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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Miami_Dolphins_season | 1995 Miami Dolphins season | The 1995 Miami Dolphins season was the franchise's 30th season, 26th in the National Football League, and 26th and final under head coach Don Shula. The Dolphins finished 9–7 before losing to the Bills in the playoffs.
Until the 2022 NFL season, this marked the last time the Dolphins finished with a top 10 Offense.
== Offseason ==
=== 1995 expansion draft ===
=== NFL draft ===
=== Undrafted free agents ===
== Roster ==
== Regular season ==
=== Schedule ===
=== Standings ===
== Playoffs ==
=== AFC Wild Card Game ===
Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino completed 33 of 64 passes for 422 yards and two touchdowns, but also threw three interceptions. The Bills used an NFL-playoff record 341 rushing yards to gain a 27–0 lead by the start of the fourth quarter.
=== Don Shula's retirement ===
The week after Miami's playoff loss to Buffalo, Shula announced his retirement. His 347 wins as a head coach, including 257 with the Dolphins, are an NFL record. Shula coached in six Super Bowls, winning two, and in 1972 he led the only unbeaten and untied season in NFL history. Shula was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1997 and is considered one of the greatest coaches in NFL history.
== Awards and honors ==
Dan Marino, AFC Pro Bowl Selection
Dan Marino, All-Pro Selection
== Notes and references ==
Miami Dolphins on Pro Football Reference
Miami Dolphins on jt-sw.com |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme | Battle of the Somme | The Battle of the Somme (French: Bataille de la Somme; German: Schlacht an der Somme), also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and the French Republic against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on both sides of the upper reaches of the river Somme in France. The battle was intended to hasten a victory for the Allies. More than three million men fought in the battle, of whom more than one million were either wounded or killed, making it one of the deadliest battles in human history.
The French and British had planned an offensive on the Somme during the Chantilly Conference in December 1915. The Allies agreed upon a strategy of combined offensives against the Central Powers in 1916 by the French, Russian, British and Italian armies, with the Somme offensive as the Franco-British contribution. The French army was to undertake the main part of the Somme offensive, supported on the northern flank by the Fourth Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). When the Imperial German Army began the Battle of Verdun on the Meuse on 21 February 1916, French commanders diverted many of the divisions intended for the Somme and the "supporting" attack by the British became the principal effort. British forces comprised a mixture of wartime volunteers from the Territorial Force and Kitchener's Army with the remains of the pre-war army.
On the first day on the Somme (1 July) the German 2nd Army suffered a serious defeat opposite the French Sixth Army, from Foucaucourt-en-Santerre south of the Somme to Maricourt on the north bank and by the Fourth Army from Maricourt to the vicinity of the Albert–Bapaume road. The 57,470 casualties suffered by the British, including 19,240 killed, were the worst in the history of the British Army. Most of the British casualties were suffered on the front between the Albert–Bapaume road and Gommecourt to the north, which was the area where the principal German defensive effort (Schwerpunkt) was made. The battle became notable for the importance of air power and the first use of the tank in September but these were a product of new technology and proved unreliable.
At the end of the battle, British and French forces had penetrated 6.2 miles (10 km) into German-occupied territory along the majority of the front, their largest territorial gain since the First Battle of the Marne in 1914. The operational objectives of the Anglo-French armies were not achieved, as they failed to capture Péronne and Bapaume, where the German armies maintained their positions over the winter. British attacks in the Ancre valley resumed in January 1917 and forced the Germans into local withdrawals in February before the strategic retreat by about 25 mi (40 km) in Operation Alberich to the Siegfriedstellung (Hindenburg Line) in March 1917. Debate continues over the necessity, significance and effect of the battle.
== Strategic developments ==
Allied war strategy for 1916 was decided at the Chantilly Conference from 6 to 8 December 1915. Simultaneous offensives on the Eastern Front by the Russian army, on the Italian Front by the Italian army and on the Western Front by the Franco-British armies were to be carried out to deny time for the Central Powers to move troops between fronts during lulls. In December 1915, General Sir Douglas Haig replaced Field Marshal Sir John French as Commander-in-Chief of the BEF. Haig favoured a British offensive in Flanders, close to BEF supply routes, to drive the Germans from the Belgian coast and end the U-boat threat from Belgian waters. Haig was not formally subordinate to Marshal Joseph Joffre but the British played a lesser role on the Western Front and complied with French strategy.
In January 1916, Joffre had agreed to the BEF making its main effort in Flanders but in February 1916 it was decided to mount a combined offensive where the French and British armies met, astride the Somme River in Picardy before the British offensive in Flanders. A week later the Germans began the Battle of Verdun against the French army. The costly defence of Verdun forced the army to divert divisions intended for the Somme offensive, eventually reducing the French contribution to 13 divisions in the Sixth Army, against 20 British divisions. By 31 May, the ambitious Franco-British plan for a decisive victory had been reduced to a limited offensive to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun and inflict attrition on the German armies in the west.
The Chief of the German General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, intended to end the war by splitting the Anglo-French Entente in 1916, before its material superiority became unbeatable. Falkenhayn planned to defeat the large number of reserves which the Entente could move into the path of a breakthrough, by threatening a sensitive point close to the existing front line and provoking the French into counter-attacking German positions. Falkenhayn chose to attack towards Verdun to take the Meuse heights and make Verdun untenable. The French would have to conduct a counter-offensive on ground dominated by the German army and ringed with masses of heavy artillery, leading to huge losses and bringing the French army close to collapse. The British would mount a hasty relief offensive and suffer similar losses. Falkenhayn expected the relief offensive to fall south of Arras against the 6th Army and be destroyed. Despite the certainty by mid-June of an Anglo-French attack on the Somme against the 2nd Army, Falkenhayn sent only four divisions, keeping eight in the western strategic reserve.
No divisions were taken from the Sixth Army, despite it holding a shorter line with 17+1⁄2 divisions and three of the divisions in OHL reserve behind the 6th Army. The maintenance of the strength of the 6th Army, at the expense of the 2nd Army on the Somme, indicated that Falkenhayn intended the counter-offensive against the British to be made north of the Somme front, once the British offensive had been shattered. If such Franco-British defeats were not enough, Germany would attack the remnants of both armies and end the western alliance for good. The unexpected length of the Verdun offensive, and the need to replace many drained units at Verdun, depleted the German strategic reserve placed behind the 6th Army, which held the Western Front from Hannescamps, 11 mi (18 km) south-west of Arras to St Eloi, south of Ypres and reduced the German counter-offensive strategy north of the Somme to one of passive and unyielding defence.
=== Battle of Verdun ===
The Battle of Verdun (21 February – 16 December 1916) began a week after Joffre and Haig agreed to mount an offensive on the Somme. The German offensive at Verdun was intended to threaten the capture of the city and induce the French to fight an attrition battle, in which German advantages of terrain and firepower would cause the French disproportionate casualties. The battle changed the nature of the offensive on the Somme, as French divisions were diverted to Verdun, and the main effort by the French diminished to a supporting attack for the British. German overestimation of the cost of Verdun to the French contributed to the concentration of German infantry and guns on the north bank of the Somme. By May, Joffre and Haig had changed their expectations of an offensive on the Somme, from a decisive battle to a hope that it would relieve Verdun and keep German divisions in France, which would assist the Russian armies conducting the Brusilov Offensive. The German offensive at Verdun was suspended in July, and troops, guns, and ammunition were transferred to Picardy, leading to a similar transfer of the French Tenth Army to the Somme front. Later in the year, the Franco-British were able to attack on the Somme and at Verdun sequentially and the French recovered much of the ground lost on the east bank of the Meuse in October and December.
=== Brusilov offensive ===
The Brusilov offensive (4 June – 20 September) on the Eastern Front absorbed the extra forces that had been requested on 2 June by Fritz von Below, commanding the German Second Army, for a spoiling attack on the Somme. On 4 June, Russian armies attacked on a 200 mi (320 km) front, from the Romanian frontier to Pinsk and eventually advanced 93 mi (150 km), reaching the foothills of the Carpathian mountains, against German and Austro-Hungarian troops of Armeegruppe von Linsingen and Armeegruppe Archduke Joseph. During the offensive the Russians inflicted c. 1,500,000 losses including c. 407,000 prisoners. Three divisions were ordered from France to the Eastern Front on 9 June and the spoiling attack on the Somme was abandoned. Only four more divisions were sent to the Somme front before the Anglo-French offensive began, bringing the total to 10+1⁄2 divisions. Falkenhayn and then Hindenburg and Ludendorff, were forced to send divisions to Russia throughout the summer to prevent a collapse of the Austro-Hungarian army and then to conduct a counter-offensive against Romania, which declared war against the Central Powers on 27 August. In July there were 112 German divisions on the Western Front and 52 divisions in Russia and in November there were 121 divisions in the west and 76 divisions in the east.
=== Tactical developments ===
The original British Expeditionary Force (BEF) of six divisions and the Cavalry Division, had lost most of the British pre-war regulars in the battles of 1914 and 1915. The bulk of the army was made up of volunteers of the Territorial Force and Kitchener's Army, which had begun forming in August 1914. Rapid expansion created many vacancies for senior commands and specialist functions, which led to many appointments of retired officers and inexperienced newcomers. In 1914, Douglas Haig had been a lieutenant-general in command of I Corps and was promoted to command the First Army in early 1915 and then the BEF in December, which eventually comprised five armies with sixty divisions. The swift increase in the size of the army reduced the average level of experience within it and created an acute equipment shortage. Many officers resorted to directive command to avoid delegating to novice subordinates, although divisional commanders were given great latitude in training and planning for the attack of 1 July, since the heterogeneous nature of the 1916 army made it impossible for corps and army commanders to know the capacity of each division.
Despite considerable debate among German staff officers, Erich von Falkenhayn continued the policy of unyielding defence in 1916. Falkenhayn implied after the war that the psychology of German soldiers, shortage of manpower and lack of reserves made the policy inescapable, as the troops necessary to seal off breakthroughs did not exist. High losses incurred in holding ground by a policy of no retreat were preferable to higher losses, voluntary withdrawals and the effect of a belief that soldiers had discretion to avoid battle. When a more flexible policy was substituted later, decisions about withdrawal were still reserved to army commanders. On the Somme front, Falkenhayn's construction plan of January 1915 had been completed. Barbed wire obstacles had been enlarged from one belt 5–10 yards (4.6–9.1 m) wide to two, 30 yards (27 m) wide and about 15 yards (14 m) apart. Double and triple thickness wire was used and laid 3–5 feet (0.91–1.52 m) high. The front line had been increased from one trench line to a position of three lines 150–200 yards (140–180 m) apart, the first trench (Kampfgraben) occupied by sentry groups, the second (Wohngraben) for the bulk of the front-trench garrison and the third trench for local reserves. The trenches were traversed and had sentry-posts in concrete recesses built into the parapet. Dugouts had been deepened from 6–9 feet (1.8–2.7 m) to 20–30 feet (6.1–9.1 m), 50 yards (46 m) apart and large enough for 25 men. An intermediate line of strongpoints (the Stützpunktlinie) about 1,000 yards (910 m) behind the front line was also built. Communication trenches ran back to the reserve line, renamed the second position, which was as well-built and wired as the first position. The second position was beyond the range of Allied field artillery, to force an attacker to stop and move field artillery forward before assaulting the position.
== Prelude ==
=== Anglo-French plan of attack ===
French losses at Verdun reduced the contribution available for the offensive on the Somme and increased the urgency for the commencement of operations on the Somme. The principal role in the offensive devolved to the British and on 16 June, Haig defined the objectives of the offensive as the relief of pressure on the French at Verdun and the infliction of losses on the Germans. After a five-day artillery bombardment, the British Fourth Army was to capture 27,000 yards (25,000 m) of the German first line, from Montauban to Serre and the Third Army was to mount a diversion at Gommecourt. In a second phase, the Fourth Army was to take the German second position, from Pozières to the Ancre and then the second position south of the Albert–Bapaume Road, ready for an attack on the German third position south of the road towards Flers, when the Reserve Army which included three cavalry divisions, would exploit the success to advance east and then north towards Arras. The French Sixth Army, with one corps on the north bank from Maricourt to the Somme and two corps on the south bank southwards to Foucaucourt, would make a subsidiary attack to guard the right flank of the main attack being made by the British.
=== Betrayal of British plans ===
Research in German archives revealed in 2016 that the date and location of the British offensive had been betrayed to German interrogators by two politically disgruntled soldiers several weeks in advance. The German military accordingly undertook significant defensive preparatory work on the British section of the Somme offensive. Other intelligence which warned the Germans included POW reports, interception of Rawlinson's message to his troops and early detonation of a mine. Thus alerted, the Germans were waiting in their trenches when the British troops went over the top.
=== German defences on the Somme ===
After the Autumn Battles (Herbstschlacht) of 1915, a third defensive position another 3,000 yards (1.7 mi; 2.7 km) back from the Stützpunktlinie (Support line) begun in February 1916 and was almost complete on the Somme front when the battle began. German artillery was organised in a series of Sperrfeuerstreifen (barrage sectors); each officer was expected to know the batteries covering his section of the front line and the batteries ready to engage fleeting targets. A telephone system was built, with lines buried 6 feet (1.8 m) deep for 5 mi (8.0 km) behind the front line, to connect the front line to the artillery. The Somme defences had two inherent weaknesses that the rebuilding had not remedied. The front trenches were on a forward slope, lined by white chalk from the subsoil and easily seen by ground observers. The defences were crowded towards the front trench with a regiment having two battalions near the front-trench system and the reserve battalion divided between the Stützpunktlinie and the second position, all within 2,000 yards (1,800 m) of no man's land and most troops within 1,000 yards (910 m) of the front line, accommodated in the new deep dugouts. The concentration of troops at the front line on a forward slope guaranteed that it would face the bulk of an artillery bombardment, directed by ground observers on clearly marked lines.
== Battles of the Somme, 1916 ==
=== First phase: 1–17 July 1916 ===
==== Battle of Albert, 1–13 July ====
The Battle of Albert was the first two weeks of Anglo-French offensive operations in the Battle of the Somme. The Allied preparatory artillery bombardment began on 24 June and the Anglo-French infantry attacked on 1 July, on the south bank from Foucaucourt to the Somme and from the Somme north to Gommecourt, 2 mi (3.2 km) beyond Serre. The French Sixth Army and the right wing of the British Fourth Army inflicted a considerable defeat on the German Second Army, but from the Albert–Bapaume road to Gommecourt the British attack was a disaster where most of the c. 60,000 British casualties were incurred. Against Joffre's wishes, Haig abandoned the offensive north of the road, to reinforce the success in the south, where the Anglo-French forces pressed forward towards the German second line, preparatory to a general attack on 14 July.
===== First day =====
The Battle of the Somme lasted 141 days beginning with the opening day of the Battle of Albert. The attack was made by five divisions of the French Sixth Army on the east side of the Somme, eleven British divisions of the Fourth Army north of the Somme to Serre and two divisions of the Third Army opposite Gommecourt, against the German Second Army of General Fritz von Below. The German defence south of the Albert–Bapaume road mostly collapsed and the French had "complete success" on both banks of the Somme, as did the British from the army boundary at Maricourt to the Albert–Bapaume road. On the south bank the German defence was made incapable of resisting another attack and a substantial retreat began; on the north bank the abandonment of Fricourt was ordered. The defenders on the commanding ground north of the road inflicted a huge defeat on the British infantry, who took an unprecedented number of casualties. Several truces were negotiated to recover wounded from no man's land north of the road. The Fourth Army took 57,470 casualties, of which 19,240 men were killed. The French Sixth Army had 1,590 casualties, and the 2nd German Army had 10,000–12,000 losses.
==== Battle of Bazentin Ridge, 14–17 July ====
The Fourth Army attacked the German second defensive position from the Somme past Guillemont and Ginchy, north-west along the crest of the ridge to Pozières on the Albert–Bapaume road. The objectives of the attack were the villages of Bazentin le Petit, Bazentin le Grand and Longueval which was adjacent to Delville Wood, with High Wood on the ridge beyond. The attack was made by four divisions on a front of 6,000 yd (5.5 km) at 3:25 a.m. after a five-minute hurricane artillery bombardment. Field artillery fired a creeping barrage and the attacking waves pushed up close behind it in no man's land, leaving them only a short distance to cross when the barrage lifted from the German front trench. Most of the objective was captured and the German defence south of the Albert–Bapaume road put under great strain but the attack was not followed up due to British communication failures, casualties and disorganisation.
==== Battle of Fromelles, 19–20 July ====
The Battle of Fromelles was a subsidiary attack to support the Fourth Army on the Somme 80 km (50 mi) to the south, to exploit any weakening of the German defences opposite. Preparations for the attack were rushed, the troops involved lacked experience in trench warfare and the power of the German defence was "gravely" underestimated, the attackers being outnumbered 2:1. On 19 July, von Falkenhayn had judged the British attack to be the anticipated offensive against the 6th Army. Next day, Falkenhayn ordered the Guard Reserve Corps to be withdrawn to reinforce the Somme front. The Battle of Fromelles had inflicted some losses on the German defenders but gained no ground and deflected few German troops bound for the Somme. The attack was the debut of the Australian Imperial Force on the Western Front and, according to McMullin, "the worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history". Of 7,080 BEF casualties, 5,533 losses were incurred by the 5th Australian Division; German losses were 1,600–2,000, with 150 taken prisoner.
=== Second phase: July–September 1916 ===
==== Battle of Delville Wood, 14 July – 15 September ====
The Battle of Delville Wood was an operation to secure the British right flank, while the centre advanced to capture the higher-lying areas of High Wood and Pozières. After the Battle of Albert the offensive had evolved to the capture of fortified villages, woods, and other terrain that offered observation for artillery fire, jumping-off points for more attacks, and other tactical advantages. The mutually costly fighting at Delville Wood eventually secured the British right flank and marked the Western Front debut of the South African 1st Infantry Brigade (incorporating a Southern Rhodesian contingent), which held the wood from 15 to 20 July. When relieved, the brigade had lost 2,536 men, similar to the casualties of many brigades on 1 July.
==== Battle of Pozières, 23 July – 7 August ====
The Battle of Pozières began with the capture of the village by the 1st Australian Division (Australian Imperial Force) of the Reserve Army, the only British success in the Allied fiasco of 22/23 July, when a general attack combined with the French further south, degenerated into a series of separate attacks due to communication failures, supply failures and poor weather. German bombardments and counter-attacks began on 23 July and continued until 7 August. The fighting ended with the Reserve Army taking the plateau north and east of the village, overlooking the fortified village of Thiepval from the rear.
==== Battle of Guillemont, 3–6 September ====
The Battle of Guillemont was an attack on the village which was captured by the Fourth Army on the first day. Guillemont was on the right flank of the British sector, near the boundary with the French Sixth Army. German defences ringed the British salient at Delville Wood to the north and had observation over the French Sixth Army area to the south towards the Somme river. The German defence in the area was based on the second line and numerous fortified villages and farms north from Maurepas at Combles, Guillemont, Falfemont Farm, Delville Wood and High Wood, which were mutually supporting. The battle for Guillemont was considered by some observers to be the supreme effort of the German army during the battle. Numerous meetings were held by Joffre, Haig, Foch, General Sir Henry Rawlinson (commander of the British Fourth Army) and Fayolle to co-ordinate joint attacks by the four armies, all of which broke down. A pause in Anglo-French attacks at the end of August, coincided with the largest counter-attack by the German army in the Battle of the Somme.
==== Battle of Ginchy, 9 September ====
In the Battle of Ginchy the 16th Division captured the German-held village. Ginchy was 1.5 km (0.93 mi) north-east of Guillemont, at the junction of six roads on a rise overlooking Combles, 4 km (2.5 mi) to the south-east. After the end of the Battle of Guillemont, British troops were required to advance to positions which would give observation over the German third position, ready for a general attack in mid-September. British attacks from Leuze Wood northwards to Ginchy had begun on 3 September, when the 7th Division captured the village and was then forced out by a German counter-attack. The capture of Ginchy and the success of the French Sixth Army on 12 September, in its biggest attack of the battle of the Somme, enabled both armies to make much bigger attacks, sequenced with the Tenth and Reserve armies, which captured much more ground and inflicted c. 130,000 casualties on the German defenders during the month.
=== Third phase: September–November 1916 ===
==== Battle of Flers–Courcelette, 15–22 September ====
The Battle of Flers–Courcelette was the third and final general offensive mounted by the British Army, which attacked an intermediate line and the German third line to take Morval, Lesboeufs and Gueudecourt, which was combined with a French attack on Frégicourt and Rancourt to encircle Combles and a supporting attack on the south bank of the Somme. The strategic objective of a breakthrough was not achieved but the tactical gains were considerable, the front line being advanced by 2,500–3,500 yards (2,300–3,200 m) and many casualties were inflicted on the German defenders. The battle was the debut of the Canadian Corps, the New Zealand Division and tanks of the Heavy Branch of the Machine Gun Corps on the Somme.
==== Battle of Morval, 25–28 September ====
The Battle of Morval was an attack by the Fourth Army on Morval, Gueudecourt and Lesboeufs held by the German 1st Army, which had been the final objectives of the Battle of Flers–Courcelette (15–22 September). The attack was postponed to combine with attacks by the French Sixth Army on Combles, south of Morval and because of rain. The combined attack was also intended to deprive the German defenders further west, near Thiepval of reinforcements, before an attack by the Reserve Army, due on 26 September. Combles, Morval, Lesboeufs and Gueudecourt were captured and a small number of tanks joined in the battle later in the afternoon. Many casualties were inflicted on the Germans but the French made slower progress. The Fourth Army advance on 25 September was its deepest since 14 July and left the Germans in severe difficulties, particularly in a Salients, re-entrants and pockets salient near Combles. The Reserve Army attack began on 26 September in the Battle of Thiepval Ridge.
==== Battle of Thiepval Ridge, 26–28 September ====
The Battle of Thiepval Ridge was the first large offensive mounted by the Reserve Army of Lieutenant General Hubert Gough and was intended to benefit from the Fourth Army attack at Morval by starting 24 hours afterwards. Thiepval Ridge was well fortified and the German defenders fought with great determination, while the British co-ordination of infantry and artillery declined after the first day, due to confused fighting in the maze of trenches, dug-outs and shell-craters. The final British objectives were not reached until the Battle of the Ancre Heights (1 October – 11 November). Organisational difficulties and deteriorating weather frustrated Joffre's intention to proceed by vigorous co-ordinated attacks by the Anglo-French armies, which became disjointed and declined in effectiveness during late September, at the same time as a revival occurred in the German defence. The British experimented with new techniques in gas warfare, machine-gun bombardment and tank–infantry co-operation, as the Germans struggled to withstand the preponderance of men and material fielded by the Anglo-French, despite reorganisation and substantial reinforcements of troops, artillery and aircraft from Verdun. September became the worst month for casualties for the Germans.
==== Battle of Le Transloy, 1 October – 11 November ====
The Battle of Le Transloy began in good weather and Le Sars was captured on 7 October. Pauses were made from 8–11 October due to rain and 13–18 October to allow time for a methodical bombardment, when it became clear that the German defence had recovered from earlier defeats. Haig consulted with the army commanders and on 17 October reduced the scope of operations by cancelling the Third Army plans and reducing the Reserve Army and Fourth Army attacks to limited operations, in co-operation with the French Sixth Army. Another pause followed before operations resumed on 23 October on the northern flank of the Fourth Army, with a delay during more bad weather on the right flank of the Fourth Army and on the French Sixth Army front, until 5 November. Next day, the Fourth Army ceased offensive operations, except for small attacks intended to improve positions and divert German attention from attacks being made by the Reserve/Fifth Army. Larger operations resumed in January 1917.
==== Battle of the Ancre Heights, 1 October – 11 November ====
The Battle of the Ancre Heights was fought after Haig made plans for the Third Army to take the area east of Gommecourt, the Reserve Army to attack north from Thiepval Ridge and east from Beaumont Hamel–Hébuterne and for the Fourth Army to reach the Péronne–Bapaume road around Le Transloy and Beaulencourt–Thilloy–Loupart Wood, north of the Albert–Bapaume road. The Reserve Army attacked to complete the capture of Regina Trench/Stuff Trench, north of Courcelette to the west end of Bazentin Ridge around Schwaben and Stuff Redoubts, during which bad weather caused great hardship and delay. The Marine Brigade from Flanders and fresh German divisions brought from quiet fronts counter-attacked frequently and the British objectives were not secured until 11 November.
==== Battle of the Ancre, 13–18 November ====
The Battle of the Ancre was the last big British operation of the year. The Fifth (formerly Reserve) Army attacked into the Ancre valley to exploit German exhaustion after the Battle of the Ancre Heights and gain ground ready for a resumption of the offensive in 1917. Political calculation, concern for Allied morale and Joffre's pressure for a continuation of attacks in France, to prevent German troop transfers to Russia and Italy also influenced Haig. The battle began with another mine being detonated beneath Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt. The attack on Serre failed, although a brigade of the 31st Division, which had attacked in the disaster of 1 July, took its objectives before being withdrawn later. South of Serre, Beaumont Hamel and Beaucourt-sur-l'Ancre were captured. South of the Ancre, St. Pierre Division was captured, the outskirts of Grandcourt reached and the Canadian 4th Division captured Regina Trench north of Courcelette, then took Desire Support Trench on 18 November. Until January 1917 a lull set in, as both sides concentrated on enduring the weather.
== Subsequent operations ==
=== Ancre, January–March 1917 ===
After the Battle of the Ancre (13–18 November 1916), British attacks on the Somme front were stopped by the weather and military operations by both sides were mostly restricted to survival in the rain, snow, fog, mud fields, waterlogged trenches and shell-holes. As preparations for the offensive at Arras continued, the British attempted to keep German attention on the Somme front. British operations on the Ancre from 10 January – 22 February 1917, forced the Germans back 5 mi (8.0 km) on a 4 mi (6.4 km) front, ahead of the schedule of the Alberich Bewegung (Alberich Manoeuvre/Operation Alberich) and eventually took 5,284 prisoners. On 22/23 February, the Germans fell back another 3 mi (4.8 km) on a 15 mi (24 km) front. The Germans then withdrew from much of the R. I Stellung to the R. II Stellung on 11 March, forestalling a British attack, which was not noticed by the British until dark on 12 March; the main German withdrawal from the Noyon salient to the Hindenburg Line (Operation Alberich) commenced on schedule on 16 March.
=== Hindenburg Line ===
Von Falkenhayn was sacked and replaced by Hindenburg and Ludendorff at the end of August 1916. At a conference at Cambrai on 5 September, a decision was taken to build a new defensive line well behind the Somme front. The Siegfriedstellung was to be built from Arras to St. Quentin, La Fère and Condé, with another new line between Verdun and Pont-à-Mousson. These lines were intended to limit any Allied breakthrough and to allow the German army to withdraw if attacked; work began on the Siegfriedstellung (Hindenburg Line) at the end of September. Withdrawing to the new line was not an easy decision and the German high command struggled over it during the winter of 1916–1917. Some members wanted to take a shorter step back to a line between Arras and Sailly, while the 1st and 2nd army commanders wanted to stay on the Somme. Generalleutnant von Fuchs on 20 January 1917 said that,
Enemy superiority is so great that we are not in a position either to fix their forces in position or to prevent them from launching an offensive elsewhere. We just do not have the troops.... We cannot prevail in a second battle of the Somme with our men; they cannot achieve that any more. (20 January 1917)
and that half measures were futile, retreating to the Siegfriedstellung was unavoidable. After the loss of a considerable amount of ground around the Ancre valley to the British Fifth Army in February 1917, the German armies on the Somme were ordered on 14 February, to withdraw to reserve lines closer to Bapaume. A further retirement to the Hindenburg Line (Siegfriedstellung) in Operation Alberich began on 16 March 1917, despite the new line being unfinished and poorly sited in some places.
Defensive positions held by the German army on the Somme after November 1916 were in poor condition; the garrisons were exhausted and censors of correspondence reported tiredness and low morale in front-line soldiers. The situation left the German command doubtful that the army could withstand a resumption of the battle. The German defence of the Ancre began to collapse under British attacks, which on 28 January 1917 caused Rupprecht to urge that the retirement to the Siegfriedstellung (Hindenburg Line) begin. Ludendorff rejected the proposal the next day, but British attacks on the First Army – particularly the action of Miraumont (also known as the Battle of Boom Ravine, 17–18 February) – caused Rupprecht on the night of 22 February to order a preliminary withdrawal of c. 4 mi (6.4 km) to the R. I Stellung (R. I Position). On 24 February the Germans withdrew, protected by rear guards, over roads in relatively good condition, which were then destroyed. The German withdrawal was helped by a thaw, which turned roads behind the British front into bogs and by disruption, to the railways, which supplied the Somme front. On the night of 12 March, the Germans withdrew from the R. I Stellung between Bapaume and Achiet le Petit and the British reached the R. II Stellung (R. II Position) on 13 March. The withdrawal took place from 16–20 March, with a retirement of about 25 mi (40 km), giving up more French territory than that gained by the Allies from September 1914 until the beginning of the operation.
== Analysis ==
At the start of 1916, most of the British Army was an inexperienced and patchily trained mass of volunteers. The Somme was a great test for Kitchener's Army, created by Kitchener's call for recruits at the start of the war. The British volunteers were often the fittest, most enthusiastic and best-educated citizens but were inexperienced and it has been claimed that their loss was of lesser military significance than the losses of the remaining peacetime-trained officers and men of the Imperial German Army. British casualties on the first day were the worst in the history of the British Army, with 57,470 casualties, 19,240 of whom were killed.
British survivors of the battle had gained experience and the BEF learned how to conduct the mass industrial warfare which the continental armies had been fighting since 1914. The European powers had begun the war with trained armies of regulars and reservists, which were wasting assets. Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria wrote, "What remained of the old first-class peace-trained German infantry had been expended on the battlefield". A war of attrition was a logical strategy for Britain against Germany, which was also at war with France and Russia. A school of thought holds that the Battle of the Somme placed unprecedented strain on the German army and that after the battle it was unable to replace casualties like-for-like, which reduced it to a militia. Philpott argues that the German army was exhausted by the end of 1916, with loss of morale and the cumulative effects of attrition and frequent defeats causing it to collapse in 1918, a process which began on the Somme, echoing Churchill's argument that the German soldiery was never the same again.
The destruction of German units in battle was made worse by lack of rest. British and French aircraft and long-range guns reached well behind the front line, where trench-digging and other work meant that troops returned to the line exhausted. Despite the strategic predicament of the German army, it survived the battle, withstood the pressure of the Brusilov Offensive and conquered almost all of Romania. In 1917, the German army in the west survived the large British and French offensives of the Nivelle Offensive and the Third Battle of Ypres, though at great cost.
The British and French had advanced about 6 miles (9.7 km) on the Somme, on a front of 16 miles (26 km) at a cost of 419,654 to 432,000 British and about 200,000 French casualties, against 465,181 to 500,000 or perhaps 600,000 German casualties. Until the 1930s the dominant view of the battle in English-language writing was that the battle was a hard-fought victory against a brave, experienced and well-led opponent. Winston Churchill had objected to the way the battle was being fought in August 1916, and Prime Minister David Lloyd George criticised attrition warfare frequently and condemned the battle in his post-war memoirs. In the 1930s a new orthodoxy of "mud, blood and futility" emerged and gained more emphasis in the 1960s when the 50th anniversaries of the Great War battles were commemorated.
=== Transport ===
Until 1916, transport arrangements for the BEF were based on an assumption that the war of movement would soon resume and make it pointless to build infrastructure, since it would be left behind. The British relied on motor transport from railheads which was insufficient where large masses of men and guns were concentrated. When the Fourth Army advance resumed in August, the wisdom of not building light railways which would be left behind was argued by some, in favour of building standard gauge lines. Experience of crossing the beaten zone showed that such lines or metalled roads could not be built quickly enough to sustain an advance, and that pausing while communications caught up allowed the defenders to recover. On the Somme the daily carry during attacks on a 12 mi (19 km) front was 20,000 long tons (20,000 t) and a few wood roads and rail lines were inadequate for the number of lorries and roads. A comprehensive system of transport was needed, which required a much greater diversion of personnel and equipment than had been expected.
=== Casualties ===
The Battle of the Somme was one of the costliest battles of World War I. The original Allied estimate of casualties on the Somme, made at the Chantilly Conference on 15 November 1916, claimed that the Germans suffered 630,000 casualties, exceeding the 485,000 suffered by the British and French. As one German officer wrote,
Somme. The whole history of the world cannot contain a
more ghastly word.
Modern scholars contend that the Allied figure for German casualties was significantly exaggerated. According to German Reichsarchiv tablulations, all sixty-nine divisions involved on the Somme battlefield suffered a total of 237,159 casualties of all types. These numbers are verified by what the official Australian historian, Bean, calculated.
Churchill wrote that Allied casualties had exceeded German losses. In The World Crisis (first published in the early 1920s, reprinted in 1938), he quoted the German Reichsarchiv data, showing that on the Western Front between February and June 1916, the Germans had suffered 270,000 casualties against the French and 390,000 between July and the end of the year (Appendix J); he wrote that the Germans suffered 278,000 casualties at Verdun and that around one eighth of their casualties were suffered on "quiet" sectors. According to the tables, between July and October 1916, German forces on the Western Front suffered 537,919 casualties, 288,011 inflicted by the French and 249,908 by the British; German forces inflicted 794,238 casualties on the Entente.
In 1931, Hermann Wendt published a comparison of German and British–French casualties which showed an average of 30 per cent more Allied casualties than German losses on the Somme. In the first 1916 volume of the British Official History (1932), J. E. Edmonds wrote that comparisons of casualties were inexact, because of different methods of calculation by the belligerents but that British casualties were 419,654, from total British casualties in France in the period of 498,054. French Somme casualties were 194,451 and German casualties were c. 445,322, to which should be added 27 per cent for woundings, which would have been counted as casualties using British criteria; Anglo-French casualties on the Somme were over 600,000 and German casualties were under 600,000. In the second 1916 volume of the British Official History (1938), Wilfrid Miles wrote that German casualties were 660,000–680,000 and Anglo-French casualties were just under 630,000, using "fresh data" from the French and German official accounts.
The addition by Edmonds of c. 30 per cent to German figures, supposedly to make them comparable to British criteria, was criticised as "spurious" by M. J. Williams in 1964. McRandle and Quirk in 2006 cast doubt on the Edmonds calculations but counted 729,000 German casualties on the Western Front from July to December against 631,000 by Churchill, concluding that there had been fewer German losses than Anglo-French casualties but that the ability of the German army to inflict disproportionate losses had been eroded by attrition. In 2003 British historian Gary Sheffield wrote that the calculation by Edmonds of Anglo-French casualties was correct but the one for German casualties was discredited, quoting the official German figure of 500,000 casualties.
Doughty wrote that French losses on the Somme were "surprisingly high" at 202,567 men, 54 per cent of the 377,231 casualties at Verdun. Prior and Wilson used Churchill's research and wrote that the British suffered 420,000 casualties from 1 July to mid-November (c. 3,600 per day) in inflicting c. 280,000 German casualties and offer no figures for French casualties or the losses they inflicted on the Germans. Sheldon wrote that the British lost "over 400,000" casualties. Harris wrote that British losses were c. 420,000, French casualties were over 200,000 men and German losses were c. 500,000, according to the "best" German sources. Sheffield wrote that the losses were "appalling", with 419,000 British casualties, c. 204,000 French and perhaps 600,000 German casualties.
In a commentary on the debate about Somme casualties, Philpott used Miles's figures of 419,654 British casualties and the French official figures of 154,446 Sixth Army losses and 48,131 Tenth Army casualties. Philpott described German losses as "disputed", with estimates ranging from 400,000 to 680,000. The high Allied casualties of July 1916 are not representative of the way attrition turned in the Allies' favour in September, although this was not sustained as the weather deteriorated. Philpott quoted Robin Prior (in Churchill's World Crisis As History [1983]) that the "blood test" is a crude measure compared to manpower reserves, industrial capacity, farm productivity and financial resources and that intangible factors were more influential on the course of the war, which the Allies won despite "losing" the purely quantitative test.
== Commemoration ==
In the United Kingdom and Newfoundland, the Battle of the Somme became the central memory of World War I. The Royal British Legion with the British Embassy in Paris and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission commemorate the battle on 1 July each year, at the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. For their efforts on the first day of the battle, the 1st Newfoundland Regiment was given the name "The Royal Newfoundland Regiment" by George V on 28 November 1917. The first day of the Battle of the Somme is commemorated in Newfoundland, remembering the "Best of the Best" at 11 am on the Sunday nearest to 1 July. The Somme is remembered in Northern Ireland due to the participation of the 36th (Ulster) Division and commemorated by veterans' groups and by unionist/Protestant groups such as the Orange Order. The British Legion and others commemorate the battle on 1 July.
On 1 July 2016, at 7:28 a.m. British Summer Time, the UK observed a two minute silence to mark the start of the battle which began 100 years earlier. A special ceremony was broadcast on BBC1 and all BBC radio stations participated in the silence. At the start of the silence, the King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery fired a gun every four seconds for one hundred seconds and a whistle was blown to end it. Just like a Remembrance Sunday silence, a bugler played The Last Post after the silence. The silence was announced during a speech by the prime minister David Cameron who said, "There will be a national two-minute silence on Friday morning. I will be attending a service at the Thiepval Memorial near the battlefield and it's right that the whole country pauses to remember the sacrifices of all those who fought and lost their lives in that conflict." On 1 July 2016, a ceremony was held in Heaton Park in north Manchester in England, which was the site of a large army training camp during the war, and the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales suggested that churches conduct a Requiem Mass for the dead of the battle on the same day.
In Britain on 1 July 2016, 1,400 actors dressed in replica Great War British Army uniforms, walked about in streets and public open areas, from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Each took on temporarily the identity of a British soldier who died on the first day of the Somme and handed out information cards about that soldier. They did not talk, except for occasionally singing "We're here because we're here" to the tune of Auld Lang Syne. This event was called "Ghost Soldiers".
== Histories of the battle ==
The Battle of the Somme has been called the beginning of modern all-arms warfare, during which Kitchener's Army learned to fight the mass-industrial war in which the continental armies had been engaged for two years. This view sees the British contribution to the battle as part of a coalition war and part of a process, which took the strategic initiative from the German Army and caused it irreparable damage, leading to its collapse in late 1918.
Haig and General Rawlinson have been criticised ever since 1916 for the human cost of the battle and for failing to achieve their territorial objectives. On 1 August 1916, Churchill, then out of ministerial office, criticised the British Army's conduct of the offensive to the British Cabinet, claiming that though the battle had forced the Germans to end their offensive at Verdun, attrition was damaging the British armies more than the German armies. Though Churchill was unable to suggest an alternative, a critical view of the British on the Somme has been influential in English-language writing ever since. In 2016, historian Peter Barton argued in a series of three television programmes that the Battle of the Somme should be regarded as a German defensive victory.
John Terraine, Gary Sheffield, Christopher Duffy, Roger Chickering, Holger Herwig, William Philpott et al. wrote that there was no strategic alternative for the British in 1916 and that an understandable horror at British losses is insular, given the millions of casualties borne by the French and Russian armies since 1914. This school of thought sets the battle in a context of a general Allied offensive in 1916 and notes that German and French writing on the battle puts it in a continental perspective. Little German and French writing on this topic has been translated, leaving much of their historical perspective and detail of German and French military operations inaccessible to the English-speaking world. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi | Xiangqi | Xiangqi (; Chinese: 象棋; pinyin: xiàngqí), commonly known as Chinese chess or elephant chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is the most popular board game in China. Xiangqi is in the same family of games as shogi, janggi, Western chess, chaturanga, and Indian chess. Besides China and areas with significant ethnic Chinese communities, this game is also a popular pastime in Vietnam, where it is known as cờ tướng, literally 'General's chess', in contrast with Western chess or cờ vua, literally 'King's chess'.
The game represents a battle between two armies, with the primary object being to checkmate the enemy's general (king). Distinctive features of xiangqi include the cannon (pao), which must jump to capture; a rule prohibiting the generals from facing each other directly; areas on the board called the river and palace, which restrict the movement of some pieces but enhance that of others; and the placement of the pieces on the intersections of the board lines, rather than within the squares.
== Board ==
Xiangqi is played on a board nine lines wide and ten lines long. As in the game Go (围棋; or Wéi qí 圍棋), the pieces are placed on the intersections, which are known as points. The vertical lines are known as files (Chinese: 路; pinyin: lù; lit. 'road'), and the horizontal lines are known as ranks (Chinese: 線/綫; pinyin: xiàn; lit. 'line').
Centred at the first to third and eighth to tenth ranks of the board are two zones, each three points by three points, demarcated by two diagonal lines connecting opposite corners and intersecting at the centre point. Each of these areas is known as 宮 , a palace.
Dividing the two opposing sides, between the fifth and sixth ranks, is 河 hé, the "river". The river is usually marked with the phrases 楚河 , meaning "River of the Chu", and 漢界 , meaning "Border of the Han", a reference to the Chu–Han War. Although the river (or Hanchu boundary) provides a visual division between the two sides, only two pieces are affected by its presence: soldiers have an enhanced move after crossing the river, and elephants cannot cross it. The starting points of the soldiers and cannons are usually, but not always, marked with small crosses.
== Rules ==
The pieces start in the position shown in the diagram above. Which player moves first has varied throughout history and from one part of China to another. Different xiangqi books advise either that the black or red side moves first. Some books refer to the two sides as north and south; which direction corresponds to which colour also varies from source to source. Generally, Red moves first in most modern tournaments.
Each player in turn moves one piece from the point it occupies, to another point. Pieces are generally not permitted to move through points occupied by other pieces, the exception being the cannon’s capturing move. A piece can be moved onto a point occupied by an enemy piece, in which case the enemy piece is captured and removed from the board. A player cannot capture one of their own pieces. Pieces are never promoted (converted into other pieces), although the soldier gains the ability to move sideways after it crosses the river. Almost all pieces capture using their normal moves, while the cannon has a special capture move described below.
The game ends when one player checkmates the other's general. When the general is in danger of being captured by the enemy player on their next move, the enemy player has "delivered a check" (照將/將軍, abbreviated as 將 ), and the general is "in check". A check should be announced. If the general's player can make no move to prevent the general's capture, the situation is called "checkmate" (將死). Unlike in chess, in which stalemate is a draw, in xiangqi, it is a loss for the stalemated player.
In xiangqi, a player—often with a material or positional disadvantage—may attempt to check or chase pieces in a way such that the moves fall in a cycle, preventing the opponent from winning. While this is accepted in Western chess, in xiangqi, the following special rules are used to make it harder to draw the game by endless checking or chasing, regardless of whether the positions of the pieces are repeated or not:
Perpetual checks with one piece or several pieces are not allowed; doing so results in a loss.
Perpetual chases of any one unprotected piece with one or more pieces, excluding generals and soldiers, are similarly prohibited.
If one side perpetually checks and the other side perpetually chases, the checking side has to stop or be ruled to have lost.
When neither side violates the rules and both persist in not making an alternate move, the game can be ruled as a draw.
When both sides violate the same rule at the same time (unlike in western chess, a mutual perpetual check is possible) and both persist in not making an alternate move, the game can be ruled as a draw.
Different sets of rules set different limits on what is considered perpetual. For example, club xiangqi rules allow a player to check or chase six consecutive times using one piece, twelve times using two pieces, and eighteen times using three pieces before considering the action perpetual.
The above rules to prevent perpetual checking and chasing, while popular, are not the only ones; there are numerous end game situations.
=== Pieces ===
Each player controls an army of 16 pieces; the armies are usually coloured red and black. Pieces are flat circular disks labelled or engraved with a Chinese character identifying the piece type, and in a colour indicating which player has ownership. The black pieces are marked with somewhat different characters from the corresponding red pieces.
Even in mainland China, most sets still use traditional Chinese characters (as opposed to simplified Chinese characters). Modern pieces are usually plastic, though some sets are wooden, and more expensive sets may use jade. In more ancient times, many sets were simple unpainted woodcarvings; thus, to distinguish between pieces of the two sides, most corresponding pieces used characters that were similar but varied slightly. This practice may have originated in situations where there was only one material available to make the pieces from and no colouring material available to distinguish the opposing armies. The oldest xiangqi piece found to date is a 俥 (chariot) piece. It is kept in the Three Gorges Museum.
==== General ====
Generals (or kings) are labelled 將 (trad.) / 将 (simp.) ("general") on the black side and 帥 (trad.) / 帅 (simp.) ("marshal") on the red side.
The general starts the game at the midpoint of the back edge, within the palace. The general may move and capture one point orthogonally and may not leave the palace, with the following exception.
If the two generals face each other along the same file with no intervening pieces, the 飛將 ("flying general") move may be executed, in which the general to move crosses the board to capture the enemy general. In practice, this rule means that creating this situation in the first place means moving into check, and is therefore not allowed.
The Indian name king for this piece was changed to general because of Chinese naming taboos; China's rulers objected to their royal titles being given to game pieces. Despite this, the general is sometimes called the "king" by English-speaking players, due to their similar functions as royal pieces.
==== Advisor ====
Advisors (also known as guards and less commonly as assistants, mandarins, ministers or warriors) are labelled 士 ("scholar", "gentleman", "officer", "guardian") for Black and 仕 ("scholar", "official", "guardian") for Red. Rarely, sets use the character 士 for both colours.
The advisors start on either side of the general. They move and capture one point diagonally and may not leave the palace, which confines them to five points on the board. The advisor is probably derived from the mantri in chaturanga, like the queen in Western chess.
There is some controversy about whether "士" really is intended to mean "scholar", "gentleman" which would be "士人", or "guard", "guardian" which would be "衛士" (simplified Chinese: 卫士). One argument for the latter is that their functionality seems to be to guard/protect the general. The common Western translation "advisor" does not reflect this layer of meaning.
==== Elephant ====
Elephants (or bishops) are labeled 象 xiàng ("elephant") for Black and 相 xiàng ("minister") for Red. They are located next to the advisors. These pieces move and capture exactly two points diagonally and may not jump over intervening pieces; the move is described as being like the character 田 Tián ("field"), in reference to the board's squares. Blocking an elephant with a diagonally adjacent piece is known as "blocking the elephant's eye" (塞象眼).
Elephants may not cross the river to attack the enemy general, and serve as defensive pieces. Because an elephant's movement is restricted to just seven board positions, it can be easily trapped or threatened. The two elephants are often used to defend each other.
The Chinese characters for "minister" and "elephant" are homophones in Mandarin () and both have alternative meanings as "appearance" or "image". However, in English, both are referred to as elephants, and less commonly as "bishops", due to their similar movements.
==== Horse ====
Horses (or knights) are labelled 馬 for Black and 傌 mǎ for Red in sets marked with Traditional Chinese characters and 马 mǎ for both Black and Red in sets marked with Simplified Chinese characters. Some sets use 馬 for both colours. Horses begin the game next to the elephants, on their outside flanks. A horse moves and captures one point orthogonally and then one point diagonally away from its former position, a move which is traditionally described as being like the character 日 Rì. The horse does not jump as the knight does in Western chess, and can be blocked by a piece of either colour located one point horizontally or vertically adjacent to it. Blocking a horse is called "hobbling the horse's leg" (蹩馬腿). The diagram on the right illustrates the horse's movement.
Since horses can be blocked, and the path of a horse from one point to another is not the same as the reverse move, it is possible for one player's horse to have an asymmetric attack advantage if an opponent's horse is blocked, as seen in the diagram on the right.
The horse is sometimes called the "knight" by English-speaking players, due to their similar movements.
==== Chariot ====
Chariots (or rooks or cars) are labelled 車 for Black and 俥 for Red in sets marked with Traditional Chinese characters and 车 for both Black and Red in sets marked with Simplified Chinese characters. Some traditional sets use 車 for both colours. In the context of xiangqi, all of these characters are pronounced as (instead of the common pronunciation chē). The chariot moves and captures any distance orthogonally, but may not jump over intervening pieces. The chariots begin the game on the points at the corners of the board. The chariot is often considered to be the strongest piece in the game due to its freedom of movement and lack of restrictions.
The chariot is sometimes called the "rook" by English-speaking players, since it moves identically to the rook in Western chess. Chinese players (and others) often call this piece a car, since that is one modern meaning of the character 車.
==== Cannon ====
Cannons are labelled 砲 ("catapult") for Black and 炮 pào ("cannon") for Red. The names are homophones, though sometimes 炮 is used for both Red and Black. The 石 shí radical of 砲 means "stone", and the 火 huǒ radical of 炮 means "fire". Both colours' pieces are normally referred to as cannons in English. The black piece is sometimes labelled 包 bāo.
Each player has two cannons, which start on the row behind the soldiers, two points in front of the horses. Cannons move like chariots, any distance orthogonally without jumping, but can only capture by jumping a single piece of either colour along the path of attack. The piece over which the cannon jumps is called the 炮臺 (trad.) / 炮台 (simp.) pào tái ("cannon platform" or "screen"). Any number of unoccupied spaces, including none, may exist between the cannon, screen, and the piece to be captured. Cannons can be exchanged for horses immediately from their starting positions.
==== Soldier ====
Soldiers (or pawns) are labelled 卒 ("pawn" or "private") for Black and 兵 ("soldier") for Red. Each side starts with five soldiers. Soldiers begin the game located on every other point one row back from the edge of the river. They move and capture by advancing one point. Once they have crossed the river, they may also move and capture one point horizontally. Soldiers cannot move backward, and therefore cannot retreat; after advancing to the last rank of the board, however, a soldier may still move sideways at the enemy's edge. The soldier is sometimes called the "pawn" by English-speaking players, due to the pieces' similar movements.
== Approximate relative values of the pieces ==
These approximate values do not take into account the position of the piece in question (except the soldier in a general sense), the positions of other pieces on the board, or the number of pieces remaining. In what follows, "minor piece" will refer to horses and cannons, and "defensive piece", unless otherwise specified, will refer to the non-royal pieces that cannot cross the river, namely advisors and elephants.
Other common rules of assessment:
A horse plus a cannon is generally better than two horses or two cannons.
The chariot is not only the strongest piece, but it is also generally stronger than any combination of two minor pieces. When the relative values of both sides' pieces are approximately even, the side with more chariots generally has the advantage, especially when one side has a chariot and one side does not (Chinese: 有車壓無車). However, the chariot is not particularly strong in basic endgames: for example, chariot versus four defensive pieces is generally a draw, whereas if the offensive side instead has two horses or even three unadvanced soldiers, it is usually a win.
In the earlier stages, the cannon is stronger than the horse, because platforms are plentiful and the horse is often blocked by the multitude of pieces on the board. In the endgame, the horse is stronger as an attacking piece, not needing any platforms, but the cannon generally has better defensive abilities.
The values of soldiers vary in different stages of the game. In the opening and the middlegame, the initiative and mobility of pieces often require sacrificing soldiers. In these stages, soldiers closer to the middle file are generally more valuable, since they can effectively join the offence. With few attacking pieces on the board, soldiers have more power and can cross the river more easily. In this stage, advanced soldiers are generally less powerful, since soldiers cannot move backward. In basic endgames, three soldiers starting on the seventh rank are approximately equal to a chariot: they can force a win against four defensive pieces or a horse/cannon plus two elephants, while instead a chariot cannot, and a chariot cannot force a win against three soldiers on the seventh rank when well-defended. At the other extreme, even five soldiers all on the tenth rank cannot on their own force checkmate or stalemate on a bare general due to insufficient material.
== Notation ==
There are several types of notation used to record xiangqi games. In each case the moves are numbered and written with the same general pattern.
(first move) (first response)
(second move) (second response)
...
It is clearer but not required to write each move pair on a separate line.
=== System 1 ===
The book The Chess of China describes a move notation method in which the ranks of the board are numbered 1 to 10 from closest to farthest away, followed by a digit 1 to 9 for files from right to left. Both values are relative to the moving player. Moves are then indicated as follows:
[piece name] ([former rank][former file])-[new rank][new file]
Thus, the most common opening in the game would be written as:
炮 (32)–35 馬 (18)–37
=== System 2 ===
=== Romanised version ===
A notation system partially described in A Manual of Chinese Chess and used by several computer software implementations describes moves in relative terms as follows:
[single-letter piece abbreviation][former file][operator indicating direction of movement][new file, or in the case of purely vertical movement, number of ranks traversed]
The file numbers are counted from each player's right to each player's left.
In case there are two identical pieces in one file, symbols + (front) and – (rear) are used instead of former file number. Direction of movement is indicated via an operator symbol. A plus sign is used to indicate forward movement. A minus sign is used to indicate backward movement. An equals sign or dot is used to indicate horizontal or lateral movement. For a piece that moves diagonally (such as the horse or elephant), the plus or minus sign is used rather than the period.
Thus, the most common opening in the game would be written as:
C2=5 H8+7
According to World Xiangqi Federation (WXF), in the case of tripled, quadrupled, or quintupled soldiers (pawns), the S for soldier or P for pawn is omitted. Instead, the soldiers are numbered starting from the frontmost soldier, and this number replaces the usual piece abbreviation. The file number is given immediately after as usual.
Thus the notation to move the middle of a set of tripled soldiers on the 5th file to the 4th file would be:
25=4
=== Chinese (Original) version ===
For this version the system is the same, except that:
the notations of the pieces are written in Chinese as it is;
the name for the cannon on both sides is 炮;
the name for the horse on both sides is 馬;
forward motion is indicated with 進 (jìn);
backward motion is indicated with 退 (tuì);
sideways motion is indicated with 平 (píng);
and numbers are written in Chinese either for both players or for just Red.
Thus, the most common opening in the game is written as:
炮二平五 馬8進7
=== System 3 ===
This system is unofficial and principally used by Western players. It is similar to algebraic notation for Western chess. Letters are used for files and numbers for ranks. File "a" is on Red's left and rank "1" is nearest to Red. A point's designation does not depend on which player moves; for both sides "a1" is the lowest left point from Red's side.
[single-letter piece abbreviation][former position][capture indication][new position][check indication][analysis]
Pieces are abbreviated as in notation system 2, except that no letter is used for the soldier.
Former position is only indicated if necessary to distinguish between two identical pieces that could have made the move. If they share the same file, indicate which rank moves; if they share the same rank, indicate which file moves. If they share neither rank nor file, then the file is indicated.
Capture is indicated by "x". No symbol is used to indicate a non-capturing move.
Check is indicated by "+", double check by "++", triple check by "+++", and quadruple check by "++++". Checkmate is indicated by "#".
For analysis purposes, bad moves are indicated by "?" and good moves by "!". These can be combined if the analysis is uncertain ("!?" might be either but is probably good; "?!" is probably bad) or repeated for emphasis ("??" is a disaster).
Thus, the most common opening in the game would be written as:
Che3 Hg8
=== Example ===
For example, the following game is tied with several others as the shortest possible xiangqi game (analogously to Fool's Mate), written in each of the three notations:
Black is mated and therefore loses. Red's cannon cannot be captured, and the advisor on e9 blocks both Black's general from escaping there and the advisor on d10 from unbecoming a platform for the cannon.
== Gameplay ==
Because of the size of the board and the low number of long-range pieces, there is a tendency for the battle to focus on a particular area of the board.
=== Tactics ===
Xiangqi involves several tactics common to games in the chess family. Some common ones are briefly discussed here.
In a fork, one piece attacks two or more enemy pieces at once.
A piece is pinned when it cannot move without exposing a more important piece to capture. Every piece except soldiers and advisors can pin, but only chariot pins exactly resemble pins in western chess; pins by other pieces in xiangqi take on many unique forms: Cannons can pin two pieces at once on one file or rank, horses can pin because they can be blocked, and generals can pin because of the "flying general" move rule. In pins by horses and elephants, the pinning piece never attacks the pinned piece, while in a pin by a cannon, only one of the pieces is directly attacked by the cannon. A general can only pin pieces to the enemy general, and the pinning general can never capture the pinned piece, since that would place it in check from the enemy general.
A piece is skewered when it is attacked and, by moving, exposes a less important piece to be captured. In contrast to pins, only cannons and chariots can skewer.
A discovered check occurs when an attacking piece moves so that it unblocks a line for a chariot, cannon, and/or horse to check the enemy general.
A double check occurs when two pieces simultaneously threaten the enemy general. Unlike a Western chess double check, a double check in xiangqi may be blockable or, in one case, possibly met with a capture by a piece other than the general. The only blockable cases are either a chariot and cannon on the same file as the general, with the chariot acting as a screen for the cannon, two horses giving discovered check after another piece unblocks the attack from both, or a cannon using an enemy piece as a platform uncovered by a horse (see below). Double checks delivered by other means are not blockable. In one exceptional case, if a horse moves to give a double check by uncovering a cannon, and the cannon’s platform is an enemy chariot or defensive piece (advisor or elephant), the enemy chariot or defensive piece might be able to capture the horse, which removes the cannon’s platform at the same time. Otherwise, capturing either checking piece is insufficient to remove the threat, unless the general makes the capture.
Unique to xiangqi is a triple check, which arises in four combinations. In the first case of a cannon, a chariot or soldier, and a horse, the horse moves to give check, uncovering a double check from the chariot and the cannon. In the second, rarer case of a chariot or soldier and two horses, the chariot moves to give check, uncovering a double check from the two horses. In the third case of two cannons and two horses, one cannon may uncover a double check from the horses and act as a screen for the other cannon. Finally, a chariot or soldier can move to give check, uncovering a check from a horse while acting as a platform for a cannon to give another check. Quadruple check is also possible, arising with two horses, a chariot, and a cannon. Triple and quadruple check cannot be blocked or met by captures (again, unless the general makes the capture).
In contrast to the ubiquity of pawn chains in western chess, soldiers typically do not support each other until the endgame, because unlike in western chess, all soldiers are isolated in the starting position, so it takes a minimum of five soldier moves to allow mutual protection between two of them, and they are often prone to capture by other pieces.
Soldiers, horses, cannons and chariots can form up formations that protect each other. However, lining up chariots must be done with caution, as this risks losing one chariot to an enemy's inferior piece. Horses that support each other are called Linked Horses (Chinese: 連環馬), which is a relatively safe formation of the horses, though it can still be threatened with a soldier, a chariot plus another minor piece, or a piece blocking one of the horses thus making the protection one-sided.
It is common to use cannons independently to control particular ranks and files. Using a cannon to control the middle file is often considered vital strategy, because it pins pieces such as the advisors and elephants to the general, which in turn restrict their general’s movement. The two files adjacent to the middle file are also considered important and horses and chariots can be used to push for checkmate there.
Since the general is usually safest in its original position before the endgame phase, attacking the general commonly involves forcing the general out of its original position with check or with threats. Thus, specific points and formations are very important in xiangqi.
For an attacking (Red) horse, the most fatal points are c9 and g9 (Chinese: 臥槽馬), especially since without proper defence a quick mate can follow with an extra chariot or cannon. Although the horse can be blocked, the fact that it moves diagonally during the second half of its movement and a general cannot move diagonally means that it can deliver a smothered mate, though in xiangqi, a cannon can also do so.
For a cannon, one of the most fatal formations is the exposed cannon (Chinese: 空心炮), where the cannon directly controls the middle file with no other pieces between the cannon and the general. This formation is particularly dangerous since the defensive side cannot move any piece in front of the cannon; while with an extra cannon joining the attack, mate can follow on the spot, and with an extra rook, the offensive side can mount a double check (with the rook in front of the cannon) followed by a windmill (as when the check is blocked, the rook moving laterally discovers a new check from the cannon), often winning at least a piece afterwards. If the defensive side cannot chase the cannon away or capture it, it must move the general forward to avoid these threats, leaving the general vulnerable to attacks.
Another fatal formation, called the "cannon-controlled centroid horse" (Chinese: 炮鎮窩心馬, diagram at right), also requires particularly bad coordination of the enemy pieces. In the diagram, Black's "centroid horse" occupies the centre of the palace, blocking Black's own general and advisors, and being pinned to the general by the red cannon, cannot move. Black's cannon at e8 is also pinned to its own general; it too is unable to move and restricts the movement of Black's two elephants, making them unable to protect each other. Such a formation in the middlegame often produces deadly threats of smothered mates, while in the endgame, as in the diagram, Red's cannon cannot be chased away, rendering Black's general, advisors, cannon on e8, and horse all permanently immobilized. Even though Black is up a minor piece, Red has a clear win: The game concluded 41.Hg7 (forking the elephant and pinned cannon and creating a mating threat) Eg10 42.Hh9 Ci9 43.Hf8+ Cf9 (if not for the other black cannon, it is instant mate) 44.Hxg6, and Black resigned: Black's only active piece (the cannon on f9) is absolutely helpless to stop Red's horse and soldiers, which will soon invade the palace.
A common defensive configuration is to leave the general at its starting position, deploy one advisor and one elephant on the two points directly in front of the general, and to leave the other advisor and elephant in their starting positions, to the side of the general. In this setup, the advisor and elephant pairs support each other, and the general is immune from attacks by cannons. Losing any defensive pieces makes the general vulnerable to cannon attack, and the setup may need to be abandoned. The defender may move defensive pieces away from the general, or even sacrifice them intentionally, to ward off attack by a cannon.
Long sequences of checks leading to mate or gain of material are common both in chess compositions and in actual play. A skilled xiangqi player may need to calculate several steps, or even tens of steps ahead for a forced sequence. In the diagram on the right, Black has an immediate mating threat which cannot be parried, forcing Red to check Black on every move. Although it requires 11 moves to mate, its general idea is clear: Induce a smothered check by sacrificing a chariot at the centre of the palace (e9), then force Black to open the centre file, enabling the Red general to assist the attack, and finally mate by facing generals.
=== Openings ===
Since the left and right flanks of the starting setup are symmetrical, it is customary to make the first move on the right flank. Starting on the left flank is considered needlessly confusing.
The most common opening is to move the cannon to the central column, an opening known as 當頭炮 (trad.) / 当头炮 (simp.) dāng tóu pào or "Central Cannon". The most common reply is to advance the horse on the same flank. Together, this move-and-response is known by the rhyme 當頭炮，馬來跳 (trad.) / 当头炮，马来跳 (simp.) . The notation for this is "1. 炮 (32)–35, 馬 (18)–37", "1. C2.5 H8+7", or "1. Che3 Hg8" (diagram at right). After Black's 1. ...H8+7 (Hg8) response, the game can develop into a variety of openings, the most common being the 屏風馬 (trad.) / 屏风马 (simp.) or "Screen Horses (Defence)" in which Black develops the other horse to further protect their middle pawn (...H2+3 or ...Hc8) either immediately on their second move, or later when Black transposes the game into this opening.
Alternative common first moves by Black are developing either cannons (1. ...C8.5/1. ...Che8, or 1. ...C2.5/1. ...Cbe8); after either of these moves, taking the central soldier with the cannon (2. C5+4 or 2. Cxe7+) is a beginner's trap that impedes development and coordination of Red's pieces if Black plays correctly (for example, 1. Che3 Che8 2. Cxe7+?? Ade9 3. Hg3 Hg8 4. Ce5 Rh10 when Black develops the rook first, and the loss of Black's middle pawn actually enabled Black's horses to occupy the centre on the next moves).
Other common first moves by Red include moving an elephant to the central column (1. Ege3), advancing the soldier on the third or seventh file (1. c5), moving a horse forward (1. Hg3), and moving either cannon to the 4th or 6th (d- or f-) file (1. Chd3 or 1. Chf3). Compared to the Central Cannon openings, these openings are generally less restricted by theory.
General advice for the opening includes rapid development of at least one chariot and putting it on open files and ranks, as it is the most powerful piece with a long attack range. There is a saying that only a poor player does not move a chariot in the first three moves (Chinese: 三步不出車，必定要輸棋); however this is not to be taken literally, and is in fact often violated in modern Xiangqi games. Attacking and defending the centre, especially the central soldiers / central pawns, are common themes in the opening, hence the Central Cannon openings. Usually, at least one horse should be moved to the middle in order to defend the central soldier; however undefended central soldiers can also become "poisoned pawns" in the early moves, especially if the attacking side does not have an immediate follow-up to retain the pressure on the central file.
=== Middlegame strategy ===
Xiangqi strategy shares common themes with chess, but has some differences:
Occupying the centre is relatively less important in xiangqi, but controlling and attacking the middle file is still one of the vital themes. Since the middle file is often well defended, players would then seek to mount an offense on either of the flanks on the enemy side, especially when the defense of one flank is neglected.
The significance of pawn formation in xiangqi and chess are different. In xiangqi, soldiers (pawns) are often pushed to avoid blocking their own horses, and it is uncommon for them to defend each other (in contrast with a Western chess pawn chain). Successfully getting a soldier to cross a river as an attacking force can often tilt the scales of the middlegame by a large margin.
In high-level play, the initiative is highly important, and a minor mistake can doom a game.
Sacrifices are common in xiangqi, however they are more often tactical rather than positional. Usually, at most a minor piece is sacrificed for positional advantages, or a semi-tactical attack.
Like in chess, xiangqi piece values depend highly on the position on the board. The following study from Volume 42 of the Elegant Pastime Manual, dating from the Ming Dynasty, illustrates this dramatically. It is Red to play and win.
In this position, Red is up two soldiers and a cannon but Black threatens seemingly unstoppable mate with ...Rf1#, since 1.Ec5? Ad8! renews the mate threat. The red chariot is nearly useless, having only two legal moves, in stark contrast to the very active black chariot. However, Red averts the checkmate by sacrificing both the cannon and chariot: 1.Ca10+!! Hxa10 2.Ea3! Rxa1 (or the chariot is lost, since the general protects the elephant on e3, which in turn guards g1, and the red horse guards e2) 3.Eec1:
Despite the substantial sacrifice of material by Red, Black's chariot has now become useless as it is permanently immobilized by the red elephants and horse; the red general prevents the black soldier on g2 from moving laterally to free the chariot (for example 3...g1 4.Gf2). Black's horse similarly has no safe move due to the red soldier on c8, which also, along with the soldier on f9, prevents the black general from attacking the soldier on f9 from the behind. In addition, the black soldier on g6 is undefended and has no safe move, so Red can win it by pushing the soldier on c4 to c6 and moving it laterally to the g-file, after which the position is effectively an endgame of three soldiers against two advisers, an easy win for Red (see below) despite being down a chariot for three soldiers. Furthermore, after winning the black soldier on g6, Red can then move their soldier all the way left to the a-file to advance it and win the black horse, after which all four red soldiers can easily checkmate the enemy general.
Unlike the knight in chess, the xiangqi horse's vulnerability to getting blocked means that it can be rendered "bad" in a similar manner to a bad bishop. The next diagram shows a typical example, which is a directmate in 5 with Red to move.
Black not only has an overwhelming material advantage (being up a chariot, two soldiers, and two advisors), but also threatens a multitude of immediate mates (...dd2#, ...Rd2#, ...Rb1#, ...Cd4#), so every move Red makes must be check. However, the black horse on d9 is significantly limited by Black's advisors, which hobble its legs, and thus turns out to be worse than useless for defense. Red begins with the decoy sacrifice 1.f8++!. As it is double check, the black advisor on e9 cannot capture the soldier, so 1...Gxf8 is forced. After 2.Hg6+ Gf9 (2...Ge8 3.Re6#) 3.Cd8+, Black's horse is unable to block the discovered check from the chariot, forcing 3...Af8, whereupon Red finishes with 4.Hh8+ Ge9 5.Re6#, when the black horse is once again unable to block the chariot check due to having its leg hobbled by an advisor. In addition, the horse also blocks the general's ability to escape to d9.
=== Endgame ===
Though xiangqi endgames require remarkable skill to be played well, there are a number of widely known book wins and book draws. Without a counterpart to pawn promotion, xiangqi endgames instead focus more directly on forcing checkmate or stalemate, and in this regard resemble pawnless chess endgames. Since stalemate is a loss for the stalemated player instead of a draw, most book draws in xiangqi are due to fortresses, with a few draws due to insufficient material. The concept of the opposition does not exist in xiangqi, as it is impossible for the generals to get close enough; instead, the flying general rule gains importance in the endgame, and fills the opposition's role as a mechanism for one general to restrict the other.
A general rule in xiangqi endgames for the advantageous side is that, when there's less material on the board, do not trade pieces easily, as with fewer attacking pieces on the board, defending is easier (in contrast to Western chess, where it is almost always advantageous to trade pieces when up on material). Hence, if a certain type of endgame can transpose, by trading pieces, into another type of endgame which is a book win, then this endgame itself is a book win.
==== Zugzwang in xiangqi endgames ====
Inducing zugzwang is a crucial theme in winning simple endgames, and almost exclusively in simple endgames. In the general + soldier vs general endgame shown on the right, Red's first main goal is to occupy the middle file. Red wins with 1. Gd1, a waiting move, and Black is in zugzwang. Black must proceed with 1. ...Ge8, as 1. ...Ge10 instantly loses after 2. f9#. After 1. ...Ge8 2. f9 Gf8 3. e9 Ge8 4. d9 Gf8 5. Ge1, Red's general successfully occupies the middle file. The game would conclude with 5. ...Gf9 6. e9+, and regardless of Black's reply, 7. Ge2# (stale)mates Black.
Unlike in western chess, only two pieces (the cannon and chariot) can lose a tempo via triangulation, because there is no initial two-step move option for the soldier and the remaining pieces' movements form bipartite graphs, like the knight's graph. More commonly, other pieces can perform waiting moves when their exact position does not matter, such as in the above example.
Reciprocal zugzwang is possible, but very rare and usually seen in endgame compositions. In this endgame shown on the right, whoever moves loses, since when either of the two generals moves to an open d- or f- file, it threatens unstoppable mate, while the player to move only helps the enemy general occupy one of the files. For instance, Red can only move their two soldiers if he is to move. Moving the f-(or d-)soldier allows the enemy general to occupy the f-file(d-file). Even if 1. fe9+ Gf10 2. d10, when Red threatens mate in 1, Black still mates immediately with either 2. ...fe2# or 2. ...f1#.
==== Soldier (pawn) endgames ====
A soldier, as long as it does not reach the opposite rank, wins against a bare general easily. With any extra defensive piece on the defensive side, it is a draw; however, soldier vs advisor requires skill to play well. Any number of soldiers on the opposing back rank are also a draw due to insufficient material.
Two unadvanced (i.e., on the 6th or 7th ranks) soldiers win against the following combinations: Two advisors, two elephants, a bare horse/cannon. Generally a draw against one advisor plus one elephant, or a horse/cannon plus a defending piece.
Three unadvanced soldiers win against the following combinations: All 4 defensive pieces (2 advisors plus 2 elephants, Chinese: 士象全), a horse plus two advisors/two elephants, a cannon plus two elephants.
==== Horse endgames ====
A bare horse wins against a bare advisor, but not a bare elephant.
A horse plus an unadvanced soldier wins against both combinations of 3 defensive pieces, or any combination of a minor piece plus a defensive piece except horse + elephant. This combination draws against all 4 defensive pieces.
A horse plus an advanced soldier(on the 8th or 9th rank) draws against either combination of 3 defensive pieces, but defending requires precise positions.
A horse plus a soldier on the 10th rank wins against two advisors, or one advisor plus one elephant. This combination draws against 2 elephants.
A horse plus two soldiers can win against one minor piece + one advisor + two elephants. With an extra advisor on the defensive side, it is a book draw.
Two horses win against all 4 defensive pieces, or any combination of a minor piece plus 2 defensive pieces except cannon + 2 elephants.
==== Cannon endgames ====
A bare cannon, or a cannon with elephants, cannot win against a bare general due to insufficient material. Cannons without other offensive pieces need defensive pieces to act as platforms, especially the advisor, since the advisor can act as a platform on any of the three central files, while an elephant can only act as a platform on the centermost file.
A cannon needs only one advisor to win against two advisors, or a single elephant. Meanwhile, even with all 4 defensive pieces, it is a book draw against two elephants, one advisor + one elephant, one soldier + one advisor, or any minor piece.
A cannon with all 4 defensive pieces needs at least an extra soldier to win against 4 defensive pieces. A bare cannon with a soldier on the 6th rank wins against any combination of 2 defensive pieces.
A cannon + 4 defensive pieces + 2 unadvanced soldiers generally draw against one minor piece + 4 defensive pieces. But if the defensive side lacks a single piece, it is a book win.
==== Horse+Cannon endgames ====
This type of endgame is considered one of the more complex endgames. Commonly known book wins and book draws are:
Horse + Cannon + 4 defensive pieces vs a minor piece vs 4 defensive pieces: A win if the minor piece is a horse (the attacking side does not need all 4 defensive pieces to win), a draw if it is a cannon.
With the same combination of the two minor pieces and all 4 defensive pieces on both sides, one needs two extra soldiers for a book win.
If both sides have 2 minor pieces and 4 defensive pieces, and the advantegeous side only has one extra soldier, then regardless of the combination of the two minor pieces, it is a book draw.
==== Chariot endgames ====
Single chariot endgames:
A single chariot generally cannot win against 4 defensive pieces, but with 3 or fewer defensive pieces, it is a forced win.
Chariot vs one minor piece plus 2 defensive pieces: A win if the 2 defensive pieces are not the same, or if the combination is horse + two advisors. If the defensive side has horse + two elephants, a specific fortress is required to draw.
Chariot vs one minor piece plus 3 defensive pieces: A draw.
Chariot vs two minor pieces with no defensive pieces: A draw, but requires good defensive positions.
Chariot + soldiers (unadvanced):
Chariot + soldier, with sufficient defensive pieces on their own side, wins against a chariot plus an advisor, a chariot plus two elephants, or a chariot plus a soldier.
Chariot + soldier wins against any 2 minor pieces + 2 advisors. This combination also wins against horse + 4 defensive pieces, but not cannon + 4 defensive pieces.
Chariot + soldier vs 2 unadvanced soldiers + 4 defensive pieces: If the offensive side has no defensive piece, it is a draw since the 2 enemy soldiers can still be a formidable force. If the offensive side has one advisor, it is a win.
Chariot + 2 soldiers cannot force a win against chariot + 4 defensive pieces. In this endgame, both attacking and defending require great skill.
Chariot + horse:
A chariot plus a horse needs one advisor on their own side to win against a chariot plus two advisors.
Chariot + horse vs chariot + two elephants: With enough defensive pieces for the attacking side, it is generally a win if the move limit is not taken into consideration.
Chariot + cannon:
A chariot plus a cannon cannot win against a bare chariot, as long as the defending chariot occupies the middle file. However, with any extra defensive piece on the attacking side, it is a win.
Chariot + cannon + 2 advisors would win against chariot + two elephants.
Chariot + cannon + 4 defensive pieces vs chariot + 4 defensive pieces: Draw.
Two chariots:
Two chariots vs chariot + 4 defensive pieces: A draw with good defensive positions.
Two chariots vs chariot + minor piece + 2 defensive pieces: The only drawing combination is chariot + cannon + 2 advisors.
Two chariots vs 2 minor pieces + 4 defensive pieces: A win if the 2 minor pieces are 2 horses.
== History ==
A game called xiangqi was mentioned as dating to the Warring States period; according to the first-century-BC text Shuo Yuan (說苑/说苑), it was one of Lord Mengchang of Qi's interests. However, the rules of that game are not described, and it was not necessarily related to the present-day game. Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou wrote a book in AD 569 called Xiang Jing. It described the rules of an astronomically themed game called xiangxi (象戲). Ancient reports state that "the pieces ... were called after the sun, the moon, the planets and the star-houses", in contrast with modern xiangqi. In addition, there are mentions of shuffling of pieces, which does not occur in xiangqi either. For these reasons, Murray argued that "in China [chess] took over the board and name of a game called 象棋 in the sense of 'Astronomical Game', which represented the apparent movements of naked-eye-visible astronomical objects in the night sky, and that the earliest Chinese references to 象棋 meant the Astronomical Game and not Chinese chess". Previous games called xiàngqí may have been based on the movements of sky objects. In contrast, present-day xiangqi developed from Indian chaturanga according to Murray; this is also the predominant opinion among historians.
Some Sinologists and Chinese historians prefer an alternative hypothesis, according to which xiangqi originated in China and then spread westwards, giving rise to Indian and Persian chess. Specifically, it has been claimed that Xiangqi arose during the Warring States period and was patterned after the array of troops at the time. David H. Li, for example, argues that the game was developed by Han Xin in the winter of 204–203 BC to prepare for an upcoming battle. His theories, however, have been questioned by other chess researchers. The earliest description of the game's rules appears in the story "Cén Shùn" (岑順) in the collection Xuanguai lu (玄怪錄), written by Niu Sengru in the middle part of the Tang dynasty.
Xiangqi is the same as it is today from Southern Song dynasty.
Janggi of the Korean Peninsula originated from xiangqi.
With the popularization of xiangqi, many different schools of circles and players came into prominence, many books and manuals on the techniques of playing the game were also published, they played an important role in popularizing xiangqi and improving the techniques of play in modern times. With the economic and cultural development during the Qing dynasty, xiangqi entered a new stage. A Western-style Encyclopedia of Chinese Chess Openings was written in 2004.
== Modern play ==
=== Tournaments and leagues ===
Although xiangqi has its origin in Asia, there are xiangqi leagues and clubs all over the world. Each European nation generally has its own governing league; for example, in Britain, xiangqi is regulated by the United Kingdom Chinese Chess Association. Asian countries also have nationwide leagues, such as the Malaysia Chinese Chess Association.
In addition, there are several international federations and tournaments. The Chinese Xiangqi Association hosts several tournaments every year, including the Yin Li and Ram Cup Tournaments. Other organizations include the Asian Xiangqi Federation and a World Xiangqi Federation, which hosts tournaments and competitions bi-annually, with most limited to players from member nations.
There are Europeanized versions of boards (10 × 9) and figures of xiangqi.
=== Rankings ===
The Asian Xiangqi Federation (AXF) and its corresponding member associations rank players in a format similar to the Elo rating system of chess. According to the XiangQi DataBase, the top-ranking female and male players in China, as of June 2012, were Tang Dan and Jiang Chuan, with ratings of 2529 and 2667, respectively. Other strong players include Zhao GuanFang (female), Xu Yinchuan (male), Lu Qin (male), and Wang LinNa (female).
The Asian Xiangqi Federation also bestows the title of grandmaster to select individuals around the world who have excelled at xiangqi or made special contributions to the game. There are no specific criteria for becoming a grandmaster and there are only approximately 100 grandmasters as of 2020. The titles of grandmaster is bestowed by bodies such as the AXF and the Chinese Xiangqi Association (CXA).
=== Computers ===
The game-tree complexity of xiangqi is approximately 10150; in 2004 it was projected that a human top player would be defeated before 2010. Xiangqi is one of the more popular computer-versus-computer competitions at the Computer Olympiads.
Computer programs for playing xiangqi show the same development trend as has occurred for international chess: they are usually console applications (called engines) which communicate their moves in text form through some standard protocol. For displaying the board graphically, they then rely on a separate graphical user interface (GUI). Through such standardization, many different engines can be used through the same GUI, which can also be used for automated play of different engines against each other. Popular protocols are UCI (Universal Chess Interface), UCCI (Universal Chinese Chess Interface), Qianhong (QH) protocol, and WinBoard/XBoard (WB) protocol (the latter two named after the GUIs that implemented them). There now exist many dozens of xiangqi engines supporting one or more of these protocols, including some commercial engines.
== Variations ==
Blitz chess Each player only has around 5–10 minutes each.
Manchu chessInvented during the Manchu-led Qing dynasty. Red horses, cannons, and one of the chariots are absent, but the remaining chariot can be played as horses and cannons as well.
Supply chess Similar to the Western chess variant Bughouse chess, this variant features the ability to re-deploy captured pieces, similar to a rule in shogi. Four players play as two-person teams in two side-by-side games. One teammate plays Black and other plays Red. Any piece obtained by capturing the opponent's piece is given to the teammate for use in the other game. These pieces can be deployed by the teammate to give him an advantage over the other player, so long as the piece starts on the player's own side of the board and does not cause the opponent to be in check.
Formation Similar to Fischer Random Chess, one player's pieces are placed randomly on one side of the river, except for the generals and advisors, which must be at their usual positions, and the elephants, which must start at two of the seven points they can normally reach. The other player's pieces are set up to mirror the first's. All other rules are the same.
Banqi This variation is more well known in Hong Kong than in mainland China. It uses the xiangqi pieces and board, but does not follow any of its rules, bearing more of a resemblance to the Western game Stratego as well as the Chinese game Luzhanqi.
== Variations played with special boards or pieces ==
There are many versions of three-player xiangqi, or san xiangqui, all played on special boards.
San Guo Qi "Game of the Three Kingdoms" is played on a special hexagonal board with three xiangqi armies (red, blue, and green) vying for dominance. A Y-shaped river divides the board into three gem-shaped territories, each containing the grid found on one side of a xiangqi board, but distorted to make the game playable by three people. Each player has eighteen pieces: the sixteen of regular xiangqi, plus two new ones that stand on the same rank as the cannons. The new pieces have different names depending on their side: huo ("fire") for Red, qi ("flag") for Blue, and feng ("wind") for Green. They move two spaces orthogonally, then one space diagonally. The generals each bear the name of a historical Chinese kingdom—Shu for Red, Wei for Blue, and Wu for Green—from China's Three Kingdoms period. It is likely that San Guo Qi first appeared under the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279).
San You Qi "Three Friends Chess" was invented by Zheng Jinde from Shexian in the Anhui province during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing dynasty (1661–1722). It is played on a Y-shaped board with a full army of xiangqi pieces set up at the end of each of the board's three wide radii. In the centre of the board sits a triangular zone with certain features, such as ocean, mountain, or city walls, each of which is impassable by certain pieces. Two of an army's five soldiers are replaced by new pieces called huo ("fire") pieces, which move one space diagonally forward. Two qi ("flag") pieces are positioned on the front corners of the palace; they move two spaces forward inside their own camp, and then one space in any direction inside an enemy camp.
Sanrenqi "Three Men Chess" is a riverless, commercial variant played on a cross-shaped board with some special rules, including a fourth, neutral country called Han. Han has three Chariots, one Cannon, and one General named "Emperor Xian of Han", but these pieces do not move and do not belong to any of the players until a certain point in the game when two players team up against the third player. At that point the third player gets to also control Han.
Si Guo Qi "Four Kingdoms Chess" is also played on a riverless, cross-shaped board, but with four players. Because there are no rivers, elephants may move about the board freely.
Qi Guo Xiang Qi "Game of the Seven Kingdoms" is based symbolically on the Warring States Period.
== In Unicode ==
Xiangqi pieces were added to Unicode version 11.0 in June 2018. They are assigned to the codepoints U+1FA60–U+1FA6D in the Chess Symbols block. For legibility, the red pieces are filled white, while black pieces are filled black. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Ball | Dragon Ball | Dragon Ball (Japanese: ドラゴンボール, Hepburn: Doragon Bōru) is a Japanese media franchise created by Akira Toriyama. The original manga, written and illustrated by Toriyama, was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1984 to 1995, with the 519 individual chapters collected in 42 tankōbon volumes by its publisher Shueisha. Dragon Ball was originally inspired by the classical 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West, combined with elements of Hong Kong martial arts films. Dragon Ball characters also use a variety of East Asian martial arts styles, including karate and Wing Chun (kung fu). The series follows the adventures of protagonist Son Goku from his childhood through adulthood as he trains in martial arts. He spends his childhood far from civilization until he meets a teenage girl named Bulma, who encourages him to join her quest in exploring the world in search of the seven orbs known as the Dragon Balls, which summon a wish-granting dragon when gathered. Along his journey, Goku makes several other friends, becomes a family man, discovers his alien heritage, and battles a wide variety of villains, many of whom also seek the Dragon Balls.
Toriyama's manga was adapted and divided into two anime series produced by Toei Animation: Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, which together were broadcast in Japan from 1986 to 1989 and 1989 to 1996, respectively. Additionally, the studio has developed 21 animated feature films and three television specials, as well as an anime sequel series titled Dragon Ball GT (1996–1997) and two anime midquel series titled Dragon Ball Super (2015–2018) and Dragon Ball Daima (2024–2025). From 2009 to 2015, a revised version of Dragon Ball Z aired in Japan under the title Dragon Ball Kai, as a recut that follows the manga's story more faithfully by removing most of the anime-exclusive material, known as filler. Several companies have developed various types of merchandise based on the series, leading to a large media franchise that includes films (both animated and live action), collectible trading card games, action figures, collections of soundtracks, and numerous video games. All these have contributed to making Dragon Ball one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time.
The Dragon Ball manga has been published in over 40 countries and the anime has been broadcast in more than 80 countries. The manga's 42 collected tankōbon volumes have over 160 million copies sold in Japan and 260 million sold worldwide, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time. Dragon Ball has been praised for its art, characterization, humor, and broad audience appeal. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential manga series of all time, with many manga artists citing Dragon Ball as a source of inspiration for their own now-popular works. The anime, particularly Dragon Ball Z, is also highly popular around the world and is considered one of the most influential in increasing the popularity of Japanese animation in the Western world. It has had a considerable impact on global popular culture, referenced by and inspiring numerous artists, athletes, celebrities, filmmakers, musicians, and writers around the world.
== Setting ==
Earth, known as the Dragon World (ドラゴンワールド) and designated as "Planet 4032-877" by the celestial hierarchy, is the main setting of the Dragon Ball series, as well as related media such as Dr. Slump, Neko Majin, and Jaco the Galactic Patrolman. It is mainly inhabited by Earthlings (地球人, Chikyūjin), a term used inclusively to refer to all of the intelligent races native to the planet, including humans, anthropomorphic beings, and monsters. Starting from the Dragon Ball Z series, various extraterrestrial species such as the Saiyans (サイヤ人, Saiya-jin) and Namekians (ナメック星人, Namekku-seijin) have played a more prominent role in franchise media.
The narrative of Dragon Ball predominantly follows the adventures of the Saiyan Son Goku; upon meeting Bulma at the beginning of the series, the two embark on an adventure to gather the seven Dragon Balls, a set of orbs that summon the wish-granting dragon Shenlong.[ch. 1] Goku later receives martial arts training from Kame-Sen'nin, meets his lifelong friend Kuririn, and enters the Tenkaichi Budōkai (天下一武道会; lit. "Strongest Under the Heavens Martial Arts Tournament") to fight the world's strongest warriors. When Piccolo Daimao, and later his offspring Piccolo, tries to conquer the planet, Goku receives training from Earth's deities to defeat them. Goku later sacrifices his life to save the planet from his estranged brother Raditz,[ch. 205] but is revived after training in the afterlife under the tutelage of the North Kaio to combat the other incoming Saiyans, Nappa and Vegeta. He later becomes a Super Saiyan and defeats the powerful alien tyrant Frieza; this sets the tone of the rest of the series, with each enemy the characters face becoming stronger than the last, requiring them to attain further training.
Dragon Ball Super establishes that the franchise is set in a multiverse composed of twelve numbered universes, with the majority of the Dragon Ball series taking place in Universe 7 (第7宇宙, Dai-Nana Uchū; lit. "Number Seven Universe"). Each universe is ruled by a number of benevolent and malevolent deities, respectively called Kaioshin and Gods of Destruction who are appointed by a higher being called Zeno, the watcher of the multiverse.
== Production ==
Akira Toriyama was an avid fan of Hong Kong martial arts films, particularly Bruce Lee films such as Enter the Dragon (1973) and Jackie Chan films such as Drunken Master (1978), and wanted to create a manga inspired by the films of the genre. This led to Toriyama creating the 1983 one-shot manga Dragon Boy, which he later redeveloped into Dragon Ball. Toriyama loosely modeled the plot and characters of Dragon Ball on the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, with Goku being Sun Wukong ("Son Goku" in Japanese), Bulma as Tang Sanzang, Oolong as Zhu Bajie, and Yamcha being Sha Wujing. Toriyama wanted to write a story with the basic theme of Journey to the West, but with "a little kung fu" by combining the novel with elements from the kung fu films of Chan and Lee. The title Dragon Ball was inspired by Enter the Dragon and later Bruceploitation knockoff kung fu films, which frequently had the word "Dragon" in their titles, and the fighting scenes were influenced by Jackie Chan movies. Since it was serialized in a shōnen manga magazine, he conceived the Dragon Balls to give it a game-like activity of gathering something, without thinking of what the characters would wish for. His concept of the Dragon Balls was inspired by the epic Japanese novel Nansō Satomi Hakkenden (1814–1842) from the late Edo period, which involved the heroes collecting eight Buddhist prayer beads; Toriyama adapted this into collecting seven Dragon Balls.
Toriyama originally thought the manga would last about a year or end once the Dragon Balls were collected. He stated that although the stories are purposefully easy to understand, he specifically aimed Dragon Ball at readers older than those of Dr. Slump. He also wanted to break from the Western influences common in Dr. Slump, deliberately incorporating for Chinese influences and scenery and referencing Chinese buildings and photographs of China his wife had bought. Toriyama wanted to set Dragon Ball in a fictional world largely based on Asia, taking inspiration from several Asian cultures including Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Central Asian, Arabic and Indonesian cultures. The island where the Tenkaichi Budōkai is held is modeled after Bali (in Indonesia), which he, his wife and assistant visited in mid-1985, and for the area around Bobbidi's spaceship, he consulted photos of Africa. Toriyama was also inspired by the jinn (genies) from The Arabian Nights.
During the early chapters of the manga, Toriyama's editor, Kazuhiko Torishima, commented that Goku looked rather plain. To combat this, he added several characters such as Kame-Sen'nin and Kuririn, and created the Tenkaichi Budōkai martial arts tournament to focus the storyline on fighting. It was when the first Tenkaichi Budōkai began that Dragon Ball truly became popular, having recalled the races and tournaments in Dr. Slump. Anticipating that readers would expect Goku to win the tournaments, Toriyama had him lose the first two while planning an eventual victory. This allowed for more character growth as the manga progressed. He said that Muscle Tower in the Red Ribbon Army storyline was inspired by the video game Spartan X (known as Kung-Fu Master in the West), in which enemies appear in quick succession as the player ascends a tower (the game was in turn inspired by Jackie Chan's Wheels on Meals and Bruce Lee's Game of Death). He then created Piccolo Daimao as a truly evil villain, and as a result named that arc the most interesting to draw.
Once Goku and company had become the strongest on Earth, they turned to extraterrestrial opponents including the Saiyans (サイヤ人, Saiya-jin); and Goku himself was retconned from an Earthling to a Saiyan who was sent to Earth as a baby. Frieza, who forcibly took over planets to resell them, was created around the time of the Japanese economic bubble and was inspired by real estate speculators, whom Toriyama called the "worst kind of people". Finding the escalating enemies difficult, he created the Ginyu Force to add more balance to the series. When Toriyama created the Super Saiyan (超(スーパー)サイヤ人, Sūpā Saiya-jin) transformation during the Frieza arc, he was initially concerned that Goku's facial expressions as a Super Saiyan made him look like a villain, but decided it was acceptable since the transformation was brought about by anger. Goku's Super Saiyan form has blonde hair because it was easier to draw for Toriyama's assistant (who spent a lot of time blacking in Goku's hair), and has piercing eyes based on Bruce Lee's paralyzing glare. Dragon Ball Z character designer Tadayoshi Yamamuro also used Bruce Lee as a reference for Goku's Super Saiyan form, stating that, when he "first becomes a Super Saiyan, his slanting pose with that scowling look in his eyes is all Bruce Lee." Toriyama later added time travel during the Cell arc, but said he had a hard time with it, only thinking of what to do that week and having to discuss it with his second editor Yu Kondo. After Cell's death, Toriyama intended for Gohan to replace Goku as the series' protagonist, but later felt the character was not suited for the role and changed his mind.
Going against the convention that the strongest characters should be the largest in terms of physical size, Toriyama designed many of Dragon Ball's most powerful characters with small statures, including the protagonist, Goku. Toriyama later explained that he had Goku grow up as a means to make drawing fight scenes easier, even though his first editor Kazuhiko Torishima was initially against it because it was rare to have the main character of a manga series change drastically. When including fights in the manga, Toriyama had the characters go to uninhabited locations to avoid difficulties in drawing residents and destroyed buildings. Toriyama said that he did not plan the details of the story, resulting in strange occurrences and discrepancies later in the series, including changing the colors of the characters mid-story and few characters having screentone because he found it difficult to use. After the completion of Dragon Ball, Toriyama continued to add to its story, mostly background information on its universe, through guidebooks published by Shueisha.
During the second half of the series, Toriyama said that he had become more interested in coming up with the story than actually drawing it, and that the battles became more intense with him simplifying the lines. In 2013, he stated that because Dragon Ball is an action manga, the most important aspect is the sense of speed, so he did not draw very elaborate, going so far as to suggest one could say that he was not interested in the art. He also once said that his goal for the series was to tell an "unconventional and contradictory" story. In 2013, commenting on Dragon Ball's global success, Toriyama said, "Frankly, I don't quite understand why it happened. While the manga was being serialized, the only thing I wanted as I kept drawing was to make Japanese boys happy.", "The role of my manga is to be a work of entertainment through and through. I dare say I don't care even if [my works] have left nothing behind, as long as they have entertained their readers."
== Manga ==
Written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama, Dragon Ball was serialized in the manga anthology Weekly Shōnen Jump from December 3, 1984, to June 5, 1995, when Toriyama grew exhausted and felt he needed a break from drawing. The 519 individual chapters were collected in 42 tankōbon volumes by Shueisha from September 10, 1985, through August 4, 1995. Between December 4, 2002, and April 2, 2004, the chapters were re-released in a collection of 34 kanzenban volumes, which included a slightly rewritten ending, new covers, and color artwork from its Weekly Shōnen Jump run. The February 2013 issue of V Jump, which was released in December 2012, announced that parts of the manga would be fully colored and re-released in 2013. 20 volumes, beginning from chapter 195 and grouped by story arcs, were released between February 4, 2013, and July 4, 2014. 12 volumes covering the first 194 chapters were published between January 4 and March 4, 2016. A sōshūhen edition that aimed to recreate the manga as it was originally serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump with color pages, promotional text, and chapter previews, was published in 18 volumes between May 13, 2016, and January 13, 2017.
=== Spin-offs ===
Another manga penned by Ōishi, the three-chapter Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock that revolves around Bardock, Goku's father, was published in the monthly magazine V Jump from August to October 2011.
The final chapter of Toriyama's 2013 manga series Jaco the Galactic Patrolman revealed that it is set before Dragon Ball, with several characters making appearances in it. Jaco's collected volumes contain a bonus Dragon Ball chapter depicting Goku's mother.
In December 2016, a spin-off manga titled Dragon Ball: That Time I Got Reincarnated as Yamcha debuted in Shueisha's Shōnen Jump+ digital magazine. Written and illustrated by dragongarow LEE, it is about a high school boy who after an accident wakes up in the body of Yamcha in the Dragon Ball manga.
=== Crossovers ===
Toriyama also created a short series, Neko Majin (1999–2005), that became a self-parody of Dragon Ball. In 2006, a crossover between Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen-mae Hashutsujo (or Kochikame) and Dragon Ball by Toriyama and Kochikame author Osamu Akimoto appeared in the Super Kochikame (超こち亀, Chō Kochikame) manga. That same year, Toriyama teamed up with Eiichiro Oda to create a crossover chapter of Dragon Ball and One Piece titled Cross Epoch.
=== Reception ===
Dragon Ball is one of the most popular and influential manga series of all time, and it continues to enjoy high readership. It is credited as one of the main reasons manga circulation was at its highest between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s. During Dragon Ball's initial run in Weekly Shōnen Jump, the manga magazine reached an average circulation of 6.53 million weekly sales, the highest in its history. During Dragon Ball's serialization between 1984 and 1995, Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine had a total circulation of over 2.9 billion copies, with those issues generating an estimated ¥554 billion ($6.9 billion) in sales revenue.
Dragon Ball also sold a record number of collected tankōbon volumes for its time. By 2000, more than 126 million tankōbon copies had been sold in Japan alone. It sold over 150 million copies in Japan by 2008, making it the best-selling manga ever at the time. By 2012, its sales in Japan had grown to pass 156 million, making it the second best-selling Weekly Shōnen Jump manga of all time, behind One Piece. Dragon Ball's tankobon volumes sold 159.5 million copies in Japan by February 2014, and have sold over 160 million copies in Japan as of 2016.
The manga is similarly popular overseas, having been translated and released in over 40 countries worldwide. The total number of tankōbon volumes worldwide sold have reached 350 million copies. When including pirated copies, an estimated total of more than 400 million official and unofficial copies combined have been sold worldwide.
For the 10th anniversary of the Japan Media Arts Festival in 2006, Japanese fans voted Dragon Ball the third greatest manga of all time. In a survey conducted by Oricon in 2007 among 1,000 people Goku ranked first place as the "Strongest Manga Character of All Time." Goku's journey and his ever-growing strength resulted in the character winning "the admiration of young boys everywhere". Manga artists, such as One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda and Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto, have stated that Goku inspired their series' main protagonists as well as series structure.
Manga critic Jason Thompson stated in 2011 that "Dragon Ball is by far the most influential shōnen manga of the last 30 years, and today, almost every Shōnen Jump artist lists it as one of their favorites and lifts from it in various ways." He says the series "turns from a gag/adventure manga to an nearly-pure fighting manga", and its basic formula of "lots of martial arts, lots of training sequences, a few jokes" became the model for other shōnen series, such as Naruto. Thompson also called Toriyama's art influential and cited it as a reason for the series' popularity. James S. Yadao, author of The Rough Guide to Manga, claims that the first several chapters of Dragon Ball "play out much like Saiyuki with Dr. Slump-like humour built in" and that Dr. Slump, Toriyama's previous manga, had a clear early influence on the series. He felt the series "established its unique identity" after the first occasion when Goku's group disbands and he trains under Kame-Sen'nin, and that was when the story developed "a far more action-packed, sinister tone" with "wilder" battles with aerial and spiritual elements and an increased death count, while humor still made an occasional appearance. Yadao claims that an art shift occurred when the characters "lose the rounded, innocent look that he established in Dr. Slump and gain sharper angles that leap off the page with their energy and intensity."
Animerica felt the series had "worldwide appeal", using dramatic pacing and over-the-top martial arts action to "maintain tension levels and keep a crippler crossface hold on the audience's attention spans". In Little Boy: The Art of Japan's Exploding Subculture, Takashi Murakami commented that Dragon Ball's "never-ending cyclical narrative moves forward plausibly, seamlessly, and with great finesse". Ridwan Khan from Animefringe.com commented that the manga had a "chubby" art style, but as the series continued, the characters became more refined, leaner, and more muscular. Khan preferred the manga over the slow pacing of the anime counterparts. Allen Divers of Anime News Network praised the story and humor of the manga as being effective at conveying all of the characters' personalities. Divers also called Viz's translation one of the best of all the English editions of the series due to its faithfulness to the original Japanese. D. Aviva Rothschild of Rationalmagic.com remarked the first manga volume as "a superior humor title". They praised Goku's innocence and Bulma's insistence as one of the funniest parts of the series.
The content of the manga has been controversial in the United States. In November 1999, Toys "R" Us removed Viz's Dragon Ball from their stores nationwide when a Dallas parent complained the series had "borderline soft porn" after he bought them for his four-year-old son. Commenting on the issue, Susan J. Napier explained it as a cultural difference. After the ban, Viz reluctantly began to censor the series to keep wide distribution. However, in 2001, after releasing three volumes censored, Viz announced Dragon Ball would return uncensored and reprinted due to fan reactions. In October 2009, Wicomico County Public Schools in Maryland banned the Dragon Ball manga from their school district because it "depicts nudity, sexual contact between children and sexual innuendo among adults and children".
In 2025, in reference to Texas Senate Bill 20, which creates new criminal offenses for those who possess, promote, or view visual material deemed obscene, which is said to depict a child, whether it is an actual person, an animated or cartoon depiction, or an image of someone created through computer software or artificial intelligence, Evan D. Mullicane of ScreenRant said the vague wording of the legislation made it "dangerous" for manga and anime such as Dragon Ball.
== Anime ==
Dragon Ball was adapted into an anime television metaseries. Dragon Ball (1986–89), Dragon Ball Z (1989–96), Dragon Ball Super (2015–18) and Dragon Ball Daima (2024–25) are set in a uniform main continuity, while Dragon Ball GT (1996–97) and Super Dragon Ball Heroes (2018–24) explore several alternate continuities.
=== Dragon Ball ===
Toei Animation produced an anime television series based on the first 194 manga chapters, also titled Dragon Ball. The series premiered in Japan on Fuji TV on February 26, 1986, and ran until April 19, 1989, lasting 153 episodes. It is broadcast in 81 countries worldwide.
=== Dragon Ball Z ===
Instead of continuing the anime as Dragon Ball, Toei Animation decided to carry on with their adaptation under a new name and requested a title from Akira Toriyama. The newly named Dragon Ball Z (ドラゴンボールZ(ゼット), Doragon Bōru Zetto; commonly abbreviated as DBZ) picks up five years after the first series left off and adapts the final 325 chapters of the manga. It premiered in Japan on Fuji TV on April 26, 1989, taking over its predecessor's time slot, and ran for 291 episodes until its conclusion on January 31, 1996. Two television specials based on the Z series were aired on Fuji TV in Japan. The first special, The One True Final Battle ~The Z Warrior Who Challenged Frieza – Son Goku's Father~, renamed Bardock – The Father of Goku by Funimation, was shown on October 17, 1990. The second special, Defiance in the Face of Despair!! The Remaining Super-Warriors: Gohan and Trunks, renamed The History of Trunks by Funimation, aired on February 24, 1993.
=== Dragon Ball GT ===
Dragon Ball GT (ドラゴンボールGT(ジーティー), Doragon Bōru Jī Tī; G(rand) T(ouring)) premiered on Fuji TV on February 7, 1996, and ran until November 19, 1997, for 64 episodes. Unlike the first two anime series, it is not based on Toriyama's original Dragon Ball manga, being created by Toei Animation as a sequel to the series or as Toriyama called it, a "grand side story of the original Dragon Ball." Toriyama designed the main cast, the spaceship used in the show, the design of three planets, and came up with the title and logo. In addition to this, Toriyama also oversaw production of the series, just as he had for the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z anime. The television special episode, Goku's Side Story! The Proof of his Courage is the Four-Star Ball, or A Hero's Legacy as Funimation titled it for their dub, aired on March 26, 1997.
=== Dragon Ball Z Kai ===
In February 2009, Dragon Ball Z celebrated its 20th anniversary, with Toei Animation announcing that it would broadcast a re-edited and remastered version of the Dragon Ball Z anime under the name Dragon Ball Kai (ドラゴンボール改, Doragon Bōru Kai; lit. "Dragon Ball Revised"). The series would be re-edited to follow the manga more closely, eliminating scenes and episodes which were not featured in the original manga, resulting in a more faithful adaptation, as well as in a faster-paced and more focused story. The episodes were remastered for HDTV, with rerecording of the vocal tracks by most of the original cast, and featured updated opening and ending sequences. On April 5, 2009, the series premiered in Japan on Fuji TV. Dragon Ball Z Kai reduced the episode count to 159 episodes (167 episodes internationally), from the original 291. Damaged frames were removed, resulting in some minor shots being remade from scratch in order to fix cropping, and others to address continuity issues. The majority of the international versions, including Funimation Entertainment's English dub, are titled Dragon Ball Z Kai.
=== Dragon Ball Super ===
On April 28, 2015, Toei Animation announced Dragon Ball Super (ドラゴンボール超, Doragon Bōru Sūpā), the first all-new Dragon Ball television series to be released in 18 years. It debuted on July 5 of that year and ran as a weekly series at 9:00 am on Fuji TV on Sundays until its series finale on March 25, 2018, after 131 episodes. Masako Nozawa reprised her roles as Goku, Gohan, and Goten. Most of the original cast reprised their roles as well. Koichi Yamadera and Masakazu Morita also reprise their roles, as Beerus and Whis, respectively.
The story of the anime is set after the defeat of Majin Buu, when the Earth has become peaceful once again. Akira Toriyama is credited as the original creator, as well for "original story and character design concepts". It is also being adapted into a parallel manga.
=== Super Dragon Ball Heroes ===
In May 2018, an anime to promote the Super Dragon Ball Heroes card and video game series was announced. It was released online from July 1, 2018, to August 8, 2024.
=== Dragon Ball Daima ===
Dragon Ball Daima aired on Fuji TV from October 2024 to February 2025. It features a storyline set after the events of the Majin Buu Saga of Dragon Ball Z but before Dragon Ball Super and the last few episodes of Dragon Ball Z. It is the last work of Akira Toriyama.
=== Other installments ===
The short film Dragon Ball: Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!! was created for the Jump Super Anime Tour, which celebrated Weekly Shōnen Jump's 40th anniversary, and debuted on September 21, 2008. A short animated adaptation of Naho Ōishi's Bardock spinoff manga, Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock, was shown on December 17–18, 2011, at the Jump Festa 2012 event.
A two-episode original video animation (OVA) titled Dragon Ball Z Side Story: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans was created in 1993 as strategy guides for the Famicom video game of the same name. A remake titled Dragon Ball: Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans was created as a bonus feature for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 video game Dragon Ball: Raging Blast 2, which was released on November 11, 2010.
A two-part hour-long crossover special between Dragon Ball Z, One Piece and Toriko, referred to as Dream 9 Toriko & One Piece & Dragon Ball Z Super Collaboration Special!! aired on April 7, 2013.
=== Reception ===
The anime adaptations have also been well-received and are better known in the Western world than the manga, with Anime News Network saying, "Few anime series have mainstreamed it the way Dragon Ball Z has. To a certain generation of television consumers its characters are as well known as any in the animated realm, and for many it was the first step into the wilderness of anime fandom." In a survey conducted by Oricon, "Japanese anime that I think is world-class" and "world-class Manga & Anime" "Dragon Ball" was selected as No. 1 with an overwhelming number of votes in both surveys. In 2000, satellite TV channel Animax together with Brutus, a men's lifestyle magazine, and Tsutaya, Japan's largest video rental chain, conducted a poll among 200,000 fans on the top anime series, with Dragon Ball coming in fourth. "Dragon Ball" won first place in the "100 Best Anime in Japan that has advanced to the world" questionnaire on TV Asahi 's " Decision! This is Japan's Best ". TV Asahi conducted two polls in 2005 on the Top 100 Anime, with Dragon Ball coming in second in the nationwide survey conducted with multiple age-groups and in third in the online poll.
Dragon Ball is one of the most successful franchises in animation history. The anime series is broadcast in more than 80 countries worldwide. In Japan, the first sixteen anime films up until Dragon Ball Z: Wrath of the Dragon (1995) sold 50 million tickets and grossed over ¥40 billion ($501 million) at the box office, in addition to selling over 500,000 home video units by 1996. Later DVD releases of the Dragon Ball anime series have topped Japan's sales charts on several occasions. In the United States, the anime series sold over 25 million DVD units by January 2012, and had sold more than 30 million DVD and Blu-ray units as of 2017. In Latin America, public screenings of the Dragon Ball Super finale in 2018 filled public spaces and stadiums in cities across the region, including stadiums holding tens of thousands of spectators.
Dragon Ball Z also proved to be a ratings success in the United States, outperforming top shows such as Friends and The X-Files in some parts of the country in sweeps ratings during its first season. The premiere of season three of Dragon Ball Z in 1999, done by Funimation's in-house dub, was the highest-rated program ever at the time on Cartoon Network. In 2002, in the week ending September 22, Dragon Ball Z was the #1 program of the week on all of television with tweens 9–14, boys 9–14 and males 12–24, with the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday telecasts of Dragon Ball Z ranked as the top three programs in all of television, broadcast or cable, for delivery of boys 9–14. Dragon Ball GT also had high ratings In 2001, it was reported that the official website of Dragon Ball Z recorded 4.7 million hits per day and included 500,000+ registered fans. Dragon Ball Z topped the Lycos 50 list of the "most searched" items for the second consecutive year—the first time that any topic has ever been able to repeat its dominance over a two-year period. Dragon Ball ranked second overall in the search number ranking for the past 10 years, as reported by LYCOS in 2005. It ranked 3rd in Yahoo! in 2002 with the PlayStation 2 topping the list. Even after its conclusion, the Dragon Ball series has continued to maintain a high level of popularity, surpassing that of newer anime, and is also often rebroadcast, making it Funimation's most important anime license. The audience rating of the first Dragon Ball Kai episode on Nicktoons is the highest since the station launched.
Carl Kimlinger of Anime News Network summed up Dragon Ball as "an action-packed tale told with rare humor and something even rarer—a genuine sense of adventure." Both Kimlinger and colleague Theron Martin noted Funimation's reputation for drastic alterations of the script, but praised the dub. However, some critics and most fans of the Japanese version have been more critical with Funimation's English dub and script of Dragon Ball Z over the years. Jeffrey Harris of IGN criticized the voices, including how Frieza's appearance combined with the feminine English voice left fans confused about Frieza's gender. Carlos Ross of T.H.E.M. Anime Reviews considered the series' characters to be different from stereotypical stock characters and noted that they undergo much more development. Despite praising Dragon Ball Z for its cast of characters, they criticized it for having long and repetitive fights.
Dragon Ball Z is well-known, and often criticized, for its long, repetitive, dragged-out fights that span several episodes, with Martin commenting "DBZ practically turned drawing out fights into an art form." However, Jason Thompson of io9 explained that this comes from the fact that the anime was being aired alongside the manga. Dragon Ball Z was listed as the 78th best animated show in IGN's Top 100 Animated Series list, and was also listed as the 50th greatest cartoon in Wizard magazine's Top 100 Greatest Cartoons list.
Harris commented that Dragon Ball GT "is downright repellent", mentioning that the material and characters had lost their novelty and fun. He also criticized the GT character designs of Trunks and Vegeta as being goofy. Zac Bertschy of Anime News Network also gave negative comments about GT, mentioning that the fights from the series were "a very simple childish exercise" and that many other anime were superior. The plot of Dragon Ball GT has also been criticized for following a formula that was already used in its predecessors.
== Other media ==
=== Anime films ===
Twenty animated theatrical films based on the Dragon Ball series have been released in Japan. The most recent films, Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods (2013), Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' (2015), Dragon Ball Super: Broly (2018), and Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (2022), were produced as full-length feature films and were given stand-alone theatrical releases in Japan, as well as limited theatrical releases in the U.S. They were also the first Dragon Ball films to have significant involvement from Toriyama. Battle of Gods and Resurrection 'F' were remade into the first and second arcs of the Dragon Ball Super anime, which told the same stories as the two films in expanded detail. The 1996 feature film, Dragon Ball: The Path to Power, was also a full-length theatrical release with a running time of 80 minutes, and was produced to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the anime as a re-imagining of the first few arcs of the series.
All previous films were mostly below feature length (around 45–60 minutes each), making them only slightly longer than one or two episodes of the TV series; this is due to them being originally shown as back-to-back presentations alongside other Toei film productions. These films are also mostly alternate re-tellings of certain story arcs (like The Path to Power), or extra side-stories that do not correlate with the continuity of the series. The first three films, along with The Path to Power, are based on the original Dragon Ball anime series. The remaining thirteen older films are based on Dragon Ball Z. The first five films were shown at the Toei Manga Festival (東映まんがまつり, Tōei Manga Matsuri), while the sixth through seventeenth films were shown at the Toei Anime Fair (東映アニメフェア, Toei Anime Fea).
=== Live-action film ===
An American live-action film titled Dragonball Evolution was produced by 20th Century Fox after it acquired the feature film rights to the Dragon Ball franchise in March 2002. Prior to the film, two unofficial live-action films had been in production decades prior. The first was a Korean film titled Dragon Ball: Ssawora Son Goku, Igyeora Son Goku (드래곤볼 싸워라 손오공 이겨라 손오공; Deulaegonbol Ssawola Son Ogong Igyeola Son Ogong; lit. 'Dragon Ball: Fight Son Goku, Win Son Goku'), while the second was a Taiwanese film titled Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins (新七龍珠; Xīn qī lóng zhū), which was also dubbed in English. The film was directed by James Wong and produced by Stephen Chow, and was released in the United States on April 10, 2009. The film was meant to lead into sequels,
which were cancelled after the film flopped at the box office and became universally heralded as one of the worst adaptations of all time, being considered by critics and fans as unfaithful to the source material. Franchise creator Akira Toriyama also criticized the film, adding he was completely left out of the creative process despite having offered to help, going as far as to say: "the result was a movie, I couldn't even call Dragon Ball". Years after its release, the writer of the film, Ben Ramsey, released a public apology in which he admitted to have written the film "chasing for a payday" instead of "as a fan of the franchise".
With the news of 20th Century Fox selling itself, its assets, which include the film rights to the Dragon Ball franchise, would now be owned by its purchaser, The Walt Disney Company. However, there have been no plans made by The Walt Disney Company to create a new live-action Dragon Ball movie. Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero was the first Dragon Ball film to be distributed in the U.S. by Sony Pictures after they acquired Crunchyroll in 2021 and merged it with Funimation in 2022. The first three episodes of Dragon Ball Daima were given a theatrical release in the U.S. by Toei Animation and Fathom Events.
=== Theme park attractions ===
"Dragon Ball Z: The Real 4D" debuted at Universal Studios Japan in the summer of 2016. It features a battle between Goku and Frieza. Unlike most Dragon Ball animation, the attraction is animated with CGI. A second attraction titled "Dragon Ball Z: The Real 4-D at Super Tenkaichi Budokai" debuted at Universal Studios Japan in the summer of 2017, which featured a battle between the heroes and Broly.
=== Video games ===
The Dragon Ball franchise has spawned multiple video games across various genres and platforms. Earlier games of the series included a system of card battling and were released for the Famicom following the storyline of the series. Starting with the Super Famicom and Mega Drive, most of the games were from the fighting genre or RPG (role-playing game), such as the Super Butoden series. The first Dragon Ball game to be released in the United States was Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout for the PlayStation in 1997. For the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable games the characters were redone in 3D cel-shaded graphics. These games included the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai series and the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi series. Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit was the first game of the franchise developed for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Dragon Ball Xenoverse was the first game of the franchise developed for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. A massively multiplayer online role-playing game called Dragon Ball Online was available in South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan until the servers were shut down in 2013. A few years later fans started recreating the game. Today, "Dragon Ball Online Global" is a new, European version of Dragon Ball Online and it is being developed, while open beta server is running.
The mobile game Dragon Ball Z: Dokkan Battle (2015) has received over 350 million downloads worldwide, as of 2021. A notable recent release is Dragon Ball FighterZ (2018), a fighting game developed by Arc System Works. The game received massive fan and critical acclaim for its fast paced frantic 3v3 battles and great visuals, also winning Best Fighting Game of 2018 at The Game Awards and many other awards and other nominations. It also has a large eSports scene, where it is one of the most popular fighting games. It also did very well commercially, selling 4 million units across all platforms.
=== Merchandise ===
In 1994, the licensee Bandai earned $140 million annually from sales of licensed Dragon Ball toys, video games and other character goods in Japan. In 1996, Dragon Ball Z grossed $2.95 billion in merchandise sales worldwide. As of early 1996, more than 100 companies outside Japan applied for character goods. Bandai sold over 2 billion Dragon Ball Carddass cards in Japan by 1998, and over 1 million Dragon Stars action figures in the Americas and Europe as of 2018. In 2000, Burger King sponsored a toy promotion to distribute 20 million Dragon Ball Z figures across North America. By 2011, the franchise had generated $5 billion in merchandise sales. In 2012, the franchise grossed ¥7.67 billion ($96.13 million) from licensed merchandise sales in Japan.
=== Soundtracks ===
Myriad soundtracks were released in the anime, movies and the games. The music for the first two anime Dragon Ball and Z and its films was composed by Shunsuke Kikuchi, while the music from GT was composed by Akihito Tokunaga and the music from Kai was composed by Kenji Yamamoto and Norihito Sumitomo. For the first anime, the soundtracks released were Dragon Ball: Music Collection in 1985 and Dragon Ball: Complete Song Collection in 1991; they were reissued in 2007 and 2003, respectively. For the second anime, the soundtrack series released were Dragon Ball Z Hit Song Collection Series. It was produced and released by Columbia Records of Japan from July 21, 1989, to March 20, 1996, the show's entire lifespan. On September 20, 2006, Columbia re-released the Hit Song Collection on their Animex 1300 series. Other CDs released are compilations, video games and films soundtracks as well as music from the English versions.
=== Companion books ===
There have been numerous companion books to the Dragon Ball franchise. Chief among these are the Daizenshuu (大全集) series, comprising seven hardback main volumes and three supplemental softcover volumes, covering the manga and the first two anime series and their theatrical films. The first of these, Dragon Ball: The Complete Illustrations (Daizenshuu volume 1), first published in Japan in 1995, is the only one that was released in English, being printed in 2008 by Viz Media. It contains all 264 colored illustrations Akira Toriyama drew for the Weekly Shōnen Jump magazines' covers, bonus giveaways and specials, and all the covers for the 42 tankōbon. It also includes an interview with Toriyama on his work process. The remainder have never been released in English, and all are now out of print in Japan. From February 4 to May 9, 2013, condensed versions of the Daizenshuu with some updated information were released as the four-volume Chōzenshū (超全集) series. For Dragon Ball GT, the Dragon Ball GT Perfect Files were released in May and December 1997 by Shueisha's Jump Comics Selection imprint. They include series information, illustration galleries, behind-the-scenes information, and more. They were out of print for many years, but were re-released in April 2006 (accompanying the Japanese DVD release of Dragon Ball GT) and this edition is still in print.
Coinciding with the 34-volume kanzenban re-release of the manga, and the release of the entire series on DVD for the first time in Japan, four new guidebooks were released in 2003 and 2004. Dragon Ball Landmark and Dragon Ball Forever cover the manga, using volume numbers for story points that reference the kanzenban release, while Dragon Ball: Tenkaichi Densetsu (ドラゴンボール 天下一伝説) and Dragon Ball Z: Son Goku Densetsu (ドラゴンボールZ 孫悟空伝説) cover the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z anime, respectively. Much of the material in these books is reused from the earlier Daizenshuu volumes, but they include new textual material including substantial interviews with the creator, cast and production staff of the series. Son Goku Densetsu in particular showcases previously unpublished design sketches of Goku's father Bardock, drawn by character designer Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru prior to creator Akira Toriyama's revisions that resulted in the final version.
Following the release of Dragon Ball Kai in Japan, four new guidebooks were released: the two-volume Dragon Ball: Super Exciting Guide (ドラゴンボール 超エキサイティングガイド) in 2009, covering the manga, and two-volume Dragon Ball: Extreme Battle Collection (ドラゴンボール 極限バトルコレクション) in 2010, covering the anime series. Despite the TV series airing during this time being Kai, the Extreme Battle Collection books reference the earlier Z series in content and episode numbers. These books also include new question-and-answer sessions with Akira Toriyama, revealing a few new details about the world and characters of the series. 2010 also saw the release of a new artbook, Dragon Ball: Anime Illustrations Guide – The Golden Warrior (ドラゴンボール アニメイラスト集 「黄金の戦士」); a sort of anime-counterpart to the manga-oriented Complete Illustrations, it showcases anime-original illustrations and includes interviews with the three principal character designers for the anime. Each of the Japanese "Dragon Box" DVD releases of the series and movies, which were released from 2003 to 2006, as well as the Blu-ray boxed sets of Dragon Ball Kai, released 2009 to 2011, come with a Dragon Book guide that contains details about the content therein. Each also contains a new interview with a member of the cast or staff of the series. These books have been reproduced textually for Funimation's release of the Dragon Ball Z Dragon Box sets from 2009 to 2011.
=== Collectible cards ===
Collectible cards based on the Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball GT series have been released by Bandai. These cards feature various scenes from the manga and anime stills, plus exclusive artwork from all three series. Bandai released the first set in the United States in July 2008.
=== Tabletop role-playing game ===
Dragon Ball Z: The Anime Adventure Game, a tabletop role-playing game produced by R. Talsorian Games, was published in 1999. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1975 | The 1975 | The 1975 are
an English pop rock
band formed in Wilmslow, Cheshire in 2002. The band consists of Matty Healy (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, primary songwriter), Adam Hann (lead guitar), Ross MacDonald (bass) and George Daniel (drums, primary producer). The band's name was inspired by a page of scribblings found in Healy's preowned copy of On the Road by Jack Kerouac which was dated "1 June, The 1975".
The band members met in secondary school and first performed together as teenagers in 2002, before professionally releasing music in 2012 under the independent label Dirty Hit. From 2012 to 2013, they opened for several major acts and released a series of extended plays—Facedown, Sex, Music for Cars and IV—before releasing their UK chart-topping self-titled debut album (2013), which included the popular singles "Sex", "Chocolate" and "Robbers".
All of the band's albums hit No. 1 in the United Kingdom and charted in the Billboard 200, garnering critical praise and appearing in numerous publications' year-end and decade-end lists. Their second album, I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It (2016), also reached No. 1 in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and its box set received a nomination for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package at the 59th Grammy Awards. The band's third album, A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships (2018), received widespread acclaim and won British Album of the Year at the 2019 Brit Awards with its single "Give Yourself a Try" earning a nomination for Best Rock Song at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards. It was followed by Notes on a Conditional Form (2020) and Being Funny in a Foreign Language (2022) with the latter receiving a nomination for British Album of the Year at the 2023 Brit Awards.
Rolling Stone stated that the band has been at "the forefront of modern pop rock" since their debut, with Billboard declaring them "the most ambitious pop-rock band of their generation". Pitchfork has described them as a "band of friends" who "ascended from scrappy emo rockers to global superstars". Entertainment Weekly has characterised them as "British Phenoms", NME has proclaimed them as "Art Pop Heroes", and the BBC has called them “Modern Pop Icons”. They have received several awards and nominations including four Brit Awards, two Ivor Novello Awards, as well as two nominations for the Mercury Prize and two nominations for Grammy Awards. In addition, they have been awarded "Band of the Decade" at the 2020 NME Awards.
== History ==
=== 2002–2011: Formation ===
In 2002, at Wilmslow High School, guitarist Adam Hann recruited Matty Healy to be the drummer in a band he was forming with bassist Ross MacDonald. Hann wanted to start a band because a local council worker had begun organising gigs for teenagers and he wanted to play at one. When the band's prospective singer, Elliott Williams (now of Editors), dropped out after one rehearsal, Healy took over vocal duties, playing double duty as lead vocalist and drummer. He eventually gave up drumming to George Daniel, later recalling that meeting Daniel "changed his life". Daniel describes his first impression of Healy as "the most outwardly passionate person in school—endearing, and intimidating." The quartet began as a band playing covers of punk and emo songs at school and at Healy's house before eventually writing their own material.
To keep the band together, Hann, MacDonald and Daniel all went to university in Manchester while Healy briefly attended music school. They played gigs and recorded their own music while working as delivery boys at a local Chinese restaurant. By 2010, the band was being managed by Jamie Oborne but remained unsigned due to their genre-hopping approach, so he set up his own independent record label, Dirty Hit, and signed the band for £20. Before settling on the name The 1975, the band performed under several names, including Me and You Versus Them, Those 1975s, Forever Drawing Six, Talkhouse, the Slowdown and Bigsleep. They were also known as Drive Like I Do before adopting their current name in 2012. Healy recounted that the final name was inspired by scribblings found on the back page of the book On the Road by Jack Kerouac.I found a page of scribblings [on Jack Kerouac's On the Road]. It wasn't really disturbing or dark or anything...the important thing that stuck with me was that the page was dated '1st June, The 1975'. At the time I just thought that the word 'The' preceding a date was a strong use of language. I never thought it would be something that would later come to be so important. When it came to naming the band, it was perfect.
=== 2012–2014: Early career and self-titled debut album ===
The band's self-titled debut album was recorded with Mike Crossey. Between autumn 2012 and spring 2013, during which time the album was recorded, the band released four EPs. They toured to support and build momentum for the album, including numerous gigs and special appearances with other artists.
The album received positive reviews from critics, and topped the UK Albums Chart on 8 September. As of March 2016, it had sold 410,981 copies in the UK, and 390,000 copies in the US. Critics at Pitchfork have favourably compared them to the Big Pink. Sex EP was described by Paste as "equal parts ethereal and synth pop", with "haunting" and "smooth" vocals. Their "mellow", stripped down style was praised for its lack of "attention-grabbing production theatrics".
The release of the band's first EP, titled Facedown, in August 2012 saw the band's first UK airplay on national radio with lead track "The City", which was also featured as part of a BBC Introducing show with Huw Stephens on BBC Radio 1. The 1975 once again garnered national radio attention in late 2012, with BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe championing their single "Sex" from the eponymous EP, which was released on 19 November. They embarked on a United Kingdom and Ireland tour extended into early 2013, before beginning a US tour in Spring 2014. Upon the release of Music for Cars on 4 March 2013, the 1975 found mainstream chart success with "Chocolate", reaching number 19 in the UK Singles Chart. On 20 May 2013 the band released IV, which included a new version of "The City". The track charted in the UK and received airplay in several other countries.
The 1975 toured extensively to support releases and to build hype before releasing their debut. The band supported Muse on the second leg of The 2nd Law World Tour at the Emirates Stadium in London on 26 May 2013. They also toured with the Neighbourhood in the United States in June 2013, and supported the Rolling Stones in Hyde Park on 13 July. In August, the band performed on the Festival Republic Stage at 2013 Reading and Leeds Festivals.
In a feature article, Elliot Mitchell of When the Gramophone Rings wrote that releasing a string of EPs before the debut album was "a move that he deemed necessary to provide context to the band's broad sound, rather than just building up with singles alone." Healy said, "We wouldn't have been able to release the album without putting out the EP's first, as we wanted to make sure we could express ourselves properly before dropping this long, ambitious debut record on people." Their self-titled debut, The 1975, was released on 2 September 2013, co-produced by Mike Crossey, known for his work with Arctic Monkeys and Foals. The 1975 were selling out shows even before the debut of their full-length album as Healy recalled in an interview with Larry Heath of The AU Review. The lead single was a re-worked "Sex", which was released on 26 August 2013. The song premiered on Zane Lowe's BBC Radio 1 show on 8 July 2013, and a music video premiered on YouTube on 26 July. The 1975 debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart.
Public reaction to the band's music has been mixed, particularly on social media platforms like Twitter, "perhaps the last public space for unfettered music criticism in an increasingly anti-critical landscape", according to Vice magazine's Larry Fitzmaurice in 2016. In an essay on the critical response, he said they have been "the Most Hated and Loved Band in the World" and described "as underrated and overhyped, although the needle has far more often swung towards the former direction". Veteran rock critic Robert Christgau said he thinks "they suck" and should not be called a "rock band" as they do not "rock". In Fitzmaurice's opinion, the band's debut album was mainly a straightforward rock album recorded "with a soft-focus and especially British sensibility", while I Like It When You Sleep was only rock music in the loosest sense of the word. Overall, he said their music is pop "in the realm of Alternative", most comparable to INXS.
The 1975 toured in the UK in September 2013, among others performing in Kingston upon Hull as headliners at Freedom Festival, a celebration of the city's shortlisting for 2017 UK City of Culture designation, and at iTunes Festival on 8 September as an opening act for indie electronic quartet Bastille.
The band undertook a North American tour in October 2013, a European tour for November, and in January 2014 the band performed in New Zealand and Australia. In September 2013, the band performed three sold-out shows at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire. In April 2014, the band performed for the first time in a major American music and arts festival: Coachella. The band played at Royal Albert Hall the same month. In May, the band's recorded output was distributed digitally while they were touring North America. Healy noted that the band had recording scheduled in Q2 2015.
=== 2015–2017: I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It ===
On 1 June 2015, the band's social accounts were terminated, which caused intense speculation. A comic strip was posted on Healy's Twitter a day prior but was later posted on their manager's (Jamie Oborne) account, which suggested the band's break-up. The next day, the accounts were reinstated, but the cover images and profile photos were white and light pink, instead of the usual black and white, revealing it to be a publicity stunt.
On 8 October, the band announced their second album, I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It. They premiered the lead single, "Love Me", simultaneously scheduling a support tour in Europe, North America, and Asia. They premiered the second single, "UGH!", on 10 December on Beats 1. The album's third single, "The Sound" debuted on BBC Radio 1 on 14 January 2016. The 1975 released the fourth single "Somebody Else" on 15 February on Beats 1 before the album's release. "A Change of Heart" premiered on Radio 1 on 22 February, four days prior to the album's release.
NME, who had previously been highly critical of the band, praised the album for its scope and ambition, writing that "Any record that burrows as deep into your psyche as ‘I Like It…' should be considered essential. It's hugely clever and wryly funny, too." They later named it their Album of the Year for 2016. Although music journalist Alexis Petridis noted that parts of the album were over-ambitious, he went on to claim that "incredibly, though, most of the time Healy gets away with it. That's sometimes because his observations are sharp — as a skewering of celebrity squad culture, 'you look famous, let's be friends / And portray we possess something important / And do the things we like' is pretty acute — but more usually because they come loaded with witty self-awareness and deprecation: the endless depictions of vacuous, coke-numbed girls he has met would get wearying were it not for the fact that he keeps turning the lyrical crosshair on himself." In a more mixed review, Rolling Stone criticised tracks like "Lostmyhead" and "Please Be Naked" for being "boring-melty" but praised songs such as "Somebody Else", "Loving Someone" and "Love Me".
The album was released on 26 February and topped the UK Albums Chart and the US Billboard 200. The band released a free download for "How to Draw" on Twitter and through Target Exclusive. It was shortlisted for the 2016 Mercury Music Prize and nominated for Album of the Year at the 2017 Brit Awards.
=== 2017–2019: A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships ===
On 13 November 2016, member George Daniel teased the band's third album by releasing a video on his Instagram account captioned "2018", containing snippets of audio along with Healy playing the keyboards.
On 3 April 2017, Healy tweeted "I like it when you sleep is coming to an end" before following up with "Music for Cars", which shares the name of their third extended play. In March 2017, the band confirmed that two songs for the new album had already been written. In June, Healy also confirmed that Drive Like I Do, one of the 1975's prior incarnations, will release a debut album as a side project 'in a few years'.
In November, Healy teased the release of an EP within 2017. Besides being confirmed, the EP was delayed to 2018, with manager Jamie Oborne stating that "something" would be released instead; this was the band's debut live album, DH00278. He also confirmed that no singles from Music for Cars will be released in 2017, with the band confirming that something will be released on 1 June 2018.
In March 2018, the band deleted many media posts across their accounts going back to July 2017, during their final show at Latitude Festival for I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It. On 22 April 2018, in response to a fan comment on Twitter, Oborne stated that their second album's campaign would remain for "a few more days". At the end of April, cryptic posters titled "Music for Cars" appeared in London and Manchester, containing taglines and a Dirty Hit catalogue number, DH00327, amongst a black background. Various billboards were also spotted in the United Kingdom, having used détournement to apply themselves over existing advertisements.
The band updated their website to display a timer counting down towards 1 June at the beginning of May 2018, becoming active again on social media. Within its first hours, it was revealed to contain a hidden zip file with four individual posters, each of the names leading to a hidden page on the website that displayed a conversation between a 'human' and a 'machine'. Over social media, the band frequently released different posters, all titled "A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships". On 31 May 2018, the band released the single "Give Yourself a Try", after premiering as Annie Mac's "Hottest Record in the World" on BBC Radio 1 that same day.
The album garnered almost universal praise from critics. According to review aggregator Metacritic, the album has received a weighted score of 83 based on 29 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Ryan Dombal of Pitchfork gave the album a score of 8.5, earning it the Best New Music tag, and called it "outrageous and eclectic", as well as "similar to its predecessor in its boundless sense of style, swerving from Afrobeats to brushed-snare jazz balladry to one track that sounds like a trap remix of a Bon Iver ayahuasca trip", but "more purposeful" than I Like It When You Sleep. Time considered it one of the Best Albums of 2018, placing it at number nine on their list.
However, Conrad Duncan writing for the same site gave the album a positive review, calling it "full of genuine heart, intelligence and wit". Popmatters criticised the album as bloated and inconsistent, stating "The band's reach exceeds their grasp here, and vocalist/band leader Matt Healy's indulgences are often more tiresome than charming", while still praising it as "fascinating". Healy, in an interview for Beats 1, said that "Music for Cars" is more of an era to release music, after renaming Music for Cars to A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships. It was released on 30 November 2018. The band headlined both Radio 1's Big Weekend in Stewart Park, Middlesbrough on 26 May 2019 and Reading and Leeds Festival in August 2019.
The album was shortlisted for the 2019 Mercury Music Prize and won the award for British Album of the Year at the 2019 Brit Awards.
=== 2020–2021: Notes on a Conditional Form ===
On 24 July 2019, the opening song of Notes on a Conditional Form, titled "The 1975", was released, featuring climate activist Greta Thunberg, the proceeds of the song going to Extinction Rebellion. The lead single, entitled "People", was released on 22 August 2019. This was announced by a countdown on the band's social media accounts, including small snippets of lyrics from the song that fans could piece together. A second single, titled "Frail State of Mind", was released on 24 October. The music video for the song was released on 30 November 2019. The next single, "Me & You Together Song", was released on 16 January 2020.
On 15 February, the group did their UK tour that lasted until 3 March 2020. The tour began in Nottingham's Motor point arena, which holds a capacity of 10,000, and they ended their tour in Dublin after performing in Places such as London's O2, Manchester, Glasgow and other hit places in the UK. On 17 February 2020, the band put up a "digital detox" website called MindShowerAI which contained a countdown to their next single as well as several odd messages like “I am doing my mind and my life!” and “I feel comfort and respect." A fourth single, ‘The Birthday Party’, was released on 19 February 2020 at the end of the website's countdown. On 3 April, the band released "Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America", featuring guest vocals from Phoebe Bridgers, which was followed by "If You're Too Shy (Let Me Know)", featuring guest vocals by FKA Twigs, on 23 April 2020.
The band's fourth album, Notes on a Conditional Form, was released on 22 May 2020. It became the band's fourth consecutive album to reach number one on the UK Albums Chart as well as reaching number one in Australia and number four in the United States. On 4 December 2020, the album became certified silver in the UK via Brits certified.
Many of the band's 2020 shows which were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic were ultimately cancelled. During this time, lead singer Matty Healy teased future music under the name "Drive Like I Do", and said that the band was working on their fifth studio album, although there was no indication as to when writing, recording, mixing, etc. would be complete.
In February 2021, No Rome, a Dirty Hit labelmate, announced he was working on a track featuring the 1975 along with Charli XCX, which would make it the second No Rome single to feature the band after 2018's "Narcissist". The track's title is "Spinning" and was released on 4 March 2021. An EP that Healy and Daniel produced and co-wrote, Beabadoobee's Our Extended Play, was released in March 2021. In October 2021, Healy opened for Phoebe Bridgers at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on her Reunion Tour. He performed two new songs, one called "New York".
=== 2022–2025: Being Funny in a Foreign Language ===
On 14 February 2022, the band deactivated their main social media accounts, hinting at new material. On 1 June, the band's social media accounts were re-activated, and the beginning of a new era was signalled by a series of posts, and updates to the band's official website.
In late June 2022, the first single "Part of the Band" from their fifth album Being Funny in a Foreign Language was teased. Postcards sent to fans revealed an album track listing, while posters of Healy in London promoted the single. The lyrics of "Part of the Band" were posted by Healy on Instagram. The song was released on 7 July. On 14 October, the album was released. On 1 October, the band appeared on BBC Two's Later... with Jools Holland.
On 7 November 2022, the band performed a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden, which was also live-streamed on Twitch. The show—one of the first few in their At Their Very Best tour—was highly acclaimed with some critics praising it for its boldness, while others wrote that the band proved they really were "at their very best." It received five star reviews from the Rolling Stone, NME, The Observer, The Telegraph, Evening Standard, and Metro.
The band was banned from performing in Malaysia due to "controversial conduct and remarks" during their performance at the Good Vibes Festival on 21 July 2023. This included a same-sex kiss onstage between Healy and MacDonald, and Healy openly criticising the country's strong anti-LGBT laws. The remainder of the festival was then cancelled by local authorities. Malaysian authorities forced the organisers to immediately halt and cancelled the rest of the three-day festival citing that Healy's "controversial conduct and remarks" are "against the traditions and values of the local culture". Reactions to the incident from Malaysians on social media were generally critical of Healy. Some members of the LGBT community in Malaysia were frustrated by the incident and expressed concern it would lead to further reprisals from the religious right. The band subsequently cancelled shows in Taiwan and Indonesia following the incident. The organisers of the festival sued the band in the High Court for breach of contract and sought £1.9 million in damages.
In August 2023, they headlined Reading and Leeds Festivals for the third time with a "10th Anniversary Performance" of their self-titled debut album. Their fifth concert tour commenced in September 2023, titled Still... At Their Very Best. It is their biggest tour to date in North America performing in arenas across the United States and Canada. In the opening show in Sacramento, Healy has stated that after the tour, the band will have a hiatus from touring.
In October 2024, two billboards themed around Charli XCX's upcoming remix album Brat and It's Completely Different but Also Still Brat were displayed in the band's hometown, Manchester, signifying that the band will feature on the remixed version of the song "I might say something stupid" with Jon Hopkins. The band released their live recording, Still... At Their Very Best (Live From The AO Arena, Manchester, 17.02.24) in March 2025.
=== 2025-present: Dogs ===
On 6 March 2025, the band's social media accounts were updated to feature a new logo, alongside the announcement of their headlining set at Glastonbury Festival later that year. In May 2025, manager Jamie Oborne confirmed this set would be their only concert of the year. This statement was accompanied with the news that the band were working on their sixth studio album, with Oborne stating "I don’t know when it will come out, but they’re making one." The band played on Glastonbury Festival's Pyramid Stage on Friday, 27 June 2025. Their performance received praise with The Guardian's Alexis Petridis describing the band as "world-class", and their set "hugely impressive".
Following the performance, fan speculation ensued due to the presence of the word "DOGS" on the bass drum of Daniel, as well as its appearance on screen after the conclusion of their set. In December 2025, Healy confirmed "DOGS" was the title of the band's upcoming studio album during an event at Gateshead College while speaking to a fan, additionally stating "It might be one, it might be two… but yeah, we’ve made two albums."
== Musical style and influences ==
The band's work has been described broadly as pop-rock, art pop, alt-pop, synth-pop, new wave, and indie rock. NPR noted that Healy "has long treated writing songs for the 1975 as his diary". Per The Guardian, his lyrics distinguish the 1975's music from other artists'. He and Daniel are the principal songwriters of the band with Daniel describing himself as the "primary producer" and Healy as the "primary songwriter". He has described their relationship as "symbiotic": "We've got a shared musical vocabulary. Even if we're both working remotely, we're both working together."
Healy specifically cites Talking Heads, My Bloody Valentine, Ride, and Michael Jackson as musical influences; he states that his greatest influence is the oeuvre of filmmaker John Hughes. Healy said that their influence is "heavily rooted" in African-American music in many interviews.
The 1975 is known for their artistic reinventions and musical eclecticism. Their debut album has been described as electropop, funk rock, indie pop, indie rock, pop, pop rock and rock. Scott Kerr of AllMusic wrote that the band combined "the dark and youthful themes of sex, love, and fear with ethereal alt-rock music." Dissentingly, veteran rock critic Robert Christgau argues that they should not be considered a "rock band" as they do not "rock".
For their second album, I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It, Healy cited Christina Aguilera, D'Angelo, Roberta Flack, Boards of Canada, and Sigur Rós as inspirations saying that they're "a post-modern pop band that references a million things. I don't even know what my band is half the time."
== Legacy ==
Healy and the band has been described by several publications as "the voice of a generation". Rolling Stone stated that the band has been at "the forefront of modern pop rock" since their debut, with Billboard declaring them "the most ambitious pop-rock band of their generation". Pitchfork has described them as a "band of friends" who "ascended from scrappy emo rockers to global superstars". Entertainment Weekly has characterised them as "British Phenoms", NME proclaimed them as "Art Pop Heroes", and the BBC has called them "Modern Pop Icons".The Guardian has called them "Britain's Biggest Band" in 2020, The Daily Telegraph stated that they're "Britain's Hottest Band", and the Evening Standard proclaimed them the "Most Compelling Pop Band in the Planet" in 2023.
In 2022, Justin Hawkins of British hard-rock band The Darkness heavily praised the band upon hearing their 2022 single Part of the Band after being previously dismissive of them. Hawkins particularly cited the brutal honesty and self-analysis within the song to be moving, leading him to tears. Hawkins said in regards to the song; "I just love it when something hits me like that”.
In 2025, English singer and songwriter Robbie Williams included the band's 2018 single Love It If We Made It in a playlist of various songs cited as influences for his 2026 album Britpop.
The 1975's influence in the indie pop scene has been termed "Healywave" by NME. Described as "deftly plucked, palm-muted guitar line, hop, skip and jumping its way across shimmering pop synth work and third-wave emo lyricism", The Big Issue added that it is a "dreamified take on Eighties pop-rock". "Healywave" acts named by the NME include Pale Waves, Fickle Friends, and the Aces among various others.
== Members ==
=== Current members ===
Matty Healy – lead vocals, rhythm guitar, piano, keyboards
Adam Hann – lead guitar, keyboards, backing vocals
Ross MacDonald – bass, keyboards, backing vocals
George Daniel – drums, programming, percussion, keyboards, backing vocals
=== Current touring musicians ===
John Waugh – saxophone, keyboards, backing vocals (2013–present)
Jamie Squire – keyboards, guitar, backing vocals, lap steel guitar (2015–present)
Polly Money – rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals (2022–present)
Carly Holt-Hann – guest vocals (2022–present)
Gabrielle Marie King – percussion, backing vocals (2023–present)
=== Former touring musicians ===
Taitlyn Jaiy – backing vocals, dancer (2018–2020)
Kaylee Jaiy – backing vocals, dancer (2018–2020)
Rebekah Rayner – percussion (2022–2023)
== Discography ==
The 1975 (2013)
I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It (2016)
A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships (2018)
Notes on a Conditional Form (2020)
Being Funny in a Foreign Language (2022)
Dogs (TBA)
== Concert tours ==
The 1975 Tour (2013-2015)
I Like It When You Sleep Tour (2016–2017)
Music for Cars Tour (2018–2020)
At Their Very Best (2022–2023)
Still... At Their Very Best (2023–2024)
== Awards and nominations == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A92_road | A92 road | The A92 is a major road that runs through Fife, Dundee, Angus, Aberdeenshire, and Aberdeen City in Scotland. From south to north, it runs from Dunfermline to Blackdog, just north of Aberdeen.
== History ==
The A92's original route in southern Fife is now numbered as the A921, following a largely coastal route through Burntisland and Kirkcaldy. It then headed north-west through Glenrothes and Cupar on the current route of the A91 and A914. The former route connects with the M90 at Junction 1c via Burntisland and Kirkcaldy and links into the Thornton bypass.
The A92 acted as the main trunk road connecting Dundee to Aberdeen until the completion of the A90.
Plans were drawn up in the 1960s for a new East Fife Regional Road starting at the M90 at the Masterton Interchange (Junction 2), which would have mirrored what is now the A921 and B9157 to the Mossgreen area, before heading north-eastward to Chapel Level, connecting up with the Thornton By-pass. The plans were held back until the early 1970s, and were held back further due to the Oil crisis. In 1969 the Scottish Development Department commissioned a new traffic study which concluded that the A92 should follow the more northern route to provide a better link for Cowdenbeath and Lochgelly before connecting directly onto the Thornton Bypass, which was completed by early 1983, and opened on 16 August of that year.
Some of the original plans were for this new road to be a Motorway, but it was decided in the early 1980's to keep it as a high-quality dual carriageway.
The new East Fife Regional Road began construction in 1980, and built over four phases (with the later two brought together):
Halbeath - Cowdenbeath: Opened on 17 September 1985
Cowdenbeath - Lochgelly: Opened on 20 August 1987.
Lochgelly - Chapel Roundabout, and Chapel Roundabout - Redhouse Roundabout (near Thornton): these two sections were bundled together, and were the final phase, which opened on 16 August 1990. This section was officially opened with Sam Torrance driving (a golf ball) down the road.
Fife Regional Council did the design for all the new sections of the East Fife Regional Road, with Tractor Shovels Ltd (later Tractor Shovels Tawse Ltd for the final two sections) carrying out the work.
On 27 March 1998 the A92 was extended beyond the Crossgates junction to provide direct access with the M90 southbound, using south facing free-flow slip roads between M90 and A92 East Fife Regional Road, to ease congestion around the Halbeath interchange. The new section had works beginning in August 1996, and was built three months ahead of schedule, costing £8.4m.
The Bankhead Roundabout, at the edge of Glenrothes, was built in 1993. The junction is flared to allow for an A92 flyover to be built, but this has never been done.
North of Glenrothes, from the New Inn Roundabout, to Forgan Roundabout near Woodhaven, the A914 and A92 road numbers were swapped in 1996, and thus completely bypassing Cupar. The A92 now follows the dualled approach to the Tay Road Bridge, both opened in 1966. Prior to the opening of the Tay Road Bridge, the A92 continued along what is now the B995, along Cupar Road into Newport on Tay. The A92 ended perpendicular to the River Tay when it reached the shoreline at Tay Street / High Street. Thus, traffic that was bound for the Tay Ferry and the rest of the A92 across the river therefore had to use a short section of the A914 to continue its journey.
The junction in Dundee with the B978 , near Claypotts Castle, was previously a roundabout, but was substantially rebuilt in the 1990s to provide a new dualled alignment for the A92 through the junction. From here to Arbroath, at the Elliot Roundabout, was dualled in 2005. In Arbroath, there is currently works to narrow the dual carriageway road, to provide more space for active travel options.
Designed by Tayside Regional Council, and built by Turriff Civil Engineering, the Inverkeilor bypass opened in 1989. There was also a straightening of the road at Hawkhill and Courthill bends, to avoid an accident blackspot near Lunan in 2012/2013.
The bridge over the South Esk at Montrose was replaced in December 2005, after it was deemed to be failing.
In February 1997, the relief road for Montrose, taking traffic away from the town centre, was opened. The A92 now follows this route.
There is a very short section of dual carriageway, about 1/4 of a mile long, built above Gourdon by Tractor Shovels, and opened in 1972.
=== Numbering ===
The A92 formerly continued north from Stonehaven through Aberdeen, and terminated at Fraserburgh. The section between Stonehaven and Aberdeen was renumbered A90 in 1994. Upon completion of the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route (AWPR) in 2018, the section between Stonehaven and Blackdog was once again numbered as A92. The section between Blackdog and Fraserburgh has now been renumbered A90 and A952.
The section of the A92 between Dundee and Aberdeen was formerly part of the Euroroute system, on route E120, a closed loop connecting Inverness, Aberdeen, Dundee and Perth.
== Route ==
Starting at its junction with the M90 motorway, at the Halbeath Junction (junction 3 of the M90) on the east of Dunfermline, it runs north east past Cowdenbeath, Lochgelly, Kirkcaldy. From the Redhouse Roundabout, just north of Dysart, it heads in a much more northernly direction through Glenrothes, and then bypassing Freuchie, Ladybank and Newport-on-Tay. The road is a dual carriageway from the M90 to Glenrothes town centre, changing to a single carriageway at the Preston Roundabout, as it passes through the northern side of the town, before switching back to dual carriageway north of Glenrothes near Balfarg (i.e. until it meets the A912 towards Perth and the A914 towards St Andrews). Again, it reverts to a single carriageway at the New Inn roundabout, just south of Freuchie, until a few miles short of the Tay Road Bridge at Dundee. The section through Fife is often described as the East Fife Regional Road.
The road then travels across the Tay Road Bridge, the A92 travels along the south of Dundee, briefly merging with other roads. At the Scott Fyffe Roundabout in the Craigie area of Dundee, the road continues along the east coast bypassing Monifieth, Carnoustie and Muirdrum. When it reaches Arbroath, it becomes the main trunk road heading north along the coast. Skirting Inverkeilor, the road continues as the main trunk road through Montrose and St Cyrus, before skirting Benholm and Johnshaven. It then enters through Inverbervie, Roadside of Kinneff and Roadside of Catterline, before passing the Fowlsheugh Nature Reserve and then reaching the outskirts of Stonehaven where the road once again becomes dual carriageway. From here, the A92 runs parallel with the A90 for around 2 miles. The road then continues past Stonehaven, Muchalls, Newtonhill, and Portlethen heading into the city of Aberdeen at the Bridge of Dee. The road heads in a northernly direction through Aberdeen, to the west of the city centre. At Persley, it turns east, heading towards Bridge of Don. It then heads north for about three miles, before terminating at Blackdog, where the road once again merges with the A90.
The 16-mile section of the road from Dundee to Arbroath was upgraded to dual carriageway standard in 2005 and significantly improved both the safety of the route and the journey time between the two towns. Between Arbroath and Stonehaven the road is a single carriageway apart from a very short section of dual carriageway near Gourdon. The road returns to dual carriageway from Stonehaven heading north to Aberdeen, briefly returning to single carriageway at the Bridge of Dee, and then again returning to single carriageway between the Haudagain and Parkway roundabouts in Aberdeen. The remainder of the road from the Parkway roundabout to the termination point at Blackdog is dual carriageway.
== Changes ==
In 2024, work began to reduce the A92 within Arbroath to single-carriageway as part a remodelling that will see a dedicated cycle path and additional green space added.
== Archaeological ==
The A92 road traverses lands on which prehistorical archaeological sites are present. Examples of these features include Gourdon Hill and the Stone of Morphie, both situated slightly to the west of the A92 alignment. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Tennis_Association | Women's Tennis Association | The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) is the principal organizing body of women's professional tennis. The association governs the WTA Tour, which is the worldwide professional tennis tour for women, and was founded to create a better future for women's tennis. The WTA's corporate headquarters are in St. Petersburg, Florida, with its European headquarters in London and its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Beijing.
The Women's Tennis Association was founded in June 1973 by Billie Jean King, and traces its origins to the inaugural Virginia Slims tournament, arranged by Gladys Heldman, sponsored by Joe Cullman, CEO of Philip Morris, and held on 23 September 1970 at the Houston Racquet Club in Houston, Texas. Rosie Casals won this first event.
When the Women's Tennis Association was founded, Billie Jean King was one of nine players that comprised the WTA, also referred to as the Original 9, that included Julie Heldman, Valerie Ziegenfuss, Judy Dalton, Kristy Pigeon, Peaches Bartkowicz, Kerry Melville Reid, Nancy Richey, and Rosie Casals. Today, the WTA has more than 2,500 players from nearly 100 countries competing for $146 million in prize money.
== History ==
=== Background ===
Tennis's Open Era, in which professional players were allowed to compete alongside amateurs, began in 1968. The first Open Tournament was the British Hard Court Championships in Bournemouth. Later that year at the first Open Wimbledon, the prize fund difference was 2.5:1 in favor of men. Billie Jean King, a high ranking tennis player in the late 1960s who won several titles, won £750 for taking the title, whilst Rod Laver won £2,000. The total prize pool of both competitions were £14,800 and £5,680 for men and women, respectively. The tournaments that did not want to provide prize money eventually faded out of the calendar, including the US Eastern Grass Court circuit with stops at Merion Cricket Club and Essex county club.
There were two professional tennis circuits in existence at the start of the Open Era: World Championship Tennis (WCT), which was for men only, and the National Tennis League (NTL). Ann Jones, Rosie Casals, Françoise Dürr, and Billie Jean King joined the NTL. King was paid $40,000 a year, Jones was paid $25,000, and Casals and Durr were paid $20,000 each. The group played established tournaments, such as the US Open and Wimbledon, and also organised their own tournaments, playing in the South of France for two months. The International Tennis Federation (ITF) then imposed several sanctions on the group. Women were not allowed to play in the Wightman Cup in 1968 and 1969 and the USLTA refused to include Casals and King in their rankings for those years. In 1969, ratios of 5:1 in terms of pay between men and women were common at smaller tournaments. By 1970, these figures had increased to up to 12:1. The International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF) had begun dropping several women's competitions from the tournaments it presided over, having sanctioned 15 men-only tournaments in 1970, all of which had previously been combined events.
The turning point for women's pay inequality came prior to the 1970 US Open. The Pacific Southwest Championships directed by Jack Kramer, had announced a 12:1 ratio in the prize money difference between what men and women would win. This tournament provoked the top 9 female tennis players—Billie Jean King, Julie Heldman, Valerie Ziegenfuss, Judy Dalton, Kristy Pigeon, Peaches Bartkowicz, Kerry Melville Reid, Nancy Richey, and Rosie Casals, now known as the Original 9—to take a stand for equality. They did not play in the Los Angeles tournament and instead wanted to create their own tennis tournament.
Several female players contacted Gladys Heldman, publisher of World Tennis Magazine, and stated that they wanted to boycott the event. Although Heldman advised against it, she did help them put together their own tournament in Houston which would not take place until after the US Open. The 1970 Houston Women's Invitation for nine women players was formed. Heldman was friends with Joseph Cullman, CEO and chairman of Phillip Morris, who secured the new tournament. The tournament was a success and later sponsored by Virginia Slims in 1971.
On December 10, 2025, the WTA Tour signed the largest sponsorship deal in the organization’s history with Mercedes-Benz, which became the WTA’s premier partner on January 1, 2026, replacing Hologic.
=== WTA Tour ===
The WTA was founded at a meeting organised by Billie Jean King, a week before the 1973 Wimbledon Championships, as a direct response to the formation of the Association of Tennis Professionals a year prior. This meeting was held at Gloucester Hotel in London and featured 70 other female players, where King was named the first president of the organisation. In 1975, the WTA increased its financial stature by signing a television broadcast contract with CBS, the first in the WTA's history.
In 1976, Colgate assumed sponsorship of the circuit from April to November, with Avon replacing Virginia Slims as the sponsor of the winter circuit the following year. The Colgate Series—renamed the Toyota Series in 1981—included tournaments in all parts of the world, whereas the Avon sponsored events took place solely in the US. The two circuits merged at the beginning of the 1983 season, when Virginia Slims returned to take full sponsorship rights of the WTA Tour. Every tournament under the administration of the WTA became part of the Virginia Slims World Championship Series, before becoming the WTA World Tour in 1995 after the WTA Players Association merged with the Women's Tennis Council.
In 1977, women's tennis was the first professional sport opened to transgender women. The New York Supreme Court ruled in favour of Renée Richards, a player who underwent male-to-female sex reassignment surgery. Eligibility of transgender players is officially regulated under the current WTA official rulebook.
==== WTA Tour tournaments ====
In 2024, the WTA made all WTA 1000 events mandatory. The WTA Elite Trophy did not return:
Grand Slam tournaments (4)
Year-ending WTA Finals (1)
WTA 1000 tournaments: Ten events with prize money ranging from US$2 million to US$10 million.
WTA 500 tournaments: 17 events with prize money from US$700,000 to US$900,000.
WTA 250 tournaments: 22 events, with prize money around US$250,000.
WTA 125 tournaments 30 events
Since 2012 (number of events varies each year; in 2018 there were ten tournaments: four in United States, two in China and one each in Croatia, France, India and Taiwan), with prize money for the four events in United States at US$150,000 and at the other events at around US$125,000.
Ranking points are also available at tournaments on the ITF Women's Circuit organized by the International Tennis Federation, which comprises several hundred tournaments each year with prize funds ranging from US$15,000 to US$100,000.
== Management ==
American sports entrepreneur Jerry Diamond (1928–1996) served as executive director of the women's association from 1974 to 1985. He was instrumental in negotiating business deals with Avon, Colgate-Palmolive, and Toyota, and worked out the deal that made Virginia Slims the titular sponsor of the WTA tour.
Larry Scott became chairman and CEO of the WTA on 16 April 2003. While at the WTA, Scott put together the largest sponsorship in the history of women's sports, a six-year, $88 million sponsorship deal with Sony Ericsson. On 24 March 2009, Scott announced that he was resigning as WTA chief to take up a new position as the commissioner of the Pac-10 Conference, on 1 July 2009.
Scott pointed to Korn Ferry to headhunt his replacement but "with no decision made" on 13 July 2009, WTA Tour announced the appointment of Stacey Allaster, the Tour's president since 2006, as the new chairman and CEO of the WTA. Allaster was named as one of the "Most Powerful Women in Sports" by Forbes Magazine and led the WTA through significant growth and under her leadership, she secured a media agreement that would maximise fan exposure to women's tennis globally. During her time with the WTA, she generated an estimated $1 billion in diversified contract revenues, built the brand globally, and was a strong advocate for gender equality. She announced her retirement as chief executive of the WTA on 22 September 2015 citing a personal change in priorities.
On 5 October 2015, Steve Simon, the Tournament Director of the BNP Paribas Open, was announced to succeed Stacey as the new WTA chairman and CEO.
In December 2021, following Peng Shuai's disappearance by the Chinese government, the WTA under Steve Simon suspended its operations in China and Hong Kong. The boycott was lifted in 2023 after 16 months, citing financial losses due to the suspension of operations in China as well as the COVID-19 pandemic.
In March 2022, medical technology firm Hologic reached an agreement to become title sponsor and "official health partner" of the WTA Tour, marking its first title sponsorship agreement since the expiration of the previous Sony Ericsson deal.
On 28 October 2025, it was announced that Valerie Camillo had been chosen to be the next chairperson, taking over from the retiring Steve Simon on 17 November of that year.
=== Players' Council ===
The Players' Council is a group or sub-committee under the WTA board of directors, consisting of eight selected players on the tour that advocate player interest, handles grievances, changes in the tennis schedule and other concerns.
2024–25 Players' Council
1–20 Ranking Category: Victoria Azarenka, Caroline Garcia, Jessica Pegula, Maria Sakkari
21–50 Ranking Category: Donna Vekić
51–100 Ranking Category: Daria Saville
21+ Ranking Category: Gabriela Dabrowski
101+ Ranking Category: Ellen Perez
Notes
== Growth milestones ==
=== Prize money ===
When Avon began sponsoring the winter circuit in 1976, the largest prize fund offered for a single tournament was $100,000—for the Avon Championships.
In 1984, The Australian Open joined the US Open in offering women equal prize money, but temporarily did not between 1996 and 2000. After a 30-year campaign, 2007 marked the historic achievement of equal prize money at Roland Garros and Wimbledon. This meant all four major tournaments offered parity. In 1973, the US Open tennis tournament became the first Grand Slam tournament to award the same prize money for women as men. The Australian Open would become the second Grand Slam offering equal prize money following suit in 1985 although the tournament awarded men more money from 1996 to 2000 before equal prize money returned in 2001. The French Open offered equal prize money for champions in 2006. In 2007 both Wimbledon and the French Open both offered equal prize money.
The WTA circuit continued to expand during these years. In 1971, King became the first female athlete to surpass $100,000 in earnings for a single year. Chris Evert became the first female athlete to win over $1,000,000 in career earnings in 1976. By 1980, over 250 women were playing professionally, and the circuit consisted of 47 global events, offering a total of $7.2 million in prize money. These increased financial opportunities allowed for groundbreaking developments not only in tennis, but across women's sports.
In 1982, Martina Navratilova became the first to win over $1,000,000 in a single year. Navratilova's single year earnings exceeded $2 million in 1984. In 1997, Martina Hingis became the first to earn over $3 million during a single year. In 2003, Kim Clijsters surpassed $4 million in earnings for a single year. In 2006, Venus Williams and the WTA pushed for equal prize money at both the French Open and Wimbledon. Both of these Grand Slam events relented in 2007 and awarded equal money for the first time. This enabled Justine Henin, who won the French Open in 2007, to earn over $5 million that year, becoming the first woman in sports to do this. In 2009, Serena Williams went over the six million mark by earning over $6.5 million in a single year. Then in 2012 both Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka became the first players to exceed $7 million in prize money in a single season. In 2013 Serena Williams went over the twelve million dollar mark, winning $12,385,572 in a single year.
== WTA rankings == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GZA | GZA | Gary Eldridge Grice (born August 22, 1966), better known by his stage names GZA ( JIZ-ə) and the Genius, is an American rapper. A founding member of the hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan, GZA is the group's "spiritual head", being both the first member in the group to receive a record deal and being the oldest member. He has appeared on his fellow Wu-Tang members' solo projects, and has maintained a successful solo career starting with his second album Liquid Swords (1995).
His lyrical style often eschews typical hip-hop themes in favor of science and philosophy. An analysis of GZA's lyrics found that he has one of the largest vocabularies in popular hip-hop music, despite dropping out of high school during the 10th grade. He teamed up with an education group to promote science education in New York City through hip-hop. His style has been characterized as "armed with sharp metaphors and a smooth flow".
== Early life ==
GZA was born Gary Grice in Brooklyn, New York City, on August 22, 1966. He developed an interest in hip-hop by attending block parties as a child in the early 1970s, becoming involved in breakdance, graffiti, and DJing. Early on he developed an interest in writing, studying Mother Goose and nursery rhyme. In 1974–1976, before moving from Brooklyn to Staten Island, he listened to The Last Poets; however, he was attracted by profanity rather than content, and didn't understand the underlying messages until many years later. The Last Poets, as well as songs by The Isley Brothers, the Commodores, and the O'Jays had a big part in his early life, especially regarding the tone and cadence of speech. Later on, he began to listen to hip-hop and R&B, for example by Secret Weapon and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. In 1982, Grice dropped out of high school in the tenth grade.
He formed a three-man group with his cousins, Robert Diggs and Russell Jones, who would later be known as RZA and Ol' Dirty Bastard. At the time he didn't like the sound of his voice. The group, FOI: Force of the Imperial Master, and later All in Together, saw the three rapping and DJing, switching names and performing local shows; since they lived in different boroughs, GZA and Ol' Dirty would travel from Brooklyn out to Staten Island to meet up with their cousin RZA, after which the three would travel across New York City and challenge other MCs to battles. He left school in the 10th grade, but nurtured his affection for science as he developed his skills as a lyricist.
After some years of this, GZA was signed to Cold Chillin' Records as a solo artist under the name The Genius. He released his debut album, Words from the Genius (1991), produced mostly by Easy Mo Bee, but it failed to sell due to lack of promotion. This, combined with his rocky experience on tour, caused GZA to feel fed up and so he asked if he could be released from the label. The album's beat selection is similar to the classic boom-bap sound of the early 1990s, while the lyricism subject is the everyday situations of an individual living in the parts of New York. At the time he worked as a bicycle messenger.
== Wu-Tang Clan ==
In 1992, GZA joined the Wu-Tang Clan, a group of nine, formed by his cousin RZA. GZA had some high-profile appearances on the group's debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993), including a solo track, "Clan in da Front". This, combined with appearances on other Clan members' albums such as Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version (1995) and Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... (1995) brought him much recognition. According to Method Man, "we form like Voltron and GZA happens to be the head".
== Solo career ==
=== 1995–1999: Liquid Swords, Beneath the Surface ===
These guest appearances were followed up in 1995 with GZA's second studio album, Liquid Swords, produced and recorded entirely in the basement studio by RZA, with the participation of all original Clan members. It was released on November 7 by Geffen Records. The album's complex composition included dialogue sampled from the film Shogun Assassin. The album was met with positive reviews and sold well. It is considered to be one of the best albums from the Wu-Tang camp. It peaked at the No. 9 spot on the Billboard 200 chart and No. 2 on the Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums chart. On October 8, 2015, the Recording Industry Association of America announced that the album had earned a Platinum certification for having sold more than 1 million copies. It became the first Wu-Tang-related album to get certified since 2004, when Method Man and Ghostface Killah both earned plaques. In addition, he directed music videos for four album singles.
After appearing on the Wu-Tang Clan's second album, Wu-Tang Forever (1997), his third studio album Beneath the Surface was released by MCA Records in 1999. The album and its singles "Crash Your Crew" and "Breaker, Breaker" met with critical acclaim. The album earned a Gold certification by RIAA, peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard 200 chart, and topped the Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums chart.
=== 2000–2009: Legend of the Liquid Sword, Pro Tools ===
In 2000 the single "Ich lebe für Hip Hop" was released with DJ Tomekk and placed 11th in the German charts.
In 2002, a sequel to his second solo album was released, Legend of the Liquid Sword. It was well received by critics, yet did not sell well and failed to go Gold. GZA spent 2004 touring, both solo and with the Clan, and made an appearance with RZA in Jim Jarmusch's film Coffee and Cigarettes, opposite Bill Murray. The two also appeared on the Chappelle Show's skits "Wu Tang Financial" and "Racial Draft".
In 2005, GZA and DJ Muggs (the producer for hip-hop group Cypress Hill) released collaboration album Grandmasters. Muggs provided all the production for the album, which saw GZA using chess as a metaphor for the rap game, with most of the songs having a chess-themed title.
In the summer of 2008, his fifth solo studio album Pro Tools was released by Babygrande Records. It featured production from Black Milk and Jay "Waxxx" Garfield, RZA, Mathematics and True Master. A very controversial song on the album was entitled "Paper Plate", a smooth flowing response aimed at rival rapper 50 Cent. After the release, GZA toured various parts of Europe on a "Liquid Swords Tour", where he performed songs from Liquid Swords as well as Pro Tools. He later toured parts of the US.
=== 2010–present: Dark Matter ===
In 2010, he spoke at Harvard University, and since then has visited, among others, MIT, Oxford, USC, NYU, Cornell, where he met with scientists such as David Kaiser and Sallie W. Chisholm to seek inspiration. In 2012, he talked "hip-hop and science" with Neil deGrasse Tyson.
To improve science education in New York City and beyond in late 2012, with the assistance of Columbia University's professor Christopher Emdin and website Rap Genius, he began work on a pilot program called Science Genius B.A.T.T.L.E.S. (Bringing Attention to Transforming, Teaching and Learning Science). This initiative motivates young high school students, especially African-American and Latino students, who together make up 70 percent of New York City's student body, to learn science through hip-hop, creating scientific raps and engaging in a rap competition.
In the meantime, he continued to work on a related, new studio album called Dark Matter, which is based on a journey through spacetime, universe and physics. In late 2015, GZA canceled European tour dates to focus on working on the album with composer Vangelis. It is planned to be one in a series of albums related to Earth, with the following conceived around oceans. GZA hinted that the albums will be without parental advisory, profanity and nudity.
In February 2015, GZA released a single "The Mexican" (a cover of Babe Ruth's song), featuring guitarist Tom Morello and singer Kara Lane. They performed the song live along with The Roots on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. On June 30, 2016, he released a new space-themed track, "The Spark", produced by Paul Ryder, for NASA's project "Destination: Jupiter", in celebration of the agency's ongoing Juno Mission.
In 2020, GZA provided a voice role in Netflix's Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts as Bad Billions, and contributed a song to the series.
== Personal life ==
GZA has been noted for his interest in quantum physics and has given lectures at New York University and MIT.
He is a vegan and advocates for raw veganism. He has called soul food the “slave man’s diet”.
== Discography ==
=== Studio albums ===
Words from the Genius (1991)
Liquid Swords (1995)
Beneath the Surface (1999)
Legend of the Liquid Sword (2002)
Pro Tools (2008)
Dark Matter (TBA)
=== Collaboration albums ===
GrandMasters with DJ Muggs (2005) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Joe_Biden | Presidency of Joe Biden | Joe Biden's tenure as the 46th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 2021, and ended on January 20, 2025. Biden, member of the Democratic Party, had previously served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under President Barack Obama, took office after defeating the Republican incumbent president Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Upon his inauguration, he became the oldest president in American history, breaking the record set by Ronald Reagan. Alongside Biden's presidency, the Democratic Party also held their majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate during the 117th U.S. Congress following the 2020 elections, thereby attained an overall federal government trifecta. Biden entered office amid the COVID-19 pandemic, an economic crisis, and increased political polarization.
Day one actions of his presidency included restoring U.S. participation in the Paris Agreement, revoking the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline and halting funding for the Mexico–United States border wall. On his second day, he issued a series of executive orders to reduce the impact of COVID-19, including invoking the Defense Production Act of 1950, and set an early goal of achieving one hundred million COVID-19 vaccinations in the United States in his first 100 days. The first major legislation signed into law by Biden was the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill that temporarily established expanded unemployment insurance and sent $1,400 stimulus checks to most Americans in response to continued economic pressure from COVID-19. He signed the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a ten-year plan brokered by Biden alongside Democrats and Republicans in Congress to invest in American roads, bridges, public transit, ports and broadband access.
Biden proposed a significant expansion of the U.S. social safety net through the Build Back Better Act, but those efforts, along with voting rights legislation, failed in Congress. In August 2022, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, a domestic appropriations bill that included some of the provisions of the Build Back Better Act after the entire bill failed to pass. It included significant federal investment in climate and domestic clean energy production, tax credits for solar panels, electric cars and other home energy programs as well as a three-year extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies, an insulin price cap, and a provision allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. In late 2022, Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, which repealed the Defense of Marriage Act and codified same-sex and interracial marriage in the United States. Other domestic legislation signed during his term included the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first major federal gun control law in nearly three decades; the CHIPS and Science Act, bolstering the semiconductor and manufacturing industry; the Honoring our PACT Act, expanding health care for US veterans; the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act; and the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, making Juneteenth a federal holiday in the United States. Biden also unsuccessfully pushed for legislation protecting the right to abortion in response to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturning Roe v. Wade.
Biden appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court—the first Black woman to serve on the court. In response to the debt-ceiling crisis of 2023, he negotiated and signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, which restrains federal spending for fiscal years 2024 and 2025, implements minor changes to SNAP and TANF, includes energy permitting reform, claws back some IRS funding and unspent money for COVID-19, and suspended the debt ceiling to January 1, 2025. He established the American Climate Corps and created the first ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. On September 26, 2023, Biden visited a United Auto Workers picket line during the 2023 United Auto Workers strike, making him the first US president to visit one. Biden also rigorously enforced antitrust laws by appointing Lina Khan to head the FTC. Biden issued more individual pardons and commutations than any other president, including controversial sweeping pardons of members of his family and high profile political figures that he claimed were either presently or expected to be the subject of "baseless and politically motivated investigations." The first sitting U.S. president to oppose the death penalty, Biden commuted the sentences of nearly all inmates on federal death row to life imprisonment weeks before leaving office.
The foreign policy goal of the Biden administration was to restore the U.S. to a "position of trusted leadership" among global democracies in order to address the challenges posed by Russia and China. Biden signed AUKUS, an international security alliance together with Australia and the United Kingdom. He supported the expansion of NATO with the additions of Finland and Sweden. Biden approved a raid which led to the death of Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, the leader of the Islamic State, and approved a drone strike which killed Ayman Al Zawahiri, leader of Al-Qaeda. He completed the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan, declaring an end to nation-building efforts and shifting U.S. foreign policy toward strategic competition with China and, to a lesser extent, Russia. During the withdrawal, the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized control, leading to Biden receiving bipartisan criticism. He responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by imposing sanctions on Russia and providing Ukraine with over $100 billion in combined military, economic, and humanitarian aid. During the Gaza war, Biden condemned the actions of Hamas and other Palestinian militants as terrorism, and announced American military support for Israel; he also sent humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and brokered a four-day temporary pause and hostage exchange in 2023 followed by a three-phase ceasefire in January 2025. Biden negotiated and oversaw the 2024 Ankara prisoner exchange, the largest prisoner exchange since the end of the Cold War, involving the release of 26 individuals, including American journalist Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.
Biden began his term with over 50% approval ratings; these fell significantly after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and remained low as the country experienced high inflation and rising gas prices, even as they later decreased during his presidency. His age and mental fitness were a frequent subject of discussion throughout his presidency, ultimately culminating in his decision to withdraw his bid for re-election in the 2024 presidential election. Trump won the election against Biden's preferred successor, Kamala Harris, making him the second U.S. president to be succeeded in office by his predecessor. Biden oversaw the strongest economic recovery of any G7 nation post COVID-19 and one of the strongest economic recoveries in United States history, breaking a 70-year record for low unemployment, and the creation of over 16 million new jobs, the most of any single term president. During Biden's time in office, median wages stagnated, and the share of wealth of the wealthiest 0.1% of Americans continued to increase. Although some political scientists and historians have rated Biden's presidency favorably, his political legacy is interwoven with the re-election of Trump in 2024.
== Milestones ==
=== 2020 election ===
Biden, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination in 1988 and 2008, and later served as the 47th vice president of the United States under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017, announced his candidacy for the nomination of the Democratic Party in the 2020 presidential election on April 25, 2019. In June 2020, Biden secured the Democratic nomination. Biden selected Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate, and the two were officially nominated at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
On November 7, four days after the election, Biden was projected to have secured the presidency. Biden won the presidential election with 306 electoral votes and 51.3% of the popular vote, while Donald Trump received 232 electoral votes and 46.8% of the popular vote. The Trump campaign launched at least 63 lawsuits against the results, especially in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, raising unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud that were subsequently dismissed by courts. The electoral votes were certified on January 6–7, 2021. In the concurrent congressional elections, Democrats secured a government trifecta after retaining their majority in the House of Representatives and winning back control of the Senate, leaving the partisan balance in the Senate at 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, with vice president Kamala Harris' tie-breaking vote giving Democrats control of the chamber.
=== Transition period and inauguration ===
Though Biden was generally acknowledged as the winner, General Services Administration head Emily W. Murphy initially refused to begin the transition to the president-elect, thereby denying funds and office space to his team. On November 23, after Michigan certified its results, Murphy issued the letter of ascertainment, granting the Biden transition team access to federal funds and resources for an orderly transition.
Two days after becoming the projected winner of the 2020 election, Biden announced the formation of a task force to advise him on the COVID-19 pandemic during the transition, co-chaired by former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, former FDA commissioner David A. Kessler, and Yale University's Marcella Nunez-Smith.
On January 5, 2021, the Democratic Party won control of the United States Senate, effective January 20, as a result of electoral victories in Georgia by Jon Ossoff in a runoff election for a six-year term and Raphael Warnock in a special runoff election for a two-year term. President-elect Biden had supported and campaigned for both candidates prior to the runoff elections on January 5.
On January 6, a mob of thousands of Trump supporters violently stormed the Capitol in the hope of overturning Biden's election, forcing Congress to evacuate during the counting of the Electoral College votes. More than 26,000 National Guard members were deployed to the capital for the inauguration, with thousands remaining into the spring.
On January 20, 2021, Biden was sworn in by U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts as the 46th president of the United States, completing the oath of office at 11:49 am EST, 11 minutes before the legal start of his term at 12:00 pm, EST.
==== Inaugural address ====
Biden's inaugural speech laid out his vision to unite the nation, prefaced by the various impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic strife, climate change, political polarization, and racial injustice. Biden called for an end to the "uncivil war" of political, demographic, and ideological American cultures through a greater embrace of diversity. He cited the American Civil War, Great Depression, world wars, and September 11 attacks as moments in American history where citizens' "better angels" prevailed, saying that the unity, the solution, must again be invoked to rise from the "cascading" crises of the present; this unity, he proclaimed, exists in the "common objects" that define America: "opportunity, liberty, dignity, respect, honor, and ... truth." He explicitly decried white supremacy and nativism, calling them an "ugly reality" of American life he vows to defeat that clouds the "American ideal" set out in the U.S. Declaration of Independence — that all Americans are equal. Biden pledged that the U.S. would "engage with the world once again", "repair our alliances", and act as a "trusted partner for peace and security". Near the conclusion of his speech, Biden held a moment of silence for those who died in the COVID-19 pandemic. Quoting the Gene Scheer composition "American Anthem", he implored Americans to consider their legacy in answering the "call of history" to protect "democracy, hope, truth, and justice", "secure liberty", and make America a "beacon to the world", insisting that generations of their descendants would judge them on their actions.
=== First 100 days ===
The first hundred days of a President's term have been historically significant since the first term of Franklin D. Roosevelt who, in his first 100 days, worked on both legislative and executive actions to combat the great depression. In Biden's first hundred days, he signed 42 executive orders, more than any of his predecessors since Harry S. Truman. Many of these executive orders were reversals to Donald Trump's policies and to resume where Barack Obama—under whom Biden served as vice president—left off after his two terms in office. On March 11, he signed the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion bill to help relieve economic strain due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
== Administration ==
Biden was inaugurated alongside Kamala Harris, the first woman, first African American, and first Asian American vice president.
On November 11, 2020, Biden selected Ron Klain, who served as his vice presidential chief of staff, to serve as his White House chief of staff. Biden chose Jen Psaki, deputy White House press secretary and U.S. Department of State spokesperson during the presidency of Barack Obama, as his White House press secretary. Psaki announced, and has held, daily press briefings for White House reporters. On March 25, 2021, Biden held his first solo press conference after 64 days in office, unlike his most recent predecessors (back to Herbert Hoover in 1929), who all held their first solo press conferences within 33 days of taking office.
On November 17, 2020, Biden announced that he had selected Mike Donilon as senior advisor and Steve Ricchetti as counselor. Jen O'Malley Dillon, who had served as campaign manager for Biden's successful presidential campaign, was named as deputy chief of staff.
=== Cabinet ===
Biden selected Antony Blinken to be secretary of state, Linda Thomas-Greenfield as ambassador to the United Nations, and Jake Sullivan as national security advisor.
On November 23, 2020, Biden announced Alejandro Mayorkas to be his choice for Secretary of Homeland Security and Avril Haines as Director of National Intelligence. Throughout December and January, Biden continued to select cabinet members, including Marty Walsh, the then current mayor of Boston, as his Secretary of Labor.
Biden altered his cabinet structure, elevating the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and ambassador to the United Nations as cabinet-level positions. Biden removed the director of the Central Intelligence Agency from his official cabinet at the onset of his presidency, but he restored it to the cabinet in 2023.
While administering the oath of office to hundreds of White House officials through video conferencing, Biden called for more civility in politics, saying: "If you ever work with me and I hear you treat another colleague with disrespect, talk down to someone, I promise you I will fire you on the spot. ... No ifs, ands, or buts."
== Judicial appointments ==
Of the Article III judges nominated by Biden, 235 of them were confirmed by the United States Senate, including: one associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 45 judges for the United States courts of appeals, 187 judges for the United States district courts and two judges for the United States Court of International Trade. Biden appointed the most federal judges during the first two years of any presidency since John F. Kennedy.
Notably, President Biden declined to select a nominee for a judicial vacancy on the Third Circuit in his home state of Delaware even though the vacancy was announced eight months before his term ended. Biden's decision not to fill the vacancy in his home state of Delaware on the Third Circuit and unsuccessful nomination of Adeel A. Mangi to another Third Circuit vacancy allowed President Trump to fill both seats in 2025 and flip the Third Circuit to a conservative majority.
=== United States Supreme Court nominations ===
== Domestic affairs ==
=== Health care ===
Biden strongly campaigned for the presidency on the public option, a policy that, if enacted into law, would have offered Americans a choice between maintaining their private healthcare insurance or buying into Medicare. The idea was viewed as a compromise between the progressive and moderate flanks of the Democratic Party. The Biden campaign described the public option as a "plan to protect and build on ObamaCare".
However, shortly before taking office in January 2021, Biden's team abruptly dropped the proposal, frustrating many online progressives who already viewed the public option healthcare proposal as a failure to fight the status quo.
The Biden administration rescinded work requirements for Medicaid recipients. The administration opened a special enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act as well as extending the normal enrollment period, citing the COVID-19 pandemic. The administration provided larger premium subsidies.
In August 2022, President Biden signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The law allocates $64 billion for a three-year expansion of Affordable Care Act subsidies originally expanded under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and $265 billion for prescription drug price reform to lower prices, including providing Medicare the authority to negotiate the prices for certain drugs with pharmaceutical companies.
That same month, Biden signed into law the Honoring our PACT Act of 2022, which expands federal health care access, services, and funding for veterans who were exposed to toxic substances during their service, including toxic smoke from burn pits.
==== Opioid epidemic ====
Drug overdoses killed 106,699 in the United States in 2021. Opioids were involved in 80,411 overdose deaths in 2021, up from around 10,000 in 1999.
In June 2023, U.S. federal prosecutors announced criminal indictments of fentanyl precursor producers in China. In October 2023, OFAC sanctioned a China-based network of fentanyl manufacturers and distributors. In 2023, the Biden administration announced a crackdown on Mexican drug cartels smuggling fentanyl into the United States.
Rahul Gupta led White House efforts to combat the opioid epidemic.
==== COVID-19 pandemic ====
On January 20, 2021, his first day as president, Biden implemented a federal mask mandate, requiring the use of masks and social distancing in all federal buildings, on federal lands, and by federal employees and contractors. Biden also signed an executive order that reversed the withdrawal of the U.S. from the World Health Organization (WHO), making Dr. Anthony Fauci the head of the delegation to the WHO. On January 21, the administration released a 200-page document titled "National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness". That same day, Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to speed up the vaccination process and ensure the availability of glass vials, syringes, and other vaccine supplies at the federal level. In justifying his use of the act, Biden said: "And when I say wartime, people kind of look at me like 'wartime?' Well, as I said last night, 400,000 Americans have died. That's more than have died in all of World War II. 400,000. This is a wartime undertaking." Biden established the White House COVID-19 Response Team, a White House Office dedicated to coordinating a unified federal government response.
According to a report by Reuters, in mid-2021 the Biden administration ended a military-run propaganda campaign to spread disinformation about the Sinovac Chinese COVID-19 vaccine which had begun in 2020 during the Trump administration. The campaign was described as "payback" for COVID-19 disinformation by China directed against the U.S. Primarily targeting people in the Philippines, the campaign used fake social media accounts to spread disinformation, including that the Sinovac vaccine contained pork-derived ingredients and was therefore haram under Islamic law.
On January 21, 2021, Biden signed ten executive orders pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to meet his vaccination goal of a hundred million shots in his first 100 days in office, Biden signed an executive order increasing needed supplies. Biden signed an order on January 21 that directed FEMA to offer full reimbursements to states for the cost of using their own National Guard personnel and emergency supplies such as Personal Protective Equipment in schools. On January 24, 2021, Biden reinstated a travel ban imposed by President Trump on Brazil, United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, and 26 other European countries. The travel ban prevents non-U.S. citizens living in the prospective countries from entering the U.S. Biden implemented a face mask requirement on nearly all forms of public transportation and inside of transportation hubs; previously, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had recommended that such a policy be enacted but it was blocked by the Trump administration, under which the CDC issued strong, albeit non-binding recommendations for mask use in these settings.
In mid-March 2021, Biden dismissed a request by the European Union to export unused COVID-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca out of the U.S. even though the manufacturer endorsed it and vowed to resupply the doses. The rationale for this decision, which contributed to low European vaccination rates, was that the U.S. had to be "over-supplied and over-prepared", according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki. Whereas the U.S. exported no vaccines, the European Union exported 77 million doses to the world from December 2020 to March 2021. Eventually, the U.S. reversed course and gave vaccine doses from AstraZeneca to Mexico, Canada, and Japan by the end of March.
On May 6, 2021, the Biden administration announced that it supports waiving patent protections on existing COVID-19 vaccines so that other countries can produce generic variants, after weeks of pressure from the international community. On May 7, French president Emmanuel Macron called on the U.S. "to put an end to export bans not only on vaccines but on vaccine ingredients, which prevent production."
On May 26, 2021, Biden ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to increase their investigations into the origin of the virus, after reports that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology became ill a month before the pandemic began.
In July 2021, amid a slowing of the COVID-19 vaccination rate in the country and the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, Biden said that the U.S. has "a pandemic for those who haven't gotten the vaccination" and that it was therefore "gigantically important" for Americans to be vaccinated, touting the vaccines' effectiveness against hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. He also criticized the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on social media, saying it was "killing people".
Despite months of vaccine availability and incentives, by September many Americans continued to resist vaccination amid rising cases in several states, hampering prospects towards herd immunity. On September 9, Biden stated, "We've been patient. But our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us." That day he issued an executive order directing businesses with more than 100 employees to require vaccination of their workers or weekly testing, affecting about 80 million Americans. The order also required the roughly 17 million employees of health facilities receiving federal Medicare or Medicaid to be vaccinated. Many Republicans asserted Biden's order was an unconstitutional overreach of federal authority, and some Republican governors said they would sue to block it.
The Biden administration responded to the global spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant in December 2021 by advocating response by the states instead of the federal government. Throughout the surge, the Biden administration has been criticized for a lack of COVID-19 tests, exacerbating the spread of the Omicron variant. When questioned about the apparent shortage of tests, Jen Psaki replied, "Should we just send one to every American? Then what happens if every American has one test? How much does that cost and what happens after that?", causing backlash. The Biden administration responded by promising an increased supply of at-home tests later in 2022.
In the midst of an all-time high of new COVID-19 cases, the Centers for Disease Control revised their guidelines, recommending five days of quarantine rather than ten without requiring a negative COVID-19 test. This move was criticized by health experts who worry that without rapid testing, COVID-positive people may unknowingly spread COVID-19 in workplaces under the recommended CDC guidelines. Others criticize the CDC for implementing this change after lobbying by Delta Air Lines, leading to social media backlash against the federal government.
==== Cancer research ====
Biden gave a speech at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum on September 12, 2022, the 60th anniversary of Kennedy's We Choose to Go to the Moon speech, promoting his administration's revival of the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot, including the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health.
=== Economy ===
The New Republic praised Biden's economic record in July 2024, highlighting record low unemployment leading to a growth in wages at the lower end of the wage distribution as workers had more bargaining power. However, overall real median full-time wages stagnated throughout his time in office. The wealthiest 0.1% of Americans further expanded their share of household wealth from 13.2% to 13.8%, continuing the trend of the previous decades. While inflation was painful, it has returned near its pre-pandemic rate and was similar to peer countries, though the U.S. economy has grown faster than its peers. The expansion of the Affordable Care Act, the child tax credit, $1400 stimulus checks, and the expansion of SNAP benefits boosted balance sheets for low and middle-income Americans. New business formation rose 30% from pre-pandemic levels, and was notably strong among women. Biden also signed three major pieces of longer-term economic legislation to repair infrastructure like roads, bridges and water pipes, boost semiconductor investment, and expand green energy.
In February 2024, the total federal government debt grew to $34.4 trillion after having grown by approximately $1 trillion in both of two separate 100-day periods since the previous June.
==== Build Back Better Plan ====
The Build Back Better Plan was a proposed framework of public investment in social, infrastructural, and environmental programs. It was eventually divided into three parts. The American Rescue Plan was focused on COVID-19 pandemic relief, and was passed and signed into law in March 2021 as the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. The second part called for investment in infrastructure and addressing climate change, and was called the American Jobs Plan. Elements of the American Jobs Plan were the basis for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed into law in November 2021. The third part, the American Families Plan, proposed investment in social policies, such as paid parental leave. The American Families Plan was merged with elements of the American Jobs Plan to form the Build Back Better Act, introduced in September 2021. This passed the House of Representatives, but failed to pass the Senate. Continued negotiations led to a new proposal, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 which included proposals addressing climate change, healthcare, and tax reform proposals while excluding Build Back Better's social safety net proposals. This was passed and signed into law in August 2022.
==== Consumer price reductions ====
The administration also pursued lower drug prices by allowing Medicare to negotiate the prices it pays and capping the price of insulin.
In 2024, Biden pushed to limit junk fees through the FTC, FCC and CFPB.
Biden took antitrust more seriously than presidents in recent memory, as seen by the work of Lina Khan at the FTC, a historic court victory against Google's search monopoly, and a lawsuit to break-up Live Nation and Ticketmaster.
===== American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 =====
On January 14, 2021, Biden revealed a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. The plan includes $1 trillion in direct aid, including $1,400 per-person checks, for working Americans, and would provide for direct housing and nutrition assistance, expanding access to safe and reliable childcare and affordable healthcare, increasing the minimum wage, extending unemployment insurance, and giving families with kids and childless workers an emergency boost this year. It would also expand the eligibility of these checks to adult dependents who have been left out of previous rounds of relief. The plan additionally includes $440 billion in community support, providing $350 billion of community support to first responders while the rest goes to grants for small businesses and transit agencies; $400 billion for a national vaccination plan and school reopenings; and $10 billion for information technology, modernizing federal cybersecurity infrastructure. In her first press briefing, press secretary Psaki said the plan was likely to change as negotiations continued, with the provision to increase the minimum wage later being excluded from the relief plan. Biden signed the Plan into law on March 11, 2021, passing through both chambers of Congress with a party-line vote.
The plan invokes the Defense Production Act of 1950 to ensure the production of personal protective equipment, glass vials, syringes, and other supplies exceeds the demand. It allows partners of states to create vaccine centers in stadiums, convention centers and pharmacies. The federal government would identify communities that have been hit hardest by COVID-19, and ensure the vaccine does not reach them at an unfair pace. In addition, the plan would launch a national campaign to educate Americans about the vaccine and COVID-19, targeting misinformation related to the pandemic. Vaccines would also be freely available to all citizens regardless of immigration status. In Biden's plan, he would issue a national testing strategy that attempts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 by increasing laboratory capacity and expanding testing. The plan would also develop new treatments for COVID-19.
===== American Families Plan =====
On April 28, during Biden's speech to Congress he unveiled the American Families Plan, a roughly $1.8 trillion proposal to significantly increase federal spending in areas related to childcare, paid leave, pre-kindergarten, community college, and healthcare. It is considered to be the third part of Biden's "Build Back Better" agenda (the first being the American Rescue Plan and the second being the American Jobs Plan). The bill was effectively merged with climate change and other provisions that didn't make it into the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, for a total $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act. However, the bill did not have Republican support, and Democrats struggled to win the support of Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia to pass it on a party-line vote through budget reconciliation, even as the price was lowered to $2.2 trillion. After the bill ultimately failed to match his envisioned cost, Manchin publicly rejected it, dooming its passage.
==== Labor ====
On January 22, 2021, Biden signed an executive order that removed schedule F, overturning a number of Trump's policies that limited the collective bargaining power of federal unions. Biden's executive order also promotes a $15 minimum wage for federal workers and repeals three of Trump's executive orders which made the employee discipline process stricter and restricted union representatives' access to office space. As well as promoting a $15 minimum wage, Biden's executive order increases the amount of money going to the families of children who are missing meals because of school closures due to the pandemic by 15%. The repealing of Trump's three executive orders comes as the orders were used to transfer civil servants and career scientists and replace them with employees friendly to the Trump administration.
On inauguration day 2021, Biden fired pro-business Peter Robb, then general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, replacing him with pro-union Jennifer Abruzzo in February 2021. Biden's NLRB has pursued action against Starbucks' and Amazon's alleged anti-union activities. On August 24, 2023, the NLRB reinstated Obama-era policies regarding union elections, speeding up the timeline by removing restrictions such as resolving litigation before holding an election.
In late 2022, Biden signed a bill forcing an agreement between union workers and rail companies in order to prevent a strike, earning him criticism from progressives and rail workers. Afterwards, Biden pressured the rail companies to offer paid sick leave to workers, which had been a key demand in the original planned strike. More than 60% of rail workers had sick leave agreements in June 2023.
On the 2023 United Auto Workers strike, Biden repeated union leader Shawn Fain's motto "record profits, record contracts" and expressed support for the workers in negotiations. Biden assigned two White House officials to aid in negotiation efforts, senior adviser Gene Sperling and acting Labor Secretary Julie Su. On September 26, Biden joined striking UAW workers on the picket line in Michigan, becoming the first president to do so.
Biden became the first US president to run for election with a unionized campaign staff for his 2024 election run.
The Biden administration helped to resolve the 2024 United States port strike.
==== Banking ====
After the Collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023, Biden expressed opposition to a bailout that was borne by taxpayers. He also claimed that the partial roll-back of Dodd-Frank regulations contributed to the bank failures.
==== Domestic manufacturing ====
Biden signed an executive order intended to support domestic manufacturers by increasing a federal preference for purchasing goods made wholly or partly in the U.S. Using the broad term "Made in America laws", the executive order's stated goal is to strengthen "all statutes, regulations, rules, and Executive Orders relating to Federal financial assistance awards or Federal procurement, including those that refer to 'Buy America' or 'Buy American.'"
On August 9, 2022, Biden actively promoted and signed into law the CHIPS and Science Act, which authorized $52 billion for domestic semiconductor research and manufacturing. On August 16, 2022, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 into law, which included provisions to support the domestic production of solar panels, wind turbines, and other infrastructure. Due to incentives from the CHIPS and Science Act, Micron Technology will invest billions in new semiconductor manufacturing in New York.
==== Trade ====
In 2021 The Wall Street Journal reported that instead of negotiating access to Chinese markets for large American financial-service firms and pharmaceutical companies, the Biden administration might focus on trade policies that boost exports or domestic jobs. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the administration wants a "worker-centered trade policy". U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo aggressively enforced trade rules to combat unfair practices by China.
In March 2021, in her first interview since taking office, U.S. Trade Representative Tai told The Wall Street Journal the U.S. would not lift tariffs on Chinese imports (implemented under the Trump administration as urged by Peter Navarro) in the near future, despite lobbying efforts from "free traders" including former U.S. Secretary of Treasury Hank Paulson and the Business Roundtable, a big-business group in the U.S., that pressed for tariff repeal.
In 2021, the U.S. suspended its diplomatic trade engagement with Myanmar after a rise in violence perpetrated by the Burmese military against anti-coup protesters.
In May 2024, the Biden administration raised tariffs on Chinese imports, including a doubling for solar cells; tripling for lithium-ion electric vehicle batteries; and increases for steel, aluminum, and medical equipment. This marks the first time that critical minerals, including rare earth magnets—key components in electric and hybrid vehicles—have been specifically included in the tariffs. China produces and refines over 90 percent of the world's rare earth material. The tariff increases will be phased in over a period of three years.
==== Infrastructure ====
As a part of the Build Back Better Plan, the Biden administration aimed for massive spending on the nation's infrastructure on the order of $2 trillion. Several of the physical infrastructure provisions featured in the proposal were included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Biden signed the Act into law on November 15, 2021.
This final version included approximately $1.2 trillion in spending, with $550 billion being newly authorized spending on top of what Congress was planning to authorize regularly. The bill included $7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging. As of March 2024, seven charging stations with a total of 38 spots for charging vehicles had been built.
==== Inflation ====
Longer-term variables that preceded the pandemic and contributed to the rise in inflation include structural housing shortages, impacts of climate change on food, energy and home insurance prices, as well as the size of government debt and deficits.
In the midst of recovery from COVID-19, inflation rose to the highest rate in forty years peaking at 9.1% in 2022, with many other major global economies reaching similar level. Biden stated during his first State of the Union Address on March 1, 2022, that addressing inflation was his "top priority", while touting an anti-inflation plan that he said would address ocean shipping costs and prescription drug prices.
The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine resulted in increases in food and energy prices.
At the end of 2023, the U.S. Census Bureau found that without housing inflation, inflation would have been just 1.8%, instead of 3.2%. Katy O'Donnell of Politico argued that housing shortages, caused by artificial scarcity driven by NIMBYism, had been the single-biggest contributor to inflation. Freddie Mac estimated that the housing shortage surged 52% between 2018 and 2020. Between 2020 and 2023 climate-change exacerbated home insurance premiums in the U.S. by 33%. July 2024 data showed that inflation had dropped to 2.9%, with rising rents and childcare costs as the main drivers.
Most economists surveyed by the WSJ in July 2024 found that inflation would be worse under a second Trump administration compared to a second Biden term, due in part to tariffs, a crack down on illegal immigration, and larger deficits.
==== Taxation ====
Biden changed the practice of IRS agents disproportionately auditing lower-income Americans.
Finance officials from 130 countries agreed on July 1, 2021, to plans for a new international taxation policy. All the major economies agreed to pass national laws that would require corporations to pay at least 15% income tax in the countries they operate. This new policy would end the practice of locating world headquarters in small countries with very low taxation rates. Governments hope to recoup some of the lost revenue, estimated at $100 billion to $240 billion each year. The new system was promoted by the Biden administration and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Secretary-General Mathias Cormann of the OECD said: "This historic package will ensure that large multinational companies pay their fair share of tax everywhere."
=== Energy, environment, and climate ===
==== General ====
During his first week in office, Biden established the position of White House National Climate Advisor, appointing environmental health and air quality expert Gina McCarthy to the role. Biden also created the position of U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, appointing former secretary of state John Kerry.
On January 20, 2021, Biden signed an executive order rejoining the U.S. to the Paris Agreement. With the U.S. rejoining the agreement, countries responsible for two-thirds of the global greenhouse gas emissions would make pledges of becoming carbon neutral, while without United States it is only half. On the same day, Biden also issued an executive order that cancelled the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, an extension of the Keystone Pipeline. The pipeline was heavily criticized by environmental and Native American activists and groups. This order also directed agencies to review and reverse more than 100 actions made by Trump on the environment.
On March 27, 2021, Biden invited more than forty world leaders for a climate summit.
In August 2022, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 into law, a domestic spending bill born out of continued negotiations on the Build Back Better Act after its collapse that fulfilled some of its initial provisions. The bill included significant federal investment in domestic clean energy production, combating climate change, and healthcare; it aims to reduce U.S. carbon emissions by 40% from peak 2005 levels by 2030, included a three-year extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies, and empowered Medicare to begin negotiating lower prescription drug costs for the first time.
In May 2022, the White House Council on Environmental Quality released a report in which it describes how Biden's administration followed the around 200 recommendations of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. The full report has around 150 pages. The report summarizes many of the steps taken by the administration on environmental issues. Among others, it mentions significant achievements in the domains of energy efficiency, weatherization, transit-oriented development, walking, cycling, mixed-use development, cooperation with Indigenous peoples of the Americas.
In April 2024 Biden delivered $20 billion to eight environmental NGOs. The aim is to reduce the country's CO2 emissions by 40 million tonnes per year with the money, while giving 70% of the benefits to low income communities. In the same month, the American Climate Corps is expected to begin function with several hundred members. The tasks will probably be "things like installing solar panels, restoring vulnerable habitats, and fire hazard prevention." Biden plans increase the number of participants to 20,000 during the first year and then 50,000 more will be added each year by 2031. However, this plan is opposed by Republicans.
In May 2024, the administration announced guidelines around carbon markets. They push for increased verifiability from suppliers and transparency from buyers. The guidelines are not binding or enforceable.
In November 2024, the Biden administration withheld federal funding from Climate Justice Alliance, a move which CJA and The Intercept connected to its support for a ceasefire in Gaza and other progressive policy issues that had made it a target of Republican scrutiny.
==== Oil, gas extraction and transportation ====
On January 21, 2021, the Biden administration issued a 60-day ban on oil and gas leases and permits on federal land and waters. On January 27, 2021, Biden signed a number of executive orders aimed at combating climate change, one of them setting climate change as a key consideration for U.S. national security and foreign policy. In an attempt to encourage U.S. membership to the Kigali Amendment, an international agreement aimed to reduce the production of hydrofluorocarbons, Biden's executive order directed the U.S. Department of State to submit the Kigali Amendment to the Senate.
In March 2021, 21 Republican state attorneys general of 21 states sued the Biden administration for revoking the Keystone XL pipeline permit. The suit claims Biden's executive order exceeded his authority.
In May 2021, the EPA rolled back a Trump administration rule that prohibited the EPA from using certain studies. The previous rule, which made it more difficult to use major scientific studies to justify pollution reduction policies, had already been invalidated by a federal court.
On June 1, 2021, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland suspended all oil and gas drilling leases in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, pending further review of their environmental impacts.
In January 2021, Biden had issued a 60-day ban on oil and gas leases and permits on federal land and waters. A group of Republican state attorneys general successfully obtained a decision in federal court to lift the moratorium. The Biden administration appealed the decision but agreed to continue with the sales, and in September 2021 held the largest federal gas and oil lease auction in U.S. history, selling leases to extract 1.7 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico. The areas that were purchased by oil companies can be expected to produce around 4.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 1.12 billion barrels of oil over the next 50 years. The administration has also proposed another round of gas and oil lease sales in 2022, in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, and other western states.
The Biden administration supported the Line 3 pipeline, which transports oil from Canada's oil sands region.
In November 2021, a closely watched Interior Department report on federal oil and gas lease policy, ordered by Biden, was completed. The report recommended increasing the 12.5% federal royalty rate for oil and gas drilling, which had not been raised by a century, and was significantly lower than rates charged for leasing on state and private land. The report also recommended an increase in the bond rates that drilling companies are required to pay for future cleanup efforts before beginning extraction at new sites, and recommended that leases be focused on sites with "moderate to high potential" for production in proximity to existing fossil-fuel infrastructure. The report stopped short of banning the leasing program, which generates billions of dollars for the federal government, but reformed its terms to be less favorable for industry; environmental groups praised the reforms, but also said they were insufficient to address the U.S. contribution to the climate crisis.
In 2021, the Biden administration proposed a 20-year ban on oil and gas drilling around Chaco Culture National Historical Park, a site in northwestern New Mexico that contain important Ancestral Puebloan sites.
==== Environmental science ====
In May 2021, the EPA rolled back a Trump administration rule that prohibited the EPA from using certain studies. The previous rule, which made it more difficult to use major scientific studies to justify pollution reduction policies, had already been invalidated by a federal court.
==== Renewable energy ====
The Biden administration set a goal of achieving 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy generated in the U.S. by 2030 (sufficient to provide electricity to about 10 million homes). In 2021, the Biden administration approved the South Fork Wind project, a major (130 MW, 12-turbine) commercial offshore wind power project located southeast of Rhode Island's Block Island and east of New York's Montauk Point, the wind farm is projected to provide electricity to proved 70,000 Long Island homes. The project is the country's second large-scale offshore wind project (after a similar wind-power development in Massachusetts).
==== Nature conservation ====
The U.S. is part of the 30 by 30 initiative which aims to preserve 30% of the global land and sea territory by 2030. For the U.S. to accomplish its part, Biden launched a campaign called "America the Beautiful". The campaign seeks to work in cooperation with indigenous people and farmers, as well as better serve disadvantaged communities.
In November 2021, Biden promised to end and reverse deforestation and land degradation by 2030, joining more than 100 other global leaders in the COP26 climate summit's first major agreement.
According to a report from the Center for American Progress during the first 3 years of his presidency Biden broke several records in conservation, which is "a proven defense against the changing climate". In 2023 alone he turned 12.5 million acres into protected areas and made 200 agreements with indigenous people about co-management of the protected areas. He advanced a proposal to ban logging in old growth forests from 2025 which is also important for the climate.
=== Electoral and ethical reform ===
In response to what Biden describes as the growing influence of special interests and gerrymandering in elections, he has pledged to seek electoral and government ethics reforms. Biden supported the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. In January 2022, he endorsed a change to senate filibuster rules after they both failed to invoke cloture. However, the rules change failed when two Democratic senators joined Senate Republicans in opposing it.
Known for his generally bipartisan tone, Biden avoided directly referring to his predecessor during his first year in office. Beginning in 2022, Biden condemned Trump and Trumpism in stronger terms; he likened the "MAGA philosophy" to "semi-fascism" and, in a 2022 speech outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, said the "extreme ideology" of Trump, and a Republican Party dominated by him, "threatens the very foundation of our republic." Biden specifically condemned Trump and "MAGA Republicans" for promoting authoritarian leaders, using violent rhetoric, refusing to disavow political violence, and refusing to acknowledge election losses. Biden suggested that the 2022 United States elections could be illegitimate if federal laws are not passed to combat enacted voter-suppression legislation from state legislatures.
After the attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, Biden called for reforms to the 1887 Electoral Count Act to clarify the roles of Congress and the vice president in certifying electoral votes. The Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022 raised the threshold for objections to electoral votes, clarified that the vice president cannot decertify electoral votes, and modified the process for which electors are certified. It was included as part of the 2023 Consolidated Appropriations Act.
=== Housing ===
Due to ongoing decreases in housing affordability exacerbated by the pandemic, inflation, and snarls in the global supply chain, Biden launched the Housing Supply Action Plan on May 16, 2022, to increase housing supply and construction through executive initiatives, administrative deregulation and funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Due to the statutory limits upon federal intervention in housing policy, the plan relied heavily upon partnerships with willing municipal governments and the private sector to reform zoning and permitting laws and secure construction supply, issuing financial incentives to municipal governments for cooperation with the plan, issuing financial support to renters, landlords and first-time homeowners, and disincentivizing large institutional investors from acquiring government-owned or funded home properties. Biden also called upon Congress to pass an Unlocking Possibilities Program to allow HUD to issue grants to states and localities to help reform permitting for affordable housing, as well as further mortgage assistance for first-time homebuyers.
Through the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration secured over $25 billion to invest in a variety of programs and tax credits that incentivize renovations and energy efficiency in housing through five federal agencies (HUD, IRS, DOE, DOT, EPA).
=== Immigration ===
On January 20, 2021, the day Biden was inaugurated, he halted the construction of the U.S.–Mexico barrier and ended a related national emergency declared by Trump in February 2018. Biden issued a proclamation that ended the Trump travel ban imposed on predominantly Muslim countries in January 2017. Biden also reaffirmed protections to recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The same day, Biden sent a memorandum to the U.S. Department of State reinstating Deferred Enforced Departure for Liberians.
On January 20, Biden proposed the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 which would enact broad changes to the immigration system. It would provide an eight-year potential pathway for citizenship to eleven million immigrants living in the U.S. without a permanent legal status. The bill would also make it easier for certain foreign workers to stay in the U.S. In addition, it would deliver record budget allocations for the Department of Homeland Security to secure the border and $4 billion to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to combat the root causes of their emigration. If passed, it would also replace the word "alien" with "noncitizen" in U.S. immigration law. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin called the bill "aspirational" and it was widely expected not to pass both houses of Congress without significant revision.
Also on January 20, 2021, the Biden administration issued a moratorium on deportations from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for the first 100 days of his presidency. On January 22, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration for violating Biden's written pledge to cooperatively work with the state of Texas. A federal judge in Texas subsequently issued a temporary restraining order barring the Biden administration from enforcing its moratorium, citing the lack of "any concrete, reasonable justification for a 100-day pause on deportations."
On January 22, 2021, Biden had a call with Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. On the call, Biden and López Obrador spoke about immigration, where Biden spoke of reducing immigration from Mexico to the U.S. by targeting what Biden deemed as root causes. According to an Associated Press report, López Obrador noted that Biden pledged $4 billion to "help development in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala — nations whose hardships have spawned tides of migration through Mexico toward the United States."
According to a 2021 Politico report, Republicans expected prior to Biden taking office that there would be a border surge at the start of 2021 (due to seasonal patterns and regional crises) and coordinated to make it a central issue in the lead-up to the 2022 mid-term elections. The number of migrants arriving in the U.S. from Central America had been rising since April 2020 due to ongoing violence, natural disasters, food insecurity, and poverty in the region. In February 2021, the U.S. Border Patrol reported a 61% increase in encounters with unaccompanied children from the month before, the largest one-month percentage increase in encounters with unaccompanied children since U.S. Customs and Border Protection began recording data in 2010.
Biden instructed the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to focus on violent offenders of immigration laws rather than all offenders of immigration laws.
In February 2021, it was reported that DHS agents who had been empowered by Trump to enact his anti-immigration policies were resisting and defying Biden's immigration policies. The union representing ICE agents signaled that its agents would not accept reversals of Trump policies.
In March 2021, the Biden administration granted temporary protected status to Venezuelans fleeing the country amidst the ongoing political and economic crisis.On March 24, 2021, Biden tasked Vice President Harris to reduce the number of unaccompanied minors and adult asylum seekers. She is also tasked with leading the negotiations with Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The number of migrant families and unaccompanied children entering the U.S. from across the Southwest border steeply declined in August, September, and October 2021.
On June 1, 2021, the DHS officially terminated the Trump-era "Remain in Mexico" policy, which mandated that all asylum seekers from Central America were to wait in Mexico pending their court cases; however, a health order from March 2020 allowed the border authorities to send migrants back for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic have remained in place. However, on August 14, 2021, a federal judge in Texas ordered the Biden administration to reimplement the policy; the Supreme Court placed a pause on the ruling to give the administration time for arguments. On August 24, 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that the Biden administration must comply with the lower court's ruling to reinstate the policy.
In fiscal year 2022, over one million immigrants (most of whom entered through family reunification) were granted legal residence, up from 707,000 in 2020. Up until 2022 during Biden's presidency, the number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States steadily rose.
On October 5, 2023, Biden's administration said it will add sections to a border wall to stave off record migrant crossings from Mexico, carrying forward a signature policy of former president Donald Trump. One of Biden's first actions after taking office in January 2021 was to issue a proclamation pledging that "no more American taxpayer dollars be diverted to construct a border wall" as well as a review of all resources that had already been committed. The administration said Thursday's action did not deviate from Biden's proclamation because money that was allocated during Trump's term in 2019 had to be spent now. Former president Trump was quick to claim victory and demand an apology: "As I have stated often, over thousands of years, there are only two things that have consistently worked, wheels, and walls!" Trump wrote on social media. "Will Joe Biden apologize to me and America for taking so long to get moving...". Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called the move "a step backwards."
On October 31, 2023, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee that more than 600,000 people illegally made their way into the United States without being apprehended by border agents during the 2023 fiscal year.
President Biden pledged to welcome 125,000 refugees in 2024. The Biden administration considered accepting Palestinian refugees from the Gaza Strip.
On March 29, 2024, in response to a class-action lawsuit filed by lawyers representing detained migrant children, the Biden administration argued in front of a federal court that it had no responsibility to feed and house migrant children that were waiting in Border Patrol camps along the U.S.-Mexico border. This argument was rejected by Judge Dolly M. Gee, who ordered the administration to "expeditiously" house all detained migrant children.
On June 4, 2024, President Biden issued a new executive order granting immigration officials the authority to deport certain asylum seekers without processing their claims. This measure targets migrants who enter the United States "without permission and against the law," making it easier for authorities to deport them. Under the new order, if migrants express fear of returning to their home countries, they may be given an interview with an asylum officer. However, agents are no longer required to ask migrants if they have such fears. As part of the new action, the Biden administration announced the closure of the South Texas Family Residential Center, the largest immigrant detention center in the United States. The primary reason cited for this decision was the high cost of operating the facility.
==== 2024 bipartisan border bill ====
=== Separation of church and state ===
Biden, a practicing Catholic, has taken a public position of dissent against the Church's position opposing free-choice in the abortion issue. This has raised the question of whether his public office might allow him to influence the outcomes of current debates with the Church concerning abortion. The Vatican has taken a mediating position concerning Biden's dissent by allowing him to take Communion in Rome while visiting the Pope.
=== Social issues ===
During his early days in office, Biden focused on "advancing equity, civil rights, racial justice and equal opportunity." According to The New York Times, Biden's early actions in office focused on racial equality more than any president since Lyndon B. Johnson, who passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. On January 25, 2021, Biden signed an executive order that lifted the ban on transgender military service members. This reversed a memorandum imposed by Trump.
The Biden administration sought to put Harriet Tubman on the twenty-dollar bill. This effort followed that of the Obama administration, which was blocked by Steven Mnuchin. Press secretary Psaki said it was important that U.S. money and notes reflect the "history and diversity" of the country and that putting Tubman on the twenty-dollar bill would do so.
On January 20, 2021, the Biden administration issued an Executive Order entitled Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government increasing the federal government's anti-bias enforcement against government contractors. The intent is heightened investigations and audits by the Department of Justice as well as more detailed follow-up inquiries with government contractors, with an emphasis on combatting pay discrimination. Also in January, Biden directed the U.S. Department of Justice to reduce their usage of private prisons and ordered the attorney general to not renew contracts with private prisons, citing the need to "reduce profit-based incentives" for the incarceration of racial minorities.
Three days after the Atlanta spa shootings that killed 8 people, including 6 Asian women, Biden and Vice President Harris travelled to Atlanta. They spoke to Asian American and Pacific Islander advocates and leaders and condemned sexism, and racism against Asian Americans.
Biden made Juneteenth (June 19) a federal holiday in 2021, celebrating the end of slavery in the U.S. In March 2022, Biden signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act into law. With the enactment of that legislation, lynching was made a federal hate crime for the first time in American history.
In October 2022, Biden pardoned all past federal marijuana possession charges and announced an inquiry into whether cannabis should be removed from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. In December 2022, Biden signed the Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act which was the first standalone cannabis-related bill ever passed by the United States Congress.
In January 2025, Biden declared the lapsed Equal Rights Amendment ratified as the "28th Amendment" to the constitution. However, the declaration has no formal effect and the National Archives has said they do not intend to certify the amendment as part of the constitution, citing "established legal, judicial, and procedural decisions."
==== LGBT rights ====
The United States Department of Agriculture unveiled efforts in 2022 to prevent anti-LGBT discrimination in food programs, including school lunch programs, resulting in 20 lawsuits from 20 Republican attorneys general.
In December 2022, Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, which repealed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), required states to recognize other states' marriage certificates for LGBT Americans, and ensured some religious liberties. The bill came from a push from Democrats to codify same-sex marriage after the Dobbs decision, particularly Clarence Thomas's push to reconsider other precedents.
In January 2023, the Biden administration released an "evidence agenda" for LGBTQI+ Americans to learn about "their experiences engaging with federal agencies and the disparities they face in their daily lives," as well as documenting how many LGBT people live in the United States.
==== Abortion ====
In December 2021, the Biden administration ended a long-standing restriction on sales of abortion pills through the mail. This decision came amidst legal cases and Supreme Court decisions that jeopardized abortion access in the United States.
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey on June 24, 2022, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, Biden addressed the nation in the Cross Hall of the White House. He mentioned that "it's a sad day ... for the country" and "with Roe gone, ... The health and life of women in this nation are now at risk." In addition, he attacked the Court saying "With this decision, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court shows how extreme it is" and "They have made the United States an outlier among developed nations in the world." Regarding action, Biden stated that his administration will defend the right of women to seek an abortion in another state where abortion is legal and help protect a woman's access to contraception and abortion pills approved by the FDA. He also called on Congress to codify Roe v. Wade, saying "No executive action ... can do that.". But stated that if Congress did not have the votes to codify, that the voters would have to take action by "elect[ing] more senators and representatives who will codify a woman's right to choose into federal law."
The Biden administration rejected the call from progressives to allow abortions on federal land, with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre saying, "in states where abortion is now illegal, women and providers who are not federal employees, as you look at the federal land, could be potentially – be prosecuted."
During a press conference at the 2022 Madrid NATO Summit, Biden expressed support for providing an exception to the filibuster to codify Roe v. Wade.
==== Criminal justice and crime rates ====
The Biden administration rescinded a Trump administration policy that curtailed the use of consent decrees that had been used by previous administrations in their investigations of misconduct in police departments.
Biden proposed in his fiscal 2022 budget to more than double funding for the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Hiring Program, which helps state and local governments to hire law enforcement officers.
Despite perceptions, notably by Republicans and conservative media, of a "crime crisis" of soaring violent crime under Biden, FBI data indicated the violent crime rate had declined significantly during the president's first two years in office, after a spike in 2020 during the COVID pandemic. By 2022, the violent crime rate was near a 50-year low, and preliminary data released in early 2024 indicated continuing declines in 2023.
As of July 1, 2024, violent crime was down and homicides were on pace to drop to 2015 levels by the end of the year.
==== Pardons and commutations ====
Biden issued more individual pardons and commutations than any other president. On October 6, 2022, he pardoned all Americans convicted of "small" amounts of cannabis possession under federal law. On December 22, 2023, he pardoned Americans for cannabis use or possession on federal lands regardless of whether they had been charged or prosecuted. On December 12, 2024, in the largest single-day clemency act in history, Biden granted clemency to about 1,500 nonviolent felons in home confinement who had previously been released from prison. The act generated controversy, as it included felons such as Michael Conahan, a judge involved in the kids for cash kickback scandal, and Rita Crundwell, a comptroller responsible for the single largest municipal fraud in U.S. history. On December 23, 2024, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
On December 1, 2024, Biden issued a "full and unconditional" pardon to his son, Hunter Biden, that covered all federal offenses between 2014 and December 1, 2024. According to Reason magazine, the pardon's sweeping extent was "unprecedented" and was even more far-reaching than Richard Nixon's or other "controversial" pardons:The Hunter pardon is far more comprehensive...in that it covered not just his convictions for drug-related activities and tax fraud, but any other criminal behavior since 2014—the year that Hunter joined the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma. It has been alleged that Hunter's job was essentially to trade on the family name and sell his access to dad. This may not have been illegal, but it does mean that the pardon is clearly designed to offer preemptive protection not just to Hunter, but to Joe Biden himself. These features make the pardon unprecedented, though perfectly in line with the president's executive powers.Hunter had been convicted on charges related to tax and gun offenses, after which Joe made numerous promises not to pardon him. He and his staff continued to say that Hunter would not be pardoned as late as November, although internal staff discussions affirmed that the option remained on the table even as Biden said otherwise. In a statement announcing the pardon, Biden said he believed his son was "selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted".
On his last day in office, Biden issued pardons for more of his family members and other high-profile figures. The pardons covered Biden's siblings and their spouses, including James Biden, who was interviewed as part of an impeachment probe into Biden. Others pardoned that day include former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci, and members and participants in the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, despite many of those pardoned not having been under criminal investigation. Biden justified the pardons by citing his concern about "baseless and politically motivated investigations" during Trump's second term. Biden added that the pardons were preemptive and should not be seen as implying their recipients' guilt. The pardons Biden granted to his family and other political figures had a sweeping scope similar to the one he granted Hunter, covering federal offenses the recipients committed or may have committed between 2014 and the day of the pardon.
==== Gun control ====
In a national address in March 2021, after mass shootings in the Atlanta area and Boulder, Colorado, Biden advocated further gun regulations, such as a restored ban on assault weapons and a high-capacity magazine ban, as well as reinforcing preexisting background checks.
After the Robb Elementary School shooting on May 24, 2022, President Biden addressed the nation. The next week, he again called on Congress to pass an assault weapons and high-capacity magazine ban, as well as red flag laws and other legislation. As a result of the shooting, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act was eventually passed by Congress and signed into law. It marked the first federal gun safety law to have been enacted in 30 years.
After the Colorado Springs nightclub shooting, Biden called again for an assault weapons ban.
=== Space policy ===
The Biden administration reversed the Trump administration's method of using the National Space Council to coordinate commercial, civil, and military space policies, instead using the National Security Council to issue national security memoranda instead of the Space Council's space policy directives. The Biden administration renewed the National Space Council, chaired by Vice President Harris, "to assist the president in generating national space policies, strategies, and synchronizing America's space activities." Harris held meetings with the leaders of five countries to discuss international cooperation on space issues.
The Biden administration continued the Artemis program to send people back to the Moon. The administration also emphasized the role of NASA in studying climate change.
Biden appointed Bill Nelson, an astronaut and former U.S. senator, to the post of NASA administrator. Nelson was confirmed unanimously by the Senate in April 2021.
In April 2021, as part of his first annual budget request, Biden proposed a $24.8 billion budget for NASA in 2022, a $1.5 billion increase on what Congress allocated to 2021. The proposal includes funding for the Artemis program for a new crewed Moon landing mission. The proposal also included a 12.5% increase for NASA's Earth Science Division, as well as a 22% increase for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which operates a fleet of weather satellites; both measures aimed to use space tools to study and mitigate climate change.
On December 1, 2021, Biden announced his new framework for US space policy, the United States Space Priorities Framework, which explains Biden's approach for commercial, civil, and military space activity. There is a new emphasis on combating climate change and investing in STEM education.
=== Supreme Court ===
On July 29, 2024, Biden announced a plan to reform the Supreme Court of the United States. The plan called for three major changes. The first was an amendment to the Constitution, the No One Is Above the Law Amendment, which would eliminate immunity for presidents. This would effectively reverse the Supreme Court's decision in Trump v. United States. Second, Biden laid out a plan for creating term limits for Supreme Court justices. Under his plan, every two years presidents would appoint justices to 18 year terms. Lastly, he pushed for "a binding code of conduct" to replace the Supreme Court's existing self-enforced ethics code.
=== Surveillance ===
In 2024, Biden reauthorized Section 702.
== Foreign affairs ==
=== Defense ===
On January 22, 2021, Biden signed his first bill, H.R. 335 into law, providing a waiver to the law preventing appointment of a Secretary of Defense who had been on active duty in the armed forces within the past seven years; this was the third time such a waiver was granted by Congress. Retired army four-star general Lloyd Austin was confirmed by the Senate in a 93–2 vote that same day, making Austin the first African-American Defense Secretary.
Austin said his number one priority was to assist COVID-19 relief efforts, pledging he would "quickly review the Department's contributions to COVID-19 relief efforts, ensuring that we're doing everything that we can to help distribute vaccines across the country and to vaccinate our troops and preserve readiness."
On February 10, 2021, Biden visited the Pentagon for the first time as president. In remarks to service members alongside Vice President Kamala Harris and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Biden announced a U.S. Department of Defense-led China task force "to provide a baseline assessment of department policies, programs and processes in regard to the challenge China poses."
On June 18, 2021, the administration removed eight MIM-104 Patriot anti-missile batteries from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, and Iraq, removed the THAAD anti-missile defense system from Saudi Arabia, and announced that most jet squadrons and hundreds of American troops would be withdrawn from the region. The changes come in light of both de-escalating tensions with Iran and the administration changing its focus on countering China.
After taking office, Biden heavily restricted the use of armed drones and drone strikes. After Biden's first year in office, drone strikes had hit a 20-year low and were heavily limited by the administration.
In October 2023, President Biden asked Congress for nearly $106 billion in funding for Israel, Ukraine, countering China in the Indo-Pacific, and operations on the southern U.S. border. Biden signed a record $886 billion defense spending bill into law on December 22, 2023.
=== Indo-Pacific strategy ===
In 2021, Biden held a virtual meeting with leaders of Japan, India and Australia, an alliance of countries known as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or the Quad, that work together to address China's expansionism in the Indo-Pacific region. This was followed by high level meetings and sanctions on Chinese officials, and later hosting the first in-person Quad summit at the White House.
On May 23, 2022, Biden launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) with 12 regional partners to counter growing Chinese economic and political influence in the Indo-Pacific region, a move China described as a "closed and exclusive club". In November 2023, under pressure from Congressional Democrats, the Biden administration halted plans for the IPEF's trade component.
On August 18, 2023, Biden hosted Japan's Fumio Kishida and South Korea's Yoon Suk Yeol at Camp David, producing the Camp David Principles relating to joint military exercises, supply chain resilience, and united criticism of North Korea, Russia, and China.
=== China ===
Biden has said the U.S. needs to "get tough" on China and build "a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China's abusive behaviors and human rights violations." He described China as the "most serious competitor" that poses challenges on the "prosperity, security, and democratic values" of the U.S.
Biden nominated Antony Blinken to serve as Secretary of State who took office on January 26, 2021. During his nomination hearing, Blinken said that previous optimistic approaches to China were flawed, and that Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump, "was right in taking a tougher approach to China" but he "disagree[s] very much with the way [Trump] went about it in a number of areas." He endorsed former secretary of state Mike Pompeo's report that China is committing a genocide against Uyghur Muslims.
In March 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and other administration officials met with the Chinese Communist Party Politburo member Yang Jiechi, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, and other Chinese officials in Alaska with heated exchanges on China's human rights abuses, cyberattacks, its threats against Taiwan, its crackdown in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, and other issues of U.S. interest. The Chinese side countered: "The U.S. does not have the qualification to speak to China from a position of strength [and] does not serve as a model to others [and] China's development and strengthening is unstoppable."
On October 20, 2021, Biden said he is concerned about Chinese hypersonic missiles, days after China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile that circled the globe before speeding towards its target.
The U.S. took steps to restrict TikTok over national-security concerns related to its Chinese ownership. In December 2022, Biden signed the No TikTok on Government Devices Act, barring TikTok on federal devices. In April 2024, he signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which set a deadline for apps owned by foreign adversaries, such as TikTok's parent company ByteDance, to either be sold to a non-adversary owner or be banned in the United States. TikTok's U.S. ban was not enforced; service was restored and the enforcement deadline was repeatedly extended.
=== Taiwan ===
On September 18, 2022, Biden said that U.S. forces would defend Taiwan if China launched an invasion. China condemned the remark, saying it sent the wrong signal to supporters of Taiwanese independence. The policy was stated in contrast to Biden's previous exclusion of U.S. forces in support for Ukraine in its current conflict with Russia.
=== Myanmar ===
On February 1, 2021, Biden condemned the Myanmar coup d'état and called for the release of detained officials. Biden also left open the door to re-imposing sanctions on the country, saying in a statement that "[t]he United States removed sanctions on Burma over the past decade based on progress toward democracy. The reversal of that progress will necessitate an immediate review of our sanction laws and authorities, followed by appropriate action."
On March 5, 2021, Biden imposed sanctions on Myanmar's Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Defence and certain junta conglomerates. On March 22, 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced sanctions on several military generals in response to a violent crackdown on peaceful protests.
=== Afghanistan ===
In February 2020, the Trump administration made a deal with the Taliban to completely withdraw U.S. forces by May 1, 2021. In April 2021, President Biden formally announced that American troops would instead withdraw from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021, which would signal an end to the U.S.'s longest war. According to Princeton professor Julian E. Zelizer, Biden "clearly learned a great deal from his time in the Obama presidency", and demonstrated that "he is a politician capable of learning and evolving, contrary to some of the skeptics in the primaries who thought he didn't understand how politics had changed." According to Washington Post journalist Steven Levingston, "Obama listened to military leaders who advised him that withdrawal would be a mistake. Biden, meanwhile, was the top administration official arguing for a much more limited role for American forces in Afghanistan. Later, Biden would go on to say that he could tell by Obama's 'body language' that he agreed with that assessment — even though he ultimately rejected it."
Soon after the withdrawal of U.S. troops started, the Taliban launched an offensive against the Afghan government, quickly advancing in front of a collapsing Afghan Armed Forces. President Biden defended the withdrawal, saying "I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped and ... more competent in terms of conducting war."
By early July 2021, most of the American troops in Afghanistan were withdrawn. Biden addressed the withdrawal, stating that: "The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely." On August 15, amid an offensive by the Taliban, the Afghan government collapsed, Afghan president Ashraf Ghani fled the country and Kabul fell to the Taliban. Biden reacted by ordering 6,000 American troops to assist in the evacuation of American personnel and Afghan allies. He has been criticized over the manner of the American withdrawal.
On August 16, Biden addressed the "messy" situation, taking responsibility for it ("the buck stops with me"), and admitting that the situation "unfolded more quickly than we had anticipated". He defended his decision to withdraw, saying that Americans should not be "dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves", since the "Afghan military collapsed [against the Taliban], sometimes without trying to fight". Biden partly attributed the lack of early evacuation of Afghan civilians to the Afghan government's opposition of a "mass exodus" which they thought would cause a "crisis of confidence".
On August 26, a suicide attack was carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - Khorasan Province at the Hamid Karzai International Airport, killing more than 170 people, including at least 62 Afghan civilians, 13 US service members, two British nationals and the child of a third British national. Biden made a public address after the attack, in which he honored the American service members who were killed, calling them "heroes" and saying they lost their lives "in the service of liberty", and stated that the US had evacuated more than 100,000 Americans, Afghans, and others. He expressed deep sorrow for the Afghan victims as well. Biden said to those who wished harm upon the US that "we will hunt you down and make you pay." Biden received increasingly harsh criticism from both Republicans and Democrats in the US Congress, with Republicans calling for his resignation or for his impeachment.
After the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the Biden administration froze about $9 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank, blocking the Taliban from accessing these billions of dollars in reserves held in U.S. bank accounts.
In February 2022, Biden signed an executive order that seeks to unfreeze approximately $3.5 billion of Afghan assets in the U.S. for the purpose of humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan.
On July 31, 2022, Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in Kabul by an American drone strike approved by Biden.
=== Iran ===
Relations with Iran during the Biden administration centered on attempts to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement amid sanctions, cyberattacks, and proxy conflicts. U.S. officials sought a return to the JCPOA, but Vienna talks stalled, as Iran increased uranium enrichment and imposed retaliatory sanctions, while the U.S. imposed new sanctions over missile programs, oil exports, and human rights abuses.
Proxy attacks on U.S. bases continued, intensifying after the Gaza war in late 2023, and were met with American strikes. The period also saw disputes over the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, and military escalations across the Gulf region. In 2023, a breakthrough occurred with a U.S.–Iran prisoner swap and the release of frozen Iranian funds, though indirect diplomacy remained fragile. Later accusations of Iranian cyber interference in the 2024 U.S. election, along with alleged assassination plots in the U.S., further strained relations. By late 2024, relations remained tense and adversarial.
=== Saudi Arabia and Yemen ===
Biden ordered a halt in the arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates which the Trump administration had previously agreed to. Two years after Jamal Khashoggi's assassination, Avril Haines, the Director of National Intelligence under Biden's administration, announced that the intelligence report into the case against the Saudi government would be declassified. It was reported that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman would be blamed for the murder, as was concluded by the CIA.
On February 4, 2021, the Biden administration announced that the U.S. was ending its support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. President Biden in his first visit to the State Department as president said "this war has to end" and that the conflict has created "a humanitarian and strategic catastrophe". However, the details of the end of American involvement in the war have yet to be released as of April 2021.
In September 2021, Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan met in Saudi Arabia with Crown Prince Bin Salman to discuss the high oil prices. The record-high energy prices were driven by a global surge in demand as the world quit the economic recession caused by COVID-19. The Biden administration was pressed on potential oil deals with Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Iran that would have them increase their oil production. However, so far, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have declined requests from the US.
As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden had vowed to make the Saudis "pay the price" and make them a "pariah" state, citing the Kingdom's involvement in the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi. But, in June 2022, the White House confirmed that Biden was to visit Saudi Arabia and meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, during his Middle East trip in July. The announcement came after inflation in the US rose to a 40-year high. The Russian invasion of Ukraine also had an impact on the oil and gas prices in the US. Biden repeatedly appealed to the Saudis to increase oil production, but the Kingdom turned down such requests. Biden's planned visit was seen as a move to seek Saudi assistance to ease the oil and gas prices at home. However, human rights activists and Democratic lawmakers warned Biden that the visit could send signals to Saudi that their horrific human rights violations could be exempted. Saudi dissidents living in the US said that as Saudi activists who were wronged by Prince Mohammed, they "feel betrayed by Biden". Son of Saad Aljabri, Khalid AlJabri said Biden's meeting with MbS would be "equivalent of a presidential pardon for murder". Democratic representative Adam Schiff also criticized the visit saying, "I wouldn't go. I wouldn't shake his hand. This is someone who butchered an American resident, cut him up into pieces and in the most terrible and premeditated way."
On July 10, 2022, president Biden defended his trip to Saudi Arabia, saying humans rights were on his agenda. In an op-ed, he wrote that he aims to "reorient and not rupture relations with a country that's been a strategic partner for 80 years", and that Saudi Arabia has helped to restore unity among the six countries of Gulf Cooperation Council and has fully supported the truce in the context of the Yemen war.
Ahead of Biden's visit to Saudi Arabia, reports revealed that the Biden administration could possibly lift a ban on sales of offensive weapons to Riyadh. However, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan they were focused on a "real ceasefire", and on Saudi efforts to end the war. After the meeting with Saudi officials, Biden announced that the Kingdom committed to extend the truce in Yemen. On August 2, 2022, the State Department approved the potential sale of 300 MIM-104E Guidance Enhanced Missile-Tactical Ballistic Missiles (GEM-T) for the Patriot missile defense system to Saudi Arabia. It also approved support equipment, spares and technical support to the Arab nation. In addition, the State Department also approved the potential sale of 96 Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system interceptors and support equipment to the UAE. However, Human Rights Watch said the US should suspend sales of both offensive and defensive arms to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which have used American weapons in unlawful airstrikes. HRW said a policy reversal by the US could lead to added rights violations in Yemen.
=== United Arab Emirates ===
The U.S. authorities indicted Thomas J. Barrack Jr., an outside adviser to Donald Trump during and after the 2016 United States presidential election campaign. They alleged he acted as an unregistered foreign lobbyist for the United Arab Emirates. Barrack was also accused of obstruction of justice by giving false statements to the investigators. He was found not guilty on all charges in November 2022. The DOJ also prosecuted some men for funneling more than $3.5 million to Hillary Clinton from George Nader, the royal adviser of the UAE.
While federal prosecutors accused the Emirates of interfering in American politics from both sides, the relations with the Arab nation during Biden's presidency didn't witness much of the expected changes. The UAE was seen escaping its blunder-filled history of relations with the US, despite Biden's repetitive criticism against the Emirates' human rights violations and its attempts of infiltrating the US politics. Moreover, the Biden administration also permitted the arms sales of $23 billion to the UAE, which was initiated by Donald Trump and involved a transfer of sophisticated weaponry like the F-35 fighter jets. The US Justice Department did not charge any Emirati in the case. However, Barrack's indictment identified three UAE officials who were hosts at his reception in the Gulf nation after Trump's 2016 elections, and two others who were involved. Amongst the hosts was Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed, the UAE's national security adviser Tahnoun bin Zayed and director of the Emirati intelligence service, Ali Mohammed Hammad Al Shamsi. The fourth Emirati official was Abdullah Khalifa Al Ghafli, who "tasked" Barrack to push Emirati interests with America. Another official was Yousef Al Otaiba, who asked to remain anonymous in discussions over private matters.
On September 23, 2024, the UAE president Mohamed bin Zayed visited the White House to hold meetings with President Biden and Kamala Harris. It marked the first ever meeting of an Emirati President to Washington. Biden and Harris met Mohamed separately, focusing on future bilateral economic and technological relations. Prior to the meeting, Biden received a letter from the lawmakers to raise concerns with the UAE around its military support to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan. Appreciating Biden's efforts towards the Sudan crisis, the lawmakers stated that the Emirati actions could become an obstruction. They urged Biden to address the concerns to Mohammed and press the UAE to cease the support to RSF.
=== Israel ===
Early on, the Biden administration addressed Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. The White House confirmed that the U.S. Embassy would remain in Jerusalem and it would continue to be recognized as the capital. The administration also expressed support for the Abraham Accords while wanting to expand on them, although it shied away from using that name, instead referring to it simply as "the normalization process".
On May 13, 2021, in the aftermath of the Al-Aqsa mosque conflict, the Biden administration was accused of being indifferent towards the violent conflict between Israeli statehood and the Palestinian minority there. Critics on both sides identified the reaction by the White House as "lame and late".
On May 21, 2021, a ceasefire was brokered between Israel and Hamas after eleven days of clashes. According to Biden, the US will be playing a key role to rebuild damaged infrastructure in the Gaza alongside the Palestinian authority.
==== Gaza War ====
After the October 7 attack in Israel, Biden stated, "We stand with Israel" three days later and emphasized the US's role in potentially freeing American hostages in Gaza.
On October 14, Biden condemned the murder of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a six-year-old Muslim boy in Chicago, by the boy's landlord. The murder was an alleged hate crime inspired by the conflict. Biden said, "There is no place in America for hate against anyone."
During a speech at the Human Rights Campaign Dinner on October 15, a protestor chanted "let Gaza live" and "ceasefire now" to which Biden responded that he could not hear the protestor, but then later said "I get it. I'm not sure that's a good thing. No, I'm only joking."
Biden's trip to Jordan to meet King Abdullah II, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and Mahmoud Abbas was "mutually" canceled on October 17 and indefinitely postponed.
President Biden traveled to Tel Aviv, Israel on October 18 and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, resulting in humanitarian aid being allowed into Gaza, including food, water, and medicine. During the trip, Biden blamed the al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion on "an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza," citing US intelligence reports. He also promised to ask congress for an "unprecedented support package for Israel's defense," potentially tied to a bill with support for Ukraine, Taiwan, and the Southern Border. Biden called on Congress to pass $14.3 billion in emergency military aid to Israel. Israel already receives $3.8 billion a year in military aid. Biden also announced that the US would send $100 million in humanitarian aid to Gaza and the West Bank.
On November 1, after Jessica Rosenberg, a rabbi and activist from Jewish Voice for Peace, heckled Biden during a speech in Northfield, Minnesota calling for a ceasefire, Biden said, "I think we need a pause. A pause means give time to get the prisoners out."
Starting November 9, Biden negotiated four-hour pauses for civilians to flee every day after his push for three-day pauses failed. Starting on November 23, Israel agreed to a four-day ceasefire for north of Gaza for six hours a day and a complete ceasefire south of Gaza in exchange for hostages taken by Hamas. The deal was brokered by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States.
Ian Bremmer, an American political scientist, stated the Biden administration's position unconditionally supporting Israel had left him as isolated on the world stage as Russia's president Vladimir Putin. Biden has reportedly expressed frustration with Netanyahu's handling of the war, although this has not led to a major shift in American policy.
Congressional oversight on arms sales has been sidestepped by the Biden administration on two occasions in December 2023. Usually the Arms Export Control Act would require the State Department, on behalf of the president, to provide U.S. Congress advance notification of government-to-government foreign military sales of defense equipment. But the secretary of state Antony Blinken certified the existence of an "emergency" and therefore the requirement was lifted twice which raised objections from lawmakers from the Democratic Party.
In February 2024, the Biden administration warned the government of Israel against its announced advance against Rafah, and NBC news reported that Biden "has been venting his frustration in recent private conversations, some of them with campaign donors, over his inability to persuade Israel to change its military tactics in the Gaza Strip". On February 16, 2024, the Wall Street Journal reported that the administration is pushing for a cease-fire deal but on the other hand is preparing another delivery of bombs and other weapons and that the administration has to notify "congressional committee leaders who would need to approve the transfer." On February 20, the U.S. government vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding a cease-fire in Gaza.
After the killing of Palestinian civilians receiving food aid on February 29, Biden expressed that the current level of aid flowing into Gaza was insufficient. On March 3, US military began airdropping food aid into Gaza. Some experts called the US airdrops performative and claimed they would do little to alleviate the food situation in Gaza. In July 2024, following Biden's decision not to seek re-election, Palestinian advocacy groups stated they believed that the war would define Biden's presidential legacy.
On March 30, 2024, the Biden administration authorized $2.5 billion in weapons transfers to Israel. On April 24, 2024, Biden signed a $95 billion security package which included around $17 billion in military aid for Israel. In June 2024, the United States officially signed a Letter of Offer and Acceptance, allowing Israel to purchase 25 additional Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighter jets for $3 billion.
On July 10, 2024, the Biden administration resumed shipments of the 500-pound bombs to Israel, which were halted in May over concerns about the humanitarian impact of Israel's use of them in killing Palestinians in Gaza. On August 9, 2024, the Department of State said the United States would send Israel an additional $3.5 billion to spend on US-made weapons and military equipment. On August 13, 2024, the Department of State announced that the U.S. had approved a $20 billion weapons package sale to Israel, which included fighter jets and advanced air-to-air missiles.
On September 17, 2024, thousands of handheld pagers used by Hezbollah simultaneously exploded across Lebanon and Syria. The attack came just a day after the Biden administration's special envoy Amos Hochstein visited Israel and warned Benjamin Netanyahu against provoking a major escalation in Lebanon.
On November 20, 2024, a UN Security Council draft resolution that demanded an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Gaza Strip was vetoed by the U.S. whereas all other members voted in favor. The draft resolution would have rejected "any effort to starve Palestinians" and demanded the facilitation of full, rapid, safe and unhindered entry of aid at scale to and throughout the Strip and its delivery to all those in need. On January 15, 2025, a ceasefire proposal backed by Biden was adopted just days before his leaving office.
=== Palestine ===
During a July 2022 visit to Israel, Biden stressed the importance of keeping the two-state vision alive. He met with Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and announced a new aid package to the Palestinians. During the administration of his predecessor Donald Trump, U.S. contributions to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees had been defunded. On the Israeli end, Prime Minister Yair Lapid reaffirmed his position on a two-state solution.
=== Armenian genocide ===
On April 24, 2021, the Biden administration declared that the Turkish killings of Armenians at the start of the 20th century were a genocide. He is the first U.S. president to ever officially recognize the Armenian genocide.
=== Russia ===
On the day of Biden's inauguration, the Russian government urged the new U.S. administration to take a "more constructive" approach in talks over the extension of the 2010 New START treaty, the sole remaining agreement limiting the number of U.S. and Russian long-range nuclear warheads. In Biden's first telephone call as president with Russian President Vladimir Putin, on January 26, 2021, Biden and Putin agreed to extend the New START treaty (which was set to expire in February 2021) by an additional five years.
Biden and his administration condemned human rights violations by the Russian authorities, calling for the release of detained dissident and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, his wife, and the thousands of Russians who had demonstrated in his support; the U.S. called for the unconditional release of Navalny and the protestors and a credible investigation into Navalny's poisoning. On March 2, 2021, the U.S. and European Union imposed coordinated additional sanctions on Russian officials, as well as the FSB and GRU, over Navalny's poisoning and imprisonment. The State Department also expanded existing sanctions from the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act that had been imposed after the poisoning of Skripal. The Biden administration also planned to impose sanctions against Russia because of the 2020 SolarWinds cyberespionage campaign, which compromised the computer systems of nine federal agencies. Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the response "will include a mix of tools seen and unseen, and it will not simply be sanctions."
The Biden administration's comprehensive review into Russian activities has included an examination of reports that the Russian government offered bounties to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The Biden administration said intelligence community has only "low to moderate" confidence in reports due to the fact that the bounty reports originated from "detainee reporting and because of the difficult operating environment in Afghanistan." Biden called Russian president Vladimir Putin a "killer" in an ABC News interview, and said that Russia would pay a price for election meddling.
On May 19, 2021, the Biden administration lifted CAATSA sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project between Russia and Germany. Despite Biden's personal opposition to the project, the U.S. State Department says that it concluded that it was in the "U.S. national interest" to waive the sanctions. Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov welcomed the move as "a chance for a gradual transition toward the normalization of our bilateral ties."
On June 16, 2021, Biden met with Putin in Geneva, Switzerland. The two presidents discussed a number of topics, including stable policy on climate change, nuclear proliferation, and cybersecurity. Russia's activities regarding Ukraine, Alexei Navalny, Belarus, and nationals jailed in each other's countries. The summit was significantly shorter than expected, only lasting three and a half of the predicted five hours. Putin praised Biden as a knowledgeable and shrewd negotiator the next day.
In November 2021, Putin stated that an expansion of NATO's presence in Ukraine, especially the deployment of any long-range missiles capable of striking Russian cities or missile defense systems similar to those in Romania and Poland, would be a "red line" issue for Russia. In December 2021, Putin asked President Joe Biden for legal guarantees that NATO wouldn't expand eastward or put "weapons systems that threaten us in close vicinity to Russian territory." The U.S. and NATO have rejected Putin's demands.
On February 24, 2022, Biden condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine, saying Putin "chose this war" and calling him "the aggressor". He announced new sanctions against Russia. On February 25, the White House announced the US would personally sanction Putin and foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. On February 28, the Biden administration announced sanctions against Russia's central bank, prohibiting Americans from doing business with the bank and freezing the bank's assets. On March 29, 2022, Biden appeared to heighten his condemnation concerning Putin made at the end of his NATO trip to Europe, stating that he makes "no apologies" for previously stating that "Putin cannot remain in power". On April 12, he called the war a "genocide". Biden criticized the Kremlin for "idle comments" on the possible use of nuclear weapons.
On April 28, Biden asked Congress for an additional $33 billion to assist Ukraine, including $20 billion to provide weapons to Ukraine. On May 10, the House passed legislation that would provide $40 billion in new aid to Ukraine. The New York Times reported that the United States provided real-time battlefield targeting intelligence to Ukraine that helped Ukrainian forces kill Russian generals and sink the Russian warship Moskva. The Biden administration has pledged to help the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute Putin and others for war crimes committed during the invasion of Ukraine.
On September 27, 2022, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre encouraged Russian men fleeing their home country to avoid being drafted to apply for asylum in the United States. In early 2023, the Biden administration resumed deportations of Russians who had fled Russia because of mobilization and political persecution.
In January 2024, the Biden administration rejected Putin's proposal for a ceasefire in Ukraine. Biden's National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan informed Putin's foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov that the United States would not discuss a ceasefire without Ukraine's participation.
On May 30, 2024, Biden gave Ukraine permission to strike targets inside Russia using American-supplied weapons. Biden said "They are authorized to be used in proximity to the border. We are not authorizing strikes 200 miles into Russia." On August 9, 2024, a convoy of Russian troops in the Kursk Oblast of Russia was destroyed in a strike by U.S.-supplied HIMARS rocket system in what Russian milbloggers described as one of the bloodiest attacks of the entire war.
=== Ukraine ===
In February 2022, amid rising tensions between Ukraine and Russia, the Biden administration faced questions for its year-long failure to nominate an ambassador to Ukraine.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine instigated significant and substantial support to Ukraine during the Biden presidency including two dozen military aid packages to assist them against the invasion. On October 28, 2022 the Pentagon announced the 24th presidential drawdown of materiel worth $275 million; the security assistance has totaled $18.5 billion to Ukraine since January 2021. The aid includes 500 Excalibur precision-guided 155mm artillery rounds, 2000 155mm remote anti-armor mine systems, more than 1,300 anti-armor weapons, more than 2.75 million rounds of small arms ammunition, more HIMARS rockets, 125 Humvees, and four satellite communications antennas for Ukraine's command and control systems, as well as training for operation of the NASAMS units. Two NASAMS units arrived in Ukraine on November 7, 2022.
On February 20, 2023, four days before the one-year anniversary of the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Biden visited Kyiv and met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska. While there, Biden affirmed more military aid to Ukraine and denounced the war. The trip was unannounced, and involved major security coordinations to ensure safety.
In 2022, Congress approved more than $112 billion in aid to Ukraine. In October 2023, the Biden administration requested $61.4 billion more in aid for Ukraine for the year ahead.
=== Europe ===
President Biden promised to repair "strained" relationships with European allies in contrast to his predecessor Trump. "An attack on one is an attack on all. That is our unshakeable vow," Biden said, referring to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty (the mutual defense clause). Biden pledged support for the European project and for Ukraine's sovereignty as well as the need for global cooperation on fighting the pandemic and climate change.
U.S. relations with France deteriorated in September 2021 due to fallout from the AUKUS security pact between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, which aimed to counter 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 the agreement, the Australian government canceled an agreement that it had made with France for the provision of French conventionally powered submarines. The deal angered the French government, which recalled its ambassador to the U.S. (Philippe Étienne) as well as the ambassador to Australia. Amid the diplomatic row, the French Foreign Ministry contended that it had been subjected to "duplicity, disdain and lies" and French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called the deal a "stab in the back". In a conciliatory call a few days later, Biden and French president Emmanuel Macron agreed to reduce bilateral tensions, and the White House acknowledged the crisis could have been averted if there had been open consultations between allies. A month later, Biden met Macron, telling him his administration was "clumsy" and that he was "under the impression that France had been informed long before" that France's deal with Australia was "not going through".
In July 2024, the Biden administration announced its intention to deploy long-range missiles in Germany beginning in 2026. In response, Russian president Putin warned of a Cold War-style missile crisis and threatened to deploy long-range missiles within striking distance of the West. US weapons in Germany would include SM-6 and Tomahawk cruise missiles and hypersonic weapons. The United States' decision to deploy long-range missiles in Germany has been compared to the deployment of Pershing II launchers in Western Europe in 1979. Critics say the move would trigger a new arms race. According to Russian military analysts, it would be extremely difficult to distinguish between a conventionally armed missile and a missile carrying a nuclear warhead, and Russia could respond by deploying longer-range nuclear systems targeting Germany.
Biden has reiterated his commitment to maintaining peace in Northern Ireland by resisting the possibility of a hard border as a result of Brexit.
=== Cuba ===
The Biden administration has maintained the sanctions against Cuba that were issued by the first Trump administration, despite one of Biden's campaign promises being to lift restrictions against the country.
In June 2021, the Biden administration continued America's tradition of voting against an annual United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for an end to the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba. The resolution was adopted for the 29th time with 184 votes in favor, three abstentions, and two no votes: the U.S. and Israel.
In July 2021, protesters gathered in front of the White House and demonstrators called on President Joe Biden to take action in Cuba. The Biden administration sanctioned a key Cuban official and a government special forces unit known as the Boinas Negras for human rights abuses in the wake of historic protests on the island. On July 22, 2021, directly before hosting a meeting with Cuban American leaders, President Biden stated "I unequivocally condemn the mass detentions and sham trials that are unjustly sentencing to prison those who dared to speak out in an effort to intimidate and threaten the Cuban people into silence." President Biden has also ordered government specialists to develop ideas for the U.S. to unilaterally extend internet access on the island, and he has promised to enhance backing for Cuban dissidents.
In August 2021, Biden sanctioned three additional Cuban officials who were also reportedly involved in the suppression of anti-government protesters in Cuba.
In December 2021, 114 Democratic House members signed a letter that urged President Biden to lift restrictions and sanctions against Cuba in order to make their access to food and medicine easier.
In January 2022, Biden again sanctioned Cuba officials, this time placing travel restrictions on eight members of the Cuban government.
In May 2022, the Biden administration lifted some of the sanctions, with policy changes such as expansion of flights to Cuba and resumption of a family reunification program. In January 2023, the Biden administration made changes to its immigration policy, to limit the amount of Cuban migrants entering the United States.
In the final week of his presidency, the Biden administration removed Cuba from the state sponsors of terrorism list, in concert with a prisoner exchange, brokered by the Vatican.
=== Africa ===
Biden hosted a three-day U.S.-Africa summit in Washington in December 2022, attended by 49 African national leaders. The meeting was the first such summit since 2014. The leaders of every African nation in good standing with the African Union (AU), except Eritrea, were invited to the summit. The leaders of African nations not in good standing with the AU (mostly those who had come to power through military coups) were also not invited.
At the summit, Biden announced U.S. support for the AU joining the G20 group of major economies, a long-sought goal for Africa. The summit was part of a broader effort by the U.S. to rebuild U.S.-African relations and counter Chinese influence on the continent. During the summit, the administration announced $800 million in new deals with Cisco Systems and Cybastion to combat cyberthreats targeting Africa, a bid to blunt the dominance of the Chinese firm Huawei in Africa. The administration also signed a memorandum of understanding in support of the African Continental Free Trade Area to reduce trade barriers in Africa, and committed $55 billion to Africa over the next three years, focused on preexisting U.S. initiatives, such as the trade-focused Prosper Africa and Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, as well as the Power Africa initiative, which aims to increase connections of Africans to the electric grid. The administration also emphasized initiatives in technology and cybersecurity, health, clean energy and the environment, and other areas. Biden committed an additional $2 billion for emergency humanitarian aid and $11 billion for food security programs in Africa. The administration also expanded ties with West Africa, including support for infrastructure improvements at the Benin seaport of Cotonou, a key part of the West African economy. Biden appointed a longtime U.S. diplomat, Johnnie Carson, to coordinate implementation of U.S. actions following up the summit.
During the 2022 summit, Biden and senior administration officials also met privately with six African leaders facing elections in 2023, pushing them to ensure free and fair elections in their nations.
Senator Bob Menendez, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has criticized the Biden administration for hesitating to impose sanctions on the governments of Sudan and Ethiopia, where many atrocities and war crimes were committed in the Tigray War.
=== Americans detained abroad ===
In July 2022, President Biden signed an executive order aimed at deterring the wrongful detention of Americans abroad. According to an estimate by The James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, there are at least 67 U.S. citizens who are currently imprisoned abroad. The foundation further estimates that 90% of those are wrongly detained by foreign governments hostile to the U.S., including Venezuela, Russia, China, Iran, and others. Dozens of families of Americans who are detained abroad say President Biden has failed to adequately address the crisis. They formed a group called "Bring Our Families Home Campaign" to pressure Biden to do more.
In September 2023, President Biden reached a deal to release five prisoners held by Iran. In exchange, $6 billion of frozen Iranian assets were released. The U.S. said the unfrozen money would be held in restricted accounts so that it could only be spent on humanitarian goods such as food and medicine.
In August 2024, President Biden reached a deal to secure the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War. The exchange included the release of Americans Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan, and Alsu Kurmasheva; thirteen others from Russia and Belarus; and Russians held by the U.S., Slovenia, Norway, Poland, and Germany. Turkey and Estonia were also involved in the deal. Biden stressed the importance of alliances on the world stage by describing the achievement as "a powerful example of why it's vital to have friends in this world."
=== Worldwide LGBT rights ===
On February 4, 2021, Biden issued a presidential memorandum for expanding protection of LGBT rights worldwide, which includes the possibility to impose financial sanctions.
The US State Department released a statement on Intersex Awareness Day promoting LGBTQI+ rights around the globe, saying, "Intersex persons often face stigma and discrimination in accessing education, healthcare, and legal recognition, and are subjected to medically unnecessary surgeries. These harmful practices, which can cause lifelong negative physical and emotional consequences, are a medical form of so-called conversion therapy practices in that they seek to physically "convert" Intersex children into non-Intersex children."
Biden announced he would be removing Uganda from the African Growth and Opportunity Act trade deal over the country's anti-LGBT bill that included the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality" and life-in-prison for identifying as LGBT.
== Investigations of Biden ==
=== Hur special counsel investigation ===
Biden's attorneys informed the National Archives Administration in November 2022 that classified documents from before Biden's presidency had been found at the Penn Biden Center. Days later Attorney General Garland tasked U.S. Attorney John R. Lausch Jr. with conducting an initial investigation. On January 5, 2023, Lausch advised Garland that the assignment of a special counsel was warranted. On January 12, Garland announced that he was appointing a special counsel to investigate "possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or other records", and appointed Robert K. Hur as special counsel. Hur released his report on February 8, 2024, stating that the "evidence does not establish Mr. Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt". The report's final conclusion was that "no criminal charges are warranted in this matter" and that it would be "the same even if there was no policy against charging a sitting president".
=== Congressional investigations ===
On September 12, 2023, Speaker McCarthy acceded to the right wing of the House Republican Conference and announced the launch of an impeachment inquiry into Biden. McCarthy claimed that earlier findings of House investigations "paint a picture of corruption" involving Biden and his relatives. Prior investigations have failed to find evidence of wrongdoing by the president. The impeachment inquiry fizzled out by April 2024.
== Elections during the Biden presidency ==
=== 2022 midterm elections ===
Despite Biden's low approvals, a red wave did not occur during the 2022 mid-term elections as many had anticipated. Democrats expanded their narrow Senate majority while Republicans took control of the House by a far smaller margin than expected. This was largely attributed to a backlash against the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, as well as the perceived extremeness of certain Republican candidates in competitive races.
It was the first midterm election since 1986 in which the party of the incumbent president achieved a net gain in governorships, and the first since 1934 in which the president's party didn't lose any state legislative chambers or incumbent senators.
Many pundits had failed to predict the Democrats' resilient performance; Simon Rosenberg was one exception. Polls for the election cycle were the most accurate since 1998, though Republican-aligned pollsters such as the Trafalgar Group had a notable polling miss.
The results drew praise from the Democratic Party, and Biden celebrated the results as a strong day for democracy.
Democratic overperformance in these elections are considered to have played a factor in the party's defeat in the 2024 elections, with its results misinterpreted as support for Biden's initial bid for re-election.
=== 2024 elections and transition period ===
==== Initial re-election campaign and withdrawal ====
After speculation Biden would not seek re-election due to his advanced age and poor job approval, Biden officially announced his reelection campaign for the Democratic nomination in the 2024 presidential election on April 25, 2023. Representative Dean Phillips ran against Biden in the primaries but was unsuccessful. Phillips campaigned as a younger alternative to Biden, who would be a stronger opponent to Trump. Biden became the presumptive Democratic party nominee on March 12, 2024, facing no effective challengers in the primaries. Following what was widely viewed as a lackluster performance in the first presidential debate against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump and numerous age and health concerns, Biden faced repeated calls to suspend his candidacy. On July 21, 2024, Biden announced in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) that he was suspending his campaign. He stated that "while it has been my intention to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term", and immediately endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him in his place as the party's presidential nominee.
==== General election and transition period ====
Following the attempted assassination of his then-opponent and then-presumptive Republican nominee former president Donald Trump, Biden condemned the shooting and, in an Oval Office address the next day, spoke about the "need for to lower the temperature" of its political rhetoric.
Biden defended his record as president at the Democratic National Convention and advocated for the election of Harris in one of the last speeches of his presidency. The convention was largely portrayed as an honoring of his political legacy. In the general election, Harris was defeated by Trump. Some Democrats attributed Harris' loss to Biden's unpopularity on issues such as the economy and his refusal to withdraw from the race sooner. In the concurrent congressional elections, Republicans also retained a narrow majority in the House of Representatives and took control of the Senate.
On January 15, 2025, Biden gave a farewell address in the Oval Office days before the second inauguration of Donald Trump.
== Approval ratings and image ==
Very early in Biden's presidency, opinion polls found that Biden's approval ratings were steadier than Trump's, with an average approval rating of 55% and an average disapproval rate of 39%. Biden's early approval ratings have been more polarized than Trump's, with 98% of Democrats, 61% of independents and 11% of Republicans approving of Biden's presidency in February 2021, a party gap of 87%. Around the end of his first hundred days in office, Biden's approval rating was higher than Trump's but was the third worst since the presidency of Harry Truman; only Trump and Gerald Ford scored lower.
After the fall of Kabul and the surge of COVID-19 cases due to the Delta variant in July and August 2021, Biden's approval rating began to steadily decline, from a high of 52.7% approval on July 26, 2021, to 45.9% approval by September 3, 2021, according to FiveThirtyEight. While the White House emphasized COVID-19 as causing his low approval rating, inflation, the highest in nearly 40 years, has also been described as a cause. Biden's lowest approval rating on record comes from a Quinnipiac University poll in July 2022, which showed just 31% of respondents approving of his performance as president.
By the one-year anniversary of Biden's presidency on January 20, 2022, Gallup recorded the average approval rating for Biden's first year as 49%, which was the second-lowest first-year average approval rating for any American president since World War II; only Trump's first-year average of 38.4% was lower. Gallup further noted that there was greater political polarization in Biden's approval ratings than any other first-year president in modern history, with 91% of Democrats supporting Biden while just 8% of Republicans supported him, resulting in a party gap of 83%. The only other year of any presidency that saw greater polarization was Trump's final year in office. The July 2022 Gallup survey saw Biden's sixth quarter approval rating of 40%, the lowest sixth quarter rating of any president in modern history dating back to Dwight Eisenhower. Until April 23, according to figures compiled by FiveThirtyEight, Biden's approval rating stood at 42.3 percent, a slight improvement from the sub-40 percent level reached in the summer of 2022, but still well below the peak of 53 percent when he began his presidency in January 2021.
An October 30, 2023, poll by the Arab American Institute, support for Biden among Arab Americans dropped from 59% in 2020 to 17%. The drop in support has been attributed to the administration's handling of the Gaza war.
According to Gallup, in July 2024, Biden's approval rating dropped to 36%, the lowest of his presidency, prior to his decision to end his re-election campaign; his highest approval rating dated back to 57% in April 2021.
== Media appearances ==
Biden was interviewed for several news outlets and appeared on several late-night talk shows throughout his presidency.
In December 2021, Biden appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon where they discussed "his Build Back Better Plan, the importance of his bipartisan friendship with the late Sen. Bob Dole, rejecting extremism and getting Americans vaccinated against COVID-19."
In June 2022, Biden appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! where he discussed "27 school shootings in America in 2022, why he believes nothing has been done so far about gun violence, an overwhelming amount of Americans supporting background checks, meeting with families after the tragic events in Uvalde, Texas, the idea of passing an Executive Order, the strides made in regard to Climate Change, Joe Manchin & Kyrsten Sinema's voting record, housing, food and gas prices being very high and what he intends to do about inflation, the negative impact that the pandemic has had on families and the need for mental health care, being optimistic about this generation of young people, changes in the press, his process for flushing documents down the toilets, what his intentions are if Roe v Wade does in fact get overturned, and his hopes for America."
In July 2022, comedian and host of The Late Late Show, James Corden, visited the White House and spoke with Biden, Jen Psaki, and White House custodian staff. He also gave a fake press briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room.
Biden has also been interviewed by Drew Barrymore, Jake Tapper, Jonathan Capehart, Yonit Levi, George Stephanopoulos, David Muir, Scott Pelley, Lester Holt, and Norah O'Donnell, for The Drew Barrymore Show, CNN, MSNBC, Channel 12 in Israel, ABC News, 60 Minutes, NBC, and CBS News, as well as a solo interview by Heather Cox Richardson and Brian Tyler Cohen. Notably, Biden has not sat down with Fox News, despite its popularity in the United States.
News outlets have criticized Biden for only doing a limited amount of interviews during his tenure. Biden participated in 23 interviews in his first 100 days, compared to 95 for Donald Trump, 187 for Barack Obama, 60 for George W. Bush, 64 for Bill Clinton, 70 for George H. W. Bush, and 78 for Ronald Reagan. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._G._Cook | A. G. Cook | Alexander Guy Cook (born 23 August 1990) is an English record producer. He first became known as founder of the influential record label PC Music in 2013; its signees included Hannah Diamond, GFOTY, Danny L Harle and felicita. The label's style of exaggerated pop tropes grew to serve as the foundation of the hyperpop genre, which Cook is credited for developing and popularising. He later became more widely known as executive producer for Charli XCX. He has released solo music under both his name and aliases like DJ Lifeline and DJ Warlord.
Cook formed the one-off project, QT, with musician Sophie and performance artist Hayden Dunham, producing the 2014 single "Hey QT". He released his first solo singles in that same year, and was named number 12 in the Dazed 100 for "redefining style and youth culture in 2015 and beyond". He served as executive producer on Charli XCX's mixtapes Number 1 Angel and Pop 2 (both 2017), and albums Charli (2019), How I'm Feeling Now (2020), and Brat (2024).
Cook's first two albums, 7G and Apple (both 2020), both explored hyperpop and were met with critical praise. That same year, he won the Variety Hitmakers Innovator of The Year Award in 2020. In 2022, he co-produced the song "All Up in Your Mind" from Beyoncé's album Renaissance, which earned him a Grammy nomination for the Album of the Year, and he released his third album, Britpop, in 2024. He continued to produce for XCX with Brat (2024) and its remix album, winning the Grammy Award for Best Dance/Electronic Album for the former. He made his scoring debut in 2026 with the film The Moment.
== Early life ==
Alexander Guy Cook is the son of English architect Sir Peter Cook and Israeli architect Yael Reisner.
Cook was privately educated; he attended the King Alfred School in Hampstead, where he met future collaborator Danny L Harle.
He then attended Goldsmiths, University of London, where he studied music, and reconnected with Harle. The two bonded over their shared musical tastes for artists including Captain Beefheart and Archie Shepp, as well as interest in comedy duo Tim & Eric. This grew into a musical project called Dux Content.
== Career ==
=== 2011–2013: Career beginnings ===
Since they did not have a vocalist, Dux Content focused on musical experiments like compound metres and changes in tempo. One of their earlier works was a collection of compositions for the Disklavier, released with Spencer Noble and Tim Phillips under the name "Dux Consort". The pair released their songs with renderings of digital avatars for promotional artwork.
Cook created Gamsonite, a "pseudo-label" collecting his early collaborations. Dux Content released its songs with renderings of digital avatars for promotional artwork. They contributed to the score for Alicia Norman's animated film Heart of Death and began considering a children's television show titled Dux Content's Jungle Jam. Cook and Harle explored how to build rhythms out of a vocalist's natural singing tempo and released the results as "Dux Kidz". The project was noticed by producer Sophie, who later worked with PC Music's acts. Cook began working on building flashy websites with Hannah Diamond and decided to focus on using websites to promote music.
=== 2013–2016: Foundation of PC Music ===
In August 2013, Cook founded PC Music as a way of embracing an A&R role, with the aim of "recording people who don't normally make music and treating them as if they're a major label artist." In January 2014, Cook released "Keri Baby" as his first solo single, with vocals by Diamond. The track uses pop clichés and glitchy vocals to depict Diamond as a digital entity on a screen. His follow-up single "Beautiful" was released in June. "Beautiful" is a pastiche of Eurodance, featuring high, pitch-shifted vocals and donk sounds. Fact magazine called it PC Music's "de-facto anthem", and the song received a remix from Scottish producer Rustie.
Cook worked with Sophie to produce a song for QT, a pop singer portrayed by American performance artist Hayden Dunham. She found Cook through his work online and wanted to use a song to market a QT energy drink. Their resulting collaboration "Hey QT" was released in August 2014 on XL Recordings.
On 22 December 2014, A. G. Cook released "What I Mean" from his "Personal Computer Music" mix as a single. The single was made available as a free download via radio presenter Annie Mac's "Free Music Monday" SoundCloud channel. Opening with muffled dialogue, the song incorporates robotic vocals and a sample of R&B artist Chuckii Booker. Its organ-based arrangement was a more soulful take on Cook's usual style of dance-pop. After discussing a collaboration on a Charli XCX album, Cook contributed an official remix of her single "Doing It" featuring Rita Ora.
Cook's work received recognition on year-end lists for 2014. "Keri Baby" was listed at number 5 of Dummy magazine's "20 Best Tracks of 2014", and BuzzFeed's "13 Obscure Tracks of 2014", number 1 on Gorilla vs. Bear's, "Favourite Tracks of 2014", number 2 on Dazed & Confused's "Top 20 Tracks of 2014". Pitchfork ranked "Beautiful" number 30 on its list of "The 100 Best Tracks of 2014".
March 2015 saw Cook's PC Music head to the US to showcase all 11 of his label's talent at the Empire Garage in Austin, Texas as part of SXSW. The showcase received positive reviews, with The Guardian stating that his "entire thundering set [shows] this is a label refusing to be confined by definitions of genre or good taste." On 8 May 2015, Cook performed as part of a PC Music show at BRIC House in Brooklyn, New York as part of the Red Bull Music Academy Festival. The show was billed as the premiere of Pop Cube, "a multimedia reality network".
In January 2016, Chinese singer Li Yuchun, also known as Chris Lee, released a single consisting of songs "Real Love" and "Only You", both of which were produced by Cook. That April, experimental music producer Oneohtrix Point Never posted a cryptic video to his Instagram that appeared to show Cook working on a remix of "Sticky Drama", a single from his 2015 album Garden of Delete. The remix was later surprise-released on 16 December. Also in April, Cook made a cameo in Charli XCX's music video for "Vroom Vroom". "Superstar", Cook's fifth single, was released via PC Music on 13 July. On the day of its release, Cook revealed via Twitter that "Superstar" had been in the works for over two years prior, originally beginning as a "topline pitch" for electro house DJ Zedd.
=== 2017–2020: Charli XCX, Jónsi, 7G and Apple ===
In March 2017, Charli XCX's mixtape Number 1 Angel was released, prominently featuring production by Cook and others, including PC Music artists and affiliates Sophie, Danny L Harle, Life Sim and Finn Keane, who created the project EasyFX with Cook. This was followed by the mixtape Pop 2, also featuring production by Cook and others. Pitchfork Media gave Pop 2 a rating of 8.4 out of 10, calling it "a vision of what pop music could be" and "the best full-length work of both Charli and PC Music's respective careers". In July he covered Aphex Twin’s 1999 single "Windowlicker" for his set at Field Day which directly clashed with Aphex Twin's headline show at the festival, spending an "intense 48 hours inside a windowless room" to do so.
Cook released a remix of Phoenix's song "Fior Di Latte" in February 2018. In May, he released a 57-minute mix titled Hollywood Ambient, remixing tracks by artists including Rihanna, Sigur Rós, Charli XCX, and Katy Perry, for Sigur Rós' “Liminal” ambient playlist. It also remixed Grimes' song "Flesh Without Blood"; Cook called it "Flesh Without Musk" in reference to her then partner Elon Musk. Cook produced the Charli XCX single track Focus with Jack & Coke in June. In November, he contributed to Tommy Cash's second studio album ¥€$. He is credited as the producer on 5 tracks on the record, including lead single "X-RAY" which he co-produced with Danny L Harle.
Cook was announced as the co-executive producer for Charli XCX's third studio album Charli, which was released on 13 September 2019. Cook produced six of the album's seven singles, including "Gone", the third single from the album, which features Christine and the Queens. The song was awarded "Best New Track" by Pitchfork and best song of the week by Stereogum. In October, 100 gecs released Cook's remix of their single "Money Machine" to announce their remix album 1000 gecs and the Tree of Clues. The Fader called the remix "a disorienting exercise in maximalism and rapid tonal shifts."
On 6 April 2020, Cook and BJ Burton were announced as co-executive producers for Charli XCX's quarantine album how i'm feeling now, which was written in an open-source style, sharing the production process online and utilizing fan input and content. Cook also produced Jónsi's first solo music in a decade, the song "Exhale", released on 23 April, and followed this by serving as executive producer on Jónsi's album Shiver, released on 2 October.
On 30 July 2020, Cook announced an upcoming studio album 7G, and held a virtual concert over Zoom featuring Caroline Polachek, GRRL and Thy Slaughter titled 7 by 7 on 7 August. Thy Slaughter is a collaboration project between Cook and labelmate Finn Keane. 7G was released through PC Music on 12 August, comprising 49 tracks split over seven discs.
On 20 August 2020, Cook released the single "Oh Yeah" and announced another studio album, Apple. Leading up to its release, Cook hosted another free livestream festival across Zoom, Bandcamp and Twitch entitled 'Appleville', featuring performers including 100 gecs, Alaska Reid, Charli XCX, Clairo, Dorian Electra, Hannah Diamond, Kero Kero Bonito, Namasenda and Oklou. All proceeds from VIP ticket sales were donated to Mermaids and Black Cultural Archives. The album was released through PC Music on 18 September 2020.
After 5 years of collaborating with Charli XCX, in November 2020 the pair was awarded the Variety Hitmakers Innovator of The Year Award. In December 2020, Cook took part in LuckyMe Records' 12 Alternative Futures Advent Calendar Project. Cook's remix of Baauer's song "Planet's Mad" was released on 10 December.
=== 2021–2022: Hikaru Utada, Apple vs. 7G, Lady Gaga and Beyoncé ===
Cook collaborated with Japanese American singer-songwriter Hikaru Utada in March 2021, co-producing the song "One Last Kiss", the theme song for the Japanese animated science fiction film Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time. On 9 March, he released a cover of The Smashing Pumpkins' song "Today", announcing his SoundCloud-exclusive album Dream Logic, featuring reworks of 7G and Apple tracks as well as collaborations with and remixes of Charli XCX, Oneohtrix Point Never, The 1975, Jónsi, No Rome, Oklou, Alex Somers, and Alaska Reid. This was released on 12 March. In April, Cook penned a tribute to Sophie who had died earlier that year.
Cook later announced that further remixes from his would be included on a 21-track joint remix album titled Apple vs. 7G. The album was released on 28 May and features remixes from Keane and Hannah Diamond as well as Polachek, Charli XCX and No Rome. Cook released the remixed version of No Rome's "Spinning", featuring Charli XCX and the 1975, in May 2021. In June, Cook hosted and curated his first show in a 4 part residency on BBC Radio 6 music as part of the 'Lose Yourself with...' series. He contributed to Lady Gaga's Dawn of Chromatica remix album, released in September 2021, providing a remix for the track "911" alongside Charli XCX. That October, Cook partnered with Apple Inc. to release "Start Up", a song that incorporates sounds from Apple products from the past 45 years. It was used as the intro music for an Apple media event that month.
Cook co-produced another song with Utada in 2022, called "Kimi ni Muchū", and remixed Utada's song "Face My Fears" for her album Bad Mode. In 2022, he co-wrote and co-produced the song "All Up in Your Mind" with Beyoncé, which was included on her seventh studio album Renaissance. It earned his first Grammy Award nomination for Album of the Year.
=== 2023–present: Closure of PC Music, Thy Slaughter, Britpop and Brat ===
Cook lent additional production to "Lick the light out", featuring Madonna, on Christine and the Queens' Paranoïa, Angels, True Love. Cook also produced the majority of Alaska Reid's album Disenchanter, which released in July 2023. He worked again with Utada, in a new song called "Gold -Mata Au Hi Made- (Gold – Till the day we see each other again)", the theme song of the movie KINGDOM: The Flame of Destiny, released July 28. Cook also contributed to the score of 2023 film Bottoms, and produced "How to Stay With You" from Troye Sivan's Something to Give Each Other album.
In July 2023, Cook announced that PC Music would cease to release any further new material after the end of 2023. In August, the label released the album Another Pobbles Christmas under the name Pobbles, a project which largely involved Cook with visual art by George Michael Brower. Some of the label's final releases include Felicita's Spalarkle, Hannah Diamond's Perfect Picture, and Thy Slaughter's debut album Soft Rock which included features from Charli XCX, Alaska Reid, Caroline Polachek, and Ellie Rowsell.
On January 1, 2024, Cook released the single "Silver Thread Golden Needle", his first release following the dissolution of PC Music. He announced his next album Britpop on 23 February with the release of its title track featuring vocals by Charli XCX. He released the Britpop single "Soulbreaker" on 17 April. Britpop was released on 10 May 2024 under Cook's newly set up record label New Alias, consisting of 24 songs which were split into three discs representing the past, present and future respectively.
Cook was a significant producer on the Charli XCX album Brat, working on singles "Von Dutch", "Club Classics", and "B2B". He further produced "Hello Goodbye" and "Spring Breakers" on the deluxe version, Brat and It’s the Same but There’s Three More Songs So It’s Not, sampling Britney Spears' "Everytime" in the production of the latter. Charli XCX followed the album with several remixes, including a remix of "Von Dutch" by Cook which featured Addison Rae. This remix was praised by The Line of Best Fit, which called Cook's production "idiosyncratic". His "Von Dutch" remix was then nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Remixed Recording, while his production credits on Brat earned him his first Grammy Award win for Best Dance/Electronic Album.
In May 2024, Utada released a re-recorded version of "Simple and Clean" with Cook credited as a producer. He co-produced Kesha's "Joyride" for her album Period, and was also a co-producer on F5ve's Sequence 01 single "UFO" and "Magic Clock" which released on October 17, 2024 and March 5, 2025. He additionally co-produced F5ve's song, Snowman, part of Sequence 01.5 (Dreaming of the 2nd 1st Impact - Consequences of Fate Redux)
== Artistry ==
Cook's style of music amplifies the clichés of mainstream pop music from the 1990s and 2000s. He follows the work of "mega-producers" such as Max Martin and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Cook references Scritti Politti's album Cupid & Psyche 85 for its "conscious decision to take pop music and make it as shiny and detailed as possible". He cites Korean and Japanese pop music as influences, as well as gyaru subculture.
Cook begins constructing tracks by constructing chords and melodies note by note. He prefers the sounds of virtual instruments and avoids sound design early in the process, giving his music a deadpan simplicity. He experiments with combining dissonant sounds, and the resulting dense, multi-layered arrangements are influenced by the Black MIDI techniques. Cook's arrangements are inspired by the mechanized music of composer Conlon Nancarrow. When collaborating with other artists, he prepares an extensive demo so that they can complete lyrics and record vocals straight away. Cook thoroughly processes the vocals, chopping them to use as a rhythmic element atop the melody.
In contrast to most of the artists on PC Music, Cook wears plain clothing. GFOTY jokingly characterised his style as normcore.
== PC Music ==
PC Music is a record label founded by A. G. Cook in 2013. Its first song was made available on SoundCloud the same year. PC Music is known for its surreal or exaggerated take on pop music, often featuring pitch-shifted, feminine vocals and bright, synthetic textures. Artists on its roster include Hannah Diamond, Finn Keane, Namasenda and Danny L Harle. The label has been characterized as embracing the aesthetics of advertising, consumerism and corporate branding. Its artists often present devised personas inspired by cyberculture. The label has inspired both praise and criticism from journalists and has been called "polarizing". In 2019 it was described by Dazed as one of the 'most exhilarating record labels of the 2010s.' In more recent years it has been noted for its influence on mainstream pop due to the production work by PC Music signees for artists such as Kim Petras, Charli XCX and Jónsi.
== Personal life ==
Cook moved to Los Angeles in 2019. He is in a relationship with fellow musician and collaborator Alaska Reid.
== Discography ==
7G (2020)
Apple (2020)
Britpop (2024)
== Filmography ==
=== Film ===
=== Music videos ===
== Awards and nominations == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carola_H%C3%A4ggkvist | Carola Häggkvist | Carola Maria Häggkvist (Swedish: [kaˈrôːla ˈhɛ̂ɡːkvɪst] ; born 8 September 1966), best known mononymously as Carola, is a Swedish singer. She has been among Sweden's most popular performers since the early 1980s and has released albums ranging from pop and disco to hymns and folk music. Her debut album, Främling (1983), sold around one million copies and remains the biggest-selling album in Swedish music history. During her career, she has recorded many top-selling albums and singles and is referred to as Sweden's most prominent female singer. Some of her biggest hits are "Främling", "Tommy tycker om mig", "Fångad av en stormvind", "All the Reasons to Live", "I Believe in Love", "Genom allt", and "Evighet". Besides Swedish, she has also released records in Dutch, German, English, Norwegian and Japanese.
Häggkvist has represented Sweden at the Eurovision Song Contest on three occasions: in 1983, finishing third; in 1991, winning the contest; and in 2006, finishing fifth.
== Early life ==
Carola Maria Häggkvist was born on 8 September 1966 at Södersjukhuset in Stockholm. She grew up in Norsborg, south of the Swedish capital. At the age of eight, she began to perform at Stockholm's Miniteatern; she also attended Adolf Fredrik's Music School. In 1977, Häggkvist won a talent competition and appeared on television for the first time, on Sveriges magasin, performing "Krokodilbarnets klagan".
== Career ==
=== 1981–1989: Early career and Främling ===
In 1981, Swedish music promoter Bert Karlsson met then 15-year-old Häggkvist after she performed on the television series Hylands hörna and offered her the chance to take part in Melodifestivalen, the Swedish selection for the Eurovision Song Contest in 1982. She turned down the offer. Songwriter Lasse Holm offered Häggkvist two of his songs for Melodifestivalen 1983, "Mona Lisa" and "Främling". "Främling" was chosen, and with it Häggkvist won the right to represent Sweden at that year's Eurovision Song Contest in Munich. The song scored eight points, the highest possible mark, from all eleven regional juries. Häggkvist represented Sweden at the Eurovision Song Contest on 23 April. She finished third in front of 6.1 million Swedish television viewers, 84% of the country's population. This is still a record in Sweden.
"Främling" became the title track to Häggkvist's debut album, which sold over one million copies, making it the biggest-selling album in Swedish history. After Eurovision, Häggkvist embarked on a tour of European television programmes, promoting "Främling" and performing in it several languages: in English as "Love Isn't Love", in German as "Fremder", and in Dutch as "Je ogen hebben geen geheimen". The album contained hits like "Mickey", "Liv", "Gloria" and "Tokyo". In December 1983, she released her first Christmas album, Julefrid med Carola, which sold 200,000 copies. In 1984, Häggkvist released two top-selling pop/rock albums that together sold over 1 million copies. "Tommy tycker om mig" became a huge hit in Sweden, together with "Hunger". She later travelled to Japan and recorded a single in Japanese. In 1985, the Bee Gees collaborated with her on the album Runaway, which was written by the Gibb brothers and produced by Maurice Gibb. The record sold double platinum when released in Sweden the following year. "The Runaway", "Brand New Heart", "Spread your wings" and "Radiate" became massive hits in Scandinavia. In 1987, Häggkvist embarked on a church tour with pianist Per-Erik Hallin. After this followed a career hiatus for the singer.
=== 1990–1991: New image, independence, and Eurovision victory ===
In 1990, she returned to Melodifestivalen, with "Mitt i ett äventyr" ("In the middle of an adventure"). The song finished second in the festival, failing to earn Häggkvist the right to represent Sweden at Eurovision. Edin-Ådahl won the event. Her comeback album, titled Much More, was released, earning a gold certificate in Sweden. However, Häggkvist and songwriter Stephan Berg had already begun planning another attempt at Eurovision.
In 1991, she returned to Melodifestivalen with "Fångad av en stormvind" ("Captured by a lovestorm"). The song won the festival by thirty-two points and became the Swedish entry for the Eurovision Song Contest in Rome. British bookmakers considered Häggkvist second favourite to win the contest. On the night of the contest, with one voting jury left to announce their scores, three countries remained in contention to win the contest: Sweden, with 146 points; Israel, with 139; and France, with 134. Neither Israel nor Sweden won any points from the Italian jury, but France won twelve, leaving Sweden and France tied for first place with 146 at the conclusion of the voting. Sweden won the contest after a countback, having received five ten-point scores during the voting versus France's two. "Fångad av en stormvind" became a huge hit in Europe, and was followed by a compilation album, Hits, and a Christmas album, Jul. After her victory, she released an international version of "Much More" and went on an extended promotional tour throughout Europe. Her album produced several hits, among them "I'll live" and "All the Reasons to Live".
=== 1992–2004: Albums, tours, and musicals ===
Häggkvist was the first Scandinavian pop artist to perform in China—in front of an estimated 600 million television viewers; she also released an album in China in 1992. In 1992 and 1993, Rival International, released Carola's earlier albums on CD. She was originally signed to Mariann Records in Scandinavia.
In 1993, ten years after her breakthrough representing Sweden at the 1983 Eurovision Song Contest, she recorded a gospel album, My Tribute, which was released in sixteen countries, making her gospel artist of the year in the Netherlands in 1994. The album contains the hit-single "My Tribute", one of Häggkvist's best-known songs. In 1994, Häggkvist released a rock-themed album, '"Personligt" (Personally), marking her debut as a songwriter and selling gold. "Så länge jag lever", "Sanna Vänner" and "Guld i dina ögon" became hits and received a great amount of radio airplay.
In 1995, Häggkvist made her debut as a musical actress, playing Maria in The Sound of Music opposite Tommy Körberg as the male lead. She played the role in 325 performances and won the prestigious Guldmasken (Golden Mask) award. Three years later, she sang the theme song in the Norwegian musical Sophie's World, which was released on the album Songs from Sophie's World. Also in 1998, Häggkvist played the voice of Mirjam in the Swedish version of The Prince of Egypt. In 2002, she made a short appearance as Fantine in Les Misérables in London and five Scandinavian cities.
In November 1997, Häggkvist released another compilation album, De bästa av Carola ("The Best of Carola"), and with it several new singles like "Dreamer". Following this came an album of tracks penned by Lina Sandell, Blott en dag ("Just One Day"). The album received excellent reviews and revealed Carola's passion for hymns. In 1999, another Christmas album was released: Jul i Betlehem ("Christmas in Bethlehem"). The album sold 600,000 units throughout Scandinavia, including 350,000 in Sweden. and became the biggest-selling album of 1999. She also co-wrote the ballad "Himlen i min famn", which remains a popular Christmas song that is often performed at Christmas concerts. In the summer of 1999, she toured in the Rhapsody in Rock.
In 2001, she released Sov på min arm, an album based on Christian hymns, gospel melodies and intimate ballads. It became one of the most-sold albums in Scandinavia that year. In 2002, she release the pop/country album My Show, which received great reviews. The album, which marked Häggkvist's return to the pop scene, contained several hits such as "The Light", "I believe in love", which also topped the Estonian and Brazilian charts, and "A Kiss Goodbye". Even though the album only peaked at number 6 on the Swedish album chart, it sold 100,000 copies by the end of the year. In the summer, Häggkvist embarked on a huge and luxurious Scandinavian tour.
In 2003, Häggkvist submitted a song, "Autumn Leaf", for Melodifestivalen 2003. Having performed the demo, she was required to perform the song when it qualified for the competition. Häggkvist decided against doing that, and the song was disqualified from the competition. "Autumn Leaf" appeared on Häggkvist's next album, Guld, platina & passion, in Swedish as "När löven faller" (When the leaves fall). The ballad became an enormous hit. Guld, platina & passion reached number 1 on the Swedish charts and sold over 300,000 copies. She also recorded her favorite Elvis Presley songs, "Walk a mile in my shoes" and "If I can dream". The following year, Häggkvist released a religious album, Credo, which she described as "an expression of my love for God". The album peaked at spot 2 on the Swedish album chart. This was followed by Störst av allt, which Dan Backman of Svenska Dagbladet wrote featured "spiritually aimed music…revolving around belonging, love, death and eternity". Genom Allt became a huge radio hit in Sweden and the soul ballad "Allt kommer bli bra mamma", a dedication to her deceased mother, became popular at religious events.
=== 2005–present: Return to Eurovision ===
Having performed as part of the interval act at Melodifestivalen 2005, Häggkvist confirmed that she would return to the competition in 2006. She performed "Evighet" ("Eternity"), written by Bobby Ljunggren, Henrik Wikström and Thomas G:son, which she described as a "true winning song". The song qualified from the fourth semi-final in Gothenburg on 11 March 2006, and was widely tipped to win the festival outright as the final at the Stockholm Globe Arena approached. Despite finishing second with the regional juries to Andreas Johnson, "Evighet" won the competition with 232 points. Prior to the contest, Carola visited 12 countries where she promoted her song. "Invincible" received a large amount of air play on the radios in these countries. The song qualified from the semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Athens, in English as "Invincible". Häggkvist in the end finished fifth out of twenty-four with 170 points. This placing also made her the third-most successful artist in the history of Eurovision, counting by total points earned in her performances, with her three songs scoring a total of 442 points, behind only Dima Bilan, the 2006 runner-up and 2008 winner; and Loreen, winner of 2012 and 2023.
Following Melodifestivalen, Häggkvist released a pop album, Från nu till evighet ("From Now to Eternity"). Lennart Wrigholm reviewed the album for Musiklandet; he criticised the amount of new material on the album: "Has this old lady really got such a workload that she cannot put more than ten new tracks on her album?" and wrote that the inclusion of the English version of "Evighet" as a bonus track was "an insult to the potential buyer". On the other hand, Expressen's Anders Nunstedt wrote that on "Jag ger allt" ("I Give It All") "the title does not lie" and that "Vem kan älska mig" ("Who Can Love Me") features a "brilliant refrain". The album topped the Swedish sales chart, and sold approximately 100,000 copies by the end of the year. Stanna eller gå, a Latin-inspired pop song, became a radio hit during the summer. Following the album's release, Häggkvist toured Sweden and received outstanding reviews. During the autumn, Häggkvist had problems with her voice but nonetheless sang "Because We Believe", a song written by Andrea Bocelli, with the Italian tenor.
In late 2007, Häggkvist released another Christmas album, I denna natt blir världen ny ("There is a New World This Night"), a sequel to Jul i Betlehem. The album featured songs in Swedish and English, and was recorded in Jerusalem in June 2007. Stefan Malmqvist of Svenska Dagbladet wrote that, as in previous Christmas albums, Häggkvist is "a saccharine version of herself" when singing Christmas carols. The album was reported to have sold 90,000 copies. Included on the album was the gospel song Go and Tell It on the Mountain. After the release she toured Scandinavia.
Carola entered Melodifestivalen 2008 as part of the duo Johnson & Häggkvist with Andreas Johnson. Their first single was called "Lucky Star" which became popular on the radio. In the melodifestival in February, they sang "One Love", written by Carola, Johnson and Peter Kvint. They were the early favourites to win the whole show, taking part in the second qualifier. They qualified for the Second Chance round, missing out on an automatic final spot. Though widely tipped to qualify for the final after all, they did not even proceed from the first voting round in the Second Chance programme. Although One Love did not become an enormous success, the song Lucky Star which they released a few months prior to the contest did sell well, and topped the Swedish charts for weeks. Carola decided to take it easy the rest of the year, but did embark on a small Christmas tour at the end of the year. In 2009, Carola was reportedly working on her upcoming album, and other projects. She went to the United States to record some new material. She departed from her recording company and signed a contract with X5 Music Group, in which she aims to transfer her music abroad through the internet. In June, she hosted Carola Camp, a camp designed to help talented young singers and entertainers. In May, she performed at the Eurovision Song Contest held in Moscow at the kick-off ceremony, performing her 3 Eurovision songs. In July, she performed, together with the Eurovision winner Alexander Rybak in Norway and sang "Fairytale" and "Främling" and The Jackson 5's "I'll Be There".
At the end of 2009, she released the album Christmas in Bethlehem, which contained duets with artists like Paul Potts. She embarked on yet another Christmas tour, visiting Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. She also launched her new website.
Carola attended in the final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 in Malmö and performed in a humorous interval act about Swedish culture.
In the summer of 2010, Carola embarked on tour across Sweden, singing the hits of both Elvis Presley and Barbra Streisand. The influence came from Carola's childhood, where her father and her mother would play records by both their favourite artists. The tour was an instant success, selling out and becoming one of the few tours to sell out that year. She took time out from the tour to appear on Allsång på Skansen, and in March 2011 she released a studio album, containing twelve songs.
In 2014 Häggkvist participated in Så mycket bättre on TV4.
Carola attended the final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 in Stockholm and was briefly interviewed on screen along with another previous Swedish winner Loreen.
In late-October 2016, she released her new Christmas album titled Drömmen om julen. The release was followed by a tour.
In April 2021, it was announced that Carola would be the spokesperson for Sweden at the Eurovision Song Contest 2021, reading out the Swedish jury points at the Grand Final. She performed "Waterloo" with Charlotte Perrelli and Conchita Wurst as an interval act for the final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2024.
== Personal life and media attention ==
Her status as one of the most popular national celebrities of her country made her constantly followed by the tabloid press. She has often talked about her Christian faith and much of the focus has been around her membership in the controversial evangelical church Livets Ord (Word of Life).
She was married to Runar Søgaard, a Norwegian Christian preacher, with whom she has a son, Amadeus. The couple divorced in 2000, after ten years of marriage. In 2012, she adopted a daughter, Zoe, from South Africa, whose parents had both died in 2004.
In 2015 she assisted a man with transporting eight refugees on the Greek island of Kos. She prevented thieves from stealing the refugees' boat engine, but caused a high-speed car chase. At a police station, the motor thieves accused her of illegally transporting refugees. She was arrested, but released a few hours later with no charges.
=== Controversy regarding opinions on homosexuality ===
In an interview in 2002 for the Swedish gay magazine QX, she alienated many gay and some heterosexual fans by alleging that she knew homosexual people who had become heterosexual through prayers. She also said that homosexuality would always remain "unnatural" to her.
Four years later, in March 2006, her comment was brought up when she participated in the Swedish national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest. During a press conference a journalist tried to ask her about her opinions on homosexuality, but she did not answer. On 15 March 2006, Rickard Engfors, who was Carola's singing partner during the Melodifestivalen and Eurovision Song Contest 2006, said "Carola doesn't hate gays. If she did, I wouldn't work for her. She is a fantastic person." During an exclusive interview for one of the Eurovision-related websites before the 2006 contest, Carola was also questioned about this, and she stated that she "would love for every gay person to feel that she loves them" and that she does not think that "being gay is a sickness." She went on to criticize the tabloids for misinterpreting her original words and making an issue out of it. Later in the interview, she also commented on one of her supporting dancers being gay and his boyfriend being "great".
In 2008, she spoke to the newspaper Aftonbladet and again revisited her opinions about homosexuality, which she insisted have evolved over the past two decades and are very inclusive. She said, "I actually invited gays from QX to my 25-year anniversary [concert], but QX turned it down. What can I do? I love all people. I love the gays. So I am definitely not homophobic in any way. We are here for the music and I have no wacky opinions. And I feel love from many homosexuals too."
In 2014, while participating on the TV show Så mycket bättre, she revealed that she had a romance with a woman in the 1980s. She said "I remember when I hung out with a girl actually in the '80s. We were definitely not a couple, but I tested. It was a bit hard because I felt an extreme attraction and a force in that, but I chose not to go further." On the 2019 series of Så mycket bättre, she was asked about possibly having a relationship with a woman in the future, and she said that it is a possibility.
== Discography ==
== Dubbing ==
== Awards ==
Häggkvist was awarded the Illis quorum medal by the Government of Sweden on 13 July 2023. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queensland | Queensland | Queensland (locally KWEENZ-land, commonly abbreviated as QLD) is a state in northeastern Australia, the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south, respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and the Pacific Ocean; to the state's north is the Torres Strait, separating the Australian mainland from Papua New Guinea, and the Gulf of Carpentaria to the north-west. With an area of 1,723,030 square kilometres (665,270 sq mi), Queensland is the world's sixth-largest subdivision of any country on earth; it is larger than all but 16 countries. Due to its size, Queensland's geographical features and climates are diverse, and include tropical rainforests, rivers, coral reefs, mountain ranges and white sandy beaches in its tropical and sub-tropical coastal regions, as well as deserts and savanna in the semi-arid and desert climatic regions of its interior.
Queensland has a population of over 5.5 million, concentrated in South East Queensland, where nearly three in four reside. The capital and largest city in the state is Brisbane, Australia's third-largest city and comprising fully half of the state's population. Ten of Australia's thirty largest cities are located in Queensland, the largest outside Brisbane being the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Townsville, Cairns, Ipswich, and Toowoomba. 24.2% of the state's population were born overseas. The state has the highest inter-state net migration in Australia.
Queensland was first inhabited by Aboriginal Australians, with the Torres Strait Islands inhabited by Torres Strait Islanders. Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon, the first European to land in Australia, explored the west coast of the Cape York Peninsula in 1606. In 1770, James Cook claimed the east coast of Australia for the Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1788, Arthur Phillip founded the colony of New South Wales, which included all of what is now Queensland. Queensland was explored in subsequent decades, and the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement was established at Brisbane in 1824 by John Oxley. During the Australian frontier wars of the 19th century, colonists killed tens of thousands of Aboriginal people in Queensland while consolidating their control over the territory.
On 6 June 1859 (now commemorated as Queensland Day), Queen Victoria signed the letters patent to establish the colony of Queensland, separating it from New South Wales and thereby establishing Queensland as a self-governing Crown colony with responsible government. A large part of colonial Queensland's economy relied on blackbirded South Sea Islander slavery.
Queensland was among the six colonies which became the founding states of Australia with Federation on 1 January 1901. Since the Bjelke-Petersen era of the late 20th century, Queensland has received a high level of internal migration from the other states and territories of Australia and remains a popular destination for interstate migration.
Queensland has the third-largest economy among Australian states, with strengths in mining, agriculture, transportation, international education, insurance, and banking. Nicknamed the Sunshine State for its tropical and sub-tropical climates, Great Barrier Reef, and numerous beaches, tourism is also important to the state's economy.
== History ==
=== Pre-European contact ===
Queensland was one of the largest regions of pre-colonial Aboriginal population in Australia. The Aboriginal ownership of Queensland is thought to predate 50,000 BC, and early migrants are believed to have arrived via boat or land bridge across Torres Strait. Through time, their descendants developed into more than 90 different language and cultural groups.
During the last ice age, Queensland's landscape became more arid and largely desolate, making food and other supplies scarce. The people developed the world's first seed-grinding technology. The end of the glacial period brought about a warming climate, making the land more hospitable. It brought high rainfall along the eastern coast, stimulating the growth of the state's tropical rainforests.
The Torres Strait Islands is home to the Torres Strait Islander peoples. Torres Strait Islanders are ethnically and culturally distinct from mainland Aboriginal peoples. They have a long history of interaction with both Aboriginal peoples of what is now Australia and the peoples of New Guinea.
=== European colonisation ===
In February 1606, Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon landed near the site of what is now Weipa, on the western shore of Cape York. This was the first recorded landing of a European in Australia, and it also marked the first reported contact between Europeans and the Aboriginal people of Australia. The region was also explored by French and Spanish explorers (commanded by Louis Antoine de Bougainville and Luís Vaez de Torres, respectively) before the arrival of Lieutenant James Cook in 1770. Cook claimed the east coast under instruction from King George III of the Kingdom of Great Britain on 22 August 1770 at Possession Island, naming eastern Australia, including Queensland, New South Wales.
The Aboriginal population declined significantly after a smallpox epidemic during the late 18th century and massacres by the European settlers.
In 1823, John Oxley, a British explorer, sailed north from what is now Sydney to scout possible penal colony sites in Gladstone (then Port Curtis) and Moreton Bay. At Moreton Bay, he found the Brisbane River. He returned in 1824 and established a penal settlement at what is now Redcliffe. The settlement, initially known as Edenglassie, was then transferred to the current location of the Brisbane city centre. Edmund Lockyer discovered outcrops of coal along the banks of the upper Brisbane River in 1825. In 1839 transportation of convicts was ceased, culminating in the closure of the Brisbane penal settlement. In 1842 free settlement, which had already commenced, was officially permitted. In 1847, the Port of Maryborough was opened as a wool port. While most early immigrants came from New South Wales, the first free immigrant ship to arrive in Moreton Bay from Europe was the Artemisia, in 1848.
Earlier than this immigrant ship was the arrival of the Irish famine orphan girls to Queensland. Devised by the then British Secretary of State for the Colonies, The Earl Grey Scheme established a special emigration scheme which was designed to resettle destitute girls from the workhouses of Ireland during the Great Famine. The first ship, the "Earl Grey", departed Ireland for a 124-day sail to Sydney. After controversy developed upon their arrival in Australia, a small group of 37 young orphans, sometimes referred to as The Belfast Girls or the Feisty Colleens, never set foot on Sydney soil, and instead sailed up to Brisbane (then Moreton Bay) on 21 October 1848 on board the Ann Mary. This scheme continued until 1852.
In 1857, Queensland's first lighthouse was built at Cape Moreton.
=== Frontier wars and massacres ===
The frontier wars fought between European settlers and Aboriginal tribes in Queensland were the bloodiest and most brutal in colonial Australia. Many of these conflicts are now seen as acts of genocide.
The wars featured the most frequent massacres of First Nations people, the three deadliest massacres on white settlers, the most disreputable frontier police force, and the highest number of white victims to frontier violence on record in any Australian colony. Across at least 644 collisions at least 66,680 were killed — with Aboriginal fatalities alone comprising no less than 65,180. Of these deaths, around 24,000 Aboriginal men, women and children were killed by the Native Police between 1859 and 1897.
The military force of the Queensland Government in this war was the Native Police, who operated from 1849 to the 1920s. The Native Police was a body of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander troopers that operated under the command of white officers. The Native Police were often recruited forcefully from far-away communities.
Conflict spread quickly with free settlement in 1838, with settlement rapidly expanding in a great rush to take up the surrounding land in the Darling Downs, Logan and Brisbane Valley and South Burnett onwards from 1840, in many cases leading to widespread fighting and heavy loss of life. The conflict later spread north to the Wide Bay and Burnett River and Hervey Bay region, and at one stage the settlement of Maryborough was virtually under siege.
The largest reasonably well-documented massacres in southeast Queensland were the Kilcoy and Whiteside poisonings, each of which was said to have taken up to 70 Aboriginal lives by use of a gift of flour laced with strychnine. At the Battle of One Tree Hill in September 1843, Multuggerah and his group of warriors ambushed one group of settlers, routing them and subsequently others in the skirmishes which followed, starting in retaliation for the Kilcoy poisoning.
Central Queensland was particularly hard hit during the 1860s and 1870s, several contemporary writers mention the Skull Hole, Bladensburg, or Mistake Creek massacre on Bladensburg Station near Winton, which in 1901 was said to have taken up to 200 Aboriginal lives. First Nations warriors killed 19 settlers during the Cullin-La-Ringo massacre on 17 October 1861. In the weeks afterwards, police, native police and civilians killed up to 370 members of the Gayiri Aboriginal people in response.
Frontier violence peaked on the northern mining frontier during the 1870s, most notably in Cook district and on the Palmer and Hodgkinson River goldfields, with heavy loss of Aboriginal lives and several well-known massacres. Raids conducted by the Kalkadoon held settlers out of Western Queensland for ten years until September 1884 when they attacked a force of settlers and native police at Battle Mountain near modern Cloncurry. The subsequent battle of Battle Mountain ended in disaster for the Kalkadoon, who suffered heavy losses. Fighting continued in North Queensland, however, with First Nations raiders attacking sheep and cattle while Native Police mounted heavy retaliatory massacres.
=== Blackbirding ===
Tens of thousands of South Sea Islanders were forced, deceived or coerced into indentured servitude and slavery on Australia's agricultural plantations, despite slavery being outlawed in Australia and other parts of the British Empire by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. This process was known as blackbirding. This trade in what were then known as Kanakas was in operation from 1863 to 1908, a period of 45 years. Some 55,000 to 62,500 were brought to Australia, most being recruited or blackbirded from islands in Melanesia, such as the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), the Solomon Islands and the islands around New Guinea.
The majority of those taken were male and around one quarter were under the age of sixteen. In total, approximately 15,000 South Sea Islanders (30%) died while labouring in Queensland – excluding those who died in transit or were killed in the recruitment process – mostly during three-year contracts. This is similar to the estimated 33% death rate among enslaved Africans in the first three years of arriving in America, Brazil, and the Caribbean; the conditions were often comparable to those of the Atlantic slave trade.
The trade was legally sanctioned and regulated under Queensland law, and prominent men such as Robert Towns made massive fortunes through blackbirding, helping to establish some of the major cities in Queensland today. Towns' agent claimed that blackbirded labourers were "savages who did not know the use of money" and therefore did not deserve cash wages.
Following Federation in 1901, the White Australia policy came into effect, which saw most foreign workers in Australia deported under the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901, which saw the Pacific Islander population of the state decrease rapidly.
=== Independent governance ===
A public meeting was held in 1851 to consider the proposed separation of Queensland from New South Wales. On 6 June 1859, Queen Victoria signed letters patent to form the separate colony of Queensland as a self-governing Crown colony with responsible government. Brisbane was selected as the capital city. On 10 December 1859, a proclamation was read by George Bowen, the first Governor of Queensland, formally establishing Queensland as a separate colony from New South Wales. On 22 May 1860 the first Queensland election was held and Robert Herbert, Bowen's private secretary, was appointed as the first Premier of Queensland.
In 1865, the first rail line in the state opened between Ipswich and Grandchester. Queensland's economy expanded rapidly in 1867 after James Nash discovered gold on the Mary River near the town of Gympie, sparking a gold rush and saving the Colony of Queensland from near economic collapse. While still significant, they were on a much smaller scale than the gold rushes of Victoria and New South Wales.
Immigration to Australia and Queensland, in particular, began in the 1850s to support the state economy. During the period from the 1860s until the early 20th century, many labourers, known at the time as Kanakas, were brought to Queensland from neighbouring Pacific Island nations to work in the state's sugar cane fields. Some of these people had been kidnapped under a process known as blackbirding or press-ganging, and their employment conditions constituted an allegedly exploitative form of indentured labour. Italian immigrants entered the sugar cane industry from the 1890s.
During the 1890s, the six Australian colonies, including Queensland, held a series of referendums which culminated in the Federation of Australia on 1 January 1901. During this time, Queensland had a population of half a million people. Since then, Queensland has remained a federated state within Australia, and its population has significantly grown.
=== 20th century ===
In 1905 women voted in state elections for the first time. The state's first university, the University of Queensland, was established in Brisbane in 1909. In 1911, the first alternative treatments for polio were pioneered in Queensland and remain in use across the world today.
World War I had a major impact on Queensland. Over 58,000 Queenslanders fought in World War I and over 10,000 of them died.
Australia's first major airline, Qantas (originally standing for "Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services"), was founded in Winton in 1920 to serve outback Queensland.
In 1922 Queensland abolished the Queensland Legislative Council, becoming the only Australian state with a unicameral parliament.
In 1935 cane toads were deliberately introduced to Queensland from Hawaii in an unsuccessful attempt to reduce the number of French's cane and greyback cane beetles that were destroying the roots of sugar cane plants, which are integral to Queensland's economy. The toads have remained an environmental pest since that time. In 1962, the first commercial production of oil in Queensland and Australia began at Moonie.
During World War II Brisbane became central to the Allied campaign when the AMP Building (now called MacArthur Central) was used as the South West Pacific headquarters for General Douglas MacArthur, chief of the Allied Pacific forces, until his headquarters were moved to Hollandia in August 1944. In 1942, during the war, Brisbane was the site of a violent clash between visiting US military personnel and Australian servicemen and civilians, which resulted in one death and hundreds of injuries. This incident became known colloquially as the Battle of Brisbane.
The end of World War II saw a wave of immigration from across Europe, with many more immigrants coming from southern and eastern Europe than in previous decades.
In the later decades of the 20th century, the humid subtropical climate—regulated by the availability of air conditioning—saw Queensland become a popular destination for migrants from interstate. Since that time, Queensland has continuously seen high levels of migration from the other states and territories of Australia.
In 1966, Lyndon B. Johnson became the first U.S. president to visit Queensland. During his visit, he met with Australia prime minister Harold Holt.
The end of the White Australia policy in 1973 saw the beginning of a wave of immigration from around the world, and most prominently from Asia, which continues to the present.
In 1981 the Great Barrier Reef off Queensland's northeast coast, one of the world's largest coral reef systems, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
=== 21st century ===
In 2003 Queensland adopted maroon as the state's official colour. The announcement was made as a result of an informal tradition to use maroon to represent the state in association with sporting events.
After three decades of record population growth, Queensland was impacted by major floods between late 2010 and early 2011, causing extensive damage and disruption across the state.
In 2020, Queensland was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite a low number and abrupt decline in cases from April 2020 onward, social distancing requirements were implemented from March 2020 including the closure of the state borders.
== Geography ==
With a total area of 1,729,742 square kilometres (715,309 square miles), Queensland is an expansive state with a highly diverse range of climates and geographical features. If Queensland were an independent nation, it would be the world's 16th largest in terms of area.
Queensland's eastern coastline borders the Coral Sea, an arm of the Pacific Ocean. The state is bordered by the Torres Strait to the north, with Boigu Island off the coast of New Guinea representing the northern extreme of its territory. The triangular Cape York Peninsula, which points toward New Guinea, is the northernmost part of the state's mainland. West of the peninsula's tip, northern Queensland is bordered by the Gulf of Carpentaria. To the west, Queensland is bordered by the Northern Territory, at the 138th meridian east, and to the southwest by northeastern South Australia. The state's southern border with New South Wales is constituted in the east by the watershed from Point Danger to the Dumaresq River, and the Dumaresq, Macintyre and Barwon rivers. The west of the southern border is defined by the 29th parallel south (including some minor historical encroachments) until it reaches South Australia.
Like much of eastern Australia, the Great Dividing Range runs roughly parallel with, and inland from, the coast, and areas west of the range are more arid than the humid coastal regions. The Great Barrier Reef, which is the world's largest coral reef system, runs parallel to the state's Coral Sea coast between the Torres Strait and K'gari (Fraser Island). Queensland's coastline includes the world's three largest sand islands: K'gari (Fraser Island), Moreton, and North Stradbroke.
The state contains six World Heritage-listed preservation areas: the Great Barrier Reef along the Coral Sea coast, K'gari (Fraser Island) on the Wide Bay–Burnett region's coastline, the wet tropics in Far North Queensland including the Daintree Rainforest, Lamington National Park in South East Queensland, the Riversleigh fossil sites in North West Queensland, and the Gondwana Rainforests in South East Queensland.
The state is divided into several unofficial regions which are commonly used to refer to large areas of the state's vast geography. These include:
South East Queensland in the state's coastal extreme south-eastern corner, an urban region which includes the state's three largest cities: capital city Brisbane and popular coastal tourist destinations the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast. In some definitions, it also includes the city of Toowoomba. South East Queensland accounts for more than 70% of the state's population.
The Darling Downs in the state's inland southeast, which consists of fertile agricultural (particularly cattle grazing) land and in some definitions includes the city of Toowoomba. The region also includes the mountainous Granite Belt, the state's coldest region which occasionally experiences snow.
Wide Bay–Burnett in the state's coastal southeast, to the north of the South East Queensland region. It is rich in sugar cane farms and includes the cities of Bundaberg, Hervey Bay as well as K'gari (Fraser Island), the world's largest sand island.
Central Queensland on the state's central coastline, which is dominated by cattle farmland and coal mining. It contains the Capricorn Coast and Whitsunday Islands tourist regions, as well as the cities of Rockhampton and Mackay.
North Queensland on the state's northern coastline, which is dominated by cattle farmland and mining and which includes the city of Townsville.
Far North Queensland on the state's extreme northern coastline along the Cape York Peninsula, which includes tropical rainforest, the state's highest mountain, Mount Bartle Frere, the Atherton Tablelands pastoral region (dominated by sugar cane and tropical fruits), the most visited section of the Great Barrier Reef, as well as the city of Cairns.
South West Queensland in the state's inland south-west, which is a primarily agricultural region dominated by cattle farmland, and which includes the Channel Country region of intertwining rivulets.
Central West Queensland in the state's inland central-west, dominated by cattle farmland and which includes the city of Longreach.
The Gulf Country (also known as North West Queensland), in the state's inland north-west along the Gulf of Carpentaria, which is dominated by savanna and mining and includes the city of Mount Isa.
=== Climate ===
Because of its size, there is significant variation in climate across the state. There is ample rainfall along the coastline, with a monsoonal wet season in the tropical north, and humid sub-tropical conditions along the southern coastline. Low rainfall and hot humid summers are typical for the inland and west. Elevated areas in the south-eastern inland can experience temperatures well below freezing in mid-winter providing frost and, rarely, snowfall. The climate of the coastal regions is influenced by warm ocean waters, keeping the region free from extremes of temperature and providing moisture for rainfall.
There are six predominant climatic zones in Queensland, based on temperature and humidity:
Hot humid summer, warm humid winter (far north and coastal): Cairns, Innisfail
Hot humid summer, warm dry winter (north and coastal): Townsville, Mackay
Hot humid summer, mild dry winter (coastal elevated areas and coastal south-east): Brisbane, Bundaberg, Rockhampton
Hot dry summer, mild dry winter (central inland and north-west): Mt Isa, Emerald, Longreach
Hot dry summer, cool dry winter (southern inland): Roma, Charleville, Goondiwindi
Warm humid summer, cold dry winter (elevated south-eastern areas): Toowoomba, Warwick, Stanthorpe
The annual average climatic statistics for selected Queensland cities are shown below:
The coastal far north of the state is the wettest region in Australia, with Mount Bellenden Ker, south of Cairns, holding many Australian rainfall records with its annual average rainfall of over 8 metres (26 ft). Snow is rare in Queensland, although it does fall with some regularity along the far southern border with New South Wales, predominantly in the Stanthorpe district although on rare occasions further north and west. The most northerly snow ever recorded in Australia occurred near Mackay; however, this was exceptional.
Natural disasters are often a threat in Queensland: severe tropical cyclones can impact the central and northern coastlines and cause severe damage, with recent examples including Larry, Yasi, Ita and Debbie. Flooding from rain-bearing systems can also be severe and can occur anywhere in Queensland. One of the deadliest and most damaging floods in the history of the state occurred in early 2011. Severe springtime thunderstorms generally affect the south-east and inland of the state and can bring damaging winds, torrential rain, large hail and even tornadoes. The strongest tornado ever recorded in Australia occurred in Queensland near Bundaberg in November 1992. Droughts and bushfires can also occur; however, the latter are generally less severe than those that occur in southern states.
The highest official maximum temperature recorded in the state was 49.5 °C (121.1 °F) at Birdsville Police Station on 24 December 1972. The lowest recorded minimum temperature is −10.6 °C (12.9 °F) at Stanthorpe on 23 June 1961 and at The Hermitage (near Warwick) on 12 July 1965.
== Demographics ==
In December 2021, Queensland had an estimated population of 5,265,043. Approximately half of the state's population lives in Brisbane, and over 70% live in South East Queensland. Nonetheless, Queensland is the second most decentralised state in Australia after Tasmania. Since the 1980s, Queensland has consistently been the fastest-growing state in Australia, as it receives high levels of both international immigration and migration from interstate. There have however been short periods where Victoria and Western Australia have grown faster.
=== Cities ===
Ten of Australia's thirty largest cities are located in Queensland. In 2019, the largest cities in the state by population of their Greater Capital City Statistical Area or Significant Urban Area (metropolitan areas) as defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics were:
=== Ancestry and immigration ===
Early settlers during the 19th century were largely English, Irish, Scottish and German, while there was a wave of immigration from southern and eastern Europe (most notably Italy) in the decades following the second world war. In the 21st century, Asia (most notably China and India) has been the primary source of immigration.
At the 2016 census, the most commonly nominated ancestries were:
The 2016 census showed that 28.9% of Queensland's inhabitants were born overseas. Only 54.8% of inhabitants had both parents born in Australia, with the next most common birthplaces being New Zealand, England, India, Mainland China and South Africa. Brisbane has the 26th largest immigrant population among world metropolitan areas.
4% of the population, or 186,482 people, identified as Indigenous Australians (Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders) in 2016.
=== Language ===
At the 2016 census, 81.2% of inhabitants spoke only English at home, with the next most common languages being Mandarin (1.5%), Vietnamese (0.6%), Cantonese (0.5%), Spanish (0.4%) and Italian (0.4%).
At the 2021 census, 80.5% of inhabitants spoke only English at home, with the next most common languages being Mandarin (1.6%), Vietnamese (0.6%), Punjabi (0.6%) and Spanish (0.6%).
=== Religion ===
At the 2016 census, the most commonly cited religious affiliations were 'No religion' (29.2%), Catholicism (21.7%) and Anglicanism (15.3%). In the 2016 Census the majority of Queenslanders were identified as Christian, most of which were of various Protestant denominations.
According to the 2021 census, 45.7% of the population follows Christianity, and 41.2% identified as having No religion About 5% of people are affiliated with a non-Christian religion, mainly Buddhism (1.4%), Hinduism (1.3%) and Islam (1.2%). The 2021 census found that Protestants of various denominations outnumbered Catholics in Queensland.
=== Education ===
Queensland is home to numerous universities. The state's oldest university, the University of Queensland, was established in 1909 and frequently ranks among the world's top 50. Other major universities include Queensland University of Technology, Griffith University, the University of Southern Queensland, the University of the Sunshine Coast, James Cook University (which was the state's first university outside of South East Queensland), Central Queensland University and Bond University (which was Australia's first private university).
International education is an important industry, with 134,312 international students enrolled in the state in 2018, largely focused on Brisbane. Most of the state's international students are from Asia.
At the primary and secondary levels, Queensland is home to numerous state and private schools.
Queensland has a public library system which is managed by the State Library of Queensland. Some university libraries are also open to the public.
== Economy ==
In 2019, Queensland had a gross state product of A$357,044 million, the third-highest in the nation after New South Wales and Victoria. The construction of sea ports and railways along Queensland's coast in the 19th century set up the foundations for the state's export-oriented mining and agricultural sectors. Since the 1980s, a sizeable influx of interstate and overseas migrants, large amounts of federal government investment, increased mining of vast mineral deposits and an expanding aerospace sector have contributed to the state's economic growth.
Primary industries include bananas, pineapples, peanuts, a wide variety of other tropical and temperate fruit and vegetables, grain crops, wineries, cattle raising, cotton, sugarcane, and wool. The mining industry includes bauxite, coal, silver, lead, zinc, gold and copper.
Secondary industries are mostly further processing of the above-mentioned primary produce. For example, bauxite is shipped by sea from Weipa and converted to alumina at Gladstone. There is also copper refining and the refining of sugar cane to sugar at a number of mills along the eastern coastline.
Major tertiary industries are retail, tourism, and international education. In 2018, there were 134,312 international students enrolled in the state, largely focused on Brisbane. Most of the state's international students are from Asia.
Brisbane is categorised as a global city, and is among Asia-Pacific cities with largest GDPs. It has strengths in mining, banking, insurance, transportation, information technology, real estate and food. Some of the largest companies headquartered in Brisbane, all among Australia's largest, include Suncorp Group, Virgin Australia, Aurizon, Bank of Queensland, Flight Centre, CUA, Sunsuper, QSuper, Domino's Pizza Enterprises, Star Entertainment Group, ALS, TechnologyOne, NEXTDC, Super Retail Group, New Hope Coal, Jumbo Interactive, National Storage, Collins Foods and Boeing Australia.
=== Tourism ===
As a result of its varied landscapes, warm climate, and abundant natural environment, tourism is Queensland's leading tertiary industry with millions of interstate and international visitors visiting the state each year. The industry generates $8.8 billion annually, accounting for 4.5% of Queensland's Gross State Product. It has an annual export of $4.0 billion annually. The sector directly employs about 5.7% of Queensland citizens. Accommodation in Queensland caters for nearly 22% of the total expenditure, followed by restaurants/meals (15%), airfares (11%), fuel (11%) and shopping/gifts (11%).
The most visited tourist destinations of Queensland include Brisbane (including Moreton and South Stradbroke islands and the Gold Coast) as well as the Sunshine Coast, the Great Barrier Reef, Cairns, Port Douglas, the Daintree Rainforest, K'gari and the Whitsunday Islands.
Brisbane is the third most popular destination in Australia following Sydney and Melbourne. Major attractions in its metropolitan area include South Bank Parklands, the Queensland Cultural Centre (including the Queensland Museum, Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art, Queensland Performing Arts Centre and State Library of Queensland), City Hall, the Story Bridge, the Howard Smith Wharves, ANZAC Square, St John's Cathedral, Fortitude Valley (including James Street and Chinatown), West End, the Teneriffe woolstores precinct, the Brisbane River and its Riverwalk network, the City Botanic Gardens, Roma Street Parkland, New Farm Park (including the Brisbane Powerhouse), the Kangaroo Point Cliffs and park, the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, the Mount Coot-tha Reserve (including Mount Coot-tha Lookout and Mount Coot-tha Botanic Gardens), the D'Aguilar Range and National Park, as well as Moreton Bay (including Moreton, North Stradbroke and Bribie islands, and coastal suburbs such as Shorncliffe, Wynnum and those on the Redcliffe Peninsula).
The Gold Coast is home to numerous popular surf beaches such as those at Surfers Paradise and Burleigh Heads. It also includes the largest concentration of amusement parks in Australia, including Dreamworld, Movie World, Sea World, Wet 'n' Wild and WhiteWater World, as well as the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. The Gold Coast's hinterland includes Lamington National Park in the McPherson Range.
The Sunshine Coast includes popular surfing and beach destinations including Noosa Heads and Mooloolaba. It is also home to UnderWater World and Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo. Its hinterland includes the Glass House Mountains National Park.
Cairns is renowned as the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, Far North Queensland (including Port Douglas) and the Daintree Rainforest. The Whitsunday Islands off the coast of North Queensland are a popular tourist destinations for their resort facilities and access to the Great Barrier Reef.
== Politics and government ==
One of the six founding states of Australia, Queensland has been a federated state subject to the Australian Constitution since 1 January 1901. It may legislate on all matters not ceded in the Australian Constitution to the federal government. It is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The Constitution of Queensland sets out the operation of the state's government. The state's constitution contains several entrenched provisions which cannot be changed in the absence of a referendum. There is also a statutory charter of rights, the Queensland Human Rights Act 2019. Queensland's system of government is influenced by the Westminster system and Australia's federal system of government.
The government power can be divided into three groups:
Legislature: the unicameral Parliament of Queensland, comprising the Legislative Assembly and the Monarch (represented by the Governor);
Executive: the Queensland Government, which consists of the Executive Council of Queensland, which formalises decisions of the Cabinet of Queensland, which is composed of the Premier and other ministers of state appointed by the Governor on the advice of the premier;
Judiciary: the Supreme Court and other state courts, whose judges are appointed by the Governor on the advice of Parliament.
Executive authority is nominally vested in the Governor of Queensland (currently Jeannette Young) who represents and is appointed by the Monarch (currently Charles III) on the advice of the Premier of Queensland. The Premier, who is the state's Head of government, along with the Cabinet of Queensland (whose decisions are formalised by the Executive Council), exercise executive authority in practice. The Premier is appointed by the Governor and must have support of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland. The Premier is in practice a leading member of the Legislative Assembly and parliamentary leader of his or her political party, or coalition of parties, and members of the Cabinet will be drawn from the same party or coalition. The current Premier and Deputy Premier are David Crisafulli and Jarrod Bleijie of the Liberal National Party respectively. Government House at Paddington in Brisbane is the seat of the Governor, having replaced Old Government House at Gardens Point in Brisbane's CBD in the early 20th century. The executive branch is simply referred to as the Queensland Government.
Legislative authority is exercised by the Queensland Parliament which uniquely for Australian states is unicameral, containing only one house, the Legislative Assembly. The Parliament was bicameral until 1922 when the Legislative Council was abolished by the Labor "suicide squad", so called because they were appointed for the purpose of voting to abolish their own offices. Bills receive royal assent from the Governor before being passed into law. The Parliament's seat is at Parliament House at Gardens Point in Brisbane's CBD. Members of the Legislative Assembly represent 93 electoral districts. Elections in Queensland are held at the end of each fixed four-year parliamentary term and are determined by full preferential voting.
The state's judiciary consists of the Supreme Court of Queensland and the District Court of Queensland, established by the Queensland Constitution, as well as the Magistrates Court of Queensland and other courts and tribunals established by legislation. Cases may be appealed to the High Court of Australia. As with all Australian states and territories, Queensland has a common law legal system. The Supreme and District courts are headquartered at the Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law in Brisbane's CBD.
The state's politics are traditionally regarded as being conservative relative to other states. Historically, the lack of an upper house, the "Bjelkemander" (a malapportion favouring rural electoral districts) has meant that Queensland had a long tradition of domination by strong-willed, populist premiers, often accused of authoritarian tendencies, holding office for long periods. This tendency was exemplified by the government of the state's longest-serving Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
=== Local government ===
Local government is the mechanism by which local government areas can manage their own affairs to the extent permitted by the Local Government Act 2009. Queensland is divided into 77 local government areas, which are created by the state government under the legislation. Each local government area has a council responsible for providing a range of local services and utilities. Local councils derive their income from both rates and charges on resident ratepayers, and grants and subsidies from the state and federal governments.
=== Federal representation ===
In the federal Parliament, Queensland accounts for 30 of the 151 electoral divisions in the House of Representatives (based on population size) and 12 of the 76 seats in the Senate (based on equality between the states).
The current partisan makeup of Queensland's House of Representatives delegation is 16 Liberal National, 12 Labor, 1 Australian Greens, and 1 Katter's Australian Party.
The current partisan makeup of Queensland's Senate delegation is 4 Liberal National, 4 Labor, 2 One Nation, and 2 Green.
== Culture ==
Queensland is home to major art galleries including the Queensland Art Gallery and the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art as well as cultural institutions such as the Queensland Ballet, Opera Queensland, Queensland Theatre Company, and Queensland Symphony Orchestra, all based at the Queensland Cultural Centre in Brisbane. The state is the origin of musicians such as the Bee Gees, the Go-Betweens, the Veronicas, the Saints, Savage Garden, and Sheppard as well as writers such as David Malouf, Nick Earls and Li Cunxin.
Major annual cultural events include the Royal Queensland Exhibition (known locally as the Ekka), an agricultural exhibition held each August at the Brisbane Showgrounds as well as the Brisbane Festival, which includes one of the nation's largest annual fireworks displays called 'Riverfire', and which is held each September.
=== Sport ===
The state of Queensland is represented in all of Australia's national sporting competitions and it is also host to a number of domestic and international sporting events. The most popular winter and summer team sports are rugby league and cricket, respectively.
In the National Rugby League, the Brisbane Broncos, North Queensland Cowboys, The Dolphins and Gold Coast Titans are based in the state. Rugby league's annual State of Origin series is a major event in the Queensland sporting calendar, with the Queensland Maroons representing the state.
In cricket, the Queensland Bulls represent the state in the Sheffield Shield and the Ryobi One Day Cup, while the Brisbane Heat compete in the Big Bash League.
Queensland is also home to the Brisbane Lions and the Gold Coast Suns in the Australian Football League (Australian rules football), and the Brisbane Roar FC in the A-League (soccer). In netball, the Queensland Firebirds went undefeated in the 2011 season as they went on to win the Grand Final. Other sports teams are the Brisbane Bullets and the Cairns Taipans, who compete in the National Basketball League.
The state is represented by the Queensland Reds in the Super Rugby (rugby union).
Swimming is also a popular sport in Queensland, with many Australian team members and international medalists hailing from the state.
Brisbane will host the 2032 Summer Olympics, marking the third time Australia hosted the Olympic Games following Melbourne 1956 and Sydney 2000. Major recurring sporting events hosted in Queensland include: the Gold Coast 600 (motorsport; since 1994), the Gold Coast Marathon (athletics; since 1979), the NRL All Stars Game (rugby league; since 2010), the Townsville 400 (motorsport; since 2009), the Quicksilver Pro and Roxy Pro (surfing) and Australian PGA Championship (golf; since 2000).
=== Symbols and emblems ===
The official state emblems of Queensland are prescribed in the Emblems of Queensland Act 2005.
Queen Victoria granted the Queensland Coat of Arms to the Colony of Queensland in 1893, making it the oldest State Arms in Australia. It depicts Queensland's primary industries in the 19th century with a sheaf of wheat, the heads of a bull and a ram, and a column of gold rising from a heap of quartz. Two stalks of sugar cane which surround the state badge at the top, and below is Queensland's state motto, Audax at Fidelis, which means "Bold but Faithful". In 1977, Queen Elizabeth II granted the supporting animals, the brolga and the red deer.
In November 2003 maroon was officially named Queensland's state colour, after many years of association with Queensland sporting teams. In 2025, Queensland Government branding changed to blue, with not yet an impact on the official state colour.
The koala was officially named the animal or faunal, emblem of Queensland in 1971 after a newspaper poll showed strong public support. The Queensland Government introduced the poll due to a proposal by state tourism ministers for all states to adopt a faunal emblem. In January 1986, the brolga was announced as the official bird emblem of Queensland, after many years on the Coat of Arms.
The Cooktown orchid became known as Queensland's floral emblem in 1959, during celebrations to mark the state's centenary, and the Barrier Reef Anemone Fish was officially named as Queensland's aquatic emblem in March 2005.
The sapphire was named the official state gem for Queensland in August 1985.
== Infrastructure ==
=== Transport ===
Queensland is served by several National Highways and, particularly in South East Queensland, a network of freeways such as the M1. The Department of Transport & Main Roads oversees the development and operation of main roads and public transport, including taxis and local aviation.
Principal rail services are provided by Queensland Rail, predominantly between the major centres east of the Great Dividing Range. Freight rail services in Queensland have been provided mostly by Aurizon and Pacific National, with interstate intermodal services provided by Pacific National and SCT Logistics. Major seaports include the Port of Brisbane, Australia's third busiest by value of goods, as well as those at Gladstone, Townsville, and Bundaberg. There are large coal export facilities at Hay Point, Gladstone, and Abbot Point. Major sugar export facilities are located at Lucinda and Mackay.
Brisbane Airport is the main international and domestic gateway serving the state, and is the third busiest in Australia. Other international airports include the Gold Coast Airport, Cairns International Airport, and Townsville Airport. Regional airports with scheduled domestic flights include Toowoomba Wellcamp Airport, Great Barrier Reef Airport, Hervey Bay Airport, Bundaberg Airport, Mackay Airport, Mount Isa Airport, Proserpine / Whitsunday Coast Airport, Rockhampton Airport, and Sunshine Coast Airport.
South East Queensland has an integrated public transport system operated by Translink, which provides services bus, rail, light rail and Brisbane's ferry services through Queensland Rail and contracted operators. The region is divided into seven Fare zones radiating outwards from the Brisbane central business district, which is the central hub for the system. The Queensland Rail City network consists of 152 train stations along 13 suburban rail lines and across the region, and predominantly within Brisbane's metropolitan area. There is also a large bus network including Brisbane's large dedicated bus rapid transit network, the Brisbane busway network. Brisbane's popular ferry services include the CityCat, Cross River, and CityHopper services which have dedicated wharves along the Brisbane River. The G:link, Queensland's only light rail network, operates on the Gold Coast.
The new Queensland Cross River Rail is a metro network that is currently under development within Brisbane and is part of infrastructure to prepare the city for the 2032 Olympic games.
=== Other utilities ===
Queensland Health operates and administers the state's public health system. There are sixteen regional Health and Hospital Services corresponding to geographical regions which are responsible for delivering public health services within their regions. Major public hospitals include the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, Princess Alexandra Hospital, the Mater Hospital, the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Hospital, and the Queensland Children's Hospital in Brisbane, as well as the Townsville University Hospital, Cairns Hospital, Gold Coast Hospital and Gold Coast University Hospital in the regional cities. There are smaller public hospitals, as well as private hospitals, around the state. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_%26_Prejudice_(2005_film) | Pride & Prejudice (2005 film) | Pride & Prejudice is a 2005 period romance film directed by Joe Wright, in his feature directorial debut, based on Jane Austen's 1813 novel of the same name. The film features five sisters from an English family of landed gentry as they deal with issues of marriage, morality, and misconceptions. Keira Knightley stars as Elizabeth Bennet, while Matthew Macfadyen plays Mr Darcy, who falls in love with her.
Screenwriter Deborah Moggach initially attempted to make her script as faithful to the novel as possible, writing from Elizabeth's perspective while preserving much of the original dialogue. Wright encouraged greater deviation from the text, including changing the Bennet family dynamics. Wright and Moggach set the film in an earlier period and avoided depicting a "perfectly clean Regency world", presenting instead a "muddy hem version" of the time. It was shot entirely on location in England on an 11-week schedule. Wright found casting difficult due to past performances of particular characters. The filmmakers had to balance who they thought was best for each role with the studio's desire for stars. Knightley was well known in part from her role in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, while Macfadyen had no international name recognition.
Produced by Working Title Films in association with StudioCanal, Pride & Prejudice was released on 16 September 2005 in the United Kingdom and on 11 November in the United States. The film's themes emphasise realism, romanticism and family. It was marketed to a younger, mainstream audience; promotional items noted that it came from the producers of 2001's romantic comedy Bridget Jones's Diary before acknowledging its provenance as an Austen novel. Austen scholars opined that Wright's work created a new hybrid genre by blending traditional traits of the heritage film with "youth-oriented filmmaking techniques".
Pride & Prejudice was successful at the box office, grossing $121.6 million worldwide on a $28 million budget. It received positive reviews from critics, with praise for Knightley's performance. It received four nominations at the 78th Academy Awards, including Best Actress for the 20-year-old Knightley, making her the third-youngest Best Actress nominee at the time. The film received other accolades, including the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer for Wright.
== Plot ==
During the late 18th century in England, Mr and Mrs Bennet and their daughters—Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia—live at Longbourn, their rural estate in Hertfordshire. Mrs Bennet, eager to secure suitable marriages for her daughters, is delighted when wealthy bachelor Charles Bingley moves into nearby Netherfield Hall.
At an assembly ball, Bingley, his sister Caroline, and his friend Mr Darcy meet the local society. Bingley and Jane are immediately taken with each other, while Elizabeth instantly dislikes the snobbish Darcy and overhears his dismissive remarks about her.
Later, visiting the Bingleys, Jane falls ill and must stay to recuperate. While Elizabeth is visiting Jane at Netherfield, she verbally spars with the haughty Caroline and the aloof Darcy. Jane recovers and, soon after, Mr Bennet's cousin Mr Collins, a pompous clergyman, visits the Bennets; as the closest male relative, Collins will inherit Longbourn as it is entailed on the male line.
Mr Collins tells Mrs Bennet he intends to propose to Jane, but she says Jane will soon be engaged and suggests Elizabeth, whom Collins considers an agreeable alternative. The Bennet sisters also meet the handsome and charming soldier George Wickham, whose father worked for the Darcy family. He wins Elizabeth's sympathy by telling her that Mr Darcy denied him his rightful inheritance.
At the Netherfield ball, Elizabeth dances with Darcy, though the encounter is strained. The next day, Collins proposes to Elizabeth, who roundly rejects him; despite her mother's anger, her father supports her decision.
Elizabeth is astonished when her close friend, Charlotte, fearing spinsterhood, announces her engagement to Mr Collins. The Bingley party unexpectedly returns to London. Elizabeth urges Jane to visit their aunt and uncle, the Gardiners, who live in London, hoping she reconnects with Bingley.
Months later, Elizabeth visits Charlotte and Mr Collins, who reside next to Lady Catherine de Bourgh's estate in Kent. Elizabeth unexpectedly meets Darcy, who is Lady Catherine's nephew and visiting with his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam. Unaware that Jane is Elizabeth's sister, Fitzwilliam mentions that Darcy recently untangled Bingley from an imprudent match with an "unsuitable" family.
Distraught, Elizabeth is then met by Darcy, who to her amazement proposes marriage, declaring his ardent love despite her inferior rank and family. Offended and angry, she refuses him. He defends separating Jane and Bingley, believing Jane indifferent to his friend, and criticises the other Bennets' occasional social impropriety. Elizabeth also cites his mistreating Wickham.
Angry and heartbroken, Darcy delivers Elizabeth a letter describing Wickham's true character: Wickham squandered the bequest Darcy's father left him, then attempted to seduce Darcy's 15-year-old sister, Georgiana, into eloping to gain her fortune.
Elizabeth returns home, as does Jane. Accompanying the Gardiners on a trip to the Peak District, Elizabeth reluctantly tours Pemberley, the grand Darcy estate in Derbyshire. She unexpectedly runs into Darcy, who invites her and the Gardiners to dine there. Darcy's manner has softened considerably, impressing the Gardiners, and Georgiana shares her brother's flattering reports about Elizabeth.
An urgent letter from Jane reveals that Lydia has run off with Wickham. Darcy leaves abruptly, and Elizabeth returns home, certain she will never see Darcy again. Her mother fears Lydia's disgrace will ruin her other daughters' chances of good marriages.
After a tense waiting period, Mr Gardiner sends news that Lydia and Wickham are now married, and the newlyweds return to Longbourn. Lydia lets slip to Elizabeth that it was Darcy who found them and paid for their wedding; he also purchased Wickham's military commission.
Bingley and Darcy return to Netherfield and visit Longbourn. Bingley proposes to Jane, who accepts. Late that night, Lady Catherine arrives to see Elizabeth and demands she never become engaged to Darcy because, she claims, Darcy has been engaged to marry Lady Catherine's daughter, who has suffered poor health since infancy. Deeply insulted, Elizabeth orders her to leave.
Walking early the next morning, Elizabeth encounters Darcy, who apologises for his aunt's intrusion. He professes his continued love and Elizabeth, her feelings radically altered, accepts his proposal. She tells her father the truth of Darcy's actions, and Mr Bennet gives Elizabeth his consent to marry, overjoyed she has found love.
== Cast ==
== Production ==
=== Conception and adaptation ===
As with several recent Jane Austen adaptations, Pride & Prejudice was an Anglo-American collaboration, between British studio Working Title Films (in association with French company StudioCanal) and its American parent company, Universal Studios. Working Title at the time was known for mainstream productions like Bridget Jones's Diary and Love Actually that drew international audiences, not films in the historical drama genre. Its co-chairman Tim Bevan said the studio wanted to "bring Austen's original story, concentrating on Lizzie, back in all its glory to the big screen for audiences everywhere to enjoy". Given a "relatively inexpensive" budget of £22 million ($28 million), the film was expected to excel at the box office, particularly given the commercial success of Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Shakespeare in Love (1998), as well as the resurgence of interest in Austen.
Given little instruction from the studio, screenwriter Deborah Moggach spent over two years on the script. She had sole discretion at first, and wrote approximately ten drafts. Realising it held "a perfect three-act structure", Moggach attempted to be as faithful to the original novel as possible, calling it "so beautifully shaped as a story—the ultimate romance about two people who think they hate each other but who are really passionately in love. I felt, 'If it's not broken, don't fix it'". While she could not reproduce the novel's "fiercely wonderful dialogue in its entirety", she sought to keep much of it.
Moggach's first draft was closest to Austen's book, but later versions excised storylines and characters. Moggach initially wrote all scenes from Elizabeth's point of view in keeping with the novel; she later set a few scenes from a male perspective, such as when Bingley practices his marriage proposal, to "show Darcy and Bingley being close" and to indicate Darcy was a "human being instead of being stuck up". Small details were inserted that acknowledged events outside the characters' circle, such as those then occurring in France. Moggach is the only credited screenwriter, but playwright Lee Hall provided early additions.
Television director Joe Wright was hired in early 2004, in his feature film directorial debut. He was considered a surprising choice for a film in the romance drama genre due to his past work with social realism. Wright's body of work had impressed the producers, who were looking for a fresh perspective; they sent him a script even though Wright had not read the novel. He has said that at the time, "I didn't know if I was really all that interested; I thought I was a little bit more mainstream than this, a bit more edgy. But then I read the script and I was surprised I was very moved by it". He next read the novel, which he called "an amazing piece of character observation and it really seemed like the first piece of British Realism. It felt like it was a true story; had a lot of truth in it about understanding how to love other people, understanding how to overcome prejudices, understanding the things that separate us from other people ... things like that".
The only adaptation of Pride and Prejudice Wright had seen was the 1940 production, which was the last time the novel had been adapted into a feature film. The director purposely did not watch the other productions, both out of fear he would inadvertently steal ideas and because he wanted to be as original as possible. But he did watch other period films, including Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility, Roger Michell's Persuasion, and John Schlesinger's Far from the Madding Crowd. Wright cited this last film as the greatest influence on his own adaptation, calling it "very real and very honest—and it is quite romantic as well". In trying to create an atmosphere of charged flirtation, Wright was also inspired by teen romance films such as Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club.
Wright came on while Moggach was on her third draft. Despite her desire to work closely with Austen's dialogue, Wright made an effort to not "be too reverential to [it]. I don't believe people spoke like that then; it's not natural." While a few scenes, such as the discussion over accomplished women, align closely with Austen's dialogue, many others "substituted instead a mixture of modern idiom and archaic-sounding sentence structure". One alteration concerned politeness; Wright noted that while Austen's work had characters waiting before speaking, he believed that "particularly in big families of girls, everyone tends to speak over each other, finishing each other's sentences, etc. So I felt that the Bennet family's conversations would be overlapping like that." Sense and Sensibility actress and screenwriter Emma Thompson aided in script development, though she opted to be uncredited. She advised the nervous Wright on adapting Austen for the screen and made dialogue recommendations, such as with parts of the Collins–Charlotte storyline.
Citing the year Austen first wrote a draft of the novel, Wright and Moggach changed the period setting from 1813 (the novel's publication date) to the late 18th century partly because Wright wanted to highlight the differences within an England influenced by the French Revolution, as he was fascinated that it had "caused an atmosphere among the British aristocracy of fear". Wright also chose the earlier period because he hated dresses with an empire silhouette, which were popular in the later period. The decision helped make the film visually distinct from other Austen adaptations. In comparison to the popular 1995 BBC version, which features Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, producer Paul Webster desired to make an adaptation that "doesn't conform to the television drama stereotypes of a perfect clean Regency world". Wright and Moggach opted for a "muddy hem version" of Longbourn, presenting a more rural setting than previous adaptations out of a desire to depict the Bennets in "very close proximity to their rural life" and to emphasise their relative poverty. While the degree of poverty was criticised by some critics, Wright felt that the "mess adds to the drama of the predicament that the family were in", and helps contrast the Bennets, Darcys, and Bingleys.
=== Casting ===
Wright found casting the film difficult because he was very particular about "the types of people I wanted to work with". While interviewing to direct, he insisted that the actors match the ages of the characters in the novel. Wright specifically cast actors who had rapport on and off screen, and insisted that they partake in three weeks of rehearsal in improvisation workshops. He also had to balance who he thought was best for each role with what the producers wanted—mainly a big name. Though Wright had not initially pictured someone as attractive as Keira Knightley as Elizabeth, he cast her after realising that she "is really a tomboy [and] has a lively mind and a great sense of humour". On The Graham Norton Show, Knightley said, "He initially thought I was too pretty, but then he met me and said "Oh, no, you're fine!". Knightley at the time was known for Bend It Like Beckham and the Pirates of the Caribbean film series. She had been an Austen fan since the age of seven, but initially feared taking the role out of apprehension that she would be doing "an absolute copy of Jennifer Ehle's performance", which she deeply admired. Knightley believed Elizabeth is "what you aspire to be: she's funny, she's witty and intelligent. She's a fully rounded and very much loved character." For the period, she studied etiquette, history and dancing, but ran into trouble when she acquired a short haircut while preparing for her role in the bounty hunter film Domino.
Webster found casting Darcy especially hard due to the character's iconic status and because "Colin Firth cast a very long shadow". Wright later said that casting Knightley allowed him to cast comparative unknown Matthew Macfadyen, which would have been impossible had he chosen a lesser-known actress for Elizabeth. Macfadyen at the time was known for his role in the British television spy series Spooks, but had no recognition internationally. A fan of his television work, Wright called Macfadyen "a proper manly man ... I didn't want a pretty boy kind of actor. His properties were the ones I felt I needed [for Darcy]. Matthew's a great big hunk of a guy."
According to Wright, Rosamund Pike was cast as Jane "because I knew she wasn't going to play her as a nice, simple person. Jane has a real interior world, she has her heart broken". Despite being Pike's ex-boyfriend, Simon Woods was cast as her romantic interest, Mr Bingley. The other three Bennet sisters were played by Talulah Riley, Carey Mulligan, and Jena Malone, the only American actress among them. Wright believed Malone had a "pretty faultless English accent". Mulligan heard about the casting call at a dinner hosted by Julian Fellowes, to whom she had written a letter after failing to get into drama school; she won the part after three auditions. Tamzin Merchant appears as Georgiana Darcy; she was hired despite having no previous acting experience after she wrote a letter to the casting director. In addition to Merchant, Pride & Prejudice was the feature film debut of both Mulligan and Riley.
Donald Sutherland reminded Wright of his own father and was cast as Mr Bennet; Wright thought Sutherland had the "strength to handle those six women". Brenda Blethyn was hired to play Mrs Bennet, whom Moggach considered the film's unsung heroine; he said it was "a tricky part, as she can be very annoying; you want to stop her chattering and shrieking. But Brenda has the humour and the heart to show the amount of love and care Mrs Bennet has for her daughters." Wright convinced Judi Dench to join the cast as Lady Catherine de Bourgh by writing her a letter that read "I love it when you play a bitch. Please come and be a bitch for me." Dench had only one week available to shoot her scenes, forcing Wright to make them his first days of filming.
=== Cinematography ===
Cinematographer Roman Osin broke many period-piece conventions, often piercing the glamorous settings to focus on the characters' humanity. He kept the camera moving in many scenes, although almost every shot is suffused with rich colour and light, both in interiors and outdoors. When Darcy escorts Lizzie into the carriage, he takes her hand, and then, walking away, is shown momentarily closing his fingers and then opening them, in what became infamous as the "hand flex". Of note is the extended "onesie" shot in which the camera swirls seamlessly between characters and rooms during the ball at Netherfield, to show the charged emotions and confusions that overlaid the graceful and poised surroundings.
=== Costume design ===
Known for her BAFTA Award-winning work on the 2004 film Vera Drake, Jacqueline Durran was hired as the costume designer. She and Wright approached his film "as a difficult thing to tackle" because of their desire to distinguish it from the television adaptation. Due to Wright's dislike of the high waistline, Durran focused on later 18th-century fashions that often include a corseted, natural waistline rather than an empire silhouette (which became popular after the 1790s). A generational divide was established: the older characters dress in mid-18th-century fashions while the young wear "a sort of proto-Regency style of hair and dress".
Durran's costumes also help emphasise the characters' social rank; Caroline Bingley, for instance, is introduced in an empire silhouetted dress, clothing that would have then been at the height of fashion. Durran said that all the women wear white at the Netherfield Ball due to its contemporary popularity, an idea that Wright credits as his reason for hiring her. Costumes and hairstyles were adjusted to appeal to contemporary audiences, sacrificing historical accuracy.
To help differentiate the Bennet sisters, Durran viewed Elizabeth as the "tomboy", clothing her in earthy colours because of her love of the countryside. Of the others, Durran said, "Jane was the most refined and yet it's still all a bit slapdash and homemade, because the Bennets have no money. One of the main things Joe wanted was for the whole thing to have a provincial feel. Mary is the bluestocking: serious and practical. And then Lydia and Kitty are a bit Tweedledum and Tweedledee in a kind of teenage way. I tried to make it so that they'd be sort of mirror images. If one's wearing a green dress, the other will wear a green jacket; so you always have a visual asymmetry between the two." In contrast to the 1940 film, the 2005 production clothes the Bennet sisters in worn-down but comfortable dresses.
Mr Darcy's costume went through a series of phases. Durran noted: The first time we see him he's at Meriton [sic], where he has a very stiffly tailored jacket on and he's quite contained and rigid. He stays in that rigid form for the first part of the film. By the time we get to the proposal that goes wrong in the rain, we move to a similar cut, but a much softer fabric. And then later he's got a completely different cut of coat, not interlined and he wears it undone. The nth degree is him walking through the mist in the morning, completely undressed by 18th-century standards. It's absolutely unlikely, but then Lizzie's in her nightie, so what can you say?
=== Filming ===
Moggach believed the novel was very filmable, "despite it containing no description and being a very unvisual book". To Wright, many other period films had relied on paintings for inspiration rather than photographs, causing them to appear unreal. He thus used Austen's prose to give him "many visual references for the people in the story", including close-up shots of the characters. The filmmakers also changed several scenes to more romantic locales than those in the book. For instance, in the film, Darcy first proposes outdoors in a rainstorm at a building with neoclassical architecture; in the book, this scene takes place in a parsonage. In the film, his second proposal occurs on the misty moors as dawn breaks; in the book, he and Elizabeth are walking down a country lane in broad daylight. Wright has acknowledged that "there are a lot of period film clichés; some of them are in the film and some are not, but for me it was important to question them".
During script development, the crew created a "constant going back and forth between script and location". The film was shot entirely on location in England on an 11-week schedule during the 2004 summer. Co-producer Paul Webster said, "it is quite unusual for a movie this size to be shot entirely on location. Part of Joe's idea was to try to create a reality which allows the actors to relax and feel at one with their environment." Working under production designer Sarah Greenwood and set decorator Katie Spencer, the crew filmed on seven estates in six different counties. Because "nothing exists in the United Kingdom that is untouched by the twenty-first century", many of the sites required substantial work to make them suitable for filming. Visual effects company Double Negative digitally restored several locations to make them contemporaneous; they eradicated weeds, enhanced gold plating on window frames, and removed anachronisms such as gravel driveways and electricity pylons. Double Negative also developed the typeface used for the film's title sequence.
Production staff selected particularly grand-looking residences to better convey certain characters' wealth and power. Locations include Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, the largest privately held country house in England, with rooms frescoed by Antonio Verrio. Many believe Chatsworth House to have been Austen's inspiration for Pemberley. Chatsworth and Wilton House in Salisbury stood in for it. After a search of various sites in England, the moated manor house Groombridge Place in Kent was chosen for Longbourn. Location manager Adam Richards said Groombridge had an "immense charm" that was "untouched by post-17th Century development". Reflecting Wright's choice of realism, Groombridge's interior was designed to be "shabby chic". Representing Netherfield Park was the late-18th-century site Basildon Park in Berkshire, leading it to close for seven weeks for filming. Burghley House in Lincolnshire stood in for Rosings, while the adjacent town of Stamford served as Meryton. Other locations included Haddon Hall (for The Inn at Lambton), the Temple of Apollo and Palladian Bridge of Stourhead (for the Gardens of Rosings), Hunsford (for Collins' parsonage and church) and Peak District (for Elizabeth and the Gardiners' tour). The first dance scenes were shot on a set in a potato warehouse in Lincolnshire with the employment of local townspeople as extras; this was the only set the crew built that was not already in existence.
=== Music ===
Italian composer Dario Marianelli wrote the soundtrack. It is performed by the French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet accompanied by the English Chamber Orchestra.
The early piano sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven "became a point of reference" and "starting point" for the score. Some pieces were inspired by the film's period, with the assumption that they could conceivably have been heard during that time and contained actual dance cues that befitted the late 18th century. Pieces that actors perform were composed first, before filming began.
The soundtrack contains 17 instrumental tracks of music organised in a different way from the film.
=== Editing ===
In contrast to the five-hour BBC adaptation, Wright's film is two hours and nine minutes long. He said the film is "obviously about Elizabeth and Darcy, following them, and anything that detracts or diverts you from that story is what you have to cut". Some of the most notable changes from the book include time compression of several major sequences, including the departure of Wickham and the militia, Elizabeth's visit to Rosings Park and Hunsford Parsonage, Elizabeth's visit to Pemberley, Lydia's elopement and subsequent crisis; the elimination of several supporting characters, including Mr and Mrs Hurst, Mr and Mrs Phillips, Lady and Maria Lucas, Mrs Younge, several of Lydia's friends (including Colonel and Mrs Forster) and various military officers and townspeople; and the elimination of several sections in which characters reflect or converse on events that have recently occurred—for example, Elizabeth's chapter-long change of mind after reading Darcy's letter.
Moggach and Wright debated how to end the film, but knew they did not want to have a wedding scene "because we didn't want Elizabeth to come off as the girl who became a queen at this lavish wedding, or for it to be corny". Shortly before the North American release, the film was modified to include a final scene (not in the novel) of the married Darcys enjoying a romantic evening and passionate kiss at Pemberley in an attempt to attract sentimental viewers; this became a source of complaint for the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA). After watching a preview of the film before its wide release, former JASNA president Elsa Solender said, "It has nothing at all of Jane Austen in it, is inconsistent with the first two-thirds of the film, insults the audience with its banality and ought to be cut before release". It had been removed from the British version after preview audiences found it unintentionally humorous, but later audiences complained that they were excluded from viewing this version, causing the film to be re-released in the UK and Ireland 10 weeks after the original UK premiere. The original British version ends with Mr Bennet's blessing upon Elizabeth and Darcy's union, circumventing the novel's last chapter, which summarises the lives of the Darcys and the other main characters over the next several years.
== Major themes and analysis ==
=== Romanticism and realism ===
Film, literary, and Austen scholars noted the appearance of romance and romanticism in Pride & Prejudice, especially in comparison to previous adaptations. Sarah Ailwood marked the film as "an essentially Romantic interpretation of Austen's novel", citing as evidence Wright's attention to nature as a means to "position Elizabeth and Darcy as Romantic figures ... Wright's Pride & Prejudice takes as its central focus Austen's concern with exploring the nature of the Romantic self and the possibilities for women and men to achieve individual self-fulfillment within an oppressive patriarchal social and economic order." Likewise, Catherine Stewart-Beer of Oxford Brookes University called Elizabeth's presence on the Derbyshire cliff a "stunning, magical evocation of Wright's strong stylistic brand of Postmodern Romanticism", but found this less like Austen and more reminiscent of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. In her analysis, University of Provence scholar Lydia Martin concluded that the "Romantic bias of the film is shown through the shifts in the characters' relationships, the soundtrack and the treatment of landscape".
Realism is a prominent aspect of the film, as Wright confirmed in interviews as well as the DVD audio commentary. In a 2007 article, Ursinus College film studies professor Carole Dole argued that Pride & Prejudice is "a hybrid that embraces both an irreverent realism to which younger audiences are accustomed (and which reflects the director's realist aesthetic) and the classic heritage film's reverence for country houses, attractive landscapes and authentic period detail". Such "irreverent realism" included the depiction of Longbourn as a working farm complete with chickens, cattle and pigs; as Dole explains, "The agricultural realities of 1790s England are equally evident in the enclosed yard with barn and hay where Lizzie twirls barefoot over the mud on a rope swing". Referring to adaptations such as 1999's gritty Mansfield Park, Dole cited Pride & Prejudice as evidence that the heritage film is still around but has "been transformed into a more flexible genre". Jessica Durgan agreed with this assessment, writing that the film "simultaneously reject[s] and embrac[es] heritage to attract a larger audience".
=== Family ===
Raised with three sisters, Moggach was particularly interested in the story's family dynamics. Brock University professor Barbara K. Seeber believed that in contrast to the novel, the film emphasises the familial over the romantic. Evidence of this can be seen in how Pride & Prejudice "significantly recast the Bennet family, in particular its patriarch, presenting Mr Bennet as a sensitive and kind father whose role in the family's misfortunes is continually downplayed." Seeber further observed that the film is "the first to present Mrs Bennet in a sympathetic light", with Mr Bennet displayed as "an attentive husband as well as a loving father."
Stewart-Beer and Austen scholar Sally B. Palmer noted alterations of the depiction of the Bennet family; Stewart-Beer wrote that while their family home "might be chaotic, in this version it is, at heart, a happy home—much happier and much less dysfunctional, than Austen's original version of Longbourn ... For one, Mr and Mrs Bennet actually seem to like each other, even love each other, a characterisation which is a far cry from the source text." Producer Paul Webster acknowledged the familial theme in the DVD featurette "A Bennet Family Portrait", saying, "Yes, it's a great love story between Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy, but underpinning it all is the kind of love that runs this family."
=== Depiction of Elizabeth Bennet ===
Wright intended the film to be "as subjective as possible"; it introduces Darcy only when Elizabeth meets him. This focus on Elizabeth's perspective involves some dramatic changes from the novel. Knightley's Elizabeth has an "increasingly aloof and emotionally distant" relationship with her family, as can be seen in her gradual alienation from Jane; in the book, Elizabeth confides more of her feelings to Jane after difficult events. Wright wanted to create a "real" relationship between the two and have them grow apart, as he thought the book depicted them as too "syrupy." Moggach's intent was for Elizabeth to "keep secrets to herself. They are a great burden to her ... As she keeps all this to herself, we feel for her more and more. The truest comedy, I believe, is born from pain."
In her "feisty, impassioned" interactions with Darcy and "rebellious refusal to 'perform'" for Lady Catherine, Stewart-Beer sees Knightley's depiction as "far removed from Austen's original Elizabeth, who has a greater sense of grounded maturity, even though both Elizabeths have an occasional inclination to fluster, fun and giggles." According to George Washington University professor Laurie Kaplan, Wright's focus on Elizabeth is consistent with the novel, but because the screenplay removes her line "Till this moment, I never knew myself", which Kaplan calls Elizabeth's "most important", it "violates not only the spirit and the essence of Austen's story but the viewer's expectations as well."
== Release ==
=== Marketing ===
After a string of Jane Austen semi-adaptations in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Pride & Prejudice was positioned to take audiences "back into the world of period drama and what many saw as a more authentic version of Austen." While the novel was known to audiences, the large number of related productions required the film to distinguish itself. It was marketed to attract mainstream, young viewers, with one observer calling it "the ultimate chick-flick romance" and "more commercial than previous big-screen Austen adaptations." Another wrote that it brings "millennial girlhood to the megaplex ... If Ehle's Lizzie is every forty-, or fifty-something's favorite independent, even 'mature,' Austen heroine, Knightley is every twenty-something's sexpot good girl." An ampersand replaced the word "and" in the film title, similarly to the 1996 postmodern film Romeo + Juliet.
Already a star at the time of release, Knightley was featured in all the film's promotional materials (much like Colin Firth in the 1995 adaptation). Several commentators likened the main poster of Pride & Prejudice to that of 1995's Sense and Sensibility, which was seen as an attempt to attract the same demographic. Advertising noted that the film came "from the producers of Bridget Jones's Diary", a 2001 romantic comedy film, before mentioning Austen. Leading up to the release, fans were allowed to download pictures and screensavers online, which emphasised the differences between Pride & Prejudice and previous adaptations. Lydia Martin wrote that in contrast to past Pride and Prejudice productions, marketing materials downplayed the "suggested antagonism between the heroes" in favour of highlighting a "romantic relationship", as can be seen with the positioning of the characters as well as the tagline "Sometimes the last person on earth you want to be with is the one you can't be without."
=== Box office ===
On 11 September 2005, Pride & Prejudice premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival as a special Gala Presentation. The film was released in cinemas on 16 September in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It achieved the number one spot in its first week, grossing £2.5 million ($4.6 million) while playing on 397 screens. The film stayed at the top for two more weeks, grossing by then a total of over £9 million at the UK box office. It was featured on 412 screens at its widest domestic release.
In October 2005, the film opened at number one in Australia, with an opening weekend gross of $1.6 million.
On 11 November 2005, the film debuted in the United States with an opening weekend of $2.9 million on 215 screens. Two weeks later, it played on 1,299 screens and box office returns increased to $7.2 million; the film left cinemas the week of 24 February 2006 with a total US gross of $38,405,088. Jack Foley, the president of distribution of Focus Features, the film's US distributor, attributed Pride & Prejudice's success in America to Austen's appeal to "the boomer market" and its status as a known "brand".
Pride & Prejudice was released in 59 more countries between September 2005 and May 2006 by United International Pictures. With a worldwide gross of $121,147,947, it was the 72nd-highest-grossing film of 2005 in the US and the 41st-highest internationally.
=== Home media ===
In the US and UK, Universal Studios Home Entertainment released the standard VHS and DVD in February 2006 for both widescreen and fullframe; attached bonus features included audio commentary by director Joe Wright, a look into Austen's life and the ending scene of Elizabeth and Darcy kissing. On 13 November 2007, Universal released the deluxe edition DVD to coincide with the theatrical arrival of Wright's 2007 film Atonement. The deluxe edition included both widescreen and fullscreen features, the original soundtrack CD, a collectible book and booklet, as well as a number of special features not included in the original DVD. In the US, a Blu-ray version of the film was released by Universal on 26 January 2010, which also contained bonus features.
=== 2025 re-release ===
For its 20th anniversary, film was re-released on 18 April 2025. The re-release made $5 million by its second weekend.
== Reception ==
=== Critical response ===
Pride & Prejudice was only the second film version after "the famed, but oddly flawed, black-and-white 1940 adaptation, starring Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier", and until 2005, The Times considered the 1995 television adaptation "so dominant, so universally adored, [that] it has lingered in the public consciousness as a cinematic standard". Wright's film consequently met with some scepticism from Austen's admirers, especially in relation to plot changes and casting choices. "Any resemblance to scenes and characters created by Miss Austen is, of course, entirely coincidental", mocked The New Yorker's film critic. Given Austen's characters were landed gentry, especially criticised was the reimagining of the Bennets as country bumpkins, lacking even the basics of table manners, and their home "a barnyard".
Comparing six major adaptations of Pride and Prejudice in 2005, The Daily Mirror gave the only marks of nine out of ten to the 1995 serial and the 2005 film, leaving the other adaptations with six or fewer points. On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 87% based on reviews from 186 critics, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's consensus reads: "Sure, it's another adaptation of cinema's fave Jane Austen novel, but key performances and a modern filmmaking sensibility make this familiar period piece fresh and enjoyable." On Metacritic the film has an average score of 82 out of 100, based on 37 reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "A−" on scale of A to F.
Critics claimed the film's time constraints did not capture the depth and complexity of the television serials and called Wright's adaptation "obviously [not as] daring or revisionist" as the serial. JASNA president Joan Klingel Ray preferred the young age of Knightley and Macfadyen, saying that Ehle had been "a little too 'heavy' for the role". Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian, while praising Knightley for an outstanding performance "which lifts the whole movie", considered the casting of the leads "arguably a little more callow than Firth and Ehle". But he added, "Only a snob, a curmudgeon, or someone with necrophiliac loyalty to the 1995 BBC version with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle could fail to enjoy [Knightley's] performance." At the time, BBC film critic Stella Papamichael considered it Knightley's "best performance yet". The Daily Telegraph critic thought Knightley's acting skills slight, calling her "Someone who radiates little more than good-mannered perkiness", and wrote that between her and Macfadyen there was "little spark".
Critics were divided about Macfadyen's portrayal of Darcy, expressing pleasant surprise, dislike for his lack of gradual emotional shift as in the novel, and praise for his matching the book character's insecurity and sensitivity better than Firth.
Critics also drew attention to other aspects of the film. Writing for The Sydney Morning Herald, Sandra Hall criticised Wright's attention to realism as "careless with the customs and conventions that were part of the fabric of Austen's world". Time Out magazine lamented the absence of Austen's "brilliant sense of irony", remarking that the film's "romantic melodrama's played up at the expense of her razor-sharp wit." Derek Elley of Variety magazine praised Wright and Moggach for "extracting the youthful essence" of the novel while also "providing a richly detailed setting" under Greenwood and Durran's supervision. Equally pleased with the film was the San Francisco Chronicle's Ruthe Stein, who wrote that Wright made a "spectacular feature film debut" that is "creatively reimagined and sublimely entertaining". Claudia Puig of USA Today called it "a stellar adaptation, bewitching the viewer completely and incandescently with an exquisite blend of emotion and wit".
=== Accolades ===
== Influence and legacy ==
Three years after the release, Knightley was still associated with Elizabeth Bennet among a generation of young viewers who had not seen the 1995 production. Given the varied opinions about the film, JASNA published an edited special issue of its online journal Persuasions On-Line in 2007 with the collaboration of 19 Austen scholars from six countries; the intent was to foster discussion and stimulate scholarly analysis. JASNA had done this only once before, for the 1996 film Emma.
Pride & Prejudice influenced later productions in the costume drama and heritage film genres. Literary critics protested that Wright's adaptation effectively "popularized Austen's celebrated romance and brought her novel to the screen as an easy visual read for an undemanding mainstream audience". Carole Dole wrote that the film's success "only made it more likely that future adaptations of Austen will feature, if not necessarily mud, then at least youthful and market-tested performers and youth-orientated filmmaking techniques balanced with the visual pleasures of the heritage film." She cited Anne Hathaway in the 2007 film Becoming Jane as an example. Jessica Durgan added that Pride & Prejudice conceived a new hybrid genre by rejecting the visual cues of the heritage film, which attracted "youth and mainstream audiences without alienating the majority of heritage fans".
Production of Pride & Prejudice began Wright's relationship with Working Title Films, the first of four collaborations. Many members of the film's cast and crew joined Wright in his later efforts. For his adaptation of Atonement, which he viewed as "a direct reaction to Pride & Prejudice", Wright hired Knightley, Blethyn, Marianelli, Thibaudet, Greenwood, and Durran. Atonement has themes similar to Austen's, including the notion of a young writer living in "an isolated English country house" who "mixes up desires and fantasies, truths and fiction". Wright's 2009 film The Soloist included Hollander, Malone, and Marianelli, and Hollander was also featured in Hanna (2011). Wright's 2012 adaptation of Anna Karenina features Knightley, Macfadyen, Marianelli, Durran, and Greenwood and is produced by Bevan, Eric Fellner, and Webster.
In December 2017, Netflix announced that a person from Chile watched Pride & Prejudice 278 times that year. It was later reported that the person was a 51-year-old woman, who declared herself "obsessed" with the film and saw Elizabeth Bennet as "a feminist icon". In July 2025, the film ranked fiftieth on the "Readers' Choice" edition of The New York Times' list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century". |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Limit_(Usher_song) | No Limit (Usher song) | "No Limit" is a song by American singer Usher featuring fellow American rapper Young Thug. It was written by the artists alongside producers Rock City, Brandon "B.A.M." Hodge, and Christopher "Talent" Perry. The track gives reference to Master P's song, "Make 'Em Say Uhh", from his 1997 No Limit Records release Ghetto D, with the lyrics "Make you say uh, no limit / Got that Master P, no limit baby".
It was released by RCA on June 9, 2016, for online streaming through the streaming service Tidal, which Usher co-owns. The following day it was released for paid purchase on digital download and other online streaming services. "No Limit" serves as the lead single off his eighth studio album, Hard II Love. In the US, the song reached number 32 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, number nine on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
== Background and release ==
It had been 4 years since Usher's 2012 album Looking 4 Myself. He has been teasing his eight studio album that was expected to be released in 2014. “Good Kisser”, “She Came To Give It To You” and "I Don't Mind" were released as well as the world tour UR Experience, yet no album was released. In October 2015, Raymond released "Chains", a song about social justice featuring the artist Nas and Bibi Bourelly. Travis Scott released a remix to the song.
== Critical reception ==
Paper Magazine said "Usher's back at it again with "No Limit," a sultry summer jam". Brian Joseph of Spin describes Usher as an "exceptional of a singer as ever on the luscious beat". Madeline Roth of MTV writes Raymond in "No Limit" channeling Drake's sing-rapping and Ty Dolla $ign's syrupy sweetness.
== Commercial performance ==
In North America, the song reached number 32 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay and Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop charts. As of February 2024, "No Limit" has sold 2 million copies in the United States.
== Music video ==
The music video for "No Limit" was directed by Joey Toman. The video for "No Limit" was uploaded August 5, 2016 exclusively online through the streaming service Tidal, which Usher co-owns. On August 8, 2016 it was released on YouTube and Vevo. It features cameo appearances from Ty Dolla Sign, Boosie, Gucci Mane and internet dancing sensations Kida Burns, Ayo & Teo, Meechie, Yvng Quan, Lil Deedee, kidatz and Mr Hot Spot. In the video, Usher dances in front of an all white background accompanied with his dancers. His choreography was likened to his performance at the 2016 BET Awards. As of August 2024, the music video has over 249 million views on YouTube.
== Remix ==
The official remix, "No Limit" (G-Mix)" featured New Orleans rapper Master P, Travis Scott, A$AP Ferg, and fellow Atlanta natives 2 Chainz, and Gucci Mane. The song was released on SoundCloud in August 19, 2016, and features reworked production by WondaGurl.
== Live performances ==
Usher performed the song live for the first time as a part of his headlining set at the BET Experience with other hits including "Yeah!", "U Don't Have to Call", "Love in This Club", "OMG" and many more. Rolling Out declared Usher a leading voice of the past and present R&B generation due to his over 20-year career in music. Mikael Wood of Los Angeles Times described his performance as nothing short of a spectacle.
Usher also did the first live televised performance of the song at 2016 BET Awards which took place at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, California on June 26, 2016. He was dressed in a green windbreaker jacket with the words "Don't Trump America" on the back, two gold chains, black skinny jeans and Air Jordan sneakers. Usher and his backup dancers performed heavily choreographed routines to the song backed with flashing lights and special pyro technics. Usher's performance received positive reviews and was considered by USA Today, Perez Hilton, MTV News, BET.com, New York Daily News and Hollywood Life and many other sources as one of the highlights of the night. Maura Johnston of Rolling Stone described Usher as "the secret weapon of award shows" and declared him as "Award Show King". On September 24, 2016 Usher performed the song live at the iHeartRadio Music Festival 2016 as a part of his set list which he headlined. Usher also performed the song on September 20, 2016, On Jimmy Kimmel Live. He also performed the song at "105.1 Powerhouse 2016" with many other hits which took place at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY and also at "Hot 97 Hot For The Holidays Concert" which took place at Prudential Center in Newark, NJ. Which he served as the headliner of both events.
== Cover art ==
On January 13, 2016, Usher has announced then title of his eighth album, Flawed, on friend and artist Daniel Arsham Instagram post. In the video "Usher and Arsham said they’re working on some “Amazing, Incredible, Awesome stuff” for the new album. The single cover art is a sculpture of Usher that was done by Arsham, which he had to stand still for 4 hours for him to complete.
== Credits and personnel ==
Credits adapted from Tidal.
== Charts ==
== Certifications == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epcot | Epcot | Epcot (stylized in capital letters as EPCOT) is a theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida. It is owned and operated by the Walt Disney Company through its Disney Experiences division. The park opened on October 1, 1982, as EPCOT Center—the second of four theme parks built at the resort. Often referred to as a "permanent world's fair", Epcot is dedicated to the celebration of human achievement, particularly technological innovation and international culture and is known for its iconic landmark Spaceship Earth, a geodesic sphere.
During early development of the Florida property, Walt Disney wanted to build an experimental planned community showcasing modern innovation, known as "EPCOT". After Disney's death in 1966, the company felt his grand vision was impractical. However, it laid the groundwork for EPCOT Center, a theme park that retained the core spirit of Disney's vision. The park was divided into two distinct areas: Future World reprises the idea of showcasing modern innovation through educational entertainment attractions within avant-garde pavilions, while World Showcase highlights the diversity of human cultures from various nations. From the late 2010s to the early 2020s, the park underwent a major overhaul, adding new attractions and Future World was restructured into three areas: World Celebration, World Discovery and World Nature.
The park spans 305 acres (123 hectares), more than twice the size of Magic Kingdom Park. In 2024, the park attracted 12.1 million guests, making it the eighth-most visited theme park in the world.
== History ==
=== 1960s: Experimental concept ===
The genesis for Epcot was originally conceived as a utopian city of the future by Walt Disney in the 1960s. The concept was an acronym for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, often interchanging "city" and "community." In Walt Disney's words in 1966: "EPCOT will take its cue from the new ideas and new technologies that are now emerging from the creative centers of American industry. It will be a community of tomorrow that will never be completed but will always be introducing and testing, and demonstrating new materials and new systems. And EPCOT will always be a showcase to the world of the ingenuity and imagination of American free enterprise."
Walt Disney's original vision, sometimes called Progress City, would have been home to 20,000 residents and would be a living laboratory showcasing cutting-edge technology and urban planning. It was to be built in the shape of a circle with an urban city center in the center with community buildings, schools, and recreational complexes. It would be surrounded by rings of residential areas and industrial areas, all connected by monorail and PeopleMover lines. Automobile traffic would be kept underground, leaving pedestrians safe above ground. This radial plan concept is strongly influenced by British planner Ebenezer Howard and his Garden Cities of To-morrow.
Disney went as far as petitioning the Florida State Legislature for the creation of the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID), with the authority of a governmental body over the Walt Disney World land. The RCID was established in 1967. However, Walt Disney was not able to obtain funding and permission to start work on his Florida property until he agreed to first build the Magic Kingdom theme park. He died in 1966, nearly five years before Magic Kingdom opened.
=== 1970s: Concept evolves into park, construction begins ===
After Walt Disney's death, the company decided that it did not want to be in the business of running a city without Walt's guidance. The original plans for the park showed indecision over the park's purpose. Some Imagineers wanted it to represent the cutting edge of emerging technologies, while others wanted it to showcase international cultures and customs. At one point, a model of the futuristic park was pushed together against a model of a World's Fair international theme, and the two were combined.
The park was originally named EPCOT Center to reflect the ideals and values of the city. It was constructed for an estimated $800 million to $1.4 billion and took three years to build, at the time the largest construction project on Earth. The park spans 305 acres (123 hectares), more than twice the size of Magic Kingdom. The parking lot serving the park is 141 acres (57 ha) (including bus area) and can accommodate 11,211 vehicles.
Groundbreaking for EPCOT Center happened on October 1, 1979 with Florida Governor Bob Graham participating in the groundbreaking ceremony while former Governors Haydon Burns, Claude Kirk and Reubin Askew spoke at the groundbreaking ceremony; 300 representatives participated in the ceremony. EPCOT center's budget for construction was initially much smaller at $300 million but later grew with corporate sponsors contributing alongside Disney. In the end the project cost $1.5 billion with Disney paying around 80% at $1.2 billion while corporate sponsors contributed the rest. Construction was managed by Tishman.
=== 1980s: Opening and operation ===
The grand opening festivities for EPCOT Center took place over three weeks in October 1982—supervised and directed by Disney Legend Bob Jani. The park officially opened to the public on October 1, with a dedication ceremony in front of Spaceship Earth that served as both the kick-off ceremony as well as the dedication of the Spaceship Earth attraction itself. Presiding over the ceremony was Walt Disney Productions chairman and CEO Card Walker, Florida Governor Bob Graham, and president of AT&T (the sponsor of Spaceship Earth at opening) William Ellinghaus. Tickets cost $15 for adults, $14 for juniors (those 11 to 17 years old) and $12 for children (guests between 3 and 11 years old) at the park’s opening. Prior to the opening of the park, cast members, construction workers along with construction workers on the site were allowed to visit during select times.
On opening day, Future World featured six pavilions: Spaceship Earth, CommuniCore, Journey Into Imagination, The Land, Universe of Energy, and World of Motion. World Showcase featured nine pavilions: Mexico, China, Germany, Italy, The American Adventure, Japan, France, United Kingdom, and Canada.
Each pavilion had its own custom opening ceremony throughout the next three weeks—culminating in the three-day grand opening event. On October 24, 1982, EPCOT Center was officially dedicated by Walt Disney Productions executive chairman Donn Tatum and Card Walker. A 450-piece marching band made up of players from college bands all over the country performed several songs including "We've Just Begun to Dream" and "The World Showcase March"—the latter written exclusively for the opening events by the Sherman Brothers. Water was gathered from major rivers, lakes, and seas from across the globe and emptied into the park's Fountain of Nations to mark the opening.
During the 1980s, several additional pavilions opened: Horizons in 1983, Morocco in 1984, The Living Seas in 1986, Norway in 1988, and Wonders of Life in 1989.
=== 1990s–2000s: Change in vision ===
Despite its initial success, Epcot was constantly faced with the challenges of evolving with worldwide progress, an issue that caused the park to lose relevance and become outdated in the 1990s. To maintain attendance levels, Disney introduced seasonal events such as the International Flower & Garden Festival and the International Food & Wine Festival in 1994 and 1995, respectively.
It was during this era that Disney sought to differentiate the Epcot theme park from Walt Disney's EPCOT concept by making the park's name a word rather than an acronym—spelling it in lowercase as a proper noun: "Epcot". Walt Disney World then added the current year to the park's name, emulating the naming scheme for expos and world's fairs like Expo 67. The park became Epcot '94 and Epcot '95 before Disney quietly abandoned the naming concept in 1996 and the park simply became Epcot.
In 1994, Captain EO performed its last show of its original run, being directly replaced by Honey, I Shrunk the Audience that year. In the mid-1990s, Disney also began to gradually phase out the park's edutainment attractions in favor of more modern and thrilling attractions. As a result, many of the attractions within the Future World pavilions were either overhauled or replaced entirely. The Land pavilion saw its attractions replaced under new sponsor Nestlé between late 1993 and January 1995, and Spaceship Earth was updated with music by Edo Guidotti and narration from Jeremy Irons in 1994. Universe of Energy was reconfigured as Ellen's Energy Adventure in 1996. Journey Into Imagination closed in 1998 and was replaced with Journey into YOUR Imagination the following year, World of Motion was replaced with Test Track, and Horizons was demolished in 1999 and replaced with Mission: SPACE in 2003.
In 2000, Walt Disney World held the Millennium Celebration with the central focus of the event at Epcot, and a 25-story "magic wand" structure was built next to Spaceship Earth. Millennium Village was closed on January 1, 2001, and was turned into the World Showplace festival center, which is frequently used for Epcot festivals.
Attraction changes continued into the new millennium. Journey into YOUR Imagination closed in 2001 due to strong negative reception and was replaced with Journey into Imagination with Figment in 2002. The Living Seas was closed in 2005, and rethemed with the introduction of characters from Finding Nemo, as The Seas with Nemo & Friends. That same year, Soarin', a flight simulator ride originally developed for Disney California Adventure Park, was added to The Land (replacing Food Rocks) following its massive popularity in California, opening alongside Lights, Motors, Action!: Extreme Stunt Show at Disney's Hollywood Studios during the Happiest Celebration on Earth festival. The Wonders of Life pavilion closed in 2007, with the pavilion being occasionally used for the park's annual festivals until permanent closure. The Mexico pavilion's El Rio del Tiempo attraction closed on January 2, and Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros opened in its space a few months later. After the "magic wand" structure was removed from Spaceship Earth, the attraction's fourth version, narrated by Judi Dench, soft-opened on December 8. Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure, an interactive scavenger hunt, opened at Epcot in 2009.
=== 2010s–present: Transformation and redesign ===
In 2012, Test Track was refurbished into a new version presented by Chevrolet, and Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure was rethemed to Agent P's World Showcase Adventure the same year. The Norway pavilion's Maelstrom attraction closed in 2014 and replaced two years later by Frozen Ever After. Soarin' was also temporarily closed while a new film was added to the attraction. In 2017, Mission: SPACE was divided into a new green/Earth mission, and the original orange/Mars mission.
In November 2016, Disney revealed that Epcot would be receiving “a major transformation” that would help transition the park into being “more Disney, timeless, relevant, family-friendly”. In July 2017, the formal announcement came that Epcot would undergo a multi-year redesign and expansion plan that would introduce Guardians of the Galaxy and Ratatouille attractions to Future World and World Showcase, respectively, as well as maintaining the original vision and spirit for the park. As part of the announcement, Ellen's Energy Adventure closed the following month, and the pavilion's show building was reused for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, while the Epcot 35 Legacy Showcase exhibition opened in the Odyssey Pavilion. That same year, the park reported the first drop in overall attendance ranking among the four Walt Disney World Resort parks, dropping from second to third place, the first in its history.
On August 25, 2019, at the 2019 D23 Expo, Disney expanded on the plans for the improvements to Epcot. One of the most significant changes announced was the creation of four distinct "neighborhoods"; the subdivision of Future World into three areas (World Celebration, World Discovery, and World Nature). Journey of Water—Inspired by Moana, a walkthrough attraction, was also announced. At the same expo, Disney also announced that Pinar Toprak would be composing a new musical anthem for the park. Toprak's "Epcot Anthem" was eventually used in various nighttime shows, such as Harmonious and Luminous, as well as featured in ambient music within the entrance plaza and throughout World Celebration.
On October 1, 2019, it was announced that a new nighttime fireworks show, Epcot Forever, and The Epcot Experience Center, a preview space for the park's expansion project, narrated by Judi Dench, would replace IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth and Epcot 35 Legacy Showcase. In late 2019, Epcot installed new directory signage in Seabase Alpha, restoring the former Living Seas logo, as the pavilion was renamed to The Seas Pavilion. Agent P's World Showcase Adventure closed on February 23, 2020; it was slated to be replaced with DuckTales World Showcase Adventure, which did not open until 2022.
In early 2020, Disney officially announced that the park would be rebranded in all-uppercase letters (from Epcot to EPCOT) as an homage to both the park's original name and Walt Disney's original concept—although the name is still not an acronym.
Epcot was closed from March 16 to July 15, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Florida. Modified operations were established, including a pause on concerts and fireworks, in order to promote sufficient physical distancing. Spaceship Earth: Our Shared Story, the attraction's fifth update, the Wondrous China film, the PLAY! pavilion in World Discovery, and the United Kingdom pavilion's Cherry Tree Lane expansion were indefinitely delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the CommuniCore Hall exhibit space and the CommuniCore Plaza festival stage was built instead of a three-level festival pavilion.
On September 29, 2021, the nighttime spectacular Harmonious replaced Epcot Forever as part of the resort's 50th anniversary celebration. The show ended its run on March 31, 2023, in preparation for Luminous: The Symphony of Us which debuted later that year; Epcot Forever returned during the interim period. Remy's Ratatouille Adventure (duplicated from Disneyland Paris) opened in the France pavilion on October 1 as part of the same celebrations. The Epcot Experience Center closed in 2022, and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind opened on May 27.
Journey of Water: Inspired by Moana opened in World Nature opened on October 16, 2023, and World Celebration Gardens, divided into five sections (Inspiration Gardens, CommuniCore Gardens, Connections Gardens, Creations Gardens, and Dreamers Point) opened on December 5 of that year. On March 31, 2024, it was announced that a new live show, "Forces of Nature" by AntiGravity, which ran until the final performance on June 5, 2025, in Inspiration Gardens near the locations of World Nature, and featured aerial acrobatic performers representing Mother Nature and different elements. CommuniCore Hall and Plaza, named after the former Future World pavilion, opened to the general public on June 10, 2024. Test Track, closed for refurbishment on June 17 to make way for the attraction's third iteration, opened on July 22, 2025, with the return of the old sponsorship, General Motors. At D23 2024, it was announced that a new lounge, Geo–82 and Geo–82 Fireworks Experience, would took the place of the former Siemens lounge attached to Spaceship Earth; it opened on June 4, 2025. and it was reserved for adults only.
On November 21, 2024, it was announced that the second stage has been installed in the CommuniCore Plaza Stage, and the stage will be the home of "Joyful! A Celebration of the Season", as a seasonal entertainment offering during the 2024 annual Epcot International Festival of the Holidays. On March 23, 2025, a fire broke out near the area.
In late spring of 2025, Epcot debuted GEO‑82, a 21-and‑over cocktail lounge hidden behind the Spaceship Earth geodesic sphere. The adults-only venue features craft cocktails, small plates, and reservation-only fireworks‑viewing experiences. On July 22, 2025, it was announced that Diver Look-Out Chambers would return in the Seas Pavilion, which was became part of the section of World Nature at Epcot, since the demonstration was being temporarily closed and the Future World area was permanently closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago.
On October 5, 2025, it was announced that the Frozen Ever After attraction in the Norway Pavilion at Epcot will receive upgrades, including the audio-animatronic figures, using updated technology introduced in the newer World of Frozen attraction at Hong Kong Disneyland, when the upgrades could be completed on February 12, 2026. On October 20, 2025, it was announced that two different versions of the attraction as Soarin' Around the World will be temporarily closed soon to make way for a new film, Soarin' Across America, which will premiere on May 26, 2026 in The Land Pavilion at EPCOT's World Nature, after it was announced that the Florida version of the attraction will be permanently closed on May 13, 2026, and on July 2, 2026 in Grizzly Peak at Disney California Adventure and, for the 250th anniversary celebration of United States. On November 10, 2025, it was announced that the attraction, Remy's Ratatouille Adventure, was temporarily closed for a short refurbishment until it was reopened and debuts a 2D conversion on November 14, 2025 in France Pavilion at EPCOT's World Showcase.
== Park layout and attractions ==
Epcot is divided into four themed areas, known as "neighborhoods": World Celebration, World Discovery, World Nature, and World Showcase.
World Celebration, Discovery, and Nature house a variety of avant-garde pavilions that explore innovative aspects and applications including technology and science, with each pavilion featuring self-contained attractions and distinct architecture in its design. Currently, the park features nine major pavilions: Galaxy, Imagination, Journey, Land, Motion, Odyssey, Seas, Space, and Spaceship Earth. World Showcase has eleven individual nation pavilions.
World Celebration, Discovery, and Nature were originally grouped as one area called Future World, which debuted with six pavilions: Spaceship Earth, CommuniCore, Imagination!, The Land, Universe of Energy, and World of Motion. The Horizons pavilion opened the following year, and The Living Seas and Wonders of Life pavilions were added in 1986 and 1989, respectively, bringing the lineup to nine. CommuniCore, World of Motion, Horizons, Wonders of Life, Universe of Energy, and Innoventions closed in 1994, 1996, 1999, 2007, 2017, and 2019, respectively. The Fountain of Nations, a large circular musical fountain which debuted with the park, was removed in 2019 as well. Each pavilion was initially sponsored by a corporation which helped fund its construction and maintenance in return for the corporation's logos and some marketing elements appearing throughout the pavilion.
Additionally, each pavilion of Future World featured a unique circular logo designed by Norm Inouye (except for the Wonders of Life logo due to its later introduction), which was featured on park signage and throughout the attractions themselves. The pavilion logos were gradually phased out in the early 2000s, as the pavilions instead were identified by name and recognized by the main attraction(s) housed inside. Several homages remained scattered throughout the park, including merchandising. However, in 2019, the circular pavilion logos were revived as part of the park's transformation, with both classic logos reprised and refreshed and newer logos introduced.
=== World Celebration ===
World Celebration serves as the park's main entrance and a central hub that honors global human interaction and connection, including communication, imagination, creativity, and the visual and culinary arts. The neighborhood features four major pavilions—Spaceship Earth, Imagination, Odyssey, and CommuniCore—as well as additional attractions, shops, and restaurants.
Guests enter through the main entrance and walk underneath Spaceship Earth, an eighteen-story-tall geodesic sphere structure and the anchor pavilion, which also houses an eponymous dark ride attraction that depicts the history of communication. Directly behind Spaceship Earth are the World Celebration Gardens and Dreamers Point, featuring lush interactive gardens, lighting fixtures and Walt the Dreamer—a bronze statue commemorating Walt Disney. The Imagination! pavilion celebrates the concept of imagination and features Journey into Imagination with Figment, a dark ride starring Figment that explores the senses. CommuniCore Hall and Plaza is a multi-use pavilion used for exhibitions, gallery space, a mixology bar, a demonstration kitchen, and music performances, as well as meet-and-greets with Disney characters. The Odyssey Pavilion is an exhibition space during the park's annual festivals.
World Celebration is also home to Creations Shop, the park's main gift shop; Connections Eatery & Cafe, a quick-service restaurant and Starbucks themed to global food history; and Club Cool, a Coca-Cola-themed attraction and shop featuring complimentary samples of Coca-Cola soft drinks from around the world.
=== World Discovery ===
World Discovery centers on space, science, transportation, and intergalactic exploration. Lying on the east side of World Celebration, the Discovery neighborhood currently features three major pavilions in clockwise layout.
Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, an enclosed spinning roller coaster based on the superhero team of the same name. The building originally opened as Universe of Energy.
Mission: SPACE is a centrifugal motion simulator thrill ride that replicates a space flight experience to Mars and a low orbit tour over the surface of Earth. Next to it is Space 220, a themed restaurant simulating dining aboard a space station located two hundred twenty miles high above Earth. The building is located on the original plot site of Horizons.
Test Track is a high-speed slot car ride inspired by the automobile testing procedures that General Motors uses to evaluate concept cars. The Motion Pavilion was one of the original pavilions of Epcot and has always housed an attraction sponsored by General Motors.
In between Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind and Mission: SPACE is one standing but unused pavilion that once housed Wonders of Life.
=== World Nature ===
World Nature focuses on understanding and preserving the beauty, awe and balance of the natural world. Located on the west side of World Celebration, the Nature neighborhood features three major pavilions in counterclockwise layout—inspired by human interaction with the Earth, specifically themes of ocean exploration, hydrology, agriculture, horticulture, ecology, ecotourism, and travel.
Based on ocean exploration and inspired by the Finding Nemo series, The Seas pavilion features the sixth-largest aquarium in the world with marine life exhibits; an Omnimover attraction inspired by Finding Nemo; and Turtle Talk with Crush, an interactive show hosted by Crush from Finding Nemo. Connected to the building is the Coral Reef Restaurant, a themed seafood restaurant that provides views into the aquarium. Nearby is Journey of Water, an outdoor walkthrough water attraction depicting the Earth's water cycle, inspired by Moana. Finally, the Land pavilion features three attractions; Soarin' Around the World, an attraction that simulates a hang gliding flight over various regions of the world; Living with the Land, a narrated boat tour through Audio-Animatronics scenes, a greenhouse and hydroponics lab; and Awesome Planet, a short documentary film presented in the pavilion's Harvest Theater about the Earth's biomes and the perils of climate change.
=== World Showcase ===
World Showcase is the park's largest neighborhood, dedicated to representing the culture, history, cuisine, architecture, and traditions of 11 nations from across four continents—North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Each nation pavilion features attractions, shops, restaurants, and landscaping that celebrate or portray authentic settings from each country—several pavilions also contain recreations inspired by existing buildings and landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower, Itsukushima Shrine, Horyuji Temple, Hampton Court Palace, Château Laurier, Gol Stave Church, St Mark's Campanile, and the Kutubiyya Mosque. Of the 11 pavilions, only Morocco and Norway were not present at the park's opening, as they were added in 1984 and 1988 respectively.
The nation pavilions surround the World Showcase Lagoon, a man-made lake located in the center of World Showcase with a perimeter of 1.2 miles (1.9 km), which is the site of the park's nighttime fireworks display, Luminous: The Symphony of Us. In counter-clockwise order, the 11 pavilions are:
The American Adventure is the host pavilion of World Showcase, sharing its name with its marquee attraction: Liberty Theater, as a stage show detailing American history and hosted by Audio-Animatronics versions of Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain. The pavilion also includes the American Heritage Gallery, a changing exhibition space. On the shores of the lagoon is the America Gardens Theatre, an outdoor amphitheater that hosts the park's festival concerts.
The France Pavilion hosts Impressions de France in Palais du Cinéma, an 18-minute Cinerama-style film depicting the culture of France, and along with Beauty and the Beast: Sing-Along. Tucked behind the lagoon-facing portion of the pavilion is Remy's Ratatouille Adventure, a 3D dark ride inspired by Pixar’s Ratatouille.
The Canada and China Pavilions each host Circle-Vision 360° films—Canada Far and Wide and Reflections of China—that depict the diverse cultures and countrysides of their respective countries. Two dark boat rides reside within the Norway and Mexico Pavilions—Frozen Ever After and Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros, respectively—inspired by Frozen and The Three Caballeros.
A secondary park gate is located between the France and United Kingdom pavilions of World Showcase and is known as the International Gateway. The International Gateway is directly accessible to guests arriving from the Disney Skyliner and from watercraft transport, and by walkways from the nearby Epcot Area Resorts and Disney's Hollywood Studios.
Each pavilion contains themed architecture, landscapes, streetscapes, attractions, shops and restaurants representing the respective country's culture and cuisine. In an effort to maintain the authenticity of the represented countries, the pavilions are primarily staffed by citizens of the respective countries as part of Disney's Cultural Representative Program through Q1 visa agreements. Some pavilions also contain themed rides, shows, and live entertainment representative of the respective country. The Morocco pavilion was directly sponsored by the Moroccan government until 2020, when Disney took ownership of the pavilion. The remaining pavilions are primarily sponsored by private companies with affiliations to the represented countries.
Originally, the showcase was to include partnerships with the governments of the different countries. According to Disney's 1975 Annual Report, the Showcase would:
...offer participating countries a permanent installation for such features as themed restaurants and shops, product exhibits, industrial displays, cultural presentations, a trade center, and even special facilities for business meetings.
Major sponsorships for each participating nation will be asked to provide the capital to cover the cost of designing, developing and constructing its attraction and/or ride and all exhibits, as well as the Pavilion itself. It will also have the responsibility for funding the housing for its employees in the International Village. Its land lease will cover the cost of maintaining the attraction for a minimum of ten years.
The Disney organization will be responsible for area development, including the construction of transportation systems and utilities. We will also build and operate the internal people moving system, the Courtyard of Nations and central theater facility.
==== Proposed pavilions and unused locations ====
There are currently seven undeveloped spots for countries around the World Showcase in between the locations of the current countries. Two sites are located on either side of the United Kingdom, one between France and Morocco, one between Morocco and Japan, one between Italy and Germany, and two between Germany and China.
In 1982, Disney announced three pavilions were "coming soon": Israel, Spain and Equatorial Africa, blending elements of the cultures of countries such as Kenya and Zaire. A model of the Equatorial Africa pavilions was also shown on the opening day telecast. However, the pavilions were never built. Instead, a small African themed refreshment shop known as the "Outpost" currently resides in the area between China and Germany, where the Equatorial Africa pavilion was to be located.
More than 50 nations, among them, Brazil, Chile, India, Indonesia, Israel, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Sweden and five African countries (Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Namibia, and South Africa), took part in the Millennium Village, a project that took place in Epcot during Millennium Celebration from 1999 to 2001. The Millennium Village was located inside a temporary structure built behind the United Kingdom pavilions that remains in use as World ShowPlace.
==== Alcohol policy ====
Unlike Magic Kingdom, which up until 2012 did not serve alcohol, most stores and restaurants at Epcot, especially in the World Showcase, serve and sell a variety of alcoholic beverages including specialty drinks, craft beers, wines, and spirits reflective of the respective countries. The park also hosts the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, an annual event featuring food and drink samplings from all over the world, along with live entertainment and special exhibits.
In June 2025, Disney World introduced GEO-82, an exclusive adult-only lounge at Epcot. GEO-82 offers an elevated experience with premium cocktails, small plates, and unique views of the park's nightly fireworks shows. This new space was designed to provide adult guests with a sophisticated area for relaxation and entertainment, expanding Disney's offerings for grown-up visitors. The lounge represents Disney's focus on diversifying guest experiences and catering to adult audiences.
Solar Energy
As part of Disney's ongoing sustainability initiatives, Epcot has expanded its solar array, which is a crucial part of Disney's commitment to achieving net-zero emissions by 2030. The solar panels, which power parts of the park, significantly reduce the resort's carbon footprint. This effort reflects Disney's broader goal of incorporating renewable energy sources across its parks worldwide.
Sustainability
Disney is actively engaged in water conservation across its parks and resorts, aiming to reduce potable water consumption through various initiatives. At Epcot in Walt Disney World Resort, the irrigation system has been switched to reclaimed water, enhancing water efficiency. These efforts are part of Disney's broader environmental strategy, which includes implementing site-specific watershed stewardship strategies at key locations. By focusing on both operational water conservation and investments to protect local natural water systems, Disney aims to contribute to the sustainable management of water resources.
== Annual events ==
Epcot hosts a number of special events during the year:
The Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival, inaugurated in 1994, uses specially-themed floral displays throughout the park, including topiary sculptures of Disney characters. Each event takes more than a full year to plan and more than 20,000 cast member hours.
The Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, inaugurated in 1995, draws amateur and professional gourmets to sample delicacies from all around the world, including nations that do not have a permanent presence in World Showcase. Celebrity chefs are often on-hand to host the events. In 2008, the festival featured the Bocuse d'Or USA, the American semifinal of the biennial Bocuse d'Or cooking competition.
The Epcot International Festival of the Arts, inaugurated in 2017, is a festival showcasing visual, culinary, and performing arts. The first annual event took place on weekends from January 13 through February 20, 2017.
The Epcot International Festival of the Holidays (previously known as Epcot Holidays Around the World from 1996 to 2016), inaugurated in 2017, is the park's annual holiday celebration. The World Showcase pavilions feature storytellers describing their nation's holiday traditions, and three nightly performances of the Candlelight Processional featuring an auditioned mass choir and a celebrity guest narrating the story of Christmas. Kiosks throughout the World Showcase feature holiday dishes. On New Year's Eve, the park offers a variety of additional entertainment including live DJ dance areas throughout the park.
== Attendance ==
The Walt Disney Company generally does not publish attendance figures for its theme parks, so industry groups such as the Themed Entertainment Association estimate these figures. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naruto_Uzumaki | Naruto Uzumaki | Naruto Uzumaki (Japanese: うずまき ナルト, Hepburn: Uzumaki Naruto) () is the titular protagonist of the manga series Naruto, created by Masashi Kishimoto. He is a ninja from the fictional Hidden Leaf Village (Japanese: 木ノ葉隠れ, Hepburn: Konohagakure). As a boy, Naruto is ridiculed and ostracized on account of the Kurama the Nine-Tailed Fox—a malevolent creature that attacked Hidden Leaf Village—that was sealed away in his body. Despite this, he aspires to become his village's leader, the Hokage, in order to receive their approval. His carefree, optimistic, and boisterous personality enables him to befriend other Hidden Leaf Village ninja, as well as ninja from other villages. Naruto appears in the series's films and in other media related to the franchise, including video games and original video animations (OVA), as well as the sequel Boruto series, where he is the Seventh Hokage, and his son, Boruto Uzumaki, is the titular protagonist along with Kawaki, Naruto's adopted son.
When creating Naruto for the initial part of the series, Kishimoto kept the character "simple and stupid" while giving him many attributes of an ideal hero. Kishimoto gave Naruto a dark side by adding tragedy to the character's past. He has revised Naruto's image many times, providing the character with simple clothes to fit the young demography. Kishimoto changed his design for Part II of the storyline, which starts two-and-a-half years after Part I. Naruto is voiced by Junko Takeuchi in the original animated series and Maile Flanagan in the English adaptations.
Merchandise based on Naruto includes figurines and keychains. Naruto's character development has been praised by anime and manga publications and has drawn scholarly attention. Although some initially saw him as a typical manga and anime protagonist comparable to those in other shōnen manga, others have praised his personality and character development as he avoids stereotypes typically seen in similar media. The character has also been the subject of research in literature, making him stand out in fiction based on his traits and growth.
== Creation and conception ==
=== Original concept and influences ===
During the 1990s, new manga author Masashi Kishimoto sought to write a one-shot chapter that would feature Naruto as a chef, but this version never made it to print. Kishimoto originally wanted to make Naruto a child who could transform into a fox, so he created a one-shot of Naruto for the summer 1997 issue of Akamaru Jump magazine based on the idea. When comparing both the Naruto one-shot and his other work, Karakuri, Kishimoto realized that the former's title character was more appealing than the lead of Karakuri. Kishimoto reflects that Naruto's "honest" smile was well received in contrast to the sly look the main character from Karakuri had. Following the success of another one-shot, Mario, Kishimoto started working on the Naruto series, where he wanted to reuse the title character from his earlier one-shot. Kishimoto wrote the first two chapters to show his appeal to the readers and then focus on the other protagonists despite difficulties. Following the second chapter, Kishimoto introduced the other protagonists, but with bad relationships, including with Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto's constant rejected affections for Sakura Haruno. The manga story was planned to show Naruto's coming-of-age through multiple fights, and he looked forward to seeing the conclusion.
For the serialized version, Kishimoto incorporated traits he felt made an ideal hero in the creation of Naruto: a straightforward way of thinking, a mischievous side, and attributes possessed by Goku from the Dragon Ball franchise, aiming to keep Naruto "simple and stupid". Although Goku was a major influence to Naruto, Kishimoto was more attracted by Dragon Ball character Krillin, as he comes across as more human than the protagonist for displaying flaws that made the readers easier to accept in a similar fashion to his mentor Iruka Umino. Kishimoto avoided modeling him after anyone in particular, instead conceiving of him as naïve with a dark side resulting from his harsh past. Despite this, he is always optimistic, a trait Kishimoto said makes this character unique. By and large, Naruto's personality is childish; the creator tried to convey this trait in his illustrations. Kishimoto notes the cover of volume 10 as an example of this, where Kishimoto depicts Naruto mimicking a turtle as a child might do. Naruto was Kishimoto's first published manga, and he focused on making Naruto's facial expressions consistent in difficult situations. He commented, "It's rather awkward to talk about what makes Naruto appealing to audiences, but I think his being a knucklehead gives him an appeal". He believed it was Naruto's losses that made readers identify with him, although he wanted Naruto not to feel defeated again, which was his primary aim when writing the series. Kishimoto has said that Naruto's burning desire to be a ninja was based on his own ambition to succeed as a manga artist. As the series went on, Kishimoto wrote the older incarnations of Naruto to be naïve idealists due to how Naruto was written to continuously avoid repeating previous mistakes. However, at the same time, Kishimoto wrote him as a sign of hope, something important in regard to the series's audience.
In the original Japanese versions of Naruto, Naruto often ends his sentences with the addendum "-ttebayo" (which achieves an effect similar to ending a sentence with "you know?" in English). Kishimoto wanted to give Naruto a childlike catchphrase, and "dattebayo" came to mind; he believed that the phrase complemented Naruto's character and served as a verbal tic that portrayed him in a brattish manner. Throughout the first episodes of the English dub version, "dattebayo" and "-ttebayo" were replaced with the phrase "Believe it!", both to mirror the effect and to match the character's lip movements, although later in the English dub, Naruto stopped saying "Believe it!" and the phrase was replaced with "You know?".
=== Development ===
After fans likened Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura to the three main characters from the Harry Potter fantasy books, Kishimoto noted that both trios began their careers in a classroom, though he added that the similarity was unintentional. During the series's publication, Kishimoto married and had children. This influenced how he viewed Naruto's character. Naruto met his parents and learned of their sacrifices in order to help him to control the Nine-Tailed Fox inside him so that he could protect their world. As a result, Naruto appreciated his life more and learned that his parents loved him, something the author wanted the character to feel based on his own experience as a father. In the first chapters of the series, Kishimoto did not conceive the idea that Naruto would be the son of Minato Namikaze. However, as time passed on, the manga author made touches to Minato's face shown in the Hokage Mountain in Konoha to make them more similar to Naruto with an emphasis on their spiky hairs. However, in order to reduce too many similarities, Kushina Uzumaki's character was made to look like Naruto's face.
Out of all the student-teacher relationships Kishimoto has created in the Naruto series, the one between Naruto and Jiraiya is his favorite. Right before Jiraiya's death in his fight against Pain in his last moments, he discovers the origin of Pain's multiple bodies and uses his last forces to send that message as a piece of advice to Naruto so that Naruto could defeat him in his place. This arc was the most difficult one to write; he felt this because Naruto truly forgave his enemy. Instead of having the protagonist kill the enemy he hates, as it happens in other series, Kishimoto found the idea of the two characters interacting and settling their differences more challenging. This had a major impact on the writer, and he decided to have Naruto forgive Sasuke during their final fight in a similar manner as he interacted with Nagato. Kishimoto felt the need to create a story arc that would emphasize the tragedy of wars, leading to the final arc, which would include a war. The principal reason for this was a significant difference between the two main characters, Naruto who had no knowledge of wars, and Sasuke who was a victim of one; his entire clan had been annihilated to avoid a potential civil war. As a result, Kishimoto created Nagato as a war victim who would kill Jiraiya, and act as Naruto's nemesis so he would understand the tragedy that Sasuke had experienced. As a result, Naruto's coming-of-age would have been completed in this arc and the final arc, where Naruto deals with world war and develops a vision of the shinobi world as well as how he should handle the conflict.
In the 2015 film, Boruto: Naruto the Movie, Kishimoto developed Boruto and Naruto's relationship from his relationship with his sons. In portraying the adult Naruto, Kishimoto did not want to make the character give a cool impression in contrast to his younger days as a war hero because Naruto being a strong father figure to Boruto would be too boring for the narrative. Similarly, Chengxi Huang wanted to properly display Naruto's facial expression during this scene, stating that while Naruto has grown up ever since his introduction, his gentle smile was the same. Manga author Mikio Ikemoto claimed the scene in which Naruto helps his son to create a Massive Rasengan was his favorite at the time of drawing Boruto, as across this moment, he had to draw Naruto's past to the point he "felt the weight of NARUTO series and its long history behind it."
==== Rivalry ====
Early in the making of the series, Kishimoto had poor faith in the manga as he believed the series was lacking something to become popular. After being recommended by his editor to give the protagonist a rival, Kishimoto wrote Sasuke with influences from Takehiko Inoue's Slam Dunk manga, which was famous for dealing with rivalries. When first introducing Sasuke, Kishimoto wrote him as a rival who never noticed Naruto. However, as the series continued, Naruto became strong enough to finally be recognized by Sasuke as a rival. He also intended for both of them to be brother-like due to the fact that both characters suffered loneliness, something that made the readers relate to them, as he noted through fan letters. By Part I's ending, the bond between Naruto and Sasuke was weakened as a result of their fight but still expected from the time when Sasuke accepted Naruto as an equal. Kishimoto compared Sasuke and Naruto to the concept of yin and yang because of their notable differences. When one of the two progressed, Kishimoto made sure the other did too. During the climax of Part I, Naruto and Sasuke engage in a mortal fight, which was directed by Atsushi Wakabayashi from Pierrot. In an interview, the director claimed that the animation was based on a journey to Lake Mashu from Hokkaido to come up with new ideas. Wakabayashi aimed for the characters to move stilted based on storyboards he made, leading to entertaining sequences. When Naruto became berserk due to the Nine-Tailed Fox's influence, Norio Matsumoto aimed to make Naruto behave like a beast, with Wakabayashi aiming to make Naruto look like an equal to his rival. The staff was inspired by 1970s series, like the boxing series Ashita no Joe, most notably its lead character, Joe Yabuki, who was often seen as an underdog the audience rooted for. However, the team still worked carefully to make the two ninjas be equals without overpowering each other.
Before the serialization began, Kishimoto had decided the ending would feature a fight between Naruto and Sasuke. He wanted the conflict to end with Naruto forgiving Sasuke as he had forgiven Nagato while also aiming it as their final battle in the manga. In regard to the fight, Kishimoto wanted to focus on hand-to-hand combat rather than ninja techniques. Anime staff Chengxi Huang said that for the animated adaptation of this fight, the group worked carefully to depict the action in every scene by showing changes on Naruto and Sasuke's clothes and hair. Huang added he felt fatigued by working so much into this fight due to reaching 70 successive cuts at a time.
The final fight between Naruto and Sasuke was considered one of the biggest challenges by the staff from Pierrot, as it took an entire month to adapt it from the manga. Director Hiroyuki Yamashita elected himself in charge of the battle, which left most of the anime members relieved due to his experience. For the scene, Pierrot received assistance from CyberConnect2, who had already adapted this battle through the fighting game Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4. There was a need to make every movement in the fight look realistic, giving Sasuke a scary look as well as the hair movement in order to express the idea of both fighters willing to do anything to kill each other, which confused some due to Naruto's wish to avoid this fate. The final clash between Naruto's Rasengan and Sasuke's Chidori moves involved references from other scenes of the series to give the viewer a bigger emotional impact. The staff noted that following this fight, Sasuke's face became calmer despite his initial look, giving room to explore his redemption. A symbolism Kishimoto used in the series finale following the final battle was Naruto returning Sasuke his original bandana, representing how their bonds are tied again and no longer having a reason to kill each other.
==== Love interests ====
Naruto's romantic partner was decided during the early stages of the manga. Since Hinata Hyuga always respected Naruto, even before the series's beginning, even before his academy mentor Iruka Umino, Kishimoto felt they were meant to be. This angered his wife, who wanted Naruto to marry Sakura Haruno. When Sakura was introduced, Kishimoto did not think of her as Naruto's future wife: he saw them as being friends and teammates, although once Hinata had appeared, the author thought of forming a love triangle between the three characters. He later regretted the love triangle as he considered Naruto a fighting series with little focus on romance, and he reiterated that "[i]t was all about Naruto and Hinata getting married from an early stage."
When seeing the staff's work to focus a film on Naruto's relationship with Hinata, The Last: Naruto the Movie, Kishimoto decided to oversee the project. Nevertheless, he enjoyed seeing Naruto and Hinata's romantic scenes that he did not write. In regard to Naruto's rank, which remains as the lowest one, Genin, due to Naruto spending most of his time in Part II fighting and training, Kishimoto decided Naruto would skip the following ranks to become the Hokage, which he felt was appealing. In the making of The Last: Naruto the Movie, Hinata makes a red scarf for Naruto. This was based on something Kishimoto's wife actually once did, which brought laughs to the staff developing the film.
Screenwriter Maruo Kyozuka said that he wanted to depict a love triangle between Naruto, Hinata, and Toneri Otsutsuki in the film. Although Naruto is initially clueless about Hinata's feelings for him, during the film, he begins to acknowledge and respond to them. Hinata's character was also developed in the film, with Kyozuka saying that she had to put aside her feelings for Naruto to accept Toneri's proposal so she could find Hanabi. During this scene, Kyozuka wanted to depict Naruto at his lowest after his rejection by Hinata. He then returned Naruto to his brave self, with the character resolving to continue his mission regardless of the cost. Animator Chengxi Huang, who worked on multiple Naruto series, took a liking to this couple ever since he started working on Naruto Shippuden, often aiming to draw scenes of the two and most notably a scene from the final arc when Hinata slaps Naruto to calm him following the death of Neji Hyuga. In the making of the film, he thanked Kishimoto for accepting to do The Last, where the couple was explored furthermore. He looked at their adult selves as an appealing married couple but had to remove a video he made that received backlash for being inappropriate for the demographic.
=== Design ===
Although a real ninja wears blue to be inconspicuous, Kishimoto gave Naruto an orange jumpsuit to fit the shōnen genre. His wardrobe is based on clothing that Kishimoto wore when he was younger. According to him, a pre-existing design would not have made Naruto unique, whereas something original would have made him too distinctive. Because Naruto is associated with spirals in terms of objects he uses, the designer incorporated swirl patterns into the costume. Initial illustrations depicted Naruto in boots, but Kishimoto replaced these with sandals because he enjoys drawing toes. The goggles Naruto used to wear were replaced with a hitai-ite, or shinobi headband, because they were too time-consuming to draw. One of the most difficult design choices was the color palette of Naruto's outfit. The orange in his costume makes Naruto pop, and the blue parts are complementary. Kishimoto apologized to the anime staff for Naruto's design, as he considered it too difficult to animate.
Kishimoto was satisfied with his character having blond hair and blue eyes, something rarely seen in Japanese anime or manga. This also appealed to an international readership, something the editor of the American magazine Shonen Jump has noted. Of all his series' characters, Kishimoto most identified with Naruto. When asked why Naruto's favorite food was ramen instead of kitsune udon, Kishimoto said that he himself likes eating ramen. In the Naruto: Clash of Ninja video game series, Naruto is playable in various stages of the Demon Fox's manifestation, characterized by a red chakra. Kishimoto took inspiration from the games' presentation of these forms, imitating one of them for the manga cover of volume 26.
When designing Naruto for his Part II appearance, Kishimoto changed his character's clothing to an orange and black top, orange pants, and black sandals. He also gave him a red cape with black flames at the bottom when fighting Pain, a member of the Akatsuki. He drew Naruto's forehead protector wider to make his eyebrows easier to draw, something that had bothered him with his previous design. He also noted that Naruto's pants made the character look too childish. To remedy this, Kishimoto designed them to roll up, giving him a more mature appearance. He gave Naruto this look in order to make him stand out during action scenes.
For the events of the film The Last: Naruto the Movie (2014) as well as the final episodes of Naruto: Shippuden, Naruto was given a young adult appearance. His hair was made shorter, while his height was expanded notably in contrast to his Part II design. He was given two different outfits, a casual look consisting of an orange shirt as well as a design consisting of a black shirt with orange pants specifically meant for his missions. Due to his growth, Naruto wears a different headband, while his new ninja appearance was created with the purpose of being able to carry weapons more easily. Nevertheless, both looks keep the character's spiralling logo that was carried from his late mother's gone group, the Uzumaki clan.
=== Voice actors ===
Although a male voice actor was sought for the role of Naruto in the Japanese adaptation, actress Junko Takeuchi was chosen instead over many male applicants. Before recording the first episode, Takeuchi noticed several lines from the script that ended with exclamation marks, which helped her to define Naruto's voice. She noted difficulties in transitioning from the young Naruto to the older Naruto in the animated adaptation of Part II. She had to record the first episode of Part II when Naruto's character was older and more mature, only one week after voicing the younger, immature character. Nine years after first voicing the character, while still finding it tough to voice Naruto, Takeuchi's opinion of him changed, with her feeling he was "a very reliable young man" compared to the "loud-mouthed obnoxious brat" he was before. She admired his ability to prioritize and calmly make important decisions and believes these traits will inspire viewers worldwide.
In regard to Naruto's growth, Takeuchi was happy with the story and had hoped that Naruto would end up in a relationship with Hinata. Takeuchi was reminded of Naruto's late godfather, Jiraiya, when she read the script. She thought that although Naruto's declaration of love was the most important part of the character's growth, his true nature had not changed at that point. Satisfied with the story, Takeuchi thought that the audience would agree with her view. For the film Boruto: Naruto the Movie, Takeuchi was surprised with how Naruto has grown up ever since she first voiced him, not only in the idea of age or new job but also the fact that he has become a father. As a result, she befriended Yūko Sanpei, the voice actress behind Boruto. Takeuchi felt the writing for the adult Naruto was different from his younger days, as his mannerisms had changed too, joking that she never saw such growth in the story when first voicing him. As a result, she mentions having had some inner complications with how she should show the character's growth.
The producers of the English version of the anime stated that Naruto was the most difficult character to cast, adding that Maile Flanagan "has Naruto down, from the mischievous side, that precocious 12-year-old we learn to love, to the serious side." Her performance has been praised for showing Naruto's brashness and later growth in confidence. In a 2014 interview, Flanagan claimed she had never heard of Naruto before her audition. She looked the show up after being chosen and felt the release of the English dub would be popular. She is recognized more for her work voicing Naruto than from the other roles she has done in her career, although some fans did not expect that Naruto would be voiced by a woman. Flanagan and Amanda C. Miller (the voice actress of Boruto) found the two family members similar in nature despite having different backgrounds. Flanagan was surprised by how her character changed across the years but felt he was still the same for her, finding it challenging to voice Naruto again when coming back to voice the younger Naruto. In regard to the change of tone, Flanagan was surprised by the fact that the dubbers did not replace her despite Naruto's age but felt it was something common in Japanese series.
== Synopsis ==
Introduced as a 12-year-old orphan boy with blond, spiky hair and blue eyes, Naruto Uzumaki graduates as a ninja from Konohagakure while bonding with his teacher, Iruka Umino. Naruto seeks attention as he was ridiculed during his childhood. To be accepted and respected, he resolves to become Konohagakure's Hokage and surpass all previous leaders, no matter the difficulties. While becoming a ninja, Naruto forms friendships that he initially lacked, linking some of them to family relationships. Although Naruto sometimes finds himself unable to accomplish the tasks he proposes to do, other characters believe that he will be an excellent Hokage because of his positive impact on their lives. As an adult, Naruto claims that the Konohagakure village became his family due to his job of being the Seventh Hokage, something he learned from the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi. As a result, he initially suffered a poor relationship with his son, Boruto, due to the little time he spent with his bloodline family.
== Appearances ==
=== In Naruto ===
==== Part I ====
Naruto is an orphan who has a dangerous fox-like entity known as Kurama the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed within his body by his father, the Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze, the leader of the Hidden Leaf Village, at the cost of his own life and that of his mother, Kushina Uzumaki. This possession led to Naruto being ridiculed frequently by the rest of the Leaf Village; being associated with him was considered taboo. As a youth, Naruto makes jokes and plays pranks to attract attention. Desiring what he lacked in his early life, Naruto dreams of becoming a Hokage himself with the hope that it will bring him the villagers' recognition and respect. In an attempt to become a ninja, Naruto is horrified to learn of his Jinchuriki nature by Mizuki but finds acceptance from his teacher, Iruka Umino, whom he views as a father figure. After learning the powerful Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu, an ability to create physical copies of the user, Naruto becomes a ninja rank Genin. He joins a ninja group under the leadership of Kakashi Hatake, where he makes friends with Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno. These are his classmates who are also assigned to Team 7: Sasuke Uchiha, with whom he has had a rivalry since they first met at the ninja academy, and Sakura Haruno, who he has a crush on, which is not reciprocated by her as she is infatuated with Sasuke.
While being examined to increase his ninja rank to Chunnin, Naruto meets the Legendary Sannin Jiraiya and learns how to summon toads to aid him in battle and to control part of Kurama's chakra energy. The exams are interrupted by the invasion of Hidden Leaf Village by the criminal Orochimaru and the ninja of Hidden Sand Village. Naruto defeats the Sand Village's One-Tail jinchuriki, Gaara, and convinces him there is a better way to live. Shortly afterward, Naruto discovers the Akatsuki, a criminal organization that seeks to extract Kurama from his body. Though Jiraiya drives them off during this first meeting, he learns that one of its members, Itachi Uchiha, is both Sasuke's older brother and the man who killed their family, and that the Akatsuki plans to kidnap him. While accompanying Jiraiya to find a new village leader, Naruto also learns the Rasengan (螺旋丸), a sphere of chakra for offensive purposes. When Sasuke leaves the village to join Orochimaru's forces to obtain the power to kill Itachi, Naruto, on his insistence and promise to Sakura, becomes part of a rescue team to retrieve him. Naruto and Sasuke ultimately have a one-on-one battle on the Valley of the End, and after a close battle, Sasuke comes out as the victor. He, however, can not bring himself to kill Naruto and instead leaves. The two go their separate ways, but Naruto does not give up on Sasuke, leaving with Jiraiya for two and a half years to prepare himself for his next encounter with Sasuke and the Akatsuki.
==== Part II ====
After his two and a half years of training, Naruto returns the Leaf Village and begins to deal more actively with the Akatsuki by saving Gaara from their clutches. To fight them, Naruto trains with Kakashi to infuse the Rasengan with his own wind-element chakra, creating the Wind Release: Rasenshuriken (風遁・螺旋手裏剣, Fūton: Rasenshuriken) attack that proves instrumental in the downfall of the Akatsuki member Kakuzu. Despite being targeted by the Akatsuki, Naruto dedicates himself to finding and retrieving Sasuke, who eventually disposes of Orochimaru and starts acting on his vengeance-driven whims. Over time, though resisting the urge to use the Nine-Tails's power, Kurama's influence over him expands, and Naruto begins to lose his rationality as more chakra manifests in the form of tails to the point the Tailed Beast can take control of his body. This ultimately causes him to go on a rampage and berserk, destroying everything in his path.
After learning that Jiraiya has been killed by the Akatsuki leader, Pain, Naruto prepares for a future encounter by learning toad-style Senjutsu (仙術; lit. "sage techniques"), a power-enhancing ability involving the gathering of natural energy through stillness, while also perfecting Naruto's Rasenshuriken in the process. When they face off, Naruto is pinned to the ground with iron rods and loses control of Kurama's chakra once again when Hinata Hyuga nearly dies protecting him from Pain. At that time, Naruto meets his late father, Minato Namikaze, who had sealed his chakra imprint into Naruto, and learns about his parentage and that his father sealed Kurama into him so that he could use it to defeat the Akatsuki founder, Obito Uchiha, who was behind Kurama's attack on Hidden Leaf Village. With Minato stopping the Nine-Tails, Naruto regains control of his body and defeats Pain. Learning that they are both Jiraiya's students, Naruto convinces Nagato to cease his plans, seeking to take Jiraiya's path to create a better ninja world.
When Naruto discovers Sasuke's plan to attack the Leaf Village, he decides to confront him in a battle that could end both their lives should Naruto be unable to save him. He prepares himself for the upcoming fight by becoming a student of the Eight-Tails jinchuriki, Killer B, in order to take full control of Kurama's powers. He succeeds with help from his late mother, Kushina Uzumaki, who placed a chakra imprint of herself within the seal so that she could have a chance to see her son again. When Naruto learns that all his comrades are battling Obito's army to protect him, he takes Killer B to join him in the battle, eventually cooperating with Kurama. As he fights, Naruto meets Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki, the Sage of the Six Paths, who grants him a sealing technique to take down the Ten-Tails. After he and Sasuke join forces to face both Obito and Madara Uchiha, who are using the Ten-Tails, they have to seal a bigger threat named Kaguya Ōtsutsuki, who is in her Ten-Tails form. After sealing Kaguya with the cooperation of the rest of Team 7, Naruto ends up having to fight Sasuke in the Valley of the End due to their conflicting views regarding the ninja world's future. As both end up losing an arm, Naruto and Sasuke reconcile. He receives a new arm created from the First Hokage Hashirama Senju's cells later. Years later, Naruto is married to Hinata, with whom he has had two children – Boruto Uzumaki and Himawari Uzumaki. He becomes the Seventh Hokage (七代目火影, Nanadaime Hokage) in the epilogue.
=== In Boruto ===
In the spin-off manga Naruto: The Seventh Hokage and the Scarlet Spring, Naruto and his allies go to defeat a new Akatsuki organization led by the so-called Uchiha known as Shin Uchiha, as Sasuke fears Kaguya's allies might try to attack them. In Boruto: Naruto the Movie (2015), which takes place after the series' epilogue, Naruto's Hokage status strains his relationship with his son Boruto as his duties often kept him from his family. During the ninja examinations, Naruto is abducted by Kaguya's clanmates, Momoshiki Ōtsutsuki and Kinshiki Ōtsutsuki, and then saved by his son Boruto, Sasuke, and the Kage, before helping his son to destroy Momoshiki. Across this fight, Naruto and Boruto reconcile. In Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, the manga starts in a distant future where Naruto is implied to be dead or missing in action by an enemy of Boruto, Kawaki. In the anime, before Boruto became a ninja rank Genin, Naruto often made appearances with his new family. In the manga, a young Kawaki is adopted by Naruto when the teenager becomes a fugitive from the group Kara. Naruto clashes with the members from Kara to protect his children, to which the village fears the Ōtsutsuki clan is planning to attack again through Kara's members as well, like Boruto and Kawaki, who share a cursed mark known as Karma. In the fight against Kara's true leader, Isshiki Ōtsutsuki, Naruto and Kurama combine their chakra together at the cost of their possible death. In the aftermath, Kurama reveals that he lied to Naruto about this combination, knowing that he would refuse to use their newfound power if it meant that Kurama would die, and he goes to the afterlife. Naruto continues to fight against the remaining Kara members. Kawaki's desire to protect Naruto results in sending him alongside Hinata to timeless dimension where the two will be trapped without aging until he believes the current fights are over.
=== In light novels ===
Naruto also appears in the epilogue light novels of the series. In the first one, despite still not having obtained his prosthetic arm, he goes on a mission with his friend Sai to capture a dangerous ninja named Garyō. In the second one, he allies with Hidden Sand Village ninja Temari's team to find the missing Shikamaru Nara, who made a promise to him to work together once Naruto became the Seventh Hokage. He makes a brief appearance in Sakura Hiden, where he and Hinata try to aid Sakura from a group of enemies. In Sasuke Hiden, he sends a message to Sasuke, which convinces him to return to Hidden Leaf Village. In the final one, Konoha Hiden, Naruto marries Hinata after asking his former mentor, Iruka Umino, to take the place of his father for the wedding. A novel by Mirei Miyamoto focuses on Naruto's life as a father. Another novel, Naruto Retsuden, explores Naruto having fallen ill as a result of relying on Kurama's chakra across his entire life.
=== In other media ===
As the series's title character, Naruto appears in every movie in the series. He typically appears as the lead character on a mission with comrades from Hidden Leaf Village. Naruto: Shippūden the Movie marks the first appearance of Naruto in his Part II form. In Road to Ninja: Naruto the Movie, an alternate version of the character named Menma appears as the main antagonist of the film. In The Last: Naruto the Movie, which takes place after the events of the series, Naruto faces Toneri Ōtsutsuki; at the movie's climax, Naruto and Hinata enter a relationship that eventually leads to their marriage. Kishimoto, the film's chief story supervisor, admitted that he was embarrassed writing romance scenes in the series. However, upon watching Naruto and Hinata share their first kiss, he felt a mixture of satisfaction and sadness due to the two characters' growth since Naruto's beginning; they had become like his own children.
Naruto also appears in all four OVAs produced for the series: helping his friend Konohamaru Sarutobi find a four-leaf clover in the first, escorting a ninja to his village and fighting the criminal who stole the village's "Hero's Water" in the second, participating in a tournament in the third, and working with Team 7 in the fourth. He appears as a supporting character in the spin-off manga titled Rock Lee and his Ninja Pals, where his fellow Hidden Leaf Village ninja Rock Lee is the main character.
Naruto is a playable character in the Naruto video games. In several titles, it is possible to access a special version of him enhanced with the power from the Nine-Tailed Fox. In several games from the Ultimate Ninja series, he is playable with his own versions of Rock Lee and Might Guy's techniques while wearing their costumes. Naruto Shippūden: Gekitou Ninja Taisen EX marks the first appearance of Naruto in his Part II form in a video game. For the series' 10th anniversary, Masashi Kishimoto drew an illustration of Naruto as Hokage. This portrayal of Naruto later appears as a secret character in the game Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2. Naruto also appears in the iOS and Android mobile game Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Blazing. Outside Naruto, he appears in several crossover video games that feature Naruto fighting against characters from other manga; these games include Battle Stadium D.O.N, Jump Super Stars, and Jump Ultimate Stars. A Naruto avatar made a guest appearance in the MMORPG Second Life for a Jump Festa promotion titled Jumpland@Second Life. In Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z, Naruto's costume appears as an alternate costume for Goku. Naruto was added to Fortnite Battle Royale in November 2021 as an alternate skin.
The character also appeared in the first popularity poll from the manga My Hero Academia by Kōhei Horikoshi. When the Naruto manga ended, Eiichiro Oda drew a cover of a One Piece manga chapter where Naruto is seen eating with the One Piece characters. Naruto also makes an appearance in Live Spectacle Naruto (2015) and Live Spectacle Naruto: Song of the Akatsuki (2017), two stage plays based on the manga. Naruto is played by Koudai Matsouka.
== Reception ==
=== Characterization and themes ===
Naruto's character has received mostly positive critical response in printed and online publications. Praise was given by Joseph Szadkowski of The Washington Times, who noted that Naruto "has become a pop-culture sensation". Naruto's character was analyzed by GameSpot's Joe Dodson, who noted that despite having an "ideal" life, he still suffered from severe isolation, although he was praised for his optimistic personality by Carl Kimlinger of Anime News Network (ANN). Writers for Mania Entertainment labeled him a "good lead character" with good overall development despite certain problems at the beginning. Christina Carpenter of T.H.E.M. Anime Reviews disagreed with other writers, noting that while Naruto is a "likable enough scamp," his type of character has been done before in many anime and manga series. Yukari Fujimoto, a professor at Meiji University, sees Naruto himself as the manga's weakness. Manga author Nobuhiro Watsuki compared Naruto with Himura Kenshin and Monkey D. Luffy due to how they follow the ideals of not killing their opponents. My Hero Academia author Kōhei Horikoshi praised the portrayal of Naruto in the manga for his parallels with Sasuke, with an early example being the protagonist's inferiority complex over his teammate for feeling weaker, which leads to him stabbing himself in the hand to remember not to run away from his fears.
Writing for Popular Culture in Counseling, Psychotherapy, and Play-Based Interventions, Lawrence Rubin states that while Naruto has an optimistic and hyperactive personality, the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox (Kurama) within his body symbolizes his negative emotions. He comments that Naruto has a malevolent attitude when dealing with intense conflicts and emotions. He also states that Naruto would use Kurama's chakra for battles he can not handle with his own chakra. Rubin further notes that the more Naruto uses Kurama's chakra, the more he puts his comrades and himself in danger. Rubin feels the reason Naruto is a troublemaker is because some villagers avoid him and others mistreat him. He states that children growing up in the real world who have development issues can relate to his character. Rubin states that the search for acceptance and being acknowledged by his peers is what motivates Naruto to keep going until he reaches his life's goal, becoming the Hokage. Rubin feels that Naruto's fights with enemies who try to bring harm to the Leaf Village further motivate him to become a powerful shinobi and a "complete and mature person." Rubin concludes that Naruto's character development is similar to that of a modern American hero, the type who accidentally becomes better during a series and is able to build or restore peace.
Christopher A. Born, writing for DOAJ journal ASIANetwork Exchange, regards Naruto as a complex post-modern hero, showing "great heart." From Naruto's beginning, Born comments that the character is a nuisance, suggesting Naruto is the very definition of the word, given how he is characterized in the series, including how he interacts and his behavior. Born argues that Naruto as a whole shows Confucian values and that Naruto himself unsettles harmony in society. Amy Plumb, a PhD candidate at Macquarie University, states that Kishimoto used the mythology of the kitsune for Naruto's development throughout the series. She notes that at the beginning of the series, Naruto was a prankster and always causing trouble, the same as the kitsune. Plumb describes the Kyuubi (Demon) seal on Naruto's stomach as a catalyst for how he develops. Writing for Manga's Cultural Crossroads, Omote Tomoyuki compliments Naruto's character, saying that he has great ambition to achieve a tragic destiny. He comments on how the character has matured over the course of the series, stating how after he became a shinobi, he had let go of his childish ways that happened in the beginning of the series and how he rarely joked around in Part II of the series when he became a teenager. Franziska Ehmcke, professor of Japanese studies at Cologne University, theorized that Naruto was named after whirlpools of the sea landscape of the Awa no Naruto and compared his behavior to that natural feature, as both figures have uncontrollable energy within them. Mike Hale compared Naruto to Buffy Summers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, praising the series's portrayal of childhood loneliness. Rik Spanjers regards Naruto's childishness as one of his strengths because it gives him a well of resoluteness from which to draw on in his goal to end the ninja wars.
Analyzing Naruto's coming-of-age story, The Lawrentian found that Naruto's development embodies the idea of Bildungsroman, the idea of how important Naruto's growth across the narrative is to move on the arc. Due to lacking parenting as a result of his parents' age during his birth, Naruto's personality starts fragile. Unaware of them, Naruto seeks to accomplish his mother's wish of becoming a hero and leader of the village, the Hokage. While initially portrayed as a weak character, Naruto finds strength in his mentors, Kakashi and Jiraiya, as well as his connections with Sakura and Sasuke. As a result of losing Jiraiya, Naruto seeks to accomplish his mentor's wish of ending wars and the cycling of hatred, making Kishimoto capable of embodying the character more with the reader while maturing in the process. As a result, The Lawrentian finds that Naruto's character fills the concept of Bildungsroman, something other fictional characters fail to accomplish.
Tejal Suhas Bagwe from Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment for the Degree of Masters of Arts in English describes Jiraiya's death as the "loss of innocence" Naruto goes through, paralleling his life with Gaara, Sasuke, and Madara. However, unlike these three characters who seek revenge and chaos for their losses, Naruto instead chooses another path derivative from these types of narratives, becoming more unique. Another aspect noted by the writer in regard to Naruto's character is how he becomes Kurama's companion despite the creature bearing hatred towards mankind for being used, resulting into multiple references to Japanese mythology based on its name and the new skills Naruto acquires when befriending the fox. Similarly, Anime News Network stated that thanks to Naruto's newfound pacifism when dealing with his quest of revenge and the rejection of violence, the story managed to become a "masterpiece".
Naruto was also analyzed in regards to his adult characterization. Midwest Book Review noted the love story between Naruto and Hinata from The Last to have been properly written enough to appeal to casual fans of romance. Antônio Guilherme Bernardes Galletti from the University of São Paulo notes Boruto: Naruto the Movie becomes complex when the protagonist learns of the shinobi code his father and master use, which was also compared to the samurais' bushido while developing a sense of individuality when deciding what to do with his life when growing up. Tata Ardiansyah from Universitas Islam Negeri said Pierrot expanded Naruto's family life in Boruto not only with the characters from the 2015 movie but also his new adopted son Kawaki, who grows to admire and love him despite his initial antiheroic characterization. Anime News Network also addressed how in Boruto, Naruto's adult characterization resulted in admiration from new characters such as Sarada, who wishes to succeed him as the leader of the village and protector of the younger ninjas. In "Through the Eyes of Child Soldiers: On War, Violence, and Trauma in Popular Entertainment Fictions", Benjamin Nickl compared Naruto and Boruto's dynamic to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, as the latter has not experienced the same war that Naruto felt in the original series. The former was compared to a traditional war soldier, with the anime having Naruto remember fallen comrades or meet fellow survivors who are his friends.
=== Cultural impact ===
Several journalists, including Guinness World Records, have rated Naruto among the most popular characters. In a poll from Anime! Anime!, Naruto and Sasuke were voted as one of the best rivals turned into allies. Ramsey Isler from IGN lists Naruto's "unshakable persistence" as his strongest trait, "and although he is a flawed and somewhat limited character by himself, that stubborn optimism of his makes for some great storytelling with other characters." In a Japanese TV special from August 2017, Naruto was voted as the 13th "strongest hero" from the Heisei Era. In the 2009 Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation Awards, Junko Takeuchi won Best Voice Actress (Japanese) for her work as Naruto.
The character has inspired other works, including .hack's protagonist, Kite, Yuta Okkotsu and Yuji Itadori from Jujutsu Kaisen; its author, Gege Akutami, enjoyed the story of how Naruto deals with a demon-like creature inside his body and decided to give Yuta and Itadori a similar aura when eating the remains of the demons Rika Ryomen Sukuna, with whom they have a poor relationship.
CyberConnect2 CEO Hiroshi Matsuyama also participated in the 2012 Paris Marathon while cosplaying as Naruto to celebrate the release of a new video game. Matsuyama also said that Naruto's Rasenshuriken was his favorite technique in the entire series due to its sounds as well as how the character executes it. Upon seeing the final fight between Naruto and Sasuke in Storm 4, Matsuyama felt emotional over seeing the final fight between Naruto and Sasuke. Matsuyama further reflected that the anime's 133rd episode is one of his favorites, not only for the action sequences between Naruto and Sasuke but also for the emotional value displayed. Voice actress Mariya Ise, famous for Killua Zoldyck from Hunter × Hunter, stated Naruto was one of her favorite characters, to the point she often would try cosplaying as him.
The Shanghai New World mall made an announcement in the beginning of 2019 that it planned on opening an indoor theme park on its eleventh floor, which would be called "Naruto World". The theme park was 7,000 square meters in size and would be based on the Naruto manga. As part of an official Naruto Ramen Takeover, Viz Media has partnered with Los Angeles' Silverlake Ramen to create Ramen Ichiraku. In June 2019, a life-size statue designed by Tetsuya Nishio was developed for display at the Wonder Festival 2019 Shanghai event. For the 2020 Summer Olympics, Naruto's image was used as a character to represent the event. In 2025, Google created an easter egg showing the character and his shadow clones in 8-bit performing the Naruto run when users search "Naruto" to celebrate the 25th manga anniversary.
Naruto has had an influence on hip-hop music. Many rappers, both underground and mainstream, have sprinkled Naruto references throughout their songs. Singer Diana Garnet expressed her pleasure at recording one of the ending theme songs for the animated series of Naruto Shippuden, stating that not only has she been a fan of the series ever since she was younger, but she was also motivated by Naruto's character because of his determination not to give up no matter what challenge he faced. Similarly, in an analysis involving stereotypes of African Americans created by the British newspaper The Guardian, Naruto's character is viewed as a relatable character due to the prejudicial treatment the character receives early in the series. As a result, Naruto's life achievements he makes across the narrative, ending to his portrayal as the Seventh Hokage, are seen as inspiring by the audience. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ben#Design | Big Ben#Design | Big Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster, and, by extension, for the clock tower which stands at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, England. Originally named the Clock Tower, the structure was renamed the Elizabeth Tower in 2012 to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. The clock is a striking clock with five bells.
The tower was designed by Augustus Pugin and Sir Charles Barry in the Perpendicular Gothic style and was completed in 1859. It is decorated with stone carvings and features symbols related to the four countries of the United Kingdom and the Tudor dynasty. A Latin inscription celebrates Queen Victoria, under whose reign the palace was built. It stands 316 feet (96 m) tall, and the climb from ground level to the belfry is 334 steps. Its base is square, measuring 40 feet (12 m) on each side. The dials of the clock are 22.5 feet (6.9 m) in diameter.
The clock uses its original mechanism and was the largest and most accurate four-faced striking and chiming clock in the world upon its completion. It was designed by Edmund Beckett Denison and George Airy, the Astronomer Royal, and constructed by Edward John Dent and Frederick Dent. It is known for its reliability, and can be adjusted by adding or removing pre-decimal pennies from the pendulum. The Great Bell was cast by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry and weighs 13.5 long tons (13.7 tonnes; 15.1 short tons). Its nickname, "Big Ben", derives from the tall Sir Benjamin Hall, who oversaw its installation. There are four quarter bells, which chime on the quarter hours.
Big Ben is a British cultural icon. It is a prominent symbol of Britain and parliamentary democracy, and is often used in the establishing shot of films set in London. The bells are broadcast live on BBC Radio 4 in the UK; and internationally on both the BBC World Service and online on BBC Sounds every day before news at 18:00 (6PM; UK time) and 00:00 (12AM), with an additional broadcast at 22:00 (10PM) on Sundays. It has been part of a Grade I listed building since 1970, and in 1987 it was designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The clock and tower were renovated between 2017 and 2021, during which the bells remained silent (with a few exceptions). During this time, the BBC broadcast a recording of the bells on radio in replacement before the news.
== Tower ==
=== History ===
Elizabeth Tower, originally named the Clock Tower, and popularly known as "Big Ben", was built as a part of Charles Barry's design for a new Palace of Westminster after the old palace was largely destroyed by fire on 16 October 1834. Although Barry was the chief architect of the neo-gothic palace, he turned to Augustus Pugin for the design of the Clock Tower, which resembles earlier designs by Pugin, including one for Scarisbrick Hall, a country house in Lancashire. Construction of the tower began on 28 September 1843. The building contractors were Thomas Grissell and Morton Peto. An inscribed trowel in the Parliamentary Archives records that Emily, sister of Peto's daughter-in-law, was given the honour of laying the first stone. It was Pugin's last design before his descent into mental illness and death in 1852, and Pugin himself wrote, at the time of Barry's last visit to him to collect the drawings, "I never worked so hard in my life for Mr Barry for tomorrow I render all my designs for finishing his bell tower and it is beautiful".
=== Design ===
Completed in 1859, the tower is designed in Pugin's Gothic Revival style and is 316 feet (96.3 m) high, making it the third-tallest clock tower in Britain. Its dials (at the centre) are 180 feet (54.9 m) above ground level. Its base is square, measuring 40 feet (12.2 m) on each side, resting on concrete foundations 12 feet (3.7 m) thick. It was constructed using bricks clad on the exterior with sand-coloured Anston limestone from South Yorkshire, topped by a spire covered in hundreds of cast iron roof-tiles. There is a spiral staircase with 290 stone steps up to the clock room, followed by 44 to reach the belfry, and an additional 59 to the top of the spire.
Above the belfry and the Ayrton Light are 52 shields decorated with national emblems of the four countries of the UK: the red and white rose of the Tudor dynasty of England, the thistle of Scotland, shamrock of Northern Ireland, and leek of Wales. They also feature the pomegranate of Catherine of Aragon, first wife of the Tudor king Henry VIII; the portcullis, symbolising both Houses of Parliament; and fleurs-de-lis, a legacy from when English monarchs claimed to rule France.
A ventilation shaft running from ground level up to the belfry, which measures 16 feet (4.9 m) by 8 feet (2.4 m), was designed by David Boswell Reid, known as "the grandfather of air-conditioning". It was intended to draw cool, fresh air into the Palace of Westminster; in practice this did not work and the shaft was repurposed as a chimney until around 1914. The 2017–2021 conservation works included the addition of a lift in the shaft.
Its foundations rest on a layer of gravel, below which is London Clay. Owing to this soft ground, the tower leans slightly to the north-west by roughly 230 mm (9.1 in) over 55 m height, giving an inclination of approximately 1⁄240. This includes a planned maximum of 22 mm increased tilt due to tunnelling for the Jubilee Line Extension. In the 1990s thousands of tons of concrete were pumped into the ground underneath the tower to stabilise it during construction of the Westminster section of the Jubilee line of the London Underground. It leans by about 500 mm (20 in) at the finial. Experts believe the leaning will not be a problem for another 4,000 to 10,000 years.
=== Ayrton Light ===
A new feature was added in 1873 by Acton Smee Ayrton, then First Commissioner of Works. The Ayrton Light is a lantern sited above the belfry and is lit whenever the House of Commons sits after dark. It can be seen from across London. Originally, it shone towards Buckingham Palace so Queen Victoria could look out of a window and see when the Commons were at work.
=== Prison Room ===
Inside the tower is an oak-panelled Prison Room, which can only be accessed from the House of Commons, not via the tower entrance. It was last used in 1880 when Charles Bradlaugh, an atheist and the newly elected member of Parliament (MP) for Northampton, was imprisoned by the Serjeant at Arms after he protested against swearing a religious oath of allegiance to Queen Victoria. Officially, the Serjeant at Arms can still make arrests, as they have had the authority to do since 1415. The room, however, is currently occupied by the Petitions Committee, which oversees petitions submitted to Parliament.
=== Name ===
Journalists during Queen Victoria's reign called it St Stephen's Tower. As members of Parliament originally sat at St Stephen's Hall, these journalists referred to anything related to the House of Commons as "news from St Stephens". The Palace does contain a feature called St Stephen's Tower, located above the public entrance. On 2 June 2012 the House of Commons voted in support of a proposal to change the name from the Clock Tower to Elizabeth Tower in commemoration of Queen Elizabeth II in her Diamond Jubilee year, since the large west tower known as Victoria Tower had been renamed in tribute to Queen Victoria on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee. On 26 June 2012 the Commons confirmed that the name change could proceed. David Cameron, then the prime minister, announced the change of name on 12 September 2012. It was marked by a naming ceremony in which John Bercow, then Speaker of the House of Commons, unveiled a plaque attached to the tower on the adjoining Speaker's Green.
== Clock ==
=== Dials ===
Augustus Pugin drew inspiration from the clockmaker Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy when he designed the dials. Each is made of cast iron sections bolted together. The whole frame is 22.5 feet (6.9 m) in diameter making them the third-largest in the UK. They each contain 324 pieces of opalescent glass. It has been claimed that no two of the pieces of glass in each dial are the same.
Originally, the dials were backlit using gas lamps, at first only when Parliament was sitting, but they have routinely been illuminated from dusk until dawn since 1876. Electric bulbs were installed at the beginning of the 20th century. The ornate surrounds of the dials are gilded. At the base of each dial is the Latin inscription DOMINE SALVAM FAC REGINAM NOSTRAM VICTORIAM PRIMAM, which means "O Lord, keep safe our Queen Victoria the First". Unlike Roman numeral clock dials that show the "4" position as IIII, the Great Clock faces depict "4" as IV. Its gun metal hour hands and copper minute hands are 8.75 feet (2.7 m) and 14 feet (4.3 m) long respectively.
When completed, the dials and clock hands were Prussian blue, but were painted black in the 1930s to disguise the effects of air pollution. The original colour scheme was reinstated during the 2017–2021 conservation work. Analysis of the paint layers found that no fewer than six different colour schemes had been used over the past 160 years. The Victorian glass was also removed and replaced with faithful reproductions made in Germany by the glassmakers Glasfabrik Lamberts.
=== Movement ===
The clock's movement is known for its reliability. The designers were the lawyer and amateur horologist Edmund Beckett Denison and George Airy, the Astronomer Royal. Construction was entrusted to the clockmaker Edward John Dent; after his death in 1853, his stepson Frederick Dent completed the work in 1854. As the tower was not completed until 1859, Denison had time to experiment before its installation in April that year: instead of using a deadbeat escapement and remontoire as originally designed, he invented a double three-legged gravity escapement, which provides the best separation between pendulum and clock mechanism, thus mitigating the effects of rain, wind and snow on the dials. Denison never patented his design, and it quickly became the standard on all new high-quality tower clocks.
On top of the pendulum is a small stack of pre-decimal penny coins; these are to adjust the time of the clock. Adding a coin has the effect of minutely lifting the position of the pendulum's centre of mass, reducing the effective length of the pendulum rod and hence increasing the rate at which the pendulum swings. Adding or removing a penny will change the clock's speed by 0.4 seconds per day. Other coins have been placed on the pendulum as well; in 2009, three of the pennies were replaced with a £5 commemorative coin minted to celebrate the then-upcoming 2012 Summer Olympics.
Big Ben keeps time to within a few seconds per week. It is hand wound (taking about 1.5 hours) three times a week. The Keeper of the Clock is responsible for looking after the movement in addition to overseeing every aspect of maintenance around the Palace. A team of horologists are on call 24 hours a day to attend to the clock in the event of an emergency; they are also responsible for about 300 other clocks in the Palace of Westminster.
On 10 May 1941, the day before the Blitz during the Second World War ended, an air raid by the Luftwaffe of Nazi Germany damaged two of the dials and sections of the tower's stepped roof and destroyed the Commons chamber. The architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott designed a new five-floor block. Two floors are occupied by the current chamber, which was used for the first time on 26 October 1950. The clock ran accurately and chimed throughout the Blitz.
=== Breakdowns and other incidents ===
==== 19th century ====
Before 1878: The clock stopped for the first time in its history, "through a heavy fall of snow" on the hands of a clock face.
21 August 1877 – January 1878: The clock was stopped for three weeks to allow the tower and mechanism to be cleaned and repaired. The old escape wheel was replaced.
==== 20th century ====
February 1900: The heavy build-up of snow on a clock face impeded the progress of the hour hand, causing the clock to stop for about eight hours.
1916: For two years during the First World War, the bells were silenced and the clock faces were not illuminated at night to avoid guiding attacking Zeppelins of the German Empire. The bells were restored at 11:00 am on 11 November 1918 to mark the end of the war.
29 December 1927: Snow build-up on a clock face stopped the clock.
Winter 1928: Heavy snow stopped the clock for several hours.
2 April 1934: The clock stopped from 7:16 am to 1:15 pm, when it was repaired.
23 September 1936: A painter in the clock room placed a ladder against a shaft driving the hands, stopping the clock from 8:47 am to 10:00 am.
1 September 1939: Although the bells continued to ring, the clock faces were not illuminated at night throughout the Second World War to avoid guiding bomber pilots during the Blitz.
10/11 May 1941: the clock was damaged during a German bombing raid, either by a small bomb or by a British anti-aircraft shell. Stonework and ornamental ironwork were damaged, and the glass on the south dial was shattered. The damage was repaired at the time, but in major refurbishment from 2017 it was found that the tower had sustained greater damage than originally thought, and asbestos, lead paint and broken glass were discovered, increasing the refurbishment cost from an estimated £29 million to nearly £80 million.
3–4 June 1941: The clock stopped from 10:13 pm until 10:13 the following morning, after a workman repairing air-raid damage to the clock face left a hammer too close to the mechanism.
9 December 1944: The clock hands stopped due to mechanical failure. The broken part— a pendulum suspension spring— was replaced within a few hours.
25–26 January 1945: Extremely cold temperatures froze the rubber bushings on the quarter-bell hammers, preventing the chimes sounding from 9:00 pm on the 25th to 9:00 pm the following evening; the BBC broadcast the pips in the interval.
28 January 1947: The rubber bushings on the quarter bell hammers again froze before the clock sounded midnight, muting the chimes, though the problem was resolved by the morning.
12 August 1949: The clock slowed by four-and-a-half minutes after a flock of starlings perched on the minute hand.
13 January 1955: The clock stopped at 3:24 am due to drifts of snow forming on the north and east dials. Small electric heaters were placed just inside these two dials, and this measure has helped to reduce instances of freezing in recent years.
18 July 1955: The rope operating the striking hammer broke, silencing the clock from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.
New Year's Eve 1962: The clock slowed due to heavy snow and ice on the hands, causing the pendulum to detach from the clockwork, as it is designed to do in such circumstances, to avoid serious damage elsewhere in the mechanism – the pendulum continuing to swing freely. Thus, it chimed-in the 1963 new year nine minutes late.
30 January 1965: The bells were silenced during the funeral of Winston Churchill.
9 January 1968: Snow buildup on the clock faces blocked the hands from moving, stopping the clock from 6:28 am to 10:10 am.
5 August 1976: The air brake speed regulator of the chiming mechanism broke from torsional fatigue after more than 100 years of use, causing the fully wound 4-ton weight to spin the winding drum out of the movement, causing much damage. The clock was shut down for a total of 26 days over nine months – it was reactivated on 9 May 1977. This was the longest break in operation since its construction. During this time BBC Radio 4 broadcast the pips instead. Although there were minor stoppages from 1977 to 2002, when maintenance of the clock was carried out by the old firm of clockmakers Thwaites & Reed, these were often repaired within the permitted two-hour downtime and not recorded as stoppages. Before 1970, maintenance was carried out by the original firm of Dent; since 2002, by parliamentary staff.
11 June 1984: Two members of the environmental group Greenpeace scaled the tower and blocked the face for 11 hours.
March 1986 and January 1987: The problem of the rubber bushings on the quarter bell chimes freezing recurred, muffling the chimes.
30 April 1997: The clock stopped 24 hours before the general election, and stopped again three weeks later.
==== 21st century ====
20 March 2004: Twenty years after their first scaling of the clocktower, Greenpeace activists blocked the clock face for seven hours.
27 May 2005: The clock stopped at 10:07 pm, possibly because of hot weather; temperatures in London had reached an unseasonable 31.8 °C (89.2 °F). It resumed, but stopped again at 10:20 pm, and remained still for about 90 minutes before resuming.
29 October 2005: The mechanism was stopped for about 33 hours to allow maintenance work on the clock and its chimes. It was the lengthiest maintenance shutdown in 22 years.
7:00 am on 5 June 2006: The "Quarter Bells" were taken out of commission for four weeks as a bearing holding one of the quarter bells was worn and needed to be removed for repairs. During this period, BBC Radio 4 broadcast recordings of British bird song followed by the pips in place of the usual chimes.
11 August 2007: Start of six-week stoppage for maintenance. Bearings in the clock's chime train and the "great bell" striker were replaced, for the first time since installation. During the maintenance the clock was driven by an electric motor. Once again, BBC Radio 4 broadcast the pips during this time. The intention was that the clock should run accurately for a further 200 years before major maintenance is again required; in fact the repairs sufficed for ten years.
17 April 2013: The bells were silenced as a mark of "profound dignity and deep respect" during the funeral of Margaret Thatcher.
25 August 2015: Maintenance crews discovered the clock to be running seven seconds fast. They removed coins from its pendulum to correct the error, which caused it to run slow for a period.
21 August 2017: Start of a four-year silencing of the chimes during maintenance and repair work to the clock mechanism, and repairs and improvements to the clock tower building. During this time, dials, hands and lights were removed for restoration, with at least one dial – with its hands driven by an electric motor – left intact, functioning, and visible at any given time. A lift was also installed during this renovation.
10 May 2023: The clock dials all stopped at 12:55 pm, and Big Ben did not chime at 1:00 pm. The hands restarted, but the clock was five minutes slow until rectified at 1:47 pm.
8 March 2025: Around 7:24 am a 29-year-old man named Daniel Day scaled the side of the tower and sat on a ledge holding a Palestinian flag, in protest of the ongoing genocide. He posted videos and photos of his climb to his Instagram account. His arrest required the involvement of police, firefighters, and emergency services, with a cherry picker used at midnight to bring him down, ending his 16-hour protest. Authorities charged him with intentionally or recklessly causing a public nuisance and trespassing on a protected site, with trial scheduled for 8 June 2026.
== Bells ==
=== Big Ben (Great Bell) ===
The main bell, officially known as the "Great Bell" but better known as Big Ben, is the largest bell in the tower and part of the Great Clock of Westminster. It sounds an E-natural.
The original bell was a 16-ton (16.3-tonne) hour bell, cast on 6 August 1856 in Stockton-on-Tees by John Warner & Sons. It is thought that the bell was originally to be called "Victoria" or "Royal Victoria" in honour of Queen Victoria, but that an MP suggested the bell's current nickname of "Big Ben" during a Parliamentary debate; the comment is not recorded in Hansard.
Since the tower was not yet finished, the bell was mounted in New Palace Yard but, during testing, it cracked beyond repair and a replacement had to be made. The bell was recast on 10 April 1858 at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry as a 13.5-ton (13.76-tonne) bell. The second bell was transported from the foundry to the tower on a trolley drawn by sixteen horses, with crowds cheering its progress; it was then pulled 200 ft (61.0 m) up to the Clock Tower's belfry, a feat that took 18 hours. It is 7 feet 6 inches (2.29 m) tall and 9 feet (2.74 m) diameter. This new bell first chimed on 11 July 1859; in September it too cracked under the hammer. According to the foundry's manager, George Mears, the horologist Denison had used a hammer more than twice the maximum weight specified. For three years Big Ben was taken out of commission and the hours were struck on the lowest of the quarter bells until it was repaired. To make the repair, a square piece of metal was chipped out from the rim around the crack, and the bell given an eighth of a turn so the new hammer struck in a different place. Big Ben has chimed with a slightly different tone ever since, and is still in use today with the crack unrepaired. Big Ben was the largest bell in the British Isles until "Great Paul", a 16.75-ton (17 tonne) bell currently hung in St Paul's Cathedral, was cast in 1881.
In August 2007 the striker was replaced for the first time since installation. The current striker weighs 440 lb (200 kg) and is operated by the clock mechanism. When it hits the bell, it generates a sound 110–115 decibels in intensity within the tower, making ear protection a must for any technicians working there.
==== Nickname ====
The origin of the nickname "Big Ben" has been the subject of some debate. The nickname was applied first to the Great Bell; and there is debate as to whether it was named after Sir Benjamin Hall, who as Minister for Public Works oversaw the installation of the Great Bell, or after the English heavyweight boxing champion Ben Caunt. However, it is very clear from statements in the press at the time that the name derives from the nickname of Hall, who was very tall. Now "Big Ben" is often used, by extension, to refer to the clock, the tower and the bell collectively, although it is not universally accepted as referring to the clock and tower. Some authors of works about the tower, clock and bell sidestep the issue by using the words Big Ben first in the title, then going on to clarify that the subject of the book is the clock and tower as well as the bell.
=== Chimes ===
Along with the Great Bell, the belfry houses four quarter bells which play the Westminster Quarters on the quarter hours. The four quarter bells sound G♯, F♯, E, and B. They were cast by John Warner & Sons at their Crescent Foundry in 1857 (G♯, F♯ and B) and 1858 (E). The Foundry was in Jewin Crescent, in what is now known as the Barbican, in the City of London. Like the Great Bell, the quarter bells are operated by the clock mechanism. Their sounds are generated by hammers pulled by cables coming from the link room—a low-ceiling space between the clock room and the belfry—where they are triggered by cables coming from the chime train.
The quarter bells play a once-repeating, 20-note sequence of rounds and four changes in the key of E major: 1–4 at quarter past, 5–12 at half past, 13–20 and 1–4 at quarter to, and 5–20 on the hour (which sounds 25 seconds before the main bell tolls the hour). Because the low bell (B) is struck twice in quick succession, there is not enough time to pull a hammer back, and it is supplied with two wrench hammers on opposite sides of the bell. The tune is that of the Cambridge Chimes, first used for the chimes of Great St Mary's church, Cambridge, and supposedly a variation, attributed to William Crotch, based on violin phrases from the air "I know that my Redeemer liveth" in George Frideric Handel's Messiah. The notional words of the chime, again derived from Great St Mary's and in turn an allusion to Psalm 37:23–24, are: "All through this hour/Lord be my guide/And by Thy power/No foot shall slide". They are written on a plaque on the wall of the clock room.
One of the requirements for the clock was that the first stroke of the hour bell should be correct to within one second per day. The tolerance is with reference to Greenwich Mean Time (BST in summer). So, at twelve o'clock, for example, it is the first of the twelve hour-bell strikes that signifies the hour (the New Year on New Year's Eve at midnight). The time signalled by the last of the "six pips" (UTC) may be fractionally different.
On 13 November 2022, Remembrance Sunday, the chimes of Big Ben returned to regular service for the first time since August 2017, preceding the hour bell being sounded at 11:00 am local time, the first hour strike marking the beginning of two minutes of silence.
== Cultural significance ==
The clock has become a cultural symbol of the United Kingdom, particularly in the visual media. When a television or film-maker wishes to indicate a generic location in the country, a popular way to do so is to show an image of the tower, often with a red double-decker bus or black cab in the foreground.
In 2008 a survey of 2,000 people found that the tower was the most popular landmark in Britain. It has also been named as the most iconic film location in London.
The sound of the clock chiming has also been used this way in audio media; the Westminster Quarters are imitated by other clocks and other devices, but the sound of Big Ben is preferred as the original and best. Big Ben is a focal point of New Year celebrations in the United Kingdom, with radio and television stations airing its chimes to welcome the start of the New Year. To welcome in 2012, the clock tower was lit with fireworks that exploded at every toll of Big Ben. On New Year's Eve 2024, the bell struck midnight within about five-thousandths of a second of the correct time.
Similarly, on Remembrance Day, the chimes are broadcast to mark the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month and the start of the two minutes' silence.
In 1999, prior to the millennium New Year, a recording of the clock was released by London Records under the title "Millennium Chimes", with the artist labelled as Big Ben. It reached number 53 for the week ending 8 January 2000 (which included purchases prior to 31 December 1999).
The chimes of Big Ben have also been used at the state funerals of monarchs on four occasions, chiming one stroke for each year of the monarch's life: firstly, at the funeral of King Edward VII in 1910 (68 strokes); secondly, at the funeral of King George V in 1936 (70 strokes); thirdly, at the funeral of King George VI in 1952 (56 strokes); and lastly, at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 (96 strokes).
ITN's News at Ten's opening sequence, broadcast on the ITV network, formerly featured an image of the tower with the sound of Big Ben's chimes punctuating the announcement of the news headlines of the day. Since 1999, a recording of the Big Ben chimes (known within ITN as "The Bongs") are still played during the headlines at 10 pm and all ITV News bulletins use a graphic based on the Westminster clock dial from four years earlier.
Big Ben can also be heard live striking the hour (along with the quarter bells preceding it) at the start of some news bulletins on BBC Radio 4 every day (6 p.m. and midnight, plus 10 pm on Sundays) and the BBC World Service, a practice that began on 31 December 1923. Additionally, since the launch of audio streaming and internet radio service BBC Sounds, the bells are broadcast internationally online as well. The sound of the chimes is broadcast from a microphone permanently installed in the tower and connected by line to Broadcasting House. On some occasions, Londoners who live an appropriate distance from the tower and Big Ben can, by means of listening to the chimes both live and on analogue radio, hear the bell strike thirteen times. This is possible because the electronically transmitted chimes arrive virtually instantaneously, while the "live" sound is delayed travelling through the air since the speed of sound is relatively slow.
At the close of the polls for the 2010 general election the results of the national exit poll were projected onto the south side of the tower. On 27 July 2012, starting at 8:12 am, Big Ben chimed 30 times, to welcome the Games of the 30th Olympiad, which officially began that day, to London.
== 2017–2021 restoration ==
On 21 August 2017, the chimes fell silent for four years to allow essential restoration work to be carried out on the tower. The decision to silence the bells was made to protect the hearing of the workers on the tower, and was criticised by senior MPs and Prime Minister Theresa May. The striking and tolling of the bells for important occasions, such as New Year's Eve and Remembrance Sunday, was handled via an electric motor; and at least one of the four clock faces always remained visible during the restoration. Scaffolding was put up around the tower immediately after the bells were silenced. The cost of the project to the taxpayers and creditors was originally estimated to be roughly £29 million (equivalent to £35.7 million in 2023), but it more than doubled, to £69 million (equivalent to £77.6 million in 2023).
In February 2020, the renovations revealed that the Elizabeth Tower had sustained greater damage than previously thought from the May 1941 bombing raid that destroyed the adjacent Commons chamber. Other costly discoveries included asbestos in the belfry, the extensive use of lead paint, broken glass on the clock dials, and serious deterioration to intricate stone carvings due to air pollution. The cost of addressing these problems was estimated at £18.6 million (equivalent to £20.9 million in 2023), bringing the restoration budget to nearly £80 million (£90 million in 2023).
The 2,567 cast-iron roof tiles were removed and refurbished, and a lift was installed to make access easier, along with a basic toilet facility with running water, for the first time in the tower itself. The Ayrton Light at the top of the tower, which is lit when Parliament is sitting, was also fully dismantled and restored along with the other lights in the Belfry, being replaced with low-energy LEDs. One of the most visible changes to the tower has been the restoration of the clock-face framework to its original colour of Prussian blue, used when the tower was first built in 1859, with the black paint that was used to cover up the soot-stained dial frames having been stripped away. The clock faces were regilded, and the shields of Saint George repainted in their original red and white colours. The 1,296 pieces of glass that make up the clock faces have also been removed and replaced.
In December 2021, after four years of renovations and restoration, the tower emerged from behind its scaffolding in time for the ringing in of the new year. In April 2022, the gantry supporting the scaffolding was removed.
In September 2025, the restoration of the tower was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Randolph | Marc Randolph | Marc Bernays Randolph (born April 29, 1958) is an American tech entrepreneur, advisor and speaker. He is the co-founder and first CEO of Netflix.
A serial entrepreneur who is said to have helped found the U.S. edition of Macworld magazine and the computer mail-order businesses MacWarehouse and MicroWarehouse, Randolph now serves on the boards of Looker Data Sciences and Chubbies Shorts. He previously served on the boards of Getable, Rafter, ReadyForce.
Randolph, who has equated founding companies to his experience as a mountain guide, is the chairman of the board of trustees of the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) in Lander, Wyoming and a board member of the environmental advocacy group 1% for the Planet.
== Early life and education ==
Randolph was born to a Jewish family in Chappaqua, New York, the eldest child of Stephen Bernays Randolph, an Austrian-born nuclear engineer turned financial adviser and Muriel Lipchik of Brooklyn, New York, who ran her own real estate firm. One of Randolph's paternal great-grand uncles was psychoanalysis pioneer Sigmund Freud. Another paternal great-uncle of Randolph was Edward Bernays, an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda. Randolph spent his summers during high school and college working for the National Outdoor Leadership School, becoming one of its youngest instructors. He graduated from Hamilton College in New York with a geology degree.
== Career ==
=== Early career ===
Randolph's first job out of college in 1981 was at Cherry Lane Music Company in New York. Put in charge of the company's small mail-order operation, Randolph taught himself direct mail and marketing techniques while tinkering with different ways to sell Cherry Lane's catalog of sheet music directly to consumers. Randolph's fascination with using computer software to track customers' buying behavior would ultimately inform his decision to create a user interface at Netflix that doubled as a market research platform. He further developed his theories about using direct mail to influence and retain customers doing circulation work while helping found the U.S. version of MacUser magazine in 1984. While co-founding computer mail-order firms MacWarehouse and MicroWarehouse with Peter Godfrey and his partners about a year later, Randolph made the connection between overnight delivery and improved customer retention. The discovery later proved crucial to Netflix's growth and survival: the company's subscriber base first blossomed and cut into Blockbuster Inc revenues in cities where Netflix offered overnight DVD delivery.
Randolph spent the dawn of the Internet age building direct-to-consumer marketing operations at software giant Borland International starting in 1988. He left Borland in 1995 for a series of short stints at Silicon Valley start-ups, including heading marketing at desktop scanner maker Visioneer, and then as a member of the founding team of Integrity QA, a developer of automated software testing products. In late 1996, software debugging company Pure Atria acquired the nine-person software startup. Pure Atria's founder and CEO Reed Hastings retained Randolph as vice president of corporate marketing for the rapidly expanding Pure Atria. In late 1996, Pure Atria announced that Rational Software would acquire it in an $850 million stock swap in what was then the richest merger in Silicon Valley history. Hastings and Randolph commuted together between their homes in Santa Cruz, California, into Silicon Valley for about four months while the Rational merger was finalized, and on these drives, the idea for Netflix was born.
=== Netflix ===
Randolph wanted to replicate the e-commerce model pioneered by online bookseller Amazon.com. He had heard that digital-versatile-discs (DVD) were being tested in several U.S. markets, and he wanted to explore the concept of selling the compact new digital format online. He and Hastings could not find a DVD, so they tested the idea with a compact disc.
"Reed and I were in downtown Santa Cruz and we were saying, 'I wonder if we can mail these things'," Randolph said. "We went in and bought a music CD and went into one of the stationery stores … and bought a greeting card and stuck the CD in the envelope and mailed it to Reed's house. And the next day, he said, 'It came. It's fine.' If there was an aha moment, that was it."
Hastings, Randolph's mother, and Integrity QA founder Steve Kahn were initial investors in Netflix when plans first started in 1996-1997. Randolph named the company, designed its initial user interface and branding and acted as chief executive for the first year while Hastings attended Stanford University graduate school. Netflix launched on April 14, 1998, out of an office park in Scotts Valley, California.
Randolph designed the user interface to act as an online catalog of movies and a market research platform so that he could constantly test different versions to perfect the user experience. The data generated by these market tests led the team to three concepts that they combined in 1999 to create Netflix's successful business model: a subscription-based service with no due dates or late fees and unlimited access to content, a "Queue" that allowed subscribers to specify the order in which DVDs should be mailed to them, and a serialized delivery system that automatically mailed out a DVD as soon as the previous rental was returned.
The subscriber data collected by the user interface fed a recommendation engine known as Cinematch, that helped manage the company's limited DVD inventory by guiding subscribers to movies and TV shows that were in stock and generally away from new releases.
Randolph ceded the CEO post to Hastings in 1999 and turned to product development. He and founding team member Mitch Lowe tested a concept for a movie rental kiosk called Netflix Express that Lowe later turned into movie kiosk giant Redbox after Hastings rejected it as a line of business. Randolph left Netflix in 2002 after helping guide the company through its initial public offering two years earlier. He credited Hastings with successfully scaling the company to 93 million subscribers worldwide, and said he preferred the start-up stage. "At the beginning, it's very much triage. If there are a hundred things broken and you need the skill to pick the three you've got to fix, I'm really good at that. I'm not good at the other ninety-seven," Randolph said.
=== After Netflix ===
Since his departure from Netflix, Randolph has served as a mentor at MiddCORE and a board member of Looker Data Sciences. He is also Entrepreneur in Residence for High Point University and its Belk Entrepreneurship Center.
In addition to his mentorships he is a keynote speaker, focusing on entrepreneurship, leadership, and innovation. He travels the world speaking about his experience with Netflix and the lessons he has learned from his other startup investments.
In September 2019, his book, That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea was published by Little, Brown and Company.
== Personal life ==
Randolph has been married to Lorraine Kiernan since 1987. They have three children. He lives in Santa Cruz, California.
Randolph is the author of the international bestseller That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea (2019) and hosts a podcast of the same name. He serves as Entrepreneur in Residence for High Point University and its Belk Entrepreneurship Center. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower | Eiffel Tower | The Eiffel Tower ( EYE-fəl; French: Tour Eiffel [tuʁ ɛfɛl] ) is a lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower from 1887 to 1889.
Locally nicknamed "La dame de fer" (French for "Iron Lady") for its use of wrought iron, it was constructed as the centrepiece of the 1889 World's Fair, and to crown the centennial anniversary of the French Revolution. Although initially criticised by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design, it has since become a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognisable structures in the world. The tower received 5,889,000 visitors in 2022. The Eiffel Tower is the most visited monument with an entrance fee in the world: 6.91 million people ascended it in 2015. It was designated a monument historique in 1964, and was named part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site ("Paris, Banks of the Seine") in 1991.
The tower is 330 metres (1,083 ft) tall, about the same height as an 81-storey building, and the tallest structure in Paris. Its base is square, measuring 125 metres (410 ft) on each side. During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to become by far the tallest human-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years until the Chrysler Building in New York City was finished in 1930. It was the first structure in the world to surpass both the 200-metre and 300-metre mark in height. Due to the addition of a broadcasting aerial at the top of the tower in 1957, it is now taller than the Chrysler Building by 5.2 metres (17 ft). Excluding transmitters, the Eiffel Tower is the second tallest free-standing structure in France after the Millau Viaduct.
The tower has three levels for visitors, with restaurants on the first and second levels. The top level's upper platform is 276 m (906 ft) above the ground—the highest public observation deck in the European Union. Tickets can be purchased to ascend by stairs or lift to the first and second levels. The climb from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the climb from the first level to the second, making the entire ascent a 600-step climb. Although there is a staircase to the top level, it is usually accessible only by lift. On this top, third level, is a private apartment built for Gustave Eiffel, who decorated it with furniture made by Jean Lachaise and invited friends such as Thomas Edison.
== History ==
=== Origin ===
The design of the Eiffel Tower is attributed to Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, two senior engineers working for the Compagnie des Établissements Eiffel. It was envisaged after discussion about a suitable centrepiece for the proposed 1889 Exposition Universelle, a world's fair to celebrate the centennial of the French Revolution. In May 1884, working at home, Koechlin made a sketch of their idea, described by him as "a great pylon, consisting of four lattice girders standing apart at the base and coming together at the top, joined together by metal trusses at regular intervals". Eiffel initially showed little enthusiasm, but he did approve further study, and the two engineers then asked Stephen Sauvestre, the head of the company's architectural department, to contribute to the design. Sauvestre added decorative arches to the base of the tower, a glass pavilion to the first level, and other embellishments.
The new version gained Eiffel's support: he bought the rights to the patent on the design which Koechlin, Nouguier, and Sauvestre had taken out, and the design was put on display at the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in the autumn of 1884 under the company name. On 30 March 1885, Eiffel presented his plans to the Société des Ingénieurs Civils; after discussing the technical problems and emphasising the practical uses of the tower, he finished his talk by saying the tower would symbolise [n]ot only the art of the modern engineer, but also the century of Industry and Science in which we are living, and for which the way was prepared by the great scientific movement of the eighteenth century and by the Revolution of 1789, to which this monument will be built as an expression of France's gratitude.
Little progress was made until 1886, when Jules Grévy was re-elected as president of France and Édouard Lockroy was appointed as minister for trade. A budget for the exposition was passed and, on 1 May, Lockroy announced an alteration to the terms of the open competition being held for a centrepiece to the exposition, which effectively made the selection of Eiffel's design a foregone conclusion, as entries had to include a study for a 300 m (980 ft) four-sided metal tower on the Champ de Mars. (A 300-metre tower was then considered a herculean engineering effort.) On 12 May, a commission was set up to examine Eiffel's scheme and its rivals, which, a month later, decided that all the proposals except Eiffel's were either impractical or lacking in details.
After some debate about the exact location of the tower, a contract was signed on 8 January 1887. Eiffel signed it acting in his own capacity rather than as the representative of his company, the contract granting him 1.5 million francs toward the construction costs: less than a quarter of the estimated 6.5 million francs. Eiffel was to receive all income from the commercial exploitation of the tower during the exhibition and for the next 20 years. He later established a separate company to manage the tower, putting up half the necessary capital himself.
A French bank, the Crédit Industriel et Commercial (CIC), helped finance the construction of the Eiffel Tower. During the period of the tower's construction, the CIC was acquiring funds from predatory loans to the National Bank of Haiti, some of which went towards the financing of the tower. These loans were connected to an indemnity controversy that saw France force Haiti's government to financially compensate French slaveowners for lost income as a result of the Haitian Revolution, and required Haiti to pay the CIC and its partner nearly half of all taxes collected on exports, "effectively choking off the nation's primary source of income". According to The New York Times, "[at] a time when the [CIC] was helping finance one of the world's best-known landmarks, the Eiffel Tower, as a monument to French liberty, it was choking Haiti's economy, taking much of the young nation's income back to Paris and impairing its ability to start schools, hospitals and the other building blocks of an independent country."
=== Artists' protest ===
The proposed tower had been a subject of controversy, drawing criticism from those who did not believe it was feasible and those who objected on artistic grounds. Prior to the Eiffel Tower's construction, no structure had ever been constructed to a height of 300 m, or even 200 m for that matter, and many people believed it was impossible. These objections were an expression of a long-standing debate in France about the relationship between architecture and engineering. It came to a head as work began at the Champ de Mars: a "Committee of Three Hundred" (one member for each metre of the tower's height) was formed, led by the prominent architect Charles Garnier and including some of the most important figures of the arts, such as William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Guy de Maupassant, Charles Gounod and Jules Massenet. A petition called "Artists against the Eiffel Tower" was sent to the Minister of Works and Commissioner for the Exposition, Adolphe Alphand, and it was published by Le Temps on 14 February 1887:
We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection ... of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower ... To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years ... we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal.
Gustave Eiffel responded to these criticisms by comparing his tower to the Egyptian pyramids: "My tower will be the tallest edifice ever erected by man. Will it not also be grandiose in its way? And why would something admirable in Egypt become hideous and ridiculous in Paris?" These criticisms were also dealt with by Édouard Lockroy in a letter of support written to Alphand, sardonically saying, "Judging by the stately swell of the rhythms, the beauty of the metaphors, the elegance of its delicate and precise style, one can tell this protest is the result of collaboration of the most famous writers and poets of our time", and he explained that the protest was irrelevant since the project had been decided upon months before, and construction on the tower was already under way.
Garnier was a member of the Tower Commission that had examined the various proposals, and had raised no objection. Eiffel pointed out to a journalist that it was premature to judge the effect of the tower solely on the basis of the drawings, that the Champ de Mars was distant enough from the monuments mentioned in the protest for there to be little risk of the tower overwhelming them, and putting the aesthetic argument for the tower: "Do not the laws of natural forces always conform to the secret laws of harmony?"
Some of the protesters changed their minds when the tower was built; others remained unconvinced. Guy de Maupassant supposedly ate lunch in the tower's restaurant every day because it was the one place in Paris where the tower was not visible.
By 1918, it had become a symbol of Paris and of France after Guillaume Apollinaire wrote a nationalist poem in the shape of the tower (a calligram) to express his feelings about the war against Germany. Today, it is widely considered to be a remarkable piece of structural art, and is often featured in films and literature.
=== Construction ===
Work on the foundations started on 28 January 1887. Those for the east and south legs were straightforward, with each leg resting on four 2 m (6.6 ft) concrete slabs, one for each of the principal girders of each leg. The west and north legs, being closer to the river Seine, were more complicated: each slab needed two piles installed by using compressed-air caissons 15 m (49 ft) long and 6 m (20 ft) in diameter driven to a depth of 22 m (72 ft) to support the concrete slabs, which were 6 m (20 ft) thick. Each of these slabs supported a block of limestone with an inclined top to bear a supporting shoe for the ironwork.
Each shoe was anchored to the stonework by a pair of bolts 10 cm (4 in) in diameter and 7.5 m (25 ft) long. The foundations were completed on 30 June, and the erection of the ironwork began. The visible work on-site was complemented by the enormous amount of exacting preparatory work that took place behind the scenes: the drawing office produced 1,700 general drawings and 3,629 detailed drawings of the 18,038 different parts needed. The task of drawing the components was complicated by the complex angles involved in the design and the degree of precision required: the position of rivet holes was specified to within 1 mm (0.04 in) and angles worked out to one second of arc. The finished components, some already riveted together into sub-assemblies, arrived on horse-drawn carts from a factory in the nearby Parisian suburb of Levallois-Perret and were first bolted together, with the bolts being replaced with rivets as construction progressed. No drilling or shaping was done on site: if any part did not fit, it was sent back to the factory for alteration. In all, 18,038 pieces were joined using 2.5 million rivets.
At first, the legs were constructed as cantilevers, but about halfway to the first level construction was paused to create a substantial timber scaffold. This renewed concerns about the structural integrity of the tower, and sensational headlines such as "Eiffel Suicide!" and "Gustave Eiffel Has Gone Mad: He Has Been Confined in an Asylum" appeared in the tabloid press. Multiple famous artists of that time, Charles Garnier and Alexandre Dumas, thought poorly of the newly made tower. Charles Garnier thought it was a "truly tragic street lamp". Alexandre Dumas said that it was like "Odius shadow of the odious column built of rivets and iron plates extending like a black blot". There were multiple protests over the style and the reasoning of placing it in the middle of Paris. At this stage, a small "creeper" crane designed to move up the tower was installed in each leg. They made use of the guides for the lifts which were to be fitted in the four legs. The critical stage of joining the legs at the first level was completed by the end of March 1888. Although the metalwork had been prepared with the utmost attention to detail, provision had been made to carry out small adjustments to precisely align the legs; hydraulic jacks were fitted to the shoes at the base of each leg, capable of exerting a force of 800 tonnes, and the legs were intentionally constructed at a slightly steeper angle than necessary, being supported by sandboxes on the scaffold. Although construction involved 300 on-site employees, due to Eiffel's safety precautions and the use of movable gangways, guardrails and screens, only one person died.
=== Inauguration and the 1889 exposition ===
The main structural work was completed at the end of March 1889 and, on 31 March, Eiffel celebrated by leading a group of government officials, accompanied by representatives of the press, to the top of the tower. Because the lifts were not yet in operation, the ascent was made by foot, and took over an hour, with Eiffel stopping frequently to explain various features. Most of the party chose to stop at the lower levels, but a few, including the structural engineer, Émile Nouguier, the head of construction, Jean Compagnon, the President of the City Council, and reporters from Le Figaro and Le Monde Illustré, completed the ascent. At 2:35 pm, Eiffel hoisted a large Tricolour to the accompaniment of a 25-gun salute fired at the first level.
There was still work to be done, particularly on the lifts and facilities, and the tower was not opened to the public until nine days after the opening of the exposition on 6 May; even then, the lifts had not been completed. The tower was an instant success with the public, and nearly 30,000 visitors made the 1,710-step climb to the top before the lifts entered service on 26 May. Tickets cost 2 francs for the first level, 3 for the second, and 5 for the top, with half-price admission on Sundays, and by the end of the exhibition there had been 1,896,987 visitors.
After dark, the tower was lit by hundreds of gas lamps, and a beacon sent out three beams of red, white and blue light. Two searchlights mounted on a circular rail were used to illuminate various buildings of the exposition. The daily opening and closing of the exposition were announced by a cannon at the top.
On the second level, the French newspaper Le Figaro had an office and a printing press, where a special souvenir edition, Le Figaro de la Tour, was made.
At the top, there was a post office where visitors could send letters and postcards as a memento of their visit. Graffitists were also catered for: sheets of paper were mounted on the walls each day for visitors to record their impressions of the tower. Gustave Eiffel described the collection of responses as "truly curious".
Famous visitors to the tower included the Prince of Wales, Sarah Bernhardt, "Buffalo Bill" Cody (his Wild West show was an attraction at the exposition) and Thomas Edison. Eiffel invited Edison to his private apartment at the top of the tower, where Edison presented him with one of his phonographs, a new invention and one of the many highlights of the exposition. Edison signed the guestbook with this message on September 10, 1889: To M Eiffel the Engineer the brave builder of so gigantic and original specimen of modern Engineering from one who has the greatest respect and admiration for all Engineers including the Great Engineer the Bon Dieu, Thomas Edison.
Eiffel made use of his apartment at the top of the tower to carry out meteorological observations, and also used the tower to perform experiments on the action of air resistance on falling bodies.
=== Subsequent events ===
Eiffel had a permit for the tower to stand for 20 years. It was to be dismantled in 1909, when its ownership would revert to the City of Paris. The city had planned to tear it down (part of the original contest rules for designing a tower was that it should be easy to dismantle) but as the tower proved to be valuable for many innovations in the early 20th century, particularly radio telegraphy, it was allowed to remain after the expiry of the permit, and from 1910 it also became part of the International Time Service.
For the 1900 Exposition Universelle, the lifts in the east and west legs were replaced by lifts running as far as the second level constructed by the French firm Fives-Lille. These had a compensating mechanism to keep the floor level as the angle of ascent changed at the first level, and were driven by a similar hydraulic mechanism as the Otis lifts, although this was situated at the base of the tower. Hydraulic pressure was provided by pressurised accumulators located near this mechanism. At the same time the lift in the north pillar was removed and replaced by a staircase to the first level. The layout of both first and second levels was modified. The original lift in the south pillar was removed 13 years later.
On 19 October 1901, Alberto Santos-Dumont, flying his No.6 airship, won a 100,000-franc prize offered by Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe for the first person to make a flight from St. Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and back in less than half an hour.
From 1910, the astronomical clocks of the Paris Observatory sent the time to sea daily through the Eiffel Tower within a radius of 5 000 km. The development of wireless telegraphy allowed unifying Universal Time. On 9 March 1911, France adopted Greenwich Mean Time by law. However, the law did not refer to Greenwich Prime Meridian, but to the local mean time of Paris delayed by 9 minutes and 21 seconds. In 1912, following a report by Gustave Ferrié, the Bureau des Longitudes organized at the Paris Observatory a Conférence internationale de l'heure radiotélégraphique (International Radiotelegraph Time Conference). The International Time Bureau was created and installed in the premises of the Paris Observatory. However, due to World War I, the International Convention was never ratified. In 1919, the existence of the International Time Bureau was formalized under the authority of an International Time Commission, under the aegis of the International Astronomical Union, created by Benjamin Baillaud.
In 1910, Father Theodor Wulf measured radiant energy at the top and bottom of the tower. He found more at the top than expected, incidentally discovering what are known today as cosmic rays. Two years later, on 4 February 1912, Austrian tailor Franz Reichelt died after jumping from the first level of the tower (a height of 57 m) to demonstrate his parachute design. In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, a radio transmitter located in the tower jammed German radio communications, seriously hindering their advance on Paris and contributing to the Allied victory at the First Battle of the Marne.
During World War I, the Eiffel Tower's wireless station played a crucial role in intercepting enemy communications from Berlin. In 1914, French forces successfully launched a counter-attack during the Battle of the Marne after gaining critical intelligence on the German Army's movements. In 1917, the station intercepted a coded message between Germany and Spain that referenced 'Operative H-21.' This information contributed to the arrest, conviction, and execution of Mata Hari, the famous spy accused of working for Germany.
From 1925 to 1934, illuminated signs for Citroën adorned three of the tower's sides, making it the tallest advertising space in the world at the time. In April 1935, the tower was used to make experimental low-resolution television transmissions, using a shortwave transmitter of 200 watts power. On 17 November, an improved 180-line transmitter was installed.
On two separate but related occasions in 1925, the con artist Victor Lustig "sold" the tower for scrap metal. A year later, in February 1926, pilot Leon Collet was killed trying to fly under the tower. His aircraft became entangled in an aerial belonging to a wireless station. A bust of Gustave Eiffel by Antoine Bourdelle was unveiled at the base of the north leg on 2 May 1929. In 1930, the tower lost the title of the world's tallest structure when the Chrysler Building in New York City was completed. In 1938, the decorative arcade around the first level was removed.
Upon the German occupation of Paris in 1940, the lift cables were cut by the French. The tower was restricted to German visitors during the occupation and the lifts were not repaired until 1946. In 1940, German soldiers had to climb the tower to hoist a swastika-centred Reichskriegsflagge, but the flag was so large it blew away just a few hours later, and was replaced by a smaller one. When visiting Paris, Hitler chose to stay on the ground. When the Allies were nearing Paris in August 1944, Hitler ordered General Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, to demolish the tower along with the rest of the city. Von Choltitz disobeyed the order. On 25 August, before the Germans had been driven out of Paris, the German flag was replaced with a Tricolour by two men from the French Naval Museum, who narrowly beat three men led by Lucien Sarniguet, who had lowered the Tricolour on 13 June 1940 when Paris fell to the Germans.
A fire started in the television transmitter on 3 January 1956, damaging the top of the tower. Repairs took a year, and in 1957, the present radio aerial was added to the top. In 1964, the Eiffel Tower was officially declared to be a historical monument by the Minister of Cultural Affairs, André Malraux. A year later, an additional lift system was installed in the north pillar.
According to interviews, in 1967, Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau negotiated a secret agreement with Charles de Gaulle for the tower to be dismantled and temporarily relocated to Montreal to serve as a landmark and tourist attraction during Expo 67. The plan was allegedly vetoed by the company operating the tower out of fear that the French government could refuse permission for the tower to be restored in its original location.
In 1982, the original lifts between the second and third levels were replaced after 97 years in service. These had been closed to the public between November and March because the water in the hydraulic drive tended to freeze. The new cars operate in pairs, with one counterbalancing the other, and perform the journey in one stage, reducing the journey time from eight minutes to less than two minutes. At the same time, two new emergency staircases were installed, replacing the original spiral staircases. In 1983, the south pillar was fitted with an electrically driven Otis lift to serve the Jules Verne restaurant. The Fives-Lille lifts in the east and west legs, fitted in 1899, were extensively refurbished in 1986. The cars were replaced, and a computer system was installed to completely automate the lifts. The motive power was moved from the water hydraulic system to a new electrically driven oil-filled hydraulic system, and the original water hydraulics were retained solely as a counterbalance system. A service lift was added to the south pillar for moving small loads and maintenance personnel three years later.
Robert Moriarty flew a Beechcraft Bonanza under the tower on 31 March 1984. In 1987, A. J. Hackett made one of his first bungee jumps from the top of the Eiffel Tower, using a special cord he had helped develop. Hackett was arrested by the police. On 27 October 1991, Thierry Devaux, along with mountain guide Hervé Calvayrac, performed a series of acrobatic figures while bungee jumping from the second floor of the tower. Facing the Champ de Mars, Devaux used an electric winch between figures to go back up to the second floor. When firemen arrived, he stopped after the sixth jump.
For its "Countdown to the Year 2000" celebration on 31 December 1999, flashing lights and high-powered searchlights were installed on the tower. During the last three minutes of the year, the lights were turned on starting from the base of the tower and continuing to the top to welcome 2000 with a huge fireworks show. An exhibition above a cafeteria on the first floor commemorates this event. The searchlights on top of the tower made it a beacon in Paris's night sky, and 20,000 flashing bulbs gave the tower a sparkly appearance for five minutes every hour on the hour.
The lights sparkled blue for several nights to herald the new millennium on 31 December 1999. The sparkly lighting continued for 18 months until July 2001. The sparkling lights were turned on again on 21 June 2003, and the display was planned to last for 10 years before they needed replacing.
The tower received its 200,000,000th guest on 28 November 2002. The tower has operated at its maximum capacity of about 7 million visitors per year since 2003. In 2004, the Eiffel Tower began hosting a seasonal ice rink on the first level. A glass floor was installed on the first level during the 2014 refurbishment.
== Design ==
=== Material ===
The puddle iron (wrought iron) of the Eiffel Tower weighs 7,300 tonnes, and the addition of lifts, shops and antennae have brought the total weight to approximately 10,100 tonnes. As a demonstration of the economy of design, if the 7,300 tonnes of metal in the structure were melted down, it would fill the square base, 125 metres (410 ft) on each side, to a depth of only 6.25 cm (2.46 in) assuming the density of the metal to be 7.8 tonnes per cubic metre. Additionally, a cubic box surrounding the tower (324 m × 125 m × 125 m) would contain 6,200 tonnes of air, weighing almost as much as the iron itself. Depending on the ambient temperature, the top of the tower may shift away from the sun by up to 18 cm (7 in) due to thermal expansion of the metal on the side facing the sun.
=== Wind and weather considerations ===
When it was built, Eiffel was accused of trying to create something artistic with no regard to the principles of engineering. However, Eiffel and his team were experienced bridge builders. In an interview with the newspaper Le Temps published on 14 February 1887, Eiffel said:
Is it not true that the very conditions which give strength also conform to the hidden rules of harmony? ... Now to what phenomenon did I have to give primary concern in designing the Tower? It was wind resistance. Well then! I hold that the curvature of the monument's four outer edges, which is as mathematical calculation dictated it should be ... will give a great impression of strength and beauty, for it will reveal to the eyes of the observer the boldness of the design as a whole.
He used graphical methods to determine the strength of the tower and empirical evidence to account for the effects of wind, rather than a mathematical formula. Close examination of the tower reveals a basically exponential shape. All parts of the tower were overdesigned to ensure maximum resistance to wind forces. The top half was assumed to have no gaps in the latticework. After it was completed, some have put forward various mathematical hypotheses in an attempt to explain the success of the design. A one devised in 2004 after letters sent by Eiffel to the French Society of Civil Engineers in 1885 were translated into English described it as a non-linear integral equation based on counteracting the wind pressure on any point of the tower with the tension between the construction elements at that point.
The Eiffel Tower sways by up to 9 cm (3+1⁄2 in) in the wind.
=== Floors ===
==== Ground floor ====
The four columns of the tower each house access stairs and lifts to the first two floors, while at the south column only the lift to the second floor restaurant is publicly accessible.
==== 1st floor ====
The first floor is publicly accessible by lift or stairs. When originally built, the first level contained three restaurants—one French, one Russian and one Flemish—and an "Anglo-American Bar". After the exposition closed, the Flemish restaurant was converted to a 250-seat theatre. Today there is the Le 58 Tour Eiffel restaurant and other facilities.
==== 2nd floor ====
The second floor is publicly accessible by lift or stairs and has a restaurant called Le Jules Verne, a gourmet restaurant with its own lift going up from the south column to the second level. This restaurant has one star in the Michelin Red Guide. It was run by the multi-Michelin star chef Alain Ducasse from 2007 to 2017. As of May 2019, it is managed by three-star chef Frédéric Anton. It owes its name to the famous science-fiction writer Jules Verne.
==== 3rd floor ====
The third floor is the top floor, publicly accessible by lift.
Originally there were laboratories for various experiments, and a small apartment reserved for Gustave Eiffel to entertain guests, which is now open to the public, complete with period decorations and lifelike mannequins of Eiffel and some of his notable guests.
From 1937 until 1981, there was a restaurant near the top of the tower. It was removed due to structural considerations; engineers had determined it was too heavy and was causing the tower to sag. This restaurant was sold to an American restaurateur and transported to New York and then New Orleans. It was rebuilt on the edge of New Orleans' Garden District as a restaurant and later event hall.
Today there is a champagne bar on the third floor of the Eiffel Tower.
=== Lifts ===
The arrangement of the lifts has been changed several times during the tower's history. Given the elasticity of the cables and the time taken to align the cars with the landings, each lift, in normal service, takes an average of 8 minutes and 50 seconds to do the round trip, spending an average of 1 minute and 15 seconds at each level. The average journey time between levels is 1 minute. The original hydraulic mechanism is on public display in a small museum at the base of the east and west legs. Because the mechanism requires frequent lubrication and maintenance, public access is often restricted. The rope mechanism of the north tower can be seen as visitors exit the lift.
Equipping the tower with adequate and safe passenger lifts was a major concern of the government commission overseeing the Exposition. Although some visitors could be expected to climb to the first level, or even the second, lifts had to be the main means of ascent.
Constructing lifts to reach the first level was done by making the legs wide enough at the bottom and so nearly straight that they could contain a straight track. A contract was given to the French company Roux, Combaluzier & Lepape for two lifts to be fitted in the east and west legs. Roux, Combaluzier & Lepape used a pair of endless chains with rigid, articulated links to which the car was attached. Lead weights on some links of the upper or return sections of the chains counterbalanced most of the car's weight. The car was pushed up from below, not pulled up from above: to prevent the chain buckling, it was enclosed in a conduit. At the bottom of the run, the chains passed around 3.9 m (12 ft 10 in) diameter sprockets. Smaller sprockets at the top guided the chains.
Installing lifts to the second level was more of a challenge because a straight track was impossible. No French company wanted to undertake the work. The European branch of Otis Brothers & Company submitted a proposal, but this was rejected: the fair's charter ruled out the use of any foreign material in the construction of the tower. The deadline for bids was extended, but still no French companies put themselves forward, and eventually the contract was given to Otis in July 1887. Otis were confident they would eventually be given the contract and had already started creating designs.
The car was divided into two superimposed compartments, each holding 25 passengers, with the lift operator occupying an exterior platform on the first level. Motive power was provided by an inclined hydraulic ram 12.67 m (41 ft 7 in) long and 96.5 cm (38.0 in) in diameter in the tower leg with a stroke of 10.83 m (35 ft 6 in): this moved a carriage carrying six sheaves. Five fixed sheaves were mounted higher up the leg, producing an arrangement similar to a block and tackle but acting in reverse, multiplying the stroke of the piston rather than the force generated. The hydraulic pressure in the driving cylinder was produced by a large open reservoir on the second level. After being exhausted from the cylinder, the water was pumped back up to the reservoir by two pumps in the machinery room at the base of the south leg. This reservoir also provided power to the lifts to the first level.
The original lifts for the journey between the second and third levels were supplied by Léon Edoux. A pair of 81 m (266 ft) hydraulic rams were mounted on the second level, reaching nearly halfway up to the third level. One lift car was mounted on top of these rams: cables ran from the top of this car up to sheaves on the third level and back down to a second car. Each car travelled only half the distance between the second and third levels and passengers were required to change lifts halfway by means of a short gangway. The 10-ton cars each held 65 passengers.
=== Engraved names ===
Gustave Eiffel engraved on the building of the tower the names of 72 French scientists, engineers and mathematicians as a recognition of their contributions. Eiffel chose this "invocation of science" because of his concern over the artists' protest. At the beginning of the 20th century, the engravings were painted over, but they were restored in 1986–87 by the Société Nouvelle d'exploitation de la Tour Eiffel, a company operating the tower.
=== Aesthetics ===
The tower is painted in three shades: lighter at the top, getting progressively darker towards the bottom to complement the Parisian sky. It was originally reddish brown; this changed in 1968 to a bronze colour known as "Eiffel Tower Brown". In 2010 the tower was re-painted yellow-brown.
Following the 2024 Summer Olympics held in Paris, Mayor Anne Hidalgo proposed keeping the Olympic rings on the tower permanently. The rings, which measure 95 feet (29 m) wide and 43 feet (13 m) high, were initially installed for the Games and were scheduled for removal after the Paralympics. Hidalgo's decision faced criticism from the Eiffel family and some residents concerned about altering the protected monument. The original 30-ton rings would be replaced with lighter versions for long-term display.
The only non-structural elements are the four decorative grill-work arches, added in Sauvestre's sketches, which served to make the tower look more substantial and to make a more impressive entrance to the exposition.
A pop-culture movie cliché is that the view from a Parisian window always includes the tower. In reality, since zoning restrictions limit the height of most buildings in Paris to seven storeys, only a small number of tall buildings have a clear view of the tower.
=== Maintenance ===
Maintenance of the tower includes applying 60 tons of paint every 7 years to prevent it from rusting. The tower has been completely repainted at least 19 times since it was built, with the most recent being in 2010. Lead paint was still being used as recently as 2001 when the practice was stopped out of concern for the environment.
== Communications ==
The tower has been used for making radio transmissions since the beginning of the 20th century. Until the 1950s, sets of aerial wires ran from the cupola to anchors on the Avenue de Suffren and Champ de Mars. These were connected to longwave transmitters in small bunkers. In 1909, a permanent underground radio centre was built near the south pillar, which still exists today. On 20 November 1913, the Paris Observatory, using the Eiffel Tower as an aerial, exchanged wireless signals with the United States Naval Observatory, which used an aerial in Arlington County, Virginia. The object of the transmissions was to measure the difference in longitude between Paris and Washington, D.C. Today, radio and digital television signals are transmitted from the Eiffel Tower.
=== FM radio ===
=== Digital television ===
A television antenna was first installed on the tower in 1957, increasing its height by 18.7 m (61 ft). Work carried out in 2000 added a further 5.3 m (17 ft), giving a total height of 324 m (1,063 ft). Analogue television signals from the Eiffel Tower ceased on 8 March 2011.
== Dimensions ==
=== Height changes ===
The pinnacle height of the Eiffel Tower has changed multiple times over the years as described in the chart below.
== Taller structures ==
The Eiffel Tower was the world's tallest structure when completed in 1889, a distinction it retained until 1929 when the Chrysler Building in New York City was topped out. The tower also lost its standing as the world's tallest tower to the Tokyo Tower in 1958 but retains its status as the tallest freestanding (non-guyed) structure in France.
=== Lattice towers taller than the Eiffel Tower ===
=== Structures in France taller than the Eiffel Tower ===
== Tourism ==
=== Transport ===
The nearest Paris Métro station is Bir-Hakeim and the nearest RER station is Champ de Mars-Tour Eiffel. The tower itself is located at the intersection of the quai Branly and the Pont d'Iéna.
=== Popularity ===
More than 300 million people have visited the tower since it was completed in 1889. In 2015, there were 6.91 million visitors. The tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world. An average of 25,000 people ascend the tower every day (which can result in long queues).
== Illumination copyright ==
The tower and its image have been in the public domain since 1993, 70 years after Eiffel's death. In June 1990, a French court ruled that a special lighting display on the tower in 1989 to mark the tower's 100th anniversary was an "original visual creation" protected by copyright. The Court of Cassation, France's judicial court of last resort, upheld the ruling in March 1992. The Société d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE) now considers any illumination of the tower to be a separate work of art that falls under copyright. As a result, the SNTE alleges that it is illegal to publish contemporary photographs of the lit tower at night without permission in France and some other countries for commercial use. For this reason, it is often rare to find images or videos of the lit tower at night on stock image sites, and media outlets rarely broadcast images or videos of it.
The imposition of copyright has been controversial. The Director of Documentation for what was then called the Société Nouvelle d'exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SNTE), Stéphane Dieu, commented in 2005: "It is really just a way to manage commercial use of the image, so that it isn't used in ways [of which] we don't approve". SNTE made over €1 million from copyright fees in 2002. However, it could also be used to restrict the publication of tourist photographs of the tower at night, as well as hindering non-profit and semi-commercial publication of images of the illuminated tower.
The copyright claim itself has never been tested in courts to date, according to a 2014 article in the Art Law Journal, and there has never been an attempt to track down millions of people who have posted and shared their images of the illuminated tower on the Internet worldwide. However, the article adds that commercial uses of such images, like in a magazine, on a film poster, or on product packaging, may require prior permission.
French doctrine and jurisprudence allows pictures incorporating a copyrighted work as long as their presence is incidental or accessory to the subject being represented, a reasoning akin to the de minimis rule. Therefore, SETE may be unable to claim copyright on photographs of Paris which happen to include the lit tower.
The author of the 1989 lighting display, lighting director Pierre Bideau, died in 2021; this makes the said display under artistic copyright until 2091, 70 years after the director's death.
== Replicas ==
As one of the most famous landmarks in the world, the Eiffel Tower has been the inspiration for the creation of many replicas and similar towers. An early example is Blackpool Tower in England. The mayor of Blackpool, Sir John Bickerstaffe, was so impressed on seeing the Eiffel Tower at the 1889 exposition that he commissioned a similar tower to be built in his town. It opened in 1894 and is 158.1 m (519 ft) tall. Tokyo Tower in Japan, built as a communications tower in 1958, was also inspired by the Eiffel Tower. Well known is the Petřín Lookout Tower in Prague too.
There are various scale models of the tower in the United States, including a half-scale version at the Paris Las Vegas, Nevada, one in Paris, Texas built in 1993, and two 1:3 scale models at Kings Island, located in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Kings Dominion, located in Richmond, Virginia, amusement parks opened in 1972 and 1975 respectively. Two 1:3 scale models can be found in China, one in Durango, Mexico that was donated by the local French community, and several across Europe.
In 2011, the TV show Pricing the Priceless on the National Geographic Channel speculated that a full-size replica of the tower would cost approximately US$480 million to build. This would be more than ten times the cost of the original (nearly 8 million in 1890 francs; around US$40 million in 2018 dollars). |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kala_Wewa#History | Kala Wewa#History | Kala Wewa (Sinhala:කලා වැව), built by King Datusena in 460 CE, is a reservoir complex consisting of two reservoirs, Kala Wewa and Balalu Wewa. It has the capacity to store 123 million cubic meters of water. The reservoir complex includes a stone made spillway and three main sluices. The main central sluice, 40 feet wide, supplies water to thousands of acres of paddy fields and ends at Tissa Wewa, in the ancient city of Anuradhapura, having meandered over 87 km (54 mi) at a slope of 6 inches per mile. The hydraulic engineering reflects the advanced technology that existed in ancient Sri Lanka.
== History ==
This reservoir was built by King Dhatusena, who ruled the country from 454 to 473 CE.
Tamil invaders who arrived from South India ruled the north part of the country during the period from 429 to 455 CE. King Dhatusena repelled the invaders and united the country. He wanted to rebuild the irrigation system by constructing several tanks and canals in and around the city of Anuradhapura.
After the construction of Kala Wewa was completed, the king built another tank called Balalu Wewa (Sinhala: බලලු වැව) nearby and connected the two tanks together, with the resulting combined tank being the largest in Sri Lanka. King Mahinda II, who ruled the country from 777 to 797 CE, expanded the tank further. Water of the tank was transferred to Tissa Wewa (Sinhala: තිසා වැව) in Anuradhapura by an ancient 54-mile (86.9 km) canal, Yodha Ela (Sinhala: යෝධ ඇල), with an average gradient of 6 inches per mile (9.5 cm/km) over the first 17 miles (27 km).
== Legends ==
King Dhathusena was very keen on information with regard to a spot very suitable to construct a tank to be the massive one in the history of Sri Lanka. There are some folklore on how the king was able to find a place for the tank he imagined. There was a man called Kadawara who left his family and went to live in the jungle due to his wife's unbearable and repeated insults and disrespects towards him. After some years in the jungle he was well accustomed with wild animals and lived with a flock of deer. One day a hunter suddenly noticed this strange man living with animals in the jungle; went to the palace and told the king that it seems that this strange man lives in the forest in order to guard an unknown treasure there. King sent his army to catch him. Kadawara was caught and brought to the palace. When the king questioned him of the treasure, Kadawara revealed his true story and told real reason for his leaving the city and living in the jungle. Then king asked him of any interesting thing he had seen while living in the jungle. Kadawa said, "No sir, I have not seen anything interesting but in a brook somewhere in the jungle, water is being blocked by the flora called Kala that has been grown across that stream. According to this legend, it was the spot wherein the king created the Kala Wewa.
== Renovation ==
First restoration to the tank is done by King Parakramabahu I in the 12th century. The tank was renovated several times in the past as in the period of British Governor Sir William Henry Gregory (1872–1877
and Sir Arthur Hamilton-Gordon (1883–1890). After the British rule in the country and in 1958, the tank's bund was reconstructed connecting the tank with Balalu Wewa.
== Size ==
Its circumference is 40 miles (64.4 km) and has a total area of 7 square miles (18.1 km2) at full capacity. Length of the dam is 22,572 feet (6,879.9 m) and the height is 48 feet (14.6 m).
== Attraction ==
There is a 12 meter high standing statue of Buddha created by same ruler. This statue is named after the village it is situated so it is called Avukana Buddha statue (Sinhala: අව්කන බුදු පිළිමය) and it can be seen over-looking at the tank near by.
== Purpose ==
The reservoir served as one of largest irrigation tanks in ancient time. While supplying water also for the small tanks in rural areas on the way, the canal Jaya Ganga carried water from Kala Wewa and stored enough water in the Thisā Wewa for the population of then capital city of Anuradhapura.well
Being one of main storages in the Mahaweli Irrigation Scheme since 1976, the tank serves to the population in the North Central Sri Lanka. It is used for fresh water fishing and the flora, specially the grasses in its valley, is the main sources of silage for the herds of cattle in the area.
== Route ==
The way to Anuradhapura via Dambulla reaches Kekirawa in the Kekirawa Divisional Secretariat and from there the distance to the tank is 9.7 kilometres (6 mi).
Kalawewa Railway Station can be reached by train from Colombo Fort to Trincomalee or from Colombo Fort to Batticaloa via Maho Junction Railway Station. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ana_Ollo | Ana Ollo | Ana Ollo Hualde (born 24 January 1965) is a Navarrese politician, Minister of Citizen Relations of Navarre since July 2015 and Spokesperson of the Government of Navarre from July 2015 to September 2016. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colt | Colt | Colt(s) or COLT may refer to:
Colt (horse), an intact (uncastrated) male horse under four years of age
== People ==
Colt (given name)
Colt (surname)
== Places ==
Colt, Arkansas, United States
Colt, Louisiana, an unincorporated community, United States
Camp Colt, Pennsylvania, a World War I military installation for United States tank training
Colt Island, County Dublin, Ireland
Colt Stadium, Houston, Texas, United States
== Acronyms ==
Bergen Corpus of London Teenage Language, a spoken language corpus of English
Cell On Light Truck: similar to Cell on wheels, but built on to a small truck, instead of a trailer
Combat Observation Laser Teams, an artillery observer responsible for directing laser-guided munitions
Computational learning theory, the mathematical field of machine learning algorithms
County of Lackawanna Transit System, Pennsylvania, United States
== Arts, entertainment, and media ==
Colts Drum and Bugle Corps, a drum and bugle corps from Dubuque, Iowa
The Colt (film), a 2005 television movie
The Colt (Supernatural), a fictional firearm depicted in the U.S. television series Supernatural
Colt, a character from the Supercell game Brawl Stars
== Brands and enterprises ==
Colt Group, a smoke control, solar shading and climate control company
COLT Studio Group, producers of gay pornography
Colt Technology Services, a European telecommunications company
Colt's Manufacturing Company, an American firearms company
Colt (cigarette), a cigarette brand
== Computing and technology ==
Colt (libraries), Open Source Libraries for High Performance Scientific and Technical Computing in Java
== Sport ==
=== Mascots ===
Sanford H. Calhoun High School
Covina High School
Parkway Central High School
West Jessamine High School
Thurston High School
=== Teams ===
Augusta Colts, a former indoor football team based in Augusta, Georgia
Barrie Colts, an Ontario Hockey League franchise
Calgary Colts, a junior football team based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Chicago Cubs, a Major League Baseball franchise known as the Colts from 1890 through 1897
Cornwall Colts, a hockey team
Cranbrook Colts, a defunct Junior "A" and "B" hockey team in Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada
Devonshire Colts, a football (soccer) club based in Devonshire, Bermuda
Houston Colt .45s, former Major League Baseball club, later renamed as the Houston Astros
Mountainview Colts a Junior "B" ice hockey team based in Didsbury, Alberta, Canada
Portland Colts, a former minor league baseball team in Portland, Oregon
Richmond Colts, a minor league baseball team based in Richmond, Virginia, on-and-off from 1894 to 1953
San Angelo Colts, a professional baseball team based in San Angelo, Texas
San Angelo Colts (1948–57 baseball team), a minor league baseball team in San Angelo, Texas
==== National Football League ====
Baltimore Colts (1947–1950), an All-American Football Conference franchise from 1947 to 1949 that later spent the 1950 season in the NFL
Baltimore Colts, a National Football League franchise from 1953 to 1983, afterward relocating to Indianapolis - see History of the Baltimore Colts
Indianapolis Colts, a National Football League franchise
== Transportation ==
Antonov An-2, Russian Army biplane's NATO reporting name
Colt, a share taxi used in Indonesia
Colt Car Company, the British importer of Mitsubishi Motors, whose products were sold with Colt badges in numerous markets
Colt International, a provider of contract aviation fuel and flight planning services
Dodge Colt, a captive import version of the Mitsubishi Mirage made from 1970 to 1994
Mitsubishi Colt, a supermini built by Mitsubishi Motors
Colt Runabout, an early American automobile
Piper PA-22-108 Colt, an aircraft used for training pilots
Texas Aircraft Colt, a Brazilian design light sport aircraft built in Texas
County of Lackawanna Transit System, Pennsylvania, United States
== Other uses ==
Colt baronets, a title in the Baronetage of England
Ragen's Colts, a chiefly Irish Chicago street gang during the early twentieth century |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchayati_raj | Panchayati raj | The Panchayat raj is a political system originating from the Indian subcontinent, primarily found in India and neighboring countries Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. It is one of the oldest systems of local government in the Indian subcontinent, with historical mentions dating back to around 250 CE. The word 'raj' means 'rule,' and panchayat' means 'assembly' (ayat) of 'five' (panch). Traditionally, panchayats consisted of wise and respected elders chosen and accepted by the local community. These assemblies resolved disputes between individuals and villages. However, there were various forms of such assemblies.
The leader of the panchayat was often called the president, mukhiya, sarpanch, or pradhan, which was an elected or generally acknowledged position. The modern panchayati raj system of India and its gram panchayats should not be confused with the traditional system or the extra-constitutional khap panchayats (or caste panchayats) found in parts of northern India.
Mahatma Gandhi advocated for panchayat raj as the foundation of India's political system. It was envisioned as a decentralized form of government, where each village would be responsible for its own affairs. This vision was termed Gram Swaraj ("village self-governance"). While India developed a highly centralized system of government, this has been moderated by delegating several administrative functions to the local level, thereby empowering elected gram panchayats.
Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurated the panchayati raj system at Nagaur on 2 October 1959. The date was chosen to coincide with Mahatma Gandhi's birthday. Gandhi envisioned Gram Swaraj through the panchayati raj system. The system was later modified in 1992.
== In the Indian subcontinent ==
=== Early history ===
The Hindu text Rigveda (1700 BCE) provides evidence suggesting that self-governing village bodies called sabhas existed. Over time, these bodies evolved into panchayats (five-person councils). Panchayats were functional institutions of grassroots governance in almost every village. The village panchayat or elected council had significant powers, both executive and judicial. It distributed land, collected taxes from the produce, and paid the government's share on behalf of the village. Above these village councils, a larger panchayat or council existed to supervise and intervene if necessary. However, casteism and the feudalistic system of governance under Mughal rule during the medieval period gradually eroded self-government in villages. A new class of feudal chiefs and revenue collectors (zamindars) emerged between the ruler and the people, leading to the stagnation and decline of self-government in villages.
A detailed account of how a medieval South Indian village council functioned is carved into a temple wall in Uthiramerur, a village in Tamil Nadu, approximately 85 kilometers (53 miles) west of Chennai. Thirty council members were chosen by lot, a form of sortition. Males were eligible for selection if they were of good character and met certain requirements based on landholdings and knowledge of Hindu scriptures. They were then assigned to various committees responsible for irrigation works, gardens, and other matters.
=== During British rule ===
The British were generally not concerned with local administration, leaving it to the local rulers. They did not interfere with existing panchayati systems or encourage rulers to consider more democratic institutions at the local level. The rulers were interested in creating 'controlled' local bodies that could assist in their trading interests by collecting taxes on their behalf. When the colonial administration faced severe financial pressure after the 1857 uprising, decentralization was pursued by transferring responsibility for road and public works to local bodies. However, this 'compelled' decentralization primarily focused on municipal administration.
The panchayat was dismantled by the East India Company when it was granted the office of Diwan in 1765 in Bengal by the nawab, as part of reparation following his defeat at Buxar. As Diwan, the Company made two key decisions. First, it abolished the village land record office and established a company official called the Patwari, who became the official record keeper for multiple villages. Second, it created the office of magistrate and abolished the village police. The magistrate performed policing functions through the Darogha, who had always been a state functionary under the Faujdar. The primary purpose of these measures was the collection of land revenue by decree. The depredations of the Patwari and the Darogha, which became a part of Indian folklore, contributed to the worst famine in Bengal, with its effects lingering until the end of the 18th century. These measures completely disempowered the village community and destroyed the panchayat. After 1857, the British attempted to restore the panchayat by granting it powers to try minor offences and resolve village disputes, but these measures did not restore the lost powers of the village community.
From 1870, when Lord Mayo's Resolution on decentralization aimed to improve administrative efficiency, meet public demands, and bolster colonial finances, there was significant impetus for the development of local institutions. This resolution was a landmark in the evolution of colonial policy towards local government. However, the real benchmark for government policy on decentralization can be attributed to Lord Ripon. In his famous resolution on local self-government on 18 May 1882, Ripon addressed the twin considerations of administrative efficiency and political education. The Ripon Resolution, which focused on towns, provided for local bodies consisting of a large majority of elected non-official members and presided over by a non-official chairperson. This resolution faced resistance from colonial administrators, and the progress of local self-government was slow, with only half-hearted efforts made in setting up municipal bodies. Rural decentralization, in particular, remained a neglected area of administrative reform.
The Royal Commission on Decentralization (1907), chaired by Sir H. W. Primrose, recognized the importance of panchayats at the village level. The commission recommended that 'it is most desirable, both in the interests of decentralization and to involve the people in the local administration tasks, to attempt to constitute and develop village panchayats for the administration of local village affairs.'
However, the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms (1919) introduced local self-government as a provincial transferred subject, coming under the domain of Indian ministers in the provinces. Due to organizational and fiscal constraints, the reforms were unable to make panchayat institutions truly democratic and vibrant. Nevertheless, a significant development of this period was the 'establishment of village panchayats in several provinces, which were no longer mere ad hoc judicial tribunals but representative institutions symbolizing the corporate character of the village and having wide jurisdiction over civic matters.' By 1925, eight provinces had enacted panchayat acts, and by 1926, six native states had also passed panchayat laws.
Provincial autonomy under the Government of India Act, 1935, marked the evolution of panchayats in India. Elected provincial governments enacted legislation to further democratize local self-government institutions. However, the system of responsible government at the grassroots level was notably ineffective. D. P. Mishra, the then minister for local self-government under the Government of India Act of 1935 in the Central Provinces, observed that "the working of our local bodies ... in our province and perhaps in the whole country presents a tragic picture ... 'Inefficiency' and 'local body' have become synonymous terms."
Despite various committees such as the Royal Commission on Decentralization (1907), the Montagu-Chelmsford Report on constitutional reform (1919), and the Government of India Resolution (1919), a hierarchical administrative structure based on supervision and control evolved. The administrator became the focal point of rural governance. The British were not concerned with decentralized democracy but were pursuing colonial objectives.
From the 1920s to 1947, the Indian National Congress emphasized the issue of all-India Swaraj and organized movements for independence under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. As a result, the task of preparing a blueprint for local governance was neglected. There was no consensus among the top leaders regarding the status and role of rural local self-government, leading to divergent views on the subject. Gandhi favored Village Swaraj and aimed to strengthen the village panchayat to the fullest extent, while Dr. B.R. Ambedkar opposed this idea. He viewed the village as a symbol of regressive India and a source of oppression, believing that the model state needed safeguards against such social oppression, which could only be achieved through the adoption of the parliamentary model of politics. During the drafting of the Constitution of India, Panchayati Raj Institutions were included in the non-justiciable part of the Constitution, the Directive Principles of State Policy, as Article 40. This Article stated, 'The State shall take steps to organize village panchayats and endow them with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self-government.' However, no substantial legislation was enacted at either the national or state level to implement it.
Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurated the Panchayati Raj system at Nagaur, Rajasthan, on 2 October 1959, to coincide with Mahatma Gandhi's birthday. Gandhi had envisioned Gram Swaraj through Panchayati Raj. Rajasthan was the first state to implement it. Nehru also inaugurated Panchayati Raj in Andhra Pradesh on 11 October 1959, on the occasion of Dussehra. The system was gradually established across India.
In the four decades since the adoption of the Constitution, panchayat raj institutions have evolved from being part of the non-justiciable Directive Principles to acquiring a new status through a separate constitutional amendment.
=== Post-Independence period ===
Panchayat raj went through various stages. The First Five-Year Plan failed to achieve active participation and involvement of the people in Plan processes, including formulation, implementation, and monitoring. The Second Five-Year Plan aimed to cover the entire countryside through National Extension Service Blocks, utilizing Block Development Officers, Assistant Development Officers, Village Level Workers, as well as nominated representatives of village panchayats and other popular organizations like cooperative societies. However, this plan did not satisfactorily accomplish decentralization. Consequently, various committees were constituted to advise the central government on different aspects of decentralization.
To advance the Gandhian goal of direct political participation at the grassroots level, the National Development Council appointed a committee under Balwant Rai Mehta in 1957. The committee submitted its report in 1958, recommending a three-tier structure consisting of a Zila Parishad at the district level, a Panchayat Samiti at the block level, and a Gram Panchayat at the village level.
The next major change in the panchayat system of India came with the passage of the Panchayati Raj Act (73rd Amendment) in 1992. A key motivation behind this act was the belief that local governments could be more effective than centrally appointed bureaucrats in identifying and responding to the needs of villages. Consequently, this act was a significant step in India's move towards decentralization.
The main features of this act are: (a) a three-tier system of Panchayati Raj for all states with a population of over 20 lakh; (b) regular Panchayat elections every five years; (c) reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and women (not less than one-third of the seats); and (d) the appointment of a State Finance Commission to recommend the financial powers of the Panchayats. Thus, in theory, Panchayats have been given sufficient authority to function as institutions of self-governance and promote social justice.
There have been several positive effects of this amendment, some of which are listed above. However, there is also evidence of deeply ingrained vote-trading structures maintained through extra-political means. This issue can potentially be attributed to the fact that Gram Sabhas have not been sufficiently empowered and strengthened to ensure greater public participation and transparency in the functioning of Panchayats, as envisaged in the Panchayat Act. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_Provo,_Utah | List of people from Provo, Utah | This is a list of notable people from Provo, Utah. This list includes notable individuals born and raised in Provo, those who currently live in Provo, and those who lived for a significant period in Provo.
== Notable people ==
The Aces, indie pop/alternative pop band
Tyson Apostol (b. 1979), contestant on reality TV show Survivor: Tocantins, Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, and winner of Survivor: Blood vs. Water
Lindsay Arnold (b. 1994), ballroom dancer on Dancing With the Stars
Rylee Arnold (b. 2005), ballroom dancer on Dancing With the Stars
Earl W. Bascom (1906–1995), rodeo champion, inventor, sculptor, actor, inductee of 11 halls of fame, "father of modern rodeo"
Clyde Bawden, composer and performer of contemporary Christian music.
Robbie Bosco (b. 1963), former BYU football player
Paul D. Boyer (1918–2018), recipient of 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
D. J. Butler, science fiction and fantasy writer
Stephen Covey, educator
John Curtis, U.S. senator; former U.S. congressman and mayor of Provo
Richard Davies, actor
LaVell Edwards, BYU football Hall of Fame coach
Paul Engemann, pop musician best known for his 1983 song "Scarface (Push It to the Limit)"
Avard Fairbanks, sculptor
Jane Hedengren, track and field athlete
Tom Holmoe, former BYU football and San Francisco 49er player; current BYU athletic director
Julianne Hough, professional ballroom dancer on Dancing with the Stars, actress, singer
Imagine Dragons, an indie rock band whose debut album Night Visions peaked at #2 on the Billboard 200
Joshua James, folk singer and founder of Northplatte Records
Merrill Jenson, composer
Bryan Johnson, entrepreneur and anti-aging practitioner
Jenna Johnson, dancer on Dancing with the Stars
Brian Kershisnik, artist
Goodwin Knight, governor of California 1953-59
Vance Law, Major League Baseball player
Vern Law, Major League Baseball player
Mike Lee, U.S. senator
Rocky Long, defensive coordinator for the Syracuse Orange
Bert McCracken, born in Provo, lead singer of Utah-based band The Used
Kurt Mortensen, author
Neon Trees, new wave, synthpop-rock band
Dallin H. Oaks, member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Osmonds raised all nine children in Provo, some of whom continue to live there.
The Osmond Brothers, vocal group, band
Donny Osmond, singer, musician, actor
Marie Osmond, singer, author, actress
Trevor Packer, head of the Advanced Placement program at the College Board
Jack Paepke, baseball player, coach, manager and scout
Janice Kapp Perry, composer, LDS musician
Fred Roberts, NBA player for seven teams including Utah Jazz
Clarence Robison, Olympian and BYU track coach
Josh Rohatinsky, BYU cross-country national champion
Ryan Shupe & the RubberBand, musicians, "Dream Big"
Roland N. Smoot, U.S. vice admiral
Beatrice Sparks, author
Lindsey Stirling, hip-hop violinist
Suzanne Storrs, 1955 Miss Utah and television actress
Will Swenson, Tony Award-nominated actor
Edgar A. Wedgwood, adjutant general of the Utah National Guard
Brian Wimmer, actor
Steve Young, quarterback; MVP of Super Bowl XXIX; inductee of Pro Football Hall of Fame and College Football Hall of Fame; record-breaking quarterback for BYU and San Francisco 49ers; television commentator |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_%27Em_All | Kill 'Em All | Kill 'Em All is the debut album by the American heavy metal band Metallica, released on July 25, 1983, through the independent label Megaforce Records. After forming in 1981, Metallica began by playing shows in local clubs in Los Angeles. They recorded several demos to gain attention from club owners and eventually relocated to San Francisco to secure the services of bassist Cliff Burton. The group's No Life 'til Leather demo tape (1982) was noticed by Megaforce label head Jon Zazula, who signed them and provided a budget of $15,000 (equivalent to $48,835.49 in 2025) for recording. The album was recorded in May with producer Paul Curcio at the Music America Studios in Rochester, New York. It was originally intended to be titled Metal Up Your Ass, with cover art featuring a hand clutching a dagger emerging from a toilet bowl. Zazula convinced the band to change the name because distributors feared that releasing an album with such an offensive title and artwork would diminish its chances of commercial success.
Metallica promoted the album on the two-month co-headlining Kill 'Em All for One tour with English heavy metal band Raven in the US. The album also generated two singles: "Whiplash" and "Jump in the Fire". Although the initial shipment was 15,000 copies in the US, the album sold 60,000 copies worldwide by the end of Metallica's Seven Dates of Hell European tour in 1984. The album did not enter the Billboard 200 until 1986, when it peaked at number 155, following Metallica's commercial success with its third album, Master of Puppets; the 1988 Elektra reissue peaked at number 120. Kill 'Em All was critically praised at the time of its release and has since been regarded as a groundbreaking album for thrash metal, because of its "precise musicianship, which fused new wave of British heavy metal riffs with hardcore punk tempos". It was also retrospectively placed on a few publications' best album lists. The album's musical approach and lyrics were markedly different from rock's mainstream of the early 1980s and inspired a number of bands who followed in a similar manner. It was certified 4× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 2025 for shipping four million copies in the United States. The album was remastered and reissued as an expanded box set in 2016.
== Background and recording ==
Metallica was formed in 1981 in Los Angeles by drummer Lars Ulrich and by vocalist/rhythm guitarist James Hetfield. Before settling on a definitive lineup, Metal Blade Records owner Brian Slagel asked Metallica to record a song for the first edition of his Metal Massacre compilation. Hetfield and Ulrich chose "Hit the Lights" from Hetfield's and his childhood friend Ron McGovney's previous band Leather Charm, and recorded it with Hetfield on vocals, McGovney on bass, and temporary guitarist Lloyd Grant. The band's first lineup featured Hetfield, Ulrich, McGovney, and guitarist Dave Mustaine, who was acquired through a newspaper advertisement. The band practiced in McGovney's garage and looked for gigs at local clubs. Metallica's first show was on March 14, 1982, at the Radio City in Anaheim. The nine-song setlist consisted of two originals ("Hit the Lights" and an unfinished version of "Jump in the Fire" from Mustaine's earlier band Panic) and covers of new wave of British heavy metal (NWOBHM) bands such as Diamond Head, Blitzkrieg, Savage, and Sweet Savage. The gig did not go as well as planned, because Mustaine had problems with the guitar distortion pedal, and broke a string during a song. Metallica's second gig was on March 27, 1982, at Hollywood's Whisky a Go Go, opening for Saxon. Although Mötley Crüe was originally scheduled to open the show, the group canceled because of its growing popularity. Metallica recorded a three-song demo to persuade the venue's management to allow the band to open for Saxon. Metallica's third concert was in April 1982, the first time "The Mechanix", written by Mustaine during his tenure with Panic, was played. Mustaine interacted with the fans at Metallica's earliest shows because Hetfield was shy.
To garner attention from club owners, Metallica recorded the Power Metal demo in April 1982, which featured "Motorbreath" in addition to the already-performed originals. The logo, displaying the band's name with the first and last letter drawn larger with sharp serifs and italicized, was designed by Hetfield. The No Life 'til Leather demo was recorded in July 1982, and it created a buzz in the underground tape trading circles. No Life 'til Leather featured a re-recorded version of "Hit the Lights", which appeared on the second pressing of Metal Massacre, in addition to new songs such as "Phantom Lord", "Seek & Destroy", and "Metal Militia". The recording and mastering were financed by Kenny Kane, owner of the punk label High Velocity, and distributed by Ulrich and his friend Pat Scott. Because of tensions with Mustaine, McGovney left the band in December. Ulrich was impressed by Cliff Burton's performance with Trauma at The Troubadour in West Hollywood, and offered to let him join the band. Burton joined on the condition that Metallica would relocate to the San Francisco area. Moving to El Cerrito in February 1983, the band stayed and rehearsed at Exodus manager Mark Whitaker's house, which they called the "Metallica Mansion". Metallica intended to record its debut in Los Angeles on Slagel's independent label on an $8,000 budget ($24,722 in 2023). Slagel could not afford the record, and Ulrich contacted Jon Zazula, a New Jersey record store owner and promoter of heavy metal bands on the East Coast who had already heard No Life 'til Leather. Metallica rented a U-Haul truck and drove to New Jersey in late March, and upon arrival, allowed Zazula to sell copies of No Life 'til Leather to help him found Megaforce Records because no label wanted to finance the album's recording.
Hetfield and Ulrich fired Mustaine on the morning of April 11 after a gig in New York, because of his drug and alcohol problems, overly aggressive behavior, and clashes with bandmates. On Whitaker's recommendation, Metallica recruited Kirk Hammett, who played in Exodus and was a one-time student of Joe Satriani. Hammett learned the songs on his flight to New York and started recording the album with Metallica barely a month later. Metallica met producer Paul Curcio at Music America Studios in Rochester, and recorded the album in two weeks. Unable to afford a hotel during the recording sessions, the band members stayed over in people's houses in Rochester and at the Music Factory in Jamaica, Queens, where Anthrax held rehearsals. Curcio had set the studio equipment as if he were recording an ordinary rock band. He thought the initial tapes sounded very distorted and tried to compensate by turning down the knobs. Metallica resented Curcio's involvement, because he seemed uninterested, and had little impact on the sound. Although Zazula wanted Hammett to replicate Mustaine's solos, Hammett's guitar solos on the album were partially based on Mustaine's original solos, with the first four bars of most solos written by Mustaine before his departure. Despite their differences, Mustaine's contributions to the early years of Metallica were still acknowledged, and he received four co-writing credits on Kill 'Em All. Zazula was not pleased with the initial mix because he thought that the drums were too loud, and the guitars were too low in the mix. The remix was done by sound engineer Chris Bubacz, according to Zazula's instructions. The final cost for the record rounded to an estimated $15,000 ($46,354 in 2023), which nearly caused Zazula to go bankrupt. "This was mortgage money I'm spending, not something I've got put by I'm going to invest," he said later. Zazula had a hard time finding a distributor for the record, but he eventually convinced Relativity Records to distribute the album in the US and Canada, and Music for Nations in Europe.
The band intended to title the album Metal Up Your Ass with a cover featuring a hand clutching a dagger emerging from a toilet bowl. However, Zazula convinced them to change the title, because he thought that distributors would not stock it as it was too explicit to display. The final cover featured the shadow of a hand letting go of a bloodied hammer. Burton was credited with coming up with the name Kill 'Em All—referring to timid record distributors, saying, "Those record company fuckers ... kill 'em all!"—as a response to the situation. Ulrich thought Kill 'Em All was a good name, and Zazula agreed. Burton suggested to Gary L. Heard, also responsible for the Metallica photograph on the back cover, to feature a bloodied hammer on the album art. According to Hammett, "Cliff carried a hammer with him everywhere he went. He always had a hammer in his luggage, and he would take it out occasionally and start destroying things." Even though the original title was unused, the band did later release a "Metal Up Your Ass" T-shirt with the proposed artwork. A live bootleg recording of a 1982 performance at the Old Waldorf, titled Metal Up Your Ass (Live), featured the original cover artwork. Original pressings of the album came with an inner sleeve that included pictures and lyrics as well as a silver label on the vinyl. Subsequent pressings had a blank white sleeve and a standard album label. The 1988 reissue re-introduced the lyrics and photos. The original release can be distinguished by the silver labels with the track listing but without track lengths. Every issue produced has had the phrase "Bang That Head That Doesn't Bang". The phrase "Bang That Head That Doesn't Bang" was dedicated to San Francisco fan Rich Burch, known for his headbanging at the band's early shows.
== Music and lyrics ==
Kill 'Em All features intricate riffing reminiscent of the NWOBHM bands played at high velocity. The album is considered crucial in thrash metal's genesis because it introduced fast percussion, low-register chords, and shredding leads to the genre. Hammett played some pentatonic patterns in addition to his breakneck solos. Ulrich adopted a double time snare pattern that would become a mainstay on Metallica's subsequent albums. Hetfield's vocals evolved from the melodic wail on No Life 'til Leather to a rough-edged bark, and the entire band played faster and more accurately on Kill 'Em All. Author Joel McIver described Burton's and Hetfield's performances as nearly virtuosic, highlighting Burton's smooth-sounding bass and Hetfield's precise picking skills. According to journalist Chuck Eddy, the juvenile lyrical approach to topics such as warfare, violence and life on the road gives the album a "naive charm". The musical approach on Kill 'Em All was in contrast to the glam metal bands who dominated the charts in the early 1980s. Because of its rebellious nature and Metallica's street appearance, it appealed to fans who were not into the mainstream of hard rock.
"Hit the Lights" was based on an unfinished Leather Charm song written by Hetfield and Hugh Tanner. Hetfield had brought the majority of the song to Ulrich, and the two worked out different arrangements. Performed at 160 beats per minute, "Hit the Lights" opens with fade-in distorted guitars and a short shriek by Hetfield. The song is driven by the 16th note repeated main riff and the continuous eighth note snare drum hits. The lyrics celebrate heavy metal itself and are sung with short and high-pitched vocals. The song ends with several lengthy guitar solos by Hammett, who performed cleaner and more melodic versions of Mustaine's leads.
"The Four Horsemen" is a revamp of the Mustaine-penned "The Mechanix", which originally had lyrics about having sex at a gas station. A modified version of his composition with the original lyrics appeared on Megadeth's debut Killing Is My Business... and Business Is Good! (1985), named "Mechanix". Although Mustaine told Metallica not to use any of his music, Hetfield wrote lyrics about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and added a bridge and cleanly picked guitar solo in the middle. Mustaine said the bridge was inspired by the main riff in Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama".
"Motorbreath" was written by Hetfield during his time in Leather Charm and tells about life on the road. The song is based on a four-chord verse and a stop-and-start chorus. The most recognizable parts are Ulrich's drum rolls in each chorus and the riff that accompanies Hammett's solos.
"Jump in the Fire" was the first song ever written by Mustaine, with lyrics about teenage sexual experience. Hetfield's revised lyrics for the album were written from Satan's point of view, describing how the devil watches people killing each other, and is sure they will go to hell for their actions. "Jump in the Fire" was released as a single in the UK in February 1984 to promote a UK tour with Venom. The single featured "Phantom Lord" and "Seek & Destroy" as live tracks, although they are actually studio recordings with fake crowd noise dubbed over them. The single's cover art features an oil painting titled The Devils of D-Day, created by artist Les Edwards in 1978.
"(Anesthesia)-Pulling Teeth" is a bass solo by Burton, accompanied on drums by Ulrich. A staple of Burton's live performances since his high school days in the band Agents of Misfortune, the instrumental track featured Burton's distinctive "lead-bass" style of playing, incorporating heavy distortion, use of wah-wah pedal and tapping. Bubacz introduces the track as "Bass solo, take one", informing listeners that the song was recorded in one take. "(Anesthesia)-Pulling Teeth" was the bass solo that Burton was playing when Hetfield and Ulrich first saw him at a gig. Hetfield stated: "We heard this wild solo going on and thought, 'I don't see any guitar player up there.' We were both counting the strings and I finally turned to Lars and said, 'Dude, that's a bass!' Cliff was up there on stage with his band Trauma with a wah-wah pedal and his huge mop of red hair. He didn't care whether people were there. He was looking down at his bass, playing." For the album version, Cliff Burton insisted on recording this track alone in an empty room, while the studio technicians were downstairs. He made this recording in one take, after about twenty minutes of preparation.
"Whiplash" was the album's first single, issued on August 8, 1983. It features a swift rhythm line of straight 16th notes played at about 200 beats per minute. Hetfield and Burton performed with palm muted technique and precise metronomic control. The lyrics celebrate crowd energy and headbanging. Rock journalist Mick Wall wrote that "Whiplash" signified the birth of thrash metal, stating: "If one wishes to identify the very moment thrash metal arrived spitting and snarling into the world, 'Whiplash' is indisputably it."
"Phantom Lord" is a lyrical nod to devilry. The song begins with a synthesized bass drone and contains a middle section with clean, arpeggiated guitar chords. Written by Mustaine, its central riff is in NWOBHM fashion.
"No Remorse" is a mid-tempo song that suddenly accelerates its tempo in the fifth minute. The song is about not feeling any remorse or sense of repentance during battle.
"Seek & Destroy" was inspired by Diamond Head's "Dead Reckoning" and is the first song Metallica recorded during the Kill 'Em All sessions. Hetfield wrote the main riff in his truck outside a Los Angeles sticker factory where he was working. Because of its simple, one-line chorus, the song became a permanent setlist fixture and a crowd singalong.
"Metal Militia", one of the fastest songs on the album, is about heavy metal's way of life and nonconformity. Mustaine composed the main riff, which emulates a marching army. The song ends with tramping feet and bullet ricochet in a fade-out.
== Release ==
Kill 'Em All was released on July 25, 1983, by Megaforce with an initial pressing of 15,000 copies. Because of the label's financial restrictions, the album was pressed in batches of 500 copies. Kill 'Em All had sold 17,000 copies in the US by the end of the year. Similarly to punk rock acts, Metallica promoted its material through the tape trading network and independent music magazines such as Metal Forces in the UK and Metal Mania in the US. The album did not enter the Billboard 200 chart until 1986, when it peaked at number 155 following Metallica's commercial success with its third album Master of Puppets. The 1988 re-issue on Elektra Records also charted on the Billboard 200, peaking at number 120. It was certified 3× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 1999 for shipping three million copies in the United States. Despite being the lowest selling Metallica album, it helped the band establish its image and build a fanbase in its inaugural years.
== Reception ==
Kill 'Em All received widespread critical acclaim. Bernard Doe of Metal Forces described Kill 'Em All as one of the fastest and heaviest albums ever recorded, and remarked that the album is not for the faint-hearted. Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune acknowledged it as the "speed metal prototype", but felt the lyrical replication of Judas Priest and the Misfits kept the album short from becoming a classic. In a retrospective review, Billboard praised Kill 'Em All for changing the face of popular music with its unique combination of punk and metal. AllMusic's Steve Huey called it "the true birth of thrash". He praised Hetfield's highly technical rhythm guitar style and said that the band was "playing with tightly controlled fury even at the most ridiculously fast tempos". Rob Kemp, writing in The Rolling Stone Album Guide, credited the album for consolidating the punk rock and heavy metal scenes, but felt that apart from "Seek & Destroy" and "(Anesthesia)-Pulling Teeth", most of the album had the band "trying to look tough" over enthusiastic but unfinished riff-based songs.
Journalist Martin Popoff said Kill 'Em All differentiated from the debuts by Metallica's Bay Area contemporaries because the fans could identify with Hetfield's lyrics and the band's appearance. Spin's Chuck Eddy considered Kill 'Em All the inception of the "extreme metal mania" of the early 1980s. He noted the album did not receive much critical praise at the time of its release but said it aged well and opened the doors for the less commercially successful bands. Although McIver credits Venom's Welcome to Hell (1981) as the first thrash metal album, he acknowledged Kill 'Em All as a major influence on the flourishing American heavy metal scene. Despite its "less-than-perfect" production, Loudwire's Jon Wiederhorn said that Kill 'Em All sounds like an "influential slice of history" and stands on the same level as classic albums by Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest.
Kill 'Em All, as the first thrash metal album released in the US, had a substantial impact on the emerging scene and inspired numerous bands with its aggression and austere seriousness. Guitarist Kerry King acknowledged Slayer was still finding its sound while Metallica had already determined its image and musical identity. Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian was impressed by the album's heaviness and songwriting and said it influenced him as much as the albums by Iron Maiden. Dream Theater's drummer Mike Portnoy observed that Kill 'Em All surpassed the NWOBHM bands in terms of sheer velocity and cited Burton's bass solo as the album's peak. Guitarist Ulf Cederlund of Swedish black metal band Morbid cited "Motorbreath" and "Metal Militia" as songs that influenced him as a young musician. Kill 'Em All was ranked at number 35 on Rolling Stone's list of The 100 Greatest Albums of the '80s. Additionally, the album placed at number 54 on "The 100 Best Debut Albums of All Time" and again at number 35 on "100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time", two lists compiled by the same magazine. Kerrang! listed the album at number 29 among the "100 Greatest Heavy Metal Albums of All Time". In 2010, Consequence of Sound ranked it number 94 among its "Top 100 Albums Ever".
== Touring ==
In late July 1983, Metallica embarked on the two-month Kill 'Em All for One tour with British co-headliners Raven. The tour name melded the titles of the albums the two bands were promoting: Metallica's Kill 'Em All and Raven's All for One, both released on Megaforce. The two groups met in Zazula's home two days before the tour began and traveled in the same vehicle throughout the tour with five roadies and sound engineer Whitaker. The tour was set to conclude with three shows in San Francisco, thus Hetfield painted "No Life 'til Frisco" on the Winnebago tour bus. The tour had a few poorly attended gigs, such as a performance at the Cheers club in Babylon, New York, attended by some 50 people. After the conclusion of Kill 'Em All for One in early September, Metallica returned to El Cerrito to work on new material. Seven weeks after the tour ended, Metallica booked several performances at Bay Area clubs, the first a Halloween gig at the Keystone in Palo Alto. At the Country Club in Reseda, the group debuted "Fight Fire with Fire" and "Creeping Death", along with an early version of "The Call of Ktulu", then titled "When Hell Freezes Over". Three days later, at a gig at The Stone in San Francisco, Metallica premiered "Ride the Lightning", the title track from the upcoming album. In December, Metallica went on a short tour in the Midwest and eastern United States with a three-man road crew: Whitaker, guitar technician John Marshall, and drum technician Dave Marrs. The concert of January 14, 1984, in Boston, was canceled because the band's equipment was stolen the night before.
In February, Metallica embarked on its first European trek with Twisted Sister, supporting Venom's Seven Dates of Hell tour. The tour was sponsored by Metallica's UK distributor, Music for Nations, who released the "Jump in the Fire" EP for that occasion. The first show was at the Volkshaus in Zurich on February 3. At the Aardschok Festival in Zwolle on February 11, Metallica played in front of 7,000 people, its largest audience at the time. The tour stretched through countries such as Italy, Germany, France, and Belgium, culminating in two sold-out shows at the Marquee Club in London. After concluding the Seven Dates of Hell tour, Metallica headed to Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen to record its second album, Ride the Lightning. By the end of the tour, Kill 'Em All had sold 60,000 copies worldwide and Metallica began to gain international recognition. On June 8, 2013, at the Orion Festival, billed as the fictional band Dehaan, Metallica played the album in its entirety for the first time to mark the 30th anniversary of the album.
== Track listing ==
=== Original release ===
The bonus tracks on the 1988 re-release were originally recorded as B-sides for the "Creeping Death" single in 1984, later known as Garage Days Revisited, and would later appear on the compilation album Garage Inc. (1998). The bonus tracks on the digital reissue was recorded live at Seattle Center Coliseum in Seattle, Washington, on August 29, 1989, and also appeared on the live album Live Shit: Binge & Purge (1993).
=== 2016 deluxe edition ===
In 2016, the album was remastered and reissued in a limited edition deluxe box set with an expanded track listing and bonus content. The deluxe edition set includes the original album on vinyl and CD, a picture disc with the original "Jump in the Fire" single tracklist, four CDs of interviews, rough mixes, and live recordings recorded from 1983 to 1984, and a DVD of a live concert in Chicago.
== Personnel ==
Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.
Metallica
James Hetfield – rhythm guitar, vocals
Lars Ulrich – drums
Cliff Burton – bass guitar
Kirk Hammett – lead guitar
Production
Paul Curcio – production
Jon Zazula – executive producer
Chris Bubacz – engineer, introduction on "(Anesthesia) – Pulling Teeth"
Andy Wroblewski – assistant engineer
Jack Skinner – mastering
Bob Ludwig – mastering (Elektra reissue)
George Marino – 1995 remastering
Howie Weinberg – 2016 remastering
Metallica, Mark Whitaker – production on the Elektra reissue bonus tracks
Jeffrey "Nik" Norman – engineer on the Elektra reissue bonus tracks
Artwork
Gary L. Heard – front and back cover design photos
Kevin Hodapp – inner sleeve photos
Shari & Harold Risch – graphics, design, and layout
Digital reissue bonus tracks
Jason Newsted – bass, backing vocals
Mike Gillies – mixing
== Charts ==
== Certifications == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Jackal_(film) | The Day of the Jackal (film) | The Day of the Jackal is a 1973 political thriller film directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Edward Fox and Michael Lonsdale. Based on the 1971 novel by Frederick Forsyth, the film is about a professional assassin known only as the "Jackal" who is hired to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle in the summer of 1963. It stars Edward Fox as the title character, with Michael Lonsdale, Derek Jacobi, Terence Alexander, Michel Auclair, Alan Badel, Donald Sinden, Tony Britton, Cyril Cusack, Maurice Denham and Delphine Seyrig. The musical score was composed by Georges Delerue.
A co-production of the United Kingdom and France, The Day of the Jackal received positive reviews and went on to win the BAFTA Award for Best Editing (Ralph Kemplen), five additional nominations (including Best Film and Best Direction), two Golden Globe Award nominations, and one Oscar nomination. The film grossed $16,056,255 at the North American box office, returning $8,525,000 in rentals to the studio. In 1999, the British Film Institute ranked it the 74th greatest British film of the 20th century.
A remake of the film was released in 1997. A TV adaptation of the novel and film aired on Sky Atlantic in 2024.
== Plot ==
The far-right Organisation armée secrète ("Secret Army Organisation") plots to assassinate President de Gaulle. The first attempt on 22 August fails, leaving de Gaulle and his entourage unharmed. Within six months, OAS leader Jean Bastien-Thiry and several members are captured, and Bastien-Thiry is executed.
With their initial plot foiled, the remaining OAS leaders, now hiding in Austria, hatch a new plan. They enlist the services of an apolitical British assassin given the code name "Jackal," a figure already credited with the assassinations of Patrice Lumumba and Rafael Trujillo. Aware that targeting de Gaulle is extremely risky and demanding a final retirement in anonymity, the Jackal insists on a fee of $500,000, half to be paid upfront into his Swiss bank account. To raise the money, the OAS uses its extensive network to execute a series of bank robberies.
Preparing for his mission, the Jackal travels to Genoa where he commissions a custom single-shot rifle from a skilled gunsmith and secures fake identity papers from a forger—a man he later kills when the criminal attempts to extort him. In Paris, the Jackal duplicates a key to a sixth-floor flat overlooking a historically significant square, setting the stage for the planned assassination. Meanwhile, the OAS leadership has relocated to Rome, although their activities continue to draw the attention of French security forces.
French intelligence makes a breakthrough when they kidnap the OAS's chief clerk, Viktor Wolenski. Although Wolenski dies during interrogation, he reveals crucial details of the plot, including the term "Jackal". In response, the Interior Minister convenes a secret meeting with top security officials. Police Commissioner Berthier recommends his deputy, Claude Lebel, to lead the investigation under the constraints of secrecy with Lebel being granted special emergency powers despite de Gaulle's insistence on maintaining his public schedule.
Complicating matters further, Colonel St Clair—de Gaulle's personal military aide and a cabinet member—divulges classified details to his new mistress, Denise, an OAS agent. At the same time, Lebel is informed by Special Branch that a British national, Charles Harold Calthrop, might be connected to the assassination plot and travelling under the alias Paul Oliver Duggan.
Despite learning that his plot is compromised, and he can walk away keeping his down payment, the Jackal decides to stay in France and presses forward. While staying in a hotel in Nice, he meets and seduces the aristocratic Colette de Montpellier, but narrowly evades capture as Lebel and his team close in. After surviving a severe vehicular accident, the Jackal flees to Madame de Montpellier's country estate. There, when she reveals that the police have already questioned her and probes for more details from him, he kills her. Dyeing his blonde hair brown and donning spectacles, he assumed the identity of a Danish schoolteacher, Per Lundquist, then boards a train for Paris.
The discovery of Madame de Montpellier's murder allows Lebel to drop all secrecy constraints and launch a public manhunt. The Jackal temporarily hides at the flat of a man he picks up in a Turkish bath, killing him when the man learns of Montpellier's murder. At a subsequent cabinet meeting, Lebel predicts that the Jackal will try to shoot de Gaulle during the upcoming Liberation Day ceremony marking the commemoration of Paris's liberation during World War II. Despite Lebel's efficient and successful leadership of the investigation, he is dismissed from the case as the Minister assumes command directly for the final part, only to be reinstated less than 24 hours later when the Minister draws a blank and Lebel's expertise is recognised as indispensable.
On Liberation Day, the Jackal disguises himself as an elderly French veteran, André Martin, and conceals his rifle within crutches. Using the previously duplicated key, he accesses an upper story room of a building overlooking the ceremony. When de Gaulle unexpectedly leans forward while presenting a medal to a veteran, the Jackal's shot narrowly misses. While the Jackal is reloading for a second attempt, Lebel and a gendarme storm the room. The Jackal kills the policeman before being fatally shot by Lebel. Back in London, the real Charles Calthrop arrives at his flat, interrupting the policemen as they sift through his belongings. Ultimately, the assassin is interred in an unmarked grave, leaving the true identity behind his many disguises an enduring mystery.
== Cast ==
== Production ==
The Day of the Jackal was originally part of a two-picture deal between John Woolf and Fred Zinnemann, the other being an adaptation of the play Abelard and Heloise by Ronald Millar.
Universal Studios initially wanted to cast a major American actor as the Jackal, with Robert Redford and Jack Nicholson flown to Europe to audition. Although Universal favoured Nicholson, Zinnemann ultimately secured a production agreement stipulating that only European actors would be cast. Afterwards, British actors David McCallum, Ian Richardson and Michael York were considered, before Zinnemann cast Edward Fox. Jacqueline Bisset was offered the role of Denise, but had to decline due to scheduling conflicts.
The Day of the Jackal was filmed in studios and on location in France, Britain, Italy and Austria. Zinnemann was able to film in locations usually denied to filmmakers — such as inside the Ministry of the Interior — due in large part to French producer Julien Derode's skill in dealing with authorities. Nevertheless, the opening sequence was not shot in the Élysée Palace courtyard but at the Hôtel de Soubise, the main office of the French National Archives. The two palaces were both built at the beginning of the 18th century, but the Hôtel de Soubise is more accessible and has less security than the Élysée.
To lend a documentary-like authenticity to the final Liberation Day sequence, the film company obtained permission to use hand-held cameras inside police lines at the annual Fourteenth of July Bastille Day military parade down the Champs-Élysées. Viewers of The Day of the Jackal see extraordinary closeup footage of the massing of troops, tanks, and artillery. Since the Liberation Day sequence was filmed during a real parade, it led to confusion; the crowd (many of whom were unaware that a film was being shot) mistook the actors portraying police officers for real officers, and many tried to help them arrest the "suspects" they were apprehending in the crowd. Zinnemann wrote that Adrien Cayla-Legrand, the actor who played de Gaulle, was mistaken by several Parisians for the real de Gaulle — though the former French president had been dead for nearly two years prior to film production.
During the weekend of 15 August 1972, the Paris police cleared a very busy square of all traffic to film additional scenes.
Frederick Forsyth later wrote that for the film company to buy rights for his novel, he was offered two contract options: £20,000 for outright sale of the novel in perpetuity, or £17,500 plus a small percentage of the film's net profits. He took the £20,000, noting that such a payment was already a massive sum to him at the time, but due to his naïveté about finances, he waived rights to considerably more money given the film's enduring success.
=== List of locations ===
== Reception ==
=== Critical response ===
The film holds a 91% score on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 35 reviews with an average rating of 8.1/10. The critics consensus reads, "The Day of the Jackal is a meticulously constructed thriller with surprising irreverence and taut direction." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 80 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews
Critics of the period were generally impressed with the film. Among those was Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, who gave it his highest rating of four stars:
"Fred Zinnemann’s The Day of the Jackal is one hell of an exciting movie. I wasn’t prepared for how good it really is: it’s not just a suspense classic, but a beautifully executed example of filmmaking. It’s put together like a fine watch. The screenplay meticulously assembles an incredible array of material, and then Zinnemann choreographs it so that the story—complicated as it is—unfolds in almost documentary starkness. The Day of the Jackal is two and a half hours long and seems over in about fifteen minutes."
Ebert concluded: "Zinnemann has mastered every detail ... There are some words you hesitate to use in a review, because they sound so much like advertising copy, but in this case I can truthfully say that the movie is spellbinding." Ebert included the film at No. 7 on his list of the Top 10 films of the year for 1973.
The Time film critic applauded the transition from novel to film:
"The Day of the Jackal makes one appreciate anew the wonderful narrative efficiency of the movies. Frederick Forsyth's bestselling novel — essentially what mystery buffs call a police procedural, but blown up to international proportions — kept losing its basically simple storyline in the forest of words. The writer required paragraphs to detail the procedures of an international manhunt, not to mention the procedures of the Jackal himself, a hired gun employed by disaffected French army officers to assassinate Charles de Gaulle. This is the kind of material that a good director can give us in the wink of a panning camera's eye."
The review continued, that due to the talents of director Fred Zinnemann, "what might have been just another expensive entertainment becomes, on a technical level, a textbook on reels in the near-forgotten subject of concise moviemaking. In short, as so often happens, a second-rate fiction has been transformed into a first-rate screen entertainment."
A few critics were less effusive. For example, William B. Collins wrote in The Philadelphia Inquirer:
"The picture cuts between The Jackal, carefully making his preparations, to the police taking their counter-measures. It is all detail work and not very exciting. The pace picks up noticeably when the assassin, all preliminaries behind him, motors across the Franco-Italian border
and learns that his cover has been blown."
In a MacLeans Magazine review, John Hofsess wrote:"The Jackal is not a great film, but it's a damn good one, one of the very few films released this year that is worth all the trouble and expense of going out to the movies. Zinnemann has a self-effacing directorial style; give him a good yarn and he tells it without any personal intrusions and attention-getting tics." Hofsess added that it is "an authentically detailed suspense story with ingenious twists." Other critics used similar language, praising The Day of the Jackal as an intricate and detailed maze, entertaining and never tedious.
Critic Matt Brunson of Film Frenzy appreciated how the film did justice to the novel it was based on:
"Author Frederick Forsyth struck gold right out of the gate with his first fictional work, the 1971 international bestseller The Day of the Jackal, and then had the good fortune to watch it transformed into a motion picture that (unlike too many page-to-screen efforts) steadfastly avoided botching the source material. A largely faithful adaptation of Forsyth’s novel ... Fred Zinnemann, scripter Kenneth Ross, and editor Ralph Kemplen (earning this film’s sole Oscar nomination) all deserve high marks for ratcheting up the tension in a movie whose outcome is never in doubt (after all, de Gaulle died years later at home, at the age of 79)."
Likewise, the film critic for The Spectator opined:"All of this the cinema is properly and effectively equipped to handle. Zinnemann, with the help of an excellent script from Kenneth Ross, has transferred the novel lock, stock, barrel and silencer to the screen. Nothing important has been left out. The added visual dimension means that Forsyth's lengthy descriptions of the Jackal's movements and equipment can be quickly expanded, and the extensive location shooting brings out the documentary aspect of the story to the full.... In other words, for those of you who have read the novel, going to The Day of the Jackal will be curiously like the experience of seeing the same film a second time round or seeing the filmed version of a stage play. For anyone who hasn't read Forsyth's book, the film can be recommended wholeheartedly."
As Empire magazine observed, Forsyth's scrupulously researched "pulp thriller" provided "the perfect template for this exhaustive procedural. In many ways, this outstanding piece of filmmaking marks the apotheosis of a certain style of thriller that has since fallen out of fashion—the mind game. [It is] built with the minutiae of a Swiss watch", without blandishments. The linear plot "is made infinitely complex by the portrayal of this empty vessel of a killer by Fox..." An irresistible force is pitted against an immovable object — a conflict facilitated by the script. TV Guide noted, "We watch his [the Jackal's] preparations which are so thorough we wonder how he could possibly fail even as we watch the French police attempt to pick up his trail."
Gannett news service critic Bernard Drew had both compliments and criticisms: "This is not a bad movie, it races by and entertains, after a fashion. It simply is not as good as it should have been. One wonders what Hitchcock or Costa-Gavras would have done with it. They would have cast it differently, cut down on the elaborate detailing, so much of which comes down to nothing, and the huge dramatis personae, and possibly might have made a better movie—more humorous, passionate, and credible—and then again, quite possibly not."
The Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa named The Day of the Jackal as one of his 100 favourite films.
=== Box office ===
The movie grossed $16,056,255 at the box office, earning North American rentals of $8,525,000. Zinnemann was pleasantly surprised by the commercial results, telling an interviewer in 1993: "The idea that excited me was to make a suspense film where everybody knew the end - that de Gaulle was not killed. In spite of knowing the end, would the audience sit still? And it turned out that they did, just as the readers of the book did."
John Woolf later made another film from a Forsyth novel, The Odessa File.
== Awards and nominations ==
The Day of the Jackal and the resultant Academy Award nomination were career milestones for Kenneth Ross, the Scottish-American screenwriter.
== Remakes ==
August 1 (1988) — An Indian Malayalam-language film directed by Sibi Malayil, written by S. N. Swamy, and starring Mammootty, Sukumaran, Captain Raju and Urvashi. This adaptation relocates the story to the Indian state of Kerala.
The Jackal (1997) — An American film directed by Michael Caton-Jones, written by Chuck Pfarrer, and starring Bruce Willis, Richard Gere, Sidney Poitier and Diane Venora. Forsyth, Woolf, Zinnemann and Fox opposed the production and filed an injunction to prevent Universal Pictures from using the name of the original novel and film, and it would be marketed as being "inspired by" rather than directly based on Forsyth's novel. The film does not credit Forsyth's novel as source material, and only credits Kenneth Ross with "earlier screenplay."
The Day of the Jackal (2024) — A British television drama serial adaptation of the Frederick Forsyth novel of the same name. It stars Eddie Redmayne, is produced by Ronan Bennett and directed by Brian Kirk. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh ( PITS-burg) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. Located in southwestern Pennsylvania where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers meet to form the Ohio River, it had a population of 302,971 at the 2020 census, making it the second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia). The Pittsburgh metropolitan area has over 2.43 million people, making it the largest in the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the second-largest in Pennsylvania, and the 28th-largest in the U.S. The greater Pittsburgh–Weirton–Steubenville combined statistical area includes parts of Ohio and West Virginia.
Pittsburgh is known as "the Steel City" for its dominant role in the history of the U.S. steel industry. It developed as a vital link of the Atlantic coast and Midwest, as the mineral-rich Allegheny Mountains led to the region being contested by the French and British empires, Virginians, Whiskey Rebels, and Civil War raiders. For part of the 20th century, Pittsburgh was behind only New York City and Chicago in corporate headquarters employment; it had the most U.S. stockholders per capita. Deindustrialization in the late 20th century resulted in massive layoffs among blue-collar workers as steel and other heavy industries declined, coinciding with several Pittsburgh-based corporations moving out of the city. However, the city divested from steel and, since the 1990s, Pittsburgh has focused its energies on the healthcare, education, and technology industries.
Pittsburgh is home to large medical providers, including the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Allegheny Health Network, as well as 68 colleges and universities, including Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. The area has served as the federal agency headquarters for cyber defense, software engineering, robotics, energy research, and the nuclear navy. The city is home to ten Fortune 500 companies and seven of the largest 300 U.S. law firms.
Pittsburgh is sometimes called the "City of Bridges" for its 446 bridges. Its rich industrial history left the area with renowned cultural institutions, including the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium, Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, the National Aviary, and a diverse cultural district. The city's major league professional sports teams include the Pittsburgh Steelers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Pittsburgh Pirates. Pittsburgh is additionally where Jehovah's Witnesses traces its earliest origins, and was the host of the 2009 G20 Pittsburgh summit.
== Etymology ==
Pittsburgh was named in 1758, by Scottish General John Forbes, in honor of British statesman William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham. As Forbes was a Scotsman, he probably pronounced the name PITS-bər-ə (similar to Edinburgh).
Pittsburgh was incorporated as a borough on April 22, 1794, with the following Act:
"Be it enacted by the Pennsylvania State Senate and Pennsylvania House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ... by the authority of the same, that the said town of Pittsburgh shall be ... erected into a borough, which shall be called the borough of Pittsburgh for ever."
From 1891 to 1911, the city's name was federally recognized as "Pittsburg", though use of the final h was retained during this period by the city government and other local organizations. After a public campaign, the federal decision to drop the h was reversed. The Pittsburg Press continued spelling the city without an h until 1921.
== History ==
=== Native Americans ===
The area of the Ohio headwaters was long inhabited by the Shawnee and several other settled groups of Native Americans. The Seneca people called the confluence of the rivers Diondega or Jaödeogë’. Shannopin's Town was an 18th-century Lenape (Delaware) town located roughly from where Penn Avenue is today, below the mouth of Two Mile Run, from 30th Street to 39th Street. According to George Croghan, the town was situated on the south bank of the Allegheny, nearly opposite what is now known as Washington's Landing, formerly Herr's Island, in what is now the Lawrenceville neighborhood.
=== 18th century ===
The first known European to enter the region was the French explorer Robert de La Salle from Quebec during his 1669 expedition down the Ohio River. European pioneers, primarily Dutch, followed in the early 18th century. Michael Bezallion was the first to describe the forks of the Ohio in a 1717 manuscript, and later that year European fur traders established area posts and settlements.
In 1749, French soldiers from Quebec launched an expedition to the forks to unite Canada with French Louisiana via the rivers. During 1753–1754, the British hastily built Fort Prince George before a larger French force drove them off. The French built Fort Duquesne based on LaSalle's 1669 claims. The French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years' War, began with the future Pittsburgh as its center. British General Edward Braddock was dispatched with Major George Washington as his aide to take Fort Duquesne. The British and colonial force were defeated at Braddock's Field. General John Forbes finally took the forks in 1758. He began construction on Fort Pitt, named after William Pitt the Elder, while the settlement was named "Pittsborough".
During Pontiac's War, a loose confederation of Native American tribes laid siege to Fort Pitt in 1763; the siege was eventually lifted after Colonel Henry Bouquet defeated a portion of the besieging force at the Battle of Bushy Run. Bouquet strengthened the defenses of Fort Pitt the next year.
During this period, the powerful nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, based in New York, had maintained control of much of the Ohio Valley as hunting grounds by right of conquest after defeating other tribes. By the terms of the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the Penns were allowed to purchase the modern region from the Iroquois. A 1769 survey referenced the future city as the "Manor of Pittsburgh". Both the Colony of Virginia and the Province of Pennsylvania claimed the region under their colonial charters until 1780, when they agreed under a federal initiative to extend the Mason–Dixon line westward, placing Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. On March 8, 1771, Bedford County, Pennsylvania was created to govern the frontier.
On April 16, 1771, the city's first civilian local government was created as Pitt Township. William Teagarden was the first constable, and William Troop was the first clerk.
Following the American Revolution, the village of Pittsburgh continued to grow. One of its earliest industries was boat building for settlers of the Ohio Country. In 1784, Thomas Vickroy completed a town plan which was approved by the Penn family attorney. Pittsburgh became a possession of Pennsylvania in 1785. The following year, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was started, and in 1787, the Pittsburgh Academy was chartered. Unrest during the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 resulted in federal troops being sent to the area. By 1797, glass manufacture began, while the population grew to around 1,400. Settlers arrived after crossing the Appalachian Mountains or through the Great Lakes. Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh) at the source of the Ohio River became the main base for settlers moving into the Northwest Territory.
=== 19th century ===
The federal government recognizes Pittsburgh as the starting point for the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Preparations began in Pittsburgh in 1803 when Meriwether Lewis purchased a keelboat that would later be used to ascend the Missouri River.
The War of 1812 cut off the supply of British goods, stimulating American industry. By 1815, Pittsburgh was producing significant quantities of iron, brass, tin, and glass. On March 18, 1816, the 46-year-old local government became a city. It was served by numerous river steamboats that increased trading traffic on the rivers.
In the 1830s, many Welsh people from the Merthyr steelworks immigrated to the city following the aftermath of the Merthyr Rising. By the 1840s, Pittsburgh was one of the largest cities west of the Allegheny Mountains. The Great Fire of Pittsburgh destroyed over a thousand buildings in 1845. The city rebuilt with the aid of Irish immigrants who came to escape the Great Famine. By 1857, Pittsburgh's 1,000 factories were consuming 22 million coal bushels yearly. Coal mining and iron manufacturing attracted waves of European immigrants to the area, with the most coming from Germany.
Because Pennsylvania had been established as a free state after the Revolution, enslaved African Americans sought freedom here through escape as refugees from the South, or occasionally fleeing from travelers they were serving who stayed in the city. There were active stations of the Underground Railroad in the city, and numerous refugees were documented as getting help from station agents and African-American workers in city hotels. The Drennen Slave Girl walked out of the Monongahela House in 1850, apparently to freedom. The Merchant's Hotel was also a place where African-American workers would advise slaves the state was free and aid them in getting to nearby stations of the Underground Railroad.
Sometimes refugee slaves from the South stayed in Pittsburgh, but other times they continued North, including into Canada. Many slaves left the city and county for Canada after Congress passed the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, as it required cooperation from law enforcement even in free states and increased penalties. From 1850 to 1860, the black population in Allegheny County dropped from 3,431 to 2,725 as people headed to safety in Canada.
The American Civil War boosted the city's economy with increased iron and armament demand by the Union. Andrew Carnegie began steel production in 1875 at the Edgar Thomson Steel Works in North Braddock, Pennsylvania, which evolved into the Carnegie Steel Company. He adopted the Bessemer process to increase production. Manufacturing was key to the growth of Pittsburgh and the surrounding region. Railroad lines were built into the city along both rivers, increasing transportation access to important markets.
=== 20th century ===
In 1901, J. P. Morgan and attorney Elbert H. Gary merged Carnegie Steel Company and several other companies into U.S. Steel. By 1910, Pittsburgh was the nation's eighth-largest city, accounting for between one-third and one-half of national steel output.
The Pittsburgh Agreement was a memorandum of understanding completed on 31 May 1918 between members of Czech and Slovak expatriate communities in the U.S. It replaced the Cleveland Agreement of 22 October 1915. It concerned the future foundation of Czechoslovakia as envisioned by T. G. Masaryk.
The city suffered severe flooding in March 1936.
The city's population swelled to more than a half million, attracting numerous European immigrants to its industrial jobs. By 1940, non-Hispanic whites were 90.6% of the city's population. Pittsburgh also became a main destination of the African-American Great Migration from the rural South during the first half of the 20th century. Limited initially by discrimination, some 95% percent of the men became unskilled steel workers.
During World War II, demand for steel increased and area mills operated 24 hours a day to produce 95 million tons of steel for the war effort. This resulted in the highest levels of air pollution in the city's almost century of industry. The city's reputation as the "arsenal of democracy" was being overshadowed by James Parton's 1868 observation of Pittsburgh being "hell with the lid off."
Following World War II, the city launched a clean air and civic revitalization project known as the "Renaissance," cleaning up the air and the rivers. The "Renaissance II" project followed in 1977, focused on cultural and neighborhood development. The industrial base continued to expand through the 1970s, but beginning in the early 1980s both the area's steel and electronics industries imploded during national industrial restructuring. There were massive layoffs from mill and plant closures.
In the later 20th century, the area shifted its economic base to education, tourism, and services, largely based on healthcare/medicine, finance, and high technology such as robotics. Although Pittsburgh successfully shifted its economy and remained viable, the city's population has never rebounded to its industrial-era highs. While 680,000 people lived in the city proper in 1950, a combination of suburbanization and economic turbulence resulted in a decrease in city population, even as the metropolitan area population increased again.
=== 21st century ===
During the late 2000s recession, Pittsburgh was economically strong, adding jobs when most cities were losing them. It was one of the few cities in the United States to see housing property values rise. Between 2006 and 2011, the Pittsburgh metropolitan statistical area (MSA) experienced over 10% appreciation in housing prices, the highest appreciation of the largest 25 metropolitan statistical areas in the United States, with 22 of the largest 25 metropolitan statistical areas experiencing depreciations in housing values.
In September 2009, the 2009 G20 Pittsburgh summit was held in Pittsburgh.
== Geography ==
Pittsburgh has an area of 58.3 square miles (151 km2), of which 55.6 square miles (144 km2) is land and 2.8 square miles (7.3 km2), or 4.75%, is water. The 80th meridian west passes directly through the city's downtown.
The city is located on the Allegheny Plateau, within the ecoregion of the Western Allegheny Plateau. The Downtown area (also known as the Golden Triangle) sits where the Allegheny River flows from the northeast and the Monongahela River from the southeast to form the Ohio River. The convergence is at Point State Park and is referred to as "the Point". The city extends east to include the Oakland and Shadyside sections, which are home to the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, Chatham University, Carnegie Museum and Library, and many other educational, medical, and cultural institutions. The southern, western, and northern areas of the city are primarily residential.
Many Pittsburgh neighborhoods are steeply sloped with two-lane roads. More than a quarter of neighborhood names make reference to "hills", "heights", or similar features.
The steps of Pittsburgh consist of 800 sets of outdoor public stairways with 44,645 treads and 24,090 vertical feet. They include hundreds of streets composed entirely of stairs, and many other steep streets with stairs for sidewalks. Many provide vistas of the Pittsburgh area while attracting hikers and fitness walkers.
Bike and walking trails have been built to border many of the city's rivers and hollows. The Great Allegheny Passage and Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Towpath connect the city directly to downtown Washington, D.C. (some 335 miles [539 km] away) with a continuous bike/running trail.
=== Cityscape ===
The city consists of the Downtown area, called the Golden Triangle, and four main areas surrounding it—Central, North Side/North Hills, South Side/South Hills, East End, and West End. These areas are further divided into 90 neighborhoods.
Downtown Pittsburgh has 30 skyscrapers, nine over 500 feet (150 m), with the U.S. Steel Tower being the tallest at 841 ft (256 m). The Cultural District spans 14 blocks along the Allegheny River and is home to theaters, arts venues, and a growing residential community. The Firstside portion of Downtown borders the Monongahela River, the historic Mon Wharf and hosts the distinctive PPG Place Gothic-style glass skyscraper complex. Downtown is served by the Port Authority's light rail system and multiple bridges leading north and south. It is also home to Point Park University and Duquesne University which borders Uptown.
The North Side, originally the independent Allegheny City until being annexed in 1907, is a primarily residential area with well-preserved 19th-century homes. It hosts attractions like Acrisure Stadium, PNC Park, the Andy Warhol Museum, and the National Aviary, among others.
The South Side, once home to railyards and mill workers, has seen revitalization with improvements to East Carson Street and new retail. It is now a vibrant neighborhood with diverse shopping and nightlife. In the 1990s, the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh purchased the South Side Works steel mill property and redeveloped it into the SouthSide Works mixed-use development.
The East End includes key institutions including the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History, and Phipps Conservatory. It features many parks, including Mellon Park, Westinghouse Park, Schenley Park, Frick Park, The Frick Pittsburgh, Bakery Square, and the Pittsburgh Zoo, and vibrant neighborhoods like Shadyside. Squirrel Hill is also known as the hub of Jewish life in Pittsburgh, home to approximately 20 synagogues. Oakland is home to several universities and the Petersen Events Center. The Strip District to the west along the Allegheny River is an open-air marketplace by day and a clubbing destination by night. Bloomfield is Pittsburgh's Little Italy and is known for its Italian restaurants and grocers. Lawrenceville is a revitalizing rowhouse neighborhood popular with artists and designers. The Hill District was home to photographer Charles Harris as well as various African-American jazz clubs.
The West End includes Mt. Washington, with its famous view of the downtown skyline, and numerous other residential neighborhoods such as Sheraden and Elliott.
=== Regional identity ===
Pennsylvania lies within the Northeastern United States as defined by U.S. Census Bureau regional classifications, which are used primarily for administrative and statistical purposes rather than cultural identification.
Pittsburgh lies within the boundaries of Appalachia as designated by the Appalachian Regional Commission, and has long been characterized as a northern urban industrial anchor of Appalachia. In its post-industrial era, Pittsburgh has been described as the "Paris of Appalachia", in reference to the city's cultural, educational, healthcare, and technological resources. It is the largest city within the Appalachian region.
Geographer Joseph Scarpaci has described Pittsburgh's regional identity as bridging Northeastern and Midwestern influences, characterizing the city as having “one foot in the East... and the other in the Midwest.”
Pittsburgh is the principal city of the Pittsburgh Combined Statistical Area, a combined statistical area defined by the U.S. Census Bureau.
=== Climate ===
Under the Köppen climate classification, Pittsburgh falls within either a hot-summer humid continental climate (Dfa) if the 0 °C (32 °F) isotherm is used or a humid subtropical climate (Cfa) if the −3 °C (27 °F) isotherm is used. Summers are hot and winters are moderately cold with wide variations in temperature. Despite this, it has one of the most pleasant summer climates between medium and large cities in the U.S. The city lies in the USDA plant hardiness zone 6b except along the rivers where the zone is 7a. The area has four distinct seasons: winters are cold and snowy, springs and falls are mild with moderate levels of sunshine, and summers are warm. As measured by percent possible sunshine, summer is by far the sunniest season, though annual sunshine is low among major US cities at well under 50%.
The warmest month of the year in Pittsburgh is July, with a 24-hour average of 73.2 °F (22.9 °C). Conditions are often humid, and combined with highs reaching 90 °F (32 °C) on an average 9.5 days a year, a considerable heat index arises. The coolest month is January, when the 24-hour average is 28.8 °F (−1.8 °C), and lows of 0 °F (−18 °C) or below can be expected on an average 2.6 nights per year. Officially, record temperatures range from −22 °F (−30 °C), on January 19, 1994 to 103 °F (39 °C), which occurred three times, most recently on July 16, 1988; the record cold daily maximum is −3 °F (−19 °C), which occurred three times, most recently the day of the all-time record low, while, conversely, the record warm daily minimum is 82 °F (28 °C) on July 1, 1901. Due to elevation and location on the windward side of the Appalachian Mountains, 100 °F (38 °C)+ readings are very rare, and were last seen on July 15, 1995.
Average annual precipitation is 39.61 inches (1,006 mm) and precipitation is greatest in May while least in October; annual precipitation has historically ranged from 22.65 in (575 mm) in 1930 to 57.83 in (1,469 mm) in 2018. On average, December and January have the greatest number of precipitation days. Snowfall averages 44.1 inches (112 cm) per season, but has historically ranged from 8.8 in (22 cm) in 1918–19 to 80 in (200 cm) in 1950–51. There is an average of 59 clear days and 103 partly cloudy days per year, while 203 days are cloudy. In terms of annual percent-average possible sunshine received, Pittsburgh (45%) is similar to Seattle (49%).
==== Air quality ====
United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data from 2021 to 2024 shows that Pittsburgh's air quality was generally good or moderate.
Despite improvements, studies suggest Pittsburgh's air quality still impacts health. A 2014 to 2016 study found that children near pollution sources like industrial sites had asthma rates nearly three times the national average. It also revealed that 38% of students lived in areas exceeding EPA's particle pollution standards, and 70% in areas surpassing the WHO's standards. Most affected communities were minority populations, leading some residents to believe that the continuing effects of air pollution are a case of environmental racism.
As of 2005, Pittsburgh had 31,000 trees along 900 miles of streets. A 2011 analysis valued the annual benefits of the city's urban forest between $10 and $13 million, based on contributions to aesthetics, energy use, and air quality. The city invests $850,000 annually in tree planting and maintenance.
==== Water quality ====
Local rivers in Pittsburgh continue to exceed EPA pollution limits, primarily due to frequently overflowing untreated sewage from the city's outdated infrastructure. Pittsburgh's combined sewer system, built in the early 1900s, carries both stormwater and wastewater, with the treatment plant constructed in 1959. Insufficient upgrades have led to public health concerns, as even a tenth of an inch of rain causes runoff to flow into rivers. Nine billion gallons of untreated waste and stormwater flow into rivers per year, leading to health hazards and Clean Water Act violations. The Allegheny County Sanitary Authority (ALCOSAN) is under a Consent Decree from the EPA and proposed a $2 billion system upgrade in 2017, approved by the EPA in 2019.
The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA), responsible for replacing pipes and setting water rates, has faced criticism for alleged mismanagement and for high lead levels in the city's drinking water, particularly in 2016. While lead levels have risen for years, many residents blame PWSA's administrative changes for the spike. In response, PWSA began adding orthophosphate to the water. PWSA has also been working to replace lead pipes, and continuing to test water for lead.
There remains concern among residents over the long-term effects of this lead, particularly for children. Some people also believe that the high levels of lead reflect environmental racism, as black and Hispanic children in Pittsburgh experience elevated blood-lead levels at 4 times the rate of white children.
== Demographics ==
At the 2010 census, there were 305,704 people residing in Pittsburgh, a decrease of 8.6% since 2000; 66.0% of the population was White, 25.8% Black or African American, 0.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 4.4% Asian, 0.3% Other, and 2.3% mixed; in 2020, 2.3% of Pittsburgh's population was of Hispanic or Latino American origin of any race. Non-Hispanic whites were 64.8% of the population in 2010, compared to 78.7% in 1970. By the 2020 census, the population slightly declined further to 302,971. Its racial and ethnic makeup in 2020 was 64.7% non-Hispanic white, 23.0% Black or African American, 5.8% Asian, and 3.2% Hispanic or Latino American of any race.
Since the beginning of the 21st century, the five largest European ethnic groups in Pittsburgh were German (19.7%), Irish (15.8%), Italian (11.8%), Polish (8.4%), and English (4.6%), while the metropolitan area is approximately 22% German-American, 15.4% Italian American and 11.6% Irish American. Pittsburgh has one of the largest Italian-American communities in the nation, and the fifth-largest Ukrainian community per the 1990 census.
Pittsburgh has one of the most extensive Croatian communities in the United States. Overall, the Pittsburgh metro area has one of the largest populations of Slavs in the country.
Pittsburgh has a sizable Black and African American population, concentrated in various neighborhoods especially in the East End. There is also a small Asian community consisting of Indian immigrants, and a small Hispanic community consisting of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans.
In 2010, there were 143,739 households, out of which 21.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 31.2% were married couples living together, 16.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 48.4% were non-families. 39.4% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.17 and the average family size was 2.95. In the city, the population was spread out, with 19.9% under the age of 18, 14.8% from 18 to 24, 28.6% from 25 to 44, 20.3% from 45 to 64, and 16.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 90.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.8 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $28,588, and the median income for a family was $38,795. Males had a median income of $32,128 versus $25,500 for females. The per capita income for the city was $18,816. About 15.0% of families and 20.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 27.5% of those under the age of 18 and 13.5% ages 65 or older. By the 2019 American Community Survey, the median income for a household increased to $53,799. Families had a median income of $68,922; married-couple families had a median income of $93,500; and non-family households had a median income of $34,448. Pittsburgh's wealthiest suburbs within city limits are Squirrel Hill and Point Breeze, the only two areas of the city which have average household incomes over $100,000 a year.
As of 2018, much of Pittsburgh's population density was concentrated in the central, southern, and eastern areas. The city limits itself have a population density of 5,513 people per square mile; its most densely populated parts are North Oakland (at 21,200 per square mile) and Uptown Pittsburgh (at 19,869 per square mile). Outside of the city limits, Dormont and Mount Oliver were Pittsburgh's most densely populated neighborhoods, with 11,167 and 9,902 people per square mile respectively.
Most of Pittsburgh's immigrants are from China, India, Korea and Italy.
=== Demographic changes ===
Since the 1940s, city initiatives for redevelopment have driven demographic changes in Pittsburgh. In the 1950s, the Lower Hill District underwent significant upheaval when 1,551 mostly Black residents and 413 businesses were displaced for the construction of the Civic Arena, which opened in 1961. This project, part of Pittsburgh's revitalization efforts, led to the neighborhood's population dropping to an estimated 12,000 today.
In the 1960s, the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh (URA) aimed to revitalize East Liberty, resulting in the construction of Penn Center Mall and the displacement of about 3,800 people. By the early 2000s, private developers catering to a wealthier demographic introduced businesses like Home Depot, Whole Foods, and Google. This redevelopment, supported by the URA, transformed East Liberty into a desirable area for millennials.
These changes have sparked criticism, with some residents arguing that the government's actions were part of a strategy to disperse Black and low-income populations or facilitate gentrification of neighborhoods. The demolition of housing units like the East Mall public housing complex in 2009, replaced by businesses like Target, is cited as evidence of this process.
=== Religion ===
According to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, 78% of the population of the city identified themselves as Christians, with 42% professing attendance at a variety of churches that could be considered Protestant, and 32% professing Catholic beliefs. 18% claimed no religious affiliation. The same study said that other religions (including Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism) collectively made up about 4% of the population.
According to a 2010 Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) study, residents included 773,341 "Catholics"; 326,125 "Mainline Protestants"; 174,119 "Evangelical Protestants;" 20,976 "Black Protestants;" and 16,405 "Orthodox Christians," with 996,826 listed as "unclaimed" and 16,405 as "other" in the metro area. A 2017 study by the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University estimated the Jewish population of Greater Pittsburgh was 49,200.
Pittsburgh is also cited as the location where the earliest precursor to Jehovah's Witnesses was founded by Charles Taze Russell; today the denomination makes up approximately 1% of the population based on data from the Pew Research Center.
== Economy ==
Pittsburgh has adapted since the collapse of its century-long steel and electronics industries. The region has shifted to high technology, robotics, health care, nuclear engineering, tourism, biomedical technology, finance, education, and services. Annual payroll of the region's technology industries, when taken in aggregate, exceeded $10.8 billion in 2007, and in 2010 there were 1,600 technology companies. A National Bureau of Economic Research 2014 report named Pittsburgh the second-best U.S. city for intergenerational economic mobility or the American Dream. Reflecting the citywide shift from industry to technology, former factories have been renovated as modern office space. Google has research and technology offices in a refurbished 1918–1998 Nabisco factory, a complex known as Bakery Square. Some of the factory's original equipment, such as a large dough mixer, were left standing in homage to the site's industrial roots. Pittsburgh's transition from its industrial heritage has earned it praise as "the poster child for managing industrial transition". Other major cities in the northeast and mid-west have increasingly borrowed from Pittsburgh's model in order to renew their industries and economic base.
The largest employer in the city is the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, with 48,000 employees. All hospitals, outpatient clinics, and doctor's office positions combine for 116,000 jobs, approximately 10% of the jobs in the region. An analyst recently observed of the city's medical sector: "That's both more jobs and a higher share of the region's total employment than the steel industry represented in the 1970s."
Education is a major economic driver in the region. The largest single employer in education is the University of Pittsburgh, with 10,700 employees.
Ten Fortune 500 companies call the Pittsburgh area home. They are (in alphabetical order): Alcoa Corporation (NYSE: AA), Arconic Corporation (NYSE: ARNC), Dick's Sporting Goods (NYSE: DKS), The Kraft Heinz Company (NASDAQ: KHC), PNC Financial Services (NYSE: PNC), PPG Industries (NYSE: PPG), U.S. Steel Corporation (NYSE: X), Viatris (NASDAQ: VRTS), Wabtec Corporation (NYSE: WAB), and WESCO International (WYSE: WCC).
The region is home to Aurora, Allegheny Technologies, American Eagle Outfitters, Duolingo, EQT Corporation, CONSOL Energy, Howmet Aerospace, Kennametal and II-VI headquarters. Other major employers include BNY Mellon, GlaxoSmithKline, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Lanxess. The Northeast U.S. regional headquarters for Chevron Corporation, Nova Chemicals, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, FedEx Ground, Ariba, and the RAND Corporation call the area home. 84 Lumber, Giant Eagle, Highmark, Rue 21, General Nutrition Center (GNC), CNX Gas (CXG), and Genco Supply Chain Solutions are major non-public companies headquartered in the region. The global impact of Pittsburgh technology and business was recently demonstrated in several key components of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner being manufactured and supplied by area companies. Area retail is anchored by over 35 shopping malls and a healthy downtown retail sector, as well as boutique shops along Walnut Street, in Squirrel Hill, Lawrenceville and Station Square.
The nonprofit arts and cultural industry in Allegheny County generates $341 million in economic activity that supports over 10,000 full-time equivalent jobs with nearly $34 million in local and state taxes raised.
A leader in environmental design, the city is home to 60 total and 10 of the world's first green buildings while billions have been invested in the area's Marcellus natural gas fields. A renaissance of Pittsburgh's 116-year-old film industry—that boasts the world's first movie theater—has grown from the long-running Three Rivers Film Festival to an influx of major television and movie productions. including Disney and Paramount offices with the largest sound stage outside Los Angeles and New York City.
Pittsburgh has hosted many conventions, including INPEX, the world's largest invention trade show, since 1984; Tekko, a four-day anime convention, since 2003; Anthrocon, a furry convention, since 2006; and the DUG East energy trade show since 2009.
== Arts and culture ==
=== Entertainment ===
Pittsburgh boasts a rich arts and culture scene, with a history dating back to 19th-century industrialists who commissioned and donated public works including Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts and the Benedum Center, home to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Pittsburgh Opera. Other prominent groups include the River City Brass Band and Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra. The city also hosts a variety of smaller arts organizations, such as Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre, Quantum Theatre, the Renaissance and Baroque Society of Pittsburgh, and Chatham Baroque, an early music ensemble. University choirs include the Pitt Men's Glee Club and Heinz Chapel Choir.
The Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and Pittsburgh Dance Council offer diverse dance events, while polka, folk, square, and round dancing are celebrated by the Duquesne University Tamburitzans, a multicultural academy dedicated to folk traditions. Pittsburgh is also a popular filming location, with major productions like The Dark Knight Rises filmed in Downtown, Oakland, and the North Shore. The city is also recognized as the birthplace of the modern zombie film genre after George A. Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead.
Major art museums include the Andy Warhol Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, The Frick Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, the Mattress Factory, and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, which holds extensive dinosaur, mineral, and Egyptian collections. The Kamin Science Center and associated SportsWorks offer interactive technology and science exhibits. The Heinz History Center, a Smithsonian affiliate, provides regional history in the Strip District, while the Fort Pitt Museum is located in Point State Park. The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum houses military exhibits, and the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh features interactive exhibits for kids. The eclectic Bayernhof Music Museum is located six miles (9 km) from downtown, while The Clemente Museum is in Lawrenceville. The Cathedral of Learning's Nationality Rooms showcase pre-19th-century learning environments, and architectural tours are available in many neighborhoods. Downtown's cultural district hosts quarterly Gallery Crawls and the annual Three Rivers Arts Festival. Pittsburgh also has art galleries such as the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University, University Art Gallery of the University of Pittsburgh, the American Jewish Museum, and the Wood Street Galleries.
Pittsburgh is home to the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium, Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, and the National Aviary, all over a century old. Kennywood, a classic amusement park, is located in West Mifflin, and the Rivers Casino is on the North Shore along the Ohio River, just west of Kamin Science Center and Acrisure Stadium.
Pittsburgh hosts Anthrocon, one of the world's largest furry conventions, which has been held annually at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center since 2006. In 2024, the event attracted over 17,000 visitors and has generated a cumulative economic impact of $53 million over 11 years. Additionally, the reality show Dance Moms is filmed at Pittsburgh's Abby Lee Dance Company.
=== Music ===
Pittsburgh has a long tradition of jazz, blues, and bluegrass music. The National Negro Opera Company was founded in the city as the first all-African American opera company in the U.S., helping launch the careers of African-American opera stars like Leontyne Price. Pittsburgh also shaped 20th-century music with influential figures like Billy Strayhorn, who grew up in the city, and pianist-composer Mary Lou Williams, who honored her hometown with a 1966 album featuring Leon Thomas.
Recent artists like Wiz Khalifa have continued Pittsburgh's musical legacy, with his hit "Black and Yellow" reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2011. Other notable artists from the area include Perry Como, Christina Aguilera, and the band Rusted Root, which was formed in Pittsburgh. Rusted Root's Liz Berlin owns Mr. Smalls, a popular venue for national touring acts. Hip hop artist Mac Miller, also from Pittsburgh, named his debut album Blue Slide Park after the local Frick Park.
Pittsburgh has emerged as a leading city in the United States' heavy metal music scene. Many punk rock and Hardcore punk acts, such as Aus Rotten and Anti-Flag, originated in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh has also seen many metal bands gain prominence in recent years, most notably Code Orange, who were nominated for a Grammy. The city was also home to the highly influential math rock band Don Caballero.
Pittsburgh also had an influential electronic music subculture in the 1990s, with origins similar to internet chatroom-based movements across the United States. Pittsburgh promoters and DJs organized raves in warehouses, ice rinks, barns, and fields which eventually attracted thousands of attendees. DJs Adam Beyer and Richie Hawtin played at local raves. One notable figure, drum and bass DJ Dieselboy, emerged from this scene. Since 2012, the Hot Mass after-hours electronic music dance party has been a key part of Pittsburgh's electronic music scene, noted for its European nightclub vibe. Electronic artist Yaeji has credited Hot Mass as a formative influence during her time at Carnegie Mellon University.
Hellbender Vinyl, the largest vinyl record manufacturing company in Pennsylvania, is located in Pittsburgh.
=== Theatre ===
The city's first play was produced at the old courthouse in 1803 and the first theater built in 1812. Collegiate companies include the University of Pittsburgh's Repertory Theatre and Kuntu Repertory Theatre, Point Park University's resident companies at its Pittsburgh Playhouse, and Carnegie Mellon University's School of Drama productions and Scotch'n'Soda organization. The Duquesne University Red Masquers, founded in 1912, are the oldest, continuously producing theater company in Pennsylvania. The city's longest-running theater show, Friday Nite Improvs, is an improv jam that has been performed in the Cathedral of Learning and other locations for 20 years. The Pittsburgh New Works Festival utilizes local theater companies to stage productions of original one-act plays by playwrights from all parts of the country. Similarly, Future Ten showcases new ten-minute plays. Saint Vincent Summer Theatre, Off the Wall Productions, Mountain Playhouse, The Theatre Factory, and Stage Right! in nearby Latrobe, Carnegie, Jennerstown, Trafford, and Greensburg, respectively, employ Pittsburgh actors and contribute to the culture of the region.
Pittsburgh is well known for being home to the late playwright August Wilson. The August Wilson House now remains in Pittsburgh to celebrate the life and work of August Wilson, continue to produce his plays, and serve as an arts center for the Hill District, where Wilson was from.
=== Literature ===
Pittsburgh is the birthplace of notable writers such as Gertrude Stein and Rachel Carson, a Chatham University graduate from the suburb of Springdale, Pennsylvania. Modern writers include Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson, as well as Michael Chabon, who writes about student and college life in Pittsburgh. Two-time Pulitzer winner and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, David McCullough, was born and raised in Pittsburgh. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard, whose memoir An American Childhood takes place in post-World War II Pittsburgh, also hails from the city.
Award-winning author John Edgar Wideman, who grew up in Pittsburgh, has based several books in the city, including Brothers and Keepers. Poet Terrance Hayes, winner of the 2010 National Book Award and a 2014 MacArthur Foundation Fellow, earned his MFA at the University of Pittsburgh and was a faculty member there. Other local poets include Michael Simms, founder of Autumn House Press, and Samuel John Hazo, Pennsylvania's first poet laureate. Contemporary writers like Kathleen Tessaro, author of novels such as Elegance, The Perfume Collector, and Rare Objects, and new authors including Chris Kuzneski and Brian Celio, who captures Pittsburgh's "Yinzer" dialect, contribute to the city's vibrant literary tradition. Pittsburgh's unique literary style extends to playwrights, as well as local graffiti and hip hop artists.
Pittsburgh's position as the birthplace for community-owned television and networked commercial television helped spawn the modern children's show genres exemplified by Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, Happy's Party, Cappelli & Company, and The Children's Corner, all nationally broadcast.
The Pittsburgh Dad series has showcased the Pittsburghese genre to a global YouTube audience since 2011.
The modern fantasy, macabre and science fiction genre was popularized by director George A. Romero, television's Bill Cardille and his Chiller Theatre, director and writer Rusty Cundieff and makeup effects guru Tom Savini. The genre continues today with the PARSEC science fiction organization, The It's Alive Show, the annual "Zombie Fest", and several writer's workshops including Write or Die, Pittsburgh SouthWrites, and Pittsburgh Worldwrights with Barton Paul Levenson, Kenneth Chiacchia and Elizabeth Humphreys Penrose.
=== Food ===
Pittsburgh is known for several culinary specialties including pierogies, kielbasa, chipped chopped ham sandwiches, and Klondike bars. The San Francisco marketing agency AF and Co named Pittsburgh the top American food city of 2019, favorably mentioning many area restaurants including Superior Motors in Braddock, Driftwood Oven in Lawrenceville, Spork in Bloomfield, Fish nor Fowl in Garfield, Bitter Ends Garden & Luncheonette in Bloomfield, and Rolling Pepperoni in Lawrenceville.
Pittsburgh is home to the annual pickle-themed festival Picklesburgh.
=== Local dialect ===
The Pittsburgh English dialect, commonly called Pittsburghese, was influenced by Scots-Irish, German, and Eastern European immigrants and African Americans. Locals who speak the dialect are sometimes referred to as "Yinzers" (from the local word "yinz" [var. yunz], a blended form of "you ones", similar to "y'all" and "you all" in the South). Common Pittsburghese terms are: "slippy" (slippery), "redd up" (clean up), "jagger bush" (thorn bush), and "gum bands" (rubber bands). The dialect is also notable for dropping the verb "to be". In Pittsburghese one would say "the car needs washed" instead of "needs to be washed", "needs washing", or "needs a wash." The dialect has some tonal similarities to other nearby regional dialects of Erie and Baltimore but is noted for its somewhat staccato rhythms. The staccato qualities of the dialect are thought to originate either from Welsh or other European languages. The many local peculiarities have prompted The New York Times to describe Pittsburgh as "the Galapagos Islands of American dialect". The lexicon itself contains notable loans from Polish and other European languages; examples include babushka, pierogi, and halušky.
=== Livability ===
Pittsburgh has five city parks and several parks managed by the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy. The largest, Frick Park, provides 664 acres (269 ha) of woodland park with extensive hiking and biking trails throughout steep valleys and wooded slopes. Birding enthusiasts visit the Clayton Hill area of Frick Park, where over 100 species of birds have been recorded.
Residents living in extremely low-lying areas near the rivers or one of the 1,400 creeks and streams may have occasional floods, such as those caused when the remnants of Hurricane Ivan hit rainfall records in 2004. River flooding is relatively rare due to federal flood control efforts extensively managing locks, dams, and reservoirs. Residents living near smaller tributary streams are less protected from occasional flooding. The cost of a comprehensive flood control program for the region has been estimated at a prohibitive $50 billion.
Pittsburgh has the greatest number of bars per capita in the nation.
== Sports ==
Pittsburgh hosted the first professional football game and the first World Series. College sports also have large followings with the University of Pittsburgh in football and sharing Division I basketball fans with Robert Morris and Duquesne.
Pittsburgh has a long history with its major professional sports teams—the Steelers of the National Football League, the Penguins of the National Hockey League, and the Pirates of Major League Baseball—which all share the same team colors, the official city colors of black and gold. Pittsburgh is the only city in the United States where this practice of sharing colors across all city teams takes place. The black-and-gold color scheme has since become widely associated with the city and personified in its famous Terrible Towel. Further, the Pittsburgh Riverhounds professional soccer team of the USL Championship division wear black and gold colors.
The "Rails to Trails" program has converted miles of former rail tracks to recreational trails, including a Pittsburgh-Washington D.C. bike/walking trail. Several mountain biking trails are within the city and suburbs, Frick Park has biking trails and Hartwood Acres Park has many miles of single track trails.
=== Professional ===
Major league
Minor league/other
**Pittsburgh's ABA franchise won the 1968 title, but the Steel City Yellow Jackets franchise is heir to it only in location.
=== College ===
Power 5
Other
=== Baseball ===
The Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team, often referred to as the Bucs or the Buccos (derived from buccaneer), is the city's oldest professional sports franchise, having been founded in 1881, and plays in the Central Division of the National League. The Pirates are nine-time Pennant winners and five-time World Series Champions, were in the first World Series (1903) and claim two pre-World Series titles in 1901 and 1902. The Pirates play in PNC Park.
Pittsburgh also has a rich Negro league history, with the former Pittsburgh Crawfords and the Homestead Grays credited with as many as 14 league titles and 11 Hall of Famers between them in the 1930s and 1940s, while the Keystones fielded teams in the 1920s. In addition, in 1971 the Pirates were the first Major League team to field an all-minority lineup. One sportswriter claimed, "No city is more synonymous with black baseball than Pittsburgh."
Since the late 20th century, the Pirates had three consecutive National League Championship Series appearances (1990–92) (going 6, 7 and 7 games each), followed by setting the MLB record for most consecutive losing seasons, with 20 from 1993 until 2012. This era was followed by three consecutive postseason appearances: the 2013 National League Division Series and the 2014–2015 Wild Card games. Their September pennant race in 1997 featured the franchises' last no-hitter and last award for Sporting News' Executive of the Year.
=== Football ===
The city's professional team, the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers, is named after the distribution company the Pittsburgh Steeling company, established in 1927. News of the team has preempted news of elections and other events and are important to the region and its diaspora. The Steelers have been owned by the Rooney family since the team's founding in 1933, are noted for consistency in coaching (the team has had only three head coaches since the 1960s, all with the same basic philosophy) and have been called one of sports' most respectable franchises. The Steelers have a long waiting list for season tickets, and have sold out every home game since 1972. The team won four Super Bowls in a six-year span in the 1970s, a fifth Super Bowl in 2006, and a league record sixth Super Bowl in 2009.
College football in the city dates to 1889 with the Division I (FBS) Panthers of the University of Pittsburgh posting nine national championships, qualifying 37 total bowl games, appearing in the 2018 ACC Championship Game, and winning the 2021 ACC Championship Game which was the program's first conference title since leaving the Big East for the ACC between the 2012 and 2013 seasons. Local universities Duquesne and Robert Morris have loyal fan bases that follow their lower (FCS) teams.
Acrisure Stadium serves as home for the Steelers, Panthers, and both the suburban and city high school championships. Playoff franchises Pittsburgh Power and Pittsburgh Gladiators competed in the Arena Football League in the 1980s and 2010s respectively. The Gladiators hosted ArenaBowl I in the city, competing in two, but losing both before moving to Tampa, Florida and becoming the Storm. The Pittsburgh Passion has been the city's professional women's football team since 2002 and plays its home games at Highmark Stadium. The Ed Debartolo owned Pittsburgh Maulers featured a Heisman Trophy winner in the mid-1980s, former superstar University of Nebraska running back Mike Rozier.
=== Hockey ===
The NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins have played in Pittsburgh since the team's founding in 1967. The team has won 6 Eastern Conference titles (1991, 1992, 2008, 2009, 2016 and 2017) and 5 Stanley Cup championships (1991, 1992, 2009, 2016 and 2017). Since 1999, Hall of Famer and back-to-back playoff MVP Mario Lemieux has served as Penguins owner. Until moving into the PPG Paints Arena in 2010 (when it was known as Consol Energy Center), the team played their home games at the world's first retractable domed stadium, the Civic Arena, or in local parlance "The Igloo".
Ice hockey has had a regional fan base since the 1890s semi-pro Keystones. The city's first ice rink dates back to 1889, when there was an ice rink at the Casino in Schenley Park. From 1896 to 1956, the Exposition Building on the Allegheny River near The Point and Duquesne Gardens in Oakland offered indoor skating.
The NHL awarded one of its first franchises to the city in 1924 on the strength of the back-to-back USAHA championship-winning Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets. The NHL's Pittsburgh Pirates made several Stanley Cup playoff runs before folding from Great Depression financial pressures. Hockey survived with the Pittsburgh Hornets farm team (1936–1967) and their seven finals appearances and three championships in 18 playoff seasons.
Robert Morris University fields a Division I college hockey team at the Island Sports Center. Pittsburgh has semi-pro and amateur teams such as the Pittsburgh Penguins Elite. Pro-grade ice rinks in the region include the Rostraver Ice Garden and Iceoplex at Southpointe.
=== Basketball ===
Professional basketball in Pittsburgh dates to the 1910s with teams "Monticello" and "Loendi" winning five national titles, the Pirates (1937–45 in the NBL), the Pittsburgh Ironmen (1947–48 NBA inaugural season), the Pittsburgh Rens (1961–63), the Pittsburgh Pipers (first American Basketball Association championship in 1968) led by Connie Hawkins (team then moved); the Pittsburgh Condors (ABA returned in 1970–72), the Pittsburgh Piranhas (CBA Finals in 1995), the Pittsburgh Xplosion (2004–08) and Phantoms (2009–10) both of the ABA.
Three Pittsburgh universities, the University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne University, and Robert Morris University, compete in NCAA Division I basketball. Pitt and Duquesne are the traditional basketball powers in the city, but all three universities have made multiple appearances in the National Invitation Tournament and NCAA tournament. Pitt won two pre-NCAA tournament National Championships in 1928 and 1930 while Duquesne won the NIT title in 1955, its second straight trip to the NIT title game. Both Pitt and Duquesne have reached the NCAA tournament Final Four once, Duquesne in 1940 and Pitt in 1941.
Pittsburgh Panthers women's basketball has qualified for 14 post season tournaments (including 4 NCAA tournaments) and boasts of 5 All-Americans selected 6 times with 3 WNBA players. Pitt women began play in 1914 before being reintroduced in 1970. Both Duquesne and Robert Morris also have competitive Division I women's basketball programs.
=== Soccer ===
The Riverhounds, an American professional soccer team, were founded in 1998. Like the major league teams in the city, the Riverhounds wear black and gold kits. The club plays in the Eastern Conference of the USL Championship, the second tier of the American soccer pyramid. The Riverhounds play their home games at Highmark Stadium, a soccer-specific stadium located in Station Square.
=== Golf ===
Golf has deep roots in the area. Foxburg Country Club, the oldest U.S. course in continuous use (dating from 1887) calls the region home. Suburban Oakmont Country Club holds the record for most times as host for the U.S. Open at nine; it has also hosted the U.S. Women's Open, PGA Championships, and U.S. Amateurs.
Golf legends Arnold Palmer, Jim Furyk, and Rocco Mediate learned the game and began their careers on Pittsburgh area courses. Suburban courses such as Laurel Valley Golf Club and the Fox Chapel Golf Club have hosted PGA Championships (1937, 1965), the Ryder Cup (1975), LPGA Championships (1957–58), Senior Players Championships (2012–14), and the Senior PGA Championship (2005).
Local courses have sponsored annual major tournaments for 40 years:
=== Professional wrestling ===
Many notable professional wrestlers and promoters have hailed from the city or started their careers in Pittsburgh, including Bruno Sammartino, Kurt Angle, Shane Douglas, Corey Graves, Dominic DeNucci, Elias, Britt Baker and many more.
The Fineview section of Pittsburgh served as the base of the televised show Studio Wrestling during the 1960s. The Keystone State Wrestling Alliance (KSWA) is a professional wrestling promotion which was founded in Pittsburgh in 2000. It is the only promotion based in Pittsburgh. It operates in the city's Lawrenceville neighborhood. The KSWA performs Monthly on Saturdays at its main venue on 51st Street.
=== Annual sporting events ===
Pittsburgh hosts several annual major sporting events initiated in the late 20th century, including the:
Three Rivers Regatta (since 1977)
Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix (since 1983)
Dirty Dozen Cycle Race (since 1983)
Pittsburgh Marathon (since 1985)
Great Race 10K (since 1985)
Head of the Ohio Regatta (since 1987)
The city's vibrant rivers have attracted annual world-title fishing competitions of the Forrest Wood Cup in 2009 and the Bassmaster Classic in 2005.
Annual events continue during the winter months at area ski resorts such as Boyce Park, Seven Springs, Hidden Valley Resort, Laurel Mountain, and Wisp. Ice skating rinks are enjoyed at PPG Place and North Park.
== Government and politics ==
=== Government ===
The Government of Pittsburgh is composed of the Mayor of Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh City Council, and various boards and commissions. The mayor and the nine-member council each serve four-year terms. Since the 1950s the Mayor's Chief of Staff has assumed a large role in advising, long term planning, and as a "gatekeeper" to the mayor. City council members are chosen by plurality elections in each of nine districts. The government's official offices are in the Pittsburgh City-County Building.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court holds sessions in Pittsburgh, as well as Harrisburg and Philadelphia. Pittsburgh is represented in the Pennsylvania General Assembly by three Senate Districts and nine House Districts. Federally, Pittsburgh is part of Pennsylvania's 12th congressional district.
=== Politics ===
In 2006, Council President Luke Ravenstahl was sworn in as mayor at age 26, becoming the youngest mayor in the history of any major American city. His successor, Bill Peduto, was sworn in on January 6, 2014. In November 2021, Pittsburgh elected its first African-American mayor, Ed Gainey.
Prior to the American Civil War, Pittsburgh was strongly abolitionist. It is considered the birthplace of the national Republican Party, as the party held its first convention here in February 1856. From the Civil War to the 1930s, Pittsburgh was a Republican stronghold. The effects of the Great Depression, combined with entrenched local GOP scandals, resulted in a shift among voters to the Democratic Party. With the exceptions of the 1973 and 1977 elections (where lifelong Democrats ran off the party ticket), Democrats have been elected consecutively to the mayor's office since the 1933 election. The city's ratio of party registration is 5 to 1 Democrat.
Pittsburgh is represented in the Pennsylvania General Assembly by three Senate Districts (Lindsey Williams (D)-38, Wayne D. Fontana (D)-42, and Jay Costa (D)-43) and nine House Districts (Aerion Abney-19, Emily Kinkead-20, Lindsay Powell-21, Dan Frankel-23, La'Tasha Mayes-24, Dan Deasy-27, Abigail Salisbury-34, Jessica Benham-36, and John Inglis-38).
Federally, Pittsburgh is part of Pennsylvania's 12th congressional district, represented by Democrat Summer Lee since 2023.
=== Law enforcement ===
The area's largest law enforcement agency is the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, with close to 850 sworn officers. The city also has separate housing and school police departments. Other agencies also provide police protection within the city because of overlapping jurisdictional boundaries. The Allegheny County Sheriff focuses on jail and courthouse security. The Allegheny County Police primarily patrols county-owned parks and airports, while providing detective/investigatory functions for smaller suburbs and the Port Authority police patrols rapid transit. Pennsylvania State Police Troop B provides patrols for the city and immediate suburbs.
The county's lead law enforcement officer is Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala while the Allegheny County Medical Examiner heads forensics. Crimes of a federal nature are covered by the U.S. Attorney for Western Pennsylvania.
=== Crime ===
Pittsburgh annually ranks as one of America's safest big cities, in 2013 being named the 3rd "most secure" big city by Farmers Insurance. Among crime rates of the 60 largest U.S. cities, 43 had more instances of property crime while 16 had less when compared to Pittsburgh. More instances of violent crime were reported in 21 of the largest cities while 37 had less. The FBI recommends against using data for ranking.
Per 100,000 persons stats (2012):
At the end of 2019, the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police reported 37 murders in the city that year.
In Pittsburgh, the homicide rate for African Americans is seven times the national average. Some people believe that over-reliance on law enforcement exacerbates homicide rates. There is also concern regarding the effectiveness of law enforcement in solving these cases, as 97% of unsolved cases involved a black victim. This has led certain residents to believe law enforcement to be ineffective or apathetic. This is despite an increasing police budget. In 2023, members of the Pittsburgh City Council approved an increase to the police budget by $6 million. About 6% of this money is expected to go to the Stop the Violence trust fund. This fund goes to improving parks and recreation, various non-profits, and to the office of Community Health and Safety, in effort to holistically improve the social pressures supposedly causing violence in Pittsburgh.
Some people do not believe these efforts to be adequate. In 2023, a study conducted by Police Scorecard rated the Pittsburgh Police Department at 37% quality (with 100% being the best). It rated Pittsburgh below the 50th percentile in 10 out of 15 categories studied: "Police Budget Cost per Person," "Fines/Forfeitures," "Police Presence/Over-Policing (Officers per Population)," "Force Used per Arrest," "Racial Disparities in Deadly Force," "Excessive Force Complaints Upheld," "Discrimination Complaints Upheld," "Criminal Misconduct Complaints Upheld," "Arrest Rate for Low Level Offenses," and "Racial Disparities in Drug Arrests".
== Education ==
=== Colleges and universities ===
Pittsburgh is home to many colleges, universities and research facilities, the most well-known of which are Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Duquesne University. Also in the city are Carlow University, Chatham University, Point Park University, the Community College of Allegheny County, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science.
The campuses of Carlow, Carnegie Mellon, and the University of Pittsburgh are near each other in the Oakland neighborhood that is the city's traditional cultural center. Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university founded by Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon. CMU contains the Mellon College of Science, School of Computer Science, College of Engineering, School of Business, Heinz College, College of Fine Arts, writing, Social and Decision Sciences, information systems, statistics, and psychology programs.
The University of Pittsburgh, established in 1787 and popularly referred to as "Pitt", is a state-related school with one of the nation's largest research programs. Pitt is known for the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences, Swanson School of Engineering, University of Pittsburgh College of Business Administration, University of Pittsburgh School of Law, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work, and other biomedical and health-related sciences.
Duquesne University, a private Catholic university in the Bluff neighborhood and is noted for its song and dance troupe, the Duquesne University Tamburitzans, as well as graduate programs in law, medicine, pharmacy, nursing, engineering, health sciences, business, music, and education. Carlow University is a small private Catholic university that while coeducational, has traditionally educated women. Chatham University, a liberal arts college that was founded as a woman's college but became fully coeducational in 2015, is in the Shadyside neighborhood, but also maintains a 388-acre (157 ha) Eden Hall Farm campus in the North Hills. Point Park University was founded in 1961 and is well known for its Conservatory of Performing Arts and its Pittsburgh Playhouse.
=== Primary education ===
Pittsburgh Public Schools teachers are paid well relative to their peers, ranking 17th in 2000 among the 100 largest cities by population for the highest minimum salary. In 2018, the starting teacher salary offered to teachers with a BA was $46,920. The maximum annual salary for a teacher with a master's degree was $95,254.
Local public schools include many charter and magnet schools, including City Charter High School (computer and technology focused), Pittsburgh Montessori School (formerly Homewood Montessori), Pittsburgh Gifted Center, Barack Obama Academy of International Studies 6-12, Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts 6–12, Pittsburgh Science and Technology Academy, the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children, and the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf.
Private schools in Pittsburgh include Bishop Canevin High School, Central Catholic High School, Oakland Catholic High School, Winchester Thurston School, St. Edmund's Academy, Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh, Yeshiva Schools and The Ellis School. Shady Side Academy maintains a PK–5 primary school campus in the Point Breeze neighborhood, in addition to its 6–12 middle and upper school campuses in nearby suburban Fox Chapel. Other private institutions outside of Pittsburgh's limits include North Catholic High School and Seton-La Salle Catholic High School.
The city also has an extensive library system, both public and university. Most notable are the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh's University Library System, which rank as the ninth-largest public and 18th-largest academic libraries in the nation, respectively.
== Media ==
=== Newspapers ===
There are two major daily newspapers in Pittsburgh: the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (online only). Weekly papers in the region include the Pittsburgh Business Times, Pittsburgh City Paper, Pittsburgh Catholic, Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, The New People, and the New Pittsburgh Courier. Independent student-written university-based newspapers include The Pitt News of the University of Pittsburgh, The Tartan of Carnegie Mellon University, The Duquesne Duke of Duquesne University, and The Globe of Point Park University. The University of Pittsburgh School of Law is also home to JURIST, the world's only university-based legal news service.
=== Television ===
The Pittsburgh metro area is served by multiple local television and radio stations. The Pittsburgh designated market area (DMA) is the 22nd-largest in the U.S. with 1,163,150 homes (1.045% of the total U.S.). The major network television stations include KDKA-TV 2 (CBS), WTAE 4 (ABC), WPXI 11 (NBC), WINP-TV 16 (Ion), WPKD-TV 19 (Independent), WPNT 22 (The CW/MyNetworkTV), WPCB 40 (Cornerstone), and WPGH-TV 53 (Fox). KDKA-TV, WINP-TV, and WPCB are owned-and-operated by their respective networks.
WQED 13 is the local PBS member station in Pittsburgh. It was established on April 1, 1954, and was the first community-sponsored television station and the fifth public station in the United States. The station has produced much original content for PBS, including Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, several National Geographic specials, and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
=== Radio ===
A wide variety of radio stations serve the Pittsburgh market. The first was KDKA 1020 AM, also the world's first commercially licensed radio station, which began airing on November 2, 1920. Other stations include KQV 1410 AM (news), WBGG 970 AM (sports), KDKA-FM 93.7 FM (sports), WKST-FM 96.1 FM (Top 40), WAMO-AM 660 AM and 107.3 FM (urban contemporary) WBZZ 100.7 FM (adult contemporary), WDVE 102.5 FM (album rock), WPGB 104.7 FM (Country), and WXDX 105.9 FM (modern rock). There are also three public radio stations in the area: WESA 90.5 FM (National Public Radio affiliate), WQED 89.3 FM (classical), and WYEP 91.3 FM (adult alternative). Three non-commercial stations are run by Carnegie Mellon University (WRCT 88.3 FM), the University of Pittsburgh (WPTS 92.1 FM), and Point Park University (WPPJ 670 AM).
=== Film ===
Pittsburgh's 116-year-old film industry accelerated after the 2006 passage of the Pennsylvania Film Production Tax Credit. According to the Pittsburgh Film Office, over 124 major motion pictures have been filmed, in whole or in part, in Pittsburgh, including The Mothman Prophecies, Wonder Boys, Dogma, Hoffa, The Silence of the Lambs, Sudden Death, Flashdance, Southpaw, Striking Distance, Mrs. Soffel, Jack Reacher, Inspector Gadget, The Next Three Days, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and Fences. Pittsburgh became "Gotham City" in 2011 during filming of The Dark Knight Rises. George A. Romero shot nearly all his films in the area, including his Living Dead series. From 2017 to 2023, Pittsburgh welcomed a series of major film and television productions like Fences, Mindhunter, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Sweet Girl, and I'm Your Woman, significantly contributing to the local economy.
Film production in Pittsburgh has notably impacted the region's economy and job creation, largely due to the 25% tax credit incentive established in 2007. The Pittsburgh Film Office states that the film and television industry provides employment to over 10,000 people and pays over $500 million in wages in southwestern Pennsylvania. Furthermore, the industry supports over 345,000 local businesses and contributes over $41 billion to them.
Pittsburgh is home to several film festivals, film schools, and organizations that encourage and promote independent and diverse filmmakers. Notable film festivals include the Three Rivers Film Festival, the Pittsburgh Shorts Film Festival, the JFilm Festival, the ReelAbilities Film Festival, and the Black Bottom Film Festival. The local film schools include Pittsburgh Filmmakers, Point Park University - Cinema & Digital Arts, and University of Pittsburgh - Film Studies.
Pittsburgh's film studio infrastructure includes several sound stages and production facilities available for hire. Prominent film studios in Pittsburgh are 3 Rivers Studios, Cinelease Studios, Post Script Films, Deeplocal, and The Videohouse. There are also plans in the pipeline to develop a new film studio complex at the Carrie Furnace site in Rankin and Swissvale.
== Utilities ==
The city is served by Duquesne Light, one of the original 1912 power companies founded by George Westinghouse. Water service is provided by the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority and Pennsylvania American Water. Natural gas is provided by Equitable Gas, Columbia Gas, Dominion Resources, Direct Energy, and Novec.
== Health care ==
The two largest area health care providers are the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) (since 1893) and Allegheny Health Network (since 1882).
The first military hospital in U.S. history and the first west of the Atlantic Plain—General Edward Hand Hospital—served the area from 1777 to 1845. Since 1847, Pittsburgh has hosted the world's first "Mercy Hospital". This was followed by West Penn hospital in 1848, Passavant Hospital in 1849, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 1883, Children's Hospital in 1887, and Magee Womens Hospital in 1911. In 1954, Allegheny General (AGH) was among the first to administer Cobalt therapy.
In 1980, UPMC announced a $250 million ($1.11 billion today) expansion and also hired transplant pioneer Thomas Starzl. In 1984, Allegheny General surgeons pioneered modern brain surgery. Starzl arranged the 1985 liver transplant of 5-year-old Amie Garrison as a UPMC surgery team flew to Baylor University, starting its transplant program. Also in 1985, UPMC surgeons Drs. Griffith, Hardesty, and Trento revealed a new device after a heart-lung transplant. In 1986, UPMC announced a $230 million ($676 million today) modernization. In 1996, UPMC's planned Sicily ISMETT branch was approved by the Italian government as transplant surgeons to supervise and deliver the world's third (both earlier ones done at UPMC)--and first public—cross species marrow transplant at University of California, San Francisco. UPMC's Thomas Detre founded the International Society for Bipolar Disorders at a world medical conference in Pittsburgh in 1999.
The $80 million ($150 million today) UPMC Sports Performance Complex for the Pittsburgh Panthers & Pittsburgh Steelers opened in 2000. In 2002, AGH opened its $30 million ($54.5 million today), 5-floor, 100,000 sq. ft., cancer center. The $130 million ($233 million today) 350,000 sq. ft. Hillman Cancer Center opened in 2003 as UPMC entered into an 8-year, $420 million ($716 million today) agreement with IBM to upgrade medical technologies & health information systems.
In 2009, the $600 million ($897 million today) UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh opened. The campus was featured in world news in 2012 for several unique approaches to patient care. UPMC officially adopted in Erie, Pennsylvania's Hamot Medical Center in 2010. The Pittsburgh Penguins announced a state of the art training facility with UPMC in 2012. UPMC announced in 2013 it had partnered with Nazarbayev University to help found its medical school.
=== Health discoveries ===
While he was a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, American virologist Jonas Salk developed one of the first successful polio vaccines, which came into use in 1955.
UPMC has pioneered several world firsts including the first known cystic fibrosis heart-lung transplant (1983), the world's first simultaneous liver and heart transplant operation on a child (6-year-old Stormie Jones in 1984), the youngest heart-lung transplant (9 years old in 1985), the world's first heart-liver-kidney transplant (1989), the world's first heart-liver transplant on an infant (1997), the first pediatric heart-double lung-liver transplant (1998), the nation's first double hand transplant (2009), and the first total forearm and hand transplant (2010), as well as the state's first heart transplant (1968).
The Lancet published a 2012 UPMC study of two 9-year quadriplegics being able to move a robotic arm by thought, to pick up objects, shake hands, and even eat. Wiring the brain around spine damage to restore arm and leg muscle function was successful using robotic arms controlled via an embedded computer to translate signals near a small group of neurons with 200 needles.
== Transportation ==
Pittsburgh is a city of bridges. With 446, it has three bridges more than Venice, Italy, which has historically held the title "City of Bridges". Around 40 bridges cross the three rivers near the city. The Smithfield Street Bridge was the world's first lenticular truss bridge. The city's Three Sisters Bridges offer a picturesque view of the city from the North. The southwestern "entrance" to Downtown for travelers coming in from Interstate 79 and the Pittsburgh International Airport is through the Fort Pitt Tunnel and over the Fort Pitt Bridge. The Fort Duquesne Bridge carrying Interstate 279 is the main gateway from Downtown to both PNC Park, Acrisure Stadium and the Rivers Casino. The Panhandle Bridge carries Pittsburgh Regional Transit's Blue/Red/Silver subway lines across the Monongahela River. The renovated J&L Steel Company bridge has been a key traffic/running-biking trail conduit connecting the Southside Works and Pittsburgh Technology Center. Over 2,000 bridges span the landscape of Allegheny County.
=== Public transportation statistics ===
Pittsburgh is served by Pittsburgh Regional Transit, the 26th-largest transit agency in the country prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Pittsburgh, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 73 minutes, while 23% of public transit riders ride for more than two hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 17 minutes, while 33% of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 3.9 mi (6.3 km), while 11% travel for over 7.5 mi (12 km) in a single direction.
=== Expressways and highways ===
Locals refer to the interstates fanning out from downtown Pittsburgh as the "parkways." Interstate 376 is both the "parkway east" connecting to Interstate 76 (Pennsylvania Turnpike) and the "parkway west" connecting to Interstate 79, the Pittsburgh International Airport, the Ohio end of the Turnpike and Interstate 80. The "parkway north" is Interstate 279 connecting to I-79. The "crosstown" is Interstate 579 allowing access to the heart of downtown, the Liberty Tunnels and the PPG Paints Arena. The 45-mile-long and 70-mile-long expressway sections of Pennsylvania Route 28 and U.S. Route 22 also carry traffic from downtown to the northeast and western suburbs, respectively. Interstate 70, 79 and 76 (the Turnpike) roughly form a triangular-shaped "beltway" with Interstate 68 and 80 within the media market's northern and southern limits. Turnpike spurs such as the Mon–Fayette Expressway, Pennsylvania Route 576 and Route 66 also help traffic flow. The non-expressway Pittsburgh/Allegheny County Belt System serves navigation in the region.
=== Airports ===
Pittsburgh International Airport provides commercial passenger service from over 15 airlines to the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. Arnold Palmer Regional Airport also provides limited commercial passenger service and is 44 miles (71 km) east of Pittsburgh.
Other airports that have or have had scheduled commercial service include Morgantown Municipal Airport (79 miles (127 km) south of Pittsburgh), Youngstown–Warren Regional Airport (81 miles (130 km) northwest of Pittsburgh), Akron–Canton Airport (120 miles (190 km) northwest of Pittsburgh), Johnstown–Cambria County Airport (60 miles (97 km) east of Pittsburgh) and Erie International Airport (123 miles (198 km) north of Pittsburgh).
=== Intercity passenger rail and bus ===
Amtrak provides intercity rail service to Pittsburgh Union Station, via the Capitol Limited between Chicago and Washington, D.C., and the Pennsylvanian to New York City.
Megabus, Greyhound Lines, and Fullington Trailways connect Pittsburgh with distant cities by bus; Greyhound and Fullington Trailways buses stop at the Grant Street Transportation Center intercity bus terminal. Popular destinations include Philadelphia, New York City, and Washington, D.C.
Until declines in passenger travel in the 1950s and 1960s, several stations served Pittsburgh: Baltimore & Ohio Station, Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Station, Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal and Pittsburgh Union Station.
=== Regional mass transit ===
Pittsburgh Regional Transit, formerly known as the Port Authority of Allegheny County, is the region's mass transit system. While serving only a portion of the Pittsburgh area, the nation's 20th-largest metropolitan area, it is the 11th-largest transit agency in the United States. Pittsburgh Regional Transit runs a network of intracity and intercity bus routes, the Monongahela Incline Funicular railway (more commonly known as an "incline") on Mount Washington, a light rail system that runs mostly above-ground in the suburbs and underground as a subway in the city, and one of the nation's largest busway systems. Pittsburgh Regional Transit owns the Duquesne Incline but it is operated by a non-profit preservation trust, but accepts Pittsburgh Regional Transit passes and charges PRT fares.
The Bus System lines are labeled by number and letter. These are the largest portion of Pittsburgh Regional Transit and serve on streets and designated busways. Buses serve most of the county, extending as far as Pittsburgh International Airport, Monroeville, McCandless, and the borders of Westmoreland County and Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, the light rail system (commonly known as the "T") runs along both new tracks and those refurbished from the streetcar era. The light rail runs from Acrisure Stadium to South Hills Village and Library, taking commuters through one of two routes: one which serves Castle Shannon, Mt. Lebanon, and Beechview, and the other is an express line using railways through Overbrook.
=== Freight rail ===
Pittsburgh's rail industry dates to 1851 when the Pennsylvania Railroad first opened service between the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad entered the city in 1871. In 1865, Andrew Carnegie opened the Pittsburgh Locomotive and Car Works, which manufactured for the industry until 1919. Carnegie also founded the Union Railroad in 1894 for heavy freight services and it still serves the area's steel industry, while George Westinghouse's Wabtec has been a leader in rail engines and switching since 1869.
Pittsburgh is home to one of Norfolk Southern Railway's busiest freight corridors, the Pittsburgh Line, and operates up to 70 trains per day through the city. The suburban Conway Rail Yard, built in 1889, was the largest freight rail center in the world from 1956 until 1980 and is today the nation's second-largest. CSX, the other major freight railroad in the eastern U.S., also has major operations around Pittsburgh.
=== Port ===
The Port of Pittsburgh ranks as the 20th-largest port in the United States with almost 34 million short tons of river cargo for 2011. The port ranked ninth-largest in the U.S. when measured in domestic trade.
== Notable people ==
== Sister cities ==
Pittsburgh's sister cities are: |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969 | 1969 | 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1969th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 969th year of the 2nd millennium, the 69th year of the 20th century, and the 10th and last year of the 1960s decade.
The year's most prominent event is often considered the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, where astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon.
== Events ==
=== January ===
January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco.
January 5 – Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to London's Gatwick Airport, killing 50 of the 62 people on board and two of the home's occupants.
January 12 – The New York Jets defeat the Baltimore Colts 16–7 in Super Bowl III.
January 14 – An explosion aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise near Hawaii kills 28 and injures 314.
January 16 – First successful docking of two crewed spacecraft in orbit and the first transfer of crew from one space vehicle to another (by a space walk) between Soviet craft Soyuz 5 and Soyuz 4.
January 18 – Failure of Soyuz 5's service module to separate correctly causes a near-fatal re-entry (not publicly acknowledged until 1997) but the module makes a hard landing in the Ural Mountains.
January 19 – End of the siege of the University of Tokyo, marking the beginning of the end for the 1968–69 Japanese university protests.
January 20 – Richard Nixon is sworn in as the 37th president of the United States of America.
January 22 – Attempted assassination of Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet leader, by deserter Viktor Ilyin. One person is killed, several are injured; Brezhnev escapes unharmed. Very little is publicly admitted about the incident by the Soviet authorities at this time.
January 27
Fourteen men, 9 of them Jews, are executed in Baghdad for spying for Israel.
Reverend Ian Paisley, Northern Irish Unionist leader and founder of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster is jailed for three months for illegal assembly.
January 28 – 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill: A blowout on Union Oil's Platform A spills 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of crude oil into a channel and onto the beaches of Santa Barbara County in Southern California; on February 5 the oil spill closes Santa Barbara's harbor. The incident inspires Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson to organize the first Earth Day in 1970.
=== February ===
February 4 – In Cairo, Yasser Arafat is elected Palestine Liberation Organization leader at the Palestinian National Congress.
February 8
The Allende meteorite explodes over Mexico.
After 147 years, the last weekly issue of The Saturday Evening Post is published in the United States. (The magazine is later briefly resurrected as a monthly magazine.)
February 9 – The Boeing 747 "jumbo jet" is flown for the first time, taking off from the Boeing airfield at Everett, Washington.
February 13 – Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) terrorists bomb the Montreal Stock Exchange.
February 14 – Pope Paul VI issues Mysterii Paschalis, a motu proprio, deleting many names from the Roman calendar of saints (including Valentine, who was celebrated on this day).
February 17 – Aquanaut Berry L. Cannon dies of carbon dioxide poisoning while attempting to repair the SEALAB III habitat off San Clemente Island, California.
February 24 – The Mariner 6 Mars probe is launched from the United States.
February 28 – The 1969 Portugal earthquake hits Portugal, Spain and Morocco.
=== March ===
March 2
In Toulouse, France the first Concorde test flight is conducted.
Soviet and Chinese forces clash at a border outpost on the Ussuri River.
March 3
Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 9 (James McDivitt, Rusty Schweickart, David Scott) to test the lunar module.
In a Los Angeles court, Sirhan Sirhan admits that he killed presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.
March 13 – Apollo program: Apollo 9 returns safely to Earth after testing the Lunar Module.
March 16 – Viasa Flight 742 crashes into a neighborhood in Maracaibo, Venezuela, shortly after taking off for Miami; all 84 people on board the DC-9 jet are killed along with 71 people on the ground.
March 17
Golda Meir becomes the first female prime minister of Israel.
The Longhope life-boat is lost after answering a mayday call during severe storms in the Pentland Firth between Orkney and the northern tip of Scotland; the entire crew of 8 die.
March 18 – An annular solar eclipse is visible in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and is the 49th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 129.
March 20
One hundred of the 105 passengers and crew on a United Arab Airlines flight, most of them Muslim pilgrims returning to Aswan from Mecca, are killed when the Ilyushin-18 turboprop crashes during a sandstorm.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono are married at Gibraltar, and proceed to their honeymoon "Bed-in" for peace in Amsterdam.
March 22
UCLA wins its third consecutive NCAA basketball championship by defeating Purdue University, 92 to 72.
The landmark art exhibition When Attitudes become Form, curated by Harald Szeemann, opens at the Kunsthalle Bern in Bern, Switzerland.
March 25 - Ayub Khan resigns as President of Pakistan and transfers the power to Yahya Khan.
March 26 - Yahya Khan imposes Martial Law on Pakistan.
March 28 – Pope Paul VI increases the number of Roman Catholic cardinals by one-third, from 101 to 134.
March 29 – The Eurovision Song Contest 1969 is held in Madrid, and results in four co-winners, with 18 votes each, from Spain, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and France.
March 30 – The body of former United States General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower is brought by caisson to the United States Capitol to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda; Eisenhower had died two days earlier, after a long illness, in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C.
March 31 – The Barroterán coal mine disaster kills 153 coal miners in Mexico.
=== April ===
April 3 – The Mass of Paul VI is promulgated in the Catholic Church by the Pope.
April 4 – Denton Cooley implants the first temporary artificial heart.
April 7 – RFC series begins with Network Working Group RFC 1 on ARPANET host software.
April 8 – The Montreal Expos become Major League Baseball's first team outside the United States.
April 9 – Fermín Monasterio Pérez is murdered by ETA in Biscay, Spain; the 4th victim in the name of Basque nationalism.
April 15 – The EC-121 shootdown incident: North Korea shoots down a US reconnaissance aircraft over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 on board.
April 17 – Sirhan Bishara Sirhan is found guilty of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.
April 20 – British troops arrive in Northern Ireland to reinforce the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
April 22 – English sailor Robin Knox-Johnston becomes the first person to sail around the world solo without stopping.
April 28 – Charles de Gaulle steps down as president of France after suffering defeat in a referendum the day before.
=== May ===
May 10 – The Battle of Dong Ap Bia, also known as Hamburger Hill, begins during the Vietnam War.
May 13 – May 13 Incident: Race riots occur in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
May 14 – Colonel Muammar Gaddafi visits Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
May 15 – An American teenager known as 'Robert R.' dies in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, of a baffling medical condition. In 1984 it will be identified as the earliest confirmed case of HIV/AIDS in North America.
May 16 – Venera program: Soviet space probe Venera 5 lands on Venus.
May 17 – Venera program: Soviet space probe Venera 6 begins to descend into Venus's atmosphere, sending back atmospheric data before being crushed by pressure.
May 18 – Apollo program: Apollo 10 (Gene Cernan, Tom Stafford, John Young) is launched. It is to be a full rehearsal for the Moon landing, stopping 15 kilometers short of actually reaching the lunar surface.
May 20 – United States National Guard helicopters spray skin-stinging powder on anti-war protesters in California.
May 21 – Rosariazo: Civil unrest breaks out in Rosario, Argentina, following the death of a 15-year-old student.
May 22 – Apollo program: Apollo 10's lunar module flies to within 15,400 m of the Moon's surface.
May 26
The Andean Pact (Andean Group) is established.
Apollo program: Apollo 10 returns to Earth, after a successful 8-day test of all the components needed for the upcoming first crewed Moon landing.
May 26–June 2 – John Lennon and Yoko Ono conduct their second bed-in. The follow-up to the Amsterdam event is held at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Quebec. Lennon composes and records the song "Give Peace a Chance" during the event.
May 29 – Cordobazo: A general strike and civil unrest break out in Córdoba, Argentina.
May 30 – Riots in Curaçao mark the start of an Afro-Caribbean civil rights movement on the island.
=== June ===
June 3 – While operating at sea on SEATO maneuvers, the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne accidentally rams and slices into the American destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in the South China Sea, killing 74 American seamen.
June 5 – An international communist conference begins in Moscow.
June 8
Francisco Franco orders the closing of the Gibraltar–Spain border and communications between Gibraltar and Spain in response to the 1967 Gibraltar sovereignty referendum. The border remains closed until a partial reopening on December 15, 1982.
U.S. President Richard Nixon and South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu meet at Midway Island. Nixon announces that 25,000 U.S. troops will be withdrawn by September.
June 15 – Georges Pompidou is elected President of France.
June 17 – After a 23-game match, Boris Spassky defeats Tigran Petrosian to become the World Chess Champion in Moscow.
June 24 – The United Kingdom and Rhodesia sever diplomatic relations, after the Rhodesian constitutional referendum.
June 27 – Gay intercourse is officially legalized in Canada.
June 28 – The Stonewall riots, a milestone in the modern gay rights movement in the United States, began in New York City.
=== July ===
July 7 – French is made equal to English throughout the Canadian national government.
July 8 – Vietnam War: The first U.S. troop withdrawals are made.
July 14
Football War: After Honduras loses an association football match against El Salvador, rioting breaks out in Honduras against Salvadoran migrant workers. Of the 300,000 Salvadoran workers in Honduras, tens of thousands are expelled, prompting a brief Salvadoran invasion of Honduras. The OAS works out a cease-fire on July 18, which takes effect on July 20.
The Act of Free Choice for West Irian commences in Merauke, Indonesia.
July 16 – Apollo program: Apollo 11 (Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins) lifts off from Cape Kennedy in Florida towards the first crewed landing on the Moon.
July 19
Chappaquiddick incident: US Senator Edward M. Kennedy drives off a bridge into a tidal pond after leaving a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, killing Mary Jo Kopechne. Kennedy does not report the accident for nine or ten hours.
John Fairfax lands in Hollywood Beach, Florida, United States and becomes the first person to row across an ocean solo, after 180 days spent at sea on board the 25' ocean rowboat Britannia (left Gran Canaria on January 20, 1969).
July 20
Apollo program Moon landing: At 3:17 pm ET (20:17 UTC) Apollo 11's Lunar Module Eagle lands on the Moon's surface. At 10:56 pm ET (02:56 UTC July 21), an estimated 650 million people worldwide, the largest television audience for a live broadcast at this time, watch in awe as Neil Armstrong takes his first historic steps on the surface.
1969 Tour de France: Belgian Eddy Merckx wins the cycle race for the first time.
July 22 – Spanish dictator and head of state Francisco Franco appoints Prince Juan Carlos to be his successor as head of state following his death.
July 24
Apollo program: Apollo 11 returns from the first successful Moon landing and the astronauts are placed in biological isolation for several days in case they may have brought back lunar germs. The airless lunar environment is later determined to rule out microscopic life.
The Soviet Union returns British lecturer Gerald Brooke to the United Kingdom freed from a Soviet prison in exchange for their spies Peter and Helen Kroger (Morris and Lona Cohen).
July 26 – A 6.4 earthquake shakes the Chinese city of Yangjiang destroying thousands of homes and killing 3,000 people.
July 30 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon makes an unscheduled visit to South Vietnam, meeting with President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu and U.S. military commanders.
July 31 – Pope Paul VI arrives in Entebbe, Uganda for the first visit by a reigning Pope to Africa.
=== August ===
August 2 – U.S. President Richard Nixon visits Romania, becoming the first incumbent U.S. president to visit a communist state since the start of the Cold War.
August 4
Vietnam War: At the apartment of French intermediary Jean Sainteny in Paris, U.S. representative Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuan Thuy begin secret peace negotiations. They eventually fail since the two sides cannot agree to any terms.
The Zodiac Killer adopts his persona in a letter in which he introduces himself with the phrase, "This is the Zodiac speaking."
August 5 – Mariner program: Mariner 7 makes its closest fly-by of Mars (3,524 kilometres (2,190 mi)).
August 9 – On orders from Charles Manson, members of the Manson Family invade the Los Angeles home of film director Roman Polanski, and murder his pregnant wife, the actress Sharon Tate, and four others.
August 10 – A day after murdering Sharon Tate and four others, members of the Manson Family kill Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in Los Angeles.
August 13 – Serious border clashes occur between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.
August 14 – The Troubles: British troops are deployed in Northern Ireland to restore order following three days of political and sectarian violence, marking the beginning of the 37-year Operation Banner.
August 15–18 – The Woodstock Festival is held near White Lake, New York, featuring some of the top rock musicians of the era.
August 17 – Category 5 Hurricane Camille hits the Mississippi coast of the United States, killing 248 people and causing US$1.5 billion in damage (1969 USD).
August 21 – Australian Denis Michael Rohan sets fire to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
August 29 – A Trans World Airlines flight from Rome to Tel Aviv is hijacked and diverted to Syria.
=== September ===
September 1
1969 Libyan coup d'état: A bloodless coup in Libya ousts King Idris and brings Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to power.
For Brazil, the Jornal Nacional was created on Monday, 1 September 1969.
September 2 – Ho Chi Minh, the president of Democratic Republic of Vietnam, died at the age of 79.
September 5 – Lieutenant William Calley is charged with six counts of premeditated murder for the 1968 My Lai Massacre deaths of 109 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai, Vietnam.
September 9 – Allegheny Airlines Flight 853, a DC-9 airliner, collides in flight with a small Piper PA-28 airplane, and crashes near Fairland, Indiana, killing all 83 people in both aircraft.
September 11 – An annular solar eclipse is visible in Pacific Ocean and South America, and is the 41st solar eclipse of Solar Saros 134.
September 13 – Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! premieres on CBS, starting the Scooby-Doo franchise.
September 22–25 – An Islamic conference in Rabat, Morocco, following the al-Aqsa Mosque fire (August 21), condemns the Israeli claim of ownership of Jerusalem.
September 23 – China carries out an underground nuclear bomb test.
September 25 – The Organisation of the Islamic Conference is founded.
September 26 – The Beatles release their eleventh studio album, Abbey Road in the United Kingdom
September 28 – 1969 West German federal election: The Social Democrats, led by Vice Chancellor Willy Brandt, and the Free Democrats led by Walter Scheel, formed a coalition government with Brandt as Chancellor, after the Social Democrats severed their relationship with Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger's Christian Democratic Union.
=== October ===
October 1
In Sweden, Olof Palme is elected Leader of the Social Democratic Worker's Party, replacing Tage Erlander as Prime Minister on October 14.
The Beijing Subway begins operation.
October 2 – A 1.2 megaton thermonuclear device is tested at Amchitka Island, Alaska. This test is code-named Project Milrow, the 11th test of the Operation Mandrel 1969–1970 underground nuclear test series. This test is known as a "calibration shot" to test if the island is fit for larger underground nuclear detonations.
October 5 – Sazae-san first airs on Fuji Television.
October 9–12 – Days of Rage: In Chicago, the Illinois National Guard is called in to control demonstrations involving the radical Weathermen, in connection with the "Chicago Eight" Trial.
October 11 – The Zodiac Killer shoots and kills taxi driver Paul Stine in the Presidio Heights neighborhood of San Francisco; this is the serial killer's last known murder.
October 11–16 – The New York Mets upset the Baltimore Orioles four games to one in the World Series.
October 15 –
DZKB-TV Channel 9, the Philippines' sixth TV station, is launched.
Vietnam War: Hundreds of thousands of people take part in Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam demonstrations across the United States.
October 17 – Willard S. Boyle and George Smith invent the CCD at Bell Laboratories (30 years later, this technology is widely used in digital cameras).
October 20 – Experimental research showing that protons were composed of smaller particles, the first evidence of quarks, is published.
October 21
Willy Brandt becomes Chancellor of West Germany.
General Siad Barre comes to power in Somalia in a coup, 6 days after the assassination of President Abdirashid Ali Shermarke.
October 25 – 1969 Australian federal election: John Gorton's Liberal/Country Coalition government is narrowly re-elected with a sharply reduced majority, defeating a resurgent Labor Party led by Gough Whitlam. Prime Minister Gorton survived a leadership challenge by his deputy William McMahon as well as David Fairbairn in the immediate aftermath of the election.
October 29 – The first electronic message is sent between two computers connected via ARPANET between University of California, Los Angeles and SRI International in California at around 10:30pm local time, the initial forerunning technology to the Internet.
=== November ===
November 3 – Süleyman Demirel of AP forms the new government of Turkey (31st government).
November 10 – The television series Sesame Street premiered on National Educational Television, becoming the most famous preschool television series of all time.
November 14
Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 12 (Pete Conrad, Richard Gordon, Alan Bean), the second crewed mission to the Moon.
The SS United States, the last active United States Lines passenger ship, is withdrawn from service.
November 15 – Cold War: The Soviet submarine K-19 collides with the American submarine USS Gato in the Barents Sea.
November 17 – Cold War: Negotiators from the Soviet Union and the United States meet in Helsinki, to begin the SALT I negotiations aimed at limiting the number of strategic weapons on both sides.
November 19
Apollo program: Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum ("Ocean of Storms"), becoming the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon.
Professional footballer Pelé scores his 1,000th goal.
Vietnam War: A Cleveland, Ohio newspaper, The Plain Dealer, publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam.
Richard Oakes returns with 90 followers to Alcatraz Island and begins a 19 month long occupation, lasting until June 1971.
November 21
U.S. President Richard Nixon and Japanese Premier Eisaku Satō agree in Washington, D.C. to the return of Okinawa to Japanese control in 1972. Under the terms of the agreement, the U.S. retains rights to military bases on the island, but they must be nuclear-free.
The first ARPANET link is established (the progenitor of the global Internet).
November 24 – Apollo program: The Apollo 12 spacecraft splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second crewed mission to the Moon.
=== December ===
December 1 – Vietnam War: The first draft lottery in the United States since World War II is held. September 14 is the first of the 366 days of the year selected, meaning that anyone born on September 14 in the years from 1944 to 1951 would be the first to be summoned. On January 4, 1970, The New York Times will run a long article, "Statisticians Charge Draft Lottery Was Not Random".
December 2 – The Boeing 747 jumbo jet makes its first passenger flight. It carries 191 people, most of them reporters and photographers, from Seattle to New York City.
December 3 – Air France Flight 212, a Boeing 707 registered as F-BHSZ, crashed shortly after takeoff from Venezuela killing all 62 occupants on board. The cause of the accident is not yet known since the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) did not publish an investigation report. It will not be released until 2029, sixty years after the accident.
December 6 – Meredith Hunter is stabbed to death by Hells Angels at the Altamont Free Concert, an event which came to be viewed as the end of the hippie era and the de facto conclusion of late-1960s American youth culture.
December 12 – The Piazza Fontana bombing in Milan, Italy, kills 17 people and injures 88.
December 24
Charles Manson is allowed to defend himself at the Tate-LaBianca murder trial.
The oil company Phillips Petroleum made the first oil discovery in the Norwegian sector of North Sea.
Nigerian troops capture Umuahia. The last Biafran capital before its dissolution becomes Owerri.
December 27 – The Liberal Democratic Party wins 47.6% of the votes in the 1969 Japanese general election. Future prime ministers Yoshirō Mori and Tsutomu Hata and future kingmaker Ichirō Ozawa are elected for the first time.
=== Date unknown ===
Summer – Invention of Unix under the potential name "Unics" (after Multics).
Common African, Malagasy and Mauritian Organization (OCAMM) (Organisation Commune Africaine Malgache et Mauricienne) is established.
International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage, a maritime treaty, is adopted.
== Births ==
=== January ===
January 1 – Verne Troyer, American actor (d. 2018)
January 2
Robby Gordon, American racing driver
Tommy Morrison, American boxer (d. 2013)
Christy Turlington, American fashion model
January 3 – Michael Schumacher, German seven-time Formula One world champion
January 5 – Marilyn Manson, American rock musician
January 6 – Norman Reedus, American actor
January 7 – Alfredo Romero, Venezuelan activist
January 11
Kyōko Hikami, Japanese voice actress
Kyle Richards, American actress
January 13
Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller, Mexican writer, wife of Andrés Manuel López Obrador
Stephen Hendry, British snooker player
January 14
Jason Bateman, American actor, director and producer
Dave Grohl, American rock drummer and composer
January 15
Meret Becker, German actress and musician
Nishantha Jayaweera, Sri Lankan politician, MP
January 16 – Dead, Swedish vocalist (d. 1991)
January 17 – Lukas Moodysson, Swedish film director
January 18 – Dave Bautista, American pro wrestler and actor
January 19
Predrag Mijatović, Montenegrin footballer
Robert Prosinečki, Croatian football player and coach
January 27
Cornelius, Japanese rock musician, singer and producer
Patton Oswalt, American stand-up comedian, writer, actor and voice artist
January 28 – Kathryn Morris, American actress
January 29 – Hyde, Japanese rock musician, singer and guitarist
January 31 – Bill Huizenga, American politician
=== February ===
February 1
Gabriel Batistuta, Argentine footballer
Andrew Breitbart, American writer and publisher (d. 2012)
February 2 – Dambisa Moyo, Zambian-born economist
February 3 – Retief Goosen, South African golfer
February 5
Bobby Brown, African-American singer
Michael Sheen, Welsh actor
February 6 – David Hayter, Canadian-American actor, voice actor, screenwriter, director, and producer
February 7 – Andrew Micallef, Maltese painter and musician
February 9 – Priyantha Weerasooriya, Sri Lankan police officer and 37th Inspector general
February 11 – Jennifer Aniston, American actress, director, producer and businesswoman
February 12
Darren Aronofsky, American filmmaker
Hong Myung-bo, South Korean footballer
Brad Werenka, Canadian ice-hockey player
February 13
Ahlam, Emirati singer
JB Blanc, French voice actor
February 14 – Adriana Behar, Brazilian volleyball player
February 15
Roberto Balado, Cuban boxer (d. 1994)
Birdman, American rapper, entertainer, and record producer
February 21
James Dean Bradfield, Welsh singer-songwriter
Bosson, Swedish singer-songwriter
Petra Kronberger, Austrian alpine skier
Tony Meola, American soccer player
February 23
Michael Campbell, New Zealand golfer
Marc Wauters, Belgian cyclist
February 28
Robert Sean Leonard, American actor
Pat Monahan, American singer, lead vocals of Train
=== March ===
March 1 – Javier Bardem, Spanish actor
March 4
Annie Yi, Taiwanese actress
Patrick Roach, Canadian actor
March 7 – Brian Jamieson, American rower
March 10 – Paget Brewster, American actress
March 11
Terrence Howard, American actor and singer
Soraya, Colombian singer and multi-instrumentalist (d. 2006)
March 12
Graham Coxon, English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and painter
Akemi Okamura, Japanese voice actress
March 13 – Susanna Mälkki, Finnish conductor
March 15
Kim Raver, American actress
Timo Kotipelto, Finnish musician
Yutaka Take, Japanese jockey
March 16 – Markus Lanz, German-Italian television presenter
March 17 – Alexander McQueen, British fashion designer (d. 2010)
March 18
Vasyl Ivanchuk, Ukrainian chess grandmaster
Jimmy Morales, Guatemalan politician, 37th President of Guatemala
March 19 – Patrick Tam, Hong Kong actor
March 20 – Nalin Pradeep Udawela, Sri Lankan actor and politician (d. 2025)
March 21 – Ali Daei, Iranian football player
March 22 – Tony Fadell, American engineer, inventor, designer and entrepreneur (Nest Labs, Apple Inc)
March 24 – Stephan Eberharter, Austrian alpine skier
March 25 – Jeffrey Walker, British musician
March 26 – Suroosh Alvi, Canadian journalist and filmmaker
March 27
Mariah Carey, American pop singer
Kevin Corrigan, American actor
Pauley Perrette, American actress
March 28 – Rodney Atkins, American country music singer
March 29 – Chiaki Ishikawa, Japanese singer (See-Saw)
March 31 – Annabelle Neilson, British socialite (d. 2018)
=== April ===
April 1
Fadl Shaker, Lebanese singer
Andrew Vlahov, Australian basketball player
April 2 – Ajay Devgn, Indian actor, director and producer
April 3
Ben Mendelsohn, Australian actor
Lance Storm, Canadian professional wrestler
April 6 – Paul Rudd, American actor, comedian, writer and producer
April 11
Cerys Matthews, Welsh singer
Caren Miosga, German journalist and television presenter
Chisato Moritaka, Japanese singer
April 16 – Dawn Brancheau, American animal trainer (d. 2010)
April 18
Shannon Lee, Chinese-American actress
Susan Polgár, Hungarian chess player
April 20 – Marietta Slomka, German journalist
April 21 – Toby Stephens, English actor
April 23 – Yelena Shushunova, Soviet gymnast (d. 2018)
April 25
Vanessa Beecroft, Italian artist
Gina Torres, American actress
Renée Zellweger, American Academy Award-winning actress and producer
April 27
Stas Mikhaylov, Russian singer and songwriter
Cory Booker, US Senator from New Jersey
=== May ===
May 1 – Wes Anderson, American filmmaker
May 2
Brian Lara, Trinidadian cricketer.
Corinna Schumacher, German animal rights activist and accomplished horse rider
May 4 – Rabindra Prasad Adhikari, Nepalese politician (d. 2019)
May 5 – Hideki Irabu, Japanese baseball player (d. 2011)
May 6 – Jim Magilton, Northern Irish footballer
May 7 – Katerina Maleeva, Bulgarian tennis player
May 9 – Amber, German musician
May 10 – Dennis Bergkamp, Dutch footballer
May 13
Nikos Aliagas, French-born television host
Brian Carroll (aka Buckethead), American guitarist
May 14 – Cate Blanchett, Australian actress
May 16
David Boreanaz, American actor
Tucker Carlson, American political commentator
Steve Lewis, American athlete
May 19 – Teresa Ribera, Spanish politician
May 21 – Georgiy Gongadze, Ukrainian journalist (d. 2000)
May 25 – Hassan de Zé Cocá, Brazilian politician
May 26 – Siri Lindley, American triathlete
May 28 – Rob Ford, Canadian politician, 64th Mayor of Toronto (d. 2016)
=== June ===
June 3 – Takako Minekawa, Japanese musician, composer and writer
June 4 – Rob Huebel, American comedian
June 5 – Brian McKnight, American musician
June 7
Alina Astafei, Romanian-German high jumper
Prince Joachim of Denmark
Kim Rhodes, American actress
June 8 – J. P. Manoux, American actor
June 11
Peter Dinklage, American actor
Steven Drozd, American rock drummer
Anatoliy Povedenok, Kazakh football player
June 12
Zsolt Daczi, Hungarian rock guitarist (d. 2007)
Heinz-Christian Strache, Austrian politician
June 13 – Søren Rasted, Danish musician
June 14
Eugene Chung, Korean-American football player
Steffi Graf, German tennis player
June 15
Ice Cube, African-American rapper and actor
Oliver Kahn, German football goalkeeper
Jansher Khan, Pakistani squash player
June 16 – MC Ren, American rapper
June 17 – Paul Tergat, Kenyan athlete
June 18 – Haki Doku, Albanian para-cyclist
June 19 – Trine Pallesen, Danish actress
June 20
Alexander Schallenberg, current Chancellor of Austria
Paulo Bento, Portuguese football player and coach
June 23
Noa, Israeli singer
Fernanda Ribeiro, Portuguese long-distance runner
June 24
Sissel Kyrkjebø, Norwegian singer
Nicodemo Gentile, Italian lawyer and TV personality
June 30 – Sanath Jayasuriya, Sri Lankan cricketer
=== July ===
July 2
Jenni Rivera, Mexican-American singer-songwriter, producer and actress (d. 2012)
Tim Rodber, English rugby player
July 3
Gedeon Burkhard, German actor
Shawnee Smith, American actress
July 5
John LeClair, American hockey player
RZA, American rapper and record producer
July 7
Sylke Otto, German luger
Joe Sakic, Canadian hockey player
Cree Summer, American-Canadian actress and singer
July 8 – Sugizo, Japanese guitarist and singer
July 9 – Munkhbayar Dorjsuren, Mongolian-German sport shooter
July 10
Gale Harold, American actor
Hossan Leong, Singaporean stage and screen actor, television host, radio deejay and comedian
Jonas Kaufmann, German operatic tenor
Rami Makhlouf, Syrian businessman
July 11 – David Tao, Taiwanese singer-songwriter
July 14 – Billy Herrington, American gay pornographic actor (d. 2018)
July 16
Björn Dunkerbeck, Danish windsurfer
Sahra Wagenknecht, German politician
July 17
Jason Clarke, Australian actor
Ravi Kishan, Indian actor
Kazuki Kitamura, Japanese actor
July 18 – The Great Sasuke, Japanese wrestler
July 20
Josh Holloway, American actor
Johnny Ngauamo, Tonga rugby union player
July 21
Avraam Russo, Russian singer
Isabell Werth, German equestrian
July 22
Jason Becker, American heavy metal guitarist, formerly of Cacophony
James Arnold Taylor, American voice actor
Despina Vandi, Greek singer
July 23 – Raphael Warnock, American pastor and junior senator from Georgia
July 24 – Jennifer Lopez, American actress and singer
July 25 – Annastacia Palaszczuk, Australian politician, Premier of Queensland
July 26 – Tanni Grey-Thompson, born Carys Grey, British Paralympian
July 27
Dacian Cioloș, 64th Prime Minister of Romania
Bryan Fuller, American writer, producer, and director
Pavel Hapal, Czech footballer
Jonty Rhodes, South African cricketer
Triple H, American wrestler
July 28
Michael Amott, Swedish guitarist and songwriter
Alexis Arquette, American actress, cabaret performer, underground cartoonist, and activist (d. 2016)
Dana White, American businessman and president of Ultimate Fighting Championship
July 30 – Simon Baker, Australian-American actor and director
July 31 – Antonio Conte, Italian football player and manager
=== August ===
August 1 – Graham Thorpe, English cricketer (d. 2024)
August 2
Jan Axel Blomberg, Norwegian drummer
Fernando Couto, Portuguese footballer
August 3 – Anne Marie DeLuise, Canadian actress
August 4
Max Cavalera, Brazilian musician and singer (Soulfly, Cavalera Conspiracy, ex-Sepultura)
Michael DeLuise, American actor
August 6 – Elliott Smith, American musician (d. 2003)
August 8 – Faye Wong, Hong Kong singer and actress
August 10
Brian Drummond, Canadian voice actor
Emily Symons, Australian actress
August 11
Vanderlei de Lima, Brazilian long-distance runner
Ashley Jensen, British actress
August 12 – Tanita Tikaram, German-born British singer-songwriter
August 13 – Midori Ito, Japanese figure skater
August 14 – Chris Pérez, American guitarist
August 15
Justin Broadrick, British musician
Kevin Cheng, Hong Kong television actor and singer
Bernard Fanning, Australian musician (Powderfinger)
John Fetterman, American politician, Senator of Pennsylvania
August 17
Uhm Jung-hwa, South Korean singer and actress
Christian Laettner, American professional basketball player
Donnie Wahlberg, American singer and actor (New Kids on the Block)
August 18
Edward Norton, American actor, film director, screenwriter, and social activist
Christian Slater, American actor and producer
Timothy Snyder, American author and historian
August 19
Nate Dogg, African-American rapper (d. 2011)
Matthew Perry, American actor (d. 2023)
August 20
Neil Fitzmaurice, English actor, comedian and writer
Santeri Kinnunen, Finnish actor
August 23 – Jean-Marc Tellier, French politician
August 28 – Jack Black, American actor and musician
August 29 – Lucero, Mexican singer and actress
=== September ===
September 3 – Robert Karlsson, Swedish golfer
September 4
Giorgi Margvelashvili, politician; 4th President of the Republic of Georgia
Noah Taylor, Australian actor
Alexander Paul Coe, Welsh DJ and record producer
September 6
Michellie Jones, Australian triathlete
Cece Peniston, American musician
September 7 – Diane Farr, American actress
September 8
Mojtaba Khamenei, Iranian politician and Shia cleric, Supreme leader
Gary Speed, Welsh footballer and manager (d. 2011)
September 8 – Rachel Hunter, New Zealand model and actress
September 12
Ángel Cabrera, Argentine golfer
Shigeki Maruyama, Japanese golfer
September 13
Tyler Perry, American actor, film director and screenwriter
Shane Warne, Australian cricketer (d. 2022)
September 14 – Bong Joon-ho, South Korean film director and screenwriter
September 17
Ken Doherty, Irish snooker player
Keith Flint, English singer/dancer in the band The Prodigy (d. 2019)
September 19 – Simona Păucă, Romanian gymnast
September 21 – Billy Porter, American actor and singer
September 22 – Sue Perkins, English actress and comedian
September 24 – Shawn Crahan, American rock percussionist
September 25
Hansie Cronje, South African cricketer (d. 2002)
Catherine Zeta-Jones, Welsh actress
Hal Sparks, American comedian, actor, musician, and political commentator
September 29
Erika Eleniak, American model and actress
Aleks Syntek, Mexican singer and songwriter
September 30 – Jackie Traverse, Canadian artist and activist
Chris Von Erich, American professional wrestler (d. 1991)
=== October ===
October 1
Zach Galifianakis, American actor and stand-up comedian
Marcus Stephen, President of Nauru
Igor Ulanov, Russian hockey player
October 3
Gwen Stefani, American singer, actress and television host
Tetsuya, Japanese rock musician
October 5
Elizabeth Azcona Bocock, Honduran politician
M. A. Muhit, Bangladeshi politician
October 6
Muhammad V of Kelantan, 15th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia and Sultan of Kelantan
Ogün Temizkanoğlu, Turkish footballer
October 7 – Benny Chan Ho Man, Hong Kong actor
October 9
Jun Akiyama, Japanese professional wrestler
PJ Harvey, British singer-songwriter
Steve McQueen, English film director, producer and screenwriter
Chan Chun Sing, Singaporean politician
October 10
Brett Favre, American football player
Wendi McLendon-Covey, American actress
October 11 – Merieme Chadid, Moroccan born-French astronomer
October 12 – Judit Mascó, Spanish model, television host and writer
October 13
Rhett Akins, American country singer
Nancy Kerrigan, American figure skater
Cady McClain, American actress and director
October 15 – Dominic West, English actor, director and musician
October 16 – Wendy Wilson, American singer and television personality
October 17
Ernie Els, South African golfer
Jesús Ángel García, Spanish race walker
Wood Harris, American actor
Wyclef Jean, Haitian rapper
Nancy Sullivan, American actress
October 19
Pedro Castillo, 63rd President of Peru
Vanessa Marshall, American actress and voice actress
Trey Parker, American actor, voice actor, animator, writer, producer, director and composer
October 20
Laurie Daley, Australian rugby league player
Juan González, American baseball player
October 21 – Michael Hancock, Australian rugby league player
October 22 – Spike Jonze, American director and filmmaker
October 24
Peter Dolving, Swedish metal musician
Adela Noriega, Mexican actress
October 25
Samantha Bee, Canadian comedian, writer, producer and political commentator
Josef Beránek, Czech ice hockey player
Oleg Salenko, Russian footballer
October 26 – Sarina Wiegman, Dutch footballer and manager
October 28
Steven Chamuleau, Dutch cardiologist
October 30
Stanislav Gross, 5th Prime Minister of the Czech Republic (d. 2015)
Snow, Canadian reggae singer
October 31 – Kim Rossi Stuart, Italian actor and director
=== November ===
November 1 – Gary Alexander, American basketball player
November 2
Reginald Arvizu (aka Fieldy Snuts), American bassist
Madhushree, Indian playback singer
November 3 – Robert Miles, Swiss-born Italian record producer and DJ (d. 2017)
November 4
Tony Burke, Australian politician, Leader of the House (2022-present)
Sean Combs, American rapper and entrepreneur
Matthew McConaughey, American actor
November 7
Michelle Clunie, American actress
Hélène Grimaud, French pianist
November 8 – Jonathan Slavin, American actor and activist
November 9 – Allison Wolfe, American musician
November 10
Faustino Asprilla, Colombian football player
Jens Lehmann, German football player
Ellen Pompeo, American actress
November 12
Tomas N'evergreen, Danish singer
Rob Schrab, American actor and comic book creator
November 13
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Somali-born Dutch American activist
Gerard Butler, Scottish actor
November 14
Butch Walker, American musician
Daniel Abraham, American novelist, author, screenwriter, and producer
November 17 – Jean-Michel Saive, Belgian table tennis player
November 18
Sam Cassell, American basketball player
Ahmed Helmy, Egyptian actor
November 19
Ertuğrul Sağlam, Turkish football coach and former player
Viktor Skrypnyk, Ukrainian football coach and former player
November 21 – Ken Griffey Jr., American baseball player
November 22 – Katrin Krabbe, German sprinter
November 23 – Robin Padilla, Filipino actor
November 24 – David Adeang, Nauruan politician
November 26 – Kara Walker, American artist
November 27
Elizabeth Marvel, American actress
Carina Ricco, Mexican actress and singer
November 28
Colman Domingo, African-American actor
Lexington Steele, African-American actor and film director
November 29
Pierre van Hooijdonk, Dutch footballer
Kasey Keller, American Major League Soccer player
Mariano Rivera, Panamanian-American professional baseball player
November 30
Trina Gulliver, English darts player
Chris Weitz, American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor
=== December ===
December 1 – Richard Carrier, American historian
December 4 – Jay-Z, African-American rapper
December 5
Sajid Javid, British Pakistani politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer
Catherine Tate, English actress, comedian, and writer
December 9
Bixente Lizarazu, French footballer
Jakob Dylan, American singer-songwriter
December 11 – Viswanathan Anand, Indian chess grandmaster
December 16 – Michelle Smith, Irish swimmer
December 17
Laurie Holden, Canadian and American actress, producer and human rights activist
Chuck Liddell, American mixed martial arts fighter
Ismail Qasim Naji, Somali politician
December 18
Santiago Cañizares, Spanish footballer
Mille Petrozza, German-Italian rock vocalist and guitarist (Kreator)
December 19
Richard Hammond, British television presenter
Lauren Sánchez, American news anchor
Kristy Swanson, American actress
December 20 – Nicușor Dan, president of Romania
December 21
Julie Delpy, French-American actress
Magnus Samuelsson, Swedish bodybuilder, World's Strongest Man
December 22 – Dagmar Hase, German swimmer
December 24
Pernille Fischer Christensen, Danish film director
Sean Cameron Michael, South African actor and singer
Ed Miliband, English academic and politician, Minister for the Cabinet Office
Mark Millar, Scottish author
Luis Musrri, Chilean footballer
Oleg Skripochka, Russian cosmonaut
Gintaras Staučė, Lithuanian footballer
Chen Yueling, American race walker
December 25 – Nicolas Godin, French musician
December 27
Chyna, American professional wrestler (d. 2016)
Sarah Vowell, American historian, author, journalist, essayist, social commentator and actress
December 28 – Linus Torvalds, Finnish computer programmer
December 30
Kersti Kaljulaid, 5th President of Estonia
Jay Kay, English singer (Jamiroquai)
== Deaths ==
=== January ===
January 1 – Barton MacLane, American actor (b. 1902)
January 3 – Commodore Cochran, American Olympic athlete (b. 1902)
January 4 – Paul Chambers, American jazz bassist (b. 1935)
January 6 – Shalva Nutsubidze, Georgian philosopher, historian, rustvelologist, literary critic, translator, and public figure (b. 1888)
January 8 – Albert Hill, British athlete (b. 1889)
January 12 – Roberto Noble, Argentine politician, journalist and publisher (b. 1902)
January 19 – Jan Palach, Czech student (b. 1948)
January 27 – Charles Winninger, American actor (b. 1884)
January 29 – Allen Dulles, American director of the Central Intelligence Agency (b. 1893)
January 30 – Dominique Pire, Belgian Dominican friar, Nobel Peace Prize laureate (b. 1910)
January 31 – Meher Baba, Indian spiritual master (b. 1894)
=== February ===
February 2 – Boris Karloff, English actor (b. 1887)
February 3
Eduardo Mondlane, leader of the Mozambique nationalist organization FRELIMO (b. 1920)
Al Taliaferro, American Disney comics artist (b. 1905)
C. N. Annadurai, Indian politician and Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu (b. 1909)
February 5 – Thelma Ritter, American actress (b. 1902)
February 9 – George "Gabby" Hayes, American actor (b. 1885)
February 13 – Florence Mary Taylor, English-born Australian architect (b. 1879)
February 14 – Vito Genovese, Italian-American mobster (b. 1897)
February 18 – Dragiša Cvetković, 13th Prime Minister of Yugoslavia (b. 1893)
February 19 – Madge Blake, American actress (b. 1899)
February 20 – Ernest Ansermet, Swiss conductor (b. 1883)
February 23
King Saud of Saudi Arabia, (b. 1902)
Madhubala, Indian actress (b. 1933)
February 25 – Jan Zajíc, Czech student (b. 1950)
February 26
Levi Eshkol, 3rd Prime Minister of Israel (b. 1895)
Karl Jaspers, German psychiatrist and philosopher (b. 1883)
February 27 – John Boles, American actor (b. 1895)
=== March ===
March 3
Ali Jawdat al-Aiyubi, 11th Prime Minister of Iraq (b. 1886)
Fred Alexander, American tennis player (b. 1880)
March 6 – Óscar Osorio, Salvadorian military leader, 32nd President of El Salvador (b. 1910)
March 11
Daniel E. Barbey, American admiral (b. 1889)
John Wyndham, English author (b. 1903)
March 14 – Ben Shahn, Lithuanian-American artist (b. 1898)
March 15 – Miles Malleson, English actor (b. 1888)
March 24 – Joseph Kasavubu, 1st President of Congo-Léopoldville (b. 1917)
March 25 – Max Eastman, American writer (b. 1883)
March 26 – John Kennedy Toole, American author (b. 1937)
March 28 – Dwight D. Eisenhower, American general and politician, 34th President of the United States (b. 1890)
=== April ===
April 2 – Fortunio Bonanova, Spanish actor and singer (b. 1895)
April 5
Alberto Bonucci, Italian actor and director (b. 1918)
Rómulo Gallegos, Venezuelan novelist and politician, 48th President of Venezuela (b. 1884)
April 9 – FS Hussain, Pakistani aerobatic pilot who fought in World War II (b. 1924)
April 10 – Harley Earl, American designer and executive (b. 1893)
April 15 – Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, Queen consort of Spain (b. 1887)
April 20 – Vjekoslav Luburić, Croatian Ustaše official and concentration camp administrator (b. 1914)
April 26 – Morihei Ueshiba, Japanese martial artist and founder of aikido (b. 1883)
April 27 – René Barrientos, Bolivian general and statesman, 47th President of Bolivia (helicopter crash) (b. 1919)
=== May ===
May 2 – Franz von Papen, 22nd Chancellor of Germany and 26th Prime Minister of Prussia (b. 1879)
May 3
Karl Freund, German cinematographer (b. 1890)
Zakir Hussain, Indian politician, 3rd President of India (b. 1897)
May 4 – Sir Osbert Sitwell, English writer (b. 1892)
May 14
Enid Bennett, American actress (b. 1893)
Frederick Lane, Australian swimmer (b. 1880)
May 15 – Robert Rayford, American HIV/AIDS victim (b. 1953)
May 18 – Camille Drevet, French anti-colonialist, feminist activist and pacifist (b. 1881)
May 21 – William Lincoln Bakewell, American explorer (b. 1888)
May 23 – Jimmy McHugh, American composer (b. 1894)
May 24
Mitzi Green, American actress (b. 1920)
Fritz Skullerud, Norwegian long-distance runner and station master (b. 1885)
May 26 – Paul Hawkins, Australian racing driver (b. 1937)
May 27
Muhammad Fareed Didi, Sultan of Maldives (b. 1901)
Jeffrey Hunter, American actor (b. 1926)
May 28 – Rhys Williams, Welsh actor (b. 1897)
=== June ===
June 1 – Ivar Ballangrud, Norwegian Olympic speed skater (b. 1904)
June 4 – Rafael Osuna, Mexican professional tennis player (b. 1938)
June 8 – Robert Taylor, American actor (b. 1911)
June 11 – John L. Lewis, President of the United Mine Workers of America (b. 1880)
June 12 – Aleksandr Deyneka, Russian painter and sculptor (b. 1899)
June 13 – Martita Hunt, Argentine-born British actress (b. 1900)
June 16 – Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis, British field marshal and 17th Governor General of Canada (b. 1891)
June 18 – Edgar Anderson, American botanist (b. 1897)
June 19 – Natalie Talmadge, American actress (b. 1896)
June 20 – Mohamed Siddiq El-Minshawi, Egyptian Qur'anic reciter (b. 1920)
June 22 – Judy Garland, American actress and singer (b. 1922)
June 23 – Volmari Iso-Hollo, Finnish athlete (b. 1907)
=== July ===
July 2 – Mikio Naruse, Japanese film director (b. 1905)
July 3 – Brian Jones, British rock musician (b. 1942)
July 5
Ben Alexander, American actor (b. 1911)
Wilhelm Backhaus, German pianist (b. 1884)
Walter Gropius, German architect (b. 1883)
Lambert Hillyer, American film director (b. 1889)
Tom Mboya, Kenyan politician (b. 1930)
Leo McCarey, American film director (b. 1898)
July 9 – Raizō Tanaka, Japanese admiral (b. 1892)
July 15 – Peter van Eyck, German actor (b. 1911)
July 17 – Ichikawa Raizō VIII, Japanese actor (b. 1931)
July 24 – Witold Gombrowicz, Polish novelist and dramatist (b. 1904)
July 25 – Otto Dix, German painter (b. 1891)
July 28
Frank Loesser, American songwriter (b. 1910)
Ramón Grau, president of Cuba (b. 1882)
=== August ===
August 5 – Duke Adolf Friedrich of Mecklenburg (b. 1873)
August 6 – Theodor W. Adorno, German sociologist and philosopher (b. 1903)
August 8 – Choi Seung-hee, Korean modern dancer (b. 1911)
August 9
C. F. Powell, British physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1903)
Constantin Ion Parhon, Romanian politician (b. 1874)
Jay Sebring, American celebrity hair stylist (b. 1933)
Sharon Tate, American actress and model (b. 1943)
August 13 – Nicolás Fasolino, Argentine Roman Catholic cardinal (b. 1887)
August 14 – Leonard Woolf, English writer (b. 1880)
August 17
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, German-American architect (b. 1886)
Otto Stern, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1888)
August 20 – Marty Barry, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1905)
August 26 – Ismail al-Azhari, 2nd Prime Minister, 3rd President of Sudan (b. 1900)
August 27
Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett, English novelist (b. 1884)
Erika Mann, German writer (b. 1905)
August 31 – Rocky Marciano, American professional boxer (b. 1923)
=== September ===
September 2
Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese Communist politician, 1st Prime Minister of North Vietnam and 1st President of North Vietnam (b. 1890)
Norman Manley, Premier of Jamaica (b. 1893)
September 3 – John Lester, American cricketer (b. 1871)
September 6 – Arthur Friedenreich, Brazilian footballer (b. 1892)
September 8
Bud Collyer, American radio and television personality (b. 1908)
Alexandra David-Néel, French explorer (b. 1868)
September 12 – Terry de la Mesa Allen, Sr., American general (b. 1888)
September 19 – Rex Ingram, American actor (b. 1895)
September 22
Adolfo López Mateos, Mexican politician, 48th President of Mexico, 1958-1964 (b. 1909)
Aleksandras Stulginskis, Lithuanian politician, 2nd President of the Republic of Lithuania (b. 1885)
September 27 – Nicolas Grunitzky, 2nd President of Togo (b. 1913)
September 28 – Nicolae Dăscălescu, Romanian general (b. 1884)
=== October ===
October 3 – Skip James, American blues singer (b. 1902)
October 6 – Walter Hagen, American golf champion (b. 1892)
October 7
Natalya Lisenko, Russian actress (b. 1884)
Ture Nerman, Swedish communist leader (b. 1886)
October 12 – Sonja Henie, Norwegian figure skater (b. 1912)
October 16 – Leonard Chess, Polish-American record company executive, co-founder of Chess Records (b. 1917)
October 21
Jack Kerouac, American author (b. 1922)
Wacław Sierpiński, Polish mathematician (b. 1882)
October 22 – Vittorio Tur, Italian admiral (b. 1882)
October 23 - Tommy Edwards, American singer-songwriter (b. 1922)
October 26 – Gyula Mándi, Hungarian footballer and manager (b. 1899)
October 29 – Francisco Orlich Bolmarcich, 34th President of Costa Rica (b. 1907)
October 31 – Carlos Alberto Arroyo del Río, 26th President of Ecuador, leader during World War II (b. 1893)
=== November ===
November 1 – Pauline Bush, American actress (b. 1886)
November 5 – Lloyd Corrigan, American actor (b. 1900)
November 8
Dave O'Brien, American actor (b. 1912)
Vesto M. Slipher, American astronomer (b. 1875)
November 12
William F. Friedman, American cryptanalyst (b. 1891)
Liu Shaoqi, President of the People's Republic of China (b. 1898)
November 13 – Iskander Mirza, Pakistani politician, 1st President of Pakistan (b. 1899)
November 18 – Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., American politician (b. 1888)
November 21
Norman Lindsay, Australian painter (b. 1879)
Mutesa II of Buganda, Kabaka of Buganda and 1st President of Uganda (b. 1924)
=== December ===
December 1 – Magic Sam, American musician (b. 1937)
December 2
José María Arguedas, Peruvian novelist, poet and anthropologist (b. 1911)
Kliment Voroshilov, Soviet military commander (b. 1881)
December 4 – Fred Hampton, American activist (b. 1948)
December 5
Princess Alice of Battenberg (b. 1885)
Claude Dornier, German airplane builder, founder of Dornier Flugzeugwerke (b. 1884)
December 6 – João Cândido, Brazilian sailor, led the Revolt of the Lash (b. 1880)
December 7
Lefty O'Doul, American baseball player and restaurateur (b. 1897)
Eric Portman, English actor (b. 1901)
December 8 – Karl Fiehler, German Nazi politician and mayor of Munich (b. 1895)
December 13
Spencer Williams Jr., American actor (b. 1893)
Raymond A. Spruance, American admiral (b. 1886)
December 21 – Georges Catroux, French Army general and colonial governor (b. 1877)
December 22
Josef von Sternberg, Austrian film director (b. 1894)
Enrique Peñaranda, Bolivian general, 38th President of Bolivia, leader during World War II (b. 1892)
December 26 – Louise Lévêque de Vilmorin, French author (b. 1902)
December 29 – Ricardo Adolfo de la Guardia Arango, 11th President of Panama, leader during World War II (b. 1899)
== Nobel Prizes ==
Physics – Murray Gell-Mann
Chemistry – Derek Barton, Odd Hassel
Medicine – Max Delbrück, Alfred Hershey, Salvador Luria
Literature – Samuel Beckett
Peace – International Labour Organization
Economics – Ragnar Frisch, Jan Tinbergen |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPSC_Australia_Inc | IPSC Australia Inc | IPSC Australia Inc is the Australian association for practical shooting under the International Practical Shooting Confederation. It consists of seven sections: Victoria and Tasmania, South Australia, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnipeg_Free_Press | Winnipeg Free Press | The Free Press (or FP; founded as the Manitoba Free Press; previously known as the Winnipeg Free Press) is a daily (excluding Sunday) broadsheet newspaper in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It provides coverage of local, provincial, national, and international news, as well as current events in sports, business, and entertainment and various consumer-oriented features, such as homes and automobiles appear on a weekly basis.
The WFP was founded in 1872, only two years after Manitoba became part of Canada, in 1870. The WFP's founding predated Winnipeg's own incorporation, in 1873. The Winnipeg Free Press has since become the oldest newspaper in Western Canada that is still active.
== Timeline ==
November 30, 1872: The Manitoba Free Press was launched by William Fisher Luxton and John A. Kenny. Luxton bought a press in New York City and, along with Kenny, rented a shack at 555 Main Street, near the present corner of Main Street and James Avenue.
1874: The paper moved to a new building on Main Street, across from St. Mary Avenue.
1882: Control of the Free Press was passed on to Clifford Sifton. The organization subsequently moved to a building on McDermot Avenue, where it would remain until 1900.
1900: The paper moved to a new address on McDermot Avenue at Albert Street.
1901: John Wesley Dafoe served as president, editor-in-chief, and editorial writer for the WFP until 1944.
1905: The newspaper moved to a four-storey building at Portage and Garry.
1913: The newspaper moved to 300 Carlton Street and would remain there for 78 years.
1920: The Free Press took its newsprint supplier before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for violating the War Measures Act during World War I. The newspaper won the case, known as Fort Frances Pulp and Paper v Manitoba Free Press, as the court determined that whether the state of national emergency continued after the war was a political matter for Parliament.
February 21, 1923: Harry Houdini was placed in the straight jacket by two city police officers and then hoisted by his feet with pulleys to 30 feet above the sidewalk off the side of the Winnipeg Free Press Building. The paper ran an amateur photo contest with impressive cash prizes of $15, $10 and $5 for the three best images of the escape. The contest would be won by L. B. Foote, who went on to chronicle events for the Free Press for two decades.
December 2, 1931: The paper was renamed the Winnipeg Free Press.
1991: The Free Press moved to its current location in the Inkster Industrial Park, a CA$150 million plant at 1355 Mountain Avenue.December 2001: The Free Press and its sister paper, Brandon Sun, were bought from Thomson Newspapers by FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership.
== Strike ==
In 2008, at noon on Thanksgiving Day (Monday, October 13), about 1,000 members of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, representing editorial, advertising, circulation, and press staff, as well as newspaper carriers, launched a strike action. The strike ended 16 days later, when the union ratified the final offer on Tuesday, October 28. The contract was ratified by 67% of newspaper carriers, 75% of the pressmen, and 91% of the inside workers, including journalists. The recent five-year contract was negotiated, ratified, and signed in 2013, with no threat of a strike. Workers and managers negotiated directly with great success, without the need of a lawyer that previous contracts had required.
== Circulation ==
As of November 1, 2009, the WFP ceased publishing a regular Sunday edition. In its place, a Sunday-only tabloid called On 7 was launched, but it has since been discontinued.
On March 27, 2011, the impending arrival of Metro in the Winnipeg market caused the Sunday newspaper to be retooled as a broadsheet format, Winnipeg Free Press SundayXtra. The Sunday edition is now available exclusively online.
According to figures via Canadian Newspaper Association, the Free Press' average weekday circulation for 2013 was 108,583, while on Saturdays it was 144,278. Because of the relatively small population of Manitoba, that meant that over 10% of the population could be receiving the paper and its advertisements. Like most Canadian daily newspapers, the Free Press has seen a decline in circulation, dropping its total by 17% to 106,473 copies daily from 2009 to 2015.
Daily average
As of 2023, the Winnipeg Free Press media kit claims that 1.15 million users visit the newspaper's network of sites each month, and that in Winnipeg, 439,000 adults read the publication in print or digital format each week.
== Notable staff ==
John Wesley Dafoe 1901-1944, president, editor-in-chief, & wrote influential editorials
Charles Edwards (1928 – early-1930s): journalist and news agency executive
Bartley Kives (2000–2016): arts and news writer; left to join CBWT-DT as a television journalist.
Vince Leah (1980–1993): journalist, writer, sports administrator and member of the Order of Canada
Bob Moir (1948–1958): television producer, sports commentator, and journalist
Hal Sigurdson (1951–1963; 1976–1996): columnist and sports editor from 1976 to 1989
Maurice Smith (1927–1937; 1940–1976): columnist and sports editor from 1944 to 1976
Scott Young (1936–1940): sports writer from 1936 to 1940 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5th_Cavalry_Regiment | 5th Cavalry Regiment | The 5th Cavalry Regiment ("Black Knights") is a historical unit of the United States Army that began its service on March 3, 1855, as the Second Cavalry Regiment. On August 3, 1861, it was redesignated as the 5th Cavalry Regiment following an act of Congress directing "that the two regiments of dragoons, the regiment of mounted riflemen, and the two regiments of cavalry shall hereafter be known and recognized, as the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth regiments of cavalry respectively..." and continues in modified organizational format in the U.S. Army.
== Formation and the frontier ==
The war with Mexico had resulted in adding a vast territory to our national domain, and the government was bound, in the interests of civilization, to open this immense area to settlement. California, because of her rich deposits of gold, soon solved the problem without requiring much assistance from the army. While the Indians were numerous in that state, they were not warlike, and they readily conformed themselves to the new order of affairs. But the country between the Missouri River and California was an almost unknown territory, occupied by powerful and warlike tribes of Indians...the army was to lead in the work of civilization, and the army was also to be an honest and impartial arbiter standing between the pioneers and the Indians, compelling both to respect the law and obey it, or to disobey it at their peril.
The size of the regular U.S. Army remained the same since prior to the Mexican War (1846–1848), but it's "duty...had been nearly doubled." As a consequence, General Winfield Scott requested from Congress, that additional forces be added to the Army, and in 1855 Congress authorized the 1st and 2nd Cavalry Regiments to be added to the U.S. Army. On 3 March 1855, the 2nd Cavalry Regiment (later to be known as the 5th Cavalry Regiment) was activated in Louisville, Kentucky with troopers drawn from the states of Alabama, Maryland, Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia. Each company rode mounts of a certain color, so a trooper's company could easily be identified in the confusion of battle, and so that the regiment appeared more splendid and organized during dress parades. Company A rode grays, Companies B and E rode sorrels, Companies C, D, F, and I had bays, Companies G and H rode browns, and Company K rode roans.
The following were the initial officers of the regiment. Many rose to high rank during the American Civil War.
Colonel (COL):
Albert Sidney Johnston
Lt. Colonel (LTC):
Robert Edward Lee
Majors (MAJ):
William Joseph Hardee; George Henry Thomas
Captains (CPT):
Earl Van Dorn; Edmund Kirby Smith; James Oakes; Innis Newton Palmer; George Stoneman; Albert G. Brackett; Charles Jarvis Whiting
First Lieutenants (1LT):
Nathan G. Evans; Richard Woodhouse Johnson; Joseph H. McArthur; Charles William Field; Kenner Garrard; Walter H. Jennifer, William B. Royall
Second Lieutenants (2LT):
George Blake Cosby; William Warren Lowe; John Bell Hood; Junius Brutus Wheeler; A. Parker Porter, Wesley Owens; James Patrick Major; Fitzhugh Lee
After receiving cavalry training at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, the regiment, under COL Albert Sidney Johnston, began riding out to Fort Belknap, Texas. The journey to the fort was long and hard; the 700 men and 800 horses of the 2nd Cavalry marched over the Ozark Mountains, through Arkansas, and into Indian Territory until they arrived on 27 December 1855. COL Johnston immediately received orders to set up Headquarters along with Companies B, C, D, G, H, and I at Fort Mason, Texas. Arriving on 14 January 1856, the men arrived at the post (which had been abandoned for two years) and immediately began work repairing it. On 22 February 1856, Company C of the 2nd Cavalry, under the command of Captain James Oaks, engaged the Waco Indians in their first battle just west of Fort Terrett, Texas.
In July 1857, LTC Robert E. Lee arrived at Fort Mason to take command of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment. That same month, 2LT John Bell Hood led a company of the 2nd Cavalry into the Texas frontier. Near the Devils River, the patrol spotted a band of Comanche warriors holding a white flag of truce, and 2LT Hood went to speak with them. The warriors dropped their white flag and began lighting fires to carefully placed burn piles in order to provide a smoke screen. 30 more Indians, hiding within 10 paces of the Cavalry troopers, began attacking with arrows and guns. The cavalrymen charged and engaged in hand-to-hand fighting, but were forced to withdraw under the cover of revolver fire in the face of two-to-one odds. 2LT Hood was wounded by an arrow through the left hand in this engagement, but continued to serve with the 2nd Cavalry.
On 15 February 1858, MAJ William J. Hardee was instructed to proceed from Fort Belknap with Companies A, F, H, and K to Otter Creek, Texas and establish a Supply Station. On 29 February, they came upon a large encampment of Comanche Indians near Wichita Village. In July 1858, the entire regiment assembled at Fort Belknap in anticipation of joining Johnston in Utah to subjugate rebellious Mormons. Their orders were rescinded and they instead formed a striking force, the "Wichita Expedition," against the Comanche. Led by MAJ Earl Van Dorn, four companies trapped and defeated a sizable force of Comanches on 1 October at the Wichita Village Fight, and followed it up on 13 May 1859, with a similar victory at the Battle of Crooked Creek in Kansas. During this period (1858–1861), the regiment fought in some forty engagements against the Apaches, Bannocks, Cheyennes, Comanches, Kiowas, Utes and other tribes along with Mexican banditos.
== American Civil War ==
Early in 1861, the regiment went to Carlisle Barracks, where the officers and men loyal to the South left the regiment to serve in the Confederate States Army. Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee was replaced by Lt. Col. George Henry Thomas. The regiment was rebuilt with new officers and recruits loyal to the Union and was assigned to the Army of the Potomac under the command of General George McClellan. On 21 July 1861, the regiment participated in its first battle of the American Civil War, the First Battle of Bull Run; it was the last action in which they would be called the "2nd Cavalry." In the summer of 1861, all regular mounted regiments were re-designated as "cavalry", and being last in seniority among the existing regiments, the regiment was re-designated as the 5th United States Cavalry. During the Civil War, the regiment fought at the Battle of Gaines's Mill, the Battle of Fairfax Courthouse, the Battle of Williamsport, the Battle of Martinsburg, the Battle of Gettysburg, the Battle of Wilderness, the Battle of Aiken, and the Shenandoah Valley Campaign, among many others. The 5th Cavalry's most notable action came at Gaines Mills, when the regiment charged a Confederate division under command of a former comrade, General John Bell Hood. The regiment suffered heavy casualties in the battle, but their attack saved the Union artillery from annihilation. This battle is commemorated on the regimental crest by the cross moline, in the yellow field on the lower half of the crest.
On 9 April 1865, the 5th Cavalry was selected to serve as the Union Honor Guard for the surrender of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Courthouse. The regiment stood by solemnly as it watched its former commander, General Robert E. Lee, surrender to the Union Army.
== Indian Wars ==
In September 1868, the 5th Cavalry Regiment received its orders and began preparations for duty against hostile Indians in Kansas and Nebraska. In the following years the 5th Cavalry fought many skirmishes and battles against the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho on the Great Plains, and against the Utes in Colorado. On 8 July 1869 at the Republican River in Kansas, Cpl John Kyle made a valiant stand against attacking Indians resulting in him receiving the Medal of Honor. The 5th was then sent to Arizona, where it defeated the Apaches in 95 engagements from 1871 to 1874. Due to these actions, General William Sherman told a committee from the United States House of Representatives that "the services of the 5th Cavalry Regiment in Arizona were unequaled by that of any Cavalry Regiment." After General Custer and 264 of his men died at the Battle of Little Big Horn, troopers of the 5th rode after the Sioux to avenge the deaths of their fellow cavalrymen. The punitive ride quickly became known as the Horsemeat March, one of the most brutal forced marches in American military history. Men and horses suffered from starvation, but they eventually caught up with the Indians. Under the leadership of Col. Wesley Merritt, a Civil War veteran, the 5th was instrumental in defeating the Indians at the Battle of Slim Buttes. It was the first significant victory for the army following Little Bighorn. In the next few years the principal engagements in which the regiment took part were with the 2nd Cavalry and 3rd Cavalry.
== Greely Expedition ==
As the Indian Wars continued, an officer of the 5th Cavalry Regiment, Lieutenant Adolphus Washington Greely, who had overseen the construction of some 2,000 miles of telegraph lines in Texas, Montana, and the Dakota Territories, was selected to lead an exploratory expedition to the Arctic. On 7 July 1881, Greely and his men left St. John's, Newfoundland, and arrived at Lady Franklin Bay on 26 August, where they established Fort Conger on Ellesmere Island, Canada, just across the narrow strait from the northwest tip of Greenland. During their tenure at Fort Conger, Greely and his men explored regions closer to the North Pole than anyone had previously gone. Although they were able to acquire much needed scientific data about arctic weather conditions which was used by later arctic explorers, the expedition lost all but seven men out of the original 25 members of the party. The rest had succumbed to starvation, hypothermia, and drowning, and one man, Private Henry, had been shot on Greely's order for repeated theft of food rations. The survivors were eventually rescued by a naval relief effort under Cdr. Winfield Scott Schley on 22 June 1884.
== Spanish–American War ==
In 1898, the Spanish–American War began after the USS Maine (ACR-1) sunk under suspicious circumstances in Havana, Cuba. As the US mobilized for war, the 5th Cavalry was sent from San Antonio, Texas to Tampa, Florida. A shortage of naval transports and an abundance of military units eager to get into the action meant that the 5th Cavalry Regiment had to be split up, and only a few troops made it to Puerto Rico in time to engage the enemy. Alongside 17,000 other US troops, the troopers landed on the southwest coast of Puerto Rico at the port of Guánica, 15 miles west of Ponce. In July 1898, the regiment was split into four columns of both dismounted scouts and mounted cavalry, and in early August began patrolling across the mountainous enemy-held countryside. Troop A saw most of the action in the Puerto Rican Campaign; under General Theodore Schwan, it was part of the 2,800 man "Independent Regular Brigade." Troop A performed well at the Battle of Silva Heights, at Las Marias and at Hormigueros where the 1,400 Spanish defenders beat a hasty retreat. The regiment's service in this war is symbolized by the white Maltese cross in the black chief of the upper half of the regimental coat of arms. The Spanish turned over the island of Puerto Rico to the United States on 10 December 1898. The 5th Cavalry remained on the island until early in 1899, when it returned to San Antonio.
== 1901–1916 ==
In 1901, the regiment, minus the 2nd Squadron, embarked for the distant Philippine Islands to help put down the bloody Philippine–American War being fought there. In 1902, the 2nd Squadron proceeded to the Philippines to join the rest of the regiment. Dismounted, they battled in the jungles of the Pacific to help end the rebellion and defeat the army of Philippine revolutionary Emilio Aguinaldo.
After returning to the United States, in March 1903 the troopers of the 5th Cavalry were spread throughout Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. Some of them fought Navajo Indians in small battles located in Arizona and Utah; a rarity in the twentieth century. The Regiment remained split up for five years until January 1909, when Headquarters along with 1st and 3rd Squadrons were reassigned to Pacific duty to strengthen the U.S. military presence in the new territory of Hawaii.
Although there was a small Army population on the island of Oahu, the deployment of cavalry troops mandated a permanent Army post. By December, Captain Joseph C. Castner had finished the plans for the development of today's Schofield Barracks. The 2nd squadron arrived in October 1910, to help in the completion of the construction. In 1913, threats to the United States-Mexico border brought the 5th Cavalry back to the deserts of the Southwest, where it was stationed at Fort Apache and Fort Huachuca, Arizona.
== Mexican Expedition ==
In 1916, the regiment was dispatched to the Mexican border to serve as part of the Pancho Villa Expedition commanded by General John "Black Jack" Pershing. Commanded for part of its border service by William Jones Nicholson, the regiment crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico and was successful in stopping the border raids conducted by bandits of Pancho Villa who had expanded their criminal operations into the United States, and had brought death to American citizens. The Regiment remained with the Punitive Expedition in Mexico, until 5 February 1917. When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, the 5th Cavalry was selected to remain stateside and defend against incursions along the Mexican border.
After several relocations, in October, the regiment moved into Fort Bliss, relieving the 8th Cavalry Regiment. Following the Mexican Punitive Expedition, the 5th Cavalry Regiment was spread throughout Texas helping safeguard wagon trains, patrolling the Mexican border and training. In 1918, airplanes and tanks had emerged from World War I as the weapons of the future. However, the long history of the Cavalry was not finished. The cavalry remained as the fastest and most effective force for patrolling the remote desert areas of the Southwest and Mexican border. Airplanes and mechanized vehicles were not reliable enough or adapted for ranging across the rugged countryside, setting up ambushes, conducting stealthy reconnaissance missions and engaging in fast moving skirmishes with minimal support. In many ways, it was just the beginning of a new era. 5th Cavalry troopers were getting into frequent, small scaled combats with raiders, smugglers and Mexican Revolutionaries along the Rio Grande River. In one skirmish in June 1919, four units, the 5th and 7th Cavalry Regiments, the 8th Engineers (Mounted) and 82nd Field Artillery Battalion (Horse) saw action against Pancho Villa's Villistas. On 15 June, Mexican snipers fired across the Rio Grande and killed a trooper of the 82nd Field Artillery who was standing picket duty. In hot pursuit, the troopers and the horse artillery engaged a column of Villistas near Ciudad Juárez. Following a successful engagement, the cavalry expedition returned to the United States side of the border.
== Interwar years ==
On 18 December 1922, the 5th Cavalry Regiment relieved the 10th Cavalry Regiment and became part of the new 1st Cavalry Division; it has served with this division ever since. In 1923, the division conducted maneuvers in Camp Marfa, Texas and all the 5th Cavalry's wagon trains were drawn by Mules, as it was not motorized yet. The early missions of the division and the 5th Cavalry largely consisted of rough riding, patrolling the Mexican border and constant training. Operating from horseback, the cavalry was the only force capable of piercing the harsh terrain of the desert to halt the groups of smugglers that operated along the desolate Mexican border.
As tensions in Europe began to rise in the 1930s, the 5th Cavalry Regiment continued to train with anticipations of war. The Great Depression of the 1930s forced thousands of unemployed workers into the streets. From 1933 to 1936, the troopers of the 5th Cavalry Regiment provided training and leadership for some of the 62,500 people of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in Arizona-New Mexico District. One of these workers' significant accomplishments was the construction of barracks for 20,000 anti-aircraft troops at Fort Bliss, Texas.
World War II in Europe began on 1 September 1939 with the German Invasion of Poland, the same day the 1st Cavalry Division was performing maneuvers near Balmorhea, Texas. The 5th Cavalry participated in the Louisiana maneuvers and returned to Fort Bliss in October 1941; they were preparing for war despite the fact that the USA was still neutral. On 7 December 1941, the Japanese Empire attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and drew the United States into the war. The men of the 5th Cavalry Regiment returned from leave and began readying for combat.
== World War II ==
In February 1943, the entire 1st Cavalry Division was alerted for overseas deployment. The soldiers of the division were growing impatient in their idleness, but in order to go to combat, they were dismounted, and ordered to the Southwest Pacific as foot-soldiers; the age of the horse cavalry had ended. In mid-June 1943, the 5th Cavalry Regiment departed Fort Bliss, Texas and headed west to Camp Stoneman, California. On 3 July, the men boarded the SS Monterey and the SS George Washington for Australia. On 26 July, the troopers arrived at Brisbane and were camped at Camp Strathpine. They conducted jungle warfare training in the wilds of Queensland and amphibious training at Moreton Bay. In January 1944, the 1st Cavalry Division left Australia for Oro Bay, New Guinea and began staging there for their first combat operation.
=== Los Negros ===
On 27 February 1944, Task Force "Brewer", consisting of 1,026 troopers, sailed from Cape Sudest, Oro Bay, New Guinea under the command of Brigadier General William C. Chase. Their objective was a remote Japanese-occupied island of the Admiralties, Los Negros, where they were to make a reconnaissance in force and if feasible, capture Momote Airfield and secure a beachhead for the reinforcements that would follow. Just after 0800 on 29 February, the 1st Cavalry Division troopers clambered down the nets of the ships and into the LCM's and LCPR's, the flat bottomed landing craft of the Navy. The landing at Hayane Harbor took the Japanese by surprise. The first three waves of the assault troops from the 2nd Squadron, 5th Regiment reached the beach virtually unscathed. The fourth wave was less lucky; by then, the Japanese had been able to readjust their guns to the beachhead and some casualties were suffered. The Battle of Los Negros had begun.
Troops under the command of LTC William E. Lobit of Galveston, Texas, dispersed and attacked through the rain. They quickly fought their way to the Momote Airfield and had the entire airfield under control in less than two hours. The United Press would hail the Los Negros landing as "one of the most brilliant maneuvers of the war." Shortly after 1400 on "D" day, General MacArthur arrived on shore and inspected and praised the Cavalry troopers' actions and accomplishments; then ordered General Chase to defend the airstrip at all costs against Japanese counterattacks. He finally headed back to the beach where he presented the Distinguished Service Cross to Lt. Marvin J. Henshaw, 5th Cavalry, of Haskell, Texas. Lt. Henshaw had been the first American to land on Los Negros in the first wave, leading his platoon ashore through the narrow ramp of a Higgins boat.
As nightfall approached, the troopers began preparations for what they knew was coming; a counterattack. In the darkness around 0200 in the morning, the Japanese infiltrated the 5th Cavalry's perimeter. Hand-to-hand fighting broke out near some foxholes and tough fighting raged the next day and through the night. Japanese pressure on the invasion force remained desperate and intense. The arrival of the 5th Cavalry's reinforcements helped to turn the tide of the fight. In a coordinated maneuver, the 40th Naval Construction Battalion (Seabees) landed on Los Negros Island in support of the 5th Cavalry. Their mission was to reconstruct the Momote Airfield. Assigned to defend a large portion of the right flank, the 40th suffered heavy casualties while defending the airfield alongside the troopers of the 5th. Along with the 40th, the consolidated 5th Regiment soon secured all of the Momote Airfield and spent the long night of 2 March, repulsing Banzai attacks.
The 5th Cavalry Regiment spent its 89th anniversary in combat as they fought off attacks from the Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces. Combat raged on the island on March 3–4. At one point the Japanese had penetrated several hundred yards inside the defense perimeter near G Troop. The cavalrymen rallied and they wiped out the attackers. It was during this fight that a member of the regiment, Staff Sergeant Troy McGill, earned the 5th Cavalry Regiment's, and the 1st Cavalry Division's, first Medal of Honor of World War II. SSG McGill, of Ada, Oklahoma, was the senior man in charge of a line foxholes dug in 35 yards ahead of the main American positions. Suddenly, this line was attacked by a company of 200 Japanese soldiers on a suicidal banzai charge. After all but one of his men were killed or wounded, he ordered the survivor to withdraw and provided covering fire. He held his foxhole, and when his weapon failed, SSG McGill charged the enemy and clubbed them until he was killed. The next morning, 146 enemy dead were found in front of his position.
On 4 March, reinforcements arrived and these men quickly joined the action. On 6 March, the 2nd Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment relieved the 5th Cavalry, which had been in almost continuous combat for four days and nights. On 6 March, the 5th Cavalry went back into action to occupy Porolka and the first American planes began using Momote airstrip to assist in the battle. The next day the Black Knights pushed south and overran Papitalai Village on Manus Island after a short amphibious landing assault. By 10–11 March, mop up operations were underway all over the northern half of Los Negros Island and attention was being given to future operations; and the 5th Cavalry was sent west to begin further operations on the large Manus Island. With attention focused on the opening of new operations at Hauwei Island, the 5th Cavalry, alongside the 12th Cavalry, began working their way south of Papitalai Mission through the rough hills and dense jungles in close range, sometimes hand to hand, combat. Tanks occasionally would give welcome support, but mostly the troopers had to do the dangerous job with small arms and grenades. On 22 March, two squadrons from the 5th and 12th Regiments overran enemy positions west of Papitalai Mission. Once again it was tough fighting with the terrain, overgrown with thick canopies of vines, favoring the Japanese. On 24 March, the 5th and 12th Regiments overcame fanatical resistance and pushed through to the north end of the island. On 28 March, the battles for Los Negros and Manus were over, except for mop up operations.
The Admiralty Islands campaign officially ended on 18 May 1944. Japanese casualties stood at 3,317 killed. The losses of the 1st Cavalry Division were 290 dead, 977 wounded and four missing in action. Training, discipline, determination and ingenuity had won over suicidal attacks. The 5th Cavalry Troopers were now seasoned veterans.
=== Leyte ===
On Columbus Day, 12 October 1944, the 1st Cavalry Division departed its hard earned base in the Admiralties for the Leyte invasion, Operation King II. The invasion force arrived on 20 October. Precisely at 1000 hours, the first wave of the 1st Cavalry Division hit the beach. The landing, at "White Beach" was between the mouth of the Palo River, to the south of Tacloban, the capital city of Leyte. Troopers of the 5th, 7th and 12th Cavalry Regiments quickly fanned out across the sands and moved into the shattered jungle against occasional sniper fire.
The fighting near the beaches was still was underway when General MacArthur and Philippines President Sergio Osmeña waded ashore. MacArthur soon broadcast his famous message to the Filipinos: "People of the Philippines: I have returned. By the grace of Almighty God, our forces stand again on the Philippine soil—soil concentrated in the blood of our two peoples... Rally to me! Rise and strike!" To the Philippine resistance and the 17 million inhabitants of the archipelago, it was the news they had long hoped for.
The missions of the 1st Cavalry Division in late October and early November included moving across Leyte's northern coast, through the rugged mountainous terrain and deeper into Leyte Valley. The 5th Cavalry experienced savage combat in rugged terrain when the men secured the central mountain range of Leyte. By 15 November, elements of the 5th and 7th Regiments pushed west and southwest within a thousand yards of the Ormoc-Pinamapoan Highway. By 11 January 1945, the Japanese losses amounted to nearly 56,200 killed in action and only a handful - 389 had surrendered. Leyte had indeed been the largest campaign in the Pacific War, but that record was about to be shattered during the invasion of Luzon.
=== Luzon ===
On 27 January 1945, the men of the 5th Cavalry Regiment landed at Lingayen Gulf on the island of Luzon. There was no resistance, and the Battle of Luzon began with quiet start. With the objective of pushing south and southwest, the regiment assembled at Guimba and received this order from General MacArthur; "Go to Manila! Go around the Japs, bounce off the Japs, save your men, but get to Manila! Free the internees at Santo Tomas! Take the Malacanan Palace and the legislative building!" The next day, elements of the 5th Cavalry joined the infamous "flying column" formed by the 1st Cavalry Division and cut 100 miles deep into Japanese territory and managed to rescue the internees at the Santo Tomas prison camp on 3 February; the prisoners were freed, but the troops of the flying column were far ahead of the advanced American positions. The 5th Cavalry was relieved by elements of the 37th Infantry Division on 7 February and resumed offensive operations against the enemy. As 5th Cavalry troopers continued fighting in Manila, they experienced urban warfare, uncommon in the Pacific Theater. On 23 February, E Troop advanced down a street in Manila supported by tanks, but was attacked by hidden machine-guns and rifle fire. The troop commander was wounded in the middle of the street but PFC William J. Grabiarz ran to save him. After being hit in the shoulder, he was unable to carry his officer so he laid in front of him to shield him from the enemy bullets while calling for tank support. He managed to save his commanding officer from death, but he was riddled by bullets himself and was killed in action. PFC Grabiarz's selfless actions earned him the regiment's second Medal of Honor of World War II.
On 12 April, the 5th Cavalry Regiment pushed south down the Bicol Peninsula in order to link up with the 158th Regimental Combat Team and clear the area of Japanese. They completed this on 29 April after B Troop along with attached engineers launched an amphibious assault in Ragay Gulf near Pasacao. After more fighting across Luzon and stiff battles to drive out stubborn Japanese resistance, the Luzon Campaign was officially declared over on 30 June 1945.
=== Occupation of Japan ===
On 13 August 1945, the 5th Cavalry received orders to accompany General MacArthur to Tokyo as part of the 8th Army occupation force. After arrival in Tokyo, 5th Cavalry headquarters was located at Camp McGill in Yokosuka. The troopers of the 5th Cavalry Regiment were given guard and security missions in the Tokyo area where General MacArthur had taken up his residence. Over the next five years, until the Korean War began, the regiment performed many important duties and services that helped Japan reconstruct and create a strong economy. On 25 March 1949, the regiment was reorganized and Troops became Companies once again, and Squadrons became Battalions.
== Korean War ==
On 25 June 1950, the Army of North Korea crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded South Korea, overrunning and destroying large elements of the Republic of Korea Army; within three days, North Korea had captured Seoul. On 30 June, the United States sent Air Force, Navy, and Marine troops, along with a 1,000 man Army battalion from the 24th Infantry Division and advisers from the 1st Cavalry Division to support the ROK Army. On 18 July, the 1st Cavalry Division was ordered to Korea and landed at Pohang-dong, 80 miles north of Pusan, and 25 miles south of the communist forces. The 5th Cavalry quickly marched on Taejon and was deployed into battle position by 22 July. The next day, the men received their baptism by fire. The 8th Cavalry Regiment was swarmed by North Korean troops and the 1-5 Cavalry was sent to fill in the line. On 24 July, F Company moved to assist the overwhelmed 1-5 Cavalry on their right flank, but the numbers of North Korean troops was too much for the troopers. Only 26 men from Companies B and F escaped alive to friendly territory.
Over the next few days, a defensive line was formed at Hwanggan, and the 5th Cavalry relieved elements of the battered 25th Infantry Division on the line. This line became known as the Pusan Perimeter, and the troopers held on for over 50 days against unrelenting North Korean attacks. On 9 August, 1-5 Cavalry bore the brunt of a massive enemy attack of five divisions near Taegu. Troopers of the 5th and 7th Cavalry Regiments used artillery and air support to defeat the North Koreans, and seized Hill 268, "Triangulation Hill," accounting for 400 enemy dead. The 5th Cavalry Regiment withstood two more large attacks, but held the perimeter. Pusan became a vital staging port for United Nations troops and materiel, and thanks to the efforts of the troops on the perimeter, enough time had been gained that now the defenders outnumbered the attackers. On 17 August, after a battle with North Korean troops, a mortar unit from H Company, 5th Cavalry was forced to surrender. The men were tied up, and 42 were shot and killed and 4-5 more were wounded; this became known as the Hill 303 massacre.
When Operation Chromite was launched at Inchon, pressure was relieved from the 1st Cavalry Division positions, allowing them to take the offensive. On 26 September 1950, the 5th Cavalry Regiment crossed the Naktong River and advanced to Sangju, Hamhung, and Osan-dong. The regiment then seized Chongo, Chochiwan, and Chouni from the reeling enemy. On 2 October, the regiment was ordered to establish a bridgehead across the Imjin River, and by 9 October, they had pushed north of the 38th Parallel. On 12 October, as the 5th drove toward the enemy capital, C Company was fighting North Korean forces for control of Hill 174. During the battle one trooper entered an enemy foxhole he thought to be unoccupied. The man was wounded, but his platoon leader, 1LT Samuel S. Coursen, ran to his rescue. Disregarding his own safety, 1LT Coursen engaged in hand-to-hand combat until he was killed. When his body was recovered, seven enemy dead lay in the foxhole. 1LT Coursen saved his soldier's life at the cost of his own and received the Medal of Honor. The 5th Cavalry entered Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, on 19 October and was the first American unit to do so.
On 25 October 1950, Communist Chinese forces intervened and attacked in force across the Yalu River into Korea. On 24 November, GEN MacArthur ordered the 1st Cavalry Division back to the front from its reserve positions to counterattack. Despite this, UN forces fell back and executed an ignominious retreat in the face of overwhelming numbers of Chinese and the bitter cold of the Korean winter. On 25 January 1951, the 5th Cavalry Regiment moved with the rest of the Eighth Army to counterattack, and advanced 2 miles per day despite fierce resistance and extreme weather. On the night of 29–30 January, A Company, 1-5 Cavalry was fighting the Chinese for control of Hill 312. Here, 1LT Robert M. McGovern led his platoon into battle despite heavy wounds, throwing back enemy grenades and knocking out machine guns before he was fatally wounded. 1LT McGovern would receive the Medal of Honor.
On 14 February, the 5th Cavalry Regiment received word that the 2nd Infantry Division's 23rd Infantry Regiment and French Battalion were trapped at Chipyong-ni. The troopers formed a rescue force called Task Force Crombez, and set out with M4A3 Sherman and M46 Patton tanks (painted with tiger stripes) at once. The sight of these fearsome tanks sent the Chinese running from their entrenched positions, allowing the tanks and troopers of L Company, 5th Cavalry, to cut them down in the open. On 15 February 1951, TF Crombez broke through the enemy perimeter and relieved the forces inside, ending the standoff. The Battle of Chipyong-ni has been called "the Gettysburg of the Korean War", as it signified the high-water mark of the Chinese invasion.
Once the dynamic attacks and counterattacks by UN and Chinese forces were spent, the 5th Cavalry Regiment was then part of the "see-saw" fighting against the Communists for control of strategic hills and ridges across Korea. This static warfare was costly and frustrating. During one of the UN major fall campaigns, on 28 October 1951, G Company, 5th Cavalry was engaged in a desperate fight for control of Hill 200 against the Chinese. The American assault stalled until 1LT Lloyd L. Burke charged forward and knocked out two enemy bunkers with grenades and his M1 Garand. On his third charge, he caught enemy grenades in midair and hurled them back at the Chinese. 1LT Burke captured an enemy machine gun and used it to pour flanking fire into the hostile positions, killing 75. Inspired by this show of bravery, his 35 troopers rallied and carried the hill and killed 25 enemies. 1LT Burke was the 5th Cavalry's last Medal of Honor recipient in the Korean War. During their second winter in-country, the 5th Cavalry was relieved and rotated back to back to Hokkaido, Japan on 7 December 1951 after 549 days of constant combat.
== Vietnam War ==
The regiment was reorganized in August 1963 as the 1st and 2nd Battalions, 5th Cavalry Regiment, with the 3rd Squadron, 5th Cavalry added later and serving with the 9th Infantry Division as its armored cavalry squadron. The 1st and 2nd Battalions were organized at Fort Benning in 1965 as airmobile infantry, and then deployed to South Vietnam as part of the 1st Cavalry Division.
=== 1st and 2nd Battalions ===
Between 12 and 13 September 1965, the bulk of the 1st Cavalry Division arrived in South Vietnam and the 5th Cavalry was soon in action; from 18 to 20 September, 2-5 Cavalry supported friendly elements in Operation Gibraltar. However, their first real test did not come until the Battle of Ia Drang. During the fight for LZ X-Ray, elements of the 7th Cavalry were surrounded by large People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) forces, and 2-5 Cavalry arrived to help. They arrived on the American line and quickly engaged enemy forces, eventually rescuing the "lost platoon" led by SGT Ernie Savage. Once the battle was complete, the 2/5th Cavalrymen set out for LZ Columbus while Alpha Company 1/5th Cavalry and 2/7th Cavalry set out for LZ Albany. The column was ambushed by the PAVN near LZ Albany losing 155 killed for the loss of at least 403 PAVN killed. The 1st Cavalry Division earned the Presidential Unit Citation for their role in the Ia Drang Campaign.
The Viet Cong (VC) was being starved of their food supplies by allied forces, and American commanders launched Operation Paul Revere II on 2 August 1966 to prevent them from capturing rice from farmers; the 1st Cavalry Division was to be used in this operation. Near the border with Cambodia on 14 August, A Co, 1-5 Cavalry inadvertently engaged an entire PAVN battalion, and at the same time, B Co, 2-5 Cavalry began clearing out a series of enemy bunkers dug into the jungle. The next morning, 5th Cav troopers found the bodies of 138 enemy soldiers.
On 13 September 1966, the US Army launched Operation Thayer, the largest air assault operation of the entire war. On 2 October, other elements of the 1st Cavalry Division were engaging in heavy combat, and A and C Companies, 1-5 Cavalry were sent east of the main forces to contain enemy movements. On the morning of 3 October, the two companies attacked south and drove the enemy into blocking positions set up by the 12th Cavalry; a classic hammer and anvil attack.
On 13 February 1967, 5th Cavalry Regiment elements took part in Operation Pershing, the longest operation of the 1st Cavalry Division. It ended on 21 January 1968, and resulted in the capture of 2,400 prisoners, 1,500 individual and 137 crew weapons from the enemy, as well as inflicting 5,401 casualties.
On 30 January 1968, the PAVN/VC launched the Tet Offensive during the Vietnamese New Year's celebrations. Near Quảng Trị, Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) troops were surrounded by VC, and 1-5 Cavalry and 1-12 Cavalry were airlifted to Thon An Thai Valley to the east. These cavalrymen broke the enemy siege, and for ten days the troopers would hound the retreating communists. Following their participation in Operation Pegasus, the relief of Khe Sanh Combat Base, the 2nd Brigade remained in the Khe Sanh area. From 9 to 16 May, the 2nd Brigade conducted Operation Concordia Square/Lam Son 224 in the Leatherneck Square area of eastern Quảng Trị Province under the operation control of the 3rd Marine Division, resulting in 349 PAVN and 28 U.S. killed.
After Phase II of the Tet Offensive ended in PAVN/VC defeat, US troops launched Operation Jeb Stuart III. 3-5 Cavalry, assigned to the 9th Infantry Division, attacked the village of Binh An after they discovered the entire PAVN K-14 Battalion, 814th Regiment was located there. A, B, and C Troops of 3-5 Cavalry assaulted the village from the ground with armor support, while D Co, 1-5, and C Co, 2-5 were airlifted to a nearby LZ and closed in on the village. A final assault was made on the enemy on the morning of 28 June. PAVN casualties were reported as 233 men killed with 44 captured, while only three 5th Cavalrymen were casualties.
In late 1968 the 5th Cavalry elements participated in Operation Toan Thang II, and in Operation Cheyenne Sabre in February 1969.
Although 26 March 1971 was the official date when the 1st Cavalry Division was relieved from combat duties in Vietnam, 2-5 Cavalry helped established 3rd Brigade headquarters in Bien Hoa by interdicting enemy supply routes in War Zone D. On 12 May, 3rd platoon, D Co, 2-5th Cavalry tangled with enemy forces holed up in bunker complexes. With help from the Air Force and 3rd Brigade helicopter gunships, the troopers captured the complex. On 14 June, D Company was involved in another battle when it ran into an ambush in heavy jungle and engaged a company-sized enemy unit. The troopers were pinned down in a well-sprung trap, cavalry field artillery soon pounded the PAVN positions and Cobra gunship fire rained on the enemy positions keeping pressure on the withdrawing PAVN throughout the night.
On 21 June 1972, the last 1st Cavalry Division troops left South Vietnam. In Vietnam 5th Cavalry units participated in twelve campaigns. Six 5th Cavalry Regiment Troopers received the Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War; Billy Lane Lauffer, Charles C. Hagemeister, George Alan Ingalls, Edgar Lee McWethy Jr., Carmel Bernon Harvey Jr., and Jesus S. Duran.
=== 3rd Squadron ===
Organized at Fort Riley, Kansas, as the 9th Infantry Division's ground reconnaissance squadron, the 3rd Squadron arrived in Vietnam in February 1967. Initially deployed west of Saigon near the Mekong Delta region with the rest of the division, the squadron took part in the majority of the division's early combat operations. During Operation Junction City, the squadron took part in the Battle of Ap Bau Bang II on 19–20 March 1967.
By 1968 the 9th Infantry Division was reorganizing in response to perceived difficulties operating in the Delta region. As a result, three of the squadron's four troops (all the armored cavalry assets) were transferred to the I Corps area of South Vietnam. D Troop (the squadron's air cavalry element) remained with the division. An additional infantry battalion was assigned to replace the ground elements sent north.
== Operation Desert Shield/Operation Desert Storm ==
On 12 August 1990, both the 1st and 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, were alerted for duty in Southwest Asia. They deployed with the 1st Cavalry Division to Saudi Arabia in support of Operation Desert Shield / Operation Desert Storm. They were followed by 3rd and 5th Battalions, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 3rd Armored Division (Spearhead ) Ayers Kaserne (The Rock), Kirchgoens, West Germany (redesignated from 2-36 Infantry and 3-36 Infantry) on 28 December 1990 to June 1991.
In December 1994, companies of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Cavalry, deployed to the Former Yugoslavia Republic of Macedonia for peacekeeping duty with the United Nations.
The 3rd Battalion, 5th Cavalry, 1st Brigade (Ready First),1st Armored Division was deployed to Bosnia Herzegovina in December 1995. The Battalion operated out of McGovern Base near Brcko, BiH. Attached to the battalion was Special Operation Detachment Gypsy. Gypsy Team was the civil military operations (CMO) direct support team in Brcko. The team deployed in January 1996 and left the theater in July 1996.
In 1992, Delta Co. 2/5th was deployed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for guard duty on Haitian Immigrants camps setup on the Naval Base.
The battalion was deployed in Bosnia and Herzegovina in December 1995
== 21st century ==
The "Black Knights" returned to Southwest Asia in March 2004 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom II. Task Force 1-5 (TF 1-5) was assigned to the Kadamyia District of western Baghdad. In August 2004 the 1st battalion was shifted from stability operations in Kadamiya to go and fight the Madi Army in Al Najaf Battle of Najaf. After completing the mission in Al Najaf, TF 1-5 returned to Baghdad to resume operations in the Kadamyia District. In November 2004 the 1st battalion was again ordered to assist in the retaking of Al Fallujah in the Second Battle of Fallujah. Once the city was under coalition control TF 1-5 moved to North Babil to support the election process in Iraq. From October 2006 to January 2008, TF 1-5 was deployed to the Mansour District of western Baghdad. The majority of the deployment the battalion was attached the Dagger Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division. Task Force 1-5 fought in Al Amiriya bringing that section of the city under control with the help of one of the first Sons of Iraq movements. In January 2008, TF 1-5 redeployed back to Fort Hood, Texas. In January 2009, TF 1-5 again deployed to Iraq. This time the battalion operated in Al Adamyiah. After the SOFA went into effect the battalion moved north to Camp Taji and took over areas north of the camp. In 2004 Task Force LANCER 2-5 Cav was assigned responsibility for Sadr City, in the north-eastern portion of Baghdad. The battalion conducted over 80 days of sustained combat during the initial months of the deployment. After another 30 days of combat, the task force focused on rebuilding the infrastructure and training Iraqi security forces. These efforts contributed to the success of Iraq's first free elections in January 2005.
The 5th Cavalry Regiment today comprises two battalions, both part of the 1st Cavalry Division. The 1st Battalion is assigned to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, while the 2nd Battalion is assigned to the 1st Brigade Combat Team.
The United States Army has since reactivated another component of the 5th U.S. Cavalry Regiment, in the form of Delta Troop, 5th Cavalry Regiment; as the Brigade Reconnaissance Troop for the 170th Infantry Brigade, in Baumholder, Germany. Although a reflagging of G Troop, 1st Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division; the BRTs of Europe remain the Warding Eye and Fulda Gap presence in Germany. Also Echo Troop, 4th Cavalry Regiment, has been reflagged to Echo Troop, 5th Cavalry Regiment, of the 172nd Infantry Brigade in Grafenwoehr, Germany.
In October 2012, D Troop inactivated with the 170th Infantry Brigade. E Troop and the 172nd Infantry Brigade inactivated in May 2013.
== Current status ==
1st Battalion is a combined arms battalion of the 2nd BCT, 1st Cavalry Division stationed at Fort Hood, Texas.
2nd Battalion is a combined arms battalion of the 1st BCT, 1st Cavalry Division stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Connolly | James Connolly | James Connolly (Irish: Séamas Ó Conghaile; 5 June 1868 – 12 May 1916) was a Scottish-born Irish republican, socialist, and trade union leader, executed for his part in the 1916 Easter Rising against British rule in Ireland. He remains an important figure both for the Irish labour movement and for Irish republicanism.
He became an active socialist in Scotland, where he had been born in 1868 to Irish parents. On moving to Ireland in 1896, he established the country's first socialist party, the Irish Socialist Republican Party. It called for an Ireland independent not only of Britain's Crown and Parliament, but also of British "capitalists, landlords and financiers".
From 1905 to 1910, he was a full-time organiser in the United States for the Industrial Workers of the World, choosing its syndicalism over the doctrinaire Marxism of Daniel DeLeon's Socialist Labor Party of America, to which he had been initially drawn. Returning to Ireland, he deputised for James Larkin in organising for the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, first in Belfast and then in Dublin.
In Belfast, he was frustrated in his efforts to draw Protestant workers into an all-Ireland labour and socialist movement but, in the wake of the industrial unrest of 1913, acquired in Dublin what he saw as a new means of striking toward the goal of a Workers' Republic. At the beginning of 1916, he committed the union's militia, the Irish Citizen Army (ICA), to the plans of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and the Irish Volunteers, for war-time insurrection.
Alongside Patrick Pearse, Connolly commanded the insurrection in Easter of that year from rebel garrison holding Dublin's General Post Office. He was wounded in the fighting and, following the rebel surrender at the end of Easter week, was executed along with the six other signatories to the Proclamation of the Irish Republic.
== Early life ==
Connolly was born in the Cowgate or "Little Ireland" district of Edinburgh in 1868, the third son of Mary McGinn and John Connolly, a labourer, both Irish immigrants from Ulster. His mother was from Ballymena, County Antrim and his father from County Monaghan. He spoke with a Scottish accent his entire life.
Relying on his biographer Desmond Greaves, most accounts of his life suggest that it was with the British Army that Connolly first came to Ireland. Greaves reports that Connolly reminisced about being on military guard duty in Cork Harbour on the night in December 1882 when Maolra Seoighe was hanged for the Maamtrasna massacre (the apparent feud killing of a peasant family). This might suggest that, having been listed in the census of the previous year as a 12-year old baker's apprentice, Connolly, following his brother John into the military, had falsified his age and name to enlist in the 1st Battalion, King’s Liverpool Regiment (recruited heavily from the Irish in Britain). If so, it is possible that Connolly also saw service in County Meath during the Land War and in Belfast during the town's deadly sectarian riots in 1886. But absent documentation of his military service, this is a matter of speculation. According to Nora, her father left the army in February 1889 and returned to Scotland.
In Dublin, Connolly had met Lillie Reynolds, and in the New Year, 1890, she followed him to Scotland where, with special dispensation (Reynolds was Protestant) they married in a Catholic church.
== Socialist republican ==
=== Scottish Socialist Federation ===
Again following his brother John, in 1890 Connolly joined the Scottish Socialist Federation, and succeeded his brother as its secretary in 1893. Largely a propaganda organisation, the Federation supported Keir Hardie and his Independent Labour Party (for which Connolly also served as the Edinburgh branch secretary) in the campaign for labour representation in Parliament.
Within the SSF, Connolly was greatly influenced by John Leslie, 12 years his senior, but like him born to poor Irish immigrants. While Leslie did not envisage Ireland breaking the English connection before the advent of a socialist Britain, he was to encourage Connolly in the creation of a separate socialist party in Ireland.
In 1896, after the birth of his third daughter, and having lost, while standing for election to the city-council, his municipal carter's job, and then failed as a cobbler, Connolly considered a future for his family in Chile. But thanks to an appeal by John Leslie, he had the offer of employment in Dublin as a full-time secretary for the Dublin Socialist Club, at £1 per week.
=== Irish Socialist Republican Party ===
In Dublin, where he first became a navvy and then a proof reader, Connolly soon split the Socialist Club, forming in its stead the Irish Socialist Republican Party (ISRP). In what was then, in 1897, the "literary centre of advanced nationalism", Alice Milligan's Belfast monthly, The Shan Van Vocht, he published a first statement of the party credo, "Socialism and Nationalism"", This suggested that, even if a step toward formal independence, the legislature that the Irish Parliamentary Party wished to see restored in Dublin would be a mockery of Irish national aspirations.If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.By the same token, Connolly implied that there was little to be expected from the "Irish Language movements, Literary Societies or [1798] Commemoration Committees" of Milligan and of their mutual friends in Dublin (Arthur Griffith, Maud Gonne, and Constance Markievicz whom Connolly was to join in "to-hell-with-the-British-empire" protests against Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and the Boer War). There could be no lasting progress toward an Irish Ireland without acknowledging that, as a force that "irresistibly destroys all national or racial characteristics", capitalism was the Celtic Revival's "chief enemy".
Milligan, who deferred to the Irish Republican Brotherhood (in 1899 they had her pass her subscription list to Griffith and his new weekly, the United Irishman, the forerunner of Sinn Féin), confined her response to Connolly's ambition to contest Westminster elections. Were the ISRP successful, she predicted "an alliance with the English Labour" no less debilitating than the courtship of English Liberals had proved for the Irish Parliamentary Party. In the event, Ireland's first socialist party, garnering only a few hundred votes, failed to elect Connolly to Dublin City Council and never exceeded more than 80 active members.
Connolly was dispirited and at odds with the ISRP's other leading light, E. W. Stewart, manager of the party's paper, The Worker's Republic and also sometime candidate for the city council. He accused Stewart of "reformism", of failing to appreciate that "the election of a socialist to any public body is only valuable insofar as it is the return of a disturber of the public peace”. In 1900, Connolly had supported the American Marxist Daniel De Leon in condemning the decision in France by the socialist Alexander Millerand, at the height of the Dreyfus Affair, to accept a post in Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau’s government of “Republican Defence”.
== Union and party organiser ==
=== America: Industrial Workers of the World ===
In September 1902, at the invitation of De Leon's Socialist Labor Party, Connolly departed for a four-month lecture tour of the United States. Addressing largely Irish-American audiences, he emphasised that he spoke for class, not country:I represent only the class to which I belong…I could not represent the entire Irish people on account of the antagonistic interests of these classes, no more than the wolf could represent the lambs or the fisherman the fish.On his return, Connolly had his resignation from the IRSP accepted without demur. He returned to Scotland for the Social Democratic Federation, where, after witnessing the organisation's expulsion of "De Leonists", he decided on a future in America.
On arrival in the United States, and before he could call on his family to join him, Connolly lived with cousins in Troy, New York, and found work as a salesman for insurance companies. But by 1905, and after being elected to the national executive of the Socialist Labor Party, he had returned to political work. With De Leon's endorsement, he was an organiser for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the "One Big Union".
Finding employment with the Singer Sewing Machine in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and living in The Bronx, he befriended the young Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (daughter of a neighbouring couple from Galway), who was to become the "Wobblies" chief agitator among the largely immigrant women of the east-coast textile industry. Together they were supported by Mother Jones, "America’s Most Dangerous Woman”, the Wobblies' co-founder and a veteran organiser for the United Mine Workers whom Connolly had learnt to admire from Ireland.
With Flynn, and with ex-ILP member Patrick L. Quinlan, in 1907 Connolly formed the Irish Socialist Federation (ISF) to promote the SLP's message among Irish immigrants. It had branches in New York City and Chicago, and Connolly edited its weekly the Harp.
Under the influence of the IWW, a "mass movement, whose militancy was unequalled", Connolly began to turn away from what was an "unashamedly vanguard party". In April 1908, and after a bitter dispute in which De Leon accused him of being a police spy, Connolly left the SLP, and at its Chicago conference, the IWW expelled the party. In the new year, together with Mother Jones, Connolly and the ISF affiliated with the Socialist Party of America, a broader coalition more tolerant of their revolutionary syndicalism.
=== ITGWU leader in Belfast ===
Through the ISF Connolly re-established links with socialists in Ireland, and in January 1910 he transferred the production of the Harp to Dublin, although it was to survive only until June. Until 1914, Connolly's principal outlet was to be The Forward, a weekly of the Glasgow ILP, which had a small circulation in Belfast. In July, Connolly landed in Derry ostensibly on a speaking tour, but James Larkin soon persuaded the Socialist Party of Ireland (SPI) to raise the additional funds that would enable Connolly's family to join him. In January 1909, Larkin had established the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, his own model of the One Big Union. The same year, 1911, in which Connolly's occupation was listed on the census return as "National Organiser Socialist Party, Larkin sent him north to Belfast to organise for the ITGWU in Ulster.
In a city in which the Protestant-dominated apprenticed trades were organised in British-aligned craft unions, troops had been deployed in 1907 to break strikes Larkin had called among dock labourers, carters and other casual and general workers. Four years later, Connolly succeeded in bringing dockers out in sympathy with striking cross-channel seamen, and in the process to secure a pay increase. ITGWU membership grew, and Connolly was approached by women toiling in Belfast's largest industry, linen.
The sweated trade engaged thousands of women and girls both in mills and, unprotected by the Factory Acts, as outworkers. A Belfast Trades Council sponsored Textile Operatives Society, led by Mary Galway, concentrated only on the better-paid Protestant women in the making-up sections. In response to the speeding up of production in the mills and, relatedly, the fining of workers for such new offences as laughing, whispering and bringing in sweets (the creation, in Connolly words, of "an atmosphere of slavery"), thousands of spinners went out on strike.
As they did not yet have the union organisation and the strike funds to sustain the action, Connolly persuaded the women to return to work and apply tactics he had learned as an organiser for the IWW. They should collectively defy the rules, so that "if a girl is checked for singing, let the whole room start singing at once; if you are checked for laughing, let the whole room laugh at once". He then sought to capitalise on the relative success of the tactic by building up, first with Marie Johnson and then Winifred Carney as its secretary, a new – effectively women's – section of the ITGWU, the Irish Textile Workers' Union (ITWU).
In June 1913, while claiming that "the ranks of the Irish Textile Workers’ Union are being recruited by hundreds", with Carney, Connolly produced a Manifesto to the Linen Slaves of Belfast (1913). It revealed their frustration as organisers: if the world deplored their conditions, the women were told that it also deplored their "slavish and servile nature in submitting to them". The Textile Workers' membership may not have greatly exceeded the 300 subscribed under Johnson in Catholic west Belfast. To Carney, Connolly conceded that the union's survival was largely a matter of "keeping the Falls Road crowd together".
Orangism, in which Connolly had seen a "glorified representation" of the tradesman's contempt for the unskilled,was reinvigorated by the return of Home Rule to the political agenda (from 1910, a Liberal government was again dependent on Irish votes). When, in the summer of 1912, a Home Rule Bill was introduced, loyalists forced some 3,000 workers out of the shipyards and engineering plants: in addition to Catholics, 600 Protestants targeted for their non-sectarian labour politics. In this environment, Connolly found himself increasingly confined to organising, and to addressing meetings, in the Catholic districts of the city. Even here he was pursued by what he described as "social and religious terrorism".
Connolly had to find some "corner of the Catholic ghetto outside the political preserve of Joseph Devlin MP". Although a sometime ally (Devlin initiated Home Office inquiry into conditions in the linen mills), the Belfast West MP was leader both of those Connolly viewed as "the conservatives of a belated Irish capitalism", the United Irish League, and those who he dismissed as "Green" Orangemen, the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Together, Connolly found them capable of bringing "every species of intimidation and bribery . . . to bear upon Catholics who refused to bow to the dictates of the official Home Rule gang".
=== Dublin lock-out ===
On 29 August 1913, Larkin recalled Connolly to Dublin. The success of the ITGWU in signing up thousands of unskilled men and women had elicited a particularly aggressive reaction from employers. Beginning with, and led by, the owner of the tramway company, William Murphy, they dismissed those who refused to renounce the union and replaced them with scab labour brought in from elsewhere in the country or from Britain. By the end of September, the combination of the "lock out", the sympathetic strikes Larkin called for in response, and their knock-on effects, had placed upwards of 100,000 people (workers and their families, a third of the city's residents) in need of assistance.
Early in the conflict Connolly freed himself from police detention through a week-long hunger strike, a tactic borrowed from the British suffragettes. However, from October Larkin was held on charges of sedition. This left Connolly to respond to an intercession by the Catholic Church.
In the hope of replicating a tactic that for Elizabeth Gurley Flynn had turned the tide in the recent, and celebrated, textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Dora Montefiore had devised a children's "holiday scheme". The poorly nourished children of the locked-out and striking workers were to be billeted with sympathetic families in England On the grounds that their hosts were not guaranteed to be Catholic, the Church objected and Hibernian crowds gathered at the docks to prevent the children's "deportation". Connolly, who had been wary from the first, cancelled the scheme, but nonetheless sought to score a point against the clericalist opposition by telling his people to ask the archbishop and priests for food and clothing.
Connolly and Larkin had shown a willingness to negotiate on the basis of an inquiry into the dispute by the Board of Trade. While critical of the ITGWU's employment of the "sympathetic" strike, it concluded that employers were insisting on an anti-union pledge that was "contrary to individual liberty", and that "no workman or body of workmen could reasonably be expected to accept”. The employers were unmoved.
After the ITGWU-controlled Dublin Socialist Party failed in the January 1914 municipal elections to register support for the strike and the Trade Union Congress in England had declined Larkin and Connolly's plea for railwaymen to embargo goods for Dublin and for further funding, the workers began to drift back, submitting to their employers. Exhausted, and falling into bouts of depression, Larkin took a declining interest in the beleaguered union, and eventually in October accepted an invitation from "Big Bill" Haywood of the IWW to speak in the United States. He did not return to Ireland until 1923. His departure left Connolly, in charge not only of the ITGWU with its headquarters at Liberty Hall, but also of a workers' militia.
== Easter Rising ==
=== Irish Citizen Army ===
First floated as an idea by George Bernard Shaw, the training of union men as a force to protect picket lines and rallies was taken up in Dublin by "Citizens Committee" chair, Jack White, himself the victim of a police baton charge. In accepting White's services, Connolly made reference to the national question: "why", he asked "should we not train our men in Dublin as they are doing in Ulster". In the north, the Unionists, labour men among them, were forming the ranks of the Ulster Volunteers. The Irish Citizen Army (ICA) began drilling in November 1913, but then, after it had dwindled like the strike to almost nothing, in March 1914 the militia was reborn, its ranks supplemented by Constance Markievicz's Fianna Éireann nationalist youth.
After the return to work, the command of the ICA divided on the militia's future, and in particular on policy toward the Irish Volunteers, the much larger nationalist response to the arming of Ulster Unionism (and of which Markievicz was also a member). Secretary to the ICA Council, Seán O'Casey, described the formation of the Irish Volunteers as "one of the most effective blows" that the ICA had received. Men who might have joined the ICA were now drilling – with the blessing of the IRB – under a command that included employers who had locked out men trying to exercise "the first principles of Trade Unionism". When it became apparent that Connolly was gravitating towards an IRB strategy of cooperation with the Volunteers, O'Casey and Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, the Vice President, resigned, leaving Connolly in undisputed command.
On 4 August 1914, Britain declared war on Germany. The Home Rule Bill received royal assent, but with a suspensory act delaying implementation for duration (and with the reservation that the question of Ulster's inclusion had still to be resolved). Leader of the IPP, John Redmond, then split the Irish Volunteers by urging them (in the hope of securing Britain's good faith) to rally to the British Army's colours. The vast majority heeding his call – some 175,000 men – reformed themselves as the National Volunteers. This left 13,500 to reorganise under the nominal command of Eoin MacNeill of Gaelic League but, in key staff positions, directed by undercover members of the IRB's Military Council: Patrick Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh and Joseph Plunkett.
=== Urges "revolutionary action" ===
In October 1914, Connolly assumed the presidency of the Irish Neutrality League (chairing a committee that included Arthur Griffith, Constance Markievicz and Francis Sheehy-Skeffington), but not as a pacifist. He was urging active opposition to the war, which he labeled "fratricidal slaughter", and acknowledged that the opposition must amount to "more than a transport strike". Stopping the export of foodstuffs from Ireland, for example, might involve "armed battling in the streets". In the Irish Worker he had already declared that if, in the course of Britain's "pirate war upon the German nation", the Kaiser landed an army in Ireland "we should be perfectly justified in joining it". A further editorial in the ITGWU paper betrayed his exasperation with the "jingoism" of the British labour movement. It suggested that insurrection in Ireland and throughout the British dominions might be required “to teach the English working class they cannot hope to prosper permanently by arresting the industrial development of others”.
In December, the Irish Worker was suppressed and in May 1915 Connolly revived his old ISRP title, Workers' Republic. Accompanied by the martial-patriotic poetry of Maeve Cavanagh, Connolly's editorials continued to urge Irish resistance, and on the express understanding that this could not "be conducted on the lines of dodging the police, or any such high jinks of constitutional agitation". He cautioned that those who oppose conscription (the prospect that was drawing crowds to the meetings, the marches and parades of the Irish Citizen Army and of the Volunteers) "take their lives in their hands" (and, by implication, that they should organise accordingly). In December 1915, Connolly wrote: “We believe in constitutional action in normal times, we believe in revolutionary action in exceptional times. These are exceptional times".
In February 1916, Connolly proposed, that with "thousands of Irish workers" volunteering to fight for British Crown and Empire, only the "red tide of war on Irish soil" would enable the nation to "recover its self-respect".
=== Relations with the IRB ===
Connolly was aware of, but not privy to, discussions within the IRB on prospects for a national rising. Patrick Pearse cautioned his colleagues on treating with Connolly: "Connolly is most dishonest in his methods. He will never be satisfied until he goads us into action, and then he will think most of us too moderate and want to guillotine half of us".
By the New Year, believing the Irish Volunteers were dithering, Connolly was threatening to rush Dublin Castle, around which he had already deployed his ICA on nightly manoeuvres. Determined to safeguard their plans for an insurrection at Easter, Seán Ó Faoláin claims that the IRB had Connolly "kidnapped".A unit of Volunteers had been mobilised to arrest Connolly had he refused to meet with the IRB Council, but Patrick Pearse, Tom Clarke and the other IRB leaders resolved matters by finally taking Connolly into their confidence.
Connolly was conscious that his new allies had, for the most part, been silent during the lock-out in 1913. Labour was not their cause, so that when he himself had proposed a programme for the Irish Volunteers in October 1914, he had confined it to political demands: "repeal of all clauses of the Home Rule Act denying Ireland powers of self-government now enjoyed by South Africa, Australia or Canada".According to Desmond Greaves, a week before the Rising Connolly advised his 200 ICA volunteers that, as they were "out for economic as well as political liberty", in the event of victory they should "hold on to" their rifles.
=== Easter week 1916 ===
On 14 April 1916, Connolly summoned Winifred Carney to Dublin where she prepared his mobilisation orders for the Irish Citizen Army (ICA). Ten days later, on Easter Monday, with Connolly commissioned by the IRB Military Council as Commandant of the Dublin Districts, they set out for the General Post Office (GPO) with an initial garrison party from Liberty Hall. Carney (armed with a typewriter and a Webley revolver) served as Connolly's aide de camp with the rank of adjutant She was seconded in that role, for the first two days, by Connolly's 15 year-old son Roddy.
From the steps of the GPO, Patrick Pearse (President and Commander-in-Chief) read the "Proclamation of the Irish Republic". Connolly had contributed to the final draft, which declared "the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland" and, in a phrase that he had often been used, a "resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts". In a further symbolic gesture of labour's stake in the rebellion, Connolly sent the Starry Plough flag, the symbol of Irish labour, to be hoisted by his men over the Imperial Hotel, owned by the man who had organised their defeat in 1913, William Murphy.
By some accounts the rebel strategy of occupying the GPO and other public buildings in the city centre, had been informed by Connolly's belief that the British were unlikely to rely on artillery, that a regular bombardment of the city would have been possible only if, abandoning their businesses and property, the section of the population loyal to the government was outside insurgent lines. Connolly's biographer, Samuel Levenson records an exchange between Volunteers after a British gunboat began shelling their positions from the Liffey: "General Connolly told us the British would never use artillery against us". "He did, did he? Wouldn't it be great now if General Connolly was making the decisions for the British".
Leading men on the street and supervising the construction of barricades, he was twice wounded on the Thursday. Carney refused to leave his side, and was with him the following day, Friday 29 April, when, carried on a stretcher, he was among the last to evacuate from the GPO, its upper floors burning, to Moore Street. There, with Seán Mac Diarmada and Joseph Plunket, Connolly persuaded Pearse, over Tom Clarke's objection, to ask the British for terms. Satisfied that "the glorious stand which has been made by the soldiers of Irish freedom" was "sufficient to gain recognition of Ireland's national claim at an international peace conference", and "desirous of preventing further slaughter of the civilian population", Pearse recorded the "majority" decision. Elizabeth O'Farrell, sent under a white flag to the British commander, Brigadier-General Lowe, came back with a demand for unconditional surrender which, within the 30 minute time limit imposed, Pearse conceded.
As he was being returned to a stretcher to be carried toward the British lines, Connolly told those around him not to worry: "Those of us that signed the proclamation will be shot. But the rest of you will be set free."
== Court martial and execution ==
Connolly was among 16 republican prisoners executed for their role in the Rising. Executions in Kilmainham Gaol began on 3 May 1916 with Connolly's co-signatories to the Proclamation, Patrick Pearse, Tom Clarke and Thomas McDonagh, and ended with his death and that of Seán Mac Diarmada on 12 May. Roger Casement, who had run German guns for the Rising, was hanged at Pentonville Prison, in London, on August 3. Unable to stand because of his wounds (his foot had turned gangrenous), Connolly had been placed before a firing squad tied to a chair. His body was placed, without rite or coffin, with those of his comrades in a common grave at the Arbour Hill military cemetery.
In a statement to the court martial held in Dublin Castle on 9 May, he proposed offering no defence, save against "charges of wanton cruelty to prisoners”, and he declared:We went out to break the connection between this country and the British Empire, and to establish an Irish Republic. We believed that the call we then issued to the people of Ireland, was a nobler call, in a holier cause, than any call issued to them during this war, having any connection with the war. We succeeded in proving that Irishmen are ready to die endeavouring to win for Ireland those national rights which the British Government has been asking them to die to win for Belgium. As long as that remains the case, the cause of Irish freedom is safe.The night before his execution, he was permitted a visit by his wife Lillie and their 8 year old daughter, Fiona (whose abiding memory of her father was to be his laughter). He is said to have returned to the Catholic Church in the few days before his execution. A Capuchin, Father Aloysius Travers administered absolution and last rites. Asked to pray for the soldiers about to shoot him, Connolly said: "I will say a prayer for all men who do their duty according to their lights."
There was disquiet at Connolly's execution. In Parliament the government was pressed as to whether there was "precedent for the summary execution of a military prisoner dying of his wounds". But at the time, the greater outrage was over the executions of William Pearse, put to death, it was thought, simply because he was the brother of the rebel leader, and Major John MacBride who played no part in planning the Rising but had fought against Britain in the Boer War.
Despite the initial public hostility toward the rebels and the destruction they had brought upon Dublin, after the first executions of Pearse, Clarke and MacDonagh, John Redmond warned the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, that any further executions would make his position, and that of any other constitutional party or leader in Ireland, "impossible”.
== Political thought ==
=== Socialism and nationalism ===
The nature of Connolly's socialism, and its role in his decision to join the IRB in the Easter Rising, was disputed by his Socialist contemporaries in both Europe and the United States. It is the central point of contention in the extensive literature that has developed since on his political life and thought.
Writing in 1934, Seán Ó Faoláin described Connolly's political ideas as:an amalgamation of everything he had read that could, according to his viewpoint, be applied to Irish ills, a synthesis of Marx, Davitt, Lalor, Robert Owen, Tone, Mitchel and the rest, all welded together in his Socialist-Separatist ideal. He favoured industrial unionism as the method of approach to what he called variously, the Workers' Republic, the Irish Socialist Republic, the Co-operative State, the Democratic Co-operative Commonwealth... [The unions] would be he means of popular representation in the Workers' Parliament; and they would be the power controlling the national wealth ... In a word he believed in vocational representation combined with "all power to the Unions".While he never had the opportunity to apply and test his principles even on a small scale, Connolly "at least [had] a point of view" and a "definite idea of what he meant by such terms as 'a Republic', 'Freedom', 'Emancipation' [and] 'Autonomy'". But Ó Faoláin argues that in the end Connolly's social-emancipatory ideas proved to be secondary to his nationalism. The night before he was shot, Connolly said to his daughter Nora: "The Socialists will not understand why I am here; they forget I am an Irishman". For Ó Faoláin this was an admission that "he had, in point of fact, gone over to nationalism and away from socialism".
Some of Connolly's contemporaries suggested that there was no inconsistency: Connolly's socialism was itself merely a form of militant nationalism. Invoking Connolly at the inaugural meeting of Fianna Fáil in 1926, in support of his protectionist programme for national development, Éamon de Valera implied that Connolly's principal purpose in calling for a worker's republic was to complete the break with England. Constance Markievicz was also to interpret Connolly's socialism in purely national, purely Irish, terms. Seizing on Connolly's portrait of Gaelic society in The Reconquest of Ireland, she summarised his doctrine as the "application of the social principle which underlay the Brehon laws of our ancestors".
At the same time, there were writers who, convinced that "Connolly's Irish Catholicism had not been irrevocably blemished by atheistic Marxism", found parallels between his commitment to industrial unionism and the corporatist doctrines Pope Leo XIII enunciated in his encyclical Rerum novarum (1891).
Beginning in 1961, with the publication of a major new biography by Desmond Greaves, there was a concerted effort to rehabilitate Connolly as a revolutionary socialist. Greaves proposed that with the onset of the European war, Connolly's thought had run "parallel with Lenin's"; and reached the same conclusion: "Whoever wishes a durable and democratic peace must be for civil war against the governments and the bourgeoisie" (Lenin, "Turn Imperialist War into Civil War", 1915). Greaves is the source for Connolly's oft-quoted "hold on to your rifles" admonition to his ICA volunteers, which might suggest that Connolly did see the Easter Rising as the prelude to this larger revolutionary struggle.
While The Life and Times of James Connolly remains a standard reference, there have been objections to pressing Connolly into a Leninist mold. Connolly's revolutionary outlook remained that of the syndicalism he had acquired in America, although in 1916 he entertained no suggestion of Irish workers being organised to seize control of their workplaces. He was concerned, rather, with their quiescence in the war against Germany. This was viewed by Connolly, not as Lenin insisted a contest of rival imperialisms with no democratic principle at stake, but as a war in which, as the primary aggressor, Britain had presented an Ireland willing to strike for its freedom with a legitimate continental ally.
Connolly's understanding of the agrarian nature of nationalist Ireland, and of Ulster unionism, which deprived it of Belfast and its industrial hinterland, has also been subject to comment and revision.
=== Revolutionary syndicalism ===
Greaves concedes that there are formulations in Connolly's thinking that "smack of syndicalism"—that is, of faith in the ability of the working class to secure a socialist future on the strength, not of a revolutionary party, but of their own labour-union democracy. Lenin had praise for De Leon's contribution to socialist thought, but Connolly broke with De Leon precisely on the issue of industrial unionism.
In 1908, Connolly accused De Leon of knocking "the feet from under" his party's alliance with the IWW by arguing that, as prices rise with wages, the gains the union secures for labour are only nominal. The implication was that the One Big Union was merely a "ward-heeling club" for the SLP, a place from which militants could be recruited to the real task: building a party to take state power.
Since it suggests that within capitalism there is no prospect of the working class improving its position, Connolly allowed that the "theory that a rise in prices always destroys the value of a rise in wages" sounds "revolutionary", but maintained that it was not Marxist and not true. The value of labour is not fixed, but is the subject of a continuous struggle. It is in this struggle that workers acquire the organisational strength and the confidence to bring capital to heel, and to extend their own control of production and distribution.
In a last statement of his credo, The Re-conquest of Ireland (1915), Connolly affirmed that the outcome of this struggle, the worker's republic, is not an overweening state. Rather it is an industrial commonwealth in which "the workshops, factories, docks, railways, shipyards, &c., shall be owned by the nation, but administered by the Industrial Unions of the respective industries". In "State Monopoly versus Socialism" (1899) he had been clear that "without this co-operative control the public ownership by the State is not Socialism – it is only State capitalism".
An early compiler of his ideas, notes that Connolly "nowhere attempts to explain how the general interests of the State, as distinguished from specific interests of the Industrial Unions, are to be provided for". It was only certain that Connolly was not a "state socialist". Connolly was, himself, confident that his:... conception of Socialism destroys at one blow all the fears of a bureaucratic state, ruling and ordering the lives of every individual from above, and thus gives assurance that the social order of the future will be an extension of the freedom of the individual, and not a suppression of it.In his last six years, Connolly had devoted his energies almost entirely to the ITGWU and to the Irish Citizen Army. A "pairing of union and militia" is central to syndicalist scenarios for social revolution. But Connolly knew that "his union, the ITGWU . . ., weakened by the industrial struggles of 1913-14, was not up to the effort of seizing docks, railways, shipping etc.". He made no attempt, prior to or during the Rising, to appeal to workers to join the insurgency. In an address published just one week before the Rising on the forthcoming congress of the Irish TUC, there is no intimation of the impending action. In reference to the war, Connolly's only advice was that the congress should proceed in August as planned.
=== A two-stage struggle ===
At the beginning of 1916, Connolly drew "a crucial distinction between the struggle for socialism and for national liberation". In the Irish Worker (23 January) he wrote:Our programme in time of peace was to gather in the hands in Irish trade unions the control of all the forces of production and distribution in Ireland . . . [but] in times of war we should act as in war. . . . While the war lasts and Ireland still is a subject nation we shall continue to urge her to fight for her freedom. . . . The time for Ireland's battle is NOW.His calculation was not based alone on the strategic opportunity presented by Britain's engagement with Germany. Connolly had described John Redmond's pact with the government as "the most gigantic, deep-laid and loathsome attempt in history to betray the soul of a people". At the beginning of February 1916, he acknowledged that the pact was delivering the working class, and not least by means of simple bribery:We have said that the Working Class was the only class to whom the word "Empire" and the things for which it was the symbol did not appeal . . . [and] therefore, from the intelligent working class could alone come the revolutionary impulse. . . . But if the Militant Labour Leaders of Ireland have not apostatised the same cannot be said of the working class as a whole . . . . For the sake of a few paltry shillings per week thousands of Irish workers have sold their country in the hour of their country's greatest need and hope. For the sake of a few paltry shillings Separation Allowance thousands of Irish women have made life miserable for their husbands with entreaties to join the British Army.In Erin's Hope (1897), Connolly had claimed that socialists would succeed where the Fenians, and the Young Irelanders before them, had failed, in preparing "the public mind for revolution". For this, they would rely on the militant organisation of labour, neither seeking nor accepting the cooperation of men whose ideals were not their own, and with whom they might therefore "be compelled to fight at some future critical stage of the journey to freedom". To this category, Connolly assigned "every section of the propertied class". John Newsinger argues that such talk was now put aside. Connolly embraced "the conception of revolution that prevailed in the inner circles of the IRB: that a small minority must be prepared to sacrifice itself in order to save the soul of the nation". It was, he suggests, the "politics of despair". Austen Morgan similarly concludes Connolly "collapsed politically as a socialist. Unable to sustain his faith in proletarian action, that he died "unapologetic Fenian".
Noting that, two weeks before the Rising, Connolly, was still affirming that "the cause of labour is the cause of Ireland, the cause of Ireland is the cause of labour" and that the two "cannot be dissevered", Greaves insists that little had changed in Connolly's fundamental thinking. Rather, Kieran Allen sees Greaves, consistent with the "Stalinist" view of the Irish question, attempting to "impose" on Connolly's wartime activities the popular front model of an alliance with "national" elements of the bourgeoisie. Yet while himself insisting on Connolly's Marxist credentials, Allen suggests that, having always regarded republicanism as an essentially "classless" tradition that could "won over to socialism", it was inevitable that Connolly would "accommodate his politics" to those of Clarke and Pearce.
Rather than being "dragged away from his labour convictions", R.M. Fox argues that under the unique conditions of the Great War Connolly was compelled to "force the independence issue to the point of armed struggle". For Richard English, while this may have been so, it is Connolly's failure "to persuade any but a tiny number of the Irish people" of his argument that accounts for his "gesture" in 1916. Acceding to the IRB's "inclusive, cross-class approach to the nation", his hope was only of an "eventual" vindication of his belief that, once national rebellion had secured "the national powers needed by our class", social revolution would follow.
=== Farm-labour cooperation ===
In Erin's Hope (1897), in Labour in Irish History (1910) and again in The Reconquest of Ireland (1915), Connolly had reinforced his conviction that socialism was Ireland's national destiny by characterising it as a "re-conversion" to the collectivism of the country's Gaelic and agrarian past. In this he was greatly influenced by Alice Stopford Green's The Making of Ireland and its Undoing: 1200–1600 (1908), and by the work of other historians and anthropologists, "who suggested that common ownership of land had been the basis of primitive society in most countries before its replacement by capitalist relations of production."
Apart from what he may have witnessed as a soldier, Connolly's only sustained experience of rural Ireland was three weeks spent in County Kerry in 1898, in the company of Maud Gonne, reporting on famine conditions for De Leon's Weekly People.
Connolly had concluded that "the root cause" of the distress was not landlordism per se or an "alien government", but rather a "system of small farming and small industry" in which the Irish peasant "reaps none of the benefits of the progress . . . [and] organisation of industry".This was the seemingly orthodox Marxist view to which Connolly was already committed. In Erin's Hope, he had proposed that "the day of the small farmers, as of small capitalists, is gone" and that salvation lay in "the nationalisation of land in the hands of the Irish state". From Kerry, he wrote more loosely of the Socialist Republic organising greater "co-operative effort", but in either case it was an analysis that suggested that "the most important struggles for the Irish peasantry would occur not in the countryside, but between labour and capital in the cities". There is no discussion of the role the rural population itself might play in the creation of the new republic.
By the time of his return from America in 1910, the combined effects of continued emigration and land reform was effecting a profound social transformation. In Labour in Irish History, Connolly recalls the words of Wolfe Tone: “Our freedom must be had at all hazards. If the men of property will not help us they must fall; we will free ourselves by the aid of that large and respectable class of the community – the men of no property.” But after the Wyndham Act (1903), the peasant "was, or else was well on the way to becoming, a freehold farmer--a man of property". Unmoved by what Connolly supposed was their "memory of the common ownership and common control of land by their ancestors", it was a status they would defend it with tenacity.
A "large self-confident class of farmer owners" was shifting the balance of class forces in Catholic Ireland against Connolly's identification of the national cause with labour. Their emancipation from taxation imposed in the working-class interest would be "the main economic achievement of independence". Yet while claiming that the "system of petty farming conveys no hope to the minds of the working class", Connolly believed in the possibility of a farm-labour alliance. A feature of the transition from tenancy to ownership in countryside was the establishment of creameries and other agricultural co-operatives. Participation was often reluctant, and generally failed to support broader networks, but the image was created abroad of Irish farmers as "co-operative trailblazers".
In The Reconquest of Ireland (1915), Connolly celebrates the development and, recalling the co-operative stores his union had opened in Dublin after the Lock-out, "confidently" predicts that, "in the very near future", the labour movement will create its own "crop of co-operative enterprises". The stage would then be set for town and country to heal their "latent antagonism" and converge on a common ideal — the "Co-operative Commonwealth". It was a seeming mixture of "Sinn Féinism, Co-operativism, and Municipalism" for which he was criticised by his friend, and editor of the paper Connolly had established in Scotland, The Socialist, John Carstairs Matheson.
=== Ulster unionism ===
In 1898 Connolly had cited "the Protestant workmen of Belfast, so often out on strike against their Protestant employers", and the role their Protestant ancestors had played a 100 years previously in the rebellion against the British Crown, as a demonstration of what "precious little bearing" the question of religious faith has in the struggle for freedom. Later, when in Belfast for the Socialist Party and the ITGWU, he identified "religious bigotry" as the one obstacle remaining to the acceptance of Irish self-government and thus to the achievement of socialist unity on a separate all-Ireland basis. But he understood this as a political force arising, not from confessional differences, but from the deliberate recall and accentuation of ancient native-planter divisions.
In 1913, as a new Home Rule bill progressed through Westminster, Connolly appeared to concede the objection of William Walker, the Protestant leader of the Independent Labour Party in Belfast, who argued for British Labour and British social legislation. Connolly suggested that having "voted against the Right to Work Bill, the Minimum Wage for Miners, and the Minimum Wage for Railwaymen, [and] intrigued against the application to Ireland of the Feeding of Necessitous School Children and the Medical Benefits of the Insurance Act", in a parliament of their own, Home Rulers would likely set a bad example to "reactionists everywhere". Connolly was also dismissive of the appeal to northern workers of the potential parliamentary opposition, Arthur Griffith's Sinn Féin. When the Sinn Féiner speaks to men who are fighting against low wages and tells them that the Sinn Féin body has promised lots of Irish labour at low wages to any foreign capitalist who wishes to establish in Ireland, what wonder it they come to believe that a change from Toryism to Sinn Féinism would simply be a change from the devil they do know to the devil they do not know.Connolly also allowed religious bigotry was not alone the mark of Empire loyalists: he had applauded the even-handedness of the Grand-Master of the Independent Orange Order, Lindsay Crawford, in castigating sectarian influences — both "Orange and Green". The advocates of "national freedom", he conceded, could be "purblind bigots". But in an "ill-tempered and discursive" exchange with Walker, Connolly admitted no case for labour sticking with the Imperial Parliament in London.
Labour unionism was still unionism and, no matter how reactionary nationalism might appear under its current leadership, unionism was more reactionary still. It represented an Orange-inflected Protestantism that had become "synonymous" with what Catholicism represented in much of the rest of Europe; that is, with "Toryism, lickspittle loyalty, servile worship of aristocracy and hatred of all that savours of genuine political independence on the part of the lower classes". It was a spirit that might be expected of prominent Home Rulers, those whom in welcoming King George V to Dublin in July 1911 Connolly described as "grovelling, dirt eating capitalist traitors". But suffused by unionism among Protestant workers, it resulted in his encountering in Ireland's industrial capital, not what socialist theory would have predicted, its most politically-advanced working class, but rather those he despairingly characterised as "least rebellious slaves in the industrial world".
Walker maintained that it was as an internationalist that he supported the union with Great Britain. Connolly replied that the only true socialist internationalism lay in a "free federation of free peoples". That the Protestant working people of Ulster could regard themselves as a free people within the United Kingdom, he dismissed, effectively, as "false consciousness". But serving the interests of "rack-renting landlords and sweating capitalists", it could not be long sustained.Already, in 1913, in series strikes in Belfast and Larne, Connolly saw evidence of Protestant workers returning to the class struggle. He predicted that suspicion of their Catholic fellow workers would "melt and dissolve", and that their children would come to laugh at the Ulster Covenant.
In the interim, a partition of Ireland, which would "help the Home Rule and Orange capitalists and clerics to keep their rallying cries before the public", had to be resisted even at the cost of seeing the Home Rule Bill defeated. But Connolly was unable to advance the all-Ireland organisation he believed to be the key.
In April 1912, four of the five Belfast branches of the ILP had attended a unity conference called by the SPI in Dublin and agreed to form an Independent Labour Party of Ireland. But sensitive to the unpopularity of Home Rule, they did not carry their commitment over, when in May, Connolly secured a resolution at the Irish Trades Union Congress in favour of an Irish Labour Party without ties to the ILP or other British groups. Instead (joined in time by Winifred Carney) they adhered to what in Belfast became, after partition, the Northern Ireland Labour Party.
=== Socialism and religion ===
In 1907, Connolly confessed that while he "usually posed as a Catholic", he had not done his "duty" for fifteen years, and had "not the slightest tincture of faith left". Yet he could not accept De Leon's insistence that a socialist party be as "intolerant as science" of deviations from strict materialism. Connolly opposed clericalism. He argued that Irish Catholics could in all conscience reject their bishops' dealings with the British authorities, and proposed that Irish schools be free of church control. But claiming "conformity with the practice of the chief Socialist parties of the World", he declared religion a private matter outside the scope of socialist action. Socialism, is a bread and butter question. It is a question of the stomach; it is going to be settled in the factories, mines and ballot boxes of this country and is not going to be settled at the altar or in the church.In 1910, he published Labour, Nationality and Religion in which he defended socialists against the clerical charge that they are "beasts of immorality". He noted, for example, that the "enormous increase of divorces [in the United States] was almost entirely among the classes least affected by Socialist teaching". At the same time, he argued that there was an egalitarian and humanitarian impulse in Christianity that provided a moral bridge to socialism, and could positively contribute to its advance. (In The Forward he was content to publish in a paper that ran a column from John Wheatley's Catholic Socialist Society).
In either case, Connolly believed it was an unnecessary and strategic mistake for socialists to risk popular support by deliberately outraging religious opinion. He had refused to join De Leon in entertaining August Bebel's ideas on polyamorous marriage. Doing so, he argued, was simply putting "a weapon" into the hands of their enemies "without obtaining any corresponding advantage".
=== Emancipation of women ===
In a campaign to raise funds for the Dublin strikers in 1913, Connolly shared a platform at London's Royal Albert Hall with Sylvia Pankhurst. He took the occasion to declare that he stood for "opposition to the domination of nation over nation, of class over class, or of sex over sex". He had supported the Suffragette movement, and worked alongside women in the labour movement. His Irish Citizen Army had the distinction of giving women officer rank and duty Francis Sheehy-Skeffington was convinced that, of "all the Irish labour men", Connolly was "the soundest and most thorough-going feminist".
In The Reconquest of Ireland (1915), Connolly traced oppression of women, like the oppression of the worker, to “a social and political order based upon the private ownership of property”. If the "worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave". He would have little use for any form of Irish state that did not not "embody the emancipation of womanhood?". However, socialism would solve only "the economic side of the Woman Question": "the question of marriage, of divorce, of paternity, of the equality of woman with man are physical and sexual questions, or questions of temperamental affiliation as in marriage," would "still be hotly contested". There was still a private sphere in which women themselves would complete the struggle for their own emancipation. "None", he remarked, is "so fit to break the chains as they who wear them, none so well equipped to decide what a fetter is”.
=== Anti-Colonialism ===
Connolly insisted that his enthusiasm for all resistance to British rule – from the Boer republics, to the Dacoits of Burma – was not opportunistic, driven solely by his particularistic concern with the struggle for Irish freedom, but rather was "consistent with the doctrines we hold as adherents of the Marxist propaganda, and believers in the Marxist economics".
In a series articles from 1897 on "the coming revolt in India", Connolly argued that such progress that had made under British rule in the sub-continent could have been independently attained “by an intellectual people with a continuity of literary and philosophic activity stretching back for two thousand years or more”. In Connolly’s view the issue was not modernity but "the colonial mode of its imposition". In observations that Robert Young suggests prefigure Mao, Fanon, Cabral and Guevara, Connolly proposed that such impositions could accelerate revolutionary potentialities not only on the periphery but also, given the necessity of "colonial expansion and the conquest of new markets . . . for the prolongation of the life of capitalism", in the metropolitan centre.
Finding similarities with the work of José Carlos Mariategui, founder of the syndicalist-influenced Peruvian Socialist Party, others have proposed that, in works such as Labour in Irish History (1910), Connolly was among the first marxists to attempt an anti-imperialist form of historiography conceptualised from the standpoint of the colonized.
=== On antisemitism ===
During his 1902 election campaign in the Wood Quay ward in Dublin, in which many streets were occupied by Jewish immigrants from Russia, Connolly's campaign became the first in Irish history to distribute leaflets in Yiddish. The leaflet condemned antisemitism as a tool of the capitalist class.
Connolly sharply criticised the overtly anti-semitic tone of the British Social Democratic Federation's publications during the Boer War, arguing that they had attempted to "divert the wrath of the advanced workers from the capitalists to the Jews". His own editorship, however, did not exclude the possibility of anti-Jewish tropes. In the Workers Republic readers were asked to place themselves in the position of the Boers: "Supposing your country was invaded by a mob of Jews and foreign exploiters ... What would you do?".During the Cork lock-out of 1909, Connolly's Harp (the journal of the Irish Socialist Federation) featured an article denouncing "patriotic Irish capitalists" for importing "wholesale scab Jews to break the strike of Irish workers".
In 1898, Workers Republic published an article "The Ideal Government of the Jew", advocating "the establishment of an Isrealitish [sic] nation in Palestine". But two years later, Connolly himself was to write positively about the "remarkable" development in the Russian Empire of the Jewish Labour Bund. Part of Russian Social Democracy, the Bund was anti-Zionist.
== Family ==
James Connolly and his wife Lillie had seven children. The eldest, Mona, died on the eve of the family's departure to join Connolly in America in 1904 at the age of 13, the result of an accident with scalding laundry water.
In Belfast, Nora and Ina (1896–1980) were active, with Winifred Carney, in Cumann na mBan and carried reports from the north to Pearse and their father the week before the rising in Dublin. Later, Nora was involved with her younger brother Roddy in efforts to promote a republican-socialist movement, but after the splintering of the Republican Congress in 1934 they went their separate ways. Roddy ended his political life as chairman of the Irish Labour Party and, the year before her death, Nora made an appearance at the Ardfheis of (Provisional) Sinn Féin.
In Belfast, Aideen (1895–1966) was also in Cumann na mBan. She married a Hugh Ward in Naas and had five children. Moira (1899–1958) became a doctor and married Richard Beech (an English syndicalist who, like Roddy, in 1920 attended the World Congress of the Comintern). Connolly's youngest daughter, Fiona Connolly Edwards (1907–1976) also married in England, was active in the trade-union, and anti-partition, movements and assisted Desmond Greaves in his biographies both of her father and of the executed anti-Treaty republican, Liam Mellowes.
Brian Samuel Connolly Heron (Brian o h-Eachtuigheirn), the son of Ina Connolly and Archie Heron, Connolly's grandson, was an organiser for the United Farm Workers in California. He was also a founding member in the United States of the National Association for Irish Justice which, in 1969, gained recognition as the U.S. support group for the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. Connolly's great grandson, James Connolly Heron, has edited a compilation of his papers, and is active in the campaign to preserve the historical integrity of Moore Street, where Connolly and Pearse took their final stand in 1916.
In their last interview, Connolly urged his wife to return with the younger children to the United States, but she failed to secure the necessary passport. This was despite the assurance of General Sir John Maxwell that she was "a decent humble woman who would be incapable of platform oratory in America".
Remaining in Dublin, in August 1916 Lillie Connolly was received into the Catholic Church, Fiona her sole witness. She did not make public appearances but when she died in 1938 she was accorded a state funeral.
== Memorials ==
=== Ireland ===
In 1966, to mark 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising, Connolly Station, one of the two main railway stations in Dublin, and Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown, were named in his honour.
In 1996, a bronze statue of Connolly, backed by the symbol of the Starry Plough, was erected outside the Liberty Hall offices of the SIPTU trade union, in Dublin.
In 2019, Irish President Michael D. Higgins opened the Áras Uí Chonghaile | James Connolly Visitor Centre on the Falls Road in Belfast, close to where the labour leader had lived in the city. Developed with funding from Belfast City Council and from North American labour unions, the centre offers an interactive exhibit dedicated to Connolly's life and work. Before it stands a life-size bronze of Connolly, originally unveiled in front of the Falls Community Council offices in 2016 by the Northern Ireland Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure minister Carál Ní Chuilín, and by his great-grandson, James Connolly Heron.
In July 2023, a plaque was unveiled by the Dublin City Council at Connolly's former residence on South Lotts Road in Ringsend.
=== Scotland ===
In the Cowgate area of Edinburgh where Connolly grew up there is a likeness of Connolly and a gold-coloured plaque dedicated to him under the George IV bridge.
=== United States ===
In 1986, a bust of Connolly was erected in Riverfront Park in Troy, New York, where he had lived on first emigrating to the United States in 1904.
In 2008, a full-figure bronze of Connolly was installed in Union Park, Chicago near the offices of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers.
== Selected writings ==
Connolly, James. 1897. "Socialism and Nationalism". The Shan van Vocht. 1 (1).
Connolly, James. 1897. Erin's Hope: The End and the Means (republished as The Irish Revolution, c. 1924).
Connolly, James. 1898. "The Fighting Race". Workers' Republic, 13 August.
Connolly, James. 1901. The New Evangel, Preached to Irish Toilers (first appeared in Workers' Republic, June–August 1899).
Connolly, James. 1909. Socialism Made Easy, Chicago: Charles H. Kerr.
Connolly, James. 1909. "Ballots, Bullets, Or —". International Socialist Review, October.
Connolly, James. 1910. "Industrialism and the Trade Unions". International Socialist Review, February.
Connolly, James. 1910. Labour in Irish history (republished 1914).
Connolly, James. 1910. Labour, Nationality, and Religion (republished 1920).
Connolly, James. 1911. "Plea For Socialist Unity in Ireland". Forward, 27 May.
Connolly, James. 1913. "British Labour and Irish Politicians". Forward, 3 May.
Connolly, James. 1913. "The Awakening of Ulster's Democracy". Forward, 7 June.
Connolly, James. 1913. "North East Ulster". Forward, 2 August.
Connolly, James. 1914. "Labour in the new Irish Parliament". Forward, 14 July.
Connolly, James. 1914. "A Continental Revolution". Forward, 15 August.
Connolly, James. 1914. "The Hope of Ireland". Irish Worker, 31 October.
Connolly, James. 1914. The Axe to the Root, and, Old Wine in New Bottles (republished 1921).
Connolly, James. 1915. The Re-Conquest of Ireland (republished 1917).
Ryan, Desmond (ed.). 1949. Labour and Easter Week: A Selection from the Writings of James Connolly, Dublin: Sign of the Three Candles.
Edwards, Owen Dudley & Ransom, Bernard (eds.). 1973. Selected Political Writings: James Connolly, London: Jonathan Cape.
Anon. (ed.). 1987. James Connolly: Collected Works (Two volumes), Dublin: New Books Publications. OCLC 18344793.
Ó Cathasaigh, Aindrias (ed.). 1997. The Lost Writings: James Connolly, London: Pluto Press. ISBN 0-7453-1296-9.
Bourke, Richard & Gallagher, Niamh (eds.). 2022. The Political Thought of the Irish Revolution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 1-1088-3667-4.
=== See also ===
James Connolly bibliography
== Biographies ==
Allen, Kieran. 1990. The Politics of James Connolly, London: Pluto Press ISBN 0-7453-0473-7.
Anderson, W.K. 1994. James Connolly and the Irish Left. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. ISBN 0-7165-2522-4.
Collins, Lorcan. 2012. James Connolly. Dublin: O'Brien Press. ISBN 1-8471-7160-5.
Connolly O'Brien, Nora. 1975. Portrait of a Rebel Father (2nd ed.). Dublin: Four Masters ISBN 0-905001-31-1
Cronin, Seán. 2020. James Connolly: Irish Revolutionary. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-3997-0.
Edwards, Ruth Dudley. 1981. James Connolly. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-7171-1112-1.
Fox, R.M. 1946. James Connolly: the Forerunner. Tralee: The Kerryman.
Greaves, C. Desmond. 1972. The Life and Times of James Connolly (2nd ed.). London: Lawrence and Wishart. ISBN 978-0-85315-234-7.
Levenson, Samuel. 1973. James Connolly, a Biography. London: Martin Brian and O'Keefe. ISBN 978-0-85616-130-8.
McNulty, Liam. 2022. James Connolly: Socialist, Nationalist and Internationalist. London: Merlin Press. ISBN 0-8503-6783-2.
Metscher, Priscilla. 2002. James Connolly and the Reconquest of Ireland. Minneapolis: MEP Publications, Univ. of Minnesota. ISBN 0-930656-74-1.
Mitchell, Seán. 2016, A Rebel's Guide to James Connolly, London: Bookmarks. ISBN 978-1910885086
Morgan, Austen. 1990. James Connolly. a Political Biography. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan. ISBN 0-7171-3911-5.
Nevin, Donal. 2005. James Connolly: A Full Life. Dublin: Gill & MacMillan. ISBN 0-7171-3911-5.
O'Callaghan, Sean. 2015. James Connolly: My search for the Man, the Myth and his Legacy. ISBN 9781780894348.
Ransom, Bernard. 1980. Connolly's Marxism, London: Pluto Press. ISBN 0-86104-308-1. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi_Strauss_%26_Co.#Blue_jeans_era_(1960s%E2%80%931980s) | Levi Strauss & Co.#Blue jeans era (1960s–1980s) | Levi Strauss & Co. ( LEE-vy STROWSS) is an American clothing company known worldwide for its Levi's ( LEE-vyze) brand of denim jeans. It was founded in May 1852 when German-Jewish immigrant Levi Strauss moved from Buttenheim, Bavaria, to San Francisco, California, to open a West Coast branch of his brothers' New York dry goods business. Although the corporation is registered in Delaware, the company's corporate headquarters is located in Levi's Plaza in San Francisco.
== History ==
=== Origin and formation (1853–1890s) ===
German-Jewish immigrant Levi Strauss was born on February 26, 1829. He grew up in Buttenheim, Bavaria. Strauss began business at 90 Sacramento Street in San Francisco, then moved to 62 Sacramento Street. In 1858, the company was listed as Strauss, Levi (David Stern & Lewis Strauss) importers clothing, etc. 63 & 65 Sacramento St. (today, on the current grounds of the 353 Sacramento Street Lobby) in the San Francisco Directory with Strauss serving as its sales manager and his brother-in-law, David Stern, as its manager.
Jacob Davis, a Latvian-Jewish immigrant, was a Reno, Nevada tailor who frequently purchased bolts of denim cloth from Levi Strauss & Co.'s wholesale house. After one of Davis's customers kept purchasing cloth to reinforce torn pants, he thought of using copper rivets to reinforce points of strain, such as on pocket corners and the base of the button fly. Davis lacked sufficient funds to obtain a patent, so he wrote to Strauss proposing a business partnership. After Strauss accepted Davis's offer, the two men received U.S. patent 139,121 from the United States Patent and Trademark Office on May 20, 1873. The copper rivet was incorporated into the company's jean design and advertisements. Contrary to an advertising campaign suggesting that Levi Strauss sold his first jeans to gold miners during the California Gold Rush (which peaked in 1849), the manufacturing of denim overalls began in the 1870s. In 1890, the rivet patent went into the public domain; the same year, lot numbers were assigned to company products, and "501" was used to designate the famous copper-riveted waist overalls. The company lost its records in the 1906 earthquake and there is no information why that number was chosen.
There are urban legends claiming that the first pair of Levi's jeans were made of hemp, in despite being made from cotton by the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company. This misinformation was likely spread in the 20th century by cannabis rights activist Jack Herer. The first hemp jeans from Levi's were manufactured in March 2019.
=== Growth in popularity (1910s–1960s) ===
Modern jeans began to appear in the 1920s, but sales were largely confined to the working people of the western US, such as cowboys, lumberjacks, and railroad workers. Levi's jeans were first introduced to the East during the dude ranch craze of the 1930s, when vacationing Easterners returned home with tales (and usually examples) of the hard-wearing riveted denim pants. Another boost came in World War II when blue jeans were declared an essential commodity and sold only to people engaged in defense work.
Between the 1950s and 1980s, Levi's jeans became popular among a wide range of youth subcultures, including greasers, mods, rockers, and hippies. Levi's popular shrink-to-fit 501s were sold as labeled, sized as manufactured, and had substantial shrinkage upon laundering. Although popular lore (abetted by company marketing) holds that the original design remains unaltered, the crotch rivet, watch pocket rivets, and waist cinch were removed during World War II to conform with War Production Board metal conservation rules and only the watch pocket rivets restored after. Additionally, the back pocket rivets, which had been covered in denim since 1937 to prevent scratching furniture, were removed in the 1950s (and replaced by bar tacks) as they eventually wore through and caused the problem anyway.
=== Blue jeans era (1960s–1980s) ===
From the early 1960s through the mid-1970s, Levi Strauss experienced significant business growth as the casual look of the 1960s and 1970s ushered in the "blue jeans craze". Levi's, under the leadership of Walter Haas, Peter Haas Sr., Paul Glasco, and George P. Simpkins Sr., expanded the firm's clothing line by adding new fashions and models, such as "stone-washed" jeans through the acquisition of Great Western Garment Co. (GWG), a Canadian clothing manufacturer, a technique still in use by Levi Strauss. Simpkins is credited with the company's record-paced expansion of its manufacturing capacity from 16 plants to more than 63 in the US – and 23 overseas – from 1964 to 1974.
In the 1980s, the company closed approximately 60 manufacturing plants because of financial difficulties and strong competition.
The Dockers brand, launched in 1986 and sold primarily through department store chains, helped the company grow through the mid-1990s, as denim sales began to wane. Dockers were introduced into Europe in 1996 and led by CEO Jorge Bardina. Levi Strauss attempted to sell the Dockers division in 2004 to relieve part of the company's $2.6 billion outstanding debt. In May 2025, it did agree to sell Dockers for $311 million to brand management firm Authentic Brands Group.
=== Brand competition (1990s) ===
By the 1990s, Levi's faced competition from other brands and cheaper products from overseas and began accelerating the pace of its US factory closures and its use of offshore subcontractors. In 1991, Levi Strauss became implicated in a scandal involving pants made in the Northern Mariana Islands: some 3% of Levi's jeans sold annually with the "Made in the USA" label were shown to have been made by Chinese laborers under what the U.S. Department of Labor called slave-like conditions. As of 2016, only a few of the costlier higher-end styles are made domestically.
Cited for sub-minimum wages, seven-day work weeks with 12-hour shifts, poor living conditions, and other workplace abuses, Tan Holdings Corporation, Levi Strauss' Marianas subcontractor, paid what were then the largest fines in US labor history, distributing more than $9 million in restitution to some 1,200 employees. Levi Strauss claimed no knowledge of the offenses, severed ties to the Tan family, and instituted labor reforms and inspection practices in its offshore facilities.
The activist group Fuerza Unida (United Force) formed following the January 1990 closure of a plant in San Antonio, Texas, in which 1,150 seamstresses – some of whom had worked for Levi Strauss for decades – saw their jobs exported to Costa Rica. During the mid-and late 1990s, Fuerza Unida picketed the Levi Strauss headquarters in San Francisco and staged hunger strikes and sit-ins in protest of the company's labor policies.
The company took on multibillion-dollar debt in February 1996 to help finance a series of private leveraged stock buyouts among family members determined to consolidate the company under their ownership. At the time, shares in Levi Strauss stock were not publicly traded. As of 2016, the firm was owned almost entirely by indirect descendants and collateral relatives of Levi Strauss, whose four nephews inherited the San Francisco dry-goods firm after their uncle died in 1902. The corporation's bonds are traded publicly, as are shares of the company's Japanese affiliate, Levi Strauss Japan K.K.
In June 1996, the company offered to pay its workers an unusual dividend of up to $750 million in six years, having halted an employee-stock plan during the internal family buyout. However, the company failed to make cash-flow targets, and no worker dividends were paid.
The annual sales of the brand increased in 1997 to $7.1 billion.
=== Later developments (2000–present) ===
In 2002, Levi Strauss began a close business collaboration with Walmart, producing a line of "Signature" jeans and other clothes for sale only in Walmart stores until 2006.
In 2002, the company closed its Valencia Street plant in San Francisco, which opened in 1906. By the end of 2003, the closure of Levi's last U.S. factory in San Antonio ended 150 years of jeans made in the United States. Production of a few higher-end, more expensive styles of jeans resumed in the U.S. several years later. Levi Strauss closed several factories worldwide and took control of GWG's operations. Attempts to make the GWG brand profitable again were unsuccessful, and the Edmonton GWG factory, along with all remaining Levi Strauss factories in North America, closed in 2004.
By 2007, Levi Strauss was again profitable after declining sales in nine of the previous ten years. Its total annual sales of just over $4 billion were $3 billion less than during its peak performance in the mid-1990s. After more than two decades of family ownership, rumors of a possible public stock offering appeared in the media in July 2007.
As of 2007, Levi Strauss leads the apparel industry in trademark infringement cases, filing nearly 100 lawsuits against competitors over six years from 2001. Most cases center on the alleged imitation of Levi's back pocket double arc stitching pattern (U.S. trademark No. 1,139,254), which Levi's filed for a trademark in 1978. Levi's has successfully sued Guess, Polo Ralph Lauren, Esprit Holdings, Zegna, Zumiez, and Lucky Brand Jeans, among other companies.
In 2010, the company partnered with Filson, an outdoor goods manufacturer in Seattle, to produce a high-end line of jackets and workwear.
In 2011, the firm hired Chip Bergh as the president and chief executive of the brand. In that same year, they established more than 20 different waterless manufacturing techniques, reducing the exceptionally high amounts of water used to create denim. Levi's is now the world's most sustainable brand of jeans in terms of water usage.
On May 8, 2013, the NFL's San Francisco 49ers announced that Levi Strauss & Co. had purchased the naming rights to their new stadium in Santa Clara, California. The naming rights deal called for Levi's to pay $220.3 million to the city of Santa Clara and the 49ers over 20 years, with an option to extend the agreement for another five years for around $75 million.
As of 2016, Levi Strauss Signature jeans were sold in 110 countries. In 2016, the company reported revenues of $4.6 billion.
On July 13, 2017, Levi Strauss heir Bill Goldman died in a private plane crash near Sonoma, California.
In 2017, Levi Strauss & Co. released a "smart jacket", an apparel they developed in partnership with Google. After two years of collaboration, the result was a denim jacket set at $350.
In March 2019, Levi's debuted on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker "LEVI". Levi Strauss was valued at $6.6 billion as its IPO priced above the target.
In September 2019, Levi's won a final judgment on a trademark infringement in Guangzhou, China. The case centered on the "arcuate design on two pockets at the back of jeans", which has been protected in China since its registration there in 2005. The company won damages and costs in addition to a ban on future infringements. The infringer's ignorance of the trademark was no bar to punishment.
In 2019, Levi's became one of only two major clothing companies with commitments in line with the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
In 2020, Levi Strauss & Co. was expected to have completely replaced chemical usage as well as using lasers to cut, and design ripped parts of jeans. In December 2019, the Engage for Good (formerly Cause Marketing Forum) organization awarded the company the Golden Halo Award for 2020 for their advancements in corporate social impact.
On August 5, 2021, Levi Strauss & Co. announced the acquisition of Beyond Yoga, entering the activewear market. They expect the acquisition will contribute more than $100 million in net revenue per year. It was announced senior executives are to speak with AI expert Blake Van Leer at the LA eCommerce Summit about their digital strategies and AI in 2023. It was announced in January 2023 that Levi would begin accepting old pairs of jeans to recycle into more denim in a campaign to go green. Levi's Autumn/Winter 2023 WellThread capsule aimed to show the brand's engagement to sustainability as it included items made from 100% transitional cotton as well as plant-based natural dyes.
During Super Bowl LX in 2026, Levi Strauss & Co. launched its "Behind Every Original" global campaign, a rear-view focused project directed by Kim Gehrig that featured global figures including musicians ROSÉ and Questlove.
== Cultural impact ==
Levi's have been worn by people of all backgrounds – from miners to actors to Nobel Prize recipients. Marlon Brando and Albert Einstein wore Levi's, and Einstein wore a 1930s-era Levi's leather jacket, which sold at auction house Christie's in July 2016 for £110,500.
Levi's is aggressive in advertising, marketing, and trademark protection. It has used its signature arched stitching on the back pockets of its jeans since 1873. In 1943, the firm trademarked the design in the U.S. and has done so in more than 100 total jurisdictions as of 2019. It has also trademarked various word marks, including "Levi's", "Red Tab", "Orange Tab", "Silvertab", "501", "505", "517", "550", "569", and "Dockers".
During the Cold War, Levi's became a symbol of the west in the Soviet Union. According to historian Kristin Roth-Ey, the association stemmed from the 1957 World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow: Americans wore Levi's jeans to the event, resulting in widespread interest within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic that prompted the Soviet government to condemn the brand as a symbol of western decadence. Continued demand for the jeans resulted in both genuine articles and bootlegs becoming commonplace in Soviet black markets, and in 1979, the Soviet government struck deals with Levi's and the VF Corporation to manufacture jeans for consumers in the region; however, this deal fell through due to the 1980 Summer Olympics boycott following the onset of the Soviet–Afghan War.
In 2021, Levi's launched the "Buy Better, Wear Longer" campaign which aimed to target the problem of clothing overconsumption and increasing amount of textile waste in landfills globally.
In 2022, it was reported that a pair of Levi's jeans from the 1880s found in an abandoned mine shaft was sold for $87,400 at an auction in New Mexico. The vintage Levi's bore a label with the inscription "the only kind made by white labor", a detail which helped date the jeans to the period between 1882, which was after the U.S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, banning Chinese laborers seeking to immigrate to the U.S., and the 1890s, when the company "reversed [its] policy and company leaders began speaking out against the nation's racist policy".
== Corporate structure and staff ==
Levi Strauss & Co. is a worldwide corporation organized into three geographic divisions: Levi Strauss Americas (LSA), which is headquartered in San Francisco; Levi Strauss Europe (LSE), which is based in Brussels; and Levi Strauss Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa.
Strauss passed the company to his nephews, Jacob, Sigmund, Louis and Abraham, the four surviving sons of David Stern, upon his death in 1902. Walter A. Haas, who married Elise Stern, the daughter of David's son, Sigmund Stern, became president in 1928, and the company remained under the ownership of the Stern-Haas family until first going public in 1971. However, in 1985, the Haas family recaptured ownership of the company, taking it private once again for the next 34 years. In February 2019, the company filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering to be traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol LEVI. It was held on March 21, 2019, selling for $17 per share.
The company is also well known for promoting progressive causes. It was one of the earliest private sector institutions to support LGBTQ causes and, during the 2016 presidential campaign, donated $1 million to support immigration and LGBTQ rights. In 2018, CEO Chip Bergh published an op-ed in Fortune magazine, speaking out against gun violence.
However, the company is alleged to make use of Uyghur forced labor provided by the China-based supplier Beijing Guanghua Textile Group from a report by the Helena Kennedy Center for International Justice, the socialists and democrats in the European Parliament. Levi's has disputed these claims.
In the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company experienced a 62% drop in sales and recorded a $364 million loss. Some 700 office jobs were pared to reduce expenses by $100 million.
== Current products ==
As of 2019, Levi's are made in many developing countries, including Bangladesh, India, Egypt, Lesotho, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Mexico. Some top-end styles in the "Levi's Premium" and "Levi's Vintage Clothing" lines are produced in the United States.
In addition to jeans, Levi's sells a full line of shirts, jackets, sweaters, underwear, socks, eyeglasses, accessories, dresses, skirts, and leather products. All jeans and pants are categorized by fit – skinny, slim, straight, bootcut, taper, relaxed, flare, and "big & tall" – identified by trademarked three-digit numbers. The 501, the company's original modern design, is available in styles for both men and women. The rest of the 500 series is designed for men, and the 300, 400, 700, and 800 series for women.
== Gallery == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Blast | Nuclear Blast | |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itanhomi | Itanhomi | Itanhomi is a municipality in the state of Minas Gerais in the Southeast region of Brazil.
== History ==
Legend spoke about the existence of an Indian chief named Queiroga. Queiroga is actually a native plant that existed on the banks of Ribeirão forest, currently Ribeirão Queiroga, from which the name is derived. There were nomadic Indians, the Botocudos (a subdivision of the Aimorés Tribe), in this region. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Stone | Emma Stone | Emily Jean "Emma" Stone (born November 6, 1988) is an American actress and film producer. Her accolades include two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and a Volpi Cup. In 2017, she was the world's highest-paid actress and named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
As a child in Arizona, Stone started acting in local theater productions before relocating to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the film industry. As a teenager, she made her television debut in the reality show In Search of the New Partridge Family (2004). After small television roles, she appeared in a string of successful comedy films, such as Superbad (2007), Zombieland (2009), and Easy A (2010), which became Stone's first leading role. Following this breakthrough, she starred in the romantic comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011) and the period drama The Help (2011), and gained wider recognition as Gwen Stacy in Marc Webb's Spider-Man films (2012–2014).
Stone cemented her leading lady status by taking on more eclectic and dramatic roles. She earned nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for portraying a recovering drug addict in the surrealist dark comedy Birdman (2014) and Abigail Hill in the absurdist period film The Favourite (2018); the latter marked her first of many collaborations with Yorgos Lanthimos. She won two Academy Awards for Best Actress for portraying an aspiring actress in the romantic musical La La Land (2016) and a resurrected suicide victim in Lanthimos's Poor Things (2023); she was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture for the latter. Stone also earned recognition for portraying tennis player Billie Jean King in Battle of the Sexes (2017) and the titular role in Cruella (2021). She has since collaborated twice more with Lanthimos, starring in the anthology film Kinds of Kindness (2024) and the dark comedy Bugonia (2025); the latter earned her further nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress and Best Picture, making her the first woman to be nominated as both a producer and an actress in each of two different films.
On Broadway, Stone starred as Sally Bowles in a revival of the musical Cabaret (2014–2015). On television, she has led the dark comedy miniseries Maniac (2018) and The Curse (2023). She and her husband, Dave McCary, founded the production company Fruit Tree in 2020.
== Early life ==
Emily Jean Stone was born on November 6, 1988, in Scottsdale, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. Her father is Jeffrey Charles Stone, the founder and CEO of a general-contracting company, and her mother is Krista Jean Stone (née Yeager), a homemaker. She lived on the grounds of the Camelback Inn resort from ages 12 to 15. She has a younger brother, Spencer. Her paternal grandfather, Conrad Ostberg Sten, was from a Swedish family that anglicized their surname to "Stone". She also has German, English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry. She was raised Lutheran.
As an infant, Stone had baby colic and cried frequently. She consequently developed nodules and calluses on her vocal cords while she was a child, which caused her to develop a low, husky voice. Stone has described herself as "loud" and "bossy" while growing up. She was educated at Sequoya Elementary School and attended Cocopah Middle School for sixth grade. Stone did not like school, though once said that her controlling nature meant that "I made sure I got all A's". She suffered panic attacks and anxiety as a child, and said they caused a decline in her social skills. Stone underwent therapy but said it was her participation in local theater plays that helped cure the attacks, recalling:
The first time I had a panic attack I was sitting in my friend's house, and I thought the house was burning down. I called my mom and she brought me home, and for the next three years it just would not stop. I would go to the nurse at lunch most days and just wring my hands. I would ask my mom to tell me exactly how the day was going to be, then ask again 30 seconds later. I just needed to know that no one was going to die and nothing was going to change.
Stone wanted to act since age four; she wanted a career in sketch comedy initially, but shifted her focus to musical theater, and took vocal lessons for several years. Her acting debut, at age 11, came in a stage production of The Wind in the Willows, playing Otter. Stone was homeschooled for two years, during which time she appeared in 16 productions at Phoenix's Valley Youth Theatre—including The Princess and the Pea, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat—and performed with the theater's improvisational comedy troupe. Around this time, she traveled to Los Angeles and auditioned unsuccessfully for a role on Nickelodeon's All That. Her parents later sent her for private acting lessons with a local acting coach, who had worked at the William Morris Agency in the 1970s.
Stone attended Xavier College Preparatory—an all-girl Catholic high school—as a freshman, but dropped out after one semester to become an actress. She prepared a PowerPoint presentation for her parents titled "Project Hollywood" to convince them to let her move to California to pursue an acting career. In January 2004, she moved with her mother to an apartment in Los Angeles. She recalled, "I went up for every single show on the Disney Channel and auditioned to play the daughter on every single sitcom", adding, "I ended up getting none." Between auditions for roles, she enrolled in online high-school classes and worked part-time at a dog-treat bakery.
== Career ==
=== Career beginnings (2004–2009) ===
When Stone registered for the Screen Actors Guild at age 16, the name "Emily Stone" was already taken, and she briefly went by "Riley Stone". She made her television debut as Laurie Partridge on the VH1 talent competition reality show In Search of the New Partridge Family (2004). The resulting show, retitled The New Partridge Family (2004), remained an unsold pilot. After guest-starring in the television shows Medium (2005) and Malcolm in the Middle (2006), she decided to change her stage name to "Emma"—chosen in honor of Emma Bunton of the Spice Girls—as she struggled to adapt to the name Riley. She next appeared in Louis C.K.'s HBO series Lucky Louie (2006), and unsuccessfully auditioned to star as Claire Bennet in the NBC science fiction drama Heroes (2007); later called this her "rock bottom" experience. In April 2007, she played Violet Trimble in the Fox action drama Drive, but the show was canceled after seven episodes.
Stone made her feature film debut in Greg Mottola's comedy Superbad (2007), co-starring Michael Cera and Jonah Hill. The film tells the story of two high school students who go through a series of comic misadventures after they plan to buy alcohol for a party. To play Hill's romantic interest, she dyed her hair red. Stone has described the experience of acting in her first film as "amazing ... [but] very different than other experiences I've had since then". The film was a commercial success, and earned her the Young Hollywood Award for Exciting New Face.
The next year, Stone starred in the comedy The Rocker (2008) as Amelia Stone, the "straight face" bass guitarist in a band; she learned to play the bass for the role. The actress, who has called herself "a big smiler and laugher", said she found it difficult to play a character whose personality was so different from her own. The film and her performance received negative reviews from critics and was a commercial failure. Her next release, the romantic comedy The House Bunny, performed better at the box office, becoming a moderate commercial success. The film saw her play the president of a sorority, and perform a cover version of the Waitresses' 1982 song "I Know What Boys Like". Reviews were generally negative, but Stone was praised, with TV Guide's Ken Fox writing that she "is well on her way to becoming a star".
Stone appeared in three films released in 2009. The first of these was opposite Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner and Michael Douglas in Mark Waters's Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Loosely based on Charles Dickens's 1843 novella A Christmas Carol, the romantic comedy has her playing a ghost who haunts her former boyfriend. Critical reaction to the film was negative, but it was a modest commercial success. Her most financially profitable venture that year was Ruben Fleischer's $102.3 million-grossing horror comedy film Zombieland, in which she featured alongside Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson and Abigail Breslin. In the film, she appeared as a con artist and survivor of a zombie apocalypse, in a role which Chris Hewitt of Empire magazine thought was "somewhat underwritten". In a more positive review, Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph called "the hugely promising Stone […] a tough cookie who projects the aura of being wiser than her years". Stone's third release in 2009 was Kieran and Michelle Mulroney's Paper Man, a comedy-drama which disappointed critics.
=== Rise to prominence (2010–2013) ===
Stone voiced an Australian Shepherd in Marmaduke (2010), a comedy from director Tom Dey based on Brad Anderson's long-running comic strip of the same name. Her breakthrough came the same year with a starring role in Easy A, a teen comedy directed by Will Gluck. Partially based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter, the film tells the story of Olive Penderghast (Stone), a high school student who becomes embroiled in a comic sex scandal after a false rumor circulates that she is sexually promiscuous. Stone read the script before the project was optioned for production, and pursued it with her manager while production details were being finalized. She found the script "so different and unique from anything I'd read before", calling it "funny and sweet". When Stone discovered that the film had begun production, she met with Gluck, expressing her enthusiasm for the project. A few months later, the audition process started and she met again with Gluck, becoming one of the first actresses to audition. The film received positive critical reviews, and Stone's performance was considered its prime asset. Anna Smith of Time Out wrote, "Stone gives a terrific performance, her knowing drawl implying intellect and indifference with underlying warmth." The film was a commercial success, grossing $75 million against its $8 million budget. Stone was nominated for a BAFTA Rising Star Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, and won the MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance.
In October 2010, Stone hosted an episode of NBC's sketch comedy Saturday Night Live; her appearances included a sketch playing off her resemblance to Lindsay Lohan. Stone called it "the greatest week of my life". She hosted again in 2011, appeared in an episode in 2014, and in its 40th anniversary special in 2015. A brief appearance in the sex comedy Friends with Benefits (2011) reunited her with Gluck. She followed this with a supporting role in Glenn Ficarra and John Requa's romantic comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011) alongside Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Julianne Moore. The film featured her as a law school graduate, and the love interest of Gosling's character. Despite finding "some inevitable collapses into convention" in the film, Drew McWeeny of HitFix wrote that Stone "ties the whole film together". At the 2012 Teen Choice Awards, she won the Choice Movie Actress – Comedy award for her performance in the film. Crazy, Stupid, Love was a box office success, grossing $142.9 million worldwide against a production budget of $50 million.
Dismayed at being typecast as "the sarcastic interest of the guy", Stone co-starred with Viola Davis in Tate Taylor's period drama The Help (2011), a film she found challenging. The film is based on Kathryn Stockett's 2009 novel of the same name and is set in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi. She met with Taylor to express a desire to work on the film. The director said, "[Stone] was completely awkward and dorky, with her raspy voice, and she sat down and we got a little intoxicated and had a blast, and I just thought, 'God! God! This is Skeeter." She was cast as Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, an aspiring writer learning about the lives of the African-American maids. In preparation for the part, she learned to speak in a Southern accent and educated herself on the Civil Rights Movement through literature and film. With a worldwide gross of $216 million against a $25 million budget, The Help became Stone's highest-grossing film to that point. The film, and her performance, received positive reviews from critics. Writing for Empire, Anna Smith thought Stone was "well-meaning and hugely likable" despite finding flaws in the character. The film won Best Ensemble Cast from the Women Film Critics Circle and the Broadcast Film Critics Association.
Stone turned down a role in the action comedy 21 Jump Street after signing on to Marc Webb's 2012 film The Amazing Spider-Man, a reboot of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man series. She portrayed Gwen Stacy, the love interest of the titular superhero (played by Andrew Garfield) based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Stone returned to her natural blonde hair color for the role, having dyed it red previously. She admitted to having never read the comics, and therefore felt responsible to educate herself about Spider-Man: "My experience was with the Sam Raimi movies ... I always assumed that Mary Jane was his first love", adding that she was only familiar with Stacy's character as portrayed by Bryce Dallas Howard in Spider-Man 3. The Amazing Spider-Man was a commercial success and was the seventh highest-grossing film of the year with global revenues of $757.9 million. Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum found Stone to be "irresistible", and Ian Freer of Empire was particularly impressed with Stone's and Garfield's performances. At the annual People's Choice Awards ceremony, she was nominated for three awards, including Favorite Movie Actress. Later that year, Stone voiced a role in the crime-based video game Sleeping Dogs, which earned her a Spike Video Game Award.
Stone began 2013 with a voice role in the DreamWorks Animation film The Croods, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. This followed with an appearance in Movie 43, an anthology film which consists of 16 short stories—she played the title role in the segment entitled "Veronica". She next starred alongside Ryan Gosling and Sean Penn in Ruben Fleischer's Gangster Squad (2013), a crime thriller set in Los Angeles during the 1940s. A. O. Scott of The New York Times dismissed the film as "a hectic jumble of fedoras and zoot suits", but praised Stone's pairing with Gosling.
=== Established actress (2014–2017) ===
In 2014, Stone reprised the role of Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. She believed that her character did not depend on the film's protagonist, asserting: "She saves him more than he saves her. She's incredibly helpful to Spider-Man... He's the muscle, she's the brains." Her performance was well received by critics; an Empire reviewer commended her for standing out in the film, writing, "Stone is the Heath Ledger of this series, doing something unexpected with an easily dismissed supporting character." The role won her the Favorite Movie Actress award at the 2015 Kids' Choice Awards. Despite Gwen's death, Stone expressed interest in reprising the role in later films. However, due to The Amazing Spider-Man 2's mixed reviews, low box office performance, and the 2014 Sony Pictures hack, all planned sequels and spinoffs were cancelled, and the franchise was rebooted once again after being integrated into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Later that year, Stone took on a role in Woody Allen's romantic comedy Magic in the Moonlight, a modest commercial success. A. O. Scott criticized her role and pairing with Colin Firth, describing it as "the kind of pedantic nonsense that is meant to signify superior intellect".
The black comedy Birdman, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, was Stone's final film release of 2014. Co-starring Michael Keaton and Edward Norton, it featured her as Sam Thomson, the recovering-addict daughter of actor Riggan Thomson (Keaton), who becomes his assistant. Iñárritu created the character based on his experience with his daughter. Birdman was critically acclaimed, and was the most successful film at the 87th Academy Awards; it was nominated for nine awards, winning four, including Best Picture. The Movie Network deemed it one of Stone's best performances to date, and Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph found her to be "superb" and "tremendous" in her role, while also highlighting her monologue in the film which he believed to have been "delivered like a knitting needle to the gut". She received Academy, BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations.
From November 2014 to February 2015, Stone starred in a revival of the Broadway musical Cabaret as Sally Bowles, taking over the role from Michelle Williams. Deeming it "the most nerve-racking thing ever", Stone listened to a French radio station to mentally prepare herself for the role. Marilyn Stasio of Variety was critical of her singing abilities and found her performance to be "a bit narrow as an emotional platform, but a smart choice for her acting skills, the perfect fit for her sharp intelligence and kinetic energy." Stone's 2015 film, the romantic comedy Aloha by Cameron Crowe, was a critical and commercial failure. Her portrayal of an air force pilot, alongside Bradley Cooper, was panned by critics for its controversial whitewashing of the cast, as Stone's character was meant to be of Asian, Hawaiian, and Swedish descent. She later regretted taking part in the project, acknowledging whitewashing as a widespread problem in Hollywood. Despite the backlash, Stone was nominated for Choice Movie Actress – Comedy at the 2015 Teen Choice Awards. Also in 2015, Stone starred opposite Joaquin Phoenix as his character's love interest in Woody Allen's Irrational Man, which received mixed reviews. She also appeared in the music video for Will Butler's single "Anna".
During her run on Cabaret, Stone met filmmaker Damien Chazelle, who, impressed with her performance, cast her in his musical comedy-drama La La Land. The project, which marked her third collaboration with Gosling, starred Stone as Mia Dolan, an aspiring actress living in Los Angeles. Stone borrowed several real-life experiences for her character, and in preparation, watched The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. For the film's soundtrack, she recorded six songs. La La Land served as the opening film at the 2016 Venice Film Festival, where it generated critical acclaim and earned Stone the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. It emerged as a commercial success, with a worldwide gross of over $440 million against a production budget of $30 million. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian wrote that "Stone has never been better: superbly smart, witty, vulnerable, her huge doe eyes radiating intelligence even, or especially, when they are filling with tears." For her performance, Stone won the Academy, Golden Globe, SAG, and BAFTA Award for Best Actress.
Stone's sole release of 2017 was Battle of the Sexes, based on the 1973 eponymous match between tennis players Billie Jean King (Stone) and Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell). In preparation, Stone met with King, watched old footage and interviews of her, worked with a dialect coach to speak in King's accent, and drank high-calorie protein shakes to gain 15 pounds (6.8 kg). The film premiered to positive reviews at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival, and certain critics considered Stone's performance to be the finest of her career. Benjamin Lee of The Guardian praised her for playing against type, and for being "strong" and "convincing" in the part. Even so, the film earned less than its $25 million budget. Stone received her fourth Golden Globe nomination for it, and attended the ceremony with King.
=== Films with Yorgos Lanthimos and professional expansion (2018–present) ===
In 2018, Stone and Rachel Weisz played Abigail Masham and Sarah Churchill, respectively; two cousins fighting for the affection of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman), in Yorgos Lanthimos's historical comedy-drama The Favourite. She found it challenging to be an American among an all-British cast, and struggled with mastering her character's accent. The film premiered at the 75th Venice International Film Festival to critical acclaim. Michael Nordine of IndieWire praised Stone for taking on such a bold role following the success of La La Land, and termed the three lead actresses "a majestic triumvirate in a period piece that's as tragic as it is hilarious." Stone then executive-produced and starred in the Netflix dark comedy miniseries Maniac (2018), directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga. It featured Stone and Jonah Hill as two strangers whose lives are transformed due to a mysterious pharmaceutical trial. An admirer of Fukunaga's work, she agreed to the project without reading the script. Judy Berman of Time magazine was impressed with Stone and Hill for their growth as actors since Superbad and noted the complexity in their performances. Stone received her fifth Golden Globe nomination and third Oscar nomination for The Favourite, and additionally earned SAG nominations for both Maniac and The Favourite. That same year, Stone appeared in Paul McCartney's music video for his song "Who Cares".
Stone reprised her role as Wichita in Zombieland: Double Tap (2019), the sequel to 2009's Zombieland, which received mixed reviews and grossed $125 million worldwide. She narrated the Netflix documentary series The Mind, Explained (2019) and reprised the voice role of Eep in The Croods: A New Age (2020), the sequel to 2013's The Croods. In 2021, Stone played Cruella de Vil (originated by Glenn Close in the previous live-action adaptations) in Craig Gillespie's crime comedy Cruella, a Disney live-action based on the 1961 animation One Hundred and One Dalmatians. Starring opposite Emma Thompson, Stone also served as an executive producer of the film alongside Close. The film was released in US theaters and on Disney+ Premier Access to positive reviews and grossed $233 million worldwide against its $100 million budget. Justin Chang of Los Angeles Times wrote that despite the film's flawed screenplay, Stone was "wholly committed, glammed-to-the-nines"; Chang favorably compared it with her performance in The Favourite, adding that she "nailed every nuance as another lowly young woman turned ambitious schemer". For Cruella, Stone garnered another Golden Globe nomination.
In 2020, Stone and her husband, Dave McCary, launched the production company Fruit Tree. Their first project was the independent film When You Finish Saving the World, which marked Jesse Eisenberg's feature directorial debut. The film premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, and had modest reviews. The company's next release was the comedy Problemista, directed by Julio Torres. It premiered at the 2023 South by Southwest, and was initially scheduled to be released that year, but was delayed due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Both films were produced in collaboration with A24.
Continuing her collaboration with Lanthimos, Stone starred in his short film Bleat (2022) and feature film Poor Things (2023). The latter, a fantasy coming-of-age film, is based on the novel of the same name by Alasdair Gray. Stone also produced the film, in which she starred as Bella, a young Victorian woman who is crudely resurrected after her suicide. She found the experience of playing a character liberated of societal pressures to be "extremely freeing", and she performed nudity and several sex scenes in it. David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Stone "gorges on it in a fearless performance that traces an expansive arc most actors could only dream about", and particularly praised her ability to perform physical comedy. Stephanie Zacharek of Time termed her performance "wonderful—vital, exploratory, almost lunar in its perfect oddness". Stone next executive produced and starred in the Showtime satirical comedy series The Curse. She played Whitney, an influencer who hosts an HGTV show with her husband. Commenting on her achievements of the year, BBC Culture's Caryn James opined that "Stone has quickly moved past Hollywood stardom to claim serious artistic credentials". She received two more Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress for her performances in Poor Things and The Curse, winning for the former. Also for Poor Things, she won her second Academy Award and BAFTA for Best Actress in addition to a Best Picture nomination.
The 2024 Sundance Film Festival marked the release of two films produced by Stone for Fruit Tree — the horror film I Saw the TV Glow and Eisenberg's second directorial, A Real Pain. The latter, a comedy-drama about two mismatched Jewish American cousins, received critical acclaim and several accolades. In her fourth collaboration with Lanthimos, Stone played three characters in his absurdist anthology film Kinds of Kindness, which premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. Mashable's Robert Daniels considered it to be the weakest among their collaborations, and labeled her as "miscast". In 2025, Stone first appeared in Ari Aster's contemporary Western film Eddington, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, and also starred Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, and Austin Butler. Ben Croll of TheWrap felt that while Stone and Pascal were "no doubt game and ready to let loose", their characters "aren't given an awful lot to actually do – with both set up less as fully fledged characters than as images for [Phoenix] to pine-for or run against". Stone reunited with Lanthimos in Bugonia, a remake of the South Korean film Save the Green Planet!, playing a CEO kidnapped by two men who believe she is an alien. She shaved her head for her role in the film and wore wigs in public in the months that followed to disguise the look, wanting to keep it a surprise for the audience. Released on October 24, 2025, the film received generally positive reviews. She received Actor, BAFTA, Critics' Choice, Golden Globe, and two Oscar (Best Picture and Best Actress) nominations. She became the second-youngest person, and the youngest woman, in Oscar history to receive seven nominations, surpassing previous record holder Meryl Streep.
Stone and close friend Jennifer Lawrence are attached to produce a movie about The Muppets character Miss Piggy, which will be written by Cole Escola. She is expected to have a starring role opposite Chris Pine in the romantic comedy The Catch, which will be directed by McCary. In addition, she will reprise her role as Cruella in a sequel to the 2021 film.
== Reception and acting style ==
Commenting on her performance in The Help, Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter called her "one of our very best young actresses". Time's Daniel D'Addario stated in 2015 that Stone "appears to have fairly limited options" and choosing roles in independent films by "less established directors would represent a substantive risk". Analyzing her on-screen persona, Jessica Kiang of IndieWire noted that Stone "usually [plays] the approachable, down-to-earth, girl-next-door type, [and] in person she demonstrates many of those qualities too, along with an absolute refusal to take herself too seriously." Biographer Karen Hollinger writes that early in her career, Stone was often labeled a "star ingénue", a perceived limitation she escaped despite not being a classically trained actress as she "crafted a brilliant career based on performative skills, careful choice of roles and distinctive personality". In a 2024 analysis of her career trajectory, IndieWire suggested that from her breakthrough roles to acclaimed performances in independent films, Stone is positioned as a potential new film star in Hollywood's evolving landscape.
In 2008, Stone topped Saturday Night Magazine's Top 20 Rising Stars Under 30 and was included in a similar list compiled by Moviefone. LoveFilm placed her on their list of 2010 Top 20 Actresses Under 30, and her performance in Easy A was included in Time's Top 10 Everything of 2010. She appeared in the 2013 Celebrity 100 list, a compilation of the 100 most powerful people in the world, as selected annually by Forbes. The magazine reported that she had earned $16 million from June 2012 to June 2013. That same year, she was ranked first in the magazine's Top 10 Best Value Stars. In 2015, Forbes published that she had become one of the world's highest-paid actresses with earnings of $6.5 million. The magazine ranked her the world's highest-paid actress two years later with annual earnings of $26 million. In 2017, she was included on Time's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Stone has been described as a style icon, with her hair, eyes, and husky voice listed as her trademark features. Vogue credits the actress for her "sophisticated, perfectly put-together looks", writing that "her charisma, both on-screen and off-, has charmed many" and for her embrace of "Old Hollywood Glamour". Bee Shapiro of The New York Times called Stone a "likable ... spunky, talented, self-deprecating and slightly goofy" actress who is diverse in her fashion choices. In 2009, she was featured on FHM's 100 Sexiest Women in the World and Maxim's Hot 100; the latter also placed her on the list on three other occasions—2010, 2011, and 2014. In 2011, she featured on Victoria's Secret's list of "What is Sexy?" as the Sexiest Actress. She was mentioned in other media outlet listings that year, including People's 100 Most Beautiful Women, each of FHM's and FHM Australia's 100 Sexiest Women in the World, and Men's Health's 100 Hottest Women. She was ranked sixth on Empire's list of the 100 Sexiest Movie Stars in 2013. Stone was named the best-dressed woman of 2012 by Vogue and was included on similar listings by Glamour in 2013 and 2015, and People in 2014.
== Personal life ==
Stone moved from Los Angeles to Greenwich Village, New York, in 2009. In 2016, she moved back to Los Angeles. Despite significant media attention, she refuses to publicly discuss her personal life. Concerned with living a normal life, Stone has said she dislikes receiving paparazzi attention outside her home. She has expressed her fondness for her profession, and has cited Diane Keaton as an acting influence, calling her "one of the most covered-up actresses of all time". Stone has a close relationship with her family. She says, "I am blessed with a great family and great people around me that would be able to kick me in the shins if I ever for one minute got lost up in the clouds. I've been really lucky in that sense."
Stone dated her Paper Man co-star Kieran Culkin for two years. In 2011, she started dating her Amazing Spider-Man co-star Andrew Garfield for four years. Their relationship was reported in the media with various speculations; the pair refused to speak publicly about it, though they made several appearances together. In 2014, on an occasion in New York City, Stone and Garfield encouraged paparazzi to visit websites that spread awareness of causes such as autism. In 2015, they were reported to have broken up.
Stone met Saturday Night Live segment director Dave McCary on December 3, 2016, while hosting the show. They began dating the following year. On December 4, 2019, they announced their engagement. They married in a private ceremony in September 2020. In March 2021, Stone gave birth to their daughter, Louise Jean McCary. As of 2021, the family lives in Austin, Texas. In 2022, Stone sold her house in Malibu, California, for $4.425 million, and in 2024, she sold her Los Angeles home for $4 million.
Stone has said she has asthma, which she discovered after having difficulty breathing while filming Easy A. Her mother was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer in 2008. In 2010 Stone and her mother celebrated the remission of the cancer by getting tattoos of birds' feet, designed by Paul McCartney, a reference to the Beatles song "Blackbird", which she and her mother love.
In a 2024 interview with Terry Gross of NPR, Stone said of her Lutheran upbringing: "I very early on realized that religion didn't resonate for me...the sort of relationship I had to it was a more of a guilt and a sort of self-judgment rather than...focusing on the wonderful things that it can teach you...there's guilt around sexuality. There's guilt around your body. There's, you know, different stories about womanhood and what it means to be a woman and to be of service to a man or to not ever be jealous or not covet and, you know, all these things that are just sort of human and live in the shadow side. I went from religion into Jungian therapy, obviously. So learning that being complex and complicated and female was OK, you know, that took me a while, I think, to unpack in myself." In 2025, on the subject of God, she said, "If it's a He — if He even exists — I can't imagine He wouldn't be loving and generous, full of empathy and understanding. No offense to anyone who's religious, but that's what bothers me: that's the story we've been told for so long."
== Philanthropy ==
Stone appeared in a Revlon campaign that promoted breast cancer awareness. In 2011, she appeared in a collaborative video between Star Wars and Stand Up to Cancer to raise funds for cancer research. From 2012 to 2014, she hosted the Entertainment Industry Foundation's Revlon Run/Walk, which helps fight women's cancer. Following the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, she spoke out in support for the LGBTQ community and for gun law reforms, calling the politicians seeking reforms "heroes of equality." She is a supporter of Planned Parenthood, and attended the 2017 Academy Awards wearing a Planned Parenthood pin on her dress.
Stone and three other celebrities were present at the 2012 Nickelodeon HALO Awards, a TV special that profiled four teenagers who are "Helping And Leading Others" (HALO). She attended the 2014 Earth Hour, a worldwide movement for the planet organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature. In 2015, she was part of a fundraising event in support of the Motion Picture & Television Fund, which helps people in the film and television industries with limited or no resources. A feminist, she collaborated with 300 women in Hollywood to set up the Time's Up initiative to protect women from sexual harassment and discrimination in 2018. In 2025, Stone signed the Film Workers for Palestine letter pledging that she would not to work with Israeli film institutions implicated in "genocide and apartheid" against Palestinians.
== Acting credits and awards ==
According to the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes and the box-office site Box Office Mojo, Stone's most critically acclaimed and commercially successful films are Superbad (2007), Zombieland (2009), Easy A (2010), Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011), The Help (2011), The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), Birdman (2014), La La Land (2016), Battle of the Sexes (2017), The Favourite (2018), Cruella (2021), and Poor Things (2023).
Stone has been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the following:
87th Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actress, nomination, for Birdman (2014)
89th Academy Awards: Best Actress, win, for La La Land (2016)
91st Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actress, nomination, for The Favourite (2018)
96th Academy Awards: Best Actress, win, for Poor Things (2023)
96th Academy Awards: Best Picture, nomination, for Poor Things (2023)
98th Academy Awards: Best Actress, nomination, for Bugonia (2025)
98th Academy Awards: Best Picture, nomination, for Bugonia (2025)
She has also been nominated for five British Academy Film Awards: BAFTA Rising Star Award, Best Supporting Actress for Birdman and The Favourite, and Best Actress in a Leading Role for La La Land and Poor Things, winning for the last two. Her other awards include two Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical for La La Land and Poor Things, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role and the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at Venice Film Festival, both for La La Land. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Illinois_Urbana-Champaign#Notable_alumni_and_faculty | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign#Notable alumni and faculty | The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the founding campus and flagship institution of the University of Illinois System. With over 59,000 students, the University of Illinois is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the United States.
The university contains 16 schools and colleges and offers more than 150 undergraduate and over 100 graduate programs of study. The university holds 651 buildings on 6,370 acres (2,578 ha) and its annual operating budget in 2016 was over $2 billion. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign also operates a research park home to innovation centers for over 90 start-up companies and multinational corporations.
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". In fiscal year 2019, research expenditures at Illinois totaled $652 million. The campus library system possesses the fourth-largest university library in the United States by holdings. The university also hosts the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.
The alumni, faculty members, or researchers of the university include 24 Nobel laureates, 27 Pulitzer Prize winners, 2 Fields medalists, and 2 Turing Award winners. Illinois athletic teams compete in Division I of the NCAA and are collectively known as the Fighting Illini. They are members of the Big Ten Conference and have won the second-most conference titles. Illinois Fighting Illini football won the Rose Bowl Game in 1947, 1952, 1964 and a total of five national championships. Illinois athletes have won 29 medals in Olympic events.
== History ==
=== Illinois Industrial University (1867–1885) ===
The University of Illinois, originally named "Illinois Industrial University", was one of the 37 universities created under the first Morrill Land-Grant Act, which provided public land for the creation of agricultural and industrial colleges and universities across the United States. Among several cities, Urbana was selected in 1867 as the site for the new school. From the beginning, President John Milton Gregory's desire to establish an institution firmly grounded in the liberal arts tradition was at odds with many state residents and lawmakers who wanted the university to offer classes based solely around "industrial education". The university opened for classes on March 2, 1868, and had two faculty members and 77 students.
The library, which opened with the school in 1868, started with 1,039 volumes. Subsequently, President Edmund J. James, in a speech to the board of trustees in 1912, proposed to create a research library. It is now one of the world's largest public academic collections. In 1870, the Mumford House was constructed as a model farmhouse for the school's experimental farm. The Mumford House remains the oldest structure on campus. The original University Hall (1871) was the fourth building built; it stood where the Illini Union stands today.
The University of Illinois' Undergraduate Library (UGL) was constructed underground to preserve open space on campus and to prevent casting shadows on the adjacent Morrow Plots, the oldest continually used experimental agricultural fields in the United States. This unique design inspired The Other Guys, a student a cappella group, to create the "Morrow Plots Song," humorously explaining that the library was built underground "'Cause you can't throw shade on the corn".
The song has become a beloved piece among students and alumni, celebrating the university's history and traditions.
=== University of Illinois (1885–1977) ===
In 1885, the Illinois Industrial University officially changed its name to the "University of Illinois", reflecting its agricultural, mechanical, and liberal arts curriculum. According to educational historian Roger L. Geiger, Illinois and a few other public and private universities set the standard for what the research university in the United States would become.
During his presidency, Edmund J. James (1904–1920) set the policy of building a massive research library. He also laid the foundation for the large Chinese international student population on campus. James established ties with China through the Chinese Minister to the United States Wu Ting-Fang. Class rivalries and Bob Zuppke's winning football teams contributed to campus morale.
Alma Mater, a prominent statue on campus created by alumnus Lorado Taft, was unveiled on June 11, 1929. It was funded from donations by the Alumni Fund and the classes of 1923–1929.
The Great Depression in the United States slowed construction and expansion on the campus. The university replaced the original university hall with Gregory Hall and the Illini Union. After World War II, the university experienced rapid growth. The enrollment doubled and the academic standing improved. This period was also marked by large growth in the Graduate College and increased federal support of scientific and technological research. During the 1950s and 1960s the university experienced the turmoil common on many American campuses. Among these were the water fights of the 1950s and 1960s.
=== University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (1977–present) ===
By 1967, the University of Illinois system consisted of a main campus in Champaign-Urbana and two Chicago campuses, Chicago Circle (UICC) and Medical Center (UIMC), and people began using "Urbana-Champaign" or the reverse to refer to the main campus specifically. The university name officially changed to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by 1977 (although the word "at" was later dropped for marketing purposes by all U of I System campuses by 2021). While this was a reversal of the commonly used designation for the metropolitan area (Champaign-Urbana), a majority of the campus is located in Urbana. The name change established a separate identity for the main campus within the University of Illinois System, which today includes separate institutions at the University of Illinois Chicago (formed by the merger of UICC and UIMC) and University of Illinois Springfield.
In 1998, the Hallene Gateway Plaza was dedicated. The Plaza features the original sandstone portal of University Hall, which was originally the fourth building on campus. In recent years, state support has declined from 4.5% of the state's tax appropriations in 1980 to 2.28% in 2011, a nearly 50% decline. As a result, the university's budget has shifted away from relying on state support with nearly 84% of the budget coming from other sources in 2012.
On March 12, 2015, the Board of Trustees approved the creation of a medical school, the first college created at Urbana-Champaign in 60 years. The Carle Illinois College of Medicine began classes in 2018. It is the world's first engineering-based medical school.
== Campus ==
The main research and academic facilities are divided almost evenly between the twin cities of Urbana and Champaign, which form part of the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area. Some parts are in Urbana Township.
Four main quads compose the center of the university and are arranged from north to south. The Beckman Quadrangle and the John Bardeen Quadrangle occupy the center of the Engineering Campus. Boneyard Creek flows through the John Bardeen Quadrangle, parallel to Green Street. The Beckman Quadrangle, named after Arnold Orville Beckman, is primarily composed of research units and laboratories, and features a large solar calendar consisting of an obelisk and several copper fountains. The Main Quadrangle and South Quadrangle follow immediately after the John Bardeen Quad. The former makes up a large part of the Liberal Arts and Sciences portion of the campus, while the latter comprises many of the buildings of the College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences (ACES) spread across the campus map.
Additionally, the research fields of the College of ACES stretch south from Urbana and Champaign into Savoy and Champaign County. The university also maintains formal gardens and a conference center in nearby Monticello at Allerton Park.
The campus is known for its landscape and architecture, as well as distinctive landmarks. It was identified as one of 50 college or university "works of art" by T.A. Gaines in his book The Campus as a Work of Art. The campus also has a number of buildings and sites on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places including Harker Hall, the Astronomical Observatory, Louise Freer Hall, the Main Library, the Experimental Dairy Farm Historic District, and the Morrow Plots. University of Illinois Willard Airport is one of the few airports owned by an educational institution.
Chesterbrook Academy private preschool, which opened in 2007, is located on the campus and serves infants through Pre-K.
=== Sustainability ===
In 2008, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign became a signatory of the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment, binding the campus to the goal of carbon neutrality as soon as possible. In 2010, the first Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) was written to chart a path to this goal. The iCAP is a strategic framework for meeting the university's Climate Leadership Commitments to be carbon-neutral by 2050 or sooner and build resilience with its local community. Since then, the iCAP has been rewritten every five years to track the university's progress.
In December 2013, the University of Illinois launched the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) on the Urbana-Champaign campus. The institute, under the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation, leads an interdisciplinary approach to researching solutions for the world's most pressing sustainability, energy, and environmental needs. In addition, iSEE has engaged students, faculty, staff, and campus leadership in the iCAP process — especially in the areas of zero waste and conservation of energy, food, water, land, and natural resources — as well as sustainability outreach and immersive educational programs.
In 2022, new solar and geothermal energy projects, a reduction in water use, and wide-ranging sustainability research helped the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign earn its fifth consecutive gold certification in the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS). Illinois has consistently achieved gold certification since it began reporting data through STARS in 2013, and the 2022 score was one of its highest to date.
Currently, the campus features 27 LEED-certified buildings.
== Academics ==
As of 2024, 87% of students graduate within 8 years of entering, compared to the national median of 58% for all 4-year universities nationwide.
=== Undergraduate admissions ===
The overall first-year admit rate for 2025 is 36.6%, which differs among U of I colleges. Certain majors can be extremely competitive, such as computer science (where the university's program is consistently ranked fifth nationwide) with an acceptance rate of 7.4% in 2025.
In 2009, an investigation by The Chicago Tribune reported that some applicants "received special consideration" for acceptance between 2005 and 2009, despite having sub-par qualifications. This incident became known as the University of Illinois clout scandal.
=== Academic divisions ===
The university offers more than 150 undergraduate and 100 graduate and professional programs in over 15 academic units, among several online specializations such as Digital Marketing and an online MBA program launched in January 2016. In 2015, the university announced its expansion to include an engineering-based medical program, which would be the first new college created in Urbana-Champaign in 60 years. The university also offers undergraduate students the opportunity for graduation honors. University Honors is an academic distinction awarded to the highest achieving students. To earn the distinction, students must have a cumulative grade point average of a 3.5/4.0 within the academic year of their graduation and rank within the top 3% of their graduating class. Their names are inscribed on a Bronze Tablet that hangs in the Main Library.
=== Online learning ===
In addition to the university's Illinois Online platform, in 2015 the university entered into a partnership with the Silicon Valley educational technology company Coursera to offer a series of master's degrees, certifications, and specialization courses, currently including more than 70 joint learning classes. In August 2015, the Master of Business Administration program was launched through the platform. On March 31, 2016, Coursera announced the launch of the Master of Computer Science in Data Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. At the time, the university's computer-science graduate program was ranked fifth in the United States by U.S. News & World Report. On March 29, 2017, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign launched their Master's in Accounting (iMSA) program, now called the Master of Science in Accountancy (iMSA) program. The iMSA program is led through live sessions, headed by Illinois faculty.
Similar to the university's on-campus admission policies, the online master's degrees offered by the U of I through Coursera also has admission requirements. All applicants must hold a bachelor's degree, and have earned a 3.0 GPA or higher in the last two years of study. Additionally, all applicants must prove their proficiency in English.
The U of I also offers online courses in partnership with Coursera, such as Marketing in a Digital World, which focuses on how digital tools like internet, smartphone and 3D printers are changing the marketing landscape.
=== Reputation and rankings ===
In the 2021 U.S. News & World Report "America's Best Colleges" report, Illinois's undergraduate program was ranked tied for 47th among national universities and tied for 15th among public universities, with its undergraduate engineering program ranked tied for 6th in the U.S. among schools whose highest degree is a doctorate.
Washington Monthly ranked Illinois 18th among 389 national universities in the U.S. for 2020, based on its contribution to the public good as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service. Kiplinger's Personal Finance rated Illinois 12th in its 2019 list of 174 Best Values in Public Colleges, which "measures academic quality, cost and financial aid."
The Graduate Program in Urban Planning at the College of Fine and Applied Arts was ranked 3rd nationally by Planetizen in 2015. The university was also listed as a "Public Ivy" in The Public Ivies: America's Flagship Public Universities (2001) by Howard and Matthew Greene. The Princeton Review ranked Illinois 1st in its 2016 list of top party schools.
Internationally, Illinois engineering was ranked 13th in the world in 2016 by the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) and the university 38th in 2019; the university was also ranked 48th globally by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings in 2020 and 75th in the world by the QS World University Rankings for 2020. The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) has ranked University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as the 20th best university in the world for 2019–20.
Illinois ranked 32nd in the world in Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings for 2018.
== Philanthropy ==
Notable among significant donors, alumnus entrepreneur Thomas M. Siebel has committed nearly $150 million to the university, including $36 million to build the Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science, $25 million to build the Siebel Center for Design, and $50 million to support the renamed Department of Computer Science to become Siebel School of Computing and Data Science. Furthermore, the Grainger Foundation (founded by alumnus W. W. Grainger) has contributed more than $300 million to the university over the last half-century, including donations for the construction of the Grainger Engineering Library. Larry Gies and his wife Beth donated $150 million in 2017 to the shortly thereafter renamed Gies College of Business.
== Research ==
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is often regarded as a world-leading magnet for engineering and sciences (both applied and basic). According to the National Science Foundation, the university spent $625 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 37th in the nation. It is also listed as one of the top 25 American research universities by The Center for Measuring University Performance.
Besides the annual influx of grants and sponsored projects, the university manages an extensive modern research infrastructure. The university has been a leader in computer-based education and hosted the PLATO project, which was a precursor to the internet and resulted in the development of the plasma display. Illinois was a 2nd-generation ARPAnet site in 1971 and was the first institution to license the UNIX operating system from Bell Labs. In Bill Gates' 2004 talk as part of his five-university campus tour titled "Software Breakthroughs: Solving the Toughest Problems in Computer Science," he mentioned that Microsoft hired more graduates from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign than from any other university in the world.
=== Centers and institutes ===
The university hosts the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), which created Mosaic, the first graphical web browser, the Apache HTTP server, and NCSA Telnet. The Parallel@Illinois program hosts several programs in parallel computing, including the Universal Parallel Computing Research Center. The university contracted with Cray to build the National Science Foundation-funded supercomputer Blue Waters. The system also has the largest public online storage system in the world with more than 25 petabytes of usable space. The university celebrated January 12, 1997, as the "birthday" of HAL 9000, the fictional supercomputer from the novel and film 2001: A Space Odyssey; in both works, HAL credits "Urbana, Illinois" as his place of operational origin.
The Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology supports interdisciplinary collaborative research in the broad areas of intelligent systems, neuroscience, molecular science and engineering, and biomedical imaging.
The Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology supports research in genomics and related areas of biology.
The Prairie Research Institute on campus houses several divisions, including the Illinois Natural History Survey, Illinois State Geological Survey, Illinois State Water Survey, Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, and Illinois State Archaeological Survey. Researchers focus on areas such as agriculture, biodiversity, climate, public health, emerging pests, energy, mineral resources, pollution mitigation, and water resources. The Illinois Natural History Survey holds extensive collections, including one of North America's largest insect collections. The Illinois State Geological Survey manages the Illinois Geological Samples Library and paleontological collections. The Illinois State Archaeological Survey preserves a large collection of Illinois archaeological artifacts, including those from the Cahokia Mounds.
The Technology Entrepreneur Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign offers resources for students to develop their entrepreneurial ideas, including classes, competitions, and workshops. It hosts events including the Cozad New Venture Challenge, Silicon Valley Entrepreneurship Workshop, Illinois I-Corps, and SocialFuse. The Cozad Challenge, held annually since 2000, provides mentorship and workshops on venture creation, with teams competing for funding. The Silicon Valley Workshop, a week-long event in January, exposes students to startups, technology companies, and entrepreneurial alumni in Silicon Valley. Illinois I-Corps helps National Science Foundation grantees identify valuable product opportunities from academic research through customer discovery and entrepreneurship training. SocialFuse is a pitching and networking event where students can present ideas and connect with potential teammates.
The Center for Plasma-Material Interactions was established in 2004 by Professor David N. Ruzic to research the complex behavior between ions, electrons, and energetic atoms generated in plasmas and the surfaces of materials. CPMI encompasses fusion plasmas in its research.
In 2007, the university-hosted research Institute for Condensed Matter Theory (ICMT) was launched, with the director Paul Goldbart and the chief scientist Anthony Leggett. ICMT is located at the Engineering Science Building on campus.
=== Research Park ===
Located in the southwest part of campus, Research Park opened its first building in 2001 and has grown to encompass 13 buildings. Ninety companies have established roots in research park, employing over 1,400 people. Tenants of the Research Park facilities include prominent Fortune 500 companies Capital One, John Deere, State Farm, Caterpillar, and Yahoo, Inc. Companies also employ about 400 total student interns at any given time throughout the year. The complex is also a center for entrepreneurs, and has over 50 startup companies stationed at its EnterpriseWorks Incubator facility.
In 2011, Urbana, Illinois, was named number 11 on Popular Mechanics' "14 Best Startup Cities in America" list, in a large part due to the contributions of Research Park's programs. The park has gained recognition from other notable publications, such as inc.com and Forbes magazine. For the 2011 fiscal year, Research Park produced an economic output of $169.5M for the state of Illinois.
=== Notable discoveries and innovations ===
In the field of natural sciences, the BCS theory, a groundbreaking theory of superconductivity, was proposed by John Bardeen in collaboration with Leon Cooper and his doctoral student John Robert Schrieffer. Their work earned them the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1972. In the realm of agricultural science, John Laughnan, while a professor, developed sweet corn with higher-than-normal sugar content, a significant advancement in crop science.
In computer and applied sciences, several notable achievements originated from the University of Illinois. The ILLIAC I, built in 1952, was the first computer entirely constructed and owned by a U.S. educational institution. It was also used by Lejaren Hiller and Leonard Issacson to create the Illiac Suite, the first known composition written by an electronic computer. The development of LLVM, initially started by Vikram Adve and Chris Lattner, is now recognized as a major project in compiler infrastructure. Another milestone was the development of the Mosaic web browser at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in 1993.
NAMD, a molecular dynamics simulation code, was pioneered by Klaus Schulten and his team at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, further advancing computational biophysics. The PLATO system, also developed at the University of Illinois, was the first generalized computer assisted instruction system, which by the late 1970s supported thousands of terminals globally, introducing many concepts foundational to modern multi-user computing such as forums, instant messaging, and online testing. In terms of interface technologies, Donald Bitzer was instrumental in the 1960s development of both touchscreens and plasma displays. Furthermore, Doug Brown and David R. Woolley created Talkomatic in 1973 on the PLATO system, an early online chat system enabling real-time text communication among small groups.
In the realm of audio-visual technology, Joseph Tykociński-Tykociner publicly demonstrated for the first time a motion picture with a soundtrack optically recorded directly onto the film in 1922.
== Student life ==
=== Student body ===
As of spring 2018, the university had 45,813 students. As of 2015, over 10,000 students were international students, and of them 5,295 were Mainland Chinese. The university also recruits students from over 100 countries among its 32,878 undergraduate students and 10,245 graduate and professional students. The gender breakdown is 55% men, 45% women. Illinois in 2014 enrolled 4,898 students from China, more than any other American university. They comprise the largest group of international students on the campus, followed by South Korea (1,268 in fall 2014) and India (1,167). Graduate enrollment of Chinese students at Illinois has grown from 649 in 2000 to 1,973 in 2014.
=== Student organizations ===
The university has over 1,000 active registered student organizations, showcased at the start of each academic year during Illinois's "Quad Day." Registration and support is provided by the Student Programs & Activities Office, an administrative arm established in pursuit of the larger social, intellectual, and educative goals of the Illini Student Union. The office's mission is to "enhance ... classroom education," "meet the needs and desires of the campus community," and "prepare students to be contributing and humane citizens."
The Daily Illini is a student-run newspaper that has been published for the community of since 1871. The paper is published by Illini Media Company, a not-for-profit which also prints other publications, and operates WPGU 107.1 FM, a student-run commercial radio station.
The Varsity Men's Glee Club is an all-male choir at Illinois that was founded in 1886. It is one of the oldest glee clubs in the United States, as well as the oldest registered student organization at the U of I. As of 2018, the university also had the largest chapter of Alpha Phi Omega, with over 340 active members.
==== Greek life ====
There are 59 fraternities and 38 sororities on campus. Of the approximately 30,366 undergraduates, 3,463 are members of sororities and 3,674 are members of fraternities. The Greek system at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has a system of self-government. While staff advisors and directors manage certain aspects of the Greek community, most of the day-to-day operations of the Greek community are governed by the Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Council. A smaller minority of fraternities and sororities fall under the jurisdiction of the Black Greek Council and United Greek Council; the Black Greek Council serves historically black Greek organizations while the United Greek council comprises other multicultural organizations. Many of the fraternity and sorority houses on campus are on the National Register of Historic Places.
==== Student government ====
U of I has an extensive history of past student governments. Two years after the university opened in 1868, John Milton Gregory and a group of students created a constitution for a student government. Their governance expanded to the entire university in 1873, having a legislative, executive, and judicial branch. For a period of time, this government had the ability to discipline students. In 1883, however, due to a combination of events from Gregory's resignation to student-faculty infighting, the government formally dissolved itself via plebiscite.
It was not until 1934, when the Student Senate, the next university-wide student government, was created. A year before, future Illinois Dean of Students, Fred H. Turner and the university's Senate Committee on Student Affairs gave increased power to the Student Council, an organization primarily known for organizing dances. A year after, the Student Council created a constitution and became the Student Senate, under the oversight of the Committee on Student Affairs. This Student Senate would last for 35 years. The Student Senate changed its purpose and name in 1969, when it became the Undergraduate Student Association (UGSA). It ceased being a representational government, becoming a collective bargaining agency instead. It often worked with the Graduate Student Association to work on various projects
In 1967, Bruce A. Morrison and other U of I graduate founded the Graduate Student Association (GSA). GSA would last until 1978, when it merged with the UGSA to form the Champaign-Urbana Student Association (CUSA). CUSA lasted for only two years when it was replaced by the Student Government Association (SGA) in 1980. SGA lasted for 15 years until it became the Illinois Student Government (ISG) in 1995. ISG lasted until 2004.
The current university student government, created in 2004, is the Illinois Student Senate, a combined undergraduate and graduate student senate with 54 voting members. The student senators are elected by college and represent the students in the Urbana-Champaign Senate (which comprises both faculty and students), as well as on a variety of faculty and administrative committees, and are led by an internally elected executive board of a president, external vice president, internal vice president, and treasurer. As of 2012, the executive board is supported by an executive staff consisting of a chief of staff, clerk of the Senate, parliamentarian, director of communications, Intern Coordinator, and the historian of the Senate.
=== Residence halls ===
The university provides housing for undergraduates through 24 residence halls in Urbana and Champaign. Incoming freshmen are required to live in student housing (campus or certified) their first year on campus. The university also maintains two graduate residence halls, which are restricted to students who are sophomores or above, and three university-owned apartment complexes. Some undergraduates choose to move into apartments or the Greek houses after their first year. There are a number of private dormitories around campus, as well as 15 private, certified residences that partner with the university to offer a variety of different housing options, including ones that are cooperatives, single-gender or religiously affiliated. U of I is known for being one of the first universities to provide accommodations for students with disabilities. In 2015, the University of Illinois announced that they would be naming its newest residence hall after Carlos Montezuma, also known as Wassaja. He is the first Native American graduate, and is believed to be one of the first Native Americans to receive a medical degree.
=== Libraries and museums ===
Among universities in North America, only the collections of Harvard are larger. Currently, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's 20+ departmental libraries and divisions hold more than 24 million items, including more than 12 million print volumes. As of 2012, it had also the largest "browsable" university library in the United States, with 5 million volumes directly accessible in stacks in a single location. The university also has the largest public engineering library (Grainger Engineering Library) in the country. In addition to the main library building, which houses numerous subject-oriented libraries, the Isaac Funk Family Library on the South Quad serves the College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences and the Grainger Engineering Library Information Center serves the College of Engineering on the John Bardeen Quad.
Residence Hall Library System is one of three in the nation. The Residence Hall Libraries were created in 1948 to serve the educational, recreational, and cultural information needs of first- and second-year undergraduate students residing in the residence halls, and the living-learning communities within the residence halls. The collection also serves University Housing staff as well as the larger campus community. The Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML) is one of the Special collections units within the University Library. The RBML is one of the largest special collections repositories in the United States.
The university has several museums, galleries, and archives which include Krannert Art Museum, Sousa Archives and Center for American Music and Spurlock Museum. Gallery and exhibit locations include Krannert Center for the Performing Arts and at the School of Art and Design.
The Illinois Open Publishing Network (IOPN) is hosted and coordinated by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library, offering publishing services to members of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign community, to disseminate open access scholarly publications.
=== Recreation ===
The campus has two main recreation facilities, the Activities and Recreation Center (ARC) and the Campus Recreation Center – East (CRCE). Originally known as the Intramural Physical Education Building (IMPE) and opened in 1971, IMPE was renovated in 2006 and reopened in August 2008 as the ARC. The renovations expanded the facility, adding 103,433 square feet to the existing structure and costing $54.9 million. This facility is touted by the university as "one of the country's largest on-campus recreation centers." CRCE was originally known as the Satellite Recreation Center and was opened in 1989. The facility was renovated in 2005 to expand the space and update equipment, officially reopening in March 2005 as CRCE.
=== Transportation ===
The bus system that operates throughout the campus and community is operated by the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District. The MTD receives a student-approved transportation fee from the university, which provides unlimited access for university students, faculty, and staff.
Daily Amtrak trains through Illinois Terminal connect Champaign-Urbana with Chicago and Carbondale, Illinois. This includes the corridor service Illini and Saluki and the long-distance City of New Orleans, which provides a direct route to Memphis, Tennessee; Jackson, Mississippi; and New Orleans, Louisiana southbound, in addition to Chicago northbound.
Willard Airport, opened in 1954 and is named for former University of Illinois president Arthur Cutts Willard. The airport is located in Savoy. Willard Airport is home to university research projects, along with flights from American Airlines. In 2013, the university's Institute of Aviation was closed at the University of Illinois and the program was transferred to Parkland College.
=== Security ===
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has a dedicated police department, UIPD, which operates independently from CPD, the department that serves the surrounding Champaign area.
On June 9, 2017, Yingying Zhang, a Chinese international student, was abducted and murdered in a case that made national headlines at the time. The university subsequently announced plans to install additional, high-definition, security cameras across the campus.
In July 2022, the university announced that it was partnering with local businesses to invest $300,000 to combat violent crime in Champaign County.
In September 2022, the City of Champaign transferred responsibility for a large swath of Campustown from CPD (Champaign Police Department) to UIPD, claiming that doing so would reduce response times and improve the quality of service. As part of the jurisdictional reforms, the city agreed to pay a substantial portion of the cost to hire seven new officers to patrol the new coverage area.
Violent crime fell sharply in 2022 compared to the year prior, with shootings and homicides declining by 50 and 47 percent, respectively. The city attributed the decrease in crime to improved staffing levels and the installation of automatic license plate readers.
== Athletics ==
The Illinois Division of Intercollegiate Athletics fields teams for ten men's and eleven women's varsity sports. The university participates in the NCAA's Division I. The university's athletic teams are known as the Fighting Illini. The university operates a number of athletic facilities, including Memorial Stadium for football, the State Farm Center for men's and women's basketball, and the Atkins Tennis Center for men's and women's tennis. The men's NCAA basketball team had a dream run in the 2005 season, with Bruce Weber's Fighting Illini tying the record for most victories in a season. Their run ended 37–2 with a loss to the North Carolina Tar Heels in the national championship game. Illinois is a member of the Big Ten Conference. Notable among a number of songs commonly played and sung at various events such as commencement and convocation, and athletic games are: Illinois Loyalty, the school song; Oskee Wow Wow, the fight song; and Hail to the Orange, the alma mater.
On October 15, 1910, the Illinois football team defeated the University of Chicago Maroons with a score of 3–0 in a game that Illinois claims was the first homecoming game, though several other schools claim to have held the first homecoming as well. On November 10, 2007, the unranked Illinois football team defeated the No. 1 ranked Ohio State football team in Ohio Stadium, the first time that the Illini beat a No. 1 ranked team on the road.
The University of Illinois Ice Arena is home to the university's club college ice hockey team competing at the ACHA Division I level and is also available for recreational use through the Division of Campus Recreation. It was built in 1931 and designed by Chicago architecture firm Holabird and Root, the same firm that designed the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's Memorial Stadium and Chicago's Soldier Field. It is located on Armory Drive across from the Armory. The structure features four rows of bleacher seating in an elevated balcony that runs the length of the ice rink on either side. These bleachers provide seating for roughly 1,200 fans, with standing room and bench seating available underneath. Because of this set-up the team benches are actually directly underneath the stands.
In 2015, the university began Mandarin Chinese broadcasts of its American football games as a service to its Chinese international students.
=== Mascot ===
The U of I currently has no mascot. Chief Illiniwek, also referred to as "The Chief", was from 1926 to 2007 the official symbol of the U of I in university intercollegiate athletic programs. The Chief was typically portrayed by a student dressed in Sioux regalia. Several groups protested that the use of a Native American figure and indigenous customs in such a manner was inappropriate and promoted ethnic stereotypes. In August 2005, the National Collegiate Athletic Association expressed disapproval of the university's use of a "hostile or abusive" image. While initially proposing a consensus approach to the decision about the Chief, the board in 2007 decided that the Chief, its name, image and regalia should be officially retired. Nevertheless, the controversy continues on campus with some students unofficially maintaining the Chief. Complaints continue that indigenous students feel insulted when images of the Chief continue to be present on campus. The effort to resolve the controversy has included the work of a committee, which issued a report of its "critical conversations" that included over 600 participants representing all sides.
There is a grassroots campaign of students and alumni to officially recognize the belted kingfisher as the mascot of the U of I. Female belted kingfishers are orange and blue (the school's colors) and the bird is native to Illinois. A Kingfisher costume has been created and has made appearances on campus. The campaign to adopt the mascot is not seeking to change the name "Fighting Illini." Multiple Indigenous organizations have also expressed support for the Kingfisher.
== Notable alumni and faculty ==
Twenty-seven alumni and faculty members of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have won a Pulitzer Prize. As of 2019, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni, faculty, and researchers include 24 Nobel laureates (including 11 alumni). In particular, John Bardeen is the only person to have won two Nobel prizes in physics, having done so in 1956 and 1972 while on faculty at the university. In 2003, two faculty members won Nobel prizes in different disciplines: Paul C. Lauterbur for physiology or medicine, and Anthony Leggett for physics.
Alumni and faculty have invented the LED and the quantum well laser (Nick Holonyak, B.S. 1950, M.S. 1951, Ph.D. 1954), DSL (John Cioffi, B.S. 1978), JavaScript (Brendan Eich, M.S. 1986), the integrated circuit (Jack Kilby, B.S. 1947), the transistor (John Bardeen, faculty, 1951–1991), the pH meter (Arnold Beckman, B.S. 1922, M.S. 1923), MRI (Paul C. Lauterbur), the plasma screen (Donald Bitzer, B.S. 1955, M.S. 1956, Ph.D. 1960), color plasma display (Larry F. Weber, B.S. 1968 M.S. 1971 Ph.D. 1975), the training methodology called PdEI and the coin counter (James P. Liautaud, B.S. 1963), the statistical algorithm called Gibbs sampling in computer vision and the machine learning technique called random forests (Donald Geman, B.A. 1965), and are responsible for the structural design of such buildings as the Willis Tower, the John Hancock Center, and the Burj Khalifa.
Mathematician Richard Hamming, known for the Hamming code and Hamming distance, earned a PhD in mathematics from the university's Mathematics Department in 1942. Primetime Emmy Award-winning engineer Alan Bovik (B.S. 1980, M.S. 1982, Ph.D. 1984) invented neuroscience-based video quality measurement tools that pervade television, social media and home cinema. Structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan earned two master's degrees, and a PhD in structural engineering from the university.
Illinois alumni and faculty have founded numerous companies and organizations. Notable founders include Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz (2009); Jerry Sanders, co-founder of AMD (1969); and Jerry Colangelo, founder of the Arizona Diamondbacks (1995). George Halas, who founded the Chicago Bears (1920) and co-founded the NFL, and Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code (2012), also made significant contributions. In technology, Marc Andreessen and Brendan Eich co-founded Mozilla Corporation and Netscape in the 1990s, while Larry Ellison and Bob Miner co-founded Oracle (1977). Other tech innovators include Nathan Gettings (Palantir Technologies, 2003), Luke Nosek and Max Levchin (PayPal, 1998), Martin Eberhard (Tesla, Inc., 2003), and Stephen Wolfram and Theodore Gray (Wolfram Research, 1987). Additionally, Hugh Hefner founded Playboy Enterprises (1953), Thomas Siebel co-founded Siebel Systems (1993), and Jerry Yue founded Brain Technologies, Inc. (2010). Other prominent companies like Yelp (2004) and YouTube (2005) were co-founded by Jeremy Stoppelman, Russel Simmons, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. Alumni have also led several companies, including McDonald's, Goldman Sachs, BP, Kodak, Shell, General Motors, AT&T, and General Electric and others.
Alumni have founded many organizations, including the Susan G. Komen for the Cure and Project Gutenberg, and have served in a wide variety of government and public interest roles. Rafael Correa, President of The Republic of Ecuador from 2007 to 2017, secured his M.S. and PhD degrees from the university's Economics Department in 1999 and 2001 respectively. Nathan C. Ricker attended Illinois and in 1873 was the first person to graduate in the United States with a certificate in architecture. Mary L. Page, the first woman to obtain a degree in architecture, also graduated from the U of I. Disability rights activist and co-organizer of the 504 Sit-in, Kitty Cone, attended during the 1960s, but left six hours short of her degree to continue her activism in New York.
In sports, baseball pitcher Ken Holtzman was a two-time All Star major leaguer, and threw two no-hitters in his career. In sports entertainment, David Otunga became a two-time WWE Tag Team Champion.
Eta Kappa Nu (HKN) was founded at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as the national honor society for electrical engineering in 1904. Maurice LeRoy Carr (B.S. 1905) and Edmund B. Wheeler (B.S. 1905) were part of the founding group of ten students, and they served as the first and second national presidents of ΗΚΝ. The Eta Kappa Nu organization is now the international honor society for Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The U of I collegiate chapter is known as the Alpha chapter of ΗΚΝ. Lowell P. Hager was the head of the Department of Biochemistry from 1969 until 1989 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995.
James Holzhauer, the fourth-highest-earning American game show contestant of all time and holder of several Jeopardy! records, attended University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He was a member of the Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering Team that won the state competition for the university, contributing by taking first place in physics and second in math. Holzhauer graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics in 2005. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karol_Kučera | Karol Kučera | Karol Kučera (Slovak pronunciation: [ˈkarɔl ˈkutʂera]; born 4 March 1974) is a Slovak tennis coach and former professional player. He achieved a career-high singles ranking of world No. 6 in September 1998, reaching the semifinals of the Australian Open the same year.
== Tennis career ==
Kučera turned professional in 1992. He was a member of the Czechoslovak Galea Cup teams in 1991 and 1992 and the 1992 European championship squad. In 1993 he qualified for his first Grand Slam at Roland Garros.
In 1995 when Kučera won his first ATP title in Rosmalen. In 1996 he played in the Summer Olympics in Atlanta where he lost to eventual gold medalist Andre Agassi.
A year later he won his second ATP title in Ostrava defeating Magnus Norman. He was runner-up in two other tournaments in Nottingham on grass to Greg Rusedski and Stuttgart Outdoor to Álex Corretja on clay.
Kučera's best year was in 1998, where he finished the year in the top 10, ranked World No. 8, which qualified him in the ATP Tour World Championship in Hannover. During the year Kučera won 2 titles in Sydney defeating Tim Henman and New Haven defeating Goran Ivanišević.
He reached another two finals, losing to Gustavo Kuerten in Stuttgart Outdoor and to World No. 1 Pete Sampras in Vienna. Overall in 1998, Kučera compiled a career high 53 match victories and earning $1,402,557.
Kučera achieved his best Grand Slam result in 1998 reaching the semi-finals of Australian Open where on his way he defeated Sergi Bruguera, Daniel Vacek, Daniel Nestor, Richard Fromberg and defending champion Pete Sampras in the quarter-finals, losing to eventual champion Petr Korda in 4 sets. Later the same year he reached the quarterfinals of the US Open.
In 1999, Kučera won his fifth ATP title in Basel defeating Tim Henman in the final. After 1999, Kučera struggled with form due to a right wrist and arm injury.
After some injury plagued years, Kučera found some form again in 2003 when he finished in the top 50 for the first time since 1999. During the year he won his sixth and final tour title in Copenhagen defeating Olivier Rochus in the final.
Later, Kučera was one of the contributing members on the Slovak team which reached the final of the Davis Cup in 2005, eventually losing to Croatia 2–3. He announced his retirement after the final.
== Style of play ==
Miloslav Mečíř known as the "Big Cat" was Kučera's coach from 1997 to 2001. Kučera was nicknamed the "Little Cat" because of his deceptive style of play and his fluid movement around the court resembling his coach.
Kučera was also coached for a time by Novak Djokovic's coach Marian Vajda.
== Post-career ==
In 2020, Kučera was elected an MP of the National Council of Slovakia representing the Ordinary People and Independent Personalities movement, along with fellow former tennis players Ján Krošlák and Romana Tabak.
== Career finals ==
=== Singles 12 (6–6) ===
=== Doubles: 4 (0–4) ===
== Singles performance timeline ==
1This event was held in Stockholm through 1994, Essen in 1995, and Stuttgart from 1996 through 2001.
== Top 10 wins == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_12_Conference | Big 12 Conference | The Big 12 Conference (stylized XII) is a collegiate athletic conference in the United States. It consists of 16 full-member universities (3 private universities and 13 public universities) in the states of Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia. It is headquartered in Irving, Texas.
The Big 12 is a member of the Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS; formerly Division I-A), the higher of two levels of NCAA Division I football competition.
The Big 12 is one of the Power Four conferences, the four highest-earning and most historically successful FBS football conferences. Power Four conferences are guaranteed at least one bid to a New Year's Six bowl game and have been granted exemptions from certain NCAA rules.
The Big 12 is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Brett Yormark became the commissioner on August 1, 2022.
The Big 12 was founded in February 1994. All eight members of the former Big Eight Conference joined with half the members of the former Southwest Conference (Baylor, Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech) to form the conference, with play beginning in 1996.
In 2011, Colorado and Nebraska left the conference to join the Pac-12 and Big Ten, respectively. One year later, Missouri and Texas A&M departed for the Southeastern Conference, and TCU and West Virginia joined.
BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF joined the conference for the 2023–2024 season. The next season Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah joined the conference, Colorado rejoined, and Texas and Oklahoma left as part of a more extensive NCAA conference realignment.
== Member universities ==
=== Full members ===
Notes
=== Membership map ===
=== Affiliate members ===
Notes
On July 29, 2015, the Big 12 announced it would add the six former members of the Western Wrestling Conference—Air Force, Northern Colorado, North Dakota State, South Dakota State, Utah Valley, and Wyoming—as affiliate members for wrestling, plus Denver as an affiliate member for women's gymnastics, all effective with the 2015–16 academic year.
On July 5, 2017, the Big 12 added Fresno State and Northern Iowa as wrestling affiliates.
On May 2, 2019, the Big 12 added Fresno State as an equestrian affiliate. Fresno State would drop wrestling in 2021, but remains an equestrian affiliate.
In 2021, the Big 12 added former full member Missouri as a wrestling affiliate.
=== Former full members ===
Notes
=== Former affiliate members ===
Notes
=== Membership timeline ===
Full members Other Conference Other Conference Affiliate member (other sport)Founding members from Big Eight Conference Founding members from Southwest Conference Subsequent members from Southwest Conference Pac-12 Conference
==== Earlier membership timelines ====
Founding members of the Big 12 from the Big Eight:
Colorado
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
Missouri
Nebraska
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Founding members of the Big 12 from the Southwest Conference:
Baylor
Texas
Texas A&M
Texas Tech
Current members with the longest continuous association with the Big Eight Conference / Southwest Conference / Big 12 Conference.
== Sports ==
The Big 12 Conference sponsors championship competition in 10 men's and 15 women's NCAA sanctioned sports.
=== Current champions ===
Source:
=== Men's sponsored sports by university ===
Below are the men's sports sponsored by each member institution.
The only men's sports with full participation by the entire conference are basketball, football, and golf. Swimming and diving has the lowest participation with only seven universities fielding a team.
The Big 12 fields 14 teams for wrestling. Before the conference's 2023 expansion, it had the most competing schools of any Big 12 sport, with 13 members at that time. The 2022–23 and 2024–25 wrestling lineups both included only 4 full conference members; all remaining wrestling schools were affiliate members (listed as a footnote at the bottom of the table).
Men's (and Coed – see Rifle) varsity sports not sponsored by the Big 12 Conference which are played by Big 12 universities:
=== Women's sponsored sports by university ===
Below are the women's sports sponsored by each member institution.
The women's sports with full participation are basketball, cross country, soccer, tennis, indoor track and outdoor track. Oklahoma State is the only member of the Big 12, or of any power conference, that does not sponsor volleyball. Only Utah and West Virginia do not sponsor golf.
Equestrian (3 full members, 1 affiliate) has the lowest participation, with 4 total members. Beach volleyball (3 full members, 3 affiliates), lacrosse (3 full members, 3 affiliates) and rowing (4 full members, 2 affiliates) follow with 6 total members. The affiliate members are listed as footnotes at the bottom of the table, beneath their respective sport.
Women's (and co-educational – see Rifle) varsity sports not sponsored by the Big 12 Conference which are played by Big 12 universities:
In addition to the above, UCF lists its coeducational cheerleading and all-female dance teams as varsity teams on its official athletic website.
== History ==
The Big 12 Conference was founded in February 1994. All eight members of the former Big Eight Conference joined with half the members of the former Southwest Conference (Texas, Texas A&M, Baylor and Texas Tech) to form the conference, with play beginning in 1996.
The Big 12 does not claim the Big Eight's history as its own, even though it was essentially the Big Eight plus four of the Texas universities.
The Big 12 began athletic play in fall 1996, with the Texas Tech vs. Kansas State football game being the first-ever sports event staged by the conference.
From its formation until 2011, its 12 members competed in two divisions in most sports. The two Oklahoma universities and the four Texas universities formed the South Division, while the other six universities of the former Big Eight formed the North Division.
Between 2011 and 2012 four charter members left the conference:
Colorado
Missouri
Nebraska
Texas A&M
In 2012, two universities joined the conference:
TCU
West Virginia
On July 26, 2021, Oklahoma and Texas notified the Big 12 Conference that the two universities did not wish to extend their grant of television rights beyond the 2024–25 athletic year. On July 27, 2021, Oklahoma and Texas sent a joint letter to the Southeastern Conference requesting an invitation for membership beginning July 1, 2025. On July 29, 2021, the 14 presidents and chancellors of SEC member universities voted unanimously to invite Oklahoma and Texas to join the SEC. The following day, the Texas Board of Regents and Oklahoma Board of Regents each accepted the invitation to join the SEC from July 1, 2025.
On September 10, 2021, the Big 12 announced that invitations had been extended to and accepted by BYU (a football independent and member of the non-football West Coast Conference) and three members of the American Athletic Conference in Cincinnati, UCF, and Houston. These moves, combined with the impending departure of Oklahoma and Texas, would once again increase the Big 12's membership to twelve schools. All four schools began competing in Big 12 athletics beginning in summer of 2023. BYU had initially announced that it would join in 2023, and Houston indicated it could do so as well. On June 10, 2022, The American and its three departing members announced a buyout agreement that allowed those schools to join the Big 12 in 2023.
On February 9, 2023, Oklahoma and Texas announced they had reached a settlement with the conference that allowed them to join the SEC on July 1, 2024.
On July 27, 2023, Colorado, a former member of the Big 12, announced it would rejoin the conference from the Pac-12 beginning in the 2024–25 academic year. The following week, Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah announced they would leave the Pac-12 for the Big 12, also effective for the 2024–25 academic year.
== Academics ==
All Big 12 members are doctorate-granting universities.
All members except TCU are classified by the American Council on Education (ACE) as "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research spending and doctorate production". TCU is in ACE's second-tier classification of "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research spending and doctorate production".
== Distinctive elements ==
=== Population base and markets ===
The largest media markets represented by the Big 12 are, ranked nationally:
Dallas-Fort Worth (5th)
Houston (6th)
Phoenix (11th)
Orlando (16th)
Denver (17th)
Salt Lake City (27th)
San Antonio (31st)
Kansas City (34th)
Cincinnati (37th)
Oklahoma City (47th)
Tulsa (62nd)
Tucson (65th)
Des Moines (67th)
Wichita (72nd)
Although West Virginia University is based out of Morgantown, West Virginia (officially part of the Pittsburgh (26th) media market), the TV market encompasses the majority of West Virginia's TV viewership and also reaches well into Western Pennsylvania.
Kansas State University is in Manhattan, Kansas, which is part of the Topeka, Kansas media market, but it is close to the Wichita market, which encompasses two-thirds of the state (stretching to the border with Colorado), including the cities of Dodge City, Garden City, Hutchinson and Salina.
While the University of Kansas is in Lawrence, Kansas, it is officially part of the Kansas City television market, increasing the base into western Missouri.
=== Grant of Rights ===
Member universities granted their first and second tier sports media rights to the conference for the length of their current TV deals. The Grant of Rights (GOR) deal with the leagues' TV contracts ensures that "if a Big 12 school leaves for another league in the next 13 years, that school's media rights, including revenue, would remain with the Big 12 and not its new conference".
GOR is seen by league members as a "foundation of stability" and allowed the Big 12 to be "positioned with one of the best media rights arrangements in collegiate sports, providing the conference and its members unprecedented revenue growth, and sports programming over two networks." All members agreed to the GOR and later agreed to extend the initial 6-year deal to 13 years to correspond to the length of their TV contracts.
Prior to this agreement, the Big Ten and Pac-12 also had similar GOR agreements. The Big 12 subsequently assisted the ACC in drafting its GOR agreement. Three of the four major conferences now have such agreements, with the SEC the only exception.
=== Tier 3 events ===
Historically, the Big 12 allowed members to monetize TV rights for everything not broadcast on national or regional TV channels (tier 3 rights). Currently, the conference's tier 3 broadcast rights are bundled as part of the television deal extension starting in the 2025–26 school year, with all of the Big 12's tier 3 rights held by ESPN. As such, schools no longer need to find their own broadcast partners for these events; they are all handled by ESPN. These events are primarily broadcast on Big 12 Now/ESPN+, but are also broadcast on other ESPN channels as determined by ESPN.
=== Business partnerships and innovation ===
The Big 12 has a sponsorship rights partnership with Learfield IMG College. The Big 12 announced on September 9, 2022, that it appointed WME Sports and IMG Media, Endeavor companies, to facilitate its global content and commercial strategy. Commissioner Brett Yormark stated "We have aligned with a best-in-class team to build a best-in-class business strategy for the Conference". November 14, 2022 Big 12 formed a comprehensive business advisor board composed of over three dozen entrepreneurial icons and respective industry leaders. From the likes of Monte Lipman the Founder/CEO Republic Records, Steve Stoute Founder/CEO UnitedMasters & Translation, Mark Shapiro President of Endeavor, Gary Vaynerchuk's VaynerMedia, singer Garth Brooks, NBA legend Jason Kidd, Keith Sheldon President of Entertainment for Hard Rock Cafe International, and Ross Levinsohn Chairman and CEO - The Arena Group & Sports Illustrated.
The Big 12 partnered with creative agency Translation to help build a more contemporary audience and brand.
Soon after Big 12 Conference made a deal with A Bathing Ape (BAPE) for Championship games. The Conference and BAPE worked together to create limited-edition clothing and a camouflaged Big 12 logo throughout the stadium, arena, and uniforms.
The Big 12 has 11 official corporate partners: Allstate, Children's Health, Dr Pepper, Gatorade, Grand Caliber, Old Trapper, On Location, Phillips 66, Sonic Hard Seltzer, Sprouts Farmers Market, and Tickets For Less. There are dozens of other companies engaged as sponsors of the conference.
==== Conference Pro Day ====
On March 15, 2023, before the NFL draft, the Big 12 announced the first of its kind across all college conferences, being a conference-wide Pro Day. Instead of schools hosting separate pro days for their football players, there was only one conference-wide scouting event before the 2024 NFL draft. The event was held at the Dallas Cowboys training complex, Ford Center at The Star. Essentially a conference version of the NFL Combine, the Pro Day was televised on NFL Network.
==== Hoops in the Park ====
In March 2023, the Big 12 Conference announced a partnership with Rucker Park for a community engagement event. In June the event was officially announced as "Big 12 Hoops in the Park", to host men's and women's summer exhibition games. Throughout the event, the Big 12 also prepared a number of entertainment activities and community engagements. The activities included youth clinics, meet-and-greets, live music, and food.
==== Mexico ====
Early June 2023, the "Big 12 Mexico" initiative was announced, which includes men's and women's soccer, baseball, basketball, and football games and an international media rights strategy. In July 2024, the Big 12 announced that it would narrow its focus in Mexico to looking at games for baseball and women's soccer.
== Conference annual revenue distribution ==
Conference revenue comes from media rights contracts, bowl games, the NCAA, merchandise, licensing, and conference-hosted sporting events.
Most of the Big 12's revenue comes from its media rights contracts. In 2012, the Big 12 announced a media rights agreement with Fox and ESPN, replacing an ABC/ESPN deal, estimated to be worth $2.6 billion through the 2025 expiration. The two deals pushed the conference per-university payout to approximately $20 million per year, while separating third-tier media rights into separate deals for each university; such contracts secured an additional $6 million to $20 million per university annually. In 2022, the conference renewed its media rights with ESPN and Fox Sports for six seasons starting in 2025–26, with an estimated US$380 million average annual fee, equating to about $31.7 million per school. The contract included a pro-rata clause that increased the conference's fee proportionately if Power conference schools were added. Subsequently, with the additions of Arizona, Arizona St, Colorado, and Utah, the value of the contract is set to increase by about $125 million per year from $380 million to $505 million.
Significant additional revenue is generated from postseason play by Big 12 teams, including the college football playoff, football bowl games, and NCAA basketball tournament revenue. For the 2023-24 football season, the Big 12 received $79.4 million for participating in the college football playoff. Bowl game revenues vary yearly with team selections; the 2024 Alamo Bowl between BYU, representing the Big 12, and Colorado, who took a Pac-12's spot, paid the conference $9.8 million. Considered perhaps the best basketball conference in the country, the Big 12 performs well in the NCAA basketball tournament. Conference teams earned 15 units (worth $30 million) in the 2024 tournament, and 20 units (worth $40 million) in the 2025 tournament.
In the era of Name-Image-Likeness (NIL) payments to student-athletes and revenue sharing directly from school athletic department budgets, the Big 12 has also maximized creative sponsorships. In July 2025, the conference announced a sponsorship deal with PayPal worth about $100 million over 3 years, roughly $2 million per school per year. Under the agreement, PayPal and Venmo will be the official partner of the Big 12 Conference for payments to student athletes and will be promoted across Big 12 football, basketball, and Olympic sports championships for both men and women. Phillips 66 is the title sponsor for Big 12 championship events, and has been for most of the conference's existence, though the contract amount has not been publicly disclosed.
Once the Big 12's new media rights deal kicks in, conference annual distributions to each school are expected to be $50 million or more. All conference members will receive a full share of revenue from the conference's media rights contracts, though payments to individual schools could differ based on postseason play.
== Athletic department revenue by school ==
Total revenue includes ticket sales, contributions and donations, rights and licensing, student fees, school funds and all other sources including TV income, camp income, concessions, and novelties.
Total expenses includes coach and staff salaries, scholarships, buildings and grounds, maintenance, utilities and rental fees, recruiting, team travel, equipment and uniforms, conference dues, and insurance.
The following table shows institutional reporting to the United States Department of Education as shown on the DOE Equity in Athletics website for the 2023–24 academic year.
The following table shows Big 12 Conference distributions during the fiscal year beginning 07-01-2023 ending 06-30-2024 as reported by ProPublica using Schedule A of the Big 12 Conference tax filing submitted on May 9, 2025.
== Facilities ==
== Key personnel ==
Notes
Sources:
†Private institution not required to release coaching salaries
•Salaries based on 2025–2026 academic year
== Championships ==
=== National team titles by institution ===
The national championships listed below are as of the 2024−25 season. Football, Helms, pre-NCAA competition and overall equestrian titles are included in the total, but excluded from the column listing NCAA and AIAW titles.
† Co-ed sports include fencing (since 1990), rifle, and skiing (since 1983). Team fencing championships before 1990 and team skiing championships before 1983 were awarded as men's or women's championships and are counted here as such.
‡ Includes titles won under the DGWS, predecessor of the AIAW.
=== Most recent NCAA championship ===
=== National championships ===
The following is a list of all NCAA, equestrian, and college football championships won by teams that were representing the Big 12 Conference in NCAA-recognized sports at the time of their championship. The most recent Big 12 team to win a national title is Utah skiing in 2026. Only two years of the Big 12's existence has the conference not won at least one team national title, 2007 and 2020. However, in 2020 multiple National Championships were not awarded due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
One former member of the conference did not win a National Championship while a member of the Big 12, Missouri. Original members Kansas State and Iowa State have not won a championship while representing the Big 12. The only national championships won by 2012 arrival West Virginia since joining the Big 12 have been in rifle, a sport that the conference has never sponsored. Of the 2023 arrivals, Houston, UCF, and Cincinnati have not won a championship in the Big 12, but BYU has won in women's and men's cross country.
Men's swimming has the most overall championships with 10, while men's golf has the most different schools win a championship with 4.
Source:
== Fall Sports ==
=== Men's Sports ===
=== Women's Sports ===
== Winter Sports ==
=== Men's Sports ===
=== Women's Sports ===
== Spring Sports ==
=== Men's Sports ===
=== Women's Sports ===
=== Combined Sports ===
== Other NCAA championships ==
The following are NCAA championships won by Big 12 members, but in sports not sponsored by the conference.
=== Combined Sports ===
=== Conference champions ===
The Conference sponsors 23 sports, 10 men's and 13 women's.
In football, divisional titles were awarded based on regular-season conference results, with the teams with the best conference records from the North and South playing in the Big 12 Championship Game from 1996 to 2010. Baseball, basketball, softball, tennis and women's soccer titles are awarded in both regular-season and tournament play. Cross country, golf, gymnastics, swimming and diving, track and field, and wrestling titles are awarded during an annual meet of participating teams. The volleyball title is awarded based on regular-season play.
== Football ==
The first football game in conference play was Texas Tech vs. Kansas State in 1996, won by Kansas State, 21–14.
From 1996 to 2010, Big 12 Conference teams played eight conference games a season. Each team faced all five opponents within its own division and three teams from the opposite division. Inter-divisional play was a "three-on, three-off" system, where teams would play three teams from the other division on a home-and-home basis for two seasons, and then play the other three foes from the opposite side for a two-year home-and-home.
This format came under considerable criticism, especially from Nebraska and Oklahoma, who were denied a yearly match between two of college football's most storied programs. The Nebraska–Oklahoma rivalry was one of the most intense in college football history. (Until 2006, the teams had never met in the Big 12 Championship.) Due to the departure of Nebraska and Colorado in 2011, the Big 12 eliminated the divisions (and championship game) and instituted a nine-game round-robin format. With the advent of the College Football Playoff committee looking at teams' strength of schedule for picking the four playoff teams, on December 8, 2015, the Big 12 announced an annual requirement for all Big 12 teams to schedule a non-conference game against a team from the four other Power Five conferences (plus Notre Dame). Per Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby: "Schedule strength is a key component in CFP Selection Committee deliberations. This move will strengthen the resumes for all Big 12 teams. Coupled with the nine-game full round robin Conference schedule our teams play, it will not only benefit the teams at the top of our standings each season, but will impact the overall strength of the Conference." The Big 12 has made it to the Playoffs 8 times from 2014 to 2025. Five Big 12 participants have made it to the playoff: Oklahoma in 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2019; TCU in 2022; Texas in 2023; and Arizona State in 2024 and Texas Tech in 2025.
=== Championship game ===
The Big 12 Championship Game was approved by all members except Nebraska. It was held each year, commencing with the first match in the 1996 season at the Trans World Dome in St. Louis. It pitted the division champions against each other after the regular season was completed.
Following the 2008 game, the event was moved to the new Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, being played there in 2009 and 2010. In 2010, the Sooners defeated the Cornhuskers 23–20.
After 2010, the game was moved to Arlington for 2011, 2012, and 2013. However, the decision became moot following the 2010 season because the league lacked sufficient members.
In April 2015, the ACC and the Big 12 developed new rules for the NCAA to deregulate conference championship games. The measure passed on January 14, 2016, allowing a conference with fewer than 12 teams to stage a championship game that does not count against the FBS limit of 12 regular-season games under either of the following circumstances:
The game involves the top two teams following a full round-robin conference schedule.
The game involves two divisional winners, each having played a full round-robin schedule in its division.
Under the first criterion, the Big 12 championship game resumed at the conclusion of the 2017 regular season, and is played during the first weekend of December, the time all other FBS conference championship games are played.
=== Bowl affiliations ===
The following were bowl games for the Big 12 for the 2022 season.
== Rivalries ==
The Big 12 is known for rivalries (primarily in football) that mostly predate the conference. The Kansas-Missouri rivalry was the longest running, the longest west of the Mississippi, and the second longest in college football, dating back to the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association before evolving into the Big Eight. It was played 119 times before Missouri left the Big 12. From that time, the University of Kansas' athletic department did not accept Missouri's invitations to play inter-conference rivalry games, putting the rivalry on hold, until men's basketball played in December 2021 and football in September 2025. Sports clubs sponsored by the two universities continued to play each other.
The rivalry between TCU and Baylor, known as the Revivalry, is also one of the longest running in college football, with the two universities having played each other — largely as Southwest Conference members — 120 times since 1899. Following the 2024 game, TCU leads the series 59–54–7.
After the conference's 2024 expansion, only four rivalries were "protected" (i.e., guaranteed of being played each season)—Arizona–Arizona State, Baylor–TCU, BYU–Utah, and Kansas–Kansas State. These are highlighted in bold in the table below.
Several schools within the Big 12 also maintain rivalries with schools from other conferences. Iowa State plays the University of Iowa Football Team (the latter from the Big 10 Conference) in football each year for the "Cy-Hawk" trophy. Other rivalries include the Iron Skillet football game between TCU and SMU (of the Atlantic Coast Conference-ACC); and the "War on I-4" football game between UCF and USF (of the American Athletic Conference-AAC). However, the latter two rivalry games are no longer played on an annual basis due to conference realignment and scheduling difficulties.
Some of the football rivalries between Big 12 universities include:
== Men's Basketball ==
As of the end of the 2023–2024 season, nine current Big 12 members are among the teams with the most wins and/or the highest win percentage in NCAA Division 1 men's basketball: Kansas (#2 in wins, #3 in percentage), Cincinnati (#12 wins, #19 percentage), Utah (#15 wins, #22 percentage), BYU (#17 wins, #31 percentage), Arizona (#19 wins, #10 percentage), West Virginia (#20 wins, #36 percentage), Houston (#37 percentage), Oklahoma State (#39 wins), and Kansas State (#42 wins). On the list of the most Final Four appearances, Kansas is #5 and Cincinnati, Houston, and Oklahoma State are all tied (with several other schools) at #11.
From 1996 to 2011, standings in conference play were not split among divisions, although the schedule was structured as if they were. Teams played a home-and-home against teams within their divisions and a single game against teams from the opposite division for a total of 16 conference games. After Nebraska and Colorado left, Big 12 play transitioned to an 18-game, double round robin schedule. When the conference temporarily expanded to 14 members for the 2023–24 season, the 18-game schedule remained, but the double round-robin was discontinued in favor of a new scheduling formula.
In 2024–25, the Big 12 played a 20-game schedule, but due to input from coaches the league will play an 18-game schedule in 2025–26.
=== Conference champions ===
Kansas has the most Big 12 titles, winning or sharing the regular-season title 20 times in the league's 25 seasons, including 13 straight from 2004–05 to 2016–17. The 2002 Jayhawks became the first, and so far only, team to complete an undefeated Big 12 regular season, going 16–0. Though rematches between Big 12 regular season co-champions have happened in that year's Big 12 tournament, none have met in the ensuing NCAA Tournament.
In 2004–05, Oklahoma won the Big 12 Tournament seeding tiebreaker over Kansas based on its 71–63 win over the Jayhawks in Norman, OK. The teams did not meet in Kansas City, MO.In 2005–06, Texas won the Big 12 Tournament seeding tiebreaker over Kansas based on its 80–55 win over the Jayhawks in Austin, TX. Kansas beat Texas 80–68 in the Big 12 Tournament championship game in Dallas, TX.In 2007–08, Texas won the Big 12 Tournament seeding tiebreaker over Kansas based on its 72–69 win over the Jayhawks in Austin, TX. Kansas beat Texas 84–74 in the Big 12 Tournament championship game in Kansas City, MO.In 2012–13, Kansas won the Big 12 Tournament seeding tiebreaker over Kansas State based on winning 59–55 in Manhattan and 83–62 in Lawrence. Kansas beat Kansas State for a third time 70–54 in the championship game in Kansas City, MO.
*Due to the use of an ineligible player, Kansas was forced to vacate 15 victories from its 2017-18 season, including the Big 12 regular season and postseason championships the Jayhawks won that year. The bracketed numbers in subsequent are the official number of titles counting those that were vacated.
**The 2020 Big 12 Tournament was cancelled due to COVID-19.In 2021–22, Kansas won the seeding tiebreaker over Baylor for the Big 12 Tournament, as Kansas had gone 1–1 against third place team Texas Tech, while Baylor had been swept by Texas Tech.
=== NCAA tournament performance ===
Totals through the end of the 2024–25 season.
*Arizona has appeared in 39 tournaments; however, their 1999, 2008, 2017 and 2018 Tournament appearance was vacated by the NCAA, officially giving them 35 tournament appearances
*Kansas has appeared in 52 tournaments and 16 final fours; however, their 2018 Tournament appearance was vacated by the NCAA, officially giving them 51 tournament appearances and 15 final fours
*Texas Tech has appeared in 21 tournaments; however, their 1996 Tournament appearance was vacated by the NCAA, officially giving them 20 tournament appearances.
=== All-time wins ===
Source:
Totals though the end of the 2024−25 regular season.
=== All-time series record ===
Totals from though the end of the 2024–25 season.Includes any regular season match up regardless of conference affiliation or postseason meetings.
Source:
=== Big 12 series record ===
1997 - 2025 as Big 12 Members
Source:Some of the values from the bottom of page 32 don't match with the detailed numbers given on pages 33–41 so that latter values were used: *
== Baseball ==
All current Big 12 members sponsor baseball except Colorado, which never sponsored baseball during its first conference tenure and still does not sponsor the sport, and Iowa State, which dropped the sport after the 2001 season. All other former Big 12 members sponsored the sport throughout their tenures in the conference.
=== NCAA tournament performance ===
Totals through the end of the 2025 season.
== Broadcasting and media rights ==
The Big 12's media rights are controlled primarily by ESPN (ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and ESPN+) and Fox Sports (Fox and FS1). Since 2012, ESPN has sublicensed college basketball games to CBS Sports. Beginning in 2025, ESPN will sublicense college football and basketball games to TNT Sports.
=== 2012 media deal ===
On September 7, 2012, the Big 12 announced a 13-year agreement with ESPN and Fox valued at $2.6 billion in total. ESPN and Fox split college football rights, while the basketball inventory was held by ESPN with sublicensing options for CBS Sports and Fox Sports. The agreement also included a grant of rights for all current Big 12 teams over the period of the contract.
In addition to the national agreement, each Big 12 university maintained the right to sell its "third-tier" covering selected events per-season (including one football game, basketball games, and other events outside of those sports). The third-tier rights to the Texas Longhorns are held through a channel dedicated to the team — Longhorn Network — which is operated by ESPN. In 2019, ESPN announced that it would acquire the third-tier rights to all Big 12 teams through 2024–25 (excluding Oklahoma and Texas, which are still under long-term contracts with ESPN+ and Longhorn Network respectively), and place their content on its subscription streaming service ESPN+. ESPN also acquired exclusive rights to all future Big 12 football championship games, replacing the previous alternation between ESPN and Fox.
=== 2025 extension deal ===
On October 30, 2022, the Big 12 announced that it had reached early broadcast deal to renew rights with ESPN network (includes ABC rights) and Fox. It is a six-year media rights agreement worth a total of $2.3 billion, but also reportedly includes an "escalator clause" that will raise the value of the contracts if only Power Five schools are added. By striking a deal prior to the exclusive negotiating window with ESPN and Fox, the Big 12 managed to achieve several of its primary objectives of stability and security, including the ability to consult its member schools to seek an extended grant of rights and potential future conference expansion. Fox's deal also places a slate of Big 12 college basketball games on Fox Sports for the first time.
ESPN:
Football games will primarily air in a primetime window on ESPN
Rights to the football Big 12 Championship Game
Rights to the Big 12 basketball championship
Rights to a slate of college basketball games
Primary streaming partner under the branding Big 12 Now on ESPN+
Fox Sports:
26 football games per season:
Rights to a slate of college basketball games
TNT Sports
College football, men's basketball, and women's basketball games that would normally be broadcast on ESPN's streaming service ESPN+ will be licensed to TNT Sports to be broadcast on TNT and/or TBS, as well as the Max streaming service.
CBS
Sublicense rights to select college basketball games
NFL Network:
Will air conference wide Pro Day on NFL Network
=== Big 12 Studios ===
In 2024, the Big 12 announced the creation of a Free ad-supported streaming television channel, Big 12 Studios, which will show content related to the games. The channel is operated in partnership with Raycom Sports. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortal_Beloved_(1994_film) | Immortal Beloved (1994 film) | Immortal Beloved is a 1994 biographical film written and directed by Bernard Rose and starring Gary Oldman, Jeroen Krabbé, Isabella Rossellini and Johanna ter Steege. The film narrates the life of composer Ludwig van Beethoven (played by Oldman) in flashbacks while it follows Beethoven's secretary and first biographer Anton Schindler's (Krabbé) quest to ascertain the true identity of the Unsterbliche Geliebte (Immortal Beloved) addressed in three letters found in the late composer's private papers. Schindler journeys throughout the Austrian Empire interviewing women who might be potential candidates, as well as through Beethoven's own tumultuous life.
== Plot ==
When Ludwig van Beethoven dies, his assistant and close friend Schindler deals with his last will and testament. It reads that his estate, music and affairs will be left to his "immortal beloved," but there remains a question as to who is Beethoven's "immortal beloved," an unnamed woman mentioned in one of his letters. Schindler embarks on a quest to find out and meets the women whom he had known played a part in Ludwig's life.
Schindler first meets with Giulietta Guicciardi, who had been a piano student of Beethoven's when she was a young, unmarried woman and had fallen in love with him. In flashback, we see that – despite Giulietta's father's disapproval – she intends to marry Beethoven, who has proposed to her. She attempts to gain her father's consent by proving that, despite rumors to the contrary, Beethoven can still play music, and hides with her father while the composer plays their new pianoforte, believing he is alone. When he discovers Giulietta and her father, he is furious, feeling betrayed. He cuts ties with her and storms out. She calls after him to apologize, and only then realizes that Beethoven is deaf.
Schindler next meets Anna-Marie Erdödy, who took Beethoven in after becoming outraged with the audience mocking him at a poor performance, as the composer, now completely deaf, had become unable to properly conduct the orchestra. Anna-Marie's young son is killed during Napoleon's attack on Vienna and Beethoven comforts her in her grief, leading to a love affair, but she denies being his "immortal beloved."
Schindler's investigation brings him back to Beethoven's own family, recounting his disapproval of his brother marrying Johanna Reiss, the daughter of Anton Van Reiss, a prosperous Viennese upholsterer, even attempting to have her arrested at one point. After his brother's death, Beethoven is able to seize custody of his nephew Karl. Even though the boy is indifferent to music, his uncle becomes obsessed with making him a composer, neglecting his own career, which suffers.
Karl grows into a teenager, having spent hours daily practicing the piano. Beethoven is convinced that Karl will be a great success as a composer, but Karl knows he has no talent and, pushed to his breaking point by his uncle, attempts suicide. He survives but tells Beethoven he never wants to see him again.
Schindler discovers that Beethoven's great love was Johanna, and that Karl, conceived before her marriage, is actually his son, not his nephew. They had intended to elope, but Beethoven was delayed and wrote the "immortal beloved" letter to Johanna to let her know. However, Johanna never received it and, believing Beethoven had abandoned her, left and married his brother instead. Both feeling betrayed, their love grew to hate. Johanna tells Schindler that when she saw the performance of his ninth symphony, she was moved to forgive him and ultimately made peace with him on his deathbed, where he gave her a signed letter, giving her custody over Karl.
Schindler gives Johanna the letter to the "Immortal Beloved" in which she finally reads what happened that night they were supposed to meet. Shocked to find out how an unfortunate event and misunderstanding has kept them apart, she visits Beethoven's grave.
== Cast ==
Gary Oldman as Ludwig van Beethoven
Jeroen Krabbé as Anton Felix Schindler
Isabella Rossellini as Anna-Marie Erdödy
Johanna ter Steege as Johanna Reiss
Marco Hofschneider as Karl van Beethoven
Miriam Margolyes as Nanette Streicherová
Barry Humphries as Clemens Metternich
Valeria Golino as Giulietta Guicciardi
Gerard Horan as Nikolaus Johann van Beethoven
Christopher Fulford as Kaspar van Beethoven
Alexandra Pigg as Therese Obermayer
Michael Culkin as Jakob Hotscevar
Geno Lechner as Josephine von Brunsvik
Claudia Solti as Theresa von Brunsvik
== Historical background ==
After Beethoven's death in 1827, a three-part letter was found among his private papers addressed to a woman whom he called "immortal beloved". Written in the summer of 1812 from the spa town of Teplice, the letter has generated a great deal of speculation and debate among scholars and writers as to her identity. Among the candidates, then and now, are Giulietta Guicciardi, Thérèse von Brunsvik, Josephine Brunsvik, Antonie Brentano, and Anna-Marie Erdödy, some of whom are portrayed in the film.
The film's writer and director, Bernard Rose, though not a historian, claimed that he had successfully identified the addressed woman as Beethoven's sister-in-law Johanna (Reiss) van Beethoven, a claim no scholar on Beethoven has endorsed. The film also implies that Karl, Beethoven's nephew, was in reality the couple's son. Biographer Gail S. Altman disputed Rose's claim in a book devoted specifically to the question of the woman's identity and Beethoven's relationships in general.
== Music ==
The Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Georg Solti
Instrumental soloists
Murray Perahia, piano
Gidon Kremer, violin
Juilliard String Quartet
(in order of appearance)
Symphony No 5, Op. 67. Allegro con brio
Missa Solemnis: Kyrie.
Für Elise (complete).
Symphony No 3 In E-Flat Major Op.55 Eroica.
Piano Sonata No 14, Moonlight: Adagio Sostenuto.
Symphony No 6, Op. 68, Pastoral: Storm.
Piano Trio No 5 In D Major, Op. 70, No 1 Ghost.
Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61.
Piano Sonata No 8, Pathetique.
The Thieving Magpie, by Rossini (doesn't appear on the CD)
Missa Solemnis: Agnus Dei
Symphony No 9, Op 125: Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso (first 2 minutes, doesn't appear on the CD)
Piano Concerto No 5, Emperor (love theme, ending credits).
Symphony No 7, Op. 92: Allegretto (Karl's theme)
Violin Sonata In A Major, Op. 47, Kreutzer: Adagio sostenuto- Presto.
Symphony No 9, Op 125: Ode to Joy.
String Quartet No 13 in B-Flat Major, Op. 130
Christus am Ölberg, Oratorio, Op. 85
== Reception ==
=== Critical response ===
Reviews for Immortal Beloved were mixed. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 57% based on 56 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. The site's consensus states: "A contrived romantic mystery and ponderous pacing make Immortal Beloved a not-so-joyful ode to Ludwig van Beethoven, despite Gary Oldman's best efforts to inject some passion into proceedings." Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade A− on scale of A to F.
Emanuel Levy gave the film a "C" rating, calling it a "speculative chronicle" that lacks the "vibrant energy and charm" of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart biopic Amadeus (1984). He praised the "wonderfully recorded and inventively used" Beethoven compositions as well as the casting of Oldman, who he felt was "the perfect actor to portray the arrogant, irascible musician". Roger Ebert was highly complimentary of the film. He gave it three and a half stars out of four, stating in his review: "Immortal Beloved has clearly been made by people who feel Beethoven directly in their hearts". He asserted that Oldman "at first seems an unlikely choice...then we see that he is right". Janet Maslin also offered a positive review, stating: "thanks to its hugely effective use of Beethoven's most thrilling, tumultuous music, this film exerts much the same hypnotic power". She praised the performance of Oldman, writing that "he captures Beethoven as a believably brilliant figure struggling with his deafness and other demons".
MSN Movies, in a 2011 publication, wrote: "Oldman's performance is unimpeachable. He dives deep into the role with powerful passion and makes the audience feel the pain of the genius as he loses his hearing and fails to shape his nephew into a similarly talented musician. In the year of '[Forrest] Gump', Oldman was overlooked for a well-deserved Oscar nomination." Also that year Josh Winning of Total Film named Oldman's portrayal of Beethoven as one of the five best performances of his career, saying: "Immersing himself fully into the role of the German composer, Oldman is here damn near unrecognisable. The fact that he remains silent for the first 20 minutes of the film while simultaneously emoting for England is a small triumph in itself."
=== Box office ===
The movie debuted strongly and was a modest success, generating $9,914,409 in a domestic-only release.
=== Year-end lists ===
5th – Steve Persall, St. Petersburg Times
Top 10 (not ranked) – George Meyer, The Ledger |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._Hinch | A. J. Hinch | Andrew Jay Hinch (born May 15, 1974) is an American professional baseball coach and former catcher who is the manager of the Detroit Tigers of Major League Baseball (MLB). As a member of Team USA, Hinch won a bronze medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics before playing in MLB for the Oakland Athletics (1998–2000), Kansas City Royals (2001–2002), Detroit Tigers (2003), and Philadelphia Phillies (2004).
Born in Iowa, Hinch attended Midwest City High School in Oklahoma, and then Stanford University, where he played college baseball for the Cardinal. In the 1996 MLB draft, the Athletics selected him in the third round, and he appeared in 350 games over seven major league seasons.
Following his playing career, Hinch managed the Arizona Diamondbacks from May 2009 to July 2010, and became vice president of professional scouting for the San Diego Padres from September 2010 to August 2014. Hinch joined the Houston Astros as manager from 2015 through 2019, guiding the club through one of the most successful periods in franchise history. They won the 2017 World Series, two American League (AL) pennants, and over 100 regular season games each from 2017 to 2019, including a club-record 107 in the latter. Due to being implicated in the Astros' sign stealing scandal the following year, Hinch was suspended by MLB for one year and fired by the team. Prior to the 2021 season, the Tigers hired Hinch as manager, and he guided the club to their next playoff appearance in 2024.
== Early life ==
Hinch lived in Nashua, Iowa, until he was eight, when he moved to Oklahoma. He is a 1992 graduate of Midwest City High School in Midwest City, Oklahoma, where, as a senior, he was the 1992 National Gatorade Player of the Year in baseball. He was drafted in the second round of the Major League Baseball draft but elected to attend Stanford University, where he was a third-round pick after his junior year in 1995. He decided to return to school and was again a third-round pick as a senior in 1996. At Stanford he joined Delta Tau Delta International Fraternity. Hinch won a bronze medal for the United States at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and was named to the 1998 Topps All-Star Rookie Team. Hinch is married to his wife, Erin Hinch, with two daughters Haley and Kaitlin.
== Playing career ==
Hinch was selected by the Oakland Athletics in the third round of the 1996 Major League Baseball draft. He signed with the Athletics in June 1996. He debuted with the Athletics in 1998 and remained with the team through the 2000 season.
In the 2000–01 offseason, Hinch was traded to the Kansas City Royals with Ángel Berroa as part of a 3-team trade that sent Ben Grieve from the Athletics to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Cory Lidle from the Devil Rays to the Athletics, Roberto Hernández from the Devil Rays to the Royals, and Johnny Damon and Mark Ellis to the Athletics from the Royals.
Hinch was released by the Royals after the 2002 season. He signed as a minor league free agent with the Cleveland Indians, but was purchased by the Detroit Tigers from the Indians in March 2003. He signed with the Philadelphia Phillies for the 2004 season, splitting the year between the majors and Triple-A. He spent all of 2005 with the Phillies' Triple-A affiliate before retiring. In an eight-season major league career, Hinch had a .219 batting average with 32 home runs and 112 runs batted in in 350 games.
== Managing career ==
=== Arizona Diamondbacks ===
After the 2005 season, the Arizona Diamondbacks hired Hinch as their manager of minor league operations. Even while playing, he was planning his post-playing career. He went so far as to go to the 2003 general manager's winter meetings to look for future job opportunities and contacts. In July 2006, Baseball America named him one of baseball's "10 to watch" in the next 10 years for his promise as a farm director and future general manager. In August 2006, the Diamondbacks named Hinch director of player development.
Hinch was named manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks on May 8, 2009, replacing Bob Melvin, despite never having managed or coached a team at any level. At age 34 years and 357 days, Hinch became the youngest person to be named manager of a Major League team since Eric Wedge (34 years, 275 days).
Hinch, along with general manager Josh Byrnes, was fired from the Diamondbacks on July 1, 2010, following a 31–48 start to the 2010 season. Overall, Hinch compiled an 89–123 record in 212 games; his .420 winning percentage ranks as the lowest for a non-interim manager in Diamondbacks history.
=== San Diego Padres ===
The San Diego Padres hired Hinch as vice president of professional scouting on September 21, 2010. He reunited with Byrnes, who was the Padres' senior vice president of baseball operations and in 2011 would become their general manager. Hinch served as interim GM in 2014 along with Omar Minaya and Fred Uhlman, Jr. He resigned from the position on August 5, 2014.
=== Houston Astros ===
Hinch was named manager of the Houston Astros on September 29, 2014, replacing Bo Porter, who had been fired on September 1, 2014. In the 2015 season, Hinch led the Astros to an 86–76 record and a wild card berth. It was Houston's first playoff appearance since their 2005 World Series run. In the Wild Card Game, the Astros defeated the New York Yankees in Yankee Stadium, 3–0, to advance to the American League Division Series (ALDS). Hinch's Astros took a 2–1 ALDS lead over the Kansas City Royals. In Game 4, the Astros led the Royals, 6–2, going into the 8th inning; however, the Royals came back to win, 9–6, and the Astros went on to lose Game 5 and the series.
In 2016, Houston began the season 7–17. Although their play improved during the season, the Astros finished 84–78 and did not qualify for the playoffs.
In 2017, the Astros achieved a club-record of 50 wins in 74 games and finished the regular season 101–61, winning their first AL West division title, first division title in 16 years, and first since joining the AL. The 2017 postseason began for the Astros with the ALDS at home. Hinch guided the team past the Boston Red Sox in four games, with his decision to have Justin Verlander pitch in relief in the deciding Game 4 receiving attention. In the American League Championship Series (ALCS), he led the Astros against the Yankees in Houston's first League Championship Series (LCS) appearance in 12 years. After his team won the first two games at home, the Yankees rallied with three wins in New York, with Game 4's loss resulting from the bullpen giving up six combined runs in the 7th and 8th after Hinch removed pitcher Lance McCullers Jr after only six innings. With a pivotal Game 6 in Houston and Justin Verlander on the mound, the Astros won the game, 7–1. In Game 7, he chose Charlie Morton as his starter. Morton tossed five innings, and Hinch brought in McCullers to pitch the final four in relief as the Astros shutout the Yankees, 4–0. Thus, Houston clinched their first-ever AL pennant, and first overall pennant in 12 years, to advance to the 2017 World Series,
The Astros faced the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series and won in 7 games. Hinch deployed the same four starting pitchers as he had in the ALCS: Dallas Keuchel, Verlander, McCullers Jr, and Morton, though only McCullers and Morton received wins as two relievers, Chris Devenski and Joe Musgrove, were credited with the other two. In Game 7, Morton pitched the final four innings as the Astros won, 5–1, to clinch their first-ever title. With the win, Hinch earned his 14th playoff victory as manager of the Astros, establishing a club record that eclipsed the 13 attained by Phil Garner.
On August 30, 2018, the Astros signed Hinch to a four-year extension.
On May 30, 2019, Hinch won his 500th game as manager. The Astros won a franchise-record 107 games during the regular season, but lost to the Washington Nationals 4 games to 3 in World Series. On January 13, 2020, during the offseason, Hinch and Jeff Luhnow, the team's general manager, were suspended one year for violating MLB policies in a sign stealing scandal in 2017. The investigation revealed that Hinch did not approve of the players using a replay monitor to decode signs, and even went as far as to wreck the monitor on at least two occasions. However, he admitted that he did not stop the practice or explicitly let it be known that he disapproved of it. Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred harshly criticized Hinch for not doing more to stop the scheme. According to Manfred, the manager is responsible for "ensuring that the players both understand the rules and adhere to them.” Manfred concluded that there was "no justification for Hinch's failure to act,” since Hinch was the players’ immediate supervisor. If Hinch commits further "material violations" of baseball rules, he will be permanently banned from baseball. Hinch fully expected to be suspended, but believed Manfred would only suspend him for a month at most.
The year-long suspension was the second-most severe punishment in baseball history meted out to a manager for in-game misconduct. The only longer suspension was for St. Louis Browns manager Jack O'Connor, who was banned for life for trying to throw the 1910 American League batting title to Nap Lajoie by bribing the official scorer to change a hit on error to a hit in the final game of the season. Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora also received a year-long suspension for his role in the scandal for his actions as the Astros' bench coach.
On the same day, Astros owner Jim Crane fired Hinch and Luhnow, saying, "Neither one of them started this but neither one of them did anything about it." Crane said that he was going beyond MLB's sanctions because he had "higher standards for the city and the franchise." Largely on the strength of his final three seasons–all but one of the four 100-win seasons in franchise history at the time of his firing–Hinch ended his tenure as the second winningest manager in Astros history, behind only Bill Virdon. As of the end of the 2019 season, his .594 winning percentage was the highest in franchise history.
=== Detroit Tigers ===
Hinch's suspension ended after the 2020 season. He was scheduled to interview for the managerial openings with the Detroit Tigers and Chicago White Sox. When the White Sox unexpectedly hired Tony La Russa, they issued a press release mistakenly bearing Hinch's facsimile signature, suggesting Hinch was the team's original choice until owner Jerry Reinsdorf intervened. On October 30, 2020, Hinch was named the manager of the Tigers, agreeing on a multi-year contract.
In 2024, Hinch led the Tigers to a wild card berth on an 86–76 third-place finish in the AL Central division. Left-hander Tarik Skubal emerged as the staff ace, winning the AL Triple Crown, the first Tiger do to so since Verlander in 2011. A 55–63 record shortly after the trade deadline did not advertise a playoff destiny after having dealt starter Jack Flaherty, outfielder Mark Canha, reliever Andrew Chafin, and catcher Carson Kelly. Their playoff seeding juxtaposed them with the Houston Astros in the AL Wild Card Series (WCS). As such, Hinch became the third manager in MLB history to face his former team whom he led to a World Series title in a postseason tournament.
During the 2025 season, Hinch and the Tigers agreed to a long-term contract extension running through at least the 2027 season.
=== Managerial record ===
As of October 4, 2025 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea_at_the_2002_Winter_Olympics | South Korea at the 2002 Winter Olympics | South Korea, as Republic of Korea, competed at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, United States.
== Medalists ==
== Alpine skiing ==
Men
Women
== Biathlon ==
Men
Women
== Cross-country skiing ==
Men
Women
== Figure skating ==
Men
Women
Mixed
== Luge ==
Men
== Short track speed skating ==
Men
Women
== Skeleton ==
Men
== Ski jumping ==
Men
== Speed skating ==
Men
Women |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gupta_Empire | Gupta Empire | The Gupta Empire was an Indian empire during the classical period of the Indian subcontinent which existed from the mid 3rd century to mid 6th century CE. At its peak, the dynasty ruled over an empire that spanned much of the northern Indian subcontinent. This period has been considered as the Golden Age of India by some historians, although this characterisation has been disputed by others. The ruling dynasty of the empire was founded by Gupta.
The high points of the period are the great cultural developments which took place primarily during the reigns of Samudragupta, Chandragupta II and Kumaragupta I. Many Hindu epics and literary sources, such as the Mahabharata and Ramayana, were canonised during this period. The Gupta period produced scholars such as Kalidasa, Aryabhata, Varahamihira and Vatsyayana, who made significant advancements in many academic fields. Science and political administration reached new heights during the Gupta era. The period, sometimes described as Pax Gupta, gave rise to achievements in architecture, sculpture, and painting that "set standards of form and taste [that] determined the whole subsequent course of art, not only in India but far beyond her borders". Strong trade ties also made the region an important cultural centre and established the region as a base that would influence nearby kingdoms and regions in India and Southeast Asia. The Puranas, earlier long poems on a variety of subjects, are also thought to have been committed to written texts around this period. Hinduism was followed by the rulers and the Brahmins flourished in the Gupta empire but the Guptas were tolerant towards people of other faiths as well.
The empire eventually died out because of factors such as substantial loss of territory and imperial authority caused by their own erstwhile feudatories, as well as the invasion by the Huna peoples (Kidarites and Alchon Huns) from Central Asia. After the collapse of the Gupta Empire in the 6th century, India was again ruled by numerous regional kingdoms.
== Origin ==
Guptas were originally from Magadha.
The first evidence of Gupta connection with Magadha comes from a foreign source. The Chinese traveller I-tsing, who came to India in A.D. 672 heard of Mahārāja Śrī-Gupta (Che-li-ki-to) who built a temple near Mrigaśikhāvana for Chinese pilgrims and endowed it with 24 villages.
Recent numismatic research suggests that Sri Gupta, traditionally regarded as the founder of the Gupta dynasty, likely ruled as an independent monarch in the Magadha region during the late 3rd century CE. A hoard of over one hundred silver coins bearing the legend "Śrī Gupta" in Brahmi script, along with a portrait bust, have been discovered in Bihar, particularly in the Hajipur–Muzaffarpur region, a core area of ancient Magadha. These coins, uniform in typology and silver standard, reflect deliberate state issuance rather than imitation or forgery. Scholars argue that this coinage indicates Sri Gupta's sovereign authority, issued to meet local economic demands following the decline of the Kushans and to assert political identity. The use of the title Maharaja—also common among other independent tribal states of the period—further supports his autonomous status. Moreover, the later marriage alliance between Chandra Gupta I and the Lichchhavi princess Kumaradevi likely reflects the already elevated position of the Gupta family, established during the reigns of Sri Gupta and his son Ghatotkacha. This interpretation places the origin of the Gupta Empire firmly within a local Magadhan context, grounded in both political independence and early monetary sovereignty.
According to one theory, they originated in the present-day lower-Doab region of Uttar Pradesh, where most of the inscriptions and coin hoards of the early Gupta emperors have been discovered. The recently found silver coin of Sri Gupta in Uttar Pradesh further attest the origin of Guptas around Kāśī–Kannauj region and his rule was only limited to Kāśī (present day Varanasi). There also remains a possibility that this Śrīgupta coin was issued by another king.
Another theory locates the Gupta homeland in the present-day Bengal region in Ganges basin, based on the account of the 7th-century Chinese Buddhist monk Yijing. According to Yijing, king Che-li-ki-to (identified with the dynasty's founder Shri Gupta) built a temple for Chinese pilgrims near Mi-li-kia-si-kia-po-no (apparently a transcription of Mriga-shikha-vana). Yijing states that this temple was located more than 40 yojanas east of Nalanda, which would mean it was situated somewhere in the modern Bengal region. Another proposal is that the early Gupta kingdom extended from Prayaga in the west to northern Bengal in the east.
The Gupta records do not mention the dynasty's varna (social class). Some historians, such as A.S. Altekar, have theorised that they were of Vaishya origin, as certain ancient Indian texts prescribe the name "Gupta" for the members of the Vaishya varna. According to historian R. S. Sharma, the Vaishyas – who were traditionally associated with trade – may have become rulers after resisting oppressive taxation by the previous rulers. Critics of the Vaishya-origin theory point out that the suffix Gupta features in the names of several non-Vaishyas before as well as during the Gupta period, and the dynastic name "Gupta" may have simply derived from the name of the dynasty's first king Gupta. Some scholars, such as S. R. Goyal, theorise that the Guptas were Brahmins, because they had matrimonial relations with Brahmins, but others reject this evidence as inconclusive. Based on the Pune and Riddhapur inscriptions of the Gupta princess Prabhavatigupta, some scholars believe that the name of her paternal gotra (clan) was "Dharana", but an alternative reading of these inscriptions suggests that Dharana was the gotra of her mother Kuberanaga.
== History ==
=== Early rulers ===
Gupta (Gupta script: gu-pta, fl. late 3rd century CE) is the earliest known king of the Gupta dynasty. Different historians variously date the beginning of his reign from the mid-to-late 3rd century CE. Gupta founded the Gupta Empire c. 240-280 CE, and was succeeded by his son, Ghatotkacha, c. 280-319 CE, followed by Ghatotkacha's son, Chandragupta I, c. 319-335 CE. "Che-li-ki-to", the name of a king mentioned by the 7th century Chinese Buddhist monk Yijing, is believed to be a transcription of "Shri-Gupta" (IAST: Śrigupta), "Shri" being an honorific prefix. According to Yijing, this king built a temple for Chinese Buddhist pilgrims near "Mi-li-kia-si-kia-po-no" (believed to be a transcription of Mṛgaśikhāvana).
In the Allahabad Pillar inscription, Gupta and his successor Ghatotkacha are described as Maharaja ("Great King"), while the next king Chandragupta I is called a Maharajadhiraja ("King of Great Kings"). In the later period, the title Maharaja was used by feudatory rulers, which has led to suggestions that Gupta and Ghatotkacha were vassals (possibly of the Kushan Empire). However, there are several instances of paramount sovereigns using the title Maharaja, in both pre-Gupta and post-Gupta periods, so this cannot be said with certainty. That said, there is no doubt that Gupta and Ghatotkacha held a lower status and were less powerful than Chandragupta I.
Chandragupta I married the Licchavi princess Kumaradevi, which may have helped him extend his political power and dominions, enabling him to adopt the prestigious title Maharajadhiraja. According to the dynasty's official records, he was succeeded by his son Samudragupta. However, the discovery of the coins issued by a Gupta emperor named Kacha have led to some debate on this topic: according to one theory, Kacha was another name for Samudragupta; another possibility is that Kacha was a rival claimant to the throne.
=== Samudragupta ===
Samudragupta succeeded his father around 335 or 350 CE, and ruled until c. 375. The Allahabad Pillar inscription, composed by his courtier Harisena, credits him with extensive conquests. The inscription asserts that Samudragupta uprooted 8 kings of Āryāvarta, the northern region, including the Nagas. It further claims that he subjugated all the kings of the forest region, which was most probably located in central India. It also credits him with defeating 12 rulers of Dakshinapatha, the southern region: the exact identification of several of these kings is debated among modern scholars, but it is clear that these kings ruled areas located on the eastern coast of India. The inscription suggests that Samudragupta advanced as far as the Pallava kingdom in the south, and defeated Vishnugopa, the Pallava regent of Kanchi. During this southern campaign, Samudragupta most probably passed through the forest tract of central India, reached the eastern coast in present-day Odisha, and then marched south along the coast of the Bay of Bengal.
The Allahabad Pillar inscription mentions that rulers of several frontier kingdoms and tribal aristocracies paid Samudragupta tributes, obeyed his orders, and performed obeisance before him. These polities and tribes included Samatata, Davaka, Kamarupa, Nepal, Karttripura, Malavas, Arjunayanas, Yaudheyas, Madrakas, and Abhiras.
The inscription also mentions that several foreign kings tried to please Samudragupta by personal attendance, offered him their daughters in marriage (or according to another interpretation, gifted him maidens), and sought the use of the Garuda-depicting Gupta seal for administering their own territories. However, this is likely an exaggeration, and Samudragupta's panegyrist appears to have described acts of diplomacy as ones of subservience. For example, the King of Simhala is listed among these foreign rulers, but it is known that from Chinese sources that the Simhala king Meghavarna merely sent presents to the Gupta emperor requesting his permission to build a Buddhist monastery; he did not express subservience.
Samudragupta appears to have been Vaishnavite, as attested by his Eran inscription, and performed several Brahmanical ceremonies. The Gupta records credit him with making generous donations of cows and gold. He performed the Ashvamedha ritual (horse sacrifice), which was used by the ancient Indian kings and emperors to prove their imperial sovereignty, and issued gold coins (see Coinage below) to mark this performance.
The Allahabad Pillar inscription presents Samudragupta as a wise king and strict administrator, who was also compassionate enough to help the poor and the helpless. It also alludes to the king's talents as a musician and a poet, and calls him the "king of poets". Such claims are corroborated by Samudragupta's gold coins, which depict him playing a veena.
Samudragupta appears to have directly controlled a large part of the Indo-Gangetic Plain in present-day India, as well as a substantial part of central India. His empire comprised a number of monarchical and tribal tributary states of northern India, and of the south-eastern coastal region of India.
=== Ramagupta ===
Ramagupta is known from a sixth-century play, the Devichandragupta, in which he surrenders his queen to the enemy Sakas, forcing his brother Chandragupta to sneak into the enemy camp to rescue her and kill the Saka king. The historicity of these events is unclear, but Ramagupta's existence is confirmed by three Jain statues found at Durjanpur, with inscriptions referring to him as the Maharajadhiraja. A large number of his copper coins also have been found from the Eran-Vidisha region and classified in five distinct types, which include the Garuda, Garudadhvaja, lion and border legend types. The Brahmi legends on these coins are written in the early Gupta style.
=== Chandragupta II "Vikramaditya" ===
According to the Gupta records, among his sons, Samudragupta nominated prince Chandragupta II, born of queen Dattadevi, as his successor. Chandragupta II, Vikramaditya (Brave as the Sun), ruled from 375 until 415. He married a Kadamba princess of Kuntala and of Naga lineage (Nāgakulotpannnā), Kuberanaga. His daughter Prabhavatigupta from this Naga queen was married to Rudrasena II, the Vakataka king of Deccan. His son Kumaragupta I was married to a Kadamba princess of the Karnataka region. Chandragupta II expanded his realm westwards, defeating the Saka Western Kshatrapas of Malwa, Gujarat and Saurashtra in a campaign lasting until 409. His main opponent Rudrasimha III was defeated by 395, and he crushed the Bengal chiefdoms. This extended his control from coast to coast, established a second capital at Ujjain and was the high point of the empire. Kuntala inscriptions indicate rule of Chandragupta II in Kuntala country of Karnataka. Hunza inscription also indicate that Chandragupta was able to rule north western Indian subcontinent and proceeded to conquer Balkh, although some scholars have also disputed the identity of the Gupta emperor. Chalukya king Vikramaditya VI (r. 1076 – 1126 CE) mentions Chandragupta with his title and states: "Why should the glory of the Kings Vikramaditya and Nanda be a hindrance any longer? He with a loud command abolished that (era), which has the name of Saka, and made that (era) which has the Chalukya counting".
Despite the creation of the empire through war, his reign is remembered for its very influential style of Hindu art, literature, culture and science. Some excellent works of Hindu art such as the panels at the Dashavatara Temple in Deogarh serve to illustrate the magnificence of Gupta art during his reign. Above all, it was the synthesis of elements that gave Gupta art its distinctive flavour. During this period, the Guptas were supportive of thriving Buddhist and Jain cultures as well, and for this reason, there is also a long history of non-Hindu Gupta period art. In particular, Gupta period Buddhist art was to be influential in most of East and Southeast Asia. Many advances were recorded by the Chinese scholar and traveller Faxian in his diary and published afterwards.
The court of Chandragupta II was made even more illustrious by the fact that it was graced by the Navaratna (Nine Jewels), a group of nine who excelled in the literary arts. Among these men was Kālidāsa, whose works dwarfed the works of many other literary geniuses, not only in his own age but in the years to come. Kalidasa was mainly known for his subtle exploitation of the shringara (romantic) element in his verse.
==== Campaigns against foreign tribes ====
The 4th century Sanskrit poet Kalidasa credits Chandragupta Vikramaditya with conquering about twenty-one kingdoms, both in and outside India. After finishing his campaign in East and West India, Vikramaditya (Chandragupta II) proceeded northwards, subjugated the Parasika, then the Huna and Kamboja tribes located in the west and east Oxus valleys respectively. Thereafter, the king proceeded into the Himalaya mountains to reduce the mountain tribes of the Kinnaras, Kiratas, as well as India proper. In one of his works Kalidasa also credits him with the removal of the Sakas from the country. He wrote 'Wasn't it Vikramaditya who drove the Sakas out from the lovely city of Ujjain?'.
The Brihatkathamanjari of the Kashmiri writer Kshemendra states, King Vikramaditya (Chandragupta II) had "unburdened the sacred earth of the barbarians like the Sakas, Mlecchas, Kambojas, Greeks, Tusharas, Saka-Greeks, Hunas, and others, by annihilating these sinful Mlecchas completely".
==== Faxian ====
Faxian, a Chinese Buddhist monk, was one of the pilgrims who visited India during the reign of the Gupta emperor Chandragupta II. He started his journey from China in 399 CE and reached India in 405 CE. During his stay in India up to 411 CE, he went on a pilgrimage to Mathura, Kannauj, Kapilavastu, Kushinagar, Vaishali, Pataliputra, Kashi, and Rajagriha, and made careful observations about the empire's conditions. Faxian was pleased with the mildness of administration. The penal code was mild, and offences were punished by fines only. From his accounts, the Gupta Empire was a prosperous period. His writings form one of the most important sources for the history of this period.
Faxian on reaching Mathura comments––"The snow and heat are finely tempered, and there is neither hoarfrost nor snow. The people are numerous and happy. They have not to register their households. Only those who cultivate the royal land have to pay (a portion of) the gain from it. If they want to go, they go. If they want to stay on, they stay on. The king governs without decapitation or (other) corporal punishments. Criminals are simply fined according to circumstances. Even in cases of repeated attempts at wicked rebellion, they only have their right-hand cut off. The king's bodyguards & attendants all have salaries. Throughout the whole country, the people do not kill any living creature, not drink any intoxicating liquor, nor eat onions or garlic."
=== Kumaragupta I ===
Chandragupta II was succeeded by his second son Kumaragupta I, born of Mahadevi Dhruvasvamini. Kumaragupta I assumed the title, Mahendraditya. He ruled until 455. Towards the end of his reign a tribe in the Narmada valley, the Pushyamitras, rose in power to threaten the empire. The Kidarites as well probably confronted the Gupta Empire towards the end of the rule of Kumaragupta I, as his son Skandagupta mentions in the Bhitari pillar inscription his efforts at reshaping a country in disarray, through reorganisation and military victories over the Pushyamitras and the Hunas.
He was the founder of Nalanda University which on 15 July 2016 was declared as a UNESCO world heritage site. Kumaragupta I was also a worshipper of Kartikeya.
=== Skandagupta ===
Skandagupta, son and successor of Kumaragupta I is generally considered to be the last of the great Gupta emperors. He assumed the titles of Vikramaditya and Kramaditya. He defeated the Pushyamitra threat, but then was faced with invading Kidarites (sometimes described as the Hephthalites or "White Huns", known in India as the Sweta Huna), from the northwest.
He repelled a Huna attack around 455 CE, but the expense of the wars drained the empire's resources and contributed to its decline. The Bhitari Pillar inscription of Skandagupta, the successor of Chandragupta, recalls the near annihilation of the Gupta Empire following the attacks of the Kidarites. The Kidarites seem to have retained the western part of the Gupta Empire.
Skandagupta died in 467 and was succeeded by his agnate brother Purugupta.
=== Decline of the empire ===
Following Skandagupta's death, the empire was clearly in decline, and the later Gupta coinage indicates their loss of control over much of western India after 467–469. Skandagupta was followed by Purugupta (467–473), Kumaragupta II (473–476), Budhagupta (476–495), Narasimhagupta (495–530), Kumaragupta III (530–540), Vishnugupta (540–550), two lesser known kings namely, Vainyagupta and Bhanugupta.
In the late 490's the Alchon Huns under Toramana and Mihirakula broke through the Gupta defences in the northwest, and much of the empire in the northwest was overrun by the Huns by 500. According to some scholars the empire disintegrated under the attacks of Toramana and his successor Mihirakula. It appears from inscriptions that the Guptas, although their power was much diminished, continued to resist the Huns. The Hun invader Toramana was defeated by Bhanugupta in 510. The Huns were defeated and driven out of India in 528 by King Yashodharman from Malwa, and possibly Gupta emperor Narasimhagupta.
These invasions, although only spanning a few decades, had long term effects on India, and in a sense brought an end to Classical Indian civilisation. Soon after the invasions, the Gupta Empire, already weakened by these invasions and the rise of local rulers such as Yashodharman, ended as well. Following the invasions, northern India was left in disarray, with numerous smaller Indian powers emerging after the crumbling of the Guptas. The Huna invasions are said to have seriously damaged India's trade with Europe and Central Asia. In particular, Indo-Roman trade relations, which the Gupta Empire had greatly benefited from. The Guptas had been exporting numerous luxury products such as silk, leather goods, fur, iron products, ivory, pearl, and pepper from centres such as Nasik, Paithan, Pataliputra, and Benares. The Huna invasion probably disrupted these trade relations and the tax revenues that came with them.
Furthermore, Indian urban culture was left in decline, and Buddhism, gravely weakened by the destruction of monasteries and the killing of monks by the hand of the vehemently anti-Buddhist Shaivist Huna king Mihirakula, started to collapse. Great centres of learning were destroyed, such as the city of Taxila, bringing cultural regression. During their rule of 60 years, the Alchons are said to have altered the hierarchy of ruling families and the Indian caste system. For example, the Hunas are often said to have become the precursors of the Rajputs.
The succession of the 6th-century Guptas is not entirely clear, but the tail end recognised ruler of the dynasty's main line was King Vishnugupta, reigning from 540 to 550. In addition to the Huna invasion, the factors, which contribute to the decline of the empire include competition from the Vakatakas and the rise of Yashodharman in Malwa.
The last known inscription by a Gupta emperor is from the reign of Vishnugupta (the Damudarpur copper-plate inscription), in which he makes a land grant in the area of Kotivarsha (Bangarh in West Bengal) in 542/543 CE. This follows the occupation of most of northern and central India by the Aulikara King Yashodharman c. 532 CE.
Archaeologist Shanker Sharma concluded, based on a 2019 study, that the cause of the Gupta Empire's downfall was a devastating flood which happened around the middle of the 6th century in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
=== Post-Gupta successor dynasties ===
In the heart of the former Gupta Empire, in the Gangetic region, the Guptas were succeeded by the Maukhari dynasty and the Pushyabhuti dynasty. The coinage of the Maukharis and Pushyabhutis followed the silver coin type of the Guptas, with portrait of the ruler in profile (although facing in the reverse direction compared to the Guptas, a possible symbol of antagonism) and the peacock on the reverse, the Brahmi legend being kept except for the name of the ruler.
In the western regions, they were succeeded by Gurjaradesa, the Gurjara-Pratiharas, and later the Chaulukya-Paramara dynasties, who issued so-called Indo-Sasanian coinage, on the model of the coinage of the Sasanian Empire, which had been introduced in India by the Alchon Huns.
== Military ==
In contrast to the Maurya Empire, the Guptas introduced several military innovations to Indian warfare. Chief among these was the use of siege engines, heavy cavalry archers and heavy sword cavalry. Heavy cavalry formed the core of the Gupta Army and were supported by the traditional Indian Army elements of war elephants and light infantry.
The utilisation of horse archers in the Gupta period is evidenced on the coinage of Chandragupta II, Kumaragupta I and Prakasaditya (postulated to be Purugupta) that depicts the kings as horse-archers.
There is a paucity of contemporary sources detailing the tactical operations of the Imperial Gupta Army. The best extant information comes from the Sanskrit mahakavya (epic poem) Raghuvaṃśa written by the Classical Sanskrit writer and dramatist Kalidasa. Many modern scholars put forward the view that Kalidasa lived from the reign of Chandragupta II to the reign of Skandagupta and that the campaigns of Raghu – his protagonist in the Raghuvaṃśa – reflect those of Chandragupta II. In Canto IV of the Raghuvamsa, Kalidasa relates how the king's forces clash against the powerful, cavalry-centric, forces of the Persians and later the Yavanas (probably Huns) in the North-West. Here he makes special mention of the use horse-archers in the king's army and that the horses needed much rest after the hotly contested battles. The five arms of the Gupta military included infantry, cavalry, chariotry, elephantry and ships. Gunaighar copper plate inscription of Vainya Gupta mentions ships but not chariots.
== Religion ==
The Guptas were traditionally a Hindu dynasty. They were patronizers of Brahmanism and allowed followers of Buddhism and Jainism to practice their religions. Sanchi remained an important centre of Buddhism. Kumaragupta I (455 CE) is said to have founded Nalanda. Modern genetic studies indicate that it was during the Gupta period that Indian caste groups ceased to intermarry (started practising/enforcing endogamy).
Some later rulers however seem to have especially promoted Buddhism. Narasimhagupta Baladitya (c. 495–?), according to contemporary writer Paramartha, was brought up under the influence of the Mahayanist philosopher, Vasubandhu. He built a sangharama at Nalanda and also a 300 ft (91 m) high vihara with a Buddha statue within which, according to Xuanzang, resembled the "great Vihara built under the Bodhi tree". According to the Manjushrimulakalpa (c. 800 CE), King Narasimhsagupta became a Buddhist monk, and left the world through meditation (Dhyana). The Chinese monk Xuanzang also noted that Narasimhagupta Baladitya's son, Vajra, who commissioned a sangharama as well, "possessed a heart firm in faith".
== Administration ==
A study of the epigraphical records of the Gupta Empire shows that there was a hierarchy of administrative divisions from top to bottom. It was divided into 26 provinces, which were called Bhukti, Desha or Rajya. Provinces were also divided into vishayas or pradeshas (districts) and put under the control of Vishayapatis (district lords). A Vishayapati administered the Vishaya with the help of the Adhikarana (council of representatives), which comprised four representatives: Nagarasreshesthi, Sarthavaha, Prathamakulika and Prathama Kayastha. A part of the Vishaya was called Vithi. The Gupta also had trading links with the Sassanid and Byzantine Empires. The four-fold varna system was observed under the Gupta period but occupations were not rigidly constrained by caste. Some Brahmins followed non-Brahmanical professions. Kshatriyas were often involved in trade and commerce.
=== Urban centres ===
Gupta administration proved to be highly conducive for the rapid growth of urban centres. The principal and original capital of the Gupta Empire is regarded to be Pataliputra
In the fifth century, the capital was moved to Ayodhya under either Kumaragupta or Skandagupta. Chandragupta Vikramaditya took personal interest in the development of Ujjain as a major cultural center after its conquest. Kāśī is sometimes considered by some scholars to have been a capital, either as the original capital, the principal late 6th-century capital or a minor later capital. The Chinese author Faxian described Magadha as a prosperous country with rich towns and large populations.
== Legacy ==
=== Mathematics ===
Indian mathematics flourished in the Gupta Empire. The Indian numerals which were the first positional base 10 numeral systems in the world originated from Gupta India. The Surya Siddhanta contains the Sine table. Aryabhata wrote the Aryabhatiya, making significant contributions to mathematics including developing a Place value system, an approximation of π of 4 decimal places, trigonometric functions, and Squared triangular numbers. Varāhamihira wrote the Pancha Siddhanta developing various formulas relating sine and cosine functions. Yativṛṣabha made contributions on units of measurement. Virahanka described Fibonacci numbers.
=== Astronomy ===
Indian astronomy also saw progress in this era. The names of the seven days in a week appeared at the start of the Gupta period based on Hindu deities and planets corresponding to the Roman names. Aryabhata made several contributions such as assigning the start of each day to midnight. the earth's rotation on its axis, westward motion of the stars. Aryabhata also mentioned that reflected sunlight is the cause behind the shining of the Moon. In his book, Aryabhata, he suggested that the Earth was sphere, containing a circumference of 24,835 miles (39,967 km). Varāhamihira approximates the method for determination of the meridian direction from any three positions of the shadow using a gnomon.
=== Medicine ===
The Sushruta Samhita, which is a Sanskrit redaction text on all of the major concepts of Ayurveda medicine with innovative chapters on surgery, dates to the Gupta period.
=== Metallurgy and Engineering ===
The Iron Pillar of Delhi is highly resistant to corrosion . The corrosion resistance results from an even layer of crystalline iron(III) hydrogen phosphate hydrate forming on the high-phosphorus-content iron, which serves to protect it from the effects of the corrosion The earliest evidence of the cotton gin was found in the fifth century, in the form of Buddhist paintings depicting a single-roller gin in the Ajanta Caves. The gins consisted of a single roller made of iron or wood and a flat piece of stone or wood.
=== Education ===
Various Mahavihara operated throughout the Gupta Empire serving as centuries of education. Nalanda played a vital role in promoting the patronage of arts and academics during the 5th and 6th century CE.
=== Literature ===
The highest point of Sanskrit literature is also said to have belonged to this period. Harisena was an early writer of Kāvya poetry. his works include Apabramsa Dharmapariksa, Karpuraprakara (Suktavall), the medical treatise Jagatsundari-Yogamaladhikara, Yasodharacanta, Astahnikakatha and Brhatkathakosa. Amarasimha wrote various on Sanskrit grammar. Kalidasa, a playwright, wrote plays such as the Abhijnanashakuntalam and Shakuntala. Bhartṛhari published major works including the Trikāṇḍī and Śatakatraya.
=== Leisure ===
Chess is said to have developed in this period. Its early form in the 6th century, caturaṅga, which translates as "four divisions [of the military]" (infantry, cavalry, chariotry, and elephantry), was represented by the pieces that would evolve into the modern pawn, knight, rook, and bishop respectively. Doctors also invented several medical instruments, and even performed surgical operations. The ancient Gupta text Kama Sutra by the Indian scholar Vatsyayana is widely considered to be the standard work on human sexual behaviour in Sanskrit literature.
=== Art and architecture ===
The Gupta period is generally regarded as a classic peak of North Indian art for all the major religious groups. Although painting was evidently widespread, the surviving works are almost all religious sculptures. The period saw the emergence of the iconic carved stone deity in Hindu art, as well as the Buddha-figure and Jain tirthankara figures, the latter often on a very large scale. The two great centres of sculpture were Mathura and Gandhara, the latter the centre of Greco-Buddhist art. Both exported sculpture to other parts of northern India.
The most famous remaining monuments in a broadly Gupta style, the caves at Ajanta, Elephanta, and Ellora (respectively Buddhist, Hindu, and mixed including Jain) were in fact produced under later dynasties, but primarily reflect the monumentality and balance of Gupta style. Ajanta contains by far the most significant survivals of painting from this and the surrounding periods, showing a mature form which had probably had a long development, mainly in painting palaces. The Hindu Udayagiri Caves actually record connections with the dynasty and its ministers, and the Dashavatara Temple at Deogarh is a major temple, one of the earliest to survive, with important sculpture.
== Family tree and list of rulers == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accolades_received_by_Barbie_(film) | List of accolades received by Barbie (film) | Barbie is a 2023 fantasy comedy film directed by Greta Gerwig from a screenplay she wrote with Noah Baumbach. It is the first live-action film based on the eponymous fashion dolls by Mattel, following numerous animated films and specials. The film stars Margot Robbie as the titular character and Ryan Gosling as Ken, and follows the duo on a journey of self-discovery after the former experiences an existential crisis; Robbie also serves as one of the film's producers. The ensemble supporting cast includes America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Rhea Perlman, and Will Ferrell.
Barbie had its world premiere at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on July 9, 2023, followed by its European premiere at Empire Leicester Square in London on July 12. The film was released theatrically in the United States, the United Kingdom, and most other territories on July 21 through Warner Bros. Pictures. Its concurrent release with Universal Pictures's Oppenheimer was the catalyst for the "Barbenheimer" phenomenon, encouraging audiences to see both films as a double feature. Produced on a budget of $128–145 million, Barbie grossed $1.447 billion worldwide. It became the highest-grossing film of 2023, the highest-grossing comedy film of all time, the highest-grossing film by a solo female director (and the first to cross the $1 billion mark), and the highest-grossing release in Warner Bros. Pictures history. Barbie received widespread critical acclaim, with particular praise towards its direction, screenplay, cast performances, cinematography, costume design, production design, and music. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 88% based on 507 reviews.
Barbie garnered awards and nominations in a wide assortment of categories, with recognition for its direction, screenplay, performances, music, and production values. At the 96th Academy Awards, the film received eight nominations including Best Picture, winning Best Original Song for "What Was I Made For?". Its accompanying soundtrack album and score were further recognized at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, earning twelve nominations and winning in three categories. Barbie received a leading nine nominations at the 81st Golden Globe Awards, including Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, and won the inaugural Cinematic and Box Office Achievement award. At the 29th Critics' Choice Awards, Barbie's eighteen nominations (leading to six award wins) were the most for any film in the organization's history. The film also received five nominations at the 77th British Academy Film Awards. Both the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute named Barbie one of the Top Ten Films of 2023. It received 24 nominations from the Online Film and Television Association awards, the most nominations ever for a film from those awards.
== Selected Accolades == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hastings | Battle of Hastings | The Battle of Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William, Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson, beginning the Norman Conquest of England. It took place approximately 7 mi (11 km) northwest of Hastings, close to the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex, and was a decisive Norman victory.
The background to the battle was the death of the childless King Edward the Confessor in January 1066, which set up a succession struggle between several claimants to his throne. Harold was crowned king shortly after Edward's death but faced invasions by William, his own brother Tostig, and the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada (Harold III of Norway). Hardrada and Tostig defeated a hastily gathered army of Englishmen at the Battle of Fulford on 20 September 1066. They were in turn defeated by Harold at the Battle of Stamford Bridge on 25 September. The deaths of Tostig and Hardrada at Stamford Bridge left William as Harold's only serious opponent. While Harold and his forces were recovering, William landed his invasion forces in the south of England at Pevensey on 28 September and established a beachhead for his conquest of the kingdom. Harold was forced to march south swiftly, gathering forces as he went.
The numbers present at the battle are unknown as even modern estimates vary considerably. The composition of the forces is clearer: the English army was composed almost entirely of infantry and had few archers, whereas only about half of the invading force was infantry, the rest split equally between cavalry and archers. Harold appears to have tried to surprise William, but scouts found his army and reported its arrival to William, who marched from Hastings to the battlefield to confront Harold. The battle lasted from about 9 am to dusk. Early efforts of the invaders to break the English battle lines had little effect. Therefore, the Normans adopted the tactic of pretending to flee in panic and then turning on their pursuers. Harold's death, probably near the end of the battle, led to the retreat and defeat of most of his army. After further marching and some skirmishes, William was crowned as king on Christmas Day 1066.
There continued to be rebellions and resistance to William's rule, but Hastings effectively marked the culmination of William's conquest of England. Casualty figures are difficult to assess, but some historians estimate that 2,000 invaders died along with about twice that number of Englishmen. William founded a monastery at the site of the battle, the high altar of the abbey church supposedly placed at the spot where Harold died.
== Background ==
In 911, the Carolingian ruler Charles the Simple allowed a group of Vikings to settle in Normandy under their leader Rollo. Their settlement proved successful, and they quickly adapted to the indigenous culture, renouncing paganism, converting to Christianity, and intermarrying with the local population. Over time, the frontiers of the duchy expanded to the west. In 1002, King Æthelred II married Emma, the sister of Richard II, Duke of Normandy. Their son Edward the Confessor spent many years in exile in Normandy and succeeded to the English throne in 1042. This led to the establishment of a powerful Norman interest in English politics, as Edward drew heavily on his former hosts for support, bringing in Norman courtiers, soldiers, and clerics and appointing them to positions of power, particularly in the Church. Edward was childless and embroiled in conflict with the formidable Godwin, Earl of Wessex, and his sons, and he may also have encouraged Duke William of Normandy's ambitions for the English throne.
=== Succession crisis in England ===
King Edward's death on 5 January 1066 left no clear heir, and several contenders laid claim to the throne of England. Edward's immediate successor was the Earl of Wessex, Harold Godwinson, the richest and most powerful of the English aristocrats and son of Godwin, Edward's earlier opponent. Harold was elected king by the Witenagemot of England and crowned by Ealdred, the Archbishop of York, although Norman propaganda claimed that the ceremony was performed by Stigand, the uncanonically elected Archbishop of Canterbury. Harold was at once challenged by two powerful neighbouring rulers. William claimed that he had been promised the throne by Edward and that Harold had sworn agreement to this. Harald Hardrada, King of Norway, also contested the succession; his claim to the throne was based on an agreement between his predecessor Magnus the Good and the earlier king of England Harthacnut, whereby if either died without heir, the other would inherit both England and Norway. William and Harald Hardrada immediately set about assembling troops and ships for separate invasions.
=== Tostig and Hardrada's invasions ===
In early 1066, Harold's exiled brother Tostig Godwinson raided southeastern England with a fleet he had recruited in Flanders, later joined by other ships from Orkney. Threatened by Harold's fleet, Tostig moved north and raided in East Anglia and Lincolnshire. He was driven back to his ships by the brothers Edwin, Earl of Mercia and Morcar, Earl of Northumbria. Deserted by most of his followers, he withdrew to Scotland, where he spent the middle of the year recruiting fresh forces. Hardrada invaded northern England in early September, leading a fleet of more than 300 ships carrying perhaps 15,000 men. Hardrada's army was further augmented by the forces of Tostig, who supported the Norwegian king's bid for the throne. Advancing on York, the Norwegians occupied the city after defeating a northern English army under Edwin and Morcar on 20 September at the Battle of Fulford.
== English army and Harold's preparations ==
The English army was organised along regional lines, with the fyrd, or local levy, serving under a local magnate – whether an earl, bishop or sheriff. The fyrd was composed of men who owned their own land and who were equipped by their community to fulfil the king's demands for military forces. For every five hides, or units of land nominally capable of supporting one household, one man was supposed to serve. It appears that the hundred was the main organising unit for the fyrd. As a whole, England could furnish about 14,000 men for the fyrd when it was called out. The fyrd usually served for two months, except in emergencies. It was rare for the whole national fyrd to be called out; between 1046 and 1065 it was only done three times, in 1051, 1052, and 1065. The king also had a group of personal armsmen, known as housecarls, who formed the backbone of the royal forces. Some earls also had their own forces of housecarls. Thegns, the local landowning elites, either fought with the royal housecarls or attached themselves to the forces of an earl or other magnate. The fyrd and the housecarls both fought on foot, with the major difference between them being the housecarls' superior armour. The English army does not appear to have had a significant number of archers.
Harold had spent mid-1066 on the south coast with a large army and fleet waiting for William to invade. The bulk of his forces were militia who needed to harvest their crops, so on 8 September Harold dismissed the militia and the fleet. Learning of the Norwegian invasion he rushed north, gathering forces as he went, and took the Norwegians by surprise, defeating them at the Battle of Stamford Bridge on 25 September. Harald Hardrada and Tostig were killed, and the Norwegians suffered such great losses that only 24 of the original 300 ships were required to carry away the survivors. The English victory came at great cost, as Harold's army was left in a battered and weakened state, and far from the south.
== William's preparations and landing ==
William assembled a large invasion fleet and an army gathered from Normandy and the rest of France, including large contingents from Brittany and Flanders. He spent almost nine months on his preparations, as he had to assemble a fleet from nothing. According to some Norman chronicles, he also secured diplomatic support, although the accuracy of the reports has been a matter of historical debate. The most famous claim is that Pope Alexander II gave a papal banner as a token of support, which only appears in William of Poitiers's account, and not in more contemporary narratives. In April 1066 Halley's Comet appeared in the sky and was widely reported throughout Europe. Contemporary accounts connected the comet's appearance with the succession crisis in England.
William mustered his forces at Saint-Valery-sur-Somme and was ready to cross the English Channel by about 12 August, but the crossing was delayed, either because of unfavourable weather or to avoid being intercepted by the powerful English fleet. The Normans crossed to England a few days after Harold's victory over the Norwegians, following the dispersal of Harold's naval force, and landed at Pevensey in Sussex on 28 September. A few ships were blown off course and landed at Romney, where the Normans fought the local fyrd. After landing, William's forces built a wooden castle at Hastings, from which they raided the surrounding area. More fortifications were erected at Pevensey.
=== Norman forces at Hastings ===
The exact numbers and composition of William's force are unknown. A contemporary document claims that William had 776 ships, but this may be an inflated figure. Figures given by contemporary writers for the size of the army are highly exaggerated, varying from 14,000 to 150,000. Modern historians have offered a range of estimates for the size of William's forces: 7000–8000 men including 1000–2000 cavalry; 10,000–12,000 men; 10,000 men including 3000 cavalry; or 7500 men. The army consisted of about one-half infantry, one-quarter cavalry, and one-quarter archers or crossbowmen. Later lists of companions of William the Conqueror are extant, but most are padded with extra names; only about 35 named individuals can be reliably identified as having been with William at Hastings.
The main armour was chainmail hauberks, usually knee-length, with slits to allow riding, some with sleeves to the elbows. Some hauberks may have been made of scales attached to a tunic, with the scales made of metal, horn or hardened leather. Headgear was usually a conical metal helmet with a vertical band guarding the bridge of the nose. Cavalry and infantry carried shields. The infantryman's shield was usually round and made of wood with metal reinforcement. Horsemen used a kite-shaped shield and were usually armed with a lance. The couched lance, carried tucked against the body under the right arm, was relatively new and probably not used at Hastings, as the terrain was unfavourable for long cavalry charges. Both infantry and cavalry usually fought with a straight sword, long and double-edged. The infantry could also use javelins and long spears. Some of the cavalry may have used a mace instead of a sword. Archers would have used a self bow or a crossbow, and most would not have had armour.
== Harold moves south ==
After defeating Tostig and Harald Hardrada in the north, Harold left much of his forces in the north, including Morcar and Edwin, and marched the rest of his army south to deal with the threatened Norman invasion. It is unclear when Harold learned of William's landing, but it was probably during the march. Harold stopped in London for about a week before Hastings, so he likely spent about a week on his march south, averaging about 27 mi (43 km) per day, for the approximately 200 mi (320 km). Harold camped at Caldbec Hill on the night of 13 October, near a "hoar-apple tree", about 8 mi (13 km) from William's castle at Hastings. Some of the early contemporary French accounts mention an emissary or emissaries sent by Harold to William, which is likely, though nothing came of it.
Although Harold attempted to surprise the Normans, William's scouts reported the English arrival to the duke. The events preceding the battle are obscure, with contradictory accounts in the sources, but all agree that William's army advanced from his castle towards the enemy. Harold had taken a defensive position at the top of Senlac Hill (present-day Battle, East Sussex), about 6 mi (9.7 km) from William's castle at Hastings.
=== English forces at Hastings ===
The number of soldiers in Harold's army at Hastings is unknown, as contemporary records do not give reliable figures. Some Norman sources give 400,000 to 1,200,000 on Harold's side, while English sources seem to underestimate Harold's army, perhaps to make the English defeat seem less devastating. Recent historians have suggested figures of between 5000 and 13,000, while most argue for a figure of 7000–8000 English troops. These men would have been a mix of the fyrd and housecarls. Few individual Englishmen are known to have been present; about 20 named individuals can reasonably be assumed to have fought with Harold at Hastings, including Harold's brothers Gyrth and Leofwine and two other relatives.
The English army consisted entirely of infantry. It is possible that some of the higher-class members of the army rode to battle but then dismounted when battle was joined to fight on foot. The core of the army was made up of housecarls, full-time professional soldiers. Their armour consisted of a conical helmet, a mail hauberk, and a shield, which might be either kite-shaped or round. Most housecarls fought with the two-handed Danish battleaxe, but they could also carry a sword. The rest of the army was made up of levies from the fyrd, also infantry but more lightly armoured and not professionals. Most of the infantry would have formed part of the shield wall, in which the front ranks locked their shields together. Behind them would have been axemen and javelins as well as archers.
== Battle ==
=== Background and location ===
Because many of the primary accounts contradict each other at times, it is impossible to provide an authoritative description of the battle. The only undisputed facts are that fighting began at 9 am Saturday 14 October 1066 and that the battle lasted until dusk. Sunset on the day of the battle was at 4:54 pm, with the battlefield mostly dark by 5:54 pm and in full darkness by 6:24 pm. Moonrise that night was not until 11:12 pm, so once the sun set, there was little light on the battlefield. William of Jumièges reports that William kept his army armed and ready against a surprise attack for the entire night before. The battle took place 7 mi (11 km) north of Hastings at the present-day town of Battle, between two hills – Caldbec Hill to the north and Telham Hill to the south. The area was heavily wooded, with a marsh nearby. The name traditionally given to the battle is unusual – there were several settlements much closer to the battlefield than Hastings. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle calls it the battle "at the hoary apple tree". Within 40 years, the battle was described by the Anglo-Norman chronicler Orderic Vitalis as "Senlac", a Norman-French adaptation of the Old English word "Sandlacu", which means "sandy water". This may have been the name of the stream that crosses the battlefield. The battle was already being referred to as "bellum Haestingas" or "Battle of Hastings" by 1086, in the Domesday Book.
The sun rose at 6:48 am that morning, with the day unusually bright. The weather conditions are not recorded. The precise route of the English army southward to the battlefield is not known. Several roads are possible: one, an old Roman road that ran from Rochester to Hastings has long been favoured because of a large coin hoard found nearby in 1876. Another possibility is the Roman road between London and Lewes and then over local tracks to the battlefield. Some accounts of the battle indicate that the Normans advanced from Hastings to the battlefield, but the contemporary account of William of Jumièges places the Normans at the site of the battle the night before. Most historians incline towards the former view, but M. K. Lawson argues that William of Jumièges's account is correct.
=== Dispositions of forces and tactics ===
Harold's forces deployed in a small, dense formation at the top of a steep slope, with their flanks protected by woods and marshy ground in front of them. The line may have extended far enough to be anchored on a nearby stream. The English formed a shield wall, with the front ranks holding their shields close together or even overlapping to protect from attack. Sources differ on the exact site at which the English fought: some sources state the site of the abbey, but some newer sources suggest it was Caldbec Hill.
More is known about the Norman deployment. William appears to have arranged his forces in three groups, or "battles", which roughly corresponded to their origins. The left units were the Bretons, along with those from Anjou, Poitou and Maine. This division was led by Alan the Red, a relative of the Breton count. The centre was held by the Normans, under the direct command of William and with many of his relatives and kinsmen grouped around the ducal party. The final division, on the right, consisted of the Frenchmen, along with some men from Picardy, Boulogne, and Flanders. The right was commanded by William fitzOsbern and Count Eustace II of Boulogne. The front lines were made up of archers, with a line of foot soldiers armed with spears behind. There were probably a few crossbowmen and slingers in with the archers. The cavalry was held in reserve, and a small group of clergymen and servants situated at the base of Telham Hill was not expected to take part in the fighting.
William's disposition of his forces implies that he planned to open the battle with archers in the front rank weakening the enemy with arrows, followed by infantry who would engage in close combat. The infantry would create openings in the English lines that could be exploited by a cavalry charge to break through the English forces and pursue the fleeing soldiers.
=== Beginning of the battle ===
The battle opened with the Norman archers shooting uphill at the English shield wall, to little effect. The uphill angle meant that the arrows either bounced off the shields of the English or overshot their targets and flew over the top of the hill. The lack of English archers hampered the Norman archers, as there were few English arrows to be gathered up and reused. After the attack from the archers, William sent the spearmen forward to attack the English. They were met with a barrage of spears, axes and stones. The infantry was unable to force openings in the shield wall, and the cavalry advanced in support. The cavalry also failed to make headway, and a general retreat began, blamed on the Breton division on William's left. A rumour started that William had been killed, which added to the confusion. The English forces began to pursue the fleeing invaders, but William rode through his forces, showing his face and yelling that he was still alive. He then led a counter-attack against the pursuing English forces; some of the English rallied on a hillock before being overwhelmed.
It is not known whether the English pursuit was ordered by Harold or if it was spontaneous. The 12th-century chronicler Wace relates that Harold ordered his men to stay in their formations, but no other account gives this detail. The Bayeux Tapestry depicts the death of Gyrth and Leofwine occurring just before the fight around the hillock. This may mean that the two brothers led the pursuit. The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio relates a different story for the death of Gyrth, stating that William slew him in combat, perhaps thinking that Gyrth was Harold. William of Poitiers states that the bodies of Gyrth and Leofwine were found near Harold's, implying that they died late in the battle. It is possible that if the two brothers died early in the fighting their bodies were taken to Harold, thus accounting for their being found near his body after the battle. The military historian Peter Marren speculates that if Gyrth and Leofwine died early in the battle, that may have influenced Harold to stand and fight to the end.
=== Feigned flights ===
A lull probably occurred early in the afternoon, and a break for rest and food would probably have been needed. William may have also needed time to implement a new strategy, which may have been inspired by the English pursuit and subsequent rout by the Normans. If the Normans could send their cavalry against the shield wall and then draw the English into more pursuits, breaks in the English line might form. William of Poitiers says the tactic was used twice. Although arguments have been made that the chroniclers' accounts of this tactic were meant to excuse the flight of the Norman troops from battle, this is unlikely as the earlier flight was not glossed over. It was a tactic used by other Norman armies during the period. Some historians have argued that the story of the use of feigned flight as a deliberate tactic was invented after the battle; however most historians agree that it was used by the Normans at Hastings.
Although the feigned flights did not break the lines, they probably thinned out the housecarls in the English shield wall. The housecarls were replaced with members of the fyrd, and the shield wall held. Archers appear to have been used again before and during an assault by the cavalry and infantry led by William. Although 12th-century sources state that the archers were ordered to shoot at a high angle to shoot over the front of the shield wall, there is no trace of such an action in the more contemporary accounts. It is not known how many assaults were launched against the English lines, but some sources record various actions by both Normans and Englishmen that took place during the afternoon's fighting. The Carmen claims that William had two horses killed under him during the fighting, but William of Poitiers's account states that it was three.
=== Death of Harold ===
Harold appears to have died late in the battle, although accounts in the various sources are contradictory. William of Poitiers only mentions his death, without giving any details on how it occurred. The Bayeux Tapestry is not helpful, as it shows a figure holding an arrow sticking out of his eye next to a falling fighter being hit with a sword. Over both figures is a statement "Here King Harold has been killed". It is not clear which figure is meant to be Harold, or if both are meant. The earliest written mention of the traditional account of Harold dying from an arrow to the eye dates to the 1080s from a history of the Normans written by an Italian monk, Amatus of Montecassino. William of Malmesbury states that Harold died from an arrow to the eye that went into the brain and that a knight wounded Harold at the same time. Wace repeats the arrow-to-the-eye account. The Carmen states that William killed Harold, but this is unlikely, as such a feat would have been recorded elsewhere. The account of William of Jumièges is even more unlikely, as it has Harold dying in the morning, during the first fighting. The Chronicle of Battle Abbey states that no one knew who killed Harold, as it happened in the press of battle. A modern biographer of Harold, Ian Walker, states that Harold probably died from an arrow in the eye, although he also says it is possible that Harold was struck down by a Norman knight while mortally wounded in the eye. Another biographer of Harold, Peter Rex, after discussing the various accounts, concludes that it is not possible to declare how Harold died.
Harold's death left the English forces leaderless, and they began to collapse. Many of them fled, but the soldiers of the royal household gathered around Harold's body and fought to the end. The Normans began to pursue the fleeing troops, and except for a rearguard action at a site known as the "Malfosse", the battle was over. Exactly what happened at the Malfosse, or "Evil Ditch", and where it took place, are unclear. It occurred at a small fortification or set of trenches where some Englishmen rallied and seriously wounded Eustace of Boulogne before being defeated by the Normans.
=== Reasons for the outcome ===
Harold's defeat was probably due to several circumstances. One was the need to defend against two almost simultaneous invasions. Harold's dismissal of his forces in southern England on 8 September also contributed to the defeat. Many historians fault Harold for hurrying south and not gathering more forces before confronting William at Hastings, although it is not clear that the English forces were insufficient to deal with William's forces. However, the length of the battle, which lasted an entire day, shows that the English forces were not tired by their long march. Tied in with the speed of Harold's advance to Hastings is the possibility Harold may not have trusted Edwin and Morcar once Tostig had been defeated, and declined to bring them and their forces south. Modern historians have pointed out that one reason for Harold's rush to battle was to contain William's depredations and keep him from breaking free of his beachhead.
Most of the blame for the defeat probably lies in the events of the battle. William was the more experienced military leader, and in addition, the lack of cavalry on the English side allowed Harold fewer tactical options. Some writers have criticised Harold for not exploiting the opportunity offered by the rumoured death of William early in the battle. The English appear to have erred in not staying strictly on the defensive, for when they pursued the retreating Normans they exposed their flanks to attack. Whether this was due to the inexperience of the English commanders or the indiscipline of the English soldiers is unclear. In the end, Harold's death appears to have been decisive, as it signalled the break-up of the English forces in disarray. Historian David Nicolle states that William's army "demonstrated – not without difficulty – the superiority of Norman-French mixed cavalry and infantry tactics over the Germanic-Scandinavian infantry traditions of the Anglo-Saxons."
== Aftermath ==
The day after the battle, Harold's body was identified, either by his armour or by marks on his body. A 12th-century tradition stated that Harold's face could not be recognised and Edith the Fair, Harold's common-law wife, was brought to the battlefield to identify his body from marks that only she knew. His personal standard was presented to William and later sent to the papacy. The bodies of the English dead, including some of Harold's brothers and housecarls, were left on the battlefield, although some were later removed by relatives. The Norman dead were buried in a large communal grave, which has not been found.
Casualty figures are unknown. Losses suffered among Englishmen known to have been at the battle imply a fatality rate of about 50 per cent of combatants, although this may be too high. Of the named Normans who fought at Hastings, one in seven is stated to have died, but these were all noblemen, and the death rate among common soldiers was probably higher. Although Orderic Vitalis's figures are highly exaggerated, his ratio of one in four casualties may be accurate. Marren speculates that perhaps 2,000 Normans and 4,000 Englishmen were killed at Hastings. Reports stated that some of the English dead were still being found on the hillside years later. Although scholars long thought that remains would not be recoverable due to the acidic soil, recent finds have changed this view. One skeleton that was found in a medieval cemetery, and originally was thought to be associated with the 13th century Battle of Lewes, now is thought to be associated with Hastings instead.
One story relates that Gytha, Harold's mother, offered the victorious duke the weight of her son's body in gold for its custody but was refused. William ordered that Harold's body be thrown into the sea, but whether that took place is unclear. Another story holds that Harold was buried at the top of a cliff. Waltham Abbey, which had been founded by Harold, later claimed that his body had been secretly buried there. Other legends claimed that Harold did not die at Hastings but escaped and became a hermit at Chester.
William expected to receive the submission of the surviving English leaders after his victory, but instead Edgar Ætheling was proclaimed king by the Witenagemot, with the support of Earls Edwin and Morcar, Stigand, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Ealdred, the Archbishop of York. William therefore advanced on London, marching around the coast of Kent. He defeated an English force that attacked him at Southwark but was unable to storm London Bridge, forcing him to reach the capital by a more circuitous route.
William moved up the Thames valley to cross the river at Wallingford, where he received the submission of Stigand. He then travelled north-east along the Chilterns, before advancing towards London from the north-west, fighting further engagements against forces from the city. The English leaders surrendered to William at Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. William was acclaimed King of England and crowned by Ealdred on 25 December 1066, in Westminster Abbey.
Despite the submission of the English nobles, resistance continued for several years. There were rebellions in Exeter in late 1067, an invasion by Harold's sons in mid-1068, and an uprising in Northumbria in 1068. In 1069, William faced more troubles from Northumbrian rebels, an invading Danish fleet, and rebellions in the south and west of England. He ruthlessly put down the various risings, culminating in the Harrying of the North in late 1069 and early 1070 that devastated parts of northern England. A further rebellion in 1070 by Hereward the Wake was also defeated by the king, at Ely.
Battle Abbey was founded by William at the site of the battle. According to 12th-century sources, William made a vow to found the abbey, and the high altar of the church was placed at the site where Harold had died. More likely, the foundation was imposed on William by papal legates in 1070. The topography of the battlefield has been altered by subsequent construction work for the abbey, and the slope defended by the English is now much less steep than it was at the time of the battle; the top of the ridge has also been built up and levelled. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the abbey's lands passed to secular landowners who used it as a residence or country house. In 1976, the estate was put up for sale and purchased by the government with the aid of some American donors who wished to honour the 200th anniversary of American independence. The battlefield and abbey grounds are currently owned and administered by English Heritage and are open to the public.
The Bayeux Tapestry is an embroidered narrative of the events leading up to Hastings probably commissioned by Odo of Bayeux soon after the battle, perhaps to hang at the bishop's palace at Bayeux. In modern times annual reenactments of the battle have drawn thousands of participants and spectators to the site of the original battle. Some English veterans of the battle left England and joined the Varangian Guard in Constantinople. They fought the Normans again at the Battle of Dyrrhachium in 1081, and were defeated again in similar circumstances. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick#Career | Philip K. Dick#Career | Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American science fiction short story writer and novelist. He wrote 45 novels and about 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines. His fiction explored varied philosophical and social questions such as the nature of reality, perception, human nature, and identity, and commonly featured characters struggling against alternate realities, illusory environments, monopolistic corporations, drug abuse, authoritarian governments, and altered states of consciousness. He is considered one of the most important figures in 20th-century science fiction.
Born in Chicago, Dick moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with his family at a young age. He began publishing science fiction stories in 1952, at age 23. He found little commercial success until his alternative history novel The Man in the High Castle (1962) earned him acclaim, including a Hugo Award for Best Novel, when he was 33. He followed with science fiction novels such as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) and Ubik (1969). His 1974 novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.
Following years of drug use and a series of mystical experiences in 1974, Dick's work engaged more explicitly with issues of theology, metaphysics, and the nature of reality, as in the novels A Scanner Darkly (1977), VALIS (1981), and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982). A collection of his speculative nonfiction writing on these themes was published posthumously as The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick (2011). He died in 1982 at the age of 53 due to complications of a stroke. Following his death, he became "widely regarded as a master of imaginative, paranoid fiction in the vein of Franz Kafka and Thomas Pynchon".
Dick's posthumous influence has been widespread, extending beyond literary circles into Hollywood filmmaking. Popular films based on his works include Blade Runner (1982) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Total Recall (adapted twice: in 1990 and in 2012), Screamers (1995), Minority Report (2002), A Scanner Darkly (2006), The Adjustment Bureau (2011), and Radio Free Albemuth (2010). Beginning in 2015, Amazon Prime Video produced the multi-season television adaptation The Man in the High Castle, based on Dick's 1962 novel; and in 2017 Channel 4 produced the anthology series Electric Dreams, based on various Dick stories.
In 2005, Time magazine named Ubik (1969) one of the hundred greatest English-language novels published since 1923. In 2007, Dick became the first science fiction writer included in The Library of America series.
== Early life ==
Philip Kindred Dick and his twin sister, Jane Charlotte Dick, were born six weeks prematurely on December 16, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois, to Dorothy (née Kindred; 1900–1978) and Joseph Edgar Dick (1899–1985), who worked for the United States Department of Agriculture. His paternal grandparents were Irish. Jane's death on January 26, 1929, six weeks after their birth, profoundly affected Philip's life, leading to the recurrent motif of the "phantom twin" in his books.
Dick's family later moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. When he was five, his father was transferred to Reno, Nevada, and when Dorothy refused to move, she and Joseph divorced. Both fought for custody of Philip, which was awarded to Dorothy. Determined to raise Philip alone, she took a job in Washington, D.C., and moved there with her son. Philip was enrolled at John Eaton Elementary School (1936–1938), completing the second through fourth grades. His lowest grade was a "C" in Written Composition, although a teacher said he "shows interest and ability in story telling". He was educated in Quaker schools. In June 1938, Dorothy and Philip returned to California, and it was around this time that he became interested in science fiction. Dick stated that he read his first science fiction magazine, Stirring Science Stories, in 1940.
Dick attended Berkeley High School in Berkeley, California. He and fellow science fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin were members of the class of 1947 but did not know each other at the time. He claimed to have hosted a classical music program on KSMO Radio in 1947. From 1948 to 1952, he worked at Art Music Company, a record store on Telegraph Avenue.
He attended the University of California, Berkeley, from September 1949 to November 11, 1949, ultimately receiving an honorable dismissal dated January 1, 1950. He did not declare a major and took classes in history, psychology, philosophy, and zoology. Dick dropped out because of ongoing anxiety problems, according to his third wife Anne's memoir. She also says he disliked the mandatory ROTC training. At Berkeley, he befriended poet Robert Duncan and poet and linguist Jack Spicer, who gave Dick ideas for a Martian language.
Through his studies in philosophy, he came to believe that existence is based on internal human perception, which does not necessarily correspond to external reality. He described himself as "an acosmic panentheist", which he explained as meaning that "I don't believe that the universe exists. I believe that the only thing that exists is God and he is more than the universe. The universe is an extension of God into space and time. That's the premise I start from in my work, that so-called 'reality' is a mass delusion that we've all been required to believe for reasons totally obscure". After reading the works of Plato and pondering the possibilities of metaphysical realms, he came to the conclusion that, in a certain sense, the world is not entirely real and there is no way to confirm whether it is truly there. That question was a theme in many of his novels.
== Career ==
=== Early writing ===
Dick sold his first story, "Roog"—about "a dog who imagined that the garbagemen who came every Friday morning were stealing valuable food which the family had carefully stored away in a safe metal container"—in 1951, when he was 22. From then on he wrote full-time. During 1952, his first speculative fiction publications appeared in July and September numbers of Planet Stories, edited by Jack O'Sullivan, and in If and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF) that year. By 1953, F&SF described Dick as "one of the most prolific new professionals in the field", joking that "the editors of Whizzing Star Patrol and of the Quaint Quality Publication are in complete agreement upon Mr. Dick as a singularly satisfactory contributor". His debut novel, Solar Lottery, was published in 1955 as half of Ace Double #D-103 alongside The Big Jump by Leigh Brackett. The 1950s were a difficult and impoverished time for Dick, who once lamented, "We couldn't even pay the late fees on a library book." He published almost exclusively within the science fiction genre but dreamed of a career in mainstream fiction. During the 1950s, he produced a series of non-genre, relatively conventional novels.
In 1960, Dick wrote that he was willing to "take twenty to thirty years to succeed as a literary writer". The dream of mainstream success formally died in January 1963 when the Scott Meredith Literary Agency returned all of his unsold mainstream novels. Only one of them, Confessions of a Crap Artist, was published during Dick's lifetime, in 1975 by Paul Williams' Entwhistle Books.
In 1963, Dick won the Hugo Award for The Man in the High Castle. Although he was hailed as a genius in the science fiction world, the mainstream literary world was unappreciative, and he could publish books only through low-paying science fiction publishers such as Ace. He said in a 1977 interview that were it not for the interest of a French publishing company in the mid-1960s, which decided to publish all of his catalog to date, he would not have been able to continue as a writer. But even in his later years, he continued to have financial troubles. In the introduction to the 1980 short story collection, The Golden Man, he wrote:
"Several years ago, when I was ill, Heinlein offered his help, anything he could do, and we had never met; he would phone me to cheer me up and see how I was doing. He wanted to buy me an electric typewriter, God bless him—one of the few true gentlemen in this world. I don't agree with any ideas he puts forth in his writing, but that is neither here nor there. One time when I owed the IRS a lot of money and couldn't raise it, Heinlein loaned the money to me. I think a great deal of him and his wife; I dedicated a book to them in appreciation. Robert Heinlein is a fine-looking man, very impressive and very military in stance; you can tell he has a military background, even to the haircut. He knows I'm a flipped-out freak and still he helped me and my wife when we were in trouble. That is the best in humanity, there; that is who and what I love."
=== Flight to Canada, mental health and suicide attempt ===
In 1971, Dick's marriage to Nancy Hackett broke down, and she moved out of their house in Santa Venetia, California. He had abused amphetamine for much of the previous decade, stemming in part from his need to maintain a prolific writing regimen due to the financial exigencies of the science fiction field. He allowed other drug users to move into the house. Following the release of 21 novels between 1960 and 1970, these developments were exacerbated by unprecedented periods of writer's block, with Dick ultimately failing to publish new fiction until 1974.
One day, in November 1971, Dick returned to his home to discover it had been burglarized, with his safe blown open and personal papers missing. The police could not determine the culprit, and even suspected Dick of having done it himself. Shortly thereafter, he was invited to be the guest of honor at the Vancouver Science Fiction Convention in February 1972. Within a day of arriving at the conference and giving his speech, The Android and the Human, he informed people that he had fallen in love with a woman named Janis whom he had met there and announced that he would be remaining in Vancouver. A conference attendee, Michael Walsh, movie critic for the local newspaper The Province, invited Dick to stay in his home, but asked him to leave two weeks later due to his erratic behavior. Janis then ended their relationship and moved away. On March 23, 1972, Dick attempted suicide by taking an overdose of the sedative potassium bromide. Subsequently, after deciding to seek help, Dick became a participant in X-Kalay (a Canadian Synanon-type recovery program), and was well enough by April to return to California. In October 1972, Dick wrote a letter to the FBI about science fiction writer Thomas Disch. Dick said he had been approached by a covert Anti-American organization which attempted to recruit him. Dick said he recognized their ideology in a book Disch wrote.
On relocating to Orange County, California at the behest of California State University, Fullerton professor Willis McNelly (who initiated a correspondence with Dick during his X-Kalay stint), he donated manuscripts, papers and other materials to the university's Special Collections Library, where they are in the Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Collection in the Pollak Library. During this period, Dick befriended a circle of Fullerton State students that included several aspiring science fiction writers, including K. W. Jeter, James Blaylock and Tim Powers. Jeter would later continue Dick's Bladerunner series with three sequels.
Dick returned to the events of these months while writing his novel A Scanner Darkly (1977), which contains fictionalized depictions of the burglary of his home, his time using amphetamines and living with addicts, and his experiences of X-Kalay (portrayed in the novel as "New-Path"). A factual account of his recovery program participation was portrayed in his posthumously released book The Dark Haired Girl, a collection of letters and journals from the period.
=== Paranormal experiences ===
On February 20, 1974, while recovering from the effects of sodium pentothal administered for the extraction of an impacted wisdom tooth, Dick received a home delivery of Darvon from a young woman. When he opened the door, he was struck by the dark-haired girl's beauty, and was especially drawn to her golden necklace. He asked her about its curious fish-shaped design. As she was leaving, she replied: "This is a sign used by the early Christians." Dick called the symbol the "vesicle pisces". This name seems to have been based on his conflation of two related symbols, the Christian ichthys symbol (two intersecting arcs delineating a fish in profile), which the woman was wearing, and the vesica piscis.
Dick recounted that as the sun glinted off the gold pendant, the reflection caused the generation of a "pink beam" of light that mesmerized him. He came to believe the beam imparted wisdom and clairvoyance, and also believed it to be intelligent. On one occasion, he was startled by a separate recurrence of the pink beam, which imparted the information that his infant son was ill. The Dicks rushed the child to the hospital, where the illness was confirmed by professional diagnosis.
After the woman's departure, Dick began experiencing strange hallucinations. Although initially attributing them to side effects from medication, he considered this explanation implausible after weeks of continued hallucination. He told Charles Platt: "I experienced an invasion of my mind by a transcendentally rational mind, as if I had been insane all my life and suddenly I had become sane."
Throughout February and March 1974, Dick experienced a series of hallucinations which he referred to as "2-3-74", shorthand for February–March 1974. Aside from the "pink beam", he described the initial hallucinations as geometric patterns, and, occasionally, brief pictures of Jesus and ancient Rome. As the hallucinations increased in duration and frequency, Dick claimed he began to live two parallel lives—one as himself, "Philip K. Dick", and one as "Thomas", a Christian persecuted by Romans in the first century AD. He referred to the "transcendentally rational mind" as "Zebra", "God" and "VALIS" (an acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System). He wrote about the experiences, first in the semi-autobiographical novel Radio Free Albemuth, then in VALIS, The Divine Invasion, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer and the unfinished The Owl in Daylight (the VALIS trilogy).
In 1974, Dick wrote a letter to the FBI, accusing various people, including University of California, San Diego professor Fredric Jameson, of being foreign agents of Warsaw Pact powers. He also wrote that Stanisław Lem was probably a false name used by a composite committee operating on orders of the Communist party to gain control over public opinion.
At one point, Dick felt he had been taken over by the spirit of the prophet Elijah. He believed that an episode in his novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said was a detailed retelling of a biblical story from the Book of Acts, which he had never read. He documented and discussed his experiences and faith in a private journal he called his "exegesis", portions of which were later published as The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick. The last novel he wrote was The Transmigration of Timothy Archer; it was published shortly after his death in 1982.
== Personal life ==
Dick was married five times:
Jeanette Marlin (May to November 1948)
Kleo Apostolides (June 14, 1950, to 1959)
Anne Williams Rubinstein (April 1, 1959, to October 1965)
Nancy Hackett (July 6, 1966, to 1972)
Leslie "Tessa" Busby (April 18, 1973, to 1977)
Dick had three children, Laura Archer Dick (born February 25, 1960, to Dick and his third wife, Anne Williams Rubenstein), Isolde Freya Dick (now Isa Dick Hackett) (born March 15, 1967, to Dick and his fourth wife, Nancy Hackett), and Christopher Kenneth Dick (born July 25, 1973, to Dick and his fifth wife, Leslie "Tessa" Busby).
In 1955, Dick and his second wife, Kleo Apostolides, received a visit from the FBI, which they believed to be the result of Kleo's socialist views and left-wing activities.
He physically fought with Anne Williams Rubinstein, his third wife. Dick wrote to a friend that he and Anne had "dreadful violent fights...slamming each other around, smashing every object in the house." In 1963, Dick told his neighbors that his wife was attempting to kill him and had her involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution for two weeks. After filing for divorce in 1964, Dick moved to Oakland to live with a fan, author and editor Grania Davis. Shortly after, he attempted suicide by driving off the road while she was a passenger.
=== Politics ===
Early in life, Dick attended Communist Party USA meetings but later shifted more towards anti-Communism and libertarianism as time passed. In an interview, Dick once described himself as a "religious anarchist". Dick generally tried to stay out of the political scene because of high societal turmoil from the Vietnam War. Still, he showed some anti-Vietnam War and anti-governmental sentiments. In 1968, he joined the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest", an anti-war pledge to pay no U.S. federal income tax, which resulted in the confiscation of his car by the IRS.
Dick was a critic of the U.S. federal government, regarding it to be just as "bad as the Soviet Union", and cheered on "a great decentralization of the government". Dick's politics occasionally influenced his literature. Dick's 1967 short story "Faith of Our Fathers" is critical of Communism. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? condemns the eugenics movement. In 1974, as a response to the Roe v. Wade decision, Dick published "The Pre-persons", a satirical anti-abortion and anti-Malthusianism short story. Following the story's publication, Dick stated that he received death threats from feminists.
== Death ==
On February 17, 1982, after completing an interview, Dick contacted his therapist, complaining of failing eyesight, and was advised to go to a hospital immediately, but did not. The following day, he was found unconscious on the floor of his Santa Ana, California, home, having suffered a stroke. On February 25, 1982, Dick suffered another stroke in the hospital, which led to brain death. Five days later, on March 2, 1982, he was disconnected from life support.
After his death, Dick's father, Joseph, took his son's ashes to Riverside Cemetery in Fort Morgan, Colorado (section K, block 1, lot 56), where they were buried next to his twin sister Jane, who died in infancy. Her tombstone had been inscribed with both of their names at the time of her death, 53 years earlier. Philip died four months before the release of Blade Runner, the film based on his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
== Style and works ==
=== Themes ===
Dick's stories typically focus on the fragile nature of what is real and the construction of personal identity. His stories often become surreal fantasies, as the main characters slowly discover that their everyday world is actually an illusion assembled by powerful external entities, such as the suspended animation in Ubik, vast political conspiracies or the vicissitudes of an unreliable narrator. "All of his work starts with the basic assumption that there cannot be one, single, objective reality", writes science fiction author Charles Platt. "Everything is a matter of perception. The ground is liable to shift under your feet. A protagonist may find himself living out another person's dream, or he may enter a drug-induced state that actually makes better sense than the real world, or he may cross into a different universe completely."
Alternate universes and simulacra are common plot devices, with fictional worlds inhabited by common, working people, rather than galactic elites. "There are no heroes in Dick's books", Ursula K. Le Guin wrote, "but there are heroics. One is reminded of Dickens: what counts is the honesty, constancy, kindness and patience of ordinary people." Dick made no secret that much of his thinking and work was heavily influenced by the writings of Carl Jung. The Jungian constructs and models that most concerned Dick seem to be the archetypes of the collective unconscious, group projection/hallucination, synchronicities, and personality theory. Many of Dick's protagonists overtly analyze reality and their perceptions in Jungian terms (see Lies, Inc.).
Dick identified one major theme of his work as the question, "What constitutes the authentic human being?" In works such as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, beings can appear totally human in every respect while lacking soul or compassion, while completely alien beings such as Glimmung in Galactic Pot-Healer may be more humane and complex than their human peers. Understood correctly, said Dick, the term "human being" applies "not to origin or to any ontology but to a way of being in the world." This authentic way of being manifests itself in compassion that recognizes the oneness of all life. "In Dick's vision, the moral imperative calls on us to care for all sentient beings, human or nonhuman, natural or artificial, regardless of their place in the order of things. And Dick makes clear that this imperative is grounded in empathy, not reason, whatever subsequent role reason may play." The figure of the android depicts those who are deficient in empathy, who are alienated from others and are becoming more mechanical (emotionless) in their behaviour. "In general, then, it can be said that for Dick robots represent machines that are becoming more like humans, while androids represent humans that are becoming more like machines."
Mental illness was a constant interest of Dick's, and themes of mental illness permeate his work. The character Jack Bohlen in the 1964 novel Martian Time-Slip is an "ex-schizophrenic". The novel Clans of the Alphane Moon centers on an entire society made up of descendants of lunatic asylum inmates. In 1965, he wrote the essay titled "Schizophrenia and the Book of Changes".
Drug use (including religious, recreational, and abuse) was also a theme in many of Dick's works, such as A Scanner Darkly and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Dick himself was a drug user for much of his life. According to a 1975 interview in Rolling Stone, Dick wrote all of his books published before 1970 while on amphetamines. "A Scanner Darkly (1977) was the first complete novel I had written without speed", said Dick in the interview. He also experimented briefly with psychedelics, but wrote The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965), which Rolling Stone dubs "the classic LSD novel of all time", before he had ever tried them. Despite his heavy amphetamine use, however, Dick later said that doctors told him the amphetamines never actually affected him, that his liver had processed them before they reached his brain.
Summing up all these themes in Understanding Philip K. Dick, Eric Carl Link discussed eight themes or "ideas and motifs": Epistemology and the Nature of Reality, Know Thyself, The Android and the Human, Entropy and Pot Healing, The Theodicy Problem, Warfare and Power Politics, The Evolved Human, and "Technology, Media, Drugs and Madness".
=== Pen names ===
Dick had two professional stories published under the pen names Richard Phillipps and Jack Dowland. "Some Kinds of Life" was published in October 1953 in Fantastic Universe under byline Richard Phillipps, apparently because the magazine had a policy against publishing multiple stories by the same author in the same issue; "Planet for Transients" was published in the same issue under his own name.
The short story "Orpheus with Clay Feet" was published under the pen name Jack Dowland. The protagonist desires to be the muse for fictional author Jack Dowland, considered the greatest science fiction author of the 20th century. In the story, Dowland publishes a short story titled "Orpheus with Clay Feet" under the pen name Philip K. Dick.
The surname Dowland refers to Renaissance composer John Dowland, who is featured in several works. The title Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said directly refers to Dowland's best-known composition, "Flow, my tears". In the novel The Divine Invasion, the character Linda Fox, created specifically with Linda Ronstadt in mind, is an intergalactically famous singer whose entire body of work consists of recordings of John Dowland compositions.
=== Selected works ===
The Man in the High Castle (1962) is set in an alternative history in which the United States is ruled by the victorious Axis powers. It is the only Dick novel to win a Hugo Award. In 2015 this was adapted into a television series by Amazon Studios.
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) utilizes an array of science fiction concepts and features several layers of reality and unreality. It is also one of Dick's first works to explore religious themes. The novel takes place in the 21st century, when, under UN authority, mankind has colonized the Solar System's every habitable planet and moon. Life is physically daunting and psychologically monotonous for most colonists, so the UN must draft people to go to the colonies. Most entertain themselves using "Perky Pat" dolls and accessories manufactured by Earth-based "P.P. Layouts". The company also secretly creates "Can-D", an illegal but widely available hallucinogenic drug allowing the user to "translate" into Perky Pat (if the drug user is a woman) or Pat's boyfriend, Walt (if the drug user is a man). This recreational use of Can-D allows colonists to experience a few minutes of an idealized life on Earth by participating in a collective hallucination.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) is the story of a bounty hunter policing the local android population. It occurs on a dying, poisoned Earth de-populated of almost all animals and all "successful" humans; the only remaining inhabitants of the planet are people with no prospects off-world. The 1968 novel is the literary source of the film Blade Runner (1982). It is both a conflation and an intensification of the pivotally Dickian question: "What is real, what is fake? What crucial factor defines humanity as distinctly 'alive', versus those merely alive only in their outward appearance?"
Ubik (1969) employs extensive psychic telepathy and a suspended state after death in creating a state of eroding reality. A group of psychics is sent to investigate a rival organisation, but several of them are apparently killed by a saboteur's bomb. Much of the following novel flicks between different equally plausible realities and the "real" reality, a state of half-life and psychically manipulated realities. In 2005, Time magazine listed it among the "All-TIME 100 Greatest Novels" published since 1923.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974) concerns Jason Taverner, a television star living in a dystopian near-future police state. After being attacked by an angry ex-girlfriend, Taverner awakens in a dingy Los Angeles hotel room. He still has his money in his wallet, but his identification cards are missing. This is no minor inconvenience, as security checkpoints (staffed by "pols" and "nats", the police and National Guard) are set up throughout the city to stop and arrest anyone without valid ID. Jason at first thinks that he was robbed, but soon discovers that his entire identity has been erased. There is no record of him in any official database, and even his closest associates do not recognize or remember him. For the first time in many years, Jason has no fame or reputation to rely on. He has only his innate charm and social graces to help him as he tries to find out what happened to his past while avoiding the attention of the pols. The novel was Dick's first published novel after years of silence, during which time his critical reputation had grown, and this novel was awarded the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. It is the only Philip K. Dick novel nominated for both a Hugo and a Nebula Award.
In an essay written two years before his death, Dick described how he learned from his Episcopal priest that an important scene in Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said – involving its other main character, the eponymous Police General Felix Buckman, was very similar to a scene in Acts of the Apostles, a book of the New Testament. Film director Richard Linklater discusses this novel in his film Waking Life, which begins with a scene reminiscent of another Dick novel, Time Out of Joint.
A Scanner Darkly (1977) is a bleak mixture of science fiction and police procedural novels; in its story, an undercover narcotics police detective begins to lose touch with reality after falling victim to Substance D, the same permanently mind-altering drug he was enlisted to help fight. Substance D is instantly addictive, beginning with a pleasant euphoria which is quickly replaced with increasing confusion, hallucinations and eventually total psychosis. In this novel, as with all Dick novels, there is an underlying thread of paranoia and dissociation with multiple realities perceived simultaneously. It was adapted to film by Richard Linklater.
The Philip K. Dick Reader is an introduction to the variety of Dick's short fiction.
VALIS (1980) is perhaps Dick's most postmodern and autobiographical novel, examining his own unexplained experiences. It may also be his most academically studied work, and was adapted as an opera by Tod Machover. Later works like the VALIS trilogy were heavily autobiographical, many with "two-three-seventy-four" (2-3-74) references and influences. The word VALIS is the acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System. Later, Dick theorized that VALIS was both a "reality generator" and a means of extraterrestrial communication. A fourth VALIS manuscript, Radio Free Albemuth, although composed in 1976, was posthumously published in 1985. This work is described by the publisher (Arbor House) as "an introduction and key to his magnificent VALIS trilogy".
Regardless of the feeling that he was somehow experiencing a divine communication, Dick was never fully able to rationalize the events. For the rest of his life, he struggled to comprehend what was occurring, questioning his own sanity and perception of reality. He transcribed what thoughts he could into an eight-thousand-page, one-million-word journal dubbed the Exegesis. From 1974 until his death in 1982, Dick spent many nights writing in this journal. A recurring theme in Exegesis is Dick's hypothesis that history had been stopped in the first century AD, and that "the Empire never ended". He saw Rome as the pinnacle of materialism and despotism, which, after forcing the Gnostics underground, had kept the population of Earth enslaved to worldly possessions. Dick believed that VALIS had communicated with him, and anonymously others, to induce the impeachment of U.S. President Richard Nixon, whom Dick believed to be the current Emperor of Rome incarnate.
In a 1968 essay titled "Self Portrait", collected in the 1995 book The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick, Dick reflects on his work and lists which books he feels "might escape World War Three": Eye in the Sky, The Man in the High Castle, Martian Time-Slip, Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb, The Zap Gun, The Penultimate Truth, The Simulacra, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (which he refers to as "the most vital of them all"), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and Ubik. In a 1976 interview, Dick cited A Scanner Darkly as his best work, feeling that he "had finally written a true masterpiece, after 25 years of writing".
=== Adaptations ===
==== Films ====
Several of Dick's stories have been made into films. Dick himself wrote a screenplay for an intended film adaptation of Ubik in 1974, but the film was never made. Many film adaptations have not used Dick's original titles. When asked why this was, Dick's ex-wife Tessa said, "Actually, the books rarely carry Phil's original titles, as the editors usually wrote new titles after reading his manuscripts. Phil often commented that he couldn't write good titles. If he could, he would have been an advertising writer instead of a novelist." Films based on Dick's writing had accumulated a total revenue of over US$1 billion by 2009.
Blade Runner (1982), based on Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Sean Young and Rutger Hauer. A screenplay had been in the works for years before Scott took the helm, with Dick being extremely critical of all versions. Dick was still apprehensive about how his story would be adapted for the film when the project was finally put into motion. Among other things, he refused to do a novelization of the film. But when Dick was given an opportunity to watch a few sequences portraying the film's imagined Los Angeles of 2019, he was amazed that the environment was "exactly as how I'd imagined it!"—even though Ridley Scott has mentioned he had never even read the source material. Following the screening, Dick and Scott had a frank but cordial discussion of Blade Runner's themes and characters, and although they had wildly differing views, Dick fully backed the film from then on, stating that his "life and creative work are justified and completed by Blade Runner". Dick died from a stroke less than four months before the release of the film. The 2017 film Blade Runner 2049 was a sequel to the 1982 movie.
Total Recall (1990), based on the short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale", directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Confessions d'un Barjo (1992), titled Barjo in its English-language release, a French film based on the non-science-fiction novel Confessions of a Crap Artist.
Screamers (1995), based on the short story "Second Variety", directed by Christian Duguay and starring Peter Weller. The location was altered from a war-devastated Earth to a distant planet. A sequel, titled Screamers: The Hunting, was released straight to DVD in 2009.
Minority Report (2002), based on the short story "The Minority Report", directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise.
Impostor (2002), based on the 1953 story "Impostor", directed by Gary Fleder and starring Gary Sinise, Vincent D'Onofrio and Madeleine Stowe. The story was also adapted in 1962 for the British television anthology series Out of This World.
Paycheck (2003), directed by John Woo and starring Ben Affleck, based on Dick's short story of the same name.
A Scanner Darkly (2006), directed by Richard Linklater and starring Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, and Robert Downey Jr., based on Dick's novel of the same name. The film was produced using the process of rotoscoping: it was first shot in live-action and then the live footage was animated over.
Next (2007), directed by Lee Tamahori and starring Nicolas Cage, loosely based on the short story "The Golden Man".
Radio Free Albemuth (2010), directed by John Alan Simon loosely based on the novel Radio Free Albemuth.
The Adjustment Bureau (2011), directed by George Nolfi and starring Matt Damon, loosely based on the short story "Adjustment Team".
Total Recall (2012), directed by Len Wiseman and starring Colin Farrell, second film adaptation of the short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale".
Future films based on Dick's writing include a film adaptation of Ubik which, according to Dick's daughter, Isa Dick Hackett, is in advanced negotiation. Ubik was set to be made into a film by Michel Gondry. In 2014, however, Gondry told French outlet Telerama (via Jeux Actu), that he was no longer working on the project. In November 2021, it was announced that Francis Lawrence will direct a film adaptation of Vulcan's Hammer, with Lawrence's about:blank production company, alongside New Republic Pictures and Electric Shepherd Productions, producing.
An animated adaptation of The King of the Elves from Walt Disney Animation Studios was in production and was set to be released in the spring of 2016 but it was cancelled following multiple creative problems.
The Terminator series prominently features the theme of humanoid assassination machines first portrayed in Second Variety. The Halcyon Company, known for developing the Terminator franchise, acquired right of first refusal to film adaptations of the works of Philip K. Dick in 2007. In May 2009, they announced plans for an adaptation of Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said.
==== Television ====
It was reported in 2010 that Ridley Scott would produce an adaptation of The Man in the High Castle for the BBC, in the form of a miniseries. A pilot episode was released on Amazon Prime Video in January 2015 and season 1 was fully released in ten episodes of about 60 minutes each on November 20, 2015. Premiering in January 2015, the pilot was Amazon's "most-watched since the original series development program began." The next month Amazon ordered episodes to fill out a ten-episode season, which was released in November, to positive reviews. A second season of ten episodes premiered in December 2016, and a third season was released on October 5, 2018. The fourth and final season premiered on November 15, 2019.
In late 2015, Fox aired Minority Report, a television series sequel adaptation to the 2002 film of the same name based on Dick's short story "The Minority Report" (1956). The show was cancelled after one 10-episode season.
In May 2016, it was announced that a 10-part anthology series was in the works. Titled Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams, the series was distributed by Sony Pictures Television and premiered on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom and Amazon Prime Video in the United States. It was written by executive producers Ronald D. Moore and Michael Dinner, with executive input from Dick's daughter Isa Dick Hackett, and stars Bryan Cranston, also an executive producer.
==== Stage and radio ====
Four of Dick's works have been adapted for the stage.
One was the opera VALIS, composed and with libretto by Tod Machover, which premiered at the Pompidou Center in Paris on December 1, 1987, with a French libretto. It was subsequently revised and readapted into English, and was recorded and released on CD (Bridge Records BCD9007) in 1988.
Another was Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, adapted by Linda Hartinian and produced by the New York-based avant-garde company Mabou Mines. It premiered in Boston at the Boston Shakespeare Theatre (June 18–30, 1985) and was subsequently staged in New York and Chicago. Productions of Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said were also staged by the Evidence Room in Los Angeles in 1999 and by the Fifth Column Theatre Company at the Oval House Theatre in London in the same year.
A play based on Radio Free Albemuth also had a brief run in the 1980s.
In November 2010, a production of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, adapted by Edward Einhorn, premiered at the 3LD Art and Technology Center in Manhattan.
A radio drama adaptation of Dick's short story "Mr. Spaceship" was aired by the Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yleisradio) in 1996 under the name Menolippu Paratiisiin. Radio dramatizations of Dick's short stories Colony and The Defenders were aired by NBC in 1956 as part of the series X Minus One.
In January 2006, a theatre adaptation of The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (English for Trzy stygmaty Palmera Eldritcha) premiered in Stary Teatr in Kraków, with an extensive use of lights and laser choreography.
In June 2014, the BBC broadcast a two-part adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? on BBC Radio 4, starring James Purefoy as Rick Deckard.
==== Comics ====
Marvel Comics adapted Dick's short story "The Electric Ant" as a limited series which was released in 2009. The comic was produced by writer David Mack (Daredevil) and artist Pascal Alixe (Ultimate X-Men), with covers provided by artist Paul Pope. "The Electric Ant" had earlier been loosely adapted by Frank Miller and Geof Darrow in their 3-issue mini-series Hard Boiled published by Dark Horse Comics in 1990–1992.
In 2009, BOOM! Studios started publishing a 24-issue miniseries comic book adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Blade Runner, the 1982 film adapted from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, had previously been adapted to comics as A Marvel Comics Super Special: Blade Runner.
In 2011, Dynamite Entertainment published a four-issue miniseries Total Recall, a sequel to the 1990 film Total Recall, inspired by Philip K. Dick's short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale". In 1990, DC Comics published the official adaptation of the original film as a DC Movie Special: Total Recall.
"Philip K. Dick - A Comics Biography" gives an overview of the Authors Life. It illustrates how much his personal Struggles influenced his Novels and their respective Characters.
=== Alternative formats ===
In response to a 1975 request from the National Library for the Blind for permission to make use of The Man in the High Castle, Dick responded, "I also grant you a general permission to transcribe any of my former, present or future work, so indeed you can add my name to your 'general permission' list." Some of his books and stories are available in braille and other specialized formats through the NLS.
== Influence and legacy ==
Lawrence Sutin wrote a 1989 biography of Dick, titled Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick.
In 1993, French writer Emmanuel Carrère published I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey into the Mind of Philip K. Dick (French: Je suis vivant et vous êtes morts), which the author describes in his preface in this way:The book you hold in your hands is a very peculiar book. I have tried to depict the life of Philip K. Dick from the inside, in other words, with the same freedom and empathy – indeed with the same truth – with which he depicted his own characters. The book omits fact checking, sourcing, notes and index. It can be considered a non-fiction novel about his life.
Dick has influenced many writers, including Jonathan Lethem and Ursula K. Le Guin. The prominent literary critic Fredric Jameson proclaimed Dick the "Shakespeare of Science Fiction", and praised his work as "one of the most powerful expressions of the society of spectacle and pseudo-event". The author Roberto Bolaño also praised Dick, describing him as "Thoreau plus the death of the American dream". Dick has also influenced filmmakers, his work being compared to films such as the Wachowskis' The Matrix, David Cronenberg's Videodrome, eXistenZ, and Spider, Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Alex Proyas's Dark City, Peter Weir's The Truman Show, Andrew Niccol's Gattaca, In Time, Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys, Alejandro Amenábar's Open Your Eyes, David Fincher's Fight Club, Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky, Darren Aronofsky's Pi, Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko and Southland Tales, Rian Johnson's Looper, Duncan Jones' Source Code, Christopher Nolan's Memento and Inception, and Owen Dennis' Infinity Train.
The Philip K. Dick Society was an organization dedicated to promoting the literary works of Dick and was led by Dick's longtime friend and music journalist Paul Williams. Williams also served as Dick's literary executor for several years after Dick's death and wrote one of the first biographies of Dick, entitled Only Apparently Real: The World of Philip K. Dick.
The Philip K. Dick estate owns and operates the production company Electric Shepherd Productions, which has produced the film The Adjustment Bureau (2011), the TV series The Man in the High Castle and also a Marvel Comics 5-issue adaptation of Electric Ant.
Dick was recreated by his fans in the form of a simulacrum or remote-controlled android designed in his likeness. Such simulacra had been themes of many of Dick's works. The Philip K. Dick simulacrum was included on a discussion panel in a San Diego Comic Con presentation about the film adaptation of the novel, A Scanner Darkly. In February 2006, an America West Airlines employee misplaced the android's head, and it has not yet been found. In January 2011, it was announced that Hanson Robotics had built a replacement.
=== Film ===
BBC2 released in 1994 a biographical documentary as part of its Arena arts series called Philip K. Dick: A Day in the Afterlife.
The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick was a documentary film produced in 2001.
The Penultimate Truth About Philip K. Dick was another biographical documentary film produced in 2007.
The 1987 film The Trouble with Dick, in which Tom Villard plays a character named "Dick Kendred" (cf. Philip Kindred Dick), who is a science fiction author
A 2008 film titled Your Name Here, by Matthew Wilder, features Bill Pullman as science fiction author William J. Frick, a character based on Dick
The 2010 science fiction film 15 Till Midnight cites Dick's influence with an "acknowledgment to the works of" credit.
=== In fiction ===
Michael Bishop's The Secret Ascension (1987; published as Philip K. Dick Is Dead, Alas), which is set in an alternative universe where his non-genre work is published but his science fiction is banned by a totalitarian United States in thrall to a demonically possessed Richard Nixon.
The comics magazine Weirdo published "The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick" by cartoonist Robert Crumb in 1986. Though this is not an adaptation of a specific book or story by Dick, it incorporates elements of Dick's experience which he related in short stories, novels, essays, and the Exegesis. The story parodies the form of a Chick tract, a type of evangelical comic, many of which relate the story of an epiphany leading to a conversion to fundamentalist Christianity.
In the 1976 alternate history novel The Alteration by Kingsley Amis, one of the novels-within-a-novel depicted is The Man in the High Castle (mirroring The Grasshopper Lies Heavy in the real-life novel), still written by Philip K. Dick. Instead of the novel being set in 1962 in an alternate universe where the Axis Powers won the Second World War and named for Hawthorne Abendsen, the author of its novel-within-a-novel, it depicts an alternate universe where the Protestant Reformation occurred (events including the continuation of Henry VIII's Schismatic policies by his son, Henry IX, and the creation of an independent North America in 1848), with one character speculating that the titular character was a wizard.
=== Music ===
American rapper and producer El-P is a fan of Dick and other science fiction. Many of Dick's themes, such as paranoia and questions about the nature of reality, feature in El-P's work. A song on the 2002 album Fantastic Damage is titled "T.O.J." and the chorus makes reference to the Dick work Time Out of Joint.
Sister, a Sonic Youth album, "was in part inspired by the life and works of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick".
Blind Guardian's song "Time What is Time" from the 1992 album "Somewhere Far Beyond" is loosely based on the book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?".
=== Radio ===
In June 2014, BBC Radio 4 broadcast The Two Georges by Stephen Keyworth, inspired by the FBI's investigation of Phil and his wife Kleo in 1955, and the subsequent friendship that developed between Phil and FBI Agent Scruggs.
=== Contemporary philosophy ===
Postmodernists such as Jean Baudrillard and Laurence Rickels have commented on Dick's writing's foreshadowing of postmodernity. Jean Baudrillard offers this interpretation:
"It is hyperreal. It is a universe of simulation, which is something altogether different. And this is so not because Dick speaks specifically of simulacra. SF has always done so, but it has always played upon the double, on artificial replication or imaginary duplication, whereas here the double has disappeared. There is no more double; one is always already in the other world, an other world which is not another, without mirrors or projection or utopias as means for reflection. The simulation is impassable, unsurpassable, checkmated, without exteriority. We can no longer move 'through the mirror' to the other side, as we could during the golden age of transcendence."
Dick's anti-government skepticism was referred to in Mythmakers and Lawbreakers, a collection of interviews about fiction by anarchist authors. Noting his early authorship of The Last of the Masters, an anarchist-themed novelette, author Margaret Killjoy expressed that while Dick never fully sided with anarchism, his opposition to government centralization and organized religion has influenced anarchist interpretations of gnosticism.
=== Video games ===
The 3.0 update for the grand strategy video game Stellaris is named the "Dick" update, following the game's trend of naming updates after science fiction authors.
The 2016 video game Californium was developed as a tribute to Philip K. Dick and his writings to coincide with an Arte's documentary series.
== Awards and honors ==
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted Dick in 2005.
During his lifetime he received numerous annual literary awards and nominations for particular works.
Hugo Awards
Best Novel
1963 – winner: The Man in the High Castle
1975 – nominee: Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Best Novelette
1968 – nominee: Faith of Our Fathers
Nebula Awards
Best Novel
1965 – nominee: Dr. Bloodmoney
1965 – nominee: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
1968 – nominee: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
1974 – nominee: Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
1982 – nominee: The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
John W. Campbell Memorial Award
Best Novel
1975 – winner: Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
British Science Fiction Association Award
Best Novel
1978 – winner: A Scanner Darkly
Graoully d'Or (Festival de Metz, France)
1979 – winner: A Scanner Darkly
Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis
1985 – winner VALIS
== Philip K. Dick Award ==
The Philip K. Dick Award is a science fiction award that annually recognizes the previous year's best SF paperback original published in the U.S. It is conferred at Norwescon, sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, and since 2005 supported by the Philip K. Dick Trust. Winning works are identified on their covers as Best Original SF Paperback. It is currently administered by, John Silbersack, and Gordon Van Gelder.
The award was inaugurated in 1983, the year after Dick's death. It was founded by Thomas Disch with assistance from David G. Hartwell, Paul S. Williams, and Charles N. Brown. Past administrators include Algis J. Budrys. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dnan_Railway_K%C5%8Dnan_Line | Kōnan Railway Kōnan Line | The Kōnan Line (弘南線, Kōnan-sen) is a railway route operated by the Japanese private railway operator Kōnan Railway in Aomori Prefecture, from Hirosaki Station in Hirosaki to Kuroishi Station in Kuroishi.
== Station list ==
Tamboāto Station is open from April to November only.
== Rolling stock ==
Rolling stock on the line consists of former Tokyu 6000 and 7000 series EMUs. Ex-Nankai Railway 1521 series 4-door EMUs were also previously used, but these were withdrawn in 2008 following the discontinuation of limited-stop "Rapid" services. An electric locomotive is also available for use on winter snow-clearing duties.
== History ==
The Kōnan Railway was founded on March 27, 1926, and began operations between Hirosaki and Tsugaru-Onoe Station on September 7, 1927. On July 1, 1948, the line was electrified at 600 volts DC. The line was extended to Kōnan-Kuroishi Station (present-day Kuroishi Station) on July 1, 1950. Voltage on the line was raised to 750 volts on April 1, 1954, and to 1,500 volts on September 1, 1961.
Freight services ceased in 1984.
=== Former connecting lines ===
Kuroishi station - The 7 km (4.3 mi) line to Kawabe on the Ou Main Line was opened in 1912 by the JGR, transferred to the Konan Railway Co. in 1984, the year that freight services ceased, and closed in 1998.
== Accidents ==
A train derailed at Hiraka Station on June 12, 2007, but no injuries were reported. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Gordon | Rodney Gordon | Rodney H Gordon (2 February 1933 – 30 May 2008) was an English architect. He was the primary architect of the Tricorn Centre, Portsmouth, and Trinity Square, Gateshead. Architecturally, his works were primarily in concrete; he was said to be a brutalist and his buildings have been described as "dramatic, sculptural and enormous" as well as "futuristic".
== Biography ==
Gordon was born on 2 February 1933 in Wanstead, East London to Jewish parents Chilean-born Carmen F (Poirier) and East London-born Hyman Jacob Hyman. His mother was from the naval port of Punta Arenas, Tierra Del Fuego, the southernmost city on Earth, overlooking the Straits of Magellan. Situated astride one of the world's historic trade routes, its prosperity has risen and fallen with that trade. Gordon's mother left there sometime in the 1920s and returned to London, England, where her parents had been living sometime before they left for Chile around 1903. They had initially come to London in the 1880s or 1890s to escape the Pogroms of Russia and Eastern Europe.
He went to University College Hospital Medical School at the age of 16 but then, two years later inspired by the Festival of Britain, he switched to the Hammersmith School of Building, going on to the Architectural Association School of Architecture, where he studied under the distinguished German Jewish modernist architect and urban planner Arthur Korn, before graduating in 1957. He then went to work at the London County Council (LCC) architects department for which he designed his first great work, the Michael Faraday Memorial at Elephant and Castle. In 1959 he was introduced to Owen Luder by a colleague from the LCC and by the end of the year he was working for him in the Owen Luder Partnership for which he designed the Eros House. In the 1970s he founded Batir International Architects, which later became Tripos Architects, with Ray Baum and Larry Abbot. It was during this time, at the age of 42, that he suffered a heart attack from overwork. In 1979 he designed his last work for Batir, a bronze- and aluminium-clad commercial complex on St James's Street, London.
=== Personal life ===
He was married and had one child but was later divorced. He was a passionate skier and founded the Uphill Ski Club which helps teach the physically handicapped to ski.
He died on 30 May 2008 at the age of 75. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wes_Carr | Wes Carr | Wesley Dean "Wes" Carr (born 14 September 1982), also recording as Buffalo Tales, is an Australian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, best known for winning the sixth season of Australian Idol in 2008. He released his first studio album, Simple Sum, independently in 2008 shortly before entering Australian Idol. After Idol, he signed a record deal with Sony Music Australia and released his debut single, "You". The song peaked at number one on the ARIA Singles Chart and was certified Gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). Carr's second studio album, The Way the World Looks, soon followed after. It reached number two on the ARIA Albums Chart and also achieved Gold certification. The second single "Feels Like Woah" peaked at number 14 and gained Gold certification. In June 2011, Carr released "Been a Long Time", the lead single from his third album. It peaked at number 33 on the ARIA Singles Chart. In November 2011, Carr announced that he was no longer with Sony and would be releasing his album independently. In August 2012 Carr released an EP titled Blood & Bone under the pseudonym Buffalo Tales. His third studio album Roadtrip Confessions was released in June 2013 and debuted at number 83.
== Early life ==
Wes Carr was born and raised in Gawler, South Australia, a town near the Barossa Valley on Adelaide's northern fringe. Carr took classes five nights a week at the Johnny Young Talent School, but eventually left Adelaide to live with his father in Sydney at the age of fifteen. From here on, Carr began his DIY education of the music industry, swapping time at school for time at bars, performing and meeting other musicians. His first big gig was supporting Australian band Leonardo's Bride for their last gig at The Basement Carr also played gigs with Missy Higgins, Lior, Paul Mac, Andrew Farriss of INXS and Don Walker of Cold Chisel.
On 3 November 2003, Carr released his debut EP Rhythm to Fly, independently. After Australian band Silverchair went into hiatus in 2003, Carr and Ben Gillies formed the band, Tambalane. Carr and Gilles parted ways in 2005 when an "unpleasant power struggle" emerged between the two. In 2006, Carr worked with C. J. Vanston in Los Angeles, where they co-wrote the song "Say My Name" for the film, For Your Consideration. On 11 June 2008, Carr released his debut studio album, Simple Sum, independently.
== Australian Idol ==
In 2008, Carr auditioned for the sixth season of Australian Idol. In the top five round, Carr sang Michael Jackson's "Black or White" and received two touchdowns, including one from judge Marcia Hines and guest judge Jermaine Jackson. He also received another touchdown in the top three round, from judge Ian Dickson and a TV throw from judge Kyle Sandilands also he has never being in the bottom 2 or bottom 3 appearance. On 23 November 2008, Carr was announced the winner of Australian Idol of 2008 with Luke Dickens becoming the runner-up. He also became the first male winner to be born in Australia. As winner, Carr received a recording contract with Sony Music Australia, a car and $200,000 towards developing his craft.
== Recording career ==
=== 2008–09: The Way the World Looks ===
After coming out of Australian Idol as the winner, Carr signed to Sony Music Australia. His winner's and debut single, "You" was released immediately for download following his win on 23 November 2008. The song peaked at number one on the ARIA Singles Chart and was certified Gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for shipments of 35,000 units. Carr's second studio album, The Way the World Looks, was released on 20 March 2009. It debuted at number two on the ARIA Albums Chart and also certified Gold. "Feels Like Woah" was released as the album's second single on 13 February 2009. The song peaked at number fourteen and certified Gold. "Fearless" and "Love Is an Animal" were released as the album's third and fourth singles, respectively.
In May 2009, Carr embarked on a national tour to perform songs from the album. The national tour, "The Way the World Looks LIVE", began on 27 May and ended on 12 July. In September 2009, Carr served as a support act for Irish band The Script's Australian tour. In October, Carr toured with Ian Moss on his national "Shake It Up Tour". The tour began on 8 October and ended on 19 December. At the 2009 ARIA Music Awards, "You" was nominated for "Highest Selling Single", but lost to Jessica Mauboy's "Running Back".
=== 2011–present: Buffalo Tales and Roadtrip Confessions ===
Carr's third studio album was scheduled to be released in 2012. In an interview with Adelaide Now, Carr said he wrote the album on his travels to Los Angeles, Nashville, London and Paris, and is full of "personal, candid stories." Its lead single "Been a Long Time" was released for digital download on 10 June 2011. The single peaked at number 33 on the ARIA Singles Chart. In November 2011, Carr announced on that he was no longer with Sony and would release his album independently.
In August 2012, Carr released an EP titled Blood & Bone under the pseudonym Buffalo. This was later changed to Buffalo Tales, given a multitude of artists using the Buffalo moniker. In April 2013, Carr uploaded a cover of Diamonds by Rihanna. The cover was praised on Twitter by Sia, one of the song's co-writers. In May 2013, Carr released "Amsterdam" the lead single from his third studio album – and debut as Buffalo Tales – entitled Roadtrip Confessions. A video for "Amsterdam" was released on 5 June 2013. The single did not chart. Roadtrip Confessions was released on 21 June 2013 and debuted at number 83 on the ARIA Album Chart. The next single was "Puppet Strings".
In November 2016, Carr featured in the Catherine Britt single, "F U Cancer" alongside Kasey Chambers, Beccy Cole, Lyn Bowtell, Josh Pyke and Wendy Matthews.
=== 2018–present: Australiana ===
In December, Carr self-released a new studio album titled Australiana. The album is a covers album of songs performed by Australian artists.
== Personal life ==
In February 2011, Carr announced in the Australian OK! magazine, that he was engaged to actress Charlotte Gregg.
Wes married Charlotte in April 2012, and their first child was born later that year.
== Discography ==
=== Studio albums ===
=== Extended plays ===
=== Singles ===
==== As lead artist ====
==== As featured artist ====
=== Music videos ===
== Awards and nominations ==
=== APRA Awards ===
The APRA Awards are presented annually from 1982 by the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), "honouring composers and songwriters". They commenced in 1982.
=== ARIA Music Awards ===
The ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of Australian music.
=== Country Music Awards of Australia ===
The Country Music Awards of Australia (CMAA) (also known as the Golden Guitar Awards) is an annual awards night held in January during the Tamworth Country Music Festival, celebrating recording excellence in the Australian country music industry. They have been held annually since 1973. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand | Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand | The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was one of the key events that led to World War I. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated on 28 June 1914 by Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip. They were shot at close range while being driven through Sarajevo, the provincial capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, formally annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908.
Princip was part of a group of six Bosnian assassins together with Muhamed Mehmedbašić, Vaso Čubrilović, Nedeljko Čabrinović, Cvjetko Popović and Trifko Grabež coordinated by Danilo Ilić; all but one were Bosnian Serbs and members of a revolutionary movement later known as Young Bosnia. The political objective of the assassination was to free Bosnia and Herzegovina of Austro-Hungarian rule and establish a common South Slav ("Yugoslav") state. The assassination precipitated the July Crisis, which led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia and the start of World War I.
The assassination team was helped by the Black Hand, a Serbian secret nationalist group; support came from Dragutin Dimitrijević, chief of the military intelligence section of the Serbian general staff, as well as from Major Vojislav Tankosić and Rade Malobabić, a Serbian intelligence agent. Tankosić provided bombs and pistols to the assassins and trained them in their use. The assassins were given access to the same clandestine network of safe-houses and agents that Malobabić used for the infiltration of weapons and operatives into Austria-Hungary.
The assassins and key members of the clandestine network were tried in Sarajevo in October 1914. In total twenty-five people were indicted. Five of the six assassins were under 20 years old at the time of the assassination; the exception being Mehmedbašić who was 26 or 27. While the group was dominated by Bosnian Serbs, four of the indictees were Bosnian Croats, one was a Bosnian Muslim and all of them were Austro-Hungarian citizens; none were from Serbia. Princip was found guilty of murder and high treason, but being too young to be executed, was sentenced to 20 years in jail. The four other attackers also received jail terms. Five of the older prisoners were sentenced to be hanged.
Black Hand members were arrested and tried before a Serbian court in Salonika in 1917 on charges of high treason, which were later widely regarded as fabricated. The Black Hand was disbanded, and three of its leaders were executed. Much of what is known about the assassinations comes from these two trials and related records. Princip's legacy was re-evaluated following the breakup of Yugoslavia, and public opinion of him in the successor states is largely divided along ethnic lines.
== Background ==
Under the 1878 Treaty of Berlin, Austria-Hungary received the mandate to occupy and administer the Ottoman Vilayet of Bosnia, while the Ottoman Empire retained official sovereignty. Under this same treaty, the Great Powers (Austria-Hungary, the United Kingdom, France, the German Empire, Italy, and the Russian Empire) gave official recognition to the Principality of Serbia as a fully sovereign state, which four years later transformed into a kingdom under Prince Milan IV Obrenović who thus became King Milan I of Serbia. Serbia's monarchs, at the time from the royal House of Obrenović that maintained close relations with Austria-Hungary, were content to reign within the borders set by the treaty.
This changed in May 1903, when Royal Serbian Army officers led by Dragutin Dimitrijević stormed the Serbian Royal Palace. After a fierce battle in the dark, the attackers captured General Lazar Petrović, head of the Palace Guard, and forced him to reveal the hiding place of King Alexander I Obrenović and his wife Queen Draga. The King was subsequently shot thirty times and the Queen eighteen. MacKenzie writes that "the royal corpses were then stripped and brutally sabred." The attackers threw the corpses of King Alexander and Queen Draga out of a palace window, ending any threat that loyalists would mount a counterattack. General Petrović was then killed when Vojislav Tankosić organized the murders of Queen Draga's brothers. The conspirators installed Peter I of the House of Karađorđević as the new king.
The new dynasty was more nationalist, friendlier to Russia and less friendly to Austria-Hungary. Over the next decade, disputes between Serbia and its neighbors erupted, as Serbia moved to build its power and gradually reclaim its 14th-century empire. These conflicts included a customs dispute with Austria-Hungary beginning in 1906 (commonly referred to as the "Pig War"); the Bosnian crisis of 1908–1909, in which Serbia assumed an attitude of protest over Austria-Hungary's annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ending in Serbian acquiescence without compensation in March 1909); and finally the two Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, in which Serbia acquired Macedonia and Kosovo from the Ottoman Empire and drove out Bulgaria.
Serbia's military successes and Serbian outrage over the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina emboldened Serbian nationalists in Serbia and Serbs in Bosnia who chafed under Austro-Hungarian rule and whose nationalist sentiments were stirred by Serb cultural organizations. One notable example was a Serbian nationalist society Narodna Odbrana, which was formed in Belgrade on 8 October 1908 under the initiative of Milovan Milovanović. Under the guise of cultural activities, it operated to undermine the loyalty of Bosnian Serbs to the Habsburg regime. In the five years leading up to 1914, lone assassins – mostly Serb citizens of Austria-Hungary – made a series of unsuccessful assassination attempts in Croatia-Slavonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina against Austro-Hungarian officials. In Bosnia and Herzegovina existed an aggregation of local revolutionary groups that became known as Young Bosnia, their goal was the end of Austria-Hungarian colonial rule in Bosnia and the unification of all South Slavs.
On 3 June 1910, Bogdan Žerajić, a young revolutionary loosely connected to Young Bosnia, attempted to kill the Austrian governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina, General Marijan Varešanin. Žerajić was a 22-year-old Bosnian Serb from Nevesinje, Herzegovina, who was a student at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb. (General Verešanin went on to crush the last Bosnian peasant uprising in the second half of 1910). The five bullets Žerajić fired at Varešanin and the fatal bullet he put in his own brain made Žerajić an inspiration to future assassins, including Princip and his accomplice Čabrinović. Princip said that Žerajić "was my first model. When I was seventeen I passed whole nights at his grave, reflecting on our wretched condition and thinking of him. It is there that I made up my mind sooner or later to perpetrate an outrage."
In May 1911, the Black Hand, a secret society dedicated to creating a Greater Serbia through "terrorist action", was established by key members of the Narodna Odbrana including Dimitrijević and Tankosić. Within Bosnia and Herzegovina, the networks of both the Black Hand and Narodna Odbrana penetrated to some extent local revolutionary movements such as Young Bosnia. The fundamental difference between those movements was that the Young Bosnians regarded social revolution as a necessary corollary of national liberation, and that, even though its membership was predominantly Serb, Young Bosnia also attracted an important minority of Croats and some Muslims. In the Spring of 1912, in a plot involving Young Bosnians, Luka Jukić a Bosnian Croat student, tried to assassinate the Governor of Croatia Count Slavko Cuvaj.
In 1913, Emperor Franz Joseph commanded Archduke Franz Ferdinand to observe the military maneuvers in Bosnia scheduled for June 1914. Following the maneuvers, Ferdinand and his wife planned to visit Sarajevo to open the state museum in its new premises there. Duchess Sophie, according to their eldest son, Duke Maximilian, accompanied her husband out of fear for his safety.
As Sophie, although of high aristocratic birth, was not from a dynastic family, her union with the Habsburg heir presumptive could only be a morganatic marriage. Emperor Franz Joseph had only consented to their marriage on the condition that their descendants would never ascend the throne. The 14th anniversary of their marriage fell on 28 June. As historian A. J. P. Taylor observes:
[Sophie] could never share [Franz Ferdinand's] rank ... could never share his splendours, could never even sit by his side on any public occasion. There was one loophole ... his wife could enjoy the recognition of his rank when he was acting in a military capacity. Hence, he decided, in 1914, to inspect the army in Bosnia. There, at its capital Sarajevo, the Archduke and his wife could ride in an open carriage side by side ... Thus, for love, did the Archduke go to his death.
Franz Ferdinand was an advocate of increased federalism and widely believed to favour trialism, under which Austria-Hungary would be reorganized by combining the Slavic lands within the Austro-Hungarian empire into a third crown. A Slavic kingdom could have been a bulwark against Serb irredentism, and Franz Ferdinand was therefore perceived as a threat by those same irredentists. Princip later stated to the court that preventing Franz Ferdinand's planned reforms was one of his motivations.
The day of the assassination, 28 June (15 June in the Julian calendar), is the feast of St. Vitus. In Serbia, it is called Vidovdan and commemorates the 1389 Battle of Kosovo against the Ottomans, at which Sultan Murad I was assassinated in his tent by a Serb. Princip, Čabrinović and other members of the Young Bosnia were inspired by the heroism of Miloš Obilić, reenacting the Kosovo Myth. Čabrinović was deeply
immersed in the myth, personally identifying himself with the Kosovo heroes, while it is known that Princip knew the entire Petar II Petrović-Njegoš's The Mountain Wreath, one of the most celebrated works in the South Slavic literature that glorifies the heroic ideals and spirit of the Kosovo Myth.
== Preliminaries ==
=== Previous conspiracy ===
Danilo Ilić was a Bosnian Serb. He had worked as a schoolteacher and as a bank worker but in 1913 and 1914 he lived with, and outwardly off, his mother, who operated a small boarding house in Sarajevo. Ilić was a member of a secret revolutionary society or Kružok organized on the model of the Black Hand. According to Serbian Colonel C. A. Popović, a captain at the time and a member of the Black Hand, in late 1913, Danilo Ilić came to the Serbian listening post at Užice to speak to him. Popović claimed that Ilić recommended an end to the period of revolutionary organization building and a move to direct action against Austria-Hungary. Popović alleged that he sent Danilo Ilić to Belgrade to discuss this matter with Chief of Serbian Military Intelligence Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević, known more commonly as Apis. By 1913, Apis and his fellow military conspirators (drawn heavily from the ranks of the May 1903 coup) had come to dominate what was left of the Black Hand.
There are no reports as to what took place between Ilić and Apis during the alleged meeting, but soon Apis's righthand man and fellow Black Hander, Serbian Major Vojislav Tankosić, who by this time was in charge of guerrilla training, called a Serbian irredentist planning meeting in Toulouse, France. Amongst those summoned to the Toulouse meeting was Muhamed Mehmedbašić, a Muslim carpenter from Herzegovina. According to Luigi Albertini writing in 1942, Mehmedbašić was a member of the Black Hand, having been sworn into the organization by Black Hand Provincial Director for Bosnia and Herzegovina Vladimir Gacinović and Danilo Ilić. Mehmedbašić was (here quoting Albertini paraphrasing Mehmedbašić) "eager to carry out an act of terrorism to revive the revolutionary spirit of Bosnia." During this January 1914 meeting, various possible Austro-Hungarian targets for assassination were discussed, including Franz Ferdinand. However, the participants decided only to dispatch Mehmed Mehmedbašić to Sarajevo, to kill the Governor of Bosnia, Oskar Potiorek.
According to Mehmedbašić while he was traveling to Bosnia and Herzegovina from France, police searched his train for a thief. Thinking the police might be after him, he threw his weapons (a dagger and a bottle of poison) in the lavatory. Once he arrived in Bosnia and Herzegovina he wrote to Gacinović and did nothing more until Ilić wrote to him to summon him to Mostar. On 26 March 1914, Ilić informed Mehmedbašić that Belgrade (meaning the Black Hand) thought that an attack of Franz Ferdinand instead of the Potiorek would be far more important and that they would support it. (Apis later boasted to the Serbian Court that he ordered the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in his position as head of the Intelligence Department, however Apis made the unproven claims in 1917 attempting to save his own life since he was about to be executed for high treason.)
=== The assassination team ===
Unknown to the Black Hand, a second plot against the archduke had arisen that spring of 1914 when student Gavrilo Princip was shown a newspaper cutting announcing Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria's visit to Bosnia in June, by his friend and fellow Young Bosnia member Nedeljko Čabrinović. At the time the two young Bosnian Serbs were in Belgrade eager to return to Austrian-occupied Bosnia to commit an attack on an imperial official, what they saw as performing the ultimate act of heroism. Princip asked another friend Trifko Grabež to join the plot, and then wrote to Ilić, his former roommate and confidante, telling him about the plan and asking him to recruit people in Sarajevo.
For the assassination Ilić recruited seventeen-year-old Sarajevo high-school student Vaso Čubrilović, eighteen-year-old student Cvjetko Popović, as well as Mehmed Mehmedbašić, shortly after Orthodox Easter (as given by Dedijer: 19 April 1914), as testified by Ilić, Čubrilović, and Popović at the Sarajevo trial. Princip, Grabež, and Čabrinović testified at the Sarajevo trial that at about the same time (a little after Easter), they approached a fellow Bosnian Serb and former guerrilla fighter known to be well connected and with access to arms, Milan Ciganović, and through him Major Tankosić and reached an agreement to receive arms and get smuggled across the Serbian border back into Bosnia with the weapons.
A principal agreement was quickly reached, but the delivery of the weapons was delayed for more than a month. The assassins met with Ciganović and he put them off. At one point, Ciganović told Grabež: "Nothing doing, the old Emperor is ill and the Heir Apparent [sic] will not go to Bosnia." When Emperor Franz Joseph's health recovered, the operation was a "go" again. Tankosić gave the assassins one FN Model 1910 pistol. They practised shooting a few rounds of scarce and expensive .380 ACP pistol ammunition in a park near Belgrade.
The rest of the weapons were finally delivered on 26 May. The three assassins from Belgrade testified that Major Tankosić, directly and through Ciganović, not only provided six hand grenades and four new Browning FN Model 1910 automatic pistols with .380 ACP ammunition, but also money, suicide pills, training, a special map with the location of gendarmes marked, knowledge of contacts on a clandestine "tunnel" used to infiltrate agents and arms into Austria-Hungary, and a small card authorizing the use of that tunnel. Major Tankosić confirmed to the journalist and historian Luciano Magrini that he provided the bombs and pistols and was responsible for training Princip, Grabež, and Čabrinović and that he (Tankosić) initiated the idea of the suicide pills.
=== The secret route ===
Princip, Grabež, and Čabrinović left Belgrade by boat on 28 May and traveled along the Sava river to Šabac where they handed the small card to Captain Popović of the Serbian Border Guard. Popović, in turn, provided them with a letter to Serbian Captain Prvanović, and filled out a form with the names of three customs officials whose identities they could assume and thereby receive discounted train tickets for the ride to Loznica, a small border town.
When Princip, Grabež, and Čabrinović reached Loznica on 29 May, Captain Prvanović summoned three of his revenue sergeants to discuss the best way to cross the border undetected. While waiting for the sergeants to arrive, Princip and Grabež had a falling out with Čabrinović over Čabrinović's repeated violations of operational security. Čabrinović handed over the weapons he was carrying to Princip and Grabež. Princip told Čabrinović to go alone to Zvornik, make an official crossing there using Grabež's ID card and then go on to Tuzla and link back up.
On the morning of 30 May, Prvanović's revenue sergeants assembled and Sergeant Budivoj Grbić accepted the task and led Princip and Grabež by foot to Isaković's Island, a small island in the middle of the Drina river that separated Serbia from Bosnia. They and their weapons reached the island on 31 May. Grbić passed the terrorists and their weapons to the agents of the Serbian Narodna Odbrana for transport into Austro-Hungarian territory and from safe-house to safe-house. Princip and Grabež crossed into Austria-Hungary on the evening of 1 June. Princip and Grabež and the weapons were passed from agent to agent until on 3 June they arrived in Tuzla. They left the weapons in the hands of the Narodna Odbrana agent Miško Jovanović and rejoined Čabrinović.
The Narodna Odbrana agents reported their activities to the Narodna Odbrana President, Božidar Janković, who in turn reported to the then Serbian Caretaker Prime Minister Nikola Pašić. The report to Pašić added the name of a new military conspirator, Serbian Major Kosta Todorović, Boundary Commissioner and Director of Serbian Military Intelligence Services for the frontier line from Rada to Ljubovija. Pašić's handwritten notes from the briefing (estimated by Dedijer to have taken place on 5 June) included the nickname of one of the assassins ("Trifko" Grabež) and also the name of Major Tankosić. The Austrians later captured the report, Pašić's handwritten notes, and additional corroborating documents.
Čabrinović's father was a Sarajevo police official. In Tuzla, Čabrinović bumped into one of his father's friends, Sarajevo Police Detective Ivan Vila, and struck up a conversation. By coincidence, Princip, Grabež and Čabrinović boarded the same train for Sarajevo as Detective Vila. Čabrinović inquired of the detective the date of Franz Ferdinand's visit to Sarajevo. The next morning, Čabrinović passed on the news to his fellow assassins that the assassination would be on 28 June.
On arriving in Sarajevo on 4 June, Princip, Grabež, and Čabrinović went their separate ways. Princip checked in with Ilić, visited his family in Hadžici and returned to Sarajevo on 6 June taking up residence at Ilić's mother's house with Ilić. Grabež joined his family in Pale. Čabrinović moved back into his father's house in Sarajevo.
On 14 June, Ilić went to Tuzla to bring the weapons to Sarajevo. Miško Jovanović hid the weapons in a large box of sugar. On 15 June, the two went separately by train to Doboj where Jovanović handed off the box to Ilić. Later that day, Ilić returned to Sarajevo by train, being careful to transfer to a local train outside Sarajevo and then quickly transfer to a tram to avoid police detection. Once at his mother's house, Ilić hid the weapons in a suitcase under a sofa. Then, on approximately 17 June, Ilić traveled to Brod (Dedijer puts it on 16 June, but trial records put it on 18 June). Questioned at trial, Ilić gave a confusing explanation of the reason for his trip, first saying he had gone to Brod to prevent the assassination and then saying he had returned to Sarajevo from Brod to prevent the assassination. Dedijer puts forward the thesis (citing Bogijević) that Ilić went to Brod to meet an emissary of Apis, Djuro Ŝarac, who had instructions to cancel the assassination and then later Rade Malobabić was dispatched from Serbia to Sarajevo to reauthorize the assassination.
=== Eve of the attacks ===
Ilić began handing out the weapons on 27 June. Until that day, Ilić had kept the identities of the assassins from Belgrade secret from those he had recruited locally and vice versa. Then, that night, as Mehmedbašić told Albertini: "On the eve of the outrage Ilić introduced me to Princip in a Sarajevo café with the words 'Mehmedbašić who to-morrow is to be with us.'" The three sent a postcard to Black Hand Provincial Director for Bosnia and Herzegovina Vladimir Gaćinović in France.
== Assassination ==
=== Motorcade ===
On the morning of Sunday 28 June 1914, Ilić positioned the six assassins along the motorcade route. Ilić walked the street, exhorting the assassins to bravery. Franz Ferdinand and his party proceeded by train from Ilidža Spa to Sarajevo. Governor Oskar Potiorek met the party at Sarajevo station. Six automobiles were waiting. By mistake, three local police officers got into the first car with the chief officer of special security; the special security officers who were supposed to accompany their chief got left behind. The second car carried the Mayor and the Chief of Police of Sarajevo. The third car in the motorcade was a Gräf & Stift 28/32 PS open sports car with its top folded down. Franz Ferdinand, Sophie, Governor Potiorek, and Lieutenant Colonel Count Franz von Harrach rode in this third car. The motorcade's first stop on the preannounced program was for a brief inspection of a military barracks. According to the program, at 10:00 am, the motorcade was to leave the barracks for the town hall by way of the Appel Quay.
Security arrangements within Sarajevo were limited. The local military commander, General Michael von Appel, proposed that troops line the intended route but was told that this would offend the loyal citizenry. Protection for the visiting party was accordingly left to the Sarajevo police, of whom only about 60 were on duty on the Sunday of the visit.
=== Bombing ===
The motorcade passed the first assassin, Mehmedbašić. Danilo Ilić had placed him in front of the garden of the Mostar Café and armed him with a bomb. Mehmedbašić failed to act. Ilić had placed Vaso Čubrilović next to Mehmedbašić, arming him with a pistol and a bomb. He too failed to act. Further along the route, Ilić had placed Nedeljko Čabrinović on the opposite side of the street near the Miljacka river, arming him with a bomb.
At 10:10 am, Franz Ferdinand's car approached and Čabrinović threw his bomb. The bomb bounced off the folded back convertible cover into the street. The bomb's timed detonator caused it to explode under the next car, putting that car out of action, leaving a 1-foot-diameter (0.30 m), 6.5-inch-deep (170 mm) crater, and wounding 16–20 people.
Čabrinović swallowed his cyanide pill and jumped into the Miljacka river. Čabrinović survived the suicide attempt, as the old cyanide only induced vomiting, and the Miljacka was only 13 cm deep due to the hot, dry summer. Police dragged Čabrinović out of the river, and he was severely beaten by the crowd before being taken into custody.
The procession sped away towards the Town Hall leaving the disabled car behind. Cvjetko Popović, Gavrilo Princip, and Trifun Grabež failed to act as the motorcade passed them at high speed.
=== Town Hall reception ===
Arriving at the Town Hall for a scheduled reception, Franz Ferdinand showed signs of stress, interrupting a prepared speech of welcome by Mayor Fehim Čurčić to protest: "Mr. Mayor, I came here on a visit and I am greeted with bombs. It is outrageous." Duchess Sophie then whispered into Franz Ferdinand's ear, and after a pause, Franz Ferdinand said to the mayor: "Now you may speak." He then became calm and the mayor gave his speech. Franz Ferdinand had to wait as his own speech, still wet with blood from being in the damaged car, was brought to him. To the prepared text he added a few remarks about the day's events thanking the people of Sarajevo for their ovations "as I see in them an expression of their joy at the failure of the attempt at assassination."
Officials and members of the Archduke's party discussed what to do next. The archduke's chamberlain, Baron Rumerskirch, proposed that the couple remain at the Town Hall until troops could be brought into the city to line the streets. Governor-General Oskar Potiorek vetoed this suggestion on the grounds that soldiers coming straight from maneuvers would not have the dress uniforms appropriate for such duties. "Do you think that Sarajevo is full of assassins?" he concluded.
Franz Ferdinand and Sophie gave up their planned program in favour of visiting the wounded from the bombing, at the hospital. Count Harrach took up a position on the left-hand running board of Franz Ferdinand's car to protect the Archduke from any assault from the river side of the street. This is confirmed by photographs of the scene outside the Town Hall. At 10:45 a.m, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie got back into the motorcade, once again in the third car. To ensure the safety of the couple, General Oskar Potiorek decided that the imperial motorcade should travel straight along the Appel Quay to the Sarajevo Hospital so that they could avoid the crowded city center. However, Potiorek failed to communicate his decision to the drivers. As a result, the Archduke's driver, Leopold Lojka, took a right turn at the Latin Bridge just as the two drivers ahead of him had done. According to the historian Joachim Remak, the reason for this is that Potiorek's aide Erik von Merizzi was in the hospital, and was therefore unable to give Lojka the information about the change in plans and the driving route. The Sarajevo Chief of Police Edmund Gerde, who had earlier repeatedly warned Potiorek of insufficient security precautions for the imperial visit, was asked by one of the Archduke's aides to tell the drivers of the new route, but in the confusion and tensions of the moment, he neglected to do so.
=== Fatal shooting ===
After learning that the first assassination attempt had been unsuccessful, Princip thought about a position to assassinate the Archduke on his return journey, and decided to move to a position in front of a nearby food shop (Schiller's delicatessen), near the Latin Bridge. At this point, the first and second cars of the Archduke's motorcade suddenly turned right into a side street, leaving the Appel Quay. When the Archduke's driver followed their route, Governor Potiorek, who was sharing the third vehicle with the Imperial couple, called out to the driver to stop as he was going the wrong way. The driver applied the brakes, and when he attempted to put the car into reverse gear he accidentally stalled the engine close to where Princip was standing. The assassin stepped up to the footboard of the car, and shot Franz Ferdinand and Sophie at point-blank range using a Belgian-made Fabrique Nationale model 1910 .380 caliber pistol. Pistol serial numbers 19074, 19075, 19120 and 19126 were supplied to the assassins. Richard Belfield states that Princip used #19074 but Ian Howgate, a researcher of the Bosnian archives claims Princip used #19075. While 3 of the model 1910 pistols are at the Museum of Military History the fourth, 19075, is missing. According to Albertini, "the first bullet wounded the Archduke in the jugular vein, the second inflicted an abdominal wound on the Duchess". Princip tried to shoot himself, but was immediately seized and arrested. At his sentencing, Princip stated that his intention had been to kill Governor Potiorek, rather than Sophie.
After being shot, Sophie immediately fell unconscious and collapsed onto Franz Ferdinand's legs. The Archduke, too, lost consciousness while being driven to the Governor's residence for medical treatment. As reported by Count Harrach, Franz Ferdinand's last words were "Sophie, Sophie! Don't die! Live for our children!" followed by six or seven utterances of "It is nothing", in response to Harrach's inquiry as to Franz Ferdinand's injury. These utterances were followed by a violent choking sound caused by hemorrhage. The imperial couple were dead by 11:30 a.m on 28 June 1914; Sophie was dead on arrival at the Governor's residence, and Franz Ferdinand died 10 minutes later.
There is a myth which states that Princip had eaten a sandwich at Schiller's delicatessen just prior to the shooting, but there are no primary sources from the time which mention this. This myth likely originated from the 2001 novel Twelve Fingers, which presents a fictionalized version of the events of the assassination that includes the sandwich.
=== Funeral ===
The bodies were transported to Trieste by the battleship SMS Viribus Unitis and then to Vienna by special train. The funeral was arranged by the Obersthofmeister of the Royal Household Alfred, 2nd Prince of Montenuovo, who was said to have been a lifelong enemy of Franz Ferdinand. With the Emperor's connivance, he decided to turn the funeral into a massive and vicious snub of the assassinated couple. Even though most foreign royalty had planned to attend, they were pointedly disinvited and the funeral was attended by just the immediate imperial family, with the dead couple's three children excluded from the few public ceremonies. The Archduke's friend Kaiser Wilhelm II was invited so that the Imperial Cabinet could consult him on foreign policy, but he declined to attend; although he publicly claimed it was due to a case of lumbago, Imperial Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg revealed that the real reason was security concerns. The officer corps was forbidden to salute the funeral train, and this led to a minor revolt led by Archduke Karl, the new heir presumptive. The public viewing of the coffins was curtailed severely and even more scandalously, Montenuovo tried unsuccessfully to make the couple's children foot the bill. Sophie's coffin was slanted down from her husband's to reassert her lower social status, gloves were placed on top of her casket as was traditional for a lady-in-waiting. The Archduke and his wife were interred at Artstetten Castle because the Duchess could not be buried in the Imperial Crypt.
=== Aftermath ===
All of the assassins were eventually caught. Those in Austro-Hungarian custody were tried together with members of the infiltration route who had helped deliver them and their weapons to Sarajevo. Mehmedbašić, the only Bosnian Muslim among the conspirators, was arrested in Montenegro by local authorities but managed to escape from the Nikšić prison before his extradition could take place (possibly with help from the gendarmes who were guarding him and were consequently put under arrest). He later resurfaced in Serbia where he joined Major Tankosić's Chetnik detachment during the war, in 1916 the Serbian government imprisoned him on fabricated charges of treason during the Salonika trial, he was released in 1919. (see criminal penalty section below).
Anti-Serb rioting broke out in Sarajevo and various other places within Austria-Hungary in the hours following the assassination until order was restored by the military. On the night of the assassination, country-wide anti-Serb pogroms and demonstrations were also organized in other parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, particularly on the territory of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. They were organized and stimulated by Oskar Potiorek, the Austro-Hungarian governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The first anti-Serb demonstrations, led by the followers of Josip Frank, were organized in the early evening of 28 June in Zagreb. The following day, anti-Serb demonstrations in Sarajevo became more violent and could be characterized as a pogrom. The police and local authorities in the city did nothing to prevent anti-Serb violence. Writer Ivo Andrić referred to the violence in Sarajevo as the "Sarajevo frenzy of hate." Two Serbs were killed on the first day of pogrom in Sarajevo, many were attacked, while around 1,000 houses, shops, schools and institutions (such as banks, hotels, printing houses) owned by Serbs were razed or pillaged.
Following the assassination, Franz Joseph's daughter, Marie Valerie, noted that her father expressed his greater confidence in the new heir presumptive, his grandnephew Archduke Charles. The emperor admitted to his daughter, regarding the assassination: "For me, it is a relief from a great worry."
== Trials and punishment ==
=== Sarajevo trial (October 1914) ===
Austro-Hungarian authorities arrested and prosecuted the Sarajevo assassins together with the agents and peasants who had assisted them on their way. The majority of the defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit high treason involving official circles in the Kingdom of Serbia. Conspiracy to commit high treason carried a maximum sentence of death which conspiracy to commit simple murder did not. The trial was held from 12 to 23 October with the verdict and sentences announced on 28 October 1914.
The adult defendants, facing the death penalty, portrayed themselves at trial as unwilling participants in the conspiracy. The examination of defendant Veljko Čubrilović (who helped coordinate the transport of the weapons and was a Narodna Odbrana agent) is illustrative of this effort. Čubrilović stated to the court: "Princip glared at me and very forcefully said 'If you want to know, it is for that reason and we are going to carry out an assassination of the Heir and if you know about it, you have to be quiet. If you betray it, you and your family will be destroyed.'" Under questioning by defense counsel Čubrilović described in more detail the basis of the fears that he said had compelled him to cooperate with Princip and Grabež." Čubrilović explained that he was afraid a revolutionary organization capable of committing great atrocities stood behind Princip and that he therefore feared his house would be destroyed and his family killed if he did not comply and explained that he knew such an organization existed in Serbia, at least at one time. When pressed for why he risked the punishment of the law, and did not take the protection of the law against these threats he responded: "I was more afraid of terror than the law." Another Narodna Odbrana agent, Miško Jovanović, also claimed to have been against the assassination.
The three members of the original assassination team acknowledged full responsibility for their acts, proclaiming their ideal of a liberated and united South Slav people, exonerating Serbia and the Narodna Odbrana whose responsibility the prosecution tried to prove; however the court did not believe the defendants' statements as they differed from their depositions made at the preliminary investigation.
Princip focused on taking full responsibility for the crime on himself, and stated: "Our enterprise was purely private and in no way official as the prosecution asserts. Serbia has no hand in it and cannot be held responsible for our deed." He then asked: "No one else knew of it beyond Ciganović and ourselves. How could Serbia be brought into the affair?" Princip deposed under cross-examination: "I am a Yugoslav nationalist and I believe in unification of all South Slavs in whatever form of state and that it be free of Austria." Princip was then asked how he intended to realize his goal and responded: "By means of terror." Cabrinović testified that he was motivated to kill Franz Ferdinand because he saw him as a danger to the Slavs and to Serbia, something he claimed to have heard in cafés from students and citizens. Grabež stated that he would never have taken part had he known that it would lead to a European war. In spite of the absence of proof, the Sarajevo Court deemed that Serbian military circles were also implicated and thus the verdict ran: "The court regards it as proved by the evidence that both Narodna Odbrana and military circles in the Kingdom of Serbia in charge of the espionage service, collaborated in the outrage."
Prison terms, death sentences and acquittals were as follows:
At trial, Čabrinović had expressed his regrets for the murders. Following sentencing, Čabrinović received a letter of complete forgiveness from the three young children the assassins had orphaned. Čabrinović and Princip died of tuberculosis in prison. Those under the age of 20 years at the time of the crime could receive a maximum sentence of 20 years under Austrian-Hungarian law. The court heard arguments regarding Princip's age, as there was some doubt as to his true date of birth but concluded that Princip was under 20 at the time of the assassination. Because Bosnia and Herzegovina had not been assigned to Austria or to Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian Finance Minister administered Bosnia and Herzegovina and had responsibility for recommending clemency to the emperor.
=== Salonika trial (spring 1917) ===
From late 1916 into early 1917, secret peace talks took place between Austria-Hungary and France. There is evidence that parallel discussions were held between Austria-Hungary and Serbia with Prime Minister Pašić dispatching his righthand man Stojan Protić and Regent Alexander dispatching his confidant Colonel Petar Živković to Geneva on secret business. Charles I of Austria laid out Austria-Hungary's key demand for returning Serbia to the control of the Serbian Government in exile: that Serbia should provide guarantees that there be no further political agitation emanating from Serbia against Austria-Hungary.
For some time, Regent Alexander and officers loyal to him had planned to get rid of the military clique headed by Apis, as Apis represented a political threat to Alexander's power. The Austro-Hungarian peace demand gave added impetus to this plan.
On 15 March 1917 Apis and the officers loyal to him were indicted, on various false charges unrelated to Sarajevo, charges later described by historian John Paul Newman as fabricated and part of a staged trial intended to eliminate the organisation's leadership, (the case was retried before the Supreme Court of Serbia in 1953 and all defendants were exonerated), by Serbian Court Martial on the French-controlled Salonica front.
On 23 May Apis and eight of his associates were sentenced to death; two others were sentenced to 15 years in prison. One defendant died during the trial and the charges against him were dropped. The Serbian High Court reduced the number of death sentences to seven. Regent Alexander commuted four of the remaining death sentences, leaving just three death sentences in place.
Amongst those tried, four of the defendants had confessed their roles in Sarajevo and their final sentences were as follows:
In justifying the executions, Prime Minister Pašić wrote to his envoy in London: "...Dimitrijević (Apis) besides everything else admitted he had ordered Franz Ferdinand to be killed. And now who could reprieve them?"
As the three condemned men were driven to their execution, Apis remarked to the driver: "Now it is clear to me and clear to you too, that I am to be killed today by Serbian rifles solely because I organized the Sarajevo outrage."
Vojislav Tankosić died in battle in late 1915 and so was not put on trial.
== Controversy about responsibility ==
=== Serbia's "warning" to Austria-Hungary ===
Following the assassinations, Serbian Ambassador to France Milenko Vesnić and Serbian Ambassador to Russia Miroslav Spalajković put out statements claiming that Serbia had warned Austria-Hungary of the impending assassination. Serbia soon thereafter denied making warnings and denied knowledge of the plot. Prime Minister Pašić himself made these denials to Az Est on 7 July and to the Paris edition of the New York Herald on 20 July. Other voices eventually spoke out on the "warning". As Serbian Education Minister Ljubomir Jovanović wrote in Krv Sloventsva, in late May or early June, Prime Minister Pašić reviewed the plot of the impending assassination with members of his cabinet. On 18 June, a telegram, lacking in specifics, ordered Serbia's Ambassador to Vienna, Jovan Jovanović Pižon, to warn Austria-Hungary that Serbia had reason to believe there was a conspiracy to assassinate Franz Ferdinand in Bosnia. On 21 June, Ambassador Jovanović met with Austro-Hungarian Finance Minister Leon Biliński. According to Serbian Military Attaché to Vienna, Colonel Lešjanin, Ambassador Jovanović, spoke to Biliński and "...stressed in general terms the risks the Archduke heir apparent [sic] might run from the inflamed public opinion in Bosnia and Serbia. Some serious personal misadventure might befall him. His journey might give rise to incidents and demonstrations that Serbia would deprecate but that would have fatal repercussions on Austro-Serbian relations." Jovanović came back from the meeting with Biliński and told Lešjanin that "...Biliński showed no sign of attaching great importance to the total message and dismissed it limiting himself to remarking when saying goodbye and thanking him: 'Let us hope nothing does happen.'" The Austro-Hungarian Finance Minister took no action based on Jovanović's remarks.
In 1924, J. Jovanović went public stating that his warning had been made on his own initiative, and what he said was that "Among the Serb youths (in the army) there may be one who will put a ball-cartridge in his rifle or revolver in place of a blank cartridge and he may fire it, the bullet might strike the man giving provocation (Franz Ferdinand)." J. Jovanović's account changed back and forth over the years and never adequately addressed Colonel Lešjanin's statement. Biliński did not speak openly on the subject, but his press department chief confirmed that a meeting had taken place including a vague warning, but there was no mention of an ethnic Serb Austro-Hungarian soldier shooting Franz Ferdinand.
In the days leading up to the assassination, Pašić was the caretaker prime minister because during this period the Serbian Government briefly fell to a political alliance led by the Serbian Military. The military favoured promoting Jovan Jovanović to Foreign Minister, and Jovanović's loyalties one might expect to have been divided and his orders therefore carried out poorly. By choosing a military loyalist to convey the message, and by not including any of the specifics such as the conspirators' names and weapons, Pašić, a survivor, hedged his bets against the various possible outcomes and consequences of the impending assassination.
=== Rade Malobabić ===
In 1914, Rade Malobabić was Serbian Military Intelligence's chief undercover operative against Austria-Hungary. His name appeared in Serbian documents captured by Austria-Hungary during the war. These documents describe the running of arms, munitions, and agents from Serbia into Austria-Hungary under Malobabić's direction.
Owing to the suppression by Serbia of Apis's confession and of the Salonika trial transcripts historians did not initially link Malobabić closely to the Sarajevo attack. Apis's confession, however, states that "I engaged Malobabić to organize the assassination on the occasion of the announced arrival of Franz Ferdinand to Sarajevo." At the Salonika trial, Colonel Ljubomir Vulović (head of the Serbian Frontiers Service) testified: 'In 1914 on occasion of my official trip from Loznica to Belgrade, I received a letter at the General Staff [signed by Marshal Radomir Putnik, Serbia's top military officer] noting that agents of Malobabić would come and a teacher whose name I don't recall (Danilo Ilić was a teacher but it is unclear if the teacher in question was Ilić as Ilić can be placed in Brod but not Loznica) so I could sent [sic] them into Bosnia.' Because of that 'I went to Loznica and either that day or very soon afterwards sent Rade and that teacher into Bosnia.' Soon thereafter occurred the Sarajevo assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand." On the eve of his execution, Malobabić told a priest: "They ordered me to go to Sarajevo when that assassination was to take place, and when everything was over, they ordered me to come back and fulfill other missions, and then there was the outbreak of the war." Vladimir Dedijer in The Road to Sarajevo presented additional testimonial evidence that Malobabić arrived in Sarajevo on the eve of the Sarajevo attack and gave the final go-ahead for the operation to Danilo Ilić. This meshes with Dedijer's theory that Djuro Ŝarac had given instructions to Ilić on 16 June canceling the assassination. Soon after their confessions, Serbia executed Malobabić, Vulović, and Apis on false charges. Serbia published no clarifications of their confessions with regards to the Sarajevo attack.
=== Theories of involvement by the "Black Hand" or Serbian military intelligence ===
An alternative theory to the Sarajevo attack being a Serbian Military Intelligence Operation was that it was a "Black Hand" operation. The "Black Hand" was a Serbian military society formed on 9 May 1911 by officers in the Royal Serbian Army, originating in the conspiracy group that assassinated the Serbian royal couple in May 1903, led by captain Dragutin Dimitrijević (Commonly referred to as "Apis").
After Serbia's victory over Bulgaria in Macedonia in the Balkan Wars, the "Black Hand" became moribund because of the death of its president and the failure to replace him, an inactive secretary, casualties, broken links between its three-man cells, and a drying up of funding. By 1914 the "Black Hand" was no longer operating under its constitution but rather as a creature of the Chief of Serbian Military Intelligence, Apis, and its active ranks were composed mostly of Serbian officers loyal to Apis. Apis's confession to ordering the operation that begins with the phrase "As the Chief of the Intelligence Department of the General Staff", the fact that the military chain of command was invoked, the moribund nature of the "Black Hand" and the fact that under the "Black Hand" constitution Article 16, such an assassination could only be ordered by a vote of the Supreme Council Directorate, the President or the Secretary, and no such order was made, are factors in favour of assigning responsibility to Serbian Military Intelligence. The fact that Milan Ciganović was involved, that the key officers involved were "Black Hand" members, that "Black Hand" Provincial Director for Bosnia and Herzegovina Vladimir Gaćinović was consulted and that there was no official budget for the operation favours assigning responsibility to the "Black Hand".
=== The newspaper clipping ===
At trial, it was noted that the three assassins from Belgrade tried to take all blame on themselves. Čabrinović claimed the idea of killing Franz Ferdinand came from a newspaper clipping he received in the mail at the end of March announcing Franz Ferdinand's planned visit to Sarajevo. He then showed the newspaper clipping to Princip and the next day they agreed they would kill Franz Ferdinand. Princip explained to the court he had already read about Franz Ferdinand's upcoming visit in German papers. Princip went on to testify that, at about the time of Easter (19 April), he wrote an allegorical letter to Ilić informing him of the plan to kill Franz Ferdinand. Grabež testified that he and Princip, also at about the time of Easter, agreed between them to make an assassination of either Governor Potiorek or Franz Ferdinand and a little later settled on Franz Ferdinand. The defendants refused or were unable to provide details under examination.
On 26 March Ilić and Mehmedbašić had already agreed to kill Franz Ferdinand based on instructions from Belgrade predating the newspaper clipping and the discussions amongst the three assassins in Belgrade.
=== Narodna Odbrana ===
Serbian Military Intelligence – through remnants of the "Black Hand" – penetrated the Narodna Odbrana, using its clandestine tunnel to smuggle the assassins and their weapons from Belgrade to Sarajevo. In the 5 June 1914 report by the President of the Narodna Odbrana Boža Milanović to Prime Minister Pašić, one can sense the frustration of the President over the hijacking of his organization in the final sentence dealing with Sarajevo: "Boža has informed all the agents that they should not receive anyone unless he produces the password given by Boža."
=== Milan Ciganović ===
Prime Minister Pašić received early information of the assassination plan. The information was received by Pašić early enough, according to Education Minister Ljubomir Jovanović, for the government to order the border guards to prevent the assassins from crossing. This places the cabinet minister's discussions in late May and the information release to some time before that. Albertini concluded that the source of the information was most likely Milan Ciganović. Bogičević made a more forceful case.
The circumstantial evidence against Ciganović includes his sinecure government job, his protection by the Chief of Police and Serbia's failure to arrest him (Austria-Hungary demanded Serbia arrest Major Vojislav Tankosić and Ciganović, but Serbia arrested only Tankosić and lied saying that Ciganović could not be found), Serbia's protection of Ciganović during the war, and the government's provision for Ciganović after it. In 1917, all of the Sarajevo conspirators within Serbia's control were tried at Salonika on false charges, except Ciganović, who even gave evidence against his comrades at the trial.
=== Russian military attaché's office ===
Apis's confession to ordering the assassination of Franz Ferdinand states that Russian Military Attaché Viktor Artamonov promised Russia's protection from Austria-Hungary if Serbia would ever come under attack. While admitting funding of the intelligence network in Austro-Hungary, Artamonov denied the involvement of his office in the assassination in an interview with Albertini. Artamonov stated that he went on vacation to Italy leaving Assistant Military Attaché Alexander Werchovsky in charge and though he was in daily contact with Apis he did not learn of Apis's role until after the war had ended. Albertini writes that he "remained unconvinced by the behavior of this officer." Werchovsky admitted the involvement of his office and then fell silent on the subject.
There is evidence that Russia was at least aware of the plot before 14 June. De Schelking writes:
On 1 June 1914 (14 June new calendar), Emperor Nicholas had an interview with King Charles I of Roumania, at Constanza. I was there at the time ... yet as far as I could judge from my conversation with members of his (Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Sazonov's) entourage, he (Sazonov) was convinced that if the Archduke (Franz Ferdinand) were out of the way, the peace of Europe would not be endangered.
== Consequences ==
In August 1914, The Independent described the assassination as a "deplorable but relatively insignificant" reason for which
the financial system of the world is in chaos, that international commerce is suspended, that industries are everywhere demoralized and families ruined, and that millions of men in Europe have taken up arms with the intent to slaughter each other.
"It may be doubted whether the Archduke [is] worth all this carnage", the magazine wrote. The murder produced widespread shock across European royal houses, and there was initially much sympathy for the Austrian position. Ordinary people did not really care about what happened, and on the evening of the assassination the crowds in Vienna listened to music and drank wine, as if nothing had happened.
Within two days of the assassination, Austria-Hungary and Germany advised Serbia that it should open an investigation, but Secretary-General to the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Slavko Grujić, replied: "Nothing had been done so far and the matter did not concern the Serbian Government." An angry exchange followed between the Austrian Chargé d'Affaires at Belgrade and Grujić. After conducting a criminal investigation, verifying that Germany would honor its military alliance, and persuading the sceptical Hungarian prime minister Count István Tisza, Austria-Hungary issued a formal letter to the government of Serbia on 23 July 1914. The letter reminded Serbia of its commitment to respect the Great Powers' decision regarding Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to maintain good neighborly relations with Austria-Hungary. The letter contained specific demands that Serbia should accept, including the suppression of the publication of propaganda advocating the violent destruction of Austria-Hungary, the removal of the people behind this propaganda from the Serbian Military, the dissolution of the Serbian nationalist organization Narodna Odbrana, the arrest of the people on Serbian soil who were involved in the assassination plot and the prevention of the clandestine shipment of arms and explosives from Serbia to Austria-Hungary. It also demanded that Austro-Hungarian officials should take part in the Serbian inquiry into the assassination plot.
This letter became known as the July Ultimatum. Austria-Hungary stated that if Serbia did not accept all of the demands in total within 48 hours, it would recall its ambassador from Serbia. After receiving a telegram of support from Russia, Serbia mobilized its army and responded to the letter: it completely accepted point #8, which demanded an end to the smuggling of weapons and punishment of the frontier officers who had assisted the assassins, and completely accepted point #10, which demanded Serbia report the execution of the required measures as they were completed. Serbia partially accepted, finessed, disingenuously answered or politely rejected elements of the preamble and enumerated demands #1–7 and #9. The shortcomings of Serbia's response were published by Austria-Hungary; Austria-Hungary responded by breaking diplomatic relations. According to a 2021 study, Franz Ferdinand's absence was key to the breakdown of diplomacy and escalation into war, as Ferdinand had been the most powerful and effective proponent for peace in Vienna.
The next day, Serbian reservists being transported on tramp steamers on the Danube crossed onto the Austro-Hungarian side of the river at Temes-Kubin; Austro-Hungarian soldiers fired into the air to warn them off. The report of this incident was initially reported to Emperor Franz-Joseph erroneously as "a substantial skirmish". Austria-Hungary then declared war and mobilized the portion of its army that would face the (already mobilized) Serbian Army on 28 July 1914. Under the Secret Treaty of 1892, Russia and France were obliged to mobilize their armies if any of the Triple Alliance mobilized. Russia partially mobilized along its Austrian border on 29 July, and on 30 July Russia ordered general mobilization. Russia's general mobilization set off full Austro-Hungarian and German mobilizations. Soon all the Great Powers except Italy had chosen sides and gone to war.
== Legacy ==
The consequences of his action were very bad for Bosnia. Bosnia ceased to exist in Yugoslavia, and Bosnian Muslims were not recognised until 1968. They [Austria-Hungary] were still much better rulers than the Kingdom of Yugoslavia or communist Yugoslavia. You can look at the historical records and see how Austria-Hungary cared about issues like the rule of law. We lost so much in 1918.
The shots fired 100 years ago by Gavrilo Princip were not fired at Europe, they were shots for freedom, marking the start of the Serbs' fight for liberation from foreign occupiers.
Later, referring to Franz Ferdinand's assassination, Vaso Čubrilović said: "We destroyed a beautiful world that was lost forever due to the war that followed."
Following the breakup of Yugoslavia, Princip's legacy came under reevaluation in the various successor states. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosniaks and Croats largely view Gavrilo Princip as a terrorist and an ethnic Serb nationalist. Many Serbs consider Princip a national hero. The 100th anniversary of the assassination was commemorated with a concert by the Vienna Philharmonic in the Sarajevo City Hall, in an event that was organized by the European Union. Austrian president Heinz Fischer was the guest of honour.
The World War I commemorations were boycotted by Serb nationalists and dignitaries, who, along with Bosnian Serbs, view "Princip as a hero." On the 100th anniversary of the assassination, a statue of Gavrilo Princip was erected in East Sarajevo. This was followed by another statue in Belgrade, which was erected in June 2015. Serbian history textbooks deny that Serbia or Princip were responsible for starting World War I, laying blame on the Central Powers instead. Milorad Dodik acknowledged that Bosnia is "still divided", but maintained that Princip was a "freedom fighter" and that Austria-Hungary had been an "occupier".
Princip's weapon, along with the car in which the Archduke was riding, his bloodstained uniform and the chaise longue on which he died, are on permanent display in the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna, Austria. The bullet fired by Gavrilo Princip, sometimes referred to as "the bullet that started World War I", is a museum exhibit in the Konopiště Castle near the town of Benešov in the Czech Republic. The bronze medallion of Ferdinand and Sophie, which was part of a monument that was erected on the site of the assassination and demolished in 1918 during Yugoslav rule, is currently preserved in the National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. A marble plaque commemorating Princip and the assassination was erected in 1930 but, following the 1941 German invasion of Yugoslavia, it was removed by German troops and Volksdeutsche and was subsequently given to Adolf Hitler as a 52nd birthday present. Hitler sent it to the Berlin Zeughaus where it was put on display in the military museum until 1945 when it disappeared.
== In art and culture ==
=== Literature ===
The Bridge on the Drina (1945) by Ivo Andrić (Nobel Prize laureate)
The Guns of August (1963) by Barbara W. Tuchman (Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction)
June 28, 1914 (2019) by Zlatko Topčić
=== Theater ===
This Grave Is Too Small for Me (2013) written by Biljana Srbljanović
=== Film ===
1914 (1931) directed by Richard Oswald
Sarajevo (1940) directed by Max Ophüls
Sarajevo (1940) directed by Ákos Ráthonyi
Sarajevo (1955) directed by Fritz Kortner
The Day That Shook the World (1975) directed by Veljko Bulajić
St. George Shoots the Dragon (2009) directed by Srđan Dragojević
Sarajevo (2014) directed by Andreas Prochaska
The Man Who Defended Gavrilo Princip (2014) directed by Srđan Koljević
The King's Man directed by Matthew Vaughn
=== TV series ===
The Great War (1964) written by John Terraine and Correlli Barnett
Fall of Eagles (1974) created by John Elliot
37 Days (2014) directed by Justin Hardy
== Citations ==
== General and cited references == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Tremblay | Jonathan Tremblay | Jonathan Tremblay (born November 15, 1984) is a Canadian politician, who was elected to the House of Commons of Canada in the 2011 election. He represented the electoral district of Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord as a member of the New Democratic Party. Tremblay was defeated when he ran for re-election in 2015.
Shortly after his defeat, Tremblay announced he would seek a city council seat in Beaupré in a by-election.
Prior to being elected, Tremblay was a bricklayer and mason. He has three children. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inauguration_of_John_F._Kennedy | Inauguration of John F. Kennedy | The inauguration of John F. Kennedy as the 35th president of the United States was held on Friday, January 20, 1961, at the East Portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. This was the 44th inauguration and marked the commencement of the only term of both Kennedy as president and Lyndon B. Johnson as vice president.
Kennedy had narrowly defeated Richard Nixon, the incumbent vice president, in the presidential election. Kennedy was the first Catholic to become president, the youngest person elected to the office, and the first person born in the 20th century to serve as U.S. president.
His inaugural address encompassed the major themes of his campaign and would define his presidency during a time of economic prosperity, emerging social changes, and diplomatic challenges. This inauguration was the first in which a poet, Robert Frost, participated in the program.
For this inauguration, the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies was chaired by Senator John Sparkman, and included Senators Carl Hayden and Styles Bridges, and Representatives Sam Rayburn, John W. McCormack, and Charles A. Halleck.
== Sinatra inaugural ball ==
Frank Sinatra and Peter Lawford organized and hosted a pre-inaugural ball at the D.C. Armory on the eve of Inauguration day, January 19, 1961, considered one of the biggest parties ever held in the history of Washington, D.C. Sinatra recruited many Hollywood stars who performed and attended, and went as far as convincing Broadway theatres to suspend their shows for the night to accommodate some of their actors attending the gala. With tickets ranging from $100 per person to $10,000 per group, Sinatra hoped to raise $1.7 million ($18.3 million in today's dollars) for the Democratic Party to eliminate its debt brought on by a hard-fought campaign. Many Hollywood stars gave brief speeches or performed acts, rehearsed by Kay Thompson and directed by Roger Edens, and stayed at the Statler-Hilton Hotel where preparations and rehearsals were photographed by Phil Stern. Performances and speeches included Fredric March, Sidney Poitier, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Gene Kelly, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, Bill Dana, Milton Berle, Jimmy Durante, Harry Belafonte, and Sinatra himself.
Sammy Davis Jr., a long-time friend of Sinatra, supporter of the Democratic Party, and member of the Rat Pack, was asked by John F. Kennedy not to attend the gala at the behest of his father Joseph, fearing that his interracial marriage to Swedish actress May Britt was too controversial for the time and occasion, much to Sammy's and Sinatra's dismay. Davis had already postponed his wedding to Britt until after the election, also at the request of the Kennedy campaign via Sinatra. Davis eventually switched his support to the Republican Party and Richard Nixon in the early 1970s. Harry Belafonte expressed sadness at the controversy, stating "It was the ambassador, [but] we didn't know that until after. Sammy not being there was a loss."
At the end of the ball, Kennedy spoke to thank Sinatra on the festivities and his support of the Democratic Party throughout his life and the 1960 campaign, adding "The happy relationship between the arts and politics which has characterized our long history I think reached culmination tonight." Jacqueline retired to the White House before the ball ended at 1:30 am (ET), and John went to a second pre-inaugural ball hosted by his father Joseph Kennedy, and would finally return to the White House at around 3:30 am.
== The inaugural nor'easter ==
A major winter storm occurred the day before the inauguration, with temperatures at 20 °F (−7 °C) and snowfall at 1–2 inches (2.5–5.1 cm) per hour and a total of 8 inches (20 cm) during the night, causing transportation and logistical problems in Washington and serious concern for the inauguration.
On inauguration day, January 20, 1961, the skies began to clear but the snow created chaos in Washington, almost canceling the inaugural parade. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was put in charge of clearing the streets during the evening and morning before the inauguration, and were assisted by more than 1,000 District of Columbia employees and 1,700 Boy Scouts. This task force employed hundreds of dump trucks, front-end loaders, sanders, plows, rotaries, and flamethrowers to clear the route. Over 1,400 cars which had been stranded due to the conditions and lack of fuel had to be removed from the parade route along Pennsylvania Avenue.
The snowstorm dropped visibility at Washington National Airport to less than half a mile, preventing former president Herbert Hoover from flying into Washington and attending the inauguration.
== Inauguration proceedings ==
President Kennedy's was the last inauguration that had a fully formal dress code. And despite his personal aversion to hats, Kennedy opted to wear the then customary black top hat. As of 2025, this was the last time a president has worn one to the inaugural ceremony.
Before proceeding to the Capitol in company with outgoing president Dwight D. Eisenhower, Kennedy went to a morning Mass at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown. Cardinal Richard Cushing gave the invocation at the inaugural which lasted for 12 minutes. Additional prayers were recited by Archbishop Iakovos of the Greek Orthodox Church and Reverend Dr. John Barclay of the Central Christian Church of Austin, Texas, and a blessing was offered by Rabbi Nelson Glueck. The invocation and prayers lasted a total of 28 minutes. Marian Anderson sang "The Star-Spangled Banner", and a composition by Leonard Bernstein titled "Fanfare for the Inauguration of John F. Kennedy" was played.
The oath of office for vice president was administered by Speaker of the House of Representatives Sam Rayburn to Lyndon Johnson. This marked the first time a House speaker administered the oath, which had been given in previous inaugurations by either the president pro tempore of the United States Senate, the outgoing vice president, or a United States senator.
Robert Frost, then 86 years old, recited his poem "The Gift Outright". Kennedy requested Frost to read a poem at the inauguration, suggesting "The Gift Outright", considered an act of gratitude towards Frost for his help during the campaign. Kennedy would later state that he admired the "courage, the towering skill and daring" of Frost, and adding that "I've never taken the view the world of politics and the world of poetry are so far apart. I think politicians and poets share at least one thing, and that is their greatness depends upon the courage with which they face the challenges of life." American poet William Meredith would say that the request "focused attention on Kennedy as a man of culture, as a man interested in culture."
Frost composed a new poem titled Dedication specifically for the ceremony as a preface to the poem Kennedy suggested, to the surprise of Kennedy's friends. On the morning of the inauguration, Frost asked Stewart Udall, Kennedy's future Secretary of the Interior, to have his handwritten draft type scripted for easier reading, to which Udall obliged.
Once at the presidential podium, however, the glare of the sun and snow prevented him from reading his papers. When Frost started reading, he stumbled on the first three lines, squinting at his papers in view of the crowd and cameras. Vice President Johnson tried to assist by using his top hat as a shade, however Frost waved the offer aside, took the hat and jokingly said "I'll help you with that", sparking laughter and applause from the crowd and President Kennedy. Understanding the immediacy of the situation, Frost stated to the microphones that "this [the poem] was to have been a preface to a poem which I do not have to read", and began to recite "The Gift Outright" from memory before the "nearly one million people in the nation's capital". This marks the first time a poem was read at a presidential inauguration, a feature repeated by future presidents Bill Clinton (1993 and 1997), Barack Obama (2009 and 2013), and Joe Biden (2021) at their respective ceremonies.
Frost gave the type scripted version of the undelivered "Dedication" poem to Udall after the ceremony, who eventually donated the document to the Library of Congress where it is stored today. The original manuscript version, personally dedicated by Frost, was provided to the president and currently held by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. Kennedy's wife Jacqueline framed this manuscript version, writing on the back of the frame: For Jack. First thing I had framed to be put in your office. First thing to be hung there. Frost officially presented the poem, retitled to For John F. Kennedy His Inauguration and expanded from 42 to 77 lines, to Kennedy in March 1962. The unread poem (published in 1962 as part of Frost's In the Clearing poetry collection) was finally recited at the U.S. Capitol by Chaplain Daniel P. Coughlin during the 50th anniversary celebrations of Kennedy's inauguration.
=== Oath of office ===
The oath of office of the president was administered to Kennedy by Chief Justice Earl Warren using a closed family Bible at 12:51 (ET) although he officially became president at the stroke of noon. Kennedy did not wear an overcoat when taking the oath of office and delivering the inaugural address, despite the cold conditions of 22 °F (−6 °C) with windchill at 7 °F (−14 °C) at noon.
== Inaugural address ==
Immediately after reciting the oath of office, President Kennedy turned to address the crowd gathered at the Capitol. His 1366-word inaugural address, the first delivered to a televised audience in color, is considered one of the best presidential inaugural speeches in American history.
Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.
=== Drafting ===
The speech was crafted by Kennedy and his speech writer Ted Sorensen. Kennedy had Sorensen study President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address as well as other inaugural speeches. Kennedy began collecting thoughts and ideas for his inauguration speech in late November 1960. He took suggestions from various friends, aides and counselors, including suggestions from clergymen for biblical quotations. Kennedy then made several drafts using his own thoughts and some of those suggestions. Kennedy included in his speech several suggestions made by Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith and by the former Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson II. Kennedy's line "Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate." is nearly identical to Galbraith's suggestion "We shall never negotiate out of fear. But we shall never fear to negotiate." Stevenson's suggestion "if the free way of life doesn't help the many poor of this world it will never save the few rich." was the basis for Kennedy's line "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."
=== Main ideas of the speech ===
Kennedy came into power at the height of the Cold War with the difficult goals of maintaining peaceful international relations and representing the United States as a strong global force. These themes dominated his inaugural address. Kennedy highlighted the newly discovered dangers of nuclear power and the accelerating arms race, making the point that a focus on firepower should be replaced with a focus on international relations and helping the impoverished of the world. According to speechwriter Ted Sorensen, the most important sentence in the speech, expressing the core of Kennedy's policy, was: "For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed."
Sorensen revealed in 2007 that John F. Kennedy had five objectives in mind with his speech, all of which, according to Sorensen, were achieved. Sorensen called Kennedy's speech "wise and courageous" and concluded: "Kennedy's inaugural address was world-changing, heralding the commencement of a new American administration and foreign policy determined upon a peaceful victory in the west's long cold war struggle with the Soviet Union over the world's future direction. [...] It was a statement of core values - his and the nation's at that time - that he very much believed needed to be conveyed."
=== Rhetorical elements ===
The central theme of the speech is the relationship between duty and power. This is emphasized by the strong use of juxtaposition in the first part of the speech: "... Man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life". Similarly, in the fifth passage, he says: "United there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided there is little we can do." Both passages appeal to the idea of refocusing international values. Again, after exhorting "both sides" to action, he calls on all of "us" "to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle ... against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself," though the phrase "long twilight struggle" came to be associated with the Cold War struggle against communism.
Kairos – to say or do what is fitting in a given situation – is a main component of classical rhetoric and is used prominently in this address. Kennedy recognized the American people's anxiety about the Cold War and chose an optimistic tone. He accomplishes this by talking about the future, and repeats the phrase "Let both sides ..." to indicate a way to deal with strained relations while appealing to the goal of international unity. He also phrases negative ideas as opportunities—a challenge, appealing to innately American ideals. In the fourth from last passage he states, "In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger".
It was also in his inaugural address that John F. Kennedy spoke his famous words, "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." This use of antimetabole can be seen even as a thesis statement of his speech—a call to action for the public to do what is right for the greater good. This may be an elegant rephrasing of Franklin D. Roosevelt's acceptance speech at the 1936 Democratic National Convention: "To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny." It is also similar to Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' 1884 Memorial Day speech, in which Holmes said, "[Memorial Day] is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for the country in return."
== Invited guests ==
Along with official presidential guests and honorees, including former presidents, vice presidents, cabinet members, and other Washington officials, the Kennedys invited famous men and women of the arts, including Carl Sandburg, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, Brendan Behan, Mark Rothko, and fashion icon and future Vogue editor Diana Vreeland.
Congressman Tip O'Neill sat next to wealthy Boston businessman George Kara:
O'Neill recalled that Kara had nudged him and said, "Years from now, historians will wonder what was on the young man's mind as he strode to take his oath of office. I bet he's asking himself how George Kara got such a good seat." That night, O'Neill and his wife danced over to the president's box at the ball in the Mayflower Hotel to congratulate him, and sure enough, Kennedy asked, "Was that George Kara sitting beside you?" O'Neill told Kennedy what Kara had said, and J.F.K replied, "Tip, you'll never believe it. I had my left hand on the Bible and my right hand in the air, and I was about to take the oath of office, and I said to myself, 'How the hell did Kara get that seat?'"
=== Former presidents and first ladies in attendance ===
Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower
Harry and Bess Truman
Eleanor Roosevelt
Edith Wilson
== Parade to the White House ==
A vast parade along Pennsylvania Avenue followed the inauguration ceremony, bearing the new president from Capitol Plaza to the White House. Upon his arrival, Kennedy mounted a reviewing stand shared with honored guests such as former president Harry Truman and former first ladies Edith Wilson and Eleanor Roosevelt. Throngs of onlookers and millions of television viewers also watched the procession; it took three hours to pass by. Sixteen thousand members of the US armed forces marched with displays of modern weaponry like the Minuteman missile and the supersonic B-70 bomber. A further sixteen thousand marchers were civilians ranging from federal and state officials to high school bands and Boy Scouts, accompanied by forty floats.
== Impact ==
Kennedy's inauguration marked many firsts for the United States. Kennedy was the first Catholic inaugurated as commander-in-chief. At the inauguration, Kennedy, then 43, was the youngest elected president and was replacing the oldest president in American history at that time, Eisenhower. The age difference and visual impact of the turnover from Eisenhower's presence to Kennedy's was noticeable at the inauguration. In addition, Kennedy was the first person born in the 20th century to have been inaugurated as president.
The claim that Kennedy did not wear a hat to his inauguration, and so single-handedly killed the men's hat industry, is false. Kennedy wore a top hat to the inauguration and to the balls in the evening, removing it only to be sworn in and give his address. He in fact restored the tradition, after Eisenhower broke with it by wearing a homburg instead of a top hat to both of his inaugurations. Johnson, at his inauguration in 1965, was the first president to go completely hatless. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hansteen | Christopher Hansteen | Christopher Hansteen (26 September 1784 – 11 April 1873) was a Norwegian geophysicist, astronomer and physicist, best known for his mapping of Earth's magnetic field.
== Early life and career ==
Hansteen was born in Christiania as the son of Johannes Mathias Hansteen (1744–1792) and his wife Anne Cathrine Treschow (1754–1829). He was the younger brother of writer Conradine Birgitte Dunker, and through her the uncle of Bernhard Dunker and Vilhelmine Ullmann, and granduncle of Mathilde Schjøtt, Ragna Nielsen and Viggo Ullmann. His mother was a first cousin of Niels Treschow.
The intention was for Hansteen to become a naval officer, but since his father died when Hansteen was young, this plan did not materialize. Instead, he attended Oslo Cathedral School from the age of nine. Niels Treschow was the principal of this school. Hansteen took the examen artium in 1802, and in 1803 he enrolled at the University of Copenhagen, where he originally studied law. He later took more interest in mathematics, estranged by the lack of universal validity of a country's laws compared to the mathematical laws. He had also been inspired by the lectures of Hans Christian Ørsted. He was hired as the tutor of a young noble, Niels Rosenkrantz von Holstein, who lived at Sorø. Here, he also met his future wife Johanne Cathrine Andrea Borch, a daughter of professor Caspar Abraham Borch. In 1806 he was hired as a mathematics teacher in the gymnasium of Frederiksborg.
== Academic career ==
In 1807 Hansteen began the inquiries in terrestrial magnetism with which his name is especially associated. His first scientific publication was printed in Journal de Physique, following a contest on magnetic axes created in 1811 by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. In 1813 he was given a research scholarship by the recently established (in 1811) Royal Frederick University in Christiania, with a promise of a future academic position. After marrying Johanne Cathrine Andrea Borch in May 1814, they left for Norway in the summer. Due to the Swedish campaign against Norway in 1814, they opted to travel by sea, and was threatened by a Swedish privateer as well as seized by a British fregate en route. Reaching Norway after five days, they settled in the street Pilestredet.
Working as a lecturer from 1814, in 1816 Hansteen was promoted to professor of astronomy and applied mathematics. He was the editor of the official Norwegian almanac from 1815, manager of the city astronomical observatory from the same year and co-director of the Norwegian Mapping Authority (then known as Norges Geografiske Oppmåling) from 1817. In 1819 he published a volume of researches on terrestrial magnetism, which was translated into German under the title of Untersuchungen über den Magnetismus der Erde, with a supplement containing Beobachtungen der Abweichung und Neigung der Magnetnadel and an atlas. By the rules there framed for the observation of magnetical phenomena Hansteen hoped to accumulate analyses for determining the number and position of the magnetic poles of the Earth. In 1822 he co-founded Norway's first journal on natural sciences, Magazin for Naturvidenskaberne. He sat as editor-in-chief for eight years.
In the course of his research he travelled over Finland and the greater part of his own country; and from 1828 to 1830 he undertook, in company with Georg Adolf Erman and with the co-operation of Russia, a government-funded mission to Western Siberia. A narrative of the expedition soon appeared (Reise-Erinnerungen aus Siberien, 1854; Souvenirs d'un voyage en Sibérie, 1857); but the chief work was not issued until 1863 (Resultate magnetischer Beobachtungen). He did not conclude on the issue at hand, but his work was later completed by Carl Friedrich Gauss. Shortly after the return of the mission, in 1833 Hansteen moved with his family into the observatory, which was created from drawings by the architect Christian Heinrich Grosch. A magnetic observatory was added in 1839.
From 1835 to 1838 he published textbooks on geometry and mechanics, largely a reaction to his former research assistant Bernt Michael Holmboe's textbooks. Compared to Holmboe's method of teaching, Hansteen's books were more practically oriented. After Holmboe wrote a review of the first textbook for the newspaper Morgenbladet, in which he advised schools not to use it, a public debate followed, with contributions from other mathematicians. It has been claimed that this was the first debate on the subject of school textbooks in Norway. Holmboe's textbooks proved more lasting, with Hansteen's textbook not being reprinted. In 1842 Hansteen wrote his Disquisitiones de mutationibus, quas patitur momentum acus magneticae. He also contributed various papers to different scientific journals, especially Magazin for Naturvidenskaberne.
Hansteen was a member of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters from 1818 and of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters from 1857, as well as several learned societies in other countries, including the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1822) and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1863). He was a member of the board of the Royal Norwegian Society for Development for many years, and also chaired the board of the Norwegian National Academy of Craft and Art Industry.
== Later life ==
For health reasons, Hansteen stopped holding lectures in 1856. In 1861 he retired from active work, but still pursued his studies, his Observations de l'inclination magnetique and Sur les variations séculaires du magnetisme appearing in 1865. He left the position as observatory manager in 1861 as well, but continued as editor of the Norwegian almanac until 1863 and as director of the Norwegian Mapping Authority until 1872.
His wife died in 1840. Their daughter Aasta Hansteen became a notable women's rights campaigner. He was the paternal great-grandfather of Kristofer Hansteen and Edvard Heiberg Hansteen; trade unionist Viggo Hansteen was a later descendant. Christopher Hansteen died in April 1873 in Christiania, and is buried at Gamle Aker kirkegård. The funeral took place at the university.
== Awards and legacy ==
Hansteen was appointed a Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav in 1847, and received the Grand Cross in 1855. He was also appointed a Grand Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog and a Commander Grand Cross of the Order of the Polar Star, as well as other foreign orders of knighthood. A bust of Hansteen was raised at his observatory in the 1850s.
The crater Hansteen and the mountain Mons Hansteen on the Moon is named after him. In Oslo, the road Christopher Hansteens vei at Blindern has been named after Hansteen. In addition, a street at Majorstuen was named Hansteens gate, but in 1879 it was renamed Holmboes gate in honour of Bernt Michael Holmboe.
In the Møhlenpris neighbourhood in Bergen, the street Professor Hansteens gate was named after Hansteen in 1881. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Hardt | Nick Hardt | Nick Hardt (born 20 September 2000) is a Dominican professional tennis player.
He has a career high ATP singles ranking of world No. 180 achieved on 29 July 2024 and a doubles ranking of No. 282 achieved on 24 August 2023. He is currently the No. 1 Dominican player.
Hardt represents the Dominican Republic in the Davis Cup.
== Junior career ==
Hardt was ranked No. 16 in the world junior rankings by the ITF on 5 March 2018.
In 2016, he won the XXV Copa Merengue tournament in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, becoming the youngest Dominican to win the title at 15 years of age.
In 2017, he reached the quarterfinals of the Eddie Herr Junior Championships ITF tournament where he lost to eventual champion, Bulgarian Adrian Andreev.
In 2018, he reached the quarterfinals of the 2018 French Open Junior Championships and the third round in the 2018 U.S. Open Junior Championships. Hardt also reached the finals of the 2018 Porto Alegre Junior Championships losing to the No. 1 ranked junior in the world Sebastián Báez in the finals.
== Professional career ==
=== 2017: Davis Cup debut ===
Hardt was first nominated to the team for the 2017 Davis Cup and faced Chilean tennis player Nicolás Jarry in his first match.
=== 2022: Maiden Challenger final, top 205 debut ===
He reached his maiden Challenger final at the 2022 JC Ferrero Challenger Open. As a result he moved more than 35 positions up to a new career-high in the top 250 on 10 October 2022. Two months later, he reached a career-high of No. 201 on 22 December 2022.
=== 2024: Maiden Challenger title, ATP debut and first win, top 200 ===
Ranked No. 301, he won his maiden Challenger title as an alternate at the Sánchez-Casal Mapfre Cup in Barcelona defeating wildcard and second seed Bernabe Zapata Miralles. He was only the second Challenger champion from the Dominican Republic. As a result he raised 70 positions up in the rankings to return to the top 230.
Ranked No. 229, he qualified for the ATP 500 tournament at the Barcelona Open making his ATP debut, having entered the qualifying competition as an alternate. There, he earned his first ATP Tour win, defeating wildcard Martin Landaluce in three sets, becoming the first Dominican player to win an ATP tour-level match since Víctor Estrella Burgos in 2018 Quito. As a result of his win, he moved 25 positions up close to his career-high. He lost to 13th seed Tomás Martín Etcheverry in the second round.
On 20 May 2024, he made into the top 200 in the singles rankings after reaching the semifinals at the 2024 Internazionali di Tennis Francavilla al Mare Challenger in Italy.
== ATP Challenger and Futures/ITF World Tennis Tour finals ==
=== Singles: 21 (13–8) ===
=== Doubles: 8 (6–2) ===
== Davis Cup ==
=== Participations: (5–10) ===
indicates the outcome of the Davis Cup match followed by the score, date, place of event, the zonal classification and its phase, and the court surface. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon | Moon | The Moon is the only natural satellite of Earth. It orbits around Earth at an average distance of 384,399 kilometres (238,854 mi), a distance roughly 30 times the width of Earth. It completes an orbit (lunar month) in relation to Earth and the Sun (synodically) every 29.5 days. The Moon and Earth are bound by gravitational attraction, which is stronger on the sides facing each other. The resulting tidal forces are the main driver of Earth's tides, and have pulled the Moon to always face Earth with the same near side. This tidal locking effectively synchronizes the Moon's rotation period (lunar day) to its orbital period (lunar month).
In geophysical terms, the Moon is a planetary-mass object or satellite planet. Its mass is 1.2% that of the Earth, and its diameter is 3,474 km (2,159 mi), roughly one-quarter of Earth's (about as wide as the contiguous United States). Within the Solar System, it is larger and more massive than any known dwarf planet, and the fifth-largest and fifth-most massive moon, as well as the largest and most massive in relation to its parent planet. Its surface gravity is about one-sixth of Earth's, about half that of Mars, and the second-highest among all moons in the Solar System after Jupiter's moon Io. The body of the Moon is differentiated and terrestrial, with only a minuscule hydrosphere, atmosphere, and magnetic field. The lunar surface is covered in regolith dust, which mainly consists of the fine material ejected from the lunar crust by impact events. The lunar crust is marked by impact craters, with some younger ones featuring bright ray-like streaks. The Moon was volcanically active until 1.2 billion years ago, surfacing lava mostly on the thinner near side of the Moon, filling ancient craters, which through cooling formed the today prominently visible dark plains of basalt called maria ('seas'). The origin of the Moon is not clear, although it is thought to have been formed out of material from Earth that was ejected by a giant impact of a Mars-sized body 4.51 billion years ago, not long after Earth's formation.
From a distance, the day and night phases of the lunar day are visible as the lunar phases, and when the Moon passes through Earth's shadow a lunar eclipse is observable. The Moon's apparent size in Earth's sky is about the same as that of the Sun, which causes it to cover the Sun completely during a total solar eclipse. The Moon is the brightest celestial object in Earth's night sky because of its large apparent size, while the reflectance (albedo) of its surface is comparable to that of asphalt. About 59% of the surface of the Moon is visible from Earth owing to the different angles at which the Moon can appear in Earth's sky (libration), making parts of the far side of the Moon visible.
The Moon has been an important source of inspiration and knowledge in human history, having been crucial to cosmography, mythology, religion, art, time keeping, natural science and spaceflight. The first spaceflights to an extraterrestrial body were to the Moon, starting in 1959 with the flyby of Luna 1 (sent by the Soviet Union), and the intentional impact of Luna 2, followed in 1966 by the first soft landing (by Luna 9) and orbital insertion (by Luna 10). Humans first arrived in orbit on December 24, 1968, with Apollo 8 (sent by the United States), and then on the surface on July 20, 1969, with Apollo 11. By 1972, six Apollo missions had landed twelve humans on the Moon and stayed up to three days. Renewed robotic exploration of the Moon, in particular to confirm the presence of water on the Moon, has fueled plans to return humans to the Moon, starting with the Artemis program scheduled for the late 2020s. The Moon is the only celestial body beyond Earth on which humans have set foot.
== Names and etymology ==
The English proper name for Earth's natural satellite is typically written as Moon, with a capital M. The noun moon is derived from Old English mōna, which stems from Proto-Germanic *mēnōn, which in turn comes from Proto-Indo-European *mēnsis ('month') – from earlier *mēnōt (genitive *mēneses), which may be related to a verb meaning 'to measure [time]'.
The Latin name for the Moon is lūna. The English adjective lunar was ultimately borrowed from Latin, likely through French. In scientific writing and science fiction, the Moon is sometimes referred to as Luna to distinguish it from other moons. In poetry, Luna may also refer to the personification of the Moon as a woman.
The Ancient Greek word selḗnē referred to the Moon as a celestial body, and also to the moon goddess Selene . The rare English adjective selenian is used to describe the Moon as a world, as opposed to a celestial object. Its cognate selenic, originally a rare synonym, now almost always refers to the chemical element selenium. The corresponding prefix seleno- appears in terms including selenography (the study of the lunar surface).
Artemis, the Greek goddess of the wilderness and the hunt, also came to be identified with Selene, and was sometimes called Cynthia after her birthplace on Mount Cynthus. Her Roman equivalent is Diana.
The astronomical symbols for the Moon are the crescent and decrescent , for example in M☾ 'lunar mass'.
=== Classification ===
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) calls Earth's satellite "the Moon", with a capital "M". Other natural satellites of planets are called 'moons', with a lower-case "m".
The Moon has historically been identified as a classical planet, in the original sense of a wandering object in the sky. When Galileo discovered satellites orbiting Jupiter, he named them 'moons' because, like the Moon, they can be considered planets orbiting another planet. Some experts hold to a geophysical definition that classifies moons as planets that orbit the Sun while incidentally orbiting another planet. Some have suggested that the Earth and Moon form a double planet system, but most scientists agree that this would require the orbital barycenter to lie outside of Earth, which it does not.
== Natural history ==
=== Formation ===
Isotope dating of lunar samples suggests the Moon formed around 50 million years after the origin of the Solar System. Historically, several formation mechanisms have been proposed, but none satisfactorily explains the features of the Earth–Moon system. A fission of the Moon from Earth's crust through centrifugal force would require too great an initial rotation rate of Earth. Gravitational capture of a pre-formed Moon depends on an unfeasibly extended atmosphere of Earth to dissipate the energy of the passing Moon. A co-formation of Earth and the Moon together in the primordial accretion disk does not explain the depletion of metals in the Moon. None of these hypotheses can account for the high angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system.
The prevailing theory is that the Earth–Moon system formed after a giant impact of a Mars-sized body (named Theia) with the proto-Earth. The oblique impact blasted material into orbit about the Earth and the material accreted and formed the Moon just beyond the Earth's Roche limit of ~2.56 R🜨.
Giant impacts are thought to have been common in the early Solar System. Computer simulations of giant impacts have produced results that are consistent with the mass of the lunar core and the angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system. These simulations show that most of the Moon derived from the impactor, rather than the proto-Earth. However, models from 2007 and later suggest a larger fraction of the Moon derived from the proto-Earth. Other bodies of the inner Solar System such as Mars and Vesta have, according to meteorites from them, very different oxygen and tungsten isotopic compositions compared to Earth. However, Earth and the Moon have nearly identical isotopic compositions. The isotopic equalization of the Earth–Moon system might be explained by the post-impact mixing of the vaporized material that formed the two, although this is debated.
The impact would have released enough energy to liquefy both the ejecta and the Earth's crust, forming a magma ocean. The liquefied ejecta could have then re-accreted into the Earth–Moon system. The newly formed Moon would have had its own magma ocean; its depth is estimated from about 500 km (300 miles) to 1,737 km (1,079 miles).
While the giant-impact theory explains many lines of evidence, some questions are still unresolved, most of which involve the Moon's composition. Models that have the Moon acquiring a significant amount of the proto-Earth are more difficult to reconcile with geochemical data for the isotopes of zirconium, oxygen, silicon, and other elements. A study published in 2022, using high-resolution simulations (up to 108 particles), found that giant impacts can immediately place a satellite with similar mass and iron content to the Moon into orbit far outside Earth's Roche limit. Even satellites that initially pass within the Roche limit can reliably and predictably survive, by being partially stripped and then torqued onto wider, stable orbits.
On November 1, 2023, scientists reported that, according to computer simulations, remnants of Theia could still be present inside the Earth.
=== Natural development ===
The newly formed Moon settled into a much closer Earth orbit than it has today. Each body therefore appeared much larger in the sky of the other, eclipses were more frequent, and tidal effects were stronger.
Due to tidal acceleration, the Moon's orbit around Earth has become significantly larger, with a longer period.
Following formation, the Moon has cooled and most of its atmosphere has been stripped. The lunar surface has since been shaped by large impact events and many small ones, forming a landscape featuring craters of all ages.
The Moon was volcanically active until 1.2 billion years ago, which laid down the prominent lunar maria. Most of the mare basalts erupted during the Imbrian period, 3.3–3.7 billion years ago, though some are as young as 1.2 billion years and some as old as 4.2 billion years. The distribution of the mare basalts is uneven, with the basalts predominantly appearing on the Moon's near-side hemisphere. The reasons for this are not yet known, although the relative thinness of the crust on the near side of the Moon is hypothesized to be a factor. Causes of the distribution of the lunar highlands on the far side are also not well understood. Topological measurements show the crust on the near side to be thinner than on the far side. One possible explanation for this is that large impacts on the near side may have made it easier for lava to flow onto the surface.
=== Lunar geologic timescale ===
The lunar geological periods are named after their characteristic features, from most impact craters outside the dark mare, to the mare and later craters, and finally the young, still bright and therefore readily visible craters with ray systems like Copernicus or Tycho.
=== Future ===
In five billion years the Moon will have wandered 40% further away from Earth than it is now. However, about two to three billion years after that, the Sun will have become a red giant. Assuming the Sun envelopes the Earth-Moon system, the consequent drag from the Sun's atmosphere may cause the orbital distance between the Earth and the Moon to decay to the point where the Moon comes within the Earth's Roche limit, leading it to disintegrate.
== Physical characteristics ==
The Moon is a very slightly scalene ellipsoid due to tidal stretching, with its long axis displaced 30° from facing the Earth, due to gravitational anomalies from impact basins. Its shape is more elongated than current tidal forces can account for. This 'fossil bulge' indicates that the Moon solidified when it orbited at half its current distance to the Earth, and that it is now too cold for its shape to restore hydrostatic equilibrium at its current orbital distance. Today tidal crust deformation is limited to lobate thrust fault scarps formation.
=== Size and mass ===
The Moon is the fifth largest (by size and mass) natural satellite of the Solar System. It is categorizable as a planetary-mass moon, making it a satellite planet under the geophysical definitions of the term. It is smaller than Mercury but considerably larger than the largest dwarf planet of the Solar System, Pluto. The Moon is the largest natural satellite in the Solar System relative to its primary planet.
The Moon's diameter is about 3,500 km, more than one-quarter of Earth's, with the face of the Moon comparable to the width of mainland Australia, Europe or the contiguous United States. The whole surface area of the Moon is about 38 million square kilometers, comparable to that of the Americas.
The Moon's mass is 1⁄81 of Earth's, being the second densest among the planetary moons, and having the second highest surface gravity, after Io, at 0.1654 g and an escape velocity of 2.38 km/s (8600 km/h; 5300 mph).
=== Structure ===
The Moon is a differentiated body that was initially in hydrostatic equilibrium but has since departed from this condition. It has a geochemically distinct crust, mantle, and core. The Moon has a solid iron-rich inner core with a radius possibly as small as 240 kilometres (150 mi) and a fluid outer core primarily made of liquid iron with a radius of roughly 300 kilometres (190 mi). Around the core is a partially molten boundary layer with a radius of about 500 kilometres (310 mi). This structure is thought to have developed through the fractional crystallization of a global magma ocean shortly after the Moon's formation 4.5 billion years ago.
Crystallization of this magma ocean would have created a mafic mantle from the precipitation and sinking of the minerals olivine, clinopyroxene, and orthopyroxene; after about three-quarters of the magma ocean had crystallized, lower-density plagioclase minerals could form and float into a crust atop. The final liquids to crystallize would have been initially sandwiched between the crust and mantle, with a high abundance of incompatible and heat-producing elements. Consistent with this perspective, geochemical mapping made from orbit suggests a crust of mostly anorthosite. The Moon rock samples of the flood lavas that erupted onto the surface from partial melting in the mantle confirm the mafic mantle composition, which is more iron-rich than that of Earth. The crust is on average about 50 kilometres (31 mi) thick.
The Moon is the second-densest satellite in the Solar System, after Io. However, the inner core of the Moon is small, with a radius of about 350 kilometres (220 mi) or less, around 20% of the radius of the Moon. Its composition is not well understood but is probably metallic iron alloyed with a small amount of sulfur and nickel. Analyses of the Moon's time-variable rotation suggest that it is at least partly molten. The pressure at the lunar core is estimated to be 5 GPa (49,000 atm).
=== Gravitational field ===
On average the Moon's surface gravity is 1.62 m/s2 (0.1654 g; 5.318 ft/s2), about half of the surface gravity of Mars and about a sixth of Earth's.
The Moon's gravitational field is not uniform. The details of the gravitational field have been measured through tracking the Doppler shift of radio signals emitted by orbiting spacecraft. The main lunar gravity features are mascons, large positive gravitational anomalies associated with some of the giant impact basins, partly caused by the dense mare basaltic lava flows that fill those basins. The anomalies greatly influence the orbit of spacecraft about the Moon. There are some puzzles: lava flows by themselves cannot explain all of the gravitational signature, and some mascons exist that are not linked to mare volcanism.
The sphere of influence, of the Moon's gravity field, in which it dominates over Earth's has a Hill radius of 60,000 km (i.e., extending less than one-sixth the distance of the 378,000 km between the Moon and the Earth), extending to the Earth-Moon lagrange points. This space is called cislunar space.
=== Magnetic field ===
The Moon has an external magnetic field of less than 0.2 nanoteslas, or less than one hundred thousandth that of Earth. The Moon does not have a global dipolar magnetic field and only has crustal magnetization likely acquired early in its history when a dynamo was still operating. Early in its history, 4 billion years ago, its magnetic field strength was likely close to that of Earth today. This early dynamo field apparently expired by about one billion years ago, after the lunar core had crystallized. Theoretically, some of the remnant magnetization may originate from transient magnetic fields generated during large impacts through the expansion of plasma clouds. These clouds are generated during large impacts in an ambient magnetic field. This is supported by the location of the largest crustal magnetizations situated near the antipodes of the giant impact basins.
Additionally the Moon moves ~27% of the time, or 5–6 days per lunar month in Earth's magnetotail, replacing solar wind with Earth wind.
=== Atmosphere ===
The Moon has an atmosphere consisting of only an exosphere, which is so tenuous as to be nearly vacuum, with a total mass of less than 10 tonnes (9.8 long tons; 11 short tons). The surface pressure of this small mass is around 3 × 10−15 atm (0.3 nPa); it varies with the lunar day. Its sources include outgassing and sputtering, a product of the bombardment of lunar soil by solar wind ions. Elements that have been detected include sodium and potassium, produced by sputtering (also found in the atmospheres of Mercury and Io); helium-4 and neon from the solar wind; and argon-40, radon-222, and polonium-210, outgassed after their creation by radioactive decay within the crust and mantle. The absence of such neutral species (atoms or molecules) as oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen and magnesium, which are present in the regolith, is not understood. Water vapor has been detected by Chandrayaan-1 and found to vary with latitude, with a maximum at ~60–70 degrees; it is possibly generated from the sublimation of water ice in the regolith. These gases either return into the regolith because of the Moon's gravity or are lost to space, either through solar radiation pressure or, if they are ionized, by being swept away by the solar wind's magnetic field.
A permanent Moon dust cloud exists around the Moon, generated by small particles from comets. 5 tons of comet particles are estimated to strike the Moon's surface every 24 hours, resulting in the ejection of dust particles. The dust stays above the Moon for approximately 10 minutes, taking 5 minutes to rise, and 5 minutes to fall. On average, 120 kilograms of dust are present above the Moon, rising up to 100 kilometers above the surface. Dust counts made by LADEE's Lunar Dust EXperiment (LDEX) found particle counts peaked during the Geminid, Quadrantid, Northern Taurid, and Omicron Centaurid meteor showers, when the Earth, and Moon pass through comet debris. The lunar dust cloud is asymmetric, being denser near the boundary between the Moon's dayside and nightside.
Studies of Moon magma samples retrieved by the Apollo missions demonstrate that the Moon had once possessed a relatively thick atmosphere for a period of 70 million years between 3 and 4 billion years ago. This atmosphere, sourced from gases ejected from lunar volcanic eruptions, was twice the thickness of that of present-day Mars. The ancient lunar atmosphere was eventually stripped away by solar winds and dissipated into space.
=== Surface conditions ===
Ionizing radiation from cosmic rays, their resulting neutron radiation, and the Sun results in an average radiation level of 1.369 millisieverts per day during lunar daytime, which is about 2.6 times more than the level on the International Space Station, 5–10 times more than the level during a trans-Atlantic flight, and 200 times more than the level on Earth's surface. For further comparison, radiation levels average about 1.84 millisieverts per day on a flight to Mars and about 0.64 millisieverts per day on Mars itself, with some locations on Mars possibly having levels as low as 0.342 millisieverts per day.
Solar radiation also electrically charges the highly abrasive lunar dust and makes it levitate. This effect contributes to the easy spread of the sticky, lung- and gear-damaging lunar dust.
The Moon's axial tilt with respect to the ecliptic is only 1.5427°, much less than the 23.44° of Earth. This small axial tilt means that the Moon's solar illumination varies much less with season than Earth's, and it also allows for the existence of some peaks of eternal light at the Moon's north pole, at the rim of the crater Peary.
The lunar surface is exposed to temperature differences ranging from 120 °C to −171 °C depending on the solar irradiance.
Because of the lack of atmosphere, temperatures of different areas vary particularly upon whether they are in sunlight or shadow, making topographical details play a decisive role on local surface temperatures.
Parts of many craters, particularly the bottoms of many polar craters, are permanently shadowed. These craters of eternal darkness have extremely low temperatures. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter measured the lowest summer temperatures in craters at the southern pole at 35 K (−238 °C; −397 °F) and just 26 K (−247 °C; −413 °F) close to the winter solstice in the north polar crater Hermite. This is the coldest temperature in the Solar System ever measured by a spacecraft, colder even than the surface of Pluto.
Blanketed on top of the Moon's crust is a highly comminuted (broken into ever smaller particles) and impact gardened mostly gray surface layer called regolith, formed by impact processes. The finer regolith, the lunar soil of silicon dioxide glass, has a texture resembling snow and a scent resembling spent gunpowder. The regolith of older surfaces is generally thicker than for younger surfaces: it varies in thickness from 10–15 m (33–49 ft) in the highlands and 4–5 m (13–16 ft) in the maria. Beneath the finely comminuted regolith layer is the megaregolith, a layer of highly fractured bedrock many kilometers thick.
These extreme conditions are considered to make it unlikely for spacecraft to harbor bacterial spores at the Moon for longer than just one lunar orbit.
=== Surface features ===
The topography of the Moon has been measured with laser altimetry and stereo image analysis. Its most extensive topographic feature is the giant far-side South Pole–Aitken basin, some 2,240 km (1,390 mi) in diameter, the largest crater on the Moon and the second-largest confirmed impact crater in the Solar System. At 13 km (8.1 mi) deep, its floor is the lowest point on the surface of the Moon, reaching −9.178 kilometres (−5.703 mi) at 70.368°S 172.413°W / -70.368; -172.413 in a crater within Antoniadi crater. The highest elevations of the Moon's surface, with the so-called Selenean summit at 10.629 kilometres (6.605 mi) , are located directly to the northeast (5.441°N 158.656°W / 5.441; -158.656), which might have been thickened by the oblique formation impact of the South Pole–Aitken basin. Other large impact basins such as Imbrium, Serenitatis, Crisium, Smythii, and Orientale possess regionally low elevations and elevated rims. The far side of the lunar surface is on average about 1.9 km (1.2 mi) higher than that of the near side.
The discovery of fault scarp cliffs suggest that the Moon has shrunk by about 90 metres (300 ft) within the past billion years. Similar shrinkage features exist on Mercury. Mare Frigoris, a basin near the north pole long assumed to be geologically dead, has cracked and shifted. Since the Moon does not have tectonic plates, its tectonic activity is slow, and cracks develop as it loses heat.
Scientists have confirmed the presence of a cave on the Moon near the Sea of Tranquility, not far from the 1969 Apollo 11 landing site. The cave, identified as an entry point to a collapsed lava tube, is roughly 45 meters wide and up to 80 m long. This discovery marks the first confirmed entry point to a lunar cave. The analysis was based on photos taken in 2010 by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The cave's stable temperature of around 17 °C could provide a hospitable environment for future astronauts, protecting them from extreme temperatures, solar radiation, and micrometeorites. However, challenges include accessibility and risks of avalanches and cave-ins. This discovery offers potential for future lunar bases or emergency shelters.
==== Volcanic features ====
The main features visible from Earth by the naked eye are dark and relatively featureless lunar plains called maria (sing. mare; from Latin meaning 'seas', as they were once believed to be filled with water) which are vast solidified pools of ancient basaltic lava. Although similar to terrestrial basalts, lunar basalts have more iron and no minerals altered by water. The majority of these lava deposits erupted or flowed into the depressions associated with impact basins, though the Moon's largest expanse of basalt flooding, Oceanus Procellarum, does not correspond to an obvious impact basin. Different episodes of lava flow in maria can often be recognized by variations in surface albedo and distinct flow margins.
As the maria formed, cooling and contraction of the basaltic lava created wrinkle ridges in some areas. These low, sinuous ridges can extend for hundreds of kilometers and often outline buried structures within the mare. Another result of maria formation is the creation of concentric depressions along the edges, known as arcuate rilles. These features occur as the mare basalts sink inward under their own weight, causing the edges to fracture and separate.
In addition to the visible maria, the Moon has mare deposits covered by ejecta from impacts. Called cryptomares, these hidden mares are likely older than the exposed ones. Conversely, mare lava has obscured many impact melt sheets and pools. Impact melts are formed when intense shock pressures from collisions vaporize and melt zones around the impact site. Where still exposed, impact melt can be distinguished from mare lava by its distribution, albedo, and texture.
Sinuous rilles, found in and around maria, are likely extinct lava channels or collapsed lava tubes. They typically originate from volcanic vents, meandering and sometimes branching as they progress. The largest examples, such as Schroter's Valley and Rima Hadley, are significantly longer, wider, and deeper than terrestrial lava channels, sometimes featuring bends and sharp turns that again, are uncommon on Earth.
Mare volcanism has altered impact craters in various ways, including filling them to varying degrees, and raising and fracturing their floors from uplift of mare material beneath their interiors. Examples of such craters include Taruntius and Gassendi. Some craters, such as Hyginus, are of wholly volcanic origin, forming as calderas or collapse pits. Such craters are relatively rare and tend to be smaller (typically a few kilometers wide), shallower, and more irregularly shaped than impact craters. They also lack the upturned rims characteristic of impact craters.
Several geologic provinces containing shield volcanoes and volcanic domes are found within the near side maria. There are also some regions of pyroclastic deposits, scoria cones and non-basaltic domes made of particularly high viscosity lava.
Almost all maria are on the near side of the Moon, and cover 31% of the surface of the near side compared with 2% of the far side. This is likely due to a concentration of heat-producing elements under the crust on the near side, which would have caused the underlying mantle to heat up, partially melt, rise to the surface and erupt. Most of the Moon's mare basalts erupted during the Imbrian period, 3.3–3.7 billion years ago, though some are as young as 1.2 billion years and as old as 4.2 billion years.
In 2006, a study of Ina, a tiny depression in Lacus Felicitatis, found jagged, relatively dust-free features that, because of the lack of erosion by infalling debris, appeared to be only 2 million years old. Moonquakes and releases of gas indicate continued lunar activity. Evidence of recent lunar volcanism has been identified at 70 irregular mare patches, some less than 50 million years old. This raises the possibility of a much warmer lunar mantle than previously believed, at least on the near side where the deep crust is substantially warmer because of the greater concentration of radioactive elements. Evidence has been found for 2–10 million years old basaltic volcanism within the crater Lowell, inside the Orientale basin. Some combination of an initially hotter mantle and local enrichment of heat-producing elements in the mantle could be responsible for prolonged activities on the far side in the Orientale basin.
The lighter-colored regions of the Moon are called terrae, or more commonly highlands, because they are higher than most maria. They have been radiometrically dated to having formed 4.4 billion years ago and may represent plagioclase cumulates of the lunar magma ocean. In contrast to Earth, no major lunar mountains are believed to have formed as a result of tectonic events.
The concentration of maria on the near side likely reflects the substantially thicker crust of the highlands of the Far Side, which may have formed in a slow-velocity impact of a second moon of Earth a few tens of millions of years after the Moon's formation. Alternatively, it may be a consequence of asymmetrical tidal heating when the Moon was much closer to the Earth.
==== Impact craters ====
A major geologic process that has affected the Moon's surface is impact cratering, with craters formed when asteroids and comets collide with the lunar surface. There are estimated to be roughly 300,000 craters wider than 1 km (0.6 mi) on the Moon's near side. Lunar craters exhibit a variety of forms, depending on their size. In order of increasing diameter, the basic types are simple craters with smooth bowl shaped interiors and upturned rims, complex craters with flat floors, terraced walls and central peaks, peak ring basins, and multi-ring basins with two or more concentric rings of peaks. The vast majority of impact craters are circular, but some, like Cantor and Janssen, have more polygonal outlines, possibly guided by underlying faults and joints. Others, such as the Messier pair, Schiller, and Daniell, are elongated. Such elongation can result from highly oblique impacts, binary asteroid impacts, fragmentation of impactors before surface strike, or closely spaced secondary impacts.
The lunar geologic timescale is based on the most prominent impact events, such as multi-ring formations like Nectaris, Imbrium, and Orientale that are between hundreds and thousands of kilometers in diameter and associated with a broad apron of ejecta deposits that form a regional stratigraphic horizon. The lack of an atmosphere, weather, and recent geological processes mean that many of these craters are well-preserved. Although only a few multi-ring basins have been definitively dated, they are useful for assigning relative ages. Because impact craters accumulate at a nearly constant rate, counting the number of craters per unit area can be used to estimate the age of the surface.
However care needs to be exercised with the crater counting technique due to the potential presence of secondary craters. Ejecta from impacts can create secondary craters that often appear in clusters or chains but can also occur as isolated formations at a considerable distance from the impact. These can resemble primary craters, and may even dominate small crater populations, so their unidentified presence can distort age estimates.
The radiometric ages of impact-melted rocks collected during the Apollo missions cluster between 3.8 and 4.1 billion years old: this has been used to propose a Late Heavy Bombardment period of increased impacts.
High-resolution images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in the 2010s show a contemporary crater-production rate significantly higher than was previously estimated. A secondary cratering process caused by distal ejecta is thought to churn the top two centimeters of regolith on a timescale of 81,000 years. This rate is 100 times faster than the rate computed from models based solely on direct micrometeorite impacts.
==== Lunar swirls ====
Lunar swirls are enigmatic features found across the Moon's surface. They are characterized by a high albedo, appear optically immature (i.e. have the optical characteristics of a relatively young regolith), and often have a sinuous shape. Their shape is often accentuated by low albedo regions that wind between the bright swirls. They are located in places with enhanced surface magnetic fields and many are located at the antipodal point of major impacts. Well known swirls include the Reiner Gamma feature and Mare Ingenii. They are hypothesized to be areas that have been partially shielded from the solar wind, resulting in slower space weathering.
=== Presence of water ===
Liquid water cannot persist on the lunar surface. When exposed to solar radiation, water quickly decomposes through a process known as photodissociation and is lost to space. However, since the 1960s, scientists have hypothesized that water ice may be deposited by impacting comets or possibly produced by the reaction of oxygen-rich lunar rocks, and hydrogen from solar wind, leaving traces of water which could possibly persist in cold, permanently shadowed craters at either pole on the Moon. Computer simulations suggest that up to 14,000 km2 (5,400 sq mi) of the surface may be in permanent shadow. The presence of usable quantities of water on the Moon is an important factor in rendering lunar habitation as a cost-effective plan; the alternative of transporting water from Earth would be prohibitively expensive.
In years since, signatures of water have been found to exist on the lunar surface. In 1994, the bistatic radar experiment located on the Clementine spacecraft, indicated the existence of small, frozen pockets of water close to the surface. However, later radar observations by Arecibo, suggest these findings may rather be rocks ejected from young impact craters. In 1998, the neutron spectrometer on the Lunar Prospector spacecraft showed that high concentrations of hydrogen are present in the first meter of depth in the regolith near the polar regions. Volcanic lava beads, brought back to Earth aboard Apollo 15, showed small amounts of water in their interior.
The 2008 Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft has since confirmed the existence of surface water ice, using the on-board Moon Mineralogy Mapper. The spectrometer observed absorption lines common to hydroxyl, in reflected sunlight, providing evidence of large quantities of water ice, on the lunar surface. The spacecraft showed that concentrations may possibly be as high as 1,000 ppm. Using the mapper's reflectance spectra, indirect lighting of areas in shadow confirmed water ice within 20° latitude of both poles in 2018. In 2009, LCROSS sent a 2,300 kg (5,100 lb) impactor into a permanently shadowed polar crater, and detected at least 100 kg (220 lb) of water in a plume of ejected material. Another examination of the LCROSS data showed the amount of detected water to be closer to 155 ± 12 kg (342 ± 26 lb).
In May 2011, 615–1410 ppm water in melt inclusions in lunar sample 74220 was reported, the famous high-titanium "orange glass soil" of volcanic origin collected during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. The inclusions were formed during explosive eruptions on the Moon approximately 3.7 billion years ago. This concentration is comparable with that of magma in Earth's upper mantle. Although of considerable selenological interest, this insight does not mean that water is easily available since the sample originated many kilometers below the surface, and the inclusions are so difficult to access that it took 39 years to find them with a state-of-the-art ion microprobe instrument.
Analysis of the findings of the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) revealed in August 2018 for the first time "definitive evidence" for water-ice on the lunar surface. The data revealed the distinct reflective signatures of water-ice, as opposed to dust and other reflective substances. The ice deposits were found on the North and South poles, although it is more abundant in the South, where water is trapped in permanently shadowed craters and crevices, allowing it to persist as ice on the surface since they are shielded from the sun.
In October 2020, astronomers reported detecting molecular water on the sunlit surface of the Moon by several independent spacecraft, including the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA).
== Earth–Moon system ==
=== Orbit ===
The Moon's orbit is slightly elliptical, with an orbital eccentricity of 0.055.
The semi-major axis of the geocentric lunar orbit, called the lunar distance, is approximately 400,000 km (250,000 miles or 1.28 light-seconds), comparable to going around Earth 9.5 times.
The Moon makes a complete orbit around Earth with respect to the fixed stars, its sidereal period, about once every 27.3 days. However, because the Earth–Moon system moves at the same time in its orbit around the Sun, it takes slightly longer, 29.5 days, to return to the same lunar phase, completing a full cycle, as seen from Earth. This synodic period or synodic month is commonly known as the lunar month and is equal to the length of the solar day on the Moon.
Due to tidal locking, the Moon has a 1:1 spin–orbit resonance. This rotation–orbit ratio makes the Moon's orbital periods around Earth equal to its corresponding rotation periods. This is the reason for only one side of the Moon, its so-called near side, being visible from Earth. That said, while the movement of the Moon is in resonance, it still is not without nuances such as libration, resulting in slightly changing perspectives, making over time and location on Earth about 59% of the Moon's surface visible from Earth.
Unlike most satellites of other planets, the Moon's orbital plane is closer to the ecliptic plane than to the planet's equatorial plane. The Moon's orbit is subtly perturbed by the Sun and Earth in many small, complex and interacting ways. For example, the plane of the Moon's orbit gradually rotates once every 18.61 years, which affects other aspects of lunar motion. These follow-on effects are mathematically described by Cassini's laws.
==== Orbital center ====
The Earth and the Moon form the Earth–Moon satellite system with a shared center of mass, or barycenter. This barycenter is 5,000 km (3,100 mi) (about a 3/4 of Earth's radius) from the Earth's center. This barycenter is slowly moving outward as tidal friction drains energy from the rotating pair, and eventually the barycenter will be outside the Earth.
In a heliocentric frame of reference the Moon orbits the Sun, perturbated by Earth. This has led some scientists to argue that the Moon could be identified as a planet, both historically and qualitatively, adding that its mass would be enough to clear its orbit around the Sun if it were on its own. This would imply that the Earth-Moon system is a double planet. The International Astronomical Union standards organization has no definition for planets in a binary system, or for what constitutes a double planet system, but most scientists agree that this would require the Moon-Earth barycenter to be outside of Earth.
=== Tidal effects ===
The gravitational attraction that Earth and the Moon (as well as the Sun) exert on each other manifests in a slightly greater attraction on the sides closest to each other, resulting in tidal forces. Ocean tides are the most widely experienced result of this, but tidal forces also considerably affect other mechanics of Earth, as well as the Moon and their system.
The lunar solid crust experiences tides of around 10 cm (4 in) amplitude over 27 days, with three components: a fixed one due to Earth, because they are in synchronous rotation, a variable tide due to orbital eccentricity and inclination, and a small varying component from the Sun. The Earth-induced variable component arises from changing distance and libration, a result of the Moon's orbital eccentricity and inclination (if the Moon's orbit were perfectly circular and un-inclined, there would only be solar tides). According to recent research, scientists suggest that the Moon's influence on the Earth may contribute to maintaining Earth's magnetic field.
The cumulative effects of stress built up by these tidal forces produces moonquakes. Moonquakes are much less common and weaker than are earthquakes, although moonquakes can last for up to an hour – significantly longer than terrestrial quakes – because of scattering of the seismic vibrations in the dry fragmented upper crust. The existence of moonquakes was an unexpected discovery from seismometers placed on the Moon by Apollo astronauts from 1969 through 1972.
The most commonly known effect of tidal forces is elevated sea levels called ocean tides. While the Moon exerts most of the tidal forces, the Sun also exerts tidal forces and therefore contributes to the tides as much as 40% of the Moon's tidal force; producing in interplay the spring and neap tides.
The tides are two bulges in the Earth's oceans, one on the side facing the Moon and the other on the side opposite. As the Earth rotates on its axis, one of the ocean bulges (high tide) is held in place "under" the Moon, while another such tide is opposite. The tide under the Moon is explained by the Moon's gravity being stronger on the water close to it. The tide on the opposite side can be explained either by the centrifugal force as the Earth orbits the barycenter or by the water's inertia as the Moon's gravity is stronger on the solid Earth close to it and it is pulled away from the farther water.
Thus, there are two high tides, and two low tides in about 24 hours. Since the Moon is orbiting the Earth in the same direction of the Earth's rotation, the high tides occur about every 12 hours and 25 minutes; the 25 minutes is due to the Moon's time to orbit the Earth.
If the Earth were a water world (one with no continents) it would produce a tide of only one meter, and that tide would be very predictable, but the ocean tides are greatly modified by other effects:
the frictional coupling of water to Earth's rotation through the ocean floors
the inertia of water's movement
ocean basins that grow shallower near land
the sloshing of water between different ocean basins
As a result, the timing of the tides at most points on the Earth is a product of observations that are explained, incidentally, by theory.
=== System evolution ===
Delays in the tidal peaks of both ocean and solid-body tides cause torque in opposition to the Earth's rotation. This "drains" angular momentum and rotational kinetic energy from Earth's rotation, slowing the Earth's rotation. That angular momentum, lost from the Earth, is transferred to the Moon in a process known as tidal acceleration, which lifts the Moon into a higher orbit while lowering orbital speed around the Earth. This has resulted in the length of a anomalistic month having increased from 20 days to today's 27.55 days over the course of 3.2 billion years.
Thus the distance between Earth and Moon is increasing, and the Earth's rotation is slowing in reaction. Measurements from laser reflectors left during the Apollo missions (lunar ranging experiments) have found that the Moon's distance increases by 38 mm (1.5 in) per year (roughly the rate at which human fingernails grow).
Atomic clocks show that Earth's Day lengthens by about 17 microseconds every year, slowly increasing the rate at which UTC is adjusted by leap seconds.
This tidal drag makes the rotation of the Earth, and the orbital period of the Moon very slowly match. This matching first results in tidally locking the lighter body of the orbital system, as is already the case with the Moon. Theoretically, in 50 billion years, the Earth's rotation will have slowed to the point of matching the Moon's orbital period, causing the Earth to always present the same side to the Moon. However, the Sun will become a red giant, most likely engulfing the Earth–Moon system long before then.
If the Earth–Moon system is not engulfed by the enlarged Sun, the drag from the solar atmosphere can cause the orbit of the Moon to decay. Once the orbit of the Moon closes to a distance of 18,470 km (11,480 mi), it will cross Earth's Roche limit, meaning that tidal interaction with Earth would break apart the Moon, turning it into a ring system. Most of the orbiting rings will begin to decay, and the debris will impact Earth. Hence, even if the Sun does not swallow up Earth, the planet may be left moonless.
== Orientation and appearance ==
The Moon appears in Earth's sky differently depending on the position of observation on Earth and the time of lunar year, lunar month and day on Earth. During a year the Moon culminates during a day at different altitudes. The Moon appears highest in the sky unlike the Sun during winter and lowest during summer, which is true for the seasons of each of Earth's northern and southern hemispheres.
At the North and South Poles the Moon is 24 hours above the horizon for two weeks every tropical month (about 27.3 days), comparable to the polar day of the tropical year. Zooplankton in the Arctic use moonlight when the Sun is below the horizon for months on end.
The apparent orientation of the Moon depends on its position in the sky and the hemisphere of the Earth from which it is being viewed. In the Northern Hemisphere it appears upside down compared to the view from the Southern Hemisphere. Sometimes the "horns" of a crescent moon appear to be pointing more upwards than sideways. This phenomenon is called a wet moon and occurs more frequently in the tropics.
The distance between the Moon and Earth varies from around 356,400 km (221,500 mi) (perigee) to 406,700 km (252,700 mi) (apogee), making the Moon's distance and apparent size fluctuate up to 14%. On average the Moon's angular diameter is about 0.52°, roughly the same apparent size as the Sun (see § Eclipses). In addition, a purely psychological effect, known as the Moon illusion, makes the Moon appear larger when close to the horizon.
=== Rotation ===
The tidally locked synchronous rotation of the Moon as it orbits the Earth results in it always keeping nearly the same face turned towards the planet. The side of the Moon that faces Earth is called the near side, and the opposite the far side. The far side is often inaccurately called the "dark side", but it is in fact illuminated as often as the near side: once every 29.5 Earth days. During dark moon to new moon, the near side is dark.
The Moon originally rotated at a faster rate, but early in its history its rotation slowed and became tidally locked in this orientation as a result of frictional effects associated with tidal deformations caused by Earth. With time, the energy of rotation of the Moon on its axis was dissipated as heat, until there was no rotation of the Moon relative to Earth. In 2016, planetary scientists using data collected on the 1998–99 NASA Lunar Prospector mission found two hydrogen-rich areas (most likely former water ice) on opposite sides of the Moon. It is speculated that these patches were the poles of the Moon billions of years ago before it was tidally locked to Earth.
=== Illumination and phases ===
The Moon rotates, as it orbits Earth, changing orientation toward the Sun, experiencing a lunar day. A lunar day is equal to one lunar month (one synodic orbit around Earth) due to it being tidally locked to Earth. Since the Moon is not tidally locked to the Sun, lunar daylight and night times both occur around the Moon. The changing position of the illumination of the Moon by the Sun during a lunar day is observable from Earth as the changing lunar phases, waxing crescent being the sunrise and the waning crescent the sunset phase of a day observed from afar.
Lunar night is the darkest on the far side and during lunar eclipses on the near side (and darker than a moonless night on Earth). During its night, the near side is illuminated by Earthlight to the extent that lunar surface features may be observable from Earth. Earthshine makes the night on the near side about 43 times brighter, and sometimes even 55 times brighter than a night on Earth illuminated by the light of the full moon.
In Earth's sky brightness and apparent size of the Moon changes also due to its elliptic orbit around Earth. At perigee (closest), since the Moon is up to 14% closer to Earth than at apogee (most distant), it subtends a solid angle which is up to 30% larger. Consequently, given the same phase, the Moon's brightness also varies by up to 30% between apogee and perigee. A full (or new) moon at such a position is called a supermoon.
Each of the four intermediate phases of the Moon lasts, on average, about seven days (approximately 7.38 days), but this duration can vary by about ±11% due to the change in the distance between the Moon and Earth between apogee (farthest point) and perigee (closest point).
The number of days since the most recent new moon is called the Moon's age. A complete cycle of lunar phases is known as a lunation.
The approximate age and phase of the Moon for any date can be calculated by determining the number of days since a known new moon (e.g., January 1, 1900, or August 11, 1999) and dividing that value by the average length of a synodic month (29.53059 days). The remainder of the division represents the Moon's age. This method assumes a perfectly circular orbit and does not consider the exact time of the new moon, so results may be off by a few hours. Accuracy decreases as the date moves away from the reference date.
This simplified calculation is suitable for general or decorative purposes, such as moon phase clocks. More precise applications that take into account the Moon's apogee and perigee require more complex methods.
Due to lunar libration, it is sometimes possible to see slightly more than the full moon (up to about 101%) or a small part of its far side (up to 5%).
==== Observational phenomena ====
There has been historical controversy over whether observed features on the Moon's surface change over time. Today, many of these claims are thought to be illusory, resulting from observation under different lighting conditions, poor astronomical seeing, or inadequate drawings. However, outgassing does occasionally occur and could be responsible for a minor percentage of the reported lunar transient phenomena. Recently, it has been suggested that a roughly 3 km (1.9 mi) diameter region of the lunar surface was modified by a gas release event about a million years ago.
=== Albedo and true color of the surface ===
The Moon's appearance is shaped by its reflective properties and surface composition. Its albedo is about 0.12, comparable to worn asphalt, making it relatively dark despite its brightness in the night sky. This low albedo represents the reflectance of the lunar regolith, a layer of fine rock fragments created by meteorite impacts. Light scattering by the regolith causes the Moon to appear much brighter at full moon than at quarter phases.
The Moon's true color, without atmospheric effects, is a muted brownish-gray. This results from silicate minerals in the regolith, with darker basaltic plains (maria) and lighter feldspar-rich highlands. The maria, formed by ancient volcanic flows, contain more iron and titanium, giving them a darker tone. From Earth, the Moon's color can be altered by the atmosphere, appearing red during lunar eclipses or occasionally blue due to volcanic particles.
The Moon also exhibits retro-reflection, scattering light back toward its source and creating a uniform brightness across its disc without significant limb darkening. Its apparent size and brightness vary due to its elliptical orbit, appearing up to 30% brighter and 14% larger at perigee compared to apogee, a phenomenon known as a "Supermoon".
At times, the Moon can appear red or blue. It may appear red during a lunar eclipse, because of the red spectrum of the Sun's light being refracted onto the Moon by Earth's atmosphere. Because of this red color, lunar eclipses are also sometimes called blood moons. The Moon can also seem red when it appears at low angles and through a thick atmosphere.
The Moon may appear blue depending on the presence of certain particles in the air, such as volcanic particles, in which case it can be called a blue moon.
Because the words "red moon" and "blue moon" can also be used to refer to specific full moons of the year, they do not always refer to the presence of red or blue moonlight.
=== Eclipses ===
Eclipses only occur when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are all in a straight line (termed "syzygy"). Solar eclipses occur at new moon, when the Moon is between the Sun and Earth. In contrast, lunar eclipses occur at full moon, when Earth is between the Sun and Moon. The apparent size of the Moon is roughly the same as that of the Sun, with both being viewed at close to one-half a degree wide. The Sun is much larger than the Moon, but it is the vastly greater distance that gives it the same apparent size as the much closer and much smaller Moon from the perspective of Earth. The variations in apparent size, due to the non-circular orbits, are nearly the same as well, though occurring in different cycles. This makes possible both total (with the Moon appearing larger than the Sun) and annular (with the Moon appearing smaller than the Sun) solar eclipses. In a total eclipse, the Moon completely covers the disc of the Sun and the solar corona becomes visible to the naked eye.
Because the distance between the Moon and Earth is very slowly increasing over time, the angular diameter of the Moon is decreasing. As it evolves toward becoming a red giant, the size of the Sun, and its apparent diameter in the sky, are slowly increasing. The combination of these two changes means that hundreds of millions of years ago, the Moon would always completely cover the Sun on solar eclipses, and no annular eclipses were possible. Likewise, hundreds of millions of years in the future, the Moon will no longer cover the Sun completely, and total solar eclipses will not occur.
As the Moon's orbit around Earth is inclined by about 5.145° (5° 9′) to the orbit of Earth around the Sun, eclipses do not occur at every full and new moon. For an eclipse to occur, the Moon must be near the intersection of the two orbital planes. The periodicity and recurrence of eclipses of the Sun by the Moon, and of the Moon by Earth, is described by the saros, which has a period of approximately 18 years.
Because the Moon continuously blocks the view of a half-degree-wide circular area of the sky, the related phenomenon of occultation occurs when a bright star or planet passes behind the Moon and is occulted: hidden from view. In this way, a solar eclipse is an occultation of the Sun. Because the Moon is comparatively close to Earth, occultations of individual stars are not visible everywhere on the planet, nor at the same time. Because of the precession of the lunar orbit, each year different stars are occulted.
=== Moon illusion ===
== History of scientific understanding and exploration ==
=== Pre-telescopic observation (before 1609) ===
It is believed by some that the oldest cave paintings from up to 40,000 BP of bulls and geometric shapes, or 20–30,000 year old tally sticks were used to observe the phases of the Moon, keeping time using the waxing and waning of the Moon's phases.
Aspects of the Moon were identified and aggregated in lunar deities from prehistoric times and were eventually documented and put into symbols from the very first instances of writing in the 4th millennium BC. One of the earliest-discovered possible depictions of the Moon is a 3,000 BCE rock carving Orthostat 47 at Knowth, Ireland. The crescent depicting the Moon as with the lunar deity Nanna/Sin have been found from the 3rd millennium BCE.
The oldest named astronomer and poet Enheduanna, Akkadian high priestess to the lunar deity Nanna/Sin and pricess, daughter of Sargon the Great (c. 2334 – c. 2279 BCE), had the Moon tracked in her chambers. The oldest found and identified depiction of the Moon in an astronomical relation to other astronomical features is the Nebra sky disc from c. 1800–1600 BCE, depicting features like the Pleiades next to the Moon.
The ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras (d. 428 BC) reasoned that the Sun and Moon were both giant spherical rocks, and that the latter reflected the light of the former. Elsewhere in the 5th century BC to 4th century BC, Babylonian astronomers had recorded the 18-year Saros cycle of lunar eclipses, and Indian astronomers had described the Moon's monthly elongation. The Chinese astronomer Shi Shen (fl. 4th century BC) gave instructions for predicting solar and lunar eclipses.
In Aristotle's (384–322 BC) description of the universe, the Moon marked the boundary between the spheres of the mutable elements (earth, water, air and fire), and the imperishable stars of aether, an influential philosophy that would dominate for centuries. Archimedes (287–212 BC) designed a planetarium that could calculate the motions of the Moon and other objects in the Solar System. In the 2nd century BC, Seleucus of Seleucia correctly thought that tides were due to the attraction of the Moon, and that their height depends on the Moon's position relative to the Sun. In the same century, Aristarchus computed the size and distance of the Moon from Earth, obtaining a value of about twenty times the radius of Earth for the distance.
The Chinese of the Han dynasty believed the Moon to be energy equated to qi and their 'radiating influence' theory recognized that the light of the Moon was merely a reflection of the Sun; Jing Fang (78–37 BC) noted the sphericity of the Moon. Ptolemy (90–168 AD) greatly improved on the numbers of Aristarchus, calculating a mean distance of 59 times Earth's radius and a diameter of 0.292 Earth diameters, close to the correct values of about 60 and 0.273 respectively. In the 2nd century AD, Lucian wrote the novel A True Story, in which the heroes travel to the Moon and meet its inhabitants. In 510 AD, the Indian astronomer Aryabhata mentioned in his Aryabhatiya that reflected sunlight is the cause of the shining of the Moon. The astronomer and physicist Ibn al-Haytham (965–1039) found that sunlight was not reflected from the Moon like a mirror, but that light was emitted from every part of the Moon's sunlit surface in all directions. Shen Kuo (1031–1095) of the Song dynasty created an allegory equating the waxing and waning of the Moon to a round ball of reflective silver that, when doused with white powder and viewed from the side, would appear to be a crescent. During the Middle Ages, before the invention of the telescope, the Moon was increasingly recognized as a sphere, though many believed that it was "perfectly smooth".
=== Telescopic exploration (1609–1959) ===
The telescope was developed and reported on in 1608. The first record of telescopic astronomy and rough mapping of the Moon's features is from early summer 1609 by Thomas Harriot, but which he did not publish. At the same time Galileo Galilei too started to use telescopes to observe the sky and the Moon, recording later that year more detailed observations and crucial conclusions, such as that the Moon was not smooth, featuring mountains and craters, which he published in 1610 in his ground-breaking and soon widely discussed book Sidereus Nuncius.
Later in the 17th century, the efforts of Giovanni Battista Riccioli and Francesco Maria Grimaldi led to the system of naming of lunar features in use today. The more exact 1834–1836 Mappa Selenographica of Wilhelm Beer and Johann Heinrich von Mädler, and their associated 1837 book Der Mond, the first trigonometrically accurate study of lunar features, included the heights of more than a thousand mountains, and introduced the study of the Moon at accuracies possible in earthly geography. Lunar craters, first noted by Galileo, were thought to be volcanic until the 1870s proposal of Richard Proctor that they were formed by collisions. This view gained support in 1892 from the experimentation of geologist Grove Karl Gilbert, and from comparative studies from 1920 to the 1940s, leading to the development of lunar stratigraphy, which by the 1950s was becoming a new and growing branch of astrogeology.
=== First missions to the Moon (1959–1976) ===
After World War II the first launch systems were developed and by the end of the 1950s they reached capabilities that allowed the Soviet Union and the United States to launch spacecraft into space. The Cold War fueled a closely followed development of launch systems by the two states, resulting in the so-called Space Race and its later phase the Moon Race, accelerating efforts and interest in exploration of the Moon.
After the first spaceflight of Sputnik 1 in 1957 during International Geophysical Year the spacecraft of the Soviet Union's Luna program were the first to accomplish a number of goals. Following three unnamed failed missions in 1958, the first human-made object Luna 1 escaped Earth's gravity and passed the Moon on 4 January 1959. Later that year the first human-made object Luna 2 reached the Moon's surface by intentionally impacting. By the end of the year Luna 3 reached as the first human-made object the normally occluded far side of the Moon, taking the first photographs of it.
The first spacecraft to perform a successful lunar soft landing was Luna 9 and the first vehicle to orbit the Moon was Luna 10, both in 1966.
Following President John F. Kennedy's 1961 commitment to a crewed Moon landing before the end of the decade, the United States, under NASA leadership, launched a series of uncrewed probes to develop an understanding of the lunar surface in preparation for human missions: the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Ranger program, the Lunar Orbiter program and the Surveyor program. The crewed Apollo program was developed in parallel; after a series of uncrewed and crewed tests of the Apollo spacecraft in Earth orbit, and spurred on by a potential Soviet lunar human landing, in 1968 Apollo 8 made the first human mission to lunar orbit (the first Earthlings, two tortoises, had circled the Moon three months earlier on the Soviet Union's Zond 5, followed by turtles on Zond 6).
The first time a person landed on the Moon and any extraterrestrial body was when Neil Armstrong, the commander of the American mission Apollo 11, set foot on the Moon at 02:56 UTC on July 21, 1969. Considered the culmination of the Space Race, an estimated 500 million people worldwide watched the transmission by the Apollo TV camera, the largest television audience for a live broadcast at that time. While at the same time another mission, the robotic sample return mission Luna 15 by the Soviet Union had been in orbit around the Moon, becoming together with Apollo 11 the first ever case of two extraterrestrial missions being conducted at the same time.
The Apollo missions 11 to 17 (except Apollo 13, which aborted its planned lunar landing) removed 380.05 kilograms (837.87 lb) of lunar rock and soil in 2,196 separate samples.
Scientific instrument packages were installed on the lunar surface during all the Apollo landings. Long-lived instrument stations, including heat flow probes, seismometers, and magnetometers, were installed at the Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 landing sites. Direct transmission of data to Earth concluded in late 1977 because of budgetary considerations, but as the stations' lunar laser ranging corner-cube retroreflector arrays are passive instruments, they are still being used.
Apollo 17 in 1972 remains the last crewed mission to the Moon. Explorer 49 in 1973 was the last dedicated U.S. probe to the Moon until 1994.
The Soviet Union continued sending robotic missions to the Moon until 1976, deploying in 1970 with Luna 17 the first remote controlled rover Lunokhod 1 on an extraterrestrial surface, and collecting and returning 0.3 kg of rock and soil samples with three Luna sample return missions (Luna 16 in 1970, Luna 20 in 1972, and Luna 24 in 1976).
=== Moon Treaty and explorational absence (1976–1990) ===
Following the last Soviet mission to the Moon of 1976, there was little further lunar exploration for fourteen years. Astronautics had shifted its focus towards the exploration of the inner (e.g. Venera program) and outer (e.g. Pioneer 10, 1972) Solar System planets, but also towards Earth orbit, developing and continuously operating, beside communication satellites, Earth observation satellites (e.g. Landsat program, 1972), space telescopes and particularly space stations (e.g. Salyut program, 1971).
Negotiation in 1979 of Moon treaty, and its subsequent ratification in 1984 was the only major activity regarding the Moon until 1990.
=== Renewed exploration (1990–present) ===
In 1990 Hiten – Hagoromo, the first dedicated lunar mission since 1976, reached the Moon. Sent by Japan, it became the first mission that was not a Soviet Union or U.S. mission to the Moon.
In 1994, the U.S. dedicated a mission to fly a spacecraft (Clementine) to the Moon again for the first time since 1973. This mission obtained the first near-global topographic map of the Moon, and the first global multispectral images of the lunar surface. In 1998, this was followed by the Lunar Prospector mission, whose instruments indicated the presence of excess hydrogen at the lunar poles, which is likely to have been caused by the presence of water ice in the upper few meters of the regolith within permanently shadowed craters.
The next years saw a row of first missions to the Moon by a new group of states actively exploring the Moon.
Between 2004 and 2006 the first spacecraft by the European Space Agency (ESA) (SMART-1) reached the Moon, recording the first detailed survey of chemical elements on the lunar surface.
The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program reached the Moon for the first time with the orbiter Chang'e 1 (2007–2009), obtaining a full image map of the Moon.
India reached, orbited and impacted the Moon in 2008 for the first time with its Chandrayaan-1 and Moon Impact Probe, becoming the fifth and sixth state to do so, creating a high-resolution chemical, mineralogical and photo-geological map of the lunar surface, and confirming the presence of water molecules in lunar soil.
The U.S. launched the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the LCROSS impactor on June 18, 2009. LCROSS completed its mission by making a planned and widely observed impact in the crater Cabeus on October 9, 2009, whereas LRO is currently in operation, obtaining precise lunar altimetry and high-resolution imagery.
China continued its lunar program in 2010 with Chang'e 2, mapping the surface at a higher resolution over an eight-month period, and in 2013 with Chang'e 3, a lunar lander along with a lunar rover named Yutu (Chinese: 玉兔; lit. 'Jade Rabbit'). This was the first lunar rover mission since Lunokhod 2 in 1973 and the first lunar soft landing since Luna 24 in 1976, making China the third country to achieve this.
In 2014 the first privately funded probe, the Manfred Memorial Moon Mission, flew by the Moon.
Another Chinese rover mission, Chang'e 4, achieved the first landing on the Moon's far side in early 2019.
Also in 2019, India successfully sent its second probe, Chandrayaan-2, to the Moon.
In 2020, China carried out its first robotic sample return mission (Chang'e 5), bringing back 1,731 grams of lunar material to Earth.
The U.S. developed plans for returning to the Moon beginning in 2004, and with the signing of the U.S.-led Artemis Accords in 2020, the Artemis program aims to return humans to the Moon in the 2020s. The Accords have been joined by a growing number of countries. The introduction of the Artemis Accords has fueled a renewed discussion about the international framework and cooperation of lunar activity, building on the Moon Treaty and the ESA-led Moon Village concept.
2022 South Korea launched Danuri successfully, its first mission to the Moon, from the US.
In 2023 and 2024 India and Japan became the fourth and fifth country to soft land a spacecraft on the Moon, following the Soviet Union and United States in the 1960s, and China in the 2010s. Notably, Japan's spacecraft, the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, survived 3 lunar nights. In 2024, the IM-1 lander became the first commercially built lander to land on the Moon.
China launched the Chang'e 6 on May 3, 2024, which conducted another lunar sample return from the far side of the Moon. It also carried a Chinese rover to conduct infrared spectroscopy of lunar surface. Pakistan sent a lunar orbiter called ICUBE-Q along with Chang'e 6.
Nova-C 2, iSpace Lander and Blue Ghost were all launched to the Moon in 2024.
NASA plans to launch its Artemis II crewed lunar flyby in April 2026, becoming the first crewed lunar mission since the Apollo era. Crew members Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Jeremy Hansen will become the first woman, person of color, and non-US citizen to reach deep space and the Moon's vicinity. Following Artemis II, NASA plans to return humans to the Moon with the Artemis IV landing on the lunar South Pole in 2028.
=== Future ===
Beside the progressing Artemis program and supporting Commercial Lunar Payload Services, China is continuing its ambitious Chang'e program, having announced with Russia's struggling Luna-Glob program joint missions. Both the Chinese and US lunar programs have the goal to establish in the 2030s a lunar base with their international partners, though the US and its partners will first establish an orbital Lunar Gateway station in the 2020s, from which Artemis missions will land the Human Landing System to set up temporary surface camps.
While the Apollo missions were explorational in nature, the Artemis program plans to establish a more permanent presence. To this end, NASA is partnering with industry leaders to establish key elements such as modern communication infrastructure. A 4G connectivity demonstration is to be launched aboard an Intuitive Machines Nova-C lander in 2024. Another focus is on in situ resource utilization, which is a key part of the DARPA lunar programs. DARPA has requested that industry partners develop a 10–year lunar architecture plan to enable the beginning of a lunar economy.
== Human interaction and presence ==
In 1959 the first extraterrestrial probes reached the Moon (Luna program), just a year into the space age, after the first ever orbital flight. Since then, humans have sent a range of probes and people to the Moon. The first stay of people on the Moon was conducted in 1969, in a series of crewed exploration missions (the Apollo Program), the last having taken place in 1972.
Uninterrupted presence has been the case through the remains of impactors, landings and lunar orbiters. Some landings and orbiters have maintained a small lunar infrastructure, providing continuous observation and communication at the Moon. Longterm missions continuing to be active are some orbiters such as the 2009-launched Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter surveilling the Moon for future missions, as well as some Landers such as the 2013-launched Chang'e 3 with its Lunar Ultraviolet Telescope still operational.
Five retroreflectors have been installed on the Moon since the 1970s and since used for accurate measurements of the physical librations through laser ranging to the Moon.
Increasing human activity in cislunar space as well as on the Moon's surface, particularly missions at the far side of the Moon or the lunar north and south polar regions, are in need for a lunar infrastructure. For that purpose, orbiters in orbits around the Moon or the Earth–Moon Lagrange points, have since 2006 been operated. With highly eccentric orbits providing continuous communication, as with the orbit of Queqiao and Queqiao-2 relay satellite or the planned first extraterrestrial space station, the Lunar Gateway.
There are several missions by different agencies and companies planned to establish a long-term human presence on the Moon, with the Lunar Gateway as the currently most advanced project as part of the Artemis program.
=== Human impact ===
While the Moon has the lowest planetary protection target-categorization, its degradation as a pristine body and scientific place has been discussed. If there is astronomy performed from the Moon, it will need to be free from any physical and radio pollution. While the Moon has no significant atmosphere, traffic and impacts on the Moon causes clouds of dust that can spread far and possibly contaminate the original state of the Moon and its special scientific content. Scholar Alice Gorman asserts that, although the Moon is inhospitable, describing the Moon as dead negates its dynamics, which requires sustainable human activity to treat the Moon's ecology as a co-participant.
The so-called "Tardigrade affair" of the 2019 crashed Beresheet lander and its carrying of tardigrades has been discussed as an example for lacking measures and lacking international regulation for planetary protection.
Space debris beyond Earth around the Moon has been considered as a future challenge with increasing numbers of missions to the Moon, particularly as a danger for such missions. As such lunar waste management has been raised as an issue which future lunar missions, particularly on the surface, need to tackle.
Human remains have been transported to the Moon, including by private companies such as Celestis and Elysium Space. Because the Moon has been sacred or significant to many cultures, the practice of space burials have attracted criticism from indigenous peoples leaders. For example, then–Navajo Nation president Albert Hale criticized NASA for sending the cremated ashes of scientist Eugene Shoemaker to the Moon in 1998.
Beside the remains of human activity on the Moon, there have been some intended permanent installations like the Moon Museum art piece, Apollo 11 goodwill messages, six lunar plaques, the Fallen Astronaut memorial, and other artifacts.
=== Astronomy from the Moon ===
The Moon has been used as a site for astronomical and Earth observations. The Earth appears in the Moon's sky with an apparent size of 1° 48′ to 2°, three to four times the size of the Moon or Sun in Earth's sky, or about the apparent width of two little fingers at an arm's length away. Observations from the Moon started as early as 1966 with the first images of Earth from the Moon, taken by Lunar Orbiter 1. Of particular cultural significance is the 1968 photograph called Earthrise, taken by Bill Anders of Apollo 8 in 1968. In April 1972 the Apollo 16 mission set up the first dedicated telescope, the Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph, recording various astronomical photos and spectra.
The Moon is recognized as an excellent site for telescopes. It is relatively nearby; certain craters near the poles are permanently dark and cold and especially useful for infrared telescopes; and radio telescopes on the far side would be shielded from the radio chatter of Earth. The lunar soil, although it poses a problem for any moving parts of telescopes, can be mixed with carbon nanotubes and epoxies and employed in the construction of mirrors up to 50 meters in diameter. A lunar zenith telescope can be made cheaply with an ionic liquid.
With increased human activity on the surface of the Moon the atmospheric circulation of lunar dust will increase, reducing the favourable conditions for astronomy from the surface depending on measures to mitigate the spread of lunar dust.
=== Living on the Moon ===
Humans have lived on the Moon in groups of two and for up to three days. Altogether twelve people have stayed on the Moon over the course of six visits. They all lived in one type of surface habitat, the Apollo Lunar Module. In the course of these stays some people have spent in total up to one day roaming the surface.
Challenges when roaming the surface arise from lunar dust sticking to suits and tools, and has been carried inside the habitats. Astronauts could taste and smell the dust, which smells like gunpowder and was called the "Apollo aroma". This fine lunar dust can cause health issues.
In 2019, at least one plant seed sprouted in an experiment on the Chang'e 4 lander. It was carried from Earth along with other small life in its Lunar Micro Ecosystem.
=== Legal status ===
Although Luna landers scattered pennants of the Soviet Union on the Moon, and U.S. flags were symbolically planted at their landing sites by the Apollo astronauts, no nation claims ownership of any part of the Moon's surface. Likewise no private ownership of parts of the Moon, or as a whole, is considered credible.
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty defines the Moon and all outer space as the "province of all mankind". It restricts the use of the Moon to peaceful purposes, explicitly banning military installations and weapons of mass destruction. A majority of countries are parties of this treaty.
The 1979 Moon Agreement was created to elaborate, and restrict the exploitation of the Moon's resources by any single nation, leaving it to a yet unspecified international regulatory regime. As of January 2020, it has been signed and ratified by 18 nations, none of which have human spaceflight capabilities.
Since 2020, countries have joined the U.S. in their Artemis Accords, which are challenging the treaty. The U.S. has furthermore emphasized in a presidential executive order ("Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources.") that "the United States does not view outer space as a 'global commons'" and calls the Moon Agreement "a failed attempt at constraining free enterprise".
With Australia signing and ratifying both the Moon Treaty in 1986 as well as the Artemis Accords in 2020, there has been a discussion if they can be harmonized. In this light an Implementation Agreement for the Moon Treaty has been advocated for, as a way to compensate for the shortcomings of the Moon Treaty and to harmonize it with other laws and agreements such as the Artemis Accords, allowing it to be more widely accepted.
In the face of such increasing commercial and national interest, particularly prospecting territories, U.S. lawmakers have introduced in late 2020 specific regulation for the conservation of historic landing sites and interest groups have argued for making such sites World Heritage Sites and zones of scientific value protected zones, all of which add to the legal availability and territorialization of the Moon.
In 2021, the Declaration of the Rights of the Moon was created by a group of "lawyers, space archaeologists and concerned citizens", drawing on precedents in the Rights of Nature movement and the concept of legal personality for non-human entities in space.
==== Coordination and regulation ====
Increasing human activity at the Moon has raised the need for coordination to safeguard international and commercial lunar activity. Issues from cooperation to mere coordination, through for example the development of a shared Lunar time, have been raised.
In particular the establishment of an international or United Nations regulatory regime for lunar human activity has been called for by the Moon Treaty and suggested through an Implementation Agreement, but remains contentious. Current lunar programs are multilateral, with the US-led Artemis program and the China-led International Lunar Research Station. For broader international cooperation and coordination, the International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG), the Moon Village Association (MVA) and more generally the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) has been established.
== In culture and life ==
=== Timekeeping ===
Since pre-historic times people have taken note of the Moon's phases and its waxing and waning cycle and used it to keep record of time. Tally sticks, notched bones dating as far back as 20–30,000 years ago, are believed by some to mark the phases of the Moon. The counting of the days between the Moon's phases eventually gave rise to generalized time periods of lunar cycles as months, and possibly of its phases as weeks.
The words for the month in a range of different languages carry this relation between the period of the month and the Moon etymologically. The English month as well as moon, and its cognates in other Indo-European languages (e.g. the Latin mensis and Ancient Greek μείς (meis) or μήν (mēn), meaning "month") stem from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root of moon, *méh1nōt, derived from the PIE verbal root *meh1-, "to measure", "indicat[ing] a functional conception of the Moon, i.e. marker of the month" (cf. the English words measure and menstrual). To give another example from a different language family, the Chinese language uses the same word (月) for moon as for month, which furthermore can be found in the symbols for the word week (星期).
This lunar timekeeping gave rise to the historically dominant, but varied, lunisolar calendars. The 7th-century Islamic calendar is an example of a purely lunar calendar, where months are traditionally determined by the visual sighting of the hilal, or earliest crescent moon, over the horizon.
Of particular significance has been the occasion of full moon, highlighted and celebrated in a range of calendars and cultures, an example being the Buddhist Vesak. The full moon around the southern or northern autumnal equinox is often called the harvest moon and is celebrated with festivities such as the Harvest Moon Festival of the Chinese lunar calendar, its second most important celebration after the Chinese lunisolar Lunar New Year.
Furthermore, association of time with the Moon can also be found in religion, such as the ancient Egyptian temporal and lunar deity Khonsu.
=== Cultural representation ===
Humans have not only observed the Moon since prehistoric times, but have also developed intricate perceptions of the Moon. Over time the Moon has been characterized and associated in many different ways, from having a spirit or being a deity, and an aspect thereof or an aspect in astrology, being made an important part of many cosmologies.
This rich history of humans viewing the Moon has been evidenced starting with depictions from 40,000 BP and in written form from the 4th millennium BCE in the earliest cases of writing. The oldest named astronomer and poet Enheduanna, Akkadian high priestess to the lunar deity Nanna/Sin and daughter of Sargon the Great (c. 2334 – c. 2279 BCE), tracked the Moon and wrote poems about her divine Moon.
==== Crescent ====
For the representation of the Moon, especially its lunar phases, the crescent (🌙) has been a recurring symbol in a range of cultures since at least 3,000 BCE or possibly earlier with bull horns dating to the earliest cave paintings at 40,000 BP. In writing systems such as Chinese the crescent has developed into the symbol 月, the word for Moon, and in ancient Egyptian it was the symbol 𓇹, meaning Moon and spelled like the ancient Egyptian lunar deity Iah, which the other ancient Egyptian lunar deities Khonsu and Thoth were associated with.
Iconographically the crescent was used in Mesopotamia as the primary symbol of Nanna/Sîn, the ancient Sumerian lunar deity, who was the father of Inanna/Ishtar, the goddess of the planet Venus (symbolized as the eight pointed Star of Ishtar), and Utu/Shamash, the god of the Sun (symbolized as a disc, optionally with eight rays), all three often depicted next to each other. Nanna/Sîn is, like some other lunar deities, for example Iah and Khonsu of ancient Egypt, Mene/Selene of ancient Greece and Luna of ancient Rome, depicted as a horned deity, featuring crescent shaped headgears or crowns.
The particular arrangement of the crescent with a star known as the star and crescent (☪️) goes back to the Bronze Age, representing either the Sun and Moon, or the Moon and the planet Venus, in combination. It came to represent the selene goddess Artemis, and via the patronage of Hecate, which as triple deity under the epithet trimorphos/trivia included aspects of Artemis/Diana, came to be used as a symbol of Byzantium, with Virgin Mary (Queen of Heaven) later taking her place, becoming depicted in Marian veneration on a crescent and adorned with stars. Since then the heraldric use of the star and crescent proliferated, Byzantium's symbolism possibly influencing the development of the Ottoman flag, specifically the combination of the Turkish crescent with a star, and becoming a popular symbol for Islam (as the hilal of the Islamic calendar) and for a range of nations.
==== Other associations ====
The features of the Moon, the contrasting brighter highlands and darker maria, have been seen by different cultures forming abstract shapes. Such shapes are among others the Man in the Moon (e.g. Coyolxāuhqui) or the Moon Rabbit (e.g. the Chinese Tu'er Ye or in Indigenous American mythologies the aspect of the Mayan Moon goddess, from which possibly Awilix is derived, or of Metztli/Tēcciztēcatl).
Occasionally some lunar deities have been also depicted driving a chariot across the sky, such as the Hindu Chandra/Soma, the Greek Artemis, which is associated with Selene, or Luna, Selene's ancient Roman equivalent.
Color and material wise the Moon has been associated in Western alchemy with silver, while gold is associated with the Sun.
Through a miracle, the so-called splitting of the Moon (Arabic: انشقاق القمر) in Islam, association with the Moon applies also to Muhammad.
=== Representation in modern culture ===
The perception of the Moon in the modern era has been informed by telescope-enabled modern astronomy and later by spaceflight which enabled actual human activity at the Moon, particularly the culturally impactful lunar landings. These new insights inspired cultural references, connecting romantic reflections about the Moon and speculative fiction such as science-fiction dealing with the Moon.
Contemporarily the Moon has been seen as a place for economic expansion into space, with missions prospecting for lunar resources. This has been accompanied with renewed public and critical reflection on humanity's cultural and legal relation to the celestial body, especially regarding colonialism, as in the 1970 poem "Whitey on the Moon". In this light the Moon's nature has been invoked, particularly for lunar conservation and as a common.
In 2021 20 July, the date of the first crewed Moon landing, became the annual International Moon Day.
=== Lunar effect ===
The lunar effect is an unproven correlation between specific stages of the roughly 29.5-day lunar cycle and behavior and physiological changes in living beings on Earth, including humans. The Moon has long been associated with insanity and irrationality; the words lunacy and lunatic are derived from the Latin name for the Moon, Luna. Philosophers Aristotle and Pliny the Elder argued that the full moon induced insanity in susceptible individuals, believing that the brain, which is mostly water, must be affected by the Moon and its power over the tides, but the Moon's gravity is too slight to affect any single person. Even today, people who believe in a lunar effect claim that admissions to psychiatric hospitals, traffic accidents, homicides or suicides increase during a full moon, but over 37 studies invalidate these claims.
Lunar cycles have significant impacts on human culture but no solid evidence connects these cycles to human biology. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Larson | Jonathan Larson | Jonathan David Larson (February 4, 1960 – January 25, 1996) was an American composer, lyricist and playwright, most famous for writing the musicals Rent and Tick, Tick... Boom!, which explored the social issues of multiculturalism, substance use disorder, and homophobia.
Larson had worked on both musicals throughout the late 1980s and into the 1990s. After several years of workshopping, Rent began an off-Broadway run in early 1996, though Larson died from an aortic dissection the day before its first preview performance. The show went on to enjoy critical and commercial success, and transferred to Broadway that April, one of the longest-running Broadway productions. Larson posthumously received three Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Rent was also adapted into a 2005 film. Tick, Tick... Boom! received an off-Broadway production in 2001, and was also adapted into a 2021 film.
== Early years and education ==
Jonathan David Larson was born on February 4, 1960, in Mount Vernon, New York, to Nanette (née Notarius; 1927–2018) and Allan Larson (1925–2021) of White Plains, New York. His family was Jewish. His grandfather, Bernard Isaac Lazarson, who was born in Russia, changed the family surname to Larson. At an early age, Larson played the trumpet and tuba, sang in his school's choir, and took piano lessons. His early musical influences and his favorite rock musicians included Elton John, The Doors, The Who, and Billy Joel, as well as the classic composers of musical theatre, especially Stephen Sondheim. He also loved Pete Townshend, The Police, Prince, Liz Phair, and The Beatles. Larson attended White Plains High School, where he was also involved in acting, performing in lead roles in various productions, graduating in 1978. He had a sister, Julie.
Larson attended Adelphi University in Garden City, New York, with a four-year scholarship as an acting major, in addition to performing in numerous plays and musical theatre, graduating in 1982 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Larson stopped acting to focus on compositions. During his college years, he began music composition, composing music first for small student productions, called cabarets, and later the score to a musical entitled The Book of Good Love (Libro de Buen Amor), written by the department head, Jacques Burdick, who was also Larson's college mentor.
As a student at Adelphi University, Larson co-wrote Sacrimmoralinority, a Brechtian-themed cabaret musical and his first musical, with David Glenn Armstrong. It was first staged at Adelphi University in the winter of 1981. After Larson and Armstrong graduated in 1982, they renamed it Saved! - An Immoral Musical on the Moral Majority. It played a four-week showcase run at Rusty's Storefront Blitz, a small theatre on 42nd Street in New York, Manhattan, and won both authors a writing award from ASCAP.
After graduating, Larson participated in a summer stock theatre program at the Barn Theatre in Augusta, Michigan, as a piano player, which resulted in his earning an Equity card for membership in the Actors' Equity Association.
== Career and works ==
=== Superbia ===
In 1983, Larson planned to write a musical adaptation of George Orwell's book Nineteen Eighty-Four, which he planned to get produced in the year 1984; however, the Orwell estate denied him permission. Larson then began the process of adapting his work on 1984 into a futuristic story of his own, titled Superbia.
Superbia won the Richard Rodgers Production Award and the Richard Rodgers Development Grant. However, despite performances at Playwrights Horizons and a rock concert version produced by Larson's close friend and producer Victoria Leacock at the Village Gate in September 1989, Superbia never received a full production.
In the 2001 three-person musical version of Larson's monologue tick, tick... BOOM!, the 11 o'clock number from an earlier version of Superbia, "Come to Your Senses", was included. Another song from Superbia ("LCD Readout") was included on the 2007 album "Jonathan Sings Larson". In 2019, the song "One of These Days", originally sung by Josh near the beginning of the early drafts of Superbia, was included on the album "The Jonathan Larson Project". On February 4, 2022, the abridged "Sextet Montage" was released on streaming platforms as a single.
=== tick, tick... BOOM! ===
tick, tick... BOOM!, completed in 1991, was an autobiographical "rock monologue". This piece, written for only Larson with a piano and rock band, drew on his feelings of rejection caused by the disappointment of Superbia. The show was performed off-Broadway at the Village Gate in Greenwich Village, then at the Second Stage Theater on the Upper West Side. Both of these productions were produced by Victoria Leacock. Producer Jeffrey Seller saw a reading of Boho Days and expressed interest in producing Larson's musicals.
After Larson's death, Victoria Leacock and Robyn Goodman, with the permission of the Larson family, brought in playwright David Auburn to go through Larson’s five versions of the rock monologue, and expand it for three actors. Stephen Oremus was hired to orchestrate and be the musical director, as he had already been working on the tour of RENT. The stage version premiered off-Broadway in 2001 and starred Raúl Esparza as Larson, a performance for which he earned an Obie Award. It has since been produced on a West End theatre.
A film adaptation of tick, tick... BOOM!, directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda and starring Andrew Garfield (in an Academy Award nominated performance) as Larson, with a rewritten script by Steven Levenson was released on Netflix on November 12, 2021.
=== Rent ===
In 1989, Larson began collaborating with playwright Billy Aronson on a musical updating Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème to take place in contemporary New York City. Larson conceived the title, Rent, and re-centered the narrative in the East Village, reflecting the lives of artists and young people in the shadow of the AIDS epidemic.
The show underwent significant development at the New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW), starting with staged readings in 1993 and culminating in a three-week studio production in late 1994. Producer Jeffrey Seller became a crucial champion during this period. Tragically, Larson died from an aortic dissection on January 25, 1996, the morning of Rent's first off-Broadway preview performance at NYTW.
The show proceeded, garnering immense critical and popular success, and transferred to Broadway's Nederlander Theatre on April 29, 1996. Rent became a cultural phenomenon, winning numerous prestigious awards, including a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Drama and several Tony Awards for Larson.
== Death ==
In the days preceding Rent's first previews in January 1996, Larson began experiencing pain in his chest and back, fever, dizziness, and shortness of breath. He was assessed at Cabrini Medical Center on January 21 and at St. Vincent's Hospital on January 23, but doctors found nothing of concern in X-rays or electrocardiograms (ECGs), and variously attributed his symptoms to stress, food poisoning, or a virus; a note from one doctor on an ECG speculated about a possible myocardial infarction, but the matter was not further pursued. Larson continued to complain of severe and persistent pain and discomfort throughout this period.
At around 12:30 a.m. on January 25, 1996, the scheduled day of the first preview performance, Larson returned to his apartment from a production meeting, and collapsed in the kitchen. At around 3 a.m., his body was discovered by his roommate, who called emergency services and attempted CPR. Police arrived and pronounced Larson dead at the scene, aged 35. The cause of death was found to be an aortic dissection. A court found that Larson had been misdiagnosed by doctors at both hospitals he had visited. A medical malpractice lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount. The New York State Department of Health launched an investigation and concluded that it is possible he could have lived if the aortic dissection had been properly diagnosed and treated with cardiac surgery. Cabrini Medical Center and St. Vincent's Hospital were fined $10,000 and $6,000, respectively.
Larson may have had an undiagnosed case of Marfan syndrome, which increases the risk of aortic dissection; the possibility was publicly promoted by the National Marfan Foundation to raise awareness about the condition, at the urging of the New York State Health Department.
== Legacy ==
Rent played on Broadway at the Nederlander Theatre from its debut in April 1996 until September 7, 2008. It is the 12th longest running show in Broadway history. In addition, it has toured throughout the United States, Canada, Brazil, Japan, United Kingdom, Australia, China, Singapore, Philippines, Mexico, Germany, Poland, and throughout Europe, as well as in other locations. A film version of Rent was released in 2005.
After his death, Larson's family and friends started the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation to provide monetary grants to artists, especially musical theatre composers and writers, to support their creative work. The Jonathan Larson Grants are now administered by the American Theatre Wing, thanks to an endowment funded by the Foundation and the Larson Family.
His semi-autobiographical musical Tick, Tick... Boom! premiered off-Broadway in May 2001, toured the United States in 2003, and premiered in London in May 2005. The show was later revived in London's West End in May 2009 and twice off-Broadway in June 2014 and October 2016.
In December 2003, Larson's work was given to the Library of Congress. The collection includes numerous musicals, revues, cabarets, pop songs, dance and video projects – both produced and un-produced.
Less than three years after Rent closed on Broadway, the show was revived off-Broadway at Stage 1 of New World Stages just outside the Theater District. The show was directed by Michael Greif, who had directed the original productions. The show began previews on July 14, 2011, and opened August 11, 2011.
From October 9 to 14, 2018, Feinstein's/54 Below presented The Jonathan Larson Project, a concert of several previously unheard songs by Larson. The show was conceived and directed by Jennifer Ashley Tepper. It starred George Salazar, Lauren Marcus, Andy Mientus, Krysta Rodriguez, and Nick Blaemire. A CD of the show was released by Ghostlight Records in April 2019. A full off-Broadway version of the project will open at the Orpheum Theatre on March 10, 2025, with previews set to begin February 14.
Jonathan is portrayed by actor Andrew Garfield in the biographical musical drama Tick, Tick... Boom! which was released on the streaming service Netflix on November 19, 2021. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with high praise for director Lin-Manuel Miranda’s direction in his directorial debut, score, and musical sequences, and Garfield's performance garnering universal acclaim. It was named one of the best films of 2021 by the American Film Institute, and earned Garfield the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy as well as Best Lead Actor nominations for the Academy Award, Screen Actors Guild Award and Critics Choice Movie Award.
=== Jonathan Larson Grants ===
In memory of Larson, in 1996, the Larson family along with the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation established an award honoring emerging musical theater writers and composers. In 2008, the American Theatre Wing adopted and continued on the legacy through the Jonathan Larson Grants, an unrestricted cash gift to aid in the creative endeavors of the writers and promote their work. Notable winners of the grant include Dave Malloy, Laurence O'Keefe, Nell Benjamin, Amanda Green, Joe Iconis, Pasek and Paul, Shaina Taub and Michael R. Jackson.
== Personal life ==
In college, Larson dated Victoria Leacock. He also dated a dancer for four years who sometimes left him for other men, though she eventually left him for a woman. These experiences influenced the autobiographical aspects of Rent.
Larson lived and died in a loft with no heat on the fourth floor of 508 Greenwich Street, on the corner of Greenwich Street and Spring Street in Lower Manhattan. He lived with various roommates over the years, including Greg Beals, a journalist for Newsweek magazine and the brother of actress Jennifer Beals. For a while, he and his roommates kept an illegal wood-burning stove because of lack of heat in their building.
From the spring of 1985, when he was 25 years old, Larson worked weekends as a waiter at the Moondance Diner, while working on composing and writing musicals during the week. Many people came to the diner to meet Larson. He was involved in writing the employee manual. Jesse L. Martin worked as Larson's waiting trainee at the diner; Martin later performed the role of Tom Collins in the original cast of Rent. Larson quit the diner on October 21, 1995, as Rent was being produced by the New York Theatre Workshop.
== Awards and nominations == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Philippines | Economy of the Philippines | The economy of the Philippines is an emerging market, and considered as a newly industrialized country in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2026, the Philippine economy is estimated to be at ₱29.9 trillion ($533.92 billion), making it the world's 32nd largest by nominal GDP and 14th largest in Asia according to the International Monetary Fund.
The Philippine economy is a service-oriented economy, with relatively more modest contributions from the manufacturing and agriculture sectors. It has experienced significant economic growth and transformation in the past, posting one of the highest GDP growth rates in Asia. With an average annual growth rate of around 6 percent since 2010, the country has emerged as one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. The Philippines is a founding member of the United Nations, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, East Asia Summit and the World Trade Organization. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is headquartered in the Ortigas Center located in the city of Mandaluyong, Metro Manila.
The country's primary exports include semiconductors and electronic products, transport equipment, garments, chemical products, copper, nickel, abaca, coconut oil, and fruits. Its major trading partners include Japan, China, the United States, Singapore, South Korea, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Germany, Taiwan, and Thailand.
In 2017, the Philippine economy was projected to become the 9th largest in Asia and 19th largest in the world by 2050. By 2035, the Filipino economy is predicted to be the 22nd largest in the world.
The Philippines has been named as one of the Tiger Cub Economies, alongside Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand. However, major problems remain, mainly related to alleviating the wide income and growth disparities between the country's different regions and socioeconomic classes, reducing corruption, and investing in the infrastructure necessary to ensure future growth.
In 2024, the World Economic Forum chief Børge Brende said that "there is a real opportunity for this country to become a $2-trillion economy."
The Philippines exhibits one of the highest economic densities in Southeast Asia, characterized by a high concentration of economic output relative to its land area. As of 2024–2025, the Philippines ranks third among ASEAN nations in GDP Density (Nominal GDP per square kilometer), trailing only the city-state of Singapore and the resource-rich sultanate of Brunei. This is so, because there is such large economic activity that is happening on such low amount of land area that's scattered amongst a fragmented archipelagic geography. This is expressed in the concept called GDP density.
In 2025, the Philippines enacted Republic Act No. 12252, amending the Investors’ Lease Act to allow foreign investors to lease private land for up to 99 years, up from the previous limit of 75 years (50 + 25 extension). This reform aims to enhance the country's competitiveness in attracting long-term foreign direct investment by offering greater leasehold security for commercial and industrial projects. Also in 2025, a project called the "Luzon Economic Corridor" is on the works, which will further develop the Philippine economy. The country is a pioneer in digital finance, as it is the first country in the world to put its' entire national budget under blockchain technology.
== Overview ==
The Philippine economy has been growing steadily over decades and the International Monetary Fund in 2014 reported it as the 39th largest economy in the world. The Philippines posted a high GDP growth rate of 7.6 percent in 2022. However, the country is not a part of the Group of 20 nations; instead, it is grouped in a second tier for emerging markets or newly industrialized countries.
Notes for economic growth (1980–2023):
1980-82: Slower economic growth due to mismanagement
1983-86: Recession due to factors like corruption
1987-90: Recovery from 1984 crisis
1991-1992: Inflation and natural disasters (notably Mount Pinatubo eruption) caused slower growth
1993-97: Fast growth
1998: Minor recession due to the 1997 Asian financial crisis
1999-2001: Recovery
2002: Recession due to the EDSA II Protest
2002-2008: Post-EDSA II recovery
2009: Effects of the Great Recession
2010-2019: Philippines as a Tiger Economy
2020: Coronavirus Outbreak
2021-2023: Rebound
A chart below outlines selected statistics showing trends in the gross domestic product of the Philippines using data taken from the International Monetary Fund.
== Composition by sector ==
As a newly industrialized country, the Philippines is still an economy with a large agricultural sector; however, the country's service industry has expanded recently. Much of the industrial sector is based on processing and assembly operations in the manufacturing of electronics and other high-tech components, usually from foreign multinational corporations.
Filipinos who go abroad to work–-known as Overseas Filipino Workers or OFWs—are a significant contributor to the economy but are not reflected in the below sectoral discussion of the domestic economy. OFW remittances is also credited for the Philippines' recent economic growth resulting in investment status upgrades from credit ratings agencies such as the Fitch Group and Standard & Poor's. From more than US$2 billion worth of remittance from Overseas Filipinos sent to the Philippines in 1994, this significantly increased to a record US$38.34 billion in 2024 and represented 8.3 percent of the country's GDP.
=== Agriculture ===
As of 2022, agriculture employs 24 percent of the Filipino workforce accounting for 8.9 percent of the total GDP. The type of activity ranges from small subsistence farming and fishing to large commercial ventures with significant export focus.
The Philippines is the world's third largest producer of coconuts, and the world's largest exporter of coconut products. Coconut production is generally concentrated in medium-sized farms. The Philippines is also the world's third largest producer of pineapples, producing 2,862,000 metric tons (2,817,000 long tons; 3,155,000 short tons) in 2021.
Rice production in the Philippines is important to the food supply in the country and economy. The Philippines is the 8th largest rice producer in the world as of 2019, accounting for 2.5 percent of global rice production. Rice is the most important food crop, a staple food in most of the country; it is produced extensively in Central Luzon), Western Visayas, Cagayan Valley, Soccsksargen, and Ilocos Region.
The Philippines is one of the largest producers of sugar in the world. At least 17 provinces located in eight regions of the nation have grown sugarcane crops, of which the Negros Island Region accounts for half of the country's total production. As of Crop Year 2012–2013, 29 mills are operational divided as follows: 13 mills in Negros, 6 mills in Luzon, 4 mills in Panay, 3 mills in Eastern Visayas and 3 mills in Mindanao. A range from 360,000 to 390,000 hectares (890,000 to 960,000 acres) are devoted to sugarcane production. The largest sugarcane areas are found in the Negros Island Region, which accounts for 51 percent of sugarcane areas planted. This is followed by Mindanao which accounts for 20 percent; Luzon with 17 percent; Panay with 7 percent and Eastern Visayas with 4 percent.
=== Automotive and aerospace ===
The ABS used in Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Volvo cars are made in the Philippines. Automotive sales in the Philippines increased to 467,252 in 2024 from 429,807 units a year prior. Toyota sells the most vehicles in the country followed by Mitsubishi, Ford, Nissan, and Suzuki. Honda and Suzuki produce motorcycles in the country. Since around the 2010s, several Chinese car brands have entered the Philippine market; these include Chery and Foton Motor.
Aerospace products in the Philippines are mainly for the export market and include manufacturing parts for aircraft built by both Boeing and Airbus. Moog is the biggest aerospace manufacturer with base in Baguio; the company produces aircraft actuators in their manufacturing facility. Total export output of aerospace products in the Philippines reached US$780 million in 2019.
=== Electronics ===
A Texas Instruments plant in Baguio has been operating for 20 years and is the largest producer of DSP chips in the world. Texas Instruments' Baguio plant produces all the chips used in Nokia cell phones and 80% of chips used in Ericsson cell phones in the world. Toshiba hard disk drives are manufactured in Santa Rosa, Laguna. Printer manufacturer Lexmark has a factory in Cebu City. Electronics and other light industries are concentrated in Laguna, Cavite, Batangas and other Calabarzon provinces with sizable numbers found in Southern Philippines that account for most of the country's export.
The Philippine Electronics Industry is classified into (73%) Semiconductor Manufacturing Services (SMS) and (27%) Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) according to SEIPI, the largest organization of foreign and Filipino electronics companies in the Philippines. Electronic products continued to be the country's top export with total earnings of US$45.66 billion and accounted for 57.8 percent of the total export of goods in 2022.
Semiconductor Industry
The semiconductor industry plays a critical role in the Philippine economy by integrating the Philippines into the global electronics value chain. The country is primarily involved in the assembly, testing, and packaging stages of semiconductor production rather than chip design or wafer fabrication, serving as a key link in the global supply chain for electronic components.
According to the Semiconductor and Electronics Industries in the Philippines Foundation (SEIPI), semiconductor manufacturing services account for the majority of the country’s electronics industry output. Semiconductor products are widely used in consumer electronics, telecommunications equipment, automotive systems, and industrial applications.
Semiconductor manufacturing facilities in the Philippines are largely operated by multinational firms and are concentrated in major industrial zones, particularly in the CALABARZON region as well as parts of Central Luzon and the Visayas. The industry benefits from a skilled technical workforce, competitive production costs, and government investment incentives.
As part of the broader electronics sector, semiconductors contribute significantly to export earnings, employment generation, and foreign direct investment. The industry also supports technology transfer and skills development, reinforcing its role as one of the Philippines’ most important high-technology manufacturing sectors.
=== Mining and extraction ===
The Philippines is rich in mineral and geothermal energy resources. In 2019, it produced 1,928 megawatts (2,585,000 hp) of electricity from geothermal sources (7.55% of total electricity production). A 1989 discovery of natural gas reserves in the Malampaya oil fields off the island of Palawan is being used to generate electricity in three gas-powered plants. Philippine gold, nickel, copper, palladium and chromite deposits are among the largest in the world. Other important minerals include silver, coal, gypsum, and sulphur. Significant deposits of clay, limestone, marble, silica, and phosphate exist.
About 60 percent of total mining production are accounted for by non-metallic minerals, which contributed substantially to the industry's steady output growth between 1993 and 1998, with the value of production growing 58 percent. Philippine mineral exports amounted to US$4.22 billion in 2020. Low metal prices, high production costs, lack of investment in infrastructure, and a challenge to the new mining law have contributed to the mining industry's overall decline.
The industry rebounded starting in late 2004 when the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of an important law permitting foreign ownership of Philippines mining companies. In 2019, the country was the 2nd largest world producer of nickel and the 4th largest world producer of cobalt. According to Philippine Statistics Authority, the total monetary value of four key metallic minerals which were appraised to Class A namely: copper, chromite, gold and nickel were valued at US$9.01 billion in 2022. Class A mineral resources are commercially recoverable that could contribute to economy annually.
=== Offshoring and outsourcing ===
Business process outsourcing (BPO) and the call center industry contribute to the Philippines' economic growth resulting in investment status upgrades from credit ratings agencies such as Fitch and S&P. In 2008, the Philippines has surpassed India as the world leader in business process outsourcing (BPO). The industry generated 100,000 jobs, and total revenues were placed at US$960 million for 2005. In 2011, BPO sector employment ballooned to over 700,000 people and is contributing to a growing middle class; this increased to around 1.3 million employees by 2022. BPO facilities are concentrated in IT parks and centers in economic zones across the Philippines: Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, Metro Clark, Bacolod, Davao City, and Iloilo City; other areas with significant presence of the BPO industry include Baguio, Cagayan de Oro, Dasmariñas, Dumaguete, Lipa, Naga, and Santa Rosa, Laguna. The majority of the top ten BPO firms of the United States operate in the Philippines.
Call centers began in the Philippines as plain providers of email response and managing services and is a major source of employment. Call center services include customer relations, ranging from travel services, technical support, education, customer care, financial services, online business to customer support, and online business-to-business support. The Philippines is considered as a location of choice due to its many outsourcing benefits such as less expensive operational and labor costs, the high proficiency in spoken English of a significant number of its people, and a highly educated labor pool.
The growth in the BPO industry is promoted by the Philippine government. The industry is highlighted by the Philippines Development Plan as among the 10 high potential and priority development areas. The government provides incentive programs such as tax holidays, tax exemptions, and simplified export and import procedures. Additionally, training is also available for BPO applicants.
=== Renewable energy resources ===
The Philippines has significant potential in solar energy; however, as of 2021, most of the domestically produced electricity is based on fossil fuel resources, particularly coal. The country produced 7,399 megawatts (9,922,000 hp) of renewable energy in 2019.
On November 15, 2022, the renewable energy sector was granted the ability to operate with 100 percent foreign ownership, an increase from the previous 40 percent limit. This change allows for the infusion of foreign capital into the renewable energy (RE) industries. The Department of Energy is targeting an increase in the share of renewable energy in the country's power generation mix, aiming for 35 percent by 2030 and 50 percent by 2040, up from the current 22 percent. Danish firm Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) is investing US$5 billion to develop three offshore wind energy projects with a potential capacity of 2,000 megawatts (2,700,000 hp); it will be located in Camarines Norte and Camarines Sur (1000 MW), Northern Samar (650 MW), Pangasinan and La Union (350 MW). In 2022, the share of RE in the energy mix was at 22.8 percent.
=== Shipbuilding and repair ===
The Philippines is a significant player in the global shipbuilding industry with 118 registered shipyards in 2021 distributed in Subic, Cebu, Bataan, Navotas and Batangas. As of 2022, it is the seventh largest shipbuilding nation by gross tonnage. Subic-made cargo vessels are exported to countries where shipping operators are based. South Korea's Hanjin started production in Subic in 2007 of the 20 ships ordered by German and Greek shipping operators. Bulk carriers, container ships and big passenger ferries are built in the country's shipyards. General Santos' shipyard is mainly for ship repair and maintenance.
Surrounded by waters, the country has abundant natural deep-sea ports ideal for development as production, construction and repair sites. In the ship repair sector, the Navotas complex in Metro Manila is expected to accommodate 96 vessels for repair. Shipbuilding is part of Philippines' maritime heritage; employing over 600,000 people and contributing almost 15 percent of revenues to the ocean-based industries.
=== Tourism ===
== Regional accounts ==
For the year 2022, all economies of the 17 regions in the Philippines recorded positive growths; Western Visayas had the highest growth (9.3 percent), followed by Cordillera Administrative Region (8.7 percent), and Davao Region (8.15 percent).
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), gross regional domestic product (GRDP) is GDP measured at regional levels. Figures below are for the year 2019.
== International comparisons ==
== Statistics ==
GDP-related data can be found here:
Industries: electronics assembly, aerospace, agribusiness, automotive, IT and business process outsourcing, shipbuilding, garments, footwear, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, wood products, financial services, food processing, petrochemical, metalcasting and mining, real estate, textile, tourism
Electricity – production: 106,115 GWh (2021)
Agriculture – products: abaca, bananas, sugarcane, coconuts, durian, rice, corn, cassavas, mangoes; pork, eggs, beef, pineapples, fish
Exports – commodities/products: Semiconductors and electronic products, machinery, transport equipment, aerospace/parts, automotive/parts, garments, chemicals, copper, nickel, petroleum products, coconut oil, fruits
Imports – commodities/products: electronic products, machinery, telecommunication and transport equipment, automotive, chemicals, petroleum, cereals, livestocks, cement and steel, fruits
Manufacturing Growth: 5.9% (April 2024)
PMI Manufacturing: 52.2 (April 2024)
Yield Curve: 10-Year Bond 6.70% (June 2024)
Net International Investment Position: –$51.317 billion (2023 est.)
== Government budget ==
The national government budget for 2025 has set the following budget allocations: |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Crown_of_Thoroughbred_Racing_(United_States)#Winners_of_the_Triple_Crown | Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing (United States)#Winners of the Triple Crown | In the United States, the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing, commonly known as the Triple Crown, is a series of horse races for three-year-old Thoroughbreds, consisting of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes. The three races were inaugurated in different years, the last being the Kentucky Derby in 1875. The Triple Crown Trophy, commissioned in 1950 but awarded to all previous winners as well as those after 1950, is awarded to a horse who wins all three races and is thereafter designated as a Triple Crown winner. The races are traditionally run in May and early June of each year, although global events have resulted in schedule adjustments, such as in 1945 and 2020.
The first winner of all three Triple Crown races was Sir Barton in 1919. Some journalists began using the term Triple Crown to refer to the three races as early as 1923, but it was not until Gallant Fox won the three events in 1930 that Charles Hatton of the Daily Racing Form put the term to common use.
Only 13 horses have ever won the Triple Crown: Sir Barton (1919), Gallant Fox (1930), Omaha (1935), War Admiral (1937), Whirlaway (1941), Count Fleet (1943), Assault (1946), Citation (1948), Secretariat (1973), Seattle Slew (1977), Affirmed (1978), American Pharoah (2015), and Justify (2018). As of 2026, American Pharoah and Justify are the only living Triple Crown winners.
James E. "Sunny Jim" Fitzsimmons was the first trainer to win the Triple Crown more than once; he trained both Gallant Fox and Omaha for the Belair Stud. Gallant Fox and Omaha are also the only father-son pair to each win the Triple Crown. Bob Baffert became the second trainer to win the Triple Crown more than once, training American Pharoah and Justify. Belair Stud and Calumet Farm are tied as owners with the most Triple Crown victories with two apiece; Calumet's winners were Whirlaway and Citation. Eddie Arcaro rode both of Calumet's Triple Crown champions and is the only jockey to win more than one Triple Crown. Willie Simms is the only African-American jockey to win all three races that would compose the triple crown. During the 1898 Preakness Stakes he rode a different horse, Sly Fox and won the race.
Secretariat holds the stakes record time for each of the three races. His time of 2:24 for 1+1⁄2 miles in the 1973 Belmont Stakes also set a world record that still stands.
== Development ==
The three Triple Crown races had existed long before the series received its name: the Belmont Stakes was first run in 1867, the Preakness in 1873, and the Kentucky Derby in 1875.
On December 31, 1912, Johnson N. Camden Jr. proposed a Triple Crown of Kentucky races to be held at Lexington, Louisville, and Latonia, then later a "Quadruple Stake" to include the Douglas Park Racetrack. Neither of these appear to have materialized.
The term "triple crown" in reference to the current three races was in use at least by 1923, although Daily Racing Form writer Charles Hatton is commonly credited with originating the term in 1930.
The order in which the races are run has varied. From 1932 through 2019, the Kentucky Derby was run first, followed by the Preakness, and then the Belmont. Running the three races in a five-week span was instituted in 1969. The Preakness was run before the Kentucky Derby 11 times, most recently in 1931. The Kentucky Derby and Preakness have been run on the same day on two occasions: May 12, 1917, and May 13, 1922.
Scheduling has occasionally been affected by global events. During World War II, the 1945 Kentucky Derby was moved from May 5 to June 9, with the Preakness and Belmont following on June 16 and 23, respectively. In 2020, the Triple Crown was altered from its usual sequence due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The adjusted schedule started with the Belmont Stakes on June 20, at the shortened distance of 1+1⁄8 miles (9 furlongs). The Kentucky Derby ran on September 5, and finally the Preakness on October 3. 2020 also marked the first time for the Belmont Stakes to be run as the opening leg of the Triple Crown.
Each Triple Crown race is open to both colts and fillies. Although fillies have won each of the individual Triple Crown races, none has won the Triple Crown itself. Despite attempts to develop a "Filly Triple Crown" or a "Triple Tiara" for fillies only, no set series of three races has consistently remained in the public eye, and at least four different types of races have been used. Two fillies won the series of the Kentucky Oaks, the Pimlico Oaks (now the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes), and the Coaching Club American Oaks, in 1949 and 1952, but the racing press did not designate either accomplishment as a "Triple Crown". In 1961, the New York Racing Association created a filly Triple Crown of in-state races only, but the races changed over the years. Eight fillies won the NYRA Triple Tiara between 1968 and 1993.
Gelded colts may run in any of the three races today, but they were prohibited from entering the Belmont between 1919 and 1957. Geldings have won each of the individual races, but like fillies, no gelding has ever won the Triple Crown. The closest was Funny Cide, who won the Derby and the Preakness in 2003.
Each of the races is held on a dirt track, rather than the turf surfaces commonly used for important races elsewhere in the world.
=== 2024–2026 changes ===
In 2024 and 2025, the Belmont Stakes was run at Saratoga Race Course at the shorter distance of 1+1⁄4 miles due to the construction of a new grandstand and racing surface at Belmont Park.
In 2026 the Belmont Stakes will be run again at Saratoga, while the second race in the series, the Preakness Stakes, will be run at Maryland's Laurel Park because of renovations at Pimlico Race Course. The Preakness and Belmont are expected to return in 2027 to Pimlico and Belmont Park, respectively.
== Winners ==
At completion of the 2016 season, the three Triple Crown races have attracted 4,224 entrants. Of these, 292 horses have won a single leg of the Triple Crown, 52 horses have won two of the races (23 the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, 18 the Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes, and 11 the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes), and 13 horses have won all three races. Pillory won both the Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes in 1922, a year when it was impossible to win the Triple Crown because the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes were run on the same day.
10 of the 13 winners have been "homebreds", owned at the time of their win by their breeders.
Jim Fitzsimmons and Bob Baffert are the only two trainers to have two horses win the Triple Crown, with Fitzsimmons training the sire/son combination of 1930 winner Gallant Fox and 1935 winner Omaha and Baffert training 2015 winner American Pharoah and 2018 winner Justify. The wins by Fitzsimmons were also the first time that an owner and the first time that a breeder, Belair Stud holding both duties, had a repeat win of the Triple Crown. Calumet Farm is the only other owner with two Triple Crown horses, 1941 winner Whirlaway and 1948 winner Citation. Eddie Arcaro is the only jockey to ride two horses to the Triple Crown, both for Calumet: Whirlaway and Citation. Those two horses' trainers, Ben Jones and Jimmy Jones, were father and son.
All 13 horses were foaled in the United States. Most owners, trainers, and jockeys were American-born, though there were a number of exceptions: jockey Johnny Longden was born in England and raised in Canada; Ron Turcotte was Canadian. French-born jockey Jean Cruguet; and jockey Victor Espinoza, from Mexico. Jockey Willie Saunders is considered a Canadian jockey because he spent part of his childhood there, but was born in Montana. Laz Barrera, trainer of Affirmed, was from Cuba; Secretariat's trainer, Lucien Laurin was Canadian. Owner Fannie Hertz was married to John D. Hertz, who was born in Slovakia; owner Ahmed Zayat was born in Egypt. The horse Sir Barton was foaled in the United States but had a Canadian owner, J. K. L. Ross, at the time of his Triple Crown win. Justify's large ownership group included individuals from both the United States and China.
=== Records ===
Secretariat holds the stakes record for each of the Triple Crown races, the Kentucky Derby (1:59 2/5 ) the Preakness Stakes (1:53), and the Belmont Stakes (2:24).
At 18, Steve Cauthen became the youngest jockey to win the Triple Crown, riding Affirmed in 1978. At 52, Mike Smith became the oldest jockey to win the Triple Crown, riding Justify in 2018.
=== Other notable achievements ===
Only one horse, Alydar, placed (finished second) in all three races. He was defeated each time by Affirmed in 1978 by a combined margin of two lengths. His trainer John Veitch is the only trainer to have done this with one horse. In 1995, D. Wayne Lukas became the first and only major figure (owner, jockey, or trainer) to win all three Triple Crown races with different horses, Thunder Gulch in the Derby and Belmont, Timber Country in the Preakness. Lukas also is the only trainer to have won six consecutive Triple Crown races, adding his 1995 wins, having won the 1994 Preakness and Belmont with Tabasco Cat and the 1996 Derby with Grindstone.
Like Veitch, only with two different horses, Bob Baffert also had second-place finishes in all three legs of the Triple Crown, both owned by Ahmed Zayat: in 2012, Bodemeister finished second in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness stakes to I'll Have Another, then Paynter was entered and finished second to Union Rags. Baffert and Zayat teamed up again for the 2015 Triple Crown victory of American Pharoah.
Gallant Fox is the only Triple Crown winner to sire another U.S. Triple Crown winner, Omaha. Affirmed sired Peteski, winner of the 1993 Canadian Triple Crown.
Jockey Julie Krone became the first (and currently only) woman to win a Triple Crown race when she won the 1993 Belmont Stakes aboard Colonial Affair.
Whirlaway, in addition to winning the 1941 Triple Crown, also won the Travers Stakes that year, the first and only horse to date to accomplish that feat. American Pharoah, in addition to winning the 2015 Triple Crown, also won the Breeders' Cup Classic that year. As the Breeders' Cup was not established until 1984, American Pharoah was the first (and currently only) horse to sweep those four races, a feat now known as the Grand Slam.
Arcangelo won the 2023 Belmont Stakes, making Jena Antonucci the first female trainer to win a Triple Crown race.
== Gaps between wins ==
After the first Triple Crown winner, Sir Barton, in 1919, there was not another winner until Gallant Fox in 1930, a gap of 11 years. Between 1930 and 1948, seven horses won the Triple Crown, with five years being the longest gap between winners. However, following the 1948 win of Citation, there was a considerable gap of 25 years before Secretariat ended the drought of Triple Crown champions in 1973. Between 1973 and 1978, there were three Triple Crown winners.
After Affirmed's Triple Crown in 1978, the longest drought in Triple Crown history began in 1979 with Spectacular Bid's failed Triple Crown attempt when he finished third in the Belmont. It lasted until American Pharoah won in 2015, a gap of 37 years.
Between 1979 and 2014, thirteen horses won both the Derby and Preakness, but not the Belmont. Of those, Real Quiet came the closest, losing the Belmont Stakes by a nose in 1998. Another dramatic near-miss was Charismatic, who led the Belmont Stakes in the final furlong in 1999, but fractured his left front leg in the final stretch and fell back to third. Five other horses lost the Kentucky Derby but won the Preakness and the Belmont, and three won the Derby and the Belmont, but not the Preakness.The 37-year gap between the Triple Crown wins of Affirmed and American Pharoah drew criticism of the system. As far back as 1986, reporters noted that horses who were fresh for the Belmont had an advantage. In 2003, Gary Stevens stated in an interview with Charlie Rose that he did not believe there would be another Triple Crown winner because of the tendency for owners to put fresh horses in the Preakness and Belmont Stakes. California Chrome co-owner Steve Coburn was particularly critical of the Triple Crown system in post-Belmont remarks in 2014; he considered the system to be unfair, arguing that there would never be another Triple Crown winner in his lifetime unless only horses that competed in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness competed at the Belmont. By 2014, six of the previous eight Belmont winners had not competed in either of the first two legs of the Triple Crown. Additionally, from 2006 to 2014, the Belmont winner was a horse who had not competed in the Preakness.
== Unsuccessful bids ==
Since all three events were inaugurated, as of 2025, 23 horses have won the Derby and Preakness but not the Belmont (ten of which placed):
1932: Burgoo King did not enter the Belmont due to lameness.:78, 182
1936: Bold Venture did not enter the Belmont due to lameness.:78, 182
1944: Pensive was the first horse to contest but lose the Belmont after winning the first two legs. He placed second to Bounding Home,:78 who had neither run in the Derby nor the Preakness.
1958: Tim Tam, defeated by six lengths by Cavan, who had neither contested the Derby nor Preakness.
1961: Carry Back, "sore" after the race, was seventh of nine entries, 14+1⁄2 lengths behind the winner, a longshot named Sherluck.
1964: Northern Dancer, defeated by Quadrangle.
1966: Kauai King, defeated by Amberoid.
1968: Forward Pass, defeated by Stage Door Johnny by 1+1⁄4 lengths.
1969: Majestic Prince, second by 5+1⁄2 lengths to Arts and Letters. Loss attributed to fatigue and lameness.
1971: Cañonero II, fourth in the Belmont to 34–1 longshot Pass Catcher, the loss attributed to a hoof problem.
1979: Spectacular Bid, third in Belmont, was alleged to have stepped on a safety pin the morning of the race, though another theory blamed rider error by an inexperienced young jockey moving him too soon. He finished 3+1⁄4 lengths behind Coastal and a neck behind the second-place horse, Golden Act.
1981: Pleasant Colony, third in Belmont, 1+1⁄2 lengths behind Summing and the second-place horse, Highland Blade.
1987: Alysheba finished fourth in Belmont behind Bet Twice, Cryptoclearance, and Gulch.
1989: Sunday Silence, second in Belmont, eight lengths behind Easy Goer.
1997: Silver Charm, second in Belmont, 3⁄4 length behind Touch Gold.
1998: Real Quiet, second in Belmont after a photo finish, a nose behind Victory Gallop.
1999: Charismatic, third in Belmont, 1+1⁄2 lengths behind Lemon Drop Kid and second-place Vision and Verse. Charismatic was pulled up soon after the finish, vanned off with a bone fracture. He survived and was retired to stud.
2002: War Emblem stumbled at the gate in Belmont and finished eighth out of 11. Winner Sarava scored an upset at record odds of 70–1.
2003: Funny Cide, third in Belmont, five lengths behind Empire Maker, and 4+1⁄4 lengths behind second-place horse, Ten Most Wanted.
2004: Smarty Jones, second in Belmont, one length behind Birdstone.
2008: Big Brown was pulled up in the home stretch of the Belmont, eased to a last-place finish. The winner was Da' Tara. A hoof problem had limited Big Brown's training and may have been a factor in his defeat.
2012: I'll Have Another was scratched from the Belmont the day before the race due to a tendon injury.
2014: California Chrome finished in a dead heat for 4th in the Belmont. Another horse stepped on him leaving the gate, and he ran the race with an injury to his heel and a scrape on his tendon.
Another 30 horses have won the Belmont after winning only one of the first two legs.
== Sponsorship and broadcasting ==
The first live national television broadcast of a Triple Crown race occurred with the 1947 Belmont Stakes on CBS. The following year, the Preakness Stakes was broadcast live and the Kentucky Derby was filmed to be broadcast the following day.
Originally, the three races largely organized their own nominations procedure, marketing and television broadcast rights. In 1985, Triple Crown Productions was created when the owner of Spend a Buck chose not to run in the other two Triple Crown races because of a financial incentive offered to any Kentucky Derby winner who could win a set of competing races in New Jersey. The organizers of the three races realized that they needed to work together.
Efforts to unify the sponsorship and marketing of all three Triple Crown races began in 1987 when ABC Sports negotiated a deal with Chrysler to pay $5 million to any horse that swept all three races, and $1 million each year there was no Triple Crown sweep to the horse with the highest combined Triple Crown finish. This sponsorship lasted until 1993. The end of the $1 million participation bonus was linked to the breakdown of Prairie Bayou at the Belmont Stakes that year and the uncomfortable situation that arose when the Kentucky Derby winner, Sea Hero, was given the bonus following a seventh-place finish.
In 1995, Visa took over the sponsorship with a 10-year contract, naming the series the Visa Triple Crown and offering only the $5 million bonus to a horse that could sweep the Triple Crown. Along with sponsorship by Visa, NBC Sports paid $51.5 million for broadcast rights to all three races, with the revenue split giving 50% of the total to Churchill Downs and 25% each to Pimlico and to the New York Racing Association (NYRA).
The Visa deal—and the cooperative effort—ended after 2005. The NYRA felt that they did not get a fair share of the revenue, particularly when the Belmont had the highest ratings of all three races in the years where a Triple Crown was on the line. From 2001 through 2013, average viewership for the Belmont was 7 million when the Triple Crown was not at stake, whereas viewership averaged 13 million when it was. With the contract term ending, the NYRA went to ESPN on ABC for the 2006 Belmont, while the broadcasts of the Derby and Preakness remained with NBC. Visa chose to remain as a sponsor of only Kentucky Derby for the next five years. As a result of the divided broadcast, Triple Crown Productions was unable to obtain a new sponsor.
In 2011, NBC Sports once again became the broadcaster of all three Triple Crown races in separate broadcast deals; including an extension to its existing rights to the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, plus establishing a new 5-year deal to broadcast the Belmont Stakes after ABC and ESPN declined to renew their previous contract. All three deals last through 2015, and include supplementary coverage on NBC Sports Network for all three races. The additional coverage included 14+1⁄2 hours of Kentucky Derby pre-race coverage including an hour and a half live special for the Kentucky Oaks and six and a half hours of Preakness Stakes pre-race coverage including a one-hour live special on the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes, both carried on NBC Sports Network.
Today Triple Crown Productions LLC, based at Churchill Downs, is responsible for collecting nominations to the annual Triple Crown races.
In February 2011, ABC/ESPN dropped out of the negotiations to renew broadcast rights to the Belmont Stakes. NBC obtained the contract through 2015, once again uniting all three races on the same network. In 2014, NBC extended their contract for the Kentucky Derby through 2025. NBC then renewed its rights to the Preakness and Belmont through 2022. In January 2022, Fox Sports acquired the broadcast rights to the Belmont Stakes for eight years beginning in 2023.
== Individual race winners ==
Notes
[Fy] Denotes a filly. Fillies won the Kentucky Derby in 1915, 1980, and 1988, Preakness Stakes in 1903, 1906, 1915, 1924, 2009, and 2020, and Belmont Stakes in 1867, 1905, and 2007.
RNR Race not run. The Belmont was not run in 1911 and 1912 due to anti-betting legislation passed in New York State. The Preakness did not run 1891–1893. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_Mosaner | Amos Mosaner | Amos Mosaner (Pronunciation [ˈaːmoʃ moˈʒaːner]; Standard Italian pronunciation [ˈaːmos moˈzaːner]; born 12 March 1995) is an Italian curler from Cembra. He is an Olympic gold medallist, having won the mixed doubles event at the 2022 Winter Olympics with partner Stefania Constantini. Mosaner was also the Italian flagbearer for the Opening Ceremonies in Italy at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo.
== Career ==
=== Juniors ===
As a junior curler, Mosaner represented Italy in four World Junior Curling Championships. He played third for Italy at the 2012 World Junior Curling Championships on a team skipped by Andrea Pilzer. The team finished 9th. Mosaner then became skip of the Italian junior team for the next three World Juniors. At the 2013 World Junior Curling Championships, Mosaner led his team of Pilzer, Daniele Ferrazza, and Roberto Arman to a 6th-place finish (5-4 record). At the 2014 World Junior Curling Championships, he led his team of Sebastiano Arman, Ferrazza, and Roberto Arman to a 5th-place finish, losing in a tie-breaker to Switzerland. Finally, at the 2015 World Junior Curling Championships, he was less successful, leading his team of Sebastiano Arman, Carlo Gottardi and Fabio Ribotta to an 8th-place finish (3-6).
While Mosaner played in four World Juniors, the highlight of his junior career came at the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics, where he skipped Italy to a silver medal finish. After a 4-3 round robin record, he led his team of Denise Pimpini, Alessandro Zoppi, and Adriana Losano to playoff wins against the United States and Canada before losing to Switzerland in the final. During his junior career, Mosaner and his junior team were named the Italian men's team at the 2013 European Curling Championships. He led his teammates of Pilzer, Ferrazza, and Roberto Arman to a 12th-place finish. While Mosaner was still in juniors, he would skip the men's team and return to the 2014 European Curling Championships. After finishing the round robin in 2nd place with a 7-2 record, they lost all of their playoff games, including the bronze medal match, settling for 4th. However, this placement qualified Italy to play in the 2015 Ford World Men's Curling Championship. The team would add veteran Joel Retornaz to skip the team for the Worlds, with Mosaner throwing last rocks. There, the team finished 10th.
=== Men's ===
The following season, the team finished 8th at the 2015 European Curling Championships, failing to qualify the country for the Worlds. For the 2016-17 season, Mosaner moved to the third position on the team. They finished 7th at the 2016 European Curling Championships and qualified for the 2017 World Men's Curling Championship. Mosaner resumed his position, throwing fourth rocks on the team, which finished 9th overall. The team finished 8th at the 2017 European Curling Championships but had much more success a month later at the 2018 Winter Olympic Qualification Event. The team won the event, qualifying Italy for the 2018 Winter Olympics, where they finished 9th. They finished the season finishing 8th at the 2018 World Men's Curling Championship.
Mosaner and Team Retornaz represented Italy again at the 2018 European Curling Championships, where the country won its first medal at the event since 1979, picking up a bronze. That would qualify them for the 2019 World Men's Curling Championship, where they finished in 7th place. After the 2020 World Men's Curling Championship was canceled due to the pandemic, Team Retornaz represented Italy at the 2021 World Men's Curling Championship in Calgary, Alberta where they finished with a 7–6 record, just missing the playoffs. However, this result would qualify them to represent Italy again at the Olympics in 2022. Coming off his gold medal performance in mixed doubles, Mosaner and Team Retornaz would finish in 9th place with a 3-6 round robin record.
With Team Retornaz preparing for the 2026 Winter Olympics, in which it would be hosted by their home country of Italy at Cortina d'Ampezzo, they would start to find more success. Notably, they would win 4 Grand Slam of Curling events (the most ever for an Italian team) at the 2022 Masters, 2023 Tour Challenge, 2023 National, and 2023 Masters. They would also win Italy's first medals at the World Men's Curling Championship, with two bronze medals in 2022 and in 2024.
=== Mixed doubles ===
Mosaner began playing mixed doubles with Alice Cobelli, and the duo, after winning the 2019 Italian Mixed Doubles Curling Championship, competed in the 2019 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship. The pair finished the round robin with a 5-2 record, in third place in their group. However, the pair missed out on the playoffs as their draw shot challenge (DSC) record was not good enough compared to the other third-place teams. In January 2020, Mosaner and Cobelli won 2020 Italian Mixed Doubles Curling Championship and was supposed to represent Italy on 2020 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship before the event was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mosaner played in the 2022 Winter Olympics in mixed doubles alongside Stefania Constantini. At the Olympics, the team went undefeated, beating Norway's Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten 8-5 in the gold medal game, winning Italy's first olympic curling medal.
Mosaner returned to mixed doubles with Constantini at the 2025 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship, the team would again go undefeated to win the World Championship, beating Scotland's Jennifer Dodds and Bruce Mouat 9-4 in the gold medal game.
== Personal life ==
In 2015, Mosaner was employed as a farmer. He is now a full-time curler. He is in a relationship with fellow curler Alice Cobelli. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Brussels | City of Brussels | The City of Brussels is the largest municipality and historical centre of the Brussels-Capital Region, as well as the capital of the French Community of Belgium, the Flemish Region (from which it is separate) and Belgium. The City of Brussels is also the administrative centre of the European Union, as it hosts a number of principal EU institutions in its European Quarter.
Besides the central historic town located within the Pentagon, the City of Brussels covers some of the city's immediate outskirts within the greater Brussels-Capital Region, namely the former municipalities of Haren, Laeken, and Neder-Over-Heembeek to the north, as well as the Avenue Louise/Louizalaan and the Bois de la Cambre/Ter Kamerenbos park to the south-east, where it borders municipalities in Flanders.
As of 1 January 2024, the City of Brussels had a population of 196,828 inhabitants. The total area is 33.09 km2 (12.78 sq mi), which gives a population density of 5,949/km2 (15,410/sq mi). As of 2023, there were 75,998 registered non-Belgians in the City. In common with all of Brussels' municipalities, it is legally bilingual (French–Dutch).
== Territorial history ==
Historically, the City of Brussels was simply defined, being the area within the second walls of Brussels, the modern-day Small Ring (Brussels' inner ring road). As the city grew, so did the surrounding villages, eventually forming a contiguous city, though the local governments retained control of their respective areas.
At the country's independence in 1830, the new members of the Belgian upper class hoped to create a new prestigious residential area in the capital. An official plan for the Leopold Quarter was drawn up in 1838, marking the first major extension of the City of Brussels in its eastern part, following the transfer of a large area of the municipality of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode. The area was designed to emanate from Brussels Park (located in front of the Royal Palace), and was laid out on a grid in a traditional classical pattern centred around the Square Frère Orban/Frère-Orbansquare.
Shortly afterwards, in 1844, the Avenue Louise/Louizalaan was proposed as a monumental avenue bordered by chestnut trees that would allow easy access from Brussels' city centre to the popular recreational area of the Bois de la Cambre/Ter Kamerenbos. However, fierce resistance to the project was put up by the towns of Saint-Gilles and Ixelles—then, as now, separate municipalities (local authorities) from the City of Brussels—through whose territories the avenue was to run. After years of fruitless negotiations, the City of Brussels finally annexed the narrow band of land needed for the avenue, in addition to the Bois de la Cambre itself, in April 1864. That decision accounts for the unusual shape of today's City of Brussels and for the separation of Ixelles into two separate areas.
To the east, in 1853, following the bankruptcy of Saint-Josse's municipal administration, the City of Brussels purchased half of this municipality. Nowadays, this is the Squares Quarter, the only part of the Brussels municipality to have the same postal code (1040) as the municipality of Etterbeek. Further east, in 1880, a former military exercise ground and the surrounding land, also located in Etterbeek, were attached to the City to create the Parc du Cinquantenaire/Jubelpark, an exhibition space commemorating the 50th anniversary of independence. A leisure park and museums were subsequently set up there.
Unlike most of the municipalities in Belgium, the ones now located in the Brussels-Capital Region were not merged with others during mergers occurring in 1964, 1970, and 1975. However, a few neighbouring municipalities have been merged into the City of Brussels, including Haren, Laeken and Neder-Over-Heembeek in 1921. These comprise the northern bulge in the municipality. To the south-east is the above-mentioned strip of land along the Avenue Louise that was annexed from Saint-Gilles and Ixelles. Part of the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB)'s Solbosch/Solbos campus is also part of the City of Brussels, partially accounting for the bulge in the south-eastern end.
== Demographics ==
=== Historical population ===
As of 1 January 2024, the City of Brussels' population was 196,828 inhabitants. The area is 33.09 km2 (12.78 sq mi), making the density 5,949/km2 (15,410/sq mi).
Taking into account the current municipality, including the former municipalities annexed in 1921 (Haren, Laeken and Neder-over-Heembeek) from 1831:
Sources: INS: 1806 to 1981 = census; 1990 and later = population on 1 January
=== Foreign population ===
The City of Brussels has a large immigrant population, with both the EU and non-European migrant communities outnumbering the native Belgians. Akin to neighbouring Ixelles, Etterbeek and Schaerbeek, the City of Brussels also has a large Muslim population, mainly of North African origin.
As of 2023, taking into account the nationality of birth of the parents, 55.84% of the City of Brussels's population is of non-European origin (predominantly Moroccan, Indian and Congolese), 27.21% is of European origin other than Belgian (mainly French, Romanian, Italian, Spanish, and Polish), while 16.94% is solely of native Belgian ancestry. Among all major migrant groups from outside the EU, a majority of the permanent residents have acquired Belgian nationality.
Migrant communities in the City of Brussels with over 1,000 people as of 1 January 2020:
== Politics ==
As in every other Belgian municipality, the City of Brussels is headed by a mayor, who should not be confused with the Minister-President of the Brussels-Capital Region or the Governor of Brussels-Capital. The current city council was elected in the October 2018 elections. The current mayor of the City of Brussels is Philippe Close, a member of PS, who is in coalition on the municipal council with Ecolo - Groen, DéFI and Forward.
=== Environmental policy ===
Brussels is ranked sixth in the index of cities which are becoming greener fastest as for the year 2022, even though in the past it had a reputation of a "traffic-choked city of high rises and concrete". The authorities released a plan composed of seven steps on how to make the city even more sustainable. Those include introducing "a use-based, circular and low-carbon economy" and making the city "proactive". The city should become a "10-minute city" meaning "making the facilities essential to urban life accessible to every inhabitant in less than 10 minutes". Green spaces should be expanded. The plan includes participation of the population in decision-making and high life level for all.
== Culture ==
== Honorary citizens ==
Among the recipients of the honorary citizenship of the City of Brussels are:
== Symbols ==
=== Heraldry ===
=== Vexillology === |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial | E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial | E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (or simply E.T.) is a 1982 American science fiction film produced and directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Melissa Mathison. It tells the story of Elliott, a boy who befriends an extraterrestrial that he names E.T. who has been stranded on Earth. Along with his friends and family, Elliott must find a way to help E.T. find his way home. The film stars Dee Wallace, Henry Thomas, Peter Coyote, Robert MacNaughton, and Drew Barrymore.
The film's concept was based on an imaginary friend that Spielberg created after his parents' divorce. In 1980, Spielberg met Mathison and developed a new story from the unrealized project Night Skies. In less than two months, Mathison wrote the first draft of the script, titled E.T. and Me, which went through two rewrites. The project was rejected by Columbia Pictures, who doubted its commercial potential. Universal Pictures eventually purchased the script for $1 million. Filming took place from September to December 1981 on a budget of $10.5 million. Unlike most films, E.T. was shot in rough chronological order to facilitate convincing emotional performances from the young cast. The animatronics for the film were designed by Carlo Rambaldi.
E.T. premiered as the closing film of the Cannes Film Festival on May 26, 1982, and was released in the United States on June 11. The film was a smash hit at the box office, surpassing Star Wars (1977) to become the highest-grossing film of all time, a record it held for eleven years until Spielberg's own Jurassic Park surpassed it in 1993. E.T. received universal acclaim from critics, and is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. It received nine nominations at the 55th Academy Awards, winning Best Original Score, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound, and Best Sound Editing in addition to being nominated for Best Picture and Best Director. It also won five Saturn Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. The film was re-released in 1985 and again in 2002 to celebrate its 20th anniversary, with altered shots, visual effects, and additional scenes. It was also re-released in IMAX on August 12, 2022, to celebrate its 40th anniversary. In 1994, the film was added to the United States National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, who deemed it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
== Plot ==
A race of diminutive aliens visit Earth at night to gather plant specimens in a California forest. One of them, fascinated by the distant lights of a neighborhood, separates from the group, before U.S. government agents arrive and chase the startled creature. The aliens are forced to depart before the agents can find them, leaving their lone member behind. While the agents search the forest, the creature takes shelter in a shed belonging to the family of ten-year-old Elliott Taylor. Initially scared by the creature, who runs away, Elliott spends the following day leaving a trail of Reese's Pieces to lure the alien back to the Taylors' home, where he hides the creature in his room. The following morning, Elliott feigns illness to stay off school and play with the creature, whom he dubs E.T. Elliott eventually introduces E.T. to his older brother, Michael, and five-year-old sister Gertie, who agree to keep E.T. hidden from their hardworking single mother, Mary.
When the children ask about his origins, E.T. displays telekinetic abilities by levitating several balls to represent his planetary system, and later demonstrates other extraordinary abilities by reviving a dead chrysanthemum and instantly healing a cut on Elliott's finger. As Elliott and the creature begin to bond, they start to share thoughts and emotions, the two being simultaneously startled when E.T. accidentally opens an umbrella in a different room. At school, Elliott becomes intoxicated because, at home, E.T. is drinking beer and watching television. Sensing E.T.'s desire to be rescued, Elliott impulsively frees the frogs about to be vivisected in his biology class, inspiring the other children to follow his lead, and romantically kisses a girl he likes because E.T. is watching John Wayne kiss Maureen O'Hara in The Quiet Man (1952), Elliott is sent to the principal's office for his disruptive behavior.
Inspired by a Buck Rogers comic strip, depicting the character calling for help with a communication device, E.T. builds a makeshift device to "phone home", using various parts around the Taylor home. E.T. also learns to speak English, and requests the children's help to build the device. They agree to help find the missing components, unaware that agents are covertly searching for the alien. On Halloween, the children disguise E.T. as a ghost and Elliott sneaks E.T. into the forest, where they set up the device to call E.T.'s people. Elliott begs E.T. to stay on Earth with him, before falling asleep and waking alone in the forest the next day. Elliott returns home to his worried family, while Michael searches for E.T., finding him pale and weakened in a culvert. He takes him home, where Elliott is also growing weaker, and reveals the creature to Mary just before government agents invade and quarantine the house.
The lead agent, Keys, asks for Elliott's help to save E.T., stating that meeting aliens was his childhood dream and he considers E.T's arrival a genuine miracle. However, E.T. dies while Elliott rapidly recovers. Left alone to say goodbye, Elliott tells E.T. that he loves him, so E.T.'s heart begins to glow and he is revived and restored to health. E.T. tells Elliott that his people are returning for him. Elliott and Michael flee with E.T. on their bikes, flanked by Michael's friends who help them evade the pursuing authorities. Heading towards a roadblock, E.T. levitates the boys to safety and lands them in the forest. E.T.'s ship arrives, and he says goodbye to Michael and Gertie, who gifts him the chrysanthemum he previously revived. Elliott tearfully asks E.T. to stay, but E.T. places his glowing finger on Elliott's head and tells him that he will always be there. The children, Mary, and Keys observe as the ship blasts off into space, leaving a rainbow in the sky.
== Cast ==
Henry Thomas as Elliott Taylor, a 10-year-old boy who befriends E.T.
Dee Wallace as Mary Taylor, a single mother to Elliott, Michael and Gertie
Robert MacNaughton as Michael Taylor, Elliott and Gertie's older brother
Drew Barrymore as Gertie Taylor, Elliott and Michael's younger sister
Peter Coyote as Keys, a government agent bent on capturing E.T.
K. C. Martel as Greg, a friend of Michael
Sean Frye as Steve, a friend of Michael
C. Thomas Howell as Tyler, a friend of Michael
Erika Eleniak as a classmate whom Elliott kisses
Pat Welsh as E.T. (voice, uncredited)
== Production ==
=== Development ===
After his parents' divorce in 1960, Steven Spielberg filled the void with an imaginary alien companion that he later recalled as "a friend who could be the brother [he] never had and a father that [he] didn't feel [he] had anymore". In 1978, he announced that he would shoot a film entitled Growing Up, which he would film in four weeks. However, the project was set aside due to delays on 1941, but the concept of making a small autobiographical film about childhood would stay with him. He also thought about a follow-up to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and began to develop a darker project he had planned with John Sayles called Night Skies, in which malevolent aliens terrorize a family.
Filming Raiders of the Lost Ark in Tunisia caused a sense of loneliness in Spielberg, far from his family and friends, and made memories of his childhood creation resurface. He told screenwriter Melissa Mathison about Night Skies, and developed a subplot from the failed project in which Buddy, the only friendly alien, befriends an autistic child. Buddy's abandonment on Earth in the script's final scene inspired the concept of E.T. Mathison wrote a first draft titled E.T. and Me in eight weeks, which Spielberg considered perfect. The script went through two more drafts, one by Matthew Robbins which deleted an "Eddie Haskell"–esque friend of Elliott's, named Lance. Robbins helped create the chase sequence and he suggested the scene where E.T. got drunk.
In mid-1981, while Raiders of the Lost Ark was being promoted, Columbia Pictures met with Spielberg to discuss the script, after having to develop Night Skies with the director as the intended sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. However, Marvin Atonowsky, the head of Columbia Pictures' marketing and research development, concluded that it had limited commercial potential, believing that it would appeal to mostly young children. John Veitch, president of Columbia's worldwide productions, also felt that the script was not good or scary enough to be financially viable. On the advice of Atonowsky and Veitch, Columbia CEO Frank Price, who had already funneled nearly $1 million into the film's development (mostly on creature designer Rick Baker's alien models), was now calling it "a wimpy Walt Disney movie". He informed Spielberg that the project was officially being put into turnaround; Spielberg took the project to Sid Sheinberg, president of MCA, then the parent company of Universal Pictures. Spielberg told Sheinberg to acquire the E.T. script from Columbia Pictures, which he did for $1 million and struck a deal with Price in which Columbia would retain 5% of the film's net profits. Veitch later recalled that "I think [in 1982] we made more on that picture than we did on any of our films."
=== Pre-production ===
Carlo Rambaldi, who designed the aliens for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, was hired to design the animatronics for E.T. Rambaldi's own painting Women of Delta led him to give the creature a unique, extendable neck. Its face was inspired by those of Carl Sandburg, Albert Einstein and Ernest Hemingway. Producer Kathleen Kennedy visited the Jules Stein Eye Institute to study real and glass eyes. She hired Institute staffers to create E.T.'s eyes, which she felt were particularly important in engaging the audience. Four heads were created for filming, one as the main animatronic and the others for facial expressions, as well as a costume. A team of puppeteers controlled E.T.'s face with animatronics. Two little people, Tamara De Treaux and Pat Bilon, as well as 12-year-old Matthew DeMeritt, who was born without legs, took turns wearing the costume, depending on what scene was being filmed. DeMeritt actually walked on his hands and played all scenes where E.T. walked awkwardly or fell over. The head was placed above that of the actors, and the actors could see through slits in its chest. Caprice Roth, a professional mime, filled prosthetics to play E.T.'s hands. The puppet was created in three months at the cost of $1.5 million. Spielberg declared that it was "something that only a mother could love".
Mars, Incorporated refused to allow M&M's to be used in the film, believing that E.T. would frighten children. The Hershey Company was asked if Reese's Pieces could be used, and it agreed. This product placement resulted in a large increase in Reese's Pieces sales.
Science and technology educator Henry Feinberg created E.T.'s communicator device.
=== Casting ===
Having worked with Cary Guffey on Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg felt confident in working with a cast composed mostly of child actors. For the role of Elliott, he auditioned hundreds of boys, including Keith Coogan; before Jack Fisk suggested Henry Thomas for the role because Henry had played the part of Harry in the film Raggedy Man, which Fisk had directed. Thomas, who auditioned in an Indiana Jones costume, did not perform well in the formal testing, but got the filmmakers' attention in an improvised scene. Thoughts of his dead dog inspired his convincing tears. Robert MacNaughton auditioned eight times to play Michael, sometimes with boys auditioning for Elliott. Spielberg felt that Drew Barrymore had the right imagination for the mischievous Gertie after she impressed him with a story that she led a punk rock band. He enjoyed working with the children, and he later said that the experience made him feel ready to be a father. Ralph Macchio was considered for the role of Tyler, before it went to his eventual The Outsiders co-star C. Thomas Howell.
The major voice work of E.T. for the film was performed by Pat Welsh. She smoked two packs of cigarettes a day, which gave her voice a quality that sound effects creator Ben Burtt liked. She spent nine-and-a-half hours recording her part, and was paid $380 by Burtt for her services. He also recorded 16 other people and various animals to create E.T.'s "voice". These included Spielberg, actress Debra Winger, his sleeping wife sick with a cold, a burp from his University of Southern California film professor, raccoons, otters, and horses.
Doctors working at the USC Medical Center were recruited to play the ones who try to save E.T. after government agents take over Elliott's house. Spielberg felt that actors in the roles, performing lines of technical medical dialogue, would come across as unnatural. During post-production, he decided to cut a scene featuring Harrison Ford as the principal at Elliott's school. It featured his character reprimanding Elliott for his behavior in biology class and warning of the dangers of underage drinking. He is then taken aback as Elliott's chair rises from the floor, while E.T. is levitating his "phone" equipment up the stairs with Gertie. Ford's face is never seen. The footage of this scene was included on the film's 1996 LaserDisc release as a bonus feature. It was not included on the DVD and Blu-ray releases that followed.
=== Filming ===
Principal photography began in neighborhoods in Los Angeles County and in the San Fernando Valley on September 8, 1981. The project was filmed under the cover name A Boy's Life, as Spielberg did not want anyone to discover and plagiarize the plot. The actors had to read the script behind closed doors, and everyone on set had to wear an ID card. The shoot began with two days at Culver City High School, and the crew spent the next 11 days moving between locations at Northridge and Tujunga. The next 42 days were spent at Laird International Studios in Culver City for the interiors of Elliott's home. The crew shot at a redwood forest near Crescent City in Northern California for the production's last six days. The exterior Halloween scene and the "flying bicycle" chase scenes were filmed in Porter Ranch.
Spielberg shot the film in roughly chronological order to achieve convincing emotional performances from his cast; it was also done to help the child actors with the workload. Spielberg calculated that the film would hit home harder if the children were really saying goodbye to E.T. at the end. In the scene in which Michael first encounters E.T., his appearance caused MacNaughton to jump back and knock down the shelves behind him. The chronological shoot gave the young actors an emotional experience as they bonded with E.T., making the quarantine sequences more moving. Spielberg ensured that the puppeteers were kept away from the set to maintain the illusion of a real alien. For the first time in his career, Spielberg did not storyboard most of the film, in order to facilitate spontaneity in the performances. The film was shot so adults, except for Dee Wallace, are never seen from the waist up in its first half, as a tribute to the cartoons of Tex Avery. According to Spielberg, the scene in which E.T. disguises himself as a stuffed toy in Elliott's closet was suggested by fellow director Robert Zemeckis after he read a draft of the screenplay that Spielberg had sent him. In between takes, the young actors spent time doing activities such as riding bicycles around the sound stages, playing Dungeons & Dragons, the game that Elliott, Michael, Steve, Tyler, and Greg play in a scene early in the film, and attending school lessons. The shoot was completed in 61 days, four ahead of schedule.
In a 2022 interview, Sean Frye, who played Steve, revealed how the visual effect close-up shots for the climax of the "flying bicycle" chase scene were filmed and reflected on the experience, saying: "We were on these rigs ... They're pulling the trees backwards, past us on tracks, so it looks like we're going through and up and through and over to create this illusion that we're going forward when we're going nowhere. Then the pushing and pulling of the things so that the bike is up and down, and we can get the 'Whoaaaa' effects. That was great." BMX riders Robert Cardoza, Greg Maes, and David Lee served as stunt doubles for the scene.
== Soundtrack ==
Spielberg's regular collaborator John Williams described the challenge of creating a score that would generate sympathy for such an odd-looking creature. As with their previous collaborations, Spielberg liked every theme Williams composed and had it included. Spielberg loved the music for the final chase so much that he edited the sequence to suit it. Williams took a modernist approach, especially with his use of polytonality, which refers to the sound of two different keys played simultaneously. The Lydian mode can also be used in a polytonal way. Williams combined polytonality and the Lydian mode to express a mystic, dreamlike and heroic quality. His theme, emphasizing coloristic instruments such as the harp, piano, celesta, and other keyboards, as well as percussion, suggests E.T.'s childlike nature and his "machine". The soundtrack album was first released on June 11, 1982, the same day as the film. An audiobook companion album featuring Williams's score, produced by Quincy Jones and narrated by Michael Jackson, was released on November 15, 1982, exactly two weeks prior to Jackson's acclaimed sixth studio album Thriller.
== Themes ==
Spielberg drew the story of the film from his parents' divorce. Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called it "essentially a spiritual autobiography, a portrait of the filmmaker as a typical suburban kid set apart by an uncommonly fervent, mystical imagination." References to Spielberg's childhood occur throughout: Elliott fakes illness by holding a thermometer to the bulb in his lamp while covering his face with a heating pad, a trick frequently employed by the young Spielberg. Michael picking on Elliott echoes Spielberg's teasing of his younger sisters, and Michael's evolution from tormentor to protector reflects how Spielberg had to take care of his sisters after their father left.
Critics have focused on the parallels between the lives of E.T. and Elliott, who is "alienated" by the loss of his father. Pauline Kael noted that "Elliot (his name begins with an 'E' and ends with a T.') is a dutiful, too sober boy who never takes off his invisible thinking cap; the telepathic communication he develops with E.T. eases his cautious, locked-up worries, and he begins to act on his impulses." A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote that while E.T. "is the more obvious and desperate foundling," Elliott "suffers in his own way from the want of a home." At the film's heart is the theme of growing up. Some critics have suggested that Spielberg's portrayal of suburbia is very dark, contrary to popular belief. According to A.O. Scott, "the suburban milieu, with its unsupervised children and unhappy parents, its broken toys and brand-name junk food, could have come out of a Raymond Carver story." Charles Taylor of Salon.com wrote that "Spielberg's movies, despite the way they're often characterized, are not Hollywood idealizations of families and the suburbs. The homes here bear what the cultural critic Karal Ann Marling called 'the marks of hard use'." Relatedly, scholarship has emerged on the film regarding its subversion of the nuclear family dynamic, in which Elliott is growing up with a physically absent father and an emotionally absent mother; this aspect of the movie offers an exploration of upbringing within a nontraditional family structure.
Other critics found religious parallels between E.T. and Jesus. Andrew Nigels described E.T.'s story as "crucifixion by military science" and "resurrection by love and faith." According to Spielberg biographer Joseph McBride, Universal Pictures appealed directly to the Christian market, with a poster reminiscent of Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam (more specifically the "fingers touching" detail) and a logo reading "Peace". Spielberg answered that he did not intend the film to be a religious parable, joking, "If I ever went to my mother and said, 'Mom, I've made this movie that's a Christian parable,' what do you think she'd say? She has a Kosher restaurant on Pico and Doheny in Los Angeles."
Several writers have seen the movie as a modern fairy tale. Critic Henry Sheehan described the film as a retelling of Peter Pan from the perspective of a Lost Boy (Elliott): E.T. cannot survive physically on Earth, as Pan could not survive emotionally in Neverland; government scientists take the place of Neverland's pirates. Furthering the parallels, there is a scene in the film where Mary reads Peter Pan to Gertie. Vincent Canby of The New York Times similarly observed that the film "freely recycles elements from" Peter Pan and The Wizard of Oz. Kael writes that "from the opening in the dense, vernal woodland that adjoins Elliot's suburb (it's where we first hear E.T.'s frightened sounds), the film has the soft, mysterious inexorability of the classic tale of enchantment. The little shed in the back of the house where Elliott tosses in a ball and E.T. sends it back is part of a dreamscape."
Producer Kathleen Kennedy noted that an important theme of the film is tolerance, which would be central to future Spielberg films such as Schindler's List. Having been a loner as a teenager, Spielberg described it as "a minority story". Spielberg's characteristic theme of communication is partnered with the ideal of mutual understanding; he has suggested that the story's central alien-human friendship is an analogy for how real-world adversaries can learn to overcome their differences.
== Reception ==
=== Release and sales ===
E.T. was previewed in Houston, Texas, and premiered at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival's closing gala on May 26, 1982, and was released in the United States on June 11, 1982. It opened at number one at the US box office with a gross of $11 million, and stayed at the top of the box office for six weeks; it then fluctuated between the first and second positions until October, before returning to the top spot for the final time in December following a Christmas re-release. In its second weekend, it recorded the highest-grossing second weekend of all time, surpassing the record of $10,765,687 set by Superman II in 1981. In its fourth weekend, it recorded the highest-grossing weekend of all time, surpassing the record of $16,706,592 set earlier that year by Rocky III. It had a record eight weekends with a gross of over $10 million, a feat not matched until Home Alone (1990), and set a record for being at number one for 16 weeks in total, a record it still maintains to this day.
The film began its international rollout in Australia on November 26, 1982, and grossed $839,992 in its first 10 days from nine theatres, setting five weekly house records and 43 daily records. In South Africa, it opened in late November and grossed $724,340 in eight days from 14 screens, setting 13 weekly highs. In France, it opened on December 1, and had 930,000 admissions in its first five days on 250 screens, setting an all-time record in Paris for most daily admissions (Saturday, December 4). In Japan, it opened on December 4, and grossed $1,757,527 in two days from 35 theatres in 11 cities, setting 10 house records on Saturday and 14 on Sunday. In the United Kingdom, it opened on December 9 after a charity performance in London and grossed a record £1 million in its opening weekend. The film added another 138 screens in Japan on December 11, with advance sales of 1.3 million tickets. It later opened in the Philippines in January 1983. In Finland, Norway, and Sweden, the film had minimum age ratings of 8, 12, and 11, respectively, while Denmark had no minimum age limit. There were Swedish people who were opposed to the age limit.
In 1983, E.T. surpassed Star Wars to become the highest-grossing film of all time; by the end of its theatrical run, it had grossed $359 million in the United States and Canada and $619 million worldwide. Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 120 million tickets in its initial U.S. theatrical run. Spielberg earned $500,000 a day from his share of the profits, while The Hershey Company's profits rose 65% due to the film's prominent placement of Reese's Pieces. The "Official E.T. Fan Club" offered photographs, a newsletter that let readers "relive the film's unforgettable moments [and] favorite scenes", and a vinyl record with "phone home" and other sound clips.
The film was also a merchandising success, with dolls selling 15 million units by September 1982 and becoming the best-selling toy that Christmas season. E.T. went on to generate over $1 billion in merchandise sales by 1998. Following the success of the film, Kuwahara, the company that created the BMX bikes featured in the film, began producing red and white "E.T." models in three price and quality levels. Kuwahara reissued the E.T. model in 2002, as part of the film's 20th anniversary, and again in 2022 as part of the film's 40th anniversary.
The film was re-released in 1985 and 2002, earning another $60 million and $68 million respectively, for a worldwide total of $792 million with $435 million from the United States and Canada. It held the global record until it was surpassed by Jurassic Park, another Spielberg film, in 1993, although it managed to hold on to the United States and Canada record for a further four years, until the release of the Special Edition of Star Wars.
It was re-released in IMAX on August 12, 2022, in the United States and Canada, to commemorate the film's 40th anniversary, alongside an IMAX and RealD 3D reissue of another Spielberg film Jaws scheduled for September 2. Jim Orr, Universal's president of distribution remarked "No filmmaker, it's fair to say, has had a greater or more enduring impact on American cinema or has created more indelible cinematic memories for tens of billions of people worldwide. We couldn't think of a more perfect way to celebrate the anniversary of E.T. and the first Universal-Spielberg summer blockbuster, Jaws, than to allow audiences to experience these films in a way they've never been able to before." The IMAX release grossed $490,000 on its first day from 389 theaters, for a three-day total of $1.07 million and a $438 million running total.
The film would remain one of Universal's top three highest-grossing films of all time in North America, behind Jurassic World (2015) and The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), until 2024 with the release of Wicked, the first installment of the musical's two-part film adaptation. As of 2025, the film remains the studio's fifteenth highest-grossing film of all time worldwide.
=== Home media ===
E.T. was eventually released on VHS and LaserDisc on October 27, 1988. The videos were priced with a recommended retail price of $24.95, the lowest initial price at the time for a major movie compared to the normal price of $89.95. To combat piracy, the tape guards and tape hubs on the videocassettes were colored green, and the tape itself was affixed with a small, holographic sticker of the 1963 Universal logo (much like the holograms on a credit card), and encoded with Macrovision. The film doubled the record pre-orders of Cinderella released the same month and went on to sell over 15 million VHS units in the United States, and grossed over $250 million in video sales revenue. The VHS cassette was also rented over six million times during its first two weeks in 1988, a record it held until the VHS release of Batman the following year. Conservative Christians who were still angry about Universal's release of The Last Temptation of Christ earlier in the year called for a boycott of this release. Initial orders internationally exceeded $30 million despite the film often being sold at full price, setting records in the United Kingdom with over 81,000 units and Australia with 35,500 units. It initially shipped 152,000 units in Japan and 87,000 in Germany. In 1991, Sears began selling E.T. videocassettes exclusively at their stores as part of a holiday promotion. It was reissued on VHS and LaserDisc again in 1996, with the latter including a 90-minute documentary produced and directed by Laurent Bouzereau; it included interviews with Spielberg, producer Kathleen Kennedy, composer John Williams, and other cast and crew members, as well as two theatrical trailers, an isolated music score, deleted scenes, and still galleries. The VHS included a 10-minute version of the same documentary from the LaserDisc. Both 1996 home video releases of the film were also THX certified as well. The 2012 release of E.T. on DVD and Blu-ray grossed $24.4 million in sales revenue as of 2017 in the United States.
=== Critical response ===
Upon release, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was universally praised by film critics. Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and wrote, "It works as science fiction, it's sometimes as scary as a monster movie, and at the end, when the lights go up, there's not a dry eye in the house." He later added it to his canon of "Great Movies", structuring the essay as a letter to his grandchildren about watching it with them. Of the scene with the flying bicycles, he writes: "I remember when I saw the movie at Cannes: Even the audience there, people who had seen thousands of movies, let out a whoop at that moment."
Pauline Kael for The New Yorker wrote "Spielberg respects the conventions of children's stories, and because he does he's able to create the atmosphere for a mythic experience" going on to say "Spielberg has earned the tears that some people in the audience, and not just children, shed."
Michael Sragow of Rolling Stone called Spielberg "a space age Jean Renoir. ... for the first time, [he] has put his breathtaking technical skills at the service of his deepest feelings". Derek Malcolm of The Guardian wrote that "E.T. is a superlative piece of popular cinema [...] a dream of childhood, brilliantly orchestrated to involve not only children but anyone able to remember being one". Leonard Maltin included it in his list of "100 Must-See Films of the 20th Century" as one of only two movies from the 1980s. Political commentator George Will was one of few to pan the film, feeling it spread subversive notions about childhood and science.
John Nubbin reviewed E.T. for Different Worlds magazine and stated that "E.T. is a totally enjoyable film. The detail lavished on the movie makes it an exquisite viewing experience well above the crowd of the summer releases."
The film holds a 99% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 146 reviews, and an average rating of 9.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Playing as both an exciting sci-fi adventure and a remarkable portrait of childhood, Steven Spielberg's touching tale of a homesick alien remains a piece of movie magic for young and old." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 92/100 based on 30 reviews. In addition to the film's wide acclaim, President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan were moved by it after a screening at the White House on June 27, 1982. Diana, Princess of Wales was in tears after watching it. On September 17, 1982, it was screened at the United Nations, and Spielberg received a UN Peace Medal. CinemaScore reported that audiences polled during the opening weekend gave the film a rare "A+" grade, the first film to earn that grade.
== Accolades ==
The film was nominated for nine Oscars at the 55th Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Gandhi won that award, but its director, Richard Attenborough, said, "I was certain that not only would E.T. win, but that it should win. It was inventive, powerful, wonderful. I make more mundane movies." E.T. won four Academy Awards: Best Original Score, Best Sound (Robert Knudson, Robert Glass, Don Digirolamo, and Gene Cantamessa), Best Sound Effects Editing (Charles L. Campbell and Ben Burtt), and Best Visual Effects (Carlo Rambaldi, Dennis Muren, and Kenneth F. Smith).
At the 40th Golden Globe Awards, the film won Best Picture in the Drama category and Best Original Score; it was also nominated for Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best New Male Star for Henry Thomas. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association awarded the film Best Picture, Best Director, and a "New Generation Award" for Melissa Mathison. The film won Saturn Awards for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Writing, Best Special Effects, Best Music, and Best Poster Art, while Henry Thomas, Robert McNaughton, and Drew Barrymore won Young Artist Awards. In addition to his Academy, Golden Globe and Saturn, composer John Williams won two Grammy Awards and a BAFTA for the score. The film's audiobook album also won the Grammy Award for Best Recording for Children at the 26th Annual Grammy Awards in 1984.
== Legacy ==
In American Film Institute polls, the film has been voted the 24th greatest film of all time, the 44th most heart-pounding, and the sixth most inspiring. Other AFI polls rated it as having the 14th greatest music score and as the third greatest science-fiction one. The line "E.T. phone home" was ranked 15th on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes list, and 48th on Premiere's top movie quote list. In 2005, it topped a Channel 4 poll in the UK of the 100 greatest family films, and was listed by Time as one of the 100 best movies ever made. The February 2020 issue of New York Magazine lists E.T. as among "The Best Movies That Lost Best Picture at the Oscars."
In 2003, Entertainment Weekly called the film the eighth most "tear-jerking"; in 2007, in a survey of both films and television series, the magazine declared it the seventh greatest work of science-fiction media in the past 25 years. In 2006, Writers Guild of America West ranked its screenplay 67th in WGA's list of 101 Greatest Screenplays. The Times also named it as their ninth favorite alien in a film, calling it "one of the best-loved non-humans in popular culture". It is among the top ten in the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14. In 1994, it was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2011, ABC aired Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time, revealing the results of a poll of fans conducted by ABC and People magazine: It was selected as the fifth best film of all time and the second best science fiction film. On October 22, 2012, Madame Tussauds unveiled wax likenesses of E.T. at six of its international locations.
A species of sponge, Advhena magnifica, was given the common name "E.T. sponge" due to its resemblance of the creature.
In 2023, actress Rita Moreno, who starred in Spielberg's 2021 film adaptation of the musical West Side Story, named E.T. as one of her top five favorite films, saying "Number one, it has superb child actors, which can really only happen because of Steven Spielberg. He is just great with children because he's like a child himself. It's a very interesting phenomenon."
Elements of the film, particularly the story, iconography and musical score, would go on to influence or be referenced in other media, including the films Back to the Future (1985), Stand by Me (1986), Super 8 (2011), Arrival (2016), Nope (2022) and Elio (2025), as well as the Netflix series Stranger Things (2016–2025).
=== 20th anniversary version ===
An extended version of the film, dubbed the "Special Edition" (currently out of circulation), including altered dialogue and visual effects, premiered at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on March 16, 2002; it was released on home media six days later. Certain shots of E.T. had bothered Spielberg since 1982, as he did not have enough time to perfect the animatronics. Computer-generated imagery (CGI), provided by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), was used to modify several shots, including ones of E.T. running in the opening sequence and being spotted in the cornfield. The spaceship's design was also altered to include more lights. The first flying sequence where Elliott and E.T. fly on their bicycle through the forest now had the cape of Elliott's Halloween costume flap in the wind as it appeared to have originally been intended to be, a change done to have the sequence, particularly the iconic shot of them flying past the Moon, match the film's poster and the logo of Spielberg's production company Amblin Entertainment.
Scenes shot for but not included in the original version were introduced. These included E.T. taking a bath and Gertie telling Mary that Elliott went to the forest on Halloween. Mary's dialogue, during the offscreen argument with Michael about his Halloween costume, was altered to replace the word "terrorist" with "hippie" in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks. Spielberg did not add the scene featuring Harrison Ford, feeling that would reshape the film too drastically. He became more sensitive about the scene where gun-wielding federal agents confront Elliott and his escaping friends and had them digitally replaced with walkie-talkies. Spielberg later admitted that he regretted editing out the guns from the film, stating that the film should be left untouched to represent the culture of its time.
At the premiere, John Williams conducted a live performance of the score. The new release grossed $68 million in total, with $35 million coming from Canada and the United States. The changes to it, particularly the escape scene, were criticized as political correctness. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wondered "Remember those guns the feds carried? Thanks to the miracle of digital, they're now brandishing walkie-talkies. ... Is this what two decades have done to free speech?" Chris Hewitt of Empire wrote, "The changes are surprisingly low-key ... while ILM's CGI E.T. is used sparingly as a complement to Carlo Rambaldi's extraordinary puppet." South Park ridiculed many of the changes in the 2002 episode "Free Hat".
The two-disc DVD release which followed on October 22, 2002, contained the original theatrical and 20th Anniversary extended versions of the film. The features on disc one included deleted scenes, an introduction with Spielberg, a "Reunion" featurette and a "Look Back" featurette. Disc two included a 24-minute documentary about the 20th Anniversary edition changes, a 20th Anniversary premiere featurette, John Williams' performance at the 2002 premiere, a Space Exploration game, a trailer, cast and filmmaker bios, production notes, and the still galleries ported from the 1996 LaserDisc set. The two-disc edition, as well as a three-disc collector's edition containing a "making of" book, a certificate of authenticity, a film cell, and special features that were unavailable on the two-disc edition, were placed in moratorium on December 31, 2002. Later, it was re-released on DVD as a single-disc re-issue in 2005, featuring only the 20th Anniversary version.
In a June 2011, interview, Spielberg said,
[In the future,] ... There's going to be no more digital enhancements or digital additions to anything based on any film I direct. ... When people ask me which E.T. they should look at, I always tell them to look at the original 1982 E.T. If you notice, when we did put out E.T. we put out two E.T.s. We put out the digitally enhanced version with the additional scenes and for no extra money, in the same package, we put out the original '82 version. I always tell people to go back to the '82 version.
For the film's 30th anniversary release on Blu-ray in 2012 and for its 35th anniversary release on Ultra HD Blu-ray in 2017, as well as its corresponding digital releases, only the original theatrical edition was released, with the 20th anniversary edition now out of circulation.
== Other portrayals ==
Atari, Inc. produced a video game based on the film for the Atari 2600 and hired Howard Scott Warshaw to program the game. The game was rushed in five weeks to release within the 1982 Christmas season. Released in Christmas 1982, the game was critically panned, with nearly every aspect of the game facing heavy criticism. It has since been considered to be one of the worst video games ever made. It was also a commercial failure. It has been cited as a major contributing factor to the video game industry crash of 1983, and has been frequently referenced and mocked in popular culture as a cautionary tale about the dangers of rushed game development and studio interference. In what was initially deemed an urban legend, reports from 1983 stated that as a result of overproduction and returns, millions of unsold cartridges were secretly buried in an Alamogordo, New Mexico landfill and covered with a layer of concrete. In April 2014, diggers hired to investigate the claim confirmed that the Alamogordo landfill contained many E.T. cartridges, among other games.
William Kotzwinkle, author of the film's novelization, wrote a sequel, E.T.: The Book of the Green Planet, which was published in 1985. In the novel, E.T. returns home to the planet Brodo Asogi, but is subsequently demoted and sent into exile. He attempts to return to Earth by effectively breaking all of Brodo Asogi's laws.
E.T. Adventure, a theme park ride based on the film and drawing inspiration from The Book of the Green Planet, debuted at Universal Studios Florida on June 7, 1990. The $40 million attraction features the title character saying goodbye to visitors by name, along with his home planet. In 1998, E.T. was licensed to appear in television public service announcements produced by the Progressive Corporation. The announcements featured his voice reminding drivers to "buckle up" their seat belts. Traffic signs depicting a stylized E.T. wearing one were installed on selected roads around the United States. The following year, British Telecommunications launched the "Stay in Touch" campaign, with him as the star of various advertisements. The campaign's slogan was "B.T. has E.T.", with "E.T." also taken to mean "extra technology".
At Spielberg's suggestion, George Lucas included members of E.T.'s species as background characters in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. E.T. was one of the franchises featured in the 2015 crossover game Lego Dimensions. E.T. appears as one of the playable characters, and a world based on the film where players can receive side quests from the characters is available. During E.T.'s trailer in the sketch for the series known as Meet that Hero!, Supergirl explains his backstory and how they have many things in common, including that both are aliens who crashed on Earth and how they both have superpowers that they use to help other people. In 2017, video game developer Zen Studios released a pinball adaptation as part of the Universal Classics add-on pack for the virtual pinball game Pinball FX 3. It features 3-D animated figures of Elliot, E.T. and his spacecraft.
== Sequels ==
=== Cancelled sequel ===
In July 1982, during the film's first theatrical run, Spielberg and Mathison wrote a treatment for a sequel to be titled E.T. II: Nocturnal Fears, which would have shown Elliott and his friends getting kidnapped by evil aliens, and attempting to contact E.T. for help. Spielberg decided against pursuing it, feeling it "would do nothing but rob the original of its virginity. E.T. is not about going back to the planet". Spielberg also revealed in a January 2025 interview with Indiewire that he briefly considered adapting E.T.: The Book of the Green Planet into a film. He ultimately decided against it, believing that "it was better as a novel than I think it would have been as a film." In 2022, Henry Thomas said that he hopes a feature-length sequel never gets made, but added "I guarantee you, there are a few men in a very big room now salivating and using their abacus and slide rules to come up with some really, really big numbers."
=== Short film sequel ===
On November 28, 2019, during NBC's broadcast of the 93rd Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Xfinity released a four-minute commercial directed by Lance Acord, calling it a "short film sequel" to the original film, titled A Holiday Reunion. The commercial stars Henry Thomas, reprising his role as Elliott, now an adult with a family of his own. Julianne Hoyak played his wife, Grace, while Zebastin Borjeau and Alivia Drews played their children, Elliott Jr. and Maggie. The story follows E.T. as he returns to Earth for the Christmas season, and focuses on the importance of bringing family together. References and nods to the original film are featured, such as a photo of the Taylors' family dog Harvey on the kitchen fridge and a replica of the makeshift Speak & Spell communication device.
The commercial uses a practical puppet for E.T. himself. In an interview with Deadline, Acord said that he went this route in order to elicit more realistic performances from the actors, the same way Spielberg did on the original film. John Williams' score from the original film is mixed into the commercial. Spielberg was consulted by Comcast (parent company of NBCUniversal, which itself owns Universal Pictures) before production on the commercial began.
Peter Intermaggio, SVP for Marketing Communications for Comcast, remarked on the making of the commercial: "Our goal is to show how Xfinity and Sky technology connects family, friends and loved ones, which is so important during the holidays ... The classic friendship between E.T. and Elliott resonates around the world." Before the commercial was released, Thomas assured that viewers would "get everything they want out of a sequel without the messy bits that could destroy the beauty of the original and the special place it has in people's minds and hearts ... Looking at the storyboards, I could see exactly why Steven was really behind it, because the integrity of the story isn't lost in this retelling."
The full commercial also played on Syfy and theatrically during cinema pre-shows through January 5, 2020, and a two–minute version was edited for Comcast's British subsidiary, Sky UK. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punxsutawney_Phil | Punxsutawney Phil | Punxsutawney Phil () is a groundhog residing in Young Township near Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, United States, who is the central figure in Punxsutawney's annual Groundhog Day celebration.
== Folklore ==
On February 2 each year, Punxsutawney holds a civic festival with music and food. During the ceremony, which begins well before the winter sunrise, Phil emerges from his temporary home on Gobbler's Knob, located in a rural area about 2 miles (3 km) southeast of the town. According to the tradition, if Phil sees his shadow and returns to his hole, he has predicted six more weeks of winter-like weather. If Phil does not see his shadow, he has predicted an "early spring." Punxsutawney's event is the most famous of many Groundhog Day festivals held in the United States and Canada. The event formally began in 1887, although its roots go back even further.
The event is based upon a communal light-hearted suspension of disbelief which extends to the assertion that the same groundhog has been making predictions since the 19th century.
The event is organized by the "Inner Circle" – recognizable by their top hats and tuxedos – who ostensibly communicate with Phil to receive his prediction. The vice president of the Inner Circle prepares two scrolls in advance of the actual ceremony, one proclaiming six more weeks of winter and one proclaiming an early spring. At daybreak on February 2, Punxsutawney Phil awakens from his burrow on Gobbler's Knob, is helped to the top of the stump by his handlers, and purportedly explains to the president of the Inner Circle, in a language known as "Groundhogese", whether he has seen his shadow. The president of the Inner Circle, the only person able to understand Groundhogese through his possession of an ancient acacia wood cane, then interprets Phil's message, and directs the vice president to read the proper scroll to the crowd gathered on Gobbler's Knob and the masses of faithful followers tuned in to live broadcasts around the world.
Outside of Groundhog Day, Phil resides with a mate, Phyllis, at the Punxsutawney Memorial Library in a climate-controlled environment. In March 2024, the Inner Circle announced that Phil had sired two babies, the first time in the history of the event that such a siring had happened; the birth surprised the Inner Circle, which had assumed that groundhogs do not breed in captivity. As a result of the births, the family will move permanently to Gobbler's Knob. The Inner Circle disowned the babies from ever inheriting their father's position.
== Punxsutawney Phil traditions ==
The practices and lore of Punxsutawney Phil's predictions are predicated on a light-hearted suspension of disbelief by those involved. According to the lore, there is only one Phil, and all other weather-predicting groundhogs are impostors. It is claimed that this one groundhog has lived to make weather prognostications since 1883, sustained by drinks of "groundhog punch" or "elixir of life" administered at the annual Groundhog Picnic in the fall.
According to the Groundhog Club, Phil, after the prediction, speaks to the club president in the language of 'Groundhogese', which supposedly only the current president can understand, and then his prediction is translated and revealed to all.
The Groundhog Day celebration is rooted in Germanic tradition that says that if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on February 2, the Christian celebration of Candlemas, winter and cold weather will last another six weeks. If no shadow is seen, legend says, spring will come early. In Germany, the tradition evolved into a myth that if the sun came out on Candlemas, a hedgehog would cast its shadow, predicting snow all the way into May. When German immigrants settled in Pennsylvania, they transferred the tradition onto local fauna, replacing hedgehogs with groundhogs. Several other towns in the region hold similar Groundhog Day events.
The Inner Circle scripts the Groundhog Day ceremonies in advance and decides beforehand whether Phil will see his shadow. The Inner Circle maintains kayfabe throughout the year to maintain suspension of disbelief and keeps its criteria for whether spring will arrive early a trade secret; as such, several incongruities have occurred where the groundhog is recorded as having seen his shadow despite cloudy skies, or less commonly no shadow on a sunny morning.
Phil first received his name in 1961. The origins of the name are unclear, but speculation suggests that it may have been indirectly named after Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
== Reception ==
The event in Punxsutawney attracted crowds of approximately 2,000 prior to 1993. However, the popularity of the film Groundhog Day brought significantly more attention to the event, with annual crowds rising to 10,000–20,000. The event has been streamed online each year since 2018. The ceremony in 2021 took place without any crowds, due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.
Three governors of Pennsylvania have attended the festivities while in office: Ed Rendell in 2003, Tom Corbett in 2012, and Josh Shapiro in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Shapiro named Phil state meteorologist during the 2024 ceremony.
In some cases where Phil's prognostications have been incorrect, organizations have jokingly made legal threats against the groundhog. Such tongue-in-cheek actions have been made by a prosecutor in Ohio, the Monroe County, Pennsylvania sheriff's office, and the Merrimack, New Hampshire Police Department. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals object to the event, claiming that Phil is put under stress. They suggest replacing Phil with a robotic groundhog.
== In media and popular culture ==
Phil and the town of Punxsutawney were portrayed in the 1993 film Groundhog Day. However, the movie was actually filmed in Woodstock, Illinois.
In Groundhog Day, the 2016 Broadway musical adaptation of the film, Phil is ascribed a more mythical role.
In 1995, Phil flew to Chicago for a guest appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, which aired on Groundhog Day, February 2, 1995.
A 2002 episode of the children's animated series Stanley, titled "Searching for Spring", featured Punxsutawney Phil.
Phil was the main attraction in "Groundhog Day", the April 10, 2005, episode of the MTV series Viva La Bam. In the episode, street skater Bam Margera holds a downhill race in honor of Punxsutawney Phil at Bear Creek Mountain Resort in Macungie, Pennsylvania.
The Pennsylvania Lottery's mascot is a groundhog named Gus, referred to in commercials as "the second most famous groundhog in Pennsylvania", in deference to Phil. Since the Groundhog Club Inner Circle has trademarked the use of the name "Punxsutawney Phil," no commercial entity may use the name without permission.
Phil is the protagonist of the 2024 play How to Kill a Rodent. In the play, Canadians Guy and Carrie go to Punxsutawney to commit an act of terrorism against the United States by assassinating Phil on live television.
== Historical predictions ==
=== Predictive accuracy ===
The Inner Circle claims a 100% accuracy rate, and an approximately 80% accuracy rate in recorded predictions. If a prediction is wrong, they claim that the person in charge of translating the message must have made a mistake in their interpretation. Empirical estimates place the groundhog's actual accuracy between 35% and 41%. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_France#Presidents_2 | List of presidents of France#Presidents 2 | The president of France is the head of state of France, elected by popular vote for five years.
The first officeholder is considered to be Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, who was elected in 1848 but provoked the 1851 self-coup to later proclaim himself emperor as Napoleon III. His coup, which proved popular as he sought the restoration of universal male suffrage previously abolished by the legislature, granted the newly-established Second Empire firm ground.
A republican regime was given way again in 1870 through the Third Republic, after the fall of Napoleon III. A 1962 referendum held under the Fifth Republic at the request of President Charles de Gaulle transferred the election of the president of France from an electoral college to a popular vote. Since then, ten presidential elections have taken place. The 25th and current officeholder has been Emmanuel Macron since 14 May 2017.
== First Republic (1792–1804) ==
=== National Convention ===
The National Convention (20 September 1792 – 26 October 1795) was led by the President of the National Convention; the presidency rotated fortnightly.
From 1793 the National Convention was dominated by its Committee of Public Safety, in which the leading figures were Georges Danton and then Maximilien Robespierre.
=== Directory ===
The Directory was officially led by a president, as stipulated by Article 141 of the Constitution of the Year III. An entirely ceremonial post, the first president was Jean-François Rewbell, who was chosen by lot on 2 November 1795. The Directors conducted their elections privately, with the presidency rotating every three months. The last President was Louis-Jérôme Gohier.
The leading figure of the Directory was Paul Barras, the only director to serve throughout the entirety of the Directory’s existence.
Political parties
Centre (Thermidorians) Right-wing (Clichyens) Left-wing (Montagnards) Other (Maraisards)
After the Coup of 18 Brumaire (9 November 1799), Barras, Ducos, and Sieyès resigned.Moulin and Gohier, refusing to resign, were arrested by General Moreau.
=== Consulate ===
Napoléon Bonaparte proclaimed himself Emperor of the French in 1804, reigning as Emperor Napoleon I 1804–1814 (First French Empire) and 1815 (Hundred Days).
The monarchy was restored 1814–1815 and 1815–1830 (Bourbon Restoration); again 1830–1848 (July Monarchy).
== Second Republic (1848–1852) ==
=== President of the Provisional Government of the Republic ===
Political parties
=== President of the Executive Commission ===
Political parties
=== Chief of the Executive Power ===
Political parties
=== President of the Republic ===
Political parties
Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte proclaimed himself Emperor of the French in 1852, reigning as Emperor Napoleon III 1852–1870 (Second French Empire).
== Third Republic (1870–1940) ==
=== President of the Government of National Defense ===
Political parties
=== Chief of the Executive Power ===
Political parties
=== Presidents of the Republic ===
Political parties
The office of President of the French Republic did not exist from 1940 until 1947.
== French State (1940–1944) ==
=== Head of State ===
== Government-in-exile (1940–1944) ==
=== President of the French National Committee ===
== Provisional Government of the French Republic (1944–1946) ==
=== Chairmen of the Provisional Government ===
Political parties
== Fourth Republic (1946–1958) ==
=== Presidents ===
Political parties
== Fifth Republic (1958–present) ==
=== Presidents ===
Political parties
== Timeline == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Standard_Bearer_(Rembrandt,_1636) | The Standard Bearer (Rembrandt, 1636) | The Standard Bearer is a three-quarter-length self-portrait by Rembrandt formerly in the Paris collection of Elie de Rothschild, and purchased by the Rijksmuseum for 175 million euros with assistance from the Dutch state and Vereniging Rembrandt in 2021. It was painted on the occasion of the artist's move from Leiden to Amsterdam and is seen as an important early work that "shows Rembrandt's ambition to paint a group portrait for the Amsterdam militia, at the time the most valued commission a painter could be awarded."
Rembrandt's flag bearer has several copies in oil, and later prints may be from such copies, but this painting nevertheless has a provenance reaching far into the 18th-century. It was documented as a self-portrait by Smith in 1836, who wrote:
Rembrandt in the character of a Standard-Bearer. His portly countenance, which is seen in nearly a front view, denotes him to have been about fifty years of age; a large hat, turned up at the side, and decked with feathers, covers his head, and a steel cuirass shields his breast: the remainder of his habiliments are suitably rich and appropriate. One hand grasps the staff of an unfurled banner, and the other is placed on his side. This splendidly-coloured picture is engraved by Lause, and also by G. Haid. From the collection of Chevalier Verhulst, M. le Boeuf and M. Robit. It was afterwards in the collection of his Majesty George IV., who exchanged it with M. Lafontaine for other pictures.
Cornelis Hofstede de Groot agreed with him in 1914, but stopped short of calling it a self-portrait. He wrote:
270 A STANDARD-BEARER. Sm. 201, and Suppl. 23; Bode 300; Dut. 148; Wb. 313; B.-HdG. 206.
He stands in profile to the right, turning his face round and looking at the spectator. With his left hand he holds a large white banner on his shoulder; his right hand is on his hip. Over his brown curls he wears a slashed cap with a brown plume; his face is shaved, save for the long moustache. Over his yellowish-brown coat, trimmed with lace, he wears an iron gorget and a broad sash from which a sword hangs at his side. He has loose sleeves and a white collar and wrist-bands. Strong light from the left touches his back and his face and falls full on the banner. Life size, three-quarter length. The man has Rembrandt's features.
Signed on the right at foot, "Rembrandt 163-" the last figure, now illegible, was probably a 5; canvas, 50 by 42 inches [1,300 mm × 1,100 mm].
A copy is in the Cassel Gallery, 1903 catalogue, No. 251 (Wb. 53); it has been there since the 1749 inventory, and was etched by N. Mossoloff.
Another copy is in the collection of the late P. A. B. Widener, Philadelphia, 1908 catalogue, No. 242. Other copies were in the
Sales. J. F. Wolschot, Antwerp, September 1, 1817, No. 12.
Duke of Buckingham, Stowe, August 15, 1848, No. 415 (£54 : 12s., Wakeford Attree).
Etched by P. Louw, J. F. Clerck, G. Haid.
Mentioned by Vosmaer, pp. 340, 554; by Bode, p. 597; by Dutuit, p. 52;
[by Michel, pp. 166-7, 169, 436].
Exhibited at the British Institution, London, 1819, No. 59, and 1836,
No. 34.
Sales. L. van Heemskerk, Leyden, September 2, 1771, No. I (61 florins, Delfos); to judge from the price, this was one of the copies.
G. F. J. de Verhulst, Brussels, August 16, 1779, No - 8o ( 354 florins or, according to other authorities, 1290 francs, Fouquet).
Le Boeuf, Paris, 1782 (5300 francs). Robit, Paris, May 21, 1801, No. 117 of Bryan's catalogue (3095 francs, Lafontaine).
In the collection of George IV., King of England, who exchanged it with Lafontaine for other pictures.
In the possession of the London dealer Lafontaine.
In the collection of Sir Simon H. Clarke, London.
In the collection of Lady Clarke, Oak Hill, 1836 (Sm., who valued it at 525).
Sale. Sir Simon Clarke, Bart., London, May 8, 1840 (840, Baron James de Rothschild, Paris).
In the collection of Baron Henry de Rothschild, Paris.
== 2022 acquisition by the Netherlands ==
In 2019 the painting has been classified as a national treasure of France, so an export bar was in place for 30 months while the Louvre tried to raise funds to buy the painting. The museum was unable to do so and waived its right of first refusal for purchase. In December 2021, the Dutch state announced its intention to buy the work for the national collection.
As result, the Rothschild family sold the painting to the Netherlands for €175 million in 2022. The Dutch government paid €150 million, while the Rembrandt Association and the Rijksmuseum contributed a total of €25 million. It was bought from the Rothschild family, who had owned it since 1844, via a trust located in the tax haven of the Cook Islands. The Standard Bearer was sent to tour every province in the Netherlands before going on display at the Rijksmuseum's Gallery of Honour. It was acquired during the COVID-19 pandemic amid media coverage of failing income for the Netherlands' cultural sector. The painting had previously been shown at the Rijksmuseum in 2019 and had attracted the museum's interest once France agreed to let the painting leave the country.
The painting toured the Netherlands in 2022 and 2023.
== Notable copies == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulona | Mulona | Mulona is a genus of moths in the subfamily Arctiinae. The genus was erected by Francis Walker in 1866.
== Species ==
Mulona barnesi Field, 1952
Mulona grisea Hampson, 1900
Mulona lapidaria Walker, 1866
Mulona manni Field, 1952
Mulona phelina (Druce, 1885)
Mulona piperita Reich, 1933
Mulona schausi Field, 1952 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gifu_Prefecture | Gifu Prefecture | Gifu Prefecture (岐阜県, Gifu-ken; Japanese pronunciation: [ɡʲi.ɸɯ, ɡʲi.ɸɯ̥ꜜ.keɴ]) is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Gifu Prefecture has a population of 2,040,000 (as of April 1, 2025) and has a geographic area of 10,621 square kilometres (4,101 sq mi). Gifu Prefecture borders Toyama Prefecture to the north; Ishikawa Prefecture to the northwest, Fukui Prefecture and Shiga Prefecture to the west, Mie Prefecture to the southwest, Aichi Prefecture to the south, and Nagano Prefecture to the east.
Gifu is the capital and largest city of Gifu Prefecture, with other major cities including Ōgaki, Kakamigahara, and Tajimi.
Gifu Prefecture is located in the center of Japan, one of only eight landlocked prefectures, and features the country's center of population. Gifu Prefecture has served as the historic crossroads of Japan with routes connecting the east to the west, including the Nakasendō, one of the Five Routes of the Edo period. Gifu Prefecture was a long-term residence of Oda Nobunaga and Saitō Dōsan, two influential figures of Japanese history in the Sengoku period, spawning the popular phrase "control Gifu and you control Japan" in the late Medieval era. Gifu Prefecture is known for its traditional Washi paper industry, including Gifu lanterns and Gifu umbrellas, and as a center for the Japanese swordsmithing and cutlery industries. Gifu Prefecture is home to Gifu Castle, the 1,300-year-old tradition of cormorant fishing on the Nagara River, and the site of the Battle of Sekigahara.
== History ==
The land area that makes up modern-day Gifu became part of the Yamato Court around the middle of the fourth century. Because it is in the middle of the island of Honshu, it has been the site of many decisive battles throughout Japan's history, the oldest major one being the Jinshin War in 672, which led to the establishment of Emperor Tenmu as the 40th emperor of Japan.
The area of Gifu Prefecture consists of the old provinces of Hida and Mino, as well as smaller parts of Echizen and Shinano. The name of the prefecture derives from its capital city, Gifu, which was named by Oda Nobunaga during his campaign to unify all of Japan in 1567. The first character used comes from Qishan (岐山), a legendary mountain from which most of China was unified, whereas the second character comes from Qufu (曲阜), the birthplace of Confucius. Nobunaga chose those characters because he wanted to unify all of Japan and he wanted to be viewed as a great mind.
Historically, the prefecture served as the center of swordmaking for the whole of Japan, with Seki being known for making the best swords in Japan. More recently, its strengths have been in fashion (primarily in the city of Gifu) and aerospace engineering (Kakamigahara).
On October 28, 1891, the present-day city of Motosu was the epicenter for the Mino–Owari earthquake, the second largest earthquake to ever hit Japan. The earthquake, estimated at 8.0 (surface-wave magnitude), left a fault scarp that can still be seen today.
== Geography ==
One of the few landlocked prefectures in Japan, Gifu shares borders with seven other prefectures: Toyama, Ishikawa, Fukui, Shiga, Mie, Aichi, and Nagano. Japan's postal codes all start with a three-digit number, ranging from 001 to 999. Part of Gifu has the 500 prefix, reflecting its location in the center of Japan.
The center of Japanese population is currently located in Seki City, Gifu Prefecture. The center of population is a hypothetical point at which a country is perfectly balanced assuming each person has a uniform weight. The spot was calculated using the 2005 census.
As of 31 March 2019, 18 percent of the total land area of the prefecture was designated as Natural Parks, namely the Hakusan and Chūbu-Sangaku National Parks, Hida-Kisogawa and Ibi-Sekigahara-Yōrō Quasi-National Parks, and fifteen Prefectural Natural Parks.
=== Regions ===
Gifu has five unofficial regions, which allows local municipalities to work together to promote the surrounding area. The five regions are Seinō, Gifu, Chūnō, Tōnō and Hida. The borders of the regions are loosely defined, but they are usually delineated among major cities.
=== Topography ===
The northern Hida region is dominated by tall mountains, including parts of the Japanese Alps. The southern Mino region is mostly parts of the fertile Nōbi Plain, a vast plains area with arable soil. Most of the prefecture's population lives in the southern part of the prefecture, near the designated city of Nagoya.
The mountainous Hida region contains the Hida Mountains, which are referred to as the "Northern Alps" in Japan. The Ryōhaku Mountains are also in the Hida region. Other major ranges include the Ibuki Mountains and the Yōrō Mountains.
Much of the Mino region is made up of the alluvial plain of the Kiso Three Rivers, which are the Kiso River, Nagara River and Ibi River. The sources of Kiso river is in Nagano prefecture, and those of the others are in Gifu prefecture. They eventually run through Aichi and Mie prefectures before emptying into Ise Bay. Other major rivers in the prefecture include the Miya, Takahara, Shō, Toki (Shōnai), Yahagi, and Itoshiro rivers.
=== Climate ===
Gifu's climate varies from humid subtropical climate in the south, eventually making the transition to humid continental climate in the north.
Because the Mino region is surrounded by low mountains, the temperature fluctuates through the year, from hot summers to cold winters. The eastern city of Tajimi, for example, often records the hottest temperature in Japan each year and is considered to be the hottest city within Honshu boasting an average daytime high of 34.1 °C (93.4 °F) during the peak of summer. On August 16, 2007, Tajimi set the record for the hottest day recorded in Japan's history—40.9 °C (105.6 °F). Summers are hotter, as the landlocked area becomes a heat island, and the temperature rises even further when hot, dry foehn winds blow over the Ibuki Mountains from the Kansai region. The Hida region, with its higher elevation and northerly latitude, is significantly cooler than the Mino region, although there are sometimes extremely hot days there too. The Hida region is more famous for its harsh winters, bringing extremely heavy snowfall, especially in the northwestern areas. Gifu boasts a high amount of skiing locations. Shōkawa-chō, part of the city of Takayama, is up in the mountains, and its location has led it to be called the coldest inhabited place on Honshū.
== Municipalities ==
All of the cities, towns, villages and districts of Gifu Prefecture are listed below.
=== Cities ===
Twenty-one cities are located in Gifu Prefecture:
Gifu – (the capital city of the prefecture)
=== Towns and villages ===
These are the towns and villages in each district:
=== Mergers ===
== Economy ==
Traditional industries such as paper-making and agriculture are found in Gifu, but its economy is dominated by the manufacturing sector including aerospace and automotive, with industrial complexes extending from the Nagoya area. A wealth of small component manufacturing is also found, such as precision machines, dye and mold making, and plastic forming.
=== Traditional industries ===
Gifu is famous for cormorant fishing, which has a history of over 1,300 years. Agriculture is also a major industry because of Gifu's vast, arable plains. The forests in the north provide materials for woodworking and for the viewing boats used in cormorant fishing.
The Mino region has long been known for its high-quality paper called Mino washi, which is stronger and thinner than most other papers in Japan, and was used by the Japanese military during World War II. Other paper-based products include Gifu Lanterns and Gifu Umbrellas, made in the prefectural capital of Gifu. Other traditional goods include mino-yaki pottery in Tajimi, Toki, and Mizunami, cutlery in Seki, and lacquerware in Takayama. Sake is often brewed with clear water from the rivers.
=== Modern industries ===
Kakamigahara has a large role in the prefecture's modern industries. It boasts large aerospace facilities of both Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, as well as many metalworking and manufacturing companies.
Information technology (IT) is gaining a foothold in the prefecture with both Softopia Japan in Ōgaki and VR Techno Japan (part of Techno Plaza) in Kakamigahara. The capital city of Gifu, located between Ōgaki and Kakamigahara, is also working to strengthen its IT fields, too.
=== Tourism ===
Gifu has many popular tourist attractions, bringing visitors to all parts of the prefecture. The most popular places are Gifu, Gero, Shirakawa and Takayama. Gero is known for its relaxing hot springs, which attract visitors throughout the year. Shirakawa's historic villages are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Takayama is famous for retaining its original appearance and is often referred to as Little Kyoto.
In addition to international tourists, Gifu also plays host to many international events. The World Event and Convention Complex Gifu is available for many types of events. Other areas of Gifu, too, bring international events. The World Rowing Championships were held in the city of Kaizu in 2005. The FIS Snowboard World Cup was held in the city of Gujo in 2008. The APEC Japan 2010 SME Ministerial Meetings were held in Gifu City.
=== Science ===
The Kamioka area of the city of Hida is home to the Kamioka Observatory underground laboratory. Located 1,000 m (3,281 ft) underground in Kamioka Mining and Smelting Co.'s Mozumi Mine, the Super-Kamiokande experiment searches for neutrinos from the high atmosphere, the sun and supernovae, while the KamLAND experiment searches for antineutrinos from regional nuclear reactors. The Super-Kamiokande consists of a cylindrical stainless steel tank that is 41.4 m (136 ft) tall and 39.3 m (129 ft) in diameter holding 50,000 tons of ultra-pure water. Some of the 11,146 photomultiplier tubes are on display at the Miraikan in Tokyo. The same facility also hosts the CLIO prototype and KAGRA gravitational wave detector.
== Demographics ==
The prefecture's population was 2,04,000, as of 1 April 2025, with approximately 1.8 million people in the cities and the rest in towns and villages. The percentage of male and female residents is 48.4% and 51.6%, respectively. 14.4% of the population is no more than 14 years old, with 22.1% of the population being at least 65 years old.
According to Japan's census, the country's center of population is located in Gifu Prefecture. In 2000, it was located in the former town of Mugi, which has since merged with Seki. In the most recent census in 2005, the center of population has moved slightly more to the east but is still located within Gifu.
== Education ==
== Transportation ==
=== Rail ===
=== Road ===
==== Expressway and toll roads ====
==== National highways ====
== Prefectural symbols ==
Gifu's symbol comes from the first character gi (岐) of its Japanese name, written in a stylized script, surrounded by a circle, which represents the peace and harmony of the prefectural citizen. It was chosen by contest in 1932.
The prefectural logo (see right) expands from the red dot into the center to the outer two lines and, finally, the yellow plain. This symbol was chosen in 1991 for the development and expansion of the prefecture.
The prefecture also has two plants (the milk vetch (renge) and the Japanese yew) and two animals (the snow grouse and the ayu) as symbols. The milk vetch was chosen in 1954, because the prefecture is well known for its abundance of blooming milk vetch each spring. The yew was chosen in 1966, because it is the tree used to make ornamental scepters for the emperor, many of which came from the Hida district. The snow grouse was chosen in 1961, as the birds live up in the Japanese alps and is a nationally protected species. Ayu were chosen in 1989, because the fish is found in many prefectural rivers and is prized for its sweet taste.
== Notable people ==
Chie Aoki, sculptor
Junji Ito, manga artist
Tsuyoshi Makino, author and social activist
Rie Matsubara, rhythmic gymnast
Airi Suzuki, Japanese singer, actress, model and radio personality
Kaiu Shirai, manga artist
Chiune Sugihara, diplomat
Teiji Takagi, mathematician
n-buna, musician
LiSA, singer-songwriter, lyricist. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Meredith | James Meredith | James Howard Meredith (born June 25, 1933) is an American civil rights activist, writer, political adviser, and United States Air Force veteran who became, in 1962, the first African-American student admitted to the racially segregated University of Mississippi after the intervention of the federal government (an event that was a flashpoint in the civil rights movement). Inspired by President John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, Meredith decided to exercise his constitutional rights and apply to the University of Mississippi. His goal was to put pressure on the Kennedy administration to enforce civil rights for African Americans. The admission of Meredith ignited the Ole Miss riot of 1962 where Meredith's life was threatened and 31,000 American servicemen were required to quell the violence – the largest ever invocation of the Insurrection Act of 1807.
In 1966, Meredith planned a solo 220-mile (350-kilometer) March Against Fear from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi; he wanted to highlight continuing racism in the South and encourage voter registration after passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He did not want major civil rights organizations involved. The second day, he was shot by a white gunman and suffered numerous wounds. Leaders of major organizations vowed to complete the march in his name after he was taken to the hospital. While Meredith was recovering, more people from across the country became involved as marchers. He rejoined the march and when Meredith and other leaders entered Jackson on June 26, they were leading an estimated 15,000 marchers, in what was the largest civil rights march in Mississippi. During the march, more than 4,000 African Americans registered to vote, and it was a catalyst to continued community organizing and additional registration.
In 2002 and again in 2012, the University of Mississippi led year-long series of events to celebrate the 40th and 50th anniversaries of Meredith's integration of the institution. He was among numerous speakers invited to the campus, where a statue of him commemorates his role. The Lyceum-The Circle Historic District at the center of the campus has been designated as a National Historic Landmark for these events.
== Early life and education ==
Meredith was born in 1933 in Kosciusko, Mississippi, the son of Roxie (Patterson) and Moses Meredith. He is of African-American, English Canadian, Scots and Choctaw heritage. His family nickname was "J-Boy". European traders intermarried with some Choctaw during the colonial period. In the 1830s, thousands of Choctaw chose to stay in Mississippi and become United States citizens when most of the tribe left their traditional homeland for Indian Territory during the federally imposed removal. Those in the state had unions with European Americans and African Americans (some of whom were enslaved), adding to the multi-racial population in the developing territory.
Meredith completed 11th grade at Attala County Training School (which was segregated as "white" and "colored" under the state's Jim Crow laws) and completed 12th grade at Gibbs High School in St. Petersburg, Florida. He graduated from high school in 1951. Then, Meredith enlisted in the United States Air Force. He served from 1951 to 1960.
Afterward Meredith attended Jackson State University for two years, achieving good grades.
== University of Mississippi ==
=== Challenge to the University ===
In 1961, inspired the day before by U.S. President John F. Kennedy, Meredith started to apply to the University of Mississippi, intending to insist on his civil rights to attend the state-funded university. It still admitted only white students under the state's culture of racial segregation, although the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional, as they are supported by all the taxpayers.
Meredith wrote in his application that he wanted admission for his country, race, family, and himself. He said,
Nobody handpicked me...I believed, and believe now, that I have a Divine Responsibility... I am familiar with the probable difficulties involved in such a move as I am undertaking and I am fully prepared to pursue it all the way to a degree from the University of Mississippi.
He was twice denied admission. During this time, he was advised by Medgar Evers, who was head of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
On May 31, 1961, Meredith, with backing of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, alleging that the university had rejected him only because of his race, as he had a highly successful record of military service and academic courses. Constance Baker Motley represented Meredith. The case went through many hearings, after which the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that Meredith had the right to be admitted to the state school. The state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which supported the ruling of the appeals court.
On September 13, 1962, the District Court entered an injunction directing the members of the Board of Trustees and the officials of the University to register Meredith. The Democratic Governor of Mississippi, Ross Barnett, declared "no school will be integrated in Mississippi while I am your governor". The state legislature quickly created a plan. They passed a law that denied admission to any person "who has a crime of moral turpitude against him" or who had been convicted of any felony offense or not pardoned. The same day it became law, Meredith was accused and convicted of "false voter registration," in absentia, in Jackson County. The conviction against Meredith was trumped up: Meredith both owned land in northern Mississippi and was registered to vote in Jackson, where he lived. "Later the clerk testified that Meredith was qualified to register and vote in Jackson [where he was registered]."
On September 20, the federal government obtained an injunction against enforcement of this Act and of the two state court decrees that had barred Meredith's registration. That day Meredith was rebuffed again by Governor Barnett in his efforts to gain admission, though university officials were prepared to admit him. On September 25, Meredith attempted to register again, but Governor Barnett blocked Meredith’s entry to the College Board office. On September 28, the Court of Appeals, en banc and after a hearing, found the Governor in civil contempt and ordered that he be arrested and pay a fine of $10,000 for each day that he kept up the refusal, unless he complied by October 2. On September 29, Lieutenant Governor Paul B. Johnson Jr. (elected Governor on November 5, 1963) was also found in contempt by a panel of the court, and a similar order was entered against him, with a fine of $5,000 a day.
Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy had a series of phone calls with Governor Barnett between September 27 to October 1. Barnett reluctantly agreed to let Meredith enroll in the university, but secretly bargained with Kennedy on a plan which would allow him to save face.
Barnett committed to maintain civil order. Robert Kennedy ordered 127 U.S. Marshals as well as 316 deputized U.S. Border Patrol and 97 Federal Bureau of Prisons officers to accompany Meredith during his arrival and registration. On September 29, President Kennedy issued a proclamation commanding all persons engaged in the obstruction of the laws and the orders of the courts to "cease and desist therefrom and to disperse and retire peaceably forthwith", citing his authority under 10 U.S.C. § 332, § 333, and § 334 to use the militia or the armed forces to suppress any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.
=== Rioting at the University ===
On September 29, Governor Barnett made a spirited speech at halftime of the Ole Miss-Kentucky football game, firing up the crowd and encouraging people to block Meredith’s entry to the university. He said, in part, "I love Mississippi! I love her people, our customs ... I love and I respect our heritage." The Ole Miss Band waved a large Confederate flag, and the stands were full of students waving Confederate flags. President Kennedy sent federal marshals to Mississippi.
On Sunday, September 30, 1962, Governor Barnett called the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy, to try to get him to postpone Meredith’s admission to the University. The Attorney General refused. Meredith, accompanied by Mississippi Highway Patrol and 500 federal marshals, moved into his dorm room. Outside the Lyceum building, where Meredith was due to register for classes the next day, a crowd of hostile students formed near the marshals who were protecting the building. At 7:30 p.m., the crowd broke into a riot. The crowd, which numbered 3000, threw bottles and rocks, and the marshals tear-gassed them. More than 300 people were injured, and two people were killed.
=== Enrollment ===
The day after the riots, on October 1, 1962, after federal and state forces took control, Meredith became the first African-American student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Meredith's admission is regarded as a pivotal moment in the history of civil rights in the United States.
Many students harassed Meredith during his two semesters on campus, but others accepted him. According to first-person accounts, students living in Meredith's dorm bounced basketballs on the floor just above his room through all hours of the night. Other students ostracized him: when Meredith walked into the cafeteria for meals, the students eating would turn their backs. If Meredith sat at a table with other students, all of whom were white, the students would immediately get up and go to another table. He persisted through harassment and extreme isolation to graduate on August 18, 1963, with a degree in political science.
== Education and activism ==
Meredith continued his education, focusing on political science, at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. He returned to the United States in 1965. He attended law school through a scholarship at Columbia University and earned an LL.B (law degree) in 1968
In 1966, Meredith organized and led a solo, personal March Against Fear for 220 miles from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, beginning on June 6, 1966. Inviting only black men to join him, he wanted to highlight continuing racial oppression in the Mississippi Delta, as well as to encourage blacks to register and vote following passage of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, which authorized federal oversight and enforcement of rights. Governor Paul Johnson promised to allow the march and provide State Highway Police protection. Meredith wanted blacks in Mississippi to overcome fear of violence.
Despite a police presence, on the second day, Meredith was shot and wounded by Aubrey James Norvell, a white man whose motives were never determined, and who pleaded guilty at trial. Meredith was quickly taken to a hospital. Leaders of major organizations rallied at the news and vowed to complete the march in Meredith's name. They struggled to reconcile differing goals, but succeeded in attracting more than 10,000 marchers from local towns and across the country by the end.
Norvell pleaded guilty to battery and assault with intent to kill and was sentenced to five years in prison.
Meredith suffered from superficial wounds to his neck, legs, head, and right side. He recovered from his wounds, and rejoined the march before it reached Jackson on June 26, when 15,000 marchers entered the city in what had become the largest civil rights march in state history. During the march, more than 4,000 black Mississippians registered to vote. Continued community organizing was catalyzed by these events, and African Americans began to enter the political system again.
== Political career ==
In 1967, while living and studying in New York, Meredith decided to run as a Republican against incumbent Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a multi-term Democrat, in a special election for the Congressional seat in Harlem. He withdrew from the race and Powell was re-elected. Meredith said later of his campaign, "The Republican Party [of New York] made me an offer: full support in every way, everything." He had full access to top New York Republicans.
After returning to Mississippi in 1972, Meredith entered the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat of Democrat James Eastland, who had been the incumbent for 29 years in what had operated as a one-party state. Following provisions of a new state constitution in 1890 that made voter registration extremely difficult, African Americans had been effectively disenfranchised and the Republican Party had been crippled. Meredith conceded that he had little chance of winning unless Governor George Wallace of Alabama entered the presidential race and split the white vote. As it happened, many Republicans in Mississippi were not enthusiastic about the prospect of Meredith as their nominee, and Gil Carmichael, a businessman from Meridian, was recruited to run against him. Meredith received only 21% of the primary vote against Carmichael.
An active Republican, Meredith served from 1989 to 1991 as a domestic adviser on the staff of United States Senator Jesse Helms. Faced with criticism from the civil rights community for working for the avowed segregationist, Meredith said that he had applied to every member of the Senate and House offering his services, and only Helms' office responded. He also wanted a chance to do research at the Library of Congress.
In 2002, officials at the University of Mississippi celebrated the 40th anniversary of Meredith's historic admission and integration of the institution with a year-long series of events. Of the celebration, Meredith said,
It was an embarrassment for me to be there, and for somebody to celebrate it, oh my God. I want to go down in history, and have a bunch of things named after me, but believe me that ain't it.
He said he had achieved his main goal at the time by getting the federal government to enforce his rights as a citizen. He saw his actions as "an assault on white supremacy". In 2003, he was far more proud that his son Joseph Meredith graduated as the top doctoral student at the university's graduate business school.
== Legacy and honors ==
In 2002, the University of Mississippi honored the 40th anniversary of Meredith's admission with numerous events.
In 2006, a statue of him was dedicated on campus in his honor.
In 2012, the University commemorated the 50th anniversary of the historic admission, featuring a range of speakers, artists, lectures and events during the year.
That year Meredith received the Harvard Graduate School of Education 'Medal for Education Impact' and was the school's convocation speaker. Meredith said it was the first award in 50 years he had accepted.
== Cultural depictions ==
In 2011 miniseries The Kennedys, Meredith was portrayed by Matthew G. Brown in episode five of the series, Life Sentences.
== Political viewpoint ==
A highly independent man, Meredith has identified as an individual American citizen who demanded and received the constitutional rights held by any American, not as a participant in the Civil Rights Movement. There have been tensions between him and leaders of major organizations of the movement. When interviewed in 2002, the 40th anniversary of his enrollment at University of Mississippi, Meredith said, "Nothing could be more insulting to me than the concept of civil rights. It means perpetual second-class citizenship for me and my kind."
Meredith was a supporter of the unsuccessful 1967 gubernatorial bid of ex-Mississippi Governor (and avowed segregationist) Ross Barnett, who had been responsible for Meredith's not being allowed at the University of Mississippi, as well as the 1991 gubernatorial campaign of Louisiana State Representative and ex-Klansman David Duke. On these endorsements, Meredith wrote “I prefer bigotry to be out in the open where I can confront it."
In a 2002 interview with CNN, Meredith said of his efforts to integrate Ole Miss, "I was engaged in a war. I considered myself engaged in a war from Day One. And my objective was to force the federal government—the Kennedy administration at that time—into a position where they would have to use the United States military force to enforce my rights as a citizen."
== Personal life ==
On March 14, 1956, Meredith married Mary June Wiggins. She later worked as a high school English teacher. They had three sons, James, John and Joseph Howard Meredith. Mary June Meredith died of heart failure in December 1979.
In 1982, Meredith married Judy Alsobrooks in Gary, Indiana. She had one son, Kip Naylor, from a previous marriage. Jessica Howard Meredith was born to the couple. The couple live in Jackson, Mississippi.
== Works ==
In 1966, his memoir, Three Years in Mississippi, was published by the Indiana University Press.
He has self-published several books on politics and society. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artstetten_Castle | Artstetten Castle | Artstetten Castle (German: Schloss Artstetten, pronounced [ˌʃlɔs ˈaʁtʃtɛtn̩] ) is a historic Schloss near the Wachau valley in Lower Austria, in the municipality of Artstetten-Pöbring. It is the final resting place of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, whose assassinations were the immediate cause of World War I.
== History ==
Artstetten Castle was owned by a number of families over the centuries until it was purchased in 1823 by Emperor Francis I of Austria. In 1852, Archduke Franz Karl of Austria became the owner, then he gave it in 1861 to his third son, Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria. In 1889, the property was given to Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, who made extensive renovations to the castle.
Formerly used as a summer residence by members of the Habsburg dynasty, the castle is now the final resting place of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his morganatic wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, who were assassinated in 1914. Emperor Franz Joseph I refused to allow them to be interred in the traditional Imperial Crypt at the Capuchin Church, Vienna, because of their morganatic marriage. It also houses the Archduke Franz Ferdinand Museum.
After Konopiště Castle was confiscated by Czechoslovakia in 1921 as part of the confiscation of Habsburg properties under the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Arstetten became the Hohenberg family's primary residence. The castle remains their private property, and parts of the castle are open to the public for visits.
After the Anschluss in 1938, Nazi Germany deported the Hohenbergs to Dachau concentration camp for their anti-Nazi views and confiscated the castle. After the Vienna offensive, the Soviet occupation authorities allowed the residents of Arstetten to elect Duke Maximilian as their mayor, and the Republic of Austria formally returned the castle to the family in 1949, being unable to retain ownership as the Hohenbergs were not covered by the Habsburg Law.
After the death of Franz, Duke of Hohenberg in 1977, the property was deeded to his eldest child, Princess Anita of Hohenberg. The Anita Hohenberg Trust was set up in 2003, and she and her family manage the property.
== Coin ==
The castle was selected as a main motif for a high-value euro collectors' coin, the Austrian 10 euro Castle of Artstetten commemorative coin, minted on 13 October 2004.
The coin's obverse shows the castle of Artstetten standing above the Danube River on the threshold to the region of Wachau. The reverse shows the entrance to the crypt of the Hohenberg family. There are two portraits on the left, showing Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie.
== Burials ==
Notable burials in the castle's crypt include:
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria (1863 – 1914), heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg (1868 – 1914), both assassinated by Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914
Stillborn third son of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie (1908)
Prince Ernst of Hohenberg (1904 – 1954), second son of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie
Marie-Thérèse Wood (1910 – 1985), wife of Ernst
Maximilian, 1st Duke of Hohenberg (1902 – 1962), eldest son of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie
Countess Maria von Waldburg zu Wolfegg und Waldsee, wife of Maximilian
Franz, 2nd Duke of Hohenberg (1927 – 1977), eldest son of Maximilian
Princess Elisabeth, Duchess of Hohenberg (1922 – 2011), wife of Franz and a member of the Grand Ducal Family of Luxembourg
Georg, 3rd Duke of Hohenberg (1929 – 2018), second son of Maximilian
== Literature ==
Stefan Haderer: Artstetten Castle: Residence and final resting place of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este (1863-1914), Heir-Presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian Throne, Royalty Digest Quarterly, Vol. 1/2014, Rosvall Royal Books, Falköping 2014 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Mays | Willie Mays | Willie Howard Mays Jr. (May 6, 1931 – June 18, 2024), nicknamed "the Say Hey Kid", was an American professional baseball center fielder who played 23 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). Widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, Mays was a five-tool player who began his career in the Negro leagues, playing for the Birmingham Black Barons, and spent the rest of his career in the National League (NL), playing for the New York / San Francisco Giants and New York Mets.
Born in Westfield, Alabama, Mays was an all-around athlete. He joined the Black Barons of the Negro American League in 1948, playing with them until the Giants signed him upon his graduation from high school in 1950. He debuted in MLB with the Giants and won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1951 after hitting 20 home runs to help the Giants win their first pennant in 14 years. In 1954, he won the NL Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award, leading the Giants to their last World Series title before their move to the West Coast. His over-the-shoulder catch in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series is one of the most famous baseball plays of all time. After the Giants moved to San Francisco, Mays went on to win another MVP Award in 1965 and also led the Giants to the 1962 World Series, this time losing to the New York Yankees. He ended his career with a return to New York after an early season trade to the New York Mets in 1972, retiring after the team's trip to the 1973 World Series. He served as a coach for the Mets for the rest of the decade before rejoining the Giants as a special assistant to the president and general manager.
Mays was an All-Star 24 times, tying for the second-most appearances in history. He led the NL in home runs four times and in slugging percentage five times while batting over .300 and posting 100 runs batted in (RBI) ten times each. Mays was also at the forefront of a resurgence of speed as an offensive weapon in the 1950s, leading the league in stolen bases four times, triples three times, and runs twice; his 179 steals during the decade topped the major leagues. He was the first NL player to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases in the same season, the first player in history to reach both 300 home runs and 300 stolen bases, and the second player and the first right-handed hitter to hit 600 home runs. Mays also set standards for defensive brilliance, winning 12 consecutive Gold Glove Awards after their creation in 1957, still a record for outfielders; he led NL center fielders in double plays five times and assists three times.
A classic example of a five-tool player, Mays finished his career with a .301 batting average. At the time of his retirement, he held the NL record for career runs scored (2,062), and ranked second in league history behind Stan Musial in games played (2,992), third in home runs (660), at bats (10,881), runs batted in (1,903), total bases (6,066), extra-base hits (1,323) and walks (1,464), fourth in hits (3,293), fifth in slugging percentage (.557), and eighth in doubles (523); his 140 triples ranked fourth among players active after 1945. He holds major league records for games as a center fielder (2,829), putouts as an outfielder (7,095), and ended his career behind only Ty Cobb in total games as an outfielder (2,842), ranking seventh in assists (188) and third in double plays (59) in center field. Mays was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979 in his first year of eligibility, and was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999. Mays was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2015.
== Early life ==
Willie Howard Mays Jr. was born on May 6, 1931, in Westfield, Alabama, a primarily black company town near Fairfield. His father, Cat Mays, was a talented baseball player with the black team at the local iron plant. Annie Satterwhite, his mother, was a gifted high school basketball and track star. To his family and close friends, and later to his teammates, Mays was affectionately referred to as "Buck". His parents never married and separated when Mays was three. His father and two aunts, Sarah and Ernestine raised him. Sarah took young Willie to an African Methodist Episcopal Church every Sunday. Cat Mays worked as a railway porter and later at the steel mills in Westfield.
Cat exposed Willie to baseball at an early age, playing catch with him at five and allowing him to sit on the bench with his Birmingham Industrial League team at ten. His favorite baseball player growing up was Joe DiMaggio; other favorites were Ted Williams and Stan Musial. Mays played several sports at Fairfield Industrial High School. On the basketball team, he led players at all-black high schools in Jefferson County in scoring. Mays played quarterback, fullback and punter for the football team. Though he turned 18 in 1949, Mays did not graduate from Fairfield until 1950, which journalist Allen Barra calls "a minor mystery in Willie's life".
== Professional career ==
=== Negro and minor leagues ===
Mays's professional baseball career began in 1948 when he played briefly during the summer with the Chattanooga Choo-Choos, a Negro minor league team. Later that year, Mays joined the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League, where he was known as "Buck". The Black Barons were managed by Piper Davis, a teammate of Mays's father on the industrial team. When Fairfield Industrial principal E. T. Oliver threatened to suspend Mays for playing professional ball, Davis and Mays's father worked out an agreement. Mays would only play home games for the Black Barons. In return, he could still play high school football. Mays helped Birmingham advance to the 1948 Negro World Series, which they lost 4–1 to the Homestead Grays. He hit .262 for the season and stood out because of his excellent fielding and base running. On May 28, 2024, Major League Baseball announced that it had integrated Negro league statistics into its records.
Several major league teams were interested in signing Mays, but they had to wait until he graduated from high school to offer him a contract. The Boston Braves and the Brooklyn Dodgers both scouted him, but New York Giants scout Eddie Montague signed him to a $4,000 contract. Mays spent the rest of 1950 with the Class B Trenton Giants of the Interstate League, batting .353 with 20 doubles, eight triples, four home runs and 55 RBI in 81 games. Promoted to the Triple-A Minneapolis Millers of the American Association in 1951, he batted .477 with 18 doubles, eight home runs and 30 RBI in 35 games.
=== New York / San Francisco Giants (1951–1952, 1954–1972) ===
==== NL Rookie of the Year ====
Playing excellent defense, Mays was called up by the Giants on May 24, 1951. Initially, Mays was reluctant to accept the promotion because he did not believe he was ready to face major league pitchers. Stunned, Giants manager Leo Durocher called Mays directly and said, "Quit costing the ball club money with long-distance phone calls and join the team." It was also around this time that Mays was given his famous moniker: "The Say Hey Kid".
The Giants hoped Mays would help them defensively in center field, as well as offensively. The Polo Grounds featured an unusual horseshoe shape, with relatively short left field (280 feet; 85 m) and right field (258 feet; 79 m) lines but the deepest center field in baseball (483 feet; 147 m). Mays appeared in his first major league game on May 25 against the Philadelphia Phillies at Shibe Park, batting third. He had no hits in his first 12 at bats in the major leagues, but in his 13th on May 28, he hit a home run off Warren Spahn over the left-field roof of the Polo Grounds. Mays went hitless in his next 12 at bats, and Durocher dropped him to eighth in the batting order on June 2, suggesting that Mays stop trying to pull the ball and just make contact. Mays responded with four hits over his next two games on June 2 and 3. By the end of the month, he had pushed his batting average to over .300. He would bat close to .290 for the rest of the season. Although his .274 average, 68 RBIs, and 20 home runs (in 121 games) would rank among the lowest totals of his career, he still won the National League (NL) Rookie of the Year Award.
On August 11, the Giants found themselves 13+1⁄2 games back of the Dodgers in the NL pennant race; Brooklyn manager Charlie Dressen triumphantly predicted, "The Giants is dead." However, the Giants went 40–18 in the season's final 58 games, winning their last seven of the year to finish the regular season tied with the Dodgers. During the pennant race, Mays's fielding and strong throwing arm were instrumental in several important Giants' victories. Mays was in the on-deck circle on October 3 when Bobby Thomson hit a three-run homer to win the three-game NL tie-breaker series 2–1.
The Giants met the New York Yankees in the 1951 World Series. In Game 1, Mays, Hank Thompson, and Monte Irvin composed the first all-black outfield in major league history. For the series, Mays hit poorly as the Giants lost the series in six games. In Game 5, he hit a consequential fly ball, which DiMaggio and Yankee rookie Mickey Mantle pursued. DiMaggio called Mantle off at the last second; as he stopped, Mantle got his cleat stuck in an open drainpipe, suffering a knee injury that would affect him the rest of his career.
==== U.S. Army ====
Soon after the 1951 season ended, Mays learned the United States Army had drafted him to serve in the Korean War. Before he left to join the Army, Mays played the first few weeks of the 1952 season with the Giants. He batted .236 with four home runs and 23 RBI in 34 games. He surprised sportswriters like Red Smith when he drew cheers from fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Giants' archrivals, in his last game before reporting.
After his induction into the Army on May 29, Mays reported to Fort Eustis in Virginia, where he spent much of his time playing for the Fort Eustis Wheels military baseball team with (and against) other major and minor leaguers, as well as serving as an athletic instructor in the Physical Training Department. It was at Fort Eustis that Mays learned the basket catch from fellow Fort Eustis outfielder Al Fortunato. Mays, by his own estimation, played 180 games for the Wheels, and missed about 275 games for the Giants because of his military service. Mays' time playing for the Wheels ended on July 28, 1953, after he chipped a bone in his left foot while sliding into third base, necessitating a six-week stint in a cast. Discharged on March 1, 1954, he reported to Giants' spring training camp the following day.
==== World Series champion and NL MVP ====
Mays began the 1954 season on Opening Day with a home run of over 414 feet (126 m) against Carl Erskine. After he batted .250 in his first 20 games, Durocher moved him from third to fifth in the batting order and again encouraged him to stop attempting to pull the ball and try to get hits to right field. Mays changed his batting stance and stood straighter at the plate, keeping his feet closer together. He credited these adjustments with improving his batting average, as he batted .450 with 25 RBI in his next 20 games. On June 25, he hit an inside-the-park home run in a 6–2 victory over the Chicago Cubs. Mays was selected for the NL All-Star team; he would be part of 24 straight NL All-Star teams over 20 seasons. Mays became the first player in history to hit 30 home runs before the All-Star Game. He had 36 home runs through July 28. Around that time, Durocher asked him to stop trying to hit them, explaining the team wanted him to reach base more often. Mays hit only five home runs after July 28 but upped his batting average from .326 to .345 to win the team's first batting title since Bill Terry's in 1930. Hitting 41 home runs, Mays won the NL Most Valuable Player Award and the Hickok Belt.
The Giants won the NL pennant and the 1954 World Series, sweeping the Cleveland Indians in four games. The 1954 series is perhaps best remembered for "The Catch", an over-the-shoulder running grab by Mays of a long drive off the bat of Vic Wertz about 425 feet (130 m) from home plate at the Polo Grounds during the eighth inning of Game 1. The catch prevented two Indians runners from scoring, preserving a tie game. "The Catch transcended baseball", Barra wrote, and Larry Schwartz of ESPN said that of all the catches that Mays made, "it is regarded as his greatest". Mays did not even look at the ball for the last twenty feet as he ran, saying later he realized he had to keep running if he was going to get the ball. The Giants won the game in the 10th inning on a three-run home run by Dusty Rhodes, with Mays scoring the winning run.
Mays added base stealing to his talents, upping his total from eight in 1954 to 24 in 1955. In the middle of May, Durocher asked him to try for more home runs. Mays led the league with 51 but finished fourth in NL MVP voting. Leading the league with a .659 slugging percentage, Mays batted .319 as the Giants finished in third. During the last game of the season, Durocher, who had supported Mays since his career had begun, told him he would not be returning as the Giants manager. When Mays responded, "But Mr. Leo, it's going to be different with you gone. You won't be here to help me," Durocher told his star, "Willie Mays doesn't need help from anyone."
==== New manager ====
In 1956, Mays struggled at first to get along with new manager Bill Rigney, who publicly criticized him. The center fielder grew particularly annoyed after Rigney fined him $100 for not running to first base on a pop fly that was caught by the catcher. He hit 36 homers and stole a career-high 40 bases, becoming only the second player to join the 30–30 club. Though his RBI (84) and batting average (.296) were his lowest for nearly a decade, Barra observed that "Willie Mays was still the best all-around player in the National League."
The relationship between Mays and Rigney improved in 1957. Rigney stopped giving Mays as much direction, trusting his star player's ability and instinct. In his 2010 authorized biography of Mays, James S. Hirsch wrote Mays had "one of his most exhilarating excursions" on April 21. In the game against the Phillies, Mays reached second base on an error, stole third, and scored the winning run on a Hank Sauer single, all on plays close enough that he had to slide to make each one. He stole home in a 4–3 loss to the Cubs on May 21. The 1957 season was the first in which the Gold Glove Awards were presented. Mays won the first of 12 consecutive Gold Gloves for his play in center field. He finished in the NL's top-five in a variety of offensive categories: runs scored (112, third) batting average (.333, second), and home runs (35, fourth). In 1957, Mays became the fourth player in major league history to join the 20–20–20 club (doubles, triples, homers). He stole 38 bases that year, making him the second 20–20–20 club member (after Frank Schulte in 1911) to steal at least 20 bases. This gave him his second straight 30–30 club season.
Dwindling attendance and the desire for a new ballpark prompted the Giants to move to San Francisco following the 1957 season. In the final Giants' home game at the Polo Grounds on September 29, 1957, fans gave Mays a standing ovation in the middle of his final at bat, after Pirates' pitcher Bob Friend had already thrown a pitch to him.
==== Move to San Francisco ====
In 1958, Rigney wanted Mays to challenge Babe Ruth's record of 60 home runs in a season. Consequently, Rigney did not play Mays much in spring training hoping to use his best hitter every day of the regular season. As he had in 1954, Mays vied for the NL batting title until the final game of the season. Moved to the leadoff slot the last day to increase his at bats, Mays collected three hits in the game to finish with a career-high .347, but Philadelphia's Richie Ashburn batted .350. Mays shared the inaugural NL Player of the Month award with Stan Musial in May, batting .405 with 12 home runs and 29 runs batted in; he won a second award in September (.434, four home runs, 18 RBI). He played in 152 games, batting .347 with 29 home runs and 96 RBI.
Horace Stoneham, the Giants' owner, made Mays the highest-paid player in baseball with a $75,000 contract for 1959. Mays had his first serious injury in 1959, a collision with Sammy White in spring training that resulted in 35 stitches in his leg, but he was ready by the start of the season. Against the Reds in August, Mays broke a finger but kept it a secret to prevent opposing pitchers from targeting it. In September 1959, the Giants led the NL pennant race by two games with only eight games to play, but a sweep by the Dodgers began a stretch of six losses in those final games, dooming them to a third-place finish. Mays had hits in three out of 10 at bats in the Dodger series but some San Francisco fans still booed him. In 1959, Mays batted .313 with 34 home runs and 104 RBI in 151 games, leading the league in stolen bases (27) for the fourth year in a row.
After spending their first two years in San Francisco at Seals Stadium, the Giants moved into the new Candlestick Park in 1960. Initially, the stadium was expected to be conducive to home runs, but unpredictable winds affected Mays's power, and he hit only 12 at home in 1960. He found the stadium tricky to field but figured out how to play it as the season progressed. When a fly ball was hit, he would count to five before giving pursuit, enabling him to judge the wind's effect. He hit two home runs on June 24 and stole home in a 5–3 victory over the Cincinnati Reds. On September 15, he tied an NL record with three triples in an 11-inning, 8–6 win over the Phillies. "I don't like to talk about 1960," Mays said after the final game of a season in which the Giants, pre-season favorites for the pennant, finished fifth out of eight NL teams. For the second time in three years, he hit 29 home runs while leading the NL with 190 hits. He also drove in 103 runs, batting .319 with 25 stolen bases.
Alvin Dark was hired to manage the Giants before the start of the 1961 season, and the improving Giants finished in third place. Mays had one of his best games on April 30, 1961, hitting four home runs and driving in eight runs against the Milwaukee Braves at County Stadium. According to Mays, he had been unsure if he would even play because of food poisoning. Each of his home runs traveled over 400 feet (120 m). While Mantle and Roger Maris pursued Babe Ruth's single-season home run record in the AL, Mays and Orlando Cepeda battled for the home run lead in the NL. Mays trailed Cepeda by two home runs at the end of August (34 as opposed to 36), but Cepeda outhit him 10–6 in September to finish with 46, while Mays finished with 40. Mays led the league with 129 runs scored and batted .308 with 123 RBI in 154 games.
==== 1962 pennant race ====
Though he had continued to play at a high level since coming to San Francisco, Mays endured booing from the San Francisco fans during his first four seasons in California. Barra speculates this may have been because San Francisco fans were comparing Mays unfavorably with Joe DiMaggio, the most famous center fielder ever to come from San Francisco. Hal Wood mentioned the DiMaggio theory, as well as two other explanations: 1) the fans had heard so many wonderful things about Mays's play in New York that they expected him to be a better player than he actually was, and 2) Mays tended to keep to himself. Mays said in 1959 that he did not mind the booing, but he admitted in a 1961 article that the catcalls were bothering him. Whatever the reason, the boos, which had begun to subside after Mays's four–home-run game in 1961, grew even quieter in 1962, as the Giants enjoyed their best season since moving to San Francisco.
Mays led the team in eight offensive categories in 1962: runs (130), doubles (36), home runs (49), RBI (141), stolen bases (18), walks (78), on-base percentage (.384), and slugging percentage (.613). He finished second in NL MVP voting to Maury Wills, who had broken Ty Cobb's record for stolen bases in a season. On September 30, Mays hit a game-winning home run in the Giants' final regularly scheduled game of the year, forcing the team into a tie for first place with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Giants faced the Dodgers in a three-game playoff series. With the Giants trailing 4–2 in the top of the ninth inning of Game 3, Mays hit an RBI single, eventually scoring as the Giants took a 6–4 lead. With two outs in the bottom of the inning, Lee Walls hit a fly ball to center field, which Mays caught for the final out as the Giants advanced to the World Series against the Yankees.
In Game 1 of the World Series, a 6–2 loss to New York, Mays recorded three hits. He would bat merely .250 in the series overall. The Series went all the way to a Game 7, which the Yankees led 1–0 in the bottom of the ninth inning. Matty Alou led off the inning with a bunt single but was still at first two outs later when Mays came up with the Giants one out from elimination. Batting against Ralph Terry, he hit a ball into the right-field corner that might have been deep enough to score Alou, but Giants third base coach Whitey Lockman opted to hold Alou at third. The next batter, McCovey, hit a line drive that was caught by Bobby Richardson, and the Yankees won the deciding game 1–0. It was Mays's last World Series appearance as a Giant. Mays reveled in the fact that he had finally won the support of San Francisco fans; "It only took them five years," he later said.
==== Record-setting contract ====
Before the 1963 season, Mays signed a contract worth a record-setting $105,000 per season (equivalent to $1,100,000 in 2025). On July 2, when Spahn and Juan Marichal each threw 15 scoreless innings, Mays hit a 16th-inning home run off Spahn, giving the Giants a 1–0 victory. He considered the home run one of his most important, along with his first and the four-home-run game. In August, he won his third NL Player of the Month Award after batting .387 with eight home runs and 27 RBI. He hit his 400th home run on August 27 against the St. Louis Cardinals, the tenth player to reach that mark. Mays finished the 1963 season batting .314 with 38 home runs and 103 RBI, stealing only eight bases, his fewest since 1954.
Normally the third batter in the lineup, Mays was moved to fourth in 1964 before returning to third in subsequent years. On May 21, Dark named Mays the Giants' captain, making Mays the first African-American captain of an MLB team. "You deserve it," Dark told Mays. "You should have had it long before this." Against the Phillies on September 4, Mays made what Hirsch called "one of the most acrobatic catches of his career". Rubén Amaro Sr. hit a ball to the scoreboard at Philadelphia's Connie Mack Stadium. Mays, who had been playing closer to home plate than normal, ran at top speed after the ball. He caught it in midair and had to kick his legs forward to keep his head from hitting the ballpark's fence, but he held on to the ball. While he batted under .300 (.296) for the first time since 1956, he led the NL with 47 home runs and ranked second with 121 runs scored and 111 RBI in 157 games.
==== Second NL MVP ====
A torn shoulder muscle sustained in a 1965 game against the Atlanta Braves impaired Mays's ability to throw. He kept the injury a secret from opposing players, making two or three practice throws before games to discourage them from running on him. On August 22, Mays acted as a peacemaker during a 14-minute brawl between the Giants and Dodgers after Marichal had bloodied Dodgers catcher John Roseboro with a bat. Mays grabbed Roseboro by the waist and helped him off the field, then tackled Lou Johnson to keep him from attacking an umpire. Johnson kicked him in the head and nearly knocked him out. After the brawl, Mays hit a game-winning three-run home run against Sandy Koufax, but he did not finish the game, feeling dizzy after the home run.
Mays won his fourth and final NL Player of the Month award in August 1965 (.363, 17 home runs, 29 RBI). On September 13, he hit his 500th career home run off Don Nottebart, becoming the fifth player to reach the mark. Warren Spahn, off whom Mays hit his first career home run, was now his teammate. After the home run, Spahn asked him, "Was it anything like the same feeling?" Mays replied, "It was exactly the same feeling. Same pitch, too." The next night, Mays hit one that he considered his most dramatic. With the Giants trailing the Houston Astros by two runs with two outs in the ninth, Mays swung and missed at Claude Raymond's first two pitches, took three balls to load the count, and fouled off three pitches before homering on the ninth pitch. The Giants won 6–5 in 10 innings. Mays won his second MVP award in 1965 behind a career-high 52 home runs, in what Barra said "may very well have [been] his best year". He batted .317, leading the NL in on-base percentage (.400) and slugging percentage (.645). The span of 11 years between his MVP awards was the longest gap of any major leaguer who attained the distinction more than once, as were the 10 years between his 50 home run seasons. He scored 118 runs, the 12th year in a row he had scored at least 100 runs in a season.
Mays tied Mel Ott's NL record of 511 home runs on April 24, 1966, against the Astros. After that, he went for nine days without a home run. "I started thinking home run every time I got up," Mays explained the slump. He finally set the record May 4. Despite nursing an injured thigh muscle on September 7, Mays reached base in the 11th inning of a game against the Dodgers with two outs, then attempted to score from first base on a Frank Johnson single. On a close play, umpire Tony Venzon initially ruled him out, then changed the call when he saw Roseboro had dropped the ball after Mays collided with him. San Francisco won 3–2. Mays finished third in the NL MVP voting, the ninth and final time he finished in the top five in the voting for the award. He batted .288 with 99 runs scored, 37 home runs, and 103 RBI in 152 games; by season's end, only Babe Ruth had hit more home runs (714 to 542).
==== Player of the Decade ====
Mays had 13 home runs and 44 RBI through his first 75 games of 1967 but then went into a slump. On June 7, Gary Nolan of the Cincinnati Reds struck him out four times; this was the first time in his career this had happened, though the Giants still won the game 4–3. Afflicted by a fever on July 14, Mays left that day's game after the sixth inning because of fatigue and spent five days in a hospital. "After I got back into the lineup, I never felt strong again for the rest of the season," he recalled. In 141 games, Mays hit .263 with 83 runs scored, 128 hits, and 22 home runs. He only drove in 70 runs for the year, the first time since 1958 he had failed to reach 100.
Before a game in Houston on May 6, 1968, Astros owner Roy Hofheinz presented Mays with a 569-pound birthday cake for his 37th birthday—the pounds represented every home run Mays had hit in his career. After sharing some of it with his teammates, Mays sent the rest to the Texas Children's Hospital. He played 148 games and upped his batting average to .289, accumulating 84 runs scored, 144 hits, 23 home runs, and 79 runs batted in. In 1969, new Giants' manager Clyde King moved Mays to the leadoff position in the batting lineup because Mays was hitting fewer home runs. Mays privately chafed at the move, later comparing it to "O. J. Simpson blocking for the fullback". He injured his knee in a collision with catcher Randy Hundley on July 29, forcing him to miss several games. On September 22, he hit his 600th home run, saying later, "Winning the game was more important to me than any individual achievements." In 117 games, he batted .283 with 13 home runs and 58 RBI.
The Sporting News named Mays the 1960s "Player of the Decade" in January 1970. In an April game, Mays collided with Bobby Bonds while reaching his glove over the wall but made a catch to rob Bobby Tolan of a home run. Mays picked up his 3,000th hit against the Montreal Expos on July 18. "I don't feel excitement about this now," he told reporters afterwards. "The main thing I wanted to do was help Gaylord Perry win a game." In 139 games, Mays batted .291 with 94 runs scored, 28 home runs, and 83 RBI. He scheduled his off days that season to avoid facing strikeout pitchers such as Bob Gibson or Tom Seaver.
==== Later years with the Giants ====
Though center field remained his primary position in 1971, Mays played 48 games at first base. He got off to a fast start in 1971, the year he turned 40. Against the Mets on May 31, he hit a game-tying eighth-inning home run, saved multiple runs with his defense at first base, and performed a strategic base-running maneuver with one out in the 11th inning, running slowly from second to third base to draw a throw from Tim Foli and allow Al Gallagher to reach first safely. Evading Foli's tag on the return throw to third, Mays scored the winning run on a sacrifice fly. He had 15 home runs and a .290 average at the All-Star break but faded down the stretch, only hitting three home runs and batting .241 for the rest of the year. One reason he hit so few home runs was that Mays walked 112 times, 30 more times than he had at any point in his career. This was partly because Willie McCovey, who often batted behind Mays in the lineup, missed several games with injuries, causing pitchers to pitch carefully to Mays so they could concentrate on getting less-skilled hitters out. Subsequently, Mays led the league in on-base percentage (.425) for only the second time, though his 123 strikeouts were a career-high. He finished the season batting .271 with 18 home runs, 61 RBI, and 23 stolen bases in 136 games.
The Giants won the NL West in 1971, returning Mays to the playoffs for the first time since 1962. In the NL Championship Series (NLCS) against the Pirates, Mays had a home run and three RBI in the first two games. In Game 3, Mays attempted an unsuccessful sacrifice bunt in a 1–1 tie in the sixth with no outs and Tito Fuentes on second base, a move that surprised reporters covering the game. The Giants lost 2–1. "I was thinking of the best way to get the run in," Mays explained the bunt, pointing out that McCovey and Bonds were due up next. The Giants lost the series in four games. After the season, Mays was honored as the winner of the inaugural Roberto Clemente Award, known at that time as the Commissioner's Award.
Mays got off to a tortuous start to the 1972 season, batting .184 with 3 RBI through his first 19 games. Before the season began, he had asked Stoneham for a 10-year contract with the Giants organization, intending to serve in an off-the-field capacity with them once his playing career was over. The Giants organization was having financial troubles, and Mays had to settle for a two-year, $330,000 contract. Mays quibbled with manager Charlie Fox, leaving the stadium before the start of a doubleheader on April 30 without telling him.
=== New York Mets (1972–1973) ===
On May 11, 1972, Mays was traded to the New York Mets for pitcher Charlie Williams and an undisclosed amount rumored to be $100,000. The Mets agreed to keep his salary at $165,000 a year for 1972 and 1973, promising to pay Mays $50,000 a year for 10 years after he retired.
Mays had remained popular in New York, and owner Joan Payson had long wanted to bring him back to his major league roots. In his Mets debut against the Giants on May 14, Mays put New York ahead to stay with a fifth-inning home run, receiving ecstatic applause from the fans at Shea Stadium. Mays appeared in 69 games for the Mets in 1972, batting .267 with eight home runs and 19 RBI.
In 1973, Mays showed up a day late to spring training, then left in the middle of it without notifying manager Yogi Berra beforehand. He was fined $1,000 upon returning; a sportswriter joked half the fine was for leaving, half was for returning. Things did not improve as the season began; Mays spent time on the disabled list early in the year and left the park before a game when he found out Berra had not put his name in the starting lineup. His speed and powerful arm in the outfield, assets throughout his career, were diminished in 1973, and he only made the All-Star team because of a special intervention by NL President Chub Feeney. However, the Mets won the NL East.
On August 17, 1973, Mays hit his final (660th) home run against the Reds' Don Gullett. Having considered retirement all year, Mays finally told the Mets officially on September 9 that 1973 would be his last season. He made the announcement to the public on September 20. "I thought I'd be crying by now," he told reporters and Mets' executives at a press conference that day, "but I see so many people here who are my friends, I can't...Baseball and me, we had what you might call a love affair." Five days later, the Mets honored him on Willie Mays Night, proclaimed by New York City mayor John Lindsay, where he thanked the New York fans and said goodbye to baseball. In 66 games, Mays batted a career-low .211 with six home runs and 25 RBI.
Against the Reds in the NLCS, Mays helped restore order in Game 3 after Mets fans began throwing trash at Pete Rose following a brawl Rose had started with Bud Harrelson. Game 5 was the only one Mays played; he had a pinch-hit RBI single as the Mets won 7–2, clinching a trip to the 1973 World Series against the Oakland Athletics, October 13–21. A shoulder injury to Rusty Staub prompted the Mets to shift Don Hahn to right field and start Mays in center at the start of the Series. He stumbled four times in the first two games, including a fielding error in Game 2 that allowed the Athletics to tie the game and force extra innings. Mays's last hit came later in the same game, an RBI single against Rollie Fingers that snapped a 7–7 tie in the 12th inning of a 10–7 victory. The final game of his career was Game 3, on October 16, 1973, in which he pinch-hit for Tug McGraw in the 10th inning of a tied game and grounded into a force play in his final major league at-bat. The Mets went on to lose the game in 11 innings and ultimately lost the series in seven games.
=== All-Star Games ===
Mays's 24 appearances on an All-Star Game roster are tied with Musial for second all-time, behind only Hank Aaron's 25. He "strove for All-Star glory" according to Hirsch, taking the game seriously in his desire to support his NL teammates. In the first All-Star Game of 1959, Mays hit a game-winning triple against Whitey Ford; Bob Stevens of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that "Harvey Kuenn gave it honest pursuit, but the only center fielder in baseball who could have caught it hit it."
Mays scored the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning of the first All-Star Game of 1961 on a Clemente single in a 5–4 win for the NL. At Cleveland Stadium in the 1963 All-Star Game, he made the finest catch, snagging his foot under a wire fence in center field as he grasped a long fly ball hit by Joe Pepitone that might have given the AL the lead. The NL won 5–3, and Mays was named the All-Star Game MVP.
With a leadoff home run against Milt Pappas in the 1965 All-Star Game, Mays set a record for most hits in his All-Star Games (21). Mays led off the 1968 All-Star Game with a single, moved to second on an error, advanced to third base on a wild pitch, and scored the only run of the game when McCovey hit into a double play; for his contributions, Mays won the All-Star Game MVP Award for the second time.
Mays individually holds the records for most at bats (75), hits (23), runs scored (20), and stolen bases (six) by an All-Star; additionally, he is tied with Musial for the most extra-base hits (eight) and total bases (40), and he is tied with Brooks Robinson for the most triples (three) in All-Star Game history. In appreciation of his All-Star records, Ted Williams said, "They invented the All-Star Game for Willie Mays."
== Career overall ==
Note: Includes statistics for the 1948 Birmingham Black Barons season.
=== Statistics and achievements ===
Source:
In 33 postseason games, including the 1948 Negro World Series, 4 World Series (1951, '54, '62, and '73) and the 1971 and 1973 NLCS, Mays batted .248 (29-for-117) with 17 runs scored, six doubles, one home run, 15 RBI, three stolen bases, and 17 walks.
=== Barnstorming ===
During the first part of his career, Mays often participated in barnstorming tours after his regular season with the Giants ended. Teams of star players would travel from city to city playing exhibition games for local fans. Following his rookie year, Mays went on a barnstorming tour with an All-Star team assembled by Campanella, playing in Negro League stadiums around the southern United States. From 1955 through 1958, Mays led Willie Mays' All-Stars, a team composed of such stars as Irvin, Thompson, Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, Junior Gilliam, Brooks Lawrence, Sam Jones, and Joe Black. The team traveled around the southern United States the first two years, attaining crowds of about 5,000 in 1955 but drawing less than 1,000 in 1956, partly because of the advent of television. In 1957, the team went to Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, drawing 117,766 fans in 15 games, 14 of which were won by Mays's team. They played 20 games in Mexico in 1958.
Mays did not lead a team in 1959; Stoneham wanted him to rest because he was suffering from a broken finger. In 1960, Mays also did not barnstorm, but he and the Giants did go to Tokyo, playing an exhibition series of 16 games against the Yomiuri Giants. Though teams of black All-Stars assembled those two seasons, they drew fewer fans and opted not to assemble in 1961, when Mays again decided not to barnstorm. The tradition soon died out, as the expansion of the major leagues, the increased televising of major league games, and the emergence of professional football had siphoned interest away from the offseason exhibition games.
== Player profile ==
The batting stance Mays employed showed the influence of one of his childhood favorites, Joe DiMaggio. Like his hero, Mays would stand with his legs spread apart, placing the same amount of weight on both while holding the bat high. His right thumb would stick out in the air as he waited for pitches, but he wrapped it around the bat as he swung. Mays believed this late motion added power when he swung. Mays channeled his energies into the swing by abstaining from extra motion and opening his hips. "If there was a machine to measure each swing of a bat," Branch Rickey suggested, "it would be proven that Mays swings with more power and bat speed, pitch for pitch, than any other player." His focus extended to his antics, or lack thereof, at the plate; Mays did not rub dirt on his hands or stroll around the batter's box like some hitters did. Naturally more of a pull hitter, Mays adjusted his style in 1954 to hit more to right and center field in a quest for a higher batting average at his manager's request, but the change was not permanent. When the Giants moved to Candlestick Park, Mays found that pulling the ball worked better at home but hitting to right and center worked better on the road; he tried to adjust his style depending on where he was playing.
Defensively, Mays was one of the best outfielders of all time, as evidenced by his record 12 Gold Gloves as an outfielder. His signature play was his "basket catch," the technique that displayed Mays's stylistic flash as opposed to the pure raw skill that was on display when he made "The Catch" in the 1954 World Series. Holding his glove around his belly, he would keep his palm turned up, enabling the ball to fall right into his glove. Sportswriters have argued about whether the technique made him a better fielder or just made him more exciting to watch, but the basket catch did not prevent Mays from setting a record with 7,095 outfield putouts. Koppett observes, "His range was limitless, and his arm so strong that he could make effective throws from the most unlikely locations and from the most unlikely body positions." That range allowed him to play a shallow center and prevent shallow singles, while still being able to get back and not let extra-base hits get over his head.
Mays's flashy style of play stemmed partly from his days in the Negro leagues. "We were all entertainers," he said, "and my job was to give the fans something to talk about each game." Sometimes he would deliberately slip to the ground for catches to make them look tougher than they really were. Though he was a powerful hitter, he had a knack for stealing bases. He ran the bases daringly, becoming the only modern player to score from first base on a single to left field, and another time scoring from first base on a McCovey bunt (without an error).
== Assessment and legacy ==
On January 23, 1979, Mays was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in his first year of eligibility. He garnered 409 of the 432 ballots cast (94.68%). Referring to the other 23 voters, New York Daily News columnist Dick Young wrote, "If Jesus Christ were to show up with his old baseball glove, some guys wouldn't vote for him. He dropped the cross three times, didn't he?" In his induction speech, Mays said:
What can I say? This country is made up of a great many things. You can grow up to be what you want. I chose baseball, and I loved every minute of it. I give you one word—love. It means dedication. You have to sacrifice many things to play baseball. I sacrificed a bad marriage and I sacrificed a good marriage. But I'm here today because baseball is my number one love.
In 1999, Mays placed second on The Sporting News's "List of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players", trailing only Babe Ruth. Later that year, fans elected him to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. In 2020, The Athletic ranked Mays at number 1 on its "Baseball 100" list, compiled by sportswriter Joe Posnanski. In 2022, MLB.com writers voted Mays as being the greatest player in Giants franchise history.
Fellow players and coaches recognized his talent. Roberto Clemente said of Mays: "To me, Willie Mays is the greatest who ever played." Willie Stargell learned the hard way how good Mays's arm was when the center fielder threw him out in a game in 1965. "I couldn't believe Mays could throw that far. I figured there had to be a relay. Then I found out there wasn't. He's too good for this world." "If somebody came up and hit .450, stole 100 bases and performed a miracle in the field every day, I'd still look you in the eye and say Willie was better," Durocher said. "All I can say is that he is the greatest player I ever saw, bar none," was Rigney's assessment. When Mays was the only player elected to the Hall of Fame in 1979, Duke Snider, who finished second in voting that year, said, "Willie really more or less deserves to be in by himself." Don Zimmer remarked, "In the National League in the 1950s, there were two opposing players who stood out over all the others — Stan Musial and Willie Mays. ... I've always said that Willie Mays was the best player I ever saw. ... [H]e could have been an All-Star at any position." Teammate Felipe Alou said, "[Mays] is number one, without a doubt. ... [A]nyone who played with him or against him would agree that he is the best." Al Rosen remembered "...you had the feeling you were playing against someone who was going to be the greatest of all time."
Throughout his career, Mays maintained he did not specifically try to set records, but he ranks among baseball's leaders in many categories. Third in home runs with 660 when he retired, he still ranks sixth as of December 2024. His 2,068 runs scored rank seventh, and his 1,909 runs batted in rank 12th as of December 2024.
Mays batted .301 in his career and his 3,293 hits are the 12th-most of any player as of December 2024. His 2,992 games played are the ninth-highest total of any major leaguer as of June 2021. He stole 338 bases in his career. By the end of his career, Mays had won a Gold Glove Award 12 times, a record for outfielders today (shared by Roberto Clemente). He is baseball's all-time leader in outfield putouts (7,095), and he played 2,842 games as an outfielder, a total exceeded only by Cobb (2,934) and Barry Bonds (2,874). Mays's 24 appearances on an All-Star Game roster are tied with Musial for second all-time, behind only Aaron's 25. He holds individually the All-Star Game records for most at bats (75), hits (23), runs scored (20), and stolen bases (six); additionally, he is tied with Musial for the most extra-base hits (eight) and total bases (40), and he is tied with Brooks Robinson for the most triples (three) in All-Star Game history.
Mays's 156.2 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) ranks fifth all-time, and third among position players (trailing Barry Bonds' 162.8 and Ruth's 162.1). He led NL position players in WAR for 10 seasons, and led the league in on-base plus slugging (OPS) five times, ranking 26th all time with a .941 mark. Sabermetrician Bill James thinks Mays was the best centerfielder of all time, naming him the best in the major leagues in the 1950s and the 1960s. David Schoenfield of ESPN, James and Barra all think he should have won the NL MVP Award at least seven times. "He was one of the best fielders of all time," Schoenfield wrote, noting Mays has the eighth-most fielding runs saved (a sabermetric stat) of all time. Barra claimed in 2004, "Most modern fans would pick Willie Mays as the best all-around player in the second half of the twentieth century." Sportscaster Curt Gowdy said of Mays, "Willie Mays was the best player I ever saw. He did everything well."
Sudden collapses plagued Mays sporadically throughout his career, which occasionally led to hospital stays. He attributed them to his style of play. "My style was always to go all out, whether I played four innings or nine. That's how I played all my life, and I think that's the reason I would suddenly collapse from exhaustion or nervous energy or whatever it was called."
At the Pittsburgh drug trials in 1985, former Mets teammate John Milner testified Mays kept a bottle of liquid amphetamine in his locker at Shea Stadium. Milner had never seen Mays use amphetamines, and Mays denied having taken drugs during his career. "I really didn't need anything," Mays said. "My problem was if I could stay on the field. I would go to the doctor and would say to the doctor, 'Hey, I need something to keep me going. Could you give me some sort of vitamin?' I don't know what they put in there, and I never asked him a question about anything." Hirsch wrote "It would be naïve to think Mays never took amphetamines" but admits that Mays's amphetamine use has never been proven, calling Mays "the most famous player who supposedly took amphetamines".
== Cultural effect ==
Along with Mantle (of the Yankees) and Snider (of the Dodgers), Mays was part of a triumvirate of center fielders from the New York teams of the 1950s who would be elected to the Hall of Fame. The three were often the subject of debates among the New York fans as to who was the best center fielder in the city.
Mays was a popular figure in Harlem, New York's predominantly black neighborhood and the home of the Polo Grounds. Magazine photographers were fond of chronicling his participation in local stickball games with kids, which he played two to three nights a week during homestands until his first marriage in 1956. In the urban game of hitting a rubber ball with an adapted broomstick handle, Mays could hit a shot that measured "five sewers" (the distance of six consecutive New York City manhole covers), nearly 450 feet (140 m).
Unlike other black athletes such as Jackie Robinson, Mays tended to remain silent on racial issues, refraining from public complaints about discriminatory practices that affected him. Robinson once accused him and some of his teammates of not doing enough for the civil rights movement. Hank Aaron wished Mays had spoken out more on racial issues. Mays believed his job was to play baseball, not talk about social issues. "I'm a ballplayer. I am not a politician or a writer or a historian. I can do best for my people by doing what I do best."
== Post-playing career ==
After Mays retired as a player, he remained in the New York Mets organization as their hitting instructor until the end of the 1979 season. Mays missed several appointments during these years and was often absent from Mets games. Joe McDonald became the new Mets' general manager in 1975, and at the start of 1976, he terminated the 10-year contract stating the contract with Mays was vague. Mays had six years to go at $50,000 a year for various duties that had recently led to friction and the threat of a lawsuit. Mays irritated by the notification, he then hired a lawyer and appealed to Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn to arbitrate the situation. Kuhn and Mays's lawyer reviewed, and the Mets agreed to keep him, as long as he stayed at home games for at least four innings. During his time with the Mets, Lee Mazzilli learned the basket catch from him.
In October 1979, Mays took a job at the Bally's Park Place casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. While there, he served as a special assistant to the casino's president and as a greeter. After being told by Kuhn that he could not be part of both baseball and a casino, Mays terminated his contract with the Mets, and he was banned from baseball. Kuhn was concerned about gambling infiltrating baseball, but Hirsch points out that Mays's role was merely as a greeter, he was not allowed to place bets at the casino as part of his contract, and the casino did not engage in sports betting. In 1985, less than a year after replacing Kuhn as commissioner, Peter Ueberroth decided to allow Mays to return to baseball. At a press conference with Mays and Mickey Mantle (reinstated from a similar suspension), Ueberroth said, "I am bringing back two players who are more a part of baseball than perhaps anyone else."
Mays was named special assistant to the president and general manager of the Giants in 1986. He signed a lifetime contract with the team in 1993 and helped to muster public enthusiasm for building Pac Bell Park, which opened in 2000. Mays founded a charity, the Say Hey Foundation, which promotes youth baseball. The Giants retired Mays's number 24 in May 1972. Oracle Park, their stadium, is at 24 Willie Mays Plaza. In front of the main entrance is a nine-foot-tall (2.74 m) statue of Mays, who had a private box at the stadium. When the Giants dedicated a Wall of Fame to their greatest players in 2008, Mays became part of its inaugural class.
At a special ceremony during the Mets' 60th anniversary Old-Timer's Game on August 27, 2022, the team announced that, pursuant to a promise Mets' owner Joan Payson had made to Mays when she traded for him in 1972, they were following the Giants in retiring Mays's number 24. Mays became the 14th person (player or manager) to have their number retired by two teams.
== Special honors, media appearances ==
Mays met with several United States presidents. During Gerald Ford's administration in 1976, he was invited to the White House state dinner honoring Queen Elizabeth II. He was the Tee Ball Commissioner at the 2006 White House Tee Ball Initiative on July 30, 2006, during George W. Bush's presidency. On July 14, 2009, he accompanied Barack Obama to St. Louis aboard Air Force One for that year's All-Star Game. Six years later, Obama honored Mays with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
In September 2017, Major League Baseball renamed the World Series MVP Award the Willie Mays World Series MVP Award. Though Mays never went to college, he was awarded honorary degrees by Yale University, Dartmouth College, and San Francisco State University.
Mays made many appearances on film and television. He made multiple appearances as the mystery guest on the long-running game show What's My Line? Through a friendship with Tony Owen and Donna Reed, he was able to appear in three episodes of The Donna Reed Show. During the 1960s, he appeared on shows including The Dating Game and Bewitched. NBC-TV aired an hour-long documentary titled A Man Named Mays in 1963, telling the story of the ballplayer's life. In 1972, Mays voiced himself in the animated fictional special Willie Mays and the Say-Hey Kid, produced by Rankin/Bass Productions. Charles M. Schulz's comic strip Peanuts mentioned Mays numerous times. The plot of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "In the Cards" (aired 1997, story set in 2373) centers on the son of Captain Sisko (a noted baseball aficionado) attempting to obtain as a gift for his father a vintage 1951 Willie Mays rookie card.
Many popular songs reference Mays. In 1954, The Treniers recorded their famous song "Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song)" in whose recording Mays himself participated. "Centerfield" by John Fogerty, which is often played at major and minor league stadiums, mentions Mays, Cobb, and DiMaggio. Another well-known song which mentions Mays is "Talkin' Baseball (Willie, Mickey & The Duke)" by Terry Cashman (1981), which refers to the three great New York City center fielders of the 1950s. Furthermore, Mays is mentioned in “I Shall Be Free” by Bob Dylan, released on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan in 1963.
== Personal life ==
Mays became the third husband of Marghuerite Wendell Chapman (1926–2010) in 1956. The couple adopted a five-day-old baby named Michael in 1959. They separated in 1962 and divorced in 1963, with Marghuerite taking Michael for the majority of the time.
Eight years later, Mays married Mae Louise Allen, a child-welfare worker in San Francisco. Wilt Chamberlain had given Mays her phone number in 1961, and they dated off and on the next several years. In 1997, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease; Mays cared for her until her death on April 19, 2013.
Mays was the godfather of Barry Bonds, whose father, Bobby Bonds, was a friend of his when they were Giants teammates.
Glaucoma forced Mays to stop driving a car and playing golf after 2005. In 2018, blind sportswriter Ed Lucas wrote that Mays had told him a "few years ago" that he had actually gone blind. However, James S. Hirsch wrote in The New York Times in 2021, on the occasion of his 90th birthday, that his vision was merely "compromised" by glaucoma and that he was still able to watch games on television, albeit with difficulty.
In 1957, when the New York Giants moved to San Francisco, Mays placed an offer on a home in the exclusive Sherwood Forest neighborhood. The seller refused his offer after neighbors complained about a Black family moving to the area.
Near the end of his life, Mays resided in Atherton, California, with his personal assistant and a caretaker.
== Death ==
Mays died of heart failure at a care home in Palo Alto, California, on June 18, 2024, at the age of 93. The day before, he had released his final public statement when he said he chose to stay in California and not attend the MLB at Rickwood Field game between the Giants and Cardinals later that week on June 20.
Several politicians and professional athletes paid tribute to Mays, including President Joe Biden and former president Barack Obama, as well as San Francisco mayor London Breed, and California governor Gavin Newsom. Fans also left tributes and paid their respects at Mays' statue outside Oracle Park.
On June 20, 2024, during the game at Rickwood Field, the San Francisco Giants wore a patch with "24" on it in Mays' honor and his Hall of Fame plaque was brought over to the place where Mays began his career. Michael Mays, his son, spoke before the game and tribute video was played on the video board before the first pitch by Bill Greason, Mays' former teammate in the Negro leagues. The Mets wore a patch for the remainder of the season honoring Mays.
A public memorial ceremony, led by Giants broadcaster Jon Miller, was held on July 8 at Oracle Park. A number of Mays' former teammates attended the ceremony, and among the speakers were baseball commissioner Rob Manfred, former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown. In addition to the tributes, Mays was given final military honors for his service during the Korean War, with two service members playing "Taps" before presenting his son, Michael, with an American flag. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Salmon, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Glaus | Tim Salmon, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy Glaus | |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_FIFA_Women%27s_World_Cup_knockout_stage | 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup knockout stage | The knockout stage of the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup began on 20 June and ended with the final match on 5 July 2015. A total of 16 teams competed in this knockout stage.
== Format ==
The knockout stage comprises the 16 teams that advanced from the group stage of the tournament. There are four rounds of matches, with each round eliminating half of the teams entering that round. The successive rounds are the round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals, and the final. There is also a match to decide third and fourth place. For each game in the knockout stage, any draw at 90 minutes is followed by 30 minutes of extra time; if scores are still level, there is a penalty shootout to determine who progresses to the next round. Single yellow cards accrued will be cancelled after the quarter-finals, therefore ensuring that no players miss the Final because of receiving a caution in the semi-finals.
=== Combinations of matches in the round of 16 ===
The third-placed teams which advanced will be placed with the winners of groups A, B, C and D according to a table published in Section 28 of the tournament regulations.
== Qualified teams ==
The top two teams of each preliminary group and the four best-ranked third place teams advanced to the knockout stage.
== Bracket ==
== Round of 16 ==
=== Germany vs Sweden ===
=== China PR vs Cameroon ===
=== Brazil vs Australia ===
=== France vs South Korea ===
=== Canada vs Switzerland ===
=== Norway vs England ===
=== United States vs Colombia ===
=== Japan vs Netherlands ===
== Quarter-finals ==
=== Germany vs France ===
=== China PR vs United States ===
=== Australia vs Japan ===
=== England vs Canada ===
== Semi-finals ==
=== United States vs Germany ===
=== Japan vs England ===
== Third place play-off ==
== Final == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babar_the_Elephant | Babar the Elephant | Babar the Elephant (UK: BAB-ar, US: bə-BAR, French: [babaʁ]) is an elephant character named Babar who first appeared in 1931 in the French children's book Histoire de Babar by Jean de Brunhoff.
The book is based on a tale that Brunhoff's wife, Cécile, had invented for their children. It tells the story of a young African elephant, named Babar, whose mother is killed by a big game hunter. Babar the Elephant escapes, and in the process leaves the jungle in exile, visits a big city, and returns to bring the benefits of civilization to his fellow elephants. Just as he returns to his community of elephants, their king tragically dies from eating a poisonous mushroom. Because of his travels and civilization, Babar is chosen king of the elephant kingdom. He marries his cousin, Celeste (French: Céleste), and they subsequently have children and teach them valuable lessons.
== Story synopsis ==
After Babar's mother is shot and killed by a hunter, he flees the jungle and finds his way to an unspecified big city with no particular characteristics. He is befriended by the Old Lady, who buys him clothes and hires him a tutor. Babar's cousins Celeste and Arthur find him in the big city and help him return to the Elephant realm. Following the death of the King of the Elephants, who had eaten a poisonous mushroom (the illustrations indicate that it is a fly agaric), a council of old elephants approach Babar, saying that as he has "lived among men and learnt much", he would be suitable to become the new King. Babar is crowned King of the Elephants and marries his cousin, Celeste.
In Jean de Brunhoff's second Babar book, The Travels of Babar, when the married couple leave by balloon on their honeymoon:
... stormy winds down the balloon on an island, and yet again will the royal couple escape by whale, be marooned on an even smaller island and be rescued by a passing ocean liner only to be turned over to an animal trainer and put to work in a circus. And when they escape and return home, what awaits them but war with the rhinoceroses.
It was sparked when Arthur tied a firecracker to the tail of Lord Rataxes. Babar wins the war by having the elephants paint monster faces on their backsides, which cause the frightened rhinoceroses to run away. After the victory celebrations, the book ends with Babar, Celeste and the Old Lady sitting together and discussing how Babar can rule wisely and make all the elephants happy.
In the third book, Babar the King, Babar founds the city of Celesteville. After many dromedaries are found, they help with building the city. Each elephant citizen is given a job to do. Once the city is built, everyone celebrates. However, problems arise; the Old Lady is bitten by a snake, and Cornelius' home catches fire. Babar has a dream where he is visited by Misfortune and other demons which are chased away by elephant angels representing Courage, Hope, and other virtues. The morning after the hopeful dream, the Old Lady and Cornelius make full recoveries.
Among Babar's other associates in the various incarnations of the series are the monkey Zephir, the old elephant counsellor Cornelius (also later Pompadour who was created for the Babar television series), Babar's cousin Arthur, and Babar's children, Pom, Flora, and Alexander. A younger daughter, Isabelle, is later introduced. The Old Lady comes to live in the Kingdom as an honored guest.
Besides his Westernizing policies, Babar engages in battle with the warlike rhinoceroses of a hostile bordering nation, led by Lord Rataxes. Much later, in Babar and the Adventures of Badou, Pom grows to become the father of Prince Babar II (known as Badou).
== History ==
In 1931, Jean de Brunhoff introduced Babar in Histoire de Babar, and Babar enjoyed immediate success. In 1933, A.A. Milne introduced an English-language version, The Story of Babar, in Britain and the United States.
Before his death in 1937, Jean de Brunhoff published six more stories. His son Laurent de Brunhoff, also a writer and illustrator, carried on the series from 1946, beginning with Babar et Le Coquin d'Arthur.
An animated television series, Babar was produced in Canada by Nelvana Limited and the Clifford Ross Company, running from 3 January 1989 to 5 June 1991, with 65 episodes. An additional 13 episodes aired in 2000. The character has also appeared in a number of films. The first two of Jean de Brunhoff's Babar books have inspired two major concert works: L'Histoire de Babar, le petit éléphant (The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant) by Francis Poulenc in 1940; and The Travels of Babar (Le Voyage de Babar) by Raphael Mostel in 1994. In 2010, an animated sequel and spin-off, Babar and the Adventures of Badou, was released, introducing new characters, including Badou, Babar's grandson and Pom's son. It takes place several years after the original series.
== Influence and legacy ==
Babar, who likes to wear a bright green suit, introduces a very French form of Western civilization to the elephants, and they soon dress in Western attire. The attention to stylish clothing perhaps reflects the fact that the original publisher of the books was Editions du Jardin des Modes, owned by Condé-Nast. The Babar books were the first Condé-Nast publications not specifically about fashion.
Author Maurice Sendak described the innovations of Jean de Brunhoff:
Like an extravagant piece of poetry, the interplay between few words and many pictures, commonly called the picture book, is a difficult, exquisite, and most easily collapsible form that few have mastered....Jean de Brunhoff was a master of this form. Between 1931 and 1937 he completed a body of work that forever changed the face of the illustrated book.
The series has over 100 licensees worldwide, and the "Babar" brand has a multi-generational following. There are 12 Babar stores in Japan. A global cultural phenomenon, whose fans span generations, Babar stands along with Disney's Mickey Mouse as one of the most recognized children's characters in the world. There are now over 30,000 Babar publications in over 17 languages, and over 8 million books have been sold. Laurent de Brunhoff's Babar's Yoga for Elephants is a top seller in the U.S. with over 100,000 copies sold to date. The Babar series of books are recommended reading on former First Lady Laura Bush's national reading initiative list. All 78 episodes of the TV series are broadcast in 30 languages in over 150 countries, making Babar one of the largest distributed animation shows in history. Babar has been a perennial favourite for years at the White House Easter Egg Roll.
Since 2001, the Babar franchise has been owned by Corus Entertainment's Nelvana in conjunction with the artist, Clifford Ross.
Babar made a nameless appearance in The New Traveller's Almanac (part of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series). Babar and his elephants escort Mina Murray and Allan Quatermain through the African jungle. Mina considers them "civilized and gentle", but Allan denies that their leader is really wearing a crown.
In the 1988 comedy film Coming to America, the Joffer royal family have a pet elephant named "Babar". In 1993, de Brunhoff's elephant inspired the BaBar experiment, an international hadron physics collaboration based in the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University.
In 2008-2009 the Morgan Library & Museum held an exhibition which focused artwork titled Drawing Babar: Early Drafts and Watercolors.
== Criticism ==
Herbert R. Kohl and Vivian Paley, have argued that, although superficially delightful, the stories can be seen as a justification for colonialism. Others argue that the French civilization described in the early books had already been destroyed by World War I and the books were an exercise in nostalgia for pre-1914 France. Ariel Dorfman's The Empire's Old Clothes is another critical view, in which he concludes: "In imagining the independence of the land of the elephants, Jean de Brunhoff anticipates, more than a decade before history forced Europe to put it into practice, the theory of neocolonialism".
In April 2012, Babar's Travels was removed from the shelves by library staff in East Sussex in response to parental complaints for what was perceived as stereotypes of Africans. Jean de Brunhoff's son Laurent de Brunhoff was embarrassed by stereotypical Africans and Native Americans in Babar's Picnic and asked the publisher to withdraw it.
A more sympathetic view is expressed in the 2008 New Yorker article "Freeing the Elephants", in which Adam Gopnik argues it "is not an unconscious expression of the French colonial imagination; it is a self-conscious comedy about the French colonial imagination and its close relation to the French domestic imagination. The gist ... is explicit and intelligent: the lure of the city, of civilization, of style and order and bourgeois living is real, for elephants as for humans". He concludes that the satisfaction derived from Babar is based on the knowledge that "while it is a very good thing to be an elephant, still, the life of an elephant is dangerous, wild, and painful. It is therefore a safer thing to be an elephant in a house near a park".
== Books ==
Jean de Brunhoff wrote and illustrated seven Babar books; the series was continued by his son, Laurent de Brunhoff.
Jean de Brunhoff's Babar books (1931–1941), and the titles of the English translations, were:
Laurent de Brunhoff's books (1948–2017) (selected list):
English translations of the original Babar books are routinely republished in the UK and in the US, individually and in collections.
Other English-language titles about Babar include the following:
== Films and television ==
Les Aventures de Babar (French language TV series) (1968)
Bill Melendez Productions:
The Story of Babar the Little Elephant (1968)
Babar the Elephant Comes to America (1971)
Atkinson Film-Arts:
Babar and Father Christmas (1986)
Nelvana Productions:
Babar (1989–91; 2001)
Babar: The Movie (1989)
Babar: King of the Elephants (1999)
Babar and the Adventures of Badou (2010–2015)
== Video games ==
The American game company Mindscape released Babar and the Royal Coin Caper for the PC in 2005, Both Babar and Cornelius are voiced by Daniel Davies and Dave Pender. The Danish game company The Game Factory published Babar to the Rescue for the Game Boy Advance in 2006. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedrunning | Speedrunning | Speedrunning is the act of playing a video game, or section of a video game, with the goal of completing it as fast as possible. Speedrunning often involves following planned routes, which may incorporate sequence breaking and exploit glitches that allow sections to be skipped or completed more quickly than intended. Tool-assisted speedrunning (TAS) is a subcategory of speedrunning that uses emulation software or additional tools to create a precisely controlled sequence of inputs or to slow down the game to perfect movements.
Many online communities revolve around speedrunning specific games; community leaderboard rankings for individual games form the primary competitive metric for speedrunning. Racing between two or more speedrunners is also a popular form of competition. Videos and livestreams of speedruns are shared via the internet on media sites such as YouTube and Twitch. Speedruns are sometimes showcased at marathon events, which are gaming conventions that feature multiple people performing speedruns in a variety of games.
== History ==
=== Early examples ===
Speedrunning has been a part of video games since the early days of the medium, similar to the chasing of high scores, though it did not achieve broad interest until 1993. Some groundwork for what would become modern speedrunning was established by id Software during the development for Wolfenstein 3D (1992), although prior games such as Metroid (1986) and Prince of Persia (1989) encouraged speedrunning by noting a player's time upon meeting certain metrics, including completion of the game. Wolfenstein 3D recorded a "par time" statistic which was based on John Romero's personal records for each level. Romero's best level times were also printed in the official hint book, which was available via the same mail-order system used to distribute the game at the time. His intention was that players would attempt to beat his times.
=== 1993–2003: Doom and Quake demos, early Internet communities ===
The development of a strong speedrunning community is considered to have originated with the 1993 computer game Doom. The game retained the "par time" mechanic from Wolfenstein and included a feature that allowed players to record and play back gameplay using files called demos (also known as game replays). Demos were lightweight files that could be shared more easily than video files on Internet bulletin board systems at the time. Internally, in January 1994, University of Waterloo student Christina Norman created a File Transfer Protocol server dedicated to compiling demos, named the LMP Hall of Fame (after the .lmp file extension used by Doom demos). The LMP Hall of Fame inspired the creation of the Doom Honorific Titles by Frank Stajano, a catalogue of titles that a player could obtain by beating certain challenges in the game. The Doom speedrunning community emerged in November 1994, when Simon Widlake created COMPET-N, a website hosting leaderboards dedicated to ranking completion times of Doom's single-player levels.
In 1996, id Software released Quake as a successor to the Doom series. Like its predecessor, Quake had a demo-recording feature and drew attention from speedrunners. In April 1997, Nolan "Radix" Pflug created Nightmare Speed Demos (NSD), a website for tracking Quake speedruns. In June 1997, Pflug released a full-game speedrun demo of Quake called Quake Done Quick, which introduced speedrunning to a broader audience. Quake speedruns were notable for their breadth of movement techniques, including "bunny hopping," a method of gaining speed also present in future shooting games like Counter-Strike and Team Fortress. In April 1998, NSD merged with another demo-hosting website to create Speed Demos Archive.
=== 2003–present: Speed Demos Archive and video sharing ===
For five years, Speed Demos Archive hosted exclusively Quake speedruns, but in 2003 it published a 100% speedrun of Metroid Prime done by Pflug. Six months later, SDA began accepting runs from all games. Unlike its predecessor websites, SDA did not compile leaderboards for their games; they displayed only the fastest speedrun of each game. Until SDA's expansion into games other than Quake in 2004, speedrun video submissions were primarily sent to early video game record-keeper Twin Galaxies. The videos were often never publicly released, creating verifiability concerns that SDA aimed to address. It was often impossible to determine what strategies had gone into setting these records, hindering the development of speedrunning techniques. Sites dedicated to speedrunning, including game-specific sites, began to establish the subculture around speedrunning. These sites were not only used for sharing runs but also to collaborate and share tips to improve times, leading to collaborative efforts to continuously improve speedrunning records on certain games.
In 2003, a video demonstrating a TAS of Super Mario Bros. 3 garnered widespread attention on the internet; many speedrunners cite this as their first introduction to the hobby. It was performed and published by a Japanese user named Morimoto. The video was lacking context to indicate that it was a TAS, so many people believed it to be an actual human performance. It drew criticism from viewers who felt "cheated" when Morimoto later explained the process by which he created the video and apologized for the confusion. In December 2003, after seeing Morimoto's TAS, a user named Bisqwit created TASVideos (initially named NESVideos), a site dedicated to displaying tool-assisted speedruns.
The creation of video-sharing and streaming websites in the late 2000s and early 2010s contributed to an increase in the accessibility and popularity of speedrunning. In 2005, the creation of YouTube enabled speedrunners to upload and share videos of speedruns and discuss strategies on the SDA forums. Twitch, a livestreaming website centered around video gaming, was launched in 2011. The advent of livestreaming made for easier verification and preservation of speedruns, and some speedrunners believe it is responsible for a shift towards collaboration among members of the community. In 2014, Speedrun.com was created, which had less stringent submission guidelines than SDA and was intended to centralize speedrun leaderboards for many different games. Speedrunners' move towards using Speedrun.com and social media platforms like Skype and Discord contributed to SDA's relevance waning in the 2010s. Various programs were created to assist speedrunning, such as speedrunning timers that show the current and best time of the game's sections, comparing the two and highlighting the differences.
== Methodology ==
=== Gameplay strategies ===
Routing is a fundamental process in speedrunning. Routing is the act of developing an optimal sequence of actions and stages in a video game. A route may involve skipping one or more important items or sections. Skipping a part of a video game that is normally required for progression is referred to as sequence breaking, a term first used in reference to the 2002 action-adventure game Metroid Prime. Video game glitches may be used to achieve sequence breaks, or may be used for other purposes such as skipping cutscenes and increasing the player's speed or damage output. Some people, called glitch-hunters, choose to focus on finding glitches that will be useful to speedrunners. In some games, arbitrary code execution exploits may be possible, allowing players to write their own code into the game's memory. Several speedruns use a "credits warp", a category of glitch that causes the game's credits sequence to play, which may require arbitrary code execution. The use of glitches and sequence breaks in speedruns was historically not allowed, per the rules of Twin Galaxies' early leaderboards. When speedrunning moved away from Twin Galaxies towards independent online leaderboards, their use became increasingly common.
=== Tool-assisted speedruns ===
A tool-assisted speedrun (TAS) is a speedrun that uses emulation software and tools to create a "theoretically perfect playthrough". According to TASVideos, common examples of tools include advancing the game frame by frame to play the game more precisely, retrying parts of the run using savestates, and hex editing. These tools are designed to remove restrictions imposed by human reflexes and allow for optimal gameplay. The run is recorded as a series of controller inputs intended to be fed back to the game in sequence. Although generally recorded on an emulator, TASes can be played back on original console hardware by sending inputs into the console's controller ports, a process known as console verification (as some exploits are possible on emulation but not console). To differentiate them from tool-assisted speedruns, unassisted speedruns are sometimes referred to as real-time attack (RTA) speedruns. Due to the lack of a human playing the game in real time, TASes are not considered to be in competition with RTA speedruns.
=== Categorization and ranking ===
Speedruns are divided into various categories that impose additional limitations on a runner. It is common for category restrictions to require a certain amount of content to be completed in the game. Each video game may have its own speedrun categories, but some categories are popular irrespective of game. The most common are:
Any%, which involves getting to the end as fast as possible with no qualifier,
100%, which requires full completion of a game. This may entail obtaining all items or may use some other metric.
Low%, the opposite of 100%, which requires the player to beat the game while completing the minimum amount possible.
Glitchless, which restricts the player from performing any glitches during the speedrun.
No Major Glitches, Which consist of beating the game as fast as possible while not using any "game breaking" glitches.
Speedrunners compete in these categories by ranking times on online leaderboards. According to Wired, the definitive website for speedrun leaderboards is Speedrun.com. As of July 2021, the site hosts leaderboards for over 20,000 video games. Runners usually record footage of their speedruns for accurate timing and verification, and may include a timer in their videos. They often use timers that keep track of splits—the time between the start of the run and the completion of some section or objective. Verification is usually done by leaderboard moderators who review submissions and determine the validity of individual speedruns.
== Community ==
According to many speedrunners, community is an important aspect of the hobby. Matt Merkle, director of operations at Games Done Quick, says that speedrunners "value the cooperation the community encourages," and many speedrunners have said that their mental health has improved because of their involvement in the community. Erica Lenti, writing for Wired, said a sense of community is vital to speedrunning because it motivates players and aids in the development of routes and tricks used in speedruns, and Milan Jacevic highlighted "years of research" and collective community efforts that contribute to world records.
Speedrunners use media-sharing sites like YouTube and Twitch to share videos and livestreams of speedruns. The speedrunning community is divided into many sub-communities focused on speedrunning specific games. These sub-communities can form their own independent leaderboards and communicate about their games using Discord. Many communities have used the centralized leaderboard hosting site Speedrun.com since its founding in 2014.
=== Marathons ===
Speedrunning marathons, a form of gaming convention, feature a series of speedruns by multiple speedrunners. While many marathons are held worldwide, the largest event is Games Done Quick, a semiannual marathon held in the United States. As of January 2022, it has raised over $37 million for charity organizations since its inception in 2010. The largest marathon in Europe is the European Speedrunner Assembly, held in Sweden. Both events broadcast the speedruns on Twitch and raise money for various charity organizations. Speedruns at marathons are done in one attempt and often have accompanying commentary. Many people consider marathons to be important to runners and spectators in the speedrunning community. Peter Marsh, writing for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, says that the Games Done Quick events provide an inclusive space for women and the LGBTQ community in contrast to the related cultures of gaming and Twitch streaming. Alex Miller of Wired says the events have played an important role in connecting people and supporting international humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières during the COVID-19 pandemic.
=== Speedrun races ===
Races between two or more speedrunners are a common competition format. They require players to be skilled at recovering from setbacks during a speedrun because they cannot start over. Occasionally, races are featured at marathons; a 4-person Super Metroid race is a popular recurring event at Games Done Quick marathons. The Global Speedrun Association (GSA) have organized head-to-head tournaments for multiple games, including Celeste, Super Mario 64, and Super Mario Odyssey. In 2019, GSA organized an in-person speedrun race event called PACE. Their efforts have drawn criticism from some speedrunners who believe that they "undermine the community spirit", citing cash prizes as incentives to avoid collaboration with other speedrunners and ignore games without prize money. Video game randomizers—ROM hacks that randomly shuffle item locations and other in-game content—are popular for speedrun races as well. Tournaments and other events have been organized for randomizer races, and they have been featured at speedrun marathons.
== Cheating ==
=== Methods ===
==== Splicing ====
Splicing is by far the most popular cheating method in speedrunning. Here, a speedrun is not recorded continuously, as is usually the case, but instead composed of various video snippets recorded at different times, sometimes with gameplay stolen from TAS composers or legitimate players.
At SGDQ 2019, speedrunner "ConnorAce" used a spliced run to illegitimately claim the world record on Clustertruck for the "NoAbility%" category, depriving the legitimate record holder from being invited to the event. The run was treated with suspicion due to it not being submitted officially to Speedrun.com, with the video being unlisted on YouTube prior to ConnorAce's acceptance into SGDQ. In October 2019, ConnorAce's run was exposed by the YouTube documentarian Apollo Legend.
In a typical case, splicing allows difficult segments to be repeated to perfection and edited together afterwards into one seemingly continuous effort, which can sometimes dramatically reduce the amount of time needed to grind out a comparable score. However, a spliced run is not considered cheating if it is announced to be a multi-segment run upon submission; for example, this community-made multi-segment compilation for Super Mario Bros.
==== TASbotting ====
When 'TASbotting', the player records their controller inputs as a tool-assisted run in an external device in order to then have this device reproduce the inputs on a real console. As with splicing, the inputs of individual segments can be combined and, as is usual for tool-assisted runs, inputs can be made frame by frame. As long as these inputs are authentic and seem realistic for a human being, such manipulations are much more difficult to detect in the resulting video product than splicing. If, on the other hand, a TAS is not outputted on the original hardware but, as usual, on emulators, it can sometimes be alleged from the resulting video that such auxiliary programs were used; additionally, some emulators never perfectly imitate the desired hardware, which can cause synchronization issues when replayed on a console.
==== Modifying the timer or playback speed ====
Modifying game timers, especially on computer games, is another common method to improve one's recorded times. However, this is a very noticeable manipulation, especially in highly competitive areas, since the speedruns in the upper area of leaderboards are repeatedly analyzed by other players in order to check their legitimacy and playback reproducibility, including a temporal check known as "retiming". This often reveals discrepancies between one's recording time and a speedrun in the leaderboards.
Another method, a variation of splicing, includes speeding up cutscenes or compressing transitional black space. Again, such methods are likely to be detected by a speedrun moderator, although some games, especially where PC speed can have an effect, may actually vary depending on hardware.
Finally, another common cheating method is to play the game using frame-by-frame advancement or in slow motion, which is similar to normal tool-assisted speedrunning but without the ability to redo inputs. Playing in slow motion is often effective for games that require very precise movements.
==== Modifying in-game files ====
While it is often possible to use traditional cheats such as a GameShark to increase character speed, strength, health, etc., such cheats are generally quite easy for an experienced moderator to detect, even when applied subtly. However, the modification of internal files to improve RNG can often be much more difficult to detect.
One of the most infamous examples of file modification was several cheated runs by the speedrunner Dream in 2020, whose luck was considered so extreme in a series of Minecraft speedruns that they were considered exceedingly unlikely to have been done without cheating (with an approximately 1 in 20 sextillion chance of occurring, as estimated by Matt Parker from Numberphile) by both the moderators at Speedrun.com and various YouTubers, such as Karl Jobst and Matt Parker, whose videos on Dream gained a combined 5.7 million and 6.5 million views, respectively, as of January 2024. Dream later admitted to the runs being cheated about five months after his runs were rejected, although he claimed he did not know he was using a modified version of the game. Nearly two years later, the player who helped uncover Dream's cheated runs, MinecrAvenger, was also found to be using similar luck manipulation in late 2022.
==== Lying about times ====
While all of the aforementioned methods are deceptive in nature, the simplest way of cheating is merely to lie about a time. One of the most infamous cases of this was done by Todd Rogers. Several of his records have come under scrutiny for being seemingly impossible or lacking sufficient proof. In 2002, Robert Mruczek, then chief referee at Twin Galaxies, officially rescinded Todd's record time in Barnstorming after other players pointed out that his time of 32.04 seconds did not appear to be possible, even when the game was hacked to remove all obstacles. Upon further investigation, Twin Galaxies referees were unable to find independent verification for this time, having instead been relying on erroneous information from Activision.
As listed on the Twin Galaxies leaderboard until January 2018, Rogers's record in the 1980 Activision game Dragster was a time of 5.51 seconds from 1982. At the time, Activision verified high scores by Polaroid. According to Rogers, after he submitted a photo of this time, he was called by Activision, who asked him to verify how he achieved such a score, because they had programmed a 'perfect run' of the game and were unable to achieve better than a 5.54. The game's programmer David Crane would later confirm that he had a vague recollection of programming test runs, but did not remember the results. In 2012, Todd received a Guinness World Record for the longest-standing video game score record, for his 1982 Dragster record. In 2017, a speedrunner named Eric "Omnigamer" Koziel disassembled the game's code and concluded that the fastest possible time was 5.57 seconds. With a tick rate of 0.03 seconds, the record claim is two ticks faster than Omnigamer's data and one tick faster than the reported Activision 'perfect run'.
=== Cheat detection ===
In order to prevent most of these methods, some games require a video of the hands on the controller or keyboard ("handcam"), in addition to the screen recording, so that game-specific moderators in charge of authenticating a submission can ensure that the inputs are really done in the specified combination and by a human. Other methods include forensic audio analysis, which is a common method for detecting telltale signs of video splicing; this is why runs without high-quality audio streams are often rejected on speedrun boards.
Additional detection methods are the use of mathematics (as in the aforementioned Dream case) or human moderation of suspicious inputs (in games which record them such as Doom and TrackMania). Cheat detection software created for TrackMania was used to analyze over 400,000 replays and isolate a handful of cheaters, leading to hundreds of world records being determined to have been cheated using slowdown tools. This included those of Burim "riolu" Fejza, who was signed to the eSports team Nordavind (now known as 00 Nation) before being dropped following the scandal. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Arm | Mark Arm | Mark Arm (born Mark Thomas McLaughlin; February 21, 1962) is an American singer and songwriter, best known as the vocalist for the grunge band Mudhoney. His former group, Green River, was one of the first grunge bands, along with Malfunkshun, Soundgarden, Skin Yard, the U-Men, and others. He is also the manager of the Sub Pop warehouse and previously worked at Fantagraphics Books.
== Early life ==
Arm was born February 21, 1962, at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and was raised in Kirkland, Washington. As a child, he was a member of Boy Scouts of America. He graduated from Bellevue Christian High School in Bellevue, Washington.
In 1985, Arm earned an English degree with an emphasis in creative writing from the University of Washington.
== Early career ==
Arm first entered the Seattle rock scene in 1980, when he formed a band while still in high school, called "Mr. Epp and the Calculations" with singer Jo Smitty, and Peter Wick, who wrote and recorded their first song,"The Pigeon in the Fountain bed," which caused local radio DJ Stephen Rabow to declare them, "The worst band in the world." The band played its first show in 1981, opening for the band Student Nurse. In 1982 they released a 7-inch EP entitled "Mohawk Man", produced by Johnny Rubato (of Rubato Records, a local used record shop for more than 30 years). The next year they added a second guitarist, Steve Turner, and released a cassette described on the lyric sheet as a "combination of art and hardcore." The cassette featured one side of live recordings and a flip-side of studio recordings and experimental sounds; a sonic amalgam described in a 1984 issue of Revenge Against Boredom 'zine (produced by notable skateboarding historian Jocko Weyland), as "45 or so minutes of Pillow Fights, Jokes, some songs, preachers' garbled talking. And you get to find out what you get if you give up your personality."
Mr. Epp and the Calculations also played with Ten Minute Warning and the Dead Kennedys at the Eagles Auditorium in April.
After Mr. Epp and the Calculations ended, Mark Arm and Steve Turner (who had become close friends) joined the band Limp Richerds for a few weeks. Afterward, Arm and Turner took on future Pearl Jam members Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard, as well as Alex Vincent, to form the band Green River. Green River released two EPs and a full length album before disbanding. Steve Turner left the band to finish college, and Arm was forced to find a new band again. After Turner returned from schooling, they resumed their Green River side project, The Thrown Ups.
== Mudhoney ==
Arm and Turner took on drummer Dan Peters, and bassist Matt Lukin, formerly of Melvins. The new band renamed themselves Mudhoney. In 1988, Sub Pop released Mudhoney's first single, "Touch Me I'm Sick". After extensive touring and an EP album, Mudhoney released their self-titled full length debut in 1989. Their next album, Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge came out soon after, just before the explosion of grunge spearheaded by Nirvana's seminal Nevermind. At the time, Sub Pop, their record label, was "on the verge of bankruptcy, having trouble paying its flagship band, severely delaying the release of the album to July 1991." In 1992, they signed to a major record label, Reprise and released Piece of Cake. The album did not sell well, due to a combination of the band's uncompromising sound and an oversaturation of the genre; according to Stephen Turner, the album references "how easily things had come to them...the songs were kinda half-baked... and Mark wasn't at his best."
Although they never achieved the fame of some of their contemporaries, Arm and Mudhoney have made significant contributions to grunge music. Mudhoney is one of the few grunge bands that continue to release albums; in 2002 they released Since We've Become Translucent, Under a Billion Suns in 2005, The Lucky Ones followed in May 2008, Vanishing Point came in April 2013, Digital Garbage came out in September 2018 and, most recently, Plastic Eternity in 2023. All of these releases have been on the Sub Pop record label.
== Solo and side projects ==
Arm released "The Freewheelin' Mark Arm", a solo single in 1990.
He was a singer and guitarist for the group Bloodloss and singer for the Seattle supergroup The Monkeywrench. Monkeywrench members include Arm, Turner, Tim Kerr (Lord Hi Fixers, Big Boys, Poison 13), Tom Price (Gas Huffer) and Martin Bland (Bloodloss). He has also made guest appearances on several albums, most notably on Alice in Chains' 1992 EP Sap.
In 1998, he made an appearance on the motion picture soundtrack for the film Velvet Goldmine with Ron Asheton, Mike Watt, Thurston Moore, and Steve Shelley under the name Wylde Ratttz.
In 1999, he recorded the vocals for the song "I Need Somebody", a cover of the song by The Stooges, featured on Nebula's first album, To the Center.
In 2000, Arm, Turner, Peters, Scott McCaughey, Tom Price and Bill Henderson recorded the album "The New Original Sonic Sound" under the band name The New Strychnines. they recorded a compilation of 16 songs by the legendary mid-1960's Seattle garage band The Sonics. The album was released by Book Records.
In 2004, he toured with MC5, standing in for the late Rob Tyner on vocals.
In 2013, he contributed vocals on a cover version of The Scientists' "Set It on Fire" for the Melvins' album Everybody Loves Sausages. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertidal_zone | Intertidal zone | The intertidal zone or foreshore is the area above water level at low tide and underwater at high tide; in other words, it is the part of the littoral zone within the tidal range. This area can include several types of habitats with various species of life, such as sea stars, sea urchins, and many species of coral with regional differences in biodiversity. Sometimes it is referred to as the littoral zone or seashore, although those can be defined as a wider region.
The intertidal zone also includes steep rocky cliffs, sandy beaches, bogs or wetlands (e.g., vast mudflats). This area can be a narrow strip, such as in Pacific islands that have only a narrow tidal range, or can include many meters of shoreline where shallow beach slopes interact with high tidal excursion. The peritidal zone is similar but somewhat wider, extending from above the highest tide level to below the lowest. Organisms in the intertidal zone are well-adapted to their environment, facing high levels of interspecific competition and the rapidly changing conditions that come with the tides. The intertidal zone is also home to several species from many different phyla (Porifera, Annelida, Coelenterata, Mollusca, Arthropoda, etc.).
The water that comes with the tides can vary from brackish waters, fresh with rain, to highly saline and dry salt, with drying between tidal inundations. Wave splash can dislodge residents from the littoral zone. With the intertidal zone's high exposure to sunlight, the temperature can range from very hot with full sunshine to near freezing in colder climates. Some microclimates in the littoral zone are moderated by local features and larger plants such as mangroves. Adaptations in the littoral zone allow the utilization of nutrients supplied in high volume on a regular basis from the sea, which is actively moved to the zone by tides. The edges of habitats, in this case the land and sea, are themselves often significant ecosystems, and the littoral zone is a prime example.
A typical rocky shore can be divided into a spray zone or splash zone (also known as the supratidal zone), which is above the spring high-tide line and is covered by water only during storms, and an intertidal zone, which lies between the high and low tidal extremes. Along most shores, the intertidal zone can be clearly separated into the following subzones: high tide zone, middle tide zone, and low tide zone. The intertidal zone is one of a number of marine biomes or habitats, including estuaries, the neritic zone, the photic zone, and deep zones.
== Zonation ==
Marine biologists divide the intertidal region into three zones (low, middle, and high), based on the overall average exposure of the zone. The low intertidal zone, which borders on the shallow subtidal zone, is only exposed to air at the lowest of low tides and is primarily marine in character. The mid intertidal zone is regularly exposed and submerged by average tides. The high intertidal zone is only covered by the highest of the high tides, and spends much of its time as terrestrial habitat. The high intertidal zone borders on the splash zone (the region above the highest still-tide level, but which receives wave splash). On shores exposed to heavy wave action, the intertidal zone will be influenced by waves, as the spray from breaking waves will extend the intertidal zone.
Depending on the substratum and topography of the shore, additional features may be noticed. On rocky shores, tide pools form in depressions that fill with water as the tide rises. Under certain conditions, such as those at Morecambe Bay, quicksand may form.
== Low tide zone (lower littoral) ==
This subregion is mostly submerged – it is only exposed at the point of low tide and for a longer period of time during extremely low tides. This area is teeming with life; the most notable difference between this subregion and the other three is that there is much more marine vegetation, especially seaweeds. There is also a great biodiversity. Organisms in this zone generally are not well adapted to periods of dryness and temperature extremes. Some of the organisms in this area are abalone, sea anemones, brown seaweed, chitons, crabs, green algae, hydroids, isopods, limpets, mussels, nudibranchs, sculpin, sea cucumber, sea lettuce, sea palms, starfish, sea urchins, shrimp, snails, sponges, surf grass, tube worms, and whelks. Creatures in this area can grow to larger sizes because there is more available energy in the localized ecosystem. Also, marine vegetation can grow to much greater sizes than in the other three intertidal subregions due to the better water coverage. The water is shallow enough to allow plenty of sunlight to reach the vegetation to allow substantial photosynthetic activity, and the salinity is at almost normal levels. This area is also protected from large predators such as fish because of the wave action and the relatively shallow water.
== Ecology ==
The intertidal region is an important model system for the study of ecology, especially on wave-swept rocky shores. The region contains a high diversity of species, and the zonation created by the tides causes species ranges to be compressed into very narrow bands. This makes it relatively simple to study species across their entire cross-shore range, something that can be extremely difficult in, for instance, terrestrial habitats that can stretch thousands of kilometres. Communities on wave-swept shores also have high turnover due to disturbance, so it is possible to watch ecological succession over years rather than decades.
The burrowing invertebrates that make up large portions of sandy beach ecosystems are known to travel relatively great distances in cross-shore directions as beaches change on the order of days, semilunar cycles, seasons, or years. The distribution of some species has been found to correlate strongly with geomorphic datums such as the high tide strand and the water table outcrop.
Since the foreshore is alternately covered by the sea and exposed to the air, organisms living in this environment must be adapted to both wet and dry conditions. Intertidal zone biomass reduces the risk of shoreline erosion from high intensity waves. Typical inhabitants of the intertidal rocky shore include sea urchins, sea anemones, barnacles, chitons, crabs, isopods, mussels, starfish, and many marine gastropod molluscs such as limpets and whelks. Sexual and asexual reproduction varies by inhabitants of the intertidal zones.
Humans have historically used intertidal zones as foraged food sources during low tide. Migratory birds also rely on intertidal species for feeding areas because of low water habitats consisting of an abundance of mollusks and other marine species.
== Legal issues ==
As with the dry sand part of a beach, legal and political disputes can arise over the ownership and use of the foreshore. One recent example is the New Zealand foreshore and seabed controversy. In legal discussions, the foreshore is often referred to as the wet-sand area.
For privately owned beaches in the United States, some states such as Massachusetts use the low-water mark as the dividing line between the property of the State and that of the beach owner; however the public still has fishing, fowling, and navigation rights to the zone between low and high water. Other states such as California use the high-water mark.
In the United Kingdom, the foreshore is generally deemed to be owned by the Crown, with exceptions for what are termed several fisheries, which can be historic deeds to title, dating back to King John's time or earlier, and the Udal Law, which applies generally in Orkney and Shetland.
In Greece, according to the L. 2971/01, the foreshore zone is defined as the area of the coast that might be reached by the maximum climbing of the waves on the coast (maximum wave run-up on the coast) in their maximum capacity (maximum referring to the "usually maximum winter waves" and of course not to exceptional cases, such as tsunamis). The foreshore zone, a part of the exceptions of the law, is public, and permanent constructions are not allowed on it. In Italy, about half the shoreline is owned by the government but leased to private beach clubs called lidos.
In the East African and West Indian Ocean, intertidal zone management is often neglected of being a priority due to there being no intent for collective economic productivity. According to workshops performing questionaries, it is stated that eighty-six percent of respondents believe mismanagement of mangrove and coastal ecosystems are due to lack of knowledge to steward the ecosystems, yet forty-four percent of respondents state that there is a fair amount of knowledge used in those regions for fisheries.
== Threats ==
Intertidal zones are sensitive habitats with an abundance of marine species that can experience ecological hazards associated with tourism and human-induced environmental impacts. A variety of other threats that have been summarized by scientists include nutrient pollution, overharvesting, habitat destruction, and climate change. Habitat destruction is advanced through activities including harvesting fisheries with drag nets and a neglect of the sensitivity of intertidal zones.
== Gallery == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulona_barnesi | Mulona barnesi | Mulona barnesi 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/Elephant_beetle | Elephant beetle | The elephant beetle (Megasoma elephas) is a member of the family Scarabaeidae and the subfamily Dynastinae. Elephant beetles are Neotropical rhinoceros beetles.
== Appearance ==
Elephant beetles are black in color and covered with a coat of fine microscopic hairs. The hairs grow particularly thick on the beetle's elytra. The hairs give the beetle's body a yellowish color. Males have two horns protruding from the head and another from the prothorax. The longest head horn gives the beetle its common name, since it resembles an elephant’s trunk. Females have no horns. The horns are used for defense, and in competition among males for food and mates.
=== Size ===
In size, elephant beetles typically range between 7 and 12 cm (2.75–4.75 in), with the largest male specimen known measuring 13.7 cm, including the horn.
== Location ==
Elephant beetles are located in southern Mexico, Central America, and in South American rainforests.
== List of subspecies ==
Megasoma elephas elephas (Fabricius, 1775)
Megasoma elephas iijimai Nagai, 2003
== Breeding ==
Elephant beetle larvae develop in large decaying logs and take up to three years to develop into adult beetles, depending upon the subspecies. The female elephant beetle lays her eggs inside the decaying log or in the ground. Some weeks after that (usually three) the eggs hatch into C-shaped larvae, white grubs with brown heads and six legs. The larval stage lasts around 29 months, during which time the grubs consume organic matter. The third and last stage, the pupal stage, lasts around five weeks at a temperature of 26 degrees Celsius. The life span of an adult elephant beetle is around one to three months.
== Food ==
For their diet, elephant beetles eat the sap of particular trees and ripened fallen fruits. In captivity, they also eat exotic fruits such as pineapples, longan, lychee fruit, and bark from certain trees like the poinciana.
== Behavior and habitat ==
Elephant beetles live in rainforests and are mainly active during the night. They are able to maintain a high internal body heat when foraging despite reduced ambient temperature.
Elephant beetle population has been depleted by the destruction of the rainforests, which has reduced their grounds for mating. In some countries such as Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and others in Central America the male's head is used as a charm necklace, decorated with gold. This has affected the population severely.
== Potential military use ==
As part of a Pentagon-sponsored project, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have implanted electrodes into elephant beetle pupae. This allows some remote control of the adults’ flying behaviour. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Triangle | Summer Triangle | The Summer Triangle is an astronomical asterism in the northern celestial hemisphere. Its defining vertices are triangle are Altair, Deneb, and Vega, each the brightest star of its constellation (Aquila, Cygnus, and Lyra, respectively). The greatest declination is +45° and the lowest is +9°, meaning the three stars can be seen from all parts of the Northern Hemisphere and from much of the Southern Hemisphere. The stars in Aquila and Cygnus represent the head of an eagle and tail of a swan, respectively, which appear inscribed within the triangle and form its altitude of the triangle. Two small constellations, Sagitta and Vulpecula, lie between Aquila in the south of the triangle and Cygnus and Lyra to the north.
== History ==
The term was popularized by the American author H. A. Rey and the British astronomer Patrick Moore in the 1950s. The name can be found in constellation guidebooks as far back as 1913. The Austrian astronomer Oswald Thomas described these stars as Grosses Dreieck (Great Triangle) in the late 1920s and Sommerliches Dreieck (Summerly Triangle) in 1934. The asterism was remarked upon by Joseph Johann von Littrow, who described it as the "conspicuous triangle" in the text of his atlas (1866), and Johann Elert Bode connected the stars in a map in a book in 1816, although without a label. These are the same stars recognized in the Chinese legend of The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, a story dating back some 2,600 years, celebrated in the Qixi Festival. The stars also bear ceremonial significance in the related celebrations of Tanabata, Chilseok, and Thất Tịch, derived from Qixi. In the mid- to late-20th century, before inertial navigation systems and other electronic and mechanical equipment took their places in military aircraft, the United States Air Force navigators referred to this asterism as the "Navigator's Triangle".
== Visibility ==
From mid-to-tropical northern latitudes:
the centre of the triangle appears about overhead around solar midnight during summer, and exactly so at about the 27th parallel north. This means it rises at sunset in the east and sets at sunrise in the west.
it is visible in the eastern sky in early mornings during spring.
In autumn and winter evenings, it is visible in the western sky until January.
From mid-southern latitudes, the asterism is in the north during the culmination season described above.
== The stars of the Summer Triangle ==
Both Altair and Vega are bluish-white, rapidly-rotating A-type main sequence stars in the local neighbourhood of the sun. However, Deneb is a white supergiant star over 100 times as distant, and one of the most luminous stars in the entire galaxy. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%C5%82gorzata_Ro%C5%BCniecka | Małgorzata Rożniecka | Małgorzata Rożniecka (born 1978, in Szczecin) is a Polish model and beauty queen who won Miss International 2001.
Her 2001 victory broke the four-year monopoly of Latin American countries of the crown. She is 1.78 m tall. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_and_territory_mottos | List of U.S. state and territory mottos | All of the United States' 50 states have a state motto, as do the District of Columbia and 3 of its territories. A motto is a phrase intended to formally describe the general motivation or intention of an organization. State mottos can sometimes be found on state seals or state flags. Some states have officially designated a state motto by an act of the state legislature, whereas other states have the motto only as an element of their seals. The motto of the United States itself is In God We Trust, proclaimed by Congress and signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on July 30, 1956. The motto "E pluribus unum" (Latin for 'out of many, one') was approved for use on the Great Seal of the United States in 1782, but was never adopted as the national motto through legislative action.
South Carolina has two official mottos, both which are in Latin. Kentucky, North Dakota, and Vermont also have two mottos, one in Latin and the other in English. All other states and territories have only one motto, except for Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, which do not have any mottos. English and Latin are the most-used languages for state mottos, each used by 25 states and territories. Seven states and territories use another language, of which each language is only used once. Eight states and two territories have their mottos on their state quarter; thirty-eight states and four territories have their mottos on their state seals.
The dates given are, where possible, the earliest date that the motto was used in an official sense. Some state mottos are not official but are on the official state seal; in these cases the adoption date of the seal is given. The earliest use of a current motto is that of Puerto Rico, Joannes est nomen ejus, granted to the island by the Spanish in 1511.
== State, federal district and territory mottos == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killingworth,_Connecticut | Killingworth, Connecticut | Killingworth is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The town is part of the Lower Connecticut River Valley Planning Region. The population was 6,174 at the 2020 United States census.
== History ==
Killingworth was established from the area called Hammonasset, taken from the local Native American tribe of the same name. The area originally incorporated the area of the present town of Clinton, which was separated from Killingworth along ecclesiastical borders in 1838. Part of New London County prior to May 1785, Killingworth was then included in the newly formed Middlesex County, where it remains today.
The New England town received its name from Kenilworth, England, the previous home of one of the first settlers in New England, Edward Griswold. Kenilworth's name resembled "Killingworth" during the colonial American period, though over time the pronunciations and spellings of the names drifted toward the two distinct modern ones. A town and village in England called Killingworth and Killingworth Village, in the county of Tyne and Wear, do not appear to have any connection with Killingworth, Connecticut.
In the late 17th century, Killingworth became the birthplace of what would eventually become Yale University. The Rev. Abraham Pierson, the college's first president, taught some of the first classes in his Killingworth home—which is actually in present-day Clinton, Connecticut. However, in 1701, the college's first official home was constructed in Old Saybrook on the peninsula known as Saybrook Point donated by Yale's first Treasurer Nathanial Lynde. Eventually the school was moved to its present-day home in New Haven.
== Geography ==
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has an area of 35.8 square miles (93 km2). Of this total, 35.3 square miles (91 km2) is dry land and 0.5 square miles (1.3 km2) – or 1.34% – is water-covered.
Killingworth also contains Chatfield Hollow State Park.
== Demographics ==
As of the census of July 1, 2015, there were 6,455 people, 2,513 households, and 1,765 families residing in the town. The population density was 184.7 inhabitants per square mile (71.3/km2). There were 2,598 housing units at an average density of 70.6 per square mile (24.9/km2). The racial makeup of the town was 96.4% White, 0.7% African American, 0.2% Native American, 1.1% Asian, 0.1% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, 2.2% Hispanic or Latino, and 1.3% Two or More Races.
There were 2,513 households, with a 95.3% occupancy rate, out of which 23.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 73.8% were married couples living together, 4.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 19.6% were non-families. 16.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.74 and the average family size was 3.08.
In the town, the population was spread out, with 4% under the age of 5, 23.9% under the age of 18, 3.6% from 18 to 24, 29.4% from 25 to 44, 28.0% from 45 to 64, and 16% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females, there were 98.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.8 males.
The median income for a household in the town was $112,137. The per capita income for the town was $48,537. None of the families and 1.7% of the population were living below the poverty line, including no under eighteens and 1.4% of those over 64.
== Arts and culture ==
Listings on the National Register of Historic places:
Emmanuel Church, added August 5, 1999
Oak Lodge, added September 4, 1986
Parmelee House (Killingworth, Connecticut).
== Government ==
Killingworth is governed by a Board of Selectmen, headed by First Selectman Eric Couture.
== Education ==
Students attending school in Killingworth are a part of Connecticut's Regional School District #17, which consists of Haddam and its villages of Haddam Neck (located on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River) and Higganum. The high school, Haddam-Killingworth High School (often abbreviated as simply "HK"), is located in Higganum. The middle-school, Haddam Killingworth Intermediate-Middle School, was built in Killingworth in 2006 and houses grades 4 through 8. The elementary schools, Burr Elementary School and Killingworth Elementary School are located in Higganum and Killingworth respectively. The school's sports teams are called the 'Cougars'.
== Infrastructure ==
The Estuary Transit District provides public transportation throughout Killingworth and the surrounding towns through its 9 Town Transit Service. Services include connections to the Old Saybrook Train Station, served by Amtrak and Shoreline East railroads.
== Notable people ==
Jeff Bagwell, Hall of Fame Major League Baseball player for the Houston Astros
Carleton Beals, journalist, author, historian, and a crusader with special interests in Latin America
Abel Buell, publisher of the first map of the new United States created by an American
Jonathan Bush, American banker, brother of President George H. W. Bush
Titus Coan, missionary to Hawaii
Silas Halsey, former US Congressman
Haynes Johnson, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, author and political analyst
Camille Kostek, model who was on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue
Ricki Lake, television personality
Hugh Lofting, author of the Doctor Dolittle series
Washington F. Willcox, U.S. Congressman (March 4, 1889 – March 3, 1893), born on North Chestnut Hill on August 22, 1834
Fredric Jameson, professor and literary critic
== In popular culture ==
The town was the subject of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "The Birds of Killingworth" published in Tales of a Wayside Inn. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_in_the_Garden_of_Good_and_Evil | Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil | Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a non-fiction novel by John Berendt. The book, Berendt's first, was published on January 10, 1994, and follows the story of Jim Williams, an antiques dealer on trial for the killing of Danny Hansford. Subtitled A Savannah Story, with an initial printing of 25,000 copies, the book became a New York Times Best-Seller for 216 weeks following its debut, and remains one of the longest-standing New York Times Best-Sellers.
Berendt combined self-witnessed experiences during his time living in Savannah, Georgia (roughly four years after the shooting), with stories from the preceding years recounted to him by locals; he catches up with proceedings around the book's mid-point. Williams was a free man during Berendt's five years in Savannah. The author took some liberties with his writing, including creating a relationship between Joe Odom and Nancy Hillis.
The character Serena Dawes was based on silent-film actress and heiress Helen Avis Drexel, while voodoo priestess Valerie Boles was the inspiration for Minerva.
The book was adapted for Clint Eastwood's 1997 film, with several characters' names changed to protect their privacy. Maybe to "protect the innocent," said Sonny Seiler, Williams's attorney. "Well, I don't know how innocent they were, but he didn't change any of the facts." John Lee Hancock wrote the screenplay.
Berendt dedicated "the book", as it became known to Savannahians, to his parents.
== Background ==
Berendt gave the finished manuscript to his agent, Lynn Nesbit, who enjoyed it but said it was "too local" and that no publisher would take a chance on it. She gave the manuscript back to Berendt, who found Suzanne Gluck, another agent. Within a week, she had four major publishers bidding for it. Random House was the successful bidder. It was published in January 1994, fourteen months after Berendt finished writing it. They did not change a word of the manuscript.
In tone, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is atmospherically Deep South coastal (Savannah, Georgia, and Beaufort, South Carolina) and Southern Gothic, depicting a wide range of eccentric personalities in and around Savannah.
The central narrative concerns the shooting of Danny Hansford, a local male prostitute, characterized as "a good time not yet had by all" by Prentiss Crowe, a Savannah socialite. The perpetrator was respected antiques dealer Jim Williams, who was also his employer and casual sexual partner. Hansford's death resulted in four murder trials, with the final one ending in acquittal, after the judge finally agreed to a change of venue to move the case away from the Savannah jury pool. The book describes Williams's version of the killing, which is that it was in "self-defense"—the result of Hansford, who was prone to fits of rage, shooting at Williams with a gun that was on display, and Williams shooting back to protect himself—and not murder, pre-meditated or otherwise, by Williams. The shooting occurred in Williams's Mercer House home, the ground floor of which is now a museum.
The book highlights many other notable Savannah residents, including The Lady Chablis, a local transgender woman, club performer and entertainer. Chablis provides both a Greek chorus of sorts as well as a light-hearted contrast to the more serious action. Chablis was given a dedicated chapter, as was Emma Kelly, the "Lady of 6,000 Songs."
== Characters and events ==
The book's plot is based on real-life events that occurred in the 1980s and is classified as non-fiction. Because it reads like a novel (and rearranges the sequence of true events in time), it is sometimes referred to as a "non-fiction novel."
Although the book's timeline is set to coincide with the entire saga of Jim Williams's arrest and four trials for murder, in reality Berendt did not meet Williams for the first time until March 1982, six weeks after the millionaire had been convicted of murder and released pending appeal. Two years later, after Berendt had decided he wanted to write a book, Williams agreed to be interviewed by Berendt in jail. "I might be interested in cooperating with you," he told Berendt. "I really want my story out." Berendt flew down to Savannah. "Jim actually saw very few people in jail. He didn't like to be in such reduced circumstances. He always wanted to be on his own turf, where he could entertain people, and control people."
Berendt did not move to Savannah to collect material for his book until 1985, after Williams' second conviction. Berendt attended the third and fourth trials. Williams was a free man and living in Mercer House during Berendt's five years in Savannah. "He was available to me and very cooperative," Berendt said in 2015.
"When I started the book, I knew about the shooting," said Berendt. "It did not happen in the middle of my being there. But I moved it to the middle of the book so that you could meet everybody in Savannah and get to know Savannah before this shocking event happened."
"The only fictional character in the book is the narrator, me, until I catch up with myself midway through the book," Berendt said in 1995. "I felt that was a legitimate license to take. The book is 99 percent true and 1 percent exaggeration."
In the first chapter, Berendt and Williams are interrupted by Hansford's screaming entrance; this happened prior to Williams and Berendt's first meeting. "Jim was having drinks with somebody else," explains Berendt. "Jim told me about it and so did somebody else. So I reconstructed it, put myself in there. The first evening in Mercer House is a combination of a lot of stories he told me. Then afterward, I meet all these people — Joe Odom, Chablis, Lee Adler. I met all these people, obviously, after the murder, but they don't impact the murder at all, so I simply put them right after my meeting with Jim, and it seems as though I met them before the shooting and I didn't, but so what? All of those meetings with people were actual meetings. They took place in '85 or later, and they are pretty much verbatim what happened with those people and me."
Jim Williams's confession to Berendt before the third trial was recorded on a Dictaphone by the author. "If [Williams] had not died, I don't know what I would have done, because I'm pretty sure he would not have wanted that in the book."
Lee Adler initially shunned Berendt after the book's release, claiming he was misrepresented. "At first he wouldn't talk to me; now, he shakes my hand," said Berendt.
Nancy Hillis, who appears as Mandy Nicholls, later explained that, contrary to Berendt's portrayal of her, she did not meet Joe Odom until he had moved from 16 East Jones Street to 101 East Oglethorpe Avenue. She also clarified that there was no romantic relationship between her and Odom, largely because Odom was gay.
The person represented by Serena Dawes (based on Helen Avis Drexel) died in 1974, over twenty years before the book's release.
Minerva is based on Valerie Boles, a root doctor from South Carolina.
Regarding the high number of eccentric characters in Savannah, Berendt's belief is that it is because gossip was so important during his time in the city. "People in Savannah gossip more than anywhere else," he said. "What do people gossip about? Other people's behavior. The stranger the behavior, the better the gossip. The person that is being gossiped about knows they are being appreciated and attempts to outdo themself on the strangeness."
In 2024, Berendt stated that he believed Williams was guilty of murder.
== Title ==
As explained in chapter 18 of the book, its title alludes to the hoodoo notion of "midnight," the period between the time for good magic (11:30pm to midnight) and the time for evil magic (midnight to 12:30am).
Although Bonaventure Cemetery is the focus in the book, the “garden" in the title refers principally to Citizens Cemetery in Beaufort, South Carolina, where Dr. Buzzard, the common-law partner of folk-magic practitioner Minerva, is buried. It is over his grave that Minerva performed the incantations to ensure a more successful result in the retrial for the case of Jim Williams. (The marriage between Minerva and Dr. Buzzard was the invention of John Berendt. Dr. Buzzard was based on Stephen Robinson, who died in 1947, aged 61 or 62.)
== Cover ==
The Bird Girl statue, designed both as art and as a birdseed holder, was originally located in Bonaventure Cemetery. A Savannah photographer, Jack Leigh, was commissioned to take a photograph for the cover of the book. The cover image became immediately iconic, with author John Berendt calling it "one of the strongest covers I've ever seen", and the statue became a popular stop for tourists. Owing to rising concerns about the integrity of the statue and the cemetery's privacy, Bird Girl was relocated in 1997 for display in Telfair Museums in Savannah.
== Legacy ==
In 1993, the year before the book's publication, Savannah had five million visitors, who spent almost $600 million during their time in the city. Two years after the book's release, Savannah was seeing a 46% increase in tourism. Twenty years later, the number of visitors to the city had jumped to 12.5 million, spending $2.2 billion. Joseph Marinelli, president of the Savannah Convention and Visitors Bureau, does not attribute the city's popularity growth entirely to Midnight, but that it had a significant impact. In 2022, the estimated number of visitors to Savannah was over 17 million.
Patrick Monahan, former County and Interim City Manager, believes that Savannah's popularity was also assisted by the city's air having been improved around the time of the book's release. This occurred when Union Camp paper mill's smokestacks were scrubbed clean of sulfur dioxide particulates, thus eliminating the "odor of rotten eggs" permeating Savannah's streets.
Dorothy Kingery, Jim Williams's sister, did not like the book. "She kept everything hush-hush," explained Sonny Seiler, the Williams family attorney, "but now she lets tourists go through Mercer–Williams House. But they cannot talk about the unpleasantness or what went on in that study on the first floor."
The story was turned into a musical in 2024 with lyrics and music by Jason Robert Brown and book by Taylor Mac.
== Awards ==
The book won the 1995 Boeke Prize and Lambda Literary Award and was one of the finalists for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction.
== Audiobook ==
Jeff Woodman recorded the audiobook version of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. He stated that Berendt's effort, along with that of Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game, was the most challenging to record: "Especially because all the characters in Midnight have the same damned Savannah accent, so you can't toss in a little North Country to help differentiate them!" he said in 2010. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_presidents_of_the_United_States_in_popular_culture | African-American presidents of the United States in popular culture | Before and after the election of Barack Obama as the first African American president of the United States in 2008, the idea of a Black president has been explored by various writers in novels (including science fiction), films and television, as well as other media. Numerous actors have portrayed a Black president. Such portrayals have occurred in both serious works and comedies.
== Effect of media depictions ==
As writers and directors cast Black actors as president in several memorable portrayals, depictions of fictional Black presidents may have accustomed Americans to accept a Black man as president. Actor Dennis Haysbert, who played a Black president on the hit show 24, said the portrayal “may have opened the eyes, the minds and the hearts of people because the character was so well liked." The show also raised the issue of whether television series "like political trial ballons, can ready the populace for change."
After Barack Obama's election, the television show the Cosby Show was cited for what has been termed the “Huxtable effect” for the influence of its "warmhearted" portrayal, "free of street conflicts and ghetto stereotypes - that broke ground for its depiction of an upwardly mobile Black family." The show has even been cited by some observers as a factor in Obama's victory.
== Novels ==
In 1926, Brazilian writer Monteiro Lobato published O Presidente Negro ("The Black President"), set in a dystopian future U.S. in 2228. It features Jim Roy, a fictional black president.
In 1964 Irving Wallace published The Man, a popular novel addressing the idea of a black president, named Douglass Dilman in the book. Recently a critic described it as a window into "Kennedy-era racial pathologies", despite the author's liberal attitude. It included the portrayal of attractive multiracial or "mulatto" women who could pass for white, as does the hero Dilman's own light-skinned daughter. The Man—which was made into a 1972 movie starring James Earl Jones as Dilman—noted factors against a black president being elected in America, and Dilman's coming to power through an unlikely series of circumstances of succession.
Other novels featuring a first black president include Philip K. Dick's The Crack in Space (1966), T. Ernesto Bethancourt's young adult novel The Tomorrow Connection (1984) and T.D. Walters' self-published thriller The Race (2007).
== Stand-up comedy ==
After civil rights and voting rights legislation was passed in 1964 and 1965, the move of blacks into full political participation began. Portrayals of blacks as president began to appear in comedians' routines. In the early years of his career in the 1960s, comedian Bill Cosby frequently told jokes along racial lines, including one about an imaginary first black president. He stopped when he decided to reach a wider audience.
In 1983 at age 22, Eddie Murphy (who was born the same year as Obama) enacted a parody of a black president in one of his stand-up routines, Eddie Murphy Delirious, filmed in Washington, D.C.
== Movies and television ==
Writers and directors have featured a black man as president in several memorable portrayals. There have been film and television proposals based on the idea, as well.
The first movie portrayal of a black American president was probably that of Sammy Davis Jr. in the 1933 film Rufus Jones for President. In this short musical comedy, the 7-year-old Davis is told by his mother, portrayed by Ethel Waters, that "anyone can become president, and later dreams of his own inauguration". Outside the dreams, the film reflects contemporary racist attitudes.
The 1941 musical movie Babes on Broadway included Judy Garland in black male drag singing a song "Franklin Delano Jones", about the first black president of the United States.
"When Rod Serling adapted Irving Wallace's "The Man" to the screen in 1972—it was a joint production of Paramount Pictures and ABC Circle Films, originally intended to air on ABC's made-for-television Movie of the Week series, but the network chose not to air it, prompting Paramount to release the film to theaters instead—the political climate had changed sufficiently that he could promote Douglass Dilman from survivor to competitor—a genuine leader who, after standing up to his white rivals, vows to win the presidency through "legitimate" electoral means." With James Earl Jones starring in 1972, the film version had a heroic black man as president, who ended the film in a position of moral authority.
In 1977 comedian Richard Pryor portrayed the first black president of the United States in a skit on The Richard Pryor Show, his short-lived foray on NBC television.
Lizzie Borden's 1983 science fiction film Born in Flames about a radical feminist insurgency, set in an alternative United States Socialist Democracy, features a black president.
The 1987 animated series Spiral Zone is the first television show in history to show a serious depiction of an African-American president of the United States in the episode The "Imposter".
In the 1993 science-fiction series SeaQuest DSV, the unnamed president of the United States featured in the first season episode "Better Than Martians" is portrayed by African-American actor Steven Williams.
In the 1997 science-fiction film The Fifth Element, character actor Tom Lister, Jr. played President Lindberg, the commander-in-chief of not just the United States of America but the planet Earth. His competence to lead is not questioned due to his race. In fact, his skin color is never mentioned.
A generation after The Man, the 1998 science fiction film Deep Impact featured black actor Morgan Freeman as president Tom Beck. Critic Louis Bayard noticed that Dennis Haysbert seemed to adopt Freeman's cadences for his own role as president.
Ernie Hudson played President Westwood in the 1999 direct-to-video movie Stealth Fighter.
In the hit show 24, a television precedent was set when Dennis Haysbert portrayed a lead character, David Palmer, and successful president who fought terrorism. Critic Charles Taylor described him as showing "the determination of magnetism, brains, resolve, compassion and willingness to make tough calls we dream of in a president." After the show portrayed the assassination of Palmer, his brother Wayne, played by D.B. Woodside, was also elected president. The Jerusalem Post speculated in June 2008 that television ratings "may have predicted Obama's primary victory over Hillary Clinton, as the most recent female television president appears to have been less popular than the black leaders of 24."
In 2000, Chris Tucker planned on writing, directing, producing and starring in a movie about the first black president of the United States.
Chris Rock wrote, directed, and starred as presidential candidate Mays Gilliam in the 2003 comedy Head of State, described as "undernourished." The movie's tagline was "The only thing white is the house". Another critic described Rock as in way over his head, and found it "depressing to see Rock pander to the most reactionary elements of the black audience." He also was surprised at some of the settings. "Rock doesn't seem to know much about contemporary America; when his character travels to Memphis (a majority-black city with a black mayor) we see only white people."
In 2004, a sketch on Chappelle's Show called "Black Bush" featured Dave Chappelle as an African-American "interpretation" of then President George W. Bush and his administration. It was controversial due to its set-up segment (which had Chappelle mocking fellow comedian Dennis Miller over the comedian's infamous "free pass" comment regarding not saying anything bad about George W. Bush) and its overall theme that if Bush and his top aides were black, that the public would be more willing to be critical of the president and his decisions. The sketch also features cameo appearances by actor Jamie Foxx, who appears as "Black Tony Blair" and Mos Def as "Black Head of the CIA" holding "Yellowcake from Africa" (Anthony Berry's character warns the other not to "drop that shit", though it is clearly just yellow cake).
In CBS's 2004 TV series Century City's fictional timeline, Oprah Winfrey is the US president.
Louis Gossett Jr. played the president in two different movies in 2005 — in the Christian movie Left Behind: World at War he played President Gerald Fitzhugh and in the direct-to-DVD Solar Attack he played President Ryan Gordon.
Mike Judge's 2006 Idiocracy featured President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho as a former porn star and champion wrestler played by erstwhile NFL defensive end Terry Alan Crews. Critic Bayard thought it odd that the lead character seemed so little advanced from earlier 20th century caricatures. The "joke is essentially unchanged from the days of Rufus Jones: These are the last guys in the world -- or any world -- you'd want to vote for."
A 2006 BBC Four adaptation of John Wyndham's short story Random Quest depicts the main character being sucked into an alternate reality in which Condoleezza Rice is president of the United States.
In ABC's 2008 series Life on Mars (a remake of BBC's series of the same name), it is hinted that Malia Obama, the daughter of then-candidate Barack Obama, is the president in 2035.
The comic book Final Crisis #7 introduces an African-American version of Superman who is the President of the United States in his secret identity, Calvin Ellis. Writer Grant Morrison has confirmed that this Superman is a homage to President Barack Obama.
=== Post-Obama's election ===
Actor Danny Glover played President Thomas Wilson in the 2009 movie 2012.
NBC's 2010 series "The Event" features Blair Underwood in a starring role as Elias Martinez, an Afro-Cuban US president.
Actor Jamie Foxx played President James William Sawyer in the 2013 movie White House Down.
Actor Samuel L. Jackson played William Alan Moore, the US president in the 2014 movie Big Game.
In the 2014-2015 NBC TV series State of Affairs, Alfre Woodard plays Constance Payton, the first black female president of the United States.
In 2015, Keith David first voiced President Curtis in Rick and Morty in the episode titled "Get Schwifty" (Season 2, Episode 5). The President has also appeared in episodes: "The Rickchurian Mortydate" (Season 3, Episode 10), "Rickdependence Spray" (Season 5, Episode 4), "Rick and Morty's Thanksploitation Spectacular" (Season 5, Episode 6), "Juricksic Mort" (Season 6, Episode 6), "Ricktional Mortpoon's Rickmas Mortcation" (Season 6, Episode 10), and "Air Force Wong" (Season 7, Episode 3).
In 2016, actor Danny Johnson played President Todd in season 2 of the television show Quantico.
In 2019, the flashforward to 2045 in the final episode of Veep revealed that President Kemi Talbot (Toks Olagundoye) served two terms sometime between 2025 and 2041. President Richard Splett (Sam Richardson) was the incumbent president of 2045, having won a landslide reelection in 2044.
In 2019, Morgan Freeman played President Allan Trumbull in Angel Has Fallen, the third movie in the Fallen film series. He previously played Allan Trumbull as Speaker of the House in Olympus Has Fallen and as Vice President in London Has Fallen. Freeman previously played President Tom Beck in the 1998 film Deep Impact.
In 2025, Viola Davis played President Danielle Sutton in the film G20.
In 2025, Angela Bassett appears as President Mitchell in the Netflix show Zero Day and she also appeared as President Erika Sloane in Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning.
In 2025, Idris Elba portrayed the President of the United States in the movie A House of Dynamite.
== Music ==
Parliament's 1975 Washington, D.C.-themed song Chocolate City had Muhammad Ali as President of the United States and James Brown as vice president, among others.
In 1983, R&B artist Blowfly released a track entitled "The first black president", a conversation between President Blowfly and his assistant over hip hop music.
The music video accompanying N.W.A's "Express Yourself" featured a shot of the White House with the caption, "Live from the Black House", followed by one of Dr. Dre swiveling a chair in what is apparently meant to represent the Oval Office. Several more shots in the video continue the same scene.
Rap artist Nas was inspired by the Obama campaign to write a song entitled "Black President", which includes quotations from Obama. The track samples Tupac Shakur with a modified lyric saying, "And although it seems heaven sent, we ain't ready to have a black president."
Rap artist Young Jeezy, also inspired by the Obama campaign, wrote a song entitled "My President", which also featured Nas, and featured the chorus "My President Is Black ..."
When he appeared in speaking roles on Snoop Dogg's album No Limit Top Dogg, actor Rudy Ray Moore joked that he would run for president with two priorities - painting the White House black and legalizing just about everything.
== Effect of Obama's presidency on television ==
The Obama presidency had the potential to affect television shows, but people had differing reactions to that. The comedian and actor Bill Cosby said he was "not all that optimistic that Obama’s presidency will make a major difference in terms of onscreen diversity," saying "they would die before putting another show on about a black family and black pride."
Pastor T.D. Jakes noted the portrayal on television of "middle-class African-Americans who are articulate, intelligent and thoughtful." He hoped the new president would make a difference in encouraging those types of depictions. "The Obama effect might even go beyond bolstering the presence of blacks on television and actually bring about a tonal change in programming," according to Brok Akil. She wrote a script based on a book called Making Friends With Black People, a buddy comedy that focuses on the state of race relations in the U.S. She added that, "In our pitch to NBC, we referenced Obama." She also said, "We talked about how he has gotten us to the table to talk about race in a meaningful way and it’s time to continue the discussion. So our new president has already had an impact." |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagalog_language | Tagalog language | Tagalog ( tə-GAH-log, native pronunciation: [tɐˈɡaːloɡ] ; Baybayin: ᜆᜄᜎᜓᜄ᜔) is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by the ethnic Tagalog people, who make up a quarter of the population of the Philippines, and as a second language by the majority. Its de facto standardized and codified form, Filipino, is the national language of the Philippines, and is one of the nation's two official languages, alongside English.
Tagalog is closely related to other Philippine languages, such as the Bikol languages, the Bisaya languages, Ilocano, Kapampangan, and Pangasinan, and more distantly to other Austronesian languages, such as the Formosan languages of Taiwan, Indonesian, Malay, Hawaiian, Māori, Malagasy, and many more.
== Classification ==
Tagalog is a Central Philippine language within the Austronesian language family. Being Malayo-Polynesian, it is related to other Austronesian languages, such as Malagasy, Javanese, Indonesian, Malay, Tetum (of Timor), and Yami (of Taiwan). It is closely related to the languages spoken in the Bicol Region and the Visayas islands, such as the Bikol group and the Visayan group, including Waray, Hiligaynon and Cebuano.
Tagalog differs from its Central Philippine counterparts with its treatment of the Proto-Philippine schwa vowel *ə. In most Bikol and Visayan languages, this sound merged with /u/ and [o]. In Tagalog, it has merged with /i/. For example, Proto-Philippine *dəkət (adhere, stick) is Tagalog dikít and Visayan and Bikol dukót.
Proto-Philippine *r, *j, and *z merged with /d/ but is /l/ between vowels. Proto-Philippine *ŋajan (name) and *hajək (kiss) became Tagalog ngalan and halík. Adjacent to an affix, however, it becomes /r/ instead: bayád (paid) → bayaran (to pay).
== History ==
The word Tagalog is possibly derived from the endonym taga-ilog ("river dweller"), composed of tagá- ("native of" or "from") and ilog ("river"), or alternatively, taga-alog deriving from alog ("pool of water in the lowlands"; "rice or vegetable plantation"). Linguists such as David Zorc and Robert Blust speculate that the Tagalogs and other Central Philippine ethno-linguistic groups originated in Northeastern Mindanao or the Eastern Visayas.
Possible words of Old Tagalog origin are attested in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription from the tenth century, which is largely written in Old Malay. The first known complete book to be written in Tagalog is the Doctrina Christiana (Christian Doctrine), printed in 1593. The Doctrina was written in Spanish and two transcriptions of Tagalog; one in the ancient, then-current Baybayin script and the other in an early Spanish attempt at a Latin orthography for the language.
Throughout the 333 years of Spanish rule, various grammars and dictionaries were written by Spanish clergymen. In 1610, the Dominican priest Francisco Blancas de San José published the Arte y reglas de la lengua tagala (which was subsequently revised with two editions in 1752 and 1832) in Bataan. In 1613, the Franciscan priest Pedro de San Buenaventura published the first Tagalog dictionary, his Vocabulario de la lengua tagala in Pila, Laguna.
The first substantial dictionary of the Tagalog language was written by the Czech Jesuit missionary Pablo Clain in the beginning of the 18th century. Clain spoke Tagalog and used it actively in several of his books. He prepared the dictionary, which he later passed over to Francisco Jansens and José Hernandez. Further compilation of his substantial work was prepared by P. Juan de Noceda and P. Pedro de Sanlucar and published as Vocabulario de la lengua tagala in Manila in 1754 and then repeatedly reedited, with the last edition being in 2013 in Manila.
Among others, Arte de la lengua tagala y manual tagalog para la administración de los Santos Sacramentos (1850) in addition to early studies of the language.
The indigenous poet Francisco Balagtas (1788–1862) is known as the foremost Tagalog writer, his most notable work being the 19th-century epic Florante at Laura.
=== Official status ===
Tagalog was declared the official language by the first revolutionary constitution in the Philippines, the Constitution of Biak-na-Bato in 1897.
In 1935, the Philippine constitution designated English and Spanish as official languages, but mandated the development and adoption of a common national language based on one of the existing native languages. After study and deliberation, the National Language Institute, a committee composed of seven members who represented various regions in the Philippines, chose Tagalog as the basis for the evolution and adoption of the national language of the Philippines. President Manuel L. Quezon then, on December 30, 1937, proclaimed the selection of the Tagalog language to be used as the basis for the evolution and adoption of the national language of the Philippines. In 1939, President Quezon renamed the proposed Tagalog-based national language as Wikang Pambansâ (national language). Quezon himself was born and raised in Baler, Aurora, which is a native Tagalog-speaking area. Under the Japanese puppet government during World War II, Tagalog as a national language was strongly promoted; the 1943 Constitution specifying: "The government shall take steps toward the development and propagation of Tagalog as the national language."
In 1959, the language was further renamed as "Pilipino". Along with English, the national language has had official status under the 1973 constitution (as "Pilipino") and the present 1987 constitution (as Filipino).
=== Controversy ===
The adoption of Tagalog in 1937 as basis for a national language is not without its own controversies. Instead of specifying Tagalog, the national language was designated as Wikang Pambansâ ("National Language") in 1939. Twenty years later, in 1959, it was renamed by then Secretary of Education, José E. Romero, as Pilipino to give it a national rather than ethnic label and connotation. The changing of the name did not, however, result in acceptance among non-Tagalogs, especially Cebuanos who had not accepted the selection.
The national language issue was revived once more during the 1971 Constitutional Convention. The majority of the delegates were in favor of scrapping the idea of a "national language" altogether. A compromise solution was worked out—a "universalist" approach to the national language, to be called Filipino rather than Pilipino. The 1973 constitution makes no mention of Tagalog. When a new constitution was drawn up in 1987, it named Filipino as the national language. The constitution specified that as the Filipino language evolves, it shall be further developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages. Filipino and Tagalog are varieties of the same language, sharing a big bulk of common lexical items, and having very similar grammatical structures.
=== Use in education ===
Upon the issuance of Executive Order No. 134, Tagalog was declared as basis of the National Language. On April 12, 1940, Executive No. 263 was issued ordering the teaching of the national language in all public and private schools in the country.
Article XIV, Section 6 of the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines specifies, in part:
Subject to provisions of law and as the Congress may deem appropriate, the Government shall take steps to initiate and sustain the use of Filipino as a medium of official communication and as language of instruction in the educational system.
Under Section 7, however:
The regional languages are the auxiliary official languages in the regions and shall serve as auxiliary media of instruction therein.
In 2009, the Department of Education promulgated an order institutionalizing a system of mother-tongue based multilingual education ("MLE"), wherein instruction is conducted primarily in a student's mother tongue (one of the various regional Philippine languages) until at least grade three, with additional languages such as Filipino and English being introduced as separate subjects no earlier than grade two. In secondary school, Filipino and English become the primary languages of instruction, with the learner's first language taking on an auxiliary role. After pilot tests in selected schools, the MLE program was implemented nationwide from School Year (SY) 2012–2013.
Tagalog is the first language of a quarter of the population of the Philippines (particularly in Central and Southern Luzon) and the second language for the majority.
== Geographic distribution ==
=== In the Philippines ===
According to the 2020 census, 109 million people were living in the Philippines. The vast majority have some basic level of understanding of Filipino. The Tagalog homeland, Katagalugan, covers much of the central to southern parts of the island Luzon — particularly in Aurora, Bataan, Batangas, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Metro Manila, Nueva Ecija, Quezon, and Rizal. Tagalog is also spoken natively by inhabitants living on the islands of Marinduque and Mindoro, as well as Palawan to a lesser extent. Significant minorities of Filipino speakers are found in the other Central Luzon provinces of Pampanga and Tarlac, Camarines Norte and Camarines Sur in Bicol Region, the Cordillera city of Baguio, southeast Pangasinan in Ilocos Region, and various parts of Mindanao especially in the island's urban areas. Filipino is also the predominant language of Cotabato City in Mindanao, making it the only place outside of Luzon with a Filipino-speaking majority. It is also the main lingua franca in Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
According to the 2000 Philippine Census, approximately 96% of the household population who were able to attend school could speak Filipino; and about 28% of the total population spoke it natively.
The following regions and provinces of the Philippines are majority Tagalog-speaking, overlapping with Filipino-speaking (from north to south):
Cordillera Administrative Region
Baguio (While the regional language Ilocano and indigenous languages Ibaloi and Kankanaey are the native languages of Baguio, a provincial dialect of Filipino, is the majority language.)
Central Luzon Region
Aurora
Bataan
Bulacan
Nueva Ecija
Zambales
Metro Manila (National Capital Region)
Southern Luzon
Southern Tagalog (Calabarzon and Mimaropa)
Batangas
Cavite
Laguna
Rizal
Quezon
Marinduque
Occidental Mindoro
Oriental Mindoro
Romblon (While Romblomanon, Onhan, and Asi are the native languages of the province, a provincial dialect of Filipino, is the lingua franca between the various language groups.)
Palawan (Historically a non-Tagalog-speaking province, waves of cross-migration from various other regions, especially Calabarzon, has resulted in a dialect of Filipino, becoming the main spoken language.)
Bicol Region (While the Bikol languages have traditionally been the majority languages in the following provinces, heavy Tagalog influence and migration has resulted in its significant presence in these provinces and in many communities, Tagalog is now the majority language.)
Camarines Norte
Camarines Sur
Bangsamoro
Maguindanao del Norte and Maguindanao del Sur (While Maguindanao has traditionally been the majority language of these provinces, Tagalog, or especially or more accurately and specifically as, through or in the form of a dialect of Filipino, is now the main language of "mother tongue" primary education (but here as the local and regional auxiliary official Tagalog language, rather than or instead of the national and official Filipino language) in the province, the majority language in the regional center of Cotabato City (either or both Tagalog or Filipino), and the lingua franca of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao or BARMM (predominantly Filipino).)
Davao Region
Metro Davao (While Cebuano is the majority language of the region, a linguistic phenomenon has developed whereby local residents have either shifted to Tagalog or Filipino, or significantly mix Tagalog terms and grammar into their Cebuano speech, or a regional metropolitan variety of Filipino, because older generations speak Tagalog/Filipino in home settings, and Cebuano is spoken in everyday settings, making Tagalog/Filipino the secondary lingua franca. Additionally, migrations from Tagalog-speaking provinces to the area are a contributing factor.)
Soccsksargen
Cotabato, South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat (Despite Hiligaynon being the regional main lingua franca, migrations from Luzon and Visayas (including influx of migrants from Tagalog-speaking regions) to Cotabato, South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat has made a dialect of Filipino the secondary lingua franca between various ethnolinguistic groups on everyday basis, especially those not fluent in Hiligaynon. Signages in the region are typically written in Filipino or Tagalog. Filipino is also used in administrative functions by local government, in education and in local media.)
=== Outside the Philippines ===
Tagalog serves as the common language among Overseas Filipinos, though its use overseas is usually limited to communication among Filipino ethnic groups. The largest concentration of Tagalog speakers outside the Philippines is found in the United States, where the 2020 census reported (based on data collected in 2018) that it was the fourth most-spoken non-English language at home with over 1.7 million speakers, behind Spanish, French, and Chinese (with figures for Cantonese and Mandarin combined).
A study based on data from the United States Census Bureau's 2015 American Consumer Survey shows that Tagalog is the most commonly spoken non-English language after Spanish in California, Nevada, and Washington states.
Tagalog is one of three recognized languages in San Francisco, California, along with Spanish and Chinese, making all essential city services be communicated using these languages along with English. In Hawaii, state-funded entities are required to provide oral and written translations for everything in Tagalog and Ilocano. Nevada provides Tagalog Election ballots.
Other countries with significant concentrations of overseas Filipinos and Tagalog speakers include Saudi Arabia with 938,490, Canada with 676,775, Japan with 313,588, United Arab Emirates with 541,593, Kuwait with 187,067, and Malaysia with 620,043.
== Dialects ==
At present, no comprehensive dialectology has been done in the Tagalog-speaking regions, though there have been descriptions in the form of dictionaries and grammars of various Tagalog dialects. Ethnologue lists Manila, Lubang, Marinduque, Bataan (Western Central Luzon), Batangas, Bulacan (Eastern Central Luzon), Tanay-Paete (Rizal-Laguna), and Tayabas (Quezon) as dialects of Tagalog; however, there appear to be four main dialects, of which the aforementioned are a part: Northern (exemplified by the Bulacan dialect), Central (including Manila), Southern (exemplified by Batangas), and Marinduque.
Some example of dialectal differences are:
Many Tagalog dialects, particularly those in the south, preserve the glottal stop found after consonants and before vowels. This has been lost in Standard Tagalog, probably influenced by Spanish, where the glottal stop doesn't exist. For example, standard Tagalog ngayón (now, today), sinigáng (broth stew), gabí (night), matamís (sweet), are pronounced and written ngay-on, sinig-ang, gab-i, and matam-is in other dialects.
In Teresian-Morong Tagalog, [ɾ] alternates with [d]. For example, bundók (mountain), dagat (sea), dingdíng (wall), isdâ (fish), and litid (joints) become bunrók, ragat, ringríng, isrâ, and litir, e.g. "sandók sa dingdíng" ("ladle on a wall" or "ladle on the wall", depending on the sentence) becoming "sanrók sa ringríng". However, exceptions are recent loanwords, and if the next consonant after a [d] is an [ɾ] (durog) or an [l] (dilà).
In many southern dialects, the progressive aspect infix of -um- verbs is na-. For example, standard Tagalog kumakain (eating) is nákáin in Aurora, Quezon, and Batangas Tagalog. This is the butt of some jokes by other Tagalog speakers, for should a Southern Tagalog ask nákáin ka ba ng patíng? ("Do you eat shark?"), he would be understood as saying "Has a shark eaten you?" by speakers of the Manila Dialect.
Some dialects have interjections which are considered a regional trademark. For example, the interjection ala e! usually identifies someone from Batangas as does hane?! in Rizal and Quezon provinces and akkaw in Aurora.
Perhaps the most divergent Tagalog dialects are those spoken in Marinduque. Linguist Rosa Soberano identifies two dialects, western and eastern, with the former being closer to the Tagalog dialects spoken in the provinces of Batangas and Quezon.
One example is the verb conjugation paradigms. While some of the affixes are different, Marinduque also preserves the imperative affixes, also found in Visayan and Bikol languages, that have mostly disappeared from most Tagalog early 20th century; they have since merged with the infinitive.
The Manila Dialect is the basis for the national language.
Outside of Luzon, a variety of Tagalog called Soccsksargen Tagalog (Sox-Tagalog, also called Kabacan Tagalog) is spoken in Soccsksargen, a southwestern region in Mindanao, as well as Cotabato City. This "hybrid" Tagalog dialect is a blend of Tagalog (including its dialects) with other languages where they are widely spoken and varyingly heard such as Hiligaynon (a regional lingua franca), Ilocano, Cebuano as well as Maguindanaon and other indigenous languages native to region, as a result of migration from Panay, Negros, Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor, Ilocandia, Cagayan Valley, Cordillera Administrative Region, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, Mindoro and Marinduque since the turn of 20th century, therefore making the region a melting pot of cultures and languages.
== Phonology ==
Tagalog has 21 phonemes: 16 are consonants and 5 are vowels. Native Tagalog words follow CV(C) syllable structure, though more complex consonant clusters are permitted in loanwords.
=== Vowels ===
Tagalog has five vowels and four diphthongs. Tagalog originally had three vowel phonemes, /a/, /i/, and /u/. Tagalog is now considered to have five vowel phonemes following the introduction of two marginal phonemes from Spanish, /o/ and /e/.
/a/ an open central unrounded vowel roughly similar to English "father"; in the middle of a word, a near-open central vowel similar to Received Pronunciation "cup"; or an open front unrounded vowel similar to Received Pronunciation or California English "hat"
/ɛ/ an open-mid front unrounded vowel similar to General American English "bed"
/i/ a close front unrounded vowel similar to English "machine"
/o̞/ a mid back rounded vowel similar to General American English "soul" or Philippine English "forty"
/u/ a close back rounded vowel similar to English "flute"
Nevertheless, simplification of pairs [o ~ u] and [ɛ ~ i] is likely to take place, especially in some Tagalog as second language, remote location and working class registers.
The four diphthongs are /aj/, /uj/, /aw/, and /iw/. Long vowels are not written apart from pedagogical texts, where an acute accent is used: á é í ó ú.
The table above shows all the possible realizations for each of the five vowel sounds depending on the speaker's origin or proficiency. The five general vowels are in bold.
=== Consonants ===
Below is a chart of Tagalog consonants. All the stops are unaspirated. The velar nasal occurs in all positions including at the beginning of a word. Loanword variants using these phonemes are italicized inside the angle brackets.
/k/ between vowels has a tendency to become [x] as in loch, German Bach, whereas in the initial position it has a tendency to become [kx], especially in the Manila dialect.
Intervocalic /ɡ/ and /k/ tend to become [ɰ], as in Spanish agua, especially in the Manila dialect.
/ɾ/ and /d/ were once allophones, and they still vary grammatically, with initial /d/ becoming intervocalic /ɾ/ in many words.
A glottal stop that occurs in pausa (before a pause) is omitted when it is in the middle of a phrase, especially in the Metro Manila area. The vowel it follows is then lengthened. However, it is preserved in many other dialects.
The /ɾ/ phoneme is an alveolar rhotic that has a free variation between a trill, a flap and an approximant ([r~ɾ~ɹ]).
The /dʒ/ phoneme may become a consonant cluster [dd͡ʒ] in between vowels such as sadyâ [sɐdˈd͡ʒäʔ].
Glottal stop is not indicated. Glottal stops are most likely to occur when:
the word starts with a vowel, like aso (dog)
the word includes a dash followed by a vowel, like mag-aral (study)
the word has two vowels next to each other, like paano (how)
the word starts with a prefix followed by a verb that starts with a vowel, like mag-aayos ([will] fix)
=== Stress and final glottal stop ===
Stress is a distinctive feature in Tagalog. Primary stress occurs on either the final or the penultimate syllable of a word. Vowel lengthening accompanies primary or secondary stress except when stress occurs at the end of a word.
Tagalog words are often distinguished from one another by the position of the stress or the presence of a final glottal stop. In formal or academic settings, stress placement and the glottal stop are indicated by a diacritic (tuldík) above the final vowel. The penultimate primary stress position (malumay) is the default stress type and so is left unwritten except in dictionaries.
== Grammar ==
The grammar of Tagalog is agglutinative, predicate-initial, and organized around the Austronesian alignment system, in which intricate verbal morphology indicates which semantic role is associated with the topic ("ang"-marked) argument.
Tagalog verbs combine a wide array of prefixes, infixes, suffixes, circumfixes, and clitic particles to express voice/"trigger", aspect, mood, and valency changes, resulting in morphologically complex predicate structures.
Tagalog noun morphology is relatively simple compared to its verbal system, though nouns are also productively derived from a range of affixes. Grammatical roles are expressed not by case endings but by a three-way article system (ang, ng, sa) placed directly before the noun clause, distinguishing topic, non-topic, and oblique arguments. Pronouns reflect distinctions in person, number, clusivity, and case.
Word order is typically verb-initial, though SVO may be used in formal contexts. Because the voice/trigger system and article markers indicate grammatical roles, arguments can be freely rearranged to shift focus or emphasize different participants without changing the core meaning.
A defining feature of the language is its productive reduplication system, which includes partial and full reduplication. These patterns perform both grammatical and derivational functions, marking imperfective aspect, intensity, plurality, distributive or repeated action, among other functions.
Another important feature is phonemic stress, wherein the placement of stress is lexically contrastive: identical sequence of sounds can represent distinct words depending on stress (e.g., arálin “to study” vs. aralín “lesson”), and the presence or absence of a glottal stop. Stress interacts with affixation and reduplication in systematic but sometimes nontransparent ways.
== Writing system ==
Tagalog, like other Philippines languages today, is written using the Latin alphabet. Prior to the arrival of the Spanish in 1521 and the beginning of their colonization in 1565, Tagalog was written in an abugida—or alphasyllabary—called Baybayin. This system of writing gradually gave way to the use and propagation of the Latin alphabet as introduced by the Spanish. As the Spanish began to record and create grammars and dictionaries for the various languages of the Philippine archipelago, they adopted systems of writing closely following the orthographic customs of the Spanish language and were refined over the years. Until the first half of the 20th century, most Philippine languages were widely written in a variety of ways based on Spanish orthography.
In the late 19th century, a number of educated Filipinos began proposing for revising the spelling system used for Tagalog at the time. In 1884, Filipino doctor and student of languages Trinidad Pardo de Tavera published his study on the ancient Tagalog script Contribucion para el Estudio de los Antiguos Alfabetos Filipinos and in 1887, published his essay El Sanscrito en la lengua Tagalog which made use of a new writing system developed by him. Meanwhile, Jose Rizal, inspired by Pardo de Tavera's 1884 work, also began developing a new system of orthography (unaware at first of Pardo de Tavera's own orthography). A major noticeable change in these proposed orthographies was the use of the letter ⟨k⟩ rather than ⟨c⟩ and ⟨q⟩ to represent the phoneme /k/.
In 1889, the new bilingual Spanish-Tagalog La España Oriental newspaper, of which Isabelo de los Reyes was an editor, began publishing using the new orthography stating in a footnote that it would "use the orthography recently introduced by ... learned Orientalis". This new orthography, while having its supporters, was also not initially accepted by several writers. Soon after the first issue of La España, Pascual H. Poblete's Revista Católica de Filipina began a series of articles attacking the new orthography and its proponents. A fellow writer, Pablo Tecson was also critical. Among the attacks was the use of the letters "k" and "w" as they were deemed to be of German origin and thus its proponents were deemed as "unpatriotic". The publishers of these two papers would eventually merge as La Lectura Popular in January 1890 and would eventually make use of both spelling systems in its articles. Pedro Laktaw, a schoolteacher, published the first Spanish-Tagalog dictionary using the new orthography in 1890.
In April 1890, Jose Rizal authored an article Sobre la Nueva Ortografia de la Lengua Tagalog in the Madrid-based periodical La Solidaridad. In it, he addressed the criticisms of the new writing system by writers like Pobrete and Tecson and the simplicity, in his opinion, of the new orthography. Rizal described the orthography promoted by Pardo de Tavera as "more perfect" than what he himself had developed. The new orthography was, however, not broadly adopted initially and was used inconsistently in the bilingual periodicals of Manila until the early 20th century. The revolutionary society Kataás-taasan, Kagalang-galang Katipunan ng̃ mg̃á Anak ng̃ Bayan or Katipunan made use of the k-orthography and the letter k featured prominently on many of its flags and insignias.
In 1937, Tagalog was selected to serve as basis for the country's national language. In 1940, the Balarilâ ng Wikang Pambansâ (English: Grammar of the National Language) of grammarian Lope K. Santos introduced the Abakada alphabet. This alphabet consists of 20 letters and became the standard alphabet of the national language. The orthography as used by Tagalog would eventually influence and spread to the systems of writing used by other Philippine languages (which had been using variants of the Spanish-based system of writing). In 1987, the Abakada was dropped and replaced by the expanded Filipino alphabet.
=== Baybayin ===
Tagalog was written in an abugida (alphasyllabary) called Baybayin prior to the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines, in the 16th century. This particular writing system was composed of symbols representing three vowels and 14 consonants. Belonging to the Brahmic family of scripts, it shares similarities with the Old Kawi script of Java and is believed to be descended from the script used by the Bugis in Sulawesi.
Although it enjoyed a relatively high level of literacy, Baybayin gradually fell into disuse in favor of the Latin alphabet taught by the Spaniards during their rule.
There has been confusion of how to use Baybayin, which is actually an abugida, or an alphasyllabary, rather than an alphabet. Not every letter in the Latin alphabet is represented with one of those in the Baybayin alphasyllabary. Rather than letters being put together to make sounds as in Western languages, Baybayin uses symbols to represent syllables.
A "kudlít" resembling an apostrophe is used above or below a symbol to change the vowel sound after its consonant. If the kudlit is used above, the vowel is an "E" or "I" sound. If the kudlit is used below, the vowel is an "O" or "U" sound. A special kudlit was later added by Spanish missionaries in which a cross placed below the symbol to get rid of the vowel sound all together, leaving a consonant. Previously, the consonant without a following vowel was simply left out (for example, bundók being rendered as budo), forcing the reader to use context when reading such words.
Example:
=== Latin alphabet ===
==== Abecedario ====
Until the first half of the 20th century, Tagalog was widely written in a variety of ways based on Spanish orthography consisting of 32 letters called 'ABECEDARIO' (Spanish for "alphabet"). The additional letters beyond the 26-letter English alphabet are: ch, ll, ng, ñ, n͠g / ñg, and rr.
==== Abakada ====
When the national language was based on Tagalog, grammarian Lope K. Santos introduced a new alphabet consisting of 20 letters called Abakada in school grammar books called balarilâ. The only letter not in the English alphabet is ng.
==== Revised alphabet ====
In 1987, the Department of Education, Culture and Sports issued a memo stating that the Philippine alphabet had changed from the Pilipino-Tagalog Abakada version to a new 28-letter alphabet to make room for loans, especially family names from Spanish and English. The additional letters beyond the 26-letter English alphabet are: ñ, ng.
==== ng and mga ====
The genitive marker ng and the plural marker mga (e.g. Iyan ang mga damít ko. (Those are my clothes)) are abbreviations that are pronounced nang [naŋ] and mangá [mɐˈŋa]. Ng, in most cases, roughly translates to "of" (ex. Siyá ay kapatíd ng nanay ko. She is the sibling of my mother) while nang usually means "when" or can describe how something is done or to what extent (equivalent to the suffix -ly in English adverbs), among other uses.
Nang si Hudas ay nadulás.—When Judas slipped.
Gumising siya nang maaga.—He woke up early.
Gumalíng nang todo si Juan dahil nag-ensayo siyá.—Juan greatly improved because he practiced.
In the first example, nang is used in lieu of the word noong (when; Noong si Hudas ay madulás). In the second, nang describes that the person woke up (gumising) early (maaga); gumising nang maaga. In the third, nang described up to what extent that Juan improved (gumalíng), which is "greatly" (nang todo). In the latter two examples, the ligature na and its variants -ng and -g may also be used (Gumising na maaga/Maagang gumising; Gumalíng na todo/Todong gumalíng).
The longer nang may also have other uses, such as a ligature that joins a repeated word:
Naghintáy sila nang naghintáy.—They kept on waiting" (a closer calque: "They were waiting and waiting.")
=== pô/hô and opò/ohò ===
The words pô/hô originated from the word "Panginoon." and "Poon." ("Lord."). When combined with the basic affirmative Oo "yes" (from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *heqe), the resulting forms are opò and ohò.
"Pô" and "opò" are specifically used to denote a high level of respect when addressing older persons of close affinity like parents, relatives, teachers and family friends. "Hô" and "ohò" are generally used to politely address older neighbours, strangers, public officials, bosses and nannies, and may suggest a distance in societal relationship and respect determined by the addressee's social rank and not their age. However, "pô" and "opò" can be used in any case in order to express an elevation of respect.
Example: "Pakitapon namán pô/hô yung basura." ("Please throw away the trash.")
Used in the affirmative:
Ex: "Gutóm ka na ba?" "Opò/Ohò". ("Are you hungry yet?" "Yes.")
Pô/Hô may also be used in negation.
Ex: "Hindi ko pô/hô alám 'yan." ("I don't know that.")
== Vocabulary and borrowed words ==
Tagalog vocabulary is mostly of native Austronesian or Tagalog origin, such as most of the words that end with the diphthong -iw, (e.g. giliw) and words that exhibit reduplication (e.g. halo-halo, patpat, etc.). Besides inherited cognates, this also accounts for innovations in Tagalog vocabulary, especially traditional ones within its dialects. Tagalog has also incorporated many Spanish and English loanwords; the necessity of which increases in more technical parlance.
In precolonial times, Trade Malay was widely known and spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, contributing a significant number of Malay vocabulary into the Tagalog language. Malay loanwords, identifiable or not, may often already be considered native as these have existed in the language before colonisation.
Tagalog also includes loanwords from Indian languages (Sanskrit and Tamil, mostly through Malay), Chinese languages (mostly Hokkien, followed by Cantonese, Mandarin, etc.), Japanese, Arabic and Persian.
English has borrowed some words from Tagalog, such as abaca, barong, balisong, boondocks, jeepney, Manila hemp, pancit, ylang-ylang, and yaya. Some of these loanwords are more often used in Philippine English.
Tagalog has contributed several words to Philippine Spanish, like barangay (from balan͠gay, meaning barrio), the abacá, cogon, palay, dalaga etc.
=== Tagalog words of foreign origin ===
== Taglish (Englog) ==
Taglish and Englog are names given to a mix of English and Tagalog. The amount of English vs. Tagalog varies from the occasional use of English loan words to changing language in mid-sentence. Such code-switching is prevalent throughout the Philippines and in various languages of the Philippines other than Tagalog.
Code-mixing also entails the use of foreign words that are "Filipinized" by reforming them using Filipino rules, such as verb conjugations. Users typically use Filipino or English words, whichever comes to mind first or whichever is easier to use.
Urbanites are the most likely to speak like this.
The practice is common in television, radio, and print media as well. Advertisements from companies like Wells Fargo, Wal-Mart, Albertsons, McDonald's and Western Union have contained Taglish.
=== Cognates with other Philippine languages ===
== Comparisons with Austronesian languages ==
Below is a chart of Tagalog and a number of other Austronesian languages comparing thirteen words.
== Religious literature ==
Religious literature remains one of the most dynamic components to Tagalog literature. The first Bible in Tagalog, then called Ang Biblia ("the Bible") and now called Ang Dating Biblia ("the Old Bible"), was published in 1905. In 1970, the Philippine Bible Society translated the Bible into modern Tagalog. Even before the Second Vatican Council, devotional materials in Tagalog had been in circulation. There are at least four circulating Tagalog translations of the Bible
the Magandang Balita Biblia (a parallel translation of the Good News Bible), which is the ecumenical version
the Bibliya ng Sambayanang Pilipino
the 1905 Ang Biblia, used more by Protestants
the Bagong Sanlibutang Salin ng Banal na Kasulatan (New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures), exclusive to the Jehovah's Witnesses
When the Second Vatican Council, (specifically the Sacrosanctum Concilium) permitted the universal prayers to be translated into vernacular languages, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines was one of the first to translate the Roman Missal into Tagalog. The Roman Missal in Tagalog was published as early as 1982. In 2012, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines revised the 41-year-old liturgy with an English version of the Roman Missal, and later translated it in the vernacular to several native languages in the Philippines. For instance, in 2024, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Malolos uses the Tagalog translation of the Roman Missal entitled "Ang Aklat ng Mabuting Balita."
Jehovah's Witnesses were printing Tagalog literature at least as early as 1941 and The Watchtower (the primary magazine of Jehovah's Witnesses) has been published in Tagalog since at least the 1950s. New releases are now regularly released simultaneously in a number of languages, including Tagalog. The official website of Jehovah's Witnesses also has some publications available online in Tagalog. The revised bible edition, the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, was released in Tagalog on 2019 and it is distributed without charge both printed and online versions.
Tagalog is quite a stable language, and very few revisions have been made to Catholic Bible translations. Also, as Protestantism in the Philippines is relatively young, liturgical prayers tend to be more ecumenical.
== Example texts ==
=== Lord's Prayer ===
In Tagalog, the Lord's Prayer is known by its incipit, Amá Namin (literally, "Our Father").
The same text, in Baybayin script, is as follows.
=== Universal Declaration of Human Rights ===
This is Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Pangkalahatáng Pagpapahayág ng Karapatáng Pantao)
Tagalog (Latin)
Bawat tao'y isinilang na may layà at magkakapantáy ang tagláy na dangál at karapatán. Silá'y pinagkalooban ng pangangatwiran at budhî, at dapat magpálagayan ang isá't-isá sa diwà ng pagkákapatiran.
Tagalog (Baybayin)
ᜊᜏᜆ᜔ ᜆᜂᜌ᜔ ᜁᜐᜒᜈᜒᜎᜅ᜔ ᜈ ᜋᜌ᜔ ᜎᜌ ᜀᜆ᜔ ᜋᜄ᜔ᜃᜃᜉᜈ᜔ᜆᜌ᜔ ᜀᜅ᜔ ᜆᜄ᜔ᜎᜌ᜔ ᜈ ᜇᜅᜎ᜔ ᜀᜆ᜔ ᜃᜇᜉᜆᜈ᜔᜶ ᜐᜒᜎᜌ᜔ ᜉᜒᜈᜄ᜔ᜃᜎᜓᜂᜊᜈ᜔ ᜈᜅ᜔ ᜃᜆ᜔ᜏᜒᜇᜈ᜔ ᜀᜆ᜔ ᜊᜓᜇᜑᜒ᜵ ᜀᜆ᜔ ᜇᜉᜆ᜔ ᜋᜄ᜔ᜉᜎᜄᜌᜈ᜔ ᜀᜅ᜔ ᜁᜐᜆ᜔ ᜁᜐ ᜐ ᜇᜒᜏ ᜈᜅ᜔ ᜉᜄ᜔ᜃᜃᜉᜆᜒᜇᜈ᜔᜶
English
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
=== Numbers ===
Numbers (mga bilang/mga numero) in Tagalog follow two systems. The first consists of native Tagalog words and the other are Spanish-derived. (This may be compared to other East Asian languages, except with the second set of numbers borrowed from Spanish instead of Chinese.) For example, when a person refers to the number "seven", it can be translated into Tagalog as "pitó" or "siyete" (Spanish: siete).
=== Months and days ===
Months and days in Tagalog are also localised forms of Spanish months and days. "Month" in Tagalog is buwán (also the word for moon) and "day" is araw (the word also means sun). Unlike Spanish, however, months and days in Tagalog are always capitalised.
=== Time ===
Time expressions in Tagalog are also Tagalized forms of the corresponding Spanish. "Time" in Tagalog is panahón or oras.
== Common phrases ==
*Pronouns such as niyó (2nd person plural) and nilá (3rd person plural) are used on a single 2nd person in polite or formal language. See Tagalog grammar.
=== Proverbs ===
Ang hindî marunong lumingón sa pinánggalingan ay hindî makaráratíng sa paroroonan.
(— José Rizal)
One who knows not how to look back to whence he came will never get to where he is going.
Unang kagát, tinapay pa rin.First bite, still bread.All fluff, no substance.
Tao ka nang humaráp, bilang tao kitáng haharapin.You reach me as a human, I will treat you as a human and never act as a traitor.(A proverb in Southern Tagalog that has made people aware of the significance of sincerity in Tagalog communities.)
Hulí man daw (raw) at magalíng, nakáhahábol pa rin.If one is behind but capable, one will still be able to catch up.
Magbirô ka na sa lasíng, huwág lang sa bagong gising.Make fun of someone drunk, if you must, but never one who has just awakened.
Aanhín pa ang damó kung patáy na ang kabayò?What use is the grass if the horse is already dead?
Ang sakít ng kalingkingan, damdám ng buóng katawán.The pain in the pinkie is felt by the whole body.
In a group, if one goes down, the rest follow.
Nasa hulí ang pagsisisi.Regret is always in the end.
Pagkáhabà-habà man ng prusisyón, sa simbahan pa rin ang tulóy.The procession may stretch on and on, but it still ends up at the church.
(In romance: refers to how certain people are destined to be married. In general: refers to how some things are inevitable, no matter how long you try to postpone it.)
Kung 'dî mádaán sa santóng dasalan, daanin sa santóng paspasan.If it cannot be got through holy prayer, get it through blessed force.
(In romance and courting: santóng paspasan literally means 'holy speeding' and is a euphemism for sexual intercourse. It refers to the two styles of courting by Filipino boys: one is the traditional, protracted, restrained manner favored by older generations, which often featured serenades and manual labor for the girl's family; the other is upfront seduction, which may lead to a slap on the face or a pregnancy out of wedlock. The second conclusion is known as pikot or what Western cultures would call a 'shotgun marriage'. This proverb is also applied in terms of diplomacy and negotiation.) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoelectric_effect | Photoelectric effect | The photoelectric effect is the emission of electrons from a material caused by electromagnetic radiation such as ultraviolet light. Electrons emitted in this manner are called photoelectrons. The phenomenon is studied in condensed matter physics, solid state, and quantum chemistry to draw inferences about the properties of atoms, molecules and solids. The effect has found use in electronic devices specialized for light detection and precisely timed electron emission.
The experimental results disagree with classical electromagnetism, which predicts that continuous light waves transfer energy to electrons, which would then be emitted when they accumulate enough energy. An alteration in the intensity of light would theoretically change the kinetic energy of the emitted electrons, with sufficiently dim light resulting in a delayed emission. The experimental results instead show that electrons are dislodged only when the light exceeds a certain frequency—regardless of the light's intensity or duration of exposure. Because a low-frequency beam at a high intensity does not build up the energy required to produce photoelectrons, as would be the case if light's energy accumulated over time from a continuous wave, Albert Einstein proposed that a beam of light is not a wave propagating through space, but discrete energy packets, which were later popularised as photons by Gilbert N. Lewis.
Emission of conduction electrons from typical metals requires a few electron-volt (eV) light quanta, corresponding to short-wavelength visible or ultraviolet light. In extreme cases, emissions are induced with photons approaching zero energy, like in systems with negative electron affinity and the emission from excited states, or a few hundred keV photons for core electrons in elements with a high atomic number. Study of the photoelectric effect led to important steps in understanding the quantum nature of light and electrons and influenced the formation of the concept of wave–particle duality. Other phenomena where light affects the movement of electric charges include the photoconductive effect, the photovoltaic effect, and the photoelectrochemical effect.
== Emission mechanism ==
The photons of a light beam have a characteristic energy, called photon energy, which is proportional to the frequency of the light. In the photoemission process, when an electron within some material absorbs the energy of a photon and acquires more energy than its binding energy, it is likely to be ejected. If the photon energy is too low, the electron is unable to escape the material. Since an increase in the intensity of low-frequency light will only increase the number of low-energy photons, this change in intensity will not create any single photon with enough energy to dislodge an electron. Moreover, the energy of the emitted electrons will not depend on the intensity of the incoming light of a given frequency, but only on the energy of the individual photons.
While free electrons can absorb any energy when irradiated as long as this is followed by an immediate re-emission, like in the Compton effect, in quantum systems all of the energy from one photon is absorbed—if the process is allowed by quantum mechanics—or none at all. Part of the acquired energy is used to liberate the electron from its atomic binding, and the rest contributes to the electron's kinetic energy as a free particle. Because electrons in a material occupy many different quantum states with different binding energies, and because they can sustain energy losses on their way out of the material, the emitted electrons will have a range of kinetic energies. The electrons from the highest occupied states will have the highest kinetic energy. In metals, those electrons will be emitted from the Fermi level.
When the photoelectron is emitted into a solid rather than into a vacuum, the term internal photoemission is often used, and emission into a vacuum is distinguished as external photoemission.
=== Experimental observation of photoelectric emission ===
Even though photoemission can occur from any material, it is most readily observed from metals and other conductors. This is because the process produces a charge imbalance which, if not neutralized by current flow, results in the increasing potential barrier until the emission completely ceases. The energy barrier to photoemission is usually increased by nonconductive oxide layers on metal surfaces, so most practical experiments and devices based on the photoelectric effect use clean metal surfaces in evacuated tubes. Vacuum also helps observing the electrons since it prevents gases from impeding their flow between the electrodes.
Sunlight is an inconsistent and variable source of ultraviolet light. Cloud cover, ozone concentration, altitude, and surface reflection all alter the amount of UV. Laboratory sources of UV are based on xenon arc lamps or, for more uniform but weaker light, fluorescent lamps.
More specialized sources include ultraviolet lasers and synchrotron radiation.
The classical setup to observe the photoelectric effect includes a light source, a set of filters to monochromatize the light, a vacuum tube transparent to ultraviolet light, an emitting electrode (E) exposed to the light, and a collector (C) whose voltage VC can be externally controlled.
A positive external voltage is used to direct the photoemitted electrons onto the collector. If the frequency and the intensity of the incident radiation are fixed, the photoelectric current I increases with an increase in the positive voltage, as more and more electrons are directed onto the electrode. When no additional photoelectrons can be collected, the photoelectric current attains a saturation value. This current can only increase with the increase of the intensity of light.
An increasing negative voltage prevents all but the highest-energy electrons from reaching the collector. When no current is observed through the tube, the negative voltage has reached the value that is high enough to slow down and stop the most energetic photoelectrons of kinetic energy Kmax. This value of the retarding voltage is called the stopping potential or cut off potential Vo. Since the work done by the retarding potential in stopping the electron of charge e is eVo, the following must hold eVo = Kmax.
The current-voltage curve is sigmoidal, but its exact shape depends on the experimental geometry and the electrode material properties.
For a given metal surface, there exists a certain minimum frequency of incident radiation below which no photoelectrons are emitted. This frequency is called the threshold frequency. Increasing the frequency of the incident beam increases the maximum kinetic energy of the emitted photoelectrons, and the stopping voltage has to increase. The number of emitted electrons may also change because the probability that each photon results in an emitted electron is a function of photon energy.
An increase in the intensity of the same monochromatic light (so long as the intensity is not too high), which is proportional to the number of photons impinging on the surface in a given time, increases the rate at which electrons are ejected—the photoelectric current I—but the kinetic energy of the photoelectrons and the stopping voltage remain the same. For a given metal and frequency of incident radiation, the rate at which photoelectrons are ejected is directly proportional to the intensity of the incident light.
The time lag between the incidence of radiation and the emission of a photoelectron is very small, less than 10−9 second. Angular distribution of the photoelectrons is highly dependent on polarization (the direction of the electric field) of the incident light, as well as the emitting material's quantum properties such as atomic and molecular orbital symmetries and the electronic band structure of crystalline solids. In materials without macroscopic order, the distribution of electrons tends to peak in the direction of polarization of linearly polarized light. The experimental technique that can measure these distributions to infer the material's properties is angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy.
=== Theoretical explanation ===
In 1905, Albert Einstein proposed a theory of the photoelectric effect using a concept that light consists of tiny packets of energy known as photons or light quanta. Each packet carries energy
h
ν
{\displaystyle h\nu }
that is proportional to the frequency
ν
{\displaystyle \nu }
of the corresponding electromagnetic wave. The proportionality constant
h
{\displaystyle h}
has become known as the Planck constant. In the range of kinetic energies of the electrons that are removed from their varying atomic bindings by the absorption of a photon of energy
h
ν
{\displaystyle h\nu }
, the highest kinetic energy
K
max
{\displaystyle K_{\max }}
is
K
max
=
h
ν
−
W
.
{\displaystyle K_{\max }=h\,\nu -W.}
Here,
W
{\displaystyle W}
is the minimum energy required to remove an electron from the surface of the material. It is called the work function of the surface and is sometimes denoted
Φ
{\displaystyle \Phi }
or
φ
{\displaystyle \varphi }
. If the work function is written as
W
=
h
ν
o
,
{\displaystyle W=h\,\nu _{o},}
the formula for the maximum kinetic energy of the ejected electrons becomes
K
max
=
h
(
ν
−
ν
o
)
.
{\displaystyle K_{\max }=h\left(\nu -\nu _{o}\right).}
Kinetic energy is positive, and
ν
>
ν
o
{\displaystyle \nu >\nu _{o}}
is required for the photoelectric effect to occur. The frequency
ν
o
{\displaystyle \nu _{o}}
is the threshold frequency for the given material. Above that frequency, the maximum kinetic energy of the photoelectrons as well as the stopping voltage in the experiment
V
o
=
h
e
(
ν
−
ν
o
)
{\textstyle V_{o}={\frac {h}{e}}\left(\nu -\nu _{o}\right)}
rise linearly with the frequency, and have no dependence on the number of photons and the intensity of the impinging monochromatic light. Einstein's formula, however simple, explained all the phenomenology of the photoelectric effect, and had far-reaching consequences in the development of quantum mechanics.
=== Photoemission from atoms, molecules and solids ===
Electrons that are bound in atoms, molecules and solids each occupy distinct states of well-defined binding energies. When light quanta deliver more than this amount of energy to an individual electron, the electron may be emitted into free space with excess (kinetic) energy that is
h
ν
{\displaystyle h\nu }
higher than the electron's binding energy. The distribution of kinetic energies thus reflects the distribution of the binding energies of the electrons in the atomic, molecular or crystalline system: an electron emitted from the state at binding energy
E
B
{\displaystyle E_{B}}
is found at kinetic energy
E
k
=
h
ν
−
E
B
{\displaystyle E_{k}=h\nu -E_{B}}
. This distribution is one of the main characteristics of the quantum system, and can be used for further studies in quantum chemistry and quantum physics.
==== Models of photoemission from solids ====
The electronic properties of ordered, crystalline solids are determined by the distribution of the electronic states with respect to energy and momentum—the electronic band structure of the solid. Theoretical models of photoemission from solids show that this distribution is, for the most part, preserved in the photoelectric effect. The phenomenological three-step model for ultraviolet and soft X-ray excitation decomposes the effect into these steps:
Inner photoelectric effect in the bulk of the material that is a direct optical transition between an occupied and an unoccupied electronic state. This effect is subject to quantum-mechanical selection rules for dipole transitions. The hole left behind the electron can give rise to secondary electron emission, or the so-called Auger effect, which may be visible even when the primary photoelectron does not leave the material. In molecular solids phonons are excited in this step and may be visible as satellite lines in the final electron energy.
Electron propagation to the surface in which some electrons may be scattered because of interactions with other constituents of the solid. Electrons that originate deeper in the solid are much more likely to suffer collisions and emerge with altered energy and momentum. Their mean-free path is a universal curve dependent on electron's energy.
Electron escape through the surface barrier into free-electron-like states of the vacuum. In this step the electron loses energy in the amount of the work function of the surface, and suffers from the momentum loss in the direction perpendicular to the surface. Because the binding energy of electrons in solids is conveniently expressed with respect to the highest occupied state at the Fermi energy
E
F
{\displaystyle E_{F}}
, and the difference to the free-space (vacuum) energy is the work function of the surface, the kinetic energy of the electrons emitted from solids is usually written as
E
k
=
h
ν
−
W
−
E
B
{\displaystyle E_{k}=h\nu -W-E_{B}}
.
There are cases where the three-step model fails to explain peculiarities of the photoelectron intensity distributions. The more elaborate one-step model treats the effect as a coherent process of photoexcitation into the final state of a finite crystal for which the wave function is free-electron-like outside of the crystal, but has a decaying envelope inside.
== History ==
=== 19th century ===
In 1839, Alexandre Edmond Becquerel discovered the related photovoltaic effect while studying the effect of light on electrolytic cells. Though not equivalent to the photoelectric effect, his work on photovoltaics was instrumental in showing a strong relationship between light and electronic properties of materials. In 1873, Willoughby Smith discovered photoconductivity in selenium while testing the metal for its high resistance properties in conjunction with his work involving submarine telegraph cables.
Johann Elster (1854–1920) and Hans Geitel (1855–1923), students in Heidelberg, investigated the effects produced by light on electrified bodies and developed the first practical photoelectric cells that could be used to measure the intensity of light. They arranged metals with respect to their power of discharging negative electricity: rubidium, potassium, alloy of potassium and sodium, sodium, lithium, magnesium, thallium and zinc; for copper, platinum, lead, iron, cadmium, carbon, and mercury the effects with ordinary light were too small to be measurable. The order of the metals for this effect was the same as in Volta's series for contact-electricity, the most electropositive metals giving the largest photo-electric effect.
In 1887, Heinrich Hertz observed the photoelectric effect and reported on the production and reception of electromagnetic waves. The receiver in his apparatus consisted of a coil with a spark gap, where a spark would be seen upon detection of electromagnetic waves. He placed the apparatus in a darkened box to see the spark better. However, he noticed that the maximum spark length was reduced when inside the box. A glass panel that was placed between the source of electromagnetic waves and the receiver absorbed ultraviolet radiation that assisted the electrons in jumping across the gap. When removed, the spark length would increase. He observed no decrease in spark length when he replaced the glass with quartz, as quartz does not absorb UV radiation.
The discoveries by Hertz led to a series of investigations by Wilhelm Hallwachs, Hoor, Augusto Righi and Aleksander Stoletov on the effect of light, and especially of ultraviolet light, on charged bodies. Hallwachs connected a zinc plate to an electroscope. He allowed ultraviolet light to fall on a freshly cleaned zinc plate and observed that the zinc plate became uncharged if initially negatively charged, positively charged if initially uncharged, and more positively charged if initially positively charged. From these observations he concluded that some negatively charged particles were emitted by the zinc plate when exposed to ultraviolet light.
With regard to the Hertz effect, the researchers from the start showed the complexity of the phenomenon of photoelectric fatigue—the progressive diminution of the effect observed upon fresh metallic surfaces. According to Hallwachs, ozone played an important part in the phenomenon, and the emission was influenced by oxidation, humidity, and the degree of polishing of the surface. It was at the time unclear whether fatigue is absent in a vacuum.
In the period from 1888 until 1891, a detailed analysis of the photoeffect was performed by Aleksandr Stoletov with results reported in six publications. Stoletov invented a new experimental setup which was more suitable for a quantitative analysis of the photoeffect. He discovered a direct proportionality between the intensity of light and the induced photoelectric current (the first law of photoeffect or Stoletov's law). He measured the dependence of the intensity of the photo electric current on the gas pressure, where he found the existence of an optimal gas pressure corresponding to a maximum photocurrent; this property was used for the creation of solar cells.
Many substances besides metals discharge negative electricity under the action of ultraviolet light. G. C. Schmidt and O. Knoblauch compiled a list of these substances.
In 1897, J. J. Thomson investigated ultraviolet light in Crookes tubes. Thomson deduced that the ejected particles, which he called corpuscles, were of the same nature as cathode rays. These particles later became known as the electrons. Thomson enclosed a metal plate (a cathode) in a vacuum tube, and exposed it to high-frequency radiation. It was thought that the oscillating electromagnetic fields caused the atoms' field to resonate and, after reaching a certain amplitude, caused subatomic corpuscles to be emitted, and current to be detected. The amount of this current varied with the intensity and color of the radiation. Larger radiation intensity or frequency would produce more current.
During the years 1886–1902, Wilhelm Hallwachs and Philipp Lenard investigated the phenomenon of photoelectric emission in detail. Lenard observed that a current flows through an evacuated glass tube enclosing two electrodes when ultraviolet radiation falls on one of them. As soon as ultraviolet radiation is stopped, the current also stops. This initiated the concept of photoelectric emission. The discovery of the ionization of gases by ultraviolet light was made by Philipp Lenard in 1900. As the effect was produced across several centimeters of air and yielded a greater number of positive ions than negative, it was natural to interpret the phenomenon, as J. J. Thomson did, as a Hertz effect upon the particles present in the gas.
=== 20th century ===
In 1902, Lenard observed that the energy of individual emitted electrons was independent of the applied light intensity. This appeared to be at odds with Maxwell's wave theory of light, which predicted that the electron energy would be proportional to the intensity of the radiation.
Lenard observed the variation in electron energy with light frequency using a powerful electric arc lamp which enabled him to investigate large changes in intensity. However, Lenard's results were qualitative rather than quantitative because of the difficulty in performing the experiments: the experiments needed to be done on freshly cut metal so that the pure metal was observed, but it oxidized in a matter of minutes even in the partial vacuums he used. The current emitted by the surface was determined by the light's intensity, or brightness: doubling the intensity of the light doubled the number of electrons emitted from the surface.
Initial investigation of the photoelectric effect in gasses by Lenard were followed up by J. J. Thomson and then more decisively by Frederic Palmer Jr. The gas photoemission was studied and showed very different characteristics than those at first attributed to it by Lenard.
In 1900, while studying black-body radiation, the German physicist Max Planck suggested in his "On the Law of Distribution of Energy in the Normal Spectrum" paper that the energy carried by electromagnetic waves could only be released in packets of energy. In 1905, Albert Einstein published a paper advancing the hypothesis that light energy is carried in discrete quantized packets to explain experimental data from the photoelectric effect. Einstein theorized that the energy in each quantum of light was equal to the frequency of light multiplied by a constant, later called the Planck constant. A photon above a threshold frequency has the required energy to eject a single electron, creating the observed effect. This was a step in the development of quantum mechanics. In 1914, Robert A. Millikan's highly accurate measurements of the Planck constant from the photoelectric effect supported Einstein's model, even though a corpuscular theory of light was for Millikan, at the time, "quite unthinkable". Einstein was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for "his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect", and Millikan was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1923 for "his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect". In quantum perturbation theory of atoms and solids acted upon by electromagnetic radiation, the photoelectric effect is still commonly analyzed in terms of waves; the two approaches are equivalent because photon or wave absorption can only happen between quantized energy levels whose energy difference is that of the energy of photon.
Albert Einstein's mathematical description of how the photoelectric effect was caused by absorption of quanta of light was in one of his Annus Mirabilis papers, named "On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light". The paper proposed a simple description of energy quanta, and showed how they explained the blackbody radiation spectrum. His explanation in terms of absorption of discrete quanta of light agreed with experimental results. It explained why the energy of photoelectrons was not dependent on incident light intensity. This was a theoretical leap, but the concept was strongly resisted at first because it contradicted the wave theory of light that followed naturally from James Clerk Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism, and more generally, the assumption of infinite divisibility of energy in physical systems.
Einstein's work predicted that the energy of individual ejected electrons increases linearly with the frequency of the light. The precise relationship had not at that time been tested. By 1905 it was known that the energy of photoelectrons increases with increasing frequency of incident light and is independent of the intensity of the light. However, the manner of the increase was not experimentally determined until 1914 when Millikan showed that Einstein's prediction was correct.
In 1937, the Bulgarian physicist Georgi Nadjakov discovered the photoelectret state in dielectrics. The phenomenon is related to photoelectric effects in solids and later contributed to the physical basis of xerography.
The photoelectric effect helped to propel the then-emerging concept of wave–particle duality in the nature of light. Light simultaneously possesses the characteristics of both waves and particles, each being manifested according to the circumstances. The effect was impossible to understand in terms of the classical wave description of light, as the energy of the emitted electrons did not depend on the intensity of the incident radiation. Classical theory predicted that the electrons would 'gather up' energy over a period of time, and then be emitted.
The quantum of light was given its modern name by Gilbert N. Lewis when he coined the term 'photon' in his letter "The Conservation of Photons" to Nature published in 18 December 1926.
=== 21st century ===
Research in recent years on the photoelectric effect has been focused on measurements on emission time of photoelectrons. For long, it was believed that photoemission is an instantaneous process. However, a seminal role in this field was played by experimental techniques on attosecond generation of pulses of light for studies on electron dynamics, which was recognised through the 2023 Nobel Prize in physics to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L'Huillier. For example, in 2010, it was discovered that electron emission takes 20 attoseconds and that photoemission is associated with complex multielectron correlations and is not a single-electron process. In a more recent work in the context of tungsten, measurements on photoelectron emission indicated that around 100 attoseconds are required to liberate an electron. In another research, the value was found to be 45 attoseconds. A broad consensus is emerging towards the fact that photoemission is not instantaneous and involves finite time.
The role of electric field in photoelectric effect has also been empirically studied and it was found that electromagnetic radiation with a specific orientation of electric field can excite electrons leading to enhanced emission in the Terahertz range.
== Uses and effects ==
=== Photomultipliers ===
These are extremely light-sensitive vacuum tubes with a coated photocathode inside the envelope. The photo cathode contains combinations of materials such as cesium, rubidium, and antimony specially selected to provide a low work function, so when illuminated even by very low levels of light, the photocathode readily releases electrons. By means of a series of electrodes (dynodes) at ever-higher potentials, these electrons are accelerated and substantially increased in number through secondary emission to provide a readily detectable output current. Photomultipliers are still commonly used wherever low levels of light must be detected.
=== Image sensors ===
Video camera tubes in the early days of television used the photoelectric effect. For example, Philo Farnsworth's "Image dissector" used a screen charged by the photoelectric effect to transform an optical image into a scanned electronic signal.
=== Photoelectron spectroscopy ===
Because the kinetic energy of the emitted electrons is exactly the energy of the incident photon minus the energy of the electron's binding within an atom, molecule or solid, the binding energy can be determined by shining a monochromatic X-ray or UV light of a known energy and measuring the kinetic energies of the photoelectrons. The distribution of electron energies is valuable for studying quantum properties of these systems. It can also be used to determine the elemental composition of the samples. For solids, the kinetic energy and emission angle distribution of the photoelectrons is measured for the complete determination of the electronic band structure in terms of the allowed binding energies and momenta of the electrons. Modern instruments for angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy are capable of measuring these quantities with a precision better than 1 meV and 0.1°.
Photoelectron spectroscopy measurements are usually performed in a high-vacuum environment, because the electrons would be scattered by gas molecules if they were present. However, some companies are now selling products that allow photoemission in air. The light source can be a laser, a discharge tube, or a synchrotron radiation source.
The concentric hemispherical analyzer is a typical electron energy analyzer. It uses an electric field between two hemispheres to change (disperse) the trajectories of incident electrons depending on their kinetic energies.
=== Night vision devices ===
Photons hitting a thin film of alkali metal or semiconductor material such as gallium arsenide in an image intensifier tube cause the ejection of photoelectrons due to the photoelectric effect. These are accelerated by an electrostatic field where they strike a phosphor coated screen, converting the electrons back into photons. Intensification of the signal is achieved either through acceleration of the electrons or by increasing the number of electrons through secondary emissions, such as with a micro-channel plate. Sometimes a combination of both methods is used. Additional kinetic energy is required to move an electron out of the conduction band and into the vacuum level. This is known as the electron affinity of the photocathode and is another barrier to photoemission other than the forbidden band, explained by the band gap model. Some materials such as gallium arsenide have an effective electron affinity that is below the level of the conduction band. In these materials, electrons that move to the conduction band all have sufficient energy to be emitted from the material, so the film that absorbs photons can be quite thick. These materials are known as negative electron affinity materials.
=== Spacecraft ===
The photoelectric effect will cause spacecraft exposed to sunlight to develop a positive charge. This can be a major problem, as other parts of the spacecraft are in shadow which will result in the spacecraft developing a negative charge from nearby plasmas. The imbalance can discharge through delicate electrical components. The static charge created by the photoelectric effect is self-limiting, because a higher charged object does not give up its electrons as easily as a lower charged object does.
=== Moon dust ===
Light from the Sun hitting lunar dust causes it to become positively charged from the photoelectric effect. The charged dust then repels itself and lifts off the surface of the Moon by electrostatic levitation. This manifests itself almost like an "atmosphere of dust", visible as a thin haze and blurring of distant features, and visible as a dim glow after the sun has set. This was first photographed by the Surveyor program probes in the 1960s, and most recently the Chang'e 3 rover observed dust deposition on lunar rocks as high as about 28 cm. It is thought that the smallest particles are repelled kilometers from the surface and that the particles move in "fountains" as they charge and discharge.
== Cross section and competing processes ==
The probability of the photoelectric effect occurring is measured by the cross section of the interaction, which the atomic number of the target atom and photon energy. In a crude approximation, for photon energies above the highest atomic binding energy, the cross section is qualitatively given by:
σ
=
c
o
n
s
t
a
n
t
⋅
Z
n
E
3
{\displaystyle \sigma =\mathrm {constant} \cdot {\frac {Z^{n}}{E^{3}}}}
Here Z is the atomic number and n is a number which varies between 4 and 5. The photoelectric effect rapidly decreases in significance in the gamma-ray region of the spectrum, with increasing photon energy. It is also more likely from elements with high atomic number. Consequently, high-Z materials make good gamma-ray shields, which is the principal reason why lead (Z = 82) is preferred and most widely used.
The probability of photoelectric absorption,
σ
pe
{\displaystyle \sigma _{\textrm {pe}}}
, as light travels through matter is one component of the linear attenutation coefficent:
μ
0
=
σ
pe
+
σ
compton
+
σ
pp
{\displaystyle \mu _{0}=\sigma _{\textrm {pe}}+\sigma _{\textrm {compton}}+\sigma _{\textrm {pp}}}
where the other competing processes are Compton scattering, with cross section
σ
compton
{\displaystyle \sigma _{\textrm {compton}}}
and pair production, with cross section
σ
pp
{\displaystyle \sigma _{\textrm {pp}}}
. These cross-sections vary with the atomic number of the element that dominates the material and with the energy of the photons. As photon energies increase above those of a materials K-edge the probability of photoelectric interactions decreases and Compton scattering begins to dominate. Above photon energies of 1.022 MeV, pair production begins, increasing rapidly with photon energy. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andhra_Pradesh_(1956%E2%80%932014) | Andhra Pradesh (1956–2014) | Andhra Pradesh, retrospectively referred to as United Andhra Pradesh or Undivided Andhra Pradesh, was a state in India formed by States Reorganisation Act, 1956 with Hyderabad as its capital and was reorganised by Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014. The state was made up of three distinct cultural regions of Telangana, Rayalaseema, and Coastal Andhra. Before the 1956 reorganisation, Telangana had been part of Hyderabad State, whereas Rayalaseema and Coastal Andhra had been part of Andhra State, formerly a part of Madras Presidency of British India.
== Creation of United Andhra Pradesh ==
To gain an independent state based on linguistic identity, and to protect the interests of the Telugu people of Madras State, Potti Sreeramulu fasted to death in 1952. As Madras became a bone of contention, in 1949 a JVP committee report stated: "Andhra Province could be formed provided the Andhras give up their claim on the city of Madras (now Chennai)". After Potti Sreeramulu's death, the Telugu-speaking area of Andhra State was carved out of Madras State on 30 November 1953, with Kurnool as its capital city. On the basis of the gentlemen's agreement of 1 November 1956, the States Reorganisation Act formed Andhra Pradesh by merging Andhra State with the Telugu-speaking areas of the then-existing Hyderabad State. Hyderabad was made the capital of the new state. The Marathi-speaking areas of Hyderabad State merged with Bombay State which later bifurcated in Gujarat and Maharashtra and the Kannada-speaking areas were merged with Mysore State which was later renamed as Karnataka.
In February 2014, the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 bill was passed by the Parliament of India for the formation of the Telangana state comprising ten districts. Hyderabad will remain as a joint capital for not exceeding ten years. The new state of Telangana came into existence on 2 June 2014 after approval from the President of India. Number of petitions questioning the validity of Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 have long been pending for the verdict since April 2014 before the supreme court constitutional bench.
The Visalandhra, Vishalandhra or Vishala Andhra was a movement in post-independence India for a united state for all Telugu speakers, a Greater Andhra (Telugu: విశాలాంధ్ర Viśālāndhra). This movement was led by the Communist Party of India under the banner of Andhra Mahasabha with a demand to merge all the Telugu-speaking areas into one state. (The Communist Party of India demanded the formation of similar linguistic states across India.) The movement succeeded and a separate state of Andhra Pradesh was formed by merging Telugu-speaking areas of Hyderabad State (Telangana) with Andhra State on 1 November 1956 as part of the States Reorganisation Act. (Andhra State had been previously carved out of Madras State on 1 October 1953.) However, on 2 June 2014, Telangana State separated again from Andhra Pradesh and the Vishalandhra movement came to an end. The residual Andhra Pradesh now has approximately the same borders.
=== History ===
To gain an independent state based on linguistic identity and to protect the interests of the Telugu-speaking people of Madras State, Potti Sreeramulu fasted to death in 1952. As the city of Madras became a bone of contention, in 1949 a committee with Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, and Pattabhi Sitaramayya was constituted. The committee recommended that Andhra State could be formed provided the Andhras gave up their claim on the city of Madras (now Chennai). After Potti Sreeramulu's death, the Telugu-speaking area of Andhra State was carved out of Madras State on 1 October 1953, with Kurnool as its capital city. Tanguturi Prakasam became the first chief minister. Based on the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1956, the States Reorganisation Act created Andhra Pradesh by merging the neighbouring Telugu-speaking areas of the Hyderabad State with Hyderabad as the capital on 1 November 1956.
The Indian National Congress (INC) ruled the state from 1956 to 1982. Neelam Sanjiva Reddy became the first chief minister. Among other chief ministers, P. V. Narasimha Rao is known for implementing land reforms and land ceiling acts and securing a reservation for lower castes in politics. Nagarjuna Sagar Dam, completed in 1967, and Srisailam Dam, completed in 1981, are some of the irrigation projects that helped increase the production of paddy in the state.
In 1983, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) won the state elections, and N. T. Rama Rao became the chief minister of the state for the first time after launching his party just nine months earlier. This broke the long-time single-party monopoly enjoyed by the INC. He transformed the sub-district administration by forming mandals in place of earlier taluks, removing hereditary village heads, and appointing non-hereditary village revenue assistants. The 1989 elections ended the rule of Rao, with the INC returning to power with Marri Chenna Reddy at the helm. In 1994, Andhra Pradesh gave a mandate to the Telugu Desam Party again, and Rao became the chief minister again. Nara Chandrababu Naidu, Rao's son-in-law, came to power in 1995 with the backing of a majority of the MLAs. The Telugu Desam Party won both the assembly and Lok Sabha elections in 1999 under the leadership of Chandrababu Naidu. Thus, Naidu held the record for the longest-serving chief minister (1995–2004) of the united Andhra Pradesh. He introduced e-governance by launching e-Seva centres in 2001 for paperless and speedy delivery of government services. He is credited with transforming Hyderabad into an IT hub by providing incentives for tech companies to set up centres.
In 2004, Congress returned to power with a new chief ministerial face, YS Rajashekara Reddy, better known as YSR. The main emphasis during Reddy's tenure was on social welfare schemes such as free electricity for farmers, health insurance, tuition fee reimbursement for the poor, and the national rural employment guarantee scheme. He took over the free emergency ambulance service initiated by a corporation and ran it as a government project. INC won the 2009 elections under the leadership of YSR in April. He was elected chief minister again but was killed in a helicopter crash that occurred in September 2009. He was succeeded by Congressmen Konijeti Rosaiah and Nallari Kiran Kumar Reddy; the latter resigned over the impending division of the state to form Telangana.
During its 58 years as a unified state, the state weathered separatist movements from Telangana (1969) and Andhra (1972) successfully. A new party called Telangana Rashtra Samithi, formed in April 2001 by Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), reignited the Telangana movement. A joint action committee formed with political parties, government employees, and the general public spearheaded the agitation. When KCR's health deteriorated due to his fast-unto-death undertaking, the central government decided to initiate the process of forming an independent Telangana in December 2009. This triggered the Samaikyandhra movement to keep the state united. The Srikrishna committee was formed to give recommendations on how to deal with the situation. It gave its report in December 2010. The agitations continued for nearly 5 years, with the Telangana side harping on the marginalisation of food culture, language, and unequal economic development and the Samaikyandhra movement focusing on the shared culture, language, customs, and historical unity of Telugu-speaking regions. The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act bill was passed by the parliament of India for the formation of the Telangana state, comprising ten districts, despite opposition by the state legislature. The bill included the provision to retain Hyderabad as the capital for up to ten years and the provision to ensure access to educational institutions for the same period. The bill received the assent of the president and was published in the gazette on 1 March 2014. The new state of Telangana came into existence on 2 June 2014 after approval from the president of India, with the residual state continuing as Andhra Pradesh. The present form of Andhra Pradesh is the same as that of Andhra State, except for Bhadrachalam town, which continues in Telangana. A number of petitions questioning the validity of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act have been pending before the Supreme Court constitutional bench since April 2014.
In the final elections held in the unified state in 2014, the TDP got a mandate in its favour, defeating its nearest rival, the YSR Congress Party, a breakaway faction of the Congress founded by Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, son of former Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy. N. Chandrababu Naidu, the chief of the TDP, became the chief minister on 8 June 2014. In 2017, the government of Andhra Pradesh began operating from its new greenfield capital, Amaravati, for which 33,000 acres were acquired from farmers through an innovative land pooling scheme. Interstate issues with Telangana relating to the division of assets of public sector institutions and organisations of the united state and the division of river waters are not yet resolved.
=== United Andhra Pradesh demographics ===
== List of governors ==
Data from Andhra Pradesh State Portal.
== List of chief ministers ==
On 1 November 1956, Hyderabad State ceased to exist; its Gulbarga and Aurangabad divisions were merged into Mysore State and Bombay State respectively. Its remaining Telugu-speaking portion, Telangana, was merged with Andhra State to form the new state of United Andhra Pradesh. Sanjiva Reddy was the first chief minister.
Neelam Sanjiva Reddy of Indian National Congress was the first chief minister of United Andhra Pradesh, N. Chandrababu Naidu of Telugu Desam Party was the longest served chief minister and Bhaskar Rao was the shortest serving both belonging to TDP. Kiran Kumar Reddy of the Indian National Congress was the last chief minister of United Andhra Pradesh.
== List of Deputy chief ministers ==
The list of deputy chief ministers in the Indian former state of United Andhra Pradesh include:
Keys:
INC
== List of Leaders of opposition in Assembly ==
In fact N. Chandrababu Naidu is the longest-serving leader of the opposition. He served as leader of opposition in United Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly for a period of 2004 – 2014 in Andhra which includes current day Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states N. Chandrababu Naidu is the last leader of opposition of United Andhra Pradesh before its bifurcation.
== Creation of Telangana ==
After decades of protests and agitations, the central government, under the United Progressive Alliance, decided to bifurcate the existing Andhra Pradesh state and on 2 June 2014, the Union Cabinet unilaterally cleared the bill for the creation of Telangana. Lasting for almost 5 decades, it was one of the longest lasting movements for statehood in South India. On 18 February 2014, the Lok Sabha passed the bill with a voice vote. Subsequently, the bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha two days later, on 20 February. As per the bill, Hyderabad would be the capital of Telangana, while the city would also remain the capital of the residual state of Andhra Pradesh for no more than ten years. Hyderabad was the de jure joint capital. On 2 June 2014, Telangana was created with Hyderabad as its capital
The Telangana movement refers to a movement for the creation of a state, Telangana, from the pre-existing state of Andhra Pradesh in India. The new state corresponds to the Telugu-speaking portions of the erstwhile princely state of Hyderabad. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Jonas#Personal_life | Joe Jonas#Personal life | Joseph Adam Jonas (born August 15, 1989) is an American singer, songwriter, and actor. He rose to fame as a member of the pop rock band the Jonas Brothers, alongside his brothers Kevin and Nick. The group released their debut studio album It's About Time through Columbia Records in 2006. After signing with Hollywood Records, the group released their self-titled second studio album in 2007, which became their breakthrough record. The band became prominent figures on the Disney Channel during this time, gaining a large following through the network: they appeared in the widely successful musical television film Camp Rock (2008) and its sequel Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam (2010) as well as two of their own series, Jonas Brothers: Living the Dream (2008–2010) and Jonas (2009–2010).
The band's third studio album, A Little Bit Longer (2008), saw continued commercial success for the group; the album's lead single "Burnin' Up" hit the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Their fourth studio album, while still successful on the Billboard 200 chart, saw a decline in record sales. After the group confirmed a hiatus, Joe released his debut solo studio album, Fastlife (2011), which saw moderate commercial success. After the Jonas Brothers officially parted ways due to creative differences, Jonas formed the funk-pop band DNCE in 2015, serving as the lead vocalist. The group saw the significant commercial success of their debut single "Cake by the Ocean", which peaked at number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States.
== Early life ==
Joseph Adam Jonas was born on August 15, 1989 in Casa Grande, Arizona, the son of Denise (née Miller) and Paul Kevin Jonas. His father is a songwriter, musician, and former ordained minister at an Assemblies of God church while his mother is a former sign language teacher and singer. He has an older brother, Kevin, and two younger brothers, Nick and Frankie.
He attended Eastern Christian High School in North Haledon, New Jersey.
In 2002, Joe appeared in Baz Luhrmann's Broadway production of La bohème.
== Career ==
=== 2005–2007: Breakthrough with Jonas Brothers ===
In 2005, Joe, Kevin, and Nick recorded Please Be Mine, their first song recorded. Upon hearing the song, the Columbia Records president Steve Greenberg decided to sign the brothers as a group. They considered naming their group "Sons of Jonas" before settling on the name Jonas Brothers. While working on their debut studio album, the band toured throughout 2005 with artists such as Jump5, Kelly Clarkson, Jesse McCartney, the Backstreet Boys, and The Click Five among others. The group released their debut single, "Mandy", in December 2005. The album was initially scheduled for a February 2006 release date, though executive changes at Columbia's parent company Sony led to numerous delays on the project's release. During this time, the group began making appearances on various Disney Channel related soundtracks and toured with Aly & AJ throughout 2006. The band's debut album, It's About Time (2006), was released on August 8, 2006. The album received little backing from the label, who had no further interest in promoting the band. The album's second single, "Year 3000", had its music video premiere on the Disney Channel in the beginning of 2007. Dissatisfied with how the release of the record was handled, the band hoped to depart from Columbia Records and find a new label; it was later confirmed in 2007 that the group had been dropped by the label. The album went on to sell a total of 67,000 copies in the United States.
Only a short period of time after their departure from Columbia Records, it was confirmed that the group had signed a new contract with Hollywood Records. While working on their new album, the group continued to gain popularity due to soundtrack appearances and promotional appearances. The group released their self-titled second studio album through Hollywood Records on August 7, 2007. The album entered the top five of the Billboard 200 in the United States, going on to sell over two million copies in the country. Joe and his brothers made their acting debut on an August 17 episode of the Disney series Hannah Montana titled "Me and Mr. Jonas and Mr. Jonas and Mr. Jonas". The band performed the collaboration "We Got the Party" with lead actress Miley Cyrus, with the episode gaining over ten million viewers and became basic cable's most watched series telecast ever. The group's single "S.O.S" became their first top twenty hit on the Billboard Hot 100, and has sold over 1.5 million copies in the country, they put out Hold On, When You Look Me in the Eyes among singles.
=== 2008–2010: Acting ===
In May 2008, he and the band began starring in their own Documentary series Jonas Brothers: Living the Dream. Jonas made his film debut along with his brothers in the Disney Channel film Camp Rock (2008). The film's soundtrack was released on July 17, 2008, and sold 188,000 copies in its first week of release in the United States. Joe recorded the duet "This Is Me" for the project, with the song reaching the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song served as Jonas' first release outside of the Jonas Brothers. It has sold just over 900,000 copies in the United States. The Jonas Brothers' third studio album, A Little Bit Longer, was released in the United States on August 12, 2008. The album became their first to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 525,000 copies in its first week of release. The album went on to sell over two million copies in the United States, making it their second multi-platinum album. The album was preceded by the release of the single "Burnin' Up" (2008), which became the band's first top five hit in the United States. Love Bug, Tonight were put out among singles. Joe and his brothers starred in the 3D biopic Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience, which received a theatrical release on February 27, 2009. The film was a financial success and is the sixth highest-grossing concert film.
Jonas starred with all three of his brothers in their second Disney Channel series, Jonas, which made its debut on May 2, 2009. The show's second and final season aired under the name Jonas L.A. The band released their fourth studio album, entitled Lines, Vines and Trying Times, on June 16, 2009. The project debuted at the top spot on the Billboard 200, boasting first week sales of 247,000 copies. Paranoid and Fly with Me were put out as singles. Joe was featured as a guest judge on a January 2010 episode of the ninth season of the singing competition American Idol. In February 2010, Jonas made a cameo appearance in Vampire Weekend's music video for "Giving Up the Gun" along with Jake Gyllenhaal, Lil Jon, and RZA. He later guest starred in a 2010 episode of Hot In Cleveland as Valerie Bertinelli's son, Will. Jonas starred in the sequel Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam.
=== 2011–2014: Fastlife and group disbandment ===
In 2011, it was announced that Jonas was planning on recording a solo album. Jonas hoped to incorporate elements of funk into the album. Jonas released the album's lead single, titled "See No More", made in collaboration with Chris Brown on June 3, 2011. The single failed to have much commercial success, only reaching ninety-two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. On August 4, 2011, Jonas announced via Twitter that he would join Britney Spears on her European tour starting October 16, 2011. Ryan Seacrest premiered the album's second single, "Just in Love", on September 9, 2011. The single was later remixed to include rapper Lil Wayne. Jonas later confirmed the album to be titled Fastlife. In support of the album, Joe co-headlined with Jay Sean in the Joe Jonas & Jay Sean Tour with JoJo as the opening act. The tour kicked off on September 9, 2011, and concluded on October 6, 2011. Fastlife was released through Hollywood Records on October 11, 2011. The album sold a total of 18,000 copies in its first week of release, debuting at number fifteen on the Billboard 200. The album quickly fell off of the albums chart, going on to sell a mere 45,000 copies by 2015. On May 1, 2012, it was announced that both the Jonas Brothers and Joe Jonas had parted ways with Hollywood Records.
It was confirmed in April 2013 that the Jonas Brothers would reunite to begin working on their fifth studio album and an upcoming tour. Kevin Jonas later starred in his own E! reality series, Married to Jonas, which focused on his marriage to new wife Danielle. The show featured appearances from Joe and Nick and documented the band's preparations for their musical comeback. That same year, Jonas participated in Fox's dating game show The Choice. Jonas began dating model Blanda Eggenschwiler in September 2012, with the two dating until July 2014. Jonas co-wrote the song "Dreams" for the John Legend album Love in the Future (2013). The brothers performed in Russia in September 2012, making it their first live performance since their 2010 tour. Their much-anticipated reunion concert, which had been announced in August 2012, took place on October 11, 2012, at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The band's fifth studio album, set to be released independently through their own label, was slated for release in 2013. The Jonas Brothers also announced an upcoming North American tour, with tickets going on sale. The album, initially titled V,Live included the previously released singles, "Pom Poms" and "First Time". On October 9, 2013, the group cancelled their upcoming tour days before it was slated to start, citing a "deep rift within the band" over "creative differences". Only days later, it was confirmed that the band had officially ended.
=== 2015–2018: DNCE and The Voice ===
With the band officially broken up, Jonas began working on a new musical project with producers such as Malay and Mattman & Robin. While working on the project, Jonas was unsure whether he wanted to record a second studio album or start a new band. Upon working with Justin Tranter on multiple songs, Jonas decided to form a band with his friends and former touring partners Jack Lawless and JinJoo Lee. Cole Whittle, a member of the alternative rock band Semi Precious Weapons, became the fourth and final member of the group. The group named themselves DNCE, a misspelling of the word dance. DNCE released their debut single, "Cake by the Ocean", in 2015. Their Swaay debut extended play was released in October 2015. Their self title DNCE album was later released. It debuted at number seventy-nine on the Billboard 200 chart in the United States but peaked at number nine.
In 2018, he joined the Australian version of The Voice as a coach replacing Seal, a year after being an advisor on the American version. In June 2018, Jonas and British DJ Jonas Blue released their collaborative track "I See Love", a song for the film Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation. He also voiced a Kraken in the movie.
=== 2019–2023: Jonas Brothers and DNCE reunions ===
Starting in late January, rumors were swirling on Twitter and other social media that the three brothers were going to reform the Jonas Brothers. On February 28, 2019, the Jonas Brothers officially announced their return along with a new single, "Sucker", which released the next day, March 1. In April 2019, Joe Jonas appeared at WE Day California, portions of which were aired on ABC in August of the same year.
In January 2021, it was announced that Jonas was among the cast of the Korean War movie Devotion. During March 2021, the filming took place on Tybee Island, Georgia. The movie, which is expected to premiere in 2022, also had filming on Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge in Charleston, South Carolina during May 2021. He has called his joining the cast of Devotion a "life changing" experience. In September 2022, it was announced that Jonas had co-authored a song titled "Not Alone" for the credits of the movie, calling the song "One of the favorites that I've ever written" and labeling the song as "spiritual".
In February 2022, Jonas announced the return of DNCE along with Lawless and Lee. Jonas announced the return of the band with a new song by Norwegian DJ Kygo, titled Dancing Feet, which was released on February 25, 2022.
The Jonas Brothers released their sixth studio album The Album in May 2023.
=== 2024–present: JONASCON 2025 and Music for People Who Believe in Love ===
On July 17, 2024, Jonas announced the release of his second studio album, Music for People Who Believe in Love, which was initially set to be released on October 18, 2024, but was later postponed to May 23, 2025. The lead single from the album, "Work It Out", was released on July 19, 2024. The second single, "What This Could Be", was released on October 4. During JonasCon, a fan convention held by the Jonas Brothers to celebrate their 20th anniversary as a band, Jonas revealed the Music for People Who Believe in Love track list. "Heart by Heart" was released as the album's third single on April 25, 2025.
The Jonas Brothers also released a single together "Love Me to Heaven" on March 21, 2025, and performed on March 23, 2025 at JONASCON 2025 in New Jersey.
== Personal life ==
Jonas has dated Gigi Hadid, Taylor Swift and Demi Lovato. He began dating English actress Sophie Turner in 2016. The couple became engaged in October 2017, and married on May 1, 2019, in Las Vegas, Nevada. They held their second wedding ceremony in Paris, France on June 29, 2019. The couple have two daughters. In September 2021, Jonas and Turner purchased a mansion in Miami, Florida for $11 million. The mansion was reportedly inspired by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Prior to moving to Miami, Jonas and Turner sold their house in Encino, a neighborhood of Los Angeles, for $15.2 million. In November 2022, the Jonases' Miami residence was listed for sale with an asking price of nearly $17 million.
In September 2023, Jonas filed for divorce from Turner in Miami, Florida. Turner subsequently sued Jonas and cited "wrongful detention," saying that Jonas refused to allow their daughters to return to England, which had been registered as their permanent residence in April. Jonas and Turner reached a temporary custody agreement in October. In January 2024, a New York judge dismissed the lawsuit with both Turner and Jonas agreeing, as the court considered that Jonas could not have given up the children's passports due to a ruling by a Florida court, where the divorce had been initiated. The divorce was finalized in September 2024. He was in a brief relationship with model Stormi Bree earlier that year.
== Discography ==
Solo albums
Fastlife (2011)
Music for People Who Believe in Love (2025)
with the Jonas Brothers
It's About Time (2006)
Jonas Brothers (2007)
A Little Bit Longer (2008)
Lines, Vines and Trying Times (2009)
Happiness Begins (2019)
The Album (2023)
Greetings from Your Hometown (2025)
with DNCE
DNCE (2016)
== Filmography ==
=== Film ===
=== Television ===
=== Web ===
=== Music videos ===
=== Commercials ===
== Awards and nominations == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_S._Bright | Kevin S. Bright | Kevin S. Bright (born November 15, 1954) is an American television executive producer and director. He is best known as the showrunner of the sitcoms Dream On and Friends.
== Early life ==
Born to a Jewish-American family in New York City, Bright attended the East Side Hebrew Institute on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and graduated magna cum laude from Emerson College.
== Career ==
Bright started his professional career under the tutelage of his father, Jackie Bright. After graduation, he worked in New York with Joseph Cates, where he produced specials for George Burns, Johnny Cash, David Copperfield, and Dolly Parton. After moving to Los Angeles in 1982, he started work in comedy programming such as The History of White People in America and comedy specials starring Robin Williams, Martin Mull, Harry Shearer, Paul Shaffer, and Merrill Markoe.
In 1993, Bright entered a partnership with Marta Kauffman and David Crane to form Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions and began a development deal with Warner Bros. Television to produce the comedy series Friends. He also directed 60 episodes of the series, including the series finale. After Friends, he went on to executive-produce the spin-off series Joey with Friends producers Shana Goldberg-Meehan and Scott Silveri. Joey starred Friends actor Matt LeBlanc as the title character and featured Jennifer Coolidge, also an Emerson College attendee. Joey was cancelled on May 15, 2006, during its second season after a major ratings slump.
After Joey, Bright moved back to Boston where he began working at his alma mater, Emerson College. Over the last four years at Emerson, he executive produced three-sketch comedy shows, Zebro: A Laugh Show and Chocolate Cake City, four original half-hour situation comedies, Browne At Midnight, Saturdays, Ground Floor, and Record Cellar, and a live multi-cam stand-up comedy special, Die Laughing. He also serves as an advisor to The EVVY Awards.
Bright then went on to teach a series of television production classes in the Visual Media Arts department, and helped develop the program for Emerson's new LA Center, which opened in 2013. Kevin ran a diversity workshop for high school students through Emerson College, and worked with Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts, to develop a method of teaching television production to the blind.
Bright moved back to Los Angeles in 2013, when he was appointed as Founding Director of the Emerson Los Angeles program. There, he has focused on building new programs that take full advantage of the opportunities Emerson's expanded presence in Los Angeles provides. He directed a documentary in 2007 with Linda Feferman called Who Ordered Tax? about his father, Jackie, who was an actor and vaudevillian performer.
In 2016, Bright served as the executive producer of the documentary Best and Most Beautiful Things about Michelle Smith, a woman from Bangor, Maine who is both legally blind and autistic. Bright also directed on CBS comedy Man with a Plan in 2019 for one episode, reuniting with Friends alum Matt LeBlanc.
In 2024, Bright served as an executive producer of the documentary My Own Normal about Alexander Freeman, a filmmaker from Newton, Massachusetts who has cerebral palsy, following his journey of becoming a partner and father and confronting the pain of his parents' reaction. The documentary world premiered at Independent Film Festival Boston.
== Personal life ==
Bright lives with his wife, Claudia Wilsey Bright in Saratoga Springs, New York.
== Filmography ==
=== Film ===
=== Television === |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia | Hagia Sophia | Hagia Sophia, officially the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque, is a mosque and a major cultural and historical site in Istanbul, Turkey. It was formerly a church (360–1453) and a museum (1935–2020). The last of three church buildings to be successively erected on the site by the Eastern Roman Empire, it was completed in AD 537, becoming the world's largest interior space and among the first to employ a fully pendentive dome. It is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture and is said to have "changed the history of architecture". From its dedication in 360 until 1453 Hagia Sophia served as the cathedral of Constantinople in the Byzantine liturgical tradition, except for the period 1204–1261 when the Latin Crusaders installed their own hierarchy. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, it served as a mosque, having its minarets added soon after. The site became a museum in 1935, and was redesignated as a mosque in 2020.
The current structure was built by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I as the Christian basilica of Constantinople between 532–537 and was designed by the Greek geometers Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles. It was formally called the Temple of God's Holy Wisdom, (Greek: Ναὸς τῆς Ἁγίας τοῦ Θεοῦ Σοφίας, romanized: Naòs tês Hagías toû Theoû Sophías) the third church of the same name to occupy the site, as the prior one had been destroyed in the Nika riots. As the episcopal see of the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, it remained the world's largest church for more than five hundred years, until the abbey church at Cluny was completed in the 12th century.
Hagia Sophia became the quintessential model for Eastern Orthodox church architecture, and its architectural style was emulated by Ottoman mosques a thousand years later. The Hagia Sophia served as an architectural inspiration for many other religious buildings including the Hagia Sophia in Thessaloniki, Panagia Ekatontapiliani, the Şehzade Mosque, the Süleymaniye Mosque, the Rüstem Pasha Mosque and the Kılıç Ali Pasha Complex.
As the religious and spiritual centre of the Eastern Orthodox Church for nearly one thousand years, the church was dedicated to Holy Wisdom. The church has been described as "holding a unique position in the Christian world", and as "an architectural and cultural icon of Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox civilization". It was where the excommunication of Patriarch Michael I Cerularius was officially delivered by Humbert of Silva Candida, the envoy of Pope Leo IX in 1054, an act considered the start of the East–West Schism. In 1204, it was converted during the Fourth Crusade into a Catholic cathedral under the Latin Empire, before being restored to the Eastern Orthodox Church upon the restoration of the Byzantine Empire in 1261. Enrico Dandolo, the doge of Venice who led the Fourth Crusade and the 1204 Sack of Constantinople, was buried in the church.
After the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453, it was converted to a mosque by Mehmed the Conqueror and became the principal mosque of Istanbul until the 1616 construction of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque. The patriarchate moved to the Church of the Holy Apostles, which became the city's cathedral. The complex remained a mosque until 1931, when it was closed to the public for four years. It was re-opened in 1935 as a museum under the secular Republic of Turkey, and the building was Turkey's most visited tourist attraction as of 2019. In 2020, the Council of State annulled the 1934 decision to establish the museum, and the Hagia Sophia was reclassified as a mosque. The decision was highly controversial, sparking divided opinions and drawing condemnation from the Turkish opposition, UNESCO, the World Council of Churches and the International Association of Byzantine Studies, as well as numerous international leaders, while several Muslim leaders in Turkey and other countries welcomed its conversion.
== History ==
=== Church of Constantius II ===
The first church on the site was known as the Magna Ecclesia (Μεγάλη Ἐκκλησία, Megálē Ekklēsíā, 'Great Church') because of its size compared to the sizes of the contemporary churches in the city. According to the Chronicon Paschale, the church was consecrated on 15 February 360, during the reign of the emperor Constantius II (r. 337–361) by the Arian bishop Eudoxius of Antioch. It was built next to the area where the Great Palace was being developed.
According to the 5th-century ecclesiastical historian Socrates of Constantinople, the emperor Constantius had c. 346 "constructed the Great Church alongside that called Irene which because it was too small, the emperor's father [Constantine] had enlarged and beautified". A tradition which is not older than the 7th or 8th century reports that the edifice was built by Constantius' father, Constantine the Great (r. 306–337).
Hesychius of Miletus wrote that Constantine built Hagia Sophia with a wooden roof and removed 427 (mostly pagan) statues from the site. The 12th-century chronicler Joannes Zonaras reconciles the two opinions, writing that Constantius had repaired the edifice consecrated by Eusebius of Nicomedia, after it had collapsed. Since Eusebius was the bishop of Constantinople from 339 to 341, and Constantine died in 337, it seems that the first church was erected by Constantius.
The nearby Hagia Irene ("Holy Peace") church was completed earlier and served as cathedral until the Great Church was completed. Besides Hagia Irene, there is no record of major churches in the city-centre before the late 4th century. Rowland Mainstone argued the 4th-century church was not yet known as Hagia Sophia.
The church is known to have had a timber roof, curtains, columns, and an entrance that faced west. It likely had a narthex and is described as being shaped like a Roman circus. This may mean that it had a U-shaped plan like the basilicas of San Marcellino e Pietro and Sant'Agnese fuori le mura in Rome. However, it may also have been a more conventional three-, four-, or five-aisled basilica, perhaps resembling the original Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem or the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The building was likely preceded by an atrium, as in the later churches on the site.
According to Ken Dark and Jan Kostenec, a further remnant of the 4th century basilica may exist in a wall of alternating brick and stone banded masonry immediately to the west of the Justinianic church. The top part of the wall is constructed with bricks stamped with brick-stamps dating from the 5th century, but the lower part is of constructed with bricks typical of the 4th century. This wall was probably part of the propylaeum at the west front of both the Constantinian and Theodosian Great Churches.
The building was accompanied by a baptistery and a skeuophylakion. A hypogeum, perhaps with an martyrium above it, was discovered before 1946, and the remnants of a brick wall with traces of marble revetment were identified in 2004. The hypogeum was a tomb which may have been part of the 4th-century church or may have been from the pre-Constantinian city of Byzantium. The skeuophylakion is said by Palladius to have had a circular floor plan, and since some U-shaped basilicas in Rome were funerary churches with attached circular mausolea (the Mausoleum of Constantina and the Mausoleum of Helena), it is possible it originally had a funerary function, though by 405 its use had changed. A later account credited a woman called Anna with donating the land on which the church was built in return for the right to be buried there.
Excavations on the western side of the site of the first church under the propylaeum wall reveal that the first church was built atop a road about 8 m (26 ft) wide. According to early accounts, the first Hagia Sophia was built on the site of an ancient pagan temple, although there are no artefacts to confirm this.
The Patriarch of Constantinople John Chrysostom came into a conflict with Empress Aelia Eudoxia, wife of the emperor Arcadius (r. 383–408), and was sent into exile on 20 June 404. During the subsequent riots, this first church was largely burnt down. Palladius noted that the 4th-century skeuophylakion survived the fire. According to Dark and Kostenec, the fire may only have affected the main basilica, leaving the ancillary buildings intact.
=== Church of Theodosius II ===
A second church on the site was ordered by Theodosius II (r. 402–450), who inaugurated it on 10 October 415. The Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae, a fifth-century list of monuments, names Hagia Sophia as Magna Ecclesia, 'Great Church', while the former cathedral Hagia Irene is referred to as Ecclesia Antiqua, 'Old Church'. At the time of Socrates of Constantinople around 440, "both churches [were] enclosed by a single wall and served by the same clergy". Thus, the complex would have encompassed a large area including the future site of the Hospital of Samson. If the fire of 404 destroyed only the 4th-century main basilica church, then the 5th century Theodosian basilica could have been built surrounded by a complex constructed primarily during the fourth century.
During the reign of Theodosius II, the emperor's elder sister, the Augusta Pulcheria (r. 414–453) was challenged by the patriarch Nestorius (r. 10 April 428 – 22 June 431). The patriarch denied the Augusta access to the sanctuary of the "Great Church", likely on 15 April 428. According to the anonymous Letter to Cosmas, the virgin empress, a promoter of the cult of the Virgin Mary who habitually partook in the Eucharist at the sanctuary of Nestorius's predecessors, claimed right of entry because of her equivalent position to the Theotokos – the Virgin Mary – "having given birth to God". Pulcheria along with Pope Celestine I and Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria had Nestorius overthrown, condemned at the ecumenical council, and exiled.
The area of the western entrance to the Justinianic Hagia Sophia revealed the western remains of its Theodosian predecessor, as well as some fragments of the Constantinian church. German archaeologist Alfons Maria Schneider began conducting archaeological excavations during the mid-1930s, publishing his final report in 1941. Excavations in the area that had once been the 6th-century atrium of the Justinianic church revealed the monumental western entrance and atrium, along with columns and sculptural fragments from both 4th- and 5th-century churches. Further digging was abandoned for fear of harming the structural integrity of the Justinianic building, but parts of the excavation trenches remain uncovered, laying bare the foundations of the Theodosian building.
The basilica was built by architect Rufinus. The church's main entrance, which may have had gilded doors, faced west, and there was an additional entrance to the east. There was a central pulpit and likely an upper gallery, possibly employed as a matroneum (women's section). The exterior was decorated with elaborate carvings of rich Theodosian-era designs, fragments of which have survived, while the floor just inside the portico was embellished with polychrome mosaics. The surviving carved gable end from the centre of the western façade is decorated with a cross-roundel. Fragments of a frieze of reliefs with 12 lambs representing the 12 apostles also remain; unlike Justinian's 6th-century church, the Theodosian Hagia Sophia had both colourful floor mosaics and external decorative sculpture.
At the western end, surviving stone fragments of the structure show there was vaulting, at least at the western end. The Theodosian building had a monumental propylaeum hall with a portico that may account for this vaulting, which was thought by the original excavators in the 1930s to be part of the western entrance of the church itself. The propylaeum opened onto an atrium which lay in front of the basilica church itself. Preceding the propylaeum was a steep monumental staircase following the contours of the ground as it sloped away westwards in the direction of the Strategion, the Basilica, and the harbours of the Golden Horn. This arrangement would have resembled the steps outside the atrium of the Constantinian Old St Peter's Basilica in Rome. Near the staircase, there was a cistern, perhaps to supply a fountain in the atrium or for worshippers to wash with before entering.
The 4th-century skeuophylakion was replaced in the 5th century by the present-day structure, a rotunda constructed of banded masonry in the lower two levels and of plain brick masonry in the third. Originally this rotunda, probably employed as a treasury for liturgical objects, had a second-floor internal gallery accessed by an external spiral staircase and two levels of niches for storage. A further row of windows with marble window frames on the third level remain bricked up. The gallery was supported on monumental consoles with carved acanthus designs, similar to those used on the late 5th-century Column of Leo. A large lintel of the skeuophylakion's western entrance – bricked up during the Ottoman era – was discovered inside the rotunda when it was archaeologically cleared to its foundations in 1979, during which time the brickwork was also repointed. The skeuophylakion was again restored in 2014 by the Vakıflar.
A fire started during the tumult of the Nika Revolt, which had begun nearby in the Hippodrome of Constantinople, and the second Hagia Sophia was burnt to the ground on 13–14 January 532. The court historian Procopius wrote:
And by way of shewing that it was not against the Emperor alone that they [the rioters] had taken up arms, but no less against God himself, unholy wretches that they were, they had the hardihood to fire the Church of the Christians, which the people of Byzantium call "Sophia", an epithet which they have most appropriately invented for God, by which they call His temple; and God permitted them to accomplish this impiety, foreseeing into what an object of beauty this shrine was destined to be transformed. So the whole church at that time lay a charred mass of ruins.
=== Church of Justinian I (current structure) ===
On 23 February 532, only a few weeks after the destruction of the second basilica, Emperor Justinian I inaugurated the construction of a third and entirely different basilica, larger and more majestic than its predecessors. Justinian appointed two architects, mathematician Anthemius of Tralles and geometer and engineer Isidore of Miletus, to design the building.
Construction of the church began in 532 during the short tenure of Phocas as praetorian prefect. According to John the Lydian, Phocas was responsible for funding the initial construction of the building with 4,000 Roman pounds of gold, but he was dismissed from office in October 532. John the Lydian wrote that Phocas had acquired the funds by moral means, but Evagrius Scholasticus later wrote that the money had been obtained unjustly.
According to Anthony Kaldellis, both of Hagia Sophia's architects named by Procopius were associated with the school of the pagan philosopher Ammonius of Alexandria. It is possible that both they and John the Lydian considered Hagia Sophia a great temple for the supreme Neoplatonist deity who manifestated through light and the sun. John the Lydian describes the church as the "temenos of the Great God" (Greek: τὸ τοῦ μεγάλου θεοῦ Τέμενος, romanized: tò toû megálou theoû Témenos).
Originally the exterior of the church was covered with marble veneer, as indicated by remaining pieces of marble and surviving attachments for lost panels on the building's western face. The white marble cladding of much of the church, together with gilding of some parts, would have given Hagia Sophia a shimmering appearance quite different from the brick- and plaster-work of the modern period, and would have significantly increased its visibility from the sea. The cathedral's interior surfaces were sheathed with polychrome marbles, green and white with purple porphyry, and gold mosaics. The exterior was clad in stucco that was tinted yellow and red during the 19th-century restorations by the Fossati architects.
The construction is described by Procopius in On Buildings (Greek: Περὶ κτισμάτων, romanized: Peri ktismatōn, Latin: De aedificiis). Columns and other marble elements were imported from throughout the Mediterranean, although the columns were once thought to be spoils from cities such as Rome and Ephesus. Even though they were made specifically for Hagia Sophia, they vary in size.
More than ten thousand people were employed during the construction process. This new church was contemporaneously recognized as a major work of architecture. Outside the church was an elaborate array of monuments around the bronze-plated Column of Justinian, topped by an equestrian statue of the emperor which dominated the Augustaeum, the open square outside the church which connected it with the Great Palace complex through the Chalke Gate.
At the edge of the Augustaeum was the Milion and the Regia, the first stretch of Constantinople's main thoroughfare, the Mese. Also facing the Augustaeum were the enormous Constantinian thermae, the Baths of Zeuxippus, and the Justinianic civic basilica under which was the vast cistern known as the Basilica Cistern. On the opposite side of Hagia Sophia was the former cathedral, Hagia Irene.
Procopius lauded the Justinianic building, writing in De aedificiis:
... the Emperor Justinian built not long afterwards a church so finely shaped, that if anyone had enquired of the Christians before the burning if it would be their wish that the church should be destroyed and one like this should take its place, shewing them some sort of model of the building we now see, it seems to me that they would have prayed that they might see their church destroyed forthwith, in order that the building might be converted into its present form.
Upon seeing the finished building, the Emperor reportedly said: "Solomon, I have surpassed thee".
Justinian and Patriarch Menas inaugurated the new basilica on 27 December 537, 5 years and 10 months after construction started, with much pomp. Hagia Sophia was the seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and a principal setting for Byzantine imperial ceremonies, such as coronations. The basilica offered sanctuary from persecution to criminals, although there was disagreement about whether Justinian had intended for murderers to be eligible for asylum.
Earthquakes in 553 and on 557 caused cracks in the main dome and eastern semi-dome. According to the Chronicle of John Malalas, during a subsequent earthquake in 558, the eastern semi-dome collapsed, destroying the ambon, altar, and ciborium. The collapse was due mainly to the excessive bearing load and to the enormous shear load of the dome, which was too flat. These caused the deformation of the piers which sustained the dome. Justinian ordered an immediate restoration. He entrusted it to Isidorus the Younger, who used lighter materials. The entire vault had to be taken down and rebuilt 20 Byzantine feet (6.25 m or 20.5 ft) higher than before, giving the building its current interior height of 55.6 m (182 ft). Moreover, Isidorus changed the dome type, erecting a ribbed dome with pendentives whose diameter was between 32.7 and 33.5 m. Under Justinian's orders, eight Corinthian columns were disassembled from Baalbek, Lebanon and shipped to Constantinople around 560. This reconstruction, which gave the church its present 6th-century form, was completed in 562. The poet Paul the Silentiary composed an ekphrasis, or long visual poem, for the re-dedication of the basilica presided over by Patriarch Eutychius on 24 December 562.
According to the history of the patriarch Nicephorus I and the chronicler Theophanes the Confessor, various liturgical vessels of the cathedral were melted down on the order of the emperor Heraclius (r. 610–641) during the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628. Theophanes states that these were made into gold and silver coins, and a tribute was paid to the Avars. The Avars attacked the extramural areas of Constantinople in 623, causing the Byzantines to move the "garment" relic (Ancient Greek: ἐσθής, romanized: esthḗs) of Mary, mother of Jesus to Hagia Sophia from its usual shrine of the Church of the Theotokos at Blachernae just outside the Theodosian walls. On 14 May 626, the Scholae Palatinae, an elite body of soldiers, protested in Hagia Sophia against a planned increase in bread prices. The Persians under Shahrbaraz and the Avars together laid the siege of Constantinople in 626; according to the Chronicon Paschale, on 2 August 626, Theodore Syncellus, a deacon and presbyter of Hagia Sophia, was among those who negotiated unsuccessfully with the khagan of the Avars. A homily, attributed by existing manuscripts to Theodore Syncellus and possibly delivered on the anniversary of the event, describes the translation of the Virgin's garment and its ceremonial re-translation to Blachernae by the patriarch Sergius I after the threat had passed.
In 726, the emperor Leo the Isaurian issued a series of edicts against the veneration of images, ordering the army to destroy all icons – ushering in the period of Byzantine iconoclasm. At that time, all religious pictures and statues were removed from the Hagia Sophia. Following a brief hiatus during the reign of Empress Irene (797–802), the iconoclasts returned. Emperor Theophilus (r. 829–842) had two-winged bronze doors with his monograms installed at the southern entrance of the church.
The basilica suffered damage, first in a great fire in 859, and again in an earthquake in 869 that caused the collapse of one of the half-domes. Emperor Basil I ordered repair of the tympanas, arches, and vaults.
In his book De Ceremoniis ("Book of Ceremonies"), the emperor Constantine VII (r. 913–959) wrote a detailed account of the ceremonies held in the Hagia Sophia by the emperor and the patriarch.
Early in the 10th century, the pagan ruler of the Kievan Rus' sent emissaries to his neighbors to learn about Judaism, Islam, and Roman and Orthodox Christianity. After visiting Hagia Sophia his emissaries reported back: "We were led into a place where they serve their God, and we did not know where we were, in heaven or on earth."
In the 940s or 950s, probably around 954 or 955, after the Rus'–Byzantine War of 941 and the death of the Grand Prince of Kiev, Igor I (r. 912–945), his widow Olga of Kiev – regent for her infant son Sviatoslav I (r. 945–972) – visited the emperor Constantine VII and was received as queen of the Rus' in Constantinople. She was probably baptized in Hagia Sophia's baptistery, taking the name of the reigning augusta, Helena Lecapena, and receiving the titles zōstē patrikía and the styles of archontissa and hegemon of the Rus'. Her baptism was an important step towards the Christianization of the Kievan Rus', though the emperor's treatment of her visit in De caerimoniis does not mention baptism. According to an early 14th-century source, the second church in Kiev, Saint Sophia's, was founded in anno mundi 6460 in the Byzantine calendar, or c. 952. The name of this future cathedral of Kiev probably commemorates Olga's baptism.
After an earthquake in 989 collapsed the western dome arch, Emperor Basil II asked for the Armenian architect Trdat, creator of the Cathedral of Ani, to direct the repairs. He erected again and reinforced the fallen dome arch, and rebuilt the west side of the dome with 15 dome ribs. The extent of the damage required six years of repair and reconstruction; the church was re-opened on 13 May 994. At the end of the reconstruction, the church's decorations were renovated, including the addition of four immense paintings of cherubs; a new depiction of Christ on the dome; a burial cloth of Christ shown on Fridays, and on the apse a new depiction of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus, between the apostles Peter and Paul. On the great side arches were painted the prophets and the teachers of the church.
In 1181, the daughter of the emperor Manuel I, Maria Comnena, and her husband, the caesar Renier of Montferrat, fled to Hagia Sophia at the culmination of their dispute with the empress Maria of Antioch, regent for her son, the emperor Alexius II Comnenus. Maria Comnena and Renier occupied the cathedral with the support of the patriarch, refusing the imperial administration's demands for a peaceful departure. According to Niketas Choniates, they "transformed the sacred courtyard into a military camp", garrisoned the entrances to the complex with locals and mercenaries, and despite the strong opposition of the patriarch, made the "house of prayer into a den of thieves or a well-fortified and precipitous stronghold", while "all the dwellings adjacent to Hagia Sophia and adjoining the Augusteion were demolished by [Maria's] men". A battle ensued in the Augustaion and around the Milion, during which the defenders fought from the "gallery of the Catechumeneia (also called the Makron)" facing the Augusteion, from which they eventually retreated and took up positions in the exonarthex of Hagia Sophia itself. At this point, "the patriarch was anxious lest the enemy troops enter the temple, with unholy feet trample the holy floor, and with hands defiled and dripping with blood still warm plunder the all-holy dedicatory offerings". After a successful sally by Renier and his knights, Maria requested a truce, the imperial assault ceased, and an amnesty was negotiated. Greek historian Niketas Choniates compared the preservation of the cathedral to the efforts made by the 1st-century emperor Titus to avoid the destruction of the Second Temple during the siege of Jerusalem in the First Jewish–Roman War. Choniates reports that in 1182, a white hawk wearing jesses was seen to fly from the east to Hagia Sophia, flying three times from the "building of the Thōmaitēs" (a basilica erected on the southeastern side of the Augustaion) to the Palace of the Kathisma in the Great Palace, where new emperors were acclaimed. This was supposed to presage the end of the reign of Andronicus I Comnenus (r. 1183–1185).
Choniates writes that in 1203, during the Fourth Crusade, the emperors Isaac II Angelus and Alexius IV Angelus stripped Hagia Sophia of all gold ornaments and silver oil-lamps to pay off the Crusaders who had ousted Alexius III Angelus and helped Isaac return to the throne. In the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, the church was further ransacked and desecrated by the Crusaders, as described by Choniates, though he did not witness the events in person. According to his account, Hagia Sophia was stripped of its remaining metal ornaments, its altar was smashed into pieces, and a "woman laden with sins" sang and danced on the synthronon. He adds that mules and donkeys were brought into the cathedral's sanctuary to carry away the spoils, and that one of them slipped on the marble floor and was accidentally disembowelled, further contaminating the place. According to Ali ibn al-Athir, whose treatment of the Sack of Constantinople was probably dependent on a Christian source, the Crusaders massacred some clerics who had surrendered. Much of the interior was damaged and would not be repaired until its return to Orthodox control in 1261. The sack of Hagia Sophia, and Constantinople in general, remained a sore point in Catholic–Eastern Orthodox relations.
During the Latin occupation of Constantinople (1204–1261), the church became a Latin Catholic cathedral. Baldwin I of Constantinople (r. 1204–1205) was crowned emperor on 16 May 1204 in Hagia Sophia in a ceremony which closely followed Byzantine practices. Enrico Dandolo, the Doge of Venice who commanded the sack and invasion of the city in 1204, is buried inside the church, probably in the upper eastern gallery. In the 19th century, an Italian restoration team placed a cenotaph marker, frequently mistaken as being a medieval artifact, near the probable location and is still visible. The original tomb was destroyed by the Ottomans during the conversion of the church into a mosque.
Upon the capture of Constantinople in 1261 by the Empire of Nicaea and the emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus, (r. 1261–1282), the church was in a dilapidated state. In 1317, emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus (r. 1282–1328) ordered four new buttresses (Medieval Greek: Πυραμίδας, romanized: Pyramídas) to be built in the eastern and northern parts of the church, financing them with the inheritance of his late wife, Irene of Montferrat (d.1314). New cracks developed in the dome after the earthquake of October 1344, and several parts of the building collapsed on 19 May 1346. Repairs by architects Astras and Peralta began in 1354.
On 12 December 1452, Isidore of Kiev proclaimed in Hagia Sophia the long-anticipated ecclesiastical union between the western Catholic and eastern Orthodox Churches as decided at the Council of Florence and decreed by the papal bull Laetentur Caeli, though it would be short-lived. The union was unpopular among the Byzantines, who had already expelled the Patriarch of Constantinople, Gregory III, for his pro-union stance. A new patriarch was not installed until after the Ottoman conquest. According to the Greek historian Doukas, the Hagia Sophia was tainted by these Catholic associations, and the anti-union Orthodox faithful avoided the cathedral, considering it to be a haunt of demons and a "Hellenic" temple of Roman paganism. Doukas also notes that after the Laetentur Caeli was proclaimed, the Byzantines dispersed discontentedly to nearby venues where they drank toasts to the Hodegetria icon, which had, according to late Byzantine tradition, interceded to save them in the former sieges of Constantinople by the Avar Khaganate and the Umayyad Caliphate.
According to Nestor Iskander's Tale on the Taking of Tsargrad, the Hagia Sophia was the focus of an alarming omen interpreted as the Holy Spirit abandoning Constantinople on 21 May 1453, in the final days of the Siege of Constantinople. The sky lit up, illuminating the city, and many people gathered and saw on the Church of the Wisdom, at the top of the window, a large flame of fire issuing forth. It encircled the entire neck of the church for a long time. The flame gathered into one; its flame altered, and there was an indescribable light. At once it took to the sky. ... The light itself has gone up to heaven; the gates of heaven were opened; the light was received; and again they were closed. The eventual fall of Constantinople had long been predicted in apocalyptic literature. Hagia Sophia is mentioned in a hagiography of uncertain date detailing the life of the Eastern Orthodox saint Andrew the Fool. The text is self-attributed to Nicephorus, a priest of Hagia Sophia, and contains a description of the end time in the form of a dialogue, in which the interlocutor, upon being told by the saint that Constantinople will be sunk in a flood and that "the waters as they gush forth will irresistibly deluge her and cover her and surrender her to the terrifying and immense sea of the abyss", says "some people say that the Great Church of God will not be submerged with the city but will be suspended in the air by an invisible power". The reply is given that "When the whole city sinks into the sea, how can the Great Church remain? Who will need her? Do you think God dwells in temples made with hands?" The Column of Constantine, however, is prophesied to endure.
According to Laonicus Chalcocondyles, Hagia Sophia was a refuge for the population during the city's capture. Despite the ill-repute and empty state of Hagia Sophia after December 1452, Doukas writes that after the Theodosian walls were breached, the Byzantines took refuge there as the Turks advanced through the city. He attributes their change of heart to a prophecy.
What was the reason that compelled all to flee to the Great Church? They had been listening, for many years, to some pseudo-soothsayers, who had declared that the city was destined to be handed over to the Turks, who would enter in large numbers and would massacre the Romans as far as the Column of Constantine the Great. After this an angel would descend, holding his sword. He would hand over the kingdom, together with the sword, to some insignificant, poor, and humble man who would happen to be standing by the Column. He would say to him: "Take this sword and avenge the Lord's people." Then the Turks would be turned back, would be massacred by the pursuing Romans, and would be ejected from the city and from all places in the west and the east and would be driven as far as the borders of Persia, to a place called the Lone Tree ... That was the cause for the flight into the Great Church. In one hour that famous and enormous church was filled with men and women. An innumerable crowd was everywhere: upstairs, downstairs, in the courtyards, and in every conceivable place. They closed the gates and stood there, hoping for salvation.
In accordance with the traditional custom of the time, Sultan Mehmed II allowed three full days of unbridled pillage in the city shortly after it was captured. This period saw the destruction of many Orthodox churches; Hagia Sophia itself was looted as the invaders believed it to contain the greatest treasures of the city. Shortly after the defence of the Walls of Constantinople collapsed and the victorious Ottoman troops entered the city, the pillagers and looters made their way to the Hagia Sophia and battered down its doors before storming inside. Once the three days passed, Mehmed was to claim the city's remaining contents for himself. However, by the end of the first day, he proclaimed that the looting should cease as he felt profound sadness when he toured the city.
Throughout the siege of Constantinople, the trapped people of the city participated in the Divine Liturgy and the Prayer of the Hours at the Hagia Sophia, and the church was a refuge for many of those who were unable to contribute to the city's defence, including women, children, elderly, the sick and the wounded. As they were trapped in the church, the many congregants and other refugees became spoils-of-war to be divided amongst the triumphant invaders. The building was desecrated and looted, and those who sought shelter within the church were enslaved. While most of the elderly and the infirm, injured, and sick were killed, the remainder (mainly teenage males and young boys) were chained and sold into slavery in the Ottoman Empire.
=== Mosque (1453–1935) ===
Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman forces on 29 May 1453. Sultan Mehmed II entered the city and performed the Friday prayer and khutbah (sermon) in Hagia Sophia. The church's priests and religious personnel continued to perform Christian rites, prayers, and ceremonies until they were compelled to stop. When Mehmed and his entourage entered the church, he ordered that it be converted into a mosque immediately. One of the ʿulamāʾ (Islamic scholars) present climbed onto the church's ambo and recited the shahada ("There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger"), thus marking the conversion of the church into a mosque. Mehmed is reported to have taken a sword to a soldier who tried to pry up one of the paving slabs of the Proconnesian marble floor.
As described by Western visitors before 1453, such as the Córdoban nobleman Pero Tafur and the Florentine geographer Cristoforo Buondelmonti, the church was in a dilapidated state, with several of its doors fallen from their hinges. Mehmed II ordered a renovation of the building. Mehmed attended the first Friday prayer in the mosque on 1 June 1453. Aya Sofya became the first imperial mosque of Istanbul. Most of the existing houses in the city and the area of the future Topkapı Palace were endowed to the corresponding waqf. From 1478, 2,360 shops, 1,300 houses, 4 caravanserais, 30 boza shops, and 23 shops of sheep heads and trotters gave their income to the foundation. Through the imperial charters of 1520 and 1547, shops and parts of the Grand Bazaar and other markets were added to the foundation.
Before 1481, a small minaret was erected on the southwest corner of the building, above the stair tower. Mehmed's successor Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512) later built another minaret at the northeast corner. One of the minarets collapsed after the earthquake of 1509, and around the middle of the 16th century they were both replaced by two diagonally opposite minarets built at the east and west corners of the edifice. In 1498, Bernardo Bonsignori was the last Western visitor to Hagia Sophia to report seeing the ancient Justinianic floor; shortly afterwards the floor was covered over with carpet and not seen again until the 19th century.
In the 16th century, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (r. 1520–1566) brought two colossal candlesticks from his conquest of the Kingdom of Hungary and placed them on either side of the mihrab. During Suleiman's reign, the mosaics above the narthex and imperial gates depicting Jesus, Mary, and various Byzantine emperors were covered by whitewash and plaster, which were removed in 1930 under the Turkish Republic.
During the reign of Selim II (r. 1566–1574), the building started showing signs of fatigue and was extensively strengthened with the addition of structural supports to its exterior by Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan, who was also an earthquake engineer. In addition to strengthening the historic Byzantine structure, Sinan built two additional large minarets at the western end of the building, the original sultan's lodge and the türbe (mausoleum) of Selim II to the southeast of the building in 1576–1577. In order to do that, parts of the Patriarchate at the south corner of the building were pulled down the previous year. Moreover, the golden crescent was mounted on the top of the dome, and a respect zone 35 arşın (about 24 m) wide was imposed around the building, leading to the demolition of all houses within the perimeter. The türbe became the location of the tombs of 43 Ottoman princes. Murad III (r. 1574–1595) imported two large alabaster Hellenistic urns from Pergamon (Bergama) and placed them on two sides of the nave.
In 1594 Mimar (court architect) Davud Ağa built the türbe of Murad III, where the Sultan and his valide, Safiye Sultan were buried. The octagonal mausoleum of their son Mehmed III (r. 1595–1603) and his valide was built next to it in 1608 by royal architect Dalgiç Mehmet Aĝa. His son Mustafa I (r. 1617–1618, 1622–1623) converted the baptistery into his türbe.
In 1717, under the reign of Sultan Ahmed III (r. 1703–1730), the crumbling plaster of the interior was renovated, contributing indirectly to the preservation of many mosaics, which otherwise would have been destroyed by mosque workers. It was usual for the mosaic's tesserae—believed to be talismans—to be sold to visitors. Sultan Mahmud I ordered the restoration of the building in 1739 and added a medrese (a Koranic school, subsequently the library of the museum), an imaret (soup kitchen for distribution to the poor) and a library, and in 1740 he added a Şadirvan (fountain for ritual ablutions), thus transforming it into a külliye, or social complex. A new sultan's lodge and a new mihrab were built inside.
==== Renovation of 1847–1849 ====
The 19th-century restoration of the Hagia Sophia was ordered by Sultan Abdulmejid I (r. 1823–1861) and completed between 1847 and 1849 by eight hundred workers under the supervision of the Swiss-Italian architect brothers Gaspare and Giuseppe Fossati. The brothers consolidated the dome with a restraining iron chain and strengthened the vaults, straightened the columns, and revised the decoration of the exterior and the interior of the building. The mosaics in the upper gallery were exposed and cleaned, although many were recovered "for protection against further damage".
Eight new gigantic circular-framed discs or medallions were hung from the cornice, on each of the four piers and at either side of the apse and the west doors. These were designed by the calligrapher Kazasker Mustafa Izzet Efendi and painted with the names of Allah, Muhammad, the Rashidun (the first four caliphs), and the two grandsons of Muhammad. In 1850, the architects Fossati built a new maqsura or caliphal loge in Neo-Byzantine columns and an Ottoman–Rococo style marble grille connecting to the royal pavilion behind the mosque. The new maqsura was built at the extreme east end of the northern aisle, next to the north-eastern pier. The existing maqsura in the apse, near the mihrab, was demolished. A new entrance was constructed for the sultan: the Hünkar Mahfili. The Fossati brothers also renovated the minbar and mihrab.
Outside the main building, the minarets were repaired and altered so that they were of equal height. A clock building, the Muvakkithane, was built by the Fossatis for use by the muwaqqit (the mosque timekeeper), and a new madrasa (Islamic school) was constructed. The Kasr-ı Hümayun was also built under their direction. When the restoration was finished, the mosque was re-opened with a ceremony on 13 July 1849. An edition of lithographs from drawings made during the Fossatis' work on Hagia Sophia was published in London in 1852, entitled: Aya Sophia of Constantinople as Recently Restored by Order of H.M. The Sultan Abdulmejid.
==== Occupation of Istanbul (1918–1923) ====
In the aftermath of the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, Constantinople was occupied by British, French, Italian, and Greek forces. On 19 January 1919, the Greek Orthodox Christian military priest Eleftherios Noufrakis performed a Divine Liturgy in the Hagia Sophia, the only such instance since the 1453 fall of Constantinople. The anti-occupation Sultanahmet demonstrations were held next to Hagia Sophia from March to May 1919. In Greece, the 500 drachma banknotes issued in 1923 featured Hagia Sophia.
=== Museum (1935–2020) ===
In 1935, the first Turkish President and founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, transformed the building into a museum. During the Second World War, the minarets of the museum housed MG 08 machine guns. The carpet and the layer of mortar underneath were removed and marble floor decorations such as the omphalion appeared for the first time since the Fossatis' restoration, when the white plaster covering many of the mosaics had been removed. Due to neglect, the condition of the structure continued to deteriorate, prompting the World Monuments Fund (WMF) to include the Hagia Sophia in their 1996 and 1998 Watch Lists. The building's copper roof had cracked, causing water to leak down over the fragile frescoes and mosaics. Moisture entered from below as well. Rising ground water increased the level of humidity within the monument, creating an unstable environment for stone and paint. The WMF secured a series of grants from 1997 to 2002 for the restoration of the dome. The first stage of work involved the structural stabilization and repair of the cracked roof, which was undertaken with the participation of the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The second phase, the preservation of the dome's interior, afforded the opportunity to employ and train young Turkish conservators in the care of mosaics. By 2006, the WMF project was complete, though many areas of Hagia Sophia continue to require significant stability improvement, restoration, and conservation.
In 2014, Hagia Sophia was the second most visited museum in Turkey, attracting almost 3.3 million visitors annually.
While use of the complex as a place of worship (mosque or church) was strictly prohibited, in 1991 the Turkish government allowed the allocation of a pavilion in the museum complex (Ayasofya Müzesi Hünkar Kasrı) for use as a prayer room, and, since 2013, two of the museum's minarets had been used for voicing the call to prayer (the ezan) regularly.
From the early 2010s, several campaigns and government high officials, notably Turkey's deputy prime minister Bülent Arınç in November 2013, demanded the Hagia Sophia be converted back into a mosque. In 2015, Pope Francis publicly acknowledged the Armenian genocide, which is officially denied in Turkey. In response, the mufti of Ankara, Mefail Hızlı, said he believed the Pope's remarks would accelerate the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque.
On 1 July 2016, Muslim prayers were held again in the Hagia Sophia for the first time in 85 years. That November, a Turkish NGO, the Association for the Protection of Historic Monuments and the Environment, filed a lawsuit for converting the museum into a mosque. The court decided it should stay as a 'monument museum'. In October 2016, Turkey's Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) appointed, for the first time in 81 years, a designated imam, Önder Soy, to the Hagia Sophia mosque. Since then, the adhan has been regularly called out from the Hagia Sophia's minarets five times a day.
On 13 May 2017, a large group of people, organized by the Anatolia Youth Association, gathered in front of Hagia Sophia and prayed the morning prayer with a call for the re-conversion of the museum into a mosque. On 21 June 2017 the Diyanet organized a special programme, broadcast live by state-run television TRT, which included the recitation of the Quran and prayers in Hagia Sophia, to mark the Laylat al-Qadr.
=== Reversion to mosque (2020–present) ===
Since 2018, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had talked of reverting the status of the Hagia Sophia back to a mosque, as a populist gesture. On 31 March 2018 Erdoğan recited the first verse of the Quran in the Hagia Sophia, dedicating the prayer to the "souls of all who left us this work as inheritance, especially Istanbul's conqueror," strengthening the political movement to make the Hagia Sophia a mosque once again.
In March 2019, Erdoğan said that he would change the status of Hagia Sophia from a museum to a mosque, adding that it had been a "very big mistake" to turn it into a museum. As a UNESCO World Heritage site, this change would require approval from UNESCO's World Heritage Committee. In late 2019 Erdoğan's office took over the administration and upkeep of the nearby Topkapı Palace Museum, transferring responsibility for the site from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism by presidential decree.
In 2020, Turkey's government celebrated the 567th anniversary of the Conquest of Constantinople with an Islamic prayer in Hagia Sophia. In May, during the anniversary events, passages from the Quran were read in the Hagia Sophia. Greece condemned this action, while Turkey in response accused Greece of making "futile and ineffective statements". In June, the head of Turkey's Directorate of Religious Affairs said that "we would be very happy to open Hagia Sophia for worship" and that if it happened "we will provide our religious services as we do in all our mosques". On 25 June, John Haldon, president of the International Association of Byzantine Studies, wrote an open letter to Erdoğan asking that he "consider the value of keeping the Aya Sofya as a museum".
On 10 July 2020, the decision of the Council of Ministers from 1935 to transform the Hagia Sophia into a museum was annulled by the Council of State, decreeing that Hagia Sophia cannot be used "for any other purpose" than being a mosque and that the Hagia Sophia was property of the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Han Foundation. The council reasoned Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II, who conquered Istanbul, deemed the property to be used by the public as a mosque without any fees and was not within the jurisdiction of the Parliament or a ministry council.
Despite secular and global criticism, Erdoğan signed a decree annulling the Hagia Sophia's museum status, reverting it to a mosque. The call to prayer was broadcast from the minarets shortly after the announcement of the change and rebroadcast by major Turkish news networks. A presidential spokesperson said it would become a working mosque, open to anyone similar to the Parisian churches Sacré-Cœur and Notre-Dame. The spokesperson also said that the change would not affect the status of the Hagia Sophia as a UNESCO World Heritage site, and that "Christian icons" within it would continue to be protected.
A presidential spokesperson claimed that all political parties in Turkey supported Erdoğan's decision, but the Peoples' Democratic Party had previously released a statement denouncing the decision, saying "decisions on human heritage cannot be made on the basis of political games played by the government". The mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, said that he supports the conversion "as long as it benefits Turkey", adding that he felt that Hagia Sophia has been a mosque since 1453.
Ali Babacan attacked the policy of his former ally Erdoğan, saying the Hagia Sophia issue "has come to the agenda now only to cover up other problems". Orhan Pamuk, Turkish novelist and Nobel laureate, publicly denounced the move, saying "Kemal Atatürk changed ... Hagia Sophia from a mosque to a museum, honouring all previous Greek Orthodox and Latin Catholic history, making it as a sign of Turkish modern secularism".
On 17 July, Erdoğan announced that the first prayers in the Hagia Sophia would be open to between 1,000 and 1,500 worshippers, stating that Turkey had sovereign power over Hagia Sophia and was not obligated to bend to international opinion.
While the Hagia Sophia has now been rehallowed as a mosque, certain areas remains open for visitors outside of prayer times. Most of the ground floor remains restricted to worshipers, however the upper galleries were reopened to visitors in 2024. Women visitors are required to wear headscarfs to enter. Entrance was initially free, but starting from 15 January 2024, foreign nationals have to pay an entrance fee.
On 22 July, a turquoise-coloured carpet was laid to prepare the mosque for worshippers. The mosque opened for Friday prayers on 24 July, the 97th anniversary of the signature of the Treaty of Lausanne, which established the borders of the modern Turkish Republic. The mosaics of the Virgin and Child in the apse were covered by white drapes. Ali Erbaş, President of the Directorate of Religious Affairs, proclaimed during his sermon, "Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror dedicated this magnificent construction to believers to remain a mosque until the Day of Resurrection". Erdoğan and some government ministers attended the midday prayers as many worshippers prayed outside; at one point the security cordon was breached and dozens of people broke through police lines. Turkey invited foreign leaders and officials, including Pope Francis, for the prayers. It is the fourth Byzantine church converted from museum to a mosque during Erdoğan's rule.
Days before the final decision on the conversion was made, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople stated in a sermon that "the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque would disappoint millions of Christians around the world". The proposed conversion was decried by other Orthodox Christian leaders, the Russian Orthodox Church's Patriarch Kirill of Moscow stating that "a threat to Hagia Sophia [wa]s a threat to all of Christian civilization".
Following the Turkish government's decision, UNESCO announced it "deeply regret[ted]" the conversion "made without prior discussion", and asked Turkey to "open a dialogue without delay", stating that the lack of negotiation was "regrettable". UNESCO further announced that the "state of conservation" of Hagia Sophia would be "examined" at the next session of the World Heritage Committee, urging Turkey "to initiate dialogue without delay, in order to prevent any detrimental effect on the universal value of this exceptional heritage". Ernesto Ottone, UNESCO's Assistant Director-General for Culture said "It is important to avoid any implementing measure, without prior discussion with UNESCO, that would affect physical access to the site, the structure of the buildings, the site's moveable property, or the site's management".
The World Council of Churches condemned the decision to convert the building into a mosque, saying that would "inevitably create uncertainties, suspicions and mistrust". At the recitation of the Sunday Angelus prayer at St Peter's Square on 12 July Pope Francis said, "My thoughts go to Istanbul. I think of Santa Sophia and I am very pained" (Italian: Penso a Santa Sofia, a Istanbul, e sono molto addolorato).
Josep Borrell, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Vice-President of the European Commission, released a statement calling the decisions by the Council of State and Erdoğan "regrettable" and pointing out that "as a founding member of the Alliance of Civilisations, Turkey has committed to the promotion of inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue and to fostering of tolerance and co-existence." According to Borrell, the European Union member states' twenty-seven foreign ministers "condemned the Turkish decision to convert such an emblematic monument as the Hagia Sophia" at meeting on 13 July, saying it "will inevitably fuel the mistrust, promote renewed division between religious communities and undermine our efforts at dialog and cooperation" and that "there was a broad support to call on the Turkish authorities to urgently reconsider and reverse this decision".
Greece denounced the conversion and considered it a breach of the UNESCO World Heritage titling. Greek culture minister Lina Mendoni called it an "open provocation to the civilised world" which "absolutely confirms that there is no independent justice" in Erdoğan's Turkey, and that his Turkish nationalism "takes his country back six centuries". Greece and Cyprus called for EU sanctions on Turkey. Morgan Ortagus, the spokesperson for the United States Department of State, noted: "We are disappointed by the decision by the government of Turkey to change the status of the Hagia Sophia." Jean-Yves Le Drian, foreign minister of France, said his country "deplores" the move, saying "these decisions cast doubt on one of the most symbolic acts of modern and secular Turkey".
Vladimir Dzhabarov, deputy head of the foreign affairs committee of the Russian Federation Council, said that it "will not do anything for the Muslim world. It does not bring nations together, but on the contrary brings them into collision" and calling the move a "mistake". The former deputy prime minister of Italy, Matteo Salvini, held a demonstration in protest outside the Turkish consulate in Milan, calling for all plans for accession of Turkey to the European Union to be terminated "once and for all". In East Jerusalem, a protest was held outside the Turkish consulate on 13 July, with the burning of a Turkish flag and the display of the Greek flag and flag of the Greek Orthodox Church.
Ersin Tatar, prime minister of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is recognized only by Turkey, welcomed the decision, calling it "sound" and "pleasing". Through a spokesman the Foreign Ministry of Iran welcomed the change, saying the decision was an "issue that should be considered as part of Turkey's national sovereignty" and "Turkey's internal affair". Sergei Vershinin, deputy foreign minister of Russia, said that the matter was of one of "internal affairs, in which, of course, neither we nor others should interfere." The Arab Maghreb Union was supportive.
Ekrema Sabri, imam of the al-Aqsa Mosque, and Ahmed bin Hamad al-Khalili, grand mufti of Oman, both congratulated Turkey on the move. The Muslim Brotherhood was also in favour of the news. A spokesman for the Palestinian Nationalist movement Hamas called the verdict "a proud moment for all Muslims". Pakistani politician Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi of the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) welcomed the ruling, claiming it was "not only in accordance with the wishes of the people of Turkey but the entire Muslim world". The Muslim Judicial Council group in South Africa praised the move, calling it "a historic turning point". In Nouakchott, capital of Mauritania, there were prayers and celebrations topped by the sacrifice of a camel. On the other hand, Shawki Allam, grand mufti of Egypt, ruled that conversion of the Hagia Sophia to a mosque is "impermissible".
When Erdoğan announced that the first Muslim prayers would be held inside the building on 24 July, he added that "like all our mosques, the doors of Hagia Sophia will be wide open to locals and foreigners, Muslims and non-Muslims." Presidential spokesman İbrahim Kalın said that the icons and mosaics of the building would be preserved, and that "in regards to the arguments of secularism, religious tolerance and coexistence, there are more than four hundred churches and synagogues open in Turkey today." The Turkish foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, told TRT Haber on 13 July that the government was surprised at the reaction of UNESCO, saying that "We have to protect our ancestors' heritage. The function can be this way or that way – it does not matter".
On 14 July the prime minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, said his government was "considering its response at all levels" to what he called Turkey's "unnecessary, petty initiative", and that "with this backward action, Turkey is opting to sever links with western world and its values". In relation to both Hagia Sophia and the Cyprus–Turkey maritime zones dispute, Mitsotakis called for European sanctions against Turkey, referring to it as "a regional troublemaker, and which is evolving into a threat to the stability of the whole south-east Mediterranean region". Dora Bakoyannis, Greek former foreign minister, said Turkey's actions had "crossed the Rubicon", distancing itself from the West.
Armenia's Foreign Ministry expressed "deep concern" about the move, adding that it brought to a close Hagia Sophia's symbolism of "cooperation and unity of humankind instead of clash of civilizations." Catholicos Karekin II, the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, said the move "violat[ed] the rights of national religious minorities in Turkey." Sahak II Mashalian, the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, perceived as loyal to the Turkish government, endorsed the decision to convert the museum into a mosque. He said, "I believe that believers' praying suits better the spirit of the temple instead of curious tourists running around to take pictures."
In July 2021, UNESCO asked for an updated report on the state of conservation and expressed "grave concern". There were also some concerns about the future of its World Heritage status. Turkey responded that the changes had "no negative impact" on UNESCO standards and the criticism is "biased and political".
== Architecture ==
Hagia Sophia is one of the greatest surviving examples of Byzantine architecture. Its interior is decorated with mosaics, marble pillars, and coverings of great artistic value. Justinian had overseen the completion of the greatest basilica ever built up to that time, and it was to remain the largest church for 500 years until the completion of the abbey church at Cluny in the 12th century.
The Hagia Sophia uses masonry construction. The structure has brick and mortar joints that are 1.5 times the width of the bricks. The mortar joints are composed of a combination of sand and minute ceramic pieces distributed evenly throughout the mortar joints. This combination of sand and potsherds was often used in Roman concrete, a predecessor to modern concrete. A considerable amount of iron was used as well, in the form of cramps and ties.
Justinian's basilica was at once the culminating architectural achievement of late antiquity and the first masterpiece of Byzantine architecture. Its influence, both architecturally and liturgically, was widespread and enduring in the Eastern Christianity, Western Christianity, and Islam alike.
The vast interior has a complex structure. The nave is covered by a central dome which at its maximum is 55.6 m (182 ft 5 in) from floor level and rests on an arcade of 40 arched windows. Repairs to its structure have left the dome somewhat elliptical, with the diameter varying between 31.24 and 30.86 m (102 ft 6 in and 101 ft 3 in).
At the western entrance and eastern liturgical side, there are arched openings extended by half domes of identical diameter to the central dome, carried on smaller semi-domed exedrae, a hierarchy of dome-headed elements built up to create a vast oblong interior crowned by the central dome, with a clear span of 76.2 m (250 ft).The theories of Hero of Alexandria, a Hellenistic mathematician of the 1st century AD, may have been utilized to address the challenges presented by building such an expansive dome over so large a space. Svenshon and Stiffel proposed that the architects used Hero's proposed values for constructing vaults. The square measurements were calculated using the side-and-diagonal number progression, which results in squares defined by the numbers 12 and 17, wherein 12 defines the side of the square and 17 its diagonal, which have been used as standard values as early as in cuneiform Babylonian texts.
Each of the four sides of the great square Hagia Sophia is approximately 31 m long, and it was previously thought that this was the equivalent of 100 Byzantine feet. Svenshon suggested that the size of the side of the central square of Hagia Sophia is not 100 Byzantine feet but instead 99 feet. This measurement is not only rational, but it is also embedded in the system of the side-and-diagonal number progression (70/99) and therefore a usable value by the applied mathematics of antiquity. It gives a diagonal of 140 which is manageable for constructing a huge dome.
=== Floor ===
The stone floor of Hagia Sophia dates from the 6th century. After the first collapse of the vault, the broken dome was left in situ on the original Justinianic floor and a new floor was laid above the rubble when the dome was rebuilt in 558. From the installation of this second Justinianic floor, the floor became part of the liturgy, with significant locations and spaces demarcated in various ways using different-coloured stones and marbles.
The floor is predominantly made up of Proconnesian marble, quarried on Proconnesus (Marmara Island) in the Propontis (Sea of Marmara). This was the main white marble used in the monuments of Constantinople. Other parts of the floor, like the Thessalian verd antique "marble", were quarried in Thessaly in Roman Greece. The Thessalian verd antique bands across the nave floor were often likened to rivers.
The floor was praised by numerous authors and repeatedly compared to a sea. The Justinianic poet Paul the Silentiary likened the ambo and the solea connecting it to the sanctuary with an island in a sea, with the sanctuary itself a harbour. The 9th-century Narratio writes of it as "like the sea or the flowing waters of a river". Michael the Deacon in the 12th century also described the floor as a sea in which the ambo and other liturgical furniture stood as islands.
During the 15th-century conquest of Constantinople, the Ottoman caliph Mehmed is said to have ascended to the dome and the galleries in order to admire the floor, which according to Tursun Beg resembled "a sea in a storm" or a "petrified sea". Other Ottoman-era authors also praised the floor; Tâcîzâde Cafer Çelebi compared it to waves of marble. The floor was hidden beneath a carpet on 22 July 2020.
=== Narthex and portals ===
The Imperial Gate, or Imperial Door, was the main entrance between the exo- and esonarthex, and it was originally exclusively used by the emperor. A long ramp from the northern part of the outer narthex leads up to the upper gallery.
=== Upper gallery ===
The upper gallery, or matroneum, is horseshoe-shaped; it encloses the nave on three sides and is interrupted by the apse. Several mosaics are preserved in the upper gallery, an area traditionally reserved for the Empress and her court. The best-preserved mosaics are located in the southern part of the gallery.
The northern first floor gallery contains runic graffiti believed to have been left by members of the Varangian Guard. Structural damage caused by natural disasters is visible on the Hagia Sophia's exterior surface. To ensure that the Hagia Sophia did not sustain any damage on the interior of the building, studies have been conducted using ground penetrating radar within the gallery of the Hagia Sophia. With the use of ground-penetrating radar (GPR), teams discovered weak zones within the Hagia Sophia's gallery and also concluded that the curvature of the vault dome has been shifted out of proportion, compared to its original angular orientation.
=== Dome ===
The dome of Hagia Sophia has spurred particular interest for many art historians, architects, and engineers because of the innovative way the original architects envisioned it. The dome is carried on four spherical triangular pendentives, making the Hagia Sophia one of the first large-scale uses of this element. The pendentives are the corners of the square base of the dome, and they curve upwards into the dome to support it, thus restraining the lateral forces of the dome and allowing its weight to flow downwards. The main dome of the Hagia Sophia was the largest pendentive dome in the world until the completion of St Peter's Basilica, and it has a much lower height than any other dome of such a large diameter.
The great dome at the Hagia Sophia is 32.6 metres (107 ft) in diameter and is only 0.61 metres (2 ft 0 in) thick. The main building materials for the original Hagia Sophia were brick and mortar. Brick aggregate was used to make roofs easier to construct. Due to the material's plasticity, it was chosen over cut stone due to the fact that aggregate can be used over a longer distance. According to Rowland Mainstone, "it is unlikely that the vaulting-shell is anywhere more than one normal brick in thickness".
The weight of the dome remained a problem for most of the building's existence. The original cupola collapsed entirely after the earthquake of 558; in 563 a new dome was built by Isidore the Younger. Unlike the original, this included 40 ribs and was raised 6.1 meters (20 feet), in order to lower the lateral forces on the church walls. A larger section of the second dome collapsed as well, over two episodes, so that as of 2021, only two sections of the present dome, the north and south sides, are from the 562 reconstructions. Of the whole dome's 40 ribs, the surviving north section contains eight ribs, while the south section includes six ribs.
Although this design stabilizes the dome and the surrounding walls and arches, the actual construction of the walls of Hagia Sophia weakened the overall structure. The bricklayers used more mortar than brick, which is more effective if the mortar was allowed to settle, as the building would have been more flexible; however, the builders did not allow the mortar to cure before they began the next layer. When the dome was erected, its weight caused the walls to lean outward because of the wet mortar underneath.
When Isidore the Younger rebuilt the fallen cupola, he had first to build up the interior of the walls to make them vertical again. The architect raised the height of the rebuilt dome by approximately 6 m (20 ft) so that the lateral forces would not be as strong and its weight would be transmitted more effectively down into the walls. He shaped the new cupola like a scalloped shell or the inside of an umbrella, with ribs that extend from the top down to the base. These ribs allow the weight of the dome to flow between the windows, down the pendentives, and ultimately to the foundation.
Hagia Sophia is famous for the light that reflects everywhere in the interior of the nave, giving the dome the appearance of hovering. This effect was achieved by inserting forty windows around the base of the original structure, which also reduced its weight.
=== Buttresses ===
Numerous buttresses have been added throughout the centuries. The flying buttresses to the west of the building, although thought to have been constructed by the Crusaders upon their visit to Constantinople, were actually built during the Byzantine era. This shows that the Romans had prior knowledge of flying buttresses, which can also be seen in Greece, at the Rotunda of Galerius in Thessaloniki, at the monastery of Hosios Loukas in Boeotia, and in Italy at the octagonal basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. Other buttresses were constructed during the Ottoman times under the guidance of the architect Sinan. A total of 24 buttresses were added.
=== Minarets ===
The minarets were an Ottoman addition and not part of the original church's Byzantine design. Mehmed had built a wooden minaret over one of the half domes soon after Hagia Sophia's conversion from a cathedral to a mosque. This minaret does not exist today. One of the minarets (at southeast) was built from red brick and can be dated back from the reign of Mehmed or his successor Beyazıd II. The other three were built from white limestone and sandstone, of which the slender northeast column was erected by Bayezid II and the two identical, larger minarets to the west were erected by Selim II and designed by the famous Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan. Both are 60 m (200 ft) in height, and their thick and massive patterns complete Hagia Sophia's main structure. Many ornaments and details were added to these minarets on repairs during the 15th, 16th, and 19th centuries, which reflect each period's characteristics and ideals.
== Notable elements and decorations ==
Originally, under Justinian's reign, the interior decorations consisted of abstract designs on marble slabs on the walls and floors as well as mosaics on the curving vaults. Of these mosaics, the two archangels Gabriel and Michael are still visible in the spandrels (corners) of the bema. There were already a few figurative decorations, as attested by the late 6th-century ekphrasis of Paul the Silentiary, the Description of Hagia Sophia. The spandrels of the gallery are faced in inlaid thin slabs (opus sectile), showing patterns and figures of flowers and birds in precisely cut pieces of white marble set against a background of black marble. In later stages, figurative mosaics were added, which were destroyed during the iconoclastic controversy (726–843). Present mosaics are from the post-iconoclastic period.
Apart from the mosaics, many figurative decorations were added during the second half of the 9th century: an image of Christ in the central dome; Eastern Orthodox saints, prophets and Church Fathers in the tympana below; historical figures connected with this church, such as Patriarch Ignatius; and some scenes from the Gospels in the galleries. Basil II let artists paint a giant six-winged seraph on each of the four pendentives. The Ottomans covered their faces with golden stars, but in 2009, one of them was restored to its original state.
=== Loggia of the Empress ===
The loggia of the empress is located in the centre of the gallery of the Hagia Sophia, above the Imperial Gate and directly opposite the apse. From this matroneum (women's gallery), the empress and the court-ladies would watch the proceedings down below. A green stone disc of verd antique marks the spot where the throne of the empress stood.
=== Lustration urns ===
Two huge marble lustration (ritual purification) urns were brought from Pergamon during the reign of Sultan Murad III. They are from the Hellenistic period and carved from single blocks of marble.
=== Marble Door ===
The Marble Door inside the Hagia Sophia is located in the southern upper enclosure or gallery. It was used by the participants in synods, who entered and left the meeting chamber through this door. It is said that each side is symbolic and that one side represents heaven while the other represents hell. Its panels are covered in fruits and fish motifs. The door opens into a space that was used as a venue for solemn meetings and important resolutions of patriarchate officials.
=== Nice Door ===
The Nice Door is the oldest architectural element found in the Hagia Sophia dating back to the 2nd century BC. The decorations are of reliefs of geometric shapes as well as plants that are believed to have come from a pagan temple in Tarsus in Cilicia, part of the Cibyrrhaeot Theme in modern-day Mersin Province in south-eastern Turkey. It was incorporated into the building by Emperor Theophilos in 838 where it is placed in the south exit in the inner narthex.
=== Imperial Gate ===
The Imperial Gate is the door that was used solely by the Emperor and his personal bodyguard and retinue. At 7 metres (23 ft) it is the largest door in the Hagia Sophia and has been dated to the 6th century. Byzantine sources say it was made with wood from Noah's Ark.
In April 2022, the door was vandalised by unknown assailant(s).
=== Wishing column ===
At the northwest of the building, there is a column with a hole in the middle covered by bronze plates. This column goes by different names; the "perspiring" or "sweating column", the "crying column", or the "wishing column". Legend states that it has been moist since the appearance of Gregory Thaumaturgus near the column in 1200. It is believed that touching the moisture cures many illnesses.
=== Viking inscription ===
In the southern section of Hagia Sophia, a 9th-century Viking inscription has been discovered, which reads, "Halvdan was here." It is theorized that the inscription was created by a Viking soldier serving as a mercenary in the Eastern Roman Empire.
== Mosaics ==
The first mosaics which adorned the church were completed during the reign of Justin II. Many of the non-figurative mosaics in the church come from this period. Most of the mosaics, however, were created in the 10th and 12th centuries, following the periods of Byzantine Iconoclasm.
During the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, the Latin Crusaders vandalized valuable items in every important Byzantine structure of the city, including the golden mosaics of the Hagia Sophia. Many of these items were shipped to Venice, whose Doge Enrico Dandolo had organized the invasion and sack of Constantinople after an agreement with Prince Alexios Angelos, the son of a deposed Byzantine emperor.
=== 19th-century restoration ===
Following the building's conversion into a mosque in 1453, many of its mosaics were covered with plaster, due to Islam's ban on representational imagery. This process was not completed at once, and reports exist from the 17th century in which travellers note that they could still see Christian images in the former church. In 1847–1849, the building was restored by Gaspare and Giuseppe Fossati, and Sultan Abdulmejid I allowed them to also document any mosaics they might discover during this process, which were later archived in Swiss libraries.
This work did not include repairing the mosaics, and after recording the details about an image, the Fossatis painted it over again. The Fossatis restored the mosaics of the two hexapteryga (six-winged angels; it is uncertain whether they are seraphim or cherubim) located on the two east pendentives, and covered their faces again before the end of the restoration. The other two mosaics, placed on the west pendentives, are copies in paint created by the Fossatis since they could find no surviving remains of them.
As in this case, the architects reproduced in paint damaged decorative mosaic patterns, sometimes redesigning them in the process. The Fossati records are the primary sources about a number of mosaic images now believed to have been completely or partially destroyed in the 1894 Istanbul earthquake. These include a mosaic over a now-unidentified Door of the Poor, a large image of a jewel-encrusted cross, and many images of angels, saints, patriarchs, and church fathers. Most of the missing images were located in the building's two tympana.
One mosaic they documented is Christ Pantocrator in a circle, which would indicate it to be a ceiling mosaic, possibly even of the main dome, which was later covered and painted over with Islamic calligraphy that expounds God as the light of the universe. The Fossatis' drawings of the Hagia Sophia mosaics are today kept in the Archive of the Canton of Ticino.
=== 20th-century restoration ===
Many mosaics were uncovered in the 1930s by a team from the Byzantine Institute of America led by Thomas Whittemore. The team chose to let a number of simple cross images remain covered by plaster but uncovered all major mosaics found.
Because of its long history as both a church and a mosque, a particular challenge arises in the restoration process. Christian iconographic mosaics can be uncovered, but often at the expense of important and historic Islamic art. Restorers have attempted to maintain a balance between both Christian and Islamic cultures. In particular, much controversy rests upon whether the Islamic calligraphy on the dome of the cathedral should be removed, to permit the underlying Pantocrator mosaic of Christ as Master of the World to be exhibited (assuming the mosaic still exists).
The Hagia Sophia has been a victim of natural disasters that have caused deterioration to the buildings structure and walls. The deterioration of the Hagia Sophia's walls can be directly attributed to salt crystallization. The crystallization of salt is due to an intrusion of rainwater that causes the Hagia Sophia's deteriorating inner and outer walls. Diverting excess rainwater is the main solution to the deteriorating walls at the Hagia Sophia.
Built between 532 and 537, a subsurface structure under the Hagia Sophia has been under investigation, using LaCoste-Romberg gravimeters to determine the depth of the subsurface structure and to discover other hidden cavities beneath the Hagia Sophia. The hidden cavities have also acted as a support system against earthquakes. With these findings using the LaCoste-Romberg gravimeters, it was also discovered that the Hagia Sophia's foundation is built on a slope of natural rock.
=== Imperial Gate mosaic ===
The Imperial Gate mosaic is located in the tympanum above that gate, which was used only by the emperors when entering the church. Based on style analysis, it has been dated to the late 9th or early 10th century. The emperor with a nimbus or halo could possibly represent emperor Leo VI the Wise or his son Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus bowing down before Christ Pantocrator, seated on a jewelled throne, giving his blessing and holding in his left hand an open book.
=== Southwestern entrance mosaic ===
The southwestern entrance mosaic, situated in the tympanum of the southwestern entrance, dates from the reign of Basil II. It was rediscovered during the restorations of 1849 by the Fossatis. The Virgin sits on a throne without a back, her feet resting on a pedestal, embellished with precious stones. The Christ Child sits on her lap, giving his blessing and holding a scroll in his left hand. On her left side stands emperor Constantine in ceremonial attire, presenting a model of the city to Mary. On her right side stands emperor Justinian I, offering a model of the Hagia Sophia. The composition of the figure of the Virgin enthroned was probably copied from the mosaic inside the semi-dome of the apse inside the liturgical space.
=== Apse mosaics ===
The mosaic in the semi-dome above the apse at the east end shows Mary, mother of Jesus holding the Christ Child and seated on a jewelled thokos backless throne. Since its rediscovery after a period of concealment in the Ottoman era, it "has become one of the foremost monuments of Byzantium". The infant Jesus's garment is depicted with golden tesserae.
Guillaume-Joseph Grelot, who had travelled to Constantinople, in 1672 engraved and in 1680 published in Paris an image of the interior of Hagia Sophia which shows the apse mosaic indistinctly. Together with a picture by Cornelius Loos drawn in 1710, these images are early attestations of the mosaic before it was covered towards the end of the 18th century. The mosaic of the Virgin and Child was rediscovered during the restorations of the Fossati brothers in 1847–1848 and revealed by the restoration of Thomas Whittemore in 1935–1939. It was studied again in 1964 with the aid of scaffolding.
It is not known when this mosaic was installed. According to Cyril Mango, the mosaic is "a curious reflection on how little we know about Byzantine art". The work is generally believed to date from after the end of Byzantine Iconoclasm and usually dated to the patriarchate of Photius I (r. 858–867, 877–886) and the time of the emperors Michael III (r. 842–867) and Basil I (r. 867–886). Most specifically, the mosaic has been connected with a surviving homily known to have been written and delivered by Photius in the cathedral on 29 March 867.
Other scholars have favoured earlier or later dates for the present mosaic or its composition. Nikolaos Oikonomides pointed out that Photius's homily refers to a standing portrait of the Theotokos – a Hodegetria – while the present mosaic shows her seated. Likewise, a biography of the patriarch Isidore I (r. 1347–1350) by his successor Philotheus I (r. 1353–1354, 1364–1376) composed before 1363 describes Isidore seeing a standing image of the Virgin at Epiphany in 1347.
Serious damage was done to the building by earthquakes in the 14th century, and it is possible that a standing image of the Virgin that existed in Photius's time was lost in the earthquake of 1346, in which the eastern end of Hagia Sophia was partly destroyed. This interpretation supposes that the present mosaic of the Virgin and Child enthroned is of the late 14th century, a time in which, beginning with Nilus of Constantinople (r. 1380–1388), the patriarchs of Constantinople began to have official seals depicting the Theotokos enthroned on a thokos.
Still other scholars have proposed an earlier date than the later 9th century. According to George Galavaris, the mosaic seen by Photius was a Hodegetria portrait which after the earthquake of 989 was replaced by the present image not later than the early 11th century. According to Oikonomides however, the image in fact dates to before the Triumph of Orthodoxy, having been completed c. 787–797, during the iconodule interlude between the First Iconoclast (726–787) and the Second Iconoclast (814–842) periods. Having been plastered over in the Second Iconoclasm, Oikonomides argues a new, standing image of the Virgin Hodegetria was created above the older mosaic in 867, which then fell off in the earthquakes of the 1340s and revealed again the late 8th-century image of the Virgin enthroned.
More recently, analysis of a hexaptych menologion icon panel from Saint Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai has determined that the panel, showing numerous scenes from the life of the Virgin and other theologically significant iconic representations, contains an image at the centre very similar to that in Hagia Sophia. The image is labelled in Greek merely as: Μήτηρ Θεοῦ, romanized: Mētēr Theou, lit. 'Mother of God', but in the Georgian language the inscription reveals the image is labelled "of the semi-dome of Hagia Sophia". This image is therefore the oldest depiction of the apse mosaic known and demonstrates that the apse mosaic's appearance was similar to the present day mosaic in the late 11th or early 12th centuries, when the hexaptych was inscribed in Georgian by a Georgian monk, which rules out a 14th-century date for the mosaic.
The portraits of the archangels Gabriel and Michael (largely destroyed) in the bema of the arch also date from the 9th century. The mosaics are set against the original golden background of the 6th century. These mosaics were believed to be a reconstruction of the mosaics of the 6th century that were previously destroyed during the iconoclastic era by the Byzantines of that time, as represented in the inaugural sermon by the patriarch Photios. However, no record of figurative decoration of Hagia Sophia exists before this time.
=== Emperor Alexander mosaic ===
The Emperor Alexander mosaic is not easy to find for the first-time visitor, located on the second floor in a dark corner of the ceiling. It depicts the emperor Alexander in full regalia, holding a scroll in his right hand and a globus cruciger in his left. A drawing by the Fossatis showed that the mosaic survived until 1849 and that Thomas Whittemore, founder of the Byzantine Institute of America who was granted permission to preserve the mosaics, assumed that it had been destroyed in the earthquake of 1894. Eight years after his death, the mosaic was discovered in 1958 largely through the researches of Robert Van Nice. Unlike most of the other mosaics in Hagia Sophia, which had been covered over by ordinary plaster, the Alexander mosaic was simply painted over and reflected the surrounding mosaic patterns and thus was well hidden. It was duly cleaned by the Byzantine Institute's successor to Whittemore, Paul A. Underwood.
=== Empress Zoe mosaic ===
The Empress Zoe mosaic on the eastern wall of the southern gallery dates from the 11th century. Christ Pantocrator, clad in the dark blue robe (as is the custom in Byzantine art), is seated in the middle against a golden background, giving his blessing with the right hand and holding the Bible in his left hand. On either side of his head are the nomina sacra IC and XC, meaning Iēsous Christos. He is flanked by Constantine IX Monomachus and Empress Zoe, both in ceremonial costumes. He is offering a purse, as a symbol of donation, he made to the church, while she is holding a scroll, symbol of the donations she made. The previous heads have been scraped off and replaced by the three present ones. Perhaps the earlier mosaic showed her first husband Romanus III Argyrus or her second husband Michael IV. Another theory is that this mosaic was made for an earlier emperor and empress, with their heads changed into the present ones.
=== Comnenus mosaic ===
The Comnenus mosaic, also located on the eastern wall of the southern gallery, dates from 1122. The Virgin Mary is standing in the middle, depicted, as usual in Byzantine art, in a dark blue gown. She holds the Christ Child on her lap. He gives his blessing with his right hand while holding a scroll in his left hand. On her right side stands emperor John II Comnenus, represented in a garb embellished with precious stones. He holds a purse, symbol of an imperial donation to the church.
His wife, the empress Irene of Hungary stands on the left side of the Virgin, wearing ceremonial garments and holding an eiletarion scroll. Their eldest son Alexius Comnenus is represented on an adjacent pilaster. He is shown as a beardless youth, probably representing his appearance at his coronation aged seventeen.
In this panel, one can already see a difference with the Empress Zoe mosaic that is one century older. There is a more realistic expression in the portraits instead of an idealized representation. The Empress Irene, daughter of Ladislaus I of Hungary, is shown with plaited blond hair, rosy cheeks, and grey eyes, revealing her Hungarian descent. The emperor is depicted in a dignified manner.
=== Deësis mosaic ===
The Deësis mosaic (Δέησις, "Entreaty") probably dates from 1261. It was commissioned to mark the end of 57 years of Latin Catholic use and the return to the Eastern Orthodox faith. It is the third panel situated in the imperial enclosure of the upper galleries. It is widely considered the finest in Hagia Sophia, because of the softness of the features, the humane expressions and the tones of the mosaic. The style is close to that of the Italian painters of the late 13th or early 14th century, such as Duccio. In this panel the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist are imploring the intercession of Christ Pantocrator for humanity on Judgment Day. The bottom part of this mosaic is badly deteriorated. This mosaic is considered as the beginning of a renaissance in Byzantine pictorial art.
=== Northern tympanum mosaics ===
The northern tympanum mosaics feature various saints. They have been able to survive due to their high and inaccessible location. They depict Patriarchs of Constantinople John Chrysostom and Ignatios of Constantinople standing, clothed in white robes with crosses, and holding richly jewelled Bibles. The figures of each patriarch, revered as saints, are identifiable by labels in Greek. The other mosaics in the other tympana have not survived probably due to the frequent earthquakes, as opposed to any deliberate destruction by the Ottoman conquerors.
=== Dome mosaic ===
The dome was decorated with four non-identical figures of the six-winged angels which protect the Throne of God; it is uncertain whether they are seraphim or cherubim. The mosaics survive in the eastern part of the dome, but since the ones on the western side were damaged during the Byzantine period, they have been renewed as frescoes. During the Ottoman period each face was covered with metallic lids in the shape of stars, but these were removed to reveal the faces during renovations in 2009.
== Other burials ==
Selim II (1524 – 15 December 1574)
Murad III 1546–1595
Mustafa I (c. 1600 – 20 January 1639), in the courtyard.
Enrico Dandolo (c. 1107 – June 1205), in the east gallery.
Gli (c. 2004 – 7 November 2020), in the garden.
== Works influenced by the Hagia Sophia ==
Many buildings have been modeled on the Hagia Sophia's core structure of a large central dome resting on pendentives and buttressed by two semi-domes.
Byzantine churches influenced by the Hagia Sophia include the Hagia Sophia in Thessaloniki, and the Hagia Irene. The Hagia Irene was remodeled to have a dome similar to the Hagia Sophia's during the reign of Justinian. Neo-Byzantine churches modeled on the Hagia Sophia include the Kronstadt Naval Cathedral, Holy Trinity Cathedral, Sibiu and Poti Cathedral. Each closely replicates the internal geometry of the Hagia Sophia. The layout of the Kronstadt Naval Cathedral is nearly identical to the Hagia Sophia in size and geometry. Its marble revetment mimics the style of the Hagia Sophia.
The Catedral Metropolitana Ortodoxa in São Paulo and the Église du Saint-Esprit (Paris) both replace the two large tympanums beneath the main dome with two shallow semi-domes. Several churches combine elements of the Hagia Sophia with a Latin cross plan. For instance, the transept of the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis (St. Louis) is formed by two semi-domes surrounding the main dome. The church's column capitals and mosaics emulate the style of the Hagia Sophia.
Other examples include the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Sofia, St Sophia's Cathedral, London, Saint Clement Catholic Church, Chicago, and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Several mosques commissioned by the Ottoman dynasty have plans based on the Hagia Sophia, including the Süleymaniye Mosque and the Bayezid II Mosque.
Synagogues based on the Hagia Sophia include the Congregation Emanu-El (San Francisco), Great Synagogue of Florence, and Hurva Synagogue.
== Gallery == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boola_Boola | Boola Boola | "Boola Boola" is a football song of Yale University. It has enjoyed widespread popularity over the years and has been adapted to many other uses. Despite its popularity, it is not Yale's official fight song, which is "Bull Dog", by Cole Porter.
== Origins ==
The song in its present form was composed in 1900 and is generally attributed to Allan M. Hirsh, Yale Class of 1901, who in a 1930 letter claimed to have written it in collaboration with his classmates F. M. Van Wicklen, Albert Marckwald, and James L. Boyce in the fall of 1900. Though the claim was disputed by Marckwald – who was credited with the tune in the 1901 Class Book – and others, the weight of the evidence, including several articles in the Yale Alumni Weekly from 1900 and 1901, supports Hirsh's claim.
However, the song appears to be based on an earlier one, "La Hoola Boola" (1898), by Bob Cole and Billy Johnson, "extremely popular African American singer-songwriters of the time." When the first piano edition of "Yale Boola" appeared in 1901, it included a notice "Adapted by permission of Howley, Haviland & Dresser", the successor publisher of "La Hoola Boola". Hirsh himself said in his 1930 letter: The song was not altogether original with us, but was undoubtedly adapted from some other song but we were unable to definitively designate this song, although later on we did discover that there had been published a song, which at that time was out of print, called 'La Hula Boola,' and the air was quite similar but the time was different.
The song immediately caught on, soon being played by John Philip Sousa. It sold more sheet music in the first half of 1901 than any other song in the country, and became indelibly associated with Yale athletics.
== Recordings and adaptations ==
Arthur Pryor's Band recorded "Boola Boola" in 1910.
As one of Yale's most traditional football songs, "Boola Boola" has historically been performed by the Yale Whiffenpoofs and the Yale Glee Club.
The tune of "Boola Boola" is used for the University of Oklahoma's fight song, "Boomer Sooner."
== Lyrics ==
== In popular culture ==
An accordion rendition is featured in the 1954 film Phffft, when Kim Novak's character leads patrons in a restaurant in singing the song, while she waves pom poms. In the film “Sabrina,” also released in 1954, Humphrey Bogart’s character briefly sings the tune while putting on a jacket from Yale, his alma mater.
A brass-band arrangement of the "Boola Boola" tune accompanies the sequence in Peter Yates' 1969 film John and Mary in which Mary (Mia Farrow) imagines herself sitting on a bench wrapped in a blanket, watching John (Dustin Hoffman) play tennis with James (Michael Tolan) on a New York City court in the winter, both wearing Yale jerseys. Then John and James briefly sing the song in the shower while throwing wet towels onto Mary.
Nancy Kelly sings a version of the song in 1943's Tarzan’s Desert Mystery as a diversion to the villains looking for Tarzan and his son Boy.
Dick Tracy comic strips from October 13, 1956-December 23, 1956, featured a counterfeiter named Ivy who would frequently utter “Boola Boola Boola”. He wore tweed suits, owned a large riding stable, and was a former polo champion.
In the Simpsons episode "The Great Wife Hope", character Mr. Burns, an alumnus of Yale, is seen playing the song as he comes up against Marge in a practice wrestling match. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carpenter_filmography | John Carpenter filmography | John Carpenter is an American film director, producer, writer and composer. He has contributed to many projects as either the producer, writer, director, actor, composer or a combination of the five.
== Films ==
=== Feature films ===
=== Producer and/or composer only ===
=== Editor only ===
Last Foxtrot in Burbank (1973)
=== Short films ===
=== Acting roles ===
== Television series ==
== Podcast series ==
== Video games == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Office_(American_TV_series) | The Office (American TV series) | The Office is an American mockumentary sitcom television series. It is based on the BBC series The Office created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, and adapted for NBC by Greg Daniels. The show depicts the everyday work lives of office employees at the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. It aired from March 24, 2005, to May 16, 2013, for a total of nine seasons consisting of 201 episodes. The show was co-produced by Daniels' Deedle-Dee Productions, Reveille Productions (later Shine America) and 3 Arts Entertainment (although uncredited) in association with Universal Television. The original executive producers were Daniels, Gervais, Merchant, Howard Klein and Ben Silverman, with numerous others being promoted in later seasons.
Like the British original (which aired from 2001 to 2003), the series was filmed in a single-camera setup without a studio audience or a laugh track, to mirror the look of an actual documentary. It debuted on NBC as a mid-season replacement and ended its nine-season run on May 16, 2013, with a two-part series finale. Its original main cast was Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, and B. J. Novak. It experienced numerous changes to its ensemble cast during its run. Stars outside the original main cast include Ed Helms, Rashida Jones, Amy Ryan, Mindy Kaling, Craig Robinson, James Spader, Ellie Kemper, and Catherine Tate.
The Office received moderately positive reviews from critics (except for the pilot episode which received mixed reviews) during its relatively short first season of 6 episodes, a British television standard, but the following seasons, particularly Carell's performance, received significant acclaim from television critics as the show's characters, content, structure, and tone diverged considerably from the original British series. These seasons were included on several critics' year-end top TV series lists, winning several awards including a Peabody Award in 2006, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Golden Globe Award for Carell's performance, and five Primetime Emmy Awards, including one for Outstanding Comedy Series, in 2006. The eighth season was criticized for declining quality, with Carell's departure in season seven seen as a contributing factor. However, the ninth and final season ended the series with a generally positive response. The series finale, which originally aired on May 16, 2013, was viewed by an estimated 5.7 million viewers and garnered critical acclaim. In 2016, Rolling Stone named The Office one of the 100 greatest television shows of all time.
== Production ==
=== Crew ===
Greg Daniels adapted the British Office series for American television and served as the showrunner for the first four seasons. He then left the position when he co-created the comedy series Parks and Recreation with fellow Office writer Michael Schur and divided his time between both series. Paul Lieberstein and Jennifer Celotta were named the showrunners for the fifth season. Celotta left the series after the sixth season and Lieberstein stayed on as showrunner for the following two seasons. He left the showrunner spot after the eighth season for the potential Dwight Schrute spin-off, The Farm, which was eventually passed on by NBC. Daniels returned to the showrunner position for the ninth and final season. Other executive producers include cast members B. J. Novak and Mindy Kaling. Kaling, Novak, Daniels, Lieberstein and Schur made up the original team of writers. Kaling, Novak, and Lieberstein also served multiple roles on the series, as they played regular characters on the show, as well as wrote, directed, and produced numerous episodes. Credited with twenty-four episodes, Kaling is the most prolific writer among the staff. Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, who created the original British series, are credited as executive producers and wrote both pilot and the third-season episode "The Convict". Merchant later directed the episode "Customer Survey", while Gervais appeared briefly in the episodes "The Seminar" and "Search Committee", reprising his role as David Brent from the British series.
Randall Einhorn is the most frequent director of the series, with 15 credited episodes. The series also had many guest directors, including Lost co-creator J. J. Abrams, Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon, both of whom are fans of the series, and filmmakers Jon Favreau, Harold Ramis, Jason Reitman, and Marc Webb. Episodes have been directed by several of the actors on the show including Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, B. J. Novak, Ed Helms, Brian Baumgartner, Mindy Kaling and Paul Lieberstein.
=== Development and writing ===
Before the second episode airing, the writers spent time conducting research in offices. This process was used for Daniels' other series King of the Hill and Parks and Recreation. The pilot is a direct adaptation of the first episode of the original British series. Daniels chose to go this route because "completely starting from scratch would be a very risky thing to do" owing to the show being an adaptation. He had briefly considered using the idea for "The Dundies" as the pilot episode. After the writers knew who the cast was, they were allowed to write for the actors, which allowed the show to be more original for the following episode, "Diversity Day". Following the mixed reaction toward the first season, the writers attempted to make the series more "optimistic" and to make Michael Scott more likable. They also established the supporting characters of the series more, giving them relatable personalities. They also made the lights in the office brighter, which allowed the series to differentiate itself from the British series.
A common issue with the scripts, according to Novak, is that they tended to run too long for the regular 22-minute time slot, leading to several cuts. For example, the script for the episode "Search Committee" was initially 75 pages, which was 10 pages too long. A complete script was written for each episode; however, actors were given opportunities to improvise during filming. Fischer said, "Our shows are 100 percent scripted. They put everything down on paper. But we get to play around a little bit, too. Steve and Rainn are brilliant improvisers.". These improvisations led to a large number of deleted scenes with almost every episode of The Office, all of which are considered part of the series' canon and storyline by Daniels. Deleted scenes have sometimes been restored in repeats to make episodes longer or draw back people who have seen the episode before to see the bonus footage. In an experiment, a deleted scene from "The Return" was made available over NBC.com and iTunes, explaining the absence of a character over the next several episodes. Daniels hoped that word of mouth among fans would spread the information, but he eventually considered the experiment a failure.
=== Casting ===
According to Jenna Fischer, the series used an unusual casting process that did not involve a script. For example, the producers asked the actors several questions and they responded as the characters they were auditioning for. NBC programmer Kevin Reilly originally suggested Paul Giamatti to producer Ben Silverman for the role of Michael Scott, but the actor declined. Martin Short, Hank Azaria, and Bob Odenkirk were reported to be interested in the part. Silverman offered the role to Ricky Gervais, who played David Brent in the British series, but he declined as he felt it would not make sense and did not want to move to the United States.
In January 2004, Variety reported that Steve Carell, of the Comedy Central program The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, was in talks to play the role. At the time, he was already committed to another NBC midseason replacement comedy, Come to Papa, but the series was quickly canceled, allowing his full commitment to The Office. Carell later said that he had only seen about half of the original pilot episode of the British series before he auditioned. He did not continue watching for fear that he would start copying Gervais' characterizations. Other people who were considered or auditioned for the role included Ben Falcone, Alan Tudyk, Jim Zulevic, and Paul F. Tompkins. Rainn Wilson was cast as power-hungry sycophant Dwight Schrute, and he watched every episode of the British series before he auditioned. Wilson had originally auditioned for Michael, a performance that he described as a "terrible Ricky Gervais impersonation"; however, the casting directors liked his audition as Dwight much more and hired him. Seth Rogen, Matt Besser, Patton Oswalt, and Judah Friedlander also auditioned for the role. Carell was later joined by his wife Nancy Carell when she was cast to play Carol Stills, a love interest of Michael Scott. When asked what it was like working with her husband, Carell said she was intimidated at first as she had retired from acting years prior, but that they had fun together.
John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer were cast in their respective roles as Jim and Pam, the main love interests. Krasinski attended school with B. J. Novak, where the two were best friends. Before Krasinski landed the role, he considered quitting acting. He discussed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that he moved to New York City and gave himself two to three years for his acting career to succeed or he would quit. He did not enjoy waiting tables and struggling to find roles, but his mom told him to wait it out until the end of the year. He booked his role in The Office just three weeks later.
Fischer prepared for her audition by looking as boring as possible, creating the original Pam hairstyle. In an interview on NPR's Fresh Air, she recalled the last stages of the audition process for Pam and Jim, where the producers paired up the potential Pams and Jims (four of each) to gauge their chemistry. When Fischer finished her scene with Krasinski, he told her that she was his favorite Pam, to which she reciprocated that he was her favorite Jim. Adam Scott and John Cho both auditioned for the role of Jim, and Kathryn Hahn also auditioned for the role of Pam.
The supporting cast includes actors known for their improv work: Angela Kinsey, Kate Flannery, Oscar Nunez, Leslie David Baker, Brian Baumgartner, Melora Hardin, and David Denman. Kinsey originally auditioned for Pam. The producers thought she was "too feisty" for the character, but called her back for the part of Angela Martin, which she won. Flannery first auditioned for the part of Jan Levinson-Gould before landing the role of Meredith Palmer.
Baumgartner originally auditioned for Stanley, but was eventually cast as Kevin. Ken Kwapis, the director of the pilot episode, liked the way Phyllis Smith, a casting associate, read with other actors auditioning so much that he cast her as Phyllis. At the beginning of the third season, Ed Helms and Rashida Jones joined the cast as members of Dunder Mifflin Stamford. Jones later left the cast, becoming a regular on Parks and Recreation in February 2007, and NBC announced that Helms was being promoted to a series regular.
Four of the show's writers have also appeared in the show. B. J. Novak was cast as the reluctant temp Ryan Howard after Daniels saw his stand-up act. Paul Lieberstein was cast as human resources director Toby Flenderson on Novak's suggestion after his cold readings of scripts. Greg Daniels was originally unsure where to use Mindy Kaling on-screen until the opportunity came in the script for the second episode, "Diversity Day", where Michael needed to be slapped by a minority. "Since [that slap], I've been on the show" (as Kelly Kapoor), Kaling said. Michael Schur has also made several guest appearances as Dwight's cousin Mose, and consulting producer Larry Wilmore has played diversity trainer Mr. Brown.
Plans were made for Mackenzie Crook, Martin Freeman, and Lucy Davis, from the British series, to appear in the third season, but scheduling conflicts prevented them; however, Ricky Gervais made two appearances in the show's seventh season as David Brent.
=== Filming ===
The Office was filmed with a single-camera setup in cinéma vérité style to create the look of an actual documentary, with no studio audience or laugh track, allowing its "deadpan" and "absurd" humor to fully come across. The show's primary premise is that a camera crew is filming Dunder Mifflin and its employees, seemingly around the clock. The presence of the camera is acknowledged by the characters, especially Michael Scott, who enthusiastically participates in the filming. The characters, especially Jim and Pam, also look towards the camera when Michael creates an awkward situation. The show's main action is supplemented with talking-head interviews or "confessionals" where characters speak one-on-one with the camera. Actor John Krasinski shot the footage of Scranton for the opening credits when he found out he was cast as Jim. He visited Scranton for research and interviewed employees at actual paper companies.
To create the show's documentary style, the producers hired cinematographer Randall Einhorn, known for directing episodes of Survivor, who gave the show its "rough and jumpy" feel. This was facilitated by the main set's open floor plan, purposely designed by showrunner Daniels, production designer Donald Lee Harris (Matt Flynn became production designer later), and pilot director Ken Kwapis to allow camera operators to catch characters "unaware". Unlike most sets, the office layout was built with immovable walls to emphasize its airless, claustrophobic atmosphere—"trapping" the documentary film crew with the characters.
Producer Michael Schur said that the series would strictly follow the documentary format. The producers and directors had long discussions on how scenes could work in the documentary format. For example, in the fourth-season episode "Did I Stutter?", a scene featured Michael going through a long process to go to the bathroom without passing Stanley. The producers debated whether it was possible, and Einhorn walked through the scene to see if a camera operator could get everywhere to shoot the whole scene. Later seasons relaxed the format, with the camera crew often going where actual documentary crews would not. This also changed the series' writing and comedy styles, an inconsistency criticized by some reviewers and fans.
The first season of the show was filmed in a real office space in Culver City, California. The remaining seasons were filmed at Chandler Valley Center Studios in the San Fernando Valley.
=== Music ===
When it came to choosing the theme music for The Office, producer Greg Daniels had several tracks he was thinking of using: existing songs including "Better Things" by The Kinks, "Float On" by Modest Mouse, and "Mr. Blue Sky" by Electric Light Orchestra, and several original pieces artists contributed to the producers via a cattle call. Daniels decided that the cast would vote on what song to use and gave them four of the choices. Most of them wanted "Mr. Blue Sky", but that option turned out to be invalid as it was already used in the drama series LAX (2004–2005). Thus, the final choice was an original track written by Jay Ferguson and performed by The Scrantones.
The theme is played over the title sequence, which features scenes of Scranton, various tasks around the office, and the main cast members. Some episodes of the series use a shortened version of the theme song. Starting with the fourth season, the theme song is played over the closing credits, which previously rolled in silence. Ferguson described his theme as "against type; it has this vulnerability, this yearning to it that soon explodes into this overdone optimism which then gets crushed - which is pretty much what the show is about."
The mockumentary format of the show contains no laugh track, and most of the music is diegetic, with songs either sung or played by the characters or heard on radios, computers, or other devices; however, songs have been played during montages or the closing credits, such as "Tiny Dancer" by Elton John ("The Dundies") and "Islands in the Stream" by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton ("E-mail Surveillance"). Featured music tends to be well known, and often songs reflect the character, such as Michael's attempt to seem hip by using "Mambo No. 5" and later "My Humps" as his cell phone ringtone. Michael confusing Lady Gaga's "Just Dance" with Britney Spears' "Gimme More" is another example of this. Daniels has said that it does not count as film score as long as it already appeared in the episode.
== Characters ==
The Office features an ensemble cast.
Many of its characters are based on characters in the original British series. While these characters generally have the same attitudes and perceptions as their British counterparts, the roles were modified to fit the American show. The show is known for its relatively large cast, and many of its actors and actresses are known particularly for their improvisational work.
Steve Carell stars as Michael Scott, regional manager of the Dunder Mifflin Scranton Branch. Loosely based on David Brent, Gervais' character in the British series, Scott is a well-intentioned man whose oblivious attempts at humor often offend and annoy his peers and employees, and sometimes draw reprimands from his superiors. Rainn Wilson portrays Dwight Schrute, based on Gareth Keenan, who is a salesman and the Assistant to the Regional Manager, an imaginary title created by Michael.
John Krasinski portrays Jim Halpert, a salesman and, in later seasons, assistant manager or co-manager who is known for his wittiness and his practical jokes on Dwight. Halpert is based upon Tim Canterbury and, at the start of the series, is known to have feelings for receptionist Pam Beesly, who is engaged to warehouse worker Roy. Pam, played by Jenna Fischer, is based on Dawn Tinsley. She is shy but often collaborates with Jim in his pranks on Dwight.
B. J. Novak portrays Ryan Howard, who for the first two seasons is a temporary worker but is promoted to a sales representative in the third season. He later ascends to be the company's youngest vice president, North East Region, and director of new media until his innovations are exposed as corporate fraud and he is fired. He then gets a job in a bowling alley and later briefly works for the Michael Scott Paper Company. After this and a stint in rehab, he again eventually ends up as a temporary worker at the Scranton branch.
The accounting department includes Angela Martin (Angela Kinsey), an uptight and ultra-religious woman who likes to keep things orderly and make sure situations remain as businesslike as possible; Kevin Malone (Brian Baumgartner), a lovable but dim-witted man who revels in juvenile humor and frequently indulges in gambling; and Oscar Martinez (Oscar Nuñez), who is intelligent and cultured, but often patronizing, and whose homosexuality and Hispanic heritage made him a frequent target of Michael's unintentional off-color comments.
Rounding out the office are the laconic salesman Stanley Hudson (Leslie David Baker), who cannot stand Michael's constant references to his Black American heritage (he also does not like to take part in time-wasting meetings and often solves crossword puzzles or sleeps during them); the matronly saleswoman Phyllis Lapin (Phyllis Smith), who dates and then marries Bob Vance (Robert R. Shafer) from Vance Refrigeration, a company whose office is across the hall from Dunder Mifflin; eccentric quality assurance representative Creed Bratton (Creed Bratton), who has a mysterious criminal history; Andy Bernard (Ed Helms), a salesman from the Stamford, Connecticut branch of Dunder Mifflin introduced in season three who transfers to the Scranton branch after the two offices merge; Karen Filippelli (Rashida Jones) a short term love interest for Jim also from Stamford; the shallow and talkative customer service representative Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling); the promiscuous alcoholic supply relations representative Meredith Palmer (Kate Flannery); human resources representative Toby Flenderson (Paul Lieberstein), who is loathed, and often the target of abuse, by Michael; warehouse foreman Darryl Philbin (Craig Robinson); warehouse dock worker and Pam's fiancé Roy Anderson (David Denman), who is fired in the third season for attacking Jim; and the vice president for regional sales for Dunder Mifflin Jan Levinson (Melora Hardin), who later becomes Michael's rather toxic love interest.
Toward the end of season five, the bubbly and naive Erin Hannon (Ellie Kemper) is introduced as Pam's replacement at the reception and develops a unique bond with Michael when he becomes almost a father figure in her life. A story arc at the end of season four has Holly Flax (Amy Ryan) transferred to the office as Toby's replacement. She becomes a love interest for Michael, as they share very similar personality traits. Jo Bennett (Kathy Bates) is the CEO of Sabre, a company that takes over Dunder Mifflin. Gabe Lewis (Zach Woods), introduced in the middle of season six, is a Sabre employee assigned to the Dunder Mifflin Scranton branch as the regional director of sales. In season seven, Bennett's friend Nellie Bertram (Catherine Tate) is interviewed to replace Scott and later serves as a replacement regional manager for Bernard in season eight after Robert California (James Spader) has become the new CEO of Sabre. In season nine, Clark Green (Clark Duke) and Pete Miller (Jake Lacy) join as new customer service representatives who attempt to catch up on the ignored customer service complaints that Kelly has neglected while working at Dunder Mifflin. Clark is later moved to sales.
Initially, the actors who portray the supporting office workers were credited as guest stars, but then were named series regulars during the second season. The show's large ensemble was mainly praised by critics and led to the series winning two Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.
Carell was reportedly paid $175,000 per episode starting in the third season. Krasinski and Fischer were paid around $20,000 at the beginning of the series, and around $100,000 per episode by the fourth season.
== Season synopses ==
A typical episode for a half-hour time slot runs 20+1⁄2 minutes. The final episode of season two introduced the first of what would be several "super-sized" episodes that had an approximately 28-minute running time for a 40-minute time slot. Season three introduced the first of occasional hour-long episodes (approximately 42-minute running time, also suitable for being shown as two separate normal episodes in reruns).
=== Season 1 (2005) ===
The first season consists of six episodes; the shortest season of the series.
The series starts by introducing Dunder Mifflin's employees via a tour given by branch manager Michael Scott for both a documentary camera crew and first-day temp Ryan Howard. Salesman Jim Halpert has a crush on receptionist Pam Beesly, who helps him play pranks on co-worker Dwight Schrute, even though she is engaged to Roy Anderson, who works in the company's downstairs warehouse. Rumors spread throughout the office that Dunder Mifflin's corporate headquarters is planning to downsize an entire branch, leading to general anxiety. Still, Michael chooses to deny or downplay the realities of the situation to maintain employee morale.
=== Season 2 (2005–2006) ===
The second season is the series' first 22-episode season and has its first 28-minute "super-sized" episode.
Many workers seen in the background of the first season are developed into secondary characters and romantic relationships begin to develop between some of them. Michael makes out with and then spends the night with his boss, Jan Levinson, but does not have sex with her. Dwight and Angela become romantically involved, but keep their relationship a secret. Kelly Kapoor develops a crush on Ryan, and they start dating off and on. When Roy finally agrees to set a date for his wedding to Pam, at a company booze cruise, Jim grows depressed and considers transferring to the Stamford, Connecticut, branch, but tells Pam in the season finale that he is in love with her. Even though Pam insists she is with Roy, the two kiss, and Jim transfers to the Stamford branch soon after. The general threat of downsizing continues throughout the season as well.
=== Season 3 (2006–2007) ===
The third season consists of 17 half-hour episodes, four 40-minute "super-sized" episodes, and two one-hour episodes. The total number of episodes is 25.
The season starts with a brief flashback to (and additional footage from) the last episode of season two, "Casino Night", when Jim kissed Pam and confessed his feelings for her. Jim briefly transfers to Dunder Mifflin's Stamford branch after Pam confirms her commitment to Roy. Corporate is later forced to merge the Stamford branch with the Scranton branch. Michael takes this merger very seriously. Transferred to the Scranton branch are saleswoman Karen Filippelli, whom Jim has begun dating, and the anger-prone preppy salesman Andy Bernard, along with other Stamford employees who all eventually quit within the first few episodes of being there. Pam is newly single after calling off her engagement to Roy, and Jim's unresolved feelings for her and his new relationship with Karen lead to shifting tensions between the three. Meanwhile, Michael and Jan's relationship escalates, which causes them to behave erratically on the job. On the other hand, Dwight and Angela continue their steamy secret relationship. In the season's finale, Jim, Karen, and Michael interview for a corporate position that turns out to be Jan's, who is fired for poor performance. Jim is offered the job but rejects it off-screen, opting instead to remain in Scranton without Karen and asking Pam out on a date, which she joyfully accepts. In the final scene, we learn Ryan has been awarded Jan's job.
=== Season 4 (2007–2008) ===
NBC ordered a fourth full season of thirty half-hour episodes but ended with only 19 due to a halt in production caused by the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike. The season consists of nine half-hour and five hour-long episodes for a total of 19 episodes of material created.
Karen has left the Scranton branch after her breakup with Jim and becomes the regional manager at the Utica branch. A self-employed Jan moves herself and her candle business into Michael's condo, until the dissolution of their relationship midway through the season during an intimate dinner party including Pam, Jim, Andy, Angela and Dwight. This episode showcases what has become a very toxic and unhealthy relationship between Michael and Jan. After Dwight's crude (though well-intentioned) method of euthanasia of Angela's ailing cat without her permission, she leaves him for Andy, leading Dwight into depression. Ryan, in his new corporate life in New York City, attempts to modernize Dunder Mifflin with a new website for online sales; he also learns that his boss, David Wallace, favors Jim, and thus Ryan attempts to sabotage Jim's career. Ryan is soon arrested and fired for misleading the shareholders and committing fraud related to the website's sales numbers. Toby announces he is moving to Costa Rica and is replaced by Holly Flax, who quickly shows a liking for Michael. Pam decides to follow her artistic interests and is accepted to attend a three-month graphic design course at the Pratt Institute in New York City. In the season finale, Jim almost proposes to Pam but is interrupted by Andy proposing to Angela, who reluctantly agrees. Phyllis then catches Dwight and Angela having sex in the office.
=== Season 5 (2008–2009) ===
The fifth season consists of 28 half-hours of material, divided into 24 half-hour episodes and two hour-long episodes, one of which aired after Super Bowl XLIII.
Jim proposes to Pam at a gas station halfway between Scranton and New York City, where they meet for a visit. Pam ultimately returns from New York to Scranton, where Jim has bought his parents' house for the two of them. Having avoided jail and only been sentenced to community service, Ryan bleaches his hair and starts working at a bowling alley. Michael initiates a romance with Holly until she is transferred to the Nashua, New Hampshire, branch, Toby returns to Scranton to replace Holly, and their relationship ends. When Andy is made aware of Dwight and Angela's continued affair, both men leave her. Newly hired Vice President Charles Miner implements a rigid managerial style over the branch that causes Michael to resign in protest. Michael opens the Michael Scott Paper Company in the same office building, enticing Pam and Ryan to join as salespeople, and though his business model is ultimately unsustainable, Dunder Mifflin's profits are immediately threatened. In a buyout of the Michael Scott Paper Company, the three are rehired with Pam promoted to sales and Ryan returning as a temp. During the chaos a new receptionist, Erin, is hired to fill the vacancy originally left by Pam. The season ends with a scene that subtly alludes to Pam's (unplanned) pregnancy.
=== Season 6 (2009–2010) ===
The sixth season consists of 26 half-hours of material, divided into 22 half-hour episodes and two hour-long episodes.
Jim and Pam marry and have a baby named Cecelia Marie Halpert. Meanwhile, Andy and Erin develop an interest in each other, but find their inherent awkwardness inhibits his attempts to ask her out on a date during a murder-mystery game meant to distract the members of the office. Jim is promoted as co-manager. Rumors of bankruptcy begin to surround Dunder Mifflin, and by Christmas, Wallace announces to the branch that Dunder Mifflin has accepted a buyout from Sabre Corporation, a printer company. While Wallace and other executives are let go, the Scranton office survives due to its relative success within the company. Michael Scott is now the highest-level employee at Dunder Mifflin. In the season finale, Dwight buys the office park. Michael agrees to make an announcement to the press regarding a case of faulty printers. When Jo Bennett, Sabre CEO, asks how she can repay him, Michael responds that she could bring Holly back to the Scranton branch.
=== Season 7 (2010–2011) ===
The seventh season consists of 26 half-hours of material, divided into 21 half-hour episodes, one "super-sized" episode, and two hour-long episodes.
This was the final season for Steve Carell, who plays Michael Scott. NBC did not renew Carell's contract. Beginning with this season, Zach Woods, who portrays Gabe Lewis, was promoted to a series regular. Erin and Gabe have begun a relationship, much to Andy's chagrin, and Andy attempts to win Erin's affection back. Holly, Michael's former girlfriend, returns to Scranton to fill in for Toby, who is on jury duty for the "Scranton Strangler" trial. Michael and Holly eventually restart their relationship. After the two get engaged, Michael reveals he will be leaving Scranton to move to Colorado with Holly to support her elderly parents. Jim and Pam adjust to parenthood, while Angela starts dating state senator Robert Lipton and gets engaged off-screen in the season finale. After Michael's replacement Deangelo (Will Ferrell) is seriously injured on the job, Jo creates a search committee to interview candidates and choose a new manager for the office. In the meantime, Dwight Schrute, and later Creed Bratton, take over as acting manager.
=== Season 8 (2011–2012) ===
The eighth season consists of 24 episodes.
James Spader joins the cast as Robert California, the new CEO of Dunder Mifflin/Sabre. Andy is then promoted to regional manager and works hard to make a good impression on Robert, asking Dwight to be his number two. Pam and Jim are expecting their second child, Phillip, at the start of the season, to coincide with Fischer's real-life pregnancy. Angela is also pregnant with her first son, also named Philip, with State Senator Robert Lipton (although it is implied that Dwight is the child's biological father). Darryl starts falling for the new warehouse foreman, Val. Dwight is tasked with traveling to Tallahassee, Florida, to assist Sabre special projects manager Nellie Bertram (Catherine Tate) in launching a chain of retail stores, along with Jim, Ryan, Stanley, Erin, and new office temp Cathy Simms. Cathy is also revealed to have ulterior motives for the trip, as she intends to seduce Jim. Still, she fails. Robert later kills the retail store project, and Erin decides to stay in Florida as an elderly woman's live-in helper. Andy goes to Florida to win back Erin, allowing Nellie to claim the manager position as her own. Robert tells Andy that he has been demoted back to a salesman, but Andy refuses to accept the news, which causes him to be fired. Andy becomes motivated to begin a Dunder Mifflin comeback and joins with former CFO David Wallace, now a millionaire, to repurchase Dunder Mifflin from Sabre, putting Sabre completely out of business and giving Andy the manager position once again.
=== Season 9 (2012–2013) ===
The final season consists of 25 episodes.
Andy, recently returning from Outward Bound manager training, reverts to his arrogant earlier season personality, abandoning both Erin and the office to travel around the Caribbean with his brother in their sailboat after his parents' relationship's demise. In his absence, Erin strikes up a romance with new customer service rep Pete, who, along with another new customer service rep Clark, replaces Kelly, leaving for Ohio with her new husband. (Ryan also moves to Ohio for "unrelated reasons.") Meanwhile, Jim receives an exciting opportunity from an old college friend who offers him a job at Athlead, a Philadelphia sports marketing company. Darryl also jumps on board, but the distance and dedication to Athlead hurts Jim's relationship with Pam. Angela must deal with her husband's infidelity with Oscar. She also deals with her lingering attraction to Dwight, who inherits his family's beet farm. Dwight receives more good news when David Wallace handpicks him to be the new manager after Andy quits to pursue an acting career, which quickly ends when he embarrasses himself at an American Idol-like a cappella singing competition that turns into a viral web sensation. Dwight later makes Jim his assistant to the regional manager, and the two officially end their grudge.
After Jim reconciles with Pam, choosing to stay in Scranton over Philadelphia, Dwight professes his love for Angela and finally marries her. In the series finale, which takes place one year after the release of the documentary that was shot during the entire series, the employees reunite for Dwight and Angela's wedding, for which Michael returns to serve as the best man (with help from Jim who was the person Dwight first asked to be best man). Kelly and Ryan run away together, Nellie now lives in Poland and "adopts" Ryan's abandoned baby, Erin meets her birth parents, Andy gets a job at Cornell, Stanley retires to Florida, Kevin and Toby are both fired—the former buying a bar, the latter moving to New York City to become an author, and Oscar runs for the State Senate. Jim and Pam, at her persuasion, move to Austin, Texas to open a new branch of Athleap (previously Athlead) with Darryl (Dwight "fires" them to give them both severance packages), and Creed is arrested for his many crimes.
== Product placement ==
The Office has had product placement deals with Staples and Olympic balers, as well as mentioning in dialogue or displaying clear logos for products such as Sandals Resorts, HP, Apple, and Gateway computers, and Activision's Call of Duty video game series. In certain versions of "The Merger", Kevin Malone uses a Staples-branded shredding machine to shred a Staples-branded CD-R and many other nonpaper items, including a salad. Cisco Systems, a supplier of networking and telephone equipment, paid for product placement, which can be seen on close-up shots of the Cisco IP telephones. Some products have additional branding labels attached; this can be clearly seen with the HP photo printer on Toby's desk in season 6, and less noticeably with the Cisco phones. In "The Secret" Michael takes Jim to Hooters to discuss Jim's feelings for Pam.
Many products featured are not part of product placement agreements but rather inserted by writers as products the characters would use to create realism under the guise of a documentary. Chili's restaurants were used for filming in "The Dundies" and "The Client", as the writers believed they were realistic choices for a company party and business lunch. Though not an explicit product placement, the producers of the show had to allow Chili's to have final approval of the script before filming, causing a scene of "The Dundies" to be hastily rewritten when the chain objected to the original version. Wegmans, a supermarket chain based out of Rochester, New York has had a working relationship with the show since the fall of 2007. Wegmans cereal, popcorn and cans of Wegmans soda have discreetly popped up in many episodes since then. Apple Inc. received over four minutes of publicity for the iPod when it was used as a much-desired gift in "Christmas Party", though the company did not pay for the placement. The travel website TripAdvisor was featured during Season 4 when after a visit to Dwight's "agritourism" bed and breakfast, Schrute Farms, Jim and Pam post an online review about their stay. The show reportedly approached the travel review website about using their name on the show and TripAdvisor set up a review page for the fictional B&B, which itself received hundreds of reviews. The appearance of Second Life in the episode "Local Ad" was rated eighth in the top ten most effective product placements of 2007.
== Reception and legacy ==
=== Critical reviews and commentary ===
Before the show aired, Ricky Gervais acknowledged that there were feelings of hesitation from certain viewers. The first season of The Office was met with a mixed response from critics with some of them comparing it to the short-lived NBC series Coupling, which was also based on a British version. The New York Daily News called it "so diluted there's little left but muddy water," and USA Today called it a "passable imitation of a miles-better BBC original." A Guardian Unlimited review panned its lack of originality, stating that Steve Carell "just seems to be trying too hard.... Maybe in later episodes, when it deviates from Gervais and Merchant's script, he'll come into his own. But right now he's a pale imitation." Tom Shales of The Washington Post said it was "not the mishmash that [the Americanized version of Coupling] turned out to be, but again the quality of the original show causes the remake to look dim, like when the copying machine is just about to give out."
The second season was better received. James Poniewozik of Time remarked, "Producer Greg Daniels created not a copy but an interpretation that sends up distinctly American work conventions ... with a tone that's more satiric and less mordant... The new boss is different from the old boss, and that's fine by me." He named it the second-best TV show of 2006 after Battlestar Galactica. Entertainment Weekly writer Mark Harris echoed these sentiments a week later, stating, "Thanks to the fearless Steve Carell, an ever-stronger supporting cast, and scripts that spew American corporate absurdist vernacular with perfect pitch, this undervalued remake does the near-impossible—it honors Ricky Gervais' original and works on its own terms." The A.V. Club reviewer Nathan Rabin expressed its views on the show's progression: "After a rocky start, The Office improved immeasurably, instantly becoming one of TV's funniest, sharpest shows. The casting of Steve Carell in the Gervais role proved to be a masterstroke. The American Office is that rarest of anomalies: a remake of a classic show that both does right by its source and carves out its own strong identity."
The series has been included on several top TV series lists. The show placed #61 on Entertainment Weekly's "New TV Classics" list. Time's James Poniewozik named it the second-best TV series of 2006, and the sixth-best returning series of 2007, out of ten TV series. He also included it on his "The 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME" list. The show was also named the best show of 2006 by BuddyTV. while Paste named it the sixth-best sitcom of 2010. In 2013 the Writers Guild of America placed it at No. 66 on their list of 101 Best Written TV Series. In 2019, the series was ranked 32nd on The Guardian's list of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century.
The show has some superficial similarities to the comic strip Dilbert, which also features employees coping with an inept superior. John Spector, CEO of The Conference Board, says that they both show the impact a leader can have, for good or bad. Dilbert creator Scott Adams also touts the similarities: "The lesson from The Office and from Dilbert is that people are often dysfunctional, and no amount of training can fix it." A labor-affiliated group, American Rights at Work (ARAW), praised the second-season episode "Boys and Girls" for what it considered an unusually frank depiction of union busting on American television. Metacritic, a review aggregation website, graded only the first, third, sixth, and final seasons; however, it denoted that all four of them received "generally favorable reviews" from critics, awarding a 61, 85, 78, and 64 score—out of 100—to each of them, respectively. It later named it the thirteenth most mentioned series on "Best of Decade" top-ten lists.
The last few seasons were criticized for a dip in quality. The sixth season received criticisms for a lack of stakes for the characters, particularly Jim and Pam. The Office co-creator Ricky Gervais wrote in his blog, referring to "Search Committee," particularly Warren Buffett's guest appearance, "If you're going to jump a shark, jump a big one," and compared the episode to the Chris Martin episode of Gervais' other series, Extras (although he later said on his website, "I fucking didn't [diss The Office], that's for sure"). Some critics said the series should have ended after the departure of Steve Carell. In an IAmA interview on Reddit, Rainn Wilson felt that the eighth season possessed some mistakes "creatively," such as the chemistry between Spader and Helms, which he called "a bit dark" and argued that the show should have gone for a "brighter and more energized" relationship. Despite this, there are later-series episodes that have received critical acclaim, including "Niagara", "Garage Sale", "Goodbye, Michael", "Dwight Christmas", "A.A.R.M.", and "Finale".
=== Awards ===
The series received 42 Primetime Emmy Awards nominations, with five wins. It won for Outstanding Comedy Series in season two, Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series (Greg Daniels for "Gay Witch Hunt"), Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series (Jeffrey Blitz for "Stress Relief"), and Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Comedy Series (David Rogers and Claire Scanlon for "Finale"). Many cast and crew members have expressed anger that Carell did not receive an Emmy award for his performance in the series. Despite this, Carell won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Comedy or Musical in 2006. The series was also named the best TV series by the American Film Institute in 2006 and 2008, won two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series in 2006 and 2007 and won a Peabody Award in 2006.
=== Ratings ===
Premiering on Thursday, March 24, 2005, with a "preview" episode, after an episode of The Apprentice on NBC, The Office brought in 11.2 million viewers in the U.S., winning its time slot. When NBC moved the series to its intended Tuesday night slot for its official series premiere, it lost nearly half its audience with only 5.9 million viewers. The program averaged 5.4 million viewers, ranking it #102 for the 2004–05 U.S. television season. "Hot Girl," the first season's finale, rated a 2.2 with a 10 audience measurement share. Episodes were also rerun on CNBC on April 1 and April 24, 2005.
As the second season started, the success of Carell's hit summer movie The 40-Year-Old Virgin and online sales of episodes at iTunes helped the show. The increase in viewership led NBC to move the series to the "Must See TV" Thursday night in January 2006, where ratings continued to grow. By the 2005–06 season, it placed #67 (tied with 20/20). It averaged 8 million viewers with a 4.0/10 rating/share among viewers ages 18–49, and was up 80% in viewers from the year before and up 60% in viewers ages 18–49. The series ranked as NBC's highest rated scripted series during its run. The highest rated episode of the series was "Stress Relief," which was watched by 22.9 million viewers. This episode was aired right after Super Bowl XLIII. While later seasons dropped in the ratings, the show was still one of NBC's highest rated shows, and in October 2011 it was reported that it cost $178,840 per 30-second commercial, the most for any NBC scripted series. The series was also the most streamed of 2020, with 57 billion minutes watched in the United States.
==== Nielsen ratings ====
=== Cultural impact ===
The city of Scranton, long known mainly for its industrial past as a coal mining and rail center, has embraced, and ultimately has been redefined by the show. "We're really hip now," said the mayor's assistant. The Dunder Mifflin logo is on a lamppost banner in front of Scranton City Hall, as well as the pedestrian bridge to The Mall at Steamtown. The Pennsylvania Paper & Supply Company, whose tower is shown in the opening credits, plans to add it to the tower as well. Newspapers in other Northeastern cities have published travel guides to Scranton locations for tourists interested in visiting places mentioned in the show. Scranton has become identified with the show outside the United States as well. In a 2008 St. Patrick's Day speech in its suburb of Dickson City, former Taoiseach (the Irish Head of Government) Bertie Ahern identified the city as the home of Dunder Mifflin.
The inaugural The Office convention was held downtown in October 2007. Landmarks, some of which have been settings for the show, that served as venues include the University of Scranton, the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel and the Mall at Steamtown. Cast appearances were made by B. J. Novak, Ed Helms, Oscar Nunez, Angela Kinsey, Brian Baumgartner, Leslie David Baker, Mindy Kaling, Craig Robinson, Melora Hardin, Phyllis Smith, Creed Bratton, Kate Flannery, Bobby Ray Shafer, and Andy Buckley. Besides Novak and Kaling, writer appearances were made by Greg Daniels, Michael Schur, Jennifer Celotta, Lee Eisenberg, Gene Stupnitsky, Justin Spitzer, Anthony Ferrell, Ryan Koh, Lester Lewis, and Jason Kessler. Not present were writer-actor Paul Lieberstein (who was originally going to make an appearance), Steve Carell, John Krasinski, Rainn Wilson, and Jenna Fischer.
On an episode of The Daily Show, Republican presidential candidate John McCain, reportedly a devoted fan of the show, jokingly told Jon Stewart he might take Dwight Schrute as his running mate. Rainn Wilson later accepted on Dwight Schrute's behalf while on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. After the airing of "Garage Sale," where the character of Michael Scott decides to move to Colorado, Colorado governor John Hickenlooper issued a press release appointing Scott to the position of director of paper distribution in the Department of Natural Resources.
The show is often paid tribute by the band Relient K. Frontman Matt Thiessen is a fan of The Office, and during concerts will often perform a self-described "love song" about the series, titled "The Ballad of Dunder Mifflin," followed by him and the band playing the show's opening theme.
A parody musical, titled The Office! A Musical Parody, written by Bob McSmith, Tobly McSmith, and Assaf Gleizner, began performances at The Jerry Orbach Theatre on September 24, 2018, with an official opening on October 3, 2018. The show temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and resumed performances on April 9, 2021, becoming the first New York City stage musical to reopen following the pandemic. Cast members Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey attended a performance in May 2022.
Multiple scenes from The Office have served as the basis for Internet memes. Examples include a meme based on Michael exclaiming "No, god! No, God, please, no! No! No! Noooo!" upon seeing Toby in the season 5 episode "Frame Toby" and a meme called "They're the Same Picture" based on a quote by Pam in the season 7 finale "Search Committee".
== Other media ==
=== Online releases ===
NBC webcast the "Diversity Day" episode on March 16, 2005, on MySpace to promote the show's then-upcoming premiere, days before the TV broadcasts began. This was NBC's first-ever online debut of a complete episode of a network series, and also included a trimmed-down webisode version of the episode for on-demand viewing on MySpace the following day. Episodes from The Office were among the first shows available for download from the iTunes Store and for free streaming on NBC.com beginning in December 2005. In 2006, ten internet-exclusive webisodes featuring some of the characters on The Office aired on NBC.com. "Producer's Cuts" (containing approximately ten additional minutes of material) of the episodes "Branch Closing" and "The Return" were also made available on NBC.com. The Office also became available for download from Amazon.com's Unbox video downloads in 2006. Sales of new The Office episodes on iTunes ceased in 2007 due to a dispute between NBC and Apple ostensibly overpricing. As of September 9, 2008, The Office was put back on the iTunes Store and can be bought in HD and SD format. It is also available through all other major digital distribution sales platforms.
Netflix also offered the show for online viewing by subscribers, in addition to traditional DVD rental. The series would become one of the most streamed shows on Netflix, with its availability on a streamer leading to the show's sustained popularity. The Office left Netflix in the United States on December 31, 2020, as NBCUniversal acquired the rights to the show for its streaming service Peacock, which joined the following day. Exclusive to Peacock are extended episodes which include deleted scenes and additional footage. The first five seasons previously stream for free but now are premium only, and seasons 6–9 are available to stream on its premium tier.
When the show was in production, it was noted for its large amount of delayed viewing. Of the 12.4 million total viewings of "Fun Run," the fourth season's premiere, 2.7 million, or 22%, were on a computer via online streaming. "The Office," said The New York Times, "is on the leading edge of a sharp shift in entertainment viewing that was thought to be years away: watching television episodes on a computer screen is now a common activity for millions of consumers." It was particularly popular with online viewers, an NBC researcher said, because as an episode-driven sitcom without special effects it was easy to watch on smaller monitors such as those found on laptops and iPods. Between the online viewings and those who use digital video recorders, 25–50% of the show's viewers watched it after its scheduled airtime.
The show's Internet success became an issue in the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike. Daniels and many of the cast members who double as writers posted a video to YouTube shortly after the strike began, pointing out how little if any, they received in residuals from online and DVD viewing. "You're watching this on the Internet, a thing that pays us zero dollars," Schur said. "We're supposed to get 11 cents for every two trillion downloads." The writers were particularly upset that they weren't compensated for the Daytime Emmy Award-winning summer webisodes "The Accountants", which NBC considered promotional material despite the embedded commercials.
=== Other broadcasts ===
Aside from NBC, The Office has gone into syndication in the United States. It previously ran on local broadcast stations in off-network syndication and TBS. On December 13, 2017, Comedy Central announced that they had acquired all nine seasons of the show from NBCUniversal in a non-exclusive deal, and some episodes are available to stream on Comedy Central's official website and mobile app on a rotating basis. Reruns of The Office began airing on Comedy Central on January 15, 2018. The deal between Viacom (who owns Comedy Central) and NBCUniversal (for rights for airing reruns of The Office) was extended throughout 2021. The series will then air in a non-exclusive window on Paramount Media Networks and its sister Fave TV through 2025. The series aired on Cozi TV from January 1, 2019, to October 3, 2021. It also aired on Nick at Nite starting January 1, 2019, and later on Paramount Network, although Nick at Nite no longer airs the program as of May 5, 2019. The show then began airing on Freeform on January 1, 2022. In the United Kingdom, the show was named in listings magazines (but not onscreen) as The Office: An American Workplace when it originally aired there on BBC Three before moving to ITV2. In Australia, all 9 seasons aired on 10 Shake.
=== Promotional ===
The show's success has resulted in expansion outside of television. Characters have appeared in promotional materials for NBC, and a licensed video game—The Office—was released on November 28, 2007, by MumboJumbo from the development company Reveille. In 2008 two games were introduced via Pressman Toy Corp: The Office Trivia Board Game and The Office DVD Board Game. In 2009, The Office Clue was released, and The Office Monopoly was released in 2010. Other merchandise, from T-shirts and a bobblehead doll of Dwight Schrute to more office-specific items such as Dunder Mifflin copy paper and parodies of the Successories motivational poster series featuring the cast are available. Dunder Mifflin had two websites, and the cast members maintained blogs both as themselves and in character.
In April 2024, cast members Rainn Wilson, Craig Robinson, Jenna Fischer, Kate Flannery, Brian Baumgartner, and Creed Bratton appeared in an AT&T commercial for the company's AT&T Business Next Level Network.
=== Cast blogs ===
Several members of the cast maintained blogs on MySpace, including Jenna Fischer, Angela Kinsey, and Brian Baumgartner, who posted regularly during the season. Rainn Wilson wrote in character as Dwight for the "Schrute Space" blog on NBC.com, which was updated periodically; however, he stopped writing the blog himself. It is unknown whether Creed Bratton authors "Creed Thoughts," the blog attributed to his character.
=== Cast podcast ===
On September 11, 2019, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey announced their podcast called Office Ladies which premiered on October 16, 2019, on Earwolf. The podcast features Fischer and Kinsey watching episodes of The Office and offering behind-the-scenes details and answering fan questions. The theme song for the podcast, "Rubber Tree" is performed by Creed Bratton.
In February 2021, Brian Baumgartner started a podcast called The Office Deep Dive with Brian Baumgartner in which he sits down with other actors, writers, and others who worked on the show and share behind-the-scenes stories about the show. The podcast introduction song, "Bubble and Squeek" is performed by Creed Bratton.
=== Home media ===
The complete series of The Office was released on Blu-ray from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment on November 10, 2020.
== Spin-offs ==
A spin-off to the series was proposed in 2008, with a pilot episode expected to debut as the Super Bowl lead-out program in 2009. The idea created by the writers was that a copy machine breaks in The Office and then it is recalled, fixed, and shipped to Pawnee, Indiana, the setting of Parks and Recreation. However, The Office's creative team instead decided to develop Parks and Recreation as a separate series. Also, actress Rashida Jones was to portray a different character in both, causing a problem for the potential spin-off.
Another spin-off starring Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute running a bed-and-breakfast and beet farm, titled The Farm, was proposed in early 2012. In October 2012, however, NBC decided not to go forward with the series. A backdoor pilot episode was produced, and although the show was not picked up, it was modified and aired during the ninth season as "The Farm".
In September 2019, with the announcement of NBCUniversal's streaming service Peacock, Bonnie Hammer, Chairman of Direct-to-Consumer and Digital Enterprises at NBCU stated that it is her "hope and goal that we do an Office reboot". In March 2020, former showrunner Greg Daniels expressed doubts at a reboot being possible, and later that year, former NBC president of original content Bill McGoldrick stated that "a reboot has not come up specifically for Peacock".
A reboot of the series was revealed to be in development in September 2023, with Greg Daniels returning as a showrunner. In November 2023, Daniels clarified that he had no interest in rebooting the series by redoing "that same show with a different cast", instead preferring to have a spinoff series focusing on a different subject in the same world.
In July 2020, Leslie David Baker launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the production of a pilot for Uncle Stan, a proposed spin-off focusing on a now-engaged Stanley Hudson as "After several years of enjoying a relatively uneventful retirement lifestyle, Uncle Stan receives an urgent call for help from his favorite nephew, Lucky: a recent widower with two small children and a motorcycle repair/flower shop in Los Angeles. Soon Uncle Stan finds himself dishing out all the support and guidance he has to offer in his new California home." As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, plans for the spinoff were put "on hold" and later cancelled, with Leslie David Baker announcing that backers would be refunded.
In January 2024, it was announced that Greg Daniels was setting up a development room for a possible expansion of The Office to explore ideas for a follow-up series. The follow-up, to be available for streaming on Peacock, will center around the documentary crew from the original series finding a new subject in a dying Midwestern historic newspaper and the publisher trying to revive it with volunteer reporters. The follow-up has Daniels, Michael Koman, Howard Klein, Ben Silverman, Banijay Americas and the creatives behind the original British series (Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant) on board as its executive producers. Steve Carell, who portrayed Michael Scott, confirmed that he will not be making an appearance in the new show. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Them_Crooked_Vultures | Them Crooked Vultures | Them Crooked Vultures is an American rock supergroup formed in Los Angeles in 2009 with American musician Josh Homme on lead vocals and guitar, English musician John Paul Jones on bass and keyboards, and American musician Dave Grohl on drums and backing vocals. Chilean-American guitarist Alain Johannes also joins the group during live performances.
The band began recording in February 2009, and performed its first gig in Chicago on August 9, 2009, followed by a European debut on August 19. On October 1, the group embarked on the worldwide (excluding Africa, South America, and most Asia) Deserve the Future Tour with dates going into 2010. The band's first single "New Fang" was released in October 2009, followed by its self-titled debut album the following month, which debuted at No. 12 on the Billboard 200. The group won the 2011 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance for "New Fang".
After going on hiatus in 2010, each member of the band has expressed interest in reuniting to record a new album, with conflicting schedules being cited as the primary delay of a full-scale reunion. In September 2022, Them Crooked Vultures reunited for a pair of performances at both London's Wembley Stadium and the Los Angeles Kia Forum, both as part of tribute shows in honour of Foo Fighters' late drummer Taylor Hawkins. In both shows, the group were also joined by Greg Kurstin on keyboards.
In 2025, Jeff Mezydlo of Yardbarker included the band in his list of "the greatest metal acts that formed in the 2000s".
== History ==
=== Beginnings and Them Crooked Vultures (2005–2009) ===
A collaboration between Josh Homme, John Paul Jones, and Dave Grohl was first publicly mentioned by Grohl in a 2005 interview with Mojo, in which he declared "The next project that I'm trying to initiate involves me on drums, Josh Homme on guitar, and John Paul Jones playing bass." In a 2019 post on his Facebook page, Jimmy Page suggested that he could have been part of the band as well, based on conversations he had with Grohl. Of the nascent project, Homme's ex-wife Brody Dalle commented in July 2009 that "I'm not at liberty to talk about it [...] but I think [the project] is pretty amazing. Just beats and sounds like you've never heard before." After finding that the name Caligula was already taken, the members arbitrarily chose "Them Crooked Vultures" as a name with no significance.
British music magazine NME reported in July 2009 that the trio had begun recording in Los Angeles. The band performed its first show at the Metro, Chicago on August 9, 2009, at midnight. The band played all original material during its 80-minute set, debuting such songs as opener "Elephants", "Scumbag Blues", "Caligulove" and closing song "No One Loves Me & Neither Do I". The band made its European debut on August 19 with a performance at Melkweg in the Netherlands, the same day on which a short video clip of studio footage was uploaded by the band, featuring the song "No One Loves Me & Neither Do I".
With subsequent festival performances in Europe at Pukkelpop and Lowlands, the band first performed in the United Kingdom at London's Brixton Academy supporting English alternative rock band Arctic Monkeys on August 26. The trio subsequently performed at the Reading and Leeds Festivals on August 28 and 29, playing the Leeds Festival first then moving onto Reading the next day.
Them Crooked Vultures was released by Interscope Records in North America, and Sony Music internationally. On October 21, radio personality Alan Cross announced the lead single for Them Crooked Vultures debut album to be "New Fang" which premiered on October 26. The single was released on November 2 worldwide as a free download. Icon vs. Icon subsequently announced that the album would be released on November 17, 2009. On November 3, the band gave a free copy of "Mind Eraser (No Chaser)" to fans that had bought tickets to a live performance and offered it on iTunes as a free download. On November 9, Them Crooked Vultures started streaming their full album on their website, and also through a link to their mailing list with the title "Fuck Patience, Let's Dance."
On September 1, the band announced two 2009 tours of North America and the United Kingdom, in October and December respectively. The 2009 tour was titled Deserve the Future Tour and the UK leg sold out in just under 12 minutes, making it one of the quickest sold tours in the UK — without the band even officially releasing a song to date. On September 21, the band also announced three Germany dates for December 2009.
On November 17, 2009, the single "New Fang" was released as a downloadable song for Rock Band 2. On October 26, 2010, the song titled "Dead End Friends" was included as an on-disc track for the game Rock Band 3.
On January 25, 2010, it was confirmed that the band would perform at the Download Festival 2010.
On February 6, 2010, the band performed the songs "Mind Eraser, No Chaser" (now the second single) and "New Fang" as musical guests on Saturday Night Live. Dave Grohl also appeared in a sketch near the end of the show. A week later, the band appeared on the PBS show Austin City Limits broadcast February 13, 2010. The band appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on April 13–14, 2010.
The band also confirmed a series of festival appearances for 2010, including the Coachella Music Festival on April 16, Roskilde Festival, the Peace & Love Festival in Borlange, Sweden on July 1, 2010, and Hove Festival in Arendal, Norway on June 30, 2010. The band closed the show on the Alternastage at Rock Am Ring, Nürburg, Germany, playing after midnight on June 7, 2010.
In March, it was announced that the group were to play at The Royal Albert Hall in aid of The Teenage Cancer Trust with support coming from Little Fish.
On April 20, 2010, Them Crooked Vultures released a digital 45 onto iTunes featuring the songs "Mind Eraser, No Chaser" and the song "Hwy 1" on the A side. "Hwy 1" wasn't featured on the band's self-titled album but was usually played live. For those reasons, the version of "Hwy 1" featured was recorded live in Sydney, Australia. The B-side featured "Vulture Speak", an interview with the band members.
=== Hiatus and possible second album (2010–2022) ===
Grohl said in an interview that they are working on a second album that will be "more powerful than the first one". John Paul Jones also stated in an interview while touring in New Zealand that they will be recording a new album. When asked about the futures of Grohl and Homme's bands Jones said that they will get their frontmen back "eventually". A video was uploaded to the band's official YouTube channel entitled 'Fresh Pots' which NME claimed was filmed during recording for their follow-up album. Grohl clarified after the video's release that it was filmed a year prior, during the self-titled album's recording sessions.
On November 12, 2010, in an interview with BBC 6 Music, John Paul Jones has confirmed that the band is ready to resume working on putting together new material for a fresh release, and will go into the studio very soon. Jones has also stated that they are tentatively a year or so away from completing the CD, hinting on a possible late 2011 release.
In November 2011, touring member Alain Johannes noted that there are definitely plans to record a second studio album, stating: "The way that the cycles happen, you know, Dave jumped right into Foos, and then Josh toured more than a solid year with Queens for the self-titled album. So I expect at some point after the Queens cycle that there will be [another album]."
In December 2012, when asked about the band's future, Dave Grohl stated: "We've talked about it, I know that someday we'll get back together and do stuff, because we love playing with each other." Grohl once again mentioned a possible reunion in an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music's Beats 1 radio station in June 2017.
In an interview with The Guardian in August 2019, Grohl stated: "It's still hard to accept that I got to play in a band with [John Paul Jones]. Technically we're still a band. [...] We practice once every decade, and we're coming up on another decade aren't we? I don't have any official news but there's always something cooking." In a further interview with NME, Grohl elaborated: "We've talked. We've got together. I never say never. If you want me to be your drummer, we either have to be best fucking friends or you have to be better than Josh Homme and John Paul Jones. If those guys call and say that it's time to go, then I'm gonna go because that's the band. That's the band that I want to be the drummer of forever. Josh and I talk about it all the time. I know that John would love to as well. It's also like herding cats. So, we'll see."
=== Reunion for tribute shows (2022) ===
In September 2022, the band reunited for two tribute shows dedicated to the late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. At Wembley Stadium, the group performed "Gunman" as well as covers of Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and Queens of the Stone Age's "Long Slow Goodbye". At the KIA Forum show, they reprised the same set, with "Dead End Friends" played instead of "Gunman". During both performances, the group was joined by Greg Kurstin on keyboards and Alain Johannes on guitar.
== Musical style ==
Them Crooked Vultures has been described as hard rock and alternative rock. According to Louder Sound, "Them Crooked Vultures is loaded with ample elements of sludge metal, noise rock, grunge, stoner rock, and a generous dash of classic psychedelic rock sensibilities."
== Band members ==
Official members
Josh Homme – lead vocals, guitars, slide guitar
John Paul Jones – bass, keyboards, clavinet, piano, keytar, lap steel guitar, slide bass guitar, mandolin, violin, backing vocals
Dave Grohl – drums, backing vocals
Touring members
Alain Johannes – guitars, slide guitar, bass, keyboards, backing vocals
== Discography ==
=== Studio albums ===
=== Singles ===
=== Notes ===
== Awards and nominations ==
Grammy Awards
The Grammy Awards are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Bosse | Abraham Bosse | Abraham Bosse (c. 1604 – 14 February 1676) was a French artist, mainly as a printmaker in etching, but also in watercolour.
== Life ==
He was born to Huguenot (Calvinist) parents in Tours, France, where his father had moved from Germany. His father was a tailor, and Bosse's work always depicted clothes in loving detail. He married Catherine Sarrabat at Tours in 1632. He remained a Huguenot, dying before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, but was happy to illustrate religious subjects to Catholic taste.
== Work ==
Roughly 1600 etchings are attributed to him, with subjects including: daily life, religion, literature, fashion, technology, and science. Most of his output was illustrations for books, but many were also sold separately.
His style grows from Dutch and Flemish art, but is given a strongly French flavour. Many of his images give informative detail about middle and upper-class daily life in the period, although they must be treated with care as historical evidence. His combination of very carefully depicted grand interiors with relatively trivial domestic subjects was original and highly influential on French art, and also abroad — William Hogarth's engravings are, among other things, a parody of the style. Most of his images are perhaps best regarded as illustrations rather than art.
He was apprenticed in Paris about 1620 to the Antwerp-born engraver Melchior Tavernier, who was also an important publisher. His first etchings date to 1622, and are influenced by Jacques Bellange. Following a meeting in Paris about 1630, he became a follower of Jacques Callot, whose technical innovations in etching he popularised in the famous and much translated Traité des manières de graver en taille-douce [Treatise on Line Engraving] (1645), the first to be published. He took Callot's highly detailed small images to a larger size, and a wider range of subject matter.
Unlike Callot, his declared aim, in which he largely succeeded, was to make etchings look like engravings, to which end he sacrificed willingly the freedom of the etched line, whilst certainly exploiting to the full the speed of the technique. Like most etchers, he frequently used engraving on a plate in addition to etching, but produced no pure engravings.
== Controversy ==
In 1641, he began to attend classes given by the architect Girard Desargues (1591–1661) on perspective and other technical aspects of depiction. Bosse not only adopted these methods but also published a series of works between 1643–1653 explaining and promoting them.
In 1648, Cardinal Mazarin established the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. Bosse was made an honorary member in 1651. However his publicising of Desargues' methods embroiled him in a controversy with Charles Le Brun and his followers, who had different methods, and also a belief that "genius" rather than technical method should be the guide in creating artworks. In 1661 Bosse was forced to withdraw from the Academy; he established his own school as an alternative, but it was suppressed by Le Brun.
== Major works ==
=== Etchings & Images ===
Le jardin de la Noblesse françoise — fashion (partly after Jean de St-Igny)(1629)
Les Cris de Paris (c. 1630) — street cries
Les gardes françoises (1632)
Le mariage à la ville, le mariage à la campagne (1633) — bourgeois vs pastoral weddings
Les métiers (1635?) — The trades
Plates for L'Ariane (1639)
Plates for Le Trésor des merveilles de la Maison Royale de Fontainebleau (1642)
La manière universelle de M. des Argues Lyonnois pour poser l'essieu & placer les heures & autres choses aux cadrans au Soleil (1643), printed by P. de Hayes, Paris
La pratique du trait à preuve de M. des Argues Lyonnois pour la coupe des pierres en Architecture pratiquer la perspective (1643)
De la manière de graver à l'eaux-forte et au burin (1645)
Traité des manières de graver en taille douce sur l'airin par le moyen des eaux-fortes... (1645) The "Manual of Etching".
Manière universelle de M. des Argues pour pratiquer la perspective par petit-pied comme le géométral... (1648) — Manual on perspective
Moyen universel de pratiquer la perspective sur les tableaux ou surfaces irrégulières... (1653)
The famous frontispiece for Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (1651) was created with input from Hobbes.
Plates for La Pucelle ou la France délivrée (1656)
Des ordres des colonnes (1664) — Architecture
Traité des pratiques géométrales et de perspective (1665)
=== Later Collections ===
Die Kunst, in Kupfer zu stechen, Ilmer, Osnabrück 1975 (Repr. d. Ausg. Nürnberg 1765)
Radier-Büchlein. Handelt von der Etzkunst, nemlich wie man mit Scheidwasser in Kupfer etzen, das Wasser und wie auch den harten und weichen Etzgrund machen solle, Moos, München 1977, ISBN 3-7879-0088-8 (Repr. d. Ausg. Nürnberg 1689)
== Gallery == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrochoerus | Hydrochoerus | The genus Hydrochoerus contains two living (the lesser and greater capybaras) and three extinct species of rodents from South America, the Caribbean island of Grenada, California and Panama. Capybaras are the largest living rodents. The name of the genus is derived from Ancient Greek ὕδωρ (húdor), meaning "water", and χοῖρος (khoîros), meaning "pig".
== Characteristics ==
Capybaras are semiaquatic, found in and near lakes, rivers, swamps, and flooded savanna. Their diets are dominated by grasses. Adults weigh up to 65 kg (143 lb). The gestation period is 130–150 days, with two to eight (most commonly four) young born to females.
== Behavior ==
Capybaras are highly social, living in groups of up to 100 and communicating through a variety of vocalizations. Breeding is polygynous, with males forming harems.
== Phylogeny and taxonomy ==
Molecular results have consistently suggested Hydrochoerus is most closely related to Kerodon (the rock cavies), and the two evolved from within the Caviidae. This led Woods and Kilpatrick to unite the two into the subfamily Hydrochoerinae within the Caviidae. Based on use of a molecular clock approach, Hydrochoerus appears to have diverged from Kerodon in the late Middle Miocene (about 12 million years ago).
The extinct North American species formerly recognized as Hydrochoerus holmesi is now assigned to Neochoerus.
=== Species ===
==== Extant Species ====
==== Fossils ====
† Hydrochoerus ballesterensis – Pliocene capybara endemic to Argentina
† Hydrochoerus gaylordi – Plio-Pleistocene capybara endemic to the Caribbean island of Grenada
† Hydrochoerus hesperotiganites – Late Pleistocene capybara endemic to North America (San Diego County, California)
== Distribution ==
Presently, capybaras live in northern South America and adjacent southern Central America (lesser capybara) and in the tropical to subtropical regions of South America (capybara). The fossil species inhabited Buenos Aires Province in Argentina (H. ballesterensis) and the Caribbean island of Grenada (H. gaylordi). One species, H. hesperotiganites even ranged as far north as California. Fossils of unspecified Hydrochoerus have been found in Late Pleistocene to Holocene sediments of Curití, Santander, at an altitude of 1,500 m (4,900 ft) in the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. Fauna found at the same site included the South American tapir (Tapirus terrestris), Cryptotis sp., collared peccary (Tayassu tajacu), white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari), and Mazama sp. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Canucks_(WHL) | Vancouver Canucks (WHL) | The Vancouver Canucks were a minor league professional ice hockey team in the Pacific Coast Hockey League and the Western Hockey League, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Inaugurated in 1945 with the PCHL, they became a WHL team with the merger of the PCHL with the Western Canada Senior Hockey League in 1952. The Canucks played 25 seasons in the WHL between 1945 and 1970. They were replaced by an expansion National Hockey League franchise of the same name in 1970, joining that league with the expansion Buffalo Sabres.
The Vancouver Canucks won six President's/Lester Patrick Cups (the trophy was renamed in 1960 after the death of Lester Patrick), two PCHL titles (1946 and 1948) and four WHL titles (1958, 1960, 1969 and 1970). They were also regular season champions four times. They played home games in the PNE Forum arena at the Pacific National Exhibition in east Vancouver, before moving for their last two seasons into the Pacific Coliseum just to the north.
== Personnel ==
=== Players ===
Five Canucks players have been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Andy Bathgate (inducted in 1978) played with Vancouver for four years (1952–54 and 1968–70) and was on the team for their final two championships. In 1969–70, he recorded 108 points in 72 games, earning the George Leader Cup as league MVP. Johnny Bower, Tony Esposito, Allan Stanley and Gump Worsley – all Hall of Fame inductees – have all played one season with the Canucks.
=== Coaches ===
1948–49: Bill Cowley
1949–50: Bill Carse
1950–51: Bill Carse replaced by Murph Chamberlain
1951–52: Murph Chamberlain; replaced by Hugh Currie; replaced by Joe Carveth
1959–61: Art Chapman
1961–62: Phil Maloney (11–35–3); replaced by Hugh Currie (7–13–1) (February 7, 1962)
1962–63: Max McNab
1966–67: Bert Olmstead
1967–68: Jim Gregory
1968–69: Joe Crozier
1969–70: Joe Crozier; replaced by Hal Laycoe
=== General Managers ===
1948–49: Bill Cowley
1949–50: Coleman E. Hall
1950–51: –
1960–61: Coley Hall
1961–62: Art Chapman (temp); replaced by Dave Dauphine (after Nov.)
1962–63: Max McNab
1967–68: Annis Stukus
1968–69: Joe Crozier
1969–70: Joe Crozier; replaced by Bud Poile
=== Presidents ===
1948–61: Coleman E. Hall
1962–63: Fred J. Hume (owner)
1968–69: Cyrus McLean
1969–70: Cyrus McLean; replaced by Thomas K. Scallen
== Honoured members ==
=== Hall of famers ===
Players
Andy Bathgate, C, 1952–54 & 1968–70, inducted 1978
Johnny Bower, G, 1954–55, inducted 1976
Tony Esposito, G, 1967–68, inducted 1988
Allan Stanley, D, 1953–54, inducted 1981
Gump Worsley, G, 1953–54, inducted 1980
=== WHL league award winners ===
Players
Leader Cup – MVP
Emile Francis, G, 1952–53
Lorne Worsley, G, 1953–54
Phil Maloney, F, 1955–56
Hank Bassen, G, 1959–60
Phil Maloney, F, 1962–63
Billy McNeill, F, 1964–65
Billy McNeill, F, 1965–66
Andy Bathgate, F, 1969–70
Rookie Award
Orland Kurtenbach, D, 1957–58
Bruce Gamble, G, 1958–59
Jim Baird, G, 1961–62
Gilles Villemure, G,
Ron Boehm, F, 1966–67
Brad Selwood, F, 1969–70
Most Gentlemanly Player – Fred J. Hume Cup
Phil Maloney, F, 1961–62
Phil Maloney, F, 1962–63
Phil Maloney, F, 1967–68
Outstanding Defenceman – Hal Laycoe Cup
Larry Cahan, D, 1966–67
Marc Reaume, D, 1969–70
Leading Scorer Award
Phil Maloney, F, 1955–56 (95 points)
Outstanding Goaltender Award
Emile Francis, G, 1952–53 GA-216 GAA-3.08
Lorne Worsley, G, 1953–54 GA-168 GAA-2.40
Johnny Bower, G, 1954–55 GP-63 GA-171 GAA-2.71
Ray Mikulan, G, 1955–56 GA-181 GAA-2.54
Marcel Pelletier, G, 1957–58 GA-173 GAA-2.43
Hank Bassen, G, 1959–60 GA-172 GAA-2.48
George Gardner, G, 1969–70 GA-171 GAA-2.88
== Year by year standings ==
Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against
== Year by year statistical leaders ==
=== Total points (team, season) ===
Year Player GP Goals Assists Pts PIM Leading scorer
1952–'53 Larry Popein 70 25 44 69 23 Ian MacIntosh, Walt Atanas – 28
1953–'54 Larry Popein 70 34 32 66 22 Larry Popein
1954–'55 Doug Adam 67 30 22 52 53 Doug Adam
1955–'56 Phil Maloney 70 37 58 95 14 Phil Maloney
1956–'57 Phil Maloney 70 43 55 98 8 Phil Maloney
1957–'58 Phil Maloney 70 35 59 94 0 Jack McLeod – 44*
1958–'59 Ted Hampson 66 27 41 68 23 Dan Belisle – 31
1959–'60 Colin Kilburn 70 23 47 70 79 Jim Powers – 30
1960–'61 Bruce Carmichael 70 30 47 77 36 and Dan Belisle – 30
1961–'62 Phil Maloney 70 34 52 86 2 Barrie Ross – 35
1962–'63 Phil Maloney 69 24 61 90 8 Carl "Buddy" Boone – 44*
1963–'64 Phil Maloney 65 28 53 81 38 Carl "Buddy" Boone – 38
1964–'65 Billy McNeill 68 29 59 88 86 and Phil Maloney – 29
1965–'66 Billy McNeill 72 40 62 102 20 Billy McNeill
1966–'67 Gordon Vejprava 71 36 46 82 27 Gordon Vejprava
1967–'68 Phil Maloney 72 22 46 68 6 Bruce Carmichael – 31
1968–'69 Bob Barlow 74 36 48 84 50 Andy Bathgate – 37
1969–'70 Andy Bathgate 72 40 68* 108* 66 Paul Andrea – 44*
* – team record
Team record for PIM/season – 251, John Arbor, 1969–'70
=== Total points (team, playoffs) ===
Year Player GP Goals Assists Pts PIM
1952–'53 Larry Popein 9 5 10 15 0
1953–'54 Charles McCullough 13 5 8 13 0
1954–'55 Phil Maloney 5 2 2 4 0
1955–'56 Phil Maloney 15 8 7 15 4
1957–'58 Phil Maloney 11 8 17* 25* 4
1958–'59 (three players tied with 7 points in 9 games)
1959–'60 Ray Cyr 11 5 11 16 11
1960–'61 Bruce Carmichael 9 3 3 6 2
1962–'63 Phil Maloney 7 2 7 9 0
Robert Kabel 7 5 4 9 2
1964–'65 Phil Maloney 5 1 5 6 0
Billy McNeill 5 2 4 6 0
1965–'66 Larry Cahan 7 4 12 16 4
1966–'67 Bryan Hextall 8 3 5 8 11
1968–'69 Bryan Hextall 8 4 7 11 22
1969–'70 Murray Hall 11 10 11 21 10
Gerry Glover 11 5 16 21 12
* – team record
Team record for goals/playoff – 14, Jack McLeod, 1957–'58
Team record for PIM/playoff – 47, Ted McCaskill, 1969–'70
=== Goaltender stats, season ===
Year Player GP GA EN SO GAA W L T SVS .PC
1952–'53 Emile Francis 70 216 5 3.09 32 28 10 – won Outstanding Goalkeeper
1953–'54 Lorne "Gump" Worsley 70 168 4 2.40 39 24 7 – won Outstanding Goalkeeper
1954–'55 Johnny Bower 63 171 7 2.71 30 25 8 – won Outstanding Goalkeeper
1955–'56 Ray Mikulan 71 181 2.54 – won Outstanding Goalkeeper
1956–'57 Ray Mikulan 71 231 0 4 3.25 1772 .885
1957–'58 Marcel Pelletier 71 173 0 8* 2.43 1749 .910* – won Outstanding Goalkeeper
1958–'59 Bruce Gamble 65 199 2 7 3.06 29 26 20 1630 .891
1959–'60 Hank Bassen 69 172 5 2.45 44 19 6 – won Outstanding Goalkeeper
1960–'61 Claude Evans 53 147 6 2.77 27 23 3
1961–'62 Claude Evans 40 165 2 4.08 11 26 3
Art LaRiviere 23
1962–'63 Gilles Villemure 70 228 5 3.26 35 31 4
1963–'64 Marcel Paille 70 254 2 3.60 26 41 3
1964–'65 Gilles Villemure 60 212 6 3.46 27 26 6
1965–'66 Gilles Villemure 69 223 5 3.20 32 34 3
1966–'67 Don Simmons 72 213 1 7 2.95 38 32 2
1967–'68 Tony Esposito 63 199 0 4 3.20 25 33 4
Jean-Guy Morissette 11 58 0 0 5.45 1 8 1
1968–'69 George Gardner 53 154 2 2 3.01 25 18 9
Charlie Hodge 13 32 1 0 2.54 7 2 4
Al Millar 12 34 0 0 3.52 4 4 1
1969–'70 George Gardner 60 171 0 3 2.88 41 14 6 – won Outstanding Goalkeeper
Lynn Zimmerman 13 48 0 0 3.78 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramore | Paramore | Paramore is an American rock band formed in Franklin, Tennessee, in 2004. Since 2017, the band's lineup has included lead vocalist Hayley Williams, lead guitarist Taylor York, and drummer Zac Farro. Williams and Farro are founding members of the group, while York, a high school friend of the original lineup, joined in 2007.
The band was signed to Fueled by Ramen, a subsidiary of Atlantic Records. Williams was signed to Atlantic separately, as she was scouted when she was a teenager. They were the only label to let her stay in the band instead of going solo, but Atlantic said the rest of the band had to sign to Fueled by Ramen. The group's debut album, All We Know Is Falling (2005), reached number 30 on Billboard's Heatseekers Chart in 2006 and number four on the UK Rock Chart in 2009.
The band's second album, Riot! (2007) became a mainstream success thanks to the success of the singles "Misery Business", "Crushcrushcrush", and "That's What You Get". The album was certified Platinum in the US and the band received a Best New Artist nomination at the 2008 Grammy Awards. Their 2009 follow-up, Brand New Eyes, reached number two on the Billboard 200 and became the band's second-highest-charting album to date. It produced the top-forty single "The Only Exception" and went platinum in Ireland and the UK.
Following the departure of Zac and Josh Farro in 2010, the band released their self-titled fourth album in 2013. Paramore gave the band their first number one album on the US Billboard 200 and was also the number one album in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. It included the singles "Still Into You" and "Ain't It Fun", with the latter winning the Grammy Award for Best Rock Song for Williams and York as songwriters, making it Paramore's first Grammy win. The band's lineup changed once again after this album, with bassist Jeremy Davis leaving the band near the end of 2015 and former drummer Zac Farro rejoining the band in 2017. Their albums After Laughter (2017) and This Is Why (2023) peaked within the top-ten, the latter of which won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album. The band has been on hiatus since September 2025.
== History ==
=== 2002–2004: Formation and early years ===
In 2002, at age 13, vocalist Hayley Williams moved from her hometown Meridian, Mississippi, to Franklin, Tennessee, where she met brothers Josh Farro and Zac Farro at a weekly supplemental program for home-schooled students. Shortly after arriving, she began taking vocal lessons with Brett Manning. Prior to forming Paramore, Williams and bassist Jeremy Davis, along with friend Kimee Read, took part in a funk cover band called the Factory, while Josh and Zac Farro had practiced together after school. The other members of what was soon to be Paramore had been "edgy about the whole female thing" of having Williams as vocalist, but, because they were good friends, she started writing for them. Williams said of the members when she first met them, "They were the first people I met who were as passionate about music as I was."
Williams was originally signed to Atlantic Records as a solo artist in 2003. She had been introduced to Atlantic A&R Tom Storms by Kent Marcus and Jim Zumwalt, lawyers of managers Dave Steunebrink and Richard Williams, and then eventually signed to Atlantic by Jason Flom. Steunebrink and Richard Williams had originally discovered and signed her to a production deal that was later bought out by Atlantic. The original plan of the label was to turn her into a pop singer, but Williams resisted, saying that she wanted to play alternative rock music with a band. In an interview with HitQuarters the band's A&R at Atlantic, Steve Robertson, said, "She wanted to make sure that we didn't look at her as some straight to Top 40 pop princess. She wanted to make sure that she and her band got the chance to show what they can do as a rock band writing their own songs." Label president Julie Greenwald and the label staff decided to go with her wishes. The original management team for the band was Dave Steunebrink, Creed manager Jeff Hanson, and Hanson's assistant Mark Mercado.
The band was officially formed by Josh Farro (lead guitar/backing vocals), Zac Farro (drums), Davis (bass guitar) and Williams (lead vocals) in 2004, with the later addition of Williams' neighbor Jason Bynum (rhythm guitar). When Davis showed up, he was stunned to find out the drummer was only fourteen years old. He admitted "I had very, very, very, little faith in everyone in the band because of their age. I remember thinking, 'This is not going to work because this kid is way too young,' but that first day of practice was amazing. I knew we were on to something." According to Williams, the name "Paramore" came from the maiden name of the mother of one of their first bass players. Once the group learned the meaning of the homophone paramour ('secret lover'), they decided to adopt the name, using the Paramore spelling.
Paramore was originally supposed to release their music on Atlantic Records, but the label's marketing department decided it would be better for the image of the band to not have them attached to a major label. Instead, they released their music through the niche label Fueled by Ramen. Williams was signed to Atlantic separately and the rest of the band had to sign to Fueled by Ramen. Lyor Cohen, the head of Warner Music Group, had already identified Fueled by Ramen as a label they should partner with. It was decided the rock label would make an ideal match for Paramore. According to Robertson, when the band was presented to Fueled by Ramen's CEO John Janick, "he got the vision of the band immediately." Janick went to a Taste of Chaos performance in Orlando, Florida, to see the band perform live. In April 2005, after a smaller private performance at a warehouse, the band was signed to Atlantic Records and Fueled By Ramen.
The band's first song written together was "Conspiracy", which was later used on their debut album. At this time, they were touring the Southeast, usually being driven by Williams' parents. She commented that "Back then, I guess we were all thinking, after school, we'll go to the house and practice. It was what we loved to do for fun, and still do! I don't think any of us really knew this would turn out to be what it's become."
=== 2005–2006: All We Know Is Falling ===
Paramore traveled back to Orlando, Florida, but shortly after arriving, Jeremy Davis left the band, citing personal reasons. The remaining four members of Paramore continued with the album, writing "All We Know" about his departure, and later deciding to base All We Know Is Falling around the concept. The album artwork also reflected Paramore's grief, as Hayley Williams explains, "The couch on the cover of All We Know is Falling with no one there and the shadow walking away; it's all about Jeremy leaving us and us feeling like there's an empty space."
Before touring, the band added John Hembree (bass) to their lineup to replace Davis. During that summer, Paramore was featured on the Shiragirl stage of the 2005 Warped Tour. After being asked by the band, Jeremy Davis returned to Paramore after five months apart, replacing Hembree. All We Know Is Falling was released on July 26, 2005, and reached No. 30 on Billboard's Heatseekers Chart. Paramore released "Pressure" as its first single, with a video directed by Shane Drake, but the song failed to chart. The video featured the band performing in a warehouse, eventually getting sprayed with water sprinklers as the storyline of a conflicted couple occurs. In July, "Emergency" was released as the second single, the video again reuniting the band with director Shane Drake and featuring Hunter Lamb (rhythm guitar), who replaced Jason Bynum in December 2005. The video for "Emergency" showcased Paramore in another performance, this time fixing the members' bloody costumes. The third single, "All We Know", was released with limited airtime, with the video consisting of a collection of live performances and backstage footage. After the band's later success, All We Know Is Falling and "Pressure" were certified Gold by the RIAA.
In January 2006, the band took part in the Winter Go West tour, where they played alongside Seattle bands Amber Pacific and the Lashes. In February, Hayley Williams was featured on "Keep Dreaming Upside Down" by October Fall. In spring of 2006, Paramore was an opening act on tours for both Bayside and the Rocket Summer. The band then covered Foo Fighters' "My Hero" for the Sound of Superman soundtrack.
During the summer of 2006, Paramore played a portion of Warped Tour, primarily on the Volcom and Hurley Stages. During the band's time at Warped Tour, they released The Summer Tic EP, which was sold exclusively during the tour. Paramore's first US headlining tour began on August 2, 2006, to a sold-out audience with support from This Providence, Cute Is What We Aim For, and Hit the Lights. That year they were voted "Best New Band", and Hayley Williams was voted as No. 2 "Sexiest Female", by readers of the British magazine Kerrang!.
In 2007, Lamb left the group to get married, and Paramore continued onward as a quartet. Paramore was then named by British magazine NME as one of ten bands to watch out for in their "New Noise 2007" feature. Paramore was featured in Kerrang! magazine once more; however, Hayley Williams believed the article was an untrue portrayal of the band, particularly because it focused on her as the main component. Afterwards, Williams addressed the issue in the band's LiveJournal, with a post saying, "we could've done without a cover piece. sorry, if it offends anyone at Kerrang! but I don't think there was one bit of truth in that article." In April, Hayley Williams' vocals were featured in "Then Came To Kill" by the Chariot. They headlined a tour in April through May 2007 with This Providence, the Almost, and Love Arcade. The Almost and Love Arcade were replaced by Quietdrive for the second half of the tour.
=== 2007–2008: Riot! ===
Before work began on the band's next album, Davis was expelled from the band due to "his lack of work ethic and participation in things that Zac, Hayley and I didn't agree with," according to Josh Farro. After an agreement involving the remaining three members, Davis was reinstated as bassist, and Taylor York became the band's new guitarist. York had been in a band with the Farro brothers before the two met Williams.
Paramore recorded the album with producer David Bendeth, who had previously worked with Hawthorne Heights, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, and Killswitch Engage. The album was recorded in New Jersey. The album, titled Riot!, was released on June 12, 2007, entering the Billboard 200 at number 20 and the UK charts at number 24. The album sold 44,000 units its first week in the United States. The name Riot! had been chosen because it meant "a sudden outburst of uncontrolled emotion," and it was a word that "summed it all up." "Misery Business" was released as the first single from the album. According to when discussing what Misery Business was about, Williams stated, "When I was 13 or 14 and I had a crush on Josh, he didn't like me back," Williams said. "He would go hang out with his girlfriend, who I wrote 'Misery Business' about because I was a dick." In the summer of 2007, Paramore participated in their third Warped Tour, and posted journals of their experiences on yourhereblog for MTV.
On October 11, 2007, the music video for "Crushcrushcrush" debuted on the United States television as the next single from Riot!. The video for "Crushcrushcrush" featured the band playing a performance in a barren desert, being spied upon, and later destroying their equipment. The single was released in the United States on November 19 and made available in the United Kingdom on November 12, 2007. Hayley Williams recorded guest vocals for the tracks "The Church Channel" and "Plea" for the Say Anything concept album In Defense of the Genre, released on October 23, 2007. The group performed live in an acoustic style in Boston on November 29, 2007, for FNX Radio. On December 31, 2007, Paramore performed on the MTV New Year's Eve program which ran from 11:30 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.
Paramore was featured on the cover of February 2008 issue of Alternative Press magazine and voted "Best Band Of 2007" by the readers. The band was nominated for "Best New Artist" at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards, presented on February 10, 2008. Early 2008 saw Paramore touring the United Kingdom, supporting their album Riot!, along with New Found Glory. In early February 2008, the band began a tour in Europe; however, on February 21, 2008, the band announced that they had canceled six shows due to personal issues. Williams wrote on the band's website that "the break will give that band 'a chance to get away and work out our personal issues'". MTV.com reported that fans of Paramore were speculating about the future of the band and reported rumors of trouble had begun earlier in the month, when Josh Farro expressed his anger against the media's focus on Hayley Williams. The band, however, returned to their hometown to record the music video for the fourth single "That's What You Get", which was then released on March 24, 2008.
The band toured with Jimmy Eat World in the United States in April and May 2008. The band headlined the Give it a Name festival in the United Kingdom on May 10 and 11, 2008. Paramore played their first Ireland show at the RDS in Dublin on June 2, 2008, followed by the 2008 Vans Warped Tour from July 1–6. Starting on July 28, Paramore embarked on a tour named "The Final Riot!". They were joined by Jack's Mannequin, Phantom Planet, and Paper Route on the tour. The band released a live album named The Final Riot! on November 25, 2008. The album includes a bonus DVD with a full concert recorded in Chicago, as well as a behind the scenes documentary. As of April 9, 2009, The Final Riot! is certified gold in the United States.
=== 2009–2011: Brand New Eyes, departure of the Farros, and Singles Club ===
In September 2008, Williams announced that the band were planning on releasing their third studio album in summer 2009. On November 18, 2008, the band announced they were in the process of writing their next album.
Paramore spent six weeks in pre-production at Emac Studios in their hometown of Franklin, the first time they had undergone pre-production without the guidance of a producer. The band was visited by record producer Rob Cavallo who reassured the band that they were on the right track. The band subsequently felt that the album and that their new material had the potential to surpass the success of their previous work. The band originally planned to record in Nashville, but ended up recording in Calabasas, California, with Cavallo in March 2009. The first single from the album was "Ignorance" and was released July 7, 2009. Paramore was the special guest with Bedouin Soundclash, The Sounds and Janelle Monáe at the No Doubt Summer Tour 2009, starting in May 2009 in outdoor amphitheaters and arenas across the US and Canada. The official music video for "Ignorance" aired on all MTV platforms, networks, and websites on August 13, 2009. Paramore, along with Paper Route and The Swellers, toured in support of Brand New Eyes in the fall of 2009. Some tour dates were postponed due to Hayley Williams becoming infected with laryngitis. "Brick By Boring Brick", "The Only Exception", "Careful" and "Playing God" were the album's following singles. "The Only Exception" was a top-forty single and went platinum in Ireland and the UK. To promote the album, the band recorded a performance for MTV Unplugged.
Paramore then played a sold out 15-date European tour with You Me At Six, Paper Route and Now Now Every Children. Their stadium tour culminated at London's Wembley Arena, to an audience of 12,500. The band performed in 2010 in the Australian Soundwave Festival along with bands such as Faith No More, AFI, You Me at Six, All Time Low, A Day to Remember, and Taking Back Sunday. Shortly before the tour, lead guitarist Josh Farro announced that he was engaged and stayed behind to plan his wedding. Justin York, brother of Taylor York, filled in for him on the tour. The band, with Farro returned, embarked on a spring tour of the U.S. in late April. The band headlined the 2010 Honda Civic Tour, which began on July 23 in Raleigh, NC and closed on September 19 in Anaheim, CA. After a short United Kingdom tour in November 2010, the band announced, on December 2, 2010, the official dates for a South American tour to take place during February and March 2011. The band were set to take a break after their South American Tour in 2011 to write for their fourth studio album.
On December 18, 2010, a message was released through Paramore.net stating that Josh and Zac Farro were leaving the band. The band also confirmed the scheduled South American tour would still happen. Josh Farro wrote a statement on the departure on his Blogger, claiming that the band had become "a manufactured product of a major-label." He accused Williams of being manipulated by her management and her parents, treating the group as her solo project, and claimed she was the only member of the band who was signed to Atlantic Records, while her bandmates were simply "riding on the coattails of her dream." On December 30, 2010, MTV News interviewed Williams, York and Davis in Franklin, Tennessee, regarding their reactions to Farro's response. The band members confirmed many of Farro's statements, notably that Williams was indeed the only member of the band actually signed to Atlantic. They added that they felt the statement was irrelevant, and claimed they had addressed many of the Farro's critiques already throughout the course of their career.
On January 10, 2011, in an interview with MTV, Hayley Williams said that despite the band losing two of its founding members, they would release new music in 2011, although they had not confirmed if it would be a full album for release or just a small number of songs. The singer also admitted that Paramore's style was likely to change with the new lineup, but clarified that the band would still retain their core signature sound. Paramore later confirmed they were entering a studio in Los Angeles with producer Rob Cavallo to record what would be the Singles Club.
On June 3, 2011, Paramore released the single "Monster", featured on the Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack. This is the first song that the band released without the Farro brothers. On June 9, 2011, Hayley Williams announced that the band had started to write their fourth album, which they hoped to start recording at the end of the year, with an early 2012 release. On October 11, 2011, Paramore announced that they would release a new song for each of the remaining months of 2011. The band set up the Singles Club on their website which gave fans the chance to purchase the singles when they were released, as they were released exclusively through the Singles Club and were therefore not sold elsewhere. A song called "Renegade", premiered the day of the announcement, with "Hello Cold World" following on November 7, and "In the Mourning" on December 5. In 2011, former member, Josh Farro, formed Novel American, with Zac Farro later joining the band.
=== 2012–2015: Paramore and Davis' third exit ===
On April 18, 2012, Williams announced that the producer for their fourth album was Justin Meldal-Johnsen. Current Angels & Airwaves and former Nine Inch Nails drummer Ilan Rubin was confirmed to be the session drummer for the recording of the album. Paramore was officially released on April 5, 2013, and a number one at US albums chart Billboard 200. The first single from the album, titled "Now", was released online on January 22, 2013, and the album's second single, "Still Into You", was released on March 14, 2013, achieving commercial success. The third single, "Daydreaming", was released on December 2, 2013. The album's fourth single, "Ain't It Fun", was released on February 4, 2014, eventually becoming the band's highest-charting song in the United States and a winner for Best Rock Song at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards. On November 24, 2014, Paramore: Self-Titled Deluxe was released, which includes a remake of "Hate to See Your Heart Break", a song originally on Paramore, featuring Joy Williams; this is the band's first collaboration on a song. The band embarked on an intimate tour with Copeland, they added in a blog post: "It feels right to bring the Self-Titled era to a close. We've had a very personal and hugely triumphant journey with this one. What wouldn't feel right is saying goodbye to this time in the band's career and not celebrating it with our fans in some special way."
On December 14, 2015, bassist Jeremy Davis left the band. In March 2016, Davis was involved in a legal battle with Paramore, claiming to be eligible to enjoy the benefits of a business partnership with Hayley Williams as a co-owner of the band. This was quickly dismissed and he was again involved in a legal battle with Hayley Williams and Taylor York over a breach of contract that would entitle him to ownership and authorship of songs on their self-titled record, including "Ain't It Fun". He also claimed to be eligible to enjoy the benefits of the earnings the two received from these songs and album. Davis reached a settlement with the band in May 2017.
During this period, lead singer Williams later revealed that she suffered from depression and mental health issues following the departure of Davis as well as a divorce with her ex-husband Chad Gilbert. In an interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1 Radio, she has described it as "torment" and mentioned that she "didn't laugh for a long time." As a result, Williams privately left the band for a short period in 2015, briefly leaving York as the only remaining member of the group.
=== 2016–2019: Zac Farro's return and After Laughter ===
On January 19, 2016, Williams announced that the band was in the process of writing their fifth album. On June 8, 2016, the band posted a short video of themselves in the studio to their social media. This was preceded by a number of images which all included both former drummer Zac Farro and producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen, leading fans and various media outlets to speculate the return of Farro. On June 17, Farro was featured yet again in a picture uploaded to social media, this time behind a drum set, confirming that he would be recording drums for the album, though he later clarified that he was only recording drums for the album and that he had not rejoined the band as a full member. Despite this, on February 2, 2017, the band announced that Farro would return as the official drummer of the band.
On April 19, 2017, Paramore released "Hard Times" as the lead single from their album After Laughter, which they announced would be released on May 12, 2017. On May 3, a second single was released, titled "Told You So". A music video for the song "Fake Happy" was released on November 17, 2017. On February 5, 2018, a music video for "Rose-Colored Boy" was released, which is also the album's fourth single. The music video for "Caught in the Middle", the album's fifth single, was released on June 26, 2018. On September 7, 2018, Hayley Williams announced during a concert that the band will play the song "Misery Business" "for the last time for a really long time," mainly due to a line from the second verse that was perceived to be sexist, though this decision was reversed in 2022.
=== 2020–2025: This Is Why and indefinite hiatus ===
On May 11, 2020, Williams teased a potential return to a more guitar-driven sound on the band's sixth album, commenting, "We've found ourselves listening to a lot of older music that we grew up being inspired by." In January 2022, it was confirmed that the band had entered the studio to work on their upcoming sixth studio album. The band described the album as more "guitar heavy". On January 18, the band was announced to headline the newly founded Las Vegas–based When We Were Young festival alongside My Chemical Romance on October 22, 2022, which was one of the first live performances the band had played since September 2018. On May 10, it was announced that the band would headline the Austin City Limits Festival in Austin, Texas, during October on the 9th and 16th of the same year, alongside Red Hot Chili Peppers, P!nk and Lil Nas X.
On July 15, 2022, it was announced that Paramore would be embarking on a tour in October and November 2022. On September 28, 2022, the band released the song "This Is Why" as the lead single from This Is Why, released on February 10, 2023. In November 2022, the band changed the album cover for their 2013 self-titled album to a picture of Hayley Williams from behind. On December 8, 2022, the band released the second single, "The News". On January 12, 2023, the band released the third single, "C'est Comme Ça". Paramore was nominated for Favorite Music Group at the 2023 Kids' Choice Awards. On February 6, 2023, the band debuted the song "Running Out of Time" at their album release show in Nashville. On February 16, 2023, the band released a music video for the album's fourth single, "Running Out of Time". The band's song, "This is Why", was nominated for "Best Alternative" at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards.
The band began teasing an upcoming remix album, Re: This Is Why in late September 2023, posting audio snippets from the album on their official Discord server. The album was officially announced on October 2, and released on October 6, 2023. Described as "almost a remix album", Re: This Is Why features reworked, remixed, and rewritten versions of songs from the band's 2023 album This Is Why, as well as an unreleased B-side demo. For the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, This Is Why won Best Rock Album, making Paramore the first female-fronted rock band to win that Grammy award, and the album's title track won Best Alternative Music Performance.
On December 27, 2023, Paramore wiped their social media accounts and the band's website became inaccessible. A week later, they canceled a co-headlining appearance in Anaheim at iHeartRadio's Alter Ego festival scheduled for January 13, 2024, "due to unforeseen circumstances". In their place, Fall Out Boy was announced. Stereogum said that Paramore's label contract had expired. On January 10, 2024, A24 announced a tribute album for the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense, which features a cover of "Burning Down The House" by Paramore as the leading track. In January 2024, the band was nominated for Best International Group at the 2024 BRIT Awards. On January 31, their cover of "Burning Down The House" was released as a single. On February 4, 2024, the band won two Grammy awards at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards with their album, This Is Why winning Best Rock Album and the title track winning Best Alternative Music Performance. On February 10, 2024, Paramore were announced as the ambassadors for Record Store Day 2024 and confirmed that they would continue as an independent band after the end of their contract with Atlantic Records. On March 1, 2024, a music video for "Thick Skull" was released. In September 2024, during an interview with Dork, Williams revealed that Paramore had already started making new music, with demos made before they went on tour with Taylor Swift. On July 25, 2025, the band released a deluxe digital edition of their debut album, All We Know Is Falling for its 20th anniversary.
On September 5, 2025, amongst breakup rumors, Williams announced that Paramore were "taking a break" following the release of Williams' third album Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party.
== Musical style and influences ==
Paramore's music style has generally been regarded as pop-punk, emo, pop rock, alternative rock, power pop, emo pop, new wave, punk rock, pop, grunge, electropop, and synth-pop.
Joshua Martin had written after an interview with Hayley Williams, "The band isn't just a short pop-punk girl with red hair and a spunky attitude. Their music is like them, it's aged differently. It's sped up, and slowed down. It's emo without being whiny, or bratty. Almost a very literal anti-Avril Lavigne." Alternative Press magazine had commented that the band was "young-sounding", while consistently being "honest". Paramore's first album All We Know is Falling had an arguably more "formulaic pop-punk" sound that was "delivered particularly well" and the combination of the two had created a "refined rock infused pop/punk album". The band's second release, Riot! was said to explore a "diverse range of styles," however, not straying far from "their signature sound." The band's later albums, such as Paramore and After Laughter, included more of a new wave and synth-pop sound. The band's sixth studio album, This Is Why went for more of a post-punk and dance-punk sound.
Alternative Press and various other reviewers have noted that the band's stage performances have helped boost them to larger fame. Alternative Press states that Williams "has more charisma than singers twice her age, and her band aren't far behind in their chops, either." Singer-songwriter John Mayer had praised Williams' voice in a blog in October 2007, calling her "The great orange hope"; "orange" in reference to her hair color. Due to the female-fronted aspect of the band, Paramore has gained comparisons to Kelly Clarkson and the aforementioned Avril Lavigne, to which one reviewer said was "sorely unfounded". Reviewer Jonathan Bradley noted that "Paramore attacks its music with infectious enthusiasm." However, he also explained that "there isn't a whole lot of difference between Riot! and the songs from Kelly Clarkson or Avril Lavigne." A reviewer at NME had likened Paramore's sound to that of "No Doubt (stripped of all the ska bollocks)" and "Kelly Clarkson's wildest dreams".
Paramore has expressed appreciation for Weezer, Hum, Failure, Far, No Doubt, Deftones, the Smiths, Blink-182, Death Cab for Cutie, Jimmy Eat World, Sunny Day Real Estate, and New Found Glory. Hayley Williams has cited her personal influences as MewithoutYou, Elvis Presley, the Shirelles, the Angels, the Ramones, Jawbreaker, Freddie Mercury, Karen O, Josh Scogin, Blondie, Bloc Party, NSYNC, Aaliyah, the Smiths, Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Cure, and Etta James.
Williams named many singers as heroines: "I love Debbie Harry and Siouxsie Sioux. I grew up listening to The Distillers [...] Girl groups are really important to me, but the Shangri-Las especially". Williams also explained that bands such as U2, "who are massive, and do whatever they want, write whatever they want and they stand for something," Jimmy Eat World, "who I don't think ever disappoint their fans," and No Doubt, who "have done amazing things", act as a pattern for the path in which Paramore would like to take their career. In 2012, Williams contributed vocals to MewithoutYou's fifth studio album, Ten Stories.
The band members identified themselves as Christians in the past, and in an interview with the BBC. Josh Farro stated, "Our faith is very important to us. It's obviously going to come out in our music because if someone believes something, then their worldview is going to come out in anything they do. But we're not out here to preach to kids, we're out here because we love music." Farro later cited differing views on Christianity between him, his brother, and Williams as one of the reasons for their departure in 2010. In a 2022 interview, Williams described herself, York, and Zac Farro as being "at different stages of unravelling their relationship to faith". In 2025, Williams released the track "True Believer" as part of her third solo album Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party. The song discusses the guise of Christianity as an excuse for people to treat others badly.
The staff of Consequence ranked the band at number 8 on their list of "The 100 Best Pop Punk Bands" in 2019.
== Live appearances ==
In 2007, the band played an acoustic set for the grand opening of a Warped Tour exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the dress Hayley Williams wore in the video for "Emergency" was also put on display in the exhibit.
In June 2007, they were declared by Rolling Stone as "Ones to Watch".
In August 2007, Paramore was featured in television spots on MTV, performing acoustic versions of their songs or acting in short accompaniments to MTV program commercials. As "MTV Artists of the Week", the band filmed the faux camping-themed spots in Queens, New York, all written and directed by Evan Silver and Gina Fortunato. MTV.com also has a collection of short videos with the band to promote Riot! as well. For weeks in August 2007, the "Misery Business" video was the number one streamed video at MTV.com. On October 8, Paramore played "Misery Business" live on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. In August, Paramore participated in New Found Glory's music video for their cover of Sixpence None the Richer's song "Kiss Me".
From September 29 to November 1, 2009, the band held a tour in North America to support Brand New Eyes. The tour for their self-titled fourth album, known as The Self-Titled Tour, took place in North America from October 15 to November 27, 2013. From June 19 through August 17, 2014, the band also supported the album with the Monumentour.
== Appearances in films and video games ==
In 2005, Paramore made its first video game appearance with the song "Pressure" being featured in the console versions of the video game The Sims 2.
In March 2008, Paramore made its first rhythm game appearance with "Crushcrushcrush" as a downloadable track in the video game Rock Band and later being a playable song in Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades. Later that year, Rock Band 2 was released with the song "That's What You Get" included as a playable track. The video game Guitar Hero World Tour featured the song "Misery Business" along with Hayley Williams participating in motion capture sessions for the game. She is featured as an unlockable character in the game as well. "Misery Business" was also featured as an on-disc track on Rock Band 3, while "Pressure", "The Only Exception", "Brick by Boring Brick", and "Ignorance" are available as downloadable tracks for the game. In 2015, the song "Still Into You" was featured as an on-disc song for Rock Band 4. "Crushcrushcrush" was also featured in the 2010 console edition of Dance Dance Revolution for the Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii.
Paramore's song "Decode" was the lead single for the film Twilight. Another song called "I Caught Myself" is also featured on the film's soundtrack. "Decode" was released on October 1, 2008, on the Paramore Fan Club site as well as author Stephenie Meyer's website. The music video premiered on November 3. Hot Topic hosted listening parties for the soundtrack on October 24, 2008, and the album was released on November 4, 2008. "Misery Business" is also featured in Saints Row 2 and in NHL 08.
The music video for "Decode", along with the Twilight film trailer, was shown in the North American Home Theater of PlayStation Home from December 11, 2008, to December 18, 2008. The video premiered in full through MTV on November 3, 2008, one day ahead of the release of the soundtrack on which the song is featured.
Paramore's song "Now" is featured as a song for the game Rocksmith 2014. In March 2024, "Misery Business" was added as a playable track to Fortnite Festival, being joined by "Ain't It Fun" and "Still Into You" in March 2025.
== Band members ==
=== Timeline ===
== Discography ==
Studio albums
All We Know Is Falling (2005)
Riot! (2007)
Brand New Eyes (2009)
Paramore (2013)
After Laughter (2017)
This Is Why (2023)
== Tours ==
Headlining tours
The Final Riot! Tour (2008)
Brand New Eyes World Tour (2009–2012)
The Self-Titled Tour (2013–2015)
After Laughter Tour (2017–2018)
This Is Why Tour (2022–2023)
Co-headlining tours
Honda Civic Tour (2010)
Monumentour (2014)
Opening acts
No Doubt – Summer Tour 2009 (2009)
Green Day – 21st Century Breakdown World Tour (2010)
Taylor Swift – The Eras Tour (2023–2024) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1923#Deaths | 1923#Deaths | 1923 (MCMXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1923rd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 923rd year of the 2nd millennium, the 23rd year of the 20th century, and the 4th year of the 1920s decade. As of the start of 1923, the Gregorian calendar was 13 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which was relegated that February to use only by churches after Greece adopted the Gregorian calendar.
In Greece, this year contained only 352 days as 13 days were skipped to achieve the calendrical switch from Julian to Gregorian Calendar. It happened there that Wednesday, February 15 (Julian Calendar) was followed by Thursday, March 1 (Gregorian Calendar).
== Events ==
=== January–February ===
January 5 – Lithuania begins the Klaipėda Revolt to annex the Klaipėda Region (Memel Territory).
January 11 – Despite strong British protests, troops from France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr area, to force Germany to make reparation payments.
January 17 (or 9) – First flight of the first rotorcraft, Juan de la Cierva's Cierva C.4 autogyro, in Spain. (It is first demonstrated to the military on January 31.)
February 5 – Australian cricketer Bill Ponsford makes 429 runs to break the world record for the highest first-class cricket score for the first time in his third match at this level, at Melbourne Cricket Ground, giving the Victoria cricket team an innings total of 1,059.
February 9 – Billy Hughes, having resigned as Prime Minister of Australia, after the Country Party refuses to govern in coalition with him as the leader of the Nationalist Party, is succeeded by Stanley Bruce. A Liberal–National Coalition will persist in the politics of Australia for at least 100 years.
=== March–April ===
March 1 – Eskom, the largest electricity producer in Africa, is established in South Africa.
March 3 – The first issue of TIME magazine is published.
March 6 – The Egyptian Feminist Union (Arabic: الاتحاد النسائي المصري), the first nationwide feminist movement in Egypt, is founded at the home of activist Huda Sha'arawi.
March 9 – Vladimir Lenin suffers his third stroke, which renders him bedridden and unable to speak; consequently he retires from his position as Chairman of the Soviet government.
March 17 – Dobrolyot is formed as the first Soviet civil aviation service; it will become part of flag carrier Aeroflot.
March 23 – The Posey War, the last conflict between American Indians and settlers, concludes, ending the American Indian Wars.
March 28 – Regia Aeronautica, the air force of Fascist Italy, is founded.
April 6 – The first Prefects Board in Southeast Asia is formed, in Victoria Institution, Federated Malay States.
April 12 – The Kandersteg International Scout Centre comes into existence in Switzerland.
April 19
Hjalmar Branting leaves office as Prime Minister of Sweden, after the Swedish Riksdag has rejected a government proposal regarding unemployment benefits. Right-wing academic and jurist Ernst Trygger succeeds him.
The Egyptian Constitution of 1923 is adopted, introducing a parliamentary system of democracy in the country.
April 23 – The Gdynia seaport is inaugurated, on the Polish Corridor.
April 26 – Wedding of Prince Albert and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon: The future King George VI of the United Kingdom marries the future Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in Westminster Abbey.
April 28 – The original Wembley Stadium in London, England, opens its doors to the public for the first time, staging the FA Cup Final between Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United.
=== May–June ===
May 9
Southeastern Michigan receives a record 15 centimetres (5.9 in) of snow, after temperatures plummeted from 17 °F (−8 °C) to 1 °F (−17 °C) between 1 and 6 pm on the previous day.
The premiere of Bertolt Brecht's play In the Jungle (Im Dickicht), at the Residenztheater in Munich, is interrupted by Nazi demonstrators.
May 20 – British Prime Minister Bonar Law resigns, due to ill health.
May 23
Stanley Baldwin is appointed British Prime Minister.
Belgium's Sabena Airlines is created.
May 24 – The Irish Civil War ends.
May 26 – The first 24 Hours of Le Mans motor race is held, and is won by André Lagache and René Léonard.
May 27 – The Ku Klux Klan in the United States defies a law requiring publication of its membership.
June 9 – Bulgarian coup d'état of 1923: A military coup in Bulgaria ousts prime minister Aleksandar Stamboliyski (he is killed June 14).
June 12 – William Walton's Façade is performed for the first time, in London.
June 13 – President Li Yuanhong of China abandons his residence because a warlord has commanded forces to surround the mansion and cut off its water and electric supplies in order to force him to abandon his post.
June 16 – The storming of Ayan in Siberia concludes the Yakut Revolt and the Russian Civil War.
June 17 – On the Savio Circuit in Ravenna, Italy, Enzo Ferrari wins his first Grand Prix as a racecar driver. It also marks the first time he paints the prancing horse logo on his car, which will become the symbol of Scuderia Ferrari and Ferrari S.p.A.
June 18 – Mount Etna erupts in Italy, making 60,000 homeless.
=== July–August ===
July 10 – Large hailstones kill 23 people in Rostov, Soviet Union.
July 13
The Hollywood Sign is inaugurated in California (originally reading Hollywoodland).
American explorer Roy Chapman Andrews discovers the first dinosaur eggs near Flaming Cliffs, Mongolia.
July 20 – Pancho Villa is assassinated at Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua.
July 24 – The Treaty of Lausanne (1923), settling the boundaries of the modern Republic of Turkey, is signed in Switzerland by Greece, Bulgaria and other countries that fought in the First World War, bringing an end to the Ottoman Empire after 624 years.
July – Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic (Germany) sees the number of marks needed to purchase a single American dollar reach 353,000 – more than 200 times the amount needed at the start of the year.
August 2 – Vice President Calvin Coolidge becomes the 30th president of the United States, upon the death of President Warren G. Harding in San Francisco.
August 13
The first major seagoing ship arrives at Gdynia, the newly constructed Polish seaport.
Gustav Stresemann is named Chancellor of Germany, and founds a coalition government for the Weimar Republic, where hyperinflation means that more than 4,600,000 marks are now needed to buy a single American dollar.
August 18 – The first British Track & Field championships for women are held in London.
August 30 – Hurricane season begins, with a tropical storm northeast of the Turks and Caicos Islands.
August 31 – The Italian navy occupies Corfu, in retaliation for the murder of an Italian officer. The League of Nations protests, and the occupation ends on September 30.
=== September–October ===
September 1
The Great Kantō earthquake devastates Tokyo and Yokohama, killing more than 100,000 people.
The Kantō Massacre begins and continues for several weeks. Ethnic Koreans are killed by lynch mobs based on rumors that Koreans are committing crimes and plotting to overthrow the government. The death toll (and even the occurrence of) the massacre is disputed, with figures ranging from a few dozen to over 6,000 deaths. Most of the deaths were of Korean people, although it is said that other ethnic minorities and even Japanese people with unusual dialects were also killed.
September 4 – The United States Navy's first home-built rigid airship USS Shenandoah (ZR-1) makes her first flight at Naval Air Station Lakehurst (New Jersey); she contains most of the world's extracted reserves of helium at this time.
September 6 – The Fukuda Village Incident occurs as a part of the larger Kantō Massacre. Nine Japanese people, including a pregnant woman and children, are killed based on false beliefs that they are ethnic Koreans.
September 7 – At the International Police Conference in Vienna, the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC), better known as Interpol, is set up.
September 8 – Honda Point disaster: Nine United States Navy destroyers run aground off the California coast.
September 9 – Turkish head of state Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founds the Republican People's Party (CHP).
September 10 – The Irish Free State joins the League of Nations.
September 11 – Struggling for a foothold in southern China, Sun Yat-sen decides to ally his Nationalist Kuomintang party with the Comintern and the Chinese Communist Party.
September 13 – Military coup in Spain: Miguel Primo de Rivera takes over, setting up a dictatorship. Trade unions are prohibited for 10 years.
September 17 – 1923 Berkeley fire: A major fire in Berkeley, California, erupts, consuming some 640 structures, including 584 homes in the densely built neighborhoods north of the campus of the University of California.
September 18–26 – Newspaper printers strike in New York City.
September 24 – Atlantic hurricane season: The second major hurricane strikes north of Hispaniola.
September 26 – In Bavaria, Gustav Ritter von Kahr takes dictatorial powers.
September 29
The first American Track & Field championships for women are held in New Jersey.
The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (1922) comes into effect, officially creating under British administration the protectorates of Palestine and the separate Emirate of Transjordan under Abdullah I. The French-administered Mandate for Syria and Lebanon also takes effect.
September 30 – Küstrin Putsch: Outside Berlin, Major Ernst Buchrucker, a leader of the Black Reichswehr, attempts a putsch by seizing several forts.
October 1 – The Johor–Singapore Causeway opens to public traffic.
October 2 – Küstrin Putsch: After two days of siege, Major Buchrucker and his men surrender.
October 6 – The Occupation of Constantinople ends when the great powers of World War I withdraw.
October 13
Ankara replaces Istanbul (Constantinople), as the capital of Turkey.
The first recorded example of a storm crossing from the Eastern Pacific into the Atlantic occurs in Oaxaca.
October 14 – The fourth tropical storm of the year forms just north of Panama.
October 15 – The fifth tropical storm of the year forms north of the Leeward Islands.
October 16
A sixth tropical storm develops in the Gulf of Mexico; a rare occurrence, it consists of four active tropical storms simultaneously.
Roy and Walt Disney found The Walt Disney Company, at this time known as the Disney Brothers Studio.
October 23 – Hamburg Uprising: In Germany, the Communists attempt a putsch in Hamburg, which results in street battles in that city for the next two days, when it ends unsuccessfully.
October 27 – In Germany, General Hans von Seeckt orders the Reichswehr to dissolve the Social Democratic-Communist government of Saxony, which is refusing to accept the authority of the Reich government.
October 28 – In Qajar dynasty Persia, Reza Khan becomes Ahmad Shah Qajar's prime minister.
October 29 – Turkey becomes a republic, following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire; Kemal Atatürk is elected as first president.
October 30 – İsmet İnönü is appointed as the first prime minister of Turkey.
=== November–December ===
November 1
The Finnish flag carrier airline Finnair is started, as Aero oy.
The 1923 Victorian Police strike begins in Australia, with half of the Victoria Police force standing down over the use of labor spies. Rioting and looting take place in Melbourne city centre.
November 8 – Beer Hall Putsch: In Munich, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Bavarian government; police and troops crush the attempt the next day in one of several significant events on 9 November in German history. 20 people die as a result of associated violence.
November 11 – Adolf Hitler is arrested for his leading role in the Beer Hall Putsch.
November 12 – Her Highness Princess Maud of Fife marries Captain Charles Alexander Carnegie, in Wellington Barracks, London.
November 15 – Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic: Hyperinflation in Germany reaches its height. One United States dollar is worth 4,200,000,000,000 Papiermark (4.2 trillion on the short scale). Gustav Stresemann abolishes the old currency and replaces it with the Rentenmark, at an exchange rate of one Rentenmark to 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion on the short scale) Papiermark (effective November 20).
November 23 – Gustav Stresemann's coalition government collapses in Germany.
December 1 – In Italy, the Gleno Dam on the Gleno River, in the Valle di Scalve in the northern province of Bergamo bursts, killing at least 356 people.
December 6
1923 United Kingdom general election: The governing Conservatives under Stanley Baldwin are reduced to a minority status, with the Labour party gaining second party status.
Calvin Coolidge addresses the United States Congress in the first radio broadcast from a President of the U.S.
December 21 – The Nepal–Britain Treaty is the first to define the international status of Nepal as an independent sovereign country.
December 27 – Toranomon Incident: In Tokyo, Crown Prince Hirohito of Japan survives an assassination attempt by communist student Daisuke Nanba.
December 29 – Vladimir K. Zworykin files his first patent (in the United States) for "television systems".
== Births ==
=== January ===
January 1
Wahiduddin Ahmed, Bangladeshi academic (d. 2018)
Valentina Cortese, Italian actress (d. 2019)
Vulo Radev, Bulgarian film director (d. 2001)
Roméo Sabourin, Canadian World War II spy (d. 1944)
January 2
Abdel Aziz Mohamed Hegazy, 38th Prime Minister of Egypt (d. 2014)
Rachel Waterhouse, English historian and author (d. 2020)
January 3
Renato Guatelli, Italian partisan (d. 1944)
Hank Stram, American football coach, broadcaster (d. 2005)
January 4
Ricardo C. Puno, Filipino lawyer and politician (d. 2018)
Mohan Lall Shrimal, Indian chief justice
Wilfred Waters, English Olympic cyclist (d. 2006)
January 5
Virginia Halas McCaskey, American football team owner (d. 2025)
Nat Neujean, Belgian sculptor (d. 2018)
Sam Phillips, American record producer (d. 2003)
January 6
Leah Chase, African-American chef, author and television personality (d. 2019)
Robert A. Chase, American surgeon and educator (d. 2024)
Norman Kirk, 29th Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1974)
January 7
Gertrude Ehrlich, Austrian-born American mathematician (d. 2025)
Joseph A. Hardy III, American businessman (d. 2023)
Hugh Kenner, Canadian literary critic (d. 2003)
Jean Lucienbonnet, French racing driver (d. 1962)
Johnny Macknowski, Russian-born American basketball player (d. 2024)
Héctor Mayagoitia Domínguez, Mexican chemical bacteriologist and politician (d. 2023)
January 8
Larry Storch, American actor (d. 2022)
Johnny Wardle, English cricketer (d. 1985)
January 11
Wright King, American actor (d. 2018)
Paavo Lonkila, Finnish Olympic cross-country skier (d. 2017)
Ernst Nolte, German historian (d. 2016)
January 12
Ira Hayes, U.S. Marine flag raiser on Iwo Jima (d. 1955)
Sune Wehlin, Swedish pentathlete (d. 2020)
January 15 – Lee Teng-hui, Taiwanese politician, 4th President of the Republic of China (d. 2020)
January 16
Max Fink, American neurologist and psychiatrist (d. 2025)
Anthony Hecht, American poet (d. 2004)
Antonio Riboldi, Italian Roman Catholic prelate (d. 2017)
Walther Wever, German fighter ace (d. 1945)
January 17 – Francesc Badia Batalla, Spanish-born Andorran Bishop, Episcopal Véguier (d. 2020)
January 18 – Jan Ruff O'Herne, Dutch-Australian human rights activist (d. 2019)
January 19 – Jean Stapleton, American actress (All in the Family) (d. 2013)
January 20
Nora Brockstedt, Norwegian singer (d. 2015)
Slim Whitman, American country & western musician (d. 2013)
January 21 – Prince Andrew Romanov, Russian-American artist and author (d. 2021)
January 22 – Diana Douglas, British-born American actress, mother of actor/producer Michael Douglas (d. 2015)
January 23
Horace Ashenfelter, American athlete (d. 2018)
Silvano Campeggi, Italian film poster designer (d. 2018)
Cot Deal, American major league baseball player, coach (d. 2013)
January 24 – Geneviève Asse, French painter (d. 2021)
January 25
Arvid Carlsson, Swedish scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2018)
Rusty Draper, American singer (d. 2003)
Jacob Korevaar, Dutch mathematician (d. 2025)
Dirk Bernard Joseph Schouten, Dutch economist (d. 2018)
January 26 – Anne Jeffreys, American actress, singer (d. 2017)
January 27 – Enrico Braggiotti, Monegasque banker (d. 2019)
January 28
Erling Lorentzen, Norwegian shipowner and industrialist (d. 2021)
Sante Spessotto, Italian Roman Catholic priest and saint (d. 1980)
January 29
Jack Burke Jr., American golfer (d. 2024)
Paddy Chayefsky, American writer (d. 1981)
Khir Johari, Malaysian politician (d. 2006)
January 31 – Norman Mailer, American novelist, journalist and dramatist (d. 2007)
=== February ===
February 1
Stig Mårtensson, Swedish racing cyclist (d. 2010)
Gena Turgel, Polish author, Holocaust survivor and educator (d. 2018)
February 2
James Dickey, American poet, author (Deliverance) (d. 1997)
Red Schoendienst, American baseball player (d. 2018)
Liz Smith, American gossip columnist (d. 2017)
Clem Windsor, Australian rugby union player, surgeon (d. 2007)
February 3 – Edith Barney, American female professional baseball player (d. 2010)
February 4
Bonar Bain, Canadian actor (d. 2005)
Belisario Betancur, Colombian politician, 26th President of Colombia (d. 2018)
February 5
Dora Bryan, English actress (d. 2014)
Fatmawati, 1st First Lady of Indonesia (d. 1980)
Claude King, American country music singer and songwriter (d. 2013)
February 6
Gyula Lóránt, Hungarian footballer and manager (d. 1981)
Georges Pouliot, Canadian fencer (d. 2019)
Vija Vētra, Latvian dancer and choreographer
February 7
Egil Abrahamsen, Norwegian ships engineer (d. 2023)
George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood, first grandchild of King George V (d. 2011)
William F. Stanton, American politician (d. 2024)
February 8 – Urpo Korhonen, Finnish Olympic cross-country skier (d. 2009)
February 9 – Brendan Behan, Irish author (d. 1964)
February 10
Allie Sherman, American professional football coach (d. 2015)
Cesare Siepi, Italian opera singer (d. 2010)
February 11
Antony Flew, English philosopher and academic (d. 2010)
Rosita Fornés, Cuban-American actress (d. 2020)
Pamela Sharples, Baroness Sharples, English politician (d. 2022)
February 12
Knox Martin, American artist (d. 2022)
Franco Zeffirelli, Italian film, opera director (d. 2019)
February 13
Yfrah Neaman, Lebanese-born violinist (d. 2003)
Chuck Yeager, American test pilot, NASA official (d. 2020)
February 15
Marcel Denis, Belgian comics artist (d. 2002)
Ken Hofmann, American businessman (d. 2018)
February 16 – Samuel Willenberg, Polish-born Israeli sculptor, painter and last surviving member of the Treblinka extermination camp revolt (d. 2016)
February 17 – Jun Fukuda, Japanese film director (d. 2000)
February 18 – Allan Melvin, American actor (d. 2008)
February 20
Victor Atiyeh, American politician (d. 2014)
Forbes Burnham, Guyanese politician, 1st Prime Minister of Guyana and 2nd President of Guyana (d. 1985)
Robert Lucy, Swiss gymnast (d. 2009)
February 21
Wilbur R. Ingalls Jr., American architect (d. 1997)
William Winter, American politician (d. 2020)
February 22 – Norman Smith, English singer, record producer (d. 2008)
February 23
Ioannis Grivas, Greek judge, politician and 176th Prime Minister of Greece (d. 2016)
rafael Addiego Bruno, Uruguayan politician and Interim President (d. 2014)
John van Hengel, American "Father of Food Banking" (d. 2005)
February 24 – David Soyer, American cellist (d. 2010)
February 27
Dexter Gordon, American jazz saxophone player, actor (d. 1990)
James Ross MacDonald, American physicist (d. 2024)
February 28
Jean Carson, American actress (d. 2005)
Charles Durning, American actor (d. 2012)
=== March ===
March 2
Orrin Keepnews, American record producer (d. 2015)
Robert H. Michel, American Republican Party politician (d. 2017)
March 3
Tamara Lisitsian, Soviet film director (d. 2009)
Doc Watson, American folk guitarist, songwriter (d. 2012)
March 4
Russell Freeburg, American journalist and author
Piero D'Inzeo, Italian Olympic show jumping rider (d. 2014)
Sir Patrick Moore, British astronomer, broadcaster (d. 2012)
March 6
Ed McMahon, American television personality (d. 2009)
Wes Montgomery, African-American jazz musician (d. 1968)
March 7
Mahlon Clark, American musician (d. 2007)
Thomas Keating, American monk (d. 2018)
March 8 – Louk Hulsman, Dutch criminologist (d. 2009)
March 9
James L. Buckley, American politician, United States Senator (1971–77) (d. 2023)
Walter Kohn, Austrian-born physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (d. 2016)
William Lyon, American major general (d. 2020)
March 10 – Val Logsdon Fitch, American nuclear physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2015)
March 11
Agatha Barbara, Maltese politician (d. 2002)
Paul Muller, Swiss actor (d. 2016)
March 12
Hjalmar Andersen, Norwegian speed-skater (d. 2013)
Wally Schirra, American astronaut (d. 2007)
Mae Young, American wrestler (d. 2014)
March 14
Diane Arbus, American photographer (d. 1971)
Joe M. Jackson, American Medal of Honour recipient (d. 2019)
Celeste Rodrigues, Portuguese singer (d. 2018)
March 15
Lou Richards, Australian footballer (d. 2017)
Willy Semmelrogge, German actor (d. 1984)
March 19 – Oskar Fischer, East German politician (d. 2020)
March 21
Louis-Edmond Hamelin, Canadian geographer, author and academic (d. 2020)
Merle Keagle, American female professional baseball player (d. 1960)
Olive Nicol, Baroness Nicol, British politician, life peer (d. 2018)
Rezső Nyers, Hungarian politician (d. 2018)
Nirmala Srivastava, Indian founder of Sahaja Yoga (d. 2011)
March 22 – Marcel Marceau, world-renowned French mime (d. 2007)
March 24 – Murray Hamilton, American actor (d. 1986)
March 25
Lewis Elton, German-English physicist and researcher (d. 2018)
Wim van Est, Dutch cyclist (d. 2003)
March 26
Romolo Catasta, Italian Olympic rower (d. 1985)
Baba Hari Dass, Indian yoga master, silent monk, and commentator (d. 2018)
Bob Elliott, American comedian (d. 2016)
March 27
Ulla Sallert, Swedish actress, singer (d. 2018)
Louis Simpson, Jamaican-born poet (d. 2012)
March 28
Thad Jones, American jazz musician (d. 1986)
Ine Schäffer, Austrian athlete (d. 2009)
March 29 – Geoff Duke, British motorcycle racer (d. 2015)
March 31
Don Barksdale, American basketball player (d. 1993)
Shoshana Damari, Yemenite-Israeli singer (d. 2006)
=== April ===
April 2
Alice Haylett, American professional baseball player (d. 2004)
Gloria Henry, American actress (d. 2021)
Johnny Paton, Scottish football player, coach and manager (d. 2015)
G. Spencer-Brown, British mathematician (d. 2016)
April 4
Maximiano Tuazon Cruz, Filipino Roman Catholic prelate (d. 2013)
Gene Reynolds, American actor (d. 2020)
Peter Vaughan, English actor (d. 2016)
April 5 – Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, President of South Vietnam (d. 2001)
April 8
George Fisher, American political cartoonist (d. 2003)
Edward Mulhare, Irish-born American actor (d. 1997)
April 10 – John Watkins, South African cricketer (d. 2021)
April 12 – Ann Miller, American actress and dancer (d. 2004)
April 13 – Don Adams, American actor, comedian (Get Smart) (d. 2005)
April 14
Lydia Clarke, American actress, photographer (d. 2018)
Roberto De Vicenzo, Argentine professional golfer, winner of the 1967 Open Championship (d. 2017)
April 15 – Douglas Wass, British civil servant (d. 2017)
April 17 – Étienne Bally, French sprinter (d. 2018)
April 19 – Sen Sōshitsu XV, Japanese hereditary master (d. 2025)
April 20
Mother Angelica, American nun, founder of the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) (d. 2016)
Irene Lieblich, Polish-born painter (d. 2008)
April 22
Paula Fox, American writer (d. 2017)
Geoffrey Hattersley-Smith, English/Canadian geologist and glaciologist (d. 2012)
Bettie Page, American model (d. 2008)
Aaron Spelling, American television producer, writer (d. 2006)
April 23 – Dolph Briscoe, Governor of Texas (d. 2010)
April 24
Sir John Conant, 2nd Baronet, English aristocrat (d. 2024)
Bülent Ulusu, 18th Prime Minister of Turkey (d. 2015)
April 25
Francis Graham-Smith, English astronomer, academic (d. 2025)
Albert King, American musician (d. 1992)
Grant Munro, Canadian animator, filmmaker and actor (d. 2017)
April 27 – Lloyd F. Wheat, American lawyer and politician (d. 2004)
April 29 – Walter Deutsch, Austrian musicologist (d. 2024)
April 30
Al Lewis, American actor (The Munsters) (d. 2006)
Francis Tucker, South African rally driver (d. 2008)
=== May ===
May 1
Frank Brian, American basketball player (d. 2017)
Fernando Cabrita, Portuguese football forward, manager (d. 2014)
Joseph Heller, American novelist (Catch-22) (d. 1999)
Billy Steel, Scottish footballer (d. 1982)
May 2
Patrick Hillery, President of Ireland (d. 2008)
Paul Shooner, Canadian politician (d. 2025)
May 3
Francis Bellotti, American lawyer and politician (d. 2024)
Francesco Paolo Bonifacio, Italian politician and jurist (d. 1989)
Alexander Harvey II, American judge (d. 2017)
May 4
Gillis William Long, American politician (d. 1985)
Assi Rahbani, Lebanese composer, musician, conductor, poet and author (d. 1986)
Eric Sykes, English actor (d. 2012)
May 5
Sergey Akhromeyev, Soviet marshal, former Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces (d. 1991)
Ezekiel Guti, Zimbabwean pastor and archbishop (d. 2023)
Edit Perényi-Weckinger, Hungarian gymnast (d. 2019)
Konrad Repgen, German historian (d. 2017)
Richard Wollheim, English philosopher (d. 2003)
May 6
Josep Seguer, Spanish football defender, manager (d. 2014)
Archduchess Yolande of Austria (d. 2023)
May 7
Anne Baxter, American actress (d. 1985)
Jim Lowe, American singer-songwriter (d. 2016)
J. Mack Robinson, American businessman (d. 2014)
May 8
Louise Meriwether, American novelist, journalist and activist (d. 2023)
Yusof Rawa, Malaysian politician (d. 2000)
May 10 – Heydar Aliyev, 3rd President of Azerbaijan (1993–2003) (d. 2003)
May 11
Louise Arnold, American baseball player (d. 2010)
Eugenio Calabi, Italian-born American mathematician (d. 2023)
Fred McLafferty, American chemist (d. 2021)
May 12 – Mila del Sol, Filipino actress, entrepreneur and philanthropist (d. 2020)
May 13
Ruth Adler Schnee, German-American textile, interior designer (d. 2023)
John Pearce, Australian tennis player (d. 1992)
Betty Webb, code breaker at Bletchley Park during World War Two (d. 2025)
May 14
Willis Blair, Canadian politician (d. 2014)
Josette Molland, WWII French Resistance member and artist (d. 2024)
Alberto Ortiz, Uruguayan pentathlete (d. 1990)
Adnan Pachachi, Iraqi Foreign Minister (d. 2019)
Alfredo Pieroni, Italian journalist (d. 2011)
Mrinal Sen, Indian filmmaker (d. 2018)
May 15
Doris Dowling, American actress (d. 2004)
John Lanchbery, English composer (d. 2003)
Gholamreza Pahlavi, Persian prince (d. 2017)
May 16
Merton Miller, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2000)
Lingam Suryanarayana, Indian surgeon
May 17
Anthony Eyton, English painter and educator
Peter Mennin, American composer, teacher and administrator (d. 1983)
David Wasawo, Kenyan zoologist, conservationist, and university administrator (d. 2014)
May 18 – Hugh Shearer, Prime Minister of Jamaica (d. 2004)
May 19 – Peter Lo Sui Yin, Malaysian politician (d. 2020)
May 20 – Israel Gutman, Israeli historian (d. 2013)
May 21
Vernon Biever, American photographer (d. 2010)
Armand Borel, Swiss mathematician (d. 2003)
Désiré Carré, French footballer (d. 2014)
Dorothy Hewett, Australian writer (d. 2002)
Ara Parseghian, American football coach (d. 2017)
Evelyn Ward, American actress (d. 2012)
May 23
Ranajit Guha, Indian historian (d. 2023)
Kalidas Shrestha, Nepalese artist (d. 2016)
May 24 – Seijun Suzuki, Japanese filmmaker, actor and screenwriter (d. 2017)
May 25 – Bernard Koura, French painter (d. 2018)
May 26
James Arness, American actor (Gunsmoke) (d. 2011)
Roy Dotrice, English actor (d. 2017)
Horst Tappert, German television actor (d. 2008)
May 27
Henry Kissinger, German-born United States Secretary of State, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 2023)
Sumner Redstone, American businessman (d. 2020)
Alfonso Wong, Hong Kong cartoonist (d. 2017)
May 28
György Ligeti, Hungarian composer (d. 2006)
N. T. Rama Rao, Indian (Telugu) film actor, politician (d. 1996)
T. M. Thiagarajan, Carnatic musicologist from Tamil Nadu in Southern India (d. 2007)
May 29
Edward H. Sims, American author (d. 2014)
Eugene Wright, American jazz bassist (d. 2020)
May 30
Zdeněk Košta, Czech cyclist (d. 2022)
Jimmy Lydon, American actor, producer (d. 2022)
Dennis V. Razis, Greek oncologist (d. 2017)
May 31
Robert O. Becker, American orthopedic surgeon (d. 2008)
Ellsworth Kelly, American artist (d. 2015)
Rainier III, Prince of Monaco (d. 2005)
=== June ===
June 2
Ted Leehane, Australian rules footballer (d. 2014)
Lloyd Shapley, American mathematician, economist and Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2016)
June 3
Phil Nimmons, American jazz musician and composer (d. 2024)
Peter Thorne, British Royal Air Force pilot (d. 2014)
June 4
Elizabeth Jolley, Australian writer (d. 2007)
Yuriko, Princess Mikasa, Japanese princess (d. 2024)
June 5 – Peggy Stewart, American actress (d. 2019)
June 6
V. C. Andrews, American novelist (d. 1996)
Jeff Dwire, American small businessman (d. 1974)
June 7
Jean Baratte, French international footballer, striker and manager (d. 1986)
Giorgio Belladonna, Italian bridge player, one of the greatest of all time (d. 1995)
Harold Garde, American artist (d. 2022)
June 8
Alice Coleman, English geographer (d. 2023)
Tang Hsiang Chien, Hong Kong industrialist (d. 2018)
June 9
Stanley Michael Gartler, American molecular biologist and geneticist
Gerald Götting, German politician (d. 2015)
René Henry Gracida, American bishop
I. H. Latif, Indian military officer (d. 2018)
June 10
Madeleine Lebeau, French actress (d. 2016)
Robert Maxwell, Slovak-born media entrepreneur (d. 1991)
Françoise Sullivan, Canadian painter, sculptor, dancer and choreographer
June 11 – Bernard F. Grabowski, American politician (d. 2019)
June 12
Juan Arza, Spanish football forward, manager (d. 2011)
Herta Elviste, Estonian actress (d. 2015)
June 13 – Lloyd Conover, American scientist (d. 2017)
June 14
Jack Hayward, English businessman (d. 2014)
Silvia Infantas, Chilean singer and actress (d. 2024)
Judith Kerr, English writer and illustrator (d. 2019)
Kari Polanyi Levitt, Canadian economist
Donald Smith, English cricketer (d. 2021)
June 15
Herbert Chitepo, Zimbabwe African National Union leader (d. 1975)
Johnny Most, American basketball radio announcer (d. 1993)
Ninian Stephen, 20th Governor-General of Australia (d. 2017)
June 16 – Wanda Janicka, Polish architect, participant in the Warsaw Uprising (d. 2023)
June 17
William G. Adams, 9th mayor of St. John's, member of the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly (d. 2005)
Enrique Angelelli, Argentine bishop (d. 1976)
Anthony Bevilacqua, American Roman Catholic cardinal (d. 2012)
Sukh Dev, Indian organic chemist, academic and researcher (d. 2024)
W. M. Gorman, Irish economist, academic (d. 2003)
Arnold S. Relman, American internist (d. 2014)
Jan Veselý, Czech cyclist (d. 2003)
June 18
Clinton Ballou, American biochemist and professor (d. 2021)
Szymon Szurmiej, Polish-Jewish actor, director, and general manager (d. 2014)
Elizabeth Weber, South African literary writer
June 19
Geri M. Joseph, American journalist and academic (d. 2023)
Andrés Rodríguez, 47th President of Paraguay (d. 1997)
June 20
Bjørn Watt-Boolsen, Danish actor (d. 1998)
Franklin B. Zimmerman, American musicologist and conductor
June 21 – Johann Eyfells, Icelandic artist (d. 2019)
June 22
John Oldham, American college player, athletic director and basketball coach (d. 2020)
Felo Ramírez, Cuban-American Spanish-language radio voice of the Miami Marlins (d. 2017)
June 23
André Antunes, Portuguese sports shooter (d. 2002)
Makhmut Gareev, Russian general (d. 2019)
Doris Johnson, American politician (d. 2021)
Mario Milita, Italian actor and voice actor (d. 2017)
Ranasinghe Premadasa, Sri Lanka statesman, 3rd President of Sri Lanka (d. 1993)
Jerry Rullo, American professional basketball player (d. 2016)
Giuseppina Tuissi, Italian Resistance fighter (d. 1945)
June 24
Yves Bonnefoy, French poet, art historian (d. 2016)
Cesare Romiti, Italian economist (d. 2020)
T-Model Ford, African-American blues musician (d. 2013)
Benjamin de Vries, Dutch-born Israeli economic historian
June 25
Jamshid Amouzegar, 43rd Prime Minister of Iran (d. 2016)
Stan Clements, English footballer (d. 2018)
Doug Everingham, Australian politician, minister (d. 2017)
Sam Francis, American painter (d. 1994)
Vatroslav Mimica, Croatian film director, screenwriter (d. 2020)
June 26
Ed Bearss, American military historian and author (d. 2020)
Barbara Graham, American criminal (d. 1955)
Jonah Kinigstein, American artist (d. 2025)
Musa'id bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Saudi prince (d. 2013)
June 27
Beth Chatto, British plantswoman, garden designer and author (d. 2018)
Mitchell Flint, American lawyer, veteran aviator (d. 2017)
Gus Zernial, American baseball player, sports commentator (d. 2011)
June 28
Daniil Khrabrovitsky, Soviet film director (d. 1980)
Giff Roux, American basketball player (d. 2011)
Gaye Stewart, Canadian ice hockey forward (d. 2010)
June 29
Sérgio Britto, Brazilian actor (d. 2011)
Renyldo Ferreira, Brazilian equestrian (d. 2023)
Alfred Goodwin, senior judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (d. 2022)
Olav Thon, Norwegian real estate magnate (d. 2024)
Chou Wen-chung, Chinese-American composer, educator (d. 2019)
June 30
Gad Beck, Israeli-German educator, author, activist and Holocaust survivor (d. 2012)
Ivo Orlandi, Venezuelan sports shooter (d. 2000)
=== July ===
July 1
Scotty Bowers, American marine, author (d. 2019)
Herman Chernoff, American applied mathematician, statistician and physicist
July 2
Constantin Dăscălescu, 52nd Prime Minister of Romania (d. 2003)
Wisława Szymborska, Polish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2012)
July 3
Hugo Machado, Uruguayan cyclist (d. 2015)
Felipe Zetter, Mexican football defender (d. 2013)
July 4
Rudolf Friedrich, Swiss Federal Councilor (d. 2013)
George Mostow, American mathematician, renowned for his contributions to Lie theory (d. 2017)
July 5 – Hermann Gummel, German semiconductor industry pioneer (d. 2022)
July 6
Constantin Bălăceanu-Stolnici, Romanian neurologist (d. 2023)
Wojciech Jaruzelski, Polish Communist politician, 8th Prime Minister of Poland and President of Poland (d. 2014)
Kallu Dhani Ram, Fijian farmers activist
July 7
Leonardo Ferrel, Bolivian football player (d. 2013)
Whitney North Seymour Jr., American administrator (d. 2019)
Kitty White, American jazz singer (d. 2009)
July 8
Val Bettin, American actor (d. 2021)
Harrison Dillard, African-American track and field athlete (d. 2019)
Ivor Germain, Barbadian professional light/welterweight boxer (d. 1982)
Eric Hill, English cricketer (d. 2010)
July 9 – Jill Knight, British politician (d. 2022)
July 10
Amalia Mendoza, Mexican singer and actress (d. 2001)
John Bradley, U.S. Navy flag raiser on Iwo Jima (d. 1994)
Stanton Forbes, American writer (d. 2013)
Rudolf Kehrer, Soviet and Russian classical pianist (d. 2013)
Mátyás Tímár, Hungarian politician and economist (d. 2020)
July 11
Olavo Rodrigues Barbosa, Brazilian football player (d. 2010)
Gilbert Morand, French non-commissioned officer, skier (d. 2008)
Roy Neighbors, American politician (d. 2017)
Richard Pipes, Polish-American academic who specialized in Russian history (d. 2018)
Bernard Punsly, American actor (d. 2004)
July 12
Francisco Castro, Puerto Rican long jumper, triple jumper (d. 2008)
Freddie Fields, American theatrical agent, film producer (d. 2007)
James E. Gunn, American science fiction writer, editor, scholar, and anthologist (d. 2020)
July 13
Alexandre Astruc, French film critic, director (d. 2016)
Ashley Bryan, American writer and illustrator (d. 2022)
James H. Harvey, American Air Force officer
Shmuel Laviv-Lubin, Israeli sports shooter (d. 2012)
Erich Lessing, Austrian photographer (d. 2018)
Norma Zimmer, American singer (d. 2011)
July 14
María Martín, Spanish actress (d. 2014)
Dale Robertson, American actor (d. 2013)
July 16
Chris Argyris, American business theorist (d. 2013)
Mari Evans, African-American poet (d. 2017)
Giuseppe Madini, Italian professional football player (d. 1998)
Len Okrie, American catcher (d. 2018)
July 18
Jerome H. Lemelson, American inventor (d. 1997)
Michael Medwin, English actor (d. 2020)
Odvar Omland, Norwegian politician (d. 2025)
July 19
Alex Hannum, American basketball player (d. 2002)
Soini Nikkinen, Finnish javelin thrower (d. 2012)
July 20
Stanisław Albinowski, Polish economist, journalist (d. 2005)
Elisabeth Becker, German Nazi war criminal (d. 1946)
James Bree, British actor (d. 2008)
July 21
Walter Brenner, American professor (d. 2017)
Rudolph A. Marcus, Canadian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
William Wise, American children's writer
July 22
Bob Dole, American Republican politician, presidential candidate (d. 2021)
Anthony Enahoro, Nigerian politician (d. 2010)
Mukesh, Indian singer (d. 1976)
The Fabulous Moolah, American professional wrestler (d. 2007)
July 23
Witto Aloma, Cuban Major League Baseball player (d. 1997)
Morris Halle, Latvian-American linguist (d. 2018)
July 24 – Albert Vanhoye, French cardinal (d. 2021)
July 25
Estelle Getty, American actress (d. 2008)
Leonardo Villar, Brazilian actor (d. 2020)
July 28
Robert P. Madison, American architect
Ian McDonald, Australian cricketer (d. 2019)
July 29
Edgar Cortright, American scientist, engineer (d. 2014)
Jim Marshall, British founder of Marshall Amplification (d. 2012)
July 31
Stephanie Kwolek, American chemist noted for inventing Kevlar (d. 2014)
Jean-Jacques Moreau, French mathematician, mechanician (d. 2014)
William Joseph Nealon Jr., American judge (d. 2018)
Kent Rogers, American actor (d. 1944)
=== August ===
August 2
Shimon Peres, 8th Prime Minister of Israel, 9th President of Israel, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 2016)
Charlie Wells, American crime novelist (d. 2004)
Ike Williams, American boxer (d. 1994)
August 3
Jean Hagen, American actress (d. 1977)
Anne Klein, American fashion designer (d. 1974)
Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria, Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria (d. 2012)
August 4
Cornelia Groefsema Kennedy, American judge (d. 2014)
Santiago Omar Riveros, Argentine general (d. 2024)
Franz Karl Stanzel, Austrian literary theorist (d. 2023)
August 5
Sir Michael Kerry, QC, British civil servant, Procurator General and Treasury Solicitor (d. 2012)
Devan Nair, third President of Singapore (d. 2005)
August 6
John Dunmore, New Zealand academic, historian and author (d. 2023)
Paul Hellyer, Canadian engineer, politician (d. 2021)
Moira Lister, Anglo-South African film, stage and television actress (d. 2007)
Jack Parnell, English producer, bandleader and musician (d. 2010)
August 7 – Ramesh Mehta, Indian playwright, director and actor (d. 2012)
August 8
Eve Miller, American actress (d. 1973)
Latifa al-Zayyat, Egyptian activist, writer (d. 1996)
August 9 – John Stephenson, American actor and voice actor (d. 2015)
August 10
Iosif Fabian, Romanian football striker, coach (d. 2008)
Rhonda Fleming, American actress (d. 2020)
Fred Ridgway, English cricketer (d. 2015)
David H. Rodgers, American politician (d. 2017)
August 11
Jeanne Bisgood, English golfer (d. 2024)
Roy Roper, New Zealand rugby player (d. 2023)
August 12
Ruth Stiles Gannett, American children's writer (d. 2024)
Carlo Smuraglia, Italian politician and partisan (d. 2022)
August 14
Kuldip Nayar, Indian journalist, human rights activist and politician (d. 2018)
Ivan Uzlov, Soviet-born Ukrainian scientist and metallurgist (d. 2022)
August 15
Enver Mamedov, Soviet diplomat and media manager (d. 2023)
Rose Marie, American actress, comedian, and singer (d. 2017)
August 16
Francisco de Andrade, Portuguese competitive sailor, Olympic medalist (d. 2021)
Millôr Fernandes, Brazilian cartoonist, playwright (d. 2012)
August 17 – Carlos Cruz-Diez, Venezuelan artist (d. 2019)
August 19 – Esmeralda Agoglia, Argentinian ballerina (d. 2014)
August 20
Jim Reeves, American country singer (d. 1964)
Arthur Upton, South African cricketer (d. 2015)
August 21 – Larry Grayson, English comedian, game show host (d. 1995)
August 22
Guenter Lewy, German-born American author and political scientist
Aldo Scavarda, Italian cinematographer (d. unknown)
Carolina Slim, American Piedmont blues singer, guitarist (d. 1953)
August 23
Siti Hartinah, 2nd First Lady of Indonesia, wife of Suharto (d. 1996)
Artturi Niemelä, Finnish homesteader and politician (d. 2021)
Henry F. Warner, American soldier, Medal of Honor recipient (d. 1944)
Balram Jakhar, Indian politician (d. 2016)
August 24
Eddie Deerfield, American government official (d. 2022)
Arthur Jensen, American educational psychologist (d. 2012)
August 25 – Luis Abanto Morales, Peruvian singer, composer (d. 2017)
August 26
N. A. Ramaiah, Indian physical chemist
Wolfgang Sawallisch, German conductor, pianist (d. 2013)
August 27
Inge Egger, Austrian actress (d. 1976)
Hun Neang, father of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen (d. 2013)
August 28
Arthur Payne, Australian speedway rider (d. 2025)
Andrea Veggio, Italian Roman Catholic bishop (d. 2020)
August 29
Sir Richard Attenborough, English actor, film director (d. 2014)
Maurizio Bucci, Italian diplomat
Ashi Tashi Dorji, Bhutanese royal
Marmaduke Hussey, Baron Hussey of North Bradley, chairman of the BBC (d. 2006)
August 30
Joseph Lawson Howze, American Roman Catholic bishop (d. 2019)
Giacomo Rondinella, Italian singer, actor (d. 2015)
Vic Seixas, American tennis player (d. 2024)
August 31 – Emilinha Borba, popular Brazilian singer (d. 2005)
=== September ===
September 1
Rocky Marciano, American boxer (d. 1969)
Tunku Ampuan Najihah, Queen consort of Malaysia (d. 2023)
Kenneth Thomson, Canadian businessman, art collector (d. 2006)
September 3
Glen Bell, American entrepreneur, founder of Taco Bell (d. 2010)
Mort Walker, American cartoonist, creator of Beetle Bailey (d. 2018)
September 4
Mirko Ellis, Swiss-Italian actor (d. 2014)
Ram Kishore Shukla, Indian politician (d. 2003)
Mushtaq Ahmad Yusufi, Pakistani banker, writer and humorist (d. 2018)
September 5 – Aileen Adams, English consultant anaesthetist
September 6
Eloy Tato Losada, Spanish Roman Catholic bishop (d. 2022)
King Peter II of Yugoslavia (d. 1970)
September 7
Madeleine Dring, British composer, actress (d. 1977)
Peter Lawford, English actor (d. 1984)
Bill Nankivell, Australian politician (d. 2024)
September 8
Joy Laville, English-Mexican sculptor, potter and painter (d. 2018)
Eleanor Vadala, American chemist, materials engineer and balloonist (d. 2023)
September 9
Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, American virologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2008)
Cliff Robertson, American actor (d. 2011)
Charles Grier Sellers, American historian (d. 2021)
Marcel Zanini, Turkish-born French jazz musician (d. 2023)
September 10
Uri Avnery, Israeli writer (d. 2018)
Joe Wallach, American businessman
September 11
Vasilije Mokranjac, Serbian composer (d. 1984)
Harry D. Schultz, American investment adviser and author (d. 2023)
September 12 – Joe Shulman, American jazz bassist (d. 1957),
Mary E Reed, Member of Mt Rainier Methodist Church (d. 2015)
September 13
Natália Correia, Portuguese writer, poet and social activist (d. 1993)
U. L. Gooch, American politician (d. 2021)
Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Soviet partisan (d. 1941)
September 14 – Carl-Erik Asplund, Swedish speed skater (d. 2024)
September 15 – Audrey Stuckes, English material scientist (d. 2006)
September 16 – Lee Kuan Yew, Prime Minister of Singapore (d. 2015)
September 17
David Oreck, American entrepreneur (d. 2023)
Hank Williams, American country musician (d. 1953)
September 18
Queen Anne of Romania, born Princess Anne of Bourbon-Parma, French-born queen consort (d. 2016)
Al Quie, American politician (d. 2023)
September 20 – Geraldine Clinton Little, Northern Ireland-born poet (d. 1997)
September 21
Carol Berman, American politician (d. 2023)
Linwood Holton, American politician (d. 2021)
Luba Skořepová, Czech actress (d. 2016)
September 22
Dannie Abse, Welsh poet (d. 2014)
Agha Ibrahim Akram, Pakistani general (d. 1989)
September 23
Anita Cornwell, American lesbian feminist author (d. 2023)
Basil Feldman, Baron Feldman, English politician (d. 2019)
Eberhard W. Kornfeld, Swiss auctioneer and art collector (d. 2023)
Maybell Lebron, Argentine-born Paraguayan writer
Socorro Ramos, Filipino entrepreneur
Shubert Spero, American rabbi
Jimmy Weldon, American voice actor and ventriloquist (d. 2023)
Samuel V. Wilson, American army general (d. 2017)
September 24
Mervyn Brown, British diplomat and historian (d. 2023)
Fats Navarro, American jazz trumpet player (d. 1950)
Li Yuan-tsu, Taiwanese politician (d. 2017)
September 26
Aleksandr Alov, Soviet film director, screenwriter (d. 1983)
Dev Anand, Indian actor, film producer, writer and director (d. 2011)
James Hennessy, English businessman and diplomat (d. 2024)
September 27
James Condon, Australian actor (d. 2014)
George Dickson, American football player (d. 2020)
September 28
Giuseppe Casale, Italian Roman Catholic bishop (d. 2023)
Roedad Khan, Pakistani politician and civil servant (d. 2024)
September 29 – Nicholas Amer, English actor (d. 2019)
September 30
Norman C. Gaddis, American Air Force officer and fighter pilot (d. 2024)
Thérèse Gouin Décarie, Canadian developmental psychologist and educator (d. 2024)
Donald Swann, Welsh musician and composer (d. 1994)
=== October ===
October 1
Babe McCarthy, American professional and collegiate basketball coach (d. 1975)
Mary Morello, American anti-censorship activist
Kim Yaroshevskaya, Russian-born Canadian actress (d. 2025)
October 2
Abdullah CD, Malaysian politician (d. 2024)
Shih Chun-jen, Taiwanese neurosurgeon (d. 2017)
Absalón Castellanos Domínguez, Mexican politician (d. 2017)
Judith Hemmendinger, German-born Israeli researcher and author (d. 2024)
Eugenio Cruz Vargas, Chilean poet, painter (d. 2014)
Hershel W. Williams, American Medal of Honour recipient (d. 2022)
October 3
Edward Oliver LeBlanc, Dominican politician (d. 2004)
Stanisław Skrowaczewski, Polish-born orchestral conductor (d. 2017)
October 4 – Charlton Heston, American actor (The Ten Commandments) (d. 2008)
October 5
Albert Guðmundsson, Icelandic football player, politician (d. 1994)
Glynis Johns, South African-born Welsh actress (d. 2024)
Ricardo Lavié, Argentine actor (d. 2010)
Stig Dagerman, Swedish writer (d. 1954)
October 6
Yasar Kemal, Turkish writer (d. 2015)
Robert Kuok, Malaysian-Chinese business magnate, investor
Yakov Neishtadt, Russian-born Israeli chess player (d. 2023)
Emmett Hulcy Tidd, American military officer (d. 2018)
October 7 – Irma Grese, German Nazi concentration camp guard, war criminal (executed 1945)
October 9
Helen Corey, American cookbook author and educator (d. 2024)
Haim Gouri, Israeli poet (d. 2018)
Keshub Mahindra, Indian businessman (d. 2023)
V. P. Appukutta Poduval, Indian independence activist
October 10
James "Jabby" Jabara, American aviator, first American jet fighter ace (d. 1966)
Asri Muda, Malaysian politician (d. 1992)
Nicholas Parsons, English television and radio presenter (d. 2020)
Murray Walker, British motor racing commentator (d. 2021)
October 13
Harry Pregerson, American federal judge (d. 2017)
Faas Wilkes, Dutch football (soccer) player (d. 2006)
October 15
Italo Calvino, Italian writer (d. 1985)
Bettina Moissi, German actress (d. 2023)
October 16 – Linda Darnell, American actress (d. 1965)
October 17
Henryk Gulbinowicz, Polish cardinal (d. 2020)
Charles McClendon, American Hall of Fame college football coach (d. 2001)
October 18 – Eileen Sheridan, English cyclist (d. 2023)
October 19 – Beatrix Hamburg, American psychiatrist (d. 2018)
October 20
V. S. Achuthanandan, Indian politician (d. 2025)
Marc Clark, English-born Australian sculptor (d. 2021)
Otfried Preußler, German children's books author (d. 2013)
October 23
John Meisel, Canadian political scientist, professor and scholar (d. 2025)
Ned Rorem, American composer and author (d. 2022)
Frank Sutton, American actor (d. 1974)
Julia Wipplinger, South African tennis player
October 24
Sir Robin Day, British political broadcaster (d. 2000)
Denise Levertov, British-born American poet (d. 1997)
October 25
J. Esmonde Barry, Canadian healthcare activist, political commentator (d. 2007)
Achille Silvestrini, Italian cardinal (d. 2019)
October 27
Dorothy Kloss, American dancer
Roy Lichtenstein, American pop artist (d. 1997)
October 29
Vincent Cyril Richard Arthur Charles Crabbe, Ghanaian judge (d. 2018)
Carl Djerassi, American chemist (d. 2015)
Gerda van der Kade-Koudijs, Dutch athlete (d. 2015)
=== November ===
November 1
Victoria de los Ángeles, Catalan soprano (d. 2005)
Gordon R. Dickson, Canadian author (d. 2001)
James Ramsden, English politician (d. 2020)
Imre Varga, Hungarian sculptor (d. 2019)
November 2
Henry Moore, English bishop (d. 2025)
Cesare Rubini, Italian basketball player, coach (d. 2011)
Ida Vitale, Uruguayan translator, author and literary critic
November 3
Garnett Thomas Eisele, American district court judge (d. 2017)
Violetta Elvin, née Prokhorova, Russian-born ballerina (d. 2021)
Charles Nolte, American actor, director, playwright and educator (d. 2010)
Tomás Cardinal Ó Fiaich, Irish Roman Catholic prelate (d. 1990)
Giovanni Battista Urbani, Italian politician (d. 2018)
November 4
John Herbers, American journalist, author, editor, World War II veteran and Pulitzer Prize finalist (d. 2017)
Howie Meeker, Canadian ice hockey player and politician (d. 2020)
Guillermo Rodríguez, 31st President of Ecuador
November 5
Rudolf Augstein, German journalist, founder and part-owner of magazine Der Spiegel (d. 2002)
Kay Lionikas, Greek-American female baseball player (d. 1978)
Aiko Satō, Japanese novelist
November 6 – Nizoramo Zaripova, Soviet politician and women's rights activist (d. 2024)
November 8
Yisrael Friedman, Romanian-born Israeli rabbi (d. 2017)
Józef Hen, Polish writer
Jack Kilby, American electrical engineer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics (d. 2005)
Jaroslav Šír, Czechoslovak soldier and skier
November 9 – Elizabeth Hawley, American journalist (d. 2018)
November 11
Victor Brombert, American scholar (d. 2024)
P. K. van der Byl, Rhodesian politician (d. 1999)
William P. Murphy Jr., American medical doctor and inventor (d. 2023)
Isaac Trachtenberg, Soviet-born Ukrainian hygienist (d. 2023)
November 12 – Loriot, German actor (d. 2011)
November 13 – Linda Christian, Mexican film actress (d. 2011)
November 14
Misael Pastrana Borrero, 23rd President of Colombia (d. 1997)
Cleyde Yáconis, Brazilian actress (d. 2013)
November 15
Michael Lapage, English rower (d. 2018)
Fred Richmond, American politician (d. 2019)
November 17
Louis Danziger, American graphic designer and educator
Ruth W. Greenfield, American concert pianist and teacher (d. 2023)
Aristides Pereira, President of Cape Verde (d. 2011)
Mike Garcia, American professional baseball player (d. 1986)
November 18
Howard R. Lamar, American historian (d. 2023)
Edith Graef McGeer, American-born Canadian neuroscientist (d. 2023)
Cornelis Ruhtenberg, American painter (d. 2008)
Alan Shepard, first American astronaut, fifth person to walk on the Moon (d. 1998)
Ted Stevens, American politician (d. 2010)
November 19 – Robert Harlow, Canadian writer and academic
November 20 – Nadine Gordimer, South African fiction writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2014)
November 22
Tu An, Chinese poet, translator (d. 2017)
Martin Forde, American labor union activist (d. 2022)
Arthur Hiller, Canadian film director (d. 2016)
November 23
Betty Brewer, American actress (d. 2006)
Billy Haughton, American harness driver, trainer (d. 1986)
Eric Heath, New Zealand artist and illustrator (d. 2025)
Keiju Kobayashi, Japanese actor (d. 2010)
Julien J. LeBourgeois, American vice admiral (d. 2012)
Gloria Whelan, American poet, short story writer and novelist
November 24 – Octavio Lepage, Venezuelan politician, Acting President of Venezuela (d. 2017)
November 25 – Mauno Koivisto, 2-Time Prime Minister of Finland and 9th President of Finland (d. 2017)
November 26
Luigi Bettazzi, Italian Catholic bishop (d. 2023)
Tom Hughes, Australian politician and barrister (d. 2024)
Pat Phoenix, English actress (d. 1986)
November 28
Gloria Grahame, American actress (d. 1981)
James Karen, American actor (d. 2018)
November 29 – Augusto Lauro, Italian prelate (d. 2023)
=== December ===
December 1
Maurice De Bevere, better known as Morris, Belgian cartoonist, comics artist and illustrator (d. 2001)
William F. House, American otologist, inventor of the Cochlear implant (d. 2012)
Dick Shawn, American actor (d. 1987)
Stansfield Turner, American admiral, Director of Central Intelligence (d. 2018)
December 2 – Maria Callas, Greek soprano (d. 1977)
December 3
Dede Allen, American film editor (Bonnie and Clyde) (d. 2010)
Stjepan Bobek, Yugoslav football player (d. 2010)
Moyra Fraser, British actress (d. 2009)
Abe Pollin, American sports owner (d. 2009)
December 4
Vincent Ball, Australian actor
Simon Bland, English soldier and courtier (d. 2022)
December 5
Khosiat Boboeva, Tajikistani historian
Eleanor Dapkus, American female professional baseball player (d. 2011)
Johnny Pate, American jazz musician
Philip Slier, Dutch Jewish typesetter (d. 1943)
December 6
Emile Hemmen, Luxembourg poet and writer (d. 2021)
Maury Laws, American composer (d. 2019)
Bryan Thwaites, English mathematician, educationalist and administrator
December 7
Robert Geddes, American architect (d. 2023)
Ted Knight, American actor (d. 1986)
December 8
Dewey Martin, American actor (d. 2018)
Rudolph Pariser, American physicist and polymer chemist (d. 2021)
December 9
Jack M. Guttentag, American academic (d. 2024)
Elliot Valenstein, American psychologist and neuroscientist (d. 2023)
December 10
Harold Gould, American character actor (d. 2010)
Abelardo Quinteros, Chilean composer
Meg Woolf, English artist (d. 2023)
December 11
Betsy Blair, American film actress (d. 2009)
Denis Brian, Welsh journalist and author (d. 2017)
Farhang Mehr, Iranian-born American Zoroastrian scholar, writer (d. 2018)
December 12
Bob Barker, American game show host (The Price Is Right) (d. 2023)
Bob Dorough, American pianist and composer (d. 2018)
Jacqueline Fleury, French resistance fighter
Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, Ethiopian nun (d. 2023)
Ken Kavanagh, Australian motorcycle racer (d. 2019)
December 13
Philip Warren Anderson, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2020)
Larry Doby, African-American baseball player (d. 2003)
Doireann MacDermott, Irish translator, writer and academic (d. 2024)
Alfonso Osorio, Spanish politician (d. 2018)
Antoni Tàpies, Catalan painter (d. 2012)
Herb Wilkinson, American basketball player
December 14
Sully Boyar, American actor (d. 2001)
Chris Ogunbanjo, Nigerian lawyer and philanthropist (d. 2023)
Gerard Reve, Dutch writer (d. 2006)
December 15
Freeman Dyson, English-born physicist (d. 2020)
Aishah Ghani, Malaysian politician (d. 2013)
Viktor Shuvalov, Soviet ice hockey player (d. 2021)
December 16
Jo-Carroll Dennison, American actress, Miss America (d. 2021)
Menahem Pressler, German-American pianist (d. 2023)
December 17
Robert William Bradford, Canadian artist (d. 2023)
Jaroslav Pelikan, American historian (d. 2006)
December 18
Edwin Bramall, senior British Army officer (d. 2019)
Émile Knecht, Swiss Olympic rower (d. 2019)
December 19 – Gordon Jackson, Scottish actor (d. 1990)
December 20 – Ambalavaner Sivanandan, Sri Lankan novelist (d. 2018)
December 21 – Wat Misaka, American baseball player (d. 2019)
December 22 – Peregrine Worsthorne, English journalist, writer and broadcaster (d. 2020)
December 23
Dave Bolen, American athlete and ambassador (d. 2022)
José Serra Gil, Spanish racing cyclist (d. 2002)
Enrique Lucca, Venezuelan sports shooter (d. 2021)
TL Osborn, American televangelist, singer and author (d. 2013)
James Stockdale, U.S. Navy admiral, vice presidential candidate (d. 2005)
Earl P. Yates, American admiral (d. 2021)
December 24
George Patton IV, American general (d. 2004)
Simon Perchik, American poet (d. 2022)
December 25
Luis Álamos, Chilean football manager (d. 1983)
René Girard, French-American historian (d. 2015)
Sonya Olschanezky, World War II heroine (d. 1944)
Satyananda Saraswati, Indian founder of Satyananda Yoga and Bihar Yoga (d. 2009)
Billy Watson, American child actor (d. 2022)
Jack Zunz, South African-English engineer (d. 2018)
December 26
Richard Artschwager, American painter, illustrator and sculptor (d. 2013)
Dick Teague, American industrial designer (d. 1991)
December 27 – Lucas Mangope, President of Bophuthatswana Bantustan (d. 2018)
December 28
Louis Lansana Beavogui, Guinean politician (d. 1984)
Georg Hille, Norwegian clergyman (d. 2023)
Mira Sulpizi, Italian composer
December 29
Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat, French mathematician and physicist (d. 2025)
Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegalese historian, anthropologist, physicist and politician (d. 1986)
Lily Ebert, Hungarian-born English Holocaust survivor (d. 2024)
David Teacher, British RAF veteran (d. 2024)
Dina Merrill, American actress, heiress, socialite and philanthropist (d. 2017)
Mike Nussbaum, American actor and director (d. 2023)
December 30 – Carl-Göran Ekerwald, Swedish novelist, literary critic and teacher (d. 2025)
December 31 – Balbir Singh Sr., Indian hockey player (d. 2020)
== Deaths ==
=== January ===
January 1 – Willie Keeler, American baseball player, MLB Hall of Famer (b. 1872)
January 2
Thomas Bavister, English-born Australian politician (b. 1850)
Girolamo Caruso, Italian agronomist, teacher (b. 1842)
January 3 – Jaroslav Hašek, Czech writer (b. 1883)
January 8 – Shimamura Hayao, Japanese admiral (b. 1858)
January 9
Katherine Mansfield, New Zealand-born British novelist, died in France (b. 1888)
Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters, British couple hanged for murder (Thompson b. 1893, Bywaters b. 1902)
January 11 – Constantine I, abdicated king of Greece (b. 1868)
January 12 – Herbert Silberer, Austrian psychoanalyst (b. 1882)
January 13 – Alexandre Ribot, French statesman, 46th Prime Minister of France (b. 1842)
January 16 – Abdul Kerim Pasha, Ottoman general (b. 1872)
January 18 – Wallace Reid, American actor (b. 1891)
January 19 – Amalia Eriksson, Swedish businesswoman (b. 1824)
January 23 – Max Nordau, Hungarian author, philosopher and Zionist leader (b. 1849)
January 27 – Carolina Santocanale, Italian Roman Catholic nun and blessed (b. 1852)
January 30 – Columba Marmion, Irish Benedictine and Roman Catholic monk and blessed (b. 1858)
January 31 – Eligiusz Niewiadomski, Polish artist, political activist and assassin (executed) (b. 1869)
=== February ===
February 1
Ernst Troeltsch, German theologian (b. 1865)
Luigi Variara, Italian Roman Catholic priest and blessed (b. 1875)
February 3 – Count Kuroki Tamemoto, Japanese general (b. 1844)
February 4
Giuseppe Antonio Ermenegildo Prisco, Italian Roman Catholic cardinal (b. 1833)
Prince Fushimi Sadanaru of Japan (b. 1858)
February 5 – Count Erich Kielmansegg, former Prime Minister of Austria (b. 1847)
February 6
Edward Emerson Barnard, American astronomer (b. 1857)
Gerdt von Bassewitz, Prussian general, playwright and actor (b. 1878)
February 8 – Bernard Bosanquet, English philosopher and political theorist (b. 1848)
February 10 – Wilhelm Röntgen, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1845)
February 14 – Bartolomeo Bacilieri, Italian Roman Catholic cardinal (b. 1842)
February 19 – Gerónimo Giménez, Spanish conductor, composer (b. 1854)
February 21 – Prince Miguel, Duke of Viseu (b. 1878)
February 22
Théophile Delcassé, French statesman (b. 1852)
Princess Marie Elisabeth of Saxe-Meiningen (b. 1853)
February 24 – Edward W. Morley, American physicist, chemist (b. 1838)
February 26 – Walter B. Barrows, American naturalist (b. 1855)
=== March ===
March 1 – Rui Barbosa, Brazilian polymath, diplomat, writer, jurist and politician (b. 1849)
William Bourke Cockran, Irish-American congressman and politician (b. 1854)
March 3 – Melancthon J. Briggs, American lawyer, politician (b. 1846)
March 6 – Joseph McDermott, American actor (b. 1878)
March 8
Pascual Álvarez, Filipino general (b. 1861)
Johannes Diderik van der Waals, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1837)
March 11 – Júlia da Silva Bruhns, Brazilian merchant (b. 1851)
March 15 – Goat Anderson, American baseball player (b. 1880)
March 16 – George Bean, English cricketer (b. 1864)
March 25 – Inokuchi Ariya, Japanese technologist, professor (b. 1856)
March 26 – Sarah Bernhardt, French actress (b. 1844)
March 27 – Sir James Dewar, British chemist (b. 1842)
March 28 – Michel-Joseph Maunoury, French general (b. 1847)
March 31 – Konstantin Budkevich, Soviet Roman Catholic priest and servant of God (executed) (b. 1867)
=== April ===
April 1 – Prince Naruhisa Kitashirakawa of Japan (b. 1887)
April 2 – Michel Théato, Luxembourg athlete (b. 1878)
April 4
Julius Martov, Russian Menshevik leader (b. 1873)
John Venn, British mathematician (b. 1834)
April 5 – George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, British financier of Egyptian excavations (b. 1866)
April 6 – Alice Cunningham Fletcher, American ethnologist and anthropologist (b. 1838)
April 15 – Ascensión Esquivel Ibarra, 17th President of Costa Rica (b. 1844)
April 16 – Isidore Jacques Eggermont, Belgian diplomat (b. 1844)
April 17 – Madre Teresa Nuzzo, Maltese Roman Catholic nun and blessed (b. 1851)
April 18 – Savina Petrilli, Italian Roman Catholic religious professed and blessed (b. 1851)
April 22
Frank Baldwin, American general (b. 1842)
Thomas Perrett, Sgt in the Confederate States Army and North Carolina State Senator (b. 1843)
April 23
Mary Cynthia Dickerson, American herpetologist (b. 1866)
Princess Louise of Prussia (b. 1838)
April 24 – William Ernest, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (b. 1876)
=== May ===
May 2 – Alfred Harding, American Episcopal bishop (b. 1852)
May 5 – Rosario de Acuña, Spanish author (b. 1850)
May 7 - Walter Dinnie, British and New Zealand police officer (b. 1850)
May 9 – Constantin Cristescu, Romanian general (b. 1866)
May 10 – Charles de Freycinet, French statesman, Prime Minister of France (b. 1828)
May 17
Manuel Allendesalazar y Muñoz de Salazar, Spanish nobleman, politician, and Prime Minister of Spain (b. 1856)
Thomas Scott Baldwin, American balloonist, general (b. 1854)
Duke Paul Frederick of Mecklenburg (b. 1852)
May 21
Hans Goldschmidt, German chemist (b. 1861)
Charles Kent, British actor (b. 1852)
May 23 – Nicola Barbato, Italian doctor, socialist and politician (b. 1856)
May 29 – Albert Deullin, French flying ace of World War I (b. 1890)
=== June ===
June 4
Alexander Milne Calder, Scottish-born American sculptor (b. 1846)
Filippo Smaldone, Italian Roman Catholic priest, saint (b. 1848)
June 5 – Carl von Horn, German general (b. 1847)
June 9
Takeo Arishima, Japanese novelist, writer and essayist (b. 1878)
Princess Helena of the United Kingdom, third daughter of Queen Victoria (b. 1846)
June 10 – Pierre Loti, French writer, naval officer (b. 1850)
June 12 – Kate Bishop, English actress (b. 1848)
June 14
Isabelle Bogelot, French philanthropist (b. 1838)
Aleksandar Stamboliyski, 20th Prime Minister of Bulgaria (assassinated) (b. 1879)
June 17 – Alexis-Xyste Bernard, Canadian Catholic bishop (b. 1847)
June 18 – Hristo Smirnenski, Bulgarian poet (b. 1898)
June 20 – Princess Marie of Battenberg (b. 1852)
June 23 – Keiichi Aichi, Japanese physicist (b. 1880)
June 24 – Edith Södergran, Finnish author (b. 1892)
=== July ===
July 9 – William R. Day, American lawyer and diplomat, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (b. 1849)
July 10 – Albert Chevalier, British music hall comedian (b. 1861)
July 12 – Ernst Otto Beckmann, German pharmacist, chemist (b. 1853)
July 15 – Janey Sevilla Callander, British producer (b. 1846)
July 17 – Theodor Rosetti, 16th Prime Minister of Romania (b. 1837)
July 19 – Auguste Bouché-Leclercq, French historian (b. 1842)
July 20 – Pancho Villa, Mexican revolutionary (assassinated) (b. 1878)
July 23 – Charles Dupuy, French statesman, Prime Minister of France (b. 1851)
July 30 – Sir Charles Hawtrey, British actor (b. 1858)
=== August ===
August 1 – Pierre Brizon, French teacher, deputy and pacifist (b. 1878)
August 2 – Warren G. Harding, American politician, 29th President of the United States (b. 1865)
August 5 – Vatroslav Jagić, Croatian scholar (b. 1838)
August 9 – Victor II, Duke of Ratibor (b. 1847)
August 10 – Joaquín Sorolla, Spanish painter (b. 1863)
August 15 – Marty Hogan, English baseball player (b. 1869)
August 19 – Vilfredo Pareto, Italian economist (b. 1848)
August 21 – Sir William Meredith, Canadian politician and judge (b. 1840)
August 23
Ernest Francis Bashford, British oncologist (b. 1873)
Henry C. Mustin, American naval aviation pioneer (b. 1874)
August 24
Katō Tomosaburō, Imperial Japanese Navy officer, 12th Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1861)
Kate Douglas Wiggin, American author (b. 1856)
August 26 – Hertha Ayrton, English engineer, mathematician and inventor (b. 1854)
August 27 – Edward Hill, American painter (b. 1843)
August 29 – Princess Anastasia of Greece and Denmark (b. 1878)
=== September ===
September 6 – Pedro José Escalón, Salvadorian military officer, 21st President of El Salvador (b. 1847)
September 9 – Hermes Rodrigues da Fonseca, Brazilian soldier and politician, 8th President of Brazil (b. 1855)
September 14 – Nemesio Canales, Puerto Rican essayist, novelist, playwright, journalist, activist and politician (b. 1878)
September 17 – Stefanos Dragoumis, Prime Minister of Greece (b. 1842)
September 19 – Sophus Andersen, Danish composer (b. 1859)
September 23
Antonio Francisco Xavier Alvares, Indian Orthodox priest and saint (b. 1836)
Carl L. Boeckmann, Norwegian-born American artist (b. 1867)
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn, British politician, editor (b. 1838)
September 25 – Elbazduko Britayev, Russian playwright, author (b. 1881)
September 26 – Luigi Tezza, Italian Roman Catholic priest and blessed (b. 1841)
=== October ===
October 3 – Kadambini Ganguly, doctor (b. 1861)
October 6 – Damat Ferid Pasha, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire
October 10
Herman Gottfried Breijer, Dutch-born South African naturalist and museologist (b. 1864)
Andrés Avelino Cáceres, Peruvian general, twice President of Peru (b. 1836)
October 12 – Diego Manuel Chamorro, 14th President of Nicaragua (b. 1861)
October 23
Hannah Johnston Bailey, American temperance advocate, suffragist (b. 1839)
Félix Fourdrain, French organist, composer (b. 1880)
October 26 – Charles Proteus Steinmetz, German-American engineer and electrician (b. 1865)
October 28
Stojan Protić, Yugoslav statesman and writer, 1st Prime Minister of Yugoslavia (b. 1857)
Theodor Reuss, German occultist (b. 1855)
October 30 – Bonar Law, British politician, 39th Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1858)
=== November ===
November 5 – Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen, French novelist and poet (b. 1880)
November 9 (among those killed in Munich Beer Hall Putsch):
Oskar Körner, German businessman (b. 1875)
Karl Laforce, German student (b. 1904)
Ludwig Maximilian Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, German diplomat, revolutionary (b. 1884)
November 10 – Ricciotto Canudo, Italian theoretician (b. 1877)
November 14 – Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover (b. 1845)
November 15 – Mohammad Yaqub Khan, Emir of Afghanistan (b. 1849)
November 21 – Lars Emil Bruun, Danish grocer, numismatist (b. 1852)
November 30 – Martha Mansfield, American actress (b. 1899)
=== December ===
December 2 – Tomás Bretón, Spanish composer (b. 1850)
December 4 – Maurice Barres, French novelist, journalist and politician (b. 1862)
December 9 – Meggie Albanesi, British actress (b. 1899)
December 10 – Thomas George Bonney, English geologist (b. 1833)
December 11 – Kata Dalström, Swedish politician (b. 1858)
December 13 – Théophile Steinlen, Swiss painter (b. 1859)
December 14 – Giuseppe Gallignani, Italian composer, conductor and teacher (b. 1851)
December 22 – Georg Luger, German firearms designer (b. 1849)
December 25 – William Ludwig, Irish opera singer (b. 1847)
December 26 – Rafael Valentín Errázuriz, Chilean politician, diplomat (b. 1861)
December 27
Gustave Eiffel, French engineer, architect (Eiffel Tower) (b. 1832)
Lluís Domènech i Montaner, Spanish architect (b. 1850)
December 28 – Frank Hayes, American actor (b. 1871)
=== Date unknown ===
Józef Tretiak, Polish writer (b. 1841)
== Nobel Prizes ==
Physics – Robert Andrews Millikan
Chemistry – Fritz Pregl
Physiology or Medicine – Frederick Banting, John Macleod
Literature – W. B. Yeats |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coit_Tower | Coit Tower | Coit Tower ( KOYT; also known as Coit Memorial Tower) is a 210-foot (64 m) tower in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California, overlooking the city and San Francisco Bay. The tower, in the city's Pioneer Park, was built between 1932 and 1933 using Lillie Hitchcock Coit's bequest to beautify the city of San Francisco. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 29, 2008.
The Art Deco tower, built of unpainted reinforced concrete, was designed by architects Arthur Brown Jr. and Henry Temple Howard. The interior features fresco murals in the American Social Realism style, painted by 22 different onsite artists and their numerous assistants. Three artists preferred oil on canvas and worked offsite. One artist preferred egg tempera rather than fresco.
It is often erroneously stated that the structure was dedicated to the volunteer firemen who had died in San Francisco's five major fires, but that is not accurate. The tower was constructed as the result of a bequest by Lillie Hitchcock Coit, whose will included two bequests, one to create a memorial to the city's volunteer firefighters, which was done by statuary in Washington Square, and the other to beautify the city. Coit Tower is the result of the second bequest. A concrete relief of a phoenix by sculptor Robert Boardman Howard is placed above the main entrance. It was commissioned by the architect and cast as part of the building.
Although an apocryphal story claims that the tower was designed to resemble a fire hose nozzle due to Coit's affinity with the San Francisco firefighters of the day, the resemblance is coincidental.
== History ==
Telegraph Hill, the tower's location, has been described as "the most optimal 360 degree viewing point to the San Francisco Bay and five surrounding counties." In 1849, it became the site of a two-story observation deck, from which information about incoming ships was broadcast to city residents using an optical semaphore system, replaced in 1853 by an electrical telegraph that was destroyed by a storm in 1870.
Coit Tower was paid for with money left by Lillie Hitchcock Coit (1843–1929), a wealthy socialite who loved to chase fires in the early days of the city's history. Before December 1866, there was no city fire department, and fires in the city, which broke out regularly in the wooden buildings, were extinguished by several volunteer fire companies. Coit was one of the more eccentric characters in the history of North Beach and Telegraph Hill, smoking cigars and wearing trousers long before it was socially acceptable for women to do so. She was an avid gambler and often dressed like a man in order to gamble in the males-only establishments that dotted North Beach.
Coit's fortune funded the monument four years following her death in 1929. She had a special relationship with the city's firefighters. At the age of fifteen she witnessed the Knickerbocker Engine Co. No. 5 in response to a fire call up on Telegraph Hill when they were shorthanded; she threw her school books to the ground and pitched in to help, calling out to other bystanders to help get the engine up the hill to the fire, to get the first water onto the blaze. After that Coit became the Engine Co. mascot and could barely be constrained by her parents from jumping into action at the sound of every fire bell. She frequently rode with the Knickerbocker Engine Co. 5, especially in street parades and celebrations in which the Engine Co. participated. Through her youth and adulthood Coit was recognized as an honorary firefighter.
In her will she specified that one third of her fortune, amounting to $118,000, "be expended in an appropriate manner for the purpose of adding to the beauty of the city which I have always loved." Two memorials were built in her name. One was Coit Tower, and the other was a sculpture depicting three firemen, one of them carrying a woman in his arms.
The San Francisco County Board of Supervisors proposed that Coit's bequest be used for a road at Lake Merced. This proposal brought disapproval from the estate's executors, who expressed a desire that the county find "ways and means of expending this money on a memorial that in itself would be an entity and not a unit of public development". Art Commission president Herbert Fleishhacker suggested a memorial on Telegraph Hill, which was approved by the estate executors. An additional $7,000 in city funds was appropriated, and a design competition was initiated. The winner was architect Arthur Brown, Jr, whose design was completed and dedicated on October 8, 1933.
The following month Honore Bowlby-Gledhill, proprietor of the Dead Fish Cafe (an 'artists' restaurant') in Telegraph Hill, was charged (under the name 'Helen Smith') with shooting a pistol at the tower. Bowlby-Gledhill was quoted as objecting to the tower because it 'looked like a silo'.
Coit Tower was listed as a San Francisco Designated Landmark in 1984 and on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. Although Coit Tower itself is not technically a California Historical Landmark, the state historical plaque for Telegraph Hill is located in the tower's lobby, marking the site of the original signal station.
In 2012, residents of the city voted in favor of Proposition B, the Coit Tower Protection Initiative, that requires the city to pay for the preservation of the murals and the building. The San Francisco Arts Commission ordered the removal of the Statue of Christopher Columbus that had stood outside the entrance of the tower since 1957, following numerous other removals of controversial statues during the George Floyd protests that began in May 2020, and it was removed on June 18, 2020.
== Architecture ==
Brown's competition design envisioned a restaurant in the tower, which was changed to an exhibition area in the final version. The design uses three nesting concrete cylinders, the outermost a tapering fluted 180-foot (55 m) shaft that supports the viewing platform. An intermediate shaft contains a stairway, and an inner shaft houses the elevator. The observation deck is 32 feet (9.8 m) below the top, with an arcade and skylights above it. A rotunda at the base houses display space and a gift shop.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle (1985), "The tower has been leaking since the day it was dedicated." The building was never designed to house artwork. Potable water is pumped from a water main at street level to two 1,000 US gal (3,800 L) tanks on the fifth floor, and gravity is used to feed all systems in the tower; a booster pump was installed later at the tanks to provide adequate pressure for the restrooms. Because of this arrangement, the murals (on the second and ground floors) are vulnerable to water damage from system leaks, which could be avoided if adequate pressure was available from the water supply at the street.
== Mural project ==
The Coit Tower murals in the American Social Realism style formed the pilot project of the Public Works of Art Project, the first of the New Deal federal employment programs for artists. Ralph Stackpole and Bernard Zakheim successfully sought the commission in 1933, and supervised the muralists, including Maxine Albro, Victor Arnautoff, Jane Berlandina, Ray Bertrand, Ray Boynton, Ralph Chessé, Rinaldo Cuneo, Ben Cunningham, Mallette "Harold" Dean, Parker Hall, Edith Hamlin, George Albert Harris, William Hesthal, John Langley Howard, Lucien Labaudt, Gordon Langdon, Jose Moya del Pino Otis Oldfield, Frederick Olmsted Jr., Suzanne Scheuer, Edward Terada, Frede Vidar, and Clifford Wight. Many were faculty and students of the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA).
These artists (chosen by Walter Heil, director of the de Young Museum, together with other officials) were each paid $25 to $45 per week to depict "aspects of life in California." The most well-known of them were assigned sections that were 10 by 36 feet (3.0 by 11.0 m) in size, while less famous artists were confined to 10 by 4 feet (3.0 by 1.2 m).
=== Themes ===
The artists were committed in varying degrees to racial equality and to leftist and Marxist political ideas, which are strongly expressed in the paintings. Bernard Zakheim's mural Library 7 depicts fellow artist John Langley Howard crumpling a newspaper in his left hand as he reaches for a shelved copy of Karl Marx's Das Kapital (here spelled as Das Capital) with his right. Workers of all races are shown as equals, often in the heroic poses of Socialist realism, while well-dressed racially white members of the capitalist classes enjoy the fruit of their labor.
Victor Arnautoff's City Life 9 includes the periodicals The New Masses and The Daily Worker in the scene's news stand rack.
John Langley Howard's mural California Industrial Scenes 2 depicts an ethnically diverse Labor March as well as showing a destitute family panning for gold while a wealthy, heavily caricatured ensemble observes.
Stackpole's Industries of California 5 was composed along the same lines as an early study of the destroyed Man at the Crossroads.
The youngest of the muralists, George Albert Harris, painted a mural called Banking and Law 10 . In the mural, the world of finance is represented by the Federal Reserve Bank and a stock market ticker (in which stocks are shown as declining) and law is illustrated by a law library. Some of the book titles that appear in the law library, such as Civil, Penal, and Moral Codes, are legitimate, while others list fellow muralists as authors, in a joking or derogatory manner.
After Diego Rivera's Man at the Crossroads mural was destroyed by its Rockefeller Center patrons for the inclusion of an image of Lenin, the Coit Tower muralists protested, picketing the tower. Sympathy for Rivera led some artists to incorporate references to the Rivera incident; in Zakheim's Library panel 7 , Stackpole is painted reading a newspaper headline announcing the destruction of Rivera's mural.
=== Censorship ===
After most of the Coit Tower murals had already been completed, the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike, taking place nearby at the foot of Telegraph Hill, caused government officials, shipping companies, some union leaders and the press to raise fears about communist agitation. This "red scare" has been identified as playing a "crucial role" in a subsequent controversy that mainly focused on two of the murals:
4a and 4b : These portraits were linked originally by a third small fresco in which Clifford Wight portrayed capitalism, the New Deal and communism, the three prominent economic systems of the era, with the communism part containing a hammer and sickle and the caption "Workers of the World Unite."
2 : John Langley Howard's Industry mural (designed with the support of his architect brother Henry Howard), which depicts California industrial scenes including out-of-work men, and angered conservatives by showing a banner of the communist periodical Western Worker above a crowd of workers.
On June 23, 1934, the conservative banker Herbert Fleishhacker, the most powerful member of the committee allocating funds from the Public Works of Art Project, asked Heil to inspect the art, who telegraphed back that some artists had included "details ... and certain symbols which might be interpreted as communistic propaganda," and that "editors of influential papers ... have warned us that they would take hostile attitude towards whole project unless those details be removed." The official opening of the tower, planned for July 7, was canceled and Fleishhacker ordered to close the tower and to block the view from outside through the windows. Subsequently, articles in the San Francisco Chronicle and The San Francisco Examiner attacked the project, sometimes using misleading representations of the artworks in question, while Wight refused to remove the hammer and sickle symbol from his mural. However, federal government officials decided that the offending parts would need to be painted over, and 16 of the artists signed a statement saying that they opposed the hammer and sickle symbol and that it "has no place in the subject matter assigned." Eventually, only the hammer and sickle and the "Western Worker" banner were removed, and Coit Tower opened on October 12, 1934.
=== Technical details and access ===
Two of the murals are of San Francisco Bay scenes. Most murals are done in fresco; the exceptions are one mural done in egg tempera (Home Life by Jane Berlandina, 27 : upstairs, in the last decorated room) and the works done in the elevator foyer, which are oil on canvas ( 16 , 17 , 18 , and 19 ). While most of the murals were restored in 1990 and again in 2014 through cleaning and touching up scratches, the murals in the spiral stairway exit to the observation platform (Powell Street by Lucien Labaudt) were not restored but durably painted over with epoxy surfacing.
Most of the murals are open for public viewing without charge during open hours, although there are ongoing negotiations by the Recreation and Parks Department of San Francisco to begin charging visitors a fee to enter the mural rotunda. The murals in the spiral stairway and second floor, normally closed to the public, are open for viewing through tours. Labaudt's Powell Street runs along both sides of the spiral staircase; the second-floor murals all carry recreational themes.
Since 2004 artist Ben Wood collaborated with other artists on large scale video projections onto the exterior of Coit Tower, in 2004, 2006, 2008 & 2009.
== Residents ==
There is a small unindexed apartment on the second floor of the building. The former army lieutenant William J. Bradley and his wife were paid to live in the apartment to guard the art and the building. It is not known when the couple moved out. During the 1980s, the city renovated the artwork in the building, and once again hired a permanent guardian, Tim Lillyquist, who became the third and last permanent resident of the tower.
== Panorama ==
The tower, which stands atop Telegraph Hill in San Francisco's Pioneer Park, offers panoramic views of San Francisco that take in "crooked" Lombard Street, Nob Hill, Russian Hill, Twin Peaks, Aquatic Park, Pier 39, the Financial District and the Ferry Building, as well as San Francisco Bay itself including Angel Island, Alcatraz, Treasure Island, and the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges.
== Gallery ==
== In popular culture ==
Coit Tower is a prominent landscape feature in Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 film, Vertigo, set largely in San Francisco. The character of Madeleine (Kim Novak) tells Scotty (James Stewart) that she has used the tower to orient herself to his apartment, as she did not know his street address; he responds this is the first time he had been grateful for the tower. Art director Henry Bumstead, who worked on Vertigo, noted that Hitchcock was adamant that Coit Tower should be seen in the film from the apartment of the lead character, portrayed by Stewart. When Bumstead asked why, Hitchcock said, "It's a phallic symbol."
Coit Tower is also featured in:
After the Thin Man (1936): the roundabout in front of the tower served as the driveway for Nick and Nora Charles' home in San Francisco.
The Strawberry Statement (1970)
The Enforcer (1976)
Tex Murphy series (1989–2014)
California's Gold Episode 12004 (1991-2012)
Just like Heaven (2005)
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
History Detectives Episode 709 August 24, 2009
The Amazing Race 16 Leg 12 (2010)
Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (2010)
San Andreas (2015)
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
Hero Inside Episode 9 January 7, 2024
Ironside ( 1967 to 1975): Most episodes include images in episodes' during the opening footage that serves as the episodes' establishing sequence |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway | Norway | Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country comprising the western and northernmost parts of the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe, the remote Arctic island Jan Mayen and the archipelago Svalbard. Bouvet Island, located in the Subantarctic, is a dependency, and not a part of the Kingdom; Norway also claims the Antarctic territories of Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land. Norway has a population of approximately 5.6 million, and a total area of 385,207 square kilometres (148,729 sq mi). Its capital and largest city is Oslo. The country shares a long eastern border with Sweden, and is bordered by Finland and Russia to the northeast. Norway has an extensive coastline facing the Skagerrak strait, the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea, and the Barents Sea.
The unified kingdom of Norway was established in 872 as a merger of petty kingdoms and has existed continuously for 1,153–1,154 years. From 1537 to 1814, Norway was part of Denmark–Norway, and, from 1814 to 1905, it was in a personal union with Sweden. Norway was neutral during the First World War, and in the Second World War until April 1940 when it was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany until the end of the war.
Harald V of the House of Glücksburg is the current King of Norway. Jonas Gahr Støre has been Prime Minister of Norway since 2021. As a unitary state with a constitutional monarchy, Norway divides state power between the parliament, the cabinet, and the judiciary, as determined by the 1814 constitution. Norway has both administrative and political subdivisions on two levels: counties and municipalities. The Sámi people have a certain amount of self-determination and influence over traditional territories through the Sámi Parliament and the Finnmark Act. Norway maintains close ties with the European Union and the United States. Norway is a founding member of the United Nations, NATO, the European Free Trade Association, the Council of Europe, the Antarctic Treaty, and the Nordic Council; a member of the European Economic Area, the WTO, and the OECD; and a part of the Schengen Area. The Norwegian dialects form a continuum of mutual intelligibility with Danish and Swedish dialects.
Norway maintains the Nordic model with universal health care and a comprehensive social security system, with its values rooted in egalitarian ideals. The Norwegian state has large ownership positions in key industrial sectors, having extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, minerals, lumber, seafood, and fresh water. The petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). On a per-capita basis, Norway is the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas outside of the Middle East. The country has the fourth- and eighth-highest PPP-adjusted per-capita GDP in the world on the World Bank's and IMF's list, respectively. It has the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, with a value of US$2.1 trillion.
== Etymology ==
Norway has two official names: Norge in Bokmål and Noreg in Nynorsk. The English name Norway comes from the Old English word Norþweg in the account provided by Ohthere of Hålogaland around 890, meaning "northern way" or "way leading to the north", which is how the Anglo-Saxons referred to the coastline of Atlantic Norway. The Anglo-Saxons of Britain also referred to Norway in 890 as Norðmanna land.
There is some disagreement about whether the native name of Norway originally had the same etymology as the English form. According to the traditional dominant view, the first component was originally norðr, a cognate of English north, so the full name was Norðr vegr, "the way northwards", referring to the sailing route along the Norwegian coast, and contrasting with suðrvegar "southern way" (from Old Norse suðr) for (Germany), and austrvegr "eastern way" (from austr) for the Baltic.
== History ==
=== Prehistory ===
The earliest traces of human occupation in Norway are found along the coast, where the huge ice shelf of the last ice age first melted between 11,000 and 8000 BC. The oldest finds are stone tools dating from 9500 to 6000 BC, discovered in Finnmark (Komsa culture) in the north and Rogaland (Fosna culture) in the southwest. Theories about the two cultures being separate were deemed obsolete in the 1970s.
Between 3000 and 2500 BC, new settlers (Corded Ware culture) arrived in eastern Norway. They were Indo-European farmers who grew grain and kept livestock, and gradually replaced the hunting-fishing population of the west coast.
=== Metal Ages ===
From about 1500 BC, bronze was gradually introduced. Burial cairns built close to the sea as far north as Harstad and also inland in the south are characteristic of this period, with rock carving motifs that differ from those of the Stone Age, depicting ships resembling the Hjortspring boat, while large stone burial monuments known as stone ships were also erected.
There is little archaeological evidence dating to the early Iron Age, which were the last 500 years BC. The dead were cremated, and their graves contained little goods. During the first four centuries AD, the people of Norway were in contact with Roman-occupied Gaul; about 70 Roman bronze cauldrons, often used as burial urns, have been found. Contact with countries farther south brought a knowledge of runes; the oldest known Norwegian runic inscription dates from the third century.
=== Viking Age ===
By the time of the first historical records of Scandinavia, about the 8th century, several small political entities existed in Norway. It has been estimated that there were nine petty realms in Western Norway during the early Viking Age. Archaeologist Bergljot Solberg on this basis estimates that there would have been at least 20 in the whole country.
In the Viking period, Norwegian Viking explorers discovered Iceland by accident in the ninth century when heading for the Faroe Islands, and eventually came across Vinland, known today as Newfoundland, in Canada. The Vikings from Norway were most active in the northern and western British Isles and eastern North America isles.
According to tradition, Harald Fairhair unified them into one in 872 after the Battle of Hafrsfjord in Stavanger, thus becoming the first king of a united Norway. Harald's realm was mainly a South Norwegian coastal state. Fairhair ruled with a strong hand and according to the sagas, many Norwegians left the country to live in Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and parts of Britain and Ireland.
Haakon I the Good was Norway's first Christian king, in the mid-10th century, though his attempt to introduce the religion was rejected. Norse traditions were replaced slowly by Christian ones in the late 10th and early 11th centuries. This is largely attributed to the missionary kings Olaf I Tryggvasson and Olaf II Haraldsson (St. Olaf). Olaf Tryggvasson conducted raids in England, including attacking London. Arriving back in Norway in 995, Olaf landed in Moster where he built a church which became the first Christian church in Norway. From Moster, Olaf sailed north to Trondheim where he was proclaimed King of Norway by the Eyrathing in 995. One of the most important sources for the history of the 11th century Vikings is the treaty between the Icelanders and Olaf II Haraldsson, king of Norway circa 1015 to 1028.
Feudalism never really developed in Norway or Sweden, as it did in the rest of Europe. However, the administration of government took on a very conservative feudal character. The Hanseatic League forced royalty to cede to them greater and greater concessions over foreign trade and the economy, because of the loans the Hansa had made to the royals and the large debt the kings were carrying. The League's monopolistic control over the economy of Norway put pressure on all classes, especially the peasantry, to the degree that no real burgher class existed in Norway.
=== High Middle Ages ===
From the 1040s to 1130, the country was at peace. In 1130, the civil war era broke out on the basis of unclear succession laws, which allowed the king's sons to rule jointly. The Archdiocese of Nidaros was created in 1152 and attempted to control the appointment of kings. The church inevitably had to take sides in the conflicts. The wars ended in 1217 with the appointment of Håkon IV Håkonsson, who introduced clear laws of succession.
From 1000 to 1300, the population increased from 150,000 to 400,000, resulting both in more land being cleared and the subdivision of farms. While in the Viking Age farmers owned their own land, by 1300, seventy per cent of the land was owned by the king, the church, or the aristocracy, and about twenty per cent of yields went to these landowners.
The 13th century saw Norway's golden age, marked by peace, increased trade with the British Islands, and rising German influence toward the century's end. Throughout the High Middle Ages, the king established Norway as a sovereign state with a central administration and local representatives.
In 1349, the Black Death spread to Norway and within a year killed a third of the population. Later plagues reduced the population to half the starting point by 1400. Many communities were entirely wiped out, resulting in an abundance of land, allowing farmers to switch to more animal husbandry. The reduction in taxes weakened the king's position, and many aristocrats lost the basis for their surplus. High tithes to church made it increasingly powerful and the archbishop became a member of the Council of State.
The Hanseatic League took control over Norwegian trade during the 14th century and established a trading centre in Bergen. In 1380, Olaf Haakonsson inherited both the Norwegian (as Olaf IV) and Danish thrones (as Olaf II), creating a union between the two countries. In 1397, under Margaret I, the Kalmar Union was created between the three Scandinavian countries. She waged war against the Germans, resulting in a trade blockade and higher taxation on Norwegian goods, which led to a rebellion. However, the Norwegian Council of State was too weak to pull out of the union.
Margaret pursued a centralising policy which inevitably favoured Denmark because of its greater population. Margaret also granted trade privileges to the Hanseatic merchants of Lübeck in Bergen in return for recognition of her rule, and these hurt the Norwegian economy. The Hanseatic merchants formed a state within a state in Bergen for generations. The "Victual Brothers" launched three devastating pirate raids on the port (the last in 1427).
Norway slipped ever more to the background under the Oldenburg dynasty (established 1448). There was one revolt under Knut Alvsson in 1502. Norway took no part in the events which led to Sweden's secession from the Kalmar Union in the 1520s.
==== Kalmar Union ====
Upon the death of King Haakon V in 1319, Magnus Eriksson, at just three years old, inherited the throne as King Magnus VII. A simultaneous movement to make Magnus King of Sweden proved successful (he was a grandson of King Magnus Ladulås of Sweden), and both the kings of Sweden and of Denmark were elected to the throne by their respective nobles. Thus Sweden and Norway were united under King Magnus VII.
In 1349, the Black Death killed between 50% and 60% of Norway's population and led to a period of social and economic decline. Although the death rate was comparable with the rest of Europe, economic recovery took much longer because of the small, scattered population. Even before the plague, the population was only about 500,000. After the plague, many farms lay idle while the population slowly increased. However, the few surviving farms' tenants found their bargaining positions with their landlords greatly strengthened.
King Magnus VII ruled Norway until 1350, when his son, Haakon, was placed on the throne as Haakon VI. In 1363, Haakon married Margaret, daughter of King Valdemar IV of Denmark. Upon the death of Haakon in 1379, his 10-year-old son Olaf IV acceded to the throne. As Olaf had already been elected to the throne of Denmark in 1376, Denmark and Norway entered a personal union. Olaf's mother and Haakon's widow, Queen Margaret, managed the foreign affairs of Denmark and Norway during Olaf's minority.
Margaret was on the verge of achieving a union of Sweden with Denmark and Norway when Olaf IV suddenly died. Denmark made Margaret temporary ruler on the death of Olaf. On 2 February 1388, Norway followed suit and crowned Margaret. Queen Margaret knew that her power would be more secure if she were able to find a king to rule in her place. She settled on Eric of Pomerania, grandson of her sister. Thus at an all-Scandinavian meeting held at Kalmar, Erik of Pomerania was crowned king of all three Scandinavian countries, bringing the thrones of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden under the control of Queen Margaret when the country entered into the Kalmar Union.
=== Early modern period ===
After Sweden broke out of the Kalmar Union in 1521, Norway tried to follow suit, but the subsequent rebellion was defeated, and Norway remained in a union with Denmark until 1814. This period was by some referred to as the "400-Year Night", since all of the kingdom's intellectual and administrative power was centred in Copenhagen.
With the introduction of Protestantism in 1536, the archbishopric in Trondheim was dissolved; Norway lost its independence and effectually became a colony of Denmark. The Church's income and possessions were instead redirected to the court in Copenhagen. Norway lost the steady stream of pilgrims to the relics of St. Olav at the Nidaros shrine and, with them, much of the contact with cultural and economic life in the rest of Europe.
Eventually restored as a kingdom (albeit in legislative union with Denmark) in 1661, Norway saw its land area decrease in the 17th century with the loss of the provinces Båhuslen, Jemtland, and Herjedalen to Sweden, as the result of a number of disastrous wars. In the north, its territory was increased by the acquisition of the provinces of Troms and Finnmark, at the expense of Sweden and Russia.
The famine of 1695–1696 killed roughly 10% of Norway's population. The harvest failed in Scandinavia at least nine times between 1740 and 1800, with great loss of life.
=== Later modern period ===
After Denmark–Norway was attacked by the United Kingdom at the 1807 Battle of Copenhagen, it entered into an alliance with Napoleon, with the war leading to dire conditions and mass starvation in 1812. As the Danish kingdom was on the losing side in 1814, it was forced by the Treaty of Kiel to cede Norway to Sweden, while the old Norwegian provinces of Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands remained with the Danish crown. Norway took this opportunity to declare independence, adopted a constitution based on American and French models, and elected the Crown Prince of Denmark and Norway, Christian Frederick, as king on 17 May 1814 – celebrated as the Syttende mai (Seventeenth of May) holiday.
Norwegian opposition to the decision to link Norway with Sweden caused the Norwegian–Swedish War to break out as Sweden tried to subdue Norway by military means. As Sweden's military was not strong enough to defeat the Norwegian forces outright, and Norway's treasury was not large enough to support a protracted war, and as British and Russian navies blockaded the Norwegian coast, the belligerents were forced to negotiate the Convention of Moss. Christian Frederik abdicated the Norwegian throne and authorised the Parliament of Norway to make the necessary constitutional amendments to allow for the personal union that Norway was forced to accept. On 4 November 1814, the Parliament (Storting) elected Charles XIII of Sweden as king of Norway, thereby establishing the union with Sweden. Under this arrangement, Norway kept its liberal constitution and its own independent institutions, though it shared a monarch and foreign policy with Sweden. Following the recession caused by the Napoleonic Wars, economic development of Norway remained slow until 1830.
This period also saw the rise of Norwegian romantic nationalism, as Norwegians sought to define and express a distinct national character. The movement covered all branches of culture, including literature (Henrik Wergeland, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, Jørgen Moe), painting (Hans Gude, Adolph Tidemand), music (Edvard Grieg), and even language policy, where attempts to define a native written language for Norway led to today's two official written forms for Norwegian: Bokmål and Nynorsk.
King Charles III John came to the throne of Norway and Sweden in 1818 and reigned to 1844. He protected the constitution and liberties of Norway and Sweden during the age of Metternich. As such, he was regarded as a liberal monarch. However, he was ruthless in his use of paid informers, secret police and restrictions on the freedom of the press to put down public movements for reform—especially the Norwegian national independence movement.
The Romantic Era that followed the reign of Charles III John brought some significant social and political reforms. In 1854, women won the right to inherit property. In 1863, the last trace of keeping unmarried women in the status of minors was removed. Furthermore, women were eligible for different occupations, particularly the common school teacher. By mid-century, Norway's democracy was limited; voting was limited to officials, property owners, leaseholders and burghers of incorporated towns.
Norway remained a conservative society. Life in Norway (especially economic life) was "dominated by the aristocracy of professional men who filled most of the important posts in the central government". There was no strong bourgeois class to demand a breakdown of this aristocratic control. Thus, even while revolution swept over most of the countries of Europe in 1848, Norway was largely unaffected.
Marcus Thrane was a Utopian socialist who in 1848 organised a labour society in Drammen. In just a few months, this society had a membership of 500 and was publishing its own newspaper. Within two years, 300 societies had been organised all over Norway, with a total membership of 20,000 drawn from the lower classes of both urban and rural areas. In the end, the revolt was easily crushed; Thrane was captured and jailed.
In 1898, all men were granted universal suffrage, followed by all women in 1913.
=== Dissolution of the union and the First World War ===
Christian Michelsen, Prime Minister of Norway from 1905 to 1907, played a central role in the peaceful separation of Norway from Sweden on 7 June 1905. A national referendum confirmed the people's preference for a monarchy over a republic. However, no Norwegian could legitimately claim the throne, since none of Norway's noble families could claim royal descent.
The government then offered the throne of Norway to Prince Carl of Denmark, a prince of the Dano-German royal house of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and a distant relative of Norway's medieval kings. Following the plebiscite, he was unanimously elected king by the Norwegian Parliament; he took the name Haakon VII.
Throughout the First World War, Norway remained neutral; however, diplomatic pressure from the British government meant that it heavily favoured the Allies. During the war, Norway exported fish to both Germany and Britain, until an ultimatum from the British government and anti-German sentiments as a result of German submarines targeting Norwegian merchantmen led to a termination of trade with Germany. 436 Norwegian merchantmen were sunk by the Kaiserliche Marine, with 1,150 Norwegian sailors killed.
=== Second World War ===
Norway once more proclaimed its neutrality during the Second World War, but was invaded by German forces on 9 April 1940. Although Norway was unprepared for the German surprise attack (see: Battle of Drøbak Sound, Norwegian campaign, and Invasion of Norway), military and naval resistance lasted for two months. Norwegian armed forces in the north launched an offensive against the German forces in the Battles of Narvik, but were forced to surrender on 10 June after losing British support which had been diverted to France during the German invasion of France.
King Haakon and the Norwegian government escaped to Rotherhithe in London. Throughout the war they sent radio speeches and supported clandestine military actions against the Germans. On the day of the invasion, the leader of the small National-Socialist party Nasjonal Samling, Vidkun Quisling, tried to seize power, but was forced by the German occupiers to step aside. Real power was wielded by the leader of the German occupation authority, Josef Terboven. Quisling, as minister president, later formed a collaborationist government under German control. Up to 15,000 Norwegians volunteered to fight in German units, including the Waffen-SS.
Many Norwegians and persons of Norwegian descent joined the Allied forces as well as the Free Norwegian Forces. In June 1940, a small group had left Norway following their king to Britain. This group included 13 ships, five aircraft, and 500 men from the Royal Norwegian Navy. By the end of the war, the force had grown to 58 ships and 7,500 men in service in the Royal Norwegian Navy, 5 squadrons of aircraft in the newly formed Norwegian Air Force, and land forces including the Norwegian Independent Company 1 and 5 Troop as well as No. 10 Commandos.
During German occupation, Norwegians built a resistance movement which incorporated civil disobedience and armed resistance including the destruction of Norsk Hydro's heavy water plant and stockpile of heavy water at Vemork, which crippled the German nuclear programme. More important to the Allied war effort, however, was the role of the Norwegian Merchant Marine, the fourth-largest merchant marine fleet in the world. It was led by the Norwegian shipping company Nortraship under the Allies throughout the war and took part in every war operation from the evacuation of Dunkirk to the Normandy landings. Every December Norway gives a Christmas tree to the United Kingdom as thanks for the British assistance during the war.
Svalbard was not occupied by German troops, but Germany secretly established a meteorological station there in 1944.
=== Post–World War II history ===
From 1945 to 1962, the Labour Party held an absolute majority in the parliament. The government, led by prime minister Einar Gerhardsen, embarked on a programme inspired by Keynesian economics, emphasising state financed industrialisation and co-operation between trade unions and employers' organisations. Many measures of state control of the economy imposed during the war were continued, although the rationing of dairy products was lifted in 1949, while price controls and rationing of housing and cars continued until 1960.
The wartime alliance with the United Kingdom and the United States continued in the post-war years. Although pursuing the goal of a socialist economy, the Labour Party distanced itself from the Communists, especially after the Communists' seizure of power in Czechoslovakia in 1948, and strengthened its foreign policy and defence policy ties with the US. Norway received Marshall Plan aid from the United States starting in 1947, joined the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) one year later, and became a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949.
Oil was discovered at the small Balder field in 1967, but production only began in 1999. In 1969, the Phillips Petroleum Company discovered petroleum resources at the Ekofisk field west of Norway. In 1973, the Norwegian government founded the State oil company, Statoil (now Equinor). Oil production did not provide net income until the early 1980s because of the large capital investment required. Around 1975, both the proportion and absolute number of workers in industry peaked. Since then labour-intensive industries and services like factory mass production and shipping have largely been outsourced.
Norway was a founding member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Norway was twice invited to join the European Union, but ultimately declined after referendums that failed by narrow margins in 1972 and 1994.
In 1981, a Conservative Party government led by Kåre Willoch replaced the Labour Party with a policy of stimulating the stagflated economy with tax cuts, economic liberalisation, deregulation of markets, and measures to curb record-high inflation (13.6% in 1981).
Norway's first female prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland of the Labour Party continued many of the reforms, while backing traditional Labour concerns such as social security, high taxes, the industrialisation of nature, and feminism. By the late 1990s, Norway had paid off its foreign debt and had started accumulating a sovereign wealth fund. Since the 1990s, a divisive question in politics has been how much of the income from petroleum production the government should spend, and how much it should save.
In 2011, Norway suffered two terrorist attacks by Anders Behring Breivik which struck the government quarter in Oslo and a summer camp of the Labour party's youth movement at Utøya island, resulting in 77 deaths and 319 wounded.
Jens Stoltenberg led Norway as prime minister for eight years from 2005 to 2013. The 2013 Norwegian parliamentary election brought a more conservative government to power, with the Conservative Party and the Progress Party winning 43% of the electorate's votes. In the Norwegian parliamentary election 2017 the centre-right government of Prime Minister Erna Solberg won re-election. The 2021 Norwegian parliamentary election saw a big win for the left-wing opposition in an election fought on climate change, inequality, and oil; Labour leader Jonas Gahr Støre was sworn in as prime minister.
== Geography ==
Norway's core territory comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula; the remote island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard are also included. The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the Kingdom. Norway also claims a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land. Norwegian possessions in the North Atlantic, Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland, remained Danish when Norway was passed to Sweden at the Treaty of Kiel. Norway also comprised Bohuslän until 1658, Jämtland and Härjedalen until 1645, Shetland and Orkney until 1468, and the Hebrides and Isle of Man until the Treaty of Perth in 1266.
Norway comprises the western and northernmost part of Scandinavia in Northern Europe, between latitudes 57° and 81° N, and longitudes 4° and 32° E. Norway is the northernmost of the Nordic countries and if Svalbard is included also the easternmost. Norway includes the northernmost point on the European mainland. The rugged coastline is broken by huge fjords and thousands of islands. The coastal baseline is 2,532 kilometres (1,573 mi). The coastline of the mainland including fjords stretches 28,953 kilometres (17,991 mi), when islands are included the coastline has been estimated to 100,915 kilometres (62,706 mi). Norway shares a 1,619-kilometre (1,006 mi) land border with Sweden, 727 kilometres (452 mi) with Finland, and 196 kilometres (122 mi) with Russia to the east. To the north, west and south, Norway is bordered by the Barents Sea, the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea, and Skagerrak. The Scandinavian Mountains form much of the border with Sweden.
At 385,207 square kilometres (148,729 sq mi) (including Svalbard and Jan Mayen; 323,808 square kilometres (125,023 sq mi) without), much of the country is dominated by mountainous or high terrain, with a great variety of natural features caused by prehistoric glaciers and varied topography. The most noticeable of these are the fjords. Sognefjorden is the world's second deepest fjord, and the world's longest at 204 kilometres (127 mi). The lake Hornindalsvatnet is the deepest lake in Europe. Norway has about 400,000 lakes and 239,057 registered islands. Permafrost can be found all year in the higher mountain areas and in the interior of Finnmark county. Numerous glaciers are found in Norway. The land is mostly made of hard granite and gneiss rock, but slate, sandstone, and limestone are also common, and the lowest elevations contain marine deposits.
=== Climate ===
Because of the Gulf Stream and prevailing westerlies, Norway experiences higher temperatures and more precipitation than expected at such northern latitudes, especially along the coast. The mainland experiences four distinct seasons, with colder winters and less precipitation inland. The northernmost part has a mostly maritime Subarctic climate, while Svalbard has an Arctic tundra climate. The southern and western parts of Norway, fully exposed to Atlantic storm fronts, experience more precipitation and have milder winters than the eastern and far northern parts. Areas to the east of the coastal mountains are in a rain shadow, and have lower rain and snow totals than the west. The lowlands around Oslo have the warmest summers, but also cold weather and snow in wintertime. The sunniest weather is along the south coast, but sometimes even the coast far north can be very sunny – the sunniest month with 430 sun hours was recorded in Tromsø.
Because of Norway's high latitude, there are large seasonal variations in daylight. From late May to late July, the sun never completely descends beneath the horizon in areas north of the Arctic Circle, and the rest of the country experiences up to 20 hours of daylight per day. Conversely, from late November to late January, the sun never rises above the horizon in the north, and daylight hours are very short in the rest of the country.
Temperature anomalies found in coastal locations are exceptional, with southern Lofoten and Bø Municipality having all monthly means above freezing in spite of being north of the Arctic Circle. The very northernmost coast of Norway would be ice-covered in winter if not for the Gulf Stream. The east of the country has a more continental climate, and the mountain ranges have subarctic and tundra climates. There is also higher rainfall in areas exposed to the Atlantic, especially the western slopes of the mountain ranges and areas close, such as Bergen. The valleys east of the mountain ranges are the driest; some of the valleys are sheltered by mountains in most directions. Saltdal Municipality in Nordland is the driest place with 211 millimetres (8.3 inches) precipitation annually (1991–2020). In southern Norway, Skjåk Municipality in Innlandet county gets 295 millimetres (11.6 inches) precipitation. Finnmarksvidda and some interior valleys of Troms county receive around 400 millimetres (16 inches) annually, and the high Arctic Longyearbyen 217 millimetres (8.5 inches).
Parts of southeastern Norway including parts of Mjøsa have a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfb), the southern and western coasts and also the coast north to Bodø have an oceanic climate (Cfb), and the outer coast further north almost to North Cape has a subpolar oceanic climate (Cfc). Further inland in the south and at higher altitudes, and also in much of Northern Norway, the subarctic climate (Dfc) dominates. A small strip of land along the coast east of North Cape (including Vardø) earlier had tundra/alpine/polar climate (ET), but this is mostly gone with the updated 1991–2020 climate normals, making this also subarctic. Large parts of Norway are covered by mountains and high altitude plateaus, and about one third of the land is above the treeline and thus exhibit tundra/alpine/polar climate (ET).
=== Biodiversity ===
Norway has a larger number of different habitats than almost any other European country. There are approximately 60,000 species in Norway and adjacent waters (excluding bacteria and viruses). The Norwegian Shelf large marine ecosystem is considered highly productive. The total number of species include 16,000 species of insects (probably 4,000 more species yet to be described), 20,000 species of algae, 1,800 species of lichen, 1,050 species of mosses, 2,800 species of vascular plants, up to 7,000 species of fungi, 450 species of birds (250 species nesting in Norway), 90 species of mammals, 45 fresh-water species of fish, 150 salt-water species of fish, 1,000 species of fresh-water invertebrates, and 3,500 species of salt-water invertebrates. About 40,000 of these species have been described by science. The red list of 2010 encompasses 4,599 species. Norway contains five terrestrial ecoregions: Sarmatic mixed forests, Scandinavian coastal conifer forests, Scandinavian and Russian taiga, Kola Peninsula tundra, and Scandinavian montane birch forest and grasslands.
Seventeen species are listed mainly because they are endangered on a global scale, such as the European beaver, even if the population in Norway is not seen as endangered. The number of threatened and near-threatened species equals to 3,682; it includes 418 fungi species, many of which are closely associated with the small remaining old-growth forests, 36 bird species, and 16 species of mammals. In 2010, 2,398 species were listed as endangered or vulnerable; of these 1,250 were listed as vulnerable (VU), 871 as endangered (EN), and 276 species as critically endangered (CR), among which were the grey wolf, the Arctic fox, and the pool frog.
The largest predator in Norwegian waters is the sperm whale, and the largest fish is the basking shark. The largest predator on land is the polar bear, while the brown bear is the largest predator on the Norwegian mainland. The largest land animal on the mainland is the elk (American English: moose).
=== Environment ===
Attractive and dramatic scenery and landscape are found throughout Norway. The west coast of southern Norway and the coast of northern Norway present some of the most visually impressive coastal sceneries in the world. National Geographic has listed the Norwegian fjords as the world's top tourist attraction. The country is also home to the natural phenomena of the midnight sun (during summer), as well as the aurora borealis known also as the northern lights.
The 2024 Environmental Performance Index from Yale University, Columbia University and the World Economic Forum put Norway in seventh place, immediately below United Kingdom and Sweden. The index is based on environmental risks to human health, habitat loss, and changes in CO2 emissions. The index notes over-exploitation of fisheries, but not Norway's whaling or oil exports. Norway had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 6.98/10, ranking it 60th globally out of 172 countries.
== Politics and government ==
Norway is considered to be one of the most developed democracies and states of justice in the world. According to International IDEA’s Global State of Democracy (GSoD) Indices and Democracy Tracker, Norway performs in the high range on overall democratic measures, with particular strengths in elected government and gender equality. Since 2010, Norway has been classified as the world's most democratic country by the Democracy Index.
According to the Constitution of Norway, which was adopted on 17 May 1814 and was inspired by the United States Declaration of Independence and French Revolution, Norway is a unitary constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of government, wherein the King of Norway is the head of state and the prime minister is the head of government. Power is separated among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government, as defined by the Constitution, which serves as the country's supreme legal document.
The monarch officially retains executive power. But following the introduction of a parliamentary system of government, the duties of the monarch became strictly representative and ceremonial. The Monarch is commander-in-chief of the Norwegian Armed Forces, and serves as chief diplomatic official abroad and as a symbol of unity. Harald V of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg ascended to the Norwegian throne in 1991, the first since the 14th century who has been born in the country. Haakon, Crown Prince of Norway, is the heir to the throne.
In practice, the Prime Minister exercises the executive powers. Constitutionally, legislative power is vested with both the government and the Parliament of Norway, but the latter is the supreme legislature and a unicameral body. Norway is fundamentally structured as a representative democracy. The Parliament can pass a law by simple majority of the 169 representatives, of which 150 are elected directly from 19 constituencies, and an additional 19 seats ("levelling seats") are allocated on a nationwide basis to make the representation in parliament correspond better with the popular vote for the political parties. A 4% election threshold is required for a party to gain levelling seats in Parliament.
The Parliament of Norway, called the Storting, ratifies national treaties developed by the executive branch. It can impeach members of the government if their acts are declared unconstitutional. If an indicted suspect is impeached, Parliament has the power to remove the person from office.
The position of prime minister is allocated to the member of Parliament who can obtain the confidence of a majority in Parliament, usually the current leader of the largest political party or, more effectively, through a coalition of parties; Norway has often been ruled by minority governments. The prime minister nominates the cabinet, traditionally drawn from members of the same political party or parties in the Storting, making up the government. The PM organises the executive government and exercises its power as vested by the Constitution.
Through the Council of State, a privy council presided over by the monarch, the prime minister and the cabinet meet at the Royal Palace and formally consult the Monarch. All government bills need formal approval by the monarch before and after introduction to Parliament. The Council approves all of the monarch's actions as head of state.
Members of the Storting are directly elected from party-list proportional representation in nineteen multiwinner voting constituencies in a national multi-party system. Historically, both the Norwegian Labour Party and Conservative Party have played leading political roles. In the early 21st century, the Labour Party has been in power since the 2005 election, in a Red–Green Coalition with the Socialist Left Party and the Centre Party. Since 2005, both the Conservative Party and the Progress Party have won numerous seats in the Parliament.
In national elections in September 2013, two political parties, Høyre and Fremskrittspartiet, were elected on promises of tax cuts, more spending on infrastructure and education, better services and stricter rules on immigration, formed a government. Erna Solberg became prime minister, the second female prime minister after Gro Harlem Brundtland and the first conservative prime minister since Jan P. Syse. Solberg said her win was "a historic election victory for the right-wing parties". Her centre-right government won re-election in the 2017 Norwegian parliamentary election. Norway's new centre-left cabinet under Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, the leader of the Labour Party, took office on 14 October 2021.
=== Administrative divisions ===
Norway, a unitary state, is divided into fifteen first-level administrative counties (fylke). The counties are administered through directly elected county councils who elect the County Mayor. Additionally, the King and government are represented in every county by a County Governor (Norwegian: statsforvalteren). The counties are then sub-divided into 357 second-level municipalities (Norwegian: kommuner), which in turn are administered by directly elected municipal council, headed by a mayor and a small executive cabinet. The capital of Oslo is considered both a county and a municipality. Norway has two integral overseas territories out of mainland: Jan Mayen and Svalbard, the only developed island in the archipelago of the same name, located far to the north of the Norwegian mainland.
There are 108 settlements that have town/city status in Norway (the Norwegian word by is used to represent these places and that word can be translated as either town or city in English). Cities/towns in Norway were historically designated by the King and used to have special rules and privileges under the law. This was changed in the late 20th century, so now towns/cities have no special rights and a municipality can designate an urban settlement as a city/town. Towns and cities in Norway do not have to be large. Some cities have over a million residents such as Oslo, while others are much smaller such as Honningsvåg with about 2,200 residents. Usually, there is only one town within a municipality, but there are some municipalities that have more than one town within it (such as Larvik Municipality which has the town of Larvik and the town of Stavern.
==== Dependencies of Norway ====
There are three Antarctic and Subantarctic dependencies: Bouvet Island, Peter I Island, and Queen Maud Land. On most maps, there was an unclaimed area between Queen Maud Land and the South Pole until 12 June 2015 when Norway formally annexed that area.
=== Largest populated areas ===
=== Judicial system and law enforcement ===
Norway uses a civil law system where laws are created and amended in Parliament and the system regulated through the Courts of justice of Norway. It consists of the Supreme Court of 20 permanent judges and a Chief Justice, appellate courts, city and district courts, and conciliation councils. The judiciary is independent of executive and legislative branches. While the Prime Minister nominates Supreme Court Justices for office, their nomination must be approved by Parliament and formally confirmed by the Monarch. Usually, judges attached to regular courts are formally appointed by the Monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister.
The Courts' formal mission is to regulate the Norwegian judicial system, interpret the Constitution, and implement the legislation adopted by Parliament. In its judicial reviews, it monitors the legislative and executive branches to ensure that they comply with provisions of enacted legislation.
The law is enforced in Norway by the Norwegian Police Service. It is a Unified National Police Service made up of 27 Police Districts and several specialist agencies, such as Norwegian National Authority for the Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime, known as Økokrim; and the National Criminal Investigation Service, known as Kripos, each headed by a chief of police. The Police Service is headed by the National Police Directorate, which reports to the Ministry of Justice and the Police. The Police Directorate is headed by a National Police Commissioner. The only exception is the Norwegian Police Security Agency, whose head answers directly to the Ministry of Justice and the Police.
Norway abolished the death penalty for regular criminal acts in 1902 and for high treason in war and war-crimes in 1979. Norwegian prisons are humane, rather than tough, with emphasis on rehabilitation. At 20%, Norway's re-conviction rate is among the lowest in the world.
Reporters Without Borders, in its 2024 World Press Freedom Index, ranked Norway in first place out of 180 countries. In general, the legal and institutional framework in Norway is characterised by a high degree of transparency, accountability and integrity, and the perception and the occurrence of corruption are very low.
=== Human rights ===
Norway has long been considered a progressive country, and has adopted legislation and policies to support women's rights, minority rights, and LGBT rights. As early as 1884, 171 of the leading figures, among them five Prime Ministers, co-founded the Norwegian Association for Women's Rights. They successfully campaigned for women's right to education, women's suffrage, the right to work, and other gender equality policies. From the 1970s, gender equality also came high on the state agenda, with the establishment of a public body to promote gender equality, which evolved into the Gender Equality and Anti-Discrimination Ombud. In the 21st century intersectional feminists have organised in the Initiative for Inclusive Feminism, which seeks to build a broad, intersectional feminist movement rooted in the universality and indivisibility of human rights. It also maintains a very high quality of life ranking.
In 1990, the Norwegian constitution was amended to grant absolute primogeniture to the Norwegian throne, meaning that the eldest child, regardless of gender, takes precedence in the line of succession. As it was not retroactive, the current successor to the throne is the eldest son of the King, rather than his eldest child.
The Sámi people have for centuries been the subject of discrimination and abuse by the dominant cultures in Scandinavia and Russia, those countries claiming possession of Sámi lands. Norway has been greatly criticised by the international community for the politics of Norwegianization of and discrimination against the indigenous population of the country. Nevertheless, Norway was, in 1990, the first country to recognise ILO-convention 1989 on indigenous people recommended by the UN.
Norway was the first country in the world to enact an anti-discrimination law protecting the rights of gay men and lesbians. In 1993, Norway became the second country to legalise civil union partnerships for same-sex couples, and on 1 January 2009, Norway became the sixth country to legalise same-sex marriage. As a promoter of human rights, Norway has held the annual Oslo Freedom Forum conference, a gathering described by The Economist as "on its way to becoming a human-rights equivalent of the Davos economic forum".
=== Foreign relations ===
Norway maintains embassies in 75 countries. 73 countries maintain an embassy in Norway, all of them in the capital, Oslo.
Norway is a founding member of the United Nations (UN), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Council of Europe and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Norway issued applications for accession to the European Union (EU) and its predecessors in 1962, 1967 and 1992, respectively. While Denmark, Sweden and Finland obtained membership, the Norwegian electorate rejected the treaties of accession in referendums in 1972 and 1994.
After the 1994 referendum, Norway maintained its membership in the European Economic Area (EEA), granting the country access to the internal market of the Union, on the condition that Norway implements the Union's pieces of legislation which are deemed relevant. Successive Norwegian governments have, since 1994, requested participation in parts of the EU's co-operation that go beyond the provisions of the EEA agreement. Non-voting participation by Norway has been granted in, for instance, the Union's Common Security and Defence Policy, the Schengen Agreement, and the European Defence Agency, as well as 19 separate programmes.
Norway participated in the 1990s brokering of the Oslo Accords, an unsuccessful attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
=== Military ===
The Norwegian Armed Forces numbers about 25,000 personnel, including civilian employees. According to 2009 mobilisation plans, full mobilisation produces approximately 83,000 combatant personnel. Norway has conscription (including 6–12 months of training); in 2013, the country became the first in Europe and NATO to draft women as well as men. However, due to less need for conscripts after the Cold War, few people have to serve if they are not motivated. The Armed Forces are subordinate to the Norwegian Ministry of Defence. The Commander-in-Chief is King Harald V. The military of Norway is divided into the Norwegian Army, the Royal Norwegian Navy, the Royal Norwegian Air Force, the Norwegian Cyber Defence Force and the Home Guard.
The country was one of the founding nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on 4 April 1949. Norway contributed in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Additionally, Norway has contributed in several missions in contexts of the United Nations, NATO, and the Common Security and Defence Policy of the European Union.
== Economy ==
Norwegians enjoy the second-highest GDP per capita among European countries (after Luxembourg), and the sixth-highest PPP-adjusted GDP per capita in the world. Norway ranks as the second-wealthiest country in monetary value, with the largest capital reserve per capita of any nation. According to the CIA World Factbook, Norway is a net external creditor of debt. Norway reclaimed first place in the world in the UNDP Human Development Index (HDI) in 2009. The standard of living in Norway is among the highest in the world. Foreign Policy magazine ranks Norway last in its Failed States Index for 2009 and 2023, judging Norway to be the world's most well-functioning and stable country. The OECD ranks Norway fourth in the 2013 equalised Better Life Index and third in intergenerational earnings elasticity according to a 2010 study.
The Norwegian economy is an example of a mixed economy; a prosperous capitalist welfare state, it features a combination of free market activity and large state ownership in certain key sectors, influenced by both liberal governments from the late 19th century and later by social democratic governments in the postwar era. Public healthcare in Norway is free (after an annual charge of around 2000 kroner for those over 16), and parents have 46 weeks paid parental leave. The state income derived from natural resources includes a significant contribution from petroleum production. As of February 2025, Norway has an unemployment rate of 3.9%, with 69.7% of the population aged 15–74 employed. People in the labour force are either employed or looking for work. As of 2023, 10.6% of the population aged 18–67 receive a disability benefit and 30% of the labour force are employed by the government, the highest in the OECD. The hourly productivity levels, as well as average hourly wages in Norway, are among the highest in the world.
The egalitarian values of Norwegian society have kept the wage difference between the lowest paid worker and the CEO of most companies as much less than in comparable western economies. This is also evident in Norway's low Gini coefficient.
The state has large ownership positions in key industrial sectors, such as the strategic petroleum sector (Equinor), hydroelectric energy production (Statkraft), aluminium production (Norsk Hydro), the largest Norwegian bank (DNB), and telecommunication provider (Telenor). Through these big companies, the government controls approximately 30% of the stock values at the Oslo Stock Exchange. When non-listed companies are included, the state has even higher share in ownership (mainly from direct oil licence ownership). Norway is a major shipping nation and has the world's sixth largest merchant fleet, with 1,412 Norwegian-owned merchant vessels.
By referendums in 1972 and 1994, Norwegians rejected proposals to join the European Union (EU). However, Norway, together with Iceland and Liechtenstein, participates in the European Union's single market through the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement. The EEA Treaty between the European Union countries and the EFTA countries—transposed into Norwegian law via "EØS-loven"—describes the procedures for implementing European Union rules in Norway and the other EFTA countries. Norway is a highly integrated member of most sectors of the EU internal market. Some sectors, such as agriculture, oil and fish, are not wholly covered by the EEA Treaty. Norway has also acceded to the Schengen Agreement and several other intergovernmental agreements among the EU member states.
The country is richly endowed with natural resources including petroleum, hydropower, fish, forests, and minerals. Large reserves of petroleum and natural gas were discovered in the 1960s, which led to an economic boom. Norway has obtained one of the highest standards of living in the world in part by having a large amount of natural resources compared to the size of the population. In 2011, 28% of state revenues were generated from the petroleum industry.
Norway was the first country to ban deforestation, with a view to preventing its rain forests from vanishing. The country declared its intention at the UN Climate Summit in 2014 alongside Great Britain and Germany.
=== Resources ===
==== Oil industry ====
Export revenues from oil and gas have risen to over 40% of total exports and constitute almost 20% of the GDP. Norway is the fifth-largest oil exporter and third-largest gas exporter in the world, but it is not a member of OPEC. In 1995, the Norwegian government established the sovereign wealth fund ("Government Pension Fund – Global") to be funded with oil revenues.
The government controls its petroleum resources through a combination of state ownership in major operators in the oil fields (with approximately 62% ownership in Equinor in 2007) and the fully state-owned Petoro, which has a market value of about twice Equinor, and SDFI. Finally, the government controls licensing of exploration and production of fields. The fund invests in developed financial markets outside Norway. Spending from the fund is constrained by the budgetary rule (Handlingsregelen), which limits spending over time to no more than the real value yield of the fund, lowered in 2017 to 3% of the fund's total value.
Between 1966 and 2013, Norwegian companies drilled 5,085 oil wells, mostly in the North Sea. Oil fields not yet in the production phase include: Wisting Central—calculated size in 2013 at 65–156 million barrels of oil and 10 to 40 billion cubic feet (0.28 to 1.13 billion cubic metres), (utvinnbar) of gas. and the Castberg Oil Field (Castberg-feltet)—calculated size at 540 million barrels of oil, and 2 to 7 billion cubic feet (57 to 198 million cubic metres) (utvinnbar) of gas. Both oil fields are located in the Barents Sea.
Norway is also the world's second-largest exporter of fish (in value, after China). Fish from fish farms and catch constitutes the second largest (behind oil/natural gas) export product measured in value. Norway is the world's largest producer of salmon, followed by Chile.
Hydroelectric plants generate roughly 98–99% of Norway's electric power, more than any other country in the world.
Norway contains significant mineral resources, and in 2013, its mineral production was valued at US$1.5 billion (Norwegian Geological Survey data). The most valuable minerals are calcium carbonate (limestone), building stone, nepheline syenite, olivine, iron, titanium, and nickel.
In 2017, the Government Pension Fund controlled assets surpassed a value of US$1 trillion (equal to US$190,000 per capita), about 250% of Norway's 2017 GDP. It is the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world.
Other nations with economies based on natural resources, such as Russia, are trying to learn from Norway by establishing similar funds. The investment choices of the Norwegian fund are directed by ethical guidelines; for example, the fund is not allowed to invest in companies that produce parts for nuclear weapons. Norway's highly transparent investment scheme is lauded by the international community.
=== Transport ===
Due to the low population density, narrow shape and long coastlines of Norway, its public transport is less developed than in many European countries, especially outside the major cities. The country has long-standing water transport traditions, but the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications has in recent years implemented rail, road, and air transport through numerous subsidiaries to develop the country's infrastructure. Under discussion is development of a new high-speed rail system between the nation's largest cities.
Norway's main railway network consists of 4,114 kilometres (2,556 mi) of standard gauge lines, of which 242 kilometres (150 mi) is double track and 64 kilometres (40 mi) high-speed rail (210 km/h) while 62% is electrified at 15 kV 16.7 Hz AC. In 2023, the railways transported 78,220,000 passengers, 3,153 million passenger-kilometres, and 32,230,000 tonnes of cargo for 3,928 million tonne-kilometres. The entire network is owned by Bane NOR. Domestic passenger trains are operated by various companies, including Vy, SJ, Go-Ahead and Flytoget, while freight trains are operated by CargoNet and OnRail.
Investment in new infrastructure and maintenance is financed through the state budget, and subsidies are provided for passenger train operations. NSB operates long-haul trains, including night trains, regional services and four commuter train systems, around Oslo, Trondheim, Bergen and Stavanger.
Norway has approximately 95,120 kilometres (59,100 mi) of road network, of which 72,033 kilometres (44,759 mi) are paved and 664 kilometres (413 mi) are motorway. The four tiers of road routes are national, county, municipal and private, with national and primary county roads numbered en route. The most important national routes are part of the European route scheme. The two most prominent are the European route E6 going north–south through the entire country, and the E39, which follows the West Coast. National and county roads are managed by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration.
Norway has the world's largest registered stock of plug-in electric vehicles per capita. In March 2014, Norway became the first country where over 1 in every 100 passenger cars on the roads is a plug-in electric. The plug-in electric segment market share of new car sales is also the highest in the world. According to a report by Dagens Næringsliv in June 2016, the country would like to ban sales of gasoline and diesel powered vehicles as early as 2025.
Of the 146 airports in Norway, 52 are public, and 43 are operated by the state-owned Avinor. Seven airports have more than one million passengers annually. A total of 41,089,675 passengers passed through Norwegian airports in 2007, of whom 13,397,458 were international.
The central gateway to Norway by air is Oslo Airport, Gardermoen. Located about 35 kilometres (22 mi) northeast of Oslo, it is hub for the two major Norwegian airlines: Scandinavian Airlines and Norwegian Air Shuttle, and for regional aircraft from Western Norway. There are departures to most European countries and some intercontinental destinations. A direct high-speed train connects to Oslo Central Station every 10 minutes for a 20 min ride.
=== Research ===
Norway has a rich history of contributions to science, mathematics, and technology, with several internationally recognised scientists and innovators.
In mathematics, Niels Henrik Abel and Sophus Lie made groundbreaking contributions to analysis and group theory. Caspar Wessel was the first to describe vectors and complex numbers in the complex plane, laying the foundation for modern vector and complex analysis. Thoralf Skolem made revolutionary contributions to mathematical logic, while Øystein Ore and Ludwig Sylow advanced group theory. Atle Selberg, a major figure in 20th-century mathematics, was honoured with the Fields Medal, Wolf Prize, and Abel Prize. Ernst S. Selmer's work significantly influenced modern cryptographic algorithms.
In physics, notable figures include Kristian Birkeland, known for his work on the aurora borealis, and Ivar Giaever, a Nobel laureate in physics. Carl Anton Bjerknes and Christopher Hansteen made contributions to hydrodynamics and geomagnetism, respectively. The meteorologists Vilhelm Bjerknes and Ragnar Fjørtoft were instrumental in the development of numerical weather prediction.
Norwegian chemists like Lars Onsager, a Nobel laureate, and Odd Hassel, recognised for his work in stereochemistry, have left a lasting legacy. Peter Waage and Cato Maximilian Guldberg formulated the law of mass action, fundamental to chemical reaction theory.
In technology, Victor Goldschmidt is regarded as a founder of modern geochemistry. Håkon Wium Lie pioneered Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), a cornerstone of web design. Pål Spilling contributed to the development of the Internet Protocol, bringing the Internet to Europe. Computer scientists Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard developed Simula, the first object-oriented programming language, earning them the prestigious Turing Award.
Norwegian academics have also advanced social sciences. Arne Næss founded deep ecology, while Johan Galtung established the field of peace studies. Criminologists Nils Christie and Thomas Mathiesen, sociologists Vilhelm Aubert, Harriet Holter, and Erik Grønseth, and political scientist Stein Rokkan made pioneering contributions to their fields. Economists Ragnar Frisch, Trygve Haavelmo, and Finn E. Kydland were honoured with Nobel Prizes for their work in econometrics and macroeconomics.
As of 2025, Norway is ranked 20th in the Global Innovation Index in 2025. The country has produced fourteen Nobel laureates across various disciplines.
=== Tourism ===
In 2019, Norway ranked 20th in the World Economic Forum's Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report. Tourism in Norway contributed to 4.2% of the gross domestic product as reported in 2016. Every one in fifteen people throughout the country work in the tourism industry. Tourism is seasonal in Norway, with more than half of total tourists visiting between the months of May and August.
The main attractions of Norway are the varied landscapes that extend across the Arctic Circle. It is famous for its coastline and its mountains, ski resorts, lakes and woods. Popular tourist destinations in Norway include Oslo, Ålesund, Bergen, Stavanger, Trondheim, Kristiansand, Arendal, Tromsø, Fredrikstad, and Tønsberg. Much of the nature of Norway remains unspoiled, and thus attracts numerous hikers and skiers. The fjords, mountains and waterfalls in Western Norway and Northern Norway attract several hundred thousand foreign tourists each year. In the cities, cultural idiosyncrasies such as the Holmenkollen ski jump in Oslo and Saga Oseberg in Tønsberg attract many visitors, as do landmarks such as Bryggen in Bergen, Vigeland installation in Frogner Park in Oslo, Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, Fredrikstad Fortress (Gamlebyen) in Fredrikstad, and the ruin park of Tønsberg Fortress in Tønsberg.
== Demographics ==
=== Population ===
Norway's population was 5,618,354 people in the third quarter of 2025. Norwegians are an ethnic North Germanic people. The total fertility rate (TFR) in 2023 was estimated at 1.40 children born per woman, below the replacement rate of 2.1, it remains considerably below the high of 4.69 children born per woman in 1877. In 2024 the median age of the Norwegian population was 40 years.
The Sámi people are indigenous to the Far North and have traditionally inhabited central and northern parts of Norway and Sweden, as well as areas in northern Finland and in Russia on the Kola Peninsula. Another national minority are the Kven people, descendants of Finnish-speaking people who migrated to northern Norway from the 18th up to the 20th century. From the 19th century up to the 1970s, the Norwegian government tried to assimilate both the Sámi and the Kven, encouraging them to adopt the majority language, culture and religion. Because of this "Norwegianization process", many families of Sámi or Kven ancestry now identify as ethnic Norwegian.
The national minorities of Norway are Kvens, Jews, Forest Finns, and Romani people.
In 2017, Norway's population ranked first on the World Happiness Report, and in 2025, it ranked seventh.
=== Migration ===
Particularly in the 19th century, when economic conditions were difficult in Norway, tens of thousands of people migrated to the United States and Canada, where they could work and buy land in frontier areas. Many went to the Midwest and Pacific Northwest. In 2006, according to the US Census Bureau, almost 4.7 million persons identified as Norwegian Americans, which was larger than the population of ethnic Norwegians in Norway itself. In the 2021 Canadian census, 466,500 Canadian citizens identified as having Norwegian ancestry.
In 2024, approximately 931,081 individuals (16.8% of the population) of the population of Norway were immigrants. Of these, 386,559 (41.5%) had a Western background (Europe, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand), while 544,521 (58.5%) had a non-Western background (Asia, Africa, South and Central America). 221,459 individuals (4% of the population) were children of immigrants, born in Norway.
The largest groups of immigrants are from Poland, Lithuania, Sweden, Syria, and Ukraine.
Immigrants have settled in all Norwegian municipalities. In 2013, the cities with the highest share of immigrants were Oslo (32%) and Drammen (27%). According to Reuters, Oslo is the "fastest growing city in Europe because of increased immigration". In recent years, immigration has accounted for most of Norway's population growth.
=== Religion ===
==== Church of Norway ====
Norway previously had a state church, the Lutheran Church of Norway. The separation of church and state occurred later in Norway compared to most of Europe, and is still incomplete. In 2012, the Norwegian parliament voted to grant the Church of Norway greater autonomy, a decision which was confirmed in a constitutional amendment on 21 May 2012.
Previously, parliamentary officials were required to be members of the Church of Norway, and at least half of all government ministers had to be a member. As a state church, the clergy were viewed as state employees, and the central and regional church administrations were part of the state administration.
On 1 January 2017, Norway made the church independent of the state, but retained the Church of Norway's status as the "people's church". Members of the royal family are also still required to be members of the Church. The issue of separation of church and state in Norway has increasingly been subject to public debate. This is seen in the evolution of the public school's subject about Christianity, life stance, and religion. The state's loss in a battle at the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg in 2007 led to a decreased focus on Christianity in the subject. This was partly reverted in 2014. There is also debate about Christmas church service in public schools with regard to a 2024 law banning preaching in education.
Most Norwegians are registered at baptism as members of the Church of Norway. Many remain in the church to participate in the community and practises such as baptism, confirmation, marriage, and burial rites. About 61.7% of Norwegians were members of the Church of Norway in 2024. In the same year, approximately 50.4% of all newborns were baptised and about 47.6% of all 15-year-olds were confirmed in the church.
==== Religious affiliation ====
According to the 2010 Eurobarometer Poll, 22% of Norwegian citizens responded that "they believe there is a God", 44% responded that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 29% responded that "they don't believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force". Five per cent gave no response. In the early 1990s, studies estimated that between 4.7% and 5.3% of Norwegians attended church on a weekly basis. This figure has dropped to about 2%.
In 2010, 10% of the population was religiously unaffiliated, while another 9% were members of religious communities outside the Church of Norway. Other Christian denominations total about 4.9% of the population, the largest of which is the Roman Catholic Church, with 83,000 members, according to 2009 government statistics. The Aftenposten (Evening Post) in October 2012 reported there were about 115,234 registered Roman Catholics in Norway; the reporter estimated that the total number of people with a Roman Catholic background may be 170,000–200,000 or higher.
Others include Pentecostals (39,600), the Evangelical Lutheran Free Church of Norway (19,600), the United Methodist Church in Norway (11,000), Baptists (9,900), Eastern Orthodox (9,900), Brunstad Christian Church (6,800), Seventh-day Adventists (5,100), Assyrians of the ACOE and the Chaldean Catholic Church, and others. The Swedish, Finnish and Icelandic Lutheran congregations in Norway have about 27,500 members in total. Other Christian denominations comprise less than 1% each, including 4,000 members in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and 12,000 Jehovah's Witnesses.
Among non-Christian religions, Islam is the largest, with 166,861 registered members (2018), and probably fewer than 200,000 in total.
Other religions comprise less than 1% each, including 819 adherents of Judaism. Indian immigrants introduced Hinduism to Norway, which in 2011 has slightly more than 5,900 adherents, or 1% of non-Lutheran Norwegians. Sikhism has approximately 3,000 adherents, with most living in Oslo, which has two gurdwaras. Drammen also has a sizeable population of Sikhs; the largest gurdwara in north Europe was built in Lier. There are eleven Buddhist organisations, grouped under the Buddhistforbundet organisation, with slightly over 14,000 members, which make up 0.2% of the population. The Baháʼí Faith religion has slightly more than 1,000 adherents. Around 1.7% (84,500) of Norwegians belong to the secular Norwegian Humanist Association.
From 2006 to 2011, the fastest-growing religious communities in Norway were Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Oriental Orthodox Christianity, which grew in membership by 80%; however, their share of the total population remains small, at 0.2%. It is associated with the immigration from Eritrea and Ethiopia, and to a lesser extent from Central and Eastern European and Middle Eastern countries. Other fast-growing religions were Roman Catholicism (78.7%), Hinduism (59.6%), Islam (48.1%), and Buddhism (46.7%).
==== Indigenous religions ====
As in other Scandinavian countries, the ancient Norse followed a form of Germanic paganism known as Norse paganism. By the end of the 11th century, when Norway had been Christianised, the indigenous Norse religion and practises were prohibited. Remnants of the native religion and beliefs of Norway survive today in the form of names, referential names of cities and locations, the days of the week, and everyday language. Modern interest in the old ways has led to a revival of pagan religious practises in the form of Åsatru. The Norwegian Åsatrufellesskapet Bifrost formed in 1996; in 2011, the fellowship had about 300 members. Foreningen Forn Sed was formed in 1999 and has been recognised by the Norwegian government.
The Sámi minority retained their shamanistic religion well into the 18th century, when most converted to Christianity under the influence of Dano-Norwegian Lutheran missionaries. Today there is a renewed appreciation for the Sámi traditional way of life, which has led to a revival of Noaidevuohta. Some Norwegian and Sámi celebrities are reported to visit shamans for guidance.
=== Health ===
Norway was awarded first place according to the UN's Human Development Index (HDI) for 2013. From the 1900s, improvements in public health occurred as a result of development in several areas such as social and living conditions, changes in disease and medical outbreaks, establishment of the health care system, and emphasis on public health matters. Vaccination and increased treatment opportunities with antibiotics resulted in great improvements within the Norwegian population. Improved hygiene and better nutrition were factors that contributed to improved health.
The disease pattern in Norway changed from communicable diseases to non-communicable diseases and chronic diseases as cardiovascular disease. Inequalities and social differences are still present in public health in Norway.
In 2024 the infant mortality rate was 2.1 per 1,000 live births among children under the age of one. For girls it was 1.7 and for boys 2.4, which is the lowest infant mortality rate for boys ever recorded in Norway.
=== Education ===
Higher education in Norway is offered by a range of seven universities, five specialised colleges, 25 university colleges as well as a range of private colleges. Education follows the Bologna Process involving Bachelor (3 years), Master (2 years) and PhD (3 years) degrees. Acceptance is offered after finishing upper secondary school with general study competence.
Public education is virtually free for citizens from EU/EEA and Switzerland, but other nationalities need to pay tuition fees. Higher education has historically been free for everyone regardless of nationality, but tuition fees for all students from outside EU/EEA and Switzerland was implemented in 2023.
The academic year has two semesters, from August to December and from January to June. The ultimate responsibility for the education lies with the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research.
=== Languages ===
Norwegian in its two forms, Bokmål and Nynorsk, is the main national official language of all of Norway. Sámi, a group which includes three separate languages, is recognised as a minority language on the national level and is a co-official language alongside Norwegian in the Sámi administrative linguistic area (Forvaltningsområdet for samisk språk) in Northern Norway. Kven is a minority language and is a co-official language alongside Norwegian in one municipality, also in Northern Norway.
==== Norwegian ====
Norwegian is a North Germanic language descended from Old Norse. It is the main national language of Norway and is spoken throughout the country. Norwegian is spoken natively by over 5 million people mainly in Norway, but is generally understood throughout Scandinavia and to a lesser degree other Nordic countries. It has two official written forms, Bokmål and Nynorsk. Both are used in public administration, schools, churches, and media. Bokmål is the written language used by a majority of about 85%. Around 95% of the population speak Norwegian as their first or native language, although many speak dialects that may differ significantly from the written languages. Norwegian dialects are mutually intelligible, although listeners with limited exposure to dialects other than their own may struggle with certain phrases and pronunciations.
Norwegian is closely related to and generally mutually intelligible with its neighbour Scandinavian languages; Danish and Swedish, and the three main Scandinavian languages thus form both a dialect continuum and a larger language community with about 25 million speakers. All three languages are commonly employed in communication among inhabitants of the Scandinavian countries. As a result of the co-operation within the Nordic Council, inhabitants of all Nordic countries always have the right to communicate with Norwegian authorities in Danish or Swedish as equal alternatives to Norwegian. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Norwegian language was subject to strong political and cultural controversies. This led to the development of Nynorsk in the 19th century and to the formation of alternative spelling standards in the 20th century.
==== Sámi and Kven ====
Several Uralic Sámi languages, which are related but not generally mutually intelligible, are traditionally spoken by the Sámi people primarily in Northern Norway and to much lesser extent in some parts of Central Norway. Around 15,000 people have officially registered as Sámi in the Sámi census (Samemanntallet), but the number of people of recent Sámi heritage is often estimated at 50,000 people. The number of people who have some knowledge of Northern Sámi, including as a second language, is estimated at 25,000 people, but only a minority are native speakers. The other Sámi languages are heavily endangered and spoken by at most a few hundred people. Most people of Sámi heritage are today native speakers of Norwegian as a result of past assimilation policies.
Speakers have a right to be educated and to receive communication from the government in their own language in a special forvaltningsområde (administrative area) for Sámi languages. The Kven minority historically spoke the Uralic Kven language (considered a separate language in Norway, but generally perceived as a Finnish dialect in Finland). Today the majority of ethnic Kven have little or no knowledge of the language. As Norway has ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) the Kven language together with Romani and Scandoromani language has become officially recognised minority languages.
==== Other languages ====
Some supporters have also advocated making Norwegian Sign Language an official language.
The primary foreign language taught in Norwegian schools is English, and the majority of the population, especially those born after World War II, is fairly fluent in English. German, French and Spanish are also commonly taught as second or, more often, third languages. Russian, Japanese, Italian, Latin, and rarely Chinese (Mandarin) are offered in some schools, mostly in the cities. Traditionally, English, German and French were considered the main foreign languages in Norway. These languages, for instance, were used on Norwegian passports until the 1990s, and university students have a general right to use these languages when submitting their theses.
90% of Norwegians are fluent in English.
== Culture ==
The Norwegian farm culture continues to play a role in contemporary Norwegian culture. In the 19th century, it inspired a strong romantic nationalistic movement, which is still visible in the Norwegian language and media. Norwegian culture expanded with nationalist efforts to achieve an independent identity in the areas of literature, art and music. This continues today in the performing arts and as a result of government support for exhibitions, cultural projects and artwork.
=== Cinema ===
Norwegian cinema has received international recognition. The documentary film Kon-Tiki (1950) won an Academy Award. Another notable film is The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix, an animated feature film directed by Ivo Caprino. The film was released in 1975 and is the most widely seen Norwegian film of all time. Nils Gaup's Pathfinder (1987), the story of the Sámi, was nominated for an Oscar. Berit Nesheim's The Other Side of Sunday was nominated for an Oscar in 1997.
Since the 1990s, the film industry has expanded, producing up to 20 feature films each year. Particular successes were Kristin Lavransdatter, based on a novel by a Nobel Prize winner; The Telegraphist and Gurin with the Foxtail. Knut Erik Jensen was among the more successful new directors, together with Erik Skjoldbjærg, who is remembered for Insomnia. Elling and the 2012 adaption of Kon-Tiki was nominated for an Oscar for the best foreign language film. The TV-series Skam created by Julie Andem received a cult following and international recognition, with many countries making their own adaptations.
Norwegian directors such as Joachim Rønning, Anja Breien, Espen Sandberg, Liv Ullmann and Morten Tyldum have made internationally successful movies such as The Imitation Game, Passengers, Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, as well as the TV series Jack Ryan and Marco Polo. Composers include Thomas Bergersen, who composed for Avatar, The Dark Knight, Harry Potter and Narnia. Egil Monn-Iversen has been one of the most influential modern composers in Norway, having composed scores to over 100 Norwegian movies and TV series.
Norway has been used as filming location for Hollywood and other international productions, including Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Among the thousands of movies filmed in Norway include Die Another Day, No Time to Die, The Golden Compass, Spies Like Us, Mission: Impossible – Fallout and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Black Widow, Tenet, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Heroes of Telemark, as well as the TV series Lilyhammer and Vikings.
=== Music ===
The classical music of the romantic composers Edvard Grieg, Rikard Nordraak and Johan Svendsen is internationally known, as is the modern music of Arne Nordheim. Norway's classical performers include Leif Ove Andsnes, a pianist; Truls Mørk, an outstanding cellist; and the Wagnerian soprano Kirsten Flagstad.
The Norwegian ballad tradition, known as the "ballad wave" (Norwegian: visebølgen), started as a cultural movement in the 1960s, greatly inspired by the Swedish ballad tradition and its modern representatives such as Olle Adolphson and Cornelis Vreeswijk. Some of its prominent representatives are Ole Paus, Lillebjørn Nilsen and Finn Kalvik.
The jazz scene is thriving. Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal, Mari Boine, Arild Andersen and Bugge Wesseltoft are internationally recognised while Paal Nilssen-Love, Supersilent, Jaga Jazzist and Wibutee are becoming world-class artists.
Norway has a strong folk music tradition which remains popular. Among the most prominent folk musicians are Hardanger fiddlers Andrea Een, Olav Jørgen Hegge and Annbjørg Lien, and the vocalists Agnes Buen Garnås, Kirsten Bråten Berg and Odd Nordstoga.
Norwegian black metal, a form of rock music in Norway, has been an influence in world music since the late 20th century. Since the 1990s, Norway's export of black metal has been developed by such bands as Emperor, Darkthrone, Gorgoroth, Mayhem, Burzum and Immortal. Bands such as Enslaved, Kvelertak, Dimmu Borgir and Satyricon have evolved the genre while still garnering worldwide fans.
Notable female solo artists from Norway include Susanne Sundfør, Sigrid, Astrid S, Adelén, Julie Bergan, Maria Mena, Tone Damli, Margaret Berger, Lene Marlin, Christel Alsos, Maria Arredondo, Marion Raven and Marit Larsen (both former members of the defunct pop-rock band M2M), Lene Nystrøm (vocalist of the Danish Eurodance group Aqua), Anni-Frid Lyngstad (vocalist of the Swedish pop group ABBA), and Aurora Aksnes. Norwegian songwriters and producers for international artists include Stargate, Espen Lind, Lene Marlin and Ina Wroldsen.
Norway has been a constant competitor in the Eurovision Song Contest, participating 62 times. Since its first participation in 1960, Norway has won the competition three times: Bobbysocks's win in 1985, Secret Garden's win in 1995 and Alexander Rybak's win in 2009. Alexander Rybak's win in 2009 with his song Fairytale was a major win in Eurovision's history as it scored the biggest margin of victory ever. The song was an international hit, peaking at number one in several countries.
Norway enjoys many music festivals throughout the year, all over the country. Norway is the host of one of the world's biggest extreme sport festivals with music, Ekstremsportveko—a festival held annually in Voss Municipality. Oslo is the host of many festivals, such as Øyafestivalen and by:Larm. Oslo used to have a summer parade similar to the German Love Parade. In 1992, the city of Oslo wanted to adopt the French music festival Fête de la Musique. Fredrik Carl Størmer established the festival. From its first year, "Musikkens Dag" gathered thousands of people and artists in the streets of Oslo. "Musikkens Dag" is now renamed Musikkfest Oslo.
=== Literature ===
The history of Norwegian literature starts with the pagan Eddaic poems and skaldic verse of the ninth and tenth centuries, with poets such as Bragi Boddason and Eyvindr skáldaspillir. The arrival of Christianity around the year 1000 brought Norway into contact with European medieval learning, hagiography and history writing. Merged with native oral tradition and Icelandic influence, this influenced the literature written in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. Major works of that period include Historia Norwegiæ, Þiðrekssaga and Konungs skuggsjá.
Little Norwegian literature came out of the period of the Scandinavian Union and the subsequent Dano-Norwegian union (1387–1814), with some notable exceptions such as Petter Dass and Ludvig Holberg. During the union with Denmark, the government imposed using only written Danish, which decreased the writing of Norwegian literature.
Two major events precipitated a major resurgence in Norwegian literature: in 1811 a Norwegian university was established in Christiania, and in 1814 the Norwegians created their first Constitution. Authors were inspired and became recognised first in Scandinavia, and then worldwide; among them were Henrik Wergeland, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, Jørgen Moe and Camilla Collett.
By the late 19th century, in the Golden Age of Norwegian literature, the so-called "Great Four" emerged: Henrik Ibsen, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Alexander Kielland, and Jonas Lie. Bjørnson's "peasant novels", such as Ein glad gut (A Happy Boy) and Synnøve Solbakken, are typical of the Norwegian romantic nationalism of their day. Kielland's novels and short stories are mostly naturalistic. Although an important contributor to early romantic nationalism, (especially Peer Gynt), Henrik Ibsen is better known for his pioneering realistic dramas such as The Wild Duck and A Doll's House.
In the 20th century, three Norwegian novelists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson in 1903, Knut Hamsun for the book Markens grøde ("Growth of the Soil") in 1920, and Sigrid Undset (known for Kristin Lavransdatter) in 1928.
=== Architecture ===
With expansive forests, Norway has long had a tradition of building in wood. Many of today's most interesting new buildings are made of wood, reflecting the strong appeal that this material continues to hold for Norwegian designers and builders.
With Norway's conversion to Christianity, churches were built. Stonework architecture was introduced from Europe for the most important structures, beginning with the construction of Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim. In the early Middle Ages, wooden stave churches were constructed throughout Norway. Some of them have survived; they represent Norway's most unusual contribution to architectural history. Urnes Stave Church in inner Sognefjord is on UNESCO's World Heritage List. Another notable example of wooden architecture is the buildings at Bryggen Wharf in Bergen, also on the list for World Cultural Heritage sites, consisting of a row of tall, narrow wooden structures along the quayside.
In the 17th century, under the Danish monarchy, cities and villages such as Kongsberg and Røros were established. The city Kongsberg had a church built in the Baroque style. Traditional wooden buildings that were constructed in Røros have survived.
After Norway's union with Denmark was dissolved in 1814, Oslo became the capital. The architect Christian H. Grosch designed the earliest parts of the University of Oslo, the Oslo Stock Exchange, and many other buildings and churches constructed in that early national period.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the city of Ålesund was rebuilt in the Art Nouveau style, influenced by styles of France. The 1930s, when functionalism dominated, became a strong period for Norwegian architecture. It is only since the late 20th century that Norwegian architects have achieved international renown. One of the most striking modern buildings in Norway is the Sámi Parliament in Kárášjohka, designed by Stein Halvorson and Christian Sundby. Its debating chamber, in timber, is an abstract version of a lavvo, the traditional tent used by the nomadic Sámi people.
=== Art ===
For an extended period, the Norwegian art scene was dominated by artwork from Germany and Holland as well as by the influence of Copenhagen. It was in the 19th century that a truly Norwegian era began, first with portraits, later with impressive landscapes. Johan Christian Dahl, originally from the Dresden school, eventually returned to paint the landscapes of western Norway, defining Norwegian painting for the first time."
Norway's newly found independence from Denmark encouraged painters to develop their Norwegian identity, especially with landscape painting by artists such as Kitty Kielland, a female painter who studied under Hans Gude, and Harriet Backer, another pioneer among female artists, influenced by impressionism. Frits Thaulow, an impressionist, was influenced by the art scene in Paris as was Christian Krohg, a realist painter, famous for his paintings of prostitutes.
Of particular note is Edvard Munch, a symbolist/expressionist painter who became world-famous for The Scream which is said to represent the anxiety of modern man. Other notable works from Munch includes The Sick Child, Madonna and Puberty.
Other artists of note include Harald Sohlberg, a neo-romantic painter remembered for his paintings of Røros, and Odd Nerdrum, a figurative painter who maintains that his work is not art, but kitsch.
=== Cuisine ===
Norway's culinary traditions show the influence of long seafaring and farming traditions, with salmon (fresh and cured), herring (pickled or marinated), trout, codfish, and other seafood, balanced by cheeses (such as brunost, Jarlsberg cheese, and gamalost), dairy products, and breads (predominantly dark/darker).
Lefse is a Norwegian potato flatbread, usually topped with large amounts of butter and sugar, most commonly eaten around Christmas. Traditional Norwegian dishes include lutefisk, smalahove, pinnekjøtt, raspeball, and fårikål. A Norwegian speciality is rakefisk, which is fermented trout, consumed with thin flatbread and sour cream. The most popular pastry is vaffel.
=== Sports ===
Sports are a central part of Norwegian culture, and popular sports include cross-country skiing, ski jumping, mountaineering, hiking, association football, handball, biathlon, speed skating, and, to a lesser degree, ice hockey.
Norway is known internationally for its role in the development of modern winter sports, particularly skiing. From the 19th century Norway also became a premier mountaineering destination, with books such as William Cecil Slingsby's Norway, the Northern Playground contributing to the country's popularity among early mountain climbers.
Association football is the most popular sport in Norway in terms of active membership. In 2014–2015 polling, football ranked far behind biathlon and cross-country skiing in terms of popularity as spectator sports. Ice hockey was the biggest indoor sport as of 2013. The women's handball national team has won several titles, including two Summer Olympics championships (2008, 2012), three World Championships (1999, 2011, 2015), and six European Championship (1998, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014). Men's handball experienced a boom in the late 2010s and early 2020s, with star players including Sander Sagosen and Magnus Abelvik Rød, the Norway national handball team reaching the finals of the 2017 and 2019 IHF World Men's Handball Championships, and Kolstad Håndball having among the highest group stage average crowds in the 2023–24 and 2024–25 EHF Champions League seasons.
In association football, the women's national team has won the FIFA Women's World Cup in 1995 and the Olympic Football Tournament in 2000. The women's team also has two UEFA European Women's Championship titles (1987, 1993). The men's national football team has participated three times in the FIFA World Cup (1938, 1994, and 1998), and once in the European Championship (2000). The highest FIFA ranking Norway has achieved is second, a position it has held twice, in 1993 and in 1995.
Norwegian players in the National Football League in American football include Halvor Hagen, Bill Irgens, Leif Olve Dolonen Larsen, Mike Mock, and Jan Stenerud.
Bandy is a traditional sport in Norway and the country is one of the four founders of Federation of International Bandy. As of January 2018, the men's national team has captured one silver and one bronze, while the women's national team has managed five bronzes at the World Championships.
Norway first participated at the Olympic Games in 1900, and has sent athletes to compete in every Games since then, except for the sparsely attended 1904 Games and the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow when they participated in the American-led boycott. Norway leads the overall medal tables at the Winter Olympic Games by a considerable margin. Norway has hosted the Games on two occasions:
1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo
1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer
It also hosted the 2016 Winter Youth Olympics in Lillehammer, making Norway the first country to host both Winter regular and Youth Olympics.
Norway featured a women's national team in beach volleyball that competed at the 2018–2020 CEV Beach Volleyball Continental Cup, and later a men's national team in beach volleyball at the 2020 Summer Olympics that won gold metal.
Chess has gained huge popularity in Norway. Magnus Carlsen, a Norwegian, was the world chess champion between 2013 and 2023. Many of the biggest chess tournaments are broadcast live on national television, with the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships airing on the country's biggest television channel NRK1.
Norway has produced many track and field athletes at the highest international levels, including, but not limited to, Egil Danielsen and Andreas Thorkildsen (Men's javelin throw), Grete Waitz (Women's long-distance running), Vebjørn Rodal, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, and Henrik Ingebrigtsen (Men's middle-distance running), Karsten Warholm (Men's 400m running and hurdles), Sander Skotheim and Markus Rooth (Men's pentathlon), and Kristian Blummenfelt (Men's triathlon). |
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