, 41st prime minister of Hungary (d. 1961)
April 29 – Hirohito, Emperor of Japan (d. 1989)
April 30 – Simon Kuznets, Ukrainian-born American economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1985)
=== May ===
May 3 – Gino Cervi, Italian actor (d. 1974)
May 7 – Gary Cooper, American actor (d. 1961)
May 11 – Rose Ausländer, German poet (d. 1988)
May 13 – Witold Pilecki, Polish resistance leader (executed 1948)
May 17 – Werner Egk, German composer (d. 1983)
May 18 – Vincent du Vigneaud, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1978)
May 20 – Max Euwe, Dutch chess player (d. 1981)
May 21
Horace Heidt, American bandleader (d. 1986)
Suzanne Lilar, Belgian essayist, novelist and playwright (d. 1992)
May 30 – Mieczysław Fogg, Polish singer and artist (d. 1990)
May 31 – Alfredo Antonini, Italian-born American conductor and composer (d. 1983)
=== June ===
June 1 – Tom Gorman, Australian rugby league footballer (d. 1978)
June 3 – Zhang Xueliang, Chinese military leader (d. 2001)
June 6 – Sukarno, 1st president of Indonesia (d. 1970)
June 7 – Hugo Ballivián, Bolivian military officer, 44th President of Bolivia (d. 1993)
June 13 – Tage Erlander, Swedish politician, 25th prime minister of Sweden (d. 1985)
June 16 – Henri Lefebvre, French Marxist philosopher, sociologist (d. 1991)
June 18
Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (d. 1918)
Denis Johnston, Irish playwright (d. 1984)
June 23 – Chuck Taylor, American basketball player, salesman (d. 1969)
June 24
Marcel Mule, French saxophonist (d. 2001)
Harry Partch, American composer (d. 1974)
June 26 – Stuart Symington, American politician (d. 1988)
June 27 – Merle Tuve, American physicist (d. 1982)
June 29 – Nelson Eddy, American singer, actor (d. 1967)
=== July ===
July 7
Vittorio De Sica, Italian actor and film director (d. 1974)
Eiji Tsuburaya, Japanese film director and special effects designer (d. 1970)
July 9
Barbara Cartland, English novelist (d. 2000)
Frank Finnigan, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 1991)
July 13 – Eric Portman, English actor (d. 1969)
July 17 – Bruno Jasieński, Polish poet (d. 1938)
July 24
Mabel Albertson, American actress (d. 1982)
Igor Ilyinsky, Soviet and Russian actor, comedian and director (d. 1987)
July 28 – Rudy Vallée, American actor and jazz musician (d. 1986)
July 31 – Jean Dubuffet, French painter (d. 1985)
=== August ===
August 1 – Pancho Villa, Filipino boxer (d. 1925)
August 4 – Louis Armstrong, American jazz musician (d. 1971)
August 8 – Ernest Lawrence, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1958)
August 10 – Franco Dino Rasetti, Italian scientist (d. 2001)
August 20 – Salvatore Quasimodo, Italian novelist, writer and Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1968)
August 26
Maxwell D. Taylor, American general (d. 1987)
Chen Yi, Chinese military commander and politician (d. 1972)
Jan de Quay, Dutch politician, psychologist and 31st Prime Minister of the Netherlands (d. 1985)
August 30
John Gunther, American writer (d. 1970)
Roy Wilkins, American civil rights activist (d. 1981)
=== September ===
September 2
Andreas Embirikos, Greek poet (d. 1975)
Adolph Rupp, American college basketball coach (d. 1977)
September 4 – William Lyons, British automobile engineer, designer (d. 1985)
September 5 – Mario Scelba, 33rd prime minister of Italy (d. 1991)
September 7 – Abdallah El-Yafi, 7-time prime minister of Lebanon (d. 1986)
September 8 – Hendrik Verwoerd, 6th prime minister of South Africa (d. 1966)
September 14 – Gulbrand Lunde, Norwegian chemist and politician, Nazi collaborator (d. 1942)
September 15 – Sir Donald Bailey, British civil engineer (d. 1985)
September 16 – Andrée Brunet, French pair skater (d. 1993)
September 17 – Sir Francis Chichester, British sailor (d. 1972)
September 21 – Learie Constantine, Trinidad-born cricketer and race relations campaigner (d. 1971)
September 22 – Charles Brenton Huggins, Canadian-born cancer researcher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1997)
September 23 – Jaroslav Seifert, Czech writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1986)
September 25 – Robert Bresson, French film director (d. 1999)
September 26 – George Raft, American film actor (d. 1980)
September 28
Ed Sullivan, American entertainer (d. 1974)
William S. Paley, American businessman, founder of CBS (d. 1990)
September 29
Enrico Fermi, Italian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1954)
Lanza del Vasto, Italian philosopher, poet, and activist (d. 1981)
=== October ===
October 2 – Alice Prin, French singer (d. 1953)
October 10 – Alberto Giacometti, Swiss sculptor and painter (d. 1966)
October 19 – Arleigh Burke, American admiral (d. 1996)
October 20 – Adelaide Hall, American jazz singer, entertainer (d. 1993)
October 22 – Wijeyananda Dahanayake, 5th prime minister of Sri Lanka (d. 1997)
October 29 – Georges Moulène, French footballer (d. 1985)
=== November ===
November 2 – James Dunn, American actor (d. 1967)
November 3
Prithviraj Kapoor, Indian actor and director (d. 1972)
Leopold III of Belgium (d. 1983)
November 4 – Yi Bangja, Crown Princess of Korea (d. 1989)
November 8 – Xu Xiangqian, Communist military leader in the People's Republic of China, defense minister (d. 1990)
November 11
Helen Reichert, American broadcaster and educator (d. 2011)
Magda Goebbels, wife of German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels (d. 1945)
November 17 – Lee Strasberg, Polish-born American actor, acting teacher and co-founder of method acting (d. 1982)
November 18 – George Gallup, American statistician, opinion pollster (d. 1984)
November 22
Lee Patrick, American actress (d. 1982)
Joaquín Rodrigo, Spanish composer (d. 1999)
November 25 – Fernando Tambroni, Italian politician, 36th Prime Minister of Italy (d. 1963)
November 28
Roy Urquhart, British general (d. 1988)
Max Wagner, Mexican-born American film actor (d. 1975)
November 29 – Mildred Harris, American actress (d. 1944)
=== December ===
December 5
Walt Disney, American animator, film producer (d. 1966)
Milton Erickson, American psychiatrist (d. 1980)
Werner Heisenberg, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1976)
December 9 – Jean Mermoz, French aviator (d. 1936)
December 16 – Margaret Mead, American cultural anthropologist (d. 1978)
December 19 – Vitorino Nemesio, Portuguese poet and author (d. 1978)
December 23 – Viktor Gutić, Croatian fascist official (d. 1947)
December 25 – Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester (d. 2004)
December 27 – Marlene Dietrich, German-American actress (d. 1992)
December 31
Julia Bathory, Hungarian glass designer (d. 2000)
Karl-August Fagerholm, Prime Minister of Finland (d. 1984)
== Deaths ==
=== January–February ===
January 1 – Ignatius L. Donnelly, American politician and writer (b. 1831)
January 8 – John Barry, Irish recipient of the Victoria Cross (b. 1873)
January 10 – Sir James Dickson, Premier of Queensland, Australian Minister for Defence (b. 1832)
January 11 – Vasily Kalinnikov, Russian composer (b. 1866)
January 14 – Víctor Balaguer, Spanish politician, author (b. 1824)
January 16
Arnold Böcklin, Swiss artist (b. 1827)
Mahadev Govind Ranade, Indian reformer (b. 1842)
January 17
Leonard Fulton Ross, American Civil War general (b. 1823)
Frederic W. H. Myers, British poet and psychic researcher (b. 1843)
January 19 – Albert, 4th duc de Broglie, French politician, 28th Prime Minister of France (b. 1821)
January 21 – Elisha Gray, American inventor, appliance manufacturer (b. 1835)
January 22 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Empress of India (b. 1819)
January 27 – Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer (b. 1813)
January 28 – Iosif Gurko, Russian field marshal (b. 1828)
February 7 – Ana Betancourt, Cuban national heroine (b. 1832)
February 10 – Max von Pettenkofer, Bavarian chemist and hygienist (b. 1818)
February 11
King Milan I of Serbia (b. 1854)
Ramón de Campoamor, Spanish poet (b. 1817)
February 14 – Sir Edward Stafford, Scottish-New Zealand educator, politician and 3rd Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1819)
February 22 – George Francis FitzGerald, Irish mathematician (b. 1851)
February 26 – Lucyna Ćwierczakiewiczowa, Polish writer (b. 1829)
=== March–April ===
March 13 – Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States (b. 1833)
March 23 – Konstantin Stoilov, 8th Prime Minister of Bulgaria (b. 1853)
March 31 – Sir John Stainer, British composer and organist (b. 1840)
April 1 – François-Marie Raoult, French chemist (b. 1830)
April 3 – Richard D'Oyly Carte, English impresario (b. 1844)
April 9 – Shrimad Rajchandra, Indian Jain philosopher, scholar and poet, spiritual mentor of Mahatma Gandhi (b. 1867)
April 24 – Arvid Posse, 2nd prime minister of Sweden (b. 1820)
=== May–June ===
May 1 – Lewis Waterman, American inventor, businessman (b. 1837)
May 4 – Fritz Mayer van den Bergh, Belgian art collector and art historian (b. 1858)
May 5 – Mariano Ignacio Prado, Peruvian general and statesman, twice President of Peru (b. 1825)
May 7 – Dimitar Grekov, 10th Prime Minister of Bulgaria (b. 1847)
May 19 – Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, 1st President of South Africa (b. 1819)
May 21 – Sir John Commerell, British admiral of the fleet (b. 1829)
May 22 – Gaetano Bresci, Italian anarchist and assassin (b. 1869)
May 24 – Charlotte Mary Yonge, English novelist (b. 1823)
May 31 – Ernest de Sarzec, French archeologist (b. 1832)
June 2 – George Leslie Mackay, Canadian missionary (b. 1844)
June 4 – Charlotte Fowler Wells, American phrenologist (b. 1814)
June 9
Walter Besant, English writer (b. 1836)
Adolf Bötticher, German art historian (b. 1842)
June 13 – Leopoldo Alas, 'Clarín', Spanish novelist (b. 1852)
June 16 – Herman Grimm, German historian (b. 1828)
June 21 – Anthony Hoskins, British admiral (b. 1828)
June 25 – Alexandru Candiano-Popescu, Romanian general, lawyer, journalist, and poet (b. 1841)
=== July–August ===
July 4
John Fiske, American philosopher (b. 1842)
Johannes Schmidt, German linguist (b. 1843)
July 6
Chlodwig, Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Chancellor of Germany (b. 1819)
Joseph LeConte, American physician and geologist (b. 1823)
July 7 – Johanna Spyri, Swiss writer (b. 1827)
July 10 – Kliment of Tarnovo, 2nd Prime Minister of Bulgaria (b. 1841)
July 11 – Marietta Bones, American suffragist, social reformer, philanthropist (b. 1842)
July 18 – Jan ten Brink, Dutch writer (b. 1834)
August 5 – Victoria, Princess Royal (b. 1840)
August 12
Francesco Crispi, 11th Prime Minister of Italy (b. 1819)
Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, Finnish-Swedish botanist, geologist, mineralogist, and explorer (b. 1832)
August 19 – Shō Tai, last king of the Ryūkyū Kingdom in Japan (b. 1843)
August 21 – Adolf Eugen Fick, German-born physician and physiologist (b. 1829)
=== September–October ===
September 9 – Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French painter (b. 1864)
September 10 – Emanuella Carlbeck, Swedish educator and social reformer (b. 1829)
September 14 – William McKinley, 25th President of the United States (assassinated) (b. 1843)
September 15 – Sir Joseph Palmer Abbott, Australian politician and solicitor (b. 1842)
September 25 – Sir Arthur Fremantle, British army general (b. 1835)
October 1 – Abdur Rahman Khan, Emir of Afghanistan (b. 1844)
October 10 – Lorenzo Snow, 5th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b. 1814)
October 15 – Carlos María Fitz-James Stuart, 16th Duke of Alba, Spanish aristocrat (b. 1849)
October 19 – Carl Frederik Tietgen, Danish financier, industrialist (b. 1829)
October 28 – Paul Rée, German author and philosopher (b. 1849)
October 29
Leon Czolgosz, Polish-American assassin of U.S. President William McKinley (executed) (b. 1873)
John Kemp Starley, English bicycle inventor (b. 1854)
=== November–December ===
November 7 – Li Hongzhang, Chinese general (b. 1823)
November 13 – Sir William Stewart, British admiral (b. 1822)
November 27 – Clement Studebaker, American manufacturer (b. 1831)
November 29 – Francisco Pi y Margall, Spanish politician, former president of the Republic (b. 1824)
November 30 – Edward John Eyre, English explorer, Governor of Jamaica (b. 1815)
December 6 – Bertha Wehnert-Beckmann, German photographer (b. 1815)
December 11 – Lev Ivanov, Russian choreographer (b. 1834)
== Nobel Prizes ==
Physics – Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
Chemistry – Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff
Medicine – Emil Adolf von Behring
Literature – Sully Prudhomme
Peace – Jean Henri Dunant and Frédéric Passy
== Significance of 1901 for software ==
The date of Friday December 13 20:45:52 1901 is significant for modern computers because it is the earliest date representable with a signed 32-bit integer on systems that reference time in seconds since the Unix epoch. This corresponds to −2147483648 seconds from Thursday January 1 00:00:00 1970. Software that depends on this representation cannot represent an earlier date.
Similarly, many computer systems suffer from the year 2038 problem, when the positive number of seconds since 1970 exceeds 2147483647 (01111111 11111111 11111111 11111111 in binary) and, if represented as a signed 32-bit integer, wraps to −2147483648, representing Friday December 13 20:45:52 1901. In a way, the year 2038 problem for using signed 32-bit integers with January 1, 1970, as the zero date is as the year 2000 problem was for software using two-digit decimal integers with January 1, 1900, as the zero date. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_and_Prejudice#Film,_television_and_theatre | Pride and Prejudice#Film, television and theatre | Pride and Prejudice is the second published novel (but third to be written) by English author Jane Austen, written when she was aged 20–21, and later published in 1813.
A novel of manners, it follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the protagonist of the book, who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between superficial goodness and actual goodness.
Her father Mr Bennet, owner of the Longbourn estate in Hertfordshire, has five daughters; but this estate is entailed by a strict settlement that Mr Bennet entered into when coming of age, so now can only be inherited in the male line. His wife brought a settlement of £5,000 into the marriage as her 'separate estate', and has since inherited an additional £4,000 on the death of her father; but Mrs Bennet and her daughters face living only on the interest from these sums upon Mr Bennet's death. To his regret, he has failed to save out of the income from the Longbourn estate to provide enhanced marriage portions for his daughters. From the Bennets' perspective, it is imperative that at least one of their daughters marry well to support the others, which is a primary motivation driving the plot.
Pride and Prejudice has consistently appeared near the top of lists of "most-loved books" among literary scholars and the reading public. It has become one of the most popular novels in English literature, with over 20 million copies sold, and has inspired many derivatives in modern literature. For more than a century, dramatic adaptations, reprints, unofficial sequels, films, and TV versions of Pride and Prejudice have portrayed the memorable characters and themes of the novel, reaching mass audiences.
== Plot summary ==
In the early 19th century, during the Napoleonic Wars, the Bennet family lives at their Longbourn estate, situated near the small town of Meryton in Hertfordshire, England. Mrs Bennet's greatest desire is to marry off her five daughters to secure their futures. A regiment of militia is encamped outside the town, and the younger Bennet daughters flirt with the officers.
The arrival of Mr Bingley, a rich bachelor who rents the neighbouring Netherfield estate, gives her hope that one of her daughters might contract a marriage to their advantage, because, as stated in the novel's opening sentence, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." At a ball, the family is introduced to the Netherfield party, including Mr Bingley, his two sisters, Caroline, who is unmarried, and Louisa, who is married to Mr Hurst, and his closest friend Mr Darcy. Mr Bingley's friendly and cheerful manner earns him popularity among the guests. He appears interested in Jane, the eldest Bennet daughter. Mr Darcy, reputed to be twice as wealthy as Mr Bingley, is haughty and aloof, causing a decided dislike of him. He declines to dance with Elizabeth, the second-eldest Bennet daughter, as she is "not handsome enough". Although she jokes about it with her friend, Elizabeth is deeply offended. Despite this first impression, Mr Darcy secretly begins to find himself drawn to Elizabeth as they continue to encounter each other at social events, appreciating her wit and frankness.
Mr Collins, a recently ordained clergyman and, as a distant cousin, the presumptive inheritor of the Longbourn estate, visits the Bennet family with the intention of finding a wife among the five girls under the advice of his patroness Lady Catherine de Bourgh, also revealed to be Mr Darcy's aunt. He decides to pursue Elizabeth. The Bennet family meets the charming militia officer George Wickham, who tells Elizabeth in confidence that Mr Darcy had treated him badly in the past. Elizabeth's prejudice toward Mr Darcy leads her to believe Wickham. Elizabeth dances with Mr Darcy at a ball where Mrs Bennet hints loudly that she expects Jane and Bingley to become engaged. Elizabeth rejects Mr Collins's marriage proposal, to her mother's fury and her father's relief. Mr Collins subsequently proposes to Charlotte Lucas, a friend of Elizabeth's, and is accepted. Having heard Mrs Bennet's words at the ball, and disapproving of the marriage, Mr Darcy prompts Mr Bingley to leave for London and then, supported by the two sisters, persuades him not to return to Netherfield. A heartbroken Jane visits her Aunt and Uncle Gardiner in London to raise her spirits, while Elizabeth's hatred for Mr Darcy grows, as she suspects he was responsible for Mr Bingley's departure.
In the spring, Elizabeth visits Charlotte and Mr Collins in Kent. Elizabeth and her hosts are invited to Rosings Park, Lady Catherine's home. Mr Darcy and his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, are also visiting. Fitzwilliam tells Elizabeth how Mr Darcy recently saved a friend, presumably Bingley, from an undesirable match. Elizabeth realises that the prevented engagement was to Jane. Mr Darcy proposes to Elizabeth, declaring his love for her despite her low social connections. She is shocked, as she was unaware of Mr Darcy's interest, and rejects him angrily, saying that he is the last person she would ever marry and that she could never love a man who caused her sister such unhappiness; she further accuses him of treating Wickham unjustly. Mr Darcy brags about his success in separating Bingley and Jane and sarcastically dismisses the accusation regarding Wickham without addressing it. The next day, Mr Darcy gives Elizabeth a letter explaining that Wickham, the son of his late father's steward, had refused the parish "living" Mr Darcy's father had intended for him, and was instead given money to pursue a career in the law. Wickham had quickly squandered the money and then tried to elope with Darcy's 15-year-old sister, Georgiana, for her considerable dowry. Mr Darcy also writes that he separated Jane and Bingley because he believed her to be indifferent to Bingley and because of the lack of propriety displayed by her family. While still believing Mr Darcy having been mistaken about Jane, Elizabeth realises from his letter how much he has had to be on guard against marital adventurers; and is ashamed by her mother's predatory behaviour and her own prejudice.
Months later, Elizabeth accompanies the Gardiners on a tour of Derbyshire. They persuade Elizabeth to visit Pemberley, Darcy's estate there, noting that he is unlikely to be at home. When Mr Darcy returns unexpectedly, he is exceedingly gracious with Elizabeth and the Gardiners. Elizabeth is surprised by Darcy's behaviour and grows fond of him, even coming to regret rejecting his proposal. In Derbyshire she receives news that her sister Lydia has run off with Wickham. She tells Mr Darcy; both depart in haste. The errant couple are eventually tracked down in London. After an agonising interim, Wickham agrees to marry Lydia; all assume that Mr Gardiner has paid off Wickham, and Mr Bennet is deeply troubled at how this debt may be repaid. But when Lydia and Wickham, now married, visit the Bennet family at Longbourn, Lydia accidentally lets slip to Jane and Elizabeth that Mr Darcy was at her wedding. Jane assures Lydia that they will not probe her further, but Elizabeth, seized with suppositions, writes to Aunt Gardiner for further information. Although Mr Darcy, seeking to avoid placing Mr Bennet and Elizabeth under further obligations, had sworn everyone involved to secrecy, Mrs Gardiner now feels obliged to inform Elizabeth in a confidential letter that he had secured the match at great expense and trouble to himself. Mrs Gardiner concludes this letter by observing that Mr Darcy is clearly in need of a wife, and supposes that Elizabeth is the object of his 'sly' intentions. She indirectly implies that Elizabeth herself may already be aware of this.
Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy return to Netherfield. Jane accepts Mr Bingley's proposal. A week later, Lady Catherine, having heard from a confidential letter that Mr Collins has nevertheless shared with her that Elizabeth and Mr Darcy may intend to marry, visits Elizabeth and demands she promise never to accept Mr Darcy's proposal, as she and Darcy's late mother had already planned his marriage to her daughter Anne. While admitting that she and Mr Darcy were not engaged, Elizabeth insistently refuses to offer any assurance that they would never do so. Outraged Lady Catherine storms off, pointedly refusing to proffer the conventional civilities, to confront Mr Darcy with the same demands she had made of Elizabeth. Darcy similarly refuses to comply, and heartened at his aunt's indignant relaying of Elizabeth's response, returns with Bingley to Longbourn. When Elizabeth reveals that she had already known of his part in Lydia's marriage, and offers him her thanks, Darcy realises that this may not present the bar to their engagement that he had feared. He again proposes marriage and is accepted. That evening, Darcy seeks the proper approval of Mr Bennet and receives it, though Mr Bennet needs extensive persuading from Elizabeth that this truly is her wish. He eventually gives his blessing, at which Elizabeth lets him into the secret of what Darcy had done for Lydia, which ostensibly takes the burden from Mr Bennet's shoulders. He may now immediately make an offer to repay the debt in full, safe in the confidence that it will be refused, but family honour will be restored.
== Characters ==
Elizabeth Bennet – the second-eldest of the Bennet daughters, she is attractive, witty and intelligent – but with a tendency to form tenacious and prejudiced first impressions. As the story progresses, so does her tumultuous relationship with Mr Darcy. The course of Elizabeth and Darcy's relationship is ultimately decided when Darcy overcomes his pride, and Elizabeth overcomes her prejudice, leading them both to surrender to their love for each other.
Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy – Mr Bingley's friend and owner of the Darcy family seat of Pemberley in Derbyshire, said to be worth at least £10,000 a year. Although he is handsome, tall, and intelligent, Darcy lacks ease and social graces, so others frequently mistake his initially haughty reserve as proof of excessive pride. A new visitor to the Meryton setting of the novel, he is ultimately Elizabeth Bennet's love interest. Though he appears to be proud and is frequently disliked at first impression for this reason, his servants vouch for his kindness and decency.
Mr Bennet – A logical and reasonable middle-aged landed gentleman of a more modest income of £2,000 per annum, and the dryly sarcastic patriarch of the Bennet family, with five unmarried daughters. His estate, Longbourn, is entailed to the male line. His affection for his wife wore off early in their marriage and is now reduced to mere toleration. He is often described as 'indolent' in the novel. His detachment from the actions of his wife and younger daughters, and disinclination to impose economy on their spendthrift ways, is the ultimate cause of their current predicament; he knows this, and increasingly regrets it, but does nothing about it.
Mrs Bennet (née Gardiner) – the early middle-aged wife of Mr Bennet, and the mother of their five daughters. Mrs Bennet is a hypochondriac who imagines herself susceptible to attacks of tremors and palpitations (her "poor nerves") whenever things are not going her way. She is silly, frivolous, and tactless, and is given to embarrassing her husband and older daughters with a casual disregard for conventions of property, responsibility or propriety. Her main ambition in life is to marry her daughters off to wealthy men. Whether or not any such matches will give her daughters happiness is of less concern to her than is the prospect of their access to someone else's money. She received a dowry of £5,000 from her father, which is settled as providing her with a lifetime allowance of 'pin money' and as marriage portions for her daughters after her death. She then inherited a further £4,000 on her father's death. But rather than manage within these constraints, she seeks to evade her responsibilities through her daughters' marriages.
Jane Bennet – the eldest Bennet sister. She is considered the most beautiful young lady in the neighbourhood and is inclined to see only the good in others (but can be persuaded otherwise on sufficient evidence). She falls in love with Charles Bingley, a rich young man recently moved to Hertfordshire and a close friend of Mr Darcy.
Mary Bennet – the middle Bennet sister, and the plainest of her siblings. Mary has a serious disposition and mostly reads and plays music, although she is often impatient to display her accomplishments and is rather vain about them. She frequently moralises to her family. According to James Edward Austen-Leigh's A Memoir of Jane Austen, Mary ended up marrying one of her Uncle Philips's law clerks and moving into Meryton with him.
Catherine "Kitty" Bennet – the fourth Bennet daughter. Though older than Lydia, she is her shadow and follows her in her pursuit of the officers of the militia. She is often portrayed as envious of Lydia and is described as a "silly" young woman. However, it is said that she improved when removed from Lydia's influence. According to James Edward Austen-Leigh's A Memoir of Jane Austen, Kitty later married a clergyman who lived near Pemberley.
Lydia Bennet – the youngest Bennet sister. She is frivolous, headstrong, irresponsible, and spoiled, and is her mother's favorite. Her main activity in life is socialising, especially flirting with the officers of the militia. This leads to her running off with George Wickham, although he has no intention of marrying her. Lydia shows no regard for the moral code of her society; as Ashley Tauchert says, she "feels without reasoning". Mr Darcy settles on her a 'separate estate' of £1,000 at her eventual wedding to Wickham.
Charles Bingley – a handsome, amiable, and wealthy young man who leases Netherfield Park with hopes of purchasing it. Though genial and well-mannered, he is easily influenced by his friend Mr Darcy and his sisters' opinions, which leads to the disruption of his romance with Jane Bennet. His inherited fortune of £100,000 is derived from "trade" rather than landed wealth.
Caroline Bingley – the snobbish sister of Charles Bingley, with an inheritance of her own of £20,000. She harbours designs on Mr Darcy and is jealous of his growing attachment to Elizabeth. She also disapproves of her brother's admiration for Jane Bennet and is disdainful of Meryton society, driven by her vanity and desire for social elevation.
George Wickham – Wickham is a charming but reprehensible cad. He has been acquainted with Mr Darcy since infancy, being the son of Mr Darcy's father's steward. An officer in the militia, he is superficially charming and rapidly forms an attachment with Elizabeth Bennet. He later runs off with Lydia with no intention of marriage, which would have resulted in her and her family's complete disgrace; but for Darcy's intervention to bribe Wickham to marry her by paying off his immediate debts and purchasing for him a commission in a regular infantry regiment.
Mr William Collins – Mr Collins is Mr Bennet's distant cousin, a clergyman and rector of Hunsford in Kent; and the current inheritor presumptive to his estate of Longbourn House. He is an obsequious, sanctimonious and pompous man, prone to making long and tedious speeches, who is excessively devoted to his patroness and neighbour, Lady Catherine de Bourgh; and regularly dines with her at Rosings, providing a conduit of information on many confidential matters to do with the Hunsford parish and its households. The Collinses are, however, not regularly invited to dine at any other households in the locality (nor do these households dine at Rosings), both because the Hunsford rectory income is insufficient to match the 'style of living' expected of Kent landed gentry; but also by implication, because Mr Collins cannot be trusted to keep confidences from Lady Catherine.
Lady Catherine de Bourgh – the overbearing aunt of Mr Darcy. Lady Catherine is the wealthy widow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh of Rosings Park, where she resides with her daughter Anne, who has inherited her father's estate which unusually is not entailed in the male line. She meddles improperly in the business of the Overseers of the Poor and Justices of the Peace, is haughty, hectoring, pompous, domineering, and condescending, and has long planned to marry off her daughter, Anne, to Darcy to 'unite the two estates', claiming it to be the dearest wish of both her and her late sister, Lady Anne Darcy (née Fitzwilliam). Unstated, but always understood, is that Lady Catherine has few other apparent options. Anne may be the sole owner of Rosings, but she is of the same age as Mr Darcy - around 28 - and not in good health. She may be unlikely otherwise to marry, and may not live long. Consequently Rosings, if otherwise entailed, might be expected to pass to another branch of the de Bourgh family, and Lady Catherine could be homeless.
Mr Edward Gardiner and Mrs Gardiner – Edward Gardiner is Mrs Bennet's brother and a successful London tradesman of sensible and gentlemanly character. Aunt Gardiner is genteel and elegant and is close to her nieces Jane and Elizabeth. The Gardiners are the parents of four children. They host the marriage of Lydia with Wickham from their home in Gracechurch Street, and are instrumental in bringing about the marriage between Darcy and Elizabeth.
Georgiana Darcy – Georgiana is Mr Darcy's quiet, amiable and shy younger sister, with a settled dowry of £30,000 from the Pemberley estate; who is 16 when the story begins. When still 15, Miss Darcy almost eloped with Mr Wickham but was saved by her brother, whom she idolises. Thanks to years of tutelage under masters, she is accomplished at the piano, singing, playing the harp, drawing, and modern languages and is therefore described as Caroline Bingley's idea of an "accomplished woman".
Charlotte Lucas – Elizabeth's 27-year-old friend. She marries Mr Collins for financial security, fearing becoming a burden to her family. Austen uses Charlotte's decision to illustrate how women of the time often married out of convenience rather than love, without condemning her choice. Charlotte is the daughter of Sir William Lucas and Lady Lucas, neighbours of the Bennet family.
Colonel Fitzwilliam – Colonel Fitzwilliam is the younger son of an earl and the nephew of Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Lady Anne Darcy; this makes him the cousin of Anne de Bourgh and the Darcy siblings, Fitzwilliam and Georgiana. He is about 30 years old at the beginning of the novel. He is the coguardian of Miss Georgiana Darcy, along with his cousin, Mr Darcy. According to Colonel Fitzwilliam, as a younger son, he cannot marry without thought to his prospective bride's dowry.
== Major themes ==
A theme in much of Austen's work is the importance of environment and upbringing in developing young people's character and morality. Social standing and wealth are not necessarily advantages in her works, and a further theme common to Austen's work is ineffectual parents. In Pride and Prejudice, the failure of Mr and Mrs Bennet as parents is blamed for Lydia's lack of moral judgment. Darcy has been taught to be principled and scrupulously honourable but he is also proud and overbearing. Kitty, rescued from Lydia's bad influence and spending more time with her older sisters after they marry, is said to improve greatly in their superior society.
The American novelist Anna Quindlen observed in an introduction to an edition of Austen's novel in 1995:
Pride and Prejudice is also about that thing that all great novels consider, the search for self. And it is the first great novel that teaches us this search is as surely undertaken in the drawing room making small talk as in the pursuit of a great white whale or the public punishment of adultery.
=== Title ===
Many critics take the title as the start when analysing the themes of Pride and Prejudice but Robert Fox cautions against reading too much into the title (which was initially First Impressions), because commercial factors may have played a role in its selection. "After the success of Sense and Sensibility, nothing would have seemed more natural than to bring out another novel of the same author using again the formula of antithesis and alliteration for the title."
The qualities of the title are not exclusively assigned to one or the other of the protagonists; both Elizabeth and Darcy display pride and prejudice." The phrase "pride and prejudice" had been used over the preceding two centuries by Joseph Hall, Jeremy Taylor, Joseph Addison and Samuel Johnson. Austen is thought to have taken her title from a passage in Fanny Burney's Cecilia (1782), a novel she is known to have admired:
"The whole of this unfortunate business," said Dr. Lyster, "has been the result of PRIDE and PREJUDICE. ... if to PRIDE and PREJUDICE you owe your miseries, so wonderfully is good and evil balanced, that to PRIDE and PREJUDICE you will also owe their termination." (capitalisation as in the original)
=== Marriage and the Family Name ===
The opening line of the novel announces: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." This sets marriage as a motif and a central idea in the novel. Readers are poised to question whether or not these single men need a wife, and what for; or if the need is dictated by the "neighbourhood" families and their daughters who require a "good fortune". According to American Book Review the opening line of Pride and Prejudice is considered second on their list of top 100 greatest opening lines in English literature after Moby Dick's "Call me Ishmael".
Marriage is a complex social activity that takes political, social, and financial economy into account. In the case of Charlotte Lucas, the seeming success of her marriage to Mr Collins lies in the comfortable financial circumstances of their household rather than in mutual respect or companionship; while the relationship between Mr and Mrs Bennet serves to illustrate bad marriages based on an impulsive attraction and surface over substance (economic, social and psychological). The Bennet's marriage turns out to be deeply disfunctional in failing to meet one of a propertied family's most basic requirements; that of providing their daughters with marriage settlements appropriate for a gentleman's children. This increasingly humiliates Mr Bennet in the course of the book; made worse by Mrs Bennet's blithe unconcern at relying on other families' money instead - and her total disregard of any requirement for these obligations to be repaid. As is conventional in a romantic novel, the eventual marriages of Jane and Elizabeth as main protagonists are presented as happy-ever-after. But otherwise marriages in Austen's fiction are realistic and compromised; if anything, the "sad omens" for the Bennet's marriage are now worse.
The Bennets' failing marriage is an example that the youngest Bennet, Lydia, re-enacts with Wickham and the results are far from felicitous. Indeed the married Lydia rapidly adopts her mother's mercenary attitudes. Although the central characters, Elizabeth and Darcy, begin the novel as hostile acquaintances and unlikely friends, they eventually work toward a better understanding of themselves and each other, which frees them to truly fall in love. But only once they have both painfully confronted a complex of economic obligations and dependancies around one another, that they have been precipitated into by their families' circumstances. From the outset both have determined to marry only on their own terms, recognising that this may be contrary to the wishes of their parents; but both also remain bound within their families and must be ready to trust these family concerns openly with one another. This does not eliminate the challenges of the real differences in their technically equivalent social status as gentry and their female relations. It does however provide them with a better understanding of each other's point of view from the different ends of the rather wide scale of differences within that category.
When Elizabeth rejects Darcy's first proposal, the argument of marrying for love is introduced. Elizabeth accepts Darcy's proposal only when she is certain she loves him and her feelings are reciprocated. Austen's complex sketching of different marriages ultimately allows readers to question what forms of alliance are desirable especially when it comes to privileging economic, sexual, or companionate attraction.
It is a common assumption of all parties in the novel, that the primary necessity for the marriage of a man of good fortune, is to maintain and perpetuate his family name through his offspring. And equally, that one necessity for the marriage of a woman of property is to maintain that property for her offspring in her new family name. Although both Elizabeth and Darcy have already determined to marry for love; both recognise that they also have obligations in marriage to their family names and landed estates. Elizabeth is determined that she will marry a 'gentleman', knowing that her marriage otherwise would sully the Bennet family name, and potentially constrain the inheritance of her future offspring; Darcy already feels committed to contracting a marriage to provide an heir and mistress for the Pemberley estate, and to continue the Darcy family name. Counterpart pressures; to maintain ancient family names and to preserve landed estates in that name through male inheritance, are operating everywhere across England amongst the social circles in which the novel takes place. Everywhere too, these social pressures are having to be balanced against an increasing recognition of individual aspirations in marriage; to enable heirs to choose companionable partners, to provide for the futures of daughters and younger sons and enable these to marry in their turn, to allow younger sons to be educated and to embark on careers of 'gentlemanlike' quality, and to provide for widows and unmarried daughters.
The novel is concerned with the marital prospects of the heirs of three historic landed estates; Longbourn, represented by five daughters; Pemberley, represented by a son and daughter; and Rosings Park represented by a single (and no longer young) daughter. Only one of these appears assured of male succession in the family name. This prospect of the failure of male succession had become a common theme across rural England in the 18th century, arising in almost all family estates at one time or another; and in response to this, landowners and their lawyers had developed legal instruments - entail and strict settlement - to balance the consequential conflicts of interest. To be sufficiently confident of producing a son to maintain an estate in the family name, it was better if an heir did not need to wait for their father's death before marrying; but there must then be provision for an assured and substantial income from the estate to that heir during their father's life to be committed in a legal marriage settlement. In order to ensure that inheritance of the estate could be maintained in the family, even were a future heir to produce no sons, there must be provision for portions from the estate to be paid for current younger sons' educations and marriages into 'gentlemanlike' careers in the Army, Church and Law, so that these sons might raise gentlemanly cousins within the family who might if needed, continue succession of the estate in the family name. In order to ensure that daughters from the family could marry gentlemen, they must be provided with settled dowries from the estate to commit to their legal marriage settlement. Provisions in all these forms would commonly be expected to be spelled out in the strict settlement that each heir would enter into on coming of age. Technically, the entail was a trust, so that the entailed estate would be held by trustees (commonly the family's lawyers) to the benefit of the 'tenant in tail', the heir's unborn eldest son. The heir would now be a 'tenant for life' in receipt of an annual allowance. Once the heir's father died, his son would become 'tenant in possession' with full access to the income from the estate, but unable to sell or mortgage any part of it. Payments due under the settlement - such as settled dowries - would be made by the trustees; though in the case of Longbourn it appears that no provision had been made in Mr Bennet's strict settlement for daughters' dowries, Mrs Bennet's own dowry of £5,000 being settled for this purpose instead. Mrs Bennet rails repeatedly at the unfairness of the Longbourn entail; unable to realise, though her older daughters do, that it was only through that entail that she and Mr Bennet could have married as young as they did.
Of the other two landed estates that figure in the novel, Rosings Park and Pemberley, the reader is to understand that Pemberley is also entailed with a strict settlement, as Georgiana Darcy is stated as being provided with a settled dowry of £30,000 from it. In respect of Rosings, Lady Catherine states that it is not entailed away from the female line; "it was not thought necessary in Sir Lewis de Bourgh's family"; though this statement prompts the likelihood that the Rosings estate nevertheless is entailed by strict settlement in the de Bourgh family to the direct descendants of an ancient forbear, though not specifying 'male' or 'female'. Anne de Bourgh is identified by Mr Collins as "the heiress of Rosings"; so indicating a female inheritance that has already happened. Consequently, if the estate is entailed, then it may be inferred that the current 'tenant in possession' and owner of the Rosings estate, is Lady Anne de Bourgh; and that Anne's yet unborn heir would 'tenant in tail'. This would explain why it would be necessary for Mr Darcy and Lady Anne to marry if the two ancient estates are to be united in their children. But in any case, assuming Mr Collins is correct, Lady Catherine cannot be the current owner of Rosings. Under all the bluster of Lady Catherine's outburst to Elizabeth in the garden at Longbourn, the reality is that Lady Catherine has been scheming to detach Rosings Park from a branch of the ancient de Bourgh family, and convey it into a branch of the Darcy family. Which is precisely the sort of dynastic larceny by marriage that the legal institutions of marriage in the English landed gentry in this period sought to forestall.
If entail and strict settlement tended only to be undertaken in respect of larger landed estates; dowries and associated marriage settlements, in the levels of English society represented in the novel, were effectively universal. Amy Erickson has demonstrated that in more than 10% of marriages, as found in probate accounts for married men of all classes, some sort of marriage settlement sum is referenced which is bound to be repaid to the widow by the executors of the husband's will. Even humble marriages might well be covered by a simple bond for repayment, around a quarter were for less than £13. But in the families with any degree of land or property; dowries for daughters were expected to be considerably larger - £500 and upwards - and would commonly be incorporated into a formal marriage settlement applying the legal principle of 'separate estate'. The Dowry sum would not be paid directly to the couple (as by the Common Law doctrine of 'coverture' it would have then become the outright property of the husband), instead it was held by trustees in trust for the future children of the marriage. The marriage settlement would specify payments from this settled fund out of its income without drawing on the capital, typically including, 'pin money', annual payments to the wife during the marriage of money to be spent at her own discretion on non-essentials and clothing; and 'jointure', eventual annual payments to support the living costs of the wife as an unmarried widow. Once both the married couple had died, the capital fund would be shared out to any surviving offspring in proportions to be determined; commonly by the wife's will. Income from the fund during the marriage after payment of 'pin money' might be allowed to be available from her to the husband (with the approval of the trustees); but he could not touch the capital - most usually held in interest-bearing securities. Should the wife inherit further money during the marriage, the testator - for instance her own parents - could specify that inheritance as being into the 'separate estate', rather than to the couple directly. By securing substantial dowries and inheritances through marriage settlements as 'separate estates' the fathers of marriageable daughters sought to ensure that they continued to be able to maintain themselves and their children in presentable attire for polite company, even were their husband to turn out as irresponsible with his own money; that the daughter would be assured of a sustainable living in widowhood; and that eventually the settled property would pass to her offspring.
Unmarried girls in these levels of society were commonly already known as having been provided by their family with a particular value of dowry in 'separate estate'; and it is a tacit rebuke to Mr and Mrs Bennet that they have failed properly to do so. Mrs Bennet blames the entail, but the real cause is their own improvidence over the years. It was not uncommon for the groom's family, before the marriage, to increase the bride's separate estate and pin money; but the manner by which Mrs Bennet continues openly assuming that Darcy and Bingley will do so for her and her daughters, is vulgar, demeans the honour of the Bennet family name, and leaves Mr Bennet both angered and ashamed.
=== Wealth ===
Wealth is a strong theme in the novel where the male characters of marrying age are usually described, first and foremost, by their annual income. For example, Mr Bingley is introduced as a 4000 pounds-a-year person, similar to the initial mentions of Mr Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam.
Money plays a fundamental role in the marriage market for the young ladies seeking a well-off husband and for men who wish to marry a woman of means. George Wickham tries to elope with Georgiana Darcy for her settled dowry, and Colonel Fitzwilliam states that he will marry someone with wealth.
Marrying a woman of a rich family also ensured a linkage to a higher-class family, as is visible in the desires of Bingley's sisters to have their brother married to Georgiana Darcy. Mrs Bennet is frequently seen encouraging her daughters to marry a wealthy man of high social class. In chapter 1, when Mr Bingley arrives, she is "thinking of his marrying one of them".
Inheritance of landed wealth was by descent but could be further restricted by entailment, which in the case of the Longbourn estate restricted inheritance to male heirs only; Mr Collins was to inherit the family estate upon Mr Bennet's death in default of there being a son. His proposal to Elizabeth would have ensured her security; but she refuses his offer. The procedure of entail ensured that family estates of ancient creation were very rarely sold outright, typically passing instead instead to another branch of the same family where there was no male heir, or where the estate had fallen heavily in debt. Recently created estates were much more likely to come onto the market.
Inheritance laws benefited males both through entail and because, through the doctrine of coverture married women had severely constricted independent legal rights in Common Law - especially to any landed property they brought into the marriage - until the second half of the 19th century. For the upper-middle and aristocratic classes, marriage to a man with a reliable income was almost the only route to security for the woman and the children she was to have. The irony of the opening line is that generally within this society it would be a single woman without a good fortune who must be in want of a wealthy husband, to have a secure life and children. Against this however, the Common Law of England provided almost unrestricted economic freedom for those unmarried women who had nevertheless inherited substantial property - as Anne de Bourgh and Caroline Bingley have done, and Georgiana Darcy will do when she comes of age. "English property law was distinctive in two respects: first, married women under coverture were even more restricted than in the rest of Europe; second, single women enjoyed a position unique in Europe as legal individuals in their own right, with no requirement for a male guardian". As a 'feme sole' the legal status of an unmarried woman or widow in England did not differ from that of a man. Consequently when propertied women married, and especially when widows remarried, it was standard practice in this period for their assets to be placed in trust before the marriage in a 'separate estate' to which their husband would have no legal right of access.
Differing levels of wealth amongst their country gentry are observed in the three rural counties in which the action of the book takes place. Kent, the location of Hunsford and Rosings Park and an area Austen knew well in visiting her brother's estate at Godmersham Park, was favoured by prosperous families from the City of London as a county where recently wealthy men might buy a landed estate and establish themselves as gentlemen. In the novel, the style of living in these Kent households is noted as being beyond the social range of the characters from Hertfordshire. Hertfordshire in this period, similarly attracted numbers of socially aspiring men from London - as with Mr Bingley - but generally at a lesser degree of wealth and less extravagant living style. Whereas in Kent and Hertfordshire there is a considerable turnover for families buying and selling estates, this is not the case in Derbyshire - where the Darcy family have held the estate of Pemberley for generations. Similarly almost all estates around Derbyshire will have remained under the same family name throughout periods of relative affluence and austerity, although the Bingleys will eventually purchase a family estate in a neighbouring county.
=== Class ===
Austen might be known now for her "romances" but the marriages in her novels engage with economics and class distinction. Pride and Prejudice is hardly the exception.
When Darcy proposes to Elizabeth, he cites their economic and social differences as an obstacle his excessive love has had to overcome, though he still anxiously harps on the problems it poses for him within his social circle. His aunt, Lady Catherine, later characterises these differences in particularly harsh terms when she conveys what Elizabeth's marriage to Darcy will become, "Will the shades of Pemberley be thus polluted?" Although Elizabeth responds to Lady Catherine's accusations that hers is a potentially contaminating economic and social position (Elizabeth even insists she and Darcy, as gentleman's daughter and gentleman, are "equals"), Lady Catherine refuses to accept the possibility of Darcy's marriage to Elizabeth. However, as the novel closes, "...through curiosity to see how his wife conducted herself", Lady Catherine condescends to visit them at Pemberley.
As is apparent from Elizabeth's response, the key class distinction in the social world of Pride and Prejudice, is between those who are 'gentlemen' and those who are not. The main signifier of gentlemanly status in this world is the possession in the family, of inherited landed wealth. Pemberley, Rosings Park and Longbourn are all inherited estates of longstanding; so the families that possess them do have the settled status of gentlemen; whereas Lucas Lodge is not, and Sir William and his family do not. Gentlemanly status could, however, be maintained by families not in possession of an estate for those in specific occupations; chiefly the Church, the Law, and the Armed Forces. But within these professions the distinction was still evident. Officers in regular regiments of foot were gentleman, officers in the Marines were not. Incumbent beneficed clergy (prebendaries, rectors and vicars) were gentleman, perpetual and assistant curates were not. For younger sons of titled and gentry families like Colonel Fitzwilliam, the Law, Church and the Army represented alternative refuges of gentility for those without landed wealth of their own. In this, the English landed gentry were unusual in Europe; younger sons of equivalent minor nobility in France, Sweden or Italy who entered salaried professions commonly were considered to have lost noble status.
Associated with the distinction between who is a gentleman and who is not, is the key question of the book; which qualities are 'gentlemanlike' and which are not? Elizabeth refuses Mr Darcy's first proposal on the grounds that it is, as his behaviour towards her and her family's has consistently been, not gentlemanlike. Mr Darcy is incredulous at the charge; but eventually comes to accept the truth of it: "Your reproof, so well applied, I shall never forget: ‘Had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.’". As historic gentlemanly status depended on retaining inherited land under the family name, so the conventional gentlemanlike qualities were seen in maintaining the dignity of that family name, the discharge of family obligations as 'debts of honour', and in deference to the wishes of one's elders and betters; qualities given formal status through the legal instruments of entailed succession and strict settlement by which both Pemberley and Longbourn are bound. But in the course of the plot, both Elizabeth and Mr Darcy come to see true gentlemanly qualities as rather being grounded in concern for the feelings of others, and in avoiding hurtful or overbearing deeds and words. Kitson Clark argues that in this, Austen prefigures changing ideals of gentlemanly qualities that underpin Victorian social and educational ethics.
The Bingleys present a particular problem for navigating class. Though Caroline Bingley and Mrs Hurst behave and speak of others as if they have always belonged in the upper echelons of society, Austen makes it clear that the Bingley fortunes stem from trade. The fact that Bingley rents Netherfield Hall – it is, after all, "to let" – distinguishes him significantly from Darcy, whose estate belonged to his father's family and who through his mother is the grandson and nephew of an earl. Bingley, unlike Darcy, does not yet own an estate but has portable and growing wealth that makes him a good catch on the marriage market for poorer daughters of the gentry, like Jane Bennet, or of ambitious merchants. Class plays a central role in the evolution of the characters and Jane Austen's radical approach to class is seen as the plot unfolds.
An undercurrent of the old Anglo-Norman upper class is hinted at in the story, as suggested by the names of Fitzwilliam Darcy and his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh; Fitzwilliam, D'Arcy, de Bourgh (Burke), and even Bennet, are traditional Norman surnames.
Relating to the lower classes, such characters are mostly only present through rare mentions, like asking "the housekeeper"; and those references exist mostly in a separate realm from the classes of the main characters, as when a discussion among the Bennet sisters pauses because someone from the staff walked in to the room to deliver a message. Main characters are, however, evaluated on the basis of how they treat those of lower classes; Mr Darcy as being fair and honorable, Lady Catherine as scolding, hectoring and overbearing.
=== Self-knowledge ===
Through their interactions and their critiques of each other, Darcy and Elizabeth come to recognise their faults and work to correct them. Elizabeth meditates on her own mistakes thoroughly in chapter 36:
"How despicably have I acted!" she cried; "I, who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blameable distrust. How humiliating is this discovery! yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this moment I never knew myself."
Other characters rarely exhibit this depth of understanding or at least are not given the space within the novel for this sort of development.
Tanner writes that Mrs Bennet in particular, "has a very limited view of the requirements of that performance; lacking any introspective tendencies she is incapable of appreciating the feelings of others and is only aware of material objects". Mrs Bennet's behaviour reflects the society in which she lives, as she knows that her daughters will not succeed if they do not get married. "The business of her life was to get her daughters married: its solace was visiting and news." This shows that Mrs Bennet is only aware of "material objects" and not of her feelings and emotions.
A notable exception is Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth Bennet's close friend and confidant. She accepts Mr Collins's proposal of marriage once Lizzie rejects him, not out of sentiment but acute awareness of her circumstances as "one of a large family". Charlotte's decision is reflective of her prudent nature and awareness.
== Style ==
=== Free Indirect Speech ===
Pride and Prejudice, like most of Austen's works, employs the narrative technique of free indirect speech, which has been defined as "the free representation of a character's speech, by which one means, not words actually spoken by a character, but the words that typify the character's thoughts, or the way the character would think or speak, if she thought or spoke".
Austen creates her characters with fully developed personalities and unique voices. Though Darcy and Elizabeth are very alike, they are also considerably different. By using narrative that adopts the tone and vocabulary of a particular character (in this case, Elizabeth), Austen invites the reader to follow events from Elizabeth's viewpoint, sharing her prejudices and misapprehensions. "The learning curve, while undergone by both protagonists, is disclosed to us solely through Elizabeth's point of view and her free indirect speech is essential ... for it is through it that we remain caught, if not stuck, within Elizabeth's misprisions."
Austen is known to use irony throughout the novel especially from viewpoint of the character of Elizabeth Bennet. She conveys the "oppressive rules of femininity that actually dominate her life and work, and are covered by her beautifully carved trojan horse of ironic distance". Beginning with a historical investigation of the development of a particular literary form and then transitioning into empirical verifications, it reveals free indirect discourse as a tool that emerged over time as practical means for addressing the physical distinctness of minds. Seen in this way, free indirect discourse is a distinctly literary response to an environmental concern, providing a scientific justification that does not reduce literature to a mechanical extension of biology, but takes its value to be its own original form.
=== Letters ===
Overall across the novel, around 40 letters are quoted or alluded to; such that many commentators have proposed - though without concrete textual evidence - that Austen's novels, 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Sense and Sensibility', may both first have been drafted as epistolary novels consisting entirely of letters - as her novella Lady Susan had been.
While free indirect speech builds up with the reader an identification with the current feelings and understandings of Elizabeth Bennet, at other times the reader is allowed to gain further knowledge of other characters' sentiments through the exchange of letters. This is especially the case for Darcy's letter to Elizabeth following his disastrous first proposal; as through his letter, the reader and Elizabeth are given insight into Darcy's feelings and motivations in his own voice, to a degree that he could not then have expressed to Elizabeth outright. Moreover, this letter provides Elizabeth with proofs of Wickham's true character, which leads her to question her condemnation of Darcy's treatment of him.
Letters in the novel are several times given detailed description as physical objects; what envelopes they have, whether they have inserted sheets or are written entirely on the 'envelope' sheet, and the size and quality of the writing. In an age when physical contacts, especially between unmarried persons of opposite sex, are highly constrained by convention and civility; a letter as an artefact handled over a prolonged period by the sender, could stand as an active token of their physical presence. Elizabeth is stated to have continually re-read and re-examined Darcy's letter to her, to the degree that these re-readings constitute a substitute dialogue and interaction with Darcy by which her feelings for him are able to change (and unchange) over an extended period. "Knowing Darcy's letter "by heart" primes Elizabeth to seriously contemplate knowing his heart, an experience Austen imaginatively explores in the novel's ensuing chapters." Austen's use of letters in the novel allows them to be developed with a 'life cycle', both a past history and a future destiny, "The letter sets in motion the re-assessment and interior work that prepare both parties to start afresh when they cross paths in Derbyshire."
The many letters quoted and alluded to in Pride and Prejudice can be divided into two broad categories: formal letters of civility; introduction, invitation, acceptance (and excuse), thanks for hospitality, condolence and congratulation; and otherwise private, personal and business letters. Formal letters are commonly expected to be read out loud in a household; personal letters are to be read by the recipient in private; and in general are expected to be treated in confidence, though it is always understood that a letter 'belongs' to its recipient. Crucially, in the novel, characters express feelings and communicate understandings in private and personal letters, that they may be inhibited by civility from stating face-to-face; as when Aunt Gardiner writes to Elizabeth "Will you be angry with me, my dear Lizzy) if I take this opportunity of saying (what I was never bold enough to say before) how much I like him?". Consequently, the novel is able to juxtapose characters in situations when the reader is aware of a dislocation between the characters' feelings arising from what they know to be the case from a private letter, and the feelings they are constrained to express in civil conversational exchange. Characteristically in reporting such exchanges, Austen refrains from giving explicit expression to her character's inner feelings, leaving it to the reader to understand their undercurrent of suppressed rage; as in the conversation between Elizabeth and Wickham following her receiving a letter from Aunt Gardiner relating Wickham's recent villainies in London.
=== Elizabeth's letters in the resolution of the plot ===
The bulk of the letters cited in the novel are addressed to, or read to, Elizabeth Bennet without citing her letters in response. But in the final chapters, we read an exchange of letters between Elizabeth and Aunt Gardiner; apparently providing the mechanism through which the plot is brought to conclusion. This resolution relies on there being an implicit license to express in
private letters, speculations that could not in civility be said in conversation.
By this time it is clear to the reader that Elizabeth and Darcy have both come to regret their former mischaracterisations of one another, and are primed to recognise their love. But the circumstances of Darcy's first proposal; his crass denigration of Elizabeth's family and herself, and the absolute finality of her dismissal of him in response, still stood in the way of the desired happy ending. As do the obligations set up by Darcy's paying-off Wickham, which he had tried to keep secret. The logjam turns out to be broken in the unlikely person of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who had received a report that the two may be about to become engaged; and then confronted first Elizabeth and then Darcy with a demand that they each undertake never to marry one another. Both in turn had refused to give any such guarantee; and in respect of Darcy "its effect had been exactly contrariwise" in giving him reason to hope that a renewed and contrite proposal, might be acceptable. But as John Sutherland has noted, Austen has set the reader a puzzle; who had given Lady Catherine the (premature) report of the oncoming engagement, and how? An answer appears to have been suggested to Elizabeth the day after Lady Catherine's visit, when Mr Bennet receives a letter from Mr Collins, who says that he had informed Lady Catherine of the possible engagement between Elizabeth and Darcy, intelligence which Mr Bennet concludes Mr Collins must have learned from a letter to Charlotte, which Mr Bennet assumes must have come from one of her family, "the good-natured, gossiping Lucases". But Elizabeth will have known this not to be at all likely, as the information passed to Lady Catherine - and then thrown back at her - had included private circumstances of the marriage settlement of Wickham and Lydia, which the Lucases would not have known.
A more plausible narrative may be suggested by Mia Barzilay Freund, who notes that, "the swift cascade of events that results in her betrothal to Mr Darcy" had been triggered for Elizabeth through Lydia's unintended disclosure - on which she had been sworn to secrecy - that Darcy had attended her's and Wickham's wedding. Elizabeth and Jane had promised Lydia not to probe any further outright; but Elizabeth is so overcome with suppositions about what this news may portend that she sidesteps Jane's assurances in writing to Aunt Gardiner requesting further information in a letter, expressing surprise that "a person unconnected with any of us" should have been at the ceremony. This was being coy, and was a sly stratagem as Elizabeth admits to herself on posting the letter. Aunt Gardiner, who has seen Darcy and Elizabeth together in Derbyshire, is not fooled for a moment, but nevertheless provides a very full response; "slyness seems the fashion" she says, noting a similar coyness had been apparent in Darcy's conversation at Gracechurch Street, whenever the subject of Elizabeth arose. So Aunt Gardiner takes this mutual coyness as an invitation to do some private probing of her own; if Elizabeth is being sly about Darcy, and Darcy is being sly about Elizabeth; may Aunt Gardiner presume in supposing that they may be in it together? Might there indeed already be an understanding that they could marry one another? Aunt Gardiner recognises that, if Elizabeth and Darcy are to marry, then any obligations of honour created through Darcy's paying-off Wickham,
must be open between them; whatever she had promised to Darcy.
Elizabeth does not reply immediately to Aunt Gardiner's letter, and does not know how to; not until after she is has been confronted by Wickham, who presents her with what she now knows to be gross misrepresentations of the circumstances of his marriage, then with the glad events of Jane's engagement to Bingley, then with the shocking realisation that Lady Catherine and Mr Collins have also concluded that a marriage with Darcy could be on the cards, and then with Darcy's second, and whole-hearted, proposal. So well over a week passes before Elizabeth does reply, as she says, "I would have thanked you before, my dear aunt, as I ought to have done, for your long, kind, satisfactory detail of particulars; but, to say the truth, I was too cross to write. You supposed more than really existed. But now suppose as much as you chuse." As Freund notes; "too cross to write" would seem harsh as a response to Aunt Gardiner's playful and private 'suppositions', especially if "Mrs Gardiner’s letter precipitates the change in circumstance that allows Elizabeth to furnish her with a favourable reply". But Elizabeth would have known that Aunt Gardiner would likely also have been writing to Charlotte to tell the Collins's why they could not have been invited to Wickham and Lydia's wedding; and if Elizabeth - whether correctly or not - suspected that Aunt Gardiner's suppositions could have been apparent, however obliquely, in a letter to the Collins's - and so to Lady Catherine - then her short-term harshness, and crossness, would be more explicable. Nevertheless, two play at the supposition game; so arguably it is Elizabeth Bennet, if indirectly and partially, who betrays Elizabeth Bennet.
== Development of the novel ==
Austen began writing the novel after staying at Goodnestone Park in Kent with her brother Edward and his wife in 1796. It was originally titled First Impressions, and was written between October 1796 and August 1797. On 1 November 1797 Austen's father sent a letter to London bookseller Thomas Cadell to ask if he had any interest in seeing the manuscript, but the offer was declined by return post.
The Militia were mobilised after the French declaration of war on Britain in February 1793, and there was initially a lack of barracks for all the militia regiments, requiring the militia to set up huge camps in the countryside, which the novel refers to several times. The Brighton camp for which the militia regiment leaves in May after spending the winter in Meryton was opened in August 1793, and the barracks for all the regiments of the militia were completed by 1796, placing the events of the novel between 1793 and 1795.
Austen made significant revisions to the manuscript for First Impressions between 1811 and 1812. As nothing remains of the original manuscript, study of the first drafts of the novel is reduced to conjecture. From the large number of letters in the final novel, it is assumed that First Impressions was an epistolary novel.
She later renamed the story Pride and Prejudice around 1811/1812, when she sold the rights to publish the manuscript to Thomas Egerton for £110 (equivalent to £6,500 in 2023). In renaming the novel, Austen probably had in mind the "sufferings and oppositions" summarised in the final chapter of Fanny Burney's Cecilia, called "Pride and Prejudice", where the phrase appears three times in block capitals.
It is possible that the novel's original title was altered to avoid confusion with other works. In the years between the completion of First Impressions and its revision into Pride and Prejudice, two other works had been published under that name: a novel by Margaret Holford and a comedy by Horace Smith.
== Publication history ==
Austen sold the copyright for the novel to Thomas Egerton from the Military Library, Whitehall in exchange for £110 (Austen had asked for £150). This proved a costly decision. Austen had published Sense and Sensibility on a commission basis, whereby she indemnified the publisher against any losses and received any profits, less costs and the publisher's commission. Unaware that Sense and Sensibility would sell out its edition, making her £140, she passed the copyright to Egerton for a one-off payment, meaning that all the risk (and all the profits) would be his. Jan Fergus has calculated that Egerton subsequently made around £450 from just the first two editions of the book.
Egerton published the first edition of Pride and Prejudice in three hardcover volumes on 28 January 1813. It was advertised in The Morning Chronicle, priced at 18s. Favourable reviews saw this edition sold out, with a second edition published in October that year. A third edition was published in 1817.
Foreign language translations first appeared in 1813 in French; subsequent translations were published in German, Danish, and Swedish. Pride and Prejudice was first published in the United States in August 1832 as Elizabeth Bennet or, Pride and Prejudice. The novel was also included in Richard Bentley's Standard Novel series in 1833. R. W. Chapman's scholarly edition of Pride and Prejudice, first published in 1923, has become the standard edition on which many modern published versions of the novel are based.
The novel was originally published anonymously, as were all of Austen's novels. However, whereas her first published novel, Sense and Sensibility was presented as being written "by a Lady," Pride and Prejudice was attributed to "the Author of Sense and Sensibility". This began to consolidate a conception of Austen as an author, albeit anonymously. Her subsequent novels were similarly attributed to the anonymous author of all her then-published works.
== Reception ==
=== 19th century ===
The novel was well received, with three favourable reviews in the first months following publication. Anne Isabella Milbanke, later to be the wife of Lord Byron, called it "the fashionable novel". Noted critic and reviewer George Henry Lewes declared that he "would rather have written Pride and Prejudice, or Tom Jones, than any of the Waverley Novels".
Throughout the 19th century, not all reviews of the work were positive. Charlotte Brontë, in a letter to Lewes, wrote that Pride and Prejudice was a disappointment, "a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but [...] no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck". Along with her, Mark Twain was overwhelmingly negative of the work. He stated, "Everytime I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig [Austen] up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone."
Austen for her part thought the "playfulness and epigrammaticism" of Pride and Prejudice was excessive, complaining in a letter to her sister Cassandra in 1813 that the novel lacked "shade" and should have had a chapter "of solemn specious nonsense, about something unconnected with the story; an essay on writing, a critique on Walter Scott or the history of Buonaparté".
Walter Scott wrote in his journal, "Read again and for the third time at least, Miss Austen's very finely written novel of Pride and Prejudice."
=== 20th century ===
The American scholar Claudia L. Johnson defended the novel from the criticism that it has an unrealistic fairy-tale quality. One critic, Mary Poovey, wrote that the "romantic conclusion" of Pride and Prejudice is an attempt to hedge the conflict between the "individualistic perspective inherent in the bourgeois value system and the authoritarian hierarchy retained from traditional, paternalistic society". Johnson wrote that Austen's view of a power structure capable of reformation was not an "escape" from conflict. Johnson wrote the "outrageous unconventionality" of Elizabeth Bennet was in Austen's own time very daring, especially given the strict censorship that was imposed in Britain by the Prime Minister, William Pitt, in the 1790s when Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice.
In the early twentieth century, the term "Collins," named for Austen's William Collins, came into use as slang for a thank-you note to a host.
=== 21st century ===
In 2003 the BBC conducted a poll for the "UK's Best-Loved Book" in which Pride and Prejudice came second, behind The Lord of the Rings.
In a 2008 survey of more than 15,000 Australian readers, Pride and Prejudice came first in a list of the 101 best books ever written.
The 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice on 28 January 2013 was celebrated around the globe by media networks such as the Huffington Post, The New York Times, and The Daily Telegraph, among others.
== Adaptations ==
=== Film, television and theatre ===
Numerous screen adaptations have contributed in popularising Pride and Prejudice.
The first television adaptation of the novel, written by Michael Barry, was produced in 1938 by the BBC. It is a lost television broadcast. Some of the notable film versions include the 1940 Academy Award-winning film, starring Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier (based in part on Helen Jerome's 1935 stage adaptation) and that of 2005, starring Keira Knightley (an Oscar-nominated performance) and Matthew Macfadyen. Television versions include two by the BBC: a 1980 version starring Elizabeth Garvie and David Rintoul and a 1995 version, starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. A new television adaptation of the novel for Netflix by Dolly Alderton and Euros Lyn and starring Emma Corrin and Jack Lowden as Elizabeth and Darcy went into production in the summer of 2025. The series is to be released in the Autumn of 2026.
A stage version created by Helen Jerome premiered at the Music Box Theatre in New York in 1935, starring Adrianne Allen and Colin Keith-Johnston, and opened at the St James's Theatre in London in 1936, starring Celia Johnson and Hugh Williams. Elizabeth Refuses a play by Margaret Macnamara of scenes from the novel was made into a TV programme by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1957. First Impressions was a 1959 Broadway musical version starring Polly Bergen, Farley Granger, and Hermione Gingold. In 1995, a musical concept album was written by Bernard J. Taylor, with Claire Moore in the role of Elizabeth Bennet and Peter Karrie in the role of Mr Darcy. A new stage production, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, The New Musical, was presented in concert on 21 October 2008 in Rochester, New York, with Colin Donnell as Darcy. The Swedish composer Daniel Nelson based his 2011 opera Stolthet och fördom on Pride and Prejudice. Works inspired by the book include Bride and Prejudice and Trishna (1985 Hindi TV series).
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries – which premiered on a dedicated YouTube channel on 9 April 2012, and concluded on 28 March 2013 – is an Emmy award-winning web-series which recounts the story via vlogs recorded primarily by the Bennet sisters. It was created by Hank Green and Bernie Su.
In 2017, the bicentenary year of Austen's death, Pride and Prejudice – An adaptation in Words and Music to music by Carl Davis from the 1995 film and text by Gill Hornby was performed in the UK, with Hayley Mills as the narrator This adaptation was presented in 2024 at the Sydney Opera House and the Arts Centre Melbourne, narrated by Nadine Garner.
In 2018, part of the storyline of the Brazilian soap opera Orgulho e Paixão, aired on TV Globo, was inspired by the book. The soap opera was also inspired by other works of Jane Austen. It features actors, Nathalia Dill, Thiago Lacerda, Agatha Moreira, Rodrigo Simas, Gabriela Duarte, Marcelo Faria, Alessandra Negrini, and Natália do Vale.
Fire Island is a movie written by Joel Kim Booster that reimagines Pride and Prejudice as a gay drama set on the quintessential gay vacation destination of Fire Island. Booster describes the movie "as an unapologetic and modern twist on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice". The movie was released in June 2022 and features a main cast of Asian-American actors.
=== Literature ===
Old Friends and New Fancies: An Imaginary Sequel to the Novels of Jane Austen, a novel by Sybil G. Brinton which was published in 1913, is often acknowledged to be the first sequel to the works of Jane Austen.
Pemberley Shades, by D. A. Bonavia-Hunt was published in 1949. The novel was reviewed in the New York Times by writer Shirley Jackson, who said it was written with "modesty, affection and becoming sensibility."
Bridget Jones's Diary is a 1996 novel by Helen Fielding, which has many similarities to Pride and Prejudice. The book has spawned three sequels and four movies.
In March 2009, Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies took Austen's work and mashed it up with zombie hordes, cannibalism, ninja and ultraviolent mayhem. In March 2010, Quirk Books published a prequel by Steve Hockensmith dealing with Elizabeth Bennet's early days as a zombie hunter, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls. The 2016 film of Grahame-Smith's adaptation was released starring Lily James, Sam Riley and Matt Smith.
Marvel published its take on this classic by releasing a short comic series of five issues that stays true to the original storyline. The first issue was published on 1 April 2009 and was written by Nancy Hajeski. It was published as a graphic novel in 2010 with artwork by Hugo Petrus.
In 2011, detective novel author P. D. James published Death Comes to Pemberley, a murder mystery set six years after Elizabeth and Darcy's marriage.
Jo Baker's bestselling 2013 novel Longbourn imagines the lives of the servants of Pride and Prejudice. The novel was also adapted for radio, appearing on BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime, abridged by Sara Davies and read by Sophie Thompson. It was first broadcast in May 2014; and again on Radio 4 Extra in September 2018.
In the novel Eligible (published in 2016), Curtis Sittenfeld sets the characters of Pride and Prejudice in modern-day Cincinnati, where the Bennet parents, erstwhile Cincinnati social climbers, have fallen on hard times. Elizabeth is a successful and independent New York journalist, while Fitzwilliam Darcy is a cynical neurosurgeon.
Pride and Prejudice has also inspired works of scientific writing. In 2010, scientists named a pheromone identified in male mouse urine darcin, after Mr Darcy, because it strongly attracted females. In 2016, a scientific paper published in the Journal of Inherited Metabolic Disease speculated that Mrs Bennet may have been a carrier of a rare genetic disease, explaining why the Bennets didn't have any sons, and why some of the Bennet sisters are so silly.
In summer 2014, Udon Entertainment's Manga Classics line published a manga adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dragonfly_Sea | The Dragonfly Sea | The Dragonfly Sea is a novel by Kenyan writer Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, first published in 2019. Set primarily along the Swahili coast of Kenya and extending to China and Turkey, the novel follows a young woman’s journey across the Indian Ocean world and explores questions of history, migration, and identity.
== Plot ==
The novel follows Ayaana, a girl growing up on Pate Island, off the northern coast of Kenya. Raised by her mother Munira, Ayaana develops a close relationship with the island’s maritime culture and oral traditions. Her life is shaped by the arrival of Muhidin, an elderly sailor who becomes a mentor and paternal figure, introducing her to the histories and trade routes of the Indian Ocean world.
As Ayaana comes of age, representatives connected to Chinese diplomatic and cultural institutions arrive on the Swahili coast seeking links to the final voyage of the Ming admiral Zheng He. After undergoing genetic testing that suggests Chinese ancestry, Ayaana accepts an offer to study in Xiamen, China. There she is presented in official and academic settings as a symbolic link between China and the Swahili coast.
Ayaana’s experiences in China are marked by cultural displacement, isolation, and increasing pressure to perform a representative role. While studying, she becomes involved with Koray, a Turkish student. She later follows him to Istanbul, where she confronts the realities of his family’s business activities and the constraints placed upon her personal freedom. Disillusioned, Ayaana leaves Turkey and returns to Kenya.
The novel concludes with Ayaana’s attempt to reconnect with life on Pate Island after her travels, reflecting on the multiple cultural and historical influences that have shaped her sense of self.
== Characters ==
Ayaana – The novel’s protagonist, whose life unfolds between Pate Island, China, and Turkey. She is depicted as a young woman shaped by oral traditions and maritime heritage.
Munira – Ayaana’s mother, who raises her on Pate Island after being rejected by her own family following her pregnancy. She serves as a representative of the traditional values and resilient spirit of the island. Munira eventually marries Muhidin, an old sailor.
Muhidin – An elderly sailor who becomes Ayaana’s mentor and introduces her to Indian Ocean histories and seafaring traditions. Through his deep connection with the sea, he provides Ayaana with knowledge of both past and present affairs and later inspires her to pursue her studies abroad.
Ziriyab – Muhidin’s son, believed to have been lost at sea.
Chinese diplomatic figures – A group of diplomats and cultural officials attempting to link local Swahili heritage with China’s maritime past.
Koray – A Turkish student with whom Ayaana forms a romantic relationship while studying in China. Koray’s family is depicted as being involved in human trafficking operations.
Lai Jin – A ship captain who facilitates Ayaana’s journey to China and later appears again in her life. He later assumes the name Nahodha Jamal as given by Pate fishermen.
Minor characters – Mehdi, Pate’s shipbuilder; Kitwana, Muhidin’s friend; and members of the local Pate community, who contribute to the novel’s depiction of cultural exchange and identity.
== Narrative perspective ==
Scholars describe the novel’s narration as closely aligned with Ayaana’s experiences while remaining external to her perspective, drawing on oral storytelling traditions of the Swahili coast and moving between personal memory and communal history.
== Themes ==
Scholars have situated The Dragonfly Sea within Indian Ocean studies, emphasizing the novel’s depiction of the Swahili coast as a site of long-standing cultural exchange linking Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and China. Literary critics note that the Indian Ocean functions not only as a physical space of movement but also as a repository of historical memory and imperial encounter. Through the integration of spiritual and mystical elements, Owuor expands on broader Swahili, Islamic, and African traditions, while also invoking regional poetic storytelling practices.
Academic commentary has highlighted the novel’s engagement with the voyages of the Ming dynasty admiral Zheng He, framing these references within broader discussions of maritime power and historiography. In this context, Admiral Zheng He’s voyage foregrounds water as a strategic conduit for imperial expansion, as discussed by Mingqing Yuan in her research on Zheng He’s mythic legacy.
Other scholars focus on Ayaana’s relationship with water and the sea, describing it as contingent and transformative rather than purely restorative. Writing in Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies, Jacqueline Kosgei argues that this relationship underscores the instability of identity formed through movement and historical inheritance.
The novel has also been read as engaging postcolonial questions of diaspora and hybridity, with critics arguing that Owuor examines how colonial histories and contemporary global politics continue to shape individual lives, particularly for figures positioned as cultural intermediaries.
== Reception ==
Critical reception of The Dragonfly Sea was largely positive. Kirkus Reviews described the novel as situating East Africa within a wider global and historical framework, while Publishers Weekly awarded the book a starred review, praising its scope and ambition.
== Related works ==
In 2022, the Chinese state broadcaster CGTN released a documentary titled Faces of Africa – Retracing the Dragonfly Sea. The film follows Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor as she travels along the Swahili coast and reflects on the historical and cultural material that informed the novel. The documentary also features Kenyan-born, China-trained doctor Mwamaka Sharifu, whom the film identifies as an inspiration for aspects of the narrative. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Personal_life | Elon Musk#Personal life | Elon Reeve Musk ( EE-lon; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman and entrepreneur known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X, and xAI. Musk has been the wealthiest person in the world since 2025; as of February 2026, Forbes estimates his net worth to be around US$852 billion.
Born into a wealthy family in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk emigrated in 1989 to Canada; he has Canadian citizenship since his mother was born there. He received bachelor's degrees in 1997 from the University of Pennsylvania before moving to California to pursue business ventures. In 1995, Musk co-founded the software company Zip2. Following its sale in 1999, he co-founded X.com, an online payment company that later merged to form PayPal, which was acquired by eBay in 2002. Musk also became an American citizen in 2002.
In 2002, Musk founded the space technology company SpaceX, becoming its CEO and chief engineer; the company has since led innovations in reusable rockets and commercial spaceflight. Musk joined the automaker Tesla as an early investor in 2004 and became its CEO and product architect in 2008; it has since become a leader in electric vehicles. In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI to advance artificial intelligence (AI) research, but later left; growing discontent with the organization's direction and leadership in the AI boom in the 2020s led him to establish xAI, which became a subsidiary of SpaceX in 2026. In 2022, he acquired the social network Twitter, implementing significant changes, and rebranding it as X in 2023. His other businesses include the neurotechnology company Neuralink, which he co-founded in 2016, and the tunneling company the Boring Company, which he founded in 2017. In November 2025, a Tesla pay package worth $1 trillion for Musk was approved, which he is to receive over 10 years if he meets specific goals.
Musk was the largest donor in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, where he supported Donald Trump. After Trump was inaugurated as president in early 2025, Musk served as Senior Advisor to the President and as the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). After a public feud with Trump, Musk left the Trump administration and returned to managing his companies. Musk is a supporter of global far-right figures, causes, and political parties. His political activities, views, and statements have made him a polarizing figure. Musk has been criticized for COVID-19 misinformation, promoting conspiracy theories, and affirming antisemitic, racist, and transphobic comments. His acquisition of Twitter was controversial due to a subsequent increase in hate speech and the spread of misinformation on the service, following his pledge to decrease censorship. His role in the second Trump administration attracted public backlash, particularly in response to DOGE. The emails he sent to Jeffrey Epstein are included in the Epstein files, which were published between 2025–26 and became a topic of worldwide debate.
== Early life ==
Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa's administrative capital. He is of British and Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. His mother, Maye (née Haldeman), is a model and dietitian born in Saskatchewan, Canada, and raised in South Africa. Musk therefore holds both South African and Canadian citizenship from birth. His father, Errol Musk, is a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, emerald dealer, and property developer, who partly owned a rental lodge at Timbavati Private Nature Reserve.
His maternal grandfather, Joshua N. Haldeman, who died in a plane crash when Elon was a toddler, was an American-born Canadian chiropractor, aviator and political activist in the technocracy movement who moved to South Africa in 1950.
Elon has a younger brother, Kimbal, a younger sister, Tosca, and four paternal half-siblings. Musk was baptized as a child in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. Despite both Elon and Errol previously stating that Errol was a part owner of a Zambian emerald mine, in 2023, Errol recounted that the deal he made was to receive "a portion of the emeralds produced at three small mines". Errol was elected to the Pretoria City Council as a representative of the anti-apartheid Progressive Party and has said that his children shared their father's dislike of apartheid.
After his parents divorced in 1979, Elon, aged around 9, chose to live with his father because Errol Musk had an Encyclopædia Britannica and a computer. Elon later regretted his decision and became estranged from his father. Elon has recounted trips to a wilderness school that he described as a "paramilitary Lord of the Flies" where "bullying was a virtue" and children were encouraged to fight over rations. In one incident, after an altercation with a fellow pupil, Elon was thrown down concrete steps and beaten severely, leading to him being hospitalized for his injuries. Elon described his father berating him after he was discharged from the hospital. Errol denied berating Elon and claimed, "The [other] boy had just lost his father to suicide, and Elon had called him stupid. Elon had a tendency to call people stupid. How could I possibly blame that child?"
Elon was an enthusiastic reader of books, and had attributed his success in part to having read The Lord of the Rings, the Foundation series, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. At age ten, he developed an interest in computing and video games, teaching himself how to program from the VIC-20 user manual. At age twelve, Elon sold his BASIC-based game Blastar to PC and Office Technology magazine for approximately $500 (equivalent to $1,600 in 2025).
=== Education ===
Musk attended Waterkloof House Preparatory School, Bryanston High School, and then Pretoria Boys High School, where he graduated. Musk was a decent but unexceptional student, earning a 61/100 in Afrikaans and a B on his senior math certification. Musk applied for a Canadian passport through his Canadian-born mother to avoid South Africa's mandatory military service, which would have forced him to participate in the apartheid regime, as well as to ease his path to immigration to the United States. While waiting for his application to be processed, he attended the University of Pretoria for five months.
Musk arrived in Canada in June 1989, connected with a second cousin in Saskatchewan, and worked odd jobs, including at a farm and a lumber mill. In 1990, he entered Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Two years later, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied until 1995. Although Musk has said that he earned his degrees in 1995, the University of Pennsylvania did not award them until 1997 – a Bachelor of Arts in physics and a Bachelor of Science in economics from the university's Wharton School. He reportedly hosted large, ticketed house parties to help pay for tuition, and wrote a business plan for an electronic book-scanning service similar to Google Books.
In 1994, Musk held two internships in Silicon Valley: one at energy storage startup Pinnacle Research Institute, which investigated electrolytic supercapacitors for energy storage, and another at Palo Alto–based startup Rocket Science Games. In 1995, he was accepted to a graduate program in materials science at Stanford University, but did not enroll. Musk decided to join the Internet boom of the 1990s, applying for a job at Netscape, to which he reportedly never received a response. The Washington Post reported that Musk lacked legal authorization to remain and work in the United States after failing to enroll at Stanford. In response, Musk said he was allowed to work at that time and that his student visa transitioned to an H1-B. According to numerous former business associates and shareholders, Musk said he was on a student visa at the time.
== Business career ==
=== Zip2 ===
In 1995, Musk, his brother Kimbal, and Greg Kouri founded the web software company Zip2 with funding from a group of angel investors. They housed the venture at a small rented office in Palo Alto. Replying to Rolling Stone, Musk denounced the notion that they started their company with funds borrowed from Elon's father Errol Musk, but in a tweet, he recognized that his father contributed 10% of a later funding round. The company developed and marketed an Internet city guide for the newspaper publishing industry, with maps, directions, and yellow pages.
According to Musk, "The website was up during the day and I was coding it at night, seven days a week, all the time." To impress investors, Musk built a large plastic structure around a standard computer to create the impression that Zip2 was powered by a small supercomputer. The Musk brothers obtained contracts with The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, and persuaded the board of directors to abandon plans for a merger with CitySearch. Musk's attempts to become CEO were thwarted by the board. Compaq acquired Zip2 for $307 million in cash in February 1999 (equivalent to $590,000,000 in 2025), and Musk received $22 million (equivalent to $43,000,000 in 2025) for his 7-percent share.
=== X.com and PayPal ===
In 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company. The startup was one of the first federally insured online banks, and, in its initial months of operation, over 200,000 customers joined the service. The company's investors regarded Musk as inexperienced and replaced him with Intuit CEO Bill Harris by the end of the year. The following year, X.com merged with online bank Confinity to avoid competition. Founded by Max Levchin and Peter Thiel, Confinity had its own money-transfer service, PayPal, which was more popular than X.com's service.
Within the merged company, Musk returned as CEO. Musk's preference for Microsoft software over Unix created a rift in the company and caused Thiel to resign. Due to resulting technological issues and lack of a cohesive business model, the board ousted Musk and replaced him with Thiel in 2000. Under Thiel, the company focused on the PayPal service and was renamed PayPal in 2001. In 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion (equivalent to $2,700,000,000 in 2025) in stock, of which Musk—the largest shareholder with 11.72% of shares—received $175.8 million (equivalent to $320,000,000 in 2025). In 2017, Musk purchased the domain X.com from PayPal for an undisclosed amount, stating that it had sentimental value.
=== SpaceX ===
In 2001, Musk became involved with the nonprofit Mars Society and discussed funding plans to place a growth-chamber for plants on Mars. Seeking a way to launch the greenhouse payloads into space, Musk made two unsuccessful trips to Moscow to purchase intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) from Russian companies NPO Lavochkin and Kosmotras. Musk instead decided to start a company to build affordable rockets. With $100 million of his early fortune, (equivalent to $180,000,000 in 2025) Musk founded SpaceX in May 2002 and became the company's CEO and Chief Engineer.
SpaceX attempted its first launch of the Falcon 1 rocket in 2006. Although the rocket failed to reach Earth orbit, it was awarded a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program contract from NASA, then led by Mike Griffin. After two more failed attempts that nearly caused Musk to go bankrupt, SpaceX succeeded in launching the Falcon 1 into orbit in 2008. Later that year, SpaceX received a $1.6 billion NASA contract (equivalent to $2,400,000,000 in 2025) for Falcon 9-launched Dragon spacecraft flights to the International Space Station (ISS), replacing the Space Shuttle after its 2011 retirement. In 2012, the Dragon vehicle docked with the ISS, a first for a commercial spacecraft.
Working towards its goal of reusable rockets, in 2015 SpaceX successfully landed the first stage of a Falcon 9 on a land platform. Later landings were achieved on autonomous spaceport drone ships, an ocean-based recovery platform. In 2018, SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy; the inaugural mission carried Musk's personal Tesla Roadster as a dummy payload. Since 2019, SpaceX has been developing Starship, a reusable, super heavy-lift launch vehicle intended to replace the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. In 2020, SpaceX launched its first crewed flight, the Demo-2, becoming the first private company to place astronauts into orbit and dock a crewed spacecraft with the ISS. In 2024, NASA awarded SpaceX an $843 million (equivalent to $865,000,000 in 2025) contract to build a spacecraft that NASA will use to deorbit the ISS at the end of its lifespan.
==== Starlink ====
In 2015, SpaceX began development of the Starlink constellation of low Earth orbit satellites to provide satellite Internet access. After the launch of prototype satellites in 2018, the first large constellation was deployed in May 2019. As of May 2025, over 7,600 Starlink satellites are operational, comprising 65% of all operational Earth satellites. The total cost of the decade-long project to design, build, and deploy the constellation was estimated by SpaceX in 2020 to be $10 billion (equivalent to $12,000,000,000 in 2025).
During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Musk provided free Starlink service to Ukraine, permitting Internet access and communication at a yearly cost to SpaceX of $400 million (equivalent to $440,000,000 in 2025). However, Musk refused to block Russian state media on Starlink. In 2023, Musk denied Ukraine's request to activate Starlink over Crimea to aid an attack against the Russian navy, citing fears of a nuclear response.
=== Tesla ===
Tesla, Inc., originally Tesla Motors, was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Both men played active roles in the company's early development prior to Musk's involvement. Musk led the Series A round of investment in February 2004; he invested $6.35 million (equivalent to $11,000,000 in 2025), became the majority shareholder, and joined Tesla's board of directors as chairman. Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design, but was not deeply involved in day-to-day business operations. Following a series of escalating conflicts in 2007 and the 2008 financial crisis, Eberhard was ousted from the firm. Musk assumed leadership of the company as CEO and product architect in 2008. A 2009 lawsuit settlement with Eberhard designated Musk as a Tesla co-founder, along with Tarpenning and two others.
Tesla began delivery of the Roadster, an electric sports car, in 2008. With sales of about 2,500 vehicles, it was the first mass production all-electric car to use lithium-ion battery cells. Under Musk, Tesla has since launched several well-selling electric vehicles, including the four-door sedan Model S (2012), the crossover Model X (2015), the mass-market sedan Model 3 (2017), the crossover Model Y (2020), and the pickup truck Cybertruck (2023). The company has also constructed multiple lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle factories, called Gigafactories.
In May 2020, Musk resigned as chairman of the board as part of the settlement of a lawsuit from the SEC over him tweeting that funding had been "secured" for potentially taking Tesla private.
Since its initial public offering in 2010, Tesla stock has risen significantly; it became the most valuable carmaker in summer 2020, and it entered the S&P 500 later that year. In October 2021, it reached a market capitalization of $1 trillion (equivalent to $1,200,000,000,000 in 2025), the sixth company in U.S. history to do so.
==== SolarCity and Tesla Energy ====
Musk provided the initial concept and financial capital for SolarCity, which his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive founded in 2006. By 2013, SolarCity was the second largest provider of solar power systems in the United States. In 2014, Musk promoted the idea of SolarCity building an advanced production facility in Buffalo, New York, triple the size of the largest solar plant in the United States. Construction of the factory started in 2014 and was completed in 2017. It operated as a joint venture with Panasonic until early 2020.
Tesla acquired SolarCity for $2 billion in 2016 (equivalent to $2,700,000,000 in 2025) and merged it with its battery unit to create Tesla Energy. The deal's announcement resulted in a more than 10% drop in Tesla's stock price; at the time, SolarCity was facing liquidity issues. Multiple shareholder groups filed a lawsuit against Musk and Tesla's directors, stating that the purchase of SolarCity was done solely to benefit Musk and came at the expense of Tesla and its shareholders. Tesla directors settled the lawsuit in January 2020, leaving Musk the sole remaining defendant. Two years later, the court ruled in Musk's favor.
=== Neuralink ===
In 2016, Musk co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology startup, with an investment of $100 million. Neuralink aims to integrate the human brain with artificial intelligence (AI) by creating devices that are embedded in the brain. Such technology could enhance memory or allow the devices to communicate with software. The company also hopes to develop devices to treat neurological conditions like spinal cord injuries. In 2022, Neuralink announced that clinical trials would begin by the end of the year. In September 2023, the Food and Drug Administration approved Neuralink to initiate six-year human trials.
Neuralink has conducted animal testing on macaques at the University of California, Davis. In 2021, the company released a video in which a macaque played the video game Pong via a Neuralink implant. The company's animal trials—which have caused the deaths of some monkeys—have led to claims of animal cruelty. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has alleged that Neuralink violated the Animal Welfare Act. Employees have complained that pressure from Musk to accelerate development has led to botched experiments and unnecessary animal deaths. In 2022, a federal probe was launched into possible animal welfare violations by Neuralink.
=== The Boring Company ===
In 2017, Musk founded the Boring Company to construct tunnels; he also revealed plans for specialized, underground, high-occupancy vehicles that could travel up to 150 miles per hour (240 km/h) and thus circumvent above-ground traffic in major cities. Early in 2017, the company began discussions with regulatory bodies and initiated construction of a 30-foot (9.1 m) wide, 50-foot (15 m) long, and 15-foot (4.6 m) deep "test trench" on the premises of SpaceX's offices, as that required no permits.
The Los Angeles tunnel, less than two miles (3.2 km) in length, debuted to journalists in 2018. It used Tesla Model Xs and was reported to be a rough ride while traveling at suboptimal speeds. Two tunnel projects announced in 2018, in Chicago and West Los Angeles, have been canceled. A tunnel beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center was completed in early 2021. Local officials have approved further expansions of the tunnel system.
=== X Corp. ===
In early 2017, Musk expressed interest in buying Twitter and had questioned the platform's commitment to freedom of speech. By 2022, Musk had reached 9.2% stake in the company, making him the largest shareholder. Musk later agreed to a deal that would appoint him to Twitter's board of directors and prohibit him from acquiring more than 14.9% of the company. Days later, Musk made a $43 billion offer to buy Twitter. By the end of April Musk had successfully concluded his bid for approximately $44 billion. This included approximately $12.5 billion in loans and $21 billion in equity financing. Having backtracked on his initial decision, Musk bought the company on October 27, 2022.
Immediately after the acquisition, Musk fired several top Twitter executives including CEO Parag Agrawal; Musk became the CEO instead. Under Elon Musk, Twitter instituted monthly subscriptions for a "blue check", and laid off a significant portion of the company's staff. Musk lessened content moderation and hate speech also increased on the platform after his takeover. In late 2022, Musk released internal documents relating to Twitter's moderation of Hunter Biden's laptop controversy in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election. Musk also promised to step down as CEO after a Twitter poll, and five months later, Musk stepped down as CEO and transitioned his role to executive chairman and chief technology officer (CTO).
Despite Musk stepping down as CEO, X continues to struggle with challenges such as viral misinformation, hate speech, and antisemitism controversies. Musk has been accused of trying to silence some of his critics such as Twitch streamer Asmongold, who criticized him during one of his streams. Musk has been accused of removing their accounts' blue checkmarks, which hinders visibility and is considered a form of shadow banning, or suspending their accounts without justification.
== Other activities ==
=== Hyperloop ===
In August 2013, Musk announced plans for a version of a vactrain, and assigned engineers from SpaceX and Tesla to design a transport system between Greater Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, at an estimated cost of $6 billion. Later that year, Musk unveiled the concept, dubbed the Hyperloop, intended to make travel cheaper than any other mode of transport for such long distances.
=== OpenAI and xAI ===
In December 2015, Musk co-founded OpenAI, a not-for-profit artificial intelligence (AI) research company aiming to develop artificial general intelligence, intended to be safe and beneficial to humanity. Musk pledged $1 billion of funding to the company, and initially gave $50 million. In 2018, Musk left the OpenAI board. Since 2018, OpenAI has made significant advances in machine learning. In July 2023, Musk launched the artificial intelligence company xAI, which aims to develop a generative AI program that competes with existing offerings like OpenAI's ChatGPT. Musk obtained funding from investors in SpaceX and Tesla, and xAI hired engineers from Google and OpenAI.
=== Private jet ===
Musk uses a private jet owned by Falcon Landing LLC, a SpaceX-linked company, and acquired a second jet in August 2020. His heavy use of the jets and the consequent fossil fuel usage have received criticism. Musk's flight usage is tracked on social media through ElonJet. In December 2022, Musk banned the ElonJet account on Twitter, and made temporary bans on the accounts of journalists that posted stories regarding the incident, including Donie O'Sullivan, Keith Olbermann, and journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and The Intercept.
=== Grokipedia ===
In October 2025, Musk's company xAI launched Grokipedia, an AI-generated online encyclopedia that he promoted as an alternative to Wikipedia. Articles on Grokipedia are generated and reviewed by xAI's Grok chatbot.
Media coverage and academic analysis described Grokipedia as frequently reusing Wikipedia content but framing contested political and social topics in line with Musk's own views and right-wing narratives. A study by Cornell University researchers and NBC News stated that Grokipedia cites sources that are blacklisted or considered "generally unreliable" on Wikipedia, for example, the conspiracy site Infowars and the neo-Nazi forum Stormfront. Wired, The Guardian and Time criticized Grokipedia for factual errors and for presenting Musk himself in unusually positive terms while downplaying controversies.
== Politics ==
Musk is an outlier among business leaders who typically avoid partisan political advocacy. Musk was a registered independent voter when he lived in California. Historically, he has donated to both Democrats and Republicans, many of whom serve in states in which he has a vested interest. Since 2022, his political contributions have mostly supported Republicans, with his first vote for a Republican going to Mayra Flores in the 2022 Texas's 34th congressional district special election. In 2024, he started supporting international far-right political parties, activists, and causes, and has shared misinformation and numerous conspiracy theories. Since 2024, his views have been generally described as right-wing.
Musk supported Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020, and Donald Trump in 2024. In the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Musk endorsed candidate Andrew Yang and expressed support for Yang's proposed universal basic income, and endorsed Kanye West's 2020 presidential campaign. In 2021, Musk publicly expressed opposition to the Build Back Better Act.
In 2022, Musk gave over $50 million to Citizens for Sanity, a conservative political action committee. In 2023, he supported Republican Ron DeSantis for the 2024 U.S. presidential election, giving $10 million to his campaign, and hosted DeSantis's campaign announcement on a Twitter Spaces event. From June 2023 to January 2024, Musk hosted a bipartisan set of X Spaces with Republican and Democratic candidates, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy, and Dean Phillips.
In October 2025, former vice-president Kamala Harris commented that it was a mistake from the Democratic side to not invite Musk to a White House electric vehicle event organized in August 2021 and featuring executives from General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, despite Tesla being "the major American manufacturer of extraordinary innovation in this space." Fortune remarked that this was a nod to United Auto Workers and organized labor. Harris said presidents should put aside political loyalties when it came to recognizing innovation, and guessed that the non-invitation impacted Musk's perspective. Fortune noted that, at the time, Musk said, "Yeah, seems odd that Tesla wasn't invited." A month later, he criticized Biden as "not the friendliest administration." Jacob Silverman, author of the book Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley, said that the tech industry represented by Musk, Thiel, Andreessen and other capitalists, actually flourished under Biden, but the tech leaders chose Trump for their common ground on cultural issues.
By early 2024, Musk had become a vocal and financial supporter of Donald Trump. In July 2024, minutes after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, Musk endorsed him for president saying; "I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery." During the presidential campaign, Musk joined Trump on stage at a campaign rally, and during the campaign promoted conspiracy theories and falsehoods about Democrats, election fraud and immigration, in support of Trump. Musk was the largest individual donor of the 2024 election. In 2025, Musk contributed $19 million to the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, hoping to influence the state's future redistricting efforts and its regulations governing car manufacturers and dealers.
In 2023, Musk said he shunned the World Economic Forum because it was boring. The organization commented that they had not invited him since 2015. He has participated in Dialog, dubbed "Tech Bilderberg" and organized by Peter Thiel and Auren Hoffman, though.
Musk's international political actions and comments have come under increasing scrutiny and criticism, especially from the governments and leaders of France, Germany, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom, particularly due to his position in the U.S. government as well as ownership of X. An NBC News analysis found he had boosted far-right political movements to cut immigration and curtail regulation of business in at least 18 countries on six continents since 2023.
=== Salute at Trump's second inauguration ===
During his speech after the second inauguration of Donald Trump, Musk twice made a gesture interpreted by many as a Nazi or a fascist Roman salute. He thumped his right hand over his heart, fingers spread wide, and then extended his right arm out, emphatically, at an upward angle, palm down and fingers together. He then repeated the gesture to the crowd behind him. As he finished the gestures, he said to the crowd, "My heart goes out to you. It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured."
It was widely condemned as an intentional Nazi salute in Germany, where making such gestures is illegal. The Anti-Defamation League said it was not a Nazi salute, but other Jewish organizations disagreed and condemned the salute. American public opinion was divided on partisan lines as to whether it was a fascist salute. Musk dismissed the accusations of Nazi sympathies, deriding them as "dirty tricks" and a "tired" attack. Neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups celebrated it as a Nazi salute. Multiple European political parties demanded that Musk be banned from entering their countries.
=== Department of Government Efficiency ===
The concept of DOGE emerged in a discussion between Musk and Donald Trump, and in August 2024, Trump committed to giving Musk an advisory role, with Musk accepting the offer. In November and December 2024, Musk suggested that the organization could help to cut the U.S. federal budget, consolidate the number of federal agencies, and eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and that its final stage would be "deleting itself".
In January 2025, the organization was created by executive order, and Musk was designated a "special government employee". Musk led the organization and was a senior advisor to the president, although his official role is not clear. In sworn statement during a lawsuit, the director of the White House Office of Administration stated that Musk "is not an employee of the U.S. DOGE Service or U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization", "is not the U.S. DOGE Service administrator", and has "no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself". Trump said two days later that he had put Musk in charge of DOGE. A federal judge has ruled that Musk acted as the de facto leader of DOGE.
Musk's role in the second Trump administration, particularly in response to DOGE, has attracted public backlash. He was criticized for his treatment of federal government employees, including his influence over the mass layoffs of the federal workforce. He has prioritized secrecy within the organization and has accused others of violating privacy laws. A Senate report alleged that Musk could avoid up to $2 billion in legal liability as a result of DOGE's actions. In May 2025, Bill Gates accused Musk of "killing the world's poorest children" through his cuts to USAID, which modeling by Boston University estimated had resulted in 300,000 deaths by this time, most of them of children. By November 2025, the estimated death toll had increased to 400,000 children and 200,000 adults.
Musk announced on May 28, 2025, that he would depart from the Trump administration as planned when the special government employee's 130 day deadline expired, with a White House official confirming that Musk's offboarding from the Trump administration was already underway. His departure was officially confirmed during a joint Oval Office press conference with Trump on May 30, 2025.
=== Feud with Donald Trump ===
After leaving office, Musk criticized the Trump administration's Big Beautiful Bill, calling it a "disgusting abomination" due to its provisions increasing the deficit. A feud began between Musk and Trump, with its most notable event being Musk alleging Trump had ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on X (formerly Twitter) on June 5, 2025. Trump responded on Truth Social stating that Musk went "CRAZY" after the "EV Mandate" was purportedly taken away and threatened to cut Musk's government contracts. Musk then called for a third Trump impeachment. The next day, Trump stated that he did not wish to reconcile with Musk, and added that Musk would face "very serious consequences" if he funds Democratic candidates. On June 11, Musk publicly apologized for the tweets against Trump, saying they "went too far".
== Views ==
Rejecting the conservative label, Musk has described himself as a political moderate, even as his views have become more right-wing over time. His views have been characterized as libertarian and far-right, and after his involvement in European politics, they have received criticism from world leaders such as Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz.
Within the context of American politics, Musk supported Democratic candidates up until 2022, at which point he voted for a Republican for the first time. He has stated support for universal basic income, gun rights, freedom of speech, a tax on carbon emissions, and H-1B visas. Musk has expressed concern about issues such as artificial intelligence (AI) and climate change, and has been a critic of wealth tax, short-selling, and government subsidies. An immigrant himself, Musk has been accused of being anti-immigration, and regularly blames immigration policies for illegal immigration. He is also a pronatalist who believes population decline is the biggest threat to civilization, and identifies as a cultural Christian. Musk has long been an advocate for space colonization, especially the colonization of Mars. He has repeatedly pushed for humanity colonizing Mars, in order to become an interplanetary species and lower the risks of human extinction.
Musk has promoted conspiracy theories and made controversial statements that have led to accusations of racism, sexism, antisemitism, transphobia, disseminating disinformation, and support of white pride. While describing himself as a "pro-Semite", his comments regarding George Soros and Jewish communities have been condemned by the Anti-Defamation League and the Biden White House. Musk was criticized during the COVID-19 pandemic for making unfounded epidemiological claims, defying COVID-19 lockdowns restrictions, and supporting the Canada convoy protest against vaccine mandates. He has amplified false claims of white genocide in South Africa.
=== International relations ===
Musk has been critical of Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip during the Gaza war, praised China's economic and climate goals, suggested that Taiwan and China should resolve cross-strait relations, and was described as having a close relationship with the Chinese government.
In Europe, Musk expressed support for Ukraine in 2022 during the Russian invasion, recommended referendums and peace deals on the annexed Russia-occupied territories, and supported the far-right Alternative for Germany political party in 2024.
Regarding British politics, Musk blamed the 2024 UK riots on mass migration and open borders, criticized Prime Minister Keir Starmer for what he described as a "two-tier" policing system, and was subsequently attacked as being responsible for spreading misinformation and amplifying the far-right. He has also voiced his support for far-right UK activist Tommy Robinson and pledged electoral support for Reform UK.
In February 2026, Musk described Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez as a "tyrant" following Sánchez's proposal to prohibit minors under the age of 16 from accessing social media platforms.
== Legal affairs ==
In 2018, Musk was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a tweet stating that funding had been secured for potentially taking Tesla private. The securities fraud lawsuit characterized the tweet as false, misleading, and damaging to investors, and sought to bar Musk from serving as CEO of publicly traded companies. Two days later, Musk settled with the SEC, without admitting or denying the SEC's allegations. As a result, Musk and Tesla were fined $20 million each, and Musk was forced to step down for three years as Tesla chairman but was able to remain as CEO. Shareholders filed a lawsuit over the tweet, and in February 2023, a jury found Musk and Tesla not liable. Musk has stated in interviews that he does not regret posting the tweet that triggered the SEC investigation.
In 2019, Musk stated in a tweet that Tesla would build half a million cars that year. The SEC reacted by asking a court to hold him in contempt for violating the terms of the 2018 settlement agreement. A joint agreement between Musk and the SEC eventually clarified the previous agreement details, including a list of topics about which Musk needed preclearance. In 2020, a judge blocked a lawsuit that claimed a tweet by Musk regarding Tesla stock price ("too high imo") violated the agreement. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)-released records showed that the SEC concluded Musk had subsequently violated the agreement twice by tweeting regarding "Tesla's solar roof production volumes and its stock price".
In October 2023, the SEC sued Musk over his refusal to testify a third time in an investigation into whether he violated federal law by purchasing Twitter stock in 2022. In February 2024, Judge Laurel Beeler ruled that Musk must testify again. In January 2025, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Musk for securities violations related to his purchase of Twitter.
In January 2024, Delaware judge Kathaleen McCormick ruled in a 2018 lawsuit that Musk's $55 billion pay package from Tesla be rescinded. McCormick called the compensation granted by the company's board "an unfathomable sum" that was unfair to shareholders. The Delaware Supreme Court overturned McCormick's decision in December 2025, restoring Musk's compensation package and awarding $1 in nominal damages.
On 20 March 2026, a jury in San Francisco, California, found Musk liable for misleading investors during his acquisition of Twitter, though they also absolved him of some fraud allegations, finding he did not "scheme" to defraud investors. Specifically, Musk was found to have misled shareholders in two tweets, but not in a podcast, as the views he expressed in that were deemed by the jury to be an opinion. The verdict also resulted in shareholders being awarded from $3 to $8 a day for damages, which plaintiffs lawyers said amounts to $2.1 billion.
== Personal life ==
Musk became a U.S. citizen in 2002. From the early 2000s until late 2020, Musk resided in California, where both Tesla and SpaceX were founded. He then relocated to Cameron County, Texas, saying that California had become "complacent" about its economic success.
While hosting Saturday Night Live in 2021, Musk stated that he has Asperger syndrome (an outdated term for a mild strain of autism spectrum disorder), although he has never been formally diagnosed. When asked about his experience growing up with Asperger's syndrome in a TED conference in Vancouver in 2022, Musk stated that "the social cues were not intuitive ... I would just tend to take things very literally ... but then that turned out to be wrong — [people were not] simply saying exactly what they mean, there's all sorts of other things that are meant, and [it] took me a while to figure that out." Musk suffers from back pain and has undergone several spine-related surgeries, including a disc replacement. In 2000, he contracted a severe case of malaria while on vacation in South Africa.
Musk has stated he uses doctor-prescribed ketamine for occasional depression and that he doses "a small amount once every other week or something like that"; since January 2024, some media outlets have reported that he takes ketamine, marijuana, LSD, ecstasy, mushrooms, cocaine and other drugs. Musk at first refused to comment on his alleged drug use, before responding that he had not tested positive for drugs, and that if drugs somehow improved his productivity, "I would definitely take them!". The New York Times' investigations revealed Musk's overuse of ketamine and numerous other drugs, as well as strained family relationships and concerns from close associates who have become troubled by his public behavior as he became more involved in political activities and government work. According to The Washington Post, President Trump described Musk as "a big-time drug addict".
Through his own label Emo G Records, Musk released a rap track, "RIP Harambe", on SoundCloud in March 2019. The following year, he released an EDM track, "Don't Doubt Ur Vibe", featuring his own lyrics and vocals.
Musk plays video games, which he stated has a "'restoring effect' that helps his 'mental calibration'". Some games he plays include Quake, Diablo IV, Elden Ring, and Polytopia. Musk once claimed to be one of the world's top video game players but has since admitted to "account boosting", or cheating by hiring outside services to achieve top player rankings. Musk has justified the boosting by claiming that all top accounts do it so he has to as well to remain competitive. In 2024 and 2025, Musk criticized the video game Assassin's Creed Shadows and its creator Ubisoft for "woke" content. Musk posted to X that "DEI kills art" and specified the inclusion of the historical figure Yasuke in the Assassin's Creed game as offensive; he also called the game "terrible". Ubisoft responded by saying that Musk's comments were "just feeding hatred" and that they were focused on producing a game not pushing politics.
=== Relationships and children ===
Musk has fathered at least 14 children, one of whom died as an infant. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2025 that sources close to Musk suggest that the "true number of Musk's children is much higher than publicly known". He had six children with his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson, whom he met while attending Queen's University in Ontario, Canada; they married in 2000. In 2002, their first child Nevada Musk died of sudden infant death syndrome at the age of 10 weeks. After his death, the couple used in vitro fertilization (IVF) to continue their family; they had twins in 2004, followed by triplets in 2006. The couple divorced in 2008 and have shared custody of their children. The elder twin he had with Wilson came out as a trans woman and, in 2022, officially changed her name to Vivian Jenna Wilson, adopting her mother's surname because she no longer wished to be associated with Musk.
Musk began dating English actress Talulah Riley in 2008. They married two years later at Dornoch Cathedral in Scotland. In 2012, the couple divorced, then remarried the following year. After briefly filing for divorce in 2014, Musk finalized a second divorce from Riley in 2016. Musk then dated the American actress Amber Heard for several months in 2017; he had reportedly been "pursuing" her since 2012.
In 2018, Musk and Canadian musician Grimes confirmed they were dating. Grimes and Musk have three children, born in 2020, 2021, and 2022. Musk and Grimes originally gave their eldest child the name "X Æ A-12", which would have violated California regulations as it contained characters that are not in the modern English alphabet; the names registered on the birth certificate are "X" as a first name, "Æ A-Xii" as a middle name, and "Musk" as a last name. They received criticism for choosing a name perceived to be impractical and difficult to pronounce; Musk has said the intended pronunciation is "X Ash A Twelve". Their second child was born via surrogacy. Despite the pregnancy, Musk confirmed reports that the couple were "semi-separated" in September 2021; in an interview with Time in December 2021, he said he was single. In October 2023, Grimes sued Musk over parental rights and custody of X Æ A-Xii. Elon Musk has taken X Æ A-Xii to multiple official events in Washington, D.C. during Trump's second term in office.
Also in July 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk allegedly had an affair with Nicole Shanahan, the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, in 2021, leading to their divorce the following year. Musk denied the report. Musk also had a relationship with Australian actress Natasha Bassett, who has been described as "an occasional girlfriend". In October 2024, The New York Times reported Musk bought a Texas compound for his children and their mothers, though Musk denied having done so.
Musk also has four children with Shivon Zilis, director of operations and special projects at Neuralink: twins born via IVF in 2021, a child born in 2024 via surrogacy and a child born in 2025.
On February 14, 2025, Ashley St. Clair, an influencer and author, posted on X claiming to have given birth to Musk's son Romulus five months earlier, which media outlets reported as Musk's supposed thirteenth child. On February 22, 2025, it was reported that St Clair had filed for sole custody of her five-month-old son and for Musk to be recognised as the child's father. On March 31, 2025, Musk wrote that, while he was unsure if he was the father of St. Clair's child, he had paid St. Clair $2.5 million and would continue paying her $500,000 per year. Later reporting from the Wall Street Journal indicated that $1 million of these payments to St. Clair were structured as a loan.
=== Involvement with Jeffrey Epstein ===
In 2014, Musk and Ghislaine Maxwell appeared together in a photograph taken at an Academy Awards after-party, which Musk later described as a "photobomb". The January 2026 Epstein files contain emails between Musk and Epstein from 2012 to 2013, after Epstein's first conviction.
Emails released on January 30, 2026, indicated that Epstein invited Musk to visit his private island on multiple occasions. The correspondence showed that while Epstein repeatedly encouraged Musk to attend, Musk did not visit the island. In one instance, Musk discussed the possibility of attending a party with his then-wife Talulah Riley and asked which day would be the "wildest party"; according to the emails, the visit did not take place after Epstein later cancelled the plans.
On Christmas day in 2012, Musk emailed Epstein asking "Do you have any parties planned? I’ve been working to the edge of sanity this year and so, once my kids head home after Christmas, I really want to hit the party scene in St Barts or elsewhere and let loose. The invitation is much appreciated, but a peaceful island experience is the opposite of what I’m looking for". Epstein replied that the "ratio on my island" might make Musk's wife uncomfortable to which Musk responded, "Ratio is not a problem for Talulah".
On September 11, 2013, Epstein sent an email asking Musk if he had any plans for coming to New York for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, saying that many "interesting people" would be coming to Epstein's house. Musk responded that "Flying to NY to see UN diplomats do nothing would be an unwise use of time". Epstein responded by stating "Do you think i am retarded. Just kidding, there is no one over 25 and all very cute."
Musk has denied any close relationship with Epstein and described him as a "creep" who attempted to ingratiate himself with influential people. When Musk was asked in 2019 if he introduced Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg, Musk responded: "I don’t recall introducing Epstein to anyone, as I don’t know the guy well enough to do so." The released emails nonetheless showed cordial exchanges on a range of topics, including Musk's inquiry about parties on the island. The correspondence also indicated that Musk suggested hosting Epstein at SpaceX, while Epstein separately discussed plans to tour SpaceX and bring "the girls", though there is no evidence that such a visit occurred. Musk has described the release of the files a "distraction", later accusing the second Trump administration of suppressing them to protect powerful individuals, including Trump himself.
== Wealth ==
=== Musk Foundation ===
== Public image ==
Although his ventures have been highly influential within their separate industries starting in the 2000s, Musk only became a public figure in the early 2010s. He has been described as an eccentric who makes spontaneous and impactful decisions, while also often making controversial statements, contrary to other billionaires who prefer reclusiveness to protect their businesses. Musk's actions and his expressed views have made him a polarizing figure. Biographer Ashlee Vance described people's opinions of Musk as polarized due to his "part philosopher, part troll" persona on Twitter. He has drawn denouncement for using his platform to mock the self-selection of personal pronouns, while also receiving praise for bringing international attention to matters like British survivors of grooming gangs.
Musk has been described as an American oligarch due to his extensive influence over public discourse, social media, industry, politics, and government policy. After Trump's re-election, Musk's influence and actions during the transition period and the second presidency of Donald Trump led some to call him "President Musk", the "actual president-elect", "shadow president" or "co-president".
=== Accolades ===
Awards for his contributions to the development of the Falcon rockets include the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics George Low Transportation Award in 2008, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Gold Space Medal in 2010, and the Royal Aeronautical Society Gold Medal in 2012. In 2015, he received an honorary doctorate in engineering and technology from Yale University and an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Honorary Membership. Musk was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018. In 2022, Musk was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
Time has listed Musk as one of the most influential people in the world in 2010, 2013, 2018, and 2021. Musk was selected as Time's "Person of the Year" for 2021. Then Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote that, "Person of the Year is a marker of influence, and few individuals have had more influence than Musk on life on Earth, and potentially life off Earth too." |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Locke | Bobby Locke | Arthur D'Arcy "Bobby" Locke (20 November 1917 – 9 March 1987) was a South African professional golfer. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest golfers of all time. He won The Open Championship four times and 15 PGA Tour events in total. In addition, he was a prolific tournament winner in South Africa, ultimately recording over 50 significant victories in his home country, including the South African Open nine times.
== Early life ==
Locke was born in Germiston, South Africa the only son of Mr. C.J. and Mrs. O. Locke of 70 Nottingham Road, Kensington, Johannesburg. He obtained his Educational Junior Certificate pass at Benoni High School in 1934.
== Amateur career ==
Locke won the South African Open for the first of nine times in 1935, at the Parkview Golf Club in Johannesburg, with a score of 296, playing as an amateur. He played in his first Open Championship in 1936, when he was 18 years old, and finished as the low amateur.
== Professional career ==
He turned professional in March 1938 at the age of 20 and was engaged by the Maccauvlei Country Club as club professional in December 1939. Problems arose when Locke wanted to give lessons to non-members as well as take leave of absence, without advance request, to take part in outside competitions such as the U.S. Open. Locke resigned from the club, by letter, on 26 July 1940. His golf career was interrupted by service in the South African Air Force during World War II.
=== PGA Tour ===
Following the end of World War II, Locke successfully resumed his career in South Africa in 1946. He hosted Sam Snead, one of the top American golfers of the day, for a series of exhibition matches in South Africa in January/February 1947, winning 12 out of the 16 matches, two were halved and Snead won two. So impressed was Snead that he suggested that Locke come to the United States and give the PGA Tour a try, advice that Locke quickly followed.
Locke arrived in the U.S. for the first time in April 1947, well after the American Tour season had begun. In two-and-a-half years on the PGA Tour, Locke played in 59 events; he won 11, and finished in the top three in 30, just over half. In 1947, despite a late start, Locke dominated the American tour, winning six tournaments (including four in a five-week period), and finishing second to Jimmy Demaret on the money list.
In 1948, he won the Chicago Victory National by 16 strokes, which remains a PGA Tour record for margin of victory (tied for margin of victory with J. Douglas Edgar's win in the 1919 Canadian Open).
The following year, Locke was banned from the tour, ostensibly because of a dispute over playing commitments. Locke had indeed given several advance commitments to appear at tournaments and exhibitions, then had not turned up nor given adequate notice nor explanations for his absences. However, the 1948 Masters champion Claude Harmon stated, unsolicited, to another golf personality during that era: "Locke was simply too good. They had to ban him." The ban was lifted in March 1950. However, Locke chose not to return to play in the United States, except for a few isolated appearances.
Locke explained his point of view and events leading up to the banning. He stated that he had accepted invitations, organised through the PGA to play in two local tournaments, The Inverness Fourball and Western Open. He explained how he had been helped to iron out a putting problem which led to him winning the 1949 Open Championship. He gives the "Open" win as one of his reasons to breach his contract. The text indicates that he understood the contractual nature of his dealings with the PGA.
=== Worldwide success ===
After leaving the PGA Tour, Locke continued his career in Europe and Africa, where he felt more comfortable. He won 23 times in Europe, most notably a quartet of successes in The Open Championship, which came in 1949, 1950, 1952 and 1957. He was the first of many South Africans who subsequently won major championships, including Gary Player, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Trevor Immelman, Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel. His win in the 1957 Open Championship was with some controversy. Locke had failed to properly replace his ball after marking on the 72nd green, and proceeded to putt out. This had been confirmed through newsreel footage provided to the Royal and Ancient after the trophy presentation. The rules at the time made no provision for a two shot penalty, thus Locke's win could have been overturned through disqualification. However, the Championship committee did not enforce the disqualification rule, citing "equity and spirit of the game" as overriding factors in sustaining the posted result.
During this time Locke also played many other parts of the world. In 1955 he won the Australian Open held at Gailes Golf Club in Queensland; he later rated this as one of the best courses he had ever played. In 1959, Locke was involved in a serious car accident. Medical issues related to this incident contributed to the end of his career.
== Playing attributes ==
Locke built his success around his outstanding putting ability, coining the phrase "You drive for show, but putt for dough." Wearing his trademark knickerbockers, white shoes, and stockings, Locke played the game at a slow and deliberate pace, perhaps another reason that American pros were annoyed with him. On the greens, Locke was a bona fide genius, using a very unusual putting style (he would bring the putter back far to the inside on the backstroke, then virtually "trap" the ball with a hooded, closed clubface on the forward stroke, imparting a tremendous amount of overspin), and a great eye for reading breaks, to put on veritable putting clinics every time he played. Locke believed he could put spin on putts (similar to full-swing shots) and make them "hook" and "slice", and used his unorthodox technique to great success.
Locke was not particularly long from the tee, but placed great emphasis on accuracy in hitting fairways and greens; he employed an extreme right-to-left ball flight (one that bordered on a hook) on nearly every full shot.
Australian contemporary pro Jim Ferrier, who played the U.S. Tour during the late 1940s with Locke, described Locke's putting method as being designed to overcome the very heavy grain present on many Bermuda-grass greens of that era, particularly in warm-climate regions such as South Africa and the southern United States. In these regions, greens had to be constructed during that era using Bermuda-grass turf in order to survive the extreme summer heat; turfgrass research eventually developed a wider variety of strains which could be used. Locke's putting method allowed the ball to glide on top of the grass without being affected very much by the grain. Ferrier explained that Locke had apparently learned the technique from an Englishman in Egypt, while he was stationed there during World War II. Locke had in fact learned the technique from Walter Hagen during the "Haigs" tour of South Africa with Joe Kirkwood Sr. in 1938.
== Military service ==
Locke served in the South African Air Force during World War II. His Official War Record is held at the South African Department of Defence archives under his Service No: 103940. Those records show that he first trained as a pilot and later a pilot instructor. He was deployed to the Middle East from December 1944 to May 1945, and then to Italy, post VE Day, on transport duties until August 1945. He was honourably discharged in October 1945 having attained the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. He received the Italy Star and 1939-45 War Medal/Africa Service Medal.
=== Alternate descriptions of Locke's war record ===
Other descriptions of Locke's war record suggest he was more active than the transport duties he undertook, with SAAF Number 31 Squadron in Italy, that are described by the official SANDF archives. The descriptions include: he spent twelve months in a Liberator Squadron in Italy he was a bomber pilot who bombed Monte Casino, he fought for Britain as a bomber pilot; he flew over 100 missions over Europe with the SAAF; and 'served with distinction as a Royal Air Force Bomber pilot'.
Locke also claims that:
In a photograph of him and others, he was playing golf at Gizeh Golf & Country Club, in Cairo, in 1943, and
"My stay in the Air Force lasted five years and three months, in which time I completed 1,800 hours on single-, twin- and four-engined aircraft"
== Personal life ==
Following the car crash that ended his competitive career in 1960, Locke suffered from migraines and eye problems, although he continued competing occasionally after that, without much success.
Mental health issues followed, including bouts of depression, alcoholism and even an attempted murder charge following a dispute with a decorator, Big Boy Ndlovu. Locke considered Ndlovu's work below par and refused to pay the 220 rand Ndlovu asked for. Following an argument, Locke shot Ndlovu in the shoulder. Locke was fined 120 rand and had his gun licence suspended for six months.
== Death ==
In March 1987, Locke died of meningitis in Johannesburg, South Africa.
After his death, his wife Mary and daughter Carolyn became reclusive and died together in a suicide pact at their home in 2000, aged 80 and 40 respectively.
== Awards and honors ==
Locke won the Harry Vardon Trophy, awarded to the lowest scorer in the British PGA, three times: in 1946, 1950, and 1954.
In 1977, Locke was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame.
== Amateur wins ==
1931 South Africa Boys
1935 South African Amateur, Natal Amateur, Transvaal Amateur
1936 Natal Amateur, Lucifer Empire Trophy
1937 South African Amateur, Transvaal Amateur, Orange Free State Amateur
== Professional wins (94) ==
=== PGA Tour wins (12) ===
PGA Tour playoff record (4–0)
=== Other North American wins (8) ===
1947 Carolinas Open, Carolinas PGA Championship
1948 Carolinas Open
1949 Cavalier Specialists Invitational, Goodall Round Robin
1952 Mexican Open, Carolinas Open
1959 New Hampshire Open
=== South Africa wins (50) ===
1935 Natal Open, South African Open (both as an amateur)
1936 Natal Open (as an amateur)
1937 South African Open, Transvaal Open (both as an amateur)
1938 South African Open, South Africa Professional, Transvaal Open
1939 South African Open, South Africa Professional, Transvaal Open
1940 South African Open, South Africa Professional, Transvaal Open
1946 South African Open, South Africa Professional, Transvaal Open
1949 Stanley Motors 1,000 Guineas Tournament, Transvaal Open
1950 Dunlop £1.000 Tournament, Stanley Motors 1,000 Guineas Tournament, Transvaal Open, Western Transvaal Open, Grey Slax £1,000 Tournament, South Africa Professional, South African Open, Grey Slax £1,000 Tournament
1951 Stag £1,000 Matchplay, Stanley Motors 1,000 Guineas Tournament, Transvaal Open, East Rand Open, South Africa Professional, South African Open, Dunlop Masters £1,000 Tournament
1952 Stag £1,000 Matchplay, Stanley Motors 1,000 Guineas Tournament
1953 SANTA Open, Natal Open
1954 SANTA Open, Transvaal Open, Mills 1,000 Guineas Tournament
1955 Transvaal Open, South African Open, South Africa Professional
1956 Western Province Open
1957 East Rand Open
1958 Transvaal Open, Western Province Open, East Rand Open (tie with Eric Moore)
1960 East Rand Open
=== Other wins (24) ===
1938 Irish Open, New Zealand Open
1939 Dutch Open
1946 Yorkshire Evening News Tournament, Brand-Lochryn Tournament, Dunlop Masters
1950 Dunlop Tournament, Spalding Tournament, North British-Harrogate Tournament
1952 French Open, Lotus Tournament
1953 French Open
1954 Egyptian Open, German Open, Swiss Open, Dunlop Tournament, Dunlop British Masters (tie with Jimmy Adams), Egyptian Match Play, Swallow-Harrogate Tournament (Stroke play stage)
1955 Australian Open
1957 Daks Tournament, Bowmaker Tournament (tied with Frank Jowle), Open Championship
1959 Bowmaker Tournament
Professional major championship is shown in bold.
== Major championships ==
=== Wins (4) ===
1 Defeated Harry Bradshaw in 36-hole playoff: Locke (135), Bradshaw (147)
=== Results timeline ===
NT = No tournament
LA = Low amateur
CUT = missed the half-way cut
WD = Withdrew
"T" indicates a tie for a place
Sources: 1936 Amateur Championship, 1937 Amateur Championship
=== Summary ===
Most consecutive cuts made – 19 (1936 Open Championship – 1952 Masters)
Longest streak of top-10s – 5 (1949 U.S. Open – 1951 Open Championship)
== Team appearances ==
South African Amateur Golf Team to England 1937.
Canada Cup (representing South Africa): 1953, 1954, 1956, 1960
Slazenger Trophy (representing British Commonwealth and Empire): 1956
Hopkins Trophy (representing Canada): 1952, 1953, 1954 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Dutch_Treaty_of_1814 | Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 | The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 (also known as the Convention of London; Dutch: Verdrag van Londen) was signed by the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in London on 13 August 1814. It was signed by Lord Castlereagh on behalf of the British government and Hendrik Fagel on behalf of the Dutch government. The treaty restored several of the Dutch colonies occupied by British forces during the Napoleonic Wars, although several others were permanently ceded to Britain. It also included Dutch acknowledgement of British opposition to the Atlantic slave trade and agreements to improve the Low Countries' defences. Disputes arising from the treaty resulted in the signing of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824.
== Terms ==
=== Colonial possessions ===
The treaty returned many of the Dutch colonies Britain occupied during the Napoleonic Wars to the Netherlands, specifically Surinam, Curaçao, Aruba, Saba, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten, Dutch Bengal (with the exception of the district of Bernagore), Dutch Coromandel, Dutch Malacca and the Dutch East Indies. The Dutch agreed to cede several captured colonies to Britain, including the Dutch Cape Colony, Dutch Malabar, Dutch Suratte, Demerara, Essequibo and Berbice. In exchange for the cession of Dutch Malabar, Britain ceded Bangka Island to the Netherlands. Dutch subjects were granted trading rights in Demerara, Essequibo and Berbice, while Britain agreed to pay an annual fee to the Netherlands in exchange for the cession of Bernagore.
=== Cooperation ===
The treaty also included a declaration issued by the Dutch government on 15 June 1814 noting that slave ships were no longer permitted in British-controlled ports. William I of the Netherlands had issued a royal decree in June 1814 which abolished Dutch involvement in the Atlantic slave trade, and the British and Dutch governments were both in agreement regarding their opposition to the trade. Britain and the Netherlands also agreed to spend £2,000,000 each on improving defences in the Low Countries, while a further set of funds, up to £3,000,000, are mentioned for the "final and satisfactory settlement of the Low Countries in union with Holland." Disputes arising from the treaty resulted in the signing of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAFTA_Award_for_Best_Actor_in_a_Supporting_Role | BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role | Best Actor in a Supporting Role is a British Academy Film Award presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to recognise an actor who has delivered an outstanding supporting performance in a film.
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), is a British organisation that hosts annual awards shows for film, television, children's film and television, and interactive media. Since 1968, selected actors have been awarded with the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role at an annual ceremony.
In the following lists, the titles and names in bold with a gold background are the winners and recipients respectively; those not in bold are the nominees. The years given are those in which the films under consideration were released, not the year of the ceremony, which always takes place the following year.
== History ==
The Best Supporting Actor award has been presented a total of 54 times to 48 different actors. No award was given out in this category in 1980, when no actors, male or female, were nominated for supporting roles. In addition, the award was replaced with a gender-neutral category for Best Supporting Artist, allotted for the year 1981 only, with all four nominees that year being male. The first winner was Ian Holm for his role in The Bofors Gun. The most recent winner is Kieran Culkin for his role in A Real Pain. The record for most wins is three, held by Denholm Elliott, who won three consecutive times, while five other actors have won twice. Elliott also holds the record for most nominations, with seven.
== Winners and nominees ==
=== 1960s ===
=== 1970s ===
=== 1980s ===
=== 1990s ===
=== 2000s ===
=== 2010s ===
=== 2020s ===
== Multiple wins and nominations ==
=== Multiple nominations ===
=== Multiple wins ===
3 wins
Denholm Elliott (3 consecutive)
2 wins
Edward Fox
Ian Holm
Ray McAnally
Geoffrey Rush
Christoph Waltz |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestational_hypertension | Gestational hypertension | Gestational hypertension or pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH) is the development of new hypertension in a pregnant woman after 20 weeks of gestation without the presence of protein in the urine or other signs of pre-eclampsia. Gestational hypertension is defined as having a blood pressure
greater than 140/90 on two occasions at least 6 hours apart.
== Signs and symptoms ==
No single diagnostic test currently exists to predict the likelihood of developing gestational hypertension. High blood pressure is the major sign in diagnosing gestational hypertension. Some women with gestational hypertension may present asymptomatic, but several symptoms are associated with the condition.
Signs and symptoms of gestational hypertension include:
Swelling
Sudden weight gain
Blurred vision or sensitivity to light
Nausea and vomiting
Persistent headaches
Increased blood pressure
== Risk factors ==
Maternal causes
Obesity
Mothers under 20 or over 40 years old
Past history of diabetes mellitus, hypertension (particularly gestational hypertension) and renal disease
Pre-existing hypertension
Thrombophilias (anti-phospholipid syndrome, protein C/S deficiency, factor V Leiden)
Having donated a kidney
Pregnancy
Multiple gestation pregnancies (twins or triplets, etc.)
Placental abnormalities:
Hyperplacentosis: Excessive exposure to chorionic villi
Placental ischemia
Family history
Family history of pre-eclampsia
== Diagnosis ==
=== Conditions ===
There exist several hypertensive states of pregnancy:
Gestational hypertension
Gestational hypertension is usually defined as having a blood pressure higher than 140/90 measured on two separate occasions, more than 6 hours apart, without the presence of protein in the urine, and diagnosed after 20 weeks of gestation.
Pre-eclampsia
Pre-eclampsia is gestational hypertension plus proteinuria (>300 mg of protein in a 24-hour urine sample). Severe pre-eclampsia involves a blood pressure greater than 160/110, with additional medical signs and symptoms. HELLP syndrome is a type of pre-eclampsia. It is a combination of three medical conditions: hemolytic anemia, elevated liver enzymes, and low platelet count.
Eclampsia
This is when tonic-clonic seizures appear in a pregnant woman with high blood pressure and proteinuria.
Pre-eclampsia and eclampsia are sometimes treated as components of a common syndrome.
== Treatment ==
There is no specific treatment, but gestational hypertension is monitored closely to rapidly identify pre-eclampsia and its life-threatening complications (HELLP syndrome and eclampsia).
Drug treatment options are limited, as many antihypertensives may negatively affect the fetus. ACE inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers, and direct renin inhibitors are contraindicated in pregnancy as they are teratogenic. Methyldopa, hydralazine, nifedipine, and labetalol are most commonly used for severe pregnancy hypertension.
The fetus is at increased risk for a variety of life-threatening conditions, including pulmonary hypoplasia (immature lungs). If dangerous complications appear after the fetus has reached a point of viability, even though still immature, then an early delivery may be warranted to save the lives of both mother and baby. An appropriate plan for labor and delivery includes the selection of a hospital with provisions for advanced life support for newborn babies.
Exercise during pregnancy can help prevent hypertension as it can improve not only the health of the mother but also the child. Exercise can regulate the energy needs required during pregnancy while also decreasing inflammation. Regular exercise can also lower the stress levels associated with pregnancy.
There have been significant findings on how exercising can help reduce the effects of hypertension just after one bout of exercise. Exercising can help reduce hypertension as well as pre-eclampsia and eclampsia. There have been findings in recent studies suggesting that exercising according to recommended guidelines during pregnancy can reduce the risk of developing gestational hypertensive disorder by 30%. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that during pregnancy, the pregnant woman should exercise 150 minutes each week, specifically focusing on aerobic activity at a moderate intensity.
The acute physiological responses include increased cardiac output (CO) of the individual (increased heart rate and stroke volume). This increase in CO can inadvertently maintain the amount of blood going into the muscles, improving the muscle's functionality later. Exercising can also improve systolic and diastolic blood pressure, making it easier for blood to pump to the body. Through regular bouts of physical activity, blood pressure can be reduced, thereby reducing the incidence of hypertension. A recent meta-analysis presented that exercise interventions in pregnant women could reduce systolic and diastolic blood pressure. The meta-analysis study found that exercise is more likely to reduce the risk of hypertensive disorder of pregnancy in women who are more prone to developing hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. Risk factors that influence the likelihood of developing hypertensive disorders of pregnancy include, a maternal age of 40 or more, pre-pregnancy obesity, excess weight gain during pregnancy and gestational diabetes.
Aerobic exercise has been shown to regulate blood pressure more effectively than resistance training. Compared to having a sedentary lifestyle, being physically active in aerobic exercise for 30–60 minutes 2-7 times a week significantly decreases the risk of gestational hypertension in pregnancy compared to a sedentary pregnant individual. It is recommended to see the effects of exercising; a person should aim for 5–7 days/ week of aerobic exercise. This exercise should be light to moderate intensity, up to ~85% of max heart rate (220-age). Aerobic exercise can decrease SBP by 5- 15 mmHg, versus resistance training, which decreases it by 3- 5 mmHg. Aerobic exercises such as jogging, rowing, dancing, or hiking can decrease SBP the most. The decrease in SBP can regulate the effect of hypertension, ensuring the baby will not be harmed. Resistance training takes a toll on the cardiovascular system in untrained individuals, leading to a reluctance to prescribe resistance training to reduce blood pressure.
== Evolutionary considerations ==
=== Humans ===
Gestational hypertension is one of the most common disorders seen in human pregnancies. Though relatively benign on its own, in roughly half of the cases of gestational hypertension the disorder progresses into pre-eclampsia, a dangerous condition that can prove fatal to expectant mothers. However, gestational hypertension is a condition that is fairly rare to see in other animals. For years, it has been the belief of the scientific community that gestational hypertension and pre-eclampsia were relatively unique to humans, although there has been some recent evidence that other primates can also develop similar conditions, albeit due to different underlying mechanisms. The underlying cause of gestational hypertension in humans is commonly believed to be an improperly implanted placenta. Humans have evolved to have a very invasive placenta to facilitate better oxygen transfer from the mother to the fetus, and to support the growth of its large brain.
=== Origins of the placenta ===
The origins of gestational hypertension may lie with the development of humans' hemochorial placenta. A hemochorial placenta optimizes the amount of oxygen and nutrients that can be absorbed into the fetal blood supply, while at the same time ensuring rapid diffusion of wastes away from the fetus. This hemochorial placenta differs from lower primates' epitheliochorial placentae in the way that it allows the fetal tissues to interact directly with the mother's blood. The hemochorial placenta thereby promotes more rapid diffusion to and from the fetal blood supply.
In animals with an epitheliochorial placenta, such as horses and pigs, the greatest resistance to maternal blood flow in the vascular system was found within the placenta. However, in animals with hemochorial placental structures such as rodents and primates, the vascular resistance in the placenta was low, leading scientists to the conclusion that the greatest resistance to maternal blood flow is found elsewhere in the maternal vascular system. The high vascular resistance outside of the placenta leads to higher maternal blood pressure throughout the body.
The fetal cells that implant into the uterine wall are known as the trophoblast. The hemochorial placenta bathes the fetal trophoblast in maternal blood by forming lacunae, or lakes, of the mother's blood that surround fetal tissue. The lacunae are filled by the spiral arteries, which means that the mother's blood pressure is the driving force behind the introduction of new blood, which contains both oxygen and food for the fetus, to the system. It is thought that humans need the increased diffusion provided by the hemochorial placenta to grow the large brains compared to the body size that distinguishes them from other primates.
=== Incorrect placental implantation ===
It is thought that "failings" in normal hemochorial placental structure lead to pre-eclampsia and gestational hypertension. The human placenta implants "earlier, deeper, and more extensively" into the uterine wall, which can potentially lead to many problems that are found in human pregnancies, but not as much in other animals. Miscarriage and pre-eclampsia are both very rare in other species but are two of the most common pregnancy-related diseases in humans. The genetic roots of gestational hypertension and pre-eclampsia are certain, as women with a family history of the condition are three times more likely to develop it when they are pregnant.
One of the potential causes of gestational hypertension and pre-eclampsia is when the trophoblast does not invade far enough into the uterine lining. When the fetus's trophoblast does not fully extend into the uterine wall, the spiral arteries do not become fully converted into low-resistance channels. It has been found that this incomplete conversion of spiral arteries increases the resistance to uterine blood flow during pregnancy and that this occurrence was associated with gestational hypertension. One potential cause of this incomplete breach of the spiral arteries that leads to gestational hypertension is a mistaken immune response by the maternal tissue, reaction to the alien fetal tissue. Therefore, it is clear that the complication of gestational hypertension has roots in the early implantation of the fetus in the uterine wall, an implantation technique unique to humans.
The highly invasive placenta found in humans is thought to be linked to humans' high circulating levels of the hormones CG and hCG. It has been shown that the higher the levels of these hormones, the deeper the trophoblast's invasion into the uterine wall. Instances of gestational hypertension and pre-eclampsia have been shown to occur when the invasion of the uterine wall is not deep enough, because of lower CG and hCG levels in the mother.
=== Evolutionary tradeoff ===
Despite these risks for gestational hypertension, the hemochorial placenta has been favored because of its advantages in that it aids in diffusion from mother to fetus later in pregnancy. The bipedal posture that has allowed humans to walk upright has also led to reduced cardiac output, and it has been suggested that this is what necessitated humans' aggressive early placental structures. Increased maternal blood pressure can attempt to make up for lower cardiac output, ensuring that the fetus's growing brain receives enough oxygen and nutrients. The benefits of being able to walk upright and run on land have outweighed the disadvantages that come from bipedalism, including the placental diseases of pregnancy, such as gestational hypertension. Similarly, the advantages of having a large brain size have outweighed the deleterious effects of having a placenta that does not always convert the spiral arteries effectively, leaving humans vulnerable to contracting gestational hypertension. It is speculated that this was not the case with Neanderthals and that they died out because their cranial capacity increased too much, and their placentae were not equipped to handle fetal brain development, leading to widespread pre-eclampsia and maternal and fetal death.
Gestational hypertension in the early stages of pregnancy (trimester 1) has been shown to improve the health of the child both in its first year of life, and its later life. However, when the disease develops later in the pregnancy (subsequent trimesters), or turns into pre-eclampsia, detrimental health effects for the fetus begin, including low birth-weight. It has been proposed that fetal genes designed to increase the mother's blood pressure are so beneficial that they outweigh the potential adverse effects that can come from pre-eclampsia. It has also been suggested that gestational hypertension and pre-eclampsia have remained active traits due to the cultural capacity of humans, and the tendency for midwives or helpers to aid in delivering babies.
=== Relevance of evolutionary history ===
It is the goal of evolutionary medicine to find treatments for diseases that are informed by the evolutionary history of a disease. It has been suggested that gestational hypertension is linked to insulin resistance during pregnancy. Both the increase in blood sugar that can lead to gestational diabetes and the increase in blood pressure that can lead to gestational hypertension are mechanisms that aim to optimize the amount of nutrients that can be passed from maternal tissue to fetal tissue. It has been suggested that techniques used to combat insulin insensitivity might also prove beneficial to those with gestational hypertension. Measures to avoid insulin resistance include avoiding obesity before pregnancy, minimizing weight gain during pregnancy, eating foods with low glycemic indices, and exercising. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Mizpah | USS Mizpah | USS Mizpah (PY-29) was a United States Navy patrol yacht. Constructed in 1926, the vessel was constructed as the pleasure yacht Savarona. In 1929 it was renamed Allegro and then Mizpah for use on the Great Lakes. The vessel was acquired by the United States Navy in 1942 and converted to a warship and commissioned the same year. Mizpah served as a convoy escort along the United States East Coast before becoming a school ship in 1944. Following the end of the war, the vessel returned to private operation in 1946 until 1967 when Mizpah was laid up with a broken crankshaft at Tampa, Florida. An attempt to save the ship proved futile and Mizpah was scuttled off the coast of Florida as an artificial reef in 1968. The wreck is now a popular dive site.
== Service history ==
The 185-foot (56 m) ship was berthed in 1926 from the parts of an abandoned new destroyer, as the pleasure yacht Savanarola by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company of Newport News, Virginia. The yacht, originally constructed for the United States Navy but due to naval treaties was prevented from being completed. The still unbuilt vessel was sold to Mrs. Cadwalader of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After completion the vessel was given the name Sequoia before being sold to James Elverson who renamed it Allegro. In 1929 it was sold to Eugene F. McDonald of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, founder and president of the Zenith Radio Corporation, who used it both as a Chicago residence and a floating laboratory on which to test his electronics company's new products. One of the largest yachts on the Great Lakes in its Jazz Age heyday, the ship was renamed Mizpah in 1929.
=== United States Navy service ===
Mizpah was acquired by the United States Navy on 16 March 1942 and converted to a warship at Sturgeon Bay Shipbuilding Company, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, with Lieutenant Stephen M. Etnier in command. It was commissioned USS Mizpah (PY-29) on 26 October 1942. Mizpah departed Sturgeon Bay on 16 November 1942 for service as a convoy escort along the eastern coast of the United States between New York City and Key West, Florida until July 1944. From August 1944 until April 1945, Mizpah served as a navigation school ship from the Amphibious Training Base at Little Creek, Virginia, training officers to sail amphibious vessels in the Chesapeake Bay region.
Mizpah underwent conversion to a flagship at Boston, Massachusetts and was employed as such by Destroyer Force, Atlantic Fleet. Mizpah became the flagship of Rear Admiral Oliver M. Hustvedt at Portland, Maine, on 28 May 1945 under the command of Lt. Stephen M. Etnier. Hustvedt was succeeded by Rear Admiral Frank E. Beatty, Jr., on 4 September 1945. In mid-October, 1945, Lt. Etnier was succeeded by Lieutenant D. Dudley Bloom, who sailed Mizpah from Portland, Maine, south to Charleston, South Carolina, arriving on 10 December 1945. She was decommissioned on 16 January 1946 and transferred to the United States War Shipping Administration (WSA) on 25 September 1946 for disposal.
=== Final years ===
The WSA then sold her to a private Honduran corporation for transporting bananas out of South America. While sailing to Tampa, Florida, the vessel was caught in a storm, suffered a broken crankshaft, and was laid up in Tampa for repair. At that time, Eugene Kinney, McDonald's nephew and Zenith Corporation vice president who had grown up on Mizpah and served as a naval officer in the South Pacific during World War II, learned of her plight and purchased her. Finding Mizpah irreparably damaged, however, Kinney scuttled her off the coast of Palm Beach, Florida, on 9 April 1968, along with another ship, USS PC-1174, to serve as an artificial reef to prevent beach erosion.
Sitting in 90–110 feet (27–34 m) of water with her hatches left ajar, Mizpah is now one of the chief attractions of an offshore scuba diving area known as "The Mizpah Corridor".
== Citations ==
== Sources ==
"Mizpah". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Navy Department, Naval History and Heritage Command. Retrieved 4 October 2019. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace%27s_High_Falls | Grace's High Falls | Grace's High Falls is a seasonal waterfall in the US state of Alabama, in Little River Canyon National Preserve. The waterfall is Alabama's highest at 133 feet. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madison_Square_Garden | Madison Square Garden | Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as the Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd streets above Pennsylvania Station. It is the fourth venue to bear the name "Madison Square Garden"; the first two, opened in 1879 and 1890, were located on Madison Square, on East 26th Street and Madison Avenue, with the third Madison Square Garden (1925) farther uptown at Eighth Avenue and 50th Street.
The Garden hosts professional ice hockey, professional basketball, boxing, mixed martial arts, concerts, ice shows, circuses, professional wrestling and other forms of sports and entertainment. It is close to other midtown Manhattan landmarks, including the Empire State Building, Koreatown and Macy's at Herald Square. It is home to the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League (NHL), the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and was home to the New York Liberty of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) from 1997 to 2017.
Originally called Madison Square Garden Center, the Garden opened on February 11, 1968, on the site of the old Pennsylvania Station. It is the oldest major sporting facility in the New York metropolitan area. It is the oldest arena in the NBA and the second-oldest in the NHL, after Seattle's Climate Pledge Arena. As of 2016, MSG is also the second-busiest music arena in the world in terms of ticket sales. Including its two major renovations in 1991 and 2013, the Garden's total construction cost was approximately US$1.1 billion, and it has been ranked as one of the ten most expensive arena venues ever built. It is part of the Pennsylvania Plaza office and retail complex, named for the railway station. Several other operating entities related to the Garden share its name.
== History ==
=== Previous Gardens ===
Madison Square is formed by the intersection of 5th Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street in Manhattan. It was named after James Madison, the fourth president of the United States.
Two venues called Madison Square Garden were located just northeast of the square, the original Garden from 1879 to 1890, and the second Garden from 1890 to 1925. The first, leased to P. T. Barnum, was demolished in 1890 because of a leaky roof and dangerous balconies that had collapsed, resulting in deaths. The second was designed by noted architect Stanford White. The new building was built by a syndicate that included J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, P. T. Barnum, Darius Mills, James Stillman and W. W. Astor. White gave them a Beaux-Arts structure with a Moorish feel, including a minaret-like tower modeled after Giralda, the bell tower of the Cathedral of Seville, soaring 32 stories, the city's second-tallest building at the time and dominating Madison Square Park. It was 200 feet (61 m) by 485 feet (148 m), and the main hall, which was the largest in the world, measured 200 feet (61 m) by 350 feet (110 m) with permanent seating for 8,000 people and floor space for thousands more. It had a 1,200-seat theater, a concert hall with a capacity of 1,500, the largest restaurant in the city, and a roof garden cabaret. The building cost $3 million. Madison Square Garden II was unsuccessful like the first Garden, and the New York Life Insurance Company, which held the mortgage on it, decided to tear it down in 1925 to make way for a new headquarters building, which would become the landmark Cass Gilbert-designed New York Life Building.
A third Madison Square Garden opened in a new location, on Eighth Avenue between 49th and 50th streets, from 1925 to 1968. Groundbreaking on the third Madison Square Garden took place on January 9, 1925. Designed by the noted theater architect Thomas W. Lamb, it was built at the cost of $4.75 million in 249 days by boxing promoter Tex Rickard; the arena was dubbed "The House That Tex Built". The arena was 200 feet (61 m) by 375 feet (114 m), with seating on three levels, and a maximum capacity of 18,496 spectators for boxing.
Demolition commenced in 1968 after the opening of the current Garden, and was completed in early 1969. The site is now the location of One Worldwide Plaza.
=== Current Garden ===
In February 1959, former automobile manufacturer Graham-Paige purchased a 40% interest in the Madison Square Garden for $4 million and later gained control. In November 1960, Graham-Paige president Irving Mitchell Felt purchased from the Pennsylvania Railroad the rights to build at Penn Station. To build the new facility, the above-ground portions of the original Pennsylvania Station were torn down.
The new structure was one of the first of its kind to be built above the platforms of an active railroad station. It was an engineering feat constructed by Robert E. McKee of El Paso, Texas with the contribution of Arq. Leonel Viera's design for the Cilindro Municipal. Public outcry over the demolition of the Pennsylvania Station structure—an outstanding example of Beaux-Arts architecture—led to the creation of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. The venue opened on February 11, 1968. Comparing the new and the old Penn Station, Yale architectural historian Vincent Scully wrote, "One entered the city like a god; one scuttles in now like a rat."
In 1972, Felt proposed moving the Knicks and Rangers to a then incomplete venue in the New Jersey Meadowlands, the Meadowlands Sports Complex. The Garden was also the home arena for the NY Raiders/NY Golden Blades of the World Hockey Association. The Meadowlands would eventually host its own NBA and NHL teams, the New Jersey Nets and the New Jersey Devils, respectively. The New York Giants and Jets of the National Football League (NFL) also relocated there. In 1977, the arena was sold to Gulf and Western Industries. Felt's efforts fueled controversy between the Garden and New York City over real estate taxes. The disagreement again flared in 1980 when the Garden again challenged its tax bill. The arena has enjoyed tax-free status since the 1980s, under the condition that all Knicks and Rangers home games must be hosted at MSG, lest it lose this exemption. As such, when the Rangers have played neutral-site games—even those in New York City, such as the 2018 NHL Winter Classic, they have always been designated as the visiting team. The tax agreement includes an act of God clause, which allowed Knicks and Rangers home games to be played elsewhere during the 2020 NBA Bubble and 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs, respectively, because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 1984, the four streets immediately surrounding the Garden were designated as Joe Louis Plaza, in honor of boxer Joe Louis, who had made eight successful title defenses in the previous Madison Square Garden.
=== 1991 renovation ===
In April 1986, Gulf and Western announced that they would build a new Madison Square Garden a few blocks away on the site of present-day Hudson Yards. The plan would cost an estimated $150 million and included the demolition of the 1964 building to replace it with a new office tower development. After years of planning, Gulf and Western decided against building a new arena in favor of a renovation after estimated costs doubled during the process.
Garden owners spent $200 million in 1991 to renovate facilities and add 89 suites in place of hundreds of upper-tier seats. The project was designed by Ellerbe Becket. The renovation was criticized for perceived corporatization. Additionally, the renovation made bathrooms larger, expanded menus, added a new ventilation system, replaced all of the seats with new cushioned teal and violet seats, and refurbished both home teams' locker rooms.
In 2000, current MSG owner James Dolan was quoted as saying that a new arena was being considered as the current building was starting to show its age.
In 2004–2005, Cablevision battled with the City of New York over the proposed West Side arena, which was canceled. Cablevision then announced plans to raze the Garden, replace it with high-rise commercial buildings, and build a new Garden one block away at the site of the James Farley Post Office. Meanwhile, a new project to renovate and modernize the Garden completed phase one in time for the Rangers and Knicks' 2011–12 seasons, though the vice president of the Garden says he remains committed to the installation of an extension of Penn Station at the Farley Post Office site. While the Knicks and Rangers were not displaced, the New York Liberty played at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, during the renovation.
Madison Square Garden is the last of the NBA and NHL arenas not to be named after a corporate sponsor.
=== 2011–2013 renovation ===
Madison Square Garden's $1 billion second renovation took place mainly over three off-seasons. It was set to begin after the 2009–10 hockey/basketball seasons, but was delayed until after the 2010–11 seasons. Renovation was done in phases, with the majority of the work done in the summer months to minimize disruptions to the NHL and NBA seasons. While the Rangers and Knicks were not displaced, the Liberty played their home games through the 2013 season at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, during the renovation.
New features include a larger entrance with interactive kiosks, retail, climate-controlled space, and broadcast studio; larger concourses; new lighting and LED video systems with HDTV; new seating; two new pedestrian walkways suspended from the ceiling to allow fans to look directly down onto the games being played below; more dining options; and improved dressing rooms, locker rooms, green rooms, upgraded roof, and production offices. The lower bowl concourse, called the Madison Concourse, remains on the sixth floor. The upper bowl concourse was relocated to the eighth floor and it is known as the Garden Concourse. The seventh floor houses the new Madison Suites and the Madison Club. The upper bowl was built on top of these suites. The rebuilt concourses are wider than their predecessors, and include large windows that offer views of the city streets around the Garden.
During the three-year, $1 billion renovation of Madison Square Garden, code consulting and municipal approvals services were provided by Milrose Consultants, a building code consulting firm based in New York. Milrose Consultants supported the project with code analysis, place-of-assembly approvals, and assistance with certificate-of-occupancy services as part of the broader renovation effort.
Construction of the lower bowl (Phase 1) was completed in 2011. An extended off-season for the Garden permitted some advance work to begin on the new upper bowl, which was completed in 2012. This advance work included the West Balcony on the tenth floor, taking the place of sky-boxes, and new end-ice 300 level seating. The construction of the upper bowl along with the Madison Suites and the Madison Club (Phase 2) were completed for the 2012–13 NHL and NBA seasons. Phase 3, which involved the construction of the new lobby known as Chase Square, the Chase Bridges on the 10th floor, and the new scoreboard, was completed for the 2013–14 NHL and NBA seasons.
=== Penn Station renovation controversy ===
Madison Square Garden is seen as an obstacle in the renovation and future expansion of Penn Station, which expanded in 2021 with the opening of Moynihan Train Hall at the James Farley Post Office, and some have proposed moving MSG to other sites in western Manhattan. On February 15, 2013, Manhattan Community Board 5 voted 36–0 against granting a renewal to MSG's operating permit in perpetuity and proposed a 10-year limit instead in order to build a new Penn Station where the arena is currently standing. Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer said, "Moving the arena is an important first step to improving Penn Station." The Madison Square Garden Company responded by saying that "[i]t is incongruous to think that M.S.G. would be considering moving."
In May 2013, four architecture firms – SHoP Architects, SOM, H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro – submitted proposals for a new Penn Station. SHoP Architects recommended moving Madison Square Garden to the Morgan Postal Facility a few blocks southwest, as well as removing 2 Penn Plaza and redeveloping other towers, and an extension of the High Line to Penn Station. Meanwhile, SOM proposed moving Madison Square Garden to the area just south of the James Farley Post Office, and redeveloping the area above Penn Station as a mixed-use development with commercial, residential, and recreational space. H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture wanted to move the arena to a new pier west of Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, four blocks west of the current station and arena. Then, according to H3's plan, four skyscrapers would be built, one at each of the four corners of the new Penn Station superblock, with a roof garden on top of the station; the Farley Post Office would become an education center. Finally, Diller Scofidio + Renfro proposed a mixed-use development on the site, with spas, theaters, a cascading park, a pool, and restaurants; Madison Square Garden would be moved two blocks west, next to the post office. DS+F also proposed high-tech features in the station, such as train arrival and departure boards on the floor, and apps that would inform waiting passengers of ways to occupy their time until they board their trains. Madison Square Garden rejected the notion that it would be relocated, and called the plans "pie-in-the-sky".
In June 2013, the New York City Council Committee on Land Use voted unanimously to give the Garden a ten-year permit, at the end of which period the owners would either have to relocate or go back through the permission process. On July 24, the City Council voted to give the Garden a 10-year operating permit by a vote of 47–1. "This is the first step in finding a new home for Madison Square Garden and building a new Penn Station that is as great as New York and suitable for the 21st century," said City Council speaker Christine Quinn. "This is an opportunity to reimagine and redevelop Penn Station as a world-class transportation destination."
In October 2014, the Morgan facility was selected as the ideal area for Madison Square Garden to be moved, following the 2014 MAS Summit in New York City. More plans for the station were discussed. Then, in January 2016, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a redevelopment plan for Penn Station that would involve the removal of The Theater at Madison Square Garden, but would otherwise leave the arena intact.
In June 2023, nearing the end of the Garden's ten-year permit granted by the city, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, along with Amtrak and NJ Transit, filed a report stating that MSG is no longer compatible with Penn Station, with the report saying, "MSG's existing configuration and property boundaries impose severe constraints on the station that impede the safe and efficient movement of passengers and restrict efforts to implement improvements, particularly at the street and platform levels." On September 14, 2023, the New York City Council voted 48–0 to renew the operating permit for Madison Square Garden for five years, the shortest ever granted by the city to the Garden.
== Events ==
=== Regular events ===
==== Sports ====
Madison Square Garden hosts approximately 320 events a year. It is the home to the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League, and the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association. Before 2020, the New York Rangers, New York Knicks, and the Madison Square Garden arena itself were all owned by the Madison Square Garden Company. The MSG Company split into two entities in 2020, with the Garden arena and other non-sports assets spun off into Madison Square Garden Entertainment and the Rangers and Knicks remaining with the original company, renamed Madison Square Garden Sports. Both entities remain under the voting control of James Dolan and his family. The arena is also host to the Big East men's basketball tournament and was home to the finals of the National Invitation Tournament from the beginning of its existence up until 2022. It also hosts select home games for the St. John's Red Storm, representing St. John's University in men's college basketball, and almost any other kind of indoor activity that draws large audiences, such as the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show and the 2004 Republican National Convention.
The Garden was home of the NBA draft and NIT Season Tip-Off, as well as the former New York City home of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus and Disney on Ice; all four events are now held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. It served the New York Cosmos for half of their home games during the 1983–84 NASL Indoor season.
Many of boxing's biggest fights were held at Madison Square Garden, including the Roberto Durán–Ken Buchanan affair, the first Muhammad Ali – Joe Frazier bout and the US debut of Anthony Joshua that ended in a huge upset when he was beaten by Andy Ruiz. Before promoters such as Don King and Bob Arum moved boxing to Las Vegas, Nevada, Madison Square Garden was a popular location for boxing. The original 18+1⁄2 ft × 18+1⁄2 ft (5.6 m × 5.6 m) ring, which was brought from the second and third generation of the Garden, was officially retired on September 19, 2007, and donated to the International Boxing Hall of Fame after 82 years of service. A 20 ft × 20 ft (6.1 m × 6.1 m) ring replaced it beginning on October 6 of that same year. The UFC has hosted many events at Madison Square Garden in recent years and has put on some of the highest grossing PPV events in history.
==== Professional wrestling ====
Madison Square Garden has hosted many notable WWE (formerly WWF and WWWF) events, and it's affectionally known as WWE's "home office". The Garden has hosted three WrestleMania events, including the first edition of the annual marquee event for WWE, as well as the 10th and 20th editions. Madison Square Garden is also one of two venues (the other being Allstate Arena) to host WrestleMania three times.
It also hosted the Royal Rumble in 2000 and 2008; SummerSlam in 1988, 1991 and 1998; as well as Survivor Series in 1996, 2002 and 2011. Multiple episodes of WWE's weekly shows, Raw and SmackDown have been broadcast from the Arena as well.
New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) and Ring of Honor (ROH) hosted their G1 Supercard supershow at the venue on April 6, 2019. A year later it was announced that New Japan Pro-Wrestling would return to Madison Square Garden alone on August 22, 2020, for NJPW Wrestle Dynasty. In May 2020, NJPW announced that the Wrestle Dynasty show would be postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
==== Concerts ====
Madison Square Garden hosts more high-profile concert events than any other venue in New York City. It has been the venue for Michael Jackson's Bad World Tour in 1988, George Harrison's The Concert for Bangladesh, The Concert for New York City following the September 11 attacks, John Lennon's final concert appearance during an Elton John concert on Thanksgiving Night in 1974 before his murder in 1980, and Elvis Presley, who gave four sold-out performances in 1972, his first and last ever in New York City. Parliament-Funkadelic headlined numerous sold-out shows in 1977 and 1978. Kiss, who were formed in the arena's city and three of whose members were city-born, did six shows during their second half of the 1970s main attraction peak or "heyday": four sold out winter shows at the arena in 1977 (February 18 and December 14–16), and another two shows only this time in summer for a decade-ender in 1979 (July 24–25). They played their final two shows at the venue on the December 1 and 2, 2023, the 50th anniversary year of their formation.
Billy Joel, another city-born and fellow 1970's pop star, played his first Garden show on December 14, 1978, with that month's follow ups on the 15th, 16th and 18th. Joel would eventually dominate the record for most concerts performed at Madison Square Garden.
Led Zeppelin's three-night stand in July 1973 was recorded and released as both a film and album titled The Song Remains The Same. The Police played their final show of their reunion tour at the Garden in 2008.
In the summer of 2017, Phish held a 13-night series of concerts called "The Bakers' Dozen", during which the band played 237 unique songs, repeating none during the entire run. The Garden commemorated "The Bakers' Dozen" by adding a Phish-themed banner to the rafters. With their first MSG show taking place on December 30, 1994, Phish has regularly played annual multi-night runs, typically around New Year's Eve. As of January 2025, Phish has performed 87 times at MSG.
Elton John once held the all-time record for the greatest number of appearances at the Garden with 64 shows. In a 2009 press release, John was quoted as saying "Madison Square Garden is my favorite venue in the whole world. I chose to have my 60th birthday concert there, because of all the incredible memories I've had playing the venue." A DVD recording was released as Elton 60—Live at Madison Square Garden.
The current record-holder for most appearances is Billy Joel, who as of July 2024 had played the Garden 150 times. That figure includes a "residency" of monthly concerts that he started in 2014 and played nearly continuously for a decade. Joel has stated that the site "has the best acoustics, the best audiences, the best reputation, and the best history of great artists who have played there. It is the iconic, holy temple of rock and roll for most touring acts." Joel would set his first record for most consecutive performances by a music artist at Madison Square Garden in 2006 after performing 12 consecutive concerts at the arena from January to April of that year. In December 2013, Joel would also be named as Madison Square Garden's first ever music "franchise" with this honor also making it so he would join the New York Knicks, New York Rangers and New York Liberty in being recognized as an original Madison Square Garden franchise.
The Grateful Dead performed in the venue 53 times from 1979 to 1994, with the first show being held on January 7, 1979, and the last being on October 19, 1994; their longest run was in September 1991.
The Who have headlined at the venue 32 times, including a four-night stand in 1974, a five-night stand in 1979, a six-night stand in 1996, and four-night stands in 2000 and 2002. They also performed at The Concert for New York City in 2001.
On March 10, 2020, a 50th-anniversary celebration of The Allman Brothers Band titled 'The Brothers' took place, featuring the five surviving members of the final Allman Brothers lineup and Chuck Leavell. Dickey Betts was invited to participate but his health precluded him from traveling. This was the final concert at the venue before the COVID-19 pandemic forced its closure. Live shows returned to The Garden when the Foo Fighters headlined a show there on June 20, 2021. The show was for a vaccinated audience only and was the first 100 percent capacity concert in a New York arena since the start of the pandemic.
==== Other events ====
It hosted the 1976 Democratic National Convention and 1980 Democratic National Convention with Carter, the 1992 Democratic National Convention with Clinton, and the 2004 Republican National Convention with Bush, and hosted the NFL draft for many years (later held at Garden-leased Radio City Music Hall, now shared between cities of NFL franchises). The Jeopardy! Teen Tournament and several installments of Celebrity Jeopardy! were filmed at MSG in 1999, as well as several episodes of Wheel of Fortune in 1999 and 2013.
The New York City Police Academy, Baruch College/CUNY, and Yeshiva University also hold their annual graduation ceremonies at Madison Square Garden. It hosted the Grammy Awards in 1972, 1997, 2003, and 2018 (which are normally held in Los Angeles) as well as the Latin Grammy Awards of 2006.
The group and Best in Show competitions of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show have been held at MSG every February since 1877. Its original run at MSG through 2020 was the arena's longest continuous tenancy. In 2021, the event moved to Tarrytown, and later the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The show returned to MSG in 2025 for the first time since 2020.
=== Notable firsts and significant events ===
The Garden hosted the Stanley Cup Final and NBA Finals simultaneously on two occasions: in 1972 and 1994.
MSG has hosted the following All-Star Games:
NHL All-Star Game: 1973, 1994
NBA All-Star Game: 1998, 2015
WNBA All-Star Game: 1999, 2003, 2006
All American Karate Championships held in 1968 and 1969, both won by Chuck Norris. The 1970 edition was won by Mitchell Bobrow.
UFC held its first event in New York City, UFC 205: Alvarez vs. McGregor, at Madison Square Garden on November 12, 2016. This was the first event the organization held after New York State lifted the ban on mixed martial arts.
Mike Krzyzewski recorded two notable milestones at the arena. In 2011, he surpassed Bob Knight as the coach with the most wins in NCAA Division I men's basketball history when Duke defeated Michigan State. Four years later, a Duke victory over St. John's gave Coach K his 1,000th career win.
Stephen Curry broke the NBA's all-time three-point scoring record at Madison Square Garden, on December 14, 2021. The Warriors defeated the Knicks 105–96 with Curry recording his 2,977th career three-pointer by the end of the game, eclipsing Ray Allen's 2,973 career total.
On October 27, 2024, then presidential candidate Donald Trump hosted a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden. The event was particularly notable for remarks by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who spoke prior to Trump and made jokes widely considered offensive toward Puerto Ricans, which became a significant talking point going into the presidential election.
The Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) will host their first game at Madison Square Garden on April 4, 2026 between the New York Sirens and the Seattle Torrent.
== Recognition given by Madison Square Garden ==
=== Madison Square Garden Gold Ticket Award ===
In 1977, Madison Square Garden announced Gold Ticket Awards would be given to performers who had brought in more than 100,000 unit ticket sales to the venue. Since the arena's seating capacity is about 20,000, this would require a minimum of five sold-out shows. Performers who were eligible for the award at the time of its inauguration included Chicago, John Denver, Peter Frampton, the Rolling Stones, the Jackson 5, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Sly Stone, Jethro Tull, the Who, and Yes. Graeme Edge, who received his award in 1981 as a member of the Moody Blues, said he found his gold ticket to be an interesting piece of memorabilia because he could use it to attend any event at the Garden. Many other performers received Gold Ticket Awards between 1977 and 1994.
=== Madison Square Garden Platinum Ticket Award ===
Madison Square Garden also gave Platinum Ticket Awards to performers who sold over 250,000 tickets to their shows throughout the years. Winners of the Platinum Ticket Awards include: the Rolling Stones (1981), Elton John (1982), Yes (1984), Billy Joel (1984), the Grateful Dead (1987), and Madonna (2004).
=== Madison Square Garden Hall of Fame ===
The Madison Square Garden Hall of Fame honors those who have demonstrated excellence in their fields at the Garden. Most of the inductees have been sports figures, however, some performers have been inducted as well. Elton John was reported to be the first non-sports figure inducted into the MSG Hall of Fame in 1977 for "record attendance of 140,000" in June of that year. For their accomplishment of "13 sell-out concerts" at the venue, the Rolling Stones were inducted into the MSG Hall of Fame in 1984, along with nine sports figures icons, bringing the hall's membership to 107.
=== Madison Square Garden Walk of Fame ===
The walkway leading to the arena of Madison Square Garden was designated as the "Walk of Fame" in 1992. It was established "to recognize athletes, artists, announcers and coaches for their extraordinary achievements and memorable performances at the venue." Each inductee is commemorated with a plaque that lists the performance category in which his or her contributions have been made.
Twenty-five athletes were inducted into the MSG Walk of Fame at its inaugural ceremony in 1992, a black-tie dinner to raise money to fight multiple sclerosis.
Elton John was the first entertainer to be inducted into the MSG Walk of Fame in 1992.
Billy Joel was inducted at a date after Elton John,
and the Rolling Stones were inducted in 1998. In 2015, the Grateful Dead were inducted into the MSG Walk of Fame along with at least three sports-related figures.
=== Capacity ===
=== The Theater at Madison Square Garden ===
The Theater at Madison Square Garden seats between 2,000 and 5,600 for concerts and can also be used for meetings, stage shows, and graduation ceremonies. It was the home of the NFL draft until 2005, when it moved to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center after MSG management opposed a new arena for the New York Jets. It also hosted the NBA draft from 2001 to 2010. The theater also occasionally hosts boxing matches.
The fall 1999 Jeopardy! Teen Tournament as well as Celebrity Jeopardy! competitions were held at the theater. Wheel of Fortune taped at the theater twice in 1999 and 2013. In 2004, it was the venue of the Survivor: All-Stars finale. No seat is more than 177 feet (54 m) from the 30' × 64' stage. The theater has a relatively low 20-foot (6.1 m) ceiling at stage level and all of its seating except for boxes on the two side walls is on one level slanted back from the stage. There is an 8,000-square-foot (740 m2) lobby at the theater.
== Accessibility and transportation ==
Madison Square Garden sits directly atop a major transportation hub, New York Penn Station, which is served by Long Island Rail Road and NJ Transit commuter rail, as well as Amtrak. The Garden is also accessible via the New York City Subway at the 34th Street–Penn Station (A, C, and E trains) and the 34th Street–Penn Station (1, 2, and 3 trains) stations. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Gin%C3%A9s_L%C3%B3pez | Alberto Ginés López | |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformed_services_of_the_United_States | Uniformed services of the United States | The United States has eight federal uniformed services that commission officers as defined by Title 10 and subsequently structured and organized by Titles 10, 14, 32, 33, and 42 of the U.S. Code.
== Uniformed services ==
The uniformed services are:
Army
Marine Corps
Navy
Air Force
Space Force
Coast Guard
Public Health Service Commissioned Corps
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps
Each of the uniformed services is administratively headed by a federal executive department and its corresponding civilian Cabinet leader.
== Federal executive departments ==
Department of the Army (DA)
Army (USA): Established 14 June 1775
Department of the Navy (DON)
Marine Corps (USMC): Established 10 November 1775
Navy (USN): Established 13 October 1775
Department of the Air Force (DAF)
Air Force (USAF): Established 18 September 1947
Space Force (USSF): Established 20 December 2019
The order of precedence within the Department of Defense is set by DoD Directive 1005.8 and is not dependent on the date of creation by the U.S. Congress.
Coast Guard (USCG): Established 28 January 1915
Prior to 1967, the Coast Guard was part of the Department of the Treasury. In 1967, it became a part of the Department of Transportation. In 2002, it was placed under the Department of Homeland Security. During times of war, it may be transferred to the Department of the Navy, under the Department of Defense.
Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC): Established 4 January 1889
The Corps is headed by the Surgeon General of the United States. The corps may be detailed to the armed forces by order of the president.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps (NOAA Corps): Established 22 May 1917.
The NOAA Corps was created as the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps, a component of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, on 22 May 1917. It was removed from the Coast and Geodetic Survey and became a component of the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA) as the Environmental Science Services Administration Corps (ESSA Corps) upon the establishment of ESSA on 13 July 1965. The ESSA Corps became the NOAA Corps as a component of NOAA when ESSA was abolished and NOAA simultaneously was created on 3 October 1970. Under all three names, the corps has been an element of the Department of Commerce throughout its existence. The corps may be detailed to the armed forces by order of the president.
== Statutory definition ==
The eight uniformed services are defined by 10 U.S.C. § 101(a)(5):
The six uniformed services that make up the armed forces of the United States are defined in the previous clause, 10 U.S.C. § 101(a)(4):
The term "armed forces" means the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Space Force, and Coast Guard.
All eight uniformed services are subject to the provisions of 10 U.S.C. § 1408, the Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act.
== U.S. Armed Forces ==
Six of the uniformed services make up the armed forces as defined by Title 10, five of which are within the Department of Defense. The Coast Guard is part of the Department of Homeland Security and has both military and law enforcement duties. Title 14 states that the Coast Guard is part of the armed forces at all times, making it the only branch of the military outside the Department of Defense. During a declared state of war, however, the President of the United States or U.S. Congress may direct that the Coast Guard operate as part of the Department of the Navy. The Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, along with the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps, operate under military rules with the exception of the applicability of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, to which they are subject only when militarized by executive order or while detailed to any component of the armed forces.
Reserve components of the United States Armed Forces are all members of the military who serve in a reserve capacity. The National Guard is an additional reserve military component of the Army and Air Force, respectively, and is composed of National Guard units, which operate under Title 32 and under state authority as the Army National Guard and Air National Guard. The militia that later became the National Guard was first formed in the Colony of Virginia in 1607 and is the oldest uniformed military force founded in the New World. The National Guard can also be mobilized by the president to operate under federal authority through Title 10. When acting under federal direction, the National Guard is managed by the National Guard Bureau, which is a joint Army and Air Force activity under the Department of Defense, with a 4-star general from the Army or Air Force appointed as its top leader. However, in federal service, command and control of National Guard organizations will fall under the designated geographic or functional combatant commander. The National Guard serves as a reserve component for both the Army and the Air Force, and can be called up for federal active duty in times of war or national emergencies.
== Non-armed uniformed services ==
The Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC) is the uniformed personnel system of the Public Health Service, which is under the Department of Health and Human Services.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps (NOAA Corps) is a uniformed branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is under the Department of Commerce.
Commissioned officers of the PHSCC and NOAA Corps wear uniforms that are derived from U.S. Navy and Coast Guard uniforms, except that the commissioning devices, buttons, and insignia reflect their specific service. Uniformed officers of the PHSCC and NOAA Corps are paid on the same scale as members of the armed services, with respective rank and time-in-grade. Additionally, PHSCC officers are covered by the Uniformed Services Employment and Re-employment Rights Act and the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (formerly the Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act). The PHSCC and NOAA Corps consist of commissioned officers only and have no warrant officer ranks or enlisted ranks.
Commissioned officers of the PHSCC and NOAA Corps may be militarized by order of the president. Because they are commissioned officers, they can be classified as prisoners of war (POW) under the Geneva Conventions if captured by a belligerent entity. The PHSCC traces its origins to a system of marine hospitals created by An Act for the relief of sick and disabled seamen, passed by Congress in 1798; it adopted a military model of organization in 1871. The Coast and Geodetic Survey (USC&GS), a predecessor to NOAA, originally began commissioning its officers so that if captured while engaged in battlefield surveying, they would be protected under the law of armed conflict and could not be tried or executed as spies. The USC&GS Commissioned Officer Corps became the Environmental Science Services Administration Corps (ESSA Corps), upon the creation of the Environmental Science Services Administration on 13 July 1965, then became the NOAA Corps upon the creation of NOAA on 3 October 1970.
== U.S. Merchant Marine Service ==
The United States Maritime Service is a federal uniformed organization within the Department of Transportation, that is no longer structurally organized. As such, they are not officially listed a federal uniformed service, as defined by U.S. law. However under the authority of the president and the secretary of transportation, the service still commissions officers to serve as administrators and instructors at the United States Merchant Marine Academy and the state maritime academies. Commissioned officers of the Maritime Service cannot be deployed or assigned to another military service, and thus are not subjected to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. While the chances a Maritime Service officer being captured by an enemy is unlikely, they would be classified as POWs under the Geneva Conventions if they were. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_Me_Maybe#Year-end_charts | Call Me Maybe#Year-end charts | "Call Me Maybe" is a song by Canadian singer-songwriter Carly Rae Jepsen from her extended play Curiosity (2012) and later appeared on her second studio album and international debut album Kiss (2012). The song was written by Jepsen and Tavish Crowe as a folk song, but its genre was modified to pop following the production by Josh Ramsay. It was released as the lead single from the EP on September 20, 2011 in Canada through 604 Records. In 2012, Jepsen was signed to Schoolboy Records and re-released "Call Me Maybe" worldwide through the label, as her debut international single. Musically, "Call Me Maybe" is a teen pop, dance-pop and bubblegum pop track that alludes to the inconvenience that love at first sight brings to a girl who hopes for a call back from a new crush.
"Call Me Maybe" topped the Canadian Hot 100. Outside of Canada, "Call Me Maybe" topped charts in over 15 countries including Australia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Poland, Ireland, Slovakia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. It peaked inside the top five of the charts in Austria, Belgium (Flanders & Wallonia), Germany, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. After peaking at the top position of the Canadian Hot 100, Jepsen became the fifth Canadian artist to do so in her home country since 2007. In the United States, the track reached number one on the Mainstream Top 40 chart, and is the first number one by a Canadian female artist on the Billboard Hot 100 chart since 2007's "Girlfriend" by Avril Lavigne.
An accompanying music video was directed by Ben Knechtel. In it, Jepsen seeks the attention of an attractive boy next door who is revealed at the end of the story to be attracted to a male band member. As part of the promotion for the song, Jepsen performed the track on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where she made her US television debut, and at the 2012 Billboard Music Awards. "Call Me Maybe" has been covered by several artists, including Ben Howard, Big Time Rush, Fun, Cimorelli, JPEGMafia, and Cody Simpson, and parodied by Cookie Monster and some of the news staff of NPR. It was also covered on "The New Rachel", the season premiere episode of the fourth season of Glee.
"Call Me Maybe" was nominated for two Grammy Awards, for Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance at the 55th Annual ceremony, but lost to "We Are Young" by Fun and the live performance of "Set Fire to the Rain" by Adele, respectively. On December 11, 2012, "Call Me Maybe" was named Song of the Year for 2012 by MTV. In its 2012 Year-End issue, Billboard magazine ranked this song #2 in the Hot 100 Songs, Digital Songs, and Canadian Hot 100 charts. The song was also ranked number one by the Village Voice's annual Pazz and Jop poll, which compiles the votes of music critics from all over the United States.
The song was the best-selling single worldwide in 2012, selling over 12 million copies in that year alone, and the best-selling single on the iTunes Store worldwide in 2012. With worldwide sales of 18 million copies and over 1 billion streams on Spotify, it became the best-selling single of the 21st century by a female artist and one of the most successful singles of all time. "Call Me Maybe" was the best-selling digital single of 2012 worldwide, and is the seventh best-selling digital single of all time. The song is ranked at #436 on Rolling Stone's updated list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and eighth on Billboard's list of the 500 Best Pop Songs of All Time.
== Background ==
"Call Me Maybe" was initially written by Jepsen and Tavish Crowe as a folk song, while they were on tour. Jepsen explained that the writing process was easy, and that she wasn't "over-thinking it. We brought in Josh [Ramsay], and he helped us kind of pop-ify it." The following days, she recorded the track at the Umbrella Studios in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. Jepsen later explained that it is "basically a pick up. What person hasn't wanted to approach somebody before and stopped because it's scary? I know I have." "Call Me Maybe" had been first released in Canada only through 604 Records on September 20, 2011.
In December 2011, singers Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez were in Canada and heard the track on the radio. After they spoke about the song on their Twitter accounts, Jepsen instantly gained international attention, and got signed by Scooter Braun to his Schoolboy Records. Bieber's tweet said the song "is possibly the catchiest song I've ever heard..." Braun revealed that Bieber has "never jumped out and promoted an artist like this before. He sends me different YouTube videos of unsigned artists that he'd like to work with, but never someone who already had a song out and is on the radio." Worldwide distribution of the single was done through Interscope Records.
== Composition ==
"Call Me Maybe" was written by Jepsen and Crowe, with additional writing and song production by Josh Ramsay. Lyrically, the song describes the "infatuation and inconvenience of a love at first sight," as described by Bill Lamb of About.com. During the pre-chorus, Jepsen states how she suddenly becomes attracted to a person, singing, "Your stare was holding, ripped jeans, skin was showing/Hot night, wind was blowing/Where you think you're going, baby?" As the chorus begins, the background incorporates synthesized string chords, and Jepsen explains that her feelings towards the guy are unexpected, "Hey, I just met you/And this is crazy/But here's my number/So call me maybe."
Melody Lau of Rolling Stone wrote that "Call Me Maybe" is a "Taylor Swift meets Robyn" song. Jon O'Brien of AllMusic called it a teen pop song with "a chorus that just about straddles that fine line between sugary sweet and sickly." Tiffany Lee of Yahoo! Music deemed it as an instant summer hit, and added that "Call Me Maybe" has "a good beat, great melody and catchy lyrics; something you and your friends can belt out in the car while driving to the beach, a party, and pretty much anywhere." Jon Caramanica of The New York Times wrote that the song is "breezy and sweet, an eyelash-fluttering flirtation run hard through the Disney-pop model of digitized feelings and brusque, chipper arrangements." Kelsey McKinney and Scott Kellum of Vox described it as "catchy bubblegum pop" that is given depth by "the absolute height of Jepsen's vocal range".
According to Musicnotes.com, "Call Me Maybe" is written in the key of G major with a moderate tempo of 120 beats per minute (BPM). Jepsen's vocals span from G3 to C5, and the song follows a key progression of Cmaj7–G/D–Cmaj7–G/D.
== Critical reception ==
The song received critical acclaim. Rolling Stone journalist Melody Lau considered "Call Me Maybe" "a sugary dance-pop tune about hoping for a call back from a crush," while Kat George of VH1 described it as a "guilty pop pleasure." Emma Carmichael of Gawker did a long review on the track, which she described as the "new perfect pop song." Carmichael further added that the song is "flawless" and that "we will be virtually incapable of escaping the song and its strident disco strings and that horribly catchy hook." Nicole James of MTV revealed that "Call Me Maybe" is probably the catchiest song she has ever heard, and added that "I don't even want to tell you what the play count is in my iTunes for that song, but the moment you press play you're sucked in."
The Village Voice's Maura Johnston deemed it as an "utterly earwormy" song. RedEye's Emily Van Zandt began her review of the track saying, "screw you, Internet. Thanks to a couple of posts on blogs that I refuse to own up to follow, my afternoon has been dedicated to Carly Rae Jepsen's 'Call Me Maybe'." Van Zandt continued to state that "all I know is that I have co-dependency issues when it comes to my music. When it's sad, I'm sad. When it's angry, I'm angry. And when it's ridiculously over-produced, up-tempo bubblegum pop with terrible lyrics on a beautiful day in Chicago when I'm wearing pink pants, I just kind of want to start skipping around handing my number out to random bros, you know?" Jim Farber of the New York Daily News said, "In lyrical construction, melodic flourish and instrumental arrangement, 'Maybe' has the urgency and sweep of the greatest teen pop songs ever recorded."
Pitchfork named "Call Me Maybe" the 29th best song of 2012, while Rolling Stone named it the 50th greatest single of that year. It was voted the best single of 2012 by The Village Voice's 40th annual Pazz & Jop critics' poll. As of April 2017, Billboard ranked at number one on list "The Best Chorus of the 21st Century". In September 2021, Rolling Stone placed it at number 436 on their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. In October 2022, Variety's Rachel Seo ranked it as Jepsen's 11th best song, writing: "The chronically catchy track evokes memories of 2012, which, among many things, was the year when Marvel's The Avengers debuted in theaters and former President Obama was reelected. Call it overplayed and outdated, but if there was a song that could be considered most likely to bring about world peace, 'Call Me Maybe' might rank second (after John Lennon's 'Imagine')."
== Commercial performance ==
=== Canada ===
"Call Me Maybe" achieved commercial success in Canada, and later in the United States and around the world. The song is Jepsen's third single to enter the Canadian Hot 100, debuting at number 97 for the week of October 22, 2011. For the week of February 11, 2012, "Call Me Maybe" reached number one in its 17th week on the Canadian Hot 100. By doing so, Jepsen became the fifth Canadian artist ever to reach the top position on the new chart in her home country, after Avril Lavigne, Nelly Furtado, Nikki Yanofsky, and Young Artists for Haiti. Jepsen commented that she feels "ultimately honored to be mentioned among those names. These are all artists I look up to in a big way. I have their music, they've been on my records since I can remember. It's really hard to believe. It's cool because at the same time, it's all that I've all ever been working for." The song has since been certified Diamond by Music Canada (MC), for sales of 800,000 units of the track in the country. It spent a total of 74 weeks on the chart.
=== United States of America ===
In the United States, the song debuted at number 38 on the Billboard Hot 100 on the week of March 10, 2012 with 80,000 downloads. The song entered the top ten on the chart the week April 14, 2012 at number ten The song reached number one on the week ending June 23, 2012 and spent nine consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Jepsen is the first Canadian female artist to have a number one on Billboard Hot 100 since Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend", which reached number one the week of May 5, 2007, making her the first Canadian artist to have a number one in the 2010s. The song is only the fourth song to log seven weeks at number one by an artist from Canada, tied with "Sh-Boom" by the Crew-Cuts, "Informer" by Snow featuring MC Shan, and "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" by Bryan Adams. Three weeks earlier, it had reached number one on the Digital Songs component chart. The track also reached number one on the Mainstream Top 40 chart. The song is Jepsen's first entry on the Billboard charts in the country, which made her the first lead woman since Kesha with her single "Tik Tok" to have her debut single peak at such position. "Call Me Maybe" holds the record for the longest run at number one on the US Hot 100 among female Canadian artists and tied with Percy Faith's 1960 song, "Theme from a Summer Place", for the longest among all Canadian artists. "Call Me Maybe" was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), becoming third female artist to achieve with her own single and first Canadian female artist to achieve, and as of August 2015, it has sold 7.6 million copies in the US, making it the country's twelfth all-time best-selling digital single.
=== Other countries ===
"Call Me Maybe" debuted at number 39 in Australia on the chart issue dated March 18, 2012, and four weeks later rose to number one. It remained at the top for five consecutive weeks, before falling to number two. The song has since been certified nine-times Platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), denoting shipments of 630,000 copies. The song also made its debut on the country's chart for the week of March 5, 2012 at number 22, reaching the top position four weeks later. It remained at the top for five consecutive weeks, before falling to number two. By August 2012, "Call Me Maybe" had been certified three-times Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ), surpassing digital sales of 45,000 units. "Call Me Maybe" became New Zealand's best selling single in 2012, placed at the top spot by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand.
"Call Me Maybe" performed well in Europe also, topping the charts in France, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The song debuted in the Republic of Ireland on March 15, 2012. The song went to number one the following week, March 22, 2012, and stayed consecutively at number one for four weeks. while attaining top three positions in Austria, Belgium (Flanders and Wallonia), Germany, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. In the United Kingdom, the song debuted at number one on the UK Singles Chart on April 8, 2012 – for the week ending date April 14, 2012 – selling nearly 107,000 copies in the first week and remaining at the top for four weeks. The song became the third fastest-selling song of 2012 on the UK Singles Chart, behind DJ Fresh and Rita Ora's track "Hot Right Now" and Cheryl's "Call My Name". "Call Me Maybe" remained at number one for a second week on April 15, 2012 – for the week ending date April 21, 2012 – keeping Justin Bieber's "Boyfriend" from reaching such position after outselling it by two to one. In its fourth week on the chart, the song stayed at number one with 99,569 copies sold after three consecutive weeks selling over 100,000 copies. The song became Britain's second best-selling single of 2012, with 1,143,000 copies sold. As of April 2017, "Call Me Maybe" has sold 1.35 million copies in the United Kingdom, making it the 11th biggest-selling song by a woman on the UK Singles Chart.
== Music video ==
=== Background and release ===
The music video for "Call Me Maybe" was written and directed by Ben Knechtel and filmed at 19841 48a Ave, Langley, British Columbia on October 30, 2011. According to Knechtel, the main idea behind the concept was to have a "twist at the end", trying to get away from the idea of the classic "boy meets a girl" story. The music video was released on December 9, 2011, before being re-uploaded on March 1, 2012. In a 2018 interview with iHeartRadio Canada, Holden Nowell said he had regrets about his participation in the video, claiming that he was paid $500 with a promise of additional residuals, but never received "a single penny in royalties". He also expressed misgivings about his role, saying, "I didn't like being known as the gay guy in the 'Call Me Maybe' video. It was just something I wasn't used to". He added that it was initially planned for the character's sexuality to be revealed when he kissed the guitarist, but he objected to this: "I was like, 'I'm going to be completely honest with you. I'm not going to kiss a guy, especially for $500.' I said, "I really don't think I'm comfortable kissing a guy for a music video". Nowell also claimed that he came up with actual ending for the video stating "You know what? What if instead of me kissing a guy at the end of the video, what if I just give a guy my number or something like that?"
=== Synopsis and reception ===
The video begins with Jepsen spying on her attractive tattooed neighbour (Holden Nowell) as he is mowing his lawn. As he takes his shirt off and notices she is staring at him, Jepsen is embarrassed and falls below her window, out of sight. She is reading the books Love at First Sight (Men in Uniform) by B. J. Daniels and Skylar's Outlaw by Linda Warren. The scene then cuts to her garage, where she is rehearsing the track with her band. Following the rehearsals, her bandmates push her to go and wash her vehicle, a Ford Mustang, where she tries to divert her neighbor's attention from working on his vehicle, a Chevrolet Camaro with forming various provocative poses only to fall off the vehicle hood. She is briefly knocked out from the fall, during which she dreams of a romance novel-type encounter with her crush against the backdrop of Peggy's Cove. As she comes to, the neighbor then helps her get up and watches the band rehearse the track again. After turning and writing down her telephone number, Jepsen sees her neighbor pass one of her male bandmates (Tavish Crowe) his own number, indicating he is gay, where the very end shows that Jepsen is taken aback by this. The video received three nominations on the 2012 MuchMusic Video Awards in the categories of UR Fave Video, Pop Video of the Year, and Video of the Year.
== Live performances ==
On March 26, 2012, Jepsen visited WBBM-FM's Morning Show and performed two tracks of her EP, "Call Me Maybe" and "Curiosity". Days later, the singer made her US television debut during The Ellen DeGeneres Show performing "Call Me Maybe". Emily Exton of Pop Dust summarized the performance, writing, "delivering fairly true-to-radio vocals that seemed to overcome any lingering nerves performing for millions of viewers (and your sorta boss?) might bring on, Carly left the security of the mike stand to move beneath the oversized dandelion lights during the final moments of her euphoric head-bobber." She also performed an acoustic version of the song on Kidd Kraddick in the Morning and KISS 92.5. On May 2, 2012, on a visit to Australia, she performed "Call Me Maybe" on the TV show Sunrise. On May 20, 2012, Jepsen performed the track on the 2012 Billboard Music Awards. On June 9, 2012, Jepsen performed the track with Justin Bieber on the Capital FM Summertime Ball at the Wembley Stadium, London.
On June 17, 2012, Jepsen performed the song at 2012 MuchMusic Video Awards. On July 22, 2012, Jepsen performed the song at 2012 Teen Choice Awards. She also performed the song on CBBC show Friday Download on April 27, 2012, even though the show is pre-recorded. On August 26, 2012, Jepsen performed the song live at the US Open Arthur Ashe Kids' Day, in what began as a pro-am doubles tennis match (Mardy Fish and Jepsen vs. Novak Djokovic and Olympic swimmer Missy Franklin) but quickly became a musical performance initiated by Djokovic and Franklin, with chair umpire Matthew Morrison (of the TV show Glee) handing a microphone to the seemingly surprised Jepsen. During the number, the tennis court was filled with ball kids doing choreographed dance moves, a four-piece back-up band, a juggle, a marching band, Djokovic pushing a lawnmower as in the official video, and many other performers. Carly Rae Jepsen and Harvey Keitel performed "Call Me Maybe" alternating their own version of it during Comedy Central's Night of Too Many Stars autism benefit show on October 21, 2012.
== Cover versions and parodies ==
=== Lip dubs ===
A number of parody and lip dub videos have been released throughout the internet since the song's release. Big Time Rush, Ashley Tisdale, Justin Bieber, and Selena Gomez uploaded a parody video to YouTube on February 18, 2012; it instantly turned viral, having over 75 million views as of August 2019. Pop singer Katy Perry also released a viral video with her friends on April 19, 2012, while hosts and members of the E! TV series Fashion Police also released theirs on May 4, 2012. On May 23, 2012, a compilation from several fan videos was uploaded to Jepsen's Vevo page. The Harvard University baseball team uploaded a lip-sync video to the song on YouTube on May 6, 2012, which it had recorded on the way to a game over spring break. As of August 2019, it had been viewed over 19 million times. The Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders have also made a cover of the song that has garnered over 25 million views as of August 2019. On July 11, 2012, Crystal Palace F.C. released a cover version, in which the Crystal Palace cheerleaders squad, "the Crystals", sang and danced along to "Call Me Maybe". A promotional campaign to encourage the sale of season's tickets at the club, it was dubbed "Call Me Crystals".
In July 2012, members of the United States Armed Forces stationed in Kandahar International Airport, Afghanistan had released another lip dub video with the idea to show troops in a more positive, light-hearted way. The Baracksdubs YouTube channel used Auto-Tune to produce a satire version from clips of Barack Obama. New York Mets infielder Justin Turner has also used the song as his at-bat music at home games. On July 3, 2012, Mabson Enterprises released a digital-only compilation on Bandcamp comprising 43 versions of the track remixed or covered including tracks by Dan Deacon, Ear Pwr, Poingly and Sean Carnage. On July 20, 2012, the cast of Hollywood Heights, Cody Longo, Brittany Underwood, Carlos Ponce, Melissa Ordway, Jama Williamson, Meredith Salenger, among others, made a cover version of them lip singing and dancing along to the song on set of the show. On July 26, 2012, the United States Olympic swimming team posted a video of them lip syncing to the song at practice and on the way to London for the Olympics. On July 30, 2012, a mashup video featuring NASA videos of the Mars Science Laboratory was posted on YouTube, just a week before the Curiosity rover landed on Mars. The video was then updated after the landing and played for the Mars Curiosity Rover team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as the wake up video for Sol 18 on August 24, 2012. The cast of The Big Bang Theory made a flashmob of the song on October 23, 2012, during the live taping of an episode.
=== Cover versions, mashups, and remixes ===
A number of covers also emerged since the song's release. On March 24, 2012, Cimorelli performed a dance routine version of the song. The group returned in a sequel titled "Don't Call Me Baby", this time featuring MattyBRaps on May 9. On June 7, 2012, producer Chi Duly released "Call Me Calvin (Chi Duly Edit)", a mashup which replaced the original backing of "Call Me Maybe" with Calvin Harris' singles "I'm Not Alone", "Feel So Close", and "We Found Love".
On July 10, 2012, Sesame Street released a parody of the song, called "Share it Maybe", which features "Cookie Monster-ified lyrics". A cover of the song released by Carly Rae Jepsen Tribute Team peaked at number 49 on the UK Singles Chart for one week and another version by Hit Masters spent the same amount of time on the chart but peaked 23 places lower, at number 72. American indie pop band Fun covered "Call Me Maybe" in an acoustic form at an in-studio session for Dutch radio 3FM. On May 8, 2012, folk artist Ben Howard covered the song for BBC Radio. Renditions from other notable people include James Franco and Colin Powell. On July 30, 2012, video game developer HeR Interactive, well known for the Nancy Drew computer games, added a new video parody of the song about Nancy Drew, titled "Call Me Nancy, Second Chance Me", a reference to the "Second Chance" feature in its games.
On the fourth season of Glee premiere episode "The New Rachel", they covered "Call Me Maybe" as a way to decide who the "new Rachel" will be. During the Australian fourth season of The X Factor, the finalists recorded and performed a cover of "Call Me Maybe" as a charity single in aid of Sony Foundation's You Can program. Girls Aloud covered "Call Me Maybe" live during their Ten: The Hits Tour. Los Angeles comedy punk band Radioactive Chicken Heads recorded a punk rock version of the song in November 2012, also releasing a music video concurrently with their punk rock cover of Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together". During the first episode of the eighth season of America's Got Talent, aired on June 4, 2013, the 3 Penny Chorus and Orchestra directed by Arianne Abela did a cover of "Call Me Maybe", arranged by Colin Britt and Arianne Abela. "Weird Al" Yankovic briefly covered the song as part of his polka medley "NOW That's What I Call Polka!" for his 2014 album Mandatory Fun. For the thirtieth anniversary of MathWorks in 2014, a group of employees created a flashmob-style parody version called "Call Me Nerdy". Baltimore rapper JPEGMafia released his own cover for the song as well. On September 25, 2020, a short for the Disney Channel show Gravity Falls was released. In that short, one of the main characters, Mabel, sings "Call Me Mabel", a parody of the song.
== Track listings ==
== Credits and personnel ==
Carly Rae Jepsen – vocals, songwriting
Tavish Crowe – songwriting, guitar, bass, drums, synthesizer, strings, backing vocals
Josh Ramsay – production, songwriting, guitars, bass, drums, synthesizer, strings, backing vocals
Max Martin – keyboards
Dave Ogilvie – mixing
Credits adapted from: Curiosity and Kiss album liner notes, Apple Music.
== Charts ==
== Certifications ==
== Release history == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1828_United_States_presidential_election | 1828 United States presidential election | Presidential elections were held in the United States from October 31 to December 2, 1828. Just as in the 1824 election, President John Quincy Adams of the National Republican Party faced Andrew Jackson of the Democratic Party, making the election the second rematch in presidential history. Both parties were new organizations, and this was the first presidential election their nominees contested.
With the collapse of the Federalist Party, four members of the Democratic-Republican Party, including Jackson and Adams, had sought the presidency in the 1824 election. Jackson had won a plurality (but not majority) of both the electoral vote and popular vote in the 1824 election, but had lost the contingent election that was held in the House of Representatives. In the aftermath of the election, Jackson's supporters accused Adams and Henry Clay of having reached a "corrupt bargain" in which Clay helped Adams win the contingent election in return for the position of Secretary of State. After the 1824 election, Jackson's supporters immediately began plans for a campaign in 1828, and the Democratic-Republican Party fractured into the National Republican Party and the Democratic Party during Adams's presidency.
The 1828 campaign was marked by large amounts of "mudslinging", as both parties attacked the personal qualities of the opposing party's candidate. Jackson dominated in the South and the West, aided in part by the passage of the Tariff of 1828. With the ongoing expansion of the right to vote to most white men, the election marked a dramatic expansion of the electorate, with 9.5% of Americans casting a vote for president, compared with 3.4% in 1824. Several states transitioned to a popular vote for president, leaving South Carolina and Delaware as the only states in which the legislature chose presidential electors.
Jackson decisively won the election, carrying 55.5% of the popular vote and 178 electoral votes, to Adams' 83. The election marked the rise of Jacksonian Democracy and the transition from the First Party System to the Second Party System. Historians debate the significance of the election, with many arguing that it marked the beginning of modern American politics by removing key barriers to voter participation and establishing a stable two-party system. Jackson became the first president whose home state was neither Massachusetts nor Virginia, while Adams was the second to lose re-election, following his father John Adams.
== Background ==
While Andrew Jackson won a plurality of electoral votes and the popular vote in the election of 1824, he lost to John Quincy Adams as the election was deferred to the House of Representatives (by the terms of the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution, a presidential election in which no candidate wins a majority of the electoral vote is decided by a contingent election in the House of Representatives). Henry Clay, unsuccessful candidate and Speaker of the House at the time, despised Jackson, in part due to their fight for Western votes during the election, and he chose to support Adams, which led to Adams being elected president on the first ballot.
A few days after the election, Adams appointed Clay his Secretary of State, a position held by Adams and his three immediate predecessors prior to becoming president. Jackson and his followers promptly accused Clay and Adams of striking a "corrupt bargain," and continued to lambaste the president until the 1828 election.
In 1824, the national Democratic-Republican Party collapsed as national politics became increasingly polarized between supporters of Adams and supporters of Jackson. In a prelude to the presidential election, the Jacksonians bolstered their numbers in Congress in the 1826 congressional elections, with Jackson ally Andrew Stevenson chosen as the new Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1827 over Adams ally Speaker, John W. Taylor.
== Nominations ==
=== Jacksonian Party nomination ===
In October 1825, the Tennessee legislature re-nominated Jackson for president. Congressional opponents of Adams, including former William H. Crawford supporter Martin Van Buren, rallied around Jackson's candidacy. Jackson's supporters called themselves Democrats, and would formally organize as the Democratic Party shortly after his election. In hopes of uniting those opposed to Adams, Jackson ran on a ticket with Calhoun. Calhoun would decline the invitation to join the Democratic Party, however, and instead formed the Nullifier Party after the election; the Nullifiers would remain largely aligned with the Democrats for the next few years, but ultimately broke with Jackson over the issue of states' rights during his first term. No congressional nominating caucus or national convention was held.
Adams' relationship with Vice President John C. Calhoun deteriorated, with Calhoun opposing Clay's appointment as Secretary of State due to his own presidential ambitions. In June 1826, Calhoun gave his support to Jackson for the 1828 election. Calhoun's stance on the removal of Native Americans was not accepted by the Georgian electors who instead voted for William Smith.
Van Buren, who supported Crawford during the 1824 election, supported Jackson during the 1828 election and aided in the selection of Calhoun as vice president in order to prevent DeWitt Clinton, his political enemy, from being selected. Clinton died on February 11, 1828. Van Buren arranged for incidents to divide Calhoun and Adams such as him abstaining from a vote on tariff legislation supported by Adams in order for Calhoun to break the tie by voting against it.
Thomas Ritchie, editor of the Richmond Examiner, was one of the leading supporters of Crawford during the 1824 election and Van Buren convinced him to support Jackson. Van Buren convinced him of an alliance "between the planters of the South and the plain Republicans of the North".
=== National Republican Party nomination ===
President Adams and his allies, including Secretary of State Clay and Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, became known as the National Republicans or "Adams Party." The National Republicans were significantly less organized than the Democrats, and many party leaders did not embrace the new era of popular campaigning. Adams was re-nominated on the endorsement of state legislatures and partisan rallies. As with the Democrats, no nominating caucus or national convention was held. Adams chose Secretary of the Treasury Richard Rush, a Pennsylvanian known for his protectionist views, as his running mate. Adams, who was personally popular in New England, hoped to assemble a coalition in which Clay attracted Western voters, Rush attracted voters in the middle states, and Webster won over former members of the Federalist Party.
Adams support in New York aligned with the Anti-Masonic Party and Thurlow Weed, his campaign manager in the state, was sympathetic to the anti-masonic movement.
== General election ==
One memoir of 19th-century life in Illinois gives a sense of importance of the 1828 in American life:
It was probably the most exciting election, and probably more bitter feeling indulged in, than at any election that has ever taken place in this country. For several months before the election almost every occupation was dropped and the men occupied their time electioneering. Almost every day long lines of men could be seen marching after the fife and drum and led by some officer that had served in the war of 1812. The Jackson party would erect their hickory poles and the Adams party their tall maple poles, and stands would be erected under their respective poles, and the best speakers in the country would be brought out, and each party would have a barbecue of a roast ox or half-a-dozen sheep about every week.
=== Campaign ===
The campaign was marked by large amounts of nasty "mudslinging." Jackson's marriage, for example, came in for the vicious attack. Charles Hammond, in his Cincinnati Gazette, asked: "Ought a convicted adulteress and her paramour husband be placed in the highest offices of this free and Christian land?" At the time of the election, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson had been happily, legally married for almost 35 years, but when they met, Rachel had been legally married to Lewis Robards. In the Adams campaign managers' hands, this became a scandal. The Robards–Donelson–Jackson relationship controversy has been ongoing for the better part of 200 years, but since the 1970s, historians generally agree that Andrew and Rachel ran off together to force a divorce from Lewis Robards that would have otherwise been inaccessible to Rachel and that they were a couple for roughly five years before they were legally married in 1794. Decades later, their youthful love story became a political liability. Jackson's campaign did major spin control and manufactured a false timeline, convinced friends in Natchez to vouch for the retcon, and offered a semi-plausible "they were confused about divorce law" excuse to paper over the irregular marriage.Jackson biographers and Democratic partisans carried the false narrative forward well into the late 20th century.
Jackson was also charged with being an "adulterer, a gambler, a cockfighter, a bigamist, a Negro trader, drunkard, a murderer, a thief and a liar." He was most certainly a gambler, a cockfighter, a Negro trader, and a bigamist, although at the late hour of 1828 it was perhaps ungracious to bring it up. Jackson believed that attacks on him were personal vendettas consequent to past disputes, writing, "I am branded with every crime, and Doctor McNary, Col. Erwin, Anderson and Williams are associated for this purpose." One thing that all these men had in common is that they had all known and/or been business partners and/or been military comrades of Jackson going back decades. McNairy's brother gave Jackson his first law job in Nashville in 1789, Erwin and Jackson had been long-time land speculation partners until a massive deal went bad, Anderson had been Jackson's aide-de-camp at the time of the Burr conspiracy and had succeeded him as federal district attorney for Tennessee, and Williams had sold slaves to Jackson and had been honored by the general for his gallant leadership as a militia commander during the 1813–14 campaign against the Red Stick Creeks.
Jackson's campaigners fired back by claiming that while serving as minister to Russia, Adams had procured a young girl to serve as a prostitute for Emperor Alexander I. They also stated that Adams had a billiard table in the White House and that he had charged the government for it. (In fact Adams while minister to Russia had employed a young girl as a maid to his wife; the girl had written a letter which had been intercepted by the Russian postal services. Alexander I had been curious to meet the letter writer publicly at court and Adams had done so. The billiard table was Adams' personal property; a bill for repairing it had been accidentally included in the White House expense accounts. Adams also came under attack for having a chess set). Jackson also came under heavy attack as a slave trader who bought and sold slaves and moved them about in defiance of modern standards of morality (he was not attacked for merely owning slaves used in plantation work). The Coffin Handbills attacked Jackson for his courts-martial, execution of deserters, and massacres of Indian villages, and also his habit of dueling and that he supposedly fought over 100 duels. In fact, Jackson had only fought three duels: in the first both men had fired at each other but made up; in the second duel, Jackson vs John Sevier, it had taken place but only two persons not connected with either party had been slightly injured. The third duel was with Charles Dickinson in which Dickinson was mortally wounded while Jackson was left with a bullet in his chest. A so-called fourth duel between Jackson and Thomas Hart Benton was in fact a frontier brawl which left Jackson badly wounded in the shoulder. That said the list of violent incidents involving Andrew Jackson began with his arrival in Tennessee in the 1780s and continued apace for years. As historian J. M. Opal put it, "[Jackson's] willingness to kill, assault, or threaten people was a constant theme in his adult life and a central component of the reputation he cultivated."
Ezra Stiles Ely attacked Adams' Unitarian beliefs and called for Christians to vote for Jackson.
Jackson avoided articulating issue positions, instead campaigning on his personal qualities and his opposition to Adams. Adams avoided popular campaigning, instead emphasizing his support of specific issues. Adams's praise of internal improvements in Europe, such as "lighthouses of the skies" (observatories), in his first annual message to Congress, and his suggestion that Congress not be "palsied by the will of our constituents" were given attention in and out of the press. John Randolph stated on the floor of the Senate that he "never will be palsied by any power save the constitution, and the will of my constituents." Jackson wrote that a lavish government combined with contempt of the constituents could lead to despotism, if not checked by the "voice of the people." Modern campaigning was also introduced by Jackson. People kissed babies, had picnics, and started many other traditions during the campaign.
==== Jefferson's opinion ====
Thomas Jefferson wrote favorably in response to Jackson in December 1823 and extended an invitation to his estate of Monticello: "I recall with pleasure the remembrance of our joint labors while in the Senate together in times of great trial and of hard battling, battles indeed of words, not of blood, as those you have since fought so much for your own glory & that of your country; with the assurance that my attempts continue undiminished, accept that of my great respect & consideration."
Jefferson wrote of the outcome of the contingent election of 1825 in a letter to William H. Crawford, who had been the nominee of the congressional caucus of Democratic-Republicans, saying that he had hoped to congratulate Crawford on his election to the presidency but "events had not been what we had wished."
In the next election, Jackson's and Adams's supporters saw value in establishing the opinion of Jefferson in regards to their respective candidates and against their opposition. Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, on the same day as his predecessor, John Adams, Adams's father.
A goal of the pro-Adams was to depict Jackson as a "mere military chieftain." Edward Coles recounted that Jefferson told him in a conversation in August 1825 that he feared the popular enthusiasm for Jackson: "It has caused me to doubt more than anything that has occurred since our Revolution." Coles used the opinion of Thomas Gilmer to back himself up; Gilmer said Jefferson told him at Monticello before the election of Adams in 1825, "One might as well make a sailor of a cock, or a soldier of a goose, as a President of Andrew Jackson." Daniel Webster, who was also at Monticello at the time, made the same report. Webster recorded that Jefferson told him in December 1824 that Jackson was a dangerous man unfit for the presidency. Historian Sean Wilentz described Webster's account of the meeting as "not wholly reliable." Biographer Robert V. Remini said that Jefferson "had no great love for Jackson."
Gilmer accused Coles of misrepresentation, in Jefferson's opinion had changed, Gilmer said. Jefferson's son-in-law, former Virginia Governor Thomas Mann Randolph Jr., said in 1826 that Jefferson had a "strong repugnance" to Henry Clay. Randolph publicly stated that Jefferson became friendly to Jackson's candidacy as early as the summer of 1825, perhaps because of the "corrupt bargain" charge, and thought of Jackson as "an honest, sincere, clear-headed and strong-minded man; of the soundest political principles" and "the only hope left" to reverse the increasing powers assumed by the federal government. Others said the same thing, but Coles could not believe Jefferson's opinion had changed.
In 1827, Virginia Governor William B. Giles released a letter from Jefferson meant to be kept private to Thomas Ritchie's Richmond Enquirer. It was written after Adams's first annual message to Congress and it contained an attack from Jefferson on the incumbent administration. Giles said Jefferson's alarm was with the usurpation of the rights of the states, not with a "military chieftain." Jefferson wrote, "take together the decisions of the federal court, the doctrines of the President, and the misconstructions of the constitutional compact acted on by the legislature of the federal bench, and it is but too evident, that the three ruling branches of that department are in combination to strip their colleagues, the State authorities, of the powers reserved by them, and to exercise themselves all functions foreign and domestic." Of the Federalists, he continued, "But this opens with a vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who, having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of '76, now look to a single and splendid government of an aristocracy, founded on banking institutions, and moneyed incorporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, commerce, and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered plowman and beggared yeomanry." The Jacksonians and states' rights men heralded its publication; the Adams men felt it a symptom of senility. Giles omitted a prior letter of Jefferson's praise of Adams for his role in the embargo of 1808. Thomas Jefferson Randolph soon collected and published Jefferson's correspondence.
=== Results ===
22.2% of the voting age population and 57.3% of eligible voters participated in the election. All of the states, except for Delaware and South Carolina, selected their electors through a popular vote. The selection of electors began on October 31 with elections in Ohio and Pennsylvania and ended on November 13 with elections in North Carolina. The Electoral College met on December 3.
Adams won the same states that his father had won in the election of 1800 (the New England states, New Jersey, and Delaware) and Maryland, but Jackson won all other states and won the election in a landslide.
The Democratic Party in Georgia was hopelessly divided into two factions (Troup and Clark) at the time. Despite this, both factions nominated Jackson for President, with the election being primarily a test of the strength of these two factions - the Adams electors ran a very poor third, with just 3.21% of the vote. The winning slate, which received a 3,000 vote majority.
Jackson received 50.3% of the vote in states without slavery while he received 72.6% of the vote in states with slavery. He received 200,000 votes in the South and 400,000 votes in the North, but the Three-fifths Compromise, which inflated the South's electoral votes, resulted in him receiving 105 electoral votes from the South and 73 votes from the North.
This was the first election in American history in which the incumbent president lost re-election despite winning a greater share of the popular vote than in the previous election. This would not happen again until 2020. Adams' loss was also the second time an elected president lost the popular vote twice, this also occurred with Benjamin Harrison in 1888 and 1892, and Donald Trump who lost the popular vote in 2016 and 2020.
This was the last election in which the Democrats won Kentucky until 1856. It is also the only election where Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Vermont voted for the National Republicans, and the last time that New Hampshire voted against the Democrats until 1856.
It was also the only election in which an electoral vote split occurred in Maine until the election of 2016, the first election in which the winning ticket did not have a north–south balance, and the first election in which two northerners ran against two southerners.
Source (Popular Vote): Dubin, Michael J. United States Presidential Elections, 1788–1860
Source (Electoral Vote): "Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved July 31, 2005.
(a) The popular vote figures exclude Delaware and South Carolina: both states' electors were chosen by the state legislatures rather than by a popular vote.
(b) Votes cast for Jackson electors nominated by the Clark faction of the Democratic Party of Georgia. Two tickets pledged to Jackson ran in this state; the Clark ticket was defeated by electors nominated by the Troup faction. Many sources combine the votes for both factions when reporting the Georgia results, but this is legally incorrect.
=== Maps ===
== Results by state ==
=== States that flipped from Democratic-Republican to National Republican ===
Connecticut
Delaware
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
New Jersey
Rhode Island
Vermont
=== States that flipped from Democratic-Republican to Democratic ===
Alabama
Georgia
Illinois
Indiana
Kentucky
Louisiana
Mississippi
Missouri
New York
North Carolina
Ohio
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
Tennessee
Virginia
=== Close states ===
Districts where the margin of victory was under 1%:
NY-20 0.45%
MD-3 0.49%
MD-6 0.65%
States and Districts where the margin of victory was under 5%:
Maine-Cumberland 2.22%
NY-16 2.63%
MD-4 2.67%
NY-8 2.77%
Ohio 3.16%
NY-10 3.34%
NY-1 3.85%
New Jersey 4.02%
MD-7 4.04%
NY-13 4.19%
NY-9 4.34%
States and Districts where the margin of victory was under 10%:
NY-19 5.65%
NY-23 5.81%
Maine-Oxford 5.90%
Louisiana 6.07%
NY-14 6.22%
New Hampshire 6.48%
NY-4 9.15%
NY-22 9.20%
NY-17 9.51%
NY-28 9.77%
== Aftermath ==
A voter named Thomas J. Forney, who lived in Burke County, North Carolina, wrote to a friend in Virginia on December 4, 1828:
Permit me in the next place to touch a little on the presidential question. On the day of the electoral election I was at Muddy Creek, at which place Adams received 4 votes, from John Rutherford, myself, William Alexander and — Bedford. Adams received something like 200 in this county, but it appears from undubitable authority that the "Hero" will succeed; if so, I will, I must, submit to a greater power. At the election ground of Col. Carson's, Jackson received all of the votes. Col. Carson planted a hickory pole on the ground that day, and intends to keep it alive by pouring whiskey on its roots. Gen. Jackson was first started on the electioneering campaign as a tool to answer some purpose intended by his anti-supporters, but after canvassing the business up to the present date it appears that he is the spectacle of the people. I am surprised that the Kentuckians supported him, after his saying in that stigmatizing language, that "The Kentuckians ingloriously fled." I am persuaded, Sir, that they were right and perfectly justifiable in making their escape, as they were destitute of arms of defence. The South Carolinians support Jackson with the belief that he is an anti-tariff man; the Pennsylvanians because he is a tariff man. If I could believe that he was a supporter of the tariff, I would rest contented. Finally, I presume he will be our next president. If so, we have "cut the rod to whip ourselves," and must bear with the malady. My next choice will be the able and monstrous Henry Clay. But enough of such.
Rachel Jackson had been having chest pains throughout the campaign, and she was traumatized by the personal attacks on her marriage. She became ill and died on December 22, 1828. Jackson accused the Adams campaign, and Henry Clay even more so, of causing her death, saying, "I can and do forgive all my enemies. But those vile wretches who have slandered her must look to God for mercy."
Andrew Jackson was sworn in as president on March 4, 1829. After the inauguration, a mob entered the White House to shake the new president's hand, damaging the furniture and lights. Jackson escaped through the back, and large punch bowls were set up to lure the crowd outside. Conservatives were horrified at this event, and held it up as a portent of terrible things to come from the first Democratic president. When Jackson arrived in Washington, D.C., he was to pay the customary courtesy call on the outgoing president, but he refused to do so. John Quincy Adams responded by refusing to go to the inauguration of Andrew Jackson, similar to his father who did not attend the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson 28 years before. While Jackson did not hold John Quincy Adams among those who had slandered Rachel Jackson, social relations between the two men were cold and impersonal: for example, when Adams heard from a third party that Jackson would invite him to a social dinner he responded that Jackson should send the invitation personally. In his diary Adams also revealed his disgust that not only was his alma mater Harvard College going to award Jackson an honorary Doctor of Law degree (Jackson had not gone to study law in college but had learned law as a law clerk to a judge) but that they were going to do so to a "barbarian" [i.e., someone who had not studied the classical languages of Latin and Greek].
== Electoral College selection == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mayors_of_New_York_City | List of mayors of New York City | The mayor of New York City is the chief executive of the Government of New York City, as stipulated by New York City's charter. The current officeholder, the 112th in the sequence of regular mayors, is Zohran Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Party.
During the Dutch colonial period from 1624 to 1664, New Amsterdam was governed by the Director of New Netherland. Following the 1664 creation of the British Province of New York, newly renamed New York City was run by the British military governor, Richard Nicolls. The office of Mayor of New York City was established in 1665. Holders were appointed by colonial governors, beginning with Thomas Willett. The position remained appointed until 1777. That year, during the American Revolution, a Council of Appointment was formed by the State of New York. In 1821 the New York City Council – then known as the Common Council – began appointing mayors. Since 1834, mayors have been elected by direct popular vote.
The city included little beyond the island of Manhattan before 1874, when it annexed the western part of the Bronx, to be followed in 1895 by the rest of the Bronx. The 1898 consolidation created the city as it is today with five boroughs: Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Staten Island and the Bronx. The first mayor of the expanded city was Robert Anderson Van Wyck.
The longest-serving mayors have been Fiorello H. La Guardia (1934–1945), Robert F. Wagner Jr. (1954–1965), Ed Koch (1978–1989) and Michael Bloomberg (2002–2013), each of whom was in office for twelve years (three successive four-year terms). The shortest terms in office since 1834 have been those of acting mayors: William T. Collins served a single day on December 31, 1925, Samuel B. H. Vance served one month (from November 30 to December 31, 1874), and Thomas Coman served five weeks (from Monday, November 30, 1868, to Monday, January 4, 1869).
== Colonial mayors (1665–1783) ==
Before 1680, mayors served one-year terms. From 1680, they served two-year terms. Exceptions are noted thus (*). A dagger (†) indicates mayoralties cut short by death in office.
Note
For a time, Matthias Nicoll's second and non-consecutive term was erroneously excluded from the official numbering of mayors due to the contemporary records of Nicoll's second term being misplaced, leading to a misnumbering of every subsequent mayor. The error was first noted as early as 1935, and was later officially corrected in 2026.
Peter Delanoy was the first and only directly-elected mayor of New York until 1834. Appointed mayors resumed in the wake of Leisler's Rebellion.
† died in office
== Pre-consolidation mayors (1784–1897) ==
The mayor continued to be selected by the Government of New York's Council of Appointment until 1821, when Stephen Allen became the first mayor appointed by a local Common Council. Under the Charter of 1834, mayors were elected annually by direct popular vote. Starting in 1849, mayors were elected to serve two-year terms.
Notes
As a result of a conflict between the Republican-dominated New York State Legislature and the Tammany Hall political machine, Fernando Wood's second consecutive term as mayor was shortened by a year through a vote passed by both chambers of legislature to revise the New York City Charter. A mayoral election for a standard-length term was held later that year, resulting in the incumbent Wood's loss to independent candidate Daniel F. Tiemann.
John T. Hoffman resigned after his election as governor of the State of New York but before the end of his mayoral term. Thomas Coman, president of the New York City Board of Aldermen, completed Hoffman's term as acting mayor until his elected successor, A. Oakey Hall, took office.
When Hall temporarily retired from office during the Tweed investigation in 1872, the acting mayor was Board of Aldermen president John Cochrane.
William F. Havemeyer died during his last term in office. Samuel B. H. Vance, president of the Board of Aldermen, completed Havemeyer's term as acting mayor until his elected successor, William H. Wickham, took office.
William Lafayette Strong served an additional year in office because New York City mayoral elections were changed to be held in odd-numbered years due to the impending consolidation of New York City.
† died in office
== Post-consolidation mayors (since 1897) ==
The 1898–1901 term was for four years. The City Charter was changed to make the mayor's term a two-year one beginning in 1902, but after two such terms was changed back to resume four-year terms in 1906. George B. McClellan Jr. thus served one two-year term from 1904 to 1905, during which he was elected to a four-year term from 1906 to 1909. Since then, mayors have had to be elected with the support of all five boroughs: Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Staten Island, and the Bronx.
The party of the mayor reflects party registration, as opposed to the party lines run under during the general election.
Notes
City Council president Randolph Gugghenheimer served as acting mayor multiple times throughout the mayoralty of Robert Anderson Van Wyck whenever Van Wyck was not present in the city.
Seth Low previously served as mayor of the city of Brooklyn from 1881 to 1885.
Ardolph L. Kline, president of the Board of Aldermen, became acting mayor upon the death of William Jay Gaynor on September 10, 1913, but then sought re-election as an alderman rather than mayor. Kline has been the only person since 1834 to occupy the office of mayor while never previously winning a citywide election, having been appointed vice president of the Board of Aldermen by his colleagues and then succeeding to the council's presidency mid-term, rather than winning it by popular election at large.
John Hylan and New York City police commissioner Richard Enright resigned on December 30, 1925 to ensure that they received their city pensions, which they may not have been entitled to keep had they stayed in office for one more day. President of the Board of Aldermen William T. Collins became acting Mayor for one day, prior to the inauguration of Jimmy Walker.
Jimmy Walker resigned on September 1, 1932 amid allegations of corruption in his administration. Joseph V. McKee, as president of the Board of Aldermen, became acting mayor in Walker's place, but was then defeated in a special election by John P. O'Brien.
William O'Dwyer resigned on August 31, 1950, during a police corruption scandal, after which he was appointed United States Ambassador to Mexico by U.S. President Harry S. Truman.
Vincent R. Impellitteri, president of the New York City Council, became acting mayor upon O'Dwyer's resignation on August 31, 1950, and was then elected to the office in a special election held on November 7, 1950. He was inaugurated a week later on November 14.
John Lindsay left the Republican Party in favor of the Democratic Party in 1971 and ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for U.S. president the following year.
Michael Bloomberg was a lifelong member of the Democratic Party before registering as a Republican in 2001 and running for mayor. He left the Republican Party in 2007 and ran as an independent candidate in the 2009 mayoral election, later re-registering as a Democrat in 2018 in preparation for his unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for U.S. president in 2020.
† died in office
== List of living former mayors ==
There are four living former mayors.
== Appendices ==
=== Official misnumbering ===
In 1937, Charles Lodwick, who served from as mayor from 1694 to 1695, was inserted as the city's 21st mayor, increasing the official numbering of all subsequent mayors by one.
In December 2025, another official numbering issue affecting all mayors after John Lawrence's first term in 1673 was widely reported. Similar to American presidents, mayors are counted twice in the official numbering if they served non-consecutive terms. Matthias Nicoll, who was the sixth mayor from 1672–73, was appointed to a non-consecutive term by governor Edmund Andros in 1674 as the city's eighth mayor after the city was returned to English control following the Dutch reconquest during Third Anglo-Dutch War as part of the Treaty of Westminster, but his second term was erroneously omitted in official records. The error appeared in official numberings from as early as an 1841 Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York. The New York City Department of Records and Information Services located original court documents corroborating Nicoll's second term after reporting by Gothamist the same month. The error had previously been noted by various researchers since as early as 1935.
The outgoing administration of Eric Adams declined to address the issue in its final weeks. On January 1, 2026, as Zohran Mamdani was sworn into office his official website called him the 112th mayor. In his inauguration speech, Mamdani joked about the misnumbering, saying "I stand before you ... honored to serve as either your 111th or 112th Mayor of New York City."
=== Mayoral terms and term limits in New York City since 1834 ===
Direct elections to the mayoralty of the unconsolidated City of New York began in 1834 for a term of one year, extended to two years after 1849. The 1897 Charter of the consolidated City stipulated that the mayor was to be elected for a single four-year term. In 1901, the term halved to two years, with no restrictions on reelection. In 1905, the term was extended to four years once again. (Mayors Fiorello La Guardia, Robert F. Wagner Jr., Ed Koch and Michael Bloomberg were later able to serve for twelve years each.) In 1993, the voters approved a two-term (eight-year) limit, and reconfirmed this limit when the issue was submitted to referendum in 1996. In 2008, the New York City Council voted to change the two-term limit to three terms (without submitting the issue to the voters). Legal challenges to the Council's action were rejected by Federal courts in January and April 2009. However, in 2010, yet another referendum, reverting the limit to two terms, passed overwhelmingly.
Principal source: The Encyclopedia of New York City especially the entries for "charter" and "mayoralty".
Mayor Strong, elected in 1894, served an extra year because no municipal election was held in 1896, in anticipation of the consolidated City's switch to odd-year elections.
George B. McClellan Jr. was elected to one two-year term (1904–1906) and one four-year term (1906-1910).
David Dinkins was not affected by the term limit enacted in 1993 because he had served only one term by 1993 and failed to win re-election.
The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in Manhattan coincided with the primary elections for a successor to Mayor Giuliani, who was completing his second and final term of office. Many were so impressed by both the urgency of the situation and Giuliani's response that they wanted to keep him in office beyond December 31, 2001, either by removing the term limit or by extending his service for a few months. However, neither happened, the primary elections (with the same candidates) were re-run on September 25, the general election was held as scheduled on November 6, and Michael Bloomberg took office on the regularly appointed date of January 1, 2002.
On October 2, 2008, Michael Bloomberg announced that he would ask the city council to extend the limit for mayor, council and other officers from two terms to three, and that, should such an extended limit prevail, he himself would seek re-election as mayor. On October 23, the New York City Council voted 29–22 to extend the two-term limit to three terms. (A proposed amendment to submit the vote to a public referendum had failed earlier the same day by a vote of 22–28 with one abstention.)
In November 2010, yet another popular referendum, limiting mayoral terms to two, passed overwhelmingly.
==== Interrupted terms ====
Mayors John T. Hoffman (1866–1868, elected Governor 1868), William Havemeyer (1845–1846, 1848–1849, and 1873–1874), William Jay Gaynor (1910–1913), John Francis Hylan (1918–1925), Jimmy Walker (1926–1932), and William O'Dwyer (1946–1950) failed to complete the final terms to which they were elected. The uncompleted mayoral terms of Hoffman, Walker, and O'Dwyer were added to the other offices elected in (respectively) 1868, 1932, and 1950. Those three elections are listed as "special" in the table below because they occurred before the next regularly scheduled mayoral election; the "regular" mayoral elections of 1874 and 1913, on the other hand, were held on the same day that they would have happened had the mayoralty not become vacant.
† Became acting mayor as the president of the board of aldermen or (in 1950) city council.
(D) = (Democratic)
(R) = (Republican)
Mayor Havemeyer was a Democrat who ran as a Republican against the Democratic Tweed Ring in 1872.
Acting Mayors Coman, Vance, Kline and Collins did not seek election as mayor.
Acting Mayors McKee and Impellitteri were Democrats who lost the Democratic primary to succeed themselves, but still ran in the general election as independents.
Elected Mayor Oakey Hall won re-election, while Mayor Wickham did not seek it. Mayors Mitchel and O'Brien lost attempts at re-election, while Mayor Impellitteri did not run for a full term in the 1953 regular general election after losing the Democratic primary.
=== List of mayors of the City of Brooklyn (1834–1897) ===
Brooklyn elected a mayor from 1834 until consolidation in 1898 into the City of Greater New York, whose own second mayor (1902–1903), Seth Low, had been Mayor of Brooklyn from 1882 to 1885. Since 1898, Brooklyn has, in place of a separate mayor, elected a Borough President.
=== List of mayors of Long Island City (1870–1897) ===
Long Island City, now a neighborhood within the Borough of Queens, was incorporated as a city on May 4, 1870 and consolidated into the present Greater New York City on January 1, 1898, along with the City of Brooklyn and several other municipalities in the counties of Queens and Richmond.
Notes
George H. Hunter served as acting mayor from September 1873 to April 1874 while Henry S. DeBevoise temporarily retired from office. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa,_Oklahoma | Tulsa, Oklahoma | Tulsa ( TUL-sə) is the second-most-populous city in the U.S. state of Oklahoma and the 48th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa metropolitan area, a region with 1.06 million residents. The city serves as the county seat of Tulsa County, the most densely populated county in Oklahoma, with urban development extending into Osage, Rogers and Wagoner counties.
Tulsa was settled between 1828 and 1836 by the Lochapoka band of Creek Native Americans, and was formally incorporated in 1898. Most of Tulsa is still part of the territory of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Northwest Tulsa lies in the Osage Nation whereas North Tulsa is within the Cherokee Nation.
Historically, a robust energy sector fueled Tulsa's economy; however, today the city has diversified and leading sectors include finance, aviation, telecommunications, and technology. Two institutions of higher education within the city have sports teams at the NCAA Division I level: the University of Tulsa and Oral Roberts University. In addition, the University of Oklahoma has a secondary campus at the Tulsa Schusterman Center, and Oklahoma State University has a secondary campus located in downtown Tulsa. For most of the 20th century, the city held the nickname "Oil Capital of the World" and played a major role as one of the most important hubs for the American oil industry.
It is situated on the Arkansas River in the western foothills of the Ozark Mountains, south of the Osage Hills (which extend into Northwest Tulsa) in northeast Oklahoma, a region of the state known as "Green Country". Considered the cultural and arts center of Oklahoma, Tulsa houses two accredited art museums, full-time professional opera and ballet companies, and one of the nation's largest concentrations of art deco architecture.
== History ==
The area where Tulsa now exists is considered Indian Territory, on the land of the Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo), Wahzhazhe Ma zha (Osage), Muscogee (Creek), and Caddo tribes, among others. It was initially named after a Muscogee settlement in the southeastern United States called Tvlahasse with the short form Tallasi in the Muscogee language, which became Tullahassee or Tallise in Spanish. Etvlwv ahassee means "old town" in the Muscogean language. In 1540, Hernando de Soto became the first European to visit and document the original Tulsa in the southeast. Tvlahasse was a member of the Creek Confederacy and had a strong relationship with the town of Locvpokv and members of the two towns largely settled together after Indian Removal and the Trail of Tears in modern-day Tulsa.
=== Muscogee founding ===
On March 28, 1836, Opothleyahola and the Muscogee (Creek) Nation established a small settlement called Lochapoka ("place of turtles" in Creek) under the Creek Council Oak Tree at the present-day intersection of Cheyenne Avenue and 18th Street. The area around Tulsa was also settled by members of the other so-called "Five Civilized Tribes" who had been relocated to Oklahoma from the Southern United States. Most of modern Tulsa is located in the Creek Nation, with parts located in the Cherokee and Osage Nations.
Although Oklahoma was not yet a state during the Civil War, Indian Territory saw its share of fighting. The Battle of Chusto-Talasah took place on Bird Creek, and several battles and skirmishes took place in nearby counties. After the War, the tribes signed Reconstruction treaties with the federal government that in some cases required substantial land concessions. In the years after the Civil War and around the turn of the century, the area along the Arkansas River that is now Tulsa was periodically home to or visited by a series of colorful outlaws, including the legendary Wild Bunch and the Dalton Gang.
=== Incorporation and "Oil Capital" prosperity ===
On August 7, 1882, the town was almost centered at a location just north of the current Whittier Square, when a construction crew laying out the line of the St. Louis-San Francisco Railroad chose that spot for a sidetrack serving ranchers. However, an area merchant persuaded them to move the site further west into the Muscogee Nation, which had friendlier laws for white business owners. On January 18, 1898, Tulsa was officially incorporated and elected Edward E. Calkins as the city's first mayor.
Tulsa was still a micro town near the banks of the Arkansas River when P.L. Crossman and his crew successfully drilled oil on land near Red Fork on the late night of June 24, 1901. Much of the oil was discovered on land whose mineral rights were owned by members of the Osage Nation under a system of headrights. By 1905, the discovery of the grand Glenn Pool Oil Reserve (located approximately 15 miles or 24 kilometers south of downtown Tulsa and site of the present-day town of Glenpool) prompted a rush of entrepreneurs to the area's growing number of oil fields, such as Andrew Mellon, John D. Rockefeller, and Harry Ford Sinclair. Oil companies like Texaco and Rockefeller's Prairie Oil and Gas Company moved their headquarters to Tulsa starting in 1909. Tulsa's population swelled to over 140,000 between 1901 and 1930.
Known as the "Oil Capital of the World" for most of the 20th century, the city's success in the energy industry prompted construction booms in the popular Art Deco style of the time. Profits from the oil industry continued through the Great Depression, helping the city's economy fare better than most in the United States during the 1930s. During the Depression, oil prices in Tulsa were usually between $1.00 and $1.18 per barrel from 1934 to 1940.
=== 1921 race massacre ===
In the early 20th century, Tulsa was home to the "Black Wall Street", one of the most prosperous Black communities in the United States at the time. Located in the Greenwood neighborhood, it was the site of the Tulsa Race Massacre, said to be "the single worst incident of racial violence in American history", in which mobs of White Tulsans killed Black Tulsans, looted and robbed the Black community, and burned down homes and businesses. Sixteen hours of massacring on May 31 and June 1, 1921, ended only when National Guardsmen were brought in by the governor. An official report later claimed that 23 Black and 16 White citizens were killed, but other estimates suggest as many as 300 people died, most of them Black. Over 800 people were admitted to local hospitals with injuries, and an estimated 1,000 Black people were left homeless as 35 city blocks, composed of 1,256 residences, were destroyed by fire. Property damage was estimated at $1.8 million (equal to over $30 million in 2024 dollars). Efforts to obtain reparations for survivors of the violence have been unsuccessful, but the events were re-examined by the city and state in the early 21st century, acknowledging the terrible actions that had taken place.
=== 20th century ===
In 1922, Tulsa city voters approved nearly $7 million in bonds to construct the Spavinaw Dam, in response to oil drilling causing pollution in the Arkansas River. Completed in 1924, the dam was then the third most expensive municipal works project in the U.S.
In 1925, Tulsa businessman Cyrus Avery began his campaign to create a road linking Chicago to Los Angeles by establishing the U.S. Highway 66 Association in Tulsa, earning the city the nickname the "Birthplace of Route 66". Avery also influenced the construction of U.S. routes 64 and 75 through Tulsa.
Known for popularizing western swing music, Bob Wills and his group, The Texas Playboys, began their long performing stint in Tulsa in the 1930s. Radio station KVOO began broadcasting Wills and the Playboys' concerts in 1934. In 1935, Cain's Ballroom became the base for the group. The venue continued to attract famous musicians through its history, and is still in operation today.
During World War II, the economy in Tulsa expanded beyond oil to aircraft. In 1941, Tulsa voters overwhelmingly approved, by nearly 80 percentage points, a $750,000 bond to finance a 1,000-acre Douglas Aircraft Company plant near the Tulsa Municipal Airport. The plant opened in 1942. Skelly Oil president J. Paul Getty also began living in a concrete bunker in 1942 to supervise his Spartan Aircraft Company. Having done millions in business during World War II, the Douglas and Spartan Aircraft plants remained active after the war thanks to continuing U.S. government contracts, which would reach the billions by the end of the Cold War. American Airlines took over a former Douglas facility in 1946 and moved its entire fleet to Tulsa by 1950. The 1950s also saw Texaco and other oil companies move their headquarters from Tulsa to Houston, which Danney Goble described as "Tulsa's rightful heir as the oil capital".
In an article in the June 1957 issue of Reader's Digest, Daniel Longwell named Tulsa "America's Most Beautiful City" for, as Goble described in 1997, "its landscaped airport" and "gaily decorated public buildings" among other architecture.
For the rest of the mid-20th century, the city had a master plan to construct parks, churches, museums, rose gardens, improved infrastructure, and increased national advertising. In 1962, Tulsa County voters approved expansions of the county's libraries and a 1.9-mill library levy.
Thanks to companies providing supplies ranging from paper clips to heavy machinery to aircraft manufacturers, Tulsa had the most manufacturing jobs in Oklahoma by the early 1970s.
A national recession greatly affected the city's economy in 1982, as areas of Texas and Oklahoma heavily dependent on oil suffered the freefall in gas prices due to a glut, and a mass exodus of oil industries. Tulsa, heavily dependent on the oil industry, was one of the hardest-hit cities by the fall of oil prices. By 1992, the state's economy had fully recovered, but leaders worked to expand into sectors unrelated to oil and energy.
=== 21st century ===
In 2003, the "Vision 2025" program was approved by voters, to enhance and revitalize Tulsa's infrastructure and tourism industry. The keystone project of the initiative, the BOK Center, was designed to be a home for the city's minor league hockey and arena football teams, as well as a venue for major concerts and conventions. The multi-purpose arena, designed by famed architect Cesar Pelli, broke ground in 2005 and was opened on August 30, 2008.
In July 2020 the Supreme Court ruled in McGirt v. Oklahoma that as it pertains to criminal law much of eastern Oklahoma, including Tulsa, remains as Native American lands. Specifically, prosecution of crimes by Native Americans on these lands falls into the jurisdiction of the tribal courts and federal judiciary under the Major Crimes Act, rather than Oklahoma's courts. The Supreme Court further clarified the scope of tribal jurisdiction in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, finding that regarding crimes committed by non-Native Americans on native lands, federal and state courts would hold joint jurisdiction.
== Geography ==
Tulsa is located in the northeastern corner of Oklahoma between the edge of the Great Plains and the foot of the Ozarks in a generally forested region of rolling hills. The city touches the eastern extent of the Cross Timbers, an ecoregion of forest and prairie transitioning from the drier plains of the west to the wetter forests of the east. With a wetter climate than points westward, Tulsa serves as a gateway to "Green Country", a popular and official designation for northeast Oklahoma that stems from the region's green vegetation and relatively large number of hills and lakes compared to central and western areas of Oklahoma, which lie largely in the drier Great Plains region of the Central United States. Located near the western edge of the U.S. Interior Highlands, northeastern Oklahoma is the most topographically diverse part of the state, containing seven of Oklahoma's 11 eco-regions and more than half of its state parks. The region encompasses 30 lakes or reservoirs and borders the neighboring states of Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas.
=== Topography ===
The city developed on both sides of the prominent Arkansas River, which flows in a wide, sandy-bottomed channel. Its flow through Tulsa is controlled by reservoirs at Keystone Lake, and a low-water dam was built at Zink Lake in downtown Tulsa to maintain a full channel at all times. This dam deteriorated and eventually failed, and was repaired and reopened in 2014.
Heavily wooded and with abundant parks and water areas, the city has several prominent hills, such as "Shadow Mountain" and "Turkey Mountain", which create varied terrain, especially in its southern portions. While its central and northern sections are generally flat to gently undulating, the Osage Hills extension into the northwestern part of the city further varies the landscape. Holmes Peak, north of the city, is the tallest point in the Tulsa Metro area at 1,360 ft (415 m) According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 186.8 square miles (484 km2), of which 182.6 square miles (473 km2) is land and 4.2 square miles (11 km2) (2.24%) is water.
=== Cityscape ===
==== Architecture ====
A building boom in Tulsa in the early 20th century coincided with the rise of art deco architecture in the United States. Most commonly in the zigzag and streamline styles, the city's art deco is dotted throughout its older neighborhoods, primarily in downtown and midtown. A collection of large art deco structures, such as the Philcade Building, the Boston Avenue Methodist Church, Will Rogers High School, and the Tulsa Union Depot, have attracted events promoting the preservation and architectural interest.
In addition, the city's early prosperity funded the construction of many elegant Craftsmen, Georgian, storybook, Tudor, Greek Revival, Italianate, Spanish revival, and colonial revival homes (many of which can be found in Tulsa's uptown and Midtown neighborhoods). Noted architects and firms working in Tulsa during this period include Charles Dilbeck, John Duncan Forsyth, and Nelle Peters.
Growth in the twentieth century gave the city a larger base of contemporary architectural styles, including several buildings by famed Tulsa architects Bruce Goff and Adah Robinson. The Prairie School was very influential in Tulsa: Barry Byrne designed Tulsa's Christ the King Church and, in 1927, Frank Lloyd Wright's midtown Tulsa residential project Westhope was completed. In particular, the middle of the 20th century brought a wealth of modern architecture to Tulsa. Tulsa's Mies-trained modernist Robert Lawton Jones designed many buildings in the region, including the Tulsa International Airport. Other noted modernists working in Tulsa include the pioneering Texas architect O'Neil Ford and Joseph R. Koberling Jr., who had also been active during the art deco period. South, East, and Midtown Tulsa are home to a number of the ranch and Mid-Century Modern homes that reflect Tulsa's prosperous post-war period.
The BOK Tower, built during this period, is the second tallest building in Oklahoma and the surrounding states of Missouri, New Mexico, Arkansas, and Kansas. Tulsa also has the third-, and fourth-tallest buildings in the state, including the Cityplex Tower, which is located in South Tulsa across from Oral Roberts University, far from downtown. One of the area's unique architectural complexes, Oral Roberts University, is built in a Post-Modern Futuristic style, incorporating bright gold structures with sharp, jetting edges and clear geometric shapes. The BOK Center, Tulsa's new arena, incorporates many of the city's most prominent themes, including Native American, art deco, and contemporary architectural styles. Intended to be an architectural icon, the building was designed by César Pelli, the architect of the Petronas Towers in Malaysia.
==== Neighborhoods ====
Downtown Tulsa is an area of approximately 1.4 square miles (3.6 km2) surrounded by an inner-dispersal loop created by Interstate 244, Highway 64, and Highway 75. The area serves as Tulsa's financial and business district, and is the focus of a large initiative to draw tourism, which includes plans to capitalize on the area's historic architecture. Much of Tulsa's convention space is located in downtown, such as the Tulsa Performing Arts Center, the Arvest Convention Center, and the BOK Center. Prominent downtown neighborhoods include the Oil Capital Historic District, the Blue Dome, the Tulsa Arts district, and Greenwood, the site of ONEOK Field, a baseball stadium for the Tulsa Drillers opened in 2010. Neighborhoods surrounding downtown include Owen Park, The Pearl, The Heights, and Kendall-Whittier.
The city's historical residential core lies in an area known as Midtown, containing upscale neighborhoods built in the early 20th century with architecture ranging from art deco to Greek Revival. Midtown includes the neighborhoods of Maple Ridge, Swan Lake, Cherry Street, Brookside and Lortondale. The University of Tulsa, Philbrook Museum, the Gathering Place and Utica Square are located in this region.
A large portion of the city's southern half has developed since the 1970s, containing low-density housing and retail developments. This region, marked by secluded homes and suburban neighborhoods, contains one of the state's largest shopping malls, Woodland Hills Mall, as well as Southern Hills Country Club, and Oral Roberts University. East of Highway 169 and north of 61st street, a diverse racial makeup marks the eastern portions of the city, with large Asian and Mexican communities and much of the city's manufacturing industry.
Areas of Tulsa west of the Arkansas River are called West Tulsa and are marked by large parks, wilderness reserves, and large oil refineries. The northern tier of the city is home to OSU-Tulsa, Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa International Airport, the Tulsa Zoo, the Tulsa Air and Space Museum, and the nation's third-largest municipal park, Mohawk Park.
=== Climate ===
Tulsa has a temperate climate of the humid subtropical variety (Köppen: Cfa) with a yearly average temperature of 61.3 °F (16.3 °C) and average precipitation of just under 41 inches (1,000 mm) per year. Average monthly precipitation is lowest from December to February, and peaks dramatically in May, which averages 5.9 inches (150 mm) of rainfall. Early June can still be wet, but late June through the end of August is frequently dry. On average, Tulsa experiences a secondary rainfall peak in September and early October. As is typical of temperate zones, weather patterns vary by season with occasional extremes in temperature and rainfall.
Primarily in the spring and early summer months, the city is subjected to severe thunderstorms containing large hail, damaging winds, and, occasionally, tornadoes, providing the area with a disproportionate share of its annual rainfall. Severe weather is not limited to this season, however. For instance, on December 5, 1975, and on December 24, 1982, Tulsa experienced tornadoes. Due to its potential for major flooding events, the city has developed one of the most extensive flood control systems in the nation. A comprehensive flood management plan was developed in 1984 following a severe flood caused by a stalled weather front that dropped 15 in (380 mm) of rain overnight, killing 14, injuring 288, and destroying 7,000 buildings totaling $180 million in damage. In the early 1990s and again in 2000, the Federal Emergency Management Agency honored Tulsa as leading the nation in flood plain management.
Triple-digit temperatures (>100 °F (38 °C)) are observed on average 11 days per year, most of which occur from July to early September, and are usually accompanied by high humidity brought in by southerly winds. The highest recorded temperature was 115 °F (46 °C) on August 10, 1936. Lack of air circulation due to heat and humidity during the summer months leads to higher concentrations of ozone, prompting the city to release "Ozone Alerts", encouraging all parties to do their part in complying with the Clean Air Act and United States Environmental Protection Agency standards. The autumn season is usually short, consisting of pleasant, sunny days followed by cool nights. Winter temperatures, while generally mild, dip below 10 °F (−12 °C) on average three nights per year, and occasionally below 0 °F (−18 °C), the most recent such occurrence being a −2 °F (−19 °C) reading on January 16, 2024. The average seasonal snowfall is 8.7 inches (22.1 cm) with the record highest seasonal snowfall of 26.1 inches (66.3 cm) occurring in the winter of 2010–2011. Only three winters on record have officially recorded trace amounts or no snowfall, the most recent being 1910–11. The lowest recorded temperature was −16 °F (−27 °C) on January 22, 1930.
See or edit raw graph data.
=== August 6, 2017 tornado ===
An EF2 tornado struck Tulsa early on the morning of Sunday, August 6, 2017. The funnel touched down just after 1 A.M. near 36th Street and Harvard Avenue, then traveled in an easterly direction for about six minutes. The heaviest property damage occurred along 41st Street between Yale Avenue and Sheridan Road. Two restaurants, TGI Friday's and Whataburger, were particularly hard hit, with several people being sent to hospitals for treatment. The Whataburger was later bulldozed, and rebuilt in 2019.
== Demographics ==
=== Racial and ethnic composition ===
=== 2020 census ===
As of the 2020 census, Tulsa had a population of 413,066. The median age was 35.8 years. 23.4% of residents were under the age of 18 and 15.3% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 95.5 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 93.0 males age 18 and over.
99.3% of residents lived in urban areas, while 0.7% lived in rural areas.
There were 171,638 households in Tulsa, of which 28.2% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 36.3% were married-couple households, 23.3% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 32.9% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 35.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.
There were 191,364 housing units, of which 10.3% were vacant. Among occupied housing units, 49.9% were owner-occupied and 50.1% were renter-occupied. The homeowner vacancy rate was 2.0% and the rental vacancy rate was 10.9%.
The most reported ancestries in 2020 were:
English (15.4%)
Mexican (14.3%)
German (11.6%)
Irish (11.1%)
African American (10.4%)
Cherokee (4.8%)
Scottish (3.1%)
Italian (1.9%)
French (1.9%)
The Muscogee (Creek) Nation (1.8%)
=== 2010 census ===
According to the 2010 census, Tulsa had a population of 391,906 and the racial and ethnic composition was as follows: White American: 62.6% (57.9% Non-Hispanic Whites); Black, 15.6%; Hispanic or Latino (of any race), 14.1% (11.5% Mexican, 0.4% Puerto Rican, 0.3% Guatemalan, 0.2% Spanish, 0.2% Honduran, 0.2% Salvadoran); some other race, 8.0%; Two or more races, 5.9%; Native American, 5.3%; Asian American, 2.3% (0.5% Hmong, 0.4% Vietnamese, 0.3% Chinese, 0.2% Indian, 0.2% Korean, 0.2% Burmese); and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander: 0.1%. In the 2020 census, its population increased to 413,066.
As of the 2010 census, there were 391,906 people, 163,975 households, and 95,246 families residing in the city, with a population density of 2,033.4 inhabitants per square mile (785.1/km2) There were 185,127 housing units at an average density of 982.3 per square mile (379.3/km2). Of 163,975 households, 27% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 38.2% were married couples living together, 14.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 41.9% were non-families. Of all households, 34.5% are made up of only one person, and 10% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.34 people and the average family size was 3.04.
In the city proper, the age distribution was 24.8% of the population under the age of 18, 10.9% from 18 to 24, 29.9% from 25 to 44, 21.5% from 45 to 64, and 12.9% who were 65 years of age or older, while the median age was 34 years. For every 100 females, there were 93.5 males, while for every 100 females over the age of 17 there were 90.4 males. In 2011, the median income for a household in the city was $40,268 and the median income for a family was $51,977. The per capita income for the city was $26,727. About 19.4% of the population were below the poverty line. Of the city's population over the age of 25, 29.8% holds a bachelor's degree or higher, and 86.5% have a high school diploma or equivalent.
=== Metropolitan area ===
The Tulsa metropolitan area, or the region immediately surrounding Tulsa with strong social and economic ties to the city, occupies a large portion of the state's northeastern quadrant. It is informally known as "Green Country", a longstanding name adopted by the state's official tourism designation for all of northeastern Oklahoma (its usage concerning the Tulsa Metropolitan Area can be traced to the early part of the 20th century).
The U.S. Census Bureau defines the sphere of the city's influence as the Tulsa metropolitan statistical area (MSA), spanning seven counties: Tulsa, Rogers, Osage, Wagoner, Okmulgee, Pawnee, and Creek. The 2020 U.S. census shows the Tulsa MSA to have 1,015,331 residents The 2020 U.S. census shows the Tulsa-Muscogee-Bartlesville CSA to have 1,134,125 residents.
=== Religion ===
Tulsa has a large conservative following, with the majority of Tulsans being Christians. The second-largest religion in Tulsa is Islam, followed by Buddhism and Judaism.
Tulsa is part of the Southern region demographers and commentators refer to as the "Bible Belt", where Protestant and, in particular, Southern Baptist and other evangelical Christian traditions are very prominent. In fact, Tulsa, home to Oral Roberts University, Phillips Theological Seminary, and RHEMA Bible Training College (in the suburb of Broken Arrow), is sometimes called the "buckle of the Bible Belt". Tulsa is also home to a number of vibrant Mainline Protestant congregations. Some of these congregations were founded during the oil boom of the early twentieth century and are noted for striking architecture, such as the art deco Boston Avenue Methodist Church and First Presbyterian Church of Tulsa. The metropolitan area has at least four religious radio stations (KCFO, KNYD, KXOJ, & KPIM), and at least two religious TV stations (KWHB & KGEB).
While the state of Oklahoma has fewer Roman Catholics than the national average, Holy Family Cathedral serves as the Cathedral for the Diocese of Tulsa.
Tulsa is also home to the largest Jewish community in Oklahoma, with active Reform, Conservative and Orthodox congregations. Tulsa's Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art offers the largest collection of Judaica in the South-Central and Southwestern United States.
Tulsa is also home to the progressive All Souls Unitarian Church, reportedly the largest Unitarian Universalist congregation in the United States.
Chùa Tam Bào (Vietnamese: "Three Jewels Temple"), then Oklahoma's only Buddhist temple, was established in east Tulsa in 1993 by Vietnamese refugees. A 57-foot-tall (17 m) granite statue of Quan Âm (commonly known by her Chinese name, Guanyin) is located in the grounds.
=== Crime rate ===
Tulsa experienced elevated levels of gang violence in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when crack cocaine flooded neighborhoods in North Tulsa. Tulsa gang problems became noticeable after an outbreak of gang-related crime between 1980 and 1983, which was traced to the Crips, a local gang which had been founded by two brothers whose family had recently moved to Oklahoma from Compton. In 1986, gang graffiti started to show up on walls and drive-by shootings started occurring on late nights. In 1990 the city hit a record of 60 homicides, the highest since the 1981 peak. North Tulsa has the highest crime rate in the city, with public housing projects being the most heavily affected areas., the Broken Arrow murders took place on July 22, 2015, when five members of the Bever family were murdered in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. the attackers were identified as 18 year-old Robert Bever and 16 year-old Michael Bever. On June 1, 2022, a mass shooting occurred in a medical center, killing at least 4 people, including the perpetrator.
== Economy ==
=== Energy industry's legacy and resurgence ===
The United States Oil and Gas Association was founded in Tulsa on October 13, 1917. Over the city's history many large oil companies have been headquartered in the city, including Warren Petroleum (which merged with Gulf Oil in what was then the largest merger in the energy industry), Skelly Oil, Getty Oil and CITGO. In addition, ConocoPhillips was headquartered in nearby Bartlesville. Industry consolidation and increased offshore drilling threatened Tulsa's status as an oil capital, but new drilling techniques and the rise of natural gas have buoyed the growth of the city's energy sector.
Today, Tulsa is again home to the headquarters of many international oil- and gas-related companies, including Williams Companies, ONE Gas, Syntroleum, ONEOK, Laredo Petroleum, Samson Resources, Helmerich & Payne, Magellan Midstream Partners, and Excel Energy.
=== Diversification and emerging industries ===
Tulsa has diversified to capitalize on its status as a regional hub with substantial innovation assets. Products from Tulsa manufacturers account for about sixty percent of Oklahoma's exports, and in 2001, the city's total gross product was in the top one-third of metropolitan areas, states, and countries, with more than $29 billion in total goods, growing at a rate of $250 million each year.
Tulsa's primary employers are small and medium-sized businesses: there are 30 companies in Tulsa that employ more than 1,000 people locally, and small businesses make up more than 80% of the city's companies.
During a national recession from 2001 to 2003, the city lost 28,000 jobs. In response, a development initiative, Vision 2025, promised to incite economic growth and recreate lost jobs. Projects spurred by the initiative promised urban revitalization, infrastructure improvement, tourism development, riverfront retail development, and further diversification of the economy. By 2007, employment levels had surpassed pre-recession heights and the city was in a significant economic development and investment surge. This economic improvement is also seen in Tulsa's housing trends which show an average of a 6% increase in rent in 2010. Since 2006, more than 28,000 jobs have been added to the city. The unemployment rate of Tulsa in August 2014 was 4.5%.
Though the oil industry has historically dominated Tulsa's economy, efforts in economic diversification have created a base in the sectors of aerospace, finance, technology, telecommunications, high tech, and manufacturing. A number of substantial financial corporations are headquartered in Tulsa, the largest being the BOK Financial Corporation. Among these financial services firms are energy trading operations, asset management firms, investment funds, and a range of commercial banks. The national convenience store chain QuikTrip, fast-casual restaurant chain Camille's Sidewalk Cafe, and pizza chain Mazzio's are all headquartered in Tulsa, as is Southern regional BBQ restaurant Rib Crib. Tulsa is also home to the Marshall Brewing Company.
Tulsa is also home to a burgeoning media industry, including PennWell, consumer review website ConsumerAffairs, Stephens Media Group, This Land Press, Educational Development Corporation (the parent publisher of Kane/Miller), GEB America, Blooming Twig Books, and a full range of local media outlets, including Tulsa World and local magazines, radio and television. Tulsa is also a hub for national construction and engineering companies including Manhattan Construction Company and Flintco. A number of the Cherokee Nation Businesses are also headquartered or have substantial operations in Tulsa.
Tulsa's aerospace industry is substantial and growing. An American Airlines maintenance base at Tulsa International Airport is the city's largest employer and the largest maintenance facility in the world, serving as the airline's global maintenance and engineering headquarters. American Airlines announced in February, 2020 that it will pour $550 million over seven years into its maintenance base, this being the largest single economic development investment in city history. The Tulsa Port of Catoosa and the Tulsa International Airport house extensive transit-focused industrial parks. Tulsa is also home to a division of Lufthansa, the headquarters of Omni Air International, and the Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology.
Tulsa is also part of the Oklahoma-South Kansas Unmanned Aerial Systems (drone) industry cluster, a region which awarded funding by the U.S. Small Business Administration to build on its progress as a hub this emerging industry.
As the second largest metropolitan area in Oklahoma and a hub for the growing Northeastern Oklahoma-Northwest Arkansas-Southwestern Missouri corridor, the city is also home to a number of the region's most sophisticated law, accounting, and medical practices. Its location in the center of the nation also makes it a hub for logistics businesses; the Tulsa International Airport (TUL) and the Tulsa Port of Catoosa, connect the region with international trade and transportation.
Amazon recently announced plans to build a more than 600,000-square-foot fulfillment center near Tulsa International Airport. The company will invest an estimated $130 million for this state-of-the-art facility, which will employ around 1,500 people with an annual payroll of roughly $50 million.
== Arts and culture ==
Tulsa culture is influenced by the nearby Southwest, Midwest, and Southern cultural regions, as well as a historical Native American presence. These influences are expressed in the city's museums, cultural centers, performing arts venues, ethnic festivals, park systems, zoos, wildlife preserves, and large and growing collections of public sculptures, monuments, and artwork.
=== Museums, archives and visual culture ===
Tulsa is home to several museums. Located in the former villa of oil pioneer Waite Phillips in Midtown Tulsa, the Philbrook Museum of Art is considered one of the top 50 fine art museums in the United States and is one of only five to offer a combination of a historic home, formal gardens, and an art collection. The museum's expansive collection includes work by a diverse group of artists including Pablo Picasso, Andrew Wyeth, Giovanni Bellini, Domenico di Pace Beccafumi, Willem de Kooning, William Merritt Chase, Auguste Rodin and Georgia O'Keeffe.
In the Osage Hills of Northwest Tulsa, the Gilcrease Museum holds the world's largest, most comprehensive collection of art and artifacts of the American West. The museum includes the extensive collection of Native American oilman and famed art collector Thomas Gilcrease with numerous works by Frederic Remington, Thomas Moran, Albert Bierstadt and John James Audubon among the many displayed.
The 170-acre Tulsa Botanic Garden is a public flower garden and arboretum with art works and water features, also dedicated to preserving the native environment of the Cross Timbers forest and prairie.
On the west bank of the Arkansas River in the suburb of Jenks, the Oklahoma Aquarium is the state's only freestanding aquarium, containing over 200 exhibits, including a shark tank.
In addition, the city hosts a number of galleries, experimental art-spaces, smaller museums, and display spaces located throughout the city (clustered mostly in downtown, Brookside, and the Pearl District). Living Arts of Tulsa, in downtown Tulsa, is among the organizations dedicated to promoting and sustaining an active arts scene in the city.
==== Cultural and historical archives ====
Opened in April 2013, the Woody Guthrie Center in the Tulsa Arts District is Tulsa's newest museum and archive. In addition to interactive state-of-the-art museum displays, the Woody Guthrie Center also houses the Woody Guthrie Archives, containing thousands of Guthrie's personal items, sheet music, manuscripts, books, photos, periodicals, and other items associated with the iconic Oklahoma native. The archives of Guthrie-protégé, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan are also displayed at the Bob Dylan Center which opened May 10, 2022 and houses The Bob Dylan Archive.
The Church Studio is a recording studio and tourist attraction with an archive of more than 5,000 pieces. Constructed in 1915, the church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places due to musician Leon Russell, who turned the old church into a recording studio and office for Shelter Records in 1972.
With remnants of the Holocaust and artifacts relevant to Judaism in Oklahoma, the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art preserves the largest collection of Judaica in the Southwestern and South-Central United States. Other museums, such as the Tulsa Historical Society, the Tulsa Air and Space Museum & Planetarium, the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame, and the Tulsa Geosciences Center, document histories of the region, while the Greenwood Cultural Center preserves the culture of the city's African American heritage, housing a collection of artifacts and photography that document the history of the Black Wall Street before the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921.
=== Public art ===
Since 1969, public displays of artwork in Tulsa have been funded by one percent of its annual city budget. Each year, a sculpture from a local artist is installed along the Arkansas River trail system, while other sculptures stand at local parks, such as an enlarged version of Cyrus Dallin's Appeal to the Great Spirit sculpture at Woodward Park. At the entrance to Oral Roberts University stands the Praying Hands, which, at 60 feet (18 m) high, is the largest bronze sculpture in the world. As a testament to the city's oil heritage, the 76-foot (23 m) Golden Driller guards the front entrance to the Tulsa County Fairgrounds. Tulsa has a number of exhibits related to U.S. Route 66, including The Cyrus Avery Centennial Plaza, located next to the east entrance of the historic 11th Street Bridge. The Plaza contains a giant sculpture weighing 20,000 pounds (9,100 kg) and costing $1.178 million called "East Meets West" of the Avery family riding west in a Ford Model T meeting an eastbound horse-drawn carriage. At the west end of the bridge, Avery Plaza Southwest, includes replicas of three prominent neon signs from Tulsa-area Route 66 motels from the era, being the Will Rogers Motor Court, Tulsa Auto Court, and the Oil Capital Motel. Tulsa has also installed "Route 66 Rising", a 70 by 30 ft (21 by 9 m) sculpture on the road's eastern approach to town at East Admiral Place and Mingo Road. In addition, Tulsa has constructed twenty-nine historical markers scattered along the 26-mile (42 km) route of the highway through Tulsa, containing tourist-oriented stories, historical photos, and a map showing the location of historical sites and the other markers. The markers are mostly along the highway's post-1932 alignment down 11th Street, with some along the road's 1926 path down Admiral Place.
The largest augmented reality mural in the world, "The Majestic", a 15,000-square-foot (1,400 m2) work which adorns two sides of the Main Park Plaza at 410 S. Main downtown, was completed in October 2021. The $230,000 project was created by Los Angeles-based artists Ryan "Yanoe" Sarfati and Eric "Zoueh" Skotnes. The mural becomes animated when viewed through a smartphone camera.
=== Flag ===
The flag of Tulsa is considered one of the most attractive city flags in the United States. In 2023, it became one of two city flags to receive an A+ rating from the North American Vexillological Association.
The Tulsa City Council voted to adopt the new city flag in 2018 following a campaign from local community. The design incorporates an Osage shield to represent the Tulsa settlement under the Council Oak Tree. The color red is meant to represent the people who died in the Tulsa race massacre, the color blue represents the Arkansas River, the gold represents the discovery of "black gold", or oil.
=== Performing arts, film and cultural venues ===
Tulsa contains several permanent dance, theater, and concert groups, including the Tulsa Ballet, the Tulsa Opera, the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, Light Opera Oklahoma, Signature Symphony at TCC, the Tulsa Youth Symphony, the Heller Theatre, American Theatre Company, which is a member of the Theatre Communications Group and Oklahoma's oldest resident professional theatre, and Theatre Tulsa, the oldest continuously operating community theatre company west of the Mississippi River. Tulsa also houses the Tulsa Spotlight Theater at Riverside Studio, which shows the longest-running play in America (The Drunkard) every Saturday night. Many of the world's best choreographers have worked with Tulsa Ballet including: Leonide Massine, Antony Tudor, Jerome Robbins, George Balanchine, Paul Taylor, Kurt Jooss, Nacho Duato (ten works), Val Caniparoli who is its resident choreographer (with seven works and four world premieres), Stanton Welch, Young Soon Hue, Ma Cong, Twyla Tharp and many others.
In April 2008, Tulsa Ballet completed an ambitious $17.3 million integrated campaign, which was celebrated at the opening of the brand new Studio K, an on-site, three-hundred-seat performance space dedicated to the creation of new works.
Several concert venues, dance halls, and bars gave rise to the Tulsa music scene, most notably Cain's Ballroom, a world-renounded concert venue considered the birthplace of Western Swing, housed the performance headquarters of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys during the 1930s. The centerpiece of the downtown Brady Arts District, the Brady Theater, is the largest of the city's five operating performing arts venues that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Its design features extensive contributions by American architect Bruce Goff.
Tulsa Sound is a musical genre that blends rockabilly, country, rock 'n' roll, and blues and has inspired local artists like J.J. Cale and Leon Russell as well as Eric Clapton and Jesse Ed Davis. The Church Studio, located in the Pearl District, is the cultural center for the Tulsa Sound.
Large performing arts complexes include the Tulsa Performing Arts Center, which was designed by World Trade Center architect Minoru Yamasaki, the Cox Business Center, the art deco Expo Square Pavilion, the Mabee Center, the Tulsa Performing Arts Center for Education, and the River Parks Amphitheater and Tulsa's largest venue, the BOK Center. Ten miles west of the city, an outdoor amphitheater called "Discoveryland!" holds the official title of the world performance headquarters for the musical Oklahoma!.
Tulsa's only non-profit arthouse, Circle Cinema, stands as the central hub for the city's film community. It supports the annual Circle Cinema Film Festival and has served as a Satellite Screen for the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. It's walk of fame features famous actors and filmmakers such as Ron Howard, Bill Hader, Kristin Chenoweth, and Sterlin Harjo.
=== Outdoor attractions ===
Tulsa Zoo encompasses a total of 84 acres (34 ha) with over 2,600 animals representing 400 species. The zoo is located in 2,820-acre (1,140 ha) Mohawk Park (the third largest municipal park in the United States) which also contains the 745-acre (301 ha) Oxley Nature Center.
The Tulsa State Fair, operating in late September and early October, attracts over one million people during its 10-day run. A number of other cultural heritage festivals are held in the city throughout the year, including the Intertribal Indian Club Powwow of Champions in August; Scotfest, India Fest, Greek Festival, and Festival Viva Mexico in September; ShalomFest in October; Dia de Los Muertos Art Festival in November; and the Asian-American Festival in May. The annual Mayfest arts and crafts festival held downtown was estimated to have drawn more than 365,000 people in its four-day run in 2012. On a smaller scale, the city hosts block parties during a citywide "Block Party Day" each year, with festivals varying in size throughout city neighborhoods. Tulsa has one major amusement park attraction, Paradise Beach Waterpark (formerly Safari Joe's H2O Water Park, formerly Big Splash Water Park), featuring multi-story water slides and large wave pools. Until 2006, the city also hosted Bell's Amusement Park, which closed after Tulsa County officials declined to renew its lease agreement.
=== Music ===
Western Swing, a musical genre with roots in country music, was made popular at Tulsa's Cain's Ballroom. The Tulsa Sound, a variation of country, blues, rockabilly, blues rock, swamp rock and rock 'n' roll, was started and largely developed by local musicians J. J. Cale and Leon Russell in the 1960s and 1970s. Musicians from Tulsa or who started their musical careers in Tulsa include Elvin Bishop, Jim Keltner, David Gates, Dwight Twilley, Jesse Ed Davis, Garth Brooks, The Gap Band, St. Vincent, Clyde Stacy, Flash Terry, Hanson, Gus Hardin, Jeff Carson, Ronnie Dunn, Jamie Oldaker, Bob Wills, David Cook, Broncho, Tyson Meade, John Moreland, John Calvin Abney, Kristin Chenoweth, JD McPherson, and Wilderado.
The K-Pop singer AleXa, a representative from Tulsa, won American Song Contest in 2022.
=== Public libraries ===
The largest library system in the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, the Tulsa City-County Library, contains over 1.7 million volumes in 25 library facilities. The library is active in the community, holding events and programs at most branches, including free computer classes, children's storytimes, business and job assistance, and scholarly databases with information on a variety of topics. The McFarlin Library at the University of Tulsa is a federal depository library holding over three million items. Founded in 1930, the library is known for its collection of Native American works and the original works of Irish author James Joyce. The Tulsa City-County Library and the University of Tulsa's Law Library are also federal depository libraries, making Tulsa the only city in Oklahoma with more than two federal depository libraries. The Tulsa City County Library's Downtown branch was massively renovated and opened to the public on Saturday, October 1, 2016.
== Cuisine ==
Tulsa restaurants and food trucks offer a number of cuisines, but several cuisines are particularly prominent in its culinary landscape because of its distinctive history.
=== BBQ ===
Tulsa is known nationally for its barbecue offerings; its barbecue reflects its midpoint location "between pig country and cow country", that is, in the transition zone between the South and the West. The city's barbecue is also helped by its geography; the wood used in barbecuing is abundant in Northeastern Oklahoma (including pecan, oak, hickory, mesquite and maple). The region's ethnic diversity is felt, too: its BBQ traditions bear the influences of white, African-American and American Indian foodways.
Tulsa is also home to the nationally acclaimed premium smoker manufacturer Hasty-Bake Company. Some Tulsa based barbecue joints have expanded even beyond the state's borders, including Leon's Smoke Shack, Rib Crib and Billy Sims Barbecue. The prize-winning Oklahoma Joe's was founded by Oklahoman Joe Davidson, who mastered his craft at Tulsa's T-Town BBQ Cook-Off.
Oklahoma barbecue is also unique in its emphasis on hickory-smoked barbecue bologna, nicknamed "Oklahoma tenderloin", and its fried okra.
=== Southern "homestyle" food ===
By and large, Tulsa's traditional cuisine reflects the influence of Southern foodways, particularly "upland South and... Texas where many of Oklahoma's nineteenth-century population originated." The prominence of certain foods reflects the agricultural heritage of the surrounding regions. For instance, at the suggestion of experts at what is now Oklahoma State University, peanuts became a major crop in now eastern Oklahoma as a means for lessening the reliance on cotton cultivation. Chicken-fried steak is part of the state meal of Oklahoma and is the signature dish at a number of Tulsa restaurants.
=== Chili and Coney Island hot dogs ===
Oklahomans have been consuming chili since well before statehood, owing to the influence of Mexican-American culture on the state. In 1910, iconic Tulsa restaurant Ike's Chili Parlor opened and Ivan "Ike" Johnson is purported to have acquired his recipe from a Latino-Texan named Alex Garcia.
Greek immigrants to Tulsa who came by way of Brooklyn, Pennsylvania and Michigan brought with them the tradition of Coney Island-style hot dogs with chili on a bun. Today, a related group of Greek-American families operate Coney restaurants around the city, including Coney I-Lander which opened in 1926 and was described by food writers Jane and Michael Stern as perfectly delivering "the cheap-eats ecstasy that is the Coney's soul". Many of these restaurants sell Greek food, either year round or at Tulsa's annual Greek Holiday, sponsored by Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church (which dates to 1925).
=== Lebanese steakhouses ===
Lebanese steakhouses were once numerous in the region stretching from Bristow, Oklahoma to Tulsa, but now mostly exist in the Tulsa region. These restaurants were founded by Syrian and Lebanese families who immigrated to Oklahoma before statehood. Traditionally, many of these restaurants had live entertainment (including performers like Ella Fitzgerald and the Ink Spots) and featured Mediterranean dishes like tabbouleh, rice pilaf and hummus alongside local favorites like smoked BBQ bologna.
=== Wild onion dinner ===
The wild onion dinner is a festive gathering that originated with the Southeastern tribes which call Eastern Oklahoma home. The meals often feature wild onion, pork, frybread, corn bread, Poke salad and a unique dish known as grape biscuits. The Tulsa Indian Women's Club has been holding annual Wild Onion Dinners since at least 1932.
=== Baking and confectionery ===
Tulsa is home to the Oklahoma Sugar Arts Show, a premier sugar craft competition hosted by Tulsa-based Food Network personality Kerry Vincent. Tulsa is also home to the nationally renowned Pancho Anaya Mexican bakery, recognized by Food & Wine as one of America's 100 best bakeries. Tulsa is home to several national dessert companies: Daylight Donuts was founded in Tulsa and remains headquartered there, as is the Bama Pie Company. In 2025, Country Bird Bakery received the James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef/Baker.
=== Breweries ===
Brewing in Tulsa dates back to at least the late 1930s with the Ahrens Brewing Company and their Ranger Beer line. The Ahrens Brewing Company opened in May 1938. Tulsa's craft beer scene has boomed since legislation passed allowing for microbreweries to serve the public directly (Tulsa's first microbrewery in the post-World War II era was Marshall Brewing Company in 2008).
== Sports ==
Tulsa supports a wide array of sports at the professional and collegiate levels. The city hosts two NCAA Division I colleges and multiple professional minor league sports teams in baseball, football, hockey, and soccer. From 2010 to 2015, Tulsa had a WNBA team called the Tulsa Shock.
=== Professional sports ===
Tulsa's Class AA Texas League baseball team is called the Tulsa Drillers; famous former Drillers include Sammy Sosa, Matt Holliday, and Iván Rodríguez.
In 2008, Tulsa funded $39.2 million to build a new ballpark in the Greenwood District near downtown for the Drillers. The ground breaking was held on December 19, 2008. ONEOK bought the naming rights for $10 million for the next 25 years. The first game at ONEOK Field was held on April 8, 2010. Country music star Tim McGraw threw out the first pitch.
The 19,199-seat BOK Center is the centerpiece of the Vision 2025 projects and was completed in August 2008; the BOK Center was in the top ten among indoor arenas worldwide in ticket sales for the first quarter of 2009 when it was the home for the city's Tulsa Shock WNBA, Tulsa Talons arena football, and Tulsa Oilers ice hockey teams; as of 2022, the Oilers are the sole remaining tenant.
=== College sports ===
Two Tulsa universities compete at the NCAA Division I level: the University of Tulsa Golden Hurricane, and the Oral Roberts University Golden Eagles. The University of Tulsa's men's basketball program has reached the Sweet Sixteen three times, made an appearance in the Elite Eight in 2000, won the NIT championship in 1981 and 2001, and won the inaugural College Basketball Invitational in 2008. The Tulsa football team has played in 16 bowl games, including the Sugar Bowl (twice) and the Orange Bowl. Oral Roberts University's men's basketball team reached the Elite Eight in 1974, the Sweet Sixteen in 2021, and won the Mid-Continent Conference title three straight years, from 2005 to 2007.
The University of Tulsa also boasts one of the nation's top tennis facilities, the Michael D. Case Tennis Center, which hosted the 2004 and 2008 NCAA tennis championships. The Golden Hurricane Tennis program has a string of success, including men's Missouri Valley championships in 1995 and 1996, men's Conference USA championships in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2011 and women's Conference USA championships in 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011. In 2007, Tulsa's top-ranked player Arnau Brugués-Davi ranked as high as #1 in the nation and a four time All-American, advanced to the quarterfinals of the singles competition at the NCAA Men's Tennis Championship, improving on his 2006 round of sixteen appearances.
=== Golf ===
Tulsa is home to the Southern Hills Country Club, which is one of only two courses that have hosted seven men's major championships: three U.S. Opens and five PGA Championships, the most recent in 2022. The course has held five amateur championships and from 2001 to 2008 the LPGA had a regular tour stop, latterly known as the SemGroup Championship at Cedar Ridge Country Club.
Tulsa also hosts two golf courses designed by famed golf course architect A.W. Tillinghast: the Oaks Country Club and Tulsa Country Club. The Tom Fazio-designed Golf Club of Oklahoma is located just outside of Tulsa.
=== Professional soccer ===
Tulsa is home to FC Tulsa, which competes in the USL Championship.
From 1978 to 1984, the city hosted the Tulsa Roughnecks, who played in the now-defunct North American Soccer League and won that league's championship in 1983.
=== Professional football ===
In 1984, the city hosted the Oklahoma Outlaws of the now-defunct United States Football League for a single season.
=== Running, biking and trails ===
The city's running and cycling communities support events such as the Tulsa Tough cycling race, the Hurtland cyclocross, the Route 66 Marathon, and the Tulsa Run, which features over 8000 participants annually. Another popular gambling draw, horse racing events are housed by the Fair Meadows Race Track and Will Rogers Downs in nearby Claremore.
Saint Francis Tulsa Tough Ride and Race is a three-day cycling festival in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It features both non-competitive riding through scenic areas around the Tulsa Metropolitan Area and professional level races. It is held each year on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the second weekend in June. Just as popular as the biking itself is the weekend-long festivities at Crybaby Hill, for it is held in the Riverview District. The Blue Dome District hosts its race on the first night and takes riders down East 2nd Street. The race has participants riding at fast speeds through crowded streets lined with cheering spectators, live music, and several vendors. Events include the Men's Cat 3, Women's Pro 1/2, Men's 1/2 and Men's Pro 1.
=== Motorsports ===
In motorsports, Tulsa annually hosts the Chili Bowl indoor race at the Tulsa Expo Center. The race was initially sponsored by the Chili Bowl food company of Bob Berryhill. The race has since accommodated "over two hundred race rigs, bleachers for thousands of people and an ever-growing trade show".
== Parks and recreation ==
As of 2016, the city of Tulsa manages 134 parks spread over 8,278 acres (3,350 ha). Woodward Park, a 45-acre (18 ha) tract located in midtown Tulsa, doubles as a botanical garden, featuring the Tulsa Municipal Rose Garden, with more than 6,000 rose plants in 250 varieties, and the Linnaeus Teaching Gardens, which demonstrate the latest and most successful techniques for growing vegetables, annuals, perennials, woody plants and groundcovers.
Some Tulsa-area parks are run by Tulsa County Parks. These include the 270-acre (110 ha) LaFortune Park in Midtown Tulsa, and the 192-acre (78 ha) Chandler Park.
Some parks are under the Tulsa River Parks Authority. These include a series of linear parks that run adjacent to the Arkansas River for about 10 miles (16 km) from downtown to the Jenks bridge. Since 2007 a significant portion of the River Parks area has been renovated with new trails, landscaping, and playground equipment. The River Parks Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness Area on the west side of the Arkansas River in south Tulsa is a 300-acre (120 ha) area that contains over 45 miles (72 km) of dirt trails available for hiking, trail running, mountain biking and horseback riding.
Gathering Place is a 66-acre (27 ha) park which features a playground, lodge, boathouse, splash playground, sports courts, skate park, wetland pond and garden, trails, classrooms, and amphitheatre.
=== Bicycling ===
Tulsa has a number of cycling trails, and has installed protected bike lanes in parts of the downtown area. Additional efforts to expand this infrastructure have been included as part of the city's "GoPlan".
== Government ==
A mayor-council government has been in place in Tulsa since 1989, when the city converted from a city commission government deemed wasteful and less efficient. Since the change, Tulsa mayors have been given more power in accordance with a strong mayoral system and have greater control of a more consolidated array of governmental branches. Plurality voting is used to elect mayors, who serve a term in office of four years. The present mayor of Tulsa is Democrat Monroe Nichols, who won the 2024 mayoral election and took office on December 2, 2024. Another Tulsa political figure, Jim Inhofe, who represented Oklahoma in the United States Senate for 30 years, served as the mayor of Tulsa early in his political career.
A city councilor from each of the city's nine council districts is elected every two years, each serving a term of two years. Councilors are elected from their own respective districts based on a plurality voting system, and serve on the Tulsa City Council. As a whole, the council acts as the legislative body of the city government, which aims to pass laws, approve the city budget, and manage efficiency in the city government. In accordance with the mayor-council form of government, the Tulsa City Council and the office of the Mayor coordinate in city government operations. A third body of the government, the city auditor, is elected independently of the city council and mayor to ensure that the auditor can act in an objective manner. The auditor is elected for a term of two years. Phil Wood, a Democrat, held the position for 21 years before being defeated by Republican Preston Doerflinger in the 2009 election. The city serves as the seat of county government for Tulsa County, and lies mostly within Oklahoma's 1st congressional district, with its far northwestern areas in southern Osage County in Oklahoma's 3rd congressional district. Municipal and state laws are enforced in Tulsa by the Tulsa Police Department, an organization of 781 officers as of 2012.
== Education ==
=== K–12 education ===
Tulsa Public Schools, with nine high schools and over 41,000 students, is the second-largest school district in Oklahoma. In 2006, there were more than 90,000 students attending Tulsa County's public schools.
Portions of Tulsa within Tulsa County are in the following school districts: Tulsa, Berryhill, Bixby, Broken Arrow, Jenks, Owasso, and Union. Portions within Osage County are in Tulsa Public Schools. Portions within Wagoner County are in the following districts: Tulsa, Broken Arrow, and Catoosa. The Allen-Bowden School District facility in Creek County has a Tulsa postal address, but none of its area is in the Tulsa city limits.
A variety of independent and sectarian schools exist in Tulsa, also. Most, but not all, of the private schools have religious affiliations with various Christian, Jewish or Muslim denominations. The Catholic Diocese of Tulsa supports a system of parochial and diocesan schools, including Bishop Kelley High School, administered by the LaSallians (French Christian Brothers). Another Catholic high school, Cascia Hall Preparatory School, is administered by Augustinians. Holland Hall School is independent but historically affiliated with the Episcopal Church. Riverfield Country Day School is non-sectarian.
=== History of K-12 education ===
The Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) established the Presbyterian Mission Day School, a one-story building at what would become the intersection of 4th Street and Boston Avenue in 1884. A second story was soon added to accommodate the number of children who were to attend. This school operated until 1889. When Tulsa incorporated in 1899, it took over the school, which became the first public school. James M. Hall and three other men bought the property with their own funds and held the title until the city could reimburse them.
Tulsa built its first two public schools in 1905. The construction of more schools began accelerating in 1906. In December 1907, control of the public schools passed from the city government to the Tulsa Board of Education.
Tulsa High School opened in 1906 on the same block formerly occupied by the Presbyterian mission school, which had been razed. The new school was a three-story cream colored brick building with a dome. The school was accredited by the North Central Association of Schools and Colleges in 1913. It proved too small by 1916, when Tulsa voters approved a bond issue to construct a new high school at Sixth Street and Cincinnati Avenue, which was renamed Central High School. The north half of this facility opened in 1917, while the south half opened in 1922. The building remained in this service until 1976, when it was replaced by a new building on West Edison Street. The old building was taken over by the Public Service Company of Oklahoma.
=== Higher education ===
The first institute of higher education was established in Tulsa when Kendall College, a Presbyterian school, moved from Muskogee to Tulsa in 1907. In 1920, the school merged with a proposed McFarlin College to become the University of Tulsa (abbreviated as TU). The McFarlin Library of TU was named for the principal donor of the proposed college, oilman Robert M. McFarlin.
Tulsa has 15 institutions of higher education, including two private universities: the University of Tulsa, a school founded in 1894, and Oral Roberts University, a school founded by evangelist Oral Roberts in 1963.
The University of Tulsa has an enrollment of 3,832 undergraduate and graduate students as of 2021. In addition to doctoral and masters programs, TU is home to the University of Tulsa College of Law and the Collins College of Business. TU also manages the famous Gilcrease Museum in northwest Tulsa and hosts the Alexandre Hogue Gallery on its main campus.
Oral Roberts University is a charismatic Christian institution with an enrollment of 5,109 undergraduate and graduate students.
Both of the state's flagship research universities have campuses in Tulsa:
Oklahoma State University houses three campuses in the city, the OSU Center for Health Sciences, the OSU College of Osteopathic Medicine, and OSU – Tulsa, accommodating upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses. OSU-Tulsa has an advanced materials research facility and is home to the Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers.
The University of Oklahoma operates what is known as the OU-Tulsa Schusterman Center, offering bachelors, master's, and doctoral degree programs in conjunction with the main campus in Norman and the OU Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City. The OU-Tulsa Schusterman Center also houses the OU School of Community Medicine, the first medical school of its kind in the United States.
Rogers State University in Claremore, Oklahoma, is the Tulsa area's original public, undergraduate-focused, four-year university. Tulsa Community College (TCC), the largest community college in Oklahoma, operates four campuses spread across the area as well as a conference center in Midtown, and has a partnership allowing students to complete four-year bachelor's degrees through OU-Tulsa, OSU-Tulsa, LU-Tulsa and NSU-Broken Arrow. Tulsa also has a Tulsa branch of Langston University, the only historically black college or university in the state, founded in 1897. Tulsa previously had a branch campus of St. Gregory's University, a Catholic university with its main campus in Shawnee, Oklahoma; however, that school went into bankruptcy in 2017. New York University operates a study away center in Tulsa for its students.
The Spartan School of Aeronautics enrolls 1,500 students at its flight programs near Tulsa International Airport and the city's vocational education is headed by Tulsa Technology Center, the oldest and largest vocational technology institution in the state.
Among trade schools located in Tulsa are Community Care College (including branches Oklahoma Technical College and Clary Sage College), Holberton School Tulsa, Tulsa Welding School (Tulsa Campus) and Tulsa Tech.
== Media ==
=== Print ===
Tulsa's leading newspaper is the daily Tulsa World, the second-most widely circulated newspaper in Oklahoma with a Sunday circulation of 189,789.
The Tulsa Voice is an Alt-Weekly newspaper covering entertainment and cultural events. Covering primarily economic events and stocks, the Tulsa Business Journal caters to Tulsa's business sector. Other publications include the Oklahoma Indian Times, the Tulsa Daily Commerce and Legal News, the Tulsa Beacon, This Land Press, and the Tulsa Free Press. The first black-owned newspaper was the Tulsa Star, which ceased publication when its office burned during the Tulsa race massacre. It was succeeded by the Oklahoma Eagle, which began publishing using the press salvaged from the Star's office.
Until 1992, the Tulsa Tribune served as a daily afternoon newspaper competing with the Tulsa World. The paper was acquired by the Tulsa World that year. Urban Tulsa Weekly served as the city's alt-weekly paper from 1991 until its closure in 2013.
=== Television and radio ===
Tulsa is also served by television and radio broadcasting networks. All major U.S. television networks are represented in Tulsa through local affiliates in the designated market area (a region covering a 22-county area serving the northeastern and east-central portions of Oklahoma, and far southeastern Kansas); these include NBC affiliate KJRH-TV (channel 2), CBS affiliate KOTV-DT (channel 6), ABC/Fox affiliate KTUL (channel 8), PBS station KOED-TV (channel 11, a satellite of the state-run OETA member network), CW affiliate KQCW-DT (channel 19), Roar affiliate KOKI-TV (channel 23), MyNetworkTV affiliate KMYT-TV (channel 41), Ion Television owned-and-operated station KTPX-TV (channel 44). The market is also home to several religious stations including TBN owned-and-operated station KDOR-TV (channel 17), religious/secular independent station KWHB (channel 47), and Oral Roberts University-owned KGEB (channel 53, which is distributed nationwide via satellite as GEB America).
Cable television service in the area is provided by Cox Communications, which acquired Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI)'s franchise rights to the area in a $2.85 billion deal (which also included the purchase of AT&T Broadband's Louisiana cable systems, minority ownership of TCA Cable TV systems in Texas, Louisiana and New Mexico, and TCI's Peak Cablevision systems in four other Oklahoma cities, and select markets in Arkansas, Utah and Nevada) in July 1999; Cox assumed control of TCI's Tulsa-area systems on March 15, 2000.
== Infrastructure ==
=== Transportation ===
Transportation in Tulsa is aided by MetroLink's bus network of 97 vehicles and two primary airports, while the Tulsa Port of Catoosa provides transportation of goods and industry through international trade routes.
==== Highways ====
Tulsa has an extensive highway system that connects many cities in the region such as Joplin, Missouri on the Will Rogers Turnpike and Oklahoma City on the Turner Turnpike. Most commuters use the highway system in Tulsa to get to and from work. Highways that run through Tulsa are I-44, I-244, I-444 (unsigned), US-412, US-169, OK-66, US-64, US-75, OK-11, OK-51, OK-364/Creek Turnpike, and OK-344/Gilcrease Expressway.
In 2011, the Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) reported that Tulsa's busiest freeway was US-169 with about 121,500 vehicles daily between 51st and 61st Streets, and its second busiest freeway was OK-51 with about 104,200 vehicles between Memorial and I-44. Surrounding Downtown is the Inner Dispersal Loop (sometimes called the "I-D-L"), which connects Downtown with almost all the highways in Tulsa.
In 2023, ODOT and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) approved applying the Interstate 42 designation to US-412, contingent on upgrades. This includes the segment of I-244 in Tulsa.
==== Buses ====
MetroLink (formerly Tulsa Transit), the city's transit bus operator, runs buses on 18 different routes across Tulsa and in surrounding suburbs such as Broken Arrow, Sand Springs and Jenks. Tulsa Transit has two stations: the Memorial Midtown Station at 7952 East 33rd Street in Midtown Tulsa, and the Denver Avenue Station at 319 South Denver, across from the BOK Center in Downtown. Most routes go through one or both of the stations, facilitating the commute to work and events in Downtown or Midtown. Buses stop at specific stops such as Tulsa Community College, Oklahoma State University-Tulsa, CityPlex Towers, Cox Communications, the various medical facilities in Tulsa, and many shopping destinations, hotels, and schools. The bus schedules are periodically changed; votes are taken by Tulsa Transit to help decide the particulars of certain routes. Tulsa debuted its first bus rapid transit line, Aero on Peoria Avenue, in November 2019. The service has more frequent buses, upgraded stations, and faster travel times.
Intercity bus service is provided by both Greyhound Lines and Jefferson Lines. The station for both is at 317 South Detroit, five blocks from Tulsa Transit's Downtown bus terminal. As to private chartered bus companies, Red Carpet Charters (also known as Red Carpet Trailways of Tulsa) is an independent member of the Trailways Charter Bus Network.
==== Airports ====
Tulsa International Airport, which has service on twelve commercial airlines (eight passenger and four cargo ones), serves more than three million travelers annually, with almost 80 departures every day. In 2007, the airport completed most of an expansion project, which included larger terminal sizes and the addition of restaurants and shops. In 2011, the airport opened the newly renovated Concourse B, complete with skylights, open gate holds, an average of 76 ways to charge a device per gate, and much more. Concourse A is under renovation. Richard L. Jones Jr. Airport (also known as Jones-Riverside Airport) a general aviation airport in West Tulsa, saw 335,826 takeoffs and landings in 2008, making it the busiest airport in Oklahoma and the fifth-busiest general aviation airport in the nation. Its operations contribute over $3.2 million to the economy annually. The Tulsa Airports Improvement Trust also manages the Okmulgee Regional Airport in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, further to the south of Tulsa.
==== Railways ====
Freight railways bisect the city in every direction; the state's chief freight rail transporter is BNSF, operator of the Cherokee Rail Yard in Tulsa, which facility includes a freight terminal, diesel shop and hump yard for railcar sorting. Other Class I transporters are Union Pacific Railroad, as well as the CPKC (formerly the Kansas City Southern Railway) via a short-line switch on the South Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad.
Tulsa Union Depot served Frisco, M-K-T and Santa Fe passenger trains until the 1960s. The Santa Fe continued service through use of its own station until 1971. There are no mass transit rail lines in Tulsa, but the prospect of passenger rail lines from Downtown Tulsa to the suburb of Broken Arrow has been studied.
Long-distance passenger rail transportation today serves Tulsa only through Greyhound bus lines, which provide bus connections to nearby cities with Amtrak stations. A private proposal to re-establish passenger service between Oklahoma City and Tulsa via a train called the Eastern Flyer fell through in 2019. However, in early 2024, the Federal Railroad Administration released an interim report on its ongoing Amtrak Daily Long-Distance Service Study regarding fifteen new or previously discontinued rail routes under consideration for federal funding, which included a proposed route from Oklahoma City to Tulsa, and on from Tulsa to St. Louis in one direction and Kansas City in another.
Tulsa has two static displays of antique steam railroad locomotives for free public viewing: the 1917 wood-burning Dierks Forest 207, a Baldwin 2-6-2 Prairie-type located at the Tulsa State Fairgrounds; and, the 1942 oil-burning Frisco Meteor 4500, a Baldwin 4-8-4 Northern-type at the Route 66 Historical Village at 3770 Southwest Boulevard.
==== Port of Catoosa ====
At the head of the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System, the Tulsa Port of Catoosa is an inland port in the United States and connects barge traffic from Tulsa to the Mississippi River via the Verdigris River and the Arkansas River. The facility is one of the largest riverports in the United States and contributes to one of the busiest waterways in the world via its course to the Gulf of Mexico.
=== Medical facilities ===
The Saint Francis Health System owns several hospitals with a central location at Saint Francis Hospital in the southern part of the city. The facility contains 700 doctors and 918 beds, and with more than 7,000 employees, the network is the second-largest healthcare employer in the state. The health system also operates a heart hospital, which was named by General Electric in 2004 one of the most advanced heart hospitals in the nation. St. John Medical Center, located in an 11-story midtown center, employs nearly 700 doctors. Other networks, such as Hillcrest Health System, operate a number of facilities of various sizes. Beginning in 2007, the city elected to renew a five-year contract with EMSA for ambulance service after a period spent contemplating a switch to the Tulsa Fire Department for the provision of such services.
== Notable people ==
== In popular culture ==
Several films starring Brat Pack actors and written by S.E. Hinton were filmed in Tulsa in the early 1980s; among them were Tex (1982), The Outsiders (1983), Rumble Fish (1983), That Was Then... This Is Now (1985) and Fandango (1985).
The FX television shows Reservation Dogs and The Lowdown prominently feature Tulsa
"Tulsa Time" song by Don Williams
"Tampa to Tulsa" song by The Jayhawks
Most of the HBO TV series Watchmen (2019) takes place in Tulsa.
"Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa" song by Gene Pitney
"Tulsa County" song by The Byrds
"Tulsa Telephone Book" song by Tom T. Hall
"Tulsa Jesus Freak" song by Lana Del Rey
Tulsa King TV series starring Sylvester Stallone is primarily set in Tulsa
Three of S.E. Hinton's novels, The Outsiders, That Was Then, This is Now, and Rumble Fish, take place in Tulsa.
The 2020 drama film Minari is filmed in Tulsa.
== Sister cities ==
In accordance with the Tulsa Global Alliance, which operates in conjunction with Sister Cities International, an organization that began under President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956, Tulsa has nine international sister cities in an attempt to foster cross-cultural understanding: |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Aiyuk | Brandon Aiyuk | Brandon Aiyuk (EYE-yook; born March 17, 1998) is an American professional football wide receiver who most recently played for the San Francisco 49ers. He played college football for the Sierra College Wolverines and Arizona State Sun Devils and was selected by the San Francisco 49ers in the first round of the 2020 NFL draft.
== Early life ==
Aiyuk was born in Rocklin, California, and is of Cameroonian descent. Growing up in Reno, Nevada, Aiyuk attended Robert McQueen High School. There, he played wide receiver and defensive back and also returned kicks for the Lancers and was named first-team All-Northern Nevada and honorable mention All-State as a senior.
== College career ==
=== Sierra College ===
==== 2016 season ====
Aiyuk began his college football career at Sierra College in Rocklin. As a freshman, he caught 29 passes for 573 yards and five touchdowns for the Wolverines and was named All-NorCal Conference.
==== 2017 season ====
Aiyuk was named a Junior College All-American as a sophomore after recording 60 receptions for 960 yards and 14 touchdowns while also returning 11 kickoffs for 418 yards and two touchdowns and 14 punts for 313 yards and a touchdown. He finished his junior college career with 2,499 all-purpose yards and 21 touchdowns. Aiyuk was named First-Team All-NorCal Conference and All-State after the season.
Aiyuk committed to transfer to Arizona State for the final two years of his NCAA eligibility over offers from Colorado State, Kansas, Tennessee, and Alabama. He chose Arizona State because it was one of the few schools that recruited him to play wide receiver; others recruited him as only a return specialist or planned to move him to the defensive side of the ball.
=== Arizona State ===
==== 2018 season ====
In his first year with the Sun Devils, Aiyuk had 33 catches for 474 yards and three touchdowns with an additional 381 total return yards.
==== 2019 season ====
Aiyuk was named first-team preseason All-Pac-12 Conference going into his senior year. He was named the Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Week after catching seven passes for 196 yards and three touchdowns in a 38–34 victory over Washington State on October 12, 2019. Aiyuk was also named the conference Special Teams Player of the Week after posting 44 kickoff return yards and 76 punt return yards, 63 of which came on his first return for a touchdown at ASU, against Oregon State on November 16. He also had a career-high 10 receptions for 173 yards and a touchdown in the game and his 293 all-purpose yards were the fifth-most in a single game in school history.
Aiyuk finished the season with 65 receptions for 1,192 yards and eight touchdowns, returned 14 punts for 226 yards and a touchdown and 14 kickoffs for 446 yards, and was named first-team All-Pac-12 as both a wide receiver and as a return specialist.
== Professional career ==
=== 2020 season ===
Aiyuk was selected by the San Francisco 49ers in the first round (25th overall) in the 2020 NFL draft, acquired in a trade with the Minnesota Vikings for San Francisco's 31st (Jeff Gladney), 117th (D.J. Wonnum) and 176th (K.J. Osborn) picks. On June 26, 2020, he signed a four-year, $12.5 million contract with a $6.6 million signing bonus.
On August 23, Aiyuk sustained a hamstring injury in training camp, resulting in him being inactive for the season-opener. Aiyuk made his NFL debut during Week 2 against the New York Jets and recorded two receptions for 21 yards in the 31–13 road victory. In the next game against the New York Giants, Aiyuk recorded 101 all-purpose yards and his first career rushing touchdown during the 36–9 road victory. Aiyuk became the franchise's first wide receiver since 1970 to have a rushing touchdown be their first career score. During Week 4 against the Philadelphia Eagles on NBC Sunday Night Football, he had a 38-yard rushing touchdown in the 20–25 loss. Aiyuk became the first wide receiver since the AFL-NFL merger (1970) to record two rushing touchdowns in their first three professional games.
During Week 7, Aiyuk recorded his first career game with 100+ receiving yards, catching six passes for 115 yards, in a 33–6 road victory over the New England Patriots. On November 4, Aiyuk was placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list by the team, and was re-activated two days later. He was placed back on the COVID-19 list on November 20, following a Week 10 start in their 27–13 road loss to the New Orleans Saints, and was re-activated on December 2. During Week 14 against the Washington Football Team, Aiyuk recorded 10 catches for 119 yards in the 23–15 loss. In 12 games and 11 starts in his rookie season, Aiyuk finished with 60 receptions for 748 yards and five touchdowns, as well as a career-high two rushing touchdowns prior to Week 5.
=== 2021 season ===
Aiyuk played in all 17 regular-season games with 16 starts for the 49ers, the exception being a Week 1 win against the Detroit Lions where he only contributed a punt return for seven yards. He finished the season with 56 receptions for 826 yards and five touchdowns.
=== 2022 season ===
In Week 17 against the Las Vegas Raiders, Aiyuk had nine receptions for 101 yards and a touchdown, as well as a single carry for 16 yards, during the 37–34 overtime road victory. For the season, Aiyuk played in 17 games and starts, recording 78 receptions for 1,015 yards and a career-high eight touchdowns.
=== 2023 season ===
On April 28, 2023, the 49ers picked up the fifth-year option of Aiyuk's rookie contract. During the season opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Aiyuk had eight receptions for 129 yards and two touchdowns in a 30–7 road victory, earning NFC Offensive Player of the Week. In the next game against the Los Angeles Rams, he injured his shoulder on his first catch of the game. Despite continuing play, Aiyuk was designated as inactive for their Week 3 match against the New York Giants. During a Week 4 victory over the Arizona Cardinals, he had six receptions for 148 yards. In a Week 11 victory over the Buccaneers, he had five receptions for 156 yards and a touchdown. Aiyuk started in all 16 games he played in. He had seven total games going over 100 receiving yards. He finished with 75 receptions for 1,342 yards and seven touchdowns, and earned his first career All-Pro selection as a second-team wide receiver.
During the NFC Championship Game against the Lions, Aiyuk had a receiving touchdown. In the third quarter of the game, he recorded a 51-yard reception off a pass that was deflected off of Kindle Vildor's helmet that helped get the 49ers into scoring position. In Super Bowl LVIII, Aiyuk had three receptions for 49 yards in the 25–22 overtime loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
=== 2024 season ===
On August 30, 2024, Aiyuk signed a four-year, $120 million contract extension with the 49ers. During Week 5 against the Cardinals, he had eight receptions for 147 yards in the narrow 24–23 loss. Two weeks later against the Chiefs, Aiyuk tore his ACL and MCL. He was subsequently ruled out for the remainder of the season.
Aiyuk finished the 2024 season with 25 receptions for 374 yards in seven games and starts.
=== 2025 season ===
On July 18, 2025, Aiyuk was placed on the PUP list as he worked his way back from the knee injuries that he suffered the previous October.
On November 21, 2025, it was reported that the 49ers voided the guaranteed money in his contract for 2026 due to lack of participation. Aiyuk told the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) he was not interested in filing a grievance. On December 13, the 49ers placed Aiyuk on their reserve/left squad list.
== Career statistics ==
=== NFL ===
==== Regular season ====
==== Postseason ====
=== College ===
== Personal life ==
Aiyuk married Rochelle Searight in April 2025. They started dating in 2018 while attending Arizona State University, and their son was born in September 2020.
On December 20, 2025, Aiyuk posted a video of himself speeding past Levi's Stadium, reportedly going over 100 mph. After this incident, Aiyuk apologized for his actions. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jordan | Michael Jordan | Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963), also known by his initials MJ, is an American businessman and retired professional basketball player who is a minority owner of the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played 15 seasons in the NBA between 1984 and 2003, winning six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls. Widely considered to be one of the greatest players of all time, he was integral in popularizing basketball and the NBA around the world in the 1980s and 1990s. He is one of the world's richest celebrities, with a $3.8 billion net worth as of 2025.
Jordan played college basketball with the North Carolina Tar Heels. As a freshman, he was a member of the Tar Heels' national championship team in 1982. Jordan joined the Bulls in 1984 as the third overall draft pick and emerged as a league star, entertaining crowds with his prolific scoring while gaining a reputation as one of the best defensive players. His leaping ability, demonstrated by performing slam dunks from the free-throw line in Slam Dunk Contests, earned him the nicknames "Air Jordan" and "His Airness". Jordan won his first NBA title with the Bulls in 1991 and followed that with titles in 1992 and 1993, securing a three-peat. Citing physical and mental exhaustion from basketball and superstardom, Jordan abruptly retired before the 1993–94 NBA season to play Minor League Baseball in the Chicago White Sox organization. He returned to the Bulls in 1995 and led them to three more championships in 1996, 1997, and 1998, as well as a then-record 72 regular season wins in the 1995–96 NBA season. Jordan retired for the second time in 1999, then returned for two NBA seasons from 2001 to 2003 as a member of the Washington Wizards. He was selected to play for the United States national team during his college and NBA careers, winning four gold medals—at the 1983 Pan American Games, 1984 Summer Olympics, 1992 Tournament of the Americas and 1992 Summer Olympics—while also being undefeated.
Jordan's individual accolades include six NBA Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards, 10 NBA scoring titles (both all-time records), five NBA MVP awards, 10 All-NBA First Team designations, nine All-Defensive First Team honors, 14 NBA All-Star Game selections, and three NBA All-Star Game MVP awards. He holds the NBA records for career regular season scoring average (30.1 points per game) and career playoff scoring average (33.4 points per game). He is one of only eight players to achieve the basketball Triple Crown. In 1999, Jordan was named the 20th century's greatest North American athlete by ESPN and was second to Babe Ruth on the Associated Press' list of athletes of the century. Jordan was twice inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, once in 2009 for his individual career, and in 2010 as part of the 1992 United States men's Olympic basketball team ("The Dream Team"). The trophy for the NBA Most Valuable Player Award is named in his honor.
One of the most effectively marketed athletes ever, Jordan made many product endorsements. He fueled the success of Nike's Air Jordan sneakers, which were introduced in 1984 and remain popular. Jordan starred as himself in the live-action/animation hybrid film Space Jam (1996) and was the focus of the Emmy-winning documentary series The Last Dance (2020). He became part-owner and head of basketball operations for the Charlotte Hornets (then named the Bobcats) in 2006 and bought a controlling interest in 2010, before selling his majority stake in 2023. Jordan is a co-owner of 23XI Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series. In 2014, he became the first billionaire player in NBA history. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded Jordan the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
== Early life ==
Michael Jeffrey Jordan was born on February 17, 1963, at Cumberland Hospital in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, to bank employee Deloris (née Peoples) and equipment supervisor James R. Jordan Sr. He has two older brothers, James Jr. and Larry, as well as an older sister named Deloris and a younger sister named Roslyn. Jordan and his siblings were raised Methodist.
In 1968, the family moved to Wilmington, North Carolina. Jordan attended Emsley A. Laney High School, where he played basketball, baseball, and football. He tried out for the basketball varsity team during his sophomore year, but at a height of 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 m), he was deemed too short. Motivated to prove his worth, Jordan became the star of Laney's junior varsity team and tallied some 40-point games. The following summer, he grew four inches (10 cm) and trained rigorously. Upon earning a spot on the varsity roster, Jordan averaged more than 25 points per game (ppg) over his final two seasons of high school play. He also adopted his signature jersey number, 23. As a senior, he was selected for the 1981 McDonald's All-American Game and scored 30 points, after averaging 26.8 ppg, 11.6 rebounds (rpg), and 10.1 assists per game (apg) for the season.
Jordan was recruited by numerous college basketball programs, including Duke, North Carolina, South Carolina, Syracuse, Virginia, and Clemson. He reportedly most strongly considered recruiting efforts from North Carolina, NC State, and Maryland before, in 1980, he accepted a basketball scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he majored in cultural geography. He chose this field of study because of its relationship to meteorology, as Jordan was interested in a career as a meteorologist.
== College career ==
As a freshman under coach Dean Smith’s team-oriented system, Jordan was named ACC Freshman of the Year after averaging 13.4 points per game on 53.4% shooting—ranking 10th in scoring and sixth in field goal percentage in the conference. He made the game-winning jump shot in the 1982 NCAA Championship game against Georgetown, which was led by future NBA rival Patrick Ewing. Jordan later described this shot as the major turning point in his basketball career. During his sophomore and junior seasons, Jordan consistently ranked among the ACC's elite, finishing either 1st or 2nd in both total points and points per game, while also placing in the top 10 in field goal percentage and free throw percentage. In his three seasons with the Tar Heels, Jordan averaged 17.7 ppg on 54.0% shooting and added 5.0 rpg and 1.8 apg.
Jordan was selected by consensus to the NCAA All-American First Team in both his sophomore (1983) and junior (1984) seasons. After winning the Naismith and the Wooden College Player of the Year awards in 1984, Jordan left North Carolina a year before his scheduled graduation to enter the 1984 NBA draft. Jordan returned to North Carolina to complete his degree in 1986, when he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in geography. In 2002, Jordan was selected to the ACC 50th Anniversary men's basketball team and named the greatest athlete in ACC history.
== Professional career ==
=== Chicago Bulls (1984–1993; 1995–1998) ===
==== Early NBA years (1984–1987) ====
The Chicago Bulls selected Jordan with the third overall pick of the 1984 NBA draft after Hakeem Olajuwon (Houston Rockets) and Sam Bowie (Portland Trail Blazers). One of the primary reasons why Jordan was not drafted sooner was because the first two teams were in need of a center. Trail Blazers general manager Stu Inman contended that it was not a matter of drafting a center but more a matter of taking Bowie over Jordan, in part because Portland already had Clyde Drexler, who was a guard with similar skills to Jordan. Citing Bowie's injury-laden college career, ESPN named the Blazers' choice of Bowie as the worst draft pick in North American professional sports history.
Jordan made his NBA debut at Chicago Stadium on October 26, 1984, and scored 16 points. In 2021, a ticket stub from the game sold at auction for $264,000, setting a record for a collectible ticket stub. During his rookie 1984–85 season with the Bulls, Jordan averaged 28.2 ppg on 51.5% shooting. He helped the Bulls improve from 27–55 to 38–44 and qualify for the postseason for the first time since the 1980–81 season. Jordan quickly became a fan favorite even in opposing arenas. Roy S. Johnson of The New York Times described Jordan as "the phenomenal rookie of the Bulls" in November, and he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated with the heading "A Star Is Born" in December. The fans voted in Jordan as an All-Star starter during his rookie season. Controversy arose before the 1985 NBA All-Star Game when word surfaced that several veteran players, led by Isiah Thomas, were upset by the amount of attention Jordan was receiving. This led to a so-called "freeze-out" on Jordan, where players refused to pass the ball to him. The controversy left Jordan relatively unaffected when he returned to regular season play, and he would go on to be voted the NBA Rookie of the Year. The Bulls lost to the Milwaukee Bucks in four games in the first round of the playoffs.
An often-cited moment was on August 26, 1985, when Jordan shook the arena during a Nike exhibition game in Trieste, Italy, by shattering the glass of the backboard with a dunk. The moment was filmed and is often referred to as an important milestone in Jordan's rise. The shoes Jordan wore during the game were auctioned in August 2020 for $615,000, a record for a pair of sneakers. Jordan's 1985–86 season was cut short when he broke his foot in the third game of the year, causing him to miss 64 games. The Bulls made the playoffs despite Jordan's injury and a 30–52 record, at the time the fifth-worst record of any team to qualify for the playoffs in NBA history. Jordan recovered in time to participate in the postseason and performed well upon his return. On April 20 at the Boston Garden, in Game 2 of the First Round, a 135–131 double overtime loss to the eventual NBA champion Boston Celtics, Jordan scored a playoff career-high 63 points, breaking Elgin Baylor's single-game playoff scoring record. The Celtics team, though, swept the series in three games.
Jordan completely recovered in time for the 1986–87 season, and had one of the most prolific scoring seasons in NBA history; he became the only player other than Wilt Chamberlain to score 3,000 points in a season, averaging a league-high 37.1 ppg on 48.2% shooting. Jordan also demonstrated his defensive prowess, as he became the first player in NBA history to record 200 steals and 100 blocked shots in a season. Despite Jordan's success, Magic Johnson won the NBA Most Valuable Player Award. The Bulls reached 40 wins, and advanced to the playoffs for the third consecutive year but were again swept by the Celtics.
==== Pistons roadblock (1987–1990) ====
Jordan led the league in scoring during the 1987–88 season, averaging 35.0 ppg on 53.5% shooting, and won his first league MVP Award. He was named the NBA Defensive Player of the Year after averaging 1.6 blocks per game (bpg), a league-high 3.1 steals per game (spg), and leading the Bulls defense to the fewest points per game allowed in the league. The Bulls finished 50–32, and made it past the first round of the playoffs for the first time in Jordan's career, as they defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers in five games. In the Eastern Conference Semifinals, the Bulls lost in five games to the more experienced Detroit Pistons, who were led by Isiah Thomas and a group of physical players known as the "Bad Boys".
In the 1988–89 season, Jordan again led the league in scoring, averaging 32.5 ppg on 53.8% shooting from the field, along with 8.0 rpg and 8.0 apg. During the season, Jordan expressed his frustration over the Bulls' offense with head coach Doug Collins, who then put Jordan at point guard. In his time as a point guard, Jordan had 10 triple-doubles in 11 games, with averages of 33.6 ppg, 11.4 rpg, and 10.8 apg.
The Bulls finished with a 47–35 record, and advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals, defeating the Cavaliers and New York Knicks along the way. The Cavaliers series included a career highlight for Jordan when he hit "The Shot" over Craig Ehlo at the buzzer in the fifth and final game of the series. In the Eastern Conference Finals, the Pistons again defeated the Bulls, this time in six games, by utilizing their "Jordan Rules" method of guarding Jordan, which consisted of double and triple teaming him every time he touched the ball.
The Bulls entered the 1989–90 season as a team on the rise, with their core group of Jordan and young improving players like Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant, and under the guidance of new coach Phil Jackson. On March 28, 1990, Jordan scored a career-high 69 points in a 117–113 road win over the Cavaliers. He averaged a league-leading 33.6 ppg on 52.6% shooting, to go with 6.9 rpg and 6.3 apg, in leading the Bulls to a 55–27 record. They again advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals after beating the Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers; despite pushing the series to seven games, the Bulls lost to the Pistons for the third consecutive season.
==== First three-peat (1991–1993) ====
After the Bulls' previous losses to the Pistons, Phil Jackson, along with assistant coach Tex Winter, focused on implementing the triangle offense to counteract the Pistons' defense and other teams that heavily targeted Jordan. This system, however, required Jordan to adjust his playing style. In his book Eleven Rings, Jackson recalled, "I was planning to ask Michael to reduce the number of shots he took so that other members of the team could get more involved in the offense. I knew this would be a challenge for him." In The Last Dance, Jordan admitted he was initially reluctant to back the system. Nevertheless, he eventually embraced the change, which led to success for the team.
In the 1990–91 season, Jordan won his second MVP award after averaging 31.5 ppg on 53.9% shooting, 6.0 rpg, and 5.5 apg for the regular season. The Bulls finished in first place in their division for the first time in sixteen years and set a franchise record with 61 wins in the regular season. With Scottie Pippen developing into an All-Star, the Bulls had elevated their play. The Bulls defeated the New York Knicks and the Philadelphia 76ers in the opening two rounds of the playoffs. They advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals where their rival, the Detroit Pistons, awaited them; this time, the Bulls beat the Pistons in a four-game sweep.
The Bulls advanced to the Finals for the first time in franchise history to face the Los Angeles Lakers. The Bulls won the series in five games, and compiled a 15–2 playoff record along the way. Perhaps the best-known moment of the series came in Game 2 when, attempting a dunk, Jordan avoided a potential Sam Perkins block by switching the ball from his right hand to his left in mid-air to lay the shot into the basket. In his first Finals appearance, Jordan had 31.2 ppg on 56% shooting from the field, 11.4 apg, 6.6 rpg, 2.8 spg, and 1.4 bpg. Jordan won his first NBA Finals MVP award and cried while holding the Finals trophy.
Jordan and the Bulls continued their dominance in the 1991–92 season, establishing a 67–15 record, topping their franchise record from the 1990–91 campaign. Jordan won his second consecutive MVP award with averages of 30.1 ppg, 6.4 rpg, and 6.1 apg on 52% shooting. After winning a physical seven-game series over the New York Knicks in the second round of the playoffs and finishing off the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Conference Finals in six games, the Bulls met Clyde Drexler and the Portland Trail Blazers in the Finals. The media, hoping to recreate a Magic–Bird rivalry, highlighted the similarities between "Air" Jordan and Clyde "The Glide" during the pre-Finals hype.
In a Game 1 victory, Jordan scored a Finals-record 35 points in the first half, including a record-setting six three-point field goals. After the sixth three-pointer, he jogged down the court shrugging as he looked courtside. Marv Albert, who broadcast the game, later stated that it was as if Jordan was saying: "I can't believe I'm doing this." The Bulls went on to defeat the Blazers in six games. Jordan was named Finals MVP for the second year in a row, and finished the series averaging 35.8 ppg, 4.8 rpg, and 6.5 apg, while shooting 52.6% from the floor.
In the 1992–93 season, despite a 32.6 ppg, 6.7 rpg, and 5.5 apg campaign, including a second-place finish in Defensive Player of the Year voting, Jordan's streak of consecutive MVP seasons ended, as he lost the award to his friend Charles Barkley, upsetting him. Jordan and the Bulls met Barkley and his Phoenix Suns in the 1993 NBA Finals. The Bulls won their third NBA championship on a game-winning shot by John Paxson and a last-second block by Horace Grant, but Jordan was once again Chicago's leader. He averaged a Finals-record 41.0 ppg during the six-game series, and became the first player in NBA history to win three consecutive Finals MVP awards. Jordan scored more than 30 points in every game of the series, including 40 or more points in four consecutive games. With his third Finals triumph, Jordan capped off a seven-year run where he attained seven scoring titles and three championships, but there were signs that Jordan was tiring of his massive celebrity and all of the non-basketball hassles in his life.
==== First retirement and stint in Minor League Baseball (1993–1995) ====
On October 6, 1993, Jordan announced his retirement, saying that he lost his desire to play basketball. He later said that the murder of his father three months earlier helped shape his decision. James R. Jordan Sr. was murdered on July 23, 1993, at a highway rest area in Lumberton, North Carolina, by two teenagers, Daniel Green and Larry Martin Demery, who carjacked his Lexus. His body, dumped in a South Carolina swamp, was not discovered until August 3. Green and Demery were sentenced to life imprisonment. However, in The Last Dance, Jordan stated that he retired due to physical and mental exhaustion from basketball and superstardom.
Jordan was close to his father; as a child, Jordan imitated the way his father stuck out his tongue while absorbed in work. Jordan later adopted it as his own signature, often displaying it as he drove to the basket. In 1996, Jordan founded a Chicago-area Boys & Girls Club and dedicated it to his father. In his 1998 autobiography For the Love of the Game, Jordan wrote that he was preparing for retirement as early as the summer of 1992. The added exhaustion due to the "Dream Team" run in the 1992 Summer Olympics solidified Jordan's feelings about the game and his celebrity status. Jordan's announcement sent shock waves throughout the NBA and appeared on the front pages of newspapers around the world.
Jordan further surprised the sports world by signing a Minor League Baseball (MiLB) contract with the Chicago White Sox on February 7, 1994. He reported to spring training in Sarasota, Florida, and was assigned to the team's minor league system on March 31. Jordan said that this decision was made to pursue the dream of his late father, who always envisioned his son as a Major League Baseball (MLB) player. The White Sox were owned by Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf, who continued to honor Jordan's basketball contract during the years he played baseball.
In 1994, Jordan played for the Birmingham Barons, a Double-A minor league affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, batting .202 with three home runs, 51 runs batted in, 30 stolen bases, 114 strikeouts, 51 bases on balls, and 11 errors. His strikeout total led the team and his games played tied for the team lead. His 30 stolen bases were second on the team only to Doug Brady. Jordan also appeared for the Scottsdale Scorpions in the 1994 Arizona Fall League, batting .252 against the top prospects in baseball. On November 1, 1994, his No. 23 was retired by the Bulls in a ceremony that included the erection of a permanent sculpture known as The Spirit outside the new United Center.
==== Return to the NBA (1995) ====
The Bulls went 55–27 in 1993–94 without Jordan in the lineup and lost to the New York Knicks in the second round of the playoffs. In March 1995, Jordan decided to quit baseball because he feared he might become a replacement player during the Major League Baseball strike. During the 1994–95 season, Jordan returned to the Bulls midway through the season. On March 18, 1995, Jordan announced his comeback to the NBA in a two-word press release: "I'm back." The next day, Jordan took to the court with the Bulls to face the Indiana Pacers in Indianapolis, scoring 19 points. The game had the highest Nielsen rating of any regular season NBA game since 1975. Although he could have worn his original number even though the Bulls retired it, Jordan wore No. 45, his baseball number.
Despite his 18-month hiatus from the NBA, Jordan played well, making a game-winning jump shot against Atlanta in his fourth game back. He scored 55 points in his next game, against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden on March 28, 1995. Boosted by Jordan's comeback, the Bulls went 13–4 to make the playoffs and advanced to the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Orlando Magic. At the end of Game 1, Orlando's Nick Anderson stripped Jordan from behind, leading to the game-winning basket for the Magic; he later commented that Jordan "didn't look like the old Michael Jordan", and said, "No. 45 doesn't explode like No. 23 used to".
Jordan responded by scoring 38 points in the next game, which Chicago won. Before the game, Jordan decided that he would immediately resume wearing his former No. 23. The Bulls were fined $25,000 for failing to report the impromptu number change to the NBA. Jordan was fined an additional $5,000 for opting to wear white sneakers when the rest of the Bulls wore black. He averaged 31 ppg in the playoffs, but Orlando won the series in six games.
==== Second three-peat (1996–1998) ====
Jordan was motivated by the playoff defeat, and he trained aggressively for the 1995–96 season. The Bulls were strengthened by the addition of rebound specialist Dennis Rodman, and the team dominated the league, starting the season at 41–3. The Bulls finished with the best regular season record in NBA history, 72–10, a mark broken two decades later by the 2015–16 Golden State Warriors. Jordan led the league in scoring with 30.4 ppg, and he won the league's regular season and All-Star Game MVP awards.
In the playoffs, the Bulls lost only three games in four series (Miami Heat 3–0, New York Knicks 4–1, and Orlando Magic 4–0), as they defeated the Seattle SuperSonics 4–2 in the NBA Finals to win their fourth championship. The series was one of the tougher ones for Jordan as he had a 41.5% field goal percentage, and his scoring average dropped nearly nine points from his average during the rest of the playoffs. Nevertheless, Jordan was named Finals MVP for a record fourth time; he achieved only the second sweep of the MVP awards in the All-Star Game, regular season, and NBA Finals after Willis Reed in the 1969–70 season. Upon winning the championship, his first since his father's murder, Jordan reacted emotionally, clutching the game ball and crying on the locker room floor.
In the 1996–97 season, the Bulls stood at a 69–11 record but ended the season by losing their final two games to finish the year 69–13, missing out on a second consecutive 70-win season. The Bulls again advanced to the Finals, where they faced the Utah Jazz. That team included Karl Malone, who had beaten Jordan for the NBA MVP award in a tight race (986–957). The series against the Jazz featured two of the more memorable clutch moments of Jordan's career. He won Game 1 for the Bulls with a buzzer-beating jump shot. In Game 5, with the series tied 2–2, Jordan played despite being feverish and dehydrated from a stomach virus or food poisoning, likely caused by a pizza ordered the night before. Jordan eventually claimed it was food poisoning in the 2020 docuseries The Last Dance. In what is known as "The Flu Game", Jordan scored 38 points, including the game-winning three-pointer with 25 seconds remaining. The Bulls won 90–88 and went on to win the series in six games. For the fifth time in as many Finals appearances, Jordan received the Finals MVP award. During the 1997 NBA All-Star Game, he posted the first triple-double in All-Star Game history in a victorious effort, but the MVP award went to Glen Rice.
The Bulls compiled a 62–20 record in the 1997–98 season. Jordan led the league with 28.7 ppg, securing his fifth regular season MVP award, plus honors for All-NBA First Team, First Defensive Team, and the All-Star Game MVP. The Bulls won the Eastern Conference Championship for a third straight season, including surviving a seven-game series with the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals; it was the first time Jordan had played in a Game 7 since the 1992 Eastern Conference Semifinals with the New York Knicks. After winning, they moved on for a rematch with the Jazz in the Finals.
The Bulls returned to the Delta Center for Game 6 on June 14, 1998, leading the series 3–2. Jordan executed a series of plays, considered to be one of the greatest clutch performances in NBA Finals history. With 41.9 seconds remaining and the Bulls trailing 86–83, Phil Jackson called a timeout. When play resumed, Jordan received the inbound pass, drove to the basket, and sank a shot over several Jazz defenders, cutting Utah's lead to 86–85. The Jazz brought the ball upcourt and passed the ball to Malone, who was set up in the low post and was being guarded by Rodman. Malone jostled with Rodman and caught the pass, but Jordan cut behind him and stole the ball out of his hands.
Jordan then dribbled down the court and paused, eyeing his defender, Jazz guard Bryon Russell. With 10 seconds remaining, Jordan started to dribble right, then crossed over to his left, possibly pushing off Russell, although the officials did not call a foul. With 5.2 seconds left, Jordan made the climactic shot of his Bulls career, a top-key jumper over a stumbling Russell to give Chicago an 87–86 lead. Afterwards, the Jazz' John Stockton narrowly missed a game-winning three-pointer, and the buzzer sounded as Jordan and the Bulls won their sixth NBA championship, achieving a second three-peat in the decade. Once again, Jordan was voted Finals MVP for a record sixth time, having led all scorers by averaging 33.5 ppg, including 45 in the deciding Game 6. The 1998 Finals holds the highest television rating of any Finals series, and Game 6 holds the highest television rating of any game in NBA history.
==== Second retirement (1999–2001) ====
With Phil Jackson's contract expiring, the pending departures of Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman looming, and being in the latter stages of an owner-induced lockout of NBA players, Jordan retired for the second time on January 13, 1999. On January 19, 2000, Jordan returned to the NBA not as a player but as part owner and president of basketball operations for the Washington Wizards. Jordan's responsibilities with the Wizards were comprehensive, as he controlled all aspects of the Wizards' basketball operations, and had the final say in all personnel matters; opinions of Jordan as a basketball executive were mixed. He managed to purge the team of several highly paid, unpopular players (like forward Juwan Howard and point guard Rod Strickland) but used the first pick in the 2001 NBA draft to select high school student Kwame Brown, who did not live up to expectations and was traded away after four seasons.
Despite his January 1999 claim that he was "99.9% certain" he would never play another NBA game, Jordan expressed interest in making another comeback in the summer of 2001, this time with his new team. Inspired by the NHL comeback of his friend Mario Lemieux the previous winter, Jordan spent much of the spring and summer of 2001 in training, holding several invitation-only camps for NBA players in Chicago. Jordan hired his old Chicago Bulls head coach, Doug Collins, as Washington's coach for the upcoming season, a decision that many saw as foreshadowing another Jordan return.
=== Washington Wizards (2001–2003) ===
On September 25, 2001, Jordan announced his return to the NBA to play for the Washington Wizards, indicating his intention to donate his salary as a player to a relief effort for the victims of the September 11 attacks. In an injury-plagued 2001–02 season, Jordan led the team in scoring (22.9 ppg), assists (5.2 apg), and steals (1.4 spg), and was an MVP candidate, as he led the Wizards to a winning record and playoff contention; Jordan would eventually finish 13th in the MVP ballot. After he suffered torn cartilage in his right knee, and subsequent knee soreness, the Wizards missed the playoffs, and Jordan's season ended after only 60 games, the fewest he had played in a regular season since playing 17 games after returning from his first retirement during the 1994–95 season. Jordan started 53 of his 60 games for the season, averaging 24.3 ppg, 5.4 apg, and 6.0 rpg, and shooting 41.9% from the field in his 53 starts. His last seven appearances were in a reserve role, in which he averaged just over 20 minutes per game. The Wizards finished the season with a 37–45 record, an 18-game improvement.
Playing in his 14th and final NBA All-Star Game in 2003, Jordan passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the all-time leading scorer in All-Star Game history, a record since broken by Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. That year, Jordan was the only Washington player to play in all 82 games, starting in 67 of them as he came off the bench in 15. Jordan averaged 20.0 ppg, 6.1 rpg, 3.8 assists, and 1.5 spg per game. He also shot 45% from the field, and 82% from the free-throw line. Although Jordan turned 40 during the season, he scored 20 or more points 42 times, 30 or more points nine times, and 40 or more points three times. On February 21, 2003, Jordan became the first 40-year-old to tally 43 points in an NBA game. During his stint with the Wizards, all of Jordan's home games at the MCI Center were sold out and the Wizards were the second most-watched team in the NBA, averaging 20,172 fans a game at home and 19,311 on the road. Jordan's final two seasons did not result in a playoff appearance for the Wizards, and he was often unsatisfied with the play of those around him. At several points, Jordan openly criticized his teammates to the media, citing their lack of focus and intensity, notably that of Kwame Brown, the number-one draft pick in the 2001 NBA draft.
==== Final retirement (2003) ====
With the recognition that 2002–03 would be Jordan's final season, tributes were paid to him throughout the NBA. In his final game at the United Center in Chicago, which was his old home court, Jordan received a four-minute standing ovation. The Miami Heat retired the No. 23 jersey on April 11, 2003, even though Jordan never played for the team. At the 2003 All-Star Game, Jordan was offered a starting spot from Tracy McGrady and Allen Iverson but refused both; he accepted the spot of Vince Carter. Jordan played in his final NBA game on April 16, 2003, in Philadelphia. After scoring 13 points in the game, Jordan went to the bench with 4 minutes and 13 seconds left in the third quarter and his team trailing the Philadelphia 76ers 75–56. Just after the start of the fourth quarter, the First Union Center crowd began chanting "We want Mike!" After much encouragement from coach Doug Collins, Jordan finally rose from the bench and re-entered the game, replacing Larry Hughes with 2:35 remaining. At 1:45, Jordan was intentionally fouled by the 76ers' Eric Snow, and stepped to the line to make both free throws. After the second foul shot, the 76ers in-bounded the ball to rookie John Salmons, who in turn was intentionally fouled by Bobby Simmons one second later, stopping time so that Jordan could return to the bench. He received a three-minute standing ovation from his teammates, his opponents, the officials, and the crowd of 21,257 fans.
== National team career ==
Jordan made his debut as a college player for the U.S. national basketball team at the 1983 Pan American Games in Caracas, Venezuela. He led the team in scoring with 17.3 ppg as the U.S., coached by Jack Hartman, won the gold medal. The following year, Jordan won another gold medal in the 1984 Summer Olympics. The 1984 U.S. team was coached by Bob Knight and featured young players such as Patrick Ewing, Sam Perkins, Chris Mullin, Steve Alford, and Wayman Tisdale. Jordan led the team in scoring, averaging 17.1 ppg for the tournament.
In 1992, Jordan, now an NBA player, was a member of the "Dream Team", which included Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. The team won gold in the 1992 Tournament of the Americas, and the 1992 Summer Olympics. Jordan was the only player to start all eight games in the Olympics. He averaged 14.9 ppg on 45% shooting from the field and 68% from the free-throw line, and was second on the team in scoring. He was undefeated in the four tournaments he played for the U.S. national team, and won all 30 games he took part in.
== Player profile ==
Jordan was a shooting guard who could also play as a small forward, the position he would primarily play during his second return to professional basketball with the Washington Wizards. Jordan was known as a strong clutch performer. With the Bulls, he decided 25 games with field goals or free throws in the last 30 seconds, including two NBA Finals games and five other playoff contests. His competitiveness was visible in his prolific trash talk and well-known work ethic. Jordan often used perceived slights to fuel his performances. Sportswriter Wright Thompson described him as "a killer, in the Darwinian sense of the word, immediately sensing and attacking someone's weakest spot". As the Bulls organization built the franchise around Jordan, management had to trade away players who were not "tough enough" to compete with him in practice. To improve his defense, Jordan spent hours studying film of opponents. On offense, he relied more on instinct and improvisation. Jordan's fierce competitiveness greatly impacted his teammates, sometimes motivating them but also leading to tension and alienation.
Noted as a durable player, Jordan did not miss four or more games while active for a full season from 1986–87 to 2001–02, when he injured his right knee. Of the 15 seasons Jordan was in the NBA, he played all 82 regular season games nine times. Jordan has frequently cited David Thompson, Walter Davis, and Jerry West as influences. Confirmed at the start of his career, and possibly later on, Jordan had a special "Love of the Game Clause" written into his contract, which was unusual at the time, and allowed him to play basketball against anyone at any time, anywhere.
Jordan had a versatile offensive game and was capable of aggressively driving to the basket as well as drawing fouls from his opponents at a high rate. His 8,772 free throw attempts are the 11th-highest total in NBA history. Early in Jordan's career, he weighed around 200 pounds (91 kg) and was more athletic in terms of play style. As his career progressed, Jordan developed the ability to post up his opponents and score with his trademark fadeaway jump shot, using his leaping ability to avoid block attempts. According to Hubie Brown, this move alone made Jordan nearly unstoppable. Around this time, he bulked up to 215 pounds (98 kg) to adapt to the increased physicality of NBA defenses during the 1990s, sacrificing some athleticism for added strength in the post. Despite media criticism by some as a selfish player early in his career, Jordan was willing to defer to his teammates, with a career average of 5.3 apg and a season-high of 8.0 apg. For a guard, Jordan was also a good rebounder, finishing with 6.2 rpg. Defensively, he averaged 2.3 spg and 0.8 bpg.
The three-point field goal was not Jordan's strength, especially in his early years. Later on in his career, Jordan improved his three-point shooting, and finished his career with a three-point field goal percentage of 32%. His best years shooting from three were the 1989–90 and 1992–93 seasons, where he shot 37% and 35% from three, respectively (Jordan did shoot higher percentages from 1994 to 1997, but in those years, the three-point line was temporarily moved inwards).
Overall, Jordan's effective field goal percentage was 51%, and he had six seasons with at least 50% shooting, five of which were consecutive (1988–1992). Jordan also shot 51% and 50% from the field, and 30% and 33% from three-point range, throughout his first and second retirements, respectively, finishing his Bulls career with 31.5 points per game on 50.5 FG% shooting and his overall career with 49.7 FG% shooting.
In 1988, Jordan was honored with the NBA Defensive Player of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards. No NBA player had previously won both awards in their career. He also set both seasonal and career records for blocked shots by a guard, and combined this with his ball-thieving ability to become a standout defensive player. Despite his defensive prowess, the 1988 season has come under scrutiny due to the large discrepancy between Jordan's steals' numbers at home versus on the road. Such stat inflation was common, and a 2024 study by Tom Haberstroh found that there were games where Jordan was often credited with steals that could not have happened. For example, in one game, he was credited with more steals than the opposing team had live-ball turnovers. Jordan ranks fourth in NBA history in total steals with 2,514, trailing John Stockton, Jason Kidd and Chris Paul. Jerry West often stated that he was more impressed with Jordan's defensive contributions than his offensive ones. Doc Rivers declared Jordan "the best superstar defender in the history of the game".
Jordan was known to have strong eyesight. Broadcaster Al Michaels said that Jordan was able to read baseball box scores on a 27-inch (69 cm) television clearly from about 50 feet (15 m) away. During the 2001 NBA Finals, Phil Jackson compared Jordan's dominance to Shaquille O'Neal, stating: "Michael would get fouled on every play and still have to play through it and just clear himself for shots instead and would rise to that occasion."
== Legacy ==
Jordan's talent was clear from his first NBA season; by November 1984, he was being compared to Julius Erving. Larry Bird said that rookie Jordan was the best player he ever saw, and that Jordan was "one of a kind", and comparable to Wayne Gretzky as an athlete. In his first game in Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks, Jordan received a near minute-long standing ovation. After Jordan established the single game playoff record of 63 points against the Boston Celtics on April 20, 1986, Bird described him as "God disguised as Michael Jordan".
Jordan led the NBA in scoring in 10 seasons (NBA record) and tied Wilt Chamberlain's record of seven consecutive scoring titles. Jordan was a fixture of the NBA All-Defensive First Team, making the roster nine times (NBA record shared with Gary Payton, Kevin Garnett, and Kobe Bryant). He also holds the top career regular season and playoff scoring averages of 30.1 and 33.4 ppg, respectively. By 1998, the season of his Finals-winning shot against the Jazz, he was well known throughout the league as a clutch performer. In the regular season, Jordan was the Bulls' primary threat in the final seconds of a close game and in the playoffs; he would always ask for the ball at crunch time. Jordan's total of 5,987 points in the playoffs is the second-highest among NBA career playoff scoring leaders. He scored 32,292 points in the regular season, placing him fifth on the NBA all-time scoring list behind LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, and Bryant.
With five regular season MVPs (tied for second place with Bill Russell—only Abdul-Jabbar has won more, with six), six Finals MVPs (NBA record), and three NBA All-Star Game MVPs, Jordan is among the most decorated players in NBA history. He finished among the top three in regular season MVP voting 10 times. Jordan was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996, and selected to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team in 2021. He is one of only eight players in history to achieve the basketball Triple Crown—winning an NCAA championship, an NBA championship, and an Olympic gold medal (doing so twice with the 1984 and 1992 U.S. men's basketball teams). Since 1976, the year of the ABA–NBA merger, Jordan and Pippen are the only two players to win six NBA Finals playing for one team. In the All-Star Game fan ballot, Jordan received the most votes nine times.
Harry Edwards, considered the father of the field of sociology of sport, referred to Jordan as representing the highest level of human achievement comparable to Gandhi, Einstein, or Michelangelo. Many of Jordan's contemporaries have said that he is the greatest basketball player of all time. In 1999, an ESPN survey of journalists, athletes and other sports figures ranked Jordan the greatest North American athlete of the 20th century. Jordan placed second to Babe Ruth in the Associated Press' December 1999 list of 20th century athletes. The Associated Press also voted Jordan the greatest basketball player of the 20th century. He has also appeared on the front cover of Sports Illustrated a record 50 times. In the September 1996 issue of Sport, which was the publication's 50th-anniversary issue, Jordan was named the greatest athlete of the past 50 years.
Jordan's athletic leaping ability, highlighted in his back-to-back Slam Dunk Contest championships in 1987 and 1988, is credited by many people with having influenced a generation of young players. Several NBA players, including James and Dwyane Wade, have stated that they considered Jordan as their role model while they were growing up. Commentators have also dubbed a number of players "the next Michael Jordan" upon their entry to the NBA, including Penny Hardaway, Grant Hill, Allen Iverson, Bryant, Vince Carter, James, and Wade. Jordan's jersey number, 23, also became iconic; numerous subsequent NBA players have worn it to pay tribute to him, including James, Metta Sandiford-Artest, and Anthony Davis.
Although Jordan was a well-rounded player, his "Air Jordan" image is also often credited with inadvertently decreasing the jump shooting skills, defense, and fundamentals of young players, a fact Jordan himself has lamented, saying: "I think it was the exposure of Michael Jordan; the marketing of Michael Jordan. Everything was marketed towards the things that people wanted to see, which was scoring and dunking. That Michael Jordan still played defense and an all-around game, but it was never really publicized." During his heyday, Jordan did much to increase the status of the game; television ratings increased only during his time in the league. The popularity of the NBA in the U.S. declined after his last title. As late as 2022, NBA Finals television ratings had not returned to the level reached during his last championship-winning season.
In August 2009, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame opened a Michael Jordan exhibit. When Jordan was accepted into the Hall of Fame, he selected Class of 1996 member David Thompson to present him. As Jordan would explain during his induction speech in September 2009, he was not a fan of the Tar Heels when growing up in North Carolina but greatly admired Thompson, who played for the rival NC State Wolfpack. Several former Bulls teammates were in attendance at the induction, including Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Charles Oakley, Ron Harper, Steve Kerr, and Toni Kukoč, as were former coaches Dean Smith and Doug Collins. His emotional reaction during his speech when Jordan began to cry was captured by Associated Press photographer Stephan Savoia and would later go viral on social media as the "Crying Jordan" meme. In 2016, President Barack Obama honored Jordan with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In October 2021, he was named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team. In September 2022, Jordan's jersey in which he played the opening game of the 1998 NBA Finals was sold for $10.1 million, making it the most expensive game-worn sports memorabilia in history. In December 2022, the NBA unveiled a new regular season MVP trophy, named in Jordan's honor, to be awarded beginning with the 2022–23 season, which replaced the original trophy, named in honor of former NBA commissioner Maurice Podoloff.
== NBA career statistics ==
=== Regular season ===
=== Playoffs ===
== Awards and honors ==
NBA
Six-time NBA champion – 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998
Six-time NBA Finals MVP – 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998
Five-time NBA MVP – 1988, 1991, 1992, 1996, 1998
NBA Defensive Player of the Year – 1987–88
NBA Rookie of the Year – 1984–85
10-time NBA scoring leader – 1987–1993, 1996–1998
Three-time NBA steals leader – 1988, 1990, 1993
NBA free throw scoring leaders: (1987)
Two-time NBA minutes played leaders: (1988, 1989)
14-time NBA All-Star – 1985–1993, 1996–1998, 2002, 2003
Three-time NBA All-Star Game MVP – 1988, 1996, 1998
10-time All-NBA First Team – 1987–1993, 1996–1998
One-time All-NBA Second Team – 1985
Nine-time NBA All-Defensive First Team – 1988–1993, 1996–1998
NBA All-Rookie First Team – 1985
Two-time NBA Slam Dunk Contest champion – 1987, 1988
Two-time IBM Award winner – 1985, 1989
Named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996
Selected on the NBA 75th Anniversary Team in 2021
No. 23 retired by the Chicago Bulls
No. 23 retired by the Miami Heat
Chicago Bulls Ring of Honor
NBA MVP trophy renamed in Jordan's honor ("Michael Jordan Trophy") in 2022
McDonald's Championship – 1997
McDonald's Championship MVP – 1997
USA Basketball
Two-time Olympic gold medal winner – 1984, 1992
Tournament of the Americas gold medal winner – 1992
Pan American Games gold medal winner – 1983
Pan American Games Most Outstanding Player – 1983
Three-time USA Basketball Male Athlete of the Year – 1983, 1984, 1992
NCAA
NCAA national championship – 1981–82
ACC Rookie of the Year – 1981–82
Two-time Consensus NCAA All-American First Team – 1982–83, 1983–84
ACC Men's Basketball Player of the Year – 1983–84
ACC Athlete of the Year – 1984
Two-time Sporting News National Player of the Year (1983, 1984)
AP College Player of the Year – 1983–84
USBWA College Player of the Year – 1983–84
Naismith College Player of the Year – 1983–84
Adolph Rupp Trophy – 1983–84
John R. Wooden Award – 1983–84
UPI College Player of the Year – 1983–84
NABC Player of the Year – 1983–84
No. 23 retired by the North Carolina Tar Heels
High school
McDonald's All-American – 1981
Parade All-American First Team – 1981
Halls of Fame
Two-time Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee:
Class of 2009 – individual
Class of 2010 – as a member of the "Dream Team"
United States Olympic Hall of Fame – Class of 2009 (as a member of the "Dream Team")
North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame – Class of 2010
Two-time FIBA Hall of Fame inductee:
Class of 2015 – individual
Class of 2017 – as a member of the "Dream Team"
Media
Three-time Associated Press Athlete of the Year – 1991, 1992, 1993
Sports Illustrated Sportsperson of the Year – 1991
Sporting News Athlete of the Year – 1991
Seven-time Sporting News NBA MVP – 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1996, 1997, 1998
Ranked No. 1 by Slam magazine's "Top 50 Players of All-Time"
Ranked No. 1 by ESPN SportsCentury's "Top North American Athletes of the 20th Century"
10-time ESPY Award winner (in various categories)
1997 Marca Leyenda winner
National
2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom
State/local
Statue inside the United Center
Section of Madison Street in Chicago renamed Michael Jordan Drive – 1994
== Post-retirement ==
After his third retirement, Jordan assumed that he would be able to return to his position as Director of Basketball Operations with the Wizards. Jordan's previous tenure had produced mixed results and may have also influenced the trade of Richard "Rip" Hamilton for Jerry Stackhouse, although Jordan was not technically Director of Basketball Operations in 2002. On May 7, 2003, Wizards owner Abe Pollin fired Jordan from the role. Jordan later stated that he felt betrayed, and that if he had known he would be fired upon retiring, he never would have come back to play for the Wizards.
Over the next few years, Jordan played golf in celebrity charity tournaments and spent time with his family in Chicago. He also promoted his Jordan Brand clothing line and rode motorcycles. Since 2004, Jordan has owned Michael Jordan Motorsports, a professional closed-course motorcycle road racing team that competed with two Suzukis in the premier Superbike championship sanctioned by the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) until the end of the 2013 season.
=== Charlotte Bobcats / Hornets ===
On June 15, 2006, Jordan bought a minority stake in the Charlotte Bobcats (known as the Hornets since 2013), becoming the team's second-largest shareholder behind majority owner Robert L. Johnson. As part of the deal, Jordan took full control over the basketball side of the operation, with the title Managing Member of Basketball Operations. Despite his previous success as an endorser, Jordan made an effort not to be included in Charlotte's marketing campaigns. A decade earlier, he had made a bid to become part-owner of Charlotte's original NBA team, the Charlotte Hornets (now the New Orleans Pelicans), but talks collapsed when owner George Shinn refused to give Jordan complete control of basketball operations.
In February 2010, it was reported that Jordan was seeking majority ownership of the Bobcats. Jordan and former Houston Rockets president George Postolos were the leading contenders for ownership of the team. On February 27, the Bobcats announced that Johnson had reached an agreement with Jordan and his group, MJ Basketball Holdings, to buy the team from Johnson pending NBA approval. On March 17, the NBA Board of Governors unanimously approved Jordan's purchase, making him the first former player to become the majority owner of an NBA team, and the league's only African-American majority owner.
During the 2011 NBA lockout, The New York Times wrote that Jordan led a group of 10 to 14 hardline owners who wanted to cap the players' share of basketball-related income at 50 percent and as low as 47. Journalists observed that, during the labor dispute in 1998, Jordan told Washington Wizards then-owner Abe Pollin: "If you can't make a profit, you should sell your team." Jason Whitlock of FoxSports.com called Jordan "a hypocrite sellout who can easily betray the very people who made him a billionaire global icon" for wanting "current players to pay for his incompetence". He cited Jordan's executive decisions to draft disappointing players Kwame Brown and Adam Morrison.
During the 2011–12 NBA season that was shortened to 66 games by the lockout, the Bobcats posted a 7–59 record. The team closed out the season with a 23-game losing streak; their .106 winning percentage was the worst in NBA history. Before the next season, Jordan said: "I'm not real happy about the record book scenario last year. It's very, very frustrating."
During the 2019 NBA offseason, Jordan sold a minority piece of the Hornets to Gabe Plotkin and Daniel Sundheim, retaining the majority for himself, as well as the role of chairman. In 2023, Jordan finalized the sale of his majority stake to Plotkin and Rick Schnall, ending his 13-year tenure as majority owner, although he kept a minority stake. The sale was officially completed in August 2023 for approximately $3 billion, more than 10 times the $275 million Jordan had paid for the team.
=== 23XI Racing ===
On September 21, 2020, Jordan and NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin announced they would be fielding a NASCAR Cup Series team with Bubba Wallace driving, beginning competition in the 2021 season. On October 22, the team's name was confirmed to be 23XI Racing (pronounced twenty-three eleven) and the team's entry would bear No. 23. After the team's inaugural season, it added a second car with No. 45, driven by Kurt Busch in 2022 and Tyler Reddick in 2023. Ty Gibbs, John Hunter Nemechek, and Daniel Hemric also drove for 23XI as substitutes during the 2022 season. The team fielded a third car, No. 67, driven by Travis Pastrana in the 2023 Daytona 500. Reddick won the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series regular season championship, the first for the team. 23XI Racing acquired a third charter from the defunct Stewart–Haas Racing, the No. 35 driven by Riley Herbst beginning in 2025. Jordan, Hamlin, and his team, along with Front Row Motorsports sued NASCAR in October 2024, over the new charter agreements; the case was later settled on December 11, 2025, after 8 days in court.
== Personal life ==
=== Relationships ===
Jordan married Juanita Vanoy at A Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas on September 2, 1989. They had three children: Jeffrey, Marcus, and Jasmine. The Jordans filed for divorce on January 4, 2002, citing irreconcilable differences, but reconciled shortly thereafter. They again filed for divorce and were granted a dissolution of marriage on December 29, 2006, commenting that the decision was made "mutually and amicably". It is reported that Juanita received a $168 million settlement (equivalent to $268 million in 2025), the largest celebrity divorce settlement on public record at the time.
In 1991, Jordan purchased a lot in Highland Park, Illinois, where he planned to build a 56,000-square-foot (5,200 m2) mansion. It was completed in 1995. Jordan listed the mansion for sale in 2012. He also owns homes in North Carolina and Jupiter Island, Florida.
On July 21, 2006, a judge in Cook County, Illinois, determined that Jordan did not owe his alleged former lover Karla Knafel $5 million in a breach of contract claim. Jordan had allegedly paid Knafel $250,000 to keep their relationship a secret. Knafel claimed Jordan promised her $5 million for remaining silent and agreeing not to file a paternity suit after Knafel learned she was pregnant in 1991; a DNA test showed that Jordan was not the father of the child.
Jordan proposed to his longtime girlfriend, Cuban-American model Yvette Prieto, on Christmas 2011, and they were married on April 27, 2013, at Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church. It was announced on November 30, 2013, that the two were expecting their first child together. On February 11, 2014, Prieto gave birth to identical twin daughters named Victoria and Ysabel. In 2019, Jordan became a grandfather when his daughter Jasmine gave birth to a son, whose father is professional basketball player Rakeem Christmas.
=== Gambling ===
During the 1993 NBA playoffs, Jordan was seen gambling in Atlantic City. The previous year, he admitted that he had to cover $57,000 in gambling losses, and author Richard Esquinas wrote a book in 1993 claiming he had won $1.25 million from Jordan on the golf course.
In 2005, Jordan discussed his gambling with Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes and admitted that he made reckless decisions: Yeah, I've gotten myself into situations where I would not walk away and I've pushed the envelope. Is that compulsive? Yeah, it depends on how you look at it. If you're willing to jeopardize your livelihood and your family, then yeah. When Bradley asked him if his gambling ever got to the level where it jeopardized his livelihood or family, Jordan replied: "No." David Stern, the commissioner of the NBA, denied in 1995 and 2006 that Jordan's 1993 retirement was a secret suspension by the league for gambling, but the rumor spread widely. In 2010, Ron Shelton, director of Jordan Rides the Bus, said that he began working on the documentary believing that the NBA had suspended him, but that research "convinced [him it] was nonsense".
=== Politics ===
In 1990, Jordan notably refused to give to efforts to persuade him to endorse African American Democrat candidate Harvey Gantt over controversial U.S. Senator Jesse Helms in the 1990 North Carolina U.S. Senate election, reportedly claiming "Republicans buy sneakers, too." While speaking with ESPN's "The Last Dance" in 2020, Jordan confirmed that he had made the statement while traveling with Bulls teammates on a bus, but also claimed that the comment was made in jest and that he wasn't political or trying to make himself out to be a role model.
== Media figure and business interests ==
=== Endorsements ===
Jordan is one of the most marketed sports figures in history. He has been a major spokesman for such brands as Nike, Coca-Cola, Chevrolet, Gatorade, McDonald's, Ball Park Franks, Rayovac, Wheaties, Hanes, and MCI. Early in his career, Jordan appeared in an anti-drug advertisement sponsored by McDonald's. Jordan has appeared in over 20 commercials for Gatorade since 1991, including the "Be Like Mike" commercials in which a song was sung by children wishing to be like Jordan.
Nike created a signature shoe for Jordan, called the Air Jordan, in 1984. One of his more popular commercials for the shoe involved Spike Lee playing the part of Mars Blackmon: Lee, as Blackmon, attempted to find the source of Jordan's abilities and became convinced that "it's gotta be the shoes". The hype and demand for the shoes brought on a spate of "shoe-jackings", in which people were robbed of their sneakers at gunpoint. Subsequently, Nike spun off the Jordan line into its own division named the "Jordan Brand", with athletes and celebrities as endorsers. The brand has also sponsored college sports programs such as those of North Carolina, UCLA, California, Oklahoma, Florida, Georgetown, and Marquette.
Jordan also has been associated with the Looney Tunes cartoons. A Nike commercial shown during 1992's Super Bowl XXVI featured Jordan and Bugs Bunny playing basketball. This commercial inspired the 1996 live action/animated film Space Jam, which starred Jordan and Bugs in a story set during the former's first retirement from basketball. They have subsequently appeared together in several commercials for MCI. Jordan also made an appearance in the music video for Michael Jackson's "Jam" (1992).
Since 2008, Jordan's yearly income from endorsements is estimated at over $40 million. When his power at the ticket gates was at its highest point, the Bulls regularly sold out both their home and road games. Due to this, Jordan set records in player salary by signing annual contracts worth in excess of US$30 million per season. An academic study found that his first NBA comeback resulted in an increase in the market capitalization of his client firms of more than $1 billion.
Most of Jordan's endorsement deals, including his first deal with Nike, were engineered by his agent, David Falk. Jordan has described Falk as "the best at what he does" and that "marketing-wise, he's great. He's the one who came up with the concept of 'Air Jordan'."
=== Business ventures ===
In June 2010, Jordan was ranked by Forbes as the 20th-most-powerful celebrity in the world, with $55 million earned between June 2009 and June 2010. According to Forbes, Jordan Brand generates $1 billion in sales for Nike. In June 2014, Jordan was named the first NBA player to become a billionaire, after he increased his stake in the Charlotte Hornets from 80% to 89.5%. Jordan was honored with the Charlotte Business Journal's Business Person of the Year for 2014. In 2017, he became a part owner of the Miami Marlins of Major League Baseball.
Forbes designated Jordan as the athlete with the highest career earnings in 2017. From his Jordan Brand income and endorsements, Jordan's 2015 income was an estimated $110 million, the most of any retired athlete. As of 2025, his net worth is estimated at $3.8 billion by Forbes, making him the fourth-richest African-American, and one of the richest celebrities.
Jordan co-owns an automotive group which bears his name. The company has a Nissan dealership in Durham, North Carolina, acquired in 1990, and formerly had a Lincoln–Mercury dealership from 1995 until its closure in 2009. The company also owned a Nissan franchise in Glen Burnie, Maryland. The restaurant industry is another business interest of Jordan's. Restaurants he has owned include a steakhouse in New York City's Grand Central Terminal; that restaurant closed in 2018. Jordan is the majority investor in a golf course, Grove XXIII in Hobe Sound, Florida.
In September 2020, Jordan became an investor and advisor for DraftKings.
=== Philanthropy ===
From 2001 to 2014, Jordan hosted an annual golf tournament, the Michael Jordan Celebrity Invitational, that raised money for various charities. In 2006, Jordan and his wife Juanita pledged $5 million to Chicago's Hales Franciscan High School. The Jordan Brand has made donations to Habitat for Humanity and a Louisiana branch of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
The Make-A-Wish Foundation named Jordan its Chief Wish Ambassador in 2008. In 2013, he granted his 200th wish for the organization. As of 2019, Jordan has raised more than $5 million for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. In 2023, he donated $10 million to the organization for his 60th birthday.
In 2015, Jordan donated a settlement of undisclosed size from a lawsuit against supermarkets that had used his name without permission to 23 different Chicago charities. In 2017, Jordan gave $7 million to fund two Novant Health Michael Jordan Family Clinics in Charlotte, North Carolina, his biggest donation to that point. The following year, after Hurricane Florence damaged parts of North Carolina, Jordan donated $2 million to relief efforts. He gave $1 million to aid the Bahamas' recovery following Hurricane Dorian in 2019.
Amidst the public uproar about the police shootings of two African-American men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and two deadly attacks against police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, Jordan made $1 million donations to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Institute for Community-Police Relations. Jordan says the goal is to "build trust and respect between communities and law enforcement." He also said: I can no longer stay silent. We need to find solutions that ensure people of color receive fair and equal treatment AND that police officers – who put their lives on the line every day to protect us all – are respected and supported.
On June 5, 2020, in the wake of the protests following the murder of George Floyd, Jordan and his brand announced in a joint statement that they would be donating $100 million over the next 10 years to organizations dedicated to "ensuring racial equality, social justice and greater access to education". In February 2021, Jordan funded two Novant Health Michael Jordan Family Clinics in New Hanover County, North Carolina, by giving $10 million. In 2024, he funded the opening of another Novant Health Clinic, this time in Wilmington.
=== Film and television ===
Jordan played himself in the 1996 comedy film Space Jam. The film received mixed reviews, but it was a box office success, making $230 million worldwide, and earned more than $1 billion through merchandise sales.
In 2000, Jordan was the subject of an IMAX documentary about his career with the Chicago Bulls, especially the 1998 NBA playoffs, titled Michael Jordan to the Max. Two decades later, the same period of Jordan's life was covered in much greater and more personal detail by the Emmy Award-winning The Last Dance, a 10-part TV documentary which debuted on ESPN in 2020. The Last Dance relied heavily on about 500 hours of candid film of Jordan's and his teammates' off-court activities which an NBA Entertainment crew had shot during the 1997–98 NBA season for use in a documentary. The project was delayed for many years because Jordan had not yet given his permission for the footage to be used. Jordan was interviewed at three homes associated with the production and did not want cameras in his home or on his plane, as according to director Jason Hehir "there are certain aspects of his life that he wants to keep private". Jordan appeared in the 2022 miniseries The Captain, which follows the life and career of Derek Jeter.
In May 2025, Jordan was announced as a special contributor for the revived NBA on NBC; his role was later revealed to be MJ: Insights to Excellence, a segment featuring excerpts from an interview he conducted with NBC's lead host Mike Tirico.
=== Books ===
Jordan has authored several books:
Rare Air: Michael on Michael, with Mark Vancil and Walter Iooss (Harper San Francisco, 1993).
I Can't Accept Not Trying: Michael Jordan on the Pursuit of Excellence, with Mark Vancil and Sandro Miller (Harper San Francisco, 1994).
For the Love of the Game: My Story, with Mark Vancil (Crown Publishers, 1998).
Driven from Within, with Mark Vancil (Atria Books, 2005). |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Diamond_and_Pearl | Pokémon Diamond and Pearl | Pokémon Diamond Version and Pokémon Pearl Version are role-playing video games developed by Game Freak and published by The Pokémon Company and Nintendo for the Nintendo DS in 2006. They are the first installments in the fourth generation of the Pokémon video game series. They were first released in Japan on September 28, 2006, and released in North America, Australia, and Europe in 2007. Pokémon Platinum, a third version, was released two years later in each region. Remakes titled Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl were released for the Nintendo Switch worldwide on November 19, 2021. A prequel, Pokémon Legends: Arceus, was released for the Nintendo Switch on January 28, 2022.
Like previous Pokémon games, Diamond and Pearl chronicle the adventures of a young Pokémon Trainer as they train and battle Pokémon while also thwarting the schemes of a criminal organization called Team Galactic. The games added many new features, such as Internet play over the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, changes to battle mechanics and Pokémon Contests, along with the addition of 107 new Pokémon. The games are independent of each other but feature largely the same plot, and while both can be played separately, it is necessary to trade between them in order to complete the games' Pokédex.
Development of Diamond and Pearl was announced at a Nintendo press conference in the fourth calendar quarter of 2004. The games were designed with features of the Nintendo DS in mind. It was forecasted to be released in Japan in 2005, but ultimately shipped in 2006, the 10th anniversary year of the franchise. In promotion of the games, Nintendo sold a limited-edition Nintendo DS Lite in Japan, and held a release party celebrating their North American release.
The games received generally favorable reviews. Most critics praised the addition of Wi-Fi features and graphics, and felt that the gameplay, though it had not received much updating from previous games, was still engaging. The games enjoyed more commercial success than their Game Boy Advance predecessors: with around 18 million units sold worldwide, Diamond and Pearl have sold over 2 million more units than their predecessors Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire and almost 6 million more units than Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, while also outselling their successors, Pokémon Black and White, by over 2 million copies. The games are among the most successful Pokémon games of all time.
== Gameplay ==
Pokémon Diamond and Pearl are role-playing video games with adventure elements. The basic mechanics of the games are largely the same as their predecessors. As with all Pokémon games for handheld consoles, the gameplay is in a third-person overhead perspective, and consists of three basic screens: a field map, in which the player navigates the main character; a battle screen; and the menu, in which the player configures their party, items, or gameplay settings. Players begin the game with no Pokémon or Poké Balls but are given the choice of three Pokémon as a part of the storyline. Once Poké Balls are obtained, the player can capture more Pokémon. Players can use their Pokémon to deal damage to other Pokémon in battle. Whenever the player encounters a wild Pokémon or is challenged by a trainer to a battle, the screen switches to a turn-based battle screen where the Pokémon fight. During the battle, the player may use a move, use an item, switch the active Pokémon, or flee. Fleeing is not an option during battles against trainers. All Pokémon have hit points (HP); whenever a Pokémon's HP is reduced to zero, it faints and cannot battle unless revived at a Pokémon Center or with an item. If the player's Pokémon defeats the opposing Pokémon by causing it to faint, it receives experience points. After accumulating enough experience points, it will level up; most Pokémon evolve into a new species of Pokémon whenever they reach a certain level. Pokémon's stats also increase every time it levels up, and they will also learn new moves at certain levels as well. If a Pokémon is prevented from evolving it will learn new moves faster.
Apart from battling, capturing Pokémon returns as a critical component of Pokémon gameplay. Although other trainers' Pokémon cannot be captured, the player can use different kinds of Poké Balls on a wild Pokémon during battle. A successful capture adds the Pokémon to the player's active party or stores it if the player already has a maximum of six Pokémon in their party. Factors in the success rate of capture include the HP of the target Pokémon and the strength of the Poké Ball used; the lower the target's HP and the stronger the Poké Ball, the higher the success rate of capture is. Also, inflicting certain status effects such as sleep or paralysis adds a multiplier to the capture rate, making it easier to capture wild Pokémon. Each species has a capture rate of its own as well.
=== New features ===
As with other generations of Pokémon games, Diamond and Pearl retain the basic gameplay of their predecessors while introducing additional new features. The day-night cycle makes a return and has increased from three times of day in Gold and Silver to five time periods in Diamond and Pearl: morning, day, afternoon, evening, and night. Diamond and Pearl also introduce several changes to battle mechanics. In previous generations, Pokémon moves were classified as "physical" or "special" based on their type; for example, all Fire-type moves were special and all Ground-type moves were physical. In Diamond and Pearl, however, moves are categorized into three groups. Attacks that make physical contact with the opponent are "physical", attacks that do not make physical contact are "special", and moves that do not deal damage are classified as "status".
Some of the games' new features capitalize on the Nintendo DS's features. The Pokétch, a simulated smartwatch, resides on the DS's bottom screen and hosts various applications including a clock, calculator, map, counter, and a drawing pad. These applications are obtained throughout the game. Beneath Sinnoh's surface is the Underground, a large area used for wireless multiplayer gaming; in it, players can create and decorate secret bases, first featured in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, and participate in minigames. The items mined in the Underground can then be transferred into the player's bag in the main game. Diamond and Pearl also employ support for the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection (since discontinued), allowing players to communicate through voice chat, trade, and battle online. The main system for trade is the Global Trade Station, which allows players to trade with people around the world. Players can search for any Pokémon that they have seen in the game and can offer their own; if another player is offering the requested Pokémon and is looking for the offered Pokémon, the trade occurs immediately. A trade does not have to be instant; an offer can be left for other players to browse and complete, even while the player is offline. Certain species of Pokémon traded internationally will have a Pokédex entry in the language of the game it originated from. According to Pokémon art director Ken Sugimori, the Global Trade Station was the new feature he was most pleased with.
Pokémon Contests are events in which the player's Pokémon compete in a show to win ribbons and, in Diamond and Pearl, they consist of three stages, two more than the Contests of the Game Boy Advance games. In the Visual Competition stage, players use the Nintendo DS's touchscreen to place accessories on their Pokémon to boost a particular trait, such as "Cool" or "Cute", and earn points. In the Dance Competition stage, the player must tap buttons on the touchscreen in rhythm with the music. The final stage, Acting Competition, is similar to Pokémon Contests of the Game Boy Advance games; Pokémon use their moves to appeal to the judges and crowd. Like Pokéblocks in the third-generation games, baked goods called Poffins can be made from berries and fed to Pokémon to boost a particular trait, and therefore, the likelihood of success in a relevant Contest.
=== Connectivity to other devices ===
In addition to compatibility with each other, Diamond and Pearl offer compatibility with the third generation Pokémon games, Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, Emerald, and FireRed and LeafGreen. They are also compatible with Pokémon Ranger and Pokémon Battle Revolution. After earning the National Pokédex in Diamond and Pearl, the player can "Migrate" Pokémon from the Game Boy Advance games to Diamond and Pearl by inserting a Game Boy Advance cartridge into the Game Boy Advance cartridge slot of the Nintendo DS while Diamond or Pearl is in the DS slot. After six Pokémon are uploaded from the cartridge, they are sent to the Pal Park, an area where the player can capture the transferred Pokémon. Pokémon uploads are restricted to six every twenty-four hours per Game Boy Advance cartridge, and the player must capture the uploaded Pokémon before performing another transfer. Pokémon transferred to Diamond and Pearl this way cannot be sent back to a Game Boy Advance cartridge. After completing a special mission in Pokémon Ranger, the player will be able to send a Manaphy egg or Riolu from Ranger to Diamond or Pearl. Finally, players can wirelessly upload Pokémon from Diamond and Pearl to the Wii games Pokémon Battle Revolution and My Pokémon Ranch.
== Story ==
=== Setting ===
Diamond and Pearl are set in the fictional region of Sinnoh, an island based on the Japanese island of Hokkaido. Sinnoh is not directly connected to any other Pokémon region. It is characterized by large, snow-covered mountains; Mt. Coronet, a part of a mountain range, divides Sinnoh in half. Unlike previous regions, Sinnoh has a "northern" feel to it because it is the first region with snow-covered routes. Sinnoh is also characterized by its waterways with three main lakes, Verity, Acuity, and Valor, that form a triangle. Unlike the Hoenn Region, however, which is mostly water routes, only 30 percent of Sinnoh's landscape comprises waterways. Underneath Sinnoh's surface is the Sinnoh Underground, which is a large maze of caves and tunnels.
=== Plot ===
The games chronicle the adventures of a new Pokémon Trainer who strives to become the Pokémon League Champion by collecting and training Pokémon. Like most games in the series, Diamond and Pearl feature eight Pokémon Gyms led by Gym Leaders, professional Trainers whose expertise lies in a particular Pokémon type. Gym Leaders serve as bosses and reward skilled Trainers with Gym Badges, the key to the advancement of the plot. As with all core games, the protagonist must also thwart the schemes of a crime syndicate, in this case, Team Galactic, who plan to use Pokémon to create a new universe just for themselves, while destroying the current one.
As with all other mainline Pokémon games, Diamond and Pearl begin in the protagonist's hometown. After viewing a television report about a media-conducted search for a red Gyarados, which was spotted at a faraway lake, the protagonist and their best friend, Barry by default, travel together to check the local lake for a Pokémon like it. They spot Professor Rowan, a Pokémon Evolution Researcher, and his assistant, the playable character not selected in the game: Lucas (boy) or Dawn (girl). After a short discussion, the professor and his assistant leave the lake, leaving a briefcase behind. When they are attacked by a wild Starly each, the protagonist and their rival decide to examine the briefcase. They are then given a choice of one of three Pokémon found within—the Grass-type Turtwig, the Fire-type Chimchar, or the Water-type Piplup—and proceed to battle the attacking Pokémon. After defeating the Starly, Lucas or Dawn retrieves and returns the briefcase to the professor. Noticing that a bond has been forged between the young protagonist and his or her chosen Pokémon, Rowan offers it to them, asking that they embark on a journey and fill their Pokédex.
The protagonist encounters the antagonistic group, Team Galactic, early in the game, when he or she must save Professor Rowan from some of their thugs; however, their motives are unclear until later. The player encounters Team Galactic again when they take over a wind farm and when they set up a base in Eterna City, before eventually taking over Sinnoh's three lakes in an attempt to capture the Mirage Pokémon Uxie, Azelf, and Mesprit. Shortly after the player earns their seventh Gym Badge, Team Galactic captures the Mirage Pokémon and imprisons them inside the science laboratory of the Team Galactic Headquarters Building, where its members extract crystals from the Pokémon to create the Red Chain, an object that can control the Legendary Pokémon Palkia in Pearl, or Dialga in Diamond. After releasing the trio, the protagonist can access the Spear Pillar, an ancient ruin atop Mt. Coronet, where the leader of Team Galactic summons Dialga or Palkia. The Legendary Pokémon's powers begin to overwhelm Sinnoh, causing the newly free Uxie, Azelf, and Mesprit to attempt to stop it. The player then battles Palkia or Dialga, and after defeating or capturing the Pokémon, Sinnoh returns to normal. Afterward, the player continues their journey, eventually reaching the Sinnoh League. After defeating all Elite Four members, they battle the Sinnoh League Champion, a blonded woman named Cynthia, who had appeared before in the game. After the protagonist defeats Cynthia, they become the new Sinnoh League Champion, finishing the main story. In the post-game, a new island to explore contains Pokémon not seen in the main game and has some new stores and a tournament center. The protagonist's old friend, who challenged them to battles multiple times before, will also be waiting for them here and will challenge them to one more battle.
== Development ==
Pokémon Diamond and Pearl were developed by Game Freak and Junichi Masuda served as game director. The game's music was scored by Hitomi Sato and Junichi Masuda under the supervision of Go Ichinose, with a few other fanfares composed by Morikazu Aoki. According to The Pokémon Company's Tsunekazu Ishihara, the games were designed with the DS's unique features in mind, such as the Wi-Fi capabilities and slot for Game Boy Advance cartridges. The command buttons in the battle screen are large and color-coded; according to Masuda, this feature would facilitate gameplay for players unable to read. Also, the touchscreen interface was designed to encourage players to use their fingers rather than the stylus to manipulate the screen. Though most of the graphics in Diamond and Pearl are 2D, some of the background elements are 3D. The decision to retain 2D graphics in Diamond and Pearl drew criticism; in response, Tsunekazu Ishihara said that "we wanted to maintain the original idea of Pokémon being a game that you played on this big map" and explained that physically, the games were in three dimensions but was designed to "maintain the original feel of the game". Responding to criticism over the use of Friend Codes in the games, Ishihara explained that it was a security measure taken to ensure that players would not be able to chat with strangers over the Wi-Fi connection. Nintendo released a statement detailing glitches found in Japanese releases of Diamond and Pearl. The glitches caused players to be stuck in an in-game wall or lose saved data. Nintendo released patches to certain retailers in Japan to fix these glitches.
In mid 2020, dataminers leaked the source code for Diamond and Pearl, revealing a collection of unused sprites and scrapped designs for new Pokémon. They were first leaked onto ResetEra, and were part of a series of Nintendo-related leaks of unfinished builds of games in development.
== Release ==
Development of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl was announced at a Nintendo press conference in the fourth calendar quarter of 2004 alongside the reveal of Pokémon Dash and details on the Japanese launch of the Nintendo DS. Masuda stated it would "become a new type of game that offers a number of new forms of play" and that he was determined to create "the ultimate [Pokémon] version". Though Diamond and Pearl were expected to be released in Japan by 2005, Nintendo revealed that the developers were still working on aspects of the gameplay and that the games would not be released until 2006. The company said that Diamond and Pearl would be able to communicate with Pokémon games for the Game Boy Advance, allowing players to transfer their Pokémon to the new games. Nintendo also announced that the games would make full use of the Wi-Fi capabilities of the DS, allowing 16 players to communicate wirelessly at one time. Further information concerning the games was not released until mid-2006, when Nintendo President Satoru Iwata mentioned that connectivity with Pokémon Battle Revolution was also still in development; new features such as the Pokétch and time sensitivity were also mentioned.
The games were released in Japan on September 28, 2006. To commemorate the release, Nintendo sold a limited-edition DS Lite in Japanese Pokémon Center stores and through the Pokémon fan club by mail. The console featured the games' mascots Dialga and Palkia painted in silver and gold respectively on a metallic black finish. A two-disc soundtrack, Nintendo DS Pokémon Diamond & Pearl Super Music Collection, was also released in Japan on December 22, 2006. It peaked at #253 on Japan's Oricon charts and charted for one week. On December 20, 2006, Nintendo of America announced that the North American release of the games was slated for April 22, 2007, and that those who pre-ordered their copies of the games would receive special DS styluses branded with some of the new Pokémon. Shortly before the games' North American release, The Pokémon Company presented a limited demo of the games for Nintendo's booth at the Game Developer's Conference. To celebrate the games' North American release, Nintendo held a release party at the Nintendo World Store in New York City's Rockefeller Plaza. Nintendo of Europe announced a release date of July 27, 2007, for the European Union, and Nintendo Australia announced a June 21 release date. A launch event was held in GAME stores at Hamleys to celebrate the European release of the games. The event, held on July 26, 2007, offered a chance to purchase the games one day before their official release date and featured an appearance by band McFly. To celebrate the Australian release of the games, Nintendo launched the nationwide Nintendo DS Connection Tour 07; each stop in the tour featured events such as Pokémon Trading Card Game competitions and Pokémon trivia games.
The success of the games revived the popularity of the Pokémon brand. George Harrison, then Nintendo of America's vice president of marketing, noted that the games were attracting "players of all ages"—from younger children to "grown men and women" and older players who "played the original Pokémon games". As a result, Pokémon USA opened a temporary boutique in the Times Square Toys "R" Us that sold exclusively Pokémon licensed merchandise including Jakks Pacific-created action figures, plush toys, backpacks, and clothing. Ronald Boire, president of Toys "R" Us, stated that the store planned to open temporary boutiques in all 585 of its domestic locations. Other Pokémon merchandise included a BattleDome Playset and a talking Pokédex. Additionally, Pokémon USA partnered with Burger King in 2008 to launch a promotional campaign in which Burger King included exclusive Pokémon trading cards and accessories with Kids Meals. The promotion lasted from July 7 to August 3 in the United States and continued through the fall internationally.
=== Pokémon Platinum ===
Pokémon Platinum Version is the third version after Pokémon Diamond and Pearl developed by Game Freak and published by The Pokémon Company and Nintendo for the Nintendo DS handheld game console. It was released on September 13, 2008, in Japan, March 22, 2009, in North America, May 14, 2009, in Australia, and May 22, 2009, in Europe.
Pokémon Platinum has been met with generally positive reception, holding aggregate scores of 84 and 83.14% at Metacritic and GameRankings respectively. It was praised for the additions and changes made to Diamond and Pearl by publications such as IGN, Nintendo Power, and GamePro, though it has been criticized for being too similar to them. IGN included it as the ninth-best Nintendo DS game ever made, as well as nominating it as one of the best DS role-playing games of 2009. It was the fastest-selling game in Japan at the time, shifting 7.6 million copies overall.
== Reception ==
Pokémon Diamond and Pearl garnered slightly higher ratings than FireRed and LeafGreen and Ruby and Sapphire. The highest score given was a 92 by UK Official Nintendo Magazine, while the lowest was a 67 by Game Revolution. Official Nintendo Magazine would later go on to rank the game 20th in a list of the greatest Nintendo games. Ryan Davis of GameSpot gave the games an 8.5/10, "Great", and called the games "the most well-rounded Pokémon games to date." IGN and GameZone also gave the games an 8.5/10. The UK Official Nintendo Magazine gave the games 92%, and GameSpy gave them a 4.5/5. The games received slightly lower reviews from ComputerAndVideoGames.com than Ruby and Sapphire had, but earned an "A−" grade from 1UP.com, an improvement from Ruby and Sapphire's "B−".
Most reviewers felt that though the gameplay and storyline had not changed much since the first games, Diamond and Pearl were still engaging. Ryan Davis of GameSpot said, "[I]t's a little surprising how well the formula holds up in Diamond and Pearl, which is a testament to the strong fundamentals of the series as well as the quality of the execution." The games' Wi-Fi connectivity also earned largely positive reviews. 1UP.com called the addition of wireless connectivity the games' "biggest improvements". GameSpot and GameSpy both listed the addition of online play as one of the positive points of the games and called the system "robust" and "probably the most significant new feature." ComputerAndVideoGames.com said of the Global Trade Center, "Suddenly, Pokémon feels properly alive for the first time since playgrounds were abuzz with monsters in the late '90s – and you'll instantly forgive Game Freak their technical stubbornness the first time you switch on your DS and find the level 100 Munchlax you craved is on your cart."
The graphics generally received positive reviews. GameSpot praised the blend of 2D and 3D graphics, and GameZone said that the graphics were "better than what I had originally imagined" and that "a Pokemon title hasn't ever looked this good on a handheld." GameSpy felt that the graphics, though simple, made the game "a pleasure to explore". ComputerAndVideoGames.com, however, said that "the so-called '3D' isn't up to much: it's just a viewpoint shuffle, with DS's gutsy engine taking a nice long nap between the odd hypnotic windfarm or fog effect." The audio was not so well-received: IGN felt that the cries made by the Pokémon "still screech with the flair of the original Game Boy" and that the music, while "more advanced", was "not much beyond [Game Boy Advance] quality". GameZone also felt that the sounds had not been updated, saying "This [the audio] is the only area that hasn't taken one step forward. It remains stagnant and doesn't show any progression over the GBA titles". GameSpot cited the games' "recycled" sounds as one of the negative points.
=== Sales ===
First released in Japan in 2006, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl have the most successful launch week of games in the Pokémon series, and the best launch week for any Nintendo DS game for the country alone. Within forty-six days, the games sold three million units, becoming the fastest DS games to do so; by the end of the year, the number increased to five million units in just under three months, making Diamond and Pearl the best-selling Pokémon games in Japan. In the United States, pre-orders for Diamond and Pearl passed 533,000, almost twice the pre-sale numbers for FireRed and LeafGreen. Within five days of release, the games sold around one million copies and were the fastest-selling Pokémon games ever until the release of Pokémon Platinum. The games were the seventh-best-selling video games of 2007, with around 4.27 million units sold in the United States; in early 2009 sales passed 5.3 million units. As of September 30, 2017, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl combined have sold 17.67 million copies worldwide, making their sales totals around one million higher than those of Ruby and Sapphire and around six million higher than those of FireRed and LeafGreen. The games also boosted sales of hardware in the United States, spurring the sales of 471,000 DS units and causing the sales of video games in April 2007 to rise 20% from April 2006. In Europe, the games sold around 1.6 million units within just seven weeks of their release and topped the charts in Spain, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Additionally, there have been more than 10 million Pokémon trades via Wi-Fi.
=== Awards ===
At G4's G-phoria 2007, the games won "Best Handheld Game", and were nominated for "Best RPG". In 2008 Pokémon Diamond and Pearl were nominated for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Children's Kids Vote Award. In IGN's Best of 2007 Awards, Diamond and Pearl were named the best Nintendo DS online multiplayer games and the best Nintendo DS RPG games of the year. In the 2006 Famitsu Game Awards, Diamond and Pearl won the Best Hit award and tied with Final Fantasy XII for the Game of the Year award.
Competitive battling in Pokémon became much more popular with Diamond and Pearl. The physical special split allowed Pokémon such as Gengar and Gyarados to use their higher attacking stat and gave special/physical coverage moves to formerly all-physical/special types, and online play made Pokémon battling possible all over the world.
== Legacy ==
=== Remakes and prequel ===
Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are enhanced remakes of the games and were released for the Nintendo Switch on November 19, 2021. Pokémon Legends: Arceus is an action role-playing game which serves as a prequel to Diamond and Pearl and is set in an older version of the Sinnoh region known as the Hisui region. It was released for the Nintendo Switch on January 28, 2022. Both games were initially revealed in a Pokémon Presents presentation on February 26, 2021.
Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl were produced by ILCA, and acted as "faithful" remakes to Diamond and Pearl, with the addition of game mechanics introduced in later titles. The games were released to "mixed" or average reviews, with positivity being directed towards its faithful nature, and criticism towards the lack of Pokémon Platinum features and how the game handled newer features being meshed with older ones. Additionally, its graphics art-style, which made characters in the overworld resemble "chibis" received mixed responses from critics. As of May 2022, the games had sold over fourteen million copies.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus, while maintaining core gameplay mechanics, changed how the overworld was traversed, with players being able to freely explore five different areas or "biomes" of Hisui. Players can actively interact with Pokémon in the overworld, with hostile Pokémon capable of attacking and injuring the player character. Players can engage with Pokémon in battle from the overworld. The game received "generally favorable reviews" from critics, with many praising the new gameplay style and direction, with criticism being directed towards the game's art-style. The game was nominated for Best RPG at The Game Awards. By May 2022, the game had shifted over twelve million copies.
=== Related games ===
Pokémon Battle Revolution is the first Wii incarnation of the Pokémon video game franchise. The game uses wireless connection in order to connect to the Nintendo DS, allowing players to use their Pokémon from Diamond and Pearl in the game's various modes.
My Pokémon Ranch is a Wii game developed by Ambrella and released via the WiiWare download service. First released on March 25, 2008, in Japan, it was later made available in North America on June 9, 2008, and in Europe on July 4, 2008, for 1,000 Wii Points, equivalent to US$10.00. Like the GameCube's Pokémon Box: Ruby and Sapphire, Pokémon Ranch allows players to store and arrange Pokémon from Diamond and Pearl. Pokémon transferred from those games to My Pokémon Ranch are rendered in 3D and can interact with the player's Miis.
== Footnotes == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa | Burj Khalifa | The Burj Khalifa (previously known as Burj Dubai prior to inauguration) is a megatall skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, it is the world's tallest structure, with a total height of 829.8 m (2,722 ft, or just over half a mile) and a roof height (excluding the antenna, but including a 242.6 m spire) of 828 m (2,717 ft). It has also been the tallest building in the world since its topping out in 2009, surpassing Taipei 101, which had held the record for a half-decade.
Construction of the Burj Khalifa began in 2004; the exterior was completed five years later. The primary structure is reinforced concrete. Some of the structural steel for the building was salvaged from the demolished Palace of the Republic in East Berlin. The building was opened in 2010 as part of a new development called Downtown Dubai. It was designed to be the centrepiece of large-scale, mixed-use development.
The building is named after the former president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The United Arab Emirates government provided Dubai with financial support as the developer, Emaar Properties, experienced financial problems during the Great Recession. Then-president of the United Arab Emirates, Khalifa bin Zayed, organised federal financial support. For his support, Mohammad bin Rashid, Ruler of Dubai, changed the name from "Burj Dubai" to "Burj Khalifa" during inauguration.
The design is derived from the Islamic architecture of the region, such as in the Great Mosque of Samarra. The Y-shaped tripartite floor geometry is designed to optimise residential and hotel space. A buttressed central core and wings are used to support the height of the building. The Burj Khalifa's central core houses all vertical transportation except egress stairs within each of the wings. The structure also features a cladding system which is designed to withstand Dubai's hot summer temperatures. It contains a total of 57 elevators and 8 escalators.
== Development ==
Construction began on 12 January 2004, with the exterior of the structure completed on 1 October 2009. The building officially opened on 4 January 2010 and is part of the 2 km2 (490 acres) Downtown Dubai development at the 'First Interchange' along Sheikh Zayed Road, near Dubai's main business district.
The tower's architecture and engineering were performed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill of Chicago, with Adrian Smith as chief architect, and Bill Baker as a chief structural engineer. The firm had designed the Sears Tower in Chicago, a previous record holder for the world's tallest building.
Hyder Consulting was supervising engineer and NORR Group Consultants supervised the architecture. The primary contractor was Samsung C&T of South Korea, together with the Belgian group BESIX and the local company Arabtec.
Numerous complaints concerned migrant workers from South Asia, the primary building labour force, who were paid low wages and sometimes had their passports confiscated.
== Conception ==
Burj Khalifa was designed to be the centrepiece of a large-scale, mixed-use development to include 30,000 homes, nine hotels (including The Address Downtown Dubai), 3 hectares (7.4 acres) of parkland, at least 19 residential skyscrapers, the Dubai Mall, and the 12-hectare (30-acre) artificial Burj Khalifa Lake. The decision to build Burj Khalifa was reportedly based on the government's decision to diversify from an oil-based economy to one that is service and tourism based. According to officials, projects like Burj Khalifa needed to be built to garner more international recognition and hence investment. "He (Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum) wanted to put Dubai on the map with something really sensational," said Jacqui Josephson, a tourism and VIP delegations executive at Nakheel Properties.
The tower was known as Burj Dubai ("Dubai Tower") until its official opening in January 2010. It was renamed in honour of the ruler of Abu Dhabi, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan; Abu Dhabi and the federal government of UAE lent Dubai tens of billions of US dollars so that Dubai could pay its debts – Dubai borrowed at least $80 billion for construction projects. In the 2000s, Dubai started diversifying its economy but it suffered from the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession, leaving large-scale projects already in construction abandoned.
== Records ==
The Burj Khalifa set several world records, including:
Tallest existing structure: 829.8 m (2,722 ft) (previously KVLY-TV mast – 628.8 m or 2,063 ft)
Tallest structure ever built: 829.8 m (2,722 ft) (previously Warsaw radio mast – 646.38 m or 2,121 ft)
Tallest freestanding structure: 829.8 m (2,722 ft) (previously CN Tower – 553.3 m or 1,815 ft)
Tallest skyscraper (to top of spire): 828 m (2,717 ft) (previously Taipei 101 – 509.2 m or 1,671 ft)
Tallest skyscraper to top of antenna: 829.8 m (2,722 ft) (previously the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower – 527 m or 1,729 ft)
Building with most floors: 163 (previously World Trade Center – 110)
World's highest elevator installation (situated inside a rod at the very top of the building)
World's longest travel distance elevators: 504 m (1,654 ft)
Highest vertical concrete pumping (for a building): 606 m (1,988 ft)
World's tallest structure that includes residential space
World's highest installation of an aluminium and glass façade: 512 m (1,680 ft)
World's highest restaurant (At.mosphere): 122nd floor at 442 m (1,450 ft) (previously 360, at a height of 350 m (1,148 ft) in CN Tower)
World's highest New Year display of fireworks.
World's largest light and sound show staged on a single building.
== Architecture and design ==
The tower was designed by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill (SOM), which also designed the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) in Chicago and the One World Trade Center in New York City. Burj Khalifa uses the bundled tube design of the Willis Tower, invented by Fazlur Rahman Khan. Due to its tubular system, proportionally only half the amount of steel was used in the construction, compared to the Empire State Building. Khan's contributions to the design of tall buildings have had a profound impact on architecture and engineering. It would be difficult to find any worldwide practices in the design of tall buildings that have not been directly or indirectly influenced by his work. The design is reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright's vision for The Illinois, a mile-high skyscraper designed for Chicago, as well as Chicago's Lake Point Tower. When Adrian Smith was conceiving the project at SOM, he looked out his office window toward Lake Point Tower's curved three-wing layout and thought, "There's the prototype". According to Strabala, Burj Khalifa was designed based on the 73 floor Tower Palace Three, an all-residential building in Seoul. In its early planning, Burj Khalifa was intended to be entirely residential.
After the original design by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, Emaar Properties chose Hyder Consulting to be the supervising engineer and NORR Group Consultants International Ltd to supervise the architecture of the project. Hyder was selected for their expertise in structural and MEP (mechanical, electrical and plumbing) engineering. Hyder Consulting's role was to supervise construction, certify the architect's design, and be the engineer and architect of record to the UAE authorities. NORR's role was the supervision of all architectural components including on-site supervision during the construction and design of a 6-storey addition to the office annex building for architectural documentation. NORR was also responsible for the architectural integration drawings for the Armani Hotel included in the Tower. Emaar Properties also engaged GHD, an international multidisciplinary consulting firm, to act as an independent verification and testing authority for concrete and steelwork.
The design is derived from Islamic architecture. As the tower rises from the flat desert base, there are 27 setbacks in a spiral pattern, decreasing the cross-section of the tower as it rises and creating convenient outdoor terraces. These setbacks are arranged and aligned in a way that minimises vibration wind loading from eddy currents and vortices. At the top, the central core emerges and is sculpted to form a finishing spire. At its tallest point, the tower sways a total of 1.5 m (4.9 ft).
The spire of Burj Khalifa is composed of more than 4,000 tonnes (4,400 short tons; 3,900 long tons) of structural steel. The central pinnacle pipe weighs 350 tonnes (390 short tons; 340 long tons) and has a height of 200 m (660 ft). The spire also houses communications equipment. This 244-metre (801 ft) spire is widely considered vanity height, since very little of its space is usable. Without the spire, Burj Khalifa would be 585 metres (1,919 ft) tall. This was reported in a Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat study, which notes that the empty spire "could be a skyscraper on its own". Such a skyscraper, if located in Europe, would be the 11th tallest building on that continent.
In 2009 architects announced that more than 1,000 pieces of art would adorn the interiors of Burj Khalifa, while the residential lobby of Burj Khalifa would display the work of Jaume Plensa.
The cladding system consists of 142,000 m2 (1,528,000 sq ft) of more than 26,000 reflective glass panels and aluminium and textured stainless steel spandrel panels with vertical tubular fins. The architectural glass provides solar and thermal performance as well as an anti-glare shield for the intense desert sun, extreme desert temperatures and strong winds. The glass covers more than 174,000 m2 (1,870,000 sq ft) in area. The Burj's typical curtain wall panels measure 4 ft 6 in (1.4 m) wide by 10 ft 8 in (3.3 m) high and weigh about 800 pounds (360 kg) each, with wider panels near the building's edges and taller ones near the top.
The exterior temperature at the top of the building is thought to be 6 °C (11 °F) cooler than at its base.
A 304-room Armani Hotel, the first of 4 by Armani, occupies 15 of the lower 39 floors. The hotel was supposed to open on 18 March 2010, but after several delays, it finally opened to the public on 27 April 2010. The corporate suites and offices were also supposed to open from March onwards, yet the hotel and observation deck remained the only parts of the building which were open in April 2010.
The sky lobbies on the 43rd and 76th floors house swimming pools. Floors 20 through 108 have 900 private residential apartments (which, according to the developer, sold out within eight hours of being on the market). An outdoor zero-entry swimming pool is located on the 76th floor of the tower. Corporate offices and suites fill most of the remaining floors, except for the 122nd, 123rd, and 124th, where the At.mosphere restaurant, sky lobby, and an indoor and outdoor observation deck are located respectively. In January 2010, it was planned that Burj Khalifa would receive its first residents in February 2010.
The building has 57 elevators and 8 escalators. The elevators have a capacity of 12 to 14 people per cabin, and include the world's fastest double-deck elevators, rising and descending at up to 10 m/s (33 ft/s). Engineers initially considered installing the world's first triple-deck elevators. The double-deckers are equipped with LCD displays to amuse visitors during their travel to the observation deck. The building has 2,909 stairs from the ground floor to the 160th floor.
=== Plumbing systems ===
The Burj Khalifa's water system supplies an average of 946,000 L (250,000 U.S. gal) of water per day through 100 km (62 mi) of pipes. An additional 213 km (132 mi) of piping serves the fire emergency system, and 34 km (21 mi) supplies chilled water for the air conditioning system.
=== Air conditioning ===
The air conditioning system draws air from the upper floors where the air is cooler and cleaner than on the ground. At peak cooling times, the tower's cooling is 46 MW (62,000 hp), equivalent to that provided by 13,000 short tons (26,000,000 lb; 12,000,000 kg) of melting ice in one day. Water is collected via a condensate collection system and is used to irrigate the nearby park.
=== Window cleaning ===
To wash the 24,348 windows, totalling 120,000 m2 (1,290,000 ft2) of glass, the building has three horizontal tracks, each holding a 1,500 kg (3,300 lb) bucket machine. Above level 109, and up to tier 27, traditional cradles from davits are used. The top of the building is cleaned by a crew that uses ropes to descend from the top to gain access. Under normal conditions, when all building maintenance units are operational, it takes 36 workers three to four months to clean the entire exterior.
Unmanned machines clean the top 27 additional tiers and the glass spire. The cleaning system was developed in Melbourne, Australia, by CoxGomyl, a manufacturer of building maintenance units, at a cost of A$8 million.
== Features ==
=== Fountain ===
Outside the Burj Khalifa, WET Enterprises designed a fountain system at a cost of Dh 800 million (US$217 million). Illuminated by 6,600 lights and 50 coloured projectors, it is 270 m (900 ft) long and shoots water 150 m (500 ft) into the air while accompanied by a range of classical to contemporary Arabic and other music. It is the world's largest choreographed fountain. On 26 October 2008, Emaar announced that based on results of a naming contest the fountain would be called the Dubai Fountain.
=== Observation deck ===
An outdoor observation deck, named At the Top, opened on 5 January 2010 on the 124th floor, at 452 m (1,483 ft). It opened the 148th floor SKY level at 555 m (1,821 ft), giving it the highest observation deck in the world on 15 October 2014. However, in June 2016 the Shanghai Tower opened with an observation deck at a height of 561 metres, thus taking the title of the world's highest observation deck. Subsequently, the Burj Khalifa reclaimed the record on February 18, 2019, when it opened The Lounge observatory at 585 m (1,919 ft), which is also the highest lounge in the world.
The Burj Khalifa's 124th floor observation deck also features a so-called electronic telescope, an augmented reality device developed by Gsmprjct° of Montréal, which allows visitors to view the surrounding landscape in real-time, and to view previously saved images such as those taken at different times of day or under different weather conditions. To reduce the daily rush of sightseers, management allows visitors to purchase tickets in advance for a specific date and time, at a 75% discount on tickets purchased on the spot.
On 8 February 2010, the observation deck was closed to the public for two months after power-supply problems caused an elevator to become stuck between floors, trapping a group of tourists for 45 minutes.
When the tide is low and visibility is high, people can see the shores of Iran (which is around 153 km or 95 mi away) from the top of the skyscraper.
=== Park ===
Burj Khalifa is surrounded by an eleven-hectare (27-acre) park designed by landscape architects SWA Group. Like the tower, the park's design was based on the flower of the Hymenocallis, a desert plant. At the centre of the park is the water room, which is a series of pools and water jet fountains. Benches and signs incorporate images of Burj Khalifa and the Hymenocallis flower.
The plants are watered by water collected from the building's cooling system. The system provides 68,000,000 L (18,000,000 US gal) annually. WET Enterprises, who also developed the Dubai Fountain, developed the park's six water features.
== Floor plan ==
== Ramadan observance ==
On the higher floors, the sun is seen for several minutes after it has set at ground level. Those living above the 80th floor wait two extra minutes to break their Ramadan fast, and those living above the 150th floor wait three minutes.
== Construction ==
The tower was constructed by Samsung C&T from South Korea, which also did work on the Petronas Twin Towers and Taipei 101. Samsung C&T built the tower in a joint venture with BESIX from Belgium and Arabtec from the UAE. Turner was the project manager on the main construction contract. Hong Kong-based Far East Aluminium combined to provide the exterior cladding for Burj Khalifa.
The contractor and the engineer of record was Hyder Consulting. Under UAE law, the contractor and the engineer of record is jointly and severally liable for the performance of Burj Khalifa.
The primary structure is reinforced concrete. Putzmeister created a new, super high-pressure trailer concrete pump, the BSA 14000 SHP-D, for this project. Burj Khalifa's construction used 330,000 m3 (431,600 cu yd) of concrete and 55,000 tonnes (61,000 short tons; 54,000 long tons) of steel rebar, and construction took 22 million man-hours. In May 2008 Putzmeister pumped concrete with more than 21 MPA ultimate compressive strength of gravel to surpass the 600 metres weight of the effective area of each column from the foundation to the next 4th level, and the rest was by metal columns jacketed or covered with concrete to a then world record delivery height of 606 m (1,988 ft), the 156th floor. Three tower cranes were used during the construction of the uppermost levels, each capable of lifting a 25-tonne load. The remaining structure above was constructed of lighter steel.
In 2003, 33 test holes were drilled to study the strength of the bedrock underlying the structure. "Weak to very weak sandstone and siltstone" was found, just metres below the surface. Samples were taken from test holes drilled to a depth of 140 metres, finding weak to very weak rock all the way. The study described the site as part of a "seismically active area". Another challenging element was the shamal which often creates sandstorms.
Over 45,000 m3 (58,900 cu yd) of concrete, weighing more than 110,000 tonnes (120,000 short tons; 110,000 long tons) were used to construct the concrete and steel foundation, which features 192 piles; each pile is 1.5 metre in diameter by 43 m in length, buried more than 50 m (164 ft) deep. The foundation was designed to support the total building weight of approximately 450,000 tonnes (500,000 short tons; 440,000 long tons). This weight was then divided by the compressive strength of concrete which is 30 MPa which yielded 450 sq. metres of vertical normal effective area, which then yielded 12 metres by 12 metres dimensions. A cathodic protection system is under the concrete to neutralise the sulphate and chloride-rich groundwater and prevent corrosion.
During the construction of the Burj Khalifa, over 35,000 tonnes of structural steel was obtained from the Palace of the Republic in Berlin, which had served as the parliament building for the Volkskammer of the former East Germany. The steel was shipped to Dubai after the Palace's demolition was completed in 2008.
The Burj Khalifa is highly compartmentalised. Pressurised, air-conditioned refuge floors are located every 13 floors (on floors G, 13, 26, 39, 52, etc.) where people can shelter on their long walk down to safety in case of an emergency or fire.
Special mixes of concrete were made to withstand the extreme pressures of the massive building weight; as is typical with reinforced concrete construction, each batch of concrete was tested to ensure it could withstand certain pressures. CTLGroup, working for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, conducted the creep and shrinkage testing critical for the structural analysis of the building.
The consistency of the concrete used in the project was essential. It was difficult to create a concrete that could withstand both the thousands of tonnes bearing down on it and Persian Gulf temperatures that can reach 50 °C (122 °F). To combat this problem, the concrete was not poured during the day. Instead, during the summer months, ice was added to the mixture and it was poured at night when the air was cooler and the humidity was higher. Cooler concrete cures more evenly and is, therefore, less likely to set too quickly and crack. Any significant cracks could have put the entire project in jeopardy.
=== Milestones ===
January 2004: Excavation commences.
February 2004: Piling starts.
21 September 2004: Emaar contractors begin construction.
March 2005: Structure of Burj Khalifa starts rising.
June 2006: Level 50 is reached.
February 2007: Surpasses the Sears Tower as the building with the most floors.
13 May 2007: Sets record for vertical concrete pumping on any building at 452 m (1,483 ft), surpassing the 449.2 m (1,474 ft) to which concrete was pumped during the construction of Taipei 101, while Burj Khalifa reached the 130th floor.
21 July 2007: Surpasses Taipei 101, whose height of 509.2 m (1,671 ft) made it the world's tallest building, and level 141 reached.
12 August 2007: Surpasses the Sears Tower antenna, which stands 527 m (1,729 ft).
12 September 2007: At 555.3 m (1,822 ft), becomes the world's tallest freestanding structure, surpassing the CN Tower in Toronto, and level 150 reached.
7 April 2008: At 629 m (2,064 ft), surpasses the KVLY-TV Mast to become the tallest human-made structure, level 160 reached.
17 June 2008: Emaar announces that Burj Khalifa's height is over 636 m (2,087 ft) and that its final height will not be given until it is completed in September 2009.
1 September 2008: Height tops 688 m (2,257 ft), making it the tallest human-made structure ever built, surpassing the previous record-holder, the Warsaw Radio Mast in Konstantynów, Poland.
17 January 2009: Topped out at 829.8 m (2,722 ft).
1 October 2009: Emaar announces that the exterior of the building is completed.
4 January 2010: Burj Khalifa's official launch ceremony is held and Burj Khalifa is opened. Burj Dubai was renamed Burj Khalifa in honour of the President of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan.
10 March 2010: Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat certifies Burj Khalifa as world's tallest building.
=== Real estate values ===
In March 2009, Mohamed Ali Alabbar, chairman of the project's developer, Emaar Properties, said office space pricing at Burj Khalifa reached US$4,000 per sq ft (over US$43,000 per m2) and the Armani Residences, also in Burj Khalifa, sold for US$3,500 per sq ft (over US$37,500 per m2). He estimated the total cost for the project to be about US$1.5 billion.
The project's completion coincided with the Great Recession, and with vast overbuilding in the country, leading to high vacancies and foreclosures. With Dubai mired in debt from its huge ambitions, the government was forced to seek multibillion-dollar bailouts from its oil-rich neighbour Abu Dhabi. Subsequently, in a surprise move at its opening ceremony, the tower was renamed Burj Khalifa, said to honour the UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan for his crucial support.
Because of the slumping demand in Dubai's property market, the rents in the Burj Khalifa plummeted 40% some ten months after its opening. Out of 900 apartments in the tower, 825 were still empty at that time. Over the next 30 months, overseas investors steadily bought up available apartments and office space. By October 2012, Emaar reported that around 80% of the apartments were occupied.
=== Official launch ceremony ===
The ceremony was broadcast live on a giant screen on Burj Park Island and on smaller screens elsewhere. Hundreds of media outlets from around the world reported live from the scene. In addition to the media presence, 6,000 guests were expected.
The opening was held on 4 January 2010. The ceremony featured a display of 10,000 fireworks, light beams projected on and around the tower, and further sound, light and water effects. The celebratory lighting was designed by UK lighting designers Speirs and Major Associates. Using the 868 powerful stroboscope lights that are integrated into the façade and spire of the tower, different lighting sequences were choreographed, together with more than 50 different combinations of other effects.
== Controversies ==
=== Incidents ===
On 10 May 2011, an Asian migrant worker in his mid-30s jumped to his death from the 147th floor onto the 108th floor's deck. Dubai police said he killed himself because his company refused to let him leave the country.
On 18 May 2015, Dubai police disputed a report that a Portuguese tourist named Laura Vanessa Nunes fell to her death from the Burj Khalifa the prior 16 November, claiming that she fell from the Jumeirah Lake Towers. Nine News obtained emails from Portugal's embassy in the UAE under freedom of information laws, which indicated that the female tourist jumped from the 148th floor of the Burj Khalifa.
=== Labour ===
The Burj Khalifa was built primarily by workers from South Asia and East Asia. This is generally because the current generation of UAE locals prefer governmental jobs and do not have an attitude favouring private sector employment. On 17 June 2008, there were about 7,500 skilled workers employed at the construction site. Press reports indicated in 2006 that skilled carpenters at the site earned £4.34 a day, and labourers earned £2.84. According to a BBC investigation and a Human Rights Watch report, the workers were housed in abysmal conditions, and worked long hours for low pay. During construction, one construction-related death was reported. Workplace injuries and deaths in the UAE are poorly documented, according to Human Rights Watch.
In March 2006 about 2,500 workers, upset over buses that were delayed for the end of their shifts, protested and triggered a riot, damaging cars, offices, computers, and construction equipment. A Dubai Interior Ministry official said the rioters caused almost £500,000 in damage. Most of the workers involved in the riot returned the following day but refused to work.
== New Year's Eve ==
Emaar New Year's Eve is an annual event held every 31 December at Burj Khalifa, organised by Emaar Properties. The event consists of fireworks launched from Burj Khalifa, a light and laser show on the facade of Burj Khalifa, and an accompanying soundtrack and a special fountain show on The Dubai Fountain choreographed to the soundtrack. The Emaar New Year's Eve fireworks celebration originated in 2010 with the inauguration of the world's tallest building, Burj Khalifa. The celebration was broadcast live to more than 2 million people and lasted for 3 minutes.
Since 2011, national live broadcasting rights have been held by Dubai Media Incorporated and Dubai TV.
Emaar New Year's Eve has won two Guinness World Records, including "Largest LED-Illuminated Facade" in 2015 and 2019.
In 2017 and 2018, Emaar New Year's Eve was broadcast live on Twitter, and YouTube. In 2020, it was broadcast live for the first time on Zoom.
In 2021, Emaar celebrated solidarity in honour of frontline workers of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For the 2022 event, a laser feature was installed on The Dubai Fountain in sync with the Burj Khalifa's laser and fireworks show.
== BASE jumping ==
The building has been used by several experienced BASE jumpers for authorised and unauthorised BASE jumping:
In May 2008, Hervé Le Gallou and David McDonnell, dressed as engineers, entered Burj Khalifa (around 650 metres (2,130 ft) at the time), and jumped off a balcony situated several floors below the 160th floor.
On 8 January 2010, with permission of the authorities, Nasr Al Niyadi and Omar Al Hegelan, from the Emirates Aviation Society, broke the world record for the highest BASE jump from a building after they leapt from a crane-suspended platform attached to the 160th floor at 672 m (2,205 ft). The two men descended the vertical drop at a speed of up to 220 km/h (140 mph), with enough time to open their parachutes 10 seconds into the 90-second jump.
On 21 April 2014, with permission of the authorities and support from several sponsors, highly experienced French BASE jumpers Vince Reffet and Fred Fugen broke the Guinness world record for the highest BASE jump from a building after they leapt from a specially designed platform, built at the very top of the pinnacle, at 828 metres (2,717 feet).
== Climbing ==
On 28 March 2011, Alain "Spiderman" Robert scaled the outside of Burj Khalifa. The climb to the top of the spire took 6 hours. To comply with UAE safety laws, Robert, who usually climbs in free solo style, used a rope and harness.
== Awards ==
In June 2010, Burj Khalifa was the recipient of the 2010 "Best Tall Building Middle East & Africa" award by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. On 28 September 2010 Burj Khalifa won the award for the best project of the year at the Middle East Architect Awards 2010. Awards Chair Gordon Gill, of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, said:
We are talking about a building here that has changed the landscape of what is possible in architecture – a building that became internationally recognized as an icon long before it was even completed. 'Building of the Century' was thought a more apt title for it.
Burj Khalifa was also the recipient of the following awards. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii | Pompeii | Pompeii ( ; Latin: [pɔmˈpei̯.iː]) was a city in what is now the municipality of Pompei, near Naples, in the Campania region of Italy. Along with Herculaneum, Stabiae, and many surrounding villas, the city was buried under 4 to 6 m (13 to 20 ft) of volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
Largely preserved under the ash, Pompeii offers a unique snapshot of Roman life, frozen at the moment it was buried, as well as insight into ancient urban planning. It was a wealthy town of 10,000 to 20,000 residents at the time it was destroyed. It hosted many fine public buildings and luxurious private houses with lavish decorations, furnishings and artworks, which were the main attractions for early excavators; subsequent excavations have found hundreds of private homes and businesses reflecting various architectural styles and social classes, as well as numerous public buildings. Organic remains, including wooden objects and human bodies, were interred in the ash; their eventual decay allowed archaeologists to create moulds of figures in their final moments of life. The numerous graffiti carved on outside walls and inside rooms provide a wealth of examples of the largely lost Vulgar Latin spoken colloquially at the time, contrasting with the formal language of classical writers.
Following its destruction, Pompeii remained largely undisturbed until its rediscovery in the late 16th century. Major excavations did not begin until the mid-18th century, which marked the emergence of modern archaeology; initial efforts to unearth the city were haphazard or marred by looting, resulting in many items or sites being damaged or destroyed. By 1960, most of Pompeii had been uncovered but left in decay; further major excavations were banned or limited to targeted, prioritised areas. Since 2018, these efforts have led to new discoveries in some previously unexplored areas of the city.
Pompeii is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, owing to its status as "the only archaeological site in the world that provides a complete picture of an ancient Roman city." It is among the most popular tourist attractions in Italy, with approximately 2.5 million visitors annually.
== Name ==
Pompeii in Latin is a second declension masculine nominative plural noun (Pompeiī, -ōrum). According to Theodor Kraus, "The root of the word Pompeii would appear to be the Oscan word for the number five, pompe, which suggests that either the community consisted of five hamlets or perhaps it was settled by a family group (gens Pompeia)."
== Geography ==
Pompeii was built approximately 40 m (130 ft) above sea level on a coastal lava plateau created by earlier eruptions of Mount Vesuvius (8 km or 5 mi distant). The plateau fell steeply to the south and partly to the west into the sea. Three layers of sediment from large landslides lie on top of the lava, perhaps triggered by extended rainfall. The city, once by the shoreline, is today circa 700 m (2,300 ft) inland. The mouth of the navigable Sarno River, adjacent to the city, was protected by lagoons and served early Greek and Phoenician sailors as a haven port, later developed by the Romans.
Pompeii covered a total of 64 to 67 hectares (160 to 170 acres) and was home to 11,000 to 11,500 people, based on household counts.
== History ==
Although best known for its Roman remains visible today, dating from AD 79, it was built upon a substantial city dating from much earlier times. Expansion of the city from an early nucleus (the old town) accelerated after 450 BC under the Greeks following the Battle of Cumae.
=== Early history ===
The first stable settlements on the site date to the 8th century BC when the Oscans, a population of central Italy, founded five villages in the area.
With the arrival of the Greeks in Campania from around 740 BC, Pompeii entered the orbit of the Hellenic people. The most important building of this period is the Doric Temple, built away from the centre in what would later become the Triangular Forum. At the same time the cult of Apollo was introduced. Greek and Phoenician sailors used the location as a safe port.
In the early 6th century BC, the settlement merged into a single community centred on the important crossroad between Cumae, Nola, and Stabiae and was surrounded by a tufa city wall (the pappamonte wall). The first wall (which was also used as a base for the later wall) unusually enclosed a much greater area than the early town together with much agricultural land. That such an impressive wall was built at this time indicates that the settlement was already important and wealthy. The city began to flourish and maritime trade started with the construction of a small port near the mouth of the river. The earliest settlement was focused in regions VII and VIII of the town (the old town) as identified from stratigraphy below the Samnite and Roman buildings, as well as from the different and irregular street plan.
By 524 BC the Etruscans had settled in the area, including Pompeii, finding in the river Sarno a communication route between the sea and the interior. Like the Greeks, the Etruscans did not conquer the city militarily, but simply controlled it, and Pompeii enjoyed a sort of autonomy. Nevertheless, Pompeii became a member of the Etruscan League of cities. Excavations in 1980–1981 have shown the presence of Etruscan inscriptions and a 6th-century BC necropolis. Under the Etruscans, a primitive forum or simple market square was built, as well as the Temple of Apollo, in both of which objects including fragments of bucchero were found by Maiuri. Several houses were built with the so-called Tuscan atrium, typical of this people.
The city wall was strengthened in the early 5th century BC with two façades of relatively thin, vertically set slabs of Sarno limestone some four metres (13 ft) apart filled with earth (the orthostate wall).
In 474 BC, the Greek city of Cumae, allied with Syracuse, defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae and gained control of the area.
=== The Samnite period ===
The period between about 450–375 BC witnessed large areas of the city being abandoned while important sanctuaries such as the Temple of Apollo show a sudden lack of votive material remains.
The Samnites, people from the areas of Abruzzo and Molise, and allies of the Romans, conquered Greek Cumae between 423 and 420 BC. It is likely that all of the surrounding territory, including Pompeii, was already conquered around 424 BC. The new rulers gradually imposed their architecture and enlarged the town.
From 343 to 341 BC in the Samnite Wars, the first Roman army entered the Campanian plain bringing with it the customs and traditions of Rome, and in the Roman Latin War from 340 BC, the Samnites were faithful to Rome. Although governed by the Samnites, Pompeii entered the Roman orbit, to which it remained faithful even during the third Samnite war and in the war against Pyrrhus. In the late 4th century BC, the city began expanding from its nucleus into the open-walled area. The street plan of the new areas was more regular and more conformal to Hippodamus's street plan. The city walls were reinforced in Sarno stone in the early 3rd century BC (the limestone enceinte, or the "first Samnite wall"). It formed the basis for the currently visible walls with an outer wall of rectangular limestone blocks as a terrace wall supporting a large agger, or earth embankment, behind it.
After the Samnite Wars from 290 BC, Pompeii was forced to accept the status of socii of Rome, maintaining, however, linguistic and administrative autonomy.
From the outbreak of the Second Punic War (218–201 BC) in which Hannibal's invasion threatened many cities, Pompeii remained faithful to Rome unlike many of the southern cities. As a result, an additional internal wall was built of tufa and the internal agger and outer façade raised, resulting in a double parapet with a wider wall-walk. Despite the political uncertainty of these events and the progressive migration of wealthy men to quieter cities in the eastern Mediterranean, Pompeii continued to flourish due to the production and trade of wine and oil with places like Provence and Spain, as well as to intensive agriculture on farms around the city.
In the 2nd century BC, Pompeii enriched itself by taking part in Rome's conquest of the east, as shown by a statue of Apollo in the Forum erected by Lucius Mummius in gratitude for their support in the sack of Corinth and the eastern campaigns. These riches enabled Pompeii to bloom and expand to its ultimate limits. The Forum and many public and private buildings of high architectural quality were built, including The Large Theatre, the Temple of Jupiter, the Basilica, the Comitium, the Stabian Baths, and a new two-story portico.
=== The Roman period ===
Pompeii was one of the towns of Campania that rebelled against Rome in the Social Wars and in 89 BC it was besieged by Sulla, who targeted the strategically vulnerable Porta Ercolano with his artillery as can still be seen by the impact craters of thousands of ballista shots in the walls. Many nearby buildings inside the walls were also destroyed. Although the battle-hardened troops of the Social League, headed by Lucius Cluentius, helped in resisting the Romans, Pompeii was forced to surrender after the conquest of Nola. The result was that Pompeii became a Roman colony named Colonia Cornelia Veneria Pompeianorum. Many of Sulla's veterans were given land and property in and around the city, while many who opposed Rome were dispossessed of their property. Despite this, the Pompeians were granted Roman citizenship and quickly assimilated into the Roman world. The main language in the city became Latin, and many of Pompeii's old aristocratic families Latinized their names as a sign of assimilation.
The area around Pompeii became very prosperous due to the desirability of living on the Bay of Naples for wealthy Romans and due to the rich agricultural land. Many farms and villas were built nearby, outside the city and many have been excavated. These include the Villa of the Mysteries, Villa of Diomedes, several at Boscoreale, Boscotrecase, Oplontis, Terzigno, and Civita Guiliana.
The city became an important passage for goods that arrived by sea and had to be sent toward Rome or Southern Italy along the nearby Appian Way. Many public buildings were constructed or refurbished and improved under the new order; new buildings included the Amphitheatre of Pompeii in 70 BC, the Forum Baths, and the Odeon. In comparison, the Forum was embellished with the colonnade of Popidius before 80 BC. These buildings raised the status of Pompeii as a cultural centre in the region as it outshone its neighbours in the number of places for entertainment which significantly enhanced the social and economic development of the city.
Under Augustus, from about 30 BC, a major expansion in new public buildings, as in the rest of the empire, included the Eumachia Building, the Sanctuary of Augustus and the Macellum. From about 20 BC, Pompeii was fed with running water by a spur from the Serino Aqueduct, built by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa.
In AD 59, there was a serious riot and bloodshed in the amphitheatre between Pompeians and Nucerians (which is recorded in a fresco) and which led the Roman Senate to send the Praetorian Guard to restore order and to ban further events for ten years.
==== AD 62–79 ====
The inhabitants of Pompeii had long been used to minor earthquakes (indeed, the writer Pliny the Younger wrote that earth tremors "were not particularly alarming because they are frequent in Campania"), but on 5 February 62 a severe earthquake did considerable damage around the bay, and particularly to Pompeii. It is believed that the earthquake would have registered between 5 and 6 on the Richter magnitude scale.
On that day in Pompeii, there were to be two sacrifices, as it was the anniversary of Augustus being named Pater Patriae ("Father of the Country") and also a feast day to honour the guardian spirits of the city. Chaos followed the earthquake; fires caused by oil lamps that had fallen during the quake added to the panic. The nearby cities of Herculaneum and Nuceria were also affected.
Between 62 AD and the eruption in 79 AD, most rebuilding was done in the private sector and older, damaged frescoes were often covered with newer ones. In the public sector, the opportunity was taken to improve buildings and the city plan, e.g. in the Forum.
An important field of current research concerns structures that were restored between the earthquake of 62 and the eruption. It was thought until recently that some of the damage had still not been repaired at the time of the eruption, but this is doubtful as the evidence of missing forum statues and marble wall veneers are most likely due to robbers after the city's burial. The public buildings on the east side of the Forum were largely restored and were enhanced by beautiful marble veneers and other modifications to the architecture.
Some buildings like the Central Baths were only started after the earthquake and were built to enhance the city with modern developments in their architecture, as had been done in Rome, in terms of wall-heating and window glass, and with well-lit spacious rooms. The new baths took over a whole insula by demolishing houses, which may have been made easier by the earthquake that had damaged these houses. This shows that the city was still flourishing rather than struggling to recover from the earthquake.
In about 64, Nero and his wife Poppaea visited Pompeii and made gifts to the temple of Venus (the city's patron deity), probably when he performed in the theatre of Naples.
By 79, Pompeii had a population of 20,000, which had prospered from the region's renowned agricultural fertility and favourable location, although more recent estimates are up to 11,500 based on household counts.
=== Eruption of Vesuvius ===
The eruption lasted for two days. The first phase was of pumice rain (lapilli) lasting about 18 hours, allowing most inhabitants to escape. Only approximately 1,150 bodies have so far been found on site, which seems to confirm this theory, and most escapees probably managed to salvage some of their most valuable belongings; many skeletons were found with jewellery, coins, and silverware.
At some time in the night or early the next day, pyroclastic flows began near the volcano, consisting of high speed, dense, and scorching ash clouds, knocking down wholly or partly all structures in their path, incinerating or suffocating the remaining population and altering the landscape, including the coastline. By the evening of the second day, the eruption was over, leaving only haze in the atmosphere through which the sun shone weakly.
A multidisciplinary volcanological and bio-anthropological study of the eruption products and victims, merged with numerical simulations and experiments, indicates that at Pompeii and surrounding towns heat was the main cause of death of people, previously believed to have died by ash suffocation. The results of the study, published in 2010, show that exposure to at least 250 °C (480 °F) hot pyroclastic flows at a distance of 10 kilometres (6 miles) from the vent was sufficient to cause instant death, even if people were sheltered within buildings. The people and buildings of Pompeii were covered in up to twelve different layers of tephra, in total, up to 6 metres (19.7 ft) deep. Archaeology in 2023 showed that some buildings collapsed due to one or more earthquakes during the eruption, killing the occupants.
Pliny the Younger provided a first-hand account of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius from his position across the Bay of Naples at Misenum, but it was written approximately 27 or 28 years after the event. His uncle, Pliny the Elder, with whom he had a close relationship, died while attempting to rescue stranded victims. As admiral of the fleet, Pliny the Elder had ordered the ships of the Imperial Navy stationed at Misenum to cross the bay to assist evacuation attempts. Volcanologists have recognised the importance of Pliny the Younger's account of the eruption by calling similar events "Plinian". It had long been thought that the eruption was an August event based on one version of the letter, but another version gives a date of the eruption as late as 23 November. A later date is consistent with a charcoal inscription at the site, discovered in 2018, which includes the date of 17 October and which must have been recently written. A collaborative study in 2022 determined a date of 24–25 October.
An October/November eruption is clearly supported by many pieces of evidence: the fact that people buried in the ash appear to have been wearing heavier clothing than the light summer clothes typical of August; the fresh fruit and vegetables in the shops are typical of October – and conversely the summer fruit typical of August was already being sold in dried, or conserved form; nuts from chestnut trees were found at Oplontis, which would not have been mature before mid-September; wine fermenting jars had been sealed, which would have happened around the end of October; coins found in the purse of a woman buried in the ash include one with a 15th imperatorial acclamation among the emperor's titles. These coins could not have been minted before the second week of September.
=== Rediscovery and excavations ===
Titus appointed two ex-consuls to organise a relief effort while donating large amounts of money from the imperial treasury to aid the victims of the volcano. He visited Pompeii once after the eruption and again the following year but no work was done on recovery.
Soon after the city's burial, survivors and possibly thieves came to salvage valuables, including the marble statues from the Forum and other precious materials from buildings. There is wide evidence of post-eruption disturbance, including holes made through walls. The city was not completely buried, and the tops of larger buildings would have been visible above the ash, making it obvious where to dig or salvage building material. The robbers left traces of their passage, as in a house where modern archaeologists found a wall graffito saying "house dug".
Archaeological evidence suggests that following the eruption, the site was reoccupied by survivors as a small informal settlement that lasted until the fifth century. Over the following centuries, its name and location were forgotten, though it still appeared on the Tabula Peutingeriana of the 4th century. Further eruptions, particularly in 471–473 and 512, covered the remains more deeply. The area became known as La Civita (the city) due to the features in the ground.
The next known date that any part was unearthed was in 1592, when architect Domenico Fontana, while digging an underground aqueduct to the mills of Torre Annunziata, ran into ancient walls covered with paintings and inscriptions. His aqueduct passed through and underneath a large part of the city and would have had to pass through many buildings and foundations, as they still can be seen in many places today. However, he kept the finding secret.
In 1689, Francesco Picchetti saw a wall inscription mentioning decurio Pompeiis ("town councillor of Pompeii"), but he associated it with a villa of Pompey. Francesco Bianchini pointed out the true meaning, and he was supported by Giuseppe Macrini, who in 1693 excavated some walls and wrote that Pompeii lay beneath La Civita.
Herculaneum was rediscovered in 1738 by workers digging for the foundations of a summer palace for the King of Naples, Charles of Bourbon. Due to the spectacular quality of the finds, the Spanish military engineer Roque Joaquín de Alcubierre made excavations to find further remains at the site of Pompeii in 1748, even if the city was not identified. Charles of Bourbon took great interest in the finds, even after leaving to become king of Spain because the display of antiquities reinforced Naples' political and cultural prestige. On 20 August 1763, an inscription [...] Rei Publicae Pompeianorum [...] was found and the city was identified as Pompeii.
Karl Weber directed the first scientific excavations. He was followed in 1764 by military engineer Franscisco la Vega, who was succeeded by his brother, Pietro, in 1804.
There was much progress in exploration when the French occupied Naples in 1799 and ruled over Italy from 1806 to 1815. The land on which Pompeii lies was confiscated, and up to 700 workers were employed in the excavations. The excavated areas in the north and south were connected. Parts of the Via dell'Abbondanza were also exposed in the west–east direction, and for the first time, an impression of the size and appearance of the ancient town could be appreciated. In the following years, the excavators struggled with a lack of money. Excavations progressed slowly, but with significant finds such as the houses of the Faun, of Menandro, of the Tragic Poet and the Surgeon.
Giuseppe Fiorelli took charge of the excavations in 1863 and made greater progress. During early excavations of the site, occasional voids in the ash layer had been found that contained human remains. Fiorelli realised these were spaces left by the decomposed bodies, and so devised the technique of injecting plaster into them to recreate the forms of Vesuvius's victims. This technique is still in use today, with a clear resin now used instead of plaster because it is more durable and does not destroy the bones, allowing further analysis.
Fiorelli also introduced scientific documentation. He divided the city into today's nine areas (regiones) and blocks (insulae) and numbered the entrances of the individual houses (domus). Fiorelli also published the first periodical with excavation reports. Under his successors, the entire west section of the city was exposed.
=== Modern archaeology ===
After those of Fiorelli, excavations continued in an increasingly more systematic and considered manner under several directors of archaeology though still with the main interest in making spectacular discoveries and uncovering more houses rather than answering the main questions about the city and its long term preservation.
In the 1920s, Amedeo Maiuri excavated older layers beneath those of 79 AD for the first time to learn about the settlement history. Maiuri made the last excavations on a grand scale in the 1950s, and the area south of the Via dell'Abbondanza and the city wall was almost completely uncovered, but they were poorly documented scientifically. Preservation was haphazard, and his reconstructions were difficult to distinguish from the original ruins, which is a great handicap for studying genuine antique remains. Questionable reconstruction was also done after the severe earthquake of 1980, which caused great destruction. Since then, work has been confined to the excavated areas except for targeted soundings and excavations. Further excavations on a large scale are not planned, and today archaeologists are more engaged in reconstructing, documenting and slowing the decay of the ruins.
In December 2018, archaeologists discovered the remains of harnessed horses in the Villa of the Mysteries.
Under the 'Great Pompeii Project' over 2.5 km (1.6 mi) of ancient walls within the city were relieved of danger of collapse by treating the unexcavated areas behind the street fronts in order to increase drainage and reduce the pressure of groundwater and earth on the walls, a problem especially in the rainy season. These excavations resumed on unexcavated areas of Regio V. In November 2020 the remains of two men, thought to be a rich man and his slave, were found in a 2 m-thick (6.6 ft) layer of ash. They appeared to have escaped the first eruption but were killed by a second blast the next day. A study of the bones showed that the younger one appeared to have done manual labour and hence was likely a slave.
In December 2020, a thermopolium, an inn or snack-bar, was excavated in Regio V. In addition to brightly coloured frescoes depicting some of the food on offer, archaeologists found eight dolia (terracotta pots) still containing remnants of meals, including duck, goat, pig, fish, and snails. They also found a decorated bronze drinking bowl known as a patera, wine flasks, amphorae, and ceramic jars used for cooking stews and soups. One fresco depicts a dog with a collar on a leash, possibly reminding customers to leash their pets. The complete skeleton of a tiny adult dog was also discovered, measuring only about 20–25 cm (7.9–9.8 in) at the shoulder, which provides evidence of the highly selective breeding of dogs in Roman times.
In January 2021 a well-preserved "large, four-wheel ceremonial chariot" was uncovered in the portico of the luxurious villa in Civita Giuliana, north of Pompeii, where a stable had previously been discovered in 2018. The carriage is made of bronze and black and red wooden panels, with engraved silver and bronze medallions at the back. It is now thought to be an elaborate and unique bridal carriage called a pilentum and in 2023 has been restored for display at the Baths of Diocletian. Nearby the bodies of two fugitives had been found using plaster casts, and in a stable the remains of horses, one still in harness.
In 2021, an exceptional 1st century AD painted tomb of a freed slave, Marcus Venerius Secundio, containing mummified human remains, was discovered outside the Porta Sarno gate. Its inscription records he achieved custodianship of the Temple of Venus and membership of the Sodales Augustales, priests of the Imperial Cult. Also, he organised Greek and Latin performances lasting four days, the first evidence of Greek cultural events in Pompeii.
In April 2024, a dining hall lined with rare frescoes was excavated as part of a broader project aimed at shoring up the front of the perimeter between the excavated and unexcavated area of the site. One fresco presents Helen of Troy and Paris, and another depicts Apollo and Princess Cassandra, with Apollo trying to attract the princess's attention. The hall, measuring 15 by 6 metres (49 ft × 20 ft), was located in a house on Via di Nola—one of the main city streets in the Regio IX area. The room walls were painted black, perhaps to hide the traces of soot from the lighting fixtures.
In June 2024, a shrine with rare blue-painted walls covered with paintings of females thought to represent the four seasons (Horae) was discovered. 15 amphorae, two bronze jugs and two bronze lamps were among the findings. The 8 m2 (86 sq ft) room is thought to be a sacrarium (the sanctuary of a church).
=== Conservation ===
Objects buried beneath Pompeii were well-preserved for almost 2,000 years as the lack of air and moisture allowed little to no deterioration. However, Pompeii has been exposed to natural and anthropic deterioration following excavation.
Weathering, erosion, light exposure, water damage, poor methods of excavation and reconstruction, introduced plants and animals, tourism, vandalism and theft have all damaged the site in some way. The lack of adequate weather protection for all but the most interesting and important buildings has allowed original interior decoration to fade or be lost. Two-thirds of the city has been excavated, but the remnants of the city are rapidly deteriorating.
Furthermore, during World War II many buildings were badly damaged or destroyed by bombs dropped in several raids by the Allied forces.
The conservation concern has constantly worried archaeologists. The ancient city was included in the 1996 World Monuments Watch by the World Monuments Fund, and again in 1998 and in 2000. In 1996 the organisation claimed that Pompeii "desperately need[ed] repair" and called for the drafting of a general plan of restoration and interpretation. The organisation supported conservation at Pompeii with funding from American Express and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
The Schola Armatorum ('House of the Gladiators') collapsed in 2010 caused by heavy rainfall and lack of proper drainage. The structure was not open to visitors, but the outside was visible to tourists. There was fierce controversy after the collapse, with accusations of neglect.
Today, funding is mostly directed into conservation of the site; however, due to the expanse of Pompeii and the scale of the problems, this is inadequate in halting the slow decay of the materials. A 2012 study recommended an improved strategy for interpretation and presentation of the site as a cost-effective method of improving its conservation and preservation in the short term.
In June 2013, UNESCO warned that if restoration and preservation works "fail to deliver substantial progress in the next two years," Pompeii could be placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger. A "Grande Progetto Pompei" project of about five years had begun in 2012 with the European Union and included stabilization and conservation of buildings in the highest risk areas. In 2014, UNESCO headquarters received a new management plan to help integrate the property's management, conservation, and maintenance programs.
In 2020 many domus gardens, orchards and vineyards were carefully recreated using depictions in frescoes and archaeological finds to give better insights into what they were like before the catastrophe. These include the House of Julia Felix, the House of the Golden Cupids, the House of Loreius Tiburtinus, the House of Cornelius Rufus and the Garden of the Fugitives.
In 2021 several long-closed domus were re-opened after restoration including the House of the Ship Europa, House of the Orchard and House of the Lovers. Also the newly excavated House of Leda and the Swan has opened.
== Roman city development ==
Owing to its wealth and its Greek, Etruscan and Roman history, Pompeii is of great interest for the study of Ancient Roman architecture in terms of building methods and urban planning. However, it was a relatively small provincial city and, except for the Amphitheatre, it did not have large monuments on the scale of other Roman cities. It also missed the large building schemes of the early Empire and kept much of its urban architecture dating from as early as the 4th century BC.
The evolution of Pompeii's private and public buildings is often unclear because of the lack of excavations beneath the levels of 79. It is, however, clear that by the time of the conquest by Sulla in 89 BC, the development of the street layout was largely complete, and most of the insulae were built.
=== Public buildings ===
Under the Romans, Pompeii underwent a process of urban development which accelerated in the Augustan period from about 30 BC. New public buildings included the Amphitheatre with palaestra or gymnasium with a central natatorium (cella natatoria) or swimming pool, two theatres, the Eumachia Building and at least four public baths. The amphitheatre has been cited by scholars as a model of sophisticated design, particularly in the area of crowd control.
Other service buildings were the Macellum ("meat market"); the Pistrinum (baker); the thermopolia (inns or snack-bars that served hot and cold dishes and drinks), and cauponae ("pubs" or "dives" with a seedy reputation as hangouts for thieves and prostitutes). At least one building, the Lupanar, was dedicated to prostitution. A large hotel or hospitium (of 1,000 m2) was found nearby at Murecine/Moregine, when the Naples-Salerno motorway was being built, and the Murecine Silver Treasure and the Tablets (providing a unique record of business transactions), as well as the Moregine bracelet, were discovered there.
An aqueduct provided water to the public baths, to more than 25 street fountains, and to many private houses and businesses. The aqueduct was a branch of the great Serino Aqueduct built to serve the other large towns in the Bay of Naples region and the important naval base at Misenum. The castellum aquae is well preserved and includes many details of the distribution network and its controls.
=== Shops and workshops ===
There were at least 31 bakeries in the town, each with wood-burning ovens, millstones and a sales counter. The Modestus bakery, or House of the Oven, was the largest in the city and Sotericus's bakery, also among the largest, preserves the room for kneading bread.
Thermopolia were inns or snack-bars in which hot food and drinks were sold and in Pompeii there were nearly 100. The thermopolium of Vetutius Placidus overlooked the street directly, had a counter and several dolia, as well as a room behind the shop where customers could eat their meals: the lararium with frescoes of the Lares and Mercury and Dionysus and a triclinium decorated in the Third style. In the thermopolium of Asellina, with three sales counters and a lararium with depictions of Mercury and Bacchus, numerous furnishings have been found, both in bronze and terracotta, as well as 683 sesterces; the external façade bears a representation of jugs and funnels and an electoral inscription referring to Asellina, probably the owner of the inn.
Wool processing was well developed with 13 workshops that worked the raw material, seven that did the spinning, nine the dyeing, and 18 the washing: the Building of Eumachia, from the name of the priestess who built it, was the wool market, or the seat of the fullers guild; construction took place after 62 and was entirely in brickwork. Inside it has numerous niches in which statues were housed, mostly concerning the imperial family, a colonnade, and near the entrance, there was a jar in which urine was collected for use as a detergent for clothes. The fullonica of Stephanus, named after the owner or manager, was originally a house that was transformed into a workshop for the processing of fabrics: on the lower floor the working and washing activities took place, carried out in large tanks with water, soda and urine while on the upper floor the clothes were dried.
The garum workshop made the sauce obtained from the fermentation of the entrails of fish; in the building some containers were found, closed by lids, with the sauce inside while in the nearby garden was a large deposit of amphorae.
=== Lists of buildings ===
=== Agriculture and horticulture ===
Modern archaeologists have excavated garden sites and urban domains to reveal the agricultural staples of Pompeii's economy. Pompeii had fertile soil for crop cultivation. The soils surrounding Mount Vesuvius preceding its eruption had good water-retention capabilities, implying productive agriculture. The Tyrrhenian Sea's airflow provided hydration to the soil despite the hot, dry climate. Barley, wheat, and millet were produced along with wine and olive oil, for export to other regions.
Evidence of wine imported nationally from Pompeii in its most prosperous years can be found from recovered artefacts such as wine bottles in Rome. For this reason, vineyards were of utmost importance to Pompeii's economy. Agricultural policymaker Columella suggested that each vineyard in Rome produce a quota of three cullei of wine per jugerum; otherwise, the vineyard would be uprooted. The nutrient-rich lands near Pompeii were extremely efficient and often capable of largely exceeding these requirements, providing the incentive for local wineries to establish themselves. While wine was exported for Pompeii's economy, most other agricultural goods were likely produced in quantities sufficient for the city's consumption.
Remains of large formations of constructed wineries were found in the Forum Boarium, covered by cemented casts from the eruption of Vesuvius. It is speculated that these historical vineyards are strikingly similar in structure to the modern day vineyards across Italy.
Carbonised food plant remains, roots, seeds and pollens have been found in gardens in Pompeii, Herculaneum, and a Roman villa at Torre Annunziata. They revealed that emmer wheat, Italian millet, common millet, walnuts, pine nuts, chestnuts, hazel nuts, chickpeas, bitter vetch, broad beans, olives, figs, pears, onions, garlic, peaches, carob, grapes, and dates were consumed. All but the dates could have been produced locally.
=== Erotic art ===
The discovery of erotic art in Pompeii and Herculaneum left the archaeologists with a dilemma stemming from the clash of cultures between the mores of sexuality in ancient Rome and in Counter-Reformation Europe. An unknown number of discoveries were hidden away again. A wall fresco depicting Priapus, the ancient god of sex and fertility, with his grotesquely enlarged penis, was covered with plaster. An older reproduction was locked away "out of prudishness" and opened only on request – and only rediscovered in 1998 due to rainfall. In 2018, an ancient fresco depicting an erotic scene of "Leda and the Swan" was discovered at Pompeii.
Many artefacts from the buried cities are preserved in the Naples National Archaeological Museum. In 1819, when King Francis visited the Pompeii exhibition there with his wife and daughter, he was so embarrassed by the erotic artwork that he had it locked away in a "secret cabinet" (gabinetto segreto), a gallery within the museum accessible only to "people of mature age and respected morals". Re-opened, closed, re-opened again and then closed again for nearly 100 years, the Naples "Secret Museum" was briefly made accessible again at the end of the 1960s (the time of the sexual revolution) and was finally re-opened for viewing in 2000. Minors are still allowed entry only in the presence of a guardian or with written permission.
== Tourism ==
Pompeii has been a popular tourist destination for over 250 years; it was on the Grand Tour. By 2008, it was attracting almost 2.6 million visitors per year, making it one of Italy's most popular tourist sites. It is part of a larger Vesuvius National Park and was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1997. To combat problems associated with tourism, the governing body for Pompeii, the 'Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei', has begun issuing new tickets that allow tourists to visit cities such as Herculaneum and Stabiae as well as the Villa Poppaea, to encourage visitors to see these sites and reduce pressure on Pompeii. In 2024, the site's management announced that it would limit daily sales to a maximum of 20,000 personalised tickets per day and introduce timed entry schemes in the peak summer season.
Pompeii is a driving force behind the economy of the nearby town of Pompei. Many residents are employed in the tourism and hospitality industry, serving as taxi or bus drivers, waiters, or hotel staff.
New excavations at the site were generally ceased due to a moratorium imposed in 1999 by the superintendent of the site, Professor Pietro Giovanni Guzzo. The moratorium was lifted in 2017. The site is generally less accessible to tourists than in the past, with less than a third of all buildings open in the 1960s available for public viewing today.
=== Antiquarium of Pompeii ===
Originally built by Giuseppe Fiorelli between 1873 and 1874, the Antiquarium of Pompeii began as an exhibition venue displaying archaeological finds that represented the daily life of the ancient city. The building suffered extensive damage in 1943 during the World War II bombings and again in 1980 due to an earthquake. The museum was closed to the public for 36 years before reopening in 2016 as a space for temporary exhibitions. The museum was re-opened on 25 January 2021 as a permanent exhibition venue. Visitors can see archaeological discoveries from the excavations, casts of the victims of the Mount Vesuvius eruption as well as displays documenting Pompeii's settlement history before becoming a thriving Roman city.
== In popular culture ==
The 1954 film Journey to Italy, starring George Sanders and Ingrid Bergman, includes a scene at Pompeii in which they witness the excavation of a cast of a couple who perished in the eruption.
Pompeii was the setting for the British comedy television series Up Pompeii! and the movie of the series. Pompeii also featured in the second episode of the fourth season of revived BBC science fiction series Doctor Who, named "The Fires of Pompeii", which featured Caecilius as a character.
The rock band Pink Floyd filmed a 1971 live concert, Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii, in which they performed six songs in the city's ancient Roman amphitheatre. The audience consisted only of the film's production crew and some local children.
Siouxsie and the Banshees wrote and recorded the punk-inflected dance song "Cities in Dust", which describes the disaster that befell Pompeii and Herculaneum in AD 79. The song appears on their album 1985 Tinderbox. The jacket of the single remix of the song features the plaster cast of a chained dog killed in Pompeii.
Pompeii is a 2003 Robert Harris novel featuring an account of the aquarius's race to fix the broken aqueduct in the days before the eruption of Vesuvius. Actual events and people inspired the novel.
"Pompeii" is a 2013 song by the British band Bastille. The lyrics refer to the city and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
Pompeii is a 2014 German-Canadian historical disaster film produced and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson.
45 years after the Pink Floyd recordings, guitarist David Gilmour returned to the Pompeii amphitheatre in 2016 to perform a live concert for his Rattle That Lock Tour. This event was considered the first in the amphitheatre to feature an audience since the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius.
== Documentaries ==
In Search of...'s episode No. 82 focuses entirely on Pompeii; it premiered on 29 November 1979.
The National Geographic special In the Shadow of Vesuvius (1987) explores the sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum, interviews (then) leading archaeologists, and examines the events leading up to the eruption of Vesuvius.
Ancient Mysteries: Pompeii: Buried Alive (1996), an A&E television documentary narrated by Leonard Nimoy.
Pompeii: The Last Day (2003), an hour-long drama produced for the BBC that portrays several characters (with historically attested names, but fictional life-stories) living in Pompeii, Herculaneum and around the Bay of Naples, and their last hours, including a fuller and his wife, two gladiators, and Pliny the Elder. It also portrays the facts of the eruption.
Pompeii and the AD 79 eruption (2004), a two-hour Tokyo Broadcasting System documentary.
Pompeii Live (28 June 2006), a Channel 5 production featuring a live archaeological dig at Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Pompeii: The Mystery of the People Frozen in Time (2013), a BBC One drama documentary presented by Margaret Mountford.
The Riddle of Pompeii (23 May 2014), Discovery Channel.
Pompeii: The Dead Speak (8 August 2016), Smithsonian Channel.
Pompeii's People (3 September 2017), a CBC Gem documentary presented by David Suzuki.
== Gallery == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimin | Jimin | Park Ji-min (Korean: 박지민; born October 13, 1995), known mononymously as Jimin, is a South Korean singer, songwriter, and dancer. In 2013, he made his debut as a member of the South Korean boy band BTS, under the record label Big Hit Entertainment. Jimin has released three solo tracks under BTS' name—"Lie" in 2016, "Serendipity" in 2017, and "Filter" in 2020—all of which have charted on South Korea's Gaon Digital Chart.
He released his first credited solo song, the digital track "Promise", which he co-wrote, in 2018 and recorded the duet "With You" with Ha Sung-woon for the soundtrack for the TvN drama Our Blues in 2022. Jimin released his debut solo album, Face in 2023, which debuted at number one in South Korea and Japan and number two on the US Billboard 200, making him the highest-charting Korean solo artist on the latter chart. The album's single "Like Crazy" became the first song by a Korean solo artist to debut at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 in history. Jimin also became the first Korean solo artist to top the Billboard Artist 100 chart. In 2024, he released his second album, Muse, and its lead single "Who", which debuted at number one on the Billboard Global 200.
== Early life and education ==
Park Ji-min was born on October 13, 1995, in Geumjeong District, Busan, South Korea. He is of the Milyang Park clan. His immediate family includes his mother, father, and younger brother.
When he was a child, he attended Busan's Hodong Elementary School and Yonsan Middle School. In middle school, he attended Just Dance Academy, where he learned popping and locking. Prior to becoming a trainee, Jimin studied contemporary dance at Busan High School of Arts and was a top student in the modern dance department. A teacher suggested that he join an entertainment company, leading him to Big Hit Entertainment. Once he passed the auditions in 2012, he transferred to Korean Arts High School, graduating in 2014.
Jimin graduated from Global Cyber University in August 2020 with a major in Broadcasting and Entertainment. He was awarded the President's Award, the school's highest honor. As of 2021, he is enrolled at Hanyang Cyber University, pursuing a Master of Business Administration in Advertising and Media.
== Career ==
=== 2013–present: BTS ===
Jimin was the last Big Hit trainee to be added to the lineup that would eventually become BTS. Of the band's seven members, he spent the shortest period of time—six months—as a trainee prior to debuting. On June 13, 2013, he debuted as a vocalist and dancer in BTS with the song "No More Dream" from their first single 2 Cool 4 Skool. Under the band's name, he released three solo songs: "Lie", "Serendipity", and "Filter". "Lie" was released in 2016, as part of the band's second Korean studio album, Wings. It was described as stunning and dramatic, conveying dark undertones and emotions in line with the overall concept of the album. In contrast, "Serendipity", from the band's Love Yourself: Her (2017) extended play (EP), was soft and sensual, expressing the joy, conviction, and curiosity of love. "Filter", a track from BTS' 2020 studio album Map of the Soul: 7, had a Latin pop flair, with lyrics reflecting the different sides of Jimin that he shows to the world and those around him. Jimin additionally co-wrote and co-produced another track included on that album, "Friends", which was later featured in the Marvel Studios film Eternals.
"Serendipity" and "Lie" both surpassed fifty million streams on Spotify in 2018, followed shortly thereafter by the former's full length version from BTS' Love Yourself: Answer (2018) compilation album, which achieved the milestone in early 2019. Jimin became the first Korean artist to have three solo tracks accumulate over 50 million streams each, surpassing Psy, who previously crossed the 50 million streams mark twice with "Gangnam Style" (2012) and "Gentleman" (2013). Both songs were also the only solos by a BTS member included in the Official Charts Company's (OCC) list of the top 20 most streamed BTS songs in the United Kingdom as of October 2018, ranking at number 17 and 19 respectively. In April 2019, the list was expanded to reflect the top 40, and both tracks were the highest ranked solos included that year, at numbers 18 and 20 respectively.
In May 2019, Jimin became the first BTS member to have a solo music video achieve 100 million views on YouTube when "Serendipity" surpassed the milestone. He remained the only BTS member with multiple solo songs in the January 2020 update of the OCC's top 40 list: "Lie" and "Serendipity" were the second and third most-streamed solos, at numbers 24 and 29 respectively, with the full-length version of the latter at number 38. The following month, Jimin earned his first entry on the Billboard Hot 100 with "Filter", which debuted at number 87 on the chart, as well his first number one on the World Digital Song Sales chart. The song set the record for the biggest streaming debut among all Korean songs on Spotify, accruing over 2.2 million streams in its first 24 hours of release, and went on to become the fastest Korean solo in the platform's history to surpass 20–60 million streams. It was also the only solo album track by BTS to receive a Song of the Year nomination at the Gaon Chart Music Awards. In March 2021, "Filter" became the 15th BTS song to spend a full year on Billboard's World Digital Song Sales chart. It was the longest-charting Korean song released in 2020 on the ranking, having spent 80 weeks on the chart as of the issue dated October 9, 2021.
Jimin was awarded the fifth-class Hwagwan Order of Cultural Merit in 2018, alongside his bandmates, by the President of South Korea, Moon Jae-in, for their contributions to the promotion of Korean culture. Three years later, Moon appointed him Special Presidential Envoy for Future Generations and Culture, alongside his bandmates, to help "lead the global agenda for future generations" and "expand South Korea's diplomatic efforts and global standing" in the international community.
=== 2014–present: Solo work ===
In 2014, Jimin collaborated with bandmate Jung Kook on a song called "Christmas Day", a Korean rendition of Justin Bieber's "Mistletoe"; Jimin wrote the Korean lyrics himself. The two collaborated again in 2017, on a cover of Charlie Puth's "We Don't Talk Anymore" featuring Selena Gomez. Jung Kook previously released a solo version of the song in February, and the two prepared the duet as a special gift to the band's fandom, releasing it on June 2, during BTS' fourth anniversary celebrations. Teen Vogue wrote that "adding Jimin's voice to the mix makes the rendition all the more lovely", while the Canadian outlet Flare magazine stated that "it honestly might be better than the original". Elite Daily described the cover as "nothing short of flawless".
Jimin appeared on several variety shows such as Hello Counselor, Please Take Care of My Refrigerator, and God's Workplace in 2016. He also served as a special MC on domestic television music programs such as Show! Music Core and M Countdown. In December 2016, he participated in a dance duet at the KBS Song Festival with Taemin from Shinee.
On December 30, 2018, Jimin released "Promise", his first credited song as a solo artist, for free on BTS' SoundCloud page. It earned the biggest 24-hour debut in SoundCloud history with 8.5 million streams, surpassing previous record holder Drake's "Duppy Freestyle" which received 4.9 million streams, and would go on to become the most streamed song on the platform by December 2021, with over 300 million streams. Described by Billboard as a "mellow pop ballad", the song was composed by Jimin and Big Hit producer Slow Rabbit, who also produced the track, and features lyrics written by Jimin and bandmate RM. Jimin released his second solo song "Christmas Love", about his childhood memories of the holidays, on December 24, 2020. In 2022, he contributed the single "With You", a duet with Ha Sung-woon, to the soundtrack of the TvN drama Our Blues; the single was released on April 24.
In January 2023, Jimin co-wrote and featured on the single "Vibe" by Taeyang. His first official solo project since BTS announced an increased focus on individual music endeavors a year prior, the single earned Jimin his debut entry on the Billboard Hot 100 as a solo artist, at number 76. He was announced as a global ambassador for Dior later that month, and for Tiffany & Co. in March. "Promise" and "Christmas Love" were made available on streaming platforms worldwide as official singles under Jimin's name on March 6. His debut solo album Face was released on March 24. It set several chart and sales records, debuting at number one in South Korea and Japan, and number two in the US, making Jimin the highest-charting Korean solo artist of all time on the Billboard 200. The album's two singles, "Set Me Free Pt. 2" and "Like Crazy", released on March 17 and 24 respectively, both entered the Hot 100: the former debuted at number 30, while the latter debuted at number one, making Jimin the first South Korean solo artist in history to top the chart. The album's release led Jimin to become the first Korean solo artist to reach number one on the Billboard Artist 100. In May, he appeared as a featured artist, alongside Jvke and Muni Long, on the single "Angel Pt. 1" by Kodak Black and NLE Choppa, as part of the soundtrack for the film Fast X. The digital single "Closer Than This" was released on December 22, shortly after Jimin enlisted in the South Korean Army. Originally recorded during the production of Face, it is a song dedicated to the BTS fandom in gratitude for their support.
Big Hit announced an eight-episode travel reality series, Are You Sure?!, featuring Jimin and Jung Kook on July 2, 2024. Available for streaming exclusively on Disney+, the premiere episode aired August 8, with subsequent episodes following weekly through September 19. The label released Jimin's second solo album, Muse, on July 19, while he was carrying out his mandatory military service. It was supported by the singles "Smeraldo Garden Marching Band" and "Who". "Who" became Jimin's first song to debut atop both of Billboard's global charts and the longest-charting song by a Korean artist on the Billboard Hot 100 after spending 33 weeks on the chart, surpassing BTS' "Dynamite".
== Artistry ==
Jimin's vocals have been described as delicate and sweet. He is regarded as an exceptional dancer among the members of BTS and in K-pop in general, often praised for his "smooth and elegant movements" and charm on stage. In the documentary Burn the Stage released in 2018, Jimin addressed his perfectionism. In 2023, Jimin stated that as a pop artist, he "aims to excel at both dancing and singing and perform a diverse range of musical genres and themes" while "taking a healthy and sustainable approach to do so".
He has cited singer Rain as an inspiration and one of the reasons why he wanted to become a singer and performer.
== Impact and influence ==
In 2016, Jimin was ranked as the 14th most popular idol in an annual survey conducted by Gallup Korea. He subsequently ranked seventh in 2017, and then consecutively ranked first in 2018 and 2019, as the only idol to top the survey for two consecutive years. In 2018, Jimin was the ninth most-tweeted about celebrity and the eighth most-tweeted about musician globally. He was named the 17th best boy band member in history by The Guardian. From January to May 2018, Jimin won the monthly "Top K-Pop Artist–Individual" award for Peeper x Billboard, a collaboration between the Peeper social media app and Billboard Korea that collects fan votes for their favorite K-pop artists. The prize was a donation to UNICEF in his name.
The Cultural Conservation Society awarded Jimin a plaque of appreciation in 2019, for performing buchaechum, a traditional Korean fan dance, during the 2018 Melon Music Awards and helping spread the dance outside of Korea. In October 2021, he became the first idol to spend 34 consecutive months atop the brand reputation ranking for individual boy group idols and the only one to top the overall ranking for three consecutive years.
Jimin is often cited as a role model by various idols in the K-pop industry, many of whom try to emulate his style of dance, mannerisms, and stage presence; media outlets have called him the "Idol of Idols", "Idol's Bible", and "Rookies' Bible". Artists who have cited him as an influence include Arthur of Kingdom, Bic of MCND, Kim Si-hun of BDC, Woochul of Newkidd, Hyunjin of Stray Kids, Wooyoung of Ateez, Lim Se-jun of Victon, Huening Kai and Beomgyu of Tomorrow X Together, and Ni-ki and Jay of Enhypen. British internet personality Oli London underwent 15 cosmetic surgeries by 2020 to resemble Jimin.
Jimin has also been acknowledged beyond the K-pop industry. In 2019, Award-winning director and photographer Gus Van Sant named him as the artist he wished to work with.
In 2021, Olympic figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu shared being a BTS fan and mentioned Jimin as a source of inspiration for his dance movements on the rink. In 2023, Ryan Gosling gifted Jimin the guitar his character Ken used in the movie Barbie, as Jimin's "Permission to Dance" music video outfit served as inspiration for one of the outfits Gosling wore for the role.
Forbes Korea included Jimin on the Forbes Korea Power Celebrity 40 for 2024, at number seven, making him the highest ranking K-pop soloist and second-highest ranking soloist on the list. In 2025, Jimin made it to the Madame Tussauds Hot 100 list, recognizing him as a K-pop star.
== Philanthropy ==
Jimin is a supporter of education and the arts. From 2016 to 2018, he covered uniform expenses of students at his alma mater, Busan Hodong Elementary School. After the school's closing was announced, he donated summer and winter middle school uniforms to the final graduates and gifted autographed albums to the entire student body. In early 2019, Jimin donated ₩100 million (US$85,810.58) to the Busan Department of Education to help support students from low income families. Of the total, ₩30 million (US$25,743.17) went to his alma mater, Busan Arts High School. In July 2020, he donated ₩100 million (US$84,726.68) to the Jeonnam Future Education Foundation to fund the creation of a scholarship fund for talented students from South Jeolla Province who were struggling financially.
In July 2021, Jimin donated ₩100 million (US$87,416.41) to Rotary International to help polio patients. As with previous donations, the benefaction was made privately but became public in September, when the Go-seong Rotary Club displayed a banner thanking him for the donation. He was announced as a member of the Green Noble Club, a group of major donors to the Green Umbrella Children's Foundation who have contributed ₩100 million or more, on October 12.
In September 2022, Jimin made a donation to the Gangwon Provincial Office of Education. In February 2023, he donated ₩100 million (US$87,416.41) through the Korean UNICEF Committee toward emergency relief for children affected by the Turkey–Syria earthquake. In March, he donated ₩100 million (US$87,416.41) to the North Chungcheong Provincial Office of Education to fund books and reading education programs for students. In August, Jimin participated in the "Hometown Love Donation System", a program allowing non-residents to donate to support welfare in the district of Nam District, Busan. He donated the maximum allowed donation amount of ₩5 million (US$4,370.82) and proceeded to re-donate his campaign's donor return gifts to people in need in the region. In February 2024, Jimin was inducted in the Nam-gu Hometown Love Donation System Donor Hall of Fame for his contribution to the district welfare programs. In May, he made a donation of ₩100 million (US$87,416.41) to the South Gyeongsang Provincial Office of Education to create a scholarship for underprivileged students.
In September, Jimin donated ₩100 million (US$87,416.41) to fund scholarships, along with living and medical expenses for Korean soldiers. The donation serves to support families of soldiers who have struggled, suffered a loss, or passed. Following his donation, Jimin was appointed to the honor society of the Community Chest of Korea's Chungnam branch. In December, he donated ₩30 million (US$26,224.92) to the Busan Habitat Challenge, a project aiming to improve the living conditions of the elderly in the city.
In March 2025, Jimin donated ₩100 million (US$87,416.41) to support firefighters following the wildfires in the Gyeongbuk region. In July, he donated ₩100 million (US$87,416.41) to the Jeonbuk Office of Education in the North Jeolla Province. This marked his 6th donation since 2019 to Provincial Offices of Education for the creation of scholarships for deprived students.
== Personal life ==
Since 2018, Jimin has lived in Hannam-dong, Seoul, South Korea, with his bandmates. In 2021, he purchased a property in the area worth ₩5.9 billion (US$5.16 million).
=== Health ===
In 2017, during BTS' Wings Tour, Jimin was unable to participate in the show in Macau due to neck and shoulder cramping. The following year, while in London for the Love Yourself World Tour, he withdrew from the band's scheduled performance on The Graham Norton Show because of "severe muscle pain in his neck and back", according to a statement released by Big Hit Entertainment.
In 2022, Jimin was hospitalized after having abdominal pain and a mild sore throat. He underwent appendicitis surgery on January 31 and received a positive COVID-19 diagnosis.
=== Military service ===
On November 22, 2023, Big Hit announced through Weverse that Jimin, along with bandmates RM, V, and Jung Kook, had started the enlistment process to carry out his mandatory military service. He enlisted as an active duty soldier on December 12 at the Army 5th Division Recruit Training Center in Yeoncheon with Jung Kook using the buddy system. He completed his five weeks of basic training in January 2024, placing first as an outstanding trainee and received the Best trainee commendation award from the Division Commander, taking an oath as the representative of all trainees in his unit. He was then appointed to an Artillery Unit in the 5th Infantry Division. In June, Jimin received an early promotion and was selected as a Special Class Warrior for his excellent military performance. He was formally discharged on June 11, 2025.
== Discography ==
Face (2023)
Muse (2024)
== Filmography ==
=== Television ===
== Awards and nominations ==
=== World records === |
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dustin_Brown_(ice_hockey) | Dustin Brown (ice hockey) | Dustin James Brown (born November 4, 1984) is an American former professional ice hockey player. Brown played as a right winger and spent his entire NHL career with the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League (NHL), who drafted him 13th overall in the 2003 NHL entry draft. He served as team captain from 2008 to 2016; during this time he led the Kings to two Stanley Cup championships in 2012 and 2014, becoming the first Kings captain and second American captain (behind Derian Hatcher) to win the Stanley Cup. During the 2012–13 NHL lockout, he played for ZSC Lions in the Swiss National League A (NLA).
Brown was noted for his physical playing style, consistently ranking among NHL leaders in hits and penalties drawn, and his reserved, lead-by-example approach to his captaincy of the Kings.
Internationally, Brown has represented the United States at three World Championships, winning a bronze medal in 2004, and two World Junior Championships. He won a silver medal as an alternate captain of the United States at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Brown received the 2011 NHL Foundation Player Award for his extensive charity work in the Los Angeles community, and the Mark Messier Leadership Award in 2014.
== Playing career ==
=== Junior career ===
After playing hockey at Ithaca High School for two years, Brown left his hometown to play junior hockey at age 16. He was drafted in the second round, 26th overall, by the Guelph Storm in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) Priority Selection Draft. Brown played three seasons for Guelph, scoring 194 points in 174 games. He was drafted by the Los Angeles Kings in the first round, 13 overall, in 2003.
As a junior in the Ontario Hockey League, Brown won the Bobby Smith Trophy as the OHL’s Scholastic Player of the Year in three straight seasons (beginning in 2000-01). He also won the Canadian Hockey League’s Scholastic Player of the Year in 2002-03, his last season in junior hockey.
=== Los Angeles Kings (2003–2022) ===
==== 2003–2008: Early seasons ====
Brown signed a three-year entry-level contract with the Kings and made the Kings' 2003–04 team out of training camp. His first NHL game was October 9, 2003, against the Detroit Red Wings. Brown saw fourth-line ice time in his rookie year, and he scored his first NHL goal on November 22, 2003, in a 2–0 win over the Colorado Avalanche. He managed just 1 goal and 5 points in 31 games before his season was cut short by a high ankle sprain. Nonetheless, Brown's physicality made a favorable impression with the Kings' coaching staff.
The following season was cancelled due to the NHL lockout. Brown was assigned to the Manchester Monarchs, the Kings' American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, in order to develop his offensive game. He performed well in Manchester, averaging nearly a point per game and readying himself for an expanded NHL role.
With the lockout over, and NHL play resuming in 2005–06, Brown cemented his place on the team. As a 21-year-old checking forward, he managed 28 points in 79 games. More impressively, he led the team (and ranked 13th in the NHL) with 175 hits, and he drew the second most penalties in the NHL despite his limited ice time. A restricted free agent at the end of the year, Brown signed a two-year contract before the start of the 2006–07 season.
Brown's third season saw an expansion in his role, as he was placed on the top line with star rookie center Anže Kopitar. The two young forwards became frequent linemates, as Brown's hitting abilities and willingness to shoot complemented Kopitar's dynamic passing and puck possession skills. Receiving the third-most ice time among Kings forwards, Brown responded with career-highs of 17 goals and 46 points in 81 games. Brown also received the most short-handed ice time among Kings forwards, a sign of his growing defensive reliability. He finished second in the NHL in hits, the first of six consecutive years that he ranked top three in the NHL in that category.
On October 26, 2007, shortly after the start of the 2007–08 season, the Kings and Brown agreed to a six-year, $19.05 million contract extension that ran through the 2013–14 season. The contract was signed a full year before Brown hit restricted free agency, partially because young forwards Dustin Penner of the Anaheim Ducks and Thomas Vanek of the Buffalo Sabres had just received lucrative offer sheets in restricted free agency, and the Kings did not want Brown to receive one. Brown produced his best offensive season that year. Continuing to play top-line minutes with Kopitar, he recorded 33 goals and 60 points. To date, that season remains the only year Brown has managed to reach the 30-goal plateau. Despite his personal success, the rebuilding Kings missed the Stanley Cup playoffs for the fifth-straight year.
==== 2008–2016: Stanley Cup championships and captaincy ====
The Kings named Brown the 13th captain in team history on October 8, 2008, just after the start of the 2008–09 season. Brown's appointment filled the vacancy created when prior captain Rob Blake left the Kings in free agency to sign with the San Jose Sharks on July 3, 2008. Just 23 years old when he assumed the captaincy, Brown became the youngest captain and the only American captain in Kings history. Head coach Terry Murray pointed to Brown's work ethic and commitment to the Kings to explain the decision, saying Brown "shows that he cares tremendously about this team, about winning every night. I just want him to follow through with that, and he will because that's his personality. Just keep blazing that trail, and players on the team will follow". Kings management was impressed by Brown's emergence as a vocal leader in the locker room, especially after the departure of veteran presences Mattias Norström and Rob Blake. On the ice, Brown's numbers dipped slightly from 2007–08, in part because of an 8.2% shooting percentage, his lowest since his rookie season. However, his 292 shots led the team, and his 24 goals were third. Brown was chosen to represent the Western Conference at the 2009 All-Star Game. The Kings missed the playoffs for a franchise-worst sixth straight year.
Brown again posted solid numbers in 2009–10, playing all 82 games for the first time and registering 24 goals and a career-high 32 assists. He scored his 100th NHL goal on January 14, 2010, against the Anaheim Ducks. With Brown leading a rapidly improving young core that included center Anze Kopitar, defenseman Drew Doughty and goaltender Jonathan Quick, the Kings finally snapped the eight-year playoff drought after clinching the sixth seed in the West to qualify for a playoff spot. Brown had one goal and four assists in six games as the Kings lost in the first round of the 2010 playoffs to the third seeded Vancouver Canucks.
Brown and the Kings entered the 2010–11 season with higher expectations. Brown again played all 82 games and scored 28 goals and 29 assists for 57 points. Anže Kopitar's late season ankle injury forced the Kings to settle for a seventh-seeded finish in the Western Conference and a matchup with the second-seeded San Jose Sharks in the first round of the 2011 playoffs. The Kings lost in six games for the second straight year, with Brown recording two points (a goal and an assist) in the series.
Brown began the 2011–12 season on a line with newly acquired center Mike Richards, but was shuffled throughout the lineup for most of the season. He maintained his consistent production, topping 20 goals and 50 points for the fifth-straight year. However, along with the rest of the Kings, he struggled to score in the first half of the season. Head coach Terry Murray was fired midway through the season, and as the Kings fell further out of the playoff picture, they were rumored to be listening to trade offers for Brown. New head coach Darryl Sutter called the Brown-Kopitar tandem "stale" and said Brown was not playing the "straight-line, up-and-down, go-to-the-net, shoot-the-puck, run-over-people" style Brown needed to be effective. Brown's scoring pace picked up amidst the trade rumors, and he scored three goals on Corey Crawford and an assist on a Willie Mitchell goal in the last game before the NHL trade deadline, a 4–0 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on February 25, 2012. The Kings retained Brown, who responded with 11 points in the nine games following the trade deadline. Brown later said he was playing with "a chip on his shoulder" and "whether those rumors are true or not, they're still out there, it gives you maybe a bit more motivation". With Brown producing and the trade-deadline acquisition of Jeff Carter, the Kings were one of the highest-scoring NHL teams down the stretch and made the playoffs as an eighth seed. After moving up-and-down the lineup for most of the season, Brown found stability playing on the first line with Anže Kopitar and Justin Williams. That line would remain intact throughout the entire 2012 playoffs. Brown recorded four goals and one assist for five points in the first round against the back-to-back Presidents' Trophy-winning Vancouver Canucks, including two shorthanded goals on Canucks' goaltender Roberto Luongo in a 4–2 game 2 win. Brown is the first and only player as of 2022 with two shorthanded goals in a playoff game. In game 3, he delivered a devastating open-ice check to Canucks center and captain Henrik Sedin directly in front of the Vancouver' bench. The hit left Sedin uninjured but dazed on the ice for several seconds until fellow Canuck' center Manny Malhotra, who was on the bench with his linemates at the time of the play, had to guide Henrik off the ice and on to the bench. Brown later scored the game-winning goal in the third period. Many observers, including TSN's Bob McKenzie and Sports Illustrated' Michael Farber, called the hit the decisive moment in the series. The Kings upset the heavily favored top-seeded Canucks in five games, and then recorded the first sweep in franchise history over the second seeded St. Louis Blues in the second round. Brown registered two goals and four assists in the series. Both of his goals came in the decisive game 4, a 3–1 Kings victory. The Kings then beat the third seeded Arizona Coyotes in five games in the Western Conference finals. Brown scored the game-winning goal in game 1 of that series and did not score again until game 6 of the 2012 Stanley Cup Final against the sixth seeded New Jersey Devils, although he did manage five assists in that span. After being benched for the final minutes of a game 5 loss, Brown produced three points in game 6 to secure the Kings' first-ever Stanley Cup. He scored the first of three goals on a five-minute power play, and shortly afterwards, fired a shot that Jeff Carter deflected into the net for the eventual Cup-winning goal. Later, he assisted on another Carter goal. The Kings defeated the Devils 6–1, making Brown the second American-born captain to lead a team to a Stanley Cup championship and the Kings the second California-based team to win the Stanley Cup. With eight goals and 12 assists for 20 points in 20 games, Brown tied teammate Anže Kopitar for the lead in overall playoff point total.
On July 28, 2012, Brown had his "Day with the Cup". Each year after a team has won the Stanley Cup, players, front office and hockey operation staff each get a day with the Stanley Cup. Brown hinted on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno he would bring the Cup back home. He did just that, bringing it to Ithaca High School in late July. During the lockout-shortened season, Brown finished shortened regular season with 18 goals and 11 assists for 29 points in 46 games. The Kings reached the Western Conference finals for a second-straight year, but fell in five games to the Presidents' Trophy-winning and eventual Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks.
On July 18, 2013, the Kings signed Brown to an eight-year, $47 million contract extension. In the 2014 Stanley Cup Final, Brown led the Kings to another Stanley Cup title, despite facing some criticism for more muted contributions on the team's run to the title. In the Cup Final against the New York Rangers, Brown scored the overtime winner in game 2 to give the Kings a 5–4 victory and a 2–0 series lead, and he scored again during the Kings' 2–1 loss in game 4. At the conclusion of the 2013–14 season, Brown was awarded the Mark Messier Leadership Award "in recognition of his commitment and service to charities in his community".
On November 26, 2014, Brown recorded his 200th NHL goal in a 4–0 Kings win over the Minnesota Wild.
After the Kings missed the playoffs entirely for the first time since 2009 in 2015, Brown and the Kings returned to the playoffs in 2016 only to fall in the first round in five games to the San Jose Sharks.
==== 2016–2022: Later years ====
Following back-to-back seasons of scoring less than 30 points, Brown was replaced as the Kings captain by Anže Kopitar on June 16, 2016. Speaking on the decision to have his captaincy stripped, Brown stated, "I understand the decision and I respect the decision. Part of my problem was how it was handled. It just put me in an awkward spot."
The 2017–18 season marked a resurgence for Brown. After earning 36 points the season prior, Brown managed 28 goals and 33 assists for a career-high 61 points in 81 contests played. On December 21, 2017, Brown played in his 1,000th career NHL game. The Kings defeated the Colorado Avalanche 2–1 in overtime, where Brown scored the game-winning goal. On April 5, 2018, Brown scored four goals, including the overtime winner, against the Minnesota Wild.
In the pandemic-shortened 2020–21 season opener in a 4–3 OT loss against the Minnesota Wild on January 13, 2021, Brown recorded his 300th NHL goal.
Brown was eventually re-promoted to alternate captain since his demotion, and announced on April 28, 2022 before the 2021–22 season finale against the Vancouver Canucks that he would retire after the completion of the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs, for which his Kings team qualified for the first time since 2018. At the time of the announcement, Brown had 28 points (9 goals, 19 assists) in 64 games in the 2021–22 regular season. In the season finale against the Canucks, he was named team captain for the Kings. In the 2022 playoffs, Brown's Kings would be eliminated in seven games in the first round by the Edmonton Oilers, with Brown skating in all seven appearances and recording two points, his final game was on May 14.
Brown was honored with a statue on February 11, 2023, joining Wayne Gretzky and Luc Robitaille as the only Kings players with statues. The Kings also retired his #23 jersey that night, making him the sixth King so honored.
== International play ==
Brown has played for the United States in multiple international tournaments. During the World Championship tournament in 2008, Brown received negative attention for a controversial hit that made contact with the head of Finnish player Jussi Jokinen as the final horn sounded.
Brown was named an alternate captain of the United States at the 2010 Winter Olympics and again in 2014.
== Style of play ==
Brown was known for his physical, north–south style of game. Brown considered himself a clean hitter: after a controversial hit on Phoenix Coyotes defenseman Michal Rozsíval in the 2012 Western Conference finals, Brown defended himself by saying, "I take pride in playing the game clean and hard. There are going to be hits that are unfortunate but still clean." Brown had never been issued a fine or suspension from the NHL Department of Player Safety until April 24, 2013, when he received two-game suspension for an illegal elbow to the head of Minnesota Wild forward Jason Pominville on April 23, 2013. Brown's former teammate Rob Blake said Brown "comes at guys straight on, face-to-face. He goes right through guys." Despite his aggressive style, Brown did not miss a game due to injury over a span of four seasons. Brown was one of the most effective NHL players at drawing penalties, having led the NHL in that category in five of seven post-lockout seasons. Brown's unparalleled success in that area led several commentators, including ex-NHL referee Kerry Fraser, to say that Brown acquired a reputation for embellishing infractions in order to draw penalties. Beyond his physicality and agitation, Brown provided a consistent offensive threat for the Kings, scoring at least 22 goals for five consecutive years. Brown played an effective two-way game and matured into an elite defensive and penalty-killing forward.
== Personal life ==
Brown has three sons Jake, Mason, Cooper and one daughter MacKenzie, with his wife Nicole and lives in Buffalo, New York. Brown had a speech impediment early in his career, which he received therapy for before his professional career. He was heavily involved in charity work in the Greater Los Angeles Area during his playing years, and was awarded the 2011 NHL Foundation Player Award for his community efforts and involvement.
== Career statistics ==
=== Regular season and playoffs ===
Bold indicates led league
=== International ===
== Awards and honors == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Ridge_National_Laboratory | Oak Ridge National Laboratory | Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a federally funded research and development center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1943, the laboratory is sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and administered by UT–Battelle, LLC.
Established in 1943, ORNL is the largest science and energy national laboratory in the Department of Energy system by size and third largest by annual budget. It is located in the Roane County section of Oak Ridge. Its scientific programs focus on materials, nuclear science, neutron science, energy, high-performance computing, environmental science, systems biology and national security, sometimes in partnership with the state of Tennessee, universities and other industries.
ORNL has several of the world's top supercomputers, including Frontier, ranked by the TOP500 as the world's second most powerful. The lab is a neutron and nuclear power research facility that includes the Spallation Neutron Source, the High Flux Isotope Reactor, and the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences.
== Overview ==
Oak Ridge National Laboratory is managed by UT–Battelle, a limited liability partnership between the University of Tennessee and the Battelle Memorial Institute, formed in 2000 for that purpose. The annual budget is US$2.4 billion. As of 2021 there is a staff of 5,700 working at ORNL, around 2,000 of whom are scientists and engineers, and an additional 3,200 guest researchers annually.
There are five campuses on the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge reservation: the National Laboratory, the Y-12 National Security Complex, the East Tennessee Technology Park (formerly the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant), the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, and the developing Oak Ridge Science and Technology Park, although the four other facilities are unrelated to the National Laboratory. The total area of the reservation is 150 square kilometres (58 sq mi) of which the lab takes up 18 square kilometres (7 sq mi).
== History ==
In 1934 the Freel Farm Mound Site, an archaeological site and burial mound of the Late Woodland period was excavated. The site is currently inundated by Melton Hill Lake.
The city of Oak Ridge was established by the Army Corps of Engineers as part of the Clinton Engineer Works in 1942 on isolated farm land as part of the Manhattan Project. During World War II, advanced research for the government was managed at the site by the University of Chicago's Metallurgical Laboratory. In 1943, construction of the Clinton Laboratories, what would later be known as the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, was completed. The site was chosen for the X-10 Graphite Reactor, used to produce plutonium from natural uranium. Enrico Fermi and his colleagues developed the world's second self-sustaining nuclear reactor after Fermi's previous experiment, the Chicago Pile-1. The X-10 was the first reactor designed for continuous operation.
After the end of World War II, management of the lab was contracted by the US government to Monsanto; however, they withdrew in 1947. The University of Chicago temporarily re-assumed responsibility, with the site receiving the prestigious "National" laboratory designation, until in December 1947, when Union Carbide and Carbon Co., which already operated two other facilities at Oak Ridge, took control of the laboratory and renamed the site Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
Post-war, the demand for military science had fallen dramatically, and the future of the lab was uncertain. The X-10 reactor and the laboratory's 1,000 employees were no longer involved in nuclear weapons. Instead, it was used for scientific research. In 1946 the first medical isotopes were produced in the X-10 reactor, and by 1950 almost 20,000 samples had been shipped to various hospitals. The quantity and variety of radionuclides produced by X-10 for medicine grew steadily in the 1950s. ORNL was the only Western source of californium-252. ORNL scientists also performed the world's first successful bone marrow transplant in mice by suppressing their immune systems.
In 1950 the Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology was established with two courses in reactor operation and safety; almost 1,000 students graduated. Much of the research performed at ORNL in the 1950s was related to nuclear reactors as a form of energy production, both for propulsion and electricity. More reactors were built in the 1950s than in the rest of the ORNL's history combined. One of their most influential projects was the light-water reactor, a precursor to many modern nuclear power stations. The US Military funded much of its development, for nuclear-powered submarines and ships of the US Navy. The US Army also contracted the design of portable nuclear reactors in 1953 for heat and electricity generation in remote military bases. The reactors were produced by the American Locomotive Company and used in Greenland, the Panama Canal Zone, and Antarctica. The US Air Force also contributed funding to three reactors, the lab's first computers, and its first particle accelerators. ORNL built its first molten salt reactor in 1954 as a proof-of-concept for a proposed fleet of long-range bombers, but it was never used.Alvin M. Weinberg was named Director of Research, ORNL, and in 1955 Director of the Laboratory. In the early 1960s there was a large push at ORNL to develop nuclear-powered desalination plants, where deserts met the sea, to provide water. The project, called Water for Peace, was backed by John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and was presented at a 1964 United Nations conference, but increases in the cost of construction and falling public confidence in nuclear power caused the plan to be shuttered. The Health Physics Research Reactor built in 1962 was used for radiation exposure experiments leading to more accurate dosage limits and dosimeters, and improved radiation shielding.
In 1964 the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment began with the construction of the reactor. It operated from 1966 until 1969 (with six months down time to move from U-235 to U-233 fuel) and proved the viability of molten salt reactors, while also producing fuel for other reactors as a byproduct of its own reaction. The High Flux Isotope Reactor built in 1965 had the highest neutron flux of any reactor at the time. It improved upon the work of the X-10 reactor, producing more medical isotopes as well as allowing higher fidelity of materials research. Researchers in the biology division studied the effects of chemicals on mice, including petrol fumes, pesticides, and tobacco.
In the late 1960s, cuts in funding led to the cancellation of plans for another particle accelerator, and the United States Atomic Energy Commission cut the breeder reactor program by two-thirds, leading to a downsizing in staff from 5,000 to 3,800. In the 1970s, the prospect of fusion power was strongly considered, sparking research at ORNL. A tokamak called ORMAK, made operational in 1971, was the first tokamak to achieve a plasma temperature of 20 million Kelvin. After the success of the fusion experiments, it was enlarged and renamed ORMAK II in 1973; however, the experiments ultimately failed to lead to fusion power plants.
The US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) required improved safety standards in the early 1970s for nuclear reactors, so ORNL staff wrote almost 100 requirements covering many factors including fuel transport and earthquake resistance. In 1972 the AEC held a series of public hearings where emergency cooling requirements were highlighted and the safety requirements became more stringent. Also in 1972, Peter Mazur, a biologist at ORNL, froze with liquid nitrogen, thawed and implanted mouse embryos in a surrogate mother. The mouse pups were born healthy. The technique is popular in the livestock industry, as it allows the embryos of valuable cattle to be transported easily and a prize cow can have multiple eggs extracted and thus, through in vitro fertilisation, have many more offspring than would naturally be possible.
In 1974 Alvin Weinberg, director of the lab for 19 years, was replaced by Herman Postma, a fusion scientist. In 1977 construction began for 6 metre (20 foot) superconducting electromagnets, intended to control fusion reactions. The project was an international effort: three electromagnets were produced in the US, one in Japan, one in Switzerland and the final by remaining European states. ORNL was involved in analyzing the damage to the core of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station after the accident in 1979.
The 1980s brought more changes to ORNL: a focus on efficiency became paramount. An accelerated climate simulation chamber was built that applied varying weather conditions to insulation to test its efficacy and durability faster than real time. Materials research into heat resistant ceramics for use in truck and high-tech car engines was performed, building upon the materials research that began in the nuclear reactors of the 1950s. In 1987 the High Temperature Materials Laboratory was established, where ORNL and industry researchers cooperated on ceramic and alloy projects. The materials research budget at ORNL doubled after initial uncertainty regarding Reagan's economic policy of less government expenditure. In 1981, the Holifield Heavy Ion Research Facility, a 25 MV particle accelerator, was opened at ORNL. At the time, Holifield had the widest range of ion species and was twice as powerful as other accelerators, attracting hundreds of guest researchers each year.
The Department of Energy was concerned with the pollution surrounding ORNL, and it began clean-up efforts. Burial trenches and leaking pipes had contaminated the groundwater beneath the lab, and radiation tanks were sitting idle, full of waste. Estimates of the total cost of clean-up were into the hundreds of millions of US dollars. The five older reactors were subjected to safety reviews in 1987, ordered to be deactivated until the reviews were complete. By 1989 when the High Flux Isotope Reactor was restarted, the US supply of certain medical isotopes was depleted. In 1989 the former executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Alvin Trivelpiece, became director of ORNL; he remained in the role until 2000.
In 1992 whistleblower Charles Varnadore filed complaints against ORNL, alleging safety violations and retaliation by his superiors. While an administrative law judge ruled in Varnadore's favor, Secretary of Labor Robert Reich overturned that ruling. However, Varnadore's case saw prime contractor Martin Marietta cited for safety violations and ultimately led to additional whistleblower protection within DOE.
In January 2019 ORNL announced a major breakthrough in its capacity to automate Pu-238 production which helped push annual production from 50 grams to 400 grams, moving closer to NASA's goal of 1.5 kilograms per year by 2025 in order to sustain its space exploration programs.
== Areas of research ==
ORNL conducts research and development activities that span a wide range of scientific disciplines. Many research areas have a significant overlap with each other; researchers often work in two or more of the fields listed here. The laboratory's major research areas are described briefly below.
Chemical sciences: ORNL conducts both fundamental and applied research in numerous areas, including catalysis, surface science and interfacial chemistry; molecular transformations and fuel chemistry; heavy element chemistry and radioactive materials characterization; aqueous solution chemistry and geochemistry; mass spectrometry and laser spectroscopy; separations chemistry; materials chemistry including synthesis and characterization of polymers and other soft materials; chemical biosciences; and neutron science.
Electron microscopy: the program investigates key issues in condensed matter, materials, chemical and nanosciences.
Nuclear medicine: research is focused on the development of improved reactor production and processing methods to provide medical radioisotopes, the development of new radionuclide generator systems, the design and evaluation of new radiopharmaceuticals for applications in nuclear medicine, and oncology.
Physics: research is focused primarily on studies of the fundamental properties of matter at the atomic, nuclear, and subnuclear levels and the development of experimental devices in support of these studies.
Population: ORNL provides federal, state and international organizations with a gridded population database, called Landscan, for estimating ambient population. LandScan is a raster image, or grid, of population counts, which provides human population estimates every 30 x 30 arc seconds, which translates roughly to population estimates for 1 kilometer square windows or grid cells at the Equator, with cell width decreasing at higher latitudes. Though many population datasets exist, LandScan is the best spatial population dataset, updated annually. Landscan data are accessible through GIS applications and a USAID public domain application called Population Explorer.
=== Energy ===
The laboratory has a long history of energy research; nuclear reactor experiments have been conducted since the end of World War II in 1945. Because of the availability of reactors and high-performance computing resources, an emphasis on improving the efficiency of nuclear reactors is present. The programs develop more efficient materials, more accurate simulations of aging reactor cores, sensors and controls as well as safety procedures for regulatory authorities.
The Energy Efficiency and Electricity Technologies Program aims to improve air quality in the US and reduce dependence on foreign oil supplies. There are three key areas of research: electricity, manufacturing and mobility. The electricity division focuses on reducing electricity consumption and finding alternative sources for production. Buildings, which account for 39% of US electricity consumption as of 2012, are a key area of research as the program aims to create affordable, carbon-neutral homes. Research also takes place into higher efficiency solar panels, geothermal electricity and heating, lower cost wind generators, and the economic and environmental feasibility of potential hydro power plants.
The Fusion Energy Division pursues short-term goals to develop components such as high-temperature superconductors, high-speed hydrogen pellet injectors, and suitable materials for future fusion research. Much research into the behaviour and maintenance of plasma takes place at the Fusion Energy Division to further the understanding of plasma physics, a crucial area for developing a fusion power plant. The US ITER office is at ORNL with partners at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and Savannah River National Laboratory. The US contribution to the ITER project is 9.1% which is expected to be in excess of US$1.6 billion throughout the contract. ORNL researchers participated in developing of an extensive research plan for the US-ITER collaboration detailed in 2022.
=== Biology ===
Biological research covers ecology, forestry, genomics, computational biology, structural biology and bioinformatics. The BioEnergy Program aims to improve the efficiency of all stages of the biofuel process to improve the energy security of the United States. The program aims to make genetic improvements to the potential biomass used, formulate methods for refineries that can accept a diverse range of fuels, and to improve the efficiency of energy delivery both to power plants and end users.
The Center for Molecular Biophysics conducts research into the behaviour of biological molecules in various conditions. The center hosts projects that examine cell walls for biofuel production, use neutron scattering to analyze protein folding, and simulate the effect of catalysis on a conventional and quantum scale. ORNL is home to a field site for the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), which has a field office nearby. The Department of Energy works closely with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency out of ORNL to monitor forest ecology for the surrounding Appalachians & Cumberland Plateau Domain of NEON.
=== Neutron science ===
There are two neutron sources at ORNL; the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) and the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS). HFIR provides neutrons in a stable beam resulting from a constant nuclear reaction whereas SNS, a particle accelerator, produces pulses of neutrons. HFIR went critical in 1965 and has been used for materials research and as a major source of medical radioisotopes since. As of 2013, HFIR provides the world's highest constant neutron flux as a result of various upgrades. Berkelium-249, used to synthesize tennessine for the first time, was produced in the HFIR as part of an international effort. HFIR is likely to operate until approximately 2060 before the reactor pressure vessel is considered unsafe for continued use.
The SNS has the highest intensity neutron pulses of any human-made neutron source. SNS was made operational in 2006 and has since been upgraded to 1 megawatt with plans to continue up to 3 MW. High-power neutron pulses permit clearer images of the targets, meaning smaller samples can be analyzed and accurate results require fewer pulses.
=== Materials ===
Between 2002 and 2008 ORNL partnered with Caterpillar Inc. to develop a new steel for their diesel engines that can withstand large temperature fluctuations. The new material, named CF8C Plus, is based on conventional CF8C stainless steel with added manganese and nitrogen; the result has better high–temperature properties and is easier to cast at a similar cost. In 2003 the partners received an R&D 100 award from R&D magazine and in 2009 received an award for "excellence in technology transfer" from the Federal Laboratory Consortium for the commercialization of the steel.
There is a high-temperature materials lab at ORNL that permits researchers from universities, private companies and other government initiatives to use their facilities. As is the case for all designated user facilities, the resources of the High Temperature Materials Laboratory are available for free if the results are published; private research is permitted but requires payment.
The Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) researches the behaviour and fabrication of nanomaterials. The center emphasises discovery of new materials and the understanding of underlying physical and chemical interactions that enable creation of nanomaterials. In 2012, CNMS produced a lithium-sulfide battery with a theoretical energy density three to five times greater than existing lithium ion batteries.
=== Security ===
ORNL provides resources to the United States Department of Homeland Security and other defense programs. The Global Security and Nonproliferation (GS&N) program develops and implements policies, both US based and international, to prevent the proliferation of nuclear material. The program has developed safeguards for nuclear arsenals, guidelines for dismantling arsenals, plans of action should nuclear material fall into unauthorised hands, detection methods for stolen or missing nuclear material, and trade of nuclear material between the US and Russia. The GS&N's work overlaps with that of the Homeland Security Programs Office, providing detection of nuclear material and nonproliferation guidelines. Other areas concerning the Department Homeland Security include nuclear and radiological forensics, chemical and biological agent detection using mass spectrometry, and simulations of potential national hazards.
=== High-performance computing ===
ORNL has been the site of various supercomputers, home to the fastest on several occasions. In 1953, ORNL partnered with the Argonne National Laboratory to build ORACLE (Oak Ridge Automatic Computer and Logical Engine), a computer to research nuclear physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering. ORACLE had 2048 words (80 Kibit) of memory and took approximately 590 microseconds to perform addition or multiplication of integers. In the 1960s ORNL was equipped with an IBM 360/91 and an IBM 360/65. In 1995 ORNL bought an Intel Paragon based computer called the Intel Paragon XP/S 150 that performed at 154 gigaFLOPS and ranked third on the TOP500 list of supercomputers. In 2005 Jaguar was built, a Cray XT3-based system that performed at 25 teraFLOPS and received incremental upgrades up to the XT5 platform that performed at 2.3 petaFLOPS in 2009. It was recognised as the world's fastest from November 2009 until November 2010. Summit was built for Oak Ridge National Laboratory during 2018, which benchmarked at 122.3 petaFLOPS. As of June 2020, Summit was the world's second fastest [clocked] supercomputer with 202,752 CPU cores, 27,648 Nvidia Tesla GPUs, and 250 Petabytes of storage, having lost the top position to the Japanese Fugaku supercomputer. In May 2022, the ORNL Frontier system broke the exascale barrier, achieving 1.102 exaflop/s using 8,730,112 cores.
Since 1992 the Center for Computational Sciences has overseen high performance computing at ORNL. It manages the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility that contains the machines. In 2012, Jaguar was upgraded to the XK7 platform, a fundamental change as GPUs are used for the majority of processing, and renamed Titan. Titan performed at 17.59 petaFLOPS and held the number 1 spot on the TOP500 list for November 2012. Other computers include a 77 node cluster to visualise data that the larger machines output in the Exploratory Visualization Environment for Research in Science and Technology (EVEREST), a visualisation room with a 10 by 3 metre (30 by 10 ft) wall that displays 35 megapixel projections. Smoky is an 80 node Linux cluster used for application development. Research projects are refined and tested on Smoky before running on larger machines such as Titan.
In 1989 programmers at the Oak Ridge National Lab wrote the first version of Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM), software that enables distributed computing on machines of differing specifications. PVM is free software and has become the de facto standard for distributed computing. Jack Dongarra of ORNL and the University of Tennessee wrote the LINPACK software library and LINPACK benchmarks, used to calculate linear algebra and the standard method of measuring floating point performance of a supercomputer as used by the TOP500 organisation.
== Laboratory directors ==
The following persons served as director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory:
== Notable people == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selayar_Islands | Selayar Islands | Selayar or Saleyer (Indonesian: Kabupaten Selayar, Dutch: Saleijer), is an archipelago of South Sulawesi province, Indonesia. It lies in the Flores Sea, between Sulawesi and Flores, around 150 km southeast of the major city of Makassar. Kabupaten Selayar is the Regency, covering 1,357 km2 with a population of about 139,145 in mid 2022. There are 73 islands, the main one being Selayar Island. To the east lies Pulau (Island) Kalaotoa and Pulau Karompa Lompo (in Sulawesi Tenggara province), and to the west lies Kepulauan Sabalana (the Sabalana Islands). It is a biodiverse diving site.
== Islands ==
Selayar Island
Pulau Pulasi
Pulau Tambalongang
Pulau Tanah Jampea
Pulau Batu
Pulau Kayuadi
Pulau Panjang
Macan Islands Islands include Latondu, Rajuni, Timabo, Pasi Tallu, and Taka Lamungan.
Pulau Kalao
Pulau Bonerate
Bahuluang
The Selayar Strait (Selat Selayar) is more than 100 fathoms deep and, with a strong current, is dangerous for native ships to navigate. The strata of Selayar Island are all sedimentary rocks: coraline limestone, occasionally sandstone; everywhere, except in the north and north-west, covered by a fertile soil. The watershed is a chain running throughout the island from N. to S., reaching in Bontona Haru 5840 ft.,\ and sloping steeply to the east coast.
== Demographics ==
The Selayar Islands population, mainly a mixture of Selayar, Makassar, Bugis, Bajau peoples, and the migrants of Luwu and Butonese peoples, is estimated in mid 2021 at 89,147 on the main island and 48,827 on the islands to the southeast of it. They speak the several Makassaric languages (mainly Selayar and Makassar) and are for the most part nominally Muslims (though many non-Muslim customs survive) and support themselves by agriculture, fishing, seafaring, trade, the preparation of salt (on the south coast) and weaving. Raw and prepared cotton, tobacco, trepang, tortoise-shell, coconuts and coconut oil, and salt are exported. There is frequent movement between the area and other parts of Sulawesi as well as to other parts Indonesia. For that reason, and also because of its excellent horses and numerous water buffaloes, the Salayar Islands are often compared with the Kangean Islands in Madura, being of the same importance to Sulawesi as is Madura to Java. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province | Province | A province is an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman provincia, which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outside Italy. The term province has since been adopted by many countries. In some countries with no actual provinces, "the provinces" is a metaphorical term meaning "outside the capital city".
While some provinces were produced artificially by colonial powers, others were formed around local groups with their own ethnic identities. Many have their own powers independent of central or federal authority, especially in Canada and Turkey. In other countries, like China or France, provinces are the creation of central government, with very little autonomy.
== Etymology ==
The English word province is attested since about 1330 and derives from the 13th-century Old French province, which itself comes from the Latin word provincia, which referred to the sphere of authority of a magistrate, in particular, to a foreign territory.
A popular etymology is from Latin pro- ("on behalf of") and vincere ("to triumph" or "to take control of"). Thus a "province" would be a territory or function that a Roman magistrate held control of on behalf of his government. In fact, the word province is an ancient term from public law, which means: "office belonging to a magistrate". This agrees with the Latin term's earlier usage as a generic term for a jurisdiction under Roman law.
== History and culture ==
In France, the expression en province still means "outside the Paris region". Equivalent expressions are used in Peru (en provincias, "outside the city of Lima"), Mexico (la provincia, "lands outside Mexico City"), Romania (în provincie, "outside the Bucharest region"), Poland (prowincjonalny, "provincial"), Bulgaria (в провинцията, v provincijata, "in the provinces" and провинциален, provincialen, "provincial"), the Netherlands (uit de provincie, "from outside Amsterdam", or "from outside the Randstad"), and the Philippines (tagá-probinsiya, "from outside Metro Manila", sa probinsiya, "in the provinces", or "in the countryside").
Before the French Revolution, France comprised a variety of jurisdictions (built around the early Capetian royal demesne), some being considered "provinces", though the term was also used colloquially for territories as small as a manor (châtellenie). Most commonly referred to as "provinces", however, were the Grands Gouvernements, generally former medieval feudal principalities, or agglomerations of such. Today, the expression en province is regularly replaced in the media by the more politically correct en région, région now being the term officially used for the secondary level of government.
In Italy, in provincia generally means "outside the biggest regional capitals" (like Rome, Milan, Naples, etc.).
For the United Kingdom, use of the word is often pejorative, assuming a stereotype of the denizens of the provinces to be less culturally aware than those in the capital.
In Mexico, while the term la provincia is commonly used to refer to areas outside Mexico City, it is increasingly viewed as pejorative by residents of other states. Mexico does not have provinces as administrative divisions, and the use of the term can imply a hierarchical or dismissive view of the rest of the country, reinforcing centralist attitudes and marginalizing regional identities.
The historic European provinces—built up of many small regions, called pays by the French and "cantons" by the Swiss, each with a local cultural identity and focused upon a market town—have been depicted by Fernand Braudel as the optimum-size political unit in pre-industrial Early Modern Europe. He asks, "Was the province not its inhabitants' true 'fatherland'?" Even centrally-organized France, an early nation-state, could collapse into autonomous provincial worlds under pressure, as during the sustained crisis of the French Wars of Religion (1562–98).
The British colonies in North America were often named provinces. Most (but not all) of the Thirteen Colonies that eventually formed the United States were called provinces. All declared themselves "states" when they became independent. The Connecticut Colony, the Delaware Colony, Rhode Island and the Colony of Virginia never used the title "province". The British colonies further north, which remained loyal to Britain and later confederated to form the original Canada, retained the title of "province" and are still known as such to the present day.
To 19th and 20th-century historians, in Europe, centralized government was a sign of modernity and political maturity. In the late 20th century, as the European Union drew nation-states closer together, centripetal forces seemed simultaneously to move countries toward more flexible systems of more localized, provincial governing entities under the overall European Union umbrella. Spain after Francisco Franco has been a "State of Autonomies", formally unitary but in fact functioning as a federation of Autonomous Communities, each exercising different powers.
While Serbia, the rump of former Yugoslavia, fought the separatists in the province of Kosovo, the United Kingdom, under the political principle of "devolution", produced (1998) local parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In ancient India, unlike the Mauryas, the Gupta Empire gave local areas a great deal of independence and divided the empire into 26 large provinces, styled as Bhukti, Pradesha and Bhoga.
== Legal aspects ==
In many federations and confederations, the province or state is not clearly subordinate to the national or central government. Rather, it is considered to be sovereign in regard to its particular set of constitutional functions. The central- and provincial-government functions, or areas of jurisdiction, are identified in a constitution. Those that are not specifically identified are called "residual powers". In a decentralized federal system (such as the United States and Australia) these residual powers lie at the provincial or state level, whereas in a centralized federal system (such as Canada) they are retained at the federal level.
Some of the enumerated powers can be quite important. For example, Canadian provinces are sovereign in regard to such important matters as property, civil rights, education, social welfare and medical services. The growth of the modern welfare state has resulted in these functions, assigned to the provinces, becoming more important compared to those assigned to the federal government and thus provincial governments have become more important than the Fathers of Confederation originally intended.
Canada's status as a federation of provinces under the Dominion of the British Empire rather than an independent country also had certain legal implications. Provinces could appeal court rulings over the heads of the Supreme Court of Canada to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London. As well, provinces could bypass the Supreme Court and go directly to London from any Provincial Court. The Canadian Supreme Court tended to support the view that the Canadian Constitution was intended to create a powerful central government, but the Privy Council in London held the distinctly opposite view that the Constitution provided for stronger provincial powers. This provided an opportunity for forum shopping for provinces who opposed federal laws. Until appeals from Canada to the Privy Council were abolished in 1949, in legal disputes the provincial governments tended to win powers at the expense of the federal government.
In addition, while the Canadian federal government has unlimited taxing power while province governments are restricted to imposing direct taxes, the Canadian government introduced an income tax during World War I, and since it is a direct tax it also became a major revenue generator for provinces. In most provinces, the federal government now collects income tax for both levels of government and transfers to the provincial governments whatever surcharge they ask for. The sales tax also become a major revenue generator for provinces, so in 1991 the Canadian government introduced a Goods and Services Tax (GST) to share the revenues, which proved unpopular both with provincial governments and taxpayers. The Canadian government has tried to harmonize the two levels of sales taxes, but three provinces continue to impose a separate sales tax (British Columbia after harmonizing it, and shortly thereafter de-harmonizing it after it was struck down by a referendum), while the province of Alberta still does not impose a provincial sales tax.
The evolution of federations has created an inevitable tug-of-war between concepts of federal supremacy versus states' and provinces' rights. The historic division of responsibility in federal constitutions is inevitably subject to multiple overlaps. For example, when central governments, responsible for foreign policy, enter into international agreements in areas where the state or province is sovereign, such as the environment or health standards, agreements made at the national level can create jurisdictional overlap and conflicting laws. This overlap creates the potential for internal disputes that lead to constitutional amendments and judicial decisions that alter the balance of powers.
Though foreign affairs do not usually fall under a province's or a federal state's competency, some states allow them to legally conduct international relations on their own in matters of their constitutional prerogative and essential interest. Sub-national authorities have a growing interest in paradiplomacy, be it performed under a legal framework or as a trend informally admitted as legitimate by the central authorities.
In unitary states such as France and China, provinces are subordinate to the national, central government. In theory, the central government can create or abolish provinces within its jurisdiction. On the other hand, although Canada is now considered a federal state and not a confederation, in practice it is among the world's more decentralized federations. Canadian Confederation and the Constitution Act, 1867 conferred considerable power on the provincial governments which they often use to pursue their own goals independently of the federal government.
In Canada, local governments have been called "creatures of the province" because the authority of a local government derives solely from the provincial government. Provinces can create, merge, and dissolve local governments without the consent of the federal government or the people in the affected locality. Alberta in particular dissolved and merged hundreds of local governments during the 1940s and 1950s as a consequence of the Great Depression. Other provinces have arbitrarily merged and annexed independent suburbs to major Canadian cities such as Toronto or Montreal without the approval of local voters.
== Current provinces ==
Not all first-level political entities are termed "provinces." In Arab countries, the first administrative level of government—called a muhafazah—is usually translated as a "governorate." In Poland, the equivalent of "province" is "województwo," sometimes rendered in English as "voivodeship."
Historically, New Zealand was divided into provinces, each with its own Superintendent and Provincial Council, and with considerable responsibilities conferred on them. However, the colony (as it then was) never developed into a federation; instead, the provinces were abolished in 1876. The old provincial boundaries continue to be used to determine the application of certain public holidays. Over the years, when the central Government has created special-purpose agencies at a sub-national level, these have often tended to follow or approximate the old provincial boundaries. Current examples include the 16 Regions into which New Zealand is divided, and also the 21 District Health Boards. Sometimes the term the provinces is used to refer collectively to rural and regional parts of New Zealand, that is, those parts of the country lying outside some or all of the "main centres"—Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton and Dunedin.
=== Modern provinces ===
In many countries, a province is a relatively small non-constituent level of sub-national government, such as a county in the United Kingdom. In China, a province is a sub-national region within a unitary state; this means that a province can be created or abolished by the national people's congress.
In some nations, a province (or its equivalent) is a first-level administrative unit of sub-national government—as in the Netherlands—and a large constituent autonomous area, as in Argentina, Canada, South Africa, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It can also be a constituent element of a federation, confederation, or republic. For example, in the United States, no state may secede from the federal union without the permission of the federal government.
In other nations—such as Belgium, Chile, Italy, Peru, the Philippines, and Spain—a province is a second-level administrative sub-division of a region (which is the first-order administrative sub-division of the nation). Italian provinces are mainly named after their principal town and comprise several administrative sub-divisions called comuni (communes). In Chile, they are referred to as comunas. Chile has 15 regions, subdivided into 53 provinces, of which each is run by a governor appointed by the president. Italy has 20 regions, subdivided into 14 metropolitan cities and 96 provinces. Peru has 25 regions, subdivided into 194 provinces. Spain has 17 autonomous communities and 2 autonomous cities, subdivided into 50 provinces.
The island of Ireland is divided into four historic provinces (see Provinces of Ireland), each of which is sub-divided into counties. These provinces are Connacht (in the west), Leinster (in the east), Munster (in the south) and, Ulster (in the north). Nowadays these provinces have little or no administrative function, though they do have sporting significance. Northern Ireland is frequently called "the Province" or "Ulster" in British media, although it includes just six of the nine counties of the original province.
From the 19th century, the Portuguese colonies were considered overseas provinces of Portugal.
Similarly, some overseas parts of the British Empire bore the colonial title of "province" (in a more Roman sense), such as the Province of Canada and the Province of South Australia (the latter, to distinguish it from the penal "colonies" elsewhere in Australia). Likewise, prior to the American Revolution, most of the original Thirteen Colonies in British America were provinces as well, such as the Province of Georgia and the Province of New Hampshire.
=== Canada ===
The constituent entities of Canada are known as provinces. Prior to confederation, the term province was used in reference to several British colonies situated in what is now Canada; such as the colonial Province of Quebec. In 1791, Quebec split into two separate provinces, Lower Canada, and Upper Canada. The two colonies were later merged in 1841 to form the Province of Canada. From its separation from Nova Scotia in the 18th century, New Brunswick was known as His/Her Majesty's Province of New Brunswick. After Canadian Confederation in 1867, the term provinces continued to be used, in reference to the sub-national governments of Canada.
Because Canada is the second-largest country in the world by area, but has only 10 provinces, most Canadian provinces are very large—six of its ten provinces are larger than any country in Europe except Russia, and its largest province—Quebec, 1,542,056 km2 (595,391 sq mi)—is almost two and a half times as large as France—640,679 km2 (247,368 sq mi). Six provinces, including five of the oldest Canadian provinces—Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island—have "counties" as administrative sub-divisions. The actual local government form can vary widely. In New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and in 9 of the 18 counties of Nova Scotia, county government has been abolished and has been superseded by another form of local government. New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island also have parishes within counties. Since the Canadian Constitution assigns local government to provincial jurisdiction, the various provinces can create, dissolve, and reorganize local governments freely and they have been described as "creatures of the province".
The Western provinces have more varied types of administrative sub-divisions than the Eastern provinces. The province of British Columbia has "regional districts" which function as county-equivalents. Manitoba and Saskatchewan are divided into rural municipalities.
Alberta is also divided into counties, albeit they are officially classified as "municipal districts" by the province, though in regular everyday parlance these entities are referred to as a "county". Alberta has some unique local governance schemes formed in response to local conditions. For instance, Sherwood Park is an unincorporated "urban service area" of 72,017 within Strathcona County, which has most of the oil refining capacity in Western Canada; Fort McMurray was once a city but dissolved itself and became an "urban service area" of 70,964 people within the Regional Municipality (R.M.) of Wood Buffalo, which has several multibillion-dollar oil sands plants; and Lloydminster, a city of 31,483 which sits directly astride the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan. Unlike most such cases, Lloydminster is not a pair of twin cities on opposite sides of a border, but is actually incorporated by both provinces as a single city with a single municipal administration. The residents objected to the federal government splitting the city in two when it created the two provinces, so the two provinces reunified it by declaring it to be a single city in two provinces, thereby bypassing the limitations of a twin-city arrangement.
=== Pakistan ===
Pakistan is administratively divided into four provinces:
Punjab
Sindh
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Balochistan
It also has two autonomous territories:
Azad Jammu and Kashmir
Gilgit Baltistan
=== Russia ===
The term "province" is sometimes used to refer to the historic governorates (guberniyas) of Russia. This terms also refers to the provinces (провинции), which were introduced as the subdivisions of the governorates in 1719 and existed until 1775. In modern parlance, the term is commonly used to refer to the oblasts and krais of Russia.
=== Polities translated ===
== Historic provinces ==
=== Ancient, medieval and feudal ===
The Roman Empire was divided into provinces (provinciae); this is from which the term originated. Later Eastern Half: see Exarchate, thema
Caliphate and subsequent sultanates: see Emirate
Khanate can also mean a province as well as an independent state, as either can be headed by a Khan
Pharaonic Egypt: see nome (Egypt)
Frankish (Carolingian) 're-founded' Holy Roman Empire: see gau and county
In the Habsburg territories, the traditional provinces are partly expressed in the Länder of 19th-century Austria-Hungary.
Mughal Empire: subah
The provinces of the Ottoman Empire had various types of governors (generally a pasha), but mostly styled vali, hence the predominant term vilayet, generally subdivided (often in beyliks or sanjaks), sometimes grouped under a governor-general (styled beylerbey).
Achaemenid Persia (and probably before in Media, again after conquest and further extension by Alexander the Great, and in the larger Hellenistic successor states: see satrapy
In the Tartar Khanate of Kazan: the five daruğa ('direction')
=== Colonial and early modern ===
Spanish Empire, at several echelons:
viceroyalty above
intendencia
The former Republic of the Seven United Provinces (The Netherlands)
British colonies:
American Southern Colonies
Province of Carolina (1629–1712)
Province of North Carolina (1712–1776)
Province of South Carolina (1712–1776)
Province of Maryland (1632–1776)
Province of Georgia (1732–1777)
American Middle Colonies
Province of New Jersey (1664–1776)
Province of New York (1664–1783)
Province of Pennsylvania (1681–1783)
American New England Colonies
Province of New Hampshire (1680–1686, 1692–1783)
Province of Massachusetts Bay (1692–1776)
Province of Maine (various dates)
Canada (New France)
Province of Quebec (1763–1791)
Province of Lower Canada (1791–1841)
Province of Upper Canada (1791–1841)
United Province of Canada (1841–1867)
Provinces of the Philippines
Provinces of New Zealand (1841–1876)
Provinces of Nigeria
Province of South Australia (Australian state since 1901)
The former provinces of Brazil
The former provinces of France
The former provinces of India
The former Five provinces of Ireland
The former provinces of Japan
The former provinces of Portugal
The provinces of Prussia, a former German kingdom/republic
The provinces of the Republic of New Granada
The former provinces of Sweden
The former United Provinces of Central America
The former United Provinces of the Río de la Plata |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Engine_Alliance | Global Engine Alliance | Global Engine Alliance LLC, began as a joint venture of Chrysler, Mitsubishi Motors, and Hyundai Motor Company for developing a line of shared engines.
In September 2009, Chrysler purchased Mitsubishi and Hyundai's shares, after 5 years of allied research and development, making its Dundee, Michigan plant a wholly owned subsidiary of what was then Chrysler Group LLC.
== Global Engine Manufacturing Alliance ==
Global Engine Manufacturing Alliance, LLC (GEMA) was the manufacturing arm of the Global Engine Alliance and consisted of five factories worldwide. Production began in 2005, with an annual capacity of approximately two million engines; each plant was capable of producing 420,000. Twenty different automobile models from the three companies were to use the engines. Chrysler had expected to use GEMA engines in ten models and projects, and buy up to 840,000 GEMA engines annually.
The Dundee plants were purchased by Chrysler in December, 2012, and renamed the Chrysler Dundee Engine Plant(s). After Chrysler's assimilation into FCA, the plant simply became known as the Dundee Engine Plant.
== Design ==
Hyundai was initially responsible for leading the design of the base engine, while the Chrysler Group and Mitsubishi were involved in making other important engineering contributions pertaining to the design. The design features Siamese bores, an aluminium block with cast-iron cylinder liners, and an aluminium head. Different cylinder liners could be fitted to increase or decrease displacement depending on manufacturers needs. Each manufacturer configured their variants of the initial design differently based on their engineering needs and standards, so consumers may experience very different power, fuel efficiency, and "feel" from each manufacturer. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.